I love going to a client’s house for an initial consultation and walking the property. Inevitably there is a north side and sometimes a shady side too. Their response is commonly the same, “Well, this is the shady side. I wish we could grow food here. Is there anything else we can do with it?” What about growing some grub? I’m not just talking about growing mushrooms or fiddlehead ferns, which might be a common solution. I’m talking about berries and fruit as well.

There is a whole host of plants that actually produce better in the shade. Yes mushrooms do grow well in the shade and there is nothing better for the epicur-ious than a mushroom garden with a variety of mushrooms. But here are a couple others to consider. If you have the room put in a hedge of Evergreen Huckleberry (Vacciniuum ovatum). In the shade V.

Huckleberry and Salal share a border in this shade garden.

ovatumcan get 6 – 8 feet tall, while in the sun it only gets to 3′. It even produces better in the shade. By pruning and trimming it into a hedge you encourage it to branch more and thus fruit more. Plus its native.

Also native, but not as tall is  Salal (Gaultheria shallon). Known for its berries, which can be used as a thickener, sweetener and wine as well as eaten fresh, Salal also has tender young leaves that can be eaten as well. I haven’t tried them, I’m more likely to use them in flower arranging if I ever take up that hobby. I use the berries in combination with the evergreen huckleberries for jam and really want to give the combination a go as a wine.

Here’s another berry, technically. Kiwi. Hardy Kiwi specifically. Kiwis are vines and vigorous ones at that growing up to 30m into trees.  Actinidia species arguta(this link says they are flavorful…don’t believe ‘em) and kolomikta fall into the hardy category. They will tolerate temps to -20F. As producing vines kolomikta needs warm spring temps with little to no chance of surprise frost, while thearguta flowers later and has a better chance of not losing their buds to a spring frost. This makes them a good choice for Western Washington and similartemperate climates around the world. Actinidia deliciosa, the fuzzy kiwi that we find in the store, is a different species with a to-the-point latin name, but don’t let the lack of “deliociosa” in the hardy kiwi names deter you, they are amazing and can be found at the farmer’s markets right now. Keep in mind that Kiwis plants are dioecious so you will need a male and a female for fruit.

I hope this inspires you to find some shade and play with it. There are, count them,1 - 2 - 3 edible nurseries between Washington and Oregon that sells these fruits. They have a number of varieties. All three will mail the plants to you in a reasonable time period for a reasonable cost.

eat well. live well. be happy!

I love going to a client’s house for an initial consultation and walking the property. Inevitably there is a north side and sometimes a shady side too. Their response is commonly the same, “Well, this is the shady side. I wish we could grow food here. Is there anything else we can do with it?” What about growing some grub? I’m not just talking about growing mushrooms or fiddlehead ferns, which might be a common solution. I’m talking about berries and fruit as well.

There is a whole host of plants that actually produce better in the shade. Yes mushrooms do grow well in the shade and there is nothing better for the epicur-ious than a mushroom garden with a variety of mushrooms. But here are a couple others to consider. If you have the room put

Evergreen Huckleberry and Salal share a bed

in a hedge of Evergreen Huckleberry (Vacciniuum ovatum). In the shade V. ovatum can get 6 – 8 feet tall, while in the sun it only gets to 3′. It even produces better in the shade. By pruning and trimming it into a hedge you encourage it to branch more and thus fruit more. Plus its native.

Also native, but not as tall is  Salal (Gaultheria shallon). Known for its berries, which can be used as a thickener, sweetener and wine as well as eaten fresh, Salal also has tender young leaves that can be eaten as well. I haven’t tried them, I’m more likely to use them in flower arranging if I ever take up that hobby. I use the berries in combination with the evergreen huckleberries for jam and really want to give the combination a go as a wine.

Actinidia kolomikta isn't called Arctic beauty for nothin' (A. kolomikta seen here doing it's climbing thing)

Here’s another berry, technically. Kiwi. Hardy Kiwi specifically. Kiwis are vines and vigorous ones at that growing up to 30m into trees.  Actinidia species arguta (this link says they are flavorful…don’t believe ‘em) and kolomikta fall into the hardy category. They will tolerate temps to -20F. As producing vines kolomikta needs warm spring temps with little to no chance of surprise frost, while the arguta flowers later and has a better chance of not losing their buds to a spring frost. This makes them a good choice for Western Washington and similar temperate climates around the world. Actinidia deliciosa, the fuzzy kiwi that we find in the store, is a different species with a to-the-point latin name, but don’t let the lack of “deliociosa” in the hardy kiwi names deter you, they are amazing and can be found at the farmer’s markets right now. Keep in mind that Kiwis plants are dioecious so you will need a male and a female for fruit.

I hope this inspires you to find some shade and play with it. There are, count them, 1 – 2 – 3 edible nurseries between Washington and Oregon that sells these fruits. They have a number of varieties. All three will mail the plants to you in a reasonable time period for a reasonable cost.

eat well. live well. be happy!

Bukett med röda rosor “el toro”,
minisolros, —- och läderblad som
manschett.

Samma från sidan.

Avlång bordsdekoration med ljusrosa rosor och
astrantia. Grön dekoration med svärdliljeblad,
björngräs, läderblad och rosenblad.

Vi fick lära oss att göra avlånga bordsdekorationer i drakform. Lite mer spännande form än runda bordsdekorationer. Dock svårare att hålla en jämn drakform (en sådan drake man flyger, inte det mytologiska djuret) på .

Ovanifrån.

Bukett med rosa rosor, johannesört, —- och
salalmanschett.

Vi fick i uppgift att göra en bukett för 250kr under tidspress, detta blev mitt resultat. Återigen kämpar jag på med färgen rosa i alla dess kombinationer.

Any naturalists out there?  I’m not sure what this is, they remind me of bleeding hearts though.

Edited: Thanks to my friend, Missamite over on Ravelry, this is called “Salal”.

This is Indian Paintbrush, just starting to bloom, they’ll be all over the hillock in another week or so.

Masses of this stuff, Foxglove, commonly known for the heart medicene, digitalias that it provides.

Now I don’t even know if this is a Flora or a Fauna.

Looks like a type of Queen Anne’s Lace, I don’t know.  The bees were busy with it though and they had these unusual pods that formed underneath them.

Can you believe Chris drove over 125 miles before he stopped somewhere and let me out of the car with the camera?  Now this is the kind of thing that happens,  I run all over like a fiend, snapping pix of the flower pods and the like.

No idea what these sweet purple flowers are, lets call them Purple Starflowers

Look at how perfect those petals are!  These reminded me of the blossoms on wild strawberries.

Meanwhile people have come, circled the Lighthouse, taken pix of themselves and the Lighthouse, and gone.

And Chris is so bored, he actually reads the info plaque!  (Chris won’t read anything unless its his Trailer Life Magazine or a camping catalog).

There is a brass rubbing someone built into the plaque of one of the flora’s, and I can’t help but wonder how many people come equipped with paper and pencil, pastals, crayons, what-have-you, all the way down here on this trail, just so they can make a rubbing.   Yeah, that was what I was thinking, you too?

A wild rose.

My mom once named our family cat “Wild Rose”, which I discovered when I had to pick her up from the vets.  We always just called her “Mama cat” because she’d had three litters of kittens, the last litter being a litter of ten!

Yes, ten kittens.  We just had a blast, at the young gradeschool ages we were then, with ten kittens.  When it was time Mom put a free ad in the IGA Shopper (our local grocers) for free kittens to good home, and they were gone in no time.

So you can see why she was dubbed “Mama cat” and why I would be a bit shocked to discover that at the vets she’d been given the egregious name of  “Wild Rose”.

Green grasses, blue skies, white clouds.

Below is a picture of my brother, RBag, working out on the northwest coast of Nootka Sound.

Here’s the thing: he’s standing up.

In his own words…

“To get through this sort of brush you employ something of a flop, roll and/or swim technique…

I bet you thought salal was a nice, pretty accompaniment to a bouquet of roses!”

Seeing this, it feels lame to realize that the hardest thing I have to get through at work is resisting the urge to mindlessly check news websites.

*sigh*

Saylac, a historical place that can be Described as the Eldorado of Somaliland or generally for all the Somali ethnic group is telling a story of its legacy.

We just came back from a mini vacation at the Oregon coast.  We went to the cental coast.  We stayed in Lincoln City and our in-laws stayed near Depoe Bay.  I decided to share some photographs of our outing to visit Yaquina Bay and the Cape Foulweather Lighthouse.  Yaquina Bay is south of Depoe Bay right before the city of Newport.

We stopped at Fogarty State Park on the way to the lighthouse.  My father-in-law wanted to see the park.  Although the entrance to the park is on the other side of 101 than the coast.  The park does have a trail to the beach that goes underneath the highway bridge.  The bridge in the photo above is on the east side of 101.

My father-in-law really wanted to see the lighthouse.   Since we had our puppies with us, my husband and I couldn’t go up to the top.  Dogs aren’t allowed on the path to the lighthouse. My youngest and my sister-in-law did go to the top.  They were fascinated by the size of the filament for the light in the lighthouse.  They said the filament was about the size of a Coleman Lantern.

In the bay just beyond the lighthouse are a couple of rocks that are bird sanctuaries.  It seemed like every inch of real estate on the rocks was taken up by birds.

Here’s a closeup of one of the rocks with some birds nesting on top.  You can see the amount of guano they leave behind.  Apparently it’s great fertilizer for the cliffs to the east of the lighthouse.  My husband and I took our puppies on a short hiking trail to the top of the cliff overlooking Yaquina Bay and Cape Foulweather.

The cliff was covered all kinds of vegetation including flowers and berries.  Even the clover were beautiful and vigorous. 

My husband said he had never seen such healthy yarrow.  This white yarrow was just starting to open up.

I love the pink roses that grow wild all over the west coast of oregon.  At the bottom of the roses you can see some Salal that was blooming as well.

The vegetation was extremely lush and very diverse.  Purple irises dotted the side of the hill growing out of the middle of patches of daisies, roses, salal and other greenery.  You can see in the background a daisy and a few grasses.

I just had to take a picture of some thistle for my friend, Michelle.

The salmon berries were just starting to turn yellow.

With all that vegetation you have to have quite a few land dwelling critters.  Above is a little brown sparrow sitting in the crutch of a thistle.

My husband caught this white crowned sparrow on a fence post.

 The western side of Oregon is quite lush and beautiful especially this time of year.   With gas prices so high,  I feel very lucky to have such wonderful places to visit.