Blackberry Season

My Beloved got home tonight and I needed a break from the kiddos.  I grabbed our berry containers and headed out for some alone time.  After 20 minutes I had 2 pounds of delicious foraged blackberries. Himalayan Blackberries are prolific in the northwest.  They are an invasive and horrible weed.  They posses an uncanny ability to grow everywhere and are hard to kill even if you can find the central root.    But then, one time a year we all set our distain for this invasive plant and we eat some pretty amazing foraged fruit.

I don't know if it is our very warm summer, or the several rainy days we have had this summer but I think the berries are sweeter than any other year we have lived in the PNW.  When we lived in Seattle I had my favorite parks, overpasses, and overgrown lots that I liked to pick berries in. On Vashon I also have my favorite roadside patches (which of course I won't tell you about!).  I do find it pretty charming that at some of the local beaches though the bushes have been clearly munched by many passers by.

What makes the perfect roadside blackberry patch is usually that it gets mowed periodically sow that the first year shoots (that don't produce fruit) are cut back and you can reach a lot of the berries.  Ideally it is situated enough off the road that you don't feel like you are risking your life, and that no one pays any attention to it.
Here's the question though? Blackberry cobbler or pie?

Vashon Island: Customer service.

We needed to order some topsoil/compost for our new raised beds.  So with recommendations from an Island friend S called Mr. X.  S played phone tag with this someone for many, many, many voicemails.

It was so frustrating.  We called another topsoil/compost person and were told, "Oh no you gottta call John Doe." No number provided.  Just call him. Hmmm.

So then finally Mr. X and S leave a series of helpful voicemails.

"Oh hi...blah blah blah. . . We need a trillion square feet of soil."

"Oh hi...blah blah blah...That will be more money than you want to pay." (this is an island after all)

"Ummm how about only a million."

"Um okay. That will be 245.34"

"Um since you don't ever answer your phone and i don't ever answer mine. We will leave the check taped to the front door please drop it off anytime this week."

"Okay. I'll bring the soil on Friday afternoon."

Friday morning, while at the grocery store, the dirt guy arrives. Finds us not home because I think that afternoon must meet AFTER noon.  Hey drops it off. Grabs the check and leaves a reciept.

I call and leave a grateful message.

Seriously though, we did an entire interaction with this business person without speaking, without meeting, without actually connecting.  It kind of sucked.  It was a classic Vashon business encounter where it seemed like the person wasn't actually interested in selling us anything.  I guess few competitors sometimes takes the steam out of a business.

But alas. We kept at it (or S did!) and we have some beautiful soil in our raised beds now!

Vashon Island garden plan...for a 750sq foot garden...

While everyone else in this country is freezing their tails off everyone who is West of the Cascades/Sierra Nevadas is doing alright (Alaska and Hawaii too!). 

So luck us today we pruned the apple trees, pulled roots from the garden, sent a package, priced out lumber for raised beds and went a bit nuts on my family.  But on this lovely January day the stuff of my fantasy life is mostly about gardening. 

So let me share with you the fantasy!

The green outline is the garden.  It is 750 square feet, but parts are very wet, uneven and parts of it still have a lot of roots that need pulled. As this is our first year in the house I am fairly certain it will be sunny their for the bulk of summer but I don't know what kind of light it gets in the spring...

Here's what needs done soonest...but they aren't exactly in order.

• Ordering fencing and install - 
• Keep hacking down the brush that is next to the garden but will eventually become lawn (the brush has to come down to allow maximal sun!
• Having the brush man come and chip all the brush
• Order seeds and start them under a grow light.

By April I hope to get at least one raised bed (the orange are raised beds) built. I don't know if we can afford more than one this year because the front end of fencing and chipping brush is costing us.  

If you look at the diagram you'll also notice that there are not things like carrots, potatoes, onions, etc. We don't have a goal to become self sufficient and are actually happy to let other people grow some of those things for us. We want to raise things that taste the best when they are home grown- we have never noticed a difference in the quality of those things when we raise them.

So that's what's up