BUG Gardeners: Veronica & Kevin
Veronica and Kevin eased into gardening by growing strawberries and herbs in containers. After about a year of living in their historic westside Bend home and working remotely, they decided it was time to transform their south facing front yard into a vegetable garden.
They felt overwhelmed, though, by all the steps they knew they’d need to take to construct their garden on their own, fill their beds with soil, retrofit their irrigation, and research when to plant, where to plant, and how best to protect their plants from the neighborhood deer and variable growing conditions in Central Oregon. So, they reached out to Bend Urban Gardens for help.
Their on-site consultation in early January 2021 was spent creating a plan that felt manageable for the couple’s time and budget. On their own, they would prep their site, install their soil, and build a fence to keep deer out. Bend Urban Gardens would build six 4’x8’ restoration juniper garden beds and two mobile mini hoophouses, along with creating a personalized crop plan for their space. Additionally, 12 hours of garden lessons including their seeds, plant starts and organic fertilizer would help carry them through their first gardening season.
In early March, Veronica and Kevin were spending their screen breaks from work (and weekends) preparing their site for construction by removing their grass on their own. By the end of March, Bend Urban Gardens had constructed their raised garden beds and arranged for the delivery of their raised bed soil. Many wheelbarrow loads later and after a drip irrigation installation lesson at the Bend Urban Gardens demonstration garden, Veronica and Kevin confidently embarked on laying their irrigation line in their beds. By mid-April, they were ready to bring their crop plan to life.
When asked about the best part of working with BUG, Veronica shared, “Everything, really! The crop plan is awesome because you have a plan! It has so much easy to access information and gives you a lot of confidence that you are planting things that will grow well in this climate and at the right time. It's such a great resource that you can re-use or adapt to make room to try new things.”
Veronica and Kevin were overjoyed with the amount of food they were able to grow in their 192 square feet of garden beds, especially in the spring, “The lettuce was awesome; it was so abundant, flavorful, and stayed fresh for a surprisingly long time.” They also remarked, “The potatoes did really well, produced a ton and were so fun to dig up! Also so happy with our strawberries. Chard grew really well, but it required a lot of attention to stay on top of squashing the leaf miners that like to eat it.”
Their garden lessons centered on planting, irrigating, fertilizing, thinning, harvesting, managing pests, and using season extension techniques (row cover, shade cloth, and mini hoophouses) as tools in their garden. Veronica emphasized, “The lessons were so helpful for us. The accountability was so important as we started to build the gardening habit into our lifestyle. We learned so much about different pests to look out for, how to test soil moisture and optimize our watering, and how to plant, tend and harvest to maximize our produce. We definitely had the training wheels this season and our garden was really successful. We now have the infrastructure (beautiful juniper beds and cloches), resources (crop plan, all the knowledge from our lessons), and community (BUG!) to lean on. I'm excited to try and repeat it next year!”
Check out a couple of Veronica & Kevin’s recommended recipes: Bok Choy, Apple, Carrot Salad and Creamy Kohlrabi Potato Soup with Homemade Croutons.
