Garden Time

Plant a garden. work in the dirt. Good for the soul. Put hot weather plants (melons, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers) on black plastic because Grants Pass Real Estate is in an area where the climate is warm during the day and cools off during the night. Those cool nights are not good for the hot weather plants. They will grow better and ripen sooner with the black plastic to hold the heat overnight. When I first came to Grants Pass, I planted a garden and planted melons. My first mistake was to think, 'Well, it's not raining today, maybe it will tomorrow.' I got up the next day and the sun was shining, a nice day. That happened the whole summer. Eventually I gave the plants some water. Now I have a sprinkler system on a timer. Much easier.

There are benefits of using the black plastic: you till the soil and put the plastic down, cut a hole in the plastic and plant your plant, turn on the sprinkler system and wait. The plastic not only keeps the plants warm it smoothers the weeds. No weeding. Lazy gardeners unite! Enjoy your Grants Pass Real Estate while you watch it grow and wait for God to finish His work for you to have garden produce.

Another treat this time of year for Grants Pass Real Estate is Foxglove (which is the source of digitalis used for heart medicine). The original old fashioned flower color is purple, but now there are white and red and yellow and pink colors as well. The leaves are very poisonous to humans, cattle and horses. The leaves contain a heart stimulant. Plant away from livestock.

Enjoy your Grants Pass Real Estate.

So long for now.

chuck

Evergreen Park is Grants Pass Newest Park

Evergreen Park is great!

Evergreen Bank bought the property from the Riverside Inn and shaped it into a lovely series of walkways, waterfalls, ponds, paintings and sculptures. The park is on private land, but is open to the public.

Brady Adams of Evergreen invites everyone in. Brady Adams calls the park a community asset.

Quality workmanship abounds. The quality of workmanship and attention to detail astound the eye with the attractiveness of the waterfalls, the many plantings, the paintings, and the view of nearby Caveman Bridge. The waterfalls are a delight to the ear and a refreshing coolness on a hot day.

Thank you Brady Adams & Evergreen Bank.

Providing this treasure for our community makes us all feel happy to live in our beautiful city where people step out to benefit us all.

So long from Grants Pass Real Estate.

chuck

Blackberries are the bane of real estate

All over Southern Oregon Real Estate you will find blackberries growing (like the one pictured here). Most people say, 'Oh, there are the Oregon blackberries.' Not so. The widely spread blackberries are actually a domestic berry that has been spread by birds conveniently with fertilizer attached. They grow very well and are very tasty. However, the birds are not discriminating on where they plant them. They put them wherever they can sit on something for a few minutes. Fences, flowers, trees all have blackberries growing in them and around them.

The actual Oregon blackberry (pictured here) has a different leaf pattern with a serrated edge and a different berry that is smaller and has a different sweeter taste. The canes are not as vigorous as the domestic berry and they are not nearly as wide spread as the domestic berry.

Years ago we bought our first home in the country. When we moved in, the back yard had a patch of domestic blackberries that was 40 feet wide, 100 feet long and 12 feet high. I took a chain saw to them and cut them down and burned them up. Then I dug up the roots and discovered that there was a bulbous root about as big as my fist about six inches down. I cut this off and burned it as well, leaving only the thin roots that continued down from there. After that I planted grass, and grapes and raspberries and garden where the blackberries had been. My neighbor cut down his blackberries too, but neglected to dig up the roots and his blackberries came up bigger than ever having been pruned as it were.

One of the best things about spring is Iris. They are a lovely addition to any real estate. Easy to care for, a multitude of colors, and now there are reblooming iris that bloom in the spring and again in the fall. What a treat.

So long from Grants Pass Real Estate.

chuck

The Sun Shines Again

Hello,

The sun shines again. Yeah! The rain was cool and fresh, and the sun shining is warm and comfortable. Spring here in Grants Pass Real Estate is wonderful to behold. Now I need to develop my own piece of real estate by planting a garden. However, first I need to mow the weeds from last year and till them under before I plant.

A few years back I wrote this about our garden real estate:

I planted asparagus over the weekend. It sounded simple. Dig an 18 inch deep trench, fill in with 8 inches of topsoil and 4 inches of compost, plant the asparagus roots, cover with 2 inches of topsoil and as they grow fill in the other four inches with more topsoil.

I have a tiller so I thought 'oh a couple of hours tops.' It's Friday night about six o'clock. So I started tilling--10 feet long and 14 inches wide. The soil I was working in was decomposed granite--hard but not so bad since we've had a lot of rain. I would till down about 4 inches and shovel it out into a wheel barrow, then dump it around the garden fence to fill in spots where the soil did not come up to the wire (I am trying to keep digger squirrels out of the garden). Three hours later I am 10 inches down, have 8 inches to go, and it is now dark.

The next day I am pooped from digging and hauling dirt. So I rest.

Sunday afternoon, I start again. Now it is raining, but not hard, and I am living in Oregon. The trench is too deep to till in any more so I take a couple of shovels and dig down. This time I pile the dirt beside the trench (I'll haul it away later).

Once the trench is done I have to get the topsoil which is about 300 feet away. Back to the wheelbarrow. The topsoil is moist because of the rain, which is good for the asparagus; however, water is heavy. So I put in some topsoil and then 25 gallons of compost (the compost maker is right outside the garden fence {it makes compost in two weeks, such a deal}), some more topsoil, plant the asparagus and cover with two inches of topsoil. Done (except moving the dirt later) six hours. And now next year I will get a crop of fresh asparagus (purple asparagus that turns green when you stir fry it or steam it). This year I might get a couple of spears, mostly it has to grow to get established.

Years ago I rented a place that had an asparagus bed and I picked some fresh and stir fried it within the hour--it was really great. Nearly everything that is that good takes time to produce. And the time that it looks like it will take is nearly always shorter than the time it actually does take. In this case six hours instead of two (plus a year to wait). Along the way in those six hours I saw a sunset, heard several birds singing, saw a snake, saw a pair of Goldfinches sitting on the fence, saw the Purple Martin mama poke her head out of the birdhouse that we hung up this spring, saw three deer about 50 feet from me (one doe, one yearling buck and one older buck, both with their antlers in velvet). Nice surprises that I wouldn't have seen had I not been there then.

So long for now from Grants Pass Real Estate.

chuck

Using Native Plants in Landscaping to improve your real estate.

Native plants are plants that have adapted to the geography, rainfall levels, and climate of a particular region. Native plants occur in communities, that is, they have evolved together with other plants. As a result, a community of native plants provides habitat for a variety of native wildlife species such as songbirds and butterflies.

Incorporating native plants into your landscape provides a beautiful, hardy, drought resistant, low maintenance area to your landscape, while beautifying your real estate. Native plants, once established, save time and money by eliminating or significantly reducing the need for fertilizers, pesticides, water, and lawnmowers.

Southern Oregon real estate provides a great climate for native plants and herbs.

Which plants attract birds and butterflies?

For song birds: sunflowers, blazing star, white prairie clover, compass plant, prairie dock, big bluestem, downy serviceberry, hackberry, dogwood, juniper, elderberry, and hawthorn.

For hummingbirds: columbine, jewelweed, native phlox, native honey-suckle, and cardinal flower.

For butterflies: milkweed, aster, purple cone-flower, blazing star, native phlox, black-eyed Susan, dogbane, New Jersey tea, coreopsis, joe-pye weed, goldenrod, vervain, and ironweed.

Useful native plant info links:
• Wild Ones Natural Landscapers is a 23-year-old non-profit organization devoted to restoring native ecologies and promoting environmentally sensitive horticultural practices.
• The Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center has a comprehensive list of resources for every state.
• National Wildlife Federation Backyard Wildlife Habitat Program tells the basics for starting a backyard wildlife habitat.
• The Environmental Protection Agency's Green Landscaping site has information about reducing energy consumption through the use of native plant landscapes.
• Ken Robertson's write-up on the tallgrass prairie of Illinois features excellent photos of many dry prairie species.
• The University of Wisconsin Herbarium features photos and descriptions of all plants native to that state.
• The Soil Conservation Service's Midwestern Wetland Flora describes more than 300 species with photos.
• There's lots of info about milkweeds at the Monarch Watch site.

Good Morning!

When I got up this morning I looked out the window and saw a beautiful bird, yellow with black accents, sitting on the magnolia in the midst of the green lawn and then moments later a hummingbird flew by in a glint of red to say hello and went to the other window to greet my wife before buzzing off.

It rained overnight so everything was fresh. Even though I had turned on the sprinkler system just last night (I'll need to check all the heads to see if they are functioning since this is the first time the system has run since last fall). First I thought it was just the sprinklers, but the smell and the driveway being wet all gave me clues as to the reality of the situation, God had straightened up His living room overnight.

Part of the joys of owning your own piece of ground, your own real estate. Have you really thought about that term "real estate?" Real, yes this is real, tangible, it exists--not made up, you can't make any more (a scientist says to God, "I can do anything you can do. In fact, I can create life." God says, "OK, go ahead." The scientist bends down and starts scraping some dirt together when God says, "Wait a minute. Get your own dirt."), you can buy it, you can sell it, you can use it, you can give it to your kids or anyone else you want to in your will. Estate... piece of land. To the center of the earth and up into the sky.

The picture in the header is of our garden and yard. We are caretakers of it for God who made it and gave it to us to use for the time being.

chuck