SCOTT,
You have no idea how delighted I am to get your garden report and the pictures.

I want to show them to other members of our extended family. It was just great and my heart swells. I have been an advocate of gardens since I was a stripling after watching my dad plant his garden every spring.

Yeah, he had a drinking problem but he also had a fine garden. String beans, tomatoes, lettuce, potatoes, carrots, radishes, peas... sounds like you. We also had eight walnut trees, two green gage plum trees and a row of gooseberry bushes. Best of all was our huge Gravenstein apple tree.

The place we rented in Portland must have housed a farmer as all the trees were there when we moved in. We lived a block from the Vancouver Avenue woods where we feasted on hazelnuts every summer.

Rent was $15 a month and much of the time Dad didn't have it. It was in the 1920s. Dad was a salesman and rarely had any money.

But we sold wormy apples on the corner that we didn't eat green and also feasted on plums. Our corn was not very good but there was a huge cornfield down by the Columbia River next to the hog ranch, owned by a neighbor and he fed the corn to his pigs so we often picked a few ears when we were fishing. We also brought home some catfish, crappies and bluegills.

Every week I went with Mom up to the welfare office where they gave us some canned corn beef with an Argentina label that read "Not To Be Sold." Mom always put it on the top shelf with the label facing the wall in case some neighbor lady was walking through.

Keep up with the garden. If the onions and garlic do well I will swap you for some razzleberrys. I would trade you some hazelnuts but I have not picked any for 80 years.
POP