What types of fruits, vegetables and flowering plants are commonly grown in Vancouver? (neighborhoods, buying)

[Diana Holbrook]

Fair enough, texasdiver!






I forgot about Holly and Oregon Grape.

They're pretty and evergreen and provide winter color... though I must say I hate them... and all prickly bushes.

You want a security system? plant Holly and Oregon Grape under every window!

[texasdiver]

Originally Posted by Diana Holbrook

Fair enough, texasdiver!






I forgot about Holly and Oregon Grape.

They're pretty and evergreen and provide winter color... though I must say I hate them... and all prickly bushes.

You want a security system? plant Holly and Oregon Grape under every window!

Oregon grape is a great landscape plant. A lot of lanscapers and landscape books call it by its scientific genus "mahonia". They are both thorny. The difference between holly and Oregon grape is that Oregon grape (or mahonia) gives brilliant fall color whereas holly basically just stays green year-round.

[Diana Holbrook]

Pretty... but ouchy!

[MtnSurfer]

Wow, great stuff guys! This is encouraging to hear about so much fun stuff one can grow in the garden. We currently live in a house on a sand dune. So basically, we have beach sand unless we bring in our own soil, planters, etc... But the ocean view makes up for it, I guess.

Derek

[Farmer15]

Originally Posted by texasdiver

For cherries we go down to a u-pick place in the Salem area and pick a couple hundred pounds which we pit and freeze and use up fresh eating. It's an old farm next door to where my dad grew up that is still in operation. He just calls me when the cherries are peak.

C-D won't let me spread any love around right now, but I must say I'm enjoying this thread. Thank you, all. Texas, where is this u-pick cherry place near Salem? I have relatives down that way, and I'd like to check it out at some point in the future.

[texasdiver]

Originally Posted by Farmer15

C-D won't let me spread any love around right now, but I must say I'm enjoying this thread. Thank you, all. Texas, where is this u-pick cherry place near Salem? I have relatives down that way, and I'd like to check it out at some point in the future.

They don’t have a sign out and don’t advertise because of liability reasons, it’s all word of mouth. I’ll ask my Dad for the exact address and phone number. It is on the west side of the river on 221 just south of the Wheatland Ferry.

This is the place here. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Un...hl=en-us&gl=us

You can see all the cherry orchards on the west side of the road in google satellite view. FYI. There is a neat small cheese factory just a mile north on this road called Willamette Valley Cheese where we always stop for samples and cheese when we do cherries.

[Farmer15]

Thanks, texasdiver. Appreciate that info!

[leastprime]

I'd guess that what you plant in the way of tree fruit would depend if you are in the wind corridor of the Columbia and how ripe you like your fruit. In midWillametteValley at 600 ft elevation, you could grow about anything. Likewise a little wind from the Columbia would scour any frost potential but will depress summer temperatures a little bit.

As for vegetables we planted beds of pod peas and green beans. Then wife inadvertedly put Preen down. At this time of year you could even plant fava beans for the greens and pods. Of course tomatoes and zucs. butternut squash. I also like sugar beets. In a conch you could now do lettuces, mustard and collards, we always had a fall crop that overwintered and provided us with fresh greens. Obligated to do at least 3 cherry tomatoes and 3-4 larger tomatoes. Deer never bothered us, they seen to prefer our neighbor.

We had 12 blueberries, 3 pears, 3 apples and each grafted with another variety, Santa Rosa, couple of yellow plums, couple of persimmons, a mulberry, couple wild cherry plums. Aronia/Chokecherry, I scrounged for cherries, figs (we planted desert king fig at our neighbor's), raspberries, blackberries, italian, brooks, stanley prunes. Went across town (Salem) for nectarines and peaches. We grew peaches commercially.

It was just the two of us. We ate well. We tried to plant what cost us most at the grocery. I never paid much attention to the apples since I could get 2nds at the retail farm store.

It's now far cheaper to buy frozen blueberries. Surplus of couple hundred thousand tons+ in frozen storage.

[happygrrrl]

Hi, I came from SoCal, and I really miss growing citrus and avocado...but they just won’t grow here, it’s too cold, and where I live, too wet.

The upside is I have great luck with my apple, pear, Bing and sour cherry trees. I’m not really into doing a full vegetable garden anymore, but there is nothing better than home-grown tomatoes. I can’t get as many as I did in SoCal, but it is possible, especially cherry tomatoes. I’ve also grown chard, kale and different squashes. I know that beets and carrots grow well here, and a lot of people around me have greenhouses, so I guess you can get just about anything growing in them, but that’s too labor-intensive for me.

For flowers, I like to keep it simple. Lavender is hearty and nothing smells as fresh and clean.

I would avoid rhododendrons and blackberries. I find the former kind of ugly...the wild rhododendrons in the woods are so much prettier. I had to dig a bunch of huge, old rhodies out, ugh, the roots were a mess! Blackberry bushes are evil...full of thorns and they want to take over your property...I’d rather just pick the wild-growing berries, just watch that they’re not sprayed.

[leastprime]

There's a u-pick on 22, just past Baskett, Olson's on 22 the other direction at Joseph above OCI. Most of the light sweets are now Rainier variety (too crunchy to my liking) and Black Republicans and Lamberts are giving way to something else. I get mine from a private place after they harvested for brining. I am not sure if Gary Daums is still u-picking ; His son put in filberts, located just south of the Mennoite School on 221.