The Evolution of Brian's Garden

May 30, 2023

Brian’s Food Bank Garden  at Glaspell Farm is located in the middle of the San Juan Valley near Blue Heron Middle School off Olympic Avenue. Brian Glaspell cultivated it for many years as a large home garden, but he gave away most of his produce to neighbors and the Port Townsend Food Bank. Unfortunately, Brian passed away in early 2019, and his garden was untended until the summer of 2021, when it was shoulder-high in weeds. Jeanie Glaspell needed help with the farm, and especially with this garden, to maintain its vitality and productivity.

Low spots. Deer Fence that Works.

Killing weeds. Wire worms.

A small team of Food Bank Growers started by weed whacking the tall weeds and sheet mulching with cardboard and straw (left photo). We planted squash into the sheet mulch that year, but the transplants went in fairly late in the season. Some squash were ready to pick by mid-September, but a cold snap hit the valley, and this low spot had a killing frost. The crop was ruined, but we had a good lesson about temperature variation in valleys. We tarped the entire area in late November to try to kill the weed seed.

In March 2022, we finally removed the tarps, but all the rain that spring kept the soil saturated until April, when the only weeds that emerged were perennials, quack grass, field bindweed and thistles, oh my! The small team of workers spent most of the spring digging the rhizomes from huge patches of these weeds and managed another late planting of lettuce, brassicas, 5 squash plants and a sweet potato trial. We harvested over 500 pounds of produce (middle photo) for the Port Townsend Food Bank and learned that we also had another challenge, wireworms, that ruined the potato crops.

In March and April this year, we started prepping the rows and beds for planting, pruning the table grapes that grow on the perimeter fence and helped prune the adjacent orchard trees, also overgrown. Planting has been slow again, as we are still setting up this production garden for teamwork. A new shed and picnic table were donated, but had to be assembled, and we invested much labor in clearing an area for a port-o-let and helping Jeanie reinstall a second deer fence outside the garden fence. This 10-ft high fence encloses the entire farm, but needed to be repaired, especially along the garden and adjacent orchard. The double fence is very effective at excluding deer. We also set out wireworm traps to determine population density; it turned out to be quite high.

With long rows of peas, kale, chard, lettuce, spinach and radishes already planted (photo right), we are now clearing the remaining rows for the warmer crops of beans, squash, cucumbers and a couple trial tomato and green pepper plants. A new, wonderful team of 10 volunteers has been working at this garden, and these great gardeners have made the garden vital, productive, and a beautiful place to be again.

Submitted by Lys Burden