Wednesday, November 8, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Creekside
Campground
did good
business
this year
The Bunkhouse
Chronicle
Craig Rullman
Columnist
Vegetable
transparency — a
lesson in good
governance
By Sue Stafford
Correspondent
The
Creekside
Campground collected
$175,000 in revenue this past
camping season, according to
City Public Works Director
Paul Bertagna in his report
to the Parks Advisory Board
(PAB) at their November 1
meeting. Revenue from the
new showers averaged $400 a
week.
Money from the camp-
ground goes into the City’s
general fund. Members
of the PAB questioned
whether monies raised in
the campground should go
into the parks fund, spe-
cifically for the benefit of
the parks — a question for
the Sisters City Council
and budget committee to
consider.
The plumbing for the new
dishwashing station in the
campground is stubbed in
and the necessary fixtures
will be installed this win-
ter. The station will hope-
fully eliminate the wash-
ing of dishes by campers in
Whychus Creek.
Five campsites slated
for full hookups will also
be converted this winter.
Wi-Fi for the campground
guests will be in place next
summer.
It’s time to come clean.
Way back in March, or
April, maybe it was May, I
wrote in these pages predict-
ing — it was really more of
a populist pandering, almost
a campaign promise — that
we would grow 500 pounds
of vegetables. That was
worth a giggle then, and
somewhere inside I knew it
was bold, but it seems much
funnier now.
Armed with lessons
learned from our previ-
ous gardening heartbreaks,
attendance at a master gar-
dening class, and no short-
age of work — rebuilding
the raised beds, amend-
ing and improving the soil
— we might have been a
little cocky. But we had, or
thought we had, the garden
gnomes — those mute little
lobbyists — on our side.
And now that the snow
has fallen, twice, conjuring
nightmares of last winter’s
dams, houses in flood at -26,
cars in the ditches and, you
know, all of the other joys
that came with it, I would be
cowardly if I did not put the
numbers out there.
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We grew 18 pounds of
peas. That was an excel-
lent start to the season, and
gave me great confidence in
those early days of a young
summer. Nothing beats the
crispy sweetness of a sugar
snap pea. Of course, no one
knew then that we were
going to lose all of August
and half of September to
smoke from the explosion
of Krakatoa, but I’ll get
into that later, as this tale
of Central Oregon garden-
ing runs from comedy to
tragedy — like any modern
political campaign — most
ricky-tick.
We grew 14 pounds of
green beans, but my wife
doesn’t like them. She says
they taste like cardboard. I
think she’s right. I planted
a different variety this year
and although they came
on strong, they were never
going to win converts to
the greater pleasures of
green-beanery.
I planted two kinds of
onions and we pulled nine
pounds of them out of the
ground. That was a big win
for us because there was no
sign of the onion maggots
that have, somehow, found
our onion patches in the
past.
We grew 150 pounds
of spaghetti squash. I can-
not say why, but the squash
went crazy. I only planted
five of them — started in
the greenhouse — but what-
ever combination of things
they like, they definitely
received, because the squash
just kept coming. This was,
by far, our biggest win of the
season. The rest of the tally
isn’t so impressive.
I had also made some
bold predictions about grow-
ing corn — which other peo-
ple do with some success in
Central Oregon, and I was
determined to grow a bushel
of gigantic ears to post pic-
tures of, like fishermen do
with huge trout, just to brag
about what a terrific farmer
I am.
Meh. I did two things
that are arguably stupid. The
first was trying to beat two
problems at once. First, I
transplanted corn from the
garden. This is fraught with
problems, although the best
ears we had came from those
transplants. The second was
just trying to grow corn at
all.
We had terrific early
success with the corn, and
some very nice ears, before
the law of averages caught
up with me and not much
else happened. I poured the
bloodmeal to them early and
late, sang my best Ian Tyson
love songs to them, and
even went native by plant-
ing by the 3-Sisters method
— corns, beans, squash, but
in the end the corn crop was
a flop: seven pounds.
Which brings me to the
bigger heartbreak of this
season. Tomatoes. I gener-
ally plant in the neighbor-
hood of 15-20 tomatoes.
Tomatoes are not a diffi-
cult plant to grow. But they
require sunlight, and heat,
and relatively clean air,
which was not going to be
one of the gifts last sum-
mer gave us. Just at the time
when our ’maters needed
a final push of glorious
sunlight, Krakatoa exploded,
the earth went dark, and the
tomatoes began to choke,
and stunt, and sit sadly in
the swirling clouds of ash.
The tomato totals ran to 25
pounds, which was okay, but
not enough for the loads of
salsa and tomato sauce I was
dreaming of canning this
fall.
Also, we grew one apple.
We planted several apple
trees last year, which blos-
somed nicely in the spring,
but we watched as the buds
took a hard frost early and
we ended up with just one
apple. But it was a good
apple, and I shared it with
the horses, who each got a
nice slice.
We also grew trashcan
potatoes. There were lots
of potatoes in the cans, but
something about them gave
us both the willies, so mostly
we aren’t going to eat them.
Two hundred and twenty-
three pounds. That doesn’t
count the lettuce, kale,
cucumbers, or the odd few
pounds of carrots, but it’s
clearly not the 500 pounds I
was shouting about from the
rooftops, and to anyone who
would listen to my ravings.
But I had to come clean. By
sharing this information,
going public in this forum,
and maintaining the long
tradition of Figure 8 Ranch
vegetable transparency, I
have completed the final
harvest of the season.
And next year — I don’t
know why I can’t stop
myself from doing this —
I just know we are going
to grow 500 pounds of
vegetables.
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