3C
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, JUNE 17, 2016
in the
garden
Photos by Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Howard Clarke and his wife, Wendela Howie, stand in their garden.
Q&A
with
Howard Clarke and
Wendela Howie
A cherry begins to
ripen on a cherry
tree at Howard
Clarke and Wende-
la Howie’s garden
in Astoria.
Q: What’s going on in your vertical greenhouse?
What’s coming up?
A: The greenhouse currently houses three tomato
plants, Beefsteak, Yellow Pear cherry tomato and Stupice,
They are all indeterminate plants. Determinate tomato
plants remain bushlike, while indeterminate plants are
the ones you can train up a wire.
Q: How are your kiwi plants looking? Are you still
consuming last year’s kiwi harvest?
A: The kiwis are doing great, so much so that they
are trying to engulf our pie cherry tree. More pruning
ahead. We do still have some frozen kiwis from last season.
Q: Last year’s harvest of your apple trees was
impressive. You have a number of heirloom varieties.
Did some of those trees produce more than others?
A: Some apple trees do produce more that others —
both heirloom and newer varieties. We don’t get huge
production from Northern Spy or Gloria Munde, but they
both produce large apples.
Q: Did the neighborhood bear leave your trees
alone?
A: Fortunately, no bears last year.
Q: Are you planting anything new this season?
A: Aside from trying three new tomato varieties, no
new stuf that I’m aware of. But Wendela does the vege-
table planting and it’s still ongoing. So she may try some-
thing new.
Wendela: We have always planted zucchini and
sometimes acorn squash. But last year we tried delicata
squash, which we both love. It thrived. So we’re planting
more this year.
Q: Your garden represents a lot of work between
the two of you. How do you split the labor?
A: I typically do the bull-in-the-china shop stuf, roto-
tilling, raking up the beds, fence repair. We both try to be
involved in putting in pea and bean poles, and she takes
care of the planting and what hand-watering we do, as
well as practicing whatever other magic stuf is required
to persuade plants to produce.
Howard Clarke and Wendela Howie maintain a dense
vegetable garden in Astoria with a high fence against the
local deer population.
Time capsule: It’s part of Every Kid in a Park program
Continued from Page 1C
Return in 25 years
Before the time capsule
was sealed at a gathering in
the elementary school, Lewis
and Clark National Histor-
ical Park Superintendent
Scott Tucker encouraged the
fourth-graders to come back
in 25 years.
“We are going to come
back and we are going to open
this up and we are going to
read what you had to say,”
Tucker said. “If you live here
or are in the area, when you are
35, you should come back, too.
You should check it out and
remember what you wrote.”
Tucker asked the class
what they imagine they will
be doing in 25 years. Stu-
dents blurted out, “playing
football,” “working” and
“making money.”
Free visit
As part of the centennial
celebration, Lewis and Clark
National Historical Park,
which oversees Fort Clatsop,
is participating in a yearlong
program called Every Kid in
a Park. The program invites
all fourth-grade students and
their families to visit the park
for free through August.
“One of the ways the
National Parks Service
decided they wanted to cel-
ebrate the great places like
in your neighborhood in
Fort Clatsop was invite
every fourth-grader in the
country to a national park,”
Tucker told the students. “We
decided we wanted to tie that
idea of every fourth-grader
in the park to Bella’s senior
project.”
Out of 411 national parks
around the country, Tucker
estimates, there are going to
be about 50 time capsules
that have fourth-graders’
items put in them. Out of the
entire West Coast, there are
12 time capsules being sealed
this summer in national
parks. Only three will have
fourth-grader input in them,
with one being the time cap-
sule in Seaside.
“Your story is what’s
going to move the National
Park Service into the next
century,” Tucker said.
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
Isabella Curcin, a senior at Seaside High School, speaks
with fourth-graders about the time capsule project she
organized.
3 W AY S TO GE T
Y O U R CO PY
TOD AY !
OR DER ON LIN E
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S TOP BY ON E OF OU R 3 LOCATION S
A storia • 949 Exchange St.
Seaside • 1555 N . Roosevelt Dr.
Long Beach • 205 Bolstad A ve. E. #2
o r CALL HOLLY LAR K IN S
at 503-325-3211, x227
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