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About The Asian reporter. (Portland, Or.) 1991-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 1, 2024)
OPINION Page 6 n THE ASIAN REPORTER January 1, 2024 Volume 34 Number 1 January 1, 2024 ISSN: 1094-9453 The Asian Reporter is published on the first Monday each month. Please send all correspondence to: The Asian Reporter 922 N Killingsworth Street, Suite 2D, Portland, OR 97217 Phone: (503) 283-4440, Fax: (503) 283-4445 News Department e-mail: news@asianreporter.com Advertising Department e-mail: ads@asianreporter.com Website: www.asianreporter.com Please send reader feedback, Asian-related press releases, and community interest ideas/stories to the addresses listed above. Please include a contact phone number. Advertising information available upon request. Publisher Jaime Lim Contributing Editors Ronault L.S. Catalani (Polo), Jeff Wenger Correspondents Ian Blazina, Josephine Bridges, Pamela Ellgen, Maileen Hamto, Edward J. Han, A.P. 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MY TURN n Wayne Chan The promise and reality of our Asian vegetable garden icture this: A gentle climb into a rolling hillside gives way to an organic family farm with rows of delectable fruits, herbs, and vegetables sprouting up in a celebration of Mother Nature’s bounty, nourishing our family with crops our own brood has harvested under the clear skies of Southern California. This is the vision I had looking at our backyard hillside. As an Asian family, I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to grow vegetables specific to Asian cooking. Instead of lettuce — bok choy and napa cabbage; instead of carrots — Asian green beans. I’m not a farmer. I don’t claim to have a green thumb. But, if there’s a will, there’s a way. And at least for a few months, there was definitely a will. I started on one small patch of land on our hillside. I cleared the area, dug it up, added rich soil and a programmable sprinkler system, and planted an assortment of Asian vegetables. Our first harvest was beautiful — an explosion of bok choy, big, healthy bunches of green beans, and napa cabbage galore. I made proclamations: I am a planter! I am the giver of life! I am the grower of things! I am the provider for my family! Then came the second harvest. It’s like I started my own homegrown zoo of squirrels, rabbits, gophers, snails, and birds. The animals should have been required to tip me 15% for the bounty of food I provided. Apparently, these animals loved the variety of vegetables they can’t get from our neighbor’s garden. I tried everything. Nothing worked. I gave up. Then I had an epiphany. Instead of growing everything in the ground, I bought and built three large, elevated vegetable gardens. That should solve my problem. Our first harvest in the raised vegetable garden was another beautiful bounty of goodies. Napa cab- P bage galore. A big, bountiful bloom of green beans! And time for more proclamations: I have beat back the rodents of my previous demise! I am horticulturist extraordinaire! I am greenskeeper incarnate! Then came the second harvest from our raised vegetable garden. You may sense a pattern here. Apparently, the animals had found their way into the raised beds. My raised vegetable garden was now an all-you-can-eat vegetable buffet. I tried everything. I put barriers on the legs of the planters. It didn’t work. I put netting around the tops of the planters. The animals forced their way under the netting. I started researching what animal could possibly navigate through the sophisticated barricade I’d erected around the vegetable garden. From what I could ascertain, a small bunny can’t leap three feet straight into the air to reach the edge of the box! How would birds get through the netting? How could squirrels crawl up what I would describe as barbed wire nailed against the legs of the planters? Late at night after I went to bed, I envisioned a horde of squirrels setting up an elaborate catapult that flung them into the far reaches of my raised vegetable garden. In the end, I finally managed to protect my precious vegetables by adding a flexible, metal mesh around each of the raised beds. I probably now need to revise the original idyllic vision I had in mind and replace it with something a little closer to reality. Picture this: Three cramped, raised vegetable garden beds that look like a detention center for offending vegetables, forever in solitary confine- ment until the warden frees them from their involuntary lives of isolation. Humor writer Wayne Chan lives in the San Diego area; cartoonist Wayne Chan is based in the Bay Area. Opinions expressed in this newspaper are those of the authors and not necessarily those of this publication. Back issues of The Asian Reporter may be ordered by mail at the following rates: First copy: $3.00 Additional copies ordered at the same time: $1.50 each Send orders to: Asian Reporter Back Issues, 922 N. Killingsworth St., Portland, OR 97217-2220 The Asian Reporter welcomes reader response and participation. If you have a comment on a story we have printed, or have an Asian-related personal or community focus idea, please contact us. Please include a contact name, address, and phone number on all correspondence. Thank you. Please report all hate crimes committed against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Go to: w www.stopaapihate.org w www.doj.state.or.us w www.ReportHatePDX.com
