When I became library director of the Seaside Public Library, I moved back to the area with a good sense of what worked well for gardening in the Astoria area. However, I was surprised to discover what a difference just 18 miles south on the coast could make!

But I enjoy a good gardening challenge, and I have grown up with gardening in my blood. I have taken classes on master gardening in Clatsop County a couple of times. Ive also done master gardening in Minnesota, which has different challenges, such as winter six months of the year.

Salt in Minnesota is poured out on the roads all winter long, and it often burns plants if you arent too careful. While Ive been taking a break from the volunteer portion of master gardening, planting and growing things is still in my blood, and I have slowly started gardening here in Seaside.

I had a friend remove a large tree stump in my yard, and I have been slowly filling in the hole eventually this area will be a flower bed and also a vegetable garden. I like the idea of companion planting and having multiple points of interest within a garden, although with vegetables you often have to make sure they have enough space within a bed for optimal sunshine, fertilizing, and growing. An already crowded flower bed is not typically the best place to throw your vegetable seeds and expect them to flourish!

One of my goals is to try year-round vegetable gardening. With our extremely rainy, yet mild, winters, this means advance planning and taking into account the occasional drowned plant.

One nice thing about my existing garden is that I already have some native plants in place. My salal is running amuck in some areas, but there is one very nice section of about 50 plants that I plan to continue to cultivate. Of course with salal, 50 plants is really one plant connected underground 50 ways!

Often when planning out a new section of garden, I enjoy using books on gardening for inspiration. Somehow, my gardens never look quite as idyllic as the Butchart gardens in Victoria, B.C.. One book that I just checked out was Winter Gardening in the Maritime Northwest, by Binda Colebrook. The book is from 1989 but is still relevant and discusses things like organic gardening, seed saving and, of course, what crops should be planted to have the best winter garden possible.

I plan to try planting some lettuce, kale, garlic and onions this month in my first attempt at a winter garden. There are many other crops you can try, but it is definitely a good idea to start small with gardening and slowly add more plants until you have reached either your maximum capacity for maintaining the garden or you have run out of room! I plan to use this books recommendation of a raised garden since that often helps with soil temperature and drainage in our wet and sometimes freezing coastal winters.

Another quick and easy read is the book, 200 Tips for Growing Flowers in the Pacific Northwest, by Barbara Ashmun. This book is worth a quick perusal to see if there are any tips related to your particular style of gardening. For instance, the book recommends rugosa roses, some of the hardiest roses out there for growing in this area as hedges. You can see some of these being used as shrubs along the west side of the Seaside Public Library. While they can get leggy, with careful pruning and the right soil, these rosebushes will provide beautiful, highly fragrant blooms that are best admired on the bush.

If you ever have gardening questions, calling Oregon State Universitys master gardener hotline in Astoria is always a great idea. The number is (503) 325-8573 (Monday and Wednesday). They do everything from identifying plants and bugs to plant diseases, and they do it all for free.

Here is a list of some other great books I have checked out in the past couple weeks from the Seaside Public Library that have given me some great gardening ideas for this fall and winter:

Weekend Gardener, by Wayne S. Ambler

Big Book of Northwest Perennials, by Marty Wingate

Pacific Northwest Garden Survival Guide, by Debra Prinzing

Big Ideas for Northwest Small Gardens, by Marty Wingate

Pacific Northwest Gardeners Book of Lists, by Ray and Jan McNeilan

Year in Bloom: Gardening for All Seasons in the Pacific Northwest, by Ann Lovejoy

Naturalistic Gardening, by Anne Lovejoy.