The first thing that strikes you about “The Raven & The Spade” is the utter vibrant beauty of it.
Gardens are often either beautiful or, in the case of many food growers, functional.
Not so with this Freeland mecca of flowers, fruits, herbs and vegetables.
Here is a garden that invites one to roam its rows and envision a table full of fresh bounty while basking in the glow of its colorful and shapely design.
Garden owner and designer Camille LaTray fashioned The Raven & The Spade after the traditional French potager garden.
The French are famous for their obsession with making everything attractive. The idea behind the potager is to create a vegetable garden that is as pretty as it is productive.
“I want people to come and hang out and enjoy the process of picking food,” LaTray said.
LaTray started her studies in landscape architecture but decided there was far too much architecture, and not enough landscape for her taste.
Under the advisement of her friend and gardening guru Ciscoe Morris of KING 5’s “Gardening with Ciscoe” fame, she skipped the degree and got back to the garden.
The Raven & The Spade sits two miles from the Freeland post office on East Harbor Road, marked at the entrance by a quaint hand-painted sign by Oregon artist Shanna Trumbley.
Passers-by on the road may have seen the gardeners and a band of LaTray’s and neighborhood children sitting atop a potter’s shelter beside the garden. There, one can take in an aerial view of the two-and-half acres of various circular and linear shapes crossed-sectioned by neat rows of multi-colored veggies and flowers.
The Raven & The Spade, a 100-percent certified organic garden, is mainly the work of LaTray and her faithful garden hand, Amy Johnson, who both have had their hands deep in the dirt since February.
What had been a series of never-ending back-breaking workdays that began at 5 a.m. through this past winter’s fickle weather, including a series of unyielding snowstorms, has finally paid off in spades, so to speak. The two still continue to get up with the sun to tend their creation.
“It’s been a lot of hard work, but it’s fun to share it with everyone now,” LaTray said.
LaTray’s two youngest children Fiona, 8, and Rowan, 10, busily follow and chase their friends around the homestead, which also includes The Boatwright, a boat-renovation company owned by LaTray’s husband, Brad Rice.
The children occasionally run through the garden. One of Fiona’s friends stops to pick a big leaf of spinach which she eats on the go.
LaTray said she purposefully planted lots of uniquely colored vegetables so as to make it more attractive to children.
“I’ve got purple carrots, orange cauliflower and purple Brussels sprouts. I really want the kids to eat from the garden,” she said.
The idea worked for LaTray’s neighbor, who brought her 10-year-old son back four times the previous day for fresh carrots. The boy kept pulling up and eating them in bunches before his mom could make it home with some carrots for later.
In addition to the standard vegetable choices such as carrots, broccoli, a large variety of lettuces, herbs and edible flowers galore, The Raven & The Spade offers collards, cabbage, golden chard, red okra, “the best eggplant you’ve ever tasted,” green and purple kohlrabi, bush beans, pole beans, orange Hungarian peppers, jalepenos and tomatillos. Tomatoes, too, are planted away from the garden next to the house where they are more protected.
A taste of a chrysanthemum leaf emitted a tasty mild mustard flavor, something to add snap to your dinner salad. All the flowers are edible, LaTray noted, pointing out nasturtiums, calendula, chrysanthemums and dianthus.
A selection of fruit is on the horizon at The Raven & The Spade, where a fledgling orchard has been planted and is estimated to bear fruit in two to three years.
LaTray and Johnson planted apricot, peach, pear, plum, cherry and apple trees, as well as blueberry bushes.
In addition, Fiona, who is in charge of the chickens, will be selling organic eggs in August.
The primary difference between a potager garden and a purely ornamental one is that guests are encouraged to eat the landscaping. That is the main thrust for LaTray.
“We have the most fun when people stop by and say, ‘Pick me a salad,’ or they bring a recipe card and take just what they need for that evening,” she said.
The idea is to enable people to stop by and buy as much or as little as they need.
Salad greens run about 75 cents per ounce, with a bundle of chard or a head of lettuce costing about $3.
The bulk of the produce is available from June to the fall, depending on the weather.
“People don’t stop eating in October,” LaTray said.
“I want to feed people year-round. We will harvest carrots, potatoes, parsnips, kale and other things well after October.”
Visitors will most likely see LaTray or Johnson working in the garden every day, but a logbook and money box at the stand makes it easy for patrons to drop by, pay what they can and draw on whatever money they’ve logged in the book. A $20 payment or less on Monday can give one family the vegetables they need day to day or for the week.
The Raven & The Spade also offers a pea patch for those who wish to raise a garden of their own.
A potager garden should include lots of spaces to walk and work, and this garden offers plenty of room to ramble. After all, it may take awhile to decide which lettuces to pick from among red romaine, red oak leaf, green butter head, green summer crisp or red summer crisp, to name a few.
“You know what’s fun, people are always stopping by and we meet all kinds of people. That’s why we have to get up at 5 a.m. to get our work done,” LaTray said with an impish smile.
“But that’s one of the goals of this garden; to have people come in and pick what they eat. We’ve become so disconnected from where our food comes from. I want to change that here.”
The Raven & The Spade is located at 4785 East Harbor Road in Freeland. The stand and garden are open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily. If no one is at the stand, feel free to pick your own veggies then record the purchase in the log book.
