Plants to share

I have planted my shallots and have leftovers.

They are Banana (Zebrune) Shallots.

Shaped like a torpedo.

I also planted my tomatoes weeks ago.

Sheltered with Agribon nights low 30's.

Given away lots and lots.

Have left Green Envy and Green Tiger.

About 6+ each.

Both cherry tomatoes shaped in an oval.

Also have few Yellow Icicle plum tomatoes.

May also have a few pumpkins.

Porcelain Doll (pink skin) and Blue Doll (blue skin).

20-24 lbs with sweet dark-orange flesh.

Call, 953-6442, if questions or arrange to pick them up.

Barbara A Midtbo

Weeding Between the Lines

by Jim McGinty

Massive thundershowers, 95 degree Fahrenheit days, cloudy and humid afternoons, 34 degree nights: for our “New Normal” weather, it must be early summer.  Here at Rancho McGinty, the garlic is knee high, the apple trees are dropping the last of their huge flower display, and the compost bins are cooking with all the fresh cut (non-herbicide, thank you very much!) grass clippings, and straw bedding from our recent barnyard additions: two Nubian doelings, and two Jacobs lambs. 

The Rancho is looking (and smelling) a little more farm-y all the time!

In the Earthboxes on the deck, the chard, kale, and bok-choi are ready to eat, courtesy of Chief Seed Starter/Wife Pat and her early March plantings. Out in the orchard, I’ve planted another two dozen apple, cherry, and plum trees, and, just because I can, I planted a half-dozen maple shade trees – now if I can just keep them alive through the summer heat and drought. I use drip (actually “spray”) irrigation and long lengths of black poly hose to reduce our water usage, and to put the water where it will do the most good, right at the drip line of the baby trees.

If you have not already done so, now is the time to plant out those summer plant starts and seeds: corn, beans, peppers, tomatoes, poultry squash, pumpkins, etc., are probably safe out in the garden wilderness, BUT be prepared for late/snap frosts by keeping emergency frost blankets (Ree-May ® floating rowcover, light flannel sheets, etc.) ready to throw over the sensitive plants just in case.

At the end of the June, you will benefit from thinning the small fruit on your apple, plum, pear, and peach/apricot trees – one fruit every six inches on branches will promote fewer, but larger and sweeter finished fruit. 

Speaking of fruit trees, don’t forget to prune out all those water sprouts and suckers growing up toward the sky from the middle of your trees – you don’t need those suckers, and the trees will thank you with more fruit.

Now is the time to reduce your asparagus harvesting (you lucky gardeners, you), as the plants will start storing energy now for next year’s production (did I mention that I’m available for a grilled asparagus dinner?), and now is also the time to pick off all the basil flowers as they appear, so you can continue to harvest those most-excellent smelling and tasting leaves.

If you are a two-season (early summer and late summer) gardener, now is the time to start the seeds for the August planting of chard, kale, cabbage, lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, and other cool (autumn) weather crops.  I’m a believer in getting the most from my hard work, so I like to plant and harvest two crops from all that very expensive (think chiropractor bills) garden soil.

GARDEN CALENDAR:

On June 9, our local gardening club will assemble in the Center Place Market parking lot (the former Riverside Family Foods - 34710 North Highway 2 – just kitty-corner across from Riverside High School) at 6:30 p.m. – we’re meeting earlier and closer to our intended tour destination, which is west of the high school.  Our walking tour will view a successful, integrated garden, complete with veggie and flower gardens, fruit orchard, and assorted cool garden art.  The public is always invited to our monthly garden tours, and you’ll be able to detect our club’s assembly area in the parking lot by all the friendly (and occasionally loud) inter-member banter.

On June 10, I will teach a class on veggie gardening, at the Newport College Center (1204 W. Fifth St., Newport) from 6-8 p.m. We’ll learn how to design, build and grow a small, but successful garden in economical, creative (think football helmets?), and efficient planters.

You can register for the class, or obtain more information by calling the center at 509-447-3835.

On June 24, I will teach a class on starting your own herb and kitchen garden, at the Newport College Center, again from 6-8 PM.  We will learn to grow delicious herbs from seeds and from plant propagation, and learn how to harvest and store those precious plant products.  And again, you can call the center at 509-447-3835 for registration.

And now, I’m off (many of my ex-friends and former family members will agree with that part of the sentence) to weed the garlic and potatoes – you know, just as soon as someone develops a viable use and market for all those “wrong place” plants (knapweed, quack grass, strangler vines, etc.), those same weeds will go extinct overnight. Sigh.

Jim writes a monthly gardening column for the garden club and the Elk Sentinel, and is a master gardener and president and founder of Elk-Camden Garden Keepers.

Time to plant?

OK, I want to plant beans. And maybe tomatoes. Is it too early?

Has anybody planted this stuff yet? Should I control myself?

Su

The Joys of Beekeeping

By Pat McGinty 

“Mommy, where do bees come from?” Well, technically, they have been credited for originating in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. However, the honeybees in my backyard came from what is called a package of bees.

 Every February new beekeepers and beekeepers who have lost colonies over the winter put in an order for new bees. This is usually done through local bee suppliers but can be done online from various catalog order vendors that supply not only bees but hives, frames, smokers, bee suits, etc., etc. Regardless of how they are ordered, the bees arrive in little screened boxes with a queen bee and a supply of food sometime in April. Mine arrived April 11, about a week before I had planned to be ready for them.  I had enough notice from my provider, Beemaniacs, that I switched into high gear (also known as panic) and started staining the new cedar boxes I had been making with my friend, Steve Peterson. Three trips to Steve’s shop and  a lot of intense prayer (please don’t let it rain; keep the sun shining) and the two hives were ready for “Package Day.”

Package Day is how beekeepers refer to pick up day. Steve and I headed over to Beemaniacs, southwest of Deer Park, along with about 100-plus other new or veteran beekeepers. To say the owners, Ari and Ana Alvarez and their two teenagers, were as busy as bees would be an understatement. There is a lot of energy in package day with new beekeepers buzzing about looking at and asking questions about all the bee accessories available (“Do you have a left-handed smoker?”). Also, there were short demonstrations being done showing the proper way to put your bees into their new home with the wind blowing hard and cold across the flatland. And when new and veteran beekeepers get together, it sounds like a flowering tree full of bees singing. It took about an hour to pick up our bees and a few accessories we didn’t have and then we were on our way to put bees into hives.

We started at Steve’s since he only had one package to “hive.” He also wanted to try something new this year, and I wanted to watch him so I knew what he had in mind.  As it turned out it was a pretty easy method once we got the can of food out of the box so we could get to the queen (hint – always carry an inch and a quarter drywall screw with you). For those of you who have never had bees, the queen comes in a small (half-by-half-by-inch-and-a-quarter) cage with a cork in the bottom. It is necessary to remove the queen cage first, remove the cork (sometimes it will come out whole and other times pieces of it will fall into the cage with the queen which can be bad), and replace it with a mini-marshmallow (you must do this very fast or you will be buying another queen.) The queen in her cage is then hung between frames from a bendable piece of metal at the top of the cage. The worker bees will help her to escape and set up the nursery. Next Steve took the screened box with the rest of the bees and rested it on one of its screened sides on top of the frames. With the can of food removed from the box there is a large hole for the bees to move through into their new home. The can of food (actually a sugar-syrup concoction) was placed atop two short (approximately 4 inch) pieces of square molding so the bees could continue to get nourishment until there would be food available from Mother Nature. This process was repeated at my two hives and three packages of bees started adjusting to their new environment. I found this method to be far nicer to the bees than the way I had been taught, which was to (after the queen was removed and placed between the frames) bang the box on the top of the hive and shake all the bees out of the box into the hive.  Do this until most of the bees were out of the box and then put the box on the ground in front of the hive. Those bees will most likely freeze to death overnight but a few might be smart enough to find the hive opening and get in where it is warm (bees keep their hive at about 95 degrees.)  If I was a bee treated this way I would be very cranky (and they usually were.)
 
Now it would be nice if that was all there was to it, but package day is just the beginning.  In one or two days the beekeeper is back in the hive checking to see if the all the workers have moved out of temporary housing into their (hopefully) permanent home (occasionally a package of bees has left the hive and swarmed; no, I don’t know why and neither does anyone else I have asked.) It is also follow-up time to be sure the queen has escaped her cage and is busy in the nursery laying eggs to build the bee population of her hive (one of my queens was trapped with about five worker bees because a small piece of the cork was stuck in the cage when the marshmallow was inserted. It was a very good thing I checked.) If that is all good, then the bees have to be fed sugar syrup (or frames of honey if a veteran beekeeper has set some aside) until the flowers start popping and pollen and nectar can be gathered to feed the workers, drones, and new baby bees. This is usually mid to late May but appears to be a little earlier this year. Another reason to keep food in the hive is wet weather.  Bees do not like to be wet and will not fly in rainy weather no matter how good the nectar and pollen. A supply of sugar syrup can make the difference between a strong hive and a weak hive until drier weather comes along.

 So now the beekeeper checks the hives once or so a week until extra food is no longer needed. Then the hive check is every two weeks or so until the nectar is really flowing and supers (boxes that beekeepers collect the honey they keep for themselves) are piling up. This usually takes place mid-June to late August or even early September.  During that time it is important to observe the bees regularly because there are ways to tell if everything is OK or some kind of intervention is needed; but more about that another time.

 Finally, the Backyard Beekeepers had their first meeting Wednesday, April 22, at Bug-n-Out in Deer Park. About 25 beekeepers from 10 years old to much more mature agreed to formally organize for the purpose of learning, sharing, and generally becoming better beekeepers. The next meeting is set for Thursday, May 21, at 6:30 pm at Bug-n-Out in Deer Park (108 E Crawford St.). There will be a short organizational meeting followed by a PowerPoint presentation on beekeeping by local veteran beekeeper Bob Arnold. Please join us. (If you have a portable chair you can bring, it would help out tremendously.) I look forward to seeing you there.  

Post-May 2015 meeting notes

Dave Benscoter traces the route of the apple from the old world to the new at the May meeting.

Guest speaker Dave Benscoter would like to hear from anyone in the area with old apple trees, or an old orchard full of apple trees. Questions can be directed to Dave at 509-238-5150 or by e-mail to dbens23@gmail.com. Be sure to check out the Spokesman-Review newspaper article (available online and dated 15Apr15) on Dave's efforts to find and re-establish "extinct" apples. Thanks to Apple Detective Dave for his enlightening and fun, wide-ranging discussion on apples, their journey from Kazakhstan via England to Elk and Deer Park, and those 1900-era Whitman County Fair lists showing hundreds of apple varieties we have never even heard of a century later – amazing. 

Above, Dave shares his "most-wanted list" with the group. Below, he fields questions after the meeting.

Thus far, we're looking at a good apple harvest here at Rancho McGinty, though SOME would say that just having lots of apple blossoms is not the same as having lots of apples.

Dues-paying garden club members may use their club membership cards for discounts at the following local stores, for gardening-related supplies only: Bi-Mart/Deer Park (store manager Steve), Albeni Falls Building Supply/Old Town (gardening department manager Brook), and Garden Springs Garden Center/Deer Park (owner Chris). Be sure to flash your card, and tell them "Thanks!" Club annual dues are $5 for one person, $10 for a family.  

WSU Kalispel Tribal Extension agent Carol Mack provided a website devoted to the problem of herbicide-contaminated garden compost and garden soil: http://whatcom.wsu.edu/ag/aminopyralid/. 

Remember, it's not paranoia if you suspect your hard-won garden plants are dying from soil/compost contamination, because the problem is very, very real and widespread. Best practice is to suspect all purchased/bartered/recycled compost or "top soil," and try the bioassay test mentioned by Carol. Bioassay test: plant a couple of sacrificial pea or bean seeds in a cup of the suspected compost/soil, and water appropriately. If the resulting sprouts and leaves are yellow and spindly, or deformed, you have a problem.

Pat the wife would like you to know that Northwest Seed and Pet is closing out the "Germination Station" seed starting kit I displayed during the April meeting. End of Season price is $19.88 each, and each station includes a dome-covered base tray and insert, and a heating mat for same. The heating mat if bought separately, costs about twice the price of the whole unit, and is a real bargain; heating mats can improve your seeding success by 50-100 percent, so you might want to check it out.

That's it for now - see you out in the garden.

jim

Thank you, thank you, thank you

Marvelous, thorough coordination and management from tireless Pat McGinty!!!!

Without Pat's coordination and management the Expo booth would not have been the unqualified success I believe it was. She encouraged donations and workers. She showed by example. I and all members are in awe of her.

Barbara

P.S. Yesterday discovered a great garden web site. Full of excellent video instructions for organic gardening. growingyourgreens.com  

Check it out. I viewed a video on finding and removing suckers from tomato and cucumber plants. Learned I was probably doing something wrong by removing too much too soon.

Heirloom apples at the May 12 meeting

We will assemble at Camden Grange at 7 p.m. on the 12th of May for our monthly meeting.  Our guest speaker is Dave Benscoter, who specializes in finding and re-establishing heirloom apple species – you may have seen the big article in the Spokesman-Review newspaper on 30Apr15 on his recent find of the "Nero" apple tree at an old (1888) homestead near Steptoe Butte.  Dave is a good source of apple knowledge/trivia, and knows a lot about the "old days" of apples. Be sure to bring apple-related questions, and maybe an apple pie or two.

We will also talk about Saturday's Garden Expo experiences and lessons, and share some group hugs over this year's garden weather challenges.

Everyone is encouraged to bring their favorite treat/snack, and the club will provide beverages.

I would like to personally thank the Expo helpers, who made the day fun and successful. 

Jim

Thank you

Well the 2015 Garden Expo is over and the following people are recovering anywhere from two days to two months of preparation and involvement:

Jane Bolz (organized the change fund, provided plants and did a 3.5 hour shift)

Virginia Carter (provided plants, helped set-up and take down, and did a 3.5 hour shift after arriving early)

Su Chism (provided beautiful hand-crafted jewelry, helped set-up and take down, and did a 3.5 hour shift)

Carolyn Hargrave (provided shelving, a canopy, and did a 3.5 hour shift)

Diane Lukas and family (gold stars to this family).  Diane picked up from various locations, and delivered to SCC the shelving, canopies, tables, chairs, club plant sale signs, and provided plants.  She and her family helped with set-up [Frank, Lulu, Franklin, and Chris were a fantastic team] and Diane returned with Lulu to help take down and return Carolyn Hargrave's canopy and shelving.)

  

Barbara Midtbo (attending the Expo was Barbara's idea).  She provided much expertise, the majority of plants, and spent the entire day selling and rearranging the merchandise, as well helping with set-up and take down.

Brigitte Opfermann (a new member of the club, Brigitte explored the Expo and innocently directed customers to the ECGK booth during her 3.5 hour shift.)

Steve Peterson (with the help of Diane and Lulu). Steve dug up and donated red and golden raspberry plants that sold out quickly.

MaryLee Rozelle (MaryLee had a booth at the Expo so her donation of the garden markers to be sold at the ECGK booth was truly appreciated)

Jim and Pat McGinty (paperwork, plants, canopy, chairs, set-up and take down as well as expertise from years of selling at Farmer's Markets)

Without these eleven people the booth at the Garden Expo would not have happened. Application and fees, set-up (from 4:30 to 8:30 p.m. on Friday), plant, crafts, jewelry, and time donations, incredible people and sales skills, and take-down (when everyone was already exhausted) was all accomplished because these few people thought the project was important. So when you see them either at the meeting or when you are out shopping, be sure to give them a big thank you and a high five for a job well done. The financial outcome will be announced at our May meeting (Tuesday the 12th). Looking forward to seeing you there.

Countdown to Expo

Pat, the club's organizer for our booth at the Garden Expo on Saturday, is pulling everything together for the event. She's got lists of haulers and booth-sitters and tasks and schedules and things-that-must-not-be-forgotten.

It's huge job. Next year (if I may be so confident) will be easier – we'll know what worked and didn't work this time, and how long it takes to set up, and what sells well and what doesn't. And Pat will have forgotten all the hard work and worry, and sign up to manage the show again. Right?

I think there are two kinds of gardeners. There is the organized kind who start their tomato seeds at noon on March 9, who chart the crops in their garden beds every year and keep meticulous records of variety/date transplanted/yield. And then there are the ones that putter in the garden, start peppers when they take a notion, mulch when they get around to it, eat all the cherry tomatoes right off the plant (what variety was that? mmmmm) without counting or weighing them first… Well, there's a third kind too, who want to be the first kind but tend toward being the second kind, and go out to plant x and weed y and then fall into a timeless rapture in the sun and dirt… x and y remain unplanted and unweeded but now there's a wee allée and pond for Hubert, the garden toad, which is awesome, except it's getting too late to start the dang peppers… Type 3s would be happier if they could just let go. But then they'd never get any peppers.

Well, Pat has to bring together all three kinds of gardeners for this event and that must be like herding cats. We're a very loose coalition of people who happen to garden. Good luck, Pat!

Club members, if you aren't staffing the booth or bringing plants, please show your support and bring your gardening family members and friends down to buy some really nice (many heirloom) varieties, chosen to do well in our short growing season.

After all, it's way too late to start your own peppers.

Su

Tim's new weeding technique

It's Jacob sheep. Looks like it's working pretty well. Wise, experienced mom is doing the raised bed, while little Fee-fie, a weeder-in-training, works on the path.