Weeding between the lines

By Jim McGinty

It is most assuredly green outside, but is it safe to plant tomatoes, peppers, and other frost sensitive food items in the open garden?

Here at Rancho McGinty, we’re waiting until the 15^th of June to expose our lovelies to the uncertainty of the dreaded “Last Frost.”

Many local gardeners remember the killer frosts from early June last year – I remember hearing much wailing and gnashing of teeth. In our area of the world, successful gardeners have learned to adapt to our challenging weather through the use of a few important techniques: waiting to transplant the green babies until the last moment (assuming those same successful gardeners are favoring varieties that produce food in less than 70 days or so), covering the plants with a floating row cover/frost blanket when those clear night skies and moon frost rings warn of imminent danger, or even using heat retention devices, such as surrounding the individual plants with a “Walls O’ Water,” which is a clear or translucent green cylinder of hollow tubes filled with daytime warm water. What did your great-great-grandmother do when faced with a late frost in the garden?

Out in your garden, you should be seeing some potato plants poking up out of the soil – you’ll want to hill dirt up around the plants to encourage more, and bigger spuds at harvest time. This is also a good time to starting placing mulch around all the growing plants: we use lawn clippings (no herbicide use on the lawn, thank you), straw litter (complete with goat and sheep berries to provide some minimal nutrition) from the barnyard, and last year’s tree leaves and pine needles. 

Those of you lucky asparagus growers will want to watch for diminishing harvests and smaller asparagus spears – it’s almost time to stop harvesting, so as to leave some over-wintering capacity for next spring.

As the summer continues to heat up the garden, be sure to watch for over-mature plants that “bolt,” or put up a seed stalk, as the plant’s taste will quickly degrade – your livestock, or compost bin will appreciate the donation.

Basil leaf aficionados will want to pinch out all the little white flowers, thus keeping the plant both bushy and productive – I would grow basil just to sniff the leaves!

Out in the orchard, any time is the right time to prune out those pesky water sprouts or suckers – the ones that grow straight up through the tree canopy, producing minimal leaves and no fruit.

Also, now is the time to watch for over-crowding on apple, pear, plum, and peach trees branches – when the fruit is nickel to quarter diameter, thin the fruit to about six inches apart – you’ll harvest fewer, but bigger and better fruit.

Reports of aphid infestations in the orchard continue to come in via the Rancho McGinty “Don’t Bug Me” hotline:  green aphids, red or black ants, curling or deformed leaves all mean you have too many (more than zero) bugs. Try spraying the entire tree with a mixture of liquid dish soap (one tablespoon) and warm water (one gallon) – you could also add a teaspoon of your favorite cooking oil as a “sticker” to keep the mixture from dropping onto the ground – I usually “drench” the tree every three days for three sprayings to kill the evil vitality-suckers and their eggs.

Finally, don’t forget to continue adding green and brown materials to your compost bins – lots of straw, manure, and grass clippings out there, and remember to add water when you turn the contents.

Speaking of water, please remember to drain all open containers, which will help with our summertime mosquito issue.

GARDEN CALENDAR

On the 13^th of June, our neighborhood garden club will tour a local home-built greenhouse, complete with a large food garden, extensively landscaped area, and orchard – we’ll even check out the owner’s cider press operation. We’ll depart from Camden Grange at 7 p.m., for a short drive into downtown Elk, and as usual, the public is always welcome – for more details on the tour, and to keep current on our doings, check back here at the blog!

That’s it for now – I mowed the garden grassy paths and the large west lawn three days ago, and now that grass is almost knee high again – more materials for mulching and for composting – YAY!