Weeding between the lines

By Jim McGinty

Spring is in the air:  warm, gentle breezes, an occasional rain drop, and  bright sunshine – weeds, greening lawns, robins, daffodils – it’s all good, especially after our recent mini-ice age.

Here at Rancho McGinty, the garlic stalks are 9 inches tall and bright green, the asparagus shoots are poking through their mulch covering, and the fruit tree buds are popping open with the promise of apples, pears, and cherries in the not-too-distant future.

Now that the garden areas and raised beds have received their spring addition of aged chicken poo and barnyard waste (an aromatic mixture of hay, straw, and manure and urine from our goat and sheep pets), seeding the garden with cool weather crops has officially begun.

So far we have dropped in seeds for radishes, carrots, beets, turnips, rutabagas, and giant sugar beets (“Mangelwurzels”, for our livestock).

Mid-May, we’ll plant seeds for the peas and beans, and probably (?) transplant at least SOME of the remaining cool weather crops:  kale, chard, cabbage, and broccoli – we’ll see how the outdoor temperatures ramp up, and we always plant in waves of transplants (“succession” planting), so that if we have a snap frost, we have immediate replacements ready to leap into the garden.

Planting potatoes and onions will be on the calendar somewhere around mid-May as well.  We plan on using a new-to-us potato planting method:  dig a shallow trench into the garden soil, set the seed potatoes (whole chicken-egg-sized seed potatoes or cut potatoe chunks with at least one “eye” showing) into the trench about 12 inches apart, such that the eye is above soil level, and backfill with dirt.  Cover the potato patch with 10 inches or so of straw (not seed-filled hay), add an inch or so of water once per week (keeping the mulch and potatoes moist is important), and stand back!  

We’ll keep you posted on how this turns out – hopefully better than my experiment last summer with the “Alaska Sweet Corn” ploy – sigh.

GARDEN CALENDAR

On Thursday, May 9, those greenery gratifiers, the Pend Oreille County Master Gardeners, will offer a class on growing berries and small fruit in the home garden.  Blackberry milkshakes, breakfast cereal with blueberries, strawberries and cream are all possible in our area of the gardening world – learn from the experts, and I’ll be there as well.  Class runs from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at the Extension Office (227 S. Garden Ave., Newport), and you can call for a seat reservation at 509-447-2401.

On Saturday, May 11, those same plant promulgators, the Pend Oreille County Master Gardeners, will offer a class on drip irrigation from 10 a.m. to noon, at the same Extension Office.  Drip irrigation will save you money and time, providing you learn how to correctly set up your own personalized system, so be sure to call the office again at 509-447-2401 for your reserved seat.

Also on Saturday, May 11, the annual Garden Expo will be held on the campus of Spokane Community College (1810 N. Greene St., Spokane) from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.  Admission and parking are both free, with lots of garden-related stuff to do, experience, and buy:  demonstrations, seminars, 250+ vendors, food trucks, garden art, door prizes, and a lot more.  Be sure to bring a wagon or cart to haul your loot, and some cash – and remember to wear sensible shoes.

On Tuesday, May 14, our local garden club will meet in Camden Grange at 7 p.m. for an evening of fun and mental illumination.  We’ll have a class on backyard composting, start rumors about you if you are not in attendance, eat great snacks, and generally misbehave (but in a good way!).  You can always obtain more information on our club’s doings by checking our Facebook group (Elk-Camden garden keepers), or check our blog, here.

That’s it for this month – time to go out into the garden, and I don’t even have to wear snowshoes!

April meeting rocks Camden

Our garden club's April meeting was a huge success: 32 members attended, including three new members, for an evening of fun and information.  Pend Oreille County Master Gardener Marge Helgeson held forth on the subject of container gardens, complete with a container potted on the spot, lots of brochures and information sheets, and Marge's unique sense of humor (which completely matches our club's sense of humor!).  We also watched a hands-on fruit tree pruning demonstration, and gossiped about everyone not present that evening, and we ate most-excellent snacks provided by thoughtful club members.

Be sure to mark your social engagement calendar for our next meeting on Tuesday, May 14, at 7 p.m. in Camden Grange.

See you there!

jim

Tomato plants at Tuesday's meeting

Hello again garden keepers,

 It has just come to my attention that former club president Barbara Midtbo will be bringing a variety of tomato starts to our meeting on Tuesday.  They are priced at $3 each or $2.50 each if you buy four or more.  She has reds, yellows, and oranges as well as small, medium, and large fruit.   As always, Barbara is donating the proceeds to the Garden Club so bring cash or check and get those healthy tomato starts for this years "best ever" garden.

See you Tuesday at the Camden Grange.  Doors open at 6:30 pm.  Donations of snacks are always welcome.  Coffee, tea, and cocoa provided by the club.

Jim

Garden club meeting warning notice!

We will be meeting at Camden grange this coming Tuesday, the 9th of April, at 7 p.m.  Marge Helgeson will talking to us on container gardening, and we will have a short (but informative!) class on fruit tree pruning.  Members are asked to bring their favorite snacks to share, and the club will provide the usual seasonally-appropriate (meaning hot!) beverages.  I don't expect a lot of snow and ice to block access to the grange, this month, but we never know!

See you there, 

Jim

Weeding between the lines

By Jim McGinty

Spring is officially upon us, and all around us:  the garden here at Rancho McGinty is mostly snow-free, and even the mud is firming up into actual garden soil.

Time to amend the garden dirt if you are going to do that, before planting.  I like to add a layer of tree leaves, or pine/fir needles (NO! Pine and fir needles do NOT acidify the soil), some livestock poo (horse, cow, goat, rabbit, chicken, etc.), and maybe some barnyard waste (straw, NOT alfalfa as it contains the seeds of your garden’s destruction).

I rototill the goodies under once, and then again a week before planting to loosen the soil (the old “Troy-bilt” tiller is excellent at fluffing up the dirt). 

My gardening partner, and full-time wife and supervisor (believe me, I need constant supervision!) Pat and I have already laid out the 2019 “Best Ever” garden on paper, and have started the seeds indoors under grow lights for early, cool weather plants:  cabbage, broccoli, spinach, chard, and kale.  We also started the seeds for those warm weather plants who need extra time and babying:  tomatoes and peppers.It’s also time (oh, my pre-ache back!) to start wheeling loads of chicken poo (great fertilizer – just don’t place it in direct contact with your tender, young transplants, as the poo is pretty acidic when raw) into the raised beds.   

As the local garden club members learned during the March meeting (our raised bed class from Master Gardener Jim Conrad – remember?), those raised beds tend to warm up and dry out earlier than the open garden soil, so we can transplant into them earlier, provided we place some kind of frost cover over those precious seedlings – flannel sheets, commercial row cover (Ree-May®, or Agribon®, available at “Northwest Seed and Pet” in Spokane), light blankets, etc.  I like to stretch the frost cover over short hoops (made from wire coat hangers, PVC pipe, old back scratchers, etc.), to keep the fabric just over, but not touching, the tops of the baby plants.

Out in the fruit tree orchard, now is the time to finish your early spring pruning (out with all those diseased, damaged, or inward-pointing branches, and be sure to remove most of the water sprouts/suckers, unless some of them can be trained to fill in an open spot in the tree’s canopy).  Once you have pruned those trees, there’s still time to spray dormant oil (also called supreme oil) to kill the scale insects burrowing in your tree’s bark – just be sure to NOT spray after the leaf and fruit buds crack open (you’ll see cracks in the bud, showing the colorful interior), because you don’t want to smother your leaves and fruit – right?!If you have woodstove ashes from the previous ice age (I mean the winter of 2018-2019), your fruit trees will appreciate you lightly sprinkling some ashes at the canopy’s drip line – where the drips would fall onto the ground beneath the tree, at the outer edge of the branches.

If you are growing rhubarb plants, now is a great time to throw a shovel or two of manure into the center of the plants, as these guys are hungry – just look at the size of the dark green leaves later in the spring – and a dose of manure is good for your aspiring asparagus plants as well.

Compost bins, piles, and containers will appreciate some water and fresh nitrogen in the form of grass clippings or fresh livestock poo, in order to reactivate all those hibernating bacteria, worms, and insects so you will have usable brown gold to plunk into each transplant hole at planting time – once you have watered, and added some nitrogen, you will want to turn the compost to aerate the interior.

In the berry garden, now is the perfect time to prune out last year’s brown bearing canes (the ones that produced fruit in 2018) – be sure to leave this year’s bearing canes (they are probably green or purple) if you want fruit in 2019.  Be sure to destroy or remove the pruned canes, as they may contain the evil cane borers that will decimate your plants, and berry plants love the taste of woodstove ashes as well, so be nice if you want sweeter berries this summer.

GARDEN CALENDAR

On the 9^th of April, our local garden club will meet in Camden Grange at 7 p.m. for an evening of jollity, prevarifications, and instruction.  We will have two short (but informative!) classes:  one on container gardening from Master Gardener Marge Helgeson, and, due to an overwhelming number of requests, a class on fruit tree pruning.We will also talk about you if you are not present, and we’ll likely eat delicious snacks and drink too much (non-alcoholic beverages, of course).  You can obtain further information on our club and our meetings by accessing our club blog, here, or by checking our Elk-Camden Garden Keepers group page on Facebook (thanks to over-achieving club members Su and Laurie).

On the 18^th of April, at 6:30 p.m., our sister club, the Backyard Beekeepers, will meet in Deer Park in the lower level of City Hall (316 E.Crawford, Deer Park) for an information and fun-filled evening – bee sure to bee there!

On the 27^th of April, those mischievous madcaps, the Pend Oreille County Master Gardeners will hold their annual plant sale at Stratton Elementary School, located at 1201 Fifth St. in nearby Newport, from 9 a.m. to noon.  Lots of high-quality plants, with lots of selections, at great prices, and you can talk with, and question, people who actually know what they are talking about – so stock up!  Please remember that we do occasionally suffer from early spring frosts, so buy (or raise) extra plants, on the off-chance that you lose your first planting to the evils of below-freezing temperatures.

Also on the 27^th, just after the conclusion of the Master Gardener Plant Sale, the contributing writers for the “Elk Sentinel” newspaper will gather in Inland Grange (37411 N. Conklin Road, Elk) for a “meet and greet” afternoon with the public and subscribers from 1-3 p.m.  There will be desserts offered, and your favorite monthly writers will be there to answer questions and offer (probably good) advice on their topics of concern.  Embarrassing selfies and illegible autographs are distinct possibilities, while apologies for previous bad advice in the columns and articles will be limited.  I hope to see you there.

That’s it for this month – time to oil the wheel bearings on the wheelbarrow, and time to sharpen the shovel, in anticipation (?) of moving chicken poo (I’m guessing 30 loads) out to the garden raised beds – yay?