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.
On the 18th 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 27th 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 27th, 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?
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 9th 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 18th 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 27th 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 27th, 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?
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