Weeding between the lines

By Jim McGinty


It’s warm out there in the garden, but the heat (one hundred degrees Fahrenheit or more) has yet to hit: the corn, ornamental squash, pumpkins, peppers, and tomatoes are all looking a little pathetic – for these tropical crops, it is NOT a jungle out there.

However, the cool weather crops, planted in late Spring, are almost completely harvested, and in some cases, eaten: turnips, cabbage, beets, kale, and broccoli have all been replaced with newly planted versions of themselves. Sustainable gardeners will remember to rotate plant locations, to avoid loading the same dirt with evil wire worms, root maggots, and various soil diseases. By September, the menu should again include fresh coleslaw, turnip frittatas, and steamed broccoli – “good stuff”, said the older version of the little boy who refused to eat anything that didn’t look and taste like sugar-coated, unnaturally-colored breakfast cereal.

Here at Rancho McGinty, the early potatoes, and the garlic are almost ready to harvest, while the onions and leeks are still weeks away from human predation.

My gardening partner, and full-time wife, Pat and I did learn a valuable lesson this last Spring, when the veggie seed racks in many stores were stripped clean by well-meaning first time gardeners. We implemented a basic seed saving program for our favorite crops: simple enough, we just tied paint can filter bags over the seed pods of our maturing second year onions, kale, and rutabagas. We also plan to save and overwinter bulbs from our turnips and beets, and we want to save and dehydrate some kernals from this year’s dent corn – the variety is “Roy’s Calais”, and the crop looks pretty good.

Out in the garden, you will want to keep those compost piles and bins wet, and it’s probably time to add some more fresh lawn clippings – the nitrogen in the grass blades will kick start a whole new batch of “brown gold” soil amendments.

Those potatoes will want to be hilled with more dirt, straw, or mulch to protect the escaping potatoes from turning green in the direct sunlight.

Speaking of protecting things from direct sunlight, you will want to guard your (hopefully NOT green!) skin out there: clothing that protects your tender epidermis from ultraviolet rays is inexpensive, and hiding in the shade during the hottest part of the day (the “sizzle” time) is a sure sign of intelligence – at least that’s what I tell my “can’t be a dedicated gardener without a deep tan” detractors.

If you are growing melons this year, this is a good time to place a hard, water-resistant object beneath the globe of goodness to prevent decay: a short piece of untreated lumber, a glazed tile, or a dog-chewed “Frisbee” will do the job.

If your bramble bushes or vines (raspberries, blackberries, etc.) have finished bearing, now is a great time to prune out those spent brown canes, leaving next year’s fruit bearing canes (the green, or blue canes) untouched.

Please remember that those devoted diagnosers of diseased foliage, the Master Gardeners of Pend Oreille County, have both an on-line and a phone answer clinic to provide sustainable garden and landscape advice: you can e-mail questions and photos to pomastergardeners@outlook.com, or call the illuminated ones at 509-447-2401.

Our local garden club is still following health department guidelines, which means no nose-to-nose meetings. We DO, however, plan a “virtual garden tour” this month of the growing fields of the “Backyard Market” – a home-grown, commercial fruit and veggie operation located just north of “Miller’s One-Stop” on Highway 2. To view July’s excellent virtual tour, and to watch August’s episode, you can visit our club’s blog site at elk-camdengardenkeepers.blogspot.com, or you can check out our Facebook page for more gardening advice: it may not be accurate, but it’s free.