By Jim McGinty
The end of the 2020 gardening season is upon us, and it seems as though it started only a few months ago! Oh wait, it did – we saw a late start due to lots of rain and cool temperatures, then 90 degree Fahrenheit days with no rain for two months, and finally some early (even for our weather-challenged region) frosts. Good thing we gardeners are an adaptable group, though I’m still whining about the total loss of my carefully-nurtured corn patch – sigh.
On the upside, this was an excellent year for all those cool weather crops: Brussels sprouts, cabbage, kale, potatoes, turnips, beets, and much more really thrived in the early part of the season. Lesson learned: plant cool weather crops earlier, even if the weather seems kinda late-frosty.
Another lesson learned: we gardeners cannot just supplement water our gardens on the off chance that we will have rain drops actually fall on our precious plants. Scheduled watering is the answer, and it would literally pay us if we changed our water delivery equipment to more water-conserving systems: change out the Rainbird ® overhead sprayers to drip irrigation or weep hoses, or even irrigation canals (!) would be better than spraying expensive water mists into the hot Summer air.
The big lesson for my long-time gardening partner Pat and I is that we must schedule (like something written on a calendar J!) time to place frost blankets or floating row cover or even light weight flannel sheets over our frost-sensitive plants (tomatoes, peppers, basil, squash (hmmm?), and beans) on the first day of September. And then leave the covers on until harvest – those sneaky early September frosts were both frustrating and disappointing for us.
Out in the garden, now is the perfect time to plant garlic cloves – pointy side up, four inches deep, six inches between, and in rows at least twelve inches apart. Garlic likes well-manured soil, and well-drained dirt, and a thick (six inches or so) mulch – I use maple leaves to help reduce Winter frost heaves, and help moderate temperature extremes.
Those big clumps of rhubarb would like you to chop out some pie-shaped sections, and then either replant them or place them in large pots suitable for gifts to the gardening neighbors. I like to use a sharp spade to remove a section, and then I fill in the open gap with aged manure.
If you have not yet cut out the raspberry canes that bore fruit this year, now is a great time to do so: cut out the older canes that are now brown, leaving next year’s fruiting canes that are now purple or green. I prefer to burn all the cane cuttings, thus incinerating any evil cane borers that may be lurking – revenge is mine!
Once the garden space is clear of spent plants (into the compost bins with them, UNLESS they are bug infested or diseased – those are burned as well), and debris, it’s time to spread a thick layer of manure, lawn clippings, some of the aforementioned compost, and maybe even tree leaves or pine needles (no, pine needles are NOT acidic), and then turn it all under, using a roto-tiller, plow, or your favorite garden tool.
Speaking of garden tools, now is a great time to take a look at all those implements, and see if they are in need of repair, replacement, or sharpening – the restful (?) Winter months are ahead of us, and we might profit from some time spent fixing, oiling, or sharpening our very expensive garden paraphernalia.
And speaking of expensive garden stuff, this is the very best time to research, compare and contrast, and purchase our veggie seeds: a whole lot of us “experienced” gardeners were caught off guard this Spring when we could not find our favorite veggie seed packets in the stores or online. Seems all the first time gardeners with more time on their hands had cleaned off the shelves – another lesson learned: buy our seeds early, or maybe not at all!
GARDEN CALENDAR
Our local gardening club will not be holding our annual Harvest Dinner this month – a gathering of our piracy-leaning club members could not possibly meet the stringent group meeting requirements (masks, unsocial distancing, bleach spray??!!). We’ll meet next year to share our 2020 experiences, and our 2021 gardening hopes.
You can follow our club adventures on our blog, admirably administered by Su here, or by scoping out our Facebook group page, masterfully managed by Geoff.
You can also check out the website for our local, proficient plant propagators, the Master Gardeners of Pend Oreille County, at http://extension.wsu/edu/pendoreille/gardening. These gardening experts will be offering many on-line classes, and even good (gasp!) advice to the lovelorn, frost-challenged, weed-infested home gardeners such as myself.
See you next year, Jim.
