Weeding between the lines

By Jim McGinty

Once our ice pockets melt, and our dirt dries, we MAY be able to get out into our gardens and access what last winter did to us.  Here at Rancho McGinty, our garden dirt is still kinda treacherous underfoot, but there are some semi-solid spots, which offer hope for the coming gardening season.

Now is a great time to finally decide on what to grow, and how much of it – I hope you will order or buy your seeds and plant starts soon – the commercial seed companies are already reporting some shortages, and the prices on commercially-produced fertilizer have recently spiked upwards (can prices “spike” downwards?).

When you plan your 2022 garden, please remember to grow a couple of extra pumpkin plants for October’s Elk Park Fall Festival – the park committee hopes to have enough pumpkin donations to send home a Halloween inedible squash with each attending child.

If the soil in your raised beds has sufficiently warmed, and if you can protect the contents of the beds with floating row cover (”Ree-may” or “Agri-bon” are the two brands we use – Northwest Seed and Pet in Spokane usually carries one or the other), you can semi-safely plant some starts and/or seeds of the cool weather crops:  cabbage, kale, lettuce, spinach, beets, turnips, carrots, etc.  No guarantees here, but the baby plants may be okay with a few “minor” overnight frosts – and the “heavy” grade of floating row cover will allegedly save the plants down to 26 degrees Fahrenheit.

If you can safely walk into the orchard, now is a great time to prune your fruit trees – once the buds swell, you will want to wait a month or so for additional trimming and training.

If you have not applied dormant spray or horticultural oil to your fruit trees, now is the time, before the leaf buds open:  the spray will control/suffocate an assortment of evil-doers like aphids, mealy bugs, scale insects, whiteflies, etc.

If you have woodstove ashes saved for the purpose, now is a great time to spread a line of them around the trees at the “drip line”(the outer circumference of the branches or canopy).  Fruit trees LOVE wood ashes (it’s the potassium!), and will appropriately reward you with more and better fruit.

Out in the berry patch, now is a super time to prune out last year’s brown or yellow canes (the ones that produced last year’s fruit) – just be sure to leave the green or purple canes, as they will produce this year’s luscious harvest (and yes, berry plants LOVE woodstove ashes as well).

And this is NOT the time to fertilize the strawberry plants:  wait until blossoms appear, and even then, apply the fertilizer with a light hand.

GARDENING CALENDAR:

On 09 April, I will be teaching another beginning gardening class at Camden Grange and Community Center (located at 7 Camden Road, Elk, 99009), from 1-3 P.M.  We’ll talk about what you need to establish and maintain a great veggie garden.  Lots of tips and ideas, and a killer handout – all for $5 per person.  You can register for this class at the Grange’s website:  camdengrange.org

On 12 April, our local gardening club will meet in the aforementioned Camden Grange and Community Center at 7 P.M.  Lots of gardeners socializing and/or exaggerating their 2021 garden successes, some free stuff available from our club’s “freebie” table (seed packets, plant starts, magazines and seed catalogs, etc.), and club member and gardening virtuoso Carol Wood will offer a class on how to prepare our garden soil for a great 2022 veggie harvest.  I almost forgot to mention our traditional meeting snacks and drinks – see you there!

You can check out our club’s doings by looking here or at our Facebook page.

On 23 April, I will be teaching a class on garden composting, from 1-3 P.M., in the already mentioned Camden Grange and Community Center (what a popular place it must be, with all of you showing up for various events and classes!).

We will discuss the why, when, and how of easy composting for your home garden – remember that compost is a soil amendment, NOT a fertilizer, and that it is VERY important to use in your garden soil.  Did I mention that homemade compost is cheap and easy to make?

You can register for this $5 per person class at the Grange’s website: camdengrange.org

That’s it for this month – plan now, plant soon, and plead for a plethora of produce.