Weeding between the lines

By Jim McGinty

Well, we went from +60 degree Fahrenheit days to +90 degree days in just under two weeks, so apparently this “new normal” weather we are experiencing will make gardening more “challenging,” and maybe even “really difficult. ”We gardeners will have to be both flexible and watchful if we want to harvest actual food:  +60 degree days were great for the cool weather crops (broccoli, cabbage, lettuce), but now at +90 degrees, the plants look a little wilty (if that’s a word), while the warm weather crops (sweet potatoes, tomatoes, peppers) are looking pretty smug!  I may have to place some shade cloth over the early spring plants, if I don’t want them to “bolt” and go to seed, or turn bitter to our taste buds.  It’s still early days for our summer gardening season, so we’ll see how it plays out.

Here at Rancho McGinty, the garlic stalks are waist high, the various “Irish” potato plants are greening-up, the aforementioned cabbage and broccoli look really good, and the squash plants look persistently poisonous.  

Speaking of “Irish” potatoes, I’m trying a new-to-me method to control our potato scab problem:  according to my over-winter research, spuds grown in a sand and wood chips/shavings/sawdust soil mixture are less likely to have the bacteria, and resultant disfiguring lesions.  I will have to fertilize the potato crop using manure tea applied through my fertilizer-irrigator (“fertigator” – cute name, huh?) and drip irrigation lines, and I’ll keep you posted on the results.

I have covered most of the crops with white floating row cover (“Ree-May” or “Agribon” brand names are available from Northwest Seed and Pet in Spokane) to keep out the evil beetles, aphids, and egg-laying moths, provided of course, that the crop does not need to be pollinated:  cabbage without cabbage looper worms, broccoli without aphids, potatoes without Colorado potato beetles!  Even if the crop does need pollination (squash, cucumbers, tomatoes), I just open both ends of the row cover tunnel for an hour or two in the morning, and the bees find a way – makes me kind of a bee pollen pimp, LOL?

Regular, adequate watering of the garden plants is important now, so poke your finger tip (your “Manual Digital Water Detection Device, Mark 1”) into the dirt to see if the plants need more water – it’s possible to both underwater or overwater your green babies, so a dirty, damp finger (up to the first knuckle) is good news.

In the orchard, now is a great time to thin the juvenile baby apples, pears, plums, etc.  Keeping the fruit six inches apart or so, will help reduce bruising, and if this Summer is as dry as last Summer, manual thinning will help prevent the trees from the dreaded “self-thinning”, in which they drop most of the unripe crop onto the ground – GASP, OH MY!

GARDEN CALENDAR: 

On July 12^th, our local gardening club will be again touring a neighboring garden, the location of which is still secret!  We will depart Camden Grange and Community Center (7 Camden Road, Elk) at 7 P.M. for a fun and informative evening.  You will want to bring along something to take notes or photos – lots to learn there!

That’s it for now – remember to drink lots of water, ingest salt tablets as necessary, and hide from the heat and direct sun, as much as you can.  We don’t want to read about you.