I keep hearing the “rumor” that it really is Spring, and not the tail-end of Winter, but it’s snowing outside right now, with intermittent rain and hail. NOT especially conducive to outdoor gardening (or farm chores, for that matter, LOL), but perfect weather to plan the 2024 garden, and order necessary seeds and equipment.
Wife Pat and I tried the “EarthBox” ® garden on the front deck last Summer, and found that most veggies (especially salad veggies, like tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, etc.) LOVE to grow in a container garden. Root crops (potatoes, onions, carrots, etc.) on the other hand, just know that they are being forced to live in a small box, and hate it!
Yes, we did harvest some small onions and spuds, skinny carrots, golf ball-sized beets, but overall I recommend planting the underground veggies in real dirt in the open garden, weeds and all.
Our garlic spears are up six inches out of the straw mulch, and are already dark green, while the out-of-control strawberry plants have started to leaf out – time to add some aged chicken manure and compost, or for those who use such, some balanced 10-10-10 fertilizer.
Many knowledgeable folks add Epsom Salt to their strawberry bed, starting now, and monthly until end-of-season: Epsom Salt (really magnesium sulfate) sweetens the soil, and that makes for sweeter fruit. Two tablespoons into warm water to dissolve, and spray or water-can the plants – just don’t apply the solution on a sunny, hot day, as it will burn the leaves.
Our still-cooler weather makes for great outdoor, open garden cool-weather seed starting for spinach, radishes, beets, carrots, dill, kohlrabi, turnips, etc. If you can find plant starts, the following should appreciate the cool weather, and get you off to an early beginning: Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kale. I use the face-saving word “should” appreciate the cool weather, because we never know – I would place floating row cover (“Ree-May ®, or “Agribon” ®) over the transplants just in case of a late severe frost or meteor strike.
In the orchard, now is the time to apply dormant oil spray to smother all those evil insects hiding under the bark: aphids, mealy bugs, thrips, scale, and white flies. Be sure to follow the manufacturer’s directions, and DO NOT apply oil spray after the tree’s fuzzy leaf buds start to appear.
GARDEN CALENDAR:
Our local garden club will meet on 09 April, at 7 P.M., in Camden Grange and Community Center (located at 7 Camden Road, Elk, WA), for an evening of informative fun. We’ll have a class on how to grow food in our neighborhood, despite our challenging weather conditions, and we’ll have time to socialize, dine on club member-provided snacks, and maybe take home some gardening stuff (plant starts, seed packets, knee and back liniment) from the freebie table.
Our meetings are always open to the public, and you check out our club’s doings at our blogsite: www.elk-camdengardenkeepers.blogspot.com, or look at our Facebook page of the same name.
That’s it for now – see you out in the garden.
That latter reason (“higher prices”) is reason enough to grow at least some of your own food, though our recent growing conditions have been more than the normal challenge.
As gardeners, we do have some things we can do to adapt to heat and scarce rainwater. Heat mitigation suggestions: buy and plant veggies that can handle (or love!) the heat (tomatoes, peppers, squash, corn, etc.), avoid veggies that cannot handle the heat (cabbage, kale, peas, broccoli, etc.), use shade cloth to lower the felt temperatures on the plants, interplant taller/denser plantings with smaller/shorter plants that appreciate the shade and moisture (ex., lettuce under trellised squash plants).
To help with all that missing cloud moisture, some watering suggestions: wisely water in the early morning using battery-powered timers, avoid watering overhead (ala “Rainbird”-type sprinklers), use drip irrigation to apply water only to the base of the plants, infrequently water, only water when necessary.
Here at Rancho McGinty, we use a LOT of drip irrigation in our few remaining raised beds, and the “Earth Boxes”, used in our new-to-us gardening scheme, require only that we fill up the bottom of the boxes with water every other day.
“Earth Boxes”, and all their clones, have a hydroponic chamber under the planting soil, so that the plant roots directly (and efficiently) water themselves.
Our garden boxes are producing a lot of kale, late cabbage (not many heads forming out there, probably due to the heat), cucumbers, onions, beets, tomatoes, and peppers. The trellised (and yes, poisonous!) squash plants are weighted down by football-sized fruit: I seeded six different squash varieties, and ONLY the spaghetti squash is visible. I think the recent high temperatures may have caused pollination problems – the pollen of some of those “jungle” plants (tomatoes, peppers, squash, cucumbers, etc.) is sterile above eighty-three degrees Fahrenheit or so, and we have certainly exceeded that limit, for weeks on end.
In the berry patch, now is a good time to prune out the spent canes that bore fruit this season: brown or yellow canes come out, and leave the green or blue canes for next year’s berries. Be sure to dispose of the pruned canes, as the cane borers love to overwinter in your berry patch debris.
In the fruit tree orchard, now is the time to watch for overloaded branches: I failed to prop up a pear tree branch laden with fruit, and it just recently snapped off, with ten nearly perfect pears, all of which were almost ready to harvest (the chickens found the pears to be delicious, though our daily egg count did not improve – those feathered slackers!).
GARDENING CALENDAR:
On the 12th of September, our local garden club will meet at 7 P.M. in Camden Grange and Community Center (located at 7 Camden Road, Elk, WA) for an indoor gathering (it’s too dark for another outdoor Summer garden tour). We will socialize, whine and weep over our 2023 gardening efforts, and eat (probably healthy) snacks. Our indoor meeting will feature a class, taught by Pend Oreille County Master Gardener Kamori Cattadoris, on the topic of planning for the 2024 garden: now more than ever, we need to “get it right” in the garden so we can continue to grow fresh, nutritious food for our families. All of our club activities are open to the public, and free of cost – you can check out those club activities by accessing our club blog at www.elk-camdengardenkeepers.blogspot.com, or by looking at our same named Facebook page.
On the 14th of September, the aforementioned Kamori will offer a class on edible landscaping (she really is a great, and extremely busy Master Gardener) from 6:30 P.M. to 8:30 P.M. via the Zoom venue. In this class, Kamori will help you to choose plants that not only beautify your castle’s surroundings, but also provide food for you, your family, and your gardening serfs. You can register for the $5 class, and learn how to connect to Zoom by calling the W.S.U. Extension Office at 509-447-2401.
That’s it for the month – continue to be safe in the heat and sunlight out there: lots of water, salt tablets, wide-brimmed hats, sunblock, and limit your time in the garden to those cooler hours – there will be cooler hours, right?!
