Weeding between the lines

By Jim McGinty

It’s that time:  barbecues, family reunions, sweaty hours in the garden, and don’t forget to take your salt tablets!

Here at Rancho McGinty:

The garlic is harvested, hanging, and curing in readiness for cleaning and dispersal. This year, the bulbs are overall smaller (due to spring’s monsoon rains followed by summer’s prolonged 90-degree heat?) than in previous years – the flavor seems more intense and concentrated – we’ll have to monitor our food seasoning efforts.

Potatoes are next out of the ground – we have some BIG spuds out there (based on a sneak peek), and maybe we have the potato scab problem licked for this year – no fertilizer was applied to the 2017 potato patch last autumn. 

Broccoli is being harvested and eaten, while the cabbage is still at the large softball (bocci-ball size?) stage. 

Red raspberries and strawberries are being massaged into vanilla smoothies, and the apples and pears are still golf ball diameter – regular watering now is most important!

It goes almost without saying that the zucchini and squash (chicken food, at its best!) plants and vines seem to squeal all hot summer night long as they grow veggies long and wide – our neighbors no longer welcome our grocery-bag-toting visits.

Out in the garden, be sure to keep your compost bins and piles moist – our goal is damp and hot, not dry and hot!

Remember that some veggie plants (cucumbers, squash, tomatoes, eggplant and peppers) will produce more of the same only after you harvest the ripe versions – if you leave the ripe veggies to wither on the plants, you have created an expensive ornamental-only garden.

Your potato patch needs to be checked for exposed potatoes – cover or hill up with dirt any uncovered spuds.

As your expended plants shrivel in the sun, pull the plants, re-fertilize as necessary, and replant with short season varieties that might (?!) make it to maturity before the looming cold season is upon us: peas, spinach, broccoli, kale, chard, kohlrabi, lettuce, and radishes – look for short season (sixty days or so) varieties.

If you have melons sitting on the soil, place something waterproof (board, brick, dog-chewed Frisbee) underneath to prevent rot or wireworm damage, and those berry canes (raspberries, blackberries, etc.) that produced fruit this summer can be cut away, leaving nutrition and space for new canes.

GARDEN CALENDAR

On the 6^th of August, those greens-growing groupies, the W.S.U./Pend Oreille County Master Gardeners will offer their annual garden tour, with day-long tours of demonstration gardens and private gardens displaying veggie gardens, hosta and perennial gardens, water features, and garden art (I recently placed some garden “art” in our veggie plot: the decorative sign reads “If thou art here, pull up a weed!”). Tickets for the tour, which starts at 1 p.m. at the W.S.U. Extension Office at 227 South Garden Avenue, Newport, are $12, and you can call to register at 509-447-2401.

On the 8^th of August, our local garden club will tour an educational display garden in Newport, which demonstrates a compost and biochar facility, raised bed and container small fruit and veggies, square-foot garden, pollinator garden, straw-bale garden, lasagna layering and hugelkultur beds, and much more!  We will depart from Camden Grange at 7 p.m.(sharp!), and, as always, the public is invited. Check back here at the blog for additional details.

That’s it for this month – stay cool and in the shade whenever possible – and take your salt tablets – those midnight leg cramps will be a thing of the past!

Daylilies, anyone?

Local flower fancier Janet called to ask if anyone in our garden club would be interested in "over 150" orange flower daylilies. Janet lives about 3 miles east of Elk, and if you are interested in digging up (officially called "dividing") a passel of daylilies, you can call her at 1-307-749-1500 to make an appointment. 

Daylilies divide and transplant very easily at this time of the year (you just need a sharp shovel, and remember to keep them watered in this heat), and a mess of them looks really cool - one day at a time.

jim

July garden club tour report

Eastern side of the large community garden, complete with nosy club members.

We toured the community garden at the North County Food Pantry (40015 N. Collins Road, Elk) on the evening of July 11. Twenty-four of us ooh-ed and ahh-ed over the many cool gardening features, and we mercilessly harassed the garden staff with our many questions and demands.

Club members and garden staff trading time-tested gardening techniques,
or maybe just laughing about the impossibility of raising food in Elk, Wash.

The community garden is only three years old, but already produces TONS of high quality food for Food Pantry clients. Dedicated volunteers (including Sandi, Joe, Mark, Kathy, Chris, Lisa, the Two Mikes, Lester, Ellen, Kathy, Dee, and Virgil) grow healthy, good-looking plants that are covered with fruit and veggies.

Coveted garden club gnome tightly clutched by garden staff.

The community garden is watered using drip irrigation to save time and water, and the crop locations are rotated each spring to discourage permanent pests and diseases.

Other features in the garden include a large compost operation, a garden-wide mulch of barnyard straw and wood shavings over heavy kraft paper, and rows of sunflowers grown on the south and west fence lines to provide shade, protection from wind, and to hold humidity at the drier garden edges. Large, tall-sided raised beds line the east edge of the garden - those tall beds are SO much easier on tired backs!

Tall, well-designed raised beds

The community garden receives donations from local individuals and organizations including Catholic Charities, All Around Rentals, Ponderay Newsprint, Ziehnert's Dairy, Northwest Seed and Pet, and North 40 to name only a few.

A big "thank you" to the garden staff and Food Pantry helpers for allowing us to cruise the garden, and for their efforts to assist our community.

Be sure to mark your calendars for the 2018 Garden Fest on the first weekend after Mother's Day, sponsored by the Food Pantry, and held in the community garden: kids' games, plant sales, delicious food, and much more.

It was also fun to see a bunch of long-time garden club members (from the beginning days of 1998) all in one place: Pat, Barbara, Linda, Tim, Carolyn, Virginia, and yours truly). 

Also, if you still have garden space available, club member Joe Gannon is looking for more volunteers to grow sunflowers (Joe will provide the seeds) for his daughter's wedding late in the summer.  You can call me at 509-292-0326 for contact information.

jim

July garden club tour warning!

This Tuesday (the 11th of July) we will meet at Camden Grange, and travel to the community garden sponsored and organized by our local food bank. The address of the garden is 40015 N. Collins Road, just up the hill on the west side of downtown Elk.

We will leave the grange promptly at 7 p.m., and see LOTS of cool ideas including raised beds, composting bins, vertical gardening, and much more!  Bring your cameras and phones – otherwise, you will forget all the information by Wednesday morning (what information?).

See you at the grange, 

jim

Weeding between the lines

By Jim McGinty

What to do in the garden today: weed, water, transplant, fertilize, mulch, re-seed the empty spots, or drive into town to take financial advantage of all the “end of gardening season” (huh!?) sales? 

If we learn nothing else from gardening, it’s that we can’t possibly do it all, in a timely manner, to our satisfaction. Weeds intuitively know that “the two-legged destroyers” will eventually lose interest, hurt themselves, or otherwise move on, so that all the good little weed seeds can sprout and grow EVERYWHERE!  Muh-wah-hah-hah! (evil, maniacal laughter).

So we can choose to complete one task (leaving all the other important tasks undone), or work a little on every task (ensuring that one will never finish ALL the tasks before snow fall), or hire (incompetent) help who will never do the job the way WE would, or maybe we should just choose to recline in our shady spot, out of the heat and humidity, with our favorite beverage in one hand, and a sharp #2 Ticonderoga pencil in the other hand, and dream up a garden tool to take care of all (or at least some) of the chores: I mean, like the “Garden Weasel,” the “Furrow-meister,” the “Weed-evator,” or the laser-guided “Vapo-Bug.”

Or we can just continue in our own misguided way, grateful for every ripe tomato, spicy garlic clove, or juicy blackberry – life is made up of epi-doses of a little here, and a little there.

Out in the garden, now is the time to test daily for adequate soil moisture – damp earth down about three to four inches is good – you can purchase an expensive electronic soil moisture meter, or you can just employ your built in Mark I Finger Moisture Probe.

If possible, try to water in the early hours of the day (using a water timer?) – less moisture lost to evaporation, and less of a chance that overnight watering will not allow your plant leaves to dry before soil-borne diseases take down your beloved plants.

Be sure to check your berry plants for ripe fruit – the more you pick, the more the plant will produce – up to a point, of course. Now is the time to start thinking about the autumn garden – start seeding those cool weather plants: lettuce, kale, chard, bush beans, etc., and get ready for ANOTHER harvest. There is no sense in letting your sweat-quity dirt rest before freezing temperatures terminate your garden experience.

If you DO intend for your garden or individual plots to rest for the balance of the summer, be sure to plant a green cover crop, like buckwheat or winter peas: the plants will keep the winds from blowing all your hard soil-improvement work into the neighbor’s yard, and will send down healthy roots to bring nutrients up to the soil surface – those same roots, after you have rototilled the cover crop back into the garden soil, will add valuable organic matter and improve the texture (the “tilth”) of your most expensive dirt.

If you are growing squash (for your livestock, no doubt!), or if you are growing melons, watch for the plants to set three or four flowers, and then remove further blossoms, so the plants can concentrate on growing fewer, bigger and better food.

In the orchard, remember to prune out all those water sprouts, as they do nothing to help your trees produce fruit, and watch the newest, most delicate leaves for evil, sap-sucking aphids, and their farmer/slave drivers, the ants: we spray a mixture of Neem oil and diatomaceous earth (three tablespoons of Neem oil, and one quarter cup of D.E. in a gallon of warm tap water) on the trees once every week during peak leaf growth (right about now).  Spraying once weekly kills the adult insects, and the next spraying kills their eggs, and additional sprayings keep the monsters at bay.

I’m seeing garlic scapes (those whitish pods on the tops of some of the garlic stalks), out in the garden, and those will need to be removed (sliced and added to salads, coated with panko batter and deep fried, etc.), so the plants will focus on producing delicious, large bulbs.

Despite all those big-box “end of gardening season” sales, we still have yet to see any tomato horn worms, Colorado potatoe beetles, or cabbage worms, so vigilance is a must!  Check the leaf undersides for egg clusters (rub them out, or otherwise destroy ALL the eggs), and maintain a fresh supply of anti-evil-doer treatments:  the aforementioned Neem oil and diatomaceous earth, bacillus thuringiensis (“B.T.” is easier to remember and say), and ordinary liquid dish soap. We use the treatments in a cascading order of bug violence:  first we try the liquid dish soap (three tablespoons of soap, 1 teaspoon of your favorite cooking oil, mixed into a gallon of warm tap water – the cooking oil acts as a “sticker”, and keeps the soap from dripping right off the leaves), then we try the B.T. powder or liquid spray, then we bring out the Neem and D.E.

GARDEN CALENDAR

On the 11^th of July, our local garden club will tour another garden in the Elk area: lots of raised beds, huge composting program, fruit and veggie production, and much more! We will depart from Camden Grange promptly at 7 p.m., and convoy/car pool a short distance into Elk – lots to learn, and knowledgeable folks to quiz. Check back here for additional information on the tour.

On the 13^th of July, the WSU Master Gardeners of Pend Oreille County, and the WSU County Extension Office will offer a class on photography in the garden. If your garden photos look like a fuzzy mass of unorganized greenery, then this class is for you – the class will run from 6:30-8:30 p.m., and will cost $5. You can call the Extension Office at 509-447-2401 for more details, or to register for the class, which will be held at the Extension Office (227 South Garden Avenue, Newport). Instructor Lori Stratton would like students to bring their cameras and their questions.

Okay – enough dillydallying – back out to the garden!

Big crowd, cool gardens, gracious hosts

The Spackmans, at far left, and a big turnout of club members.

Our garden club recently toured the gardens (plural!), greenhouse, and orchards of Mary and Brian Spackman. What a great tour! 

Brian and Mary walked 37 nosy club members (plus a few hangers-on) around their five acres of food-producing nirvana: many garden plots (micro-climates in use), a home-built greenhouse using mostly re-purposed materials (example: a swimming pool water heater is used to heat the greenhouse using underground water lines), fruit trees and shade trees (English and black walnut trees everywhere), bee hives, chickens and ducks, pigs and pigeons - the Spackmans have mightily labored over the previous 30-some years. Mary provided us with home-produced snacks and recipes, while Brian answered about a million questions from neighboring gardeners and homesteaders – I watched a lot of folks writing down good ideas and suggestions.

As a bonus, Mary and Brian offered club members free red raspberry and horse radish starts – and then there was the drawing for the potted, 2-year-old hazelnut trees – all in all, a great evening – and the mosquitos mostly left us alone!

Thanks to Mary and Brian for the memorable evening.

Oh, and club member Joe Gannon is looking for volunteers to grow sunflowers for his daughter's fall wedding - if you have a empty spot in your garden, and would like some free seeds, you can call me at 509-292-0326, and I'll hook you up!

See you at July's garden tour, 

Jim

Garden club tour warning

We will be departing from Camden Grange promptly at 7 p.m. this Tuesday (13 June, 2017) for a tour of the gardens owned/operated/weeded by Mary and Brian Spackman. Their home sits just above downtown Elk, and the address is 9915 E Bridges Road. 

Brian has offered free red raspberry starts (he has hundreds to give away), and has added starts of hot horseradish, for those with a shovel and a bucket. 

Please bring clothing for cool weather, and you will want some mosquito spray of some type – the garden is right on the river.

The gardens and orchards are on three levels, and some of us may not want to hike up the ramps to the upper levels, although the roll down the ramps could be fun (NOT!). Brian's home-built greenhouse and the main garden are on the lowest level, and can be accessed by most folks.

Brian has a LOT of re-purposed garden, orchard, and greenhouse equipment and building materials, and he said he will be glad to talk to everyone about what he has accomplished over 30-some years, and what has worked and what has been... challenging.

see you there, 

jim