By Jim McGinty
Time to wrap up the gardening season, after several hard frosts under our belts, and a desire on the part of many gardeners to end the joys (?) of weeding, watering, harvesting, and processing plants into edible/storeable food. Whew – hard work, but worth every minute, every sore muscle – the supermarkets will never sell a tomatoe that tastes as good as the one you ripened on the vine in your garden.
Here at Rancho McGinty, my gardening partner Pat and I just harvested the last of the potatoes (“Viking Purple”, “German Butterball”, “Red La Soda”, “Ida-Red”, and “Red Gold”) – we have several hundred pounds of spuds in storage, with visions of mashed potatoes, fried potatoes, french fries, and more – must be our German and Irish genes!
Our onion crop was amazing, with hardball-to-softball-sized red, white, and yellow onions – the scallions, however, were a complete loss. Our cabbages were a mixed bag of good news, bad news – I suspect the long, dry, hot summer wasn’t all that good for a crop that likes cool, wet weather. Speaking of cool, wet weather crops, the Brussels sprouts are still hanging in there, with one-inch-diameter sprouts trying their best to grow bigger, while the other cool-weather crops, such as kale, chard, lettuce, and carrots, taste really good after a couple of frosts.
2016 tomato report from Pat: successful varieties for this year included “Silvery Fir Tree,” “Scotia,” and “Sungold.” The paste tomato “Pompeii Roma” will be replaced in 2017 by “Health Kick” and/or “Amish Paste.” We’re officially giving up on trying to grow “Brandywine” and “Oregon Spring” tomatoes – we have better things to grow in our hard-won soil. This year, our garden club blogmeister Su grew and traded some dandy Russian-origin, cool-weather-resistant tomatoes to our club members: tomato variety “Balkanoye” will replace “Megabite,” and we’ll add varieties “Protribny Rozmir” and “Cosmonaut Volkov” to our favorites list – we might not be able to pronounce their names, but they taste great, and grow really well in our challenging weather – we’re kinda hoping that Su will grow these varieties for 2017 planting!
If you have not already done so, now is the time to plant your garlic cloves, six inches apart, with two inches of dirt on top of the pointy end of the cloves, and in rows about eighteen inches apart. I like to mulch the garlic with about six inches of maple leaves or pine needles – the mulch helps protect the cloves from winter’s frost heaves, and retains soil moisture.
Everywhere else in the garden, I’m adding and rototilling under gobs of composted cow and horse manure (thank you, Steve and Jo!), leaves, straw, chicken poo, and pine needles to bring the soil fertility and texture up to snuff for spring 2017 planting.
When our garden chores are finally finished (late October or early November?), we’ll drain, coil, and store the hoses, drip irrigation systems, and weep hose – this will be a great time to check/inventory our garden hose fittings (sprayers, wands, rubber washers, etc.), so we can buy replacements over the winter.
While you are storing your very expensive garden tools away from snow and rain, be sure to check wooden and fiberglass handles for wear and tear, and I’ll just bet every one of your cutting tools (from shovels to shears) needs to be sharpened and oiled– you wanted something to do in January anyway, right?
Speaking of buying garden stuff, we should all start seeing those colorful garden seed and equipment catalogs showing up in our mailboxes, any time now: November and December are great months to review what you want to grow next year, and then buy those seeds early! Once again, this year saw a LOT of garden seed catalog descriptions with the dreaded “not available – seed crop failure,”or “sorry – out of stock” notations – buy those seeds early!
GARDEN CALENDAR
On the fifth of October, I’ll be teaching a Backyard Chickens class at the Newport College Center (1204 W. Fifth St., Newport) from 6-8 p.m. – we’ll talk about the best ways to raise delicious and/or entertaining chickens right there in your own backyard – you know you want their poo for your garden and compost bin! You can call the center at 800-845-3324 for additional information or to register, or go on-line to register at www.sccel.spokane.edu/ACT2.
On the eleventh of October, our local garden club will hold our annual Harvest Dinner, and the club’s last meeting for 2016, at 7 p.m. in Camden Grange. Club members are famous for bringing side dishes and desserts made from their own garden-fresh ingredients. We’ll talk about the challenges/rewards of gardening (or NOT gardening J !), and we’ll discuss what we want to accomplish in our 2017 gardens.
You can stay updated on our club’s activities by visiting this website.
On the thirteenth of October, those greenery growing gurus, the Pend Oreille County Master Gardeners, will offer a class on “Preparing Your Garden for Winter,” from 6-8:30 p.m. at the County Extension Office (227 S. Garden Ave., Newport). You will learn how best to wrap up your gardening efforts for this year, and learn what you can do now to prepare your garden for a spectacularly successful gardening season next year. You can call the office at 509-447-2401 for more information, or to register for the class.
That’s it for this gardening season – I’ll return in March 2017 with another eight months and eight columns of gardening mis-advice and language misnomers. See (?) you then.
By Jim McGinty
Time to wrap up the gardening season, after several hard frosts under our belts, and a desire on the part of many gardeners to end the joys (?) of weeding, watering, harvesting, and processing plants into edible/storeable food. Whew – hard work, but worth every minute, every sore muscle – the supermarkets will never sell a tomatoe that tastes as good as the one you ripened on the vine in your garden.
Here at Rancho McGinty, my gardening partner Pat and I just harvested the last of the potatoes (“Viking Purple”, “German Butterball”, “Red La Soda”, “Ida-Red”, and “Red Gold”) – we have several hundred pounds of spuds in storage, with visions of mashed potatoes, fried potatoes, french fries, and more – must be our German and Irish genes!
Our onion crop was amazing, with hardball-to-softball-sized red, white, and yellow onions – the scallions, however, were a complete loss. Our cabbages were a mixed bag of good news, bad news – I suspect the long, dry, hot summer wasn’t all that good for a crop that likes cool, wet weather. Speaking of cool, wet weather crops, the Brussels sprouts are still hanging in there, with one-inch-diameter sprouts trying their best to grow bigger, while the other cool-weather crops, such as kale, chard, lettuce, and carrots, taste really good after a couple of frosts.
2016 tomato report from Pat: successful varieties for this year included “Silvery Fir Tree,” “Scotia,” and “Sungold.” The paste tomato “Pompeii Roma” will be replaced in 2017 by “Health Kick” and/or “Amish Paste.” We’re officially giving up on trying to grow “Brandywine” and “Oregon Spring” tomatoes – we have better things to grow in our hard-won soil. This year, our garden club blogmeister Su grew and traded some dandy Russian-origin, cool-weather-resistant tomatoes to our club members: tomato variety “Balkanoye” will replace “Megabite,” and we’ll add varieties “Protribny Rozmir” and “Cosmonaut Volkov” to our favorites list – we might not be able to pronounce their names, but they taste great, and grow really well in our challenging weather – we’re kinda hoping that Su will grow these varieties for 2017 planting!
If you have not already done so, now is the time to plant your garlic cloves, six inches apart, with two inches of dirt on top of the pointy end of the cloves, and in rows about eighteen inches apart. I like to mulch the garlic with about six inches of maple leaves or pine needles – the mulch helps protect the cloves from winter’s frost heaves, and retains soil moisture.
Everywhere else in the garden, I’m adding and rototilling under gobs of composted cow and horse manure (thank you, Steve and Jo!), leaves, straw, chicken poo, and pine needles to bring the soil fertility and texture up to snuff for spring 2017 planting.
When our garden chores are finally finished (late October or early November?), we’ll drain, coil, and store the hoses, drip irrigation systems, and weep hose – this will be a great time to check/inventory our garden hose fittings (sprayers, wands, rubber washers, etc.), so we can buy replacements over the winter.
While you are storing your very expensive garden tools away from snow and rain, be sure to check wooden and fiberglass handles for wear and tear, and I’ll just bet every one of your cutting tools (from shovels to shears) needs to be sharpened and oiled– you wanted something to do in January anyway, right?
Speaking of buying garden stuff, we should all start seeing those colorful garden seed and equipment catalogs showing up in our mailboxes, any time now: November and December are great months to review what you want to grow next year, and then buy those seeds early! Once again, this year saw a LOT of garden seed catalog descriptions with the dreaded “not available – seed crop failure,”or “sorry – out of stock” notations – buy those seeds early!
On the fifth of October, I’ll be teaching a Backyard Chickens class at the Newport College Center (1204 W. Fifth St., Newport) from 6-8 p.m. – we’ll talk about the best ways to raise delicious and/or entertaining chickens right there in your own backyard – you know you want their poo for your garden and compost bin! You can call the center at 800-845-3324 for additional information or to register, or go on-line to register at www.sccel.spokane.edu/ACT2.
On the eleventh of October, our local garden club will hold our annual Harvest Dinner, and the club’s last meeting for 2016, at 7 p.m. in Camden Grange. Club members are famous for bringing side dishes and desserts made from their own garden-fresh ingredients. We’ll talk about the challenges/rewards of gardening (or NOT gardening J !), and we’ll discuss what we want to accomplish in our 2017 gardens.
You can stay updated on our club’s activities by visiting this website.
On the thirteenth of October, those greenery growing gurus, the Pend Oreille County Master Gardeners, will offer a class on “Preparing Your Garden for Winter,” from 6-8:30 p.m. at the County Extension Office (227 S. Garden Ave., Newport). You will learn how best to wrap up your gardening efforts for this year, and learn what you can do now to prepare your garden for a spectacularly successful gardening season next year. You can call the office at 509-447-2401 for more information, or to register for the class.
That’s it for this gardening season – I’ll return in March 2017 with another eight months and eight columns of gardening mis-advice and language misnomers. See (?) you then.
