FREE RED RASPBERRY STARTS!

Local big-time gardener Brian Spackman is offering free red raspberry starts to everyone with time and a shovel:  Brian is renovating his old raspberry patch by running his rototiller down the center of about 10 rows of mature, producing plants - each row is about 100 feet long, so there a LOT of crowns and canes available.  Brian asks that you call him for information and directions to his home in downtown Elk - 509-991-1701. 

Thanks to Brian for thinking of us, and if you want some free red raspberry starts, jump on your phone right now!

jim

Weeding between the lines

By Jim McGinty

It is most assuredly green outside, but is it safe to plant tomatoes, peppers, and other frost sensitive food items in the open garden?

Here at Rancho McGinty, we’re waiting until the 15^th of June to expose our lovelies to the uncertainty of the dreaded “Last Frost.”

Many local gardeners remember the killer frosts from early June last year – I remember hearing much wailing and gnashing of teeth. In our area of the world, successful gardeners have learned to adapt to our challenging weather through the use of a few important techniques: waiting to transplant the green babies until the last moment (assuming those same successful gardeners are favoring varieties that produce food in less than 70 days or so), covering the plants with a floating row cover/frost blanket when those clear night skies and moon frost rings warn of imminent danger, or even using heat retention devices, such as surrounding the individual plants with a “Walls O’ Water,” which is a clear or translucent green cylinder of hollow tubes filled with daytime warm water. What did your great-great-grandmother do when faced with a late frost in the garden?

Out in your garden, you should be seeing some potato plants poking up out of the soil – you’ll want to hill dirt up around the plants to encourage more, and bigger spuds at harvest time. This is also a good time to starting placing mulch around all the growing plants: we use lawn clippings (no herbicide use on the lawn, thank you), straw litter (complete with goat and sheep berries to provide some minimal nutrition) from the barnyard, and last year’s tree leaves and pine needles. 

Those of you lucky asparagus growers will want to watch for diminishing harvests and smaller asparagus spears – it’s almost time to stop harvesting, so as to leave some over-wintering capacity for next spring.

As the summer continues to heat up the garden, be sure to watch for over-mature plants that “bolt,” or put up a seed stalk, as the plant’s taste will quickly degrade – your livestock, or compost bin will appreciate the donation.

Basil leaf aficionados will want to pinch out all the little white flowers, thus keeping the plant both bushy and productive – I would grow basil just to sniff the leaves!

Out in the orchard, any time is the right time to prune out those pesky water sprouts or suckers – the ones that grow straight up through the tree canopy, producing minimal leaves and no fruit.

Also, now is the time to watch for over-crowding on apple, pear, plum, and peach trees branches – when the fruit is nickel to quarter diameter, thin the fruit to about six inches apart – you’ll harvest fewer, but bigger and better fruit.

Reports of aphid infestations in the orchard continue to come in via the Rancho McGinty “Don’t Bug Me” hotline:  green aphids, red or black ants, curling or deformed leaves all mean you have too many (more than zero) bugs. Try spraying the entire tree with a mixture of liquid dish soap (one tablespoon) and warm water (one gallon) – you could also add a teaspoon of your favorite cooking oil as a “sticker” to keep the mixture from dropping onto the ground – I usually “drench” the tree every three days for three sprayings to kill the evil vitality-suckers and their eggs.

Finally, don’t forget to continue adding green and brown materials to your compost bins – lots of straw, manure, and grass clippings out there, and remember to add water when you turn the contents.

Speaking of water, please remember to drain all open containers, which will help with our summertime mosquito issue.

GARDEN CALENDAR

On the 13^th of June, our neighborhood garden club will tour a local home-built greenhouse, complete with a large food garden, extensively landscaped area, and orchard – we’ll even check out the owner’s cider press operation. We’ll depart from Camden Grange at 7 p.m., for a short drive into downtown Elk, and as usual, the public is always welcome – for more details on the tour, and to keep current on our doings, check back here at the blog!

That’s it for now – I mowed the garden grassy paths and the large west lawn three days ago, and now that grass is almost knee high again – more materials for mulching and for composting – YAY!

The May garden tour

The striking house is set against a rocky hillside, so gardening space is at a premium. 

Our local garden club recently toured the home garden, burbling ponds, and orchard of club members Rudi and Dow. Despite their basic "soil" structure of decomposed granite, Rudi and Dow have a number of successful plants, bushes, and trees. By using raised beds and containers, Rudi and Dow are growing food and flowers, herbs and fragrances, and are having the time of their lives choosing each day's menu from among their plants. Dow gave many of our club members dry flowers and seeds from her collection, and Rudi refused to part with his Highly Coveted Garden Gnome (presented to garden owners, in appreciation of letting a group of 25 or so nosy gardeners into their favorite space).

Touring club members, including Rudi, with gnome at far right, pose in front of the house. Behind the group are many small loose-rock retaining walls that hold flowering plants and fruit trees along the hillside.

Most folks don't know that the home Rudi and Dow own was built by our local Contractor Supreme, the late Keith Steele, in the 1980s. The house features a pyramidal outline, laminated beams, multiple stories, and a full wrap-around deck. Hundreds of motorists on Highway 2 have admired the house from their cars, and said "I'd like to see what that place looks like on the inside." Members of the Elk-Camden Garden Keepers garden club did just that!

Thank you Rudi and Dow!

In June, we will tour a home garden located in beautiful downtown Elk, complete with owner-built greenhouse, orchard, and LOTS of home improvements.

See you on the 13th of June, at Camden Grange; we will depart the Grange parking lot promptly at 7 p.m.

Jim

Garden club tour warning

We will assemble at Camden Grange Tuesday (May 9, 2017) for a tour of gardener/chef/club member Rudi Fischer's garden and orchard.  We will depart promptly at 7 p.m., and parking at Rudi's (318502 Highway 2) is very limited - please arrange to carpool, bicycle, or trot.

Pat and I picked up six of the "supersacks" discussed at our April club meeting: club member (and club dictator-for-life) Kevin Miller said he will have more for us next month. In the meantime, we'll have a drawing for the six supersacks in the Camden Grange parking lot, just before we depart for the tour. You must be present for the drawing, in order to take one home.

Next month's tour will be in the downtown Elk area, featuring a home-built greenhouse, garden, orchard, livestock, and more.

see you at the grange!

jim

Free solar cooking/dehydrating class, anyone?

Leigh, over at the 5 Acres and a Dream blog, has organized an online solar-cooking class for next week. She approaches the topic from a homesteader/gardener/prepper perspective. Interested? Go on over and sign up. I did.

I don't really get solar ovens, even though I earned my hippie badge in the early '70s. I do know you can build your own oven for cheap (lots of plans online), and am hoping to dry food and herbs without heating up the house or giving money to the nice folks at Inland Power.

Anyway, here is the blurb about the class. Maybe I'll (virtually) see you (virtually) there.

Su

13 Ways to Utilize Sunlight 

for Delicious Efficient Homesteading

The instructor for the class will be Paul Munsen of Sun Ovens International. Here are some of the things it covers:

• How to use a solar oven for off-grid baking, boiling, steaming, and roasting complete meals. 
• Why food doesn't burn or dry out in a solar oven.
• How to boil or pasteurize drinking water in emergencies.
• How to hard cook eggs (even freshly laid eggs are easy to peel with this method).
• How to dehydrate fruits, vegetables, even meat for jerky.
• How to dehydrate herbs without losing nutrients and essential oils.
• Naturally kill bug infestations in grains or dried foods (think dry-pack vacuum canning!)
• And more.

Garden tour and class details

Well, now that the newspaper column deadline has come and gone, here are the details I was unable to mention in the May 2017 gardening column:

On the 9th of May, our garden club will tour a new (to us, anyway) home garden, complete with chef-inspired food motif, fruit tree orchard, and much more. The tour site has limited parking, so please carpool as much as possible, or I may be forced to call for a troll truck (that's a tow truck operated by an under-the-bridge life form) – don't make me do it! 

We'll depart Camden Grange promptly at 7 p.m.

On the 11th of May, the Pend Oreille County Master Gardeners will offer a class on owner-built greenhouses and hoophouses:  planning, building, using, and maintaining those structures in our sometimes hostile gardening environment. The class will be held at the Camus Center (1981 Le Clerc Road, Cusick), from 6 to 8 p.m., and will cost $5 for members of the public - you can call the County Extension Office at 509-447-2401 for more details, and to register for the class.

see you out there,

jim

Weeding between the lines

By Jim McGinty

Warmer, drier weather is upon us, so the question is, “is it now safe to plant directly into the garden?” 

For cool weather crops (potatoes, radishes, beets, onions, parsnips, rutabagas, etc.), now is a great time to transplant or plant seeds for veggies that can handle a minor frost. Some plants (I call them “the drama queens”) cannot survive 33 degrees Fahrenheit without some damage, or wilting, or looking like you drove a herd of bison down the row – these plants (tomatoes, peppers, basil, eggplant, melons, ornamental squash, etc.) will prosper and thrive if planted at the end of May - probably. Just remember the killer frosts we suffered in early June 2016, and (to borrow a motto), be prepared: frost blankets or light flannel sheets ready to cover the sensitive little green darlings, or maybe overhead water sprayers, or even strings of electric Christmas light ropes or seasonally appropriate bulbs.

This year, my gardening partner and full-time wife, Pat, and I are planting giant sugar beets (called mangels or mangelwurtzels) for our livestock – we grew the plants in the past, and the chickens really enjoyed the soccer-ball-sized roots, AND the dark green, dinner-plate-sized leaves. Historically, farmers in our weather-challenging Northeast Washington region grew thousands of acres of mangels for both conversion to beet sugar (the sweetener of choice before the advent of cheaper cane sugar), and as a winter livestock feed. I made sure to heavily fertilize the beet garden with LOTS of over-wintered chicken poo and mostly-fermented goat and sheep straw bedding. Old farming records show that chopped mangels were successfully fed to cows, horses, goats, sheep, and poultry – and the tender, early season mangels and their leaves were eagerly eaten by the farmers and their families after a long winter. Our mangel seeds came from the Sustainable Seed Company, and from Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company.

Out in the garden, it’s time to hill up dirt around your potato plants as they grow taller, and now is a great time to pump up the process in your compost bins, by adding all those newly mown grass clippings.

In the orchard, it’s time to stop pruning the trees, until after the leaves have filled the canopy (late June?), though you can still cut out all those “water sprouts” or “suckers” at any time.

GARDEN CALENDAR

On the 9^th of May, our local gardening club will tour a local home garden – details on the tour are still firming, but it looks to be a fun and informative evening.  We’ll meet at Camden Grange (21 Camden Road, Elk) for a 7 p.m. departure, and the public is always welcome to join us. If you want to know more about the tour as details become available, check back, as we'll post them to the blog.

On the 10^th of May, I’ll be teaching a class on plant propagation from 6-8 p.m., at the Newport College Center (1302 W. Fifth St., Newport). Students will learn how make more of the plants they want, cheaply and quickly. You can register for the class by calling 800-845-3324, or you can visit the college website.

On the 11^th of May, those twinkle-toed, twig tweakers, the Master Gardeners of Pend Oreille County, will offer a class on building and using a greenhouse or hoophouse designed for gardening success in our area of the world. The class will run from 6-8 p.m., and will cost $5 for the general public – the class location is still firming (either at the Newport Extension Service Office or at the Camus Center in Cusick). You can call the Newport Extension Service Office at 509-447-2401 for more details or to register for the class.

On the 13^th of May, The Inland Empire Gardeners will offer their Garden Expo 2017, at Spokane Community College (1810 N. Greene St., Spokane), from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Expo features hundreds of vendors with offerings that include veggie and fruit plants, garden art and tools, classes and demonstrations, complete with live music and fresh food.  Expo entry and parking are both free, but remember to bring a wheeled carrying conveyance, and some money for all those cool, rare, or misunderstood plants.

On the 24^th of May, I’ll be teaching a class on fruit tree pruning, from 6-8 p.m., at the Newport College Center (1302 W. Fifth St., Newport).  We’ll talk about and demonstrate how to prune your fruit tree for maximum production and minimum maintenance. You can register for the class by calling 800-845-3324, or you can visit the college website at sccel.spokane.edu/ACT2.

That’s it for this month – time to enter the garden, and either plant something, or weed something – I’m thinking the taller, good-looking plants are probably the weeds.