July To-Do’s

I have an ornamental  hedgehog sitting outside my  back door, holding a test  tube which measures water.  I know what my plants have  actually received in the way  of water. With our overcast  skies and misty rains, it is  easy to believe plants in the  garden have had enough  water when they have not.  A tuna can would work the  same.  On July’s to do list,  watering is top. Early mornings  give the biggest bang  for your watering buck. We  aerated our lawns this year  for better air and water  access by lawn roots.

Infrequent, deep watering on  lawns and perennial beds is  best. Hanging baskets need  food. Soak a minimum of  once daily. Monitor your  vegetable beds by digging.  See if water has come as  deep as your vegetable  roots. Plant now your fall  and winter vegetable seeds,  such as carrots, beets, kale,  and rutabagas. Mulch on  many perennials, edible and  ornamental, helps cut down  water loss. The objective in  watering many plants is to  get the roots to grow deeper,  where water losses will be  less.  Pest alert is high. Try  sticky stuff and traps on  trunks of fruit trees and  ornamentals, barriers like  toilet paper tubes on collar  bases of things like broccoli,  hand-pick caterpillars and  cutworms, when you can.

By using the least toxic  methods of control, you give  your environment the  strongest boosts for our  future.

Hand wash and hand  pick diseased foliage. Peach,  prune, apple and pear trees  will need to be sprayed this  month. Keep in mind that  sprays can harm our dwindling  bee populations, and  should be used only in nonwind,  cautioned use that  protects surrounding critters  such as bees.

Vegetables are better  picked while small. Weeds  also are better picked when  small. Invite over some  friends. They plant well in  the garden.

Moonlight Madness

While the days get  longer, it seems my own  days get shorter. Last  month, as day eased into  twilight I finally found time  to go down to my own  ‘community patch’: a place  not cared for by any particular  person. The weeds here  are what bring me back  again and again. (Odd  attraction, I know.)  The nice part of gardening  is that you lose yourself  in it. Dirt and weeds were  moving through the air, filling  my nose with the scents  of dusky life, then suddenly,  it was night.

I came up for  air like a being not quite of  this world, wondering if  someone would call the  police about the crazy lady  digging on the public lot in  the dark. It sounds shady,  illegal, or irresponsible. It  was wonderful, magical, and  yes, maybe it was a little bit  crazy.  I’ll be back there again as  soon as I can.

I notice the  horsetail is coming up.But  so are the iris, calendula,  rosemary, thyme, and lavender  that I planted. Another  mysterious donor keeps  adding plants to this plot as  well. The crocosmia are  getting ready to bloom, and  the lambs ears are beginning  to spread. If you have a nice  watered garden patch, then  these plants might sound  like weeds, but these tough  performers are all planted in  a plot which gets no water  except for rainfall.  Everything is responding  to a layer of lime I added,  and also to some cottonseed  meal which added back  missing nitrogen to that  hard-packed clay soil.

The  lot gets tended when I can  come, which averages to  maybe one time every three  months. Even with that  large-scale neglect, it is  looking better and better  each year. Kids have added  tulips, and that speaks to  me. They own this lot when  they add to it.

June’s The Month to  Tour Everyone’s  Garden

June 7-13 is National  Garden Week, as proclaimed  by former President Ronald  Reagan more than twenty  years ago. National  Gardening Exercise Day is  June 6th, though, so I hope  you started early, and June  22-28 is National Pollinator  Week. Based on the olio  performances at Sawdusters  this year, even they are rooting  for our hard-working  pollinators. Oregon Garden  Club will be having their  state convention in Lincoln  City June 15-17, (information  is at OSFGC website  online.) Bandon will have a  garden tour in late July, and  Coos Bay will have one the  first Saturday in August.

There. That should set your  calendar up nicely, if you’d  like to focus on gardens.  It was my privilege to meet  a woman at one of the plant  sales I helped at in May  who started our Coquille  Garden club many years  ago. It was quite difficult to  restrain myself from asking  her to assist us in beginning  another one again. We have  many fine garden organizations  already in town,  though, and they could use  all of our assistance.

I also had the privilege  of speaking with the gentleman  who owns the Auto  Clinic across from Safeway,  whose garden I’ve commented  on before. He and a  former garden writer for this  publication both let me  know they don’t always  agree with me. This is an  absolute delight, for it lets  me know folks not only  read, but respond to, and  care about gardening here,  locally. I believe we will  always need a diversity of  opinions, and I’m grateful  that with my brief contacts  with all the Master  Gardeners, with the Coquille  Community Garden folks,  and with those who care for  our hanging and stationary  ground planters, we have  both differences of opinion,  and a heart to join in unity  to get the job done. May it  always be so.

Garden with Brook Settle
June To-Do’s  White flies were attacking  my roses, but without  time or energy to address  this problem, it seems that  something, maybe in the  wasp family, predated these  critters. I’m not watering  much, with a nice thick  layer of mulch covering  most areas of my garden,  and soaker hoses laid out.

Weeds are ever present, and  need to be pulled before  going to seed, but this actually  doesn’t take very long,  the fuller my garden beds  get. Weeds like poorer soil  and more sun than I provide  them.  The fruit trees all are  apparently happy, having  had the winter sprays for  pests and diseases, all  except for my peach trees,  which are suffering badly, in  spite of multiple sprays.

The  raspberries are being trained  against a warm south-facing  wall. I’ve been tucking  seedlings into my raised  vegetable beds after I transition  them slowly from  indoor to outdoor life. My  tomato cloche is built and  shelters not only tomatoes,  but pumpkins, cucumbers,  and melon, all which prefer  a warmer climate than I can  otherwise offer. My biggest  chore this month is edging  out the ever present grass  that likes to grab my plants  water and nutrients.  What should you do?  Mulch. Plant. Weed.

Watch  for pests, especially slugs,  snails, cabbage worms and  moths. Go easy on the  chemicals. Start or turn your  compost pile. Start strawberries  and vegetables. The  soil should be warm enough  now for just about all vegetables.  Plant gradually: a  little this week, a little next  week of crops like lettuce  and carrots, so that you have  some through the weeks,  and not all at once.

Cover  crops like carrots with fine  mesh to prevent cabbage  moths from laying eggs.  Plant summer bulbs. Prune  spring flowering bushes  such as lilacs and rhododendrons.  Relax. Enjoy.

Ideals
I have an ideal garden in  my mind. I started to plant  it after reading Ann  Lovejoy’s ‘Year Round  Garden’. I added to it when  I read ‘Square Foot  Gardening’. In spite of more  than eight relocations, I’ve  replanted what I could of  my ideals in each location.

Since I haven’t been walking  as much in new locations  in Coquille, I haven’t  given you garden tours, but  that will change soon. Today  you get the garden tour of  my ideal garden.  The sound of bees moving  around plays in the  background of my mind as I  wander this garden, for out  of every three bites of food I  take, one of them is due to  the hard work of these or  other industrious pollinators.  There are a few dandelions,  because in my ideal garden I  don’t use the toxic sprays  that are eliminating these  essential pollinators, and in  my real garden, after I gain  control over extremely invasive  plant species, I actually  am moving toward this  ideal.

Birds are discovering  food sources in my garden,  and I spot some travelling  butterflies enroute on their  migration up and down the  coast supping on what once  were common food plants  for them.  My year round garden  has flowers in every season,  with something always of  interest, shape, or color to  feed the eye. There is a  place where children are  running wild in and out of  trees, and some trees are  being climbed. I have  enough flowers to cut and  share in bouquets, and my  vegetable garden needs  tending.

(The tending part  will likely always be true.)  There are places where  friends are wandering over,  and feel free to remain, talking,  laughing, and I know  eventually we’ll move  toward sharing a meal  together. This year I will  add a croquet set. Ideals and  reality will move a little  closer.

May To-Do’s

I’m not a betting person.  I want what I plant to live.  By May 1st, there is still a  twenty percent chance of a  freeze. This comes from the  Oregon Climate Summaries.

By May most of us are  ready for summer. It may be  a wise idea to wait until at  least May 15th to plant out  many of your summer garden  vegetables, flowers or  seeds. For items such as  tomatoes, melons, and basil,  you may need a greenhouse,  or something like a cloche  to create a warmer environment.  Plant carrots, onions,  cilantro, broccoli, brussels  sprouts, cabbage, spinach,  lettuces, beans, potatoes,  many flowers, and if you  have a remarkable warm  garden area, corn. Empty  garden areas waiting winter  crops can be cover cropped.  Meanwhile, prune out deadwood,  stake up things before  they get hurt from flopping,  weed, and aerate soils to  renovate older lawns, which  is more effective than dethatching.

You might consider  beginning a compost  box or pile, since this not  only reduces your waste, but  brings a free and healthy  source of nutrients into your  garden from the resulting  soil. Feeding all the soils in  your garden is an important  part of gardening, so don’t  forget fertilizers, done in  connection with soil testing  to get the right results.  Identify areas where weeds  are a problem. Possible  solutions include the use of  mulch. In areas such as  lawns, the weeds may indicate  a soil nutrient problem  or even a drainage issue.

Mulches can be newspapers,  layered and then topped  with a barkmulch, but they  can also be sheets of plastic,  also called ‘mulches’ or  landscape fabric. Mulches  discourage weeds, but slugs  often love mulches, so  adding a few boards may  give you a ‘slug hotel’ to  house and dispose of them,  or, if you like, hunt them.