Established as The Skamokawa Eagle in 1891

Articles written by Chip Bubl


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  • Gardening with Chip Bubl

    Chip Bubl|May 29, 2025

    Herbs should have a place in your garden Herbs are, for the most part, easy to grow. Their needs are simple: plentiful sun, well drained soil, and periodic watering. Many of our herbs come from Mediterranean gardens and can handle heat and some lack of moisture. The aromatic oils in many of them were the plants’ way of storing energy when they shut down photosynthesis to conserve water on very hot days. Thyme, lavender, bay leaves, sage, and rosemary are woody plants that go semi-dormant in the winter, but don’t lose their foliage. They do ver...

  • Gardening with Chip Bubl

    Chip Bubl|May 15, 2025

    Sunlight spacing for vegetables Row direction and row spacing are common topics of conversation among vegetable gardeners. If slopes aren’t a consideration, vegetable rows that run north and south will give more even light exposure and thus more even leaf growth with greens and better fruit ripening with tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants. Pepper plants need at least 12 inches “in row” spacing with rows about two feet apart. Tomatoes need three feet in row spacing if trellised and more if they will spread out on the ground. Tomato rows shoul...

  • Corn chatter

    Chip Bubl|May 1, 2025

    Corn and tomatoes are favorite garden crops in this area. We all get anxious and want to get those plants in the ground, often before the weather really has cooperated. This year might be a year to gamble on early planting. Many garden soils are ready to be tilled. Before planting, add 4 pounds of actual nitrogen (organic or synthetic) per 1000 square feet of garden (that is the equivalent of 40 pounds of a fertilizer where the first number is “10”, like 10-20-20). The new supersweet corn varieties need very warm soil at planting. They are mor...

  • Transplanting your veggies successfully

    Chip Bubl|Apr 17, 2025

    Many gardeners use transplants to get earlier vegetable harvests. Transplants allow the gardener to space the plants perfectly, so you don’t have to “thin” like you would if you direct sowed vegetable seed. Germinating weed seeds are at a disadvantage when they face the more competitive transplant. However, home grown transplants receive quite a shock when they are moved into the garden. First, they have been living in a greenhouse or cold frame. Greenhouse soil and air temperatures are far warmer than the garden soil they will be going into, e...

  • Gardening in the Lower Columbia

    Chip Bubl|Apr 3, 2025

    If you have never had a vegetable garden, or your experience vegetable gardening was a long time ago, you may be unsure about how to start and which vegetables to try. Here are a few ideas that may help your garden flourish: Vegetable gardens need at least six hours of sun. The more sun the garden gets, the more vegetable choices you have and the faster the vegetables will grow. If you are near or below six hours of sun, concentrate on leafy greens (lettuce, kale, chard, etc.), beets, and carrots. If possible, create your garden where it is...