Gardening with Chip Bubl

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 should be more than four feet apart to make sure all plants get good light coverage. Corn should be planted in blocks since it is wind pollinated. Four short rows will pollinate much more efficiently than one or two long rows. As far as spacing, corn plants need light to produce good ears. The wider the row spacing, the closer the plants within the row can be. Always plant lots of seed so that you have enough corn (since some seeds won’t make it) and then thin to the right spacing. I generally plant rows 30 inches apart and then thin corn to nine to 12 inches within the row. 36 inches between rows can allow a six-inch spacing between individual plants. The more sun your garden area has, the more you can tighten the spacing.

Leafy vegetables like lettuce and spinach can be quite close together within the row and between row spacings can be a foot apart. Most of the cabbage family need wide in row and between row spacings since individual plants get quite large.

Garlic nearing the finish line

Garlic is starting to respond to the shorter nights that trigger bulb formation to start. Overall, the season so far has been quite good with some colder temperatures in December through early February (which garlic likes) and decent rainfall to support good growth but not so much to increase disease problems. Any final light fertilizing should be done right now. Keep the crop weeded.

The hard-neck garlic will be pushing up their floral stems (scapes) soon, with some variation in timing between varieties. Remove them when you do your daily look at your garlic to ensure the biggest bulbs. The young scapes are good to eat early but get quite tough and chewy as they get older. The bulbs are generally ready for harvest by early July, though a few varieties can be several weeks earlier and a few are later. Water to about June 20 and then back off unless it gets really hot. If you wait too long to harvest your garlic, you may find that the final outside “skin” of the garlic bulb is gone, and the cloves break apart. The cloves are still good.

After harvest, place your bulbs where it is warm with good air circulation but little to no direct sun. They should be fully cured in a month unless we get an unusually wet summer.

Store garlic in a dry, dark place with decent air flow. If well-cured, most varieties will be good through winter. You might consider experimenting with freezing some garlic cloves for use past winter. And make sure you keep your best cloves for planting next fall.

One garlic fact you may not be aware of is lots of garlic is grown in California for fresh market and for dehydration into garlic powder and other products. Most is harvested in the San Joaquin Valley or adjacent areas around Monterey. But the companies must send the garlic periodically to a northern and/or colder latitude or the bulb yields will get smaller and smaller. Hence, we have “seed” garlic grown in Washington, Idaho, Oregon and a few high elevations in California and Nevada.

Weed your vegetables

Vegetables are rather tender crops. They have been cultivated and coddled for so long that they really aren’t very competitive. Weeds, on the other hand, make their living by being the first out of the ground. As they develop leaves, weeds capture sunlight shading the poor vegetable seedlings and stunting their growth. The most important time in your vegetable garden is the four weeks you spend weeding after you plant the garden. Transplants reduce the weed competition problem but don’t eliminate the need for vigilance. The following table shows the yield of paired plots of various vegetables that were weeded and not weeded after the vegetables were planted from seed:

Crop Not weeded Weeded

Carrots 27.9 pounds 503.3 pounds

Beets 45.9 “ 240.3 “

Cabbage 129.1 “ 233.6 “

Onions 3.6 “ 67.7 “

Final notes

Take excess produce to the food bank, senior centers, or community meals programs. Cash donations to buy food for the food banks are also greatly appreciated.

Very helpful information sources are your local Extension offices. The Wahkiakum County Extension is 360-795-3278. The Extension Service offices offer its programs and materials equally to all people.

Advice on future garden topics is always welcome by emailing chip.bubl@oregonstate.edu.