Gardening with Chip

Plant garlic soon

Plant garlic by Oct. 15 to avoid planting in very wet soil from fall rains. Unless your soil is very well drained, make a small, raised bed. Add some lime (three pounds for a 4 foot by 8 foot raised bed) and some organic or conventional “complete” fertilizer. Plant garlic cloves with the bottom of the clove about four inches deep into the bed. Rows can be spaced about 12 inches apart and the cloves about three to four inches apart in the row. The larger the clove you plant, the larger the bulb you will get next summer. Mulch the bed surface lightly with compost and/or shredded leaves.

Roots will start coming out of the garlic by late November, but you won’t see tops emerge most years until mid-January. It rarely gets cold enough to worry about garlic here, but if it is getting really cold (say 20 degrees or less), briefly cover the bed with a tarp or leaves until the cold weather passes. If there is snow, the garlic is already insulated.

Keep the bed weeded now through next July. Fertilize some in February and in late April. Bait for slugs if they’re a problem in the winter/spring and harvest in mid-July.

More garden crop storage tips

Despite what you read in books, carrots often don’t store well in the ground for several reasons. First, we have a nasty little fly called the carrot maggot whose larvae burrow into the carrot, leaving holes that will lead to rot. The maggot continues to work during fall, so carrots left in the ground after they are ready may still be affected.

Second, many gardeners have populations of meadow mice, more properly known as voles. They use mole runways to wander around the garden and, if they chance on carrots, beets, or potatoes, they start gnawing. It isn’t nice to pull up your carrots and find only a stub remains. The rodent teeth marks are usually easy to see.

Do not store potatoes or carrots near onions or apples. Both apples and onions give off ethylene gas which can cause potatoes to sprout and a bitter compound to form in both potatoes and carrots. I heard once about a truck driver that put a box of apples in his refrigerated trailer with a load of carrots and headed to the east coast. All the carrots were bitter by the time he got there.

Basil nearing the end

This has been a generally good year for heat-loving garden crops. Tomatoes, peppers and squash have flourished if given enough water. Basil has also done well. We have harvested many cuttings of basil for making pesto (a garlic/basil/pine nut/parmesan/olive oil wonder sauce) which we freeze in ice cube trays. We then package the cubes into freezer bags for winter use. This is heavenly, but basil does not tolerate cooler weather. It starts looking ratty when we get temperatures in the low 40-degree range and starts turning brown around 37 degrees, so get clipping and preserve some of this plant for winter use.

Arugula

Arugula, also known as Rocket or Roquette, is a hardy, fast-growing salad green in the mustard/cabbage/broccoli family. It germinates readily in less than a week and is usually ready for a first picking of tender leaves in 25-30 days. There still is time. Our house loves it.

Arugula prospers in mild shade, but it does need even watering. Harvest starts early and can continue until it finally bolts to seed. You can seed a succession of rows or bed sections to keep you in arugula throughout the fall and well into the winter. It is disease resistant and, except for occasional flea beetle damage, insect resistant. Even slugs leave it alone.

The best leaves are three to four inches long. It mixes well with other greens and salad ingredients or can be used alone with toasted pine nuts and a vinaigrette dressing.

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. This is especially true now as many of the federal food funds that helped the food banks have been cut hard.

Local Extension offices are sources of helpful information. The Columbia County Extension is 503-397-3462, and the Wahkiakum County Extension is 360-795-3278. The Extension Service offices offer their programs and materials equally to all people.

Advice on future garden topics welcome by emailing chip.bubl@oregonstate.edu. Those of you in Columbia County should get to know Janhvi Pandey, my OSU replacement and a very nice and talented person.