Setting Up a Garden Journal

 

October’s a Busy Time in the Garden

 Finish harvesting your vegetables. 

And if you have extra produce after you’ve put up tons of food, consider donating to the Corvallis Backyard CSA with a mission to include all people in Corvallis. It does this by delivering produce boxes to families from different cultures (Asian, Middle Eastern, and Latin American) while building mutually supportive relationships with the families. 

Put your Garden to Bed for the Winter

Just because you’re not growing vegetables in an area, it doesn’t mean you do nothing to improve the soil.

Rake on the Riches The cheapest way to improve your soil is to rake the leaves falling from nearby trees over your garden bed several inches thick. This keeps rain from washing away nitrogen from your soil. It also serves as food for the worms you want to thrive in your soil.

Plant a Cover Crop that adds nutrients to the soil, especially nitrogen. That’s why many gardeners plant beans and peas to winter over. Or your soil may benefit from seeds that reach deep into our clay soil. Check out the various cover crop seed offerings at our locally owned and operated nurseries.

Last month we mentioned adding lime now where you plan to put your tomatoes next summer.

Plant Crops to Grow Food in the Winter

With the use of hoop houses that are easy to make, you can extend the growing season. Even though this
hoop house is shown with its ends closed, most of the time during our mild winters, you can leave the ends to let the air circulate around the delicate greens you can grow inside, like hardier lettuces, spinach, arugula, etc.

Also now’s the time to plant garlic that will winter over and be ready to harvest around the Fourth of July next year. In fact, lots of root crops, like onions, leeks, turnips, and beets, grow well uncovered in the winter. Hardy greens like broccoli, kale, swiss chards, and brussels sprouts also don’t need to be covered to thrive in our winters.

So, try out winter gardening, realizing that from November 4 through February 5 we have only 10 hours of daylight or less which means that plant growth will be on the slow side.

Contact Sandi Cheung to find out how you can drop off produce that will be added to the CSA boxes. The boxes are delivered to families every Thursday.  sandi.cheung@gmail.com

Interested in learning other ways to support the Corvallis Backyard CSA? Check with rachel@shonnards.com or text/call 503-779-8570.

Food Action Team -- Edible Garden Group

Soil Testing and Crop Rotation

 

Fall is a great time to get your soil tested and think about rotating crops in your garden. Before you put in your garlic (mid-October for us), get soil samples from the different beds in your garden. Check out https://catalog.extension.oregonstate.edu/sites/catalo g/files/project/pdf/ec628.pdf to find out how.

These links will help you find out where to send your samples https://catalog.extension.oregonstate. edu/sites/catalog/files/project/pdf/em8677_0.pdf & https://catalog.extension.oregonstate.edu/ec1478 so you can find out just the right amendments to add to your soil for next year’s crops.

Leaves like lettuce, herbs, kale, arugula, spinach, and broccoli, are first in the rotation because they need to get first crack at the nitrogen (N) in the soil. This is very important for our soil, which tends to lack nitrogen, unless you put in lots of nitrogen along with compost and/or animal manure in the spring, not the fall.

Fruits include tomatoes, melons, squash, peppers, and eggplant. These plants need phosphorus (P) to produce fruit and nitrogen is less important to them. However, fruits like tomatoes need extra calcium in the soil and, since it takes a while to break down from added lime, it is a good idea to add your lime in the fall where you plan to put your tomatoes next year.

Root crops, like carrots, beets, onions, and garlic, need even less nitrogen than fruits; instead, they need lots of potassium (K) to develop their roots. Our soil has lots of potassium because of the rocks that were broken down to form it, so your root vegetables should thrive if you make sure the soil is broken up enough for their roots to go down deep into the soil.

Legumes are mostly green beans and peas. These plants as well as many cover crops can help replenish the nitrogen (N) in the soil, and at the same time, need lots of nitrogen themselves. That’s why they have nitrogen-fixing nodules on their roots. So don’t skimp on nitrogen come spring in the beds where your peas and beans are going to grow.

Corvallis Backyard CSA

Have extra produce from your garden after you’ve thinned your plants? Consider do-nating to the Corvallis Backyard CSA whose mission is inclusion for all people in Corvallis. It does this by delivering produce boxes to families from different cultures

(Asian, Middle Eastern, and Latin American) while building mutually supportive relationships with the families. Contact Sandi Cheung sandi.cheung@gmail.co

m to find out how you can drop off produce that will be added to the CSA boxes. The boxes are delivered to families every Thursday.

Interested in learning other ways to support the Corvallis Backyard CSA? Check with rachel@shonnards.com or text/call 503-779-8570.

Food Action Team -- Edible Garden Group meets on Wednesday September 9 from 5-6:30.  For more information contact Rachel Barnhart at rdbarn4@gmail.com.

Want to Grow your own Vegetables?

Here’s Some Local Online Resources to Help You

During this time of Staying Home, Staying Healthy, the posting last week from the Master Gardeners had a lot of good advice on how to get started gardening at home.  This week’s posting from the Food Action Team provides local online resources to help you garden while staying home.

First is the booklet from our Team that has loads of information about local sources for your garden.  If you don’t already have a copy of it, you can access it online.  The link is

https://sustainablecorvallis.org/action-teams/food/garden-resource-guide/

It will help you gather knowledge about growing your own food, getting what you need for your garden, even where you can find a place to grow fruits and vegetables, what to do with your bounty once you’ve harvested it, raising ducks and chickens in your backyard and even how to keep bees. 

Second are three nurseries around Corvallis:

Garland Nursery  5460 NE Hwy. 20 – 541-753-6601

www.garlandnursery.com

Shonnard’s Nursery  6600 SW Philomath Blvd.  

541-929-3524  www.shonnards.com

Home Grown Gardens   4845 SE 3^rd Street 

541-758-2137   www.homegrowngardens77.vpweb.com

Third are the resources of a world-class university and its online resources

for gardeners such as the following book for beginning gardeners: 

Growing Your Own

https://catalog.extension.oregonstate.edu/em9027

as well as other publications in the OSU Extension Catalog. 

Food Action Team – Edible Garden Group