8
in other words
march22
2011
Diggin’ In The Dirt: Seed Starting
By Chip Bubl
Oregon State University Extension
Service - Columbia County
Seeds are not difficult to start.
If you can create an environment that
provides plenty of high intensity light,
you can grow excellent transplants and
have them available at the time you need
them. You also have access to a lot more
varieties if you grow your own.
If you have a greenhouse or cold
frame, you won’t have to worry about
added light. But if you are starting seeds
inside, you will need a waterproof seed-
starting table with fluorescent shop lights
with reflectors that can be lowered and
raised as the plants grow. You don’t need
expensive grow lights. The lights need to
be set as close to the growing seedlings
as possible. Two inches is not too close.
This will create a strong, stocky plant.
I have successfully started
tomatoes indoors in modest light and
moved them outside in the trays under
eaves that get good light and moved them
back inside every evening. They warm
back up when they don’t need the light
and seem to do ok outside during the day
if temperatures exceed 50 degrees.
There are two common
approaches to starting seeds. Some
people grow them in flats with enough
space between seeds to allow them to
be directly transplanted out into the
garden. More commonly, seeds are
sown more thickly in starting flats
and then transplanted into individual
pots or “cell” trays. The seedlings are
transplanted after they develop their first
set of true leaves. This process takes
a little more time but will generally
produce a stronger transplant.
Seeds are often sown too early.
Then they are held in pots past the point
that they should be. You can plan your
seeding dates by counting backwards
from when you want to put transplants
out. For example, it takes about 2-3
weeks to grow seedlings of lettuce
and greens for direct transplant or 3-4
weeks if you move the seedling first into
individual pots or cells. For cabbage
and broccoli, it is 4-5 weeks by the first
method or 5-6 weeks by the second.
Lettuce and the cabbage family can be
transplanted from now on.
Tomatoes need 5-7 weeks by
the first method or 6-8 weeks by the
second. Peppers are slightly longer.
Squash, pumpkins, cucumbers and
melons should only be sown directly in
individual pots and they need 10-21 days
to transplanting.
Using that information, don’t
plan on planting your tomatoes outside
until mid-May at the earliest. If you
protect your tomatoes with either a
mini-greenhouse structure or some other
device like a “Wall of Water”, you can
move this up a couple of weeks. Peppers
are very sensitive to cold soils so a late
May to early June is usually better. Again,
if you can protect them after setting them
out, they will do better. Warming the
soil by covering it with clear plastic for
about five days before transplanting also
helps quite a bit.
Seedlings need good air
circulation and attention to watering –
neither too much nor too little.
This is very important! Vegetable
transplants need to be hardened off by
exposing them to outside temperatures,
sun and wind gradually. Put them
outdoors for short periods of time in
indirect light and then for a few more
days (for short periods) in more direct
light.
When transplanting, continue
to protect them from low or high
temperature extremes. Bait for slugs and
consider drenching the transplants with
a good water-soluble fertilizer. Most of
our transplants in April and May need
additional heat. Floating row covers or
plastic mini-greenhouses can help to
keep the vegetables growing rapidly. If
you are using plastic hoop structures, be
sure to open them up in the morning to
avoid excessive heat buildup. It is easy
to cook your tender seedlings if you are
not paying attention.
Despite all the rain, I am
optimistic that we will have a good
gardening year. Last year, the wet weather
of May and June really had an impact on
gardening, especially the warm season
crops like squash, tomatoes and peppers.
The odds are against a repeat.
Time to fertilize lawns and other
plants
The intense rains have washed a
lot of the nitrogen from our soils. It is time
to add something back. Lawns benefit
from a fertilizer with a mix of quick and
slow release nitrogen. If you have moss
you want to control, use fertilizer with
a moss controlling compound. Shrubs,
particularly evergreen ones, will benefit
from fertilizer this month as well. So
will all the berries.
The Extension Service offers its
programs and materials equally to all
people.
Free newsletter
The Oregon State University
Extension office in Columbia County
publishes a monthly newsletter on
gardening and farming topics (called
County Living) written/edited by yours
truly. All you need to do is ask for it and
it will be mailed to you. Call 503 397-
3462 to be put on the list. Alternatively,
you can find it on the web at http://
extension.oregonstate.edu/columbia/
and click on newsletters.
Contact information for the Extension
office
Oregon State University Extension
Service – Columbia County
505 N. Columbia River Highway (across
from the Legacy clinic)
St. Helens, OR 97051
503 397-3462
Email: chip.bubl@oregonstate.edu
Between The Lines: Funding Public Safety
By Randy Sanders
a routine stop; here in Oregon, Rainier Chief Ralph
Painter was killed responding to a call. Both of those
There is a disturbing and somewhat fashionable officers should have had additional patrol visibly
trend in conservative politics these days to strip out nearby. Is it a stretch to surmise that funding pressures
funding for important societal tools such as police killed those men?
protection and mental health. Fast-forward a few years
Decent people-- in lawful and responsible
from now and we will be having a sad and profound communities-- should agree that law enforcement is
discussion on how America has destroyed public safety one of our most important priorities. We screen and
in its towns, cities and counties.
train for the very best; however, we are becoming more
Recently, many towns in New Jersey have laid and more cavalier about the process of keeping them
off large swaths of police officers. Not surprisingly, employed. We cannot expect police to patrol “on the
crime has risen substantially. For instance, Newark cheap” without proper backup, any more than we can
laid off 165 officers, Trenton, 111 and Atlantic City, expect our Marines to go out and hunt down terrorists
40. What happens when police have to patrol without in the mountains of Afghanistan without proper backup.
proper backup? In January, Lakewood, New Jersey Why, even towns in the old west recognized the value
officer Christopher Matlosz was shot in the face on of a sheriff for good law protection!
This country is going
through some frightening
and, frankly, sickening
changes. Add on top of
not funding public safety,
not funding mental health.
It is making us a recusant,
Saturday, March 26th
lawless society, ripe with
10 AM - 2 PM at Vernonia Lake
squalor. Recently, there
were two police officers
• Prize for the biggest fish by length
who were shot in Portland;
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one remains in serious
• Refreshments
condition. The first line
of defense should have
been a mental help line
that kept that shooter on
the phone as the Portland
Police Bureau safely
positioned themselves
to apprehend him. But,
alas, we’ve gutted mental
health and our police
• Over 14 needs a license
Pioneer Baptist fellowship
FREE Fishing Derby for Kids
departments, while demanding that police officers
absorb those mental health cuts as well as doing their
public safety chores.
Consider the last three Oregon officers to have
been shot: Steven Dodds, shot in January by suspect
David Durham (who is still at large). Those interviewed
who know Durham, attest to his recent unstable mental
condition. Then there’s our local hero, Rainier Chief
Ralph Painter, who was shot and killed in January.
Currently, his suspected assailant is undergoing a 30-
day psychiatric evaluation. Portland suspect, Ralph
Clyde-- who also apparently has mental issues--
was plotting to manufacture a “suicide by police” (I
personally disagree, why would he not answer the door
where the police could have seen him armed, requested
that he then drop the weapon and shot him when he did
not respond?)
Frankly, there is no excuse not to fund mental
health and public safety, if we are serious in maintaining
a decent and safe society. We have given passes to
incredibly wealthy people (the Bush Tax Cuts) and
corporate tax cuts to large oil companies, and now
scramble to deal with those choices. However, police
shouldn’t get the short end of that deal. They still must
be properly paid to enforce the law and not to practice
psychiatric medicine.
I have all but given up hope for this country
and this state to come to grips with these decisions, but
still have hope that my home here in Columbia County
will do the right thing. Will we insulate our community
from this problem by stepping up to properly fund
our local police and sheriff’s department? Will we
recognize that life in our neighborhood for our kids
and our families is important? We have lost so much in
America on so many levels, my hope is we won’t lose
it on our immediate home turf.
