8
in other words
july19
2018
Diggin’ in the Dirt: Douglas Fir and Cedar Trees Dying
By Chip Bubl
Oregon State University
Extension Service - Columbia County
OSU Master Gardeners Demonstration
Garden at the Columbia County Fair
The Columbia County Fair
started on Wednesday, July 18 and runs
through Sunday, July 22. For 30 years,
participants in the Master Gardener pro-
gram have managed a demonstration
garden out at the fairgrounds. This year
is no exception. The flower beds, fruit
areas, roses, and other special areas, like
the shade garden, are wonderful. As al-
ways, there will be Master Gardeners
there to answer your questions or guide
you to various areas. Plan on making a
trip to the fair this year and stop by at the
garden. It will be well worth your time.
Winter gardens start now
Have you always wanted to
harvest vegetables from your garden
through the fall and into the winter? With
a little extra planning and care, you can
enjoy fresh vegetables from your garden
most of the year.
Early to mid-summer is the time
to plant seeds for a fall and winter gar-
den. Many cool-season crops, such as
broccoli, lettuce, spinach, chard, kale,
and carrots, produce well in the fall and,
in mild-winter areas of the Pacific North-
west, hold through winter if protected.
A good strategy is to plant these
vegetables in mid to late summer after
you harvest spring crops and as space is
available. To be successful, you need to
plan ahead, choose varieties wisely, and
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give proper care to your plants.
Choose varieties that are suit-
ed to fall and winter harvest. Some are
designated specifically for fall planting,
while others perform well only in the
spring. Some good selections for several
vegetables appropriate for fall and win-
ter gardens include:
• Beets: Winterkeeper, Albina
Verdura, plant around July 15
• Broccoli: Purple Sprouting, White
Sprouting Late, Rudolph, plant in
June through July
• Cabbage: Danish Ballhead, Excel,
Gloria, Melissa, Zerlina, plant June
or July
• Carrot: Bolero, Merida, Royal
Chantenay, plant around July 15
• Kale: Winter Red, Winterbor,
Siberian, plant in June or wait until
late July
• Lettuce: Winter Density, Oak Leaf,
Top Gun, Continuity (best under
cloche), plant head lettuce to mid-
July and leaf lettuce to Aug. 10
• Spinach: Bloomsdale Savoy, Tyee,
Kokum, Olympia, Hybrid 424,
Melody, Welder Baker, St. Helens
(plant in well-drained soil), plant
first half of August
• Swiss chard: Perpetual, Dora, Ruby
Red, plant in June through July
To learn more about how to
grow a fall and winter garden, you can
view the publication “Fall and Win-
ter Vegetable Gardening in the Pacific
Northwest” at: https://catalog.extension.
oregonstate.edu/sites/catalog/files/proj-
ect/pdf/pnw548.pdf. Open with Adobe
Acrobat to get the best text view.
Douglas fir and cedar trees dying
We have received a lot of calls
about Douglas fir and cedar trees turn-
ing brown. This is not a good sign when
it is on more than the interior sections of
otherwise green-needled tree branches
(which is normal). There are two poten-
tial causes, working alone or together.
The first is root rot pockets, especially
for Douglas fir. We have had so many
rotations of Douglas fir since the first
trees were cut in the mid-1800s to pro-
vide lumber for Portland. We are now
paying the price for constantly replant-
ing one species. These root rot pockets
can claim a number of trees, though
some trees within an area will survive
(most likely due to some subtle genetic
differences). There is no prevention or
cure for these root rot pockets. In those
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Food Safety or Food Preservation
Questions? OSU Extension Service
Has Answers.
Are you planning to preserve
food from your garden or purchased
from a farm this summer? If so, call or
visit the OSU Extension Service office
before you start canning, freezing, or
drying. Costly and potentially harmful
mistakes can be made by using outdated
canning recipes and instructions. We can
also test the accuracy of your pressure
gauge. You can drop off your canner lid
with gauge and pick it up later in the day.
Sometimes it might be possible to have
it tested on the spot. An inaccurate gauge
can lead to canning at a lower than rec-
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areas, plant back something other than
Douglas fir like alder, cedar, hemlock,
Ponderosa pine, and/or redwoods.
A second issue is specific to Port
Orford cedars. This species was brought
to Columbia County by Crown Zeller-
bach when they owned much of the land
that Weyerhaeuser now owns. This valu-
able tree was dying from a root disease
in its natural home on the southern Or-
egon coast and the idea was that it would
do well here. It did, for about 40 years.
But now the trees are dying from a fun-
gus related to the one that killed the trees
in Curry County. There is no cure. This
is sad because they are exceptionally
beautiful conifers, either standing alone
or sheared into a hedge.
Western red cedars and some
Douglas firs started dying, not in any
real pattern, in 2015, and have continued
to succumb to what we think is drought
stress. 2015 was an interesting year,
good for farmers and gardeners if you
had irrigation, bad for cedars and firs. It
stopped raining in mid-March and didn’t
start again until December. The soil pro-
file dried and tree roots began to weaken.
Foresters believe that that set up a cycle
of tree deaths that continue. This year
is similar to 2015 up to this point. One
of the predictions for climate change in
this region is for about the same amount
of rainfall in total but for it to come in
stronger storms leading to runoff instead
of being stored in the soil. Foresters are
grappling with which trees to plant since
their harvest will be 35+ years further
into the climate change cycle. The Wil-
lamette Valley strain of Ponderosa pine
is being considered here and has already
been adopted for replanting in SW Or-
egon.
Family:
Minimum:
$10.00 Individual:
$5.00
$1.00 plus 2 hours minimum of work in the library
Make checks payable to: Friends of the Vernonia Public Library
Mailing Address: 701 Weed Avenue, Vernonia, OR 97064
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ommended pressure which could lead to
serious food poisoning concerns.
You can find free publications at
the Columbia County Extension office
located at 505 N. Columbia River High-
way in St. Helens (across from the Lega-
cy Clinic). If you have questions, phone
the office at (503) 397-3462. There is
a statewide Extension food preserva-
tion hotline that you can reach Monday
through Friday from 9:00 am to 4 :00 pm
starting July 16 at 1-800-354-7319. You
can download, for free, all our food pres-
ervation publications at http://extension.
oregonstate.edu/fch/food-preservation.
An additional great resource is the Na-
tional Center for Home Food Preserva-
tion at http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/.
Free newsletter (what a deal!)
The Oregon State University
Extension office in Columbia County
publishes a monthly newsletter on gar-
dening and farming topics (called Coun-
try Living) written/edited by yours truly.
All you need to do is ask for it and it
will be mailed or emailed to you. Call
(503) 397-3462 to be put on the list. Al-
ternatively, you can find it on the web at
http://extension.oregonstate.edu/colum-
bia/ and click on newsletters.
Many Extension
publications available online
Are you putting up salsa, saving
seeds, or thinking about planting grapes?
OSU has a large number of its publica-
tions available for free download. Just
go to https://catalog.extension.oregon-
state.edu/. Click on publications and
start exploring.
Take excess produce to the food bank,
senior centers, or community meals
programs. Cash donations to buy food
are also greatly appreciated.
The Extension Service offers its pro-
grams and materials equally to all
people.
Contact information
for the Extension office
Oregon State University Extension Ser-
vice – Columbia County
505 N. Columbia River Highway
(across from the Legacy clinic)
St. Helens, OR 97051
(503) 397-3462
Email: chip.bubl@oregonstate.edu
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