In Other Words
April 21
2022
3
Diggin’ in the Dirt: Spring Hope
By Chip Bubl
Oregon State University
Extension Service – Columbia County
The OSU Extension Office is fully
reopened. The best way to reach me
directly is with the email below but calls
are always welcome.
Events:
The Chronicle Home and Garden Show:
The Home and Garden show returns after
several years. It will at the Columbia County
Fairgrounds on April 23 (10 am-5 pm) and
24 (11 am - 3 pm). There will be guest
speakers (a number of garden speakers) and
many displays.
The
Columbia
County
Master
Gardeners™ Spring Fair will also return
after two years. It will be Saturday, April 30
from 9 am - 3 pm. There will 3,000 tomato
plants, peppers, and garden related items by
other vendors. It will be at the Columbia
County Fairgrounds this year.
Local Bee Group Meeting: Thursday, May
5 at 6:00 pm there will be an in-person (at
the OSU Extension office in St. Helens) and
zoom Beekeepers meeting. To get the Zoom
link, email columbiacountyoregonbeekeep-
ers@gmail.com
Growing a Drought Tolerant Home Land-
scape: This program will be at the Vernonia
Library on Wednesday, May 11, at 6:30 pm.
Free and open to all. Chip Bubl, OSU Ex-
tension Service, is the speaker.
Vegetable notes
Snow is in the forecast as this is
being written. Our weather is getting more
turbulent. But it is time to talk vegetables,
since spring hope is part of a gardener’s
DNA.
Much of our cool-season crops (spinach,
cabbage family, lettuce, etc.) can be either
direct seeded or transplanted. For direct
seeding, the soil temperature needs to get
warmer. Raised beds naturally warm faster
than non-raised bed spaces. This happens
because the raised beds drain moisture so
you don’t have to heat as much water as you
do on flat ground. You can also warm soil by
placing clear plastic over the area you intend
to plant. Given a couple of clear warmish
days, the soil temperatures will bump up 10
or more degrees. This reduces germination
time and lowers the chance of seed loss due
to disease.
Once seedlings are up or transplanted,
installation of some kind of covering
structure over plants will hasten growth
as well. Clear plastic will work to make a
“mini” greenhouse but you have to be very
aware if it might get too hot on clear days.
That can “cook” plants. Those structures
need to have the plastic removed or opened
up for good air circulation on sunny days
and then put back down for the evening.
That is not true if you are using row covers.
European gardeners and chefs love
radishes. But somehow, they have become
less popular here. That is too bad as they
are quite good for you. Radish seed needs
to be planted about a half an inch deep.
There are quite a few radish types and all
do well here. The soils should be worked
deeply and fertilized with your regular
vegetable fertilizer of choice. A four foot
row of radishes planted every 10-15 days
throughout the summer will keep a family
of four in radishes for the entire growing
season. In the middle of the summer, they
can get “woody” and “hot” so timely early
harvest improves quality. They need to be
kept well-watered. The cabbage maggot
fly larva (little maggots) love radishes.
They can be stopped by growing the crop
completely under row cover. An alternate,
though less successful approach is to put
coarse sand adjacent to the radish stems.
The flies don’t like to lay their eggs there.
Cabbage maggot flies are not in everyone’s
garden so perhaps you wouldn’t need to do
anything for a couple of years.
Radishes can be eaten fresh or pickled
for later use. Pickled radishes are a common
addition to Vietnamese food like Bahn
mi sandwiches and many other delicious
dishes.
Speaking of larger root crops, they only
do well if thinned. I know it is hard! But thin
so that there are “three fingers” between each
carrot, beet, turnip, and onion. For rutabagas
(a very underappreciated root vegetable)
increase the spacing to “four fingers”. Large
daikon radishes can be thinned like carrots.
This is the time to start tomato plants
from seed. Wait another couple of weeks
for peppers. Or buy both at the Master
Gardener sale on April 30, from 9-3pm at
the Columbia County Fairgrounds.
Grapes for Vernonia
I think that Vernonia can grow grapes
if the following conditions are met. First,
the site needs to get full sun and good air
circulation. We love our trees but the grapes
don’t. Second, the ground needs to be well-
drained. A sunny south-facing hillside is
ideal but other locations that meet these
“tests” could do fine. Some table grape
varieties that I think would do well include
Canadice, Swenson Red, New York Muscat,
Interlaken, Himrod, Reliance, and the series
of Mars, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn. For wine
grapes try Reisling, Pinot gris, Marechal
Foch, and Pinot Noir.
Free newsletter (what a deal!)
The Oregon State University Extension
office in Columbia County publishes a
monthly newsletter on gardening and
farming topics (called Country 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. Alternatively, you can find it on
the web at http://extension.oregonstate.edu/
columbia/ and click on newsletters.
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 programs
and materials equally to all people.
Contact information:
Oregon State University
Extension Service – Columbia County
505 N. Columbia River Highway
St. Helens, OR 97051
(503) 397-3462
Email: chip.bubl@oregonstate.edu
Oregon’s Private Forest Accord continued from front page
an approved Incidental Take Permit.
The HCP ensures that any anticipated take of a
listed species will be minimized or mitigated by conserving
the habitat upon which the species depends, thereby contrib-
uting to the recovery of the species as a whole, while also
protecting private loggers from law suits under the ESA.
The HCP and an Incidental Take Permit is seen as
a way to potentially improve outcomes for timber harvest,
conservation, county revenues, and other public values.
The Accord excludes forestland owned by the nine
federally recognized, Oregon-based Tribes but allows them
to opt into the Habitat Conservation Plan. It also establishes
an approach to identify forest road problems and make im-
provements, and establishes a process to adjust forest prac-
tices in the future if science indicates a need for change.
In addition to approving the Accord, the Legisla-
ture also approved SB 1546 which creates the Elliott State
Research Forest by a vote of 50-8 in the House and 22-4 in
the Senate. The 90,000 acre Elliott Forest is located in the
Oregon Coast Range northeast of Coos Bay. Passage of the
bill provides $120 million to de-couple the forest from the
Common School Fund, which releases the forest from its
obligation to provide revenue for school funding. Protec-
tion of the Elliott State Forest has long been a goal of the
conservation movement in Oregon.
Work on the Accord was initiated in 2019 when
conservation organizations filed several ballot initiatives
designed to protect forests and watersheds, followed by
several counter measures filed by forest industry advocates.
That led to the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding
(MOU) between the two sides to drop the ballot measures
and instead come to the table to negotiate, resulting in the
finalizing of the Accord on October 30, 2021, which was
heralded as ‘the end of the Timber Wars” in Oregon.
“This agreement is an investment in the long-term
viability and sustainability of our industry in Oregon,” said
Roseburg Forest Products President and CEO Grady Mul-
bery in a press release. “Through the Private Forest Accord,
we minimize the risk of unscientific ballot measures and
never-ending bills before the Legislature in favor of long-
term certainty that allows us to maintain our commitment to
our timberland resources in this state.”
The goals of the Accord process were four-fold:
• Provide greater business certainty for forest landowners
and industries dependent on Oregon’s private forests with-
out compromising manufacturing infrastructure
• Provide greater environmental certainty for the survival
and recovery of threatened and endangered species and pro-
tection for aquatic resources
• Provide greater regulatory certainty through the applica-
tion of an HCP
• Provide a science-driven management process to ensure
the durability of Oregon’s forest practice laws on private
forest land.
“Oregon is now responding with needed urgency
to protect salmon and steelhead and the clean, cold water
they require,” said Wild Salmon Center President and CEO
Guido Rahr. “The science is unequivocal: Salmon cannot
survive the climate change impacts we’re now seeing in
Oregon without the streamside protections secured by the
Private Forest Accord. That’s why we’ve been fighting for
these changes so hard and for so long.”
Among the specific highlights included in the Ac-
cord are:
• Increased stream buffer widths by 10-100% based on
stream type and geography, including new protections
for headwater streams, which help to cool temperatures
throughout stream networks
• New standards for forest road design, inventory, mainte-
nance, management, and culvert design, and provides fund-
ing for culvert replacement for qualifying small forestland
owners
• New requirements for unstable slopes to retain trees in key
areas to reduce landslide risk and help protect streams and
aquatic habitat from sediment
continued on page 11
Cedar Side Inn
Specialty Pizzas
Taco Tuesday
from opening until 9 pm
3 hardshell or 1 softshell $4.25
11:00 am - 12:00 am Sun-Thr
11:00 am - 2:00 am Fri-Sat
Check our Facebook page for daily specials
756 Bridge Street, Vernonia
503-429-5841
Publisher and Managing Editor
Scott Laird
503-367-0098
scott@vernoniasvoice.com
Contributors
Chip Bubl
Tobie Finzel
Karen Miller
Bob New
Shannon Romtvedt
Chief Dean Smith
One year subscription
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Photography
Scott Laird
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