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About The independent. (Vernonia, Or.) 1986-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 20, 2011)
Page 6 The INDEPENDENT, January 20, 2011 Can You Dig It? By Chip Bubl, Columbia County Extension Educator Agriculture/Staff Chair G RAFTING W ORKSHOP We will have our annual grafting workshop Saturday, February 12th from 9:00 a.m. – 12 noon at the Extension office in St. Helens. Space is limited. Call for reservations (503 397- 3462). Cost will be $15 and will include five dwarf apple root- stocks. If you have a favorite apple tree that you want to make “copies” of, take some 12” cuttings from last season’s growth (about pencil thickness), using the middle third of the shoots. Bundle and label the cuttings and place them in plas- tic bag and store them in the refrigerator until the work- shop. Free cuttings will be available of several vari- eties R OW COVERS WILL BE AVAILABLE AGAIN The interest in row covers continues to increase. For those of you who missed the buzz, row covers are made from a gauzy fabric. They come in twelve-foot widths and, when we cut the roll, in lengths of 50 or 100 feet. Row covers are used in vegetable production on farms and home gardens. They serve several purposes: • Covers increase temperatures around transplants and growing plants by 4-6 degrees during the day and 3-4 degrees at night. This is valuable heat in the spring and fall. • Seeds planted under row covers aren’t seen by crows. • Soils warm with the covers but don’t crust, so seed emergence is faster and more even. • Covers can be left with enough slack so that broc- coli-sized plants can grow tall underneath them. • Covers can keep insects out like carrot rust flies and cabbage root maggots. However, slugs prosper under covers so slug controls are needed. Weeds also like it under cover, so persistent weeding pays. Last year we sold, in 50 or 100 foot pieces, about a mile (!!) of cover. Cost should be the same as last year. i.e. $20 for a 12 x 100’ piece or $10 for a 50’ one. You cut them down further to fit your gardening needs. Call our office (503 397-3462) if you want some. It went fast last year. G ARDENING January is Blood Donor Month January has been recog- nized as National Blood Donor Month for over forty years. Blood is traditionally in short supply during the winter months due to holiday travel schedules, inclement weather and illness, and January is a difficult month for blood center blood donations. But, if dona- tions are down, the need for blood isn’t. “Every two seconds some- one in America needs blood, and approximately 40,000 units of red blood are needed every day,” said FEMA Regional Ad- ministrator Ken Murphy. “Do- nating blood is a safe, life-sav- ing and selfless gift that en- hances the level of prepared- ness for each and every com- munity in this nation.” Few blood centers can maintain more than a three-day supply of blood for transfu- sions. The need for blood, RESOLUTIONS Ok, I know it is a little past the start of the new year, but a good part of gardening (and life, I suppose) is planning ahead and then acting on those plans. So here are some resolutions that may be worth considering: • Resolution 1: If a plant isn’t doing well where you put it, move it or toss it! The plant may need better drainage, more sun, or something else to allow it to thrive. If you have a place where the plant might do better and you still like it, transplant it. February is an excellent month to transplant. I know rose growers who give roses three-five years to show how disease resistant they are (they don’t want to spray for black spot). If they don’t perform, they are replaced. Finally, trees, some shrubs, and even some herbaceous perennial flowers can outgrow their place. Large trees and shrubs generally can’t be moved, so they need to be cut down. Perennials can be divided and/or moved. • Resolution 2: Use a lot more compost and/or mulch. Vegetable gardens and landscape beds bene- fit tremendously from regular additions of organic mat- ter. This is especially true of the clay soils found almost everywhere in Columbia County. Top-dressings of compost in the fall can reduce the amount of winter an- nual weeds that start during the fall through the late spring. If you add more mulch than compost in your vegetable garden, make sure you provide some extra nitrogen to help turn the mulch into compost. If you don’t, the soil micro-organisms that make compost will capture the nitrogen and your vegetables won’t have platelets, and plasma is con- stant, but only three in every 100 Americans donate blood. So-called “baby boomers” ac- count for the majority of blood donations, but are approaching an age when medications and health issues bar them from being able to donate. They are also the largest age group in the world and require more do- nated blood for their own health, quickly using much of the supply they once supported themselves. Resolve to be Ready in 2011 is led by FEMA’s Ready Cam- paign in partnership with Citi- zen Corps and The Advertising Council. For more information on the Ready Campaign and Citizen Corps, visit www.fema. gov, Ready.gov and Citizen- Corps.gov. Follow FEMA online at www.twitter.com/fema, www. facebook.com/fema, and www. youtube.com/fema. enough. So feed both the vegetables and the benefi- cial decomposers. • Resolution 3: Learn to grow more vegetables in the early spring and the late fall. This is called season extension. It is quite reasonable to grow lettuce and other greens almost year round if you use the right techniques. Good tools include row covers, cloches (small plastic-covered tunnels in the garden), raised beds, and transplants. For home-grown transplants, nothing beats a greenhouse or, equally good and quite reasonable to make from scrap materials, a cold frame. It is worth noting that tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers do not do well in a winter greenhouse here since our light intensities at that time of the year are so low. • Resolution 4: Make a special effort to grow fruits and vegetables for the Food Banks and Senior Centers. They all need and value good quality local produce. • Resolution 5: Take time to just sit in your garden, soaking up the sunshine, colors, scents, and the in- credible activity of birds and insects that makes your garden such a delightful place to be. Church Directory V ERNONIA F OURSQUARE C HURCH F IRST B APTIST C HURCH P IONEER B APTIST F ELLOWSHIP Carl Pense, Pastor 850 Madison Avenue, Vernonia 503 429-1103 Sunday Worship Service: 10:30 a.m. Children’s Sunday School Pastor John D. Murray 359 “A” Street, Vernonia 503 860-3860 Sunday School 9:45 a.m. Sunday Worship Service 11:00 a.m. Wednesday Prayer Meeting 7:00 p.m. John Cahill, Pastor 939 Bridge Street, Vernonia 503-429-1161 www.pbfalive.com Sunday School 9:45 a.m. Sunday Morning Worship 11:00 a.m. Thursday Prayer 7:00 p.m. S EVENTH D AY A DVENTIST Larry Gibson, Pastor 2nd Ave. and Nehalem St., Vernonia 503 429-8301 Morning Worship, 11:00 a.m. Sabbath School 9:30 a.m. A SSEMBLY OF G OD Wayne and Maureene Marr 662 Jefferson Ave., Vernonia, 503 429-0373 Sunday School 9:45 a.m. Morning Worship 11:00 a.m S T . M ARY ' S C ATHOLIC C HURCH Rev. Luan Tran, Administrator 960 Missouri Avenue, Vernonia 503 429-8841 Mass Sunday 12:00 Noon Religious Educ. Sunday 10:30 a.m. V ERNONIA C OMMUNITY C HURCH 957 State Avenue, Vernonia 503 429-6790 Sunday Worship 9:45 a.m. Children’s Church (Blast!) 10:15 a.m. Nursery 10:15 a.m. High School Youth 6:00 p.m. Wednesday Prayer 6:00 p.m. Vernonia Community Preschool V ERNONIA C HRISTIAN C HURCH Sam Hough, Minister 410 North Street, Vernonia 503 429-6522 Sunday School 9:45 a.m. Sunday Worship 11:00 a.m. (meets in Youth & Family Center) Home Group Meeting throughout the week at various locations N EHALEM V ALLEY B IBLE C HURCH Gary Taylor, Pastor Grant & North Streets, Vernonia 503 429-5378 Sunday School 10:00 a.m. Morning Worship 11:00 a.m. Nursery available Wednesday Service 7:00 p.m. C HURCH OF J ESUS C HRIST OF L ATTER D AY S AINTS Marc Farmer, Branch President 1350 E. Knott Street, Vernonia 503 429-7151 Sacrament Meeting, Sunday 10 a.m. Sunday School & Primary 11:20 a.m. Relief Society, Priesthood and Young Women, Sunday 12:10 p.m.