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The INDEPENDENT, October 19, 2011
Can You Dig It?
By Schann Nelson
Columbia County Master Gardener
So, back to waiting
for the sun to come out
long enough to have a
preventive spray dry.
Humpf! Not atypical
weather for this time of
year, but one can’t help
feel slightly cheated by
our two days of tempera-
tures in excess of 90 de-
grees.
Garden report: Tomatoes – none, except a
few Sun Golds which all split as soon as the rain
started. The only things in the garden that did
well this year were the green pole beans (still
producing), cucumbers planted after the early
broccoli came out, and the onions planted
around the garlic.
This month the garden and yard are all about
clean up, reducing the spread of our various
molds, mildews and blights, and planting garlic
and/or over-wintering ground covers. Cleaning
up and removing the dead and dying foliage in-
creases air circulation and helps reduce slime
habitat, both vegetative and moluscula. Though
too early for a dormant spray, if you pick all your
apples your can begin the biweekly copper
spray that will greatly reduce black spot, scab
and powdery mildew. I saw some fields of
squash that looked like they had been frosted
but, on closer examination, proved to have suc-
cumbed to a solid white coating of mildew.
A few days ago, a gardening friend told me
that the best thing you can do for your garden is
keep a journal. Note in your garden diary what
did well and why, including where you planted it.
While I firmly believe that keeping such a journal
would be enormously helpful, I’ve never been
able to manage it. I always believe I will remem-
ber where I planted stuff. In the spring I’m back
reviewing these musings to try and figure it out.
An organized garden journal would keep track of
all the stuff I want to remember, and record the
results. There are lots of printed journals, how-
to-keep-a-journal book, blank books and com-
puter programs that can help you begin your
journal. Or not.
It is past time to bring in the house plants you
plan to save. Geraniums root well from cuttings
taken now to live in your SUNNY window and
provide a bit of flavor for the winter. Growing
herbs indoors is a challenge because they are
all tremendous sun lovers. My two 5-foot by 4-
inch south-facing window sill is filled quickly, but
I’m determined to try to keep some thyme grow-
ing inside this year, too. When last year’s potted
basil tried to expire, I took cuttings. A basil with a
hard brown trunk that shows sudden collapse
and does not immediately recover with water,
will survive only through its cuttings or clones.
For some reason, the trunk hardens to the point
where it will not transport water. Cuttings taken
quickly, from above the hard trunk, will root read-
ily in water or in soil with a bit of rooting hor-
mone. One strong little cutting grew in its four-
inch pot all summer. When first potted, watering
it took some patience because the soil filled the
pot. Now, nearly one half-inch of that soil that
has disappeared into plant and the air. It really is
miraculous!
I’m also trying to root some more of my “Es-
cargot“ begonia, since I sold the giant my previ-
ous plant had become – I simple could not imag-
ine a place for it indoors. The great semi-annual
moving of the plants has begun – though moving
of furniture has to be accommodated at the
same time. Groom plants carefully before bring-
ing them inside – tiny shriveled tree frogs are
just sad. I’ve known only one woman who man-
aged to keep her frog alive in her bathroom
plants (she had lots of light), but I don’t think
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 9:30 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
Ralph Young, Pastor
957 State Avenue, Vernonia
503 429-6790
Sunday Bible Classes 9:00 a.m.
Family Praise & Worship 10:30 a.m.
Wednesday Prayer 6:30 p.m.
Thursday Laadies Study 7:00 p.m.
Nursery 10:15 a.m.
Vernonia Community Preschool
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.
V ERNONIA C HRISTIAN C HURCH
C HURCH OF J ESUS C HRIST
OF L ATTER D AY S AINTS
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)
Various Home Group Meetings
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.
most of us want to share our bathwater with a frog no matter how
cute. In addition, there are a host of pests that plants can battle
outside that become problems in the dry, close indoor environ-
ment. These include spider mites, white flies, scale and others
that can ravage an indoor plant. Try to give plants as little shock
as possible – moving on a day when the temperature and mois-
ture are close is advantageous. Plants will need to have watering
adjusted to meet the new environment.
Now is also the time to apply agricultural lime to the garden
and begin the process of creating a soil climate where micronutri-
ents are available in the spring. Whatever you do, don’t leave soil
completely uncovered. It will grow several fine crops of winter
weeds that will be troublesome in the spring and/or get beaten to
death by the rain. Rain will also leach most of the nitrogen that
you painstakingly supplied to your garden in the form of manure,
before it’s needed next spring. If you are trying to ‘hot’ compost to
destroy seeds you must provide some cover or it simply won’t
warm up enough. Fallen leaves (except for oak and walnut) or the
junk from the gutters are both relatively seed free and make a fine
top cover.
Another alternative is to plant a green manure crop. Fava
beans, red clover and other species will grow slowly throughout
the winter. When it comes time to plant they can either be tilled or
chopped into the soil early in the season, where they will release
the nitrogen they have fixed in a form available to plants. Later in
the season, after the green manure crop is more mature, they can
be pulled up wholesale, leaving a nearly perfect seedbed ready
for planting. The ‘used’ green manure plants can then be dried
and used as garden mulch. Fava beans are good to eat, a staple
in some countries, if harvested at the correct time before the seed
shells become to hard.
It’s also time to find, clean and sharpen garden tools before
they are lost. Perhaps you don’t have a grandchild you are trying
to encourage to garden, but I have enough trouble keeping track
of my tools without the help of small hands leaving (or throwing)
tools all over the yard. If you get enough dry weather, it’s also a
good time to paint or oil garden structures and benches.
Still time for transplanting and dividing. Be sure that you create
a new home for these new or replanted items with the best
drainage you can develop. There is a great difference between a
plant that sits in soggy soil and freezes into solid water, and one
that has that little bit of air in the soil where roots might be protect-
ed from freezing. It’s drainage that makes the difference. Adding
large quantities of organic matter, quarter minus rock, elevating in
a pot, or using potting soil in a raised bed all increase drainage.
Remember that pots need extra shelter from very cold weather,
particularly cold wind, because the roots are more exposed to
killing temperatures.
Frost – The first kiss of winter that kills the foliage of begonias,
squash, tomatoes, impatiens, spider plants, etc. Hasn’t happened
yet at my house, but there’s snow in the Cascades. Sometimes
you can save a tuberous begonia if you get it out of the ground
before a Killing Freeze – Knocks everything annual out of the
picture and creates a lot of slime to deal with if you haven’t sani-
tized yet. Typically, the ground itself will freeze at night but thaws
during the day and can be quite pleasant to work, even if it is rain-
ing. Then comes the true cold of deep winter where the ground
will stay frozen all day, sometimes for a few days or even a cou-
ple of weeks, and sometimes hardly at all. When 35-degrees
starts to feel warm you know it’s deep winter.
Try to get a few bulbs potted for winter forcing. Crowd bulbs
into pots with just enough space to get soil under and around
them and water in well. A pretty mulch of colored rocks is nice.
Keep in the dark and above freezing, as in a pump house or
garage. Make sure they stay moist until they begin to poke
through the soil. Gradually move to a warmer, brighter environ-
ment, and add a bit of liquid fertilizer with your watering. There are
lots of varieties of bulbs including daffodils, crocus or tulips that
will force (bloom early) as long as you do not let them dry out.
Nothing is more cheerful than a bright, fragrant pot of bright yel-
low blooms when the snow is deep outside. Depending on type,
most of these bulbs can be planted outside, but may take sever-
al years to recover and bloom again.