Page 6
The INDEPENDENT, February 15, 2012
Can You Dig It?
By Schann Nelson
Columbia County Master Gardener
Let’s talk about dirt, or as it
is technically known, soil.
Everybody knows that dirt is
made up of many parts, but
few realize that one-quarter of
good quality soil is made of air
and another one-quarter is
made of water. About 40 per-
cent is minerals of varying
pore size, and only about 10
percent is left for the “magic”, the living and dead or-
ganic material that makes soil thrive.
The mineral content of your soil will determine how
fast water moves through it. Mineral particles have
three “pure” forms: sand, silt, and clay. The percent-
age of each in your soil will determine the soil type.
Loam, the most desired of garden soils, is a combina-
tion of all three types of particles. Think of the particles
this way: sand at least as big as a beach ball, silt
about the size of an orange, and clay about the size of
a penny or smaller. Together, these particles allow for
large and small air spaces between them, with the
help of a fleet of soil organisms that are constantly
churning them up – though not so much now, when
the ground is frozen.
That’s part of why this is a good time to get your soil
professionally tested. The internet or the OSU Exten-
sion office can give you a long list of companies that
perform soil testing, and which will provide specific
recommendations. However, it’s a little early to be
thinking about fertilizer. The exception (there is always
at least one exception) is dolomitic lime, which sup-
plies calcium as well as magnesium, but takes a win-
ter to become available to plants. Typically, our soils
range from a pH of 5.5 to 5.8 in their natural state.
Plant nutrients are available in the range of 6.5 to 7.5.
You can see that some work is required to raise the pH
to a level where garden plants can access nutrients.
As a rule, vegetable gardens should be limed every
three years at a rate of 50 pounds per 1000 square
feet with agricultural or dolomitic lime. However, if you
are using wood ashes, the rate of application drops to
a mere 15 to 25 pounds per 1000 square feet. There
is probably still time to apply lime, as you should wait
at least three weeks before planting. There is certain-
ly not any unprotected planting going on now.
This is not to say that there can’t be planting. There
are any number of ornamentals and vegetables that
can be planted indoors now for setting out next month,
though still under cover. This is the time you can get a
head start on fickle flowers and tomatoes that refuse
to bloom without eight weeks or more of sunshine.
And they don’t mean overcast – they mean unending
weeks of at least six hours of full sunlight. When was
the last time you saw that around these parts?
If professional soil testing is out of reach, you can
conduct your own primitive analysis. Using a standard
glass jar, add soil to about one-third full, then fill with
water. Give it a good shake and put it where it will not
be disturbed for about a week. At the end of the week,
before you move your sample, mark the layers and
determine what percentage of the whole is occupied
by each type of soil particle. Sand will be on the bot-
tom, silt will be the next layer and clay will be the top
layer due to its small particle size. Organic material
will float on the top of the water. Good loamy garden
soil is about 45% sand, 35% silt and 20% clay.
It’s likely that, unless you have been working your
soil for some time, you will have a very high clay con-
tent. This is a good thing because this is the “mineral
bank”. Too much, however, creates the thick, slippery
mud we all know and love…and can’t grow much in.
You may be tempted to add sand to improve your soil
drainage. If so, be sure you add large quantities of or-
ganic matter at the same time, or you will create
something more akin to cement than garden soil.
As I said before, the magic of soil is in the 10-15%
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.
of organic material floating on top of your soil. A whole
host of soil organisms live, eat, and die in your topsoil,
providing nutrients and improving drainage. In order to
maintain and improve this layer you need to add 1 – 4
inches of organic matter every year for every plant you
want to maintain in your landscape. This turns into a
huge amount of leaves, compost, bark dust, straw, or
stuff you cleaned out of the gutters, that needs to be
moved form one place to another. Rhodies, azaleas,
blueberries, and other acid-loving plants which do well
in our acid soil, tend to have micro roots very close to
the surface and need this mulch cover to maintain
moisture in the summer.
So, here is your insurmountable list of chores. Test
the soil, add amendments and/or mulch as available
and necessary, clean and sharpen garden tools, fertil-
ize fall planted garlic before it begins to come up,
prune fruit trees and ornamentals and spray for pests
or disease as necessary, plant and/or move dormant
perennials, shrubs and trees, prune cane berries, treat
unwanted moss on roofs or patios when the moss is
damp but rain is not an immediate threat. And don’t
forget to enjoy the winter sun on its rare appearances!
I almost forgot – that winter sun can convince trees
to try to break out of dormancy early. This can lead to
a lot of damage. The warm sun and cold nights can be
particularly hard on young trees, which are suscepti-
ble to sunscald in weather like we had a couple of
weeks ago. The cheapest and easiest way to protect
them is simple to wrap young trunks with newspaper.
P.S. In last month’s column, the caption for the illus-
tration about pruning trees left out a bit. Usually, you
buy a young dormant tree with several small branch-
es. The old recommendation was to prune those
branches off to get that stick-like form. You can cer-
tainly plant a tree that does not have branches, just
don’t cut any branches off for the first season. I’ve
killed any number of purchased plants with too ag-
gressive pruning at planting (and so have a lot of oth-
ers it seems), so this practice is no longer recom-
mended.
Oregon 1st lady ready to begin
battle against poverty in the state
From page 5
raise awareness about Ore-
gon’s strong network of food
banks and affordable housing
facilities, and convene the In-
teragency Council on Hunger
and Homelessness to address
how to improve both the supply
and distribution of food and
housing to people in need.
In the long term, Hayes will
lead the Oregon Prosperity Ini-
tiative’s efforts to establish a
more coordinated and integrat-
ed approach to poverty reduc-
tion in Oregon. This includes
integrating poverty reduction
strategies into long-term budg-
eting plans, engaging the busi-
ness community in developing
entrepreneurial approaches to
improving opportunities for
people to achieve prosperity,
and embedding poverty reduc-
tion into the Governor’s educa-
tion and health care transfor-
mation efforts.
Spaghetti feed set in N. Plains
There will be an All You Can
Eat Spaghetti Dinner at the
North Plains Senior Center on
Saturday, February 25, starting
at 5:00 p.m.
In addition to spaghetti,
there will be salad, garlic
bread, dessert and beverages,
all for only $5.00 per person.
For more information, call
503-647-5666.