Urban Farm School

Have you been paying attention?  Slender shoots of green are poking up everywhere – crocus, chives, daffodils, even tulips have decided to chime in early this year.  After last year’s miserable  string of spring, summer, and autumn seasons gardener’s in the Clark County area are all holding their breaths for a good growing season. 

March is the magic month when the pruning has been finished and those seeds that came in the mail can finally go in the ground.  Sweet, snow, and sugar snap peas, brassicas, cold lettuces, and root crops can all be put in the is month.  Keep the mulch on the garden to suppress weeds and protect from those surprise frosts.  Watch the weather and look for windows of temperatures over 40 degrees and those magical stretches of overcast without serious rain. 

This is not the time of year to be tilling or prepping the entire garden.  Place single transplants and early seeds without disturbing the majority of the garden.  Use cloches or row covers when frost threatens and to protect from long periods of rain.   Remember, cool weather + rain + early season = slugs.  Waking up to transplants eaten to the ground is a disheartening way to start the year.

Be patient, just because March is that first possiblity for planting outdoors doesn’t necessarily mean planting will happen.  As always, mother nature and the weather will rule when and what can be planted.

Oh, February!  Embrace this glorious month – full of hints of green, the last of the great chills, and the yearning for fresh food from the garden.  This is the month when it’s time to get back into the garden. 

If you didn’t take the time last fall to clean and sharpen your tools now is the time to get your loppers and hand shears ready to work.  Sharpening pruning tools is critical in maintaining the health of your trees and shrubs.  A sharp edge allows for a clean cut, lessening an avenue for pests and disease to enter through jagged cuts.

 Using a 10 in. mill file, found at any hardware store, you can sharpen all your garden tools.  Make sure to tighten the nut holding the arms together before sharpening.  Using a steady hand and secured tool run the file WITH the manufacturer’s bevel from the tip toward the handle.  Oil wooden handles with linseed oil and blades and moving joints with a suitable lubricant. 

When pruning be sure to wipe the blades with rubbing alcohol between shrubs, trees, and other plants.  One of the easiest ways to transmit diseases throughout a a garden or orchard is to use the same uncleaned, cutting blade.  It’s worth the 20 seconds to wipe down the blades saving yourself years of disease problems.

While sharpening and cleaning your pruning tools throw your shovels and hoes in there as well.  The same techniques used for shears can be used on your other tools and prepping them for the new season will make digging, weeding, and maintenance easier.  Using a 5 gallon bucket filled half way with coarse sand mixed with a little oil makes for a quick and easy tool cleaning station.  Before putting shovels, hoes, and other tools away quickly plunge them into the bucket until clean and then hang them up to find them quickly when you need them.

Do not disparage the freezing temperatures; embrace them wholeheartedly.  After the dismall 2010 growing season with months of cool, wet weather well into June and the mild autumn on top of everything else we desperately need those frigid temperatures to help regulate some of those nasty bugs and diseases that will plague the garden without a good killing freeze.  While flipping through seed catalogs, drawing out the planting plan for the spring, or starting your onion seeds in flats this month, please add that little plea to your list, for freezing temperatures through February and then a glorious spring full of bees and blossoms to kick things off right.  We deserve a great year after 2010 don’t you think?

winter upon us

Gardening Gifts
It’s that time of year; the gift giving and actually taking the time to say “thank you/I love you/ I appreciate you” to all those people in your life. So what is it that you can give that gardener in your life that they’re really going to use.
Seeds: Give the gift of seeds. Think heirloom, think open-pollinated. Look at sources such as Seeds of Change, Territorial Seed, and Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.
Books: Encyclopedia of Country Living, Alice Waters and Chez Panisse, Farmer Jane, For the Health of the Land, In Defense of Food, and the list goes on. Look at thrift stores (always an amazing source for gardening books), Amazon.com, and Powell’s books.
Tools: Build your own tool maintenance kit. A small bucket or old milking pail full of sand with a little oil mixed in to dunk dirty tools in to clean and oil the metal, a file for sharpening edges, mineral oil for handles, and rags to clean.
Gift Certificate: Give the gift of a consult with Urban Farm School. A one-hour consultation for the garden or a two-hour consultation for canning is the gift that gives forever. E-mail urbanfarmschool@gmail.com to discuss pricing and availability.

Winter Events
December is a funny month for gardeners in the Pacific Northwest so we have to get creative. Join Urban Farm School Friday, December 3, 5:30-7:00pm at Neighbor’s Market, 1707 Main Street, Vancouver for Uptown’s First Friday. We will be partnering with A Dinner Together providing 30 minute lectures and tastings 0f seasonal foods throughout the evening. Call 360-448-1620 or info@neighborsmarket.com for more information.

Join UFS Friday, December 10, 6-8pm at Vancouver Food Cooperative, 215 W. 4th Street, Vancouver for a Wreath-making class and community social with local, seasonal foods and beverages. Pre-registration and fee required, $20/members, $30/non-members. All materials provided. Contact 360-694-8094 or questions@vancouverfood.coop with questions and registration.

Happy Holidays
From Urban Farm School we wish you the happiest and safest of holidays. We look forward to seeing you in class or at a consultation in 2011. Please, note that Urban Farm School will be closed December 11 through January 18. If you have questions during this time please, contact urbanfarmschool@gmail.com with any questions and someone will respond as quickly as possible.

November 15 is here and with it Garlic Planting Day! Today is the day to brave the weather, break apart those wonderful seed cloves of garlic, dig the holes, and put next June’s harvest into the ground.

I love garlic all types, all sizes, all shapes. When I am out in the world, especially on holiday which often ends up at a farmer’s market, farm, or roaming through a foreign countryside, I always look for garlic. Garlic people are good people. They understand and can explain the nuances of one garlic from another, often a testament to their outlook on life, the singular differences, uniqueness, and specified uses for something that is seemingly the same. Garlic. In it’s paper-sheathed clove, the blunt root end and the pointed stalk end a hidden treasure of flavor and memory.

Don’t be shy about planting garlic, as an allium it has a wonderful stalk that lends interest to the garden, a scent that deters deer, moles, rabbits and other critters, and has an edible scape which is delicious sauteed with butter and spooned over rice early in the season. Garlic can be interplanted just about anywhere in the garden keeping in mind that it is harvested typically in June (weather permitting).

As we enter the rainy season in our region it is time to get that last mulch layer into place. Rain compaction is the secret thwarter of healthy soil systems so be sure to layer with leaves, compost, straw, or a late cover crop to prepare the soil for spring planting.

i know you know this but . . . there’s nothing like fresh food.  it’s been a dismal year granted but there have been little glimpses of fantastic food this year.  NW Organic Farm in Ridgefield being one of the highlights for me this year during their Heirloom Garlic and Tomato Festival.  Great food, music, and people.  Put it on your calendar for next year, it’s worth the drive, third Saturday in September. 

We’re coming into the autumn finally, crazy weather notwithstanding, it’s time to yank out the garden, get rid of pest and diseased plants, mulch, cover crop, compost, and feed the soil preparing it for next spring.  NOW is the time to prep your soil, avoiding the battle of weeds if you do nothing.  Protect your soil from rain compaction, save yourself time (and money) by taking care of your garden now.  I know your probably done with the garden but get out there and get it done, you won’t be sorry you did.

I hope to see you at an autumn class ~ Putting the Garden to Bed, Lawn to Food: Converting Grass to Growing Space, Raised Bed Basics, and Basic Composting all coming to you in October.  This is also a great time of year for a consult ~ start planning, dreaming, and prepping for the next step. 

UFS will be at the first Green Drinks supported “Check ‘Em Off Green” holiday bazaar event at Marshall Center Saturday, November 13.  It will be a great one for finding recycled, reused, reloved items at affordable prices for your friends and family.  What could be better?  Local crafters, recycled materials, affordable prices, convenient location!  Detailed info will be coming as the time draws near.

Don’t fret my friends.  All farmers, backyard or otherwise, have bad years.  Chalk it up to experience and start dreaming about next year.

Tomatoes at Last
It has been a strange growing season what with late June rains and cold weather, few days of high 90′s, and already a nip in the air the first week in September. I hate to say it my friends but I’d put my money on an early autumn, quick and cold.

So where does that leave our lovely tomatoes? Those wonderful orbs of GREEN that just don’t seem to want to ripen. There are a few tricks to get the most out of our late tomato harvest.
* Keep tomatoes consistently warm and watered. They do not like shocks to the system, so keeping them at an average temperature, day and night, of 70+ degrees helps them ripen. Keeping them watered deeply and slowly allows them to draw on the water and produce full, unblemished fruit, that is full-bodied and flavorful.
* Keep an eye on the forecast. We’re seeing forecasted night temperatures in the 40s already so make sure your tomatoes are covered or protected to get the most out of them.
* Get out your green tomato recipes. Green tomato salsas, sauces, chutneys, and relishes are delicious and are an easy way to use those under-ripe tomatoes.
* If frost is in the forecast pull or protect your tomatoes beforehand. Frost hit tomatoes are no longer suitable for canning nor fresh eating. If you do have frost hit tomatoes you can still freeze them for use in soups and sauces but they must be preserved as soon as possible after frost hit.
* Once the temperature drops you can pull the entire plant out, roots and all, and hang it upside down in a basement, garage, or shed that stays a moderate temperature, preferably dark. The tomatoes will slowly ripen, generally through Thanksgiving. Cherry tomatoes do not work well for this method. You can also wrap individual tomatoes in newspaper and store them in boxes in an area with good air circulation and cool temperatures.

Planning for Autumn
September is that great month of transition, from warm to cool weather, layed back to school schedules, and from summer to autumn seasons. It is also a great time in the garden. A time to reflect, plan, and question whether you like something, need to move or remove something, and start dreaming of what to add during the autumn planting season. In the PacNW especially, our garden season starts in September/October. This is when the majority of your garden and soil prep should be done to ready it for winter rains and spring planting. Need a little help? Plan a consultation or better yet invite your friends and family over for a hands on “Put the Garden to Bed” or “Lasagana Gardening” garden party.