Country Living Provided to you by the OSU Extension Service Columbia County 505 N. Columbia River Hwy, St. Helens OR 97051 Phone: 503.397.3462 Email: [email protected] Office hours: Closed until further notice To visit links to external articles, please view this newsletter online at our Website: http://extension.oregonstate.edu/columbia/ May 2020 Programs for you . Listen to the Gardening Spot on KOHI (1600 am) radio - Every Saturday, 8:05 to 8:15 a.m. Columbia County Beekeepers Virtual Meeting May 7th at 6pm. Steve Gomes will present on “Queen rearing during the nectar flow.” Email for login information: [email protected] th Home Lawn Live Q & A May 12 at 1pm. Get your home lawn questions answered by the OSU BeaverTurf Team! Bring your questions about irrigation, maintenance, fertilizer, weed control, pest management, mowing, and planting lawns. Register for this FREE event HERE. See also: Managing Moss in Lawns in Western Oregon: This video demonstrates how to identify and eliminate moss from your lawn. It is a companion to OSU Extension publication EM 9175. Practical Lawn Care for Western Oregon: Describes options for different levels of lawn care, from keeping a lawn lush and green year-round to allowing it to go partially dormant in summer. Fertilizing Lawns: Explains how to optimize a fertilization program for a home lawn. Includes how to select and use fertilizers, and the roles of various elements in lawns. OSU resources & publications: https://catalog.extension.oregonstate.edu/ Chip Bubl, OSU Extension Faculty, Agriculture Agricultural Sciences & Natural Resources, Family and CommunityIn the Health, garden 4-H Youth, Forestry & Natural Resources, and Extension Sea Grant programs. Oregon State University, United States Department of Agriculture, and Columbia County cooperating. The Extension Service offers its programs and materials equally to all people. Page 1 In the garden eat a large tunnel to the core and from whence, after filling up, they exit to pupate for next year. Egg laying starts about a In cloche and personal month after full bloom. My estimate is that full bloom was about April 20th in the St. Several weeks ago, I received a call from a Helens/Scappoose area so any codling moth gardener who was losing vegetable controls need to start around May 20th. The transplants in her greenhouse. She described best home garden control methods are leaves that were partially eaten or just cut applying products that contain spinosad as off and gone. I suggested the obvious the active ingredient. This is a compound suspect, slugs. But she baited to no effect. I produced by a microbiological organism and also mentioned deer mice and chipmunks many formulations are considered organic. but she didn’t think she had any of those. As Three to four applications, stretched about the plants got bigger, the damage decreased. 2-3 weeks apart, will be needed to give decent, albeit not perfect, control. There is Fast forward to my own garden and a cloche an argument that heavy fruit years, like this frame draped with a row cover that one might be, dilutes the codling moth protected spinach transplants. Same issue. damage because there are so many choices Small leaves and the smallest plants were for where the females lay their eggs. We being eaten. I slug baited but also put out a will see. mouse trap. First night, no slugs at all but one plump deer mouse in the trap! Lured by The second insect of concern is the apple peanut butter. As this is being written, the maggot. This pest fly is a late riser and egg trap is still there. We will see if it was one laying on fruit doesn’t generally start until lone deer mouse or an extended family. Deer late June. Apple maggot damage is more mice, unlike field mice, are intrepid climbers sporadic than the codling moth with some but also use mole runways or make their bad years (last year was one) and some own shallow tunnels under the ground. when they are almost non-existent. The Fortunately, they aren’t hard to trap. small maggots chew tiny tunnels in the flesh but don’t make big, obvious holes. A badly “Worms” in apples infested apple can turn to mush! This pest got to Columbia County in the From the looks of it, we are early 1980s from the east coast. going to have a heavy tree It will also be controlled by fruit set this year. Apples spinosad applications that may were less productive last need to go later. summer and are rebounding this year. Pollination Spinosad products are a bit weather has been good hard to find but have been enough but honeybee stocked locally both at Bi-Mart numbers are down. Mason and bumble bees in Scappoose and Linnton Feed and Seed are very active. under the “Captain Jack” trade name. Look on the label for the active ingredient There are two significant insect pests of “spinosad”. As with any crop protection apples. The codling moth is generally the product, always read the label instructions worst. The female codling moth lays eggs before you buy and follow the instructions that become burrowing caterpillars, which when you use them. 2 Intensive vegetable planting From Garden to Table: Vegetable gardens grown in beds, raised or The Case of the Curious Asian not, lead gardeners to plant more Cucurbits intensively. This practice can yield more produce per square foot and can help in the 4:00 a.m. After a restless night I sit and battle against weeds by shading them out. review the data thus far collected. The stage is set. The necessary cultural information However, lettuce seedlings or lies before me but something essential is transplants can stunt each other missing. Suddenly a light comes on. Aha! I if each plant is not given need a defense. What problems might I sufficient room to grow. The encounter in my endeavors to grow any of rule in the plant kingdom is the these illustrious Cucurbits? plant that gets more light, wins. That “winner” plant will be able to grow As Cucurbits are subject to several wilts, deeper roots and more leaves of viral and fungal diseases, bacterial wilt and larger size. A leaf lettuce bed powdery mildew are common problems. planted at a 4” x 4” spacing will not Most can be controlled with good soil yield anywhere near as much leaf to eat as management, proper rotation, garden the same square footage planted at 6” x 6”. sanitation, and avoiding overhead watering methods. Insects such as cucumber beetles, Gardeners should aim for mature plants that vine borers, and squash bugs can be just touch when they reach their mature size. worrisome. Planting with this precise spacing is easy with transplants, less easy when you direct Cucumber beetles infect plants with seed. But it is possible. You must seed devastating bacterial wilt disease. Insect enough (all seeds will not make it) and then pests, especially cucumber beetles, can be thin aggressively to get the right spacing. controlled with insecticides or using floating The following table gives some spacing row covers (removed when the plants are guidelines for intensive plantings: blooming), and keeping garden borders mowed. Beans (bush) 6x6” Now that a defense plan has been Beets 4x4” established, it’s time to profile those curious Broccoli 18x18” Asian Cucurbits. The lineup of suspects Carrots 2x2” begins: Chard 9x9” Corn 9x28” Oriental Cucumber (Cucumis sativus) Lettuce (leaf) 6x6” 65 days Lettuce (head) 12x12” Onions 3x3” A prolific producer, this long slender Asian Peppers 12x12” variety is equivalent to the western Potatoes 9x9” cucumber and has a thin skin, a small seed Tomatoes (staked) 24x24” cavity and tender, sweet, burpless flesh. 3 Use it like any western cucumber (although Some research indicates this small round, not a good candidate for pickling) or in a apple-sized melon belongs to the lanatus variety of Japanese, Chinese, Indian or Thai species, the same one occupied by recipes where it is popular in soups, cool watermelons and citron melon. It is used in yoghurt raitas, or stir-fried dishes. its young, immature state like summer Cucumbers are a natural coolant to the squash in curries or combined with other palate during the hot summer. Trellis the vegetables like potatoes, eggplants or peas. five foot vines to obtain the straightest fruit. Kabocha Squash (Cucurbita maxima and Armenian Cucumber (Cucumis melo, Cucurbita moshata, and some hybrids Flexuosus group), between the two) a.k.a.: Japanese pumpkin, a.k.a.: snake melon Kuri Kabocha. 100-110 days 60 days Kabocha, a Japanese variety of winter Not a cucumber but a squash, has come to mean simply winter melon originating in the squash to many English speaking growers Middle East, this and buyers. Highly muskmelon cousin prized in Japan develops slightly (some cultures ribbed, spineless consider it an cucumber shaped fruit aphrodisiac), this that grows 2-3 feet long two to three pound and 2 inches in squash is similar to diameter. These light green delicacies are buttercup squash but best eaten when 12-15 inches long, and are without the bitter-free and burpless to boot. Use like characteristic cup on the blossom end. Oriental cucumbers. Trellis the vines. Photo Sweeter than a butternut squash, the moist, from Renee’s Garden Seeds fluffy texture is often likened to a roasted chestnut. Photo: Warner Farm Oriental Pickling Melon (Cucumis melo, Conomon group) a.k.a.: pickling melon, When first harvested, Kabocha will be dry oriental melon, yue gua, bai gua 70 days and bland-tasting. In order to transform it into the smooth, sweet and succulent squash This vigorous grower also looks like a for which it is revered, it needs to be ripened cucumber but belongs to the melon species.