Gardener's Notebook: What to Plant Now

The Beaverton Farmers Market, a longtime advertiser and supporter of good things in the Northwest, has built a selection of top-quality nursery stock from some of the best vendors in the area. That's because market manager Ginger Rapport is an ardent gardener herself, with a strong commitment to helping people get in touch with their food by growing it themselves. Here's her advice on what to plant now.

What do you think is the first “app” that a farmer puts on his smart phone?

If you said a weather app, you would be right! Chris Hertel of Sun Gold Farm says that he checks his weather app every day. If you are a gardener, he recommends that you do the same, especially this time of the year when high and low temperatures can be all over the place. This weekend’s warm weather will have most of us chomping at the bit to start planting our vegetable and herb gardens. Chris says that the most important plants to get in the ground right now are peas and brassicas—cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, etc. They like the cool weather, as do lettuce, spinach, chard and other greens.

If you want to get a jump on summer, Sun Gold’s booth will have plenty of tomato, pepper, eggplant, cucumber and squash starts on hand. These heat-loving plants may need a little bit of protection if the night time temperatures dip too low. This is where your weather app comes in handy! If it looks like we are going to get near freezing, Chris suggests that you protect your hot weather veggie starts with something as simple as a paper bag placed over them. Even a crude greenhouse made of sticks and plastic will work. Of course, you will want to uncover your plants during the day.

You can also start perennial herb gardens now. A perennial plant is one whose life cycle lasts for more than two years, so think of herbs like mint, chives, bay, oregano, sage and rosemary. This does not include basil or cilantro; hold off on those tender herbs until nighttime temperatures warm up.

And believe it or not, now is the time for planting strawberries! Hood Strawberries are a market favorite. They are a super sweet berry with the entire crop coming over a short period of time. Sun Gold will also have an everbearing variety called Tri-Star that will keep you in fruit for a longer period of time.

Lastly, it is not too late to plant blueberry bushes. Both Sun Gold Farm and Northern Pacific Farm will have a wide variety of blueberry bushes in their stalls this Saturday. Ask for advice on selecting the variety best suited for your tastes.

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The Beaverton Farmers Market is kicking off their summer season a full week ahead of schedule, so make plans to get your summer going on May 2nd from 8 am to 1:30 pm.

If you happen to have a furry friend with you, the market offers Sit-n-Stay, a drop-in dogsitting service adjacent to the market run by Home Plate Youth Services. Open from 7:30 am until 2 pm, it'll cost just $5 for the first 30 minutes, then $2.50 for each additional 15 minutes after that. Additional donations to HomePlate's program serving young people with precarious housing are welcome.

Farm Bulletin: Doodlebugging on the Farm

Defined as "a type of divination employed in attempts to locate ground water, buried metals or ores, gemstones, oil, gravesites and many other objects and materials," dowsing is also known as doodlebugging in some regions of the U.S. (Thanks once again, Wikipedia!). Though contributor Anthony Boutard and his wife, Carol, have only partaken of "witching" in order to find water on their farm. At least that's all they'll admit to. This Sunday you can find them in attendance at the Sunday Hillsdale Farmers Market from 10 am till 2 pm, whereafter they will take a break and return in July.

The new moon gets rather shabby treatment. For example, nobody gets excited when there are two new moons in a month. [The second is called a blue moon for the rarity of its occurrence. - KAB] For farmers at this time of the year, the new moon guides our activities. Catching the new moon earlier this week, we planted an acre or so of fava beans. Old wisdom tell us the best time to plant legume seeds is upon a waxing moon. Root crops are typically planted on the waning moon.

The practice of planting in concert with the moon is common to most agrarian cultures, and is based on careful observation. It is no more a superstition than the observation that the lunar phases affect the tides. The soil matrix where we plant our seeds has certain characteristics that are similar to a liquid, as the recent earthquakes have reminded us. The interaction between the growing plant, soil particles and water is very complex, and we hesitate at many of the simpler explanations. Planting with lunar cycles is similar to planting when the soil is sufficiently warm. The seeds may germinate in cold soil, but they are more prone to insect and fungal damage. From our perspective, we would rather work with the gravitational pull of the moon, just as we work with the warming effects of the sun.

Our appreciation of fuzzy phenomena was strengthened by the discovery that both us can "witch" or "dowse." If we need to find a buried pipe or power line, we grab a pair of divining rods, pieces of soft copper pipe or freshly cut willow branches work. It is a remarkable feeling the first time the wires move on their own, and it takes a few hours to get it out of your system and put down the rods. Oddly enough, the first time we watched someone dowse was in Portland. A Northwest Natural Gas worker located a gas line using a couple pieces of copper wire. He told us an older worker had doused with the wires, so he figured it was worth a try and it worked. He was a bit sheepish about it, lest someone would think he was looped. We figured he had some hillbilly in him, and left it at that. Many years later someone showed us how to dowse and, son of a gun, the wires moved. It is simple enough, just support the divining rods so they can move.

We are mediocre dowsers. Some people have a heightened sensitivity and can read more in the movement of the divining rods. Our dowsing ability saves us some time when we need to locate a buried pipe, but interpreting what it is that draws the divining rods together is beyond our ken. Not enough hillbilly in our pedigree, perhaps.

Farm Bulletin: By the Light of the Silvery Moon

As the brilliant greens, reds and yellows of summer slowly fade into the muted palette of autumn, contributor Anthony Boutard waits for the moon to whisper in his ear that the time is right to plant his fall crops. You can find him at the Hillsdale Farmer's Market every Sunday from 10 am till 2 pm through November 22. The market switches to its twice-a-month winter schedule from December through April.

Like Norma Desmond, our summer crops are showing the ravages of time. The berries, once sweet and succulent are now bitter and seedy, molding even before they are ripe. Culled tomatoes are scattered along the rows like misapplied lipstick. August's verdant bean tresses are yellowing, the leaves dropping to expose drying fruits. The seasonal turbulence is palpable, as summer crops go to seed, autumn fruits ripen and winter greens emerge from the background.

October is a busy time for us. We have started harvesting and curing the winter squash. Ears of flint corn are on racks for the month-long drying. The sweet potatoes will come in next week, and will be put in a very hot, 90 degree room to start curing. It takes about ten days for them to develop the tough skin needed for successful dormancy, and another eight weeks to develop their full sweetness and flavor. The storage grapes need to be harvested and tied up in a warm room.

October is also a important planting month. Barley, wheat, favas and garlic must all go in the ground over the next few weeks. Garlic is planted upon the waning moon, late next week. We will wait to plant the grains as close to the waxing moon as possible, with an eye to the weather. The ground is ready and we have allowed the winter annual weeds to sprout. When ready, we will spread the grains and cover them with a disk harrow, killing off the emerging weeds. Done right, works like a charm, but if we jump the gun, unnerved by the forecast, we will have a weedy mess.

We are really looking forward to this winter's markets. Somehow or another, the plantings all fell into place and the growth of the winter greens and roots has been strong. We will have greater diversity and depth of crops than ever before. It will be great fun.

Anthony includes a note about plums:

Pozegaca is an eastern European prune used to make Slivovitz, the Slavic eau de vie of plum, and Slatko, a plum paste. The plum's flavor is strong and distinctive, and it probably has a fair dose of damson in its heritage, but the shape is pure prune. We have only three trees, so there won't be too many.

We will also have some Coe's Golden Drop (right), a fine dessert plum. It is a hybrid between a greengage and plum called Magnum Bonum. It was introduced to the trade by the famous nurseryman from Bury St. Edmonds, Gervais Coe, in the early 19th century. It is a difficult plum to grow, and we are lucky to have a few this year. Described by Edward Bunyard in The Anatomy of Dessert: "At its best it is a dull yellow green with frecklings of crimson, and at its ripest it is drunk rather than eaten; the skin is rather tough but between this and the stone float an ineffable nectar."