Island County 4-H

Gardening

We are all capable of growing food!

Some of us have lots of acreage, while others of us have only a small spot in the backyard, a space for a raised bed out by the street, or a good-sized pot by the front door.

As you work through different Food For Thought activities, there will be times when a little advice might be helpful. Here are some great resources for you!

Gardening Questions? Need more info on how to set up a planting area? Confused by fertilizers or pest management techniques? Struggling with bunnies, deer, or slugs? Want more information on available varieties? Contact the WSU Extension Master Gardeners! www.island.wsu.edu. You can also call the office at (360)240-5527 or e-mail the program coordinator at

Another interesting source of gardening information can be found at http://lmscommunitygarden.wordpress.com/ where the LMS community garden on Whidbey Island is described.

No matter how much room we have, we can all grow something to eat. So let's get started!

Breaking News!

After 35 days on Mars, the Phoenix Mars Lander has made an enormous discovery - soil conditions on Mars would allow alkaline-loving crops like asparagus to thrive. Scientists had long thought Mars would be too acidic to support any life, but the Phoenix lander is changing their minds. With pH levels around 8 or 9, crops like asparagus, turnips and beans could do well (with a few other amendments).

Here in the 4-H office, we've made a breakthrough of our own, with exclusive imagery from the lander sent to us by our man on the inside:

Looks like someone has already beaten us in the race to cultivate polar Mars...

This Month

July can be a mysterious month for Whidbey growers. Take this year, where everything is a bit off due to our cold, prolonged spring. Even so, most of us are seeing enough growth in our gardens that it may be time to start "stringing up" some of the veggies that want to crawl all over your planting space. The Master Gardener training manual has this to say about vertical gardening.

The use of trellises,nets, strings, cages, or poles to support growing plants constitutes vertical gardening. This technique is especially suited, but not limited, to gardeners with little space. Plants grown vertically take up much less ground space, and although the yield per plant may be less, the yield per square foot is much greater.

Vining and sprawling plants, such as cucumbers, tomatoes, melons, and pole beans are obvious candidates for this type of gardening. Some plants entwine themselves onto the support, while others require tying.

Because vertically grown plants are more exposed, they dry out faster and require more water than if they were spread on the ground. Rapid drying is beneficial to plants susceptible to fungal diseases.

Vertically grown plants may also need more fertilizer. Soil should be deep and well drained to allow roots to extend vertically so they don't have to compete with shallow-rooted plants.

Vertical planting casts a shadow, so avoid shading sun-loving crops. Try planting shade-tolerant crops near vertical ones.

For a video guide to an extreme technique for stringing up your tomatoes, click over here to Hanna's blog, This Garden is Illegal.

Previous Months

Whidbey Island gardens really start to take off in June. Day length is giving your plants the signal to grow with wild abandon, and hopefully the weather is cooperating as well. If not, row covers can make a world of difference for your plants, protecting them from cold as well as harmful insects in the garden. Your hot-weather crops - tomato, eggplant, pepper, cucumber, melon - should be growing by early june to ensure a good harvest before fall sets in, and they all appreciate a little extra heat from a greenhouse or row cover.

June also marks the transition between spring and summer crops. Some varieties of lettuce, spinach, and other leafy greens will not be able to handle the warm days and will bolt, which quickly leads to a bitter, inedible leaf. June is the time to transition towards fruiting and rooting crops, good news for those sick of washing off all those greens.

It's April! Generally, our last hard frost can be expected no later than April 15. This means it is relatively safe to plant seeds and transplants directly in the ground after this date. Remember though that here on Whidbey, the nights can be really cold even if they are not freezing and our sunshine is not exactly beaming down on our gardens just yet. Your baby plants will probably appreciate some kind of row cover as a blanket.

If your planting beds, containers, and gardens are ready, try putting out a few lettuce, beet, radish, or carrot seeds. Remember to work your soil so that it is not heavy and clumpy, especially for the beets, radishes and carrots. You want your vegetables to have plenty of room to grow!

In March here on Whidbey, we can put out broccoli starts. A start is a plant that has been grown from seed indoors that is now big enough to put in the ground. We can get frost as late as mid-April, so in March it is best to give these starts some protection with fabric row cover or some form of cloche. A cloche is simply something you put over your young plants to keep the cold out while letting light in. Click here for more information on either broccoli or cloches.

Bolting

Bolting refers to the point when a leafy plant such as lettuce or spinach sends up a stalk on which its flowers will grow. This is of course a natural part in the life cycle of the plant, but it can occur before harvest time if the plant is under stress. Stress comes from growing conditions that are out of the plant's normal range. Water is one of these conditions that the gardener has some control over - if leafy plants become too dry (or wet), they will bolt, so be diligent in checking their water leves. Temperature is less controllable - most leafy plants can't tolerate the heat of summer and will bolt when it gets too hot. Deal with this by growing plants in the right seasons. If you really want to grow lettuce in the summer, look for varieties labeled as bolt-resistant or heat-tolerant.

Broccoli

As with all of the plants we talk about in Food For Thought, you can get a lot of great information about growing broccoli in the WSU Extension publication, "Home Gardens."

Broccoli is a cold weather plant that needs a little protection from the coldest part of spring, but needs to go in the ground early enough to have produced its harvest before our days get too hot for it.

It likes to have plenty of room. It will grow in a crowded or small space, and does reasonably well in an 18" diameter space, but in order to produce a large head of broccoli, the plant really needs to be in the center of a 24"-30" diameter area.

Broccoli can handle our heavy clay soils, although it prefers a fluffier bed if possible, and it will respond well to a balanced fertilizer.

It takes about two months after transplanting for broccoli to be ready to harvest. In the meantime, make sure you have it protected from deer and rabbits.

What is a Cloche?

Don't worry, they don't have to be as fancy as they sound! A cloche is simply something you set over a plant to protect it from drying winds, rain, and cold air when it is very young. Basically, a cloche just helps plants get a good head start on spring.

A very simple cloche is a cut off plastic jug (like a one-gallon milk jug). Just cut off the bottom and push it into the soil around your transplant.

If you have a larger space with more plants in it, you might want to consider bending a length of wire fencing over your planting area (generally over row) and then draping some clear plastic or fabric row cover over the fencing. This will create a small tunnel that (if you also close off the ends) will keep your plants nice and cozy until our temperatures begin to warm up a bit.

Lettuce

This is something we can grow almost year 'round here on Whidbey because it prefers cool temperatures. You can start some now by planting seeds directly in the ground. The seeds are tiny, so only plant them about 1/2 inch deep, in rows about 16 inches apart. As the plants grow, you'll need to thin them so that by the time they are close to mature, each plant is at least 16 inches from the next. Luckily, as you thin these plants, you can eat what you are taking from the rows!

Carrots

We can definitely grow these here, but we do have to watch what kind of soil we plant them in. Because the seeds are so tiny, and the taproot (the carrot) has to grow in the soil, we need to make sure we don't plant them in clay or hard packed soil. If you have sandy soil, you're in luck! Otherwise, you might want to add some sphagnum moss or well-finished compost into your beds. According to "Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades" by Steve Solomon, one of the best ways to plant carrot seeds so you don't end up with a tangle of plants that have to be thinned, is to first mix the seed with finely sifted compost and then distribute THAT over your planting area. Just remember, a quarter of one teaspoon of carrot seeds sill sow up to 50 row feet! Easy does it with those seeds! After you've distributed the compost/seed mixture, sprinkle on just a little more sifted compost

Beets

Unlike carrots, that grow deep into the soil, the edible part of a beet grows closer to the surface. This means even in our clay soils we can grow good beets! Their color is wonderful, and they are so sweet to eat. You have to try some! Planting at about 1/2 inch deep, put out two seeds every inch, in rows about 18 inches apart. Once your plants are about 3 inches tall, thin them out so that each beet has 3-4 inches of room in which to grow.

Radishes

One month from the day you plant your seeds, you could be pulling fresh radishes for your salads! Plant your seeds 3 inches apart, but only about 1/8 of an inch deep. This time of year, our rains should keep the soil moist, but be prepared to water them gently if the bed starts to dry out before the seeds germinate.

This page updated: 3 July 2008