The good folks at OSU Extension’s Master Gardeners Program are seeing how increased food costs are impacting their fellow Oregonians – and they’ve stepped up with a new webinar series focused on growing one’s own food.
Growing Oregon Gardeners: Level Up Series for 2024 launched on Feb. 13, and the video is available anytime. The first webinar was attended by more than 360 people and the recording has been viewed more than 100 times as of Feb. 28.
The series includes nine closed-captioned webinars that will be broadcast at noon via Zoom and streamed via the Master Gardener Facebook page on the second Tuesday of the month through October.
The series is open to the public, for the experienced gardener, and OSU Extension Master Gardener volunteers will receive one continuing education credit for each class.
The webinars are being recorded and will be available to view on the Master Gardener website within two weeks of airdate. The topics include:
- Successful vegetable gardening in any season.
- Growing culinary herbs.
- Gardening without land.
- Garden pest management.
- Growing produce that can be donated to a food bank.
- Community gardens.
- Dormant-season fruit-tree care.
- At-home edible mushroom production.
This is the fourth year the Master Gardener program has offered a Level Up Series. LeAnn Locher, Master Gardener outreach coordinator said the series’ advantages are two-fold: a bigger pool of instructors and more people accessing courses.
“They reach far and wide,” Locher said. “The webinars have made it possible for hundreds more people to have access to gardening information they wouldn’t have had otherwise. It’s driven a record number of people to our Master Gardener website like nothing before.”
Your March Gardening Calendar
OSU Extension is also offering some timely advice on scheduling garden chores, fertilizing, pest control, and, well, all things gardening. But, before you get started, they want you to think about sustainable gardening practices, and specifically, preventive pest management, rather than reactive pest control. They’re looking to encourage gardeners to Identify and monitor problems before acting – and then opt for the least toxic approach.
Okay, here’s their suggested calendar…
Planning
- Plan your vegetable garden carefully for spring, summer and fall vegetables that can be eaten fresh or preserved. If you lack in-ground gardening space, plan an outdoor container garden.
- Use a soil thermometer to help you know when to plant vegetables. Some cool season crops (onions, kale, lettuce and spinach) can be planted when the soil is consistently at or above 40 degrees Fahrenheit.
Maintenance and cleanup
- Lawn mowing: Set blade at 0.75–1 inch for bentgrass lawns; 1.5–2.5 inches for bluegrasses, fine fescues and ryegrasses.
- Compost grass clippings and yard waste, except for clippings from lawns where weed-and-feed products or weed killers have been used.
- Spread compost over garden and landscape areas.
- Prune gooseberries and currants; fertilize with manure or a complete fertilizer.
- Fertilize evergreen shrubs and trees if needed. If established and healthy, their nutrient needs should be minimal.
- If needed, fertilize rhododendrons, camellias and azaleas with acid-type fertilizer. If established and healthy, their nutrient needs should be minimal.
- Prune spring-flowering shrubs after blossoms fade.
- Fertilize caneberries using band fertilizer, broadcast fertilizer, a complete fertilizer or manure.
Planting and propagation
- Divide hosta, daylilies and mums.
- Use stored scion wood to graft fruit and ornamental trees.
- Plant insectary plants such as alyssum, phacelia, coriander, candytuft, sunflower, yarrow and dill to attract beneficial insects to the garden. For more information, see Encouraging Beneficial Insects in Your Garden.
- If soil is dry enough, prepare vegetable garden and plant early cool-season crops (carrots, beets, broccoli, leeks, parsley, chives, rhubarb, peas and radishes). Plant onions outdoors as soon as the soil is dry enough to work.
- Plant berry crops (strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, currants, gooseberries and other berry-producing crop plants). See OSU Extension publications for berry varieties.
Pest monitoring and management
Use chemical controls only when necessary and only after studying the pesticide label. First consider cultural, then physical and biological controls. Choose the least-toxic options, and use them judiciously. Some examples include insecticidal soaps, horticultural oils, botanical insecticides and organic and synthetic pesticides.
- Spray trees and shrubs for webworms and leafrollers, if present.
- Protect new plant growth from slugs. Least toxic management options include barriers and traps. Baits are also available for slug control; use with caution around pets. Read and follow all label directions prior to using baits or any other chemical control.
- Learn to identify the predatory insects that can help keep aphids and other pests under control.
- Spray to control leaf and twig fungus diseases in dogwood, sycamore, hawthorn and willow trees.
- Prune ornamentals for air circulation and to help prevent fungus diseases.
- Start rose blackspot control tactics at budbreak. Control rose diseases such as black spot. Remove infected leaves. Spray as necessary with a registered fungicide.
- Monitor for European crane fly and treat lawns if damage has been verified.
- Monitor landscape plants for problems. Don’t treat unless a problem is identified.
Indoor gardening
- Start tuberous begonias indoors.
- Take geraniums, begonias and fuchsias from storage. Water and fertilize. Cut back if necessary. Move outdoors next month.
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~ Reporting by Chris Branam of Oregon State University, with some writing and editing by Advocate staff.
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