Hooping It UP
We are well into fall with winter just around the corner and so far, it has been everything under the rainbow. Sunny, rainy, stormy, windy, calm, blustery, warm, and cold. Waiting for our first frost but in no hurry! I always look forward to all the seasons out here on the coast. The fall colors are spectacular in the community garden. Dahlias, nasturtiums, sunflowers, runner beans, snow peas, sweet peas, chard, kale, roses. Lots of color!
Like most gardeners we are aware of weather and how short our summer growing seasons are. We did not get the heat we would have liked so a lot of our crops were struggling. Winter gardening can also be a challenge out here on the coast because we do get quite a bit of rain. Covered garden beds and greenhouses could help you grow more successful plants.
Now is time to start planting your garlic bulbs and flower bulbs for next year. When planting your bulbs make sure you mulch on top of your bulbs to protect them through the winter months. Onions thrive in cooler temperatures so along with onions you may want to plant Spinach. Carrots and other root crops such as turnips and parsnips can be planted in a winter garden.
If you do not plan on planting winter crops you may like what a lot of our gardeners do, they plant cover crops until next spring or just clear out all the annuals and put a layer of straw down to protect the soil and nutrients.
Cover crops are often referred to as “green manure” because they can transfer quite a bit of nutrients into your soil, much like animal waste. With certain types of cover crops, you can select a seed, or a seed mix whose primary purpose is to fix the nitrogen and/ or potassium levels in your soil. Basically, you can control what nutrients go into your soil, helping you bring your soil back to the ideal NPK balance. NPK is short for nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K), which are the three major elements in this kind of fertilizer. They are essential for plant growth and increase the fertility of the soil lacking these macronutrients. Nitrogen helps in plant growth and development. It is also a good idea to test your soil annually so that you know what your soil has too little of or too much of. Soil test kits are available online at Amazon or at your local retail nursery.
You want to plant a winter cover crop that consists of annuals with short roots (no rhizomes) and when spring comes you just till your ground cover into your soil. Some recommendations are red crimson clover, daikon radish, Austrian field pea cover, fava beans and garbanzo beans. Seeds need to be planted by mid-autumn before the first frost to germinate properly.
Building Hoop Covers on Raised Beds with the Help of Master Gardeners
For the last three years Garden by the Sea, a community garden since 2008, has partnered with WSU Grays Harbor and Pacific Counties Master Gardener Foundation. Along with local plant clinics, plant sales and workshops our onsite demonstration pollinator and vegetable gardens are used to conduct research and educate our garden renters and residents in sustainable and effective gardening practices. For example, for the last two years one of the demonstration beds was dedicated to the NASA project using ozone sensitive plants that are affected by higher ozone levels before humans, animals or other plants notice a problem.
So recently a few of our WSU North Beach Master Gardeners volunteered to help build hooped covers for two of the community garden’s demonstration beds.
We came to the conclusion that this would allow us to experiment with more varieties of plants that grow in our Zone 9 climate. The covers would add more wind and rain protection for certain plants that need a little more attention from the elements including pests and bugs. Covers protect against larger pests like rabbits, mice, raccoons, and birds.
They also lengthen the growing season at least another month or two. Because of climate change, the result varies from one location to another. A raised bed cover traps heat coming from the sun during the summer season. This means more production. It will also protect your crops against late frosts so during spring, it maintains warmth in the soil as it traps heat therefore allowing you to plant your starts earlier. Your veggie starts will have a fighting chance amid the wind, rain, and late frosts!
There are three major types of garden covers that you can use. The first is garden fleece. Plastic raised garden covers (preferably 6ml) comes in second, and the third is mesh netting. We used 6ml UV plastic and doubled it for the covered beds you see in the photos. The community garden is only a couple blocks from the beach so at certain times of the year it gets lots of wind. We wanted to make sure the plastic covers were strong enough to not become airborne.
It is also UV protected so it will withstand the deterioration from the sun better. The support frame is pressure treated 24’s so it is not going anywhere. The construction was led by Valorie Savisky; one of our newest members to our North Beach Master Gardeners. She is quite handy with a number of tools like a circular skill saw and drill. The project was very successful and a little expensive with the current price of lumber but we are very happy with the results. If you are interested in doing this on your property, go to the YouTube video titled “How to Build a Hinged Hoop House for Raised Beds”. We tweaked the design to fit our needs but basically you will get the concept. After some of our garden renters see the results, they may want to hoop over their garden beds for next year growing seasons.
Check out Garden by the Sea, Ocean Shores community garden, behind Galilean Church at 824 Ocean Shores Boulevard where you will find a productive maritime community garden and enthusiastic, experienced gardeners to share information, inspiration, and garden stories with. For questions, comments about this article, gardening in general or to share your gardening experiences, please email Info@GardenByTheSeaOceanShores.org
This article was originally printed in The Ocean Observer, December 2021.
