Plant Life

I don’t know about you, but for me it’s been challenging to go out and garden during this very very damp and wet and rainy and monsoony weather. I have an idea, let’s all stay inside for a few hours each Thursday from March 31 through May 5 and learn about becoming volunteers in the WSU Extension/Washington Sea Grant Beach Naturalist Program. More than half our Beach Naturalists are gardeners too and one of our class sessions talks about seaweeds (aka algae) one of the original plants in our world.

Kitsap has nearly 300 miles of salt water shoreline and even more miles of fresh water streams.  If you’d like to help people enjoy and learn about our marine shorelines and streams the Beach Naturalist course just might be for you.  Classes are on March 31, April 7, 21, 28 and May 5 at the Norm Dicks Government Center in Bremerton, with two sessions available:  from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and from 6-9 p.m..  In addition we’ll have the opportunity to learn first hand at 5 scheduled Beach Walks on: April 7, 9, 21, 23, and May 21.

The course covers seaweed (algae), fish, invertebrates, clams, crabs, anemones and other sea critters; marine riparian hatitat and conservation, beach etiquette and beach walk coordination.  In order to graduate and receive a certificate, badge and hat, each Beach Naturalist must attend 4 of the 5 classes and 3 of the 5 beach walks; plus volunteer 25 hours each year in educating the public.

The Beach Naturalist Program is sponsored by SSWM (Surface and Storm Water Management, Kitsap County) and is a program of WSU Kitsap Extension and Washington Sea Grant.  Staff coordinators are Peg Tillery (WSU Extension) and Jeff Adams (Washington Sea Grant).  There is a materials fee of $55 but scholarships are available. 

To sign up for the course please contact Lisa Rillie 360-337-7157 (Ext. zero) or email lrillie@co.kitsap.wa.us – she will send you the registration form and volunteer application papers to fill out and return. The Registration deadline is March 25.

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In my blog post and column about slugs I cited a book by David George Gordon. That book is now out of print, but do no despair. David has a new book out called “The Secret World of Slugs and Snails: Life in the Very Slow Lane. ” Here’s a link to his website:  http://www.davidgeorgegordon.com/biography.html 

David George Gordon will be here in Kitsap County at the Poulsbo Farmers Market on June 18th, sponsored by Liberty Bay Books in Poulsbo.  David also is the author of the “Eat a Bug Cookbook” – yum, tasty (well at least to some). Now if he can just come up with a cookbook to help us rid our area of knotweed I know a Noxious Weed Coordinator (Dana Coggon) who’d love that one.

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Slugs
     Contrary to popular belief, we really can live peaceably with those slimy mollusks in our gardens. Slugs start sneaking and sliding around our gardens each spring when the weather begins to warm.
     The “Western Society of Malacologists Field Guide to the Slug” by David George Gordon, published by Sasquatch Books says, “You’ll never be able to eliminate all of the slugs in your garden—as proved by one English zoologist who systematically removed 400 slugs from a quarter-acre garden each night for several years without any observable effect on the population.”
Slugs can live from one to six years. Their eggs are less than one-fourth-inch in diameter and resemble fertilizer beads. Eggs are laid in clutches of 3 to 50; some species lay as many as 500 eggs per year. A slug’s mouth has a tongue like organ called a radula covered with up to 27,000 teeth. Our mucous covered mollusk friends are distantly related to oysters and squid. Slugs moved onto land, developing a lung. The hole on their right side functions like a nose bringing in air.
     The slime absorbs water, keeping slugs moist. Alice Bryant Harper in “The Banana Slug: A Close Look at a Giant Forest Slug of Western North American Forest,” by Bay Leaves Press, says, “Water absorbency is why you can’t wash slime off your hands; you have to rub it off, as you would rubber cement. Slime probably has a scent that helps slugs find other slugs. Slime of our native Banana slugs acts as a nitrogen rich fertilizer.”
     Locally, find “Rainy Day Slug,” a delightful children’s book by Port Orchard writer Mary Palenick Colborn and illustrated by Sumner resident Lorie Ann Grover. This story is about a very cute and colorful banana slug who wends his way through a home.
     Banana slugs are good slugs and we want to cherish them in our woodlands and gardens. If you find any, please try not to kill them. Nudge them back into the woods.
     According to wildlife biologist Klaus Richter, our pesky brown, black, grayish non-native slugs “are annuals like our annual plants. They die in the winter. Only their eggs survive. You won’t want to bait for slugs until a problem occurs.” Then when you find munchings eradicate the slugs with an environmentally friendly product or method.
Conscientious gardeners avoid baits with Metaldehyde which can lead to nervous system damage or death in humans and other animals. Slugs feeding on these baits become dehydrated but they can and do rehydrate when it rains so you’re not really killing many of them. Read every bit of the labels for baits containing this chemical, including the hazards section before deciding to purchase these baits. If you have any Metaldehyde products left over in garages or sheds, take them to the Kitsap County Hazard Waste Site for disposal.
     A more satisfying and efficient product, out on the market for several years, is iron phosphate, commercially sold as “Worry Free” and “Sluggo.” Other products become available yearly containing iron phosphate. It will not harm plants, humans, other critters or our furry pets. Iron phosphate also works as a fertilizer. It can be a bit pricy but a little bit goes a long way. Use iron phosphate around your prized plants and then let the slugs munch judiciously on other plants. Determine your own tolerance level for slugs.
     Please don’t use salt or ammonia to kill slugs. There are too many slugs for this method to be useful. An abundance of salt or ammonia is not good for your plants. Sharon Collman, WSU Extension Educator (now in Snohomish County) is a slug and insect expert. When she explains how slugs will literally turn themselves inside out writhing in pain from salt exposure it changed many gardeners’ minds about using this method ever again.
Many of us do take perverse pleasure in the slice and dice method of slug control though. Go out early in the morning and evening to find slugs. Slice and dice, using a knife, clippers or scissors. Slug family members will come and cannibalize the carcasses. (Yuck!) Several gardeners strategically place flower pots turned upside down around choice plants. Early morning and evening they upend the pots, harvest the slugs and dump the slugs in soapy water to melt them. Alas, the gardeners didn’t explain what to do with the slug gunked soapy water. Perhaps you’ll avoid this method too.
     Another way to reduce slug damage is eliminating slug hiding places. Cut back all overgrown grassy and weedy areas near your vegetable or flower gardens. Pick up and compost all rotting garden debris. Plant extra flowers and vegetables so you’ll have some left to enjoy. Believe it or not, there are quite a few plants slugs don’t even nibble: herbs, scented plants, evergreen plants, prickly plants. Ask your gardening friends and nursery staff to recommend plants ignored or avoided by slugs.
     Sluggo works on snails too. Our area is getting more and more dry land snails. These pesky critters hitch-hiked in on nursery stock. Use the same methods of control as you would with slugs. When purchasing new plants for your garden look for snails and slugs on the bottom and rim of the containers. Scrape them off and leave them behind. Avoid bringing them home to visit.

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Potatoes
     Have you ever tried to grow your own potatoes? They’re an ideal plant for children and adults to try. They can be grown directly in our gardens and in containers. Ciscoe Morris even grows some of his potatoes in a hole-perforated garbage can.
     Traditionally, gardeners plant potatoes on or around St. Patrick’s Day. Purchase seed potatoes from your favorite nursery or at a feed store. Some gardeners even buy organic potatoes to plant in their gardens. The non-organic potatoes are often treated with a growth inhibitor, so you won’t want to use those for your potato starts, they won’t germinate.
     Cut the potatoes into sections making sure to leave one or more eyes for each section. Allow several hours or overnight for the sections to dry out and callous over. Some of the smaller varieties will need to be planted whole, rather than in segments. If you’re using the Ciscoe garbage can method, you’ll keep all the potatoes whole.
     Potatoes grow from tubers (what we know of as eating potatoes). The plants grow from these tubers. When the plant reaches about six inches tall, cover up the stem and most of the leaves with soil or straw, leaving one to two inches exposed. Each time the plant grows taller, cover up more and more of the stem, always leaving a segment of stem with leaves sticking out. Do this several times. It’s called “hilling up.” Covering up the stems allows the plants to produce the potatoes to harvest. The potatoes are growing in the dark all along the covered up stems. Continue until the plant reaches one to three feet tall, depending on the variety. You’ll be watering the plants regularly (at least once a week, and more in the dryer summer months). You’ll also fertilize the plants at the beginning.
     New potatoes are harvested earlier in the growing year. Mature potatoes are harvested anywhere from September through November. Some gardeners leave their potatoes in the ground through the winter, harvesting them as needed.
     The only drawbacks to growing potatoes is they’re often hard to uncover. You may discover plants popping up and growing in unexpected places year after year. The only problems potatoes encounter is blight (a rarity here in our area) and scab. Scab is more unsightly than harmful to the potato. Scab can be managed. Avoid potato blight by rotating vegetable crops.
     For more information about planting and growing potatoes call the Extension Office at 360-337-7157. For Ciscoe’s potato planting method visit www.ciscoe.com/archive/spuds.

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