Country Life CL1 • lyndentribune.com • Wednesday, August 8, 2018
Learning from FFA leaders
Incoming 2018-19 FFA officers of District 1 (northwest Washington) were in Lynden last week for training at the Mt. Baker Rotary Building and also presented at the Tuesday meeting of the local Rotary club. (Michael Lewis/Lynden Tribune)
IN BLOOM
Keeping plants healthy in dry, warm weather To people who don’t live in the Pacific Northwest, it almost sounds unreal to say our summers are dry. So stereotyped is our corner of the world as an always-drizzling mosscovered region that many don’t realize how dry it can be from July through September. One look, however, at the heat-stressed pots on your patio reveals the truth: summer is dry! To keep your hanging baskets and pots going through this heat and into fall — and to ensure a healthy lawn through autumn and winter — here are a few tasks to accomplish this month. For starters, let’s focus on your planters and hanging baskets. If you’ve kept them going this long into the season, don’t give up now! In only a few weeks, cooler temperatures will likely begin to return, decreasing the stress on your plants. In the meantime, your first step is to keep up with watering. If you used a well-drained potting mix when you planted your containers this spring (which I recommend since summer annuals need good drainage), it’s hard to overwater in the kind of warm weather we’ve had. For my hanging baskets in full sun when daytime temperatures top 80 degrees, I water twice a day until the baskets start to drip. Frequent watering can, however, wash nutrients out of the soil, so the second important task to keep your plants looking
By David Vos
their best is weekly fertilizing. A water-soluble fertilizer like Jack’s Classic is the quickest, most effective way to feed your plants, allowing them to continue to grow and bloom into autumn. Third, don’t be afraid to trim plants that have gotten rangy or overly aggressive. If you’ve ever designed and planted your own pots, you know how one or two varieties — trailing petunias, in particular — can quickly begin to take over the others. In that case, get out the pruners! There’s plenty of summer weather left for your plants to fill out and bloom once again, and typically most flowers will be back to full bloom in two to three weeks. After you’ve pruned, feed with a blossom booster fertilizer to encourage quick rebloom. Last, don’t let bugs get the best of your flowers. Late summer is when aphids, thrips and other bugs can quickly wreak havoc on your flowers, and with your plants full and dense, you may not even notice the unwanted visitors until the population
is hard to control. For easy prevention of aphids and many other bugs, use Bayer Insect Control Spikes, easyto-use pill-sized spikes that can be inserted into the soil of your pots and baskets and will kill aphids and prevent their return for six to eight weeks. For thrips, I typically spray with Captain Jack’s Deadbug Brew or neem oil, both of which also control several other pests as well. In addition to caring for your flowers this month, it’s also a key time for one aspect of lawn care: cranefly and grub control. Craneflies typically hatch out in late summer and burrow underground where they can eat a lawn’s roots through winter, leaving patches of dead grass come spring. Additionally, cranefly larvae and other grubs make great food for moles, so by controlling the grub population, you’ll be less likely to have moles take up residence in your yard. To control craneflies and other grubs, I recommend granular Bonide Eight brand insecticide. Sometime this month, spread the insecticide and water it in to enjoy a lawn free from damaging craneflies and pesky moles through autumn and winter. In just a month we’ll be looking at summer in the rearview mirror, so enjoy this season while it lasts! David Vos is general manager of Vander Giessen Nursery Inc. of Lynden.
MIELKE MARKET
Tariff pressure drops milk price The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced the July Federal Order Class III milk price Aug. 1 at $14.10 per hundredweight (cwt.), down $1.11 from June and $1.35 below July 2017. It equates to $1.21 per gallon, down from $1.33 a year ago. California’s comparable cheese milk price is $14.09, down 34 cents from June, $1.20 below a year ago and a penny below the FO Class III price. Dairy prices are under pressure from the ongoing tariff wars. Block cheddar cheese closed Aug. 3 at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange at $1.5875 per pound, up 6.75 cents on the week but 11 cents below a year ago. The barrels, after gaining 25 cents the previous week, finished Friday at $1.4750, down 4.5 cents on the week, 5.5 cents below a year ago, and 11.25 cents below the blocks. FC Stone’s Dave Kurzawski wrote in his Aug. 2 Early Morning Update: “The relationship between blocks and barrels has been exacerbated by trade wars as less cheese exports means more surplus milk will move into barrel production that will have to find a home domestically.” Western cheese output is steady, and manufacturers have plenty of milk. Even with summer heat suppressing milk volumes and components, cheese output has been active and June inventories were at record levels. Butter finished Friday at $2.32 per pound, up 5.75 cents but 41 cents below a year ago. A slightly higher U.S. All Milk Price average and lower feed prices pushed the June milk-feed price ratio up for the first time in six months. The latest Ag Prices report shows the
Chicago-based Commodity & Ingredient Hedging LLC. The Northwest Dairy Association makes these price projections for the Class III price and Pacific Northwest blend price: Month Class PNW III Blend July $14.10 $14.80 (current) Aug. $14.80 $15.00
Sept. $15.60 $15.70 Oct. $16.10 $15.65 Nov. $16.20 $15.85 Dec. $16.05 $15.80 Jan. $15.80 $15.70 Feb. $15.60 $15.70 March $15.55 $15.60 Lee Mielke, of Lynden, is editor of the Mielke Market Weekly. Whatcom County has about 100 dairy farms.
(360) 354-4763 • LYNDEN
By Lee Mielke
www.honcoop.com
June ratio at 1.98, up from 1.90 in May but down from 2.31 in June 2017. Meanwhile, dairy margins generally deteriorated over the second half of July, as rising feed costs more than offset higher milk prices, according to the latest Margin Watch from
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