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.
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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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CL2 • Wednesday, August 8, 2018 • lyndentribune.com
Apple growing, pastoring go together for Duane Smith Sm’Apples on Willey’s Lake Road hosts a hymn sing this Saturday By Calvin Bratt editor@lyndentribune.com
WHATCOM — On Saturday, Aug. 11, the Sm’Apples farm will have an outdoor Community Hymn Sing from 5 to 7 p.m. right next to the apple trees at 1197 Willey’s Lake Rd., Ferndale. This event touches upon the two aspects of Duane Smith’s work life right now, apple growing and pastoring. He is the pastor of Providence Baptist Church in Bellingham. He and his
wife Doris bought this 10acre property as an existing orchard in 2003. “They keep me really busy and I plan to stay busy as long as the Lord allows,” Duane said. He had been an engineer at CH2M Hill before he went to seminary in 2011 and started the church in 2016. This event will be set up with seating on hay bales and a couple of fire pits for roasting hot dogs and marshmallows. The Smiths tried it on a low-key scale last year with a visiting youth service group. This year, they decided to open it up to the public. You can call them at 360-318-1776 to help them with numbers to expect, or just come. The designated date for the start of their Upick apple picking is also Aug. 11. The variety that
is ready is the small sweet apple Redfree, of which Sm’Apples has just 20 trees. There are about 3,300 trees in all. The Akane will be ripe around Sept. 1, Jonagold about Sept. 21, Honeycrisp a week later and Fuji a week after that. All prices for the varieties are on the Sm’Apples website. Picking is 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Give Smith a chance, and he will educate you on what he has learned and the methods he employs to avert bloom frost in April or a scabbing on the Jonagolds or how to pick an apple properly. He is aware of only three other operations in Whatcom County that grow apples on a scale to sell to customers. He said that father and son Tom and Todd Sewell were good teachers
of orcharding to him on the property they had already set up, to carry it on. As to the pastoring side of Smith’s life, this is the encouragement on the Facebook page of Providence: “There’s nothing quite so satisfying to the heart as joining with friends and family to joyfully and reverently worship God together singing the old hymns our grandparents used to sing. After we sing for a while, we’ll have a time of sharing a few testimonies as we roast and munch some hot dogs and marshmallows . . . then we’ll sing and worship God some more! Please spread the word and plan to attend.” To find the hymn sing spot, watch for the 1197 number at the road, also a directing sign, and go down the lane south. This is about a half mile east of Barbie’s Berries.
Duane Smith shows off the Redfree apple, almost ready for U-picking. (Calvin Bratt/Lynden Tribune)
Darigold in international expansion mode via network Country outlets expected to increase from 20 today to 40 SEATTLE — On July 23 Darigold Inc. announced it will substantially expand its global customer service and long-term commitment to growth in international markets through an overseas sales, service and distribution network. In conjunction with this expansion, the com-
pany has opened offices in Mexico City, Singapore and Shanghai, and expects to expand to more countries soon. Currently, more than 40 percent of Darigold farm milk production goes into export products, and that level is expected to surpass 50 percent in coming years, in addition to overall farm production growth, the company says in a news release. Darigold projects it will grow from serving roughly 20 countries today to 40 or more in the near future. The company will also offer deeper product customization capabili-
ties along with solutions tailored for customer and country-specific needs. Customer needs and expectations for more personalized service and technically advanced solutions are increasing rapidly with rising global demand and developing world incomes. Customers expect a long-term, sustainable supply source through direct relationships with sophisticated suppliers. Darigold is well positioned to serve these expanding global needs, due to its coastal proximity to global ports, the sustainability of Northwest
Northwest dairy products’ unique sustainability, quality, nutrition and taste to the world.” Founded in 1918, Darigold is celebrating its 100-year anniversary
this year. This expansion of Darigold’s capabilities reinforces its position as a leading global ingredients provider and sets the company on a path for the next century.
800.548.2699 | northwestfcs.com This institution is an equal opportunity provider and employer.
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