Avsnitt
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Last week, we did a little podcast tour of my garden, with Debbie Flower asking the questions. Turnabout is fair play, so this episode features Debbie’s unique, water-saving landscape and her collections of plants and garden tools that have some very interesting stories.
But again, an audio tour is missing the picture. Pictures, to be more exact. So, while you’re listening to this repurposing of Episode 343 of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, scroll down to enjoy the visuals that go along with the stories of Debbie Flower’s landscape.
But first, here’s a link to what you might have missed on Tuesday’s Garden Basics podcast (Ep. 342) - our weekly Q&A session, this time tackling the challenges of planting carrots in hot climates; and, the pros and cons of using landscape fabric/weed cloth in your garden (the “pros” list will be quite short).
Word of Warning: Latin Used Here Today
A word of warning: a lot of Latin-based botanical names are tossed around here. Some people think we’re just bein’ highfalutin’ elitists, jabbering in a dead language. Actually, the botanical names can be very accurate in pinpointing the exact plant.
For example, according to the Sunset Western Garden Book, the plant known commonly as “Dusty Miller” could refer to any of five distinct plants with differing growth habits: Artemisia stelleriana, Centaurea cineraria, Lychnis coronaria, Senecio cineraria/Jacobaea maritima (old name/new name), and Tanacetum ptarmiciflorum. The “Dusty Miller” Debbie refers to as a plant she remembers from her youth in New Jersey was the Lychnis; and to avoid any confusion, she only used the term, “Lychnis”. Here in California, I grew up with Senecio cineraria in the front yard, which was always referred to as, “Dusty Miller.”
“What Does That Have to Do with the Price of Tea in China?”
That was a favorite saying of my mother, to prod me to get to the point of whatever I was talking about. OK, here’s the point: After listening to this, you may be intrigued by one or more of the plants in Debbie’s garden, perhaps the California native plant, Eriogonum grande rubescens that she mentions towards the end of our chat.
But, just hearing her say, “Eriogonum grande rubescens” may have you wondering…
“What the hell? How do you spell that?” At least, that is what I was thinking when she said it. But I’m too polite to interrupt. Besides, if I had asked the question, “What is the common name for that plant?” There’s a darn good chance the answer would be a variation of, “I don’t keep common names in my brain,” bringing the chat to a standstill, while we ponder the answer. In the interest of keeping the conversational ball rolling, I move forward, knowing I can solve this issue easily enough:
CHECK THE OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT!
Don’t check the Substack transcript. Don’t check the Apple or Spotify transcripts. Unless you want a good laugh. And it’s why I include my own edited transcript for each episode of the Garden Basics podcast available at either GardenBasics.net or via my podcast uploader, Buzzsprout. Not only will you get the correct plant spelling (usually), but you will also get the common name, usually (but not always) in parenthesis. For example, here is the portion of the Eriogonum plant chat from the transcript provided at GardenBasics.net:
Farmer Fred
But this is quite the view, sitting here on your front porch, especially this time of year with the Palo Verde in bloom, and just the understory of all the plants and the flowers of the sage peeking up over the the wall.
Debbie Flower
And the Eriogonum grande rubescens (red or rosy buckwheat) that's flowering red right now, with the lavenders in front of it. And then the yellow calendulas. I like that combination too. And the pink Pelargonium behind.
Now, here is the same portion, generated by AI and used by many podcast transcription services:
Farmer Fred
this is quite the view sitting here on your front porch, especially this time of year with the Palo Verde in bloom, and just the understory of all the plants and the flowers on the stage peeking up over the the wall
Debbie Flower
and the Areoginum grandrubescens. That's an flowering read right now with the lavenders in front of it. And then the yellow color Angelus. I like that combination too. And the pink Pelargonium behind, see
And this is why we are safe from world domination by Artificial Intelligence. It’s just a robot that has never pulled a weed or smelled a rose in its mechanical life.
Nor, even after five years of manually correcting their transcripts to make them more gardener friendly, have they figured out the difference between “root” (as in, a tree root) and “route” (as in, “Get Your Kicks on Route 66”). Even though Oklahoma City is “oh, so pretty,” you’d think they could figure out after all these years, I am probably referring to that bulge in your lawn, not offering melodious praise to Amarillo, TX or Gallup, NM. Or Flagstaff, AZ.
(P.S. “Angelus” is not a plant. It’s daily church bells at noon and 6 p.m.)
Again, just punch play above, and begin scrolling through the pictures of Debbie’s Garden:
“Native fescue lawn in foreground, Leymus condensatus ‘Canyon Prince’ grey-green grass behind. Pink flowering shrub is my neighbors. It’s probably an oleander”
“Hollywood juniper at the end, far right, Matilia poppy next (Romneya coulteri)
Butterfly weed with white blooms (Asclepia speciosa), Meyer Lemon on right, perhaps the dead remains of a young Tower of Jewel plant in the bottom.
Three Tower of Jewel plants (2 in their second year, one in its first year) (Echium wildpretti). Scarlet Oak in back. Unnamed “Governor’s Mansion” pelargonium on left.
Closer look at the “Governor’s Mansion” pelargonium.
Palo Verde ‘Desert Museum’ tree
“Fat Albert” Colorado Blue Spruce with Verbena bonariensis in front, desert willow on right
Eleagnus x Ebbingei cultivar. Commonly called oleaster or Ebbing's silverberry, it’s a cross between Elaeagnus macrophylla × Elaeagnus pungens (according to the Missouri Botanical Garden)
Eleagnus, Muhlenbergia rigens (deergrass), toyon, Fat Albert Colorado blue spruce
In a hot climate, it makes sense to put a greenhouse in afternoon shade
Asparagus aethiopicus, Sprenger’s day (Sprenger's asparagus fern)
Dymondia margaretae (Silver Carpet). An interesting story about this groundcover.
Birdbath with high-spout dripper. Caged for cat deterrence.
The gardener’s path. On right: calendula, abutilon, Eriogonum giganteum (St. Catherine’s Lace buckwheat). On left, around birdbath: liriope (lilyturf)
Smart Pot with vegetable seeds planted and bamboo sticks to deter animals.
Green Cone composter. Strawflower and Borage behind.
lavender, Eriogonum grande rubescens (red or rosy buckwheat) on right, calendula in back. Upside down wine bottle is in a small olla at base of newly planted lavender.
closeup of wine bottle in olla.
Counterclockwise from front left: Palo verde, Euphorbia charisma’s ‘Wolfenii’, Hesperaloe parviflora, sulfur buckwheat, white pacific coast Iris, salvia leucantha, another salvia leucantha. “This is one of the dryest parts of my garden,” says Debbie.
Thanks for reading Beyond Basics: The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Thank you for also listening to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast! It’s available wherever you get your podcasts. Please share it with your garden friends.
Fred Hoffman is also a University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardener in Sacramento County. And he likes to ride his bike(s).
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com -
If this newsletter podcast sounds familiar, it should. It is also the current (Ep. 341) Garden Basics podcast where myself and America’s Favorite Retired College Horticulture Professor, Debbie Flower, take a late May stroll through my garden, discussing the plants, as well as gardening techniques. But wouldn’t it be nice to see those plants and garden accoutrements? Well, here you go.
But first, a recap of what you may have missed on this week’s two Garden Basics podcasts:
Tuesday, June 4:
Ep. 340 -Q&A Cross Pollination Concerns. What is the Best City or State for Gardening?
• Understanding cross-pollination and its implications for seed saving and plant breeding.
• The importance of local conditions and location-specific knowledge in gardening.
• The impact of climate and weather on gardening success.
• Different perspectives on the best US cities for gardening, highlighting the influence of location on gardening success.
Thank you, AI, for your dry summary. Debbie Flower and I are more warm and endearing than that.
Friday, June 7: Ep. 341 - Fred’s Yard Tour with Debbie.
Or, listen above and scroll below. But we are definitely more entertaining and informative than AI would have you believe:
Takeaways
• The importance of selecting heat-resistant greens for summer gardening
• Strategies for dealing with garden pests like tomato hornworms and cabbage worms
• Tips for growing determinate tomatoes and managing peach trees
• Insights on using raised beds and root cellars for gardening
• The benefits of using vermiculite for seed planting and the use of worm bins for fertilizer
• The significance of providing shade for certain plants and the value of using row covers for protection. SmartPot compost sacks are a convenient and effective way to create rich compost for gardening (golly, AI, thanks for plugging the sponsor!)
• Clover is resistant to dog urine and can be used as a ground cover in areas frequented by pets.
• Fruit trees can be grown in containers, and it's important to control the width and height of the tree to manage root growth.
• Different soil types, such as raised bed soil planter mix and pumice, can be used for gardening in containers.
• Citrus, blueberries, and potatoes can be successfully grown in containers, providing a versatile option for home gardeners.
Again, just punch play above, and begin scrolling here:
Thanks for reading Beyond Basics: The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Thank you for also listening to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast! It’s available wherever you get your podcasts. Please share it with your garden friends.
Fred Hoffman is also a University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardener in Sacramento County. And he likes to ride his bike(s).
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com -
Saknas det avsnitt?
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Before we delve into the soil, fertilizer in hand, a quick review of what was on the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast this past week;
Tuesday, May 28, Ep. 338: Zucchini Sex! Which cherries are best for cooking?
Questions tackled on this episode include answering questions about squash that is slow to produce healthy looking fruit (it’s due to the lousy sex life of male and female squash flowers this time of year: “it’s too hot!”, “it’s too cold!” “I’m hungry!” “I’m too full!” (See? Plants are just like us. Except they don’t get headaches.) And, some kind words about growing tart/sour cherry trees. They’re great in pies!
Takeaways from Ep. 338
• Squash, melons, and cucumbers have male and female flowers on the same plant, and successful pollination requires synchronized flowering.
• Pollinators like bees play a crucial role in transferring pollen between male and female flowers.
• When fertilizing plants, it's important to consider the temperature and nutrient concentration, especially with synthetic fertilizers.
• Organic fertilizers tend to have lower nutrient concentrations and are less likely to cause burning or osmotic problems.
• Cherry trees, particularly tart cherries, require good drainage to prevent root rot.
Friday, May 31 - Ep. 339 How to Water Clay Soil (and more tips for gardening in clay!)
In this episode of Garden Basics with Farmer Fred, the focus is on how to water clay soil and other tips for gardening in clay. Debbie Flower, America’s Favorite Retired College Horticultural Professor, shares valuable insights on the topic. The episode covers the characteristics of clay soil, the importance of organic matter, watering techniques, mulching, and the use of cover crops. The conversation also delves into the impact of soil structure on crop production and the benefits of no-till and cover cropping practices.
Takeaways From Ep. 339
• Understanding the characteristics of clay soil and the importance of organic matter in improving its quality.
• Learning effective watering techniques for clay soil, including surge irrigation and the use of moisture meters.
• Recognizing the benefits of mulching and the use of cover crops to enhance soil structure and promote healthy plant growth.
When Should You Fertilize Your Plants?
From the garden e-mail bag, Danny has been thinking about fertilizing, probably a little bit harder than most of us gardeners: “I am wondering if at a particular temperature, plants can’t feed themselves. Do they just need water if it’s too hot? What time of day is best for feeding the plants: during the day, or at night? Or do they need the sun to eat?”
Those were good questions, which we took up on the Garden Basics podcast. You can hear that segment in today’s newsletter podcast post.
According to retired college horticulture professor Debbie Flower, Danny is on to a very important aspect of correct fertilization techniques in the garden: plants can’t absorb fertilizer, if it’s too hot.
“Research shows that above 86 degrees Fahrenheit, plants don't use fertilizer, don't absorb nutrients,” explains Flower. “They're just pumping water through their system to keep themselves cool, much like a human would sweat in a very hot situation. He asks if they need sun to eat. Plants do need sun to make food. Plants are autotrophs, meaning they feed themselves. ‘Auto’ means self. And they use nutrients which are gathered primarily through the roots and some from the air through the stoma on the leaves to make their own food. And that food would only happen when the plant can collect the energy from the sun or other light source.”
Flower also explains that when we fertilize, that food is being processed and absorbed primarily underground, by the plant roots. “When we fertilize, we are just putting nutrients into the growing media. That growing media, in most cases, is the soil outdoors. It can also be the soilless mix in a container you have for a houseplant. Whatever the roots are growing in, that is the media I'm talking about. And that's where the nutrients need to be, that the plant will then absorb. We can apply those nutrients at pretty much any time of day or night. But we really want to apply the nutrients when it's cooler. All we're doing is loading the root zone with the nutrients that the plant then will collect when it's ready to make its own food. The one caveat is it's recommended we not fertilize at very high temperatures, above 86 degrees. If we get any fertilizer on the leaves of the plant, we might cause burning, especially if we applied too much fertilizer at any one time. We can cause burning, because the plant only has a limited ability to choose what it absorbs. If the growing media is just completely full of nutrients, and it's above 86 degrees and the plant is trying to just pump water through itself, it may not be able to get just water if there's too much of the nutrients in the root zone or too much when applying it. Those are the reasons we don't apply when temperatures are very high. We want the plant to be able to get just water to keep itself cool when it’s hot.”
The source of the fertilizer is also critical. “Plant injury can happen more easily when applying synthetic fertilizers in hot weather,” says Flower. “When we apply organic fertilizer, however, they tend to have a much lower concentration of nutrients in them. And they are in larger molecular sizes and need to be broken down by natural processes before the plant can get them. So, it's a slow release. It happens over time. It happens with the activity of weather as well as microorganisms and macro-organisms like worms, that break down that organic material and release those nutrients more slowly. So, we tend to be safer applying the organic ones. We tend to have less fertilizer burning with organic fertilizers.”
But if you're using lots of mulch, you may not even need to apply any fertilizer at all, says Flower.
“Using organic matter can apply all the nutrients that you need,” says Flower. Remember that the source of the nutrients for the plant is in the growing media. We put the nutrients in, or nature does, by digesting the dropped leaves, for example, creating a natural compost below the plant. Put it in the growing media and then the plant will take that up when the plant needs it.” Good sources of mulch for the garden include chipped/shredded tree parts, straw, fallen and shredded leaves, or aged compost.
Thanks for reading Beyond Basics: The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Thank you for also listening to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast! It’s available wherever you get your podcasts. Please share it with your garden friends.
Fred Hoffman is also a University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardener in Sacramento County. And he likes to ride his bike(s).
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com -
Composting, Indoors and Out
Today’s newsletter podcast deals with options for indoor food scrap composting equipment, specifically kitchen composters (originally aired in Episode 196 of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast in May of 2022. In our conversation with America’s Favorite Retired College Horticulture Professor, Debbie Flower, she took a scenic bypass to talk about her outdoor garden kitchen scrap composter device, the Green Cone Composter. More information about that is below.
But before we get to that, let’s recap what you may have missed on this week’s two Garden Basics podcast, which includes another deep dive into the “kitchen scraps in the garden” debate:
Tuesday, May 21: Episode 336 - Q&A Kitchen Scraps in the Garden? When Should You Plant a Flowering Magnolia Tree, Spring or Fall?
Takeaways
• Burying kitchen scraps in the garden can attract scavengers like rats, gophers, voles, and ants, and may affect the quality of the soil microbiology.
• Composting kitchen scraps first or using alternative methods like African keyhole-style gardens or the Green Cone composter are recommended.
• The best time to plant a flowering tree like the Magnolia Genie is in the fall, but it can also be planted in the spring with extra care and regular watering.
• Keeping a tree in a container over the summer requires frequent watering and protection from heat damage.
• Using Smart Pots can help maintain cooler soil temperatures and reduce evaporation in container gardening.
Friday, May 24: Garden Basics Podcast, Episode 337 - How to Choose Nursery Plants. Tips for Starting a School Garden
Takeaways
Choosing Nursery Plants:
• Read the signs and make sure the plant will fit in your garden and take the conditions you have in mind.
• Check the plant for health, including good color, no holes or spots on the leaves, and no stickiness or mushiness.
• Inspect the media the plant is growing in, looking for weeds, the height of the media, and the presence of roots.
• Consider direct seeding certain vegetables like cucumbers and squash, as transplanting them when they have too many leaves can hinder their growth.
• Pot up plants in larger containers if you're not immediately planting them in the ground, especially for tomatoes, peppers, and other summer vegetables.
Tips for Starting a School Garden:
• School gardens can be a valuable educational tool and a source of community involvement.
• Getting the school on board and finding funding can be challenges, but reaching out to the principal and parent groups can help.
• Students play an active role in maintaining the garden and learn valuable gardening skills.
• The garden provides opportunities for hands-on learning, including lessons on composting, integrated pest management, and plant care.
• The garden also serves as a gathering place for the community, hosting farmers markets and lunch pop-ups.
Burying Kitchen Scraps in the Garden: Is That a Good Idea?
Recently, we received a question wondering about the pros and cons of burying kitchen scraps to feed the garden soil.
From the garden e-mail bag, Alice confesses: “I am a lazy composter. What we do is bury our kitchen scraps in different holes, all throughout our raised beds, all winter long. And it ends up making truly beautiful soil over the years. And there's lots of earthworms and other microorganisms I can't even see. Anyway, I'm wondering if there would be any problems with that. We do have raccoons, skunks, and possums because we live in the country. But they don't visit the garden. Apparently, they have resources elsewhere. And except for them, I don't see that there's an issue because the soil looks very nice. But you never mention burying garbage in your columns or podcasts. So, I'm wondering if there's some problem that I'm not aware of.”
Alice, other possible scavengers of kitchen scraps buried in the garden might include rats, gophers, voles and ants. Especially ants, which could create tunnels throughout your raised bed which could siphon the irrigation water away from plant roots and out the bottom of the bed, or wherever their tunnels might lead. However, whatever you're doing seems to be working.
But beware, there are a lot of variables. You want to bury it deep, certainly deeper than 12 inches to keep the four-legged varmints, including the household dogs, away from it. You don’t want to bury meat scraps. Also, avoid any foods soaked in oils, salts or sugars, which can attract smaller pests and possibly effect the quality of your soil.
For even more opinions, and they are just that - opinions - the National Gardening Association has a thread at their website (garden.org) entitled, “Kitchen Waste Buried in Garden Soil?” Many people have weighed in on their experience doing that very thing, and it appears to be evenly divided as to whether they like it or not.
Some of the comments and opinions:
From Florida: “My mother in law (who lived to be 97 years old) had wonderful vegetable and flower gardens and she'd always take kitchen waste out to her garden, dig a hole and bury it. Just be sure to bury it deep enough that night time critters (raccoons, possums) don't dig it up.”
From Nevada: “Short answer: No. Decomposition is an aerobic process, it needs oxygen to happen - that's why we continually turn our composts piles. Well preserved fossils were formed in an anaerobic environment - without oxygen, instead of decomposing, they turned into rocks. You won't really have fossils in your garden, you will have a landfill. Although archeologists do get pretty excited when they find an old dump. If you choose to leave your kitchen waste on the surface of the soil, it will decompose but, the bacteria will be using nitrogen in the process. So, the soil will be low in nitrogen until the decomposing process is completely finished. When the bacteria finish the job and die, the nutrients will be put back into the soil. In the meantime, you will have a messy, rat filled garden.”
And, From Western Massachusetts, my favorite: “I do this. Well, I was doing it, but the dogs drove me insane so I have stopped for now. I was using this method and won't know how it works until I plant that bed in May (it will be tomatoes next year):-Dug a trench 12-18" deep and piled the soil to the right of it. -started keeping a separate wastebasket for kleenex, paper towels ("browns"). It's actually kind of amazing how much garbage is composed of that stuff....toilet paper rolls and so on. -go out and dump the kitchen compost bucket & coffee grounds in the trench, throw on some browns, cover with an inch or so of soil-repeat until the whole mound was about ten inches off the surface of the bed, then dig another trenchThis was great for me and also great for the dogs who were like, 'did someone bury a Kleenex somewhere???? IT IS WAITING FOR ME'And I had to cover the three rows I'd done with chicken wire. If it weren't for those bozos though I would totally have kept it up. I think the freezing and thawing over the winter would have compressed that to a normal soil level and by the time I transplanted tomatoes into it in late May, it would be unrecognizable. Unfortunately I was unable to complete my testing on this theory.”
Many of the other answers were variations of what is known as the African Keyhole Garden, a subject we explored in depth in a previous edition of this newsletter.
The African Keyhole Garden
There is also the African Keyhole Garden, which is another way to incorporate kitchen waste in the garden using a container – with plenty of small holes – to allow worms to go in and out of it, sort of like a real time, secure worm bin where the worms can spread their castings throughout the garden bed. The garden is shaped like a keyhole, to allow you to get to the middle of a six-foot bed to deposit the scraps in a container, which could be as simple as a trash can with a lid, with holes drilled in the sides that are buried in the garden. “The African keyhole garden was designed by CARE in Zimbabwe during the mid-1990’s to encourage people to grow their own food,” explains Napa County Master Gardener Penny Pawl. “The design relied on materials that were close at hand—such as bricks, stones, branches, hay, ashes, manure and soil—to create an easy-care garden for disabled people. The plan became so popular that many Africans began growing kitchen gardens. More than 20,000 of these have been built in Africa.”
An Alternative Way to Bury Kitchen Scraps in the Garden
Another person with experience of burying kitchen waste in the garden is our frequent contributor to the podcast, retired college horticulture professor Debbie Flower. She has a device that is buried in her garden that hold kitchen scraps and keeps the four-legged critters out: the Green Cone Solar Waste Digester/Compost Bin.
“It's tall enough - about three feet tall - that a raccoon, which was my initial fear, cannot get into it,” says Flower. “It has a lid with a hinge and a lock. I have to say I've broken every hinge and lock that has come on them. That's kind of the weak point of the thing, but I just put a rock on top. And only because the lid might blow away. Nothing has tried to get into it. I have lots of worms that go in and out of it. Everything in it just disappears because the worms come to it and take it away to the rest of the garden. I had my last one for 15 or more years.”
I believe the best place to break down those kitchen scraps for use in the garden is in a compost pile or a worm bin, where the worms will make some of the best soil amendments around, worm castings.
Thanks for reading Beyond Basics: The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Thank you for also listening to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast! It’s available wherever you get your podcasts. Please share it with your garden friends.
Fred Hoffman is also a University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardener in Sacramento County. And he likes to ride his bike(s).
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com -
In today’s newsletter podcast, our America’s Favorite Retired College Horticulture Professor, Debbie Flower, talks about earwigs, a garden scavenger that probably does more damage than you might want a “neutral” garden critter to do. Probably the most famous “neutral” garden insect is the non-selective praying mantis, who doesn’t mind chowing down on your aphids for dinner, with a ladybug for dessert. The big takeaway from that earwig chat? “Don't wear loose clothing in an earwig infested garden.” We also touch on (in a manner of speaking) roly polys (aka, pillbugs).
This Week on the Garden Basics Podcast
Before we delve into the answer to that question posed in the headline, here is what is going on in the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast this week:
Tuesday, May 14: Episode 334 Q&A Rhubarb for Hot Climates? Lights for Seedlings?
In this episode, we answer garden questions from listeners. The first question is about growing rhubarb in hot weather. Master Gardeners Ruth Ostroff and Kathy Morrison (of the Sacramento Digs Gardening newsletter) discuss their experiences with growing rhubarb in Sacramento, which is challenging in a hot climate. (Ruth also names the rhubarb variety she has had success with in the hot Sacramento Valley.) Kathy shares a rhubarb recipe, made as an upside-down cake.
The second question is about grow lights for starting tomato and pepper seeds indoors. Debbie Flower and I explain the importance of using a light system that is big enough to cover all the seedlings equally, as well as mixing different bulb spectrum colors. Of course, Debbie also emphasizes the need for air circulation and movement for young plants. We’re old, so we recommend using fluorescent lights, but we discuss the different options available in the market.
Friday, May 17: Ep. 335 Roof Rat Control Tips. Asparagus-Lemon Recipes
In this episode of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, the main topic of discussion with retired UC Cooperative Extension Farm Advisor Rachael Long is roof rats and their impact on gardens and orchards. The conversation covers the behavior and habits of roof rats, their diet, nesting habits, and the damage they can cause to fruit trees. The episode also includes tips for controlling roof rats, such as trapping and using bait stations. Additionally, the episode features a segment on recipes using garden fresh asparagus and lemons, with Master Food Preserver Myrna Undajon-Haskell.
Takeaways:
• Roof rats are nocturnal creatures that can cause significant damage to fruit trees and orchards.
• They have a preference for heights and are known to nest in attics and burrow underground.
• Roof rats can be controlled through trapping and the use of bait stations.
• Recipes using garden fresh asparagus and lemons are provided.
• Preserving lemons and dehydrating citrus are also discussed.
So, Who is Eating Your Seedlings? Controlling Sowbugs, Pillbugs and Earwigs in the Garden…and Indoors
From the garden e-mail bag, Jessica wants to know:
“I have a crazy amount of roly-polys and pincher bugs this year. And the pincher bugs keep making their way into my house, too. Help! Is there anything I can do to drive them away other than bug spray? And can the roly-polys cause damage to my plants? I normally don't have a green thumb but my plants are doing great this year and I'm finally feeling like a good ‘plant mom’ so I don't want anything to mess them up.”
Jessica, generally roly-polys (pillbugs) and sowbugs cause few issues with thriving plants. They prefer the dead organic matter on the ground. But if their favorite foods aren’t around, they will go after your plants.
According to the creepy, crawly experts at the UC Integrated Pest Management Department, sowbugs and pillbugs feed primarily on decaying plant material and are important decomposers of organic matter. However, they occasionally feed on seedlings, new roots, lower leaves, and fruits or vegetables touching the soil. They sometimes come indoors, which can be nuisance.
If pillbugs or sowbugs are a problem, reduce the amount of decaying organic matter on the soil and minimize the wetness of the soil surface. Irrigate early in the day so surfaces are drier by evening. Keep compost and mulch back from plants and building foundations to keep them outdoors. Using raised beds or planting boxes and drip or furrow irrigation instead of sprinklers usually keeps pillbugs and sowbugs from becoming serious problems.
Pincher bugs (earwigs) are also a mixed blessing. They will munch on garden plants, but they also eat aphids!
Despite their ferocious appearance, earwigs generally don’t attack humans, although they are capable of biting if trapped in clothing or sat upon.
Should you be concerned about earwigs in your garden? Yes, and no. If your yard is primarily lawn, trees, woody ornamentals or native plants, let the earwigs do their job, going after aphids.
However, if you are growing vegetables, herbaceous flowering plants, sweet corn or plants with soft fruits such as strawberries or apricots…yes, take action. Earwigs feed at night and hide during the day in dark, cool, moist places in the yard as well as within flowers and vegetables. Your job is to reduce their hiding places and surrounding moist areas, as well as employing vigilant trapping.
Some tips for earwig control from the UC Integrated Pest Management Program:
• Eliminate dense undergrowth of vines, ground cover, and weeds around vegetable and flower gardens.
• Clear weeds away from the base of fruit trees and prune out any fruit tree suckers near the ground that earwigs could use as a ladder. Harvest fruit as soon as it’s ready. Pick up any fallen fruit.
• Remove leaves, boards, boxes, and other debris from the planting areas.
• Move flowerpots and other garden objects that can harbor earwigs.
• Reduce moisture in the area. Use drip irrigation instead of sprinklers.
Indoors, earwigs can be swept or vacuumed up. If earwigs are a regular problem in a building, inspect the area to see how they are getting into the house and seal up cracks and entry points. Remove materials outside the perimeter of the building that could provide hiding places, such as ivy growing up walls, ground cover, bark mulches, debris (especially leaves in gutters), wood piles, leaf litter, piles of newspapers, or other organic matter.
Also, keep water and moisture away from the structure by repairing drain spouts. Grade the area so water drains away from the structure.
Pillbug and Sowbug Fun Facts!
(courtesy of Butte Co. (CA) Master Gardener Michelle Ramsey)
• It’s hard to believe, but sowbugs and pillbugs are more closely related to lobsters and crayfish than they are to insects. These soil-dwelling crustaceans belong to the Isopoda order.
• Because they are crustaceans they breathe through plate-like gills located on the underside of the abdomen.
• These bugs are the only crustaceans that have adapted to living their entire life on land.
• Sowbugs and pillbugs are similar in appearance and their names are sometimes used interchangeably.
• However, the sowbug has a pair of tail-like appendages which project out from the rear of its body.
• The pillbug has no extreme posterior appendages, and can roll up into a tight ball when disturbed. This is why pillbugs are sometimes called “Roly-Poly” bugs
• Females have marsupial-like pouches on the undersides of their bodies that can hold up to 100 developing eggs.
• The immature isopod can remain in the pouch for up to 2 months after hatching.
• Full development to an adult takes about 1 year. During this time, the isopod will molt 4-5 times. Molting occurs in two stages: first the back half of the exoskeleton molts, then, two to three days later, the front half molts.
• The life span of both pillbugs and sowbugs is about three years.
• Sowbugs and pillbugs are most active at night. They spend daylight hours in moist, dark habitats.
• Because they breathe through gills, they require a very moist environment. That’s why you will find them hidden underneath rocks, in ground litter, or between the edges of moist grass and sidewalk areas during the day.
• They do not bite, sting or transmit disease. They are harmless to humans.
Thanks for reading Beyond Basics: The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Newsletter! Thank you for supporting my work with your pledge. I really could use some new handlebar tape.
Thank you for also listening to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast! It’s available wherever you get your podcasts. Please share it with your garden friends.
Fred Hoffman is also a University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardener in Sacramento County. And he likes to ride his bike(s).
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com -
If you’re looking to harvest bigger pieces of fruit from your trees and vines this summer, now's the time to get out your hand pruners and thin off the overcrowded fruit. Other good reasons for thinning lots of little fruit from trees now can also thwart bigger problems later this year, such as undersized fruit, excessive fruit drop, and broken fruit tree branches.
Here are some tips for thinning from the fruit tree experts at UCANR:
• For apples, European and Asian pears, apricots, peaches, nectarines, plums, pluots, kiwifruits, and persimmons: Remove some of the fruit. Space fruit evenly along each branch, with perhaps six inches between each piece of fruit. More importantly, be sure to leave the largest sized fruits on the tree or vine. Although the trees might appreciate a light feeding now, the best time to fertilize these crops is in July and August, when the trees are setting their fruit buds for the following year. An exception would be peach and nectarine trees attempting to recover from peach leaf curl. For those varieties, thinning and fertilizing now can help redirect the tree’s energy into producing more leaves to replace the fallen ones.
• For table grapes, remove grape bunches so that there is at least six inches of space between each remaining bunch of table grapes. Cut off the "tails" from the remaining bunches at that same time. This is the lower one-quarter to one third of the bunch, where it begins to taper down in size. This will send more energy to the remaining grapes on the bunch. The book, "The California Master Gardener Handbook" advises that fertilizer can be applied for each grapevine when the berries are about a quarter-inch big, usually in May. The same book advises gardeners to apply about 50 gallons of water per week per vine, during the hottest months (June through August) here in the Central Valley. Apply less (about 35 gallons a week) during May and September. Adding a few inches of mulch to the top of the soil beneath the vines will help preserve soil moisture.
• Because of their small size, cherries are not usually thinned from backyard trees. In addition, nut crops, such as almonds and walnuts, are not thinned.
• What about blueberries? The amount of thinning will depend upon the blueberry variety and fruit load relative to the vegetative area of the plant. Larger plants and branches that are more vigorous can support a heavier fruit load.
• Citrus trees tend to thin themselves, a phenomenon called “June Drop.” However, citrus fruit thinning now can help a tree drop fewer fruit in late spring.
Certain citrus types such as Valencia oranges or some mandarins have tendencies towards alternate bearing. That’s a year with heavy fruit production followed by a year with sparse production. You can reduce the potential of a tree to alternate bear by reducing the fruit load in a heavy fruit set year by thinning out some of the fruit. Pruning the tree will also help to offset alternate bearing. Also, fertilize less in light years and more in heavy years so that the trees needs are met according to the demands of the fruit load. Despite using these strategies, some varieties will just alternate bear.
• Do not allow the old citrus fruit to stay on the tree longer than necessary. This may contribute to a smaller crop and perhaps, more fruit drop, for the next crop. And, as you may have noticed, those oranges and mandarins that usually produce ripe fruit in the winter but still have some left on the branches may taste dry, with little or no flavor. Cleaning up fall fruit now beneath citrus trees can help cut down on future pest and disease issues, as well.
The University of California’s “California Backyard Orchard” website goes into the science of the benefits of thinning deciduous fruits:
Removal of flowers or young, immature fruits early in the spring can lead to increases in fruit size by limiting the number of fruits that continue growing to harvest. It increases the leaf-to-fruit ratio and removes smaller fruit that would never reach optimum size or quality. Apples, European and Asian pears, apricots, peaches, plums, kiwifruits, and persimmons are almost always thinned until the leaf to fruit ratio is favorable for supporting growth of adequately sized fruits. Typically, nut crops and cherries are not thinned.
Large fruit come from strong flower buds that grew in full sunlight, and on trees that have a favorable leaf to fruit ratio; not too many fruit per branch. In order to manipulate the tree into having just the right amount of crop that will size well and develop adequate flower buds for next year’s crop the fruits are hand thinned, removed in the dormant pruning process, or both. Apples, European and Asian pears, apricots, peaches, plums, kiwifruits, and persimmons are almost always thinned. Fruits on non-thinned trees are still edible, just smaller.
The earlier that fruits are thinned and the leaf to fruit ratio is increased, the larger the fruits will be at harvest and the greater the effect on next year’s bloom. The home fruit gardener needs to use judgment regarding spacing of the fruit as well as removal of small and damaged fruit. Spacing fruits evenly along a branch or leaving only one fruit per spur is a good practice, but leaving the largest fruit is more important. The small ones even well spaced will never become as large as the big ones closer together or in clusters. Leave the same number of fruit per branch, but leave the big ones no matter how they are spaced. This will lead to larger fruit. Most home fruit producers do not thin enough fruit off. It hurts to drop all that potential fruit on the ground. It usually takes 2–3 years of experiencing small fruit from inadequate thinning to get it right.
Blossom thinning also increases the leaf to fruit ratio because competition among developing fruits and elongating shoots and roots is relieved early; however, risk can be associated with blossom thinning because bad weather during bloom and postbloom may reduce fruit set even more.
Standard apple and peach cultivars require leaf to fruit ratios between 40:1 and 75:1 (40 to 75 leaves per single fruit) to reach typical size at harvest. Early varieties need a larger ratio of leaves to fruit. Spur-type apple varieties require a smaller leaf to fruit ratio of 25:1 to attain good crop size. This result seems to be related to the fact that photosynthates and stored food reserves are distributed more for fruit growth relative to vegetative growth in trees of this growth habit. Leaves of dwarf trees seem to be more efficient in exporting photosynthates because they are exposed to direct sunlight for more hours of the day than those on standard trees.
Nut crops are not thinned because kernel size is not an important factor.
Thanks for reading Beyond Basics: The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Thank you for also listening to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast! It’s available wherever you get your podcasts. Please share it with your garden friends.
Fred Hoffman is also a University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardener in Sacramento County. And he likes to ride his bike(s).
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com -
The podcast included with this newsletter features an interview with Rachael Long, University of California Cooperative Extension Farm Advisor Emeritus, and one of the nation’s best sources of information on the benefits of having barn owls prowling over your property to control rodents. Rachael mentions the UC Publication, “Songbird, Bat and Owl Boxes” which is a paid publication. Here’s a link for more information on barn owl boxes; and, another link with specific barn owl box building instructions. This chat originally aired in Episode 40 of the Garden Basics podcast in August of 2020.
Before we continue with our beneficial insect hit parade, here’s what has happened this week on the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast:
Tuesday, April 30: Ep. 330 - Q&A Controlling Bermudagrass; What about using black plastic in the garden?
Gail from California wants to start a vegetable and flower garden in her backyard, which is currently covered in Bermuda grass. Fred and Debbie suggest waiting a year and using soil solarization to kill off the Bermuda grass. They also recommend starting small with container gardening. They discuss the challenges of dealing with Bermuda grass and the benefits of solarization. They also touch on the use of black plastic mulch in the garden.
Friday, May 3: Ep. 331 Cucumber Starting and Training Tips
In this episode, Fred and Debbie Flower discuss cucumber planting advice, including starting cucumbers from seed or nursery transplants, training cucumber growth, and choosing the right cucumber plants. They also cover topics such as soil temperature, soil type, watering, trellising, pollination, and harvesting cucumbers. They provide tips for preventing cucumber diseases and pests, as well as suggestions for different cucumber varieties to try.
Meet the Garden Beneficials, Part 2
Last week, we discussed three of the best beneficial insects to have in your garden: lacewings, ladybugs, and hoverflies. Today, we cover several more garden good guys worth putting to work in your yard to subdue the pests, and the “Welcome Mat” plants they need for extra food and shelter.
Soldier Beetles (leather-winged beetles)
Like many of the beneficials, it is the larval stage of soldier beetles that do most of the munching on the bad bugs. Whereas the adult soldier beetles feed mostly on the pollen and nectar of flowers - as well as the occasional aphid, insect eggs and larvae - young soldier beetles can be found under the bark of the plant or in soil or litter. There, they feed primarily on the eggs and larvae of beetles, butterflies, moths and other insects.
Plants That Attract Soldier Beetles
* Celosia Cockscomb
* Coreopsis
* Daucus carota Queen Anne’s Lace
* Echinacea purpurea Purple Coneflower
* Pycnanthemum Mountain Mint
* Rosa Roses
* Solidago Goldenrod
Parasitic Mini-Wasps
Mini-wasps are parasites of a variety of insects. They do not sting! The stingers have been adapted to allow the females to lay their eggs in the bodies of insect pests. The eggs then hatch, and the young feed on the pests from the inside, killing them. After they have killed the pests, they leave hollow “mummies.” Among the parasitic mini-wasps:
Braconid Wasps
Braconid wasps feed on moth, beetle and fly larvae, moth eggs, various insect pupae and adults. If you see lots of white capsules on the backs of a caterpillar, these are the braconid cocoons. Leave the dying caterpillar alone!
Ichneumonid wasps control moth, butterfly, beetle and fly larvae and pupae.
Trichogramma wasps lay their own eggs in moth eggs (hungry caterpillars-to-be), killing them and turning them black.
Plants that attract parasitic mini-wasps:•Achillea filipendulina Fern-leaf yarrow•Achillea millefolium Common yarrow•Allium tanguticum Lavender globe lily•Anethum graveolens Dill•Anthemis tinctoria Golden marguerite•Astrantia major Masterwort•Callirhoe involucrata Purple poppy mallow•Carum carvi Caraway•Coriandrum sativum Coriander•Cosmos bipinnatus Cosmos white sensation•Daucus carota Queen Anne’s lace•Foeniculum vulgare Fennel•Limonium latifolium Statice•Linaria vulgaris Butter and eggs•Lobelia erinus Edging lobelia•Lobularia maritima Sweet alyssum - white•Melissa officinalis Lemon balm•Mentha pulegium Pennyroyal•Petroselinum crispum Parsley•Potentilla recta ‘warrenii’ Sulfur cinquefoil•Potentilla villosa Alpine cinquefoil•Sedum kamtschaticum Orange stonecrop•Sweet alyssum - white•Tagetes tenuifolia Marigold ‘lemon gem’•Tanacetum vulgare Tansy•Thymus serpylum coccineus Crimson thyme•Zinnia elegans Zinnia - 'liliput'
TACHINID FLIES
Parasites of caterpillars (corn earworm, imported cabbage worm, cabbage loopers, cutworms, armyworms), stink bugs, squash bug nymphs, beetle and fly larvae, some true bugs, and beetles. Adults are 1/3 to 1/2 inch long. White eggs are deposited on foliage or on the body of the host. Larvae are internal parasites, feeding within the body of the host, sucking its body fluids to the point that the pest dies. Plants that attract tachinid flies:•Anthemis tinctoria Golden marguerite•Eriogonum fasciculatum California Buckwheat•Melissa officinalis Lemon balm•Mentha pulegium Pennyroyal•Petroselinum crispum Parsley•Phacelia tanacetifolia Phacelia•Tanacetum vulgare Tansy•Thymus serpyllum coccineus Crimson thyme
MINUTE PIRATE BUGS (Orius spp.)
True to their name, minute pirate bugs are tiny (1/20 inch long) bugs that feed on almost any small insect or mite, including thrips, aphids, mites, scales, whiteflies and soft-bodied arthropods, but are particularly attracted to thrips in spring.
DAMSEL BUGS (Nabis spp.)
Damsel bugs feed on aphids, leafhoppers, plant bugs, and small caterpillars. They are usually dull brown and resemble other plant bugs that are pests. Their heads are usually longer and narrower then most plant feeding species (the better to eat with!).
BIG EYED BUGS (Geocoris spp.)
Big eyed bugs are small (1/4 inch long), grayish-beige, oval shaped) bugs with large eyes that feed on many small insects (e.g., leaf hoppers, spider mites), insect eggs, and mites, as both nymphs and adults. Eggs are football shaped, whitish-gray with red spots. Plants that attract minute pirate bugs, damsel bugs and big eyed bugs:•Carum carvi Caraway•Cosmos bipinnatus Cosmos “white sensation”•Foeniculum vulgare Fennel•Medicago sativa Alfalfa•Mentha spicata Spearmint•Solidago virgaurea Peter Pan goldenrod•Tagetes tenuifolia Marigold “lemon gem”
Thank you also for listening to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. It’s available wherever you get your podcasts. Please share it with your gardening friends.
Fred Hoffman is also a University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardener in Sacramento County, California. And he likes to ride his bike(s).
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com -
The podcast included with this newsletter features an interview with Rachael Long, University of California Cooperative Extension Farm Advisor Emeritus, and one of the nation’s best sources of information on the benefits of having bats, which are flying mammals (not rodents), in your neighborhood. Originally aired in Episode 180 of the Garden Basics podcast in March of 2022.
Before we begin bug hunting, here’s what has happened this week on the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast:
Ep. 328 Q&A - Should you add fertilizer to a compost pile? Can planting late-ripening peaches thwart peach leaf curl disease?
In this episode of the Garden Basics Podcast, Fred Hoffman and Master Gardener Susan Muckey discuss composting and answer a listener's question about adding nitrogen to a compost pile. They explain that adding nitrogen is not necessary for most compost piles and discuss the ideal carbon-nitrogen ratio. They also provide tips for turning a compost pile and maintaining the right temperature. In the second part of the episode, Quentyn Young, Master Gardener and orchard specialist, joins the conversation to discuss strategies for dealing with peach leaf curl, including planting late ripening peach varieties.
• Adding nitrogen to a compost pile is not necessary for most composting methods.
• The ideal carbon-nitrogen ratio for a compost pile is 30 parts carbon to one part nitrogen.
• Turning a compost pile helps to introduce air and maintain the right temperature.
• Late ripening peach varieties can be a good strategy for preventing peach leaf curl.
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Ep. 329 How to Water
In this conversation, Farmer Fred and America’s Favorite Retired College Horticulture Professor (and former nurseryperson), Debbie Flower, discuss various methods of watering plants, including watering seeds, young plants in containers, mature plants in containers, and lawns. They also touch on the use of sprinklers versus drip irrigation, the benefits of rainwater, and the ancient practice of using Oyas for irrigation. The conversation emphasizes the importance of finding a watering system that works best for each individual and regularly checking plants for signs of distress.
• Watering seeds requires keeping the seed bed evenly moist, and watering from the bottom can be an effective method.
• When watering young plants in containers, it's important to water each container individually and ensure that the entire column of soil is wet.
• For mature plants in containers, using a watering wand with a fine breaker can provide a gentle and effective watering method.
• Lawns can be watered using sprinklers or more efficient methods like MP Rotators, and it's important to turn off the water when runoff occurs.
• Drip irrigation is a cost-effective method for irrigating crops, but it requires monitoring for breaks and securing the drip tape to the ground.
• Oyas, an ancient irrigation method, can be used to slowly release water to plants, but their effectiveness depends on soil type and plant needs.
• Regularly checking plants for signs of distress and maintaining irrigation systems is crucial for healthy plant growth.
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Meet the Garden Good Guys and Gals
Nature wants to make your job as a gardener as easy as possible; but you have to help.
We've talked about putting in plants that attract insects whose primary job is to pollinate your garden, helping to insure a bountiful harvest of food and flowers.
But what about attracting those other "good bugs", the crawling and flying creatures whose diet includes pests that are ravaging your garden plants? These beneficial predatory insects do not live on aphid steaks alone. They need other natural sources of food and shelter for their entire life cycle before they call your backyard a permanent home. What are these "Welcome Mat" plants and the beneficial insects they attract? Here is a list of three of those good bugs and some of the plants that they like to visit for shelter and as another source of food for their diet and their children. Next week, we’ll have even more beneficials and plants. For best results, group these plants nearby or along the garden border to attract the garden beneficials.
P.S. Readers with a long memory will recall much of this information from an earlier post here in May 2022.
LADYBUGS (Ladybeetles)
Easily recognized when they are adults by most gardeners. However, the young larvae, black with orange markings, eat more pests than the adults, and they can’t fly. Yellowish eggs are laid in clusters usually on the undersides of leaves.
Plants that attract ladybugs:•Achillea millefolium Common yarrow•Ajuga reptans Carpet bugleweed•Alyssum saxatilis Basket of Gold•Anethum graveolens Dill•Anthemis tinctoria Golden marguerite•Asclepias tuberosa Butterfly weed•Atriplex canescens Four-wing saltbush•Coriandrum sativum Coriander•Daucus carota Queen Anne’s lace•Eriogonum fasciculatum CA Buckwheat•Foeniculum vulgare Fennel•Helianthus maximilianii Prairie sunflower•Penstemon strictus Rocky Mt. penstemon•Tagetes tenuifolia Marigold “lemon gem”•Tanacetum vulgare Tansy•Taraxacum officinale Dandelion•Veronica spicata Spike speedwell•Vicia villosa Hairy vetch
Another planting tip to keep ladybugs around throughout the year in mild climates: put in ornamental grasses, especially deer grass (Muhlenbergia). Don’t prune it back until spring. You just might witness the newest crop of ladybugs emerging from this winter hideaway on a warm, sunny day!
LACEWINGS
Beautiful, little (3/4”) green or brown insects with large lacy wings.
Individual white eggs of lacewings are found laid on the ends of inch-long, stiff threads, usually along the undersides of leaves.
It is the larvae (which look like little alligators) that destroy most of the pests. They are sometimes called “aphid lions” for their habit of dining on aphids. They also feed on mites, other small insects and insect eggs. On spring and summer evenings, lacewings can sometimes be seen clinging to porch lights, screens or windows.
Plants that attract lacewings:•Achillea filipendulina Fern-leaf yarrow•Anethum graveolens Dill•Angelica gigas Angelica•Anthemis tinctoria Golden marguerite•Atriplex canescens Four-wing saltbush•Callirhoe involucrata Purple poppy mallow•Carum carvi Caraway•Coriandrum sativum Coriander•Cosmos bipinnatus Cosmos white sensation•Daucus carota Queen Anne’s lace•Foeniculum vulgare Fennel•Helianthus maximilianii Prairie sunflower•Tanacetum vulgare Tansy•Taraxacum officinale Dandelion
HOVERFLIES (incl. syrphid flies, predatory aphid flies, flower flies)
Also known as syrphid fly, predatory aphid fly or flower fly. Adults look like little bees that hover over and dart quickly away. They don’t sting! They lay eggs (white, oval, laid singly or in groups on leaves) which hatch into green, yellow, brown, orange, or white half-inch maggots that look like caterpillars. They raise up on their hind legs to catch and feed on aphids, mealybugs and others.
Plants that attract hoverflies:•Achillea filipendulina Fern-leaf yarrow•Achillea millefolium Common yarrow•Ajuga reptans Carpet bugleweed•Allium tanguticum Lavender globe lily•Alyssum saxatilis Basket of Gold•Anethum graveolens Dill•Anthemis tinctoria Golden marguerite•Aster alpinus Dwarf alpine aster•Astrantia major Masterwort•Atriplex canescens Four-wing saltbush•Callirhoe involucrata Purple poppy mallow•Carum carvi Caraway•Chrysanthemum parthenium Feverfew•Coriandrum sativum Coriander•Cosmos bipinnatus Cosmos white sensation•Daucus carota Queen Anne’s lace•Eriogonum fasciculatum CA Buckwheat•Foeniculum vulgare Fennel•Lavandula angustifolia English lavender•Limnanthes douglasii Poached egg plant•Limonium latifolium Statice•Linaria vulgaris Butter and eggs•Lobelia erinus Edging lobelia•Lobularia maritima Sweet alyssum white•Melissa officinalis Lemon balm•Mentha pulegium Pennyroyal•Mentha spicata Spearmint•Monarda fistulosa Wild bergamot•Penstemon strictus Rocky Mt. penstemon•Petroselinum crispum Parsley•Potentilla recta ‘warrenii’ Sulfur cinquefoil•Potentilla villosa Alpine cinquefoil•Rudbeckia•Rudbeckia fulgida Gloriosa daisy•Sedum kamtschaticum Orange stonecrop•Sedum spurium Stonecrops•Solidago virgaurea Peter Pan goldenrod•Stachys officinalis Wood betony•Tagetes tenuifolia Marigold “lemon gem”•Thymus serpylum coccineus Crimson thyme•Veronica spicata Spike speedwell•Zinnia elegans Zinnia "liliput"
In the Next Newsletter: More Beneficial Insects
Including parasitic mini wasps, tachinid flies, minute pirate bugs, damsel bugs, big-eyed bugs - and the plants they need to build a home and raise a family.
Thanks for Subscribing and Spreading the Word About the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred newsletter, I appreciate your support.
And thank you for listening to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast! It’s available wherever you get your podcasts. Please share it with your garden friends.
Fred Hoffman is also a University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardener in Sacramento County.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com -
Our cohort in all things tomato, Don Shor of Redwood Barn Nursery in Davis, got into a lot of helpful information for tomato gardeners besides just talking about tomato varieties in Episode 317 of the Garden Basics podcast, The 2024 Tomato Preview Show. The mini-podcast (above) highlights four tips we discussed that can make you a more successful gardening tomato-head.
Among Don’s tips:
• The first thing you should do when you when bring that tomato plant home from the nursery.
• And, if you are growing tomato plants from seed, what you need to do before you plant it outdoors.
• How to save tomato seeds from open pollinated varieties for next year.
• How to save your tomatoes when it gets really, really hot.
• How to improve the flavor and texture of supermarket tomatoes.
• Plus, I threw in an extra tip on growing fruit trees in containers for a longer fruit production life in tight quarters.
The Tomatoes of the 2024 Tomato Preview Show (with links for more info)
Rugby
Chef’s Choice Orange
Juliet
Bodacious
New Girl
Tough Boy
Blue Ribbon
Pineapple
Champion
Purple Boy
Bush Early Girl
Itz a Keeper
Super Fantastic
Jet Star
Principe Borghese
Riesetomate tomato
Sungold
Barry’s Crazy Cherry
Sweet Carneros Pink
Pork Chop
Michael Pollan
Gardener’s Delight
Big Beef
4th of July
Sweet Million
Super Sauce
Orange Wellington
Dr. Wyche’s Yellow
Purple Tomato (a GMO variety)
A sampling of our comments of each of those tomato varieties (listen to the full episode for even more tomatoey details)
Fred: the big winner last year for me was Rugby, based on your endorsement of that tomato over the last couple of years. And Rugby is just a wonderful tomato.
Don: it grows very, very well and a very good producer here. So yes, you and I definitely agree on Rugby.
=======================
Don: I still highly recommend the Chef's Choice series and I strongly recommend Chef's Choice Orange based on previous years. That's still in my top ten.
Fred: Several of the Chef's Choice tomatoes have been All-America Selections winners, as well.
======================
Don: I have to say every year I have one plant that just grows incredibly robust compared to all the others. It's never the same one, of course, and it produces really, really heavily. And in 2023 for me, that was Juliet. Now I recommend Juliet very highly for a lot of reasons. I did a quick count, just trying to figure out how many fruit my Juliet plant produced. It was something close to 400.
====================
Fred: One that you have recommended over the years. And I finally broke down and tried it and it was actually it was successful the second year I tried it. And that's another Don Shor rule about planting tomatoes. Give them three years, plant them for three years and see if you still like it. And Bodacious did quite well for me in 2023. It was the the last plant to give up, and I harvested the remaining green ones in November and I finally finished the green ones as they ripen slowly in the garage. I finished those off in late February.
Don: Yeah, it's been a very good performer. If you're looking for something in what we sometimes call the beefsteak category, a large slicing tomato with good connective tissue that you could use in a sandwich, Bodacious is probably your best bet here in the Sacramento Valley. Bodacious has great flavor all as well, has taken heat very well for me. Continues to be a good performer for me.
======================
Fred: Another one of your perennial favorites - and I've been planting it now for like three or four years - well, I finally ran out of the seed. I'm going have to get some fresh seed. The New Girl tomato.
Don: Yes, New Girl has been out yielding Early Girl for me for the last two years.
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Don: There's another one out there called Tough Boy. Some people are doing that one and have had very good results. Tough Boy is another one where they're trying for that same 4 to 6 ounce fruit size, nice round red tomato, good flavor, a good all-purpose tomato. That's another good one.
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Don: There's one that I've been recommending and it's going to be a hard one to find unless the nursery start it themselves. It’s Blue Ribbon. It doesn't crack, it doesn't split. It didn't get blossom and rot. The fruit is always 12 ounces or so, a good size all the way up to a pound. Sometimes it didn't get sunburned. It just performs really well. It's not just attractive. I mean, the Blue Ribbon refers to the fact it's a very, very good looking tomato. It also has really good flavor, and holds well on the vine.
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Don: So here's my big surprise from last year. Every year there's one variety that surprises me. Pineapple. The name refers to the rather tangy flavor. This year I got 14 very large fruit on the one plant, each of them about one and a half to two pounds.
Fred: An oldie but a goodie.
Don: I don't usually tell people heirlooms are going to be your highest yield, but the Pineapple really, really surprised me how much it produced. Great quality. I recommend if you have room for four or five tomato plants, try Pineapple.
Fred: You're right, it's beautiful, with sort of a golden orange color.
Don: And red striations in the flesh. It slices great, it cooks great.
========================
Fred: How did Champion perform for you last year? You seem to plant it every year.
Don: It was just fine, as usual. You know, I got a lot of fruit on it. It's a really good red tomato.
==========================
Don: There's a whole group of tomatoes I'm getting pretty fed up with, and that is the purple, blue and black tomatoes, Black Beauty, Blue whatever. We're just finding some of them really, really don't soften. And the flavor is, in my opinion, rather astringent. And I don't know what it takes to get them to have good flavor. If someone out there has come up with a new hybrid purple or blue tomato with good flavor. I'd love to know what it is because so far, I'm not impressed.
Fred: I did ask the Facebook people who follow the Get Growing with Farmer Fred page, “What tomato did you really like from 2023?” And I did get a reply from one follower whose opinion I respect. He's a high school horticulture teacher and he said he loved Purple Boy. Said it was very productive. And that's good enough for me. I'll give that a shot. So I've got some Purple Boy seedlings coming up.
Don: I'm writing it down as we speak.
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Fred: I have actually picked for 2024 an oldie but a goody container-sized tomato, called Bush Early Girl. It produces fairly good sized tomatoes, but on a plant that only gets 18 inches tall.
Don: The dwarf tomato series varieties are becoming very popular. I have grown some of these. I haven't grown that particular one. You'll find the yields are okay for what they are. This is a small plant. There's a bunch of little miniature tomatoes, Little Napoli, Little Sicily. One of my growers handed me a Mini Marzano. The plant grew 16 inches by 16 inches. Produced about 12 fruit, each of which was about one ounce. You know, if you're in an apartment and you have a balcony, that's a fun thing to do. Many of these are not going to give you the yields you're expecting.
Fred: The Bush Early Girl, by the way, is a compact determinant, which means it's going to set most of its crop once and then you can pull it out. But it ripens in only 54 days.
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Fred: I think the seed catalogs especially the specialty tomato seed catalogs like Totally Tomatoes are getting wise to me because they're starting to throw packets of other tomato seeds in with my order, things that I didn't order. Because they think, “he'll plant anything, just send it.”
Don: They did that to us, what, two or three years ago? They sent this one out. It was just a number at the time and I remember sending a note to the owner of Seeds ’N Such. “What is this one? We need to know. This is really a great performer. It stayed firm late in the season. It produced well. It was a compact plant.” He goes, Oh yeah, we're going to send that out next year with a name, It’z a Keeper. And that turned out to be an outstanding variety and I really do highly recommend it. It is really firm. It's one of those tomatoes that you just wonder if it's ever going to ripen. It is ripe. It's just very, very solid. The name, “It’z a Keeper” refers to the fact that it can sit on your counter for awhile. Pick it in mid-October, three or four weeks later, it is still just fine and still has very good flavor. Again, you're going to have to find it yourself, because hardly any retailers are going to have that one available as a plant. But It’z a Keeper is an interesting new variety that I think has a lot to recommend for it.
Fred: I’ve got a couple of those questionable freebies growing now. One is called Super Fantastic and the other is called Jetstar. if you live in Canada, you would like Super Fantastic, even though I’ve started that seed. It produces ten ounce tomatoes, an indeterminate. According to West Coast Seeds, which is based in British Columbia, “Super Fantastic tomato seeds produce hearty, vigorous vines that adapt well to a variety of climates, immensely popular and an excellent producer on the West coast of British Columbia. These rich, meaty beefsteak tomatoes are very versatile.”
Don: the West Coast of British Columbia is a pretty wet, cool place. Wherever your live, look for particular varieties that are recommended by your local garden centers.
Fred: The Jetstar one that I'm growing that I know nothing about is advertised as being “a prolific producer of big globe shaped fruits that ripen all the way through.”Well, that's good to know. “Excellent flavor with low acidity, nice compact habit, indeterminate. It gets 3 to 5 feet tall.” It does not state the size of the tomatoes though. So I don't know.
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Don: We mentioned compact varieties. There is one that I find myself recommending more and more year after year and I think you're going to grow it this year. When I first read about it, it was described as the classic tomato for sun drying and it is very, very good for that. In fact, I started growing it just for that purpose because one of my staff people just loves to take them and cut them in half and dry them. It's Principe Borghese.
Fred: Yeah, you wore me down on that one.
Don: It also happens to be very good for sauces and salsas, things like that. And it's a very compact variety. So people who are limited for space that really like a rich flavored, almost gourmet quality tomato, look into Principe Borghese.
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Don: Late last year I remember we talked about a very strange tomato that I was growing and I told you, I'll give you a report card on this one again. Riesetomate. It looks like a bunch of grapes. It's a single tomato with numerous lobes. They look like, as I say, a bunch of red grapes, all one fruit with all these lobes on it. It produced at least 80 fruit for me. These are very, very rich flavors. It's the kind of thing where you just break off a piece and eat some fresh. It made amazing salsa and it was one of the strangest looking tomatoes I have actually ever grown. So if you have room in your garden and you want to grow something truly weird, look for the Riesetomate tomato.
Fred: I just went online to see what a Riesetomate looks like and there are all these other Riesetomate types. There's a Riese that I'm looking at from Rare Seeds that looks like a very deep red cluster of grape sized tomatoes.
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Don: Sungold is still the most popular cherry tomato that's out there, beating older more established varieties such as Sweet 100, Sweet Million, that whole category. Kids seem to really like Sungold.
Don: one group of cherry tomatoes that you might want to look into are the ones that are being produced by Brad Gates, who you've had on your show many times, from Wild Boar Farms. His cherry tomatoes are phenomenal producers and very, very sweet, including Barry’s Crazy Cherry, which produces hundreds of fruit. I always plant Sweet Carneros Pink. I always plant Pork Chop, that's a very good yellow tomato. Another reliable producer is Michael Pollan, named after the author. It's a very good producer. Very interesting. I do recommend trying some of his. They're different.
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Don: you mentioned Gardeners Delight. Usually that is a very reliable tomato and I have customers that swear by it. So I want to see a new gardener getting some that we know are going to do well for them.
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Don: One that I was reintroduced to a couple of years ago was Big Beef. We talked about not doing beefsteak types. Well, Big Beef can go in early, it sets early, makes a really good size, good quality fruit and seems to be very well adapted. It was an All-America selections winner in the 1990s. So I've added that to my top 20. And I have customers that swear by it now because they've gotten very good large fruit as early as the first week of July.
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Don: Here in Yolo County, UC Davis’ Dr. Robert Norris, who has been advising Master gardeners here for decades, strongly recommends 4th of July as an early ripening, very good fruiting tomato. And that's done very well for a lot of people. So that's a case where it's a local variety that has a lot of people that have tried it. It's a tried and true in our region. Wherever you're listening, there probably is one like that.
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Fred: So to recap, this year I will be planting the Principe Borghese, Rugby, Gardeners Delight, Bodacious, New Girl, Purple Boy, Super Fantastic, Bush Early Girl, Jetstar and one of my favorite cherry tomatoes, Sweet Million.
Don: We'll have Rugby. I'm doing a second year of one called Super Sauce, which was extremely good producer, bigger than Rugby, very similar. And I'll have my usual red and yellow and orange tomatoes from Chef's Choice series, and I'm going to do Orange Wellington next to Chef's Choice Orange, because I've had both and they're both very good. And I'm curious if Orange Wellington, which I found in the Burpee catalogue, is as good a producer as they say it is, and good flavour as they say it is.
Fred: I still like Dr. Wyche’s Yellow. It’s one of my favorite yellow-orange beefsteaks to grow.
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Don: there is one other blue tomato on the horizon you've probably been reading about. It's the Purple Tomato, the first genetically modified plant that the public can buy. It is a purple fleshed tomato. It got a lot of publicity. All you do is Google “purple tomato”, and the information about this will all come up. It costs about two bucks a seed. You're not going to find that a whole lot of garden centers, but some of your friends will probably be growing it. It should be interesting to see what it's like. And my first reaction was, why do they do a purple one? Those are terrible.
Fred: Now wait a minute. It’s a seed.
Don: You can get seed of this purple fleshed tomato, two bucks a piece and they're out there. You can certainly buy them. It is the first in the United States. There was a genetically modified tomato introduced in Japan last year, which has enriched nutrient status. It has higher something, vitamin A probably. This one is purple, not just purple skin, but vivid purple flesh all the way through. And I can't remember right off the top of my head the name, but you can find it quite easily. Yes, you can buy the seed, as I say, two bucks a seed and you can grow yourself. And so for years I have I have customers who don't want GMOs. They have customers who think they're interesting. Never was an issue. They would say, Are any of these GMOs? I would say there are no GMOs in the nursery industry or in the garden industry. That's no longer true. This one is out there, but you have to buy direct from the supplier. So this purple fleshed tomato, there is going to be certainly a lot of conversation about it. I would be great if someone would grow it and let us know how the flavor is and who knows? It might actually get into the trade, as the price comes down. But for two bucks a seed, you're not going to see a whole lot of plant growers jump into that one.
Fred: I just looked it up. It has a very clever name. Purple Tomato.
Don: Quite interesting looking. And I'm guessing some people have already bought the seed. So we'd like to hear your reports on it.
Fred: The Purple Tomato, as described by its developer, who is Norfolk Plant Sciences, the Purple Tomato contains high levels of antioxidants and anthocyanins normally found in fruits such as blueberries and blackberries.
Don: Yes. And so far my experience has been that makes them taste pretty astringent. But we'll find out with this one. Maybe they've figured a way around that problem.
Thanks for reading Beyond Basics: The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Thank you for also listening to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast! It’s available wherever you get your podcasts. Please share it with your garden friends.
Fred Hoffman is also a University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardener in Sacramento County. And he likes to ride his bike(s).
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com -
Today’s newsletter podcast (recorded in January 2021) features an arborist discussing ways you can spot when your trees may be in danger of falling, especially in a wet, windy winter.
More information about what was discussed in the podcast can be found at the University of California Ag and Natural Resources publication, “Inspect Your Landscape Trees for Hazards”.
Small Trees for Small Yards
In this era of "Big House, Small Yard", choosing the right size tree can not only enhance the beauty of your backyard, it can forestall serious and expensive pavement problems that might force you to crack open your wallet in five to ten years. Planting a tree with a future height and spread of more than 40 feet in a small backyard will eventually make you recall that old TV show title, "Dark Shadows". Even spookier will be the repair bills when the extensive root systems of these larger trees start heaving and cracking your concrete patio, driveway, sidewalk and foundation.
The Sacramento Tree Foundation recommends planting large trees at least 15 feet away from any hardscaping or construction. If the site you've picked out for a new tree can't be situated that far away from any concrete, electrical systems or sewer pipes, here are some good, small trees that need only six feet of planting distance from building foundations, walks and driveways.
Most of these trees will get no taller than 25 feet: Amur maple, Japanese maple, eastern redbud, flowering dogwood, Washington hawthorn, crape myrtle, saucer magnolia and Bechtel crabapple.
Needing only 10 feet of "growing room" from tree to concrete are these medium-sized (25-40 feet) ornamental plants: trident maple, hedge maple, Japanese white birch, goldenrain tree, capital pear and chanticleer pear.
Before your shovel hits the ground, here is an easier way to plant your tree or shrub: instead of digging deep, dig wide. Then, refill that crater with the native soil. Current research from the University of California has shown that digging a hole an inch or two less than the depth of the tree's root ball (the portion in the container) is more beneficial than digging a deeper, narrow planting hole.
The trick to a successful planting also includes loosening the surrounding soil at the planting site. Loosen up the soil (again, to the depth of the root ball) in an area at least twice as wide as the container (for young trees and shrubs) or the entire diameter of the tree canopy. Even better, rototill out to six feet from the location of the tree trunk. A tree that can easily send out its lateral root system will have better access to water and nutrients.
Check the tree for girdled roots before planting. If the roots are encircling the rootball, slice through the length of the root ball on four sides about an inch deep. This will help the roots to spread down and out, not round and round.
Plant the tree so that the top of the root ball rests on solid soil, one to two inches higher that the surrounding soil; this allows for settling and helps avoid crown rot. Avoid soil amendments; by refilling the hole with the original soil, the tree more quickly adapts to the native environment where it will have to reach out in order to be successful.
Staking should only be done if the tree can't stand on its own. And by all means, remove the single stake that comes with the tree from the nursery. Use two stakes, one on either side of the root ball. Tie the tree to the stakes using old nylons or another flat, wide, ribbon-like article. Tie loosely at the lowest point on the trunk where the tree will stand upright. Remove the stakes as soon as the tree will stand on its own, usually not more than one year.
Lower Your Tree Size Expectations.
Freakish high gusts of wind are becoming more commonplace throughout Northern and Central California, especially with the change of the seasons. Last weekend, a Red Flag warning was posted by the National Weather Service for the danger posed by the combination of high winds and dry landscapes that might ignite wildfires. Sure enough, the high winds swept into several sections of our state. The Bay Area office of the National Weather Service reported high winds exceeding 50 and 60 miles per hour in several coastal areas. In Southern California, wind gusts of 50 miles per hour buffeted high profile vehicle traffic on Interstate 5, north of Los Angeles. And a wildfire broke out in Riverside County, which, at press time, was still only 20% controlled.
A bit closer to home, we nervously look at our neighbors’ huge conifers shedding small branches on windy days throughout the year.
That’s a not so gentle reminder of last January, when one of their 60-foot-tall Atlas cedar giants fell into our yard during a windstorm here in suburbia, a fallen tree that was so large that it caused damage in three different backyards.
If you are considering planting a tree, and you have a typically sized urban or suburban yard, you can minimize future damage from flying tree limbs to your property and your neighbors by choosing a medium sized tree. Generally, these are trees that grow between 25 and 40 feet tall. And November is still an excellent time for planting new trees in our area.
Shop for smaller trees that have minimal invasive roots and have several eye-catching traits such as colorful leaves, flowers, or distinctive bark.
Two trees that are underutilized in current landscapes that have minimal problems include:
• ‘Emerald Sunshine’ Elm (Ulmus propinqua). The ‘Emerald Sunshine’ elm is resistant to many of the problems of older elm varieties while maintaining a more reasonable eventual height: about 35 feet tall, with a spread of 25 feet tall. This elm has deep green leaves that turn yellow in the fall. ‘Emerald Sunshine’ is reportedly tolerant of hot, windy conditions, making it a good candidate for cities in warm summer areas with low humidity.
• ‘Redpointe’ Red Maple (Acer rubrum ‘Redpointe’). There are a lot of new red maple hybrids that have proven themselves in our area, especially the ‘October Glory’ red maple. The ‘Redpointe’ has many positive traits as well, although it does get a bit larger than the Chinese Fringe tree or the “Emerald Sunshine” elm, yet it still is much smaller that the ‘October Glory’ maple, which can get to 50 feet tall. The ‘Redpointe’ is described as a maple that is upright with a broadly pyramidal shape that requires little pruning. ‘Redpointe’ will reach 40 feet with a 20-foot spread. Its deeply lobed leaves are deep green from spring to fall when they turn a brilliant shade of red.
Here are a few more suggestions for trees that fit well in small to medium yards:
• Chinese Fringe Tree (Chionanthus retusus). Perfect for small yards, as it only gets about 20 feet tall with a spread of 10 to 15 feet. UC Master Gardener Cathy Ronk of Tulare County says the Chinese Fringe Tree has clusters of showy, lightly fragrant, fringe-like white blooms. The Chinese Fringe Tree is also one of UC Davis’ “Arboretum All-Stars,” notable for its yellow fall leaves and moderate water needs.
Trees recommended, along with comments, from the Sacramento Tree Foundation:
• Chinese pistache (Pistacia chinensis). 30-45 feet tall and wide. The Sacramento Tree Foundation says this tree has the “Best fall color show in our region. Nice round shape, and a low water user.” Choose a male variety such as the ‘Keith Davey’ to avoid the messy berries.
• Shantung Maple ‘Pacific Sunset’ (Acer truncatum ‘Pacific Sunset’). 25-30 feet tall and wide. “Hearty and fine textured, with larger leaves than regular Shantung maples.”
• Sweet Bay (Laurus nobilis). An evergreen tree or shrub, the Sweet Bay can get 30-40 feet tall, but takes well to pruning. “Dark green, dense form makes a good screen. Small yellow flowers in clusters followed by small black berries. Leaves are bay leaves used in cooking.”
• And again, a very popular tree for its summertime flowers is the crape myrtle (Lagerstroemia indica and its hybrids). This Chinese native gets about 25 feet tall, with a distinctive gray-light brown, exfoliating (peeling) bark that reveals a smooth whitish inner bark in the winter. It blooms best in warm summer climates, and is subject to mildew in moist climates. However, hybrid varieties have been bred for hardiness and mildew resistance. Look for varieties with names of native American tribes such as Arapaho, Hopi, Muskogee, Natchez, and Zuni.
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Finally, this will be the last Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter/podcast for awhile. I’ll be taking a fall/winter break to recalibrate, recharge, rethink….and, of course, ride my bike.
Thank you for also listening to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast! It’s available wherever you get your podcasts. Please share it with your garden friends.
Fred Hoffman is also a University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardener in Sacramento County.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com -
Simple instructions from the Placer County (CA) Master Gardeners on proper tree staking:
Q: I just planted a new tree and want to know the best way to stake it.
A: It’s important to know that not all newly planted trees need to be staked. In fact, improper staking can harm rather than help. The more freely a tree can move, the stronger its trunk will become and the more likely it will be to withstand storms.
There are three situations in which staking is necessary: to protect against damage from equipment, vehicles or animals; to anchor trees whose roots cannot support the tree upright in the wind; and to support trunks unable to stand upright by themselves.
Protective stakes only need to be tall enough to be seen and avoided by equipment operators. Three stakes are generally enough and they should not be attached to the tree. Netting or wire fencing can be attached to the stakes to exclude animals.
Anchor stakes should be firmly set in the surrounding soil outside the root ball. Short stakes used for protection can do double duty as anchoring stakes by attaching the lower part of the tree to them with broad, flexible ties. The idea is to restrict root ball movement, while allowing the top of the tree to move in the wind.
Trees trained properly at the nursery should not need support staking. Most reputable tree growers no longer remove lower branches to create top-heavy, “lollipop” trees. They know that leaving these “nurse branches” on the young tree will help it develop a thicker trunk with healthy taper.
To determine if your newly purchased tree requires support staking, remove the stake that came with the tree from the nursery. If the tree stands upright on its own, you should not stake it.
However if the trunk flops over, place two stakes in the ground outside the root ball on opposite sides of the tree so that prevailing winds will blow through the stakes. Starting about 2 feet above the ground, use two fingers, one on either side, to support the trunk. Move your fingers slowly up the trunk until the tree stands upright. Flexible ties that allow movement should go 6 inches above this point. Cut the stakes 2 to 3 inches above the ties so that the trunk and upper branches will not be damaged by blowing into or rubbing on the stakes. Check the ties regularly to make sure they are not constricting the trunk.
Remove stakes and ties as soon as they are no longer needed.
Thanks for reading Beyond Basics: The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Thank you for also listening to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast! It’s available wherever you get your podcasts. Please share it with your garden friends.
Fred Hoffman is also a University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardener in Sacramento County. And he likes to ride his bike(s).
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com -
In today’s newsletter podcast, Debbie Flower, America’s Favorite Retired College Horticultural Professor, extols the benefits of spending time in the garden, and closely observing your plants. And, I talk about how those who took up gardening during the Covid epidemic found out that gardening is good for the gardener, too, in a myriad of ways.
Do some gardeners have a natural green thumb? Although there can be a lot said for patience and perseverance when it comes to landscaping tasks, perhaps there are some habits that seasoned gardeners have in common. Such a list was published by the Santa Clara and San Joaquin County Master Gardeners here in California a few years ago entitled, “The Top 10 Habits of Happy and Successful Gardeners.”
It is a list that is worth reviewing from time to time, to see which habits you’ve made a normal part of the garden day, along with those habits that might need a bit of refreshing.
For those of you that like the quick list, the Top 10 included: “Feed the Soil”, “Learn Before Lopping”, “Embrace Failure”, “Shop Carefully”, “Put the Right Plant in the Right Place”, “Water Intentionally with Both Hands”, “Control Snails and Slugs”, “Never Let a Weed Go to Seed,” “Attract Beneficial Insects”, and “Linger in the Garden”.
Successful Habits of Happy Gardeners, by Louise Christy, Santa Clara Co MG (Summer 2018, San Joaquin MG Garden Notes) (Habits 1-5)
Habit Number 1: FEED THE SOIL
Happy and successful gardeners know that taking care of the soil (and learning to love our clay soil) is the first priority.
Soil has three main parts. The first is the mineral component, which soil scientists divide into sand, silt, and clay based on particle size. The important thing to know about sand, slit, and clay is that the clay particles are the smallest, and they are really small. The super-small size of the particles makes clay soils highly nutritious for plants.
The second component of soil is the organic matter. Good, healthy soil is teeming with life, from big earthworms and pill bugs, to billions of living micro-organisms, fungi, and bacteria. Healthy soil also contains a lot of organic mat- ter, for example decomposing leaves or grass clippings. It is the job of the living organisms in the soil to breakdown the organic matter and return its nutrients, especially nitrogen, to the soil.
The third component of soil is the space in-between the mineral and organic particles. This pore space is filled with water and air which are both essential to healthy soil. Plant roots need oxygen in addition to water and all those worms and beetles and protozoa and bacteria that are busy breaking down organic matter need water and air to stay alive.
"Feeding the soil" means replacing the water and organic matter and preserving the air by not overwatering or compacting the soil. Happy and successful gardeners follow this maxim for improving soil: compost, compost, compost, mulch, mulch, mulch.Compost improves the structure of the soil and makes it crumbly and easier to work. Spread compost all over the soil a couple times per year. If the soil has not been gardened recently, you may want to dig the compost into the soil several inches down. The other key to feeding your soil and increasing the organic matter is to use organic mulch. The most popular mulches seem to be wood chips or bark, but you can also use grass clippings, leaves, straw, or once again, compost.
When working with clay soil, avoid overwatering, and let it dry until it is moist and crumbly before you dig. Do not add sand to clay soil. Sand plus clay equals concrete.Great garden soil with lots of clay, organic matter, and microorganisms will be dark brown and crumbly and will smell earthy. It can be dug easily with a trowel, and it will have worms. Be patient and persistent. Building great soil can take years, but with careful treatment and feeding, “impossible clay” can become lovely garden soil.
Habit Number 2: LEARN BEFORE LOPPING
Happy and successful gardeners know pruning is a good thing and fun to do, but it can be complicated, so they make a point to learn before lopping.Many gardeners have pruners with them constantly for clipping and trimming their plants. There are many good reasons to prune and clip plants including training young plants, grooming for appearance, to control the shape and size of a plant, to influence flowering and fruiting, to invigorate stagnant growth, and to remove damaged or infested growth. However, improper pruning can ruin or destroy plants.Not all plants respond to pruning in the same way. Happy and successful gardeners are careful to research and learn how their plants will respond to pruning before they prune. This is especially important when talking about a large and valuable tree. Badly pruned large trees may drop branches or die, resulting in hazardous situations and expensive removal costs.
Habit Number 3: Embrace Failure
Gardening is a learned skill. Compare it to medicine. Just like no one is born knowing how to perform a liver transplant, no one is born knowing how to garden. Like any other skill, there is a world of knowledge and technique that when learned, over time, will lead to success.Happy and successful gardeners like to experiment in the garden and have learned to embrace failure. A dead or sick plant is a learning opportunity. They're always curious, always wondering what's going on in the garden, and eager to learn. For the most part, happy and successful gardeners aren't very sentimental about their plants. If a plant is sickly, a good gardener knows it's time to move it or remove it---which means, it's time to go shopping!
Habit Number 4: Shop Carefully
There is nothing more delightful than a few hours at a great nursery. It's like having all the benefits of a garden without the work. Experienced gardeners look for specific things when buying plants.
1) Look for plants that are healthy and vigorous. The plant should have sturdy stems or branches, show evidence of new growth with no sign of insect infestations, disease, or injuries.
2) Look for plants with good shape and structure.3) When choosing annuals and vegetable transplants in small pots, look for young, small plants, not ones that seem to be mature or already have flowers.4) Buy transplants when there is only one plant per pot. Experienced gardeners have learned to recognize crowded transplants and avoid buying them.5) Look for a healthy, well-developed root system. Roots should usually be white or light colored, not brown, slimy or mushy. If there is a small mat of roots at the bottom, but otherwise the plant looks vigorous, it's probably OK.
Habit Number 5: Put the Right Plant in the Right Place
If you ask experienced gardeners for their favorite gardening tip, it is usually "Right plant, right place."Plants that are well suited to the location where they are planted will be faster to put out new roots and new growth. They will be healthier and better able to withstand insect pests and diseases than if they were planted in the wrong place. They will perform well, grow well, look better, and require less attention from you.We have what's called a Mediterranean climate which means dry summers, rainy winters, some frost, and minimal freezing. The majority of San Joaquin Valley is in Sunset Zone 14 and USDA Hardiness Zone 9.
Evaluate the planting spot by thinking about the following questions:
Does the area get full sun, part sun, or shade? Is the area more wet or dry? Where is the water source? Does the spot get high traffic or is it out of the way? Is the area near a wall or fence that reflects heat? What is the amount of horizontal and vertical space available? Is the space on a hillside? Check the Sunset Western Garden Book, the nursery label, or books and sources online to determine the right plant for your place.
Part 2 Top Ten Habits of Happy and Successful Gardeners by Sue Davis, Master Gardener (Habits 6-10, Fall 2018 SJ MG Garden Notes)
Habit Number 6: Water Intentionally and With Both Hands
Hand water your garden occasionally. It allows you to see the level of moisture in the soil firsthand, so you can adjust watering accordingly.
Water with both hands. Carry a trowel or cultivator in one hand, and the hose in the other. Water the area, and let the water sink in. Then, with the trowel or cultivator, dig down into the soil in several places. Be sure to check down that they work properly.
Dig down several inches. Has the water penetrated all the soil? Often, especially when watering soil that has been dry for a while, we grossly underestimate the amount of water needed to really soak the soil. Your goal with intentional watering is to get the water to penetrate the root zone of the plant.
Watering intentionally means you should pay attention to your sprinkler and drip systems. Reset the timers as appropriate for the season. Maintain them, make sure broken or clogged parts are fixed.
With containers, often the water simply slides right down between the root-ball and the side of the pot. If the soil is very dry, the root-ball shrinks and repels water. The best solution for watering very dry containers is to put the whole pot into a bucket, fill it with water to the top of the root-ball, and leave it overnight.
Habit Number 7: Control snails and slugs
When you see your plants ravaged with huge raggedy holes in the leaves or silvery traces crisscrossing the driveway in the morning, you have snails.
Many happy and successful gardeners go out in the night to hunt snails. A successful snail hunter says, " If you have insomnia, you can either think about the snails eating your garden, or you can get up and put a stop to it."· Hunt at night with a flashlight or a headlamp.· Have a bucket half full of water with a squirt of dish detergent.· Search your entire yard. Do this often. You will soon discover the snail “hot spots.”· Pick them up and drop in the bucket.· Night hunting is best after a spring rain when the snails are most active.· When you are done with the hunt, leave the bucket outside overnight. In the morning dump it in the compost or in the garden.
The soap is not harmful.
If you are diligent, after several hunts you will have reduced the population considerably. After a few years, you will have very little snail problem at all, and your hunts will be short and much less disgusting.
Slugs present a slightly different problem. Slugs don't have convenient handles, so picking them up is hard. Beer traps work well for slugs, but be sure to clean them out and fill with new beer after a few days.
What about snail bait? SLUGGO is made of an iron phosphate active ingredient with bait additives. Go ahead and use it if you prefer--it is safe and effective, and non-toxic to wildlife and pets. Avoid using metaldehyde baits (Correy’s, Deadline) which are highly toxic to animals.
Habit Number 8: Never Let a Weed Go To Seed
Weeds are survivors. Weeds often have high rates of seed production, hard seed coats, or underground rhizomes or bulbs that allow them to remain viable for years.
There are many types of weeds. Like your garden plants, they can be classified into annuals and perennials, even shrubs and trees. Annual weeds pop up in your garden over and over. When these weeds are little they look just like baby garden seedlings. They compete with garden plants for light, water and nutrition, and they will win the fight if you don't join the battle.
In most soil there is a collection of weed seeds that have accumulated over decades. weed ecologists call this a ‘seed bank.’ Weed seeds can lie dormant in the soil for years until conditions favor germination. For example, seeds of chickweed and mustards can remain viable for 10 years, purslane up to 40 years and curled dock over 80 years!
Keep the weed seed bank in mind as you garden. Whenever you see a weed about to go to seed, remember that one weed's deposit to the seed bank is thousands of seeds that may last in the soil for many years. That thought alone should be enough to get you to pull that weed out of the ground.
Chemicals for weed control should be the last resort. Never use them in a vegetable garden. If you do choose to go that route, follow all label directions.
Habit Number 9: Attract Beneficial Insects
Among the insects in your garden there are basically two kinds of eaters: vegetarians and carnivores. When we see a bug eating our roses, our first instinct is to kill it, often with some kind of noxious chemical spray.
Nature offers a better route. What we need to do is to invite the carnivorous insects back into the garden. These voracious little creatures will eat the aphids and parasitize the hornworms, mangle the mites, and crunch the caterpillar eggs, killing them so they do less damage to our plants. In gardeners' parlance, you want a balance between the "good bugs" (beneficials), and the "bad bugs" (pests). When balance is achieved, there will be much less damage to plants.
Beneficial insects can be encouraged by providing sources of nectar and pollen--in other words, flowers. Most beneficial insects are very small, they appreciate tiny flowers in their scale.
Many of the "bad bugs" are actually the larval stage of "good bugs." The syrphid fly larvae look like tiny green worms, and the larvae of lacewings and lady beetles look almost like tiny alligators. Larvae eat the most aphids!
Learn to tolerate some insect damage as a minor but necessary evil for attracting beneficials. When you spot aphids on a plant, don't immediately kill them all off. Aphids appear first, then the carnivorous insects move in to eat them.
Above all, do not use toxic pesticides. They kill the beneficials as well as the pests, completely defeating your purpose. Often use of pesticides results in rebound or secondary infestations that are worse than the original problem.
Habit Number 10: Linger in the Garden
"Linger: to stay in a place longer than necessary, typically because of a reluctance to leave."
One habit I have noted among the successful gardeners I know: have patience with a new plant. Lots of patience. “Sleep, creep, leap” is a gardener’s way of saying to give a perennial or shrub at least three years before it puts on a show. And this is especially true with California native plants. For its first year, it will just sit there. All the action is happening underground, developing a robust root system. In the second year, you’ll note more growth. To convince yourself that it is growing, put a stake next to the plant in its first year. The stake should be the exact height of the plant. By year two, the plant should be a bit taller than that stake.
Thanks for reading Beyond Basics: The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Thank you for also listening to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast! It’s available wherever you get your podcasts. Please share it with your garden friends.
Fred Hoffman is also a University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardener in Sacramento County. And he likes to ride his bike(s).
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com -
In today’s newsletter podcast, nursery owner Don Shor and I share success and failure stories from our 2023 tomato gardens. We both agree that one of the best tomatoes this year that we grew from seed was Rugby F1, a sauce/paste tomato that is large, meaty, and tasty.
In our own yard, Rugby was the overall winner for us. Although it is described in several seed catalogs as a Roma-type tomato, don’t be fooled. Rugby is much larger than other Roma canning tomatoes, about seven ounces each. Pink-red in color, Rugby has meaty flesh that is good for canning. But unlike smaller Roma tomatoes such as San Marzano or Roma VF, Rugby takes well to slicing and can be served on a sandwich or in a salad. Rugby is an indeterminate tomato, and did produce throughout the growing season, with great foliage cover to protect fruits from too much sun. There were few – if any – weather related issues with cracking or sunburn. Rugby is also resistant to diseases such as tomato mosaic virus, leaf mold, fusarium and verticillium wilt, crown and root rots, as well as bacterial speck. We will be planting Rugby again in 2024.
My tomato failure this year was the industry’s fault: a victim of a seed mixup. Here is the purchased, mismarked, packet.
Gardener’s Delight, is an indeterminate German heirloom small tomato, a favorite for years in our garden, with a long growing season and a grape-like shape, a bit larger than a cherry tomato. Oddly enough, although the name on the “Gardener’s Delight” tomato seed package (above) is wrong, the picture was EXACTLY correct. The tomatoes that these seeds produced resembled a run-of-the-mill, red, cherry tomato. That should have been a red flag to me. Whatever variety of cherry tomato that came from the packet of seeds was certainly not one that was a keeper: very little production that ended mid-summer.
This is what a Gardener’s Delight tomato is supposed to look like: a bit larger than a cherry tomato, nor perfectly round, as it tapers a bit on the blossom end. Nor does it grow in tight clusters, as some cherry varieties do.
Chalk it up to another victim of “Jalapeno-gate”, a country-wide (if not world-wide) seed mixup issue that was initially noted by many pepper aficianados - as well as retail and wholesale nurseries this past summer. Read about it here.
However, we enjoy Gardener’s Delight so much, that my plan for 2024 will be to purchase seed of that variety from two different seed catalogs and plant a few from each. I’ll be avoiding the seed catalog source of this year’s Gardener’s Delight failure.
More 2023 Tomato Winners and Losers
Which varieties were successful for you this year? Which tomatoes were a bust? Let me know how yours did.
Meanwhile, over at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center, the Sacramento County Master Gardeners conducted their own tomato trials this year. They grew three very popular varieties: Big Beef, Lemon Boy, and Celebrity. And for comparison, they grew the newer, alleged improvements of those three: Big Beef Plus, Lemon Boy Plus, and Celebrity Plus. Were the newer varieties really an improvement? The results were mixed.
During a 30-day period of harvesting in July and August, the original Big Beef tomato plant produced 84 tomatoes with an average weight of 15 ounces. Big Beef Plus, however, only produced 75 tomatoes with an average weight of 8 ounces. Still, the taste testers among the Master Gardeners preferred the taste and texture of the Big Beef Plus, 75% to 25%.
Both Lemon Boy and Lemon Boy Plus tomatoes that were harvested in that same time frame, and produced about the same number (132 to 111) and size (6.8 ounces to 7.5 ounces), although the Lemon Boy Plus had a few larger tomatoes that were beset with cracking. Lemon Boy was preferred by the taste testers to Lemon Boy Plus, by about a three to two ratio.
Celebrity Plus (50 pounds) outproduced the Celebrity tomato (40 pounds), with both varieties having about the same size of tomatoes. The judges were divided on the taste and texture, with 71% preferring the flavor of Celebrity Plus. For texture, Celebrity was favored by 75%. The big difference was the size of the plant: Celebrity stayed fairly compact, about three to four feet tall, while the Celebrity Plus climbed up to the top and over the five-foot cage.
“In our limited demonstration, all plants grew well and had no disease issues,” says the Master Gardener’s final report on the tomato trial. “We will probably keep all of the cultivars on our list to grow again.”
Thanks for reading Beyond Basics: The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Thank you for also listening to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast! It’s available wherever you get your podcasts. Please share it with your garden friends.
Fred Hoffman is also a University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardener in Sacramento County. And he likes to ride his bike(s).
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com -
In today’s newsletter podcast (above), we get tips on starting a wildflower garden from Marina LaForgia, of the Gremer Lab at UC Davis. LaForgia, a 2019 PhD graduate of Davis, is now doing research on seed dispersal and persistence. If you live in an area of the country where you can plant wildflowers or cover crops in the fall, especially in a drought-prone area, you’ll want to listen.
Thinking about planting cover crops this fall? The range of cover crop success in the U.S. is rather wide: USDA Zones 10 down to 6B. According to a cover crop study conducted by the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Pullman, Washington (USDA Zone 6B), it really depended on how cold it gets in a particular winter. Peaceful Valley Farm Supply has a cover crop solutions chart that lists many varieties that are reported to take the cold down to 25 degrees.
A very informative video from Peaceful Valley Farm Supply about planting wildflower seeds can be found here. (Note: Peaceful Valley is not an advertiser here. They just know their stuff. That’s good enough for me.)
What’s Your USDA Zone?
Want more zone details? Here’s a link to an eye-numbingly detailed USDA Zone Map from Wikipedia.
Fall is for Sowing Cover Crops and Wildflowers. But Should You Wait for the Rain?
Early fall - October through mid-November - is usually the time for planting a wildflower garden or sowing cover crop seeds on your bare garden beds here in USDA Zone 9, including most of California. “Usually” being the operative word; “rain” being the wild card. You can increase the chances of germination if the soil bed is prepared by thoroughly moistening it to depth of a few inches. Follow that up with weekly, thorough irrigations until the seeds sprout. However, the shorter, cooler days of October sometimes can fool a gardener into not watering enough, thinking that the rains will soon be coming.
Some native plant experts, such as LaForgia, say to wait for the rains before planting wildflower seeds. That event seems to be a long way off, especially with temperatures lately reaching the 90’s. In that wildflower video from Peaceful Valley, Trish recommends waiting until after the first hard frost in her area, which, because of the hilly terrain of Nevada City, could be anywhere from USDA Zones 9B to 7B. This will help the seeds achieve winter dormancy, and then come alive in the following Spring.
Meteorologists seem divided on what the next three or four months will bring to much of the U.S., especially for Northern California: no rain until heavy storms begin in late December (according to Weather West meteorologist Daniel Swain); a typical amount of rain, over the next 90 days (the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center); or, we don’t know: “Quite a bit of uncertainty exists during the upcoming 4-months due to widely varying oceanic-atmospheric teleconnection patterns that should create highly changeable weather patterns.”(National Interagency Fire Center).
Again, you can try to plant seeds of some wildflowers and cover crops now... Just keep the soil bed moist (not soggy) until germination. And if no rain has begun by that time, irrigate weekly.
Peaceful Valley Farm Supply in Nevada City, who are the cover crop experts in the Sierra foothills, urges their customers to plant cover crops at the correct time, rain, or no rain: “Do not delay planting to wait for the rain. It is better to have the seed in the ground waiting for the rain than to plant after fall rains begin. If possible, irrigation should be applied immediately after planting. The irrigation should be long enough to at least wet the soil to one to two inches below the seeding depth, with two or three subsequent irrigations to supplement the early growth if rains don’t happen in the Fall. The more growth these cover crops make in the Fall, the better.”
In the University of California publication, “Cover Cropping in Home Vegetable Gardens”, Sacramento County Master Gardener Gail Pothour explains that a cover crop is planted for the purpose of improving soil quality and nutrition as well as attracting beneficial insects. Cover crops add nitrogen to the soil, improve water penetration (due to long roots), suppresses weeds, and adds organic matter to the soil. Drawbacks to cover crops may be obvious, some not so obvious. Although you are taking a portion of the garden out of production of cool season vegetables and flowers, you are improving the soil. The not-so-obvious drawback: cover crops can be a bit of work in late winter and early spring. For maximum benefits, cover crops need to be cut back as flowering begins to keep that nitrogen in the soil. Then, the entire plants need to be chopped into little pieces and worked into the soil for maximum benefits three to six weeks before planting your spring vegetables or flowers.
In addition to clover, Pothour suggests using bell or fava beans as a cover crop. “For an upright cool season cover crop that is easy to cut down in the spring, use bell beans, or fava beans,” explains Pothour. “The large, round, flat-seeded ‘horse bean’ or fava bean plants are nearly identical to bell bean plants, but bell beans are usually planted as a cover crop because the seed is smaller and therefore cheaper. Of course, you can use fava beans as a cover crop, but remember that a fair amount of nitrogen (in proteins) will be removed when you harvest the seed, making less nitrogen available for the succeeding crop.” For best results, cut back the bean plants when they begin to flower if your goal is soil improvement.
Thanks for reading Beyond Basics: The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Thank you for also listening to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast! It’s available wherever you get your podcasts. Please share it with your garden friends.
Fred Hoffman is also a University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardener in Sacramento County. And he likes to ride his bike(s), despite the flat tires, due to Humboldt County potholes.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com -
In today’s newsletter podcast, retired college horticulture professor Debbie Flower and Master Gardener Gail Pothour offer tips for growing potatoes. We also talk about the best months of the year to plant potatoes. That answer? It depends where you are. Give it a listen (above).
More Potato Planting Tips
From the garden e-mail bag, Alan asks: “What varieties of potatoes are best to grow here in California?”
There are dozens of varieties a potato gardener in California can choose. Among the favorites of the University of California potato experts are Norgold Russet, Red la Soda, Kennebec, and White Rose. One of my favorites is Yukon Gold. Local nurseries and California-based garden catalogs, such as Renee’s Garden, will be getting in and shipping out seed potato varieties such as Colorado Rose, Heirloom Russet Burbank, Purple Majesty, French Fingerling, and Heirloom German Butterball in the winter.
One of the keys to homegrown potato success is planting at the right time, to avoid frost damage to young plants. We just passed the summer potato planting season of August and September. However, winter or early spring planting of potatoes is good, January through March in milder areas of California. A general rule of thumb: plant potato pieces about three to four weeks before the final frost. At California’s lower elevations, frost season is usually December and January. Planting in March, though, is good insurance against a wayward frost.
Throughout the United States, planting seed potato pieces three to four weeks before the final frost is a good rule of thumb. Find your average first and last frost dates here.
Your local nursery is a good barometer for the top potato varieties to grow in your area. Seed catalogs, as well, offer a wide variety of tasty and unusual potatoes that can do well in many climates.
Is there a difference between 'eating potatoes' and 'seed potatoes'?
Why plant “seed potatoes”? These are certified disease-free varieties, available from nurseries and catalogs. Using grocery store potatoes for planting have two drawbacks: they may have been treated with a sprout inhibitor to increase their shelf life; and, although the potato may be safe to eat, it may still transmit a disease to your soil.
Which brings us to another query from the garden e-mail bag. Bill asks: "What's wrong with using some of the potatoes from our earlier harvest to plant a new crop? Is there a difference between 'eating potatoes' and 'seed potatoes'?"
Each potato-growing state has tests to certify seed potatoes. These tests include field and storage inspections as well as demanding potato criteria. The seed potatoes are certified to be free of some diseases that can ravage an entire garden, including early blight, late blight, damping off, verticillium wilt and nematodes.
Diseases can spread easily, via the wind, plants, soil, and tools. As a precaution, you shouldn't plant potatoes and tomatoes in the same soil within three years of each other. To avoid this issue entirely, heirloom potato growers can plant in large containers, at least 15 gallons in size, using bagged soil.
Whether you grow in the ground or in containers, here are some potato planting tips:
• Cut seed potatoes into pieces weighing from one and a half to two ounces, each having one or two eyes.
• Store cut pieces at room temperature and preferably in a humid place for one or two days before planting to allow the cut surface to form a callus. This decreases the chances of rotting.
• In the garden, prepare a planting furrow about four inches deep. Drop seed pieces into the furrows, and cover with two inches of soil.
• Leave the furrow this way for 4 to 6 weeks. When the sprouts are a couple of inches high, add 2 more inches of soil so that the seed pieces will be covered at the original ground level.
• If planting in containers, start with a couple of inches of soil in the bottom, lay the seed potato pieces on the top, and cover with two inches of soil. As the sprouts grow, repeat that process until you are within a couple of inches of the container top.
• With either method, if a frost threatens the sprouts, cover with a permeable frost cloth. Most of the potato crop can be harvested when the vines die, or the skin of the tubers is firm, not flaky.
Thanks for reading Beyond Basics: The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Thank you for also listening to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast! It’s available wherever you get your podcasts. Please share it with your garden friends.
Fred Hoffman is also a University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardener in Sacramento County. And he likes to ride his bike(s).
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com -
I’ve often heard from dietitians and health food aficionados that consuming microgreens and baby greens provide more nutrition than their full grown counterparts. Is that true? In a 2021 published study of two greens - spinach and roselle - researchers discovered that these plants - when harvested within 20 days of sowing - have some critical nutritional benefits greater than the full grown plant, according to the National Library of Medicine:
“Compared to field grown mature foliage, greenhouse-grown micro/baby-greens were lower in digestible carbohydrates and CA (calcium) but higher in digestible protein, P (phosphorus), K (potassium), Mg (magnesium), Fe (iron), Mn (manganese), and Zn (zinc).”
From the National Library of Medicine (Nov. 2021): Nutrient Content of Micro/Baby-Green and Field-Grown Mature Foliage of Tropical Spinach (Amaranthus sp.) and Roselle (Hibiscus sabdariffa L.)
So, for certain nutritive boosts, nature’s “fast food” (greens harvested at microgreen or baby green stage) is the way to go. Better yet, it’s quick from the garden to the plate, reaching cutting stage in 10 to 20 days after sowing in optimum conditions and temperatures.
In today’s “Beyond the Garden Basics” newsletter podcast (above), Master Gardener Gail Pothour discusses how to grow and harvest microgreens, and how they can be used in various dishes.
Below, Renee Shepherd shares her secrets for growing and harvesting baby greens, perfect for the freshest salad and other recipes. This is a transcript of a conversation we had with Renee, back in Episode 282 of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast.
THE CUT AND COME AGAIN FOOD GARDEN
Farmer Fred
One of the healthiest garden plants that you can grow our greens. But if you live in a hot climate, maybe you're limited to only growing greens during the cool season. Or if you live in a cold climate, it's your summer crop. But because greens are so healthy, you should be able to grow them year round. And, you know something? You can, with the advice of our guest today. It’s Renee Shepherd, the founder of Reneesgarden.com. She is widely regarded as a pioneering innovator in introducing international vegetables, flowers, and herbs to home gardeners and gourmet restaurants. She founded the Shepherd's Garden Seeds back in 1985. And she sold the company later on, and then established Renee's Garden to do what she likes best: searching out the very best seeds from around the world, testing them in her own garden, cooking and developing recipes around their unique characteristics, and sharing them with other gardeners. I've been a Renee's customer for years and years. I love her choices and introductions, especially the Sunset Mix sweet pepper. Renee is the one who gave me a tip a few years ago when I was bemoaning the lack of cilantro to make salsa in the summertime. Cilantro, here in USDA zone nine, is basically a cool season crop. But you'd like to have some cilantro when you're making salsa in the summer, when the tomatoes and garlic and peppers and onions are ready. She said all you got to do is cut and come again with cilantro. Just grow it from seed in a shady spot. Then, when it gets a couple inches tall, you cut it and use it. Isn't that right, Renee?
Renee Shepherd
That's the cut and come again method. It gives you a way to get several harvests of a lot of things that really wouldn't be able to take the heat.
Farmer Fred
Actually, I think it's perfect for anybody who wants to garden. With a cut and come garden of greens, all you probably need, if you're starting it now, is a shady spot to grow it in, a large container, or if you have the room, a garden bed. But I would imagine, too, in a sunny window inside you could grow this.
Renee Shepherd
Well, I'm not 100% sure that you would have great results on a windowsill, because it needs so much more light. You might get one cutting out of it. I suggest you grow it outside for the best result.
Farmer Fred
How about indoors with grow lights?
Renee Shepherd
Indoors with grow lights? That's certainly a possibility.
Farmer Fred
All right, we've just sold some more equipment there. But there's a lot of greens that take well to the cut and come again method. You have a YouTube video at Reneesgarden.com that explains how you do that. So go ahead and explain it for our podcast audience. How exactly do you grow leafy greens that will come back after you cut them?
Renee Shepherd
We think the cut and come again method is the way to grow the most greens in the smallest space in the shortest time. So it works for all lettuce mixes. And it works for spinach, chard and kale, Asian greens, a lot of different things. It's not just for hot weather, it's really a way to get a lot of results from a small space and it's a different way of growing things. So either in a bed or in a large container. You prepare the soil. You get a seed mix and you pour out the seed in your hand. And then you shake the seeds through your fingers so it kind of goes into the bed like grass seeds. Don’t pack them in too thickly, but you try to spread them out, ideally, so the seeds are about a half an inch apart. And then you water it in. And when it gets about four to five inches tall at the most, you want to take kitchen scissors or snips, and just cut off the top few inches, leaving a one inch crown. So you want to leave a one inch crown in the ground and cut the rest. So you have three to five inches of greens. You harvest as much as you need for a meal that day. In other words, the greens are going to come up densely. And you wouldn't grow them to maturity, because they would be way too crowded and they wouldn't grow well. They would get long and lanky. But if you harvest them at the baby stage, they're young and tender and delicious. So let's say you had a garden bed that’s about a couple of feet on each side, like two or three feet across and two or three feet wide. You could grow enough mesclun mix or baby lettuce mix there to give you a lot of meals. You cut just as much as you needed. After you cut it, you fertilize again with a high nitrogen fertilizer, like fish emulsion, if you're an organic gardener, which we are. You’ll then get a second growth. But in really hot weather, you would not get a third growth. But in the cold season, you could sometimes even get a third cutting. So it's cut and come again.
Farmer Fred
And how long does it take to produce the first crop? And then how long is it before you get a second crop?
Renee Shepherd
I would say for the first crop, you're talking 30 to 45 days. And the second crop depends on the weather. But probably another couple weeks.
Farmer Fred
Would you grow it in sun or shade?
Renee Shepherd
If it's very hot weather, I would certainly grow it where it gets afternoon shade. Or you can also cover it with shade cloth. But I'm not kind of claiming that you're going to get much of a crop if it's 100 degrees, and baking in the sun. But I have seen growers in California up in the Sonoma area, grow it under a shade cloth - which is mesh - that you cover your bed with. That reduces the amount of UV going in. But generally speaking, if it's getting really warm, then you should ideally grow it where it gets morning sun and afternoon shade. In the cool season, it doesn't really matter. It'll grow just fine, I would say. up until late spring. Start it as soon as the weather starts to cool down.
Farmer Fred
I really like the idea of using the shade cloth for a very different reason: to keep the pests away. To keep the aphids, the white flies, the cabbage looper moth from laying eggs on those greens.
Renee Shepherd
Well, the other nice thing about using the cut and come again method, you're only growing something four or five inches tall. And you're growing it safely from pests, because the plants are not in the garden long enough. You know what I mean?
Farmer Fred
You have a lot of different mixes that you can use and I imagine that you can kind of mix and match all the various spicy greens as well as the mild greens. That would be very nice, and very colorful as well, in a salad mix or however you want to use greens.
Renee Shepherd
You want to use two containers or two places on your garden bed. Grow one with mesclun or baby leaf lettuce, which is all kind of sweet reds and greens that are either either smooth and buttery and crunchy. We make up our mixes by growing the varieties individually and then combining them so you've got not just the flavor and color, but a good mouthfeel, because you don't want all soft lettuces and you don't want all crispy lettuces. It's nice to have both. Let's say we're talking about lettuce. You grow one baby leaf lettuce mix. And next to it you can grow a spicy greens mix that has arugula and mustard and spicy things. And then you go out to make a salad for dinner. You harvest two thirds lettuce and 1/3 spicy greens. You can tailor it to your own tastes. And you can certainly grow arugula as a cut and come again and you can grow lots of different things. Arugula is very fast growing. And frankly, it's not bitter when it's young. So you want to harvest it no more than four inches tall.
Farmer Fred
And at that height, the plant has developed its own character. It's got that shape that you recognize. It’s going to be very colorful, too.
Renee Shepherd
Most stores now sell mixes of baby leaf greens. Everyone knows what that is. But you can also buy baby kale, and baby arugula. All these things can be grown in the cut and come method yourself. It's much cheaper and it's really easy to do, especially for people in limited spaces. You can grow a really nice salad garden and greens gardens in containers in this fashion.
Farmer Fred
I would think, then, if you can get maybe two or three crops with the “cut and come again” for a bowl of lettuce in a portion of the garden, you'd want to have about two or three going at the same time. Maybe plant the second batch about a week or two after the first batch?
Renee Shepherd
I would say a couple of weeks. But you know, you don't have to have a big patch because it produces a big quantity of greens. So it's a good strategy for having long term salads.
Farmer Fred
I noticed in your video, when you were harvesting the greens when they're only four or five inches tall, all you did was you simply grabbed a handful of them, and then cut it one inch above the soil line beneath your hand and took that in for dinner.
Renee Shepherd
Yeah, you wrap your hand around a bunch of tops, and you cut underneath your hand leaving one end. And then you take that in for dinner that night. It's really tender and delicious when it's fresh. Just make a real simple vinaigrette, like with a mild rice vinegar, or whatever kind of vinegar you like, and really good olive oil. And that's really all you need.
Farmer Fred
You know, speaking of that, you have recipe books.
Renee Shepherd
Well, that's true. We have a huge trial garden where we trial and evaluate new varieties and grow many different kinds of the same variety. So we've always come up with recipes and what to do with it. Because if we have convinced you to grow radicchio, you're going to need some radicchio recipes. And if you grow pole beans, and you've used up the three ways you always made beans, you might want some new ideas. So all the cookbooks I've written are all alphabetical by vegetable, so you can look up whatever you're harvesting.
Farmer Fred
And you can find those cookbooks online at Reneesgarden.com
Renee Shepherd
We’re growing lots of basil, we planted a second crop of basil, so we'll have it ripe, when more tomatoes ripen.
Farmer Fred
There you go. Yeah, basil can last quite a while, as well. I'm always amazed at parsley, because it's a biennial. And so you can get two years worth of harvest from that.
Renee Shepherd
Well, that's true. We usually plant two crops a year, we are in USDA Zone 8. One will overwinter. And then we plant another one. So yes. I like Italian large leaf parsley better than most others. It’s my favorite. It's very healthy, too, and tastes so good.
Farmer Fred
Not only that, but in its second year when parsley does start to flower, it attracts a whole host of beneficial insects.
Renee Shepherd
Yes, and that's certainly something that a lot of gardeners are really getting into, seeing their gardens as a way to create backyard habitat, and encourage pollinators and solitary bees and all kinds of beneficial insects and songbirds. Not just feeding them, but feeding nature. It's really important and something all gardeners can really do.
Farmer Fred
It behooves every gardener to build the good bug hotel.
Renee Shepherd
Well, absolutely. That just means to plant lots of wonderful annual flowers that they all can feast upon.
Farmer Fred
That's right. And a wide variety of plants, too. You want birds in your yard? They need some evergreen shrubs where they can they can hide out in.
Renee Shepherd
Yes, thinking of your garden as a habitat, and source of food and pleasure not only for you, but by everything that surrounds you in nature. It is really an important concept because I think we are the source of a lot of habitat in our suburban and city gardens, more than we know, and it’s becoming more and more important.
Farmer Fred
Anything else you want to cover in this?
Renee Shepherd
We're getting into the real end of summer. So as soon as the weather starts to cool down would be a good time to launch another round of cut and come again greens, it's something you can do really quickly and easily. And if you're a beginning gardener, it's a great way to get going and besides lettuces, because I mostly talk about that. But you can grow - and it really is fun to grow - baby chard and baby kale, which is really more tender than mature kale, and spinach. So there's really quite a few greens that can be grown in this fashion.
Farmer Fred
Is green kale, in your estimation, tastier than ornamental kale?
Renee Shepherd
Oh about 1,000%. Ornamental kale was bred for ornamental purposes, mostly in Japan, originally. It really is designed to be pretty. Is it also edible? Yeah. Is it delicious? Not particularly.
Farmer Fred
We should point out that at Reneesgarden.com, you can find all sorts of seeds available, mixes available, for the container kitchen garden. So indeed if you do have a limited space to work with - maybe a sunny patio or less - there's a lot of good mixes that will work for you in containers.
Renee Shepherd
We specialize in varieties for containers. So we have container chilies and container peppers and container cucumbers and container eggplants and containers zucchini, including a really nice French variety that really does well in a container. As well as watermelons. We have lots of these container cut and come again mixes, because that's something we really look for. And our other varieties all tend to be in vegetables at least, varieties chosen for wide adaptability and great flavor, because we eat them ourselves.
Farmer Fred
You test them yourselves too.
Renee Shepherd
Yes, we have a large trial garden both here in Northern California near Santa Cruz and also in Vermont.
Farmer Fred
Talk a little bit about the Ortalana di Faenza zucchini. And I'm sure I butchered that name.
Renee Shepherd
That is not the container variety. That is a very traditional Italian striped zucchini, characterized by a very nutty taste, just really sweet and nutty and custardy. It's a very delicious one. The French seed that we get, which is the container varieties, is called Astia (?). And then last year, we introduced the opposite, which is a climbing zucchini, which will crawl up a trellis and I really liked because then you can break off the fruits off the vine standing up. You don't have to go looking bending over and trying to find them and they don't hide. So we've got one for a zucchini for any use.
Farmer Fred
Yeah, the climbing zucchini, by the way has the obvious name of Incredible Escalator.
Renee Shepherd
Yes, it's from a German company and they just had a number for it. So they allowed me to name it, and since it moved quickly up I thought I'd name it escalator.
Farmer Fred
Well, just in my own defense, I am growing that Ortalana di Faenza zucchini in a large barrel, and it's doing just fine.
Renee Shepherd
That's one of my favorites, actually, flavor wise. And they make just beautiful fruit. And if you roast them whole, they're just wonderful with olive oil and garlic. They're just delicious any other way you can think to enjoy them. They just have a really really excellent flavor. Container zucchini works well because it doesn't, it's non-vining. It's grows like a bush. And the zucchini are all easily pickable and it's a very beautiful plant. It's very ornamental.
Farmer Fred
I would be remiss if I did not ask you at this time of the year, what can you do with an overgrown zucchini that you found hiding under the leaves?
Renee Shepherd
Well, I don't get them too often. Because I'm too greedy. I always go out and look, almost every other day. I am not an expert on overgrown zucchini. So I don't think I'll have anything really new and exciting to tell you. You can cut them in half and scoop out the insides and make a filling with the zucchini and sauteed with rice and Italian sausage and basil and then stuff the shell. Bake it topped with olive oil and a Italian kind of seasonings. That's nice.
Farmer Fred
I guess I'll just continue feeding the big ones to the worms.
Renee Shepherd
Yeah, or get a neighbor with chickens. I would say that is the highest use of overgrown zucchini and trade them with people with chickens in return for an egg or two once in a while.
Farmer Fred
Oh, I used to trade them to the neighbors to feed their cows.
Renee Shepherd
Amen to that.
Farmer Fred
Fall is for planting, August and September is for planning, and thinking about what your family will eat. Try some new varieties as well. Don't start too big, start with a small patch if you've never grown something before, see if your family likes it and experience something new. USDA zones nine and eight and even seven can have a cool season garden, perhaps with some protection. But there's no reason why you can't be out there gardening most of the year.
Renee Shepherd
Well, I do have to tell you that I used to get invited to this one family’s Thanksgiving feast every year, and I really never saw them much, and didn't know them very well. And I couldn't figure out why they wanted me to come to Thanksgiving. And I found out it was because of the fall garden produce I brought. I brought a great big salad, with all those wonderful fall greens. And that's why they invited me. So obviously everybody can grow lots of delicious things for fall. It's really worth doing, and fun. And it's easier, because as the weather cools down, there's less pest problems. Plants stay well in the garden. You can have another crop of root vegetables, lots of greens. Some of the healthiest things can be grown in the cooler fall weather, and they don't take as much energy because they’re not as many weeds. It is actually the easiest time of year.
Farmer Fred
Exactly. And with your international expertise in the world of vegetables, the wide variety of bok choi, Chinese cabbages, is amazing.
Renee Shepherd
Yes, we we've had more and more Asian greens just because they're fast and easy and so healthy. We really try to look and feature things that are high nutrition. Most of all, deliciousness is our highest criteria.
Farmer Fred
There you go. So find out more at Reneesgarden.com. Noted seeds woman, Renee Shepherd, has been our guest. Renee, thanks for all the good advice about the cut and come again garden.
Renee Shepherd
Well thank you very much for talking with me. I've really enjoyed it.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com -
One of the best soil amendments to add for happy plants are worm castings, also known as worm poop. However, the price of a bag of worm castings approaches twenty dollars, so you may want to tack on a new “to-do” item for the soil in your garden: vermicomposting, which is raising worms, usually in a worm bin. Those worms will feast on many of your kitchen scraps, giving you back a soil amendment teeming with microbial activity, perfect for plant roots to enjoy.
And you don’t have to worry about the worms if you go on a three-week vacation. Give them some extra food before you leave and re-dampen the bedding. They won’t complain.
Worms do best at temperatures slightly less than room temperature. Putting them in a cool indoor room or basement is an excellent idea. If you maintain the right balance of food, the bins won’t smell, either.
Here are tips from the Sacramento County Master Gardeners on starting and maintaining a worm composting bin:
• All you need to create worm castings is a worm box, bedding material, red wriggler worms (not earth worms) and food scraps.
• Bins can be purchased or homemade. Use a solid color (not clear) plastic storage box or a sturdy wooden box with a tight-fitting lid to keep out pests and protect your worms. If making your own bin, be sure to drill ¼-inch holes in the bottom to allow for drainage.
• Worms will not escape; they dislike light and will migrate toward the center of the box.
• A commercial vermicomposting system that feature stackable bins take up a house-friendly smaller footprint, perhaps 24 by 24 inches.
• Moistened, shredded newspaper or corrugated cardboard, shredded leaves, purchased pine shavings, or coconut fiber (coir) bedding provides worms with a balanced diet as well as a damp, aerated place to live.
• Always keep the bedding as moist as a wrung-out sponge.
• Place the worm bin in the shade or indoors. The worms will tolerate a wide range of temperatures, but the best temperatures are between 55° and 75°F. However, today’s newsletter podcast guest, Sacramento County Master Gardener Susan Muckey, prefers to be more of a “tough love” worm parent. She lets her worms deal with temperatures that range from 40 to 80 degrees. Listen to what she has to say in the podcast at the top of the page.
• Worms love most fruits and vegetables, used tea bags, used coffee grounds and filters. Do not feed them animal products, dairy, onions, or processed foods. Limit citrus peels to less than 20% of the food. Some worm parents say that the total citrus contribution to the worm bin should be closer to zero percent.
• Chopping the food into small pieces, one inch or less in size, will speed up the composting process.
• To avoid fruit flies and odors, cover the food with at least one inch of bedding.
• Use red wigglers or red worms. They can be purchased at some nurseries, worm farms, and fishing supply stores.
• The castings are ready when they are dark and fine in texture. Separate the worms from the castings. Place the worm castings in your garden bed before planting. Work the castings lightly into the soil with a rake. Cover with mulch or compost. If you soil could talk, it would thank you!
Thanks for reading Beyond Basics: The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Thank you for also listening to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast! It’s available wherever you get your podcasts. Please share it with your garden friends.
Fred Hoffman is also a University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardener in Sacramento County. And he likes to ride his bike(s).
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com -
If I was to ask you, “What is organic gardening?” You might squint a little, and say something along the lines of, “Well, organic gardeners don’t use chemicals in the garden”. That wouldn't be correct.
After all, water is a chemical, and all gardeners probably use water. And, there are chemicals used in organic gardening, including manufactured fertilizers that are OMRI certified as organic. OMRI - the Organic Materials Review Institute - is a nonprofit organization that provides an independent review of products, such as fertilizers, pest controls, livestock health care products, and numerous other inputs that are intended for use in certified organic production and processing.
Pondering the question, “What is Organic Gardening?”, is interesting. If you go online and search for a definition of organic gardening, it runs the gamut.
The University of Massachusetts, for one, says even among those claiming to be organic gardeners, it differs as to exactly what constitutes organic gardening.
“In general, organic gardening differs from traditional gardening in two important ways, use of agricultural chemicals and use of artificial or processed fertilizers.”
However, they don't say exactly what “agricultural chemicals” are.
Then, UC Davis’ Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program states, “Organic agriculture is the practice of growing, raising, or processing goods using methods that avoid the use of most synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, as well as bioengineering, ionizing radiation, and sewage sludge.”
Alright, now we're starting to narrow down the definition of “organic gardening”.
The University of Georgia says that a generally accepted definition of organic gardening is: “The use of cultural practices to improve soil and plant health in order to reduce plant problems without the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.”
This is becoming very interesting.
So we turn to the Royal Horticultural Society in jolly old England, and they say: “Organic gardening is commonly used to describe cultivation systems which make minimal use of manufactured chemical substances. These are practical elements of a broader philosophy which takes a holistic view of gardening, emphasizing the interdependence of life forms.” That “broader philosophy” may include the tenets of permaculture.
And then we have the thoughts of a man we had as a guest about a month ago. IHeart was there discussing phosphorus, a soil macronutrient, and some of the possible dangers or cautions one should employ if using phosphorus fertilizers.
It was garden book author, Robert Kourik. And I wondered about the manufacturing of phosphorus.
I asked him, “Is the process that makes phosphorus fertilizers, in your estimation, not organic, even though phosphorus fertilizer is considered organic?”
And he said, “I like to think of it as considering a cradle-to-grave review of organics.”
Well, that needed some expansion.
So back for his expansion time is Robert Kourik, author of the book, Sustainable Food Gardens as well as many other garden books.
“The way I define organic gardening is what I call a full-cycle ecosystem,” says Kourik. “In other words, using as few external inputs as possible, while harvesting as much as possible. If you have an organic garden and you truck everything in from five miles away, and you buy bone meal, and you buy blood meal, and you buy phosphate fertilizers and more, you have a tremendous amount of inputs coming from near or far. That doesn’t reflect what would naturally happen if you weren't bringing in that nutrition and those other products. I’m trying to keep it as a closed loop as much as possible. So when I talk about ‘cradle to grave”, let's look at what it costs to produce these inputs, how they’re produced, what it takes to truck them around, as well as what do you get out of it, and what are the alternatives that you could use in your own garden, instead.”
Listen to the podcast (above) about how you can transition to a more self-sustaining organic garden. Perhaps it won’t be a fully self-sufficient ecosystem, but you will have lessened your carbon footprint, if you’re a big-picture kind of person. Perhaps closer to your own reality, you will have saved some money, one cover crop or mulch pile, at a time.
Thanks for reading Beyond Basics: The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Thank you for also listening to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast! It’s available wherever you get your podcasts. Please share it with your garden friends.
Fred Hoffman is also a University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardener in Sacramento County. And he likes to ride his bike(s).
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com -
A dogwood tree is easy to love: flowers in the spring, beautiful orange/pink/red fall leaf color; a small to medium height tree, perfect for a patio area.
The University of Florida lists the dogwood tree’s strengths and weaknesses:
“The state tree of Virginia, the flowering dogwood grows 20 to 30 feet tall and spreads 25 to 30 feet. It can be trained with one central trunk or as a picturesque multi-trunked tree. The flowers consist of four bracts which subtend the small head of yellow flowers. The bracts may be pink or red depending on cultivar but the species color is white. The fall color depends on site and seed source but on most sun grown plants will be red to maroon. The bright red fruits are often eaten by birds. Fall color is more vivid in USDA hardiness zones 5 to 8a. Branches on the lower half of the crown grow horizontally, those in the upper half are more upright. In time, this can lend a strikingly horizontal impact to the landscape, particularly if some branches are thinned to open up the crown. Lower branches left on the trunk will droop to the ground, creating a wonderful landscape feature.
“The tree is not suited for parking lot planting but can be grown in a wide street median, if provided with less than full-day sun and irrigation. Dogwood is a standard tree in many gardens where it is used by the patio for light shade, in the shrub border to add spring and fall color or as a specimen in the lawn or groundcover bed. It can be grown in sun or shade but shaded trees will be less dense, grow more quickly and taller, have poor fall color, and less flowers. Trees prefer part shade (preferably in the afternoon) in the southern end of its range. Many nurseries grow the trees in full sun, but they are irrigated regularly. Flowering dogwood prefers a deep, rich, well-drained, sandy, or clay soil and has a moderately long life. It is not recommended in the New Orleans area and other heavy, wet soils unless it is grown on a raised bed to keep roots on the dry side. The roots will rot in soils without adequate drainage.
Several of the cultivars listed are not readily available. Pink-flowering cultivars grow poorly in USDA hardiness zones 8 and 9. 'Apple Blossom'—pink bracts; 'Cherokee Chief'—red bracts; 'Cherokee Princess'—white bracts; 'Cloud 9'—white bracts, many blooms, flowers at early age; 'Fastigiata'—upright growth while young, spreading with age; 'First Lady'—leaves variegated with yellow turning red and maroon in the fall; 'Gigantea'—bracts 6-inches from tip of one bract to tip of opposite bract; 'Magnifica'—bracts rounded, 4-inch diameter pairs of bracts; 'Multibracteata'—double flowers; 'New Hampshire'—flower buds cold hardy; 'Pendula'—weeping or drooping branches; 'Plena'—double flowers; var. rubra—pink bracts; 'Spring Song'—bracts rose red; 'Springtime'—bracts white, large, blooms at an early age; 'Sunset'—supposedly resistant to anthracnose; 'Sweetwater Red'—bracts red; 'Weaver's White'—large white flowers, adapted to the south; 'Welchii'—leaves variegated with yellow and red; 'White Cloud'—flowers more numerous, bracts white; 'Xanthocarpa'—fruit yellow.
“Aphids may be controlled by spraying them with a strong stream of water from the garden hose.
Several borers will attack dogwood. Try to keep the trees healthy with regular fertilization, and irrigation during dry weather. Indications of borer problems are holes in the trunk, leaves smaller than normal, and dieback of the crown.
Dogwood club gall midge causes galls at the branch tips. The leaves on affected branch tips may be distorted and the branch may fail to form a flower bud. Prune out the galls as soon as they are seen.
Leaf miners cause brown blister-like mines on the undersides of leaves. The adult leaf miner skeletonizes the leaves.
Scales can build up to large numbers before being detected. Horticultural oil will help control overwintering stages.
Twig girdlers prune the tips of small branches. They are more of an annoyance than a serious problem unless you are a nursery operator.
“Dogwood anthracnose may be the biggest concern with growing flowering dogwood. Infection is favored by cool, wet spring or fall weather. Drought and stressed trees appear to be most affected, as are those at higher elevations. Trees on the coastal plain may be much less likely to become affected. Consecutive years of infection can kill trees. Keep the tree healthy with regular irrigation in dry weather but avoid overhead irrigation. Plant the tree in an area which allows the leaves to stay as dry as possible. Consult a local pathologist for the latest in control measures. Cornus kousa is thought to be resistant to anthracnose and it can be planted in areas where anthracnose is a problem. It is a very beautiful tree.
Early symptoms of dogwood canker are smaller and paler leaves than normal. Leaves on infected branches are red earlier in the fall. At first the symptoms appear only on the infected side of the tree but become more general as the canker enlarges. There is no chemical control for the disease. Avoid trunk wounds during and after planting.
Crown canker is associated with wet soils and can be controlled with appropriate fungicides.
Flower and leaf blight attacks fading bracts, especially during wet weather. Infected flower parts fall on the leaves spreading the infection.
A large number of leaf spots attack dogwood. Clean up and dispose of infected leaves.
Powdery mildew covers the leaves with a fine white coating.
Leaf scorch occurs during hot, dry, windy weather. This condition looks like a disease. Scorch symptoms are drying and browning of the leaf margins, or, in more serious cases, drying and browning of the interveinal area.”
What does driving a British sports car, dating Kim Kardashian, and growing a Dogwood tree have in common? High maintenance.
If you’ve made it this far, you probably have come to realize that a dogwood tree - especially in a climate not conducive to its happiness - may require regular, proper maintenance.
Which brings us to listener Katie’s question about her stressed-out dogwood tree that seems to be sprouting everywhere. Listen to the podcast (above) for our take on the topic. The astute among you may see some possibilities for stress in this picture of her dogwood:
The University of California’s Ag and Natural Resources Department lists the optimum conditions for a dogwood tree:
“Dogwoods can grow in several different climatic zones depending on species. They prefer generally acid soils with high organic content. Dogwoods generally need adequate moisture. They do best in areas with partial shade to full sun. In hot, arid climates, partial shade is preferred to protect them from leaf scorch.”
The University of California likes to make lists of a plant’s possible problems. The list for the dogwood?
A 1961 Jaguar E-Type (British Racing Green, of course) might be easier to keep healthy.
But just like that fellow down the street from you who is always tinkering in the garage on some past love in his internal combustion life, there are gardeners throughout the country who will suffer any dogwood setbacks gladly, nursing them back to health, just to enjoy the spring flower show and the fall color. For gardeners, the pain is worth the pleasure.
Thanks for reading Beyond Basics: The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Thank you for also listening to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast! It’s available wherever you get your podcasts. Please share it with your garden friends.
Fred Hoffman is also a University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardener in Sacramento County. And he likes to ride his bike(s).
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com -
Back in July, we discussed “Six Common Tomato Problems.” Among those maladies were abiotic disorders (problems that are caused by factors such as weather, soils, chemicals, mechanical injuries, or cultural practices; and, not caused by insects or disease). Tomato abiotic disorders include blossom end rot, fruit cracking, leaf rolling, solar yellowing, sunburn, and tomato flower drop…all related to weather or watering issues.
In that column, I mentioned we would tackle an annual tomato-related issue, tomato worms, in a future edition. Well, here it is, in the podcast, above. America’s Favorite Retired College Horticulture Professor, Debbie Flower, waxes rhapsodic about the three “worms” (caterpillars, really) that can damage your tomato plants: Tomato/Tobacco hornworm, tomato fruit worm, and tomato pinworm, along with the moths that laid those eggs. She reassures us that nature has supplied us with plenty of “good guys” to help control these munchers and burrowers. Links that are listed in the notes for that podcast include: descriptions of tomato hornworm, fruit worm, and pinworm; and two posts from the Farmer Fred Rant blog, “Plants that Attract Beneficial Insects”; and, “The Good Bug Hotel”.
Today’s Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter tackles another abiotic disorder: tomatoes that are slow to ripen because of heat spikes this summer. And who hasn’t suffered through that this year? (Put your hand down, San Francisco.)
Why Are My Tomatoes Slow to Ripen?
From the garden e-mail bag, Vinnie asks: “My tomatoes are very slow to turn from orange to red, and several have yellowing as my bushes are not as leafy as I would like. They also are rather firm, though the plants have done well up to this point, with a decent amount of fruit as well as setting new tomatoes higher up on the plant. My “Sweet Million” cherry tomatoes also are having difficulty turning red, the same with the “Early Girl” and “Champion” full-size tomatoes. I planted the tomatoes in mid-April. They only get about six to eight hours of direct sun, depending on the season. But it seems I’ve had tomatoes for weeks at the same state of not turning fully red in color, so I was a little curious and disappointed in that. The plants are healthy, but not very bushy.”
You are not alone, Vinnie. Many area gardeners are wondering about the lack of color of their tomatoes now, in late summer. Blame the triple-digit heat spikes that have occurred coast to coast for the slowdown this summer.
Researchers from across the country have studied the effect of excess heat on ripening tomatoes. Their consensus: don’t worry, be happy. Those tomatoes will still be edible. And if you want to speed up the ripening process, harvest those tomatoes that are beginning to show color before the next forecast triple digit heatwave hits. Let them ripen indoors, in a dark place on the kitchen counter.
However, too much shade or lack of foliage on outdoor plants can also impede ripening tomatoes.
The University of California’s Contra Costa County Master Gardeners Newsletter says:
“A key resource that tomatoes need for ripening is plenty of leaf surface for photosynthesis. Often by late summer, some of the leaves on the tomato have started to dry up and wither and are no longer helping to nourish the plant. The plant is less vigorous than it was earlier in the season, so it takes longer for the green tomatoes to ripen. If you've run out of patience with slow ripening tomatoes, one thing you can do to speed up ripening is to remove some of the green tomatoes. Then the tomato plant can put all its energy into ripening the tomatoes that remain on the plant.
“Soil temperatures are also important. For optimal growth, tomatoes need soil temperatures that are less than 80 degrees. Hot air temperatures raise the soil temperature. Containers may be particularly vulnerable to soil temperature rise if they sit in the hot afternoon sun. Mulching can help keep soil temperatures lower. Also, if your tomatoes are hit by afternoon sunshine, you might consider erecting some shade barriers to keep the sun off the containers.
“If you've run out of patience with slow ripening tomatoes, one thing you can do to speed up ripening is to remove some of the green tomatoes. Then the tomato plant can put all its energy into ripening the tomatoes that remain on the plant. You can ripen the green tomatoes you remove on your kitchen counter. They won't be as yummy as the ones that ripen on the vine, but they're still better than store bought tomatoes.”As a final caution, don't be tempted to fertilize the tomato plant thinking it will speed up production. Fertilizing now will probably just cause the tomato to go into a vegetative growth mode that is too late in the season to be helpful.”
Kansas State University chimes in:
“Tomato color can also be affected by heat. When temperatures rise above 95 degrees, red pigments don’t form properly, though the orange and yellow pigments do. This results in orange fruit. It doesn’t affect the edibility of the tomato, but often gardeners want that deep, red color back.”
The report goes on to state that high heat also will cause poor fruit to set, especially on slicer tomatoes.
“Cherry tomatoes seem to be more heat tolerant,” Kansas State Horticulturist Ward Upham said. “But for slicers, high temperatures seem to interfere with pollen viability or can cause excessive style growth, leading to a lack of pollination. Tomatoes that have already formed (before excessive heat) are not affected.”
The “style” of a flower is the stem inside the flower that is part of the pistil. This question will not be on the Final.
Upham said it takes about three weeks for tomato flowers to develop into fruit that is about the size of a golf ball. After that, growth is usually more rapid over the following three to six weeks, and then just a few more days to change color.
“Though there are ‘heat-set’ slicing tomato varieties that will set fruit at higher temperatures, that difference is normally only two to three degrees,” Upham said. “Once cooler temperatures arrive, tomato flowers will resume setting fruit.”
Cornell University says not to worry about letting those harvested, not-quite-red tomatoes sit in a dark, cool place indoors:
“Light conditions have very little to do with ripening. Tomatoes do not require light to ripen and in fact, fruit exposed to direct sunlight will heat to levels that inhibit pigment synthesis. If temperatures remain high outdoors, these picked fruit will ripen more quickly, perhaps by as much as five days. As far as flavor, the greener fruit should develop flavor and color like what you would get if field ripened. The key is picking them when they are showing the first signs of ripening (no earlier) and keeping them at room temperature. Do not refrigerate, as this will absolutely destroy their flavor. Outside, direct sun can also lead to sunscald of fruit. Because of that, do not remove plant leaves to help ripen the fruit. Also, soil fertility doesn't play much of a role. We do know that high levels of magnesium and low levels of potassium can lead to conditions like blotchy or uneven ripening or yellow shoulder disorder. But the slowness to ripen is not likely due to soil conditions. Adding additional fertilizer will do nothing to quicken ripening.”
Remember, too: we have a long tomato growing season here in USDA Zone 9. Fresh garden tomatoes are not uncommon in our area on Thanksgiving; some gardeners here have even reported Christmas tomatoes (yes, they were cherry tomatoes, but you wouldn’t want to see what the plant looks like on Dec. 25). Don’t worry. Be happy!
Thanks for reading Beyond Basics: The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Thank you for also listening to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast! It’s available wherever you get your podcasts. Please share it with your garden friends.
Fred Hoffman is also a University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardener in Sacramento County. And he likes to ride his bike(s).
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com - Visa fler
