197 Compost Tea, Explained

Show Transcript

GB 197 TRANSCRIPT Compost Tea

Farmer Fred  0:00  

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Farmer Fred  0:29  

You’re familiar with compost. What do you know about compost tea? No, it’s not something you serve your friends, unless all your friends are plants. And they might appreciate the microbial boost provided by compost tea. Please note that I did not say, nutritional boost. There’s a lot of opinion and personal experience associated with the compost tea knowledge base, but not that much about it has had a lot of peer-reviewed research, including its alleged nutritional value. One master gardener who has pursued that topic deep into the academic rabbit holes is Ralph Morini, a Piedmont Virginia Master Gardener and researcher. Today we talk with Ralph about what he found out about compost tea in research papers: how to make it, how to use it and what to expect from compost tea.  We’re podcasting from Barking Dog Studios here in the beautiful Abutilon Jungle in Suburban Purgatory. It’s the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, brought to you today by Smart Pots and Dave Wilson Nursery. And we will do it all in just over 30 minutes. Let’s go! 

Farmer Fred  1:37  

A few weeks ago on the Garden Basics podcast, we were talking with Steve Zien, Sacramento's organic advocate, he was telling us about how plants communicate, and it's basically through root exudates. Very interesting. And then he went into the benefits of feeding your soil a compost tea concoction. And his idea of the best compost tea is made from earthworm castings. And he calls it "worm tea". That brought up all sorts of other questions. And I imagine you, too, have a lot of questions about compost tea, how it works, and it seems like a lot of work, and exactly what the benefits are. You won't find much clarity in the research done about compost tea. You'll find its advocates, you'll find its detractors. And really, what it comes down to, is "garbage in garbage out". Sort of like computer stuff. We're going to talk with a guy who has done some research about compost tea. He is a Master Gardener with the Piedmont Virginia Master Gardeners Association. His name is Ralph Morini, and Ralph, your Master Gardener organization has a wonderful newsletter that covers all sorts of information, I believe it's called the Garden Shed newsletter.

Ralph Morini  2:56  

That's right, Fred. It's been around since 2015. And we have a couple of thousand subscribers and some very dedicated writers. We try to do a good job on research based horticultural education and writing.

Farmer Fred  3:10  

And I thank you for putting together that article for the Garden Shed newsletter, called "The Truth About compost tea making it using it and what to expect from it". It was a very sober look at the plusses and minuses of compost tea and also the fact that we really don't know very much about it. It's amazing though, like I say, it has its adamant supporters and it's I won't say detractors but people who have a lot of cautionary tales about it. Before we get started with that, let's talk a little bit about gardening in Virginia where you are. It's North Central Virginia, the Charlottesville area. What is gardening like there, in USDA zone 7 A?

Ralph Morini  3:57  

Well, our soil, to start off with, is largely compacted clay, quite acidic. So we're very focused on adding organic matter and using compost in its various forms to improve the soil. Our planting season typically starts in early to mid March with the cooler weather crops. Final frost average date is between April 15 and 25th. I took a look at the long term forecast this week and put my tomato plants in a couple of days ago. Just last week in April. Looks like I'm going to be okay this year.

Farmer Fred  4:38  

A little chancy then in Virginia with an average last frost date of late April.

Ralph Morini  4:46  

Yeah, it can be dicey. We had a last frost on May 9 two years ago. So we were all scrambling to run out and cover our warm weather stuff that was out there. But you know, in general, it's pretty friendly. The summers get pretty hot and rainfall can be kind of sparse. So, you know, we like having a lot of organic matter in the soil to make sure that whatever does come down and we absorb and we hold on to, it can be pretty tricky.

Farmer Fred  5:11  

What are some of the favorite tomato varieties of gardeners there?

Ralph Morini  5:16  

I think we'd like stuff that is blight and mildew resistant. I do. at least. I plant some of the Rutgers and Better Boy hybrids. what I look for is disease and particularly blight resistance.

Farmer Fred  5:33  

Yeah, talk a little bit about that. Because one thing that you have there in Virginia that people in USDA zones nine and possibly eight don't have to contend with very much, of course, it depends where you live, all gardening is local, but you have high humidity levels there in the summertime.

Ralph Morini  5:50  

Yeah, we can be very susceptible to the fungal diseases and, when we're working with people, we encourage people to water early in the day water plant bases, try to keep the leaves dry, good hygiene, good soil hygiene is really important to keep out pests and soil borne diseases away. We look for hybrids of various produce that are resistant to the diseases that plague us. Early and late blight have been really bad on tomatoes. But last year, I went with the Rutgers, the Rutgers variety, that has resistance. I had quite good luck with it. So I'm sticking with it. The ones who love the older varieties. I admire them for working on them. But I find that you have to be really dedicated to keep them healthy.

Farmer Fred  6:39  

One thing we've noticed here in California about tomato varieties, the old heirloom tomato varieties that originated back east, is they don't perform that well out here in a hotter, drier climate, especially Brandywine. Out here, uou might be lucky to get one tomato per plant.

Ralph Morini  6:57  

Yeah, that I understand. I've tried to grow Brandywines. You know, they're local to the Mid Atlantic region here. But, but tough. I find I've had disease issues that have stymied me here. The climate is okay, except for the the pests and diseases.

Farmer Fred  7:12  

What are some of the favorite fruit trees that are grown in your area?

Ralph Morini  7:16  

We have a lot of different apple and peach varieties, Paw Paws,  our native fruit that a lot of people grow. You know, it's pretty typical here. There are a lot of vineyards locally, or in this part of Virginia. And I don't know much about grape varieties. I've never really grown them. But people do seem to make it work. We have some pretty decent local wines and a lot of privately owned vineyards in our area.

Farmer Fred  7:45  

Well, now, people out here want to know, what the heck is a Paw Paw?

Ralph Morini  7:49  

Yeah, I don't know how to describe it. It's a lush, kind of a seeded fruit. About the size of your fist, if you grow them well. People who like them, love them. You can eat them raw, you can do a variety of cooked kind of desserts with them. I think you have to eat one to be able to describe it. And I don't have a great description for it. I'm sorry to say.

Farmer Fred 7:49  

Is it a tree or a shrub? 

Ralph Morini  7:55  

Small tree.

Farmer Fred  7:58  

Small tree? And it's a deciduous tree, I would think. 

Ralph Morini  8:19  

Yes. 

Farmer Fred  8:20  

And when does it usually produce the fruit?

Ralph Morini  8:23  

late summer, early fall.

Farmer Fred  8:25  

All right, it looks kind of like, I'm looking at a picture of it. It looks like a very seedy guava. 

Ralph Morini  8:35  

 That's fair. That's a fair comparison.

Farmer Fred  8:38  

And so you eat it with a spoon, I would think.

Ralph Morini  8:41  

I can't honestly tell you the best ways to eat it. Because I'm not a big fan. We do have an article in the Garden Shed newsletter on growing and preparing pawpaws for consumption, I think it was about a year ago. If anybody wanted to look it up. You could find it.

Farmer Fred  8:56  

All right. We'll have a link to that in today's show notes about how to grow Pawpaws, then. We are always looking to try something new. I'm not sure how adaptable it is to California because it is a native of the eastern United States and Canada.

Ralph Morini  8:56  

And we also we love our high bush and lowbush blueberries,  I don't know how well they grow in your area. Here. They love very acidic soil. So it's kind of appropriate for our native clay. And it's pretty popular. You know, there's a million ways to eat blueberries, good health food, and easy to grow. So I recommend them.

Farmer Fred  9:37  

My screensaver on my phone is a plate of homegrown blueberries.

Ralph Morini  9:42  

So yes, it is great. 

Farmer Fred  9:44  

Yeah, out here. We like to grow the southern highbush varieties because they don't need as many chill hours. And I imagine it's the northern highbush that are popular there.

Ralph Morini  9:53  

Yeah, we're kind of right on the margin. We can get by with both, but northern is, I think, probably the prevalent variety.

Farmer Fred  10:00  

Yeah, because it's bigger berries, more than likely.  All right, let's talk a little bit about what Steve Zien was telling us a few weeks ago, back in Garden Basics Episode 188, called "how plants communicate". Also, there's Bermuda grass control tips in that episode, Steve Zien was talking about how plants communicate, and he dovetailed that into the benefits of worm castings, and worm tea. And he said this:

Steve Zien  10:29  

Now, earthworm castings are expensive. And most people aren't going to be able to afford putting down six inches of worm castings, what you can do is get some worm castings and make what's called worm tea. And you basically put the worm castings in something resembling a tea bag and put it in a five gallon bucket, get an aquarium pump to pump air into that, in a water containing bucket with the tea in there, and brew that for 24 to 48 hours, and then spray that on your soil and then water it in. There will be huge, huge amounts of soil biology in that tea.

Farmer Fred  11:09  

Well, that's an interesting statement. But I always like to look at the facts of the matter. And this is where Ralph Morini comes in with that wonderful article, he wrote for the Garden Shed newsletter by the Piedmont Master Gardeners, entitled "the truth about compost tea, making it using it and what to expect from it". It's very well sourced, as well.  You can find the the originating materials in that newsletter. So Ralph, let's talk about the basics for people who don't know anything about compost tea. What is compost tea?

Ralph Morini  11:43  

Compost tea is a solution made from compost, clean water, combined in a bucket or some sort of a container. We recommend that it be aerated. Steve mentioned the best way to do that is with an aquarium pump, couple of outlets and a couple of air stones to be put in your bucket. Let it run for one to two days.

Farmer Fred  12:06  

What exactly are airstones?

Ralph Morini  12:11  

 The typical aquarium aeration system includes a pump that sits outside the aquarium, and then basically a couple of diffusers, that the air from the pump will go into an inlet on what's called a stone, and it becomes diffused at the output side of the stone and blows bubbles into the water. It's really that simple, readily available online or at a pet store.

Farmer Fred  12:34  

So what does compost tea look like?

Ralph Morini  12:36  

If you have it in the compost in a mesh bag, it's a pretty clean, nice brown earthy-smelling liquid. If you haven't had it in a mesh bag, you're gonna need to filter it if you want to spray it anywhere. But what it does is it allows the microbes in the compost to multiply many many times over so that you have an extremely microbe rich solution that advocates claim that it can be used for anything from fertilization, which I'm not buying, to enriching the microbe content in the soil, which is what Steve refers to. And if you have enough organic matter in the soil to feed them, it can release a lot of the nutrients that that matter is holding in the soil. Some people use it as a foliar spray, which if you have the right type of microbes in the solution can help to prevent disease by out competing or, you know the good guys somehow overtake the bad guys and reduce disease damage on your plants or you can use it to stoke up your compost pile if you want to get some more microbial activity going in your compost pile, for instance. It can be sprayed on the lawn or on the ground directly. There's a lot of things that you can do with it. You know, my own view of it is that your amount of compost is typically about one or one and a half cups per gallon of water. So I think people who claim a lot of nutrients in it are overstating the case. There can't be that much nutrient. On the other hand, microbial content is where it could conceivably have some benefit, both on releasing nutrients in the soil, if the soil has enough organic material for them to feast on for a while; or potentially, if you have the right microbes in it, it might help disease prevention on plants.

Farmer Fred  14:20  

When we come back we'll continue our conversation with Piedmont Master Gardener of Virginia, Ralph Morini, about compost tea.

Farmer Fred  14:39  

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Farmer Fred  17:37  

We're chatting with Ralph Morini. He's a Master Gardener with the Piedmont Master Gardener program in Virginia. He's done a lot of research about compost tea, what it is, and how to use it. Compost tea is not something that's new. In the newsletter, you point out your grandparents used compost tea.

Ralph Morini  17:57  

Right. They had a chicken yard and they collected chicken manure, put it in half a wine barrel. They were Italian immigrants and they made their own wine. They had half a wine barrel that they put outside and it collected rainwater and they dumped the chicken manure in there and they would make this horrendous smelling slurry. When I was old enough to carry a bucket they would enlist me to carry buckets of this stuff down and pour it on the base of their tomato plants for a nice nitrogen boost. That's not recommended anymore. Because the anaerobic nature of  that stuff, which we now call leachate, can house e-coli bacteria and other pathogens and bacteria. I don't think they were ever affected. But in fact, I haven't seen a lot of research that has demonstrated a negative impact. But I certainly wouldn't want to pour that stuff on anything I was going to eat and have some concerns about pouring it on a vegetable garden in general.

Farmer Fred  18:51  

The E coli and Salmonella chances of getting would be increased if you're using something that spreads those diseases like chicken manure. 

Ralph Morini  19:04  

If the compost is manure based, there's a higher likelihood that it's going to be in there. One tip I would give is that if you want to make something that you're going to spray in your vegetable garden, make sure that you're using hot compost, which means it should stay up above 130 degrees for four days or more. Or purchase compost from a commercial supplier that's OMRI certified, part of the National Organic Program where they absolutely certify their stuff to be made at those higher temperatures, that should kill the pathogens in the compost.

Farmer Fred  19:41  

Right. A good hot compost pile can solve a lot of the world's ills. Yeah, this all goes back to what we said originally about "garbage in garbage out". If you use a high quality compost for your tea or just in general, you're going to have better results. And part of that, with the tea, is interesting. You point this out in the newsletter: think about the water you're using. Your grandparents used rainwater, which is probably the best. But in this day and age, especially here in California, saving rainwater is difficult. But talk about what are some things in commercial water, in municipal water systems, that you really don't want in a compost tea?

Ralph Morini  20:25  

You want to make sure your water is potable, starting off. But beyond that, you can't have any chlorine, or chloramine in it. Because  the reason they're in the water is to kill bacteria, and fungi. You have to get rid of that stuff. If you put chlorinated water in your bucket, before you put your compost in, and you bubble it for a day or so, you get rid of the chlorine, it should be okay. Chloramine is longer lasting, and you can't just get rid of it by aerating or boiling, you really have to extract that from the water by using a charcoal filter. There are some materials that are used in aquariums that will help you if you mix it with the water, it changes the chemical composition of the chlorine and then it will leave the water by aeration. You can get that at a pet supply store or probably online these days. So you need to find out if your water is treated, what it's treated with, and take appropriate measures to get that stuff out of the water.

Farmer Fred  21:25  

So we talked about basically bubbling it with an aquarium pump for 24 to 48 hours. And that is to make sure there is oxygen in there for the microbes. I would think, then, you can't do all that bubbling for 48 hours and then walk away and come back in a couple of days and spray it and still get the same results. You would have to apply it immediately after the bubbling process.

Ralph Morini  21:49  

Right, it's recommended to be used within about four hours, you're generating all this microbial activity and they really trucking along. And if you leave them in there, the large population it's very highly active, it is going to consume the oxygen, they'll go anaerobic, that destroys the point of your whole process. And you know, for that same reason, I'm very skeptical of store-bought compost teas. Some of them even claim to be made aerobically, but when they're sitting on the shelf for however long they're there, it's pretty hard to believe they remain that way. You know, I've tried to find some sort of research based data about that and haven't been able to, but I wouldn't recommend them. I think if you want to do this, you're much better off making it to yourself.

Farmer Fred  22:33  

So unlike your grandparents, who were basically covering their plants with leachate, what is now used is called with the acronym, AACT, actively aerated compost tea.

Ralph Morini  22:48  

Yep, that's signifies the the process that we talked about where we pump air into the water during the entire process, the entire tea-making process.

Farmer Fred  22:57  

Anybody who has a worm bin is doing it for the worm castings. But as you know, you have to keep that worm bin at a certain level of moistness. And there is drainage involved that you can collect and that would be worm leachate. Is that good for anything? Did you see any research on that? Here in California, we're leery to recommend using that liquid from worm bins for anything because the research isn't there.

Ralph Morini  23:27  

Yeah, I've seen speculation you know, anecdotal evidence, people saying that they use it as a benefit on their soil. But I'm in the same boat as you. I haven't seen anything analytical that really developed any data around it. So, I think it's probably okay. And I'm sure that there's microbial activity, and vermicompost is excellent stuff. There's no doubt about that from a nutritional and microbial standpoint. So I don't think I'd be spraying it on my plants, but I think adding it to soil is probably okay.

Farmer Fred  23:57  

There are advocates like Steve Zien who say it's a great foliar spray for reducing the chances of disease. Have you seen any research based on its effectiveness as a foliar spray?

Ralph Morini  24:09  

No research, same answer. Unfortunately, I've seen mostly organic gardeners and YouTube types talking about that they've had success with it, but nothing at all from any of the extension services or research based groups that I trust.

Farmer Fred  24:25  

And again, we come back to "garbage in garbage out". The tea that is made from the compost is really dependent upon your sources of the compost. The better the quality of the compost, the better the quality the compost tea will be.

Ralph Morini  24:41  

So how do you measure good quality compost? The main thing in my view, is it needs to be hot compost. I suppose manure-based compost is likely to have a little bit higher nitrogen content, which is great for flowers and vegetables. Stuff that's made from arborist waste and that kind of thing - leaves and yard waste, are likely to be higher fungal content, which are great for shrubs and trees. You know, it's more typical of what you'd find in the forest. So that makes some sense to me, unless you get an analysis of the compost that you buy, which isn't very common, I think, focusing on hot compost and trying to understand what the main ingredients are is the best approach.

Farmer Fred  25:21  

Interesting, you brought up forest products, because we're learning more and more about mulches and their use. And the same is true with compost. The critters in the soil, all that mycorrhizal activity, really depends on what's in the soil already, and the type of plants that are growing around there. And you have two types of basically mulch or it could be compost tea, a fungally dominated tea or a bacterially dominated tea. One is better for woody plants, one is better for your annual plants.

Ralph Morini  25:54  

Yeah, I think  herbaceous plants tend to be high nitrogen consumers. We plant them, harvest them, replant them every year. They tend to be high nitrogen consumers. And so for that kind of a use, the higher nitrogen tea can be helpful. The problem with creating them is beyond the basic content of the compost is that the additives that are typically recommended are sugar-based, like unsulfured molasses or something. The sugars tend to enable more reproduction on the part of the pathogenic microbes that we don't want in our tea. For instance, if that stuff is added to a compost tea, the National Organic Program requires the growers to have the tea analyzed to make sure that there is no coliform or salmonella, before it's allowed to be used on their crops or their soil or their plants. On the other hand, forests, which tend to be  permanent perennial, the stuff on the forest floor is decomposed leaves and wood basically, it's a much higher carbon content, it's harder to break down the stuff. It's broken down by fungi, mainly. 90% of our plants are mycorrhizal fungi partners. And so for that reason, those kinds of teas, which tend to be the fungal content, can be bolstered by fulvic or humic acid, they tend to be appropriate for woody plants. In my own case, I make my compost at home out of kitchen and yard waste. So there's a high carbon content in what I put in there, when I think it is pretty appropriate for that particular use.

Farmer Fred  27:37  

So that would be a bacterially dominated product that you're making, which would be perfect for your vegetables, for example. 

Ralph Morini  27:44  

Right. 

Farmer Fred  27:44  

All right, and the wood dominated compost is better for the permanent crops like perennials, right? 

Ralph Morini  27:51  

Well said. 

Farmer Fred  27:51  

All right, you used a phrase there that I want to explore a little bit further. Humic acid. And I've often wondered, what exactly is humus? I ask every gardener I meet, do you know what humus is? And I'm still waiting for an answer I can understand.

Ralph Morini  28:07  

Well, I can tell you how I see it.  I think this is kind of the final decomposition stage of organic matter tends to exist naturally. In forests, where the woody content of the organic matter that decomposes, this is the last stuff to break down. Now to contrast it, compost is more in the middle of the decomposition process. The compost that we make and use in our gardens or buy commercially is partially decomposed as decomposed to the point where the initial ingredients are unrecognizable. It has a nice, fluffy feel it has an earthy smell. It's has a nice, dark, rich look. And it adds a lot of both nutrition and textural and structural benefits to the soil and water absorbency and filtration, all that kind of stuff. Well, let's say that we've reached the usable compost stage in a matter of several months from where we were putting raw organic matter together to try to compost it. So the compost that we put into soil decomposes further and over the next year or two, it starts to approach what you might call humus, where most of the non-carbon based nutrient is converted by the microbes in the soil and released to the plants so that ultimately what's left are smaller particles of very high carbon material. That's kind of the last stage of decomposition. You know, we went from raw organic material to usable compost in, say, three to six months. Once we get down to humus over the next couple of years, humus takes decades, some people say centuries, to completely be decomposed. So I see  compost and humus as being in different stages of the decomposition process.

Farmer Fred  29:47  

Back when I had acreage, I had a lot of, shall we call them, "passive compost piles", where basically a lot of the garden waste and tree branches got chopped up and then thrown into a pile. And I'd let that pile just sit there for a few years and then when I wanted a new area of a garden, I would sort of move away the top portion of it and voila, I've got a very enriched garden bed to plant in.

Ralph Morini  30:11  

My mom actually called our pile, the humus pile, when I was growing up.

Farmer Fred  30:14  

So the most effective compost, then, in that pile if you have that pile, is closer to the soil surface.

Ralph Morini  30:22  

Typically that's the furthest broken down. It depends how long it's been there, I guess. But yeah.

Farmer Fred  30:27  

A lot of gardeners like to use their nose. What does a finished compost tea smell like?

Ralph Morini  30:34  

You know, I see the term earthy,  I'm not sure. I'm my wife tells me my nose is pretty much useless on that question. But it's a rich, earthy, attractive smell. If you smell something, if it's like ammonia or a gassy methane kind of smell, that means it's gone anaerobic. You know, if it doesn't smell appealing, and you're a gardener, you know, I think we can kind of trust each other's definition of what an appealing earthy smell is. It's not like that, don't use it.

Farmer Fred  31:05  

How the heck do you use a sprayer with compost tea, if you want to use a sprayer? it seems to me it'd be a lot easier that after you're done processing this compost tea ,  just put it in a bucket and spread it around the plants as opposed to putting it in a sprayer and have to deal with possible clogs.

Ralph Morini  31:20  

Yeah, you have to filter it if you're going to spray it. And when would you use a sprayer ? If you're spreading it on your lawn, for instance, or some large area where pouring around specific plants was not what you're trying to do, but you were trying to coat something with the material, a foliar spraying was another example. So you definitely need to filter it, to put it into a sprayer. Most people recommend putting your compost into a bag when you're doing the tea generation while it's in the bucket. And perhaps if you're going to put it in a sprayer and make a foliar spray out of it, you want to put it through some kind of a mesh fabric again afterwards, just to make sure there's no material in there, it's going to clog your sprayer.

Farmer Fred  32:00  

And that brings up the other point of when you're done with the whole thing. I imagine it's important to clean everything you've used.

Ralph Morini  32:06  

Definitely. You want to clean it extremely well and, in fact, disinfect it. You know , it's better to put some kind of a light chlorine solution in there, wash it out and  then rinse it, just to make sure that there's no bacteria breeding in there when you don't want there to be any.

Farmer Fred  32:20  

If you want to read more about compost tea, including the original source material, read the Piedmont Master Gardeners newsletter, the Garden Shed newsletter. This was in March of 2019 that Ralph Morini wrote this article called, "The Truth About compost tea, making it using it and what to expect from it." I'll have a link to that in today's show note,s as well. Ralph Morini is with the Virginia Cooperative Extension, the Piedmont Master Gardener program. Good research Ralph. Thanks so much for telling us about compost tea.

Ralph Morini  32:51  

Fred, I'm happy I was able to speak with you.

Farmer Fred  33:04  

 We’ve talked on the Garden Basics podcast and in the Farmer Fred Rant blog page in the past about the heart-healthy benefits of growing garden crops high in soluble fiber, such as blueberries, beans, artichokes, apricots, peas and more. In Friday’s Beyond the Basics newsletter, we veer onto a scenic bypass: how a healthier diet - including growing and eating many of those homegrown crops - along with regular exercise and a positive outlook, has kept me alive and well since my quadruple coronary artery heart bypass surgery and a diagnosis of full blown diabetes ten years ago. Yes, the surgery was a success, but I knew there had to be changes in my life to keep the heart healthy and to control the diabetes. Mission accomplished, And, in that first year of recovery it went so well that by the end of 2012, I was off all prescription drugs for cholesterol control and diabetes, with the doctors’ blessings, of course. How did I do it?  It’s in the newsletter that goes beyond the basics, the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred, Beyond the Basics newsletter, out Friday, May 27th. Find it via the link in today’s show notes, or visit our new website, Garden Basics dot net . There, you can find a link to the newsletter in one of the tabs on the top of the page, also, you can listen to any of our previous editions of the podcast, and read an enhanced transcript of the podcast episode you are now listening to. That’s at Garden Basics dot net, where you can also link to the Garden Basics newsletter, Beyond the Basics, and it’s free. Look for it on Friday, May 27th. Take a deeper dive into gardening, with the Beyond the Basics newsletter. Find it at gardenbasics.net or at gardenbasics.substack.dot com. Thanks for listening, and thanks for reading.

Farmer Fred  35:01  

  Garden Basics With Farmer Fred comes out every Tuesday and Friday and is brought to you by Smart Pots and Dave Wilson Nursery. Garden Basics is available wherever podcasts are handed out. For more information about the podcast, visit our website, GardenBasics dot net. That’s where you can find out about the free, Garden Basics newsletter, Beyond the Basics. And thank you so much for listening.