212 Summer Berry Problems

Show Transcript

GB 212 TRANSCRIPT Summer Berry Problems

Farmer Fred  0:00

Garden Basics with Farmer Fred is brought to you by Smart Pots, the original lightweight, long lasting fabric plant container. it's made in the USA. Visit SmartPots.com slash Fred for more information and a special discount, that's SmartPots.com/Fred. Welcome to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. If you're just a beginning gardener or you want good gardening information, you've come to the right spot.

Farmer Fred  0:31

Today, we pay a return visit to the blackberry, raspberry and boysenberry growing grounds of Sacramento County Master Gardener Pam Bone, to find out what are the problems hitting gardeners’ caneberry plantings this summer. Turns out, there’s plenty of issues, both pests and diseases. Fortunately, there are a lot of easy to implement controls. Today, we’re talking about solving your summer berry patch problems. 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 we will do it all in just a little over 30 minutes. Let’s go!

SUMMER BERRY PROBLEMS, Part 1

Farmer Fred  1:18

A while back, we visited Pam Bone, Sacramento County's original master gardener, in her berry patch, she gave us a lot of great information about caring for berries, if you want to hear that, go back to Episode 182. So we want to do a midsummer update on how her blackberries and raspberries and other cane berries are doing. And Pam, it looks like the harvest is over.

Pam Bone  1:40

The harvest is over. And we had a real good harvest. It's not completely over, though, because when we say cane berries, we're standing right now in my boysenberry patch. But we also have a lot of raspberries. And those are fall bearing raspberries and they will produce another actually even bigger crop, usually about the end of August. It'll start up and then into September, October. So we still have more crop to go. But yes, the boysenberries are done. And we can start doing the pruning and trellising and training and all that needs to be done for next year. So what were the problems this year? Well, the worst one that we had was the fruit tree leaf roller. This is a little worm that drops out of oak trees of all things. And usually just sort of chews some vegetation down below fruit trees and your azaleas. Or, if they happen to be underneath some different plants this year, though. Well, in fact, they probably were here before this, because we didn't get any fruit last year. And we didn't know why. And this year, we went out and we really did a patrol and looked carefully and there they were, eating all the flowers. And they would then roll themselves up into a leaf, just like their name says. And they would then poke their head out and eat a flower right next to it with a little developing fruit or whatever. And so we had to crush them. And we crushed them by the hundreds every single day for almost two weeks.

Farmer Fred  3:01

it's a good thing that tool is attached to you all the time.

Pam Bone  3:05

Yes, right. Your fingers, right? Yes, definitely. We wouldn't have had a crop this year. And this year finally, then we did get a crop and I put up a bunch of quarts for pie.

Farmer Fred  3:14

You had mentioned earlier in talking about your berries that you actually had a problem with crickets.

Pam Bone  3:20

Well, not the cricket that you think of, the one that goes  chirp, chirp chirp. This was the arboreal camel cricket. And it showed up back in 2017 in our landscape and we've had it for a few years. And now we randomly see it. But that year Oh, it was horrible. And actually, a Master Gardener had sent me a description and a picture of some damage she was seeing on her leaves. And of course, the first thing you think of when you see  ratty, tatty leaves, kind of all chewed up, you think okay, slugs, snails. Are they climbing up the cane, or maybe it’s earwigs? They're a problem too, this was in May. And so I said, Well, I don't have that on my raspberries. Well, guess what? I didn't know I didn't have it. I had it. But I went out and I started looking and I saw the same Ratty looking leaves with big chew marks and I'm thinking that maybe it’s Caterpillar damage or something? And I thought, hmm, maybe it's earwigs, but I didn't see a thing. Not one thing during the daytime. So what I tell a lot of people, when they call the Cooperative Extension office with their questions, and they can't find a pest, I say it may be a nighttime pest. You're gonna have to go on flashlight patrol. And sure enough, I went out there with a flashlight that night around about 11 o'clock at night , and there they were, the arboreal camel crickets. They were just chewing away. They are fast. So the best remedy then was I would just collect them and every night I would go out there and collect them and then they showed up this year. I think maybe we had two and that was about it. No need to use a pesticide. It's a good thing I didn't recommend to the Master Gardener that she put out earwig bait or anything for snails and slugs because that wasn't the problem.

Farmer Fred  4:55

How big are these crickets?

Pam Bone  4:57

Oh, they're bigger and fatter. Real fat little guys, rather than the normal cricket that you see, brown in color. Look it up, the arboreal camel cricket. I think you'll find it really interesting.

Farmer Fred  5:08

if people are squeamish about using their thumb and index finger to crush them. How does sweeping them into a bucket of soapy water work?

Pam Bone  5:15

Well, actually I am squeamish when they're that big. The fruit tree leaf rollers, I would crush them they are little. These guys, they they'd make noise when you crushed them. And so yes, that's exactly what I did. I just took a bucket around with me. Actually don't even need any soap in it, they just fall in there. And as you're holding it, they're gonna drown. And that's how I knocked them off.

Farmer Fred  5:35

All right, two problems down. Now there are soil borne diseases that a lot of people have to contend with, one that is very widespread here in California is phytophthora.

Pam Bone  5:45

Actually, it's found all over the United States. Unfortunately, it's one of the most serious problems of every kind of crop, whether you're growing vegetables or fruit trees or landscape trees for that matter. Phytophthera  is an opportunistic fungi that lives in the soil, it likes poor drainage, it likes it moist and wet. It usually shows up in the spring months when the soil starts to warm. And the problem is, is that it causes complete die back of in my case, raspberries, that happened. I've also had it on an apricot tree. I've also had it on a persimmon. I know it's in the ground, it's just present. But a lot of times like any disease, unless you have that triangle that we think about where you have to have the environment, you have to have the actual pest or pathogen, and then you have to have the susceptible crop. One of those is usually missing and that one year, it was so bad. And now we have it every year just a little bit though, where it's in the soil, so we know it's there. They like the raspberries. We do have heavy clay soil, but I manage it with drip irrigation. We use inline drip emitters to water and sometimes though, you'll have a wet spring, the soil starting to warm, and the soil is very wet. It takes a while to dry out and this fungi knows that it's going to attack. So yes, we get canes that don't show up right then. It usually shows up when you get a hot spell. Because what they do is, this fungus plugs up the vascular tissue, the part that transports the water and the nutrients, the sugars and things. And so it's in the summer months, then, or early summer, when it gets hot out, and it can't take water up. And all of a sudden the thing just starts to die from the top down. And that is Phytophthora. You'll see it. People call all the time not just in raspberries, but we get it in melons especially and tomatoes, all kinds of plants and it doesn't show up till summertime, even though it started usually in a wet spring.

Farmer Fred  7:36

Can soil solarization knock back phytophthora?

Pam Bone  7:41

yes it can. only the surface soil, though, gets  Phytophthora. Really, the soil solarization is something that I recommend. Sanitation. Taking out the plants as you see them and digging them and improving drainage. If you're putting in a new patch and you know you've had or a vegetable garden or anything and you know you had it, Yes, I would solarize. That means though, you're taking something out of production, whether it's your raspberries, or your cane berries, or whatever, or your vegetable garden in the middle of the summer because soil solarization only works if it's hot, hot, hot ,out. And that means usually July and August and it's with clear plastic, not dark plastic. Painters drop cloth as long as you get the stuff that's not too thin and falls apart, and you're always sitting there Scotch taping it. Works beautifully. I've used that myself and yeah, soil solarization where you use the clear plastic so that the sunlight penetrates through when the soil is nice and moist, you put down the thinnest plastic that you can put down without tearing the pieces, and you secure the edges so it stays moist, and it's nice and warm under there. And you'll solarize all kinds of things you won't just solarize away Phytophthora. You'll also get rid of quite a few weed seeds too. And weeds.

Farmer Fred  8:51

For those who don't have warm summer areas, I should say hot summer areas, does doing it later in the year, maybe fall, with black plastic work? Would that help control phytophthora?

Pam Bone  9:03

No, you have to have the clear plastic. And I think most people, if you leave it on long enough, and you start maybe in June, and you keep it through the summer months, you're gonna probably have enough heat that will build up under there. If it's in the full sun. If it's in the shade, that is a problem. But unfortunately, berries don't do real well in the shade. Anyhow, they'll produce lots of flowers, but you won't get any fruit. You need it in the sun.

Farmer Fred  9:25

Another problem people have been reporting with their cane berries has to do with the weather. Because when the weather fluctuates crazily where you have maybe a week of 100 degree temperatures followed by a week in the 80s that throws a plant off.

Pam Bone  9:38

It certainly does. A lot of the problems that you have in your garden, in your cane berries , in your vegetables, in your landscape, for that matter, is environmental. A lot of the diseases that you get are the pests that come in take advantage of the fact that you have strange weather . It might get too hot and dry and attract spider mites for instance. We've had some real Hot weather and if you are not careful and the plants get a little dusty and dried out and maybe the irrigations not giving them the moisture that they need, then the spider mites take advantage of it ,and they go crazy. And you look out there and one day they look lush and green. And the next thing you know your berries, your plants just look scorched, like some fire went through it, that is all cultural. There's just a number of problems that happen because of cultural environment, the way we water, the way we manage our irrigation is probably the most important thing you can do for your berries in the summer months, because that is critical. There setting a lot of the berries, especially your new canes and things that are coming up for your boysenberries and your nectar berries and your olala berries and everything. Those are setting fruit now, they're setting the buds in some of those canes. And if you stress them now, you'll wonder  what happened next year when they're not producing very well? Well, it happened the year before. So you need to be really careful about watering and irrigation and checking. And I always tell people that if you're a real gardener, you know how to bend over. But sometimes maybe we forget and I think people need to just learn to bend over and check their soil . Go out there and periodically check. Some people may say, “I'm used to my landscape. I know how often. I set my clock.  I go out there and I put on irrigation when it looks dry on the top,” that kind of thing. And you know, every so often you've got to go out there. I use a soil tube, a soil probe, that I have. It works really well. I know you really like those little soil meters water meters that you push in.

Farmer Fred

I like the expensive ones, the expensive ones that work right.

Pam Bone

But you can use your finger or a long screwdriver or a little trowel, and occasionally looking. Particularly if you're seeing the plants just not looking quite right, then check the soil. Find out what's going on underground.

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SUMMER BERRY PROBLEMS, Part 2

Farmer Fred  13:47

Let's get back to our conversation with Sacramento County Master Gardener and landscape horticulturist Pam Bone. We were talking about summertime problems in your berry patch: the blackberries, boysenberries raspberries. One big problem is spider mites. To control for spider mites, then, I guess, would be a nice dose of overhead watering.

Pam Bone  14:10

Overhead watering really helps occasionally. Even though we're on a drip irrigation system, every so often we'll put up one of those wave oscillating going back and forth sprinklers, just to kind of wash the plants down. And the other thing is: if you've got an active infestation, the best thing to do is go out there and blast it with a hose. You take a leaf rake or something and you lift up the leaf so that you can get underneath, you cut out any canes that are just really gone. And many of those are the ones that already bore earlier in the spring. So you can cut those out. And they're just filled with mites anyhow. And so sanitation is really important too. And you can do that in the summer months. You don't need to wait till winter to take care of some of this stuff.

Farmer Fred  14:47

Yeah, let's talk about those diseases or pests that if you prune it out, the problem goes away.

Pam Bone  14:53

Exactly. There are things that you can prune out, particularly like the diseases, and the insects ,like spider mites. Well, technically, a spider mite is not truly an insect, but an arachnid. It's related to spiders, But it's one of those things, like mites, they're like spiders. Go in and prune them out. Were you thinking of a particular one that you'd had a problem with?

Farmer Fred  15:15

I was thinking of raspberry horntails.

Pam Bone  15:17

Oh, all of the cane borers, and the raspberry horn tails. Yes, they go to roses too, by the way. Raspberry Horntails and other cane borers often just bore right through the pith, or through the middle. And many times you can just go in and look to see where, how far they've gone down. With the raspberry Horntail it's easy, because on your berries, or even on your roses, the tip just droops. And you go, what happened, it is wilting. So of course, you know, the first thing people think is I've got a water issue. It's not water, you go look a little more closely. And then you start cutting back and you'll see that inside, there is a little larva that is tunneling down. And you can cut it out. The cane borers, sometimes they're sneaky, and they go in through the side. And so they're down further and they can go all the way through the cane. And you want to get them before they go down into the the whole plant and and destroy it. But with raspberries and other cane berries and boysenberries, you can just cut it out if you are worried at all. I like to cut it out only if you know that you're cutting out an old cane or one that you know has been infested again, you kind have to be a detective with all these things. There are so many things that mimic what's happening out there. You could think oh, it's because I didn't water enough or there's something else going on. And so you've got to go out there and really check it out before you make a decision. And specifically, before you spray any kind of a fungicide or an insecticide or other pesticide.

Farmer Fred  16:46

With borers, then, you would just be cutting that branch back until you see a solid center core, the tunnel is gone.

Pam Bone  16:53

Exactly. So just the little pith in the middle. Usually many of them bore right down through the middle of that. And oftentimes you'll come across the little caterpillar inside there. The little larvae, I should say, and what you do is just prune it out. With any of the cane borers, that's the best way to do it.

Farmer Fred  17:09

Another problem that people are reporting coast to coast in their cane berries, is something called crown gall. What's that?

Pam Bone  17:15

Crown gall, unfortunately, is a bacteria, not a fungus. This time, crown gall forms these kinds of knobby, warty hard, woody looking structures at the base of fruit trees. And with a berry it would be right at the base of the cane and attached to the roots oftentimes, and we recommend just get rid of it, take it out of there and hold the whole cane. Get rid of it and that is in your soil and it's really hard to do too much about it. That way you try to plant where there is not crown gall, if you can help it, because that's basically what you do and you try to disturb the soil as little as possible. And you try also not to create any kinds of wounds. They come in through pruning wounds, or on a fruit tree for instance, not just a pruning wound at the base, but some people plant their fruit trees and lawns, which we don't recommend and nick it with a lawn mower and the crown gall will go in through that way but with the berries, it's often in the soil and we just just take it out.

Farmer Fred  18:11

Can you move it around using hand tools, like with trowels?

Pam Bone  18:15

if you're cutting away at the gall itself so be really careful. That's why we should just use sanitation and you should get rid of it. We have seen crown gall on just a very few of our boysenberries. We just dug them out and that was it. Not a problem. Crown gall also likes it nice and moist and wet too. So you got to watch that.

Farmer Fred  18:34

Another problem people have, fortunately, is not here, knock on wood. Japanese beetles.

Pam Bone  18:39

We've had them in the area over the years. Going back to when I first started with Cooperative Extension as an advisor. I remember back in the 80s there were traps put out and people would call all the time with hoopla beetles that go to roses. And they look like little green beetles. But the Japanese beetles are so much more beautiful, even though they're extremely destructive. And we've managed to trap them out of California. We don't have them here. Every time they come they put up a quarantine and that works. But, boy, the rest of the United States. they have a real problem with Japanese beetles in many places. It's really serious.

Farmer Fred  19:16

And the cure for that, well, it’s basically not a cure. It's a control. And that's soapy water.

Pam Bone  19:21

That's right, just knock them off, spray them off, do whatever you can to get rid of them. But pesticides are not very effective if at all.

Farmer Fred  19:29

Another pest that is not a big pest really, it's a noisy little insect that often gets confused with the Japanese beetle, but it's much bigger than a Japanese beetle. The green fruit beetle.

Pam Bone  19:39

Oh, I love the green fruit beetle. Every so often you'll find the larvae of it in your compost pile. It's quite massive. It's a huge thing and they live in compost pile. So the first time I ever saw in my own yard ,ever saw the green fruit Beetle, was not the adult. It was  this massive looking, big giant larva thing in my compost. I found out it was a green fruit beetle. But when you see the green fruit beetle, at least in our area, they are not really destructive. They're just gorgeous. But they look like a B-52. They are so big, and they're absolutely iridescent green color. So yes, some people might think that they had Japanese beetles if they saw those, but no, these things are twice the size, maybe three times the size of a Japanese beetle.

Farmer Fred  20:23

And they make one heck of a noise, like a biplane, when they fly. That was the first thing that startled me when I saw some in my tomatoes a few years ago. And they're not innocent. They will chew on fruit.

Pam Bone  20:34

Yes, they will. But I didn't see any damage from them. We have a lot of fruit trees in our landscape. And I didn't see any damage from it at all. I didn't worry about it. They were in the compost. If I really want to get rid of them. I'm sifting compost. I just let them die then. And then I don't see them. But they show up. So sporadically. I guess the lesson here is that people need to identify, as I've said before, whether it is: environmental, whether it's an actual insect or whatever. And then if you say okay, you found an insect, is that insect really causing the damage? Is it a real problem or not? I know you and I were talking earlier, and we were talking about a horrible problem that we had this year with plant bugs, true bugs. And in the most immature stage of the leaf footed bug, it caused serious damage to every single Suncrest peach we had. Not one peach escaped. And the leaf footed bugs appear in multitudes. What they do is they put their little proboscis in and they suck out the plant juices. So it leaves these little hard spots all over it. I think the fruit is half the size it was last year, even though we thinned pretty heavily. You've got to cut out these little things out of there. But there is a beneficial insect that we were talking about that looks a lot like that. So you have to identify before you just start willy nilly spraying or whatever. And boy, those things you can't spray for anyhow, and they run away from you. And they're really hard. You're out there constantly stomping the ground trying to get these little nymphs because they drop off and immediately they're running all over the ground. Oh, it was devastating this year.

Farmer Fred  22:04

Yeah, the adult leaf footed bug is very recognizable by its wide paddle-like rear feet, almost like a duck. The nymph stage though, is a dead ringer for the assassin bug, which is a beneficial. And there's only some slight differences.

Pam Bone  22:19

That is true. The color, sometimes you'll see the red color start you'll see a little red on it. But then you go well, that could be a Boxelder bug. That could be a tarnished plant bug. Maybe those really aren't a problem. And yeah, so you don't know those aren't good guys either. But on the other hand, they don't cause devastating damage. And you do treat them a little bit differently. Well, mostly you just ignore those. But yeah, it was a real problem. And again, this spring was just ideal for insect activity.

Farmer Fred  22:47

What's nice, too, in the years that we've been gardening, are the questions that come in from people. And the questions have changed. They used to preface the question with the phrase, “what can I buy to control…”. And now, it's more, “what can I do to control …”. So, if there's one advancement that I really like, that has happened, it's this trend towards integrated pest management.

Pam Bone  23:07

I agree. integrated pest management, where pesticide use is dead last. And you start with all the other things that you can look at: cultural, mechanical, handpicking, just like you were saying, sweeping things into a bucket, whatever, those kinds of things, making sure that you're planting in the right location, that the plants like it where they are and are happy. So there's just so many different integrated pest management techniques before you ever get to the pesticide. And then, before you even use a pesticide, you make sure you identify the pest, because those people that do want to use pesticides oftentimes just go into a nursery willy-nilly and just say, “Oh, I've got such and such and they start spraying whether or not they even have maybe it's not even an insect, maybe it's a fungus, maybe it's they didn't water, right, maybe it's because it's been really hot and it got scorched, or who knows what it could be. And then you start with the least toxic pesticide, if you're going to do it. So integrated pest management isn't organic gardening, per se, but it uses a lot of the principles of organic gardening before you ever even think of using a pesticide.

Farmer Fred  24:15

Yeah, that's a mistake a lot of people make when they do buy an insecticide, they assume that the product will control whatever pests they have. They may not even see the pest they have mentioned on the label. But they figure, “well if it controls that, it'll control the one I have.” No. it has to be on the label.

Pam Bone  24:31

And actually a really good one to look at is a disease that we get on our berries, anthracnose. It's found all over the United States. Some places it's worse than others. It has these little spots all over or leaf spots and sometimes there'll be purple, little purple in the middle and kind of brownish on the outside and so you'll see these leaf spots and so people will go and look for if they know it's anthracnose or leaf spot and go look for a product so I was investigating what can you use for leaf spots because I've had some, definitely on our boysenberries, the anthracnose or the leaf spots. And there were a couple registered products here in California. I looked on the internet, I saw all kinds of products, but none of them were able to be used in California, they were things that just aren't registered here. So then I narrowed it down to two of these copper-containing products. Well, one of them doesn't even list anthracnose or leaf spots at all, though it did have berries or cane berries on it, and another one specifically had cane berries and leaf spot. You really should find the pest, and you should find the plant. And you should know that that's what the fungus is that you have, and then you can spray for it.

Farmer Fred  25:41

And part of reading “Follow all label directions’ includes using the dosage that they say to use. More is not better.

Pam Bone  25:48

That's exactly right. In fact, it can be toxic to the plant. If you use at a higher level, it's not going to kill the pest anymore. They've worked that out. But you might fry your plant by putting it on too heavily. And the time of year. Remember, if you're in an area where it's well, if you didn't read the label, right, and you said, Oh, this thing says leaf spots, I've had leaf spots, I'm gonna go out and spray right now. And you didn't read the fine print, you're not supposed to use it except for in the dormant season, late dormant season or when it's cool out. Otherwise, you'll come out and there won't be a leaf left on your boysenberry plant.

Farmer Fred  26:20

That's a very important point to make, especially in the summertime, there could be a warning on that product that says do not apply if temperatures are in excess of 80 degrees or when bees are present.

Pam Bone  26:32

Exactly. So you've got to determine and 80 degrees. I get this question all the time from people well, does that mean? That I can spray it at night? Then will I have enough hours once it gets down to 80? And so, for how long? How many hours are you going to have to sit, it's not going to be above 85 or 90 degrees or whatever it says. The worst pest that we have though, Fred, in this landscape, and I've been watching them the whole time. You can see it on the fence right there. It's a squirrel. My husband says that they are basically rats with pretty fluffy tails. Because they are horrible and they have been trying the whole time we've been talking to get past us to get into our peach tree. We have netted everything with bird netting. And it's not mostly for the birds. Yes, the scrub jays will get in there. So we do have to net for them as well. We do have to net for  the birds too. But it's mostly because of the squirrels. And they get in there and  they're horrible. Rats will get in there too. But mostly it's the squirrels. It's awful. There’s no cure for squirrels. There is. The brown squirrel that I'm looking at is not a protected mammal in our area, you know, we're not going to do anything about it, it's  in. We're going to keep it out with a netting. However, you should know your own wildlife in your own area and know whether you're not even allowed to do something with them. Because the gray squirrels here are protected mammals, and you have to have a license and you have to get it from the proper authorities and all of that before you can then take them in some way. And one thing you don't want to do: some people, say, I don't want to kill the squirrel. Maybe you are legally able to kill these non native squirrels. But you don’t because, you say,  “they're so cute. So I'm just going to trap it.” in one of those live traps and then move it somewhere else. Well, that's illegal, because you're just giving this squirrel to somebody else. It's out of its habitat. It may not live but then it may also set up house in somebody else's landscape and start eating all their fruit trees. No doubt they will. Yeah, exactly. So anyhow, squirrels are another real problem, I would say because I'm here representing the Master Gardener program. Here in California, we have a fabulous resource, the integrated pest management side of UC Cooperative Extension. I often tell people, just whatever it is, just Google UCIPM peaches, plus whatever: squirrels, earwigs, all the things we've been talking about today, and they will have some really excellent information about what to do culturally, environmentally, and  pesticides, if they are something that is warranted. Now that's in California. If you're somewhere else, you want to go with your own cooperative extension or your own nursery professional and find out what's in your area. Don't rely on the internet to tell you something. All of a sudden I get more people that are sending me emails saying, “Pam, we have such and such in our area now.” and we don’t. they found it on the internet. It's never been seen in our area.

Farmer Fred  29:26

A lot of good information about berries with Pam Bone, who by the way, is the keynote speaker at Harvest Day at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center on Saturday, August 6, it's a free event. If you're in Northern California, come on out to Harvest Day. We'll have a link in the show notes. It's a beautiful demonstration garden, you're sure to pick up some good tips and you can visit their berry area.

Pam Bone  29:47

Definitely. And you can come out and learn about how to select the landscape tree for our changing climate. Thank you.

“BEYOND THE GARDEN BASICS” NEWSLETTER

Farmer Fred  29:57

On Friday’s Beyond The Garden Basics Newsletter and podcast, we continue our chat with Sacramento County Master Gardener Pam Bone about another berry issue facing gardeners this summer: what can you do with all those berries you’re picking? Pam has three great recipes that are easy to prepare and are a hit with everyone who has tried them. It’s in the next Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter. It’s out Friday, July 22nd. Find a link to it in today’s show notes, or visit our website, Garden Basics dot net, where you can sign up to have the free Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter delivered to your inbox each Friday. Also at Garden Basics dot net, you can listen to any of our previous editions of the podcast, as well as read a transcript of the podcast episode you are listening to now. That’s at Garden Basics dot net. For current subscribers, look for the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter on Friday, July 22nd in your email. Take a deeper dive into gardening, with the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter. And it’s free. Find the link at garden basics dot net.

Farmer Fred  31:06

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.