251 Garden Basics 2022 Greatest Hits Pt. 4 Spring Garden Tips, Live!

Show Transcript

TRANSCRIPT GB 251 Garden Hits of 2022 Pt.4

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

Welcome to Part 4 of our four part series, 2022’s greatest hits of Garden Basics with Farmer Fred. The four parts include the top 10 most listened-to segments last year.  In part 1, we talked about tomatoes. Topic such as choosing the easiest to grow varieties, pruning young tomato plants, the best tomatoes for containers, and a lot more. That’s all in Episode 248.

In part 2, in Episode 249, we talked with Grow Now author Emily Murphy. She talked about a way to build your soil without having to purchase bags or yards of potting mix. It’s called lasagna gardening. And in part 2, we visited with Master Gardener Pam Bone, who had lots of good tips for growing raspberries, blackberries and boysenberries.

In Episode 250, it was a Debbie Flower extravaganza. Our favorite retired college horticulture professor discussed how to reuse old potting soil, tips for reducing water use in the yard, and a checklist for starting your first garden or a new garden. That was Part 3 of our Greatest Hits of 2022.

Today in Part 4, just like every good rock group has a live album, we had a live podcast last Spring, at the Folsom, California Garden Club. And you enjoyed it so much, it’s not only one of the most listened to podcasts of 2022, we enjoyed it so much, Debbie Flower and I will be hitting the road again this winter and spring with more live episodes from garden clubs throughout the area, where we will be bantering on various garden topics as well as answering your questions, live. No pressure, no pressure.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. Let’s go!

SPRING GARDEN TIPS LIVE, Part 1 (originally aired in Ep. 174)

Farmer Fred

Well, good morning. I'm glad you could all be here. I'm glad I'm here. It's nice to see people. This is nice. I appreciate this very much to get out in the open and talk to you and, and talk gardening. My heavens. It's a beautiful day. It's dry, which is unfortunate. And we will have an interesting, wandering talk. There will be a lot of scenic bypasses today. And a lot of it's going to be based on your questions. And your questions are more than welcome. By the way. Jim Kirstein is here. Jim is one heck of a bicyclist and he is an amazing guy. He is responsible for building and designing and implementing and pushing for the 40-some miles of bike trails that exist in the city of Folsom. And yesterday I did a bike ride with Jim, we did a 62 mile bike ride. So on this bike ride, I said, "Hey, Jim, did you know I'm speaking at the Folsom Garden Club tomorrow?" He goes, "Oh, okay, well, I got to do a run. And I don't think I'm gonna get there in time." And then I said, "Well, Debbie Flower is going to be with me." And he goes, "Okay, I'll be there!" So we're here for Debbie.

Debbie Flower

That's the first I knew about that.

Farmer Fred

But, Jim, thanks for coming here. And everybody else. Thank you. And thank you too, for listening to the radio show all those years as well. I appreciate it. Alright. And can I have that book right there? Thank you. I don't know why you have this book here. But it is one of my favorite books. It's called "Plant Propagation". It's by Alan Toogood. It now has a different look to it. And it might have a different publisher. But it is an excellent book on how to produce plants from plants you already have.

Debbie Flower

Alan Toogood is a really good author of plant propagation books. The first plant propagation book I got in the 70s I got for Christmas from my dad and it was written by AlanToogood. it had no photographs, drawings only. very clear. If you're into buying used books, anything by Alan Toogood about propagation is worth its weight.

Farmer Fred

Is that all you had to say?

Debbie Flower

That's all I had to say.

Farmer Fred

What are some of your favorite garden books?

Debbie Flower

Books? Wow, I have whole shelves of books. And I don't go to them as often as I used to. I use that thing called Google.  Google isn't always sufficient. I have an old plant propagation book by Hartman and Kester. And I was grafting, I have two apple trees. North Pole and I forget the other one, but they're the columnar ones. I just have to grow things to grow things. They produce horrible apples. Don't get them for apples, but they grow straight up. And so, on one the scion died.

Farmer Fred

Explain what a scion is.

Debbie Flower

Scion is the desirable cultivar that you want to get off of that fruit tree. And then that's attached often in ornamental trees as well often to what's called rootstock. The roots provides the basics for the plant. And  the rootstock is chosen for a couple of reasons. It's chosen to adapt to the location where you are. Soil, insects, pH, water, also influences the tree. So the reason this North Pole and I can't remember the other one's name, are very tall and skinny and that has a lot to do with that rootstock. But I had lost the scion on one and the other one was sending up all these suckers from the rootstock. So a sucker is just a growth off of the roots. So I ordered scions from a company I found online and they were very nice. They mailed them to me, they wished me luck in my endeavor, and I wanted to attach them. And so I went to my Hartman and Kester and looked it up. I have a lot of propagation books. I have a lot of you know, there's a lot of stuff online, but I wanted to know what the grandpa's in the propagation world had to say. And then recently, I propagated my peach, it was a Frost peach, somebody gave it to me, don't grow it. The reason people buy the Frost peach is because it does not get peach leaf curl. If you have a peach with peach leaf curl, you know what I'm talking about when the leaves get sort of bubbly up and turn colors. And sure enough, did not get peach leaf curl. But the peaches were horrible, they were very mealy. So I had some arborists come through and I had them chop it down. I said, but leave me enough above ground that I can graft it. So now I have about a six inch trunk. And I need to graph to that, again, I pull out my Hartman and Kester. And look at there's about three or four ways that I could take scions, which I got from a girlfriend's property, she does have peach leaf curl. So I first soaked them in. This part's, just seat of the pants. I have some old Microcop, anybody know what I'm talking about?

Farmer Fred

49% copper

Debbie Flower

You can't find it and buy it anymore. And the label had fallen off. But I knew what it was from having carried it around from house to house. And one of Fred's loyal listeners had it as well and took a picture of the label. And so I now I have a picture of the label. So I know quantity. And so I mixed up a spray quantity. And then I soaked these pieces of scion, which is just previous years would you don't want to call it one year old wood. It's what grew last year. That's what you use to graft on to something else. And I wanted to see the different ways and I tried to put about six all around the edge of this peach stump that I have, and using different methods that I found in my Hartman and Kester. So that was fun.

Farmer Fred

Thank you for coming to our fruit tree talk. Have a great day!

Debbie Flower

The apples took, the peach I just did about a month ago. So we'll see if that takes.

Farmer Fred

One more garden book note: "Pruning and Training" by Christopher Brickell and David Joyce. It is indispensable. if you want to know how and when to prune your plants, just about any plant you could think of growing is in that book. "Pruning and Training" is the name of it. And those are two books that are definitely on my shelf within reach of my seat. That, and the Sunset Western Garden book, which unfortunately hasn't been updated in, what, seven or eight years.

Debbie Flower

But you know, we sit at his studio, which is in his house. And one of us asks a question, and we say I don't know, I don't know. He goes for the bookshelf. I go for the computer, guess who gets there first?

Farmer Fred

Yeah, but how accurate is it?

Debbie Flower

That's true, you got to know your sites. That's very, very true.

Farmer Fred

And if you do a lot of internet searches, and we do a lot of internet searches on garden topics, it's always helpful to put in something that might lead you to accurate information, and one of those little suffixes to put in is, .edu. So if you typed in aphid control tips.edu It would send you on that first page of results to some university backed research on controlling aphids. So I'd recommend that any internet search that you do.edu. I'm sorry, you're hot, you want to turn the air conditioning on or...

Farmer Fred

What about this little thing? Everybody gets one of those. Yeah, aphid control made me think of it.

Farmer Fred

Well, you know what's nice about this pamphlet, the 10 Most Wanted, talks about beneficial insects, and it has all the life stages of the insect because the baby Good guys don't look anything like the adults. A ladybug teenager looks like an alligator in a San Francisco Giants warm up jacket and you  might mistake it for a bad guy and start killing it. You don't want to do that. lacewing larvae are very mysterious looking. And this brochure can help you out a lot so that you can recognize the good guys from the bad guys. And I think this is the first thing you always say. She always says, "Fred, always identify the pest first."

Debbie Flower

That's very true. That's very very true. Know the pest. Yeah, preparing your garden for spraying, you're likely to come across some of these or maybe the larva of some of these in the soil like the soldier beetle, which is inside the front page. And you see that there's a soldier beetle larva. larva can be difficult to tell apart if you're digging in the soil and come across it. So there are some basic things that you want to look for. One is does it have legs, because if it doesn't have legs, I have this cheat sheet I brought from University of Kentucky, about identifying the larva. And the thing, your number one thing you look for is whether they have legs. Zero legs tend to be a fly of some sort. There are lots of different crane flies are out right now. Soldier flies come from your compost pile, they don't have any legs, they just sort of wiggle around on the ground. If they have six legs, three at the front and three further down, that's moths and butterflies in general. And then the other things like lacewing.

Farmer Fred

Can I ask you about one bug in particular that people might be finding right now if they're digging in their garden? Sure. And those are those little white C-shaped grubs. Okay. And you go Oh, what's this? Good guy or Bad Guy?

Debbie Flower

Generally bad guy. What do you do with them? Somebody has chickens here. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Give them to her.

Farmer Fred

Yeah. Exactly. I throw mine out for the birds, just toss it over my shoulder.

Debbie Flower

Right chickens.

Farmer Fred

Paint thinner? Yeah, okay.

Debbie Flower

Soapy water will kill things. Stir fry, stir. Well, ultimately, that's better for the earth. I think. I have a kitchen waste compost. It's called the Green Tower (Green Cone Solar Waste Digester). You dig a hole in the ground and you put in a basket. It's kind of like a laundry basket, a plastic basket. And it's probably a foot deep and 18 inches across. And then there's a it's green cone composter. Then there's a green cone on top and there's a lid at the top so it's tall enough that the raccoons can't get into it. And it's narrows at the top so things can't climb into it. And that's where all my kitchen waste goes.

Farmer Fred

You have raccoons in your kitchen?

Debbie Flower

They tried to get in but the cats chase them away.

Farmer Fred

Let's spend a couple of minutes talking about spring garden chores so we don't get hated out of here. They think we came to talk about that.

Debbie Flower

What did you do this week?

Farmer Fred

Thanks for your question. Oh man, I started onion seeds for green onions, bunching onions. You can grow onions year round here if all you want are the green onions. And now I'm growing it as a trap crop. What am I trying to trap? I'm trying to keep my wife away from my bulbing onions because she has a habit of going out for dinner and picking green onions and snipping off the stalks of my Stockton Reds. Don't touch my Stockton reds, they haven't formed bulbs yet. So I'm planting her own green onion garden.

Debbie Flower

So did you plant seeds?

Farmer Fred

I did.

Debbie Flower

Plant seeds. Did you plant them in containers or directly into the garden bed?

Farmer Fred

I didn't want to hassle with the slugs and the snails. So I planted them in containers. starting them in the greenhouse and when they get up to a good size, maybe three or four inches. I will transplant them out into the sunniest bed I have.

Farmer Fred

okay. Yeah, I planted seeds as well. I was gone for most of February and part of January. So I didn't get my seeds started as early as I wanted. But yesterday I started tomatoes and  some flowers and I collect seeds wherever I go. If they're seeds on the plant, I take them and bring them home and look them up and then figure out how I'm going to grow them. So some weird stuff as well. Jojoba was one, and mesquite trees another. I'm anticipating that our climate will get warmer and drier. And we need to look at species that will survive that. I have some creosote bush seeds that I haven't yet figured out how to germinate. I think I have to scarify them. That means scar, scar the seed so that the water can get in as opposed to stratify.

Farmer Fred

stratify yes means to refrigerate,

Debbie Flower

give them a winter.

Farmer Fred

All right, that brings up a very good point about a spring garden chore that you all should be doing to preserve more soil moisture because who knows where the next step in water restrictions is going to be. Probably going from two days a week to one day a week would be my guess. But you can train your soil to retain more water and so it will be happy with one irrigation a week, maybe even less. And that's by a combination of adding compost to your soil and then mulching the top with several inches of an organic mulch. What are some of your favorite mulches?

Debbie Flower

I chase down arborists. I woke up one morning and heard a saw. "Okay, that's a saw." Heard it again. "Yeah, that's a chainsaw." Then I heard the chipper go, I jumped out of bed, made myself presentable, got in the car and drove around the neighborhood till I found the arborist and said, "can I have those chips?" and I have a place in my yard where they're piled. I have a pile right now and I move them around. I've done this for many years, there are certain plants I cannot grow because my soil is so water retentive. So that's something to consider,

Farmer Fred

You came to brag.

Debbie Flower

And I lost some things to it's called Phytophthora. It's a disease that builds up in moisture, it's a disease in the soil that enters the plant, when moisture is around like the trunk of the plant, I lost some California, wax Myrtles. To fight off throw because of my mulching practice, mounds would help that if you have things that you want to. I have a Ceanothus, but it's on a mound. So it's doesn't get the mulch around it. So you have to think a little bit differently. But I spread it every year and weeding, take those weeds out, take those things out that are sucking up the water, did a lot of that this weekend, and then put the mulch down. If you are a pre emergent user, this month is the month to use to apply the spring pre-emergent, I would put that on first and then the mulch on top of it.

Farmer Fred

Remember, though, that if you apply a pre emergent, you cannot disturb the soil afterwards, you don't want to break up that invisible protective shield. So have your bed ready to go. And then put down your pre emergent. Would you plant before adding a pre emergent?  but it would have to be plants. It couldn't be seed because the Pre emergent which I'm going to see right, right, right. So it has to be plants.

Debbie Flower

I consider it a compliment when something desirable shows up on its own somewhere else in my art. That won't happen if you use a chemical pre-emergent.

Farmer Fred

we talk about zone extending.

Debbie Flower

Oh yeah, like can we plant our tomatoes out right now.

Farmer Fred

Maybe if you live in Phoenix or Tucson

Debbie Flower

or you use a zone extend or you use a

Farmer Fred

zone extender we could it could be walls of water or row cover a hot cap something like that. But you mentioned an interesting plant. The California Wax Myrtle Yes. And up and see ranch. Oh, excuse me, the Sea Ranch. They have a very limited plant palette they can choose from that they're allowed to plant and one of them is California Wax Myrtle. So I'm thinking well, because still it likes it by the coast. Are you having success with the California Wax Myrtle use zone extender you

Debbie Flower

they lived for the first place I saw them was downtown at the EPA building in downtown Sacramento. So they were not looking great. So I of course, wanted to try and make them look better. And they did look very good for a number of years. My landscape has been in 10 or so years. And I had three of them and I the last two just died this year. So for a while. Yes, they did look good.

Farmer Fred

Okay. It's sort of like coast redwood trees. Well, yeah, yeah. Please don't plant coast redwood trees here. There. It hurts the plant too much. 1520 years down the line. They're going to get some sort of patches through Andreas Farah. There's a lot of diseases that they're susceptible to when the humidity is so low. Coastal redwoods get 50% of the moisture they need from a marine layer of fog. That's why those leaves on a coast redwood are designed the way they are. It's designed to accumulate fog to form it into drops that will irrigate the plant and keep the plant happy. And

Debbie Flower

that's not something we can imitate even if we exactly

Farmer Fred

but how about instead of a coast redwood you want that Christmas tree in your yard? How about something native to the Sierra foothills like a Deodar cedar. better choice Yep. And slower growing too.

Debbie Flower

and it takes a different kind of irrigation sometimes two of them planted together. The Deodar cedar takes up less frequent, much deeper irrigation whereas the coast redwood takes more frequent. If you've ever had mulch around the coast redwood, you know that the roots are right up there in the mulch.

Farmer Fred

Definitely look at the water requirements of any plant you want to put in and try to be shying away from those really thirsty plants and going to ones where the water requirement is low to medium instead of medium to high and it's a hard habit to break. But in the new reality we're gonna have less water to work with. So if you can keep your soil more moist, choose a plant palette that has more resistance to a lack of water. I mean still getting water but instead of getting water every week, it might survive easily on once a month irrigation.

Farmer Fred

most of my yard is irrigated once every two weeks and that's all drip except for my No-mow fescue lawn, which is  irrigated with pop up impact sprinklers.

Farmer Fred

Impulse, you mean rotors?

Debbie Flower

rotors.

Farmer Fred

Okay rotors the Yes, yes, Hunter MP rotators. The MP rotators by Hunter are a great improvement over the old spray sprinklers, or the god awful impulse sprinklers, and uses a lot less water, it applies the water more slowly, the MP Rotator heads put little fingers of water that  go back and forth like that. It takes longer to irrigate, but you get less runoff. And that is so important in a city like Folsom where all the streets are not level. And none of the streets are straight either.

Farmer Fred

He must not be from the east.

Farmer Fred

I'm used to grids.

Debbie Flower

I'm from New York. And when I moved west, I couldn't believe it, all streets are straight.

Farmer Fred

We mentioned pulling weeds that's important.

Debbie Flower

but about the irrigation every two weeks,  the key is  when you do irrigate, you irrigate a long time. with a drip system, it's hours. With the MP Rotators. We do it two or three times in one day, and about 20 minutes till the water starts to run off, then stop. And it's on a timer of course. But this is how I figured it out water until it starts to run off, stop for the amount of time I just watered it, turn it back on, do it a second time. stop again, do it a third time, put a lot of water down and then have a way to hold that water. It's the organic matter that holds the water in your soil. We did a great lab when I taught soils where we had clay clods dry and we had dry organic soil clots. So it wasn't I don't know if it was technically an organic soil on a soil analysis but had soil with organic matter in it. Man these buckets made from just a screen up fairly large I think of sewage feeders, you know, suet feeder is yeah has kind of big squares, metal, and they were shaped to hold these clouds of soil. And then we had the students put them in water and just watch the one that was just clay fell apart just like that. The one that was had organic matter and stayed together and absorbed the water. Big difference, huge difference. The easiest way to get that organic matter into your soil is to mulch regularly. It's a lot of work, but it sometimes the arborists will hire their guys out to do it for you to move it around. There's ways to get it done. Keep it it does decompose. That's how it's getting into the soil. It's decomposing and it's washing into the soil or being moved into the soil by critters. And then you've got the you can water a lot. You can get a lot of water held into that soil and then not have to water again for a long time.

Farmer Fred

My neighbors love me, because every fall November, December, I knock on their door and I say can I rake up your oak leaves for you? And they go, why are you crazy? Yeah, go ahead. Sure. Well, I do I gather up all the oak leaves in the neighborhood. I put them in a metal  trashcan. Remember the metal 32 Gallon Trash cans, they're still for sale, and I will fill it halfway. Then I will stick my string trimmer down there and grind up the leaves. Or I'll take my mulching mower and run over those leaves making them more fine particles. And that's my mulch. I will put that six, eight inches deep on top of all my raised beds and let it stay there all winter. It feeds the soil as it breaks down. It keeps the soil warmer, it does a whole host of good.

Debbie Flower

When rain comes down on bare soil, it's so powerful that it can cause soil compaction. So if you cover it with something, you don't get that soil compaction

Farmer Fred

and it's building up better soil biology to all the little critters in the soil that are actually feeding your plants. I think this is one reality that more and more people are coming to see, is that you don't feed your plants. You feed the soil. and then the soil feeds the plants. there's a lot of mycorrhizal activity down below the root level where these critters are taking the nutrients from the soil, converting it into a way that the plant roots can assimilate. And by encouraging more mycorrhizal soil activity by feeding your soil on a slow, regular basis with something like a mulch. you're improving your soil 100%.

Debbie Flower

And then if you go dig in it, if you've done the mulch and you dig in it and you turn it over and there's white stuff. That's the beneficial fungus. Don't freak out. That's good stuff.

Farmer Fred

You want to take questions?

Debbie Flower

Fine with me.

Farmer Fred

All right.

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Farmer Fred

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Farmer Fred

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SPRING GARDEN TIPS LIVE, Part 2

Farmer Fred

You’re listening to Part 4 of our four part series, 2022’s Greatest Garden Hits. It’s the most downloaded segments of the last twelve months, here on the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. And thank you, by the way, for lending us your ears since April of 2020. By the end of 2023, we will have accumulated over one million downloads for this podcast. Coming up now, Debbie and I tackle the garden questions, live, at the Folsom Garden Club.

Farmer Fred

We have to use the microphone over there. Thank you very much. We'll see if it works.

Unknown Speaker

So I love this oak leaf idea. Does it work with other leaves and you just go and knock on people's doors and offer to do it?

Farmer Fred

usually I'll interrupt them while they're raking and say, Hey, can I do that for you? And then you know, take it back and yeah, so other trees were Yeah, I think as long as the leaves aren't diseased.

Debbie Flower

Yeah, like, what's a nasty when like a liquid amber?

Debbie Flower

We don't want this the seeds that might be in the leaves. Yeah, seed balls? Yeah. How about Sycamore? Sycamore might have powdery mildew or Anthracnose. Okay, so not at all? Well, that comes up when we discuss diseases is a disease triangle. So you have to have three things in order to have a disease occur, you have to have the host. So if we're talking about a sycamore, you would have to have a sycamore on your property. The pathogen, which is the disease, it would be the Anthracnose, or the powdery mildew that is on those leaves. But you also have to have the environment that causes or allows the disease to thrive. When you take the leaves off the plant, and put them in your property or especially if you're going to whip them up, cut them up, as Fred was talking about, you know, the the environment, the environment meant for powder, powdery mildew is fairly specific. It's temperatures in the low 60s and humidity free at what 30% Yeah, about 30% You're not going to get that in a pile on your on the floor of your garden. The same with Anthracnose a very specific environment, so you haven't completed the disease triangle. So there is zero evidence that bringing diseased wood chips or leaves into your yard, unless you lay them right under the plant and you know, touch up to the plant. We'll call it will transmit disease. There have been experiments done but to date, there's zero evidence, trying to think of what trees we might have, you know, ubiquitous around here crape myrtles you have powdery Myrtle crape myrtle all of solace. I'm allergic. I took my antihistamines this morning as well. And I'll take it again tonight. Yeah, I'm very allergic.

Farmer Fred

I will take questions if you want to come up here and ask. And by the way, Janis, you were the first to ask a question. I'll do this as long as the supply holds out. I have for you the 2022 Sacramento County Master Gardener garden guide and calendar. Thank you.

Debbie Flower

Ask a question.

Farmer Fred

Just ask. Okay, here we go. Hi.

Unknown Speaker

Hi, quick question. Now we're all propagating for the plant sale, the Garden Club sale. And I've got like little seedlings of tomatoes. But I was thinking of trying to do a few more because minor looking little peak it and so on. Anyway, long story short, I heard your podcast, I know what a podcast is. I do subscribe to it and your newsletter. But the question is, is that I chose the Celebrity tomato, because that was highly recommended for our area. It was iffy about the Cherokee purples, but they were my mother's favorite. So I got to give it a shot. And then I've got a bunch of Sun Gold's, little seedlings to go. But I'm thinking of some of the other ones that were recommended on the podcast, which I don't remember off the top of my head. But I have it in my notes.

Farmer Fred

they were in the newsletter, too. Oh, good.

Unknown Speaker

Yes, yes. So are we too late to try to get some in before the sale?

Farmer Fred

it's still winter!

Debbie Flower

we have a really long growing season. Yeah. But when you start those tomatoes, you need to give them a few things. One, once they're up out of the ground, extremely strong light, if they're indoors, I am not well versed in LED lights, but there are LED lights that work, or you just use two fluorescent tubes of Mormon and a cool one. But they need to be within two inches of the top of the plant very strong, and they need to be new bulbs, not the ones that have been in the garage for ages been used in the garage. If they're unused. That's okay. The other is movement wind. Yes, a fan or the original experiment had graduate students shaking a table for 10 minutes a day. But they're just like we have to lift weights or whatever to or do push ups to create muscle plants have to move to create what's called reaction tissue, I have a fan across the room because I have it indoors, I have the Grow lights, I have the little shelves, good and great friend of mine just said you need to get them like three inches to the light,

Debbie Flower

you need them very close to the light getting yellow. So if you're going to, if you don't have a grow light yet, and you're considering one, you need to find one that can move, both sides can move independently. I have a greenhouse now but when I last grew seedlings indoors, I hung eyebolts in the ceiling, I hung the lights, it was a fluorescent, at least a two two, it might have been a four tube fluorescent on chains. And then I could adjust the chains on the two different sides and the light could go up or down as as the plant screws, and I could move around but it has to be very close. That's another lab we did with light meters. They're good light meters are hundreds of dollars. So it's not something you're going to own necessarily, but I had the students measure the light right here. And then right below it. difference was incredible. Up at the fluorescent light, a foot below dropped by 10s of numbers down on the desk. We need 50 foot candles to read a plant to a plant that's a cave. But

Farmer Fred

to go back to your question, by the way, you get a calendar because you asked a question. Thank you. To answer your question more directly about when to plant tomato seeds. You could start tomato seeds anytime from mid to late February to mid to late May and still develop a crop because we have a long growing season through November.

Debbie Flower

If you're timing it for a plant sale, at school we use nine weeks for almost anything we started from seed.

Farmer Fred

And thank you for subscribing to the newsletter, to the garden basics newsletter available on Substack. there's a link at farmerfred.com Hi there,

Unknown Speaker

hey there. I don't know if other people have been trying any of the meal kits that come to your home but I've been trying those and they come with gel packs and they say that they are non toxic water soluble gel packs. I know there used to be little beads that would absorb water that you could put in your soil to help maintain moisture in your pots and that kind of stuff. And I'm wondering if those gel packs could be incorporated into the soil to help hold water for especially pots.

Farmer Fred

Is this why your name tag is backwards and I can't see your name because somebody has been emailing me this question a lot. They're very worried. It wasn't you, Julie, Okay. i No, no and I did some research on this. And I can't find any place in the from the manufacturer of those gel packs that it's safe to use in soil .

Debbie Flower

or from scientific experiment  by horticulturists that's been asked. If you don't know about this, the  garden professors.org. I think they're on Facebook. They've discussed it as well, and nobody has a conclusion. So if you want to experiment yourself, I'd start in a container, do something that if it dies, you're okay with that. And do it there and see what happens. And then maybe do get a little soil test kit, test your pH, test your nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, those are typically the things that you can test in a homeowner soil test kit, see what happens to your soil, do it before, then add the stuff, do it afterwards, see what happens.

Farmer Fred

There used to be a garden radio host in Sacramento many, many years ago by the name of Pete Strasser. And Pete Strasser was a plant pathologist who worked for Capitol nursery. Remember Capitol nursery? All right. Well, Pete's go-to answer when anybody would bring up a question that involves using some typical household product in the garden, he would say, is that on the label, on that carton of milk? Does it say you can apply it around your roses? No, I don't think it does. And basically, that's right, if you don't see directions on how to use it in your garden, it's not meant for the garden. And one of the big products where you don't see that label that you shouldn't be using in your garden is vinegar. Vinegar can be quite toxic to you and your plants.

Debbie Flower

And there is vinegar labeled for use in the garden, but it is so acidic, that it probably has a danger label. Pesticides are labeled caution, warning danger. Category three is caution, two is warning, one is danger, because three-two-one, cat-will-die. That's how I remember caution, warning, danger. I use mnemonics all the time. I can't remember anything unless I use a mnemonic. Anyway, danger is the highest level and you typically you well, you should always wear eye protection gloves, long sleeves, socks, shoes, long pants, but you can really hurt yourself with a danger pesticide.

Farmer Fred

Kitchen vinegar is 4% acetic acid. horticultural vinegar is 20% acetic acid. And there will be warnings on there about basically putting on a hazmat suit if you're going to be using it. And the thing with vinegar as a weed killer. It's only a top kill. The rest of the plant is going to sprout back from the roots. So it's just going to give it's going to give you quick results, but it's not long lasting. Yeah, it's just not worth it. How about oh, there we go. Oh, hey, don't go away too far. Julie. Julie, get back here. You get a Master Gardener calendar for 2022 With great garden tips, courtesy of the Sacramento County Master Gardeners.

Unknown Speaker

Hi, I'm from Southern California, right near the Los Angeles County Arboretum. Yes. And I have a compost bin which is great. But I have the larger grubs in there. And I just leave them in there. They compost great. They sieve the compost so that I don't have them in my soil. There anything is just the animals like them. You know, the raccoons and skunks, I think.

Debbie Flower

so  Your compost is an open compost? Yeah. And also they get in? Yeah, but they just dig it up. Right. So I was gonna say what would the danger of that be? Right.

Unknown Speaker

But your leaf idea. I do the same thing with the arborist and get all the mulch into my garden. It's great. I've done it for years.

Farmer Fred

By the way, bribing the arborist with a six pack of beer helps, too. Yeah, they want that.

Unknown Speaker

They don't have to put stuff in the landfill. Right? It saves them money. Yeah, they just dump it in my yard. But the guy my tree trimmer gives me clean you know, he makes sure it's not good. Yeah, that's nuts. But I have a lot of citrus trees. Quite a few and the you know, they're ever dropping leaves. Can i i Leave it there. I used to take it away. Now I leave the leaves there. Is that okay? I mean, the trees are doing great.

Farmer Fred

I would chop them up first and make them smaller.

Unknown Speaker

I chop everything with my lawnmower.

Farmer Fred

Okay, all right, because they are a rather thick leaf.

Debbie Flower

Yeah, they are and just make sure that they don't build up around the trunk of the plant right because...

Unknown Speaker

I have  apple trees also I leave I just decided to leave the leaves there.

Debbie Flower

So yes, as long as the Apple itself is not diseased. Yes, yes. The one case where if it's right under the plant, it has spores of  whatever it is.  Can get up in especially codling moth. Yes. If it has that as well.

Farmer Fred

Yeah. Good luck with that. Oh, here you go, Renee. This calendar will work down in Arcadia, too. enjoy that.

Unknown Speaker

Hi. I have a question about something totally different from that we've been discussing. I have some Nandinas that spread. How can I kill them?

Farmer Fred

You can't. just move. It's the only way.

Debbie Flower

The house I bought had Nandina all up my very long driveway and across the property. And I've taken to going out about now and cutting the fruit off and collecting it in a bucket and putting it in the green waste can.  I have babies showing up everywhere. Yeah.

Farmer Fred

Are you digging it up?

Unknown Speaker

Well, yes, I've even put the vinegar there the real strong vinegar. And it just keeps coming up.

Debbie Flower

when you have a shrub, in particular, And Nandina is a shrub even though it's a very flexible one, also called heavenly bamboo.  and it is a woody plant, even though it you know, it acts more like bamboo, which is actually a grass, you cut it off, this is really a two person job, you need brush killer. I have one of those little pink basins they give you in the hospital. And I put the brush killer in it in a some of the brush killers come with their own little plastic tarp that acts as a dish. And then I have some kind of small paint brush, and I my knee pads on my gloves on, and my husband with me. And one of us cuts the stem close to the ground. The other one paints it immediately with the brush killer. Cut, paint, cut, paint cut, paint, okay? That it actually works, it works on ivy, it works on privet. And the reason you have to paint immediately is plants create chemical barriers when they are wounded, so that things don't get into them. So they haven't had the time yet to create the chemical barrier. When you do the cut-paint.

Farmer Fred

When you say brush killer, what's the active ingredient?

Debbie Flower

What is this? Oh, I don't know off the top of my head.

Farmer Fred

It's not glyphosate.

Debbie Flower

No, it's not. It's not Glyphosate. Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Roundup. This is specifically for woody plants. Brush killer is and it will be labeled brush killer. Any particular brand that you can think of?

Farmer Fred

Some of them are just called brush killer. Yeah, Monterey brush killer. okay, and the instructions for applying glyphosate in much the same manner of cutting it off and then painting directly. there are instructions in the full Roundup, instruction booklet, which is like 64 pages long. And you can find it online about how to do it. For the most effect. I was wondering about removing Ivy.

Debbie Flower

I recommended this to a friend and he did it this way. It's the same thing. No roundup and brush killer are two different things. And the things we're telling you are on the label. The label is the law. If you do something else with that chemical, you're breaking the law. Now, is somebody going to come get you? probably not. not unless you're a licensed pesticide applicator doing it for pay. That is something to look for the using the brush killer 100% painting it on a stump like that is labeled  is written on the label. Okay.

Farmer Fred

Somewhere in my brain I know we're both searching for the name of that active ingredient in brush killer.

Debbie Flower

I want to say dia... who's got their phone out? Look up the brush killer label

Farmer Fred

Yeah, basically when you do brush killer it the active ingredient will be different from glyphosate and it's much stronger. It's how I killed off Liquid amber sprouts that came up after I removed 14 Liquid amber trees.

Debbie Flower

My property's been empty for two years. We bought our house from a bank. And there were all these privets. Everything else had died of course, because it wasn't getting irrigated. All these privets my husband and I spent a day going around cut-paint, cut paint, cut paint and it works wonderfully. Triclopyr! Thank you, Yes.

Farmer Fred

Yeah, Triclopyr is the active ingredient. You'll find that in a lot of brush killers.

Debbie Flower

So you know, pesticides have an active ingredient listed on the label. It there's always an active ingredient table on the label and it will say what chemical is in it and what percent and it will have inert ingredients and all that will add up to 100%. And then it should say on the pesticide label for use on woody plants to kill woody plants and landscapes or something like that. A general statement of use by law labels have to have that on.

Farmer Fred

And remember, too, you cannot ad lib from that label as far as figuring out and assume that, "oh, well if this weed killer will kill this, it'll kill that."  Know the weed that you're trying to kill or the plant you're trying to kill with an herbicide has to be listed on the label. Read and Follow all label directions, as we're fond of saying. Yes, go ahead. We have time for maybe two more questions.

Unknown Speaker

real quick. I think crabgrass in my lawn is one of the happiest grasses that grows and I don't know how to get rid of it. You know, I've tried many things round up of course and other product specific for crabgrass but it doesn't care. It just keeps growing.

Farmer Fred

Is this a perennial crabgrass, or does it re sprout every year?

Unknown Speaker

Well, you know, it dies down in the winter and then there it comes. and away it goes.

Farmer Fred

This is the time of the year, early March, for applying a pre emergent to control one type of crabgrass

Debbie Flower

Which is an annual. Yeah, it grows from seed. So you whenever this another nmonic, BISS, you want to get your weeds before it sets seed.

Farmer Fred

BISS, before it sets seed. you need to positively identify the type of crabgrass you have

Debbie Flower

I wonder if it might be bermuda? Is there any chances it's very happy Bermuda?

Unknown Speaker

It's a it's a thicker leaf. And it's a clump. Okay, yeah. It'll send out seed, shoots, that have little seeds.,

Debbie Flower

You know, if you get that far, cut it off before they fly, for sure. But yeah, pre-emergent would be your control. And when on my fescue lawn was, which my husband insisted we start from seed, the first couple years. Around this time of year, I didn't use pre-emergents. As such, I didn't go and buy a chemical. I bought chicken manure, composted, bagged, dried chicken manure. And laid that. it's one of the principles of mulch, seeds have a fully formed plant inside of them and enough food to germinate, get the roots down, get the baby plant up in the sunshine, and then it runs out of seed food and it has to make its own food. If you put on a layer of mulch thick enough, and with the chicken manure, I'm talking probably half inch to an inch. The seed will germinate it'll put down its roots, the baby plant will come up, but it won't have enough food to get through that half inch, two inch. And so you're fertilizing the lawn with organic matter and the nitrogen that's in chicken manure. Pick it up in a pickup truck if you can, or drive with the windows down my car stunk for weeks after that, but very convenient comes in a bag spread it on the lawn, and that helped prevent the weeds in my lawn.

Farmer Fred

We are veering into a scenic bypass we don't have time for, which is soil solarization and sheet mulching, which are also effective ways of controlling crabgrass, invite us back some time. We'll talk. Thank you. Alright, Beth, get a calendar. Here you go from the master gardeners.

Unknown Speaker

Hi. When you first started, you introduced Debbie as Debbie Flower. And I was like, huh, is that a nickname?

Debbie Flower

No, my real name Debbie Flower.

Unknown Speaker

So, I looked you up.

Debbie Flower

Oh boy, what'd you find out? My Records? I'm Not that bad. I mean I wasn't that bad.

Unknown Speaker

So it claimed that you're a professor at ARC (American River College in Sacramento). Okay, so I am curious about your last name. how lucky you are to be in this profession with that real name.

Debbie Flower

I was. I'm retired now. You can also look up Frank N. Flower and Sons shellfish farmers. In Oyster Bay, New York. That was the family business.  I never changed my name. When I got married. I already had my bachelor's degree, but it was also the 80s, when people didn't change their names when they got married. And gotta say in this industry, it's memorable. People don't forget me. It works for good or bad. I love it. Thank you.

Farmer Fred

She's real. She has dirt under her fingernails. Don't go away. You're gonna get a calendar. Appreciate it. All right, one more question, and then we got to eat or something. All right.

Unknown Speaker

Debbie, I used to work with you at ARC. Oh, wow. Where did you work? I was an assistant for Robin Neil and administration. Oh, okay. But she would put together with her class they would arrange flowers and two days a week, we could go buy their flower arrangements. and I always get my Thanksgiving centerpiece there. Mm hmm. They were great.

Debbie Flower

Horticulture was a very active department. We had three acres of land, we had tons of equipment. We had a floral arrangement program, you got to buy flowers for that, right. So our very dedicated floral instructors would go to the wholesalers and buy the Day-old flowers, that they couldn't sell to the commercial floral arrangers. But they lasted. Those arrangements were beautiful. And they lasted because the students were taught really, really well.

Farmer Fred

That was the beauty of the A.R. Horticulture Department. They taught the students practical, knowledgeable skills about being in the actual real world when it came to horticulture, down to what sort of truck you should buy if you're going to be doing mow and blow.

Debbie Flower

when I got my masters at UC Davis. And I took a full quarter, it's a quarter school, a full quarter in irrigation. I could calculate pressures and pipe sizes and head I could place head emitters. I came across my final exam when I was cleaning the house recently and that's what it was. That's what it was. But I came home and dug up my irrigation system at home to see what was actually under there. So because we never put pipes together, you know, we don't we didn't attach things which that's the beauty of a community college. You're going to actually attach things.

Farmer Fred

I like what you said a couple of weeks ago on the podcast. That somebody said to you, "Oh, you're a professional. I bet you never kill plants".

Debbie Flower

This is my cousin's wife that said that. I said I kill plants, I just know how to do the autopsy.

Farmer Fred

Thank you for coming out today, we appreciate it!

BEYOND THE GARDEN BASICS NEWSLETTER

Farmer Fred

Early February is rose pruning time here in USDA Zone 9. In other, colder rose growing zones, late February through mid March is best for rose pruning. In this Friday’s Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter, we cover the basics of successful rose pruning in order for your rose bushes to put on a show stopping bloom this spring. And in the podcast portion of the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter, we get helpful rose pruning ideas from a Master Rosarian, including the best fabric of clothing to be wearing when pruning among those sharp prickles. For current newsletter subscribers, look for the “Winter is Rose Pruning Time”  newsletter in your email, it’s probably waiting for you now.  Or, you can start a subscription, it’s free!  Find the link in today’s show notes or sign up at the newsletter link at our homepage, garden basics dot net.

Farmer Fred

The Garden Basics With Farmer Fred podcast comes out once a week, on Fridays. Plus the newsletter podcast, that comes with the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter, continues, also released on Fridays. Both are free and are brought to you by Smart Pots and Dave Wilson Nursery. The Garden Basics podcast is available wherever podcasts are handed out, and that includes our home page, Garden Basics dot net. , where you can also sign up for the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter and podcast. That’s Garden Basics dot net. or use the links in today’s show notes.  And thank you so much for listening.