264 The Top Homegrown Vegetables Pt 2

Show Transcript

GB 264 TRANSCRIPT Top 10 Vegs Pt. 2

Farmer Fred  0:00

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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

There was a survey that asked gardeners coast to coast, what are your favorite homegrown vegetables? So, we have a podcast about America’s Top 10 homegrown vegetables. Actually, we have two podcasts on the topic. Last week’s podcast, Episode 263, covered the first five, including tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet peppers, beans and carrots. Today, in Part 2, Master Gardener and vegetable expert Gail Pothour and I talk about summer squash, onions, hot peppers, lettuce and peas, along with growing advice for each one, our favorite varieties, and tips for having more backyard success with those vegetables. Plus, we talk about our honorable mentions, backyard garden vegetables that should be in the Top 10.

It’s all in today’s episode 264, the Top 10 Homegrown Vegetables, Part 2. 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!

Top 10 Backyard Vegetables, Part 2 Ch. 1

Farmer Fred

Last week on this Garden Basics podcast you may recall we were talking about the top 10 garden vegetables to grow at home. Gail Pothour was with us and we went through tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet peppers, beans and carrots and we ran out of time. So this week we're on to part two of the top 10 most popular garden vegetables to grow. It includes summer squash, onions, hot peppers, lettuce and peas. That is according to the National Garden Association and the Rapid City, South Dakota Journal newspaper. Gail, let's get going on six through 10.

Gail Pothour  2:18

Yes, let's do that.

Farmer Fred  2:21

Moving on to number six in the most popular garden vegetables to plant at home. I laugh because who hasn't had way too many zucchini or summer squash. And zucchini is just one form of summer squash. There are all sorts of summer squashes.

Gail Pothour  2:41

Oh yeah. In fact, some of my favorites I my favorite heirloom zucchini, another heirloom is I'm interested more in heirlooms for tomatoes for the flavors. But there are some other crops that have heirlooms that are really good. It's called Ortolana di Faenza. I don't know how to say it in Italian, but it's a light green zucchini instead of that dark black green that a typical zucchini. It is  real prolific and so I grow that every year. And then there's your yellow crookneck or there's scallop or the Patty Pan. So there's a lot of different ones. I love Butterbelly, that happens to be a hybrid yellow crookneck. And I grew it up a pallet last year. It's a bush variety, but I wanted to get it up off the ground. So I propped up a pallet and grew it up the pallet and it saves space. And it was easier to pick and it was an outstanding variety. It was new new for me last year. Zephyr is always a good one. It's a yellow crookneck with green at the bottom, kind of a light green color. And then my favorite scallop is Sunburst. It is the yellow patty pan with a green button on the bottom. And that happens to be an All America selection winner.

Farmer Fred  3:55

Among the scallops that are recommended by UC Davis - and these are varieties  you'd probably find at your local nursery if you're wanting to plant them from transplants, but they're really best planted from seed. But refer back to our story of why you don't want to cram the roots.

Gail Pothour  4:16

Oh yeah, just like cucumbers. They don't want their roots disturbed. Yeah.

Farmer Fred  4:19

That's why it really is much easier from seed to grow summer squash. But  among the UC recommended varieties are Peter Pan hybrid, sunburst, scallopini, early white Bush, those are the scallop recommendations. Among the yellow summer squashes, they like early prolific straight neck, Sundance, early golden summer crookneck, and Dixie.  Among the zucchini,  their favorites include aristocrat, Grayzini, Ambassador, Gold Rush, and Burpee Fordhook.

I think a lot of the problems that people have with summer squash is the lack of a killer instinct. First of all, they're doing the right thing by planting from seed. And usually the recommendations of planting by seed say, “Mound the soil up about eight inches tall and about 12 inches wide, sort of like a plateau. Use really enriched soil, maybe mix some manure in there. And then in that plateau that is 12 inches across, put six seeds in a circle. And then wait. And then when they germinate, they don’t thin them out to one per hill. Honestly, if you have, let's say, two mounds of zucchini seeds planted, and you've got 6 seeds in each and you have a normal sized garden and you don't want too much zucchini, thin it out to one per hill. Good luck on that.

Gail Pothour  5:49

Yeah, I am sort of hesitant in that I'm going to grow two different squash varieties this year. Generally I do one. That's plenty from for me and my husband. But I'm going to grow my favorite zucchini, Ortolana di Faenza, and the yellow, the yellow crookneck the Butterbelly, I'm going to do two different plants. And I'm thinking that might be crazy, because it's probably twice as much squash as I need. I've already been collecting recipes on what to do with all that squash. But yeah, it's very prolific. And if you keep harvesting them when they're small, that will keep them producing if you want to stop the production, let them grow to a baseball bat. And that'll slow them down a little bit.

Farmer Fred  6:31

Okay.  ideally, for best flavor, zucchini is best harvested when they're eight inches or less. Right?

Gail Pothour  6:39

Yeah, they will get too seedy whey they are huge. Otherwise, when they start to get over-mature, they'll get really seedy inside, yeah.

Farmer Fred  6:47

A lot of people  plant the zucchini seeds or the squash seeds in May. And by June they are complaining, “Look, look at the fruit that's coming out. It's stunted. It's short, it doesn't look right, what's going on?”. It's usually incomplete pollination because of the fact that they have separate male and female flowers, and they don't produce male and female flowers necessarily on the same day, especially if it's too hot or too cold. And the bees sometimes don't help out very much. But usually it's that incomplete pollination. But if you are just patient, if you just wait, you'll get normal sized zucchini. The weather will even out and you will have more zucchini, then you know what to do with.

Gail Pothour  7:31

Exactly, yeah, and generally the male flowers start out first. And so you'll have all these flowers and you think I have no fruit? Well, the female flower will have a little immature fruit at the base of it. And so you can tell the difference. And they the male start first and the females when they need to get in sync with each other in the morning to do this. Generally they're viable in the morning, and it takes a while and the weather can disrupt that. So yeah, you just got to be patient.

Farmer Fred  8:00

As the University of California Davis says: under good growing conditions, fruits are ready for first harvest 50 to 65 days after seeds are planted. And in the world of summer vegetables, that's pretty darn quick.

Gail Pothour

It is quick. Yes.

Farmer Fred

Moving on in our list of the 10 most popular garden vegetables to grow at home: Number seven is onions. And onions, Gail, take patience.

Gail Pothour  8:24

Oh, absolutely. And I find growing bulbing onions, a typical big onion, to kind of be a challenge. So I rarely grow onions in my own garden. If I do grow them, I'm going to grow one variety, and it's called Stockton red. And it's getting a little more difficult to find seeds for Stockton Red, but that's one that I really like. But onions are daylength sensitive. So you need to grow a type of onion, whether it's long day, short day, intermediate day or day neutral, depending on your latitude. I think that's where a lot of people have problems, they are growing a variety that maybe isn't suited for their latitude. And so they either bolt prematurely or they don't bulb at all. So with Sacramento being in about a 38 degree latitude, we are an intermediate daylength, so choose varieties that say they are intermediate day, or that are day neutral. Day neutral means it doesn't matter. Anybody can grow them. So that's kind of the key and where I've run into problems. If I buy sets or something, they don't necessarily tell you if they're long day, short day, intermediate day, whatever. And so I'm buying the wrong variety. Stockton Reds, I know, will do well here. So that's an intermediate day, but onions can be a challenge. And so let's just say I don't grow them that often. I'll grow green onions I'm currently growing Egyptian walking onions but bulging onions I don't do too often.

Farmer Fred  9:54

Generally onions are planted in late summer or early fall here in USDA zone 9. September October, and aren't harvested until June or July, if you're growing the bulbing onions. Now green onions are a different story, green onions or scallions. You can grow those year round here. Varieties like evergreen white, Southport white, white sweet Spanish, white Lisbon, Tokyo Long White, which I planted for the first time this year. And if you use a lot of green onions in your recipe preparations, always have a pot of onions growing.

Gail Pothour  10:29

That's what I found. Green onions are something that I use more. Well, I use regular onions a lot too. But I use a lot of green onions. And so those are easy to grow, I can grow them in a container. I can grow them practically any time of the year. If it's too hot, I can move them into the shade. So yeah, that's a good one to grow.

Farmer Fred  10:49

Yeah, unfortunately, by the time they are ready to harvest. It's not like you can take the onions out and plant something else. Actually, you could. When the onions are harvested, reinvigorate the soil, and you could probably put in zucchini or another summer squash or a winter squash.

Gail Pothour  11:07

Or  set that space aside for planting your fall crop. Because some of those can go in August or September. They like to have warm soil to germinate, but they need a cool climate to mature. So a lot of our cool season crops we would start growing when the soil is still warm, but we want them to mature when it's cooler out. So once you took those onions out, you could then plant something for the fall.

Farmer Fred  11:34

Among the onion bulbing varieties recommended by the University of California Davis, their Vegetable Research and Information Center, are Grano, Granex, California Early red, Fiesta yellow, sweet Spanish white, sweet Spanish, Southport white globe, Southport red globe, and the Stockton yellow globe.

Gail Pothour  11:56

No Stockton Red on their list. We actually did an onion Variety Trial almost 10 years ago at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center, where we grew several varieties of long day, intermediate day and short day onion varieties to see how they would do in our climate. And all the long day onions bolted. And some some of the short day onions did as well. But that's what's critical, was to grow the right type. And what I mean by long day, intermediate day length, short day:  if you look at a map and you see your latitude, long day are going to be up north, so they need 14 to 16 hours of daylight in the spring and summer in order for the bulb to start. intermediate days, 12 to 14 hours, short days, 10 to 12 hours, that's down south. So it does have a lot to do with your latitude.

Farmer Fred  12:45

Exactly. If you live in Edmonton, you can grow long day onions.

Gail Pothour  12:50

And we did grow them here and we found they don't do that well.

Farmer Fred  12:55

I am not surprised about that.

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Farmer Fred

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Top 10 Backyard Vegetables, Part 2 Ch. 2

Farmer Fred

Well here at Barking Dog studios, we are talking about the Top 10 list of the most popular garden vegetables to grow. We now come to number eight on our list and it's time for the hot peppers to shine. Hot peppers, the eighth most popular home garden vegetable to grow. 31% of gardeners across the United States say they grow hot peppers and they range from mildly spicy to thermonuclear. There's all kinds of varieties to suit many tastes and degrees of heat tolerance. There are some mildly warm ones that I like to grow, such as NuMex Joe E Parker, that one doesn't offend my tastebuds too much (and, if I’m feeling brave, the Inferno). But for those that like it hot, really really really hot... you can grow those Ghost peppers, the Bhut Jalokia, the Charleston, and the others. But there's a lot of good, tasty, warm peppers too, like Anaheim or Fresno, for example. Or even some of the jalapenos.

Gail Pothour  15:57

Yeah, I'm just shaking my head. I don't eat chilies. I can't tolerate that heat. So one of the hot peppers that I grow is called “Tricked You”. It’s a jalapeno. So it's it's not classified as a sweet pepper. But it's a heatless jalapeno and I grow that every year and it's a hybrid that does great and huge yields. I like the flavor of the jalapeno without the heat and that's what you get. My husband, on the other hand, likes hot peppers. And so every year I grew a little hanging basket of Pot-a-Peno, It's a little miniature jalapeno, it's an all America selection winter. The fruits are only one to two inches long. And so I satisfy him his heat requirement with those but that's a good good one to grow in a container. You could grow it in a hanging basket like we do. And we also do it at the Horticulture Center, in a hanging basket or a small container. It's very prolific for something that size.

Farmer Fred  16:55

I grew one last year called Nada-peno, and it looks like a jalapeno, but it's not hot at all. And it was actually very tasty. I couldn't convince my wife, though, to cook with it because she was convinced it was a hot pepper. And she wouldn't take a bite of it because she won't fall for that trick again. So I would eat one in front of her. Look. It's not hot. See, am I running for water? No, I'm not. But no, but not Nadapeno actually ilooks like a jalapeno, but there is very little heat associated with it. We mentioned some of the varieties that are popular that are fairly mild in their heat. The Anaheim for example, the Hungarian yellow wax, which is moderately hot, that isn't too bad. And among the heirlooms, as I mentioned the New Mex Joe E. Parker is one of my favorites, with a wonderful flavor too. The problem with a lot of hot peppers is the heat overwhelms the flavor. You miss the flavor.

Gail Pothour  17:54

Well, that's why I liked the Tricked You jalapeno, because I can actually taste the jalapeno and I liked the flavor of it. Heat just kind of overpowers the other hot ones. So yeah. Leave the hot peppers to other people.

Farmer Fred  18:07

There's another pepper out there called Shishito. You talk to some people, they'll say, Oh, it's a sweet pepper. You talk to others, they'll say, Oh, it's a hot pepper. I have grown Shishito. You know, I grew them for three years in a row. Because I couldn't figure out why nine out of 10 of the peppers, at any one time that had ripened on the plant, would be mild. But there was one that was hot.

Gail Pothour  18:30

You never knew which one was hot.

Farmer Fred  18:32

No, they all looked the same. It wasn't a case of it had changed color or anything like that. So this Shishito, I think, is a tricky pepper. If you want to play Russian roulette with your mouth, get the Shishito

Gail Pothour  18:44

I actually did try it one year. Someone convinced me to try it. They said they're so good. You can fry him and they're great. So I did grow them. And I did hear that, you know, occasionally you'll get a hot one. Well, every one I had was hot. And I read somewhere where they say you have to be sure to pick them when they're small. If they start getting larger, they'll all be hot. So I've not tried them since.

Farmer Fred  19:07

that's a good tip to have. All right, now we come to number nine on the list of the 10 most popular garden vegetables and it's a cool season crop in California. If you live in a very mild climate, or the Bay area of California, you can certainly grow all the lettuce varieties you want. And I can I can see why people grow lettuce and I hope that you try something different than Iceberg. Iceberg, to me, is the least nutritious, colorless, tasteless, lettuce that has fallen into mass marketing. There's a lot of leaf lettuce varieties that are so much tastier and also can withstand heat better than Iceberg.

Gail Pothour  19:50

Yeah, I was gonna say Iceberg doesn't do that well in the Sacramento area. We're too hot. And so we generally recommend gardeners to try looseleaf or romaine or  one of the butterhead types. But if you need to have an Iceberg, pick that up at the store, don't try growing it. It won't do that well here.

Farmer Fred  20:08

Yeah, it's a waste of space. As a matter of fact, I have been on a lifelong garden search for a lettuce variety, a loose leaf lettuce variety, that can take the heat. Some are better than others as far as getting through July, perhaps. But it seems like when July turns into August, they all start bolting.

Gail Pothour  20:27

Right. And actually, several years ago, we did an experiment two years in a row at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center. Because we get this question a lot, “Why can't I grow lettuce in the summer?”. So we thought okay, let's find some varieties, and grow them through the heat of summer and see how they do. First off, you need to start with some varieties that are heat resistant, like Jericho that was bred in Israel, so it's a little more heat resistant. And we tried half dozen or so different varieties we monitored when we planted them, how many weeks it was before they started bolting. Some did better than others. Some did pretty well. But what we found is you need to mulch heavily to keep the moisture in, to keep them well watered, provide shade during their entire lifespan in the summer, and then be prepared as soon as one starts to bolt, take it out and then replant with another transplant. So kind of a succession planting. It is possible but it's a lot of work. It takes a lot of water and shading and monitoring. Not sure if it's worth it or not. Grow it in the shade if you have a shady location but often it's not just the sunlight, it is the heat and that’s true even in the shade in Sacramento. We can be fairly warm in the summertime. So it's a tough thing to do.

Farmer Fred  21:48

The closest green I found that can be grown year round and especially if you do it in the shade it does okay here, and that’s swiss chard.

Gail Pothour  21:57

right yeah, that can be grown year round. I have done it in an area of my yard where it got some afternoon shade in the summertime. And it was able to survive over summer. But yeah, any of the other leafy greens are going to be a little tough. One of my favorites or absolute favorite lettuce is called Pomegranate Crunch. It's a red romaine. And it is very good. I get it as pelleted seeds, which makes it a little bit easier to germinate. Lettuce can have a difficult time germinating. Lettuce does need light in order to germinate. So don't plant the seed too deeply. Pelleted seeds don't have that problem. But I think sometimes if people have difficulty getting lettuce to germinate, it’s because maybe they buried it too deep. It needs light. It's one of the few vegetables that needs to light to germinate.

Farmer Fred  22:52

And I believe it's one of those seeds that will not germinate in heat.

Gail Pothour  22:56

Right, right. If you tried sowing lettuce seed in the summer, maybe for a fall crop, it is difficult. If your soil temperatures are too warm, the lettuce seed can go dormant. So if you're also starting it indoors, whereas I use a heating mat to get a lot of my seeds to germinate, you don't use a heating mat for lettuce because the soil will be too warm and lettuce seed will go dormant in heat.

Farmer Fred  23:20

Some of the varieties that have been recommended as heat tolerant lettuces that I've grown over the years, and they're barely heat tolerant, are Black Seeded Simpson and Amish Deer tongue. They're pretty good. But like I said, they do eventually bolt. But  I think one good rule to remember is if you want lettuce to last in the yard as long as possible, grow loose leaf varieties, not head lettuce.

Gail Pothour  23:47

Right. And of the ones that we did in our heat tolerant trial, yhe ones that did well besides Jericho was Year Round Bronze. It's an oak leaf variety, and it was late to bolt in the summer so it actually did very well. Red Cross is a red butterhead, Merlot is a dark red leaf lettuce, and “Paradai”, a red oak leaf. That's one of my favorites, but I can no longer find seeds for it. And then Nevada. It's a green loose leaf, kind of a semi heading type. So all those did well as well as completely expected in our summer heat. So they did better than a lot of other varieties.

Farmer Fred  24:27

I'm glad you mentioned Nevada because I have grown that one before and it it was pretty good. But I think if you want a dependable green, do the Swiss chard.

Gail Pothour  24:35

right, I agree.

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Farmer Fred  24:41

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Top 10 Backyard Vegetables, Part 2 Ch. 3

Farmer Fred  26:06

Well, let's wrap this up with the number 10 most popular garden vegetable grown, according to the National Garden Association and the Rapid City Journal, the Rapid City, South Dakota Journal newspaper. It’s peas.  I'm looking out my window here, out through the abutilon jungle, and looking at what I have growing in barrels, and I've got some Oregon Sugar Pod peas on their last legs.

Gail Pothour  26:30

It's getting toward the end of their life here, especially since I think we just hit our first 85 degrees or something after having so much rain and coolness. So peas are going to start struggling. I don't grow a lot of peas at home, but we grow them at the Horticulture Center and there's a new one that we're growing. It's an all America selection winner called Snack Hero. It's a relatively new winner. And it was amazing. It looks like the green beans. So it's more cylindrical, long and slender like a green bean, and about four inches long. And it was so tasty. We were snacking on the Snack Hero at our workday the other day, they've really good. It's not a tall plant, maybe a couple feet tall. So we have it growing up an old umbrella frame that we have collapsed down to make like a pyramid. And then we ran some strings of it. So it's growing on that. But it was an exceptional variety. Very tasty, not Woody or stringy, it also really sweet. It’s called Snack Hero.

Farmer Fred  27:36

When did you plant that?

Gail Pothour  27:37

They planted that when I was out of town. So it was probably in October, maybe.

Farmer Fred  27:43

So it is a cool season pea.

Gail Pothour  27:45

Right. Yeah. And then we have another variety of snap pea growing up an umbrella frame that we've opened up and then run strings, you can run strings up or some kind of nets for them to grow up on. So a lot of peas are vining types so they need some kind of support. So that's one way to use up your old umbrella if the canvas is torn, you know growing up an umbrella frame.

Farmer Fred  28:10

There you go. The 10 most popular garden vegetables, from tomatoes to cucumbers, sweet peppers, beans, carrots, summer squash, onions, hot peppers, lettuce, and peas. By the way, with peas: do you soak the seeds before you plant them?

Gail Pothour  28:27

I don't know if we soak them or not, since I wasn’t here. But you can. That's a good way to get them to germinate. Soak them overnight, I've heard. But I don't know if if they'd need to be soaked that long.

Farmer Fred  28:39

Usually six hours or so is plenty, in lukewarm water. Now you had mentioned before we started that you were disappointed that melons didn't make the top 10 list. I'm disappointed beets didn't make the top 10 list.

Gail Pothour  28:53

Yeah, I'm surprised at that as well. I thought beets would be on as well. I guess it depends on the list. I've seen several top 10 lists and they've even had potatoes on them, different things. So it just depends on which list you're looking at. But if I had to pick between only two things to grow. It'd be tomatoes and melons, I think.

Farmer Fred  29:13

And what what I like about beets is similar to something my uncle Hubert used to say back on the family farm in Beach, North Dakota. He raised pigs, and he was fond of saying, “we use all parts of the pig except the oink”. And beets are like that, because the entire plant is edible.

Gail Pothour  29:33

Oh yeah, I do beets as microgreens. . So eat the tops all the time.

Farmer Fred  29:37

And the leaves this time of year are flush and make great salad material.

Gail Pothour  29:45

Absolutely. Okay, well, my favorite melon is a musk melon, what we call cantaloupes here in the US. It is Sarah's Choice, and one called Divergent.  I think those are my two favorites now. They're just so sweet and they're wonderful. So I'm growing them this year as always.

Farmer Fred  30:07

My favorite beet variety to grow, because it reminds me of something psychedelic, is the Chiggia beet. It has that concentric red ring throughout the entire middle.

Gail Pothour

Like a bullseye.

Farmer Fred

Yeah, and it's delicious, too.

Gail Pothour  30:22

Yeah, I'm not a big beet fan, but I've learned to eat them. But if I grow them, I like to grow the golden beets. They're not as “beety”, I guess that's the word. So they're a little milder. But if I'm growing microgreens  for the tops, I grow Bull's blood. It’s real good for the tops.

Farmer Fred  30:43

And do you wear an apron during all this?

Gail Pothour  30:46

You have to because you get that red all over you you know.

Farmer Fred  30:50

Gail Pothour, we have offered people a short, sweet education on growing home vegetables, and I hope more people try it this year.

Gail Pothour  31:00

We have, and it was fun. I enjoyed it.

BEYOND THE GARDEN BASICS NEWSLETTER

Farmer Fred  31:08

How many of you directly feed your plants - both indoor and outdoor plants - with human foods, such as milk, sugar, coffee grounds, egg shells and more? Are you doing your plants any good? Now, composting food scraps so that they break down into basic elements is a different story. I’m talking about pouring milk or Gatorade directly around your plants, or topping the soil with coffee grounds.

In today’s Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter, we talk with Robert Pavlis, author of the Garden Myths dot com website. He explains what happens to your plants and your soil when you do that. And it’s not necessarily a good thing.

And he also talks about what he feeds his in-ground plants. And it isn’t commercial fertilizers.

For current newsletter subscribers, look for the issue entitled, “Can Human Food Also Be Plant Food?” If you are already a subscriber, it’s probably in your email, waiting for you now.  Or, you can start a subscription, it’s free! Find the link to the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter in today’s show notes, or at Substack. Or, sign up at the newsletter link at our homepage, gardenbasics dot net.

BENEFITS OF COMPOSTING AND MULCHING

Farmer Fred

On next week’s Garden Basics podcast, Episode 265, we will talk with organic gardening educator and consultant Steve Zien about Irrigation Basics, especially explaining when to water your garden and how to figure that out. And a big part of watering your garden effectively is having soil that has the right mix of soil, air and water for your plant roots to live and thrive in. You want soil that drains well, and yet retain moisture for a longer period of time. That may sound like a contradiction, but it is achievable. Right now, Steve explains how the addition of compost and mulch to your garden beds can help you reach that goal.

Farmer Fred  33:15

What are some of the benefits of mulching and composting for the soil?

Steve Zien  33:18

Compost and mulch should be just placed on the surface, you should not till it in. When you're tilling the soil you're killing a lot of the soil biology, killing the worms, you're destroying the soil structure which is the different sized pore spaces. It ends up compacting the soil so you put mulch, worm castings, compost just right on top of the soil surface. The rains, the irrigation will help break it down and percolate it into the soil.  And the soil biology, in particular worms, will come and help. Worms will come up to the soil surface every night, feed on that material and then go back down into the soil acting as Mother Nature's rototiller and it's that organic material that improves the quality of your soil, makes it more like a sponge and it helps hold the nutrients and hold the moisture and it's the food source it's the energy source for the soil biology. The soil biology is what makes your soil function, it creates those large pore spaces when it's creating soil structure so that  the roots can grow easily, so that you can transplant easily. So the soil biology can move so the nutrients and water can move. So you need that food for the soil biology and you don't have to till it in. You just put it on a soil surface. But you do want to keep it a little bit away from the stems of your plants. Your plants are not adapted to having wet, moist conditions which is what you will have in that mulch or compost layer on the soil surface. If something is up against the stem of your plant, it can start to cause rotting conditions. The base of your plant will rot and  your plant will fall over.

Farmer Fred  34:58

Back East that is called a mulch volcano, so you want to just lightly scrape away all those ingredients away from the trunks of your plants, only by an inch or so, just to give the plant a chance to breathe. Now on my raised beds, I have a more complicated formula for making my own soil lasagna. At the end of the season, I will cut off my tomato plants and pepper plants and zucchini plants at the soil level. And I'll  chop that up and feed it to the worms in the worm bins. I leave the roots of those plants in the soil. Then I'll take a thin layer of worm castings and spread that over the entire bed. And I'll rake it in lightly, just  with a metal rake, just lightly rake it in. And then I'll throw an inch or two a compost on top of that. And then on top of that, I place the shredded oak leaves from my neighbor's tree. It’s all about three to four inches deep. So you basically have sort of like a thick mulch layer that  will slowly break down during the winter, be washed into the soil with the winter rains. And then come spring, you start digging in your soil, you go wow, this is great soil, look at all the earthworms!  They're smiling! It works. It really does.

Steve Zien  36:10

And you're saying well, I want to have a vegetable garden next year. If you do that, what you what you just said, in fall, your soil will appreciate it. It could be really, really hard and really nasty. And you think you’ll never going to be able to garden in there. And you do what you just said, people will be amazed at how nice that soil will be, come spring.

Farmer Fred  36:33

Oh, and it's just a joy to dig in. I mean, if you're trying to dig a deep hole to plant a tomato plant that's brand new, and perhaps cover up some of the stem as well, the soil just digs so easy. It's just so nice. And the reason for keeping those old root systems in from last year’s summer vegetables: they're going to break down in the soil and they're going to provide even more nutrients for the soil biology.

Steve Zien  36:55

Not only do they do that, but the space in your soil where those roots were, when they decompose, they're going to shrivel up and basically almost disappear, volume wise, and then you will have nice channels for water, air, nutrients or new roots to move through your soil.

Farmer Fred  37:16

Yeah, it's really not as much work as you think. As I've been telling people for years and years if you have this hankering to spend $1,000 on a rototiller, don’t. Spend it instead on a chipper shredder. You can find that for less money as well. That chipper shredder is going to make garden gold for you.

Steve Zien  37:36

Exactly. Yeah, we really don't want to till the soil, there's really no reason to till the soil. The only time you should work the soil is when you're transplanting. Instead, just put all the compost, put all the fertilizer, put all of the soil amendments, right on the soil surface. Have you ever gone out in the forest or out in the prairie? Have you ever seen Mother Nature tilling? She doesn't do it. She doesn't rake leaves either. Yeah. Why do they call them leaves? Because you're supposed to leave them on the ground. Yes, indeed.

Farmer Fred  38:06

There you go. And if memory serves me correctly, you have a class coming up on mulching and composting.

Steve Zien  38:13

Mulching and composting. The class I've got coming up is on Thursday, May 11. From noon to one Pacific Daylight Time. It's called “Colossal Compost, Miraculous Mulch and Spectacular Soil.” When  I think of a compost, I would add worm castings to that. Because that's basically worm compost. And add mulch. They're the energy source, the food source for the soil biology that makes the nutrients available and basically feeds the plants. to sign up for this class, go to chwd.org/community/#classes .

Farmer Fred  38:52

I'll have that link in today's show notes, folks.  Now that is a live Zoomer on Thursday, May 11. What was the time again?

Steve Zien  39:19

And it's free, noon to one.

Farmer Fred  39:20

Pacific Time.

Steve Zien  39:22

Pacific time. And that  class will be posted on their website, the same website, a couple of weeks after the class.

Farmer Fred  39:30

All right. So it will be up there for everybody to enjoy after the fact. All right. So again, it's Steve talking composting, mulching and he ought to know. I wouldn't say he invented it, but he’s been getting the word out for decades and more and more people are doing it and having more and more success with their gardens here in Northern California. All right, Steve Zien. Thanks so much.

Steve Zien  40:03

It's been fun as always, Fred

FLASHBACK EPISODE 007: FEED YOUR SOIL, NOT YOUR PLANTS

Farmer Fred  40:14

Quit fertilizing your plants! Feed your soil instead. 
That was the topic way back in May of 2020, in Episode 7 of the Garden Basics podcast , a very popular episode that goes deep into what makes for a successful plant. That’s today’s Flashback Episode of the Week.

If you think plant roots are sucking up the liquid or granular fertilizer that you’re pouring on them, think again. Plant roots aren’t straws. Instead there are billions of microscopic beneficial fungi and bacteria in the soil that are converting those fertilizers into a usable form for the plant, and delivering the finished product to the plant roots. The better you treat those beneficial critters, the healthier will be your plants. It’s all about the soil.

Back in  Episode 7, we talked with Giselle Schoniger of Kellogg Garden Products about how this process works, and actually how easy it is to improve your soil, and your plants. Also in Episode 7, We talked about why you should spend your money on a chipper/shredder instead of a rototiller, and how that rototiller can damage your soil.

Are your winter greens and cool season vegetables like broccoli and cauiliflower starting to bolt, turning bitter and uneatable? America’s favorite retired college horticulture  professor, Debbie Flower, explains why that happens. But there is a very beneficial side to all that bolting, a result that can actually reduce your garden pest problems.

Give a listen to our Flashback Episode of the week, Number 7, Feed Your Soil, Not your plants, from May of 2020. Go to your favorite podcast outlet and do a search for Episode 7 of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. It’s entitled, “Feed Your Soil, Not Your Plants”.  You can also find the podcast, as well as a transcript, at our home page, garden basics dot net.

Farmer Fred  42:15

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.