279 Fall Gardening Basics

Show Transcript

279 Fall Garden Basics TRANSCRIPT

Farmer Fred  0:00

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FALL GARDEN BASICS

Farmer Fred

Despite the triple digit temperatures of late August and early September, this is the time to be planning your fall garden, including starting the seeds of some of the healthiest, most nutritious vegetables that you can grow. America’s favorite retired college horticultural professor, Debbie Flower answers the fall garden questions of a college student who wants to try to grow a cool season garden for the first time.

And, nursery owner Don Shor talks about the best varieties of vegetables to try in your fall and winter garden. That interview was originally aired in September 2022.

It’s episode number 279, Fall Garden Basics.

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, Dave Wilson Nurseryand Heirloom Roses. Let’s go!

Farmer Fred

We like to answer your garden questions here on the Garden Basics podcast. Farmer Fred here. Debbie Flower is here, America's favorite retired college horticultural professor, you are here, right?

Debbie Flower  1:37

I am here. Good. Yes.

Farmer Fred  1:38

Let's answer some questions. Marina writes, and actually she texted us from Santa Cruz, California , which is along the coast. Santa Cruz is a wonderful beachfront city with a great old wooden roller coaster. But it is an area of the coast that has many climates because the ocean front is maybe one or two miles wide before it starts to go up hill immediately.

Debbie Flower  2:04

Right. very many different microclimates as a result.

Farmer Fred  2:09

And this will all make sense to you, when I tell you what Marina is asking. She says, “This fall I will be moving into a small apartment with some college friends, and plan to start my very first food garden to provide fresh produce for the four of us. I got some free seeds from my University of California Santa Cruz Life Lab garden internship, including bok choy, lettuce, spinach, arugula and radishes. I also got two onion varieties, parsley, larkspur, and stock to plant for the spring. I will only be living in the apartment for one year. So I'm looking for advice on small area, temporary, first time gardening strategies, including soil and containers, pest control, watering and what I should and should not plant. Thank you.

Debbie Flower  2:55

She doesn't ask for much at all there.

Farmer Fred  2:58

Well Marina, you know what I really liked. The fact  it's not fall yet. And she's already thinking about fall planting, as a good gardener should.

Debbie Flower  3:06

Yes, she's planning ahead. That's wonderful.

Farmer Fred  3:09

Yeah, and especially since it doesn't make sense at all that in the heat of the summer, you're actually could be starting your fall garden. But yes, you could. In a lot of situations you might be starting seeds indoors. The nurseries don't realize it's fall until about September or so, and then they'll start getting in the cool season plants. But seeds are out there already.  And for gardeners who like to try different varieties, and especially in the world of Chinese cabbages, such as the bok choy, there are just so many varieties that are worth trying. So you're off to a good start there Marina, by doing some planning. I think at the Garden Basics podcast, you could probably find some episodes that we've talked about in the past that you would find helpful. I know episode number 12, “Your first garden” could be helpful. Also, since this is a temporary garden, I imagine you'll be doing it in containers. I didn't see that though.

Debbie Flower  4:06

She's looking for advice on that, including soil and containers.

Farmer Fred  4:13

All right. So we don't know. It might be a mix of a small plot there at the apartment and containers. So there's that. We do have a good episode that we did on containers, Episode 256 called “Container Gardening Basics” that you may want to check out. I like her selection of easy to grow crops that she has. She has a lot of root crops and greens, and those are easy to grow.

Debbie Flower  4:37

Right. And she has them separated pretty much as they should be, for the seasons. The boy choi, lettuce, spinach, arugula, radishes, onion from seed. You've done that before. Start in fall.

Farmer Fred  4:49

Yes.

Debbie Flower  4:50

Parsley. larkspur, stock. Stock is a flower as is larkspur. They will definitely do well. I would plant them now for the fall also, but they could be a spring crop as well.

Farmer Fred  5:06

And with some crops you do get them started in the fall, even though the harvest might not be until much later. For me it was today with onions that I planted last October.

Debbie Flower

And you planted them from seed. So it does take a while.

Debbie Flower  5:23

Some crops do take awhile. So she's gonna be there a year, she should be able to get a crop out of those onions. But the first thing I thought about was location. Where should she grow these edibles and flowers? Many gardens that were started by first time gardeners were in full shade. And that's not going to work for these crops. So they need to be in a place to get six to eight hours of full sun. So unobstructed sun, no shade from a tree above or from the house or anything like that. But only six to eight hours out of the 24 hours that we call one day.

Farmer Fred  6:00

My concern with it being Santa Cruz would be marine influence, where your sunlight might be limited due to morning fog.

Debbie Flower  6:09

yes. And that that will. So if you have lots of fog, you need to double those hours. If it were foggy all day long, you would want them in a sunny place as sunny as you can get for 12 to 16 hours.

Farmer Fred  6:22

You should point out that's really only for certain crops. A lot of the greens that she suggested could be grown in the shade.

Debbie Flower  6:29

True. They can produce with less sun. Actually everything - the bok choy, lettuce, spinach, arugula, radishes - everything except the flowers. Cool season flowers can take less sun, the shorter end, the six hour end, of that sun exposure.

Farmer Fred  6:46

Good. Generally root crops aren't too picky.  So being that she was an intern at the UC Santa Cruz gardening lab,  she has a good start.

Debbie Flower  6:58

She knows some things. Yeah. So that's a good thing. So besides looking at the sun conditions, the other couple of things I like to think about when I'm locating a garden: is it near water? Because you're gonna have to water these now. Not as much as we may have to in the valley here. Because Santa Cruz is a foggy place. but she's still going to need to water them. And the plants should be someplace where you can see them on a regular basis from inside the house. So that you remember, “Oh, yeah, look, they're wilting. I better get out there and water.”

Farmer Fred  7:27

In an apartment house, it might be on your way from the car to the apartment,  to remind you to get out there and do something.

Debbie Flower  7:34

Or they might be on a deck or a patio.

Farmer Fred  7:37

And if you are in container, your least expensive source of a potting soil might be the bagged soil. I wouldn't use soil from the parking lot.

Debbie Flower  7:48

Correct. For a container, you want to use what's called soilless mix, right? And you can make your own. And that might require too many inputs for somebody who's going to move quickly, because you're going to need a big bag of several things. But if you make your own, it's a one to one to one ratio which means one part of an organic component, which would be peat moss or coir or compost. Then one part of a rock component, perlite or pumice or sand. And then one part of vermiculite. Vermiculite is kind of an unique product. And for me, I like to definitely include some vermiculite. And you mix them together and that's your media, then you'll need some nutrition.

Farmer Fred  8:31

And that would not be leftover beer. It sounds like it's a college apartment house.

Debbie Flower  8:35

or close to it. Yeah. Yeah, no, no beer. You want fertilizer. If you're using peat moss, you'll have to add a little bit of lime. Garden lime, the oyster shell lime, was one type to add to the mix to adjust your pH. But fertilizer is needed only once they have germinated from seed. They don't need fertilizer to germinate. But once they're growing, they will need nutrition, they will need fertilizer.

Farmer Fred  9:00

Being that Santa Cruz is a fairly organic place, I would think manure might be readily available. But I would be very cautious about your source of that manure. And what were those animals were treated with? And what was sprayed on the pasture they ate to control weeds?

Debbie Flower  9:18

Right. Were you thinking fresh manure?

Farmer Fred  9:22

I don't know.  I was thinking that there may be a petting zoo on the campus in Santa Cruz or something along those lines. I don't think they have a petting zoo. But you never know.

Debbie Flower  9:33

But cattle, chickens, goats all have that would be something you'd have to research. They have their horses too. Their manure all has different qualities to it. And yes, you need to know what they've been eating because what they've been eating is comes out in the poop and if they've been eating stuff that has been treated with herbicides that can also come out in the poop and can ruin your garden.

Farmer Fred  9:57

Yes, especially if it's fresh manure. And I would say that if you have availability to manure, probably the best place to put it would be in a hot compost bin.

Debbie Flower  10:09

And yes, and leave it for a while till the smell goes away and it has broken down.

Farmer Fred  10:15

So Marina, if you wanted to, you could give up your parking space there at the apartment house and convert it to a three bin composting system.

Debbie Flower  10:24

Oh, there you go. I thought you're gonna say you're gonna have the manure delivered there. I had that done in my driveway. When I first had a house in Portland, Oregon. And the guy who came with it was from a dairy farm. He didn't want to drop it off because I was at work.  Because apparently that's a joke people do: order manure for someone else's house. But he did. Eventually. My neighbor convinced him I was the type of person who would want this. Yes.

Farmer Fred  10:51

You know, one nice thing, though, if you had the space there to build a raised bed would be the ease with which you could attach a translucent top made of glass polyethylene or fiberglass and have a cold frame, just in case it gets a little too cold for whatever you might be growing in the wintertime.

Debbie Flower  11:13

Yes, you could trap some heat. You know, you could do it with containers, you would have to group them together, and then use a heat blanket, which is typically sold here. I'm thinking of Santa Cruz being so close to the ocean. I don't know how readily available that would be, but it certainly would be available mail order. Yeah. And when you use a heat blanket, and it's not that heavy, not as heavy as I think of blankets being it's, it's something different, you need to spread it all over the plants and all the way to the ground, because you're trapping the heat that's coming out of the ground. Now, if this is a second story apartment, and you're on a deck, it's not going to be as helpful.

Farmer Fred  11:52

When you say heat blanket, can I say frost cloth?

Debbie Flower  11:55

Yes, you can.

Farmer Fred  11:55

Okay. Same thing. Right? So, frost cloths come in different thicknesses. And I wouldn't get the lightest, but maybe one of the thicknesses that's in between that and the thickest one. For most mild areas those are sufficient, you're just looking for two to three degrees of protection. It doesn't take much. And  you may not need them, in fact, if they are in containers, you could probably bring him inside.

Debbie Flower  12:24

if you had to. Bring them closer to the house anyway. That gives them less exposure to the coldness outside.

Farmer Fred  12:30

All right. fertilizers. Yes, for a container you would have to because if you're watering it, you're also leaching out nutrients.

Debbie Flower  12:38

So your containers are going to have holes in the bottom, they have to have drainage, and the water is going to go through and out. And when you plant into the container, you want some what's called head room. Which means that the media does not come all the way to the top of the container, you have a half inch or an inch between the top of the media and the top of the container, so that when you water, you water thoroughly, meaning you fill up that whole headroom, that space between the media and the top of the container completely, and then let it go through. And you do that maybe again, so that you're getting some water out of the container. it's called the leaching fraction, some water out of the bottom of the container. And yes, it will contain nutrients that the plant has not used. And that's a good thing, because if those unused nutrients build up in the container, it raises the media's pH or alkalinity, and it can limit the growth of the plant.

Farmer Fred  13:32

As far as fertilizers go to replenish the plants. I like single digit fertilizers. By that I mean those three numbers you see on the front of the box or the bag or the bottle of fertilizer. They should be single digits, your nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium content. Like a 5-1-1, which is typical for fish emulsion. Or a triple four or something along those lines. You would have to do it probably more regularly than you would if it was planted in the ground. I have this nagging memory in the back of my head of creating a problem in an apartment, thousands of years ago, where I was watering plants on the little outside deck of my second story apartment and didn't think twice about where the water was going. Well, it's going to leave the pot and then where is it going to go? Oh, it's going to stick around the wood of that second story deck, which eventually rotted, right? So you might have to get pretty creative when it comes to thinking about how are you going to drain the water away.

Debbie Flower  14:35

Right?

Farmer Fred  14:36

And how are you going to protect the surfaces of something you don't own?

Debbie Flower  14:39

I like to have all my containers on a rolling platform. They sell smaller ones at the garden centers. They're not cheap. You can make your own out of wood.  Skateboards would work yeah. I like to have wheels on it so I can move the plant around easily. But I also liked that it lifts  the container and the platform off of the deck or whatever it is, so air can get underneath and that will help it dry out and prevent this rotting you're talking about. And then on top of that, I like to have a dish,  to collect the water because maybe my neighbor below is sitting on their deck and I'm watering and down comes this water. And then so it could be a cache pot with no holes. A pretty pot that you put around the outside of the planted container. Maybe the cache pot doesn't have drain holes, and allows whatever comes out the bottom to collect, but then you have to empty that water out of that where it's collected in the container under your grow pot. And a turkey baster works well for that purpose.

Farmer Fred  15:43

Yeah, that's a good idea too. But you just can't take that container of water that's draining there and throw it off your balcony.

Debbie Flower  15:51

Unless you really have a strong throw and can get very far away from any humans or other structures or vehicles nearby.

Farmer Fred  16:00

Marina was a little concerned too about pest problems, she wanted some tips for pest control. Fortunately for the fall and winter garden, it's not as bad as it would be if it was the spring in the summer, you'll probably get aphids.

Debbie Flower  16:13

That's where your discussion of a single digit fertilizer comes in. If you use too strong of a concentration of nitrogen, meaning that that number is not just a single digit or you apply that single digit fertilizer too often. Nitrogen is the first number in those three that are on a fertilizer bag. If you apply it too often, you get lots of green growth, but it's young and thin, and it is aphid candy, and you get so many aphids on it.

Farmer Fred  16:39

In a container garden, you could probably get away with just removing them by hand or a hard stream of water if you have access to a hose and it's not going to make everybody all wet. You have to be kind of careful when that goes. But I was thinking in terms of building the “good bug hotel” along with the vegetable garden too. And by putting in plants that attract beneficial insects.  And so I liked the idea that she had like larkspur and stock in there. But I would add some other winter bloomers that also attract beneficial winter bloomers. And of course now we're in Santa Cruz, you know what blooms in the wintertime in Santa Cruz? Australian plants. They have a wonderful botanical garden there. They have a beautiful Australian section, which is resplendent in December and January. But for annual flowers, probably calendulas. Thinking of flat, daisy-like flowers that might attract more of the good guys that you want.

Debbie Flower  17:43

Sweet alyssum. Sweet alyssum. That's easy. It grows year round and it's attractive to the beneficials that they need. Besides eating the aphids which is their protein meal, they need some sugar, and so they need to go to a flower that's going to give them some of its of its sap,  its nectar. And that's what they get through the flower.

Farmer Fred  17:57

I like that idea. Because sweet alyssum, if it's in a big enough pot, you could ring the pot, it would include the alyssum and whatever edible plant you'd have.

Debbie Flower  18:07

So the size of the pot is going to be important. It's something that you want to be able to move physically, but you don't want it to be too small. If it's too small, then the plant will be limited and it will become a very difficult plant to manage, because the roots will quickly fill it up, and you're gonna have to water all the time and it's gonna get crowded, and it's going to suffer. I like what we call fifteens (15 gallon container). A 15 is about 18 inches tall and wide approximately. They're black plastic, and that's a problem. But other things to use would be like half wine barrels, but you do have to drill half-inch to three-quarter inch holes in the bottom. The benefit of  those barrels: they have nice oak bottoms, and you can just screw the wheels into the bottom.

Farmer Fred

If they're big enough wheels.

Debbie Flower

if they're big enough wheels, yeah.

Farmer Fred  18:51

I would suggest if you're using a half barrel, use a furniture dolly.

Debbie Flower  18:57

Yes. You said that once before. That's a great idea.

Farmer Fred  19:00

There's a lot of winter bloomers that can be planted in Santa Cruz. I mean, if you go to your local nursery, or even a big box store, you're gonna see a fine selection of winter blooming annuals, but again, they're probably not going to get them in stock until September or October. And so those places are where you can buy seed and get started right away.

Debbie Flower  19:26

The sweet alyssum is very easy from seed, it comes in colors. And so you have the big pot you have maybe a crop of chard and I don't think she mentioned chard but that's a nice green to grow in the winter. And around the edges you have, or next to the chard plant, you have some sweet alyssum.

Farmer Fred  19:46

if this is all in containers, you can safely plant mint in a few pots to to attract beneficials and it's not going to get out of control.

Debbie Flower  19:53

But don't plant it with other things in the same container. The mint will take over.

Farmer Fred  19:58

But yeah, I like that idea of sweet alyssum.  I think that's a fine entry for the mild climate good bug hotel.

Debbie Flower  20:05

And  temperature in the container is not such a problem in Santa Cruz in the winter. But if she's starting now, let's say within the next month, those black grow pots could heat up tremendously. And so that causes the media to become very hot, temperatures of 140 degrees in as little as a half an hour have been recorded. And that means you've got dead roots. Wherever that part of the pot is being hit by sun, you need to prevent that. And to prevent that media from heating up, you can do a bunch of basic things, you can wrap it in that frost cloth we were talking about if you have any leftover.

Farmer Fred  20:42

Which is also good for pest control. Yes, like keeping them from landing in the first place.

Debbie Flower  20:47

They can't get to the plant. Secure the plant with some clothespins or tape, tape it around the pot, you can put aluminum foil on the sunny side of the pot, and it will reflect the sun off, you can get some spray paint and I've done this with students and just clean the pot off with a nice rag and then spray that side that's going to be facing the sun or spray the whole thing. So you have options. And that reflects enough light that it doesn't allow the roots to get that hot.

Farmer Fred  21:11

Your favorite colors?

Debbie Flower  21:12

We used light colors, but I got silver and gold and white and pink and yellow and let them do whatever they wanted on their pot.

Farmer Fred  21:22

Okay. Did it bring down the soil temperature? Since you were teaching a class, there had to be soil thermometers involved in this?

Debbie Flower  21:28

No, there weren't, unfortunately, oh, yeah, that would have been a good check. But nothing burned.

Farmer Fred  21:35

Okay. All right. That's good. I think really, the big question though, is Marina, are your food habits the same as the people you're living with? Will it be their food habits as well? In other words, you want to plant food crops that everybody is going to enjoy.

Debbie Flower  21:49

Right. That you're actually going to eat.

Farmer Fred  21:51

You don't want to waste them. Unless you could have a worm bin inside. you could feed them the leftovers. But Marina is off to a good start here. And I think she will be successful.

Debbie Flower  22:03

I think so too. Just don't do too much, too fast.

Farmer Fred  22:06

All right, Marina. Thanks for writing in. Debbie. Thanks for your help.

Debbie Flower  22:09

Oh, I'm pleased to have helped Fred.

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BEYOND THE GARDEN BASICS NEWSLETTER/PODCAST: JAPANESE MAPLE TREE CARE TIPS

Farmer Fred

If you have a Japanese maple tree, you may notice that some of the leaves may be looking rather brown and crinkled now. Welcome to late summer, when the onslaught of heat may be causing the leaves of your Japanese maple tree to suffer. This week’s Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter and podcast is all about summertime care of Japanese maple trees, along with information about the varieties that do best in the sun and the heat.

It’s Japanese Maples versus Summer Heat.

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COOL SEASON VEG TIPS

Farmer Fred  24:14

It's cool season vegetable time for much of the country. that would be USDA zones 9-8-7 and six if you feel real, real lucky, but let's just concentrate on the warmer areas, let's say south of the Mason Dixon line, along with most of the West Coast and getting into Arizona and probably parts of Texas and Florida, Of course. So let's talk to somebody who's very familiar with cool season vegetables: nursery owner, Don Shor owns Redwood Barn Nursery in Davis (CA), and Don it's cool season vegetable time, and there's a lot to choose from and I hope people don't give up after their summer garden. Maybe they're already tired of tomatoes and squash, they've already started ripping it out. You can put in crops that will do well in the cooler weather ahead.

Don Shor  24:59

It's a funny time of year here because our summer vegetables are still going along strong, but it's a good time to get started on broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, a lot of those things that we grow and harvest in the cool season, but they need a good lead-in.

Farmer Fred  25:15

The first thing people have to do is either plant from seed or pick out the plants and one of the easier things to do is to pick out the plants. go to your favorite local independent nursery. Your local independent nursery is always a good place to shop for plants, because they're going to carry the varieties that are known to do well in your particular area. Yeah, and for instance, here in Northern California, Don, what would you have in stock now is in the way of cool season vegetables for people in Northern California.

Don Shor  25:43

We've just started bringing in broccoli, cauliflower, romanesco of the different types of cabbage, napa cabbage, regular headed cabbages, and we have the very first of the leafy greens, lettuces, spinach, and we always have swiss chard. There's things you can plant now all the way through November here in our area, and many of those are planted again in late winter, early spring, depending on where you're listening. But right now, end of August early September is really the beginning of the planting season for a lot of these things for most of The zones you talked about.

Farmer Fred  26:16

And for those who may be wondering, what the heck is Romanesco?

Don Shor  26:20

Well, that's a little controversial, but it's usually described as a type of cauliflower. But to me it looks more like broccoli. And it's  fascinating looking. Everyone should grow it once. It makes a huge plant, two to three feet across, makes an enormous head with a fractal pattern, you can look up Fibonacci patterns. This is great for those of you who are homeschooling kids right now. And it's a very tender broccoli like flowerhead that sort of resembles cauliflower and texture but broccoli and flavor.

Farmer Fred  27:06

What about the containerizing these plants? Do many of them take well to containers?

Don Shor  27:11

I do that and I use large containers. I use anything from a seven to a 15 gallon size, you want at least half a cubic foot of potting soil, a cubic foots even better because these are plants with extensive root systems and they don't want to get drought stress. It's very important with all the cole crops, things like that, but they have a good root volume. If you