281 Cool Season Organic Garden Basics

Show Transcript

GB 281 Cool Season Organic Garden Soil Tips, Tomato Worms TRANSCRIPT

Farmer Fred

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

We’re releasing this episode on Labor Day weekend, a time when a gardener’s thoughts turn to late summer and early fall chores. If you have or want an organic garden, you’ll want to hear what organic garden educator Steve Zien has to say about having the best cool season organic garden in your neighborhood.

Of course, it’s still late summer, and that includes ongoing control of warm weather pests, such as that ravenous caterpillar, the tomato worm. America’s favorite retired college horticulture professor, Debbie Flower, has tips for controlling tomato hornworms, tomato fruit worms and tomato pinworms.

It’s all right here, in episode number 281, Cool Season Organic 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, and Dave Wilson Nursery. Let’s go!

Farmer Fred

well, it's the change of seasons (kind of) and you might be ripping out your summer vegetable garden. goodbye tomatoes, squash and peppers. Hello broccoli, cauliflower, peas and whatever. But before you add your cool season vegetables to your garden... What about your soil? That would be what my guest would tell you. Steve Zien pedologist/ soil expert. We've talked before with Steve and one of the most popular episodes in the garden basics series has been where he's talked about feeding your soil. And Steve, as people change over the seasons to cool season just like they would change into the spring season in March or April. This time of year, You got to feed the soil because taking out plants and putting in other plants...well, those new plants may be getting off to a weaker start unless you did something to the soil first.

Steve Zien

Yeah, exactly. And you know, you got to realize why do people when they're when they're thinking about, you know putting things down for the soil and to the soil for feeding the plants, what we have to realize is that the soil is alive. teaspoon of soil contains more microscopic organisms than there are people on earth. And it's these organisms that nurture your plants. They provide water, nutrients, and even pest management. And if you've got clay soil and I suspect a few of your listeners have clay soils, these are the organisms that create soil structure that will open up that clay soil so that water and air and nutrients and roots and everything can move through and function and they actually glue this sand, silt and clay particles together and create a diversity of forms. spaces so that you have these large pore spaces where air will exist in the soil without those large pore spaces. You don't have any air and people have a lot of problems with their soil. You know, the goal of fertilizing and amending the soil is to create this healthy soil. You want to feed the living soil. we want to get away from the whole idea of feeding the plant. It's  all about creating a favorable environment for the soil biology because that's what takes care of your plant.

Farmer Fred

Now most gardeners would think okay, I'm taking out my summer vegetable garden. I know those plants used up a lot of nitrogen so all I need to do is just add some nitrogen fertilizer and everything will be fine. In reality, if you did that, what would happen?

Steve Zien

Not much. Especially depending upon what kind of fertilizer you use, what you just talked about, actually when I was in Ag school 3000 years ago, that's what we were taught, but they did not realize at that point that this or it was alive and we need to feed the soil. And one of the things that that you have to realize is that soil biology eat the most of this organic matter. And so you need to put in organic matter and you do that not by tilling the soil. tilling the soil destroys the soil structure, and actually ends up compacting the soil and kills the soil biology. So you just want to put these things on the soil surface. the best things that you can put down are worm castings, those are my favorite, especially if you got clay soils because they contain a lot of different kinds of soil biology; and compost, just put it on top of the soil. And then as you irrigate this time of year because we still have to irrigate and then later on in the season when we get rains, the rains and the irrigation will work that organic matter into the soil. Also, by putting that organic matter on the soil surface, worms will come up every single night and feed on that material and go back down in the morning. And they'll act as mother nature's rototillers. And so they're gonna, you know, that organic material - the compost and the worm castings - will eventually disappear because it's going to be going into the soil, feeding the soil biology and when you see that gone, it's time to add more.

Farmer Fred

What is missing from soil at the end of a growing season?

Steve Zien

Nitrogen is certainly one of them. And so you do want to add some sort of nitrogen source where ideally what I like to try and recommend people to do is do a soil test. Ideally, you send your soil off to a lab and you get a full analysis but that's more expensive and more complicated than a lot of people want to do. But you can go to your local nursery, and they have soil test kits that are Relatively accurate, accurate enough for our purposes and they will test the nitrogen, phosphorus, potash and the pH and then you will need to know whether you need to add more nitrogen phosphorus potash and or adjust the pH of your soil.

Farmer Fred

Let's explain those terms before we go any further. I always thought our friend Gisele Schoniger of Kellogg Garden Products always put it best when explaining the roles of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.

Steve Zien

She would say, I like her little her little poem.

Farmer Fred

I don't remember the poem, but  for NPK, The three letters  represent up, down, and all around, that's the poem. Nitrogen gives you leafy green growth. The  phosphorus improves the root structure of the plant.

Steve Zien

Yes, phosphorus is also important in flower and fruit development..

Farmer Fred

And then The K, the potassium, is basically for all around vigor and health.

Steve Zien

Yeah, it helps all of the various functions of the plant operate properly.

Farmer Fred

And pH is this interesting concept. It's short for percent hydrogen. And it refers to the acidity or alkalinity of the soil, which I've tried to explain to people that for all those soil critters down there that are feeding your plants, these are the tunnels they run through to get to the plants and the size of that tunnel for them to run through is determined by the pH of the soil,

Steve Zien

right. And and the you know, the, the pH  where that funnel is widest where the where the plants can get the most nutrients available, you know,  that works for them is when the pH is roughly somewhere in the vicinity of like 6.2 or 6.3, or maybe even 6.4 to about seven which is actually 6.8

Farmer Fred

slightly acid to neutral, basically

Steve Zien

right. And the problem was with most of our soils in this area because I I've done lots of soil tests over the years

Farmer Fred

this area being the United states of America.

Steve Zien

no in the Sacramento region, all right, most of them but they they in the Sacramento region, most of them are above 7.0. or 7.2, and so that's a little alkaline and that does restrict some of the nutrients and in particular iron. And a lot of people in springtime  their leaves, especially on their acid loving plants, turn yellow, and so they will go to the local nursery and say, you know, my gardenias or my blueberries, the leaves are turning yellow. And one of the issues is that the pH is just too high and the iron isn't available. in Almost all of the soil tests that I've done again, in this area, there's plenty of iron in the soil, it's just not available, because the pH is too high. And so what I've been trying, I work with an organization called "our water our world". And we tried to educate the nursery folks on how to minimize the use of pesticides for their client. And one of the things that we saw that people were having problems with with is this yellowing of the acid loving plants due to the high pH. And a lot of times people would just recommend iron and the nursery folks, we just recommend iron, all your plants are deficient in iron, you need to add iron to your soil. And the fact of the matter is there's plenty of iron in the soil. And so what I tried to convince them to do is tell them to buy a pH test kit. Let them test the pH  of their soil and then they need to adjust the pH of their soil.

Farmer Fred

So what do you add to soil to bring down that pH number?

Steve Zien

some of the things and some of these include soybean meal, which would add nitrogen, fish hydrolyzate, which is similar to fish emulsion, it just manufactured a little different, you actually get more bang for your buck. compost made with a lot of brown material. earthworm castings, and paper, cardboard, cellulose, you can, you know, chop it up and just put it on the soil surface. Again, you're not mixing this stuff  in the soil, you just putting it on.

Farmer Fred

You know, what you're describing could also be called mulch as well. So if you put a woody mulch on the surface of your soil year round, you're going to have a more balanced soil.

Steve Zien

Yes.

Farmer Fred

talk about that.

Steve Zien

Well, people, you know, get these woodchips and I really Like the woodchips because they have a diversity of particle size. And so the small particles break down and enter the soil very, very quickly and start nourishing the soil biology, which then starts nourishing your plant then in the bigger plate pieces last a little longer. And we'll provide the cooling effect in the summertime the warming effect in the wintertime. And conservator helps conserve moisture in the soil as well.

Farmer Fred

And in fact, if you keep a four inch layer of natural mulch like that, and that could be the chipped/shredded tree parts from your local arborist as well, right? Yeah, by keeping that mulch on the soil, you are feeding the soil year round, which may mean you don't have to use as much fertilizer as you may be used to.

Steve Zien

Exactly.

Farmer Fred

All right, so we've covered how to  lower the pH. Now, for our friends listening where soils are naturally acidic. It's a low number they're always dealing with. Okay, how do we raise the pH to get it more towards neutral? How do you raise the pH?

Steve Zien

That's actually much easier. One thing that you can use is wood ash. Normally for our soils, you don't want to add wood ash because like I said, most of our soils the pH is right on but you can also if you're trying to raise the pH you can use different forms of lime. Oystershell lime, and ground limestone work very, very well. There's also material called dolomite lime and in our area I generally don't recommend that goes in all the soils. test that I did. Most of the soils have very high to excessive amounts of magnesium and dolomite has not only lime but it also has magnesium and so it's adding more magnesium to a soil that probably has too much already. So you're better off with with your Oystershell lime  and you can get that at at any nursery. you can also use compost that has a lot of green materials, aged compost indoors, grass clippings, but make sure to don't put them down to fit or they will mat up,

Farmer Fred

dry them out.

Steve Zien

Pardon me?

Farmer Fred

pardon you. let them dry. Let them dry out first.

Steve Zien

Yeah, that's a good idea. I mean, because it's the soil biology again that  you know, helps a lot in the raising of the pH or lowering the pH it's the fungi and what you're trying to do when you're trying to lower the pH you're trying to feed the fungi because they put out acid materials when they're doing their thing, and then the bacteria, the excretions from the bacteria will help to raise the pH and so you're basically by adding these various things trying to get either back more bacteria or more fungi, active in your soil. It's all about the soil biology.

Farmer Fred

Let's go back to adding ashes to the soil which can make your soil more alkaline. A couple of words of warning about that, especially if your soil is already near neutral or or is already alkaline. If you're going to add ash from the woodstove, you would only want to add I believe, one pound per 100 square feet in order to bring it up gradually.

Steve Zien

before you add any wood ash as you need to test the pH and you can go to your local nursery and they sell just pH test kits. They're very inexpensive. And I would say if your pH is  6.7 or above, don't use wood ash. It makes a great present for your gardening friends that live back East because they have acidic soil.

Farmer Fred

Alright, but now having established that, what about ash from the barbecue?

Steve Zien

depending upon what they're using. if you're using you know the briquettes, which most people do, I certainly would not use that.

Farmer Fred

because there's other stuff in there. You don't want it to go in the soil.

Steve Zien

Yeah. And I use mesquite and when I barbecue and if my Ph was such that the wood ash would be appropriate which it is not, I wouldn't mind using that. but because my pH is high enough, I don't want to raise it anymore. I dispose of the wood ash. Basically don't use charcoal briquette ash in your garden? Definitely not. All right.

Farmer Fred

Question came in, right up your alley, and also pertinent to what we're talking about here, it's an email from Kathy who says, "I have a question about my fall planting boxes. Is it okay for them to be resting in an unwatered state? If the beds are empty, should you still be watering them?"

Steve Zien

You know, that kind of depends. I mean, it's helpful to  keep the soil biology alive and active. What I would do is put down a mulch, again, my favorite is worm castings, or compost, and then you know, water occasionally. keep that soil somewhat moist and active. In if you've got a raised bed or box and you've got worms in there, those would probably die. most of the soil biology  would probably go dormant but it would take them a little while to come back. So if it's just going to be for a couple of weeks, or maybe a month, I would probably keep it moist.

Farmer Fred

And of course, if you live in an area that gets summer rain, you don't have to pay attention to what we're saying. But, if you live in an area where it never rains in the summertime, or it's so seldom that people take a holiday when it happens, basically, it needs to get moistened and fairly thoroughly moistened, too. I don't think a drip system in a raised bed turned on is going to thoroughly saturate the soil, I think you'd be better off setting up a sprinkler inside of it, and thoroughly saturating the soil that way. And if  it's been dry for any length of time, at least a week or so before you plant your cool season crops, man, oh man, put that sprinkler on and let it water and make sure that that water has penetrated the full depth of the bed or at least eight to 12 inches.

Steve Zien

Yeah, I personally I think if you've got your drip system set up properly, the drip system will work just fine. Just you've got to make sure to leave it on long enough so that that water you know penetrates throughout that entire raised bed or box.

Farmer Fred

It depends as you would know, on the consistency of the soil. If it's a really a loose friable potting mix straight out of the bag that's in your raised beds, there's very little cross motion in that soil. And if you have drip emitters, it's going to be a very narrow cylinder of water that descends into the soil. Whereas in a garden bed that's  comprised of sand, silt and clay, that footprint of water from each emitter is going to be probably twice as wide as what it would be in a raised bed.

Steve Zien

Yeah, yeah. What you want to do whenever you irrigate, I mean, it's the only way to, in my opinion, to know how to irrigate when to irrigate, how much to irrigate. Which is basically how long and whether if you're using a drip system,to see  whether you're getting good coverage, and that's to dig into your soil and in your garden and landscape where you're dealing with soil. I think a soil probe is probably the better tool to utilize in a raised bed. They've got it what's called a Soil Sleuth. Both of them are available online. basically what you do is you put you push these things in the ground, you pull them out and there will be soil in these tools and you will actually be able to look at them and feel them to find out whether they are moist and by shoving them in various places. After you're done irrigating, you will be able to see whether you're getting the coverage like we were just talking about throughout that raised bed. And if not, then you're gonna want to you know, apply it over the top, like you were saying.

Farmer Fred

The soil sleuth is an interesting contraption. It is so simple to look at. It is ingenious in its design. It looks like a red candy cane. It's got notches. It's got notches along the inside of the long arm. And basically you just plunge that candy cane into the ground, give it a quarter turn, lift it out. And there are little pockets of soil on each of those notches that you can feel.

Steve Zien

Yeah, it's very, very cool and it works really really well in a loose soil. But  if you're putting it in the winter clay garden soil, it might be difficult. I use both I use both the soil sleuth and the and the soil probe.

Farmer Fred

Okay, explain how the soil probe works.

Steve Zien

The soil probe is basically  a tube and a portion of the side of it is like an open window and you push that in the ground give it a little twist and pull it out. And you will see the whole thing. There will be the whole column the soil will be there and you will be able to see whether those this soil is moist at various depths as far down as you pushed it in. and So what I generally tell people is you use this Soil probe to make sure before you irrigate, that the soil is dry enough where it merits irrigation because one of the biggest problems people have in areas where you have to irrigate a lot in the summertime because they don't get rain is the irrigate too frequently and so the soil stays too wet. Especially in  the Sacramento area where we get hot sun sunny days, the surface of the soil, if you water in the morning, by the time you get home from work that surface or if you don't have a mulch on, will be bone dry and people always think oh, I need to irrigate again. But if you would use your soil probe, you would find that when you go down an eighth of an inch and that soils probably moist if not wet, and so it will by putting it in the ground and pulling it out it will indicate when the soil is dry enough to merit irrigation, then how much irrigation Do you need. I tell people what with Typically water, half as long as you normally do, wait an hour, give gravity the chance to pull it down as far as it's going to go. Push the soil probe in the ground again, pull it out, and you will see how far down that that water has penetrated. And if it's gone down four inches, and you're the roots of your plants are going down to eight inches, you've got to double the amount of water. It does require a little bit of math.

Farmer Fred

We've learned a lot again from Steve Zien pedologist/soil expert, Steve, thanks for your time.

Steve Zien

Uhh, You're welcome. It's been fun.

SMART POTS!

Farmer Fred

I’m pretty picky about who I allow to advertise on this podcast. My criteria, though, is pretty simple: it has to be a product I like, a product I use, and a product I would buy again. Smart Pots checks all those boxes.

Smart Pots is the oldest, and still the best, of all the fabric plant containers that you might find. Smart Pots are sold around the world and are proudly made, 100%, here in the USA.

Smart Pots come in a wide array of sizes and colors, and can be reused year after year. Some models even have handles, to make them easier to move around the yard.

Because the fabric breathes, Smart Pots are better suited than plastic pots, especially for hot environments. That breathable fabric has other benefits, too. Water drainage issues? Not with Smart Pots. Roots that go round and round, chocking the rootball, like they do in plastic pots? Doesn’t happen with Smart Pots.

These benefits will help you get a bigger better plant than what you have gotten in the past with the same size plastic or other hard container.

Smart Pots are available at independent garden centers and select Ace and True Value hardware stores nationwide.

To find a store near you, or to buy online, visit smart pots dot com slash fred. And don’t forget that slash Fred part. On that page are details about how, for a limited time, you can get 10 percent off your Smart Pot order by using the coupon code, fred. f-r-e-d, at checkout from the Smart Pot Store.

Visit smartpots.com slash fred for more information about the complete line of Smart pots lightweight, colorful, award winning fabric containers and don’t forget that special Farmer Fred 10 percent discount. Smart Pots - the original, award winning fabric planter. Go to smart pots dot com slash fred.

BEYOND THE GARDEN BASICS NEWSLETTER/PODCAST DOGWOOD TREES

Farmer Fred

What does driving an old British sports car, dating a Kardashian, or growing dogwood trees have in common? They are all beautiful and fun, but high maintenance. In the latest issue of the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter, we try to lower the maintenance needs of your dogwood trees.

A dogwood tree is easy to love: it has flowers in the spring, beautiful orange/pink/red fall leaf color; and it’s the right size for suburban purgatory: a small to medium height tree, perfect for a patio area. But, the dogwood tree does have issues. And needs.

If you are already a Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter subscriber, it’s probably in your email, waiting for you right now. Or, you can start a subscription, it’s free! Find the link to the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter and podcast in today’s show notes, or on the Substack app. Or, you can sign up at the newsletter link at our homepage, gardenbasics dot net.

TOMATO WORM CONTROL TIPS

Farmer Fred

This time of year, we get a lot of questions about tomatoes, including one of our favorites, which is, “Who's eating my tomato plants?” Debbie Flower is here, America's favorite retired college horticultural professor. And usually when it comes down to strangers munching on tomatoes, it's something in the worm family, right? But it's not really a worm, it's a caterpillar.

Debbie Flower

Yes, it's the larva of a butterfly or a moth.

Farmer Fred

And there's more than one critter doing this. A lot of us think of the tomato hornworm or the tobacco hornworm. And the difference between those two is just the number of stripes on their back.  One has seven and one has eight.

Debbie Flower

Wow, I didn't know that.

Farmer Fred

Now all I got to do is remember which ones have seven and which ones have 8. If I recall correctly, the tomato hornworm has seven white horizontal stripes on its back and the tobacco hornworm has eight.

(Well, I should know better than try to remember something off the top of my head. According to the North Carolina State University, larval tobacco hornworms have seven diagonal stripes on each side and a red posterior horn, while larval tomato hornworms have eight chevron's on each side and a bluish black horn. It’s everything you've ever wanted to know about tomato hornworms!)

But they basically are doing the same thing. They're eating and pooping, they're very noticeable

Debbie Flower

Because they are big and green, but some can lean toward the brown color. They're the color of what they eat. And so in that sense, they disappear among the plant. So what you typically see is an area of the plant that is missing its leaves. Or the other thing you see is a collection of black poop. If you see it, look up the plants from there, because poop falls down. And the bigger the poop, the bigger than tomato hornworm. And the tomato hornworm can get up to four inches long.

Farmer Fred

They start off small though, and finding them when they're small is not easy. That's why it's always nice to have birds around.

Debbie Flower

Yes, birds like to eat them. I got in the habit at my last garden of checking the leaves of my tomatoes right around the Fourth of July. So for my climate, when I would have planted the tomatoes, would have been mid to late April. they were planted as young plants. They were small plants. Then in May and June, two and a half months later, I'm looking at the underneath of the leaves for little white eggs. They're just on the edge of the leaf but on the underside, and then I squash them. Those are the eggs of the tomato hornworm.

Farmer Fred

Are they laid singly?

Debbie Flower

They're laid singly. Yes.

Farmer Fred

And the moth that laid that egg is certainly an interesting variety. Some people call it the sphinx moth or a hummingbird moth. It's sort of a big, nondescript brown moth, that, if you like aromatic plants and you've planted Nicotiana, that's is its favorite plant. So  if you like tomatoes, and you have an aromatic garden somewhere nearby, you might want to keep nicotiana out of it.

Debbie Flower

Right. I know people who will not kill the tomato hornworm because they love that moth which flies at night. So if you don't spend time in your garden at night you may never see it.

Farmer Fred

The only way you're gonna catch that moth is when you see it emerging from the soil in late winter or early spring.

Debbie Flower

I have never seen that.

Farmer Fred

I have. It was like a gift from God.  I was preparing a raised bed to plant tomatoes and I was working the soil, this is the old days, I was double digging.

Debbie Flower

Oh yes. We don't do that anymore.

Farmer Fred

And double digging is a lot of work. I was double digging, then all of a sudden I saw the ground start vibrating.  And then this moth appeared. It was kind of wet looking and  small, but you could see it was trying to open its wings there on the surface. The sphinx moth. It had  that red football-like cocoon, sort of semi-attached to it, that was trying to break free from it.

Debbie Flower

Yeah, it’s kind of a mahogany color and shiny and has a pointed end.

Farmer Fred

Yeah, it looks like a football. And if you see them, throw them like a football, to the birds. But I saw those moths beginning to start its life. It's a miracle of life. And I stomped it with my shoe. I'm sorry, but I like my tomatoes more.

Debbie Flower

Yeah, they are the larva of moths and butterflies. They are in the teenage eating machine phase of their life. The moth lays an egg, that hatches into this larva. It's very small at first, and it gets bigger and bigger and bigger as it eats and eats and eats. And then it pupates. It gets into that football case. In some cases, the chrysalis does look different. But they themselves cover it up and go into a resting stage, often in the soil, and then often near the plant. Right, right. They just sort of dropped to the ground, and pupate. They create this case around them, and spend a resting period there. They're living off of the food that they have eaten as the larval stage. And then they convert, which to me, it's like a miracle. They convert from this wormy caterpillar into something that flies.

Farmer Fred

It is amazing, but they're not your best friend, you know, if  you like tomatoes. It's not uncommon, if you are tearing out your tomato plants at the end of the season, you just might dig up some of these brownish orangish football looking wombs. And like I say, That's bird food.

Debbie Flower

The birds do like it. Yes.

Farmer Fred

That's the lifecycle of the tomato hornworm. But there's a couple of other tomato worms that also are involved in eating, and their eating habits are a little different because the hornworm will munch on leaves, it'll munch on fruit. It's pretty indiscriminate as far as what it's going to be enjoying on that tomato plant. But then you've got like the fruit worm and the pinworm. Right now, what sort of damage do they do?

Debbie Flower

Well, the fruit worm is also called a corn ear worm. And these insects have