283 Master Gardener Fall Preparation Tips; Old Pesticides

Show Transcript

GB 283 TRANSCRIPT Fall Garden Prep. Old Pesticides

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

We are about a week away from the official beginning of Autumn. Is your garden ready for the transition to shorter days, more moderate temperatures, and cool season fruits and vegetables? Today, we talk with four Master Gardeners about several aspects of your backyard paradise.

Taking out tomato plants? We have suggestions for what to do with all those tomatoes still on the plants!

Before you plant your fall and winter vegetables and flowers, we get tips on reinvigorating your soil after you remove your summer crops.

Fall is a great time to enjoy what may be the last flush of flowers on your rose bushes. We tell you what you should be doing to them to get them ready for a bloomtastic 2024.

Your fruit trees, both the deciduous and evergreen shrubs and trees, need special attention in early Autumn to stave off pests and diseases and reinvigorate them for their next harvest. We get the do’s and don’t of fall fruit tree care.

And, America’s Favorite Retired College Horticulture Professor, Debbie Flower, says: check those garden pesticides that have been around the garage for several years. Some of them may be useless, or even dangerous.

It’s all right here, in episode number 283,  Fall Garden Preparation; and, How Long Can You Store Pesticides?

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!

FALL VEGETABLE GARDEN PREPARATION

Farmer Fred

We're here at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center, in the vegetable section.  And because of the time of the year, as summer transitions into fall, there's a lot of work going on here as the judgment goes on as far as which plants to take out and which plants to keep harvesting. We're talking with Master Gardener and vegetable expert extraordinaire Gail Pothour. Gail, when it comes to the transition of summer to fall gardening, I think one of the big problems that people have is they are thinking: “I’ve got all these plants! Where am I going to plant anything for the fall? Where am I going to put garlic or onions or broccoli or cauliflower? Sometimes you have to make some hard decisions.

Gail Pothour  2:46

Correct. And that's why it's a good idea to actually plan your fall garden when you plan your spring garden, because then you'll know what will be finished, for example, in September. And then you can start planning your fall garden. So you know, if you make a plan ahead of time, and know what will come out early so that you can put in your fall garden. Or, you just bite the bullet and just start taking plants out right now. I'm cutting back on our melons, we don't want it sending any more fruit because the plants are going to come out. So we want all the energy going into ripening the fruit that's on there. And then we'll take the melons out and begin putting in our winter garden.

Farmer Fred  3:19

So when it comes to pruning a plant to stop new production, but allow production of the existing plants to continue, what parts do you prune out?

Gail Pothour  3:27

Anything with the new growth and the flowers. So with the melons that I'm doing this morning, we don't want any new fruit to set. So I'm cutting off all the flowers  in the new growth and we do have some melons that are getting pretty close to ripening maybe in the next week or two. And that's what I want to have ripen in this warm sun that we have still in the summer. And then the plants come out. And I found that even if you baby the plants into fall, the melons don't tend to have a sweeter flavor because the days are getting shorter, even though we still have some warm weather. It's not the prolonged heat that we have in summer. So to me, it's not worth it.

Farmer Fred  4:03

After you take out a plant, but before you put in a new plant, what do you do with the soil?

Gail Pothour  4:08

We put in some Nutri-Rich, that happens to be the fertilizer of our choice. It's a pelleted chicken manure, but put in any kind of good organic fertilizer to replenish the soil because the summer crops have been heavy feeders and they've done a lot all through the hot hot summer so they've depleted the soil. So you need to put in some kind of fertilizer. Compost would be good. If you have worm castings, you could do that as well. Or you could even grow a cover crop, something that grows quickly. Buckwheat grows in about five weeks. If you planted it now, in early September, then by October, you'd cut that down and incorporate that into the soil. So that's another thing you can do to help get your soil kind of some nutrients.

Farmer Fred  4:48

When it comes to any cover crop, though, you do want to cut it down before it flowers too much. Maybe when you first start seeing flowers appear, that's when you start weed whacking it back and let it lay on the surface of the soil or you can work it in, or top it with some compost and mulch.

Gail Pothour  5:02

Yeah. And buckwheat grows so fast and it's so tender that it breaks down really fast. Some of the winter cover crops are real thick and they are a little more difficult for them to decompose. But buckwheat grows fast. You certainly want to cut it down just as it's flowering. Because if it goes to seed, which it will in the following week, it becomes a weed. And when it's flowering, that's when the plant is most nutritious. So that's when you want to cut it down.

Farmer Fred  5:25

Explain to people why you use buckwheat. Why are you incorporating a living plant into the soil?

Gail Pothour  5:30

Well, one thing about buckwheat is it pulls up phosphorus,  which isn't very mobile in the soil. So that's good for that. It does have a taproot so it helps break up the soil a bit. It just provides a lot of organic matter when you do cut it down and turn it into the soil.

Farmer Fred  5:44

I would imagine, too, there's nitrogen involved, right? And especially if the plant is still green.

Gail Pothour  5:48

If you let it dry on the surface, not so much, but you could use it as a mulch. If you did that, let it dry on the surface. It takes the place of straw or some other mulch you could use.

Farmer Fred  5:59

Now you mentioned about using a fertilizer. Does it have to be a granular fertilizer or can you use a liquid fertilizer?

Gail Pothour  6:06

Well, you know, we generally use a liquid fertilizer to supplement the nutrition throughout the growing season. We like to use a granular fertilizer that we incorporate into the soil. If you do something that's organic, it's going to have small numbers like 4-3-3 instead of 16 16 16. Use the fertilizer of your choice. We choose to do an organic type of fertilizer.

Farmer Fred  6:26

That's important, too, about the single numbers that you're going to see on any bag or box of fertilizer. You're going to see three numbers that represent nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, and plants don't need a whole heck of a lot of those nutrients. They just need those single digits like the 4-3-3 You mentioned it'd be 4% nitrogen, 3% phosphorus, 3% Potassium.

Gail Pothour  6:44

Right. And cool season crops aren't quite the heavy feeders. It's the the summer crops that are heavy feeders. Summer crops really take a beating. They have to contend with the hot weather, windy days, and dry soil. So they really need to have the soil prepared well before you plant them. Cool season crops aren't quite as picky but still it's a good idea to incorporate some kind of organic matter and some fertilizer.

Farmer Fred  7:04

I think the big takeaway from this is after you remove your summer crops, don't immediately start planting your fall flowers and vegetables. Help out the soil.

Gail Pothour  7:14

Right. At home, I've done that. I took my beans out a month ago, they were pretty much pooped out. So then I amend the soil, getting ready to plant my carrots in those particular spots. If you do incorporate any kind of fertilizer or a cover crop you do want to let it decompose a little while before you plant.

Farmer Fred  7:30

And I would think to water it in.

Gail Pothour

Watering, for sure. Yeah.

Farmer Fred

We've got some tips on how to transition our gardens from summer into fall. Gail Pothour,  Master Gardener, here at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center. She's a Sacramento County Master Gardener, Gail, thanks for the good advice.

Gail Pothour  7:44

Anytime, Fred.

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FALL FRUIT TREE CARE

Farmer Fred

We are here at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center. We are finding out which garden chores to tackle as we transition from summer into fall. What should you be doing in the various parts of your garden? Now, we are in the orchard section here at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center with Master Gardener Quentyn Young. What is on your list of things to do this time of year in September and October? And we should point out that the orchard here has a wide variety of fruit trees. And there's also a citrus orchard as well. What is at the top of your list as far as things to do this time of year?

Quentyn Young  10:21

For our deciduous fruit trees, we're actually trying to wrap up most of our summer pruning, we want to get that done usually no later than about October.

Farmer Fred  10:30

With summer pruning, what you're doing is maintaining height control. But if you're doing it as late as October, you may be cutting off some of next year’s fruiting buds.

Quentyn Young  10:37

We are cutting off some buds. But that also helps us with fruit thinning later. It's also helping us keep the canopies open, depending on the tree and the style of tree that we want to prune it into. But yeah, that's all good stuff that we try to get done before fall.

Farmer Fred  10:52

For people who are unfamiliar with the concept of summer pruning, it's fairly new, maybe popular the last 20 or 30 years or so. But it really gives you a good opportunity to get in there to control the height of the tree.

Quentyn Young  11:04

Yeah, so what we try to get across to the public with a backyard orchard is you really want your fruit trees to roughly be six to eight feet tall. That way,  you can get up there, you can pick the fruit by hand, maybe use just a little stepstool. But you're not having to get up there with a commercial size ladder, up to that 20 foot range, to pick fruit. Because usually at that height, if you don't get it, the rats and the birds do.

Farmer Fred  11:27

What about watering? Do they need as much water? Here we are in September, there are still warm days, but they're shorter days. Should the watering be adjusted accordingly?

Quentyn Young  11:36

Yeah, especially after harvest, we usually reduce the watering by about 50%.

Farmer Fred  11:41

And then probably when the rainy season starts, if you live in an area that has a rainy season like we do here in California.

Quentyn Young  11:47

Yeah, fingers crossed. And then we'll just cut the water off completely. And we'll hope for another rainy winter like we had last year.

Farmer Fred  11:52

Now there are some here in California, especially in agricultural areas, if they're growing walnuts or almonds or pistachios, the permanent crops, if you will, they may have to water year round.

Quentyn Young  12:04

Yeah, depending on how much of a rainy winter we have.

Farmer Fred  12:08

Now over in the orchard adjunct area, where the citrus trees are, you have a long row of various citrus trees. And they all develop fruit at different times. And if you're in an area where you're growing citrus, you may see green fruit on there now, and on others, you might not see any. Should you be worried?

Quentyn Young  12:26

It depends on what it is. Some of your mandarins and Satsumas, they're going to be alternate bearing. So if you had a great crop last year, you probably won't get a good crop this year. So I wouldn't worry about that too much. We do go through and do a little bit of fruit thinning. But right now, keeping in mind, the citrus pruning, we sort of shape them throughout the year, We're getting rid of water sprouts, and then we're also raising up some of the lower branches, anticipating rain that might be splashing fungal spores back up into the branches.

Farmer Fred  12:55

It's very important, too,  to maintain a layer of mulch under the trees as well, I would think.

Quentyn Young  13:00

Definitely, yeah, we put down a really nice, thick layer of wood chips here. We pretty much put those down usually almost every workday. And if you come to the Horticulture Center, you'll see that. It’s definitely a nice layer of mulch.

Farmer Fred  13:11

Is there a season when you should not be pruning citrus trees?

Quentyn Young  13:14

Oddly, no. Some people will say, Oh, don't prune right before the winter because you might get a cold snap that takes out some of the tender new growth. But I found that it doesn't really effect the overall performance of the tree.

Farmer Fred  13:25

So you can prune year round, and what you're saying is basically you're just maintaining the size of the tree. But is that shaping process involving heading cuts or thinning cuts?

Quentyn Young  13:33

It depends on the tree. Some of them are gonna be heading cuts, if they're rubbing or if we want to open up the interior. You'll notice that like we have a grapefruit tree that's under an oak tree, it tends to be fairly dark. So we try to keep the center open because it always gets cottony cushion scale. So those would be thinning cuts. And then the heading cuts are usually just along the top of the citrus. You'll see how we try to keep them at fence height. And if we decide that we're going to cover them in the winter, they're really easy to cover with frost cloth.

Farmer Fred  14:03

Here at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center, it’s adjacent to a community garden here in Fair Oaks Park. I'm staring at one heck of a tall banana plant.

Quentyn Young  14:13

Really nice to see. Yeah. And we actually are going to probably do two bananas here in the orchard. I have them at home right now. I'll probably babysit them over the winter this year before we bring them out next year.

Farmer Fred  14:23

If people want to try growing banana plants in USDA zone nine, you really are at the mercy of the weather. And you'll probably get winter dieback, but it's not fatal.

Quentyn Young  14:33

No it's not fatal. The main thing you want to do is give them really good drainage, because they will be susceptible to crown rot in our heavy, cold, wet, clay soil in the winter. So amend the soil really well. And we're going to probably even try maybe one of them in a wine barrel.

Farmer Fred  14:47

That would be, hopefully, not too big a plant.

Quentyn Young  14:50

Yeah, we'll see. Yeah, because that one over there is probably a good 15 feet tall already.

Farmer Fred  14:54

All right, as we transition from summer to fall, don't ignore your fruit trees. There's still lots to do. When would you feed your citrus trees and your deciduous fruit trees? Or do you even bother doing that if you're maintaining a four inch layer of mulch?

Quentyn Young  15:08

We don't feed our deciduous fruit trees, except for any fruit tree we have in a barrel. We feed every month, which I would recommend also for citrus trees in containers. The only trees that we really feed here are the citrus trees in the ground, and we usually feed them in April when the ground warms up and we use blood meal and Nutra-Rich.

Farmer Fred  15:29

Alright,  that's the second time today I've heard about Nutri-Rich. We'll have a link for Nutri-Rich, which is pelletized chicken manure.

Quentyn Young  15:37

I think the fertilizer macronutrient numbers like 3-2-1, plus it's about 7% Calcium, I think. It’s organic, it won’t burn, and you can use it pretty much for everything.  A 50 pound bag, is maybe 20 bucks. Around 20 bucks, depending on where you get it. But yeah, it's heavy, but it lasts a long time.

Farmer Fred  15:53

Again, we'll have a link to that in the show notes. Quentyn Young is here at the orchard at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center. Thanks so much.

Quentyn Young

Thanks, Fred.

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FALL ROSE CARE

Farmer Fred

We're at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center, and they're having a workshop on this Saturday. And it's a Saturday that is during a transition season. It's mid September and soon it will be fall. The weather is still warm, but it's going to cool off. So we got to think about fall garden chores. We are with Anita Clevenger in the perennial plant section, and Anita has been a Master Gardener since 2002. But your also a rose expert. What needs to be done with roses this time of year? I bet you can get here in California and around USDA zone nine, you can at least get one more good bloom, if not two more good blooms out of it. But how do you prepare your roses for winter?

Anita Clevenger  18:06

The first thing to do is keep on deadheading. As you said you can have roses blooming once or twice more. And right now we are having a fall flush. In early September, often, the roses begin to wake up and bloom again. I keep on deadheading to encourage it. At some point though, you'll stop. And then those fruits develop on the end of the canes. That's actually the whole point of the rose flower. That is the beginning of the rose seed pod, also known as a hip. And you can allow those hips to develop. It won't hurt the rose, but the rose will stop blooming because it's done its job. It is blooming to reproduce. So once those hips have been developed, the rose will take a break. And you do want them to take a break, because the roses in our climate don't know when to quit. And so you want to prune them when they're as dormant as possible. And often they're not very dormant. I prune after the holidays, between Christmas and Valentine's Day. That’s our cut off point. So what you want to do is have the roses slow down. And so at some point you stop deadheading, you allow the hips, if the rose is going to be wanting to develop it, you allow it to develop. And if you're going to fertilize, I would do it about now and not again. If you didn't fertilize all summer, this is a good time to give them a little bit more. Frankly, I don't fertilize my roses In the spring, I put down some compost, just a little bit. I don't do a periodic one. But if you want to boost the flowers and for rose health, you can do it. But I wouldn't do it later than the end of this month (September).

Farmer Fred  19:53

Yeah, the benefit of using compost or mulch beneath even ornamental plants is it's slowly feeding the soil year round. And there's no need to add extra fertilizer.

Anita Clevenger  20:04

That's correct. And I also put down alfalfa. And there have been some scientific studies that say it will produce some additional new canes, what they call basel breaks,  canes from the soil, and there is scientific research that has documented that. And so  after I prune, I put down fresh compost, I put down alfalfa pellets, I might do some organic fertilizer also. So in the spring, I get them ready to go. And then all I do the rest of the year is just to keep them weeded, pick up any diseased leaves. And generally this time of year, disease is less of a problem. But picking those off of the plant and picking them up from the soil is also a good idea.

Farmer Fred  20:49

We've also already experienced a little bit of rain in our area. It wasn't very much. But as September becomes October and November, we just might see a gully washer or two. And then you really do have to be serious about getting out there and cleaning up.

Anita Clevenger  21:03

That's true. Yeah, and you'll see maybe some spots or some blotches on your roses. And that's actually a disease known as botrytis. And you don't want that to land on the soil either. So you want to clean that up.

Farmer Fred  21:17

And speaking of how these diseases spread, which is by water, I would hope that most rose growers are, if you have rose plants, they're not getting hit directly by an overhead sprinkler from the lawn.

Anita Clevenger  21:28

in California where we're so dry, overhead watering on roses, I think, generally has little problem and has some benefits through the summer when you have spider mites and the roses get dusty that and hot. That and stress. That is a period when the spider mites move in. And the best treatment to remove spider mites is to wash off the foliage. Keep them clean and add moisture. You just want to do it in the morning. So things can dry out. In the spring, people ask me what do you do for aphids? I squish them and spray them. And generally one hand squishes and one hand sprays.  I knock them off with water. I don't spray with anything but water. And those are fragile little bugs and you might leave a few for the beneficial insects and the birds to feed on. But water spray really isn't as damaging as you might think. But you don't want them wet overnight.

Farmer Fred  22:30

Well, as we're fond of saying, all gardening is local. So it really depends on your humidity levels. So if you live in an area that has a higher humidity level, including coastal California, and you're trying to grow roses, maybe readjust your lawn sprinklers.

Anita Clevenger  22:44

That's correct. But again, it is local. And I have found that most rose books really aren't specific to California. And so what you're reading is advice from elsewhere,  even from England or for the Midwest, the rest of the country. It's very different here. This is a great climate for roses.

Farmer Fred  23:04

I'll put in a plug for my friend Lance Walheim, who has written several books about rose growing, that can be found usually  on used book lists. And he is a California rose grower and has lots of good advice for California rose growers as well as the varieties that may do better here than elsewhere.

Anita Clevenger  23:24

I'm an old rose grower, not a modern rose grower. The only modern rose i have is Mr. Lincoln, which is about as old as I am. So it's not that modern of a rose. You can't see me but there's a lot of gray hair and wrinkles. But I grow things like the “Perle d’ Or” that we have here in the demonstration garden. It is a spray polyantha rose, it's a relative of Cecile Brunner, it's the same type of rose. I often have others, like bourbon roses and  tea roses that are still growing. Some years I'm only able to find a few blooms to put into my Thanksgiving bouquet. And some years I have 20. I’m growing old roses.

Farmer Fred  24:05

As a tomato grower, it's always nice to have the tomatoes on the dinner table for Thanksgiving, but I wouldn't want to show them what the plant looks like in the last week of November. And I would think the same might be true with roses.

Anita Clevenger  24:16

Oh, my roses look pretty good still. Then again because I grow the old roses and they're more of a shrub rose. They are a garden landscape shrub in addition to a flowering plant.

Farmer Fred  24:27

From the top of your head, what are some of the best old roses to grow?

Anita Clevenger  24:31

I already mentioned “Perle d’ Or” and “Cecile Brunner”.

Farmer Fred

Do you recommend “Cecile Brunner”?

Anita Clevenger

I do, as a climber. It is, as we talked about it before I was on air with you, it's a rampant, once bloomer generally. But you can find a shrub or a spray version of it.  I'm thinking, what do I really love? I love the China roses that are more twiggy and they bloom. They're basically evergreen and ever-blooming.  And so one rose that I really love is called Archduke Charles. And many of these old roses you have to go online to order, we no longer have them at plant sales here, generally, where they're being sold.

Farmer Fred  25:13

Well, since you gave me that wide opening, I will mention that until October 30, if you go to heirloomroses.com, and in the checkout coupon box, if you enter the code, Fred20, you will get 20% off your purchase, but that's only till the end of October of 2023.

Anita Clevenger  25:32

And they grow many old roses. In fact, they started out as heirloom old garden roses, and they pride themselves that their roses are on their own roots, which is a good way to grow many of the old roses. So yes, I'm glad that you've got that deal going.

Farmer Fred  25:48

And Anita, it’s nice talking with you. Nice to see you, Anita Clevenger, Master Gardener with the Sacramento County Master Gardeners. We're here at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center in the beautiful perennial garden where there are some great old roses.

Anita Clevenger  25:59

There are. Which were put in with my advice and another of the volunteers that grows them. We actually have three kinds here, two of which are UC Davis all stars. So when they're recommending what to plant in the modern gardens, they're