291 Top 10 Habits of Successful Gardeners

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GB 291 TRANSCRIPT Top 10 Habits of Successful Gardeners

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

What are the habits of successful gardeners? A couple of Master Gardeners from Santa Clara and San Joaquin Counties, in California pursued that question awhile back. They discovered several tips and tricks that seasoned, happy gardeners use for garden success. Today, America’s Favorite Retired College Horticulture professor, Debbie Flower, and myself share their top ten habits of Successful and Happy Gardeners with you, along with our thoughts that take us down, yet again, many scenic bypasses of good gardening information. You might want to listen to this episode more than once, maybe read the transcript as well. Or take notes. Debbie says there’s a good chance a lot of this will be on the final exam. I’m just sayin’…

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!

THE TOP 10 HABITS OF SUCCESSFUL GARDENERS, Pt. 1

Farmer Fred

Do some gardeners have a natural green thumb? A lot can be said for just having patience and perseverance when it comes to certain landscaping tasks. But perhaps there are some habits that seasoned gardeners have in common. Well, such a list was published by the San Joaquin and Santa Clara County Master Gardeners a few years ago, it was entitled, “The Top 10 Habits of Happy and Successful Gardeners”. It was written by Master Gardeners Sue Davis and Louise Christy. It’s a list that really is worth reviewing from time to time, to see which habits you've made a normal part of your garden day, along with those habits that  just might need a bit of refreshing. So I thought now would be a nice time to refresh ourselves on a very thorough list of good gardening habits. Speaking of habits, Debbie Flower is here, America's favorite retired college horticultural professor. Over all, this was a pretty good list wasn't it?

Debbie Flower  2:31  

It's pretty extensive.

Farmer Fred  2:32  

Yeah, it is. It's good to revisit these things every now and then just to make sure that what you're doing makes a lot of sense. So let's talk about the successful habits of happy gardeners. 

HABIT NUMBER ONE: FEED YOUR SOIL

Habit number one, and I say this a lot, is, “feed your soil”. Happy and successful gardeners know that taking care of the soil and learning to love it. In particular, clay soil is their first priority, as they point out, and you've said this a lot, Soil has three parts. 

Debbie Flower  3:01  

Yes, it does. What does it have? Well, it has the mineral part, which is what we call the sand, silt and clay. It has the pore space between those parts, which is filled with air for the most part and some water. And it has organic matter, which is a very small part. It’s two to 5% organic matter. That is considered a good amount for a good soil. The pore space, the open spaces, should be about 50%. And then the mineral part is 50 minus two to five. 

Farmer Fred  3:35  

Still, that little bit of organic matter contains what, billions of microorganisms? 

Debbie Flower  3:41  

Yes, it has a huge effect on how the soil acts, how it absorbs water, how it hangs on to nutrients, how it gets them back to the plant and how the plant grows in it. They do much better if there's organic matter in there.

Farmer Fred  3:56  

So when they talk about feeding the soil, what they're talking about is basically replacing the water and organic matter and preserving the air by not overwatering or compacting the soil. It comes down to, like they say: compost, compost, compost; mulch, mulch mulch.

Debbie Flower  4:13  

Right. They don't say this, but one thing I always recommend is to have paths through the garden. Sometimes it's just the gardener's path, you know where it is. It's just where you walk all the time to get to the plants that are in maybe a very deep or wide bed, too deep for you to work at all from the front. But take the same path all the time. And that way you are not compacting the soil around all the plants just in that one location.

Farmer Fred  4:38  

Yeah, compacting the soil. Avoiding it  basically comes down to you. Yeah, you and your equipment staying off of wet soil.  Which brings up an interesting question. You may have had Halloween throngs of little feet, running up your driveway or running through your front yard to get to your doorbell, right through your garden bed. They’re coming for some sugar or nuts or whatever. If you have plants in your front yard, and you don't have a dedicated walkway, you may want to put in a temporary walkway or a barrier to get them to go onto the driveway instead of  taking the shortcut across the yard, especially if you live in an area where it might have rained that day, right?

Debbie Flower  5:20  

That's critical. That makes a big difference whether the soil is moist or dry. If it's moist, the particles in the soil are slippery, and they will slide together more more readily.

Farmer Fred  5:30  

I saw a good display of that in action. Somebody actually made a walkway through the front garden, in an unplanted area, leading to the front door, by using light-up skulls on either side. There's like little nightlights, that light up very bright. Little skull nightlights to delineate a walkway.

Debbie Flower  5:52  

That's a clever thing to do. And you know, it would work for other seasons as well. Just don't use skulls, I mean, some people would. But use some sort of light, some sort of solar triggered light.

Farmer Fred  6:05  

Yeah, nobody else does what we do, which is very simple: Use yellow police line tape, surrounding the front of the house and park a police car in front.

Debbie Flower  6:12  

Or like me, live way back from the road and have no lights on. It's so dark, they can't find the front door over there. 

Farmer Fred  6:20  

That works, though but probably not as much as in the old days. We still get 20-30 trick or treaters per year. By having our lights lighting up the sidewalk and driveway and the walkway. We avoid them stomping on the California natives.

Debbie Flower  6:35  

That's a good way to do it.

Farmer Fred  6:36  

So basically, soil compaction does not feed the soil.

Debbie Flower  6:42  

Compaction reduces the air,  the space that roots can easily get that air. And roots need air. They need air for doing vital things. So roots need air as well as the top of the plant needs air.

Farmer Fred  6:54  

As they point out, when working with clay soil. A lot of people have clay soil, avoid overwatering it and let it dry until it's moist and crumbly before you dig. Worse yet,  a lot of people think they can improve clay soil by adding sand.

Debbie Flower  7:07  

Ooh, boy.

Farmer Fred  7:08  

what do you get with that, concrete?

Debbie Flower  7:09  

Yeah, adobe, something that's very, very hard unless you add enough sand, and that's at least 30%. So if you have a cubic yard of clay, which is three foot by three foot by three foot, you need to add a huge amount of sand to that. 

Farmer Fred  7:25  

30% of 27 cubic feet is nine nine cubic feet. That would be as if you were buying sand in 1.5 cubic foot bags. Six bags, a lot.

Debbie Flower  7:37  

A lot. Yeah. And then you have to turn it in. You have to turn it into the ground. You don't just lay it on top.

Farmer Fred  7:44  

Well, then you have the other problem then. The water from the surrounding soil is going to go to that area.

Debbie Flower  7:49  

Yes, because it's now more open. Although it will be pushed in. But that's a whole other topic. So people will say, Well, what am I supposed to do with my clay? You bring in the organic matter and you lay it on the surface and you let nature take its course.

Farmer Fred  8:01  

Yeah, you add the compost. 

Debbie Flower  8:05  

I had a professor at Rutgers. I've told this story before so you can go get a drink if you've heard it. Rutgers campus  was in a place that had been dorms for World War Two soldiers. So it was not, you know, pretty and landscaped and such.  Back then, when he was a student, he worked the soil. It was very heavy clay and he worked on campus to make money to support his going to college. And he worked in the animal labs. So like the mice and the gerbils or whatever they had, I don't know what they had. And so he had to clean up the cages, which was animal feces, urine and some organic matter, typically wood. And he collected all of that and threw it on the ground outside of what then was his dorm. And by the end of his time as a student there, it went from being soil that so hard that you couldn't put a shovel through it, too soft, so soft, you could plunge your arm into it.

Farmer Fred  9:02  

Oh, I think we should point out that lab animals for the most part are vegetarians. And so you can use their feces, right?

Debbie Flower  9:11  

They're not going to have the worms and things that like a dog's waste might have. 

Farmer Fred  9:16  

Mice eat greens, right.

Debbie Flower  9:20  

So do cows.  Cow manure and horse manure, except horses don't process their food as well. And so if there are weed seeds coming in, there are typically weed seeds in the horse manure as well.

Farmer Fred  9:32  

But it is a slow process, building that soil. You just gotta give yourself time

Debbie Flower  9:37  

You do. But as you said, Patience is important to being a successful gardener.

Farmer Fred  9:41  

I think it's one of the primary marks of a successful gardener: have patience not only with your soil, but also with your plants. Give it three years to grow. “Sleep, creep and leap,” we are fond of saying, right? The first year of a plant's life, especially a perennial plant or a shrub, it just sort of sits there.  Put a stick in the ground next to it when you plant it, that is exactly the same height as the plant. And you may not think that it has grown, but it probably will have grown. If you go back the next year and look at the height of the plant versus the height of the stick, it's probably maybe a bit taller than the stick. 

Debbie Flower  10:14  

Right. And another technique is to take a picture. When I do that I'm blown away by it. I look at it the next year and think nothing's gone on. But if you look back at the pictures like well, a lot has happened here. 

Farmer Fred  10:26  

Especially if you've got something next to it to compare. 

Debbie Flower  10:30  

Yes, a fence or another plant or a structure of some sort. 

Farmer Fred  10:35  

Don't use children though, because children grow, too. And they don't stop. All right. So yeah, building great soil can take years. But with careful treatment and feeding, impossible clay can become lovely garden soil. Yes, it can. And then in the third year, that plant will leap. Yes, sleep creep, leap. 

HABIT NUMBER TWO: LEARN BEFORE LOPPING

Okay, habit number two, according to the San Joaquin in Santa Clara County Master Gardeners in their successful habits of happy gardeners, learn before lopping. And that's one thing you've drilled into my head, Professor, is the fact that there's a damn big difference between doing two cuts on a plant: a heading cut, or a thinning cut.

Debbie Flower  11:18  

It makes a huge difference in how the plant grows and what it looks like. 

Farmer Fred  11:21  

And the thinning cut is much more preferable. 

Debbie Flower  11:25  

Yes, and you need to make many fewer of them to get the same result on a plant, many fewer of them.

Farmer Fred  11:30  

Yes. And,  a thinning cut is made where that branch meets a bigger branch. And when you cut it off at that point, you're helping to start new, healthy growth.

Debbie Flower  11:44  

Yes, but you prune it in a natural way, in a place where the plant would naturally put on growth, which is at the tips of other branches.

Farmer Fred  11:52  

If you make heading cuts, though, you're asking for trouble. If you just top a plant to get it to be a certain height, you're going to have even more growth above that height.

Debbie Flower  12:03  

 The growth begins right below the cut. And it will be multiple branches. I'm thinking of a Casuarina. That is a tree that was in my yard. It's not there anymore. And it was topped and it grew because it was under the power lines. And it grew probably six new upright branches all around just below where the cut was made. I made some of my own notes from this list, and under “learn before lopping”, I wrote: Why are you pruning? You should ask yourself that. You should never just prune because people prune or because plants are pruned. Plants in their nativity are not pruned, except maybe by storms or beavers or something. In general, they are not pruned. They grow in a shape that they're genetically destined to become. And when we go in and start cutting on them, we make changes to that. So why are you making the changes? First is the three D’s: remove the dead, the damaged and the diseased wood. And you do that as soon as you see it, preferably with heading cuts. And another is to control flower formation and fruit formation and location, quantity and quality. Sometimes you're removing some so that you get bigger fruit. Sometimes you're pruning a fruit tree so that you are getting it down to where you want to be  able to reach it from the ground. So that's permissible. Growing it so that you can get good fruit and flower production and location. Or for safety. You're always pruning for safety. Remove branches that may be sticking out at shoulder level on the sidewalk that might impale somebody. An interiorscaper (indoor houseplant displays) brought up the point that when she puts plants into the shopping mall, she has to think about the kid in the stroller. Is some part of that plant going to poke that kid in the eye? So you have to think about the situation. 

Farmer Fred  13:53  

That makes a lot of sense. Just yesterday I was working in my narrow side yard and backed into a spine on a Meyer lemon tree. And of course, my first reaction is okay, I carry my Felco pruners in my back pocket. This is not a problem. I’ll snip off the branch to get it out of the walkway. Basically, if I'm going to travel along a walkway, I want a clear path without having to hit thorns or get bopped in the head by a low hanging persimmon on the persimmon tree at the end of the walkway.

Debbie Flower  14:21  

I did that when my son got married and there was a tent on my driveway and I have a lemon that encroaches on the driveway and I didn't want people getting impaled. So yes, I went through and actually took just the sharp tips off. 

Farmer Fred  14:33  

So that's grooming for appearance, I guess. And safety. To train the plant, you want to control the shape and size of the plant. How does it influence flowering or fruiting? 

Debbie Flower  14:45  

Well, I was thinking about chrysanthemums. Back in when I was in an undergraduate school, people talked about the football mum. It was a thing. I was on the East Coast, not southeast, but the East Coast. And the thing to wear to a football game was a giant chrysanthemum. A flower, as a corsage. But in order to get that giant chrysanthemum, all the other chrysanthemum buds have to be taken off. So you got that only one. All the energy goes to that one. There have been giant pumpkin contests all over the place, recently. And that's one of the techniques of getting the pumpkin to grow huge. You take off all the other pumpkins from the vine. And  apples produce a cluster of flowers, it's five, typically with one in the center, they call that the king flower. And, and  you can go through and remove the other flowers and leave the king, and get a bigger fruit.

Farmer Fred  15:37  

I like to do it with roses. If I'm planning an event at the house that will occur in about six weeks, during rose growing season, which is basically March through October-November. If I want to have a good show of roses on my repeat blooming roses, six weeks before the event, I will deadhead the plant. 

Debbie Flower  15:59  

which is pruning and it's a heading cut.

Farmer Fred  16:01  

It's a heading cut, yes. And so it's not a thinning cut, it's a heading cut. But in this case, you're cutting down a rose branch that had produced a flower, cutting that branch down to a five-leaf leaflet. And that will spur new growth that will develop a flower.

Debbie Flower  16:13  

But at the tip. We didn't define a heading cut. Heading cuts are random; you cut anywhere you want. It doesn't have any definition to it. 

Farmer Fred  16:22  

Other than that, there are reasons for heading cuts. I did a 100 mile bike ride a couple of weekends ago in farm country, up in Colusa County. And I came across a cherry orchard that were all flat topped. It looked like the barber came in and just cut them all off at the same height. And the reason for that is you've got workers on ladders, picking cherries and anything above what they can't reach is for the birds, right?

Debbie Flower  16:46  

Or you take it so low that they don't need ladders and then your workman's compensation bill goes way down.

Farmer Fred  16:51  

Yeah, there's that too. These, though, we're cut to be about 15 feet tall. 

Debbie Flower  16:56  

I've watched some fruit and pecan trees in Arizona get headed back with what basically looks like a big pizza cutter. We've talked about this before. It’s a big pizza cutter on the end of a long arm and they just drive down the the aisles and cut the top of the tree off randomly. So they are doing heading cuts there again, for a similar reason. Although people don't get on ladders to harvest nuts, they just shake the tree, the nuts fall out. But you know, as trees get taller, it reduces the amount of light that gets to the tree next to it. So there are reasons for doing that. Also, you can prune to prevent pests. And the way to do that is to increase airflow through the plant. And so the beneficial insects can get to the the insect,  the aphid or whatever that's sucking your plant. And the airflow can also dry the plant out so you don't have as many fungal problems. 

Farmer Fred  17:44  

However, in the case of fruit  and nut trees, when you do that, you're exposing the interior branches to a lot more sun. So you may want to whitewash those branches, just to give them a little sunscreen protection.

Debbie Flower  17:57  

Especially the thin-barked trees, like cherries.

Farmer Fred  18:00  

Your best bet is to get some good references about pruning and training. In fact, there's an excellent book called “Pruning and Training.” We'll have a link to that in today's show notes as well. So yeah, definitely learn before lopping. 

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Farmer Fred

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TOP TEN HABITS OF SUCCESSFUL GARDENERS, Pt. 2

HABIT NUMBER THREE: EMBRACE FAILURE

Farmer Fred

In this seemingly endless series entitled The top 10 habits of happy and successful gardeners - we'll be done by dinner, by the way - comes number three, which is “embrace failure”. Learn from failure.

Debbie Flower  19:42  

Absolutely.  Yes. Learn from it.  You know, the best gardeners are old people like us, because we've tried all kinds of things and we failed and we have the patience to think about what went wrong and why. Maybe we’ll figure it out. And we just try again. And we see what we did differently. But we've made enough mistakes that we've learned from them. 

Farmer Fred  20:07  

It could be as simple as moving a plant from a wet area to a drier area, or from a shady area to a sunnier area. But basically, when you come across a plant that isn't doing too well, before you yank it, or toss it, think about what it really needs or look up what it really needs, and maybe give it a slightly different home.  That could help. You know, we always say, give a plant a chance, give it three years before you give up on it. Sleep, creep, leap.

Debbie Flower  20:35  

Yes, sleep creep, leap.

Farmer Fred  20:38  

Most experienced gardeners aren't very sentimental about plants.  I always like to talk with rosarians, because whenever they utter the phrase “shovel prune”, they have a smile on their face as they're making room in their garden for the latest, newest roses.

Debbie Flower  20:50  

Well, yes, it gives you a chance to do something else. And I find I grow things just because I want to see how they grow. And once I've done it, I'm bored with it. And I would like something else in that place. So it does give us an opportunity. But you often say life is too short to live with the problem plant. That is absolutely true.

Farmer Fred  21:08  

Some people do have this sentimental attachment to plants, thinking they will do better. I don't know where they get the idea. But I get that idea too. You know, you stare at a plant and it's not growing, it's not doing anything. It's not enhancing your life. What's going to change to make it change? If you do nothing, it won’t change.

Debbie Flower  21:25  

Unless you make it happen. 

Farmer Fred  21:28  

Yeah, exactly. Moving the plant might work. One thing I like to do if if there is a problem plant, I want you to dig it out and before I toss it, I want to see the roots, I want to smell the roots, I want to see how big the roots are, I want to see if there's anything growing on the roots, I want to see exactly if there was a problem with the roots, maybe they’re going round and round and round.

Debbie Flower  21:47  

Right. Use all your senses. Smell it. if it smells like dead fish, you probably drowned the thing. Check the color. If the soil is gray, again, you probably drowned it. Soil becomes gray when it's saturated for long periods of time. Obviously, you're looking for holes and pests and color and all kinds of things. And keep notes.

Farmer Fred  22:12  

And use the old Bend or Break test. If you're wondering if a branch is dead or not, start at the tip of a  dead branch on a plant. You're wondering, Well, why is that branch dying? And maybe you start bending that branch at the very end? And maybe it snaps? Okay, well that part is dead. Let's back up a little bit on that branch. Let's go in a few more inches and try that bend or break test. Does the branch bend, or does it snap? iI it snaps, it's dead. Go back a few further inches and do the bend or break test. And if you get a little bend, it's alive there. And the other technique that you like to talk about is to scratch the surface of the branch with your fingernail and see what color is below. 

Debbie Flower  22:54  

Right.  if the bark won't come off, and you can't see anything below, it's dead. Because the plumbing of the plant is just below the bark. And so it's very lubricated there. And it's easy to scrape off the bark if the plant is alive at that point. And if it's dead, there's no moisture there. So it won't scrape.

Farmer Fred  23:13  

If it's alive, the area should be green below where you scratched the bark.

Debbie Flower  23:17  

Some plants have other colors like green, yellowish green, something like that. 

Farmer Fred  23:21  

By the way, that's also a technique for figuring out what's wrong with your tomato plant. Scraping part of the main stem to see if there's a pattern below. if there's a pattern of brownish discoloration, that sometimes can be a sign of verticillium wilt. Fusarium wilt is noticeable on a cross section of one of the main tomato stems. The interior of that cross section should be cream colored if the tomato plant is free of fusarium wilt.

Debbie Flower  23:40  

Oh, that is something that's growing in the plant, a fungus. Something that's growing in the plumbing of the plant and blocking it up.

HABIT NUMBER FOUR: SHOP FOR PLANTS CAREFULLY

Farmer Fred  23:48  

Right. Let's move on to number four in our search for happy and successful gardeners, their top 10 habits. You know, if you throw out a plant, you have the opportunity to buy a plant or get another plant? Well, that's part of the fun.

Debbie Flower  24:01  

absolutely.

Farmer Fred  24:03  

I got a couple plants  waiting for a new home in the yard. I got to figure out what I'm going to do with them.

Debbie Flower  24:07  

 Well, that's number one. Have an idea where that plant is going to go. 

Farmer Fred  24:12  

In my defense, I have an idea. And then I actually go out there and say well, do I really want to remove what's there, right?

Debbie Flower  24:17  

I have a perpetual collection outside my kitchen door of plants and pots that people gave me or I bought on a whim and I don't know where I'm going to put them. So that's number one is know what you're going to do with it.  And then buy something that's healthy. Buy a plant that's an appropriate size for the pot. Not huge. Not the biggest one, but not tiny either. The tiny ones are probably suffering. The biggest ones are probably root bound and it's not going to establish well in your garden. Only one plant per pot. Having hosted many plant sales when I was teaching, people loved when there were two plants in the pot, too. 

Farmer Fred

Everyone loves to get  two for one.  

Debbie Flower

But typically, one of the two is not going to survive, or the two are both going to grow poorly, because there's so much competition between them. Tomatoes that are grown too close together in the garden, will never bear. They'll grow, but they will never have fruit. So what's the point? Just buy the one you want: a well-rooted, established plant.

Farmer Fred  25:21  

Maybe it's a case of there's one really nice plant in there, and there's a smaller, scrawny one in there, well, you can buy that and just cut off the scrawny one.

Debbie Flower  25:29  

Right. And that's the way you thin, is by cutting, not by pulling.