307 First Garden? New Garden? We Have Tips.

Show Transcript

GB 307 First Garden? We Have Tips. TRANSCRIPT

SPEAKERS

Debbie Flower, Farmer Fred

Farmer Fred  00:00

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/fred for more information and a special discount. That's smartpots.com/fred

Farmer Fred  00:20

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. Do you want a successful garden? Then before planting, you need to do some planning. And if it's a first garden, you really need to do a lot of planning. But it's not overwhelming. It is necessary, though, for a productive garden of food and flowers. Today, America's favorite retired college horticulture Professor, Debbie Flower and myself, offer tips for your first garden. Tips that will save you a lot of time and money in your pursuit of getting your family the healthiest food possible, as well as the most colorful flowers, to attract some garden help in your battle against the bad bugs. Today, it's episode 307, "Your First Garden? We have tips." We are 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  01:30

Always a pleasure to welcome Debbie Flower, America's favorite college horticultural Professor, into the abutilon jungle here at Barking Dog studios to talk gardening with us today. We're going to tackle your first garden. What are some tips for establishing a first garden? But first, I'd like to establish some of Debbie's credentials. I mean, what does it take to become America's favorite retired college horticultural professor? Well, let's delve into her ratemyprofessor.com comments that her students left her a few years ago at the college that she was teaching  at the time. And she received a 100% rating of students who said they would take it again.

Debbie Flower  02:06

Wow.

Farmer Fred  02:07

So congratulations on that. Your level of difficulty was 2.5.  I have no idea what that means  or your gymnastic skills? I'm not sure. Anyway, some of the comments. One writes, "Such a knowledgeable person of the field, I learned so much from her. She always clarified in a clear manner that could be understood, in my opinion, by any mind.  Sad that she retired because I can't take a class with her again, but excited for her as a person for the freedom to work on her garden and explore the world." And hang around the abutilon jungle.

Debbie Flower  02:45

right this part of the world. Yeah.

Farmer Fred  02:46

I appreciate that. Another says, "Debbie is a great professor. She explains everything very well. There were things that I didn't know. I really enjoyed her class." Another gives you an A plus and says, "Professor Flower is amazing. She is a plant expert and conveys her passion for horticulture to the class. She was very organized, everything we did all semester was in the syllabus. If you do the work and study for the exams, you should do well. But if you miss a class, you're going to miss a lot of information." Another says, "She's great. She has an infinite number of years of experience.

Debbie Flower  03:21

I'm old.

Farmer Fred  03:23

And I'm fairly sure she knows everything you ever wanted to know about anything in the horticulture field. But please do not take this class if you are simply looking for an easy 'A'. There is homework, and it's always a packed class. So save some space for the horticulture enthusiasts that are there."

Debbie Flower  03:39

Yeah.

Farmer Fred  03:41

And another says, "A truly amazing teacher, very dedicated and devoted to the field. Another says, "If you didn't love plants before, you will now. She's a great teacher." And another wrote, "The good part is, she's easy. I hate horticulture, but it's not her fault. I just always never really liked it. I mean, really? plant business? WTF! The bad side is she is obsessed with plants." Yeah, she's a hort teacher.

Debbie Flower  04:09

That's the way it goes.

Farmer Fred  04:10

Also, she says, "I did good on all her tests. But the Final is different." And another warns, "Take this class elsewhere for an easier A. And she spends too much time walking."

Debbie Flower  04:22

I walk when I talk. Yes. Can you see me here?  I need to move. I will use my hands.

Farmer Fred  04:27

I brought you a fiddle wire.

Debbie Flower  04:29

Yeah. I have to move and  be doing things.

Farmer Fred  04:31

There's a fiddle wire in the corner for you.

Debbie Flower  04:33

Thank you.

Farmer Fred  04:34

So anyway, somebody responded to that comment that you spent too much time walking and to take this class elsewhere for an easier A. And somebody responded, "Well, if you're into plants, this is the course to take and the professor to teach it. Come on! Her name is Flower!

Debbie Flower  04:50

Yeah, that's my real name.

Farmer Fred  04:53

So there you go. Your students loved you,

Debbie Flower  04:55

Oh, thank you.

Farmer Fred  04:57

And we love you here, too.

Debbie Flower  04:59

Thank you .

Farmer Fred  05:00

All right, where are we? Oh, the first garden? What do you do? First thing I did when I established my first garden because I didn't know jack about gardening way back when, back in the 70s. We'll just clear out some of this bermudagrass and plant stuff. Oh, it was a beautiful garden,

Debbie Flower  05:20

Your Bermuda grass garden?

Farmer Fred  05:23

Yeah, I was in there a lot, you know, pulling out the Bermuda grass as it was growing in there. But I think because it was just a lawn before, the soil had never been touched.  I didn't think this at the time, I had no idea. But all the plants, it was like a jungle. It was like a tomato and pepper jungle and I go, "Hey, this gardening stuff is easy". Then in the next year, I did the same thing. "Oh, no, it doesn't look so great this year". And by the third year is, "I don't know about this, maybe I'll build raised beds." And so I built raised beds. And then eventually, I got more knowledgeable.  But I guess for the first garden,  if I knew back then what I know now, and I'm starting a first garden, it would be different. And actually, I got to do that here. When we moved here, six, seven years ago, eight years ago, I said, "we can plant in pots for the time being. But let's just live with this place for a year and see where the sun goes. Let's see where the water goes."

Debbie Flower  06:18

Very good.

Farmer Fred  06:19

Where's the shade? Where's the sun? And it works, as long as you keep track of where the sun is. You can figure out which areas will get the most sun. Because those instructions about plants liking full sun or part shade or full shade are kind of important.

Debbie Flower  06:35

Yes, they are. And you can get very academic about it and read about it. And they'll say, you know, there's less sun on the north side. And there's less sun on the east side. And it's cooler sun. That's a misnomer about on the east side. But that's not always true.

Farmer Fred  06:52

And a lot of people plant too much, too soon when they get to it.

Debbie Flower  06:56

Start simple. Your point about the first garden, you removed the grass and it grew very well.  I've experienced that more than once. And I think that's very true because the soil has not been depleted of its nutrients. The plants do very well that first year. And I think the hardest part about gardening over and over and over again in the same place is replenishing your soil nutrition.

Farmer Fred  07:18

You may hear me say, feed your soil. This is what gardening is all about.  It's all about the soil, it's about replenishing the soil. It's about replenishing the nutrients that are in the soil. Because it's not fertilizer that's feeding your plants. It it has to feed the soil first.

Debbie Flower  07:37

Right. And think about a forest. Does anybody go in that forest and spread fertilizer?

Farmer Fred  07:42

Bears?

Debbie Flower  07:43

Yes, there is some of that. You're right, animals and whoever is living in the soil, like worms that are living off of the plant debris that's falling to the ground. So the plants are dropping their own mulch, dropping their leaves and dead branches and such which is mulching around their base. The micro organisms and the macro organisms like worms are coming in and eating that. And then they poop. Everything poops, even micro organisms, and their poop becomes nutrition for the plants to then use to grow.

Farmer Fred  08:13

As our friend, organic gardener and expert Steve Zien would say, "it's the poop loop".

Debbie Flower  08:18

Yes it is. The poop loop. It's absolutely true.

Farmer Fred  08:21

And that's  how things grow, ladies and gentlemen. That's just the way it is.  One of the things you have to do is to ask yourself a lot of questions before you turn that first shovel full of soil when you're going to plant a summer vegetable garden. What does your family eat?

Debbie Flower  08:38

Right. and so my vegetable garden has become smaller and smaller because my husband eats fewer and fewer vegetables.

Farmer Fred  08:45

How do you feel about that?

Debbie Flower  08:48

I love vegetables, but  there's always the farmers market. So yeah, like you said, you need to observe  the area around you. A vegetable garden needs full sun, meaning unobstructed sun for a minimum of six hours a day during the growing season. It can be longer hours of sun  that are maybe interrupted a little bit by some shade from a tree above or something, but a minimum of six hours of unobstructed sun. You want to start small. So you can talk to those who are going to eat from your garden, and find out what they like, and grow a few crops.

Farmer Fred  09:25

One thing you've done is by  reducing the size of your vegetable garden, you have flowers. You enjoy flowers. After all her name is Flower.

Debbie Flower  09:34

And that's nice. What I've turned to in my garden, but  yours is full of edible raised beds for edibles, and that's one way of doing it. I've reduced mine to one, four by eight raised bed, and I plant some stuff around the base of it. Not right next to it but in that area of the yard right into the ground as well. But I like to plant for Nature, for the birds,  and the insects. And watch them come and be part of my environment.

Farmer Fred  10:06

The whole trick to eliminating or reducing the amount of chemicals used to control pests in the yard is basically "surfing with "Mother Nature", and putting in a lot of plants that attract the beneficials, the plants that attract the pollinators, to your yard. And they're pretty flowers.

Debbie Flower  10:06

They are. And I have spent some days outside, sitting under a sunflower and just watching who comes and goes, just because it's fun.

Farmer Fred  10:34

Yeah, I do that with the California buckwheat. I sit up there on the short brick wall and watch them flit about, and see if I can identify them.

Debbie Flower  10:43

Yep, there's so many of them. It's difficult, right.

Farmer Fred  10:46

And that's the idea, you bring in the good guys, and they can help you control the bad guys. And that's very important. The design of the garden is very important too, in that you need room to walk between your plants without stepping in the area where the plants are. And so that means wide pathways. And not crowding plants together.

Debbie Flower  11:10

Spacing plants. That's the number one error I see in new gardeners' gardens, is that they plant plants too close together. They're cute, they're small, and I got them at the nursery. What you need to know is how big are they going to get when they're mature? And you want to plant them so they have enough space to get mature without touching the plant next to them. Because if you touch it looks nice when you touch the plant next to him. But that allows water and bad insects to get trapped. Water-causing fungus and bacteria to develop in the plant and the bad insects are protected from the good insects. And so you start to have problems in your plants. When they're too close together.

Farmer Fred  11:51

You got too much shade, you got less wind. So you have more disease issues. You also have more hiding places for the bad guys, too. So yeah, and those instructions are usually on the seed packet or on the stick that came with the vegetable plant that you bought, as far as spacing in the garden. And it could be you, for tomatoes, 36 inches of space between tomatoes. For peppers, 18 inches. Squash? Good luck. It takes off.

Debbie Flower  12:20

Yeah, it takes off. But you could get away with one.  and you plant it  near an edge not right in the corner. But I'd like to plant it in the corner and let it go over the side and take off down so I'm still giving it nutrition in the raised bed, but it's growing away from the raised bed.

Farmer Fred  12:36

But then there's the age old question. Okay, which ways do I run my raised beds? east-west or north-south?

Farmer Fred  12:42

a little further north than that. 38 degrees.

Debbie Flower  12:42

It depends on your latitude, where you are between the north and south poles. Where we are is about halfway. Halfway is  in Salem, Oregon.  Okay, here in the northern hemisphere.  Yeah, I did this exercise with my students, I did this exercise. It doesn't matter where we live, we're about 25 degrees latitude.

Debbie Flower  12:46

And we can position our beds either way and get enough light on all the plants. The sun rises in the East and sets in the west. It's only overhead right at June 21 or 20. And then it's in the southern sky. And so if you are in Minnesota, where my son is, and you plant your beds east to west, and the plants on the southern side are going to get more sun than on the northern side. Well that's okay if you put your taller guys on the northern side of the bed and your short guys on the southern side of the bed.

Farmer Fred  13:44

So there's your planting tip. If you are going to put in fruit trees, you'd want the fruit trees on the north side of your garden areas so they won't be casting shade on your raised beds, if the plants that are going to put in there require full sun. But we have a problem in the 21st century and that's too much sun, too much heat. And I'm beginning to think that tomatoes here at least would benefit as well as peppers, in order to avoid sunscald problems and a premature death. Give them some afternoon shade.

Debbie Flower  14:13

Right. And your yard is set up for that because your property slopes to the east down to the east and your house is on the west side. And it's a tall house. So as the sun is setting, your beds in the back are starting to get shade.

Farmer Fred  14:30

The beds that are closest to the house will start being in full shade by two o'clock in the afternoon or so.

Debbie Flower  14:36

Perfect. Yes. six hours. The sun comes up in the sky by six in the morning in the summer. That's your six hours. Yeah.

Farmer Fred  14:42

The other thing too. I remember when we lived out in the country when I had a basically a bare landscape. "Okay, I'm gonna do it from scratch. Let's see what happens." And so I put in my raised beds, maybe 50 feet from the house. and then about 50 feet beyond the raised beds to the south, I planted young trees, oak trees, some scarlet oaks and red oaks. And they get big, in 15 years. The raised beds that were closest to the trees and still 50 feet away, we're getting afternoon shade from those 40 to 50 foot tall trees. So consider the trees. And this is why I like to say, live with the yard for a full year, take regular pictures of your yard  on a seasonal basis or on a monthly basis at different times of the day, 9am, noon, four o'clock. And do that on a regular basis where you can see, just how much sun does that area get on a month to month basis. And you'll have a better idea of where the full sun really is.

Debbie Flower  15:46

you've decided where to plant, you're gonna have to prepare the soil, you don't necessarily want to rent a tiller, and tilt it up massively, you just need to remove all the weeds. If you have the time to solarize it a year ahead of time, that would be great. But that means you're planning a year out. That takes a growing season out of your time. But solarizing is a very effective way to kill not just the weeds you see, but the seeds that are in the top four to six inches of the soil. Assuming you have prepped the soil, meaning you've roughened it up and watered it and then you put down your clear plastic  in the hottest part of the year, for six weeks. Ideally, the times I've done it, the plastic breaks down before that, but till the plastic breaks down, and then you remove it. And everything in the top four to six inches will be dead. So the first thing you plant will take over.

Farmer Fred  16:45

But that goes back to living with it for the first year. You could do that in your first year. Solarize the soil and it's a great idea to do that. Just to kill off anything that you didn't want. Let's say you had a Bermuda grass lawn. If you mow it really, really short  in May and early June, and then give it lots of water, and then put the plastic down. Clear plastic, it's usually two mil plastic, it could be a roll of painters plastic from the big Home Depot or Lowe's store, or a little bit thicker. You don't want to go too thick, maybe four mil  clear plastic. But seal down the edges. You have to almost dig a trench around the border, bring the clear plastic into that trench and secure it with boards or rocks, or soil. So that air cannot get underneath that plastic cover.  if the wind gets under it, it could rip it much easier.

Debbie Flower  17:39

Right. Energy  from the sun itself will break down plastic. And that's how I was losing mine. I did bury my edges. And you're doing that to trap the heat. What's happening is the sun is going through the plastic as the sun is hitting the soil, and turning into heat. That is what happens to sun when the sun comes through your living room window. Very bright light hits your floor, it becomes hot, it's a hot floor. Your cat likes to lie there. That's how it's happening. Now that's happening under the plastic and the plastic is trapping that heat and it heats up to over 140 degrees, which is the temperature at which living cells die. So you can solarize. If you don't have the time to solarize, because you want this garden now, you want it this year. Clear the soil, rough it up a little bit, loosen it, water it and allow things to germinate. Treat it like it's a garden already. Water it regularly, you're gonna get the weed seeds that are at the surface to germinate. Go through and take them out. Maybe with a reciprocating hoe (hula hoe).  You don't want to dig deeply anymore. Every time you dig deep and bring new soil up, you're bringing up more seeds. You just want to kill what's on the surface. A reciprocating hoe will cut them at surface level. Do it again. Water it. Treat it like a garden, let the weed seeds germinate again. Cut them off again, it'll probably take a third time. Do it a third time. This will be a three to five week process if the weather is right for seed germination, and then you've gotten rid of a lot of your weed problems.

Debbie Flower  17:52

And this goes back to if you're solarizing the soil is like I mentioned, you want to water the soil thoroughly first because as that sun hits the clear plastic that warmth will go down deeper. The water will take it down deeper.

Debbie Flower  19:16

Right. Water can absorb more heat than air can. That's a chemical thing.

Farmer Fred  19:21

Yeah, that's a chemical thing.

Farmer Fred  19:23

But it works, but it works.

Farmer Fred  19:25

Yes. what option two is, is to put plants that you want that first year in pots and just do a big container garden for the first year. And then realize where the sun is. The beauty of using some lightweight pots like Smart Pots is maybe you don't know where the sun or shade is going to be. You can at least pick them up and move them.

Debbie Flower  19:46

Or put them on a rolling base. But use big pots. Because the pots are a more stressful environment to grow for the plant and for you to maintain the plant because  it's a limited amount of media  in the root zone. It heats up quickly, cools off quickly, it accepts water quickly and it dries out quickly, you have to spend a lot more time out there watering and weeding and, and taking care of fertilizing, the roots can't go as far to get nutrients. So it's a more intensive type of gardening. The bigger the pot more those problems are reduced and less stress on the plant.

Farmer Fred  20:25

The benefit  of having those big pots is you can use a potting mix, a soil mix to start off with. We should be dissuading people from filling those pots with their native soil, right? Because what's in that native soil? Weeds, for one.

Debbie Flower  20:44

Right, lots of live things that can harm your plant. And also the water relations of field soil are very different than container soil. And you need the water relations to be correct for the container, thus use container soil.

Farmer Fred  20:57

Right. And again, going back to pathways, I would make your pathways at least four feet wide. So you can take wheelbarrows through without compacting the soil around the plants. What area of the plant roots do you need to protect  as it spreads out? Would you want  a demilitarized zone that you don't want to be stepping on and not compacting the soil? Two feet? a foot?

Debbie Flower  21:19

Well, it depends on the plant, I think you need to know how big is that plant going to get?

Farmer Fred  21:22

If it was vegetable roots, they  don't get that spread out, right?

Debbie Flower  21:25

They don't have the time, for one thing. It's just an annual plant in an ornamental garden. If it's very deep, I just have what I call  "gardeners' paths". And they're just big enough for me to walk through. And I mulch heavily, which helps distribute weight, so that I'm not harming roots as much. Wood mulch is good for paths for that reason, for many reasons, but that's one of them. I think you can do the same fora  vegetable garden. You could make every other path that width, if you had a whole bunch of raised beds next to each other. So itwould  looked like a couple of long lines. You could have a four footpath on one side and a very narrow path on the other side of that raised bed between  that one and the next one, then another four footpath so you can get the wheelbarrow to just one side of the raised bed. Did we mention why you don't want to compact the soil?

Debbie Flower  21:34

No, no, you should.

Farmer Fred  22:14

Yeah, air will disappear if you do that. And for some reason, roots like air.

Debbie Flower  22:19

Roots like air, they have to do respiration, it's called. Plants make food and they store it in their pantry, which is all over the plants in the stem. It's in the leaves, it's in the roots, it's everywhere. And when they need to do something, anything, they need to eat. And so they go through a process called respiration, which is when they get one of those food packets, and they break it down so they can use the food. Roots store food, and they do respiration to break it down so that they can grow new roots.

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First Garden? We Have Tips, Pt. 2

Farmer Fred  24:46

There is a situation that gardeners sometimes endure, especially first time gardeners, and that is sort of an exhaustion from gardening, and it usually happens sometime in late summer, when they're tired of harvesting, tired of eating the same thing.

Debbie Flower  25:01

And the weather is getting less conducive to being outside and enjoying puttering.

Farmer Fred  25:07

So, you have to sort of motivate yourself to get out there. And one way is the placement of the garden. You've tangled with landscapers on this one, right?

Debbie Flower  25:18

When I first designed my yard, it came partially with some vegetation. But the landscaper wanted to put the vegetable garden in a place where I couldn't see it from the house. And I said, Absolutely not. I need to be able to see it. So that I know what's going on out there. I can't see it from many places. I can see it from my bedroom. And I can see it from my patio. And that's enough, but I need to know that. Last summer, the irrigation timer broke.

Farmer Fred  25:46

Yeah, you want to see some browning leaves as a warning.

Debbie Flower  25:48

You want to know that things like that happen so that you can fix them before you lose everything.

Farmer Fred  25:52

Yeah, ideally, it should be visible from the kitchen window, to remind you to go out there and pick crops. Or see what's there.

Debbie Flower  25:58

And just plan dinner. Oh, look, the asparagus is ready. We'll have that tonight.

Farmer Fred  26:03

The healthiest food you can eat is the food you grow yourself. And tasty. the tastiest  is  the freshest food. The next best option, like you mentioned earlier, was a farmers market. Right? And that's the greatest way I know of is to taste what the real taste of food is, not something that's been sitting in a refrigerator for months, like some supermarket fruits do. But something that was picked that morning, right? Yeah, if you're curious about what to grow, that's the other thing, is to visit a farmers market.

Debbie Flower  26:32

Or join a CSA community supported agriculture service. that's where you get delivery of a certain amount of vegetation, edible vegetation. Vegetables, well, some flowers are edible, too.

Farmer Fred  26:45

Yes, they are. Watering your garden. That's important. You don't want to be lugging a hose 50, 60, 70 feet, right? So when you're planning your garden, you want it to be near a watering source, or to set it up ahead of time. If you're going to build raised beds by putting in drip irrigation systems, and hooked up to a faucet or its own valve and on a timer.

Debbie Flower  27:10

Right, or both. You set it up near a faucet and then that faucet can be come the source of water for that system that will fit into your raised bed.