333 Controlling Snails & Slugs, Feed Your Soil, Grow Your Own Protein

Show Transcript

333 TRANSCRIPT Snail Control, Feed Your Soil, Grow Plant Protein

Farmer Fred

Pardon our dust, but we have some construction going on here at Barking Dog Studios. As a result, we're going to revisit some of the most popular segments ever aired on our program. We start way back on Episode 83 and explain why feeding your soil yields better results than feeding your plants. Sound confusing? It's actually quite simple.

Also, you can learn a lot when you hang out with retired college horticultural professor Debbie Flower at a nursery. We recently spent a morning looking at all the snail and slug control products that are available, which are the most effective. Which ones, shall we say, are dubious? We'll find out.

And from way back in episode nine, maybe it's time for you to grow your own protein. And I'm not talking about a backyard full of creatures that moo, cluck, and oink. I'm talking about garden plants that are rich in protein. For example, did you know that a cup of dried beans has about 80 % of your daily protein needs? But there's so much more you can grow to get your protein. We talked with Master Gardener and vegetable expert, Gail Pothour, about tips for growing protein rich plants.

It's all in today's construction-in-progress episode, some of our favorite segments. It's episode 333 of today's Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. Excuse our dust if you will please. We're podcasting from Barking Dog Studios here in the beautiful Abutilon jungle in Suburban Purgatory, where even the dogs are in hiding with all the construction going on. And watch your step. It's the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, brought to you today by Smartpots and heirloomroses .com. Let's go.

SNAIL AND SLUG CONTROL TIPS

Farmer Fred

You know what's fun to do is to hang out at a nursery or garden center with our favorite retired college horticultural Professor, Debbie Flower. Recently, we visited a local nursery and wandered over to the slug and snail control aisle. There certainly a lot to choose from there.

Farmer Fred

Let's talk a little bit about mechanical, cultural physical controls for controlling these pests (snails and slugs), which are soon you're going to find them in places you don't want to find them. And probably where they are right now is under some protection.

Debbie Flower

in the mulch and in the soil. I was planting a plant the other day into my landscape. I found their eggs in in my field soil, I use lots of mulch, they love that, and they like wet places. So they could be in the drain holes of a pot that you have outside.  I have a bird bath and you know the birds take a bath and some water goes over the side. They're probably right under that bird bath base. Any place that in my raised bed, they're probably between the wood and the soil. During the day they need to hide in moist cool places. And so they're tucked in these little corners.

Farmer Fred

So if you know where the moist places are in your yard, and especially if you have plants with a lot of green foliage around like agapanthus, underneath piles of lumber, that's where you're gonna find them.

Debbie Flower

Yes. And speaking of piles of lumber, that's one of the mechanical controls. Put out a piece of wood and let them collect under it, they'll come out at night to do their feeding, and then they'll collect under the wood because that's a nice protected spot in the morning and you go out and pick up that wood and there will be slugs and snails attached to it or under it. And that's a way to collect them and dispose of them.

Farmer Fred

You mentioned that you found their eggs, what do their eggs look like?

Debbie Flower

Their eggs are white and round and small. If you know what time release pelleted fertilizer looks like it looks very much like that. small as in eighth of an inch, maybe a little bigger than that, around.

Farmer Fred

pretty good size.

Debbie Flower

Yes, they are. They're very visible sometimes they're in big clusters. There was a time when we unpotted a plant to transplant it at school up into a bigger pot. And  50% of this four inch pot was full of a whole bunch of slug eggs. So sometimes they're in a big collection and sometimes they're just individual. what I was seeing was individual eggs dispersed throughout the soil. It may have been that I disturbed the  mess and spread them myself. But they're wet. They're white, white and sort of translucent and they're wet because their whole life of a slug depends on moisture.

Farmer Fred

What did you do with the eggs?

Debbie Flower

I just left them and put slug bait out. Okay, if they if I if it were a whole collection of them? Well actually I was I was popping them. Okay,

Farmer Fred

Okay, all right.

Debbie Flower

When I could get to them. but I know there are more than what I saw. So I planted the plant and then put I have lots of mulch and that's a place they like to live as in mulch between the mulch in the soil. That's another wet protected spot. So after I planted the plant and watered it in, always water after planting, and then came out with a slug bait and put that out.

Farmer Fred

What is the active ingredient that you look for when shopping for a snail and slug control product.

Debbie Flower

I prefer an iron phosphate type product. It will say that there's always a list on a pesticide label that says active ingredients and it will say iron phosphate. This one says sodium ferric EDTA. that's something different. This one says metaldehyde and that's a different product. Metaldehyde, I prefer not to use because it's poisonous to small animals like pets, they have to eat a lot of it to to be harmed. But I'd rather just avoid that. I have never used  the sodium ferric EDTA. Sodium is not something that is good for plants, they need a tiny bit of it, but not much. And a buildup of sodium in my soil would concern me. Sodium, like in your table salt, but also the iron phosphate has its downside, if you use too much it is toxic to worms. So when you apply this, you need to look at... there's a whole big booklet about application.

Farmer Fred

And it's actually when you apply these granules, you apply them very sporadically, there isn't very much you have to put down. Sparsely, it's like what a teaspoon or a tablespoon per..?

Debbie Flower

tablespoon per 100 square feet. Wow. So a 10 by 10. Maybe your whole vegetable garden is 10 by 10. Yeah, one tablespoon. And that's because it can be toxic to worms at a higher population.

Farmer Fred

Yeah, and when you read the warnings on the back, usually I say well, you choose the one with the less toxic signal word. The three signal words are caution or warning and danger. And everything that is here has the the least toxic of the of the signal words of caution. But then you go and read the labels. And I'm looking at the one with sodium ferric EDTA. And it says caution causes moderate eye irritation. avoid contact with eyes or clothing. wash thoroughly with soap and water after handling and before eating, drinking, chewing gum, using tobacco, and using the toilet. And then if you pick up the product that has metaldehyde for the active ingredient. The precautions and restrictions include this warning, "this pesticide may be harmful to children and fatal to dogs and other domestic animals. if ingested. Children and dogs may be attracted to metaldehyde products, both in the package and when applied. Children and domestic animals must be kept out of treated areas from the start of application until the applied product is no longer visible." And they're not kidding. If it's on the label. It's the law. The labels are law.

Debbie Flower

Yes.

Farmer Fred

So that's why we always say read and follow all label directions. Okay. Now you're looking at the iron phosphate product.

Debbie Flower

I am. It says similar to what the sodium ferric one did, causes moderate eye irritation. avoid contact with eyes or clothing wash thoroughly with soap and water after handling before eating drinking chewing gum using tobacco and using the toilet. almost the exact wording.

Farmer Fred

It is the exact warning.  So then the  three we looked at the iron phosphate and the sodium ferric EDTA would be the least toxic.

Debbie Flower

Correct, right. There's one more product here that I have not used much have you used this one?

Farmer Fred

Yeah, that one because it has two active ingredients. It has iron phosphate and it has spinosad so basically not only does it control slugs and snails, it will also control things like the turn it over and let's read it...rolypolys!

Debbie Flower

Don't be afraid to open the big booklet label on the back of the pesticide. Treat it gently in case you don't buy it and you want it to look nice for the next person. But the label is there to be read. Okay, Pest Control: earwigs cutworms sowbugs pillbugs, crickets, slugs and snails. I don't use this one much because I would rather keep things in balance in the garden. But when I have little baby either I've put seeds in the garden direct seeded into the garden or I have put very young tender babies into the garden I will put us a little bit of this around those plants because the earwigs, cut worms, sow bugs and pill bugs and crickets will eat young plants. And so I'm just trying to protect that plant until it can grow out of that stage where it's attracted to those insects.

Farmer Fred

And yet here's another product for snail and slug control. I don't think it kills them I think it just repels them but the active ingredient are various oils like rosemary oil.

Debbie Flower

Yes, and I wondered see attached booklet. I wondered if you have to actually touch for this says use on fruits vegetables, citrus and ornamentals. Yeah the citrus is a favorite of slugs and snails. And it says to control slugs and snails by contact or as a repellent. So apply it directly to snails and slugs. As repellent apply it directly to the plants when feeding is first noticed. Apply in late evening for best results which makes sense because the oil will be the strongest when you first apply it and the slugs and snails feed At night

Farmer Fred

now I'm wondering if there are temperature restrictions on the use of this product. I would think using an oil on a hot day on a plant may not be a good idea.

Debbie Flower

Yes, they don't mention that here. But you're absolutely right. You wouldn't want to apply this. When the temperatures get above about 85 degrees, it would spot your plant you would see damage to the plant. Not much else. It's also caution label,

Farmer Fred

which is the least toxic of the three signal words

Debbie Flower

and has the same well it says harmful if swallowed. Avoid breathing the mist may cause irritation of nose, throat or skin we haven't seen that before. avoid contact with skin eyes clothing, wear protective eyewear, waterproof gloves. wash thoroughly with soap and water after handling before eating, drinking, chewing using tobacco. Remove and wash contaminated clothing before reuse. Keep all persons and pets out of the treated areas until spray has dried

Farmer Fred

but you can chew gum.

Debbie Flower

So although it when reading the label, it sounds like it's the least toxic of the chemicals. It has more PPE, personal protective equipment, that they specify you wear and it has more can potentially cause more damage to your respiratory system than the others. So different things to consider when you're applying when you're choosing your slug and snail control.

Farmer Fred

That was, of course, America’s Favorite Retired College Horticulture Professor, Debbie Flower, with snail and slug control tips. In today’s show notes, we have a link for even more information from the University of California’s Ag and Natural Resources Division about snails and slugs. Check it out!

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FEED YOUR SOIL, NOT YOUR PLANTS

Farmer Fred

Hi, everybody, Farmer Fred on the road at Eldorado Nursery and Garden in Shingle Springs (CA). It's their Planta-Palooza event.  One of the speakers that is appearing here today works for Kellogg Garden Products. And she is a big advocate of doing things organically and also building up your soil. Giselle Schoniger, she's their organic teacher at Kellogg's.

Giselle Schoniger

That's right. Thank you so much for having me on your show. You're  such a delight. You know, I think that my background is, as I've shared with you in the past, actually is in the use of chemicals. I went to a production agricultural school. And about 16 years ago, I transitioned over to organics. And I've helped build three different brands of organic products. I tell you, all my soil and fertilizer classes made far more sense when I started working with nature instead of trying to control her. And, you know, I think that when we look at fertility, of how we feed plants, most of us that are using chemical fertilizers to feed plants, truly that is what we're doing, we're feeding the plant, but at the expense of the soil.

Farmer Fred

What a lot of people don't realize is you should be feeding the soil, not the plant. If you feed the soil, you will be feeding the plant because that's how the plant gets its nutrients.

Giselle Schoniger

Absolutely. When we look at chemical fertilizers and you know  this is just part of the story, it's not just about NPK, nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. But when you see a 30-30-30 NPK or 20-20-20, or a triple 16. That material is a chemically formulated product. It's salt, it's a salt-based product. It forces that plant to grow and it creates a plant with very thin cell walls, then leaves, stems and flowers. That plant is like an attractant to insects and diseases. But the damage is what we're doing below the soil. And those salts kill off beneficial life. And when you kill the good guys off now you have a proliferation of disease-causing pathogens. Organics work in the opposite fashion. And an all purpose fertilizer might only be a 4-4-4 NPK. But it's about feeding the life in the soil as you just said. So when you build good life in the soil, the natural good guys will always eventually out compete the bad guys. And above ground. The plant has a thick cell wall, thick leaf, stems and flowers. That plant now has more of a resiliency it has a better immune system, if you will, from insect and disease attack.

Farmer Fred

What are the key words on synthetic fertilizers that would indicate it contains salt?

Giselle Schoniger

Well, you know, actually most people wouldn't know that on a fertilizer, you wouldn't really understand that that is really what the component is when it goes down through the soil profile. Chemical fertilizers, very much like let's say steer manure, you know, 50 years ago, steer manure was a good product. But when you think about how confined the animals are, how regimented their diet is, they're not grass-fed often. So it's high in salt. Those fertilizers are also high in salt. When you add a salt material to to a clay soil, let's say you're only going to compact that soil further. But back to your question, really anytime you see of material where the NPK is higher than let's say, a 12, a triple 12 and you see something like urea or ammonium. Those are the kinds of things that should really alert you to the fact if you can't really read what the words are, like on a lot of the food that we eat today. Pretty much those are going to be materials that are artificially formulated.

Farmer Fred

Now you mentioned steer manure and the amount of salts it has. And I imagine a lot of people are asking themselves well, wait a minute...steer manure... Isn't that an organic fertilizer? Wouldn't that be good for the soil?

Giselle Schoniger

Well steer manure a lot of people use it's it, let me put it this way, it is better than not using anything. But it is truly high in salt. So it's a value product. I mean, of course, people use it. And everybody's watching their paycheck, you know,  their pocket book, which we all have to do today. So if that's what someone chooses to use, but just know if you're adding it to a clay soil that's already compact and dense, you're truly making the soil more compacted and more dense by adding that salt. So we have other types of manures we have some chicken manure, we have a product called the Gardner and Bloome line has a product called Harvest Supreme. It does have 15% chicken manure in it, it has mychorrazai, it has earthworm castings, kelp, we add a whole host of organic nutrients within that material. So we have a whole breadth of product lines. We have worm castings. Worm castings are awesome to add into  either your raised bed or in-ground plantings and are not going to be as high in salt.

Farmer Fred

And you don't need that much worm castings for it to be effective either.

Giselle Schoniger

I love worm castings. I tell you, if people would really start using worm castings, or create, I have a worm bin, which I love. It's, it's like a science project the first few times you do it, but once you get the hang of it, you realize you're really not doing anything except feeding them. The worms are doing all the work. And you can have some fun with some of these materials, especially in raised beds. You know this has become the new trend over the years. Instead of dealing with our hardpan native soil if we build a raised bed. Now I taught gardening as therapy I was working as a horticultural therapist for 10 years in convalescent homes. At that time, you know, it was really for people in wheelchairs. But when we look now, why not raise the garden up to us, we're getting older Fred.

Farmer Fred

You know, it's nice to have that raised bed.

Giselle Schoniger

But the beauty is we get to layer in the kind of materials that we need. If you find that it's getting compressed down, fluff it up with some materials, our soil building compost is great for adding I look at it that product as fiber, just like we need fiber. Now this is a little bit of a stretch. But just like we need fiber to keep us our system functioning properly, the soil needs fiber as well to aerate it, to open it up, to help with drainage, to allow the beneficial aerobic microorganisms in the soil to allow them to breathe. Because if it's too compacted, that life in the soil can't breathe, which means the roots can't breathe, which means water can't percolate through the soil. So raised beds are fantastic. And you can have some fun by adding in different types of materials as you go through the season. You know, it's fascinating, this whole movement that we're seeing it's it's almost like the back to the earth movement finally arrived from the 60s in the 70s. And I think because we're so tech, we're so involved with technology, people are on the road more. Our lives have become so hectic that this idea of of growing our own food and slowing down a little bit has really become part of our culture today.

Farmer Fred

It boils down to if you feed the soil, you're feeding the plants.

Giselle Schoniger

That's right. It's a totally different approach. You know, we took a detour in the early 30s and 40s. When we started using synthetics, really in the early 1940s. Right around World War Two, when we started creating a lot of these synthetics, we were using minerals, you know, farmers were definitely a farm, it was like a closed system. All that organic matter,  the manure got composted and put back into the earth. But when we started focusing on production, you know, it's really sort of a misnomer that we created more food, because what we really did is we destroyed the soil system, we farmed the very life out of the soil. And in over maybe a decade from the 1940s into the 50s. We had to triple and quadruple the amount of chemical fertilizers we were using to try and get the yields that we were getting in the first few years. So it's really truly a misnomer to say that we increased yields. It's short, that was a short term, temporary result. And and you're right Fred, it's about feeding the life in the soil. The organisms in the soil secrete enzymes that break organic matter down. I mean, if we didn't have all this biology in the soil, the Earth would be full of debris, but they're cycling these nutrients back into the soil and roots then pull from the soil what they need when they need it.

Farmer Fred

All it takes is mulch, all it takes is compost, maybe a cover crop or two. And you can have healthy soil as well. Well, Giselle Schoniger from Kellogg Garden Products, Thanks for spending a few minutes with us and telling us about our soil.

Giselle Schoniger

Thank you, Farmer Fred. It's been a delight. Thanks to all of our customers and all our listeners out there thank you so much for your support.

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GROW YOUR OWN PROTEIN

Farmer Fred

Well, whenever we get questions about growing vegetables, we turn to our vegetable expert, Master Gardener Gail Pothour. And Gail, protein in vegetables. Is there some?

Gail Pothour

There are actually there are quite a few. I think probably the one of the highest protein vegetables would be dried beans. And there's a lot of great dried beans out there. There are one that I grow every year, something you can store for a year or two.

Farmer Fred

And great high protein. And you can put them in all sorts of dishes, crock pots, slow cooker recipes and side dishes, main dishes.

Gail Pothour

You eat them with rice. If you eat it with rice, it makes it more of a complete protein. So yeah, they're great. Beans have as much as 41 grams of protein per cup.

Farmer Fred

So yes, that is an excellent meat substitute if you're looking for protein and you want to grow it in your backyard. So how do you grow dried beans? Which varieties do best?

Gail Pothour

You grow dried beans just like you do green snap beans and they grow as bush or pole. So those are the two different types. Bush beans, you'd generally grow a couple feet to maybe three feet tall. You may need a structure to kind of support them, maybe not. Pole beans can grow quite tall. So you do need some sort of a teepee or wires for it to climb up, but they're really easy to grow. They're not particularly drought tolerant. They need regular water throughout the season. However, there are some varieties of dried beans that come from the arid southwest and so they could tolerate a little bit more water stress.

Farmer Fred

Do they have different production schedules? Do bush beans produce less than pole beans?

Gail Pothour

Bush beans tend to produce kind of all at one time. And it's a shorter period of time. Pole beans take a lot longer to grow. Still not terribly long, but they produce over the whole season. So if you're growing them for a green bean, for a fresh bean, you can harvest them all along. But if you're growing them for dry beans, you want them to dry on the vine or on the bush. So that takes an additional several weeks.

Farmer Fred

All right. So what are some of your favorite bush and pole bean varieties to grow?

Gail Pothour

My favorite all -time dry bean is called Yellow Indian Woman. It's an old heirloom and a pole type, actually it's a runner type, which is sort of between a bush and a pole, but the variety I've been growing, I don't know if it's adapted into my climate but mine now reaches about eight feet tall so mine has turned into a regular pole bean but it's a small yellow bean that is sort of reminiscent of a black bean in flavor.

Farmer Fred

And what color is the bean itself?

Gail Pothour

The bean is kind of a golden yellow. Small little squares.

Farmer Fred

And again, the name of this bean?

Gail Pothour

Yellow Indian Woman. And I was first introduced to it by Rancho Gordo Beans. It's heirloom beans out of the Napa area. And it's one of his best sellers and it's my favorite.

Farmer Fred

So how do you create dry beans? You mentioned to let them stay on the bush or on the pole until they're completely dry, but then how do you prepare them to last a long time?

Gail Pothour

Well, what I do with mine is I start harvesting the dried pods. I don't want to wait until they all get dry on the vine because they'll start to shatter and then the beans will drop out. So I'm out there every couple of days picking off any of the dried ones. I sort of keep them in a bucket, until I have nothing to do in the middle of winter and I sit there and shell my beans. There are techniques where you can put them on a tarp and walk on them and that sort of thing. I've tried that. To me, it's kind of messy. So I prefer to just sit there while I'm watching TV and individually shell the beans. Then I have learned from one of the commercial growers of Yellow Indian Woman beans, he says to put them in the freezer for about three days, no more than three days, to kill any insect eggs. And then you can store them without worrying about something hatching out and making the holes in the beans. And it will not affect the germination. If you freeze them for three days, they will still germinate so you can grow them next year.

Farmer Fred

I would imagine that they have to be completely dry for you to be able to store them without developing any sort of molds.

Gail Pothour

Right. And when you harvest them,  the whole pod is already dry and papery. The bean is pretty hard inside, so I let them sit for a few more days and then I freeze them. You can also spread them out on a baking sheet, bake at 175 degrees for about 15 minutes. That will kill any eggs as well.

Farmer Fred

And I would imagine, too, that when you take them off the shelf to put them into a meal come wintertime or whenever, you would have to soak them overnight.

Gail Pothour

You can. I find with this particular variety, I can soak them just for a couple of hours and cook them. They tend to cook up a little bit faster than some varieties. Some of the larger beans, like a Christmas lima or some of the larger beans take a little longer to cook. This particular variety cooks in about an hour if I soak them for a few hours ahead of time.

Farmer Fred

For people just starting off gardening, sometimes when you introduce them to heirlooms, bad things happen. I'm not saying that heirlooms have problems, but sometimes heirlooms have problems. Are there any hybrid varieties that you like that would make a good bush bean or pole bean that are easy to grow?

Gail Pothour

My favorite snap green bean is called Strike. That's the one I like. You could dry that. It doesn't have quite the flavor of a bean that is grown just for drying, but you could do that.

Farmer Fred

The Vegetable Research and Information Center at UC Davis has a lot of recommended varieties of beans to grow like Golden Crop Wax Bean, the Resistant Cherokee Wax Bean, and several Snap Bush Green bean varieties including Contender, Harvester, Roman, and Tender Crop. Among their pole bean recommendations, Kentucky Wonder, Romano, and Scarlet Runner. And they point out, too, that growing soybeans is becoming quite popular in home gardens because of their very high protein content. All soybeans are edible, but those in garden catalogs have been bred to do well under ordinary garden conditions, and they usually require a shorter season, and they're not growing as tall as the field types. Soybeans are quite delicious when harvested as green shell beans, but may also be allowed to dry on the vine. The pods of soybeans, though, are rather difficult to open. You may want to cook them for a few minutes to soften the pod before removing the beans.

If you want more information about dry beans, go to the Vegetable Research and Information Center link in today's show's notes and it'll take you to the UC Davis VRIC bean page. Any other dried bean varieties you want to mention?

Gail Pothour

Yes, one called Goat's Eye, Eye of the Goat. That's a good one. It's another heirloom, but it's a good dried one. And there's one called Rio Zape. It is kind of...chocolatey in color, chocolate and purple in color, and has a little bit of a chocolate flavor. It's also listed on the Slow Food Ark of Taste, and that's a good one as well.

Farmer Fred

Another food you can grow in your backyard that is high in protein, 35 grams of protein per cup. I think I've grown this a couple of times. You've probably grown it more. Peanuts.

Gail Pothour

Peanuts. We have grown it one time out at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center, maybe 10 or 12 years ago.

We haven't tried it since, although it would be a great thing to grow if you have children or grandchildren. It could be a fun crop to grow.  They can dig down and find them.  And peanuts are a legume. So it's a bean. It's not really a nut. It's not like a tree nut. Needs to take full sun. You need to have really light, friable soil because what happens after it flowers, it has a little yellow flower on it, then that flower kind of withers and the end of it goes down into the ground. It's called pegging. And then that's where the peanut will form underground, sort of like potatoes do.  It is almost just like potatoes in that it forms underground.

Farmer Fred

And you know they're ready, I believe, when most of the foliage on top is browned.

Gail Pothour

Yeah, the foliage does turn yellow and starts to dry back. And so then you could take a

digging fork or a spade and kind of loosen the soil to pull the peanuts out. They're attached to stems and a typical plant might have 30 or 40 peanuts on there, in a perfect world. And you'd pull them out and then you kind of let them dry for a couple of weeks.

Farmer Fred

Another high protein garden treat - I know you've had experience with this one - and it kind of does double duty because you can eat the outside and then you can eat the seeds, and that would be squash seed kernels.

Gail Pothour

Yeah, the pepitas is what the seed is called and I would recommend that if you grow a pumpkin for the seed that you get one that's a hullless variety. If you're familiar with squash or pumpkin seeds, there's kind of a hard shell on the outside. And the ones that are hullless have a thin membrane instead of that hard seed coat. So it makes it much easier to kind of process after when you toast them or whatever. You don't have to take them out of this hard seed. Some of the hullless varieties that you might look for is one that we grew last year. It's an All -America selection and it's called Pepitas hybrid. There's also Lady Godiva, which makes it sound like it's naked, and khaki hull-less. So those are ones that would be pretty easy to find if you wanted to grow the hull-less type pumpkin seeds. And again, those are all winter squash varieties. They're pumpkins, obviously. Just look for the words hull-less, naked seed, oil seed, or styrene in the variety description.

Farmer Fred

And of course, you can make the pumpkin pie and then have the seeds for dessert.

Gail Pothour

Yeah, some of those might not have the best flavor for pumpkin pie, but you could certainly put it in a stew or something. There are separate pumpkin varieties that are typically grown for pumpkin puree.

Farmer Fred

Here's a fun backyard crop that I know kids enjoy, and it's certainly dramatic. If you've got some sun in the backyard, grow sunflowers for sunflower seeds, which are high in protein.

Gail Pothour

Right. Don't get the ones that are pollenless. There's a lot of varieties out there that are grown more for the cut flower trade so they don't drop pollen because it tends to be kind of messy, if you have it on a vase on your table. So get ones that have pollen. The pollenless varieties do not produce seeds. And then after the petals drop, cut off the head, leaving about a foot of the stalk, hang it upside down until they're dry, and then kind of rub out the seeds.

Farmer Fred

Do you put the head in a paper bag so the seeds fall in the bag?

Gail Pothour

Yeah, you can. Sometimes it'll fall out on their own, but typically they take a little effort. You'd need to kind of rub them out.

Farmer Fred

Do you have any favorite sunflowers varieties for to grow for seed?

Gail Pothour

Mammoth is a good one. That produces a huge head, so you get quite a large number of seeds out of it. Mammoth. It's also very tall.

Farmer Fred

And another source of protein in the backyard, if you want a tree, are almonds, almond trees. And there are some good semi dwarf and dwarf varieties like all-in-one. or garden prince and both are self -fruitful. Although usually if you have two different varieties of almond trees, you get better pollination. In fact, for the home orchard, the all -in -one genetic semi -dwarf almond is the best -selling variety. If you have room for an almond tree and you can keep it at the height of a shrub, six or seven feet tall, in order to ease the harvest situation, it makes it easier to net to keep the crows away from it as well.

Gail Pothour

If you get a variety where you need to have another tree to pollinate it, be sure that they flower at the same time. That's important.

Farmer Fred

Some of the better pollenizers of other almond trees to have include Butte, Caramel, and Non-Pareil. They tend to pollinize many other different varieties of almond trees. But yeah, mix it up and you'll get better pollination. Now there are two very common garden crops that do have protein in them, not as much as beans, but still a good amount of protein, and that's broccoli and spinach, two crops that we like to grow here in California as cool season crops between say, oh, September, October and April, May. Other parts of the country can grow them in the summertime, right?

Gail Pothour

Yeah, here in the Sacramento area, they are a winter crop, which you do plant in the fall.

I know in some parts of the country they can grow that in the summer, but not here. We're a little too hot, especially for things like broccoli. When the temperatures get too high, the broccoli tends to bolt prematurely, go to flower. So it's best to plant it here in the fall. And the ideal time to plant it here is in September.

Farmer Fred

And what's nice too about broccoli and spinach is because they are cool season crops here which can get away with being grown in areas that don't get full sun, part shade.

Gail Pothour

Right, and you could also grow them in a large container. A lot of the cool season crops tend to not be as deep rooted as our summer crops like tomatoes and things like that. So if you had a large container, you could also grow spinach and broccoli in that. In fact, we grew broccoli in the straw bale this last year.

Farmer Fred

Ah, the straw bale, yeah. We're gonna have to have you back to talk about straw bale gardening.

Gail Pothour

Okay, this is our eighth year we've been doing it. We're going to probably regret it, but we're growing indeterminate tomatoes in straw bales. So you have a container that's already two feet off the ground and indeterminate tomatoes that will get eight feet. So we're going to try it. We've got a structure set up around it to control it. We'll be climbing a ladder to harvest, but we thought we'd give it a try.

Farmer Fred

All right. All right. There’s always something happening out at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center. If you're ever in the Sacramento area, you ought to drop by and see it in Fair Oaks Park, the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center. Gail Pothour, we learned a lot about protein we can grow in our garden that doesn't cluck, moo or oink.

Gail Pothour

That's right. There's a lot of choices, even if they don't have a lot of protein in them. But by varying your diet and have a lot of different things, vegetables to eat, you'll get that protein that you need for every day.

Farmer Fred

There you go, Gail Pothour, Master Gardener. Thanks for a few minutes of your time.

Gail Pothour

Okay, thanks Fred.

“BEYOND THE GARDEN BASICS” NEWSLETTER: THIN YOUR FRUIT!

Farmer Fred

If you're looking to harvest bigger pieces of fruit from your trees and vines this summer, now's the time to get out your hand pruners and thin off that overcrowded fruit. Besides getting bigger fruit, if you do some fruit thinning now while the fruit is young and small, you'll be thwarting disease issues and possibly eliminating the threat of all that weight of the non-thinned fruit from breaking the branches of your precious fruit trees. But how do you do it?

Which fruits do you allow to remain on your deciduous fruit trees, those peaches, pears, apricots, plums, apples, and others? We'll tell you how, and we will also cover thinning your other fruit-bearing plants, such as blueberries and grapevines, as well as citrus trees. And we talk about those fruit-bearing plants that do not need your thinning help, because they are self -thinning. All this information is in the May 10th, 2024 edition of the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter, which is available now.

If you already have signed up, you've got it in your email. For others, you can find a link to the newsletter in today's show notes, or click on the newsletter tab at the top of our homepage, gardenbasics.net. It's the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter. You can also find it on Substack at substack.com/gardenbasics. And it's free. But if you like the information that you find here as well as on the newsletter and you want to help keep us going, and maybe pay for all the construction, you can help support the show by making a subscription pledge at the newsletter. I appreciate it. Daddy needs a new bike too. Thank you.

Farmer Fred

Garden Basics with Farmer Fred comes out every Tuesday and Friday. It's brought to you by SmartPots. It's Garden Basics, available wherever podcasts are handed out. For more information about the podcast and transcripts of the podcast, visit our website, GardenBasics.net. And that's where you'll also find out about the free Garden Basics newsletter, Beyond the Garden Basics. And thank you so much for listening.