341 Fred's Garden Tour with Debbie

Show Transcript

341 TRANSCRIPT TOUR OF THE FARMER FRED GARDEN

Farmer Fred  0:00

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 slash Fred for more information and a special discount, that's SmartPots.com/Fred.

Welcome to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. If you're just a beginning gardener or you want good gardening information, you've come to the right spot.

Farmer Fred

Something a little different today. America’s Favorite Retired College Horticulture Professor, Debbie Flower, and myself take a stroll through the Farmer Fred backyard garden, talking about the plants, and discussing the strategies to make them successful plants, with, of course, all sorts of garden tips thrown in. It’s the ultimate scenic bypass episode yet.

It’s all in Episode 341 of today’s Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast: Fred’s Garden Tour, with Debbie Flower. Next Friday, we’ll be touring Debbie’s fabulous garden.

By the way, what’s a garden tour without pictures? Get a look at the plants we’re talking about, in this week’s Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter, which will also have this podcast, so you can listen to what we have to say and scroll down to see the plants and paraphernalia, as well. Find a link to the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter in today’s show notes, or go to substack.com/gardenbasics and subscribe, as well. It’s free.

Meanwhile, 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!

TOUR OF THE FARMER FRED GARDEN, Pt. 1

Farmer Fred

For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to do a little garden tour on this episode of Garden Basics. Unfortunately, it's my yard. But that's okay. Debbie Flower, America's Favorite Retired College Horticultural Professor, is here. And we can just talk about what I've got going on in the garden here in May of 2024, discuss a lot of things that you learn over time, and gardening is always a learning experience. Debbie, I think that's one thing any active gardener is always incorporating, if not just new plants, it’s new ideas.

Debbie Flower  2:27

yes, and always running into new problems that need to be solved. And that's what keeps me interested in all of it.

Farmer Fred 2:33

One problem I had, and we're starting here on the northwest side of the yard outside the garage, it's one of the hottest areas because it's getting reflected heat off a north fence, and we’re looking at the south side of that fence. And it's a narrow walkway. It's fairly narrow, it's about 20 feet wide. And I have three barrels here on the side.

Debbie Flower

They are on concrete, too. So there's a lot of reflected heat.

Farmer Fred

The plants I've tried to grow in these barrels in the summertime, I've had limited success with. But then again, you'll learn stuff. And I figured, well how about trying a determinate tomato that's going to bear one early crop, and then getting that out of there before it starts getting really hot in July or August. And that's what I have in this first pot here. It is a Bush Early Girl, which is a determinate tomato. It sets a good sized piece of fruit, probably six ounces or so. So it's not a cherry tomato, but they tend to all ripen at once and sure enough, I've got a lot of green tomatoes on this one that will probably turn red in the next three weeks or so. And by the time we get that harvested, I can take this out before it starts suffering from the heat and put in something, and knowing me, it will probably be something like popcorn that would enjoy the heat.

Debbie Flower 3:45

Yes, yes. And you've also got zinnias in with it and the zinnias like the heat as well.

Farmer Fred  3:50

Yeah and the zinnias are doing quite well.

Debbie Flower  3:54

They are doing fantastically, blooming beautiful. Yeah. Lovely leaves some red in the leaves of this one that has a pink flower and over there is the one with the yellow flower with red specks on it. I love zinnias I think they're very happy.

Farmer Fred 4:05

It’s a zinnia mix. And now that I'm looking at the plant, I see somebody has been gnawing on one of the tomatoes there.

Debbie Flower 4:10

That's a tomato hornworm. it's probably  an inch long, and it's eating away. There's never just one oh, there he is.

Farmer Fred  4:18

yeah, you're right. How did he get here?  Oh, too bad. You fell off, worm. Here. Let me put you out of your misery there on the ground.

Debbie Flower  4:27

Now the concrete is green. And that's life. Yeah, and there's his poop. Yep, there you go. I don't see any other poop.

Farmer Fred  4:36

No, it's very rare. tomato hornworms are very rare.  Oh, there's a lot of poop over there.

Debbie Flower 4:43

Yeah, there one on this guy. Oh, okay. You do the smashes. Sure.

Farmer Fred  4:48

one integrated pest control management technique is using the bottom of your foot. Oh, I didn't get him. Oh, he was sticking in the leaf. There he goes.

Debbie Flower 4:59

I have a friend who was talking about how he doesn't grow tomatoes anymore because he always has tomato hornworms. And I said, just put a stick near the plant so the birds can sit on it and you've got the fence that should suffice, and they will come in and eat the worms.

Farmer Fred  5:14

this fence is more of a squirrel freeway, it keeps the birds away and the squirrels do run back and forth. And the reason they like running back and forth here is as we walk down this pathway, you will see a donut peach tree. And usually there is donut peach residue on the ground, usually a half eaten donut peach. what is interesting they are coming ripe as you can see.

Debbie Flower 5:43

there's somebody's eaten one and there's somebody's eaten one.

Farmer Fred  5:46

And that's why I keep the bucket here is to throw those in here. But I was trying to figure out is it squirrels or is it rats? Rats work mostly at night. Yes. So when I come out here in the morning, though, there is no detritus of the donut peaches. So this is a daytime event and who's awake during the day?

Debbie Flower  6:03

the squirrels and birds but typically, squirrels would be the ones doing it.

Farmer Fred 6:08

Yeah. So basically, if you've got good squirrel control techniques, let us know and you'll be rich.

Debbie Flower 6:18

That was something my dad always worried about. Because they fed the birds and squirrels like to eat the bird food.

Farmer Fred  6:23

Now this poor tree also suffered a great deal from peach leaf curl. And I won't say it's recovered, but it is recovering. It's putting on new growth as you would expect it would as soon as the rain stopped, the new leaves pop out, you give it some more fertilizer to help it along. And it's starting to releaf.

Debbie Flower  6:42

Yes, it is.  There's some real vigorous growth in places.

Farmer Fred  6:47

it's doing fine. Yeah, it is. And the fig tree next to it, too, is doing fine. It's already set its first crop it hasn't ripened quite yet. This particular fig tree is a Violette de Bordeaux, which is a smaller fig tree which is perfect for this side of the yard. And it sets two crops a year, once in the spring and once in the early fall.

Debbie Flower  7:06

And  you gave me a start of it, a cutting. and I still have it in a pot, about a 15 gallon pot,  and it has set about four little fruits as well.

Farmer Fred  7:18

Now here's a technique you taught me and I was amazed how it worked on this upper bed here on the side of the house. Because it does get full sun in the area where it is, I plant squash. The squash seedlings you see that are up came up within five days of planting the seed.

Debbie Flower

Wow, that's fast. You know, I was amazed that they came up that quick. In fact I was so amazed I planted three different varieties here and the two varieties that came up were Early Prolific Straightneck summer squash and Black Beauty squash those come up but the Greyzini, for whatever reason, decided not to come up the gray zucchini it's called. And I think I was jealous that these others came up so soon that I went ahead and planted another variety behind it yesterday, right because this one didn't sprout in five days when I should probably give it what 10 days to two weeks.

Debbie Flower 8:14

Yes, I planted mine about a week ago my seeds and they might zucchini seeds and they are not up yet at but I had the same issue with beans. Beans like a very warm soil, and I put them in, anxious becausewe had some hot days. And then we had a whole bunch of cool days. So I put in about 12 bean seeds and one came up. So I put in another set of 12 and two more came up. So now I have three bean plants. I want to plant some more. You know you can always take them out you can always thin. That's right. You can always say I assume you're gonna thin these squashes, which are growing through a panel of metal that has about three inch square openings.

Farmer Fred 8:54

right. And this panel itself is about two and a half feet wide by about 10 feet long. And it's supported by bricks, be suspended about an inch above the soil to keep the dogs and the cats out.

Debbie Flower  9:08

Great.

Farmer Fred 9:09

Yeah, it works.

Debbie Flower  9:10

Yes, in my garden my spaces aren't as this big. So a panel like that doesn't work. So  I have bamboo growing in pots and I cut  the bamboo shoots  over time. There's some of the culms, which are the tall stems, they die. And so I cut those off and then I cut them into about two foot lengths. And I put them all around the place that I seeded so that the cats that are in the neighborhood won't kick over those plants who are rolling in them. I've had a cat that like to roll and stuff like that. So there. Yeah, some physical deterrent is usually very wise in the garden.

Farmer Fred  9:46

So you've stuck those bamboo sticks upright.

Debbie Flower 9:50

Yes. And some of them are branches so it looks like a Christmas scene. You know, my husband was saying we should put a little house there and a church, you know and a railroad track because they look like they are  deciduous trees that have lost their leaves.

Farmer Fred  10:03

That would be a good place for a Hot Wheel collection.

Debbie Flower  10:04

I actually have those  in the shed, because I had sons, I should bring those out.

Farmer Fred 10:10

All right. You might notice that here's a technique I borrowed from you, when you plant a seed, you talked about you don't want to put too much soil on top of that seed because it needs to break through. So the easiest way to help it along that way is instead of filling it with the native soil over the seed, put some vermiculite on top.

Debbie Flower  10:29

yes, I do that. it helps also for you to remember where that you planted the seed over time, it will discolor and disappear. And you'll never know if you cover it in the soil. And if you are starting seeds, and if the packet says it would benefit from light, then you can just lay the seed on the surface and you can put a whole quarter inch thick layer of vermiculite over it. And because the vermiculite is shiny, the light will still get to those seeds. So you'll protect the seeds. By keeping the water there, the vermiculite holds the water over the seed, you'll know where you put the seed because the vermiculite shines and you can see it and then it will help them germinate, they can still get light.

Farmer Fred 11:09

Well, now you have me worried, EagleEye, about more tomato worms down in the main tomato bed. So let's walk down there into the main backyard and see what that's doing there. This little space here, as we proceed downward into the backyard of the house, which is on a slope. And so the backyard is much lower than the house. But I had a pineapple guava in the front yard that is now in a pot here in the backyard, because it just wasn't performing. It didn't grow. But maybe I didn't give it enough time, because I planted it last year, but  I was expecting more new growth. So I got a little disappointed with it, took it out to look at the roots mainly. And I was a little disappointed in the root growth of it. So I've got it stuck in the pot and I planted zinnias where this was out front. And it seems to be responding or it's in stress because I see new growth on top.

Debbie Flower 12:00

Yeah, it looks good to me. It's very densely leaved. It is evergreen, so it keeps it's old leaves but it's got a lot of new growth on it too. But you know that saying - first year sleep, second year creep, third year leap. You gotta give plants time.

Farmer Fred  12:15

I was just a little too much in a hurry for it. I know that feeling. But I put it in a big enough pot that if I wanted to put it out back out front, I could do that.

Debbie Flower 12:25

Yes. You’d have to dig a big hole though.

Farmer Fred 12:28

Yeah, digging it out, as it was, I had to repair a drip line that I broke.

Debbie Flower

Of course, of course.

Farmer Fred

And of course, there are some Tower of Jewels here. And this will always be a permanent tower of jewels location, because as the seeds fall, you always get more.

Debbie Flower 12:44

Yes, you do. And the hummingbirds love these plants.

Farmer Fred  12:47

Yeah, so I have to stake them because the wind tends to blow them over. So if you're gonna grow Tower of Jewels, keep some stakes handy. And it seems to do well in an area that gets full sun too. I've noticed that the Tower of Jewels really liked the full sun as opposed to part shade.

Debbie Flower  13:05

At least for half of the day. They will seed it  all over the place. I have them in my yard. And they actually put themselves in on the east side of an oak tree, a deciduous oak, but they grew up there and they flowered fully and one fell over in the wind, I had to restake it. And I'm just letting them sit and form seed right now. So as long as they get a good half day of sun, which would be six hours. So as long as they get that six to eight hours of full sun, they do fine.

Farmer Fred  13:38

We're still on the north side of the house here and on this end of the lower side of the north side of the house. It's shady here, which is basically my outdoor greenhouse, if you will, where plants waiting to find a home can be comfortable. In the summertime, it doesn't get too cold here. At night around here, especially next to a house, the temperature is usually above 50 degrees at night, and it's in full shade. So there are onion plants here that haven't found a home yet. Onions are my big experiment this year.

Debbie Flower

You started these from seed?

Farmer Fred

I did start these from seed. I think more people should start onions from seed because there's a lot more varieties available and probably more varieties available that are better for your climate  if it's a short day, intermediate day, or long day requirement for the onions seeds. We are in the middle latitudes. So intermediate Onions do best here. And I found that for my needs, I want a long keeping onion, long storage, four to six months or more. And the sweet Spanish onion seemed to fit that category well. So I've got white Spanish, yellow Spanish and the Utah Spanish.

Debbie Flower 14:46

Okay, yeah, I see your little tags and your plants. They look good while they are young.

Farmer Fred 14:51

And I'm going to try to grow them for a fall crop in the ground as the yard opens up, as those early bearing tomatoes finish.

Debbie Flower  14:58

And then you have space for the late bearing onions.

Farmer Fred 15:02

as we go into the backyard, There's a whole bed of bulbing onions of also Spanish onions that were planted last fall, that are getting near harvest. So that'll be a new bed of, well, I think that bed will be popcorn. Because that timing would be right. So here we are in the area that was meant to only have maybe six tomato plants. And of course, I've got 13.

Debbie Flower  15:31

Of course, yeah, we always put too many. Yeah. And you've got them with the cattle panels, making their what do they call tomato cages making their cages the cattle panels, the cattle panel is about four foot wide and six feeders at eight feet, four by five, four by five. And so you turn it. So it's four feet tall and twisted into a circle and secure it with some wire and put that around you tomato. And I find for me, that helps me not put the tomatoes too close to each other.

Farmer Fred  16:04

That's why  you have to separate them by least three feet. Because the diameter of these cages.  this is concrete reinforcement wire,  the sheets were located over by the bricks and the mortar in the hardware store. So it makes these very nice cylinders that are about four feet tall, that seemed to be just fine for the tomatoes. So I've ended up I want to say 13 tomato plants. we've got basil started, we've got another crop of parsley going in this one bed. And in these beds here where we are on the west end of the garden, it's going to be shaded first, by the house. So these tomato plants are the ones that probably need a little bit more shade than the others. These will be in full shade by three o'clock.

Debbie Flower  16:52

And what types of tomatoes do you imagine need more shade or early shade earlier in the evening?

Farmer Fred  17:00

I think the ones that take the longest to mature, the 70 to 80 day variety ones,  I've noticed tend to suffer more from sunscald and just drooping too early.

Debbie Flower  17:15

But they're still getting let's see I'm looking at your neighbor's trees are pretty far away.

Farmer Fred  17:22

the rest of them fell down into my yard.

Debbie Flower  17:24

So they probably get sun from seven in the morning till three or so.

Farmer Fred

six to three, six to three this time of year.

Debbie Flower

So that's a good eight hours, so it's really full sun, it's just not that super hot where we are that afternoon sun by the time after three o'clock the earth is heated up, the irrigation drip lines have heated up, the cages heated up, the plant is heated up. And some plants need relief from that and shade provides it.

Farmer Fred  17:52

And we should mention, these are all in raised beds, we've got 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10 raised beds, half of them are four by eight, half of them are four by four, all with individual water control valves in each one, so I can turn eac off as they approach maturity, like in the onion bed over there. I'm about to turn the water off on that one to let them mature.

Debbie Flower  18:18

the onion flower  is potentially taking energy out of the bulb underground, which is the onion you want to eat from. So yeah, now's the time to encourage them to start to decline.

Farmer Fred 18:30

Also, I do want to save some onion seeds from these. So I do let half of them flower and trim the heads on the other half.

Debbie Flower 18:37

Okay. And you bag those heads at some point? The ones you want the seed from? somebody's working in that onion head. I can see it.

Farmer Fred  18:44

yeah, the bees are very happy with it. But I like to just clip the heads off and put them in a paper bag

Debbie Flower  18:48

where they lose their seed. Yeah, yeah.

Farmer Fred  18:51

And that's one of the beauties of living on a hillside where they've extended the house further to the south. Is that the underneath of the house now, you can walk in, please follow me. We're gonna go into something I've always craved for in property, it is a root cellar. If you live in the Midwest, you're very used to root cellars. Well, in California root cellars are a rare thing. But we're gonna go through the bike barn here. Hello, kids. How are you? Good to see you. And you can go through this door here. And we're going into what appears to be a darkened room but actually it's the underneath of the house where you can stand upright.

Debbie Flower 19:36

And look what got harvested here the onions.

Farmer Fred

these are garlic.

Debbie Flower

Oh these Wow those are big. Yeah, they're small for onions but they're big for garlic. Yeah.

Farmer Fred  19:42

I harvested the garlic yesterday. Just a wonderful aroma.

Debbie Flower  19:46

I smell it, Yes.

Farmer Fred  19:47

These  garlic heads over here were from last year that I haven't tossed yet because I went through all of them and anything that had weight, I kept figuring and while there's still a little bit of life and um you may not be able to Use all the cloves you one of those. But if you take a few heads, you can get a couple of good cloves.

Debbie Flower 20:05

Yeah, you got quite a bit there. Yeah.

Farmer Fred  20:07

So  the outside today, it's probably at 85 degrees. And in here, it's 68 degrees.

Debbie Flower  20:14

It's very comfortable. Yeah. So and it's not real humid, but it's not super dry. Right? So it's good curing. Plus, gravel on the ground.

Farmer Fred 20:25

And worms in a bin.  the worm bins are in here because worms like to be in very moderate temperatures, basically between like 45 and 85 degrees. And this is the most stable area for temperatures like that.

Debbie Flower 20:42

And one, bin is black and one is green. So in the sun, they would heat up tremendously. And I see you're collecting  the runoff. yep, the effluent  worm juice.

Farmer Fred  20:55

It’s referred to as leachate, that the University of California hasn't figured out if they should recommend usage of that or not.

Debbie Flower 21:00

When I had that kind of a worm bin, I did use the leachate. I diluted it and put it on on my house plants. And boy did they take off. They loved it.

Farmer Fred 21:07

Yeah, it's basically warm fertilizer, right? It's very good fertilizer. And you can go in, of course to the worm bins and clean out the worm castings from the bottom and use those in your garden. Right. So yeah, worms. If you have a root cellar, you might think of putting worm bins there. Right.  this is one of my favorite rooms.

Debbie Flower 21:28

I saw your cat come in.

Farmer Fred 21:29

Yeah, we'll leave the door open. So he can get out.  I've even found him underneath the homes of neighbor's houses here.

Debbie Flower

So he Learned?

Farmer Fred

Yeah. Yeah. He's always learning. Now, you may notice in this first bed here, I've got some white row cover on top. And what's under that you might ask?  It is the Holy Grail of a California gardener, who is searching for heat resistant greens that can take the summer heat. These actually do pretty good. It's the Tokyo Bekana Chinese cabbage, which looks more like lettuce.

Debbie Flower  22:07

But somebody has been eating it.  and that one's bolting. That’s  the problem with heat and the greens

Farmer Fred  22:13

Plus  heat with a row cover on it. It Trapped some heat. So I do what any good gardener would do -  I start more seeds.

Debbie Flower 22:23

Yes. And a little bit of chard there.

Farmer Fred  22:26

Yeah. A little bit of chard. But somebody's been eating the cabbage. I haven't figured out yet if it's snails, slugs or birds. So by sprinkling iron phosphate bait around there, that'll take care of the snails and slugs. The row cover keeps the birds from landing.

Debbie Flower  22:40

Well, there's also a cabbage worm, you know, the little white moth with the black spot on it that lays on the brassicas? Would that be a possibility? Or is this not in that family?

Farmer Fred 22:51

there it is.  And I do my best to chase off that little moth every time I see it.

Debbie Flower

Good luck with that.

Farmer Fred

Yeah. Well, you're the eagle  eye here. are any of those here?

Debbie Flower  23:02

I don't see any. The thing about the larva is all these things like the tomato hornworm and the cabbage worm is that they're the same color as what they eat. So it's easier sometimes to look just for their poop.

Farmer Fred 23:12

Yep. And I just don't see anything there that looks like there's anything living on the underside of the leaf, nor do I see any beneficials.

Debbie Flower  23:21

that looks like parasitized aphids. Yeah, but only two of them. That's weird. Yeah. And they just wouldn't cause this kind of damage. aphids are sucking rasping Insects, and so they cause stippling which is yellow dots on the leafs. This would be a muncher.

Farmer Fred  23:41

Yeah, I'm not sure. Exactly. I will reseed this area with more greens. Later on. I'm not too worried about it. Yeah. So we'll see. I mean, that's just one of the issues.

Farmer Fred

We'll continue our visit to the yard find out what's growing after this word from our friends at Smart Pots.

SMART POTS!

Farmer Fred  24:04

I’ve been using the Smart Pot Compost Sak for a few years now, and it is coming in very handy for spring planting season.

I like to amend my planting beds a few weeks before putting in my warm weather food and flowers. One of those ingredients that gets worked into the soil in my raised beds is compost.

And, making up the bottom half of my Smart Pot Compost Sak right now is some of the richest-looking fine compost I’ve ever seen, made from last fall’s oak leaf collection. Yep, it’s beautiful leaf mold. Besides putting a few inches of shredded leaves on the surface of the beds last fall as a mulch, I put the rest of the leaves in the Smart Pot Compost Sak. The design of the Compost Sak, with a little help from Mother Nature, turned those shredded leaves into beautiful, ready to use compost.

The Smart Pot Compost Sak is a large, 100-gallon fabric bag that is lightweight yet extremely durable and lasts for years, and can hold 12 cubic feet of pure compost. This rugged fabric is entirely porous, containing many micropores that allow for air circulation and drainage. The fitted cover is a flexible plastic top designed to increase heat and help manage moisture in the mix, accelerating the composting process.

Smart Pots are proudly made 100% in the USA. They’re BPA Free and Lead-Free, making them safe for growing vegetables and other edibles.

Smart Pots are available at independent garden centers and select Ace and True Value hardware stores nationwide. You can find the location nearest you at their website, smart pots dot com.

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

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

TOUR OF THE FARMER FRED GARDEN, Pt. 2

Farmer Fred

Let's return to our backyard tour. it's Fred and Debbie checking things out. What about these ground covers? Are there any that are resistant to dog urine? Let's find out.

Farmer Fred

The ground cover that you see here is Kurapia, it is out of control because I tried to start it originally as a lawn substitute on 200 Square feet that I've reser