364 10 Quick Tips for a Successful Garden

Show Transcript

364 TRANSCRIPT 10 Quick Tips for a Successful Garden 

Farmer Fred

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

  In this episode, 10 More Garden Quick Tips, we talk about:

• Julia Oldfield of Big Oak Nursery in Elk Grove, CA talks about creating a container garden that would be sure to slow down cars and wowing the walkers going by your front yard, using only three plants. (at 3:19  of the podcast)

• Is there a cheaper way to make seed starting mix. Brad Gates, he of Wild Boar Farms tomato fame, says, yes there is. (6:06)

• Do you raise chickens? How do you store the eggs? Where do you store the eggs? What precautions should you take after bring those eggs indoors? Good tips from urban chicken consultant and certified poultry inspector Cherie-Sintes Glover. (8:42)

• Taking pictures of bugs you find in the garden can be a difficult task. Retired entomologist, master rosarian and ace photographer Baldo Villegas has some easy to follow advice to help you create a shot of a bug that makes it easier to identify. (16:53 )

• Small apples are all the rage, perfect for putting in a lunchbox. But what’s a good variety to grow? Tom Spellman of Dave Wilson Nursery has some ideas on that. (26:21)

• Master Garden Pam Bone is in love with a certain peach variety. And you could be growing one, too. (29:02)

• Thinking you’re going to chase away turkeys or deer or skunks or rats or ants or just about any other pest from your yard, house or garden by using sound devices, shiny devices or an impulse sprinkler? Debbie Flower says, think again. (33:04)

• The Brown Thumb Mama, Pam Farley works her magic on a strawberry plant by turning one plant, into many. And it’s easy. She will explain how  . (40:11)

• Canadian garden writer Robert Pavlis shares his secrets for creating a successful garden by implementing the cut and drop method. He has the details. (43:27)

• And finally, I’d like you to try to grow popcorn.  I think you will like the results. I know you will like the taste.  I’ll take you, step by step, through the process of growing popcorn. (49:58)

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!

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Quick Tip - Spill, Chill, Thrill : Creating a Show-Stopper Plant Display

Farmer Fred

Leading off these 10 Quick Tips is something you could do now,  creating some curb appeal with widely available cool season flowering plants that will look especially great for two or more months. Nursery owner Julia Oldfield has some ideas for creating a three-plant combination, a Spiller, Chiller, Thriller floral display that will slow any passerby down to take a look. This was originally aired back in Episode 47 in the Garden Basics Podcast.

Farmer Fred   

If you want to add some pop to your garden this fall, especially in USDA Zones 7 through 9, how about doing a little “spiller, chiller, thriller” display. What is that all about? Julia Oldfield has the answer. She owns Big Oak Nursery in Elk Grove, California. Julia, what exactly is a spiller, chiller, thriller arrangement?

Julia Oldfield  

Well, I'm glad you asked Farmer Fred. Because it  is a great time to add some pops of color around in your yard. As your trees are turning red and your leaves are falling and things are going dormant. It's a great time to add maybe a pot on your patio or even a flowerbed that can be arranged this way. “Filler” is something that would hang over the side of the pot or trail along the ground. We like to use new...well,  it's not new anymore, but it's something that not a lot of people know about. They call them “Cool Wave” pansies. If you know what a “Wave Petunia” is, they are these giant petunias that will hang over the side of your pot. And they've developed pansies that will also trail the same way, so it'll hang over the side of your pot. Then you have your “chiller” which just sits in the center and its primary job is to fill the pot up in the middle and just chill and sit there and be beautiful. We like to use ornamental kale. They come in shades of purple, pink, and white. You can even add some calendulas, in orange and yellow. Those are good fall colors. The orange calendula with the purple kale is absolutely stunning together. Finally, you'll have your “thriller” which is the plant in the center that sticks out of the pot and just pretty much waves at your neighbors, because it's so beautiful and so tall. We like to use the taller Snapdragons. They will just bloom and bloom. And they come in all the different colors, so you can really get a mixture of colors or your favorite colors together. And it just really fills in your pot and  makes your pot look full and absolutely stunning. You can do it in your flowerbed too. You can have the trailing pansies in the front and then a medium plant like a calendula. And then in the back, you have your tall snapdragons. And that way anyone driving by can see the three layers, because you have them arranged by height.

Farmer Fred  

What a great display of color for the gray days of Fall. A spiller chiller thriller of cool season plants. The cool wave pansy in the front trailing over the pot or in the front of the garden. The chiller, which has standout color that lasts a long time such as the ornamental kale and the calendula. And then that big plant in the back or in the middle of the pot, the thriller, such as those snapdragons that can get 24 to 36 inches tall. Julia Oldfield thanks for explaining spiller, chiller, thriller for us.

Julia Oldfield  

You're welcome Farmer Fred.

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Quick Tip: Brad Gates/Wild Boar Farm Tomato Seed Starting Soil and planting tips

Farmer Fred

We may be enjoying the cooler weather of mid-fall right now, but in a couple of months, we’ll be getting ready to start tomato plants from seed.  Brad Gates, owner of tomato seed company Wild Boar Farms, has some quick tips on planting and a less expensive alternative for a tomato seed starting soil mix. From Episode 79. 

Farmer Fred 

Frankly, for the home gardener who's transplanting little tomato plants into slightly bigger containers, you could just use a good quality potting mix from your favorite nursery. 

Brad Gates 

Yeah, that's when I'd use regular potting mix. That's what I would do. You can top off the trays and if anything is bigger than say your pinky fingernail, pick it off the top. You can also run them through like a quarter inch screen just regular high quality potting mix, just screen it at a quarter inch and it makes perfect seed starting mix.

Farmer Fred  

Excellent tip. And of course as the tomatoes grow in that three and a half inch pot, they can get kind of lanky, too, but if you give them full sun like what you have here in this greenhouse, they will tend to be fairly upright but do you find you have to prune them?

Brad Gates 

No. If you give them plenty of light and that's why I like the cool nighttime and then not too hot during the day and that will make them a little bit stockier. Sometimes when you mass plant like you're saying, put even up to 10 seeds or more in a small cup and plant them they can fight for the light a little bit so they can get lanky. The good things with tomato plants is you can always bury the plant and a bunch of the stem and it will readjust itself so to speak.

Farmer Fred  

Yeah, just like if you bought a tomato plant at a nursery if somebody bought one of yours at a nursery and decided to transplant it into the yard like they should, they would want to plant it deeper than where it was planted in the pot at the nursery.

Brad Gates  

Yeah, my general rule of thumb is plant about 20 to 30% of the plant, no matter how big it is, if it was a little seedling when I transplant, I'll plant them about 20 or 30% of the stem underneath the soil. Once I get a nice transplant that's ready for the garden. Same thing I'll trim off any leaves or suckers that are below where I'm going to plant and then I'll bury about 20 or 30% of the stem that keeps the potting mix it's planted in from drying out that keeps when the wind in the spring is blowing your plants around. It makes it little further down in the soil so it can handle the wind and it will also regenerate roots on the stem where it comes in contact with the moist soil.

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Quick Tips for Washing, Storing Eggs, with Cherie Sintes-Glover

Farmer Fred

If you are raising chickens, how do you store your chicken eggs? On the counter, or in the refrigerator? And should you wash those eggs first? Urban Chicken Consultant Cherie Sintes Glover has some quick tips about that, along with how long you can expect eggs to last indoors. Originally aired in the Beyond the Garden Basics Newsletter and podcast, on June 24 of 2022.

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Farmer Fred  

Here's a quick tip for you. We're talking with Cherie Sintes Glover. She is an urban chicken consultant , who runs the website, ChickensForEggs.com . And there's been some sort of interesting talk on the internet about eggs. Can you leave them out on your kitchen sink? Should you wash them first? Cherie, what's the deal with washing eggs and leaving them out of the refrigerator?

Cherie Sintes Glover  

That's an excellent question or I should say, Eggsellent question.  So there's always a debate, some of you, perhaps half,  half of the people want to keep the eggs in the refrigerator at all times. The other half, especially if it's their own backyard eggs, maybe leave them out on the counter. And the truth is, a little bit of both are right. So what's super cool about chickens is that when they lay an egg, that egg is actually porous. But the chicken actually lays it with a film, that covers that egg, and protects it. So it keeps bacteria from getting inside of that porous egg shell. And so, if you do bring in eggs from your backyard, for instance, you have a laying flock of hens and you're collecting your eggs  for the day, you can absolutely bring them in, you can keep them out on your counter, it's not going to be a huge issue. Especially because they have that natural protective layer that's covering that egg shell. Now most of us backyard chicken keepers will realize, though, that chicken eggs tend to get a little dirty sometimes, especially  in the nesting box. So you're going to be tempted to wash them. If you do wash them, that is totally okay, and perfectly reasonable to do. But there's a couple of tricks. The first one is if you do wash that egg, you want to use a special brush, they actually have egg wash brushes that you can use that are gentle on the egg shell, but you want to use water that's actually warmer than the temperature of the egg. And the reason for that is it will keep from forcing bacteria in through that porous egg shell. And so make sure the water is warmer than the egg. The other thing you want to do is once you have washed those eggs, then you probably want to put them in your refrigerator, because you've removed that protective coating. And now the refrigerator makes sense. When I bring eggs home from the grocery store, I know that they've been washed, they've been cleaned. I’m going to put those automatically in my refrigerator. And then the daytime temperatures right in the middle of the summer, when it's so hot, I'm probably not going to leave my eggs out for too long. If they are out on the counter, I'm going to probably put them in the refrigerator a little bit more quickly. But if it's in the middle of winter, I'm going to probably keep my chicken eggs out on the counter for a while.

Farmer Fred  2:41  

For a while? A couple of weeks?

Cherie Sintes Glover  2:43  

Oh,  it can be it may be for a week or two. And they're usually just fine. But I tend not to keep my house too warm. So maybe that factors into it. If they're your own eggs, if you haven't washed them, they will  definitely keep  for a few days  if not a week or two. But if you wash them, then again, that's going to change that shell and remove that coating and then you're going to want to refrigerate them.

Farmer Fred  3:08  

And for refrigeration, what is the usual time that they're good in the refrigerator?

Cherie Sintes Glover  3:13  

Well, that's the amazing thing about eggs. So you can actually keep them for at least several weeks, even a month or more. And  a neat thing that you to kind of tell if it's maybe past its prime. So obviously, if you have fresh chicken eggs, you're gonna want to eat them when they're fresh, right when they're within that week that they're laid. But if you can't do that, and they end up being four weeks old, oh my gosh, by all means  those make the best hard boiled eggs. The older eggs always work better. Save those older eggs. But the trick that you want to do to maybe see how fresh they are,  take a bowl of warm water of course, remember we want the water to be warmer than the temperature of the egg. And all you have to do is place that egg in that water bowl, and then watch to see if it floats or if it sinks to the bottom. If it rises to the top, then that means it's probably perfect for hard boiling. If it's still down towards the bottom of the water bowl, then you can probably use it for your fried eggs or scrambled eggs or anything like that. So that is the trick. But remember, the water needs to be warmer than the temperature of the egg.

Farmer Fred  4:21  

So fresher eggs sink, and older eggs float.

Cherie Sintes Glover  4:23  

Yes, there we go. What a great way to say it.

Farmer Fred  4:27  

Now I know a lot of people are asking the question, what is the temperature of an egg?

Cherie Sintes Glover  4:31  

Oh, gosh, I knew you're gonna ask me that. That's gonna be a hard question. Let's see. It depends on the room temperature. So with an egg, you have to be careful because if it's fertile, this is kind of one of those weird kind of chicken geek things. So a fertile egg will start developing at about 55 degrees or warmer. So if you do have fertile eggs and you don't want them to develop up an embryo, you have to keep them below 55 degrees.

Farmer Fred  5:04  

How does this happen without a rooster around?

Cherie Sintes Glover  5:07  

Well, yeah, if you have a rooster.  So chickens will typically lay about 475 eggs in their lifetime, give or take maybe 10. And it depends on the breed, it depends on other factors, because, remember that chickens need to have so many hours of daylight in order to receive the chemical trigger to lay an egg. And that magic number is about 14. So when you hear that, you know, people say oh my gosh, my chickens are not laying in the winter, it's really not because the weather is colder, it's actually because the number of daylight hours has has decreased. So it takes them longer to lay one egg, right. So if they're getting only 10 hours of daylight a day, it's going to take them  two days to  get that chemical trigger to lay an egg. So remember, they need 14 hours. What you'll find is that in the commercial facilities, for instance, or sometimes if you do want your hens to continue laying consistently through the colder, or in less daylight hour months, what you can do is you can actually set up a light and give them that extra number of daylight hours. Kind of trick them into it. So you'd want to have the light, though not staying on at night, but actually come on early in the morning. So some people do that . They do actually add a light to the coop to keep them laying consistently. But that does mean that your chicken will not they'll be going through that 475 eggs that they were going to lay in their normal lifetime. They're going to go through that much more quickly. If that makes sense.

Farmer Fred  6:48  

Yes, that does make sense. Is there is there a special kind of light bulb?

Cherie Sintes Glover  6:52  

No, any type of light will work. And I actually just want to preface that with if you do opt to add a light, some kind of light source to your coop, during especially during the colder months, make sure that it's not a heat lamp. And the reason for that is because heat lamps are such higher  fire danger. Sometimes people will think oh, okay, I'm gonna go ahead and add a light source but gosh, I might as well just get a heat lamp because it's going to be cold. Well, there's so much danger when it comes to fire starting because of those heat lamps. Don't chance it . Just go with a regular light bulb and the chickens won't need the extra heat anyways. They'll be fine.

Farmer Fred  7:29  

There's a lot of chicken quick tips for you from Cherie Sintes Glover of ChickensForEggs.com. She's an urban chicken consultant, a certified poultry health inspector, as well. Thanks for the quick tips. Cherie.

Cherie Sintes Glover  7:40  

You're very welcome. Thank you so much, Fred.

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Baldo Villegas: Bug Photo Quick Tips 

Farmer Fred

A lot of garden questions come in to us asking about garden bugs. Primarily, what is this creature? Is it a good guy or a bad guy? A lot of times, a picture of the suspect is included in the text or email. And I’m here to tell you, we all wish those pictures were just a little bit better. Retired entomologist, Master Rosarian and ace Photographer Baldo Villegas on some quick tips for taking better pictures of garden insects. Originally aired in Episode 200 of the Garden Basics podcast.

Farmer Fred  

We like to answer your garden questions here on the Garden Basics podcast. A lot of you like to send pictures of bugs that you can't recognize. As long as you tell me where you're from, and maybe take better pictures, (and we'll get into that) I can help you out, because I have contacts. I know people who know bugs, including this guy right here. If you're looking at your phone, you can see that it's Baldo Villegas, retired state entomologist and Master Rosarian. Aren’t you now above Master Rosarian status? Aren't you like an "Emperor Rosarian?"

Baldo Villegas  

No, I'm still a Master Rosarian. I do a lot of identification of insects from all over the world for people. And as long as they send me a picture, if it can be in focus, that'll be great. If they can give you an idea of how big the bug is. That's also nice.

Farmer Fred   

What is the easiest way to do that?

Baldo Villegas  

Put your finger right next to the bug. When your fingers are in the picture I can get an idea how big the bug is. Also tell me how common it is in your garden. I like to kind of get an idea if it's really a pest or not. Most of the insects that I see are not pests. They're innocent bystanders that just come to the roses or to the plants just to take a little drink of nectar or get a little bite of the pollen.

Farmer Fred  

You know, speaking of taking a drink, Baldo likes to walk his acreage here, carrying a Mason jar full of alcohol. 

Baldo Villegas 

It's not full of alcohol. 

Farmer Fred 

Okay, half full of alcohol. 

Baldo Villegas    

And it's rubbing alcohol.

Farmer Fred    

All right, all right. But this is a great way to get that picture of that bug. Capture it first. And then you can put that dime or your finger or whatever next to it, so other people can get an idea of just how big the bug is. So what tell me about your Mason jar of rubbing alcohol.

Baldo Villegas    

I fill it a little, just a little bit of alcohol and then I go around in the mornings through my garden. I enjoy my garden every morning. And then I look for unusual stuff that might be flying by. 

(Note: at this point, Baldo demonstrates how he can gently pinch a bug on a rose plant, and drop it into the jar of alcohol for a better identification and picture later on). 

Several years ago, I found a little tiny insect called a sawfly. It turned out to be a new pest for this area. And a lot of gardeners have a lot of problems with this. Sawfly is the common name, it's also called a rose slug. It skelotonizes the surface of the leaves and is very common in our area now (Sacramento County) all the way into the foothills. And all the way into Oregon and Washington.

Farmer Fred  

And entomologists get really excited when they find something new.

Baldo Villegas  

Yes, I first found that in this area in 2013. And since then he's become a major pest.

Farmer Fred   

Baldo is famous for all the bugs that he's discovered in the Sacramento area. Now we are in Baldo's Acres, and being a Master Rosarian, the last time I heard, Baldo, you had over 1000 roses. I think it's more than that.

Baldo Villegas  

I have 1500 roses in the ground, and then over 1000 potted plants.

Farmer Fred 

But the beauty of being in a rose garden of that size here at the end of April and early May. It's all in bloom. It's just gorgeous here.

Baldo Villegas   

Yes. My garden is going to be in full bloom for next two weeks. So I'm going to be enjoying my garden every day. 

Farmer Fred  

All right, talk more about taking pictures of bugs that you need to get identified. So like you say, it's important that people send as much information as possible when they send that picture of the bug. Where they found the bug, maybe what season they found the bug, and  tell us about your garden, what you're growing, maybe the activity of that bug, does it fly a lot? Or is he just slowly crawling along? What is it doing? When you take a picture of a bug and especially if you've captured it in alcohol, and you can pose it, what items on a bug are you looking most at for a positive identification?

Baldo Villegas  

The best thing to do is to get several of the insects, because you might be seeing the immature stages of the insects. So it's also very important to get the adults. The adults are much easier to identify. The nymphs or the immature stages of some of these insects oftentimes are very difficult to identify by a lot of entomologists, but a few of them can do it. I know a lot of the immature insects for this area, but you know, somebody sent me a picture from Connecticut or Massachusetts, and they show me a moth. I don't know what the heck that is. So what I do is, I have friends who know friends, I send them to friends in that area, and they then identify it for me. And  then I get back to the person with the correct identification, and maybe if it's a pest, or a beneficial, or something that 's just passing by.

Farmer Fred  

When you're looking at a bug or an adult bug, trying to identify it, are you looking at the number of legs, the antenna or what?

Baldo Villegas    

All insects have six legs, antennae, the legs are in the thorax, yes, all insects will have that. But beetles will have the hardened wings, the first pair of wings kind of hardened. So you know that it is a beetle. Because of that, if you see a proboscis or the mouthparts are in the in the form of a syringe, then that's a true bug or aphid. Anything that sucks will have those proboscis, which suck the sap out of the plants. So you look for characteristics like that. Also, it's very important you look at the wings, the wings are the most important thing in insects. In fact, all of the orders of insects usually have some kind of name in the wings. Like coleopteran means harden wings, that means first pair of wings. Theroptera are the lacewings. And the wings are lacy, they call nerve wings. So you look for things like that. 

Farmer Fred 

So what is Hemiptera? What does Hemiptera mean?

Baldo Villegas   

Hemiptera is for the true bugs. And hemi means half. Tera means wings, so half wings, and that's when they fold the wings, the first pair of wings, they look like half wings, you always see a little triangle in there, in a square just above where they fold the wings. And that's called a scutellum. So you look for this kind of character.

Farmer Fred    

You come for the roses, stay for the bug talk. It's Baldo Villegas, retired state entomologist, Master Rosarian. Thanks for the photo tips, Baldo.

Baldo Villegas  

Thank you.  Anytime, Fred.

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Farmer Fred

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Quick Tip: Hudson’s Golden Gem Apple/Small Apples 

Farmer Fred

We have a quick tip on fruit trees from Tom Spellman of Dave Wilson Nursery. Back in Episode 107 of the Garden Basics podcast, we chatted about the Hudson's Golden Gem apple, a rare, high chill apple that is really very very tasty and is known for producing lots and lots of apples on the tree. Now, those apples are on the small side. But as Tom explains, there are some benefits to having small apples, especially if you have school age children.

Tom Spellman 

In our fourth year of the project, we started thinning because we had so many clusters that were blooming and setting you know six, eight, ten fruit in a cluster. So we started thinning all the fruit down to two. But this is one that I actually went in a couple of years ago and t