387 Q&A: Reaction Wood and Seedlings. Controlling Scale. Plants and Mulch.

Show Transcript

387 TRANSCRIPT Q&A Reaction Wood, Scale, Mulch

Farmer Fred:

[0:02] What is Reaction Wood? Yeah, I know, it sounds vaguely dirty, but actually it's a necessary growth habit to ensure that those young veggie seedlings that you have indoors right now get off to a strong start. Debbie Flower is here, and she has the details. Also, we answer questions about controlling the scale insect on fruit trees, and using last season's garden plants to improve next season's garden production. It's all here, in Episode 387. You have questions, we have answers. 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 Dave Wilson Nursery. Let's go.

Q&A: WHAT IS REACTION WOOD?

Farmer Fred:

Debbie Flower is here, America's favorite retired college horticultural professor. Is that still true?

Debbie Flower:

[0:52] You're asking me? I'm still voting for me.

Farmer Fred:

[0:55] That's good enough. Well, we get another professor writing in, with a question for you. Karen writes in and she teaches high school biology and she says, “Would high school students be able to detect and measure the reaction wood that seedlings develop if the seedlings are exposed to wind from a fan?”  And you talk about that a lot.

Debbie Flower:

[1:17] Yes, I do.

Farmer Fred:

[1:18] When you're growing seedlings. She goes on to say, “A student I taught last year grew corn and bean seedlings placed on a tray sitting on several old aquarium pumps that set up vibration. There were control seedlings which were not vibrated. She was interested in simulating vibration from traffic driving by roadside plants. She measured the stem heights and the longest root length and found no significant differences. We couldn't spot a difference in other variables by eye either.” However, Karen writes, “I’m still curious about this after listening to you and Debbie talk about providing a breeze. What variables might be measurable at a high school, if any? We have calipers, electronic scales, rulers, basic compound microscopes. I'm not sure what other tools would apply. Thank you for your fascinating podcast.” By the way, she adds an addendum to this. She says, “Garden Basics led me to the book ‘Teaming with Bacteria’.” You remember that interview we did with Jeff Lowenfels?

Debbie Flower:

Yeah, I love that book, too.

Farmer Fred:

All right. ‘Teaming with Bacteria’ by Jeff Lowenfels. And she says, “The book blew my mind! And by coincidence, a senior this year wanted to test the effects of ethylene on seed germination. I shared the book with him. He did an interesting experiment he designed with carefully measured banana pieces as his ethylene source and something called potassium permanganate as an ethylene detector. He found a pattern, but the sample sizes were very small”. And she says, “I love the problem solving and the creativity of it.” And really, if you're a teacher, that's all you're looking for.

Debbie Flower:

[2:52] It is. You want them to learn how to think for themselves and solve their own problems.

Farmer Fred:

[2:57] So, set up for us basically how you came to talk about Reaction Wood in all the many episodes we did about starting seeds.

Debbie Flower:

[3:05] Well, a lot of people have trouble when they start seeds, especially if they start them, let's say, inside on a window sill, and the seeds' stems grow very long and they grow toward the window. Well, they're growing toward the light source. But then when they put them in the ground, those stems really aren't strong enough to stand up to the elements outdoors, which includes a lot more wind than you have in the house. Well, it turns out that many seedlings, not all, produce something called, it's often referred to as, ‘reaction wood’.

Debbie Flower:

[3:35] But it's probably more accurate to call it ‘reaction cells’ because it happens in plants that don't have the ability to produce wood, like tomatoes, as well as plants that can produce wood, like, say, a blueberry. So there was an experiment done, and my memory is it was done at UC Davis before I attended there as a graduate student, and students started seeds, and then they went out daily and shook the shelves the seeds were growing on for 10 minutes. And the plants that were on those shelves and got shaken were shorter and had fatter diameter stems than those that were not shaken. So those are the two parameters that Karen's students could measure, would be the height of the plant and the diameter of the plant. She mentions that the student who tried this used fish tank aerators, and I've had fish tanks in my bedroom as a kid, and yes, they vibrate and make horrible noise that you kind of get used to. I wonder if that's a strong enough of a vibration, if it moves the plants enough. I don't know, and I don't know how to measure that, and I don't know if it was measured during the initial experiment. So that was my one question. And I did some more digging after my initial, I did respond to Farmer Fred's when he sent me the question about that. And I assume he passed it on to Karen. But I did more digging after that and found out that monocots, which is a category of plants, do not produce reaction cells.

Farmer Fred:

[5:07] Ooh, and an example of a monocot, off the top of my head, would be corn.

Debbie Flower:

[5:11] Corn, right. And that was one of the seeds that the students started with this experiment. And then Karen mentioned beans. And there are several types of beans, bush beans and climbing beans.

Farmer Fred:

[5:23] Beans aren't monocots, though, are they?

Debbie Flower:

[5:25] No, beans are dicots, and they do potentially produce reaction cells. Plants have a bunch of tropisms. Tropisms are responses to stimulus. So we talked about one, phototropism, which is that the plant responding to light. A positive tropism is growing toward the stimulus, a negative tropism is growing away from the stimulus. So stems, plant parts, grow toward the sun. So they have positive phototropism. However, their roots have negative phototropism. They do not grow toward the sun. They grow into the darkness. Then there is geotropism, which is gravity. Stems and the green parts grow away from gravity. They have a negative geotropism. Roots have positive geotropism and grow towards gravity. And the third one is thigmo(tropism). I don't know how you relate thigmo to it, but it's touch, or it's reaction to something that's like a touch, like wind.

Debbie Flower:

[6:28] So vines grow, and they actually have a negative phototropism. They grow away from light when they're on the ground because they're looking for something to climb. And when they touch, so that's a phototropism, but then when they touch something they're going to climb, the thigmotropism causes them to wrap around that thing. Well, these reaction cells are formed as a, they are a thigmotropism.

Farmer Fred:

[6:55] Could you spell thigmotropism?

Debbie Flower:

[6:57] T-H-I-G-M-O.

Farmer Fred:

Oh, just like it sounds.

Debbie Flower:

Thigmotropism. And so it's a touch. So it's a touch from the wind that causes the plant to produce the reaction cells to prevent it from falling over from the wind, to be pushed over by the wind. Monocots include the grasses, like your lawn. Corn is a monocot. Palm trees are a monocot. And they really don't need this reaction tissue, and they don't have the ability to make it because they don't have the ability to make any secondary growth. But if you watch a palm tree in a very strong wind, what does it do?

Farmer Fred:

[7:33] Bends.

Debbie Flower:

[7:34] Bends, and then what does it do?

Farmer Fred:

Goes back up.

Debbie Flower:

Goes back up, yes. In the same strong wind, an oak tree, for instance, won't bend, and if the wind gets strong enough, parts of it will break off. It'll move, but it won't bend all the way to the ground like a palm tree can do, and then the palm tree can react. So, I would wonder if Karen's student might like to redo the experiment using dicots, zinnias, basil, tomato. There are many, many dicots. And a stronger shake than provided by aquarium vibrator things.

Farmer Fred:

[8:16] And how long does that shake need to go on?

Debbie Flower:

[8:19] Well, the results of the initial experiment were 10 minutes a day. And so what I have set up in my greenhouse, and I've had it set up every seed starting place I ever tried, is a fan. And it goes on for a half an hour a day because it's an oscillating fan. So it moves from side to side, hoping that every seedling in its path will get a third of that wind and cause those seedlings to move. You get a much stronger stem. So the things that Karen's students would measure would be the height of the plants. They should be shorter if they've been in the wind compared to the ones that weren't. And we're talking primarily about the stem itself, not the leaves, and the diameter of the stem. It should be fatter. There could be changes to the cells inside the stems. I didn't get that far into it. They do develop other components inside the cells that make them stronger. I don't know if that would be visible at a 40X microscope.

Farmer Fred:

[9:16] We probably should define for those who are wondering what a monocot and a dicot are. And the words actually kind of describe what it means, monocot. Mono means one. Cot would be a cotyledon leaf, which is the first leaf that pops up. And with a monocot, there's just one leaf that comes up. And with a dicot, di meaning two, two leaves come up.

Debbie Flower:

[9:36] Right. And then as they develop, they have different structures inside their stems. The monocots have their vascular system in bundles throughout the stem, whereas the dicots have continuous rings of their vascular system. So the vascular system is the plumbing. And those rings you can count in a tree. Those are vascular bundles that they get, two each year, the fat ones and the skinny ones, but those are vascular bundles that you can count in a tree. And if you ever looked at a palm stem cut side to side, it's just, it's very rough, but it's just, you don't see rings. You see things sticking up, and those things, are remnants of the walls of the vascular system that have extra silica in them that make them strong, and that's what gives the strength to the palm tree-like rebar and concrete.

Farmer Fred:

[10:33] At what age could you do that to a palm, cut it, and look at that cross-section and you'd see these?

Debbie Flower:

[10:39] I don't know the answer to that question. I have some slices at home, but they were from unwanted larger trees that were taken down. It's hard to cut a palm tree down because there's so much silica, and silica can ruin the blade of whatever tool you're using to cut it down.

Farmer Fred:

[10:58] There's a tip for you. Well, I was thinking in terms a teacher would think in: what can we accomplish in a three-month period?

Debbie Flower:

[11:04] Right. Well, yes. Having worked in a semester school, you do have to think that way. It wasn't three months, but what can we get done in the course of the time I have these students? Yes.

Farmer Fred:

[11:15] So what would be a rapidly maturing plant where you could take some measurements? Obviously, height, all you need is a ruler,

Debbie Flower:

[11:21] But... Caliper would be easy.

Farmer Fred:

[11:24]  Okay. And vascular cells, a microscope?

Debbie Flower:

[11:27] That, yeah, that... We've looked at, like, onion cells. Yeah, I can't answer that definitively. That would take more research on my part.

Farmer Fred:

[11:37] And for a source of that movement, I guess in the classroom you could use the fan.

Debbie Flower:

[11:42] Yes. And the fan could go on at night. It doesn't have to be a daytime thing.

Farmer Fred:

[11:47] However, if you're teaching a science class, you might have a hamster there.

Debbie Flower:

There you go.

Farmer Fred:

And the hamster, what do hamsters do at night? They go round and round in a wheel.

Debbie Flower:

[11:57] Yes, they do.

Farmer Fred:

[11:57] So you could put a small tray on top of their cage, and that would take care of your vibration needs.

Debbie Flower:

[12:03] I hope so. I hope. Maybe you need several hamsters to make it strong enough.

Farmer Fred:

[12:08] All right. But it certainly would be more than passing traffic. I guess unless they are on a busy street.

Debbie Flower:

[12:14] I think the thing that affects the plant passing traffic-wise is the breeze the vehicle creates. You know, the vehicle moves. You sit in the turn lane waiting for your arrow to turn and the cars go past you and your car shakes. And that's a sucking of wind. So it's a movement of air. And I think that's what the plants are most affected by. I don't know that the vibration of the vehicle on the asphalt or concrete would translate to the soil of the roots.

Farmer Fred:

[12:42] I once got knocked off a bike by a passing semi-truck on Highway 50 somewhere in the middle of Nevada.  And the passing breeze was a surprise.

Debbie Flower:

[12:54] Made your torso strong.

Farmer Fred:

[12:57] Yes. But yeah, that would be the same type of thing. So  I guess air, moving air, would be the easiest.

Debbie Flower:

[13:04] I think it's the easiest. It's very easy to come by. I had my fans on timers. My greenhouse, it's underneath an aluminum roasting pan with a brick on top so it doesn't get wet from the irrigation. Works just fine.

Farmer Fred:

[13:18] All right. So there you go. Reaction Wood. Have fun experimenting with that. And thanks for the question, Karen. Yeah.

Debbie Flower:

[13:24] Let us know if things if you find out more things.

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Farmer Fred:

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Q&A: HOW TO CONTROL SCALE INSECTS ON FRUIT TREES

Farmer Fred:

[14:48] We get a garden question from Linda, who writes in: “What is the best application or product for a fruit tree with scale? Is there an oil besides neem oil that can be used? Thank you.” Good question, Linda. Debbie Flower is here, America's favorite retired college horticultural professor. And scale is an interesting critter. It's pretty easy to spot when they're in their little shell, be it an armored scale or a soft scale. At first, all you want to do is just sort of rub it off. And actually, that's not a bad way to go to control it.

Debbie Flower:

[15:19] Right. If you can get to it and remove it all, it certainly works.

Farmer Fred:

[15:22] Yeah. Their populations can build up quickly. So as soon as you start seeing the little knobs of scale growing along a stem, that is the time to take action with either a plastic scouring pad or even a blast of water from the hose can control a lot of it. But you got to know your scales, too. There's armored scales and soft scales, and you need to identify them. And there's a great scale webpage at the University of California Ag and Natural Resources that can lead you to a photo gallery to identify the particular scale, because there can be different controls for both armored scale and soft scale. And they are, as their name implies, either hard shelled or soft shelled.

Debbie Flower:

[16:02] Right. Yes. Washing them off certainly works. It would be very tedious process.

Farmer Fred:

[16:06] I found it very satisfying.

Debbie Flower:

[16:08] Oh, OK. Well, there is that. There is that. But you have to figure out why this plant has scale and what you can do to prevent it from happening in the future. And often it's because the plant canopy is very dense and the beneficial insects, meaning the ones that are going to attack the scale, can't get in there to do that. So pruning to open up the canopy of the plant will help tremendously. And then another big reason, very common, that scale survives on plants is ants are tending them. Ants want the honeydew that comes out of them that is very sweet. They collect that, they eat it, take it back to their nest, and they will fight off the beneficial insects that will control the scale. So controlling those ants with ant baits at the base of the plant and pruning the plant so that it isn't touching other places where the ants can get on the plant. So a fence, the house, whatever else that plant might be touching.

Farmer Fred:

[17:09] And the University of California Ag and Natural Resources also advises, too, to keep the plant well irrigated because that can help to make the plant stronger if there is a scale invasion. So that's a good tip, too. Just really just common sense, healthy plant habits that you're tending to on these plants that get the scale, the fruit trees, is make sure they're well irrigated, make sure they're properly fed, and keep your eye out for the scales. Another reason you walk your garden every day.

Debbie Flower:

[17:36] Right. I suspect it's leucanium scale, which is very common in fruit trees. Leucanium scale is a brown scale with a very rounded top. It's kind of one, to me, one of the more obvious ones you can see.

Farmer Fred:

[17:49] Leucanium scale is considered a soft scale, I do believe. I know it attacks almonds and cottonwoods and elms and grapes and pears and pistachios and stone fruits, the toyon, walnut trees as well. It's also called the brown apricot scale. University of California describes its impact as “annoyingly abundant” sometimes.

Debbie Flower:

[18:10] Right. Which is the reasons I think it might be leucanium scale, that it's abundant and on all those plants.

Farmer Fred:

[18:19] But as we said, there are a lot of different species of scales. So again, refer to that UC handout, which is entitled Scales from UC ANR. And that will lead you to a photo gallery of the different ones, along with descriptions of their various characteristics that can help you out and which plants they're attracted to. And since it is a soft scale, you'll probably have a better chance of seeing them walking around.

Debbie Flower:

[18:47] And you can get some control by using double-sided tape on either side of the infection. I don't know if they even recommend that anymore.

Farmer Fred:

[18:56] They do talk about using tape traps, but usually as a monitor for when to apply a fuller application of an insecticide.

Debbie Flower:

[19:04] Oh, so you want to get the youngsters with it, the crawlers.

Farmer Fred:

[19:07] Yeah, and that also lets you know they're active and they're moving.

Debbie Flower:

[19:10] Yes, they're alive. That's the odd thing about scale. Once you kill it, it just sits there. Yes. And if it doesn't change color for some reason, like some of the white ones might turn brown, leucanium scale is brown, you don't really know if it's dead. So you have to go after it with, I use my thumbnail, and tip it over and see what's underneath, if there's anything alive underneath. It's easier to tip over if it's dead, too.

Farmer Fred:

[19:32] This is a tedious process, since they recommend that you change that double-sided tape weekly.

Debbie Flower:

[19:37] Oh, wow.

Farmer Fred:

[19:38] Yeah.

Debbie Flower:

[19:39] It's not going to be your end-all and be-all control, using the tape.

Farmer Fred:

[19:41] Right. And neem oil is one of the chemical controls that they talk about, but there are also biological controls as well. There's parasitic wasps, certain beetles, the ladybug, for example, lacewings, and even predaceous mites that will go after scale. So having that good bug hotel, the plants that attract the beneficials, can go a long way for them when they see the scale on a nearby plant.

Debbie Flower:

[20:08] And you don't want insecticides being used nearby for other reasons, because they may kill the beneficial insects. If you have your house sprayed or it's used by somebody, some gardener or something, I don't know what you might be doing with insecticides. But it can have peripheral effects of killing those beneficials. You don't want that.

Farmer Fred:

[20:31] What I find interesting in the University of California description of scale control using non-residual contact insecticides, it says, “where plants can be sprayed”, I'm not sure by that phrase if they mean because of the density of the leaves or some sort of municipal prohibition from using sprays.

Debbie Flower:

[20:51] Good question. Yeah. Depends how big the tree is, how effective spraying could be. Without calling in a company, and then that's going to cost a fortune.

Farmer Fred:

[20:59] Here's another great argument for backyard orchard culture and maintaining the height of your fruit tree at six to eight feet tall so you can reach all the parts. And they talk about these non-residual contact insecticides include soap, insecticidal soap, neem oil, canola oil, and other botanical plant-derived oils. These insecticides have low toxicity to people and pets and relatively little impact on the populations of pollinators and natural enemies and the benefits that those good guys provide.

Debbie Flower:

[21:35] Yeah, those all work by, they have to touch the pest.  And so the beneficials tend to skedaddle when something starts happening.

Farmer Fred:

[21:42] Which means that you have to get into that tree. And if that tree is 50 feet tall, no chance you're going to get them all. There are precautions, though. If you're using oils like neem oil, like you said, Linda, as we are fond of saying here, “read and follow all label directions”, which may say not to spray certain plant species, or mix oil with certain other products. Oil is going to remove the desirable bluish tinge from blue spruce, for example. I don't know why I said that.

Debbie Flower:

[22:10] Well, if it's a plum tree, you wouldn't want to apply it when the fruit was there, but sometimes there's a bluish blush on them.

Farmer Fred:

[22:17] Basically, you don't want to mix the oil with other things like chlorothenol, sulfur, and certain other fungicides. Don't apply oil within three weeks of application of sulfur-containing compounds, such as wettable sulfur. Don't apply oil or other insecticides when it's foggy, freezing under 32 degrees, or hot over 90 degrees. And when relative humidity is above 90 percent or if rain is expected in the next 24 hours, especially at locations with hot weather, be sure the plants are well irrigated before spraying the foliage. That makes a lot of sense, too, because when you're spraying foliage, you're closing those pores.

Debbie Flower:

[22:56] Right. And although it mentioned things like canola oil, don't make your own at home. Go buy the stuff that is labeled for use. It's been tested. It has directions, amounts, time of seasons to do it, and it'll be much safer for your plant.

Farmer Fred:

[23:13] And the same is true of not only just oils, but insecticidal soap, too, because there's a lot of recipes online for making your own insecticidal soap. And I guarantee you, a lot of them won't work because it's a certain kind of soap you have to use in a certain concentration and a certain amount of water you need.

Debbie Flower:

[23:31] Yes, agreed.

Farmer Fred:

[23:32] You're not washing dishes. You're trying to kill pests.

Debbie Flower:

[23:35] Mm-hmm. And save plants.

Farmer Fred:

[23:37] Yeah. And on this program, we tend to shy away from talking about using systemic insecticides as a soil drench or a trunk injection, because in some places it's illegal.

Debbie Flower:

[23:49] And this is a fruit tree.

Farmer Fred:

[23:51] Yeah, it's a fruit tree. It's an edible.

Debbie Flower:

[23:53] So the systemic will get into the fruit. Yeah.

Farmer Fred:

[23:56] So you really don't want to do that. And you may say, well, “it doesn't have fruit on it now. The fruit won't be appearing for another month”. Well, ha, ha, ha.

Debbie Flower:

[24:02] Takes a while to move from the roots up. And when a fruit is filling with sugar, that's the primary location for the carbohydrates made in the plant to go. And so, potentially, it could get into the fruit.

Farmer Fred:

[24:15] Right. So, that's why we don't talk much about things with complicated names when it comes to controlling pests. And not only that, but when it gets washed off, it can hit our waterways as it drains.

Debbie Flower:

[24:27] Yeah, I would stay away from systemics.

Farmer Fred:

[24:30] All right. But fortunately, there's a lot of good biological, mechanical, and physical controls for controlling scale. And you can find, we'll have a link to this publication in today's show notes that can help you identify the scale and give you several strategies for controlling them, this sucking insect. Scale. It's not your friend. Nope. Is there beneficial scale?

Debbie Flower:

[24:56] I don't think so. Not that I'm aware of.

Farmer Fred:

[24:58] I don't think so. All right. Screw them. All right. there's your scale issue, Linda. Thank you so much for the question. Debbie, thanks for your help.

Debbie Flower:

[25:04] My pleasure, Fred.

BEYOND THE GARDEN BASICS NEWSLETTER

Farmer Fred:

[25:10] It's early spring, and social media ads and influencers are filling your feeds with supposedly surefire items and techniques for your warm season garden. And they're usually designed, frankly, to separate you from your money. In this week's Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter, we tackle a popular topic in this season's online planting advice that you might be considering for your own 2025 garden, and that's planting the square foot garden. Hmm, is that such a good idea? We look at the pros and cons of intensive planting techniques. Plus, the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter has expanded with benefits for paid subscribers. Besides the full report issued every Friday, we have a new weekly extra publication for paid subscribers. It's called Things to Do in the Garden Each Week. Paid subscribers will also have complete access to previous posts of the newsletter, of which there are now nearly 200 editions. And in those previous editions, by the way, you can find, for example, Formulas for Making Your Own Planting Mix. That's from the April 19, 2024 edition. Or Backyard Beekeeping Advice from April of 2023. Or perhaps the Top 10 Fragrant Roses. That was in the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter back in April of 2022. But again, these previous posts are only available to paid subscribers.

Free subscribers to the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter are welcome as well. They'll still get each week's main newsletter that comes out on Fridays. By the way, your paid subscription to the newsletter supports not only the ongoing efforts to produce the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter, but it also helps keep the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast freely available each week, wherever you get your podcasts. Find out more information about the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter in several places, including in today's show notes, or at the podcast homepage, GardenBasics.net, or at FarmerFred.com, or at Substack. And thank you for your support and encouragement to keep the good gardening conversations going.

Q&A: PLANT DEBRIS AS MULCH?

Farmer Fred:

[27:23] We like to answer your garden questions here on the Garden Basics podcast. Guess who's here? Debbie Flower, America's favorite retired college horticulture professor, is here. And we get a question from Ellen, (which came in last November). And she lives in Northern California. She says, “All my beds are raised. My cosmos are all done for the year. We had an early freeze. Is it a good idea to cut them down and leave them in the bed as mulch? Maybe cover them with straw or soil and maybe some oak leaves if I can find some. Thanks in advance”. Well, thank you for writing in, Ellen. I appreciate it. Well, Debbie, yeah, all that plant material that you may be shifting out from warm season crops to cool season crops or vice versa, can they be used as mulch?

Debbie Flower:

[28:08] Sure they can. When you use stuff like that as mulch, the size of the particles, the size of the plant material influences the rate at which it decomposes. And the woodier it is, the slower it is to decompose. So things like if you were pruning your raspberries or something and taking out those canes, they would have some wood in them that would take longer to decompose. And I don't think I'd put them on the vegetable garden or on the raised bed. But cosmos, I would. That's green. It's totally herbaceous. Chop it into little pieces. She mentioned straw. That would work. And she mentioned oak leaves. Again, chop it into little pieces.

Farmer Fred:

[28:47] I think another reason not to put berry vines on a raised bed, too, would be all the thorns that some berry vines have. But that might be a cat deterrent.

Debbie Flower:

[28:55] Yes, that's what I was just going to say, a cat deterrent.

Farmer Fred:

[28:58] But it also might be a finger deterrent, too.

Debbie Flower:

[29:00] Yes, yes.

Farmer Fred:

[29:02] So, yeah, that would be, I think, suitable for a compost pile. But as you said, smaller pieces are better for the soil because they break down quicker. Right.

Debbie Flower:

[29:13] Greater surface area, the things that cause them to break down and release the nutrients that are beneficial to the next crop can get at those pieces more readily when they are smaller.

Farmer Fred:

[29:23] Would it do any better, the soil that is in Ellen's garden, if after chopping up all those dying cosmos, she worked them into the soil or can she just leave it on top of the soil?

Debbie Flower:

[29:34] Just leave it on top of the soil. The process of composting requires nitrogen from the soil. And if you dig in freshly chopped plant material, then more of the nitrogen is drawn out of the soil, existing soil, and into those things. If you're just leaving it fallow for the winter, that's okay. But if you're going to try to plant something else in the meantime, among this mulch you've created, then you don't want excess nitrogen taken out of the soil. By just laying it on the surface, there's that much less decomposing, at the moment, so less nitrogen is being drawn out of the soil to break down the particles that are on the soil, which then release more nitrogen. Does that make sense?

Farmer Fred:

[30:23] Yeah, especially if you wait a long time, too.

Debbie Flower:

[30:26] To do what?

Farmer Fred:

[30:26] For it to break down.

Debbie Flower:

[30:29] Yes. And if you are, If you've got that time. Yeah.

Farmer Fred:

[30:30] And actually now, if you don't have any plans to replant in that bed, then putting down a few inches of mulch, be it chopped up plants from your pre-existing garden or the leaves that are falling from the tree, fine. Chop those leaves up, put them on, leave them on until it comes time to plant the next season's crops.

Debbie Flower:

[30:52] Right. And it's also really protective of the soil to have some organic matter on the surface through any season when the soil is fallow and even when you're using it. Because raindrops, sprinkler irrigation drops, are very powerful and they can cause soil compaction just by hitting the soil surface. If you put some organic matter on the surface, that slows it. The water will hit it, and then it will slide through to the soil beneath. And so you don't get that soil compaction result.

Farmer Fred:

[31:21] Another benefit of mulch, as if it doesn't have any already besides slowing down weed production, feeding the soil, keeping the soil evenly moist, also keeping the temperature evenly moist too, which brings up the thought that  if you do have root crops in your garden, adding some mulch through that garden can help keep that temperature up a little bit for your root crops.

Debbie Flower:

[31:46] Well, it doesn't keep the temperature warmer. It keeps the temperature from fluctuating. Right. So during the day when the sun is up and it shines on the soil and the soil is dark, it'll absorb heat from the sun. And if there's ice, Ellen mentioned having frost, so there's a chance of ice. If there's ice, it melts and it goes into the soil. And then come the nighttime, the sun goes away, it gets cold and the ice freezes. And that ice is bigger than water. And so the frozen water in the soil surface causes the soil to heave. That's why things like roses are mulched over the winter (in colder zones), because if the soil heaves, it can push the plant right out of the ground.

Farmer Fred:

[32:28] So if you have root crops, you should not protect them (in colder climates)?

Debbie Flower:

[32:31] No, I would protect them. You don't want them to heave. It's not going to keep them warm. It just doesn't get as warm during the day, and it doesn't get quite as cool at night. So maybe that's what you meant by keeping it warm.

Farmer Fred:

[32:43] Sure, whatever. What we're trying to say is go ahead, chop up that cosmos, leave it as mulch, and you'll be fine for the next planting season. Thank you, Debbie.

Debbie Flower:

[32:54] You're welcome, Fred.

WANT TO LEAVE US A QUESTION?

Farmer Fred:

[33:03] Want to leave us a garden question? You'll find a link at GardenBasics.net. Also, when you click on any episode at GardenBasics.net, you're going to find a link to SpeakPipe. You'll find it in the show notes. And when you bring up SpeakPipe on your computer or smartphone, you can leave us an audio question without making a phone call. Or you can go to SpeakPipe directly. That's SpeakPipe.com slash GardenBasics.

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Email? Sure, we like email. Send it along with your pictures to Fred at FarmerFred.com.

Or again, go to GardenBasics.net and get that link.

And if you send us a question, be sure to tell us where you're gardening, because all gardening is local. Find it all at GardenBasics.net.

Farmer Fred:

[34:06] Garden Basics with Farmer Fred comes out every Friday, and it's brought to you by Dave Wilson Nursery. Garden Basics is available wherever podcasts are handed out. For more information about the podcast, as well as an accurate transcript of the podcast, visit our website, GardenBasics.net. And thank you so much for listening and your support.