TRANSCRIPT Ep 305 BLUEBERRIES
Farmer Fred
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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
Garden experts agree: if you are an inexperienced gardener or a first time gardener, you’re best, confidence-building step is to plant easy to grow vegetables, flowers, and fruit. For those taking their first steps into growing fruit, especially for those with a limited space, perhaps just a patio area, it’s hard to beat container grown blueberries. Give them some basic needs, and you’ll have fresh, nutritious blueberries for years and years. How do you start? What are the best varieties to grow? What are their needs for water, fertilizers, and soil?
That’s what we are going to delve into today, on the Garden Basics podcast.
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!
BLUEBERRY VARIETIES
Farmer Fred
We are here at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center on a workshop day in January. It's not raining, it's cloudy. It's threatening rain, but it's still a beautiful day. And we are enjoying the winter interest, if you will, here in the blueberry patch of the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center. Blueberries are a great tasting, small berry to grow. I have probably a third of a cup of blueberries every morning with my breakfast and it's very healthy for you. Blueberries, grown in the ground or in containers, are a great way to go. We are talking with Master Gardener Anne Moore. Anne, let's talk about all the different varieties you have here. e're in USDA zone nine, where southern highbush blueberries are recommended. So why don't we start on one end and work our way back and talk about each of these varieties of blueberries you are growing? Now, usually the harvest time for these blueberries here in USDA zone nine is probably May into June.
Anne Moore
They are ready in May. And we actually harvested into July last year.
Farmer Fred
All right. Well, the first one we come to is one of my favorite early and mid season blueberries. It’s a southern high bush. I guess first of all, we better explain the difference between southern high bush and northern high bush blueberries. Southern highbush arethe easiest to grow here. Northern highbush, I guess, are the ones you would find in Michigan or Washington or back East. Correct?
Anne Moore
Right. And they need a little bit more chill hours usually than the southern highbush.
Farmer Fred
And maybe not 100 degree summer temperatures like we get here.
Anne Moore
Yeah, though you'll see we've had success with some northern highbush varieties. And I can tell you which ones those are.
Farmer Fred
Okay. So stay tuned for that. So, this first one is one of my favorites that I have had in my garden for over 25 years or so. And that's Jubilee.
Anne Moore
Correct. Now this is just a one year old plant. So I we don't have a lot of experience with it yet, but it's real common in the nursery and it's really recommended for our area to do very well.
Farmer Fred
If you start growing blueberries, you'll realize that one of the criteria is you really want to choose a blueberry variety that produces pretty good size blueberries, because they're a lot easier to pick than the really small ones. Jubilee blueberries are a pretty good size. Next up on the list here in the blueberries section at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center is the Star Blueberry. Tell us about the Star.
Anne Moore
It's been here quite a while and done very well. It fruits early in the season. So we'll see this one starting ripening in May. And it is a southern highbush, and does very well. Very tasty. And I think it is a good size Berry.
Farmer Fred
Also, here in USDA zone nine, we should point out, that not all blueberries lose their leaves in the winter. Some varieties have leaves that persist. And the Star blueberry has these now reddish leaves clinging to the plant. A lot of winter interest there.
Anne Moore
Yeah, they're really pretty.
Farmer Fred
So that's one thing to consider, too, about the blueberries. Do they lose their leave or not. And if it doesn't, well, it’ll be something to look at in the winter.
Anne Moore
Correct.
Farmer Fred
All right, moving down the list here. Another one of my favorites is Sunshine Blue that you have here. Look at all the buds on it! Here it is, January, and it's got buds; and yet it is a mid season variety.
Anne Moore
Yeah, now this is also a very young, a relatively young plant we planted. It's probably just coming into its third year. So we're expecting to start to see a good amount of berries on here. We have just been kind of nurturing it and even taking the berries off until now to just get it stabilized. I mean it's a beautiful green and really lush looking, and we're going to prune it, but we probably won't prune it hardly at all, since it's so young. Next month we'll take out the old branches or dying branches. But as you can see, it's just really beautiful, I don't think there's much that we need to do to it.
Farmer Fred
Let's talk a little bit about pruning blueberries. What you want to do, as you suggest, is remove the old wood, usually it's the three year old wood or greater of age, because they get less productive as they get older.
Anne Moore
Absolutely. And if you just want to keep encouraging new growth, and that's where the life is in the plant, your plant will live a lot longer if most of the plant is young wood versus older wood, as well.
Farmer Fred
And when you take out an old branch, you take it down to ground level
Anne Moore
That's absolutely right. And then you start seeing the structure of the plant. That really helps you figure out if you need to make any more pruning cuts or not.
Farmer Fred
Yeah, and that is, again, best done probably in wintertime?
Anne Moore
Yeah, we hope to prune next month if it's not too rainy and crazy, but in the next month or two is when we should be doing it. And you can see there's already buds on these plants. So we don't want to be cutting into it now. So we're not cutting off some or all those future berries.
Farmer Fred
And moving on here is another evergreen blueberry, a Southern highbush variety called Abundance. I have had no experience growing Abundance. Tell us about that?
Anne Moore
Well, we've had this plant for a long time, and it truly is abundant. It's putting out lots of new plants. And actually, in past years, we've lost some plants, we've actually been able to take some new babies from this plant and put them in and regrow them. So it's very abundant, though it's got lots and lots of berries, good size, really tasty. But I do have to say I think this is a hard one to find. A few of our plants here we've gotten from real special sources, and we really can't help you find them, you'd have to go online, if you're really serious about it, I think this is probably three plants here right now that we've just allowed to grow. And we could dig them up and plant them somewhere else. And they would do fine. These actually have come up from the root.
Farmer Fred
What time of year would you do that?
Anne Moore
I think either late fall or early spring is when you want to do stuff like that.
Farmer Fred
So you dig out what you can see as a new plant coming up and just sever the roots. Leave some roots on but just enough to get it out of the ground, and then put it in a new home.
Anne Moore
Absolutely. Our experience with blueberries show that they are really forgiving plants. I mean, they can take a lot of pruning, they come back after a hard pruning a lot of times, as well as after a hard summer. So they're really hardy plants.
Farmer Fred
Let's talk about the home for a blueberry. They like acid soil.
Anne Moore
Absolutely. That's probably one of the most important things when you're growing blueberries, I think. It’s one thing that people sort of don't like to do, but they need a low pH, acidic soil pH, between four and a half and five and a half. And that pH is what allows them to actually absorb iron from the ground, which is what they need to produce really great berries. So if you're planting in the ground - and I wasn't around when we planted all these plants that are in the ground - but you actually need to go out a few months ahead of time and actually mix in some additives. There's a whole formula that we have on our website, mix in some additives of soil, let it break down, so that you can create more of an acidic environment. And then every year after that we're always measuring the pH of all of our soil and adding soil sulfur, to constantly manage the pH of the soil. Because our soil here in Sacramento tends to be around seven, and they need four and a half to five and a half. Now, when we're planting in barrels, it's a whole lot easier because then you can just buy a big bag of Azalea soil mix which is made for acidic plants and plant in that. Or you can get a recipe on on our website of what you can mix together. Different kinds of soils and soil additives to make the soil that they like.
Farmer Fred
You have to be patient with soil sulfur when you add it because it takes a couple of months for it to actually start lowering the pH.
Anne Moore
Yeah. And we're going to measure in March, we do it in March of every year. We note that number, and we'll add half of the soil sulfur in March and then another half in the fall. So we're kind of pacing ourselves because sulfur is a slow release additive. And we just really want to make sure you have a steady pH.
Farmer Fred
You mentioned the soil mix recipe, if you're growing it in containers. Use big containers like cattle watering troughs, for example, with holes in the bottom. They are a great way to go for growing a plant like a blueberry, to get it up to its eventual height of four feet, five feet or more. But usually they're around three, four or five feet. But that mix, as I recall, and it's the mix I use on my blueberries, would be 1/3 of that Azalea soil mix, 1/3 pathway bark, and 1/3 of a an acidic soil amendment like peat moss, for example. Just make sure it's all thoroughly wet before you use it. That's a good combination to use. The other thing too about growing blueberries in containers: does it need to be revitalized every few years? Should you empty that container out and put in fresh soil?
Anne Moore
Well, we haven't had our barrels that long. So we're certainly not at that stage. But I do have barrels at home that I've had for seven or eight years, and they're doing fine. I do really pay attention to how much I fertilize them. Because I think over time, when you're in a container, the plant additives get kind of leached out. So you might think over time of changing your fertilizing regimen and maybe fertilizing more often with a mixture of kelp and fish, or something really diluted, but just to help keep replenishing that soil.
Farmer Fred
You mentioned my favorite fertilizer formula there. Fish emulsion and kelp meal. It has a full array of macro and micronutrients. But apply it in little doses. Unlike a lot of commercial products. I think some of your favorite blueberry growers may shy away from synthetic fertilizers just because of the salts in them. And they prefer organic fertilizers for growing blueberries.
Anne Moore
We do that as well here.
Farmer Fred
Alright, now this next one in the row of blueberries here at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center is a northern highbush and again, the northern highbush blueberry plant is a favorite in cooler climates like Washington, Michigan, and back East. Tell us about this Northern highbush, the Duke blueberry.
Anne Moore
Well, this plant is really really vigorous, we prune it really severely every year. And if you could see this plant right now it just has so many stems, it's just got probably more dense growth than any of our other plants. It has a really nice, medium size light blue berry, and it does well every year and it has no leaves in the winter. But it's getting buds. You can see lots of buds. I think we're gonna have a really good year here.
Farmer Fred
And it's an early producer. What time of year do you usually harvest this?
Anne Moore
This is an early season. So like I said, we usually start in May, every year is a little bit different. Depending on the weather, we were a little bit late last year because even though we had a lot of sun, it didn't come to us as soon last year, but by mid May, we’re usually seeing berries.
Farmer Fred
What's nice here at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center is there's information about each of the varieties of plants that are growing here, and usually a picture of them too when they're in full production. And this picture and description of the Duke blueberry. Those look like good sized blueberries.
Anne Moore
Yeah, yeah. And they're really good. Our favorite.
Farmer Fred
Now, here's one. And it's an interesting variety. It's called Pink Lemonade blueberry, but it's not necessarily a southern highBush, not necessarily a northern highbush. It's something in between.
Anne Moore
Yeah, it's a hybrid, a variety called a rabbiteye. It's the only example here of a northern highbush mixed with a southern highbush. And it's a really interesting plant. This was new to us, it is just coming into its third year. We haven't had many berries yet, but I think we will this year, the berries are pink. People just love them because they're really beautiful. I'm not sure that they're as tasty as some of the others. But I think it's just really an interesting plant that you see a lot of in the nursery, so we just want to grow it so we can have an example.
Farmer Fred
The picture on the label of the berry itself, it almost looks like a pyracantha berry or a toyon berry. And that would take a little fingers to pick them.
Anne Moore
Maybe you're right, and actually the plant picture was taken by one of our members and that's from her yard, so you can see she she's getting a good harvest there.
Farmer Fred
Well, we knew the weather was going to change today here in January, at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center. And it's starting to drip. So we'll finish up quickly here with the blueberries. Here's another northern highbush one called Northland. Tell us about Northland.
Anne Moore
Once again, this is doing really well. It's a plant we've had quite a long time. You can see it's got a lot of growth on it. It has had a little bit of stem blight in the past, but we were able to just prune it out and it seems to be coming back just fine. It does really well, it has a really nice berry on it. It's a midseason blueberry, so it's a little bit later, probably June before we start to get a good harvest. But it's been here a long time and we're really happy with it.
Farmer Fred
All right, and finally, a Southern highbush variety here on the end. Another variety that I grow year after year, called Sharp Blue.
Anne Moore
Right. Now this is once again just coming into its third year, but look at how lush it is. It’s got lots of green leaves and lots of blossoms already on it. It's one that does really great in our area. We expect it to become ripe, probably in May in the early season. And we chose this because it's really known to do really well in our area. It's something that's readily available to the public and so we just really want to be able to demonstrate that here.
Farmer Fred
I will agree with what it says on the sign here. It produces large berries with good color and excellent flavor. Sharp Blue is probably one of my all time favorites too.
You know, as we were walking through this row of blueberries here, it just so happens, there's another row of blueberries behind us. Well, let's talk about these. All right, I forgot. Yeah. Georgia Gem. That's a southern highbush. Yeah.
Anne Moore
This is really a favorite. They're not the biggest berries in the world. But in the past when we've had tasting tests, this has often been a favorite public release. The public really likes this berry. It's an early season Berry. We've had it quite a long time. And it's done well, survived some serious Sun issues, and just popped back, and seems to be doing well. It is a plant that's sort of hard to find. You'd have to really search for it, but we're really happy with it.
Farmer Fred
The Georgia Gem blueberry. And next to it is a another tried and true variety here in USDA zone nine, the southern highbush, Misty.
Anne Moore
Yeah, this is one we've had for a while. I think it's actually had some serious challenges in the past because it was planted in an area that, we discovered, wasn't getting water as much as it needs. But look at it, it looks beautiful. It's just like I said, a blueberry plant is a really resilient plant. And it's looking really beautiful with lots of leaves. And we see some blossoms already. It's an early season plant and has really great berries. It's one of those that does really well here and it's really easy to get a hold of.
Farmer Fred
And I think this is the last blueberry. Yeah, it's the Ozark Blue.
Anne Moore
Once again, this is an unusual one. But people really liked the flavor. They're really tasty. And so it's worth it if you want to do something out of the norm, it's worth finding. But you'll have to search. It’s a mid-season berry. So it's a little bit later in the season, but prolific and we've been very happy with it. We've had it quite a long time.
Farmer Fred
Yeah, we should point out that blueberry plants here in California are one of the first fruit varieties to hit the nurseries, usually in late December and January. But as you go to colder climates, they'll start appearing in your nurseries a little bit later in the year. But shop early for best selection.
Anne Moore
Absolutely. They're there now here. And yeah, they do sell out sometimes.
Farmer Fred
Wow. We've learned a lot about blueberries today. From Anne Moore, a Master Gardener here in Sacramento County. We're at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center. Well, now the rain is getting serious and thank you for braving this with me.
Anne Moore
You're welcome. Thank you.
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Farmer Fred
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GROWING BLUEBERRIES IN CONTAINERS
Farmer Fred
Blueberries are very forgiving plants, including how you prune them. As I am fond of saying, “If it works for you, fine. But keep an open mind.” Here, to expand your mind about pruning, selecting and planting blueberries in containers, are Tom Spellman and Phil Pursel from Dave Wilson Nursery, from one of their You Tube chats.
Farmer Fred
One of the easiest plants for beginning gardeners to grow our blueberries. But there's a lot of conflicting advice out there. Tom Spellman, along with Phil Pursel, work with Dave Wilson Nursery. They got together and did a little talk about when to prune blueberries, as well as how to plant them and how to take care of them. One of the things Tom mentioned that I didn't know: you should prune your blueberries after harvest in the summertime, not in winter. Tom will explain:
Tom Spellman
I’m Tom Spellman with Dave Wilson nursery. it's second week of August up here in the Central Valley. And we're out evaluating our new crop of berry plants coming on for this fall. We'll be shipping these in late October, November, early December. This is Sunshine blue, blueberry, look how nice that plant is. That's just absolutely a beautiful finished product. But we're going to pinch these one more time we're going to cut them down about six inches or so and one more nice flush of growth on them. All that growth that they finish off with this fall. That's going to be production wood for this next season. That's what's going to bloom in February and March and April and produce berries in May, June and July. So blueberries are kind of an anomaly in the fruit World. If you prune blueberries in the wintertime, you're every cut you make, your pruning out fruiting work. So you want to do all of your pruning on blueberries in the summer after the end of the crop season. So when the plants are done fruiting in July or early August, that's when you want to do your, your shaping. Let that next flush of growth come out. And that's what's going to be production wood for the next year. So no winter pruning on blueberries. So this is another one of our unique blueberry varieties. We're growing about a dozen or so different varieties in our farmer's market favorite program all in this four by nine inch pot. So these are one year plants, they're ready to be lined out, they're going to be productive their first year in a container. This is a variety called pink lemonade. So as opposed to a blue blueberry. This is a pink blueberry, it's a little more acidic, it's a little more tangy and flavor. And they mix this a lot with other blue flesh varieties to be used in desserts. The dessert chefs love this variety. This on top of a cheesecake with a couple of blueberries will make about a $20 dessert.
Phil Pursel
So many young people now are getting into gardening, but it's a little overwhelming. what we think is the best entry level fruit to get into, especially in this small patio, is getting into blueberries or getting into you know, small bush plants and trialing there and from there going and expanding. So blueberries perfect. You plant three in, in a wine barrel and you can plant one in a nice container. And it's an easy way for someone new to gardening to really experience and be successful with, you know, with edibles. What the bushel berry adds into this mix is for example, this right here is the baby cakes, BlackBerry, when everyone thinks blackberries along the roadside, they're thinking you know, the sprawling vines and the thorns. This is a thornless bush blackberry that's made for containers, it's going to get covered with fruit. Really easy to maintain. It doesn't get big, you just keep it trimmed and nice little bush. its counterpart is known as raspberry shortcake. It is a raspberry that's a bush raspberry as opposed to cane perfectly for container gardening. And you'll get nice good fruit off of it. So you know, if you're not really sure about you know, dedicated a lot of room started with the bush home berry line and go ahead and put them in pot. So speaking of pot, right? What do you think about soil, especially blueberries, everyone's a little freaked out on what to do. But we have a simple, simple recipe.
Tom Spellman
there's two things that are essential to proper blueberry care number one, fast, fast drainage, okay, we don't want any water to sit in that pot at all the drain and an acidic soil condition. Okay, so you want to make sure that you don't have a high pH you don't want a pH any more than about 6.5 max. Okay, so if you used a mixture of say a good Sandy potting soil about one third peat moss or coarse grind peat moss, okay, and about one third pathway or walk-on bark, and mix those all three together. That's going to give you the perfect mix for blueberries or for most container plants in general. So these little bushel and berry variety go dry and raised right in that same minutes
Phil Pursel
and it sounds a little daunting, but the way I do it at home, I get a wheelbarrow, get a bag of nice organic potting soil, set that there bag of peat moss and a bag of a pathway bark or even orchid bark. Yes orchid bark, you know, you get this container, scoop, one scoop, the other scoop, mix it up, you're ready to go. As simple as that.
Phil Pursel
It really is not complicated at all. And it makes the perfect mix. there are almost equivalent mixes that you can buy pre mixed or pre bagged but I really like being able to mix those three elements together and come up with that finished product. Right? So what we're saying is if you're new to gardening, little intimidated, don't be. great starter plants blueberries if you want to expand and maybe get a blackberry in your you know patio or raspberry in your patio, look into the bush home berry line of plants. What's nice about ours is ours and little orange containers right so they're inexpensive at your your garden center. You know put it in a nice pickle jar, you know, decorative pot, use the planning mix, and you're gonna have fruits throughout the summer. So, you know hopefully this kind of helps people are a little intimidated. Understand, it's simple. It's really is.
Tom Spellman
and so rewarding. I mean, we were picking blueberries this year beginning about maybe March 15. And we pick all the way up until last week, first weekend off. Yep. So just go to our harvest chart, they got early, mid late season blueberry, and you're set. And even though all those blueberry varieties are listed as being so fruitful by planting three individual varieties together to sell one, you get so much more production, probably 10 times the amount of production, right by having those cross pollinated.
Phil Pursel
any other questions, you know, just go on to Dave Wilson dot com. And you know, just look at the varieties and make the choice. Go down to your independent garden centers this fall and pick them out.
Tom Spellman
And we're here for you. We want your gardening experience to be successful. We want you to eat plenty of fresh fruit and that's why we're providing these high quality plants. And all this information on our website.
Farmer Fred
that again from Dave Wilson nursery, Tom Spellman and Phil Pursel talking berries, and for more information do check out their website, Dave wilson.com.
PROTECTING BLUEBERRIES FROM BIRDS and MORE
Farmer Fred
You know who really likes fresh-picked blueberries, besides gardeners? Birds. Squirrels. Rats. Your pet dog. How can you protect those ripening blueberries from those marauders? We found one good solution at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center in Fair Oaks, California., with Master Gardener Shenna Mealey.
Farmer Fred
When people come here to the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center and see the blueberries, they're going to be amazed at your netting system here. talk about this netting system. It's a system anybody can put in at home.
Shenna Mealey
It's very simple. If you don't net your blueberries, the birds will eat them before you get to them. Blueberries turn blue about a week before they're actually ripe. But as soon as they turn blue, the birds will eat them gone. So if you want to protect them and have some yummy ones left for yourself, you need to net them. What we have done is we have a PVC pipe that's about four or five feet tall with a tee at the top and then that PVC pipe is actually over a piece of rebar. The rebar is in the ground. It's about a four foot piece of rebar. We poked in the ground about 18 inches PVC pipe goes over that a string has gone around through the PVC pipe tees. Up at the top. Yes. And then the netting is over that so that it's really just a support for the netting.
Farmer Fred
Yeah, that string we should point out is actually like a white nylon rope.
Shenna Mealey
And it could be anything it could be yellow, it could be you know, whatever. This year we actually painted our PVC pipe green. So it's a little less obtrusive. It actually looks really fabulous. And it's half inch PVC pipe too.
Farmer Fred
Yes, so that's very inexpensive.
Shenna Mealey
It’s very easy to do. It’s something that anybody can do with a little you know, saw and and some spray paint if you want. The netting that we can buy locally is not as wide and it's kind of stiff and not as easy to work with. So we have netting that we found. Can I say where we get it from or apply? It's actually Wilson orchard and vineyard supply might be saying that backwards has never been available. The The netting that they have currently available is black, but it's also soft. It's wonderful to work with it comes in 50 foot wide amounts, so you can have a big expanse and and they will cut it to size. So that's the best resource we found around here to get your netting and they do mail order. So then the other part that's essential is you have to pin the netting down to the ground because those sneaky birds will actually climb under the netting eat your berries, break your leaves, trying to fly out they won't be able to fly out and then they'll just kill themselves and die. So we don't want that to happen. And consequently we have used (garden) hose. you can use anything actually. PVC pipe, old wood, something to secure the base of the netting around the entire side. We pin that down with irrigation clamps and that keeps it so that the birds cannot get in.
Farmer Fred
So are these the longer bobby pins, about the six inch or eight inch?
Shenna Mealey
Yes, yep, they're like one inch wide to go over enough to go over a big hose right and about six inches long.
Farmer Fred
So basically you just have like 100 foot garden hose along the base of the perimeter and then pinned it down and that holds the netting in place. So squirrels or dogs or whatever, and birds can't get underneath it to get the berries. My question is how do you get in?
Shenna Mealey
you have to lift it up, you have to unpin it, you have to lift up the netting from under the hose. The netting then just kind of flops up over the supports and you pick underneath there and then put it back down.
Farmer Fred
What section opens up? how wide a section Do you have open up?
Shenna Mealey
It depends on how many berries are... you can open up, you know even the whole side if you want to, can be opened up we usually open up maybe you know six or 10 feet at a time. Just depending on how many berries are ripening, which bushes need attention at that time.
Farmer Fred
Shenna, I've learned a lot here. Thanks so much for your time.
Shenna Mealey
you're welcome.
WANT TO LEAVE US A QUESTION?
Farmer Fred
Want to leave us a question? You’ll find a link at garden basics.net. Also, when you click on any episode at garden basics.net, you’ll find a link to Speakpipe in the show notes, where you can leave us an audio question without a making a phone call. Or, go to speak pipe directly: speak pipe dot com slash garden basics. You want to call or text us? We have that number posted at garden basics dot net. it’s 916-292-8964, 916-292-8964. Email? Sure! Send it, along with your pictures to fred@farmerfred.com. Or again, go to garden basics dot 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 garden basics dot net.
Farmer Fred
Garden Basics With Farmer Fred comes out every Tuesday and Friday and is brought to you by Smart Pots and Dave Wilson Nursery. Garden Basics is available wherever podcasts are handed out. For more information about the podcast, visit our website, GardenBasics dot net. That’s where you can find out about the free, Garden Basics newsletter, Beyond the Basics. And thank you so much for listening.
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