071 Germinate Pepper Seeds Faster! Blackberries.

It can take quite awhile to grow a pepper plant from seed to outdoor transplanting stage. 12 to 16 weeks, which can include up to three weeks for the seeds to germinate. But we can help you speed up that process considerably with pepper seed germination tips from our favorite retired horticulture professor, Debbie Flower. 
We start a new segment on this show today: the Plant of the Week. And for that we will turn to one of the most knowledgeable  horticulturists in the world, Warren Roberts of the UC Davis Arboretum. 
And, we talk blackberries: how to grow them, how to trellis them (more info about trellising blackberries in the links below)

Find out about all this, on Episode 71 of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. And we will do it all in under 30 minutes.

Links:
Farmer Fred Rant: Tips for Speeding Up Pepper Seed Germination
Seed starting kits
Seed starting soil mixes
UC Davis Arboretum
UCANR: All About Blackberries
UCANR: What Kind of Trellis System Do Blackberries Require?
UCANR: Growing Berries and Grapes in the Home Garden (including lots of trellis pics)

More episodes and info available at Garden Basics with Farmer Fred

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Transcript

GB 071 Pepper Seeds, Blackberries

SPEAKERS

Debbie Flower, Warren Roberts, Tamara Engle, Phil Pursel, Farmer Fred

Farmer Fred  00:03

Welcome to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. If you're just a beginning gardener or you want good gardening information, well, you've come to the right spot.  It can take quite a while to grow a pepper plant from seed to outdoor transplanting stage, about 12 to 16 weeks. But, we can help you speed up that process considerably with tips from our favorite retired horticulture professor, Debbie Flower. And, we start a new segment on the show today. It's called the "plant of the week". And for that we turn to one of the most knowledgeable horticulturists in the world. Warren Roberts of the UC Davis Arboretum. And, we talk blackberries, how to grow them, how to trellis them. Find out about all this on episode 71 of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, and we're gonna do it all in under 30 minutes. Let's go. We answer your emails here on the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. We are joined by Debbie Flower, our favorite college horticulture Professor (retired) and a question comes in from Maxine. Maxine wants to know, I just got my order from a seed company. It's lots of pepper varieties, can I go ahead and start them? Debbie, I think if you plant (from seed), it depends where you are. Again, we go back to our typical answer: it depends. And I guess you would time a pepper seed planting for about, what, 12 weeks before you would plant them outdoors?

Debbie Flower  01:34

Yes, eight is the minimum but 12 I use to time. 9 to 12, for sure, to seed start, to seed it and get them to grow out. Another part to consider is how long it takes for them to germinate. Sometimes pepper seeds can take three weeks to germinate. So there's a lot of wiggle room when to start it. Peppers like soil very warm. So starting later is probably a better thing than starting earlier. Unless you're prepared to keep them in some kind of a warm place like a greenhouse or a sheltered room indoors. They just don't develop as well once they're big, so I would favor 12 weeks to once they're up plus, let's say two weeks of germination.

Farmer Fred  02:16

And there are some tricks to getting them to germinate a little bit sooner. One of my favorite tricks is to use what's called a propagation mat, sort of a heating pad for seeds and it keeps the bottom heat about 70 degrees or there abouts and that can hasten germination by a few days.

Debbie Flower  02:33

Absolutely. I love the bottom heat for starting seeds of almost anything, especially our vegetables which are tend to be tropical so or if they're not tropical, they just like to live in a warm place. And so that warm soil and the room can be cool if the soil is warm. It's really all about soil temperature.

Farmer Fred  02:50

Now I guess you could start pepper seeds indoors in January if you live in USDA zone nine, because if you start them in January, then February March, April, late April, they'd be ready to go outside. Peppers, though, as we know, like it a little bit warmer than tomatoes and probably should be set out a little bit later.

Debbie Flower  03:09

Yes, yes. When the temperature of the soil is that much warmer. Yes. The other thing you talked about one thing that will hasten their germination, which is the bottom heat, another is to soak the seeds themselves in hydrogen peroxide for about 10 minutes. Hydrogen peroxide is water, h2o plus an extra oxygen. So hydrogen peroxide is h2o2. And I have read this in multiple places and I tried it with my students. I don't have a controlled scientific experiment that shows it works but it it definitely increased the germination and made the germination quicker we could pretty reliably get a pepper crop out of the ground from seed not a crop but a plants I mean a crop of plants out of the ground and have their first leaves out above the ground in about a week. 

Farmer Fred  03:57

One thing we didn't mention about starting pepper seeds, you want to start them in a seed starting mix.

Debbie Flower  04:03

Always a seed starting mix Yes, there's small seeds, they need to have excellent drainage which that seed starting mix provides. And they need to be able to push their little plant out of the ground. And the seed starting mix is very lightweight and and will roll right off of their body parts as they come up.

Farmer Fred  04:18

So to get to a transplantable size you need to be growing those pepper seeds in a warm spot and a sunny location for about 12 weeks and then you're going to be good to go.

Debbie Flower  04:30

Right and the other thing to add to that spot is about 10 minutes of wind the day.

Farmer Fred  04:35

Ah, yes tell us about that.

Debbie Flower  04:38

Plants are developed to sustain when they live outdoors. And wind allows them to develop what's called their reaction wood peppers don't have any wood but it's reaction tissue, so it's  a type of cell that gives them structure, makes the stem stronger. If you grow them indoors without wind, and everything else is perfect: temperature, light, water, nutrition, everything else is perfect. They will get very soft stems that will fall over and the plant will not stand up straight. Add 10 minutes of wind and this was done on tomatoes. And it wasn't wind it was somebody went into the greenhouse and shook the table for 10 minutes. Yeah, grad students get all the good jobs, and it made this stem stronger and it has proven to work for other seedlings as well. Makes sense to me because seedlings are native to outdoors where there is wind on a regular basis. So a fan, I have one in my greenhouse on a timer and it goes off. It's a oscillating fan. So it will go back and forth and get all different parts of the greenhouse. And I run it for about a half an hour, hoping that everything gets enough wind to make strong stems. 

Farmer Fred  05:43

You run it for half an hour at one time, or you divide that half hour up into shorter increments throughout the day?

Debbie Flower  05:49

Nope, just do it at one time. 

Farmer Fred  05:51

Okay, just a half hour.

Debbie Flower  05:54

I had a seed starting setup in the guest room in my last house where I hung fluorescent lights from the ceiling on a chain so I could raise and lower them. Because if you're going to use fluorescent lights as your additional light source, there was a window and then the fluorescent light. They need to be fluorescent lights, they need to be very, very close, within inches of the tops of the plants. And as the plants grow, I could raise the light. I had a table with a heat pad on it. And then on the bed was an oscillating fan and it was plugged into the wall with a timer. So that was my seed starting setup before I had a greenhouse.

Farmer Fred  06:28

Your kids might use LED lights. 

Debbie Flower  06:30

Yeah, I know. They're lucky.

Farmer Fred  06:32

Yes. You could, too.

Debbie Flower  06:36

I can now, but I have a greenhouse now. So it's not a limiting factor anymore.

Farmer Fred  06:41

Exactly. Yeah, hobby greenhouse. If you're looking to make that next step in gardening, think about a greenhouse because you can grow year round in it. You can grow not just vegetables and edibles, but flowering plants. You can get an early start on flowering plants for the summer, the zinnias and marigolds, petunias, and you're going to find seed varieties, many times over the varieties you would find as plants at the nursery. Very interesting, very colorful, that are only available via seeds. So a greenhouse can really expand your gardening horizons.

Debbie Flower  07:15

Yes it can. It's a lot of fun.

Farmer Fred  07:17

So there you go. For those of you in USDA zone nine, you want to get those pepper seeds started in January, maybe wait until late February to start tomato seeds. And for those of you that live in maybe USDA zone seven or eight or even lower than that, what's your typical planting day outside? Is it Mother's Day, maybe it's Flag Day in June. And for some of you far Northerners, it might be the fourth of July, well just count backwards 12 to 14 weeks for peppers, and maybe eight weeks for tomatoes and get those seeds started. Debbie Flower, we found out a lot today. Thank you.

Debbie Flower  07:50

Oh, it's a pleasure, Fred. Thank you.

Farmer Fred  07:54

Welcome to the plant of the week segment, we are talking with Warren Roberts. He's the superintendent emeritus of the UC Davis Arboretum here in California. And we're going to be talking about plants that have wide appeal across a lot of the United States and plants that might be doing special this time of year. And Warren, let's kick off the plan of the week segment with maybe a very heavenly plant like heavenly bamboo.

Warren Roberts  08:20

Definitely, heavenly bamboo, the Nandina domestica, which is native to Eastern Asia, China, Japan, and in that area. And the name Nandina comes from the Japanese common name for the plant, which is nanten. And in Japan, it is traditional to plant one near the entrance to your house. It means "welcome". And I suppose if you go by a house, and there's no nandina there, maybe you're not welcome.

Farmer Fred  08:53

 Yes. 

Warren Roberts  08:55

But that tradition has caught hold up a bit in California too, but also in the northwest of California, all over the United States, because of the Japanese culture in those areas. And it's called a bamboo because it looks kind of like the bamboo. It has canes kind of like a bamboo. But it's not a grass, whereas a bamboo is a grass. And Nandina is a plant that produces clouds, little clouds of white flowers in the spring and summer and then red berries. That is the typical form. And the red berries are on the plant and during the holidays, so they add to the festive nature of that time of year. They last a long time. Now, if you have Nandina in your garden, you might want to plant other plants that produce berries during that time of year because Nandina berries berries are somewhat poisonous to birds. It's only a problem if that's the only food source. Now, Nandinas come in many different sizes all the way from little bonsai cultivars that are only a couple of inches high, all the way to the typical form which gets up to eight feet or more. The leaves are compound. And they have a kind of a slightly funny look to them altogether, the plant is beautiful. Now some people think it's kind of common. Well, it's common because it's successful, you know, nothing succeeds like success. It has an important place in the the gardens of many parts of the of the world, there are forms where the leaves will turn red in the wintertime, and then those same leaves will turn green again, when the weather warms up. I have a plant that is almost a cloud of red leaves, right now in the winter, so I'm very fond of it. It's very useful. Some of them will spread underground rather aggressively. So you want to account for that. But most of them are clusters, so they pretty much stay put. It's always best to let the plant's natural shape be what you were looking for. I've seen  them pruned so they lose all gracefulness, but in its natural form, the cloud is very graceful looking.

Farmer Fred  11:21

Heavenly bamboo, Nandina domestica, is a fairly hardy plant, it loses its leaves at about 10 degrees Fahrenheit, stems are damaged at five degrees, but it usually recovers fast. So it's widely adaptable throughout much of the Sunbelt areas and even into areas of southern Ohio.

Warren Roberts  11:42

And I remember even seeing some successful in Palm Springs, California with a little afternoon shade.  

Farmer Fred  11:49

Yeah. I hope so.

Warren Roberts  11:54

And actually, Nandina does well in the sun and shade, bright shade, I would say. And there are some forms that produce no berries at all. Many of those have these beautiful red leaves all year.

Farmer Fred  12:10

The nandina domestica It's a great plant with a lot of uses. It makes for a good cut flower too. If you want to cut the branches off with the berries on them and bring them inside for the holidays. It really stays for a long time in a vase, the Nandina domestica, heavenly bamboo, a show for January. You might want to give it a try. Warren Roberts is the superintendent emeritus of the UC Davis Arboretum. Find out more about the Arboretum, visit their website arboretum.uc davis.edu. Warren, thanks for your help on the plant of the week.

Warren Roberts  12:45

Fred thank you for the opportunity. Thankyou very much.

Farmer Fred  12:51

We are talking with Phil Pursel from Dave Wilson nursery, we're getting the lowdown about the plants that are arriving at your local nurseries or will be arriving soon. Berry plants, fruit trees and so much more. Let's talk about blackberries, a lot of great blackberry varieties. These plants get a little bigger though, than blueberry plants. And so they probably need some sort of a trellis system.

Phil Pursel  13:16

Blackberries, everyone sees them on the roadside where they kind of take over the whole area. So they are a sprawling vine, and they do need support with the BlackBerry except for one of the bushel in berries, which I'll talk about a little bit later. But generally speaking, blackberries need to go into the ground, and it's gonna need a little bit of area to cover, to produce.

Farmer Fred  13:39

Now what about blackberries and the need for multiple varieties? Are they like blueberries if you plant more than one blackberry variety, will that increase fruit production?

Phil Pursel  13:49

Your blackberries are pretty much self fruitful. But like like we said with the blueberries, if you can get other varieties out there and get cross pollination, your yield just will just you know increase substantially.

Farmer Fred  14:04

The nice thing about blackberries is these are large, extra firm berries, great flavor, great on cereal in the morning. If you adapt a care schedule Shall we put it early on in your blackberry existence, you can keep them fairly well under control. One place with really good information is called the California garden web. It's produced by the University of California Ag and Natural Resources Department. And if you look up the information called "growing berries in your backyard", they have some excellent advice about pruning blackberries. If you have trailing blackberries during the first growing season, use the trellis to support the new canes growing from the plant crowns. Tie or wrap the canes around the wires. These canes will bloom and produce the first crop the following spring. In the spring, trailing blackberries produce vigorous shoots called primacanes. And those grow along the ground. Keep those trained on the ground beneath the bearing canes to prevent injury. At the same time, the two year old canes, which are called floracanes, which grew the previous season and are trained on the trellis, will bloom and produce the first crop. Right after harvest, cut off all of the flora canes near the ground and remove them from the trellis, leaving eight to 12 of the sturdiest primary canes on each plant to bear fruit the next spring. Wrap the primary canes around the trellis from which all of the floracanes have been removed. Wrap one or two primary canes at a time in a spiral around the wires of the trellis. Working each way from the plant, all other canes are cut back to the ground. Each year primary canes should be cut back or headed to eight to 10 feet long, heading the canes forces lateral chute growth that bears next year's crop for erect blackberries. erect types produced stiff upright new canes, the primacanes, from the crown that arch over after they grow about five to six feet long during the growing season. When the primacanes are approximately three feet tall, pinch off the top one to two inches. These canes will produce branches that will produce fruit the next year. Alternatively, the canes can be left unheaded, and wrapped around the wires for fruiting next year. Then, immediately after harvest, remove the floracanes, thin the primary canes to three or four of the strongest canes per plant. And again, you can find this information, I know that sounded confusing, but you can find it spelled out very easily at the UC ANR webpage called California garden web and look for the page entitled, "growing berries in your backyard". Now one simple trick that works for a lot of people: pay attention to those canes that bear fruit and mark that cane either with some light paint or maybe tie a little ribbon around it. That way you know which canes to remove at the end of the season because those canes won't produce again. One thing that makes pruning blackberries much easier is choosing thornless blackberries and there's some really tasty thornless blackberry varieties out there. And I think Dave Wilson probably has the Black Satin thornless blackberry.

Phil Pursel  17:16

We do. Yeah, we have Triple Crown. And a very good point: you know, the commercial blackberry growers, they're able to harvest what we call thorny blackberries. We do grow thorny blackberries for the home garden market. But by far, the homeowner is now looking for thornless blackberries, because it's just easy to harvest, you don't have to worry about scratching yourself or any type of dangers. So the trend now is for the backyard to go with thornless varieties. We even have a thornless boysenerry. And there's some really good varieties, like you said: Crown, Black, Satin, Chester, that will give you plenty of fruit. And then you don't have the inconvenience of thorns out there. But at the same time, you know, we still have marionberry, Ollallie berries, people who grew up with those, and those have thorns.  Just a little more challenging to harvest the fruit.

Farmer Fred  18:15

Yeah, I was looking at the sizes of the berries on these thornless varieties, the black satin thornless. That blackberry has large berries that can get up to two inches long. And that Triple Crown thornless Blackberry, basically can produce what 30 pounds of fruit per vine?

Phil Pursel  18:33

It does. Yeah, so they're heavy producers, that's what makes them ideal for the home gardener is that they're thornless, there's nothing like picking the blackberries, right when you want it as opposed to getting into the container and you don't eat them all the same time. They, you know, they can start molding out. But you know, 30 pounds is generally enough for you know, family of five or six, and plenty of blackberries.

Farmer Fred  18:58

And they don't all ripen at the same time either do they?

Phil Pursel  19:01

They don't. So that's just it. It's all about, you know, think about it. For your Edible Garden, successive ripening. You don't want everything ripening at the same time.

Farmer Fred  19:11

Exactly a lot of great blackberry varieties. And the good news, too, is after you harvest them, they will last in the refrigerator for what, a week or two?

Phil Pursel  19:20

They do. And there's a new variety out, put out by Bushel and Berry, and it's called Baby Cakes. So let's say you know, if you're, you have a small garden, but you don't have room for a vining Blackberry. This variety is a self fertile bush variety of Blackberry. It's perfect to put in a container along with your blueberries and such. It's you know, it'll give you not a ton of fruit, but it'll give you some fruit and something interesting to put into the container and you don't have to worry about the sprawling vine because it grows as a small little bush.

Farmer Fred  19:59

Yeah, exactly. What is it,  like three to four feet? 

Phil Pursel  20:02

It is, Yeah. There are now blackberries for all different types of  homeowners, whether you're in a smaller condominium or apartment. I have bushel blackberries in pots in my yard, and I have a regular sized yard. It's just something I don't have to worry about it getting out of control and it gives me you know, blackberries and some interest out on the patio.

Farmer Fred  20:30

We should point out, too, that blackberries are widely adaptable, too. There isn't much in the way of chill hour requirements for most blackberry varieties is there?

Phil Pursel  20:38

There isn't. When you say adaptable, that's a great way of saying,  these blackberries because it low chill doesn't mean that it doesn't do well high chill area, low chill so you can do it, you know, you can do it even in Florida or Southern California. Or you can do it at the upper Midwest. So that's a nice thing about blackberries is you know, they're they're very, very adaptable.

Farmer Fred  21:02

If you want a good Encyclopedia of growing fruit trees, I would direct you to Dave wilson.com, their website. Not only is there a lot of written information there, but their series of videos, they call them the fruit tube videos, can take you from planting to harvest and caring for the tree throughout the growing season. It's also available on YouTube as well. But visit Dave wilson.com for a whole host of very good, accurate information about growing fruits, vines, and nuts. No matter where you live wherever Dave Wilson product can be found, which is most of the United States, Phil Pursel, we learned a lot today. Thank you so much.

Phil Pursel  21:45

Thanks for having me on.

Farmer Fred  21:46

All right, you've purchased some blackberry plants. Now you need to trellis them to provide some blackberry support. Here are some great ideas from the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center. Just a note, we recorded this before everybody had to wear masks, and nobody was allowed to be seen in public, or something like that. You know what I mean. We're here at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center in the wintertime and without leaves, you can really see structures that work. And I'm looking at a blackberry setup, a way to grow blackberries that I find really interesting. And I think for a lot of people, it would be a great way to do it at home. It involves growing blackberries in containers, but with an excellent trellising, and watering system. We're talking with Master Gardener Tamara Engle. And Tamara, tell us a little bit about this system. For blackberries, you have four, I guess different blackberry varieties here. And they're being grown in half barrels.

Tamara Engle  22:48

Yes, they're being grown in half barrels, which blackberries grow really well in barrels,  that's not a problem at all for them. So it's, it's a great way to do it. If you don't have the space directly in your ground. They like nice, organic soil. So that works great. And then as you can't see on the radio, but we have a really simple irrigation hose that comes across and allows them to get the water that they need. So that's another easy way to do it. So you don't have to do anything underground. It's just a drip system hose.

Farmer Fred  23:24

Well, let's go into a bit of detail about the barrels, the soil. What I really like about the half barrels is I bet there's really good drainage. Because these barrels are not resting on the ground. You have them on some pretty sizable stones or bricks that are four to six inches high. And so that means that the holes in the bottom of the barrel aren't going to get clogged probably. And the drip system to these are sizable drip tubes. This isn't your standard half inch tubing. This looks to be like three quarters or maybe even one inch, and it looks to be you've got you got two parallel drip lines running the length of this trellising system going across four different half barrels, there are two emitters per line, which means a total of four emitters per barrel. And I'm just guessing here are those one gallon emitters or two gallon emitters.

Tamara Engle  24:14

You know, I'm not sure if they're one gallon or two gallon.

Farmer Fred  24:17

But basically this is a good way to go about it. Yes. The soil in here you mentioned is organic soil or at least made up of organic ingredients.

24:24

A lot of organic matter. Berries do like things to be a little bit on the acidic side. And, and you know giving them a nice start with nice mixed organic material is the way to give them a good start in life.

Farmer Fred  24:37

Really I know for blueberries, a good mix that can get the pH down to 5.5 which might be a little too low for blackberries would be a mix of well saturated peat moss, perhaps some small bark, and of course, Camellia, Azalea Rhododendron soil mix which tends to be on the acidic side. So if you're looking for a premix, that's one way to go about it. All right, let's talk about the supports for this. Now this is what I really like, is the fact that you have a trellising system with two four by fours that are vertical, and they stand about seven feet tall. And then you've got two by fours attached to two points, one about two feet from the ground, and the one about five, six feet from the ground. And you've got wires, these are strong, I'd say 12 gauge wires on turnbuckles that go across, and you've got the wires going from the top of the barrel, the first wire is about 18 inches from the top of the barrel, the next wire up going across the middle of the barrel is probably four and a half, five feet. And then there's two more about spacing a little closer together, one foot apart. So the tallest wire maxes out at about seven feet or so. So that gives you a vertical area to tie the vines to, and then at the end of the two by fours, and these two by fours are probably about three and a half feet long, that are attached horizontally at the two points I mentioned, you've got two more wires coming out of them and running the length of the bed. And I would think with a system like this, and the fact that these four by fours are embedded in concrete, this ain't going nowhere.

Tamara Engle  26:18

 No, this isn't going out anywhere, as you said. So we have a similar setup at home, except our berries are in a raised bed instead of an individual pots. But we have almost the exact same trellis system. And a couple of things I want to point out about it that I think are really helpful. This one is you said it's really stabilized by the fact that it's in concrete. There's also a giant metal pole that looks like almost like a closet rod going from between the two, the two end posts, and that keeps those from falling over. And then you mentioned the turnbuckles as well, which is really helpful because as you can imagine, over time, as these things start to weigh down the wires, being able to tighten or loosen those wires is pretty key. So we have that similar setup at home. And right now all the berries are pruned back. So you can see the whole setup very clearly. But when they get going, especially if you get a little bit lazy about pruning, like some of us always do, you know, this will fill up completely with these vines. And it's a really good stable support system, it keeps the berries up off the ground, which is always nicer, you know when you're harvesting so you don't have everything hanging over on the ground. And then the other great thing about this system here at the horticulture center, is this allows us, when we have those really screaming hot days in the summer, and these are in full sun, we can put shade cloth over him when the berries are really ripe. While the berries do enjoy full sun, we find that when they're just about ripe and they're getting too much blast of a sun or you know those hot, windy days, it can actually cause the berries to dry out just before you get to pick them, which is always a drag. So we put some shade cloth up over here on those hot days.

Farmer Fred  28:06

Yeah, that would be easy to do, because it's all within easy reach. And because of the length of these two by four cross bars, it would drape over the entire plant very easily. I'm glad you mentioned this galvanized one inch steel pipe that is running at about five and a half feet tall from one vertical support to the other. And we should point out that this area is probably maybe 14 or 15 feet long. And that that galvanized steel pipe does an excellent job of supporting the supports  so that when the turnbuckles and the weight of the branches won't cause these to fold in. Exactly. So that's really nice. But you got that interesting in a hole on either side. So you had to put one in one and then bring up the support for the other to put it in. 

Tamara Engle  28:57

You know, i hate to say it Fred,, but I wasn't here when they built this one and the one we have at home does not have that feature. So I'm not sure but yeah, I'm assuming that's how they did it.

Farmer Fred  29:05

Tamara Engle. We've learned a lot about how to support blackberries. Thanks so much.

Tamara Engle  29:10

Thanks, Fred.

Farmer Fred  29:11

The Garden Basics podcast is going to a winter schedule, maybe just like your favorite local nursery. November through January, Garden Basics will come out once a week on Fridays. Then, as the weather warms back up in February, we'll return to our twice a week schedule. Thank you for listening, subscribing, and leaving comments. We appreciate that you've included us in your garden life.