341 Fred's Garden Tour with Debbie Artwork

Garden Basics with Farmer Fred

Tips for beginning and experienced gardeners. New episodes arrive every Friday. Fred Hoffman has been a U.C. Certified Master Gardener since 1982 and writes a weekly garden column for the Lodi News-Sentinel in Lodi, CA. A four-decade fixture in Sacramento radio, he hosted three radio shows for Northern California gardeners and farmers: The KFBK Garden Show, Get Growing with Farmer Fred, and the KSTE Farm Hour. Episode Website: https://gardenbasics.net

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Garden Basics with Farmer Fred

341 Fred's Garden Tour with Debbie

June 07, 2024 • Fred Hoffman • Season 5 • Episode 43

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

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

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

Meanwhile, we’re podcasting from Barking Dog Studios here in the beautiful Abutilon Jungle in Suburban Purgatory, it’s the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, brought to you today by Smart Pots and Dave Wilson Nursery. Let’s go!

Previous episodes, show notes, links, product information, and transcripts at the home site for Garden Basics with Farmer Fred, GardenBasics.net. Audio, transcripts, and episode chapters also available at Buzzsprout.

Pictured: Fred's backyard raised beds

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341 TRANSCRIPT TOUR OF THE FARMER FRED GARDEN

Farmer Fred 0:00

Garden Basics with Farmer Fred is brought to you by Smart Pots, the original lightweight, long lasting fabric plant container. It's made in the USA. Visit SmartPots.com slash Fred for more information and a special discount, that's SmartPots.com/Fred.

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

Farmer Fred

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

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

TOUR OF THE FARMER FRED GARDEN, Pt. 1

Farmer Fred

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

Debbie Flower 2:27

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

Farmer Fred 2:33

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

Debbie Flower

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

Farmer Fred

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

Debbie Flower 3:45

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

Farmer Fred 3:50

Yeah and the zinnias are doing quite well.

Debbie Flower 3:54

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

Farmer Fred 4:05

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

Debbie Flower 4:10

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

Farmer Fred 4:18

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

Debbie Flower 4:27

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

Farmer Fred 4:36

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

Debbie Flower 4:43

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

Farmer Fred 4:48

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

Debbie Flower 4:59

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

Farmer Fred 5:14

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

Debbie Flower 5:43

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

Farmer Fred 5:46

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

Debbie Flower 6:03

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

Farmer Fred 6:08

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

Debbie Flower 6:18

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

Farmer Fred 6:23

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

Debbie Flower 6:42

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

Farmer Fred 6:47

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

Debbie Flower 7:06

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

Farmer Fred 7:18

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

Debbie Flower

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

Debbie Flower 8:14

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

Farmer Fred 8:54

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

Debbie Flower 9:08

Great.

Farmer Fred 9:09

Yeah, it works.

Debbie Flower 9:10

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

Farmer Fred 9:46

So you've stuck those bamboo sticks upright.

Debbie Flower 9:50

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

Farmer Fred 10:03

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

Debbie Flower 10:04

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

Farmer Fred 10:10

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

Debbie Flower 10:29

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

Farmer Fred 11:09

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

Debbie Flower 12:00

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

Farmer Fred 12:15

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

Debbie Flower 12:25

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

Farmer Fred 12:28

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

Debbie Flower

Of course, of course.

Farmer Fred

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

Debbie Flower 12:44

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

Farmer Fred 12:47

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

Debbie Flower 13:05

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

Farmer Fred 13:38

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

Debbie Flower

You started these from seed?

Farmer Fred

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

Debbie Flower 14:46

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

Farmer Fred 14:51

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

Debbie Flower 14:58

And then you have space for the late bearing onions.

Farmer Fred 15:02

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

Debbie Flower 15:31

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

Farmer Fred 16:04

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

Debbie Flower 16:52

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

Farmer Fred 17:00

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

Debbie Flower 17:15

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

Farmer Fred 17:22

the rest of them fell down into my yard.

Debbie Flower 17:24

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

Farmer Fred

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

Debbie Flower

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

Farmer Fred 17:52

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

Debbie Flower 18:18

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

Farmer Fred 18:30

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

Debbie Flower 18:37

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

Farmer Fred 18:44

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

Debbie Flower 18:48

where they lose their seed. Yeah, yeah.

Farmer Fred 18:51

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

Debbie Flower 19:36

And look what got harvested here the onions.

Farmer Fred

these are garlic.

Debbie Flower

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

Farmer Fred 19:42

I harvested the garlic yesterday. Just a wonderful aroma.

Debbie Flower 19:46

I smell it, Yes.

Farmer Fred 19:47

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

Debbie Flower 20:05

Yeah, you got quite a bit there. Yeah.

Farmer Fred 20:07

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

Debbie Flower 20:14

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

Farmer Fred 20:25

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

Debbie Flower 20:42

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

Farmer Fred 20:55

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

Debbie Flower 21:00

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

Farmer Fred 21:07

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

Debbie Flower 21:28

I saw your cat come in.

Farmer Fred 21:29

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

Debbie Flower

So he Learned?

Farmer Fred

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

Debbie Flower 22:07

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

Farmer Fred 22:13

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

Debbie Flower 22:23

Yes. And a little bit of chard there.

Farmer Fred 22:26

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

Debbie Flower 22:40

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

Farmer Fred 22:51

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

Debbie Flower

Good luck with that.

Farmer Fred

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

Debbie Flower 23:02

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

Farmer Fred 23:12

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

Debbie Flower 23:21

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

Farmer Fred 23:41

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

Farmer Fred

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

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Farmer Fred 24:04

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TOUR OF THE FARMER FRED GARDEN, Pt. 2

Farmer Fred

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

Farmer Fred

The ground cover that you see here is Kurapia, it is out of control because I tried to start it originally as a lawn substitute on 200 Square feet that I've reserved for the dogs. But it turns out Kurapia isn't very good at fending off dog urine.

Debbie Flower

And what is?

Farmer Fred

you know what is actually urine resistant here is clover.

Debbie Flower 27:02

I think I read that.

Farmer Fred 27:04

I've got Clover here now. But the problem is Clover doesn't like heat.

Debbie Flower 27:07

And it attracts bees, which may or may not be a problem.

Farmer Fred 27:12

Yeah, you can always keep it mowed. Yeah, for example the kurapia flowers keep sprouting. look at the crop of flowers that even though I've mowed this down to a half inch tall, the flowers now on the Kurapia come up at a much lower level.

Debbie Flower 27:23

It just blooms shorter. Yeah.

Farmer Fred 27:27

Now there's one of those white moths. Yeah. All right. Well, let's start looking at tomato plants. But I don't see any holey tomatoes yet there. They seem to be fairly intact.

Debbie Flower 27:42

These tomatoes are a good size. Yeah. Very healthy.

Farmer Fred 27:45

Yep. Green leaves. And then the last two tomatoes just went in, I planted in yesterday. They are some heirloom varieties that Charlie in Brooklyn sent the seeds. Thornburn lemon blush. Charlie also sent a mystery seed, one he calls Red Delicious mystery. So I don't know what that's going to turn into. But it's got a potato leaf on it.

Debbie Flower 28:08

It sure does. It doesn't even look compound although it is but yeah, it's a bigger fatter leaf like more like a potato.

Farmer Fred 28:15

So we'll do potato leaf tomatoes. Do they resent the sun more?

Debbie Flower 28:22

Not that I'm aware of. Oh, they have more surface to shade the fruit which is where I think of them as being beneficial. Okay,

Farmer Fred 28:29

I mean, they have obviously bigger leaves to help protect them. But I wonder if those leaves are there because the fruit is more sensitive to too much sun?

Debbie Flower 28:36

I'll find out. good question.

Farmer Fred 28:39

All right, but the other seed that Charlie sent was the Thornburn’s lemon blush tomato, which is a big yellow tomato. And we'll see what that turns into. In all the raised beds, I've got leaf mulch on the soil, for the most part. I've got a trash can full of leaf mulch ready to go on the beds that don't have it yet. I've got a bit of onions, more onions here. That was the one thing we found out last year, was that we eat a lot of onions here. So I planted more.

Debbie Flower 29:07

Yeah, why not? Plant what you're going to eat.

Farmer Fred 29:10

Exactly. I've got some Smart Pots back here with trees in them. They're pluerry trees, a plum cherry cross.

Debbie Flower 29:17

Have you had that fruit? I have not had that cherry fruit.

Farmer Fred

It's small. It's tasty.

Debbie Flower

Okay, is the seed very big?

Farmer Fred 29:24

Yeah, it’s not very big. but you're gonna spit it out.

Debbie Flower 29:29

I just wondered how much flesh you got per fruit.

Farmer Fred 29:32

A couple of bites. so we'll see how they do in the Smart Pots. This is kind of a test of growing fruit trees in Smart Pots. Tom Spellman of Dave Wilson nursery gave me a very good piece of advice - for anybody who's growing fruit trees in containers, he recommends that the width of the tree be no more than one and a half times the diameter of the container in order to control the root growth so you have less chance Lots of roots going round and round.

Debbie Flower 30:04

okay and of course control the height of the tree. One and a half times so the branches can go to the edge and then half again.

Farmer Fred 30:13

right from the trunk to the edge so in this case these Smart Pot bags are 30 inches wide so they can go 15 inches outside of that

Debbie Flower 30:20

you said to also control the height. at what picking height picking? about five or six feet?

Farmer Fred 30:26

right, yeah six feet or so. The Smart Pots seem to be doing well and the temperature tests I've done with the soil in Smart Pots versus soil in regular containers, be it Pulp Pots or plastic or terracotta, the soil is cooler in Smart Pots, and the soil stays moister as well which are pluses.

Debbie Flower 30:48

What soil did you use? Doesn't look like field soil.

Farmer Fred 30:51

It is not field soil. No I bought bagged soil for this to give it a shot and I used some of Kellogg garden products’ Raised beds soil planter mix.

Debbie Flower 31:02

I did that for the Smart Pot I have, which is only a foot tall and about 50 inches wide I think. and I mixed it two parts of the bagged soil to one part pumice.

Farmer Fred

well of course you're the pumice Queen.

Debbie Flower

Yes the pumice queen.

Farmer Fred 31:17

to this I mixed in worm castings and compost as well.

Debbie Flower 31:23

Okay, and I haven't done any of that. So I'm going to need to fertilize. I have some dried chicken manure in a bag I can put on top and then liquid fertilizer is my plan.

Farmer Fred 31:34

of course, because they're young trees and not taking up too much space, I had to add a little bit of color to the front of it. I put in some zinnias. You want to know the names of the zinnias?

Debbie Flower

Sure.

Farmer Fred

This one on the left is Crouching Tiger

Debbie Flower 31:47

Is that Hidden Dragon over there?

Farmer Fred 31:48

Yes it is.

Debbie Flower

You're kidding!

Farmer Fred 31:55

And then the other deciduous fruit trees are on the north side of the yard since they're taller growing. And I don't know. there's a lot of things working against the production on these fruit trees, including the neighborhood rats, as well as the squirrels. and I noticed that they tend to leave the citrus alone. so if this year is a bust for these six or seven year old peaches, nectarines and pluots, I just might go to citrus.

Debbie Flower 32:26

Raccoons like citrus, I can attest to that. But I get so much citrus, I'm willing to share.

Farmer Fred 32:32

along this back fence too.,I got a bay plant, a big bay plant. And I keep waiting for this rose that I had tore out here to flower; the rootstock was left. Well let's see what comes of the rootstock. Let's see if it is Dr. Huey or not. And it hasn't shown any red flowers yet.

Debbie Flower 32:49

I had a area that was a new neighbor. And they came in and wiped out what was on their side of the property. And there was, it turns out, there was this rose on my side of the property but it got scraped to the ground and came up again. It wasn't this vigorous, but it was in too much shade and full of powdery mildew. And the Rose was a single flat red.

Farmer Fred 33:11

That's Dr. Huey.

Debbie Flower 33:13

Well, it's gone now.

Farmer Fred 33:14

Okay, yeah, well this is going to disappear as well. I was just curious because gardeners are a curious lot, to see what would pop up. And of course you see a lot of oak seedlings down there. Can you guess which tree fell over in the backyard over there?

Debbie Flower 33:27

I must pull 100 or more out of my yard every spring.

Farmer Fred 33:31

I love Bay plant, the Laurus nobilis, as a privacy screen because it's evergreen. You can use the leaves for cooking. The birds love it to live in it.

Debbie Flower 33:41

So this is the Grecian Laurel, Laurus nobilis.

Farmer Fred 33:45

Yes. This is not the other bay leaf, the Umbellaria californica.

Debbie Flower 33:48

I have the Umbellaria californica and a family of scrub jays lives in it and they must have had babies the last two weeks in their nest. anytime my cat would go out. I call it the thug jays. These thugs would stand around within five feet of the cat and just yell at her. the whole time I wondered if scrub jays could get hoarse, you know, like we get hoarse from talking too much. I don't know the answer, but they never seemed to. they take

Farmer Fred 34:17

Maybe they take turns.

Debbie Flower 34:18

that's probably it. there were three. It was a little game.

Farmer Fred 34:22

The game here are Robins and they're going after my blueberries, of course, but my process for controlling that as well, is just plant enough blueberries for everybody. And there are two rose plants that are kind of the focal point of the backyard. Two of my favorite roses. This one is the Lyda Rose. And the one over there is the Sally Holmes.

Debbie Flower 34:44

Yeah, she's really in full bloom.

Farmer Fred 34:47

This one, the Lyda Rose, this past winter got covered by nasturtiums that came up and just really covered the entire plant. They climbed up, they climbed up, they crawled all through it and they blossomed all winter long. my wife loved it.

Debbie Flower

Really?

Farmer Fred

I said we should take that out. She said, Oh, no, no, no. Well, I finally had my way last month in April and this rose poor rose plant was all bare down below. It was only green up on top where the nasturtium hadn't crawled to yet, but it bounced back.

Debbie Flower 35:18

Yeah, looks lovely. Lots of flowers and many many buds. Yeah.

Farmer Fred 35:21

Roses. Are hearty plants.

Debbie Flower 35:22

there’s a bee working on it, a carpenter, bee. a Female.

Farmer Fred

How can you tell?

Debbie Flower

the males are golden and furry. With green eyes, they're really handsome. And they will just buzz over a plant that is not something a bee would want to visit, waiting for a female to show up. And the female gets to choose which males she wants to mate with.

Farmer Fred 35:45

I’m always amazed how bees are kind of their interspecies. In that you will see many varieties of bees working the same plant.

Debbie Flower 35:53

yes, my mesquite tree was that way. Last week.

Farmer Fred 35:58

Good for them. We could all learn from the bees on this one. Now I have a strong belief after years of gardening that if a plant wants to grow, let it grow. And that's what these alstromerias have done, the Peruvian Lily. I've tried other plants here. We wanted some red geraniums in there that just have a hard time thriving. But the Alstroemerias love it here. They've spread at will, because they're an underground rhizome or tuber below.

Debbie Flower 36:24

They make excellent cut flowers.

Farmer Fred 36:26

And they have.

Debbie Flower 36:29

The alstroemerias are Right there, right around the fountain, which is for the birds. Right?

Farmer Fred 36:33

I've discovered that birds are not only attracted to water when they see water, but when they hear the water, too.

Debbie Flower 36:41

Yes, I have a dripper on a plain bird bath. But the dripper makes that noise.

Farmer Fred 36:48

It seems to work. There's a big brugmansia over here with the big yellow tubular flowers, that seems here to bloom year around. And they just have the most wonderful aroma at night. It's like you're in a tobacco shop.

Debbie Flower 37:04

this is much bigger than mine. Mine is more exposed. And yours is up against a redwood tree . Yeah, mine is in the south and mine died back this past year all the way to the ground.

Farmer Fred 37:16

it does best on the north side of buildings I found around here. But this variety of brugmansia, The Charles Grimald,i has that protection from the redwood tree to its south, and just seems to be thriving.

Debbie Flower

Yeah, beautiful.

Farmer Fred

And then moving on over here to the other side of the yard. We were before on the north side of the house. Now we're proceeding towards the south side that has a narrow walkway along the house. But look at all the blueberries that the birds could take advantage of, I’ve discovered, too, I gotta try them.

Debbie Flower 37:49

don't talk with food in your mouth.

Farmer Fred 37:51

All right. When it comes to harvesting blueberries, I've discovered that when you go to pick them, if you have to pull a little bit, they're going to be tart. If ,on the other hand, they just fall out into your hand. If they roll into your hand. They're ready.

Debbie Flower 38:06

right. Yeah, we've done some You pick varieties. And I found that as well. It's really easy. You just hold your container under it and roll your hand down the branches. It looks like it might be hard because there's a mixture that isn't all the ripe berries because aren't ripening at the same time. But as far as as harvesting, they just slide right off.

Farmer Fred 38:24

If you do it gently enough. Yes, yes, you can save them. So here’s more onions. Jeanne wanted a container where she can go out and get green onions or bunching onions as quickly as possible. So there you go. I chose the blueberry varieties, the four blueberry varieties here. And I chose them based on the size of the berry that they produce. I like big berries.

Debbie Flower 38:49

We are a small berry family.

Farmer Fred 38:51

Well, then you're working harder than I am. But yeah, if you're shopping for blueberry plants, if the signage says it's large berries, and you don't want to spend your time trying to pick off small berries with forceps, or whatever, go with the big berry varieties.

Farmer Fred

We'll get back to our little trip around the yard with Debbie Flower and myself. But first a word from our friends at Dave Wilson Nursery.

DAVE WILSON NURSERY

Farmer Fred

You have a small yard and you think you don't have the room for fruit trees? Well, maybe you better think again. Because Dave Wilson Nursery wants to show you how to grow great tasting fruits: peaches, apples, pluots, and nut trees. Plus, they have potted fruits, such as blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, boysenberries, figs, grapes, hops, kiwifruit, olives and pomegranates. All plants, that you can grow in small areas. You could even grow many of them in containers on patios, as well. It's called backyard orchard culture. And you can get step by step information via their You Tube videos. Where do you find those? Just go to dave wilson dot com, click on the Home Garden tab at the top of the page. Also in that home garden tab, you’ll find a link to their fruit and nut harvest chart, so you can be picking delicious, healthy fruits from your own yard from May to December here in USDA Zone 9. Also in that home garden tab? You're going to find the closest nursery to you that carries Dave Wilson's quality fruit trees. They are in nurseries from coast to coast. So start the backyard orchard of your dreams at DaveWilson.com.

Farmer Fred

Let's get back to our backyard tour. And this time we're over in the citrus section.

TOUR OF THE FARMER FRED GARDEN, Pt. 3

Farmer Fred

All right, we're coming to citrus row over here on the south side of the property.

Debbie Flower 40:47

Well you've got thyme here.

Farmer Fred 40:48

Oh yeah, that's right. There's thyme in that pot.

Debbie Flower 40:50

I just bought another thyme plant, I think they do better here in a container than in the ground.

Farmer Fred 40:57

We'll find out.

Debbie Flower 41:01

Okay, the first time I've had it, it's still in its four inch where I bought it for three inch or whatever it is that I had to in the ground one for a long time. It's gone. It's done. Have another one in the ground. It looks like it's coming back, it flowered this year. And I'm gonna put one in a pot and see. I suspect it's the drainage on my property that it's not as good as the thyme we'd like it to be.

Farmer Fred 41:23

That could be Yeah, the ontainer will provide gppd drainage. the thyme we had it out front in in the ground, but it was on a slope. And that helps the drainage.

Debbie Flower 41:30

Right, right. i My property is on fill soil. I'm quite sure that there are layers and so the soil gets perched.

Farmer Fred 41:38

We have a persimmon tree next to the thyme. It's the Fuyu persimmon and that will ripen in usually late October. But it's just a beautiful tree and the Fuyu persimmon is just so tasty. We dehydrate a lot of it and save it as treats.

Debbie Flower 41:54

nice. very interesting floral development and fruit development.

Farmer Fred 41:58

Yeah it needs thinning to keep the branches from drooping and I just cut it back last year after harvest to keep it at a more easily reachable height.

Debbie Flower 42:09

it's responded well, it also need to be pruned again.

Farmer Fred 42:14

Then we come to Mandarin row here and there's still some fruit from last year on it. I believe this is the blood orange, actually. And the blood orange was very tasty this year. It was the last citrus to be harvested. And now I'm thinking I should expand the citrus. the timing for citrus here in California for ripening is long, because there are varieties like Midknight seedless or Midnight Valencia and Layne late navel orange that ripens in late spring early summer.

Debbie Flower 42:47

Yeah, yeah. Um, I have two navels and they're done. The lemon still has fruit on it, but it's technically done.

Farmer Fred 42:56

Right. And the mandarins there's three different types of mandarins here. They're basically all harvested and usually with mandarins it's, you have a huge year and then not much of a year.

Debbie Flower

So, alternate bearing.

Farmer Fred

Yep. And that's what this one is doing. So it'll be fun finding some to pick come this fall. but that's okay. It's fine. And it's hard to stop a Meyer lemon from producing. the thing about a Meyer lemon. Are they thorns or spines?

Debbie Flower

Yes. Armed and yes, they are armed and dangerous.

Farmer Fred

but it does produce usable lemons that can hang on the tree for quite a while.

Debbie Flower 43:30

Yes, mine is loaded right now. Yeah, yeah,

Farmer Fred 43:33

Your neighbors probably get tired of taking them from you.

Debbie Flower 43:36

My neighbor wants to give me hers.

Farmer Fred

I know how that goes.Now here's another test area for Smart Pots. It is the absolute hottest area in the whole backyard. it's a narrow walkway. It's maybe from the end of the citrus trees to the wall of the house, A South facing wall of the house, that may be six to eight feet. And along the house are five Smart Pots. One terracotta pot and one plastic pot. And I'm always sticking my soil thermometer in it and my moisture meter in it to see how are they doing? It's always the Smart Pots that have the lowest soil temperature and the best retention of moisture.

Debbie Flower 44:20

Okay, that explains why my zucchini aren't up there in the Smart Pot yet. it's got the lowest temperature, they like it hot. You got a potato here.

Farmer Fred 44:29

And a potato. Yeah, the Clancy potato grown, from seed.

Debbie Flower 44:32

Oh, wow. That's right. I forgot that you were doing that? Yeah.

Farmer Fred 44:35

And it did produce a small crop.

Debbie Flower 44:37

And what about the Clancy?

Farmer Fred 44:42

Well, it’s a seed. It's not a seed potato. It's an actual seed that you plant, which is very rare in the world of potatoes because most potatoes are planted from slips.

Debbie Flower 44:50

cloned.

Farmer Fred 44:53

Yes. So it comes back true from seed and it is growing.

Debbie Flower 44:57

It's flowering. It's a very pretty purple, a Solanaceae flower.

Farmer Fred 45:00

Yeah. And it's easy to harvest potatoes when they're in a Smart Pot because you just turned the whole pot over, dump it out, harvest your potatoes. you don't have to worry about leaving any behind.

Debbie Flower 45:09

Yes, if you plant potatoes in the ground, that bed will always be a potato bed always. Yeah, because you'd miss some, they might be really tiny, just the tip of your finger, but they'll grow from that.

Farmer Fred 45:20

let's get out of the heat on this side of the house here. And so anyway, that's my backyard. As you can tell, it's mostly food. And that's what I want. plants that will produce food, at some point or another in the yard. And they do. the front yard is more ornamental than this, but there's some food out there. But as you know, yards are a work in progress. They're always something to do. you may have seen in the driveway, there's another eight yards of mulch waiting for me to shovel back here that were dropped off by the local tree trimming company.

Debbie Flower 45:52

I have half a pile in my backyard. Yes.

Farmer Fred 45:56

So that's ongoing labor doing that. So the next thing we got to do, well pay a visit to your yard.

Debbie Flower

Well, okay, we can do that.

Farmer Fred

All right, we will. Debbie Flower. Thanks so much.

Debbie Flower 46:05

You're welcome, Fred.

BEYOND THE GARDEN BASICS NEWSLETTER

Farmer Fred 46:14

Again, what’s a garden tour without pictures? You can get a look at the plants we’re talking about, as well,, in this week’s Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter, dated June 7, 2024, which will also have this podcast tour of Fred’s garden, so you can listen to what we have to say as well as scroll down to see the plants and paraphernalia, as well that were talking about. And then next Friday, June 14, turnabout is fair play, so we will be visiting Debbie Flower’s fabulous home garden in both the June 14 editions of the Garden Basics podcast as well as the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter. Find a link to the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter in today’s show notes, or go to substack.com/gardenbasics and subscribe, as well. It’s free. For now.

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.