348 The Tastiest Peaches and Plums. Improving Sandy Soil. Raised Bed Drainage Tips.

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: Garden Gold Peach in Bloom

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Dave Wilson Nursery
HeirloomRoses.com (with the FRED discount link)

Harvest Day at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center, Saturday, Aug. 3.

Other links mentioned in today’s podcast:

Dave Wilson Nursery Taste Test Results - Peaches and Plums

Improving Sandy Soils (NCSU)

The Yak (National Library of Medicine)

Citrus Soil Mix (Container Citrus Production, Clemson U.)

Soil Drainage - The Garden Professors

Soil Myth Busting for Extension Educators: Soil Structure and Functionality

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Chapters

• 1:47 The Tastiest Peaches and Plums
• 22:19 Smart Pots!
• 24:06 Improving Sandy Soil
• 29:24 Beyond the Garden Basics Newsletter
• 30:42 Q&A Using Sticks in a Raised Bed?

Transcript

348 Peaches, Plums, Sandy Soil TRANSCRIPT

Farmer Fred

Garden Basics with Farmer Fred is brought to you by SmartPots, 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 slash Fred. 

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

Farmer Fred

If it’s July, it’s fresh peaches and plums! And there are a lot of tasty, nutritious varieties out there that you won’t find in any supermarket. Phil Purcel from Dave Wilson Nursery has the list of must-have backyard peach and plum tree varieties.

We’ve talked a lot on the show about how to deal with clay soil in the garden. But what about overly sandy soil, which can drain too quickly and lacks a lot of nutrients? Master Gardener Gail Pothour has tips for enriching the productivity of your sandy soil.

Time to put out another brush fire on the internet. Making the rounds are suggestions about the benefits of adding sticks to raised beds. America’s Favorite Retired College Horticulture Professor, Debbie Flower has a lot of good reasons why you don’t want to have that layer of sticks at the bottom of your raised bed.

And whatever happened to the Tuesday edition of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast? It’s still around, and we tell you where you can find it now.

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!

THE TASTIEST PEACHES AND PLUMS

Farmer Fred  

It's always great to talk with Phil Purcel from Dave Wilson nursery. Dave Wilson nursery is a wholesale grower of fruit and nut trees and they sell those trees to retail nurseries in your area, your independent retail nurseries. and two of their best selling varieties of fruit trees, As you might imagine, peaches and plums and Phil, I guess one reason they are so popular is well, they're easy to grow and they're tasty.

Phil Pursel    

They are I mean, summertime favorites, right? When you think of fresh fruit, this time of year, think peaches and plums. That is summertime fruit eating. 

Farmer Fred    

So what are the popular peach varieties and I imagine every region of the country has their own favorites. 

Phil Pursel    

Yeah, they do. And then kind of different cultures have their own you know, favorites, too. There's the old time O'Henry's, Alberta's, you know in the yellow peaches, Red Baron for Southern California. Contender for out in the East Coast is a big time favorite. Then there's white varieties. So Babcock, you know, everyone's familiar with that one. Donut Peach which is a white doughnut peach. You find in all the specialty stores that when the Asian culture loves that doughnut peach is because it's very high in sugars. problem with that is a lot of times you don't see in your regular grocery store, because it's so high in sugars, it bruises. So the best way again to get a donut peach is just go ahead and growing it yourself.

Farmer Fred  

And one reason is called a donut peaches. It's kind of flat. It's not necessarily globular, like you might imagine peaches. It's kind of flat like a doughnut.

Phil Pursel  

It is it's known as a saucer, peach, or Pinto peach. It's like a flat doughnut.

Farmer Fred   

And as you said, very very sweet,

Phil Pursel  

very sweet. So the peaches come in two categories or we categorize them ourselves as either acidic or non acidic. So acidic is when you remember that old time peach. You know the summertime peach where you bite into it and as as Sweet little slightly tart, juicy flavor. That's an acidic peach and generally speaking, those are all going to be all your yellow peaches. Floyd Zaiger really did a lot of hybridizing and like the Europeans and the Asians, they don't tend to like the acidic peaches as much as the white peaches, which is really more of a of a sweet, sugary type of peach. So those are the two peaches that are your choices when you go into a retail garden center. The pic he started Do you want a yellow peak? Or do you want a white peach?

Farmer Fred  

Floyd Zaiger, of course a fruit tree hybridizer are of note probably the most famous hybridizer in America.

Phil Pursel  

Yes, absolutely.

Farmer Fred   

Now two terms that people may come across when they're looking at peaches are Freestone and cling peach. What is the difference?

Phil Pursel   

So Freestone is he take a peach and you cut it in half Twist it. If the flesh pops away from the pit itself, that's a free stone. If you try to twist it, and it doesn't, well that's a cling peach and the flesh will actually cling on to the stone itself. Just two different eating wise. generally, people kind of prefer the freestone because you can, you know, easily separate it from the pit and then cut it into slices. Cling peaches are made very good eating peaches. They're also tend to be the ones that the canners use, or the cling peaches.

Farmer Fred  

So now one limiting factor when it comes to peaches and if you're looking for a tasty peach if you go to the Dave Wilson nursery website, Dave wilson.com. You can find their list of the best tasting varieties over at their taste test results that they conducted over 20 years. And among the top scores for peaches include the Harkin And the O Henry, but they have a requirement of a lot of chill hours. a chill hour is any hour below 45 degrees, ideally between 32 and 45 degrees during the period of November through February. And most areas of the country if they have cold winters, they get over 800 chill hours, which is perfect for the O Henry and the Harkin. But for areas like Southern California or the southern United States that may have fewer chill hours. What are the best tasting varieties for them?

Phil Pursel   

Probably one of my favorites is Red Baron, and the Red Baron is an acidic high flavor peach, but it's also edible ornamental. When the Red Baron blooms, the flowers are almost a red color as opposed to the Typical pink so it's a really really dark, kinky red bloom. So it's a beautiful tree and the fruit it produces is great. And then that that's for the yellow peach. on the white peach. You know one of the favorites again is a donut. That donut peaches is very popular. Interesting thing about the donut peach is that it is very low chill adaptable. However, it is a very cold hardy piece so you can plant a doughnut peach in San Diego and perform well. And you can plant a doughnut peach over on the east coast and the eastern seaboard and it will perform well.

Farmer Fred   

Alright, yeah, the donut white peach has a chill requirement of 200 to 300 hours, which is not much at all. And we should point out that the reason those chill hours are necessary, it helps the tree set its buds for the following season.

Phil Pursel  

Yes, it's become even more out here in California. It's became more evident that we're acquiring less chill hours every year. So, you know, all the breeders, they're very, you know, cognizant of this and they're breeding for the fact that we're not having as much chill hours and that they have to focus in on lower chill fruit.

Farmer Fred   

One of my favorite pages is actually a miniature peach. It only gets maybe five or six feet tall, but what I really like about it besides the tasty fruit is the beautiful flowers show it puts on in the spring and that's the garden gold miniature peach. It's a yellow Freestone peach. And in fact, the picture accompanying our little chat here at the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast is that garden gold peach in full bloom and it's just gorgeous pinkish, reddish blooms.

Phil Pursel  

It is. it's it's showstopping in our mother block at the nursery when all our miniature peaches are blooming. It's incredible. You're most of them had double flowers and anywhere from mid pinks to, you know, almost a reddish color. And these miniature peaches, interesting enough are true dwarfs. So we actually have to graft these miniature peaches on a standard rootstock so that at full maturity, it will get up to six feet tall. It's just you know, they've been just developed over the years in kind of hybridized to have full flavor, but it's great for someone who has this, you know, a small backyard or a larger container that they want to keep it in for a few years to have a peach tree. You know, this is something that enables a nursery we're really starting to focus in and introduce new varieties. So we understand that yards are getting smaller but people still want fruit full size fruit and you know, like edible ornamentals.

Farmer Fred  

We should point out there's a whole different category of peaches called flowering peaches that have been developed basically for those flowers, but not much in the way of fruit development. Correct?

Phil Pursel    

Correct. So the flowering peaches are very popular with the flower growers, florists,  that fresh cut market for the coincide with, you know different holidays early in the season like Chinese New Year's, so there's early flying red, and there's peppermint. And those are, are grown for the flowers itself. But the fruit is very unremarkable tasting.

Farmer Fred  

What are the problems people may encounter over the years with peach trees? I know here in California peach leaf curl is a big problem, but it's more of a nuisance than a problem.

Phil Pursel  

Correct. Yeah, Peach leaf curl is something that you know can be prevented by just spraying. You know dormant sprays in the wintertime. And that seems to be the number one quote unquote nuisance of a peach tree. And that's kind of throughout the United States is leaf curl. Other than that, understanding that peach trees kind of have a normal cycle and in life, most of the growers out here will replace peach trees after about 20 years, kind of like almond. So it's, if you have a really old peach tree that say 30 years and you start seeing it declining, and maybe it starts becoming a little bit more susceptible to insect just because that tree is an old tree, unlike apple trees, which are long lived compared to peach trees, you know, 20-25 years is, is its maximum.

Farmer Fred    

All right, yeah, keep that in mind. If you're planting peach trees. If you start seeing decline after a couple of decades. Life is too short to put up with a problem plant. time to plant something else. It really is. So you mentioned insects. What are The major insect pests of peach trees?

Phil Pursel    

peach trees can get what's known as a peach tree borer. And it's just the the larva of a beetle. And it tends to attack trees that are kind of stressed. You know, some older trees or trees have been neglected. And what it will do is the borer  itself will kind of eat around the inside of the, the bark layer, and then it'll stop water flowing up to the leaves, and then you can tend to have insect or problems with it going forward. The key to anything like that is if you keep the vigor of your fruit trees up, you're less likely to encounter you know, any type of insect problems. Insects really go after the weakest of the flock out there.

Farmer Fred   

Let's make some vigorous peach trees then. what are some tips for watering and fertilization and care of peach trees?

Phil Pursel  

So peaches, we like people to, you know, think about watering in when you plant it. you know, you want to make sure that it gets a good start. But as a tree increases in size, you'll need to increase the water, but the frequency isn't as necessary as the amount of water that it's put on. Also think of watering a type of fruit trees as almost like a bell shaped curve. In early March, that tree will require less water than it will require in July right now in the heat of the summer. So if you have it on a regular timer, and you have it set at a March setting, you're gonna want to make sure that in July, you increase the amount of water that you're putting down and then when you get into September, you want to decrease it. Think of it as you know, like I say, a bell shaped curve. It's really hard to see how much Water put on each week, as everyone's soil is a little bit different. But if the trees not getting enough water, it's gonna let you know it's gonna go ahead, you know, start wilting. So that's when you know, you need to apply more. And you're going to generally find that in July and August,

Farmer Fred  

for areas of the country that gets summer rain, do peach trees still need regular irrigation?

Phil Pursel   

You know, it kind of depends. If you get regular summer rains, that's probably going to be sufficient enough. You know, I'm thinking more of here in the West Coast, which, you know, we had that Mediterranean climate where we get no summer rain. irrigation is definitely something that needs to be done. But on the East Coast, when you get heavy rains, that's, you know, generally going to be sufficient enough.

Farmer Fred    

What about fertilizer for peach trees? Is it necessary?

Phil Pursel    

we really like when we go back and talk about the vigor of a tree. It's generally speaking is you know, it gets a lot of vigor from fertilizers and we at Dave Wilson, we like to recommend organic fertilizers. And it kind of cool if you want to just very easy rule of thumb is you fertilize right after the fruit sets around pea size with organic fruit tree fertilizer. And then once again mid summer with that, you know organic fruit tree fertilizer. And then towards the end of summer, one more application and that kind of that last application gets the peach tree ready for the winter. The reason we like organic fertilizers is that they tend to be very slow releasing. So if you over applicate you the odds of you burning the tree or stressing it is fairly low. That's you know why we recommend organics over let's say something like a triple 15. triple 15 or triple 16 would be fine, but you got to be really careful when you apply that in the heat of the summer. Whereas with organic fertilizers, like since they break down slowly It just makes it easy for the homeowner not to be overly concerned.

Farmer Fred  

As we've mentioned on this program before, generally speaking, organic fertilizers have single digit numbers on the label. those three numbers you see on any fertilizer represent the nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium in that product. And if you choose a fertilizer with single digits, like a triple eight or a 5-2-2, or something like that, chances are it's probably an organic fertilizer.

Phil Pursel   

It is, it is.

Farmer Fred  

well before we run out of time here, let's talk plums. I mean, plums are just so tasty. And it is, I believe, the word in your industry is precocious, in that they tend to produce way too much fruit.

Phil Pursel    

they really are. I mean, we call them you know, maximizing your yield for fruit tree, that describes a plum, right they said, Have you fruit it's fantastic fruit. It's one of those fail safe trees where people say, Well, you know, I don't have sometimes I have a hard time, you know, with this fruit tree or that tree, they generally never say that with a plum tree because those things, plum trees just produce fruit. And this is throughout the country. I mean, it's, it's one of another one of those where they thrive. And there's varieties that do great in low chill areas. There's European plums for really cold areas, there's Asian plums that do really good in cold area, and they're super adaptable. And it's one of those where if you plant a plum tree, you're going to get food off of it. a lot.

Farmer Fred  

are the Japanese plums sweeter than the European plums?

Phil Pursel   

they are the sweeter and they're definitely juicier than European plums. And that's why they're, you know, they're the favorite ones that you see in grocery stores. European plums are known as prunes, whereas Japanese plums are known as plums.

Farmer Fred  

Now in the taste tests that I have participated in at Dave Wilson nursery over the years, And when it comes to tasting plums, one of my favorites has been the weeping Santa Rosa plum, which is just so sweet.

Phil Pursel    

Santa Rosa was developed by Luther Burbank, and that's still the number one home, home and garden plum out there. It's once again, I say it's very adaptable, does well in Southern California in the southern states. And it also does very well, you know, in the Midwest in the eastern seaboard. It's the classic plum that everyone is kind of thinking of when they think of plums. The weeping Santa Rosa It was a sport that was found and it actually naturally grows like a weeping flowering cherry so it never gets super tall, like some plum trees can because it just has this weeping canopy. But the fruit is just, you know another variation of the traditional Santa Rosa plum.

Farmer Fred   

Now when people go of their local nursery and they see some Dave Wilson Nursery plum trees they may see the Emerald Beaut plum which, again, is a development of Floyd Zager. And that's a taste test winner too.

Phil Pursel    

it is an In fact, it's my favorite plum. I have one that I checked it in the yard yesterday. It's a very late plum. For us it produces in the month of September and October. So I want to say the month of September and October, it actually hangs on the tree for about eight weeks. You can eat it hard ripe and it tends to be green, late August, early September. And if you let it hang on the tree, it'll turn to a yellow and it becomes very soft and very juicy. And that's what you see in October. Something like that. And a Santa Rosa plum. Santa Rosa plum produces its fruit in it tends to drop all at one time in a two week period. It where there are certain varieties of plums like Emerald Beaut or another one would be Burgundy plum and I have one of those in my orchard. That's another one that hangs on the tree for an extended period. So you don't have to worry about eating all those plums all at once you have an extended period of eating them.

Farmer Fred    

And for those listening in Southern California or maybe down in Florida are there low chill tasty plum varieties.

Phil Pursel  

They are there in the you know the my favorite low chill plum is definitely the burgundy and reason I like that is because it also acts as a pollenizer. most plums are self fertile. Oh, you only need one of these, Burgundy is the case, same as Santa Rosa. But let's say if you want to venture out and maybe plant a pluot or pluerry that needs a polleniser, if you have a Burgundy in your yard that's going to take care of all its pollennizing needs, yet still give you all the fruit you want. So, I mean, Tom and I, you know we really recommend that Burgundy for Southern California's low chill areas, but it's also still hard to beat that Santa Rosa plum.  Tom is is our southern California salesman and he really is when it comes to fruit trees. He's probably one of the most knowledgeable in the country on all different fruits whether it's citrus or stone fruit.

Farmer Fred   

that would be Tom Spellman. Now you used a couple of terms that people may not be familiar with, and they should be familiar with because they will fall in love with them. You mentioned pluot and Pluerry. So pluot would be a plum apricot cross a pluerry, people can probably guess, is a plum cherry cross.

Phil Pursel  

Yeah, and those are just interspecific hybrid fruit that are very common out here in California, you go into a grocery store. And so they'll list them as you know, as pluots, whereas maybe back east, those pluots are still being marketed as plums. Hmm. 

Farmer Fred  

And ladies and gents ,Boys and girls do not judge the quality of a pluot by what you buy at a grocery store. 

Phil Pursel   

Absolutely not.

Farmer Fred    

Judge the pluot by somebody's backyard tree or maybe something you might find at a farmers market, because the supermarket pluot, I think, we're just bred for shipping and stability and not necessarily for taste. Correct?

Phil Pursel    

Absolutely.

Farmer Fred  

We've learned a lot about peaches and plums today from Phil Purcel. If you want to learn more about fruit trees, all sorts of fruit and nut trees, visit the Dave Wilson website, Dave wilson.com, where not only are you going to find taste test results and information about just about every fruit tree going, you're going to find videos that can help you raise that fruit tree or nut tree correctly and prune them as well. It's their fruit Tube video series. You can find it at Dave wilson.com Phil Purcel, thanks for a few minutes of your time.

Phil Pursel   

Yep, thanks for having me on.

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Farmer Fred

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Q&A IMPROVING SANDY SOIL

Farmer Fred

We answer your garden questions here on the Garden Basics Podcast. Craig from Northern Wisconsin writes in. And he's so happy, he says: “We’ve transitioned from USDA zone three to four.” Congratulations, Craig. And he says, “I found your podcast recently. I really enjoy it. I grew up with a vegetable garden and have had container plants for several years, but I recently bought a home and finally have space for an in -ground garden. I just finished listening to your episode on gardening with clay soil and found it very interesting, but I'd love to hear an episode on sandy soil. I have access to a healthy supply of yak manure. That's right, yak manure. And top dressed with compost this spring and plan on adding more in the fall. Besides adding manure and compost, what else can I do to improve my sandy soil? I'm also planning on sowing cereal rye and maybe vetch this fall as a cover crop. I've had a soil test. The texture type turns out as sandy loam, but I'm deficient in N, P, and K, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. My acidity was better than I expected. The pH is six." 

And he points out again, he's in northern Wisconsin. Craig, thank you for writing in and thank you for alerting us to yak manure as a possibility. There's a lot of yak manure apparently, up in northern Wisconsin, if you Google it. There's a lot of research being done on it up that way. We're with Gail Pothour, Master Gardener. We are at an Open Garden day here at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center. Gail, I think Craig's got this under control. 

Gail Pothour

Sounds pretty good.  I'm impressed that he's had a soil test and all these things he's planning to do, cover crops and whatnot. As someone who is married to a person from Wisconsin, my husband's from Wisconsin, I've heard all about Wisconsin glaciation, the glaciers when they came through. And so I've heard that story numerous times.

There is a lot of sandy soil in Wisconsin. So what happens is those glaciers from gazillion years ago, they would pick up all kinds of mineral debris and all that. And as they're melting, they deposit sand and gravel. And so a lot of that, especially up in northern Wisconsin, has a lot of sandy soil. I'm impressed that he knows he has sandy loam, which is good. But sandy soils tend to not have much organic matter.

Adding compost is great as long as it's a mature compost. He talks about the yak manure, which I'm unfamiliar with. I personally use llama manure, llama poop, but yak manure, I would think that it's similar to cattle, so you'd want to be sure that it's composted. Well composted. I wouldn't put it in the soil, uncomposted. Unless you did it, say, in the fall and then let it compost over the winter.

Let it age over the winter and then plant in the spring. But yeah, doing cover crops is great, especially if he's deficient in nitrogen, doing the legumes would be good. Vetch is a legume. Rye would provide a lot of organic material. And you just need to continually add compost because sandy soil is coarse. It doesn't hold nutrients. It doesn't hold water very well.

Farmer Fred

It has a very narrow drain pattern too. 

Gail Pothour

Right, as opposed to clay, where it'll spread out. But with sandy soil it's going to just drain right out. So use mulch, I would highly recommend using a thick layer of mulch. I'm assuming this is in a vegetable garden, so straw is great. Trying to think what other mulch they might use. 

Farmer Fred

Leaves from the trees. 

Gail Pothour

Now leaves are good if you shred them up, but mulch would be great and then as that decomposes that adds organic matter to the soil. So with sandy soil, just continually replenish with compost. And that's going to take care of his NP and K shortage as well.  And he might also want to add some nitrogen fertilizer. The legumes won't provide enough probably. And nitrogen tends to dissipate faster and it will leach out through the sandy soil. 

Farmer Fred

There's always that yak manure. 

Gail Pothour

Yak manure. Yeah. I'm going to have to look that up. I'm not familiar with yak.

Farmer Fred

The one concern that I was reading about in this research of using yak manure, there were all these cautionary tales of being sure that it is well-composted in a hot compost pile because of the antibiotics they use. 

Gail Pothour

Yeah, it could be. I didn't realize yak was a big thing in Wisconsin. I don't know, do they have yaks for milk or meat? I don't know what you do with a yak. 

Farmer Fred

Racing? Rodeos? 

Gail Pothour

It could be. I don't know. But I would also suggest that maybe contact the University of Wisconsin in Madison. They have a lot of publications on improving your soil and all types of things. And so, you know, I would suggest that he contact them or at least get on their website. 

Farmer Fred

Yeah, there's a lot of good websites that can tell you how to improve sandy soils. North Carolina State University has a very good one too called Improving Sandy Soils. And basically what you're doing, Craig, just keep at it.

Gail Pothour

Yeah, and it's going to be a continual process because you just need to continue to add compost or other organic material year after year. 

Farmer Fred

Good job, Craig. Gail, thank you. 

Gail Pothour

Yeah, you're welcome, Fred.

BEYOND THE GARDEN BASICS NEWSLETTER

Farmer Fred

So whatever happened to the Tuesday edition of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast? Well, it ran away from home and joined the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter on Substack. There, it really is a deeper dive into what you may have heard on the podcast with more information, links, pictures, opinion, and of course, stuff that just popped into my head. So how do you get this podcast? When you sign up at substack .com slash garden basics, and garden basics is one word,

You'll get the podcast and newsletter sent directly to your email box every Tuesday. And it's free to subscribe, for now, because daddy needs a new bike. And in that eventuality, we'll start up a special premium edition. But don't worry, I work cheap because I love gardening and bicycles. It's the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter on Substack and it's free. There's a link in today's show notes.

Or just go to substack .com and do a free search for Beyond the Garden Basics or do a search for Farmer Fred. Or you can go directly to the page, substack .com slash garden basics. Think of it as your garden resource that goes beyond the basics. The Beyond the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Newsletter. 

Q&A  - USE STICKS IN A RAISED BED?

Farmer Fred

Welcome back to Garden Basics with Farmer Fred. Debbie Flower, America's favorite retired college horticultural professor is here. And we get a lot of comments from people who saw things on the internet about gardening, and it must be true because it got so many views or so many hits or so many likes. Well, maybe, maybe not. If it isn't backed by peer -reviewed scientific information, we like to shy away from it and just give you good, solid advice. But another tip that is flying around the internet is building raised beds, and what you put at the bottom of raised beds. And in this one case, this person who was building raised beds said that for drainage, he was going to line the bottom of his raised beds with sticks to improve that drainage. This sounds vaguely familiar, like what we've been talking about with pots and putting things at the bottom of pots, like gravel or rocks or... 

Debbie Flower

You mean not putting things at the bottom of pots. Yes, but they go ahead and do it anyway because they read it on the Internet and so many people saw it, so it must be true.

Farmer Fred

Right. Well, no. Right. And you know, what's nice about what we're about to talk about is there is proof on the internet in videos where you can see how slow water moves when it has to change layers.  

Debbie Flower

So what happens when you put large things in the bottom of a container and then put the media on top of it, you just shorten the root zone. Now the plant can only grow in the media that's above those stones or sticks.

Farmer Fred

We see this a lot, too. And a lot of tips that are supplied on the internet about how you can save money on potting soil by filling the bottom of a container of any sort with something else and look at all the money you'll save. Well, look at the lack of plants you're going to end up with. 

Debbie Flower

Right. Eventually because of a smaller area that can retain water or has too much water.  So the water goes down through the media that the plants are growing in,  and it gets to that change in layer from container media to the rocks or the stones or whatever it is and stops. And so the water collects there, the soil becomes saturated and then it can actually produce gases that are bad for plants. 

Farmer Fred

Gases? 

Debbie Flower

Yes. 

Farmer Fred

Ooh, that's new. 

Debbie Flower

Anaerobic decomposition occurs. Anaerobic  means without, aerobic is air. So it's decomposition of the organic matter in the container media that decomposes without air and that produces gases that are bad for plants. It can smell like low tide or kind of a little acidic bad fish if you dig down there. 

Farmer Fred

So what do roots do when they find that? 

Debbie Flower

They die. The roots die. They don't turn and go the other way. No, no, they just die. 

Farmer Fred

Wow, how sad. But you might be saying, well, Fred, we're not talking about a container plant. We're talking about a raised bed. Well, what is a raised bed? It's just a big container. 

Debbie Flower

It is a big container. Right. You've lifted the media up off the field soil and it depends what you put in it, whether you've used field soil or container media or a mixture, but it's still a container. If you don't put anything in the bottom of that raised bed, the water can drain all the way down and it'll either go into the field soil or it'll just exit out the side of the raised bed. And you don’t want to accumulate so much that you get that anaerobic decomposition.

Farmer Fred

Theoretically you want it to penetrate even deeper into the soil and I guess the way around that is as you're building that raised bed it would be to incorporate the new soil with the existing soil? 

Debbie Flower

Yes, so put a little layer of the new soil into the existing soil. You're only going to dig about four inches total to do the incorporation. So two inches of the new soil and dig that into the soil below it, and you'll get a four inch transition zone that's a mixture of whatever you're using above in the raised bed to whatever is in your soil below.

So that'll at least take it deeper into the existing soil instead of it running outside and just basically flooding the outer area of your beds. 

Farmer Fred

Yes, which I've seen happen. I've seen that in raised beds. I've seen it in my backyard. 

Debbie Flower

Yes. Again, it's not going to improve drainage, which may seem counterintuitive because, you know, you can't really pack sticks too tightly together if there's really sticks. Sawdust you could pack together too tightly. 

Farmer Fred

But with sticks, you'd think, there's plenty of air there for the water to get through. 

Debbie Flower

Water doesn't travel through air in soil. Water travels along the edges of whatever's there. We see water coming out of faucets traveling through air. We see rain water travels through air. Doesn't work that way underground. Water stays attached to things. It runs along the soil particles along the organic matter particles. If water gets to the sticks, it travels along the sticks, but there's so much less surface area on those sticks than on the media above.  It takes forever for the water to drain out there. So you've actually created a perched water table where those roots are gonna rot. 

Farmer Fred

So in this case, it's interstate 80 going from six lanes down to three lanes. And the traffic backs up. 

Debbie Flower

Right, and the traffic is the water and yes, the sticks are the three lanes and the media is probably more like 30 lanes. But anyway, where you have a normal bottleneck in travels, you know there's going to be a traffic jam. That's what happens when water is trying to go from one media to another. It just slows down and ends up creating an anaerobic environment. 

Farmer Fred

Yes. Because water does take away the air. 

Debbie Flower

Yes. So the water has come down, it's traveled along the particles, and then some water comes down and all the particles are covered already. Well, then the water will stick to the water. Water has what's called adhesion. Water sticks to water. And it has cohesion, meaning water sticks to other things. The molecule of water is two hydrogens. If you take your pointer finger and your middle finger and spread them out as far as you can… 

Farmer Fred

That’s as far as I can spread them. 

Debbie Flower

At the tips of your fingers would be a hydrogen, each one. And between them on the palm of your hand would be the oxygen. Oxygen is negatively charged and hydrogen is positively charged. So then if my water molecule came with another one, they fit together. And that's how they adhere to each other. 

Farmer Fred

Where is the church? Here is the church. Show me the steeple. Here is the steeple. OK. Come for the gardening. Stay for the chemistry. That's how H2O2 sticks to each other. H2O.  Not H2O2. 

Debbie Flower

No. That's hydrogen peroxide. 

Farmer Fred

Which is what I put on open wounds after scraping against the lemon tree. Yes. All right. I'm sorry. I was leaning on the keyboard. So I guess basically what we're saying is whatever you're filling, be it a raised bed or a small container, make sure it's all the same soil type. 

Debbie Flower

All the way to the bottom. 

Farmer Fred

All right. There you go. So leave the sticks to play pickup sticks with. 

Debbie Flower

Yes. 

Farmer Fred

All right. Thank you, Debbie. 

Debbie Flower

You're welcome, Fred.

Farmer Fred

Garden Basics with Farmer Fred comes out every Friday. It's brought to you by SmartPots and Dave Wilson Nursery. Garden Basics, it's available wherever podcasts are handed out. For more information about the podcast as well as an accurate transcript, visit our website, gardenbasics .net. And there you can find out about our newsletter, Beyond the Garden Basics. And thank you so much for listening and your support.