358 Fall Garden Prep. The Catalina Cherry.

Have you done the necessary work to have a thriving fall vegetable garden?  What about the soil? What have you done to give those new plants a great start? We talk with Sacramento County Master Gardener Gail Pothour about how they prepare the vegetable gardens for fall planting at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center. And at the Fair Oaks Vegetable Center, they will be trying out some interesting new vegetables, as well. Also, we find out more about a cherry that is really best left for the birds. The Catalina cherry.

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!

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Pictured: The cover crop, “Rose Red” Buckwheat

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Other links mentioned in today’s podcast:
Fair Oaks Horticulture Center
Candy Cane Chocolate Cherry Sweet Pepper
“Rose Red” Buckwheat (cover crop)
Soil Solarization

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Chapters

• 1:25 Prepping the Fall Garden
• 18:50 Smart Pots!
• 20:56 Prepping the Fall Garden, Pt. 2
• 31:35 Dave Wilson Nursery
• 32:48 Q&A How to Grow the Catalina Cherry Shrub-Tree
• 37:23 Beyond the Garden Basics Newsletter
• 38:11 Farmer Fred's Ride for the Kids

Transcript

358 Fall Planting Tips TRANSCRIPT FULL

Farmer Fred    

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/fred for more information and a special discount. That’s smartpots.com/fred

Farmer 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.

FALL PLANTING TIPS, Pt. 1

Farmer Fred

Have you done the necessary work to have a thriving fall vegetable garden? You might know which crops you’ll be planting, but what about the soil? What have you done to give those new plants a great start? We talk with Sacramento County Master Gardener Gail Pothour about how they prepare the vegetable gardens for fall planting at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center. And also how they are thwarting future vegetable pests. And at the Fair Oaks Vegetable Center, they will be trying out some interesting new vegetables, as well. Gail has the details. Also, we find out more about a cherry, that is really best left for the birds. It is a California native shrub or tree, the Catalina cherry.

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!

Farmer Fred

We're here at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center. It's a September Open Garden day on this Saturday, and we are with Sacramento County Master Gardener Gail Pothour. Gail works here in the vegetable section where they're revamping and starting to do fall planting. And we're going to find out all about the plants they're putting in and how they're doing it for the cool season. It’s cool season vegetables here at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center. But, Gail, you do have this one pepper, a warm weather sweet pepper, that looks like it's terribly diseased, but it's not.

Gail Pothour

No, we do still have our sweet peppers in. They're producing really well now that the heat has sort of subsided. So we'll be taking those out shortly. But the one you're referring to is called Candy Cane Chocolate Cherry sweet pepper. And it has this variegated foliage that I think is actually quite attractive. So it would be pretty in an edible landscape. I would think you could use it as a little shrub. It's green with this cream variegation on it. And at the first couple of Open Gardens we had, everyone was saying, “oh my gosh, what's wrong with that pepper? It's diseased”. So I put up a sign that said, it looks like it might be diseased, but it's not. It has variegated foliage. And the pepper is kind of small. I'm going to say maybe three or four inches long, a little bit narrow. And the fruit starts out green with stripes and it ends up red with kind of brown stripes on it. It's thin skinned, so it's not a thick sweet pepper.

Farmer Fred

So the fruit is variegated as well. Right.

Gail Pothour

 Yeah, it is. And I think it's very attractive. And I grew it at home last year and really liked it. It was prolific. And so we've grown it again this year out at the Hort Center.  And as I say, it got a lot of attention because people thought it was having problems. So I also want to mention that because of the variegated foliage, it doesn't have as much chlorophyll in it. So the white parts of the variegation tend to maybe burn a little bit in our heat. So we do have shade over it to kind of keep it from burning.

Farmer Fred

Yeah, the leaf variegation is interesting, it's like splotches of cream color with a medium green and some dark green leaves. And the fruit looks like it changes color, too, from a yellow-green to, what is that, a deep red or a purple?

Gail Pothour

It goes kind of reddish brown with little darker stripes, kind of brownish stripes. I really like it. And I like things that are a little unusual looking, and this definitely is. But it's a good pepper. As I say, it's not thick-walled. It's thin. But... It doesn't have very many seeds, as I recall, when I was cooking with it. So, yeah, it's a nice variety, I think.

Farmer Fred

Candy Cane Chocolate Cherry sweet pepper is its exact name. And the fruit is really beautiful. It is small, like you say, about three to four inches. But when you take a look at that foliage, you go, man, the leaves are curling. There's this cream-colored blotching going on.

Gail Pothour

And Green spots, yeah. Green spots. So it looks like it could have some kind of a disease, perhaps. But it's just a variegated foliage.

Farmer Fred

You can't judge a book by its cover.

Gail Pothour

That's right. 

Farmer Fred

All right. Let's move into the fall garden area and yes, we'll move into the shade, too, because even though it's nine o'clock in the morning, it's going to be a warm day here in September. And there are a lot of empty beds here that look like things will be going in.

Gail Pothour

Right. We have taken out, oh, I'd say probably half of the vegetables in our beds. Two of our beds have confirmed nematodes in them, and we have fusarium in probably all of our beds. So we have two beds that we're doing a nematode remediation. So we do fallowing and soil solarization and planting resistant varieties. So in this one bed here, we're solarizing this year. And the other bed, bed number two, we have done solarizing, with a winter cover crop. It's going to be this year. We're going to do a cover crop that is supposed to do a little bit of nematode fumigation. I know a lot of the mustards can do that. There's some research out on different mustards that  release chemicals that kind of fumigate the soil. But we're going to be putting these two beds that have confirmed nematodes with the cover crop that maybe it will help with reducing the population of nematodes. We'll see.

Farmer Fred

I believe it was you that told me that nematodes are very plant-specific.

Gail Pothour

No, fusarium is.

Farmer Fred

 Oh, never mind. 

Gail Pothour

Yeah, verticillium gets on a lot of things. Nematodes get on a lot of things. Fusarium, my understanding in my research, is that it's host specific. So the fusarium that gets on tomatoes, which I say we probably have in most, if not all of our beds,  only affects tomatoes. Basil has its own fusarium and different ones. So yeah, so we're just kind of cautious on what we can grow out here now.

Farmer Fred

Well, it's mid-September and yet you still have the clear plastic on this bed and everything I've ever read about soil solarization, they talk about doing it during the hottest time of the year. Probably from late June through August. How long have you had this plastic on this bed?

Gail Pothour

 It's been on a couple months.

Farmer Fred

That seems like you've killed everything by now.

Gail Pothour

At least in the top 10 inches, maybe. So it'll be coming off, I would assume, at our next workday, probably. The plastic that we use is UV protected. So it holds up better than just a regular painter's plastic or something you could get at a hardware store. So it has held up really well in this heat. Sometimes, if it's a thinner plastic or not UV protected, it'll break apart. And that kind of defeats the purpose because then air gets in and it dries out. You want to keep it moist under the plastic so we do have our drip irrigation lines beneath the plastic that does come on periodically. But it'll come off soon because we're now approaching the cooler part of the year, we hope.

Farmer Fred

Now, on this bed that you've put the plastic on, you have sealed all the edges by tamping down the edges, the perimeter, and then putting dirt on top to keep the plastic in place.  Does having that on for two months with expensive drip lines underneath, does that damage the drip lines?

Gail Pothour

You know, I don't know. I don't think so, because we've done this every year. We've solarized a bed every year for the last 20 years. And it's this original drip line, I believe, in almost all the beds. So I wouldn't think it is harming it. At least there's no evidence of it.

Farmer Fred

 The point of the water, and we talk about this when we talk about soil solarization, that as you're preparing to solarize a bed, you water it very thoroughly. And that helps carry the heat even lower into the soil. How often are you turning on these drip lines while the plastic is on or while the plastic is covering the bed?

Gail Pothour

I think it's on the same irrigation schedule as all of our raised beds. We have one valve for these four beds and another valve for that one. So they come on a couple times a week. And I think for 20 minutes, any longer, and it starts running out the bottom of the bed. But because it doesn't have a separate irrigation timer, it's on the same one that does our regularly irrigated beds.

Farmer Fred

So I'm sure that someone around here has stuck a soil thermometer down there to see what the soil temperature is with this plastic on it for two months.

Gail Pothour

Well, I know Curtis (MG Curtis Parnell) has. He's the one, this is kind of his project. I have not talked to him about it, but generally it would raise it to about 125, 130 degrees. And with the heat we've had this summer, it could have been even higher than that. But it only tends to reduce nematodes and fusarium, which we have as well in this bed in the top foot.

Farmer Fred

Now, you did say that you know that there were nematodes in this bed, and you put the plastic on, and that may do it. But did you say that you're going to do another little insurance move and put a cover crop instead of edible crops in here?

Gail Pothour

Right. The two beds that have confirmed nematodes, this year we're going to put in a cover crop. There is a mustard, it's called mustard trifecta, I'm trying to think, something like that, that we'd like to try. It's got several mustards and they release different - I think it's gluconates - or something. It's something that is released into the soil from these brassicas that acts as a soil fumigant. So we might try that. 

Farmer Fred

[9:17] I'm sure that after listening to this, somebody has the question is, “well, where did you get that special UV treated plastic that you're using that is more resistant to ripping from the sunlight or in the wind?” And if I recall correctly, wasn't this a big roll that's been around here for years that was bought commercially, and that company isn't around anymore?

Gail Pothour

Yeah, (the late Sac. Co. Farm Advisor) Chuck Ingels purchased it 20 years ago in about a 3,000-foot roll. So, we've been using it every year because it holds up. Unfortunately, it's not available to home gardeners. So, we do have a garden note or an environmental note, I guess, on cover cropping and soil solarization that explains the thickness that you should get, the mil. And just know that it isn't going to hold up all summer if it's too thin. But if it's too thick, it also can be detrimental. It doesn't let the sun in as much.

Farmer Fred

Yeah, two months is about the max for doing a soil solarization project.

Gail Pothour

 Yeah, and if you don't have the UV-protected plastic like we do, two months might be a little long. It may start to decompose. But as long as you've done it during the heat of summer, in our hottest months, which were quite a few hot months this year, it should heat up substantially in just four to six weeks.

Farmer Fred

One more note on this. You're putting in a cover crop, and I said, not an edible one, but there are edible cover crops. There is fava beans, for example. The problem, though, with fava beans, and I remember Chuck Ingels, who was the brainchild of the whole Fair Oaks Horticulture Center 30 years ago or so, would say, be sure to chop that fava bean off as it begins to flower because you want to keep the nitrogen in the soil. But if that's not your point, if the point is maybe just to see if it thwarts nematodes or not, it would be to let it fruit and then harvest the fava beans come late winter, early spring.

Gail Pothour

And I've done that at home because I grow a fava bean that's called Crimson Flower. So it has a real pretty rosy red flower. The more common one is a white one. And it's hard to find that. So I grow it and save seed every year. So I do let it go to maturity. Typically for cover crops, you want to cut it down, no matter what the cover crop is, as it's flowering. That's when it's most nutritious. Because then what happens if you let it go to produce the fruit and the seed, some of the nitrogen is used to produce that fruit or seed. But you can still get a lot of benefit from a cover crop that you let go all the way to maturity. So you would cut down the plant, dig it in, turn it under, or use it as mulch or whatever, and you'll still get some organic matter. You'll get some nitrogen. Some of the nitrogen that would have come from the atmosphere that is affixed to the roots would then go, some of that would go to preparing the, I guess, nutrition for the fruit or the seeds, but there will still be some there. So you do get some benefit.

Farmer Fred

I noticed that on your other beds here, you have straw, which is a wonderful mulch and it too, as it breaks down, feeds the soil. Will you be doing the same when you plant the cover crop? And at what point would you put the mulch on? Do you wait for the cover crop seedlings to appear first? Or do you just put a thin mulch on right after you've planted?

Gail Pothour

Yeah, we usually put a thin layer of straw on when we plant it because we do want to keep it from drying out. It's still going to be warm in September and possibly into early October. And so we'll put the straw on, not a real thick layer, perhaps. But yeah, it does a great job of keeping the soil moist, keeping it from drying out and repelling water when we finally get rain. And it does decompose and provide some organic matter. So, yeah, straw is great. It has gotten expensive over the last few years. Straw used to be pretty inexpensive, but now it's getting kind of pricey.

Farmer Fred

And trust us, you want straw. You don't want hay. 

Gail Pothour

 No hay. Hay is the same with straw bale gardening. We also do straw bale gardening out here. And if you use hay, you're going to have a chia pet. I mean, that thing is going to sprout all over. It's more nutritious because it's alfalfa or grass hair or whatever.  But straw is what you want for straw bale gardening or for mulch.

Farmer Fred

 All right. So let's talk about cool season gardening; and actually preparing your soil for the fall garden is great because if you've had summer crops in there, well, that soil is kind of depleted. So in the beds that don't have nematodes where you're not doing soil solarization, how are you preparing the bed after taking out whatever crop was there at the end of summer?

Gail Pothour

We would prepare it just the same way you would in the spring when you're preparing for your summer crop plantng. And so we will add some organic fertilizer, some nitrogen. We use a pelleted chicken manure (Nutri Rich). I think it's 4-3-2, so it's not high in nitrogen. We'll put that in the soil. If we need to add some compost, we will do that. Generally, we add that about every other year because we already have a lot of organic matter in the soil. And you prepare it just like you normally would: rake it, get the clods out. We take the irrigation off and get the bed prepared, and then put the irrigation lines back on. If we're growing things like carrots or root crops that need to have really friable soil, we'll be sure that we use a digging fork to kind of get down and break it up a little bit. We've got pretty sandy soil here, which is probably why we have nematodes. So we don't have that big of an issue. At home, I have a lot of clay, so it's hard for some things to penetrate that. But we'll just prepare like you would your spring garden. We do have a summer cover crop growing right now, buckwheat. It'll come down probably next week. And we'll chop that down, turn it under, and wait a few weeks before we'll plant. You want to give it a chance to decompose a little bit.

Farmer Fred

I think I'm looking at the buckwheat over there with the pinkish flowers, and it is just a pollinator restaurant. It just attracts so many different varieties of pollinators.

Gail Pothour

Exactly. The common buckwheat that's used for a cover crop, it has white flowers. This is a red flower, Japanese type, because this is our Asian bed that we did this summer. And I think it's just more attractive. It's really a pretty flower, but it does have an off smell. To me, it smells like a cat pooped in your bed. 

Farmer Fred

[16:01] That sounds interesting. Well, let's go over there and smell.

Gail Pothour

It’s not a great smell, but the pollinators love it. So they're just swarming all over it. Yeah, it's not a great aroma.

Farmer Fred

And you said it's a Japanese buckwheat. Do you know the variety?

Gail Pothour

I got it from Baker Creek seeds and it's called Rose Red. And it's a Japanese buckwheat. Most buckwheat you're going to get as a cover crop has white flowers.

Farmer Fred

Look at all the bees on there. That's great.

Gail Pothour

They're everywhere. And what I did at home this year after I harvested my potatoes, then I planted buckwheat and I turned it under just last week. So it's good in the summer if you have a bare spot rather than just leave it empty. You grow something like this in the summer. It does need warmth, so you have to grow it in summer.

Farmer Fred

Yeah, this Rose Red buckwheat, besides having sort of a rosy flower on it, the stems are red, too.

Gail Pothour

They are. Not all of them, but most of them are. And this variety seems to have gotten very tall. Sometimes they only get a couple feet tall, but this variety has gotten quite tall. I'd say maybe four feet.

Farmer Fred

Yeah, it likes it here, but it's going to come out.

Gail Pothour

It's going to come out because it will go to seed and then it will become a weed. But it's a good weed. We did have some buckwheat last year we planted. We've had it coming up in our pathways this year. So we let it go to seed.

Farmer Fred

Can I pinch this buckwheat stem and flower off?

Gail Pothour

Yes, you may. But it has little seeds that look like little chocolate chips, you know. Oh. Yeah, it's regular buckwheat. You save the seeds? Yeah, and I do. I save the seeds because the red variety is a little more difficult to find. I grow it and I will let a patch of it go to seed and save it.

Farmer Fred

Okay. I would think the easiest way to do that is as the flowers are dying back, clip off a stem of flower heads and put it in a paper bag.

Gail Pothour

Yeah, you could. What I do is generally I'll section off my bed, say, okay, this front half, I will let them go to seed, whereas I will cut the rest of it down. And I just let it form the seed on the plant itself, and the plant starts to age, and then I cut it down. 

Farmer Fred

Now, for cat poop smell.

Gail Pothour

Yeah. It's not a great smell.

Farmer Fred

Now, you're talking about the smell of the flower.

Gail Pothour

Yeah, the flower. Yeah. It's the aroma of when I go out in my garden and I find that my neighbor's cat has pooped in my bed. That's the smell.

Farmer Fred

To me, it smells more like dog poop.

Gail Pothour

Okay. Well, at any rate, it's not a really nice fragrance. You wouldn't want to have it as cut flowers in your house, perhaps.

Farmer Fred

Or in your car. 

Gail Pothour

But yeah, the pollinators love it. We have little butterflies and bees and flies, and I mean, they’re just all over it.

Farmer Fred

It smells like, hmm, “it’s time to scrape my shoes”.

Gail Pothour

 I know. Yeah, I was just saying, it's not a great aroma.

Farmer Fred

However, you have to really stick your nose in it to really see it or smell it.

Gail Pothour

It's not like walking by and you go, oh, man, what's that smell? No, you've got to put your face down in it. But it's not great.

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FALL PLANTING TIPS, Pt. 2

Farmer Fred

Well, of course, all of this has been a scenic bypass to the question I originally asked is, what are you going to grow this fall here?

Gail Pothour

Well, I know we're going to do a variety of lettuces. We have some that I've started. We have red ones and green ones. We want to do kind of a pretty diagram, you know, stripes of red and green. So we have Pomegranate Crunch and Salanova Red Butter lettuce. And then we have the Devil's Ear, which has kind of a purpley color on it. And then our kind of lime green color is the Australian Yellow variety. And that's what I'm growing now. But we'll have different lettuces. We're going to have Katarina cabbage. It's an All-America selection. It's a great cabbage, small little head. It does really well here. We're doing Hestia Brussels sprouts, which does well here. We've grown it before. I grew it at home last year. It does well. And we've got different chards, and someone's growing a mustard. So we'll do carrots, a lot of different colorful carrots. Don't know if we're going to do garlic this year. We'll have to see if we can find some garlic. But, yeah, it's going to be fun. We'll do maybe a whole bed of peas, different snap peas.

Farmer Fred

Okay, so, and what are you going to use to trellis then?

Gail Pothour

Well, in the past, we've used an old umbrella frame.  Yeah, when the canvas disintegrates,  don't throw that away. You can either open it up just like it was an umbrella and then tie strings to come down and secured to the ground. So, that would be for a tall variety. Or you could collapse it down in kind of a pyramid shape and have them grow that way. And we're going to try something different this year. We have bicycle wheels. 

Farmer Fred

You should have let me know. I would have given you some.

Gail Pothour

I know. This last summer, we did some bush beans. And rather than use bamboo or things that we usually use to kind of support them, we put a row of small bicycle wheels. And so we thought, well, let's get some larger ones. and cable tie them together and support them some way and have a trellis for a piece to grow. I mean, it's kind of fun. You're reusing it, and it's just something different. We like to show different ways to do things.

Farmer Fred

Brussels sprouts, are you starting those from seed or have you already started them? Because I've always heard it's so tough to grow Brussels sprouts here in the hot Central Valley, you need to start them in July.

Gail Pothour

 I did start mine, I want to say it was just around Harvest Day, So early August. And they are currently outside on my compost bin in a cold frame covered in mosquito netting and shade cloth. So and I have an umbrella over it. So they do get some morning sun because they do need some light. But it was protecting them during the heat. So they're doing really well now. And I've got the shade cloth off, still have mosquito netting on to keep the critters off of it. But they're growing really well.

Farmer Fred

 I don't recall hearing you use the words broccoli or cauliflower.

Gail Pothour

That's because I haven't started any yet. We do have one Master Gardener who did start broccoli. It's an All-America Selection called Skytree, I believe. And it was a new winner this last year. And so we're going to try that for the first time. But we don't have anyone starting cauliflower yet. That's kind of a tough one. It's a little more temperamental than a lot of other cool season crops. If the roots get disturbed when you're transplanting it, or if it's too hot or too cool, or it might have insect issues. It may button, which causes it to make a small head prematurely, or it may not make a head at all. And so cauliflower is a little trickier. I have grown Romanesco the last couple years, which some sources say it's a broccoli. Some say it's a cauliflower. Some say it's its own species. So I don't know what it is, but it looks like a green cauliflower with spikes on it.

Farmer Fred

Right, and a lot of side shoots to it.

Gail Pothour

It does, yeah. Yeah. And I've grown it the last couple of years and have had really good luck with it. So it doesn't appear to be as temperamental as regular cauliflower.

Farmer Fred

With the cauliflower, in order to protect the head, do you wrap the leaves around the head?

Gail Pothour

If you're growing a white variety, I think there are some varieties that are self-blanching, but typically on a white variety, you would take the leaves and pull it over the head and maybe tie it to keep it from turning kind of yellowish. I understand that doesn’t happen as much with the colored varieties, the orange or the lime green. There is a lime green cauliflower, not Romanesco, or purple. I've heard that you don't have to do that on those. It's just the white varieties, but we don't grow much cauliflower out here.

Farmer Fred

 I have spent some time over the last month or so starting greens for the fall, and I have them in a bed, and I've had a shade cloth over it, and I didn't look at it for about a week, and like in the last week or so, they've been chewed down to the nubs. Those gosh darn snails and slugs is who I am blaming. And so really, probably the easiest way to protect your new cool season, delicious green crops from flying critters that are laying eggs or snails or slugs that are crawling would be to use some sort of cover.

Gail Pothour

Right. And I elevate mine. I have a relatively new compost bin. It's a two bin, double bin. And it's also my potting bench because I have boards on top of it. And so I have an old cold frame that I bought 20 years ago and it's sitting on there. And that's where I have all of my seedlings. So they're elevated so the snails and slugs won't get to them. And then I have the netting and shade cloth over them. So far, I've been pretty fortunate. I do think on the Devil's Ear lettuce, I have something. I see little black, Little tarry, tiny little dots. So I think it's the excrement, maybe from a leaf hopper or something. I'm not sure. So I'm not sure how it got in there, but I haven't had any nibbling, nothing. So elevating it helps getting it up off the ground.

Farmer Fred

I didn't have a chance to taste the Devil Ears lettuce that was popping up in my bed. What does it taste like?

Gail Pothour

I haven't eaten it yet. It's still small, but we'll plant it out here in the next week or two, probably.

Farmer Fred

 Okay. So, cover those newly planted crops no matter what you're planting because it's still warm. There's still a lot of pests flying about. And of course, snails love this cooler fall weather, too. So put out some snail bait and protect your crops.

Gail Pothour

And during that extreme heat we've had the last month or so, since my seedlings, the cool season seedlings have been outside, if we had a scorcher, I would just move them in the house. So it is a bit of a project. You can't go on vacation or anything. So you take them in and out. But try to do that to protect them because the heat is going to really do a number on them. Make sure that they stay watered, so they don't dry out. Because seedlings are probably in a small little container, a little six-pack or something, and they'll dry out faster.

Farmer Fred

Right. And that was a good tip that Don Shor gave us a while back about if you're going to the nursery and choosing those six packs of plants, cool season plants, no matter what it might be, is to purchase the smallest ones, not the ones that are overgrown in the container, because they may have already developed some stress issues.

Gail Pothour

Right. And they could be root bound. And as I say, in the case of cauliflower and there's others that get stressed if they're root bound when they're planted or if you then mess with the roots to try to untangle them. So that's one of the issues with cauliflower for sure. But yeah, I bought a six pack of the Salanova red gem when I was in Sonoma and a couple of three weeks ago.  And as soon as I brought it home, because the plants look fairly good sized, I put them in four inch pots. So they're doing great. They'll go in in the next couple of weeks.

Farmer Fred

What sort of soil do you use for transplanting up?

Gail Pothour

Well, I start out with a seed starting mix for the seeds. And then when I transplant into a larger pot, I like to use a good quality organic potting mix, whether you call it potting soil, media, whatever it's, I think you get what you pay for in a lot of that. So I try to get a good quality.

Farmer Fred

All right. Cool season gardening. It's as much work as preparing for the warm season, when it comes to your garden.

Gail Pothour

Well, it is, but it's less maintenance during the winter because hopefully we'll get rain so you don't have to have the irrigation on. If you have a good layer of straw or chopped leaves or something as a mulch, you won't have a lot of weeds. It doesn't dry out. So you don't have a lot of the pest issues. I know nematodes, we're looking forward to this because nematodes aren't active below 65 degrees. So maybe we'll have some success in our two nematode infested beds once we start planting them. Probably the next year we'll plant in them. But yeah, I think cool season gardening is less maintenance. You're not out there every day tending and pruning and yeah. 

Farmer Fred

Cool season gardening. There's lots of vegetables you can be putting in the ground this time of year in USDA zones nine, eight, seven, and even six, if you feel lucky. But if you have a cold frame, you can plant there down there, into zones six and five. And if you have a greenhouse, you can do it in any zone.

Gail Pothour

That's right. I do have a greenhouse. I've had it for 20 years. It's not heated. So I do a lot of overwintering in there, you know, where they get some protection. If we're going to have a freeze, I have a little portable heater that I use. But it's also not air conditioned in the summer. So I could dehydrate in there in the summer. I mean, I can dehydrate herbs and things because it gets to be 135 degrees in there. But a greenhouse is a great investment, I think. Probably the best thing I ever bought for myself.

Farmer Fred

 It is. That's a good tip, too, about dehydrating without breaking out the dehydrator. 

Gail Pothour

That's right. And I have done that, herbs and things like that, because it gets really hot. And I do have several fans, little portable fans to keep the air circulating.

Farmer Fred

Gail Pothour, Master Gardener here in Sacramento County, thanks for a little tour of the vegetable section here at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center on an Open Garden day on this September Saturday. And it's an amazing amount of work. Of course, they've got a lot of gardeners helping out here. And it's just a gorgeous place. And put it on on your list of places to visit, especially when they do the Open Gardens once a month and, of course, Harvest Day, which is usually the first Saturday in August.

Gail Pothour

[29:48] And we do have one more Open Garden in October, and we anticipate that our vegetable garden will be fully planted, at least we hope so, by then.

Farmer Fred

All right, Gail, thank you so much.

Gail Pothour

You’re welcome, Fred.

DAVE WILSON NURSERY

Farmer Fred

Fall is in the air, the perfect season for planting, and planning. And if you’re planning to buy and grow some fruit trees this fall and winter, you need to check out the home garden page at DaveWilson.com. Dave Wilson Nursery is the nation's largest grower of fruit trees for the backyard garden. At Dave Wilson dot com, you’ll find planting tips, taste test results, fruit variety recommendations, and links to nurseries in your area that carry Dave Wilson fruit trees. 

Just go to Dave Wilson dot com, and click on the Home Garden tab at the top of the page. There, you are just a click away from their informative You Tube video series. Especially popular in that video lineup is Dave Wilson Nursery’s Tom Spellman explaining Backyard Fruit Tree Basics. Viewers have raved about that episode, calling it “absolutely the best single video for growing backyard fruit trees.” Check it out before you plant. The Backyard Fruit Tree Basics video is on You Tube. Find a link to it after going to the home garden tab at DaveWilson.com. Click on “Getting Started”, and you’re on your way to your best fruit garden ever.

Your harvest to better health begins at DaveWilson.com.

Q&A THE CATALINA CHERRY TREE

Evan

Hey Fred, this is Evan down in San Jose. I just ordered a Catalina cherry for my backyard and just after I ordered it I remembered that cherry trees need a pollinator partner to produce fruit. Unfortunately, I can't find any information about which other cherry varieties are compatible with Catalina cherry on the internet. So I was wondering if you and your experts could help me find a second tree to put in my backyard to pollinate the Catalina cherry. And I was hoping, if possible, for more of like an eating cherry than the Catalina cherry. So if there's maybe a variety that my kids might like a little more that I can plant next to this one, I would appreciate it. And thanks for any other advice you have about growing cherries. This will be my first one in my backyard. So thanks again. I'm a big fan of your podcast and thanks for any advice you have to offer.

Farmer Fred

 Evan, thank you so much for your question. The Catalina cherry is a California native plant. It's native to the Catalina Island area of Southern California, and it does quite well in coastal zones up and down the Pacific coast from San Diego to Seattle. Some specimens on the coastal Southern California mainland tend to grow on slopes, and that might be a tip for for where you plant it, Evan. In San Jose, which is south of San Francisco and has that marine influence, the tree should do well. It can be a tree or a shrub, because it only gets maybe 15 to 20 feet tall, in gardens; but it can get twice that size in the wild. If it grows well on slopes, that would indicate it needs good drainage. And cherry trees are notorious for needing good drainage. 

And it is a true cherry (Prunus illicifolia subsp. ‘Lyonii’), even though the cherries themselves are not edible. Calscape.org, which is a plant finder service of the California Native Plant Society, basically comes right out and says that “the fruit on the tree is best left for the birds”. Again, all cherry trees do need that good drainage. So plant it on a high spot or, again, on a slope, and it should do quite well.

Farmer Fred

As far as getting more of that fruit that the birds will enjoy, be aware of this: the fruit can stain many hard surfaces. So you don't want to plant the tree where fruit might fall from the tree onto concrete or a patio because it just might stain, especially if somebody steps on it. 

So what would be a good cherry variety to use as a pollenizer? You could always get a second Catalina cherry, but your kids would turn up their nose at that one, too. As a gardener, you never, never want your children to utter the phrase, “the cherries we bought at the grocery store are better than the cherries we're getting in our backyard”. You never want to hear that. Get them a sweet cherry tree that is self-fertile, but also serves well as a pollenizer for other cherry trees. And one of the best for doing that is the Stella cherry. The Stella cherry is a popular tree that does quite well throughout most cherry growing regions, such as ours, which is USDA Zone 9. But it is widely adaptable, doing well in USDA zones 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10, to give you an idea. It's good for canning, preserves, cooking, and fresh eating. It's a mid-season cherry, and it takes about two to five years for it to bear fruit. The mature size of the tree isn't that large, perhaps 12 to 16 feet. As far as the watering requirements, it does need regular water, about 12 to 15 gallons per week, May through September. 

The problem with having a fruiting cherry tree where you're harvesting for the fruit versus a Catalina cherry where you're using it more as an evergreen screening plant is the fact that the Catalina cherry is drought tolerant. It doesn't like a lot of summer water once it's established perhaps every three weeks or so. However, you will need to water it regularly to get it off to a strong initial growth through its first year. But after maybe a year and a half or so, you might try to wean it off the initial amount of water to allow. 

You mentioned about planting a second cherry tree next to the Catalina cherry. Remember, you don't want a Stella cherry variety right next to the Catalina because the Stella will need regular weekly watering during the dry season for its lifetime.

So what do you do? As long as that Stella cherry is upwind of the Catalina cherry, you'll be okay to plant it well away from the root zone of the drought tolerant Catalina cherry, perhaps on its own circuit, 30 feet away. 

The Stella cherry, by the way, is a very popular cherry, and it does produce a lot of cherries that your kids will like, and they'll never insult you with the phrase, “the supermarket cherries are better than that”. Evan, thanks for the question, and good luck with that California native tree or shrub. The Catalina cherry, Prunus illicifolia subsp. ‘Lyonii’.

BEYOND THE GARDEN BASICS NEWSLETTER

Farmer Fred

If you were intrigued about the Catalina Cherry, we have more information about it in the current Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter, including more of its history and how it was used by the Native American Indians in California for a wide variety of drinks, foods and medicines, including how they avoided the effects of its poisonous pit.

It’s in the current Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter. You’ll find a link to it in the show notes, at gardenbasics.net, or farmerfred.com. Or you can go directly to this free newsletter at gardenbasics.substack.com. The Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter.

FARMER FRED’S RIDE FOR THE KIDS

Farmer Fred

On Saturday, September 28th, I’ll be riding my bike. “Well, what’s so unusual about that?” you might be asking yourself.

September 28th is the date of the Sacramento Century Challenge, a 100-mile bike ride along the Sacramento River that starts in downtown Sacramento and heads south to the Delta farmland region and back.

And yes, 100 miles is part of the challenge,  as is the bike I’ll be riding, a heavy, steel-framed Surly Midnight Special, that, by the way, is NOT an e-bike. Adding to the challenge will be the route’s pothole-filled river levee roads, as well as the ferocious headwinds that are usually in your face on the way back.

Making it even more of a challenge, I’m helping out the Sacramento Rotary Club raise money for the Sacramento Children’s Home Crisis Nursery.

The Sacramento Children's Home Crisis Nursery is the only program of its kind in Sacramento County and directly prevents child abuse and neglect by supporting families with small children at times of crisis. The nursery allows parents to bring their children ages newborn to five, for emergency hourly or overnight care during difficult times, with the goal of keeping families together and reducing the number of children entering foster care. 

We are calling it “Farmer Fred’s Ride for the Kids”, and we will have a link in today’s show notes with more information and how you can donate to help out The Sacramento Children’s Home Crisis Nursery.

So, how about it? Maybe pledge 10 cents a mile (that’s $10) along with a hearty, “You go, Fred!” Or a more generous one dollar a mile ($100), to give me the mental endurance for this all day ride. At my age, I’ll take my time, thank you, and enjoy the farmland scenery.

Again, please support Farmer Fred’s Ride for the Kids. Look for the link in today’s show notes, or at FarmerFred.com. Your support will help provide a safe place for local small children in need. 

Thank you for your support, let’s go!

https://www.justgiving.com/page/fred-hoffman-1723683653132?utm_term=GzewG4KyZ

Farmer Fred

Garden Basics with Farmer Fred comes out every Friday and it's 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, as well as an accurate transcript of the podcast, 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.