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
Garden Basics with Farmer Fred
389 Digging Squirrels? Soil Irrigation Basics
In Episode 389 of *Garden Basics with Farmer Fred*, learn to deter pesky squirrels and manage soil moisture. Farmer Fred, Debbie Flower, and Steve Zien share tips on protecting gardens and optimizing watering techniques.
Previous episodes, show notes, links, product information, and transcripts at the home site for Garden Basics with Farmer Fred, GardenBasics.net. Transcripts and episode chapters also available at Buzzsprout.
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Pictured: Squirrel! (Photo by Joe Mabel)
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389 Transcript
Digging Squirrels? Soil Irrigation Basics
Farmer Fred
Hey, what are those squirrels doing digging in your garden? Today we talk with Debbie Flower about squirrel control in your garden.
Proper soil moisture: it's necessary for healthy plant growth. Do you know how moist your garden soil is right now? What are the easiest and best ways to determine the moisture level of that soil? And how do you install a drip irrigation system on a raised garden bed? It has a totally different moisture pattern than your in-ground garden.
It's all today in episode 389, Digging Squirrels and Soil Irrigation Basics. 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 Dave Wilson Nursery. Let's go.
Q&A - DIGGING SQUIRRELS?
Farmer Fred
We like to answer your garden questions here on the Garden Basics podcast. Yes, Debbie Flower is here, America's favorite retired college horticultural professor. And we get a question from Jacob and he says, “I have container grown tomatoes, but squirrels come in and they dig into the container soil. Are they eating roots or what? How do I get rid of them?” Well, Debbie, I don't think they're eating roots.
Debbie Flower
No, I don't think they're eating roots either. They're planting. They're planting acorns, typically.
Farmer Fred
They're planting their winter harvest or their food for the winter.
Debbie Flower
I watch them and they dig and they put it in and then they tap it with their little front paws. Oh, isn't that nice? Yes. And then I spend the spring pulling out baby oak trees. Yeah.
Farmer Fred
You do want to get to those baby oak trees before too long because they can develop a taproot.
Debbie Flower
They do. And it would be easy to pull them out. So I wouldn't worry about any acorns that have gotten in there into your tomato container, but definitely pull them out when they start to grow.
Farmer Fred
Okay, so they're not eating the roots, but they can be planting seeds of something that could come in and certainly be competition for your tomato roots. So you do want to get to those plants as soon as possible. And possibly if they are really adjacent to the plant, whatever comes popping up, you may just want to cut them off until the end of tomato season and then dig out the rest.
Debbie Flower
And if it's happening during the summer, the acorns, they may be coming to look to dig up old acorns.
Farmer Fred
Oh, that too. How do they remember it?
Debbie Flower
I don't know that they do, but they're still alive and vigorous, so they're eating somehow.
Farmer Fred
They must smell them or something.
Debbie Flower
Could be true, yeah.
Farmer Fred
All right. Now, how do you get rid of squirrels? I think it's easier to deter them than it is to get rid of them. Yes. Because... There's more. There's more squirrels out there that you know what to do with. And in some areas, it's illegal to trap squirrels. Yes. Depends on the squirrel variety. If it's a ground squirrel or a tree squirrel, doesn't matter. They both plant acorns. I would be using some sort of hardware cloth around your plants, which still allows air and water to get through, but they can't.
Debbie Flower
Dig through it. Mm-hmm. Yes. Excluding them. Exclusion is the number one way to keep any kind of mammal out of your garden. And in my mind, you're in a container, so you wrap this cloth around the plant and push it down and this wiry stuff, that's what I mean by cloth, push it down and tie it with a needle nose pliers, you know, hook it closed, just so they can't get to the soil and dig in it.
Farmer Fred
I would do It a little easier.
Debbie Flower
How would you do it?
Farmer Fred
Using hardware cloth, which is quarter inch mesh. And they can't dig through that. So, a tomato plant would normally take up, in terms of radius, maybe two feet on all sides.
Debbie Flower
Mm-hmm. All right.
Farmer Fred
So, I'd cut two two-foot sections, two-by-two sections of hardware cloth. One for one side, one for the other side of the tomato plant.
Debbie Flower
Mm-hmm.
Farmer Fred
In the center, I'd cut out a little circle just so I could get it close to, but not touching, the stem of the tomato plant. Because that's going to grow over time. So I would leave probably a couple inches.
Debbie Flower
Okay. And you're going to lay that on the soil surface.
Farmer Fred
I'm going to press, yes, from each side, press those two pieces of hardware cloth together. Got it. And then hold them together with zip ties.
Debbie Flower
Zip ties. Okay.
Farmer Fred
All right. Or you could use ground things. Yeah.
Debbie Flower
Irrigation line things. Things. Stakes.
Farmer Fred
Stakes, yes. Bobby pins, big horticultural bobby pins.
Debbie Flower
Yeah, there you go.
Farmer Fred
Yeah, to hold them in place. Exclusion, right. As long as they're long enough and the squirrel couldn't move it. Right. But yeah, either way you do it, that will keep the squirrels from digging in your garden. Right. I mean, those pieces could be a permanent part of your garden and you'd have the exact space where you want to plant the following year if you wanted to, and just reuse those sections of hardware cloth year after year. The radius size would differ from plant to plant around tomatoes. Yeah, maybe a two foot by two foot piece of hardware cloth, two of them. For pepper plants, it might be a little less, maybe a foot.
Debbie Flower
By a foot. Have you read anything or heard anything about using red pepper?
Farmer Fred
Oh, yeah. It lasts for a day or two.
Debbie Flower
So they dig it out or they get used to it.
Farmer Fred
Yeah. Well, actually, it disappears. You'd have to reapply it at least, I think I've read every seven or eight days.
Debbie Flower
Yeah, it'd be a pain. It'd be a lot of red pepper.
Farmer Fred
Yeah, it is. And then I've heard things about sticking things in the ground like rose bush branches. But I don't know if that would deter them. It might deter you.
Debbie Flower
Yes, that would be hard for you to garden through. I put a lot of sticks, they're not thorned, prickled in my garden, especially when I first planted because we have possums and skunks and cats. And all kinds of things that are wandering at night and digging in the garden, and I don't want them to dig up my young plants.
And it seems to work. It does make it harder for me to get in there.
Farmer Fred
I think that will solve your problem, Jacob. And good luck and happy tomato growing. And the squirrels can go find somewhere else to plant their acorns. Yes. Thank you, Debbie.
Debbie Flower
You're welcome, Fred.
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 like peaches, apples, pluots, and nut trees. Plus, they have potted fruits such as blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, boysenberries, figs, grapes, hops, kiwi, olives, and pomegranates. These are all plants that you can grow in small areas. You can 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 the Dave Wilson YouTube videos. So where do you find those? Well, just go to DaveWilson.com, click on the Home Garden tab at the top of the page. Also in that Home Garden tab, you're going to find a link to their Fruit and Nut Harvest Chart. You can be picking delicious, healthy fruits from your own yard from May to December here in USDA Zone 9. And something else you're going to find in that home garden tab. You're going to find the closest nursery to you that carries Dave Wilson's quality fruit trees. And they're in nurseries from coast to coast. So start the backyard orchard of your dreams at DaveWilson.com.
SOIL IRRIGATiON BASICS (originally aired in Ep. 265)
Farmer Fred
We're talking with Steve Zien, our friend, our organic Horticulture Educator and longtime organic gardening specialist. Steve, let's cover some irrigation basics here. And I know that the number one answer, of course… it depends. Because when people say, “How long should I run my irrigation system?” It depends. But I think the first step would be to check your soil moisture before you turn on your sprinklers or your drip irrigation system.
Steve Zien
Exactly. And a lot of people, when they check for soil moisture, they look at the surface of the soil. And after one sunny day, that surface to the soil will look bone dry. But you go a quarter of an inch below that in the soil, it can be either moist or wet. The first thing you have to realize when you're trying to determine the soil’s moisture is to ignore what the surface looks like, you need to actually dig down into the soil. And there's a specialized tool, there's actually two, really great tools to help you dig into the soil, pull up a column of soil, so that you can examine six, 8, 12, 18, 24 inches down. The tool is called is a soil probe. If it's a 12 inch soil probe, it's basically most often a stainless steel or chrome tube, and then about half of it on the side is open and exposed. So you push it into the ground, turn it, you pull it out, and you will be actually be able to see and touch the soil that's in the tube. And you'll be able to see whether that soil is moist or dry.
Farmer Fred
Soil probes are nifty tools that every gardener should have. Regarding soil moisture meters, we'll get into that in a minute or two. But with soil probes, it's shaped like the letter, T. So you have a very sturdy handle to hold on to, that helps you plunge it into the soil. And the reason you want to go down eight inches, 12 inches, that's the root zone where your plants are growing. What we're trying to do here is making sure that the root area, which is the area that absorbs the water, is functioning correctly.
Steve Zien
Exactly. You want to know the size of the plant, especially young seedlings, when you're just putting them in. The roots might go down just a couple of inches. But as those plants grow during the season, if it's an annual like a vegetable, the roots can go down 12 inches, 18 inches, or you know in some cases, if you've got really nice loose soil, 24 to 36 inches. Tree roots go down numerous feet, but there's very limited research as to how far the roots go down. I like to water my large shrubs and trees for a long time. We will use a drip system for hours to get that water down about six feet or more. A lot of people say, “you're wasting water.” If you get the roots down that far, you don't have to water as frequently, because you can let the top six inches or 12 inches go dry. Because the the feeding roots are down below that.
Farmer Fred
Yeah, it's all about the roots. It's all about the soil as far as determining where and how long you should water and also, soils are different. You got heavy clay soils, you have sandy soils. And for those of you who are saying, “No way could I push a soil probe down 12 inches in my crappy soil because of clay, hard pan, or rocks.” There are options available. And the old fashioned way was to basically hand dig down into the root zone. Go down eight to 12 inches, grab a handful of the soil that was down at that level, make a ball of it in your hand and squeeze it. If water rolls down your arm, the soil is too wet. If, on the other hand, it falls apart as soon as you opened up your hand, it's too dry. On the other hand, if you squeezed that ball of soil and broke it up with a little bit of effort, that is what is called “field capacity moisture”, which is the ideal amount for whatever you might be growing.
Steve Zien
That basically means you've got different size pore spaces in your soil. And if you have good soil structure, if you got a healthy soil, you have a diversity of different size pore spaces. And the large pore spaces allow the water in the air and the fertilizer and the roots to move through the soil fairly effectively. What's really nice is we have to realize that the life in the soil, which includes our plant roots, and the beneficial soil biology and worms and all the other critters that live down there, they need air as much as they need water. And so when you irrigate, and if that soil is saturated, like a lot of the soils were during these atmospheric river events, the large pore spaces are filled with water. But in time, when we don't have the atmospheric rivers moving through, and typically throughout the year, after you irrigate for a short period of time, the water will drain by the force of gravity out of those large pore spaces. So you have air remaining, a necessary component. And that's one of the reasons why you don't want to irrigate too frequently. If you're irrigating too frequently, you're going to always be filling up those large pore spaces with water and depriving the life in the soil of oxygen and air. And you will be encouraging disease organisms.
Farmer Fred
And that brings up another very good point, too. After a heavy rain, don't be tromping on your garden soil because that compacts the soil, which also removes those very necessary air pockets.
Steve Zien
Exactly. You want to avoid compaction. And one of the easiest ways to avoid compaction is stay off the soil when it's wet. The easiest way to figure out whether it's too wet or not, is to judge a handful of soil. Take your hand trowel and dig up a little bit of soil, roll it in your hand, and then drop it onto a hard surface like a piece of concrete or a stepping stone. And if it just goes splat, and flattens like a pancake, then it's too wet. You’ll know when it hits the ground. It should kind of break apart a little bit.
Farmer Fred
As opposed to if it's too dry. It wouldn't even reach the ground in one piece.
Steve Zien
Yeah, it would shatter more than crumble.
Farmer Fred
Now one reason I liked the soil probe is it doesn't require batteries, there's nothing on there really, that's going to break. And because you've got that open slot on the side, you plunge that probe into the soil, give it a quarter turn, lift it back out. And then you can examine the soil that has been taken by that probe. You'll see the soil in the side, what should you be looking for? What should you be feeling for in that sample?
Steve Zien
When you're talking about irrigation moisture, one of the nice things is you can pull it out, you can you can roll it up in a ball, squeeze it, and moisture comes out. You'll be able to tell. It takes a little bit of time. But for most plants, you want that soil in that probe to be somewhat dry before you irrigate, unless it's a plant that needs moist soil. But for most of our plants, you want that soil to dry out a little bit in between irrigations.
Farmer Fred
And that brings up the other good question: When is the best time to use a soil probe or a soil moisture meter? And that's before you turn on the drip irrigation system or the sprinklers.
Steve Zien
Exactly. A lot of people also ask, not only when should I irrigate? But they ask how much? And again, there's that magic phrase, “it depends”. Everybody's soil is different, the environmental conditions are different. And so what I typically tell people to do is to first, use the soil probe, make sure that the soil is somewhat dry and needs irrigation. Then, run your irrigation system, maybe half or maybe even a quarter as long as you normally do. Then you turn it off, wait an hour. In that time frame, gravity will pull that water down as far as it's going to go. And then you push in that soil probe again, turn it, and pull it out. And you will actually be able to see and feel how far down that water is gone. And if it's gone down four inches, and you know the roots of your plants are going down 12 inches, you've got to water three times longer.
Farmer Fred
How many probes do you need to do on a sample size? Let's say it's 200 square feet. And maybe there's a bit of a slope to it. Do you take that probe and stick it in at the top of the hill or the bottom of the hill? How do you do it?
Steve Zien
But you're best taking about 10 cores, randomly throughout the area. And it's really a good idea to pay attention to what the soil looks like. And more importantly, take some of the soil out of the soil probe and play with it in your hand. And you're going to want to kind of get a feel for what's called the texture of the soil, which is the percentage of sand, silt, and clay. And sand will feel gritty, silt will feel like flour. And clay, when it is moist, will be slippery. When it's hard, or when it's dry, it will feel hard. Pay attention maybe to the amount of organic matter, and the color. Typically, the more organic matter that you have in the soil, the darker it will be. And you sometimes will find that the soil on the top of the hill is dramatically different from the bottom of the hill. If you're using raised beds, one raised bed might be dramatically different from another because the soil that you brought in was brought in from two different sources. Wherever you find that the soils are different, they may need to be irrigated differently.
Farmer Fred
I received an e-mail from a listener who stumbled upon the Farmer Fred Rant blog page. And most of those little newsletters are about 20 years old. And I think in one of them, I was mentioning how I water with drip irrigation in one of my raised beds, one of my original raised beds, back in the mid-1990s. And I pointed out that with drip irrigation on a raised bed, you need, as you mentioned earlier, you need to run it for a long time. And I was talking about hours at a time. The one thing I've learned over the years about soil and raised beds: that initial soil that you put in there is going to drain swiftly. And it will be in a very small footprint, almost like a cylinder. But the more you change the soil by adding compost and mulch, the darker that soil becomes. And the richer the soil becomes and the more water-holding capacity it has. And I've found over the years, as the soil improved, I didn't have to run it for as many hours as I used to run it, on a raised bed. You mentioned the nice, rich, black earthy tone of the soil and the wonderful smell of it. And of course, all the worms working through it. Well, that's what I have now. And I can get away with maybe a couple of hours of irrigation, twice a week, in the heat of the summer.
Steve Zien
It always amazes me when I read folks’ comments in various blogs, or on Facebook groups, where people say that drip irrigation doesn't work for vegetables, or it doesn't work for trees. And because the water doesn't get down deep enough, well, the only reason the water doesn't get down deep enough is you don't leave it on long enough.
Farmer Fred
And they're putting it in the wrong place. So many people will keep a drip irrigation emitter right next to the trunk. And that's fine when you plant it. But as that plant grows, it's sending roots out. And by putting your drip lines in a concentric circle extending outward from the plant, you're encouraging the roots to go even more outward. So as your plants grow, you need to add on to that drip irrigation system.
Steve Zien
This is true with most plants. As the plant grows, there's what's called a “drip line”. Assume the foliage is like an umbrella. And then it rains. The water that falls from that umbrella, when it hits the ground, that is called “the drip line”. And a lot of people think that's where the end of the roots are. And that's maybe where you should be irrigating and fertilize it. And that actually is in the middle of the root zone. The root zone actually extends two to three times beyond that. And so we need to be irrigating and fertilizing and putting compost and worm castings and mulch two to three times beyond those outermost branches.
Farmer Fred
I've discovered, too, with drip irrigation lines, you need more parallel lines that run the length of a four foot by eight foot bed. I remember on my first raised beds, I had three lines running parallel, not realizing that it would be a very narrow cylinder of water emitting from each emitter. It finally dawned on me, after much experimentation, that you need more parallel lines. So now in the raised beds, I will usually run, in a four foot bed, I will run five parallel lines the length of the bed. So there's maybe eight, nine inches, maybe a little bit more than nine inches apart from each line. But the footprint of the water is going to be wider because the soil has improved over the years. So you've got that over overlapping effect that guarantees that all portions of the raised bed are going to get water.
Steve Zien
It's kind of like soil texture, your soil texture determines the how, why and when of irrigation. Irrigation from a drip source like a drip emitter, where will that water go, when that water hits the soil, in a clay soil, it has primarily smaller pores, and the water actually gets sucked into and through the soil. And not only will it get sucked down, but it'll get sucked out. And so when you're talking about your raised bed, being improved, you're getting more diversity in the pore spaces. And it will allow the water to move laterally as well as just down. Typically, you're sandy soils, if you're actually out in the garden, that water's going to primarily go straight down from your drip emitters. If you're using drip emitters on a clay soil, that's going to spread out pretty far. And so what I generally recommend is, if you're doing your vegetable garden and are starting to use a drip system, put a line out there, run it for a couple of hours, and then wait an hour and see where that water is going. And how far out from this line that water is traveling laterally. You can’t judge that by just looking at the surface. It’s going to look like it's not moving sideways very far at all. Again, you've got to use that soil probe and go down several inches to see whether it's spreading out and how far it's spreading out.
Farmer Fred
A narrow water cylinder in very sandy soil might only be a few inches wide, maybe seven, eight, maybe nine inches wide, if that. For a heavy clay soil, it could be moving laterally 18 to 20 inches. For a loamy soil, it's somewhere in between that.
Steve Zien
Exactly.
Farmer Fred
Let's move on to another thing that people don't consider if they have to live through an atmospheric river. It's not only the timing afterwards of when you irrigate your soil, it's also a matter of checking the soil chemistry. Major rain events can also leach soil issues away that you didn't want to begin with, like salinity. If you're in the habit of fertilizing, well, I'll let you explain this Steve, because you have much more fun talking about salinity and fertilizers.
Steve Zien
If you're using a synthetic fertilizer, they are really high in salts, that are deadly to the soil biology. So when you're using synthetic fertilizers, it's really harmful to the soil biology. But one of the things that where you can get rid of those salts is by heavily irrigating. And so if you're using the synthetic fertilizers, and then we have an atmospheric river, it will leach those salts down through the soil profile from your smaller plants, it will get the salt out of the root zone. However, for your trees, it may be moving those salts into the root depths of where your tree roots are, and cause problems. You've got to realize that a lot of the nutrients and salts move up and down through the soil. But it’s primarily going down with your irrigation. Salts will move up somewhat with the soil biology. As the soil biology moves up and down, so will the salts, via particularly the worms. But the nutrients that we have in the surface of the soil, before these atmospheric rivers, have also leached downward, in addition to the salt. A large extent of those nutrients are now out of the root zone for a lot of our vegetables, especially the smaller rooting vegetables, and so we're going to have to supplement with more fertilizer. And as always, I always recommend using only organic fertilizers so that you're not putting down synthetic fertilizers that are high in salts. Salts are absolutely deadly to the beneficial soil biology. That biology works really well in cooperation with the roots to nourish the roots.
Farmer Fred
Now it should be pointed out, though, that organic fertilizers do have salt in them as well. But certainly not as much.
Steve Zien
That's the big difference. Yeah, all fertilizers contain salts, but the organic fertilizers are very, very low in salts and they're also less water soluble. They're less likely, for the most part, to leach down through the soil. The organic fertilizers are also form salts. But they are in such a form that they are able to be digestible by the soil biology. And they will hold on to those nutrients. Slowly over time, it make them available to the plant roots. The water soluble synthetic fertilizers, in many cases, are especially harmful if you've got a clay soil. You put the fertilizer down, you irrigate it, and because you've already killed the soil biology with the salts in the synthetic fertilizers, your soil has been compacted because there's no soil biology to keep it aerated. As a result, a lot of the water runs off. And with a water soluble synthetic fertilizer, the fertilizer runs off, in many cases. It goes across the sidewalk, into the gutter and directly into our creeks and streams. That is a problem. With your organic fertilizers, they will move into the ground. And because they're not as water soluble, they're less likely to travel with the water even if you have a runoff. And the soil biology will convert them into forms that the plants can use.
Farmer Fred
So again, major rain events can alter your soil chemistry, theoretically for the good. But it also may leach away some necessary components and elements that you may need. And the only way you know for sure is to get a soil test done. Taking a soil sample and sending it off to a firm to get analyzed takes a little bit of work on your part. Steve, I know you've covered this in the past, in the many classes you teach about organic gardening. How do you take a soil sample to get it analyzed?
Steve Zien
It is absolutely critical that you sample it correctly. And what's really sad is a lot of the soil testing services don't explain how to collect the soil. You need to use a stainless steel or chrome tool. The soil probe is really your best bet. Put the soil into a sterile container. I did soil testing for years. And I remember going out and collecting soil samples and you typically want to take at least 10 cores from the area that you want sampled, so that it's a representative sample. If, when you're taking the cores, and you find one core where the soil is dramatically different from the rest of the soil, don't include that. Leave that separate and just know that you're going to have to manage that area a little differently. You want the soil that you're collecting to be all roughly the same, representative of each other. And you need to use a chrome or stainless steel tool, because if you touch the soil with your hands, for example, the oils in your hands will get into the soil. And when you take into consideration some of the trace minerals, three parts per million can be a deficiency; but eight parts per million can be a toxicity. So just a tiny, tiny bit of contamination can throw those values off. And you won't know that those values are off. Then you will be fertilizing inappropriately. Typically, after you've collected the 10 soil cores, you want to put it out in the sun and air dry it. Or you can also put it in your oven. Crack the door open and turn your oven on as low as it will go. And you want to dry that soil. The reason why you want to dry the soil is because the soil biology will change the properties of the damp soil in shipment. You want to sterilize the soil without using any chemicals to stop any soil biology from interacting with the soil. So it is a representative sample as to what it was like in the ground. you ship it off, and wait for the results. And you should try and find a soil testing service that has experience with making organic recommendations. And that's where it's really hard to find.
Farmer Fred
We should warn people that when you dry soil in an oven, it's going to stink up the house. So do it when nobody's home.
Steve Zien
But yeah, yes. When you heat the soil in the oven, there will be a fragrance emanating from that oven. And it may not be pleasant. Personally, I don't think it's horrible, but it's not real pleasant. And you want to use a container. I like using Pyrex or Corningware. That works really well.
Farmer Fred
How deep should these soil cores be taken when you collecting soil samples?
Steve Zien
Ideally, they're the root depth of the plants that you're going to be growing there. Obviously when you're talking trees, you're not going to take a core down four or five or 6 or 12 feet for most of your plants. I would take at least eight to 12 inches down.
Farmer Fred
And you bring up a very good point that the sample should be taken in an area where the plants are of the same type. Maybe your vegetable garden for one test, do 10 samples there, if you have an orchard, do 10 samples from the orchard. If you have a forest, 10 samples from that.
Steve Zien
Yeah if you've been managing the soil differently, don't include the two samples where the soil has been sampled differently. You want to collect soil samples from an area where you've been managing it the same. So if you've got a landscape with your normal garden soil, and you've got raised beds where you're growing vegetables, you got to sample those separately, because the soils are dramatically different.
Farmer Fred
You mentioned trying to find a company that does organic soil analysis. And you're right . That is difficult to find. I think Peaceful Valley Farm Supply still does that. Do you know if they still do?
Steve Zien
The last I heard, they did not, which was really disappointing. And they used to have a booklet available that helped you. If you use the same lab that they used, you could basically transfer the information from your soil test and get an organic recommendation just by the tips that they provide. Last I knew, that booklet is no longer available, which I think is really sad.
Farmer Fred
Because many of the soil testing services are doing primarily agricultural samples, some of these tests can be very expensive. Some of the more reasonably priced soil analysis are done at the university level. I know three universities that do soil tests for around $20. You get a fairly good report afterwards, as far as what's missing and what it needs. Not to the thoroughness that a Steve Zien soil test would come back with, that you used to do many years ago. But UMass Amherst, Colorado State University and Texas A&M, all do soil tests for anybody living anywhere in the United States, I'll have links to those three soil testing firms, at those universities, in today's show notes,
Steve Zien
There's a problem with using those University soil tests. Because they're primarily familiar with the soils back in their area, their soils are dramatically different than ours. And so when they get a certain result in, in a soil test, even though we might get the same exact results, the recommendation can be dramatically different. You'll get the values, but the recommendations might not be appropriate.
Farmer Fred
But at least you'd get the values. And those agriculture services tests can easily run over $100. And the tests from UMass, Colorado State. And Texas A&M are, like I say, priced around $20. I'd rather see people get an inexpensive test done than no test done at all. So, you get the soil test back. And it says, your pH is a little low, or your soil needs nitrogen. Well, who doesn't need nitrogen? And I may have mentioned the percentages of phosphorus and potassium that would be ideal for your soil, things like that. What's a gardener to do?
Steve Zien
Start with inorganic fertilizer. Try and find new fertilizers. In many cases, nurseries sell organic fertilizers that have nitrogen, phosphorus, potash, maybe some calcium, may be a little bit of sulfur, maybe a little bit of one or two other things. But when we we're talking about soils that have been receiving a lot of moisture, and the soils are really, really wet, they're stressed. The plants are stressed that are growing in them. And so when the plants are stressed, they are less capable of absorbing nutrients. And so in addition to being stressed from the moist soils, now they're being stressed due to a lack of nutrition. And so one of the things you can do is you can take some liquid fertilizers and again using only organic materials, and mix them into a spray and spray it on the leaves. Spray even on the the trunks of the plants. It's much more effective on the leaves. Try and get the tops and the undersides of the leaves. It’s called foliar feeding. You can put it in one of those hose end sprayers that works pretty well. Ideally, I think if you can cover pretty much everything by using like a liquid fish and a liquid seaweed product, that contains most of the things the plants need. The fish provides the nitrogen, phosphorus and potash. And the seaweed provides 55 trace minerals and growth hormones. And it's the growth hormones that are particularly important right now when your soil has been really, really wet, because they're stressed. And if they've really been without oxygen, they might be rotting a little bit. And so you want to encourage them with natural growth hormones to encourage new root growth. The seaweed and fish products can both be applied as a foliar fertilizer. But more importantly, in this case, watering it into the ground can be very, very helpful in getting those roots reestablished. Use the fish and seaweed in addition to your standard organic fertilizers for tomatoes or citrus or whatever. There are other things that contain phosphorus or calcium. One nice thing that contains both of those is rock phosphate. And it's really good. a lot of fruiting plants get blossom end rot. And if your soil test comes back that you need calcium, then the rock phosphate will provide you the calcium that you need. That soil test can also tell you various other things that you might need. For example, a good organic source of potassium is greensand. And not all nurseries sell that, but some of your organic suppliers do. And some of your better nurseries that carry a lot of organic fertilizers and soil conditioners will have greensand as well.
Farmer Fred
Let's talk a little bit about moisture meters that you can find at the garden center, the hardware store. Some of these are rather inexpensive, and they may not last very long. Some are very, very good. If you go on to Amazon or one of those sites that sells soil moisture meters, you will find a wide array in a wide variety of prices, I would suggest buying maybe two or three. And seeing how they compare with each other.
Steve Zien
As far as readings go, you have the more expensive ones that are much more reliable. I found that the less expensive ones, they don't really accurately tell you what the soil moisture is for very long. But I also suggest to people to occasionally put this soil probe in soil that you know to be very, very moist, and see if it shows that it's moist. Put it in a soil that you know is bone dry and see if it says that it's bone dry. If you're going to use a soil moisture meter, check to make sure that it's giving you appropriate findings.
Farmer Fred
I think everybody, behind their garage or garden, they have a pot of soil that hasn't been used in quite a while, that's probably bone dry. And so you can test it out. We learned a lot today. So don't let a lot of rain worry you too much. But again, check your soil before you turn on the sprinklers or the drip irrigation system, or pull the hose out and start watering. Just because it's a hot day doesn't mean your roots are hot and sweaty. It's just you. Check the soil moisture level first. Steve Zien. Thanks so much.
Steve Zien
It's been fun as always, Fred
BEYOND THE GARDEN BASICS NEWSLETTER - CAN GARDENING SAVE YOU MONEY?
Farmer Fred
A TV reporter recently asked me, are gardens effective at helping people save on their grocery bills?
To that, my answer would have to be, as I’m fond of saying, “It depends.” And a longer answer would take more than the allotted eight to ten seconds you’re allowed on a TV newscast to answer that question fully. However, it’s the perfect length for the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter! And that’s what we will be exporing in the edition that comes out this Friday, April 25th. Can gardening save you money at the grocery store? If not, why garden? Well, there’s more to life than money. Check it out.
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For example, how can you tell the good bugs from the bad bugs? We had the pictures and the info of the garden good guys back in late April and Early May of 2024 in a two part series, Meet the beneficials.
Want to know which roses make the best cut flowers for indoor displays? We had that in the May 19, 2023 edition of the Beyond the Garden Basics Newsletter.
RIght now, you just might be doing battle with the aphids that are enjoying all the new growth on your just-planted garden. We had aphid control tips back in the Sept. 15, 2021 edition.
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Garden Basics with Farmer Fred comes out every friday and it's brought to you by 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 thank you so much for listening and your support.