100 Garden Basics Greatest Hits (So Far)

Growing a garden is very similar to doing a successful podcast. It takes patience, perseverance and a willingness to try something new. Welcome to Episode 100 of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. I began this audio adventure just as sheltering in place was taking hold last spring. Many of you took that opportunity to play in the yard, so to speak, while learning something new, something that can be fun, and healthy, for the entire family. If that was your impetus to seek us out here, welcome to the world of gardening! I see your still at it. Kind of addicting, isn’t it? And for all you long time gardeners, thank you sticking around and helping place the Garden Basics podcast among the top 3% IN THE WORLD.

So, to celebrate 100 episodes, let's revisit the Top 3 interviews that we have aired here in just over a year. To no one’s surprise, two of them have to do with tomatoes, the most popular vegetable that’s grown in the United States, and in many other countries, as well. The third most listened-to episode featured a primer about feeding your soil, not your plants.

One more thing, this might run longer than the usual 30 minutes (not by much). I hope you understand.

Pictured:
Celebrity Tomato

Links:
Smart Pots
Tomorrow's Harvest
Dave Wilson Nursery
UC Davis Arboretum
Kellogg Garden Products
Episode 3: How To Plant Tomatoes and Peppers (You Might Be Surprised!)
Episode 21: Tomato Troubleshooter
Episode 7: Feed Your Soil, Not Your Plants

More episodes and info available at Garden Basics with Farmer Fred

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Chapters

• 3:09 How to Plant Tomatoes and Peppers
• 6:50 Tomato Troubleshooter
• 17:46 Smart Pots!
• 27:12 Feed Your Soil, Not Your Plants

Transcript

GB 100 Greatest Hits (So Far)

05/06/21 36:47

SPEAKERS

Debbie Flower, Don Shor, Giselle Schoniger, Farmer Fred

Farmer Fred  00:00

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

Farmer Fred  00:20

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

Farmer Fred  00:33

Growing a garden is very similar to doing a successful podcast. It takes patience, perseverance, and a willingness to try something new. Welcome to Episode 100 of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. I began this audio adventure just as "sheltering in place" was taking hold last spring. Many of you took that opportunity to "play in the yard", so to speak, while learning something new, something that can be fun and healthy for the entire family. If that was your impetus to seek us out here, welcome to the world of gardening. And I see you're still at it. Kind of addicting, isn't it? And for all of you longtime gardeners, thank you for sticking around and helping making the Garden Basics podcast one of the most listened-to in the world. There's something like 2 million podcasts around. And this one, Garden Basics, after just 100 episodes, ranks in the top 2% in numbers of listeners worldwide. Thank you for that. And a big thank you to all the regular contributors to this podcast who made it happen. People like Debbie Flower, Don Shor, Steve Zien, Ed Laivo, Warren Roberts, Gayle Pothour, Debbie Arrington, Rachael Long, and so many more. And thanks for those who have provided the seed money for this podcast, so to speak. Great advertisers such as Smart Pots, Dave Wilson Nursery, and Tomorrow's Harvest. So to celebrate 100 episodes, I thought we might revisit the top three interviews that we have aired in just over a year. That's based on the number of downloads per episode. And to no one's surprise, two of them have to do with tomatoes, the most popular vegetable that's grown in the United States, and in many other countries as well. The third most listened to episode featured a primer about your garden soil, why it's so important, and what you can do to have even healthier soil for your garden. And again, thank you for your support and comments. Keep them coming. I want this show to reflect what you want in a garden podcast. Go to the show notes to find out how to email, call, or text me with your thoughts on that. Or I guess I could just tell you, you send the emails to Fred at farmerfred.com or call or text me 916-292-8964, 916-292-8964. And again, that info is also in today's show notes. All right, let's go. Oh, one more thing. This might run longer than the usual 30 minutes. Not by much. I hope you understand. 

Farmer Fred  03:16

First up, the most listened to episode and that happened to be episode number three that featured this tomato and pepper planting tip from our favorite retired college horticultural Professor Debbie Flower, who I am so glad is a big part of this podcast.

Farmer Fred  03:33

It's interesting that two of the most popular summertime vegetables, tomatoes and peppers can be planted deeply, and I mean way deeply. So let's say you buy an eight inch tomato plant at the nursery and you go to transplant it into your garden. You could actually bury six inches of that eigh- inch plant.  

Debbie Flower  03:55

    It's one of the the things I told my students in horticulture education. You learn the rules. And then you spend the rest of your life learning the exceptions. And this is an exception that you can plant the plant much more deeply into your garden than it was in the pot.  

Farmer Fred  04:12

   Why is that?  

Debbie Flower  04:13

    Well, they have the ability to make roots on their stem. If you've grown tomatoes before, perhaps you've seen that as the branches get older and bigger, and sometimes they sag and you'll see bumps along the stem. And  for that plant they are able to make roots there.  

Farmer Fred  04:32

   And that's great if you especially if you've started tomato plants from seed and maybe they've gotten a bit lanky, and if you tried to plant it at soil level in the garden, it would just fall right over. Well, one way around that is to bury it deeply. But I guess you could also, if you wanted to, if you couldn't go deep, maybe you could go long and dig a trench and bury most of it in the trench and leave the top couple of inches sticking out.  

Debbie Flower  04:59

   That may be the better choice if the plant is very tall, because  let's say, the plant is two feet tall. If you dug a foot and a half deep hole, the roots are gonna be really low in the soil and may be out of reach of oxygen and water. So the trench idea would definitely work. So you just dig a trench along the soil, lay the plant in it and turn it up. In the end, you may need a stake to make the end stand up straight, but that's okay. It'll be a well rooted, and it's really an advantage to the plant because now it has so much more of a rooting system, and it takes a lot of roots to make a lot of tasty tomatoes.  

Farmer Fred  05:36

   Do you have to strip off the lower leaves when you plant that way?  

Debbie Flower  05:40

    you do not  

Farmer Fred  05:41

    Whoa. What about pepper plants? Can you do that the same way as well?  

Debbie Flower  05:44

    Yes, you can do that the same way as well.  

Farmer Fred  05:48

    Well, how easy do you want it? Boy, that's great. You know, you could just dig a trench and plant it, leaving the top sticking out. And would you leave out, what, the top two sets of leaves, or how much would you leave out sticking above the soil surface?  

Debbie Flower  06:01

    The top two sets would probably be my minimum. You could leave more if if you've got a sturdy plant and want more of a presence above ground.  

Farmer Fred  06:09

    now, we should point out again that, as you pointed out, Debbie, this is the exception, not the rule. Generally, when you buy plants at the nursery, you want to plant them at the same depth that they came in, from the pot from the nursery. And this is the exception.  

Debbie Flower  06:27

    Absolutely. It is the exception, Yes.  

Farmer Fred  06:30

   so don't screw it up, folks.   

Debbie Flower  06:35

   Oh, but grow your tomatoes, especially tomatoes and peppers. They're  easy, productive plants, so satisfying.  

Farmer Fred  06:42

    Exactly, Debbie Flower. Always a pleasure. Thanks for a great garden tip.  Debbie Flower:    Thank you, Fred.

Farmer Fred  06:57

I mentioned that tomatoes took the top 2 spots that drew the biggest number of listeners. And if you grow tomatoes, wel,l you probably have problems with them. And we tackled those concerns with nursery owner Don Shor in Episode 21, tomato troubleshooting. Everybody loves to grow tomatoes. Everybody has problems at one point or another. What are some common tomato maladies that you might be bothered with this year let's talk to the king of the tomato in YOLO. County By the way, Yolo County the home of tomato processing in California, the tomato King would be Don Shor owner of red wood barn Nursery in Davis, California. And Don I think after people plant their tomatoes, especially if they planted them too early, and there's still some cold or wet weather involved, there may be some issues with flowers and fruiting. 

Don Shor  07:53

To start off, there often problems early in the season. As the plant goes into soil that's cold. We talk about this frequently when we're on together on your program about waiting for those nights to warm up waiting for the soil to warm up. And the plant will just languish, it will kill all kinds of apparent nutrient deficiencies that are actually root damage from going into cold soil. The good news is they'll usually outgrow those problems. And if you did a little side dressing or applied a very small amount of fertilizer at the time of planting, it'll be fine. I wouldn't worry too much about that. The next thing that happens is we get rain. Invariably, at some amount in March, of course, April and even into May. And those that rain doesn't do a whole lot in terms of watering the plants, but it does get the leaves wet. And it's not uncommon for us to start seeing some leaf diseases on the young tomato plants, two or three major ones that are common in our area. The good news is we're in an area that's dry. We're in an arid western states, I realize your podcast, of course has an international audience. So we deal out here mostly with a little bit of early blight, sometimes some bacteria, leaf speck and sometimes some late blight. And in the case of the first to pick off those leaves, the weather warms up it gets dry, that's the end of the problem. You don't have to worry about it, it just goes away. late blight is less common, but we do run into it and sometimes it gets further into the leaf into the pebble into the stem and can kill hole part of the plant. So that's obviously worse. And that can become you know, even potentially life threatening to the plant. If we continue to have unusual late season rains, as we did for example, in May 2019. when it rained, and rained and rained all the way through the month. You need to cut that out pretty quickly when you see it and get rid of it. Listeners east of the Mississippi you need to go to their garden center and biofungicide we don't need to do that here. We know that at some point. I can promise this it'll be warm and the humidity will be low and the problem will solve itself but if you do happen to see some rapid die back occurring, you need to prune that out.

Farmer Fred  09:48

Okay, I have a question about flowers that fall off. Sometimes nurseries will sell you a product designed to keep the flowers on the plant. Is that worth the money?

Don Shor 10:00

No, says the nurserymen. No, it's not worth the money. There'll be plenty of time for the flowers to set and give you plenty of fruit. If you're listening in Corvallis, Oregon, Seattle, Washington, Fort Bragg, California, those products may be the only way you get tomatoes to set. And so yes, they would be appropriate for you in that climate. They are they're an interesting spray. It's a hormone spray that induces fruit set without pollination. Interestingly, you get basically seedless tomatoes when you do that, and it really cool climates and it is not totally suitable for tomatoes, they may be appropriate here, we'll get to the point where the blossoms will set fruit, I can guarantee you the tomatoes, as you mentioned, we're number one in Yolo. County, well, they're now number two, they fallen behind almonds about a year ago, this is tomato country here in the Sacramento Valley. There's no need to do special sprays or anything like that to get fruit set, because the weather conditions will although they seem volatile, up and down and cold nights and hot days and all that kind of thing. We'll get the temperature range that's appropriate for the self pollination of the flowers and the fruit set. So I don't think those sprays are necessary.

Farmer Fred  11:02

Alright, let's talk about some early season pests of tomato plants and the what I've seen on my own and I'm sure that others may see it our white flies and aphids.

Don Shor  11:11

Yeah. And they're, they're sucking on the leaves. And obviously stressing the planet wildfires can really become a problem especially late in the season, they'll do to get towards the end of the summer, the population can really build up, they don't harm the fruit, they don't harm the blossoms. So they're just weakening the plant somewhat by sucking on the the secondary juices from the leaves. In our nursery, we manage them just by vigorously rinsing them off just a very strong blast of water, focusing on the underside of the leaves. And being consistent about it. Doing it every morning, three or four days in a row will knock off multiple stages of the white flies rather than just one quick rinse. And then thinking you're done with a job fail rebound if you do that. But if you get out there consistently day after day for three, four or five days in a row, you can really knock down the population and manage them that way. But when people watch me do this, they say oh, you really mean a strong blast of water. Yeah, we're not giving them a shower, we're sending them into a hurricane, we're sending them off the plant several feet away, or they will die in the wasteland of the gravel on the floor of our nursery. So it's the kind of thing you really want to get a nozzle, it'll allow you to really give a good strong, vigorous friends. They take your hands and you hold the plant and very rigorously rinse them off the leaves. If you don't want to do that, if you want to go get a spray, I would start with neem, neem oil spray. And that will smother a fair number of them and repel the adults as they come in to lay eggs. And be careful not to do that when it's above say 85 or 90 degrees, but you'll find you get pretty good control the nemes spray. Next step up would be a light summer oil some kind of again, with some caution about the daytime temperatures on that

Farmer Fred  12:46

another problem that may develop as the season progresses as you're looking at those reddish tomatoes. Oh they look beautiful, they're coming along but all of a sudden, you look at the bottom of the tomato and it's turning brown and wrinkly. What's going on there,

Don Shor  12:59

blossom end rot. "br" we abbreviate.  It is a very distressing and frustrating when it happens at the bottom of the fruit as you say it gets soft and mushy and is basically the fruit is inedible at that point. First of all, some varieties are very susceptible to it. Roma is well known for being the canary in the coal mine as to a blossom and problem. blossom end rot we now know is not caused by a calcium deficiency in the soil. It's not even caused by a calcium deficiency in the plant. It appears to be closely correlated with fluctuating temperatures, cold temperatures and erratic or uneven irrigation or particularly some combination of those three things. You can make it worse by adding large amounts of certain types of fertilizers like ammonia. But the strongest correlation of blossom end rot is when you get a rainy spell and you overwater the plants in may just as the fruit is expanding, that's the fruit that is going to have blossom end rot seven or eight weeks later. So deep, careful thorough watering as infrequently as possible will generally prevent blossom end rot, except when the weather is wonky.

Farmer Fred  14:09

The goal then is even soil moisture.

Don Shor  14:11

Yeah, that's true for all your vegetables, but tomatoes in particular, most of the problems that we talk with people about early in the season that have to do with how they're watering, they're watering too shallowly and not long enough, they're running a drip system. This is a very common answer when we ask how are you watering, oh, I run out three times a week for five minutes. That's a coffee cup of water. So a tomato plant wants a gallon or two when you water it and as it grows, it may need three or four gallons of water. You don't have to do that very often depending on your soil type obviously, but a deep soaking relatively infrequently is going to be much more effective than shallow water rings that are keeping the surface to wet and never getting any any depth to them. Tomato roots go deep if they can't, and they'll mine water deeper and further out if they are allowed to grow too. A greater extent, but a lot of people are really really under watering them when they do.

Farmer Fred  15:04

Now there is another product that one can buy at a nursery that supposedly will solve blossom end rot. It too is a spray. It's a calcium spray. And even though blossom and rod is due to a calcium imbalance, it may not be due to lack of calcium. Besides, what good is a spray on a to a skin of fruit? Yeah, well,

Don Shor  15:27

that's a good question. I think a lot of the research on blossom end rot ended up being kind of misdirected, they noticed the link with calcium, but made some assumptions about the impact of calcium on the condition you're seeing. Calcium sprays won't do any good calcium applied to the soil won't do any good. Putting a Tums tablet under the platform to any good someone's gonna recommend that to you on Facebook, I guarantee it is not a deficiency of calcium in the plant and maybe an imbalance within the near the fruit. There's some question about whether that's even related, it just appears to be an internal metabolic physiological disorder related to erratic temperatures and erratic moisture. And here's the good news. You pick those first ones off, you throw them away. Typically, as temperatures get more of to our normal summer conditions here, any water more deeply, the problem goes away. So the next crop is usually fine. And worth pointing out. You can also get blossom end rot on peppers and squash and some of the other plants in your garden. It's the same issue just water more thoroughly when you do and more carefully don't keep the plants soggy, but don't let them get drought stressed either. 

Farmer Fred  16:32

Now we can't attribute blossom and rod to total operator error, although probably 90% of the problems are, there are just some tomato varieties that are more susceptible to it.

Don Shor  16:43

Yeah, and I've grown so I'll pick them out of a catalog. They'll be giant fruited ones, or whatever. And I'll grow them in all of the first one that said good blossom end rot, I just avoid that one in the future. So if you do find a consistent problem with a particular variety, I haven't noticed any pattern to it. But if you do notice a consistent problem with a particular variety. There's about 500 tomato varieties out there to choose from, and I would just move on it, there are some that appear to be more susceptible to that profit, I would bet that's probably regional too. I wouldn't be surprised if there is greater or lesser susceptibility in different regions, wherever you're listening. There are varieties that do very well in your area. And there are varieties that don't do so well in your area mostly related to your climate. And so you want to find the ones that are locally recommended by Master Gardeners successful old timer down the street or your local nursery there before they actually grow tomatoes and know what they're talking about. And keep trying until you find the right oh 20 or 30 varieties for your backyard.

Farmer Fred  17:45

It's not uncommon for tomato gardeners to get some rather interesting surprises this time of year. Now they're pleasant surprises, usually in the form of a volunteer tomato plant. If you're a curious gardener, such as myself, you just might want to grow it out to see what sort of tomato develops. However, that tomato plant may be popping up in an area where you don't want it to grow. And maybe all your garden area this time of year is filled with other vegetables and fruits. There is a solution. dig it up carefully and transplanted to a large Smart Pot, using a good quality potting soil. Place it in a sunny area, prune it back a bit, keep the soil moist, and voila you've got mystery tomatoes later in the summer. Smart Pots are the original lightweight, long lasting fabric plant container made in the USA. They're sturdy, easy draining containers that will last for years. Smart Pots are made with an easy breathing fabric. It keeps them cooler than plastic pots, you're going to have a more successful tomato growing experiment or whatever you're growing in the hot summer months. You want more information, we'll visit smartpots.com slash Fred and be sure to include that "slash Fred" part. That can get you a nice discount when you buy a Smart Pot. Smart Pots are available at many Ace and True Value hardware stores, local independent nurseries and online at amazon.com. Again, visit SmartPots.com slash Fred and get yourself a Smart Pot. Or two. Or three.

Farmer Fred  19:26

We're doing some tomato troubleshooting with Don Shor from Redwood Barn Nursery in Davis, California going through the litany of problems that might affect your tomatoes this spring and summer. And you probably know that tomatoes do best in full sun, but too much sun can be a problem. Now there are some sun related problems especially in warmer areas where your plants are getting pummeled by sun all day long. And yes, tomatoes are a full sun crop. Yeah, but there is such a thing as too much sun which can result in things like fruit cracking, or cat facing or solar yellowing.

Don Shor  20:04

 Sun scald is a sunburn is as simple as name to apply and it is directly on the fruit. In the case of the Sun scald, it's it's the fruit that's exposed to the western sky when it's 105 degrees, and some varieties are more susceptible than others only because some of them have better leaf canopy than others. I've never had sunburn on an ace tomato because the plant has got a nice dense canopy. It's a consistent problem on Celebrity for me when I've grown that one because the plant is a relatively unvigorous plant that produces a lot of fruit so a whole lot of that fruit is exposed to the direct afternoon sun. So there are a varietal differences once again and once you've grown in number of tomatoes, you'll find some of them are just leafy or more vigorous shade themselves a better champion does a very good job of shading itself and produces a very large amount of large fruit. And I mentioned celebrity by comparison. It's a chronic problem on that particular variety for me. So you could if you want Want to grow a particular variety that susceptible to sunburn on the fruit, figure out a way to shade it a little bit from the hot afternoon sun, maybe rig up a little structure to the west of the plant and put some 50% shade cloth that you buy from a local garden center. Another option might just be to put them where there's a little natural shade not too much, or just plant varieties that are more dense and leafy. And and you'll notice that again as with blossom end rot you'll notice a variety of differences over time will lead you away from some varieties and towards others as you slowly build this collection of your favorite varieties that does well in your particular region. 

Farmer Fred  21:37

 And it probably would help to to keep your pruning shears in their holster because the more leaf cover that it has, the less chance there is of sun related problems. 

Don Shor  21:47

  I would say pruning tomatoes is almost never necessary. And I know that that causes some controversy when we say that, but it has very little benefit. if you're taking foliage off and exposing fruit, you're definitely going to get that adverse effect of sunburn on the fruit itself. It reduces yield. Overall when you prune tomatoes, the only reason I can think of that would be a possible benefit would be in areas where late blight is a real problem. Pruning them to get more open habits so you get better air circulation that increases your risk of sunburn. So I would suggest that keeping pruning at an absolute minimum unless there's some weird training technique you've adopted that absolutely requires it. pruning is for people in Minnesota where their season begins on Memorial Day and ends on Labor Day. Here we've got such a long season that we can allow the fruit to set very late in the season, we don't have to prune the vines for size control, and we'll still get plenty of ripe fruit. 

Farmer Fred  22:40

  There are some yellowing issues with the leaves on with some diseases. In fact, if you buy a tomato plant, you may see letters next to the name of the tomato like V F or N or T or A for that matter, but the V and the f are two problems that can cause a plant to turn yellow. Then that would be verticillium and Fusarium. 

Don Shor  23:01

  Yeah, those are two problems in our area where we have these are soil borne diseases, so they may be in your area if your homes were built on old agricultural soil, or if you bring in soil, inadvertently bringing in the disease with it. One of the reasons I've always been concerned about people getting tomato plants from their fellow backyard gardeners who started the seeds themselves. A lot of home gardeners like to use dirt, use compost from their own yard as they as they grow them. Unfortunately, that can be a source of contamination into your yard. So it would be best if all the gardeners out there who are sharing transplants use packaged soils rather than home made garden soils. If you get them it's a real problem. verticillium and Fusarium are very challenging to eliminate impossible basically to eliminate and even the rotation practices that we all recommend that special three year rotation of only Nightshade plants in this area and then no Nightshade plants in this area Nightshade families, what I'm referring to is That's only marginally effective. So your best bet if you have a problem with verticillium fusarium or nematodes is to look for that V F N on the label. new hybrids, modern hybrids that have verticillium fusarium and nematode tolerance built into them. champion is a good example. But there's a lot of others out there. And that's that's why you see that on the labels and East Coast gardeners are now seeing more and more varieties with late blight resistance, which is a nice kind of new wrinkle in the breeding drought direction 

Farmer Fred  24:28

  and the letters T and A refer to a tobacco mosaic virus and Alternaria. And, yeah, as far as tobacco mosaic virus, don't smoke around your plants. 

Don Shor  24:38

 Yeah, there you go. That was easy. I've actually never seen a case of tobacco mosaic in my career. So I gather that's more of a greenhouse operation concern. But those those resistances that are built into the hybrids are a distinct advantage. This is why when we're talking on your program, early in the season about going and selecting your tomato varieties, we both kind of Push, get at least a few hybrids in there, you know, they're gonna have this resistance bred into them. And I know people love heirloom tomatoes and all but they don't have that resistance built into them. So diversifying the number of varieties and the types of varieties you're planning can be really important. 

Farmer Fred  25:14

 And one more problem that may affect your tomatoes where the lower leaves and stems look kind of bronze or oily brown color the leaves dry up and drop that could be Russet mites. 

Don Shor  25:26

 That's an interesting one. I've seen it several times. And it's really hard to diagnose from someone's description because they think it just looks like a watering problem. You know, the plant looks like it needs not wilting, but like it's sort of drying out from the ground up. I happened to have that problem very early on when I was a gardener here in the valley. So I got it identified. And it yes, it looks like it's browning slowly from the ground up the vine. the vine keeps growing with reasonable vigor keeps flowering, keep setting but just sort of steadily declines as the season goes along. It can be a tough one. oil sprays can be very helpful early in the season if you've had it one year you might wish to spray for it The next year.The thing, though, is to get a properly diagnosed because it takes a 40 power hand lens to see those little mites and most nurseries and honestly most Master Gardeners aren't going to recognize that problem. It's not something they encounter very often. So take some pictures of the plant, get real close with a with a hand lens and look at the leaf. You might see the russet mite on there. If you have a problem one year, get rid of all the tomato foliage, all the debris at the end of the season, don't compost it, send it away, send it off to the landfill, and watch your plants carefully the next year or perhaps give them a preventive spray with a light oil as they're beginning to grow because it can be a frustrating problem when you get it by the time you figure out what it is. Might be a little late to do anything about it. 

Farmer Fred  26:45

Farmer Fred  Is there any truth to the old adage avoid planting tomatoes near petunias and potatoes to avoid Russet mites. 

Don Shor  26:52

  Not that I know of. I think petunias look lovely with tomatoes. 

Farmer Fred  26:55

Farmer Fred  We've been doing some tomato troubleshooting with Don Shor, owner of Redwood Barn Nursery in Davis, California. Don thanks for the tomato tips. 

Don Shor  27:03

Don Shor  Always great to talk to you Fred. 

Farmer Fred  19:26

Rounding out our top three most listened to interviews of the first 100 episodes of Garden Basics has to do with the soil. And if you've listened to many of these episodes, you know that I'm very fond of saying that it's all about the soil. It really is. for successful plants, you need a healthy, vibrant soil. Back on episode seven, we talked with Giselle Schoniger, she's the organic gardening instructor for Kellogg Garden Products, producers of several lines of widely available soils, mulches, potting mixes and fertilizers for home gardeners here in the western United States. They're sold under a variety of labels, including Kellogg Garden Organics, as well as G&B Organics. We'll have a link to them in the show notes today. Back in Episode Seven Giselle explained how soils work and why soil is the key to a great garden.

Giselle Schoniger  28:15

You know, I think that my background is, as I've shared with you in the past, actually is in the use of chemicals. I went to a production agricultural school. And about 16 years ago, I transitioned over to organics. And I've helped build three different brands of organic products. I tell you, all my soil and fertilizer classes made far more sense when I started working with nature instead of trying to control her. And, you know, I think that when we look at fertility, of how we feed plants, most of us that are using chemical fertilizers to feed plants, truly that is what we're doing, we're feeding the plant, but at the expense of the soil.  

Farmer Fred  29:41

 What a lot of people don't realize is you should be feeding the soil, not the plant. If you feed the soil, you will be feeding the plant because that's how the plant gets its nutrients.  

Giselle Schoniger  29:50

 Absolutely. When we look at chemical fertilizers and you know  this is just part of the story, it's not just about NPK, nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. But when you see a 30-30-30 NPK or 20-20-20, or a triple 16. That material is a chemically formulated product. It's salt, it's a salt-based product. It forces that plant to grow and it creates a plant with very thin cell walls, then leaves, stems and flowers. That plant is like an attractant to insects and diseases. But the damage is what we're doing below the soil. And those salts kill off beneficial life. And when you kill the good guys off now you have a proliferation of disease-causing pathogens. Organics work in the opposite fashion. And an all purpose fertilizer might only be a 4-4-4 NPK. But it's about feeding the life in the soil as you just said. So when you build good life in the soil, the natural good guys will always eventually out compete the bad guys. And above ground. The plant has a thick cell wall, thick leaf, stems and flowers. That plant now has more of a resiliency it has a better immune system, if you will, from insect and disease attack.  

Farmer Fred  31:01

 What are the key words on synthetic fertilizers that would indicate it contains salt?  

Giselle Schoniger  31:07

 Well, you know, actually most people wouldn't know that on a fertilizer, you wouldn't really understand that that is really what the component is when it goes down through the soil profile. Chemical fertilizers, very much like let's say steer manure, you know, 50 years ago, steer manure was a good product. But when you think about how confined the animals are, how regimented their diet is, they're not grass-fed often. So it's high in salt. Those fertilizers are also high in salt. When you add a salt material to to a clay soil, let's say you're only going to compact that soil further. But back to your question, really anytime you see of material where the NPK is higher than let's say, a 12, a triple 12 and you see something like urea or ammonium. Those are the kinds of things that should really alert you to the fact if you can't really read what the words are, like on a lot of the food that we eat today. Pretty much those are going to be materials that are artificially formulated.  

Farmer Fred  32:13

  Now you mentioned steer manure and the amount of salts it has. And I imagine a lot of people are asking themselves well, wait a minute...steer manure... Isn't that an organic fertilizer? Wouldn't that be good for the soil?  

Giselle Schoniger  32:23

  Well steer manure a lot of people use it's it, let me put it this way, it is better than not using anything. But it is truly high in salt. So it's a value product. I mean, of course, people use it. And everybody's watching their paycheck, you know,  their pocket book, which we all have to do today. So if that's what someone chooses to use, but just know if you're adding it to a clay soil that's already compact and dense, you're truly making the soil more compacted and more dense by adding that salt. So we have other types of manures we have some chicken manure, we have a product called the Gardner and Bloome line has a product called Harvest Supreme. It does have 15% chicken manure in it, it has mychorrazai, it has earthworm castings, kelp, we add a whole host of organic nutrients within that material. So we have a whole breadth of product lines. We have worm castings. Worm castings are awesome to add into  either your raised bed or in-ground plantings and are not going to be as high in salt.  

Farmer Fred  33:25

   And you don't need that much worm castings for it to be effective either.  

Giselle Schoniger  33:29

   I love worm castings. I tell you, if people would really start using worm castings, or create, I have a worm bin, which I love. It's, it's like a science project the first few times you do it, but once you get the hang of it, you realize you're really not doing anything except feeding them. The worms are doing all the work. And you can have some fun with some of these materials, especially in raised beds. You know this has become the new trend over the years. Instead of dealing with our hardpan native soil if we build a raised bed. Now I taught gardening as therapy I was working as a horticultural therapist for 10 years in convalescent homes. At that time, you know, it was really for people in wheelchairs. But when we look now, why not raise the garden up to us, we're getting older Fred.  

Farmer Fred  34:11

   You know, it's nice to have that raised bed.  

Giselle Schoniger  34:14

  But the beauty is we get to layer in the kind of materials that we need. If you find that it's getting compressed down, fluff it up with some materials, our soil building compost is great for adding I look at it that product as fiber, just like we need fiber. Now this is a little bit of a stretch. But just like we need fiber to keep us our system functioning properly, the soil needs fiber as well to aerate it, to open it up, to help with drainage, to allow the beneficial aerobic microorganisms in the soil to allow them to breathe. Because if it's too compacted, that life in the soil can't breathe, which means the roots can't breathe, which means water can't percolate through the soil. So raised beds are fantastic. And you can have some fun by adding in different types of materials as you go through the season. You know, it's fascinating, this whole movement that we're seeing it's it's almost like the back to the earth movement finally arrived from the 60s in the 70s. And I think because we're so tech, we're so involved with technology, people are on the road more. Our lives have become so hectic that this idea of of growing our own food and slowing down a little bit has really become part of our culture today.  

Farmer Fred  35:35

   It boils down to if you feed the soil, you're feeding the plants.  

Giselle Schoniger  35:38

  That's right. It's a totally different approach. You know, we took a detour in the early 30s and 40s. When we started using synthetics, really in the early 1940s. Right around World War Two, when we started creating a lot of these synthetics, we were using minerals, you know, farmers were definitely a farm, it was like a closed system. All that organic matter,  the manure got composted and put back into the earth. But when we started focusing on production, you know, it's really sort of a misnomer that we created more food, because what we really did is we destroyed the soil system, we farmed the very life out of the soil. And in over maybe a decade from the 1940s into the 50s. We had to triple and quadruple the amount of chemical fertilizers we were using to try and get the yields that we were getting in the first few years. So it's really truly a misnomer to say that we increased yields. It's short, that was a short term, temporary result. And and you're right Fred, it's about feeding the life in the soil. The organisms in the soil secrete enzymes that break organic matter down. I mean, if we didn't have all this biology in the soil, the Earth would be full of debris, but they're cycling these nutrients back into the soil and roots then pull from the soil what they need when they need it.  

Farmer Fred  36:59

 All it takes is mulch, all it takes is compost, maybe a cover crop or two. And you can have healthy soil as well. Well, Giselle Schoniger from Kellogg Garden Products, Thanks for spending a few minutes with us and telling us about our soil.  

Giselle Schoniger  37:11

 Thank you, Farmer Fred. It's been a delight. Thanks to all of our customers and all our listeners out there thank you so much for your support. 

Farmer Fred

Thanks for listening to Episode 100 of the Garden Basics podcast. Links to all the segments can be found in the show notes along with links to our advertisers including Smart Pots, Tomorrow's Harvest and Dave Wilson Nursery. And a big thank you to you for listening, commenting and sharing your joy of gardening with us and with others.