001 Garden Basics: Starting Your Victory Garden 2.0

:00 Why another garden podcast?

1:14 The importance of gardening during these days of "Shelter in Place". What is Integrated Pest Management? The right plant in the right place.

5:51 The Victory Garden 2.0 with Diane Blazek, All-America Selections.

18:30 Answers to Your Garden Questions - "What are the Most Dependable Tomatoes to Grow?"

27:12 Questions to Ask Yourself while Sheltered in Place.

Thank you for listening, subscribing and commenting on the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast and the Beyond the Garden Basics Newsletter.

Transcript

Farmer Fred:   0:12
Welcome to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Podcast. If you're just a beginning gardener or you want good guarding information while you've come to the right spot, those of you who are familiar with my garden radio shows here in Northern California, which I've been doing since 1982 might be wondering. Well, what's the reason for this podcast?  

Farmer Fred:   0:31
Well, even though I'm fond of saying all gardening is local garden basics with Farmer, Fred will be reaching out to gardeners wherever they may happen to be with garden tips and growing advice that apply just about anywhere will strive to explain garden jargon and terms anyone can understand. And we'll be talking to garden experts from throughout the world who will share their vast plant and soil knowledge with us, and we'll be answering your gardening questions. Think of us as your one room schoolhouse for growing your backyard garden of fruits, vegetables and oh yeah, flowers that attract the garden, good guys, beneficial insects and pollinators. And we'll have some fun, too. Let's get started here on the inaugural episode of The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast.  

Farmer Fred:   1:25
Let's first of all addressed the 800-pound elephant that's in the room. And that, of course, is the Coronavirus outbreak. It's forced many of us to shelter in place for several weeks. This is a lot of downtime. Many families and singles has given people the opportunity to maybe stop and think about what is really important. And perhaps one of those realizations is that to maintain your health well, you need to eat healthier, and that's a great reason for starting a backyard or a front yard garden.  The healthiest food you can eat is the food you grow yourself. You know exactly who handled it and what, if any, pesticides were involved in the growing of that food.  

Farmer Fred:   2:07
By the way, speaking of pesticides here on the Garden Basics podcast, we're going to emphasize integrated pest management. Now. What does that 50-cent term mean? Well, it's controlling pests and diseases, starting with the least toxic solutions, and that includes cultural, physical and mechanical controls. I'll give you an example. A lot of people have plant problems. Maybe it doesn't grow. Maybe the leaves aren't very green. They're kind of yellow. Maybe it's not producing vegetables or fruit. Is the plant located where it should be in garden?  It's very important to have the right plant in the right place.  For example, in our area here in Northern California, roses won't bloom in full shade and tomatoes won't produce fruit in full shade. They need sun. On the other hand, there are plants here that do need shade like winter Daphne or impatiens or hydrangeas. They would croak in full sun here.  

Farmer Fred:   3:02
Find the sunlight requirements for your plants on a seed pack or on the instructions on a plant that you may purchase at a nursery; it'll say something like full sun or part sun or part shade or full shade. What does that mean? Well, in the case of full sun, generally that's eight hours or more a day. However, for full sun plants, sometimes 6 to 8 hours of full sun is enough. 4 to 6 hours is considered part sun or part shade; usually anything less than four hours a day of direct sunlight is considered full shade. Generally speaking, for most of the vegetables that you enjoy growing, they need full sun. Some exceptions throughout interior California might be greens. Your lettuce, spinach, or chard. Things like that. They might need afternoon shade. But if you live in cooler climates, you could possibly get away with growing them in full sun.  

Farmer Fred:   4:00
And that brings up the fact that all gardening is local. Copy your neighbors. Take a walk through your neighborhood, mimic the garden successes that you see. Where are they growing their plants and they're very successful with. Is it in son or is it shape? Copy what they're doing, even in your own yard. There are micro climates where certain plants will have a better chance for success. Get yourself a digital thermometer that remembers the high and low temperatures and place that in various parts of your yard. Monitor the morning low temperatures in various areas of your yard to find possibly the warmest area for tender plants. But remember, there's nothing wrong with copying your neighbors.  

Farmer Fred:   4:39
So, to sum up: growing where the plant is supposed to grow  would be a cultural technique for success. Physical controls might be pulling weeds by hand. Mechanical controls might be putting on a hot cap or a row cover to protect plants from cold or from pests. Only when we're out of natural options will we reach for the synthetic bug and weed killers.

Farmer Fred:   5:00
On today's show, we're gonna probe some garden tips to give you a head start on what to avoid on your way to a successful garden, we'll explore an idea that's  resurging in popularity: It's called the Victory Garden...only here in the 21st century. It's not about helping our troops defeat the Kaiser or Hitler. It's about helping your overall health with good food that you grew... which, by the way, will probably involve plenty of healthy exercise for you. We're gonna be talking with Diane Blazek  with the National Garden Bureau. She has tips for starting your Victory Garden 2.0. Then, a little bit later on, we will answer some of your email garden questions as well, and we have details on how you can call in questions, too. And we'll do all of this in less than 30 minutes!

Farmer Fred:   5:52
When the Victory Garden manual was first written in 1943 it was pretty easy to come up with reasons to grow your own vegetables. After all, it was wartime, food was scarce, and the food that was available may not have been the healthiest or the freshest, because a lot of that was going to the war effort. People responded. And in 1943 nearly 40% of all fruits and vegetables grown in the United States were grown in home and in community victory gardens. That's pretty darn impressive. Well, maybe it's time for Victory Garden 2.0. That's the thought of Diane Blazek. She's the executive director of All America Selections and the National Garden Bureau. And maybe in this time of Coronavirus, Diane, we need to start our own gardens for many reasons, not the least of which is "hey, we might be sheltering in place. Let's give us something to do."

Diane Blazek:   6:44
You're exactly right. Yeah, it's not only something to do but for any of us who have been gardening for a long time, just getting out in the fresh air is such a well being  thing. You get out, you're getting vitamin D, you're exercising, and it just makes you feel good. It gives you a sense of accomplishment to work in your garden and grow your own produce. So, yeah, there's many reasons why now is a perfect time

Farmer Fred:   7:11
it reduces stress, it increases the amount of healthy food that is available to you. You don't have to go to a grocery store for a lot of things.  And this is the perfect time to get started on a garden, isn't it?

Diane Blazek:   7:24
Oh, it really is. Yeah, I know that there are some areas of the country that have already been able to start. I'm in zone five. I'm in Chicago. So a couple weeks ago, I started transplants in my basement, and it will be a little while before I can actually harvest. But I think Audrey Hepburn had this great quote about gardening: it is a way that you're looking for the future. And I'm probably messing up her quote and I apologize to her. Um, but yeah, I think in this time, we need to be looking forward with positivity.

Farmer Fred:   7:57
you know, getting back to the whole concept of Victory Garden 2.0... we should point out that there was a book back during World War two called the Victory Garden Manual. And the author of that book has something to do with the National Guard Bureau.

Diane Blazek:   8:11
He certainly does and it's It's such an honor to, you know, bring all this back and talk about it again. So Mr James H. Burdette had worked for a marketing company as well as being a newspaper journalist. He had the idea for the National Garden Bureau back in 1920. So he launched this nonprofit organization as a way to disseminate gardening information to other journalists. And that is still the model we're using today. But then, because the Victory Gardens came about in World War One, and then they had a resurgence in World War two, this book was published in 1943. So you know, he had to start working on this probably about the time of Pearl Harbor, and then published it in 1943. And it was just such a good time for anybody who wanted to start their own victory garden.

Farmer Fred:   9:07
And that's the place to start even here in the 21st century, with some of the tips he wrote about in the Victory Garden manual. And probably and not the least of which is know where you are. He said to garden according to your zone.  As this guy on the radio here locally often says," all gardening is local".

Diane Blazek:   9:25
it really is. Yeah, that's a good tip. And just from being on social media and talking to people, a lot of them don't even realize you need to know your growing zone and what that means. So we put that foremost as the number one thing you need to know. subsequently means you need to know your last frost date, which we put that further down the list and probably they should be together. But I was just trying to do it in order, like Step one, Step two. So no, you're growing zone and your last frost date our two top tips that we wanted to start with.

Farmer Fred:   10:00
One of the more accurate growing zone maps for California does not use the USDA zones. What they use are called the Sunset Zones, and that would be from the Sunset Western Garden book. And even though, you know, the Sunset folks are falling on hard times like a lot of publishers are, the book is still available, and it is really a necessary reference for gardeners here to find out what you can grow in your specific area of California. In fact, if you look around, you can find  the Sunset National Garden Book, which lists the zones throughout the entire country almost like the Western Garden book. So if you can find that book, that's also a nice book to have on your on your garden shelf.  I guess March is for planning your garden and this is the time of the year to plan your garden and maybe plant it in April here in California. It would be next month for summer vegetables in your part of the area. It's probably Mother's Day in May. In the meantime, make a list of the items your family enjoys eating

Diane Blazek:   11:02
exactly. I mean, I gave an example of to somebody else earlier that I said, You know, if your family is not going to eat spinach, don't plant spinach, plant something else. Where are you living? You know, space is at a premium, so you really need to grow what your family will eat. Okay, when all this produce comes ready and it's being harvested, what if you have too much? Do you have people you can share it with? Can you freeze it? Can you can it? So just take all these items into consideration when you're deciding what to plant and how many to plant.

Farmer Fred:   11:38
Oh, boy, you teacher touched on a  sore point with me as far as people who grow gardens and then watch it go to waste. If you grew it, eat it and the only way you can eat it when it's out of season is to preserve it. And I'm so glad that California's cooperative extension programs has master food preserver programs throughout the entire state, and they're a great go-to resource here for finding more information about how to preserve what you grow.

Diane Blazek:   12:06
They are an excellent resource. I heard them speak last summer, and I was just amazed at how progressive California's extension group is. They're very active.

Farmer Fred:   12:16
And then, of course, you got to decide. Do you want to grow it from seed, or do you want to grow it from transplants? And for beginning gardeners, I always suggest, well, let's start off with "the bike with the training wheels"... and do it from transplants. But you have some ideas as far as what plants do you choose? Those would be easier to grow than others.

Diane Blazek:   12:36
right? And maybe if you're a new gardener, you haven't heard the term direct sowing.  we have a lot of good online tools now that shows planting date then days to harvest. You know, you can always research go online and Google number of days, the harvest for a beet, a tomato and see what kind of numbers you get. They will vary, and it depends. If you're planting with heirlooms or hybrid, you know, some will be shorter. Some will be longer, but yet that's very important. I totally agree with you. It's a lot easier to just go to your local garden retailer and get transplants. But then there's other things that you may want to direct sow,  they would be quick crop, something like radishes or lettuce or spinach. Something like that. So there's a lot of good options.

Farmer Fred:   13:27
There are fortunately, the nurseries here in California, the retail nurseries are still open for business because they, too, are in the food business. And that's why they get to be open. We're glad about that.  I would suggest  that if you're starting a vegetable garden for the same first time, choose hybrid varieties over heirloom varieties. I mean, you can pick one or two heirlooms, but for the most part, keeping it hybrids because they usually will be more prolific, more productive. And they're easier to have success with.

Diane Blazek:   14:00
Right. Because of the fact that I run the All America selections, we do plant trialing. And yeah, a huge majority of our new introductions are hybrids. And I say that same thing for new gardeners. If you want to have more of a guarantee of successful plants, hybrids are going to be easier, than they're gonna be disease resistant. You don't want to put all that work and money into it and then just have it succumb to diseases or something.

Farmer Fred:   14:26
And as we mentioned, this is the perfect time to plan your garden. And what are some tips for planning your garden space?

Diane Blazek:   14:32
The old traditional victory garden was typically done in a garden plot or you know a certain size space. Not everybody has that anymore. So you really need to take a look at what kind of space do you have? Where is it located? Please, please, please make sure that it gets enough sun. I know that. Too many people think, 'Oh, maybe just a little bit of shade and I can plant it there'...You're probably not going to be as successful. You can research. Yes. There are some things. Maybe some leafy greens. It'll grow in a little bit of shade, but for the most part, you definitely need for the sun. And then you just have to decide for yourself. You're gonna tackle growing this in ground? Do you have raised beds? Okay, I have a window back there. I have the 16 inch container and I want to grow a little, determinate tomato. Those are the things to take into consideration and go from there.

Farmer Fred:   15:28
I guess we should define those terms because a lot of people get confused about it. Full sun is generally the ideal: more than eight hours a day of direct sun, it could be 6 to 8 hours. Partial sun is 4 to 6 hours, and anything less than four hours is usually considered full shade.

Diane Blazek:   15:47
Yeah.  I agree with you that that terminology and which plants you can grow where. I'm glad you're adding in the California aspect because we try to think nationally, which was kind of hard, because it is like you say, all gardening is local. So it's hard to put in all those little asterisks for different locations.

Farmer Fred:   16:07
Two of your top 10 tips you can almost combine into one and you talk about companion planting. And you also say, Don't forget to plan for pollinator friendly flowers. And I tell you, that can help a lot of your vegetables when it comes to fighting off pests. If you've got pollinator friendly flowers and perennials that attract beneficial insects, they can go a long way to reduce your use of pesticides.

Diane Blazek:   16:30
Oh, absolutely. So you're killing a couple of birds with one stone there by planting the flowers. But the reason we talk about the pollinator, I mean, yes, the pollinators need our help. We need their help, and I think a lot of people might have, um, gone too far in one direction thing:  "I'm just gonna do 100% vegetables". They need pollinators to pollinate their produce.

Farmer Fred:   16:56
Exactly. Um, of course, soil is always an issue if you have poor soil and some people think they have poor soil, but it really isn't. It just needs, perhaps, to be amended. And that's where composting comes in.

Diane Blazek:   17:09
exactly. And it's a great time. Now you're home and you're using some of the produce from the store, and you need to get rid of the peels or the cores or whatever the case might be. Start a compost pile. Super simple. You'll be so happy you will. You're gonna be better off.

Farmer Fred:   17:25
And for the kids that like to play with worms, vermicomposting is catching on here in California, having a worm bin and then using all those kitchen scraps to feed them. And then what? What comes out of the worms is called worm castings, which is a great soil amendment.

Diane Blazek:   17:39
Yeah, and there's a lot of great resource is on how to build your own Worm Bins. I love that concept. If I had little ones, I would be all over that.

Farmer Fred:   17:47
Anything else you wanna mention here?

Diane Blazek:   17:50
Our website, NGB dot org has tons of information. A lot of additional links on our Victory garden. 2.0, blog. So spend more time in your garden than on your Web site, but the website will definitely give you plenty of resource is to be successful.

Farmer Fred:   18:05
Check your Local Resource is with the University of California Cooperative Extension. That would be the Master Gardener program in your area and the Master food Preserver program. And you, too, can have a Victory Garden  to get us through this mess. Diane Blazek. She's the executive director of both the All America Selections and the National Garden Bureau. Diane, thanks for a few minutes of your time.

Diane Blazek:   18:26
Thank you very much. And happy gardening!

Farmer Fred:   18:28
Here here on the Garden Basics podcast, we want to answer your garden questions in a couple of ways. You can give us a call. 916 292 8964 That number again. 916 292 89 64. You can either leave a message or you can text that number as well. Be patient... There are a lot of rings before we pick up. Another way is email. Send your garden questions to Fred at farmerfred dot com. That's Fred at farmerfred dot com. One benefit of E mail is you can attach a photo of a bug or a plant that you're trying to identify. We're looking forward to hearing and seeing your questions. And thanks for listening to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Podcast. I appreciate all your support and all your comments.  

Farmer Fred:   19:24
Let's delve into your garden questions. You can send them again via email to Fred at farmerfred dot com, and you just heard how to send them in via a telephone. But let's go to the email first. Since it is April, we are getting a lot of questions about tomatoes. I want to plant some tomatoes, which are some good ones to grow. Let's narrow that down. How about some tomatoes that a beginning gardener could choose? I call these the training wheel tomato varieties that are guaranteed. Well, I won't say guaranteed, but I bet you'll have success with him.  

Farmer Fred:   19:55
 First of all, tomatoes are easy to grow, but they need full sun, regular water and fertilization because they are quick growing plants. Generally, soils don't have enough nitrogen in them to grow a full size tomato plant all in a few months, so they may need some extra fertilizer. And for the best production of tomatoes, you want to stake them so they grow upright or cage them now. What do I mean by a tomato cage? I don't mean these flimsy little cones that you might see at Nurseries that are only two or three feet high, they're not for a full size tomato plant. Make some cages yourself out of reinforced concrete wire. Go back to your Home Depot or Lowe's Store. In the back, with the concrete and bricks, you'll find concrete reinforcement sheets. These are made out of 12 gauge wire, they're generally four feet by five feet with six inch mesh squares. When you take one of these sheets and fold it into a circle, you've got a perfect tomato cage that is about four feet tall and maybe 2.5 to 3 feet wide. Why, that's perfect for a tomato. You can fasten them with zip ties, or you can use your barbwire tool if you have one of those and do some cutting and wrap the wires around each.   And if they don't have the concrete reinforcement sheets, they may have a 50 foot roll that is basically you'd be doing the same things with. But you would need that barbed wire tool again to cut that 12 gauge wire. These cages will last you a lifetime.  

Farmer Fred:   21:25
If you've never grown tomatoes before, there are a few questions to ask yourself before purchasing all those varieties that you're going to see at the nursery. Do you want tomatoes for eating fresh or for canning? Well, if preservation of the harvest is your goal, if you want to make tomato sauce or can whole tomatoes or tomato paste, you want to select varieties that tend to ripen all at once, not throughout the entire season. The varieties that tend to set their fruit and ripen at the same time are usually referred to as determinate varieties. An indeterminant variety, on the other hand, is your main season tomato that will produce tomatoes throughout the growing season. But for canning purposes, you want a lot at one time. Most paste tomatoes are determinate varieties. Some of the better selling paste varieties include Heinz 2653 Roma, San Marzano. But there are larger tomatoes that are of suitable for canning, such as Celebrity, which is considered a semi determinate. And there are some smaller tomatoes that are very popular that will can well, such as Juliet, which produces throughout the spring, summer and fall.  

Farmer Fred:   22:40
By the way, I'm also fond of saying, If you grew it, you better eat it. and coming up on future episodes of the Garden Basics podcast, we will have food preservation experts who will tell you how to can, freeze, and dehydrate your produce that you grow in your backyard.  

Farmer Fred:   22:57
Now, do you know your taste buds? Do you prefer a sweet tomato or something more acidic?  If you like sweet, choose a cherry tomato variety. Some of our favorites includes Sun Gold, Sun Sugar, Sweet 100, Sweet million or the heirloom variety, Gardeners Delight. if you're looking for a tomato that has more of a balanced flavor, full size tomatoes that are really good for slicing for your sandwiches, try  Ace, Early Girl, Celebrity and Big Beef. But there's plenty more.  

Farmer Fred:   23:32
Now you're going to see tomatoes that are either heirloom or hybrid varieties. What's the difference? Heirloom tomatoes are usually tomatoes that have been around for half a century or longer. They tend to be classified as heirloom or open pollinated. If you grew that tomato plant by itself, it would produce tomatoes who seeds you could plant next year, and you'd get that same tomato. You can't do that with hybrid varieties. The trade-off being hybrid varieties have been bred for usually greater production. Earlier production, more disease resistance. So you have to choose heirloom or hybrid. With heirlooms what you're gonna get is some great old fashioned flavor and juiciness. But they may have poor production, and they'll be more susceptible to pest and disease problems. So if you've never planted tomatoes before, if you're new to gardening, start with a couple of hybrid varieties and perhaps one heirloom variety.  

Farmer Fred:   24:28
Now that brings up a good question. How many tomato plants should I grow? Well, don't let your eyes get bigger than your tummy. Generally, one plant per person in the family is enough. Generally speaking, however, I myself, I would always have three tomatoes. I'd have a cherry tomato variety. I would have a main season variety, and I would have either a paste tomato variety or a large slicing tomato, depending upon how I'm going to be using the tomatoes through the year. So what would I choose? Well, I would choose proven performers. A cherry tomato, Such a Sungold or Sweet Million. A prolific main season tomato such as Ace 55 or Early Girl, and a paste tomato, probably Roma or San Marzano. And maybe maybe a fourth one. Maybe a large slicing tomato for sandwiches such as Big Beef or Lemon Boy. But remember, with the bigger producing varieties those ones that produce large  slicing tomatoes, you may not get as many tomatoes as you might like.  

Farmer Fred:   25:30
Every area, seems to have tomato trials every year. Here in Northern California, some of the top tasting hybrids at taste tests throughout the area have included Sun Sugar, Sun Gold, Supersweet 100, Early Girl, Lemon Boy, Better Boy and Big Beef. Most of those tend to be on the sweet side, except perhaps for Lemon Boy, Better Boy, Big Beef and Early Girl. Some top rated heirloom varieties have included Amana Orange,  Dr Wyche's Yellow, Goliath and Persimmon. I know the local Master Gardener group here in Sacramento County has their favorites. And talking to those people they like the Ace, the Better Boy, the Big Beef, Celebrit,y Early Girl, Lemon Boy, Parks Whopper, Whopper V F N. Some of their heirloom favorites include Abe Lincoln, Amana Orange, Aunt Ruby's, German Green, Caspian Pink, Cherokee Purple, Paul Robeson and Julia Child. And for canning purposes, the paste tomatoes that a lot of master gardeners around here prefer include fresh salsa, Italian gold, orange banana, and Super Marzano. For cherry tomatoes, they like the black cherry, the green grape, the Juliet, the sun gold, the sun sugar, the Sweet 100, the sweet million.  

Farmer Fred:   26:47
Now, if you're still confused about all the varieties available, another way to choose tomatoes might be: as you're looking at the little plant tags on the tomato plants,  look for All America selections winner. Just do an Internet search for All America selections, and you'll see a list of tomatoes that have proven themselves to grow well throughout the entire country.  

Farmer Fred:   27:13
And finally, in this era of "shelter in place"... we don't know how long it's going to last. We're in mid April now, and there's a good chance it could last through the month of May, maybe even longer. How long are we gonna be stuck in our homes? Well, we need to get into the right mindset about quarantines and shelter in place. Brooke Anderson works for the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, and she came up with a list of six daily quarantine questions. And maybe this will resonate with you, just like it resonated with me. Question number one. Ask yourself, What am I grateful for today? You know what I'm grateful for? Its spring. It's time to plant. Question number two: Who am I checking in on or connecting with today? Don't put yourself in isolation if you don't have to. Maybe call somebody who's living alone. Maybe take a walk and talk to your neighbor. All you have to do is stand six feet away, and that sort of answers another question. How am I getting outside today? Well, of course, gardening is great exercise in your backyard, but maintain social contacts. One of the easiest ways to do that is simply taking a walk through your neighborhood. You don't have to have a conversation. Maybe just say hello. Maybe just smile. Smiles are free and they go a long way. One thing that is definite in this era of quarantines and sheltering in place: What expectations of Normal am I letting go of today? And it seems like every day we're learning something new about how the future may treat us. Maybe we better get used to empty store shelves. Maybe that new normal is working in the backyard more with that garden. Another question to ask yourself, How are you moving your body today? Maybe it's time to search out those yoga lessons on YouTube.  

Farmer Fred:   29:03
But my mantra - and I've had this mantra ever since I had open heart surgery back in 2012- is the way to lose weight: Shut your mouth and move your feet. It really does work. And finally, the sixth daily quarantine question to ask yourself: what beauty am I either creating, cultivating or inviting in today?  Maybe clipping a bouquet of flowers and bringing them inside. Maybe watching that tomato plant grow. Have you ever smelled a tomato plant? It is heaven. Once you smell it, you won't forget it. And you will want that every year in your yard. Just rub your hand gently up and down the stem and then smell your fingers. Ah, tomatoes in the spring time!

Farmer Fred:   29:46
Thank you for listening to the garden basics with Farmer Fred podcast. Be sure to subscribe.