GB 122 Replacing Summer Vegs, Watering, Cover Crops
28:31
SPEAKERS
Debbie Flower, Sarah Griffin Boubacar, Terry in Oregon, 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 smart pots.com slash Fred for more information and a special discount, that's smart pots.com slash 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 00:32
Maybe you've had some bad luck with your summer vegetable garden, and maybe you'll want to start over. Is late July too late for a warm season vegetable planting? Well, yes and no, we have tips for what to plant in the middle of the summer. One reason a garden might be failing now, and it's the number one reason: improper irrigation. We have advice for watering smartly to keep your garden thriving. Let's think ahead a little bit. What are you going to do with your vegetable and flower beds later this year? Now's the time to start planning for cover crops. It's all on episode 122 of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, brought to you today by Smart Pots. And we'll do it all in under 30 minutes. Let's go.
Terry in Oregon 01:22
Hello, Farmer Fred. My name is Terry. I'm from the Rogue Valley, which is in Southern Oregon. I have a question about what vegetables I can grow later in the season. I recently fostered some goats and they destroyed my raised beds. I would still like to be able to have something. Can you point me in the right direction? Thank you, sir.
Farmer Fred 01:40
Well, thank you, Terry, for that question from Oregon. We have somebody here with Oregon gardening experience. You know her, you love her! Debbie Flower, our retired college horticultural professor is here now. Where Terry is, Debbie, is in South Central Oregon, right?
Debbie Flower 01:57
Pretty far south. Yeah.
Farmer Fred 01:59
And sort of near Medford, a little east of Medford that would be probably. I would think a warmer climate than than you would find, say up north in Oregon, in Portland.
Sarah Griffin Boubacar 02:12
I think it's about the same actually, there. Yeah. USDA zone 8. Portland was where I lived. So that might be why Fred brought that up. And it's where I gardened and worked at an ag Experiment Station. USDA zone 8 is what I think Terry is living in, based on maps we looked at and that has a minimum temperature between 20 and 10 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter. That's how the USDA zones are decided: what the average annual low temperature is, that's all that they take into consideration when they divide the country, the US, into USDA zones, and then they're split into USDA A and USDA B, I don't know if he's in Zone A or zone B, B is warmer than A, and the differences are in the low range they give you is five degrees instead of 10. So if he's in USDA zone 8A then the average low is 10 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter. If he's in a USDA zone 8 B, then the average low is between 15 and 20 degrees Fahrenheit. So all we know or believe to know is that he's in Zone 8. And so his average low temperature is between 10 and 20 degrees Fahrenheit, which kills a lot of plants. It kills annuals, kills tropicals, kill semi tropicals that are not protected, just by freezing the water that's in the cells, and then they explode because they don't have a protection against that. But it can certainly grow lots of annuals. It's a great Mediterranean climate. It has dry sunny summers and irrigation is necessary. But I loved gardening in USDA 8. I felt it had a tremendous range of crops that you could grow. Now goats will eat almost anything. So I bet that was sad to watch the garden be decimated by a bunch of goats. So right now July, is not a great time to start planting anything in the garden, maybe a few radishes from seed, because it's too hot. The average annual first frost which is would be the first time that the area would reach 32 degrees Fahrenheit and water would freeze, is listed as September 26 for USDA zone eight and so that's pretty early. That's not too far off from July, that leaves some limited options. One is that you wait until August. It's only about a week or so away and plant seeds for the fall crops so the fall crops being what we call the cool season crops. Kale, lettuce, spinach, broccoli, peas, turnips, parsnips, cabbage, cauliflower, beets, carrots, and some can be started from transplants. Some can be started from seed. For right now, if Terry wants to put something in the garden right now, I would visit my favorite good quality nursery and see what of the summer crops are left, you might end up buying a really big tomato plant.
Farmer Fred 05:22
Hopefully with about 60 frost free days left, it would be a cherry tomato plant, then we're guaranteed tomatoes, I think I would avoid the beefsteaks, right. And I'd probably avoid hot peppers. Sweet peppers, you could you could get away with buying some of those now in nurseries. And the nurseries have been hanging on to these plants now for three, four months, and they've just been potting them up. You will pay a premium for those, right. But if you really want tomatoes and peppers, go ahead. I think it's too late for squash because those are normally planted from seed.
Sarah Griffin Boubacar 05:56
Right. And squash don't do well in containers. They easily become rootbound and then they are stunted. So yes, I agree. No squash.
Farmer Fred 06:03
All right. And I guess with the cool season crops planting from seed, yeah, do that in August, but it's probably too early for transplants. You might want to do that in September.
Sarah Griffin Boubacar 06:12
Right, you're gonna have to wait for them. Other people will be planting them from seed and then you can go to the nursery and buy them in September. Yeah.
Farmer Fred 06:20
The other thing was get some good fencing.
Sarah Griffin Boubacar 06:23
Or don't be so kind as to foster them. But he could look into season extenders as well. Season extenders would be some kind of draping coverage, frost frost protection, high tunnel that would help extend the season, maybe into October, we don't understand everything that climate change is doing. So where he is located may get better, may get warmer, better, meaning warmer in this case, and he may be able to grow them a little longer. And season extenders would help extend the amount of time before the plant was hit by a frost. We can protect plants from frost by using some floating row covers or frost cloths as they're called, or having a more permanent structure like a greenhouse or a high tunnel.
Farmer Fred 07:16
Terry, I hope that helps you. We are in sort of the transitional zone here in late July for a lot of crops. But good luck. Yeah. And again, goat fencing. Thank you, Terry. Terry has sent that question in via speakpipe. You can do it too. It's really easy. You go to speak pipe.com slash gardenbasics. It's one word, and then yell your question at your phone or your iPad or whatever you use. And you can even use a telephone. You can call us and leave a message at 916-292-8964, 916-292-8964. We love your questions. And we love hearing your voice here on the Garden Basics podcast. Thank you, Debbie.
Debbie Flower 08:00
My pleasure, Fred.
Farmer Fred 08:06
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Farmer Fred 09:30
By the way, if you too are thinking ahead about planting cool season vegetables, the Sacramento County Master Gardeners have a new video posted at their youtube channel about choosing and planting many of the cool season vegetables you might be considering. The downside is, you’ll have to look at my face. But there is a lot of good cool season veggie info to make up for that. Again, that video can be found at the Sacramento County Master Gardener Youtube page. We will have a link to it in today’s show notes. Plus, coming up on Saturday August 7, the Master Gardeners have a full morning of garden presentations on their Harvest Day Zoom channel. I’ll be one of the presenters, live from the abutilon jungle here at Barking Dog studios in suburban purgatory, answering your garden questions. That’s Saturday, August 7. You need to register for this Zoom garden class, find a link in today’s show notes, or check out the Harvest Day page at the Sacramento County Master Gardener website, sacmg.ucanr.edu/Harvest_Day/. Like I said, the link is in the show notes. Another option for your garden soil in a couple of months, after the main summer vegetables have run their course: plant cover crops. Let’s find out now about the what, how and why of cover cropping, with an expert on the subject from Peaceful Valley Farm Supply, recorded a few years ago.
Farmer Fred 11:01
If you've never experimented with cover crops, there are a lot of benefits for putting in what's called a cover crop during the fall for both gardeners and farmers. We're talking with the product development manager at Peaceful Valley Farm Supply in Grass Valley, Sarah Griffin Boubacar. And Sarah, what exactly are the benefits to cover cropping that people may not know about?
Sarah Griffin Boubacar 11:24
Well, there's a lot of benefits. It depends on why you want to cover crop. So there's lots of different reasons to use one, they can obviously fix nitrogen, that'd probably be the number one benefit. It brings atmospheric nitrogen and puts it right in the soil, right where your plants can use it. It also adds organic matter. So when you're amending your garden, the two only two expensive amendments are nitrogen fertilizer and organic matter like compost. So this cover crop will do both of those. It also can suppress weeds over the winter and improve soil tilth and increase biology in the soil. It can reduce erosion, it can help with certain pest problems because it'll harbor beneficial insects. It can even provide winter feed for animals, helps with crop rotation, which is very important. And it just it's more of a natural crop rotation. And it can increase water infiltration in the soil.
Farmer Fred 12:23
Let's talk about that last point, because that's important for gardeners and farmers who want to cut down the amount of irrigation they have to do, and that has to do with the deep rooted nature of cover cropping, allowing the water to penetrate even deeper into the soil profile.
Sarah Griffin Boubacar 12:39
Well yeah, exactly. Well, it can. Especially some cover crops have very large roots like daikon radish, so you can plant daikon radish, and as it grows it busts through some hard soils that would otherwise be hard to penetrate. And it allows the water to go down deeper into the soil profile, while at the same time, all of those roots and all of that organic matter is like a sponge, holding on to water. So if you have a healthy cover cropping system, then yeah, over time, you would need to irrigate less and less.
Farmer Fred 13:15
And as you mentioned, that by having a cover crop you're providing, if you will, a good bug hotel for beneficial insects who may be inspired to spend the winter on your property.
Sarah Griffin Boubacar 13:25
Absolutely cover crop doesn't necessarily have to mean a crop you put in between you know your succession planting, it can also be a hedgerow, so something along the border lines of your of your garden area, your farming area, that would work as a protective area for these beneficial insects. So it can provide pollen for the colonizing a lot of our beneficial insects, our pollinators when they're adults, and they're voracious bug eaters as larva. And so it'll provide habitat for them so that if you do have a pest problem in your garden, those beneficial insects are just lying and waiting to gobble them up.
Farmer Fred 14:09
There's a lot of confusion among gardeners and farmers about when do you take out a cover crop. Or, what do you do to a cover crop in spring, when it's time to plant? Do you take it out? Do you just mow it down? What do you do with a cover crop? And at what point should you be cutting down a cover crop?
Sarah Griffin Boubacar 14:27
Right? Well, that's a really good question. So there's a couple different schools of thought on that. If you're a tiller, if you till, then there's one way to do it. And then there's if you're a no-till person and no-till is is pretty hip right now, because, you know, maintaining the mychorrazae in the soil. And so if you tilled and you bust up all that mychorrazae and it's hard for it to really get established, mychorrazae being the beneficial fungus in the soil. So the no-till method is pretty popular. But the key thing to remember, whether you're tilling or not tilling, is that you don't want to cut the cover crop and just let it lay. Because if you let it lay, all of that nitrogen that's in the plant, it's been sequestering, it's been grabbing from the atmosphere and putting it into the plant, it's all just gonna go back into the atmosphere, and it can happen within minutes. Within an hour, most of that nitrogen is gone. So the key thing is that once you cut it, you have to cover it, whether you cover it by tilling it into the soil, or whether if you're doing a no till, then you're going to cover it with another layer of something, finished compost or something else. So just to keep that nitrogen in the soil rather than going back into the atmosphere. So the key is to cut the cover crop when it's about half in bloom because if you allow the cover crop to go to seed, then you've got weed problems. And not to mention, a lot of that nitrogen that you've been keeping from taking from the atmosphere is now going into seed production. Through all that energy rather than going back into the soil as now fertilizer or green manure is then going into seed production. So you don't want your cover crop to go to seed. So the key is to cut it when it's about half in bloom. So you just start to notice the blooms, about half the crop is in bloom, then you're going to cut it and immediately cover it. Whether you're covering it by tilling it in or covering it with a mulch, then you're going to wait at least three weeks. If you're tilling, perhaps even longer depending on how thick your mat is. If you're doing a no-till you're going to wait at least three weeks in planting to give the green manure a chance to break down. If you don't do that it actually gets quite hot in the soil. And you can burn your seedlings or your seeds. And nothing will grow for about three weeks until that's able to break down. It could be sooner, could be longer depending on how active the soil biology is at the time.
Farmer Fred 16:59
For both the small scale gardener and the large scale farmer, what are some alternatives for mulching that cut cover crop if you're practicing no till?
Sarah Griffin Boubacar 17:09
I mean, you can use straw you can use alfalfa hay, you can use a finished compost anything to cover up that that layer of the green cover crop. You just really don't want it to go limp and have all the water come out of it because with the water will go the nitrogen.
Farmer Fred 17:25
Let's talk about some various cover crops. And I imagine it depends on what you're growing and where you are and what sort of soil you have. But among the fall sown cover crops, what are the most popular?
Sarah Griffin Boubacar 17:39
Well, we have formulated here at Peaceful Valley, we formulated a couple of mixes that are really popular. We call them soil builder mixes because they will build your soil if you use them every year. And the soil builder mixes have a mix of grasses and legumes. So the legumes are those nitrogen fixers. So that's the ones that we've mainly been talking about as fixing nitrogen. But grasses also have a lot of benefits, mainly being just a lot of biomass that they they grow quickly and put a lot of organic matter into the soil. So soil builder mixes have that and Bell beans, which are a kind of fava beans, so they're they grow really well in the cold weather. And the vetch is like a vine, and it climbs up the bell beans. And it climbs up. There's also white oats and peas in there and the peas and the vetch to use the oats and Bell beans as scaffolding to climb up. So it'll be quite a tangled mess. Ideally, it'll be full of beneficial insects.
Farmer Fred 18:49
And then when you chop it down, you want to do that before it's fully blooming. And I imagine when you chop it down, you want to do it in segments of no more than six to 12 inches before you take it to the ground.
Sarah Griffin Boubacar 19:04
Right? Well, hopefully by the spring your cover crop is quite lush and prolific. And so you want to chop it up as much as possible, because the more it's chopped up into little pieces, the quicker it breaks down. And so you will chop it up and then either till it in or cover it up.
Farmer Fred 19:24
So maybe mowing it after you've chopped it up would help.
Sarah Griffin Boubacar 19:27
Yeah, yeah, definitely. The key is to really cover it up
Farmer Fred 19:30
This mix that you're talking about, your premium soil builder mix, can get rather high can't it? About what, four to six feet?
Sarah Griffin Boubacar 19:37
It can. So what I use is, I use a weed whacker when I go to chop it down and I'll just chop like you said the top six inches, then do another layer, then do another layer until it gets down to the ground.
Farmer Fred 19:51
And what is the application rate for the garden? What is the application rate for a farm?
Sarah Griffin Boubacar 19:56
Let's say you're gonna do three to five pounds for 1000 square feet. For the soil builder mix, keeping in mind that because it is a lot of different size seeds, seed spreader can be a little bit challenging because you've got the smaller batch seeds, and the larger bell beans and that so it will be a little bit harder to spread. Also, it's not pre inoculated. And so if you add it, if you add the inoculant, it can get a little bit sticky, so I usually just spread it by hand. Now if you're a farmer, it's 70 to 120 pounds per acre, depending on how rich your soil is, obviously, if your soil is, is quite poor, you're going to go the higher application rates and that case, using a more professional grade seed spreader would be best or even a seed driller. If you're drilling the seed, then it would be you could go the lower application rate as well because you'd have more germination.
Farmer Fred 21:01
What depth is ideal for planting the seed?
Sarah Griffin Boubacar 21:03
Well, because it's tough, like I said, because it's so many different size seeds, you don't want to go too deep. So I would only go about a quarter inch deep because of the vetch mainly, it's the smallest seeds and the oats as well. So you don't want to go too deep, I'd say a quarter inch to a half inch deep at the most. A lot of people just spread it over the top. And that works too.
Farmer Fred 21:04
Does it need irrigation after planting? Or can you just wait for the fall rains to begin?
Sarah Griffin Boubacar 21:32
It really depends. A big mistake what I see a lot of people do. They might say, "Oh, I just didn't have success with my cover crop." Well, usually it has to do with irrigation. Like all seeds, it needs to be completely moist the whole time. And so if it's allowed to dry out, then the seed will just die. And so I like to time it when the fall rains have started, but the soil is still warm. If the soil is too cold when you plant it, then the seeds won't germinate or they'll take a really long time to germinate. So you have to time it right. Sometimes Mother Nature doesn't cooperate with you with the timing and the fall rains will come later. Or they'll come too early. When the rest of your crop is still in, you can irrigate, to get the timing right, you have to keep the soil completely moist while it's germinating. Once it's germinated, you can let it dry out in between especially because it'll be cooler and so you don't need to water as often. But you still need to pay attention to dry spells. And if we do have a dry spell, which oftentimes we do and January, in particular, is a pretty dry month, most often so you know giving it a good drench once a week or so even when it's cold you don't really need much more than that. What that will really help those cover crops thrive and you'll get the most out of that.
Farmer Fred 22:58
So, I guess ideal planting time for this really depends on the weather but basically sometime between Labor Day and Halloween. Yeah, I'd
Sarah Griffin Boubacar 23:05
Yeah, I'd say that's that's pretty safe. I mean, you don't want to get your summer crops out too soon because you want to really you know maximize how much you get out of them. But then there comes to be a point where those tomatoes, while you may or may still have some green tomatoes on the plant, if the tomato is really suffering and not looking very healthy, you got to pull it out sooner rather than later because otherwise you're just inviting pest problems.
Farmer Fred 23:29
Peaceful Valley has a wide array of cover crops and cover crop mixes and you can check out what they have online at Grow Organic dot com. It's all about cover cropping. Sarah Griffin Boubacar is the product development manager at Peaceful Valley farm supply. Sarah, good talking with you and happy cover cropping.
Sarah Griffin Boubacar 23:48
Thank you, Fred.
Farmer Fred 23:54
So, you want to be a garden show host? Here’s a tip. Whenever anyone contacts you with a plant problem that is not readily apparent, such as insect or animal damage, blame water. 95% of all plant problems are the result of underwatering or overwatering. Even plant diseases can be the result of improper watering as well, especially overhead watering. Improper watering is the number one cause of plant failure. Knowing how wet the soil is at the root level can help you keep your plants healthy. Keep in mind: different plants have different watering needs. Learn those needs, then group plants together with similar watering requirements when designing your landscape. That's called hydrozoning. Signs of not enough water at the root level of plants: Wilted leaves in the morning. Wilted leaves in the afternoon. Wilted leaves in the evening. Red-brown margins of leaves. Premature fall color of leaves. Growth reduction. Leaf drop. Branch dieback Signs of too much water (also called aeration deficit) at the root level of plants: The soil has a foul smell, like rotten eggs. Soil is a blue-gray color. Yellowing, wilting and/or dropping of leaves. Limited new growth. Small, corky outgrowths on the undersides of leaves. Be warned, though: sometimes, symptoms of overwatering and underwatering can be the same (such as leaf wilting). And, symptoms of soil water problems may actually be another problem...that was caused by your watering regimen! Root rots, for example, thrive in saturated soils. Frequent, light watering leads to shallow rooting, increasing the chances of plant problems. • Avoid planting turf species that require frequent watering, such as bluegrass or ryegrass. • Design your landscape to minimize water runoff onto hard surfaces and into storm drains. • To reduce runoff, install non-irrigated buffer areas, which include water-efficient plants or permeable features, next to sidewalks or on slopes. • Aerate heavy or compacted soils, so water can easily move down to reach grass roots. • Install an irrigation system that you can adjust to properly water areas of your landscape that have different requirements. • Water only when your lawn needs it. • Water requirements vary according to turf species, location, and month of the year. • Most lawns need water when the top 2 inches of soil have dried out. • Shady and sunny areas and different soil types will have different water requirements. • Deeper, less frequent watering is best for most lawns. Water only 2 to 3 times a week. • Make sure your sprinkler system isn’t producing runoff, especially on slopes. If you see runoff, use shorter watering times and repeat the cycle to allow time for the water to move into the soil. • Water early in the morning when evaporation and wind are minimal. • Adjust your watering schedule seasonally, and shut off your irrigation system during rainy weather.
Farmer Fred 28:07
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