GB 148 Lawn Reseeding. Persimmons. TRANSCRIPT
28:57
SPEAKERS
Debbie Flower, Phil Pursel, 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. 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
Late October may be your last, best opportunity for overseeding a poorly performing lawn here in USDA Zone 9. Your next opportunity across the U.S. will be next spring. In either case, we tackle a listener’s questions about the best way to go about the process of rehabbing your lawn. College Horticulture Professor (retired) Debbie Flower has some great tips on that topic. Also, we discuss a great piece of fruit that is ripening right now: Japanese persimmons. Phil Pursel of Dave Wilson Nursery has advice for growing and choosing those varieties that won’t make your mouth pucker. Podcasting from Barking Dog Studios here in the Abutilon Jungle in Suburban Purgatory, it’s episode 148 of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, brought to you today by Smart Pots. And we will do it all in under 30 minutes. Let’s go!
Farmer Fred 01:31
We like to answer your garden questions here on the Garden Basics podcast. A lot of ways you can get your questions in. You can email them to Fred at farmerfred.com . You can call us at speakpipe.com slash garden basics and get it in that way. Or you can give us a call or text us. You can send pictures that way as well. And the number: 916-292-8964 916-292-8964. You could leave a message at the Get Growing with Farmer Fred Facebook page, or @FarmerFredHoffman on Instagram, or @FarmerFred at Twitter. Is that enough? Thank you. But anyway, Debbie Flower is here, our favorite retired college horticultural professor. We have a lawn question that was texted to us from someone, Debbie, from somewhere. Please, when you send us a question, you can make up whatever name you want. But give us sort of an idea where you live. Yeah, I don't need a street address. Just a city, a county, something... where we have an idea of what zone you're in. But this one is anonymous. And it has to do with reseeding a lawn. Now, we're coming up to the end of October, which for USDA zone nine is about the last best opportunity for overseeding a lawn before it starts getting too cold. Generally speaking, September-October is the best time for doing it in the fall. And in the spring. Sure, March, April, even into May for milder areas that you can be reseeding a lawn. And this question, Debbie, comes in and says, "I thought I would reseed the lawn this October. What kind of seed is best to use on a clay soil with probably a fescue blend that's already growing there? I got an annual ryegrass to use. I think it's better to use perennial, though. Can you recommend the right grass seed to use?" Ideally, it should match what you currently have.
Debbie Flower 03:22
Right. A fescue blend is a blend that is used in much of the country. And so it's a very tough grass, drought tolerant and water even in wet places. Water is a precious commodity that we need to save. That's nice to start with that. That you're already working with that. The disadvantage of a fescue blend is that fescue is a bunch grass, meaning when it germinates, it puts up one blade and when more blades come, they grow around that one blade, and then more around that one blade. I actually have an unmown lawn that is a fescue blend. And it's very hummocky. My cats love it.
Farmer Fred 03:58
Hummocky.
Debbie Flower 03:58
Hummocky. up and down. People don't like to walk on it. It's pretty and the cats love to lay in the low spots.
Farmer Fred 04:05
So you can walk on it.
Debbie Flower 04:06
Is that the one from Delta Blue Grass? The Mow-Free blend?
Debbie Flower 04:06
You can absolutely walk on it. It takes the drought very very well.
Debbie Flower 04:14
I put this in before that existed. Delta Blue Grass at the time I put this in, had sod. My husband insisted we do it by seed and the seed mix didn't exist. So I looked up what was in the sod, and ordered different bags of seed from wherever I could find them and mixed it myself. I do not recommend doing that.
Farmer Fred 04:33
A lot of leftover seed.
Debbie Flower 04:35
And lots of weeds came up. Fescue is slow to germinate. It can take two weeks to germinate in a warm soil. And so the seeds come in and come up really quickly. And so I'm out there on a board, on my hands and knees, trying to distribute the weight, pulling the baby weeds out so the fescue can grow. I would definitely go for a brand new fescue lawn, I would go the sod route.
Farmer Fred 04:57
Right. But if you're overseeding Well, that's a Exactly what the name implies, right? You have somewhat of a lawn, and now you want to add to it. There are some steps I don't know if the person who sent us this text message has followed. Did you remove any thatch that may have been in the existing lawn? Did you aerate the lawn? Did you buy some starter fertilizer when you overseed? What about a layer of compost to throw on when you're done and then renting a roller with a water-filled roller to press it into the ground? All of those are important steps. And especially, I would check for thatch before I overseeded I would want to know if there is a layer of thatch below the green grass.
Debbie Flower 05:41
If there's another grass growing there. Fescue does not produce thatch itself because it is a bunch grass. But if you have Bermuda grass, which is invading my fescue lawn, very common here in California, at least this part of California, or Kentucky Bluegrass, which is a very common addition to a fescue lawn in other places. When I lived in New York, in New Jersey, we definitely had a fescue, Kentucky Bluegrass mix. In Portland, Oregon, we had a Kentucky Bluegrass mix. The Bermuda and the Kentucky blue are stoloniferous. Stolons are stems that run across the surface of the soil and root periodically and stolons steal space. They grow and grow and grow. It's wonderful for a lawn especially one that is used, walked on a lot, used by an animal, or volleyball is played on it. When you practice your golf, it gets injured. A stolon will then quickly grow and fill that space. Whereas if if you have only fescue, it takes a very very long time to fill that hole. So stolons are good in a lawn, but they will grow over time on top of each other. And then the stolons themselves are generally very waxy and when they get thick enough, more than a quarter of an inch, they can prevent water and air from getting into the soil. And so that's why you want to dethatch. To take those stolons out.
Farmer Fred 07:02
If you go to your local big box store and start looking at the bags of grass seed, you will see a mix that might say fescue blend. But look for other ingredients in there too, like the Kentucky Bluegrass, because it's probably in there. With the thatch, probably the easiest way to determine how thick the thatch layer is, is to dig out a square. Go down. It doesn't have to be a big square, it could be as wide as your shovel head. And just go down all four sides. Go down eight inches or so and bring up that big plug. And then look underneath the green grass. Do you see a layer of brown?
Debbie Flower 07:37
Right on the soil surface.
Farmer Fred 07:38
And it could be it could be two inches thick.
Debbie Flower 07:40
Yeah, that's can get really thick. Yeah.
Farmer Fred 07:42
And that stops water and nutrients from getting to the soil and the roots of the desirable species.
Debbie Flower 07:49
So you can detach a lawn, you can hire someone to do it, you can rent equipment to do it. In either case, be sure that the machine has been thoroughly cleaned before they use it in your lawn. I had someone do it to a lawn here in California and I had never had nutsedge in my lawn before, and then all of a sudden there was. So it was on the machine and it was being transferred from someone else's lawn to my lawn.
Farmer Fred 08:12
Yeah, I'm glad it wasn't Bermuda grass.
Debbie Flower 08:16
Because that could happen. That would happen even more easily. Yeah.
Farmer Fred 08:19
And if you do rent the equipment, clean it yourself.
Debbie Flower 08:23
Before you use it, a nice hard water stream on the driveway. Yes.
Farmer Fred 08:28
And if you're doing that, then go ahead and aerate it. You can rent an aerator, they remove plugs of soil and if you have clay soil like this person has, that's one good way to add more air to the soil is to remove those plugs.
Debbie Flower 08:42
Remove those plugs, but then refill them with something. Sand is often used. A lot of people just take what comes out and it needs to be a hollow tine aerator. There are aerators that are just like golf shoes. Yes, they poke holes, but all they're doing is pushing the soil to the side not opening up an airspace. So you want a hollow tine aerator if you've been around where geese have pooped, that's what it looks like when it pulls the stuff out. Like goose poop. It's about three inches long and finger diameter and it'll lay all over the surface and some people just rake that up and break it down into a bucket with their hands and put that back over the soil with clay soil. I would go in with probably sand to try to fill those holes so that they don't collapse onto themselves.
Farmer Fred 09:32
You wouldn't use compost?
Debbie Flower 09:34
Compost will break down and then ultimately the hole doesn't exist anymore. Yeah, I think I'd save compost for a surface treatment.
Farmer Fred 09:41
Okay. And sand won't create concrete with the clay?
Debbie Flower 09:45
It's a good point. That's a good point. It's a possibility. Yeah, so maybe a mix. Okay, all right with compost. So break down those goose poop sized aeration plugs that have come out of your your lawn. If your hands break them down so that they're loose soil with some organic matter in it which would be your grass, add some sand to that maybe equal parts and then go around and put that back in the holes.
Farmer Fred 10:10
There are commercial products available it's usually with names like Top Blend that are meant to be spread on top of a newly reseeded lawn. I am not sure what all is in there. If you people want to wait 10 minutes I could go look at a bag.
Debbie Flower 10:26
But there are also patch lawn patch kits, which I have used that contain some super absorbent, something that swells with water and they often contain paper. They're usually dyed, maybe blue, and there is seed in there. And so you mix it all up, you get the slurry and then you pour it on the lawn or you pour it on the lawn and then you wet it. We follow the directions. I've used different ones and some have more of the paper and slurry and they worked better because once it gets wet, if it dries out, it dies. So you want to make sure to keep that grass seed wet once you put it down. That extra slurry and paper does that.
Farmer Fred 11:04
Hence the reason for covering that area with a thin layer of compost after you're done laying down the seed. You can use a cage roller. It's like a big cage that you drag across the lawn and drops a nice thin layer of compost, and then press it down into the soil with that water roller that you could also rent.
Debbie Flower 11:21
I'm a little cheap that way and so what I have done in the past is use bags of composted chicken manure, which is a organic matter with some nutrition in it, laid that across the lawn by hand, raked it in and then watered it.
Farmer Fred 11:35
How'd your hands smell afterwards?
Debbie Flower 11:36
How did the car smell after bringing the bag? So very stinky.
Farmer Fred 11:41
So, the chicken manure wasn't so strong that it would impede the seed?
Debbie Flower 11:46
I did not have that experience. Because it's smelly, it's volatilizing a lot of that nitrogen and it's been composted. Make sure it's composted, you don't want raw. And so some of that has washed away. Nitrogen moves very quickly in the soil.
Farmer Fred 12:00
Alright, and again, anything you're adding to the soil is going to help the clay portion. You obviously cannot rehab your soil if all you're doing is reseeding. If you're starting from scratch, well then, you could go ahead and mix in compost.
Debbie Flower 12:14
You have to be careful not to put on too much compost on top of the seed. If I've also used the chicken manure as pre emergent, but then you go thicker. Yeah, and that is to bury the seed so that when it germinates the weed doesn't come up through.
Farmer Fred 12:27
And the person who sent us this message also talked about mixing it with rye grass. Ryegrass, annual rye. It's a cool season grass. Yes. What happens to rye grass in the summertime?
Debbie Flower 12:42
It dies when it gets too hot. The annual rye does. There is perennial rye, and it is sometimes seen on grass seed bags as a component. It's beautiful, which is why it's there. But it's a touchy grass. It doesn't like it when it's too hot, or too wet, or too dry; or doesn't like to be walked on too much. It gets a lot of diseases. It's a difficult grass to maintain in most parts of the country. So it's there for beauty. Annual ryegrass is a very common winter treatment for lawns in hot places like the Southwest where Bermuda grass is used in and Bermuda is green in the summer and that turns brown in the winter. People want the lawn green in winter. They put annual ryegrass over the top, let it grow. I use annual rye grass with students to make what we call living Easter baskets. So we had Easter baskets bought at the thrift store, lined them with plastic of different colors, put in growing media, put the annual ryegrass on top. It germinates very quickly, in less than a week. And then add a colored egg and we used pansies. We put a pansy in there too, and sold them.
Farmer Fred 13:55
How do you water it?
Debbie Flower 13:56
Gently from the top, there is no drainage. You don't want drainage because the people buying it don't want to put it on the table and have it leak. So you have to be very careful about quantity of water. That was a trick but it germinates quickly, , and it is pretty and it does provide the green for the winter. But come next year will die.
Farmer Fred 14:16
I think, in this particular case, this person needs to find a fescue variety that kind of matches the color and blade thickness of what he currently has. I don't know how many people make note of when they originally install a lawn exactly what variety it is and keep it in their records where they can find easily; I'm guessing 1%.
Debbie Flower 14:39
I have it on my spreadsheet.
Farmer Fred 14:40
Do you? Yes, good for you. Good for you.
Debbie Flower 14:43
And mine is a mix of several different fescues and they pretty much look the same. So I don't think you can go wrong with using another fescue.
Farmer Fred 14:53
Well there's the barking dogs, here at barking dog studio, to let us know it's time for us to move on. Debbie Flower, thanks for helping us reseed the lawn.
Debbie Flower 14:59
You're welcome.
Farmer Fred 15:04
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Farmer Fred 16:04
A while back we talked with Phil Pursel from Dave Wilson Nursery, a wholesale grower of fruit and nut trees. And we were talking about a fall favorite, persimmons. In particular, Japanese persimmons, which are really better suited for the home garden for many reasons. And we get into those reasons in our chat. The other type of persimmon you might consider is the American persimmon. This is a tree that's native from Connecticut to Kansas and southward to Texas and Florida. As a landscape tree, it's not as ornamental as the Asian species and is probably best suited to wild gardens because it has a tendency to form thickets from root suckers. The American persimmon gets kind of tall, 35 to 60 feet tall, 25 to 35 feet wide with a broad oval crown and has very attractive gray brown bark fissured into a deep checkered pattern. It has glossy, broad, oval leaves to six inches long, and they'll turn yellow, pink, or reddish purple in the fall. The fruit is round yellow to orange in color, and it's rather small, one and a half to two inches across. The key, though, with American persimmons: it's something that would make your mouth do a serious pucker if you bit into one, straight off the tree. It's an astringent fruit, a very satringent fruit. And it doesn't become very sweet until it's soft, ripe. Plus with the American persimmons, both male and female trees are usually needed to get fruit. There is one self fertile variety though called Meader. This information courtesy of the Sunset National Garden Book. If you want more information about the American persimmon, check out the latest edition of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred newsletter. We go beyond the basics when it comes to the American persimmon. But if you want to find out more about Japanese persimmons, including the non-astringent varieties that are tasty straight from the tree, give a listen to this little chat we had with Phil Pursel from Dave Wilson Nursery.
Farmer Fred 18:05
If you're looking for a stunning fall plant that's very tasty, one of the best edible ornamentals for a November-December harvest are persimmons. And there are a lot of great persimmon varieties out there, and it's a very versatile fruit as well. We're talking with Philip Pursel of Dave Wilson Nursery. And Phil, persimmons, I guess, could be divided into two categories, the astringent and the non astringent. Talk a little bit about the non astringent varieties such as the Fuyu.
Phil Pursel 18:34
Those are the type that you can just go ahead and pick right off the tree and eat them as is. Like the Fuyu and other of apple types. The astringent are the ones that you need to have them completely ripen or they give you a really bitter taste.
Farmer Fred 18:52
And for people who are wondering if they're at the store or a farmers market and they see two distinctly different persimmons, chances are that one is non astringent and the other is probably astringent.
Phil Pursel 19:04
Yep, exactly. So kind of like the classic non-astringent is the Fuyu persimmon, and it is shaped like an apple. It's flatter and it's hard. The astringent, the most common one is the Hachiya, and that one is oblong, a little bit bigger. And that one needs to really to soften completely before it's palatable.
Farmer Fred 19:28
And some of the techniques used to soften the Hachiya that I've seen are people hanging them on clothes lines.
Phil Pursel 19:34
Sure, yeah. What they do is they hang them on clothes lines. They also peel them, to kind of cure them that way. My mom, she was Japanese, we would throw them in the freezer and that would work. Or, just let them sit out and just let them soften up.
Farmer Fred 19:54
The California Rare Fruit Growers, in their descriptions about persimmons, make mention that with the hachiya or other astringent varieties, that if you peel them and slice them and dehydrate them, they actually will be sweet now I've never tried that. But if you want to experiment and sort of avoid the puckeriness of an astringent persimmon, you might try that.
Phil Pursel 20:19
Yeah, definitely I've never tried it before, but I've seen that done. And your description of an astringent persimmon is perfect. Unless you really really taste an astringent persimmon, that puckeriness, the bitterness, is unbelievable. Once it softens, it is as sweet as can be. So it's a very unique flavor difference between the two.
Farmer Fred 20:42
There are a lot of great recipes online for working with persimmons, especially the non astringent varieties like the Fuyu. They make delicious cookies, you can dry them and they're a tasty treat and just a lot of great ways to use that non astringent persimmon, including just eating it raw.
Phil Pursel 21:03
Like right now at the nursery, our persimmons are devoid of leaves, right? They've gone through their beautiful orange coloring. I'm looking at one right now. We have a complete deciduous tree and it's just loaded with the orange fruit, just like a little ornament hanging out there. And what we do during this time of year, when we're out digging our trees, if you want to snack we just go up to our Fuyus. They come right off the tree. You know, man, it's delicious.
Farmer Fred 21:36
It's sort of like a Christmas ornament, all the fruit hanging on the trees, and the birds would appreciate it too.
Phil Pursel 21:42
Oh, sure. Yeah, absolutely.
Farmer Fred 21:44
So what are some of the other non-astringent persimmon varieties in the Dave Wilson catalog that people might enjoy trying?
Phil Pursel 21:51
Some of the other ones. There's the giant Fuyu, which is a it's just a larger Fuyu persimmon. I personally don't think it's quite as tasty as the regular Fuyu jiro. But you know the name, gian,t for you people like one that's really become popular and simply because of the size of the tree doesn't get quite as big as a regular tree. For you it is the ease. So some people kind of think of it as a dwarf type of tree that the fruit comes on sooner than the Fuyu in the tree itself. Just because of its growing habit, it is a relatively smaller tree. Something that we really liked, that kind of is very unique, is the Coffee Cake persimmon. It's a non astringent, but it does need a pollenizer. The pollenizer for the Coffee Cake is the Chocolate persimmon. But the Coffee Cake is the best way to describe the taste is it's almost like a cinnamon swirl type of flavor. And it's really unique. It's really early, so it's much sooner than the regular, probably a month sooner than a regular Fuyu. The thing with Coffee Cake is that it's been pollenized when the flesh itself has kind of marbled, light brown and orange. If it has not been pollenized, the flesh looks like a regular Fuyu persimmon. If you bite into it, it becomes astringent. It's kind of a unique one, where you don't need to let it soften, but it needs to be pollenized. But the flavor is is really a very unique type of almost cinnamon pastry type of flavor.
Farmer Fred 23:34
Now you mentioned with the Coffee Cake persimmon that it needs the Chocolate persimmon as a pollenizer. Any other varieties work as a pollenizer?
Phil Pursel 23:42
For the coffee cake, we find that Chocolate works the best, you can have a Fuyu and it'll do a kind of a marginal job. And the reason being is Fuyus have very few male flowers. And that's why Fuyus don't get seeds in them, because there's very few male flowers. So if you use that for the Coffee Cake, it just doesn't do a really good thorough job of pollenizing. So that's why we like to tell people that's best for the Coffee Cake to have the Chocolate go with it.
Farmer Fred 24:15
Now you mentioned another wonderful point about the Fuyu persimmon. It is seedless, and it's self fruitful, as many varieties of persimmons are sell fruitful. And I think that's why the Fuyu is so popular because of the lack of seeds which can be rather daunting in some varieties.
Phil Pursel 24:31
Yeah, absolutely. Let's put it this way. We grow a lot of persimmons. 75% of all the persimmons we grow are Fuyus. And then the other 25 are broken up between Hachiya and the other varieties. So it's the most popular and the other thing about persimmons: for a tree, it is doesn't get insects, doesn't get any type of diseases. It's pretty, low maintenance. Persimmons love the valley heat can take a lot of cold. I'd say it's an edible ornamental. I'm looking at a Fuyu right now and it is just their little ornaments on a dormant tree.
Farmer Fred 25:13
And even though it can tolerate a lot of cold, it doesn't need that many chill hours maybe 100 or 200 chill hours during the winter, temperatures between 32 and 45.
Phil Pursel 25:24
Yeah, so the unique thing is that it does well down in Southern California, on the coast, and it will also do well in the foothills, so it's a very reliable wide range fruit tree.
Farmer Fred 25:37
Is it easy to maintain its size for the backyard Can you keep it at six or seven feet and still have a bountiful harvest?
Phil Pursel 25:44
You really can. I have one actually in my backyard and right now I've been keeping it around six feet. The persimmons they produce off of the new wood that comes out. So it's easy to kind of keep a cut back because all the new growth that comes out that has all the flowers that will produce the fruit. So it's one that it's relatively easy to keep for a regular backyard.
Farmer Fred 26:11
Does it take well to summer pruning?
Phil Pursel 26:13
It does. We like to stress summer pruning because that summer pruning is a great time to go out there, and if your trees getting too tall, just cut it back. Just by nipping and keeping that persimmon under control, you're not gonna have to worry about getting into any of the fruit, and keep it manageable.
Farmer Fred 26:32
And I imagine it does best in full sun.
Phil Pursel 26:34
Full sun. Absolutely.
Farmer Fred 26:36
So if you're looking for a fall taste treat, it's hard to beat the persimmons. You can keep it at a very nice size, six or seven feet and still have a kitchen full of persimmons. For holiday gifts or just for munching, they're really a wonderful tasty treat to have. Persimmons. Find out more by visiting the Dave Wilson catalog online, at Dave wilson.com. And Phil Pursel, thanks for spending a few minutes with us and sampling some persimmons.
Phil Pursel 27:03
All right. Thanks for having me on.
Farmer Fred 27:14
If you want more information about the topics discussed on today’s podcast, including lawn reseeding and persimmon information, you can find it in the latest Garden Basics with Farmer Fred newsletter, where we go beyond the basics. Plus, with a huge rainstorm on the way to the West Coast October 24-26, we have a bonus article on tips for draining off heavy rain from your garden and backyard. As the newsletter grows, so will the subject matter. So, yes, it will be a good supplement for the Garden Basics podcast, but there will be a lot more garden related material, pictures and maybe a mini-podcast or video garden tips, as well. It’s the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Newsletter on Substack. And best of all, it’s free! There’s a link in today’s show notes, and near the top of the page at farmerfred.com. Or, just go to substack.com, and do a search for Garden Basics with Farmer Fred. That’s substack.com slash garden basics (one word). Think of it as your garden resource that goes beyond the basics. It’s The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred newsletter. Did I tell you it’s free? It’s free.
Farmer Fred 28:31
Garden Basics comes out every Tuesday and Friday. It's brought to you by Smart Pots. Garden Basics is available wherever podcasts are handed out. And that includes Apple, Iheart, Stitcher, Spotify, Overcast, Google, Podcast Addict, Cast Box, and Pocket Casts. Thank you for listening, subscribing and leaving comments. We appreciate it.
