This Month in the Garden - May

This week on “In the Garden with UC Master Gardeners”, we bring you the monthly tips and tricks and what-to-look-for’s in a show we call “This Month In The Garden”. It’s May already, and it’s the time of year to see new crops growing in the warming soil.  Are you planning a family and/or friend soiree during the spring or summer?  We’ll talk about preparing your outdoor space.  Our Master Gardener hosts Teena Spindler and Katrina Kirkeby suggest some different flowers, perennials, vines, and food crops to consider this month.  They even talk about cherries because tis’ the season?  And of course, they’ll discuss all the garden tasks to stay on top of during May.  

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

All this you will see.

SPEAKER_00 0:12

The opinions and views expressed in this program do not reflect those of KECI, its management, or the UC Board of Regents.

SPEAKER_02 0:21

Welcome to In the Garden with University of California Master Gardeners. My name's Tina Spindler, and I'm here with Katrina Kirkabee, and we're your two Master Gardeners who are going to take you through what to do in your garden this month in the month of May. Happy spring, Katrina. Oh, happy spring, Tina. It is so pretty out right now. It is gorgeous. May is one of my favorite months because everything's bloomy, and you know me, I love flowers. I know you, I love flowers, yes. And vegetables. It's all good. It is all good because the the warm season veggies we planted are starting to bear fruit. Maybe we can't quite eat those tomatoes yet, but by the end of the month, you know, the cherries are probably gonna be ready. So or are they already ready? You get warmer in your garden.

SPEAKER_04 1:09

Yeah, you know, it always depends. You're closer to the ocean. You know, some of my flowers come in before yours, and my cherries, oh my gosh, the end of the month, which is of April, or just cherry party at my house.

SPEAKER_02 1:21

That's so cool that you can grow cherry trees at your house. It's it's I don't get enough winter chill. You get you get more than I do.

SPEAKER_04 1:28

There's certain cherry trees that grow better in our region, and we're fortunately we have it, and oh, they're just wonderful. You only get about two weeks out of them. At least I only get a couple weeks out of them, but oh, it's just you know, ch cherries and then cherries and yogurt and cherries and ice cream, and just making me hungry. Cherries and cherries, you sit down by the cherry tree and eat cherries, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:50

And it only goes for two weeks, but it's a really happy two weeks. Yeah, for sure. And uh when I had an apricot tree, sadly I I lost mine. Um, I know that would always come in the end of May, and I loved the same thing, you know, apricots kind of came in all at once, and you're having apricot this and apricot that, and make an apricot jam, but it was it was a great few weeks.

SPEAKER_04 2:10

Yeah, I find that pretty much with most of my stone fruit. Yeah. It's like don't go on vacation when the fruit is blue because you'll miss all the fruit.

SPEAKER_02 2:17

Yeah, yeah. And that and that's actually usually when my boysenberries come in, uh, is the end of May. So it's like when you go on vacation? Yeah, exactly. So I try not to schedule, try not to schedule trips when the boysenberries come in because that happens to be my favorite, favorite fruit. I love that boysenberry pie and boysenberry jam. And I think, you know, I make a fair bit of jam, and when I give jars to people who I've given to before, and I don't give them boysenberry, they're like, what? No boysenberry? Because those do make the best jam. Oh. They're super yummy. But anyway, so May is going to be a great month for flowers and for a lot of fruit. And spending time outside. Spending time outside and entertaining. For me, May begins kind of the entertaining in the garden season.

SPEAKER_04 3:05

We have a lot of holidays and graduations and Mother's Day, and then Father's Day comes up, and people want to be outside.

SPEAKER_02 3:13

For sure. And if you're not going on a vacation at the beginning of summer, uh, it's a great time to entertain in the late spring and early summer because we've got great weather. Usually you we're usually done with rain here in Southern California. Um, and so you can almost plan a party, you know, every weekend if you want in your garden without risking the weather.

SPEAKER_04 3:33

Yeah, you just tell people to bring a sweater. Yeah. Yeah, depending on what's going on, bring a sweater, and it's nice to be outside and have a couple throws. And if it's hot, you don't need them. If it's cooler, you just bundle up a little bit more.

SPEAKER_02 3:45

Yeah. So we're gonna start the show by talking about getting your garden ready for entertaining. It's pretty easy if you've already, you know, started to plant your warm season, you know, flower beds. They're probably looking pretty good already. But if you do have some of the cool season stuff that's finishing up, you know, the snap dragons or island poppies or whatever, and you want to have something fresher in your garden, go ahead and pull those out, those annuals that are done, and go get the stuff that's gonna last throughout the season, the marigolds, uh, petunias, if you like those calabricoa uh sunflowers. Uh there are there are shorter versions of sunflowers if you want them, you know, to look more uh appropriate in your flower bed.

SPEAKER_04 4:30

Yeah, we do different sizes. We tend to I love sunflowers, and it's one thing my husband likes to plant for me. And we plant the taller ones in the back and the shorter ones in the front, and it's just like a present when you come out and see them. And you know, it's just a package of seeds. It is, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:45

Or you can find the shorter ones I've noticed the last few years in six packs too. So if you're fearful of planting from seed, uh look for the short versions of sunflowers in the six packs. You can you can find those now, which is pretty cool. Um, zinnias, that's that's one of my other fun things to plant in May because either from seed, super easy to grow from seed, or grow them from seed in your own six pack, um, which is what I usually try to do because often at the nurseries, for some reason they always sell the zinnias in mixed colors. Yeah. And I like to have my garden planned by color, and so I will get seed packs because they germinate in just a few days and they're ready big enough to plant out in the garden in just a few weeks.

SPEAKER_04 5:32

You know what else I like? The reason why I like getting them in six packs is because I could get different heights.

SPEAKER_02 5:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 5:37

And I find a harder time to get the tall ones. I learned this from you. You know, it's hard to find the tall ones in in the nurseries. So you just buy a package of seeds online or go to your nursery and get a package of seeds. And it is harder to find the single colors in the but not in the seed packets.

SPEAKER_02 5:55

In the seed packets, you can definitely get it by color. Um, so yeah, zinnias super easy to grow. Um look for ones that are mildew resistant. You know, some of them, if you're looking at a seed catalog or online, some of them will say that they're mildew resistant. Uh because zinnias can be prone to mildew.

SPEAKER_04 6:14

I've had that happen. So that's a really everybody listen, that's a really good point. You know, we're busy enough in our lives, and if we don't have to deal with mildew, life is better.

SPEAKER_02 6:24

So that's once you get it, you gotta just pull the plant out. It it never really goes.

SPEAKER_04 6:29

Oh, I've tried, I've cut it way back, and I'm sitting there spending so much time on this, and I'm like, why did I plant these?

SPEAKER_02 6:38

But they're they're great for uh color because they come in these you know really nice colors oranges and reds and pinks and purples, and they bloom and bloom and bloom. Yeah, they're crazy bloomers.

SPEAKER_04 6:49

They're crazy bloomers, and it looks, it's just I have an issue with my yard, it's kind of big, so it's hard to see little things. And when you have a lot of bloom, a lot of color, you could see it from a distance, which make for us is really, really nice. And the zinnias, you you know, and they keep going for a long time.

SPEAKER_02 7:08

And you know, I'm a hog for flowers in the house, cut flowers, and the taller zinnias make gorgeous cut flowers, so that's the other reason I I love growing them.

SPEAKER_04 7:19

I actually bought a little too many seeds this year. I have enough for like half of Southern California. Oh shit.

SPEAKER_03 7:27

Oh, I will, I will.

SPEAKER_04 7:29

We're actually putting some in the vegetable garden too. Yeah, just put them on the ends of the vegetable garden so we have some flowers down there. You know, like where else can we put these zinnias that I bought, which I kind of went over the top on because I like them so much, and then I bought them in different heights so I could put the taller ones in the back, and it's just it's really easy. So they are I'm I'm just a real big fan of them.

SPEAKER_02 7:51

And if you have kids, super fun to plant from seed because they as I said they sprout quickly, they're pretty sturdy when they're only three to four inches tall, so easy to transplant for kids to handle. So um a great, a great plant uh to plant from seeds for kids too.

SPEAKER_04 8:09

And it's great for people with busy lives. Yeah. You know, you could cover a whole lot of area if you wanted to, and it's not very hard to do.

SPEAKER_02 8:17

Yeah, because even though I talk about planting them in six packs, um, you can direct sow them. They're so easy. You know, you just till your soil a little bit, toss the seeds out there, cover them up, keep them moist, and and they'll they'll sprout right where you want them to grow. See, I'm not as good as you are, but I think about them, it's time to plant them.

SPEAKER_04 8:36

So I just direct sew them in the ground. Oh, yeah. And it's it's just okay, I'm done. Yeah. And the big thing is before you do it, clean up your garden. Yeah. You know, we always, you know, get the weeds out and make the garden nice and ready, and you know, get some mulch to put on there, compost, and you know, just get it all ready before you stick them in there because if you have a nice clean palette, it just makes life so much easier. Yeah, it does. But I really like them, especially in the busy world we we're in right now, and I'm feeling really busy. It's one of those things that I'm like, it's kind of done. I flattened him now, like that space is taken care of for a while.

SPEAKER_02 9:13

Yeah, for sure. Um, the other thing though that you can do that I love to do this time of year for any empty spaces I have in the flower garden is go to the nurseries and look at the perennials because May is the month when a lot of perennials are blooming, and so you can see uh the perennials that are blooming and choose the ones that you that you like and you know and know what you're getting. It's not gonna be a surprise. Be sure that you do check the size of the perennial because uh its full size on sages, for instance, can vary from something that's really nice and you know 14 to 16 inches tall to something that's three or four feet tall. So you want to be sure you get uh the type of sage that's going to be appropriate for where you're planting it.

SPEAKER_04 10:04

And there that's a really good point, Tina, because I've had that happen where it's just too big for the area. But also besides sages, so many of the same plants come in so many different sizes, and you just have to like they could be sitting next to each other, and even when they were blooming, I was looking at something the other day, and I read the label on one and the the on the other one, and one is like 12 to 16 inches, and it looks pretty much like the one sitting next to it when it's in a pot. When it's in a pot, and it says 36 inches and four feet wide, and this one's only 12 to 16 with 12 inches wide. So read the labels, even if they look the same. I was caught on that the other day because I was like, oh, which one do I want? I better look.

SPEAKER_02 10:45

And I went, oh, yeah, gotta be careful. Gotta be careful. Um, if you want some perennials that are, you know, kind of easy, long, long-lived, and and don't require a super lot of care, some of my favorites are Achelia or Yarrow, uh Gara, um, and uh Santa Barbara Daisy, which just self-sows like crazy, but is easy to pull out. Um, so I just kind of leave it as a filler in random parts of my garden. Um, and then I I love lavender, um, but if you choose lavender, remember lavender is a relatively short-lived perennial, which is totally fine. It's you know, two to three years, but just remember it's not going to be, you know, buy and plant once. You'll probably have to replace it every so often. And then I went to a plant show of uh New Introductions, which was super fun, up at the growers in up north of Santa Barbara. Um, and it reminded me of some of the plants that that we should really look, you know, to use in the garden. Uh, some of the annuals that they were highlighting were calabrichoa, which is kind of that one that looks like a petunia, but the flower is smaller. And it's great for pots because it doesn't get you know as crazy leggy as a petunia does. So uh think of calabricoa if you're gonna do pots. If you've got some shady areas, colius. They had some great variegated coleus. Colius is beautiful, which is great for the shade, and often you know, we have a lot of shade when we live in suburbia, so um colius is great. They had some really pretty fuchsias, um, but you probably can't grow fuchsia, probably it's too hot where you are. It's pretty hot. But if you're near the beach, fuchsia are are fun. Uh, one of the things that I loved that they had were these zonal geraniums. You know, the ones we grew up with just, you know, they were they were nice, but the flowers were not, you know, really earth-shaking. The zonal geraniums that they have out now are just these magnificent bright colors, oranges, pinks, purples, and the heads of these zonal geraniums, the flowered heads, just, you know, are gosh, they're probably six inches in diameter.

SPEAKER_01 13:03

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 13:04

So I, you know, originally wasn't a big fan of zonal geraniums, but because my mom grew them and I thought they were kind of eh. But the righties they have out now are pretty impressive. Um, and another foolproof, you know, one that lasts for years is lantanas, and those are coming in some pretty cool colors now, you know, the bright yellows and and I love my lantanas.

SPEAKER_04 13:28

I have a pond, and I put we had to take one of the lantanas out because it was getting in the way of my lemon tree. Oh, and so I'm like, I have to choose, right? So I bought it, it was been there too long, but it is just a really easy plant. It is an easy plant and it gives a lot of color. It does. And it grows in different sizes, so make sure you get the right size.

SPEAKER_02 13:50

I'm gonna be out buying some more because I've you know lost some plants in my front yard, and and uh yeah, I'm gonna go, you know, Mexican sage and lantana, just these bulletproof and they attract you know, they attract oh yeah, pollinators.

SPEAKER_04 14:06

Pollinators, it's so nice, and you see the butterflies in your yard, and oh, it's just so nice. And it's easy. I'm really kind of trying to do my yard a little bit more easy instead of so labor-intensive.

SPEAKER_02 14:18

And and also don't forget about um, I know they're they're kind of everywhere, but I do love the sun patience. If you want some lovely color, um those sun patients take a lot more sun than the traditional uh impatience, you know, used to. Those were only for shade. And but I do think that they take a little bit of shade. So I kind of plant them, you know, in my yard where there's you know part sun, part shade. Um, and I just I I know they're pretty common, but man, they are effective for giving you, you know, color um where where you might want it. So I I always keep some kind of by my front door so that it's you know colorful. And nice and treat. Yeah. And they're easy. Right. Um the other thing that that going to this flower show reminded me about was mandiva. Do you grow mandative? I have one. You have one? Yeah. I I um have a couple in pots, and I have to tell you, I don't take care of them at all. Oh yeah, it makes me feel that I don't either. I forget to water them. So, anyway, another plant that does need sun, um, and it's a vining kind of a plant, but mandiva, if you haven't been using it, and it it'll be in bloom um in May.

SPEAKER_04 15:32

So I didn't want to say it, but I have abused mine. We put it like there's a shed I have, and I just don't take care of this plant, and it grows beautifully, and it's just it's kind of off in the corner, and we forget about it, but every time I walk down my hill, there it is, as happy as can be. And I'm like, how does this thing keep going when I'm just it's it's not in a place where I usually take care of things, and it's just been steadfast. I should now love on it a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 15:59

Yeah, I I do I do find that if I fertilize them uh occasionally that they are a little more floriferous, but believe it or not, they still bloom a little bit, even if I forget to feed them. So, anyway, those those are some of our uh suggestions for sprucing up your garden with some color before you entertain. And then before we move on, the last uh tip that I always use before I have a party is when I have pots that need refreshing, I just go to the garden center and I buy a hanging basket that looks really pretty, and I cut off the hanging, you know, wire things, and then I just plop it into a pot. Instant, beautiful color at your front door or your back door or wherever you need instant color. And you know, you pick one that has three different varieties of flowers in it so that it's colorful, and you're done. Done, done, and done. I just bought one from a big box retailer that has a pretty flax in the middle, you know, for height, and then it has um color, uh this the sun patience and um gosh, what's the other stuff it has in it? I forget, but it has some some filler, so it it was just perfect, and I just dropped it right in a pot that I had, and it looks like I spent a lot of time planting this thing. So it does look like you spent a lot of time planting.

SPEAKER_04 17:19

I'm like, she's a creative artist, and you don't know, she just stuck it in there. Well, guess who does that now, too? You do. So cheat. My job. I'm learning from the best. Just cheat. It's good. It works, you know it? Yeah, I spent so much time doing working on a nice pot, and it it's like then I f you know, you sometimes you just run out of time.

SPEAKER_02 17:40

You do, and then this is a super easy way to do it, and you know, it's and even if you don't run out of time, it's a super easy and nice way to do it too. And honestly, you know, they're probably between twenty and thirty dollars. But then I think about well, if I bought the bag of soil and if I bought all of the individual plants, I'd probably be spending close to that anyway. Maybe I'm spending an extra five or ten bucks, but for the convenience, it's probably worth it. It looks nice. You go you go there and you pick out the one you like. Yeah, for sure. Um, so yeah, so get ready for your parties and and then just have a great time. And the other thing that Katrina and I like to do for parties is we take people, and May might be a little bit early for this because you know, maybe our our produce isn't quite active, but later in the summer when you actually have tomatoes and cucumbers and squash and beans and things ready to pick, um, take your guests out and have them help you harvest. It's usually a great icebreaker.

SPEAKER_04 18:40

We do that all the time, and it's kind of funny when they like, well, what's for dinner? Well, let's go find it. People are like, What? And I I don't like to cook whatever that comes out of the garden. We just get them in there a little early. And for a lot of people, they're they never garden. And for to see plants growing, it's kind of like a field trip for them. It adds to the little dinner party or friends coming over. They get to see what you've done, and they're amazed. And it's just it's a nice social. I've sit sent people down our hill. We live on a hill, and I sent people down the hill with my husband while I'm prepping dinner and a glass of wine in hand, and they go choose what they want from the garden, and I think it makes dinner that much special.

SPEAKER_02 19:20

I think it does too. It's it's the best. We do it with our grandkids all the time. Um, and it's funny because my little grandkids now, you know, if I tell them to go get parsley, you know, these these little four-year-olds and six-year-olds, they know where the parsley is. They know what parsley looks like. They don't come back with time, they come back with parsley. That's good. Now, do they uproot the whole plan and you don't hear grandma? I actually give them those little safety scissors, you know, and so they know they have to cut it rather than than pull it off. So um, yeah, so get get everybody involved from the youngest to the more mature.

SPEAKER_04 19:53

Oh, it's so much fun getting the kids involved. Yeah. And sometimes it's really fun to see in the more mature because sometimes they've never seen things grow.

SPEAKER_02 20:00

Oh, it's so funny. Yeah, it's it's a riot, yeah. Um, but kids especially. I'll just tell this quick story. I told it to you before we started the show. Um, my son volunteers and kind of runs the elementary school garden where his daughter goes to school, and so he brings little groups of kids out for tours of the garden, and you know, they send them home with uh, you know, a picked something, a carrot or a beet or an onion, and and then this school uh has its own Valencia orange trees, and so he this time of year is squeezing orange juice and gives them all a little uh glass of orange juice, and so he finishes with this little kindergarten group, and this little five-year-old boy says to him, This is the very best day of my life.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

So, you know, take your guests out to your garden and make it the very best day of their life. People remember that.

SPEAKER_04 20:54

You know, people always talk about our vegetable garden in our garden, and people not everybody has that. So if you have a vegetable garden, share it with people. You know, it's a very peaceful place and it just uh it gets people to relax. Yeah, just it's just a nice sharing spot to be at.

SPEAKER_02 21:12

And speaking of the vegetable garden, let's talk about what we should be doing in there. If you planted our warm season veggies last month or in March, uh you should have tomatoes that are getting pretty tall now, a few, you know, three, four feet tall, probably have green tomatoes on, which will, you know, start turning red some of them by the end of the month. And what um Katrina and I have learned we should do with our tomatoes is we start trimming them this time of year. So as those very lowest leaves start turning yellow, we clip those guys off and throw them in the trash. Because what we found is if you get those dead leaves or dying leaves, which can attract bugs or fungus, if you get them off the plant and in the trash and out of the garden. It keeps your plants healthier for a longer period of time.

SPEAKER_04 22:03

It takes so it saves so much time because you're getting ready and it makes it clearer, you know, cleaner, it looks better, it gives the plant more air, it is just it just takes a few minutes to do, and you benefit from that so much by not having to deal with pests later. It really helps a lot.

SPEAKER_02 22:25

I mean, we we didn't do it until I think um we started trellising our tomatoes, right? And then you could see the bottom of the plant better, and then uh just decided to clip those guys off, and and we both noticed that it made our plants way healthier and kept them protected, especially from the fungal diseases, for a lot longer. And it keeps the plant off the ground a little bit.

SPEAKER_04 22:49

You know, it's it's nice that things aren't coming up and not touching the ground, and it's you know, little creatures don't prime up as easily, and it's just it's just healthier.

SPEAKER_02 22:58

Yeah, I I I do that. Um, and it's quick, you know. If you just go out there every time with a you know little pair of clippers, it it goes really quick. I mean, I don't have that huge of a garden, so I probably have eight tomato plants, so it doesn't take that long. And then also this time of year, be sure you keep tying them up because they're probably growing what six to twelve inches every week.

SPEAKER_04 23:19

Oh, they're growing fast, they're growing fast and tying them up and you know, kind of um pruning them a little bit if they get too bushy. You know, just it's tie them up and keep them, you know, airflow going through, and and it it's so much easier if you spend a little bit of time taking care of it versus where it gets out of control and then it's nuts.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

Yeah, for sure. If you're doing the trellising system of um keeping your tomatoes up, which which means it's a flat wall-like trellis rather than a tomato cage type circular structure, uh, it it's especially important to tie them to the trellis. If they're in a cage, you can kind of just direct the uh shoots you know to stay within the cage, you know, when they're trying to randomly you know, seek elsewhere. But if you're trellising them, it is really important to keep them tied up. And also, as Katrina said, you can cut them so because I'm trying to grow them um horizontally flat, any of the branches or the shoots that are trying to go out in the direction that's perpendicular, I just it's hard to do, but I actually cut the whole shoot off because in the end you're gonna have a hard time tying that to the trellis because it's going in the wrong direction.

SPEAKER_04 24:37

And you know what else I do, Tina, is even if it's in one of those cages, we get those those big, big cages, um Texas cages. Um I tend not to put them that much on the inside because I try to leave the air on the inside. So I'll use that green tape and maybe widen it to the outside. Tie them to the outside a little bit more so it gives it it needs all the air it can get. Because some of the larger ones especially get super leafy, and I want to have that airflow and I want the sun in there. And so I'm not so much putting, I don't try to ever keep anything totally inside. It's like I might string it through one of the wires, but it's a lot of it's outside. And we use that big green tape. Yep. Yeah, it's stretchy tape. That's what I use too. Yeah, it just helps a little bit to give it a little bit more air.

SPEAKER_02 25:22

Yeah, no, good idea. Um, the other thing you can do this month if you hadn't planted peppers uh last month, is the soil's nice and warm. Peppers love warm soil, so if you didn't have room for them until now, um because you were still growing, you know, some lettuces or something, when you take out the last of those cool season plants, be sure to plant some peppers. They'll they'll take off you know nicely this time of year because the the earth has gotten warm. And our skies may be gray because often we have a lot of gray, may gray, but uh the soil's warm and the temps are not you know cold anymore. So the plants that you plant now should get a really quick start. And then finish up if you have room with some squash plants, which include cucumbers, squash, any of the melons, uh, those will be happy to go in this month because the soil again is nice and warm. I'm finishing up the last of my peas. So on the trellis I was growing my peas on, I'm gonna put uh cucumbers on those, you know, and keep them tied up to a trellis so that I have room for other stuff.

SPEAKER_04 26:30

You know, I think one of the mistakes some people make is they forget about how big these vining plants get. So when you're going to go plant and replace, your cucumbers take more room than your lettuce. So if you can't for sure. For sure. So, yeah, that's another one where you got to think about where you're planting and where what are you gonna do with it when it gets long and these plants, some of them, especially some of the squashes, get really, really long. So, how are you gonna hold them up? What are you gonna do with them? Do you have enough space for them? And so thinking a little bit ahead of time, how much space you have and what you're replacing the plant you just took out with, it really goes a long way. It saves you a lot of problems down the line.

SPEAKER_02 27:11

Yeah, and and my son has a strategy for melons because his kids, you know, of course, all kids love to see, you know, watermelon growing. It's just such a magical thing. But who has room for a watermelon vine because they just you know crawl all over the place. So what he does is he actually plants them in at the end of his raised bed, and then he lets the vine spill over the end of the raised bed and meander its way around, he has a pool, around the pool fence, right? And so it just kind of goes off and meanders, but not in an area where anybody's walking.

SPEAKER_04 27:45

You know, that that's a good point. It's some of it's getting creative because we have less and less space. Um, we have used one of the um fences for tying up plants like that. Oh and we've also I planted we have fruit trees on the hill. So I've just planted some of like squashes and whatnot and melons on on the drip line. Oh around the tree. What a great idea, and then allow it flowing down the hill. So there's nothing else on it's you know, it's for a fruit tree, but coming off the fruit tree box on the hill is this you know, pumpkins or squash, or it just makes my yard bigger, and I can put the smaller things in the vegetable garden.

SPEAKER_02 28:27

It's actually probably great because it acts, I would imagine, as mulch because it's kind of covering up the soil.

SPEAKER_00 28:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:33

So probably keeps that soil from getting too hot for your fruit trees.

SPEAKER_04 28:38

It's it's just tappy. Yeah. You know, it's just happy, and it's just like when you run out of space, just be a little creative, like your son does put it at the end, and where can you lead that vine, or how can you tie that vine up? What do you have out outside quote unquote the norm? Right. And there's a when you start thinking about it, I'm like, why didn't I put it in my fruit trees before? Around my fruit trees. I mean, now I just didn't think about it. And my husband came out and he said, What do you? And I said, It works, it looks kind of pretty like going down the hill. It doesn't take up my smaller stuff, and I keep the other things in the air. And it works.

SPEAKER_02 29:13

Yeah, no, that's a great idea. Um, the other thing to do, because I I I it dawned on me when I said, Oh, the that vine probably acts as mulch in terms of keeping weeds down and covering up the soil and keeping the moisture in. But if you don't have a vine that's acting as mulch on your soil, it's a good idea to mulch your veggie garden. And um, what I've been mulching with uh the last two years, because I can now find it at the nursery, is they're now selling bags of straw. Have you seen that? So you don't have to go buy a hay bale anymore. They actually have these um, you know, like bags like you would buy compost in, and it's and it's straw.

SPEAKER_04 29:56

I love my straw.

SPEAKER_02 29:57

I actually, since we have a bigger garden, I just go and buy a bale. Well, you see, you can and I tried that one year, but then I didn't have enough places to put it because my veggie garden is much smaller than yours. But now you can actually go to garden centers and they have these small packages, so you don't have to buy a whole bale.

SPEAKER_04 30:14

I love it. Another thing what I like about it is it when you put it around like your tomatoes, and it reflects up into the plant. It keeps everything like nice and dry at the surface, and it keeps it moist underneath. And I'm a huge fan of straw.

SPEAKER_02 30:31

Yeah, it's just Me too. I I love it. Um and my strawberries do so much better now that I'm you know, I tried mulching the strawberries with black plastic, like you see, you know, in the commercial fields, and um that was just too hard, you know, to deal with the plastic and poke the plants through and all of that stuff. So, but boy, they thought there's a reason they're called strawberries, is because the straw is a great mulch for that.

SPEAKER_03 30:59

And it's easy to move around. It is really easy and it decomposes, and so you know we keep buying it.

SPEAKER_02 31:05

It doesn't, you know, it eventually enriches the soil because it's just organic matter.

SPEAKER_04 31:09

So see now when your kids get uh older and you teach them archery, then you can get your leftover bales of hay for the back.

SPEAKER_01 31:17

That's what we've done over the list for bows and arrows.

SPEAKER_04 31:21

A little bit older, a little bit older. You know, we do have a big backyard, and so it's very much you gotta make sure the kids, you know, they're a little bit older, but it was fun for a number of years. You just make sure the dogs and the horses and the lawns are put away. Everybody's put away. Everybody's put away in a safe spot. Yeah, and definitely, you know, parental control on that.

SPEAKER_02 31:41

But I just I used it for backing for you know doing that, and that that's just well the convenience of these bags, um, small bags that you can get at the the garden centers now have just been great. And so, you know, when I get my I still have a few empty spots. I need to plant a few cucumbers and squash and peppers in one of my beds. But when I get that all planted, I'm gonna use the rest of that bag of straw that I bought because the strawberries are done. And uh I think it'll just, like you said, really help the the rest of the plants too.

SPEAKER_04 32:15

If I should I just think it's really nice, it helps with weeds, it looks good, it makes it look tidy. I mean, it's just for me, it's just been a total winner. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:24

So look for that if if you um haven't found it yet. Uh see if you can find it, because it it really has helped me a lot. Um, what else? Oh, watering. Gosh. So May can be gray, but we can also get some of those, you know, super hot days starting. So this is when you gotta start paying attention. Paying attention, yeah. And uh if you don't have timers for your veggie beds, I really recommend getting timers because eventually you're gonna go on vacation and you're gonna want that irrigation on a timer if you can. So timers are great. Uh I use soaker hoses. What do you use in your veggie bed? My husband.

SPEAKER_04 33:05

Wow. He likes to water. We have had so many systems in there, and he just he it's his place of peace, and he likes to go down and water. It's soothing, it really is. And we have taken out, you know, we've had so many different watering systems, and if he's willing to do it and it makes him happy, he gets to go down and water, and he it's this happy place. And when we go out of town, we've since we have animals and stuff, we have to have. We have to have a house sitter. We just can't leave, which is our lifestyle. So part of the house sitting routine is they have to water. But that my house sitters do call me up and say, What do you have in the garden? Because they love eating out of the garden and playing around in the garden. So they get to harvest whatever's right when they're we're gone. Which you want them to do because that keeps the plants producing. Exactly. It keeps your house sitters wanting to come back. And now I'm getting like requests. You have a waiting list. Well, we were gone for a couple months. Was it last year? And we didn't plant anything, and they complained. And I said, Well, it's we we decided not to have a winter vegetable because we're gonna be gone two and a half months, and I get this text, it's like, where's the vegetables? And I'm like, I didn't think. She goes, No, that's part of the joy coming over here. We love going, we'll water anything, we'll take care of whatever. We don't have that. And um, they love going down and you know, picking vegetables, and I'll come home, and they have made things like um, you know, uh with tomatoes and with whatever, and they put things in the freezer for me so I have food when I come home. And so that's how that's my watering system. Now that doesn't work for everybody, and everybody's husband doesn't like to water, but if it really makes my husband happy, he can stand there and water to his heart's content, and he gives each one the right amount of water, and that's his thing.

SPEAKER_02 34:58

Well, there's nothing like hand watering, honestly. Um, even though I have you know my whole garden on a timed, you know, multi-station sprinkler system, and I have the veggie garden beds, the raised beds on uh soaker hoses, which uh I put on timers when we go on vacation, otherwise I just do it manually. But um I still walk around uh and water by hand because there's corners that you know don't get the right amount from the sprinkler systems, or you know, the sun has been extra hot, but part of the garden is shaded, so not everything needs a little boost, but when you hand water, you can you can check out who needs what.

SPEAKER_04 35:36

And that's what he loves to do. Yeah. So we all do our own thing, and we have put in so many different systems. That's funny. And yeah, it's really kind of funny. I'm like, what are we gonna do next, right? Well, the other that was his problem because he just he thought his state is you put it in, then you don't have to watch it. And so he says, Well, why am I putting it in if I have to watch it? Why don't I just do it right the first time? And you know, it floats his boat and he is happy and it makes it's good for the marriage, and he goes down and has his quiet time watering, and that's great. It works.

SPEAKER_01 36:07

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 36:08

Um, the other thing we do need to pay attention to now, in addition to the watering and mulching, is we have to fertilize again, we have to feed these plants. We we put fertilizer in when we were preparing the soil last month or even in March, but um usually, depending on the fertilizer you use, uh, it will say that you should be feeding them you know monthly or every six weeks or so. So the way you can do that once your plants are already in is you can do liquid fertilizers, and those you can either measure, you know, by the tablespoon into you know a big watering can, like a two-gallon watering can. Or I I've discovered this and it's a little more expensive, but if you know you're gonna be busy, I spring for it. They have uh these fertilize liquid fertilizers that are in bottles that will attach to a hose, directly to a hose. And when you turn your hose on, you open up the lever and you just spray. So you just water, and the water goes into this bottle of fertilizer, it mixes in the appropriate amounts, and then you can just fertilize your veggie garden that way. So even though it's a little more expensive, um I've I've been doing that the last couple of years just because I know if I have to carve out enough time to sit there and measure tablespoons of fertilizer into a watering can, I'm gonna say, Oh, I don't have time to do that right now, and then it doesn't get done.

SPEAKER_04 37:36

Exactly. And you know, and we have to do what works. Yeah. You know, you could have the best system ever, but if you're not gonna use it, it doesn't work. And if you got something that's simple and it's maybe 95% of the other one and it works, right.

SPEAKER_02 37:49

So if you're on a budget, you know, buy the stuff that you have to mix in a watering can and you know, hand water. It's soothing, and if you have the time and you're on a budget, it's awesome. Um, but if you know you're gonna be strapped for time over the summer because of trips and entertaining and whatnot, then look for those bottles where you just screw the hose into it and and water away.

SPEAKER_04 38:11

I kind of look at it as like one of those things about putting the plants at the front door by the box store, something simple and easy to do when you're in a hurry. Uh-huh. You know, it's perfectly fine to do that.

SPEAKER_02 38:21

Yeah. But the other thing that you can do is use uh the granular fertilizer that you used when you planted, and and what you do in this time of year when your plants are already existing is what we call side dressing. And it means that you just sprinkle that fertilizer according again to the instructions. Uh, you just sprinkle it around the base of your plant and then very lightly scratch it in with just a hand cultivator, but only like the first quarter inch or so of the soil, because you don't want to damage the roots, you know, of your plants. And then, of course, water it in really well. And also before you fertilize, you always water first so that the fertilizer can sink into the into the soil. You want to get that ground wet first. And then water and then water it again after.

SPEAKER_04 39:13

Now you said something that we always have to remind people about follow the directions.

SPEAKER_02 39:19

Which is why Katrina lets her husband water but doesn't let him fertilize.

SPEAKER_04 39:24

Just saying. Just saying. You know, because it's so hard. You know, it's just he's like a little kid. So it's good. But we just just kind of try, just follow the directions. It's you know, they would make more money if you used more. So the point is that it's it just don't, you know, it's like they know that's enough to use. Just choose them out, it says on the directions. It makes life so much easier, and you're you're not wasting, you're not killing the plant, it's better for the environment. Everything is better. Just follow the directions. And even though you go, how can this little amount help this plant so much? Trust me, they have figured that out.

SPEAKER_02 40:05

Yeah, and that and uh the damage that it can do from over-fertilizing, especially if you're using a synthetic fertilizer, organic fertilizers generally aren't as strong as synthetic fertilizers. You're just wasting money. You're just wasting money. But if you're using uh synthetic fertilizer whose nutrients are like 15, 15, 15, that can burn your plants if you use too much of it. The organic fertilizer whose uh NPK numbers, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium are you know 555, not gonna burn your plants like a 15-15-15 synthetic fertilizer. So follow the directions. So follow the directions, yeah. And water. Water it before and water it after application. Um yeah, so I think uh oh pests, we gotta talk about pests in them because boy, we have to talk about pests.

SPEAKER_04 40:57

They really ramp up this time of year, don't they? And if you don't take care of them, they're gonna have a party and you're gonna be the one that's not happy. Party in the garden. They think it's a big schmorgis board. There's a lot of new, fresh things out there, and everything's coming to life. And how about let's talk about snails to start off with?

SPEAKER_02 41:17

Yeah, that's our bugaboo for everybody, I think, in both the veggie and the flower garden. Yeah, be liberal with that snail bait in terms of frequency, not again, follow directions, don't put too much out. But um, be sure you keep up with it because if if you apply once and then you don't do it for another six weeks, you're gonna have problems. But if you if you do it, I try to do it every two to three weeks. Um, it seems like the snail bait lasts for about two weeks when you're doing regular irrigation. Um and this time of year, later in the summer, the snails aren't as bad. I think it gets you know too hot. But this time of year when you know all the new growth is happening and it's so yummy to chew on and it's still moist. I I hate the snails in my vegetables.

SPEAKER_04 42:06

It's just like, oh, when you're taking these beautiful vegetables out and they've like crawled into the crevices. It's just it's so and it's easy to do. This is one of those things that easy to do and it doesn't take too long.

SPEAKER_02 42:19

Yeah, just you know, most of the um snail baits come in in containers that you can literally just shake, almost like you know, salt and pepper around the garden. And in the vegetable garden, you know, do do choose an organic variety uh because it's your veggie garden and some of those snail baits that are chemical, you know, are pretty toxic, so you don't want to risk don't want to risk that getting on your plants. Um but yeah, be sure you're diligent about the snail baits. If you want to do something fun that, you know, if you have kids, uh you can put out uh small cups, paper cups or plastic cups with an inch of beer in the bottom, and that the yeast in the beer attracts the snails, and then they climb in and they drown, and kids get kind of a kick out of that if you want to do something.

SPEAKER_04 43:06

Or if you're in a hurry, just you know, maybe you go around the outside of your raised beds and put just put a like insert like a moat around your bed. It doesn't have to be real thick, but just put it like on the outside of the bed and just put it just put it on the outside so it's a barrier for them to get in. Yeah, and it doesn't take much time for there just to just run down one side, all four sides, and you have then you have yourself a protection barrier there.

SPEAKER_02 43:29

Yep. Um, other fun things for kids though is if you save your um paper towel tubes from when your paper towel roll is empty, and you just set those in the garden, the snails will climb inside of those, and so the kids sometimes get a big kick out of picking up a tube and seeing that there's, you know, ten snails inside and then going throwing it in the trash can. So another fun garden activity.

SPEAKER_04 43:54

And or you can have the kids give it to the neighbors that have chickens. Yes. If you have any neighbors that have chickens.

SPEAKER_02 44:00

Chickens love snails, absolutely. Um, I used to paint my kids to go around and pick them off the plants and throw them in the street, and then the cars would go over and crunch them. It's kind of a little a little a little sad, but not really when they were eating my flowers.

SPEAKER_04 44:18

Yes, I've come a long way. When I moved into our house, this is way before Master Gardeners, I've moved the snails out of the way.

SPEAKER_01 44:24

Oh, how funny.

SPEAKER_04 44:26

Okay, and my husband thought, oh, Earth Mother here, right? Until they devoured my whole front garden. And now I smash those little guys.

SPEAKER_02 44:35

Oh yeah. I remember planting marigolds out when I was first starting to garden and then coming out a couple days later and they were completely eaten. There was like a stem left because they had devoured the entire thing.

SPEAKER_04 44:46

I had this whole going this whole beautiful area planted out, and I ended up with these little sticks. So Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:55

Um, some other pests uh that you probably are gonna have to deal with, um, especially when the fruit starts coming, uh, can be uh creatures that have legs, uh like rats and mice and squirrels and birds. And those can be a little tough to keep under control. So a couple of strategies uh are for birds. Um I like to get pinwheels, kind of big pinwheels, and tape those to any stakes that are in my garden. And just the fact that those are spinning often you know scares um the birds away. You can also hang if you have old CDs, you know. Remember how we used to have CDs that we would burn things on, if you still have some of those, you can hang those with twine from your fruit trees, and then of course they spin and they're silver, so they will distract you know the birds and and keep them away.

SPEAKER_04 45:50

There's also reflector tape. Reflector tape works too. And they also have they cell things, it's not CDs, but they're little discs that you could hang in your tree that reflects. So similar to the whole CD. Similar to the whole C, but it's if you don't have CDs, but you can buy something that's kind of and they like there's like six of them connected to each other, and you hang in a tree and it reflects, and it kind of looks the same thing.

SPEAKER_02 46:11

And then I I had such squirrel problems one year that I actually ordered there are mesh bags that you can order in bulk, and I was actually tying them around my tomatoes and my peaches so that I could at least save some of them from the stupid squirrels that were, you know, taking a bite out of everything, it seemed. And that was very tedious, but at least I did save, you know, some of them. Of course, you have dogs, so that's that's better.

SPEAKER_04 46:42

We have dogs and we actively we put um poison out in an appropriate way. So that's a whole thing that probably another show, and then we have traps and uh living up in the hills on a creek, we we get a lot of everything. So we just it's it's uh it's we try to put a barrier before they get into the property as much as possible.

SPEAKER_01 47:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 47:08

And I have And we still have issues.

SPEAKER_02 47:10

Yeah, and I I do have a pest control service, so uh to keep the mice and the rats, you know, uh under control. Um and I and I have uh I know you you actually do your own gopher control with traps. I'm not I'm too squeamish. I hate to say it, hate to admit it, but I'm too squeamish to do it. So I actually have a pest control company that takes care of the gophers when they show up, too.

SPEAKER_03 47:33

Yep. Both ways work. Yeah. But Katrina actually sets her own taps, traps. She's pretty good at it, too. She's quite brave.

SPEAKER_04 47:42

I've gotten over it. Well, I've had rats in my house, so it's just you know, it's like protecting your home. Yeah. It's just, you know, I live up in the hills and I live on a creek and I live in an equestrian area, and there's, you know, there's horse feet out and there's fruit trees out. You know, there's just there's just a lot of you know, like we think we we kill for the neighborhood, and they just keep coming back saying, come on over here. And um, it's just what it is. And if we didn't do that mindfully all the time, we wouldn't have all the fruit and all the vegetables we have. That's we just have to choose. Right.

SPEAKER_02 48:18

Um but other than the big creatures, you know, back to the kind of bug-like creatures, uh, one of the uh it's actually uh a larva is the tomato hornworm that you will probably see this time of year. And if you notice that your plants, tomato plants are getting skeletonized, and and you're like, what the what is going on? And you don't see anything right away, take a hose and wet that tomato plant, which generally we don't like to wet foliage, but if something's eating it, if you wet that plant, the tomato hornworm uh will will be able to be seen because what happens when you wet the plant is it turns a darker color of green, and the tomato hornworm's uh lighter color green will then stand out and you'll be able to see it. And then you can either pick them off by hand or you can use a product called BT Bacillus theryngensis, which is organic but it kills any caterpillar, you know, kind of larva stuff. So you don't want to spray it anywhere that you might have, you know, butterflies uh hanging out. So only use it very judiciously, you know, when you absolutely need to on your plants. And then the only other product that I pretty much use regularly is um insecticidal soap, you know, if I have an aphid issue.

SPEAKER_04 49:41

Now, are you the person that told me that you also used a black light at night? No, that wasn't me. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 49:47

To a black light to find what? Uh uh tomato horn harms. Oh, a black light makes them show up? Oh, that's what somebody told you about. Well, maybe we shouldn't say that on the show until I until we research it. Research it. But yeah, no, it wasn't me.

SPEAKER_02 50:00

Uh so and of course there are other products that you can use for for certain pests that we don't have time to go into, but we do have other shows about what's called integrated pest management. And uh you can watch or listen, or not watch, listen, this is a podcast, listen to those shows, or you can go to the University of California's wonderful website uh about integrated pest management and just type in your search bar UCIPM and it will Integrative Pest Management. Yeah, IPM stands for integrated pest management. And what's great about this is it's organized in a way that you can either search by plant or by pest. So if you have a rose and you have holes in the leaves and you have no idea what the pest is, type in rose, and what it'll do is it'll take you to the section on roses, which will have many, many pictures of different damaged and diseased things. And so what you do is you just look at the picture and you go, Oh, that's what I've got, and then and then you will you know look and see what it is, and it will tell you what the treatment for that problem is. It's a wonderful website, it's really easy to use wonderful website. It really is. So we don't have time to go into all of the pest issues today, but um use that website when you need to find out more info.

SPEAKER_04 51:25

We also have you also could go um go into your searches and look for UC Master Gardeners, Orange County, California, and they have something called a hotline. Ask a question. I tell you that hotline is just wonderful. There's a group of Master Gardeners that staff that hotline. And if you have something that you can't figure out or don't know what to do, whatever the question might be, take a picture of it, explain your circumstances, and send it to them.

SPEAKER_02 51:55

Yeah, they give you a personalized one-on-one uh response. They'll respond to your email.

SPEAKER_04 52:00

Yeah, it's free, it's it doesn't cost anything, and um, they're a lovely group of people, lovely group of volunteers, very knowledgeable, and um they're just a great group to be with. So go ahead and do that. And um that it's and it's again it's UC Master Gardeners, Orange County, California, because there's about what six Orange Counties in the country. In the country. Yeah. So we try to make sure it's California because you don't want to get New York, that's a whole different set of circumstances. But no, they'll really help you out. They're really a great group of people.

SPEAKER_02 52:35

And we just have a couple minutes left, so we're just gonna give you a quick list of a couple more things to do this month. Um, one, for your lawns, uh, you can go ahead and fertilize both warm season and cool season lawns this month because the warm season lawns are waking up. Um pay attention to your irrigation on your lawn if you've been a little stingy with the water because it's been winter time. Depending on the weather, you may need to start increasing the watering for your lawn. Um, the other thing you can do this month is plant tropicals. So, tropical plants, if you're a tropical plant fan, they like the warmer weather, so we don't usually plant those until about now, May and June, great months to plant tropical.

SPEAKER_04 53:16

And also a great time to find them in the nurseries.

SPEAKER_02 53:18

Exactly, yes. And um anything else? Oh, natives, I was gonna just mention natives. Uh, if you planted natives in the fall and winter this year, which you know we suggested if if you were gonna do that, that was a great time to do it. But we want to remind you that as the weather warms up, you have to water those natives uh or drought tolerant plants at least their first year regularly because they're not big enough to be drought tolerant yet. We don't want them to die on you.

SPEAKER_04 53:47

Their little root systems aren't big enough quite yet. So, yes, do that. And I think the most important thing right now, Tina, is just to have fun, enjoy your gardening and share it with other people. And it's just a lot of miracles are happening out there. Just be just go out and look and see how things are growing out beautiful. Makes the heart happy. Sure does. So happy gardening, everyone. See you next month.