Beyond the Garden Basics

In today’s newsletter podcast, Debbie Flower, America’s Favorite Retired College Horticultural Professor, extols the benefits of spending time in the garden, and closely observing your plants. And, I talk about how those who took up gardening during the Covid epidemic found out that gardening is good for the gardener, too, in a myriad of ways.

Do some gardeners have a natural green thumb? Although there can be a lot said for patience and perseverance when it comes to landscaping tasks, perhaps there are some habits that seasoned gardeners have in common. Such a list was published by the Santa Clara and San Joaquin County Master Gardeners here in California a few years ago entitled, “The Top 10 Habits of Happy and Successful Gardeners.”

It is a list that is worth reviewing from time to time, to see which habits you’ve made a normal part of the garden day, along with those habits that might need a bit of refreshing.

For those of you that like the quick list, the Top 10 included: “Feed the Soil”, “Learn Before Lopping”, “Embrace Failure”, “Shop Carefully”, “Put the Right Plant in the Right Place”, “Water Intentionally with Both Hands”, “Control Snails and Slugs”, “Never Let a Weed Go to Seed,” “Attract Beneficial Insects”, and “Linger in the Garden”.

Successful Habits of Happy Gardeners, by Louise Christy, Santa Clara Co MG (Summer 2018, San Joaquin MG Garden Notes) (Habits 1-5)

Habit Number 1: FEED THE SOIL

Happy and successful gardeners know that taking care of the soil (and learning to love our clay soil) is the first priority.

Soil has three main parts. The first is the mineral component, which soil scientists divide into sand, silt, and clay based on particle size. The important thing to know about sand, slit, and clay is that the clay particles are the smallest, and they are really small. The super-small size of the particles makes clay soils highly nutritious for plants.

The second component of soil is the organic matter. Good, healthy soil is teeming with life, from big earthworms and pill bugs, to billions of living micro-organisms, fungi, and bacteria. Healthy soil also contains a lot of organic mat- ter, for example decomposing leaves or grass clippings. It is the job of the living organisms in the soil to breakdown the organic matter and return its nutrients, especially nitrogen, to the soil.

The third component of soil is the space in-between the mineral and organic particles. This pore space is filled with water and air which are both essential to healthy soil. Plant roots need oxygen in addition to water and all those worms and beetles and protozoa and bacteria that are busy breaking down organic matter need water and air to stay alive.

"Feeding the soil" means replacing the water and organic matter and preserving the air by not overwatering or compacting the soil. Happy and successful gardeners follow this maxim for improving soil: compost, compost, compost, mulch, mulch, mulch.Compost improves the structure of the soil and makes it crumbly and easier to work. Spread compost all over the soil a couple times per year. If the soil has not been gardened recently, you may want to dig the compost into the soil several inches down. The other key to feeding your soil and increasing the organic matter is to use organic mulch. The most popular mulches seem to be wood chips or bark, but you can also use grass clippings, leaves, straw, or once again, compost.

When working with clay soil, avoid overwatering, and let it dry until it is moist and crumbly before you dig. Do not add sand to clay soil. Sand plus clay equals concrete.Great garden soil with lots of clay, organic matter, and microorganisms will be dark brown and crumbly and will smell earthy. It can be dug easily with a trowel, and it will have worms. Be patient and persistent. Building great soil can take years, but with careful treatment and feeding, “impossible clay” can become lovely garden soil.

Habit Number 2: LEARN BEFORE LOPPING

Happy and successful gardeners know pruning is a good thing and fun to do, but it can be complicated, so they make a point to learn before lopping.Many gardeners have pruners with them constantly for clipping and trimming their plants. There are many good reasons to prune and clip plants including training young plants, grooming for appearance, to control the shape and size of a plant, to influence flowering and fruiting, to invigorate stagnant growth, and to remove damaged or infested growth. However, improper pruning can ruin or destroy plants.Not all plants respond to pruning in the same way. Happy and successful gardeners are careful to research and learn how their plants will respond to pruning before they prune. This is especially important when talking about a large and valuable tree. Badly pruned large trees may drop branches or die, resulting in hazardous situations and expensive removal costs.

Habit Number 3: Embrace Failure

Gardening is a learned skill. Compare it to medicine. Just like no one is born knowing how to perform a liver transplant, no one is born knowing how to garden. Like any other skill, there is a world of knowledge and technique that when learned, over time, will lead to success.Happy and successful gardeners like to experiment in the garden and have learned to embrace failure. A dead or sick plant is a learning opportunity. They're always curious, always wondering what's going on in the garden, and eager to learn. For the most part, happy and successful gardeners aren't very sentimental about their plants. If a plant is sickly, a good gardener knows it's time to move it or remove it---which means, it's time to go shopping!

Habit Number 4: Shop Carefully

There is nothing more delightful than a few hours at a great nursery. It's like having all the benefits of a garden without the work. Experienced gardeners look for specific things when buying plants.

1) Look for plants that are healthy and vigorous. The plant should have sturdy stems or branches, show evidence of new growth with no sign of insect infestations, disease, or injuries.

2) Look for plants with good shape and structure.3) When choosing annuals and vegetable transplants in small pots, look for young, small plants, not ones that seem to be mature or already have flowers.4) Buy transplants when there is only one plant per pot. Experienced gardeners have learned to recognize crowded transplants and avoid buying them.5) Look for a healthy, well-developed root system. Roots should usually be white or light colored, not brown, slimy or mushy. If there is a small mat of roots at the bottom, but otherwise the plant looks vigorous, it's probably OK.

Habit Number 5: Put the Right Plant in the Right Place

If you ask experienced gardeners for their favorite gardening tip, it is usually "Right plant, right place."Plants that are well suited to the location where they are planted will be faster to put out new roots and new growth. They will be healthier and better able to withstand insect pests and diseases than if they were planted in the wrong place. They will perform well, grow well, look better, and require less attention from you.We have what's called a Mediterranean climate which means dry summers, rainy winters, some frost, and minimal freezing. The majority of San Joaquin Valley is in Sunset Zone 14 and USDA Hardiness Zone 9.

Evaluate the planting spot by thinking about the following questions:

Does the area get full sun, part sun, or shade? Is the area more wet or dry? Where is the water source? Does the spot get high traffic or is it out of the way? Is the area near a wall or fence that reflects heat? What is the amount of horizontal and vertical space available? Is the space on a hillside? Check the Sunset Western Garden Book, the nursery label, or books and sources online to determine the right plant for your place.

Part 2 Top Ten Habits of Happy and Successful Gardeners by Sue Davis, Master Gardener (Habits 6-10, Fall 2018 SJ MG Garden Notes)

Habit Number 6: Water Intentionally and With Both Hands

Hand water your garden occasionally. It allows you to see the level of moisture in the soil firsthand, so you can adjust watering accordingly.

Water with both hands. Carry a trowel or cultivator in one hand, and the hose in the other. Water the area, and let the water sink in. Then, with the trowel or cultivator, dig down into the soil in several places. Be sure to check down that they work properly.

Dig down several inches. Has the water penetrated all the soil? Often, especially when watering soil that has been dry for a while, we grossly underestimate the amount of water needed to really soak the soil. Your goal with intentional watering is to get the water to penetrate the root zone of the plant.

Watering intentionally means you should pay attention to your sprinkler and drip systems. Reset the timers as appropriate for the season. Maintain them, make sure broken or clogged parts are fixed.

With containers, often the water simply slides right down between the root-ball and the side of the pot. If the soil is very dry, the root-ball shrinks and repels water. The best solution for watering very dry containers is to put the whole pot into a bucket, fill it with water to the top of the root-ball, and leave it overnight.

Habit Number 7: Control snails and slugs

When you see your plants ravaged with huge raggedy holes in the leaves or silvery traces crisscrossing the driveway in the morning, you have snails.

Many happy and successful gardeners go out in the night to hunt snails. A successful snail hunter says, " If you have insomnia, you can either think about the snails eating your garden, or you can get up and put a stop to it."· Hunt at night with a flashlight or a headlamp.· Have a bucket half full of water with a squirt of dish detergent.· Search your entire yard. Do this often. You will soon discover the snail “hot spots.”· Pick them up and drop in the bucket.· Night hunting is best after a spring rain when the snails are most active.· When you are done with the hunt, leave the bucket outside overnight. In the morning dump it in the compost or in the garden.

The soap is not harmful.

If you are diligent, after several hunts you will have reduced the population considerably. After a few years, you will have very little snail problem at all, and your hunts will be short and much less disgusting.

Slugs present a slightly different problem. Slugs don't have convenient handles, so picking them up is hard. Beer traps work well for slugs, but be sure to clean them out and fill with new beer after a few days.

What about snail bait? SLUGGO is made of an iron phosphate active ingredient with bait additives. Go ahead and use it if you prefer--it is safe and effective, and non-toxic to wildlife and pets. Avoid using metaldehyde baits (Correy’s, Deadline) which are highly toxic to animals.

Habit Number 8: Never Let a Weed Go To Seed

Weeds are survivors. Weeds often have high rates of seed production, hard seed coats, or underground rhizomes or bulbs that allow them to remain viable for years.

There are many types of weeds. Like your garden plants, they can be classified into annuals and perennials, even shrubs and trees. Annual weeds pop up in your garden over and over. When these weeds are little they look just like baby garden seedlings. They compete with garden plants for light, water and nutrition, and they will win the fight if you don't join the battle.

In most soil there is a collection of weed seeds that have accumulated over decades. weed ecologists call this a ‘seed bank.’ Weed seeds can lie dormant in the soil for years until conditions favor germination. For example, seeds of chickweed and mustards can remain viable for 10 years, purslane up to 40 years and curled dock over 80 years!

Keep the weed seed bank in mind as you garden. Whenever you see a weed about to go to seed, remember that one weed's deposit to the seed bank is thousands of seeds that may last in the soil for many years. That thought alone should be enough to get you to pull that weed out of the ground.

Chemicals for weed control should be the last resort. Never use them in a vegetable garden. If you do choose to go that route, follow all label directions.

Habit Number 9: Attract Beneficial Insects

Among the insects in your garden there are basically two kinds of eaters: vegetarians and carnivores. When we see a bug eating our roses, our first instinct is to kill it, often with some kind of noxious chemical spray.

Nature offers a better route. What we need to do is to invite the carnivorous insects back into the garden. These voracious little creatures will eat the aphids and parasitize the hornworms, mangle the mites, and crunch the caterpillar eggs, killing them so they do less damage to our plants. In gardeners' parlance, you want a balance between the "good bugs" (beneficials), and the "bad bugs" (pests). When balance is achieved, there will be much less damage to plants.

Beneficial insects can be encouraged by providing sources of nectar and pollen--in other words, flowers. Most beneficial insects are very small, they appreciate tiny flowers in their scale.

Many of the "bad bugs" are actually the larval stage of "good bugs." The syrphid fly larvae look like tiny green worms, and the larvae of lacewings and lady beetles look almost like tiny alligators. Larvae eat the most aphids!

Learn to tolerate some insect damage as a minor but necessary evil for attracting beneficials. When you spot aphids on a plant, don't immediately kill them all off. Aphids appear first, then the carnivorous insects move in to eat them.

Above all, do not use toxic pesticides. They kill the beneficials as well as the pests, completely defeating your purpose. Often use of pesticides results in rebound or secondary infestations that are worse than the original problem.

Habit Number 10: Linger in the Garden

"Linger: to stay in a place longer than necessary, typically because of a reluctance to leave."

One habit I have noted among the successful gardeners I know: have patience with a new plant. Lots of patience. “Sleep, creep, leap” is a gardener’s way of saying to give a perennial or shrub at least three years before it puts on a show. And this is especially true with California native plants. For its first year, it will just sit there. All the action is happening underground, developing a robust root system. In the second year, you’ll note more growth. To convince yourself that it is growing, put a stake next to the plant in its first year. The stake should be the exact height of the plant. By year two, the plant should be a bit taller than that stake.

Thanks for reading Beyond Basics: The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Thank you for also listening to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast! It’s available wherever you get your podcasts. Please share it with your garden friends.

Fred Hoffman is also a University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardener in Sacramento County. And he likes to ride his bike(s).

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com/subscribe

In today’s newsletter podcast, nursery owner Don Shor and I share success and failure stories from our 2023 tomato gardens. We both agree that one of the best tomatoes this year that we grew from seed was Rugby F1, a sauce/paste tomato that is large, meaty, and tasty.

In our own yard, Rugby was the overall winner for us. Although it is described in several seed catalogs as a Roma-type tomato, don’t be fooled. Rugby is much larger than other Roma canning tomatoes, about seven ounces each. Pink-red in color, Rugby has meaty flesh that is good for canning. But unlike smaller Roma tomatoes such as San Marzano or Roma VF, Rugby takes well to slicing and can be served on a sandwich or in a salad. Rugby is an indeterminate tomato, and did produce throughout the growing season, with great foliage cover to protect fruits from too much sun. There were few – if any – weather related issues with cracking or sunburn. Rugby is also resistant to diseases such as tomato mosaic virus, leaf mold, fusarium and verticillium wilt, crown and root rots, as well as bacterial speck. We will be planting Rugby again in 2024.

My tomato failure this year was the industry’s fault: a victim of a seed mixup. Here is the purchased, mismarked, packet.

Gardener’s Delight, is an indeterminate German heirloom small tomato, a favorite for years in our garden, with a long growing season and a grape-like shape, a bit larger than a cherry tomato. Oddly enough, although the name on the “Gardener’s Delight” tomato seed package (above) is wrong, the picture was EXACTLY correct. The tomatoes that these seeds produced resembled a run-of-the-mill, red, cherry tomato. That should have been a red flag to me. Whatever variety of cherry tomato that came from the packet of seeds was certainly not one that was a keeper: very little production that ended mid-summer.

This is what a Gardener’s Delight tomato is supposed to look like: a bit larger than a cherry tomato, nor perfectly round, as it tapers a bit on the blossom end. Nor does it grow in tight clusters, as some cherry varieties do.

Chalk it up to another victim of “Jalapeno-gate”, a country-wide (if not world-wide) seed mixup issue that was initially noted by many pepper aficianados - as well as retail and wholesale nurseries this past summer. Read about it here.

However, we enjoy Gardener’s Delight so much, that my plan for 2024 will be to purchase seed of that variety from two different seed catalogs and plant a few from each. I’ll be avoiding the seed catalog source of this year’s Gardener’s Delight failure.

More 2023 Tomato Winners and Losers

Which varieties were successful for you this year? Which tomatoes were a bust? Let me know how yours did.

Meanwhile, over at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center, the Sacramento County Master Gardeners conducted their own tomato trials this year. They grew three very popular varieties: Big Beef, Lemon Boy, and Celebrity. And for comparison, they grew the newer, alleged improvements of those three: Big Beef Plus, Lemon Boy Plus, and Celebrity Plus. Were the newer varieties really an improvement? The results were mixed.

During a 30-day period of harvesting in July and August, the original Big Beef tomato plant produced 84 tomatoes with an average weight of 15 ounces. Big Beef Plus, however, only produced 75 tomatoes with an average weight of 8 ounces. Still, the taste testers among the Master Gardeners preferred the taste and texture of the Big Beef Plus, 75% to 25%.

Both Lemon Boy and Lemon Boy Plus tomatoes that were harvested in that same time frame, and produced about the same number (132 to 111) and size (6.8 ounces to 7.5 ounces), although the Lemon Boy Plus had a few larger tomatoes that were beset with cracking. Lemon Boy was preferred by the taste testers to Lemon Boy Plus, by about a three to two ratio.

Celebrity Plus (50 pounds) outproduced the Celebrity tomato (40 pounds), with both varieties having about the same size of tomatoes. The judges were divided on the taste and texture, with 71% preferring the flavor of Celebrity Plus. For texture, Celebrity was favored by 75%. The big difference was the size of the plant: Celebrity stayed fairly compact, about three to four feet tall, while the Celebrity Plus climbed up to the top and over the five-foot cage.

“In our limited demonstration, all plants grew well and had no disease issues,” says the Master Gardener’s final report on the tomato trial. “We will probably keep all of the cultivars on our list to grow again.”

Thanks for reading Beyond Basics: The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Thank you for also listening to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast! It’s available wherever you get your podcasts. Please share it with your garden friends.

Fred Hoffman is also a University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardener in Sacramento County. And he likes to ride his bike(s).

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com/subscribe

In today’s newsletter podcast (above), we get tips on starting a wildflower garden from Marina LaForgia, of the Gremer Lab at UC Davis. LaForgia, a 2019 PhD graduate of Davis, is now doing research on seed dispersal and persistence. If you live in an area of the country where you can plant wildflowers or cover crops in the fall, especially in a drought-prone area, you’ll want to listen.

Thinking about planting cover crops this fall? The range of cover crop success in the U.S. is rather wide: USDA Zones 10 down to 6B. According to a cover crop study conducted by the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Pullman, Washington (USDA Zone 6B), it really depended on how cold it gets in a particular winter. Peaceful Valley Farm Supply has a cover crop solutions chart that lists many varieties that are reported to take the cold down to 25 degrees.

A very informative video from Peaceful Valley Farm Supply about planting wildflower seeds can be found here. (Note: Peaceful Valley is not an advertiser here. They just know their stuff. That’s good enough for me.)

What’s Your USDA Zone?

Want more zone details? Here’s a link to an eye-numbingly detailed USDA Zone Map from Wikipedia.

Fall is for Sowing Cover Crops and Wildflowers. But Should You Wait for the Rain?

Early fall - October through mid-November - is usually the time for planting a wildflower garden or sowing cover crop seeds on your bare garden beds here in USDA Zone 9, including most of California. “Usually” being the operative word; “rain” being the wild card. You can increase the chances of germination if the soil bed is prepared by thoroughly moistening it to depth of a few inches. Follow that up with weekly, thorough irrigations until the seeds sprout. However, the shorter, cooler days of October sometimes can fool a gardener into not watering enough, thinking that the rains will soon be coming.

Some native plant experts, such as LaForgia, say to wait for the rains before planting wildflower seeds. That event seems to be a long way off, especially with temperatures lately reaching the 90’s. In that wildflower video from Peaceful Valley, Trish recommends waiting until after the first hard frost in her area, which, because of the hilly terrain of Nevada City, could be anywhere from USDA Zones 9B to 7B. This will help the seeds achieve winter dormancy, and then come alive in the following Spring.

Meteorologists seem divided on what the next three or four months will bring to much of the U.S., especially for Northern California: no rain until heavy storms begin in late December (according to Weather West meteorologist Daniel Swain); a typical amount of rain, over the next 90 days (the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center); or, we don’t know: “Quite a bit of uncertainty exists during the upcoming 4-months due to widely varying oceanic-atmospheric teleconnection patterns that should create highly changeable weather patterns.”(National Interagency Fire Center).

Again, you can try to plant seeds of some wildflowers and cover crops now... Just keep the soil bed moist (not soggy) until germination. And if no rain has begun by that time, irrigate weekly.

Peaceful Valley Farm Supply in Nevada City, who are the cover crop experts in the Sierra foothills, urges their customers to plant cover crops at the correct time, rain, or no rain: “Do not delay planting to wait for the rain. It is better to have the seed in the ground waiting for the rain than to plant after fall rains begin. If possible, irrigation should be applied immediately after planting. The irrigation should be long enough to at least wet the soil to one to two inches below the seeding depth, with two or three subsequent irrigations to supplement the early growth if rains don’t happen in the Fall. The more growth these cover crops make in the Fall, the better.”

In the University of California publication, “Cover Cropping in Home Vegetable Gardens”, Sacramento County Master Gardener Gail Pothour explains that a cover crop is planted for the purpose of improving soil quality and nutrition as well as attracting beneficial insects. Cover crops add nitrogen to the soil, improve water penetration (due to long roots), suppresses weeds, and adds organic matter to the soil. Drawbacks to cover crops may be obvious, some not so obvious. Although you are taking a portion of the garden out of production of cool season vegetables and flowers, you are improving the soil. The not-so-obvious drawback: cover crops can be a bit of work in late winter and early spring. For maximum benefits, cover crops need to be cut back as flowering begins to keep that nitrogen in the soil. Then, the entire plants need to be chopped into little pieces and worked into the soil for maximum benefits three to six weeks before planting your spring vegetables or flowers.

In addition to clover, Pothour suggests using bell or fava beans as a cover crop. “For an upright cool season cover crop that is easy to cut down in the spring, use bell beans, or fava beans,” explains Pothour. “The large, round, flat-seeded ‘horse bean’ or fava bean plants are nearly identical to bell bean plants, but bell beans are usually planted as a cover crop because the seed is smaller and therefore cheaper. Of course, you can use fava beans as a cover crop, but remember that a fair amount of nitrogen (in proteins) will be removed when you harvest the seed, making less nitrogen available for the succeeding crop.” For best results, cut back the bean plants when they begin to flower if your goal is soil improvement.

Thanks for reading Beyond Basics: The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Thank you for also listening to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast! It’s available wherever you get your podcasts. Please share it with your garden friends.

Fred Hoffman is also a University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardener in Sacramento County. And he likes to ride his bike(s), despite the flat tires, due to Humboldt County potholes.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com/subscribe

In today’s newsletter podcast, retired college horticulture professor Debbie Flower and Master Gardener Gail Pothour offer tips for growing potatoes. We also talk about the best months of the year to plant potatoes. That answer? It depends where you are. Give it a listen (above).

More Potato Planting Tips

From the garden e-mail bag, Alan asks: “What varieties of potatoes are best to grow here in California?”

There are dozens of varieties a potato gardener in California can choose. Among the favorites of the University of California potato experts are Norgold Russet, Red la Soda, Kennebec, and White Rose. One of my favorites is Yukon Gold. Local nurseries and California-based garden catalogs, such as Renee’s Garden, will be getting in and shipping out seed potato varieties such as Colorado Rose, Heirloom Russet Burbank, Purple Majesty, French Fingerling, and Heirloom German Butterball in the winter.

One of the keys to homegrown potato success is planting at the right time, to avoid frost damage to young plants. We just passed the summer potato planting season of August and September. However, winter or early spring planting of potatoes is good, January through March in milder areas of California. A general rule of thumb: plant potato pieces about three to four weeks before the final frost. At California’s lower elevations, frost season is usually December and January. Planting in March, though, is good insurance against a wayward frost.

Throughout the United States, planting seed potato pieces three to four weeks before the final frost is a good rule of thumb. Find your average first and last frost dates here.

Your local nursery is a good barometer for the top potato varieties to grow in your area. Seed catalogs, as well, offer a wide variety of tasty and unusual potatoes that can do well in many climates.

Is there a difference between 'eating potatoes' and 'seed potatoes'?

Why plant “seed potatoes”? These are certified disease-free varieties, available from nurseries and catalogs. Using grocery store potatoes for planting have two drawbacks: they may have been treated with a sprout inhibitor to increase their shelf life; and, although the potato may be safe to eat, it may still transmit a disease to your soil.

Which brings us to another query from the garden e-mail bag. Bill asks: "What's wrong with using some of the potatoes from our earlier harvest to plant a new crop? Is there a difference between 'eating potatoes' and 'seed potatoes'?"

Each potato-growing state has tests to certify seed potatoes. These tests include field and storage inspections as well as demanding potato criteria. The seed potatoes are certified to be free of some diseases that can ravage an entire garden, including early blight, late blight, damping off, verticillium wilt and nematodes.

Diseases can spread easily, via the wind, plants, soil, and tools. As a precaution, you shouldn't plant potatoes and tomatoes in the same soil within three years of each other. To avoid this issue entirely, heirloom potato growers can plant in large containers, at least 15 gallons in size, using bagged soil.

Whether you grow in the ground or in containers, here are some potato planting tips:

• Cut seed potatoes into pieces weighing from one and a half to two ounces, each having one or two eyes.

• Store cut pieces at room temperature and preferably in a humid place for one or two days before planting to allow the cut surface to form a callus. This decreases the chances of rotting.

• In the garden, prepare a planting furrow about four inches deep. Drop seed pieces into the furrows, and cover with two inches of soil.

• Leave the furrow this way for 4 to 6 weeks. When the sprouts are a couple of inches high, add 2 more inches of soil so that the seed pieces will be covered at the original ground level.

• If planting in containers, start with a couple of inches of soil in the bottom, lay the seed potato pieces on the top, and cover with two inches of soil. As the sprouts grow, repeat that process until you are within a couple of inches of the container top.

• With either method, if a frost threatens the sprouts, cover with a permeable frost cloth. Most of the potato crop can be harvested when the vines die, or the skin of the tubers is firm, not flaky. 

Thanks for reading Beyond Basics: The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Thank you for also listening to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast! It’s available wherever you get your podcasts. Please share it with your garden friends.

Fred Hoffman is also a University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardener in Sacramento County. And he likes to ride his bike(s).

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com/subscribe

I’ve often heard from dietitians and health food aficionados that consuming microgreens and baby greens provide more nutrition than their full grown counterparts. Is that true? In a 2021 published study of two greens - spinach and roselle - researchers discovered that these plants - when harvested within 20 days of sowing - have some critical nutritional benefits greater than the full grown plant, according to the National Library of Medicine:

“Compared to field grown mature foliage, greenhouse-grown micro/baby-greens were lower in digestible carbohydrates and CA (calcium) but higher in digestible protein, P (phosphorus), K (potassium), Mg (magnesium), Fe (iron), Mn (manganese), and Zn (zinc).”

From the National Library of Medicine (Nov. 2021): Nutrient Content of Micro/Baby-Green and Field-Grown Mature Foliage of Tropical Spinach (Amaranthus sp.) and Roselle (Hibiscus sabdariffa L.)

So, for certain nutritive boosts, nature’s “fast food” (greens harvested at microgreen or baby green stage) is the way to go. Better yet, it’s quick from the garden to the plate, reaching cutting stage in 10 to 20 days after sowing in optimum conditions and temperatures.

In today’s “Beyond the Garden Basics” newsletter podcast (above), Master Gardener Gail Pothour discusses how to grow and harvest microgreens, and how they can be used in various dishes.

Below, Renee Shepherd shares her secrets for growing and harvesting baby greens, perfect for the freshest salad and other recipes. This is a transcript of a conversation we had with Renee, back in Episode 282 of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast.

THE CUT AND COME AGAIN FOOD GARDEN

Farmer Fred

One of the healthiest garden plants that you can grow our greens. But if you live in a hot climate, maybe you're limited to only growing greens during the cool season. Or if you live in a cold climate, it's your summer crop. But because greens are so healthy, you should be able to grow them year round. And, you know something? You can, with the advice of our guest today. It’s Renee Shepherd, the founder of Reneesgarden.com. She is widely regarded as a pioneering innovator in introducing international vegetables, flowers, and herbs to home gardeners and gourmet restaurants. She founded the Shepherd's Garden Seeds back in 1985. And she sold the company later on, and then established Renee's Garden to do what she likes best: searching out the very best seeds from around the world, testing them in her own garden, cooking and developing recipes around their unique characteristics, and sharing them with other gardeners. I've been a Renee's customer for years and years. I love her choices and introductions, especially the Sunset Mix sweet pepper.  Renee is the one who gave me a tip a few years ago when I was bemoaning the lack of cilantro to make salsa in the summertime. Cilantro, here in USDA zone nine, is basically a cool season crop. But you'd like to have some cilantro when you're making salsa in the summer, when the tomatoes and garlic and peppers and onions are ready. She said all you got to do is cut and come again with cilantro. Just grow it from seed in a shady spot. Then, when it gets a couple inches tall, you cut it and use it. Isn't that right, Renee?

Renee Shepherd 

That's the cut and come again method. It gives you a way to get several harvests of a lot of things that really wouldn't be able to take the heat.

Farmer Fred 

Actually, I think it's perfect for anybody who wants to garden. With a cut and come garden of greens, all you probably need, if you're starting it now, is a shady spot to grow it in, a large container, or if you have the room, a garden bed. But I would imagine, too, in a sunny window inside you could grow this.

Renee Shepherd 

Well, I'm not 100% sure that you would have great results on a windowsill, because it needs so much more light. You might get one cutting out of it.  I suggest you grow it outside for the best result.

Farmer Fred 

How about indoors with grow lights?

Renee Shepherd 

Indoors with grow lights? That's certainly a possibility.

Farmer Fred 

All right, we've just sold some more equipment there.  But there's a lot of greens that take well to the cut and come again method. You have a YouTube video at Reneesgarden.com that explains how you do that. So go ahead and explain it for our podcast audience. How exactly do you grow leafy greens that will come back after you cut them?

Renee Shepherd 

We think the cut and come again method is the way to grow the most greens in the smallest space in the shortest time. So it works for all lettuce mixes. And it  works for spinach, chard and kale, Asian greens, a lot of different things. It's not just for hot weather, it's really a way to get a lot of results from a small space and it's a different way of growing things. So either in a bed or in a large container. You prepare the soil. You get a seed mix and you pour out the seed in your hand. And then you shake the seeds through your fingers so it kind of goes into the bed like grass seeds. Don’t pack them in too thickly, but you try to spread them out, ideally, so the seeds are about a half an inch apart. And then you water it in. And when it gets about four to five inches tall at the most, you want to take  kitchen scissors or snips, and just cut off the top few inches, leaving a one inch crown. So you want to leave a one inch crown in the ground and cut the rest. So you have three to five inches of greens. You harvest as much as you need for a meal that day. In other words, the greens are going to come up densely. And you wouldn't grow them to maturity, because they would be way too crowded and they wouldn't grow well. They would get long and lanky. But if you harvest them at the baby stage, they're young and tender and delicious. So let's say you had a garden bed that’s about a couple of feet on each side, like two or three feet across and two or three feet wide. You could grow enough mesclun mix or baby lettuce mix there to give you a lot of meals. You cut just as much as you needed. After you cut it, you fertilize again with a high nitrogen fertilizer, like fish emulsion, if you're an organic gardener, which we are. You’ll  then get a second growth. But in really hot weather, you would not get a third growth. But in the cold season, you could sometimes even get a third cutting. So it's cut and come again.

Farmer Fred 

And how long does it take to produce the first crop? And then how long is it before you get a second crop?

Renee Shepherd 

I would say for the first crop, you're talking 30 to 45 days. And the second crop depends on the weather. But probably another couple weeks.

Farmer Fred 

Would you grow it in sun or shade?

Renee Shepherd 

If it's very hot weather, I would certainly grow it where it gets afternoon shade. Or you can also cover it with shade cloth. But I'm not kind of claiming that you're going to get much of a crop if it's 100 degrees, and baking in the sun. But I have seen growers in California up in the Sonoma area, grow it under a shade cloth - which is  mesh - that you cover your bed with. That reduces the amount of UV going in. But generally speaking, if it's getting really warm, then you should ideally grow it where it gets morning sun and afternoon shade. In the cool season, it doesn't really matter. It'll grow just fine, I would say. up until late spring. Start it as soon as the weather starts to cool down.

Farmer Fred 

I really like the idea of using the shade cloth for a very different reason: to keep the pests away. To keep the aphids, the white flies, the cabbage looper moth from laying eggs on those greens.

Renee Shepherd 

Well, the other nice thing about using the cut and come again method, you're only growing something four or five inches tall. And you're growing it safely from pests, because the plants are not in the garden long enough. You know what I mean?

Farmer Fred 

You have a lot of different mixes that you can use and I imagine that you can kind of mix and match all the various spicy greens as well as the mild greens. That would be very nice, and very colorful as well, in a salad mix or however you want to use greens.

Renee Shepherd 

You want to use two containers or two places on your garden bed. Grow one with mesclun or baby leaf lettuce, which is all kind of sweet reds and greens that are either either smooth and buttery and crunchy. We make up our mixes by growing the varieties individually and then combining them so you've got not just the flavor and color, but a good mouthfeel, because you don't want all soft lettuces and you don't want all crispy lettuces. It's nice to have both. Let's say we're talking about lettuce. You grow one baby leaf lettuce mix. And next to it you can grow a spicy greens mix that has arugula and mustard and spicy things. And then you go out to make a salad for dinner. You harvest two thirds lettuce and 1/3 spicy greens. You can tailor it to your own tastes. And you can certainly grow arugula as a cut and come again and you can grow lots of different things. Arugula is very fast growing. And frankly, it's not bitter when it's young. So you want to harvest it no more than four inches tall.

Farmer Fred 

And at that height,  the plant has developed its own character. It's got that shape that you recognize. It’s  going to be very colorful, too.

Renee Shepherd 

Most stores now sell mixes of baby leaf greens. Everyone knows what that is. But you can also buy baby kale, and baby arugula. All these things can be grown in the cut and come method yourself. It's much cheaper and it's really easy to do, especially for people in limited spaces. You can grow a really nice salad garden and greens gardens in containers in this fashion.

Farmer Fred 

I would think, then, if  you can get maybe two or three crops with the “cut and come again” for a bowl of lettuce in a portion of the garden, you'd want to have about two or three going at the same time. Maybe plant the second batch about a week or two after the first batch?

Renee Shepherd 

I would say a couple of weeks. But you know, you don't have to have a big patch because it produces a big quantity of greens. So it's a good strategy for having long term salads.

Farmer Fred 

I noticed in your video, when you were harvesting the greens when they're only four or five inches tall, all you did was you simply grabbed a handful of them, and then cut it one inch above the soil line beneath your hand and took that in for dinner.

Renee Shepherd 

Yeah, you wrap your hand around a bunch of tops, and you cut underneath your hand leaving one end. And then you take that in for dinner that night. It's really tender and delicious when it's fresh. Just make a real simple vinaigrette,  like with a mild rice vinegar, or whatever kind of vinegar you like, and really good olive oil. And that's really all you need.

Farmer Fred 

You know, speaking of that, you have recipe books.

Renee Shepherd 

Well, that's true. We have a huge trial garden where we trial and evaluate new varieties and grow many different kinds of the same variety. So we've always come up with recipes and what to do with it. Because if we have convinced you to grow radicchio, you're going to need some radicchio recipes. And if you grow pole beans, and you've used up the three ways you always made beans, you might want some new ideas. So all the cookbooks I've written are all alphabetical by vegetable, so you can look up whatever you're harvesting.

Farmer Fred 

And you can find those cookbooks online at Reneesgarden.com

Renee Shepherd 

We’re growing lots of basil, we planted a second crop of basil, so we'll have it ripe, when more tomatoes ripen.

Farmer Fred 

There you go. Yeah, basil can last quite a while, as well. I'm always amazed at parsley, because it's a biennial. And so you can get two years worth of harvest from that.

Renee Shepherd 

Well, that's true. We usually plant two crops a year, we are in USDA Zone 8.  One  will overwinter. And then we plant another one. So yes. I like Italian large leaf parsley better than most others. It’s my favorite. It's very healthy, too, and tastes so good.

Farmer Fred 

Not only that, but in its second year when parsley does start to flower, it attracts a whole host of beneficial insects.

Renee Shepherd 

Yes, and that's certainly something that a lot of gardeners are really getting into, seeing their gardens as a way to create backyard habitat, and encourage pollinators and solitary bees and all kinds of beneficial insects and songbirds. Not just feeding them, but feeding nature. It's really important and something all gardeners can really do.

Farmer Fred 

It behooves every gardener to build the good bug hotel.

Renee Shepherd 

Well, absolutely. That just means to plant lots of wonderful annual flowers that they all can feast upon.

Farmer Fred 

That's right. And a wide variety of plants, too. You want birds in your yard? They need some evergreen shrubs where they can they can hide out in.

Renee Shepherd 

Yes, thinking of your garden as a habitat, and source of food and pleasure not only for you, but by everything that surrounds you in nature. It is really an important concept because I think we are the source of a lot of habitat in our suburban and city gardens, more than we know, and it’s becoming more and more important.

Farmer Fred 

Anything else you want to cover in this?

Renee Shepherd 

We're getting into the real end of summer. So as soon as the weather starts to cool down would be a good time to launch another round of cut and come again greens, it's something you can do really quickly and easily. And if you're a beginning gardener, it's a great way to get going and besides lettuces, because I mostly talk about that. But you can grow - and it really is fun to grow - baby chard and baby kale, which is really more tender than mature kale, and spinach. So there's  really quite a few greens that can be grown in this fashion.

Farmer Fred 

Is green kale, in your estimation, tastier than ornamental kale?

Renee Shepherd 

Oh about 1,000%. Ornamental kale was bred for ornamental purposes, mostly in Japan, originally. It really is designed to be pretty. Is it also edible? Yeah. Is it delicious? Not particularly.

Farmer Fred 

We should point out that at Reneesgarden.com, you can find all sorts of seeds available, mixes available, for the container kitchen garden. So indeed if you do have a limited space to work with - maybe a sunny patio or less - there's a lot of good mixes that will work for you in containers.

Renee Shepherd 

We specialize in varieties for containers. So we have container chilies and container peppers and container cucumbers and container eggplants and containers zucchini, including a really nice French variety that really does well in a container. As well as watermelons. We have lots of these container cut and come again mixes, because that's something we really look for. And our other varieties all tend to be in vegetables at least, varieties chosen for wide adaptability and great flavor, because we eat them ourselves.

Farmer Fred 

You test them yourselves too.

Renee Shepherd 

Yes, we have a large trial garden both here in Northern California near Santa Cruz and also in Vermont.

Farmer Fred 

Talk a little bit about the Ortalana di Faenza zucchini. And I'm sure I butchered that name.

Renee Shepherd 

That is not the container variety. That is a very traditional Italian striped zucchini, characterized by a very nutty taste, just really sweet and nutty and custardy. It's a very delicious one. The French seed that we get, which is the container varieties, is called Astia (?). And then last year, we introduced the opposite, which is a climbing zucchini, which will crawl up a trellis and I really liked because then you can break off the fruits off the vine standing up. You don't have to go looking bending over and trying to find them and they don't hide. So we've got one for a zucchini for any use.

Farmer Fred 

Yeah, the climbing zucchini, by the way has the obvious name of Incredible Escalator.

Renee Shepherd 

Yes, it's from a German company and they just had a number for it. So they allowed me to name it, and since it moved quickly up I thought I'd name it escalator.

Farmer Fred 

Well, just in my own defense, I am growing that Ortalana di Faenza zucchini in a large barrel, and it's doing just fine.

Renee Shepherd 

That's one of my favorites, actually, flavor wise. And they make just beautiful fruit. And if you roast them whole, they're just wonderful  with olive oil and garlic. They're just delicious any other way you can think to enjoy them. They just have a really really excellent flavor. Container zucchini works well because it doesn't, it's non-vining. It's grows like a bush. And the zucchini are all easily pickable and  it's a very beautiful plant. It's very ornamental.

Farmer Fred 

I would be remiss if I did not ask you at this time of the year, what can you do with an overgrown zucchini that you found hiding under the leaves?

Renee Shepherd 

Well, I don't get them too often. Because I'm too greedy. I always go out and look, almost every other day. I am not an expert on overgrown zucchini. So I don't think  I'll have anything really new and exciting to tell you. You can cut them in half and scoop out the insides and  make a filling with the zucchini and sauteed with rice and Italian sausage and basil and then stuff the shell. Bake it topped with olive oil and a Italian kind of seasonings. That's nice.

Farmer Fred 

I guess I'll just continue feeding the big ones to the worms.

Renee Shepherd 

Yeah, or get a neighbor with chickens.  I would say that is the highest use of overgrown zucchini and trade them with people with chickens in return for an egg or two once in a while.

Farmer Fred 

Oh, I used to trade them to the neighbors to feed their cows.

Renee Shepherd 

Amen to that.

Farmer Fred 

Fall is for planting, August and September is for planning, and thinking about what your family will eat. Try some new varieties as well. Don't start too big, start with a small patch if you've never grown something before, see if your family likes it and experience something new. USDA zones nine and eight and even seven can have a cool season garden, perhaps with some protection. But there's no reason why you can't be out there gardening most of the year.

Renee Shepherd 

Well, I do have to tell you that I used to get invited to this one family’s Thanksgiving feast every year, and I really never saw them much, and didn't know them very well. And I couldn't figure out why they wanted me to come to Thanksgiving. And I found out it was because of the fall garden produce I brought.  I brought a great big salad, with all those wonderful fall greens. And that's why they invited me. So obviously everybody can grow lots of delicious things for fall. It's really worth doing, and fun. And it's easier, because as the weather cools down, there's less pest problems. Plants stay well in the garden. You can have another crop of root vegetables, lots of greens. Some of the healthiest things can be grown in the cooler fall weather, and they don't take as much energy because they’re not as many weeds. It is actually the easiest time of year.

Farmer Fred 

Exactly. And with your international expertise in the world of vegetables, the wide variety of bok choi, Chinese cabbages, is amazing.

Renee Shepherd 

Yes, we we've had more and more Asian greens just because they're fast and easy and so healthy. We really try to look and feature things that are high nutrition. Most of all, deliciousness is our highest criteria.

Farmer Fred 

There you go. So find out more at Reneesgarden.com. Noted seeds woman, Renee Shepherd, has been our guest. Renee, thanks for all the good advice about the cut and come again garden.

Renee Shepherd 

Well thank you very much for talking with me. I've really enjoyed it.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com/subscribe

One of the best soil amendments to add for happy plants are worm castings, also known as worm poop. However, the price of a bag of worm castings approaches twenty dollars, so you may want to tack on a new “to-do” item for the soil in your garden: vermicomposting, which is raising worms, usually in a worm bin. Those worms will feast on many of your kitchen scraps, giving you back a soil amendment teeming with microbial activity, perfect for plant roots to enjoy.

And you don’t have to worry about the worms if you go on a three-week vacation. Give them some extra food before you leave and re-dampen the bedding. They won’t complain.

Worms do best at temperatures slightly less than room temperature. Putting them in a cool indoor room or basement is an excellent idea. If you maintain the right balance of food, the bins won’t smell, either.

Here are tips from the Sacramento County Master Gardeners on starting and maintaining a worm composting bin:

• All you need to create worm castings is a worm box, bedding material, red wriggler worms (not earth worms) and food scraps.

• Bins can be purchased or homemade. Use a solid color (not clear) plastic storage box or a sturdy wooden box with a tight-fitting lid to keep out pests and protect your worms. If making your own bin, be sure to drill ¼-inch holes in the bottom to allow for drainage.

• Worms will not escape; they dislike light and will migrate toward the center of the box.

• A commercial vermicomposting system that feature stackable bins take up a house-friendly smaller footprint, perhaps 24 by 24 inches.

• Moistened, shredded newspaper or corrugated cardboard, shredded leaves, purchased pine shavings, or coconut fiber (coir) bedding provides worms with a balanced diet as well as a damp, aerated place to live.

• Always keep the bedding as moist as a wrung-out sponge.

• Place the worm bin in the shade or indoors. The worms will tolerate a wide range of temperatures, but the best temperatures are between 55° and 75°F. However, today’s newsletter podcast guest, Sacramento County Master Gardener Susan Muckey, prefers to be more of a “tough love” worm parent. She lets her worms deal with temperatures that range from 40 to 80 degrees. Listen to what she has to say in the podcast at the top of the page.

• Worms love most fruits and vegetables, used tea bags, used coffee grounds and filters. Do not feed them animal products, dairy, onions, or processed foods. Limit citrus peels to less than 20% of the food. Some worm parents say that the total citrus contribution to the worm bin should be closer to zero percent.

•  Chopping the food into small pieces, one inch or less in size, will speed up the composting process.

• To avoid fruit flies and odors, cover the food with at least one inch of bedding.

• Use red wigglers or red worms. They can be purchased at some nurseries, worm farms, and fishing supply stores.

• The castings are ready when they are dark and fine in texture. Separate the worms from the castings. Place the worm castings in your garden bed before planting. Work the castings lightly into the soil with a rake. Cover with mulch or compost. If you soil could talk, it would thank you!

Thanks for reading Beyond Basics: The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Thank you for also listening to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast! It’s available wherever you get your podcasts. Please share it with your garden friends.

Fred Hoffman is also a University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardener in Sacramento County. And he likes to ride his bike(s).

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com/subscribe

If I was to ask you, “What is organic gardening?” You might squint a little, and say something along the lines of, “Well, organic gardeners don’t use chemicals in the garden”. That wouldn't be correct.

After all, water is a chemical, and all gardeners probably use water. And, there are chemicals used in organic gardening, including manufactured fertilizers that are OMRI certified as organic. OMRI - the Organic Materials Review Institute - is a nonprofit organization that provides an independent review of products, such as fertilizers, pest controls, livestock health care products, and numerous other inputs that are intended for use in certified organic production and processing.

Pondering the question, “What is Organic Gardening?”, is interesting. If you go online and search for a definition of organic gardening, it runs the gamut.

The University of Massachusetts, for one, says even among those claiming to be organic gardeners, it differs as to exactly what constitutes organic gardening.

“In general, organic gardening differs from traditional gardening in two important ways, use of agricultural chemicals and use of artificial or processed fertilizers.”

However, they don't say exactly what “agricultural chemicals” are.

Then, UC Davis’ Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program states, “Organic agriculture is the practice of growing, raising, or processing goods using methods that avoid the use of most synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, as well as bioengineering, ionizing radiation, and sewage sludge.”

Alright, now we're starting to narrow down the definition of “organic gardening”.

The University of Georgia says that a generally accepted definition of organic gardening is: “The use of cultural practices to improve soil and plant health in order to reduce plant problems without the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.”

This is becoming very interesting.

So we turn to the Royal Horticultural Society in jolly old England, and they say: “Organic gardening is commonly used to describe cultivation systems which make minimal use of manufactured chemical substances. These are practical elements of a broader philosophy which takes a holistic view of gardening, emphasizing the interdependence of life forms.” That “broader philosophy” may include the tenets of permaculture.

And then we have the thoughts of a man we had as a guest about a month ago. IHeart was there discussing phosphorus, a soil macronutrient, and some of the possible dangers or cautions one should employ if using phosphorus fertilizers.

It was garden book author, Robert Kourik. And I wondered about the manufacturing of phosphorus.

I asked him, “Is the process that makes phosphorus fertilizers, in your estimation, not organic, even though phosphorus fertilizer is considered organic?”

And he said, “I like to think of it as considering a cradle-to-grave review of organics.”

Well, that needed some expansion.

So back for his expansion time is Robert Kourik, author of the book, Sustainable Food Gardens as well as many other garden books.

“The way I define organic gardening is what I call a full-cycle ecosystem,” says Kourik. “In other words, using as few external inputs as possible, while harvesting as much as possible. If you have an organic garden and you truck everything in from five miles away, and you buy bone meal, and you buy blood meal, and you buy phosphate fertilizers and more, you have a tremendous amount of inputs coming from near or far. That doesn’t reflect what would naturally happen if you weren't bringing in that nutrition and those other products. I’m trying to keep it as a closed loop as much as possible. So when I talk about ‘cradle to grave”, let's look at what it costs to produce these inputs, how they’re produced, what it takes to truck them around, as well as what do you get out of it, and what are the alternatives that you could use in your own garden, instead.”

Listen to the podcast (above) about how you can transition to a more self-sustaining organic garden. Perhaps it won’t be a fully self-sufficient ecosystem, but you will have lessened your carbon footprint, if you’re a big-picture kind of person. Perhaps closer to your own reality, you will have saved some money, one cover crop or mulch pile, at a time.

Thanks for reading Beyond Basics: The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Thank you for also listening to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast! It’s available wherever you get your podcasts. Please share it with your garden friends.

Fred Hoffman is also a University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardener in Sacramento County. And he likes to ride his bike(s).

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com/subscribe

A dogwood tree is easy to love: flowers in the spring, beautiful orange/pink/red fall leaf color; a small to medium height tree, perfect for a patio area.

The University of Florida lists the dogwood tree’s strengths and weaknesses:

“The state tree of Virginia, the flowering dogwood grows 20 to 30 feet tall and spreads 25 to 30 feet. It can be trained with one central trunk or as a picturesque multi-trunked tree. The flowers consist of four bracts which subtend the small head of yellow flowers. The bracts may be pink or red depending on cultivar but the species color is white. The fall color depends on site and seed source but on most sun grown plants will be red to maroon. The bright red fruits are often eaten by birds. Fall color is more vivid in USDA hardiness zones 5 to 8a. Branches on the lower half of the crown grow horizontally, those in the upper half are more upright. In time, this can lend a strikingly horizontal impact to the landscape, particularly if some branches are thinned to open up the crown. Lower branches left on the trunk will droop to the ground, creating a wonderful landscape feature.

“The tree is not suited for parking lot planting but can be grown in a wide street median, if provided with less than full-day sun and irrigation. Dogwood is a standard tree in many gardens where it is used by the patio for light shade, in the shrub border to add spring and fall color or as a specimen in the lawn or groundcover bed. It can be grown in sun or shade but shaded trees will be less dense, grow more quickly and taller, have poor fall color, and less flowers. Trees prefer part shade (preferably in the afternoon) in the southern end of its range. Many nurseries grow the trees in full sun, but they are irrigated regularly. Flowering dogwood prefers a deep, rich, well-drained, sandy, or clay soil and has a moderately long life. It is not recommended in the New Orleans area and other heavy, wet soils unless it is grown on a raised bed to keep roots on the dry side. The roots will rot in soils without adequate drainage.

Several of the cultivars listed are not readily available. Pink-flowering cultivars grow poorly in USDA hardiness zones 8 and 9. 'Apple Blossom'—pink bracts; 'Cherokee Chief'—red bracts; 'Cherokee Princess'—white bracts; 'Cloud 9'—white bracts, many blooms, flowers at early age; 'Fastigiata'—upright growth while young, spreading with age; 'First Lady'—leaves variegated with yellow turning red and maroon in the fall; 'Gigantea'—bracts 6-inches from tip of one bract to tip of opposite bract; 'Magnifica'—bracts rounded, 4-inch diameter pairs of bracts; 'Multibracteata'—double flowers; 'New Hampshire'—flower buds cold hardy; 'Pendula'—weeping or drooping branches; 'Plena'—double flowers; var. rubra—pink bracts; 'Spring Song'—bracts rose red; 'Springtime'—bracts white, large, blooms at an early age; 'Sunset'—supposedly resistant to anthracnose; 'Sweetwater Red'—bracts red; 'Weaver's White'—large white flowers, adapted to the south; 'Welchii'—leaves variegated with yellow and red; 'White Cloud'—flowers more numerous, bracts white; 'Xanthocarpa'—fruit yellow.

“Aphids may be controlled by spraying them with a strong stream of water from the garden hose.

Several borers will attack dogwood. Try to keep the trees healthy with regular fertilization, and irrigation during dry weather. Indications of borer problems are holes in the trunk, leaves smaller than normal, and dieback of the crown.

Dogwood club gall midge causes galls at the branch tips. The leaves on affected branch tips may be distorted and the branch may fail to form a flower bud. Prune out the galls as soon as they are seen.

Leaf miners cause brown blister-like mines on the undersides of leaves. The adult leaf miner skeletonizes the leaves.

Scales can build up to large numbers before being detected. Horticultural oil will help control overwintering stages.

Twig girdlers prune the tips of small branches. They are more of an annoyance than a serious problem unless you are a nursery operator.

“Dogwood anthracnose may be the biggest concern with growing flowering dogwood. Infection is favored by cool, wet spring or fall weather. Drought and stressed trees appear to be most affected, as are those at higher elevations. Trees on the coastal plain may be much less likely to become affected. Consecutive years of infection can kill trees. Keep the tree healthy with regular irrigation in dry weather but avoid overhead irrigation. Plant the tree in an area which allows the leaves to stay as dry as possible. Consult a local pathologist for the latest in control measures. Cornus kousa is thought to be resistant to anthracnose and it can be planted in areas where anthracnose is a problem. It is a very beautiful tree.

Early symptoms of dogwood canker are smaller and paler leaves than normal. Leaves on infected branches are red earlier in the fall. At first the symptoms appear only on the infected side of the tree but become more general as the canker enlarges. There is no chemical control for the disease. Avoid trunk wounds during and after planting.

Crown canker is associated with wet soils and can be controlled with appropriate fungicides.

Flower and leaf blight attacks fading bracts, especially during wet weather. Infected flower parts fall on the leaves spreading the infection.

A large number of leaf spots attack dogwood. Clean up and dispose of infected leaves.

Powdery mildew covers the leaves with a fine white coating.

Leaf scorch occurs during hot, dry, windy weather. This condition looks like a disease. Scorch symptoms are drying and browning of the leaf margins, or, in more serious cases, drying and browning of the interveinal area.”

What does driving a British sports car, dating Kim Kardashian, and growing a Dogwood tree have in common? High maintenance.

If you’ve made it this far, you probably have come to realize that a dogwood tree - especially in a climate not conducive to its happiness - may require regular, proper maintenance.

Which brings us to listener Katie’s question about her stressed-out dogwood tree that seems to be sprouting everywhere. Listen to the podcast (above) for our take on the topic. The astute among you may see some possibilities for stress in this picture of her dogwood:

The University of California’s Ag and Natural Resources Department lists the optimum conditions for a dogwood tree:

“Dogwoods can grow in several different climatic zones depending on species. They prefer generally acid soils with high organic content. Dogwoods generally need adequate moisture. They do best in areas with partial shade to full sun. In hot, arid climates, partial shade is preferred to protect them from leaf scorch.”

The University of California likes to make lists of a plant’s possible problems. The list for the dogwood?

A 1961 Jaguar E-Type (British Racing Green, of course) might be easier to keep healthy.

But just like that fellow down the street from you who is always tinkering in the garage on some past love in his internal combustion life, there are gardeners throughout the country who will suffer any dogwood setbacks gladly, nursing them back to health, just to enjoy the spring flower show and the fall color. For gardeners, the pain is worth the pleasure.

Thanks for reading Beyond Basics: The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Thank you for also listening to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast! It’s available wherever you get your podcasts. Please share it with your garden friends.

Fred Hoffman is also a University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardener in Sacramento County. And he likes to ride his bike(s).

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com/subscribe

Back in July, we discussed “Six Common Tomato Problems.” Among those maladies were abiotic disorders (problems that are caused by factors such as weather, soils, chemicals, mechanical injuries, or cultural practices; and, not caused by insects or disease). Tomato abiotic disorders include blossom end rot, fruit cracking, leaf rolling, solar yellowing, sunburn, and tomato flower drop…all related to weather or watering issues.

In that column, I mentioned we would tackle an annual tomato-related issue, tomato worms, in a future edition. Well, here it is, in the podcast, above. America’s Favorite Retired College Horticulture Professor, Debbie Flower, waxes rhapsodic about the three “worms” (caterpillars, really) that can damage your tomato plants: Tomato/Tobacco hornworm, tomato fruit worm, and tomato pinworm, along with the moths that laid those eggs. She reassures us that nature has supplied us with plenty of “good guys” to help control these munchers and burrowers. Links that are listed in the notes for that podcast include: descriptions of tomato hornworm, fruit worm, and pinworm; and two posts from the Farmer Fred Rant blog, “Plants that Attract Beneficial Insects”; and, “The Good Bug Hotel”.

Today’s Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter tackles another abiotic disorder: tomatoes that are slow to ripen because of heat spikes this summer. And who hasn’t suffered through that this year? (Put your hand down, San Francisco.)

Why Are My Tomatoes Slow to Ripen?

From the garden e-mail bag, Vinnie asks: “My tomatoes are very slow to turn from orange to red, and several have yellowing as my bushes are not as leafy as I would like. They also are rather firm, though the plants have done well up to this point, with a decent amount of fruit as well as setting new tomatoes higher up on the plant. My “Sweet Million” cherry tomatoes also are having difficulty turning red, the same with the “Early Girl” and “Champion” full-size tomatoes. I planted the tomatoes in mid-April. They only get about six to eight hours of direct sun, depending on the season. But it seems I’ve had tomatoes for weeks at the same state of not turning fully red in color, so I was a little curious and disappointed in that. The plants are healthy, but not very bushy.”

You are not alone, Vinnie. Many area gardeners are wondering about the lack of color of their tomatoes now, in late summer. Blame the triple-digit heat spikes that have occurred coast to coast for the slowdown this summer.

Researchers from across the country have studied the effect of excess heat on ripening tomatoes. Their consensus: don’t worry, be happy. Those tomatoes will still be edible. And if you want to speed up the ripening process, harvest those tomatoes that are beginning to show color before the next forecast triple digit heatwave hits. Let them ripen indoors, in a dark place on the kitchen counter.

However, too much shade or lack of foliage on outdoor plants can also impede ripening tomatoes.

The University of California’s Contra Costa County Master Gardeners Newsletter says:

“A key resource that tomatoes need for ripening is plenty of leaf surface for photosynthesis. Often by late summer, some of the leaves on the tomato have started to dry up and wither and are no longer helping to nourish the plant. The plant is less vigorous than it was earlier in the season, so it takes longer for the green tomatoes to ripen. If you've run out of patience with slow ripening tomatoes, one thing you can do to speed up ripening is to remove some of the green tomatoes. Then the tomato plant can put all its energy into ripening the tomatoes that remain on the plant.

“Soil temperatures are also important. For optimal growth, tomatoes need soil temperatures that are less than 80 degrees. Hot air temperatures raise the soil temperature. Containers may be particularly vulnerable to soil temperature rise if they sit in the hot afternoon sun. Mulching can help keep soil temperatures lower. Also, if your tomatoes are hit by afternoon sunshine, you might consider erecting some shade barriers to keep the sun off the containers.

“If you've run out of patience with slow ripening tomatoes, one thing you can do to speed up ripening is to remove some of the green tomatoes. Then the tomato plant can put all its energy into ripening the tomatoes that remain on the plant. You can ripen the green tomatoes you remove on your kitchen counter. They won't be as yummy as the ones that ripen on the vine, but they're still better than store bought tomatoes.”As a final caution, don't be tempted to fertilize the tomato plant thinking it will speed up production. Fertilizing now will probably just cause the tomato to go into a vegetative growth mode that is too late in the season to be helpful.”

Kansas State University chimes in:

“Tomato color can also be affected by heat. When temperatures rise above 95 degrees, red pigments don’t form properly, though the orange and yellow pigments do. This results in orange fruit. It doesn’t affect the edibility of the tomato, but often gardeners want that deep, red color back.”

The report goes on to state that high heat also will cause poor fruit to set, especially on slicer tomatoes.

“Cherry tomatoes seem to be more heat tolerant,” Kansas State Horticulturist Ward Upham said. “But for slicers, high temperatures seem to interfere with pollen viability or can cause excessive style growth, leading to a lack of pollination. Tomatoes that have already formed (before excessive heat) are not affected.”

The “style” of a flower is the stem inside the flower that is part of the pistil. This question will not be on the Final.

Upham said it takes about three weeks for tomato flowers to develop into fruit that is about the size of a golf ball. After that, growth is usually more rapid over the following three to six weeks, and then just a few more days to change color.

“Though there are ‘heat-set’ slicing tomato varieties that will set fruit at higher temperatures, that difference is normally only two to three degrees,” Upham said. “Once cooler temperatures arrive, tomato flowers will resume setting fruit.”

Cornell University says not to worry about letting those harvested, not-quite-red tomatoes sit in a dark, cool place indoors:

“Light conditions have very little to do with ripening. Tomatoes do not require light to ripen and in fact, fruit exposed to direct sunlight will heat to levels that inhibit pigment synthesis. If temperatures remain high outdoors, these picked fruit will ripen more quickly, perhaps by as much as five days. As far as flavor, the greener fruit should develop flavor and color like what you would get if field ripened. The key is picking them when they are showing the first signs of ripening (no earlier) and keeping them at room temperature. Do not refrigerate, as this will absolutely destroy their flavor. Outside, direct sun can also lead to sunscald of fruit. Because of that, do not remove plant leaves to help ripen the fruit. Also, soil fertility doesn't play much of a role. We do know that high levels of magnesium and low levels of potassium can lead to conditions like blotchy or uneven ripening or yellow shoulder disorder. But the slowness to ripen is not likely due to soil conditions. Adding additional fertilizer will do nothing to quicken ripening.”

Remember, too: we have a long tomato growing season here in USDA Zone 9. Fresh garden tomatoes are not uncommon in our area on Thanksgiving; some gardeners here have even reported Christmas tomatoes (yes, they were cherry tomatoes, but you wouldn’t want to see what the plant looks like on Dec. 25). Don’t worry. Be happy!

Thanks for reading Beyond Basics: The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Thank you for also listening to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast! It’s available wherever you get your podcasts. Please share it with your garden friends.

Fred Hoffman is also a University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardener in Sacramento County. And he likes to ride his bike(s).

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com/subscribe

If you own a Japanese maple tree, or pass by one on your daily strolls, check the leaves. Are they getting a little brown around the edges? Are the leaves beginning to fall off? Welcome to late August and early September, where the quadruple whammy of triple digit temperatures, hot dry winds, reflected heat from a nearby wall/concrete surface, or irregular watering can make many Japanese maples start to suffer. Note the location of those Japanese maple trees. Are they in full sun more than six or eight hours a day? Is it facing a direction where winds are common in the hot afternoon? Around here, it is primarily west and southwest winds.

Although most Japanese maples prefer morning sun and afternoon shade, there are several varieties that can take the full sun.

Chris Aycock of El Dorado Nursery and Gardens in Shingle Springs, CA has his favorite Japanese maples for sun or partial sun. “An old standard is the ‘Bloodgood’ Japanese maple,” says Aycock. “It gets about 20 feet tall and wide. If you want something smaller, ‘Fireglow’ is a nice 12 to 15 foot, upright growing variety. If you're looking for a lace-leaf Japanese maple, ‘Orangeola’ is one of my favorites. It's a very fast growing, cascading lace-leaf-style Japanese maple, with orange-red foliage. It’s very tough and very vigorous.” Hear more of Aycock’s comments and tips about Japanese maple trees in today’s newsletter podcast (above).

Scott Paris of High Hand Nursery in Loomis, CA says he has found three Japanese maples for sunny areas in Northern California: ‘Seiryu’, ‘Pine Bark’, and ‘Tobiosho’.

“The ‘Seiryu’ is amazing,” says Paris. “It is the only upright growing lace-leaf variety. With its beautiful red fall color, it is a showstopper. When stressed in the heat, it is very rare that it flags. Instead, it gets a cinnamon hue.”

Paris is also high on the ‘Pine Bark’ Japanese maple. “This has cool-looking leaves, and the bark resembles a pine tree, with stunning red fall color.”

One of Paris’ most consistent performers among Japanese maple trees is the ‘Tobiosho’. “It’s a basic green maple in the summer,” Paris explains. “People usually cruise by it and yawn. But no, this maple is a consistent grower with outstanding fall color.”

That’s good information if planting a Japanese maple is on your fall to-do list. But for those with suffering Japanese maples right now, here are some do’s and don’ts.

• If the leaves on the Japanese maple tree are browning, fight the urge to pull them off. Those browning leaves, while hanging on the tree, can help the tree avoid sunburn to the branches and trunks.

• Be careful with watering. Check the soil moisture at a depth of eight or 10 inches before you irrigate. Japanese maples need regular watering, but too much standing water can lead to soil-borne diseases in the root area.

• Remove any lawn beneath the tree that is competing for the water. Because turf roots are shallower, they will get first dibs on any water from sprinklers or drip irrigation systems.

• Add mulch beneath the tree to help preserve a more consistent soil moisture level. Arborist Anne Fenkner of Davey Tree Company suggests the “4-4-4” rule for mulching beneath trees: “Place wood chips that are four inches deep, starting four inches away from the trunk of the tree, and extend that mulch four feet out all around the tree.”

• Aycock seconds that mulching motion, with an added tip: “Mulching is very critical, it helps keep the roots cool. Although we will recommend full sun for quite a few of the varieties, we will tell you to plant it away from the house so there's no reflective heat. You're better to have it out in the open rather than up against a hot wall.”

• Don’t fertilize a suffering Japanese maple in the heat of the summer. The best season for a single application of fertilizer for Japanese maples, according to Paris, is spring. “Japanese maple trees are not greedy,” says Paris. “But maples resent quick-release ammonium sources of fertilizer. Apply in early spring and not more than once a year.” All-purpose, slow-release organic fertilizers, usually with nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium content in the single digits, are widely available. Remember, too, that as the mulch layer around your Japanese maple tree breaks down, it is feeding the soil, too.

Thanks for reading Beyond Basics: The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Thank you for also listening to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast!

It’s available wherever you get your podcasts, including our home page, GardenBasics.net . Please share it with your gardening friends.

Fred Hoffman is also a University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardener in Sacramento County. And he likes to ride his bike(s).

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com/subscribe