This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit gardenbasics.substack.com First of all, if you manage to get through this rather brain-taxing, soil-based, newsletter edition, you deserve a little love. How about 20% off a new paid subscription? Before diving into the deep end of how to read a soil report, check out this Overview on Soil Tests from the Alameda Co. (CA) Master Gardeners. It might help make the rest of this more comprehensible. Getting a soil test done is a great idea...
Oct 17, 2025•11 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit gardenbasics.substack.com This journey into the odd and slightly obscene world of misshapen vegetables was inspired by Sacramento County Master Gardener Peter Horton, who wrote this article for the October 2025 Sacramento Co. Master Gardener newsletter. The article made me harken back to the days of the popularity of Richard Nixon lookalike vegetables, odd-shaped tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and squash that had appendages - that to s...
Oct 13, 2025•4 min
Beyond The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred is a reader-supported publication. To receive the complete posts, have access to over 200 previous editions, and help keep the good gardening information coming your way, please become a paid subscriber. Early fall is for planting, as we are fond of saying. The days are cooler, and the soil is still warm. Those are ideal conditions for a healthy start of new cool season annuals, perennials, trees, and shrubs. If you’re at the nursery this weekend checkin...
Oct 10, 2025•13 min
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit gardenbasics.substack.com Back in elementary school in Southern California, there once was a visit from a local firefighter who had Smokey the Bear in tow with him (I felt sorry for whoever was in that outfit. It was a hot day). Because, as Smokey would remind us daily on TV public service announcements, “Remember, Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires.” The purpose was to explain to us fifth graders the fire triangle: that you need three...
Oct 06, 2025•12 min
Today’s newsletter and podcast originally appeared here back in September of 2022, and it was one of the most popular posts here in the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter. Eating healthy food - and the healthiest food you can eat is the food you grow yourself - is a perennial concern. So, for those of you who didn’t hear or read this three years ago - or would like a refresher course - here it is again. Remember, paid subscribers have access to all the previous Beyond the Garden Basics newslett...
Oct 03, 2025•28 min
We are transitioning from the summer gardening season to cool season vegetables and flowers. However, maybe you don’t want to put in cool season crops. A word to the wise: don’t leave your fading summer garden lingering (or drooping) in the garden; doing that invites insect and disease pests to overwinter in that standing debris. In its place, there are some inexpensive and easy things you can do that will not only minimize pest problems for the following year, but also feed your soil and make i...
Sep 26, 2025•20 min
Don from Indiana has a late summer visitor to his tomato plants. He is not pleased: “I flicked 10 of these “bad boys” off one of my tomato plants last night. Ten! I look at this plant every day. I water it every day. I pick and eat tomatoes off it every day. Every day! How did so many appear seemingly overnight? I believe it is a Tobacco Hornworm caterpillar (Manduca sexta). There were actually 11 of them on the plant, but I left the one that had been parasitized. That’s the one with what looks ...
Sep 05, 2025•13 min
While editing Episode 406 of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast (out now), I was taking copious notes, about all the great garden tips Don Shor and I discussed in an episode that was ostensibly a chat about growing tomatoes this summer (we both like Cupid , despite its propensity to sprawl). In fact, it was the most notes I have ever taken for any episode. Were you taking notes, too, while listening? If so, I hope you weren’t driving. But I’ll make it easier for you: check out the transc...
Aug 22, 2025•4 min
In the podcast (above) retired UC Farm Advisor Rachel Long has tips for attracting songbirds to your property. They're nice to look at, sing wonderfully and eat insects. No, we're not talking about the Dixie Chicks on a fad diet. It's the gardener's best friends, a backyard filled with birds.We're talking about the family inhabited by warm-blooded egg-laying vertebrates, characterized by feathers and forelimbs modified as wings. Yes, real birds will nibble on your cherries and grapes (that's why...
Aug 15, 2025•3 min
One of the best places to get your garden questions answered (or pick up the 2026 Sac Co Master Gardener Gardening Guide and Calendar ) is at the annual gathering of Master Gardeners, gardening professionals, and horticultural consultants at Harvest Day, held the first Saturday of August each year at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center in Sacramento County. And last Saturday was no exception. A question I posed to several dozen of the pros there was this: “What is the one garden tip you would like...
Aug 08, 2025•41 min
90% of all plant problems are water related, either too much or too little . Compounding the problem: gardeners who are operating a drip irrigation system but using a sprinkler mentality. The Beyond The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred newsletter is a reader-supported publication. Both free and paid subscribers are welcome here! Talking to gardeners, after describing a plant problem, they will be asked: "How are you watering that plant?" More often than not, if the answer is, "drip irrigation", th...
Jul 25, 2025•34 min
This edition of the newsletter is a deeper dive into this week’s Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, Episode 398, “Aromatic Plants, Plus Roses! ” Here, we’ll see what these “shows for the nose” look like, along with more details about these aromatic plants, as selected by a group of Sacramento County (CA) Master Gardeners. Plus we take a look at some of the most fragrant roses, as selected by Master Rosarian Charlotte Owendyk. Beyond The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred is a reader-supported p...
Jun 27, 2025•8 min
The above audio track is from a long time ago, when things were - at the very least -tense. It was during the initial panic as COVID-19 struck the United States, back in May of 2020. The confusion around COVID-19 was my impetus for starting the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. At that time, there were a lot of people developing a sudden interest in gardening, thinking they might be stuck at home for who knows how long? And, people were stressed. That was my reason for recording the segmen...
Jun 20, 2025•11 min
One question I have been getting a lot of lately: Should I prune off (snip off, pinch out) the first tomato flowers that appear, in order to get more tomatoes later? Those early tomato flowers, especially if the weather doesn’t cooperate, will fall all by themselves, thank you. Your assistance is not needed. In today’s newsletter podcast (above), Sacramento County Master Gardener and vegetable expert Gail Pothour explains the myths behind pruning off tomato flowers. Flower drop and tomato fruit ...
Jun 13, 2025•6 min
Today’s Beyond the Garden Basics Newsletter expands upon a topic we were briefly discussing in Episode 395 of the Garden Basics Podcast, “Survival Garden Basics” . In this case, the short chat was about the value of microgreens, and how they are easy to grow, and because of their small size, super-packed with nutrients. In today’s “Beyond the Garden Basics” newsletter podcast (above), Sacramento County (CA) Master Gardener Gail Pothour discusses how to grow and harvest microgreens, and how they ...
Jun 06, 2025•22 min
If you’re reading this as May turns into June, and you live in the West, you know you’re going through a heat wave, including triple digit temperatures in parts of California. A more widespread - and longer - heat wave is expected in mid-June. And, long range forecasts are calling for a much hotter summer (July through September) than usual throughout most of North America. This is not good news for your south and west facing backyard tomatoes, especially. Give a listen to today’s newsletter pod...
May 30, 2025•2 min
Both free and paid subscribers have full access to the Friday edition of the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter. Because cutting off free subscribers in the middle of a newsletter isn’t a nice thing to do. At the top of the page: an excerpt of a conversation with Don Shor of Redwood Barn Nursery about growing tomatoes with drip irrigation in raised beds from Episode 288 of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. Another podcast episode that really delves into drip irrigation was Episode 227...
May 16, 2025•2 min
In Episode 390 of the Garden Basics podcast , Master Gardener Gail Pothour offered some great tips for growing peppers this spring and summer. We also discussed sweet, warm and hot pepper varieties that might be worth a try in your own garden. That portion of our discussion is also in the newsletter podcast at the top of the page. Also in today’s newsletter podcast, Diane Blazek, the Executive Director of the All America Selections plant winners, talks about her favorite award-winning, not-so-ho...
May 02, 2025•22 min
A bout of colder, wetter weather means ants will have begun their march towards the warmth and comfort of your house, greenhouse or outbuildings. In today’s newsletter podcast, America’s Favorite Retired College Horticulture Professor, Debbie Flower, lists many ways to control ant populations, both indoors and outdoors. She includes her home recipe for a lethal (but only lethal for ants) outdoor ant bait: 1 part boric acid (1 teaspoon, e.g.) - available at most garden centers 9 or 10 parts sugar...
Mar 07, 2025•15 min
In Ep. 381 of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast , Urban Chicken Consultant Cherie Sintes-Glover offered tips on how to protect your backyard chicken flock against the spread of the current version of avian influenza, the deadly H5N1, also known as the Bird Flu. The discussion on the Garden Basics podcast about protecting your flock from the bird flu took up about a half hour. At the top of this newsletter is our full conversation, which is over an hour in length, and touches on many asp...
Feb 28, 2025•1 hr 3 min
If you’re reading this today, Friday morning, a gentle reminder: did you forget today is Valentine’s Day? Oops. If you are about to scurry out the door for a "run to the supermarket" or "the trip to the hardware store" to find something romantic for your gardening sweetheart, take your phone with you, especially if you’re headed to the flower shop. You may need to call 9-1-1 for an ambulance when you see the cost of a florist’s bouquet. A dozen long-stemmed roses, in a nice vase, can easily cost...
Feb 14, 2025•5 min
Recently, a listener’s question did not get fully answered on Episode 378 of the Garden Basics podcast. Katie was asking about how to thwart the squirrels and raccoons that attacked her persimmon tree fruit. But she included this little scenic bypass: “So when the persimmon tree we’ve waited on for NINE years to fruit (it did get fruit in years 6, 7, and 8, but they all dropped. Overwatering? Underwatering?) — when said persimmon developed abundant fruit this year and it began to ripen, I decide...
Feb 07, 2025•18 min
Podcast Bonus: High Scoring Roses for Most of the United States We like to check in with Master Rosarian Charlotte Owendyk of the Sierra Foothills Rose Society, to find out which roses have captured her fancy in the last year or two. And beyond that, which roses she recommends because they can be easy to grow in a variety of climates. The Sierra Foothill Rose Society, after all, has California members from near sea level in Sacramento and Roseville all the way up to Lake Tahoe, more than a mile ...
Jan 31, 2025•10 min
In today’s “Beyond the Garden Basics” podcast, we talk with Douglas Kent , author of “ Firescaping: Protecting Your Home with A Fire-Resistant Landscape ”. He has a slightly different view of thwarting home and yard damage for residents of the urban-wildland interface, who are increasingly keeping a wary eye - and nose - in the air for smoke and flames. 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/...
Jan 10, 2025•17 min
Previous episodes of the podcast, show notes, links, product information, and transcripts at the home site for Garden Basics with Farmer Fred, GardenBasics.net . Transcripts and episode chapters also available at Buzzsprout . 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...
Dec 27, 2024•1 hr
I read an intriguing garden column (many years ago) in the Redding, CA newspaper that suggested one way to get tomatoes to ripen outdoors in Autumn. It said: "A rule of thumb is, in the fall, take off all leaves and stems and all fruit that will not have time to develop before frost. You'll end up with skeletal vines and bare fruit, which is exactly what you want, since now all the plant's energy will go into ripening that fruit."That might work in the mild climate areas of southern California o...
Oct 22, 2024•14 min
Mid-October is usually the time here in Northern California to harvest two of my favorite backyard crops: popcorn and persimmons. But what if the roof rats beat you to the harvest? Today - roof rat control tips! 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
Oct 15, 2024•17 min
If you listened to the full interview with avocado grower/Master Gardener Greg Alder in Ep. 360 of the Garden Basics podcast , you got a good fundamental education on growing backyard avocados. We covered such topics as: * Growing Conditions for Avocados * Fertilization Tips * The importance of watering avocado trees * The Role of Mulch * Soil Testing for Success * Cold Tolerant Avocado Varieties * The Flavor Profile of Avocado varieties * Top Avocado Varieties to Grow * Understanding Avocado Po...
Oct 08, 2024•18 min
In this insightful conversation (above), Farmer Fred speaks with Diane Blazek, executive director of All-America Selections and the National Garden Bureau , about the seasonal transition from summer to fall and how it presents an opportunity for gardeners to refresh their landscapes with vibrant fall colors and cool season blooming plants. Diane's extensive experience in the horticultural industry positions her uniquely to share knowledge on regional and national plant varieties, particularly th...
Oct 01, 2024•14 min
In this episode of the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter/podcast, we engage in an in-depth discussion about weed killers with Debbie Flower, America’s favorite retired college horticultural professor. We delve right into the complexities of weed management, addressing the various options available while navigating the maze of products at our local big box stores. As we stand before a daunting wall of weed killers, the conversation brings clarity to the overwhelming choices, shedding light on t...
Sep 24, 2024•31 min
