GB 129 Quick-Maturing Cool Season Vegetables. Pot Size is Important. Plant of the Week: the Oleander shrub
28:13
SPEAKERS
Quentyn Young, Warren Roberts, Debbie Flower, Farmer Fred
Farmer Fred 00:00
Garden Basics with Farmer Fred is brought to you by Smart Pots, the original lightweight, long lasting fabric plant container. it's made in the USA. Visit SmartPots.com slash Fred for more information and a special discount, that's SmartPots.com/Fred.
Farmer Fred 00:20
Welcome to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. If you're just a beginning gardener or you want good gardening information you've come to the right spot.
Farmer Fred 00:32
There are a lot of great cool season vegetables that you can start right now. For those of you who worry about a mid-fall, frost or freeze grinding your garden to a halt, or maybe you just want to grow vegetables in a hurry, today's show features a selection of healthy edibles that will give you a harvestable cool season crop in under 60 days. Are you growing vegetables in containers? The size of that pot is of utmost importance, and we have tips for you. Also the Plant of the Week. It's the oleander shrub. Yes, it is poisonous, but it is also one of the best privacy screens that you can plant. It's all on episode 129 of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, brought to you today by Smart Pots and Dave Wilson nursery. And we'll do it all in under 30 minutes. Let's go.
Farmer Fred 01:28
Well, as August turns into September, you may want to put in another crop of something, but maybe you live in an area where frost or freezes start happening perhaps mid to late November. I'm talking about USDA zone seven and eight. Here in USDA zone 9, we can pretty well grow cool season crops all the way through, without worrying too much about frost or freezes, even though we do have them. But let's talk about some quick-growing cool season vegetables for those of you who are watching the clock and realize, "well, maybe I only have about three more months to grow something." What can I grow in that timeframe? Let's talk with Quentyn Young. He's the manager of Fair Oaks Boulevard nursery here in the Sacramento area. Quentyn, there are a lot of things that people can grow that would be naturally protected from a frost and they're growing underground.
Quentyn Young 02:19
Yeah, so a lot of your root vegetables, things like carrots, beets, radishes, those would be really easy to do right now. Radishes, you can sometimes get those ready in about 45 days.
Farmer Fred 02:28
And there are some carrot varieties, too. 50-60 days, especially the shorter varieties. And of course, there's other root crops you can plant for the long run that you wouldn't harvest until later the following year, like onions and garlic.
Quentyn Young 02:40
Yeah, onions and garlic. We will have some of the hard neck garlic. And those do really well and what are referred to as cold hostile climates. And I'm getting those actually from Idaho. So they do fine here.
Farmer Fred 02:50
All right, you know, one of the best sources of information about growing garlic comes out of the University of Minnesota.
Quentyn Young 02:56
Yeah, they do really well with that climate. And so like I said, I'll have soft neck and hard neck. I'll have onions, I'll have shallots, and they're just really easy to grow.
Farmer Fred 03:04
What is a shallot?
Quentyn Young 03:05
A shallot is a less pungent onion, it grows a little bit different, differently than you would grow an onion. But basically you plant them the same. You just have to give it a little bit more room. And it's really popular with a lot of home chefs.
Farmer Fred 03:21
Exactly. It looks like an undersized onion, an undersized torpedo onion, but they are very tasty. Some recipes call for it. And my wife is always getting after me to, you know, plant some for the one or two recipes per year that she uses them.
Quentyn Young 03:36
Yeah. And they're used a lot too. And a lot of a lot of Asian recipes that call for shallots as opposed to onions or garlic. But they're used a lot in European cooking. It's a milder onion flavor. not as strong, not as pungent.
Farmer Fred 03:50
Alright, and I guess a couple of other long term things that people can put in August, September or even early October would be things like turnips and beets.
Quentyn Young 03:58
Turnips, beets, kolrabi, rutabagas, I mean there's a whole range of brassicas that would do well with frost.
Farmer Fred 04:07
All right, but getting back to short term cool season crops that you can plant, let's say, in late August and be harvesting before the first Killer Frost in November. If you live in Zones seven and eight. I'm thinking greens.
Quentyn Young 04:22
All your greens, all your lettuces, your kale, your chard, we have radicchio. Now, all of those would do great.
Farmer Fred 04:29
Explain a little bit about lettuce. Head lettuce versus leaf lettuce. What is better for the home gardener?
Quentyn Young 04:34
I think a lot of it comes down to what do you like to eat? I like leaf lettuces because you can usually go out and just pick let's say a bundle of leaves and not have to worry about when the head lettuce is gonna form a head, but a lot of it just depends on what you'd like to eat.
Farmer Fred 04:48
Yeah, and there are a lot of great loose leaf varieties, too, of lettuces that are very colorful as well.
Quentyn Young 04:54
You've got reds, greens, you got purples, you got mottled leaves, you got speckled leaves. To me, they all taste great. And every year they're coming out with some that are more cold tolerant, some that are more heat tolerant. So again, check your local nursery. We try to carry a lot of different greens here, especially in the wintertime. Just because to me, you can eat so much more of the plant for your fall garden than you do in your summer garden.
Farmer Fred 05:19
One of the biggest frustrating things for us here in California because we love our salsa, and we can grow the tomatoes and onions and garlic and harvest them together. But cilantro is a little different. Cilantro prefers a cool season. And we're standing next to a flat of cilantro here and I just love the aroma.
Quentyn Young 05:42
Yeah, and I always try to bring it in a little bit later. We you know people always want in the summer but we always tell them it's gonna bolt pretty quickly so you need to harvest it fairly quickly. But we do bring it in now we've got parsley, we've got terragon we've got the Vietnamese coriander, we got lemongrass, we've got all kinds of stuff.
Farmer Fred 06:00
One great idea that a cilantro grower over in the Bay Area gave me, and it makes a heck of a lot of sense for those who insist upon having cilantro in the summer here, is grow it from seed, grow it in flats in the shade, harvest it when it's only an inch or two tall. And just keep on planting flats every few weeks.
Quentyn Young 06:21
Yeah, that's a great idea. We usually recommend parsley, cilantro, dill, basil, what are referred to as sort of the soft leaf herbs, all of those will do better long term in Sacramento in the shade.
Farmer Fred 06:34
What do you need to successfully grow like that if you're growing say microgreens, or just short season greens, what and you're planting from seed, what's the best way to go about that?
Quentyn Young 06:47
Obviously need a good potting soil. But I usually would recommend things like that you grow them up on something so they're easier for you to access. And they're not so easy for insects and animals to get to. So things like flats or containers, even flower pots. But most of my greens and things I like to have them higher up because they're easier to get to. I've even seen things like that grown in hanging baskets. That way you can really protect them.
Farmer Fred 07:15
And you can protect them from birds and rats and squirrels by just throwing a row cover over it.
Quentyn Young 07:19
Yeah, that'll help too. We have some row covers inside. They are usually about 10 to 20 feet long, you can make your own. That's a good way, especially when the cabbage whites and sulfur moths start showing up soon.
Farmer Fred 07:31
Yeah, we should point out that it is summer and you're planting cool season crops and if you're doing it from either young transplants or from seed, then you're going to be hit by summer pest problems. aphids and whiteflies. And a row cover can solve a lot of that.
Quentyn Young 07:46
Yeah, definitely. Especially with aphids. Aphids and whiteflies get really bad here at the end of the summer.
Farmer Fred 07:51
Right. But if you want to play that game, take it up a notch, you could get something like what we're standing next to a called a vegetable garden kit, a Vegepod vegetable garden kit. Now this is I've seen raised beds, on rollers on on tables with wheels. But this is interesting because it has a top to it as sort of a shade cloth top and the inside is about three feet by three feet. And it's self watering. And all you got to do is it's on a hinge and you close the top and whatever you've planted in containers is protected.
Quentyn Young 08:27
Yes, pretty much completely enclosed. It's got this kind of permeable mesh on the top that lets in lighten air and water if you want to water that way, but it does come with its own irrigation system. And it also comes with a shade cloth too. So you can protect it even more in the summer. You can buy it with the stand, you can buy it with wheels, so it's easy to move around. These were developed in Australia, and they seem to do really well here.
Farmer Fred 08:51
Yeah, according to the label, it protects gardens from bandicoots.
Quentyn Young 08:56
Yeah, bandicoots and Wallabies. Very important here.
Farmer Fred 09:00
And what's nice, too, about the top, it's it's not a flat top. It's a domed top. So the crops that are growing here can probably get about two and a half feet tall.
Quentyn Young 09:07
About two and a half feet tall. The look reminds me of a covered wagon, the ones that you know when the settlers came west.
Farmer Fred 09:12
Right, and it's on wheels so you can move it around and it makes a heck of a lot of sense. I really liked that. It's again, it's called the Vegepod vegetable garden kit. We will have a link to it in today's show notes. All right, we've talked about growing greens, we've talked about the root crops. What about broccoli and cauliflower? Those aren't really short season cool season crops are they?
Quentyn Young 09:34
They're not short season, but you can still grow them here in our zone, zone nine. What I usually recommend, especially for the broccoli, or what we call the multi sprouting broccoli, so that way you're not waiting for that one large central head to develop. You have lots of little side shoots and you can sort of pick them earlier and pick them more often. And they usually will come in two main colors, green and purple. But they're often referred to as a sprouting broccoli. So we always try to carry those as well. They are aphid magnets, so use row covers, and that's what I like about the sprouting broccoli is that because you can pick them earlier, you're not going to go out there one day and just kind of find them completely covered with aphids, like sometimes you do with the cauliflower, the central head, cauliflower, and broccoli.
Farmer Fred 10:20
So the sprouting broccoli is that also called broccolini?
Quentyn Young 10:24
No, so those are going to be you've got your broccolini and your broccoli raab. Those are slightly different. The sprouting broccoli is actually it's almost like you're picking miniature broccoli heads are just a little side shoots but we will also have broccolini and broccoli Raab as well.
Farmer Fred 10:40
And of course if you are starting a cool season garden in late August, you'll still have heat to contend with no matter where you live, probably through early September. So stay up on your watering regimen.
Quentyn Young 10:53
Stay up on your watering. Definitely re-amend your beds. Don't forget to fertilize, get them started ready again for the fall. And then hopefully, Fingers crossed, we'll have a nice wet winter and that'll help with your irrigation.
Farmer Fred 11:07
Some other greens that you may want to consider that are short season because you can harvest them as they grow would be something like spinach and arugala.
Quentyn Young 11:15
A lot of varieties of spinach, lots of varieties you'll have sort of what's referred to as oriental spinach, you have the wrinkled leaf, the smooth leafed varieties, the arugula, they have some really nice ones, some of them little bit more mild. Sometimes we will carry a variety called wasabi, which is a really hot arugala. And arugala and spinach do much better in the cool weather. They bolt really quickly in the summer here.
Farmer Fred 11:39
What about bok choy, Joy Choi, Pack Choi, those Asian greens. they are so tasty.
Quentyn Young 11:44
They're really tasty. Actually that's another one that's really short season for harvesting. You can pick the leaves or pick the whole head but we'll have all those different choice. There's a lot quite a few other Asian greens like mizuna.
Farmer Fred 11:58
So if you're thinking about starting a cool season garden quit thinking and start getting ready and planting especially if you live in zone seven and eight for your shorter season cool season vegetables that we've been talking about. And here in zone nine, just spend this part of August amending your soil and then September you can start planting in earnest. Quentyn Young has been with us, manager of Fair Oaks Boulevard Nursery here in the Sacramento area. Q, thanks for some great advice.
Quentyn Young 12:26
Thanks for having me on Fred.
Farmer Fred 12:31
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Farmer Fred 13:30
We like to answer your garden questions here on the Garden Basics Podcast. We bring in our favorite q&a girl....can I call you a girl?
Debbie Flower 13:38
okay, that's fine with me.
Farmer Fred 13:39
All right, good. Debbie Flower, retired college horticultural professor who has faced many horticultural queries in her time. And I would think as a college horticulture professor, you've heard everything from very basic things do very complicated questions, right?
Debbie Flower 13:57
Sure. You know, I taught introduction to horticulture for like, 25 years. And it's an introduction, and I don't expect them to know anything. So lots of questions. And what people, I think, need to learn how to do, is observe.
Farmer Fred 14:13
My favorite, I won't call it a dumb question, but it's a question that if you've never done it before, how would you know? Or if you've never paid attention before, how would you know? But it was somebody who lived back east. I believe it was in one of the outer boroughs of New York, who had lived in an apartment, their whole life, all of a sudden, they're in a home. And the question is, "I just bought a bare root tree, which end do I stick in the ground?"
Debbie Flower 14:40
Oh, wow.
Farmer Fred 14:42
There are nurseries still around that sell true bare root. They're not in containers. You go out and pluck a bare root tree in late winter, early spring, out of a bed of saw dust and you've got roots on the bottom and a stick. Yeah. So that Could be a very legitimate question.
Debbie Flower 15:03
Yes. There are no stupid questions.
Farmer Fred 15:05
Thank you. And yeah, the roots go in the ground. Those hairy parts that look like a spider. Well, not a spider. You know what I mean? All right. So anyway, we have all sorts of questions. And there are like we say, there are no dumb questions. Feel free to write us, call us with your questions, whatever they may be. And you can do it in a number of ways. You can leave an email, send it to Fred at farmerfred.com ; you can text us at 916-292-8964; you can call us and leave a question at 916-292-8964. Or you could go to speakpipe.com slash gardenbasics, and leave a question there. Just yell at your phone. it'll pick it up and send it to me. speakpipe.com slash gardenbasics. Now this person though, didn't yell at us. They left us a question in the comment section of Apple podcasts. Fair enough. I like that. They didn't leave a name though. They left a series of emojis. It's, it's two blowing kisses. Three thumbs up. And three ice cream cones.
Debbie Flower 16:19
ice cream. They like ice cream. . My dad loved ice cream.
Farmer Fred 16:23
So do you have a name for this person, then? prank
Debbie Flower 16:26
Frank. We will call them after my dad. Yeah. And he was a professor at Rutgers in New Jersey.
Farmer Fred 16:31
Oh, okay. All right. So we'll call him Frank. The question is, I have a carrot plant and a spinach plant, but they aren't growing. I have them in a pot that is four inches in diameter. I have another spinach plant that's growing in a nine and a half inch diameter pot. Why is one growing but the other not? They're both spinach. They're on the same wall of my house and the same spot, but only one is growing. I water them at the same time. Is it because of the smaller pot, and that's why it's not growing? So maybe I need a bigger pot. I live in New Jersey. So that can help you answer my question. Please answer it on the podcast.
Debbie Flower 17:09
By the way, you know New Jersey is the Garden State.
Farmer Fred 17:11
Yes. Tomatoes.
Debbie Flower 17:13
Yes. Didn't come from New Jersey, but they are famous for their two big Research Facility at Rutgers about tomatoes and eggplant. They also have big research on cranberries, too. But yes, there are lots of things in New Jersey, great place to grow things.
Farmer Fred 17:29
There's a lot of swamp land in New Jersey. Is that why cranberries are growing there?
Debbie Flower 17:34
That's southern New Jersey. And they do obviously have bogs. Okay. Yeah. All right.
Farmer Fred 17:39
We learn something new every time here. So the size of a plant especially for growing food crops. Mm hmm. A carrot has a long taproot.
Debbie Flower 17:47
A carrot has a long taproot and spinach can get quite large as a plant unto itself, and needs lots of nitrogen, you can over fertilize spinach. And obviously you can over fertilize many things. But spinach will take up excess nitrogen, but and technically a plant will grow in in a tiny, tiny pot, but for production of food, and for ease of gardening, the bigger the container, the better. So I think Frank answered his own question. When he said, Do I need a bigger pot? And I think the answer is absolutely yes. In fact, I would move the spinach and carrot up to something that's maybe over to that nine inch diameter one, temporarily move the spinach that's in the nine inch diameter to a 15 inch diameter, and eventually move the spinach and carrot up to a 15 inch diameter if it's very own.
Farmer Fred 18:41
I wish we knew how big these pots were as far as their total height, right? Because the taller would be better, especially for carrots.
Debbie Flower 18:50
Yeah, a four inch (pot) for a carrot. And there are cultivars of carrot that are very short, that are very stubby, sort of like our thumb on our hand. That would grow in a four inch pot, it would be a lot of work, you'd be watering, it even gets hot in New Jersey, it even gets dry in New Jersey, you'd be watering and fertilizing all the time.
Farmer Fred 19:08
I guess you could grow spinach in a one gallon container, which has dimensions of maybe eight inches across by about eight to 10 inches tall.
Debbie Flower 19:17
Yes. And harvest very regularly. Yeah, but and get the baby spinach out of it. That would be good.
Farmer Fred 19:22
I wouldn't try carrots in one gallon.
Debbie Flower 19:24
No, I wouldn't either.
Farmer Fred 19:26
Move it up to a two or a five. Yes. But yeah, the bigger the pot, the happier they'll be. Yep. Hope that answers your question, Frank. Debbie Flower. Thanks for helping us out here.
Debbie Flower 19:35
You're welcome. Fred.
Farmer Fred 19:40
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Farmer Fred 20:17
The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast has a lot of information posted at each episode: transcripts, links to any products or books mentioned during the show, and other helpful links for even more information. Plus, you can listen to just the portions of the show that interest you, it’s been divided into easily accessible chapters. Plus you’ll find more information about how to get in touch with us. Leave an audio question without making a phone call via Speakpipe, at speak pipe dot com slash gardenbasics. it’s easy, give it a try. And you just might hear your voice on the Garden Basics podcast! If you’re listening to us via Apple podcasts, put your question in the Ratings and Reviews section. Text us the question and pictures, or leave us your question at: 916-292-8964.916-292-8964. E-mail: fred@farmerfred.com . If you tell us where you’re from, that will help us greatly to accurately answer your garden questions. Because all gardening is local. In the show notes you’ll find links to all our social media outlets, including facebook, instagram, twitter, and youtube. Also, a link to the farmerfred.com website. And thanks for listening.
Farmer Fred 21:36
Every week here on the Garden Basics podcast we like to talk with Warren Roberts out at the UC Davis Arboretum. He is their Superintendent Emeritus, one of the most knowledgeable plant people you could ever possibly find. We're lucky to have him. And today's plant is a California staple, but it can be grown throughout a lot of the United States and you can even grow it indoors. It's the oleander, Warren, the "freeway plant" as it's known here.
Warren Roberts 22:03
Yes, in California, it was planted along a lot of miles and miles of our freeways as a way of dividing the traffic, shielding the beams of the oncoming traffic. And then if some driver wasn't careful, it would keep them from going off into the other direction. Nerium oleander. Beautiful fragrant flowers. The typical form in the wild which is the Mediterranean basin that's where most of it is native anyway, is a light pink. Kind of the same thing as the the amaryllis Bella Donna in the summertime. In the Mediterranean, the gravelly soil along the streams is often a monoculture of this plant. So you see these pink stripes going off into the bare straw colored hills. It can be grown as a tree in time. Some of the old estates in California, you'll see an oleander tree with the trunk that might be a foot thick or so. But it's typically a multi stem shrub, a large shrub and there are many select forms of it all the way from pure white to almost red to very pale yellow and everything in between. And ones have the typical five petals and then some that have double petals as well. It's easily grown from cuttings. And if you are in a climate where the ground freezes, where it gets very cold. You can take cuttings with them, overwinter them in in a sheltered place and then plant them out again when the weather gets mild.
Farmer Fred 23:49
It's a very durable plant and it doesn't require that much water once it's established.
Warren Roberts 23:54
No It looks very lush growing and the if you take a microscope out and look at the leaves the breathing pores on the leaves are contained within a little jar shaped structure that opens out out to the outside air without much space so it does not lose water easily. The leaves do not lose water. And that's one reason it is successful in dry climates. It's it is poisonous. It is very poisonous. We have some horses so we don't have oleanders, because a child offering a posey to a horsey could cause trouble. Yeah, some places that could be an issue. It's not something to plant. Now the poison, it affects the heart. And so you have to be careful. Don't use it for for roasting hot dogs for example. People have died from that.
Farmer Fred 24:56
Yeah, keep it off your burn pile too.
Warren Roberts 24:58
Yes, some people are are are irritated by this smoke. And some people actually can get Dermo-toxicity from it, poison oa- like. But it is so beautiful and so tough and so easy. If you know these things, well, you know them and then can be careful. It's like fire. Fire is wonderful, we know that it is it can be dangerous as well.
Farmer Fred 25:21
Thank you, Mr. Flintstone.
Warren Roberts 25:23
It's a great, fast growing, dense, natural hedge and is often used for that purpose. My favorite oleander is a white flowered form. A select one called Sister Agnes. And this particular cultivar is twice the size of any of the others. It is a great choice for a privacy screen. Now if you are in areas that get snow, this is a plant that can get damaged in the winter. But large areas of the of the United States and other areas of the world that have Mediterranean climates or subtropical climates, this can be grown easily. There is the most beautiful planting of it that I think I've ever seen, is the upper terrace at the palace at the Alhambra in Spain. It's a long long terrace, about a block long I guess, with an armature of iron rods that fade into a long tunnel and the oleanders are trained on to this. And in the summertime as you walk along, the subdued light. And the fragrance of the flowers is a magical experience. Not many people know about this, but it's a beautiful, beautiful thing. And it of course it could be produced in other areas as well.
Farmer Fred 26:51
To prune an oleander, I guess, early spring is the best time to do it. Wear some gloves and probably just cut out the old wood that's already flowered.
Warren Roberts 27:00
Well, yes, or do nothing.
Farmer Fred 27:02
that's my favorite.
Warren Roberts 27:04
That's my favorite as well. But if you want to, you can actually train it into a small tree.
Farmer Fred 27:11
It's the oleander, a great plant, Nerium oleander, great for the Sunbelt. And even in colder climates, you could grow it in a pot bring it indoors in the wintertime. Warren Roberts is the superintendent emeritus of the UC Davis Arboretum and public garden. The Arboretum is open seven days a week. Next time you're in Northern California, visit Davis. Visit the Arboretum. For more information about it. You can visit their website arboretum.ucdavis.edu . The Plant of the Week, the Nerium oleander. Thank you Warren.
Warren Roberts 27:43
You're welcome Fred.
Farmer Fred 27:50
Garden Basics comes out every Tuesday and Friday. It's brought to you by Smart Pots. Garden Basics is available wherever podcasts are handed out. And that includes Apple, Iheart, Stitcher, Spotify, Overcast, Google, Podcast Addict, Cast Box, and Pocket Casts. Thank you for listening, subscribing and leaving comments. We appreciate it.