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Welcome to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Podcast.
If you're just a beginning gardener or you want good gardening information, well you've come to the right spot.
It could be one of the prettiest insects you'll ever see.
It could also be one of the most voracious insects to find in your garden or on your farm.
And right now it's spreading throughout the eastern United States and it's into the Midwest.
It's the spotted lantern fly. What does it look like? What crops can it overtake?
How do you control this pest that's spreading rapidly across the country?
Today it's all about the spotted lantern fly.
And Debbie Flower and I tackle more of your garden questions such as, how do you plant in mulch?
Carefully. Is there a trick to successfully planting carrot seeds? Yes there is.
Can I add tea bags to my compost pile? Maybe.
And I gave up my peach tree for dead. Now there's new branches growing from the trunk near the ground. Will this peach tree make it?
It depends. We're podcasting from Barking Dog Studios here in the beautiful Abutalan jungle in suburban purgatory.
It's the garden basics with farmer-fed podcasts brought to you today by Smartpots and Dave Wilson Nursery. Let's go.
Just like we always say, all gardening is local. Another thing, all garden pests are local too.
Have you heard about the spotted lantern fly? Well, if you live in the mid-Atlantic states or anywhere in the northeast and going into the Midwest,
you know what the spotted lantern fly is. It's a very invasive species. And invasive species have the potential to cause high levels of economic damage when introduced into new environments.
And this is a fairly new pest. The spotted lantern fly was first detected in Pennsylvania back in 2014.
It's spread to New York, Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia. It originated in Northern China, also found in Vietnam, Japan, and South Korea.
It's been spotted in other states as well. West Virginia, Virginia, Rhode Island, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, other states as well.
It is a plant hopper. It's a plant sucker, and it is very voracious on a wide number of plant species throughout North America.
Here in California, we haven't had that invasive spotted lantern fly get established here yet.
But the state food and agriculture department is intercepting it at several airports and other locations throughout Northern California, so it cannot get established here.
It is a threat to some major crops throughout the United States, not the least of which are grapes and walnuts and stone fruits.
Woody ornamentals too, hops, and it lives on the tree of heaven. That is its preferred species of choice.
Debbie flour is here, native of Long Island, New York. You've seen pests there that you haven't seen here.
Correct. I'm thinking of the Japanese beetle.
Japanese beetle and gypsy moth. Both of those two are intercepted in California, and so far thwarted, we have a very vigorous inspection service here.
We do, and I was just in the east, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut, and saw nothing of the agricultural inspection that I readily submit to when I leave the California borders in my car.
I drove around all those states, cross borders. Nobody stopped me. Nobody checked me or my car to see if the spotted lantern fly cases were on my vehicle, which is one of the ways they called the hitchhiker bug because it hitchhikes on anything, any smooth surface vehicles.
The, what I read about how it came into the US was on stone that was imported from China.
I have heard that as well, and the adult is very obvious. It's a very colorful, very pretty insect.
Yes, and it has lots of spots. The juvenile versions of the spotted lantern fly, though, of course, are much smaller. They do have spots, but I think they could easily be mistaken for ladybugs.
Do you? The way they have that protruding nose? Yeah, exactly.
Or the mouth parts, I'm not sure which it is, makes it look different to me that the dots, the black, the youngest in stars, it has incomplete metamorphosis, meaning it hatches from an egg, and then it goes through several stages that all looks somewhat similar, but somewhat different from each other, shedding its skin, becoming a new one, shedding its skin, becoming a new one.
And the youngest ones are black with white dots, which remind me of the dots on a monarch butterfly.
Oh, yeah, they do. I mean, the spots are very obvious. We had an email from Charlie and Brooklyn who has a plot in a community garden there, and his job these days is being the head of the war on spotted lantern flies as far as capturing the young ones, the in stars, and basically it's a sticky tape traps.
Yes, and there was an article in this past Sunday's New York Times about the spotted lantern flying another gentleman, Neil Weissman, who's president of Roosevelt Island Garden Club, and he also uses, he sets traps, like you mentioned, but he also uses a vacuum, which you have suggested a small vacuum to suck them up.
And then dispose of them properly that yes, you don't want them to get escape at that point. No, you just can't throw them in the trash can that way you would have to bag them. I would think twice.
Bag them and soapy waters often good for killing insects because they breathe through their skin, you put a little oil in it too, and those things mess up their breathing apparatus.
We'll have a picture of the spotted lantern fly just because it is a gosh darn pretty sure with today's podcast, but the spotted lantern fly what is about it that makes it so hazardous to crops.
Well, it is a it's a hopper is a sucking insect, so it pierces feeds by piercing plant tissue and sucking the contents of the cells out.
We have lots of hoppers that are our pests in this country. If you walk through a lawn often things are flying out little bugs are flying out of the lawn and those are often hoppers of some sort, but this one has no enemies.
And so it it seems to thrive in all kinds of environments you and I have been speculating based on the the states that it has infiltrated in the U.S.
Temperature doesn't seem to to be a limiting factor in and where it lives and we we have a lot of its favored host, especially in the east when I would take the train from
Oyster Bay, New York into New York City, the rights of way on either side of the train were full of tree of heaven, a land this altissima.
And it spreads pretty easily to the insect lays its eggs on plant and non plant items like stones or pallets outdoor furniture railway cars, firewood and vehicles, which means it can spread quickly.
The spotted lantern fly has at least 40 host species, including probably the most valuable agricultural crops in California or among them grapes, walnuts and all the stone fruits.
Yes, when it gets older when it's young, the part of the plant that it attacks is the new growth. And so they the young the egg mass when it's first laid is clear and the female puts a white liquid over it which ages to pink and then to tan and as it ages it even cracks and so it looks like mud.
So the egg mass just looks like a smear of mud on something and then when the young hatch they can only feed on the soft tissue, they don't have very developed mouth parts yet.
And so they climb up the trunk of the tree to the soft plant parts and that's where the traps are most effective because you catch them on the sticky band on the tree trunk as they're making their way up to the top.
But the adults once they have gotten into the adult phase their mouth parts are strong enough to go right through the bark of the tree.
Wow. And now the job, especially since it's hatching time for spotted lantern flies, I guess between April and June, there's a lot of sticky tapes being distributed and wrapped around these tree of heaven trees.
By the way, the tree of heaven does not only just support an invasive insect, the spotted lantern fly here in California, we are very familiar with another pest that likes the tree of heaven and that's the brown marmorated stink button.
Oh yes, I had forgotten that.
And we have been attempting to control it. I don't know if we've just accepted it now here as an ongoing pest to be basically.
I don't know the answers to that either, but if we have it's it's a very low population.
Yeah, well, I don't think we have the tree of heaven population that is back east either.
No, we don't. We don't. You don't see them near as much as you see them all over the sort of wastelands of the east.
New York City, yes, it's got a lot of concrete and asphalt, but it also has, you know, a little corner lots and tree of heaven can grow almost anywhere and it can grow as a colony.
So if you've got a big tree or a tree somewhere, it can send plant parts underground and come up blocks away and be attached to that same plant.
It spreads by seed as well. The female trees can produce something like 300,000 samaras, which is a seed holding structure that is sort of shaped like an helicopter wing, which means it can get airborne and fly a great distance.
That's spreading the tree even more. And when you've got a tree of heaven, I don't know if it's sort of my feelings about the tree of heaven and the same as my feelings about possums, what are they good for?
Absolutely no possums are good for for eating lots of fleas and things like that.
Okay, from each other, maybe it's with the tree of heaven. It's it's a weed tree.
Also from China, which is, you know, the pest and the tree are from China, but China would have the the natural pest of the lantern fly that could control it, but we don't have that.
So the eggs are laid between about September, November between the first freeze each female lays up to two masses of 30 to 60 eggs, which are in rows, but several rows, tight rows.
And then covered with the white fluid that ages to pinkish gray and finally to tan with cracks and looks like mud.
And the nymphs arise and you know, it depends where you are, but between about April and October, they're fast moving, but they cannot fly.
And they actually hatch between April and June, but the nymphs of the various stages are around as late as October.
And then the first ones are very small, they're only an eighth of an inch, so they're black eighth of an inch very small with the white dots, but they grow up to four in stars, they're called so four stages of young growth.
And the fourth one is about a half of an inch long, and then it becomes an adult, the adult looks like a moth.
And when it is at rest, so its wings are closed, it's basically gray with black dots.
It's not very colorful at that, but when it opens those wings, woo wee, baby, it's pretty.
So it's gray and white and red and dotted, very colorful display.
And the moth is only about an inch long, they can fly, they don't fly very smoothly, and they don't fly long distances.
And those are the adults, those moths are the adults that can drill right into the trunk of a tree, and you're looking at a picture of that right now.
I am looking at a picture of a mass of spotted lantern fly in stars that are on, I believe it's on a tree of heaven, I'm not sure of that too, but they could mass and swarm on any sort of even inanimate objects, telephone poles, pallets, outdoor equipment, things like that.
The insect itself will mass on its hosts, the things it's going to eat from.
It's got one job, and that's to reproduce. Only has one generation per year, but it has to keep itself healthy and well fed, and then it does that by feeding on the tree trunk.
And in that picture there is no bark visible, it is just all the moths.
Yeah, so it's a very gray picture.
Yeah, so what's a gardener to do?
Keep an eye out, look for these insects.
Really, if you don't know what it is, you think you do, but you don't put it in a plastic bag. I would take it, you know, often it said take it to the local nursery or the master gardeners.
Master gardeners would probably know, I think they have been educated at least in Sacramento County about the spotted lantern fly, but you could also go to your county cooperative extension or your ag commissioners office and take it to them.
It's dead, don't smash it at that point, but even smashed, maybe they can idea it.
I have to think about that, get it identified, know where you got it, when you got it, and what plant you got it from.
If possible, if not, I mean the location alone would be helpful.
I haven't read anything about chemical controls.
No, neither have I. It is, they're just saying smash and report.
There's the recommendation in all of the, I've gone to many different state websites to see what they all say and they'll say the same things, smash and report.
I guess you get them to hold still for a while with the sticky tape.
Right, I was going to say that one of the, there are probably some reasons pesticides.
Number one, haven't been tested and in the US they need to be tested and labeled before they can be used, even an off label use.
Then you have to have a license to apply it.
So that process is not instantaneous.
So they're probably, I'm sure somebody's working on it somewhere.
It is a leaf hopper. They move very quickly.
Leaf hoppers in general, we don't treat with pesticides either because they do move quickly and pesticides, they have to touch somehow.
A systemic into the plant is really iffy, especially which the insect would then absorb through its feeding practices.
But if it's on grapes, which is something California is very afraid of or stone fruit or walnuts, it could get into the fruit and then that destroys the crop anyway.
Or almonds too.
Or almonds boy, yeah, we could be in big trouble here.
Yeah, so if you're talking grapes and almonds, that's the majority of California agriculture.
Yes, that would be dangerous, especially when you're preparing for holiday time and you're going to be bringing in things new to the house.
Check outdoor items, especially for spotted lantern fly egg masses.
Scrape any egg masses into a plastic zippered bag filled with hand sanitizer, then zip the bag shut and dispose of it properly.
Inspect your trees and plants for signs of this pest, particularly at dusk and at night when the insects tend to gather in larger groups on the trunks or stems of plant.
Inspect trees, especially the tree of heaven as well as bricks, stones and other smooth services for those egg masses like your car.
Yeah, your boat, your trailer that sit outside or spend time outside, you don't necessarily sit out all the time.
But enough time in the fall September through November when those eggs are laid, you want to make sure you find them before moving them to another location.
Plants that ooze or weep or have a fermented odor, now there's a possible sign you might have spotted lantern fly or a sticky build up of fluid sometimes called honeydew on plants or on the ground beneath the plant or city mold, which is the result of basically dried honeydew on leaves that has picked up windborne pathogens.
City mold is basically plant sap when an insect punctures into a plant cell with its mouth parts, the pressure of inside the plant that is pushing the fluid into the insect is so high it can't eat all of it.
And so some comes out the other side.
We see this with aphids with scale, you've parked under a tree and some parking lot and come out and your windshield's all spotted, that is honeydew.
Then if it falls on something that hangs around like the leaves below where the infestation is, then funguses come in and lay their spores germinate on the honeydew and they grow on it and the blackness and it can be dirt too obviously.
The blackness then cuts off the light to the plant and the plant can't grow.
One good website that is a clearinghouse for a lot of spotted lantern fly information is run by the USDA their aphids division, which is short for animal and plant health inspection service.
And if you do an online search for USDA and spotted lantern fly, this page will come up because not only are there great pictures of the pests, there are also links to every state that has them and where if you live in that state you can
take or inquire about the spotted lantern fly.
So check that out. I will have a link to that USDA site in today's show notes as well spotted lantern fly is definitely nothing to ignore.
So watch your plants and squash and report praying mantises and spiders have been observed eating spotted lantern fly.
But they don't make a dent on the population so they're not going to be our long term control.
So like you say it's up to us to do the smashing smashing report. Yeah, right spotted lantern fly watch out for this one.
Thanks, Debbie. Yeah, thanks Fred.
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We like to answer your garden questions here on the garden basics podcast. A lot of ways you can get your questions in you can use speak pipe dot com slash garden basics and just talk to your computer.
And your question will get to us. You can give us a call as well. We have numbers 916 292 8964 916 292 8964.
Debbie flower is here to help us answer these garden questions and we get a fruit tree question from Gale Debbie.
Hi there. My name's Gale. And last year I planted a peach tree and promptly killed it by not watering it enough. However, I noticed about three months ago that there were these little red stocks that were coming up from what I thought was the dead part of the peach tree.
I'm wondering can I go ahead and grow the peach from that or is it better to start it now?
I'm starting to buy. Well, not only the easiest to do. However, there is a chance that those new sprouts are coming from the cyan, not the root stock. Explain the difference.
Many, many Woody plants are grafted. There are even some herbaceous plants that people graft. If you buy a tree and it has a name and quotes an Alberta peach tree, for instance, Alberta being in quotes single quotes, then it has been grafted.
So peach trees are started from seed and it's unknown what the parents of that seed were and it's just to develop a nice root system and then a piece of an Alberta in the case of my example.
Peach tree is grafted onto the young peach tree that started from seed and the plant as it grows is handled such to favor the Alberta part of the plant for the top and the root stock part for the roots.
And so many, many, many fruit trees for sure and as well as just ornamental trees that have these what we call cult of our names have been grafted.
And the top part is called the cyan and the bottom part is called the root stock and very occasionally you'll have something called an interstock.
If you look and that would be a piece between the cyan and the root stock and the interstock somehow controls the growth makes it generally dwarfs it is what an interstock is used for.
And the root stock is chosen for the location, the soil type, the climate, amount of water, that kind of thing. When you look at the trunk of a grafted tree, you will see a change in the bark where that graft has happened.
In commercial production, the graft has happened very close to the soil line. In fact, I had a peach tree that I didn't like, the arborists were in my, I didn't like the cyan, I didn't like the cultivar, the arborists were working in my yard and I asked them to chop it down just to the graft so I could retain the root stock.
And then I grafted onto what I thought was the root stock. Now I'm trained at looking at this stuff right none of the grafts took and I have grafted many things before that have been successful.
It was because they did not cut it down low enough and I was grafting into the cyan of the previous type of peach. I needed to get to the root stock.
So I let it alone and I have the same thing happening, lots of stems coming from now I know it's the root stock. They're coming actually from below the ground and I've looked more carefully and found the graft line, which is very close to the soil line.
So I know that these are root stock and I will graft something onto that to make a new cyan and a new tree maybe more than one thing.
So if you know that the shoots are coming from the cyan above the graft, then yes, let it grow and you will have the peach that you purchased.
But if you they're growing from below the graft line, you've just got root stock and if you want to retain it now that it's developed, it's got a root system.
You don't have to worry about watering it again when you first plant it, which is a is a big job when you first plant something like that, you need to water very regularly.
So if you do know that it's coming from the root stock and can graft, then you can get a piece of peach or any of the other stone fruits from so nectarine plum, et cetera, and graft onto that and have a new tree.
There is some hope gale, however, there are three very popular root stocks used on peach trees, Nemagard, Laval and Citation.
Citation is usually used for dwarf peach trees. Nemagard is an excellent root stock for well-drained soils and the Laval is a vigorous root stock that's more tolerant of wet soils than Nemagard.
Some people like the taste of a Laval peach. So if you have the Laval root stock, there's a chance you might like the peaches it produces.
They may not be to the size that you want. I've heard complaints about the skin and the pit, but if you're just slicing up a peach for ice cream or whatever, it might be a good choice.
How would she know if she's got Laval root stock?
Call us back in seven years, gale, and let us know what you found because it may take five to seven years for that root stock to produce.
Another is, did you keep the tag? Sometimes it will say on the tag what the root stock is and the other is some peaches, some peach cultivars can only be put on, let's say, a Laval root stock.
And so if you know the cultivar, would it be at Dave Wilson nursery?
Yeah, if you go to Dave Wilson.com, you can look up the root stocks that they use on their fruit trees.
So if it was a Dave Wilson fruit tree, then you're in luck. If not, who knows what it might be on.
This is why this is why I'm holding in my left hand here. Yes, he is.
My garden calendar, my garden diary for 2023, you write down everything that you plant and everything you know about it.
Usually when you buy a peach tree or any fruit tree, there are two labels on it. One is the cyan. One is the root stock.
Copy down both pieces of information because I'm guaranteeing you those garden gnomes that you have scattered through your garden.
They come alive at night. They're going to go to your fruit trees and rip off those tags. Yes.
And the snails will help them carry it away. Yes. So write it down. Yep. Very important. You do that. I do.
I have a different system, but I do. I have a spreadsheet for all the plants. I know it is a spreadsheet.
And then I have a folder with pages in it that are dated. If we were creatures of the 21st century, there would be pictures too.
Yes, attached to those. Yes. Yes. I tried that once and it has too much work. It is a lot of work. Yes.
All right. So, Gale, the choice is yours, although the the expedient solution might be get another peach tree. Right.
They're generally going to bear sooner and as long as you do that establishment irrigation of watering whenever it needs water for the first six weeks of its life.
And that in a hot climate can be daily and you're watering the media. It came in the container media and then the field soil once a week.
The amazing part also about living in the 21st century. There's all these nifty water timers out there that you can hook up to a faucet or even as part of your main irrigation system.
That will turn on the water based on a pre existing schedule or because you have soil sensors that can sense the moisture and know when to turn on the water itself.
That's really high tech. I know, but it's out there. It's out there. Yes. When I go on vacation if I've planted something new in a field that gets regular irrigation.
I will add a timer to the hose bib and run out of just a and hose end emitter of some sort that will spray and put that on a different calendar for the time that I'm out of town.
So the people in that house right over there 30 feet away from where we're looking at the window here in the beautiful on jungle. They're on vacation.
But the guy is an internet technology guy. Oh, so they're off somewhere in America. I don't know where.
But if he gets a message on his phone that the soil is dry, cool. He can turn on the irrigation system.
Cool. I'm going to tell my son about this. My son is a techie because there are systems available that are Bluetooth connected and can relay all this information to your phone.
So wherever you are, you can turn on the irrigation system. Yes. Friend of mine has one of those. Yes.
So it's out there. Yep. If you're willing to learn. Right. That's the hard part. All right. All right, Gale. Good luck with the Petry. Yeah.
Are you thinking of growing fruit trees? Maybe you already are, but you'll want to know more about them. Well, you probably have a million questions like which fruit trees will grow where I live.
What are the tastiest fruits? When's harvest time? How do I care for these trees? The good news is the answers are all nearby. Just go to Dave Wilson dot com. Click on the home garden tab at the top of the page.
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To the garden email bag we go Debbie flower is here and we get a question from St. Louis USDA zone six and roll who says no doubt you are probably getting several questions this time of year. I appreciate all of your help.
I remember listening to a podcast of yours that helped to accelerate carrots from seed. I was trying to find the episode to remember what the secret was. Are you able to direct me to the correct episode? No roll. I can't because I don't think we've ever talked about that.
Not I haven't we've talked about peppers. Yeah, accelerating pepper seed germination by soaking them in hydrogen peroxide for 10 minutes. That's right. And I get more and more converts to that too. Yeah, it works. It speeds it up to a seed that usually takes three weeks to germinate you can get it down to less than two weeks.
I've never tried it with carrots. It might be worth a try, especially if you've got more seed than you know what to do with. I think the big problem when it comes to carrots is planting them so that they're all bunched together because the seeds are just so darn small. Right.
And you had a student one time in your career as a college horticultural professor who actually came up with a rather ingenious idea. He did. I was thrilled with that. He said, you know, put the seeds out on a piece of paper in a small dish or something.
Use a chopstick dip the chopstick in water and then touch the seeds and you'll get one seed on the end. Sometimes you get to I have to admit, but you get very few seeds on the end of that chopstick and then you tap it to drop it into the soil.
Yeah, you wouldn't want to dip it into the soil because you'd come back with a stick full of dirt. Right. Yeah. All right. And that would work. And another tips that we've heard over the years too is because carrots takes such a long time to germinate is to plant alongside them something that germinates quickly like radishes. So you remember where the carrots are. Right. Yes. Yes. Radishes germinate very quickly. It's a good good seed if you're working with kids because it comes up so fast. How far apart would you plant the radishes from the carrot seeds?
I've heard people say put them right over the carrots, but I wouldn't do that because the root of the radish gets somewhat large and you've got it has fiber feeder roots on it. So I'd probably go between I'd space my carrots about what a foot apart. And then I'd put the radishes down the middle so six inches from the carrots.
That way when you pull up the radish, unless it's a dicon radish that has gigantic if it's a normal radish, then you won't be disturbing the carrots. Right. Right.
The timing of planting carrots seeds though is important. We have a very long planting season here in USDA zone nine for planting carrots several months a year, but definitely not in the heat of summer. Right. They don't like the heat. They won't germinate when temperatures get over what 70.
Soil temperatures. Yeah. Yeah. They don't like it very much when it gets warm, but I guess. Well, now that brings up another question. Can you start them ahead of time and containers. You know, I would say no, but it's amazing what I see growing at the nursery and containers that people will buy. Yeah. Yeah.
And then you look online and you see people posting these pictures of these deformed carrots that look like humans walking down the street or whatever. Nixon.
So typically if you if you do start them in a container and then move them into the garden during the transplant process, we always do damage to roots and carrots are roots.
And so that's when you end up often with these odd shaped carrots. If you're okay with that, fine. You can get some odd shaped carrots just because you have a rock in the way too.
Which makes a great argument for growing them in a loose, friable soil like you'd find in a raised bed or a large container. Right. Yeah. The container would have to be I would thank for most carrot varieties, at least a 12 inch tall.
Yes, because the carrots need. Yeah. Need distance to go down. I've read online. I haven't tried this something about priming carrots seeds, which they say soak them in water an hour.
About four days, three to four days before you plan to plant them. I'm never I never plan that far ahead. So this may not work for me.
And then wrap them in paper towels, put them in an airtight container. So probably a plastic container with a snap on lid and leave them at room temperature. And this will allow them to absorb water and all seeds need.
That's one of the first steps of seed germination is that the seed has to imbibe is the word used in the textbooks imbibe water so that it can start the chemical processes inside of the seat.
I thought you were going to say scarification. No, boy. No, never tried that. I don't think it was something with water scarification.
Yeah, it is. I guess the seed coat softens the seed coat right. I don't know that it's going to buy you any time because that's what would happen as soon as you put it in the ground.
Yeah, but you can again, because carrots are so seeds are so small and they can be difficult to work with.
One year I made seed tapes using I think we used toilet paper or it would be a very thin cheap white coffee filter.
Coffee filter coffee filter. Yes, I was going to say paper towel and make it into a strip and then place the seeds at the spacing I want.
And you can use flour mixed with water as a glue to hold them in place and then roll them up in that and again use the flour mixed with water as a paste to shut them to close that seed tape.
And then you just plant the whole. You can roll it out. No, you just plant it all this rolled up in the garden.
Yeah, that makes sense. I like that. You can commercially buy seed tape.
You can commercially buy seed tape. You pay a lot for them, but you can. But you can make your own.
You can make your own. I guess the problem would be where do you keep it in the meantime?
Oh, we made it and planted it like that day. That's all that issue. But I still like the chopsticks. That's a good idea. Yes, it is a good idea.
All right. Hope that helps you roll with planting carrots.
We're delving into the garden email bag on this episode of the Garden Basics podcast. Debbie flour is here and we get a question or two or three or four from Rich in a suburb of Philadelphia.
And he says this year, I religiously placed a good layer of wood chips on top of my four raised vegetable beds a few months ago.
I'm not sure what placing wood chips religiously involves if you have to dress up like an altar boy.
That's ceremony ceremony. There you go. Cool. Pop and circumstance. And anyway, but he says you have covered mulching extensively, but I've never heard how to plant seedlings in the mulched beds.
Should I scrape off the mulch temporarily, plant my seedlings and then replace the mulch carefully around them? Yes and no. Right.
There you go, Rich. Yes and no. Yes, scrape it away. Yes, scrape it away. And when you push it back towards the plant, don't let it touch the plant. Right.
So if you're planting a plant that was in a container, you're going to do what's called plant proud anyway, which means a little bit of that container media is going to be above soil level.
So when I do that, I just move my mulch and I have mulching my vegetable garden to up to the outside of the container media, which is raised above the field soil.
And then Rich asks, what about planting seeds directly into the mulched bed? Yeah. Yeah. Scrape it away. Scrape it away. Leave it scraped away. Yeah. Until you've got that plant out of the ground and don't even then don't push it up against the stem.
It sort of goes against your religious experience of using mulch to deflect the pressure of falling water from the sky. Right. Rain, because you've mentioned in the past how rain can actually compact the soil. Yes, it can.
So it's great. In Philadelphia, you're probably going to get snow. You definitely get rain. And in winter, assuming you're not gardening because it gets so cold that everything would die unless you've got a greenhouse or hoop house to put over it.
I would definitely mulch the whole thing so that when it rains, the water hits the mulch and slowly seeps into the soil and doesn't cause that compaction.
Rich, thanks for the questions. Enjoy gardening there in Philadelphia. Thanks, Debbie.
Yeah, welcome, friend.
It seems backyard tomato growers have questions year round in early winter. The question is, oh, what tomato should I plant next spring?
By late winter, the question is, is it too soon to plant tomatoes come spring? The question is, should I prune those first tomato flowers off?
And in summer, the frantic tomato grower is asking, what's wrong with my tomatoes? They're turning brown and soft on the bottom.
Well, that of course is blossom and rot. And that's today's flashback episode of the week, which was about thwarting blossom and rot of tomatoes. It was number 189.
By the way, the information in that flashback episode, if you go back and listen to it, goes along nicely with this week's Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter, which is entitled 6 Common Tomato Problems.
It's available to you now as well, and you can subscribe for free. So if you're a frustrated tomato grower right now, check out this week's flashback episode. It's number 189.
Stop tomato blossom and rot now before it starts. It's from spring of last year. You can find a link to it in today's show notes or at the podcast player of your choice.
And look for a link to the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter and podcast in the show notes as well, where you can find out more about those 6 Common Tomato Problems.
Find a link to the newsletter and podcast in the show notes or find both at our homepage gardenbasics.net.
Let's delve into the garden email bag here on Garden Basics. Debbie Flower is here. Don from Wisconsin writes in and says, I just retired at the end of last year.
And one of the items on my list of four to do in retirement is to create or maintain a backyard wildlife refuge with a focus on pollinators.
So gardening is a real interest to me. He goes on to say, my wife and I love sweet tea. We brew at least one pot per day, maybe two in the summer.
What can we do with all those used tea bags in one of your podcasts? I've listened to so far. Listener asked about incorporating the silica or keep dry bags from shipping packages in the soil to improve water retention. I don't know about that.
The response was if it doesn't say on the label to spread around your garden, then don't. That sounds like something I'd say.
Yeah, but what about tea bags, Donald asks. Well, I have I drink a lot of tea. I drink a whole pitcher of myself every morning with three tea bags in it.
And I always buy organic tea and I have a kitchen waste compost in my backyard. I'm done with the tea. I put the tea bags into the compost.
And when I spread the compost, they're for the most part they're gone. However, my husband like this certain brand of green tea and when I spread that batch of compost, all the tea bags still existed.
They were open. They were empty, but the bags themselves still existed. Somebody didn't like them. Yes. I suspect they were made of something like polyester, maybe, or some, I don't know what they were made of.
Apparently you can check what online. I had a cousin tell me this. What your tea bags are made of and I don't I checked the brand that I use and I don't remember where I went, but it was made of of something that is compostable.
So Don, I hope that helps you out about what you can do with those old tea bags compost them compost them. Yeah, all right.
It's coming Saturday, August 5th. It's Harvest Day at the Faroaks Horticulture Center. It's put on by the UC Master Gardeners of Sacramento County and Harvest Day features speakers, education tables, garden vendors, food trucks, and your chance to explore the beautiful one acre garden that is designed for you, the backyard gardener, to take home ideas that you can use in your own yard.
The Faroaks Horticulture Center was built and is maintained by Sacramento County Master Gardeners. It features areas dedicated to growing berries, herbs, fruit trees, vegetables, a vineyard, native plants, water efficient plants, and a lot more.
Plus there are sections dedicated to composting and that includes worm composting. On Harvest Day, each area is staffed by master gardeners who are eager to answer your garden questions.
At the dozens of educational tables, you're going to get information from professional nursery people, irrigation specialists, the Audubon Society, soil experts, the master food preservers, local garden clubs, water experts, honeybee, and native bee specialists.
Vendors will include Northern California nurseries, exotic plants, cactus and succulents, mushroom growing kits, and more.
And the speakers, they're going to be talking about landscape trees, attracting pollinators, and oh yeah, myself and America's favorite retired college horticulture professor, Debbie Flower, will be talking at 830 that morning about tips for saving time, money, and water in the garden.
Someone once said it's the best garden event in Northern California. Oh wait, I said that, but you know, it's true. And best of all, it's free.
Harvest Day at the Faroaks Horticulture Center, it's Saturday, August 5, 8am to 2pm. It's in Faroaks Park in Sacramento County. Check today's show notes for a link with more details and maps of Harvest Day. Hope to see you there.
The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Podcasts comes out once a week on Fridays, plus the newsletter podcast that comes with the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter continues, and that will also be released on Fridays.
Both are free, and they're brought to you by Smartpots and Dave Wilson Nursery. The Garden Basics podcast is available wherever podcasts are handed out, and that includes our homepage, gardenbasics.net.
And that's where you can also sign up for the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter and podcast. That's gardenbasics.net, or you can use the links in today's show notes. And thank you so much for listening.