274 Can You Plant in Straight Compost? Clover Lawns

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 smartpots.com slash Fred. 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. America's favorite retired college horticultural professor Debbie Flower and myself tackle more of your garden questions today. Have you ever wondered or even tried to plant into a container filled with straight compost? Well, it might work for a while, but eventually you're going to have problems. We have solutions to those issues. Gardeners and homeowners in just about any section of the country that has faced a drought just might be rethinking their water-thirsty lawns. Is there a successful turf substitute? For some, the answer just might be a lawn created by Clover. We talk about the Clover varieties that might be the most successful at serving as a green area, especially since Clover is somewhat drought tolerant and resistant to dog urine. It's all in today's episode number 274. We're podcasting from Barking Dog Studios here in the beautiful Abutal Unjungle in suburban purgatory. It's the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Podcast. We're brought to you today by Smartpots and Dave Wilson Nursery. Let's go. We've talked a lot about compost on this program, but we need to do a little clarification about exactly what compost is. Debbie Flour is here, America's favorite retired college, Hardicle Troll Professor. The question comes up every now and then, can you plant in straight compost? I wouldn't be a bit surprised if you at home also had that urge. You're looking around for some soil or something to put it in a pot to plant something and all you find is this half a bag of compost. Can you plant in that straight compost? Some people would say absolutely, I have a potato coming out of my compost pile or I have a squash plant growing in my compost pile. But the short answer is no. Compost to quote the Garden Professors of Facebook, compost is not soil. Correct. It's a component of soil. Correct. We've talked about this in the past too about how compost acts and one thing it does, it breaks down. Yes. And when it breaks down, does that not impede water flow and air? Yes. We've talked a lot about soil mis-media or soil mis-mix. When you buy a plant that's been grown in a container, it has been grown most of the time in a soil mis-mix. And that is what is recommended in the nursery industry, the production industry. And that you might say is compost. Well, it may include compost as the organic component, but it also includes other things to more closely imitate field soil. And those other things are rock components, pearlite, vermiculite, sand, pumice, and they keep some of the pore spaces open as the compost or other organic components break down. There was a report online about that. And the author of that report suggested that you could use straight compost in a container if you put in that rock component for air. But the more I thought about it, the problem is, well, that compost ends up getting smaller and smaller and smaller and that reduces the air spaces. Right. The rock, I would think, would come up to the top. No, it doesn't come up to the top. Sometimes it appears to, and it's because the organic component, which could be compost, washes away. You get smaller and smaller and washes away. Pearlite is notorious for that. It looks like it comes to the surface. In a production situation, we do use compost or other organics. And they do break down over time, but that's why it's so important to get the plant out of that container and into another one or into the ground. Before that media breaks down so much that it is, let's say hydrophobic. If it dries out a lot, then the water, you think you're watering the plant that's in the pot because it goes in the top and comes out the bottom. But the problem is that it just went around the root ball because the compost or organic component of that container has shrunk so much. And that it's so tightly bound because the particles are so small, there's no space or very little space between them for water to flow. One way for a gardener to tell if that might be happening is water your container plants by hand. And if the water comes out immediately, well, there are some issues. It may not necessarily be compost. It could be the heat that has caused that soil ball to contract, allowing the water to flow down the sides and immediately out. But it certainly could be a situation where if the compost had dried out, much like peat moss, when it dries out, it's not going to water anything. It's just going to roll right through. So soil is made of 50% open space, ideal soil, and about 40, let's say, seven or so percent of sand silt and clay. Those are pieces of rock that have broken down to different sizes. The number one thing that distinguishes sand silt and clay, the way you identify it if you're looking at a soil sample and trying to figure out what it is, is by putting it through different size screens. And the clay goes through the smallest size screen and the sand through the biggest and the silt through the middle. And there are designated sizes that they have to go through in order to be categorized that way. And then the little bit that's left that is one to three percent or so is the organic matter, and that's where the compost would be. What is compost? Compost is decomposed organic matter, organic matter that has decomposed to a point where you cannot identify its components. Hopefully. Yes, well, it's not compost if you can still see leaves or sticks. And then there are those who would sift through their compost pile to get that fine product. Yes, but is that a good idea? Depends on your use. If you're going to seedling mix when we're trying to start things from seed in a flat or a small container, we want a small sized particle to establish that seed, that young plant, because the seed in many cases is small. And the plant coming out of it is small. That plant can't push large particles out of its way. And so we use small particle size for starting seeds. We also use small particle size. Maybe we've got the seeds in a different mix, but we're just going to put it over the top to cover the seeds. And like you always emphasize while you're slapping that 12 inch ruler in your other hand. Pre-moisten that soil mix. Yes. And that would be very true with compost as well. Yes, right. In order to get it in order to stay wet, just like a dry sponge. Water rolls off. It's not until it's moistened that it will actually absorb water. Right. Water moves through soil and compost by attaching itself to another water molecule. And those water molecules attaching themselves to the soil particles compost or rock particles. And that's how it moves through soil. It doesn't drop through the spaces like we think of in rain. But it moves along the surface of things. Oh, listen. I hear listeners on the other end, they're yelling at their smartphone right now. And they're saying, what about this bag of compost I have? I need a soil mix. Okay. So what do I mix with it? Right. Very good question. And what you mix with it is some rock component. You want to somehow create 50% air space in there. And so you need to spread out that compost. And you want some soil like particles. And so that's going to be your rock component. So sand, which would be horticultural sand, which is washed because sand in many cases occurs where salt water is or used to be. We don't want that salt in our container media. So washed horticultural sand, pearlite, vermiculite, pumice. They also come in sizes. So you pick the horticultural size. And I go as much as 50% of that, 30% in a lot of cases. And it creates the air spaces among the compost that allow the roots to get air and roots have to get air. One more note about using the sand, horticultural sand, it's all been screened so it's all the same size. Yes, it's sized as well, right? Okay. Because if you had a mix, then it could form a very compact mix and air wouldn't get through. Yes. That would be true, I guess, of anything if it was pearlite or vermiculite or even pumice. Yes. They all come in different sizes. And so you want to get the right size. And when you grow in a container, if you want to keep this plant in a container forever fine, but you're going to have to deal with that soil ideally once a year. You're referring to the combination of compost and rocks as soil. That soil is mixed. Yes, you're right. I was wrong in saying that. I can't see that compost lasting forever. It's going to shrink. It shrinks, right? And so if you're going to nursery to buy a plant and you're picking out among, you know, you have 10 of the same thing and you're trying to pick the one that is the best. There are lots of, like, you know, there's a whole list of things you're going to look for. But one of them is that the media is still close to the top, not at the top, not over the top, maybe half inch down, quarter inch down. If it's much lower than that, then that plant has probably been in that container for a long time. And so it's got a limited root ball. The root system has not developed as well as it could have. And it probably is root bound for that. You wouldn't have to knock it out of the container to look at it. Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of people are in the habit of when picking out plants at the nursery. They're going to turn that pot over to see if there are roots coming out the bottom, which is always a good technique. I think we both like to kind of pop that soil ball out of that plastic container to see if there's roots going round and round. Right. And you always pour the plant out. You don't pull it out. Pulling it out, you can do root damage. Turn it upside down, stick your hand over the soil ball at the top and then gently bring up the plastic container so you can take a look. Right. And you might see some circling. If they're very fine roots, that's okay. You can cut those and you should cut those at planting time. If you see thick roots going round and round, that's a little dicey here. So if you planted in a container using nothing but compost and a stone material, do you have to repot that plant at some other point? Right. About once a year is the recommended time. Go up in size or just... Well, you can do either way. Yeah. And so if you want to go up in size, then yes, go up in size. The next pot size should be a maximum of two inches wider across the top. The opening of the pot should be a maximum of two inches wider across the top than the one you are taking it out of. And at that time, you're going to slit the roots. And some of the media is going to fall out and then you're going to use fresh media to fill in the spaces that the new pot provides and the loss of media from the old root ball provide. What if you don't have the matching media to go into that pot the second time? Yeah. You want it to be as close as possible to the previous media. If I purchase things and I'm going to hold them in a pot for some reason, I find what I purchase typically does not have as much of the rock component as I like. The mix I make and pot that new plant into is more open than the one it came in. And then you have to watch your watering very carefully because the water does not readily move from the one texture of soil to the other. And so until you get some roots into that new media and that can take a month or more, you have to make sure that you're getting water in both the new media and the old media. Well, some would say, well, maybe scrape off all the dirt or shake off all the soil or whatever you want to call it around that plant, wash off the roots and do a remix. There is definitely a bunch of people who say you should do that to every plant you buy in a container when you're going to plant it, whether it's into the ground or into another pot, you should wash off all the roots and observe the root structure. Especially this is for woody plants and make some root, do some root pruning so that you avoid circling girdling roots which are a problem with plant production in containers. And I think there's legitimacy to that. However, I don't think it's going to catch on everywhere. Number one, it's very time consuming. So the industry, the landscape industry that plants thousands of plants, you know, a day is I believe not going to do that. And places where there's not a lot of water like California this year, we have a lot of water, but it's not going to last forever. I'm sure it's difficult for me to rationalize using water to wash off all the roots and the plants that I purchase. You mentioned it's only for hardwood plants for like throbs and trees, the root pruning of the circling girdling roots. Yes, because they develop wood on their roots also and their roots get fatter and fatter just like a branch gets fatter and fatter and the plant can actually choke itself to death. What about annuals? Annuals, I don't worry so much about. I am so in the habit of cutting roots that I actually do even a little six back. I'll go around and snip the bottom in both directions only up maybe a little quarter inch from the bottom just because the roots will not change direction because you put them in the soil. But if you cut them, then right behind the cut closer to the plant, you will get a new set of roots. You'll get up. It's as if you tip pruned the top of the plant and then you get a whole bunch of new shoots. You'll get a new bunch of root shoots and that'll send the roots in all kinds of directions. And that's helpful for establishing the root system in the ground. I still see I have dirt under my fingernails because I don't cut roots. I scrape my fingernails and that's a legit way to do it. Yeah. And I do that with every plant. And sometimes you get lucky sometimes you don't. Sometimes you don't. I'm pretty picky about who I allow to advertise on this podcast. 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In a not so scenic bypass to this, you'll like this. I was at the nursery the other day. Boy, do they have a lot of cucumbers and pumpkins and squash that are growing like crazy in those little pots? What do you buy one of those? No, no. So the reason is those plants, so we're talking squash, cucumber, melon, watermelon, pumpkin, which is a squash. Once they become root bound in the container, inhibits the growth for the rest of the season. And I've done it. I've planted them. Maybe I started them myself. I don't remember. But I've planted a plant that has. And I really only want to see at most three true leaves. In some references, talk about five true leaves. So when the seed germinates, you get these smooth, round-tipped, they're called cotelines. They're seed leaves. I'm not counting those. The next set of leaves are the jagged-tipped ones or the ones that are more cut. They might be hairy. It might be slightly greener. They're going to be a different shape. That's a true leaf. So I'm looking at three to five of those max in a four-inch container. If the plant goes beyond that, even five is iffy for me. The plant, it grows, but it only grows maybe two feet, and you don't get any production out of it. I saw a list the other day of plants that, and I can't remember who wrote it. Plants that like to be direct seeded. Plants that can go either way and plants that shouldn't be. And they put the cucumbers and the squash and the pumpkins and the melons in the can go either way. And that surprised me. But I was having trouble getting my cucumbers to germinate this year, because the site was a very wet site over winter, very heavily mulched. I think the soil was too wet and too cold for a long time. I kept planting seeds, and nothing would happen, planting seeds, nothing would happen. Three times, nothing would happen. The fourth time I was frustrated, so I put some seeds in a pot, and I planted them in the ground. Two in the ground, two in the pot, all four germinated. So now I have a cucumber in a pot. Fortunately, my neighbor came over to visit me today. I knew she had told me she didn't have any cucumbers in her garden. She brought me a squash. She's already got a squash harvesting. And I, so I gave her my little one that has cuddleded and the beginning of one true leaf, and she said, I'll plant it right away. You left out one little detail. Oh, when you did your first batch of cucumber seeds, weren't those older seeds? Yes, the first batch was. Yes. And the last batch was Newseed. The last two batches were Newseed. Okay. And seeds don't last forever. Right. Good point. The bigger the seed, the longer it tends to live, because it has more food inside of it. I used to do a seed germination lab with the students. I had old seed. I had them all labeled for the dates. And I had a 10-year-old Anasazi bean seeds, and they germinated 100% at 10 years old. So it's very variable, but yes. You know, size is only a guide. It is not an end all and be all, you know, bigger seeds will last longer period end of story. It depends a lot on the cultivar and what's going on in the seed. And how you store the seeds? Yes, absolutely. Yeah. And you store yours in the refrigerator. I do. You know, in the crisper? No. It's in the door, which is not the best climate control. But that's where they are in a plastic bag. A plastic bag. Mm-hmm. Okay. Now, the only reason we're talking about this when the subject was composed was we were talking about roots, and the roots of the curcabit family, once they get stressed, it's like they give up. They do. Yeah. And you put them in the ground and they just don't grow. The other thing I saw at the nursery that you'll be thrilled with was, oh, are they selling the corn? The sweet corn in the six pack with about three corn stocks coming up in each of the little containers. Oh, boy. And I'm thinking, you know, seeds look cheaper. Yes. And you want your customers to have success. I was surprised. I, one year I let the students, I gave them, I assigned them seeds to start and how to do it and all that good stuff. And then the other, they could do one six pack of whatever they wanted. And somebody did corn and I was nearly bold over. Of course, I, I read all the stuff. I had all this information in my head that this student didn't. And it sold at the, at the plant sale, but it was one corn stock per, per cell. So they had separate root systems. And I have no idea if that plant survived that six pack of plants survived when they got to their new home. But corn in general is what we call a heavy feeder needs very soil that has quite a bit of nitrogen in it. And if you had three corn stocks per location, it would be very difficult to keep the them fed well enough. And typically plants that are too crowded, if you have a tomato, you know, that fell to the ground last year. And now you have all these tomato seedlings in the garden. If you don't space them, if you don't thin them, you will not get fruit. The plant has no reason to fruit. Purpose of fruiting on the plants point of view is to make offspring. If it's got all these offspring around it, there's no reason to fruit. The one thing I forgot to do when looking at these six packs of sweet corn that had germinated in many to a cell, was if there were directions on the stick that basically said thin to six inches apart, like I think it's about the minimum for corn. For corn, right? I would hope. Yeah. Yeah. And does the buyer know what is one corn stock? And how do they remove the others without hurting the original? Right. It's not set up for success. And that's a problem. Well, if you do have that situation and you bought a six pack of corn and in the six pack of corn seedlings, there are 12 or 18 stocks coming up. You don't want to pull it. You'd want to cut it. Yes. You want to cut them down, which I did with the cucumber I gave to my neighbor. I just with my, I had done it before she said she was coming over, pinched off one of the babies with my thumbnail and left the other one. The reason you don't pull is that you do root damage to both plants. The one you readily willing to give up, but the one you want to keep in plant will also have root damage if you pull the other one out. What a long, strange trip it's been from, can you plant in straight compost to corn in a six pack? Yes. But you know, that's gardening. It is. All right. Because you go out to do one thing. You end up doing 10 others. Yeah. And you're out there many hours longer than you thought you would. Yes, you would. Well, there you go. Let's talk about a successful garden soil being composed of sand, silt, and clay. Well, sand obviously is the rock component. What are silt and clay? Silt and clay are also rock components. So rocks break down over time. The force of wind and rain and frost and and acids from algal growth and that kind of thing to different sizes and some types of rock will only break down to the biggest soil particle of sand. Some will only will continue to break down to silt and down all the way to clay. And so the mineral component of sand is different than silt and clay. The size of sand is different than silt and clay, but all three are rock components. Well, that clears that up. But I forgot that sand silt and clay are really minerals that we're talking about. But there's other components to soil, but you can't go to the store and buy a package of those other things to mix in with your compost. You just might be adding more compost if you go out and buy a bag of planting mix to mix with your compost. What's in that planting mix for us byproducts, right, which is compost, basically compost. Yes. Yes. And field soil, we don't use field soil and containers and we don't use compost or the soil is media in the ground. Some people will often heard I got rid of the bad dirt. So they're going to plant a tree. They dig a hole. They're going to get rid of the bad dirt, which is the sand, silt, clay, little bit of organic matter and the open 50% space. And they put in the good dirt, which came in the bag. So they're replacing the field soil with container soil and that doesn't work. So how do you build up the nutrients in the soil? And I think we got to go back to the gentleman who wrote that original report about compost and using compost. He wasn't a big fan of compost, but he's a big fan of mulching. Yes. If you put down mulch, a true mulch, which is basically many different sizes of shredded and chipped tree parts as a three inch or four inch mulch, that's going to be feeding your soil. Yes. Breaks down over time with the help of microorganisms, microorganisms, weather processes, it's washed into the soil with rain, animals digging for insects like skunks. And yeah, so there gets some mixing done and yes, that's how the nutrients from the mulch, which is plant material, get into the soil and become available for other plants. Yeah, worm castings too. Worm casting, yeah. Again, worm castings probably should be mixed into the soil, but mulch should be on top of the soil. Yes. So what we put on top of the soil, we call mulch. What we dig in, mix into the soil, we call it an amendment. We are amending the soil, we are changing its composition or adding to its composition. Hopefully for the better. Hopefully for the better, right? Not always. Yeah. There aren't a lot of laws. I don't know if there are any laws regulating the sale of bagged compost and bagged container media. It's coming Saturday, August 5th, it's harvest day at the Faroaks Horticulture Center. Let'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 8.30 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, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. 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. Well, since we are so far deep in the woods in this scenic bypass, let's explain one further thing. And that's the fact that if you dig a hole to put in a plant and you say, I'm going to use good soil and you go and buy a bag of potty mix and you pour that in the hole and then stick in the plant, you've got a watering issue. You've got a huge watering issue. Both extremes, if it rains, let's say you got a good rain storm and the media, the good, what you're called, the bag to media that's in the ground gets filled up with water. You're going to drown the plant. It will not move readily into the field soil. If it's warm and dry and you're watering periodically, the container media that you've put the bag to media, you've put in the ground, put the plant into, we'll dry out first because the roots are there. And water in the field soil will not readily move into the, the bag to material you put in the ground. It's a horrible situation. And roots are lazy. When the roots get to the edge of that hole, they've spent all their life in this bag to media that's pretty loose. They, it's easier to go around and around and around the inside of the hole in the ground than it is to puncture into the field soil. And then you get a very unstable, woody tree. The scenic bypass is going deeper and deeper into the woods. So then when you dig that hole, I guess it pays to take your shovel or some other tool and loosen up the sides of that hole so it's not a smooth surface. Absolutely. So the roots don't bounce. Absolutely. You, you, you cut it with the side of the, of the, of the shovel and crevices in that the vertical sides of the hole. And I don't amend, I don't add anything to the field soil. I took out of the container. So that's out of the ground. So let's say dig a hole. I put that media, you put it on a tarp or you put it in a bucket or you put it on a wheelbarrow. People expect a landscaper to amend the soil. They want the landscaper to amend the soil. If you have to, if it's like, you say, I have the worst soil in the world. It's all sand or it's all clay, 20%, one fifth. Okay. Is the amount that, right? So then, then I count shovelfuls, you know, two, five, two, four of the field soil, one of the compost and then mix it thoroughly. So you'll need a second tarp or a second wheelbarrow or a second bucket and then you can put it in the hole. You could mix that ahead of time if you wanted to. Yes. Before you plant. Before you plant, yeah. And then you need to plant proud. I love this. There's, there's a whole semester. It is. It is. I can go on forever. You need to plant proud, meaning that the container media around this, I'm assuming it's a woody plant, a shrub or a tree, needs to stick out of the ground some. Because remember, we said compost breaks down over time. And that will happen to the container media that this plant came in. And if you plant the plant in container media into field soil and its level, when the container media breaks down, remember, it's compost. And that compost breaks down. Then the trunk of the tree or shrub becomes the lowest place around and water will collect there during an irrigation or rain event and you drown the tree. One thing you did leave out though, as you're planting a new plant, one thing I've gotten quite used to is that after you dig the hole, turn on your drip irrigation system just to make sure that you haven't cut one of the rubber pipes and make sure it's in repair. Because that's usually a part of whenever I'm planting is because I have an underground drip irrigation system, the first thing I do is I gently scrape away soil until I locate the pipes and then I do any digging between where the drip lines are because chances are, if you just nick it with the side of a trowel or a shovel, you just might have a small cut. Yes. Yes, I've had, I can remember going out one morning when I lived in Reno and saying, did we used to have a hill in the front yard, calling my husband, did we have that hill in the front yard? No. It was a nicked irrigation line. It was so bubbling up. Yeah. When it was just, it hadn't broken the surface, it had just lifted the surface. Oh. So it was a slow, oozy kind of leak. Yeah. So now you know everything we know about compost. I don't think so. I don't think so. No, no. There's more. We can keep going. But people have lives to lead. Oh. And we'll let them get back to their, to their life and we'll probably continue this at a future time. But just remember, compost is not soil, it is about one component of soil. Correct. It has its uses, but it's not to replace soil in the field. But didn't you say you could plant it in a container with rocks? That's one of the uses. All right. Okay. Gardening. It's confusing. Debbie. Thank you so much. Yeah. Welcome, friend. In the current Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter and podcast, we explore one of the most popular ingredients and fertilizers. It's phosphorus. Phosphorus is considered a macronutrient, essential for the formation of plant roots, flowers, and seeds. If that's the case, why have so many states restricted or banned the use of phosphorus in fertilizers? What's so dangerous about it? And we talk with a noted garden author that may make you think twice about using too much phosphorus. Plus, he shows us how radioactive phosphorus can be. And he says it just might not be an organic ingredient. It's all in the current Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter and many podcasts. Is your fertilizer radioactive? If you're already a Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter subscriber, it's probably in your email waiting for you right now. Or you can start a subscription. It's free. Find the link to the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter and podcast in today's show notes, or on the substack app. And you can sign up for it at the newsletter link at our homepage, gardenbasics.net. We like to answer your garden questions here on the garden basics podcast. A lot of ways you can get the question in, you can you can talk at us. You can go to speakpipe.com slash garden basics and leave us a message via your computer. You can use a telephone for having sex. We have a number 916 292 8964 916 292 8964 email. Sure, send it to Fred at farmerfred.com. That will work as well. Dennis who is in the Sacramento area in Carmichael wants to know about clover lawns. He says there was an article in the paper about growing lawns made of clover. It listed a few pros that it takes less water and it attracts more bees and cons. The biggest con being that it does not stand up well to heavy foot traffic. That would not be an issue for me. Do you have any thoughts on whether it would be a good alternative to a grass lawn? There's a lot of research going on about testing white clover as a turf substitute. One of your pros though about bees is also a con for a lot of people because clover does flower. Yes. Did I introduce you by the way? Have you been here? This is paying attention. If I haven't already, Debbie Flower is here, America's favorite retired college, Horticultural's role professor. We walked across my white clover experiment in the backyard and it's still early. We haven't had the heat of summer yet, but it still looks good from what I planted last September, despite the fact a giant deodar cedar tree fell on it. It's bouncing back fairly well. I have high hopes for it, but even more so, I'm just happy that dog urine isn't ruining it. That was impressive. I didn't notice that. You notice that where ryegrass was growing, man, has burned. Yeah, ryegrass is pretty picky stuff. But apparently the clover can slough off the dog urine, so that's good. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with that spot. It's like 225 square feet. That's now quite the mix because I think the first thing I put in that area for turf was probably rye. And then, actually, no, it was a fescue blend called the mow-free. Oh, right. And you have fescue. Yes, I have fescue. And boy, no, that's very susceptible to dog urine, so that didn't make it. And I tried coropio, which is a ground cover. It basically didn't want to grow there, but it wanted to grow every place else, so it's kind of spread out towards the erase beds, so that didn't work out. And then we've got white clover. And I'm really happy with it, but now my wife wants a pudding green in that area. Oh, of course, but the dog's pudding, you know, put dog poop. That's not my problem. I'm done, you know, do what you want with it, but you're cleaning it, all right? Did you? Anoculate your seed before you planted it? I did buy anoculum. You want some anoculum? I got all sorts of anoculum. Actually, I might. I planted a red clover in the fall, lots of seed. When came up, several came up, only one survived. Due to a lack of anoculum? I think so. I did not inoculate. That's what I'm assuming. All right. I'd be glad to. So that's our, that's very limited experience, Dennis. I would recommend, though, that because it may not survive our summer that you waited until fall before you plant the seed. That is recommended. Yes. You plant in fall, take advantage of the natural rains and get a good root system established. UC says it can tolerate some drought, but they say it gently that it will not survive sustained water deficit. So some drought, they don't define, you know, is that missing one week of one inch of water? I don't know. The San Joaquin County master gardeners put out a garden note back on March 25th, 2020, called the clover option by master gardener Melissa Berg. And you may want to check that out to look at what they recommend as far as how to treat a clover lawn. And you can mow it to lower the height and keep the flowers off if you have an aversion to bees. But I have a funny feeling that much like a lot of turf type weeds or products that it will just flower a little bit lower to the ground next well, and if you mow it too short, you kill it. Yeah. Just because it's a it is not a grass grass, we can grow short shock it, but it will regrow. But something like clover and this is a did this activity with somebody to show the difference between monocuts and die cuts or growing points. I think maybe it was about it did this as an activity to show about growing points, whereas grasses grow from the soil line up, their growing point is at the soil line. Clover's growing point is higher up. And so if you take too many of its growing points off, it will not regrow. Among the specific clover attributes to consider, the San Joaquin County master gardeners point out that micro clover unlike white clover does not flower. So that might be important, especially for those with allergies, you know, anybody with allergies? You're looking at her. Both clover's will grow to about six inches in height for a more pasture appearance, but will tolerate mowing to three inches in order to encourage it to spread. Both tend to successfully compete with most weeds found in lawns and tend to discourage insect pests. Both are relatively deep rooted, but neither does particularly well in heavy traffic areas. Both do well as niche growers between pavers or stepping stones, so that's an idea. Both tolerate compacted soils, and neither will yellow in response to pet urine. Yay! That's it. Well, and they fix nitrogen, which means it's a technical thing, but it means that they add nitrogen to the soil. And I'm thinking I still have my Nomo lawn, and it's kind of hummicky, high spots, low spots, that this fall I should put micro clover in the low spots. I'm not exactly sure what micro clover is. You need a same here. That's certainly, it's probably small. Right. Yes. Maybe very small. Maybe very small, I guess. Maybe it looks like dicondra. Maybe their marketing dicondra now is micro clover. Let's see. Okay. Here they have it. Micro clover trifolium, which is the genus for clover, repins, which means lays down variety pipolina. I never heard of pipolina. Pipolina. It sounds like an Italian fairy tale name. It does. You're right. The San Joaquin County Master Gardeners also point out that it's best installed in late fall. That often takes advantage of the wet season in order to sufficiently germinate seed. However, it can result in seed migration if water ponds at any point in the yard. And that's true here in USDA zone nine, probably in other parts of the country, you could sew it in spring. Right. If it longs, you have a fairly cool summer. If you have a very cold, yes, you want a long growing season before it gets really hot. And I'm still curious what it's going to do when it gets really hot. The San Joaquin Master Gardeners point out that in an arrow where homeowners have become increasingly pressed for time and resources, sewing additional clover as a symbiotic supplement to turf, utilizing replacement clover blends to fashion, a suburban pasture, or establishing a monoculture, a monoculture of clover all appear to be promising options, which can provide suburbanites with viable alternatives. That's all. That's suburbanites one. Vible alternatives. Yes. Okay. We'll have a link to the clover option article in today's show notes. Thanks, Debbie. Thank you, Fred. Today's Garden Basics Flashback episode is one of the most listened to during the last six months. It's from Episode 258, which is entitled More Quick Garden Tips. In that compilation episode, garden experts from throughout North America shared with us several great gardening ideas, ideas such as how to create a showstopper of an outdoor container plant display. How to take better garden photos, especially close-ups of insects. Tips for making tomato planting easier. How to create more strawberry plants from your existing garden. If you raise backyard chickens, you should know how to wash and store eggs. The perfect snack size apple variety to grow for your kids' school lunch boxes. While a lot of pest control devices fail to work, and the easiest way to mulch a garden, it's called the Cut and Drop method. It's this week's Flashback episode, it's number 258, More Quick Tips. It's from last March. Find a link to it in today's show notes, or at the podcast player of your choice. Before you can look it up at our homepage, GardenBasics.net. 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 Smart Pots 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.