Latest / In the Garden with UC Master Gardeners / October In the Garden

Transcript

October In the Garden · In the Garden with UC Master Gardeners

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_03: This is Kong.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: The opinions and views expressed in this program do not reflect those of KECI, its management, or the UC Board of Regents.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to In the Garden with University of California Master Gardeners.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Tina Spindler and I'm here with my co-host Katrina Kirkabee and we're here today to talk about October.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: You ready, Katrina, for October?
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_02: October in the garden.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_02: What a busy month.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_02: I'm ready.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: October's actually my, I think my favorite planting month in the garden, even more than spring, because where we are in Southern California, uh the weather is still warm, the soil's still warm, but the weather's starting to cool off.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I just love planting all the cool season plants, the veggies, the lettuces, the bulb garden.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: What do you like about October?
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: I well, it's really funny.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_02: So I like the cleanup.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_02: Everything it's October, it's like you finish the cleanup and it's like you're ready to you're setting your palate for next year.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: And so there's two parts of it.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: So I think why don't we talk about beginning to October?
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: It still could be hot.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_02: And before we plant anything, we need to talk about getting ready to plant.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: And and you're right.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: I I kind of it was putting the cleanup out of my mind because not my favorite thing to do.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: I was jumping ahead to the planting.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: But you're absolutely right.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: We still probably have some, you know, debris from the summer stuff that has pooped out, and we maybe haven't cleaned it all up because it was too darn hot to go out in the garden and and clean up.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, I also find that every week there's more stuff to clean up.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: True.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_02: You know?
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_02: So it's just like I've been getting ready for it for a while.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_02: And but then before we plant, I really like to have it all clean and picked up and you know, just starting off really, really nice because I've learned in the past if I don't do that, then there's this competition with cleaning up and trying to plant at the same time.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: And when I plant, I just want to be into planting.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to have to deal with like working around so much stuff.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, good good point.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then the other thing too that comes after cleanup, but before planting, is this is one of the times of the year that you really need to pay attention to your soil and give your soil a little love.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: So it's time to add soil amendments and maybe even do a soils test if you're you know not sure that you know part of your garden has been struggling, maybe get a professional soils test done to see if there are any uh particular steps you should take to improve the soil.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then also because I love to plant and I always buy too much, I find a better strategy for me is to before I even buy anything, I get the beds prepared.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: Because if I buy it and then I have to prepare the beds and something comes up, you know, then those poor little six packs are drying out, and and you know, I think I'm ready for it, but there's always something that comes up.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_02: So if you have the beds prepared, everything cleaned up, the soil amendment, everything's done, and you go and you could say, I could plant six here, twelve here, do this, plant some seeds here.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: I can go to the store now with a plan.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_02: And if I don't have a plan, I buy enough to have a large farm.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_02: So I like okay, it helps them grill me in a little bit and give me an idea more of what I want because I get excited once I'm there and like I want this and this and this.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_02: Right, true.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's so true.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: I should do more planning because I do get too excited when I go to the nursery and it doesn't mean I won't do it, but it's I'm a little more restrained.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_02: If I it's the same size garden every year, but it's just but somehow it sits in my head better if it's nice and clean and you go in and you spend some time just like pulling up everything and raking the garden and tilling it, and and it just it's it's a kind of it's just feels good.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it's a bit of work, right?
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's always a bit of work, but then it it's so nice when you have it done and you want to plant, you could really plant and not get sidetracked by trying to pull up some dead plants or you know, oh, I have to do this or this when you really want to be planting.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_02: So when you really want to plant, you could just go for it.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: And and so for our listeners who maybe are new to our program or um just a refresher course for everybody, uh, when you're going to get your soil ready, what you want to do is if you have an entire bed, whether it's a raised bed or an in-the-ground bed, is you want to get a spade or a shovel, and you want to dig about eight to ten inches, you know, a shovel's depth of soil down, and then turn it over and do that throughout the whole area that you're going to be planting.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: And in my case, because and you and you also, we have raised beds, and so typically we'll do either a whole raised bed or a section of that raised bed.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: You know, perhaps we should clarify, are we talking about vegetables or garden in general?
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: Ah, but that's a good question, and I think you know the answer.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't have to do it for both of them.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: Everything clean.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so whether you're gonna be planting flowers or veggies, uh, all of your plants are going to want some soil that is in good condition.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: So once you turn that soil over a depth of eight to ten inches, then you're gonna dump about three inches worth of soil amendment.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: And by that we mean the bagged compost, which is often called garden soil, but just know that it's not garden soil, it's actually composted plant material.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: So you want to spread about three inches of that over.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: And you can also use other products, especially if you get a soils test that tells you some certain things that your soil needs.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, perhaps you would need to add some minerals like gypsum or sand or peat moss if if you want to acidify your soil.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: So if you get a soils test done, that will give you a clue as to what you might also want to add.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: You can also add bagged manure, um, but I do that in modest amounts because bagged manure can be high in salts.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's okay to, if you're putting bags of you know, the compost in to add a bag of manure, you know, while you're tilling the soil, but I would not use only bagged manure as your soil amendment.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: Moderation.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: Moderation.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: Now, Tina, we talked about soil testing.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of people have not done soil testing.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: So let me ask you, when do you get soil testing done and how do you get it done?
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_02: Where do you go to get it done?
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: Great question.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: So, in in good nurseries, they actually will have um soil test kits that you can uh do, you know, kind of do it yourself.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: But the best way to do it if you're serious about really knowing what your soil is composed of and needs, is to uh just Google a soil test professional soil testing, you know, for your area.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: And uh you can use you just go online and to these websites of these, you know, professional places, and usually they'll send you a kit.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: You you prepay for the kit, they'll they'll mail it to you, and then you follow the directions and put a sample of your soil in.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: Usually it's from a couple different places in your garden, and then you mail it back, and then they'll do the soil test and send you the results.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_02: Now, they're always not needed, you know.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't really think about doing a soil test until I have an issue, but one year I had an issue, and we couldn't.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: I have a master gardener by the name of Kay Havens was scratching her head why I couldn't grow anything in this area.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_02: I got some new soil, and it was just it was not good.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_02: And the soil test really it was depleted of everything in there was nothing there, and the soil test really helped us know what to do and how to amend the soil.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_02: So it's not something I would just do for the sake of doing it, right?
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: But if you do have, I had this whole bed that I like killed everything, everything died in it, and like geraniums wouldn't live.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_02: And um, it really was like, oh, now I know what to do, and it was a great thing to do.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I was a little intimidated about soil test, and it's it's really easy to do.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_02: The directions are real simple.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: Take a little bit of this, put it in this, and send it on in.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: So don't be tempted intimidated by a soil test.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: If you are having a problem in the garden with something, it could be your soil, and it's an easy thing to find out.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: It is, and and don't think that this is something I have not done a soils test in 20 years.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: When we moved to the home that I'm currently in, I did a soils test just so that I would know what I was dealing with, you know, in a completely new location and a completely new house, you know, where there was a lot of grading done, so you don't even know whether you've got decent topsoil or not because of all the construction.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the last time I personally did a soils test.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: And the only time I did it is when we had this perfectly good bed, all of a sudden everything was dying, and it was what the amendment that we had put in that I had bought.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: But the same thing happened to my son.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I wonder if you guys got it from the same place.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, the same thing happened to him.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, he had some raised beds and his he bought a new place and his landscaper at the time had this soil delivered for the raised bed, and for two seasons he could not get the simplest vegetables to grow, which is silly.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you can grow zucchini anywhere pretty much.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I kept, you know, bringing over amendment and amending his soil, but finally we were frustrated, and so we took a soils test and and discovered that there it was just terrible, like you said.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so they actually he actually emptied like the half half of the beds, you know, the depth down to about half, and then brought in new uh soil, and he's been fine ever since.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_02: You know, now you're saying that when we first did our vegetable garden, the same thing happened.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_02: I ended up with like three quarter inch carrots, you know, fully grown.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my gosh.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_02: It just took a long time, and we had a lot of soil that was put in there, and it took a while to mend it, at least we knew what was going on.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like what Tina says, she's done it once in 20 years.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_02: Now I remember we've done it twice in 30 years.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: So it's not something you need to do all the time, but there's a time and place for it.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but in general, particularly if you've been, you know, gardening with some success in your garden, then I wouldn't worry about it.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but I would every year um add this, you know, organic matter, which as I said is is often called uh garden soil, and you buy it by the bag.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um or you can go to uh you know wholesalers that sell it by the bulk if you have a large yard, and as long as you're convinced that they're a reputable uh dealer and that they're not going to be sending you things that are contaminated with weed seeds or um you know, is basically not fertile soil.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_02: And the bulk might be if you do have a big yard, the bulk is so so much more cost efficient for even if you have a delivery done.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: But it really depends on how if you have a small garden or a really large garden like you and I do.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: And and so you may ask the question, well, how do you tell if they're reputable?
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, one of the ways that that I have found um to determine is if they have different mixes.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: Because if they tell you what, or if they ask you, what are you using this for?
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: And you say, Oh, to grow vegetables in a raised bed, and they say, Oh, well, we have a mix for that, then you know that these people are really paying attention to the products that they're um putting together and selling to the public.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: So there's also reviews online.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: Reviews online, yes.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: So um, so anyway, that's that's one way to tell.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I wouldn't necessarily buy it just from you know a composting, you know, a huge composting facility if they're just composting uh in bulk and they're not preparing kind of mixes.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um you maybe aren't sure what you're gonna get because you know there could be who knows what in those uh facilities.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway, um you do in general just want to get your you know stuff from uh a garden center if you're not buying in bulk and uh put that in, as I said, about three inches on top of this turned soil.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then the next step that you need to do is get uh your cultivator, which is that long-handled tool that has like four tines at the end of it, and you want to then chop that in to your soil and thoroughly mix that soil amendment with the soil that's already in your bed until it's you know nice and fine and crumbly, and then you rake it smooth and uh well put a put some fertilizer in it, um, depending on what you're gonna plant while you're mixing it.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: Follow the directions for the fertilizer that you're using.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: And at the time that I do this soil prep, I use granular fertilizer, you know, I'm not using a liquid fertilizer.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: And to be on the safe side, you can always just choose if you're planting bulbs, you can get a fertilizer that says bulb fertilizer.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: If you're planting vegetables, you can get a fertilizer that says vegetable fertilizer.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: But if you want to understand fertilizer a little bit, um, know that on the package of each fertilizer there's three numbers uh separated by dashes.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: So like, you know, 5-5-5.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: And what that means is that it's 5% nitrogen, 5% phosphorus, and 5% potassium.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: And those are called the main nutrients for plants.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: There's micronutrients, but those are the main ones.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're planting things that are mostly green, like lawn, then you're notice that your lawn fertilizer has a high first number because you want a lot of nitrogen.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: Nitrogen makes things green.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: The second number promotes flowering and fruit.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: So when you're planting a vegetable garden that includes tomatoes or cucumbers or things that you know are the product of a flower and then a fruit, you would want that middle number to be higher.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: So tomato food typically has a higher middle number.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: On the other hand, if you're planting lettuce and that's all you're planting, you could probably use lawn fertilizer because you're just growing, you know, green, green leaves.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: So, and then the last number, potassium, is for um overall plant health and root development.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: So, anyway, that gives you a little bit of information about how to understand fertilizers.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: And we're going to talk to you about this probably every time we talk about fertilizer, follow the directions.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, just follow, they they do it for a reason.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: They say a lot of us want to put in a lot more fertilizer because of a little is good, a lot is better, but you can kill your plants.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: And trust me, if the fertilizer companies thought it was better to put in more, they could sell more, they would tell you to do that.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: So don't over-fertilize.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: For sure.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: And also be aware of what kind of fertilizer you're buying.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: There are synthetic fertilizers and there are organic fertilizers.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: The synthetic fertilizers, when you look at those three numbers, generally have higher numbers, double-digit numbers like 10, 10, 10.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: And when all the numbers are the same or close, that's called a balanced fertilizer.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: But if you're using a synthetic fertilizer with the higher numbers, you then you have to be especially careful because they're stronger and you don't want to burn your plants.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to use organic fertilizers, like you want to make sure your say veggie garden is only using organic products, you'll notice that those numbers are smaller.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: They might be like three, five, four or something like that.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you still want to follow the directions, but they're a little less likely to burn your plants than a synthetic fertilizer would.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_02: So anyway, either way you do it, follow the directions.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_02: Don't overflowise.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_02: Trust us.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_02: We know about this one.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um then you get to do the fun part, which is planting.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: And let's talk.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: What should we talk?
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: You want to talk flowers or veggies first?
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: What should we talk about first?
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_02: Well, why don't we talk about thinking about what we're gonna put in our vegetable garden?
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: Okay and how much space because some of us could get real excited and plant a lot of one thing and not end up having enough room.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: Well, let's go through the list of what you can plant because this is now the cool season, and in Southern California, we can grow things all year round.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and in other parts of the world, of course, they they may get snow and their growing season will end.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: But the cool season vegetables that you can plant in warmer areas this time of year are uh the way I like to categorize them is leaves, roots, and some vines.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: And and so that's the easy way to remember.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: So leaves means any lettuce, kale, all of the spinach, all of those leafy greens.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, the cool season is the best time.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: The best.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: I love cool season vegetables.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: They're like my favorite.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: And then the next category is roots.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: So think carrots and beets, turnips if you like them, radishes.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: So anything with roots is you know, that where you eat the root of the plant.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good cool season vegetable.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then the vinine vegetable that's great for the cool season are peas.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: So snap peas, shelling peas, those are all fabulous.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: But we can't forget the broccoli and the cauliflowers.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and then that's that's the final category, which we call coal crops.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that is the broccoli, cauliflowers, cabbages, Brussels sprouts.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: So those are the other the final category that you can think of for your fall cool season.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: And what happens is you plant them in October and they will probably still be going strong come March.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: And Katrina and I, and in March is one in in California, we switch to warm season vegetables, but we often Katrina and I often have trouble finding room because our cool season stuff, you know, is still going strong.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: And the other thing that we do is we succession plant.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: You want to explain how you do that, Katrina?
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: Well, what we do is every two to three weeks we tend to plant some more.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_02: So we don't plant everything out the first time.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_02: We we have enough because it's it's just my husband and myself, and my neighbors are lucky because they get whatever's left over.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_02: But we want to have, we don't want to have 27 heads of cauliflower next week.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_02: You know, just a head or two would be nice every week or so, would be really super great.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_02: So we tend to we'll plant out and then we wait two or three weeks and then we plant a little bit more, and then we wait a little longer and we plant a little bit more.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_02: So it's kind of like going to the grocery store every week instead of going once a month or once every two months, you kind of get something every single week.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: So don't, when you're looking at what the area you have to plant, don't think I'm gonna plant all my winter vegetables right now.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna plant a little bit this week and a little bit in two or three weeks, and a little bit in two or three weeks after that.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_02: And that way you'll have successive plants all the time, and your your grocery store will be filled.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, great, great advice.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: Other otherwise, you're walking up and down the street with a basket of vegetables, you know, which your neighbors might like, but then nobody's gonna have anything two weeks later.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_02: So we really like to do that.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_02: And we, you know, we've always sometimes we have to, it's never perfect, but it it gives us food every single week.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: And now um the other thing we should talk about is what form of plant do you plant?
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: Do you plant from seed?
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: Do you plant from six packs?
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll tell you what I do, and then Katrina can tell you um if she has a different take on that.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: So, in general, any root vegetable I plant from seed because uh you're gonna eat the root, so you don't want to be transplanting the part that you're gonna eat because you're gonna interrupt the development of the root.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're planting carrots or beets or turnips or radishes, always direct sew.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so what that means is you've got that nicely tilled soil that you just did.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: So, and then you're just gonna score with your finger or a little stick a little groove, a little furrow in your soil, and then you're gonna drop the seeds in there.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe you're only gonna plant, you know, two rows that are four feet long, because as Katrina said, you know, you're not gonna be able to eat, you know, a hundred radishes, you know, all at once.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: So, so do some short rows, put those seeds in.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Cover them up according to the seed packet, you know, whether it says an eighth of an inch or a quarter inch, depending on the seed.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: And then with seeds, what you will have to do is keep them watered.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: You can't let them dry out even for a moment.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: So with seeds, if it's a little bit warm, which it can be in October, you may have to water twice a day, you know, with a very uh misty, gentle um watering can or or a hose nozzle that has one of those mist kind of settings.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: And don't blast them.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, don't blast them.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: They'll they'll travel places you don't want them to travel.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and so I always do root vegetables like that.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: I also love to do lettuce from seed because it sprouts super easy.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I I personally don't do cauliflower or broccoli from seed.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: I might do cabbage from seed, but not the broccoli and cauliflower.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: I like to do those from six packs.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: How about you?
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_02: I'm pretty much the same.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I find out that in those little vegetables that like you're talking about, if you carrots, you just can't plant them by a six-pack because they it's just you're trying to pull them apart, you get misshapen, they die, but and the little package of seeds is so price, and it's it's reasonably price, it comes up quickly.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_02: So we're the same way.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_02: Plant from seeds.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, lettuces sometimes I want to get a head start depending on the weather.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_02: So I'll do a six-pack or something of lettuce so I can like get some sooner, and then we plant by seed.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_02: And and another nice thing about when you're planting by seed with lettuces is you get too much, right?
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_02: So you have to thin them out, and so these baby lettuces that are coming up are just wonderful.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_02: You just pull them out and you and you pull out enough of them as they grow and you need to thin them out to give them some space.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_02: And in the meantime, you have these baby lettuces that are just wonderful.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, yeah.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_02: And but I will plant like a six-pack or something of lettuce just to get going because I can and it also depends on weather, you know.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: It really depends on the weather too.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm what and your vacation schedule and you know, whatever.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I do plant lettuce from six-pack.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and when we say lettuce, we we're using that term very broadly.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we're talking greens.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: We should say greens instead of lettuce because because we're also planting our kales and our spinaches, um, as well as the different varieties of lettuce.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: So um, so do what works for you and for your space.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, the six packs are great.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, when you plant the six packs, you can actually harvest those outer leaves within two weeks and make yourself salads.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: So the six packs do have the advantage of being really fast.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_02: And the broccoli and cauliflower, I tend to buy six packs, you know, and I just buy some and then plant them, and then two or three late weeks later I plant some more, and you know, then we get a success of um crops.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: It's just it's absolutely wonderful.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_02: And it's funny because some of them grow faster than the others, you know, like you might plant a six pack and it's not perfect on timing, it's the way it is, but you always get it.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it it is.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's and it's because of the weather too, you know.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: If you if you have uh a hot spell, you know, you may get things that are growing a lot faster.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um even in the same six pack, sometimes things grow faster.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I also like to plant different types of broccolies.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I like the broccolinis too, and you know, and I might plant a six-pack of this one and then two or three like weeks later plant something a little bit different.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: And that's one of the reasons you might want to plant them from seed.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because I have on occasion done that because I just wanted to experiment and get the orange cauliflower and the purple cauliflower instead of just the white.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: And it's really hard to find those unusual six packs.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: So if you do really want to enjoy, you know, things that are kind of unique, then you might want to grow them from seed.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: But for the the cauliflower and broccoli, I grow those from seed not directly in the ground.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: When I grow them from seed, I plant them in six packs because they're easier to control in the six-pack.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to worry, you can put them in a safe place where they're not going to be devoured by, you know, bunnies or snails or whatever.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so if I am planting those, I like to start those in six packs and keep them in a safe spot where they can get big enough to go out in the garden without getting eaten by some critters.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and that is so smart to do.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: I am just not good at that.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_02: I have killed so many little six packs of flowers from having plants starting them.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, it's just it's kind of what works for you.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_02: And also there's wonderful seeds that you can get online that you can't get at the local store, you know, or they don't sell them.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_02: So you have a lot of more variety if you find something as a seed than you do as buying a six-pack.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: And like I have I have a particular carrot that I like that does well in in my garden, Nante's N-A-N-T-E-S.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I I love that carrot.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's like a a medium to longish carrot, um, but it is kind of blunt-tipped, so it does better in um, you know, heavier soils.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas some carrots that are very tapered, they hit, you know, a soil that's too dense and then they just go crooked and quit growing.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: But I've had great luck with the nante.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the one that I prefer.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so because that's the one I want, I look for that particular seed.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: And if I can't find it at my local nursery, I'll order it, you know, from a mail order seed place to get the one that I really want.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I'm prepared to get lost when you start looking at the mail order seeds.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_02: There's so many wonderful seeds in there.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: You it it it both Tina and I get in trouble.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: We do, we do.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_01: But the other thing that you can do, because I I I love to plant peas, um, and I love to do that with children because you know the pea seeds are the pea, right?
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just kind of a shriveled-up looking pea, but that means it's a big seed that that children can hang on to.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so peas are a great seed for you know children to help you plant.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: And but I prefer the um the bush variety.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, they only get about three feet tall as opposed to the ones that get you know six feet tall.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, they're just I'm not so great at making sure things stay tied up, so I do better if they're shorter.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so then you want to look for a seed variety that you know is a shorter seed variety.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I like the ones that get tall.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because I don't have to bend over.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_02: There you go.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_02: I could put them on a nice big cage and they grow tall and they're they're my height to pick, and I have room for that.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_02: So you know it's so individualized.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so anyway, um just go out there and give it a try because it's so fun to have these fresh veggies in your garden and to eat from your garden and so healthy.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: And then one last tip, um, because when I first started growing lettuce, I was very disappointed because it was always like not crisp and I thought, you know, what am I doing wrong?
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: The lettuce in the grocery store is crisp and mine is not.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what I was doing wrong is you have to wash it, spin it dry, and then put it in a container and put it in the fridge uh before it crisps up.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: You can't go out.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: I was going out and I was picking the lettuce and bringing it in and making a salad with it, which was fine, but it was not a very crisp salad.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: So if you want your crisp salad, you have to harvest in the morning, wash it, spin it, put it in the fridge, and let it crisp up during the day.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_02: You just mentioned something that's worthwhile, in itself worthwhile talking to.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_02: What time of day do you harvest and why?
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: You harvest first thing in the morning because that's when the leaves are full of moisture for lettuce in particular, but for all vegetables, they have a higher moisture content in the morning before the sun has come out and depleted the moisture.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: So go out there in the morning when it's still cool and everything's full of moisture, harvest, clean it, put it in your fridge, and then you'll have a beautiful salad that night.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_02: And it really makes a difference.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_02: It makes a huge difference.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_02: It makes a huge difference.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_02: And if you're worried, you know, you gotta go to work or take the kids to school or whatever, just get up 10 or 15 minutes early and go pick it.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_02: And it just holds the water in the like the first time I had cauliflower, I didn't used to like cauliflower, but then I had cauliflower that was moist, and I'm like, oh my gosh, my whole life changed because I was like, this is a plant I don't like, but you can taste the difference in a lot of the plants if you pick them in the morning versus the evening when you get whole.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for sure.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: I only pick it in the morning uh now.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: If I haven't picked, then we eat something else, you know.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: So um okay, well, we we we've spent a lot of time on soil prep and veggie, our cool season veggie garden, which is awesome, but let's move on to the flower garden because there's so much to talk about in the flower garden this time.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_02: I know this is Tina's fun part.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_02: Ah, yeah.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_02: So we now we know we have our beds cleaned.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, and we've had amended.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: And we're ready to plant.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, and so now the hard part is deciding what you're gonna plant.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I always love to plant a little bit of everything.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: So the categories are bulbs, and they're the kind of bulbs that you think of in the springtime.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: The daffodils, the iris, the freesias, ranunculus, tulips, if you want to hassle with chilling them, but all of those beautiful, almost fake-looking flowers because they're so perfect, you plant those now in October.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: You plant the bulbs now in October.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: So that's one category.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: Another category is the annual flowers.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, your marigolds that you planted over the summer and your sunflowers.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: Now those are done.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: And it doesn't mean that your color is done.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: It means you just have to switch the type of varieties that you're planting.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: So in the fall, you want to do your pansies, your violas, snapdragons, stock, oh, and get the tall stock if you can find it, because it just has this amazing heavenly scent and just looks stunning.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_02: And that's something you might have to find from seed.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, you might have to get it from seed.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um so there's so many, you know, beautiful ones.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: And and we're often limited to what the nursery is carrying in six packs.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, of course, lobelia and alyssum, you know, you can plant all year round as edging in your garden.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so if you just want to do from six packs or four inches, um, you know, go go down to the nursery.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: The primulas, you know, can be beautiful.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: And one I want to mention that I don't think people plant very much, but some of the nurseries around here in Orange County actually do carry six packs of Cineraria.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: Have you ever grown that?
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think I have.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: So it's stunning, and it comes in these blues, really rich blues, and it's a daisy-like flower that's a little over an inch in diameter, and the plant has a rounded habit, and it only gets about 10 inches tall, and just this mound, but the mound gets covered with these bright deep blue and like almost fuchsia and lavender-colored flowers, and um I just love them, and I I kind of planted them by accident because when you see the six packs, there's they're not in bloom, they're just these little green mounds.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: But if you can find them and plant them, you will be rewarded throughout the winter.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: It takes them about maybe two months to bloom, so maybe start blooming in December.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: But from December to February, they are just this stunning mound of this these bright colors.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: So just wanted to throw that out there.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: And what was the name again?
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: Cineraria.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'll spell it.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's C-I-N-E-R-A-R-I-A.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_02: I'm glad you spelled that.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I know.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's tricky.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: So, anyway, if you want to try something different, um, you know, you can try that.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: And but then also some of the standard ones that you almost always can find are calendula, Dianthus, Iceland poppies, all great color.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I particularly love tall things, so I love I look for the the tall stock and the tall snapdragons.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: So you just have to look at the tag and see how tall they get.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: Rocket is a variety of tall um snapdragons that gets gosh, it gets like three feet tall.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I have to tell you my story about tall.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_02: I got so you painted such a great picture about tall that I went overboard and I found the tallest plants that I could get and it covered up my other plants.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_02: So you have to use something called good judgment, not only in life, but when you're planting plants because I ended up with all these really tall plants where I shouldn't quite have as tall as I did.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, so when you get it, you know, we're master gardeners, but we get excited about things.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_02: So I got really excited about like super tall, and I found the tallest of everything, but then it like it covered up my other plants.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_02: So when you're doing this, you just go judge them like how tall do you really want it to be?
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_02: Because I love the tall stuff, but it just took over and hit everything else.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_02: So make sure you have a spot for it, right?
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we were all learning, you know, and it's part of fun and forever learning, and you try things out, and you know, it was one of my things, and I just went for one season, I did all this tall stuff, and it was just a little too much.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so you have deeper beds than I do where you're able to layer them deeper.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_02: My beds, even though I have a big garden, but my beds aren't as deep.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_02: So you have to pay attention to how big these tall things get and how little, like in my garden, I little flowers, you can't see them.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_02: So I need things that make a big statement, as big as bloom as possible, and you know, certain things that for my yard, because you have to look at distance to see the plants, I have to pay attention to that, but I also have to pay attention to how tall things get because my beds aren't that deep.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_02: So look at what you have, and if you make a mistake, it's okay.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we always do stuff next year and we can take it out.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_02: That's the beauty of gardens.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_02: But I love what you see.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_02: Your garden is so beautiful, and you're able to layer the different depths that you have, but I just love it.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it's just it's trial and error, you know.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_01: And and then that the the next category we'll talk about, those are the annuals.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so I fill the annuals in in between uh where I plant perennials that I have going all year long.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: And if you've listened to the show, I I always mention the Shasta daisies because that's my favorite perennial, because it's just it's there, it's bulletproof, nothing eats it.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's just a fabulous plant.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: It keeps coming back, keeps coming back, it self-sows, you can pull it out if you don't want it.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_01: It goes with everything.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: It goes with everything because it's white.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but but other great uh, you know, there's a lot of great perennials.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, the sages, the uh daylilies, fortnight lilies, iris, you know, those beautiful bearded iris, you know, those are perennial.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, Clivia, a great thing for the shade.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so there's there's a lot of things that you can plant now that you might not have thought to plant because they don't bloom until spring.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so oftentimes the nurseries are carrying, well, at least you notice, they're probably at the nursery all year, but you notice them in the spring because that's when they're blooming.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but honestly, I prefer to plant perennials in the fall.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason is we get our rains in Southern California and other parts of the west and southwest.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_01: We get our rains in the winter, and if you plant those perennials in the fall, they have the benefit of those winter rains, those cooler temperatures, and they get settled in so that they can make a nice statement of bloom in the spring.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_01: If you're planting them in the spring when they're already in bloom, you might get a little bit of bloom, you know, because you've bought it in a one or a five-gallon pot, but it's not going to be as big of a statement as if you planted it in October and it had time to grow.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_02: And the root roots get happy, they're in the root, the soil's still warm, they're setting their foundation.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_02: You might not see it above ground, but below ground, and it's just getting so happy under there and getting strong the foundation, and then the springtime it just pops.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it does.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_01: Katrina and I um share Austromaria because they come in different colors.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I give her some of mine, she gives me some of hers.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Austromaria is a great one uh to plant, and it it won't be in bloom now.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_01: But if you can find, you know, the pots in the nursery, um, it they'll look probably kind of spindly and not super attractive.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_01: But like they do in my yard right now.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like right now.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: But man, if you plant them now, then come springtime, they're gonna just burst forth.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_02: And that's another way you need to look at the height because Austromeric can be very, very short or could be three foot tall.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_02: So that's you know, always look at how big the plant gets.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_01: And if and if you want them for picking for bouquets, go for the tall ones.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I love the tall ones, they're just beautiful, and they last in bouquets over a week.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_01: They're just they're great, awesome.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: And they come in different colors just beautiful from yellows to reds to pinks to to purples.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh very, very great.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you see them in florist bouquets, they're often a component.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_02: And they're easy.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_02: You know, they're really easy.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_02: Somebody gave me a plant years ago, and I stuck it in the ground, and it is just spread and it's beautiful, and I've given you part of it, and other people part of it.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_01: I I from a one-gallon pot, my my is probably four by four now.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's been in there for ten years, and it's like four feet by four feet from a one-gallon pot.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then it sometimes it's blooming when other things aren't.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it and it has a long bloom season.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_01: It starts in the spring, and it mine just ended in August, probably.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_01: Same here.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: So, um, and if you already have these perennials, now's the time to dig them up and divide them and share with your friend.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, or in the case of the bearded iris, they'll stop blooming if they get too crowded.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_01: So go ahead and dig those up and divide them and replant them in other places so that you rejuvenate them and they start, you know, blooming more.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, do you dig them all up?
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_01: Let's go back to Austromerias.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: Do you dig all of yours up?
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_01: No, I'll just because I have this section that's you know four by four, I I can just dig a clump of it out, you know, maybe a one.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't go smaller than one foot by one foot because Austromeria in particular has those very fragile bulbous kind of roots.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: They break really easily.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I would dig, you know, a good chunk of it up to make sure that it would, you know, transplant without damaging too many of the roots.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then for the bearded iris, yes, I dig up a whole clump, and then you'll you can see where the it's a rhizome of the underground part is called a rhizome.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_01: You can see where the rhizome has gotten old, and then off of that old rhizome will be a newer, fresher looking one.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so you just cut off with a sharp knife the new fresher rhizome that will have some leaves attached to one end of it, and that's what you replant.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then you throw the old, you know, kind of shriveled up piece in the trash, um, and that will refresh and give you more plants for free and share with your neighbors and yeah.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_01: So this is just a fabulous time to plant all of those things: annuals, cool season annuals, perennials, uh, bulbs, especially.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_01: And um, for the bulbs, as Katrina said, with all plants, you have to notice their height.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_01: So uh you'll want to plant like Dutch Iris, for instance, get, you know, when they're blooming, they're two and a half feet tall.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: So you're not going to want to plant those right in the front, you know, you're gonna want to plant those in the middle to the back of your bed.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, whereas the freezas are only about 10 to 12 inches tall.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, those would be, and the um, you know, if you do if you do crocus or um the anemones, um, you know, those are shorter.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_01: So so look at the height on your bulbs when you're placing those.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: And don't be afraid to to place the bulbs, mix them into other things.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: I I rarely just plant a whole bed of bulbs.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: I used to do that, and it's stunning when it blooms, but for a big chunk of the time while it's growing, it there's no color there.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_01: So now what I do is I mix them in between, like say I plant um snapdragons, say I plant pink snapdragons.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'll I'll maybe choose to plant um some yellow um friezas, you know, in between those so that I have this combination of yellow and pink when when the friezas are blooming, but when they're not blooming, I still have pink snapdragons.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_01: And it's beautiful.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: And then I and then I'll still have maybe a perennial of some kind, you know, next in in that bed somewhere so that um it's blooming.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like the Shasta Days is maybe maybe blooming, you know, when the when the yellow friezas are blooming.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_02: So you know, you just brought up something um Both of us tend to like annuals.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and then we plant, or excuse me, perennials, and then we plant annuals around them.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I like perennials because they're there, they're done, no matter what happens, they'll keep going off.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't do just annuals anymore.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_02: I pick out, and I think you do the same thing.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_02: You have perennials, which is this our base, our foundation, and then we could from year to year we could change up the annuals that go around it.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and what it means too is that you don't have to dig up an entire bed, you know, like a 10 foot by three foot bed all at once.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: If you've got these perennials, or I even have rose bushes, which are also a perennial, um, you know, in my beds too.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I just I I just garden kind of around these perennials.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm only, you know, having to dig up, you know, a small section of soil in it, so it's not quite so backbreaking to prepare.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_02: And then in case life happens and you don't plant your annuals, you always have your perennials going up.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_01: Katrina, you said when you went on your long trip last year and you came home, your garden was just going off because all the perennials were blooming and some of the annuals had self-sown, and my bulbs were there.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_01: Your bulbs were there, and it was like you had been in the garden the whole time.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, why am I doing all this work?
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_02: I just go away for two months and I come home and I have a beautiful garden.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_02: That was such an epiphany for me.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_02: So it's you know, so for us, we like both of us.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_02: I can think I speak for ourselves.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_02: We both like having our base plants and then planting around them because life does happen.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and it's spectacular when you have all the annuals going off, but when you don't and something happens, you still have your perennials and you still have some stuff coming back up.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_01: And then the last thing we'll talk real quick about is the wildflowers.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_01: So here in Southern California, of course, our state wildflower is the California poppy.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so the other thing Katrina saw when she came back was that if you plant California poppies, uh, they often will self-sow.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's beautiful.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_01: And you just let the seeds go wherever.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so, in between her perennials and bulbs, she had California poppies blooming.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_01: But if you haven't planted wildflowers before, let's talk about how you can get them going.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: So you do want to scratch the soil wherever you're going to plant them with a little cultivator, rough up the soil, and then mix your wildflower seeds with some potting mix or some sand so that you can get them to disperse easier.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, if you try to take these little tiny wildflower seeds, you're gonna end up with clumps of them and they're just gonna be too close together.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_01: When she's talking about little seeds, she means these little itty, itty bitty seeds that are like on the tip of a needle.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the a lot of wildflower seeds are small.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then also order a pack of the things that grow in your area.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_01: So just Google what are good wildflowers to plant in wherever you are, because California is such a big state, you know, the the poppies may grow here, but they won't grow up in the mountains.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_01: It'll get, you know, too cold.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_01: So Google what's good for your area, and then, like I said, mix that with um sand or potting mix.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_01: You've scratched up your soil, and then you just take handfuls of it and you just what's called broadcast sew, you just sprinkle it, and then again, you have to make sure that you keep it watered.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_01: And um I love to do it.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_01: I I would sew my poppies right before there's a rain.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_02: I run out, you know, the day before and I scratch the soil and I throw the poppies out and then I wait for the rain to come doing stunning, they're absolutely beautiful, and they're so, so easy.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_02: Just so very easy.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, let me ask you another question, Tina.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_02: When we're talking about bulbs, planting winter bulbs, uh-huh.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_02: There are some winter bulbs that when you plant, they come back every year, and some you have to plant every year.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_02: Now I'm a I'm a lazy gardener, so I want something where I don't have to work year after year.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_02: Which ones do you have to plant every year, and which ones do you get to plant once and you're done for a few years?
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_01: Good question.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, where we live, um, the ones that come back are some varieties of narcissists, which are daffodils.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you have to Google uh daffodils or narcissists that naturalize, and then you'll get a list for your zone of which ones naturalize in your zone.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, tete tete is one that naturalizes, ice follies is one that naturalizes where we live, right?
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's others.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the other bulbs that I plant that naturalize, and they don't last forever, but um, the Dutch iris will come back for about four years, and if you don't dig them up and divide them, then they start to poop out.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_01: But the Dutch iris are another good one.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_01: Friegias, if you plant them once, you will have them forever.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_01: They are a South African bulb, and so I really recommend planting those.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the ones that don't naturalize that I still plant every year because I love them are the ranunculus.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they're beautiful.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_01: They're just beautiful and stunning.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I plant a bunch that naturalize, and then I have my favorites that I still plant every year.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_02: Now you also mentioned something called your zone.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_02: Could you tell us what not everybody knows what zone you're in?
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's not a spiritual thing, okay?
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_01: So what what are zones?
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_01: This is a geographical thing.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um the zones are based on your climate.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh across the world there are ten zones.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and one is the coldest, and ten is the most temperate.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_01: And it actually more refers to uh not the how hot it gets, but how cold it gets.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_01: So the lower the number, the more like freezing type weather you have.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_01: So where we live, which is zone nine, or if you're right at the beach, zone ten in Southern California, um, you know, we never get, we may get an occasional frost like once a year, right?
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_01: Or you where you live, you might get a couple frosts a year.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so zones nine and ten are, you know, the warm zones, they don't ever have winter chill, which is which can be a bad thing too, because if you're growing fruit trees like peaches and other stone fruits and apples, those need winter chill.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_02: And there's some flowers that need winter, like we cannot grow here.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_02: Trust me, I tried it.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_02: That if it zones something that doesn't grow here, it's just you could plant them, but it's not gonna work very well.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_01: Tulips.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_01: I never grow tulips because you have to chill tulips in the refrigerator because they need to be cold in order to bloom properly.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I can't be bothered.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_01: I did it, you know, many years ago, but I can't be bothered doing it anymore.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_01: So so do know what your zone is because that will tell you what kind of plants, because if you're looking at a seed catalog or uh, you know, a plant catalog, um, it will tell you, you know, oh, this is good for zone, you know, four through eight.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I keep trying to grow things that are in for zone eight, and they just don't do very well because zone eight gets more chill than what I do.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_02: And it's very easy.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_02: You just go on the internet and say, what zone am I in?
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_02: You type your what planting zone am I in?
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_02: You type your zip code in and it'll pop up.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_02: So super easy.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_02: Really easy to find and use that as a guideline.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_02: It's a really easy guideline.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I when I first start gardening, try to plant stuff in like seven and eight, and it didn't work really well.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_02: So kind of hang out with your zone.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you'll have better luck.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, our master gardener motto is right plant, right place, right time.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_01: So plant it if you know the right place is your zone, you know, and and the particular location in your garden.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um okay, so we just have a few minutes left.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the other thing that is really important to do in October, November, December is if you are going to plant native plants in California, that is the time to do it.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_01: October, especially, I think, because the rains usually start in November.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_01: So planting native plants at towards the end of October, I think, is super smart because then they get those winter rains, which is what they're you know, bred to love.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh they're just going to be super excited if you get them in in October and then they have that winter.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_02: And like we said before, the roots get time to uh acclimate and grow and get strong.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_01: And do be careful though.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we we've mentioned this before about natives in a residential setting.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_01: Your your sprinklers, if you have automatic sprinklers, which most of us do, will have different stations.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so you have to make sure that you plant your natives in the same station because, or if you're gonna completely convert your whole yard, no problem.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_01: But your native plants are gonna take a lot less water in the summertime, in the summertime eventually, once they're established, than if you have a lawn.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_01: So if you say, Oh, I'm gonna take out half my lawn and plant natives, you can't do that because probably your lawn is one, you know, zone, one station on your sprinkler system.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_01: So either your natives will die or your lawn will die because you can't in the summertime, you know, have the appropriate watering for both of them.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_01: So that's one thing that you have to make sure is that you're planting them in an area where you can separately control the amount of water that they get.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that's uh natives that I wanted to talk about.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um fire control.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_01: Fire control, yes.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_01: That is one of the reasons that we do switch to natives, is often the native plants um are less uh woody um in terms of um you know having tindery kind of like uh cypress trees are not native to California, right?
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_01: And we plant those right up against our houses, and what happens is the interior of those get dry and dead, and they end up being torches if there's ever a fire, because the fire lands inside that tree and it just sends the whole thing up.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas our native oaks have the bark and the sparser leaf canopy to you know resist fire, and if a fire isn't super intense, the oaks often will survive and you know live to see another day.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_01: So that's another reason that that we try to plant natives, is that they have evolved some of them to be you know more fire resistant.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_01: But speaking about your own personal yard, uh for those of us who live in California, there is a new, and we're gonna do a show on this, um, there is a new um identification of a zone of landscaping called Zone Zero.
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_01: And zone zero extends five feet from your wall of your house out, and in that zone, uh they don't want anything flammable.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_01: And when we have time and we go into another show, uh we'll talk about that.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_01: But just for folks that live in a fire-prone area, start looking at the stuff that is right up against your house.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_01: And for instance, I'm sadly taking out my Boganvia that you know grows up right against my house.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason is is the bogumvia traps the dead leaves and flowering bracts, and it's it just has like a little, it's a little tinder box in there, and then the stems get woody and they're tall usually, you know, mine are up the side of the house, and so that is not a good thing to have right up against your house in the event that a brush fire comes through because the sparks can land in there and set that thing on fire.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_01: So do try to trim back trees away from the roof of your house.
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_02: We just did that.
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_02: So you know, rub back trees, any bushes, anything you have woody in your yard.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_02: Try not to, you might not need to take it completely down now, but get rid of any dead wood, clean up anything close to your house.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_01: And also don't use wood mulch anymore if you are in a fire-prone area because it burns.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_01: And Katrina watched it burn and was using a garden hose, weren't you?
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_02: At a neighbor's when we had the fires in 2017, we had a neighbor's and their whole yard that she had the next door neighbor, the whole yard under her fruit trees was on like this ember burning in the middle of the night, and it was these wood chips, and I sat there for two hours with two hoses just putting out the mulch.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so don't don't mulch with wood chips anymore.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_01: It looks it looks cool, and we did it for years, and there are a lot of benefits of it.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_01: But if you're in a fire-prone area, you know, don't don't do it anymore.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then the other thing that you can do is a spacing.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, space your shrubs.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_01: So if you have you know shrubs, uh space them, you know, no more big big giant, you know, swaths of them.
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um next to the house.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_01: And next to the house.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna do a whole show on fires.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_02: So that should be out soon.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_02: And that's something I think I would recommend everybody to listen to because it's gonna go much more in depth than than we are right now.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_02: But it's until that comes out, just clean up your yard as much as you can right now.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm sure the fire authority has some stuff on their website to see what you can do right now.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_01: But sadly, we're out of time.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_01: So it always goes so fast.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you so much uh to all our listeners and get out there and have a great time in your October garden.
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_01: Have fun.