Fall Vegetable Gardening Webinar Follow Up Q&A

If you were with me for the Fall Gardening Masterclass, you know we had a ton of great questions come in during the Q&A. More than I could get to in one sitting, and my voice was starting to give out too.

So in this video, I’m answering the rest of those questions. We saved the overflow, and I’ll walk through as many as I can. We’ll talk about seed starting, soil prep, pest management, fall planting strategies, and a whole lot more.

Even if you didn’t attend the webinar, you’ll still get plenty of helpful tips and ideas you can use in your fall garden.

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Okay. Let me know if I’m live. I don’t even know. Okay. Okay. Okay. Hi everybody. This is a technical one of those technical things where you hit the wrong button at the last second and everything goes black and wipes out the um setup that we had for this. But uh in in a panic mode and less than a minute to spare, I think we’re back online and that’s a good thing. So um I can’t tell if anyone’s here yet. I think um I see. Okay. Yes, here we come. All right. So, I see a number of people here. I think I got a chat here. We can open it up just for me now. Let’s see. Try to open up that chat window some more. Or not. I think I’m not going to screw it up at this point. But here’s the thing. We are coming up right at the top of the hour and I will have exactly an hour to give you today before I have to run away. So, yeah. Just Okay, there’s Amy. Hi, everyone. Okay, good. All right, I see things happening here. People are coming in and we’re going to get your questions answered. So, it’s 12:00 and um this will be recorded. So, let me go ahead and give the announcements now so that we can get right into the questions to make sure that we get them all done by the top of the next hour, which is 1 p.m. Eastern time here for me. And um so if you were in attendance in the fall master class uh gardening webinar that we had last week, last Wednesday, as always, we ran out of time and I ran out of voice before I could give you all the answers to all your questions. So we thought it would be a good idea to save all of the questions that we did not have a chance to answer and capture those and do what we’re doing right now in a live Q&A that will become a permanent video on the YouTube channel Joe Gardner TV. So, uh, even if you can’t say for the whole hour, if you asked a question in that session last week, uh, I will answer it today, uh, time permitting. And I’m not sure if we’ll get any opportunity for new questions because I think we’re going to have an hour’s full of Q&A right here with what we already have recorded. So, I’ll get to any extra questions if I have time. So, with that said, um the link to the webinar replay for those of you who paid for the webinar master class last week, that is still available to all paid register med registrants by email. So, look for that link in your email. And then access will remain open until September 1st. And again, that’s for the paid registrance. So, let’s dive in and keep the conversation going. And I’ll start with that first question, which is from Lynn. And Lynn wants to know this this is in a section what we try to do is group the questions of similar nature together so I can kind of be more efficient with our time. So Lynn you had this question Rianne you had a similar question Jan the same thing and Julia also Kim so this is going to pertain to all of you and that is regarding basically this question. What if you don’t have grow lights or a system for indoor growing? That was Lynn’s question. Rianne said she lived in she lives in Sedona, Arizona where it’s hot right now. No indoor place to start her fall veggies. Can I create a spot outside in the shade that protects things to start off with? Jan, what would you suggest if I don’t have a place indoors for seed starting? Is direct sewing an option? And Julia, please take talk about starting seeds inside. I don’t have much room inside. And Kim, can we start seeds in a milk jug? Basically, all of those are very similar and I’m going to address all of your questions with this answer. Basically, um, if you don’t have grow lights or system for indoor growing, then find a spot outside. If it’s full sun, I recommend that you probably get a shade cloth. You can order shade cloths online at Amazon or anywhere maybe you have one around. Get 50% protection. That’s going to screen out 50% of the UV light and the intensity of the sunlight. It’s going to cool things down a bit, but it’s still going to provide enough light for your seedlings to germinate and start growing without overkill. Now, once they get up and going, don’t worry about the um shade cloth after that. But you just don’t want the soil to get too hot outside, and you want the seedlings to um just have a little bit of buffer time before they’re exposed to full sun. But mainly, it’s going to be a temperature thing early on for germination mainly. Now, um if you want to put them in shade to start off, you could do that, too, cuz they’ll get indirect light and you don’t need any special heat mats or anything outside, just go ahead and put the tray with your seed starting mix and your sewn seeds into an area that maybe gets indirect light. If you have a place that has dappled shade, that would be good. And the main thing you need to do is keep an eye on the moisture level. Don’t let the soil dry out. And you might want to use a humidity dome on top to hold the moisture in until you get germination. That’s going to be really important. Soil moisture consistently until germination is going to probably be the thing that you need to focus on the most. Um, and so Julia, that’ll pertain to you too. And Kim, regarding can you do them in milk jugs? Yeah, you can absolutely do that for whatever you start your seeds in. It really doesn’t matter. It doesn’t need to be a standard 10×20 tray. It can be anything. It can be a takeout container. What you want to do is make sure you have drainage holes in it. So, if they don’t have holes in it to begin with, you need to add them. I find that a simple way to do that is to um heat uh maybe a Phillips screwdriver over um your cook top or your you know your eye on your stove. Stove. Yeah. And get it hot and then you can just poke right through that plastic like butter. Super easy to do it that way. That’s just one suggestion. Or you can take those lighter sticks and hold your screwdriver over that. Something with a point on it and um that will do it. And so give that a try. Let’s see what else have I not covered here. Rihanna protect start things hot right now. Yeah. And Rihanna back to Rian back to you on the heat. The shade cloth is really going to be the best thing or in shade where you’re going to knock down the temperature at least probably 10 degrees from what it would be in direct sun. So, I think I’ve got everybody covered there. Um, for outdoor growing, yeah, you can definitely do that. And did somebody ask me about direct sewing if that if I missed that, you can go direct sewing as well. But again, it’s it’s mostly the temperature of the soil. If the soil temperature for any situation outside exceeds 80%, that’s going to be too hot for most cool season seeds. You’d like to have that ideal soil temperature more in the 70s. So, whatever you need to do to make that happen. All right, we’re moving on to germination tips right now. And Eric, what was the germination trick for spinach? Beth, same thing. A queen, thoughts for starting carrots in cardboard egg cartons. Okay, that’s the grouping for germination tips. as far as the trick for priming is the term your spinach seeds so they will germinate much more consistently makes a big difference. So what you do is you soak your spinach seeds for 24 hours and then you go ahead and lay them out on um paper towels or maybe a coffee filter and you want to air dry them for about two days. One to two days but two days is good. Once you’ve done that, go ahead and put them into an airtight realable container, whether it’s a zip bag or you know, um something with a lid on it that closes tight until you’re ready to sew them. Now, if you’re going to be sewing them in the next week or so, anything goes really. Just keep them in an airtight tight container. But if it’s longer than that, store them as you would normally in a cool, dry place, whether that’s an envelope, in the refrigerator, or somewhere else, and they’ll continue to germinate very well for at least a year after that, because I’ve tested it that way. You don’t need to sew them within the one week that you’ve put them through this priming process. Because once they’re primed, they will be uh very um viable, which means they will be very high likely to sprout after you’ve primed them. and then um a queen. As far as starting your carrots in cardboard egg cartons, you could do that. But what I would recommend that you do if you’re sewing them there and they germinate, as soon as you’re able, go ahead and cut out the cardboard um depressions each one, you know, where one egg goes, I would cut that out and then plant that into the soil without disturbing it. Because the thing about carrots is once their roots are disturbed, it kind of triggers them to not want to behave very well and give you a good straight carrot. So, uh I would probably make sure that that cardboard has um gotten pretty saturated so that it disintegrates in short order as the roots are continuing to want to grow down. You don’t want them to hit an obstacle. And if that cardboard container bottom is still there, that may be considered an obstacle to the root of the carrot and it could disrupt their consistent growth of getting you a good straight carrot. So, make sure it’s it’s um right before you’re planting it. I would make I would maybe even soak it in some water so that that cardboard isn’t disintegrating before your eyes, but once it gets in the soil overnight and you got good damp soil, that will probably do it. And then those carrots can go straight through the se the seeds will be okay. Moving on to special equipment and techniques. Margaret and Pat and Robin Harris and Kim Frey. These are you are in this group. So let’s see what we got. Margaret, do you still use heating mats to start cold weather seeds? Pat Hudson, do you use a special soil to grow your seedlings? And how high is the grow light above the seeds? And how long do you leave the light on? Robin Harris, how much time should plants be under the grow lights indoors? Should I take advantage of natural light? And then Kim, have you ever tried snail rolls to sew seeds? Okay, so let me just bang through those individually and and together when they are appropriate. Margaret and Pat, do you still use heating mats to start cool weather seeds? You could, but if you’re you need to find out how hot that germination mat is getting before you set your seeds on it because if the germination mat is getting above 75° and many of them do, especially the ones without a thermostat on them, that’s too hot for cool seasoned seeds. So, in my case, um I don’t even worry about the germination mat or the heat mat, same thing. Because, um cool season seeds generally in nature are germinating in cooler temperature anyway. So, it’s not as though they really need to have extra heat. Um, or excessive heat can actually prevent them from germinating. For example, lettuce seed won’t even germinate above 80° Fahrenheit. So, I wouldn’t say it’s necessary, but if you do have a heating mat and you want to try it, it could speed up your germination by about a day or two, as long as the ambient the temperature of the germination mat does not go above 75 degrees Fahrenheit. Okay. Um, Pat Hudson, do you use a special soil to grow your seedlings? and how far do you keep the grow lights? The special soil is what basically is called a seed starting mix. So, it’s generally called a sterile sterile mix because it doesn’t have garden soil in it. You want something very light that holds moisture but also allows a lot of air in. So, look for seed starting mix at the nursery or order it online that way. Um, would be my recommendation. you. I don’t really want to direct you into some sort of garden soil or potty mix at this point because the key with seeds is they need great irration and good moisture retention, but not so much that it keeps the soil too wet. So, seed starting mix is really what you’re looking for. And if you don’t have any, you may be able to find it at a good nursery these days, um, or possibly a box store, but if not, you could get that online. And then um as far as the distance of the grow lights above your your um seeds as they’re sprouting, it depends on the grow light, but just as a general rule of thumb, and there’s a lot of variability to this, but with um if you have a fluorescent shop light, for example, keep that very close to the top of your humidity dome. For any seed starters, you want to keep the moisture in the soil. And the best way to do that is e ether with like plastic wrap, saran wrap, or pre-made humidity dome that’s the same size as your container. that sits on top and you leave that dome on until you get germination. But then the lights above that with fluorescent very close to the top of the humidity dome and if you have an LED light I wouldn’t get any closer than 12 in and probably better to be more like 18 in because they are deceptively strong and I don’t want them to burn your seedlings with light exposure too much being too strong as they’re coming up with LED lights. So that’s you’re going to have to just tweak it from there and observe your seedlings and how they respond. Um, Robin Harris, natural light will help, but natural light from inside the house through a window or something is never strong enough to really give your seedlings what they need. They really want good strong sunlight to maintain compactness and um, vigor and tger and artificial supplemental light is really going to be the key for that. A good shop light or a good fluorescent light. And then Kim, I have not tried snail rolls yet. I’m going to do that. Um, probably not until this coming January when I start sewing my peppers and tomatoes, but I see no reason why that doesn’t work. I’ve seen lots of pictures of it working and there’s no reason why it shouldn’t work. It has everything it needs. Um, basically, okay, sourcing seeds. Colleen Smith, can you recommend a seed company that offers the best description for the seeds? Actually, the best one I know of is Botanical Interest because not only is there information on the outside of the seed pack, but if you open up the seed pack, there’s a lot of additional information there. And they’ve been doing that for years and years and years. They’re the only ones that I know of that do that. So, if you’re looking for all your information or most of it on the seed packet itself, that’s the company I would recommend. However, Johnny Seeds um high mowing organic seed and seed savers has very good information especially seed savers. But um Johnny’s and high mowing seed has very good reference material, supplemental material that you can go online and get from them from the seed packet itself, but it’s not going to have it on the seed packet. You would have to go online to get that additional information. Okay, hopefully that helps you. And then Colleen, you also asked if there’s a source where you can find the best varieties for your area. So, I wasn’t aware of if that was the case or not, but I’m going to go ahead and um try to share the screen with you real quick. And and I made one slide. You’re my only slideshow of the day. Um let’s do this. I’ll have to share the screen once I get back to my control. I don’t know how to do it. Come on. Um, okay. Actually, I’ve never shared from here. So, what I’m going to do is tell you once I find it again, there it is. Here’s what you need to know. I did a basically a Google search, but if you’re in the Southeast, Southern Exposure Seed Exchange is a very good one because they they source and grow their seeds regionally. So they are that would be good for Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and that Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. And um Commonwealth Seeds is another one that came up. Again, they are in the southeast and Virginia. Bruition Seeds. I don’t know that they really offer seeds anymore to the general public. They used to, but now I think they’ve gone more to just by request. So they’re not really a seed seller anymore. So they’re taking them off the list. Nature and Nurture Seeds is in the Midwest. So, Nature and Nurture Seeds in the Midwest, Native Seeds, Search Southwest Aid Climates and Seed Savers Exchange is a nationwide heirloom network. So, you could contact them and find out maybe where their sources of those seeds have come from and then you can be connected with the person that can provide those seeds to you who is in your same area. So that probably be would be my top recommendation because they source seeds from all over the country and they put you in touch with the provider. So then you can find somebody probably that’s in your very narrow eco region to help you with that. Okay, we’re going to go into seedlings and transplanting. Jan K, which of the crops do you transplant? Uh broccoli, beets, etc. What I would tell you is this. You can transplant I start really almost every cool season crop indoors, but the ones that I probably would deter you from trying to do inside. Although you could you wouldn’t have as best results with root crops such as carrots, parsnips, and radishes. Those would be the three crops that I would not sew indoors to transplant. Although you could and maybe get away with it, your success rate would not be as high. So, um, every I’, so here’s a summary of that answer. Everything but parsnips, carrots, and radishes, and maybe beets, but beets do well. So, uh, indirectly, I mean, started from seed inside, too. Julie and Eric, you’re wanting to know about hardening off in with cool season plants. And they do benefit from a little bit of hardening off. So, they don’t need anything like um, tomatoes would. That’s probably the one that takes the longest. But with cool season plants, I find that they are just out of the blocks much more ready to be exposed to full sun. But I would give them a couple days of easing into that environment. I have found that they do show a little bit of sun distress um when it’s still hot and you got a lot of baking sun on them if they’ve been inside up until that point. So, not nearly as long. A few two three days maybe, just a little bit in and out. keep an eye on them. But that’s probably about all you’re going to need. And once you plant them, what I would recommend that you maybe do if you’re finding any scalding at that point, get yourself a shade cloth. They come in handy. You use them forever and use that as your um buffer for the next few days. And that will give you just enough edge to protect your plants and allow them to harden off and then you can remove it after a few days. and Nicole, are spring started brassasica seedlings that sat in pots all summer still viable for fall? Maybe. Uh, it depends on how rootbound they are and um how they’re looking at this point. But if they have show no signs of bolting, if they haven’t gone to flower and they look, you know, healthy but like you could plant them without the bolting, the going to flower part, you can probably get away with it. And I know a lot of people in the upper Midwest that have short seasons, they’ll start things in um containers outside in May or so and plant them some part sometime later in the summertime. So if that’s you or if your plants look good and they haven’t gone to if they haven’t bolted yet, that’s going to be the key. I would go ahead and transplant them. Okay. Soil for seedlings. Cheryl and Laura. Cheryl wants to know, could you clarify your fertilization regime? Do you say you only do a few inches of compost for the whole cold and warm season? Anything monthly? And then Laura, uh, it’s a little bit of a different question. So, let’s do yours, Cheryl. As far as my fertilization regime, because I’ve been building my soil for years in these same beds with compost, yes, really generally all I do is a top dressing of about 1 to two inches in between seasons. So coming into the summer season, so that would be basically late March, early April, I’ll top dress with a couple inches of compost. And then coming out of summer into fall, which is like right now, when I have room in my beds or my beds are now being vacated, I will do that again. And um I don’t even work it in because I have so much biological activity through the soil food web that’s going to bring that compost down further into the soil without any intervention on my part. That’s really all I do. occasionally. And I I you know, I do this even when I don’t really think I need to, but sometimes if I want to give an extra nitrogen boost, like for tomatoes to to really get them up and growing during their vegetative state, or I want to boost fruit production, um for really anything that I’m trying to get to go to fruit faster than it’s doing, I might use um something with phosphorus in it, like a fish emulsion. But if I am supplementing, it’s usually a light dose of fish emulsion. Sometimes I’ll use Morganite at the beginning of the season worked into the soil. But really, um, the compost is my main source. And there are many seasons where I don’t do anything because I am getting great results without any supplemental fertilization. I’ve done a soil test and I can see that all my micro and macronutrients that I need are there in sufficient numbers. And in many cases, if you use compost a lot, you’re actually going to drive many of the the numbers beyond ideal to the high stage, which is okay because I’ve that happens to me all the time and I’ve never seen any adverse consequences from that. But um yes, to answer your question, I really I I’m not a heavy feeder because I believe in feeding the soil and let the soil feed the plants. And the way that you feed the soil ideally with is with organic material and primarily that would be compost. and it’s the most accessible thing for everybody, I would say. Um, and then Laura M, should I mulch now when preparing the soil or wait until I have planted the seedlings? If you’re going to do seedlings, I would wait. I mean, I’m sorry, I would mulch now. That way, you’re going to provide earlier protection over the soil, prevent it from crusting over. Moderate it from getting too hot with the mulch. And then when you plant your seedlings, just move the mulch away where you need to create that opening and put your seedlings there. and then go back in and bring the mulch closer to the stem. And that’s it. Okay. Garlic questions, sourcing and variety selection. So, Alyssa, where do you recommend ordering garlic from? And then Carrie Wall from Chapel Hill, please suggest best garlic to order. Okay, so as far as um good sources, there are more good sources than I’m going to recommend and I’m only going to recommend a few, but I would say Territorial Seed Company is a great option. Fillery uh seed company, garlic farm, I’m sorry. Fillery garlic farm, Keen Organics is a very good one. Johnny’s, they’re good for everything. High mowing organic seed. And Southern Exposure is also good, especially for regionally southeastern US where you’re going to be ordering your soft neck varieties is generally what you’re going to use in the southeast or where it’s hot. And so southern exposure would be good. And then Hudson Valley seed in New York, I think upstate New York is good for your um hard neck garlic and otherwise I think they probably sell both hard neck and soft neck. And um so those are some good options. Territorial seed, Fillery Garlic Farm, Keen, Johnny’s, High Mowing, Southern Exposure Seed Exchange in Hudson Valley to start. And then um please suggest best garlic to order from Carrie. Carrie, that’s a tough one because it really depends on what you are enjoying. For me, I love Chznok Red Music, uh Spanish Roa. Those are three that I grow every year. And I’m going to stick to that because I could go on and on and really I recommend that you try something new all the time. But ordering now is going to be key because if you wait to order any longer, even though we don’t plant garlic generally until maybe October, November for sure, a lot of times the f the best varieties, the most popular ones are already sold out, you don’t want to find out that you can’t get what you want. So order that right now and then they will ship it to you closer to the time that it’s appropriate for you to be planting it. So you don’t have to worry about storage in the meantime. Planting and storage tips. Hester, should I plant the biggest or medium-sized garlic cloves? I like to go with the biggest cloves because I’m going to get the biggest bulbs at maturity and um those are the ones that demonstrate the most vigor and um so those are the ones I’m going for as I’m working through my clove but my bulb I’m pulling off the cloves that are the largest biggest ones because that’s got the most um in it to grow out a nice big bulb at harvest time. And then Vicky Smith, you frozen your garlic cloves for planting and will they still grow? I don’t think so. I got to say I’ve never done it because I’ve for at some point way back when I’ve heard and I’ve recall that it’s not recommended that you freeze your garlic before planting. I could be wrong there, but that’s what I recall. So, um I’m I’m not sure that you’re going to have success with that. Okay. Crop planning, timing, and rotation, when and how to start. So, James, Julie, and Ron, you are in this group. James Mardle, when should you start fall vegetable seedlings? As soon as this is over, as soon as this recording and this Q&A is over, go do it. Hopefully, you have your seeds already, but what you really need is a good six weeks before um you they get transplanted into the garden and then you’ve got to get them to mature ideally by the first frost of the season. So, depending on where you live, that could be sooner versus later. For me, it’s somewhere around November 1st, but I need to have, you know, 75 days on average for everything to mature before the frost comes. But even when the frost comes, because these are cool season seedlings, they’re not going to be killed just because it’s, you know, first frost. They’re frost tolerant. But depending on what you’re growing will determine how frost tolerant they are and how long your frost lasts and other variables, but bottom line to your question is you need to start right away. Okay, this weekend would be fine, but don’t wait any longer. Julie, hey Julie, disso broccoli planted August 1st in zone 6A. Will I get a harvest? Yes, you will because descero broccoli doesn’t put out big heads. It’s putting out smaller heads and those will mature faster than a big head. So, you’re not going to be waiting around until um you know, it’s freezing outside and you’re not going to get your broccoli maybe. But with Distro. Um, Ron, hey Ron, uh, do you sequence plant any cool season crops, like multiple broccoli sewings, I think it’s a great idea to do that because if you have everything harvested at one time, you know, it only lasts so long in the refrigerator, but you might be surprised on how long it lasts like with broccoli. But I would rather get super fresh broccoli spaced out every 10 days, even every week, but every 10 days is good. But start right now and continue to plant seedlings or seeds so they’re seedlings spaced out and planted seven to 10 days apart and then you’ll be getting fresh broccoli and fresh other things. Um, which is a better situation than trying to just make it all last inside. Fli fl Okay, we’re on crop rotation now. If you plant brassacas in spring, is fall considered a rotation? Generally not. You’re you’re usually considering a rotation is to be a year. So, um, conservatively speaking, not. And if you’re if you’re rotating to create a soil environment that um starves out pathogens so that when you put that family of crop back in that area, you’ve had at least three years, not three growing seasons, but three years before you plant back in there to starve out pathogens. And even that’s not a guarantee, which is why I say I wouldn’t count spring to fall as a separate growing season if you’re dealing with soil pathogens. As far as nutrients in the soil, you can supplement that with organic nutrients and then you could probably get away with spring to fall as being an entire season. But if it’s pathogen related, I would stretch it out to one year per season for crop rotation. How you calculate it? Cindy, uh, do turnup greens fall into the same category as collards? To your simple question, I mean, that’s all you’re asking. So, the simple answer is yes, they are. They’re both brassacas. They’re in Nebraska ACA family. So that they’re in the same family. So yes, companion planting. Cindy B, how many of these cold crops can you can be companion planted? Uh I don’t know of any that can’t be companion planted next to each other. Companion planting is really kind of a woowoo. There’s not there’s science some science behind it, but it’s really not science related to chemicals put out by one that’s going to deter or inhibit the productivity of the other one. and more it’s really about what can you plant next to each other that is attracting, repelling or confusing a pest insect from harming your cash crop. That’s really what companion planting is about versus how they behave next to each other. So, I don’t know of anything offhand that um competes with each other. So, I I would experiment and keep going until you find something that doesn’t behave. But I haven’t found that yet in my garden and I have a very robust fall and spring cool season garden. Okay, so perennial questions coming up here with Dorothy and Connie. Uh Dorothy asked, “Do you grow kale as a perennial?” Dorothy, I don’t. What happens is I’ll start kale in the summer like right now. It will it will be beautiful in the fall. It’ll be better after it’s been kissed by frost. It’ll overwinter here in zone 8A beautifully. And it will continue to produce through May when it starts to bolt. And when it starts to bolt, it’s bitter and aphids have gotten to it. And it’s that it’s at that point that I pull it out. Now, could I cut it back to the ground and let it respout? Yes, I could. I haven’t done that just because I need that space for other things. But you may want to try that. Depending on where you live, that could work. But generally, I get at least half a year out of it or threequarters of a year. And the only time I’m not growing kale is in the summertime. So that’s threequarters of a year. So you can try that at least. Connie, what about treating peppers as perennials and containers? You can do that. I know a lot of people that grow peppers and then they dig them up right as frost is about to kill them back. Do it before that happens because that will shock the plant. But you can dig them up, cut the roots back, cut the uh pepper plant down, and then put it in a pot and put it in a um greenhouse or a protected environment inside with exposure to some light. Water it occasionally, but you really want it in a semi- dormant state. And then you can plant it back out, put it back in the ground, and do the same thing over at the end of the next summer season coming into fall. Pest and disease management, bug and larvae. Kim Frey, what fall? Let’s see who else we got here. Okay, they’re all different questions. Slightly almost slightly. Kim, uh, what which fall crops can be covered should be covered to prevent bugs, especially larvae? Kim, I would I would tell you that um best practices would tell you that you would you would be very happy with yourself if you had insect barriers for really everything, especially the brassacas. And when I say especially, I’m talking about cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, um kale, all those things. Because what happens is when the cabbage white butterfly comes along, lays the eggs, and then you got the, you know, the cabbage the caterpillars that basically come from that, the cabbage worms and so forth. They’re not picky. They like all brassacas. So, to be on the safe side, just cover it up. Now, here’s the thing. If that’s more than you can handle, don’t worry about it. Because what you can do is if you’re able to check your garden every day, you’ll spot early signs of problems. and it’s probably going to be your cabbage worm because that’s your number one threat in a cool season garden. And then you could either pick them up off or you could use BT, basillusingensis, as a very safe selective control that comes in a powder or a spray. It’s often sold by the trade name dipel dip pel and you can get that. It’s readily available and then you can wait until that point to start reacting. And sometimes that’s what I do. Uh, and it works fine. And your and your plants, especially your leafy crops, can handle more leaf damage than you may think they can. They can handle defoliation of maybe 30% before any productivity is affected. Now, with leaf crops, because you’re eating them as leaves, often times it’s unsightly. So, you know, you may want to cut it up or sauté it, and then you never know when it’s time to eat them after you’ve washed it. But if it’s something that goes into a salad, you don’t want holy salads. So covering is probably the best uh deterrent and to keep your plants healthy. Um okay, Siri, are the bugs that attack cuciferous plants gone or fewer in the fall? So these are the ones with four leaves. Um all brasas, let’s see, what am I going to say here? They are fewer. Let’s just go with that. They’re just basically like brasas. Treat them the same way because many of the cuciferous plants are brasacas. So the answer that I just gave to Kim would apply to you too. So they are fewer by for sure, but you still have some major threats mainly the cabbage moth. Elaine Donahghue, do cabbage moths live until frost? Actually, they’re cabbage white butterflies and they do live up until frost or at least the at least the life cycle. There’s four life cycles. There’s the adult, there’s the egg, there’s the larvae, and then there’s the pupa. And it’s the larvae, it’s the caterpillar that’s doing the damage, which is what comes right after the egg. So that’s earlier in the season than late. So you need to be mainly concerned in the earlier part of the season than right up as you’re coming into frost. still keep an eye out, but the biggest threats are gone because um that’s beyond the multiple cycles that take place from the cabbage butterfly during that time of year. They they can have three or four full cycles during that time that they’re growing. Diseases, Kathleen Border, um I had disease big time in my spring summer garden. Anything I can do to mitigate this in the fall? Kathleen, the main thing I would tell you is in your spring summer garden, so let’s just talk about warm season plants like tomatoes and peppers versus cool season plants like everything else that you’re going to be growing. Right now, there’s uh if you haven’t heard of the disease triangle. In order for a disease to manifest itself on a plant, three things have to happen. You have to have the disease or the pathogen. You have to have the host. And you have to have the right environmental conditions. And it has to be all three of those things working together at the same time for a disease to actually take fruit to hold to to basically become a disease that shows itself on your plant and impacts your plant. But if any one of those three things is missing, you will not have that disease take place. So you’re not going to have the same host. You’re not going to have the same environmental conditions. And um the pathogen may be there, but it may not even be it may the plants that you’re growing in the fall may not even be affected by that pathogen. So it may be a non-issue. So it’s very unlikely that what you’ve been experienced through the summer is going to carry over into your cool season plants because of the disease triangle. And there’s lots of information online if you want to learn more about that, but essentially it’s those three things having to all be in place at the same time. Gail, I have one bed that gets powdery mildew in the fall. Any suggestions? Yeah, there are a number of organic controls that you can do to control powdery mildew. Gail, some you you can use as a preventative proactively. Others you can treat after the fact, which is rare with diseases on vegetable plants because usually once a disease hits a vegetable plant, you cannot kill it or reverse it. You can just slow it down. But with powdery mildew, it’s one of those few that you can actually um stop and kill and go forward without the disease. And I have a list of options. I wrote a a thorough blog post on it at joegardner.com and just type in powdery mildew into the search area and you’ll get that comprehensive post that I did on powdery mildew. Gail, I’ve had problems with beet virus. What can I do? Gail, you need to pull it out because a virus, you can’t cure a virus and a virus can spread quickly and there’s no nothing really you can do other than pull it out and then I would not plant back into that same area for three years because the virus um has to enter your plant through an injury in the plant. But if the pathogen is in your soil, you don’t want it to persist. And if it’s feeding off all of the disease triangle, if there’s a plant going in there that’s in that is susceptible to that virus, you don’t want to promote that virus any longer. You want to starve it out. So do not plant back into that same area with the same plants for three years, I would say, at least. And then even then, that may not be long enough, but it’s a start. Anonymous, what can be done about nematodes in the root vegetable space? you’re really going to have to find beneficial nematodeses to take out the harmful nematodes. So, if you don’t know what a nematode is, these are microscopic worms basically and they live in the soil and they can cause great destruction to the roots and they can build nodules onto your roots that then create other problems. So, the best thing I can recommend is go to Arbico Organics. A R B I think is how you spell it. Arbico Organics. They’re one of the best sources for consumers to find the appropriate soil drenches through beneficial nematodes that are bred to attack certain threats. So that’s what I would recommend that you do. Without knowing more, I can’t give you a more specific answer, but it’s really not even warranted because go to Arbico Organics, put in what you’re trying to control for, and it will have a recommendation for you and just follow that. Pest um pest solutions, Kathleen, suggestions for getting rid of spider mites. Well, that one probably the best thing you could do is just insecticidal soap, which is a non- selective, which means broadspectctrum. doesn’t know the difference between a good insect and a bad insect. But insecttoidal soap, the way it kills is it dries out insects. So for softbodied insects such as spidermitites, if you get insecttoidal soap on it, it will desiccate it and it will die. And so that’s a good one. Even so, I would be careful because there are beneficial insects at the earlier life stages that would be softbodied before they like a lady beetle is softbodied until it develops its outer coating. And so be careful when you’re applying this. Look around and make sure you don’t see any other beneficial insects because 99% of the insects in this world are beneficial or neutral. And so you don’t want to accidentally have an unintended consequence of hurting a beneficial. So spray it later in the day. If you’re using insecttoidal soap, you could also use um neem oil um and horicultural oil. And that’s going to coat them and basically suffocate them on the spot. So that’s those are the other options that I would recommend. And then as far as deal deer control, Carolyn, honestly, the only thing that only thing that is going to work is a physical barrier that’s higher than they can jump. Deer are known to be able to jump over an 8t fence. Deer would prefer to jump over rather than across. So, if you couldn’t do an 8- foot high fence, if you had something that was wide enough so that it it made it more difficult for the deer to jump across spanning a a distance, even though the fence may be lower, if they have to travel further to get over the 4ft fence, um that can be a deterrent as well. So, it may not have to be 8 feet, but I’m here to tell you that um I I know for sure now it’s 8 feet is the only thing that’s surefire way to prevent them from jumping in. I wish there was a better answer for you because I know that’s always almost impossible for a lot of people to pull off. You could use other things that would be temporary. You could use um motion activated sprinklers. You could use repellents and other things. There’s a lot of other things in that category, but they don’t work for long. So, it’s the fence that’s the only thing that’s really going to work. I’m going to check my time here. We’re doing good. And I think I’m going to get through everything before I have to do a hard stop. All right. So, now we’re on to soil, mulch, and fertility. So, soil amendments. Sharon Cross and Kathleen Border. Sharon wants to know, “Can 1010 be used on all vegetables and raised beds? When and how often?” Okay, Sharon. So, this is a synthetic water- soluble fertilizer producing the same amount of nutrients in nitrogen, phosphorin, phosphorus, and potassium into your soil. And once it gets wet, it’s basically going to dissolve all at once. And so, some of the some of that nutrient is going to be taken up by the plants there in those beds, and the rest is going to just move through the soil and and make its way out of your garden. So, the problem I have with this is first of all, you don’t even know what deficiencies you have in your soil. You may not have any deficiencies. So, if you don’t, you don’t want to use 10 10 because now you’re overfertilizing and because it it it um dissolves quickly. That can be too much of a hit at one time. I’ve seen many plants that have died because somebody overapplied 10 10. they watered it in and then it was just an overdose to the plant and they died. And so that was the end of that. So I don’t recommend 1010 as as an option anyway. Plants don’t take up the same amount of nutrients across the board. They don’t feed that way. They have higher demands for nitrogen than phosphorus and potassium. And 1010 was a good marketing ploy when it when people started selling it that way because it sounded good as a balanced fertilizer. But plants don’t need balanced fertilizers. They need it in certain ratios and it’s dependent on what nutrient deficiencies you have and you don’t know that until you do a soil test. So I would have you do a soil test first before you decide on anything that you’re going to add. And then consider a slowrelease organically derived source of fertilizer because that’s going to release much more slowly. You’re going to feed the soil and the soil is going to feed the plants as the nutrients are needed by those plants. Okay, Kathleen, same buildup issue with mushroom compost as cow manure. So, I’m not sure what you mean by that question. Same buildup issue with mushroom compost as cow manure, but maybe you’re talking about when you’re building your soil recipe, do you put as much mushroom compost as you do cow manure? You could if it’s in small increments, but I wouldn’t use a lot of either because it’s it’s not enough mineral. And mushroom compost is basically a lot of straw and some compost and maybe some other stuff. Cow manure is just cow manure. And so, um, I would use both as a small percentage, maybe five in 5% increments of both of those into the 100% total that you’ll end up with. If I even understand your question, if you’re talking about that is a soil amendment in the big picture, I would use maybe five to no more than 10% of each mulch. Janine Christie, is wood mulch okay? Wood mulch is totally fine on the surface. I use wood mulch a lot. As you may know, I use shredded leaves mostly, but there are times I’ve used wood mulch, but I don’t use wood mulch in my raised beds that much because it takes a long time for it to break down. And I want the breakdown to happen faster. Usually within one year, at least a growing cycle or more, maybe up to two, but then I want it to break down. And wood just takes a long time for that to happen. But there’s nothing wrong with it. But sometimes it’s too chunky and then it just is hard to work with when especially for sewing seeds into that bed. And even with germination, the heavy wood pieces, depending on what kind of mulch you use, can inhibit that germination. So, be thoughtful of that as you’re deciding on what kind of wood that you use. And then, um, Julia, what mulch do you recommend when we have to leave the leaves? So, if we’re not using leaf mulch, which I’m trying to get away from, too, for other reasons that are um recommended by Doug Talamy and others, is um I would use straw, not hay, but straw because straw has the least risk of having anything coming in with it. Like with hay, there’d be persistent herbicides, highly likely in hay. Straw is different than hay. Straw is lightweight. It’s easy to work with. It spreads nicely. It breaks down. It breaks down in the appropriate amount of time. It’s readily available. It’s about $8 a bail. And a bail would cover a large raised bed or more. So, that would be my second choice. And then if I went to a third choice, I would use finely ground pine bark on the surface. And we’ll talk about that, I think, in the next question maybe. Yeah, Janie. And then anonymous attendee. Janie wants to know, “Do wood chips take nitrogen out of the soil?” They would if they were in the soil, but as mulch, don’t do that. Put them, use them as mulch. Mulch is by definition something that sits on top of the surface. And on top of the surface, it’s not going to reach down into the soil beyond 116th of an inch to take away nitrogen from what the roots are needing from your plants. So, you don’t need to worry about fresh mulch on top of your bed. But if you mixed fresh mulch into your bed down in, then you have a problem because it is going to deplete nitrogen from the surrounding area which is going to take it away and rob it from the plants that need it. So don’t do it in the soil, but on top is fine. An anonymous attendee, how long do you do wood chips need to age before using them as mulch? None really is mulch. they will they will the UV light will get to them fast enough so that if there’s anything in there that other than the nitrogen depletion issue that’s going to take care of itself in short order. So I would I don’t worry about that. Although I don’t use fresh wood chips in my raised beds as mulch for because I have other preferences that I would rather use. But that’s the answer and that’s factual. Okay. Manure and compost. Eric, how long do I have to wait before adding chicken waste to my raised beds? That’s a great great question. Chicken waste is a fantastic supplement, fertilizer, organically deprivives derived source of nitrogen. Really, really good for that. But it’s very hot, fresh. You do not want to use it until you’ve allowed it to mellow. I would say at least 30 days. Go ahead and set it aside, let it just cook in the sun, and um 30 days should be sufficient. It has been for me. You could also add it to your compost, which is what I do with all of my chicken manure now with my bedding. And then it’s just cooking down with everything else. But when it’s ready to use, it’s got lots of great nitrogen in it that’s uh complements everything else in the compost. Raised bed structure and garden prep. Okay. Winterizing and cold protection. I got 12 minutes. David Kurles, what should I do for my raised bed garden for the winter zone in 5A? You should um if you haven’t already, be sure you’ve got your seeds started and focus on fast maturing plants uh like broccoli that matures in 60 days and lettucees and leafy crops are going to grow and be harvestable faster than anything else. Radishes would be good. But really what you need to do at this point in zone 5a, you’re going to have a short cool season season. So, you really want to make sure anything you’re planting has a short maturity life or you um so I’ll say that first. Then you can use um frost protection, frost blankets, fleece, row cover, and you can go online and you can find different weights. You can find extra heavy, heavy, medium, and lightweight. And depending on the weight that you get will provide more temperature protection, insulation around your plants. So, that will help you extend the season. You could also create cloches, which are basically clear covers that will provide warmth from the soil and hold the heat in during the night and the day, but just remove any top or vent it during the day so you don’t cook your plants. You could build a cold frame around those plants to extend the season. It’s very much like a cloch. It captures the soil warmth and the solar radiation, but they can get very hot. So, make sure that you would um vent that and just look up um cold frame or closes if you want to know more about that and frost blankets too. Nancy, cold frame on raised bed, does it need to be buried or just sit on the soil? Just sit on the soil. Make sure that the uh the bottom has a good soil to bottom contact so there’s no gaps in it and you’re off to the races. Gardener Joe discussed use of greenhouse for fall gardening. Gardener Joe, I would just say this. You want to make sure that your greenhouse doesn’t get too hot or too cold during the time that you’re growing in it. And this time of year, my greenhouse is cooking and it’s going to get super hot. Too hot for seeds to germinate and too hot really for the seedlings to be happy right now and I have fans and I have lots of windows, but just it and I have a 70% shade cloth overhead and it still gets really hot. But have a a thermometer in there that’s Bluetooth connected so you can always know and you can get alerts if it’s getting too hot and you can set how hot it needs to be before you get that alert. And then for cold, have some supplemental supplemental heating in there. I let my temperatures in my greenhouse when I’m growing stuff over winter, especially like even warm season crops, they’re fine down to about 35 degrees Fahrenheit, but I do have those temperature gauges that will alert me if it’s getting close to that. And then I can crank on portable heaters in there. If you are going to heat artificially, make sure that you don’t you have ventilation because if you have too much propane coming out for too long, that can have some adverse consequences to your plants and they they can um have some adverse consequences because of that. So hopefully that will get you going there. Anonymous attendee, planting in a heated greenhouse, what to know? Well, the answer I just gave to gardener Joe would apply exactly to you for the same reasons, Dorothy. Um, what is your ideal raised bed depth? I have trouble growing robust plants. I think ideally 18 inches is what I have and I think that is the ideal ratio but or or height because it gives you all the room that the roots are going to want to have to grow down as far as they want to go. You’re not going to get much that you would be growing that would have roots that would go any deeper than that. And a lot of them won’t even go that deep. But if you can get 12 inches, that would be sweet. You can go as little as six inches. That is not ideal, but it works. But if you can go 10 in and ideally 12 in, that would be super. Uh, but anything 12 in or higher is a bonus. Mary Martin, can I plant between my blueberry shrubs? You can, but here’s the thing you need to know about that. If your blueberry shrubs are doing really well, it’s because the soil is very acidic. Blueberries are one of the few plants that requires a very low pH, somewhere between four and 5.5. And so acidic soil for blueberries is great, but acidic soil for a lot of the other crops, the food crops we’re growing is not good at all. We want more like 7.0 or 6.5 on the pH range. So that’s a big difference between what blueberries like and what your vegetable crops would like. And they’re not going to perform as well because what’s going to happen with a lower pH? It’s going to bind up nutrients that your plants that your cool season crops are going to want that they can’t get because they’re going to be chemically bound because the pH the lower pH level that your blueberry plants are enjoying that’s in that soil is not ideal for what your vegetable plants are going to want. So, it’s not speaking of ideal, it’s not the ideal location, but if you if that’s the place you need it because that’s the only room you have, then consider using containers and get some good garden soil and just put your containers or your grow bags in the spot where your blueberries are. They’re going to want full sun, so make sure you have that. But I wouldn’t recommend putting them into the soil that’s the same soil that the blueberries are growing in. Soil amendment beds. Eric, um, my beds are a mess and full of weeds. Should I clean and amend or use a cover crop? If so, what kind? Uh, I wouldn’t do a cover crop. If they’re full of weeds, the main thing you need to do is pull those weeds out by the roots and clean up your beds. You want to minimize any future risk of those weeds going to seed and just building on the seed bank. You don’t want that. That’s just going to make everything worse. A cover crop is not going to fix the seeds that are there from your weeds. The main problem needs to be dealt with directly. And that is going to be pulling the weeds out, cleaning up the bed and then adding mulch to block sunlight to that soil surface until you get something planted there. And even when you do get something planted there, you still have weed seeds in the seedbank. So, you need to have mulch anyway because mulch is going to be the best thing you’re going to be able to do to block the light to prevent those seeds from germinating. Once they do germinate, and they will at some point, you need to just pull them or sever the roots and stay on top of it until you exhaust the bed. Cover crops. Um, how do you use ground cover to aid winter gardening? Like timing, how do you use ground cover to aid winter gardening? Well, um, I’m not sure exactly I know what you mean, but what I would do with a winter cover crop such as, um, red clover would be a great one. You just sew the seeds right on top of the surface in the cold weather. It will germinate. It will uh put um it’ll feed the soil with nitrogen. So, it’s a nitrogen legume and you’ll have excess nitro or good nitrogen built up for the spring. But um there’s really nothing I would be planting over winter other than the cover crop. And the cover crop of choice for that time of year that really is going to improve the nutrients in the soil would be red clover. And then Brenda, do you have a YouTube video that explains cover crops better? I don’t have a YouTube video on cover crops, but I do have a couple podcast, at least one. So, if you went to joegger.com and um typed in cover crops in the search bar. Oh, I do have a video. How to improve soil using cover crops. Thanks, Amy. If you go to YouTube, which is Joe Gardener TV, which is where you are right now, there is a video called How to Improve Soil Using Cover Crops. I’ve done over 250 videos now, so I kind of lose track of what I’ve done. Thanks, Amy. So, there it is. Put cover crops in the search in the Joe Gardener TV channel, and that should come up. And then we’re right down to the end. Laura, any comment about PVC pipe leeching into the garden soil? There is some concern that white PVC pipe may leech a little bit, but we don’t know what white PVC pipe you have and if it leeches, how much and if it’s leeching, it’s generally going right down. And the big concern is it may have some lead in it, but lead is bound if you have a lot of organic matter in your soil. The organic matter matter is going to bind the lead to the organic particles. So, it’s less likely to even make it into a plant even in a worst case scenario. Not that it’s impossible, but if you want to try to avoid this altogether, use um plumbers’s PVC. I don’t know if it’s actually called PVC, but it’s basically the same kind of stuff, but it’s gray and it’s it’s doesn’t have the same risk elements as uh white PVC. So, last three questions real quick. Lisa, how does daylight hours affect growth calculation? Well, the daylight hours as you get down to 10 hours, which is the piphany day, but once once daylight gets to 10 hours or less, basically plants go into a semi- dormant state. They stop growing. U they don’t hibernate basically, but you’re not going to get continued growth. So what you want to do with any cool season crops that have a harvest point where you’re really going to want a tom a head like from broccoli or cauliflower from it, most of that growth will have needs to happen up to that point where suddenly it’s less than 10 hours of daylight. Generally that doesn’t happen though until December here in the in North America. So you probably will be it’s it’s more of a frostate issue than a daylight issue for you. Uh the next question is from Rihanna. Rianne, will these tips work for Sedona environments? You know, the timing is going to be different for you and I made a trip to the Desert Southwest to the Arizona Botanical Garden and we did a show on gardening in the desert southwest. And I understand that your growing season is really kind of like six months later. So, you do your summer crops starting in the fall and still I’m not sure it gets cold enough for you to have a cool season growing season. So, I don’t I don’t say from a timing standpoint what I’ve been giving you advice-wise through my webinar last week, that timing does not apply to Sedona, unfortunately. But the information does if you can extract the dates and then go to your county extension service and get the advice from them as to timing and that will connect the dots and fix you up. Last question, Christine, in zone 6A near Lake Michigan first fall garden. What should I be thinking about? Okay, you should be thinking about fast growing crops, leafy crops like lettuce and arugula and and um and radishes and uh spinach. So, anything leafy is going to grow faster. And then if you need more time, you can extend the seasons with row c row cover, those frost blankets. You can use again the um cold frames or the cloches. And that’s really it. So you can find protective coverings that insulate the soil and buy you some more time or a physical structure. But really start right now if you haven’t started. Get started right away. Or even look in your garden centers and see if there’s seedlings that are already growing and that will buy you some time and you can get an early head start that way. And um if you’re going to use a heading crop like broccoli or cauliflower, look for something that’s going to mature around 60 days. There’s not many like that, but there are just a few, but those are the ones that I would go after. So, with that, we’re going to call it a day. Thank you so much for these questions. I hope you found this helpful, and I appreciate you watching, and we’re going to do more of these. And if you like this, I hope that you will subscribe to this channel if you’re not already, and then hit the notification button so we will let you know when we post something else new. But my whole intent for everything we post is to help you become a better, smarter, more confident gardener. and I look forward to seeing you back here on the channel again soon. So, thanks so much everybody and I’m going to be out of here. Uh, and that’s it. Take care.