Fall Crops to Plant Part 2 (Vegetable Gardening Live Monthly Questions & Answers E-64)

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Welcome to Garden Grounds. We’ll get started in about 20 seconds. Please let me know if you can see my garden and hear my voice. All right, let’s get started. So, every second and fourth Thursday of the month at 11:00 a.m. I do this public mentoring Q&A with the light subject. Today’s subject is going to be the second part of fall gardening. And I’m just going to talk about what you can plant. I’m in Maryland zone 7, so you can adjust accordingly, you know, based on where your garden is. But every second and third or second and fourth Thursday of the month, 11:00 a.m. I do garden grounds and it’s really just a chance for you guys to uh put your questions out there and I will answer them the best that I can. Make sure a lot of people show up in the chat that you put the word question before your question so that I can pick it out from the chat. If you see me miss your question, please put it back in there again. Um it gets pretty busy so sometimes I don’t see all the questions. stay on for about 45 minutes and try and answer as many questions as possible. So, go ahead and throw out the questions that you have. I’m going to wait a little bit, then I’ll talk about um fall gardening as more people come on. If you like this format, I have perk membership 3.99 a month. I do this format about five times a month plus some other things. Stay on for a good hour. Um the group is smaller, you know, 20 to 30 people and we just talk about vegetable gardening and I answer your questions and it’s kind of like a real time um assist that we talk about what’s going on in the gardens obviously in real time and you can talk about what your questions are or what you need with respect to your garden. Um and it’s a great group too. So it’s not just me, you know, answering the questions. Everybody in there has a lot of knowledge. What’s also kind of cool is you can meet people in similar growing zones or even in this same state and location that you’re at and you can really learn from them. All right, so let’s see what questions we have. Serena, who is a perk member, what’s the best way to treat crickets? I have mounds all over my backyard. So, anytime it comes to insects, a certain amount is okay. If they’re getting to the point where they’re actually infesting and devastating your crops and you can’t get a harvest, that’s when you do have to use sprays. You can use organic, you can use human chemical made products. Remember, everything is a chemical. All sprays for insects harm good and bad insects. So, you have to kind of know what you’re using and use it wisely. I don’t know of any specific treatment for crickets except for insect sprays or dusts. And you can either, you know, spray your crops or if it’s in I mean if they’re actually in mounds, treat the mounds. But it really depends on how badly they’re damaging your garden. And before you actually spray or look to get rid of an insect, make sure you know if it’s a friend or a foe. And Google Lens is a great way to figure out insects and, you know, are they harming your garden? Because sometimes we panic. We see insects and they’re actually good because they’re getting rid of the bad insects that actually damage our plants. What is my favorite garlic variety to grow? And for whatever reason in my life, I have trouble recalling people’s names and varieties. So soon as I read something like that, my anxiety kicks in and I’m trying to think of the garlic that I like. I used to plant all different kinds, shrunk it down to two. Maybe one of them is called, it is German, but German white or German porcelain. And the other one is just your standard uh red variety. It has red streaks in it. And then the third one is u music. Maybe it’ll come to me. Sorry about that. uh girl uh foliage for plant health. What’s the difference between one growing all tomatoes in a 4 foot by 12t raised bed and two growing both tomatoes and potatoes there? Why will two cause problems? Excuse me. Um both being night shades. Well, let me just think about the question real quick. So, if you set up a bed 4×12 and you’re growing all tomatoes and in a home garden, like, you know, a backyard size garden, we’re not growing on a farm scale. So, rotating and moving your crops doesn’t do a whole lot because in a home garden, we’re always adding amendments. The space is small, diseases, and pests can travel back and forth. So, if you’re just growing tomatoes, you’re just fixing up the soil, you’re taking care of it, you’re growing tomatoes every year, even if a problem comes to them and you move them, they’re still going to come there. If you were growing potatoes and tomatoes, it’s kind of hard because potatoes are going to take up, they’re going to want to grow until the end of June here in Maryland, and your tomatoes want to get into the ground in May. So, I’m not sure how you would do that. The concern probably that you hear is that they’ll just take the nutrients out of the soil and can be an issue. And that’s why farmers rotate crops for nutritional reasons. Usually, they’ll let a a a growing area uh go for a year. They’ll just put down cover crops and bring the nutrients back. However, in a home garden, like I was saying, we’re always adding compost and amendments. So, that’s not really an issue. I don’t know specifically, you know, what you’re asking if I answered the question the right way. Sometimes you have crops of the similar family like nightshades, there’s concern they can bring insects in that will, you know, come to the potatoes and attack the tomatoes, but I never found that, you know, really to be true. Like I just don’t grow both of those because the growing cycle for a potato is like March until end of June. The growing cycle for my tomatoes is beginning of May, end of April through the summer. Crickets can cause uh crop damage. Just depends. And I typically wait to see, like I was saying, hasn’t finished Serena’s question whether or not the insect is causing damage. Um, how long do you let tomatoes grow through the end of summer before it’s time to pull them and make room for fall crops? Well, I just did a video on taking care of them if you want to check that out. And my my tomatoes are in a specific bed. I don’t plant crops into those areas where the tomatoes are because I have a big garden. So, I don’t worry about that. Here in Maryland, I’m going to get another good six weeks of growing before the frost comes so I can get my tomatoes um I can get more tomatoes. Basically, you kind of want to figure out when your frost is coming. And if you only have a couple weeks left, you know, pull your your tomatoes and plant your other crops in there. But it’s really up to you. I mean, it’s up to you. Do you feel like your tomatoes will get more tomatoes? Are they beat up? Are you going to try and revitalize them? If you want to get more growth out of the tomato plant and more tomatoes, you really need a good at least four weeks, but six weeks of growing time. If the frost is coming sooner, like in three weeks, I would just remove them and start the plant. All right. So, for your fall garden, a couple of things. This is part two. Did part one um you know, the first Thursday of this month. So, your cool crops can be planted in the spring. They can be planted for the fall. They can they like the cool weather. The leaves can take a frost. And the biggest concern now is do you have enough time before a heavy frost and freeze comes to your garden for your crops to mature? Which means a light frost. All these cool weather plants, the leaves can freeze and they can defrost just about. Here in Maryland, I’m not going to get a light frost until the end of October, beginning in November. The heavier freezes don’t roll in until November. So, I have a long growing time. we originally talked about in the first garden grounds um last time is plants that need 70 80 90 days to mature and form like cauliflower u maybe your Brussels, broccoli, peas. The leaves can freeze but the pods can’t. You needed to get them planted couple weeks ago here in Maryland so the plants get to size and they grow and mature before that heavy freeze comes. Now that the temperatures are dropping here, um 60° Fahrenheit nights, you know, up or down several degrees, 15.5° C nights, and then 75° Fahrenheit days, 24° C days up or down, you know, a couple of degrees or whatever. That is perfect for the fall garden. The soil is cooling down, the temperatures are cooling down, and you can go ahead and really plant anything. So, what I’m planting now is I’m planting all of my lettucees. Uh, bib lettuce, romaine is what I mainly plant. Spinach. See a question on carrots. I’ve already planted my carrots. You still have time for those. I put in beets. I’ve put in turnups. Um, I put my peas in a couple weeks ago. You can really generally speaking when the temperatures get g are getting to that 60 degree Fahrenheit, 15 and a half degrees Celsius nights, 75 degree Fahrenheit days, 24 degrees C days, you can really put anything in and you’re really trying to figure out and definitely get your radishes in. Now, bok choy, pac choy like the cooler temperatures, you know, it might be a little bit early for them. And the reason I mentioned that is with bok choy and pac choy, the Chinese cabbages, if the soil heats up from the sun and the roots warm up, it tends to bolt really quickly. So some crops really like that cooler soil temperature. It’s not just the ambient surrounding temperature. It’s the temperature of the soil, that top 2 4 in um 5 10 cm that the plants really regulate how they grow. If that soil gets really warm and the roots get really warm, your cool weather crops tend to bolt. They want to flower and form. So, you’re looking for the temperatures to be coming down so that the soil temperatures are coming down. Definitely get in radishes, arugula. There’s so many things that you can really plant now, well, let me rephrase it. Anything that’s going to mature really within 60 days, get into the ground now. Here in Maryland, you know, we’re beginning of September. Certain things like radishes, you don’t want to plant 200 radishes at once where you could have to eat 200 radishes at once, you know, when they mature. So maybe do 50, wait for them to germinate. Two weeks after they germinate, you put in another 50. You can do the same thing with lettuce. You can do the same thing with turnups and you’re planting in succession so you get a longer period of harvesting and you’re not getting 12 hence of Roma in the same week. Like that’s a lot of lettuce to eat. So, you know, think about that a little bit. We’ll talk more about fall gardening in a second. Let me go back up. See where I left off here. Timothy, how long do you let to Oh, we did that question on tomatoes. Travis, I’m in upstate New York and fall is coming. I have tons of jalapenos and New Mexico hatch chilies on plants. Haven’t picked anything. Would you put these Would you pull these based on temperatures, color, and size? I I wouldn’t. I mean, you probably have a couple weeks left. The soil temperature is going to keep the the peppers going for a while. So, when it gets, you know, cooler nights or whatever, they’re still going to form and produce. You’re not going to go from maybe a jalapeno this small to a fulls size one, but if they’re somewhere in between, I I would wait a couple of weeks. You can also pick them smaller, you know, but I would I really pull plants based on do I need this space and if I’m within really 3 weeks of the first frost coming. If you’re within three weeks of the first frost, not much is going to happen with the plants. But if you again minimum four weeks, but a good six weeks of growing time for the warm weather crops, they can still form. In the case of peppers, you can still get larger peppers. They can go from green to red if you want them to go. How long do carrots take to germinate? Laid seed tape Saturday night. Covered it with cardboard which is still on top of them. So that’s Saturday. This Saturday I’m saying they can take you’re lucky if they germinate in 7 to 10 days. So 10 to 14 days. And keep an eye on them. When you cover them with cardboard that’s a trick to keep moisture in there, keep the soil bit a little bit cooler. I’ve tried that and then I forget to check if they sprout or not, if they germinate or not, and then they end up getting really long and lanky and yellow. So, I don’t do the cardboard thing anymore. One of the things with fall gardening is that if you’re planting in August, like we are now or earlier, the sun beating down when it’s, you know, really hot, 90° Fahrenheit or hotter, maybe 33 Celsius, the soil heats up and it can damage germinating seeds. they just dry out or seeds don’t want to sprout. I use shade cloth. I found that to be much easier. I can eyeball what’s germinating and sprouting. Shade cloth keeps the soil cooler. And then when those temperatures drop down to like I was saying earlier, I remove the shade cloth. How was my harvest this summer? It It’s pretty good. Like I always say, even if your garden’s beat up, um you know, some things don’t grow well, you still get a harvest. My garden did pretty well. It was a tough year for tomatoes and disease with the temperatures and all this crazy rain we had. My zucchini and squash did not do well, but everything else was pretty good. Um, just a random comment. John says, “Tomatoes ideally on the north side of a 4 12 4 foot x 12 foot bed do not shade out everything.” And that that’s a good point. Like I talk about that in a lot of videos. If this is your raised bed, like right here, and the sun, the southern sun is right here. If you put your tomatoes right in the front, they’re going to cast shade. Let’s see if I got this right. If the tomatoes in the front of the bed and Oh, wait. We have it backward. So, I’m looking at my picture and sometimes it’s backwards. So, I don’t know how this is getting to you, but let’s rephrase. So, if you have your bed and the summer sun is up here and you put tall tomatoes in front where the sun hits the tall plants, it’s going to cast shades back shade back there. So, you want your smaller plants to be closer to the sun and then the taller plants behind there so the shade is pushed out to your paths or to other places. So, you just don’t want to be growing corn in the front of your bed and then the southern sun cached from the corn onto the back of the crops. Now, there is a strategy that sometimes in the summer when you’re going from spring to summer to use taller crops in the front of your bed to cast shade into your bed so that you can grow the cool crops longer. It keeps the soil temperature cooler. But um now that I confused myself, you just don’t want the southern sun to be hitting your crops, casting shade onto plants that need the sun. All right, let’s move on to the next question. Um Sharon, I’m in zone 10B at the beach. I planted cabbage and pole beans from seed last March and they all harvested well. Would I be able to grow these year round with good results? Um, pole beans. Yes, it depends on what your temperatures get. I mean, you’re warmer there. So, pole pole beans generally like the summer warm temperatures. They don’t need like 90 plus degrees Fahrenheit temperatures or anything like that. So, if you’re not if your night temperatures aren’t dropping, you know, really well below 60° Fahrenheit, you could grow pole beans all all year long. Um, the cabbages can run into trouble with the heat and they tend to want to bolt, but it depends on the variety you’re growing. So, to answer your question best, I don’t know. You could definitely grow them for a large part of your season. And the best way to figure this out, and this is kind of a good segue into a question or something I wanted to talk about with fall gardening, is zones don’t really tell you a whole lot. They’re they’re not the best measure of when to plant, when to pull crops, and all that kind of stuff. So when it comes to, you know, the question you ask, plant and then, you know, maybe plant some more a couple months later and see how they grow into the fall and then plant again in the fall, see how they grow through the winter. You’re only going to really learn when to plant and how well your plants grow through the seasons by testing it out. So I encourage people to um experiment, take notes, and see how it goes. Same thing with the fall crops a lot of times. And I’m again Maryland zone 7. People say, “Well, I’m in in zone 5 or I’m in zone 11. When should I plant these?” And and I I don’t know the answer to that because I don’t grow in those spaces. But a zone 7 here in Maryland, a zone 7 up north, a zone 7 over in California or over in uh Tennessee or more, you know, towards the northwest. They’re all zone sevens. But frost can roll in quicker. things can change in those garden areas that are different. It’s not just by the numbers. So, you have to kind of experiment. Try and put in some crops maybe you wouldn’t put in now here in Maryland. Maybe like broccoli. See if the freeze takes them out before they mature. You can always eat the leaves, but you want to plant at different times. And you can just do like, you know, five seeds of something and see how they do with your temperatures. Take notes and then you can make a plan for next year. Uh, hi Gary. Congrats on being a grandpa. Thank you. I am a grandfather. As of August 1st, Austin was born. He is healthy. Family’s healthy. He’s happy. So, it’s I’m very excited. Looking forward to getting him into the garden and teaching him just about everything he could possibly want about gardening. And just what I found too is like I taught my kids when they were younger and they were much more interested and then it kind of fades away. My daughter got married. She now has a garden. She’s gardening. So the skills you teach your kids and your grandkids, they may not go crazy about them when they’re younger, but it sticks with them and then they’ll have the confidence to grow food later. I use grow bags with Pete Moss compost and top soil. I want to grow carrots but see several people use sand in the mix. Should I be adding that too? No, you don’t need to add sand. And the reason being is you’re using a mix of pete compost and top soil that is already nice and loose. It’s going to drain well. The reason you would add sand maybe is if you have heavier soil and you’re trying to loosen it up. People may want to use sand for better drainage. You don’t really necessarily need that. um depends on your soil, but if you’re doing the Pete compost top soil mix, you’re good to go. You you don’t need to add anything else to that question. My yellow squash plants look great, but the fruits only get a few inches and rot. I read I read maybe I should remove the flowers on the end. No, removing the flowers on the end doesn’t matter. They’re just going to naturally fall off. You have with squash zucchini, you have a male plant, a male flower, and you have a female flower. The female flower is a little baby zucchini, you know, like that with a flower on the end. When that flower opens up, the male flower, which is just a long stem in a flower, there’s no squash or zucchini under it. They both have to open the same time and a bee has to pollinate, you know, cross-pollinate male to female. Your squash, because the female flower always has a squash on there, will grow for a while and it might get to be 2, three inches. If it’s not pollinated, it dies off. The tip browns, it dies back, it’s dead. It’s because it wasn’t pollinated. So, you’re not doing anything wrong. You just, you know, it just wasn’t pollinated. And there’s nothing you can do about it, you know. I mean, you can try and hand pollinate and stuff like that, but that’s just standard that sometimes the zucchini die off. And that’s when the male and female flowers flowers flowers are usually out of sync. You can’t do anything to increase more male flowers. You can’t do anything to speed up the opening of the flowers so they’re more in sync. You know, just take care of your plants and let nature do its thing. All right. Um, so we’re buzzing through here with the chat. Um, if I missed your question, please put it out there. And I need to find out where I left off here. Um, I’m not sure if I’ve missed stuff. So, if I overlooked your question, please put it back out there. Question, I want to grow mint in the ground. How deep do the roots go usually, and what’s the best way to control it? So, mint doesn’t go very deep. I mean, the roots may go down for a while, but they send out runners, and it’s very aggressive, and you’re really, and maybe you’re asking about the aggress aggressiveness of the root system. It’s going to travel along that top 2 4 in. So, you want to have some sort of barrier. When I grow in the ground, I usually sink a pot. I cut the bottom out. A pot that’s maybe, you know, something like this. Sink the pot in, bury it down, leave about this much above the ground because if the mint falls over and touches the ground, it’s going to root out and continue to spread. So, it’s aggressive. you know, you’re gonna have to keep an eye on it. A sunken container really, like I described, is the best way to grow. Or grow it in a container right on the surface near the bed. That works pretty well, too. Um, but it’s very aggressive and it gets really tall, so it’s going to flop over. It will seed freely, too. Um, so just keep an eye on it. I don’t if you Yeah, mint spreads. Uh, that wasn’t a question, but Nana Blue is telling you it spreads pretty quickly. So, here’s a like. So, this is a hard question for me to to answer. Like I was saying, I’m in Michigan zone 6. What can I plant this weekend? Is it too late for brassacas? You can really plant in zone six just about anything you want. It may be too late for cauliflower and broccoli, but you can plant cabbage, you can plant kale, you can plant collards. And again, I would encourage you to try some different plants that you might think can’t make it and just see how they do. But in zone six, you can put in any variety of the cool crops that I think will mature within, say, 60 days. Some of the longer crops you might have issues with. Peas might not make it, but I don’t know for sure. I have and perk member um golden sparrow. I have five sugar baby watermelons growing that are between four and six inches tall, some 3-in babies. Will they make it in the cooler weather we’re currently having? They will they will make it in the cooler weather. They’re just not going to make it in the frost. So, it’s okay if the temperatures drop at night, you know, into the 50s, um, and then the days get up into the 70s, that’s not worrisome. If a frost rolls in and the temperature of the soil really starts getting cooler, that’s going to be an issue. But the days right now when they’re in the 70s, the sun keeps the soil and the roots pretty warm. They should be they should be okay. And another thing I would do is too is try and look back to see when you planted them and you know if something does happen with the cold or they don’t finish out then you can adjust planting time by two weeks or three weeks you know backwards so that you have more growing time. Ryan, my pole beans never produced this year. Started out very slow growth once full size started turning yellow and some plants completely died. How do I know what killed them? You don’t. However, if the upper growth was fine and you don’t see any big fungal issue that came in and it kind of died from the bottom up, it was probably obviously root related, but I don’t know. You know, it’s rare to have some sort of insect or disease that attack the roots. Once I’m reading your question again, once full-size leaves started turning yellow. Yeah. It could be excess rain. It could be maybe nutrient related. But it’s very rare for a bean plant to do that. You know, best thing is to try and plant in a different area or plant again in that area and some in a different area and just see how it goes. But there’s nothing that pops to mind that says this is pretty common for beans and this is what happens. You know, sometimes it’s just sadly bad luck. Yeah, I would go mostly with maybe an overwatering issue and the roots maybe just rotted, you know, if I had a guess. What um and make sure you guys I just saw this question from Kevin, but make sure you put qu question in front of it or I’ll probably miss it. What percent shade cloth would you recommend in the fall for sewing seeds? So, for that protection from the heat of the summer as you’re going into the fall, a 50% shade cloth means it will let in 50% sun, cast 50% shade. Any color is fine. You know, black, green, or the standard colors. And well, this is just a good point, too. If you’re buying um compost from your municipality or something like that, there’s a chance it’s contaminated with um say an herbicide. But most of them decay and break down. But that’s what you’re looking for is what Ryan said answering somebody else’s question is that if you put the compost into your garden from a place, all plants will show damage if it’s an herbicide, not just one particular plant. Question, Linda, in 10b using 40% shade cloth. That’s great, but they are looking blotchy instead of full colored fruit. Do they just need the uh I’m guessing that’s boron in chicken manure or remove the shade cloth. If your temperatures are not staying above 90° Fahrenheit, 33 degrees C, I would remove the shade cloth. Give them more light. Um, blotchy fruit can be from diseases and stuff, but if your leaves look good and the stem looks good, it’s probably not that. In this case, I would probably let them have more sun. I would give them a water soluble fertilizer, not the chicken manure. um water soluble means that NP and K plus all the other micronutrients and stuff in it is immediately available to the plants and that’s what you want to give them. So all you can really do is be like all right here’s more sun, here’s more regular watering and here’s a big drink of a water-soluble fertilizer and that should take care of the problem if it’s nutritional related. Just checking the questions here. So, I just want to go over too. Um, if you guys are regular followers of Garden Grounds, the public Q&A that I do every second and fourth Thursday at 11:00 a.m. Sometimes, and I don’t have the best internet connection, sometimes I lose the the the internet connection. You’ll see the the video freeze. If I’m not back on within three to five minutes, that means I couldn’t get back in on the current link. and I had to go to YouTube and start another live event. So, if you ever see me disappear, if I’m not back on within five minutes, you might have to go to my YouTube channel and just find the new live link and I will continue that way. So, the perk memberships, you’ll see people with circles and stars. I do um a perk membership, $3.99 a month, and I do this format um five times a month plus some other things. stay down for about an hour, answer people’s questions, and we kind of grow along as a group, and you’ll meet people in your similar zone. The people in the group are very smart. They can answer your questions, and it’s just a nice way to get help through the growing season. All right, let’s see where I left off here. All right. And again, it does get busy. So, if I missed your question, please put it out there. If you have a burning question, you could always, you know, do um just a donation and I’ll see that right away and answer your question. We’re at 11:32. I’ll stay on for another 15 minutes or so. Um, but I do need to find out here where I left off. Okay, Tippy. Um, what indoor grow light would you recommend to start seeds indoors? I have a shop light 500K, 500 Kelvin, 440 or 4,400 lumens, and my seedlings don’t seem to be growing that much. Not sure what’s going on. So, that’s not a bad grow light. I mean, generally now, because you can get LED lights at 5,000 to 10,000 lumens, I recommend those, but 4,400 should work. And I recommend 500 or 5,000 Kelvin or higher. Kelvin is the color of light. So, the more you’re above 5,000, the more it’s like the sunlight or daylight. I don’t necessarily see anything wrong with the lights. You can always drop the lights down a little bit closer. And if you’ve if they’ve been growing a while now, you can give them some water soluble fertilizer. Specifically, they need nitrogen. Don’t do it at full strength. I usually do it um I try and what if you’re using a water soluble and it’s like a 522 or something like that, you know, as you mix it into a gallon of water. I cut that in half. you know, you just need a low amount. If you’re using the chemical types like uh Miracle Grow or Plant Expert, that has a 24% nitrogen. It’s like a 248 12. I diluted. I cut down the measure trying to get the NPNK at 555 or less. You just want less of the NPNK. Why is that important? If you give too much nutrients to your seed starts, it all concentrates in the soil and messes up things. So, you really want to bring it down. Anyway, I would try giving it your plants some nitrogen at that five, you know, percent level or less. I don’t know if boleric carrots are good. I’ve not grown them. Um, if anybody knows, please help Heidi out. How deep, again, you guys put out a question so that I see it. How deep should my soil be for broccoli and Brussels sprouts? Um, I think if you’re you’re going to want at least at least 12 inches, but you know, in the earth it doesn’t matter. But I guess you’re talking about a container. Um, at least 12 inches. Um, for container growing, it’s really a function of the size of the container because it’ll put out side shoots and stuff. So, the depth isn’t that important. But the smaller container you have, the quicker it fills up with roots and the more you have to water. All right. So, I did answer Serena, I did answer your question about carrots. Um, if I turn on captions, it it does affect some things. It used to be on. I can’t check now, but I’ll check to see if I have captions on for the live. They should be on, you know, in review if you look at it later. Um, question. I’m planning on starting my carrots in metal raised elevated beds. That’s what I’m growing in. What’s the best way to get them germinated? Right now, there’s nothing really. Um, plant them, water them every day, you know, or every other day. Just keep it moist. They’re going to germinate. They they like the temperatures right now. Um, I’m not having any germination issues. If for some reason you’re in an area, and Craft is also a perk member. Um, I don’t remember where you’re at, but if the temperature the if it’s like, you know, 85 plus degrees Fahrenheit, sun’s beating down, maybe some shade cloth, but really keeping it watered will get them to germinate. Monica, thanks for the super chat. I’m moving to a larger land plot and moving my 2,000 square foot micro farm. Any advice? I’ve never moved a farm. Thank you. Zone seven. Well, one, congrats on moving to a larger land plot. You know, I don’t necessarily have any advice, you know, I mean, you’re going to be taking everything that you can. I think mostly you’re taking your experience. So, everything that you learned on the smaller plot, what would you start differently with a brand new larger plot? you know, things to keep in mind, you know, setting it up for the the future is getting the watering system in to make it as simple as possible for you. Um, using any fencing if you have lots of deer pressure or animal pressure and really getting that built up. Um, I’m just trying to think of anything else. Zone 7 you can grow you if you that’s where you were growing before. or if not zone 7 you can really grow from March until almost the end of November. So you have a long long growing season. I would mostly just have fun with it is really sit down with the space you have plan it out for simplicity for you know moving from one area to another area. get the watering down, um the sun stuff, you know, things that I know that you know, but take everything that you learned from the previous plot and start with the best plan in the new place. And sometimes that sounds a little bit funny, but I’ve been growing for well over 30 years and I’m red designing my garden now. every couple of years you learn more and more and you can take your knowledge base, redefine how you want to garden and you can really improve, you know, the the way that you grow. Um, mostly too the last thing I would be thinking about is even your home garden, I always tell people to start composting is to really set up a composting area. Get everything from the land into a compost pile. If you have chickens or you’re going to be bringing in animals, that’s a great way to get manurs in. I mean, you can really set that property up nicely. So, I hope it goes well and please, you know, let us know how it goes. Um, I think that you’ll have a lot of fun with it. All right. Good morning. I’m about Oh, I just saw that Monx’s question. My sugar baby watermelons made one fruit. It grew to two inches and it hasn’t grown anymore in the last month. I put garden tone and fish emulsion. Could it have been stunted from the heat waves or excessive rain? I mean, not really. I mean, if the root system gets messed up and maybe if the heat or the rain impacted the root system, the fruit’s not going to form well. Um, sometimes they don’t get pollinated well, but it didn’t rot. You’ve added in garden tone, which is granular. It’s a slow release. That’s more for the future, but you did add in fish emulsion, which would give the nutrients that are immediately available to the plant. I don’t know what it is. Um, you know, maybe next time fix up the soil a little bit more, more organic matter, more fertilizer. See how it goes. But I’d be concerned that it only got one fruit, too. So maybe the the plant just didn’t grow well. Serena, the carrots are going to take 10 to 14 days to germinate, so you got some time. Looking for questions here. Nikki, can I direct sew lettuce seeds into a container or is it better to transplant the seedlings? It’s really up to you. You can definitely direct sew carrots. They’re liking the cooler temperature, so they should do pretty well. The warm sun of the day will warm up that top inch of soil. They’ll germinate nicely. The reason people use transplants is sometimes they don’t have space in their bed or germinating seeds in the summer going into the fall are eaten by insects or even birds. Um they have a shorter fall season so they want a bigger transplant put into the ground but you can definitely you know do either. What kind of garlic do you grow? I want to order some garlic seeds. Do you I do I grow hard neck garlic which is the garlic that needs the cold temperatures. Soft neck garlic I can actually put in my garden in March and it does okay. But the hard neck I was just saying I can never remember the varieties but I think one of them was like porcelain a German porcelain music variety and then there’s a red variety. I only grow three now but I do like the hard necks. They tend to do better. Any tips for fall gardening crops in the green stock? Um, no, not really, except for, and I’ll be doing videos on the green stock. You know, you always have to keep up watering in any container, but I just use water-soluble fertilizer. I don’t do anything to really fix up the soil from the summer. I’ll loosen it up. I’ll put in my transplant or my seeds. Water-soluble fertilizer at planting. That’s enough to get the plants off. And you can grow a whole lot of different things in a green stock. No worries. Strawberry transplants can be done really anytime, spring or fall when it’s cooler. You can transplant in the summer, but kind of messes up what’s going on. So, if you have strawberries that are putting out runners now and have rooted out, when it cools down, you know, a little bit more, I’m not sure what zone you’re in, but here in Maryland, you know, I could transplant towards the end of September, October, they’re going to be perfectly fine. Grew pole beans first year. Plants beautiful, healthy, grew 7 ft. Trellis using string. They tangled consistently. I pulled them all a total mess. But being tangled being tangled, would they have produced beans? Um, so I’m trying to So maybe they all got tangled and you pulled them before they produced. And yes, they would. You can just let them do whatever they want and they can intertwine and tangle and look, you know, like they’re choking each other. You will get green beans. You know, if they were growing that well, just let them go. You don’t need to worry about them being spaced out. Mine are just this huge interwined mess. Um especially the ones that grow wild, they’re hanging over this um little outdoor storage unit I have and they’re a mess. But they’re beautiful purple potted or yeah, purple potted green beans on there. All right, just trying to find out here. Question. water soluble for my Balachi tomatoes. Would vermstera be the right fertilizer or what do you recommend? I recommend Agro Thrive Agro. Um, and that’s a organic fertilizer, water soluble. It’s in any of my videos. You’ll see a link there. It’s a good balanced NPNK fertilizer. Vermeistera is usually worm castings. That’s not strong enough. So, I would go with fish emulsion or, you know, the Agro Thrive organic. I have no issue using the chemical fertilizers. They don’t harm your garden if you’re not, you know, abusing them and using them 24/7, but I would use them at half strength. So, Miracle Grow Plant Expert, something like that, you could use that. Fermstera, I’m pretty sure that that um is worm castings and those numbers are too low. You want a higher NPN PNK. Heidi, you can transplant blueberry plants. Now, again, I’m in Maryland. I would wait for them to go a little bit dormant, let the leaves turn and start to drop, and then transplant them. But you could do it now. You would just have to keep them really well watered. The uh grandchild Austin is going to get a tree um somewhere on the property for sure. Good idea. I have Jubilee Watermelon on the vine. I always have a hard time determining when it’s ripe. Should I wait for the vine to completely wither? Any thoughts? No. I mean, you watch the growth of the fruit and you generally have a sense of the size and always knocking on it. You know, you can hear that ping, but it’s hard if you don’t know what that is. But I look for the stem going to the watermelon. When that stem starts to turn from the nice lush green color to begins to kind of fade and turn brown or that begins to shrivel, that’s when I just pop it off and cut the watermelon. I would also take notes, you know, kind of see how long it’s been growing, make a note somewhere, and if you cut it a little bit too soon, that’s an issue. But if it’s to the general size and it’s been a while, that melon’s probably ready. You have a long period of harvesting, I mean, you could leave it on there, um, depending on, you know, what’s going on with the plant, but if there’s other melons ripening and growing, removing that one will help the other ones develop. I had a chip drop early in April this year. I’ve not added anything to it. Any suggestions going to the fall for using the wood chips? Thanks. Depends how you’re going to use them. Wood chips. Where are we at? Oh, we’re at time. So, I answer a couple more questions and I got to go. Wood chips. Thick wood chips. I use shredded hardwood. I buy it in a bag. I’ll use chip drop for my paths. So, hardwood chips you don’t want to mix into your soil in that top 12 inches of your soil, top 30 in. As that wood decays, it takes nitrogen. The bacteria that’s breaking that down takes nitrogen from the soil. Challenges your plant, causes your plants, causes all kinds of issues. So, you can use the chips in the past for sure. You can use it on top of the soil as a mulch and then you got to move it to the side, you know, especially if you want to plant seeds, but putting in your transplants and then move it back. You don’t want to incorporate wood chips bottom line again into that top foot of your soil. It’s going to cause issue. Even after, you know, February to now, those chips probably are still pretty big. They’re not broken down, so they’re not fully composted. Wood fibers, wood chips, wood particles take nitrogen from the soil until they fully decay and break down. So, you just have to be careful with that. And again, I’m not sure how you’re asking to use them, but definitely paths whenever you want on the surface. I would put them on the surface now for the spring or for the fall. Let them, you know, be there for your beds going to rest. They will break down some at the bottom. Earthworms will break down the chips. Push them to the side. Plant your transplants. Push them back. That’s how I tend to use them. Hello. I’m trying to get seven-year-old son to understand this is live. He asked me, “Are you real?” Hi Magnus, I am real. This is in real time. In about five minutes, it’s going to be a video that you can only watch that’s been recorded. Question: Should I put compost in the shade or something? Doesn’t matter. Compost, good question, though. Compost breaks down because it stays moist. So, if it’s in the sun, it’s still going to do its thing, but you have to make sure the pile stays moist moist all the way through. So, when you’re in the sun, you do have to water it more. You could just throw a shade cloth over it, but either way, it’s going to break down the compost, but when there’s less water in there, it breaks down more slowly. Yeah. Wood chips in the pathway are great because they break down over the years. The nutrients wash into the soil. Roots come out and get it. So, wood chips are fine in the path. All right, so let’s finish up. If you have a couple last questions, put them out there. Just wanted to go over a couple things. This is my public mentoring Q&A garden grounds. I do this every second for Thursday at 11:00 a.m. with a light subject, but it’s mostly just for answering questions. I also have perk memberships. You’ll see the people with circles and stars in the middle. They are perk members. 3.99 a month. I do this format um five times a month and stay on for about an hour. It’s a great group and it’s a great way to learn and get support throughout the growing season. All right. All right. And here’s a question I missed. I have three grow bags in a resin whiskey barrel pot growing potatoes. Whiskey barrel has russets. It’s raining and some may be ready for harvest. How long do they need to dry before? They don’t have to dry before harvesting your potatoes. You can take potatoes anytime. Um I eat my potatoes I reach into the earth and I just pull some out. So I’m not even letting them cure. But you can go ahead and take a potato anytime you want. I mean, if the potato is rotted, it’s going to be already rotted. Dry or rainy. If it’s rainy, it’s just going to be a wet potato. Welcome, Meatball. That made me laugh. Just uh joined as a perk member. All right, I think I got all the questions that I saw. I will see you guys next time. Again, every second, fourth, Thursday at 11:00 a.m. I do this public mentoring Q&A. Good luck in your gardens and I will see you guys next time.