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Segment 1: 5 easy vegetables to grow
Segment 2: gardening on a budget
Segment 3: Guest Jennifer McGuinness of https://frauzinnie.blogspot.com/p/about-me.html
Segment 4: Garden questions answered
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[Music] the following is an exclusive presentation of wi Garden media the voice of garden talk [Music] [Applause] [Music] radio coming up on the program today we’re going to go over several of the very easy vegetables you can grow in your garden as well as gardening on a budget what does it take some tips we’ll offer and our guest is Jennifer mcginness author and we’ll answer your garden questions the hour is full so join us you are listening to the most informationally packed hour of garden focused radio in the country and on the internet with your host husband and wife team joli and Holly beard this is the gardening with Joey and Holly radio show and welcome to another edition of the gardien with Jo and Holly radio show thank you so much for allowing us to be part of your day I am your host Joy Barett beside me as my wife co-host best friend and gardening partner Holly bar this program is for you about you to help your garden grow better to maintain your landscape grow healthier trees make your grass look Greener as well as preserving what you grow happy you’re listening to us if you’re tuned in to one of the 18 am in FM frequencies broadcasting our program here in 2024 through a radio app through our parent website which is the Wisconsin vable gardner.com at the season 8 tab at the top of the page podcast Replay in studio video replay thank you for doing such we are uh we always welcome participation if you’ve got a question comment want to let us know where you’re listening from you can certainly do that by sending us an email to gardent talkradio gmail.com that’s gardent talkradio gmail.com or give us a call tollfree Coast to Coast at 1 1800 927 show that’s 1 1800 927 7469 anytime and uh if we can’t get to you on the air we’ll call you back with the answer to your question before we get in the program Holly it’s time for this week’s joke of the week yes this joke of the week so I stood in my garden really early yesterday morning wondering where the sun had gone and then it dawned on me there you go is that a a uh homage to the solar eclipse earlier this week yeah sure all right this week’s Garden joke is brought to you by rescue.com rescue americanmade products keep your family home and yard protected from pest insects like wafts Hornets Yellow Jackets flies ants and more learnr rescue.com that’s rescue.com well before we get in the program I do want to address we had a question com in on one of our platforms and it was to the uh notion of there’s a lot of ads in this program I don’t think I’ll listen again so I explain to the individual and I’ll explain to many of you because you may be listening for the first time or or new to the program this program Holly and I produce the program we are the owners of the program the the the company in which this program is produced by we own that we do everything to this program from what you hear here to advertising finding the sponsors that you hear throughout the program we have relationships with these companies we know them personally that’s why some of them have been with us five six seven and eight years on the program they pay for the air time that our that that you’re hearing us on your radio station it’s part of you know the way the world works we don’t get anything for free we ask them to sponsor our program and in chain or in turn they you hear about them and we pay the station so our program can air so you can hear it weekly so I just wanted to clear that up uh uh we work very hard in order to make this happen we are one of the few if not only programs such as this where we do everything to make it happen year after year so there you go five of the easiest vegetables to grow do you have anything to add to that no okay five of the easiest vegetables that we would say if somebody said hey I want to start at Garden I want a garden what are some easy vegetables to grow I guess um I would start with pole beans or bush beans I’m sure if people have had children or nieces or nephews sometimes in the spring the the teacher will have them plant a bean and the bean grows really quickly those aren’t any different beans than what people grow in their garden they’re not Magic School beans their Garden beans and um Jack and the beanock yeah Jack and the beant stock and they they grow quick and effectively efficiently I don’t know what word you want to use there um so yeah beans but now beans bush beans take 40 to 60 days to reach maturity and we found several years ago if you continue to hydrate and continue to harvest you will have beans all the way till Frost bush beans can come in a couple of different colors the the green green beans that we’re familiar with they have a yellow pod bean and they have a purple or royalty Bean color in pole beans they take 70 80 days to reach maturity and if contined to harvest on a regular basis they will grow all the way to frost but they only come in one color that I’m aware of and the pole beans can get 8 n 10 feet tall I’ve seen them go up a trellis 8ot trellis and then start coming down the other side so if you have a lot of space bush beans is fine if you have little space pole beans are fine if you’re somewhere in the middle you can do both yeah both both is good if you have the space radishes so radishes yeah I think that a lot of people don’t think about radishes when they’re growing their own vegetables maybe they think that they’re hard to grow maybe they they just don’t think about them maybe they think that sometimes people think that vegetables that you might not normally think of are growing like in different climates but radishes take usually about 30 days to grow you can get is it 16 per square foot I think yeah 16 per square foot so because they don’t take out much space so radishes are nice they grow fast you can grow a lot and they they grow easily and pick a color you want you got the red Champion radishes you got Easter egg radishes you got black Mexican radishes you’ve got a different right now the mexic I think the Mexican black radishes they take like 55 days everything else that’s a little bit more there’s some that take 40 but the majority of them take 21 to 30 days and the bonus is if you do not Harvest them or let them go to seed as the Pod begins to mature you’re going to have a Green Pod that kind of looks like a tiny little pea pot that is edible tastes just like the radish now people will say well my radishes are super hot well that can be contributed to a number of factors primarily the factor is it’s not being hydrated enough there’s not enough water that the plant is uptaken I have also found that if you are having a if you have a number of radishes that you taste one and oh it’s really hot cut them in half boil them in water for five minutes that kind of neutralizes some of the heat in it and it becomes more edible for you if you have a sensitive tongue yeah or you can just slice them up and then put them on like a salad the greens are edible too but not the greens don’t look appetizing to me but that’s just that’s just me so we also have leaf lettuce leaf lettuce grows I don’t know like what 30 days 30 to 45 days yes and um it’s really easy to grow you can just broadcast those seeds in some soil you can do this indoors you can do this outdoors and then you have leaf lettuce at the time of harvest you want to cut it about three you want to leave about a quarter of the plant you don’t want to go ground level you want to go to about a third up the plant and then cut it because if you go ground level it takes much more time for the plant to regenerate growth because you killed all the photosynthesis that the plant has you leave some of that greenness or the red or whatever color your Leaf letuce is and then that will allow the plant to regenerate or cut and come again much more rapidly then if you just mow it down to Bear soil and you’re going to get maybe one or two cuttings off that before it begins to bolt or go to seed because the day length and the temperature is getting warmer and longer right so yeah so that’s the um leaf lettu leaf lettuce thank you I couldn not think of that word for some reason all right so cucumbers I think that cucumbers are easy to grow but I think some people don’t realize that cucumbers don’t have like a really long growth cycle so what does that mean what does that mean that from the time you start them to the time that they’re done is not very long it’s I don’t know like what 80 days I think yeah and and the thing is people want to get them in really early and they do not like Cold Soil that will stunt your plant quicker than anything wait until the soil is a minimum of 65° if not 70 right and a lot of people don’t realize this they think that okay if I’m going to you you can plant them when you plant your Tomatoes but it’s best to wait like a week or so after that maybe two weeks and then again the growing the growing time is 60 to 80 days about so is it normal for your cucumbers to be done by September absolutely and a lot of people don’t realize this they get frustrated but that’s totally normal but also picking them and not letting them sit on the plant for prolonged period of time once they get to a consumption State you want to harvest them and that will allow the plant to at least put on more flowers and prolong the plant slightly longer also fun fact how many varieties of cucumbers do you think there are 85 one around 100 varieties of cucumbers exist I don’t think all of them are commercially available but that is uh what the uh Magic of the worldwide internet uh has to say it’s on computers yeah the internet’s now now on computers so yeah it’s it’s a very beneficial thing for many people let’s talk about leaks I think a lot of people I remember I had a friend that I told him that we were growing leaks and he was like you can grow those in their your backyard and I was like yeah and he thought they were grown in like a bog well they’re much easier if you have difficulty growing onions leaks are the the alternative agree I agree they’re a good alternative they grow pretty fast I guess 120 days yeah well but I don’t know but we get leaks the size in in diameter and larger than broom handles yeah for sure inch and a half to two Ines no joke we can Harvest and and grow those very well and the interesting fact that many people in the United States were all been conditioned and that’s a a bad word apparently we’ve all been conditioned to only consume or think it’s only edible the white portion on the leak I don’t I don’t know if everybody even knows that many people don’t even think about leaks right so but many countries around the world they utilize the whole leak and when we prepare a meal I cut the roots off clean it real good and then just the whole plant gets used in a stir fry or whatever we’re using the plant for nothing goes to waste they are delicious you should grow them yes and if you go if you if it’s too late now which in many portions of the country it’s too late to get them started your local Garden Center has them and it doesn’t matter what variety we we go with American flag leak but any leak will work very well I think there’s a Lincoln leak as well you’re a Lincoln leak okay uh kale kale kale is delicious um if you like kale some people don’t like kale you some people have dietary issues where they can’t consume a lot of kale I can’t consume a lot of kale yeah but K why why why is that for people who don’t know vitamin K yeah um so kale is is easy to grow it and it grows for a long time and it’s it’s kind of foolproof once you get it going it just does its thing and then you can even it even often survive a light frost and that’s your kale uh there’s Cur uh curly Leaf kale there’s green there’s burgundy there’s a Dinosaur Kale there’s a Latin word for the name of that one but there’s a handful of different varieties the Russian red kale yeah and there’s ornamental KES but those are still edible too yeah uh back story back years ago at at a place that used to be called Ponderosa you know the steakhous they would put kale as a garnish on the on the dishes and I would always eat it apparently you weren’t supposed to eat it back in the 90s apparently that was like a garnish and you no don’t eat that you know it was kale that makes sense now on our first date I think the garnish was like parsley or something and you said kale would be better and I thought you were joking but apparently you didn’t know me very well did you listen yes I don’t know finally finally what uh Tomatoes oh Tomatoes yeah so Tomatoes H the hit the I think this is like you know in the eye of the beholder type of thing some people are like oh Tomatoes areen impossible to grow everybody grows them but everybody grows them and I think that a lot of times if you take our tips that we’ve you know always given out and um and if you go to our sister website the Wisconsin vegetable Gard par website one of those relations the Wisconsin vegetabl gardner.com and you search like how to grow tomatoes you’ll find our guide information multiple videos there and you can get some really good tips to grow some very successful Tomatoes well Walton has some has a coupon coat uh for you and who is Walton and what does Walton in Incorporated do yeah so we know you care about where your food comes from you might be canning and preserving your fruits and vegetables but what about the meat at Walton’s Inc you can get all the equipment seasoning and supplies to make sausage jerky and any other meat product your way to your high standard do you want to make snack sticks that people will actually like Walton created mejis sticks.com an informational site to help you make the best finished product Walton even has a full line of their own meat grinders mixers and sausage stuffers to help you go from animal to edible Walton’s everything but the meat you can use code grow 50 that’s gr50 to save 10% off your 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are available at Garden Centers hardware stores and at Summit responsible solutions.com dig planting holes from a comfortable standing position step twist pull and plant visit proplugger [Applause] tocom welcome back to the garden with join Holly radio show happy you’re with us today thank you so much for that going to talk about gardening on a budget momentarily but first a word from our good friends from honey be healthy since 2000 honey be healthy ink has helped beekeepers maintain healthy and thriving hives attracting pollinators to your garden this year as simple as hanging a hummingbird feeder with a mixture of sugar water and honey be healthy original don’t be alarmed to see birds bees and other butterflies don’t be don’t you get that don’t be alarmed be alarmed um pollinators can coexist peacefully honey be healthy ink is offering a 10% discount of an 8 oz bottle of honey be healthy original to the show’s listeners either enter discount be Garden be e Garden at checkout for more information you can mixing instructions and more go to visit honey behealthy that’s honey the letter B healthy.com if you need any of those coupon codes you hear throughout the program of these great companies that are offering you savings you can go to our parent website the Wisconsin vegetable gardner.com and click on the money tab at the top of the page well Holly gardening on a budget now this is probably uh what many people uh go into gardening or many hobbies hey they want something different uh a way to decompress or get away or relax or or change their situ their environment from what they normally do so you want you don’t want to you know many people don’t have a bucket full of cash sitting by the bed where they can just go and grab a handful and go purchase what they need you have to plan or you have to budget or you have to be creative with the uh resources you may have or can create and that was that’s kind of the model and the way we grew up on the farm was if you needed something and you didn’t have it you want you first look to see if you could find an alternative that would fit that particular situation or if that item was broke you would try to find something that was similar if you couldn’t then you tried to fix it if you couldn’t fix it or you couldn’t build a new one then you went out and tried to buy one and the advantage now is we have the advantage of putting a certain item in a search engine and seeing 472 and a half different options of where you can buy it and what the prices are and a billion and a half reviews where only three of them are actually accurate and not robots telling this is a good product right exactly so anyway so how how should we how can how would you recommend budgeting for gardening I would think about I don’t know because you and I both didn’t grow up in lavish situations where money was not an option or not an issue everything had to be very strategic on what you purchased and how to go about doing it right and I I guess for me I would think about you know how much how much space I wanted to utilize to grow and at this point knowing what I know I would definitely get a soil test for that if I wasn’t sure and I didn’t want to necessarily have to deal with a soil test and amendments I would 100% do raise beds or straw bells or buckets right so soil test you can go to soil saavy decom you want the conditioning uh materials you go to Bell buster.com uh in the Milwaukee area you can go to Blu ribbon organics.com for compost and soil Blends so uh little bit of something for everybody but you want to figure out yes how much number one and you said how much you want to grow and many people think well I’ve got a whole backyard let’s just go big that usually doesn’t end well because you have to you you may not know how to manage what you’ve got right and that’s the thing is that you can start small if you do have a huge backyard you can always add more every year and then you can even maybe this is your first year doing this you can go ahead and try something that you know you know for sure you like maybe you have listened to our show maybe you have friends family whoever a neighbor that has a neighbor that has done success right yeah and you can go with that but then you don’t have to go you know go big go huge you can start small and then as you learn more you can make your garden bigger or you might be like you know what I learned that I don’t want to have to do more right so you can you can go either way with that and yeah so you want to keep that in mind I guess like if I were to start from scratch now um again I had mentioned the raised beds but I would also personally probably keep a little bit smaller than what we have um and I would at at this point knowing what they sell at farmers markets I I’m good with what we grow I might possibly grow less it was if it was just me and um and I mean we started with INR it got to the point where it was the weeds were too much for us to manage right then we reduced from I think about 1800 ft to 600 plus about 700 ft in raised beds which is much more manageable and still has the same production as the 1800 square ft did because the soil in the raised beds is much better than the ground and the weeds yes there are weeds and raised beds but much more manageable in the aspect of oh it’s only 4X 12 rather than where do I stop in the ground and say it’s good enough for today because the whole ground I got 80 ft long here of weeds I got to get through yeah that was nuts it was it was a lot and I would have I would also recommend um putting some cardboard down if you do raise beds we didn’t do that which I don’t know if it would have mattered this many years in that cardboard would have broken down breaks down the first first year yeah yeah but yeah so that’s I guess knowing like in combination of knowing what I know now versus what I KN knew when I was younger I would do raise beds I would probably buy starts for certain things and then I would just direct so seeds for other things and definitely use utilize an irrigation system I would look at a lot of it as an investment up front and then do what I could to maintain those you can buy a lot of bean seeds a one a half a pound a bag of like bush beans go a long way right and then you can also save some for the next year um but yeah the irrigation system it’s you know a little chunk up front but plants grow a whole lot better whenever they’re properly hydrated and you get a whole lot more Tomatoes beans eggplants onions when there’s moisture in the soil and you’re not trying to water on a hot day with a hose and it just doesn’t end well and and on a budget people I mean gardeners think you have to have cages for a lot of things and you sort of do but you can create those cages and not have to purchase at the Garden Center or the Big Box store and there’s that’s other thing is that there’s so much information online for all of this that a lot of people will even lay out you know how to do this or ideas like we do um and there’s things like Florida weave some people yeah Florida weave some people also is kind of Switching gears here um you know coffee grounds a lot of people might not know you can get free coffee grounds from coffee shops or you learn that so that’s something that you can use if you need to or just um composting and there’s so many different composters if you don’t want to use a traditional pile compost or whatever you want to call it you can buy a composter you can buy these like speed composters arobin AR yeah even um you know countertop composters Etc so there’s there’s other options as well well let’s go back to the cages cuz people don’t want to spend a lot of money on cages and they need the support simply fence post or thick Uh Wood you know Limbs and you can create all types of trellises and like you were talking about just go to your favorite search engine and type in DIY tomato cages and hit the image button and you will see unbelievable amounts of information images in which you can go I like that one I like that one I like that one I can combine all three there and we’ve got something for pennies compared to dollars that would cost and you can also especially like around Mother’s Day weekend Memorial Day weekend as in you know in the upper Port portions of the United States as we get closer to Summer you drive around you can see the people put this stuff by the curb and sometimes maybe it is junk but sometimes it is something that I clean out my shed I have all these extra things I want to put them by the curb whatever Marketplace is another place you might find people like in your community whether it be co-workers people you go to church with buling leag people whatever they might have these items so they’re pretty easy to find as well and you can get creative with like a busted tomato cage doesn’t mean it’s broken forever you can repair it with some twine or you can open it up and make multiple tomato supports so there’s a lot of options there just because I mean a couple of things you want to keep in mind one you’re going to need water and an investment of a watering system you’re going to need to figure out if you got good soore you need to go to raise beds just like anything this is a hobby but if you’re going to do it and have fun and do it successfully and enjoy what you’re doing you’re going to have to put a little money up front people who collect cars just don’t start with a piece of junk and go well I’ll spend 97 years and piece this thing together when I have 87 cents every 3 weeks they put money into a car and and it’s it’s their baby and they take care of it or if you go golfing you’re going to buy clubs if you go hunting you’re going to buy aaro and firearms in order to properly do the Hobby in which you’re doing same thing here there are ways in which to save a tremendous amount of money you don’t have to go full boore you can do this on a very creative me uh means of uh budgeting absolutely I totally agree so with that being said Holly soon it will be warming up and you will want to um uh enjoy your yard without uh having those grubs and beetles Invaders dealing with uh you and them and and fighting with them absolutely and spring is here spring is sprung um it’s time to start thinking about those beetles and grubs in your yard you know those Japanese beetles are always just kind of looming in the background waiting to pop out of nowhere grub gone can be applied to turf or Garden or round ornamentals to control your grubs and lessen the impact of beetles that have on your yard this summer it’s easy to apply with any commercial spreader and irrigate into the soil biologically um specifically targets grubs and beetles Invaders without harming beneficial bees like beneficial insects like Le B ladybugs and butterflies you go and it’s only BT that works or non-chemical that works you can find it more at philm bioproducts dcom that’s p y llom bioproducts dcom and when we come back yes Jennifer mcginness will be with us author uh will be with us you’re tuned in to the garden with Jo and Holly radio show have a garden question give Joey and Holly a call now or anytime 24/7 just dial 1 1800 927 show if you can’t get through leave a message and they will call you back call now 1800 927 show Garden like a pro in three easy steps and receive customized fertilizer recommendations for your garden or lawn soil Savvy helps you determine what nut n your plants need to thrive never again over apply nutrients they don’t need a patented process that makes you a Smart Gardener to get your soil test kit go to my soil saavy tocom transform your exterior wood surfaces with Rubio monat’s new Dural grit say goodbye to multiple coats thanks to Duro grits incredible patented one layer technology enjoy vibrant durable color that won’t peel or flake even in the harshest conditions Rubio monocot Dural grit is tomorrow’s UV 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water slowly and steadily over the course of 15 to 20 minutes so the water can percolate the soil and get to the roots designed and manufactured to be leadfree so no harmful chemicals or odors are added to your water supply visit eaten brothers.com for more information and to buy straw Bell gardening is all the rage get your bell started easily with the Bell Buster straw Bell conditioning formula this is the only product that has been specifically formulated for use in straw Bell gardening each unit contains two 250 million Colony forming units of tricoderma fungi and bacillus bacteria in addition to the fertilizer itself produces fantastic results with a bountiful production of vegetable crops start with the best to get the best traditional or organic formula take the guest workk out of conditioning your straw Bell go to bb.com to find out more beer defeat is an all natural based animal repellent to keep beer and rabbits away from your valuable plants that is odorless after 30 minutes and dries clear it creates a continuous invisible shield to protect your plants works for 30 days through rain snow and freeze will not clog your sprayer apply to your property without environmental damage you can spray directly onto your plants up to flowering then apply around your plants to continue protection no need to reapply money back guarantee to purchase go to deard dee.com and use coupon code radio to save 10% off your order if you could double the life of your raised bed boxes by sealing the wood with a clear non-toxic wood preservative would you well now you can with a clear penetrating product called internal wood stabilizer it’s 100% non-toxic and easy to apply seal your untreated wood surfaces even chicken coops by spraying on internal wood stabilizer it’s invisible seals the wood from the inside out and never wears off recommended by organic gardening experts internal wood stabilizer check it out at Timber Pro cating usa.com welcome back to the guardian with join Holly radio show thank you for being with us today thank you for tuning Us in h let’s go to the hotline and bring in our guest for this week Jennifer mcginness AKA fra zinny is a blogger phographer writer and author who enjoys gardening of all kinds she is the author of two books micro food gardening and her newest book which just came out bird friendly gardening welcome to the program Jennifer thank you so much for having it’s great to be here well we thank you for taking time out of your day not only educate Holly myself but all of our listeners and let let let me start with this what is microfood gardening that seems like a new term that many of our listeners may not be familiar with sure so micro frood gardening focuses on plants that stay very compact so you’ll be able to grow Edibles even if you only have a front porch a window box or a window sell and part of the fun with micr food gardening is selecting those petite varieties of plant to grow and then choosing the container options to grow them in so generally speaking it’s any edible plant that’s approximately 18 inches or smaller when it has reached its Harvest size and there’s some vines that might grow a little bit larger but they still produce those miniz fruits and personally I really enjoy growing micro tomatoes because they can be grown in small pots and they take up a fraction of the space as a regular indetermined tomato would now would that be like tiny Tom tomatoes and Tiny Tim PE is that am I right on those or I mean I’m sure there’s other variety names there yeah those are those are two of them I also like the Muhammad tomato and there’s one called Florida petite that does a that makes a really nice tomato fruit too so your new book your newest book bird friendly gardening just came out a couple weeks ago or last week can you tell us about you know an interesting part of it something that might Intrigue our listeners and what they expect when they’re going to pick up a copy sure so when I pitched this idea my goal was to write a book where people who were not necessarily bird experts would be able to pick it up and and say like I want to help birds but I need some ideas or I know a little bit about native plants and why they are important and I want to do more with my garden to support Wildlife so this book is filled with ideas of how to create a bird centered habitat uh whether your available space is a small balcony a medium-sized yard or a large clot of land and it includes so many ref graphics with in-depth information on native plants that either provide food or cover or nesting sources for Birds along with their growing conditions and I’m really happy that the book is now available it’s something I’ve worked on for a long time and I hope people find it to be a useful resource when they’re making their Gardens more bird friendly too now we’ve been putting up more bird feeders around our home and you like to attract we like to attract song birds what are some tips to attract them to your garden or yard is there a key food or a type of bird feeder that’s more cont to the the birds or what what’s the key here or is there a key yeah so bird feeders are a great way to attract birds to the garden and there’s a lot of different types of bird feeders you could have SE feeders uh regular seed Hopper feeders now there’s a lot of um fun like techsavvy bird feeders that are available on the market that help you with bird ID and they take photos and they’re they’re really cool um but one of the most important things you can do when you’re putting up bird feeders is making sure you keep them clean and you remove any soiled food but if you want to attract even more birds to your garden year round planting native plants in your garden will help in three ways because they will provide the insects that the the birds will eat um also they may also provide seeds or fruit that the birds eat um they will provide cover to hide from predators and they can provide nesting material and safe places to build nests to raise their young so those are things that birds are looking for if they want to spend time like in your garden and then one bonus thing that you can include to attract even more birds is having a source of fresh clean water such as a bird bath or something that has like a moving water um and that’s a sure way to to attract them into so not something just stagnant you want something that has some type of movement to agitate the water is that kind of what you’re looking at because they they don’t like stagnant water or there problems with it um ideally moving the water will help keep you know mosquitoes away and then it helps um it not to get like murky basically if you wouldn’t want to drink the water the birds probably wouldn’t want to drink it either so anything that you know you can keep it uh fresh and clean dump it out every couple of days and keep it fresh will definitely help attract them and they have these really low-key solar panel water fountains that you can incorporate into a little stagnant Pond which is you know really neat now yeah yeah and they’re and they work really well I have a little solar pump that I put in my bird bath and I you know anchor it down with some Flat Rocks and just that moving water really helps bring in some birds um they’re attracted to that sound and um it’s cool it’s fun to see them like splashing around in there when they bathe and when they drink water and a whole group of them show up so um I I’m easily entertained by it and it’s and the noise is soothing and relaxing to the human as well not just the birds that’s that’s absolutely correct yeah fantastic so there is a misconcep ion especially um with older gardeners at times that birds can be bad for the garden especially Tomatoes how are birds um perhaps not you know how is that like an old wife’s tail yeah old wife you know why do people say that they’re not they’re not beneficial to the garden they’re harmful to the Garden um and and perhaps maybe why why are they attacking the tomatoes yeah so um for the tomatoes if you have birds that are actually going after Tomatoes or even like squirrels because I think they are more common actually than the birds it’s likely because they’re thirsty um especially In the Heat of the summer so you could set up a bird bath on like another side of your garden and that will likely draw them to that side and away from from your Tomatoes um personally I haven’t had that happen um I’ve definitely had the squirrels come by and and do that though and once they had a ground level um bird bath to access I had a lot more luck with keeping Tomatoes intact right well we often talk about starting vegetable seeds but not not necessarily flowers what are some annual flower seeds that are best to start indoors or direct seed or other flower seed starting tips to help us all out because we’re all kind of focused on the vegetable world but we don’t think oh let’s do some flowers now Holly’s going to do flowers this year for the first time in forever flower seeds flower seeds yeah awesome which which flower seeds are you GNA do I’m doing um kind of a a goth Garden concept so I’m doing some black um like black flowers I’m drawing a blank as to which ones they are but there’s a cosmos that I have sunflower a yeah like a dark super dark red like I think it’s called like a Cherry Cola sunflower oh that’s G to be awesome and then I think some it’s either like a pansy variety or a viola variety those are kind of the same um yeah so I’ve some dark darker colored hued flowers that’s gonna that’s going to look awesome um another nice dark flower that you may want to consider is those nikosi um they’re really good to start indoors too I think they need about six to eight weeks before you last frost dat so depending on you know where you are right now um you either might just make it or you might just be a little past it um but those are those are great and then some dark dalas might be great to start early too from seed um I really like to start zinas indoors too if I have the space just so I can get a jump on that blooming period even though Zas will still do okay if you direct sew them outside but I you know I have to have my flowers as soon as I can um and then you could also do cone flowers um they can be started from seed now and in the fall they’ll make really nice um individual self-serving bird feeders for those finches because they will fly onto them and perch on them and eat from them so that’s another great plant that you could start now and um you know takes a little bit of time to it does do well with a little bit of a head start indoors but um you should be able to have blooms by the end of the season well I I want to Circle back to the bird feeder thing because what we have experienced and I’m sure other people have is you have two or three bird feeders and everything is going great and then the next year or later in the season you have a pasture of grasses underneath that bird feeder from everything they’ve kicked out the Millet or the the Milo is there any reason why they’re kicking that out is it because it may be lowquality bird seed and you need to kind of up your game and get the better stuff or what what’s going on there uh it really depends on the type of birds that are coming to your seeders like if you get a lot of house sparrows they will naturally just kind of pick through everything and throw it on the ground which can be like a win-win for those morning doves and the other um Native American sparrows that kind of feed along the ground so they’ll pick out most of it but um it is likely that you’ll have some discarded waste there’s uh certain bird seed that birds will eat like Cardinals really like safflower seed so um you know if you want to bring them in you could put that out uh black oil sunflower seeds a good um a good choice too the Millet will attract um I believe the house sparrows and the doves so um yeah it really depends on who you’re looking for it’s not necessarily that your quality of seed is bad it just might be who’s showing up at your feeder and usually in the spring it is good to kind of sweep everything up and try to get to it before it starts sprouting because you’re right it could be like a little little farest by the time May comes around right but also you you if you want to be aware of what these seedlings look like when they’re germina because if they’re sunflower seeds like that that you want to let them be because you can have very very pretty sunflowers and that’s how we’ve had several volunteer sunflowers in our garden because the birds have kicked them out of the bird feeder yeah that’s a great Point um especially with those black oil sunflower seeds I think in my case usually they get trampled by the squirrels but if you have them showing up and growing that sounds fantastic have you ever um had experience with more of like the the bully birds like the crows and even I think sometimes a redwing black bird if people do have too many of those in their yard do you have any advice as to how to kind of um get them out to encourage the the more friendly the friendly Birds I guess the more beloved ones yes um yeah I actually we get a lot of flocks especially now in the spring of the European starlings coming through and like the gral and they will definitely like take over the feeders and just wipe you out especially if you have sew it out so one way to try to discourage them and have them move along is you know by taking away the sew for a little bit because they really do love to Chow Down on that um and then choosing seed like the safflower seed um they will pass over that and they really won’t eat it unless they’re absolutely starving but for the most case they’ll probably fly to your neighbor’s house and raid their per feeder instead um and leave yours alone so that’s kind of one way to tackle it if they really become like a nuisance you can you know stop filling the feeders for a couple days until that flock moves along um that’s probably the easiest solution depending on how aggressive they are showing up okay well Jennifer we greatly appreciate the time you’ve offered how can people how can our listeners find out more about you how can they get your books and uh all of that oh sure well you can visit my website at fry.com and that’s f r u z n ni i e I’m also on Instagram and Facebook as freny also and micr food gardening and bird friendly gardening is available at all the major book sellers and on Amazon so um it’s pretty easy to find and locate so I hope uh a lot of people check it out and and really enjoy what what it has to offer well we thank you for your time and the information you’ve shared with Holly myself and all of our listeners thank you very much for that oh thank you so much thanks again for having me on absolutely and when we come back it’s your garden questions our garden answers you’re tuned in the garden with joyan Holly radio show got a question for Joey and Holly send it via email anytime to Garden talk r@ gmail.com Blue Ribbon Organics providing locally made organic compost and soil Blends for gardeners Farms landscaping and more to find our products nearest you visit blue ribbon organics.com happy 65th anniversary to David jrank sou Eastern Wisconsin’s leading Landscape Company their award-winning Services include everything from Lawn Care Landscape Maintenance design construction renovation irrigation sustainability and more big or small let the experts that David jfrank handled the hard work for you find out more at David JF frank.com goodbye biting bugs and plant invaders no more bugs by naturally green products is your answer no more bugs is DEET free and not sticky on your skin us da certified no more bugs has been a favorite by consumers across the country for over 14 years more than a repellent it is safe for you your plants pets and home available online at no 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homed depot.com to purchase make watering easy drip Works provides quality drip irrigation supplies and equipment to gardeners just like you for all your growing needs across the US and Canada purchase online at dripworks tocom Wind River Chimes will always be the inspiring harmony with a large selection and customization options you will find the sound that soothes you visit WI rever chimes.com to shop and find out more Mantis Tillers the premium long- lasting gas powered tillers are the perfect solution for any Garden this mantis machine is available with two or four cycle engines with a 19in or 16in Ching width your DIY companion in your garden and your lawn converts easily for edging air rating and more with optional attachments find details at mantis.com [Music] welcome back to the gardien with join Holly radio show happy you’re with us time for garden questions and answers you’ve got a question send it on over gardent talkr gmail.com gardent talkradio gmail.com or you can give us a call tollfree Coast to Coast 1 1800 927 show 1800 927 7469 had a number of questions come in this week we’re going to see what we can get through to the top of the hour Holly yeah so the first question is at what size is good to transplate my pepper SE from the party cup there are like 15 trays um so I want them to each have their own spot uh depends on what 3 to 4 in is the ideal size sometimes uh life gets in the way and they get five six Ines tall you really don’t want to get them any taller than about 6 Ines because they’re going to get starting in root bound and I think we’ve got a question about how to separate those in a moment uh but about 3 to 4 in and that’s a good time to when we would transplant them over into the root root maker 32 cell trays that air prunes the roots in order to have a more root fabulous root system which is a more healthier plant so 3 to 4 in and that would be a good standard for any plant that you’re dealing with about 3 or 4 inches if you’re Mass planting in a party cup or in a pot and because you want to save space up front we do that and then we sort out and uh put them in their own distinct little home until they’re ready to be hardened off and transp planed out okay uh next question here do you add vermiculite or perlite to your soil so we do not um but there’s there’s so vermiculite perlite are not the same thing vermiculite is better for water retention um and that means that the moisture retains key nutrients for your plants and cuting to soak up and then perlite is more for drainage so it means that like it’s going to help break up heavy soil whether you have clay soil or sandy soil it’s going to help with that we don’t add perlite or vum vermiculite to ours um because we use compost compost will do basically the same thing it’ll help break it apart uh that that density uh of clay and or will begin to build soil in the particular situations where you have very loose and porous soil so and when you look at the by volume compost is really much cheaper by the bulk than the bag of vermiculite or perlite but each situation is different and your mileage may vary just because one person doesn’t doesn’t mean on on on YouTube or an article that doesn’t mean that uh that’s the right answer for you you got to do your research but that is our thoughts on that now if you’ve been adding vermiculate or perlite to your compost forever just keep doing it y okay there you go okay what’s wrong with my tomato starts uh they are curling up are they overwatered too much light the soil is soggy to the touch I’m afraid I overwatered them could it be root rot yes so overwatering can cause Leaf curl and underwatering they are sitting water that can cause root rot to close too close to light might be a cause so what you want to do is let them dry up a little bit that should help and then you can get yourself on a watering schedule so you’re not drowning your plants if you’re bottom watering the water should not be setting stagnant in the tray you should allow the water to Wick up in an hour time and then drain off the excess water that’s in that tray that’s where the root Rod is going to develop if the plants are over are underwater and the soil is extremely dry they’ll curl up too it’s just as bad both ways that you’re damaging the cell wall of these plants if you’re overwater or underwatering you want the soil to be damp like a sponge consistently just like you would have on a drip irrigation system out in the garden so keep that in mind it also have has a lot to do with your atmosphere in your home if it’s a very dry atmosphere those plants those seedlings those trays are going to dry out much much quicker than they would if they were it was more of a humidity uh more higher humidity so uh keep that in mind also the Light can have something to do with it but mainly it’s either you’re overwatering or underwatering and if you got root rot um there you might be able to save the plants but back off on the watering all right so another question is what if there what what is the best way to separate my seedlings um I have them planted in cells from Mass planting to put them in cells from Mass planting that that’s what we I was referring in the qu first question knew there’s another one coming here so this is the only exception to let don’t let let them dry out you want these to dry out almost completely let’s say you have a party cup solo clup rest in peace Toby Keith uh you want to let them he he passed away I know okay you didn’t okay anyway so you want to let the the let’s say there’s 15 pepper plants in that party cup you want it to dry out almost completely removing tipping the party cup upside down and caressing the hand your hand around the soil not the plants then laying the plants on a hard surface and then rolling it back and forth to let all of that soil that dry soil break apart and away from the root system then you can gently remove the seedling and put it in its individual cell with good hydrated potting soil Sol release fertilizer that type of material and you’re good to go you don’t want to start tearing them apart because when you start tearing them apart you’re going to damage roots and damage plants right it doesn’t always work that way but that’s the best way we have found your going to have some casualties that’s just the way it is but that’s the way it’s going to be best for you to separate those plants all right so we got another question here um maryn this is from one of my friends the housewi group is in Southern California about 5 miles from Disneyland Zone 10A they have a lot to do it’s nearly half acre over the last several years I sto watering so the lawn is mostly dead and gone I’ve considered different rainwater harvesting options and switching from sprinklers to drip right now I’ve got some baby tomato plants to put in the ground I’m thinking of trying out some OA balls connected to a simple bucket also digging in a mending a 3-in deep um before bed behind a waist high retaining wall it’s alongside the garage I’ll start some asparagus root strawberries and leafy greens there any advice before I start growing more or start growing at all I had suggested definitely getting a soil test done in the rais bed let the grass go the grass is done don’t worry about that that’s a it’s a waste yeah no I I don’t think she’s wanting to do anything with the grass that’s just part of the the story of the background back story okay and I you know I did explain to her that you know she understands that we’re not in the same Zone here where we are right but um and I did suggest some other resources for her as well like University extensions things like that um local University extensions but I would suggest a soil test from soil Savvy irrigation system either o or a timer system like drip Works has uh where works really good or eaten Brothers they have a soaker hose system with timer uh because you want in Southern California it’s going to be hot uh 14 months out of the year so you want to have a lot of moisture consistent moisture not overwatering and that’s kind of what we harp about a lot on the program is don’t overwater you want just enough damp make it damp so uh yeah so that would be good soil test uh IR ation system of some sort um make let the garden work for you don’t work the garden to make it work for you right it’s absolutely smart to you know restore what you can but again just um be realistic and I also said you know start small don’t overdo it otherwise you’re not going to enjoy it as much as as you perhaps want to yeah all right next question here what do you think of Florida weave trellising for tomatoes we talked a little bit about this in segment to on gardening on a budget it’s a form a method in which you utilize heavy duty metal post and string in 1ot increments up the post across the Garden or across the the Tomato bed in which the tomato plants will weave and you’ll have to help them up and through each string and the string as the Tomato bears fruit begins to get heavier and hangs on that string so you don’t need a tomato cage works very well very costeffective people often use Juke rope or an all natural twine some people use wire too wire we use agricultural twine if the what they wrap the big round bales with in the field you can get a 6,000 foot um I think no it’s 20,000 uh foot ball of orange twine which you’ll never use up it doesn’t biodegrade it is a plastic but it will never you don’t have to worry about the tomatoes getting too heavy and it’s snapping the string that’s for sure it’s very durable very durable and it’s not going to you know get in the the elements the rain these are designed to go on these big bails and not be damaged uh years ago it used to be natural twine then you’d have mice get in there and then the weather and the Bales would bust apart when you try to move so they then went with this plastic and there’s yellow and then there’s orange and there’s a thicker twine and a thinner twine we use thinner twine 20,000 ft that’s like six and a half miles you’re gonna have plenty of string for the kids to play with and in the and in the garden with no problem at all if you’re a purist and you want to be more environmentally friendly there are natural twins in a much smaller capacity I think there’s like 6,000 ft uh on the natural twine so you can go that route all right have you ever done a three sisters planting I’ve never grown corn well so corn when you grow corn it is a heavy nitrogen feeder so you are going to have to boost your soil with nitrogen and we have done this well explain the three sisters gardening concept and why there’s kind of a misconception about it sure so Three Sisters is theoretically that you grow the corn the corn becomes a trellis for the beans you grow uh pole beans and then you grow squash within that same garden plot as ground cover and people think that the beans create nitrogen to feed the corn which is simply not the case no it’s not the case um scientifically proven time and time again that there’s not enough nitrogen coming off the roots of the beans to feed the corn however the concept of the squash being ground cover the beans using the corn as a trellis and the corn being a trellis um is absolutely correct that can occur but as far as the beans feeding the the soil nitrogen and the corn being able to access that nitrogen is not true so you want to you know you want to make sure you do have high nitrogen in your soil um before you start planting that corn I also told this person that that corn does need to be growing in blocks of like four eight Etc because it’s air pollinated so it’s not typically where you can grow it in rows but they have to be rows next to each other so it’s something to look into there’s some ways to do it right and there’s a lot of ways to do it wrong well that brings us to what we learned today Holly what did you learn today I learned that you like to eat kale as a garnish okay I learned ever since the beginning of time and I learned that in the uh Pro uh in the study for the this show that there are over 100 about 100 varieties of cucumbers honey uh what we learned today is brought to you by honey be healthy.com whether you’re a gardener a bee hobbyist or a professional beekeeper Honey Bee Healthy Inc has the product to help you maintain a healthy Hive and thriving Garden for more information on how to use honey be healthy in your garden visit honeyb healthy.com that’s honey the letter B healthy.com tune in to the program next week where we’ll be discussing practical gardening and good mulch bad mulch Our Guest is very well-known TV host of Growing a Greener World on PBS Mr Joe Lampa will be with us and we’ll answer your garden questions so until next week for H be I’m Joy be and we will see you in the [Music] [Applause] [Music] garden