Tune in and learn about growing your own food and how it can be physically and mentally rewarding.
hello hello hello e e e e e e e e e e e can you hear me Cheryl hello are you there can you hear me now I can hear you now okay good still getting the hang of it here all right it’s okay that’s why I figured I get on let you know I was on a little early we already have an attendee but I thought I had no I guess the last one I did was on a wait list oh my goodness uh waiting room or whatever okay I see your message okay excuse me well can they hear us I yes I think so sure how this worked that’s okay yeah because I can’t usually I have like a 15 minute delay but I guess I did not to do so to this time should I be muted for this I don’t really need to speak speak no it would just be for you you and I okay like right now while we’re while and then M when Michelle gets on I’m goingon to Notorious all right so good evening everybody my name is Susan M har Miss cido from the Ruckers Cooperative Extension in Ocean County and uh I’m missing our our co-pilot today Patty Dixon however uh Cheryl Cleo is one of our Master Gardeners from Ocean County will be uh monitoring the Q&A with me and uh I want to uh say thank you all for joining us we had a large uh crowd registered for your talk Michelle so um I’m I’m I’m anxious I’m just anxious so I want to introduce um Michelle uh Infante Cel Cella okay Cella Cella um from um um sorry from gler County um New Jersey and you are your specialy is vegetable gardening if I’m not mistaken commercial vegetable production with Farms okay yeah so so on that note I’m Gonna Let You Go ahead I’m so bad at the hostess so and uh thank you for doing that poll and uh Susan still has the poll up uh for another few minutes in the beginning if you need it thank you everyone for joining us tonight and uh the topic I’m going to speak on tonight is home vegetable gardening for food fun and Stress Management and um actually to be transparent this was a topic that came up at the start of the pandemic and was one of the uh topics we discussed um with families who were home quite a bit during the pandemic I had written some uh popular press articles and newspaper articles on this topic and uh really was a popular activity during the pandemic when we were all stuck at home if you had a yard a patio where you can do pot plants or um you know just somewhere to get outside safely with your family so I’m going to show you some pictures of my family and some of the things we do with our home vegetable garden and also get into some of the details on vegetable gardening at the end of the presentation so thank you again for coming and like Susan said my name is Michelle infanty cassella I’m an agricultural agent and Professor with Ruckers Cooperative Extension in Gloucester County and I’ve been in this position for 29 years uh just a little tidbit about my background I also grew up on a large scale vegetable farm in Mammoth County New Jersey and upper Freehold Township and um was happy to learn about vegetables there went to college to become a food science uh major then switched back to horiculture because it’s what I knew and enjoyed and loved and here I am and my screen’s stuck sorry about the here we go so we talked we were talking about gardening for food fun and stress relief so uh for food and during the pandemic you know everyone in the beginning was kind of worried about food security um since I was a young child my mother always canned fruits and vegetables and this was actually um few years ago this is typical in our household we can our own tomato sauce I make pickled eggplant and and we every year make roasted peppers they tend to be a uh big big thing in our household and uh for those of you who probably learned a little bit about nutrition uh Peppers actually have more vitamin C than does citrus fruit like oranges lemons and grapefruit so if you’re looking for a vitamin C boost in the winter time it’s sure nice to have these red peppers in our our pantry and um if you’re looking to learn more about uh canning uh canning vegetables out of your Garden or from Farmers nearby uh Ruckers actually has a uh food safety home food preservation website I have it listed here through the family and Community Health Sciences program so again this was during the pandemic this is uh my family in our backyard uh it was tomato sauce day this is an annual event usually in the middle of August where we um get boxes of uh red plum tomatoes uh we wash them we cook them up and and then we put them through a processor uh that’s actually Third Generation in my husband’s family that machine comes from you can buy them online or um you can actually just use a blender if you wanted to blend it up we uh season it all together put the garlic olive oil uh herbs and uh cook it down so that we can just pour it out of the bottle like regu like you would buy off the store shelf already pre-made so we do about uh 50 to 60 jars a year and and it becomes a real Family Affair and I’m hoping my sons uh and their family someday continue this tradition it’s not only uh nice to have but it’s also a fun and relaxing and and become has become a tradition so that’s gardening for food and gardening for fun um I have to admit these pictures are actually my father with my youngest son on the bottom there and my oldest son on the top who’s now 22 years old uh in my father’s vegetable garden uh it just was a joy whenever my parents uh were helping us watch the kids they were always out teaching them how to garden and out and getting dirty and having fun so for young children it could really be a um learning experience it really helps them to build some life skills and have a sense of security they’re planting and eating their own food we find through Garden programs that if kids are growing it they will try it and eat it uh more than just putting it in front of them so it really reinforces some learning Concepts uh we can measure how far apart part plants are addition and subtraction it teaches them organization sorting C categories and colors for young kids and really can build motor skills and really teach a good work ethic so it was something that I was very very happy that um we did with our children into this day in fact the uh oldest which is in the top there he’s graduating uh University this um spring actually in a few weeks with a degree in Turf science so he still enjoys being outside with plants so stress relief um this picture of myself in our small home garden and my neighbor is right across the fence there he has his garden so we get time to chat with the neighbors and I actually find this to be stress relief after getting off the computer after a long day of work and uh really enjoy getting out in our garden uh really the sunshine and fresh air really gives you stress relief and then vitamin D being out in the sunshine really helps with that so I encourage en all of you to try it and I’m sure if you’re here you already have an interest in gardening but um the first step we always say is don’t guess get a soil test so Rucker Cooperative Extension through the university has a soil test lab we sell this uh soil test kit which has instructions it has a form to fill out and a sample bag uh there’s actually a plastic bag inside here you pull out fill up and put soil in um here’s our website njes rers.us soil testing lab but um we do sell these test kits they’re $20 in the office you have to mail them up once you complete the forms and fill them up to the university lab and they will email you back the soil test results as well as instructions for lime or fertilizer you don’t however need to use this bag you can actually use your own bag box and download the forms off the website and uh send a check in for $20 to the Rucker soil testing lab actually the check gets made out it’ll tell you on the form to ruers estate University of New Jersey um so again come visit us at the extension office to pick up these bags or you can just do it online by uh going onto the website and sending the check directly with your sample to the lab so I often try to teach and you might have seen this in other presentations but it’s always good to repeat why do we adjust soil PH I get that question all the time not only from gardeners but from even the farmers I work with and this is the reason why in a soil pH of around um 6.5 which is Optimum for most plants especially vegetable crops is where most of our essential nutrients for plant growth are in their most available amounts so when we look at this chart and These Bars wherever the bars are widest means that the nutrient is at its most available in the soil to plants so we look at all of the different nutrients that plants need the um bar at 6.5 most of them all have the widest portion of their bar so that’s why we need to keep our pH around 6.5 for most of our crops now there’s a few exceptions uh Asel is redend blueberries some crops do like um lower phes for certain reasons but for our vegetable crops we’re mainly going to keep it at a pH of around 6.5 or even 6.2 uh 6.2 to 6.5 is the range and this is the reason why we lime and why we want that pH to be at that level again for nutrient availability for our plants to uptake so we’re starting to look for a vegetable garden what’s one of the most important things in our yards or our areas and not everyone has that choice to look at different locations in their yard this was actually my uh parents Garden before they put the deer fence up um and they were lucky they had two acres of yard to choose from so they had different places to put it uh but most all of our vegetable gardens should be in a place that has at least 6 to8 hours of direct sunlight each day and actually 8 to 10 hours of direct sunlight is ideal for most vegetable crops and the reason for that is because most of our vegetable crops we grow to harvest come from tropical Origins where they get many hours of sunlight each day and so if they are native to those areas they want to have that much sunlight so again selecting Garden sites with the most Sun possible in our yards is very important the other thing is to consider is watering and our watering sources most vegetable crops do not grow and will not produce without having adequate water so again rainfall is not always adequate in our um in our region and we do get Summer drought periods so having a clean water source makes it easy and convenient if it’s near our Gardens some people choose to recapture water from something like a rain bar Barrel but when we’re harvesting vegetables that we’re going to eat this is actually discouraged due to plant pathogens that might be present from bird droppings uh maybe squirrel droppings on the roof of your house or other contaminants so it’s really important if you’re going to grow vegetable crops not to use that rain barrel water maybe use it for your ornamental plants that you’re not eating but we really discourage it for vegetable crops the other important thing is when we’re considering irrigation or watering our garden is to water during morning hours so that leaves will dry quickly because wet foliage only encourages plant diseases like bacteria and fungi that can harm plants so when you have a disease organism in the garden that can affect the crop or the host plant it doesn’t actually cause infection unless you have the correct environment so by keeping leaves wet you can create create that correct environment because when you think about diseases you need to have three things we call it the disease triangle you need the host the pathogen and the environment so in this case if we don’t keep leaves wet for a long period of time we don’t create that environment that helps fungi and bacteria flourish another thing to consider is your garden soil quality so you may or may not have good quality soil so there may be things that we need to do to make that soil quality even better vegetable plants really prefer well- drained soils that do not puddle after heavy rains if soils are not well suited for growing vegetables they can be amended with composts or add other amendments to help them become more suitable for vegetables if the soil is unacceptable creating rais bed gardens is another way to have an alternative garden bed if your native soil isn’t very good and you also want to choose areas that are free from any potential contaminant it’s like areas near sidewalks that might have ice melts or ice treatments on them or areas where run off from the road the water that runs off the road during heavy rainfall May accumulate and get into your garden area there may be things like motor oil or um even antifreeze or other contaminants on that road surface that can get into the water and run into your vegetable gardens which isn’t always a nice thing the other thing is making sure even though um we said find the best place with good sunlight but if you can if there is a good place with good sunlight and a water source having the Garden near your home will encourage more time for the garden it won’t be far off and you won’t have to make that long Trek out you’ll have more weeds pulled more vegetables harvested and the plants will be watered more often if you could see the garden and it’s right there for you to work again if it’s off in a far spot it might be neglected and you don’t always see it so again if it’s possible have it as close to the house as possible possible the other thing that’s really important is having Wildlife or pet exclusion fences work best to protect from Deer rabbits and other animals and the size of the fence really depends on which size of animals you’re trying to keep out at the top there we have a 3-ft wire fence made out of chicken wire keep smaller animals out such as rabbits and and currently my 10-year-old beagle that’s enough to keep her out of the garden but for a deer fences at least 6 to 8 feet high are really a necessity and I’ve even seen deer jump six foot fences so again just um whenever you’re trying to discourage have the right size fence or barrier or something to keep your animals out other considerations when sight selecting your vegetable garden is choose areas with little foot traffic the soil really needs to be free of any tree roots because you won’t be able to till the soil or you won’t they’ll get too much competition uh avoid any compacted areas where maybe there was uh Vehicles driving on the the yard at one point and then the other thing is to consider having the proper tools the proper tillage equipment shovels hose rakes TRS anything you’re going to need to work in that Garden have them ahead of time instead of waiting until you start to garden and then say Oh I don’t have that and it would be a nice easy tool to get rid of some weeds or to turn over some soil and a week goes by because we’re busy and the uh Garden gets out of hand and we don’t have those tools available um I’ve always asked for things like this for uh in the spring for maybe Mother’s Day or my anniversaries in February so uh the first anniversary when we lived in our house my husband bought me a Rota Tiller that was great I was very happy so once you’ve selected the site steps for uh soil preparation is very important and because most of our vegetable plants are Dee rooted we want to turn the soil at least 8 to 12 inches deep with a shovel or rotor tiller to loosen that soil so we have good root establishment if there’s any stones or clumps of grass or any other obstructions in that Garden we want to remove them we want to level the soil in the garden and apply a small amount of complete fertilizer that contains nitrogen phosphorus pottassium throughout the garden rake it in till it in uh to the root Zone uh in the soil before we plant and to know how much you need is to look at your soil test reports to see which rate for the recommendation um and it’ll give it to you in th000 square ft so if you’re Garden is 100 square ft you would just um do that math and do U you know 10% of what it’s there because usually the recommendations for home gardens are given in 1,000 square fet one thing I wanted to note is if you leave fertilizer on top of the soil surface nitrogen it’s lost to volatilization so it’s really important once you put fertilizer on to immediately incorporate it into the soil with a rake or hoe or some kind of uh hand Implement so that you are sealing that nitrogen down into the soil layer where the root Zone uh is so it’ll be used again nitrogen left on the soil surface is usually lost to volatilization very quickly and you’ll notice that you’ll see it melting and it’ll just dissipate so really important to incorporate your fertilizer choosing vegetables to grow is really part of your personal preference what you like uh what you’re willing to uh work with also what space you have the planting zone or climate that we live in because certain things we don’t have enough time in our our uh our our area to uh grow pest resistance and tolerance is really important and also which season that we’re planting it in hold on one second I’ll be right back so if anybody um I know that there was a question in the chat um this is Susan M harzer video from uh Tom about the rain barrels and I will ask Michelle about the uh rain barrels about not using rain barrel water that’s coming off the roof in particular I believe is what the question was sorry yes yes Susan so when it’s on the roof if you have bird droppings and the water runs off with the bird droppings you can actually get salmonella uh in the water um the other thing you can get is um if again if you have any droppings from a squirrel in the gutters again you’re gonna you can get eoli in the water so when we’re talking about using rain barrel water for vegetable gardens it’s not a great idea uh especially because a lot of our vegetables we will eat raw or if you have children out in the garden with you they may you know just pick them and eat them right there so i’ rather not see us use um any water that could have contaminants so it’s really important just to use your tap water or your spet that you know is portable water usually good question so um we do have a fact sheet at Ruckers when you got your soil prepped or even before actually I like to always order my seed during the winter so I have it in hand when it’s time to plant so we do have a Rucker fact sheet that has mail order vegetable seed sources um you can look and see you know all the online or or mail order uh places you can go and get seed it’s really important to confirm with them that they have the uh seed in time for spring planting um and the other thing is to buy seeds from a reputable company seeds can be viable for a few years but best results just buy what you need for that season and um get fresh seeds each year now if you do have any leftover seeds it’s important to you can either put them in the freezer believe it or not or you can put them in the refrigerator and that’ll actually help keep the viability when we have seed banks um where we keep historic seeds they’re always kept in freezer conditions so it won’t hurt them it’ll keep them dorm it and uh then just take them out and use them quickly after you take them out of the freezer next year if you’re saving any seed so when do we know when to plant so um a lot of times on the um plant tag or often the seed packet that it comes will give you instructions but we do know that there’s certain groups of plants that are called cool seasoned vegetables such as leafy greens kalees lettuce spinaches uh broccoli radishes peas these are usually planted in late March early April um early spring planting and late summer harvests are onions and white po potatoes so again we usually plant those very early around St Patrick’s Day uh that’s when we can plant our peas as well there’s a lot of cool loving crops that need that that type of um cold weather actually for some of the initiation and I’ll talk about some of these crops a little bit later individually then there’s a timing what we call our mid spring planting for summer Harvest our tomatoes eggplant pepper squash cucumbers melons and others these are all need to be planted after the thread of spring Frost so usually miday in our region May 15th is usually our frost free date and then if you’re um an advid Gardener and you’re going to keep your garden in one space for a long time you might want to consider some perennials such as strawberries asparagus um if you’re really into uh strawberries and rhubarb rhubarb is another plant that’s a perennial plant that’ll stay around for quite a while and then I didn’t list it on here but a horseradish if any of you are into fresh horseradish and you can grind it and you know preserve your own if you like horseradish that’ll stay around for years as a perennial crop in your garden uh just be careful with that one because any root pieces will just keep growing and uh you can actually become a weed problem if you want to move from that area to another they kind of hang around for quite a long time if you have any root pieces left in the ground setting up the garden is important not only finding the right spot in the in the GU in the uh yard but finding the rout orientation to prevent any shade or competition uh roast spacing requirements for each vegetable plant is really important too and considering the use of trellises steaks cages or even fence fence lines to grow some vegetables to have them be upright will save a lot of space um so again if you don’t have a lot of space growing them in upright position rather than allowing them to sprawl on the ground is really important and then personal preference uh grow what you like to eat if you don’t like lima beans don’t grow lima beans uh choose crops with the effort level you intend to dedicate to your garden also some plants take more uh dedication than others for instance those of you who have grown zucchini squash know that you’re not going to leave that house for a week and then come back and expect to have those nice small tender zucchini squash instead if you leave them for a week you’ll be coming to uh Harvest baseball size bat um squash so again just knowing what effort level you’d like to use in your garden and again if space is limited uh and just plant Wood’s hard to find things that you must have that you like that are hard to find in the marketplace and according to space make sure you realize the potential growth of certain crops and how large that plant’s going to be at its maturity spacing requirements can be found on many seed packets tags or seed cataloges and again if you have a 10 x 20 Garden you don’t want to grow pumpkins because they grow huge and they can take up your whole garden so this picture here I show um there’s very small transplants of peppers that are getting ready to go out in a field but realize that one pepper plant could be up to three feet wide so it’s really important to know the capacity of space that each plant needs in the garden when you plant it the other important thing is to look at our planting zone and our climate understand what we call the length of time it takes to have the vegetable come into maturity for Harvest and this is denoted on our seed packets as something called days to harvest so from when we plant that seed until we can Harvest it it’s a generality of how many days now if the weather is cool or the weather uh the plants are a little droughty and don’t get enough water they might not grow to meet that exact day so we might have a week or two give or take um when that that maturity might come on we can sometimes offset the season or temperatures by using what we call season extending structures or row covers to help warm up the soil or warm up that environment around the plant and most of the vegetables we grow in New Jersey U may need some larger transplants to mature in our climate but we can grow most vegetables that we tend like to have in our our region some tricks of the trade um with uh Farmers they may use something called floating row covers uh which is in the top left there but you in the garden can take a gallon jug from a uh milk container or even gallon water container cut the bottom off and use it has a small little uh Protection cover for at night if we’re going to get cool weather or even if we’re going to get heavy wind sometimes and you don’t want wind damage to small plants you can put that that jug over top uh you notice that the cap is off that jug because it can get very hot in there so that the cap is left off to help vent it so it doesn’t stay too hot then in the middle Center there you see uh Farms using plastic mulch uh plastic mulch is hard to come by for um small gardens but you can actually use trash bags uh trash bags come either in white or black usually I’ve even seen Silver and you can cut them up to make a plastic mulch that helps keep moisture in the soil helps with weed control and uh you can make your own plastic mulch that way the other thing is staking or trellising so in the uh bottom center there you see a field of tomatoes with steaks and strings uh but we tend to use in the home Garden a lot of times cages you can buy the fancy cages that are already uh in a circular pattern you can buy fence on your own and make your own cages which I prefer because it has larger squares that you can put your hands in Harvest the tomatoes versus uh some of those those um tomato cages are have smaller squares notice though on this that we have some posts because as the plants grow large and we get wind storms they can tip over so adding those posts to those cages is very important for stability so pest resistance and tolerance is another consideration when crops to grow in your garden so growing season really can influence P pest pressure we tend to have more insect and weed pressure in the summer or late fall and uh cultural practices this is a way we grow plants can be uh changed so that we can help plants grow better and also can help with h pest tolerance so using staking or raised bed situations where we don’t grow the plants on the on the flat surface we actually Mound up some soil will help and also some varieties have tolerance to diseases and even insect pests uh so it’s important to see what’s listed on the catalogs or seed packets for that reason so now we’re going to get into some individual crops and how they grow and some of the attributes for growing them so radishes um radishes if any of you have grown them usually mature in 28 days they are cold loving so you can plant the seeds very early um sometime in middle of March usually and they’ll be ready about a month to 32 days later with onions we can plant seeds plants or bulbs uh typically in our region we tend to plant um the little onion sets or bulbs or even plants and we plant them early in March and then we Harvest them usually in July um garlic is another alium crop it’s planted in the fall because garlic tends to need that cold exposure and the technical term for that is something called vernalization in order for that garlic to uh start to make multiple cloves within a bulb we need that cold exposure so it’s planted in Fall generally in October early November but again it’s one of our cool season root crops um beets beets actually um are planted usually in late April so they’re not as uh cold tolerant as some of our other root crops so they need a little bit um longer period to get the soil to warm up generally when the soil is about 50° we want to plant beets so right about now we’re ready to do that and I say plant in succession because when the beets are ready to be harvested generally there’s about a week or 10 days where they’re all coming to size and then they’re done so if you like to have Beats throughout the season you would plant them at at multiple times usually about two weeks apart and you can have a steady flow of beets in the garden um white potatoes are another cool season root crop um they’re actually not a root they’re actually what we call a tuber which is a storage organ for carbohydrates uh that’s swollen on on the root and these we plant very early in March and St Patrick’s Day is usually the time when we we plant white potato uh turnup is similar to radish again we can plant uh pretty early uh usually early April for spring Harvest and then if we’re going to harvest turnup for SE in the fall September is a great time to seed turnips again they’re very quick to grow carrots need a little bit um higher soil temperature similar to beets so around 50° Fahrenheit so we want to wait and about now is a good time to start planting your carrots so again these are cool season root crops getting into white potatoes uh it’s a vegetable that ranks up there in acerage in the United States with wheat and rice it’s one of the most important staple crops in the human diet around the world but potatoes again they’re not Roots they’re actually that special underground storage uh stem called a tuber maximum Tu formation occurs in soil temperatur between 60 and 70° F and when the soil temperature gets about 80° fit tubers fail to form and this is why we plant so early in March because we need that cooler soil temperature for the plant to initiate those tubers to form once it gets hot in the summertime St tubers stop forming but they will start enlarging uh but the number of tubers will not increase once we get higher soil temperatures that’s why we plant so early and potatoes are among the earliest vegetables planted in the garden and all varieties can be planted around March or April using what we call seed pieces so you can buy seed pieces or some people think they can buy um potatoes from the store and cut them up to use however some potatoes that you’ll see on the store shelves are treated with something called a sprout inhibitor which is just a natural hormone that stops the sprouting process and those don’t do well for planting in the home Garden um it usually doesn’t say on the bag if they have Sprout inhibitor on them but for best results you want to buy seed pieces from a seed company here’s white potatoes being planted with the seed pieces so rather than true seed we’re actually using um an asexual method where we’re cutting up the tubers that have an eye on them so each piece should be about uh 1 to 1 and a half to 2 oz and um at least one good eye on each seed piece we plant them 10 to 12 Ines apart and then we cover the row in the furrow about 1 to 2 in deep and the furrow should be about 6 to 8 in deep and we lay them in there cover them with about 2 to three inches of soil and as they start growing you see on the right there as the eyes are sprouting um we we start to cover around the base of those sprouts and eventually we’ll have a mound of soil up around the potatoes which is showing in the next here this is actually a field of potatoes um notice how they’ve used cultivators to Ridge up the potatoes and you can do this just using a hand hoe and pulling up the soil from the middles of the rows and putting it um up around the edges of the plant we do this because as the roots are growing and the tubers are developing those tubers can start heaving up out of the soil so we want to Mound the soil up around that plant so we don’t get any of those tubers exposed to any sunlight again this Ridge may become pretty high up to 4 to 6 in by the end of summer but we always want to apply enough uniform moisture while the tubers are developing so that they get large size and that the plant stays healthy notice you see this plant flowering um when you start seeing the flowers form um that’s when the plant’s going to start cessing or start to die back and we’ll start seeing yellowing uh because it’s under a little bit of stress and it’s going to start dying back and that’s the time you know that the tubers are getting to the maximum size so harvesting potatoes should be done when the Vine VES are yellow and dyed back um here you notice that the plant’s still pretty green this is just a picture but you want to wait till a lot of these Vines are turned yellow because the other reason is as the tubers sesse they’ll start getting a harder um brown skin on the outside which will help them store larger when they’re in your uh Pantry or wherever you’re keeping them so again wait till about 50% of those Vines die back before you start digging them with a shovel or pitchfork is a good idea to lift them out of the soil but you want to start very far from the edge of the row about 8 to 12 in away from the middle stem and then work inward so that you’re not um cutting or piercing any of the um the potatoes with your digging Implement and when you’re using a a shovel full of soil it’s good to just flip it over that’ll expose the tubers and you can pull them off of the stems and Roots so that was some cool season root crops um but cool seas and leafy green crops also could be planted very early in March and April uh spinach works very well there’s varieties that over winter that you can plant in the fall and or in the spring either one work fine it’ll be denoted on the varieties when you’re looking to purchase them if it’s a over winter variety or a spring variety if it doesn’t say overwinter that means it’s not appropriate to plant in the fall and expect it to live till spring so um that’s pretty rare uh although this winter we had such a mild winter that I had Swiss Hard In the Garden that made it I just picked it last week actually U because we had such a mild WI winter with lettuce we transplant these in mid-march uh you can seed lettuce but it’s more successful to transplant in the early spring cabbage same thing where we can put um transplants out very early broccoli cauliflower although cauliflower tends to be a fall crop because once we get the heat in um in uh June or July when it would be mature to harvest that actually that heat and the uh moisture inside will actually cause some slime or some rot or bacterial um infection and cauliflower heads because it does not light the heat so usually that’s a fall crop that we plant in early August and harvest in October or November if you’re looking into some of our cool season leafy greens collared greens mustard greens uh certain Asian greens there’s a whole bunch of them uh celery even and swiss chard um is fine to plant early in in the uh March season lettuce is fair fairly cold hearty um it’ll tolerate Frost cool weather and it’s a vegetable that thrives when we have daily temperatures between 60 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit and we plant this early in the spring or late summer if we’re going to harvest in the fall at high temperature growth is stunted and leaves may be bitter when we have lettuce that’s under high temperature and the seed stock might form and elongate rapidly so we want to plant these only when we have cool temperatures uh for Harvest some types and varieties of lettuce will withstand heat better than others so when you’re looking at the Seed Catalog LS look for ones that are heat tolerant or slow to bolt bolting is that term that’s used when the flower stock comes up and we want to have um lettuce that we’ll have in the fall but the problem is we have more insect pests in the fall here’s different types of lettuce leaf lettuce end Dives escarole rain Iceberg and other specialy types and soft butterhead the two on the top right endives and escroll tend to be a little bit more bitter and they tend to be what we call our cooking Lett is uh you might know escroll from Italian wedding soups and other um dishes that are cooked so uh can be eaten fresh but tend to be more for our cooking when you um plant lettuce you have to be very careful because it is shallow rooted so if you’re pulling weeds or hoing or roota tilling you want to be careful not to Nick The Roots uh lettuce roots are very shallow so they want to be watered often if you don’t have uh rain that keeps them wet and um if you don’t water them enough and it’s too dry you’ll start seeing brown brown edges on the tips of the leaves because they become dehydrated however you don’t want to overwat because you can lead to disease infections that harm plants especially the lower leaves will start to rot if you have too much water in the soil when you harvest lettuce it can be cut whenever um they’re large enough to use uh baby lettuces are pretty popular so if you want to harvest when they’re small you can cut every other plant in the row at ground level it’ll give more space for the plants you leave behind to grow grow and to expand Leaf lettu uses can reach their maximum size in about 50 to 60 days after planting whereas butterhead varieties or head varieties or tend to be 60 to 70 days after planting and um Roma varieties have a more upright growth hit and form a long medium dense head so these can to be planted a little bit closer together than our our sprawling or spreading uh types of lettuce and iceberg lettuce really should be harvested as soon as you have heads that are firm I’m going to stop right there and uh see if there’s any questions Susan perfect I was just like do I stop you um a couple of questions came up there are some general gardening questions that I’m going to let you wait till the end on but for specific crops since they’re right here Betty had a I’m sorry I can hear okay uh Betty had a question about uh kale overwintering I’m pretty sure I answered it but overwintering kale from uh that I overwintered this season uh when should you should you pull it out or should you wait uh I mean could she still is it still edible but I’m assuming it’s more like your lettuce uh on that one actually kale because it’s a Brasa crop like cabbage it is still edible the issue is because it overwintered kale and anything in the Cabbage family is considered a bial crop so when it’s a banal that means if you leave it to keep growing this spring it’s going to flower so you won’t keep getting the leaves um you can Harvest whatever is there it’s fine to do so but I would yank it out and plant new this year um it’s still edible not going to hurt you um wash it off uh there’s probably no pests on it because they froze over the winter um but again I would I would pull it out because it’s it’s an it’s probably old the stem’s probably getting Woody by now and again because it’s banial will start to flower when we get hot temperatures so yeah Yank It Out eat whatever you’ve got there and then Reed new or replant new okay yeah a couple potato questions um are you going to talk about fall Harvest or fall gardening at the end or I guess one of the questions came up I’m going to go through different crops and whether or not they can be planted in spring or fall not necessarily fall planting okay someone is asking about yellow potatoes when should you start them for a second fall Harvest oh no there’s no second fall Harvest you must plant potatoes no late like we’re actually we’re getting pretty late to plant potatoes in our region so St Patrick’s Day until probably like the third or fourth week week of April and for the reasoning that I mentioned that the tubers do not form once we get soil temperatures above 75 80° so if you think about how warm the soils get in the summertime you can if you plant them too late they will not form tubers so you have to plant them early because that soil temperature of 60 degrees is Optimum for for tuber formation so uh yeah plant them early as you can from St Patrick’s Day up until the end of April that’s about it and like I said if you plant them too late and the soils are too warm you will not get that tuber formation that’s a good I I always wondered why my potatoes were always so small but I always started them a little later than I should have so there you go um and the last question one of the last questions uh specifically on vegetables that I or on uh fruit um cold nights so custo uh customer sorry somebody had asked about the cold night temperatures um should you still water for your potatoes um you know when we’re getting these Oddball temperatures up and down with the colder nights yes so temperature really has no effect on um the soil moisture you want the soil moisture regardless if it’s cold or warm um I understand the question a little bit because people say that uh wet soils actually will cause the environment around the plant to be colder and cause cold injury but with these plants that are cool loving that’s not the issue the issue is if the soils are too dry and um you let that go especially when there’s a young seedling or a young plant forming that’s the most tender or the most critical part of when it’s growing and if we let it get droughty it can actually die or they can become so weak that they’re not going to really produce so definitely not overwatering but definitely uh adequate watering is very important so it’s hard to tell right because we’ve had all this wind the last few days and some sunlight but if you stick a Trel in this in the soil or a shovel and look can see what the moisture level is right at that area of the root zone or where we’ve seated uh and the the moisture is adequate there then we don’t need uh to water but again you want to check that soil moisture anywhere around your root zone or where that young plant or young seed is and uh make sure we have adequate water there and again it really determines on your soil um type because down where we are in in you know Southern New Jersey we have Sandy soils which need frequent watering but in the northern part where we have more clay soils they need less frequent watering so soil type um plant age is really important too the larger your plant the more water it needs especially when we have Fring crops that are expanding um and I’ll talk about that with Blossom and rot in a little while but again um smaller plants need less water but make sure that they have adequate water I hope that answered that well I I it sounded good no you did um the other question uh carrots since you just talked about carrots um I think it’s similar to what we were talking about with the kale but the carrots were last October left them over in the winter can they be eaten oh definitely so um my husband just two weeks ago Roa tilled my garden for me and as he was Roa tilling he kicked up a bunch of carrots that were left and I certainly took them out of the garden washed them up and they’re in the refrigerator right now so yep that’s fine um we had such a mild winter that nothing really froze deep underground uh carrots are fine to use and again u pull them out use them Reed them and uh that was a good place to store them for the winter right under the ground yep and the last one um when you’re watering uh are you supposed to be watering the plants above ground below um so somebody’s asking do you water above or below the plant and we talked about wet leaves but just to reiterate yeah so that’s a good question so water is not absorbed at all through the uh leaves or the stems it’s all absorbed through the root system if you have the ability to use uh drip hoses or soaker hoses uh right near the root Zone that’s a great idea if you can do that and keep that foliage dry um but if you don’t have the ability of a sprinkler that to irrigate or to water your um Garden then that’s your only option just make sure you do it in the in the morning time if you can uh just so those leaves don’t stay wet overnight but yeah it’s only absorbed through the roots so watering on the ground is the best thing if if possible the one thing I want to talk about I’ll talk about it with tomatoes and Bloss men rot is to water deeply that make sure that the water gets to the root Zone I often get questions that oh I water every day I don’t know why my plants aren’t doing well well they might have gotten the top of the soil wet but they didn’t get the water down to the root Zone where it needed to be so that’s that’s where it really needs to be like 4 to six Ines down at least so what what I say is water infrequently but water deeply and not every day um again depends on your size of your plants the soil type um what we call transpiration rates if there’s a lot of wind and Sun uh it again just watering I can’t say water once a week or water every other day because it that’s not a good thing using a Time timeline is not as important as paying attention to the soil moisture the weather conditions and the size of your plant okay I’ll let you continue okay thanks Susan yep so now we’re going to go over what we call our cool season legumes or or what we call Bean crops so peas peas definitely uh same time as planting your potatoes St Patrick’s Day I don’t know if how many of you are familiar with fava beans I grew up with them my father loved them he grew them all the time it’s an Italian bean I think there’s other ethnicities that like fava beans but same thing they like the cold temperature as well and can be planted uh St Patrick’s Day but then we have some other peas that need at least 50° Fahrenheit soil temperatures like snap beans or green beans wax beans then also our lima beans blackeyed peas and any other beans besides peas or fava beans really want to wait until the soil temperature is about 50° I’m going to wait until the first week of May to plant my snap beans just to be sure cuz um we do get some cool nights still even though we got some warm temperatures right now it’s going to be up and down I think um so for best success the worst thing you could do is plant them too early um they sit in the soil we get a lot of moisture and then what happens is there’s not enough temperature for them to germinate and then they just rot in the soil or in my case uh sometimes birds will dig them up or my squirrel in my yard dig them up so you want to plant the optimum time with the optimum condition so they germinate quickly and they have a rapid growth rate and um they establish very well so other than peas and fava beans everything else we need to wait a little bit um for other types of beans in our garden snap beans um I love snap beans in the garden and um one thing I I tell everyone is to decide how much effort you want to put into growing snap beans whether you’re going to pick a bush typee variety or a pole pole type green bean um I tend to like the bush beans because they’re El erect without support they’re um they’re a little bit shorter they yield very well they yield just as much almost as the pole beans um and again we don’t have to put them up on supports or trellises um it is nice to have pole beans you don’t have to bend over as much they’re easily harvested uh but again they take a little bit more effort to establish typically um years ago we used to call these string beans and the reason was there was a large uh string fiber that came at the seam of the pods but plant breeders uh bred out that that stringy type uh texture in there so now we call them snap beans without the string because the newer varieties we now grow don’t have that that fiberous string in them again we got to be very careful with these beans are sensitive to the cold temperatures and frost so usually we want to wait until about the first week uh or second week of May when we don’t have thread of frost to plant these beans we want to seed all varieties uh 2 to 3 inches apart with at least um 18 to 24 in between the rows in our garden if we’re planting multiple rows uh for pole beans we want to go a little bit wider because they tend to be larger plants uh 6 in apart with 30 to 36 in between rows um or you could plant them in Hills I tend to like planting our the bush types in rows and I’ll often plant two rows next to each other about 18 inches apart because they’ll support each other if they have two rows next to each other or um I have to say I do cheat sometimes with my bush types and do uh stake them a little bit with some string so they don’t fall over it just makes it easier to harvest but with the pole beans it’s a lot of effort because they can grow up to four to six feet tall and will trell us up that high seeds of most varieties tend to crack as a germinate um if the soil moisture is too high so what I mean by that is the two sides of the bean will crack open and it just weakens the plant so we don’t want to overwater these so what I say with uh planting snap beans a lot of times is seed them and then water them very well at planting and then don’t water them again until after they’ve germinated and started poking up through the soil because if we keep it too wet it really disturbs the seed and uh cracks the seed and it it doesn’t grow very well so again never soak the beans I’ve heard people say oh should I soak my bean seed before I plant it no do not do that just plant them dry and then water them heavy and then wait um until they germinate again and start growing and you see them poking up out of the soil if it’s dry and need you need to water again when we Harvest nap beans uh we Harvest them when the pods are firm and crisp and fully elongated but you want to harvest them before the seed pod starts to swell and you can actually see the seeds inside then become very tough and uh often bitter with the seeds so pick them when they’re very tender um Pi pick them when they’re dry and this is true for all your vegetables in the garden just so you don’t spread any fungus F fungi or bacteria diseases uh again you want to harvest when they’re dry and not wet want to be careful not to break the stem so just grabbing those beans and pulling them sometimes could actually uproot the plant or break a branch so I like to use two hands where I grab the beans with one hand and I hold the stem with the other so that I’m not yanking the plant out of the ground or um again breaking those brittle stems that they’re on and the the bean plant will continue to form new flowers and produce more beans if they are continually removed from the plant and if you keep the plant in good health by not breaking the branches so you can Harvest beans from a for a period of about five to six weeks if the plants are kept healthy well watered uh if they’re fertilized about Midway through their life again and again as long as you don’t break stems or branches so those are some of our cooler seasoned vegetables but now I’m going to get into the warm seasoned vegetables and all of these need to be planted after the thread of frost and typically around May 15th now I’m going to tell you we do cheat a little bit with some of these vegetables because you can use covers um plastic covers or um you know I talked about using the cut up milk jugs um so that gives it a little more protection you can probably plant them a week or two earlier than this uh and then using plastic mulch too will warm the soil and the environment around them so again getting those trash bags out or finding some kind of cover to to warm up the soil so again these are the warm season summer loving plants cucumbers tomatoes peppers eggplants squashes melons uh corn I put X next to that and I’ll tell you why in a minute and then um if any of you want to get adventurous you can plant sweet potatoes and what we plant with sweet potatoes is something called slips so we talked about whiteed potato where you do the seed pieces well with sweet potatoes we actually grow the sweet potato till it makes Vines cut the vines off of the potato and that’s actually what we plant in the garden is is slips um that’s a pretty uh cool thing to try many of these plants that are summer loving we can either plant seeds or transplants but uh transplants do very well for our fru and crops like tomatoes peppers eggplants um squashes melons and cucumbers I don’t find do as well with transplants because they’re very very brittle and they’re very tender and you can damage them if you try to transport a transplant and then try to plant it with your hands in the garden um it’s not as successful as a seed and the nice thing is we plant these crops like melons cucumbers squashes um if you plant them in the right soil temperature at the right time they germinate very quickly and are very successful in growing now corn why do I have an X next to corn corn is not very successful in the home garden and the reason why is uh it doesn’t pollinate very well you have the tassel at the top which gives the pollen that has to land down onto the silks of the Corn in order for the corn seeds inside to expand and be fertilized with the pollen um so the top part is the male part which is a tassel the bottom part the silks are the female parts and because we usually plant these in single rows in a garden the wind will push the pollen away from the plant and it doesn’t land on the silks and you’ll wind up getting corn that has kernels inside there they missing so it’s not a great idea to grow corn in the garden for that reason and that’s why I say leave it up to the farmers and go support your local Farm Market and get the corn because they’re growing it in blocks and in large areas in the field where the pollen really works well the other big problem with sweet corn is it’s there’s a lot of warm pests um in New Jersey that gets on sweet corn so in the garden you’re always going to be fighting uh having a lot of extra meat and your corn in the garden so again leave it up to the professionals I never recommend corn for the home Garden um if you don’t believe me try it and let me know how it works because I’ve just never been successful myself with corn in the home Garden so Tomatoes let’s start off with them because they’re the most popular garden uh vegetable in America everyone wants fresh uh ripened tomatoes out of their Garden uh the quality of the fruit picked in the garden when they’re fully ripe and red really surpasses anything available um on the store shelves that is often picked when the the fruit isn’t all red uh we’re lucky in New Jersey that we have Farmers that pick at at Vine what we call Vine ripen stage so we can get local tomatoes that are tasting good in the summer but there really is nothing better than picking that really blood rpe tomato off of your plant bringing it in the house in the summer time to eat tomato plants are tender warm season peren they could be perennials um but we grow them as annuals because of our season but where they are native to they keep growing and growing as perennials spring and fall freezes really limit our outdoor growth season for tomatoes um and the other thing is to make sure you find out if your varieties are either determinate or indeterminate and I’ll tell you what that means so this is a research trial we did years ago at the one of our Ruckers research farms and we looked at determinant and indeterminate tomato varieties in this picture you’re going to look and you’re going to say Michelle you’ve got um steaks that are tall and you’ve got Stakes that are short um so what we did is where we had what we call the indeterminant varieties we put 8 foot staks and where we had the determinant varieties we did our shorter 5 foot Stakes uh the word indeterminate means nothing more than there’s an indetermined uh height at which these Tomatoes can grow at uh with determinant varieties there’s a gene inside of them that was bred that there’s a determined height that they’re going to stop growing at or what we call almost like a self- pruning plant where it just stops growing uh which is very nice for Farmers because they don’t deal with the jungle of tomatoes that we may get in a home Garden when we grow what we call indeterminate varieties so my choice um unfortunately the variety I like to grow for cherry tomatoes in my garden is an indeterminant variety and uh we use 8ot steaks in the garden and soon in July they top out and I start having to move uh branches around to even walk through the rows but we TP Ty Al liked in the um commercial agriculture industry to use our determinant varieties which are much shorter and easier to handle and just because they’re a shorter plant doesn’t mean they yield less they actually can yield more in certain ways um with with more fruit set so here’s determinant versus indeterminate tomatoes so if you look at the um top left picture there that’s a determinant variety and one of the attributes of determinant tomato varieties is the large clusters of fruit set whereas if you’ve grown very tall varieties of tomatoes which we call indeterminant you’re not going to get these large clusters of fruit you’re going to get fruit Here There and Everywhere um and then they tend to be a little bit smaller fruit with some varieties unless you’re growing some of the bigger varieties like um brandy wine or or some other of those varieties but I’ve grown Ramapo I’ve grown the Rucker tomato on these tall steaks and again they’re indeterminant varieties that have smaller fruit and quite frankly there may not be as many uh fruit fruit on these plants as the determinant varieties that have these large clusters of fruit so for that reason I usually choose to um grow the determinant varieties in my garden just for space and less hassle with the tall staks so some gardeners transplant their tomato um after the soils prepare for the spring gardens and um we do this because it could be a high risk of damage from freezing or Frost but if you’re going to plant them earlier than before the um Frost is not a threat anymore you want to make sure you cover them um some people use old thin sheets sheets of plastic um trash bags maybe and like I said if the plants are still very small those uh milk jugs work great with the cap off so again make sure your plants are planted when the soil is warm and after the frost free date and remember the space required depends on the growth pattern of the variety and the cultural method again if you’re staking or tying or using cages uh just make sure you’re leaving enough room for those to be implemented in the garden when you care for your Tomatoes initial fertilizer pre-plant really important and then um depending on your soil type is if you’re going to need an extra dose of fertilizer and usually what we want to do is put fertilizer after we see the first fruits set and after they reach a size of about a quarter if you put too much nitrogen fertilizer on before we have fruit set you actually can keep that plant what we call a vegetative mode and it’ll just keep producing more and more leaves and stems and not send any flowers or fruit so it’s really important to wait until you have fruit on the plant that are at least the size of a quarter before we put any more fertilizer on um usually like I said a quarter or even the size of a golf ball is when you want to put your nitrogen on nitrogen’s very important not to overp put nitrogen fertilizer and then um in Sandy light soils which I know in Ocean County you have too about 3 to six Weeks Later again depending on how your plants are looking you want to put one more shot of nitrogen fertilizer down before the end of the season if the weather is dry following these applications it’s important to water the plants thoroughly to get that nitrogen to move down into the root Zone and also so you don’t get salt accumulation around the root Zone uh don’t get fertilizer in the leaves if you do just rinse it off with some fresh water so it doesn’t the salts in the fertilizer don’t burn and whether you’re using granular fertilizer or liquid fertilizer it’s still important to water it down or to even um use a hoe or a tins or something to mix that fertilizer into the soil so it doesn’t dissipate or will nitrogen volatilize into the atmosphere so getting into another warm season uh vegetable Peppers Peppers definitely do not tolerate Frost or cold soils um and again if you try to plant them too early and we get a lot of cold they kind of just sit there and they don’t start to grow and uh that’s when we can get some problems when the plants are under stress especially cold stress with peppers 18 to 24 in apart in a row and at least 4 feet between rows is really important um Peppers Thrive really well and well- drained soil that are fertile and supplied with a lot of moisture because again um when those fruit are setting they act as the suction for where all the water and nutrients are going so the rest of the plant uh needs to supply that so having adequate water and a fertilizer is really important using starter fertilizer before transplanting or in the transplant hole really helps the work and I usually do that using um liquid fertilizer um you can do that with all of your transplants pretty much just not overdoing it maybe making it a very weak solution not what it calls for on the um instructions but about half of the um instructions half of the amount in the instructions because young transplants have very tender roots that can be burned and then again just like tomato after you see the first flush of uh fruit fruit set then it’s time to add a little more F fertilizer to keep that plant growing and to have energy for the fruit to set and enlarge and again making sure we have a uniform supply of moisture is essential um so those fruits can enlarge and especially during the harvest season uh during dry periods we need to adequately water but again don’t overwater because we can encourage root rot or other diseases sometimes we have high dry winds and dry soils in the summer which can cause abortion of small immature fruits or even flowers so again making sure we have adequate moisture and watering uh will prevent any of the fruits from boarding or even flowers from Ab boarding when we Harvest Peppers uh any size desired is important um but you can often uh squeeze the pepper feel that it’s firm um usually 3 to four inches long firm and green if you want them to turn a color into maturity say let them get red you’d have to leave them on longer um but you know know that too when you’re selecting varieties what color they turn uh when they’re at maturity some maybe orange yellow red we have purple varieties again whatever your heart desires um again when fruits are mature they break away easily from the plant but again with peppers just like when we talked about with with green beans or snap beans the um stems can be a little bit brittle so take some care when you’re pulling them off and and I would like to tend to twist the pepper a little bit instead of just trying to tug it off you actually make a twisting motion it’ll help snap that stem off of the plant again harvesting during morning hours when the plants are very um full of moisture but you want to make sure wait until the foliage is dry so they don’t have a disease spread but um again just you in the in the evening time when they might be a little bit wilty from the heat of the day it might be harder to twist them and snap them off the plant um if if they look a little wilty you can put some water on but try not to get the foliage wet uh if you need excess water in the afternoon from Wilt the one thing I do want to warn you and maybe you have some experience this already exercise caution when you’re handling some hot pepper varieties because um there’s oils on the outside that can get into your skin uh if you touch your nose or your eyes uh can be very painfully irritated so especially habanero peppers ghost peppers anything that has what we call high scoval heat units you may want to wear rubber gloves or plastic gloves when you’re harvesting these just take very good care uh Susan any questions at this point I I’m actually um so it is after 8 so I’m going to let people stay on uh but I just wanted to let you know that um we’re at 8 o’clock now and I’m going to put a poll up for survey for those that might have to jet off ‘ll stay a couple more actually we’re almost done I thought yeah so I thought I’m I’m going to leave the questions till the end okay and if everybody has to leave I won’t be offended but I just want to go over some uh disorders of vegetables so cat facing this happens when we plant vegetables excuse me we plant tomatoes way too early and there’s uh cold uh temperatures that distort some of the cells so we don’t want to plant them early for this reason you can get this disorder uh Sun scald is right there and that’s when we don’t have enough Leaf cover and when the plants are weak and the green tomatoes are um not covered with shade from the leaves so we get the sunburn if you have a tomato transplant that you’re buying uh from the store or growing and it’s small and already has fruit or flowers on it pull them off because that’s what’s going to cause stress and you’re going to have not enough Leaf cover nitrogen deficiency is when the plants look very weak and very yellow a lot of times so adding fertilizer at this Point’s really important to get them to bounce back uh Calcium deficiency is when the calcium is not absorbed by the roots and this more more so than not is caused by lack of watering deeply in the soil so that the roots um don’t have the calcium to uptake because calcium is taken up through a process called mass flow it needs to be in the soil water solution for it to get through the um roots and into the plant so it’s really important to have good water conditions your soil test report might have come back with enough calcium but if you’re not watering properly you’re not going to get that calcium into the plant and you’re going to get this uh episode here called Blossom and rot which also occurs in peppers if you you don’t have enough water here’s some more Blossom and rot pictures and then pollination issues here’s cucumbers that were not pollinated properly that bee did not uh visit enough of the flowers so with our squash pumpkins cucumbers melons there’s separate male and female flowers on the same plant and that bee has to go to the male flower then go to the female flower at about 20 times in order to get enough pollen transferred so that we don’t get this um problem here where there were the seeds not pollinated and the fruit doesn’t form when the seeds aren’t fertilized and pollinated what happens is they don’t give off the growth hormone for the rest of that fruit to form so that’s when we get these knobby looking cucumbers or squash uh because pollination didn’t occur so that’s about it um thank you Susan and I’ll answer questions now if you’d like or whenever the Pole’s done whatever you want to do yeah the poll’s still going it’s got five a half two and a half minutes but um we had some questions early on uh Judy had asked uh we was seeing a lot of hands going up and or not going up but saying congratulations and they loved it uh the programming but uh Judy had a question about tilling you know we we talk a lot um in the community about um no till uh or t you know very little tilling and so our question is is that destroying the structure of the soil if you because you had said to uh till and incorporate that’s a really good question actually my graduate degree work was growing no till broccoli and noil works great for transplanted plants not so well for seeded plants unless they’re large seeded um actually I try to promote noil pumpkins for vegetable Growers or no till butternut squash works very well for large seeded crops um there are a few issues when you’re using no till the soil stay colder in the spring because as we till it we’re fluffing up the um the soil tilt and we’re adding air and air can actually heat and warm the soil so when you’re using no till you actually keep the soil temperatures colder in the spring so your planting times might be a little bit later in the spring than you’d like um the other problem um we can run into with no till is certain perennial weeds will stay in the in the gardens or in the fields um because we’re not tilling them under to kill them off the nice thing is though when you use no till and you have a very thick uh organic Mulch on top of the soil it does suppress some of our seedling weeds that could come up when we have Barr soil so there’s prosen to everything um so there are things like permaculture where people you know don’t till and and leave grass strips between the garden sections um that’s a whole another lecture but um yeah noo works well for mainly transplanted or large seeded plants but uh not always um most home gardeners will till and have start with fresh uh soil every year okay um thank you uh there’s a couple I’m not sure where to go um someone um asked about about uh which I’m not sure if you can answer uh uh Ruckers does Ruckers sell plants um I do know some that answer to a point but um I guess they we’re looking for right is it a field day that’s what I’m thinking on AG field day which is the end of April yeah at Ru campus uh our school of environmental bi biological sciences uh cook campus off of Route One in New Brunswick has an agricultural field day and the middle sex County gardeners I believe sell different types of Ruckers breed and Ruckers grown transplants okay but we tend not to want to compete with our garden centers or farmers who sell them yeah because I think uh Mammoth county has a sale we have a sale in Ocean County in the be in May and uh I know yeah there’s a couple still but yeah not everybody sells Ruckers varieties but uh the other question I have for you is um uh square foot gardening your thoughts on square foot gardening so I don’t actually know what what you mean by square foot gardening um um where you’re growing uh really you have literally she has a small space a small garden and where they’re talking about growing um only in a square you know vegetables in a square foot okay so you’re growing them in like raised beds that are um so that’s fine so the the only issue with that is you’re probably only putting one plant per area Okay um or it might work good for for herbs now I don’t grow any of my herbs in my vegetable garden just cuz I want space for all the vegetables I actually like putting them in pots right at my back door so as I’m cooking at the stove I can run out snip off some herbs or greens and then put it right into my dishes so um although they’re totally fine to put in the garden different herbs i’ like to just have them right at my fingertips or I actually have a separate herb garden right on the side of the house for my perennial herbs that come back every year like sage and Rose Mary uh my chives and my oregano stay in a perennial herb garden alongside the house where it’s protected but um I never have seen square foot Gardens but um I’m sure it’s a thing uh again okay yeah you only get one plant per that area unfortunately yeah I know it didn’t it depends on the size of the plant obviously you’re not going to be doing watermelons or or squash maybe because they’re definitely going to get three foot so in a one squ square foot it’s a little tough exactly the other thing I’ve seen which are pretty neat which probably would work in a square foot garden is you take a tomato cage right and you put it upside down and you can grow the the Cucumbers or pickles um and it’ll grow up and stay in that that Tris that that’s a really neat idea something I saw in the magazine last year so go vertical where you can if if possible to have things gr upward in a home garden with small space vertical is the way to go definitely good good idea Susan yep um I’m not going to ask about the old uh farmer’s wife tail there’s one about uh watering plants uh before Frost um which yeah it’s an old wife’s tail so I mean we want to try to go with our research based information actually um if the opposite is true the drier the soil before a frost the less damage you’re going to have because the less water that’s inside the plant if the plant’s a little bit droughty or a little bit wilty because what happens is during very cold temperatures it’s the ice crystals it’s the water that freezes now there is an old method to prevent frost from harming any crops in the field but you have to be up very early so when we have Frost occurs what happens is in the morning very early Before Sunrise when that Dew is setting down onto the leaf structure that’s what freezes right the Dew that lays down on the leaf surface or the plant surface is what causes the frost you see it on your lawn you see it on Plants well what the farmers do this happens throughout the whole country when they have plants that need to be protected from Frost they put overhead overhead irrigation sprinklers and they actually create ice layers on top of the plants but you have to do this right before the frost so my father did this when we grew up on the farm he would get up say about 3 3:30 in the morning go out and turn the irrigation pump on and Sprinklers and wet everything and create an ice layer so that the frost didn’t lay because because the frost was cold colder than the ice believe it or not and as the ice was melting it causes what we call an exothermic reaction and gives off heat so it actually insulated those plants from being damaged by Frost so but I don’t know any homeowner that wants to get up at 3:00 in the morning and put a sprinkler on and protect their plants so again using sheets or row covers or something like that is a good way to for frost protection in our small gardens I’m just trying to write in the chat at this at the quiz um regarding some of the plant sales that uh we know of that are popping up and again our sales we really uh from any Ruckers whether it’s the Master Gardeners whether it’s Master Gardener associations or whatnot we’re really not trying to compete it’s only one day sales usually um and trying not to compete with the local uh local producers right um there’s a lot of other questions uh what’s the biggest one I can come up with um I think I’m uh I I hate to keep you on too long um but excellent information I’m seeing a lot of that um anra no somebody was mentioning umos gets on um peppers tomatoes eggplants quite a bit um again just keeping the plants as dry as possible really works um the other thing is rotating the vegetables around the garden don’t put them in the same spot every year if you had anthracnose in one spot don’t put the peppers in that same spot um keeping your organic matter levels high as you can I use all of my um mowed up leaves and put them in my garden every year to keep organic matter level is high because it really benefits microorganisms that can help keep the pathogens at Bay so anything you could do for soil health will help you have less um disease in the in the garden that’s excellent excellent um one last question which because it was an odd question I have to ask it unless Cheryl found anything else that we really need to um touch on uh Water Crest uh one of our um uh Heidi was asking about how do you know how to grow Water Crest by chance I never have grown it I I think it grows in water I’m not really sure yeah I saw something from Florida yeah that’s what okay yeah that you know what um one of our new agricultural agents Kate Brown is working on some herb fact sheets right now I’m G to ask Kate and see if she can find something out on Water Crest that’s that’s one that really stumps me I’ve never grown that before I’d like to eat it I’ve actually bought it in the grocery store I do like Water Crest sandwiches but have not grown it I bet it probably works well in hydroponic systems I I you know what you’re probably a little easier maybe without uh I don’t know because I don’t know the temperature uh requirements either but uh one last question very the first question someone asked was uh did your mom strain the seeds from your tomato sauce so the processing machine that we use that was my mother-in-law’s well my husband’s grandmother’s there’s this the way that the tomatoes go in it there’s a Sie that actually takes the stems and the seeds out I mean the skins and the seeds out there no seeds in it okay cool my mother doesn’t always take the seeds out cuz my Italian father likes seeds in his sauce so it’s really your preference yeah well I know for a lot of people it can be very hard to digest the seeds and that’s where the acid I think the acidity comes from for people for digestion yeah and then U I don’t know if this is an old wies taale or not but friends of mine say if you uh skin whole carrots and put it in your sauce as it’s cooking this carrot absorbs some of the acid I think the carrot just adds some sweetness to the sauce now you discard the carrot after you’re done cooking your sauce again I don’t know if there science behind it but that was another trick of the trade someone told me at one time and i’ I’ve heard quite a few different uh right types of things too with um uh mother um sorry um I can’t think of what I was gonna say now adding sugars and you know depending on North Italy souuth it’ll you know yeah you know I think like um trial and error and see what you like try different recipes definitely for sure well uh Michelle I want to thank you so much we’re getting a lot of uh people there’s still 100 I think we uh topped 179 uh we have 104 still on I just wanted to let anybody know if you uh anybody that I didn’t get to your questions we will answer uh tomorrow uh through work Patty um and myself and Cheryl will be answering those where we can um and if I can’t Michelle I’ll be sending him your way email me questions I’ll be happy to answer them on email okay and then our next program for those that want to join is in person so I know a lot there was a lot of people from all over Jersey but if you’d like to learn about growing tree fruits in the home Garden uh we’re going to have a Megan I don’t know why I’m yelling I’m sorry Megan mule Bower um will be coming on May 21st it’s a Tuesday and we’re doing it during the daytime so between 1: and 2 p.m. at the office in Toms River we will be having that and the M uh I think uh Teresa will be sending uh in our office we be sending out the announcements so anybody the $ five doll and the $ Five Doll really is to make sure that people actually come uh you know though most people uh will you know it’s it’s hard to set up things these days if we uh for in person so thank you again I app you’re welcome thank everybody that’s on y all right thank you all right thank you thank you Cheryl for hanging in there and uh we’ll see you guys on the other side thanks again