start

Gardening 101 for Northern Utah

attention agent just to keep things in

perspective we have specialists that our

PhD level Dan drost you may know him he

is our vegetable specialist so he dives

really deep into vegetables and in fact

I'll show you some of his fact sheets

and some information that you guys can

glean from his labors but I am a

generalist I have to know a little bit

about everything because even though I'm

a professor with the University I'm a

professor of the people so my day

consists of answering phone calls going

out on yard consultations teaching these

kind of workshops to the general public

which most people have about a seventh

or eighth grade level of knowledge when

it comes to any general topic so I get

to take all of the research-based

information that happens on campus and

through the PhD level research and I get

to regurgitate it to the public and so

hopefully we can do a little bit that

today I've got about 30 slides just to

talk about vegetables in general but

then I want to leave a lot of time at

the end to play what I call stump the

chump you guys can throw questions at me

and we'll try to answer them as best we

can but if you have a question in

between slides or you want to throw out

something please do this is a very

low-key setting and in my opinion it's

not I've been out of college quite a

while but I still remember the whole

Charlie Brown effect where's the

professor

that's not today so what do you guys

hope to learn today why did you come

besides the free chips and salsa anybody

okay how to have a productive garden how

many of you have not garden much at all

okay I mean you feel like you have green

thumbs okay so if I get anything wrong

you that's good if you can get it green

in Utah you're doing better than most so

to get started I just wanted to show you

some resources I've given you a couple

hand

without reference throughout the

presentation but another thing to keep

in mind is at garden USU dot edu we have

hundreds if not thousands of different

fact sheets these are specifically to

gardening we have over 75 different

crops that we can grow and there's a

fact sheet on every one when I took Dan

drost class in college one of the things

he had us do was to help write these

fact sheets they're called the in the

garden series so if you just google peas

USU it'll pull up peas in the garden

this is a really great resource our

marketing team is hands-down the best in

the nation they've actually won awards

in extension nationally for getting the

information out to the public

some of the things that are on the fact

sheets growing tips like spacing health

how far apart to put the plants how many

plants you would need to consume fresh

versus if you wanted to bottle things or

preserve it'll tell you how many plants

you would actually need some harvest

tips so we'll get into then also pests

which you're not the only one that likes

your garden so there's a lot of insects

in different diseases that we face when

we and we and we helped us as Extension

troubleshoot what those issues may be to

start with gardening you have to have

the right sight and I'm surprised often

how many people don't really understand

what vegetables need if it produces a

fruit it needs full Sun now here you can

see some chard and some different

vegetables the leafy vegetables can

tolerate a little bit of shade some

filtered shade but most vegetables need

six to eight hours of full Sun so keep

that in mind and soil is kind of a

moving target in Utah

especially in Julie mentioned I just

built a home one of the common practices

in new construction is they'll scrape

the topsoil and then sell it build your

house and then they'll put subsoil all

that nasty stuff underneath

up and around your house that's really

hard to grow in so when they built my

house I thought I was weird

I made him stockpile all the topsoil and

then when they were done with

construction I went and peeled it back

over so I had a good layer to work with

most vegetables can root in about 6 to 8

inches so it's not like you need 2 feet

of good Midwest soil you can do a lot

with just a little bit now if any of you

live in nibbly or areas where it's

really heavy clay content and it's hard

to garden one option is raised beds you

create your own growing environment with

raised bed gardening the the soil will

warm up a little bit quicker in the

spring and you don't have to worry about

tilling it so that's one option and we

do have a fact sheet on raised bed

gardening if you want to look it up

water you need access to it but most

people overwater their vegetables and

we'll talk about that as we get going

but you do need some source of clean

water

some weather considerations we talked

about how it's going to rain all next

week it's gonna be hard to get out in

the garden without growing a couple

inches for mud but other things to

consider are the temperatures not all

vegetables are created equally some can

tolerate really heavy Frost's others

will die so we'll break up some

vegetables and we cool and warm season

crops talk about that how many of you

have ever been on the climate us.you ddu

website we have weather stations all

throughout the state and we have a

department that's really great at

monitoring different temperatures so you

can actually go online this climate USU

edu and you can look up the average

latest frost in the spring and the

earliest frost in the fall and you can

see it varies quite a lot if you're in

Randolph you're gonna be really

hard-pressed to do any kind of gardening

because you can see mid June mid to late

June is when you get a lot of frost

still

if we're just looking here in Logan the

average latest frost state is about May

15th

so yesterday now that being said these

are averages it's almost like going to

Vegas I looked at the weather next week

we're supposed to dip down into the mid

30s at night and some crops you may need

to protect and we'll talk about that but

keep that in mind I usually say in Cache

County May 15th in October first hour

our girl is our growing season now some

years we'll have an Indian summer and it

would go a lot later but those are

pretty good general recommendations and

again USU campus is actually quite

warmer than the rest of the valley

because we're up on a hill all the cold

air drains down towards amalga you can

see the difference in growing days so

keep that in mind because some of the

crops cauliflower for example has about

100 to 150 days before you can harvest

it you can see in a malgal you be really

hard-pressed without doing some kind of

modification and maybe greenhouse

growing ok any questions thus far on

climate temperatures so like I mentioned

before cool season crops and warm season

crops who can give me an example of a

cool season crop spinach peas lettuce

cabbage radishes carrots so a lot of

these crops and I'll list them a little

bit later but they can tolerate really

cool temperatures in fact you could have

planted peas a month ago and been fine

even if it freezes they'll just kind of

sit there but then they'll start to grow

as soon as the temperature is about 55

to 75 degrees that's their optimal

growing conditions whereas warm season

crops such as corn tomatoes cucumbers

peppers all the sexy ones they're warm

season and they hate cold if they if

they get anywhere near 50 they'll

actually just shut down for a bit

they won't grow anything below 45

they'll abort their flowers so you have

to keep that in mind with those warm

season crops now we talked about

planting there's a couple ways to do it

there's planting by seed and then

there's transplants I didn't but I

didn't bring a package of seeds but

you've all seen those these are some

Tomatoes I grew in our office because we

can and these I planted about a month

ago and now they're ready to go out the

one thing with transplants is you you

buy yourself some time and we'll get

into that in just a little bit but if

you're seeding which you can with a lot

of crops there's what we call the three

times rule and that means you can plant

the seed three times deeper than the

seed is wide or big and the reason for

that is that seed holds all the energy

it needs once it imbibes or takes in

water it'll start to grow it'll

germinate and it has all that energy to

push up through the soil like this

little guy here and once that starts to

open up and grow then the true leaves

come out and it'll start to

photosynthesize but until that point

these are the true seed leaves and they

actually all the energy came from that

little seed if they're planted too deep

they'll start to grow up through the

soil and they'll run out of juice and

they'll actually die within the soil so

you have to make sure you don't plant

seeds too deep seeds are actually

regulated by the Department of

Agriculture and food they have plant

police that will actually go out and

test seed each year and they have to

have a 90 percent or higher germination

rate to be able to be sold so each year

they have to repackage seed so that's

kind of a good feel but you're not going

to buy something that's not going to be

successful most of the information you

have this garden wheel and if you turn

it you can look at the crop look at the

planting depth the row with the days to

maturity these are kind of fun but all

that you ever really need is on the seed

packet it'll tell you when to sow the

seed how deep how far apart and when you

can expect to harvest the crop so keep

that in mind you don't have to memorize

stuff you can just read it on the packet

takes kind of some of the fear away from

gardening now one thing I forgot to

mention before we started as gardening's

one of those things that I can sit up

here and talk for this amount of time

and you'll remember maybe five percent

of what I say but you'll remember a

hundred percent of what you do and most

of what I know about gardening is from

mistakes and killing stuff and so keep

that in mind that gardening isn't a

pass-fail kind of thing you can you can

come back and learn again some

germination tips if you are growing from

seed some of the really heavy heavy clay

content soils will crust and crack and

so if you're seeding that makes it

really hard for that seed to penetrate

that layer of crack let me rephrase the

layer of clay that's cracking you don't

grow in crack small seeds like carrots

and lettuce how many of you ever planted

lettuce or carrots you can actually put

them in a salt shaker and and they'll

fit through the holes of the salt shaker

they're so small so if you remember that

three times rule one of the tips I've

learned is you just put those seeds on

the on the surface of the soil and then

just kind of skip some soil over them

don't don't divot them with your finger

and plant them like you would a pea and

then because they're so exposed to this

the surface of the soil and the drying

that happens because of the solar

radiation sometimes I'll lay a piece of

carpet or plywood over the seed and OH

so I'll seed I'll water and then put the

plywood over and then that blocks the

Sun from drying the soil out too much

and I'll check it every day and once I

see the

little green starts then you can pull

that off because otherwise I've had a

lot of mishaps from planning really

shallow seed and having a dry out in

between waterings okay you guys are

quite a bunch no yeah you can mow seed

will germinate without the Sun okay a

couple other tips on my peas I'll

actually soak them the night before I

plant them in water and they'll imbibe

that water and kind of kickstart the

germination process the other thing it

does is any dead seeds will float to the

surface so you can skim those off and

throw them away okay not all but the

bigger ones mmm corn and peas you don't

have to but I think it's kind of fun now

these are again some of the cool season

crops we mentioned earlier these are the

ones I like to tell people to start with

if you're new to gardening they're just

kind of easy low hanging fruit peas

germinate really readily radishes

they'll germinate and you can eat them

really quick you'll probably only do it

once my kids hate radishes but I love

growing the the different lettuce crops

the chard there's one called bright

lights that is really pretty in the

garden so aesthetically it adds some

stuff now these are usually direct

seeded into the garden because again

they can tolerate cool soils you can

plant these as soon as the soil is

workable usually mid-march these with

the astrick however we use transplants

why yeah so

cauliflower hundred days hundred and

fifty days to maturity you get those

transplants and you've got six to eight

week head start so if you're planning a

transplant you've just bought yourself

six to eight weeks so you can harvest a

lot earlier the other reason we do it is

again these are cool season crops if

cool season crops experience 85 95

degree weather they do what's called

bolting they'll actually prematurely

flower so instead of getting a lot of

leafs and produce you're gonna get

flower stalks because it tricks them

into thinking they're their times done

so bolting is is one thing that's caused

by heat and if you've ever eaten lettuce

that's been exposed to hot temperatures

it's really bitter produces a lot of

that milky latex sap yes yes yeah we

call them cole crops they're in one big

family okay

this handout that I gave you

I had marketing work up for me and they

did an awesome job this kind of shows

about the timing that you can seed

directly in the garden you can see

typically first of april's usually when

we start so with some of these cool

season crops you can do it earlier but

if the soil is really cold the seed just

sits there

it won't germinate so this is kind of a

reference point some general information

on length to harvest but if you haven't

started cool season crops there's still

time you can see you can you can see

some of these cool season crops clear to

the first to June and be alright and

then you can also see the warm season

the peppers the cucumbers you want to

wait until at least Mother's Day is

generally what we tell people when that

cool cool weather pattern kind of breaks

any questions on this

okay so the question is specifically on

Tomatoes the different temperature

ranges before they'll shut down or when

they grow well or when do you need to

protect them the easy answer for that is

about 50 degrees is the low that they

will still produce and grow well they'll

survive mid-30s the plant but if you're

getting around 35 degrees I would still

cover the plants just to give yourself a

buffer and we'll talk about frost

protection but there's another scenario

where it can get too hot and the plant

will actually abort the flowers and

we'll talk about that specifically with

with Tomatoes okay so these be starts

one of the mistakes I've made in growing

transplants is doing it too early

because if you do it too early they

can't put them outside anyway and then

you're stuck babysitting for months so

we'll talk about transplants as well on

the other side of that handout is an

advertisement for what we call the

gardeners Almanac and this is three

years of my life and marketing's put it

all together there's over 200 different

fact sheets and hot links to these

different fact sheets what we did is we

broke up all the different gardening

activities based on the month monthly

calendar and then you can click on all

of these blue hyperlinks and it will

take you directly to a fact sheet so

this will tell you everything you should

be doing in April in May and you can

click on it if you want more information

this is a website with all the

hyperlinks you can also download it on

your phone as an app

but it's a static app it doesn't have

the hyperlinks it's just the list okay

now let's switch gears and talk a little

bit about some warm-season again the

corn peppers cucumbers the the vining

crops the squash and melons these you

need to wait until the soils warm just

by nature that's what they like now most

of these will grow from transplants

again because the the growing period and

to make some hay while the Sun shines

but I've got some colleagues that swear

by planting from seed how many of you

have planted cucumbers from seed I have

a friend that did a comparison because

he was a scientist he planted cucumbers

from seed in a nut start and he said the

seed grew the same rate as a start and

produce the same time so you can kind of

switch hit on these anybody ever had a

son sugar tomato they're like candy so

just a little bit of warning on

transplants when you go to the nurseries

and you buy transplants somebody can win

this today it's the person that has the

greatest amount of not amount but the

best question can have the can have the

tomato starts yeah if you stumped me you

can take them now there's four of them

so there's another question no they're

not these are called super Stakes one of

my favorite things to do is try new

varieties every year just to see how

they do or what they taste like and I've

learned a lot of what I don't like

there was one tomato one year I called

it's called whip PSICOM peach it's a

fuzzy tomato like a peach it's nasty so

I know not to grow that one again but

when you're buying transplants this is

an example of a bad example this picture

here you don't want fruit on the plant

that means it's way too old for that

container nobody's going to get mad

at you if you pull the plant out of the

container we have a 50/50 rule we call

it where 50% of the route to soil you

should be able to see soil if it's just

all massive roots

that's root bound you'd have to either

tear it apart or I just like putting it

back and let some other guy buy it yeah

bitter cucumbers are heat - yep it's

kind of a catch-22 if it gets too hot

then it builds up those those compounds

that make them bitter now there are some

variety issues there as well

there's one called a burpless tomato or

a burpless cucumber they're supposed to

have less of those compounds so you can

search for some that are touted as being

less bitter but if they experience heat

they'll still get really burpless the

other shade cloth Dan drost and his

team's actually doing a lot of research

on peppers especially getting sunburned

so they'll get a 30% sun reflecting

cloth and put over the rows and that

seems to help quite a lot I mean if it's

gonna be 95 degrees there's nothing you

can do for that it's just gonna be what

it is so make sure they're not too

mature in the pot you want at least two

sets of true leaves and then keep in

mind that they were watered every day if

not twice a day in the greenhouse

because the soil media is just really

porous so when you put them in your

garden you might have to baby them for a

week water and more often than you would

regularly this is what I mean when I say

true leaves versus seed leaves this is a

cucumber these are seed leaves and

that's the true leaf of the cucumber so

you want at least two sets of those true

leaves the

we transplant them can I come back to

that because I am gonna answer that this

this chart is just an example if you are

going to start transplants in in your

home you need to make sure you have

supplemental light a south-facing

windows not enough but you good news is

you can buy a shop light from one of the

big-box stores any of the shop lights

will work you just need to have them

about two inches above the plant and

they need light for about fourteen hours

so but if you do start them I mean you

don't have to get crazy and start them

in January don't do it I've done it

before and it you hate it most plants

about four to six weeks before the last

average average frost state is all you

need to start a tomato plant or a pepper

plant

okay so again tomatoes for six weeks you

start those about the April first and

you can put them out mid-may now the

nurseries you ever seen the big gallon

size tomatoes or even five gallon

Tomatoes they've obviously grown those

longer and they just bumped them up into

bigger containers as they grow no so the

leg enos actually occurs from not enough

light they're stretching for the light

so that's why we say drop it two to four

inches above the plant closer to make it

shorter yep okay a couple other things

on transplanting Tomatoes that is the

one crop that will actually root up the

stem so you could bury this plant to

here and it would form roots all along

here and more roots equals more plant so

some people will dig a trench and lay it

sideways and then pull the top up I just

buried a little deeper and I've already

removed the lower leaves today because

they were ugly but yeah tomatoes you can

bury deep it's about the only crop that

you can do it with cucumbers and melons

anything in the queue cucurbit family we

call it they really hate being disrupted

if you have a transplant you have to

baby it most plants you can actually rip

the roots apart and it'll they'll do

fine it'll kill cucumbers so if you're

starting with transplants be really

careful at the roots let's see what else

oh don't grab them by the leaves grab

them by the stem so frost protection

this is a picture I took just up in Hyde

Park the green are there called walls of

water they're like a mini greenhouse you

fill up little separate compartments

with water and that insulates the ground

I like putting those kind of things out

about a week or two before I plant and

that warms the whole soil profile up so

the plant when you do plant it it's

happy and ready to go one thing to keep

in mind again this is from some of my

screw-ups if you leave those walls of

water or even the hot caps on in the

daytime and at sixty degrees it's thirty

at least thirty degrees hotter inside

that plastic than it is in the ambient

temperature so you're talking 90 plus

degrees in those walls of water and I've

actually killed Tomatoes by leaving them

on too long so as soon as the the frost

danger is gone take those off let them

just have the ambient air temperature

but again next week when we're in the

mid 30s it's not a bad idea to put them

on because it'll give you about three to

five degrees in buffering from freezing

I've had people even do tarps or

blankets because what that does is it

it's not stopping the cold from getting

in it's blocking the heat from the soil

as it radiates out and so it keeps it

trapped along

the plants okay any questions on this

hmm yeah thank you getting ready huh no

milk cartons work great I mean you get

you get a little bit less protection

it's not like a wall of water where you

have to all that massive water

insulating but they do work you'll get a

couple degrees okay

fertilizers a lot of people mess up on

this step because they fertilize too

much they love their plants to death

every year I'll get a phone call in the

Extension Office where somebody says I

I've got an 8-foot tomato plant and I've

never had fruit on it what what do you

guys think the issue is way too much

nitrogen so when you look at a bag of

fertilizer you have three numbers the

first number is nitrogen second numbers

phosphorus and the third number is

potassium if you get a soil test which I

would highly recommend they're about $25

for a routine soil test it'll tell you

all that your soil has to offer and most

of the ones because I'm an extension

agent I get a copy of all of the

public's soil tests and so when I get

them I'll open them up just to be nosy

and most of the ones I see have adequate

phosphorous and adequate potassium

they're in the soil they don't leave the

soil very much and so they're just there

so when I garden after I did my soil

test and I knew I had phosphorus and

potassium there I just use nitrogen

nitrogen is mobile it washes through the

system and the plants use it at more

rates than the other two so nitrogen

they won't tell you in a soil test

because they always assume it's needed

and the way I remember these three

numbers the NPK is top down all around

so nitrogen's for top growth green

growth fast

for fruit and root growth and potassium

it being a salt regulates water

potential within the plant so it's

all-around vigor of the plant

[Music]

not all fertilizers are made equal there

are a lot of different types of

fertilizers and ways to get the

fertilizer to the plant whether it's a

slow-release pellet form whether it's a

chemical fertilizer that's been created

or whether it's an organic form from

once to ribe animal or plant material

the chemical itself the nitrogen of the

phosphorus or potassium the plant

doesn't care where that comes from

that's a you as a gardener decision if

you want to do organic fertilizers great

one thing I will mention is the the

chemical fertilizers usually have higher

percentage of the active ingredient for

example ammonium sulfate is 2100 and

I'll reference that in just a second

that number is a percentage so 21%

nitrogen in that fertilizer if you use

blood meal or bone meal they're more

like 4 to 5 percent so you have to use

more of it to get the percentage of

nitrogen if that makes sense

but again the plants don't care how they

get it so when we talk about vegetables

and recommendations for fertilizer all

of the publications that I've ever

referenced talk about pounds of Knack

actual nitrogen per thousand square feet

now when I garden I don't garden in

thousand square feet

I garden in a 10 foot row so one day I

just closed my office door and I got a

calculator out and I just did all the

math and what it worked out to be kind

of frustrated me because it was about a

handful so some crops don't need hardly

any fertilizer though the peas and beans

they're cut they're legumes so will

actually fix their own nitrogen just

from the air so they're considered low

used crops

that's about a quarter cup of fertilizer

this ammonium sulfate per ten-foot row

moderate which is most vegetables

cucumbers broccoli cauliflower most of

them need about 1/3 of a cup of ammonium

sulfate per 10-foot row and that equates

to about 2 to 3 pounds of nitrogen per

thousand square feet and then there are

some high use crops corn is a really

high use crop a lot of the leafy

vegetables and onions even potatoes

their high use crops so we'll actually

do split applications well will

fertilize it seeding for example with

corn and once corn gets about two feet

tall you'll fertilize it again and then

as it tassels you'll fertilize it one

more time but again it's it's about a

handful so when I'm gardening I don't

take measuring cups out I just kind of

that's very scientific you're welcome

yeah as long as fertilizer doesn't get

wet it can freeze it can do whatever

I've had a I had I just used up the last

of it I had a bag of ammonium sulfate

lasted me five years and it's actually

one of the cheapest fertilizers out

there okay sorry that is true it's a

salt so it can melt ice okay

just a few precautions about manures

scoop on poop it's actually a really

good source of nitrogen phosphorous in

fact some of the soil tests I get back

if somebody's been adding manure a year

after year into their garden as a

practice of introducing good compost the

phosphorus will actually raise and

almost become too much phosphorus

so if you add manure that's great just

don't do it year after year after year

do different forms of compost

another thing is you make sure that it's

cured which means it's heated up it

doesn't resemble anything that went into

the pile it looks almost like dirt and

it's cooled down to ambient temperature

if it's hot to the touch it's not done

and composting correct composting will

kill most weed seeds except Tomatoes

don't they'll withstand nuclear anything

but you can introduce weeds the other

thing to keep in mind is a lot of the

manures that are added into compost like

turkey manure or poultry can be really

high in salt so keep that in mind you

may need to wash those out with some

irrigation you have a question no dog

poop is not good for the garden and I

have a big hundred foot or a hundred

pound dog he poops a lot but I just have

to throw it away because meat-eating

animals cats and dogs they they carry

diseases sometimes and we don't want

those near our vegetables and also it

attracts mice and rats and other things

so we don't want the garden so great

question yep yeah some some manures are

really low in salt like like bunny poop

so you can actually just till that right

into the garden okay any other questions

on manure it's kind of a hot topic at a

lot of questions

another way to introduce some organic

matter is green manure growing certain

crops letting get to a certain height

before they go to seed and then tilling

those into the ground that's what we

call green manure in gardening the best

gardens usually add two to three inches

of compost every year eighty to ninety

percent of that compost goes away the

microbes eat it up and as that compost

is eaten up the microbes actually will

release nitrogen and other nutrients to

the plants

now compost isn't always the best

immediate source of fertilizer but it is

a good long-term solution for for

feeding plants we could talk about

watering for an hour but we won't just

know that most people over irrigate I

was raised on a farm and it came from

the era where we had water rights and

you got your water turn about every

seven days and that's when we watered

and we grow some great crops in farm

town most people because of the advent

of the clock on their controller and

their irrigation system they'll set it

and forget it and they'll set it to come

on every other day if not every day

crops don't like to be wet all the time

they'd like a dry down time so water

them deeply and letting let them dry out

the example that goes against that adage

however is some of those shallow rooted

crops like onions and lettuce their

roots only go down so far so you need to

water them a little bit more often but

mostly every five to seven days and

again how it gets that water whether

it's drip irrigation furrow irrigation

plants don't care as long as the water

gets there mm-hmm deep and infrequent

okay so how many of you heard about oh

go ahead

that's awesome that's a great way to do

no in fact corn is notorious for when it

wilts it'll curl and it'll do that in

the middle of summer even if the what if

the grounds wet and it's just the what's

happening is the stomata the holes

underneath the leaves are closing to

conserve water and so they'll curl

squash will do that give it a watch

squash in the heat of summer it just

lips will tea but then in the evening

when the Sun Goes Down the perks back up

it's just a conservation method but it

doesn't mean it's gonna die if it wilts

for a long period then that's permanent

wilting which is that okay now how many

of you heard of rotation what have you

heard okay how so the reason we talk

about rotation is each of these families

we call them like we talked about cole

crops earlier they they Harbor the same

diseases and they Harbor the same

insects so if you plant tomatoes in the

same spot of your garden year after year

after year it doesn't necessarily mean

you're gonna get diseases but the

likelihood increases every year the

great potato famine in Ireland happened

because there was a buildup of a fungal

pathogen and it wiped out the entire

countries potatoes and so when we talked

rotation we're basically trying to

outrun a grizzly bear you've heard that

analogy how to outrun a grizzly bear you

don't have to outrun the bear just a

slower person that's basically what

we're doing with these diseases is you

the diseases are always going to be

there but you're trying to keep ahead of

them and so if you grow tomatoes peppers

and potatoes they're all in the same

family just move them around in the

garden every couple years and that way

you plant corn or something else that

has a whole different set of needs and

diseases and that way it

you're you're less likely to have

problems yeah okay so let's get into

some specifics no the question is does

tilling help alleviate some of the

diseases no in fact you probably are

spreading it and I got to be careful how

I say this rotation is a good idea

that's it

I mean you you cannot guarantee that

you're not gonna have problems you can

just kind of avoid it the best you can

and if you have a small garden spot

that's only ten feet by five feet or

rotations kind of pointless because

you're just moving dirt back and forth

as you tell anyway just do the best you

can so the question is there any

additives to reduce some of those

pathogens yes organic matter really

helps introduce the good microbes to

help keep the bad microbes in check

okay so salad crops let's talk about

these for a second we talked that the

cool season you want to avoid really hot

weather or else you get bitter or

bolting Lily mentioned you don't want to

water stress them because they are

shallow rooted so about every three to

five days you're watering harvesting on

lettuce and chard and what's that dark

green one that my wife puts in smoothies

kale you can actually harvest those with

scissors and and they'll regrow as long

as it's decent weather and not too hot

this is another one where you can

actually have a fall crop you can come

in late August and reseed and have a

crop throughout the fall till it freezes

and spinach will actually grow under

snow it's so cold hardy

how you avoid hot weather just the

timing of when you plant it in the

summer I rip my lettuce out mm-hmm well

if you can shade it you can grow it

longer period but in the summer it just

the lettuce just shuts down you could

stretch it yeah if you if you shade it

but it's it's both once it gets in the

90s it'll just it'll you'll watch the

lettuce will just flower instead of

shooting out leaves yeah so then I'll

rip mine out and plant beans or

something in its place so kind of a

secession planting same with peas I'll

plant peas in the cool and when they're

done I'll plant tomatoes where they were

okay that one's a tough question because

it depends on her soil I would soak the

foot profile and as long as that soaks

then that's long enough no she can use

them the germination rate just goes down

as the seed is older but usually two to

three year old seed is just fine okay

some salad toppers like your radishes

carrots cabbage kind of the same idea

cool season don't water stress them but

again transplants work really good on

the coal crops and some harvesting tips

look again at the seed packet and mark

your calendar and go out and check

you'll see on radishes you'll start to

see the red hump or the red top's

pushing out of the ground the cold crops

you'll get the full heads you can

actually harvest broccoli and

cauliflower multiple times

you cut it and it'll form a new head

it's like a Hydra keeps coming back

onions and garlic are some of my

favorite things to grow in the garden

just because of the grass like look

there's very few insects and diseases

that get into them but there are some if

you run into it contact us we'll help

you through it but garlic is actually

best planted in the fall and it will

actually be one of the first things to

pop up in the spring and start to grow

and usually by mid July early August

you'll start getting some full heads

when you're harvesting onions and garlic

you'll let them kind of die down

naturally they're yellow up and you just

kind of knock the tops over let them dry

down in the field some people will dig

them and lay them above the ground and

then once they cure for a couple weeks

then you can pull them in and store them

some people will braid the tops and have

big old clusters of garlic and onions

but and then you'll store them about

5055 degrees a garage that some heated

is a really great place to store and

they'll keep all winter long

they go to seed try planting them a

little earlier yeah if you do get

bolting just cut them off same with

rhubarb if you've ever seen that to

flower stalk on rhubarb just cut it off

because it's just wasting energy

but both things when they flower

prematurely they kick into a

reproductive stage instead of productive

stage okay now is the super model of the

vegetable world the tomatoes

everybody loves Tomatoes well I

shouldn't say that I know plenty of

people who don't like tomatoes but they

are not very good people they're very

warm season lots and lots of different

varieties out there that that I love to

try in our area sometimes will

experience what we call a splits

we will get the first flush of tomatoes

and then you'll get nothing and then

when it starts to cool down again you'll

get the second crop we call that a split

set because anything above 90 degrees

those flowers will actually abort and so

the flowers will drop off the plant

because of the heat and they'll conserve

their energy until it cools down so it's

nothing you're doing down in the Wasatch

Front where I lived there was some years

I didn't get tomatoes until September

because it got so hot so quick and then

stayed hot and so that's one thing to

keep in mind we talked about nitrogen so

any time your tomato starts to flower

that's a cue to stop fertilizing that

will help help produce fruit instead of

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