Just Grow Something | Evidence-Based Home Gardening

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Ep. 68 - Invasive Plant Species in the Garden, Plus Five Plants to Avoid in Your Landscape Nov 23, 2021

Show notes

As we start thinking about our gardens for next season, we may not just be looking at fruits and veggies and herbs. Many of us like to plant our landscape and the areas surrounding our vegetable gardens with plants that are beautiful to look at. Maybe they’re for cutting flowers and bringing into the house or maybe they’re just for some added color and beauty while we spend our time outside. It may also be for curb appeal.

Unfortunately, there are many species that get planted that are considered invasive in areas. No matter where you are, it’s likely that your region has plants that were introduced from another continent or even another area of your country that have escaped cultivation and gone on to propagate almost uncontrolled in the wild. We regard these plants as invasive species and today I’m going to dig in to what defines an invasive plant species, why they are a problem, and what we can do to prevent the spread of them. Then, I’ll talk about five of the most popular ones here in North America that are STILL being sold at nurseries and what alternatives you can choose to plant instead.

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Bradford Pear fact sheet – Clemson Univ. Extension

Invasive Plants – National Park Service

Invasive Plants – U.S. Forest Service

12 Common Invasive Plants

Native American National Day of Mourning – Live Stream

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Ep. 67 - When and How to Plant Your Garlic, Plus Tips for Warmer Climates Nov 16, 2021

Show notes

It’s that time of year! This evening I will be binge watching whatever show the Mean Farmer and I decide upon while maniacally separating clove after clove of garlic. We’re planting close to 15 pounds of garlic this year, a combination of both hard neck and soft neck varieties. Depending on the variety, that’s anywhere from 25 to 40 cloves per pound. Which all need to be separated from their heads to get ready to plant. So, we will be enjoying the smell of the stinking rose this evening while we partake of a few glasses of wine and some sci fi.

Because of that, I thought it would be the perfect time to give you a little refresher on planting your own garlic. In most regions the timing is perfect and even if you think you’ve missed the window of opportunity in your area, you’d be surprised at how flexible garlic can be. We'll cover soil conditions and timing, plus I'll share some tips and tricks for those of you planting garlic in the Southern U.S. and other warm-weather climates. So, let’s dig in to when and how to plant your garlic!

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Episode 40 – Growing Garlic

Soil Temperature Maps

USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map

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Ep. 66 - Three Tasks You Should Not Skip to End the Gardening Season, plus one bonus task Nov 09, 2021

Show notes

The past few weeks we've talked about the fall garden and overwintering in the garden. Some of our gardens have already seen a hard freeze or snow, some a killing freeze but still have plants going strong, and some don't see a freeze at all but simply go dormant.

This week we’re going to talk about the three things to do at the end of your garden season to get you off to the best start NEXT year. These things are going to help you better prevent and manage pests and disease in the garden as well as helping build a better soil microbiome to improve your yield. And, I’ll finish up with one more thing I do here that many home gardeners don’t realize they can and should be doing in their own spaces, weather it’s in ground or in beds. So, let’s dig in to my three tasks you should not skip at the end of your garden season.

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Positively Farming Media playlist

Cover crop seeds:

True Leaf Market

Johnny’s Selected Seeds

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Ep. 65 - Overwintering Plants Indoors: Production or Dormancy? Oct 19, 2021

Show notes

We’ve talked about cloning plants by taking cuttings to save our favorite garden specimens over the winter while taking very little space. But, what about bringing plants in to overwinter in a dormant state or even keeping them productive?

If you’ve got the space, there are several techniques for overwintering your most productive garden plants to either continue the bounty all winter long or to keep them alive and ready to go back outside in the spring to get a jump on the season and start producing all over again.

Karin also has a challenge for you if you want to try this over the winter. Let’s dig in!

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Winter Growing Tomatoes

Overwintering Pepper Plants

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Ep. 64 - Cloning Your Most Productive Garden Plants Oct 12, 2021

Show notes

So, we talked last week all about saving seeds from your best garden specimens to use in your garden next season. But, what about that big, beautiful, healthy plant that's just produced loads of veggies for you all season long? Don't you wish you could bring it inside and then bring it back out next year? Well, you can! And you can do it without taking up the entirety of your window space indoors and without having a greenhouse.

The process of taking cuttings from a healthy, productive plant and propagating a new plant is called cloning and it's much easier than you think. You may have actually done it before by accident. So, let's figure out which plants are best for this type of propagation and talk about the different ways it can be done.

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Ep. 63 - Proper Seed Storage: Moisture levels, storage conditions, containers, and more Oct 08, 2021

Show notes

This Focal Point Friday episode is the second in our two-parter on saving seeds. Tuesday’s episode focused on which plants you should be saving seeds from, how to properly collect and clean those seeds and how to hedge your bets against carrying over diseases on or in your seeds.

This episode focuses on seed storage, whether it's seed saved from your own garden or over purchased from a supplier. Leftovers from spring? No problem. We’ll talk about proper moisture level for saved seeds and how to get them dry enough to store, and what the best conditions are for storing seeds whether saved from your garden or store bought. We’ll also talk about the types of storage containers and how long each type of seed can be stored, based on plant family. So, let’s dig in to storing your seeds, shall we?

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Resources:

Collecting and Storing Seeds From Your Garden

Are My Seeds Dry Enough?

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Ep. 62 - Properly Saving Seeds in Your Garden Oct 05, 2021

Show notes

Have you decided this is the year you’ll start saving seeds from your garden? Or, maybe you’ve saved seeds in the past and have had some problem with viability or germination the next season.

I mean, it doesn’t sound like it should be a difficult task. Just collect the seeds from whatever you want to keep, rinse them, dry them, and pack them away for next year, right? Well, sure! And while following this simple method can absolutely mean you’ll have beautifully preserved seeds that have fantastic germination the next season and yield a bounty of exactly what you thought you were planting, it’s equally possible that you’ll open the seed packet the next season to find fuzzy gray fungus or black moldy growth on your seeds, or nice looking seeds that don’t sprout properly, or maybe they sprout and you get midway through the gardening season and the fruit on the plant look nothing like the ones you saved the seeds from.

What seems like it should be a straightforward process actually requires a little finesse. So, this Garden Talk Tuesday I’m going to dig into which plants you should and shouldn’t be saving seeds from, how to properly collect, clean, and dry those seeds in order to best guarantee your success the next season, and what to do with certain seeds to hedge your bets against carrying disease over from one season to the other. Let’s dig in, shall we?

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Resources:

Hot Water Treatment for Seeds – Louisiana State University

How To Save Vegetable Seeds – Farmers Almanac

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Ep. 61 - Can You Dig It? Lilies and Saving Seeds Oct 01, 2021

Show notes

It's October! And October 1st is the first Friday of the month which means another Can You Dig It? episode. This month we talk unknown plants in the garden that turn out to be lilies (and edible) and when to start saving seeds. This is also a precursor to next week's double episodes on seed saving. Great information here and more to come. So, let's dig in!

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Ep. 40 - Growing Garlic

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Ep. 60 - Fall Planted Strawberries Sep 28, 2021

Show notes

Traditionally, home gardeners have planted bare-root strawberry plants in the garden and had to wait an excruciating year to pick their first ripe berry. But, most commercial farms plant exclusively in the fall and harvest their first berries in the spring. On this episode, Karin talks about how the home gardener can use this technique to get a perennial strawberry bed producing earlier, the difference between the strawberry plant types, and more. Check the links below for sourcing rooted strawberry plants for your fall garden planting and follow the link to the Facebook group if you have any questions!

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Resources:

Strawberry Varieties: The Complete Guide (Updated 2021) (strawberryplants.org)

Growing Fruit: Strawberries [fact sheet] | Extension (unh.edu)

Strawberry Plants for Sale Online: The Complete Guide (Updated 2021)

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Ep. 59 - Garden Notes to Make Now for a Successful Season Later Sep 24, 2021

Show notes

Have you been keeping notes all season long in a garden journal? Have you kept track of your varieties, harvests, weed pressure, insect pests, weather conditions, etc? No? No worries! Right now is the time to make some annotations about your gardening season to help put you on the right track for next year's garden. Doesn't need to be fancy, but the more you write down now the less you'll have to rely on hindsight to give you an accurate portrayal of what happened this year so you can make corrections next year. So, let's dig in to what the most important garden notes to be making right now.

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