Beyond the Garden Basics

In today’s podcast, we talk with Sacramento County Master Gardener Michael Stinson about the when, how and why of pruning blackberry vines. Don’t want to listen? Here’s a summary. A complete transcript is at the bottom of this newsletter. Pruning Blackberries: Key Points From a conversation with Sacramento County Master Gardener Michael Stinson • Blackberry plants are perennials that can live 15 to 20 years, but each individual cane only last around two seasons, with a notable exception. • First year canes are called primocanes. Second year canes, the ones that flower and fruit, are floricanes. Fall pruning is all about removing the floricanes. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com/subscribe

We tackle two prickly topics: the spiky, caltrop-like seed balls of puncturevine weed and the “sputniks” of liquidambar (sweet gum) trees. Yes, those sharply pointed spheres that fly in the autumn breeze do resemble Eisenhower-era, low-earth orbiting Russian weapons of no destruction. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com/subscribe

Collecting, Storing and Using Home-Saved Tomato Seeds If you want to save seeds of a particular tomato variety, remember that many varieties are hybrids; they may not necessarily come back with the same traits as the tomato you enjoyed last season. According to Penn State Extension, the result of these crosses usually only lasts one generation, so the seeds harvested from hybrids may produce disappointing results. Or, may not be a disappointment. Tomato flowers are primarily wind-pollinated. So, those plants grown in isolation or covered with insect netting during their flowering period may provide satisfactory results. Experiment! One tip: note the tastiest varieties in your garden right now, in September. Save those seeds. Then, next year, put the plant that germinates far away from your other tomato varieties. Open pollinated or heirloom tomato seeds are fine for saving, as long as they are grown 10-30 feet away from any other varieties. For best results: save the seeds from tomatoes that are overly ripe; rinse off as much of the flesh and protective gelatinous coating from the seeds as is possible. Then, soak the seeds in a jar of water for a couple of days to remove the rest of the coating. The seeds will sink to the bottom, the gel will float. Discard the gel, remove the seeds and let dry on a paper towel. Then, store in an airtight container in a cool, dry location. Tomato seed saving techniques can vary. Here’s a sampling of methods from across the country. From Penn State : This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com/subscribe

“Of all flowers, methinks rose is best” . Shakespeare said that. He lived in Stratford-upon-Avon, about halfway between London and Birmingham, England. However, the roses he saw 600 years ago never endured 100 degree heat…until recently. Although roses were found originally in Central Asia, they spread quickly throughout the Northern Hemisphere between the 12th and 18th centuries. Those old roses wouldn’t stand a chance in the heatwaves of the 21st century, succumbing to scorched flowers, leaves, and buds…as well as dying off due to a lack of regular watering in drought-effected areas. Of course, hybridization of roses in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries has created varieties that can withstand a number of modern ailments, including air pollution. So, what are the modern roses that can take the heat, when temperatures hit 100 degrees for several days in a row? What are the traits of a heat-tolerant rose? Master Rosarian Debbie Arrington of the Sacramento Rose Society (and the Sacramento Digs Gardening blog) enumerated several in the podcast at the top of this page. Sacramento ( City Motto: “At Least It’s a Dry Heat” ) is no stranger to prolonged, triple digit heat waves, which can occur anytime from May through September. So, the area is a good testing ground for roses that maintain their color, health and vigor throughout spring, summer - and sometimes fall - heatwaves. One trait many of these have in common: these rose bushes produce light-colored blooms of white, pink or yellow. Most red roses, Arrington explains, absorb more of the heat, and will be among the first to scorch. Sorry about that, Bobby Darin . Among the roses on Debbie Arrington’s list of heat-tolerant roses: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com/subscribe

Blossom end rot is generally considered the most common tomato problem for backyard gardeners in the US. It causes a dark, sunken, leathery spot on the bottom of the fruit, and it’s usually caused by inconsistent watering (not actually a soil calcium deficiency in most cases) that disrupts calcium uptake in the plant. For those of you at home keeping score, close runners-up are early blight and septoria leaf spot, both fungal diseases that cause yellowing and spotted leaves, especially in humid climates. The big difference between blossom end rot and all those runner-up problems? Blossom end rot is an abiotic disorder, not something you can blame on a disease or an insect (“Abiotic disorder” is plant nerd talk for “it’s the gardener’s fault”). This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com/subscribe

Today’s podcast and newsletter of Beyond the Garden Basics is something a bit different, but very important: what to do around your home, both inside and outside, if a wildfire is in the area, and you have a few hours before an evacuation becomes mandatory. That was the topic in a Youtube video presented by Todd Lando, a battalion chief and wildfire mitigation specialist for the Central Marin Fire District. Marin County is in northern california, just north of San Francisco, a bucolic area with hills, mountains and forests abutting the Pacific Ocean. As you might imagine, especially with its proximity to San Francisco, it is one of the more heavily populated areas that can be described as the urban-wildland interface, where suburbia meets a very fire prone area. More information can be found at the website fire safe marin dot org. Among the practical tips that Lando discusses in the video include what should be done to prepare if a wildfire is getting to be an imminent situation. Of course, if you hear the order to evacuate immediately, you do want to leave immediately. Here’s a summary of his advice. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com/subscribe

Before we attempt to rid our zinnias of powdery mildew disease, let’s first hear from Debbie Flower, who has plenty of zinnia growing tips for us in today’s podcast. Here’s the quick summary of our chat, which included how to cut outdoor flowers for indoor use. A complete transcript can be found at the bottom of today’s newletter. * Plant zinnias in full sun . They’re heat and drought tolerant, and bloom most prolifically when days are under 12 hours (expect peak blooms in fall). Planting zinnias where they get full sun, with proper spacing (18”-24” apart) is also great cultural controls for thwarting a powdery mildew breakout. * Succession-plant every two weeks through early summer for a continuous supply of cut flowers. This is also a good powdery mildew control strategy. Trash (don’t compost) heavily infected zinnia plants. Plant new seeds where you want them to grow! * Wait until soil is at least 70°F to sow seeds . Germination requires warm soil. * Cover seeds lightly with vermiculite . It marks where seeds are planted and retains moisture during germination. * Don’t plant two seeds per spot if using fresh seed . One is enough; double-sowing is only needed to compensate for old/marginal seed. * Avoid overhead irrigation . It spots flowers and splashes soil onto foliage, promoting disease. Use drip or soaker hoses instead. Another powdery mildew prevention strategy. * Space plants so they never touch neighboring plants . Good airflow prevents powdery mildew and Alternaria leaf blight. * Transplant zinnias early . Don’t let nursery starts become root-bound; roots disturbed at that stage cause double-flowered varieties to revert to singles. And don’t buy zinnia plants with powdery white substances on the leaves! * Pinch young plants (at 4 nodes, remove 1–2) for a bushy, branched plant with more but shorter stems. Skip pinching if you want tall stems for large bouquets. * Cut flowers in the morning . Plants move carbohydrates (food) into flowers overnight, so blooms are fullest and will last longest when cut early. * Cut stems at a node, leaving at least one axil bud on the remaining stem. That bud becomes the next flower stalk. More axil buds left = more future stems; fewer = longer current stem. * Strip leaves that will sit below the waterline and remove side branches from the cut stem before putting in a vase. * Use floral preservative in vase water , or try hot water. Zinnias last 5–7 days as cut flowers. They will last longer if you do refresher cuts from the bottom of the stem every other day, and add fresh water. * Use California buckwheat ( Eriogonum fasciculatum ) as filler in zinnia arrangements. Outdoors, California buckwheat attracts pollinators and has attractive clustered flower heads. * Support tall varieties in windy or rainy locations with a small tomato/pepper cage. The small cages sold at big-box stores that are useless for tomatoes are well-sized for large zinnias. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com/subscribe

In today’s podcast, Master Gardener Gail Pothour and myself discuss some of the most popular cool season vegetables to grow in the cooler months here in USDA Zone 9 and elsewhere: carrots, lettuce, peas, and beets. Now’s the time to start the cool season vegetable garden! Do you want your family to eat healthy year-round? The healthiest, freshest foods are the fruits and vegetables you grow yourself. And in many areas of the West and South, the 365-day vegetable garden is easy to achieve. And now, summer, is the time to be planting the seeds and transplants for the vegetables your family will enjoy throughout the fall, winter and following spring. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com/subscribe

Paid subscribers to the Beyond The Garden Basics get exclusive newsletters and podcasts each Monday! In today’s podcast (above), Don Shor from Redwood Barn Nursery in Davis, CA and I discuss common tomato problems and how changing weather is affecting them, especially in hotter summers. We focus first on blossom end rot, which usually appears on the first fruit and is linked to cool temperatures during fruit development and soil that stays too wet. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com/subscribe

Beyond The Garden Basics is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber. In today’s podcast, America’s Favorite Retired College Horticulture Professor, Debbie Flower, shows us around her yard and garden. But it’s more than talking about the plants. Debbie also shares her planting and irrigation tips for a thriving garden of natives, perennials, trees and shrubs…most of which have been trained to do well on less water! There’s a human-corrected transcript at the bottom of this newsletter of the podcast if you prefer to use your eyes over your ears. Plants For Dry Shade One of the more vexing situations for gardeners: those sun-loving perennials and small shrubs that you put in years ago...when the surrounding trees and shrubs were much smaller...may be rather stressed these days, thanks to all the shade that they now have to tolerate. Add to that the modern requirements for a more water-efficient garden. The new question is: which plants don’t require much water...but can thrive in the shade, especially here in USDA Zone 9 of California? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com/subscribe

Every Monday, paid subscribers get exclusive, first looks about various garden topics, such as today’s. Just one of the benefits for paid subscribers. Thank you for your support! When you live in a hot area of USDA Zone 9, where it gets over 100 degrees in the summer, and you want a fresh salad… you can forget about growing lettuce and spinach, at least most of them, because at some point they’re going to bolt. Usually it might be July or August, but eventually most of the cool season greens in USDA Zone 9, by late summer, they just bolt and get bitter. So that brings me to wandering around the yard looking for what else can we use for salad greens here? And that’s a perfect question for vegetable expert and Sacramento County Master Gardener Gail Pothour. Podcast recorded at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center on an Open Garden Saturday. The topic: edible summertime greens and heat tolerant lettuce varieties. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com/subscribe

In today’s podcast, nurseryman and Japanese maple expert Chris Aycock of El Dorado Nursery provides the basics for Japanese maple care, especially in the summer months. Chris focuses on growing Japanese maples in different climates, explaining that the main factor is matching varieties to local conditions and caring for them appropriately. For hot valley areas, he says mulch is very important to keep roots cool, and morning sun with afternoon shade is ideal. He also notes that some varieties can handle full sun, but they should be planted away from hot walls because reflected heat can be harmful. For coastal areas, he says Japanese maples can grow well as long as they are not hit directly by sea spray. In windy, hot, dry inland areas, he says wind can be more damaging than sun, so some protection from afternoon wind is recommended. At higher elevations such as Lake Tahoe (6200 ft), he says Japanese maples can be grown but may need protection from heavy snow load. He notes that some varieties do not perform well in intense cold, while others, including laceleaf types and Bloodgood, have been seen there. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com/subscribe

Thanks for being a paid subscriber to Beyond the Garden Basics ! No time to listen to today’s podcast (above) with Ed Laivo? Here’s a summary. And below that, the actual transcript, with pictures, links, and music! * Don’t expect a seed-grown peach to match the parent. Genetics are unpredictable. There’s a 70–90% chance the fruit will be disappointing or the tree won’t produce at all. * Check whether your seedling tree even has a rootstock by looking at the base for a graft bump. A true seedling grows on its own roots, which means no disease resistance or soil adaptation guarantees. * Plant in well-drained soil. This is the single most important factor for improving a seedling’s odds, since you can’t predict its soil tolerance. * Give it full sun. It won’t guarantee quality fruit, but it removes one variable. * Be realistic about your timeline. Seed-grown fruit trees can take 5–7+ years to produce, and may never produce at all. * If space is limited, skip it. A seedling takes up valuable yard space that a proven variety could fill with reliable fruit. * Consider tossing it and buying a named variety instead. You’ll get fruit faster, with known flavor and disease resistance. * If you want to keep the tree, graft a branch of it on a proven variety of peach or nectarine rather than waiting years for the seedling’s unknown fruit. Find a friend with a good local peach tree and bud or graft that variety onto your seedling’s rootstock. * Use grafting to test the tree before committing space to it. Test blocks, even at home, let you evaluate without betting your whole yard. * If you do plant the seedling out, cut it back to knee height to encourage a low, manageable canopy (as Ed Laivo recommends). * Factor in precocity when choosing any fruit tree. Trees that don’t fruit within the first 2–3 years are generally not worth the wait for most home gardeners. * If you’re young, patient, and have land, go for it. Experimenting with seedlings is a worthwhile pursuit if you can afford the time and space. * Research the Dave Wilson Nursery catalog for proven interspecific hybrids (pluots, pluerry, aprium, etc.) that have already been tested for precocity, disease resistance, and rootstock compatibility. ================ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com/subscribe

In today’s podcast (above), we talk with renowned pepperhead Dave DeWitt, author of several hot pepper books . We talk hot pepper basics, and Dave adds advice on how to overwinter your hot pepper plants for a second year of growth (and heat!). We have a complete, human-corrected transcript of the podcast towards the bottom of today’s newsletter. Short of time? Here are the main points from today’s podcast: * Start from seed for variety, or order early from pepper catalogs. Super-hot varieties like Bhut Jolokia or Scorpion peppers may be difficult to find as transplants, so grow them from seed. * Don’t judge peppers by heat alone. Habaneros hit 80,000–200,000 Scoville units but have a fruity, apricot-like flavor, good for both heat and taste. Diluting them (e.g., one habanero in 4 cups of salsa) keeps flavor without overwhelming heat. * Skip water or beer for pepper burn. Capsaicin isn’t water-soluble, so the relief is temporary and heat returns. Use dairy instead: yogurt, sour cream, heavy cream, whole milk or ice cream (the casein protein strips capsaicin off your mouth). * Never let pepper roots sit in water-logged soil. Add perlite or pumice (not vermiculite) to potting soil/containers to keep roots well-drained and prevent root rot or Phytophthora fungal disease. * Give peppers 10–12 hours of full sun daily. They’re unaffected by day length until fall, and stop flowering once they hit their max fruit load. * Use moderate nitrogen fertilizer. Too much N (especially from urea) produces lots of foliage but few pods. Organic fertilizers (naturally low in salt, under 10% nitrogen) are a safer bet. * Get your soil tested annually (via a University extension service, e.g., Colorado State, UMass/Amherst, Texas A&M, or Utah St) to catch salt buildup, a common yield-killer from repeated watering/fertilizing in raised beds. If salts build up, flood-irrigate the bed heavily at season’s end to flush them out. * To overwinter a pepper plant , grow it in a container, bring it indoors (a south-facing window is enough) over winter, and move it back outside in spring. You’re just keeping it alive in the winter, not expecting fruit until summer returns. * Choose smaller-podded varieties ( like pequins ) for overwintering success . Pequins retain more vigor in year two, while larger-podded types (like New Mexico chilies) lose vigor and yield less after their first year. What To Do With All Those Peppers This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com/subscribe

Bullet Points from the Podcast, “The Best Roses for Cut Flowers” * Always cut long stems, not just the spent bloom. Snipping only 1-2 inches when deadheading causes the plant to push out short, crooked replacement growth; cutting deep into the cane produces another long stem. * Make cuts just above a five-leaflet leaf (not a three-leaflet one), and choose a node pointing outward from the bush’s center. This improves air circulation and keeps stems growing straight. * Recut stems underwater every couple of days, trimming about an inch off the bottom to remove air bubbles and keep water moving up the stem so buds continue to open. * Strip off any foliage that will sit below the waterline submerged leaves decay and foul the water. * Use flower food, or a sugar-water substitute like regular (non-diet) Sprite or 7Up, to keep water cleaner and nourish cut stems; tap water is otherwise fine. * For low-thorn, long-stemmed cutting roses, favor hybrid teas and grandifloras like Ring of Fire, Hot Princess, Olympiad, Veteran’s Honor, Gold Medal, and Strike It Rich. Many grandifloras have notably fewer prickles. * For reliably long-lasting vase life (opening slowly over about a week), pick Olympiad or Veteran’s Honor rather than Mr. Lincoln, which opens quickly once cut. * For fragrance, choose Mr. Lincoln, Double Delight, or Olivia (an Austin/English shrub rose). But note high-petal-count “cabbage” roses like Olivia and Tamora can shatter petals suddenly (”explode”) on the table. * For multi-bloom stems that fill a vase in one cut, use sprays/floribundas such as Sally Holmes, Julia Child, Betty Boop, and Daybreaker, or miniatures like Joy and Rainbow Sunblaze. * Build arrangements with the “thrill, fill, spill” formula: big roses as the focal thrill, small polyanthus/miniature blooms as fill, and trailing foliage (ferns, ivy, nandina) as the spill to soften the vase edge. * Add a sprig of citrus leaf or rose geranium to boost scent in bouquets from lower-fragrance roses. * To time blooms for a specific event (wedding, show), prune roses about 6-8 weeks in advance. That’s the typical bloom cycle after a hard cut. * Fertilize roughly monthly, especially after a deadheading push, and mulch to help with drought tolerance; if cutting back on water, cut back on fertilizer to avoid burning the plant. * Deadhead regularly and thoroughly; leaving spent blooms on the plant signals it to stop flowering and start forming rose hips instead. * Roses generally suit USDA zones 6-9, with best performance in low-humidity, low-rain, full-sun-but-not-scorching conditions (east-facing exposure helps colors last longer in hot climates). Beyond The Garden Basics is a reader-supported publication. To receive exclusive, new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Thank You! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com/subscribe

I just finished pruning my blueberry plants. In July. WHAT?!? Aren’t you supposed to prune them in the winter? It depends. It depends on where you live, the type of blueberry plant you are growing, and whoever’s advice you want to follow. For the sake of reliability, we concentrate on the advice from University Extension publications from throughout the country in our zone by zone breakdown, below. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com/subscribe

Beyond The Garden Basics is a reader-supported publication. To receive exclusive posts and complete access to past editions , consider becoming a paid subscriber. Today’s podcast interview focuses on consulting arborists and how they help property owners evaluate tree health. Gordon Mann explains that a consulting arborist provides independent inspections, identifies problems such as leaning, branch breakage, bark shedding, root issues, and recommends options for treatment or mitigation rather than only suggesting removal or trimming. But we talked about a lot more regarding shade trees. Among the topics discussed: * Call a consulting arborist (not a tree-care salesperson) every few years for an independent inspection, especially if you notice leaning, breaking branches, or unusual bark shedding. Find one via treesaregood.com (ISA) or asca-consultants.org. * Don’t over-water lawns and starve trees: if you cut lawn irrigation, add dedicated deep watering for trees instead (e.g., a spiral soaker hose or concentric drip rings under mulch) so roots don’t rely on turf runoff. * Water deeply and infrequently (weekly to bi-weekly in dry season), covering the entire root zone from trunk to drip line, not just one emitter at the trunk. * Mulch with wood chips or leaf litter (”duff”), replenished every few years, as a top dressing only, never buried under the tree. It moderates soil temperature/moisture, builds soil biology, and softens rain impact. * Before planting, remove the tree from its container and check for circling roots; prune or score the root ball on four sides (and the bottom) to redirect root growth. * Use the “pedestal method”: dig the planting hole to the height of the root ball (or 1 inch less), keep that pedestal of native, unexcavated soil undisturbed, but loosen a much wider area around it (2–5x the root ball diameter). * Plant slightly high - top of the root ball about 1 inch above grade - to account for settling, and never plant in compost or heavily amended soil that will settle and bury the trunk. * If amending soil, mix in only 8–10% organic matter across the whole dug area rather than replacing native soil entirely. * Space trees for mature canopy size, not instant privacy. Plant further from fences and from each other to avoid crowding, root conflicts, and future removals. * Plant a diverse mix of species (no more than two of the same species in a row) to avoid catastrophic losses from pests/disease like Dutch elm disease or emerald ash borer; include some native trees for a stronger ecological palette. * Learn correct pruning cuts: avoid “heading cuts” (topping/chopping), which cause weak, densely packed regrowth; favor selective, purposeful cuts instead. * Prune only for a specific reason (health, structural safety, or clearance needs). Remove no more than 5–20% of foliage annually, and retire the outdated idea of “thinning” a tree just for looks. * For dead, dying, diseased, or crossing branches, evaluate each case individually rather than removing wholesale. A partial dead branch can sometimes be left for habitat. * Choose the right tree for the right purpose and location up front, accounting for underground utilities and infrastructure, since trees take 15–20+ years to deliver full shade/canopy benefits. * Give young trees a light shake 12–30 inches above the ground; if the root ball shifts, the tree isn’t rooting well and needs root pruning, transplanting, or replanting. Today’s conversation with Consulting Arborist Gordon Mann reminded me of two of the 11 Farmer Fred Garden Rules : 7. EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS WRONG. In the 1940’s & 50’s, DDT was available to home gardeners as a pesticide. Turns out, it caused cancer and killed birds. In the 1960’s-70’s, the Modesto Ash was considered the “perfect shade tree” for the Central Valley of California. Turns out, it is susceptible to anthracnose, mistletoe and is no longer recommended. In the first decade of the 21st century, the pesticides Diazinon and Dursban were taken off store shelves. Also proven ineffective, despite claims to the contrary: Vitamin B-1 for transplant shock, store-bought ladybugs, and tomato calcium spray to cure blossom end rot. In horticulture, research is always ongoing. 8. IF IT WORKS FOR YOU, FINE; BUT KEEP AN OPEN MIND . If you’re using safe gardening techniques that others frown upon - and those techniques are working…well, who are we to tell you to stop? Still, new research, techniques or equipment may make your chores a heck of a lot easier and satisfying. Today’s solution could become tomorrow’s problem. Be open to change. Even if you listened to the podcast, read the transcript. Gordon Mann had so many profound ideas about trees and tree care, you’ll learn a lot more with another read (or listen). Plus, links mentioned in the podcast for more information about trees and tree organizations can be found in the transcript. PODCAST TRANSCRIPT: HOW TO PLANT AND CARE FOR A SHADE TREE Farmer Fred: Do you have trees on your property? Well, trees are usually the largest and longest live natural features on your property. Plus, they’re worth a lot of money when you go to sell your home. So it pays to take care of the trees on your property. But do you know how? Well, if you don’t know how, that might be the time to call in a consulting arborist, especially if you think that there’s going to be problems if you see the tree leaning or maybe branches are starting to break or there is some unusual shedding of bark or something like that, you want to call in a consulting arborist. Well, what is a consulting arborist? Well, let’s check in with Gordon Mann. He happens to be a consulting arborist and he has a company called Mann-Made Resources serving Northern California for residences, businesses, agencies. He’s been doing it for more than three decades and he wants your trees to succeed. But the only way those trees can succeed is if you do the right thing and treat them right. And as I’ve been saying on this program for how many years now, it’s all about the soil. And that’s so true when it comes with trees as well. Gordon, a pleasure talking with you. And I hope we can shed some light for people to help them take better care of their trees. Gordon Mann: Thank you, Fred. I appreciate the opportunity to share some information with you. And actually, I’ve been doing this for about 45 years. And seven years ago, Handmade Resources shifted our consulting to California Tree and Landscape Consulting, CalTLC. And that’s where the consulting comes from. I also, in July, started the Institute for Soil Genomics for Healthy Community Forests. And the idea is to help people learn how to get our soils back to their natural form. Farmer Fred: And I bet right now people are wondering, well, wait a minute, what is a consulting arborist? So why don’t you explain the difference between a regular arborist and a consulting arborist? Gordon Mann: A consulting arborist should be someone with enough experience to come out and make an inspection on the property or the trees and figure out what any of the issues are that are, impacting the tree health or the tree condition. Usually, the consulting arborist is not part of a tree care company because most tree care salespeople show up to your property to sell tree work. There are several of them that will give some consulting out, but their job is to sell tree care. Otherwise, the company goes out of business. Nobody can just keep giving free information and stay in business for their careers. So we do charge for our independent, unbiased inspections of the trees. And the most scientific ways to help the trees grow and stay healthy. Or if the trees have some issues, how to treat the issues. And instead of just saying the trees have to be trimmed or have to be removed, we give options and mitigation options for any issues on the property. Farmer Fred: And just like you would visit a doctor regularly or a dentist regularly, if you have trees on your property, and especially if they’re full-grown trees that could be worth thousands of dollars when the time comes to sell your property, you might want to call in a consulting arborist every few years to just do a general survey of your urban forest. Gordon Mann: I agree with you. And I’m not just trying to sell our work. But any asset that we have requires some kind of preventative maintenance or regular maintenance. We think about all the things in our homes and our cars, and we do things to take care of them. No one drives their car until the engine seizes because they never change the oil. And trees being a very valuable asset to our property and part of the community canopy are very important and do need to be inspected occasionally and help the property owners learn how to manage their trees, structure, and health in an appropriate manner. Farmer Fred: And to find a consulting arborist near you, there are a couple of good resources out there that can help you pinpoint somebody locally who can help you out. I know there’s the International Society of Arboriculture with their website, treesaregood.com , where you can find a list of arborists and consulting arborists. But also there’s one specifically for consulting arborists, the American Society of Consulting Arborists . Gordon Mann: Both of those have arborists that are either certified or with ASCA registered consulting arborists that can help you inspect the site and give you the information you need to take better care of your trees. And hopefully the person that comes out is talking to you about growing better trees and keeping your trees healthy. And helping him understand what we can do to avoid unplanned failures as much as possible. None of us are able to look completely below the ground, but we can look at differences in the site conditions, the tree trunks, and sometimes the roots. And what we normally do is we make as much assessment as we can from what we can visually see from the ground. And then if we come up with some things that we need more information on, There’s called advanced assessments, where people might go up in the air and climb the tree to do an aerial inspection and look at what’s up in the branches close up or actually excavate the soil so, those of us without x-ray vision can actually see the roots. Also, we have things we can do like tomography or resistance drilling and find out what level of decay is in trunks that might have no apparent openings that we can see inside but sound hollow and we use a mallet to check the quality of the wood. Farmer Fred: The American Society of Consulting Arborists, their website is asca-consultants.org. And it will have a link to both the American Society of Consulting Arborists and the International Society of Arboriculture in today’s show notes as well. I know you’ve been going around giving presentations on tree health, and I’m amazed at the resiliency of trees, how even though to the naked eye they might appear to be healthy, they could be stressed because they were started poorly, and not the least of which is when they may have been planted when the housing development you live in was finally developed. Usually the landscape goes in as the very last thing after all the construction work, and that initial landscape is being installed on compacted soil and maybe very little topsoil just because of the construction process. Gordon Mann: Yes, Fred. It’s really sad how when we look at the difference in how trees have grown in our communities from 50 years ago to current, they used to build individual houses. They didn’t scrape the entire site, all the topsoil off and compact it so they can build the houses so they don’t settle. And then they come in with four inches of topsoil and try and get the trees to grow. I hope some of your listeners have actually had the opportunity to walk into wildland areas or forests. We have so many national forests in our area and county forests and things like that where we can actually see how trees grow naturally. And hopefully they walk across a duff layer that It is a tree’s natural fertilizer, a natural way to restore the soils, with the elements that it needs to function properly. So soils and soil genomics are very like the human gut. There’s so much more information now about the biomes and things going on in the human gut that help our bodies care for themselves. The soils are the exact same way. And there’s so many fungi and bacteria in the soil that help promote earthworms and other things that are happening in the soil that sometimes you need a microscope to look at. And when we scrape the organic matter off the top of the soil and we compact it, then it eliminates a lot of how those organisms can grow. It changes the soil porosity and permeability. It changes the soil aeration. And most people just think that tree roots need water, but roots need both air and water because they’re living cells and cells need oxygen. And most of the microbiomes in the soil are not anaerobic, so they also need oxygen and air. And so what we try to do at the institute is we do actual soil tests. Not the normal one that goes through the local cooperative extension agencies and some of the soil testing we do that just talks about the elements in fertilizer, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, and pH. But we actually look at up to 120,000 microorganisms, both bacteria and fungi, and what’s missing. And it looks at what nutrients that are actually tied up in the soil and unavailable to the plant because the bacteria and fungi that help the roots extracted from the soil are damaged or missing. And the other thing humans do really well is we clean our soil. We rake in all the organic matter and all the leaves and any loose organic material off the soil. And it does two things. It protects the soil from the sun so what we have otherwise is baked soil that’s kind of like a brick so anytime we get water it usually runs off until the soil gets so saturated that it finally does soak in a little bit or, it does just run off and it never goes deep into the soil. And because the soil is baked, the organic matter and the fungi and bacteria that are in the shallow areas of the soil that normally replenish the soil, are actually either killed or lost. And we have very poor quality soils. Farmer Fred: Earlier on, you mentioned the word duff, and some people are probably thinking, why is he talking about a fictional beer from The Simpsons? Duff is another word for mulch, and it’s the fallen leaves, the small branches that basically can carpet a forest floor, which is their mulch. It’s an actual mulch, just like we’re always talking about the benefits of mulching your garden because it moderates soil temperature. It moderates soil moisture loss. It helps aerate the soil as it breaks down. It builds up the microbiology in the soil. And also when you get a heavy rainstorm, that layer of mulch can also help break up the impact of the water on the soil. Because on bare soil, when it rains really hard, it actually compacts the soil, removing the air. So that duff layer, that mulch layer, helps that water more slowly trickle into the soil so it penetrates deeper too. too. Besides, we don’t rake the forest. Maybe reconsider those leaves that are falling from your trees every fall. I’ve gotten into the habit of collecting the neighborhood oak leaves and grinding them up with either a mulching mower or my weed whacker and spreading it around my garden to help improve the soil during the winter if I’m not planting a cover crop. Gordon Mann: Yeah, Fred, you’ve got such a great method of the least expensive way to care for your soil. Most tree care companies, when they grind up the chips, we can still get them to drop them off at our house for almost for free without having to haul them away to the dump. And wood chips around trees are the best. And the natural organic matter of whether it’s a crop, a plant, or a bush or a tree is what those plants are used to growing in normal nature. And as humans, we think we’re doing the right thing by pulling them out. And we have this great behavior as humans of treating everything like they’re human. We do all these similes and things of how nature would act as a human is probably a better way to put that. And it’s not correct. And there’s also some new mulch products out there that people can use, such as nut husks and hazelnuts and maybe butternut. We don’t want to use walnut because they have some allelopathy to them, which can be a little bit aggressive to other competing plants. But the other ones are creating a nice mulch layer that we can put over the soil and actually do the breakdown of organic matter like you’re talking about. And unfortunately, when we add mulch, it’s not a one-time done. We have to add mulch again after it breaks down, but that’s what helps keep the soil in a well-functioning condition. Farmer Fred: You’ve been going around doing demonstrations and talks about the healthy soil for healthy trees, and you talk about the basic building blocks for cultivating a healthy tree life. What’s in that soil for a healthy tree? Water, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, sulfur, iron, manganese, zinc, copper, boron, molybdenum. All right. Gordon Mann: Yeah, there’s exopolysaccharides, ESPs, cider O4s. Farmer Fred: But what’s interesting is all of those soil elements can be accomplished with organic matter. Gordon Mann: Correct. Humans are so used to taking two tablets and call me in the morning and give me a pill to take care of what I’m doing. That we think that by fertilizing our trees, we’re helping with the exact same thing. Farmer Fred: Now, we’re not talking fruit trees here. We’re talking ornamental trees. Gordon Mann: Ornamental trees, right. And even fruit trees, there’s some fertilizers that are specific towards improving the fruit production. And that’s different than just trying to throw extra nitrogen and stuff in the soil to get it to grow faster. Farmer Fred: And we have talked about nitrogen on this program, about how it does spur new weak growth that’s very attractive to insect activity and not necessarily good insects either. And the same is true if you start adding fertilizer to a tree that doesn’t need fertilizer. If it’s got that layer of leaves on the ground, that’s enough to feed that tree, isn’t it? Gordon Mann: It usually is. And again, because we start with soil that was not natural, and then we’re changing it, that some of the things in the soil are not there. And trees typically only need two things. Water and organic matter. The organic matter will break down and improve the soils and help the roots do their job and help them break down what’s in the soil and free up the elements that they need to grow. And by creating enough organic matter, which builds up the bacteria and the fungi in the soil and the biodiversity helps the trees be more healthy. But typically the humans think we want something to turn around overnight, and so we don’t give the soil the chance to do the long-term development that it needs that’s going to eliminate the need to do all these shots of nutrients that we get from fertilizers. Farmer Fred: Let’s talk about your travels throughout Northern California and assessing especially backyard trees, residential trees. What are most of the problems you’re seeing associated with those trees? Gordon Mann: I guess the problem we saw was a result of the drought. The wonderful way the state of California manages its water. Instead of trying to help people and be educated and say, we all have to use less water, we all have to do these things properly and deep watering our trees and not so much throwing the shallow water on the turf and not relying on how much rain we get each year to how we are going to behave. Unfortunately, that’s what the state does. And so when people tell you you have to stop watering their grass, they also

Today’s newsletter podcast is a special treat for readers and listeners of the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter/podcast who might also be weather nerds…and what gardener isn’t? It’s an interview with climate scientist Daniel Swain, who, besides being a University of California Ag and Natural Resources employee at the California Institute for Water Resources, is well known on social media. Swain runs the Weather West website as well as his frequent presentations talking about extreme weather conditions in California and the west on YouTube , Bluesky , and other social media outlets. The interview focuses on how gardeners can measure weather conditions more accurately in their own yards. We discuss the limits of simple thermometers and the value of weather stations that measure temperature, humidity, wind, rainfall, soil temperature, and other variables, emphasizing that equipment placement is important for getting readings that reflect actual garden conditions. Swain explains that temperature measurements depend heavily on location. A thermometer in direct sun, near asphalt, dirt, or a house wall can read much hotter or colder than the standard shade temperature used by weather services. He says the official comparison temperature is usually taken about two meters (78 inches) above the ground, in shade, and that exposed thermometers can produce misleading highs and lows. The conversation then turns to frost protection in gardens and orchards. Swain says the relevant temperature depends on the plant and its height, because vertical microclimates can differ significantly within a few feet. He explains that cold air can settle near the ground, while higher air may be warmer, and that this matters for citrus, vineyards, tomatoes, and fruit trees. He also notes that irrigation and soil moisture can change daytime and nighttime temperatures. Discussing wind measurement, Swain says rooftop-mounted wind sensors often do not measure ambient wind well because the house creates turbulence and eddies. He explains that spinning-cup anemometers are vulnerable to dirt, rust, and wear, while sonic anemometers have fewer moving parts and can be more reliable. For wind, he recommends placing sensors away from tall obstacles and in open areas. Among the main points in the podcast: * Don’t rely on a thermometer mounted outside your kitchen window; it won’t reflect real conditions in your garden or orchard, which can differ by 6–8°F or more. * Test any temperature sensor in several yard locations before committing to a permanent spot; look for where it runs coldest and where it gets the most sun. * Keep thermometers out of direct sunlight and off dark, heat-absorbing surfaces (asphalt, concrete, bare dirt). These cause false highs by day and false lows at night. * For frost/freeze protection on citrus, hang the sensor at the height you’re actually trying to protect (e.g., ~2 feet, in the canopy shade), not high on a wall or pole. * Remember that a few feet of vertical height can matter more than many feet of horizontal distance, since cold air pools near the ground at night (temperature inversion). * If protecting a ground crop vs. a citrus tree, measure separately near the canopy top and under the canopy. Conditions differ significantly. * Use inexpensive multi-sensor stations (one indoor display, several remote probes) to monitor several yard zones at once rather than a single point. * Consider planting on gentle slopes or hillsides when possible. Cold air drains downhill, giving lower spots more frost risk and slopes a degree or two of protection. * Irrigated soil and plant tissue hold heat longer than dry soil, so damp areas will show a different (often milder) temperature swing than dry ones. Factor this into sensor placement and expectations. * Don’t mount wind gauges (anemometers) on the roofline. House edges create turbulent eddies that produce inaccurate, artificially chaotic wind readings. * For accurate wind data, mount the anemometer on a freestanding pole away from buildings, trees, and other obstacles, as high as practical. * If your station combines wind and temperature sensors in one unit, know that the ideal siting for each conflicts. Consider separating sensors and placing them independently. * Favor sonic anemometers over spinning-cup types if buying new. No moving parts means less error from dust, spiderwebs, or rust, and prices have dropped into the hundreds of dollars. * Clean and periodically recalibrate wind and temperature sensors. Even good instruments degrade and drift with age and grime. * Before designing a garden layout, spend a year observing your yard’s actual sun, shade, drainage, and temperature patterns month to month rather than guessing. Paid subscribers get extra editions of Beyond the Garden Basics, as well as access to over 300 previous editions of this podcast and newsletter. Home Weather Stations Podcast Transcript (originally aired on the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast in May 2025) Farmer Fred: [0:00] If you’re a longtime gardener, well, you just might be a weather nerd. You may want to know what’s happening, especially around your garden area and greenhouse, about many things, such as what’s the high temperature, what’s the low temperature, what about humidity, wind, soil temperature, rainfall, evapotranspiration rate, chill hours, growing degree days, heat index, UV radiation, and a lot more that can be affecting you and your plants. And your meteorological equipment right now may be as simple as a thermometer hanging outside your kitchen window, which may not be the best idea. We’ll have more about that in a minute. Or it could be as complex as a really nifty weather station that set you back $1,000 or $2,000 that sends a myriad of data to your computer or phone or your in-house monitor. So if you’re considering upgrading your backyard weather equipment, you also need to consider the placement of those various devices in your yard to get more accurate readings about what is really happening in your garden area, especially near your food crops. Today, we’re going to get some answers to those questions from Daniel Swain. If that name sounds familiar, you may know him as the man behind weatherwest.com . He’s a climate scientist focused on the dynamics and impacts of extreme events, including droughts, floods, storms, and wildfires. Daniel holds joint appointments as a climate scientist within the California Institute for Water Resources, within the University of California Ag and Natural Resources, the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at UCLA. And he’s a research fellow at the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research. He’s an alumnus of Davis and Stanford, and he completed postdoctoral work at UCLA. And again, his Weather West blog is excellent reading wherever you might be on social media, especially Twitter, Blue Sky, and YouTube, where he does presentations all the time about upcoming weather events. I’ve been a fan of his for years. Daniel, I’m finally glad to be able to talk to you in person. Welcome to the Garden Basics podcast. Daniel Swain: [2:15] Yeah, so thanks for the invitation to be here today. It’s great to be on the show. Farmer Fred: [2:19] All right, let’s talk about, I’d be curious about your own home weather setup. What’s that like? Daniel Swain: [2:26] Yes. Well, you know, today where I live, I actually am based physically in Boulder, Colorado these days because of that NCAR appointment, despite the primary one with the University of California. So we don’t own a home here. So I’m somewhat limited when I can personally install on this side of the Rocky Mountains. But back in California, I actually, back when I was in high school, believe it or not, installed a weather station on my parents’ home in the North Bay. And that is something that I have maintained over the years on their roof. It’s still there. It still gets maintained. And I’m still trying to use, to the best extent possible, best practices for meteorological station siting on that one. Farmer Fred: [3:08] I understand completely. I think when I bought my first large parcel of land, I got myself a Davis Instruments weather station, which was at the time one of the best you could buy. And that let me know a lot of things like wind direction, the high temperature, the low temperature, rainfall amounts, things like that. But it has gotten so much better over the last 20 or 30 years. And the data is much easier to comprehend as well because of either in-house monitors or the data is shot straight to your phone or your computer. It makes it a lot easier. As they say in the computer world, garbage in, garbage out. So where you put that home station, no matter where, what kind it is, where you put it in your yard is very important, isn’t it? Daniel Swain: [3:55] Oh, it’s incredibly important. And this is actually something that I think is not always as obvious for a lot of folks as it might be to some meteorologists, although perhaps not even to all the meteorologists in the world who haven’t worked a lot with, actual physical instrumentation. And I think this is because, you know, as you say, exactly where you put these devices and where they are relative to other things that might be, in the immediate vicinity can make a huge difference into the numbers of the data you’re actually seeing in front of you. And, you know, as you mentioned, there’s any number of different ways. Companies that manufacture weather instrumentation or packages of weather stations. For my part, just as was the case with you, the one I installed was indeed, I think it was one of the Davis Vantage Pro stations, sort of the best consumer grade ones that they offered for many years. And it’s still there. It’s still chugging along. It’s been recalibrated a couple of times over 20 years at the factory. But it is still the same original hardware from 20 years ago, and it’s still going strong with that careful maintenance. But the bigger issue, I think, is indeed where we put it. And the main reason for this is think about what you’re actually measuring, for example, with something as simple as a thermometer. You’re measuring, technically, the temperature of a small increment of air immediately surrounding that thermometer device. Whatever the device is, if it’s an electronic one or an alcohol-based thermometer or a digital one, whatever the particular mechanism is, you’re measuring the immediate environment of that thermometer, right? So imagine two different scenarios, the same parcel of land, the same home, you know, two thermometers within, say, five feet of each other. So there’s not really a meaningful meteorological difference between the temperature across those five feet under normal circumstances. So the numbers should be the same. But imagine that one of those thermometers is just sitting out there in direct sunlight. You’ve mounted it on a pole above, say, a dirt field or a concrete or asphalt parking lot. That thermometer is going to read some awfully high values in the daytime and potentially some awfully low values in the nighttime. And that’s because, of course, you have the sun, when it’s sunny, is going to be directly shining on the thermometer, heating the thermometer itself because the sunlight is actually landing on the device itself. It’s also going to be warmer because you’ve put it in an environment that is itself a bit artificially warmer than it could be. You’ve got your own local heat island effect if you’re near that parking lot or that dirt field because that sun is also heating the ground there more than it would if it were, say, grass or some other. Daniel Swain: [7:01] Surface that weren’t so solar radiation absorptive. So that thermometer is going to read a very high value on a hot day, say, you might even get a value of 120, 130 degrees on that thermometer. And does that tell you that the ambient air temperature is actually 120, 130 degrees? Well, yes and no, because assuming the thermometer is correct, it is reading correctly the temperature of something in that environment. But as we define the surface temperature, for example, whether we’re talking about, the temperature at two meter height, so right around the top of my head, since I’m a little over six feet tall, that’s kind of a standard meteorological temperature measurement that’s used not just in science, but also for practical purposes and in agriculture and any number of applied purposes, that temperature is actually supposed to be a shade temperature. So the temperature of the air at about six feet off the ground where you don’t have any direct sunlight. Daniel Swain: [8:08] So if you’re measuring a temperature, you know, out in your dirt field or near the asphalt parking lot or in direct sun even, even if you’re over grass or something, what you’re measuring is something different than the number that you’re actually comparing to everyone else’s numbers. So when you go to the weather service website and get a temperature forecast or you look at observations from official weather service certified meteorological stations, the temperatures you’re actually seeing are the two meter or the six foot height shade temperature. And if you’ve put your thermometer in one of those settings we were just talking about, what you’re measuring is something else entirely. You’re measuring essentially however hot a thermometer gets if you put it in direct sunlight over a very absorptive surface. Likewise, at night, the opposite can happen where those places get a bit colder than the two-meter temperature correctly defined because they tend to radiate a lot of that energy back out to space if it’s a clear sky. And so you’re going to get a colder surface than one that has a little less variability day to night. So you might read a bit too hot or maybe a lot too hot in the daytime and potentially too cold at night. So your range is wider than the actual range of the temperature that we might define officially. And this is just for one specific, simple atmospheric variable, right? We’re just talking about the temperature. Things get even more complicated, and we start talking about things like precipitation or wind, and then things get just really, really complicated. We can dig into the details, but I just wanted to offer just how tricky it can be when we talk even about perhaps the simplest to measure atmospheric variable of temperature. And it’s why, for example, when you look at the temperature on your car thermometer, when you’re out on a hot, sunny day, or the bank thermometer, You might see it on the side of the road. Those will read values that might seem kind of patently ridiculous. And the reason is those are often thermometers that are sitting there in the direct sunlight on someone’s rooftop or in the case of your car thermometer, right on the hood of your car. And think about how uncomfortable it would be if you tried to put your hand on the hood of a car on a hot, sunny day in the Central Valley. It’s a lot hotter than the air, I’ll tell you that. Farmer Fred: [10:25] For gardeners who may have only invested in maybe a remote thermometer that they can read indoors, and those units are widely available even at the big box stores. They sell for $20, $30, $40 or so. A practical application that they’re looking for is, well, how cold is it under my citrus trees? Do I need to put a frost cloth over them? Do I need to protect them in some way from temperatures? And if all you have is a thermometer, as I use in the example, outside your kitchen window, you’re not getting an accurate temperature of what Farmer Fred: [10:56] is happening out where your citrus trees are. So to protect that sensor, that thermometer sensor that is in your yard, would one strategy be to hang it six feet up in a citrus tree? Daniel Swain: [11:10] Well, I think, you know, the key is it depends on what you’re trying to measure. If you are trying to do, for example, frost or freeze protection, then it really does matter what the temperature is at the level of the plant that you’re trying to protect. And the example of a citrus tree, it could be very different. The height of where you’re worried about frost on the leaves or blossoms or fruit of a tree, as opposed to, a ground crop or even something like vineyards, which are often below head height at their highest point, you get what’s known as a microclimate, especially in the vertical direction. So I mentioned that going, you know, five, five feet, six feet horizontally probably doesn’t affect things very much most of the time. But going five feet vertically actually can make a pretty big difference, particularly at night when you have what’s known as a temperature inversion, when temperatures actually increase, with height instead of decreasing as they normally do in the lowest layer of the atmosphere. Sometimes that inversion can be noticeably important even within the first few feet off the surface of the ground. And that can matter if you’re talking about the top of a tomato plant or the top of your grapevines versus the top of a fruit tree or a nut tree or something. So you’ve got to measure exactly what you need to know in that case. How high are you actually measuring? Is it under the canopy or is it on the top of the canopy? All of that can matter a lot for something as subtle as, you know, making sure you’re not falling below a particular temperature threshold. Might it be good enough if you only need to get within a couple of degrees for your purpose, you know, in any of these locations? That might be fine. But if you really care which side of 32 degrees Fahrenheit the temperature is at a particular height, you probably got to measure it as close to that height and location as you possibly can because you have these huge variations. In fact, a lot of the frost protection systems that are used, in larger-scale agricultural settings are really based on the knowledge that you do have these huge variations. Think about when people historically have used things as wild as helicopter downdraft, rotor downwash to sort of mix up the air during freeze events in orchards or fans or windmills that mix the air. Daniel Swain: [13:47] These aren’t hundreds of thousands of feet tall towers that are doing the mixing. A lot of them are just a few tens of feet tall, and yet mixing the air from 30, 40 feet up to the ground, can give you enough of a difference to prevent a freeze in a case where there’s a huge difference between the very cold air right at ground level and the slightly less cold air 10, 20 feet up. So sometimes, you know, frost protection is even... Leveraging the fact that these vertical microclimates exist it’s why you see vineyards for example on on steep slopes on some of the hills in in any place where you grow wine grapes part of that is because that cold air tends to kind of drain downhill into the the valley below or even the the culverts and the rivulets below it doesn’t even need to be a big valley so even just, planting on a slope that’s you know five ten fifteen feet above the lowest point on the land, gets you that extra degree or two of insulation. So a long way of saying that you got to measure what you actually want to measure. And if it’s something as sensitive as frost or freeze protection, you got to pinpoint exactly the height and the location where you’re trying to protect against that condition. Farmer Fred: [15:02] So if I’m a gardener listening to this, it sounds like, well, if I’m really concerned about frost protection for my citrus trees, I’d want to hang that sensor a little bit lower in the tree, maybe only two feet off the ground, but in the shade of the canopy. But at night, that’s not that big of a concern, the shade from the sun. But there sure is a big difference if all you have is a thermometer hanging on the wall of your house outside. And what may be happening 10, 20, 30, 4

You may recall a couple of weeks ago on June 12, the Beyond the Garden Basics podcast featured myself and America’s Favorite retired horticulture professor, Debbie Flower, talking about protecting your outdoor plants in containers from the searing summer heat. That conversation was recorded during a live presentation at the 2023 Harvest Day festivities, put on by the Sacramento County, California Master Gardeners at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center. Today’s podcast is the rest of that live presentation, where we discuss tips for saving Time Money and Water in the garden. Meanwhile, in this week’s newsletter, we have more advice for dealing with extreme heat in the garden this summer. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com/subscribe

Today’s newsletter is all about starthistle, and all the ways you can control this summer weed…organically. If you want to read about chemical controls for starthistle, check out this University of California Ag and Natural Resources publication, “ Yellow Starthistle ”. In today’s podcast (above), America’s Favorite Retired College Horticulture Professor and I talk about the chemical side of weed control products, including all the different formulations of Roundup that are on the market, but they all have very different tasks; some can even sterilize your soil, making your garden unavailable for weeks, months, - or according to Flower - years. We offer tips for using herbicides, as well. We mention a University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture publication about the different Roundup formulations entitled, “ UPDATE ON ROUNDUP-BRANDED HERBICIDES FOR CONSUMERS ” that can help you decide. One national database for insecticide/herbicide/miticide labels is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s webpage, “ Pesticide Product and Label System .” It’s not the easiest site to navigate, but be persistent. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gardenbasics.substack.com/subscribe