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Fall Garden and Landscape Cleanup
147 Plays2 years ago
In this episode, we'll share some tips and tricks for fall garden and landscape cleanup. Whether you have a small balcony garden or a sprawling backyard, there are some things you can do to prepare your plants for the winter and make your spring gardening easier. We'll cover topics like pruning, mulching, composting, and more.
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Transcript
Introduction to Hort Culture
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to Hort Culture, where a group of extension professionals and plant people talk about the business, production, and joy of planting seeds and helping them grow. Join us as we explore the culture of horticulture.
00:00:18
Speaker
What up? Hello. We're live. It's Wednesday afternoon. With the whole culture. We're in another rare form today, so who knows what.
Caffeine Jokes and Banter
00:00:32
Speaker
What do you have a caffeine consumption? There's a lot of caffeine. There's a lot of caffeine. Caffeinated tea. I think of our formats. There's a lot of flavors and nationalities. Yes. In some ways. Starting it off. Here we go. Give you something to chew on. And we're back.
Ruminants and Humor
00:00:51
Speaker
Why does a ruminate is a weird word to me? I think I think of a ruminance and I'm just. Yeah. Is that. Oh, OK. You know, chewing the cut is they kind of put it down below, bring it back up, chew it again. Right.
00:01:07
Speaker
Yeah. Redigesting. Okay. I was always, it's like I knew what that meant, but I didn't realize why it was related. Okay. Now you do. Look at us all learning things today about livestock. Can you tell I'm a plant person? I mean, to me, it seems intuitive because I eat my problems. You can eat it. Oh yeah.
00:01:34
Speaker
Yeah, Brett was eating some chips on here earlier, and I don't know if I've been more jealous.
Food Jealousy Tales
00:01:39
Speaker
You've had like pie and like... Not today, but on previous episodes, you've had pie and beer cheese, and then you claimed that you didn't have beer cheese. Do you all remember it? Was it pimento cheese? I didn't have beer cheese. Hummus, I probably had. Pimento cheese, maybe. Something about justice or fairness in jealousy. But he's like walking through a vineyard. They have something at your house.
00:02:03
Speaker
It's usually food related too. Like when I think about all the things I'm ever jealous of, it's good food that I see that people have. Some ghost pepper chips. I guess, you know. They weren't, they weren't very, I mean, if I'm being, yeah, heat level, they were like, they were like low level. And I'm not one of those people that's like, they were like tough about eating spicy stuff. They were like not that spicy, which I was glad about, because if they had been actual ghost pepper level, I would have not been able to eat them. And, you know,
00:02:32
Speaker
Brett, do you like to the, to the spice to meet our point where like you're sweating? Well, for me, some people, all I'm eating is basically just any, like a bowl of cereal, that picnics in the sun, bowl of cereal. I can have a nice steady drink. It doesn't matter. Glass of milk. Unless I'm enjoying it so much. Everything else is inappropriate. Okay. Nice accent. No pain is pain. There's no gain.
00:03:00
Speaker
I asked because my dad always said like, it's spicy enough when my head starts to sweat. And I always thought that was weird. And then I thought, I'm going to tell that story one day at its funeral. And then I thought, am I the only person who thinks about stories they're going to say at people's funerals?
00:03:36
Speaker
We'll do an airing of, I think that should be a theme airing of your grievances. Seinfeld theme for your plant. Yeah. Festivists for the rest of us.
00:03:47
Speaker
Ray, do you remember when Boyle County did that? I won't go into that story. I do. It had a lot of personality to that session. Yeah, everybody was dressed as their favorite.
00:03:58
Speaker
Christmas movie or whatever. And, uh, you know, so Charlie Brown was there. Ray, did you guys do the Grinch? Yeah, we did the whole Christmas. Everybody was dressed up and Boyle County all came wearing black and we put like a pole upon our table. I didn't know where that was going to be honest. It was a good time. Back to today and the podcast that we talk about plants, uh, and all that cool stuff.
Audience Engagement
00:04:26
Speaker
wanted to open up with our, open up our mail bag for this, because we always say, let us know. Tell us how we're doing. Tell us what, you know, you want to see in the future. And here's proof that we actually do that. So when it's mail time. No. Yeah. Well, I don't want to copyright. You know, copyright stroke. It's going to be so accurate. Makes me. That's my best mailbox.
00:04:56
Speaker
I liked it. That was my best blues clothes. Blue makeup that you put on for that does not seem worth it. Appreciate it. The production value was good. The mail bag is open. I go hard for the pot. It's important to me.
00:05:14
Speaker
We go back is open. So, uh, if you have been listening to our podcasts, uh, if you've particularly listened to the mulch podcast, if you haven't go back and listen to it. Do it. But anyways, this one is in relation to that.
Garden Vole Challenges
00:05:30
Speaker
And so we had mentioned voles, uh, in the mulch podcast.
00:05:34
Speaker
And this person is talking about how, now that they live in Kentucky, they feel like they're in the Voll epicenter, which in Boyle County, we're the mole with an M epicenter. I get weekly calls on those, but voles are also something that's really bad. And they used a paper mulch in their garden and said it seemed to kind of open up this world, I love this, the world's vole convention.
00:06:02
Speaker
And they didn't come and they didn't leave. And so just talk, let's talk through maybe quickly about just the Voll dilemma that can come with mulch and maybe ways you guys have combated it. Voll seem to be, uh, I don't know those years where we have a lot of snow.
00:06:19
Speaker
But you're probably gonna have a lot of old because they have cover and they kind of continue to reproduce under that cover. That's the worst years I've ever seen. We've gotten lots of calls in those years, but it's related to kind of if they have any kind of protection like grass, whatever, snow, whatever it tends to be that hides them from predators.
00:06:37
Speaker
You mulch in this case, you run the risk of hiding them from predators effectively, and they have a high reproductive rate. So you up your odds of having vole problems. And voles are different than moles. Voles kind of, you can recognize those. They run very close to the top of the ground. Their runs are so you can sort of see.
00:06:56
Speaker
where they go, whereas moles are under the ground, and they have different eating habits, of course, too. Moles are more like grubs and earthworms. Voles, unfortunately, are things like the bark off of your young fruit trees, or it's your tender bulbs. So they have different habits. More like mice, too. There was a slider, and on the left-hand side was a mouse, and on the right side was a mole. As you drag the slider and it shifted, the midpoint somewhere would be like a vole, kind of.
00:07:24
Speaker
Yeah, it's like a like a full with like a platypus vibe. I'm starting to look like a mouse with a platypus vibe kind of. I don't know. This is weird. Yeah, a little bit. I can see that. I can see that.
00:07:39
Speaker
Yeah, mulch mulch can cause definitely cause problems, especially if you're using cardboard and laying things on top of it. They love to get under there. They're protected. They set up their mold. Conventions. You turned up the bull. You just came up there. Sorry. Exactly. So yeah, you create this situation where they can get away from the guys. I mean, it's another issue where we see large scale cover crop.
00:08:02
Speaker
no-till cover crop adoption is that when you roll down that rye or whatever wheat, whatever you may do, it does create a lot of vole habitat which can then cause problems later for and so it's, you know, everything's a challenge. There's always balance there. You were mentioning Ray and the small gravel in some of the commercial
00:08:28
Speaker
Yeah, these can be a, those can be a huge problem because once again, uh, you know, orchards, uh, they can be a huge problem in commercial orchards or even at home with single fruit trees, but young fruit trees that have very tender bark. Uh, the voles are attracted to those and, uh, orchards, you'll a lot of times see, uh, orchards. And I know our local orchards are all set up this way. They have learned over time.
00:08:49
Speaker
number one clean out the grass around the fruit trees open it up to predators and then you'll start to see things like hawks and owls swooping down and that's a good thing in this instance but they've also learned to put gravel you'll see this strip of gravel with the fruit trees right in the middle down the rows strip of gravel find crushed gravel i don't forget the
00:09:09
Speaker
the number on the gravel, but it's finer gravel. And that's a lot color. And for some reason, the voles absolutely do not like that. They don't like to cross that, whether it's exposure to predators or they just don't like the texture. It really is a super effective way of protecting commercial orchards and fruit trees. And that's how they deal with the problem. So would you all say that as far as managing it versus putting down mulch, I mean, part of the reason the voles like it is the same reasons that we like mulch in that it
00:09:37
Speaker
keeps the ground cool, it can kind of increase root growth and other stuff like that. It's like, so it is a balancing act. I mean, is that
Vole Management Strategies
00:09:48
Speaker
the true story or is there kind of like, is there a, we can fix, I would not encourage putting poisons down because of the ways that that can bioaccumulate through the food chain. I don't know what the extension recommendation is for not yes or no on rodenticides.
00:10:06
Speaker
It just depends. I mean, there are some specific products, but I think they're used very cautiously and you need to work with someone like Private Lands Wildlife Biologist. If you have to go that route, if you're a commercial operation, there may be some options, but those are kind of a last ditch effort. We just don't use those willy-nilly. That's not the first line of defense. The first line of defense is habitat modification.
00:10:30
Speaker
And if you're a homeowner, you really got to watch the use of like, I mean, and something that I enjoy using like newspaper and cardboard and then laying things on top of that as a mulch that bowls love that. And if you're having trouble with bowls, you probably have to modify the way you're mulching and go with more of an open mulch or one that's not like a layer that does help. It's the layering, but boy, they just get under there and set up a mole convention as the reader.
00:10:58
Speaker
outlined in his, uh, emailed us. So I would, I would say as far as balancing act goes, you're probably gonna, in my opinion, gain more from mulch, whatever kind of mulch you're using. Um, in my case where I've had full problems, it's been, uh, that black fabric, quote unquote mulch, not necessarily just a wood mulch that they're underneath.
00:11:19
Speaker
but I think you're going to have more benefits from the mulch and you will have the destruction from the voles. There are some really cool, very easy, inexpensive traps that you can make that they will just take care of them. If you look up homemade vole traps, you'll find a huge list of ways to do those. Usually, if you can get rid of those first ones and you can notice a problem early,
00:11:46
Speaker
You can take care of a lot of that. I'd also recommend outdoor cats. If you're in a larger farming operation and not a homeowner, one really cool thing that just makes you sound cool is if you have Raptor purchase, which are essentially exactly what they sound like, where they're just areas where
00:12:07
Speaker
It was owls, those hawks can come and kind of scout over your field and take care of those problems. And I have had some luck and this is one of, it's the, it's in an extension publications, but we don't give it a lot of weight. And the reason why is because sometimes it can work once and not work again. It can work for you and not your neighbor. There's just not, but, but it can work and it's pretty inexpensive thing to try is a capsaicin granules. And so, um, those are.
00:12:37
Speaker
you know, capsaicin pepper or whatever. And it's just these little granules that break down over about a three month period. And they don't like what it does to the soil as far as, you know, it just sounds like a
00:12:50
Speaker
a spice for lack of a better term than I'm thinking of right now, a spiciness to the soil. And I have had that work well in small areas, like a high tunnel where I'm putting it along the edge of the tunnel to kind of keep them from coming in and they're going to stay out somewhere else. I don't necessarily think it'll work for every situation or really large areas, but if you have a small area, you're trying to keep them out of using it as a barrier, I think can be an option.
00:13:20
Speaker
Can you give it a shot? It's pretty inexpensive. Do your corgis do anything with them? Oh my god. Did I ever tell you the story about when Remy caught a vole?
00:13:29
Speaker
No, but they're little dogs and little rodents. Yeah. So I have a, I have a little Corgi. We use silage tarps on the farm and voles love silage tarps in it. You pull that up and man, you see, see their runs underneath there. And so the cats will line up. Oh, we have a barn cats and they'll line up kind of around the silage tarp and they'll snag things as they're coming out, uh, freaking out and stuff. Uh, and one, one time Remy, my little Corgi got
00:13:56
Speaker
got into it with the cats, right? He's excited. He's hunting with them, and Corgis are herding dogs. For those of you who don't know, they're not hunting dogs at all. They're not rat dogs or anything. They were not bred for that, but man, he snagged one of those voles coming out of there, swallowed it whole. I was like, oh God.
00:14:15
Speaker
This is my dog that's allergic and I was like this is not gonna end well so we watched him like really carefully for you know about 24 hours and
00:14:35
Speaker
Be careful what you use as far as poisons go. I believe from a homeowner perspective, I believe that nothing you all buy is something that will carry through to predators.
00:14:48
Speaker
I believe those ones you have to have a commercial license to purchase, but you still can have other animals eat that that you might not want to. I did see the agenda for the 2024 MOL convention came out, or VULC convention. Yeah, well, they're still looking for bowling tiers.
00:15:10
Speaker
Oh man. Oh, there he is. We told you we weren't defaulted. Well, anyways, let's- For the rest of this episode, we're going to be throwing these things out. The real words. Well, they're also really interested in maybe getting on the program. There was a call for provostals as well.
00:15:29
Speaker
Oh man. Oh man. We're all just, yeah, shaking our head. Um, we're trying to think of things. I mean, it's impressive though. I don't know. I don't know if I would go that far, but anyway, repressive, regressive. What did you say? I misunderstood that. I started it and bread is finishing it.
00:15:54
Speaker
So let's jump to our topic for today. Oh, we have a topic. We actually, we do have a topic. It is not voles, but we are happy to talk about those. So if you guys have questions, you know, we always say shoot us one on via email, or if you're on Instagram, you can shoot us one on there. Uh, and if we don't already have a topic coming up about it, we will, we will open up our mail bag. We love those when you guys reach out like that and have specific, you know, questions or comments. Love it. Love it. When you guys have those.
When to Stop Gardening for the Season
00:16:21
Speaker
But today we're going to talk about garden cleanup because we're, we're getting to the time of year where you should be, hopefully are. And maybe you're, you already are because we talked about burnout already. So maybe already at that point, uh, we're thinking about, um, ending the season.
00:16:39
Speaker
and the cleanup that goes along with it, why it's important, what to do, you know, the last thing you want to do, especially when it's, you know, cold outside is, is clean up. And this is one of those do as I say, not as I do kind of podcast, but home gardeners, I have a serious lead in question here. Well, somewhat serious leading question, mainly for home gardeners, but this is a philosophical debate I have with myself every year.
00:17:06
Speaker
as I'm trying to decide the course of my future at the end of my gardening season, and it is this. For you, dear listeners, please provide feedback. I would love that on this question. But towards the end of the garden season, when do you stop your garden? When the production, when the last tomato is bitten by the frost and shut down, or when you get absolutely sick of looking at it? When do you shut down your garden?
00:17:36
Speaker
I mean, these are things that I'm trying to make this decision now. I'm like, tomatoes, you're being very productive. I appreciate that, but enough, enough. And I'm about to the point, and I feel a little guilty every time I do this, my garden is still somewhat productive out back, but I'm about to plow it under. I'm about to just mow it down. If you look back on the course of your life and the many gardens you have, you have gardened, would you say that you tend to have done one of those, the two options you gave, one of those more than the other?
00:18:07
Speaker
Let's just say that I have bitten more gardens than the winter garden. Oh, that was, I had that. Let's just say that. That did something for me. I was ready for it. I was ready for it. I mean, there comes the point, and mainly it's the home gardeners I know, because if you have a production garden, you're in. Yeah, I like it. Jack, move over. I'm coming with the mower, baby. I'm coming. I'm coming.
00:18:36
Speaker
But yeah i mean it's tough and we're lucky to have such a bounty and these great varieties that are long season producers even though the days are getting shorter they're still very productive and if you do a good job and keep the diseases at bay for an appropriate amount of time i mean these some of these things just kind of keep going.
00:18:54
Speaker
i'm like quit showing off indeterminate tomatoes i am sick of you or green beans whatever the case but yeah i was talking to someone about that at the office the other day and they're like no we're sick of our garden we can't four hundred cans of stuff and we're done.
00:19:09
Speaker
We got into this whole discussion, I thought it was a great topic. I was like, yeah, come to think of it, I have mowed down a lot of semi-productive gardens that could have given more, but I have nothing left to give, so I give them rest in the form of a mower. There is the limit usually for your capacity to can. Do you want to go out and buy more jars every year?
00:19:31
Speaker
You know, you filled up your pantry, it's done. And Alexis, I believe it was Alexis said something during the last podcast that we had, the way that she deals with her, and it hit deep in my heart, but I didn't say anything at the time I was saving it, that the way she deals with certain problems in her operation is she just burns them to the ground so she doesn't have to look at them. And that resonated with me like ringing a bell in the darkness. That resonated with me, people. It did. So yeah, Alexis, I am with you. No.
00:20:01
Speaker
I think exposure to commercial contexts helps be a little more ruthless because there are times where it's just, if you either have paid labor or you yourself are the labor, it's literally not worth going back through again to get that thing out. The amount of time that you're going to spend relative, especially for something like green beans where you can't just look, you got to kind of get in there and see and eventually it's like, okay.
00:20:30
Speaker
I talked with a producer that this morning, it was like the fourth picking and it was with beans. Well, they had to bend over and that didn't excite them, but they were pretty decent. Little commercial operate. That was the exact discussion. Brett is they said, it's not worth their time because the rows were long and they had to move a long distance and they just were mowing them down. They said, well, the average person would look and say, oh my gosh, there's all these beans left. Not worth their time commercially.
00:20:52
Speaker
to spend the time traversing that, you know, long distances just to get. And it is one of those times too, where sometimes the, you know, depending on what you're doing, having broken it up into more of a successional planting means that the task you could take out your first two plantings of beans and still have, you know, a decent second or third picking off of your later beans.
Commercial Harvesting Decisions
00:21:13
Speaker
But if you've planted everything or everything went out all in one go or whatever, which a lot of us do, which is totally understandable.
00:21:19
Speaker
Yeah, there is, there comes up, I definitely, I don't know that I've ever, I can't remember a time where I've let it go without terminating it myself. Speaks maybe to my controller shoes or something, but. Yeah. If somebody's going to kill these guards, it's going to be me. You can pry these tomatoes from my cold dead fingers. It's lucky.
00:21:45
Speaker
my garden memoirs will be the song of ice and fire but i think it's already taken i mean i'm not gonna let the frost get it i'm gonna burn it i'm gonna kill it with fire people yeah so regardless of whether you you terminate it yourself or you let you let the chilling winds do it for you are we do we have some kind of principles or thoughts i mean do we just leave everything where it lays and let it go back to the earth and the great cycle of
00:22:09
Speaker
life and death or do we find a middle ground or do we pull everything out and replace all the soil every year, dig everything out with a backhoe? I haven't done that yet.
00:22:21
Speaker
Well, like so many times in life, like so many situations, it depends, Brett. It depends. The song that comes to mind when I think of garden cleanup is Down With Sickness by District.
Prioritizing Garden Cleanup
00:22:33
Speaker
Oh, girl. Nice. Yeah. Not a surprising choice for you, Alexis. Right. So, but nobody is shocked. Try not to sing that into my microphone. Sorry.
00:22:47
Speaker
I say that because there is a reason. Down with the sickness is what I think about as the priorities for what I'm going to clean up because whether you're terminating it yourself or you're letting winter terminate it for you, you're probably sick and tired of it in some form or fashion. If you can hit on it and then
00:23:11
Speaker
To me, we always say do it before winter comes or as soon as that frost hits, go out and do it. But in all honesty, I think if you're doing it within enough time that you're going to be able to clean it up and have it have a little bit of a rest period before you plant again, I think that's okay. I say that because in Kentucky, we usually have
00:23:33
Speaker
a couple warm days in February, and that's one of my favorite times to do garden cleanup.
00:23:44
Speaker
And the garden, I'm stumbling, I'm sorry. The kind of garden cleanup I do in February is different from what I would do like right after that termination. And that's where the down with the sickness comes in. So my priority is to get rid of anything that had disease, really bad disease or insect pressure first. Get rid of it, burn it, get it off the property, don't compost it, all those standard things. I don't know that that might not be familiar to everyone. So yeah, yeah.
00:24:14
Speaker
Okay. You're right. You're right. But you're right. So ideally we want to, you know, if you know that you had problems and you don't necessarily have to be able to identify the insect or identify the disease, but most of the time we can identify that something is wrong. And so you want to remove those. Usually it's the whole plant, so root and all. If it's insects, unless it's a root bound insect, usually the top ground growth will be enough. But when it comes to disease plans, I typically like to get
00:24:43
Speaker
Kind of the whole plant, rip it out, have a good, you know, put on your good metal music and just like rip your stuff out.
00:24:50
Speaker
And any dropping, so with tomatoes, like blight, we get a lot of blight on our tomatoes in the state with our weather. And so removing anything that has fallen, those leaves that have fallen down, just rake up anything that was diseased or had bad insect pressure, bag it in a trash bag and throw it away or burn it pretty quickly. Don't wait till next spring to do that. Kill it with fire.
00:25:15
Speaker
because those things will overwinter. So those diseases, a lot of them have overwintering structures. Those insects may have laid eggs that are going to overwinter and they're just going to pop right back up exactly in your garden where they were. So you want to get them off of the property in some way, form or fashion.
00:25:33
Speaker
And that's kind of my priority. And then I'm about like tired, like I'm done. And I save all those cutting back, all those general just kind of raking up stuff, maybe putting your stakes away, any sanitizing of my tools. Personally, I'm not saying this is the right thing to do. I'm just saying this is what I do. I like to do that in those February days when you're kind of itching to get out anyways.
00:26:00
Speaker
And you're not so like physically and mentally exhausted most of the time. What about you all? I don't know in the, in the garden, for my experience, uh, the way I kind of mess around and piddle around and do things is, uh, in the fall is kind of a semi busy time. I mean, not commercial type busy or production type busy, but it's a, I feel the changing of the season. So I feel like it's a good time to do all those things that you just now mentioned Alexis, you know, and do other chores. Like, you know, I think about.
00:26:30
Speaker
how I manage my leaves and, you know, where the leaves are at and what I want to do with the leaves. Do I need to do anything with the leaves? How's my compost pile doing? Uh, some of the stuff that was in the garden that wasn't diseased. I love, you know, taking that grinding that just a bit to break it down, throwing it into a compost pile. But I know that I have to manage that through the winter to maintain minimum temperatures. But yeah, all of those things I feel with the coming of the season when I
00:26:57
Speaker
And I love, you know, the end of a garden season. I don't know why, but it's a break point for me, uh, in seasonality. You know, we talked a little bit about seasonality in our last podcast, but yeah, all those things that you just mentioned, you know, I love doing, you know, in the fall. I love the fall time of the year and the shorter days, cooler days. It's more comfortable to work outside, you know, take garden notes of what worked well, what didn't. And it's surprising how bad my memory is. And I'm like, Oh, I had that tomato variety last year. That was excellent.
00:27:26
Speaker
And then I can't remember what it was and I end up, you know, losing it. So to write those things down, I try to do a little garden journal. If I really love something or something failed miserably, try to write all those things down to reflect a little bit. I think, you know, you know, stuff like that acknowledging that, you know, thinking of the gardening is a, it's a circle, you know, it's not like, uh, there's no, there's no actual beginning and into the lapse. And you can think of it as starting whenever it's, you know, we're coming back around. So.
00:27:55
Speaker
There are actually things that we're going to be planting in the fall or maybe planting in the fall. And so I think of those as sort of like related. So for instance, you know, planting garlic.
00:28:06
Speaker
and planting cover crops. If you're going to do annual strawberries, you're going to be likely putting those, or you're going to be putting those in in probably September, Kentucky at least. And so I think of those two things as kind of a related moment where you're starting to, just like we had that episode a month or two ago, talking about, or yeah, I guess two months ago, talking about now's the time when you're sweating like crazy in summer is the time to be thinking about planning for your planting for your fall garden.
00:28:35
Speaker
In the same way, if you want to have a nice green, lush cover crop out there that you can look out and see in December of your winter wheat or your cereal rye or your winter peas or whatever,
00:28:49
Speaker
now is the time to, you know, not now, just per se, but this little stretch of time is when to be thinking about planting those things. Another thing that I definitely from experience, I clean up in the fall as soon as it's done is like cabbage plants. Because when you have had the
00:29:11
Speaker
the privilege of smelling cabbage plants that have frozen and thawed and frozen and thawed like a dozen times over the course of winter. It's incredible. The neighbors love it. It's enchanting, romantic.
00:29:26
Speaker
Brad, I saved some of those things so I could chuck them at my brother. I specifically saved some of the little cabbages and I'm like, ooh, that one's juicy. And then, oh man, my aim got so good. This goes for anything in the brassica family. So that's your broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage. If you're a flower people, stock is a brassica.
00:29:50
Speaker
So, Kale, yeah, those sulfur compounds are. And the thing is, it's a little bit later for those, so they can take a little bit of frost, they can take a little bit of cold, but at some point, whenever it's done, we've decided, I try my best, even if it's cold, to go out and pull those things and get rid of them just because we live in the city, you know, close by.
00:30:11
Speaker
other people. Another thing that I do, and I think there's different approaches and different thoughts about it, so we have... Now, we used to do just a big vegetable garden, but now we have a lot of ornamentals, including things like wildflowers and native grasses and some... They're not full on woody... They're herbaceous perennials, but they get kind of woody in the course of growing.
00:30:38
Speaker
So in other words, they die back all the way to the ground and grow from the ground each year, as opposed to a tree, like a tree or a bush that has it above ground structure and it buds off of it. And so with those, I like to just from a sense of neatness, I like to cut those. However, as we learned from our entomologists and other friends, there's a lot of insects that lay their eggs and over winter in those both
00:31:05
Speaker
Good and bad seems a bit facile for us, right? There are no good and bad, but mostly beneficials are the ones that I'm worried about. So if I cut those, I will often lay them down in piles right where I cut them so that once it warms up in the spring and I feel like everything's moved around, I can go and spread those as mulch somewhere else or I can do something with those. But I do prefer a little bit more
00:31:29
Speaker
neat and orderly rather than this crazy, spindly, wild thing. And it also makes it easier to see when stuff's coming up in the spring and I don't see weeds and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, that's an important one.
00:31:44
Speaker
And we find out with like hardy moms, I guess would fall into that category of what you're talking about. Brett, we're finding out that things like hardy moms, they actually have better winter survivability for whatever reason, self-mulching. We think, you know, self-insulating self-mulching because they tend to catch leaves and debris and that, you know, kind of mulches the crown. But yeah, some of those things actually do better through the winter if you just leave them, which goes against my nature. I just want to mow everything down and be done with it so I don't have to see it. Not looking at you, Alexis.
00:32:11
Speaker
As far as some of these things, it's just better health-wise for the plant, you know, some of these herbaceous perennials or these hardies that can make it for a winter time. Some of them, they actually, they mean evolutionarily, they like to burn, like some of the grasses. I did that a couple, back when I was bolder and dumber and younger, I did that multiple times. It is a, I will say, it is a huge vibe, but partially because you feel, it feels dangerous.
00:32:40
Speaker
Yeah. So I did that backyard and there was this huge plume of like smoke that went up, but I mean, they liked it. They liked it and I liked it. Yeah. Grasses really respond to that.
00:32:56
Speaker
We used to burn like, as one of my favorite memories of a Brio, we worked with a lot of native prairie grasses at the Bluegrass Army Depot with a wildlife study I was doing, but we burned like 10, 15 acres at a time. It was a buffalo grass and Indian grass.
00:33:13
Speaker
Yeah, all the point. Yeah, exactly what you're saying, bro. I get it. I get it. It is. And they do, they do. But now I don't do that anymore. I just cut them and bundle them. And they do fine. They don't need it. So if you're doing that in your area or you're out somewhere, follow your local ordinances about what you should do with that. Get your burn permit and all that kind of fun stuff.
00:33:39
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I think that that I do, I do think that there, there are recommendations out there to not just mow it or not just, you know, not take it out and get rid of it.
Winter Tree Protection
00:33:48
Speaker
Um, some of that, some of those, especially the native stuff. They're there in the, I mean, I know we're talking about gardens right now on the topic of gardens primarily, but thinking about landscapes, there's lots going on. I mean, that you can do August, September, October, getting your landscape.
00:34:07
Speaker
Ready for winter and one thing that I stress and I've just seen so many problems with in my county that I'm at here in central Kentucky, like, you know, some things that we tend to overlook or homeowners tend to overlook is like young newly planted trees like a red maple, for instance.
00:34:23
Speaker
that have very thin bark, that may be younger, have thinner bark than even normal, that tends to frost crack in the winter. The sun hits one side of the plant, the rest of it stays asleep. It just destroys the life of that plant. I mean, there's lots of chores like that that we can do as far as wrapping plants in the winter. You said what the problem is, but what's the thing that you do to it?
00:34:48
Speaker
There's just different wraps you can get like commercially prepared like tree wraps to wrap that it's just important not to leave those wraps on year round because it becomes a safe haven for insects that are not always desirable but put them on in the fall months let them go through the winter after the last freeze in the spring you can take those off but it will save you
00:35:10
Speaker
it'll save a lot of young trees if you do that. If you've planted like these young thin bark trees and you know that the winter sun's gonna hit one side of that, typically depending on the location is to protect that. We can do stuff like that, it's really important in the winter. And I've just seen larger farms where I'd go out and they have 200 red maples and they're all just, the damage occurred six, eight years ago, but they're just now seeing the fallout of that frost cracking and they've lost every single tree and it's amazing.
00:35:39
Speaker
Yeah, but just things like the right kind of it, you know, there's a couple things going on there. It's like it's protecting them from those sunny winter days where it warms up too much too quick, but it can also with younger kind of plants, you know, you're getting that protection of some of the like rabbins and rodents that are like scavenging around.
00:35:57
Speaker
It'll prevent them from chewing and like stripping the bark and stuff like that. Yeah. In some cases. Yeah. So stuff like that. I mean, uh, so there, there are, there are lots of things going on in the landscape. I mean, some bulbs are, I mean, Lexa's going to have tons of information on this. I'm sure some bulbs homeowners are putting in the ground. Other bulbs, Alexis, I guess they're taking out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's, uh, all your, all your bulbs that need a cold period. So you're a narcissist, your tulips, your fiddle area, stuff like that. Your garlic.
00:36:27
Speaker
Yeah. You know, you need that cold period to establish a root system and getting those in. Honestly, you can get those in. That's the other thing that, you know, peonies are another example of this kind of anything that has some sort of tuberous bulbous root system to it. A lot of our, even our perennials, if they're dormant, so
00:36:53
Speaker
Um, you know, whether that's a, some sort of more woody perennial, like a lilac or, uh, some of, you know, like I said, I already mentioned peonies, things like that, but they can go in until the ground freezes is really where it is. And so in Kentucky, you know, some years that's late December before that happens. And I think we can give ourselves a little bit of.
00:37:19
Speaker
little bit of room for error there and if you're wanting to get the garden more cleaned up and spend some more time doing that because you've got those fall crops to put in. Your cover crop needs to go in earlier than your tulips do and just thinking about
00:37:35
Speaker
When do I, when's the last minute I can put this in? And with plans, I feel like it's kind of like that. Like you're always thinking of like, when is the least amount of time I have to take care of this? And so you can, you kind of add that into, we're talking about cleanup, but you know, cleanup can mean like Brett said, a lot of different things, you know, if we're talking about
00:37:58
Speaker
Lands gave me one thing I always forget and I mention it in my most recent newsletter because I always personally forget.
00:38:06
Speaker
is August, September time, you know, is the time to be pruning your evergreens. And so it's kind of the last time to be pruning your evergreens because you, um, so that they don't have really tender growth going into winter. And you're also not opening up a wound going into winter. So, uh, for those of you out there who maybe have those types of things, and usually we're talking about broadleaf evergreens. Uh, so beer, boxwoods, azaleas, things like that, but, and conifers are
00:38:35
Speaker
a lot more room for error with them. But just some things to think about from that perspective that cleanup can also mean just kind of basic maintenance for some things that happens a year to do that. Question? No. What's the deal with leads?
Managing Fallen Leaves
00:38:57
Speaker
I was hoping somebody would bring that out. Say what?
00:39:04
Speaker
How much you mean? I think there are different sort of strategies for it.
00:39:10
Speaker
I personally don't rake leaves because I'm more interested in protecting my trees in my landscape than my lawn. But if you are very concerned about protecting your turf grass, I believe the recommendation is to not have much more than 20% coverage of leaves to leave on, to not allow them to mat up and create a layer.
00:39:37
Speaker
But, I don't really care about my lawn all that much. More is in the trees and, I mean, aside from raking them all up, I think one of the better strategies if you have a mulching mower is to just mow them in. Because it's free, it's free nutrients. I think it also helps to not have big giant leaves that are easy to catch on the wind and blow down and go down into the sewer system.
00:40:05
Speaker
If you live, because that's one of the push backs that I think is fair about not just letting the leaves rock and roll is that it does cause some cloggages.
00:40:19
Speaker
in the sewer system, but yeah, the mulching component. Also, if anybody's out there has gone down the direction of having a moss lawn or a moss garden, you want to keep the leaves off those as well. It'll smother them. Those poor little Brio fights will just not do good under there. They like to have an open view of the stars just like me.
00:40:46
Speaker
I mean, if you have that many leaves, uh, if you have just an absolute surplus that not even a mulching mower can take care of, hopefully, you know, you have a friend or maybe you personally even have it like, uh, we talked about, uh, just very briefly compost pile out back to grind those up. And, and that's the, one of the few times I ever use a leaf catcher on the back of my mulching mower is if I either want to use the leaves as grass clippings that, you know,
00:41:14
Speaker
as mulch in my garden or I'm catching leaves in the fall to put in the mulch pile but I'm still grinding them up so they break down quicker but then if I have an absolute surplus of them I'm very fortunate to have enough room in the back just to go throw them in a pile because in the wintertime I'm trying to increase the size of my compost pile so that it'll at least be three foot by three foot by three foot
00:41:34
Speaker
and self-insulate and continue to compost through the winter. And if you're someone who, for whatever reason, we try not to have judgment on this podcast, but for whatever reason needs to bag their leaves, because, you know, maybe you do have that mausoleum. For the love of God, tell a farmer, because I would kill. I have kills. I have.
00:41:59
Speaker
I will not admit that on recording but please you just did there's somebody who wants them and it may be you know your neighbor five my five minutes down the road but it also might be you know a farmer i know lots of farmers who.
00:42:18
Speaker
In my area, we can hoof it to Lexington, which is where UK is located, and there's a lot of suburban area where people are bagging their leaves. I use that for mulch or organic matter or both. Both. So a lot of them are using it for mulch on more tender perennials, but using them also to incorporate into the soil if they've got bad soil, whatever it is.
00:42:43
Speaker
I wish there was like, I don't know that maybe there's a Facebook page out there. I feel like there's a Facebook page for everything, but it's like a donate your leaves and you put where to come pick them up because I will come with a truck and trailer and I will take your leaves. But I know a lot of people who will do that. So keep that in mind before that you send them to the landfill that they can be incorporated back into the system.
00:43:06
Speaker
Mm hmm. We're all ruminating. We're all so excited about like fall. I know. Like where is my like spiced teas and stuff like that? What about the general transition from summer into fall activities and we've cleaned up and we've pulled out some of the usual suspects. I think, you know, one thing you said, Alexis, about the disease component.
00:43:33
Speaker
thinking about like, yes, there are things that maybe have really have a lot of diseases this year. And that's the ones you definitely want to target to get out. But I also think about who are the, um, susceptible, weak little buddies in the garden year after year. And those are the ones that I would think about protecting as well. So what are among those, the disease, the ones that tend to get disease that we want, you know, I was,
00:43:59
Speaker
What came to mind for me was tomatoes, cucurbits, so that cucurbits including things like squash and cucumbers and melons. What else? What are some other targeted things that are the most, as far as disease? Yeah, carry over.
00:44:18
Speaker
a carryover. I mean, if you take that logic to the very end, just about every garden crop that I know of has the potential to have issues, either whether or not it's a disease carryover or it's a yummy spot for insects that bother that crop. So it's either a disease related issue or an insect related issue. If you take into account both of those, yeah, it's if you leave things unattended,
00:44:45
Speaker
And in its old natural state, which, you know, it's not always a bad thing, but it can lead to long-term problems, especially if you don't have a rotation in place, it could affect just about everything in the garden because you're managing those annuals for the most part. Garden crops are mostly annuals. You manage those intensively and you- And then also- Insects and disease. I was thinking too, like this time of year, cover crops, there's this window, you know, kind of now in August,
00:45:15
Speaker
through maybe November for some of the really late planted stuff. There, there are windows sometimes for some of
Storing Potatoes Post-Frost
00:45:22
Speaker
those cover crop. It's another component of this time of year. And you could think of that as cleaning up, you know, in the same way that like making your bed is cleaning up in a way is different from cleaning up than like, you know, cleaning the kitchen or something. You know, related to that question, but it is like, it's clean, it's garden cleanup, but like potatoes. I got a question the other day and I had to think about it.
00:45:43
Speaker
It was like, well, how long can we leave the potatoes in the ground after the frost has killed the top of the plants? And that's a form of cleanup. I never looked at it that way. And I, you know, my stock answer is usually about two weeks, depending on if the weather is not too terribly wet. I don't want to dig potatoes at the end of the season, but they asked the question in the form of, well, it's garden cleanup, but we want to leave them there as long as possible. I don't know what the reasoning for that was, but I thought that was interesting.
00:46:12
Speaker
But yeah, two weeks, about two weeks after the frost has killed the top of the crop, thinking about letting the frost terminate the crop. It can still remain in there safely, usually 10 to 14 days, unless you just have absolutely waterlogged soil. But they asked that because they were in a garden cleanup form. So I thought that was interesting as far as
00:46:35
Speaker
But you know, I'm trying to think of any other crops that are like that. I mean, dahlias. Okay. Yeah. Dahlias are, are tuberous. They're actually edible as well in case you didn't know the edible tubers. Uh, but dahlias, the running recommendation for them has always been wait till a heart freeze when the top growth is, you know, black the next morning. That's when you can, and you've got like race at about two weeks where that soil is still going to be usually plenty warm.
00:47:04
Speaker
It's sometimes longer if you're getting an early freeze and then it warms back up like it does a lot.
00:47:11
Speaker
I'm here to tell you, you don't have to wait. So that was always, and the reason why that's recommended for dahlias, and I would say it's pretty similar to things like sweet potatoes or regular potatoes, is because they get a cure down in there. So once that top growth is done, that's a signal to the plant. It's not photosynthesizing and putting sugars back into those tubers. And so what it naturally is going to do is create a thicker skin, which for storage purposes, they're going to store better when they have a thicker skin.
00:47:40
Speaker
But if you do pull them out ahead of time, you know, they're not, they can develop that thicker skin by allowing them to kind of dry out, but you're going to have to be a little bit more careful about your storage, um, down in there. But sometimes, you know, you just need to get them out. There's just the way the weather's going to work, if it's going to be wet and they're going to rot.
00:48:00
Speaker
You can pull them out early. So that's, that's all I feel like fall is just such a timing game. And what can, like I said, what can you push to the last minute and what can you fit in in between there? That has to be done. And it's all about just kind of prioritizing.
00:48:16
Speaker
And that's where prioritize the disease. If you don't get those perennials cut back, it's an aesthetic thing. So think about what could die or what am I going to lose if I don't do it, put those first. Is my soil going to wash away if I don't get this cover crop down? Those kinds of things are
00:48:38
Speaker
Really, and I make a list because I like lists. We all know I like lists. I like to cross things off my list. For those uninitiated to the cut flower game with the dahlias, you are talking about a practice that's sometimes called lifting. Is that what that's called? So the idea is that in our climate, they're not going to be hardy if you leave them out over the winter. And so around here at least, or maybe it's not just around here. I just am familiar with around here. You're digging those up.
00:49:07
Speaker
Whereas with a potato, you'd make yourself a nice baked potato or a nice hash brown. With those, you're keeping them in some sort of a storage environment that's climate controlled and then to replant them next year. Is that true? Is there some places where you don't have to do that?
00:49:28
Speaker
Right. So if your soil temperatures, well, I mean, from experience, I've overwintered them, but it's, it's not in just like normal conditions like they were growing in. It took excessive mulch. It took silage tarps to keep the water moisture off of them. So it's not just always temperature, but always also moisture. But yes, in some more Southern climates, they are, they're native to, I think Mexico.
00:49:56
Speaker
Uh, so, you know, they're a perennial there, uh, and you know, a lot of our annuals are perennials and other places. Uh, poinsettia is a native of Mexico and it is a tree down there. If you've never seen one, it's really cool to see what we, you know, think about it as his little table plants as, uh, pretty much just giant trees. They got big tables. But, but yes, so there it, yeah, we got big old tables.
00:50:23
Speaker
So it is it is dependent on your climate and you know even in the state of Kentucky what's the the tip northern Kentucky is going to be is a different climb a whole different climate than areas and southern southwest Kentucky very different climate than the mountains and eastern Kentucky so. Yeah you just kind of have to know what about what about. Digging in dividing things.
00:50:50
Speaker
What's the play on that? Am I gonna wait till spring? Am I gonna like, I know that there's different genres of plant that you might be doing that with. Yeah, there's not, I don't know, maybe for garlic. I'm trying to think of like what vegetable you might be dividing to get those of you in the vegetable world who might be doing this, but I mean peonies you divide in the fall. What time in the fall, like September? Okay.
00:51:21
Speaker
Right now, August, September, um, even into early October, if you're going to divide any of your perennial sedum, I just talked about sedum recently with someone and, uh, is a really great one that divides really well. Peonies can be divided really well. Pretty much any. Sedum, if you got them any perennial that's not woody.
00:51:40
Speaker
that doesn't have that kind of woodier base at the bottom can most of the time rule of thumb be divided and uh i just i take a nice shovel out so you're doing that when there's still trouble on the plant like my peonies have have leaves divide them
00:52:01
Speaker
Yeah, you can do, so peonies are, it's funny, I always think, we tend to think of them as these really like dainty, very delicate flowers and plants, but man, they're hardy. They grow them in Alaska. I mean, Alaska has a whole peony season. That's my dream to go see them in Alaska, but peonies are super hardy. It's hard to mess them up and kill that plant. At worst, it won't bloom, but you can really do those from the time the foliage kind of starting to color.
00:52:31
Speaker
for the fall through dormancy. We're looking at you, Hemorcalus. Just some plants. Yeah, some plants are just, they have that tolerance for doing it. I mean, technically, I guess biologically, if you're adhering to the super sound principles, if in doubt, I guess Brett, what you're getting at and thinking of would be
00:52:54
Speaker
You know, one of the good times to divide things would be when it's physiologically no longer putting energy into that storage device, that root structure, the underground structure. And if you just don't know, like Alexis has his wealth of information in her head and knows what she can
00:53:09
Speaker
you know, do early divisions with and what she can. Well, if you don't know, then you can wait until the top, you know, some sides where the plants kind of shutting down going into a semi-state of dormancy. And at that point, you know, you're pretty safe to do some of these things because the plant is less active.
00:53:27
Speaker
Yeah. When in doubt, just wait until it shuts down. Again, that gives you time. If you've done what you need to do and you want to start dividing now, you can. But if you get caught up in other things, you can still wait and do it as long as the ground
Timing for Dividing Plants
00:53:43
Speaker
is not frozen. Yeah. Alexis is in the mindset of like, I got a bunch of tasks. Where can I fit them into my schedule?
00:53:48
Speaker
I mean, that's the reality, right? And it's like prepping in the kitchen. It's like anything you do in a profession. I have six and it would be cool to turn them into 12. That's my mentality. And so for me, I would probably wait until they were dormant because there's not another thing that I need to... That's my fun time.
00:54:08
Speaker
Yeah. 12 other irons on the fire. Yeah. I guess I think about, I have a lot of friends who are moms. And so I'm also thinking about them, like they're, it is their them time, but how often do they get that too? So it might be not that you have a ton of farming or gardening tasks to do. You just might have a lot of crap to do. And so you can, yeah, fit that in when they're at the end of the season. We're talking about like, uh, divisions now, but another form of.
00:54:36
Speaker
multiplying plants would be seed savers. We don't have a lot of time left on this, this episode to get into it, but it may be a great one for the future. But now is a great time to be thinking about that. If you've not done that, maybe we can, maybe that's a good, good upcoming episode, but I'll put that bug in your ear is that it's a great time that if you're, you are seed savers, some crops lend themselves, open pollinated crops lend themselves very well to, um,
00:55:03
Speaker
Saving the seeds and i've worked with a lot of seed savers over time home gardeners that have you know, Seeds of that their favorite tomato that they've saved for time out of the mind. They have no idea what the actual True variety of that or cultivar of the tomato is but they've saved it for so long that they just keep saving it but uh
00:55:21
Speaker
It's a time of year to begin thinking about that. As things ripen and physiologically mature, that's when you want to save the seeds of these best, most perfect fruits that were the most thrifty, the best growers, the most disease free. Now's the time of year to be thinking about that. Yeah. Along those lines, especially the fruiting ones where the seeds are within it, this is when you pick a plant
00:55:45
Speaker
and say let that one go all the way to seed as they say. Don't harvest it to eat it, let it go all the way. One more set of questions and this can be just real straightforward. Fall, spring, do it now or wait. Thinking about like planting perennials, things like shrubs, things like fruit trees, things like non-flowering trees or perennials of those sorts. What's the extension go to line?
00:56:16
Speaker
I really, evergreens in the spring is my preference to avoid winter burn. But I love the deciduous trees and shrubs this time of year, because historically, on average, we have cooler temps, more moisture available this time of year. And if you put that plant in the ground, you know, at a time where it's going to go into dormancy, it's a good time to do it for the deciduous trees and shrubs.
00:56:41
Speaker
Yeah, for Kentucky people, plant those things in the fall, I think because there's like the Arbor Day Foundation will tell you spring, like Arbor Day is in the spring. And I think that throws a lot of our people off because Arbor Day is from like
00:56:57
Speaker
We've talked about this before, like North Dakota or I don't know, somewhere where they have cold, cold winters and not nearly as hot as summers. So good rule of thumb, if you have hot summers and your winters are relatively speaking mild as far as throughout the country, you want to plant those deciduous prandials in the fall. Again, just to be blunt. So those things are going to have leaves on them when I plant them or they're not going to have leaves on them when I plant them? It depends on the species, but it may not and that's fine.
00:57:26
Speaker
In Kentucky, I mean, if you wait to the point where it doesn't have leaves on it, the ground's probably getting, because you want to dig the ground, not in a wet condition because you're going to destroy soil texture. So a lot of times you're putting that maple tree in the ground when it has leaves on it, but it's getting ready for winter. So it's not going to have a lot of.
00:57:44
Speaker
you know, growth needs at that point. And we're doing it that time. We don't want to get it too far into the winter in Kentucky because sometimes the ground just turns wet, stays wet. That's not a good time to dig. You want to dig the ground when it's fairly workable.
00:57:57
Speaker
fairly dry. So that's why a lot of times we're planting trees, such as a maple, for example, in the fall when it does have a few leaves on it, because it's at a point where the ground's still, you know, we can dig a good hole. So if I'm itching to do this stuff August, September, maybe into October, go for it. If it gets into November, December, then that might be the turning point to maybe wait till the spring.
00:58:24
Speaker
Problematic, it could be problematic, especially with some species more so than others. I forget specific examples, but you can have some frost heaving issues in certain instances, depending on the size of the tree. I would say if you haven't purchased the plant yet or divided it yet, then it's better to wait. But if it's something that you bought it thinking you were going to plant it in September and now it's the end of November and Thanksgiving has rolled around and you've not done it yet, plant it.
00:58:51
Speaker
Mm-hmm and plant it with and mulch it heavily. Yeah, you know make sure you're doing that donut mulching We talked donut volcano don't know what that is. Go to the mulch episode No, do not sorry Don't eat volcanoes eat donuts. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, it's all about food. It's all about food. I
00:59:19
Speaker
Uh, so yes, I would say if it's, if you have like a plant that needs to be planted, that's awesome. And I think, you know, the thing you also said earlier about the P or that you said about peonies with a lot of plants, I mean, not all of them, but many of them are pretty tough and like they're, they want to survive. Yeah, exactly. They just want to live. Yeah.
00:59:41
Speaker
Well, I really appreciate you all just answering all of my questions. Luckily, we recorded it for the podcast, but this was all just me being selfish ultimately. It's just the bread show. We're just here. I have one more question and I got to answer this. I thought you were going to say you were going to ask it and answer it. I was like, that's a baller move. No, I'm going to ask it and you guys are going to answer it. All time moves. I suspect you guys are going to have some experience with this. I bet you.
01:00:08
Speaker
But broadforks, which I love, but do you have a preference, speaking of putting gardens to bed and working the soil and getting it
Using Broadforks
01:00:16
Speaker
ready? Do you guys have a preference for like how you use broadforks as far as breaking up hard pans? Spring, fall, what?
01:00:24
Speaker
I mean, as far as working, I mean, any time to break up a hard, as needed. Okay. That's what I needed to know. Usually before planting. So if you're doing a fall planting. So if you're broad forking for the benefit of aeration for the plants you're going to put in, I would do it as close to the planting as I could. That's, that's my thinking at least. Yeah. Right. Right. What if you're broad for every day?
01:00:54
Speaker
Just for good arm muscles and neighbors. If you don't know what broad fork is, Google it. It's, it's an awesome tool. It's a hand tool and it breaks up hard pants, which we see hard pants a lot in home gardens because of garden tailors go down six to eight inches on average and creates a hammered.
01:01:12
Speaker
hard pan that water and roots or anything else can't go to if you till at the same depth every year. And these broadforks are these wonderful tools that go down and kind of help break that up depending on the design of the forest. It's almost like a hand tool, subsoiler, or speeder kind of.
01:01:27
Speaker
pulverize the soil. It kind of lifts and separates. Yeah. Yeah. This creates channels. And in the fall, as I more lift, sometimes I'm breaking up a hard pan, but even if I don't have a hard pan in the winter, in the fall, I am lifting the soil to increase that airification and everything and, you know, water penetration over the winter. And then that kind of pulverizes up and you seems like you can get some benefits, not related to hard pans, but just soul structure, just letting that go through the winter.
01:01:55
Speaker
And then as I'm planting things, man, they're so good right before you plant. When you break it, you get that nice, deep planting bed. So yeah, thank you guys.
01:02:05
Speaker
All right, well, we're going to wrap this up. We've gone on because we're just so excited about garden prep.
Conclusion and Listener Interaction
01:02:12
Speaker
But anyways, we hope that you all have learned some stuff, maybe have been inspired on what you need to be doing for fall cleanup or fall, you know, whether that's cover cropping or dividing or, you know, just making sure that you pull your disease plants out so that you don't have as much of an issue the following year. Give yourself a little bit of time. This is, I think,
01:02:35
Speaker
I think the consensus is that there's some things that need to be done before the dead of winter, and there's some things you can wait and do in the dead of winter. Give yourself a little bit of break, a little bit of room to get through those things. It all comes with good time.
01:02:52
Speaker
If you want to contact us so that we can open your mail on the pod, you can send us an email at hortculturepodcast at l.uky.edu. You can also shoot us a message on Hort Culture Pod, which is our Instagram account. We would love if you would leave us a review and just let us know if you've been enjoying it. Hopefully you won't leave us a review if you've been hating it, but I guess it's your prerogative. If you leave a negative review, make sure you put your address.
01:03:20
Speaker
Just kidding. I'm just kidding. Yeah. We'll change your mind. We'll send you plants in the mail. But anyways, we hope that as we grow this podcast, you will grow with us and that you will join us next week for more planty goodness. Have a great one, y'all.