Episode 1566: Seg3 of S10 E13 Garden Q and A Part 20 - The Gardening with Joey and Holly Radio Show

Welcome back to the garden with you and Holly Radio, show happy to have you along.

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It's time for your garden questions and our garden answers.

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All right.

What do I make since the last year's soil to prepare my plants for this year?

So fertilizer in soil generally lasts for two weeks to six months depending on the type

and the condition.

Liquid fertilizer is those are the fastest acting those last year from two to four weeks.

And then granular slash slow release fertilizers last three to six months.

So I'll type versus sandy, clay, a combination, maybe you have heavy rain, maybe you are

using heavy feeder plants like tomatoes or heavy feeder, corn, peppers, potatoes,

whatever you crop, sometimes nutrients can leak out, especially if you do have heavy

rain or get used up by the heavy feeders.

Compost is the best answer, the most simplistic answer.

Just add compost, inch compost every year to your growing beds.

Now you can supplement your bone mill or blood mill or granular fertilizer or you're

going to drive your organics.com to that each year.

You can get a soil test from SoilSavvy.com to know where you're at on your pH level and

what you need to add and what you need to stop adding.

But simple compost, you can buy it in bulk is the best financial way to do it from your

local independent garden center and have them deliver it, have it in a back corner and

just bring, you know, have, have it, you know, if you can pick it up yourself, that's

fine, but delivery fee is going to be improved by you and have enough there and just top

dress it every year on inch or two and you will be good to go.

Cucumbers and squash had powdery mill do last year.

Is it safe to plant the same vegetables in the same spot this year?

I'm going to say no personally, that's my, my advice is planted in a different spot.

Powdery mill do is a common airborne fungi fungal disease.

It appears as like a white grayish, telecom powder type substance that's like little

plant spots on plants, mostly like on the leaves, the stems, the flowers.

It does thrive when there's warm dry days and cool human nights.

You often will see this at the end of summer as opposed to the beginning or the middle.

It can affect plants by reducing their photosynthesis ability and this can cause distorted

growth, stunted growth.

It technically does not live in the soil, but it will return next year by overwintering

on infected plant disease, debris, so like leaves, stems, whatever left on the ground.

So it's not soil born.

You might want to avoid that area for those same plants at least one season because even

those wind dispersed and moves in that way, it could still be kind of lurking around.

So that is a good reason to remove your disease plants in your garden.

We'll talk about powdery mill do here as this is a topic.

If you have three zucchini plants, example, and the center zucchini plant is to be getting

to develop powdery mill do you can remove up to 25% of the leaves on that plant and get

it out of the garden so it won't transfer or be blown to the other plants.

Then removing that plant, leave or damage or diseased portions, put it in a bag, don't

just drag it across.

So I'm just going to carry it over to the trash because now you've dispersed all those

spores on top of the adjacent plant and you can cause additional problems.

You want to put it in your trash and not put it in your compost or the city municipality

to pick up to compost in their facility.

Some municipalities frown upon that and say you can't do that.

Well, they're not going to dig through your garbage between your mail and your last

supper's scraps.

You can just mix it in.

They're never going to find it and you will be fine.

I've never had good luck growing carrots after reading.

I see that you soil, maybe my soil, maybe two dents.

I'm going to add sand and some soil mix.

What is the right ratio you think would be best on making the soil better?

You do not want to add sand to your soil.

What you're going to make a patio.

This can create a concrete like situation.

So sand can theoretically improve aeration and drainage and theory.

It's not what you want to do.

So what you can add is compost.

You can add your own compost.

You can add composted compost.

You can work it in.

You can just let it sit there and let the water and takes a couple of years or a while

a year to really get it worked in, just like we talked about in the previous question

in regards to making the soil better, what to top-dress the soil with, just compost.

Yeah.

Aside from the sand turning into like a concrete situation to your soil, it's also going

to aid in nutrient loss.

So you're going to, if you try to amend the soil with sand, it's not going to be as healthy

essentially.

Not as much nutrients for your plants.

That's why you want to add compost.

Yeah.

Clay and sand equal a dense material.

All right.

Can I plant potatoes that I have saved from last year that are all wrinkly and have some

eyes growing off of them or do I need to cut them to scab them over?

They've been setting in my basement closet since last year.

It's harvest.

No, you can, don't, if you and we've all seen this, what was fine?

I just, I saw this meme and it was like this root looking vegetable and then it was, like

it was a drawn picture of like this root looking vegetable man and it said, it's like, where

is the soil?

And then it's like that one potato that you find months later in the back of your pantry.

You know how I've got like nine-footed, so anyway, that made me think of this.

So yes, you can go ahead and plant these potatoes, even if they're shriveled up.

If they are less than the size of a medium-sized chicken egg, don't cut any of the roots off,

don't cut any of the eyes off, plant the unit as a hole in the ground and walk away, especially

if these potatoes are drying or wrinkling in texture and it's not like a potato that you

would buy from a seed supplier because this is, they're starting to dehydrate.

They're starting to change their material inside for reproduction.

That's what happens.

The starch is changing all this.

So go ahead and plant them.

We all have these.

There's nothing wrong with planting store-bought potatoes that you were going to grow for

edible consumption for your family that are sprouting.

These, it's a good sign if you buy potatoes and a week later you start to see the potatoes

sprouting.

Then you're a kitchen because you know that the limited amount of chemicals or no chemicals

were put on them because they are growing.

Some potatoes don't sprout, so kind of different.

Some potatoes you just gotta look at them when they sprout.

Right.

Yeah.