 Hi everybody, welcome. Welcome to the Spring Fever Garden Forums where we connect gardeners with the experts at North Dakota State University. My name is Tom Cobb. I'm an extension horticulturist at North Dakota State University in the Department of Plant Sciences. Tonight is the last of our four Spring Fever Garden Forums and our theme is small spaces and trees. So let's get started. Container gardening is something that any gardener of any age or experience can do. And so here to share with us some tips on how to be successful at container gardening is Kelsey Deckard. Kelsey's NDSU extension horticulture agent for Burley and Morton counties. She educates the public on caring for landscapes and gardens, along with providing local leadership for the NDSU master gardener program. She enjoys teaching youth about gardening and bridging the gap of farm to table. So Kelsey, welcome to the forums. So like Tom said, container gardening is something for all ages of all experience in gardening. In general, gardening is a great way to teach youth about responsibility and growing your own food. Urban settings don't necessarily allow for an in-ground garden and poor soil can cause very much frustration and headaches when trying to get something established. Physical disabilities in age can even impede our ability to bend over and be on our knees. Have you ever heard of somebody growing a lemon tree or lemon plant, let me say in North Dakota? I actually used to have a co-worker that did grow one inside his house in a container. So nothing can dress up landscape better than having some focal points like we see here in this photo, whether it's on a porch, your front yard, or even just in a decorative spot. Next to maybe a sign or an old piece of equipment. And tonight I'm going to talk about all that you need to know for container garden. So let's get started. Containers can be of a traditional planter pots. You can utilize almost anything for container. This is going to be probably your most convenient type that you can find out there, just a plastic container. Many garden stores and big box stores will carry an array of types of them. Even last week was out at the Dollar Tree and was just amazed on the variety of containers you could find there. They got a lot of containers in their spring section. You can even construct your own container, but you do need to know that any container you use needs to have one thing in common, and that is going to be drainage holes. So if we look at this photo here, we definitely would want to make sure that there is holes at the bottom of it. And you can even upcycle everyday items for containers. The one thing that I would caution people if you are going to use something that maybe previously is an everyday item. It's just to be aware of any safety concerns the container may have such as like chemicals that were in there. And then again, if they are lacking any drainage holes to simply take a drill and put some holes in the container. So just an example of something that you know you may need to be aware of a container that would have chemicals. If you're utilizing something that maybe was like an actual chemical container or like a chemical totes for spraying fields. Those make great containers, but again you would want to make sure that you have thoroughly clean them out. And kind of like I mentioned in the beginning, it can be a great focal point in your landscape. I know there's some North Dakotans out there that we have a hard time just letting go of older vehicles. So I love the picture here in this photo. I don't know that it came from North Dakota, but I do know of some family and friends that have older vehicles that are similar to this one and what a way to dress up and maybe highlight a vehicle you had growing up. And then of course I always like to mention to people when I talk about container gardening that another type is simply raised beds. So raised bed gardening would be considered container gardening as well. The one thing that is great about container gardening is you can even do themes with it. This is something that I've found very useful when I am teaching youth. We've done in different programs themed gardens. So whether that's growing a pizza garden or a salsa garden, again highlighting some of those ingredients that you would put on a pizza or within salsa is a great way. Up in that left hand side of the photo there we have a succulent garden and it seems like succulents are just something that has been trending the last few years and it's always a good way for me to tell people that like my sister who really wants to have a green thumb but doesn't necessarily. Succulents is almost a full proof way of gardening because they can take a lot of abuse. In the bottom right hand corner. I like to highlight fairy gardens again with our youth that is something that can be really fun for them to do in a container. So they can create their own like little landscape or little themed or even like little house for them to invite fairy. So it's just another great way that you can utilize and do container gardening with. So let's go ahead and talk about the basics. So when you are selecting a container we definitely want to make sure that like I said earlier it has draining so like I said up here anything that can hold soil and has drainage holes is perfectly suitable. And again, if you don't have one that maybe it's really appealing but it doesn't always have that drainage in it just simply again drill some holes in it. So when you are selecting the container I always say maybe think of the purpose are we highlighting vegetables in it. Are we highlighting flowers, succulents herbs. Is it going to be decorative so just knowing what you're going to grow in it will help you in selecting maybe the depth and the width of that container so you can see in these two photos this is actually out at my in laws place and my mother in law has made me realize some old lick tubs for cattle and stuff that again she cleaned out thoroughly put some holes at the bottom and she is growing her vegetable garden. You can even see next to it there is a palette so again she's got that raised off of the ground put some soil in there and had fabric underneath it and has some of her leafy greens growing in it so you can be really imaginative when you are selecting a container. The question is, you know, soil, what should a person use. And we had Emily at the beginning of the spring fever webinars talk about, you know, selecting different media types and everything like that so again just kind of highlighting a couple of the points she shared is, you know, a soil based medium, meaning it has soil in it. There are some pros for it so it's going to be heavier. It is going to retain moisture and it already is going to contain nutrients. The cons of having that would be it could contain insects, weed seeds, or even carry over disease. And then if you go for a soilless medium, it's going to be free of insects, weed seeds and disease organisms. The cons is it can lack longevity, and it can be costly so again, depending on where you're looking and what type of container. This is something to kind of go back and forth on on which one's going to be better. In general, if you were going to be using a container that you maybe have on your porch that you're going to move around from year to year, or smaller containers, I would just go ahead and recommend, you know, going with a soilless medium and media, excuse me. And so, again, just to highlight what Emily talked about previously, those typically contain of like peat, vermiculite, bark, some of them can even have coconut halls in it, but over time you will lose kind of the drainage and aeration properties they contain to begin with. So that's just one thing to remember. I just added a picture here of one of my raised beds at home. And so with this one. I actually did just take basically some composted sheet manure and then some topsoil and blended that in together to put that in the one that I have here at home so it's not I'm not planning on moving it, it's going to stay there for long term. It's tiered. So I had to bring in a lot of soil to fill that. I believe we did two by 10. So, you know, the height is definitely there on that. But again, just wanted to show this as a way of, you know, there are reasons that you may, in some incidents, go with a soil type media for it. So as far as constructing a raised bed, I always get the questions, you know, about pressurized treated lumber. And that is one thing that now doesn't contain like the toxins and chemicals that it used to. So it is okay to go ahead and use treated lumber. The great thing about it is because it is treated it's not going to wear as bad as something as wood untreated. So you could look at that you could look at, you know, a variety of oak, redwood, cedar, you can even use like tin, plastic, lots of different things to construct that. I do say to go ahead and avoid the railroad tides though. Railroad ties can contain toxics that can leach into your garden. Location. So again, you need to ask yourself really what are you, what growing conditions are needed for the plants you are growing. Typically, you're going to want to find a spot that receives full sun, or more than six hours each day. And then also find a spot that the wind isn't going to cause too much damage, which I know can be a little tough here in North Dakota. I just want to kind of drive home the point of location is going to play the key factor in being successful with the container garden. And if you are, you know, protected from the wind like in this photo that's nice for this plant, the one thing though, that is a little bit iffy for this photo here is it is place that container next to the rock mulch and on hot and on concrete on top of it. So those hot days could really cause some heat scorch to the plant. So in this case of this photo I would probably bring that container up on the porch just to eliminate more that heat that's going to radiate off. So again, think about that too. Maybe you don't have any other options, but by concrete but just think of again what you're planting in there and what type of plant in the growing conditions it needs. As far as watering, watering for containers is usually going to be more frequent than an in-ground garden. The one thing I can say for raised beds, if that's the route you're going to go like the one I showed, I actually have another one at home that's like a 10 by 10 that I grow just pretty much straight vegetables in. You know, generally our gardens require one inch of water per week and I would say that fit and held true for both my beds last year. I didn't water them any extra. But again, if you have those containers and especially if you are going to use like a soilless media, they're probably going to need more frequent watering could even be up to daily. It's easy to tell. Of course, you can just simply feel how wet or dry the soil is. Excuse me by sticking like your index finger into the soil about an inch deep. So, and then one other thing about raised beds too, if they don't have a bottom which mine doesn't and I didn't line it, just treat it similar to an in-ground garden. As far as fertilizing, again, it's going to vary. If you're raised bed, you may not need to fertilize as often, but a container will need to be fertilized. That soil doesn't have the nutrient, a soilless media doesn't have the nutrients. So what I would suggest is to find like a water soluble fertilizer and start out with about 50% of the recommended amount. And then as your plants really start to grow and need those extra nutrients, just adjust as needed. So container fillers, this is another one that I get a lot of questions on. And large containers can get very heavy depending on how much growing media is needed. So fillers can be used to line that container and again, reduce the cost of how much you need to fill those up. So just some things that you could utilize would be like crushed aluminum cans, plastic milk jugs, even packing peanuts. That would be some ways that you could do it even if you looked at putting like shredded mulch towards the bottom would be great. And so I would tell you to go ahead and you can fill them up to a third of the pot up from the bottom so anywhere from one fourth to a third of the container. And then what you would want to do is put a layer of landscaping fabric over the top just so when you do add in your growing media that soil isn't going to get lost below. One thing that is great if you go the route of a raised bed garden is square foot gardening. And so square foot gardening is going to be a great option that maximizes limited space. So again, maybe you don't have a large backyard, maybe you have like an apartment setting that does have a balcony. So some advantages of square foot gardening is it is going to make harvesting easier. You can maximize the amount of vegetables in there to get, I guess, more vegetables within a smaller area. Watering is going to be easier. There's going to be less weeding, and then simply you can rotate the crops by square instead of location. So again, just a couple more to add on there why a person might do it. Maximize your space less labor intensive. The setup is really simple. This is something that I've done again with youth that I'm going to highlight here on the next slide. And then a big advantage to that I would tell people is there's no tilling involved. So you can see right here how easily you can set this up and just measure, you know, 12 inches across the bottom and take string and stretch it across and then just go horizontal and vertical on your container. That would be a really easy way. That photo on the right is from several years ago that I had an in-ground garden with some youth in Wing North Dakota. And I just wanted to show them the concept of it and stuff. So again, we didn't make it like permanent. It was more so when we went to plant that garden so they could see how many were in there. And going back and forth like I would have used more of a permanent so maybe take some wood and create a grid because of course like I said earlier North Dakota is quite windy. So towards the end of the season our string wasn't tight anymore. But this is a great way to that if you are utilizing the beds and container gardens, it's going to help you, you know, from having to bend over as far as an in-ground garden as well. So I'd like to show this picture because here is more of a permanent picture of square foot gardening. And it just really kind of shows you a good progression of the vegetables and you can see how each of those square foot are really to the maximized area and how you can go ahead and get the most out of each area. So again, you can see there's some radishes in there. Marigolds, I would guess over on this towards the right side of the photo there that those are onions growing. It's really nice. And then here's a chart that you can find online. Just a reference chart pertaining to if you wanted to use the route of square foot gardening. It may be in a raised bed. So according to the size, how many plants could be in each square foot. And so you can see our extra small plants, which include radish, carrots and onions. You get about 16 plants. And our smaller plants, you're going to have bush beans, beets and spinach. You get nine. Medium plants, lettuce, basil, marigold, corn, parsley, potato, strawberry turnip, four. Large plants like a tomato, eggplant, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, cucumber, cucumber, okra, pepper, you're only going to do one. And it does show extra large, but I will just say I've never seen a person be able to contain a watermelon, zucchini, pumpkin, any of those listed to two square feet. So just kind of shows you that. And one thing too, if you did want to do this, this is another thing working with youth, if you're trying to work with youth. One thing I discovered is paper towels are almost one square foot. And so you can create like a seed tape and have kids before they're ready to put them in the garden actually take seeds and glue them down on that paper towel. So that was an activity that I did as well with you just to show them how many, according to the plant size, how many seeds we could get in that square foot to grow. So just to kind of get wrapping up here with my presentation going through a couple tips. mulch. You know, again, it's recommended in in ground gardens, but it's very helpful in container gardens. I will say that picture that you seen of mine, the top of it that had the statue in it and stuff I actually utilize mulch at the top, again to just conserve moisture. And it did a really good job as a barrier for weeds I just use some shredded wood bark and there so think about incorporating this again in your containers. And then of course, think vertical, I would tell people to do the same with an in ground garden to but just getting those plants off the ground is going to lessen the number of problems, such as disease and damage from wildlife. So I like this one here with the container gardens you can see they're growing some tomatoes and they have them staked up. Getting them up off the ground as well as going to encourage that airflow and reduce that humidity, which does create a good environment to promote disease, and even harbor, harbor pests. So make sure that in your gardens as well that you're growing your recommended varieties whether you're doing seeds or transplant plants. You want to buy seeds from reliable sources. It's going to be best recommended to not use seed that's over your old and look for if you're going to go with transplants look for healthy ones so they shouldn't be pale they shouldn't be small in size. If you have any leftover seed that you do want to store just make sure that you're storing it in an airtight container in a cool dry place until next season. A refrigerator is going to work really well. And then of course to like I said in any garden so I would apply this in a container garden or raised bed. Let's make sure we are planting flowering plants throughout the growing season so just highlighting a couple that we see in spring that are good to attract pollinators such as a crocus wild combine and chives mid summer you can look for b-bomb black eyed Susan and cone flower, and then in the fall see them new England Aster and stiff golden rod. So again, it doesn't matter if it's a raised bed or container, maybe even if you have a container that you're doing a lot of vegetables in, maybe just adding a container that you can do some flowers and to attract those pollinators. And so with that, I will take any questions that there is this evening. Okay, thanks Kelsey. So if anybody has a question please type in the Q&A box. And we've got a little controversy right away here, like about is pressure treated lumber really safe, or does it have very toxic chemicals. And today's you shouldn't have to worry at all on it. It's just, it just has it took the arsenic out and it added more copper and so there's, there's no chemicals that are toxic to people. And so don't worry about it. It's great value. Hey, Kelsey, are you familiar with soil moist crystals as a media? I'm not. No, I'm not. Okay, we're going to pass maybe somebody in the audience is familiar. There's a question if it's okay for vegetables. How about, you know, what you talked about with your, your tall raised beds using fillers like aluminum cans and styrofoam peanuts and that stuff. Don't you worry about leaching with that? Leaching from the aluminum leaching and causing toxicity to the plants. No, like I said in there, if you use a barrier between those fillers and that soil, you shouldn't have any issues with leaching. I've never heard of anybody having issues with fillers within their gardens. So that would be you mentioned landscape fabric as the barrier. Yep. But that's not a that's not permanent. Yeah, yeah, like water can still go in there and come up. Yeah, I've never heard of anybody having issues unless you have Tom. I have not. I have not. And I do know of people who who views various fillers. Yeah. And how about this? Have you ever planted potatoes in a container? Yes. So similar to the photo that I use that I said was my mother-in-law's that was like lick tubs. Again, when I gardened with youth, kind of in that I went to wing and Wilton one year or a few summers in a row. I actually bought like the plastic similar to what she had plastic blue that totes that you can carry that have handles on them. And what I did is I cut the bottom of that out. And then again, because it went directly on a playground in their grass area. I put some landscape fabric at the bottom, filled it up implanted potatoes in there and no problem had great potatoes out of there. I heard there's a guy named Jaden Dekert who does a lot of no till potatoes. No dig. Yes. No dig potatoes. They're growing upward vertical potatoes. So maybe he's quite an esteemed speaker. You can Google him Jaden Dekert and learn about no dig potatoes. See if it works for you. How about have you ever thought about growing hostas in containers and would they survive the winter? I've never done hostas myself. I don't know of anybody who's done hostas in the container. So I don't, I don't have an answer on that one personally. Yeah, I would say you have to be very careful with perennial plants in general in containers, because the most sensitive portion of the plant to the cold are roots. So if they're not getting given protection, some mulching, for example, you could have a that perennial could actually end up being an annual about, you know, you were making fun of that drawing about growing zucchini in a two by two area. Have you ever thought about growing and we have to have zucchini. It's so critical for our nutrition in North Dakota. I like zucchini. I don't hate on it. There you go. I think there was something good about you, Kelsey. And now, how about if you're there about staking it or staking the pumpkins, you know, or watermelons growing vertical. Yeah, yeah. So again, I haven't personally, but I did this last summer visit a garden that a gal was growing her squash and she created an archway with like a cattle panel. And I thought it was just like running TSC and they're flexible she created an archway and then she showed me she bought some clips from online off of Amazon, I believe. And so yes, as it she basically had them trellis and so when you'd walk under her archway, she had squash hanging and she would just be able to pull it off. And seeing it in person, you can be successful with it. I have not myself done it but I mean, I think if you get to like a watermelon, I think zucchini would be okay watermelon. I don't think that that would probably be very feasible with just how heavy they get a pumpkin would be the same but like squash your smaller squash. I think you can easily do it there. Decorative pumpkin, like when I was checking, you see that. Okay, this person has got a family argument here, the husband says that you can use railroad ties if they're old and the chemicals have been leached out so she planted her strawberries in a bed with railroad ties. Do you think her husband was correct? You know, I'm not no expert on that I would not know if the chemicals have leached out it kind of gets like I get questions similar to that like with compost telling if compost is ready you know and using manure. So, I don't know. I mean, I don't know. I don't know that answer. There's, there's, there's a risk though, right fact that they're old railroad ties that's probably the creosote has leached out most likely. And as far as weed barriers, do you need to take that up each year? I don't quite get that question. I don't know that I mean, again, like if you're putting maybe they're referring to if you put mulch. I don't know. Yeah, maybe. I mean, like the mulch that I had, like I referenced in the slideshow on mine personally, I put mulch around basically that little statue of the cowboy on the bucking horse and did that as a decorative thing, but I didn't have mulch throughout the whole spot. I had wood chips. I, and you're planting I don't know why you would have to take them out like you could just move them next year and plant whatever you wanted into it. Okay, so you talked about seeds and paper towels. Yep. What kind of glue did the kids use for the seeds? I just use your non-toxic Elmer school glue. Is it okay to use old soilless media under new soilless media? I don't see why not. Yeah, it's not toxic. It's okay. Yeah. How about do you have a good resource for companion plants for raised beds and in particular vegetables? I don't have any particular one. I will tell you go do a Google search. You'll find lots of information, books that have been written on companion planting. And make sure you get your resource from a university if possible because then we know what science based in that a bunch of food. How about when using large containers in the yard, should they be placed directly on the ground or should they be put on pallets or some structure to lift it off the ground? I don't, there would be no reason to have to have them on anything. If you're worried, like I said about if it's a drainage thing, like I talked about the potatoes, you can cut the bottom out and I put landscape fabric underneath it just because it was going on grass, a grassy area. If it's going to be a permanent structure there, go ahead, set it on there. No reason to lift it off. This person, can you put vermiculite and perlite in with the soil mix before you fill your pods? Sure thing. How about this person's, a lot of interest in aluminum cans in the audience here. They say, well, one person wants to use rusty cans to kill insects in the garden. I have no idea about that. How about this person recommends you rinse the aluminum cans or the water jugs, rinse them out. Otherwise the raccoons are going to dig the plants out and she thinks they smell the liquid residue. They might. Let's sugar if you're using popcans or... They like their beer, huh? Yeah, that's right. Get some slugs in there. There you go. Does the container size limit the amount of produce that, for example, tomatoes are produced? Yeah, I mean, well, like off of one plant? Well, I think it's obvious that, you know, if you restrict a root development area, reduce the tomatoes that you can produce. This person likes zucchini jam. Another zucchini lover. Never heard of zucchini jam. A lot of people use soda, milk, ice cream containers. They seem to work. Do you have a recommendation of how deep the soil should be in a raised bed or a square foot garden? Again, depends on what you're growing. If you're doing like rooted vegetables, you know, know the size. Are you doing like more of, you know, like those shanty carrots? Are you doing regular carrots? You got to know the size of what you're growing. Maybe eight inches is a good minimum in general as far as a minimum goes. How about, have you ever used stainless steel raised beds at your mom? No, not stainless steel. No. Okay. Do you have any tips on how high you should feel a container with soil, like one inch to the rim, or do you have a recommendation for that? Yeah, usually, you know, one inch is probably good. You want to leave a little bit, but again, know that when you are planting it and you water, it obviously is going to drop down as well. So there's no real rhyme or reason to that, you know, as far as like you need to leave it at one inch, you know, I'd fill your container and then let it settle. And if you need to add some, you add some. Right. How about do roots of plants go through the fabric barrier? I have not seen any of mine go through. Okay. Is TikTok a good place to learn about growing carrots in containers? I don't know that you want my opinion on TikTok. I don't utilize TikTok. We're at the end of the questions you could tell. We're at the end. Let's use extension. That's a good, that's a good way to end it. Call your local agent. Also, one last comment on zucchini jam. It's made with any flavor, jello. It's very high in vitamin C. There you go. Okay, on that note, Chelsea, thank you for your wonderful presentation.