 Welcome everyone. My name is Julie Garden Robinson and I'm your host for the 2022 field of fork webinar series. This is brought to you by North Dakota State University Extension. And this is actually the seventh year we've done the series and I think Tom has been a speaker every year. We're all glad that you joined us today. After a blizzard filled winter at least in Fargo, we're all anxiously awaiting springtime and gardening, especially those of us who live in the Midwest. This next slide shows our upcoming webinars. On March 2 Barbara Ingham professor and extension food safety specialist from Wisconsin will provide guidance on good gardening practices for safe and healthy produce. And following Barb will be Shannon Coleman. And she's an assistant professor and extension food safety specialist in Iowa State, and she'll be talking about honey safety and use. This next slide shows the webinar controls. Because of our large number of participants. We invite you to post your comments in the chat. So I'd like all of you to find the chat. That's where Scott has posted a little comment. And I'd like you to tell us the city and state where you are right now. So find the chat and tell us your city and state. And this next slide provides an acknowledgement. This program series is sponsored in part with grant funding from USDA's agricultural marketing service. And at the end of today's webinar I'm asking you to complete a very short online survey. It will be emailed directly to you after today's webinar. And as a thank you, I will provide really cool prizes to the lucky winners of the random drawings. And you can actually win a prize every week because I have lots of different prizes. But be sure to put your complete address on the follow up form, including your city, state and zip code. Otherwise, we don't have a good way to send you that special prize. So again, I welcome you to today's webinar and I'm very pleased to introduce our guest speaker. Tom Calb is an extension horticulturalist for North Dakota State University located in Bismarck. Tom was raised on a farm in Minnesota, where his family managed a commercial apple orchard and 15 acres of vegetables and berries. He coordinates the North Dakota home garden variety trials and the state's junior master gardener program. He is the author of the NDSU yard and garden report, a popular newsletter for gardeners in North Dakota. So welcome Tom, it's all yours. Okay, thanks Julie. And hi everybody really looking forward to this talk here with you today. And as Julie said it's spent a long winter and I'm definitely I can't wait till spring time comes, the days are getting longer. And I believe spring is a time of hope, and I'm hoping to have my best garden ever this year. And today I'd like to show you some tips on how to grow a great garden. The first tip I got eight tips for you today. The first one has to do with your location of your garden because you got to have in the right place. And your vegetables, they, the ones that bloom, ones that have flowers, like beans and peas and cucumbers and tomatoes and peppers. They want full sun. Actually they all want full sun, eight hours, eight hours a day of direct sun is what they want. Let's say, let's say you don't have eight hours of direct sun. And you're not willing to cut down your trees in your yard, you know you don't have your priorities in order. Well you can still grow like leafy crops and root crops in shady gardens, but location is key. The other option has to do with containers. And, and if you missed last week's talk, you should really check out Don Kinsworth's talk about container gardening. It was really very informative and Don's a great speaker, so please check that out if you didn't watch it, or if you want to watch it again, you know, I guess to get the subtle points a second time, a good movie is get everything in second time sometimes when you watch it. So that's a location of a standard garden and then here's a beautiful raised bed garden. So besides sunlight, I think water is really the key. The limiting factor here in North Dakota for having a great garden, especially out here in the West water is so limiting so you need to have access to water. In case of an emergency, in case of drought, and also drainage is important. You don't want to put your garden in a wet spot, because in like here the timbers it rot, or in a low area you're going to more likely to have frost damage. So, you know, just look about, look at this beautiful raised bed garden. Let's just talk for a few minutes about raised beds. What's so good about them? They're aesthetic. They're beautiful. Love raised bed gardens, but they have other benefits too. They're easy on the back. So like when you get old like me, you don't have to bend down so far. You know, that really helps. Raised beds, they're good because the soil doesn't get compacted because you never have to step on it. You get great drainage because everything's above ground. It warms up faster in the spring. And raised beds are usually intensively garden so you're going to have fewer weed problems. Now, what kind of timbers should you make with your raised beds? Personally, I'm a big proponent of pressure-treated lumber. And it gets a bad rap from the past in that in the past pressure-treated lumber contained arsenic. It contained CCA copper chromated arsenic. And it was tightly bound. The arsenic was tightly bound. And nobody ever died from eating a carrot in an old pressure-treated lumber bed because the carrot would have died first. But still, the public was uncomfortable with using arsenic-containing compounds in their timbers. And so the Henry said, okay, we're just going to toss out the arsenic. No more arsenic. We'll just juice it up with extra copper to preserve the wood. And so this is today's pressure-treated lumber is the ACQ, the alkaline copper quaternary. And it has no toxic chemicals in it. No toxic chemicals, okay? It's safe to use. But you don't have to use. You've got other options. Cedar is a popular lumber because it lasts long, but it's... Cedar is very expensive. Untreated pine has a short life. You're just going to get a few years out of it. Do not recommend using railroad ties because railroad ties are treated with preservative chemicals, namely creosote, which are toxic. And they can leak out and we just don't know when the creosote's all gone. So if you have old railroad ties for landscaping, use them on your shrubs and flowers, but don't use them for edible crops. Here's a picture of a nice... I like raised beds for kids' gardens especially. And I've made a lot of school gardens with raised beds because the kids won't step on this stuff if it's in a raised bed. This is a junior master gardener program. And here's my poster boys, a guy in the green shirt there right in the front. There with his upside down bag of Doritos. Probably never saw a vegetable before he seemed looking at that broccoli plant going, oh my God, what is that thing? And that's a problem because very few children in our state eat the recommended amount of vegetables. And so gardening can help kids, like if kids learn how to grow a garden, they're more likely to eat vegetables. So I would recommend getting your kids involved into the garden. And we have a junior master gardener program. We offer gardening to over 3,000 kids every year. If you know of a youth group that would like some support in getting a garden established, then just go to the junior master gardener website. And just Google North Dakota Junior Master Gardener. We're taking applications right now. Okay, as far as the raised bed itself, there's some basic questions. First of all, how deep should it be? It's got to be at least six inches and even better, it's more like 10 inches. I'm going to use as my guide is about 10 inches to get decent vegetable production. The next point is how wide should it be? We like to have raised beds about four feet wide because you can reach two feet on either side. And that way, if it's no more than four feet, you won't have to step in the bed. You can reach across and just gather whatever you need to in the bed. I've never used landscape fabric underneath it. You don't need to. In fact, I've never used landscape fabric underneath a raised bed. I don't like to have that barrier there. And I'd rather like to have a natural interface between the soil that I add and the natural soil that's there. So I scrape up the natural soil and then work in some of the soil for the raised bed in it before I start adding more soil in it. Okay, what kind of soil should we use in a raised bed? And I get this question a lot and I talked to the soil scientists at NDSU and their general recommendation is something, this kind of mixture, about one third top soil. And that adds to nutrients and the microbes for healthy growth and about one third sand and that adds drainage to the bed and about one third organic matter. And the organic matter helps to improve the overall structure and till to the garden. And also it helps the soil to bind and hold on to any water or nutrients. So that's a general recommendation there for raised beds. The type of organic matter I really like is peat moss. Peat moss is a renewable resource and it has a tendency to add a little bit more acid to the soil. And that's good because if you add a little, most of our soils need a little bit more acid for ideal access to nutrients. And even if, even just for a normal garden, a lot of our gardens when I look at soil test reports, it's pretty common that they don't have enough organic matter in them. So like an inch of peat moss and working that in is a good thing to add to your soil in any garden situation. Manure is another good source of organic matter, but you have to use composted manure. So how do I know if the manure is composted? Well, I should be able to grab it. And I should just like be able to stick it right in my hands and smell it doesn't doesn't seem like manure at all. That's a well composted manure. Never use fresh manure after the gardens planted. And as a general rule, it's a good idea to wash any raw vegetables before you eat them. The other thing I want to talk about with manure that's a concern now in North Dakota gardens is that when people add manure to the garden, the manure may have herbicide in it. Because like let's say here's a picture of the horse there. If that horse is eating in a field that was sprayed with a persistent herbicide. Then when he eats that grass that has the herbicide that herbicide will pass all the way through the animal all the way from the mouth to the other end. And that manure will have that herbicide in it and that herbicide can persist for a few years. And so what happens is I get these calls in the spring and summer time to say, Tom, I swear I didn't spray anything nearby. But then you ask him did you add manure. And the chemicals we spray to kill dandelions now are much more persistent than in the past. And so what happens if you look at the label of your dandelion killer you have to make sure you look carefully and make sure that it says it that it will probably say you should not use these clippings because the clippings will have herbicide on them. And that could be consistent even for the for the whole year before in the good old days we use chemicals that they say you can as long as you mow your lawn a couple of times the chemicals gone. But now the chemicals we use now to kill dandelions and other weeds and lawns can persist all summer long. So be aware of that. So to find out what the edge here so let's take a soil test, and it's a it's a very low cost investment and you can get it done through any issue for only $19 and 50 cents. It's easy to take a soil test and let's say that brown areas are garden. What we want to do is we want to get a composite sample. We want to make sure what the whole garden is like as far as fertility. So I go out with a five gallon pail. And where we see a circle I'll just take to take some random shovel fulls I'll just go four to six inches deep. And I'll just put a scoop put them in the bucket just randomly go another place. And we see like maybe do a w form just so you get a random and you just mix it all up in the bucket and then you submit about a cup of this composite soil to the lab for analysis. And that will tell you exactly what you need what your plants need for healthy growth. And I do get that question a lot like what's the best thing I can add to my soil. And you know what I'll be philosophical here the best thing you can add to your soil to your garden. The best things to add your shadow, give your shadow to the garden, because the best gardeners. They really they, they have, they have a relationship with their plants they get to know their plants and they spend time out in the garden they go oh my gosh look at you you got little a fits on you let me take care of that right now, or that poor zucchini plant that's drooping. Oh I think you need to drink a water let me give you a drink of water right now. And the Native Americans have a similar saying they say the best thing to give your garden is your footprint. Okay, spend time in your garden and it'll be successful. Okay, we got, we got good location we got good soil. Now we got to have good seeds kind of great varieties that can make all the difference, because if you have. If you, no matter how good of a garnier if you got lousy seeds your everything's going to be compromised you won't achieve ultimate success. So when I look for great seeds, I want something that matures early, it's got to be 100 days or less or I can't count on making North Dakota. It's got to be productive. I wanted to resist diseases naturally so I don't have to be spring toxic chemicals in my garden. The varieties got a case good and they got to be locally adapted they got to be vegetable varieties that grow well in North Dakota. So how do we do that well when we go I love going reading seed catalogs that's my favorite when I read seed catalogs as a kid. Who cares about comic books I can read seed catalogs I love it, but the promise a lot of the varieties they offer are not suitable for North Dakota you know, as you well know North Dakota. It's a very harsh state only the most rugged people can survive here and same with the most rugged varieties. So we got to find varieties that are good for North Dakota. And how do we do that. We started the North Dakota home garden variety trials in which we have a team of over 200 families. Every year, agreed to test promising varieties in their backyard garden. So, and we've been hitting over 300 families a year and you're all welcome and joining. And you go to our website you can see our websites here at the bottom of the screen, you can click to receive our seed catalog. And we're going to be starting to ship out seeds in March. So you can choose whatever vegetables we want. We try over 50 different types of vegetables every year that you can join the trial. And from that information, you get the list of the recommended vegetable cultivars for North Dakota and this is a handout that's available to you on the field of fork website. And you know these are not my recommendations. These are the recommendations of over 1000 families in the Midwest that I've worked with to test promising varieties in their backyard gardens. So give that a look. And again, everybody's welcome to join our trust and it's a great kids project to it's simple science. Okay, that said, I'm just going to last year on field of fork you talked a lot about varieties but I'm just going to highlight a few varieties for you today because we're taking, we're talking more broadly about vegetable gardening. We're talking about tomatoes. Just a beautiful texture this time here I can't wait to have my first fresh garden tomato. And there's all kinds of tomatoes out there now there's, there's globular there's plum shaped pear shaped there's green, yellow, purple, red, pink, black, all different colors. But besides the fruits, I would encourage you to think about the vine type it is, and there's two major types of vines. There are the determinant types and the indeterminate types. A determinant type is compact. And the nice thing is they're easy to take care of you don't have to prune them. And you can try some if you want but you don't have to. Their yields are generally earlier, and they're concentrated. Okay. They work well in North Dakota but also you can grow indeterminate ones as well, but these take more work, they're get tall they can be as tall six feet tall. And you got to prune them, you got to try some, but their advantage is usually their fruits are a little bit larger, and they're often the best tasting tomatoes are indeterminate. Because they always have healthy leaves they're always producing new leaves new vines. And so there's a lot of sugars going on in those vines. Here's a quick look at some of the most popular varieties in the upper Midwest. Early girl is an indeterminate that's the eye there. And, but it's not aggressive, it's not an aggressive indeterminate type, and people like it because it's early. Early celebrity is probably the most popular among gardeners because it's very reliable and resist a lot of diseases, and has a good quality tomato, and even better quality tomato would be big beef. Mountain fresh plus is the most popular tomato grown in the Midwest. It's a good midsize tomato of great quality. Cherry tomatoes super sweet 100 is the most popular cherry and for canning Roma is very popular. But there's lots of advances going on here's a new variety out this year called big beef plus big beef is a great tomato and it does well in our state. But they've even improved it this year that's the plus they've made it more resistant to other diseases. It's got a bit more sweetness to it, and the interior color is redder now so big beef plus I really can't wait to try this one in my garden this year. And my favorite variety for tomatoes is sun gold and orange cherry tomatoes are delicious. I, I just I'm not really an explorer so much I'm kind of conservative and I like red tomatoes and so like orange doesn't seem right to me. But then so many front my friends told me it's time you got to have these orange cherry tomatoes are so delicious. And so I finally broke down. Okay, I'll try it. And some gold and sun sugar are tremendous flavor so fruity so intense. So sweet, just delicious tomatoes. Now I think, how about I always like to find out what other people like to eat as far as tomato says anybody want to get in a chat box and tell me what's a great cherry tomato that they like. Just will just pause for a second here and see if anybody wants to share what their favorite tomato is. This is how this is how I learned about the sun gold. Julie is anybody sharing or the, or are you just keeping it secret some people want to keep it secret. Because like, if you keep if you tell everybody your favorite tomato to buy it at the garden center and you don't be any left for you. That's but that's a prom I've had. Okay, so we have sweet 100 Juliet sun gold and yellow pear mountain magic. Artisan blush. Right. It's a fancy looking one. It's a drop black chocolate snack. Indigo blue. I've never heard of some of these Tom Cheyenne early girl better boy sun cherry. Look at that big beef, sun sugar celebrity. Yeah, you know how about those chocolate ones are kind of interesting and indigo. It's a, they haven't done well in our trials. They're like, it's a dark brown or almost blackish type, but they're a little bit on the bitter side. Some people don't like that. And yellow pear you mentioned yellow pear. Do you know that there's a yellow pear that was developed in Fargo. So you might want to try you should if you like yellow pear, why don't you send me a note. I'll send you a packet of Fargo yellow pear. It's a special variety developed by NDSU. So those are that's all that's all good. And anything that says mountain is very disease resistant and tolerates cool temperature. So I love any time I hear the word mountain mountain, mountain magic, mountain merit. Those are good ones. Okay, thanks. Thanks for sharing that I love it. See we're getting in the spirit. I'm not a fan of heirlooms though I have to say in general. Oh, you mentioned Juliet to Juliet what a great tomato that's my favorite cherry tomato, because it's, it's like halfway between aroma and a cherry, and it doesn't crack. The Prama Juliet. There's no seeds this year. That's a heartbreak but Juliet's a good one to try. But again, I digress here heirloom tomatoes. I think there's a reason why heirlooms become heirlooms like there's a reason I didn't take a horse to work today, you know we've made progress. heirlooms are thin skinned and crack easily heirlooms are generally more susceptible to diseases, heirlooms are almost all indeterminates they require more care. They're more susceptible to diseases that I say they're less productive, less reliable. But that said, they do have some special colors and special flavors. The thing of really strong trend now is the seed company is trying to find varieties that look and taste like an heirloom, but resist diseases and are more productive than the heirlooms of the past. And I think this is exemplified well by this variety called chef's choice and there's all kinds of they release a new chef's choice almost every year. There's chef's choice by color, one of the most recent ones, but there's chef's choice red, pink, black, green, and orange is the most popular one. So you might want to try if you like an heirloom, but an easy to grow one chef's choice orange I think is is really outstanding one to try. Okay beans of course there's so many beans but I want to talk about special vegetables today and filet beans in their trials, they're the ones that get people excited people, or I give away thousands of free seed packets every year. And so garden garden gets a packet of these free bean seeds and they plant them, and then they just throw away the seed packet, but then they come back to me in a some ago time what was that variety. And you see these long slender, crisp beans of the highest quality, just so delicious and crisp and crunchy. You just pinch off the ends and you serve them whole. It's probably a filet bean and croquettes are pop and most popular variety and pole beans are popular for these are the beans that people get very excited about in our trials. This is Montagusto, which gets about eight to 10 inches long of the highest quality you can eat. Please use super sweet corn instead of the old varieties of the past. When I was a kid back home in Minnesota, every night and then summer I go pick about 100 dozen sweet corn, and then I would take it down to the Minneapolis farmers market to sell. And I knew when I was at the market that morning, I had to sell every year because that corn would taste like starch the next day. But now they got super sweets, they're three times sweeter. And even just the latest Fridays are so much easier to grow than the first super sweets. So look for a modern Friday, and we've got, you know, got the best ones are listed here in that listing here but American dreams a solid performer in the last few years for us. Try it. Cucumbers are fine, but I really would recommend you try burpless cucumbers. And in our trials I see this you know we offer a seed catalog you can try the normal cucumber trial or I can try the burpless trial. And over the years, people once they try burpless. That's it they stay with that because they're early. They resist diseases. They have no bitterness. They have a very small seed cavity and smooth skin just the highest quality cucumber burpless try it you'll really be impressed. Look for lettuce Fridays I can take the heat, like this old timer butter crunches in every garden center and it does great every year in North Dakota. What I especially like or should I say gardeners especially like the crisp head or but Tavia types. These are types that are very crisp. And as far as but Tavia goes. These types can take the summer heat they'll produce lettuce all summer long and these varieties and Muir and Nevada. They're among our highest rate of all varieties we've ever tested in our trials. They're also important in spring spinach. So look for the most heat resistant variety in that space. This is our this is the Spanish to grow in the spring time, it can take the heat, and it's got smooth leaves which are gardeners like it's easier to clean ease. I think one of the things about peas I as a kid I hated peas because I came from a big family and affirming I had 10 brothers and sisters so we did a lot of freezing. I swear the pea crop always ripen on the 4th of July, I spent every fourth of July as a kid, shelling peas, and I learned to hate peas made no sense I pick a bushel of peas. On the day three forces of stuff goes to the cows and I just get a little bull peas. So that's why I was so happy. They came up with the new vegetable of the 20th century as this is the right the best vegetable the 20th century they said was sugar snap peas. And here you don't have to you don't have to show them. So you can go to the fireworks and you can eat the whole thing you don't have to share the peas with the cows. And they're so juicy sugar and is is the variety to grow it. I don't know what else to compare it with, because it just blows the competition away. Try sugar and so juicy. So sweet, so easy to grow just gets like 28 inches tall you don't have to trellis it it's fun to grow pumpkins with kids. And this is the easiest one to grow. Actually, these are two of my kids 10 years ago. Neon pumpkin. It's, it doesn't really turn orange, it starts orange and just becomes like a big orange water balloon getting bigger all summer so it's beautiful all summer. It's ready to harvest weeks before any other variety, and the vines are short the only good about eight feet across so they won't take over your garden. So neon is foolproof. But if you want a big pumpkin. I like and our guns like big moose or large Marge that's another good one. You can go get those ultimate ones those are like those big brown tan ugly ones to get 300 pounds but what are you going to do with the 300 pound pumpkin. You know what do you do with it and you have to take care of it so much you have to give it your whole garden you have to watered every day you have to feed it all the time. So the skin say soft and keep growing. It's like another kid forget about it you just plant the big moose and you come back at frost and you got a big beautiful orange 50 pound pumpkin. That's the way to go. And also don't forget herbs in our garden because I love I love lemon basil especially because I can you're out there working trouble and weeds and stuff you need a break. I just get that lemon basil just just stick it up during the nose and just smell making just get high on these herbs all kind of chocolate mint. Oh my gosh is that unbelievable or what. And she just get high on herbs it's totally legal it's wonderful just stimulating just great so try herbs in your garden. Okay, on to other things now that we have great Friday's great seeds, we got a water properly. So I would think these plants are happy. You know I always feel good when I take a shower I feel refreshed. But you know what if I could speak flower talk these flowers would be cursing at me for watering like this, because we're spreading diseases by doing this. This is the way. diseases come to your garden when the leaves get wet and also it's in the afternoon I'm wasting a third of that water she had all evaporating before it even hits the plants. And, but be careful about getting the leaves wet for your plans because this is how diseases get targeted. I know this is my first job was to. I was working at a seed company and my job was to spread diseases among sunflower plants. So we get the big sprinklers going and I would sprinkle rust rust pores, pustules everywhere at night. And this is how we spread diseases trying to find the one sunflower variety that could withstand rust. So, that was my job to I was like the grim reaper of the sunflower patch. So again, basic principles avoid overhead irrigation irrigate in the morning the plants will take what they want. And then the leaves have all day to dry off do not water at night, because you're going to encourage diseases. When you water you shall water deeply, not frequently. If you water deep, the roots grow deep. If you water shallow, the roots will stay shallow because the roots are going to be where the water is. So it's better to water deeply twice a week, then four or five times a week, just a little bit. And also mulching is wonderful at helping conserve our moisture or soil. Here we go prevent pass. That's our next tip. Okay, we got to protect our crop from those past and the best way to protect any past is a physical barrier. I don't know for talking about a bug, a rabbit, a deer, whatever. Neighbor who steals your pros. No, we want a physical barrier is the way to go. As far as insects, we've got to control weeds bugs like to hang out in the weed patch bugs are spread through crop residue and avoid routine spraying just don't spray because it's Sunday after church forget about it because if you spray a lot. The bugs will learn to tolerate the insecticide. Also, you got to know your bug. So what bugs is anybody just just guess for yourself. This is this a ladybug. This is a ladybug teenager, the larva stage before it becomes a beetle. This is our friend 90 to 95% or even higher estimates of the bugs in our garden are neutral or beneficial. There's only a few troublemakers out there. So if you be spraying insecticides and he don't even know what bug you're going after going to kill ladybugs. So don't do that because ladybugs are your best friend right. But that said, should you buy ladybugs. No, you should never buy ladybugs you cannot buy friendship it does not work. You know what ladybugs when they when the companies harvest ladybugs those ladybugs are in giant clusters of thousands, and you'll have a fat layer on their hibernating over winter. And so the company scoops them up put them in a box and sell them to you. But you're buying these fat ladybugs. These ladybugs are not hungry. They release in the garden and studies show after one day how many ladybugs are still in your garden, less than 1%. And this one's only there because it had a broken wing, it could even fly if it wanted to. So don't buy ladybugs. What if you see something like this in the garden. And the good news is there's lots of natural insecticides that are very safe for humans. And any garden center will have these four common types of natural insecticides BT BT kills a bug after two days to get a gut rot. And then a sad is a new one. This God this is such an interesting story I'll just one second. How was this discovered it just was discovered in a rum distillery in the Caribbean in the soil. Where was there was this chemist on a vacation in the Caribbean, he's laying out on the beach, and there's just bugs all over him. He walks down the beachways next to a distillery and he lays down and there's no bugs. And he goes I wonder why that is. And so the guy was a natural curious scientist. And so he had a he had a habit of digging up soil to collect any dug up soil from that area. And they found spinocid bacteria, and that's how it all got started from a curious chemist on the beach. And this adds a nerve poison. Neem that works that works as a repellent. If you spray it, the bugs get in contact, they lose their appetite. And also it distort destroys your hormones they don't want to become an adult and have sex and have more kids so Neem works effectively but that takes a well it takes a couple days for that to work. Insecticidal soap is very safe, it will dry out the bug you got to spray the bug itself to dry out with insecticidal soap. But let's say you saw that cabbage and you want to take action right away. I call this the Clint Eastwood dirty hairy approach to garden like you make my day bug you come to my cabbage patch, I'm going to nail you right now. And so what do you do you get out the old fashioned seven which is carburel or the new fashion seven which is a pyrethroid. This is a nerve poison kills on contact. If you like revenge, you spray your cabbage you spray that bug it will drop right off in front of your eyes and you can see it shake and shiver for a few seconds before it dies. It's a great feeling of revenge to see that instant death. How about rabbits. I always thought rabbits were cute and fuzzy and the Easter bunny so nice, but to a gardener a rabbit is true evil. We, they are not they are not our friend they are our enemy. Miracles will not stop a hungry bunny. What will well if you're Clint Eastwood the lead solution we call it the permanent lead solution will work. Otherwise, I highly recommend fencing again that physical exclusion to a barrier, you know, go a couple inches deep into the soil like six inches deep and about a four feet three to four feet high will keep the rabbit on the outside looking in about a one inch mess like a chicken wire does well. Okay, that poor sad rabbit that's not I don't care about that rabbit he's my enemy, he can go eat the neighbors garden. Okay, just got one slide about this tip about preventing diseases. The best defense is get a variety that resisted genetically, because then you don't have to be spraying for anything that the vines just resist it, but reduce humidity and that you do that by spacing the plants properly and avoid overhead irrigation so get the air movement going. And then there are preventive sprays, chlorothalonil is the most common fungicide are relatively safe one among chemicals and copper and sulfur for organic gardeners. Okay, and also lastly clean up the garden at the end of the year and get rid of any disease materials. Okay, you want to harvest on a regular basis, what your plants want to produce seeds they don't necessarily want to produce fruits they want to produce they want to have offspring. So we got to keep our cucumbers and zucchini harvest it because we don't want to have just one or two we want to have a bumper crop of our fruits. So, so people always laugh about zucchini like what am I going to do with all this zucchini, you know, they make fun of it, and I always thought zucchini gets no respect, we should respect and a crop that's so abundant and beautiful. The problem isn't the zucchini, we shouldn't ridicule it we should admire it. The promise us we got to know what to do with it. So yeah we can eat it it's nutritious that's good. But what if it gets too big like on our farm when we didn't harvest it on time. It gets to be like 12 feet 12 inches or longer. But we found uses for this kids, did you know zucchini float. So we could carve them out and make them into a boat. And then we would have like put like a mast on them, take it down by the lake. And we'd have like an armada contest where we would try to throw rocks and destroy our brothers zucchini boat so there's simple pleasures you can have with zucchini. And then how about the legend of Montana Maggie I've talked about this a couple times. A true story. There was a great gardener named Maggie, and she got out of the garden went back inside and started to relax. All of a sudden, she hears her dog barking and that's because of bears in her yard eating bird seed out of her bird feeder. So dogs all barking. So Maggie goes what is that so Maggie goes out on the deck and then she sees the bear and Montana Maggie's tough. She doesn't run away she goes right to that bear she yells at the bear bear you get out you get out of my yard. All of a sudden the bear gets a really mad, really mad comes charging at Maggie. So Maggie turns around back inside and trying to close that deck close close that deck door but she can't the bear's faces right there. She can feel the warmth of the breath of the bear right there. And so she's looking like where is that tool where is that tool is on the kitchen cover or is that and what is she fine. She found a zucchini. Got the bear and the bear ran away. So zucchini what a wonderful vegetable to grow and harvest regularly because zucchini can provide nutrition. It can provide recreation and it can provide protection and I recommend that if you've got bearish in your neighborhood green machine is an unbelievable variety it resist diseases and will produce all all the way until frost it is literally a machine. Okay, last tip, we want to extend the harvest to as much as possible. And this is a row cover and you should get to know about row covers. They can provide two to 10 degrees of frost protection in the fall. They accelerate growth because it's warm underneath there in the fall, and it gives you cross protection and there's different thicknesses that give you different amount of protection, but spinach tastes so good in fall. It's so mild, and you can grow it all the way till Christmas in our part of the state with a with the frost blanket overwork. How about radishes. Oh, you've never had such a mild crisp that radish as a one to go in the fall. They're much better in this in the fall than in the spring, because the spring gets too hot for them. And lastly, try some of these Asian vegetables like cat soy it's so crunchy and crisp you can stir fry them, and they thrive in the cool temperatures. So there you go those are some of my tips and how to have a great garden this year, and I would welcome any questions that anybody might have. I'm back and I have a lot of questions. Okay, let's go. Okay. While I try to rotate my crops, I only have one optimally sunny spot in my small backyard. Beyond annual application of compost, how should I amend the soil that gets tomatoes year after year. Well, okay, so the real question is because the gardens already always and there's always time between your, you're doing multiple multi cropping there. There's always an opportunity between the crops. After you let's say your early one is got some spinach in the spring, and or some green onions you pull them out, then you got a moment there where you can add some compost. And then you can then put the tomato plants in. You know, you can do some side dressing a fertilizer to I think it's nice to add the organic matter. One time year does well for most people, and you can do that late in the fall. That's a good time or very or I think late in the fall is the best time and work that into your soil. So there's always a few windows of chances. And maybe you covered this already but another person asked, should you add Pete Moss each year to your garden. I, you, the best answer is to get a soil test to see if you need to add anything to your garden. You know, I'm a person I'm a very cheap gardener and like I always thought like gardens doing great I don't need to add anything to it I'd rather spend my $19 and 50 cents taking my kids to Dairy Queen for example, but and they would agree with that instead of a soil test. But if you got problems, then you should get a soil test and the organic matter we want is about 5% and they'll say that on the form, how much organic matter you have, I'll tell you if you need to add any organic matter. And adding adding don't go nuts on it. Just about an inch just like just like candy a little bit good, but beyond that no. So just about an inch you can work that in every year if you want. But, but this is where we talk about having a relationship with your plants. You know, how's the plants doing in your garden do you feel like it really needs it is a soil loose. Maybe it doesn't need any Pete Moss. So in the chat, I posted the link to the variety trials, and you also have an events page where you can look at some other information. But the question that came in. Will these varieties grow throughout the US. I don't, you mean like the ones in our trials. Yes, I don't care. I'm here to serve North Dakota. It would be nice time. No, I guess. You know what, we are nice. We let other people we let we let other people participate in our trials, even like last year like we have people from North Carolina or Iowa or, of course, we have Minnesotans and South Dakotans and Montana and Canada we have Canadians in our trials. You know, really, the focus of the trial is to find out what works good in North Dakota. Because, you know, your unit, let's say you're from the university, let's say you're from Pennsylvania Penn State University has your own list of varieties that they recommend. But you know, I would say generally Julie, if you can survive North Dakota, you can survive anywhere. So, I think the varieties we test are widely available to national seed companies. So, I think it's mainly like what can survive North Dakota not that because we're I think we're the harshest place to survive. So another comment came in a fellow gardener grew a fourth of July tomato last year in our gardens, and they were great. So just a comment. There you go. That's from burpee seed company. Thank you for sharing that. I appreciate that. So another person said, I've grown yellow pear but they get black dots so I've stopped my son likes the yellow pear so I'd be interested in Fargo yellow pear. Well, you know, I've got that's one of the tomatoes were tested this year. And I've got so much seed of that. And if anybody wants to send me an email I can send you a packet of that. Okay, and we will. Scott will be posting Tom's direct email in the chat. So, Scott, could you go ahead and do that. Someone asked about the 2021 trial results and I did post that in the chat. Another question. They're there. They're there. That's what I spend. That's what I spent all December doing it's 160 pages of trial results. Do you know of any source for annihilator green beans? Very productive, but I can't find them. Harris seed company. I would look there. I would look at territorial seed company look there. Jordan seed company. The other thing just go to Google Google just Google it annihilators bean seed, and he'll pop up. Another question. Last year I tried bush bean. Capitano is that the correct. Okay, sure. It was a meaty yellow very good pole bean rattlesnake is another one of my favorites. Okay, those are very flavorful. Someone's are flat potted to our gardeners and our trials don't like flat potted flat potted beans very much. Are filet beans pole beans or bush beans both filet bean is the type of pod itself. Again, long slender skinny and crisp. There's pole filets and bush filets. Another person looked for sugar and and couldn't find them. Oh my God, well that means there must that could be terrible news if because that means maybe the seeds are gone this year. I haven't ordered mine yet but that's why do we available I always get mine from Jordan seeds. In bulk and then also Osborne seed has it. I am Jordan, I'm sure. Well, if it's available this year, you can find it there's a few varieties. I can mention that Julia tomato. It just as a crop failure. If you're really desperate for sugar and stick give me a how I give you some seeds from last year I've got leftover. We had a couple of people asked about keeping moles and or golfers out of the garden. Well, okay. Those those are two different critters. For golfers. Okay, a golfers. There's a harpoon trap is the harpoon trap is generally a nice way to go. You can kill it. That's it for garden situation. Sometimes for like ground squirrels and such you can flood them out that that that that that's been done ever since the Native Americans have been using flooding as a technique to get rid of them. I gotta find where that mall is and what what I do is like if it's a mall. Also, I see the raised ridge. I'll step it down, make sure the next morning that it's up again so it's active, and then I'll set out a trap to kill it. And you have a question on trellising tomatoes. When trellising them, can you cut them off when it reaches the top. Sure you can if that's as high as your trellis goals. I mean, it's, I don't know what really benefit some people do that at the very end of the year to try to stop the leafy growth and have the tomato focus more on just ripening instead. So that isn't usually done until like really near the end of the year. But you can cut off the trellis and every I mean as high as it is. I mean it's the plant wants to grow some like that yellow peril grow six feet tall. You can trim it back to help the whole keys. I tried you want to have good air movement through it. So you got to be putting out those suckers and you can find out about how to try to identify two major vines per plant and trim off the suckers. Do you have any recommendations for flea control. Fleas. Yes. Flea beetles. Flea beetles must be. It's got to be flea. I'm not a dermatologist. So as far as flea beetles. Yeah, beetles. Anytime it's a beetle like a, okay, you can go to hardcore Clint Eastwood approach like seven. And today's sevens also work. They'll kill any beetle. We got to be on the, got to be on the lookout. The flea beetles are active, especially after the canola's harvested, then they move into our crops. And you got, you got to discount for them. Flea beetles said is a good beetle control to some people recommend insect to settle so but the flea beetles can jump so it's you got to it's hard to get them. So I like spin a said for organic for flea beetles or name also will work for flea beetles. They're not that hard to control you just got to get them early. Oh, floating row covers Julie floating row covers exclude them. That's what organic earners do. They put the floating row cover over their broccoli, for example, and the flea beetles can't get in it. Okay. Um, did you have recommendations for fungus control. Yeah, we had a slide about that. Again, I think the best way is get a preventive preventative variety of ready that's resistant to it. So you're not to spray it the disease comes and it never gets hold of the plant. But as far as sprays go, there's preventative sprays, not sprays that cure the problem you got to spray as a shield of protection against infection. So we're talking about a chlorothalonil is the common chemical and then copper and sulfur are the organic ones. You can find all that stuff at a garden center. The almost every chemical fungicide for vegetables is chlorothalonil and copper and sulfur are organic types. Say you have roots from nearby trees growing into raised beds. How do you stop into a raised bed, even a raised bed. You know, of course, you cut down the tree. There's your problem solved, but you know, okay, how close is the tree to the thing that's the key. Like, most tree roots are within the top 12 inches of the soil. And most of those aggressive roots are in the top 12 inches. So if if the tree is let okay this just a general rule I was taught by road constructs and people try to keep at least 12 feet if you can away from the trunk of the tree. And you can cut you can you can if you need to slice the tree root, and you can put a barrier you can put a barrier there you can put a, you know, a metal barrier below ground to prevent further expansion. But you really got to be careful those trees are very precious. I see a picture of that situation. And if it's a raised bed, I don't know whether doing in a raised bed, the roots should stay below the bed itself, I think a raised bed is a good answer to address it. So if you want to send a picture to Tom dot kelb at edu he could take a closer look at that tree that tree is very valuable. Karen asks if anyone has had success with Dakota Sport Tomatoes. I haven't grown that. And we've had limited tomato trials this year we're having tomato trials. Dakota Sport is from Prairie Road Organic, a seed company based in Fullerton, North Dakota, and the varieties from Prairie Road Organic have done very well in our trials. So I would expect Dakota Sport would be a good selection. I don't know if you reveal such things but someone wants to know your favorite seed company. I'll tell you my favorite. I don't know if I'm allowed to actually so but I'll tell you. Give us a top three in order. I'm looking for, I got some seed catalogs on my desk right here. Okay, listen, what I would get get that hand out from the field of fork website, and you got that list of the other cultivars on the back set I got seed sources. These are free seed catalogs you can order. This is a catalog from Johnny's selected seeds Johnny's selected seeds, because it is full. It's got good seeds, but you buy your seeds where you want you can buy them locally wherever any seed company, but just a great resource. It's a it's a growers guide. They teach you how to be successful. They'll tell you when to plant, how far to plant the seeds, what bugs you can expect how to harvest how to store that Johnny selected seeds is a tremendous company. And then the other information I have there's, you can go look in my talk last year because I talked about about 1012 companies. It depends on you're looking like if you want to buy volume or you want to just buy a packet of seeds it's all different and there's organic companies out there, but get the Johnny's catalog I can endorse that. So just to reiterate that they can get the seeds from the trial results from place like Johnny's. Well, yeah, you see like when we when we select what varieties are we going to test. We're not going to test something that's from Ukraine seed company out in Kiev. No, of course not. We're going to try varieties that are widely available to series of seed companies. And so every, every variety that we test, you could is available through national seed companies, and you can Google and find sources of that or contact me directly. Yeah, two more questions because I know you have to pick up your kids. How do you prevent potato bugs. You can't. So what you get to scout for them. Well crop rotation can help, you know, but insects have an amazing way to find your potatoes plants and they love egg plants to. You got to scout early and so what you do is you look ahead for them and so what you do is you look on the under the leaf underneath the leaf, you see the orange eggs. And that's when you can start squishing those eggs and take early action, or then when they're just hatching, they still have a soft body. That's when you can spray them to kill them. And spinel said is excellent at killing Colorado potato beetles. And our final question for today comes from Joe. I rent a garden plot and have been there for two years, should I rotate the locations of my veggies within the plot or does that matter. Okay, so he rented garden plot for two years, should he rotate his vegetables of in the garden or get a new plot. That's a great question. Because, you know crop rotation can help in a garden. Like if you move the tomatoes from this area of the garden to that area of the garden it can help. The thing is the best gardeners like you like this guy who's probably you know who would attend a talk like this. I bet his land is much better than most of the other pieces of land there. You know, so like a good gardener you can tell like they keep the same plot of land year after year, and that becomes a good plot and they enrich it with compost or whatever. So if it was me I would be hesitant to move my plot. I would be do a little crop rotation and I look for resistant varieties that disease resistant varieties that's what I focus on. All right, well I'm going to bring us to a close and thank all of you for being here. I just posted the Qualtrics link for the survey, which remember has some prizes attached. So please take that survey and please rejoin us next week. We'll be happy to see all of you here and thanks again Tom. That was a great talk. Thanks, Julie. Thank you everybody.