Conflicting Gardening Advice: Who Should We Believe? - Ep. 151

Karin Velez [00:00:00]:

You know, sometimes it is very difficult to sip through all the information and advice we get as gardeners and to know what exactly we should be doing out there. This sort says one thing, that blog says another thing, and the book on our bedside swears that those other 2 are incorrect. What are we supposed to do? Welcome back my gardening friends to another episode of Just Grow something. Today, we're talking about 2 specific pieces of advice that I was asked about over the weekend that seem to be complete opposites of each other, but in reality, they are two sides of the same coin. One of those pieces of advice came from me. and how you act on that and other pieces of advice totally depends on your unique gardening situation. We'll go deeper into that on today's show. We'll also announce the winner of our 50 k giveaway, and I'll share how my day in the garden went. It might just make you feel a little better about yours. Let's dig in.

Karin Velez [00:01:45]:

I had a last-minute entry into the 50 k giveaway via Apple podcast review from Cort1989. Very good. Great information. No fluff. 3 out of 5 stars. but then they gave a 5 out of 5 rating. So thanks for the concise yet slightly confusing feedback. And you did earn yourself an entry into the giveaway. I really appreciate everyone leaving reviews, sharing to social media and reaching out to let me know what you think of the show. Each one of you got an entry, and some of you had multiple entries. I put them all on a virtual spinning wheel and gave it a whirl, and the result is in. The winner of the 50 k giveaway to celebrate 50,000 downloads of this show is crazy Plant Lady 81 from their Apple Podcast review. Congratulations. Your mission should you choose to accept is to reach out to me via email to grow@justgrowsomethingpodcast.com. or through the contact page on my website and provide me with your name and mailing address so I can get your goodies to you. Thank you so much to everyone who entered. And thank you for your support for this show and everything that I'm doing here. I know there are plenty of podcasts on gardening out there to listen to, and I am so glad that you're getting enough value to keep coming back here week after week. Congratulations again to our winner. And now let's work toward another 50,000 downloads by giving you some more gardening information this week.

We just got back from a quick getaway camping this weekend, which was strategically timed because we are moving into the time of year when we will be in the gardens from sun up to sun down unless we are making deliveries or at a farmer's market. So before the feeling of burnout starts to creep in, I thought we'd get away to the lake for a hot minute Saturday evening through Monday. Came home Tuesday and immediately jumped into the gardens, specifically trellising and pruning up the tomato. It seems like they doubled in size in the few days we were gone. But then again, the weeds tripled in size. So that's about par. I was in the process of tying up tomatoes and pruning the vegetation off of the bottom 4 or 6 inches of the plants. when I leaned in to pull some weeds, and I stabbed myself in the eye with a tomato plant. like, full on jabbed the top of that sucker right into my eyeball. So I proceeded to stay out there anyway for about another 2 hours until my back couldn't take anymore, and I came in. But my eye is watering and it is still burning. So I changed up the topic that I had planned for today's episode to something a little bit shorter so I can go give my eye some relief. The crop specific episode I had planned for this week will be moved to next week instead. And I hope nobody else injured themselves with vegetation in the garden today.

So the question that I got over the weekend came from Kris M on Facebook. And she said, I have a garden question. Over the past few episodes, I've heard a lot about the importance of cleaning debris out of the garden at the end of the year. On the other hand, I keep hearing about chop and drop methods used by permaculturists, which sometimes include not pulling out old plants and just cutting them at the base. Thoughts. And I love this question because, like I said, I think each of these methods is two sides of the same coin. And In my viewpoint, our chosen method should be determined by our own unique gardening situation. Now as a heads up, I actually do have a certificate in basic permaculture design. I got that when I was going through and getting my horticulture degree. And I also read up on all kinds of other ecological methods of farming and gardening, restoration, agriculture, native gardens, and all that kinds of stuff. And I think All of them have a place and a time in both small gardens and in large settings all the way up into actual commercial farming. What it boils down to is our given garden, our area, our low location, our situation, our weather patterns, our individual circumstances, are all going to determine what advice we can take and which one we should leave.

So for a long time, for many years, here in our own gardens, We let the old vegetation just stand at the end of the season, or we chopped it and dropped it and laid it down in between the or in the beds for many years as just a way to provide biomass for the next season. It it went ahead and it broke down over the wintertime. It also served as a place for the larvae of beneficial insects to winter over. You will also hear a lot about just leaving your leaves in place. specifically in your ornamental gardens as another way to allow the larvae of those beneficial insects to survive the winter. And I would wholeheartedly recommend this method to anyone who doesn't have serious pest issues. But if you have a specific pest that decimates your garden or a specific crop every single year, And it is one that over winters as an adult, like the squash bug or the asparagus beetle that we talked about a couple of episodes ago. then it's better to clear all of the debris from the garden and just utilize that debris in some other way. So if you're taking that debris and you're putting it into a compost pile that you are actively working so that there is no chance of something over wintering into it, It can still be used as biomass and added back into your garden again in the spring, but it's not gonna harbor those pests in the process. Now that being said, if one of our goals is to try to move towards a more balanced ecoculture in our garden, where we have beneficial insects that predate on the ones that do the damage. Then it's up to us to figure out how to attract those beneficial insects and how to keep them coming in so that they outnumber the other ones that we really don't want in the garden. And we also have to know which ones we need to attract. So knowing which insects are the culprits in our garden usually is very specific to where we're gardening. And it's also key to understanding which beneficials we need to have around to take care of those pests.

Now, unfortunately, oftentimes, there aren't very many beneficials for a particular insect. Going back to those squash bugs, there aren't very many insects that will predate on a squash bug. And so we are forced to take other measures. So this can include things like removing that vegetation at the end of the year because it's actually doing more harm to our our next year's crop, then the good it would do by adding that mass back into the soil just by leaving it in place. Instead, it's harboring the pests instead of encouraging the beneficials. So in that instance, we should be taking that debris out of the garden putting it someplace where it can still break down like in a compost pile that is managed to be sure that those adults aren't overwintering in there. And then we can be putting mulch or something else down or even growing a living mulch. That's going to help to cover the soil surface which is essentially doing the same thing through the winter. It is protecting that soil surface, but it's not stuff that's gonna harbor the pet. and then we can go ahead and add that compost back in in the spring. Now in an ideal garden, we can plant vegetation that attracts the beneficials And then we can leave the debris to protect the larvae and feed the soil, and it's a win win. But it can take a lot of years to get to that point. And we can't always control the outside circumstances around that. especially if we live in a suburban area where you have neighbors who are spraying insecticides or herbicides or whatever, to take care of their own yards and their own gardens. We have to work with the circumstances that we have.

And this is sometimes, I think, where writers and other influencers make a misstep. This insistence on one right way to do things can actually be kind of alienating to people, much less confusing. And sometimes it's just the way that they put the information out there. Are there circumstances where you can leave the debris and it's going to be beneficial? Of course. Absolutely. We still have certain crops that we just chop down and leave at the end of the season because we've found it not to harbor pests. And we know that whatever that crop is, if we leave that root system in the soil, it is gonna break down over the soil or over the season as well. And so it's just adding that biomass back in. That is the ideal way to do that. But am I leaving anything like that anywhere near where I had squash planted the year before, no way. Because I know that my major pests in that area is going to be the squash bug. And I do not want to give them the opportunity to to over winter and become a a problem immediately in the spring the next year. And if this information isn't presented in that context of Meaning people where they are in the garden. Then we get a situation where gardeners are confused about what they're supposed to do. And that's not just this topic. That's any topic.

We shouldn't be handing out information from the standpoint of I'm this point in my journey, and I've seen these results from doing things this way, now get on my level because that's unrealistic. I think the information should be presented as a best practice if you're trying to achieve a specific goal or a specific style of gardening with the understanding that everyone is starting in a different place. And so we have to evaluate what is going to work for us It comes down to evaluating where our garden currently stands in terms of biodiversity and balance and pest pressure and then making the best decision we can for our garden to succeed while still working toward our ultimate goal. It may mean baby steps over several years, and there could be setbacks along the way. If you've been gardening in a mini monoculture for for 10 years, you're not gonna suddenly be able to switch to full regenerative mode and leave everything to decompose in place. Because the weeds and the bugs are gonna eat you alive, it's gonna take small steps to get to that larger goal.

And the same thing goes not just for pest pressure, but for disease pressure too. I failed to mention that in my response to Kris, which is why I thought this would be such a good topic to expand on in the show today. Some fungal and bacterial diseases can persist on vegetation even after the vegetation is dead and even through a cold winter. This is not something that you want hanging around and popping back up in your garden again the next spring. And this is also not something that you wanna do during the season. I mean, any disease free vegetation is fine. I mean, I do this a lot. Like, today, as I'm out there, weeding in the tomatoes, I'm pulling up that Johnson grass that I mentioned before. Well, that Johnson grass isn't diseased. it might be a pain in the tuckus, but it's not diseased. And so as I'm pulling it, I am allowing that to drop down onto the soil. It is breaking down. It is dying on top of the soil. It is serving as a mulch while it lays there, and eventually, it's gonna break down and put those nutrients back into the soil again. So, yes, it's kind of used during the season as a mulch. But if there were disease in there or if I am pulling out diseased portions of the tomatoes as I am pruning them, I most certainly do not want to leave that in place.

So again, just like everything else in the garden, how we remove debris or if we remove it is going to depend on our own situation. If we are working toward a restorative way of gardening or a permaculture system in our yards or we're moving towards using more natives or whatever it is, then, yes, leaving the debris to feed the soil is one way to help with that. But we have to understand that many of these techniques are going to take time to implement. And some of us are gardening in regions with very different types of climates and weather patterns and pests and disease pressure. So there can't be a one size fits all approach to gardening. The next time you hear conflicting guidance, on what to do in your garden. Just remember to take what you can apply in your own situation and just leave the rest as a maybe someday task. Well, except mulch. You should always mulch. Until next time, my gardening friends. Keep on cultivating that dream garden, and we'll talk again soon.

Karin Velez [00:15:47]:

You just finished another episode of the just grow something podcast. For more information about today's topic, go to just grow something podcast dot com where you can find all the episodes, show notes, articles, courses, newsletter sign up, and more. I'd also love for you to head to Facebook and join our gardening community in the just grow something gardening friends, Facebook group. Until next time, my gardening friends, keep learning and keep growing.