Veggie Garden Prep

Keith: [00:00:00] 

Wintertime in North Carolina is a great time to start prepping your veggie garden, pulling out, finishing up excellent seeds and stuff from the fall. And you can do additional seasonal plannings and cover them, or you can do cover crops, which is a perfect way to get green manure back into the soil.

When I do a cover crop, I usually do rye or like annual ryegrass or oats or, or white Clover, medium red Clover. The one thing I wouldn't do that sometimes you'll see in books is Crimson Clover, tall and beautiful in a field. It's beautiful on a farm, but it's big for a, for a residential garden.

Joe: And when you say cover crop, I'm not familiar with that. That means when you're not using it as a garden; you put something over the whole thing. [00:01:00] And what's the benefit of that. 

Keith: You're pulling nitrogen out of the soil. So you're holding the nitrogen at the top level of the soil.

So you're, you're pulling nitrogen up into the plant, and then you're creating green manure. So the, in the early spring, you go back in, and you cut it back down, and then you dig it around in, or you don't even have to cut it back down. If it's low enough, you dig it back into the. 

Joe: So it's better than just leaving it as open dirt.

Exactly. Which doesn't look good if it rains and gets all over your lawn. Anyway, that's the one thing I was going to say 

Keith: sometimes, I'll dig everything out. I'll turn the soil a little bit. I'll rake it smooth. And then I'll take something like oats, winter oats, or annual rye, and I'll broadcast it across the garden.

And then I just kind of rake it in with my hands or rake it in with rake water. It well. The other thing about it is it's just watching something grow is nice. And, and so all of a sudden, you, instead of having a garden, that's got an old, dead tomato in the middle of it. You've cleaned it up, and you've seeded it.

And then you've got all this incredible green lush growth coming up in the wintertime. So it's nice, it's a nice view too. It's [00:02:00] like watching, you know, new green grass grow in your, in your lawn after the summertime. Instead of a cover crop, the other option you can do is go in. Plant lettuce, mustard, collards, some of the cool season stuff you would typically do in mid-August or February 15th is when you would do things like broccoli and that kind of stuff that needs a cool season to get going, to be able to root in.

But going in and doing lettuce, you do the same thing this time of year prep. You prep the soil, you, you rake it out. You, you plant your lettuce, you plant it heavy and then cover it. And the lettuce comes back up. You've got some greens to harvest through the wintertime, and then when you cut it before, you've still got that green manure that you can kind of dig back into the soil, and it keeps the earth alive.

It gives the microbes something to break down and start rereleasing nitrogen. The other thing this time of year is the soil test is probably one of the things that I would say 90% of the people don't. [00:03:00] It's perhaps one of the more important things to perfect the soil and optimal plant growth.

And that's landscape plants and garden plants. But it's just one of those things. People, you know, data, and another day goes by. And I can't tell you the last time I've done a soil test in my yard, but it does make a difference if you're a new gardener or an older gardener and want to do something exciting.

And, and, and something that you'll see. Great results from going ahead and doing a soil test. Then once you get the soil test, people will bring soil tests to us, and we'll go through them with them there. They're not highly complicated if you've got a science mind, but many times, people look at them and glaze over and they don't understand what they're looking at.

But adding lime limes, probably the biggest thing that you can always add lime to, to North Carolina soil and, and almost most, I'd say 90% of the soil needs. But knowing the quantity of lime that you need is the thing. And so a lot of times you'll need [00:04:00] 20, 20 to 30 bags, an acre. Most people will buy 40 pounds, put half of it out, and think they've done something.

And they haven't. So it's just, it's a good indicator of how much time you need. And kind of a starting point. And so you, if you do a soil test, you put 20 bags of lime out two years later, you may need ten more loads. It's, it's something that's constantly changing. You get a baseline, and then you can go from there.

The other thing besides Lyme is fertilizer to, to the Mix organic fertilizer you can put out throughout the year, putting it out in the wintertime gives it a little bit of time to break down the microbes, start to break it down when we have warm weather. And give you a little bit more punch to the garden in the early spring.

I w

Episode Transcript

Keith (00:15):
Wintertime in North Carolina is a great time to start prepping your
veggie garden pulling out, finishingup cool seeds and stuff from the fall.
And you can do additional seasonalplannings and cover them, or you can
do cover crops, which is a nice way toget green manure back into the soil.
When I do a cover crop, I usually do ryeor like an annual rye grass or, or oats

(00:38):
or, or white Clover, medium red Clover.
The one thing I wouldn't do thatsometimes you'll see in books is
Crimson Clover, which is a really,really tall, it's beautiful in a field.
It's beautiful on a farm, but it'sbig for a, for a residential garden.

Joe (00:53):
And when you say cover crop, I'm not really familiar with that.
That just means when you're notusing it as a garden, you put
something over the whole thing.
And what's the benefit of that.

Keith (01:01):
You're pulling nitrogen out of the soil.
So you're basically holding thenitrogen at the top level of the soil.
So you're, you're pulling nitrogenup into the plant and then you're
basically creating a green manure.
So in the, in the early spring, yougo back in and you cut it back down,
and then you dig it back in or youdon't even have to cut it back down.
If it's low enough, youjust dig it back into the.

Joe (01:20):
So it's better than just leaving it as open dirt.
Exactly.
Which doesn't look good if itrains and gets all over your lawn.
Anyway, that's the onething I was going to say

, Keith (01:27):
sometimes I'll , dig everything out.
I'll turn the soil a little bit.
I'll rake it smooth.
And then I'll take something like, oatswinter oats or or an annual rye and
I'll broadcast it across the garden.
And then I just kind of rake it in withmy hands or rake it in with a rake water.
It well.
The other thing about it is it'sjust watching something grow is nice.
And, and so all of a sudden, you,instead of having a garden, that's got

(01:48):
an old, dead tomato in the middle of it.
You've cleaned it up, you've seeded it.
And then you've got all this nice greenlush growth coming up in the wintertime.
So it's a nice, it's a nice view too.
It's it's like watching, you know,new green grass grow in your, in
your lawn after the summertime.
The other option you can do in instead ofa cover crop is you can go in and plant

(02:09):
lettuce mustard, collards, some of thecool season stuff that you would typically
do in mid August or February 15th is whenyou would do things like broccoli and that
kind of stuff that needs a cool seasonto get going, to be able to root in.
But going in and doing lettuce,this, this time of year prep,
you do the same exact thing.
You prep the soil, you, you rake it out.

(02:32):
You, you plant your lettuce, youplant it heavy and then cover it.
And the lettuce comes back up.
You've got some greens to harvest throughthe wintertime and and then when you
cut it back, you've still got that greenmanure that you can kind of dig back into
the soil and it keeps the soil alive.
It gives the microbes somethingto break down and, and start
releasing nitrogen again.
The other thing this time ofyear is soil test soil test is

(02:54):
probably one of the things that Iwould say 90% of the people don't.
It's probably one of the more importantthings to really perfect the soil and
really have optimal growth on plants.
And that's landscapeplants and garden plants.
But it's just one of those things.
People just, you know, dataand another day goes by.
And I can't tell you the last timeI've done a soil test in my yard,

(03:16):
but it really does make a difference.
If you're a new gardener or an oldergardener and you want to do something
that's extremely interesting.
And, and, and something that you'll see.
Great results from goahead and do a soil test.
Then once you get the soil test, peoplewill bring soil tests and to us, and
we'll we go through them with them there.
They're not extremely complicatedif you've got a science mind, but a

(03:39):
lot of times people look at them andthey just glaze over and they don't
understand what they're looking at.
But adding lime limes, probably thebiggest thing that you can always add lime
to, to North Carolina soil and, and almostmost, I'd say 90% of the soil needs.
But knowing the quantity oflime that you need is the thing.
And so a lot of times you'llneed 20, 20 to 30 bags, an acre.

(04:02):
Most people will go buy 40pounds and put half of it out
and think they've done something.
And they really haven't.
So it's just, it's kind of a goodindicator of how much time you need.
And kind of a starting point.
And so you, if you do a soil test,you put 20 bags of lime out two years
later, you may need 10 more bags.
It's, it's somethingthat's constantly changing.

(04:23):
You get a baseline and thenyou can kind of go from there.
The other thing besides Lyme is andfertilizer to the, to the Mix organic
fertilizer you can put out throughout theyear, putting it out in the winter time,
gives it a little bit of a little bit oftime to break down the microbes, start to
break it down when we have warm weather.
And give you a little bit more punchto the garden in the early spring.

(04:44):
I wouldn't recommend doing a chemicalfertilizer this time of year because
you don't want to push new growth.
If you have garden plants in,you don't want to push them.
And then and then we have a real coldsnap and foilage gets burned or flowers
gets burned, 90% of the people don't plantcool season vegetables at the right time.
So prepping right now, you'reprepping for a February 15.

(05:06):
Plant date for cool season vegetables andwe'll get vegetables in that time of year.
We get a few trays.
We don't sell many and then a two orthree weeks pass and we sell a few
more and we get a few more in peopleare still planting them on up until
April, but to be really successful,I like to plant right around February
15th through about March 15th.
And then I kinda cut it off.

(05:27):
I think it's almost awaste of time after that.
But we, you know, peopleare still coming in.
They're looking for somethingto put into their garden.
They're finally out moving around andyou know, they want to plant something.
We still have them that time of year,but February 15th is like a great
target date for cool season stufflike broccoli and cauliflower and
things that need time to root in andthen push flowers at a later date.

(05:51):
The target date for the warmseason stuff is like Ms.
Moore, like April 15th.
That's our last freezer.
But there, I think a lotof people push that date.
I usually I'm planting tomatoes like thefirst you know, in, in middle of March,
you know, we get a warm spell and it lookslike it's going to be warm for two weeks.
I'll go ahead and start puttingsome stuff in the ground.
But I don't really see a lot of greatresults from early planning, the tomatoes.

(06:15):
I think they really need that heat.
To push growth.
So they'll just sit there and they makegrow roots, but they're not going to put
a lot of top growth on so things liketomatoes and peppers I'd usually wait
until at least the 15th and maybe eventhey end of the month when we really
actually have some heat The other thingwith tomatoes is, you know, you, when
they're they like the warm weather.

(06:35):
So if you put a tomato in the middleof middle of April, into April.
Stagger, the planning.
So you plant, you know, a coupleof plants a month later, plant a
couple more plants, you'll havetomatoes throughout the season.
And then from those plants, I liketo, you know, if you buy a four inch
plant, you've got a bigger plantgoing in, you can get more variety.

(06:55):
So you have, you know, if you buy forfour inch plants, you're paying a little
bit more for them, but you, you geta bigger start when you put them in.
And then you've got morevariety of types of tomatoes.
You can grow, you can growsmaller, cherry tomatoes.
You can grow a big sandwich tomatoes.
And then later in the season youcan take a cutting off of that plan.
And just actually literally just cutthe plant, but a little rooting hormone

(07:18):
in it, and then stick it straightinto the soil and the tomato root.
And then you've got tomatoes going intoall the way up until frost or after for.
So you can do things like fried greentomatoes and that kind of thing, which
is just fun and green tomatoes willlast, you know, well into the winter.
So, you know, you put them in in, inyour cool drawer in the refrigerator

(07:40):
or in a back room, you can put agreen tomato on the window sill
and actually have it ripen up.
So that's a that's a nice way to havetomatoes going on into the winter time.
And then the last date the second coolseason crop, is around August 15th.
Cool season veggies.
It's the coldest part of the year.
And the hottest part of the yearis when you're planting them.
So it just doesn't make, it doesn'tmake a whole lot of sense to most

(08:03):
people and it's, and it doesn't feelcomfortable to be out there in the garden,
but it's not a long project and it's,it's fun to reap the rewards later on.
So August 15th, you know, again,you're taking out some of your older,
older plants, things that have spentsome of the cooler season stuff.
You might have cucumbers thathave kind of dwindled down.

(08:24):
You rake that stuff up.
And then go ahead and start gettingyour broccoli and, having a good
broccoli crop going into the wintertime again is another, another one.
That'll last a long time and youdon't have to cut it all at one
time, get your cuttings and thencome back in a couple of weeks later.
You don't want it out there.
Broccoli or cauliflower.
You don't want out therein a hard, hard freeze.
So it'll go down to about 25 20.

(08:47):
So what 26 degrees.
But I wouldn't go you know, wouldn'tlet it go a whole lot cooler than that.
And then you just kind of reapthe benefits going into the fall.
From there we we're startingthat season over again.
It's a perfect growingseason in North Carolina.
And, and for those peoplethat haven't done gardening
start small, start in a bag.
We're doing a lot of alot of soft bag gardens.

(09:09):
You can grow potatoes in a bay.
You can grow.
All the lettuces and cools theseand stuff in a bag larger bags,
you can do peppers and tomatoes.
So for those people that don't have thespace or that haven't gardened before,
it's a great way to start a small garden.
So get out there this yearand enjoy veggie gardening.
Stop in.
If you have questions, we've gottons of people to help you out.
And we'll see you soon.