Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:26):
Welcome to Dakota Growing. I'm Kelsey Deckert, your horticulture agent
here in Burley County, joined by my co host Tom
Cobb NDSU Extension Horticulture US down in the Radio Access studio.
How are you doing today?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Everything's good, Kelsey.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
End of February weather. It's nice today.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Fifty yeah, so I can't beat that. No and no snow.
So back to the good old brown days of mentoring.
So just yeah, that's looks like spring's common. Can't stop it.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
I hope we don't experience what we had a little
over a week ago.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Oh yeah, that was long killer thirty eight below. I
don't know what the coldest was, but I think it
was around thirty eight.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
You have that, I have that. Today we'll talk about that.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
I can't well go, well, there you go. I can't
wait to see that. And so it was bitter cold.
It just shows you how quickly things can change.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Right, And it looks like, I mean again, extended forecast
does look like it's gonna stay above average. Okay, beautiful,
see what happened. Let's keep it going well even though
it's feeling like spring. I'm going to talk today about
how to keep your green thumb busy especially during the winter. Right,
So that was an extremely long week. Like I said,
(01:46):
here we go, February eighteenth, new record low for Bismarck,
negative thirty nine. I have just a screenshot of I
use a kfyr app there and you can see the
difference between last week and today. Pretty crazy, pretty crazy.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
So that minus thirty nine, that's the lot all of
all time in Bismark or just for that day.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah, that was a new record for the history.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
I believe for February. Yes, okay, yeah, that's so usually
we're in the zone four. So that means, like is
it minus around minus thirty is a normal coldest time,
coldest temperature for the winter, So minus thirty nine, we
got a lot of frozen bugs out there. I'll tell
(02:36):
you that, I mean.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
And then you added the wind chill, Like if you
look over there on February nineteenth, that was I screenshoted
that at eight eight thirteen. It says there negative twenty
six was a temperature, but it felt like negative forty
five that wind chill. It was chilly. Vehicles sounded rough,
especially if you have something to plug in or protect. Yeah,
(03:00):
and then like we just said, it's been melting. Even
last night I was outside and well, we got the
great flood of the year going on through our barn.
We always a spot that depending on how much snow
it is and backs up in the barn. It just
melts right through. So we're flooding. But that's okay, I'll
(03:20):
take it. I'll take it over that bitter cold. That
was a long week, it felt like, and I just
kept saying, Okay, four more days of this, three more
days of this, We're almost there. So but like you said,
a lot of dead bugs, right.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
You got it there best in secked aside.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
That's right, all right, Well we'll jump right into it. So,
like I said, I want to talk about today just again.
Maybe we're having a little bit of false spring. There
might be some colder temperatures. We're not through winter yet.
But what can you do if you're not getting outside
right now? How can you keep your green thumb busy?
So first and foremost, if you haven't already, I would
(04:01):
definitely say, like, think back to last year and let's
evaluate your garden. So what crops in the garden did
really well? What were your struggles? What did you like
about your garden, What would you do different and what
is something new that you would want to try. So
I think that's a good start. You know. Just again,
(04:22):
if you if you do keep records and stuff, obviously
it's easy to reflect back on those, but even just
thinking about last year, what do you think about your garden?
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Well, for me, I'll talk about my job, which garden
is my life. So my goal of this year is
I just gotta just keep my nose to the grindstone
and just keep moving hard so that I just go
on and try to stay ahead of schedule, right, you know,
(04:53):
because I just like sometimes you're just like, oh my god,
oh Spring's coming. Oh I gotta get this job done.
Oh panic at the end. So I just I'm really
trying to emphasize this winter, like mak an, everyday count
and so I can kind of stay ahead as as
much as I can so that I can, you know,
(05:14):
help as many gardeners as I can, like through our
research projects and such. So that's really that's my goal.
That's that's what I've been focused on.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
That's good, really good. Like I said, my garden didn't
do well last year with too many weeds, So I
got to stay on top of that this year, got
to get the flower beds probably sprayed before planting. And
then also I kind of have an area where I've
put up a flag pole and so behind that I
want to plant some perennials. Then just don't worry about
(05:44):
that area at all. And it's less mowing for me
too in the yards. So yeah, we'll see, right, stay.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Tube will come back, and.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
That's right, so worse. You can start planning now. You
know a lot of people already receive those seed catalogs.
You talked last month about the variety trials that did well,
and so I put up the website for people who
want to participate, want to get some plants to reach it.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
I know it's on February, of pressure.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Pressure end of February. So okay, you can start planning,
Start looking at seeds, start looking at different varieties. You
want to include. One thing that's really good this time
of year too, is you can focus more on your
indoor gardening. So why would you want to do that? One?
You know, you can improve your air quality. Uh, it's
(06:43):
been proven that indoor plants are going to reduce your stress.
They're going to add some beauty in the house. They
can give you that sense of purpose, especially on those
long days, like I feel like, hey, maybe you've cleaned
the house enough, and so what else could you do
instead of lounging around care to those plants?
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Right, my house is never clean.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Okay, you don't need to add this chore, and then
it just improves her overall well being and stuff. So
just think, I think house plants are good. I feel
like over the last couple of years, I've added more
into my house and expanded besides just I love succulents,
but I've expanded on that. So the biggest thing is
(07:27):
is if you do have house plants, know the requirements
of your plant. Over Water is the number one killer
of house plants, So don't over water. And then I
just went ahead and listed some very popular plants. I
know we have talked about some of these and in
previous episodes, but those are some popular house plants that
you can do well and be successful with. Any of those.
(07:50):
Got a favorite there.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Among those, the snake tongue one. Yeah, you know, because
it's easy to grow.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
It's compact, Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
And kind of I like that very gated leaves there,
different colors and yeah, just I haven't grown African violence
for a long time. It's kind of maybe someday I'll
get back to that, but actually I have to Okay,
I don't want kind of like kind of more and
(08:24):
more like silk plants. I got.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Is what you have in your house is silk houseplants.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
We got a lot, got some nice silk plants. You know,
Christmas tree, I got my Christmas tree up still, and
what else you know we've got We've got a lot
of orchids and uh a few. My wife told me
to stop buying succulents. See, you know, I like to
give her like a Valentine's Day occulent. You're just like
(08:52):
a little plant. Yeah, I could give her a bouquet
of flowers, and okay, that's nice for like two weeks,
two weeks at best. So I want to give you
a little plant that you know you can always remember
how you know how much I love you. La la
la la la. And uh, she says, okay, I'm sick
of tire of occulents. That's enough of those plants. So
(09:14):
there you go.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
So you've got quite a few of those.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
And uh and got a couple of those, uh those snake
tongue plants. Got a couple of those, and I don't
know that's enough. Christmas. Yeah, we got a couple of Christmas.
It's her Christmas cactus is still blooming. Oh wow, Yeah,
it's still going. It's you know, it's got like the
(09:38):
magic going on there.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
It must be the you know, it's got a west
facing window, and uh, it just keeps blooming. It hasn't stopped.
It has not stopped. It hasn't stopped since Thanksgiving. It
has not stopped.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
So you should be counting the days that might be
a record or something.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
I'm just not going to do anything about it. Just
if it ain't broke, don't fix it. But I just
I'm really surprised. You know, it's got like about a
dozen blooms on it right now. And what color it's
like an u fusia to reddish type.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Yeah, very bright. Yeah, I like it very cool. Well,
you mentioned succulents, so, like I said, I do too.
I have quite a few succulents at my place. Here
you go. If you don't want those extra chores or
a lot of attention, succulents are the way to go,
easy to care for. If you got younger children, create
some different fairy gardens or themed gardens. I would recommend
(10:38):
getting succulent or cacti soil for them. It's just going
to be a lot easier than taking like a potting
mix and mixing sand in there. And then these guys
don't require any fertilizer during the winter either, so you
can just enjoy them and just water them very lightly
and watch them continue to progress. So yeah, they're good
(10:59):
op for houses.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Very good for low maintenance.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Yeah, kind of people do you want to ignore close
to the silk plants. But exactly, herb gardens are something
that I feel have gotten a little more popular and stuff.
So again, this would be a great addition for indoor
gardening during the winter and stuff. Of course, herbs are
going to add flavor. There can be different aromas they have,
(11:25):
you know, the alleged healing purposes. So again I listed
some popular ones. But herbs are pretty easy to grow,
and it looks like you can find a lot of
times online these days. You know, an actual herb garden
kit that can just be right on the countertop and
everything so easy to go with. Also, you got kids,
you could do like a terrarium. Those are pretty easy
(11:48):
and expensive to create. You want to choose plants that
are going to tolerate high humidity and have slower growth rates,
you know. I think I shared one time too. When
I was in high school, we did in our horticulture
class a terrarium and did it with a fish bowl,
and my mom had it for several years in her office.
(12:08):
I gave it to her and finally it completely just
outgrew outgrew the fish bowl saw. Instead of you know,
repotting it, she just got rid of it. But yeah,
they're pretty cool. They're fun to do it too them,
you know. And then you can add that you can
add that layer of plastic on them to create their
own little greenhouse effect in there. I ever do one
(12:31):
of those, Oh.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Yeah, probably once once when I was single and board.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Once and done.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
It probably lasted about six months, and yeah, and then
I get tired of it onto the next right, I mean,
I don't know. Yeah, they're good.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
I think it's great to see again, like I said
in my horticulture class. So I think a lot of
your probably egg classes that have older kids and them
they probably use this as a project. All right, something
else you can do is you can journal, and so
again if you don't have it be kind of similar
to planning out your garden and evaluating, but you could
(13:16):
create your own garden journal. And so I just listed
some things that you could put in there. You know,
whether you're talking about different varieties you've done, different varieties
you want to try. You can even keep you know,
your expenses and revenue if you do sell any of
your produce or what you've maybe donated. It's great to
(13:36):
have a way to like track the weather too. You
can write each day of how the different weather was,
and maybe you find some different inspirations that you put
in from I don't know, better guarden magazines or quotes
to keep you motivated. Tom's roll in his eyes here,
who has time for journaling, But they do say journaling
is really good for your mental well being as well.
(13:58):
So again something to keep those winter blues a little
bit greener.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's good
if you like to write. Yeah, it's you know, it's
kind of helpful to see where you were a year ago.
And but nowadays we've got smartphones and stuff, so it's true.
So now like I can play video games to prevent
my Alzheimer's. I don't want to write a journal.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Well, that's easy. I know that I have. Not that
he was a gardener by any means, but one of
my neighbors he used to on his calendar every day
write the temperatures and stuff, and for years he could
look back and say, all right, July whatever, two years
ago it was this, and he must have enjoyed track
in the weather. So I don't know meteorology at home, right, yeah, But.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Again, all that's online now, so like, well.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
There's older people who don't, right, I don't have access.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
I think, you know, I keep thinking that one day
I'm going to get a weather station at my place,
you know, like or like at least like one of
those rain gauges, and then you can you can monitor
the rain every day and send it online to help
the weather man catalog the rain, be a researcher, right,
that's right, something I'm going to do that.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Well, that's very good.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
I'll help stop Alzheimer's too, I bet I bet it would.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
There we go right now, especially with how nice it is,
you could go out and take a look at some
of those tools lawnmowers. You could do some cleaning of them,
sharpening of blades. Again, maybe you have a heated garage
and you can get out there too when it's cooler.
But another thing is you could look for different like
d Y or DIY projects and stuff and look at
(15:50):
doing some upcycling projects to get ready for you know,
the spring, the growing season. So pinterest has a ton
of options I think too. You can just go and
google these days and find a lot of different projects
that maybe you want to do something different or add into. Yeah,
and then lastly I'm going to just talk about because
(16:11):
we are at the end of February and stuff. Is
one thing you could do is go ahead and start seeds.
And so starting seeds is going to help, you know,
maybe get you some different varieties that you're not going
to find locally. It could also be something again pass
the wintertime away and a lot of times if you
(16:31):
do start your own seeds, those transplants are going to
be a lot heartier to get into the garden and
you tend to see you know, more bountiful harvests off
of them.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
So just some.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Factors to consider when you are starting your seeds indoors.
You got to talk we'll talk about the soil, temperature,
moisture like container seed sources, and then of course fertilizers.
So just to start off with soil and temperature, you know,
you don't want to use just plain gardens oil. That's
not going to be a good mix in there. You
(17:03):
want to find something that is going to be like
a seed starting mix that I included on here. Again, commercially,
you can find these anywhere at the big box store.
It's going to help, you know, a lot of them
can help even retain moisture so it's not going to
dry out as fast. And then of course seeds starting
mixes compared to garden soil are going to be sterile,
(17:23):
so they're not going to have those weeds or diseases
in them, and they're going to be lightweight. One thing
you got to consider is you want to make sure
that temperature to get those seeds to germinate. You want
to keep it around that seventy or above degrees at
wherever you're starting them, whether it's in a basement or upstairs,
make sure you're keeping your seeds trays away from like
(17:44):
any drafty windows, any of that. Even using heating mats
are going to be really good out there. I know
a lot of people who invest in those say that
they're well worth investment.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
So do you start any seeds and yeah, it's only February.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Only February rush, don't rush you Okay, that's okay. Moisture
and light these seeds when you do start them, they
do need to be consistently That soil needs to be
consistently moist You don't want it to ever like fully
dry out or where it does become over you know,
water too, so you kind of got to figure out
(18:22):
that sweet spot on your own. But some people just
will take like a spray bottle and miss them every
single day. That'll work a little bit better even than
like a watering can, because sometimes the watering can can
push that seed up to the surface, So you might
want to look at doing that. Light is going to
be one of your most important factors with starting seeds,
(18:46):
And I know they always talk about all the different
types of grow lights out there not really as important
as much as how much light you're providing for them.
So it's not about the quality, it's more about the quantity.
And I would just say kind of like us, we
probably rest for about eight hours a night, especially if
we're lucky a lot of us. But just like that,
(19:09):
plants are gonna have that little rest period, but they're
gonna need at least twelve to sixteen hours of light
per day. And then you want to make sure that
you're keeping that light when you're starting probably anywhere from
two to four inches above it. But you want to
get too too far above or you're gonna get some
really spindly, leaky plants.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
That's right, got to give them lots of light. It's
all about the quantity of light. And the lower the
light is to the plant, the more the quantities there.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Yeah, so the heat it will provide. So that's that's
good to know. Containers and seed sources. You know, there's
a ton of different containers out there. Of course, like
in this picture you can find these single cell containers.
Plastic is great. It's gonna have the advantage of being
reusable compared to like some of the biodegradable containers I've
(20:00):
seen people use, like egg carns. One thing that's probably
very easily accessible for people today is like the restaurant
can go to go containers are really good or even
like if you get like the donut hole containers. Those
are good because then you have that lid as well
(20:20):
and can kind of get that greenhouse effect. I know
Don Kinsler just talked about using those and he really
enjoys using those compared to some of the single cell
containers out there.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
So you never use one of those whole containers, yeah, you.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Know, or like the restaurant to go containers. Have you
ever seen those where they're black and then they get
the plastic lid that just folds over and they usually
have a hole like holes on four sides of them,
just a little bit of holes.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
No.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Never, Well you can go take a look at those.
So if you do it, then you you can use
these year to year, but you just want to make
sure to aeralyze them in between uses. As far as
seed sources, you know, again make sure you're using reliable
seed sources. If you had seed from a year ago,
(21:11):
you really you could use that, but you don't want
to start pushing over a year ago because the older
the seed is, the less viable it's going to be.
And then lastly, I guess I got two more points here,
but fertilizer, I know, Tom you've always talked about that
a seed is full of food and it's got enough
food to get to those first two true leaves that
(21:34):
it gets on it. And then we got to look
at having like a fertilizer out there, any recommendations on
what to go ahead and use on that.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Well, usually a soluble fertilizer, you know, like a blue
powder that you mix up, and then usually people use
a balance fertilizer, you know, like twenty twenty twenty. In
the beginning, you got to make sure to at least
has some of that second number, the phosphorus, because that's
important for root development. And so you know, like later on,
(22:07):
a lot of fertilizers start lacking the second number, the phosphorus,
because that's not so important later on. But in the beginning,
I got to make sure I got at least ten
percent phosphorus in that fertilizer.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Yeah, and then just monitor your plants so if they love.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
That's what's make sure you're looking at the coloring of that.
And then finally, an important factor to do is harden
your plants off before putting them directly into the garden.
So what you'd want to do is you gradually want
to get them accustomed to that outdoor environment. I know
a lot of people will use fans when they're starting
(22:48):
seats too, to kind of mimic wind and get them
used to that. But what I would say is about
two weeks before you think you're going to get into
the garden, take them out for a few hours each day,
kind of in a shaded area in the afternoon where
there are protected from you know, our strong North Dakota winds,
and then bring them back inside each night and just
(23:09):
kind of do that where you can extend their time
each day, and after that two weeks you'll be good
to get them into the garden.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Yeah. Actually, you know, it's nice to have a little
bit of breeze on your plants, on your seedlings. It
makes the seedlings sturdier or stockier, so a little a
lot some mean people have like a light fan that
they put on and that helps their tomatos get stock Here,
it sounds like a good project. But again, like I
(23:40):
would say, like one of the first seeds that start
now would be onions. That would be the first thing
that'd be. And we're getting about the time when you
can start the onion onion seeds. But the rest just
want to be a little bit patient.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Don't forget that spring fever just because.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
It's what you said. That's right. And now so now
I'm going to start talking about some group of vegetables.
And that's what I'm gonna do, is this, uh, this
spring on the quote of growing. I'm gonna want help
everybody get the best garden they can this year and
talk about various groups of vegetables. And today we're going
to talk about summer and winter squash. I'm want to
(24:20):
focus on that. And We've talked about squash off and
on bits and pieces for the last couple of years,
but I'm going to just focus on that today and
help you get started. So how did they ever get
the name squash? What isn't that kind of crazy name?
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Yeah? People go squash like I don't know.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
I was like, maybe it has to do with how
do I cut open this squash? Okay, I'm gonna squash it. Yeah,
but wrong, Tom wrong. It comes from the word a
scooter squash. How about that? A scooter squash that's a
Native American tribe out east and from that came the
(25:01):
words squash, And according to the Library of Congress, it
means eating raw so out East they ate their squash
raw and they called it a scootera squash.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
About all that, I would eat a lot of squash raw.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
But yeah, personally that means if it means eating raw,
that means I grow unsquash because I always cook my
So today we're going to talk about unsquash, and you know,
we'll talk about I'm gonna focus on North Dkota here too,
So you know, let's talk about North Dkota. And I
(25:40):
I a most famous gardener, buffalo bird woman. You can
see her here. She's cultivating squash. Squash is one of
the four sisters in the North Dakota garden, and along
with the maize and the beans and the sunflowers, they
grew them all together in their garden, and those crops
complimented each other in the garden and also complimented each
(26:01):
other in the diet and the squad sea. You can
see the makeshift fence. They're also being used on the
on the edgehair. So what did the squash add to
the family. And what the squash added was, first of all,
it crawled along the ground and helped smother out weeds.
But also squashes often planted on the edges of the
planting because of the spiny vines would help keep wildlife
(26:25):
out in any mischievous neighbors. So that's what squash is
good for. And what they would do is they would
harvest the squash and they would slice it and put
it on sticks of willow, and then they would dry it,
and then they would enjoy it all winter long. And
in North Dakota, our our Native Americans grew unsquashed because
(26:50):
they would boil it when they ate it.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
I'm gonna say that'd be like jerky or something.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Listen, I don't know what happened that trybout east. They
were they you know what, I think They're chief was
afraid of fire, so he banned fire, that's my guess.
Or I don't know what the heck. Or maybe they're
just too sheltered and they just didn't They just nobody
ever found out about fire yet. I don't know what.
I don't know. It just doesn't make it, but no,
but whatever, And of course the Library of Congress must
(27:18):
be right, so it must have been eaten raw. Okay, again,
I'm going to focus a lot on North Dakota today.
That's what we're all about. And if you want to
grow a type of squash at our Native Americans here
in North Dakota grew Lakota as a good one, and
you can find us at heirloom seed catalogs. And it's
(27:39):
a it's a beautiful winter squash. There. Another squash that's
very famous for our state is the buttercup squash, and
the North Dakota ad College introduced us to the world
in nineteen thirty and so, and this is enjoyed all
across the world for its high quality flesh and so,
but we eat in North Dakota. Start the buttercup squash.
(28:03):
How about that?
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Pretty cool?
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Now, there's two types of squashed, summer squash and winter squash.
What's the difference? Okay, on the left, calm there the
summer squash. Summer squash has a thin and soft skin,
and we pick it when it's immature. Okay, we don't
want it to get seedy, so we pick it when
it's young and has a short storage life. So if
(28:27):
we pick it young as a short life, obviously we
eat it in summer. No oneer. We call it summer squash.
Winter squash has a thick, hard skin, and we wait
to pick it until it's mature and that's late in
the fall, and it has a long storage life. So
that's a squash that we eat in winter, no wonder,
(28:47):
we call that winter squash. So let's talk about some
of the squashes so I can inspire you to put
some in your garden this year, Kelsey. But not you
can put around your flagpole too there, you know, yeah,
it'll keep the predators away. The acorn squash, you know,
that's that's a popular squash. And the reason why this
is popular it because it ripens early compared to other
(29:09):
winter squashes, and it's ready to eat right away. You
don't have to cure it for months, and it's good roasted.
One squash that's gaining in popularity now is dela kata
squashed Dela kada squash, and this is sometimes called sweet
potato squash. And this made me the sweetest of all
(29:34):
the squashes. Okay, And so people ask me what's the
best way to grow sweet potatoes, and I say, forget
about it, Just grow sweet potato squash. It's much easier.
And bush Dela katta is a is not It has
a very short vine, ripens early, it resists pottery mildew
(29:54):
bush dot Delakota is a great squash to grow in
your garden this year. This is the perhaps this is
the most famous one across the world, the Kobolcha kobolcha
squash or sometimes called the Japanese pumpkin. And you see
it as like a dark grayish kind of textured rind there.
And like this is a variety called sweet Mama that
(30:17):
grows well in our state. So this is a sweet one,
but people like it because it has a dry and
flaky texture, and also the sweetness is has kind of
like a complexity to it, just like certain nuances that
you taste in the sweetness. So this is really a
highly cher squash that we can grow here. And then
(30:39):
right right next to it is butter cup squash, which
is to me, it's like a kobocha squash that has
a gray belly button and it's not not it's it's
kind of like a mixture of slightly moist, slightly dry
and uh, not quite as nuance of sweetness, just more
of a pure sweetness compared to a kobotsa squash. But
(31:02):
it's really really a great one. Butternut squash. People grow this.
It has a smooth and moist texture to it. And
one thing about butternut squash is that usually has a
small seed cavity, so there's lots of flesh inside, and
it's also has a pure sweetness to it. One thing
(31:23):
famous about the butternut squash it it's what Libby uses
to make their one hundred percent pure pumpkin filling. So
people want to know what's the best pumpkin to grow
for a pumpkin pie, and I just say, forget pumpkins,
you should grow butternut or buttercup squash, you know, just
(31:44):
like Libby's does. And they can call it a pumpkin
even though it's a butter nut squash. They call it
pumpkin just because there is no clear difference between a
pumpkin and a squash. You can't say something, oh, that's
that's a pumpkin. For sure, that's a squash. No, there's
a lot of great area there. And so the Food
and Drug Administration says, well, I guess if it has
(32:06):
a golden flesh, that's close enough, We'll let you call
it a pumpkin. So there you go. So butternut squash
great for pumpkin pie. Or there's a buttercup squash called
Uncle David's Dakota Dessert and that's a great one too.
A trend I see in the winter squash now is
(32:28):
that you know, people don't have ten kids anymore, so
they don't need a twenty pound squash, and so the
trend is to produce fridays with smaller squash like one
or two pound single serving. And there's a lot of
nice ones out there, and it's on shorter vines too,
So baby butternut squash, you can look for that. Among
(32:52):
the great summer squashes. You got the straight and at
the yellow types. These are unbelievably productive. And there's next.
And I would say the big trend in summer squash
has to do with we got the quantity salved Okay,
we got it. We produce more summer squads and we
(33:12):
can possibly eat, But can we develop a variety that
really tastes special and you know what a nutty flavor
for example. And I would say one variety that really
has a following is called Zephyr, zephyr with the Z
and that's a yellow, straight neck type that has a
green bottom to it. And this has done well in
(33:34):
our variety trials. Zephyr squash, So you might want to
give that a try this year. Another straight and starts say,
summer squash is the paddy pan type. And this also
has a nice history to North Dakota. And I here's
a publication from nineteen twenty four. Nineteen twenty four, Okay,
it's over one hundred years ago now, and it gave
(33:54):
it told you how to grow a garden in North Dakota.
And this was running at a time when when North
Dakota was under severe poverty. You know, the rest of
America was having the Roaring twenties, but not us. We were.
We were in poverty. Though the drought was going on.
Farm prices were very low, and there was hunger across
(34:18):
the prairie. And here's here's a typical prairie house there
at the homesteaders, you know, with their natural landscaping. How
about that a nice side house there.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
You can still see a few of those across North Dakota.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Right. I never thought about growing a shrub on my roof,
but there you go. But there was hunger there. And
the scientists there at the North Dakota ad College, they
discovered you know what this paddy pants squash. Wow, the
summer squash just does great in our state. This is
the answer. We're going to solve hunger with paddy pant squash.
(34:53):
And the problem is is paddy pant squash tastes terrible,
and so what I've told it story before, But I
remember we did a vroidy troal this and I asked
people to test it and see if it was productive.
I remember there's a minister in Logan County who who
grow all vegetables to share with the poor. But after
(35:14):
he tasted a white patty pan squash, he said he
couldn't share that with the poor because he thought it
would be a sin to make anybody eat this terrible squash.
So he just picked the squash and took it to
the county dump. There you go.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
What do people do with it if it tastes so bad? Like,
I mean, how do you cook it? Any idea?
Speaker 2 (35:34):
Well, what I would do, I'd use it as a weapon.
You see, Like if you got the neighbor's dog always
causing trouble, it'd be like kind of like a nice baseball,
just kind of just chuck it at that sucker. That's
what I would use a paddy pan squash for.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
We don't grow it.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Don't grow an heirloom white type, but you may want to.
Here's a new one out this year called Starship. It's
a bright green and striped ones and so it's an
award winner. Is it good? It's supposed to be. I
doubt it though, but we're gonna find out. And if
anybody wants to join me in trying the Starship squash,
(36:12):
just let me know. But the key is you gotta
harvest it when it's young. That's the key. Like if
it gets more than three inches across, it's just it's
only good for decorations or for throwing at dogs. Okay.
And then of course you got the summer squash king
the zucchini squash that nobody reckon, nobody likes, nobody respects.
(36:37):
They pick it and throw it on the side of
the street, hoping somebody will pick it up. They abandon
it at park benches. But kids, we like summer squash,
We like zucchini. We haven't been brainwashed yet. And I've
told these stories before, but this could have been me
sixty years ago out there at the farm and our
(36:59):
farm in Minnesota, we sold vegetables, and we grew and
sold zucchini. And so what do you do if you
have a zucchini that you accidentally forgot to harvest and
I got like almost two feet long. Well, we didn't
get mad about that. We could play with that zucchini
and so like we would make a baseball bat out
of it and play baseball with it. Or we would
(37:21):
carve it into a canoe, because zucchini's you know, zucchini's float,
and so you just carve it out and each one
of my brothers and sisters we'd have our own zucchini boat.
You can put a mast on it, walk down to
the lake on the dock, and then we would just
have war games trying to destroy I try to destroy
my brother's you know boat with rocks and dirt balls.
(37:44):
So those were simpler days. See, yes, you could have
gracing down the Red River, Cannonball River. We can have
a zucchini race there, you know, and so we could
play with it. That was Those are simple days, no
video games, no computers, just bear feet and playing outside
(38:05):
all the time. And then of course you've heard the
story the legend of Montana Maggie, a true story, and
there was a bear who came to Maggie's garden. One
day Maggie's dog saw it. Maggie's dog started barking like nuts,
like Burke, and then the bear got so mad. And
then Maggie hears all that commotion outside and she goes,
(38:27):
what's going on out here? And then she sees the
bear in her garden. And she's a tough, pioneered girl.
She goes, bear, you get the heck out of my garden.
You get out of here, bear. Then the bear got
really mad, come charging that Maggie, and Maggie scoots across
her deck trying to get into the kitchen, and she got.
(38:47):
The bear's chasing after her, and Maggie got the door
about halfway closings. But that bear's faces right there there,
face to face. She can feel that warm breath of
the bear right again her face, and she's just reaching
across the counter. What can I do? What can I
hit this bear with? And she nails that bear with
a zucchini, And that zucchini saved your life. So you know,
(39:10):
nobody respects zucchini, but I highly recommend it. It can
provide good nutrition, it can provide recreation and protection, all
three elements. So versatile it belongs in the Vegetable Hall
of Fame. You got it. So those are the types
of summer squash you can grow. I hope you're inspired
(39:31):
to grow some. I really encourage you to explore and
try to grow some of them this year. So I'll
give you a quick wrap up a how to grow
the seed. Look for varieties that mature in one hundred
days or less. We want it to be early so
it makes it before the frost. I want to variety
that's flavorful. I want to see a disease resistant variety.
(39:52):
And I'm especially worried about powdery mildew. I do not
grow varieties that do not naturally resist powdery mildew because
I don't want to have to to be spraying them.
And I want a productive variety that grows well in
North Dakota. And when I go looking at seeds, I
do not go to the garden center. If you're a
(40:12):
real serious gardener and you're in which you are, since
you're watching Dakota growing, and why would you limit yourself
to Like a garden center may have like five packets
different types of squash, and these are like oftener old
varieties fifty years old very few hybrids, very unlikely to
(40:35):
resist diseases. We can do so much better, you know,
just like that Eastern tribe. If only I was out
there to teach you, you don't have to uneat uncook
your squash. I could show you so much better if
I can open your eyes. So I would say, open
your eyes and look at these these different seed catalogs.
(40:57):
They're available, and I want to talk to you about
a cup varieties that are that I recommend. Is that working? Okay?
Just move ahead. I guess here, got maybe a little
technical difficulty here, but we got I'm going to show
keep just keep moving on here, and I recommend you
(41:19):
get the Johnny's Seed catalog. There's so many seed catalogs
out there, but if I can tell you, just get one.
Get the one from Johnny's Selected Seeds. And it's a
company that's famous for their squash breeding and just famous
for their breeding program in general. Here's their squash lineup.
(41:41):
And actually instead of offering like five varieties at a
garden center, Johnny's alone offers eighty two different types of squashes. Yeah,
so there's so much out there for you. And what
I really like Johnny's. If you look at the lower
right hand corner is that they have they have information
that can help you grow your squash. So it'll tell
(42:02):
you about here's how to transplant it, here's how to
sew it, here's the insects to worry about, here's the diseases.
So this is great quality information that can be very useful.
Then we're moving on to the Prairie Road Organic Seed Company,
and that's another one I want to feature because this
(42:22):
is a seed company based here in North Dakota and
they have varrieties that even they've bred to thrive in
North Dakota. And again they're one of their famous ones
is that Uncle David's Dakota Dessert buttercup squash. That's definitely
one to grow in your garden. And we'll be testing
a lot of these varieties this year. I think we
(42:44):
got about eighteen different squash rieties we're testing in our
North Dakota Home Garden Ride trials. And you can see
their website there and DSU that's NDSU dot ag Slash
Home Garden Trials. Google it our North Kota Home Garden
Varting Trials and there also you can see the listing
(43:05):
of our varieties that we recommend and where you can
buy the seeds quickly. As far as some basics for
sowing squash, and I'm going to focus more on things
we do in the springtime for the squash, because as
a year goes on, we'll talk more about what to
do in summer and fall with squash. But as far
as sowing, don't be too early. You gotta squash. Seedlings
(43:29):
cannot tolerate frost, and we usually keep getting frost here
till mid May, so I would not sow the seeds
outdoors at least until mid May and more like late May,
because squash likes warm soil. And a general recommendation for
summer squashes, I'll put the seeds about six inches apart,
and then the plants to about eighteen to twenty four inches.
(43:53):
And the winter squash, I'll put the seeds about six
to twelve inches apart, and then i'll fill them a
little a little bit so they stand more apart those
plants about eighteen to thirty six inches. If it's a
If it's there's different winter squashes. Some have short vines,
so that can be I can thin that to eighteen
inches apart, but some have really long vines and big
(44:15):
fruits there. I want to plant about one one plant
every three feet and we can use transplants there we
want to and here again i'm talking to you Kelsey.
As far as this goes, especially for squash, is that
we don't want to start them before early May. Squash
(44:36):
doesn't really struggles as a transplant, and if you started
too early, it'll be very leggy. So I'm gonna I'm
gonna set the plants out in late May, so three
weeks before that is when I'm going to sow the seeds.
That's early May, and I'm gonna put them in big
pots like a peat pot or a two inch wide
plastic cell. I'll put two seeds per sell and then
(44:59):
i'll thin to the longest one. So you talked about
seeds starting, so I'll move this ahead quickly. Here you
talked about the Let me just say here the seed
starter mix, and we want it to be a little
bit warm like in the seventies in the beginning, give
it lots of light and don't over water. So these
(45:19):
are tomato transplants that I got and sell it. And
again I just want to feature the importance of getting
those lights close to the plants. Don't burn the plants,
but get those lights, so they get lots of light.
And here are some plants that are just not this.
These are plants that aren't gonna make it. They're just
not getting enough light and they're they're stretching for light.
(45:39):
And these guys are gonna flop over and die. So
this is just you just got to learn from mistakes.
And again the quantity of light is so critical as
far as here's some peat pots that the plants are
growing in. And the way I'm showing here is that
here they put two plants. These aren't squashes either. These
(46:01):
kind of look like beans. I don't know, maybe there
are beans. But you got two seeds growing in a
cell or a pot here, and so you want to
thin it to one. So the way you thin seedlings
is you don't just pull it out, because when you
pull it out, you disturb the soil and you can
(46:23):
disturb the roots of the other plant that you keep.
So what you just use a scissors and you clip
below those coda lienings, those those false sleeves, and then
it won't re sprout again, and then you haven't disturbed
the swell. You haven't caused havoc to the remaining plant. Okay,
so do that. That's the way you thin a ceiling.
(46:44):
Powdery mildew is the biggest threat we have for squash.
So what's what do we do? I tell you what
I do. I just plant varieties that don't get powdery mildew.
So easy, use a modern hybrid. Forget about those heirlooms.
Those heirlooms are those heirlooms are. There's a reason why
their heirlooms. Okay, and your water makes a difference as well.
(47:08):
So again this goes back to my days as one
of my first jobs as a trained assassin hired by
a sunflower research company. They trained me to kill as
many plants as possible. And I was I was a murderer.
I was sunflowers. They feared me. When I walked by,
(47:29):
they turned their heads and in fear, they were trembling.
I could see those leaves trembling. And how did I
try to kill them? The key to kill them, To
get disease on plants is to water them at night,
and then the leaves get wet, and then I spread
the disease and whow so many died. So the reason
why I described that is, don't do that. Okay, we
(47:51):
want our plants to live, so avoid overhead irrigation. You
want to irrigate in the morning so the leaves dry
and water deeply, not frequently, okay, Just a few quick
questions that I often get as far as squash, like
can I grow? There's three major types of squash that
(48:12):
they're all in the same cucurbita cucurbita genus. There's Cucurba maxima,
which includes like the buttered cup and the kabocha, and
then the most shata, which is the butternut, and then
the cucurb pepo p e p o that's the acorns
and delicattas and most pumpkins. So people wonder, can I
(48:33):
grow my acorn squash next to my pumpkins or will
they get all mixed up and cause problems with each other?
And they are the same species, So like an acorn,
or a delicata, a spaghetti squash, a summer squash, and
most most jack lanterns, they're all the same species and
(48:54):
they will cross with each other. So is that a
problem for sing We got to know is each plant
has male and female flowers, so the males don't have
a baby fruit attacked. Okay, men don't have babies. That's
just the way life is for everything in nature. Females
have the babies. And so here's our female squash with
(49:17):
a little a female flower with the squash attacks. So
now that we got that'll figure it out. Let's say
I got my acorn squash, and I got my jack
o lantern is my female, so my my row of
jack o lanterns. They all they can produce is jack
o lanterns because that is maternal tissue. That's part of
(49:41):
the female flower. Okay, the fruit is part of the
female flower. So if a bee takes the acorn pollen
and moves over to the jack o lantern female, it
will get pollinated and it will set seed. But since
(50:01):
it's a jack lanterns the female, so it's maternal tissue.
Its only can produce jack lanterns. You won't see any
impact of the acorn. But the seeds inside of the
jack o lantern are fifty percent acorn, and that's when
(50:21):
you're gonna get that weird.
Speaker 1 (50:22):
If you save them for next year and plant, that's.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
When you got the interesting types next year. But there's
no problem growing acorns or jack lanterns or delicatas next
to each other, no promenda, It's just don't save the seed.
Another question I get is can I grow pumpkins in
my square foot garden? I get that question and the
(50:48):
answer is, of course you can, But why would you
ever do it? And I look at that square foot
garden book The Bible by mel Bartha Eme He says
that a jack o' lantern only takes up two square feet.
So what do you think about that? Kelsey, have your
That's a bunch of hogwash, that's a hullaballoo, that's a
(51:13):
bunch of bs. There's no way two feet? Ok at that,
here's a baby. It's already taking up a foot just
like that, I'll say, so, I would say, And really,
if you're gonna grow it in your raised bed, put
it on the edge of your raised bed and let
the vines go out of the raised bed or what yeah?
(51:33):
Or maybe just forget about it and a rented garden
from the Bismarck Parks and grow your pumpkins there where
they have lots of room. But in a raised bed
where space is a premium. I just don't think squashes
not the best choice. Okay. Last thing that I just
(51:54):
want to mention has to do with a lot of
people don't know about is winter squash. Is most of
the varieties tastes better after storage, so after you harvest it,
and I always harvest mind a night before the first
hard frost because it can't take hard frost. I can't
take twenty eight degrees. It can take a light frost,
but not a hard frost. And then what I do
(52:16):
I store mine under fifty to sixty degrees for it
does well in my unheated basement. There Now, some varieties
don't need any extra curing and they're ready to eat,
like acorns and delicattas and spaghettis. But other squash, like
a buttercup and kobocha squash will taste much better after
(52:38):
you store it for a month because during that month
the starches convert to sugars, so it's much sweeter if
you just wait a month. And for a butternut, it's
much better if you wait two months in storage before
you start eating them. So a lot of people don't
realize what they're missing. Wait and be patient for those
(52:59):
buttercup kbota on butternuts and you'll really have a great
taste experience and then enjoy your squash soup. There.
Speaker 1 (53:08):
What varieties are you looking forward as in your trials
this year?
Speaker 2 (53:13):
This year we're testing I like I mentioned that Starship
We've got to see if that Starships summer squash is
a bunch of hollablue or if it really it's I
know it is pretty, but we'll see how it tastes.
And we are we're tasting orange spaghetti squash this year.
We're testing orange spaghetti squash that helps very nutritious and
could be really delicious since it's orange in color. And
(53:35):
we've got a kabocha squash that we're testing this year.
And uh, do any of that, Uh not this year
Delakota because I there isn't a new variety out or
anything like that. But uh but again that I would
without hesitation that bush dela Kata is that it's sometimes
called Cornell's bush Delakata because it was developed in Cornell.
(53:58):
That's really a that's really a winner that I'm going
to grow that my own garden. So yeah, we're so
uh yeah, So we got all different types of squashes
and uh and again if anybody's interested there's my contact
information or can go to our website and we've got
we've got our seeds selected for this year and our
(54:21):
catalogs ready to go. I just got to get the
seeds all packed up, so we're gonna start shipping out
seeds in a few weeks here.
Speaker 1 (54:28):
And that's when the catalog will be ready for weeks.
Speaker 2 (54:32):
Yeah. I don't no hurry to if I'm not ready
to send you the seeds. You don't really need the catalog.
I don't, and we're working on that's my that's always
my priority in March, and again, as I said my
New year's resolution, just really keep my nose with the
grindstone and get things done as soon as possible.
Speaker 1 (54:52):
They're very good, lots of good information today, a lot
to learn about squash. I loved it.
Speaker 2 (54:58):
Yeah, it's great your thing to get my thumb all green.
Still get it, very like spring training like you know here.
I'm ready to go.
Speaker 1 (55:06):
Yeah, rev it up right, yep. Well, I just want
to thank everybody for joining us on today's episode. And
one thing that is exciting from Dakota Media Access is
they do have now a radio access app out there
that you can go ahead and you can listen to
other programs, but Dakoda Growing is on there, and as always,
it's on any major podcasting platform as well, and so
(55:31):
we hope that you will join us in our future episodes.
Dakota Growing is a gardening show brought to you by
Dakota Media Access and NDSU Extension. We discuss a variety
of timely topics pertaining to your landscape, along with giving
you tips and advice for your lawn, garden and trees.
(55:51):
If you have questions, call seven oh one two two
one six eight sixty five or email NDSU dot Burley
dot Extension at NDSU dot com. Dakota Growing airs on
Radio Access one O two point five FM, Community Access
Channel twelve or six twelve HD, or online at FreeTV
dot org
Welcome to Dakota Growing. I'm Kelsey Deckert, your horticulture agent
here in Burley County, joined by my co host Tom
Cobb NDSU Extension Horticulture US down in the Radio Access studio.
How are you doing today?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Everything's good, Kelsey.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
End of February weather. It's nice today.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Fifty yeah, so I can't beat that. No and no snow.
So back to the good old brown days of mentoring.
So just yeah, that's looks like spring's common. Can't stop it.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
I hope we don't experience what we had a little
over a week ago.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Oh yeah, that was long killer thirty eight below. I
don't know what the coldest was, but I think it
was around thirty eight.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
You have that, I have that. Today we'll talk about that.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
I can't well go, well, there you go. I can't
wait to see that. And so it was bitter cold.
It just shows you how quickly things can change.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Right, And it looks like, I mean again, extended forecast
does look like it's gonna stay above average. Okay, beautiful,
see what happened. Let's keep it going well even though
it's feeling like spring. I'm going to talk today about
how to keep your green thumb busy especially during the winter. Right,
So that was an extremely long week. Like I said,
(01:46):
here we go, February eighteenth, new record low for Bismarck,
negative thirty nine. I have just a screenshot of I
use a kfyr app there and you can see the
difference between last week and today. Pretty crazy, pretty crazy.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
So that minus thirty nine, that's the lot all of
all time in Bismark or just for that day.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah, that was a new record for the history.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
I believe for February. Yes, okay, yeah, that's so usually
we're in the zone four. So that means, like is
it minus around minus thirty is a normal coldest time,
coldest temperature for the winter, So minus thirty nine, we
got a lot of frozen bugs out there. I'll tell
(02:36):
you that, I mean.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
And then you added the wind chill, Like if you
look over there on February nineteenth, that was I screenshoted
that at eight eight thirteen. It says there negative twenty
six was a temperature, but it felt like negative forty
five that wind chill. It was chilly. Vehicles sounded rough,
especially if you have something to plug in or protect. Yeah,
(03:00):
and then like we just said, it's been melting. Even
last night I was outside and well, we got the
great flood of the year going on through our barn.
We always a spot that depending on how much snow
it is and backs up in the barn. It just
melts right through. So we're flooding. But that's okay, I'll
(03:20):
take it. I'll take it over that bitter cold. That
was a long week, it felt like, and I just
kept saying, Okay, four more days of this, three more
days of this, We're almost there. So but like you said,
a lot of dead bugs, right.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
You got it there best in secked aside.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
That's right, all right, Well we'll jump right into it. So,
like I said, I want to talk about today just again.
Maybe we're having a little bit of false spring. There
might be some colder temperatures. We're not through winter yet.
But what can you do if you're not getting outside
right now? How can you keep your green thumb busy?
So first and foremost, if you haven't already, I would
(04:01):
definitely say, like, think back to last year and let's
evaluate your garden. So what crops in the garden did
really well? What were your struggles? What did you like
about your garden, What would you do different and what
is something new that you would want to try. So
I think that's a good start. You know. Just again,
(04:22):
if you if you do keep records and stuff, obviously
it's easy to reflect back on those, but even just
thinking about last year, what do you think about your garden?
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Well, for me, I'll talk about my job, which garden
is my life. So my goal of this year is
I just gotta just keep my nose to the grindstone
and just keep moving hard so that I just go
on and try to stay ahead of schedule, right, you know,
(04:53):
because I just like sometimes you're just like, oh my god,
oh Spring's coming. Oh I gotta get this job done.
Oh panic at the end. So I just I'm really
trying to emphasize this winter, like mak an, everyday count
and so I can kind of stay ahead as as
much as I can so that I can, you know,
(05:14):
help as many gardeners as I can, like through our
research projects and such. So that's really that's my goal.
That's that's what I've been focused on.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
That's good, really good. Like I said, my garden didn't
do well last year with too many weeds, So I
got to stay on top of that this year, got
to get the flower beds probably sprayed before planting. And
then also I kind of have an area where I've
put up a flag pole and so behind that I
want to plant some perennials. Then just don't worry about
(05:44):
that area at all. And it's less mowing for me
too in the yards. So yeah, we'll see, right, stay.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Tube will come back, and.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
That's right, so worse. You can start planning now. You
know a lot of people already receive those seed catalogs.
You talked last month about the variety trials that did well,
and so I put up the website for people who
want to participate, want to get some plants to reach it.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
I know it's on February, of pressure.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Pressure end of February. So okay, you can start planning,
Start looking at seeds, start looking at different varieties. You
want to include. One thing that's really good this time
of year too, is you can focus more on your
indoor gardening. So why would you want to do that? One?
You know, you can improve your air quality. Uh, it's
(06:43):
been proven that indoor plants are going to reduce your stress.
They're going to add some beauty in the house. They
can give you that sense of purpose, especially on those
long days, like I feel like, hey, maybe you've cleaned
the house enough, and so what else could you do
instead of lounging around care to those plants?
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Right, my house is never clean.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Okay, you don't need to add this chore, and then
it just improves her overall well being and stuff. So
just think, I think house plants are good. I feel
like over the last couple of years, I've added more
into my house and expanded besides just I love succulents,
but I've expanded on that. So the biggest thing is
(07:27):
is if you do have house plants, know the requirements
of your plant. Over Water is the number one killer
of house plants, So don't over water. And then I
just went ahead and listed some very popular plants. I
know we have talked about some of these and in
previous episodes, but those are some popular house plants that
you can do well and be successful with. Any of those.
(07:50):
Got a favorite there.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Among those, the snake tongue one. Yeah, you know, because
it's easy to grow.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
It's compact, Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
And kind of I like that very gated leaves there,
different colors and yeah, just I haven't grown African violence
for a long time. It's kind of maybe someday I'll
get back to that, but actually I have to Okay,
I don't want kind of like kind of more and
(08:24):
more like silk plants. I got.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Is what you have in your house is silk houseplants.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
We got a lot, got some nice silk plants. You know,
Christmas tree, I got my Christmas tree up still, and
what else you know we've got We've got a lot
of orchids and uh a few. My wife told me
to stop buying succulents. See, you know, I like to
give her like a Valentine's Day occulent. You're just like
(08:52):
a little plant. Yeah, I could give her a bouquet
of flowers, and okay, that's nice for like two weeks,
two weeks at best. So I want to give you
a little plant that you know you can always remember
how you know how much I love you. La la
la la la. And uh, she says, okay, I'm sick
of tire of occulents. That's enough of those plants. So
(09:14):
there you go.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
So you've got quite a few of those.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
And uh and got a couple of those, uh those snake
tongue plants. Got a couple of those, and I don't
know that's enough. Christmas. Yeah, we got a couple of Christmas.
It's her Christmas cactus is still blooming. Oh wow, Yeah,
it's still going. It's you know, it's got like the
(09:38):
magic going on there.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
It must be the you know, it's got a west
facing window, and uh, it just keeps blooming. It hasn't stopped.
It has not stopped. It hasn't stopped since Thanksgiving. It
has not stopped.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
So you should be counting the days that might be
a record or something.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
I'm just not going to do anything about it. Just
if it ain't broke, don't fix it. But I just
I'm really surprised. You know, it's got like about a
dozen blooms on it right now. And what color it's
like an u fusia to reddish type.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Yeah, very bright. Yeah, I like it very cool. Well,
you mentioned succulents, so, like I said, I do too.
I have quite a few succulents at my place. Here
you go. If you don't want those extra chores or
a lot of attention, succulents are the way to go,
easy to care for. If you got younger children, create
some different fairy gardens or themed gardens. I would recommend
(10:38):
getting succulent or cacti soil for them. It's just going
to be a lot easier than taking like a potting
mix and mixing sand in there. And then these guys
don't require any fertilizer during the winter either, so you
can just enjoy them and just water them very lightly
and watch them continue to progress. So yeah, they're good
(10:59):
op for houses.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Very good for low maintenance.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Yeah, kind of people do you want to ignore close
to the silk plants. But exactly, herb gardens are something
that I feel have gotten a little more popular and stuff.
So again, this would be a great addition for indoor
gardening during the winter and stuff. Of course, herbs are
going to add flavor. There can be different aromas they have,
(11:25):
you know, the alleged healing purposes. So again I listed
some popular ones. But herbs are pretty easy to grow,
and it looks like you can find a lot of
times online these days. You know, an actual herb garden
kit that can just be right on the countertop and
everything so easy to go with. Also, you got kids,
you could do like a terrarium. Those are pretty easy
(11:48):
and expensive to create. You want to choose plants that
are going to tolerate high humidity and have slower growth rates,
you know. I think I shared one time too. When
I was in high school, we did in our horticulture
class a terrarium and did it with a fish bowl,
and my mom had it for several years in her office.
(12:08):
I gave it to her and finally it completely just
outgrew outgrew the fish bowl saw. Instead of you know,
repotting it, she just got rid of it. But yeah,
they're pretty cool. They're fun to do it too them,
you know. And then you can add that you can
add that layer of plastic on them to create their
own little greenhouse effect in there. I ever do one
(12:31):
of those, Oh.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Yeah, probably once once when I was single and board.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Once and done.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
It probably lasted about six months, and yeah, and then
I get tired of it onto the next right, I mean,
I don't know. Yeah, they're good.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
I think it's great to see again, like I said
in my horticulture class. So I think a lot of
your probably egg classes that have older kids and them
they probably use this as a project. All right, something
else you can do is you can journal, and so
again if you don't have it be kind of similar
to planning out your garden and evaluating, but you could
(13:16):
create your own garden journal. And so I just listed
some things that you could put in there. You know,
whether you're talking about different varieties you've done, different varieties
you want to try. You can even keep you know,
your expenses and revenue if you do sell any of
your produce or what you've maybe donated. It's great to
(13:36):
have a way to like track the weather too. You
can write each day of how the different weather was,
and maybe you find some different inspirations that you put
in from I don't know, better guarden magazines or quotes
to keep you motivated. Tom's roll in his eyes here,
who has time for journaling, But they do say journaling
is really good for your mental well being as well.
(13:58):
So again something to keep those winter blues a little
bit greener.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's good
if you like to write. Yeah, it's you know, it's
kind of helpful to see where you were a year ago.
And but nowadays we've got smartphones and stuff, so it's true.
So now like I can play video games to prevent
my Alzheimer's. I don't want to write a journal.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Well, that's easy. I know that I have. Not that
he was a gardener by any means, but one of
my neighbors he used to on his calendar every day
write the temperatures and stuff, and for years he could
look back and say, all right, July whatever, two years
ago it was this, and he must have enjoyed track
in the weather. So I don't know meteorology at home, right, yeah, But.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Again, all that's online now, so like, well.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
There's older people who don't, right, I don't have access.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
I think, you know, I keep thinking that one day
I'm going to get a weather station at my place,
you know, like or like at least like one of
those rain gauges, and then you can you can monitor
the rain every day and send it online to help
the weather man catalog the rain, be a researcher, right,
that's right, something I'm going to do that.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Well, that's very good.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
I'll help stop Alzheimer's too, I bet I bet it would.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
There we go right now, especially with how nice it is,
you could go out and take a look at some
of those tools lawnmowers. You could do some cleaning of them,
sharpening of blades. Again, maybe you have a heated garage
and you can get out there too when it's cooler.
But another thing is you could look for different like
d Y or DIY projects and stuff and look at
(15:50):
doing some upcycling projects to get ready for you know,
the spring, the growing season. So pinterest has a ton
of options I think too. You can just go and
google these days and find a lot of different projects
that maybe you want to do something different or add into. Yeah,
and then lastly I'm going to just talk about because
(16:11):
we are at the end of February and stuff. Is
one thing you could do is go ahead and start seeds.
And so starting seeds is going to help, you know,
maybe get you some different varieties that you're not going
to find locally. It could also be something again pass
the wintertime away and a lot of times if you
(16:31):
do start your own seeds, those transplants are going to
be a lot heartier to get into the garden and
you tend to see you know, more bountiful harvests off
of them.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
So just some.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Factors to consider when you are starting your seeds indoors.
You got to talk we'll talk about the soil, temperature,
moisture like container seed sources, and then of course fertilizers.
So just to start off with soil and temperature, you know,
you don't want to use just plain gardens oil. That's
not going to be a good mix in there. You
(17:03):
want to find something that is going to be like
a seed starting mix that I included on here. Again, commercially,
you can find these anywhere at the big box store.
It's going to help, you know, a lot of them
can help even retain moisture so it's not going to
dry out as fast. And then of course seeds starting
mixes compared to garden soil are going to be sterile,
(17:23):
so they're not going to have those weeds or diseases
in them, and they're going to be lightweight. One thing
you got to consider is you want to make sure
that temperature to get those seeds to germinate. You want
to keep it around that seventy or above degrees at
wherever you're starting them, whether it's in a basement or upstairs,
make sure you're keeping your seeds trays away from like
(17:44):
any drafty windows, any of that. Even using heating mats
are going to be really good out there. I know
a lot of people who invest in those say that
they're well worth investment.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
So do you start any seeds and yeah, it's only February.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Only February rush, don't rush you Okay, that's okay. Moisture
and light these seeds when you do start them, they
do need to be consistently That soil needs to be
consistently moist You don't want it to ever like fully
dry out or where it does become over you know,
water too, so you kind of got to figure out
(18:22):
that sweet spot on your own. But some people just
will take like a spray bottle and miss them every
single day. That'll work a little bit better even than
like a watering can, because sometimes the watering can can
push that seed up to the surface, So you might
want to look at doing that. Light is going to
be one of your most important factors with starting seeds,
(18:46):
And I know they always talk about all the different
types of grow lights out there not really as important
as much as how much light you're providing for them.
So it's not about the quality, it's more about the quantity.
And I would just say kind of like us, we
probably rest for about eight hours a night, especially if
we're lucky a lot of us. But just like that,
(19:09):
plants are gonna have that little rest period, but they're
gonna need at least twelve to sixteen hours of light
per day. And then you want to make sure that
you're keeping that light when you're starting probably anywhere from
two to four inches above it. But you want to
get too too far above or you're gonna get some
really spindly, leaky plants.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
That's right, got to give them lots of light. It's
all about the quantity of light. And the lower the
light is to the plant, the more the quantities there.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Yeah, so the heat it will provide. So that's that's
good to know. Containers and seed sources. You know, there's
a ton of different containers out there. Of course, like
in this picture you can find these single cell containers.
Plastic is great. It's gonna have the advantage of being
reusable compared to like some of the biodegradable containers I've
(20:00):
seen people use, like egg carns. One thing that's probably
very easily accessible for people today is like the restaurant
can go to go containers are really good or even
like if you get like the donut hole containers. Those
are good because then you have that lid as well
(20:20):
and can kind of get that greenhouse effect. I know
Don Kinsler just talked about using those and he really
enjoys using those compared to some of the single cell
containers out there.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
So you never use one of those whole containers, yeah, you.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Know, or like the restaurant to go containers. Have you
ever seen those where they're black and then they get
the plastic lid that just folds over and they usually
have a hole like holes on four sides of them,
just a little bit of holes.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
No.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Never, Well you can go take a look at those.
So if you do it, then you you can use
these year to year, but you just want to make
sure to aeralyze them in between uses. As far as
seed sources, you know, again make sure you're using reliable
seed sources. If you had seed from a year ago,
(21:11):
you really you could use that, but you don't want
to start pushing over a year ago because the older
the seed is, the less viable it's going to be.
And then lastly, I guess I got two more points here,
but fertilizer, I know, Tom you've always talked about that
a seed is full of food and it's got enough
food to get to those first two true leaves that
(21:34):
it gets on it. And then we got to look
at having like a fertilizer out there, any recommendations on
what to go ahead and use on that.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Well, usually a soluble fertilizer, you know, like a blue
powder that you mix up, and then usually people use
a balance fertilizer, you know, like twenty twenty twenty. In
the beginning, you got to make sure to at least
has some of that second number, the phosphorus, because that's
important for root development. And so you know, like later on,
(22:07):
a lot of fertilizers start lacking the second number, the phosphorus,
because that's not so important later on. But in the beginning,
I got to make sure I got at least ten
percent phosphorus in that fertilizer.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Yeah, and then just monitor your plants so if they love.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
That's what's make sure you're looking at the coloring of that.
And then finally, an important factor to do is harden
your plants off before putting them directly into the garden.
So what you'd want to do is you gradually want
to get them accustomed to that outdoor environment. I know
a lot of people will use fans when they're starting
(22:48):
seats too, to kind of mimic wind and get them
used to that. But what I would say is about
two weeks before you think you're going to get into
the garden, take them out for a few hours each day,
kind of in a shaded area in the afternoon where
there are protected from you know, our strong North Dakota winds,
and then bring them back inside each night and just
(23:09):
kind of do that where you can extend their time
each day, and after that two weeks you'll be good
to get them into the garden.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Yeah. Actually, you know, it's nice to have a little
bit of breeze on your plants, on your seedlings. It
makes the seedlings sturdier or stockier, so a little a
lot some mean people have like a light fan that
they put on and that helps their tomatos get stock Here,
it sounds like a good project. But again, like I
(23:40):
would say, like one of the first seeds that start
now would be onions. That would be the first thing
that'd be. And we're getting about the time when you
can start the onion onion seeds. But the rest just
want to be a little bit patient.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Don't forget that spring fever just because.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
It's what you said. That's right. And now so now
I'm going to start talking about some group of vegetables.
And that's what I'm gonna do, is this, uh, this
spring on the quote of growing. I'm gonna want help
everybody get the best garden they can this year and
talk about various groups of vegetables. And today we're going
to talk about summer and winter squash. I'm want to
(24:20):
focus on that. And We've talked about squash off and
on bits and pieces for the last couple of years,
but I'm going to just focus on that today and
help you get started. So how did they ever get
the name squash? What isn't that kind of crazy name?
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Yeah? People go squash like I don't know.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
I was like, maybe it has to do with how
do I cut open this squash? Okay, I'm gonna squash it. Yeah,
but wrong, Tom wrong. It comes from the word a
scooter squash. How about that? A scooter squash that's a
Native American tribe out east and from that came the
(25:01):
words squash, And according to the Library of Congress, it
means eating raw so out East they ate their squash
raw and they called it a scootera squash.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
About all that, I would eat a lot of squash raw.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
But yeah, personally that means if it means eating raw,
that means I grow unsquash because I always cook my
So today we're going to talk about unsquash, and you know,
we'll talk about I'm gonna focus on North Dkota here too,
So you know, let's talk about North Dkota. And I
(25:40):
I a most famous gardener, buffalo bird woman. You can
see her here. She's cultivating squash. Squash is one of
the four sisters in the North Dakota garden, and along
with the maize and the beans and the sunflowers, they
grew them all together in their garden, and those crops
complimented each other in the garden and also complimented each
(26:01):
other in the diet and the squad sea. You can
see the makeshift fence. They're also being used on the
on the edgehair. So what did the squash add to
the family. And what the squash added was, first of all,
it crawled along the ground and helped smother out weeds.
But also squashes often planted on the edges of the
planting because of the spiny vines would help keep wildlife
(26:25):
out in any mischievous neighbors. So that's what squash is
good for. And what they would do is they would
harvest the squash and they would slice it and put
it on sticks of willow, and then they would dry it,
and then they would enjoy it all winter long. And
in North Dakota, our our Native Americans grew unsquashed because
(26:50):
they would boil it when they ate it.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
I'm gonna say that'd be like jerky or something.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Listen, I don't know what happened that trybout east. They
were they you know what, I think They're chief was
afraid of fire, so he banned fire, that's my guess.
Or I don't know what the heck. Or maybe they're
just too sheltered and they just didn't They just nobody
ever found out about fire yet. I don't know what.
I don't know. It just doesn't make it, but no,
but whatever, And of course the Library of Congress must
(27:18):
be right, so it must have been eaten raw. Okay, again,
I'm going to focus a lot on North Dakota today.
That's what we're all about. And if you want to
grow a type of squash at our Native Americans here
in North Dakota grew Lakota as a good one, and
you can find us at heirloom seed catalogs. And it's
(27:39):
a it's a beautiful winter squash. There. Another squash that's
very famous for our state is the buttercup squash, and
the North Dakota ad College introduced us to the world
in nineteen thirty and so, and this is enjoyed all
across the world for its high quality flesh and so,
but we eat in North Dakota. Start the buttercup squash.
(28:03):
How about that?
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Pretty cool?
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Now, there's two types of squashed, summer squash and winter squash.
What's the difference? Okay, on the left, calm there the
summer squash. Summer squash has a thin and soft skin,
and we pick it when it's immature. Okay, we don't
want it to get seedy, so we pick it when
it's young and has a short storage life. So if
(28:27):
we pick it young as a short life, obviously we
eat it in summer. No oneer. We call it summer squash.
Winter squash has a thick, hard skin, and we wait
to pick it until it's mature and that's late in
the fall, and it has a long storage life. So
that's a squash that we eat in winter, no wonder,
(28:47):
we call that winter squash. So let's talk about some
of the squashes so I can inspire you to put
some in your garden this year, Kelsey. But not you
can put around your flagpole too there, you know, yeah,
it'll keep the predators away. The acorn squash, you know,
that's that's a popular squash. And the reason why this
is popular it because it ripens early compared to other
(29:09):
winter squashes, and it's ready to eat right away. You
don't have to cure it for months, and it's good roasted.
One squash that's gaining in popularity now is dela kata
squashed Dela kada squash, and this is sometimes called sweet
potato squash. And this made me the sweetest of all
(29:34):
the squashes. Okay, And so people ask me what's the
best way to grow sweet potatoes, and I say, forget
about it, Just grow sweet potato squash. It's much easier.
And bush Dela katta is a is not It has
a very short vine, ripens early, it resists pottery mildew
(29:54):
bush dot Delakota is a great squash to grow in
your garden this year. This is the perhaps this is
the most famous one across the world, the Kobolcha kobolcha
squash or sometimes called the Japanese pumpkin. And you see
it as like a dark grayish kind of textured rind there.
And like this is a variety called sweet Mama that
(30:17):
grows well in our state. So this is a sweet one,
but people like it because it has a dry and
flaky texture, and also the sweetness is has kind of
like a complexity to it, just like certain nuances that
you taste in the sweetness. So this is really a
highly cher squash that we can grow here. And then
(30:39):
right right next to it is butter cup squash, which
is to me, it's like a kobocha squash that has
a gray belly button and it's not not it's it's
kind of like a mixture of slightly moist, slightly dry
and uh, not quite as nuance of sweetness, just more
of a pure sweetness compared to a kobotsa squash. But
(31:02):
it's really really a great one. Butternut squash. People grow this.
It has a smooth and moist texture to it. And
one thing about butternut squash is that usually has a
small seed cavity, so there's lots of flesh inside, and
it's also has a pure sweetness to it. One thing
(31:23):
famous about the butternut squash it it's what Libby uses
to make their one hundred percent pure pumpkin filling. So
people want to know what's the best pumpkin to grow
for a pumpkin pie, and I just say, forget pumpkins,
you should grow butternut or buttercup squash, you know, just
(31:44):
like Libby's does. And they can call it a pumpkin
even though it's a butter nut squash. They call it
pumpkin just because there is no clear difference between a
pumpkin and a squash. You can't say something, oh, that's
that's a pumpkin. For sure, that's a squash. No, there's
a lot of great area there. And so the Food
and Drug Administration says, well, I guess if it has
(32:06):
a golden flesh, that's close enough, We'll let you call
it a pumpkin. So there you go. So butternut squash
great for pumpkin pie. Or there's a buttercup squash called
Uncle David's Dakota Dessert and that's a great one too.
A trend I see in the winter squash now is
(32:28):
that you know, people don't have ten kids anymore, so
they don't need a twenty pound squash, and so the
trend is to produce fridays with smaller squash like one
or two pound single serving. And there's a lot of
nice ones out there, and it's on shorter vines too,
So baby butternut squash, you can look for that. Among
(32:52):
the great summer squashes. You got the straight and at
the yellow types. These are unbelievably productive. And there's next.
And I would say the big trend in summer squash
has to do with we got the quantity salved Okay,
we got it. We produce more summer squads and we
(33:12):
can possibly eat, But can we develop a variety that
really tastes special and you know what a nutty flavor
for example. And I would say one variety that really
has a following is called Zephyr, zephyr with the Z
and that's a yellow, straight neck type that has a
green bottom to it. And this has done well in
(33:34):
our variety trials. Zephyr squash, So you might want to
give that a try this year. Another straight and starts say,
summer squash is the paddy pan type. And this also
has a nice history to North Dakota. And I here's
a publication from nineteen twenty four. Nineteen twenty four, Okay,
it's over one hundred years ago now, and it gave
(33:54):
it told you how to grow a garden in North Dakota.
And this was running at a time when when North
Dakota was under severe poverty. You know, the rest of
America was having the Roaring twenties, but not us. We were.
We were in poverty. Though the drought was going on.
Farm prices were very low, and there was hunger across
(34:18):
the prairie. And here's here's a typical prairie house there
at the homesteaders, you know, with their natural landscaping. How
about that a nice side house there.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
You can still see a few of those across North Dakota.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Right. I never thought about growing a shrub on my roof,
but there you go. But there was hunger there. And
the scientists there at the North Dakota ad College, they
discovered you know what this paddy pants squash. Wow, the
summer squash just does great in our state. This is
the answer. We're going to solve hunger with paddy pant squash.
(34:53):
And the problem is is paddy pant squash tastes terrible,
and so what I've told it story before, But I
remember we did a vroidy troal this and I asked
people to test it and see if it was productive.
I remember there's a minister in Logan County who who
grow all vegetables to share with the poor. But after
(35:14):
he tasted a white patty pan squash, he said he
couldn't share that with the poor because he thought it
would be a sin to make anybody eat this terrible squash.
So he just picked the squash and took it to
the county dump. There you go.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
What do people do with it if it tastes so bad? Like,
I mean, how do you cook it? Any idea?
Speaker 2 (35:34):
Well, what I would do, I'd use it as a weapon.
You see, Like if you got the neighbor's dog always
causing trouble, it'd be like kind of like a nice baseball,
just kind of just chuck it at that sucker. That's
what I would use a paddy pan squash for.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
We don't grow it.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Don't grow an heirloom white type, but you may want to.
Here's a new one out this year called Starship. It's
a bright green and striped ones and so it's an
award winner. Is it good? It's supposed to be. I
doubt it though, but we're gonna find out. And if
anybody wants to join me in trying the Starship squash,
(36:12):
just let me know. But the key is you gotta
harvest it when it's young. That's the key. Like if
it gets more than three inches across, it's just it's
only good for decorations or for throwing at dogs. Okay.
And then of course you got the summer squash king
the zucchini squash that nobody reckon, nobody likes, nobody respects.
(36:37):
They pick it and throw it on the side of
the street, hoping somebody will pick it up. They abandon
it at park benches. But kids, we like summer squash,
We like zucchini. We haven't been brainwashed yet. And I've
told these stories before, but this could have been me
sixty years ago out there at the farm and our
(36:59):
farm in Minnesota, we sold vegetables, and we grew and
sold zucchini. And so what do you do if you
have a zucchini that you accidentally forgot to harvest and
I got like almost two feet long. Well, we didn't
get mad about that. We could play with that zucchini
and so like we would make a baseball bat out
of it and play baseball with it. Or we would
(37:21):
carve it into a canoe, because zucchini's you know, zucchini's float,
and so you just carve it out and each one
of my brothers and sisters we'd have our own zucchini boat.
You can put a mast on it, walk down to
the lake on the dock, and then we would just
have war games trying to destroy I try to destroy
my brother's you know boat with rocks and dirt balls.
(37:44):
So those were simpler days. See, yes, you could have
gracing down the Red River, Cannonball River. We can have
a zucchini race there, you know, and so we could
play with it. That was Those are simple days, no
video games, no computers, just bear feet and playing outside
(38:05):
all the time. And then of course you've heard the
story the legend of Montana Maggie, a true story, and
there was a bear who came to Maggie's garden. One
day Maggie's dog saw it. Maggie's dog started barking like nuts,
like Burke, and then the bear got so mad. And
then Maggie hears all that commotion outside and she goes,
(38:27):
what's going on out here? And then she sees the
bear in her garden. And she's a tough, pioneered girl.
She goes, bear, you get the heck out of my garden.
You get out of here, bear. Then the bear got
really mad, come charging that Maggie, and Maggie scoots across
her deck trying to get into the kitchen, and she got.
(38:47):
The bear's chasing after her, and Maggie got the door
about halfway closings. But that bear's faces right there there,
face to face. She can feel that warm breath of
the bear right again her face, and she's just reaching
across the counter. What can I do? What can I
hit this bear with? And she nails that bear with
a zucchini, And that zucchini saved your life. So you know,
(39:10):
nobody respects zucchini, but I highly recommend it. It can
provide good nutrition, it can provide recreation and protection, all
three elements. So versatile it belongs in the Vegetable Hall
of Fame. You got it. So those are the types
of summer squash you can grow. I hope you're inspired
(39:31):
to grow some. I really encourage you to explore and
try to grow some of them this year. So I'll
give you a quick wrap up a how to grow
the seed. Look for varieties that mature in one hundred
days or less. We want it to be early so
it makes it before the frost. I want to variety
that's flavorful. I want to see a disease resistant variety.
(39:52):
And I'm especially worried about powdery mildew. I do not
grow varieties that do not naturally resist powdery mildew because
I don't want to have to to be spraying them.
And I want a productive variety that grows well in
North Dakota. And when I go looking at seeds, I
do not go to the garden center. If you're a
(40:12):
real serious gardener and you're in which you are, since
you're watching Dakota growing, and why would you limit yourself
to Like a garden center may have like five packets
different types of squash, and these are like oftener old
varieties fifty years old very few hybrids, very unlikely to
(40:35):
resist diseases. We can do so much better, you know,
just like that Eastern tribe. If only I was out
there to teach you, you don't have to uneat uncook
your squash. I could show you so much better if
I can open your eyes. So I would say, open
your eyes and look at these these different seed catalogs.
(40:57):
They're available, and I want to talk to you about
a cup varieties that are that I recommend. Is that working? Okay?
Just move ahead. I guess here, got maybe a little
technical difficulty here, but we got I'm going to show
keep just keep moving on here, and I recommend you
(41:19):
get the Johnny's Seed catalog. There's so many seed catalogs
out there, but if I can tell you, just get one.
Get the one from Johnny's Selected Seeds. And it's a
company that's famous for their squash breeding and just famous
for their breeding program in general. Here's their squash lineup.
(41:41):
And actually instead of offering like five varieties at a
garden center, Johnny's alone offers eighty two different types of squashes. Yeah,
so there's so much out there for you. And what
I really like Johnny's. If you look at the lower
right hand corner is that they have they have information
that can help you grow your squash. So it'll tell
(42:02):
you about here's how to transplant it, here's how to
sew it, here's the insects to worry about, here's the diseases.
So this is great quality information that can be very useful.
Then we're moving on to the Prairie Road Organic Seed Company,
and that's another one I want to feature because this
(42:22):
is a seed company based here in North Dakota and
they have varrieties that even they've bred to thrive in
North Dakota. And again they're one of their famous ones
is that Uncle David's Dakota Dessert buttercup squash. That's definitely
one to grow in your garden. And we'll be testing
a lot of these varieties this year. I think we
(42:44):
got about eighteen different squash rieties we're testing in our
North Dakota Home Garden Ride trials. And you can see
their website there and DSU that's NDSU dot ag Slash
Home Garden Trials. Google it our North Kota Home Garden
Varting Trials and there also you can see the listing
(43:05):
of our varieties that we recommend and where you can
buy the seeds quickly. As far as some basics for
sowing squash, and I'm going to focus more on things
we do in the springtime for the squash, because as
a year goes on, we'll talk more about what to
do in summer and fall with squash. But as far
as sowing, don't be too early. You gotta squash. Seedlings
(43:29):
cannot tolerate frost, and we usually keep getting frost here
till mid May, so I would not sow the seeds
outdoors at least until mid May and more like late May,
because squash likes warm soil. And a general recommendation for
summer squashes, I'll put the seeds about six inches apart,
and then the plants to about eighteen to twenty four inches.
(43:53):
And the winter squash, I'll put the seeds about six
to twelve inches apart, and then i'll fill them a
little a little bit so they stand more apart those
plants about eighteen to thirty six inches. If it's a
If it's there's different winter squashes. Some have short vines,
so that can be I can thin that to eighteen
inches apart, but some have really long vines and big
(44:15):
fruits there. I want to plant about one one plant
every three feet and we can use transplants there we
want to and here again i'm talking to you Kelsey.
As far as this goes, especially for squash, is that
we don't want to start them before early May. Squash
(44:36):
doesn't really struggles as a transplant, and if you started
too early, it'll be very leggy. So I'm gonna I'm
gonna set the plants out in late May, so three
weeks before that is when I'm going to sow the seeds.
That's early May, and I'm gonna put them in big
pots like a peat pot or a two inch wide
plastic cell. I'll put two seeds per sell and then
(44:59):
i'll thin to the longest one. So you talked about
seeds starting, so I'll move this ahead quickly. Here you
talked about the Let me just say here the seed
starter mix, and we want it to be a little
bit warm like in the seventies in the beginning, give
it lots of light and don't over water. So these
(45:19):
are tomato transplants that I got and sell it. And
again I just want to feature the importance of getting
those lights close to the plants. Don't burn the plants,
but get those lights, so they get lots of light.
And here are some plants that are just not this.
These are plants that aren't gonna make it. They're just
not getting enough light and they're they're stretching for light.
(45:39):
And these guys are gonna flop over and die. So
this is just you just got to learn from mistakes.
And again the quantity of light is so critical as
far as here's some peat pots that the plants are
growing in. And the way I'm showing here is that
here they put two plants. These aren't squashes either. These
(46:01):
kind of look like beans. I don't know, maybe there
are beans. But you got two seeds growing in a
cell or a pot here, and so you want to
thin it to one. So the way you thin seedlings
is you don't just pull it out, because when you
pull it out, you disturb the soil and you can
(46:23):
disturb the roots of the other plant that you keep.
So what you just use a scissors and you clip
below those coda lienings, those those false sleeves, and then
it won't re sprout again, and then you haven't disturbed
the swell. You haven't caused havoc to the remaining plant. Okay,
so do that. That's the way you thin a ceiling.
(46:44):
Powdery mildew is the biggest threat we have for squash.
So what's what do we do? I tell you what
I do. I just plant varieties that don't get powdery mildew.
So easy, use a modern hybrid. Forget about those heirlooms.
Those heirlooms are those heirlooms are. There's a reason why
their heirlooms. Okay, and your water makes a difference as well.
(47:08):
So again this goes back to my days as one
of my first jobs as a trained assassin hired by
a sunflower research company. They trained me to kill as
many plants as possible. And I was I was a murderer.
I was sunflowers. They feared me. When I walked by,
(47:29):
they turned their heads and in fear, they were trembling.
I could see those leaves trembling. And how did I
try to kill them? The key to kill them, To
get disease on plants is to water them at night,
and then the leaves get wet, and then I spread
the disease and whow so many died. So the reason
why I described that is, don't do that. Okay, we
(47:51):
want our plants to live, so avoid overhead irrigation. You
want to irrigate in the morning so the leaves dry
and water deeply, not frequently, okay, Just a few quick
questions that I often get as far as squash, like
can I grow? There's three major types of squash that
(48:12):
they're all in the same cucurbita cucurbita genus. There's Cucurba maxima,
which includes like the buttered cup and the kabocha, and
then the most shata, which is the butternut, and then
the cucurb pepo p e p o that's the acorns
and delicattas and most pumpkins. So people wonder, can I
(48:33):
grow my acorn squash next to my pumpkins or will
they get all mixed up and cause problems with each other?
And they are the same species, So like an acorn,
or a delicata, a spaghetti squash, a summer squash, and
most most jack lanterns, they're all the same species and
(48:54):
they will cross with each other. So is that a
problem for sing We got to know is each plant
has male and female flowers, so the males don't have
a baby fruit attacked. Okay, men don't have babies. That's
just the way life is for everything in nature. Females
have the babies. And so here's our female squash with
(49:17):
a little a female flower with the squash attacks. So
now that we got that'll figure it out. Let's say
I got my acorn squash, and I got my jack
o lantern is my female, so my my row of
jack o lanterns. They all they can produce is jack
o lanterns because that is maternal tissue. That's part of
(49:41):
the female flower. Okay, the fruit is part of the
female flower. So if a bee takes the acorn pollen
and moves over to the jack o lantern female, it
will get pollinated and it will set seed. But since
(50:01):
it's a jack lanterns the female, so it's maternal tissue.
Its only can produce jack lanterns. You won't see any
impact of the acorn. But the seeds inside of the
jack o lantern are fifty percent acorn, and that's when
(50:21):
you're gonna get that weird.
Speaker 1 (50:22):
If you save them for next year and plant, that's.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
When you got the interesting types next year. But there's
no problem growing acorns or jack lanterns or delicatas next
to each other, no promenda, It's just don't save the seed.
Another question I get is can I grow pumpkins in
my square foot garden? I get that question and the
(50:48):
answer is, of course you can, But why would you
ever do it? And I look at that square foot
garden book The Bible by mel Bartha Eme He says
that a jack o' lantern only takes up two square feet.
So what do you think about that? Kelsey, have your
That's a bunch of hogwash, that's a hullaballoo, that's a
(51:13):
bunch of bs. There's no way two feet? Ok at that,
here's a baby. It's already taking up a foot just
like that, I'll say, so, I would say, And really,
if you're gonna grow it in your raised bed, put
it on the edge of your raised bed and let
the vines go out of the raised bed or what yeah?
(51:33):
Or maybe just forget about it and a rented garden
from the Bismarck Parks and grow your pumpkins there where
they have lots of room. But in a raised bed
where space is a premium. I just don't think squashes
not the best choice. Okay. Last thing that I just
(51:54):
want to mention has to do with a lot of
people don't know about is winter squash. Is most of
the varieties tastes better after storage, so after you harvest it,
and I always harvest mind a night before the first
hard frost because it can't take hard frost. I can't
take twenty eight degrees. It can take a light frost,
but not a hard frost. And then what I do
(52:16):
I store mine under fifty to sixty degrees for it
does well in my unheated basement. There Now, some varieties
don't need any extra curing and they're ready to eat,
like acorns and delicattas and spaghettis. But other squash, like
a buttercup and kobocha squash will taste much better after
(52:38):
you store it for a month because during that month
the starches convert to sugars, so it's much sweeter if
you just wait a month. And for a butternut, it's
much better if you wait two months in storage before
you start eating them. So a lot of people don't
realize what they're missing. Wait and be patient for those
(52:59):
buttercup kbota on butternuts and you'll really have a great
taste experience and then enjoy your squash soup. There.
Speaker 1 (53:08):
What varieties are you looking forward as in your trials
this year?
Speaker 2 (53:13):
This year we're testing I like I mentioned that Starship
We've got to see if that Starships summer squash is
a bunch of hollablue or if it really it's I
know it is pretty, but we'll see how it tastes.
And we are we're tasting orange spaghetti squash this year.
We're testing orange spaghetti squash that helps very nutritious and
could be really delicious since it's orange in color. And
(53:35):
we've got a kabocha squash that we're testing this year.
And uh, do any of that, Uh not this year
Delakota because I there isn't a new variety out or
anything like that. But uh but again that I would
without hesitation that bush dela Kata is that it's sometimes
called Cornell's bush Delakata because it was developed in Cornell.
(53:58):
That's really a that's really a winner that I'm going
to grow that my own garden. So yeah, we're so
uh yeah, So we got all different types of squashes
and uh and again if anybody's interested there's my contact
information or can go to our website and we've got
we've got our seeds selected for this year and our
(54:21):
catalogs ready to go. I just got to get the
seeds all packed up, so we're gonna start shipping out
seeds in a few weeks here.
Speaker 1 (54:28):
And that's when the catalog will be ready for weeks.
Speaker 2 (54:32):
Yeah. I don't no hurry to if I'm not ready
to send you the seeds. You don't really need the catalog.
I don't, and we're working on that's my that's always
my priority in March, and again, as I said my
New year's resolution, just really keep my nose with the
grindstone and get things done as soon as possible.
Speaker 1 (54:52):
They're very good, lots of good information today, a lot
to learn about squash. I loved it.
Speaker 2 (54:58):
Yeah, it's great your thing to get my thumb all green.
Still get it, very like spring training like you know here.
I'm ready to go.
Speaker 1 (55:06):
Yeah, rev it up right, yep. Well, I just want
to thank everybody for joining us on today's episode. And
one thing that is exciting from Dakota Media Access is
they do have now a radio access app out there
that you can go ahead and you can listen to
other programs, but Dakoda Growing is on there, and as always,
it's on any major podcasting platform as well, and so
(55:31):
we hope that you will join us in our future episodes.
Dakota Growing is a gardening show brought to you by
Dakota Media Access and NDSU Extension. We discuss a variety
of timely topics pertaining to your landscape, along with giving
you tips and advice for your lawn, garden and trees.
(55:51):
If you have questions, call seven oh one two two
one six eight sixty five or email NDSU dot Burley
dot Extension at NDSU dot com. Dakota Growing airs on
Radio Access one O two point five FM, Community Access
Channel twelve or six twelve HD, or online at FreeTV
dot org
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