10 Late Winter Gardening Tips & Projects | P. Allen Smith (2020)

[Music] hi it's Allen Smith even though it's winter it's no reason to be idle in the garden there's lots of things that you can do to be preparing for the spring garden so what I've done is very special edition of winter gardening is curated a few of my favorite tips that I hope will help you along hey but first you're probably wondering what this wonderful little flower is well you've heard of them before it's actually a Wallflower and it's related to that whole family of cool weather vegetables you know the broccolis and kales and things like that if you look at it very closely you can see that but it's a wonderful cool weather annual for you to grow and also Swiss chard nothing like it for color in the garden okay let's get going before we go any further I'd like to thank our sponsors the garden tours are made possible by Gilbert H Wilde and Sun who have been growing beautiful perennials since 1885 first community bank whose heart is in the community as well as Sun patients super kal petunias and dragon's breath celosia and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art check out my web site to learn more about the brands we love do you love hydrangeas you know those shrubs that have those enormous brightly colored flowers on them well I love them and I find that if I take care of them starting in the winter as we approach spring those flowers will really take care of me with their big gorgeous blooms let's take a look at one of the most popular the big head or mophead hydrangea now if you look closely you'll see that there are a lot of blooms left from last year with this type of hydrangea you really don't want to prune much at all this time of year you just want to take off some of the old blooms like this and you want to remove any dead stems and the way to check whether the stem is dead just scratch the stem and if it's green under there then you know you want to leave that stem alone but if it's dead or brown go ahead and cut it out you see the best time to do major pruning on a big head or mop head hydrangea like this is after it's finished its bloom cycle the thing to remember here is that your flower buds are set on last year's growth so cutting any of this back now I'm just going to be cutting my flowers off now this is hydrangea arborescens or smooth hydrangea you may know it as Annabelle or incredible now what's interesting about this is it blooms on new wood wood that's going to come up from these stems in the spring so you can cut these plants back to about six to ten inches and then you get this big flush of growth and bloom later in the spring some of the it kind of radical with these we've cut these really low now this is a hydrangea big isn't it this is the third category the panicle hydrangea you may know it as PG hydrangea or limelight hydrangea another great cultivar of this type of hydrangea now you can prune this back any time of year except I don't prune these back in the summer once I begin to see those flower heads form those blooms appear on new wood and basically what I try to do is just clean those stems up around the base of it and create a tree form these can be really spectacular and the great thing about these is they take full Sun of course the thing to always remember when pruning anything in your garden is remove the 3ds stems that are dead damaged or diseased you take care of your plants it's going to take care of you with gorgeous blooms [Music] retina irritants or eyesores they're plaguing cities and neighborhoods across the country my mission to stop the spread of this epidemic and to neutralize the problem at all costs I know this may seem a little extreme but trust me you'll thank me for it later [Music] let's just say this is my way of paying it forward vacant lots abandoned side yards we've all seen these kinds of eye sores it wouldn't be beautiful to see some native flowers blooming there perhaps well these are seed bombs these are a fun way to introduce new vegetation into empty lots or or beds that need planting you see back in the 1930s these seed bombs were used to restore areas that had been burned by forest fires planes would fly over with these bombs full of seed and restoration of the native flora would begin these are really simple to make let me show you you'll need a bowl some air dry clay which you can find in an art supply or health food store some compost and of course seeds think about the type of area you're planning to plant for shady spots choose a woodland mix for sunny places go for meadow type flowers poppies Larkspur cosmos you see what I mean and I'm going to put these together in the ratio of five handfuls peat free compost to one handful of seeds to three handfuls of clay what you want to do is you want to mix the compost and the seeds together thoroughly in a bowl and then mix in the clay you may need to add a little water so it's wet enough for all of this stick together but you don't want it to become a sludgy mess it should have the consistency of biscuit dough make sure the seeds are surrounded by the clay and compost so the bombs can slowly be broken down by the Sun and rain to release the seeds I found that shaping the mixture into truffle sized balls fits beautifully in an egg carton once you've made the seed bombs let them dry in a warm dry space and then they'll need to sit for at least three to four hours overnight is ideal now if you want to save the seed bombs for a while keep them in a cool dark place and not for more than a weeks now once these dry its bombs away and you see I like to time my strikes when there is a chance of rain because once you throw them and they land and it rains depending on what type seed you use you can see growth within ten to twelve days maybe two weeks and blooms well in six to eight weeks pretty good deal huh it's a fun project for kids and it's a great way to restore some of those not so beautiful areas in some of our neighborhoods give it a try [Music] apple trees are a real joy to have around but they can be a little tricky to grow luckily my friend dr. Arlene Powell stopped by to give us some tips on how to get the young trees position just right for success in the orchard harley i can't tell you how excited I am that you're here and you brought the trees absolutely so today we're going to be planting some apples and pears yes we are and we've got some excellent examples right here of what you want to plant this is a two-year tree we also have some one-year trees these are feathered up as we call it with branches that's ideal so are we the difference between this tree and that tree the one year old and this is a two year old is it's just one year and look how it's grown one year makes a big difference it does these things will double in size each year essentially and this one after it grows this season is gonna be producing apples for you look at some one expect out of a out of a couple of apple trees or a pear tree in their in their backyard if they're on a door for semi dwarfing rootstocks which gives you a smaller size tree a lot easier for gardeners to manage yeah you're looking at anywhere from 50 to 200 pounds per tree Jason I'm so excited about getting this orchard replanted and we're starting here with this young gala Apple absolutely so what what do you recommend as an orchardist I have a soil similar to you I've got a pretty heavy clay right well which doesn't drain terribly well and so I like the fact that you've got this brilliant compost that we can then mix in depth the planting is a second point I'm afraid we've been guilty too often to planting too deep you know planting them too deeper is a problem I've killed a lot of trees that way and you have to allow for settling now what we've done here is we took the soil out of the hole but we mixed 5050 our homemade compost in the end existing soil and at this point I usually come in and I can use the opposite side of the shovel and kind of tamp down around it and we'll come back after tamping this add some more soil and then we can water it in yeah the water will really help get those air pockets out I want to always maintain this level from the top of the pot yes I don't wanna get any soil up there we're gonna mulch it later just to help keep moisture that's been around the little tree now when do you fertilize Jason what do you what do you what's your technique once the tree is bearing fruit midseason but with a young tree like this you really want to make growth yeah I'm not trying to produce any fruit oh this little guy so we can fertilize a little bit heavier so we'll look at going in once a month I don't do you have rabbits or deer we do and you know that's why I got this cage where we could protect the little guy you wonder if they know that you're planting they're watching right now so I just connect these little times I'll just close the little times like that and then that whole trunk and stem is affected yeah of course the next thing I want to do is I want to stabilize this that's why I have these posts out here because I don't want this tree to knock around I want it to root in and by having this this tube I like this clear plastic tube we can put it here on the side and that'll keep this little guy from getting knocked around that's all you need there yeah I like that so now one last thing what I would tend to do Jason is I would bring this soil on around and kind of create a little bit of a mound or permanently yes and as the water comes down yeah naturally it would kind of puddle around the tree and I could capture water and in the summer that would be good because we've got irrigation out here but I like catching that natural rainwater I agree you know as well as I do those trees know the difference between rainwater and hose water and because you're on a slope I like your idea of berming it up I'm on this side right to catch it and then put some mulch around absolutely yeah very good well I think we're off to a good start with these trees I do too I really appreciate your help it my pleasure always great to have you here thank you if you know me you know I'm interested in conserving and preserving things well take for instance this activity that I'm underway with today it's all about perpetuating miss big fig it's very old Celeste fig probably close to a hundred years old now you can see the big old trunks in here and after a while they begin to decay and once they begin to decay we remove them but then what happens is you can all these young shoots here's where the opportunity comes along by taking these shoots and clipping them in late winter I can route each one of these and create a new Miss big fig and what I want to do is I want to cut one of these low stems that's close to the ground here and just show you what I mean because they're already putting out what are called little aerial roots if you look closely here you can see look at those little roots coming out on the side this is a stem that was very close to the ground the potential for these roots lies all along the stem so all of these stems can produce in fig plants and what I'm going to do is I'm going to cut these in lengths of about 10 inches and we're gonna stick them at a moist very loose soil and in about six weeks you'll see lots of little roots coming out of here now there are a few things I want you to keep in mind if you decide to do this at home number one you want to create a container and fill it with a moist soil the second thing you want to do is you want to use a rooting powder or a rooting hormone or rooting compound you just dip the ends of the stems in it and then put them into the ground it's that easy and the third thing is place your container where you're reading your figs and a place that's shady not in direct Sun because too much sunlight will stress them out and before long you'll have more fig plants than you can count let me talk just a little bit about some gardening fundamentals some basic things you may want to have around if you bring home some plants from the nursery or if you want to start some of your own plants from seed let's start with containers I can never have enough just basic classic terracotta pots problem is you do break them but I also try to keep as many saucers around as possible so when I bring plants home from the garden center I immediately have a home for them or I'm starting those little babies I can upgrade them to a larger home you need a good soil for container gardening one that is specifically blended for growing things in containers make sure you have an all-purpose organic fertilizer that's the best for the plants in my opinion and always like to have some sort of safe control because hey you're going to have problems with pests and diseases let's just face it so be ready [Music] now I realize there's a certain fear factor in taking some tiny little inert object called a seed and growing it into a full-grown adult plant if you know what there's some Kleenex that can make that a lot easier and make your effort and more successful and that's one of these seed starting kit I just want to show you how this works you see it comes in a tray like this with these little pellets these are the pellets are wrapped with a bow degradable coating but inside is packed pressed peat moss and when you add water what happens is these actually expand and I've just have added water to these and just within a few minutes they stand up to about an inch high there's a little place right in the top where you can actually place the seed so you see it makes it very easy and very precise you just simply place two or three seed depending on the size seed in each one of these places and they can get it nestled down back into this and you're set to grow now what comes with this or two things that help simulate nature one is you get this heating pad below and what this does is keeps the soil temperature slightly raised you see seed love that temperature zone between about 70 degrees and 85 degrees and then for the top you just place this over and this creates an atmosphere of high humidity which many seed really like so thing you want to remember is not to place this in direct sunlight because it can get really too hot in here indirect light or grow light is perfect so you may ask yourself why would I want to start my own seed well it doesn't take us as long as you think I mean look at this this kit makes it really simple the other thing is that you can grow things you might not be able to find at the garden center maybe specific kinds of peppers or eggplant or some of those heirloom tomatoes and the other thing is that you can cut the cost on what you're spending on plants by growing some of them from seed a packet of seed like this cost about a buck and a half so you just do the math [Music] you know I enjoy receiving questions from you viewer about things that are going on in your garden today Yoli asked me a very specific question that I'm asked a lot it's a fundamental question it's all about whether plants perform better in plastic pots versus fuel fashion terracotta pots well I have to believe that if you can keep the terracotta plant watered and don't allow the soil to dry out that the terra cotta pot is actually superior plastic pots work very well obviously the nursery industry grows millions and millions of plants every year in them but from an aesthetic standpoint if I'm growing plants I tend to like natural materials what's great about terra cotta its porous and the roots of the plant can actually breathe which is really good for the plant but again it's all about keeping that soil consistently moist so don't forget we go away I hope that's helpful to you and good luck with your plants [Music] hey if you love to cook you know that a well-stocked kitchen is a convenient kitchen you know what I like to do is have some basic fundamentals some essentials at hand all the time so when I bring in things fresh from the garden or from the farmers market I can integrate them into some of these basic things let me just go through a few of them with you when I cook I love to have organic vegetable stock or chicken stock also dried beans I love lentils some canned tomatoes on hand as well as roasted red peppers and then of course pasta little angel hair pasta little spaghetti and then couscous easy to make also I like to have some olives peppercorns of course and sea salt I love sea salt and olive oil you need a good olive oil for salad dressings you can have a basic olive oil for cooking and oh yeah you want to make sure you have some good vinegar around again I love to make my own salad dressings now let's take a look at the refrigerator so you can see I've got a few things set out here of course we have our own eggs here at the farm so you always need to keep some eggs but I also like to have some cheese in the way of aged cheese it could be Parmesan or Asiago I really like Asiago and also some goat cheese great for salads and things like that yogurt also some whipping cream and then soy milk some real butter yep real butter and a pre-made pie crust you got to throw a pie together in a hurry having these around its really handy all these things have a much longer shelf life than you might expect now speaking of long shelf life let's take a look at the freezer you know I love to keep fresh berries on hand that are frozen because you can make things very quickly with them of course I like to keep some sorbet it's handy for dessert and also if I find the meat on sale it's really good price I'll keep it in the freezer until I'm ready to use it and then of course there are a few basic things from produce and the bakery in the way of some lemons and limes and a loaf of fresh bread when it comes to spices or flavorings well you know just look at my spice drawer have lots of things but you really need some cayenne pepper I think some onion some cinnamon certainly and also honey it's great to have around of course you're gonna have some of the fundamentals in the way of cooking oil flour and sugar but these other things you've got them on hand you're bringing some fresh things in from the garden or like I said the farmers market there's so many combinations you can come up with so you're like me and you want to grow some of the foods you eat but you don't have a lot of time or don't have a lot of space well there's an answer just look at this gorgeous kale you can grow it in a small container it's beautiful delicious and so good for you all you have to do is drop and grow let me show you how this works just take a container any size and take a bag of all-purpose potting soil and slide it down into the container don't open it first just put it in here but what you'll want to do is you want to make sure you've punctured some holes in the bottom oh for drainage and then just take one of these knives and cut across like this and open up the back ha now we have soil next plants just look at these little kales I'm gonna plant three of them in here I'm gonna just tear the roots just a little bit to loosen them then I gently fold back these plastic tabs because they'll help keep the moisture in and then I cover the top of the bag with some mulch just like mulching the flowerbeds they tuck that around this this will keep the temperature a little cooler keep any weeds from growing if that's even a possibility with that plastic in there and you could water it right in the center because we know that takes you immediately to the soil now look at that pretty cool huh alright so you think okay this is great but this is a little small let's move up to a larger size look at this container you get the idea same concept but a bigger bag the major benefit of gardening this way is that you have much more control over your soil during the growing season if you plant in a bed the soil bags will smother grass and weeds beneath them it's also easy to clean up at the end of the season just add the contents of the bag into your existing topsoil when done you can take these bags and you can lay them in raised beds one thing to keep in mind you want to focus on growing shallow rooted things such as lettuce any of the greens like kale and herbs give it a try it's an easy way to grow some of your own food [Music] well Jay that was quite a group you had here today that was that's a that was a record group biggest we've ever had really what do you think they were the most interested in as as people interested in farming I think they were most interested and could we really make a living at this year-round and how are we able to do it right and you do you this goes on year-round 52 weeks of the year we never take a break you're either planting or you're harvesting where we plant twice a week every week with that exception and we harvest several times a week so Jay you've always taken a well eco-friendly or natural approach to everything that you farm here yeah we have we've been out here at this location since 1999 and we have managed to grow all these all these crops that you see in here without the use of any chemical pesticides or preservatives or fertilizers everything in here is a natural product you know even though it's 30 degrees outside you look around in here it doesn't look like it's the middle of January they are heated but we really just try to keep them from freezing we're not really growing tomatoes or something where you have to expend a lot of energy we did we just heat them on those cold nights to try to keep the crop from freezing so in this period of time this sort of winter period into early spring you're growing cool weather crops in the year we're growing cool weather crops but actually this is the middle of January and just yesterday we pulled out the last of our big pepper crops and we still have some Tomatoes so it's actually pretty amazing that you can do these things so you're really straightening the season we're stretching the season as far as we can and we'll start as early as we can but Jay this is really not a conventional farm or a produce fall because here I mean everything is under plastic I think it's kind of like outdoor gardening in and so in the summertime we have to have these big fans to pull air through these houses constantly yeah and who will he have to keep it cool you have to keep it ventilated and your planting directly in the soil now albeit soil that's been amended you amend this regularly with with fresh compost I soon yeah these particular houses are just nothing but compost and that that allows us to grow these beautiful crops without having to deal with as many weeks what are the other advantages of having this under plastic or inside some of the big advantages would be protection from the elements you know we're able to protect our crops from the rain and hail sure high winds and then of course his protection from the incense it's not like we don't have any insects in here but we have a whole lot less I bet that and what about Disease Control you have some is there some benefits there as well there's probably there are some benefits with disease control it's not again it's not like we don't have any disease but you just have a lot less and then the plants that we grow in here that typically in Arkansas in the summertime would only last a few weeks in here might last many months or even a year yes so you're extending that crop life as we talked about earlier that's right yeah Jay with all the interest in people wanting to know where their food is grown and how their food is grown certainly impacted your business I don't think you know Alan I think our business has grown every single year since we've been happy that's fantastic and and now more and more people want to know where their food comes from mm-hmm you know they want to know who grows and touches their food yep and that's become really important and then and then also they want to know that their food is grown naturally without a lot of unnecessary additives ingredients in poisons and I think that has been very important to our business and and it's important to us as growers and farmers as well Jay not only is it great that you're growing all this beautiful natural produce I love the fact that you're sharing the information on how to do this with others you know Alan I really love doing that I like to try to give back what other people have taught me and what I've learned from other people over the years and I just love it when somebody else starts their own business or even if they're just starting their own indoor garden for their family right right I think that's just awesome very good we'll keep up the great work thanks a lot it's been a pleasure [Music] and this smells so good you know I'm just crazy about anything green particularly leafy greens and this mustard green hot dip is so delicious and it's healthier than most store-bought spinach tips you'll begin by slicing two heads of mustard greens into 1-inch strips next heat three tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet and saute the Greens on medium heat for about 12 minutes until they're completely wilted next you'll want to add in half a can of drained artichoke hearts a half a cup of roasted red peppers one teaspoon of salt and one teaspoon of freshly cracked black pepper then cook an additional seven minutes next place the vegetable mixture into a food processor and combined with five ounces of Italian cheese herb Philadelphia cooking cream where else is a firm tofu that's been Cuba pressed [Music] a half a red onion finely diced then one tablespoon each of dried basil oregano and thyme and then add 1 teaspoon of salt then you'll want to pulse this until it's thoroughly combined place the mixture into a small baking dish with about a half a cup of Parmesan cheese bake in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes until the cheese on top is golden brown if you liked this video be sure to subscribe to my youtube channel and be sure to ring 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Channel: P. Allen Smith

Views: 113,474

Keywords: P. Allen Smith, gardening, garden, Moss Mountain Farm, late winter, Garden Home Tours, winter, vegetables, kitchen garden, Fruit Trees, Fig Trees, vegetable garden, garden home, p allen smith garden home, gardening tips, gardening ideas, spring garden, gardening (interest), spring garden planning, winter gardening, raised beds, spring garden prep, tips and recipes, spring gardening tips, cold hardy vegetables, garden design, container gardening, container gardening ideas

Id: _iFIdujboWo

Length: 29min 39sec (1779 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 31 2020