Ep-2 Crops You Can Plant in August & September for a Fall Garden: The Rusted Garden Homestead: All About Growing, Cooking, & Sharing Food

The Rusted Garden Homestead  podcast is all about sharing my passion for growing, cooking, and sharing food with family and friends.  In this episode, I talk with my friend Erica Jones, a master gardener and chef. We discuss crops you can plant now in August and September for a fall garden. We cover both warm and cool crops and how they differ.

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Transcript

Episode 2
Gary Pilarchik
The Rusted Garden Homestead

Crops You Can Plant in August & September for a Fall Garden: The Rusted Garden Homestead: All About Growing, Cooking, & Sharing Food

TRG EP2
Wed, 08/23 20:03PM · 52mins

Welcome to the Rusted Garden Homestead Podcast. My name is Gary Polarcek and I am the content creator for the Rusted Garden. This podcast is all about vegetable gardening, growing, tending, harvesting, cooking, and sharing it all with family and friends. 

I'll have guests, co hosts, I'll do listener Q and A and generally ramble on about growing food in any size, space, and place. Start small, learn and expand when you are able. Today's topic is planting a fall garden and 30 crops you can actually plant now in August and September. 

My guest today again is Erica Jones. How are you doing, Erica? I'm good GP. Can I call you GP? You may, certainly. I call him GP at the farm Y'all because I love a good acronym. I'm doing good. Now, I know you just got back from vacation. 

I believe I did. We took a family trip down to the Carolinas, and when I travel this was a road trip, so I had to keep my wits with me. But when I travel, I love getting into the local food scene. I am always ready for a good food crawl, so food is always on my mind. 

And I was able to check out a local farmers market and get some delicious peaches, because down south right now, those peaches are super sweet. I had a peach hampa. I had a peach cider donut. Let's see. 

I found some nice local soaps. Local, local. I love it, I love it, I love it. So it was a good trip. I know one of your things is really supporting local businesses, so I think that's wonderful. And my wife and I like to do that, just kind of drive around, even locally, literally, and find places that are just run by neighbors and community members and just see what's going on. 

It's a lot of fun and it's how you support. The local community. It's how we all get to thrive. Small businesses are going to rely on the local business to support them. So it's a win win when we're all in it together. 

I agree. And this is podcast number two of the Rusted Garden homestead. So I want to thank you for sticking around for number two. I had a great time. I know that you're a master gardener and a chef. 

We have a very similar passion when it comes to growing food and cooking food and sharing all that with people. I thought the first episode went pretty well. What were your thoughts? I had a blast. I had some really wonderful feedback come back from some folks in my network that just really enjoyed listening to us and they really felt like they were empowered to apply what they had learned and what we talked about to their own garden. 

So I thought it was great. And it's why we do this. And I think the most important thing is that we want the podcast, certainly to be entertaining for 45 minutes or 60 minutes, but we really do want people to learn. 

Like that's where my passion is. And that's all about kind of the Rusted Garden is teaching people how to be more self reliant, self sufficient, all those catchphrases, but really do something that they enjoy and grow food and cook and again, share it with people. 

To me, that's a big part of what life is all about. We are going to talk about how to plant a fall garden today. And it's basically late summer. I want to just point out that we are in Maryland, zone seven, so some people may have wanted to start a couple of weeks ago for certain plants, some people may not want to start for three or four weeks, and every seed can't go in at the same time. 

So we'll be talking about what is a warm weather crop, what is a cool weather crop. But in the summer, the top two, four, six inches of the soil, it's really warm. 80, 9100, and ten degrees. So all of our seeds that we plant for the fall garden are going to germinate really quickly. 

And because they germinate quickly, they grow faster, and because they grow faster, they mature more quickly. So a lot of times, and I think you would agree with me, is people like will plant cucumbers and squash and zucchini June 1, and then it gets beat up, it gets killed off, and then they stop planting it. 

These are crops that you can plant again right now. What are some of the warm crops that you feel people can plant now so that in the fall, they're getting another round of warm vegetables? For sure? 

Those beans, the bush beans, are my favorite just because they're easier to manage. They grow pretty quickly. Beets, cucumbers, zucchini, and squash, some early variety of carrots. You want to take advantage of the ability for the seeds to germinate quickly because the soil is still warm, and those will definitely carry through, even through even much cooler temperatures. 

So there's still time to really get that last bumper crop, if you will, of those warm, loving summer veg. But we'll do well in the fall, too. Yeah, and you covered in that breath. You covered crops that are really warm weather crops, some that can take the warmth and the frost. 

Your cool weather crops are really plants that you can plant now, obviously, but they can grow into the first frost, and they can take a couple of hours of 32 degree temperature at night. They can take that frost. 

They can actually freeze and then thaw in the morning, and they just go along their merry way, and they keep growing. One thing that I think is beautiful, and a lot of people don't have a chance to kind of experience it, is. 

Lettuces from late August. We'll talk about when the timing for some of these cool crops, beginning of September. But when that frost rolls in here in Maryland, end of October, these beautiful frost patterns form on the leaves of the lettuce. 

And the lettuce is frozen and it's like temporary art. It's just beautiful. I have all kinds of pictures. They thaw and they're perfectly fine. Your tomato plants, your pepper plant, your squash plants, your zucchini plants, all the warm crops, as soon as it gets to 32 degrees, those plants are dead. 

And the technical reason just to throw that out there, your warm crops, the plant cells, when they freeze solid, they burst and rupture. Your cool weather crops like lettuce and spinach, those leaves, the cells of those leaves freeze. 

They don't get disrupted or broken and they can keep going. So a lot of people don't realize we can keep growing really until a really hard freeze comes and those sugars. Really concentrate into the vascular system of those leaves. 

And that's why things taste much sweeter on your kales and your collards and your broccoli leaves after it's gotten hit with one of those first frosts. It's just a much richer, sweeter flavor. I agree, and that's what I look forward to. 

So we have kale in collards and Swiss chard, which are really warm, cool crops because they can actually take that frost. They will also keep growing generally through the summer, and they don't flower and bolt. 

We'll talk about that in a second. And that's one of the reasons, like, you can't grow cool crops all the way through June and July, because instead of growing, what do they do? They freak out and bolt. 

We call it ball, but they're really trying to just flower and set a seed. Right. The bolting process is sending up this big stem. The structure of the leaf changes, the plant changes. And it's just trying to reproduce. 

So that's why we have to stop the cool crops going into summer. But we can use the warmth of the soil kind of going forward. But even though some of the plants like kale and collards in Swiss chard survive through the summer, I think they taste terrible. 

The leafs texture I don't like. I think they're a little bit more bitter and nobody's eating them except maybe army worms and harlequin bugs and stuff like that. So I really look forward to the fall garden and I hope people give it a chance because we really are I don't know, brainwashed isn't the right word. 

What are we just basically taught you do cool crops in spring, warm crops in summer and then you stop. Yeah. It's really about the temperatures that you are in. What is the microclimate, which is the area of your actual growing site? 

If you have a shadier side of your garden, you could go ahead and start those lettuce seeds under the shade right now. And it's a cooler area. The temperature is going to be a little bit cooler in the soil. 

Keep it moist and you'll have early maturing lettuce that's crisp and delicious in the end of September, early October, where in other areas of the country we are just putting them in because it was too hot. 

Yeah, and we'll talk about that as we go down. I have a list of 35 plants. There's a lot more that you can direct seed for a fall garden and there are strategies like the microclimates and everything that you're talking about. 

So your warm weather crops like 80, 9100 degree soil. They like upper 70, 80 degree days. Some crops like it in the 90s, but when you get past that it's a little bit too hot. Your cool crops sort of prefer 50, 60 degree nights. 

60 at most 70 degree days. They like soil temperatures that's in the so you're basically trying to figure out the timing for your fall garden. So you start with your frost date. Maryland, it's, I don't know, let's just say October 31. 

And then, you know, middle of August, we have like 75 days before that frost rolls in. So what are some of the warm crops you recommend getting in now, keeping that time frame in mind? More green beans, because in October, I want green beans on my table. 

Okay. And if I have not put them in the ground in enough time, I've got enough time to do that. So green beans, another round of a summer squash, zucchini patty, pan squash. I really like to see in the fall, some early cabbages would be nice to see. 

Each crop really does have like, an early amid and late range of varieties that you can acquire, and then that really allows you to time that same crop so you're still getting it throughout that month. 

But it is maturing in a different kind of cycle, maybe every three weeks or so. Yeah, well, what you mentioned too is so I would throw in zucchini, squash, cucumbers, definitely the beans. When you look on the back of the seed packet, it might say matures or ready for harvest in 50 days, or something like that, because the ground is so warm, are going to germinate much more quickly. 

They're going to grow a lot faster. They're going to love the warmth of August, and they're going to start maturing, or they're going to start maturing for harvesting in little as 35 days. But you do want to have another two or three weeks after. 

So that you can kind of get that harvest and you can get your October green beans. People just don't realize that. So I want to encourage people to kind of think about getting another round of those warm weather crops in. 

And you came up when we were talking before a good point about what happens with pests and disease when you plant the warm weather crops. Now for instance, you right, because now many of those pests have had their time, they've died off and they're gone. 

So I can look at my calendar and say, oh wait, I've got another dag on 80 days before it gets cold around here. I have time for more beans, more squash, more cucumbers. I mean cucumbers. Gosh, I really miss them when they are not in season. 

So getting as many of those fresh off the vine that I can is always a plus in my opinion. And we were talking before we started the podcast about the vine bore. What does that take out and damage? So the vine boar is going to lay its eggs at the base of your squash plants, pumpkin squash, and those eggs hatch, bury into the stem of the plants and work its way up the stem. 

So it's basically like eating the stem all the way up and that weakens the plant. It's often a sign that it's happened when you have been in your garden in the morning and it looks vibrant and great and the leaves are all straight, then the next morning you go out and they're all drooped and it just looked like it just died from the inside. 

It really did. And in future podcasts we'll talk about pest management and disease management. If you have a vine bore, you can actually sometimes do a little vine surgery. Dig in the base of the stem and you can pull that vine bore out. 

It's a grub, it looks terrible. And then just throw dirt over the wound. And sometimes your crop will re. Well, what do I want to say? Sometimes the vine will put out new roots, reestablish the roots, and then the plant comes back. 

However, if you got a plant that's really beat up, yank it. I know it's hard to do get rid of it because of what we're talking about with the fall garden. But also these warm crops. You can really seed them not only end of May or beginning of June you can do them again in July, middle July, August, August 15 and if you have time, even the end of August. 

So you get through the disease cycle meaning, when the temperatures get cooler sometimes the fungus that affect our plants go away or the disease cycle just isn't really relevant. And then the bugs go away. 

So you can have beautiful green beans and cucumbers really late into October here in Maryland. I appreciate mean, I just think it's really beautiful and it reminds me kind of like the spring garden, if you will, but it's longer in the fall because it's warmer temps, and you just get more of that abundance longer. 

And you can even in some cases, you can put plastic over your plants if you're getting early frost. It protects the warm crops. Take it off and then you get another two or three weeks. And I want to encourage people to try it out. 

You don't have to plant an entire garden, but maybe put in cucumber, a zucchini or something like that. See how they do. Because you'll be surprised at how long you can keep harvesting. And I get beat up like with my tomato plants. 

July 15. Heat of summer, 97 degrees, 100 degrees. It's humid here in Maryland. My garden is getting beat up. The plants are beat up. I am. I don't want to go out there. And when I go out, like now, middle of August, the only thing that's really growing is weeds. 

They're growing crazy. My other crops are coming back, the warm weather crops, but I start getting my energy back when it cools down, and so will your garden. Don't forget your herbs. That would be a fantastic crop. 

Got to. Herbs mostly are throughout the season. A few don't like the warm temps, dill and cilantro being two of them. If you let them go to seed, they will drop their seed, and when the temperature is just right, they will germinate. 

And then you'll have beautiful cilantro and dill again in the cooler weather of the fall. That's pretty much how cilantro is in my garden. I don't seed it anymore. First of all, for people that don't know, when it flowers, it attracts so many beautiful pollinators bees that are like really small. 

There's so many different varieties, and you can get up close and you can just see all this wonderful life, and they will help pollinate your garden. One cool tip. Yeah. Go with cilantro. So when we are harvesting the green stems and leaves, that is cilantro. 

When the flower has flowered and turned into seed pods, that is now coriander. And the coriander I use when I'm pickling some of these crops that we're going to be talking about, like when I do an apple cider vinegar and sliced beets or something like that, the coriander seeds are wonderful to throw in there. 

Just crushing them in my fingers and smelling that smell. That fresh coriander smell. Nothing like it. Now we're talking about the warm crops. We'll get to the cool crops in a second. I just want to finish out, too. 

So we're looking at the frost date, looking for 60 plus days of no frost so that you can get another harvest going. The other thing that you can look at too is shorter to harvest or shorter to harvest varieties. 

Like I've planted 65 day pumpkins, 65 day cantaloupe. You can find that for melons. A lot of people think, think all melons take 9100 and 120 days, or pumpkins take 120 days. You can look around and you can find varieties that are usually on shorter vines or bush variety type, but they'll be ready in 65 days. 

So there is that whole other piece to a fall garden, which is really your warm crops or your summer crops. And then you get into the true part of a fall garden, which are your cool weather crops. And the cool weather crops. 

Again, just for people that are learning, they can actually take that frost for several hours. And it's not until really hard freeze comes, it actually freezes the top inch or so of the soil or half an inch of soil that a lot of these plants might die off. 

But you can keep growing now in your garden in Maryland from really October, when the frost rolls in end of October, all the way into almost early December nowadays. It's crazy how long you can grow the cool crops. 

Yeah. And when we get to garlic, when the time comes, obsessed with it, that's a wonderful plant to grow in the fall through the winter. And we'll definitely be doing an episode on planting garlic and just, I mean, it's not a secret. 

October, November, and even early December, I'm putting in hard neck garlic into the ground two inches deep here in Maryland. Let it go and you're going to have beautiful garlic come the next season. 

So I would throw that in there, I guess, as a cool weather crop there. For sure. So other cool weather crops. So now we're going to switch over to well, let me preface it with this. Right now. In August, the soil is 9100 and 120 degrees. 

And we're just talking about the top 2468 inches of the soil. We're not really talking about a foot down or 2ft down. That soil tends to be regulated and stay at the same temperature. And so because all the gardens are different, it's really important to kind of put some seeds in now, see how your plants do. 

Because as we were talking, if you put in your seeds too early, they're going to grow, they're going to be too hot and they're going to bolt. So there is a little bit of the strategy to getting the cool weather crops into your soil. 

So I know that in Maryland, I can start around now, maybe some won't go until September. But the best way to do it, instead of putting in 100 radish seeds, put in like 20 of them today and put in another 20 in two weeks and take notes. 

You'll be able to figure out what's the best time to put seeds in. The ground and really take advantage of those areas around your growing site that are shaded, because that's where the cooler area will be. 

And if you're lacking space in your if you've got like a raised bed and you don't have enough space, you could start your cool weather seeds in a pot in a shaded area of your home. And then when they get big enough, transplant them out into your larger garden when the space is available. 

And most of these we want to do from seed. But crops like broccoli, kale, I'm sorry, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels, am I missing one? Maybe cabbage if I didn't say that. Even kale, they tend to sometimes grow too quickly in this hot soil and they just don't do well. 

So exactly what you said. Grow them as transplants and maybe start them two or three weeks ago so that. Two inch, four inch plants, and then you're getting them into the soil when it's a little bit cooler. 

A trick that you can use is you can use shade cloth. You can put shade cloth up over your bed functions, just like you were saying with the shady part of your yard in the container, that shade is going to cool that soil down a good 15 or 20 degrees. 

So instead of it getting to 91 hundred degrees, that top two inches in the baking sun, it'll be cooler. And you're going to actually have those brassicas grow more slowly. And that's what you want. You don't want such accelerated growth. 

They get tall and leggy and flop over. You just want slow and steady growth. And let's not make it a mystery that you have to get them all in the ground on the 15th in this state and on the 22nd in this state. 

You really got to try it out and kind of do your best and see what happens. Know your plant, know your plant, know what it needs and just provide those conditions the best that you can. Now, you know, one of my favorite plants to grow is the purple top turnip. 

It grows like a weed. It gets a huge size, softball, purple topped turnip. It's round, sometimes a little bit smaller, really resistant to insects and damage can certainly be started now, middle of August. 

Maybe you want to wait a little bit longer, like two weeks when it cools down a little bit or you want to get it under the shade cloth. But they grow really, really well. And I love taking half turnips, half potatoes and making a turnip mashed potato. 

They're just absolutely delicious. And a lot of people always say, well, what do I do with a turnip? How do cook it? Which we'll be talking about in future podcasts. I mean, cooking is a big piece of this. 

And we'll be talking about how do you use your harvest that's coming out of the garden? I think turnips, I think roasting and stews because they are to me, they're very similar to a potato, just lighter and. 

You can use them in the same applications. I cube up beets and turnips and I roast them in the oven. Throw in some olive oil and some garlic, and they're delicious. And they all came right from my yard, which I think always makes them taste X degree better. 

Other cool crops that you like or come to mind? Beets. Give me a bee. Yes, I love them. Scallions, green onions, bunching onions, of course. Flat leaf parsley, early maturing carrots. In the fall, our palate starts to change. 

The weather is getting cooler. We're feeling like we want to get closer to each other and have soups and stews. And what's in those? You've got a lot of potatoes, you've got carrots, you've got onions, celery. 

You want those crops available to you so that you can make those wonderful dishes. And we're going to be talking about in future podcasts, making soups, soup, stock, stews and everything so perfect. Cool weather, crops, fall garden. 

Get some of your herbs going. Get a lot of these root vegetables going. I enjoy the leafy greens, some of my favorite. I'm working on a strategy now to really take my spring garden and grow those leafy greens, spinach, romaine lettuce, bib lettuce, deeper into the summer. 

And in order to do that, I have to really shade the garden so that heat doesn't come in and they don't bolt. And then in the fall, I have to shade the temperatures now in August so that I can start them sooner and they're going to continue to grow. 

So again, shade cloth is your best friend. I'm also growing arugula. Which arugula will germinate in, like, three days in the warm soil. I'm growing it next to my corn. So when the southern sun and western sun is up, the corn completely shades that area. 

And I have arugula, which is notorious for bolting. It's four inches tall already. Absolutely delicious. Nice nutty flavor, not overly spicy. Like it can get in the heat. And it's just a good strategy to put some of these cool weather crops under your lettuce plants under your pole, beans in places like that or in the shady part of your garden. 

It's just a great way to think outside of the box and use our imaginations to make a way. Peas are wonderful. Nothing beats a pea fresh picked off the vine for the sweetness that's there from the cool weather. 

I can eat them just about forever. I got to tell you, I think shelling peas are growing on me. I didn't grow them in years past because it takes a lot, and then you have to shell them. But if you were to eat them just as like, the snacking pea, like you said, that sweetness, it blew my mind. 

I'm obsessed. I want my entire deck to be covered in shelling peas this fall. Let's see if I can get this right. I always have to write it down, even though I've done plenty of videos on it. There's essentially three types of pea. 

There's the flat pea, which is called snow peas, usually kind of like you find in Chinese food, and it's an edible pod, but the pea itself doesn't get to full maturity, so you pick it when it's flat. 

Those are pretty good. I used to grow a lot of them. Then you get to the snap peas or the sugar snap peas. That's the next category where the pod is completely edible. There's no string. The peas get to full size, and those are really good. 

But I agree with. For the last couple of years. I love the shelling peas. You can eat the pod. You can, but it's really tough, those peas. And they come in a shelling pea. Instead of getting like four or five, six peas, you can get 810 twelve peas in there. 

They are just so good. It's almost like candy. Oh, my gosh. I just stand there and eat them and eat them and eat them and make a bowl and sit outside with my wife and eat them. I mean, they are that good, and I think they're underrated because maybe we just want that. 

That's too much work. I don't want that good taste. I just want a pod that I can throw in my mouth. It's worth every single solitary minute of opening that pod and slurping them peas down. My dog loves them, too. 

She waits for me to put a little pea down on the deck, and she will eat them. So, let's see. The Asian greens are mustard greens, pak choy, bach choy. Those are a group of vegetables that I do really recommend planting later into the fall here in Maryland because they're notorious for bolting really quickly. 

But they grow so fast, like, mustard greens can be ready in as little as 25 days from germination. So you have time to wait on those. If people listening. Want to check out my blog, The Rusted Garden Journal, I have everything we're talking about listed there, so people don't have to take notes. 

But if they go to the blog, The Rusted Garden Journal, the link will be in the podcast description. They can see what we're talking about. But also, I have little bits of information on how to plant them, when to plant them, what's the best way to plant them, so there's no excuse not to get some of a fall garden started. 

And you and I always talk about, you don't have to go large. I mean, you always say, Plant what you like to eat, and we can start small, just. Get a little bit going and see how it goes, just do it. One of the things that I'm going to have regularly in the podcast is just FYI for your information or garden tips. 

And I want to go back to we talked about so many different seeds that you can get in the ground, and timing can be overwhelming to people. A journal is your best friend. So again, using radishes, let's say as an example, put some radishes in maybe 15 of them. 

August 1, put it down in your journal. Put some more radishes in. Middle of August, end of August, middle of September. What that's going to do? Is it's going to give you notes, and then you'll be able to see which plants bolted that are cool weather crops. 

Like maybe those August 1 radishes just have too much warmth. They don't form a bulb. Maybe they flower. Maybe your September 1 radishes do perfectly. You get this beautiful, crisp, sweet, red globe radish that's not spicy or hot from the heat of the summer. 

And it's perfect this way. Come next year, you're going to be better equipped to have a better garden. And there's nothing wrong with taking notes, making mistakes, or just kind of learning as you go. 

Yeah, it's okay. Word of the day, it's okay. It really is about taking time and learning and giving yourself grace, but taking good notes because you're going to want to refer to them later. You really won't remember this time next year what happened to your tomato plants and why. 

I can't remember what I had for dinner last week. So I'm lucky enough that I do lots of videos and I can look back and say, okay, I did plant these on the first week of July or something like that. But I love the journal. 

And the journal is also what you're going to use for pests and diseases. And maybe the last thing to stress, and we alluded to it, is that the warm weather crops are going to get devastated, like we were saying, by the vine bore, by pests that roll in cucumber, beetles, tomatoes, early blight, or powdery mildew on your zucchini. 

Really keep planting and take notes because you might find that you can't plant zucchini end of June in your area because it just gets crushed by insects. But zucchini that you plant, august 15, best zucchini that you've had in your life. 

And it's okay. I appreciate hearing okay really is important because the questions I get from people that are just starting, they're almost paralyzed to make a mistake. But as you said, it's perfectly okay. 

Expect it. And I think you really make that okay and easy with the videos that you do and the guidance you give. Expect things to go not as planned because we're really not in control. Nature is always in control. 

A seed is going to do what it wants to do, and we're just here to kind of guide and steward it along the way. But I don't like to say failures or mistakes. It's just learning opportunities and I appreciate every single one. 

Maybe one thing that sort of puts me on my soapbox is if you're a new gardener and you look online and somebody's telling you you got a disease in a pest and it's your fault, that's not true. Basically, it's garbage. 

I mean, people will say, well, you're not organic enough, or if you treat the soil this way, you'll have a plant that resists everything. There is some truth to it. The better your soil, the stronger the plant. 

But the pests and diseases have been around. For hundreds of thousands, millions, billions of years. They know what to do. They're going to show up in your garden and just stick with that attitude that it's okay to have loss and make mistakes. 

Keep a journal, and then you're going to know when these pests and disease show up, and you'll be better equipped next year. Any thoughts on cooking for this podcast? Any kind of tips you have for people? 

Well, along my travels, I was able to stop in at a local cooking store because I love to see what's on the market and also see what it's totally not worth it. And anyway, I get in there and I go to the knife section, and I just really appreciate a good knife. 

And I think that as folks bring in their harvests and want to prepare food in a beautiful way and use really nice tools to do that, have a good chef's knife on your counter. I know they can feel a little bit intimidating. 

A good five to eight inch chef's knife that has a nice, good blade on it with a nice handle that feels good in your hand. Just start there. And it really does help to elevate your cooking when you have very nice cuts. 

And I'd throw that out there to find one and start playing around with it. Yeah, and I think it's important, too. I mean, part of the podcast, when I thought about this, was really to help people grow food, cook food and share it with family and friends. 

And I know gardening can be expensive. Cooking can be sense of, especially if you go after the gadgets. You're talking about some of the crazy gadgets. But slowly add in the chef's knife, I'm going to butcher it. 

No pun intended. But there's a paring knife, too, is that right? Like just a short knife. I like having that, too, for peeling cucumbers and cutting up my vegetables. That's really all you need is a herring knife and a chef's knife, and you can get 95% of the work done on your counter with those two tools. 

Yeah, and I think that's wonderful. I mean, that saves people money. And you do when you have slightly cooler knives and tools, you kind of feel a little bit better about cutting your vegetables and stuff like that. 

And I'm stressing this because the most danger with a knife is using the wrong knife that's dull and trying to push it and force it through these vegetables, which ultimately, that knife slides. And what does it end up hitting? 

Your fingers and a trip to the. Er because you cut off a knuckle. Don't do it. Right. And we certainly we don't want that. So listeners do send in questions. You can find the Rusted Garden brand just about anywhere, and you can send questions in. 

So if you find me on Instagram, throw out a question. If you find me on YouTube under the Rusted Garden, throw out a question. Here's a couple questions that all relate to kind of what we're talking about today. 

And let me just go down them. So, question one, and I get this a lot from new gardeners. There is no bad question. If you're just starting, you consider yourself, you know, a newbie there's a learning curve. 

And even though people know the answer, you don't know the answer. But I applaud you for getting started. So this question is really common. Can you tell me when to plant my seeds? And that's usually kind of loaded with some anxiety and people are worried. 

I have an answer to that. Do you have an answer to that or a thought to help out these new gardeners? Well, when I am out in the farming streets, I try to convey know your plant, do your research, know what it wants. 

And part of what it wants that is knowing when does it want to grow, what temperatures and again, temperatures. Do you have the temperatures that. Wants to germinate, grow and thrive and the seed packet can be a guide but you really do want to pay more attention to what your climate is doing and if you've got enough time. 

And temperature to grow that plant and I would agree. So the back of the pack is I can't even read it now that I'm older and I refuse to always wear glasses. Try and pack so much into there with color charts across the US and all that. 

It's a guide. But like you said and like we've been talking about today, knowing which crops are warm crops, which crops are cool crops. Hard to say that's when you want to plant. But most importantly, don't be afraid to mess up. 

Put some seeds in the ground like we were talking about the journal. Just jot down some notes or put a marker in there. Plant it on five two or plant it on 73, see what happens. There's nothing wrong with learning from something you're doing so you don't have to overstress. 

But generally you got your cool crops, your warm crops and you can kind of match them to the soil temperature and a day temperature. Question number two how do I stop bugs and diseases from attacking my garden? 

I'm going to give that to you. I've answered all these before but what's. Your I mean, I tell new gardeners early prevention is like the name of the game. And so if you're spending time every day in your garden and paying attention to what's around, you'll be able to see if there is a pest that you don't want there. 

Just yesterday as I was checking my tomato plants I saw the hornworm and of course really freaked out because I cannot stand the thing but because. I was away, thank goodness, and did not react when I saw it. 

If I had seen it the first time, the parasitic wasp had already laid its eggs inside the worm and those eggs have hatched and the larvae is now feeding off of that hornworm. So he is paralyzed. He's just sitting there like I'm being eaten from the inside out. 

Oh my gosh. But I don't have to do any anything because time allowed nature to come in and handle that pest. And now my tomatoes are safe. And for people that have not seen a hornworm with parasitic wasps on it, it really looks alien. 

The hornworm is like green and all these cool colors, it's about as big as your thumb. And then the eggs and the wasp are these like white looks like almost tips of like a white, like a QTIP QTIP, a QTIP all over the place. 

And you would swear that is not alive. What is that? But right, that is one strategy. One, nature can roll in. Two, actively spraying early rather than waiting for a disease to show up really makes a difference. 

The hard thing is if you're just new to gardening, you don't know what insects are going to roll in, you don't know what diseases are going to roll in. What I want to stress there and kind of I get on my soapbox. 

When you see other gardeners or you find information that kind of blames you for a disease or a pest because you're not organic enough, or you didn't do the right companion planting, or your soil is weak, those are all excuses. 

The diseases and pests have been around for hundreds of thousands of years, if not millions of years, if not billions of years. They know what to do. They know how to get to your plants. You can do a lot to reduce the damage. 

But you're not at fault for bringing them to your garden. And that's the point I want to express. Since you don't know when they're going to show up again, take notes and we'll be talking about this in future podcasts. 

You can start spraying antifungals two, three weeks before those diseases roll in, and that really makes a huge difference. I use hydrogen peroxide spray to clean my tomato plant leaves every two to three weeks. 

That keeps away early blight. And for the pests, sometimes you just have to keep an eye on them and figure out how to use sprays and dusts, the least harmful way to good insects. And you're going to get a garden that grows and does well for you. 

It's okay. It is okay. And a little bit of what we were saying before is planting those summer crops later in the season has them growing when the disease pressure and the bug pressure is gone. So that's another strategy. 

Yeah, one of the school gardens that I manage, the spaghetti squash just got taken out by the vine boar. So I just threw in some zucchini seeds and they'll be up and they'll have more zucchini in 45 days. 

The last question, and I mean, we've been talking about it, but the question is what can I grow in the fall garden? And a lot of new gardeners also wonder about that because they're still learning what's a warm crop, what's a cool crop. 

The most important thing with this question is a fall in Florida versus a fall in Maryland compared to a fall in Maine. They're all different. So what you can grow is really based on what your soil temperatures are. 

Do you actually even get a frost? When does the heavy freeze come in? But it really know. Not to answer the question poorly, but just about everything that we already talked about, because in Florida. 

Texas when it's 107 for 25 days. Even with shake cloth, nothing's going to want to grow. So some of these warmer states and warmer zones, they're planting tomatoes and peppers now because they have a long season. 

So it's really, really going to vary. Any advice for people wondering what to plant? Of course. Think about what you want to eat first and then from there, go learn your crop. And each state has a wonderful extension through a major university that usually has. 

All kinds of great information on growing. For your specific state and varieties and. Care and management tips. So start there and just start. Just do it. Let's pause a second because that's a pretty powerful statement, actually is just start. 

It really is what I want to encourage people to wonderful, you know, to listen to this podcast, hopefully you listen to the next episode to check out a couple YouTube videos, read something online, but don't get paralyzed. 

That you have to be, you know, get started and you'll be amazed at what actually wants to grow. Even on the worst year, you still get production and you're going to learn really quickly. Social media. 

I know that you're working on Adesia Girl. Do you want to tell people where they can find you or a little bit about your brand? Yes. So Adija Girl is a health and. Wellness brand and I find that I think it's important to share all things. 

That bring wellness to us and help. Us to be just better overall people. So if you are interested in learning about me, you can find me at Adijagirl on Instagram. That's E-D-E-S-I-A-G-U. And I'll put all this information in the podcast. 

Description. I have a book. The Modern Homestead Garden. Growing self sufficiency in any size backyard. You can find that at Amazon or any place that sells books. I also have a book coming out in November, and that's Growing an Edible Landscape how to Transform Your Outdoor Space into a Food Garden. 

And yes, it talks about vegetable gardening, but it's really about about changing your perspective from your space, being mostly lawn and ornamental shrubs that you can't eat, like all that stuff. If you buy a new home, developers give you plants that just don't have a lot of value. 

How can you change that whole space into something you can enjoy but also eat? And I have a YouTube channel called The Rusted Garden 1500 Videos Short and to the Point to teach you about vegetable gardening. 

I have a blog, the Rusted Garden Journal. And you can also find me on Instagram under the Rusted Garden. One of the things that happens now is I have so many zucchini, eggplant and tomatoes, and I grow more because I have a teaching channel, but it's hard to process them. 

And I make a rustic vegetable sauce and tomato sauce. So I thought maybe you could talk a little bit about a basic way people can make sauces and some of the highlights. Like, for instance, I don't season my sauce when I first start it with salt because we want to reduce it down. 

And if it tastes great when you just get started, by the time it reduces down, you're going to have this really salty mess of a sauce that you can't eat. Terrible it. Yeah, and sauce really is the sauce makes the dish. 

And so when we have all these wonderful fresh vegetables coming off of out of our gardens, off of our fields, bringing them in a basic garden, tomato sauce is. Fantastic. And you really don't have to be fancy about it. 

Just top and tail them, which means cut the ends off top and the ends off, throw them in the pan or in the pot, everything. Onions, peppers, eggplant, lots of tomatoes, all of them grow very well together, so they're going to taste very well together. 

Throw them in and just bring it to a boil and let all of that reduce. There's a lot of water that is in vegetables, so a lot of water is going to come out of that. And that's really what's going to be the base of your sauce. 

So giving time for that to happen, let all of that reduce and then you really just cook it down to your liking. I kind of like a thicker sauce, so I will try to get as much water out of that as I can by a slow reduction, stirring every once in a while. 

For those that like a looser sauce, more watery sauce, you don't cook it for as long. It's really that simple. And like you said, salt, weight to salt and season at the end. Once it's at your consistency that you like, then you can start to season it to your taste. 

Yeah, and the reduction is the process of slowly simmering it or kind of a rolling boil, just bringing it down to that thickness that you're talking about. The other thing that I like to do is maybe some of the herbs, basil, oregano, and even garlic, I like to put in towards the end so that all the oils and the flavors don't get boiled away. 

But there's just so many ways you can do it. Sometimes I'm kind of a lazy the sauce maker. Like, I don't deseed it. I don't want to spend a lot of time. So I will just fill a pot up with tomatoes and just let it reduce down. 

And then I use an immersion blender just to puree it altogether. It makes a beautiful sauce. I freeze it. You know, it's it's good to go and just like gardening, you know, don't be afraid to make mistakes. 

It's really hard unless you over salt it to mess up a pasta sauce. Or walk away and then you reduce it down to a burning scorch. Don't do that either. Throw your sauce every once in a while. I mean, it's funny that you would say that, because may go out into the garden thinking, I'll be back in in ten minutes to check on it and then all of a sudden 45 minutes go by. 

So it happens. Yeah. Just be careful. Any last thoughts for today you want to talk about? Just that I'm really feeling gracious to be able to talk about this with you and your guests. Gardening is such a wonderful way to explore life, and I think it's just nice to acknowledge that. 

Yeah, I agree with you and I'm very glad to have you on. And part three is really sharing the garden and food with family and friends. So I think this is wonderful. We can do this together and we get feedback from other people. 

So I want to thank everybody for listening. We both wish you good luck in your gardens. Remember, it's okay to start small. Just get growing and get in the dirt and dig around and plant and don't over worry about it. 

This is a journey. Have fun with it and we will see you all next time. Thanks for listening. Bye. Our Sam.