Ep-3 Cool Weather Vegetable Plants for a Frosty 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 talk about the cool crops that can take a frost and event taste better with a frost.  They are perfect for  planting in your fall vegetable garden.

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Transcript

Welcome to the Rustic Garden Homestead Podcast. My name is Gary Pilarczyk and I am the content creator for the Rustic 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 &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 all about planting leafy greens, your lettuces and spinach, planting peas, and root crops. 

My guest for today is Erika Jones. How are you doing on this beautiful September day? Hey GP, I'm doing good. I can't believe that we are already into September and we're already thinking about fall. 

I still feel like I'm eating tomatoes and peppers and loving life. I can't even believe it's time to start to transition, but you know it's good all in the seasons. I am excited. September 1st, and I did look, it's like three weeks till the official start of fall. 

And part of what I wanted to talk about today is like last podcast, congrats on us doing number three, this is exciting. Last podcast we did talk about, like getting in a couple of warm crops that could grow and be ready for your fall garden. 

But really I think in Maryland, we're to the point where we want to start just growing the cool crops because we have frost coming and all that kind of stuff. For people that don't know, you're a master gardener, you're a chef. 

You have equal passion for both. What have you been doing in the cooking and growing world over the last two weeks? Well, right now, since we are knee deep in tomatoes, lots of processing of sauces, eating them fresh, slicing them down. 

I mean, they're just so rich and delicious at this time of year that I can't get enough of them. So a lot of tomatoes are on the plate right now. I'm doing a lot of grilling because it's been warm. I don't like heating up my house in the summertime. 

So I try to do a lot of dining outside fresh. as I can. Well we're gonna talk, I mean, which I can appreciate. I am burned up from the heat, don't want heat in the house, want things to be cool, but I'm energized. 

Like today is a beautiful day, I think it was like under 80 degrees, perfect morning to be out there. And this is what I really like to roll into the fall crops. Some of the easiest crops for people to grow are lettuces and spinach. 

Like I was saying, we've got three weeks left of summer now and it is really time to focus on the fall crops. And what I just want people to understand is we're in Maryland, so maybe they have to start a little bit later for the fall crops or a little bit sooner. 

But generally speaking, September is a good time to get those, you know, cool soil loving and cool temperature loving crops into the ground. Yes, now that makes me think about the super cool crops of like broccoli and cauliflower and that fine period of, alright, the start of So oil's still warm out here. 

Am I gonna put my broccoli out? My transplant, definitely no seeds, but am I gonna put my transplants out? I'm trying to time that a little bit. Maybe in another week or so. I'll start putting up broccoli, but right now it's definitely time for like the peas, getting the lettuce seeds started, your radishes. 

It's go time. Yeah, and that's what kind of makes it tight. We'll talk about this in a little bit, but I always recommend people journal. We have missed that period. Maybe you could put in here in Maryland like a 40 days zucchini seed or something like that. 

It may be able to produce. The broccoli by seeds just aren't gonna make it really. You know, it's kind of what you're saying. If you have transplants, they can go in, but you can't really miss. You don't need much time for radishes, lettuce, even spinach can take a little bit longer, peas, and some of your other root crops to really grow through the cold frost, which people don't understand. 

Okay, you got a frost date. Now you can't plant any more cool crops. Sometimes the frosts in different gardens are just mild for like 60 or 90 days. So you can keep planting and growing right through that. 

And that's when we talk about microclimate. That's where in your journals, you're paying attention to what was the weather like during that time of the month. You know, where was that garden sited? Was it in the cooler area of your property? 

So there's a lot that goes into kind of planting around your fall plantings, but just keeping in mind soil temperatures and air temperatures are gonna be a little bit different. So let's start with a pop quiz. 

And we'll start with lettuces and spinach. What are the three general categories of lettuces? Yeah, put me on a pop quiz, CP. I'm gonna go with you've got your loose leaf. You have your heading, and then your crisps. 

So your crisps would be like your icebergs. It's a head, but it's got that. real firm dense structure to it as it grows. So those are called crisp heads and then your remains or cause depending on where you are in the country which you want to call it. 

Did I do it? Yeah. So I would give you an 80 because you described it right. You have your loose sleeve, you have your heading lettuce and then you just have the middle ground. It's what you described. 

It's like the loose heading type which you are calling crisps like romaine or the bib lettuce or the butter crunch. I don't like the loose sleeve like red oak lettuce. It's beautiful looking and it's really leafy. 

It doesn't form any kind of head. You know romaine is right in the middle, crunchy crisp. Iceberg is even more crispier. I just don't like the loose sleeve because it's it's like eating air and they just don't hold dressing or anything like that. 

I'm like, I'm growing it more for its beauty than for I agree and with loose leaf you need like a lot just to Harvest a nice big bowl of it. It's like you said, it's beautiful. It's lovely But when I'm ready to get down to business and make a salad I want hearty Lettices and that's gonna be your remains. 

I mean bids are my absolute favorite bids butter crunch But you want a heartier leaf to be able to to hold that dressing or vinegar whatever you're doing with it Yeah, I've just I'm I'm not growing the loose leaf anymore because you're right like it might take and they can get large But really once you cut them and even the water damages them like the leaf gets damaged. 

It's just not not appealing But you need like two heads to really make something, you know useful for even, you know close to a salad Bib lettuce is a perfect I'd like the butter crunch variety the remains for people that don't know you can get these in greens and reds and burgundies and all Different shades so you're not missing out by skipping over kind of the loose leaf icebergs Take a little bit longer to grow like the round firm heads I think to I mean if you know correct me, but I think like the iceberg lettuce is the least amount of Nutrition of all the lettuces that you can grow so I don't like I mean, yes It's true. 

It's not as green as the others, but the texture I mean depending on what you're using it for for me like when I'm having tacos I want those really dense crispy Crunch of a nice burger on my tacos or on my burger now if I'm having a turkey sandwich Then I want to have remain or like a more delicate Lettuce on my sandwich if you will so it really boils down to your personal preference and texture and what you like Yeah, I mean I can't argue with that although I would I'd recommend the bottom half of a romaine head is almost equal to the crisp and crunch of the ice cream, if that's fair to say. 

And I agree. Like that's what I like in a taco is that, you know, kind of the meatier piece of lettuce than something else. Dressings, vinaigrettes, any quick tips for people? Because I know that, or I should say because, I don't think cause is a word, because I'm going to grow probably three dozen heads of lettuce. 

And in the future podcast, we'll be talking about cold frames and ways to kind of extend the season. But it's probably my top three favorite vegetable. But it can get boring. So what would you recommend in the way of salad dressings or vinaigrettes or something to kind of dress up your salads? 

Well, I mean, a simple vinaigrette is always a great place to start. And it's a very easy ratio to think about. It's three parts oil to one part vinegar. That is your very basic at minimum vinaigrette. 

And you're just going to pick. a neutral oil, one that doesn't have a lot of flavor to it so that you can then flavor your vinaigrette based on your own personal preference. I like to use oils such as grapeseed or avocado. 

You can use canola. And the easiest way is just to get yourself a mason jar and you pour your oil into that jar up to, you know, three parts oil. One point vinegar, or that vinegar could be red, it could be white, balsamic, apple cider. 

There's a whole bunch of ranges of vinegar that you can use. And then you just shake the everything out of it until it emulsifies. You can use some a little bit of mustard, either Dijon. I like to go with some whole grain mustard sometimes to help that emulsification happen. 

And emulsification basically is just when you're taking two liquids that aren't mixable and you make them mix. So oil and water, we all know, don't mix. And when you pour your oil into your container, you're going to see once you add the vinegar, which is mostly water, you're going to see those two, you know, separate right away. 

So you're going to put your top on and you're going to shake the mess out of it until it all combines. And that's what an emulsification is. mayonnaise, that's an emulsification as well. So we should talk about that in a future podcast, make your man. 

Yeah, but even if you weren't to do a salad dressing, honestly, my go to is some olive oil, some lemon juice and a little salt and pepper and boom, boom, boom, that is it, especially on like a masculine mix of loose leaf salad. 

Dressings are way, way, way too heavy for those light leaf structures. So just a simple drizzle, little toss with my fingers and it's we're good to go. Now I don't measure. So for people that I do this all the time when I'm talking about making sprays and stuff like that, just so people know So equal parts, like three parts to one part, it's just make sure you're using the same size measure. 

So it could be three cups of olive oil, three cups or one cup of vinegar in your case. Or just if you're using a shot glass, three shots of oil, one shot of vinegar, just to make sure the measure is equal. 

Yeah, we can get caught off the measuring part for sure. Yeah, and just, you don't have to be exact either. Cause I was good to say, I put into a big measuring cup an eyeball of red vinegar and eyeball, and I usually use olive oil, even though that's stronger. 

You know, I press some garlic into it, salt. I like to smash a tomato and put the juice into it. And that's what I use for my light dressing. And you know, shake it up in a mason jar like you said, because then you can just store it in a refrigerator and use it, you know, keep it in there till you use it all. 

And sometimes like it, depending on how strong your shake is, it might break, that emulsification might break, but it doesn't matter, you just shake it back up. Or you can get your immersion blender and just a couple boom, boom, booms, and it's multiplied again. 

Lettuce. Our, how about pop quiz number two? Are you ready? I didn't put this, we have an outline for people listening. So some of this stuff, you know, Erica, you know it's coming up, but this is a pop quiz that's truly a pop quiz. 

What percentage of the lettuce leaf would you say is water? I'd say like nine to nine percent. It's close. 90% water. So when we're growing lettuce, we are growing leaves. So obviously keep the soil moist. 

You don't have to over worry about watering because you're into the fall and, you know, things are cooler. But because we're just growing a leaf that's mostly water, setting up your soil, you don't have to worry about putting in compost, which if you have it, it's always great to put in more compost. 

You don't have to worry about putting in the organic granular fertilizers. They take a while to break down anyway. You just need a water soluble fertilizer like fish emulsion. Some of them are like 5% nitrogen, 1% phosphorus, 1% potassium. 

Your soil probably in the ground, not containers I'll talk about in a second. Your soil in the ground probably has everything you need to grow your cool crops. But for lettuces, for spinach, giving them a big drink of a water soluble fertilizer gives them nitrogen right away, helps leaves grow. 

And really you're growing out of water and nitrogen. And you'll be very successful that way. If you have a container, if you've been growing in that, the fertilizer life gets sucked out of there. So you may have to put in additional amendments, but you could always again use a water soluble fertilizer. 

And I just want to mention that because I don't want feeding and fertilizing and care and soil prep to become a barrier to growing food. Like you could almost just plant your seeds. It's it's it's minimal and like just like us we require nutrients daily Plants we'd say every two weeks or so depending on how they're doing So it's not like you don't take it out of the equation But you don't stress about it so much that then you you're overfeeding them which can can lead to some issues There's I mean the more that I do this I've been doing this. 

I don't even know 20 years 25 years straight actually and plus years as a kid When I learned off from my grandfather We can get trapped into thinking we got to buy the fanciest Stuff with the coolest looking packaging and the plants could care less about that They don't want any of that. 

So we're just sort of wasting our money So as we progress the podcast and we put our beds to rest in the fall We'll be talking about that what to give them and then in the spring how to wake your beds up with you know compost or Some other fertilizers, but I really want this podcast to be about growing the food you You know, cooking in the food, sharing with family, friends, and having the least amount of stress is possible. 

That sounds like a really good life, GP. I mean, that's a good life. I get to do some of that. But life always has its stress. That's why no matter where you are, what you're doing, who you are, life stress gets in a way. 

Let's keep the gardens and cooking food something enjoyable. Absolutely. Soil temps. What are the cool weather crops love? Ooh, I'd say they'd love to be anywhere in like 45, no more than 70. But that like 45 to 65 to me seems like a real sweet spot. 

Yeah, I mean, we're going from soil temperatures that are 90, 100 degrees, 110 degrees. I know our friends out in the southern states, you know, are probably topping that. So come like September 1st. 

And just track when they put seeds in. But that soil temperatures dropping down to 60, 70, 80 degrees. The nighttime temperatures of 45, 50, 60 are perfect. Day temperatures 60, 70 are what these cool crops love. 

And they just grow slow and steady. And they do just really well coming out of summer, going into the fall here in Maryland. I kind of almost want to say they do better like our, because the spring, your spring crops, fall crops are basically the same. 

But in the fall, they just do better as the temperatures go from warm into cool versus cold into cool in the late winter and early spring. We have a question from a listener that's going to address that exactly what you're talking about. 

So I'll save that for when we get down to there. I have a blog, The Rusted Garden Journal. If people want to check that out, the link to all the stuff that we talk about are so media will be in the description of the podcast, but you can find, I don't know, 30 -35 vegetables that are ready to grow for a fall garden. 

Some of them are warm crops, but a nice big list of all the cool crops that are great to get into the ground now. We're only covering some of them, mostly because some of my favorites are lettuce, spinach, peas, and radishes. 

I love radishes. They used to be my nemesis. It took me years, believe it or not, to get them to be able to grow and form a nice root ball, basically. All I was growing was leaves, which you can cook and eat, but I want that radish. 

I was over fertilizing my ground. I was putting in way too much nitrogen and putting them in a little bit too early. So the combination of warmth when I'm growing in the fall, the warmth and the nitrogen just had these leafy greens grow and nothing really formed. 

So you do have to learn a little bit about what each crop likes. and needs. I gotta say though you're like the radish king. Your radishes are gorgeous. So to do that all I recommend is don't feed your radishes. 

Let them live off of what's in the ground and you know see how they go. And then variety wise cherry bell, crimson giant, rock sands, a hybrid which is a massive globe radish and then french breakfast for more of that oblong longer radish that grows really fast. 

And radishes can be ready really from germination in anywhere from 25 to 40 days. And I don't we didn't mention it for lettuces but lettuces can be ready in little as 40 days to 75 days. So in Maryland plenty of time to grow all these. 

So what's the difference between a radish in your opinion grown in the cool weather versus a radish grown when the summer gets too hot and affects it? So in the coolest weather they're beautiful, they're uniform, the colors vibrant, they're sweet, they're crunchy. 

In the warmer temps they are often split, they're dry, they're fibrous, they're spicy. I don't want any parts of a radish in the summer. Yeah they're awful and the one thing actually I just thought of this as I was listening to you, one thing that you can do with a radish that passes its prime and you know how small radish is like this let's just say a size of a golf ball with a couple of leaves on top. 

If you let that grow into the summer it will actually get three or four feet tall, the leaves get more kind of viney like and it will produce hundreds of flowers. If you let those flowers form seed pods you get these crunchy sweet delicious radish tasting seed pods that you can harvest through, really through June in Maryland, and they're delicious. 

I've even pickled some of them. So yeah, the radish ball is gone, the bowl I guess, but you'll get hundreds of pods off of there. And you just need to keep one radish. It's plenty of pods for you to enjoy and eat in salads and pickled as I was saying. 

It's crazy. And it's beautiful. It really is pretty and to see them as a unique vegetable on your crouter tape plate, you know, it's an interesting, oh, what is this? And you can say, oh, these are radish pods and you'll blow all your friends' minds. 

Yeah. And they, I mean, they don't look like radishes. They look strange. They look almost like, I don't know, some weird larva. I think they're like pea pods in a way. Yeah. Green, very small, absolutely delicious. 

What else can you make with radishes? So, I mean, I think radishes, for me, they're a texture thing. I love their crunch. So I like to put them in. put them as toppers on salads, on tacos. Of course, I love them pickled, shaving them really thin and eating them raw with just a little bit of lemon juice and some herbs. 

They also pair very well with butter and, you know, in some of your French techniques, you'll see the radish sand, which with beautiful whipped butter and bread, just a little bit of salt. It's a great snack and easy way to eat them. 

The French breakfast, cut the leaves off, leave, I like to leave maybe a half an inch of the green on the radish, on the French breakfast, cut that in half, you know, I don't, I mean, I really just don't do whipped butter or anything like that, but put them into a frying pan, saucepan or whatever, I guess a frying pan, a little bit of oil, but a lot of butter, warm them up, they're absolutely delicious, they're a great way to eat them and leaving that little green on there is a nice extra flavor. 

And I do want to encourage people to use the radish greens because it's just full of nutrients. Absolutely. Also, roasted, roast those bad boys, cut them in half, put a nice little oil on them, roast them for 25 for maybe 10, 15 minutes, get a little bit of that caramelization color on them. 

It's a completely different way to have them. They soften, they get real tender. So it's a cool way to try them that way too. And I also, I've been pickling which you know, because I brought pickles in the other day to the farm and just keep talking about it. 

I'm using 5% apple cider vinegar. If you slice radishes, you know, thin as you want, thick as you want, put them in that 5% apple cider vinegar, maybe throw in some garlic or whatever spices or herbs you want. 

Really, within a day, you can eat them, they're pickled, but let them sit in a refrigerator, you know, they should stay in the refrigerator in like three weeks or so, they're it doesn't necessarily change. 

change the flavor, change the texture, but it's just a combination of all that that just takes radishes beyond, take them out of the ground, put salt on it and eat them. And you can store them that way for a long, long time. 

So good. Any other root crops that come to mind? I know beets, we could probably grow beets now. Yeah, beets. You think they would make it? Yeah, we've got some going at the farm now. I love beets. And I mean, I know they have a bad rap because people think they taste like dirt, but just for a minute, remember where they grow in the soil. 

So they're gonna have that earthy flavor, but aw man, their nutrients, the minerals, like beets are where it's at, and they're so versatile. The purple top turnip, you hear me talk about that all the time. 

That's a wonderful fast growing root crop too. So maybe if you're doing some radishes, some beets and purple tops, you'll have a nice range of. you know, root crops for your fall garden. The purple top can get, you know, you can harvest that when it's golf ball size or baseball size, they'll grow to softball size, you can make mashed potatoes with them. 

I mean, they're just absolutely delicious. And then all of these crops, radishes, beets and turnips, we can eat the greens and you can mix them into your salad. So we've kind of got a theme developing here with, you know, the selection of stuff I picked to talk about. 

And that theme is of course salads. So in this part of the podcast, which I call FYI or garden tips, I just want to stress again for new gardeners, you're not supposed to know exactly when to put every seed in the ground or what's a warm crop, what's a cool crop. 

You're going to learn as you go. So I do recommend just getting a journal and making short little notes of when stuff goes in the ground, how well the crop did. And you're going to learn over time to just adjust what goes into the ground spring, summer and fall. 

And I know you're a big supporter of growing and cooking happiness. How do these things impact your life? It's like my whole life. You know, once I decided to go into the culinary industry and really jazzed about creating delicious food for myself and my family and friends, then it was like, okay, we're going to start growing it. 

And it turned into this love affair of tending to food that then tends to my body. And I shout from the rooftops as much as I can that connection. And it's one of those things where you don't realize it or I don't tell you experience it. 

And so, you know, you and I are out here promoting grow food, grow, grow, grow, just so you can get that taste of what it feels like to be the steward of a seed and grow it from seed to fruition, whatever that fruit wants to be. 

and then taking that beyond into your home and preparing it in a way that feels good to you. It is just a phenomenal feeling and I want it every single day of my life. I mean, I would assume you agree, D .P. 

I do agree and I think that's a beautiful answer and I feel like I messed up the intro, so I wanna try it again. Erica, I know you're a big supporter, ah, I messed it up three times, one more time. I know you're a big supporter of growing and cooking happiness. 

How do these things impact your life? That's what I wanted to say originally, because the happiness really, I think, flows through you. When I see you at the farm, when you're talking about cooking, when you're talking about growing, it just becomes integrated. 

It's not just, oh, I planted a seed, oh, I harvested something. It becomes a part of your life like you're saying and I do wanna get that kind of, maybe we could say taste or experience into people's lives. 

Because cooking sometimes seems like it can't be achieved, growing is made more complicated and we're told to go to the supermarket. But once people just do a little bit and learn more and more about each of those, I think the happiness really does set in. 

And then you get to share it with family and friends. You get to meet people with similar passions and it just becomes such a big part of your life. There are some folks that will say, I don't have time to be gardening. 

I don't have time to be cooking. And that really, we encourage you to maybe rethink that and see where you're spending time that is maybe not to the best of best use of it. And being in nature, there's all kinds of studies that are gonna tell you how beneficial it is just to be in nature. 

So you could choose to take a walk or go mow your lawn, but I think growing is one of the best ways to be in nature and experience all of the benefits all wrapped up into one, if you will. Yeah, and the thing with growing, and I agree with you that nature is often overlooked. 

I mean, we're gently guided and it becomes just part of our routine to always buy, to work, which is fine. You need all that stuff, but you can't make an excuse for something that's gonna benefit you. 

And getting out and seeing sort of the glory really in the beauty of nature, trying to figure out why is it there, where to come from, all that wonderful stuff. But it gives you a peace of mind. You can take, like you were saying, the tiniest seed, drop it into the ground. 

I mean, for people that have not grown radishes before, they're small, maybe kind of like a couple grains of salt. If that, it will grow into a three foot plant with all those pods that we talked about. 

A tomato will bring 40 pounds of tomatoes from this tiniest seed. And I think that's a good thing. that's an experience. People should at least try it. And if you don't like it, you don't like it, but I want them to have a chance to discover it, I guess. 

That's why I do radishes with kids at school. One, because they are fast. I feel like the fastest crop we can get a radish in terms of how fast it is. Pat Narugula, yeah. But it's because it's so fast and they get to see that happen in as little as 25 days, it, they're whole, and they're so excited to then go, pick a radish. 

Now I don't know how many kids, my kids aren't out there like, oh, I love radishes. But for some reason, when they start to grow it, then it's a completely different experience and now they want to put it in their mouth. 

Well, that, that's the magic that, you know, kids have and adults have, but it just kind of goes away from us. Cause I remember like when I go over to the farm, sometimes the roots and wings sessions are in, the kids are all there. 

And when it's a radish harvesting day, you see the biggest smiles People walking around, the kids walking around, like the radishes are like their pet and they're showing it off and stuff like that. They just have such a good time. 

But just because they're kids, doesn't mean you and I don't have that or other people can discover it. And that's, I think, what the garden brings. I mean, I also like kinda segueing that into cooking. 

We're talking about the greens off of turnips, maybe not the part that we're eating. Stockpots, basic stock, getting ready for the fall. It'll be a future podcast. We'll be talking about soups. What would you recommend for people wanting to learn how to make stocks or getting ready to make soups? 

Because not the lettuce, but all these other ingredients you could use in soups in some way. I mean, anything can be made into a soup. And your stock is going to set the tone for the depth of flavor in your soup. 

And at basic stock is nothing more than taking bones or vegetables, covering them with water, bringing it up to a really high boil, turning it down and letting that simmer for hours, depending on if it's chicken or vegetables, and letting all of the flavors infuse into that water. 

That water is now your stock. Once everything is strained out, you've got this beautiful developed liquid full of minerals and nutrients and flavor that then can become the mother to whatever soup that you're making. 

And typically, like your basic chicken soup is always going to start with your chicken bones, some celery, some carrot, onions, and herbs, bring that all to a big boil, and then you turn it down and you let that sit. 

Now, some will say 10 to 12 hours. I like, for chicken, I like to go anywhere between like four to eight, but it really does. does change the depth of flavor to your soups when you do a stock, as opposed to just like making a soup straight off and being done with it in five minutes. 

For a stock pot, like I know, like if I'm making, um, hot sauce or something like that and I'm using vinegar, I don't want to use a metallic pot because it creates like this medley flavor from, I guess, from the vinegar and stuff like that. 

Anything special with the stock pot, I don't even know what the right term is. It's not ceramic. Whatever that they're lined with, anything special in a way of, you know, your recommendation for getting your first stock pot. 

Yeah. So more than anything, you want to make sure that it's heavy. You don't want to pick up a pot that's very light in your hand. Heavy pots mean that they're going to conduct heat very evenly. And so cast iron enameled, when you were talking about that coating is called an enameled coating over cast iron are my favorite. 

And then I would go to a stainless steel as an alternative, but you just want to make sure it's big enough. And you can do a lot in a stock pot, not just make stock and soup. You could saute, I mean the size is super high, but if you only had one pot in life, you could do it all in a stock pot, in a pinch. 

We, yeah, and we just picked up new pots and pans, I guess for a fancy name. But that's what we were looking for is we did get one with the enamel. But the bottom or the base, I guess, feels like it was a good half an inch. 

It's like just really heavy and solid. And we just started using them. And they do, I think, conduct the heat better. And it's just a nice, even process when you're cooking food with them. I would caution, don't be getting out extra. 

Like, I gotta go get the most expensive pot in the world. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You can go to your local thrift store and find a beautiful used, I call them seasoned, but seasoned pots that have had age and time and use to where you know it's gonna be a really good pot. 

Try that first, then head over to your local home goods or TJ Maxx, go into the home section. I love it. It's like being in a candy store, all these wonderful, different pots and pans and knives and all the different things for the kitchen that are at a much more reasonable price. 

Get off of the brand names. You don't need all that. It just needs to be a really good pot. Yeah. And we actually, I was trying to think of it. All I could think of is Bed Bath and Beyond, but they're going out of business. 

But we went to home goods and that's where we found our pots. Different manufacturers. We just kind of went and they all have their own style, but we kind of just matched them by look. So it's different, you know, manufacturers, but a lot cheaper, had what we wanted. 

And now we have, you know, a unique collection of pots that are functional. And, you know, I think I'm talking a long time about pots and pans, but I love gardening and I love cooking. So anyway, let's get back to the cool crops. 

And I just want to explain to people, because we're growing into the fall, and we talked about this last podcast, the cool crops, the plants that can take a frost, a light frost, even a medium frost, have a cell structure that they can freeze. 

And when they freeze, the ice crystals don't disrupt the cell. So they warm up and all of a sudden, you know, they look like they're perfectly fine. And that's the beauty of the cool crops. So you're not worried about a frost coming. 

Frost can come, you know, every other day. It could be short, it could be a little bit longer. What you're really worried about when you're growing is the deep freezes that freeze that upper inch of the ground. 

And when that upper... into the ground freezes where the kind of stem of the plant meets the roots in the ground. If that freezes to a certain temperature and it's a prolonged freeze, that's what cools off your cool crop. 

So I just want to encourage people to at least, you know, throw in some radishes. Arugula we haven't talked about, but that's a great green that matures in like 25 days. You have plenty of time to grow most of the crops that we're talking about. 

Mm -hmm. Where was I reading something somewhere where they were talking about in that cell structure? It's almost like antifreeze, if you will, that the plants have that keep the cell structures from bursting. 

So I think that's kind of cool to think that nature's own antifreeze. Like nature knows what to do. She knows how to, you know, keep her plants alive and thriving depending on, you know, the climate. 

And I just think that's really cool. And that's, you know, I like, you know, reading and learning about that too. And that's why we don't, you know, I always say a garden wants to grow or garden wants to give. 

All we have to do is help it along. Like we don't need to rescue it because Mother Nature has taught these plants how to grow. We just kind of, you know, help them along. We don't have to over complicate it. 

So we have listener questions today. A common question that we both get, you know, at the farm when we're meeting people is people say, what should I plant in the fall? And, you know, from knowing you, I know your answer is always start with what you like. 

Is that fair enough to say? Very fair. I mean, what's the point of growing something you're not going to eat? You're wasting time, you're wasting energy, you're wasting space. Grow what you like. And you can get fooled into thinking you need six varieties of lettuce, you know, long radishes with like tap roots, grow more like carrots, you need the watermelon. 

You're right. just pick a couple of things if you're getting started. One variety of radish, a romaine, maybe some arugula. See how it goes. You don't have to get super fancy with everything. And again, take notes and see how it goes. 

You're gonna learn more. Like every year, there's a new vegetable I learned about and I might give it a try. Some of them stay, some of them are God awful. Like I'm like, no wonder I didn't know about it. 

It's the worst tasting thing ever. I don't want to eat this or grow it. But we can get caught into that swirl of we gotta grow all these different things. People ask me a lot of times too and you kind of answered it a little bit when you talked about the mescaline mixes or just cutting leaves. 

How closely should I plant my lettuces? I see so much information that tells me I should be this close or that close. What's your recommendation on that? Know your plants. do your research on the plant and that means the actual variety because some varieties are going to grow to a different height width than others and at the end of the day you're trying to make sure that that plant has enough space to get to its maximum mature height and width. 

So if it's, you know, a crisp head is generally what six inches in diameter seven if you will. So I know at least that I'm going to space my crisp head lettuce seeds in enough space so that that can happen as the leaves take on growth. 

In the beginning it's going to look like everything is spaced way too far apart and there's more room. Don't be fooled, chill out, let that plant really start to take on its growth and you'll see how quickly it begins to take into that space. 

And you, full mature heads like you said anywhere because exactly what you described four inches apart, six inches apart, eight inches apart depending on what you're growing. You know, romaine grows straight up in there. 

That's why I like growing it because you can give that maybe four to six inches and still get these beautiful, you know, loose heads of lettuce. If you want to grow more for like cut and come again lettuce, you can just sprinkle them down in a row, you know, letting them fall half an inch from each other. 

But you do have to come and then cut them when they're like what an inch, two, three inches tall because you don't want them to mature to the full size. So you're kind of growing it in a different way and you cut off the leaves, leave the roots in the ground and it keeps coming back with new leaves versus the spacing for mature heads. 

I used to love the cut and come again. Now I want full heads of lettuce, you know, or almost full. Like I might pick a romaine when it's half its size. Another trick that I do is I could do romaine like every three inches, but then I thin out the crop like when I have a partially formed head. 

So I remove one out and the net will leave six inches between. So I'm able to eat lettuce. you over a longer period of time and then I'm leaving some behind with more space to get to a full head. And don't be fooled in the grocery store when you're buying like a bagged mix or a container mix and it's like baby greens. 

Okay, that's exactly what it is. It's the plant grown to a third of its maturity and then harvested. So you could have baby spinach, you could have baby romaine, you could have baby. It doesn't matter. 

You can actually kind of pick it when you want to if you want the smaller leaves. One of my favorite romaine is the little gem. It's like it grows what four inches tall. I love them. They're compact. 

They're super cute. They're great for your sandwich because they're not all big. But with the larger heads of romaine, you typically have to cut that leaf in half in order for it to fit on your sandwich. 

But I think that they're sturdy. They're really great for grilling as well. Romaine's have a nice. sturdy structure to them so they can take up to a little bit of char on the grill for just a few minutes and who doesn't love a grilled Caesar? 

It's one of my favorite is to you know really split ahead of romaine grill it real quick. I tend to recommend some people put oil on first and then the oil catches on fire and smokes and wrecks the flavor. 

I have I heat up actually some olive oil on the grill with some garlic and then after you know you give it a quick grill I pour that right across the top and it's absolutely you know delicious. Oh wait till we make garlic oil. 

So question number three I actually have four even though the section is called three listeners questions why do you keep saying plant in succession what exactly is that do you want to tackle that one? 

It just means planting in interrooms if you will so if I wanted to put out my first row of radishes I'm going to maybe put 12 that 12 sees out and in another seven to ten days I'll put another 12 and then another seven to ten days after that I'll put another 12 so that I'm not getting 36 radishes all at once I'm getting 12 a week or so so it just allows you to manage your harvest over time so that you're not inundated with a whole bunch at once. 

That and that makes a big difference and you actually said 12 usually I'm planting like 20 30 or 40 in succession and that's still too much just listening to you I'm like oh you're still planting too much Gary but that's another strategy is that the new gardener or even the season gardener since I've been doing this for so long is just the seeds look small but you got to keep in mind how much are you really good to get after that and then the final question is what's ok in full cool crops, which I thought was a great answer, was a great question. 

We'll say if the answer is great. So you were saying before, when you're planting in the spring, the ground is cold and the seeds don't germinate as quick. And therefore, it could be weeks before a seed germinates. 

When you're planting into this warm summer soil, the seeds germinate really in like three days or four days. They accelerate their growth, they really get going. So planting in the spring, sometimes we're doing transplants, like we're doing transplants for lettuce, because a seed sitting at 45 degree temperature may just sit for three weeks and you think it's not gonna germinate. 

Drop a lettuce seed in the ground today, it's gonna germinate in four days. So the speed of germination, the speed of growth really makes a difference. And then the last thing I wanna add to that is because it's been warm, every bug in the world is out. 

Aphids. Chewing caterpillars snails and slugs Are around so I would prep your growing area with snail and slug bait that has like iron phosphate in it or sulfur bait in it you can find them online and just a week before you loosely scatter the baits around and That will kill off the snails and slugs if not Summer into fall a lot of your early seedlings just get devastated by pests Yeah, it's a real thing and at that slug bait I gotta tell you it's very effective And it doesn't take much as a few droplets and it really does help to control them so they stop putting holes in your leaves Social media you want to let people know where they can find you and see what you're doing You can find me at adesha girl on Instagram. 

That's e -d -e -s -i -a -g -u -r -l Will you tell people what adesha stands for so adesha is Near and dear to my heart She is a goddess of food and community and as I was trying to develop a name for my company I really wanted it to mean something really special to me and I am in the streets as much as I can spreading the good news about food and about You know the value of it being local and delicious and spending time around it that I just felt like I embody this goddess Energy and decided to go with adesha girl as my name and I love it I think that's perfect. 

I have a book called the modern homestead garden growing self -sufficiency in any size backyard Which is a long title, but I really love it the longer that it's out the more I really appreciate What the book provides to people? 

It's a real easy way for people to get into gardening and not feel like they have to be perfect and know everything I also have another book coming out in November so it can be pre -ordered now called growing in edible landscape How to transform your outdoor space into a food garden, which does go over basic gardening So if you're just getting started, but it's just a different way to look at your property and be like, why do I want this ornamental bush that the builder stuck here that does nothing? 

Why do I want all this lawn? Some lawn is good. What else can I be growing that I can actually eat and use in the kitchen? And which could be a handful of herbs. So I'm very excited for that book to come out. 

I have a YouTube channel called the Rusted Garden with over 1600 short to the point videos. So you can kind of get some help if you're just getting started. Check out the Rusted Garden and that's R -U -S -T -E -D. 

A lot of people think I say rustic, but it's the Rusted Garden. Cause I leave my tools out. They rust all the time. But really all he's for it. They are literally rusted tools in the garden. Yeah. They become part of the decoration after they're rusted. 

I just kind of leave them out there and that's what it is. And then you can find me on Instagram, other places. You can find our podcast obviously, but I'll put all of our stuff in a podcast description. 

Let's finish up. I noticed that we skipped over spinach. I wanted to talk about that with lettuce. What's your favorite way to really prep and use spinach? Then we'll talk about growing it. So the greener, the better. 

So obviously spinach is so super green. I love, love, love, love green greens. And honestly, if I'm eating my greens for the nutrition of them, I'm not gonna cook them very long. A simple saute with some garlic oil is my favorite way to go with spinach, remove a little crushed red pepper in there. 

But I do love a good quiche. And spinach in my quiche is my ultimate favorite. So I'm always doing quiches. I do them in my smoothies for sure, especially as we're transitioning from late spring into summer. 

Best green ever for my green smoothies. And then just wilted into soup. I love making a straht te te la soup. It is basically like chicken broth and some egg. Imagine like an Italian egg drop soup. At the very end, once I've turned it off the heat, I just drop a few leaves of spinach in there and you let it wilt down. 

The warmth of the liquid is gonna cook that green down a little bit and then I just eat it straight like that. Slurpy good. Now that's what I use spinach for. And I wasn't even thinking about talking about that. 

When I'm finishing a soup, doesn't matter what it is, after the simmering's done and all that kind of stuff, that's when I chop up some spinach and I put it in there because you don't want it to be cooked away to oblivion. 

Unless you're having a pinning of the Indian dish that I love that where they do polarized spinach into almost looks like spinach jam, but it's so good. But spinach is such a delicate leaf that depending on the variety, you definitely don't wanna over anything to it because it'll just turn into nothingness. 

And if spinach, you know, like lettuce, I mean you can't, you gotta eat it. But spinach you can freeze it, especially if you're gonna be using it for smoothies and stuff like that. So you can grow more than you need. 

Of course when it defrosts, it's gonna be, you know, soft and all broken up, but you can still use it. I mean, and I think it's delicious. I think it has a really nice sweet taste to it. The plant that I like growing is, of course I just forgot the name, Bloomsdale longstanding, from spring into summer, because it doesn't bolt as quick, from fall into, I'm sorry, from summer into fall and even through the winter, because here in Maryland, spinach can actually really take harsh ground freezes. 

I like growing the giant noble. It's just these massive large leaves, nice stems, nice to chop up, put in, I just put them into scrambled eggs, put them into your soups. Spinach I think is a must grow. 

That can take, depending on the variety, you know, with the speed of germination. 50 days, but really like 50 to 75 days. But it's one of the leafy greens that can take more of a deeper freeze and prolonged frost. 

So it's great to have in your garden. Speaking of germination, I often spinach can be a little tricky getting it up and going, especially in the spring. But do you find that germination is a little bit, takes a little bit longer than your other leafy green vegetables? 

I do. And I find it takes longer in the summer because they know that the soil is too warm in some way. There's chemical compounds that change when temperatures change and stuff like that that help with germination. 

We won't get into that today. But if you put your spinach in now, just putting some sort of shade structure over it, really is gonna help it germinate quicker. And you really do wanna keep the soil moist. 

Let that water get in because that seeds a little bit harder than other seeds. Let it absorb the water. Once it absorbs water, that's what kinda triggers the whole germination process. Combination of good watering, some shade to cool the soil, will get your spinach off to a great start. 

Do you like peas? Yes. We talked about that last episode, the shelling peas. I mean, that reminded me because what I wrote down here is, you might consider peas nature's candy. I would agree. And fresh picked peas versus grocery store packaged potted peas and plastic wrap, it's no comparison. 

You just don't have that candy sweetness that you talked about before. I've become a greater fan of the shelling peas, like you were just saying, where you get eight, 10, 12, even 14 peas per pod. You can't eat the pod. 

But they're delicious, thrown in at the end for soups, just pop the peas out, raw and salads. And having the pea itself is a little bit bit different than having like 10 edible pee pods like the snow peas or the snap peas or whatever. 

I think the sweetness is better. If you can get them into the kitchen, I love to do a very quick quick quick sauté with a little bit of sweet butter and then smash them and put that over some crusty bread, a little bit of butter coming over, you got some peas, just smash them real quick, a little bit of heat and then make that a beautiful appetizer to share with your guests. 

That's quick and easy. That sounds delicious. I mean I love just French bread sliced, crisp up, maybe garlic oil on there. And are you saying take the actual peas themselves, you know warm them through, whatever, sauté, smash them. 

This way they don't roll off your piece of bread. And that sounds wonderful. I think I'm gonna do that. Or add like some bacon or pancetta to it. Like, I mean, you can get, you know, GP kind of calls my fancy sometimes food. 

And I'm really not like, I like simple basic food, but I just get excited about all the things that you can do with it with a little bit of out of the box thinking and it's encourage. It's your passion. 

And that's, you know, what we want to convey to people. It's not so much our passion, but for them to discover their passion. Cause once you get growing and once you get cooking, you're gonna, and maybe you don't like it. 

I haven't really found that yet with people. They usually do like it. It just takes off exponentially. And you discover a whole new world. And I think life is a little bit better when you grow your own food and you do a lot of cooking. 

Agreed. I'm just checking over. We covered a lot today. I do want to check one thing, peas. The pea plant itself can take a frost. The leaves, the stems, the stems are hollow by the way. So you have to support them when you're growing them. 

But the flowers and the pods can't. So if you get a long enough frost that day, or you know, it's, you know, maybe in the lower 20s, it can damage the flowers and the pea pods. They just end up rubbery. 

They don't spring back like we were talking about. But the pea tendrils are absolutely delicious. And if you have a short season and maybe the pods aren't good to form, you can grow a hundred peas and you can harvest all the tendrils. 

You can lightly saute them, put them in scrambled eggs. You can mix them into salads. I think they would be great on toast because they're really tender, but they carry the sweet pea flavor. You know, through the leaves, which a lot of people don't know. 

So there's a lot of different ways you can, you know. use the pea plant. And the pea nutrition, like it's think about that like micro, I'm gonna call it a micro pea if you will, but that nutrition is so concentrated as it's starting to you know mature, getting them early, put them on top of your tuna salad sandwich instead of lettuce done deal. 

Oh yeah that would be wonderful. Or use it like lettuce yeah in your sandwiches for sure. Again learn something new. I'm gonna be growing, I have peas in the ground already for the pods and all that kind of stuff, but I'm gonna be just and when you're growing just for the tendrils, the seeds can, you can scatter them, they can like fall half an inch next to each other, let them just grow together and support each other and you go out there and you have 50 seeds that you scattered down, you're gonna get a lot of greens out of there that you can use and they're gonna stay pretty hardy through a lot of the frost. 

Any last yeah makes me think about okay so when we start getting into it's like December and it's cold and there's nothing that we can grow outside, you could do that inside, you could take them peas and just make yourself a cute little tray and grow them in your window or under a light and still get that delicious pea flavor and nutrition even in the dead of winter. 

Well, maybe like it's come January or something, we can talk about what you can grow indoors because I've grown tiny Tim tomatoes so that you can get your cherry tomatoes. I have grown peas before and they've grown a different way. 

Even if it's dark, you get this non -green pea shoots that you can actually cut neat. So there is a lot that you can do just to kind of, get yourself at least a Maryland through that late December, what, early February when you can't really get much out into the ground. 

Any other thoughts on what we talked about today? I would say go get yourself some season, get going. Just do it. Be with us. And I would say go ahead and get your first stock pot because we are gonna be talking about soups down the line, using everything that's out in the garden, different herbs and just making a great stock. 

And then also we'll be talking about making soups, which today I thought you did a great job really explaining food without a visual. So I think we're gonna be able to talk about soups and cooking and do pretty good on the podcast. 

Of course, down the line, you're gonna have reels on Instagram, you'll have videos and stuff like that and we'll direct people to kind of see what we're talking about in cooking, but I think it's gonna be a lot of fun doing the Homestead podcast with you and really having that cooking piece brought into here. 

One of the things that people tell me is they got growing down, but they don't know what to do with all the produce. So that's what we're gonna teach you on this podcast. Please visit my seed shop at therustedgarden .com. 

You can find all the seeds that you need there. And again, you wanna throw out your social media. Addijagirl on Instagram, E -D -E -S -I -A -G -U -R -L. I also have a website, same thing, adijagirl .com. 

Thanks so much for listening. Good luck in your gardens. And remember, it's okay to start small, grow a little bit, get digging, same thing with cooking. Just get started, see how it goes, and I think you're gonna have a wonderful journey. 

Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. Take car