Ask the Expert: Vegetable Gardening

Get ready for a successful season growing vegetables. Discuss common vegetables grown in this region and their basic needs. Join Jeff Jabco, Director of Grounds and Coordinator of Horticulture at Swarthmore College.

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hi everybody my name is Katie Theriot I
am part of the membership division here
at Longwood Gardens thank you for
joining us for ask-an-expert this is a
new series of conversations with
Longwood’s network of experts and
thought leaders from around the region
as well as around the globe and we are
going to be exclusively answering
members questions on a range of home
gardening topics so this is our very
first this is also our very first
virtual member appreciation week and we
are bringing you our members a variety
of unique and distinctive online
offerings so with the holiday weekend
approaching we are kicking off the
summer season and hoping for a bountiful
vegetable garden season as well or if
you’re like me you’re thinking about
where to start if you’re planting for
the first time so joining us today to
answer your questions at home is Geoff
Jacko he is the director of grounds and
coordinator of horticulture for Scott
Arboretum it’s Westmore College Geoff is
also an instructor in botany for a long
whit’s certificate of a merit program
and he’s also an instructor in our
professional horticulture program Geoff
it’s a pleasure to have you and thank
you for joining us thanks Katie I’m glad
to be here
so Geoff and I both have received dozens
of viewer vegetable gardening questions
and we’re hoping to cover as much as
possible in the next 30 minutes we have
also enabled the Q&A function so you can
submit your questions to us during the
session and and it’s possible we will
get to them but it’s also possibility
what we did actually get a lot of
questions but this event is also being
recorded and we will be sharing the
recording on our website after it is
over so you can watch a warm at your
leisure after so Geoff people are
spending a lot more time at home these
days and a lot of people are tying us
they’re trying out vegetable gardening
for the first time so our first question
is for the newbies and this question
comes from Alexa in Elkton Maryland and
Tina and need more Pennsylvania how
would you go about starting a vegetable
garden and what suggestions do you have
for first-time vegetable gardener
well first off I want to encourage the
folks that are want to try vegetable
gardening for the first
time and you know you’re gonna have some
successes you’re gonna have a few
failures but there are some very easy
ways to get started you really need to
think about what space you have in order
to vegetable garden we can talk a little
bit about containers later on but if you
do have space you know whether it’s in a
community garden plot or at your own
home or a bit of a courtyard or
something like that probably the most
important thing to consider is how much
sunlight do you get the majority of
vegetables that we grow or that you
would want to grow really require lots
of Sun so you know full based Sun I
would say a minimum of half based Sun so
just say for instance that you have Sun
all morning until very early afternoon
and then it’s the shade of a tree later
on through the afternoon that’s probably
fine so you really should have at least
half a day of Sun there are some options
in the early spring for planting some
vegetables and places that are going to
be shaded later on yeah once the leaves
when the trees start to really fill in
and shade underneath there are some very
early very early season things that you
could grow like if you wanted to
transplant lettuce around you where
you’d start your transplants inside get
them planted outside as soon as you can
in the spring and then be harvesting the
lettuce and then once the leaves in the
trees start to come out and starts
getting too shady you’re pretty much
finished up with harvesting that lettuce
but so sunlight is very very important
the other thing is to consider where you
have your vegetable garden try to pick a
site where you don’t have competition
with tree roots because you know if your
vegetable gardening in an area and tree
roots are there and I don’t mean just
under the tree but remember the roots
for a mature tree are going to extend
well beyond the area that is shaded by
the canopy of the tree so if the tree
roots are coming in they are going to
come over into your vegetable garden
because usually you’re going to be
working on the soil so it’s going to
have good tools a good amount of organic
matter in it all those things that tree
roots for one so even though the roots
might not be there in the first year
once you prepare the site it will be and
excessive years so try to stay away from
tree roots like that you need to
consider you other things about soil
which we can talk about a little bit
later on but you do need to prepare the
site and usually that means if it’s a
grassy of turf area you need to turn
that over or strip off the sod and then
work on the soil to get started with
that the other thing at this time of
year you’re probably thinking of what
about timing what should I grow at this
time of year well you know the vegetable
seed catalogs are a great resource for
that also and they’ll tell you or even
on the packets of the seeds if you go
and you’re looking at any kind of seed
packet it will tell you when you should
be planting that for your area and it’s
really based on for whether those crops
can handle cool temperatures or late
season frost or whether they are a warm
season crop and here in our area of
southeastern Pennsylvania usually we
figure by the second week of May we
typically don’t have any more killing
frost now we’re still can have cool
temperatures and we experienced some of
those last weekend where we really had
some cool temperatures
you’ll be at temperatures down in the
upper 30s and low 40s well a lot of the
warm season crops don’t like
temperatures that cold so when planting
very early in the spring and you can be
starting to plant seed out in the
vegetable garden by March 15 just so the
soil is dry enough and at that time you
can be planting peas and you can put in
onion sets garlic heads you could have
put in the fall before or planted in a
spring lettuce is a good early season
crop spinach is another good early
season crop Swiss chard all of those
things you can plant very early from
seed and put out into the garden getting
seeded you know as I say in March even
through April most of those crops I was
just listing especially like lettuce and
spinach and some things like that they
really don’t like the hot weather so the
idea is you plant them as soon as you
can in the spring then you’re harvesting
through the spring and by the
you get into really hot weather in mid
to late June that crop is finishing up
if you’ve ever tried to grow lettuce
that’s the time when the the lettuce
would start to bolt meaning it begins to
send up a flower stalk and the leaves
get tough and they start getting bitter
so you really don’t want to be picking
after that time so you know but at this
time of year now we are in May this is a
time we can be setting out transplants
or warmer season crops so you can think
about what you want to grow from seed
what you want to grow from transplants
and so that’s a little bit about ways to
really start thinking about how you want
to garden to begin with and then once
that I would say probably you’d think of
sunlight in a site the other most
important thing for you as a vegetable
gardener what do you like to eat it
makes no sense to be growing Swiss chard
if you and your family hate Swiss chard
it’s a very pretty plant but if you’re
not going to eat it why grow it why
devote the space to it in your vegetable
garden really grow something that you
want to eat and I’ll talk a little bit
later on about some of my favorite crops
and why they are and some very very easy
ones for beginners to get started with
so if you don’t like beets
don’t plant beets right exactly actually
beets are one of my favorite crops and I
can’t wait to get fresh beets from the
garden if you think that you don’t like
beets try some fresh picked from the
garden and it might change your mind too
great
so our next question comes from Darby
and media and also Marcia and Edison New
Jersey
um do certain vegetables do better than
others and pots what’s the difference
between growing in a pot versus growing
in a bed and are there any vegetables
that can be planted vertically if you’re
working with a smaller space okay
alright well a couple of good questions
there so growing in pots or container
gardening I would say that there would
they grow better in containers than in
good garden soil I would say it all
depends on your site I personally I
prefer growing the majority of my
vegetables in in the garden in soil for
one thing it is easier to care for if
you’re going to be growing something any
container you
might have to be watering that once
twice even three times a day and really
hot weather because a container is going
to dry out faster than your average
garden soil you know in your typical
garden even in hot weather in the summer
if you really water that well but one
day it should last that way for a couple
of days well a container as I said you
might have to water at two or three
times a day but it does give you some
opportunity if you don’t have this space
and you just have a patio or you have a
deck or a balcony so you have to grow in
containers well certainly do that and
usually what we think of for growing in
a container is something where you can
get a lot of production in a really
small space so there are three crops
that I can think of that most
prominently do very very well in
containers tomatoes eggplant and peppers
any kind of peppers sweet bell peppers
hot peppers
you know the ornamental peppers anything
like that so those are three crops that
all like warmer temperatures so you know
you would have started these from seed
about eight weeks ago or six weeks ago
or you’re buying transplants now at the
garden center and you could get them
established in your containers right now
other things that would do well in
containers any of the space saver or
Bush types of squash so whether it is
zucchini squash or a summer squash or
winter squash or the more compact types
of cucumbers any of those they all like
warm weather so they would just be being
planted out now but they do really
really well in containers the important
thing is you don’t use your your regular
garden soil you wouldn’t go out and dig
up soil from your flowerbed or your
vegetable garden to put in a container
you need to use a light mix that is free
well draining next because you know your
heavier soil just does not do well in a
container for plants to grow that way
because it’s going to limit the amount
of airspace in the container so you need
to use a mix you know usually
it’s like a a good mix like they would
be using in floral crops growing them in
containers in a greenhouse I would start
with fresh soil there are some people
that do a mix of using some sand and
their own compost and a bit of garden
soil well the other things help to
loosen that soil up so you could do that
make sure you pay attention to the
watering and also you need to be
fertilizing in some way because these
artificial mixes they don’t hold on to
the nutrients like your average garden
soil would so you can use organic
fertilizers near the slope a granular or
a liquid organic fertilizer and you
would probably need to be doing that
every few days or certainly weekly if
you’re growing in a container so it
takes a little bit more daily care if
you’re growing something in a container
than if you are in garden soil and then
the other part of that what about
planting vertically well I mean the
first things that come to my mind are
cucumbers and runner beans so the
binding type of beans also peas but peas
you would have needed to start from seed
already they should have been planted in
march or very early April
once again they don’t like our heat and
they’ll just stop flowering and
producing when we get into hot
temperatures usually late May and June
so that’s something we’d started earlier
but for the summer you could do
cucumbers you could do the climbing
beans or pull beans or runner beans you
could also do some squash some of the
smaller type of squash now you don’t
want to do a squash that’s really really
large because it’s just gonna be too
heavy and it’s probably going to pull
pull the bind down off of the trellis
but smaller types of squash would be
fine like a delicata or some things like
that
great and then just thinking about space
– for those who have raised beds or who
are thinking about raised beds what
considerations should be made to prepare
those ok well yeah forth raised beds
it’s kind of similar to if you’re
thinking about a container because you
are raising that soil up it is actually
going to drain faster and usually if you
have a raised bed you’re putting in a
special mix of soil in that I I kind of
go back and forth for myself about using
raised beds it gives you more control
over the soil that you’re gardening in
so if your soil is just absolutely no
good at all or for urban gardeners where
they’re using an abandoned city lot
where there is no soil it’s just fill
from whatever was there before then they
would build a raised bed and then fill
it with a good mix of garden soil mixed
with compost ok so so basically they’re
gardening in that soil they’re not
gardening and what is underneath for the
site or if you’re growing in an area
where the soil is very very poorly
drained ok if you raise the bed up once
again you’re going to be increasing the
drainage so you’re not growing
vegetables and water long soil and
remember in dry weather that’s going to
be drawing out faster than the
surrounding water usually in a raised
bed you grow because it’s usually a
smaller space you grow things more
intensively so you really need to be
thinking about how close to space your
vegetables how close you can really pack
them in there to get the most production
in a small space but then also you need
to think about succession sowing so you
know you’re planning your Latta is
starting in late March and you’re
harvesting that now and you’re thinking
that’s going to finish up here by the
end of May or early June what crops do
you plant next to continue to the summer
and then is there something else you
want to put in the fall so you really
have to think about this kind of success
of selling to be really productive in a
small space for raised beds but raised
beds and containers you know really
sunlight is key any of those you need to
put
they’re going to get at least a half a
day of Sun to be most successful for it
drainage is usually much better I said
you’re going to modify your soil and in
a raised bed really you can grow any
type of vegetable plant like you would
be growing in a regular garden soil you
probably don’t want to be growing
something that takes a lot of space for
a small amount of production like I
would probably Necker never recommend
anyone to be growing sweet corn in a
raised bed you know sweet corn for the
number of ears you get it takes up quite
a bit of space in the garden so if it’s
a really small vegetable garden it’s
really hard to get a lot of production
where if you grow something like
tomatoes or zucchini or cucumbers you
can get a lot more production per square
foot than you would for a crop like
sweet corn so those are the types of
things that normally you’d be growing in
a raised bed or a container type of
situation great and then last question
about getting started and then we will
move into some vegetable specific
questions we’ve had a lot of questions
about tomatoes so we will get there how
do you keep the critters out so thinking
about ones in this area so dear or
groundhogs Chipmunks or roundest okay
yeah all of those none of those are
friends to people who vegetable garden
and if you are in an area where you have
any of those kinds of problems the the
best thing and all that I can really say
the thing it’s totally effective is
fencing new unfortunately fencing is
what you need so if you are an area
where there’s white-tailed deer and you
have heavy pressure of that you know you
need a high fence around your vegetable
garden because you know a three-foot
fence they’re going to jump right over
to get into your vegetable garden
because it’s also I mean it’s some
vegetables it’s the type of thing they
would much rather be eating rather than
your hostas or your turf grass or
something else outside of the fence so
they really want that kind of stuff so
if you have a deer problem you need a
relatively high fence and there are lots
of plans you can get online about deer
fencing and how high it needs to be some
folks say it needs to be a minimum of
six to eight feet high to really exclude
the deer if you have a problem with
groundhogs or round
it’s the easiest thing for that you
could go a relatively low fence so
offense you’re just three feet high is
enough to keep them out make sure that
the grid or the spacing of the wire is
small enough so that rabbits can’t go
through
it’s amazing how small of a space they
can fit in so I would probably go with
something not more than maybe 2×2 inch
square
to keep out the rabbits if from down in
lower part Chipmunks can kind of climb
through anything but if it’s small mesh
on the bottom typically they were going
to be running around the ground and then
usually with vegetables you don’t have
too much of a problem with birds if
you’re growing small fruit crops like
strawberries or blackberries or
blueberries then birds can be a problem
and usually you do some type of netting
over top or completely surrounding them
so like have your fruit in a modified
cage with netting that lets the light
come through so there’s black nylon
letting netting where space is about one
inch in diameter and that will let lots
of sunlight through but it’s enough to
keep the birds out great and so in
thinking about your soil and I think
particularly we did get a lot of
questions about both standard amendments
for soil but also in testing the soil
for and adjusting the pH so in thinking
especially about tomatoes which I think
need to be more on the acidic their soil
needs to be more on the acidic side how
do you bring it down if your soil pH is
on the higher end okay well let’s just
start about soils in general so for a
vegetable garden soil you really want
something has its good topsoil
it has good tilth meaning that it has
enough of organic matter in it and most
times if you’ve been gardening is in the
same spot for a while you need to add
more organic matter how do you do that
you can use cover crops until it in you
can incorporate compost you can compost
leaves in the fall and turn them into
into it you can get composted mushroom
compost make sure it’s well aged and
well weathered
and usually we have a great supply of
that in our area you can even yo use
straw or grass clippings or composted
wood chips any of those things like that
make sure that it is composted before
you mix it into your soil also just the
process of using a mulch between rows in
a vegetable garden so say you would
mulch with straw not not pay but with
straw that straw will gradually break
down and then adds organic matter into
the soil so that’s a really important
thing about adding that pH for a
vegetable garden typically you want to
be between six point zero and seven so
it’s just slightly to the acidic side of
neutral now soils in our area typically
are the pH is too low so usually what we
have to do is we have to add pulverized
limestone or ground limestone into that
soil and that will help help to raise
the pH so I would say very few people
probably have a problem with higher pH
if your pH is above seven and you need
to lower it then typically we would add
elemental sulfur to that and both of
these you can buy at garden centers the
best way to find out what your soil
lacks is to have a soil test done and
Cooperative Extension services in each
of our state’s in Pennsylvania Maryland
Delaware and New Jersey they all have
testing services through the Cooperative
Extension Service and they can test your
soil you tell them is for vegetable
gardening they will give you a
recommendation for what you need to do
to adjust the pH but also they will tell
you what major nutrients that you might
be low in where you need to add
amendments to your soil in order to do
that usually once you get your soil
adjusted to begin with it’s just a
process of maintaining that and over
years if you started with an acidic soil
is going to tend to go acidic again so
you’ll have to add lime probably every
three to five years and you end you can
supply your nutrient requirement by
adding in compost every year or turning
over a cover crop that type of thing and
then along those lines and in West Grove
wanted to note is planning an eggshell
with tomato plant increases yield well I
wouldn’t say it’s just going to
necessarily increase its yield what
you’re doing what’s an in egg shell an
egg shell is made up of calcium that’s
what makes up egg shell so what is
limestone limestone is calcium so as
that egg shell breaks down which it
doesn’t do very very easily if any of
you ever tried to come throw your egg
shells in your compost you know even
after your compost has gone through a
process for a year you can still find
big pieces of eggshell in there so it’s
something that over time that eggshell
will break down and it will be a source
of calcium in your soil and tomatoes do
need to have good calcium in the soil so
once again a soil test will tell you
your level of calcium and whether you
need to add that eggshells will help but
it might not be the only amount of
calcium debt the tomatoes need you might
have to rely on some limestone also
great and then we’ve gotten a lot of
questions about that how do you control
for certain pests or diseases with
tomatoes so thinking about early blight
or spotting on the leaves splitting
things like that yep so usually when
you’re growing tomatoes a couple things
to consider are you growing a hybrid
tomato or are you growing an heirloom
tomato
so heirloom tomatoes they are delicious
they’re beautiful I really love them I
have a very small vegetable garden and I
don’t have a whole lot of space where I
can rotate crops the idea with rotating
crops is anything that we say is this
solanaceous crop so that would be things
like tomatoes potatoes eggplant peppers
you should not grow in the same spot
every year you should move them to a
different spot in the garden because the
diseases that affect them can build up
in the soil and then they can affect
that same group of plants the next year
so plant them in different areas I don’t
have enough space in my vegetable garden
to be able to do that because in summer
my vegetable garden is probably 3/4
tomatoes and squash and
okay so so the best thing to do that and
unfortunately heirloom tomatoes
typically don’t give you the resistance
to those diseases that are carried
through the soil like that it’s
especially a Fusarium and verticillium
so those are both two problems that last
in the soil but there are many many
hybrid varieties so basically selections
of tomatoes where they have been bred
and for disease resistance so if you
read on the seed packet or you read in
the description and the vegetable
catalog or on the internet it will tell
you about that they are Fusarium
resistant or verticillium resistant or
if they don’t get the blight problem the
blight problem is a fungal problem that
affects the foliage later on in the
season so usually in by midsummer you’ll
see that the foliage will start getting
brown spots when it begins turning
yellow it usually starts from the lower
leaves and just progresses up so it
might be that you just have a few leaves
at the top or green and everything else
is blighted as the vegetable gardeners
would say there are varieties of
tomatoes that are resistant to that so
what you need to do is you need to space
out your Tomatoes so that they could get
good air movement through it if you have
had a problem with blight before row
certainly try to grow resistant
varieties as much as you can and also by
training your Tomatoes so you train them
up Stakes or training trellises or
fences or tomato cages or even doing
some pruning and thinning out so you can
get air movement through the tomatoes
all of that is a really really good way
to minimize the amount of disease that
you get but another thing with tomatoes
is you need to do even watering you know
typically in summer will have a hot dry
spell and then will get heavy
thundershowers it’ll be really wet for a
while then it gets dry again when you
have that fluctuating amount of water
available in the soil it leads to a
problem is called blossom end rot so on
the fruit of the tomato the very bottom
will turn black and it might affect a
big part of the
of the tomato and sometimes it’s called
cat facing if you look at it it’s all
kind of misshapen fruit that’s basically
due to a calcium deficiency that the
plants not getting to calcium in a soil
and it’s because the soil has been
allowed to dry and get wet and then dry
and get wet so you need to have an even
moisture so you do that by regular
regular irrigation or you can do that by
applying a mulch underneath the plants
it will help to even out that moisture
in a soil so you don’t lose so much for
evaporation so those are just a couple
of my points about tomatoes great and
then best practices for growing zucchini
another popular one in our area and then
specifically how do you control from
mildew so powdery mildew or down yeah
the mildew problems well it’s not just
sue Keaney but it’s kind of all the
squash whether you’re growing pumpkins
or ornamental gourds or summer squash or
the winter squashes cucumbers all of
those things can get the mildew problem
the the best thing to do that is in
really a lot of it depends on the
weather season that we are having that
year so sometimes you just don’t have an
option for it I never recommend spraying
insecticides or fungicides in the
vegetable garden commercially you know
some of the fruits and vegetables you
buy they have been sprayed but I think
as vegetable gardeners the best thing to
do is research and get the best
varieties possible that are disease
resistant that you can grow make sure
that they get good Sun so the foliage
can dry off don’t crowd things too much
so you don’t wedge your vegetables in
between big shrubs on both sides it’s
just going to stop air movement from
growing around it when you are starting
to grow a zucchinis or something like
that many times they say in the
vegetable garden about planting Hills of
them so you have several seeds in a hill
and then four to six feet away you’re
going to do another grouping of them if
they say thin the each hill to three or
four plants don’t keep ten or twelve
plants there they’re just growing too
close together there’s
enough of air movement and space between
them and they’re going to be more likely
coming down with a mildew problem all
that said and done in some years when we
have hot wet weather some spell in the
summer plants are just much more prone
to getting mildew so get your plant
started as early in the season as
possible but the soil needs to be warm
for all of those squash and cucumbers
and all of that type of thing so don’t
be planting them in late June and early
July because you’re just planting then
at the peak of mildew season for them
August is really a time when you would
you know late July and August is when
you really begin to see mildew take its
effect in the garden and if you get
mildew too bad trying to take those
plants out and put it in a fall crop
that’s what you should be putting out
your kale transplant or your things or
put in your autumn lettuces and things
like that things that you want to extend
a season all the way into frost and
freeze because kale and lettuce it
doesn’t matter if you’re starting
getting frost in October they can handle
that
so you can always look to the next
season as writers that’s right that’s
right or the next crop to put in great
we have a couple more questions and then
we will wrap up so thinking about basil
also another one easy to grow and
popular and what’s the best way to grow
basil
you know basil and tomatoes and
everything that is my you know in
cucumbers there’s more like my three
favorite summer things to grow basil the
big problem we’ve had with basil the
past several years is downy mildew so
downy mildew powdery mildew is gonna be
on the upper surface of the leaf and it
all just looks like it’s sprinkled with
talcum powder okay downy mildew is going
to be on the underside of the leaf and
so it affects there and if you look at
it on the underside you kind of see a
white or gray fuzz on the bottom but
what you start seeing on the upper
surface is the leaf is going to start
turning yellow and kind of a mottled way
and then the leaves just drop off the
plant well that’s what you’re growing
basil for you want those leaves so it
kind of defeats the whole purpose there
are a couple of new varieties of basil
which come out
from Rutgers University over in New
Jersey and I would say look for those
now I think just up until the last
couple of years was just available from
seed and I know a couple of the big seed
companies were selling these disease
resistant Basil’s and I have seen them
available as vegetable transplants this
year at some of the nurseries and garden
centers so I would if you’ve had a
problem with downy mildew and basil
definitely look for those and I have
here my basil is just beautiful and then
within a week the downy mildew comes in
and all the leaves just drop off within
days or just when you think oh I’m gonna
pick all that and make pesto and freeze
it there you go
it’s not there anymore for you to do
that so definitely look at those and for
my experience some of the other Basil’s
like thyme basil and some of the other
ones like that they will get it but they
don’t get it as quickly as the big
Italian basil like we all like to grow
for pesto or for caprese salad and
things with that – how do you control
fur I know I’ve had this happen to me um
the bitter taste that you sometimes get
when you’re growing basil well if it if
the basil has grown under stress it can
be bitter so if you let it dry out too
much in between waterings if the plant
is stressed like that it can get kind of
bitter also if you let if you let the
stems get too old and the leaves get too
old
you’ll they don’t have bay what you
really want or they’re really nice fully
expand just fully expanded young tender
leaves those are the most flavorful and
they don’t get that bitter or tough
taste to them so you need to be cutting
your basil and when I cut my basil I cut
the stems back hard to where there’s a
pair of leaves down lower and then
you’ll get new shoots come out of that
also when you start seeing a flower
stalk come up on basil cut it off break
it off it off never let that develop
because once that starts to develop the
energy is going into those seeds it’s
going to take it out of the expense of
the leaves and the leaves will just get
kind of woody and not have the good
flavor that
so pick off those flower flower buds
when you start seeing them even before
they fully expand you can see what they
look like and be pruning your basil all
through the season so you always have
good yen young tender shoots coming up
great and I am definitely looking
forward to my own caprese salad
sometimes we have two more questions
left so the first one is about rain
barrel water is it safe to use rain
barrel water for vegetables and perhaps
maybe just say a little bit about what
especially came from Cara and Narberth
Karen and our Birds I’m sorry and Tony
and Westchester so both of them are
either using it or thinking about using
it and then I guess if there’s anything
you can do to treat the water okay well
a so rain barrel water basically is your
collecting rainwater or stormwater from
some source and for many people is
collecting it off of your roof and it
comes down your downspout and then you
kind of have a pipe coming out of your
downspout into a container and barrel
something where you’re collecting that
water rather than letting it run across
the surface of the soil and infiltrate
down into the ground so it’s just a way
of using that rather than water from
your hose from your spigot I would say
it all depends on what the where it’s
coming from if it is coming off of your
roof once that roof is kind of washed
off initially
collecting that rainwater should be fine
if it’s an old roof that basically is a
old rubber membrane or something like
that I would say hmm I probably wouldn’t
want to use that you probably don’t want
to collect water that’s running off of a
parking lot or asphalt area because when
cars park on it or whatever you’re going
to get little patches of petroleum
either from gas or oil and when it rains
that’s going to wash into that water
also now you’re not going to get that on
the roof so you don’t have to be worried
about that but I would not collect water
to be putting in a vegetable garden it
comes off of a driveway or roadway or
something like that but other than that
rain barrels can really work and do fine
so it really if you have a metal roof
that should be fine so
unless your roof is of some material is
beginning to break down it should be
safe to use collected roof water from a
rain barrel for watering the vegetable
garden great and our last question this
is our experts choice question so we did
get a lot of questions out there both
during this session and before in the
registration process so I’m gonna pose a
couple to you and you can pick one to
answer for members so we received
several questions especially about
different crops so specific
specifications for planting shallots
beeps meeting boron keeping cucumber
vines from wilting we’re just supporting
the vines how to get increased asparagus
yield in a patch and when to plant
pumpkins so they don’t ripen too early
how to grow strawberries in a pot lots
of different questions out there ok let
me try to answer a couple of real quick
okay so I won’t expand and I want to
give two secrets to successful vegetable
gardening at the end so just give me
time for that Cady okay so let me just
jump through a couple of these really
quickly strawberries and pots it’s kind
of fun it’s an ornamental thing if you
want to be most productive in your
strawberries that’s not the way to do it
but they look really pretty just don’t
let them dry out I have a strawberry jar
it’ll dry out in half a day so just have
to be really careful with that pumpkins
if you want pumpkins to be having for
Halloween so basically in October do not
plant the seeds in the ground until the
middle until the second to third week of
June okay
many people plant them too early so
they’re right thinning and late August
okay you need to plant them the second
or third week of June good production
and asparagus asparagus needs nitrogen
so either composted manure or an organic
form of nitrogen that’s what they need
and you have to be very very good about
weed control and many times even after
an asparagus patch gets a little too old
it’s just not very productive anymore
you need to start over and get a variety
that is a male-only variety asparagus
are dioecious they have separate male
and female plants
mail plant the energy goes into
producing seed so there are types of
asparagus that are male only and you’ll
have better production over time
cucumber will blink is either due to
mildew or the squash vine borer which
can get into cucumber plants very
difficult to control both of those by
organic methods so you really need to
pay attention to cultural things like we
had already talked about beets and boron
typically that’s not much of an issue in
our areas unless you’re using reclaimed
soil for your vegetable garden or
something so but once again the soil
test will tell you about any issues like
that and shallots you would grow just
like you would grow garlic if you’re
putting out garlic sets in this in the
springtime or onion sets so you buy
shallots individually you plant them in
the spring you’ll get multiple bulbs in
one head out of them and once the top
start to die back there you go that’s
the time to harvest them and store them
grapes right thank you Jeff so I I know
we covered a lot of ground today I dig
my two tips sure yeah okay number one
thing is when you’re selecting Tomatoes
read the description and sometimes you
don’t even see this on a seed packet so
do your research tomatoes are gonna be
listed as being determinate or
indeterminate determinate means that
they’re all going to flower and all the
fruits going to ripen relatively the
same period of time there are a lot of
tomatoes that do that because they want
them to harvest all at one time you know
if a producer is going through the field
wants to be picking tomatoes to be
making tomato sauce they want them all
to ripen at one time ok so you might
want that if you’re making tomato sauce
or paste and so a lot of those types of
tomatoes are determinate or you’re doing
a slicing variety where it’s a
commercial variety indeterminate or
better for home gardeners because the
tomatoes are going to flower and fruit
and continue to grow continue to get
taller for a long period of time so they
could be producing fruit from the middle
of July all the way up until Frost in
October from the one
plan just so you don’t get disease come
in and wipe them out so my advice for
home gardeners look for indeterminate
varieties of tomatoes and my number two
thing is for beginners for anyone if you
do not grow bush beans grow them so I
mean like green beans or string beans
whatever you want to call them or my
favorite the yellow beans that are bush
meaning they only get new 12 to 18
inches high high yield high production a
great crop for kids to grow in addition
to things like beets and lettuce which
are which are kind of you know very very
easy to grow and they’ll get a real kick
out of them but beans are just a
wonderful thing B pick the beans at
least every other day and you could be
picking from that patch of beans for a
couple of weeks and get lots high yield
in a very very small space and if you’ve
never had fresh picked beans I mean
picked within minutes or hours of
picking you know you don’t want to buy
beans from the grocery store or from the
freezer section or from a can ever again
those are my two my two by two hints for
the day great and if you are I mean I’m
now I’m feeling both excited to plant
but also pretty hungry with vegetables
too so if you can’t tell yes so I know
we did as I said we got a lot of
questions and even during this session
we’ve had a lot of questions and if your
specific question didn’t get answered
there are a lot of resources out there
for gardeners on Penn State’s Extension
offices across the Commonwealth have
hotlines and submission forms on their
web sites where you can ask specific
questions to master gardeners and they
can provide guidance and direction on
diagnosis of disease and much more they
also have a lot of webinars and things
like that too so if you’re struggling
with something that’s really specific
that could be a great resource for you
and then just in terms of some
housekeeping as we wrap up the recorded
version of this presentation will be
available on our website
it’s Longwood Gardens Network slash the
pre
and that is an exclusive page for
members as part of our member
appreciation week and there’s a lot of
other great member appreciation content
on there as well as I mentioned at the
beginning this is the first in a series
of these conversations that we’re going
to be having as a part of this
ask-an-expert series so next week we’ll
be joined by professional landscape
designer and why would alumni Dan Mackey
who is ready to answer your questions
about garden and landscape design so if
you are thinking about a new project in
your on your property or around your
yard that would be a great session to
attend and just keep an eye out for this
week’s exclusive member a newsletter our
Longwood at home newsletter to register
for that and so I just want to thank you
all who joined us today we hope you
learned something new and you can give
us you give us a lot of inspiration and
we’re so grateful for your support and
enthusiasm we miss you all here as
members and we look forward to welcoming
welcoming you back to the garden soon
thanks for joining us
you