https://carteret.ces.ncsu.edu/profile/shawn-banks/
I know that we’re probably going to be facing a lot of rain here in the next couple of days that’s what I did see in the uh Weather Service and and that can be a good thing um rain would be really good so if if there is rain coming in and I think there is I think we still have a day or two to get um seeds in the ground before the rain starts falling okay um now would be a good time to to start putting some of those seeds in like like beets and peas and carrots okay stuff that you can put in this time of the year uh as a seed and it’ll germinate and grow most of those cool season crops like the beets and the carrots and the the radishes are anywhere from 30 to 60 maybe even 45 days okay um so most of those you should be able to to get in and be able to harvest them one of my favorites that I’m going to try this year is going to be spinach oo um I don’t grow that very often but this year I’m going to I’ve got a couple of containers so it’s a little bit higher I don’t have to get down on my hands and knees to cut it um so I’m going to try some spinach this year and see how that does um if it does well in containers then I might um grow some more again in containers next year okay you know you talk about containers container farming how does that differ from doing it out in the yard well the the difference is that the containers usually dry out a lot quicker you have a lot more control over um what goes into the Container so you can put in the amount of uh fertilizer or the amount of of nutrients that you want in there okay and make sure that the crop’s getting everything needs um you’re not guessing oh and so you’re you’re controlling the water you’re controlling the the nutrients you get a little bit better crop in a container than do you get the same test taste from a a container you do um there are some differences in in flavor from from a container grown um for example if you’re in the Bog Sound area and you’re growing a watermelon in a container you’re not going to get the same sweetness from the watermelon in a container that you would if you grew it in the ground okay um but as far as most crops yeah like tomato plants if you grow it in a container you’re still going to get the same flavor from the Tomato that you would if you grew it in the ground let’s talk about that in relationship to the soil now can I for example you mentioned the B bog sound watermelon um is it the sand the sandy lomus soil that adds to the sweetness is the first question it could be the um the higher pH or it could be um the the extra calcium from the the sea shells uh they have never done any research to say exactly what causes the the extra Sweetness in the watermelon I think it’s probably the fact that it’s in a a drier soil so there’s not so much water sitting there around the root system and the Watermelons don’t take up as much water so they they concentrate the sugars in the the fruit all right so I’m going to do a container garden mhm can I use the natural soil that is around my garden and use that as a soil for the container I would say probably not why not and a couple of reasons for that is that first off um the reason for growing in containers is because there’s usually something wrong with the um the soil that that you’re trying to grow in so there’s either some kind of insect or some kind of disease that’s in the soil and so you plant it in the container to to be able to to overcome that and the other thing is is that if you put soil in a container it’s so dense that the water never drains out and then it stays too wet okay so let’s talk about what is in the container okay A lot of times what you get when you get a a bag of garden soil or potting soil you get something that’s sterile so you’re starting off with um sometimes there’s Pete Moss in there sometimes it’s mostly pine bark occasionally they’ll put some vermiculite in there um I’ve run across a couple that that have compost in them and one or two that have sand but that sand is is usually um been sterilized so it’s gone undergone some kind of a usually a steam treatment to sterilize that so there no insects or diseases that might be in there usually that kills all the weed seed as well so you’re starting with a sterile environment and so you’re putting in everything that that plant needs the the nutrients the water the calcium everything that that plant needs you’re having to add to the okay the soil all right so now I’ve put all that into soil let’s talk about the size of the container and what do you do in so far as you see with the with outdoor or or in natural environments you’ve got plenty of sunlight it just comes and goes you you you rely on nature to take care of a lot of the aspects of the maintenance of your of your product or your your garden right but now in the container you’re you’re it you’re the you’re the source of sunlight you’re the source of water you’re the source of nutrients and whatever you well that’s the good thing about containers that is is that if it’s not getting enough sunlight where it’s at you can move it to a sunnier location that’s right or if it’s burning up whatever’s in the container you can move it to a shadier location um the other thing is you’re still getting some rain but you have to remember even if it rains a quarter of an inch or half an inch you’re probably going to need to water it because you’ve got a deeper container the water goes through a lot faster and it dries out a lot quicker because of because of the fact that there’s so much pore space in there okay so that was one of the things we talked about in the past you have to do you have to be more attentive to irrigating or or keeping your your plants properly uh wet right so one of the benefits of of planting in the ground is that if you’re going to be gone for a few days or up to a week you can water it really good before you leave and it’ll probably survive until you get back got unless you’re gone for two weeks at a time time and then you better hope for rain right um but the soil the native soil will hold on to that moisture a little bit longer and provide more moisture for a longer period of time than what your container will so there is a benefit to growing in the ground but if you’re growing in a container you asked about the size of the container right usually um what I would recommend for like a tomato plant or a pepper plant would be a minimum of a 5 gallon container okay now I have seen them grown in a two gallon container but they’re out there all the time adding water or they have an automatic drip system that just constantly drips wait a second what does the size of the container have to do with the issue of water well if you’re in a smaller container you have a smaller volume of soil to hold on to the the the moisture but you have those root that root system that gets bigger and bigger and bigger and it doesn’t stop growing just because the container small it continues to grow so it’s continuously needing to take up the the moisture and the nutrients and so if you have a smaller container you have to water it more frequently well now you can you mentioned something here that i’ I’ve dealt with in past you can make can they can they become rootbound yes they can become rootbound um and that’s why I usually recommend a bigger container because they’re going to be rootbound a little bit later on in the season okay the root bounding does that cause a problem for the plant and of course what we’re talking about is the roots in eventually Circle the entire exterior of the of the of the of the soil right and you could practically just lift it out not have a it makes its own container as it were pretty much um the longer you leave it in a a container the the more roots are in there and the less you can see the actual soil or the um potting mix that you use the the bad thing is if you’re growing a perennial crop so a tree or a shrub or something that’s going to be there for 2 or three years then being root bound is a bad thing because when you put it in the the ground the roots are used to going around in circles and they’re going to continue to do that unless you cut them and break them up some okay with an annual PL like a a vegetable like a tomato or a pepper you’re going to pull that out at the end of the season so being root bound the only bad thing about being rootbound is that you need to add more and more and more water okay all right so going back to the uh the containers themselves what kind of products should can you should you can you use plastic steel does it matter you can use just about anything as a container I’ve seen steel tubs used I’ve U I’ve got a couple of five gallon buckets plastic five gallon buckets that I drill a couple holes in the bottom use those for growing tomatoes and peppers um you can buy the the big um pots whether they’re foam or concrete or whatever you want to get if you’re strong enough um the concrete are fine but anything can be used as a container okay you’re drilling a hole in the bottom of the uh pot why for drainage you don’t want the water just build up and build up and build up okay because it’ll drown it’ll it’ll cause root rot on the bottom of those roots and then it starts to to creep up into the upper part and you don’t want the the plant to struggle from root rot okay and before we go to the break talking about the issue of U being root bound and uh if if it if you do have a a product that is root bound and you’re going to repot it what do you do with those circular Roots um if if it’s it’s just the the thin Roots like what you get with a tomato you can just tickle them apart so that they’re growing out away from the the circling thing if they’re Woody Roots sometimes you have to take a a shovel or a hand pruner and cut the roots but what you want to do is you want to stop that circling and get them to to grow out into the soil that’s surrounding the area where you’re planting okay so um I because I did that with a tree it was root bound it was in a a a bag and so what I did was I just took a a razor and I just slice through the roots the that were circling the uh pardon me the root ball right and what that does is that causes it to Branch out um so if it’s if it’s a really bad really bad then a knife will work really well okay if it’s just like a a small a lot of times when you buy annuals and get ready to plant them in the ground all you can see is roots it’s good to take your fingers and and tease them apart um get them so that they’ll they’ll start growing out um and that’s a good thing to do with with a lot of those annuals unless what you’re seeing is either mostly soil or up to 50% soil then they’ll start growing out on their own the whole concept of containerized gardening next question if you’re doing a lot of containers where would you do it can you do it do you leave the containers outside put them in your garage take them where do you do where’s a good place to put your store your containers well a lot of people will grow different kinds of plants in containers um if it’s a vegetable plant you probably want to leave it outside um if it’s a vegetable like a a tender vegetable like a tomato or a pepper and we’re going to have cold temperatures you probably want to bring them inside overnight and then put them back outside when the temperatures have warmed back up when you say outside bring them inside inside the house or put them in the garage for example I put mine in the garage but I do know people that will that don’t have a garage so they’ll bring them into either a mudro or into a entryway and just park them there for a couple hours okay you’re taking it from um a fairly cool climate into a warm climate in the home and usually a drier climate as well what kind of problems does that cause um it doesn’t usually cause a whole lot of problems with the plant um what’ll happen when when Greenhouse Growers want plants to to really grow fast they’ll let the the days be cool and the nights be warm and that causes that causes faster growth the days be cool and the nights be warm right they’ll run the the drip air the the drip cooler or the swamp cooler during the day to cool the temperatures off during the day that gets them to concentrate all their energy into the the leaves and then at night they let it warm up a little bit and what that does is that causes the plant to to grow a little bit faster during the night because it’s stored up all that energy and it can go ahead and continue to grow and get a little bit more height and width to it I’m sitting here trying to figure that out really I don’t know how it works but that that’s just how it works that’s one of the things that we learned in so the the plants actually do most of their actual growing at nighttime right they’re they’re building up the energy during the day because they need the photosynthesis in order to build the energy but a lot of the actual physical growth usually will happen either early early in the morning later in the evening or during the night time okay we’re again we’re talking with Shawn Banks we’re talking about containerized gardening and um Sean BS of course with Carter Cooperative Extension Agency and I just want to make mention of this there’s a Cooperative Extension agent in every County of North Carolina if are you finding more people interested in containerized gardening more people don’t have a there’s more and more people that that are living around here that that don’t have a whole lot of space so y you’ve got a little bit of space and putting plants in containers and growing one or two tomatoes in a container works really well for them because they don’t have to mess up the what little bit yard that they have in order to to dig a hole and plant a tomato plant every year and so it’s easier for most people to to grow them in containers than it would be to to grow them in a small spot of ground okay one of the problems of course growing it in the ground is you have uh you mentioned a few moments ago uh various uh challenges like uh Critters you uh you’ll get I say Critters you’ll get um there’s insects and diseases in there diseases so do you have less of that in a container or if you do how do you prepare you prevent it well in a container you’re starting with a sterile medium so you don’t have those insects and disease in the in that soil in the container if you use that same soil for that same crop 2 or 3 years in a row then there is a possibility that you’re building up those um microbes in the soil and then you end up starting to have those disease problems the good thing is you can just dump that out and start fresh again where should you dump it um I me personally I dump it on the the low spots in my yard and just rake it over and let the grass grow over the top of it you could gra dump it into a flower bed you can dump it anywhere where you need just a mulch as long as it’s not a plant in that same family that might have that same kind of disease pressure wow now I got to go do some research well most of our vegetable crops don’t have a flour that would be in that same family all right so I’ve got I I’m working in container now the next question is U you know the harvesting from a container crop let’s take for example Tomatoes will continue to produce all summer long well over a period of time you have some potatoes that grow uh that are producing into the fall and winter you do okay so if I’m I’ve got a container um let’s take your interest your interest in spinach you’re going to do that in a container right but it’s a onetime only uh PL isn’t it correct all right what do I do with it after I’ve done that can I use that again for something else I can use that same soil for a different crop so the the spinach is going to be done probably around May or June and so if I wanted to I could put a pepper plant in there or a cucumber plant or I could put a tomato plant if I really wanted to try and grow a tomato in a a container um you you look you you squinted when you said that why would you not want to put a tomato in a I like growing tomatoes in containers but I want to get those tomatoes in those containers around mid April or early may not late May or or early June gotcha um most of the time because I have problems with them when they get when it gets really hot outside I have a hard time keeping them wet so you a lot of times in my containers because I’m not there as frequently and I have a couple of of trips that I usually take during the summertime my my plants usually dry out during the summertime if I don’t get them in early a second you told me that if you over over wet your overwater your Tomatoes they’ll uh something happens to them well you have Blossom and rot that can happen um or they get really soft and you get cracks in them cracks what that’s what it was yeah um but if you keep that soil consistently moist then you don’t have to worry about the cracks it’s one it dries out and then you get really wet again all right um so um harvesting your uh then your container crops that’s a that’s something it’s very easy to do it in other words right it’s it’s for me it’s easier to go ahead and harvest from the the containers because the containers are up a little bit higher I can sit on a chair and and bend down and and pick the spinach out okay or if I wanted to to put a pepper in there the peppers are up high enough that I might not even have to bend over to get the pepper all right what are the chances of since the container is outside um either you get a disease on in the container or or insects of some nature there is that opportunity for because it is outside there are those opportunities especially for diseases that are carried or vectored by an insect from one plant to the next right right there is that likelihood so like tomato um spotted Wilt virus could be transferred from a weed into a tomato that’s in a container or into a pepper that’s in a container by an insect going from the the weed to the the crop that I’m wanting to grow that’s always a possibility whether it’s in the ground or in a container okay but it’s less likely to get some of those soil born diseases like phytop root Rod or bacterial Wilt that are born in the soil and not transferred by an an insect again we’re talking with Shan Banks of Carter Cooperative Extension Agency all right Sean uh let’s talk about the type of plants that would be good for container gardening at this time of year at this time of the year you put in there um any of your cool season crops like your cabbage um we planted some potatoes in containers over at the boys and girls club last week you know you say cool season but if you’re bringing the containers inside does it matter well if you put the cool season crops in there you don’t have to bring the containers out inside you can leave them you can leave them outside and not have to worry about it okay so cabbage broccoli cauliflower um any of those cool seasoned crops um you could plant your spinach in the containers about now um any of those any of those cool seasoned crops do you keep the containers off the ground I keep mine off the ground so that I don’t have any contamination from the so about yeah um because if the roots from the plant grow down through the uh through the pot and the holes are in the bottom and into the soil then you might as well have grown the plant and the soil okay we’re wrapping up with you and of course we’re talking about containerized gardening which um I find very interesting I uh are you finding now uh opportunities to experiment with containerized gardening possibly doing a a a garden product that isn’t na native to the area for example you can do a lot of different things in containers um uh one of the good things is that if you wanted to a citrus tree that normally would freeze in our area you can plant that in a container and then on cold nights when you know it’s going to get down below 40 de you just put it in the garage overnight then you can put it back outside once the temperature warms up and and you should be able to continue to keep those year round um um I’m wondering any fruits that we would use in a container um I wouldn’t try to grow avocados cuz the tree is just way too big Big Y um but you can grow like if you had a big enough container you could put a banana tree in there it just takes a long period of time and you’d need to have a tall enough entry way to where you’re not bumping the the the banana as the banana would stay inside right okay all right I was just wondering okay just remind you don’t hesitate to give uh Sean a call uh every every Cooperative exens agent in every County and real quickly I’ve never I’ve never mentioned that what is your phone number Sean um the phone number for our office here in Carteret County is uh 252 222 6352 6352 correct and the prefix 222 okay all right and then um the uh other aspect of uh any any events taking place we don’t have any events we just had our big speaker event this past week and it was really good we had over 200 people that were there um native plants and it was talking about native plants so we don’t have another big event coming up for another well probably till April