“Salad Bowl” Container Gardening with Lisa! #gardenersworkshopfarm
Honestly, I didn’t think we were going to make it here tonight. So, I’m just waiting for the signal to say that we are live. And we are. Hey, flower friends. Oh my goodness. Tech issues and me just don’t get along very good, friends. But we’re going to try to power through this tonight. Welcome to the live gardening show. It is your friend in flowers, Lisa. And even though we’re talking about salad tonight, I could not resist sharing these beautiful cosmos that came about today from the harvest. And these are for the show on Friday, but I just could not not show these to you. So, let’s get this party going here because I’ve got a little bit of an issue. and see how we can make all of this work. So glad you guys have dropped in. And there is just this really funky tech thing going on. A portion of the screen for the app is not displaying properly and we are just going to work around it. I I restarted my computer which is why I was late coming on but that did not resolve it. So it must be their platform problem and I know you guys are the ones to hang with me on this. So let’s see if how I’m going to do this here. All right. So friends, sorry if this is your first time here. Um, sorry about the little snafu. My name is Lisa Mason Ziggler and um, I am the owner of the gardener’s workshop and I have been a commercial cut flower farmer for like the past two and a half decades. And I have really geared up my passion for really helping other people to garden, whether it’s cut flower gardening or just gardening in general. Um, and as you’re going to learn tonight, I do grow some vegetables. And that’s what we’re going to talk about is growing some salad greens in containers, which friends, I’m telling you, is the easiest way to actually do it. Um, and so I forgot one thing, y’all. Um, it’s that’s what’s going to be happening here on my farm all this week is that we will be starting these seeds that I’m sharing with you tonight. And once you I just want to warn you though, once you do this buying greens or sat lettuce, leaf lettuce or arugula or whatever it is that you like to eat, once you grow your own, you can never go back, y’all. So, let’s see what we’ve got here. So today’s live show, um, I’m going to be going through what is a salad bowl container and how I do that. And y’all, you know me, I even succession plant that, which makes it so simple and you never run out of lettuce. And I, of course, will demonstrate how I start seeds because that’s how I start all my lettuce. Um, I even pre- sprout carrots and radishes, y’all. And that just means less attention is needed outdoors. And then we will also do our live Q&A at the end. So if you do have um a question, you know, you can put it in your comments and then put at Lisa at the head and I’ll scroll scroll through those at the very end and try to answer some of your questions. Okay. So first off, let me see. How am I going to do that? Huh? So, y’all bear Oh, there it is. Y’all bear with me for just a minute here. All right. So, before we jump into our um salad bowl, um let’s just do our housekeeping that we always do, right? Um first off, we absolutely love you guys so much for sharing and telling your friends and you can hit that share button that’s down at the bottom of your screen that’s got a little arrow in it and invite your friends over and just let them know that we’re here, right? And then the other thing here in the app is that you know that um this app doesn’t talk to our big website. So you need to double check your phone number and email here inside the app to make sure if you place an order that we can actually get a hold of you to send you a tracking ticket as well as if we have any questions. Um and also you know shipping for seed packeton orders. That means if you only order seed packets, we pay the shipping on that. Okay? But the other little bonus is over here, the product shipping is capped at $11.95. Doesn’t matter how many products that you purchase, you pay just $11.95. And we do ship to all 50 of the United States um with no international shipping available. Now, if you have just happened upon us um on social media, I am so glad you’re here and that you found us. But I’d like for you to know that we have a phone app. And this is what it looks like in the phone app. It’s a little bit different than looking at it on social, but in addition to that, you can participate. You can get in the comments with the other live viewers. You can submit questions for me to try to answer. Um and it’s just a better experience. And it’s free. You can go right now over to your phone’s app store, search gardener’s workshop, and download the shop app. It takes probably 30 seconds. Um, and we’ll be right here waiting for you when you come back. Now, if um if the comments get in your way during the show, you can swipe left or right if you’re inside the app to get rid of those so that you have a better look. Um, and friends, if you see people posting the sunflower emoji, those are people that are like giving us a shout out because they’re part of the TGW family. They are either um, our online course students um, or they’re a member of my private flower farmer club. I didn’t know if you even knew I had that. Um, and that’s just a place where um, a community of people that have that grow fl want to grow flowers and learn more and come together to share. Um, and we provide lots of great resources in there and those people also give us a big shout out with our sunflower. Now, have you ever grown your own salad greens? Um, and you know, I was really quite surprised by this. I started doing it about three years ago. I dabbled, but then I actually Steve and I started having salads for lunch every day. I mean, I pack our lunches and I mean, first off, we go through a lot of lettuce, but worse than that, you buy lettuce and you buy a box that has seven days of date on it and on day three, you open it up and it’s just mush um or just there’s a lot of um old um aged out pieces and it’s just very very frustrating. And so the first year um three years ago, the first time that I grew them, I actually tried to grow them in our garden. Um and we got some great pictures, but it was really difficult for me to manage that. And so then I started investigating um just growing in larger containers. And um it just changed everything for me. First off, the containers are right up here um right next to my back door just about. And so coming and going, I see it constantly. I’m always reminded either to water it or cut it and harvest it, all that kind of stuff. Um, and it just really changed everything. And more importantly, I can really protect it so much better up here. And I’ll show you how I do that. Um, so let’s just talk about what makes it so easy. So all the containers that I use um to grow in are about this big around. I would say it’s about like a 15gallon pot. Um, and it’s like that’s probably like 18 in across. What you soon learn once you start gardening in large containers like that or bigger that the larger the mass of soil, the less frequently you have to water it. Um, it’s just it stays cooler. Um, it doesn’t get so hot so fast. Um, and the plants roots just have a lot more room to dive around in there and they just it’s just easier to grow it. And frankly, for me, I don’t have to necessarily pay attention to it every day. I mean, I’m just not I’m I’m a pretty lazy gardener, y’all. Um, and the bigger containers with quality soil in it, which for us, we do a 50/50 mix just like I do for our sunflower trays. 50% potting soil and 50% compost. Um, and then I do add dry organic fertilizer to it just like we do out in the garden. Um, and so I pick those size containers. Um, and they’re really readily available everywhere. And you want to be sure that you have multiple openf free drainage holes. Drainage is so important. And if you get a pot and you fill it all up with soil and then all of a sudden it’s not draining, then it’s it’s pretty hard to fix that. Um, we don’t do rocks or any of that kind of stuff in the bottom of the pot. We just fill it up with quality potting soil 50/50 um and then plant. So, any um material that the pots are made out of is really I mean there is so much stuff now. I mean, there is still wooden ones out there, which, you know, they do will ultimately rot, but all these composite containers are so lightweight. Um, and you literally usually have to knock the holes out in the bottom. They usually have indentions for the drainage. So, you need to pay attention to all of that. Um, and when you pick the right container, that really sets you up for success. Um, as I mentioned, the large containers really with good quality soil in them really set you up to not have to be quite as attentive as you normally would be. So, um, most salad greens are cool season. They’re like cool flowers, y’all. Um, and so, but because I grow them in containers, that kind of allows me to tweak the environment a little bit. Like for instance, I’ll show you how I protect it from varmints. Well, that also shades it. So, you can actually get started a little bit. I mean, we are we are we are just clamoring for fresh lettuce at this house. Um, and so we’re starting our seeds now. And let’s just take a look at what we’re going to start with. And y’all, I’m starting off with my number one top lettuce that I love to eat, and that is our gourmet leaf lettuce. Um, and let me tell you something about growing your own lettuce. You will not believe how long it lasts in your refrigerator. Um, so I guess I should say here, let’s just stop for a minute. So, I if I’m just growing leaf lettuce, which is primarily the main thing that I grow is this leaf lettuce that’s up right now. And I typically would plant three different pots with this leaf lettuce. But I would do it at about two week intervals. And so what happens is I’ll start enough for one pot. And you plant them really tight and close, y’all. Because you’re it’s just like cut flowers. You’re cutting it constantly, right? And I let that first pot grow up and I cut the whole pot. Um, and it’s going to regrow. And so you cut that pot and literally that lettuce, um, I wash it. I harvest it into a leaf I mean a, um, salad spinner, a big one. And I do my best to be neat when I’m harvesting so I don’t get the leaves really really dirty. And I harvest straight into the um washer and take them in and wash them really good and spin the heck out of them to get the water off of them. And I put it in a Ziploc bag and I’m telling you, it’ll last two weeks. And at 2 weeks, it’s like you still can’t believe it’s still looking really, really great, right? But what happens is at the end of that two weeks and you need more lettuce, guess what? The next pot’s ready. And you do the very same thing. And then, you know, it’s up to you how big your pots are and how much y’all eat. Maybe you only need two pots. We eat so much lettuce. I do three pots. And then literally while I’m harvesting the second and the third pot, the first pot’s regrowing, right? And it will regrow multiple times. Um so this is my go-to um gourmet leaf lettuce and we just absolutely love it. Now, if you like a little snap in your greens, um, this is arugula. My goodness, y’all. I’m learning to appreciate this a little bit more. I’m kind of a not so much of a lover of I haven’t been so much of a lover, but as I’m getting older, I am starting to grow just a little bit of this to add into our greens. Um because I actually grow another mix that we’ll see in a minute which you can actually stir fry with and you can stir fry with arugula too or put it on um pizza. I mean there’s just so much you can do. So arugula is another great one. And then this one I mean not many people realize that beet greens are absolutely scrumptious. In fact, if you look at the really pricey um lettuce mixes in the stores, you know, like if you go to special stores like Fresh Market and Whole Foods and places like that, that’s what’s in those mixes. Those little leaves that have little red veins, those are beet greens. So, you could grow beets just for the greens. They are so scrumptious, y’all. Um but we love beets, too. So, we do both. Um but I don’t grow these in containers. I actually grow these in my big raised beds that are out back and we grow amazing beets and we eat the greens off the top and add it to our lettuce. Um it’s just really really delicious. So those are beets. And then this is, you know, for all you ladies out there that are in my age group, if you have osteoporosis issues or you want to prevent that, you need to eat stuff that’s really high in vitamin D and calcium. And kale is on that list. Um, this is black magic. See how lumpy it is? This is the most delicious. Um, and if you We eat it two ways. We eat it as a baby in salads and then you can let it grow up bigger to have it for cooking with it, you know. Um, and so my husband loves greens. He’ll eat any kind of green I put in front of him, cooked or uncooked. Um, and so this kale is one that I would grow this out in the bed with my beets. Um, and again, harvest a lot of it as babies and then let it grow on to mature because it will constantly regrow. Um, my rheumatologist who is actually was one of my flower farming students. Can you believe it, y’all? Anyway, um, when I was sent to her for osteoporosis, we talked about this. She said, “You should do a vegetable garden of all the stuff that we women need to eat.” And just I mean, and gardening is so good for you, y’all. This is where we are so far ahead of people that just go to the gym, right? So, that’s kale. And this is that premium greens that I was talking about. Now, this has some mustards. It has cabbage um and a lot of different um flavors and textures. So, I would not grow a bunch of this, but I’m going to try really hard, y’all, to find other ways to use this this year um during the winter. Um and so, we just really have to get used to eating more of this stuff, right? And so, you harvest this when it’s like 3 to 6 in just like you do leaf lettuce. And you can do stir fry with this. Right? I mean, y’all, these are the gourmet meals that we go to five-star restaurants to actually eat from, right? Last year, I grew the most amazing broccoli. Um, and all of this that we’re I’m looking we’re looking at. I mean, if you cover this stuff with the insect netting, you do not have to worry about in the larvae getting on your broccoli, but it keeps all I don’t know about you, but our squirrels are so active in the fall and winter trying to bury their their nuts that you would never have anything. Well, now that we use insect netting, it is not a problem, y’all. This broccoli was absolutely delicious. Um, and y’all I don’t know if y’all know this or not, but I make Tucker’s food that he’s been I’ve always fed a homemade diet to our dogs. And we use the broccoli stalks shredded in a um food processor. So, none of this goes to waste. I love using our vegetables um to feed Tucker. And then this this one this is another one y’all that I’m going to really try to get myself into the habit. This is Swiss chard. Now, a big container of Swiss chard is a beautiful ornamental container. This stuff is gorgeous. Look at the look at the stems. But this is so good for you. Whenever a vegetable has color like this, orange, um, pink, purple, red, that is full of so much good stuff for you. And so, Swiss chard, the key is in all of these greens, y’all, is to get them when they’re young. And that’s why for me growing in containers for all this leafy stuff, I like walk past it 20 times a day going from my house to this building. And so the easier you make it, the more successful you’ll be. So that’s Swiss chard. That is really my goal this year is to grow Swiss chard and to actually eat it. So my man um Oh, I skipped right over. Sorry, I hit the wrong one. My man loves carrots. He loves radishes. Um, my struggle with carrots all these years is I could never get them to sprout. So, you know what you can do? You can actually pre- sprout carrot seeds in soil blocks. And once they sprout, which is the the fragile hard part, then you can plant them. Um, we would grow them in our big raised beds, our soil here. I never had much luck out in my garden. But if the it’s the germination thing, pre- sprout them in soil blocks and you plant them out when they’re like three to five days old, y’all, after they actually sprout. Um, so these are really delicious. And, you know, I think once you can be successful and you actually eat some of this stuff, you’ll realize why you have to do it. So, here’s what my man loves. Which ones did I bring up? I brought up these. This is the French breakfast radish. This one’s about as long as my thumb. Um, and he loves all radishes. And I do the very same thing with them. Um, because again, I am not going to stop and water a container every day to get seeds to germinate. But because I’m already taking care of a grow room, we just plant the seeds in small blocks and then as soon as they sprout, we put them out in the containers and they kind of just go with the regular watering of every two or three days. So, that is the um breakfast radish or the French, yes, the French breakfast radish. And this is one of our favorites, too. This has four different colors, purple, pink, white, and red. Um, and y’all, the secret again is baby vegetables. These are really tasty. Even I’ll eat these when they’re small. They’re not so hot. And these we definitely grow in containers. Radishes I’ll put in containers or into our um raised bed out there. Now, I want to um show you what can you plant and when. And I want to show you the easiest thing that I have found. Y’all, I have so many different buttons here. It’s just amazing that I figured all this out. Do y’all realize that? I mean, I’m like so not techy. All right. If you’re not sure when you’re supposed to plant stuff, I want you, if you haven’t ever seen this, this is our vegetable planner. See that red line right there? You move that to your frost date, which it has that right across the top, and it tells you where when to actually start. So, let’s look. There’s a spring side and a fall side. So, my first frost is typically mid November, which is right here. and it lists the vegetables over here and it tells you when to do everything. This is the best six bucks you will ever spend. Um, and it comes with and this is my recommendation and friends I am going to stop pussyfooting around about this. 99.9% of the struggles that we have people reach out to us about. All that information is either on the seed packet, it’s on the sales page, it’s in a book, it’s on our courses, and we talk about it all the time. We have to get back into the habit of actually reading instructions and not just relying on videos. This vegetable planner comes with this one page of instructions. I’m telling you, if you read this and take a minute to look at what really is on this thing, you will not believe. You will never have to remember anything again. It’s absolutely amazing. It’ll revolutionize if you have a vegetable gardener or somebody that wants to be a vegetable gardener. This little thing will really change it for them. So, highly recommend the vegetable planner, right? And so, friends, I want to talk to you about, you know, we have a new project, right, going on and it is my big calendar journal. Um, it’ll be coming out early winter. I mean, the plan is it should be here before the end of the year. Um, and I’m in I’m develop I’m creating it right now and I want to know from you guys um if there’s anything. So, what I’m putting on this calendar is the information that you need to figure out when you plant what cool season, warm season. Um, it’ll be your your seed starting, planting, um, just it runs my farm. And so, if you guys think of something and if you’ve read my books, you’ve read about it. Um, if there’s something that you have burning that you think needs to go on that calendar, I’m my ears are open and I’m listening. Um, and if y’all have something a great idea, I would love to incorporate it. So, just keep that in mind. But, I brought it up. you definitely want to get on the wait list. Um, we’ll be doing something special for the pre-sale and the pre-sale hasn’t started yet and we can’t start it yet until we get it a little bit closer to the finish line. So, get on the wait list and that way you won’t miss out. And I am so stoked over this calendar. It’s going to change people’s lives. It changed my life um when I started using it like 12, 13 years ago. Um, and it just is a huge help. So, get on the wait list. hit that button um and we will keep you in the loop on what is going on with that. So, let’s just say that you’ve started your seeds now. You’ve pre- sprouted some carrots maybe um and you’re going to plant those out in the out in your raised bed, but we have lettuce seedlings um and maybe some arugula that you’re going to plant. You know, you could plant a little spot of arugula in your big pot with your lettuce if you like arugula. You know, you don’t have to do all of one thing. And so then the next problem that I face is that we have such squirrel issues here. We have rabbits stuck that are if they’re down on ground level, but our squirrels get up in our containers and they just root around there. We have a we my home was built in a peon orchard and there’s a lot of peon trees left here and the squirrels are always busy and so to prevent that from happening y’all we create I designed this made it up. This is our container protection kit and it truly works. First off we know that the insect netting um really allows enough light to get in. It allows heat to escape. it shades. Um, and so what we put together based on things that we had available to us and it works awesome. This is a growth through. These are the legs. Um, and you attach them here and you push these legs down in your container. And this is solely to support the insect netting so it doesn’t smash your stuff. It just makes it really easy to take care of it. So you install this in your container after you’ve planted. And then the insect netting. You get a 6×6 piece of insect netting. It really could do more than one pot. You have to like custom that to yourself, right? But you are going to lay this insect netting over that growth through. And you’re going to secure it with some of our we send you I think this is like a six or an 8ft piece of our flexi tie, which I’ll show you the roll of this. I love this mess, y’all. Look at it. It’s stretchy, but it holds a knot. And so, you put it around like a belt, and I’m telling you friends, no squirrels. So, it also will prevent um insects from flying in and causing damage. So, for me, that’s why I’ve had such success these last few years growing in containers is because my stuff is protected and I don’t have to really worry about it. You know, that’s the worst, isn’t it? Um, I can remember because my pots are right out here on the carport or on the porch and my house is over there. I would come out in the morning and you come out and all the plants there’s some on the ground, the others are uprooted. Not a problem when you protect it. Um, and so we absolutely love it. Now, we do sell just the growth through if you need that. Um, so these legs are 18 in long. Um, and this is 12 in. It doesn’t have to be the full size of the container. This really is like, you know how we use hoops out in the garden? This is how you do it on containers. Um, absolutely love it. And this, I believe, is $10.95. And the protection kit is tw. Um, and it just makes all the I mean, how many boxes of lettuce is that, y’all? I mean, literally. Um, so you can buy that separately. Now, we also have um what else do we have? Oh, and so let’s just talk about that broccoli and those carrots that you and your beets that you’ll be planting out maybe in a ground bed or in a raised bed. Um the insect netting is so indispensable indispensable. And this is the way I used to feel about row cover. And I do feel that way about row cover in the winter. But we’ve been for all these years trying to make row cover do this other job. And in fact, insect netting does that job. It allows more light in, more heat out. Um, and it’s just better for warm season use into cool season. Cold, we still use row cover, y’all. But this insect netting is going to protect your like your broccoli from having that moth lay its larvae eggs on the broccoli which hatches into that little caterpillar that is on your broccoli and cauliflower and your cut flower kale if you’re actually growing that insect netting multiple uses. I know you all have heard me about sun caps protection from insects. Um it’s just got a lot of uses and most importantly for me right now from varmints like squirrels, deer, um from rooting around. So this comes um in several different lengths, 20 foot, 50 foot, and we even have 100footers for farmers like me that have longer beds. Um, I can’t tell you that um, insect netting has become for me like an insurance policy, but it’s even I mean it truly puts up a barrier that you can actually use. And it’s much more durable than row cover if you haven’t ever touched it. It’s stretchy. It’s kind of it’s nylon. It’s kind of like a pair of panty hose. Um, and then we also, um, I wanted to show you this is that flexi net, um, tie that comes in the other kit. This is a roll. This is made in England. We love this mess. It is Oh, she’s probably got it written down for me. It’s 23.95. And see, it’s written in English terms. It’s millimeters. Um, and if I remember right, and you can look on before you buy it, look on the product. I believe there’s like 50 feet in here. Bobo loves this stuff for making wreaths. First off, it’s chocolate brown. And we used it last year to make that pepper wreath, you know, because it just blends in with the grape vine. Um, and so she loves it in the flower arranging, making stuff. Um it works great out in the garden and it’s what we use to secure our containers. Um so that is the flexi tie. Now I want to show you um this is the you know I know that y’all have heard me say this many times before if you’re not new here. Um the soul block maker kit is the number one product that we have sold since 2005. Um, and these are my little snapd dragons that y’all have been watching these grow along. Um, this is 60 little snaps. These are intended for fall blooming, y’all. It’s too early. I won’t even start starting my fall planted snaps for spring, probably until like the end the 1st of September, midepptember. Um, but the on this little tray is 60 plants. They grow in this small little block. I watered these right before we started here. I’m going to show this little 3/4 inch block. This plant is going to grow in that and that’s what’s going to be planted in the garden. And that’s what I start all of my lettucees in. Um the only thing that we looked at today that I wouldn’t use for this is beads. Beads needs the bigger blocker. So the soil block maker kit, which I need to find that. And I did not pull the flexi tie up. Sorry about that, y’all. Um it’s in it’s here in the show um and on comments sold so you can find it. Um but this is the soil block maker kit that has the small blocker which I’m going to show you how I use that in just a moment has that. It includes three packs of seeds your choice either cool season or warm season. It includes my course of me taking you through the whole process step by step. It’s an online course. You have lifetime unlimited access to it for making the soil blocks. It also teaches you how to sew seeds out in the garden. Um, and you will love that. It comes with five of these trays that actually hold 60 each. The seed pan that you’re going to see me use. Um, as well as the little markers, but I actually use those as like little tools. Um, and our toothpicks. And you get a blocky a bag of blocky mix. Looks like a small bag, y’all, but this bag will make like 600 of those little 3/4 inch blocks. So, it goes a really long way. So, you get all of this and it’s $89.95 plus $11.95 shipping and you are set to soil block. All you add each year is more seeds and more soil. The trays are reusable over and over again. Your tool will go forever. Um, and that’s if you if you want to get started soil blocking, that’s the perfect way to do it. And now, let me show you actually how I do it. Now, I always use a tub. A kitty litter box um, works really well. Well, you just want it to be wide enough that you can actually work in it. Um, and this is a bag of that mix that I just showed you. Um, and we’ve added water. It’s like three parts blocking mix to one part water. And this is the tool. And we import these from England. These are the original brand. And you literally just push the tool down into the blocking mix a couple of times. You don’t want to jam-pack the chambers. And that is a potato masher, y’all. Um, but you want it to be nice and full. And so we use flat bottom trays with no drainage holes. That allows this to be done anywhere inside a home because y’all know I have no green houses. And um, I do everything here inside of a room that looks like a spare bedroom basically. And just that quick, we made 20 little blocks. And so I’m gonna try to do this, y’all. I’ve got my lettuce seeds, but I did not Where did I do with my lettuce seeds? I have so much stuff up here, y’all. Here they are. All right, let me get I want to show you how easy it is to sew these seeds. Tiny seeds, y’all. All right, I have my toothpick. And let’s put some of these. Now, we have to always stop and read the seed package. Sew seeds an eighth of an inch deep, lightly covering with soil. So, that means that when we use the seed pan, there’s no static electricity. So that’s why when I just touch my toothpick to the seed, can you see that black seed on there? It just literally hops right on, y’all. And so I am going to firmly push that seed down in there. I need to get closer. Stand by, y’all. You know, we have so much space here now, but I still somehow seem to never ever have enough space. All right. And again, if those comments are in your way, just swipe them. So, literally, I just touched the toothpick to the seed in here, and it hops right on. And then I am just firmly pushing it down in the block. And that’s it. You don’t need to do a bunch of extra. I got two seeds. Because this lettuce is a mix, some of the seeds are white and some of the seeds are black cuz there’s different varieties in here. Let me move this up. Let’s do a white one. Maybe you can see it better in the So now I have a little white seed on there. And literally, I am just firmly seating it on the block. And that’s it. And I do for these seeds just like I do with all of our cool season seeds. They go onto a seedling heat mat, but I follow the cool flower rule, y’all, where I put a cookie cooling rack on the um heat mat to cool it down just a little bit. They need warmth, but they don’t necessarily need it hot, right? Um, so that is really simply how we do it and the cla the course that comes with that kit takes you through step by step um on everything. Now those trays that we use I use all the different size trays y’all. Um so let me I’m trying to remember to hit these buttons y’all. So this will hold one set of 20. You know, if you’re going to just do arugula, um the thing about using the proper size tray is that makes the best use of your real estate on your heat mat and your grow lights. Meaning, you don’t want to put just 20 on a big tray like this. It wastes too much space. So, this is the small mini. They’re $1.95 or $6.95. Um this is the small tray, which holds two sets. A fivepack is $2.95. Um, and then we have the large trays, which is what comes with the kit. And this is 3.95. They’re all available in 25 packs, friends. You just wash them up and use them over and over. Literally, we have used them for years. Now, let me show you my favorite harvesting tools for greens and lettuce, and that is this little booger. Let me bring it up. This is the small one. Um, and it just really depends on what you’re doing which one. These are um made by the same company that make our shears and also make our um Japanese hand ho. It’s a Japanese tool. Love this little thing. See, it’s got that serrated edge there. Um, this is the 2 and 1/2 inch and it is n they’re both 9.95. Um, so this is the 2 and 1/2 inch that when I’m doing when I’m trying to cut something that’s hard to cut, like string off my tiller or something that got wrapped around it from like a hay bale of hay, um, that’s when I use this small guy. It’s kind of thicker and sturdier. But when I’m doing greens, let me bring this one up. This is the four and a half inch. Now, you can buy these in a bundle and save a buck, I think. Yes. Um, this is the 4 and 1/2 inch. Love this one for cutting greens. This is what I do. Kale, all of it. Love this little guy. Um, I would be willing to say that this for 10 bucks is the best Christmas present you could give any person that grows a garden. I mean, you just find I literally cut plants out of the ground. I’ll cut I’ll stick it down in the dirt. It’s serrated. And I can testify that even when it’s old and rusty, it still cuts like a champ. Um, so those are my favorite greens harvesting tool. Um, so remember I’m going to do a little Q&A at the very end here. I know we got a late start because of my tech problem. So sorry guys. Um, and I’m going to look at questions at the very end because it’s time to wrap up. And I just want to remind everybody that over on our big website, the gardenerworkshop.com, we have videos, blogs, you can connect with both of our podcasts. We have seed talk with Lisa and Lane and Field and Garden that I host. Um, and don’t forget to get on the big calendarjournal. That calendar you you just don’t know what a gift it is for me. I think I have I’m going to have to count them, but I think I have like 13 years of them upstairs. And it is like a big event for me. I bring them all down here. I put up a couple of six-foot tables and lay them all out. start on January and read January for all those years. Every year I discover something I had stopped growing for whatever reason years ago and bring it back. And it’s just it’s it’s a great journal. It’s not just a calendar. Um and so I’m just reading my notes. Oh, and reminder this Friday on the show at 12:00 noon, you know, right back here, same place, um it’s a cool flower show. I’ll be demonstrating and talking about direct sewing cool flowers. That’ll be a really good one. And remember to turn on your notifications here in the app in the app because I’m doing these sporadic popup shows, y’all, and you don’t want to miss those. Um, so friends, I hope you have some fun with your salad bowls. Um, it’s just it’s incred if you have children, grandkids, this is a great thing. It’s a great way to get them um to eat vegetables. We have had a really sweet thing like that happen in our garden with one of our little grand nieces. No, she won’t eat tomatoes. We have tried and tried and tried. Took her out in our tunnel, have those little sun golds growing. She picked it off and popped it in and ate about 10 of them. You know, I mean, it’s just amazing when you grow it and you’re involved how that changes everything. So, one last thing before I do the Q&A is friends, my book, Vegetables Love Flowers. And you know, when I was waiting to come on here, um, this book is not about growing vegetables. It’s about why flowers benefit vegetables by being in the garden. Um, and I have to read you this. This is the first two paragraphs of the introduction. Um, and it says, “It all comes down to flowers is the name of the introduction. What business do pretty flowers have in a vegetable garden?” Not much, many gardeners might think. In fact, I’m married into a large vegetable gardening family, and that’s what they thought, too. Flowers were a waste of precious space and labor in the vegetable patch. Treated like tag along little sisters, they got a place only if there was room left over. But all that changed with the discoveries I made on the way of becoming a cut flower farmer. Flowers have been a key element of the vegetable patch for centuries. The cottage garden is one example of the practical use of small space gardening to grow food crops with a healthy dose of flowers on the side to attract pollinators and beneficial insects. Today, flowers are often a casualty of downsizing and practicality. But in fact, flowers more than pull their weight in the garden. Ornamental and functional all at the same time. They put out the welcome mat for pollinators and beneficial insects. The guests will come, set up house, and raise their families. Exactly what you need in a healthy garden. Friends, this book, Vegetables Love Flowers, not only would I love to sign one for you, this is about my philosophy of gardening. And um now is a great time to dig into this because you know cool flowers really are some of the earliest flowers to bloom in spring. Um and this will get you in the mood to really get some flowers going in to your garden. Um so I would truly love to um sign one for you. And you know it comes with a free video book study. Um, I interviewed the the photographer and my sister and just all the people that were involved in the book and just kind of the backstory. It was really good. I mean, look at that beautiful picture. Some of the photography in here. Um, I was looking through and thinking, “Oh, what do I want to show them or what do I want to tell them?” Um, and this is one of my favorite. I got to find it. You think I’d remember every page of every book, y’all, but it’s not true. Now I can’t even find it of my golden sitting in the buckwheat in her flower crown. It’s berry and it’s just truly the essence of I don’t know where it is. All right, I’m not going to waste time looking for it. It’s in there. Um, all right. Let me take a look at questions. All right. Oh, hello everybody. Love seeing everybody’s sunflowers for being a student or member of my club. Yeah, those cosmos, you know, cosmos grow better in the fall. Did y’all know that? Just like Dalia, shorter days trigger them. They love the cool weather. It’s just I mean, it’s probably too late to plant them now for most of us. Um, but you can you got to when you get your big um jumb your big calendarjournal, that’s the first thing I put on it is when are you supposed to plant those late season cosmos? All right, I’m getting to some questions here. All right, Cynthia says, “How deep is the soil in your containers?” That is a great question. So, for lettuce, for salad greens, it’s not as essential that it be super deep as it would be maybe with if you were trying to grow carrots, but 12 in is a minimum. Again, the deeper and bigger the container is, the more moisture it retains, the cooler it stays. Um, so I would say at a minimum 12 in. Thank you, Paula. I’m looking like a movie star. Y’all are nuts. Um, if you can add time, when is good time to purchase and plant bulbs and cutting? If you can add time, when is good time to purchase and plant bulbs? It really depends on what that that’s kind of a loaded question, Lisa. Not sure if your layout plan for the calendar, but coming from an admin’s brain, I love color coding. Hm. It makes it simpler to follow. That’s a good point. Um, I’m going to actually do a screenshot. See, we can’t I can’t see very easily the comments after the show um is over. So, I just screenshot. That’s a good one. So, yes, Paula, um, which seeds need are which what method they need to be used? There would there will be a flower list. It can’t be all-incclusive, but it’ll have a bunch. You know what, Esther? We do not have spinach seeds only because we have a terrible time getting them. Every time we get on board with one, then it goes out of stock and we can’t get it. Um, and spinach is another great one to grow and start now and grow literally all winter. Oh, good, Debbie. I’m glad you got the book. I also love the flexi tie. Easy to use with old hands. Exactly, Sandra. That’s the way I feel. Used the soil blocker for the first time. Had great germination with your cool flowers. All right, y’all. This is great. I planted my snapd dragon in zone 8A in my soil blocks and they’re now quarter inch tall. I have removed the burlap. I don’t have grow lights, but have a window now. Huh. take them off. As soon as they’re 50% of them have sprouted, Debbie, you take them off the heat and put them to light. And what’s going to happen now um without a grow light is they’re they need 16 hours of light a day to stay really short, really intense light. Um and so they’re going to start stretching and elongating. So I don’t know what your plan is on the growite thing, but I would make that a top priority. But they come off the heat as soon as half of them have sprouted. If I’m planting lettuce transplants soon here in Virginia, I should use shade cloth or insect netting to protect. Yes. Did you say the insect does the insect netting does provide a bit of sun protection? Yes. So, um the insect netting literally the piece that comes with the sun the protection kit is six foot square. Well, that’s probably too big for most containers, but it’s actually 6 foot wide, so we just made a square. So, somebody could do a really big container. You may be able to cut that. Um, a single layer of that insect netting is all you need. And when you do that, it actually shades um it allows heat to escape um and will cool it down a little bit. So, yes, it’ll do. That’s what I’m using it for. And so what is the size of your current growing space? Um are you talking about my big garden? That is unknown yet because you I’m constantly trying to downsize and um our whole property if we went wallto-wall gardening with the space that I have in cover crop. I have a little bit less than an acre. Um but we probably will be growing on less than an eighth of an acre. um because that produces a boatload of flowers, y’all. So, is that all the questions that we have? That’s not bad, y’all. So, friends, thanks for joining me here tonight. And I’m telling you, you got to get I mean, you see it at all the big club stores, right? Those big composite. You might not now, but in spring, those big composite, they won’t they won’t crack outside in freezing weather. And the other thing that I love about container gardening, like for your spinach and stuff, spinach will take it really cold. You can drag your containers into like a garage or something if you’re just having some low temps and then bring it back out um in cooler weather. And so containers just give you a lot of options. Um I hope you’ll try it. Um I hope you’re inspired to read, y’all. Um, I’m really telling you that we answer questions all the day long that are literally right on the seed packet um on the sales page for the different seeds. Um, and so we just I mean our phones have done this to us. If I could go off my phone completely, like not even look at a screen for two months, they say it would change our lives. we’d be back to well, it’s happening in schools where schools have 100% banned phones and we just have to make the effort for something that we want. And I’m telling you, you should read this book. If you are new to gardening or haven’t mastered the whole not using pesticides, this is the book that’ll open the door for you. So, friends, I have a casserole in the oven. Tried a new taco casserole tonight. um out of desperation because I didn’t know what else to do with that hamburger. I’ll let y’all know how it went. It’s got delicious ingredients. So, I’m gonna gobble that up with my man. All right.
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