0:03 

Hello everyone and welcome back to the homegrown

horticulture podcast. Today I'm going to be answering questions I've received

through social media and over the phone about yards and gardens.

0:16 

The homegrown horticulture podcast is specifically for the

Intermountain West, an area with a very unique climate and very unique soils

that's oftentimes forgotten about by national horticulture companies. Because

of this, there's a need for local information, and the homegrown horticulture

podcast is a source for you to gain that information.

0:38 

Our first question is When can I plant warm season crops.

These would include things like cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, green beans,

corn, eggplants, muskmelons, and watermelon. The first thing I would recommend

because this is a regional podcast and average frost dates can vary wildly just

within a few miles is to contact a local experienced gardener or farmer.

They'll know right when it's time to get those warm season crops in for your

specific area. Some other things to monitor are when your average last and

first frost dates are, because all of the warm season crops should be planted

after the average last frost. For the Wasatch Front in Utah, this is generally

early to mid-May. But for our mountain valleys. This is usually two to three

weeks later, oftentimes in late May or early June. Along these lines I had

somebody ask about a week ago, if they could just go ahead and put all of their

flowers and crops in because they checked the weather and we were going to be

above freezing daily. And my response to them as sure yeah, you can plan but

the temperatures are still too cold for those to actually thrive. And many

crops such as tomatoes can actually be damaged if they're regularly exposed to

temperatures below about 45 to 50 degrees. So if you're going to plant warm

season crops when it's too cool, even if they don't freeze, they generally will

just sit there, oftentimes they can get nutrient deficiencies, because the cool

weather makes it harder for them to uptake nutrients. If you're going to put

them out early, you'll need to use season extending methods that warm the soil

up and warm the air temperature up so that they can actually thrive. You need

to remember that many of these flowers and crops are native to Mediterranean

climate areas, and oftentimes tropical areas where they're never exposed to

temperatures near freezing. And so we need to mimic those conditions for those

plants to actually thrive in our yards and gardens.

3:30

Our next question is, last spring, we bought some grassy to

ove rseed her lawn to thicken the grass up? We never did it. Can we go ahead

and put that same seed down. Now, the answer to this is yes, you can go ahead

and put that seed down. It will hold for a couple of years and still germinate

quite well. I think the more important thing though, is going to be preparing

your turf grass so that you can get good germination from that seed you're

putting over the top. To do this, you're going to want to ask yourself, why is

my lawn struggling? You know, if you're just moving in and it was neglected for

a year or two, that's understandable. But if you've lived there and been doing

your best to take care of the lawn, and that lawn is still thinning out, then

what's going on people oftentimes are sprinkling system is the culprit because

it doesn't water very efficiently to where some areas get excessive water and

other areas don't get enough. So checking the sprinkling system to make sure

that it's irrigating evenly improperly is going to be imperative. After

checking this sprinkling system, the next thing I would look at is the soil

itself. Oftentimes if the grass has done well on the soil and all the sudden

started to fade, it's not going to be a soil problem. But if it never really

thrive, then you definitely want to do some soil testing. In this case, the

store-bought soil test you can pick up for 10 or $15 are probably not going to

be sufficient. You are going to want your state's land grant university which

should have a soil lab to test that soil for salinity for pH level four the

amount of phosphorus which may be reported as P2O5. And the amount of potassium

which would be reported sometimes as K2O. Another factor that needs to be

considered is soil compaction. soil compaction commonly causes lawn problems

because the roots don't penetrate very deeply into the soil. Because of this is

really common to develop a very thick thatch layer and just really unhealthy

turf that might green not that never really good.  If you have extremely clay soil where you

live, then the same thing can happen where the roots of the grass don't really

penetrate into the soil that well or that deeply and they can develop lots of

thatch. As mentioned earlier use hollow core aeration. To remedy this, leave

the plugs on top of your lawn and let them disintegrate back into the thatch.

The soil that's introduced will help break the thatch down more quickly by

introducing more micro organisms into the thatch layer for lawns that are grown

in clay soil, compacted soil or lawns that receive a lot of foot traffic, it is

beneficial to areate both in the spring and fall. And so to get back to the

question of Can I use my one year old grass seed  to top dress my lawn? Absolutely yes. But just

go through the procedures and see if you can figure out why is then if you

already have not and then you'll have better success. To top dress I would use

about one to two pounds per 1000 square feet of whatever grass seed you chose.

If the grass is super thin, you could actually kick that up to three to four

pounds per 1000 square feet.

6:50

Our next question is also lawn related. It is we are

building a home and we want to grow a lawn from seed not sod and you tell us

how to prepare. I purposely did not list the city in this question, but I am

familiar with our growing conditions and the soil has a lot of clay in it. And

many areas in this city also has salt problems. And so, I thought this was

quite an appropriate question. I mentioned previously soil testing and it would

really be good to get a soil sample collected and submitted to your land grant

university that test soil for Utah State University you would access the

website usual.usu.edu  u s u a l.usu.edu. You would want what Utah State University calls the routine test. That's where

you get your soil texture, the pH, the salinity, phosphorus and potassium

levels all measured to know if you need to add any into the soil. It also lets

you know if your salt levels are too high. I will include some fact sheets in

the show notes on how to potentially reduce your salinity levels in your soil.

The next step after soil testing is to decide where you're actually going to

need turf. This involves looking at your plot map and mapping on there where

you're actually going to need grass just like you would plan a garden or where

you would put a shed. These areas could include where children and

grandchildren might play, where kids might practice for sports, or you may hold

garden parties or you need some turf because of frequent traffic between two

spots. In general, if you're confused about how to plan where to put turf and

how to plan your landscapes, the Jordan Valley Water Conservancy district

through their Conservation Garden Park and public outreach has a series of free

online classes on how to plan a landscape to be beautiful functional and reduce

water use by up to 50%. Their methods involve no sagebrush, no cattle skulls,

and you oftentimes wouldn't notice the difference between a local scape yard is

compared to a traditional yard because they're so well planned. I've included

the hyperlink to the Localscapes courses in the show notes. Once you've decided

where you're going to put turf in your yard, the next step is to make sure that

your sprinkling system is sufficient to actually water the grass. One of the

biggest water wasters we have our sprinkler inefficiencies, and a recommended

visit online would be to slowtheflow.org if you live in Utah and in a

qualifying area to have a water audit performed for you where to find

instructions on how to do your own water audit so that you can make sure that

your sprinkling system is working as well as possible. Once this is out of the

way. The next step is to prepare your soil. The soil should be tilled to a

depth the 6 inches and as you do this, it's always a good idea to incorporate

two to three inches of compost into the soil if you can afford it. You don't

need the most expensive compost to where stuff from your local green-waste

facility or even your local sewer plant would be fine because you're not going

to use this for your vegetable garden is going toward prepping the soil for

your lawn. Once the soil has been tilled to a depth of six inches, the next

step is to level the soil. It's just easier to do this with a landscape rake if

you're doing it on your own landscape rake can cost upwards of 30 to $40. But

as compared to rake you used to say rake thatch out of your lawn or rake garden

soil. The landscape rakes are nice because they get the soil a lot more even.

Once you're done with this, you should be able to put about a half inch

footprint in the soil. One other thing you may consider if you have your

sprinkling system done is running the sprinkling system for 15 minutes to

settle the soil. Because oftentimes as you're raking the soil gets so fluffy

that you have everything nice and level but as soon as you get water on it, it

will sink up to a couple of inches in spots. And running your irrigation system

prior to seeding will tell you if you have any the spots that need to be fixed.

We're finally going to get to what grass seed I would actually use because I

know this soil is probably clay and potentially slightly salty. In this

situation, I'm going to recommend a turf type tall fescue. These are grasses

that look like Kentucky Blue Grass they mow like Kentucky blue grass and are

just as our green. The turf type tall fescue varieties also grow a little bit

better in clay soil and tolerate much more salt than Kentucky blue grass.

They're also potentially somewhat more drought hardy because they route much

more deeply into the soil. I have included a fact sheet in the show notes

explaining common turf grass mixes, including turf type tall fescue, Kentucky

blue grass and others that will be more drought Hardy, but have some other

considerations. Spread the seed at a rate of about six pounds per 1000 square

feet to have quicker establishment, you would use an inexpensive fertilizer

spreader to spread your seed over the soil. What I would recommend doing is

just applying it lightly and going in a different direction two or three times

to make sure you at least cut some seed everywhere to minimize the chance that

you accidentally missed a few spots where you're trying to get seed. Once the

seed is down, I personally do not like to rake it in. I'm just not good enough

and what will happen as I rake is you can see spots where I raked all of us eat

away and then there's a clump where the seed is growing really thickly where I

accidentally drag too much. Instead of raking the seed into the soil. I like to

get compost usually from my local green waste facility. I make sure that it's

fairly finely ground, I will use a feed scoop or a dust pan and put the compost

in there. And then just very gently sprinkle it over the seed so that it's

about a quarter to a third of an inch thick. After the grass seed is down and

you start watering  it will usually

germinate within about 10 days to two weeks and finished germinating after

about three to four weeks.

13:26

The final question is about Japanese maples. And it's kind

of a compilation of several questions I've had many people call asking why

their Japanese maple either died or has several branches that are dead from

over the last winter. As the name implies, Japanese maples are native to Japan.

and Japan has a fairly humid moist climate somewhat similar, at least in the

northern part of the country to Seattle and Portland. And so do you plan

Japanese maples in a very arid climate like the Wasatch Front or the Front

Range over toward Reno or Boise. The trees just aren't adapted to the lack of

humidity that they would normally experience and also are very hot sun. And so

when Japanese maples are planted in the Intermountain West, they oftentimes

struggle and they need to be planted on the east or North sides of buildings or

where they're going to get consistent afternoon shade. Additionally, the lazier

the leaves on the Japanese maples, the harder they are to take care of Japanese

maples are also susceptible to iron chlorosis. For more about iron chlorosis

you can reference our previous episode from two weeks ago. But I'm often asked

is there a way to salvage them or to make them survive better? And my answer is

usually to just not plant them and if you have to be willing to take the risk

of them being damaged or dying. It often happens that they're healthy for five

or 10 years and then all of a sudden, they have a hard winter and they decline.

Most Japanese maples are hardy down to zone five or six and so if you live in

zone four location they should not be planted in these areas. I am often asked

what I'm often asked what kind of replacement tree or shrub can be used for

Japanese maple and there's really and there's really not that many out there.

One that is often suggested includes elderberry there are several newer lately

forums out in various colors including yellow, green and red. These will

tolerate high. locations then Japanese maple and are more cold hardy than

Japanese maple. They are somewhat susceptible to iron chlorosis. But at least

as far as survivability are a more shore option than what Japanese maples are.

15:57 

Well, that is going to wrap it up for this week. I greatly

appreciate you listening. The homegrown horticulture Podcast is a production of

Utah State University Extension. Show music was composed and performed by

Savannah Peterson, a Utah State University horticulture assistant contributions

to the podcast were also made behind the scenes by Michaela McGuire and Heather

Thompson. Thank you again for listening

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Wasatch Front Veggie Planting Dates

https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1719&context=extension_curall

Preparing Soil For Healthy Turf

https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2823&context=extension_curall#:~:text=The%20soil%20should%20be%20moist,clay%20soils%20compost%20improves%20drainage.

Turf Grasses For The Inter Mountain West

https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2083&context=extension_curall#:~:text=Kentucky%20Bluegrass%20is%20best%20suited,recovers%20well%20from%20frequent%20use.&text=Tall%20Fescue%20is%20a%20good,more%20shade%20than%20Kentucky%20bluegrass.

LocalScapes

https://localscapes.com/classes?gclid=Cj0KCQjwyZmEBhCpARIsALIzmnIfXbxEoQNKzpy9dSmkFdHNzgeinesg9c5jRPimZ0_EieZIu-sLDpUaAv_qEALw_wcB

Managing Soil Salinity

https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1042&context=extension_histall