Summer Gardening: Tomatoes, Zucchini and Climate Change
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From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Alexis Madrigal. We associate certain foods with summer gardens: succulent tomatoes, corn, basil, bushels of zucchini. But this Bay Area gardening is a bit different. In the months ahead, some of us will be socked in for weeks while others will deal with hot temperatures that are truly getting hotter.

So let's talk some summer garden planning in our particular region. How are your tomatoes doing? Will your peppers ever ripen? What can you grow in the foggiest microclimates? We've got expert gardeners to take your questions and you can tell us what's thriving in your plot. It's all coming up next, right after this news.

Alexis Madrigal here. We've got a little pledge break going right now, so you get a bonus on the pledge-free stream, podcast, or on our replay at night. I write these little meditations on the bay, and we call the series One Good Thing.

The counterculture of Berkeley in the 60s and 70s had many, many strands. Anti-war activists, the free speech movement, the Third World Liberation Front, the rolling quads and disability rights movement, the dropouts and hippies, the Afro-American Association, and the people who created and battled for People's Park.

But did you know that dog parks also came out of the broader movement? It was People's Park activists who poked through a fence to take over an empty lot and christen the nation's first dog park in 1979. That space eventually became the Ohlone Dog Park, which exists to this day and to which I take my lovely idiot dog Lalo whenever I can.

Doris Richards was the key figure in the creation of the park. The Smithsonian notes that she established it and was, quote, the mother of the free dog movement. Because it took more than just cutting open a fence to create a park, it took years of petitions and city hall meetings and persuading animal control and working to make it all official.

Richards shepherded the park through its first 17 years, writing a newsletter called Scoops, which promised, quote, all the hot poop.

What I love about this story is that it shows how the incredible upwelling of brilliance and change that swept through the Bay in the 1960s and 70s didn't just transform big things, but also small ones. There are now more than 2,000 dog parks across the country. And before some Berkeley hippies thought of the idea, it did not exist.

Talk about you can just do things energy. Now, if you visit the Ohlone Dog Park, it has continued its spirit of innovation. They've split the park into a place for big dogs and one for dogs like mine, tiny fur babies who quiver with fear at the sight of a golden lab.

Thanks to Ohlone, he can now play with chihuahuas and corgis to his heart's content. So yes, that's your one good thing this Friday morning. The unexpected countercultural origins of the dog park right there in Berkeley.

Welcome to Forum. Still Alexis Madrigal. I gotta tell you, my front patch of mostly flowers is going off right now. The sticky monkey flower is in full bloom, the bachelor buttons are popping, the California poppies are sunshine here on Earth, and the salvia too, it just keeps blooming.

Meanwhile, out back, my tomato seedlings are thriving. I'm growing some ancestral central Mexican varieties I got from Kula Nursery. They're awesome. And the scarlet runner beans I plant every year are already six feet tall. My daughter is already eating snap peas and declaring the number of days until each individual strawberry is ripe.

This really is a time and maybe a year where Bay Area gardeners, or at least this one Bay Area gardener, feels like a great gardener. Everything is working. I know, however, I remain an amateur. I know the hard times are coming. So let's bring on the real experts and ask some questions. We're joined this morning by Flora Grubb, owner of Flora Grubb Gardens Plant Nursery. Welcome. Good morning. Thank you for having me.

Thanks for coming back. We've got Leslie Bennett, owner and creative director of Pine House Edible Gardens and co-author of Garden Wonderland, Create Life-Changing Outdoor Spaces for Beauty, Harvest, Meaning, and Joy. Welcome back, Leslie. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so glad to be here. Yeah, so glad to have you. Everybody made it in through the...

All the BART turmoil. We also have Allison Greenlawn, Master Gardener and Urban Ag Coordinator with the UC Cooperative Extension Agriculture and Natural Resources in Alameda County. Welcome. Good morning. We were actually debating with the producers whether in today's day and age, having the last name Greenlawn and being in...

in this field is a good thing or a bad thing, right? Because like lawns are getting torn out left and right. This would have been the perfect last name. Yes, I do get this question or reaction often. And I have a story about it. But the short answer is it's challenging sometimes having last name Greenlawn when you've killed a lot of lawns and replaced them with native plant gardens. It's true. It's like it's the reverse of whatever it is when your name determines your outcomes in life.

So, Floor Grub, let's go to you. We have had a couple of wet years in a row. And before that, we had drought for a really long time. So...

Where do you think people are in thinking about their gardens and thinking about their yards in relation to our sort of like natural water cycles? Yeah. In relation to our natural water cycles that are being dysregulated based on climate change.

couple of wet years have people thinking that they should grow roses after all and that their lawn isn't looking so bad really and that and also a lot of people feeling very very successful in their gardens with very little input right I think this is one of the most beautiful springs in memory and that's because it's not just after one wet winter it's after a couple of nice wet winters everything just looks so lush and

And it remains true that as good citizens of the West, we cannot just use however much water our pocketbook allows us to afford. We have to look to something besides self-interest to decide how we're going to budget our water. Yeah.

Do you think, Leslie Bennett, that means I can't just plant some vegetables though, right? Like I can, right, Flora? Like I can have that in amongst other things. Listen, somebody is going to use water to grow your food. And it's okay if it's you. You can spend as much water as you want on your vegetable patch. Although I'll leave it to Leslie to talk about that because that's her area of expertise. I'm talking about your lawn.

Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree. I mean, I think it's a lot about how your water is being used and your farmer is going to use the water to grow the food as well. It is using water for a lawn or for things that are just not supporting it much. Yeah.

But are there there's also like certain things I can like are there things that maybe are a little too water hungry even in the vegetable realm? No, I'm a I'm a strong believer and you can grow what you want to eat and you should grow what you want to eat. I think it's really important to remember our connection to the earth and to the gardens.

And I think the strongest, the easiest way to connect with the land and with our food is by growing it. So, so no, nothing's off limits in the food, in the food realm. You might reduce the quantity. I think you can reduce the amount of square footage dedicated to it. And then it's amazing how much you can grow in a really small little wine barrel tub or three foot galvanized trough. And you still get that experience of connection and,

And it's really, I think, very water efficient. Yeah. All transformative with kids too, I think, to have them go eat the things that are out there. Yeah. Allison, you're Master Gardener, coordinate this program for Master Gardeners. Let's talk a little bit about the logistics. We're not quite to summer yet, of course, although it

It feels like it right now. So what should people be doing to get ready right now? Okay. So we are, I agree, Alexis, we're at that really exciting time of year where we feel so much control over our garden. And the outlook is beautiful and organized. And chaos tends to land around July when we give up on our weeds fully by then.

But during this time, if you haven't yet amended your garden, your vegetable garden particularly, I suggest getting some compost in there so you have nutrient-rich soils for the plants to thrive, especially when we're talking about vegetable gardens right now. And keeping on top of your weeds now early and often is one of my biggest pieces of advice in all areas of the garden. Weed early and often. Amend early and often. Harvest early and often. Mm-hmm.

harvest early enough. And so you mean like harvest like earlier than I might otherwise? Well, that's going to vary by vegetable that we're talking about. But I notice often when I'm visiting community gardens, one of the biggest areas of learning I could help people with is your tomatoes, which we're all eagerly waiting for right now. It's not quite time. Your tomatoes are often on the vine much longer than they should be.

We want to harvest them during the breaker stage, which is just a term to describe right after you see color take on, but before they get soft. When you harvest them early and often, the plant will actually over the season produce more fruit. And you could always do a big harvest and make a batch of sauce. And then wait for the next. Yeah. Leslie Bennett, because tomatoes are the thing people love to talk about.

Do you have feelings about particular tomato varieties? I know some gardeners, for example, want to avoid sun golds because they have a certain sort of provenance or whatever. Do you have feelings about which ones to grow?

I really like to keep things simple. My only feeling about tomatoes is that I love them. They're delicious. And I don't try to get up to... I think there's enough in the world that's complicated. Yeah.

And while I welcome all the thoughts, it's a lot of food for thought out there. I think, again, grow what you love. It's one place that we can keep fairly straightforward and educate ourselves and make choices along the way. Yeah. And favorite tomato varieties. Everyone wants to know. I think about it a little more in terms of.

Having different types of tomatoes over the course of the season. So I like to have in my own home garden, and I think it's sort of typical of a lot of home gardens, it's not that much space. I have two raised beds. A lot of people have one. And so you're working with like one to three tomatoes, probably. You know, some people are out there growing 18 tomatoes. I have those clients, and that's awesome. But if you have a space for one to three, think about having an early, mid, and late season tomato. And the earlies are always the cherry tomatoes. Mm-hmm.

And I do go with the hybridized options. I love Sweet 100. I do plant Sun Gold. And for mid-season, I love something like an early girl, a dirty girl, or

What, stew peach? Where they're going to be like a little bit bigger. They're not like a fish size. Those are plum size. Yeah, those are a nice plum size. They're ready actually really early and super productive. The stew peach goes for me all year. Like that's just my basic slicer. It's not like that exciting, but it tastes good. It works. And then every year I like to switch it up with a fun, cool heirloom and do something different. Wait for it never to ripen. Yeah, totally, totally. No.

That's it. That's my favorite heirloom game. I'm like, will I get one single ripe tomato off this plant? Especially if you're in Oakland or Berkeley. We're talking about getting your summer garden ready, how to think about it, what's in it, how to help it thrive. We are joined by Leslie Bennett, owner and creative director of Pine House Edible Gardens. We got Flora Grubb, the owner of Flora Grubb Gardens Plant Nursery as well. And Allison Greenlawn, who's a master gardener and urban ag coordinator for UC Cooperative Extension. We've got to find a shorter term.

A tighter title for what you do, but works with other master gardeners and community gardens, etc. We'd love to hear from you. What are you getting ready to grow? What are the challenges you're facing in your microclimate? 866-733-6786. That's 866-733-6786. Forum at kqed.org. We'll be back with more right after the break.

Support for Forum comes from San Francisco Opera. Experience the soaring highs and heartbreaking lows of bohemian life this summer in John Caird's beloved production of La Boheme. Puccini's most adored opera transports us into the heady bohemian world of 19th century Paris as we follow a circle of starving artists falling in and out of love, living for the moment. La Boheme runs June 3rd to 21st.

Learn more at sfopera.com. Support for Forum comes from Rancho La Puerta, a wellness resort in Baja, California, just an hour from San Diego. Recently voted the number one destination spa by readers of Travel and Leisure magazine. Summer retreat packages of three, four, or seven nights, including hiking, water classes, mindfulness, spa therapies, and culinary adventures with farm-fresh ingredients. Learn more at rancholapuerta.com.

Welcome back to Forum. I'm Alexis Madren. We're talking about getting your summer garden ready, what you're putting in, how to help it thrive, whether you should be tearing out your lawn. We're joined by our gardening dream team. We've got Allison Greenlawn, who is the master gardener and urban ag coach.

coordinator, not a master gardener, but sort of the master of the master gardeners. We've got Leslie Bennett, owner and creative director of Pine House Edible Garden. She's got a book she's on the show for you can go listen to that. It's called what's called Garden Wonderland. And we've got Flora Grubb, of course, of Flora Grubb.

Let's think a little bit about some of the native plants we might want to put in, Flora. Let's say people aren't interested in a big vegetable garden. Is this a good time to plant? What is this a good time to plant if it is for a certain native? I mean, luckily by the coast, it's a fine time to plant all the time. If you live in a hotter climate, when you...

put plants in. You sometimes have to water them more if you put them in during the heat, and that can set them back a bit. But we don't

We don't suffer from a hard, hard frost or winter coming on its way. And our gardens don't have that long period of rest under snow cover, right? So really, you should plant whenever you have time to garden. Just get into it and plant something when you can. Yeah. Are there things that you would be thinking about planting right now? Like any couple of specifics for me? You know, like...

a truly bad skilled gardener. I know all winter long that I should be making plant, I should be putting things in while it's cold and wet. And like everyone else, as soon as my garden starts going nuts, I'm just transfixed. I'm called out into the garden and then I want to plant everything right now. I'm only just getting started right now and wanting to put all kinds of new things in. I also have a

lot of annuals that I do in the early spring a lot of poppies and I let the mustards go wild in my garden and so they're all coming into full fruition right now and then they're all going to come down and something new has to go in do you have any thoughts about what that might be um

So let's see what I do. I have a lot of thoughts about what I want to put in this year, but I've been putting I put in some I've been wanting to put in more grasses and especially to experiment with more of our native grasses along with some of the other Mediterranean climate grasses, just because that's not a my garden is pretty structural and that's a.

fun thing to add. Yeah, totally. Allison, Gabby over on the Discord writes, what are some plants, particularly native plants, that you'd love to see in people's gardens? And maybe you could speak to ones that are maybe easier for people to help thrive that you've seen work in community gardens and other spaces.

Specifically native plants. Well, I super agree with what you said, Flora. I will throw in that if you want to plan for a certain time of year, definitely plant native plants in the fall. My personal favorite time is winter, December, like right on the holiday season. I love to go out and plant my native plants there.

So some easy ones, we spoke to a few of them already. I also am a fan of the perennial native grasses. They tend to need very little water. And a lot of people kill their native plant gardens in the first year because they don't water them enough during the establishment period. So native grasses...

How am I supposed to know which grasses are native? Because I've heard, for example, Mexican feather grass, I think it's called. They don't even sell it in a lot of places anymore. Yeah, listen to that. For people who don't know what that is, they're like, wow, sorry, geez. But you get booed for planting this grass, basically, if you go among plant people. So how does one know? Yeah.

Okay, great question. So the program that I run, the UC Master Gardener program, we are connected to the University of California. So we're providing information that comes from the research around best practice in horticulture. Of course, we don't need research to know that plants have been in these spaces much longer than humans have before we moved them around. There are resources available.

out of the University of California that you can reference if you want to look at native plant lists. And then Calscape is a reference for checking where plants are from. This is a hot topic, too, because some people say, hey, if it's from the California Floristic Province, it's good to go. And others feel very strongly that we want to plant within a 50-mile radius of where plants are native to.

I think from an educator perspective, I just want people to garden and hopefully not introduce a new invasive plant to our area. Yeah, yeah, totally. This is probably producer Grace Wan's doing, but we have a lot of zucchini questions that have come in already.

One listener writes, I mean, this is just a great zucchini story. A listener on Discord writes, my great-great-grandfather introduced zucchini to California from Italy. He was a botanist in Santa Barbara and introduced David Fairchild, an early, quote, plant explorer from the Department of Agriculture, to the squash that is now everywhere in California. According to family lore, the zucchini we grow today comes from my great-great-grandfather's attempts to...

To breed hardy, low-water food crops under Mussolini. The anti-fascist zucchini. Ironically, it's the only garden veggie I can't stand. One reason that I think zucchinis come up, right, is that this is, they do really well here, right, Leslie? Yep. And maybe they do too well here. So what would your advice around that be? Like how does one manage when you plant one of these plants?

that suddenly takes over your entire garden bed and wants to shade everything else out? I have a solid answer for you. I love growing zucchini in my own backyard. Again, I have a very standard two-bed backyard kind of space. And I like zucchini, but I don't want it too much. So what I've done really successfully for the last couple of years is I plant two plants together.

One is a patio-size zucchini, and I kind of switch it up each year. It's like a bush form, not a trailing. So it looks like any of the green zucchinis or kind of white stripes, like Magda or something. Or Renee's Garden Seeds is doing one called Patio Baby, which we're trying for the first time this year. It's really cute, like two feet in diameter. That's a good name. It's cute. Yeah.

So I try one of those each year. It's always super successful. And then I also plant one of my favorites, which is the costata romanesco, which is an Italian heirloom vining squash. And the joy of this squash is that it is sort of your traditional squash that grows and goes a little crazy, but it doesn't produce too much fruit.

And then those fruits, you always get surprised by one that's hidden and you find it. But the joy of this fruit is that no matter how big it gets, it's still delicious. The fruit doesn't get tough and nasty. So I have my little guys that I harvest regularly. Then I have my surprise giant one that I find. And it's enough. So it works well. I like having that surprise zucchini. You're like, how did that get lost? They're always there. I mean, it's so beautiful.

Let's bring in Yolanda in Oakland. Welcome, Yolanda. Hi, Dream Team. I live in the Oakland Hills, and I wanted to know for each of you what your recommendations are for native plants that are easy to grow and will help us abide by the new five-foot rule that's coming up.

In the Hills area where there's a lot of fire, the authorities are saying that you cannot have anything next to your house or anything next to a wooden fence. And that just sounds very ugly to me. So I was wondering if you might have suggestions. Yeah, thanks, Yolanda. It's a good...

the new reality here, Allison. Yes, we're in a really exciting time where public resources and education around fire safe landscaping are coming out fast and abundant. We're learning a lot and I'm really excited to pass this information on to the public. This is a great question and you're going to find a lot of information and a lot of opinions on this. I'd like to say that

well irrigated gardens, properly maintained gardens where we're pruning, deadheading, removing plant debris are going to be the first line of defense for a garden that is helpful and not harmful to where you live. I also suggest that

I'm a real advocate for the native wildflowers. You can just seed them in October right before the first rain. Go out there and throw your seed out and you'll have an amazing bloom. It's ephemeral, but I think our best joys are. And finally, coral bells make a great fire safe flower.

Perennial, if you want to go more the perennial route around the house, I recommend those. You know, Leslie, one of the things that I always think about that you said on the show was to have some hardworking plants that give you kind of some structural things in the garden. And then you can plant these like beautiful wildflowers around, et cetera. So what would you say would be some good like hardworking fire escaping plants that then you could...

Yeah, I know. I read about that, too. And last year we did our first it was a Berkeley project that

you know, had to adhere to these rules. And it was really interesting. It's, you know, three to five feet off the house, nothing flammable. So all the conifers are gone. And it was really interesting what we were, it turned out beautifully. And maybe I'll do a little video on my Instagram channel to show you all. Cause it was, it was a challenge and we, we made it work at least once very nicely, but structure is key. So you really do want the shrubby, hardworking evergreen plants that are,

generally not native. Um, and they're going to hold the space. They're going to not be flammable. And, um, then succulents, succulents are, you know, 90% water, whatever it is, they're full of water. They don't catch on fire. So, um, and they, um,

I personally am not a big fan of an all succulent garden where it just looks like that. But I love the mix of textures where you have shrubby, you have succulents for that broad, fleshy, and then like a bit of feathery softness, which can, there are some native plants that will do that work for you or anything. I think beauty is so important to balance. We can't, yes to the fire safety and beauty.

We get to choose to live with beauty responsibly. Flora, I bet you've seen some all-succulent gardens that are real bangers, though, too. Yeah? I mean, when we say succulent, we have a certain thing in our minds. But really, I know Leslie and I both love there's some of these new aloes that just look like little grassy things.

and then get the big, beautiful aloe flowers, which are going to be a good, low, small fire retarding because they're very high water content. And that's what we're going to be looking for is those very high water content plants to grow around the house. And I am excited to see as our best gift,

garden designers in california start to redefine what the areas around our houses look like in order to not have them have flammable materials and that's going to include of course wood so what what are we going what are the gardens of the future going to look like if it's not wooden decks with uh beautiful big beautiful trees to give us privacy from our windows and i think you know i i'm optimistic that we can come up with beautiful new standards yeah

Absolutely. Let's bring in Steve up in Napa. Welcome, Steve. Hello. How are you doing today? Good, good. Thanks for calling.

Yeah, so I have a mini orange tree and some herbs. My herbs are doing well, but the citrus tree, unfortunately, it produced just the first year that we got it, five oranges, but now it's just bare. Like there's no leaves, there's nothing. And I try putting new soil in it and see if it would, you know, do something, but nothing has happened.

So is there anything I can do? Or it seems like it's just dead. But it still shows some greenness in it. Some light to it. Yeah. Leslie, I think, has a sad news for you. Maybe not. I don't know. Yeah, not that happy news. Citrus are really hard to rehab. They are sensitive. Yeah.

But I think you have the right idea. Add compost. Maybe if you haven't already, it sounds like you did replant it with some compost. Top dress with compost. Water. Sounds like it's not getting enough water. I think so many people take the low water mandate so far that you end up with no plants. And I'm not saying you did that. I'm not saying you did that. Yeah.

But you got to give it water. Seems like my honor has been impugned. Especially in the first five years that you had that tree. I water it pretty well. Okay. I pretty much soak the soil when I water it. One thing I'll add quickly and then I think is just an irrigation system if it's possible. A lot of hand watering I think is actually nice in some ways, but it actually often...

creates problems because it's infrequent or irregular and it's not long and steady enough. So if you can set up a drip system, that's actually the most water efficient way to get to your plants. And then also it's the

Best way to get healthy plants. So that might help. And I think Flora. Yeah, with a citrus plant too, if you've lost all of the leaves, but you see a little bit of green, chances are what you're seeing is the root stock returning. Because in California, almost all of the citrus you can buy is not grown on its own root, but on a root stock plant, which is much tougher than the fruiting plant that's grafted onto the top of it. So chances are what you have is no longer a fruiting plant. I think it's time to start over. Yep.

Guys, did you – I had this exact same question. So Steve was actually my – like I was ventriloquizing Steve. Thank you, Steve, for asking that question. I do. I'm also a little bit offended because it seems like citrus trees do really well on the side of the street where I am, on my block. So I planted one, and it has just been this –

Just fail, son. You know? Yeah, so there are two citrus that belong by the coast, in my opinion. Maybe four, but you've got to have that Meyer lemon and you've got to have that Bears lime. And then beyond that, you're really just...

just courting difficulty because the rest of them just want more heat. And sometimes you can get lucky and you have a really hot spot or there are some like kumquats maybe with very small fruits that you can succeed with, but you can't grow an orange or a grapefruit. Yeah.

Yes, I just asked, was it an orange that you planted? I planted a little mandarin because we had one down at our house down at the other end of the block and it was doing so well. I'm really glad this topic came up. I was thinking about this on my way in that I anecdotally feel that oranges are a little bit of an indicator of microclimates that we see around the Bay Area because I think it's a really common experience that you get inspired by someone's very productive, specifically oranges, because the Meyer lemons kind of grow themselves. They're fine. They're fine.

I mean, sympathy, if you have trouble with that too, will help you. But yeah, the oranges may be an indicator sometimes of really drastic changes in growing conditions, light, soil type, fog that's common here. And you can see these differences street to street. Mm-hmm.

Alexis, we are neighbors and I am growing a Kishu Mandarin successfully and my little Kishus were delicious this year. Yeah. In retrospect, I put it in a bad spot. I put it in a bad spot and we have a maple that has been getting bigger and I think it has shaded it out. It's my fault is all I'm saying. Something I see a lot with citrus because we have a lot of success with a wide range of citrus but it is paying very careful attention to where you put them. But Caracara Orange is great also but

How you plant them is so key. The citrus are very... If you plant them too deep and they're...

their little crowns are covered the bottom of the root there um they are not gonna like that and so they're more sensitive than many trees i think a lot of people are planting them just like a half inch too low so you want to lift like kind of mound them up a little bit not too much because their roots are also very sensitive and can't be exposed so they're just tricky but like lift it or sink show some grit citrus you know like where's the resilience here there's very little

We've got some other comments coming. Other types of gardens and interesting things. This one's cool. Kenichi over on the Discord writes, you know, one of my favorite parts of my garden is a planted wine barrel wetland. It fills with rain and I pour dishwater in it to keep some moisture through the summer. It supports some native plants that need a damp grassland or an ephemeral spring. This time of year, it's got some coast tarweeds and seep monkeyflowers.

I mean, Kenesha, I happen to know, is a big naturalist, so would be the one to identify these things and that it's not just like, oh, we got some weeds in this barrel. Do you want to say something about that? Just that that sounds like a very exciting, like perfect urban garden project. Totally agreed. We're talking about the summer garden, what's in it.

what we're growing, how to help it thrive. We're taking your sort of car talk style, fix your problem calls. We've got Flora Grubb with us, owner of Flora Grubb, of course, the nursery. We've got Leslie Bennett, owner and creative director of Pine House Edible Gardens and co-author of Garden Wonderland.

create life-changing outdoor spaces for beauty, harvest, meaning, and joy. And we've got Allison Greenlawn, who's Master Gardener and Urban Ag Coordinator at the UC Cooperative Extension in the Agricultural and Natural Resources in Alameda County.

She helps people grow things and learn to grow things better. We wanna hear from you. What are you getting ready to grow? What challenges are you facing? Here's one. What's an unusual vegetable, fruit, or plant that you're cultivating right now? Love to see that or hear about those.

We'll share ours at the top of the next segment. 866-733-6786. That's 866-733-6786. You can email forum at kqed.org. Find us on Blue Sky. Find us on Instagram. We're KQED Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for more right after the break.

Support for Forum comes from San Francisco Opera. Experience the soaring highs and heartbreaking lows of bohemian life this summer in John Caird's beloved production of La Boheme. Puccini's most adored opera transports us into the heady bohemian world of 19th century Paris as we follow a circle of starving artists falling in and out of love, living for the moment. La Boheme runs June 3rd to 21st. Learn more at sfopera.com.

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Welcome back to 4. I'm Alexis Madrigal here. We're talking about getting ready for the summer garden, which is, of course, your spring gardening time right now. We've got Allison Greenlaw, Master Gardener and Urban Ag Coordinator with UC Cooperative Extension. We've got Leslie Bennett, Owner and Creative Director of Pine House Edible Gardens. And we've got Flora Grubb of Flora Grubb.

Here's a question, an unusual thing that really surprised you or that you've loved growing that people might want to think about. I'll just share mine. I got some seeds from my friend Alec for these Korean chrysanthemums, which have grown really well. And the thing that's so beautiful about them is their blooms are,

About maybe one out of every three have this like butter yellow that is like just I've never really seen a flower that color. And they are just reseeding themselves all over the place. But it's lovely. So, yeah, the Korean chrysanthemum. I love that. Yeah.

I love growing—it's not that unusual, but I love growing lemon verbena, which is a shrub, a deciduous shrub, and it has the bright green leaves that make the most delicious tea. Or you can throw them into cream and they—

Flavor the cream. And then these are Chez Panisse recipes that you whip the cream and serve it with strawberries. But lemon verbena will even tolerate a little shade, even in our coolest climates around the Bay Area. My lemon verbena is going crazy. So pretty, right? I need to I actually need to do more with it because it's just taking over my little herb bed.

I'm going to piggyback on Flora and also offer a plant for tea, which is summer chamomile that I love to grow. It's my party trick to make people fresh chamomile tea in the summer. I want everyone to taste that. I also like the way the little blooms turn into like a birdie from, you know, like Batman after a while. Like they just, every part of that plant is so fun. Yeah. And I will add to our little afternoon tea party some flowers. I have been loving growing blooms.

Boring old zinnias, but not boring ones. The Queen Lime Series of zinnias, which is not a new blend, but they're such a beautiful range of colors.

And last year, I switched a lot of my veggie garden over to flowers and did a bunch of cut flowers. It was just so I had an abundance of flowers. Each one plant produces like 100 flowers. And I feel like flowers are just the net. You can show up anywhere. Like you go to your friend's house, someone's sick, someone's happy, someone's sad. You just bring them, you know, a little hand, a little posy of blooms. And it's the nicest thing to just always have on hand to share and give to yourself. I love also that you know, you know, like the...

specific varieties that are new and hot in the market. It's like you're talking to a sneaker head. - I'm supposed to. - And they're like, "You should see these new Air Maxes." And I'm like, "Oh."

What was that? Lime green? Yes, queen lime. Queen lime. Queen lime orange. Queen lime blush is super pretty. But they're a really pretty sort of ombre tone zinnia that's just nice. Every time I've tried to order from the fancy Instagram seed places, I have just failed entirely to make them grow the way they look on the internet. A lot of them are like that. The queen lime is actually not.

that fancy they're like available at your local nursery but they look fancy they're winners let's take another call here let's go to Wendy in San Francisco welcome Wendy

Hi, I live in the Sunset District and I have a really big backyard. Super fortunate for that. But the majority of it is sand. I've tried to amend it over the years and I've kind of just transitioned to potting. There's one patch specifically that has quite a bit of shade and I've like transplanted some jade and geraniums working. But I was wondering if you had any recommendations for like just massively sandy soil that also kind of erodes a bit.

Sounds challenging, Wendy. I empathize. It's a good challenge. But I also want to say there's an amazing array of native plants that are adapted for our sandy soils. And I recommend you go to those plants rather than kind of, you know,

know, put up the fight of amending your sand and try to make it into soil that it's not. I always say soil wasn't born in a day. So it's very challenging to change the character of soil quickly. And I love sand verbena as one native plant that's adapted for sand that you can try. I know the answer to this question, but should she plant ice plant?

You see, I like to just, I'm just trolling them in here. Trolling them. Maybe she could find some scotch broom to have as well. Painful. For the rest of the show,

For those who don't know, ice plant is that, gosh, I don't even know. It sometimes has very pretty flowers. It has pretty flowers. But it is like wildly invasive. Yeah, I mean, it goes crazy. You might recognize ice plant along our freeways, our freeway entrance and exits. It was planted as a soil stabilizing plant during a very specific time in urban development. And whoopsies, it's gone out of control. Yeah, yeah. It does. Yeah, it seems like a lot of the time when you see things planted along the freeway, maybe.

Maybe you don't want to put that in your garden. If they can survive there, they're going to just go everywhere. Let's get a quick tomatoes and squirrels question. Sean in San Jose. Hi. I'd like to know what would be a good pest to turn that is not going to catch birds and hummingbirds. I want to protect my tomatoes. Also, when would I cut up

Sun choke and put it in the ground. Is there a better name for that plant that's more realistic? Sun choke is... And bucket or bed. Thank you. All right. Hey, thank you, Sean. First of all, I must have very dumb squirrels in my backyard because I've never touched my tomatoes. However...

I think they learn. They have culture. What can you say? Yeah. Okay, so I have a couple of tips for you. Firstly, let's make sure that we are dealing with squirrels and what type of squirrel. The type of pest, especially with mammal pests, will greatly inform our management style. And if it is squirrels, that's challenging, right?

But I want to go back to that harvest point that I made at the beginning. A very simple solution you can make is harvesting early before your pests get to it. It's probably not the answer you want to hear, but that's kind of your first line of defense is not giving them a lot of fodder. Let's see. There was another question. Oh, sunchokes. Oh, sunchokes. That's right. A sunchoke question. Yeah.

No? That's very niche. I've planted them, but not for like 10 years. Dang. Sorry. I wish we could have helped. Yeah. You stumped us. Yep. Can we have an easier question, please? Yes. All right. Yes. Here's a good one. Ariana in San Francisco. Welcome. Thanks for taking my call. I live close to Florida. I've been in the Bayview District. And we have a...

- Challenging backyard question. We are adjacent to the light industrial area and we would like to have some privacy. We need something very tall that can grow very quickly and that is not invasive. We considered the bamboo that like the clumping one

The French trench and cost is a little bit prohibitive. So we went down the path of trying to like grow it in house and that kind of failed. And now we're a little bit back to the drawing board that we're talking about, you know, this would in order for us to really enjoy our space, it would require probably like five,

like 20, 30 feet tall. - I think Allison's got you. - I'm bursting out of my seat to answer this one. Okay, so I used to be a designer before I was doing public education work and this was probably the most common question designers get. My pipe dream, ideal answer to you is rip down your fence and join your yards together and grow a garden in community with your neighbors.

I understand that's not always possible. So my other answer for you is usually potassium is our best suggestion for those fence plants. But I caution those of you who have this question, I caution thinking about what is very fast growing solution to garden is is not to be in a rush. And so when we seek plants that are for quick solutions, quick,

Rethink that. Rephrase your goal here. But I think the answer you want is pitosporum. Is that how I say that? I've said that wrong for my whole life. It's Latin. You can say it however you want. Okay, good. I say pitosporum. Another group of plants that I love are the non-invasive acacia, which are very fast. So most acacia are going to reach their full adult size in four years. And for some of them, that does mean 20 feet.

So that's a way to get your quick privacy screen. And also the pitosporum or pitosporum is also, it is a quite fast plant when you water it appropriately. All of these are going to be a better choice than a bamboo, which is going to really need a ton of water. And although you get kind of instant gratification from a mature bamboo, if you could just give it a couple years, you'll have spent a quarter of the amount of money and use a quarter of the amount of water. Yeah.

I have an acacia that planted itself in my yard and I have just, I have to say, I've just been kind of playing with it. I keep cutting it most of the way down. It is now, I let it grow just straight up. I mean, it has just grown straight up. It's probably put on 15 feet this year. Yeah. 15 feet in this little, tiny, skinny trunk. Like those things are wild. Yeah. And if you're talking about most likely the black acacia, like the invasive acacia that we see around, that's a big tree. And you have to be careful about,

letting it go. I'll cut it down. Don't worry, everyone. I don't want anyone to know I know to cut it down. I would cut it down and also get a shovel in there and dig up the roots as best you can. It's almost like what I imagine balsa wood or something. It's just so fast. Ariana, I hope that helped out

We have a couple of questions, both about dogs. Yuko writes, I have two geriatric dogs who love to roll in the weeds and dirt. Good for them. What is a good drought-tolerant and native ground cover for soft, fun rolling that is easy to find dog poo in for easy pickup? Am I asking too much?

And Cheryl writes, last year I took out all the scrappy lawn on the west side of my backyard. I replaced it with decomposed granite, put in fig, persimmon, and lemon trees. Sounds lovely. I still have a scrappy lawn in the middle of my yard. I have two dogs and need a lawn or some kind of plant that's good for them to play on and hang out on. What do you suggest? You know, I always suggest that if you're going to grow ground cover...

grow it in gravel instead of dirt, right? So put down some gravel and then plant the ground cover in the gravel so that when it's successful, you have ground cover. And when and where it's failing, because it will almost always fail at some time of the year or in some locations in your yard, you have ground cover over gravel, which is beautiful, instead of ground cover over dirt, which looks like you've failed. So that's my two cents. Mm-hmm.

And answering the question around native ground covers, that's another common question in the native plant world. And it's a little challenging. There aren't a ton of native plants that I think are all stars for ground covers. But two that come to mind for me are the native strawberry, which in certain garden contexts can take off and do very well. Your dogs will love it for better or for worse.

And dare I say the native oxalis, which is adapted for growing under redwood forests and can form a ground cover. And here we go. There's oxalis in the conversation. It's a great...

It's a great all-star to showcase our native oxalis instead of the invasive oxalis. Which I'm going to ask you about that in just a second. We're joined by Flora Grubb, owner of Flora Grubb Gardens Plant Nursery, Leslie Bennett, owner and creative director of Pine House Edible Gardens. You can check out her book, Garden Wonderland, and Allison Greenlawn, master gardener and urban ag coordinator with UC Cooperative Extension. This is Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal.

How would one know the difference between our native oxalis and the kind you should just tear out with your teeth if you need to? So the most common native oxalis that you're going to encounter here in Northern California is oxalis origana, and it has a beautiful purple-shaped flower, although the leaves can look quite similar.

On the contrary, invasive oxalis, which most of you probably are familiar with, has a bright yellow flower. And it's native to South Africa. It was brought in- People call it sour grass sometimes, right? Or sour grass. Yes. And just so you know, it's native to the Mediterranean region of South Africa. That's why it does so well here. It has a similar climate that is also Mediterranean. It was brought in through the horticulture trade, and we didn't realize it would do more than its share. It's a great plant.

Even too much. Can I say one PSA about oxalis as well? Which is that it doesn't form fruits. So when you weed it, it has little bulbs in the ground. And if you pull it out, the bulbs usually stay behind. And your efforts are unfortunately a little bit... So many little bulbs. So many. So many. It's a common misconception that you want to get it before it fruits because it doesn't actually form fruits in California. Yeah. That's interesting. Look.

Let's go to Maggie in El Cerrito. Welcome, Maggie. Hi, thanks. Just on the topic of getting kids involved, I have a compost project in El Cerrito called the Velveteen Bean, and we do a lot of vermicomposting and getting kids involved in touching the worms and seeing the food cycle and everything that's left on their plate gets fed to the worms, and it's just fun.

Can I ask about the name? The name? The Velveteen Bean? The Velveteen. Yeah, it started because I take upcycled materials that would otherwise go to the landfill and create a compost starter and soil booster. So it's bunny rescue manure from a local rescue called Rabbit Ears, and it's a coffee byproduct from all the roasteries that we have. Wow. Wonderful.

That is wonderful. I love that. Let's get Susanna in Fairfax. Welcome, Susanna. Hi. I live in a mid-century redwood-clad Japanese-inspired house in Fairfax in the high-fire zone. And in the front of our house, it's very red.

arid, but it has a courtyard that is in the center of the house. And I've been trying to figure out what would be a good option for growing in that space. Like, I feel like a Japanese maple would look cool, but I'm a little worried about the fire elements of things. So I'm just curious what would look good, like, as a tree sort of vibe. But I'll

but also stuff on the ground. - Yeah, those high water content plants. And again, we don't even wanna use the word succulents because you may get a picture in your mind of something that you don't like, but there are all kinds of succulent plants, even that go with your mid-century vibe.

So, and the planting in ceramic pots also, the pot then is non-flammable. The plant can be moved around over time, particularly if you're just dying to have a maple tree, you can put one into a ceramic pot.

during the summer, move it away from your house when the fear of fire is upon us. Or kind of like lean into the kind of bonsai, tiny, tiny maple, right? You know, I mean, maples are so pretty and keeping them really small is a great way to make them not a threat in fire. I would say in my own gardening, it hasn't been that difficult to keep my maple small. That I have managed to accomplish. I didn't even know I was accomplishing something.

Let's see. Listener writes, in Oakland, favas are an amazing plant. They're happy even in the clay, oh, in Oakland's hills.

happy in the clay, lack of full sun. I plant right after the first rain and all winter they grow slowly, shoot up in the spring. Leaves are a great green, either cooked as spinach, chopped into a pesto, great nutty flavor. Totally agree with this. Their flowers start early, making bees happy. Their beans are prolific, fresh, and very tasty. They're finished by the time the dry heat season has arrived. Hot tip for next year. Can I add too that the

beautiful black and white flowers last in a vase. I experimented this year with my own. They're so pretty. And I thought, surely these flowers are just going to poop out after one day in a vase. But no, they last in a vase. They're so pretty. Yeah, yeah. I do too. I love everything about them. And in fact...

some ants colonized them and they created these other little nectaries for the ants, which was amazing. And I liked it. It's like a little ecosystem just going hard in the backyard.

We have been talking about summer gardening with our gardening dream team here, Flora Grubb. Thanks so much for coming back. Oh, thank you. I'm so glad to be here. Leslie Bennett, owner and creative director of Pine House Edible Gardens, co-author. Go grab the book, Garden Wonderland. Thank you so much. It's always a good time talking spring gardening.

And Allison Greenlawn, Master Gardener and Urban Ag Coordinator with UC Cooperative Extension Agriculture and Natural Resources in Alameda County. So glad you could come in. Thanks for coming. Thank you so much. Thanks to all of our listeners, our gardeners, our wannabe gardeners, my team, for all of your calls and questions. Thank you. The 9 o'clock hour forum is produced by Grace Wan, Blanca Torres, Cecilia Lay, and Jennifer Ng, who is also our engagement producer. Our interns are Brian Vo and Jesse Fulmer.

Fisher. Francesca Fanzi is our digital community producer. Judy Campbell's lead producer. Danny Bringer is our engineer. Katie Springer is the operations manager of KQED Podcast, which really undersells what she does. Our vice president of news is Ethan Toven-Lindsey, and our chief content officer is Holly Kernan. I'm Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for another hour of Forum Ahead with Mina Kim.

Funds for the production of Forum are provided by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Generosity Foundation, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

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