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Farmer Fred
Beyond the Garden Basics Podcast
Home & Garden
How To
English
Picking up where the Garden Basics podcast left off.
gardenbasics.substack.com
Website
Episodes
141
20 October 2025
Garlic Planting Time is Here!
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit gardenbasics.substack.comI spent the weekend in a garlic frame of mind. I’ve been working one 4x8’ garden bed, harvesting the pumpkins, removing the vines, reworking the soil with worm castings and compost, and planting the garlic that just arrived last Friday from Territorial Seed Company.By the way, kudos to Territorial for all the...
7 min
17 October 2025
Understanding a Soil Report
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit gardenbasics.substack.comFirst of all, if you manage to get through this rather brain-taxing, soil-based, newsletter edition, you deserve a little love. How about 20% off a new paid subscription?Before diving into the deep end of how to read a soil report, check out this Overview on Soil Tests from the Alameda Co. (CA) Master...
11 min
13 October 2025
What Causes Odd-Looking Vegetables?
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit gardenbasics.substack.comThis journey into the odd and slightly obscene world of misshapen vegetables was inspired by Sacramento County Master Gardener Peter Horton, who wrote this article for the October 2025 Sacramento Co. Master Gardener newsletter.The article made me harken back to the days of the popularity of Richard Nixon...
3 min
10 October 2025
Can Vitamin B1 Help New Garden Transplants?
Beyond The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred is a reader-supported publication. To receive the complete posts, have access to over 200 previous editions, and help keep the good gardening information coming your way, please become a paid subscriber.Early fall is for planting, as we are fond of saying. The days are cooler, and the soil is still warm. Those are ideal conditions for a healthy start of...
13 min
06 October 2025
The Disease Triangle
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit gardenbasics.substack.comBack in elementary school in Southern California, there once was a visit from a local firefighter who had Smokey the Bear in tow with him (I felt sorry for whoever was in that outfit. It was a hot day). Because, as Smokey would remind us daily on TV public service announcements, “Remember, Only You Can Prevent...
11 min
03 October 2025
Grow A Yardful of Phytonutrients
Today’s newsletter and podcast originally appeared here back in September of 2022, and it was one of the most popular posts here in the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter. Eating healthy food - and the healthiest food you can eat is the food you grow yourself - is a perennial concern. So, for those of you who didn’t hear or read this three years ago - or would like a refresher course - here it...
28 min
26 September 2025
Feed Your Soil, Cool Season Edition
We are transitioning from the summer gardening season to cool season vegetables and flowers. However, maybe you don’t want to put in cool season crops. A word to the wise: don’t leave your fading summer garden lingering (or drooping) in the garden; doing that invites insect and disease pests to overwinter in that standing debris. In its place, there are some inexpensive and easy things you can do...
20 min
05 September 2025
Who's Eating the Tomatoes?
Don from Indiana has a late summer visitor to his tomato plants. He is not pleased:“I flicked 10 of these “bad boys” off one of my tomato plants last night. Ten!I look at this plant every day. I water it every day. I pick and eat tomatoes off it every day. Every day!How did so many appear seemingly overnight?I believe it is a Tobacco Hornworm caterpillar (Manduca sexta).There were actually 11 of...
13 min
22 August 2025
More Tips for a Successful Garden
While editing Episode 406 of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast (out now), I was taking copious notes, about all the great garden tips Don Shor and I discussed in an episode that was ostensibly a chat about growing tomatoes this summer (we both like Cupid, despite its propensity to sprawl). In fact, it was the most notes I have ever taken for any episode. Were you taking notes, too, while...
4 min
15 August 2025
This Newsletter is for the Birds
In the podcast (above) retired UC Farm Advisor Rachel Long has tips for attracting songbirds to your property.They're nice to look at, sing wonderfully and eat insects.No, we're not talking about the Dixie Chicks on a fad diet.It's the gardener's best friends, a backyard filled with birds.We're talking about the family inhabited by warm-blooded egg-laying vertebrates, characterized by feathers...
3 min