Sit Down With the Garden Guys

The Garden Guys are back with practical advice for Southwest Colorado gardeners. Tom Bartels and Darrin Parmenter break down planting timing, drought prep, compost versus fertilizer, and what to look for when buying transplants this spring.

By Sadie Smith

Watch this story at durangolocal.news.

This story is sponsored by Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers and the Payroll Department. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I tend to plant my warm season crops May 15th and do the transplants that week or so depending on the 10-day forecast, but each year is a little different. Between mid-May and early June is usually the safe planting period for Southwest Colorado.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

You're watching the Local News Network, brought to you by Freddie's Frozen Custard and Steak Burgers and the payroll department.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

I'm Tom Bartells from GrowFoodwell.com.

SPEAKER_02 0:30

And I'm Darren Parmenter from Colorado State University Extension.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

We're the garden guys. Anytime you're dealing with drought situations, mulch is your friend. Drip lines are your friend. You want to minimize the amount of water you're needing to put on your garden and also giving the plants that insulation from the heat and the soil temperatures that can really be a detriment to the plant's growth cycle. And mulch does both of those.

SPEAKER_02 0:58

Even if we're in a drought year, it really depends on how we move that water from point A to point B. So if you're on a city water, how you get it through drip irrigation into the garden the most effective way possible, that's what we definitely want to see you do.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

So NPK fertilizer, you've probably seen the three numbers. That's the nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, and typical liquid fertilizer that you pour on plants. Sometimes it's in granular structure. Either way, you're feeding a plant different arrangements of those three nutrients. And they're macronutrients. They're the three major components that plants need to grow in general. There's many other micronutrients that they also can benefit from, most of which are in good organic compost. So the reason I use compost and not fertilizer is it has the MPK plus all the other micronutrients, plus all the mitigation that it that takes place when you add compost to soil that fertilizer does not. So there's a lot more benefits if you have good compost than just pouring nitrogen on the plants.

SPEAKER_02 2:10

You'll see a small little transplant that's already got little small fruit on it or flowers.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Don't buy it.

SPEAKER_02 2:15

Stay away. Find the smallest one you can buy, really, from most of those cases. That's typically what I would shoot for.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

You've probably seen it in seedlings at the store. It's a plant that's spent a little too much time in a small pot and it's root-bound. And so it thinks, hey, I'm I'm hitting my limits for my life, and I found my my environment is quite small. I better go to seed right now. And so it's blossoming just to try to get to the seed production stage. So that plant's already in crisis. And so if you're going to put that in your garden, it's going to go into stasis for about three weeks to a month and do nothing. So you get transplant shock, and that plant's already kind of advanced its cycle further than you want it to be.

SPEAKER_02 2:56

I hardened out for a week. Every day is a little bit longer outside. Start them off outside under shade for a couple days and then transition them to sunlight, but still pulling them in at night. And then, like the last night before I plant, I'll go ahead and leave them out all night.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

Be sure to watch the temperature for the next 10-day forecast so you know if you do put it outside at night, it's not going below freezing. You don't want to shock the plant, you just want to get it toughened up so it's ready for real real world conditions. We definitely advocate procrastinanting, which is just being lazy. Don't try to be the first one on your block with your tomatoes planted because you're liable to get hit with a with a good freeze.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

To hear more gardening tips, tune into the Garden Guys podcast on K S U T every Saturday at noon. And for more stories like this, visit Durangolocal.news.