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Victory Gardens 2.0 interview #315 with Diane Blazek |National Garden Bureau
Manage episode 258661880 series 2577720
https://ngb.org/2020/03/23/victory-garden-2-0/
National Garden Bureau
It’s hard to keep up. Our role isn’t answers its information and inspiration so that’s what we’re trying to do!
Well, all sorts of people have been asking me about victory gardens so I am so excited I saw your email and here you are already! It's Friday, March 27, 2020 and we are right in the middle of the Great CoronaVirus Pandemic and here is:
Diane Blazek from the National Garden Bureau
I am very happy to be here, thank you for asking, it's kind of a funny story and don’t we need funny stories at this time? I have been with the organization for 10 years and the organization celebrating our 100th anniversary.
So as a group, as we were planning for the anniversary we had no idea that this pandemic was going to happen. Last week when we could still go to the office, we were sitting around the office, when we could still go and I looked up on my shelf and I looked up and saw the manual and thought why not roll out what was produced and published
our founder wrote the manual and was part of the whole
the timing would be right
mr. james burdett
in the 1920s and 30s and 40s by pulling all this information together.
It is a great time in our history. I have been talking to seed suppliers and today a facebook group was looking for someone to go the 65 miles to the local cow dairy for manure. I'm an elementary school teacher and I'm hoping my parents are going to grow some gardens with their students.
Today we just published another blog post, we're working with kidsgardening.org, with 10 ideas to get kids involved.
I spent like 4 hours yesterday just trying to create a 20 minute math lesson video.
you can get your kids involved in a victory garden. It can be fun for kids to research
1943 or today
2 things to start with
- you must know your growing zone
- last frost date
but there are tools online which they dd not have back in 1943 you can enter your zip code into the USDA and get your zone. There are multiple sites too.
you can enter and using your zone
without knowing those things
what it is to plant
Those are our two tips.
know your zone
know your last frost date.
You know, last year my husband and I built a free garden course and an Organic Oasis Guidebook to help you keep track of all that information together.
the next step is very important for what you grow in your garden. I'm very bad at this part, I'm more of an impulsive buyer.
Do your planning.
Make a list of what your family will eat
Think about how much will they consume.
Are you doing this in a community garden? Will you share with other family members or neighbors?
Think about when it will be ready to eat? How much of it will you be able to eat. If there is more then you can reasonably eat what are you going to do with it? Can you can it or freeze or otherwise preserve the extra produce you will have. I can see a produce sharing app etc popping up this year.
That will carry on to thinking about specific varieties of what you want to grow.
If you are a beginning gardener and you want to grow a tomato that's fine just grow any tomato but as you get more experienced
difference in varieties
amount of space when they grow
some are more unique
color variety
different tasting produce
exactly what you want to put in your garden.
This is so timely, I was just talking with my mom, and her experience with vegetables. My mom has been a gardener forever, and I can't remember a weekend or summer day with her without her pruners in her hand. And she said she has a hard time getting a tomato that tastes good.
I told her about Melissa Norris' tip to get a San Marzano paste tomato that I ordered some from Baker Creek and Johnny's to try to grow this year. And she said I wonder if there is a Long Island tomato?
it really is
I run two organization
national
All Americas Selections
we feel like experienced and new gardeners
all america selection winners
tested by professionals
We know that taste is rather selective but the majority of judges said, taste is really good
on our website subscription
maybe she wants grape tomatoes
sweet
she wants something with a high brix, that’s the sweetness measurement
It's amazing the amount of information on the web
for us you can go to All Americas Selections
you are going to see a lot of information varieties
- hybrids
- easier to grow
- more disease
- taste is still
Wouldn't it be fun to have my students write with a sequence for planting
I have the student to do this, he's always growing things, every snack we get, he's like I saved this green bean to plant, and I'm like it's the middle of November I mean we can try but I don't want you to get your hopes up.
a little flow chart
we have been talking about a
so as far as our sequence
Next you want to figure out where
who what when
plan your garden space
where do you live
do you have in ground space
do you want to use containers?
are you on a balcony
this tomato will
a lot of people try to push their growing zones Don't do it!
Plants are not like humans, they don't want to be in the shade.
There are some places, depending on where you are located and the amount of shade
maybe in the desert
most of the country you are going to want 6-8 hours a day.
There are some days in the hot summer in Montana been where we might have a day or two it's hot, but not enough compared to the number of days of sun you will need.
you may need to provide afternoon shade
the next steep then once you know what you are going to plant
know what your growing soil is
if you are digging up part of your yard
do a soil test
probably going to have to amend your soil
filling it with some growing medium
I have been very successful mixing my own growing my own
- peat
- topsoil
- compost
you can buy pre-made mixes
Which is the easiest to do which they did not have back in the early 1900s
base for what you are going to grow
you are growing these plants for food your body you need to make sure your pants have food to produce all these peppers or whatever they are producing.
I love that because my mom used to argue with me about the beginning of our free garden course was composting and she said don't start out talking about something so ucky.
You just gave one of our tips too!
Just start doing it, it's super easy to save your banana peals
don’t toss away the excess! And what would typically be the waste!
start a compost pile today you will be very happy you did when it's ready and time to put on your garden.
I would be remiss not to ask, people I feel like are hesitant because they are afraid they are going to get critters like raccoons. We live in the woods, we have skunks, chipmunks, my mom says we don't live in a city.
suburb of Chicago, yeah, sure they do, if they're not getting in my compost they're probably living in the garden or the neighbors, do they eat it all no?
they’re wildlife! We’re pushing them off our land!
they get in the compost and is there still plenty left? Yes of course!
Build a bin with a lid on it
One of my neighbors was concerned about the smell of my compost
- our lots are only 1/3 of an acre
- it’s just a nice earthy smell!
tell people don't worry about that they have other things to worry about!
then we’re getting into planning, still in planning
sowing and planting dates
orignal frost dates
If you are wanting to get out and plant a tomato, don’t do it while the ground temp is still cool!
They are not going to thrive till the soil is warm enough! So don't try to push the season too much, you'll be much more success if you follow recommendations
If you put it out before the first frost date, then all your hard work and money has gone for naught you might get snow.
sowing and planting dates
good tools online
I just planted my tomatoes and peppers in doors
I know I can go outside and plant some peas.
Be aware of what you can direct sow and what you can transplant for each location
Once you are making your list and planning you're gonna be much better off!
This is all perfect! What comes next? Actually planting what's next? I was surprised Mike and I have ben married 27 years and I have records from all those years, the majority of those year, he put everything in the ground like lettuce, spinach, cool weather stuff taht goes in as soon as the soil can be worked was consistently between April 7-14. Some outlier years but the majority was the 7-14 or right around there.
Knowing when, talking to other gardeners is a great resource and a lot of the seed companies are great resources! They have videos etc.
Its funny you say that ~
A huge number of the seed companies are members of National Garden Bureau so we have done a lot of linking in the blog post to those resources.
they may have a blog or a video
online tool
linked to you from this blog
I think we list about 10 additional blog post at the bottom of this blog. In the past somebody wrote
- about using seed tape and someone wrote about
- combining plants and vegetables and what you were talking about
- cool season vegetables like spinach, lettuce that kind of thing
You're right seed companies they provide a wealth of information, that would be an online resource, but don’t forget about your local garden retailer.
I know we are in some strange times, some garden centers are able to stay open depend on the state.
call ahead if they are open
The thing that the garden retailers will have is transplants or starter plants.
think about what you want to direct sow
What they will have are transplants or starter plant
transplants that's next tip!!
Think about what you want to direct seed and what you want to transplant. Decide what you want to start from seed ready to start
Or you can go to your retailer and say, I want 2 of this variety of jalapeno, this bell pepper and 3 of those beefstake
transplants that you can plant
I think a lot of people are going to have transplants this year, because if you put a whole packet of seeds in you'll end up with like 50 tomatoes an that's a lot of plant you'll say where am I going to put all these?
if you do that! Let's say if you get a seed packet and you have good luck and you get 50 seeds to grow!
share them!
there are so many online resources
who wants some of your extra tomato plants!
help out our neighbors and friends and family!
Do you want to talk abuut the history of where victory gardens come from?
so it really started in WWI there was a victory garden program
I take it a lot of people were involved
the concept then was taht obviously food was not in great supply, there were shortages a lot of the food that was being produced was going to feed soldiers that were protecting our country.
That left a lot of people at home with not a lot of food or what was not at top quality
The government encouraged homeowners to transform some of their yards into gardens
education about how to start a garden taking them from A-Z
If you didn't come from a farming background, you were not aware of how to do this
It was successful for WWI and between the two wars, Mr. Burdett did this, he was a journalist but also a seed seller.
founded national garden bureau
in tune to how you mentioned earlier
seed companies wanted to know how to inform their customers
National Garden Bureau
Our mission is to “Inspire. Connect. Grow.” National Garden Bureau is a non-profit organization that exists to educate, inspire, and motivate people to increase the use of plants in homes, gardens, and workplaces by being the marketing arm of the gardening industry. Our members are experts in the field of horticulture and our information comes directly from these sources.
It seems like Mr. Burdett must have started this book in 1941, it was publishes in 1943 to carry over the successes from the first gardens.
if you don’t have the space go here. Governments of
- cities
- towns
were encouraged to make gardening available for community gardening
WE are not the only ones talking about victory gardens now.
Were we in the middle of all the steps, we didn't finish the steps did we?
Those of us on this side of the industry, the commercial side of the industry, saw something happen during he last general recession in 2009.
saw something that happened
There was a big uptake in vegetable gardening at that time, but unfortunately people forgot to plant any type of flowers! Be it annuals, perennials, whatever! and they didn’t realize that there are certain crops that need pollinators or you are not going to get fruit or the shapely or large fruit or what you were expecting.
Our last tip is don’t forget to plant pollinator friendly flowers
#1. They will make you feel good,
- they're pretty
- they will add to your vegetable
- they will do the work for you and you will have squash and cucumbers etc!
I love that! How do we connect with you?
Our website is probably one of the smallest urls.
National Garden Bureau
You will see a lot of info about
- new varieties
- program called "year of"
- inspiration tab is our blog
- kids gardening
- victory gardening
- one blog post up now
More on victory gardening coming posts on:
- planning
- planting
- care and maintenance
- harvesting
more blogs coming
National Garden Bureau
The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we'd love it if you'd give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate links
Please support us on Patreon so we can keep the show up on the internet. It cost close to $100 a month just to keep it up on the internet for the website etc so if you could help by supporting it with an $8/month contribution or $10/month to join the Green Future Growers Book Club where we can delve deep into some of the best gardening books that have been recommended on the show! GoDaddy even is bugging me for dollars just to have the domain name…
https://www.patreon.com/OrganicGardenerPodcast
The Organic Gardner Podcast is sponsored by Health IQ, an insurance company that helps health conscious people like runners, cyclists, weightlifters and vegetarians get lower rates on their life insurance. Go to healthiq.com/OGP to support the show and see if you qualify.
Over half of Health IQ customers save between 4-33% on their life insurance.
- Health IQ uses science & data to secure lower rates on life insurance for health conscious people just like you green future growers! Like saving money on your car insurance for being a good driver, Health IQ saves...
310 episodes
Manage episode 258661880 series 2577720
https://ngb.org/2020/03/23/victory-garden-2-0/
National Garden Bureau
It’s hard to keep up. Our role isn’t answers its information and inspiration so that’s what we’re trying to do!
Well, all sorts of people have been asking me about victory gardens so I am so excited I saw your email and here you are already! It's Friday, March 27, 2020 and we are right in the middle of the Great CoronaVirus Pandemic and here is:
Diane Blazek from the National Garden Bureau
I am very happy to be here, thank you for asking, it's kind of a funny story and don’t we need funny stories at this time? I have been with the organization for 10 years and the organization celebrating our 100th anniversary.
So as a group, as we were planning for the anniversary we had no idea that this pandemic was going to happen. Last week when we could still go to the office, we were sitting around the office, when we could still go and I looked up on my shelf and I looked up and saw the manual and thought why not roll out what was produced and published
our founder wrote the manual and was part of the whole
the timing would be right
mr. james burdett
in the 1920s and 30s and 40s by pulling all this information together.
It is a great time in our history. I have been talking to seed suppliers and today a facebook group was looking for someone to go the 65 miles to the local cow dairy for manure. I'm an elementary school teacher and I'm hoping my parents are going to grow some gardens with their students.
Today we just published another blog post, we're working with kidsgardening.org, with 10 ideas to get kids involved.
I spent like 4 hours yesterday just trying to create a 20 minute math lesson video.
you can get your kids involved in a victory garden. It can be fun for kids to research
1943 or today
2 things to start with
- you must know your growing zone
- last frost date
but there are tools online which they dd not have back in 1943 you can enter your zip code into the USDA and get your zone. There are multiple sites too.
you can enter and using your zone
without knowing those things
what it is to plant
Those are our two tips.
know your zone
know your last frost date.
You know, last year my husband and I built a free garden course and an Organic Oasis Guidebook to help you keep track of all that information together.
the next step is very important for what you grow in your garden. I'm very bad at this part, I'm more of an impulsive buyer.
Do your planning.
Make a list of what your family will eat
Think about how much will they consume.
Are you doing this in a community garden? Will you share with other family members or neighbors?
Think about when it will be ready to eat? How much of it will you be able to eat. If there is more then you can reasonably eat what are you going to do with it? Can you can it or freeze or otherwise preserve the extra produce you will have. I can see a produce sharing app etc popping up this year.
That will carry on to thinking about specific varieties of what you want to grow.
If you are a beginning gardener and you want to grow a tomato that's fine just grow any tomato but as you get more experienced
difference in varieties
amount of space when they grow
some are more unique
color variety
different tasting produce
exactly what you want to put in your garden.
This is so timely, I was just talking with my mom, and her experience with vegetables. My mom has been a gardener forever, and I can't remember a weekend or summer day with her without her pruners in her hand. And she said she has a hard time getting a tomato that tastes good.
I told her about Melissa Norris' tip to get a San Marzano paste tomato that I ordered some from Baker Creek and Johnny's to try to grow this year. And she said I wonder if there is a Long Island tomato?
it really is
I run two organization
national
All Americas Selections
we feel like experienced and new gardeners
all america selection winners
tested by professionals
We know that taste is rather selective but the majority of judges said, taste is really good
on our website subscription
maybe she wants grape tomatoes
sweet
she wants something with a high brix, that’s the sweetness measurement
It's amazing the amount of information on the web
for us you can go to All Americas Selections
you are going to see a lot of information varieties
- hybrids
- easier to grow
- more disease
- taste is still
Wouldn't it be fun to have my students write with a sequence for planting
I have the student to do this, he's always growing things, every snack we get, he's like I saved this green bean to plant, and I'm like it's the middle of November I mean we can try but I don't want you to get your hopes up.
a little flow chart
we have been talking about a
so as far as our sequence
Next you want to figure out where
who what when
plan your garden space
where do you live
do you have in ground space
do you want to use containers?
are you on a balcony
this tomato will
a lot of people try to push their growing zones Don't do it!
Plants are not like humans, they don't want to be in the shade.
There are some places, depending on where you are located and the amount of shade
maybe in the desert
most of the country you are going to want 6-8 hours a day.
There are some days in the hot summer in Montana been where we might have a day or two it's hot, but not enough compared to the number of days of sun you will need.
you may need to provide afternoon shade
the next steep then once you know what you are going to plant
know what your growing soil is
if you are digging up part of your yard
do a soil test
probably going to have to amend your soil
filling it with some growing medium
I have been very successful mixing my own growing my own
- peat
- topsoil
- compost
you can buy pre-made mixes
Which is the easiest to do which they did not have back in the early 1900s
base for what you are going to grow
you are growing these plants for food your body you need to make sure your pants have food to produce all these peppers or whatever they are producing.
I love that because my mom used to argue with me about the beginning of our free garden course was composting and she said don't start out talking about something so ucky.
You just gave one of our tips too!
Just start doing it, it's super easy to save your banana peals
don’t toss away the excess! And what would typically be the waste!
start a compost pile today you will be very happy you did when it's ready and time to put on your garden.
I would be remiss not to ask, people I feel like are hesitant because they are afraid they are going to get critters like raccoons. We live in the woods, we have skunks, chipmunks, my mom says we don't live in a city.
suburb of Chicago, yeah, sure they do, if they're not getting in my compost they're probably living in the garden or the neighbors, do they eat it all no?
they’re wildlife! We’re pushing them off our land!
they get in the compost and is there still plenty left? Yes of course!
Build a bin with a lid on it
One of my neighbors was concerned about the smell of my compost
- our lots are only 1/3 of an acre
- it’s just a nice earthy smell!
tell people don't worry about that they have other things to worry about!
then we’re getting into planning, still in planning
sowing and planting dates
orignal frost dates
If you are wanting to get out and plant a tomato, don’t do it while the ground temp is still cool!
They are not going to thrive till the soil is warm enough! So don't try to push the season too much, you'll be much more success if you follow recommendations
If you put it out before the first frost date, then all your hard work and money has gone for naught you might get snow.
sowing and planting dates
good tools online
I just planted my tomatoes and peppers in doors
I know I can go outside and plant some peas.
Be aware of what you can direct sow and what you can transplant for each location
Once you are making your list and planning you're gonna be much better off!
This is all perfect! What comes next? Actually planting what's next? I was surprised Mike and I have ben married 27 years and I have records from all those years, the majority of those year, he put everything in the ground like lettuce, spinach, cool weather stuff taht goes in as soon as the soil can be worked was consistently between April 7-14. Some outlier years but the majority was the 7-14 or right around there.
Knowing when, talking to other gardeners is a great resource and a lot of the seed companies are great resources! They have videos etc.
Its funny you say that ~
A huge number of the seed companies are members of National Garden Bureau so we have done a lot of linking in the blog post to those resources.
they may have a blog or a video
online tool
linked to you from this blog
I think we list about 10 additional blog post at the bottom of this blog. In the past somebody wrote
- about using seed tape and someone wrote about
- combining plants and vegetables and what you were talking about
- cool season vegetables like spinach, lettuce that kind of thing
You're right seed companies they provide a wealth of information, that would be an online resource, but don’t forget about your local garden retailer.
I know we are in some strange times, some garden centers are able to stay open depend on the state.
call ahead if they are open
The thing that the garden retailers will have is transplants or starter plants.
think about what you want to direct sow
What they will have are transplants or starter plant
transplants that's next tip!!
Think about what you want to direct seed and what you want to transplant. Decide what you want to start from seed ready to start
Or you can go to your retailer and say, I want 2 of this variety of jalapeno, this bell pepper and 3 of those beefstake
transplants that you can plant
I think a lot of people are going to have transplants this year, because if you put a whole packet of seeds in you'll end up with like 50 tomatoes an that's a lot of plant you'll say where am I going to put all these?
if you do that! Let's say if you get a seed packet and you have good luck and you get 50 seeds to grow!
share them!
there are so many online resources
who wants some of your extra tomato plants!
help out our neighbors and friends and family!
Do you want to talk abuut the history of where victory gardens come from?
so it really started in WWI there was a victory garden program
I take it a lot of people were involved
the concept then was taht obviously food was not in great supply, there were shortages a lot of the food that was being produced was going to feed soldiers that were protecting our country.
That left a lot of people at home with not a lot of food or what was not at top quality
The government encouraged homeowners to transform some of their yards into gardens
education about how to start a garden taking them from A-Z
If you didn't come from a farming background, you were not aware of how to do this
It was successful for WWI and between the two wars, Mr. Burdett did this, he was a journalist but also a seed seller.
founded national garden bureau
in tune to how you mentioned earlier
seed companies wanted to know how to inform their customers
National Garden Bureau
Our mission is to “Inspire. Connect. Grow.” National Garden Bureau is a non-profit organization that exists to educate, inspire, and motivate people to increase the use of plants in homes, gardens, and workplaces by being the marketing arm of the gardening industry. Our members are experts in the field of horticulture and our information comes directly from these sources.
It seems like Mr. Burdett must have started this book in 1941, it was publishes in 1943 to carry over the successes from the first gardens.
if you don’t have the space go here. Governments of
- cities
- towns
were encouraged to make gardening available for community gardening
WE are not the only ones talking about victory gardens now.
Were we in the middle of all the steps, we didn't finish the steps did we?
Those of us on this side of the industry, the commercial side of the industry, saw something happen during he last general recession in 2009.
saw something that happened
There was a big uptake in vegetable gardening at that time, but unfortunately people forgot to plant any type of flowers! Be it annuals, perennials, whatever! and they didn’t realize that there are certain crops that need pollinators or you are not going to get fruit or the shapely or large fruit or what you were expecting.
Our last tip is don’t forget to plant pollinator friendly flowers
#1. They will make you feel good,
- they're pretty
- they will add to your vegetable
- they will do the work for you and you will have squash and cucumbers etc!
I love that! How do we connect with you?
Our website is probably one of the smallest urls.
National Garden Bureau
You will see a lot of info about
- new varieties
- program called "year of"
- inspiration tab is our blog
- kids gardening
- victory gardening
- one blog post up now
More on victory gardening coming posts on:
- planning
- planting
- care and maintenance
- harvesting
more blogs coming
National Garden Bureau
The Organic Gardener Podcast is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
If you like what you heard on the Organic Gardener Podcast we'd love it if you'd give us review and hopefully a 5 star rating on iTunes so other gardeners can find us and listen to. Just click on the link here.
Let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors and affiliate links
Please support us on Patreon so we can keep the show up on the internet. It cost close to $100 a month just to keep it up on the internet for the website etc so if you could help by supporting it with an $8/month contribution or $10/month to join the Green Future Growers Book Club where we can delve deep into some of the best gardening books that have been recommended on the show! GoDaddy even is bugging me for dollars just to have the domain name…
https://www.patreon.com/OrganicGardenerPodcast
The Organic Gardner Podcast is sponsored by Health IQ, an insurance company that helps health conscious people like runners, cyclists, weightlifters and vegetarians get lower rates on their life insurance. Go to healthiq.com/OGP to support the show and see if you qualify.
Over half of Health IQ customers save between 4-33% on their life insurance.
- Health IQ uses science & data to secure lower rates on life insurance for health conscious people just like you green future growers! Like saving money on your car insurance for being a good driver, Health IQ saves...
310 episodes
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