Raised Bed & Container Gardening with Mark

Today I'm talking with Mark at Raised Bed & Container Gardening with Mark. You can follow on Facebook as well.

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You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking to Mark at the Raised Bed and Container Gardening with Mark.  And Mark is in North Carolina. Good afternoon, Mark. How are you?  Good afternoon, Mary. It's good to be with you. It's good to have you. I love talking to people in North Carolina because you guys have the sweetest Southern drawl.

00:28

Well, sometimes I, my kids tell me I talk pretty country sometimes. It's really sweet and it's very easy to understand. Sometimes the drawl is so thick that I'm like, excuse me, what did you say? So it's great when I get somebody who sounds like sweet tea and a rocking chair on a front porch. makes me very happy. You said the weather has been raining there. Yeah, we've had a good bit of rain. We've had.

00:56

We had a really hot stretch during the summer and then some rains came in and it's kind of been cool for the last couple of weeks.  as my grandfather would say, we had a zizzly zazzly this morning.  It was, you could hear the rain just sizzling as it hit the ground.  yes.  I remember being a kid in Maine and we had a dirt road for a while and then they tarred it.

01:22

The first time it rained after they tired it in like August, it was so hot. I could hear it steam. I could hear that noise you're talking about, but I never heard it called a Zizzle Zazzle before. That's great. So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do. Well, I am a, I'm a newspaper editor is my day job. I'm a sportscaster, which is one of the things I do for fun. And I, I'm a gardener pretty much, I guess it's in, it's kind of in the blood and

01:52

I particularly enjoy growing tomatoes. That's my big thing. My favorite food in the world is tomatoes. So a good tomato right off the vine is just the best thing in the world. So I stay really busy. Okay. How's your tomato season been? We had a really good season, but it came all at once and it was just...

02:20

Within two weeks and everything was done. don't recall having a season like that in the last few years, but it just, everything produced. They all ripened almost at the same time. We had some  smaller like black cherry tomatoes that  they lasted a little bit longer, but when the rains hit, it kind of ruined them. whatever was left there, they were done.  Just got too much rain at one time.  you know, sometimes those little tomatoes will

02:50

If they're near full grown, they'll pop open if you get too much rain. split. Yeah. Yeah. Our tomato season just really kicked in about two weeks ago and my husband planted over 250 tomato plants in the spring. So we are going to be swimming in tomatoes in a week. Oh yeah. That's awesome. Now what kind of tomatoes do you like to grow? He grows. Of course you asked me this and usually I can reel them off top of my head and now I'm like, what does he grow?

03:19

He grows early girls. grows, he tries to get sweet one million cherry tomatoes, but I think he just got sweet 100s this year. And the San Marzano tomatoes. I love San Marzano's. I have trouble though. I don't ever get any size on them. I wind up with a lot of kind of maybe they'll grow in two and a half, three inches long.

03:48

and be almost hollow inside. And I'm not really sure what's happening with mine on those. They taste great.  They cook up well, but there's just not a lot of it.  I'm not the gardener, but what I can tell you that I've observed with ours is that if it rains moderately and it's sunny reasonably,  it seems to help them have more flesh on the inside. Okay. Because they need the water, but they need the heat too.

04:16

Yeah. The, uh, mean, San Marzano probably is my favorite tomato. It's such a good cooking tomato too, but it's got such a good taste because you just got all that flesh too. It's a, it's a good fleshy tomato. It makes something new. Go ahead. I'm sorry. It makes a killer sauce. Oh, it does. It does. Absolutely. Absolutely. I tried a new tomato this year. It was, I just out of curiosity. It's,

04:46

It was an Amish paste tomato  and I bought the plants at the farmer's market and I paid a lot more than I wanted to for them, but I wanted to try them and they turned out really well. I'm saving seeds, so I'm hoping to have those next year, but  they were a big thick plum tomato  and it was about twice the size of  the San Marzano, but really, really thick.  we used to grow, or my

05:16

My father-in-law would grow something, he called it a hot dog tomato. And it was longer than a San Marzano and just there, you know how you got a little bit of a globe at the bottom of the San Marzano, not a completely straight tomato. This hot dog tomato was just completely straight  and really fleshy. And I was hoping maybe that that Amish paste was, that's what it was going to turn out to be, but it  didn't. I  keep looking for that. And if I ever find that I'm going to grab some seeds because they

05:44

They're really productive. They're really thick and a good tomato. They're very, I would say they're similar to the San Marzano, but they're a little bit bigger. We've grown the Amish paste ones. They're really good tomato. If you want to grow something like a San Marzano, but you can't get it. Yeah. So, okay. So your place is called Ray's Bed something. So tell me how that started. Well,

06:14

I  started looking at, I've always wanted to write a book. So I  took this online class with thingspublishing.com. But one of the things that they suggested doing was starting a website to help you with  promoting your book. So I  have written a book called A to Z Beginner's Guide to Raise Bed and Container Gardening.

06:43

And  so I, you know, the, the, uh, the Facebook page is basically, I use that to promote and I like to interact with people. And I'll be honest with you. I've learned as much from the  people I've come in contact with who's kind of in the gardening field as I ever would have thought. I mean, I see somebody called a naked gardener and I'm, I'm just out of curiosity. I started following that person and they have.

07:13

All kinds of great and there's nothing naked about it. It's just, it's just nothing but tomatoes and cucumbers and you know, all good stuff like that. So I try to, I try to post. My goal is always to post maybe five times a week, just some, some little tidbit of information that I can get. I've not done a good job of that recently. We went on vacation, but I like to share things that I find out. And the other thing that I've found.

07:42

is I learn as much by kind of doing the research as  I share.  I like to learn, I like to find out more information and that's  kind of what this has turned out to be. you know, got the book launched about a month ago. I'm still looking for people to review the book. So, and I've got some discount prices on Amazon right now. So the price is pretty low. If someone wants to go out and look at the Kindle and

08:11

I'd love to get some honest  feedback and reviews on those.  Well, I'll have to add it to my reading list. Yeah, I appreciate that. yeah, I guess one  thing that I would tell you is my  mother used to do a lot of genealogy research. And the one thing that I thought was kind of funny, 95 % of all Plemons, that's my last name,

08:41

our farmers  and  up until probably the 1960s or  1970s, it was almost a hundred percent farmers in our family. So  as I say, the  dirt and soil is kind of in my blood and that's kind of where we came from there.  I can remember growing up being out in the field  during the summertime, know, 5.30 in the morning, hoeing.

09:09

hoeing corn or hoeing beans or hoeing tobacco or whatever on the farm.  you know, it starts getting, either the day we're already back at the house,  time for us kids to play. but,  so I guess the dirt's kind of in my blood. Yeah, absolutely. I saw your video of your unboxing of your, your, your paperback copies. How did that feel, Mark? It was, it was pretty awesome. I,  I had,

09:39

I'd seen a proof copy of it prior to getting it, but you know, just to actually get it in your hand, you know, it's, kind of fun. It's not a big book. It's like 120 pages,  but it's the second book I've written.  wrote a short book about sports casting  back in December.  And it's really funny. Friends and family say, I want to, I want to autograph copies. So I've actually autographed a few copies.

10:07

which is kind of  funny to me that someone would want my autograph.  yeah, like say, I've learned as much from writing the book  as,  you know, as I'm I'm giving out.  I've got a long list of references in the back of the book, which I would encourage people, particularly on individual  issues, if they would...

10:34

If they have more depth to go and find out more because in them 120 pages in the amount of ground I tried to cover, you know, you just can't get into everything. uh, and the one thing that I've always known and I've from growing up on the farm is, you know, there, there are people who know more than what you know, and don't be afraid to lean on those people. Master gardeners in different areas.

11:04

the Cooperative Extension Service.  I'm not sure if they call it that in Minnesota or wherever you may be, in North Carolina, every county has got a Cooperative Extension Service. And it runs through NC State University here. And so, you know, if you want new soil samples or if you need to, if you have questions about plants or you got something funny going on in your garden or, know, you can call up an agent there and they can kind of, you know, give you a good run now. Yeah, we have

11:34

We  have Master Gardeners here and we have the Extension Services through the University of Minnesota. they  will help you contact somebody who can answer questions.  As a side note, son has a doctorate from University of Minnesota.  Oh.  He's got a, he did, I think it's,  he's a chemical engineer, research scientist. he got a...

12:02

PhD in I think material science. you know which  city he went to college at? He was in Minneapolis. I'm not sure. Yeah, yeah, he was Minneapolis. We've been up there a few times. And in fact, I think he went back this summer to visit with some friends up there. But  we loved Minnesota when we were there. It's very, very pretty. Yeah. Well, we were there in summer times and

12:31

Well, spring and summer, we weren't there during the wintertime. So we didn't  see the snow or anything. Yeah. We're particularly happy that fall is coming because our air conditioner died yesterday. Like it is dead dead. It needs to be replaced. So the humidity will get you up there too, doesn't it?  Oh yeah, absolutely. So we're going to, it's central air.  And so we're going to put in a small window air conditioner downstairs and that should handle it for the rest of the summer.

13:01

Real thankful that didn't die back in July when we had six days of 95 degree plus weather and the humidity was tropical. That would have been really bad. It's miserable when that humidity gets high. We had some days here that the heat index was 110. I think the air temperature was 100, no, not 100, but it was 97, 98, something like that.

13:30

Yeah, it's, there's been some real hot days this year.  I don't love it. I don't love summer. Never have.  I love the growing season, but I just wish that it wouldn't have to get so hot to get those great tomatoes. Yeah. Yeah. I know exactly. One of the things I learned when I did my book and  I probably should have known this, but it makes sense. We have a pretty long growing season here in North Carolina. Yeah. And one of the things I found in the research is.

14:00

You could plant multiple plantings. probably, here could probably do two plantings of tomatoes. I haven't done that  this year.  I may try that next year, but things like squash, beans,  the cucumbers, things of that nature that have a little bit  quicker lifespan or harvest time. Yeah. You know, can, you can back one right after another. And the key on that typically  is.

14:30

Just replenishing the soil and, know, and knowing when to let go of a plant that's just this kind of barely hanging on. I have a tendency to, particularly with my tomatoes,  I treat them like they're people, the plants, and I  kind of feel bad about cutting a limb off of one of them or  a branch or pulling them up.  But I figured, I've kind of figured this out. You pull them up when they're not productive.

15:00

put something else in the ground and you can go from there. Yeah, it's like a working document. Anyone who's written a book like you have, you know that you start the document either in a notebook or in Word and you start writing it. It's a first draft and then you go back and read what you wrote and you're like, eh, that can get out and that can stay and I just need to improve this. It's the same thing with garden. Oh, absolutely. like I I'm

15:29

My daughter gives me a hard time about this  because I want to let them go as long as I can. And  realistically, I'd be better off, pull them up, replenish the soil, get another plant in the ground and get something going.  realistically here, I've got a growing season until mid-October here. We're in the Piedmont. If I were up in the mountains, then of course we would have a

15:58

maybe a couple weeks less on both ends of the growing season. But,  you know, realistically I could get two, two runs of tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, something like that. I could probably get two to three and peppers, depending upon what kind of peppers you've got, you can probably get three different harvests off those. could probably do two here in the north. we put our, we put our, it really depends on, you know,

16:25

what ability you have to cover something up, how quickly you can get something started, or keep it going at the end. Yeah, our growing season is typically Mother's Day. That's when we tend to get our seedlings in. Through at worst, end of August, first of September. At best, we've gone into the end of October, twice. Oh yeah. Well here, it's...

16:56

It's hot through September here. Yeah.  And by hot, mean, you know,  in  the 80s, October  cools off really, really pretty quick.  the, you know, the cold overnight temperatures  is what you have to watch out for if you've got still some, you know, crops in the field. But it's, you know, it's really neat that you get what you can do if  you you listen to people who know what they're talking about and

17:24

Follow their instruction and don't be hard headed like I want to be sometimes. But yeah,  no one is ever a master gardener from the get go. Well, and you you're going to have ups and downs. Sometimes the weather doesn't treat you right. Sometimes, you know, the bugs don't treat you right.  There's a lot of things that can happen.

17:52

Yeah, you just have to learn from it  and move on.  and it's the learning from it part that's hard because  I'm going to say something not so great. I'm going to get myself in trouble. My husband is hardheaded and he's the gardener and he's got to do something screwy like three times in a row before he remembers that he shouldn't do it that way the fourth time  in the garden. And so

18:18

There have been years where we've had really successful gardens and there have been years where we have had really terrible gardens. And  I have started keeping notes in my head about what worked and what didn't. So that when he starts talking to me in January for the plans for the next year, I'm like, this happened when you did that last time. You want to do that again? And he goes, oh, I forgot. I won't do that. So  I try really hard to help. Your notebook's a great idea.  And when I researched my book,

18:49

I had not been keeping notes. I'm a runner and I keep notes for my running, but I had not done anything with gardening or anything like that. And one of the things I kept seeing in my research was take notes,  just keep it kind of journal along with it and  you can kind of follow along and you really can pick up a lot that way. Yeah. And then you don't do things like put

19:16

leaves and branches in your garden that have seeds from the tree still on them. And you end up with little trees in your garden, which is what happened to us one year. put, we have these sweet gums in our sweet gum trees in our yard and they're, they're just the devil. little, little, the little balls that come on, you step on them at a bare foot, you'll, you feel like, you know, you've got a knife stuck through your foot. I put those in the bottom and they will sprout sometimes.

19:46

But most of the time I could just pull those out. not, it doesn't come up to, you know, it's not to the point where you can't really, you know, you can't really work around those.  it's just a thing, but I tried to, I tried so hard to explain to him, he didn't want to put ash tree  leaves and sticks in the garden for compost because they still had the seeds on them and ash trees grow really quick.

20:12

And he was like, they'll be fine. They'll compost. And I was like, no, they won't. You're going to have baby trees in your garden. And he did it anyway. And we had like a hundred baby trees coming up in our garden. And I was just like, are we going to do this again? He said, no, we're not. said, good, let's not do this  again. We all learned differently, I think. Yeah, I think so.

20:40

I do a good bit of composting and I think that's been one of the things that's helped my gardens more than anything is the composting. I  figured out, you you figure out there's certain things that you can't put in there because it'll just cause you problems. You got to be careful about things that,  we have raccoons here. So, raccoons want to get, they'll get in anything. They'll get in your trash can, they'll get into anything.

21:08

You got to make sure that you don't have anything in the compost that a raccoon might like. And I learned that the hard way. And the first composting ever did, I kind of dug a little pit underneath a tree and I was just throwing everything in it and covering it up with black plastic. And it worked really well until the one day I was turning it with a fork and it was turning it.

21:36

And there's a big black snake crawls out of there. I said, we're not going to compost on the ground anymore. But know, big five foot black snake came crawling out and he didn't like seeing me and I didn't like seeing him. And he slithered off down in the woods. Yeah, that's not a fun surprise. I keep waiting for my husband to come in the house with bee stings because we have great big compost vials.

22:03

I keep expecting him to come in because sometimes he'll throw like apples out there. And bees and yellow jackets love apples. And so far  he's been safe, but I keep expecting every fall for him to come in after he throws some apples in the compost pile and be like, I got stung a hundred times. Okay, great.  So, and it hasn't happened, but it wouldn't surprise me if it did.

22:30

I usually don't have too much apples left over because I love apples.  I'll throw a core or something in, but whole apples generally don't  make it But you're right about the yellow jackets. Yellow jackets are nasty.  Yeah, we put in like 20 apple trees here when we moved in.  And  we have only had two crops come in. This is second year we'll have apples to actually pick and eat in five years.

22:58

And when we put the apple trees in, I was like, are we going to have yellow jackets all over the place? And my husband was like, I don't think so because there aren't any other orchards around. It's all cornfield and soybean fields. He said, and yellow jackets don't really love. Jesus can't think. Cornfields  and alfalfa fields, they don't care. There's nothing there for them. And I was like, okay. And we haven't had any, any bad bugs here  ever in five years.

23:28

So that's good. So I'm real happy to have apple trees for the first time in our life. That's been wonderful. We have three honey gold variety apple trees that are producing right now. We'll be picking them  in a month or so because they're ready to be picked in at the end of September 1st of October. So that's going to be awesome. Make some apple crisp. Well, you know,  what is there some the University of Minnesota actually

23:55

developed, I think it's honey crisp. Yes. That was actually a product of University of Minnesota Agriculture Department.  Uh-huh. We have two trees, but they haven't actually produced anything yet because they're babies. Well, when they come in, you'll have something really good because that's a really, really good tomato, or really good, I started saying tomato, really good apple. Yeah, we've tried them and they're very sweet.

24:23

They're very sweet and they get really big too. Yeah. We bought a variety called a wolf river apple and those get, I have big hands for a girl. My palm is probably a good four and a half inches across. I can't even get my fingers all the way around these wolf river apples. They're humongous and they take a while to get established. Well, I live in the middle of it.

24:51

I live in the middle of town and we've got a guy down the street that's got, he planted a little small orchard in his backyard. I mean, he has maybe four tenths of an acre and he's got his apple trees are hanging full with fruit right now. And they're almost to the point of breaking the tree down. Yep. Apple trees are fantastic. It just takes forever for them to get established. I think he's on year.

25:20

three, maybe year four  on those trees.  takes a while, but once they get going there, they do great. Yeah. So Mark, I try to keep these to half an hour. We're at almost 28 minutes. Where can people find you? I'm on, like I say, I'm on Facebook with the raised bed and container gardening with Mark.  You can find me on,  I'm on  Twitter at Mark Clemens.

25:49

Let's see, my book is on Amazon. So it's A  to Z guide to raised bed and container gardening.  if you Google my name, you're bound to find me. I'm out there. Okay. Awesome. Thank you so much for your time. I really love talking tomatoes with somebody who loves tomatoes. That was fun. That's my favorite food in the world. All right. As usual, people can find me at AtinyHolmsteadPodcast.com.

26:17

Mark, I hope you have a fantastic day. Thank you again. Thanks, Maris. Good to be with you. Bye.