Garden Basics with Farmer Fred
Tips for beginning and experienced gardeners. New episodes arrive every Friday. Fred Hoffman has been a U.C. Certified Master Gardener since 1982 and writes a weekly garden column for the Lodi News-Sentinel in Lodi, CA. A four-decade fixture in Sacramento radio, he hosted three radio shows for Northern California gardeners and farmers: The KFBK Garden Show, Get Growing with Farmer Fred, and the KSTE Farm Hour. Episode Website: https://gardenbasics.net
Garden Basics with Farmer Fred
374 Success with Pepper Seeds and Seedlings. Fire-Wise Landscaping.
Tips for starting pepper seeds. How to care for pepper seedlings. With Debbie Flower.
Protecting your yard and home from wildfire. With Kevin Marini, University of California Defensible Space advisor.
Previous episodes, show notes, links, product information, and accurate, human-reviewed transcripts at the home site for Garden Basics with Farmer Fred, GardenBasics.net. Transcripts and episode chapters also available at Buzzsprout.
Pictured: Pepper Seed Packets
Links:
“Beyond the Garden Basics” Newsletter
Smart Pots https://smartpots.com/fred/
Dave Wilson Nursery https://www.davewilson.com/home-garden/
More Pepper Seed Germination TIps
The Dance of Defensible Space, by Kevin Marini
UCANR Fire Network: Creating a Defensible Space
U. Nevada-Reno: Mulch and Flammability
CalFire Demonstration Fire Video
IBHS Research Center Ember Storm Test Video
CA Native Plant Society list of fire-resistant plants
MORE WILDFIRE PROTECTION TiPS :
Utah State University, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Vail, Colo., Ashland, Oregon, Minnesota/Wisconsin, Fort Worth, TX
All About Farmer Fred:
GardenBasics.net
“Beyond the Garden Basics” Newsletter
Farmer Fred website
The Farmer Fred Rant! Blog
Facebook: "Get Growing with Farmer Fred"
Instagram: farmerfredhoffman
Blue Sky: @farmerfred.bsky.social
Farmer Fred Garden Minute Videos on YouTube
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases from possible links mentioned here.
Got a garden question?
• Leave an audio question without making a phone call via Speakpipe
• Call or text us the question: 916-292-8964.
• Fill out the contact box at GardenBasics.net
• E-mail: fred@farmerfred.com
Thank you for listening, subscribing and commenting on the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast and the Beyond the Garden Basics Newsletter.
.jpg)
.jpeg)
.png)
374 TRANSCRIPT Pepper Seed Germination. Defensible Space.
Farmer Fred:
Garden Basics with Farmer Fred is brought to you by Smart Pots, the original, lightweight, long lasting fabric plant container. It's made in the USA. Visit smartpots.com/fred for more information and a special discount. That’s smartpots.com/fred. Welcome to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. If you're just a beginning gardener, or you want good gardening information, you've come to the right spot.
Farmer Fred:
If you normally set out your spring and summer vegetable garden in late April, or sooner - if you dare - January is the time to start pepper seeds. Seeds of both sweet and hot pepper varieties can take up to three weeks to germinate, and then up to 10 to 12 more weeks to get to a size where it’s transplantable into the outdoor garden. America’s Favorite Retired College Horticultural Professor, Debbie Flower, has the tips for getting those pepper seeds to germinate in half that time, and she has more advice for getting them to thriive, grow and strengthen during their time indoors. Today’s it’s pepper seed germination tips, and more success with peppers.
With the recent urban wildfire crisis in Southern California, a tragic event combining drought, heavy winds, and wildland fires that quickly become serious issues for urban and suburban homeowners, we revisit our chat from last October about the wildland-urban interface and its growing wildfire risks for homeowners. We talk about the concept of hardening your landscape from the “Ember Ignition Zone” with insights from Kevin Marini, a UC Defensible Space Advisor. He highlights the importance of maintaining clear spaces around homes and managing vegetation in three defensive zones.
It’s all in today’s episode number 374, Success with Pepper Seed Germination, and Creating Defensible Space. We’re podcasting from Barking Dog Studios here in the beautiful Abutilon Jungle in Suburban Purgatory. It’s the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, brought to you today by Smart Pots and Dave Wilson Nursery. Let’s go!
PEPPER SEED GERMINATION TIPS. SUCCESS WITH PEPPER SEEDLINGS, Pt. 1
Farmer Fred:
[2:23] Brr, it's cold outside. You know what that means. It's time to plant your pepper seeds. What? Yes. Good morning. Good evening. Good night. Wherever you may be. Yes. Even though it blows your mind, this time of year is the best time of year for planting pepper seeds. Not outdoors, but indoors. Now, the problem is they can take a long time to germinate. So we're going to be talking about planting pepper seeds, planting germination time, how to figure that out, and how to care for that young seedling. So even though the seed catalogs are probably arriving in your house by now, you may want to place an order for pepper seeds because you're going to need up to 12 weeks for them to get to a size that you can plant outside. And depending on where you live, that 12 weeks may come sooner than you think. Debbie Flower is here, America's favorite retired college horticultural professor. And what is it about pepper seeds that takes them so long to germinate, Debbie?
Debbie Flower:
[3:27] I honestly don't know why. Do you?
Farmer Fred:
[3:29] No, I don't.
Debbie Flower:
[3:31] They're about the same size as a tomato seed. They're from the same family.
Farmer Fred:
[3:38] They're a little bigger than a tomato seed.
Debbie Flower:
[3:40] Yeah, yeah.
Farmer Fred:
[3:40] Not by much. It must be a thicker seed coating.
Debbie Flower:
[3:43] Could be. or they have, yeah, the things that prevent the seeds from germinating are that the embryo is not ready. And so it has to age. And I don't think that's the case with the pepper seed, that the water can't get through the seed coat. So it has to go through a lot of water or be scratched to get it open. Scarified, we call that. Or there are chemicals in the seed coat that prevent it from germinating. And so it has to be washed through enough. So maybe that's what's going on with the pepper.
Farmer Fred:
[4:15] Well, let's get the big words out of the way first. Scarification and stratification are ways to get seeds to pop open sooner. And it really depends on the seed because some want that scarification, some want the stratification. You're a big fan of mnemonics. How do you remember the difference between the two?
Debbie Flower:
[4:35] Well, scarification has the word scar in it. And scarification means to just break the seed coat with something. It can be something rough like sandpaper or a knife or a nail clipper, or it can be something chemical like an acid. It's a lot easier and safer to do the rough kind. But in a production situation, they sometimes use an acid and soak the seeds in that, and that breaks down the seed coat enough that the water can get through it. So in that case, the embryo is correct and ready to grow. It's at the stage that it's ready to grow. But the seed is pre-programmed to go through some kind of process like an animal's stomach, an animal's digestive system, before it is ready to grow. So, by going through an animal, which eats it, the acids in the stomach, maybe the teeth, grinding the seed would do the scarification process. And then it's eliminated in a nice pile of warm fertilizer, which is poop.
Farmer Fred:
[5:34] You're not calling for this, though.
Debbie Flower:
[5:36] In this situation. No, we don't. I have never done that.
Farmer Fred:
[5:39] I bet somebody has.
Debbie Flower:
[5:42] Then there's stratification. And that is a cold, moist treatment. The reason they call it stratification, to stratify means to layer. And they used to think you had to carefully layer some moist media. It could be peat moss, it could be perlite. Just some moist media, sand, and then a layer of seeds, and then more moist media on top. So you would have layers. And then you put it in the refrigerator for the recommended amount of time, and that amount of time will vary by the species of the plant and to where it is native. If it's native to a very, very, very cold place, you might have to have it in the refrigerator for months. If it's native to a place that has a shorter winter, you will have it in the refrigerator for a shorter amount of time.
Farmer Fred:
[6:25] Because we're gardeners, we like to experiment, I attempted to germinate the seeds from the flower of a saucer magnolia tree. And I have a very good book called Plant Propagation by Alan Toogood. Excellent book. Just about every plant you could ever think of wanting to propagate is in that book. And the book instructions for the saucer magnolia seed called for both scarification and stratification. So it was moisture and a three-month period in the refrigerator in peat moss.
Debbie Flower:
[7:02] And did you have to then scar the tissue?
Farmer Fred:
[7:05] Possibly. I can't remember exactly, but I think that may have been part of it as well.
Debbie Flower:
[7:10] I did Southern Magnolia, and I remember collecting the seed. I remember that they germinated, and I was surprised that I was successful. Yeah. It's always a nice surprise. Exactly, yeah.
Farmer Fred:
[7:21] We gardeners, it doesn't have much to make us happy.
Debbie Flower:
[7:25] Right. And when you experiment, you have a lot of failures. So, the successes are really nice.
Farmer Fred:
[7:30] So, basically, with a pepper seed, you want to give it plenty of time to grow. Now, I know a lot of instructions when it comes to planting seeds, pepper seeds, they talk about, plant it eight weeks before you're going to set it outside. Well, I'm here to tell you that pepper seed could take up to two weeks to germinate.
Debbie Flower:
[7:49] Yeah. And when I was teaching and we were having plant sales, we would plan. Ideally, I wanted my tomatoes and peppers and tomatoes don't have the same problem germinating. I wanted to give them nine weeks from the time we planted the seed until we put them up for sale. And they're for sale in a little four inch, three or four inch pot. They're not huge plants, but to get them tall enough, strong enough that they would be successful when they were taken home and planted in somebody's garden.
Farmer Fred:
[8:20] You wanted pretty plants.
Debbie Flower:
[8:22] I want pretty plants and I want my buyers to be successful. Yes.
Farmer Fred:
[8:25] It always amazes me how most home and garden shows are in the dead of winter and how these growers manage to get such beautiful plants in the dead of winter.
Debbie Flower:
[8:33] Yeah. The shows that you attend. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of them come from elsewhere, Hawaii, where we lived. A lot of plants come in from Hawaii or Southern California. On the East Coast, a lot of them come in from Puerto Rico, from Florida. So, yeah, they bring them in from afar and they may be in flower and they may be beautiful, but they may not survive if you plant them out when you first see them in the nursery.
Farmer Fred:
[8:57] So when you go to plant pepper seeds, you need to do some backwards counting because you want to set out pepper plants when the soil temperature generally is around 60, 65 degrees, probably 10 degrees warmer than the soil temperature required for a tomato plant. So I would get out of the habit of starting pepper and tomato seeds at the same time, wherever you're growing them, or starting to grow them. And maybe bump up the time when you're going to plant pepper seeds and then two or three weeks later do the tomato seeds. With the pepper seeds, what I like about starting pepper seeds is you don't need light.
Debbie Flower:
[9:34] Well, in general, for most seeds, you don't need light. There are a few exceptions.
Farmer Fred:
[9:38] But not peppers.
Debbie Flower:
[9:40] Not peppers, not tomatoes.
Farmer Fred:
[9:41] So you can start these...
Debbie Flower
[9:43] In a warm area.
Farmer Fred:
[9:44] I know a lot of them talk about using an inert mix to start, like a seed starting mix.
Debbie Flower:
[9:50] I would definitely advise using a seed starting mix.
Farmer Fred:
[9:52] As opposed to the soil from the backyard.
Debbie Flower:
[9:55] Absolutely. And as opposed to a container mix or, boy, they have all kinds of names, a soil conditioning mix. I wouldn't use either of those. I would use a seed starting mix primarily because the particle sizes are very small. And the seeds are small and the plant that first comes out of that seed is small. And it needs to be able to push the media out of the way to expose itself to the sun.
Farmer Fred:
[10:17] Even though the depth which you're planting the seeds may only be maybe a quarter inch deep.
Debbie Flower:
[10:22] Right.
Farmer Fred:
[10:23] And you have a good tip on that, too, as far as if you're planting seed, you'd like to top dress it with that quarter inch worth of vermiculite.
Debbie Flower:
[10:32] Yeah, I would rather. The danger of planting a seed too deeply is that it will germinate. Like you said, it doesn't need light. It needs warmth. It needs moisture, but it doesn't need light. So it's buried under there and it may germinate, but it only has a certain amount of food in the seed to sustain that baby plant until it gets above the top of the media and can get sun and make its own food. It's one of the principles of using mulch for weed control. You bury the seeds so deeply that when the weed germinates, it never makes it up to the sun. So you don't want to plant your seeds too deeply. So, I plant on the shallow side, and then I take vermiculite, which is mica. The type of rock is mica, and it has been heated, so it's expanded, and it's sort of like an accordion, and it's very shiny. And I place that over the top. It does two things. One, moisture gets stuck in those accordion folds. So it prevents the seed from drying out. If a seed starts growing in moist media and then runs out of moisture, it dies. You cannot revive it. So I don't want that to happen. So I use the vermiculite for that. And then if the plant has come up and is ready, you know, can get some sun, the vermiculite actually reflects sun. And so it reflects light. It can be light bulb light, too. Reflects light and the plant can still grow.
Farmer Fred:
[11:55] Well, that brings up the point is, OK, so we've been growing these seeds, starting these seeds in darkness. At what point do they need light? But let's back up a couple of steps and talk about a trick or two to get those pepper seeds to germinate in less than two or three weeks. And one of your favorites is hydrogen peroxide.
Debbie Flower:
[12:15] Yes. You know, it was frustrating when I was teaching. We were working on a semester schedule. We start in January. We finish in May. I had to get the plants up, grown, sold, teach the students all about all that stuff in that period of time. And you want to sell them when people want to buy them. So you don't just wait till May here in California. That's too late. I did a lot of looking around. I did not find peer-reviewed research that indicated how to reduce the time to germinate a pepper seed. But I did find some suggestions, and one was to soak the seeds, pepper seeds, in hydrogen peroxide for 10 minutes. Hydrogen peroxide is H2O2, two hydrogens and two oxygens.
Farmer Fred
Is it considered an acid?
Debbie Flower
I don't know if it's considered an acid. My theory was that the extra oxygen in the molecule somehow helped the seed to germinate. But that's just out of my head and I have no proof. But we tried it and it worked. It greatly reduced the germination time down to about a week, which was very gratifying because then classes meet every week. Next week we can come in and there they are, up and growing.
Farmer Fred:
[13:23] Okay, so hydrogen peroxide for...
Debbie Flower:
[13:25] 10 minutes.
Farmer Fred:
[13:26] 10 minutes, not 10 seconds. 10 minutes. Right. Okay. And then this would be pure hydrogen peroxide? Yes. Okay.
Debbie Flower:
[13:35] Well, I don't know if there are different concentrations. The hydrogen peroxide we used was the kind you would buy in the drug department of a store and use on a wound on your body.
Farmer Fred:
[13:46] In a brown bottle with a flip top.
Debbie Flower:
[13:47] Yes. Yes.
Farmer Fred:
[13:48] Yes. Okay. Some people, I mean, I did this for years, was to soak the pepper seeds in just warm water overnight. And that, I think, sped up the germination by three days or so. But I think another key to germinating pepper seeds quicker than three weeks or two and a half weeks is bottom heat. Yes. To have what they call a propagation mat or a heat mat that can get the temperature up around 70,
Debbie Flower:
[14:15] 75 degrees or so. Right. Before I had the funds to indulge myself in my gardening tools, I would put the seeds in a container, put the container in a flat that doesn't have holes in it or some pie tin. I often use pie tins and cake pans and then cover it. You can use plastic wrap or put it in a plastic Ziploc bag that you close and put it on top of the refrigerator because the top of the refrigerator is a warm spot. The refrigerator exhausts hot air out of the back of it and it comes up over the top of the refrigerator.
Farmer Fred:
[14:49] Despite the fact that in a lot of refrigerators, the freezer's the part that's on top.
Debbie Flower:
[14:53] Yeah, but it's still the air coming out the back. The thing that keeps it cold inside is that the hot air is expelled out the back and it cups up over the top. Then later on, we had a waterbed and we ditched the waterbed and waterbeds have heaters and those heaters worked really well for starting seeds.
Farmer Fred:
[15:10] Yeah, I would think so. Do you have to watch them so they don't get too hot?
Debbie Flower:
[15:14] I did not. Now I have regular propagation mats that I bought at my local nursery and I roll them up and keep them in a container in the garage and then pull them out and plug them in. You can't, when you touch them, it doesn't feel hot, but they're working. In fact, you have to be... Vigilant. I mean, I think you should visit your plants, all your plants every day. But if you're using bottom heat, then they will dry out faster.
Farmer Fred:
[15:43] That's right. And to keep them moist, one trick would be to cover that container and have a dome over it too.
Debbie Flower:
[15:51] Yeah. Seed starting domes are nice things. Yeah.
Farmer Fred:
[15:53] All right. So, we've got the pepper seeds germinated. They've popped their little of heads up out of the ground, first leaves appear called the cotyledons, which aren't the true leaves. They'll come a little bit later or a lot later,
Debbie Flower:
[16:06] Depending on how fast the plant grows.
Farmer Fred:
[16:09] How fast the plant grows. I would keep that bottom heat going until true leaves appear.
Debbie Flower:
[16:14] Right. You don't want to do anything. Well, once the plant is out of the ground, out of the media, it has germinated from the seed and shown itself, you want sun or light of it some sort. Because the cotyledons, if they appear in the dark, they'll be yellowish or cream-colored. They can't make chlorophyll. Chlorophyll is made by the plant when the plant can use it to make food. If the plant's in the dark, it won't make chlorophyll, or if it's in the complete dark. If it's in the shade, it'll make more chlorophyll than if it's in the sun, because it needs to collect more energy from the light. So it has to have more chlorophyll for that. But for a seedling, we want it to grow quickly. We don't want it to put in extra effort to make extra chlorophyll. So we want it in bright sun as soon as it comes out of the ground. And then those are cotyledons, as you said, seed leaves. After that, we'll get the first set of true leaves. And I don't want to touch my seedlings until I have at least two true leaves.
Farmer Fred:
[17:14] Now, for a lot of people, you might be saying, well, if they want as much sun as possible at the cotyledon stage, should I put them outside? No, not if it's 20 degrees or 30 degrees or 40 or 50 or 60. You want light, and that can be achieved by a lighting system that you can find at any good nursery. Right.
Debbie Flower:
[17:37] And you don't have to spend a fortune for many. And they last for Many, many years. I just used a shop light from the hardware section, and you can get a warm bulb, fluorescent bulb, and a cool fluorescent bulb. So you want a shop light that will hold two bulbs, and then you get a warm fluorescent and a cool fluorescent bulb. And they need to be new. I only ever used it for seed starting, so I used it year after year after year, but I was only using it for, you know, a month or two each year. You don't want to just take your newly germinated peppers and put them under a fluorescent light you have on your desk that's been there forever. Our eyes can adjust. The plant can't adjust to the dimness that occurs with a fluorescent over time. They make great LED ones now for growing. I have not gotten into that. But for the cheapest, it used to be you buy the shop light for $10 and then each bulb was $1 or $2.
Farmer Fred:
[18:33] And gas used to be 25 cents a gallon.
Debbie Flower:
[18:36] I'm dating myself, aren't I? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it doesn't have to be a special full spectrum bulb. It just needs to be enough to help the plant grow.
Farmer Fred:
[18:45] Yeah, these nifty LED lights, a lot of the ones you can buy that are fairly inexpensive, $25, $30, are like spider legs of red lights and blue lights. And you put the different light on depending upon what you want the plant to do.
Debbie Flower:
[19:00] Right, and I don't remember that one. I want to say blue grows the green part, the above ground, and red grows the roots. But I'm not sure I have that right.
Farmer Fred:
[19:10] Or was it red growing for flowers? I forget.
Debbie Flower:
[19:12] Yeah, I do too. I'd have to look that up.
Farmer Fred:
[19:14] It will come in the instructions.
Farmer Fred:
[19:18] Hi, it's post-production Fred with the answer to the question, well, what do all those colors in that LED system do for your plants? The answer comes from TCP. They're a manufacturer of plant lights. And they make some key points about the different colored LED lights and their relation to plant growth. The blue light encourages leaf growth, chlorophyll production, and strong stem development, which is important for seedlings and early vegetative stages. The red light, that promotes flowering and fruiting, as well as cell elongation, which is crucial for later stages of plant growth. What about the green light? Well, plants reflect most green light, so it contributes minimally to photosynthesis but can be useful for observation in a dark grow room. Violet or purple light is considered a secondary light source and can support leaf growth and development when combined with the red and blue lights. So on that note, let's get back to our conversation. Thank you.
Farmer Fred:
But the LED systems are what you're going to find most in this day and age, especially at a nursery. And a lot of them come with nice racks as well for getting that light as close as possible. That's critical to the plant. Exactly. You don't want that plant stretching and pepper plants stretching. (Loud crash) You know, we're going to stop recording at this point so I can go see what just fell to the ground. Thank you very much.
SMART POTS!
Farmer Fred:
[20:47] We're glad to have Smart Pots on board, supporting the Garden Basics podcast. Smart Pots are the original award-winning fabric planter. They're sold worldwide. Smart Pots are proudly made 100% in the USA. I'm pretty picky about who I allow to advertise on this program. My criteria, though, is pretty simple. It has to be a product I like, a product I use, a product I would buy again. And Smart Pots clicks all those boxes. They're durable. They're reusable. Smart Pots are available at independent garden centers and select Ace and True Value stores nationwide. To find a store near you, visit smartpots.com slash Fred. It's Smart Pots, the original award-winning fabric planter. Go to smartpots.com slash Fred for more info and that special Farmer Fred discount on your next Smart Pot purchase. Go to smartpots.com slash Fred.
PEPPER SEED GERMINATION TIPS. SUCCESS WITH PEPPER SEEDLINGS, Pt. 2
Farmer Fred:
[21:49] For some unknown reason, my family's pictures that are on the wall, fall off the wall. Jeanne's family's pictures stick to the wall.
Debbie Flower:
[21:56] Oh, my.
Farmer Fred:
[21:56] Meanwhile, we were talking about having lights close to that little plant. We're talking, especially if it's a fluorescent system, maybe just a couple of inches away. Yes. So you need an adjustable system. Yes. A way to lower and raise the lights or the plants. Right. And how long does that go on for until you plant it outside?
Debbie Flower:
[22:17] Well, the other thing you need, so yes, you're going to have it under strong light until you plant it outside. And the other thing you need is wind at the same time. That basically exercises the stem and makes it strong. If you don't jiggle, and this was done as an actual experiment, they didn't use a fan. They just had grad students go and shake the shelves that had the seedlings on them for 10 minutes a day. So each plant needs to be moved 10 minutes a day. What I do is put in a fan that oscillates, goes back and forth, and I run it a half an hour a day, hoping that each plant gets enough. It seems to work. Each plant gets enough movement, so it develops what's called reaction tissue. That's its way of pushing against the air movement, so it will stand up straight and get enough light.
Farmer Fred:
[23:01] These little seeds that you planted, were they in flats or in their own little containers?
Debbie Flower:
[23:06] I prefer to start in my own little containers. And each one, I use this little six packs. I wash them with soap and a brush or a sponge or something to make sure I get in the corners. I reuse everything. You want to make sure any media that has stuck to the inside of that container comes out. There are diseases that can be transmitted from the media. And there's diseases specific to seedlings that you wouldn't have seen in something that was bigger, formerly grew in that six-pack, but it could show up on your plants – and you could lose your whole crop. So, I prefer to do individual seeds in a six-pack. If they're old seeds, I'll do two seeds maybe in a six-pack.
Farmer Fred:
[23:54] Two seeds. Per cylinder in a Six-pack?
Debbie Flower:
[23:55] Yes. Okay.
Farmer Fred:
[23:57] Yeah. Now, for those who do plant, though, in a flat and scatter seeds in, all of a sudden, you're going to start seeing plants that are really close together. At what point do you start separating these out?
Debbie Flower:
[24:08] Well, again, I don't like to touch my seedlings until they've got true leaves. One big reason is you don't want to handle the stem of a baby plant. You're much stronger than that stem and you will easily crush it. So I would, as soon as I saw first true leaves, hopefully two true leaves, I would start working on getting those plants out and separated. And it's a great thing to start a lot of seedlings in a little, even like a little four inch. It doesn't take up as much room. You don't need the space in your house or your greenhouse. So it is a desirable thing to do, but you need to watch them carefully. And when they get their first set of true leaves, water that media.
Debbie Flower
[24:46] Hold the plant by the leaf and then get under the roots and push up.
Farmer Fred:
[24:50] Now, I could find episodes of the Garden Basics podcast where you mentioned it's better to cut the stems of surrounding plants than it is to pull it out because you may be disturbing the root system once nearby.
Debbie Flower:
[25:02] That's very true. But there are many people who start their seeds in a bunch. I think you're one of them.
Farmer Fred:
[25:08] I am. Yeah.
Debbie Flower:
[25:09] And so to get them out, you're going to have to do that holding on to it and pushing up from below. What do you do?
Farmer Fred:
[25:17] I use some very sharp needle nose pruners, flower stem snippers, and just cut them at the base of the ones I don't want and leave the biggest one there.
Debbie Flower:
[25:25] Oh, so you start multiples in a four inch and then you thin by cutting. Yeah. You absolutely do thin by cutting. Yes. But there are people who will start a lot of seeds, let's say 10 seeds in a four inch, and then when they germinate, separate them. And the critical factor there is water. You need water in the root system. That acts as a lubricant, and so you don't destroy the roots.
Farmer Fred:
[25:47] Exactly. Before you start thinning or cutting, for that matter, that pot should be well hydrated. Right. In fact, those pots should be well hydrated throughout this whole process. Yes. Not standing water.
Debbie Flower:
[26:00] No. But moist. Like a wrung out sponge.
Farmer Fred:
[26:02] At what point do you start fertilizing?
Debbie Flower:
[26:04] When I move the plant, the seedling, from the two, true-leaf stage. whenever I move the plant from wherever that started into a bigger container, I put time release fertilizer in the media at that point.
Farmer Fred:
[26:19] OK, so that would be something like Osmocote, for example.
Debbie Flower:
[26:21] That's a brand of time release fertilizer. And I use less than is recommended on the label. You can always fertilize additionally, but you can't take it out once you've put it in the media.
Farmer Fred:
[26:33] But you wouldn't fertilize weekly, weakly.
Debbie Flower:
[26:35] Not at that point.
Farmer Fred:
[26:36] Not with time release fertilizer.
Debbie Flower:
[26:38] Oh, no, not with time release. No, no. You would start with fish emulsion or a very weak solution of some other brand.
Farmer Fred:
[26:46] So some general advice about planting pepper seeds. And once they come up is you're using it on a heating mat and near a windowsill, perhaps, but they don't need that light right off. And keeping that bottom heat at about 75, 80 degrees, covering the pots with plastic bags to keep the humidity level up. And it helps keep the soil mix, which is really a seed starting mix, better off. And once the seedlings have true leaves, you can thin or transplant them so they're maybe two to three inches apart, providing, of course, bright overhead light, keeping that soil moist and transplanting those seedlings to larger pots. One criteria some people use is, are the roots coming out the bottom of the pot?
Debbie Flower:
[27:30] I'd rather deal with it before then.
Farmer Fred:
[27:33] Yeah, I would, too, because it could be too late. Yes. And that's the other thing, too, if you're going to go buy pepper plants at the nursery, is turn over that six-pack, especially if it's a six-pack of pepper plants. Do they sell peppers in six-packs? I don't think so.
Debbie Flower:
[27:48] They're going to much bigger sizes. It's hard to even find a four-inch sometimes.
Farmer Fred:
[27:52] Well, if they're – well, yeah, especially late in the season. But early in the season, you can find a lot in three-inch and four-inch. And if you turn that container over, you don't want to buy a plant where the roots are coming out the bottom.
Debbie Flower:
[28:03] Right. It's root-bound. and it will be set back tremendously when you take it out of the pot and put it in the ground. You also don't want to buy one that's got fruit forming on it. Sorry.
Farmer Fred:
[28:14] Yeah. Well, it's the same thing with flowers, too, in a lot of situations.
Debbie Flower:
[28:18] They've put their energy into that and by transplanting them, they always go through transplant shock. You can't avoid that. So you want them to be in a condition where they can recover as quickly as possible. And that is just a green plant.
Farmer Fred:
[28:30] So then you still have these plants indoors or in your greenhouse. Everybody should have a greenhouse. Move the plants outside after the last frost when the average soil temperature is at least 65 or at least the nighttime temperatures are above. And with pepper plants, probably 60 degrees.
Debbie Flower:
[28:49] Yeah, 55 would be pushing it.
Farmer Fred:
[28:51] I mean, if you want to do it by a calendar, Mother's Day.
Debbie Flower:
[28:54] Depends where you are. Yeah. And so, another way of testing is to put on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and go sit on the ground. There you go. And if you can sit there comfortably really for 10 minutes, then the soil is warm enough to grow a pepper. But we have to do one more process, and that's the hardening off.
Farmer Fred:
[29:09] Oh, yes, exactly. You just don't take them from indoors to outdoors and plop them in the ground. Right. Unless you're going to protect them in the ground.
Debbie Flower:
[29:17] Right.
Farmer Fred:
[29:17] But I think most people would not protect them if they're in the ground by walls of water.
Debbie Flower:
[29:21] They will be stronger if you don't protect them. They have to be exposed to the wind and the outdoor conditions. It's windier outdoors than it is in your house. It's different humidity, different temperatures.
Farmer Fred:
[29:33] So you threw your kids in the deep end of the pool.
Debbie Flower:
[29:36] They were both on swim team. Yeah. Okay. Yeah..
Farmer Fred:
[29:40] But yeah, the idea is to gradually let it accumulate to outdoor conditions. I think, too, especially with wind.
Debbie Flower:
[29:47] Yeah. Wind and humidity for us, humidity, because we're so dry here.
Farmer Fred:
[29:51] So you want those new plants to be in probably late morning for a couple hours to start off?
Debbie Flower:
[29:57] I will do them all day, but I'll do them. So the first day of hardening off, it's a process that takes a week, 10 days. I take them outside, put them in total shade, a place that's going to be in total shade all day long, and check them periodically because the first thing that happens is they dry out, at least in our climate. They dry out. If you're in a very humid climate, they won't dry out as quickly.
Farmer Fred:
[30:18] Because it could get moldy.
Debbie Flower:
[30:20] So, check them periodically, especially that first day, and bring them in overnight. Do that a second day and bring them in overnight. If there's no damage, then we'll move to dappled light, to partial shade. Do that for a couple of days, bring them in overnight, and then move them up to full sun and bring them in overnight. And if everything's hunky-dory, then leave them out overnight.
Farmer Fred:
[30:42] This is why, as a gardener, you really want a job where you can be at home. Yes. Because you don't want to move those plants out from indoors to outdoors early in the morning before you leave for work. Right. Because it just might be a little too cold. Right. I would think you would want to at least wait to...
Debbie Flower:
[31:00] I always started on the weekend when I was working. Get those first two days in. Yeah. That's the hardest transition. Those are the hardest transition days, the first two days. Yeah.
Farmer Fred:
[31:10] So that would be almost midday that you would start that.
Debbie Flower:
[31:13] Yeah. Well, if I had to go to work, I'd put them out early, just in a sheltered place. Place that wasn't getting tremendous wind.
Farmer Fred:
[31:20] But if you're at home…
Debbie Flower:
[31:22] Right. You can move them around.
Farmer Fred:
[31:23] You can be a little kinder. Yes. To your plants. But they adapt.
Debbie Flower
[31:27] They do. Yeah. They do. And that's you're helping them adapt.
Farmer Fred:
[31:31] Yep. So you're gradually hardening off those plants as they get more sun, leave them outside for a few hours on warm days. And then when you go to plant them, probably I would recommend 18 to 24 inches apart.
Debbie Flower:
[31:46] Yeah. Peppers can be closer together than tomatoes. They can take more shade. It helps prevent the fruit from scorching.
Farmer Fred:
[31:53] And those things they sell at nurseries and home centers that they're calling tomato cages that are only about three feet tall. No, those are pepper cages. I don't understand why anybody would try to put a tomato plant in one of those small cages, because I don't care what size tomato plant it's going to be, unless it's really advertised as being something that gets no more than 24 inches tall. Those small cages are only good for pepper plants.
Debbie Flower:
[32:19] Tomatoes are heavier than peppers. If you're growing hot peppers and you want them to be really hot, you need to stress them. At the end, when the fruit is ripening, all peppers are green and they ripen to a color. Some of them you can eat green, but they will ripen to a color. Let's say you have a 70-day pepper. That means from the day you plant it into the garden, not when it comes up from seed, but when you plant it into the garden, to when the fruit is ripe, is 70 days. And so a few days before that, you maybe cut back on the water, or as the fruit is ripening, you cut back on the water. When the fruit has stopped getting any bigger, if the fruit is continuing to get bigger, it needs water to do that. But if you want a hot pepper, you stress them at the end.
Farmer Fred:
[33:08] Do peppers stop growing after they've changed color?
Debbie Flower:
[33:12] They stop growing at a point when they're green and then they go through the color process.
Farmer Fred:
[33:18] So, all right. So, if you see color happening other than green, then if you wanted to stress them this way, you could do it.
Debbie Flower:
[33:25] If you want to make them really hot, that's the time to do it.
Farmer Fred:
[33:27] And hot peppers can take up to 150 days. Yeah.
Debbie Flower:
[33:31] They have a long growing season.
Farmer Fred:
[33:32] Yeah, they do. That's why usually it's October when you start seeing a harvest of the really hot peppers. But that's a good trick about stressing them by taking away the water. And they do that with tomatoes as well.
Debbie Flower:
[33:46] To ripen them. Yeah.
Farmer Fred:
[33:47] Yeah, processing tomatoes in the fields, they'll do that. So, yeah, water is your friend. Have we said everything we need to say about starting peppers?
Debbie Flower:
[33:55] I think so.
Farmer Fred:
[33:57] All right. Go start some peppers.
Debbie Flower:
[33:58] Look at the date.
Farmer Fred:
[34:00] Hurry. Thank you.
DAVE WILSON NURSERY
Farmer Fred:
Now's the time to plan the what and the where of what you want to plant for the future. And to help you along, it pays to visit your favorite independently owned nursery on a regular basis throughout the fall and winter just to see what's new. And coming soon to that nursery near you is Dave Wilson Nursery's excellent lineup of farmer's market favorites. Great tasting, healthy fruit and nut varieties. They'll already be potted up and ready to be planted. And we're also talking about a great selection of antioxidant-rich fruits, such as blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, goji berries, grapes, kiwi, mulberries, gooseberries, figs, and pomegranates. Wholesale grower Dave Wilson Nursery has probably the best lineup of great-tasting fruit and nut trees of any grower in the United States. Find out more at their website, DaveWilson.com. And while you're there, check out all the videos they have on how to plant and grow all their delicious varieties of fruit and nut trees. Plus, at DaveWilson.com, you can find the nursery nearest you that carries Dave Wilson's plants. Your harvest to better health begins at DaveWilson.com.
BUILDING DEFENSIBLE SPACE AROUND YOUR HOME
Farmer Fred:
We're recording this a few days into the wildfire tragedies of Southern California, where fire personnel are battling at least four fires that threaten over 20,000 homes and businesses in suburban Los Angeles. The damage numbers are still preliminary, but gusting winds so far have killed at least five people, burned thousands of buildings, and prompted tens of thousands of evacuations throughout L.A. County. And this was not a forest fire. It's record winds pushing burning embers down the block or even a mile away to other suburban neighborhoods. At a press conference during the height of the Palisades fire, officials were asked how other homeowners can help out. The reply from one fire official, he said, “Begin by hardening your own home and landscape to keep your own property from burning down.” And we talked about this very topic back in episode 361 with University of California Cooperative Extension's Kevin Marini. He specializes in landscape strategies to enhance fire safety. His extensive experience as an arborist and defensible space educator makes him an ideal guide as we navigate the complexities of fire-safe yard maintenance in these high-risk areas. Here's that chat again.
DEFENSIBLE SPACE LANDSCAPING TIPS
Farmer Fred:
Are you familiar with the wildland-urban interface? It's the area where houses meet or intermingle with undeveloped wildland vegetation. It's a focal point, especially for wildfires and the destruction of homes. And this wildfire urban interface areas are particularly widespread in the eastern United States, reaching a maximum of 72% of land area in Connecticut, for example. Now, here in California, we have the highest number of housing units in what's called the WUI area, 5.1 million homes. And that translates to more than 11 million Californians who are living in a wild urban interface, a wildfire urban interface. That means more than a quarter of the state's population is living in a high fire hazard zone. So chances are, and if you ever looked at your insurance bill, you probably already know where you lie as far as wildland urban interface areas, because your rates very frequently are based on that.
Farmer Fred:
So you may be thinking, OK, so what do I have to do around my home so that no major problems happen if you live in a wildland urban interface? Well, we're going to tell you about that today. But I'd also like to point out that burning embers are the cause of making the wildland urban interface a much, much bigger area. And I hark back to 2017 in October and the Tubbs Fire, which broke out north of Santa Rosa, which is north of San Francisco, near the mountains. And in that mountainous area northeast of Santa Rosa, that fire broke out. But it created such a windstorm from this fire, there were burning embers, I call them burning pieces of wood, that flew more than a mile westward across a major freeway and into a suburban development of Santa Rosa itself - Coffee Park, where something like 1,200 homes burned, and they were nowhere near a forest. So even though you may see mountains in the distance, don't think you're safe. So getting back to how we protect our home, how do we protect our yard? Let's talk with Kevin Marini. He's a UC Cooperative Extension advisor. We've talked to him in the past about trees and soils because he's a certified arborist. He's a Master Gardener Coordinator, and he's also the University of California Defensible Space Educator. So he is very familiar with this whole idea of protecting your yard and not necessarily putting in fireproof plants, because as he points out, really, there's no such thing as a fireproof plant. And even though there are plants that you may think are fireproof, well, depending on how you've treated them, they may be, shall we say, dead on the inside and just be waiting to burn because of the way you prune them. We'll get into that. He has a wonderful handout called The Dance of Defensible Space.
Kevin Marini, it's a pleasure for talking with you again. And when it comes to protecting your home from wildfire, it begins in the yard. And in the past, when we've talked about building defense zones that are fire resistance, we've talked about zones one, two, and three. But lately, there's been a new zone added to that, and that's called the zero zone. And what goes on in the zero zone?
Kevin Marini:
Well, hey, first of all, thank you so much for having me back on your podcast. I really enjoy this opportunity to do some education and outreach via this medium. I do a lot of talks in person and I do defensible space consultations on site. But being able to reach a huge audience like this is a treat. So first off, thank you for having me. So yeah, I've been teaching a lot about defensible space over the last two years, really for a longer time than that, but really focused in on it the last couple years. And with that has come this new zone, Zone Zero, as you refer to, called the Ember Ignition Zone. What's interesting about this zone is it's actually not law yet.
Kevin Marini:
So a lot of people are paying attention to it because it's likely to become law soon. As of right now, they're trying to work on some of the language and figure out exactly what the zero to five area outside your home and other structures should look like. But one thing we know for sure is that, as you mentioned, embers are the driving force here. And what CAL FIRE says is 85% to 90% of homes that burn down, burn down from embers flying in. They catch things around the home on fire, which then leads to the house burning down. So this is super important because a lot of people I talk to think that a wall of flame is going to be coming at their house, that actual huge flames are going to be burning down their house. Actually, it's these embers that are flying in. And let's be honest, they're little tiny pieces of burning material that sometimes fizzle out in the air, sometimes fizzle out in your lawn, but sometimes catch something on fire that burns your house down. So obviously, we got to pay attention to the zero to five feet clearance zone. I tell people, go home, take a measuring tape, put it out to five feet and walk around your home and your structures.
And it's not just your home, you may have a barn, you may have a shed. There's other structures as well to consider. And when you start doing that, you notice very quickly that you have some flammable stuff around your home that you probably should pay attention to. So, yes, I believe that's a great place to start.
Farmer Fred:
Yeah. And it's not just plant material either. I have neighbors here in suburban purgatory who have seen their insurance rates go up because after an inspection, they were cited for piling up too much stuff, too much of their household goods or cardboard boxes against the side of the house. And they had to clear them off immediately if they wanted to keep their insurance.
Kevin Marini:
Yeah. And I think that's often overlooked, right? Because people are paying attention to vegetation more so than anything when it could be that recycling bin full of cardboard or newspaper that catches the embers and starts the fire. I always point out things like outdoor furniture. You know, some of our outdoor furniture materials are extremely prone to ignition, right? Some of the cushioning, some of the material, the chairs and benches are made of. And also, I always think about this as a father. We used to have a play structure for our children right outside the house because you want it close by so you can look out the window and watch your kids. Well, a lot of those play structures are bone dry, right? So, I think you just bring home a very important point. That zero to five, that ember ignition zone is anything that's flammable, whether it's a plant, a piece of furniture, or cardboard or newspaper, believe it or not.
Farmer Fred:
I know we're going to talk a lot about plants here, but think of the things you can't see that are flammable around your house. Like if you haven't cleaned out your gutters, it could be filled with tree debris that could start a fire. It could be poorly vented homes where the vents are too big and can allow those embers to fly into the attic for example. So there's a lot of checking on that you have to do on the house itself. But in the yard itself, That zero zone also means not even five feet of wood mulch on the ground.
Kevin Marini:
Yeah, that's hard to take, especially for people like you and I who love mulch.
Farmer Fred:
Well, we should say wooden mulch, like bark mulch. I would think five feet of gravel would be okay.
Kevin Marini:
Well, yeah, I think if Cafire could write the book, they would love to see five feet of rock around every structure. But of course, that's not reality for a lot of folks. Now, we have to remember that we find ourselves in this situation because for 40, 50 years, the very foundation, pun intended, foundation of landscape design was to put foundation plantings all around our house, right? So, we have, in a sense, grown up here in the state of California with shrubbery all around our homes. And so, this isn't an easy fix for a lot of folks. A lot of people. I talked to a woman who had 60-year-old beautiful camellias all around her home that the insurance company was asking her to remove.
So, in a lot of cases, there's emotional problems when it comes to getting rid of beautiful shrubs and trees, sometimes maybe with sentimental value, for example. But it's also the aesthetic appeal. It's hiding the area around your home, giving people privacy. I grew up with juniper shrubs all around my childhood home. We would pick those juniper berries and have wars in our neighborhood. And now I think back, I think that was the most fire hazard situation possible, right? Just the most flammable shrub that we pretty much know of, all around, surrounding a home. And so we find ourselves in a unique situation now where things that we used to value, such as those foundation plantings, now have to be rethought and potentially completely removed.
Farmer Fred:
And especially the dead material that some plants can produce. And that's not just in that zero zone, the zero to five foot area, but in the next zone, which goes from five to 30 feet. There's a lot of plants that may look green on the outside, but inside they may be very dead.
Kevin Marini:
Oh, yeah. And this is one of the difficult things that I see all the time in our mainstream kind of landscape maintenance world. There is a lot of hedging and shearing of plants. And I don't mean like plants that you normally think of as hedges, like a boxwood hedge, right? Now that is kind of okay to hedge because they do pretty well in that situation. But in this day and age, a lot of landscape maintenance folks hedge and shear everything. And so you end up creating plants that aren't resilient to fire whatsoever. When you open them up beyond that little surface green area, you end up with dead material in the middle. I call them ‘ember catchers’. And I say that because if the plant was pruned naturally or allowed to grow to its natural form, it would not be an ember catcher, right? So this is a specific type of pruning that is leading to more of a fire hazard rather than fire safety. And so, yeah, I think looking at anything that is hedged and sheared on your property and really putting your hands in there and pulling it apart and peering in there and seeing what's going on in there will be really important for everybody to understand because as those embers come flying in, that's just the perfect spot for them to land.
Farmer Fred:
Explain when people hear the term fire ladders, what does that refer to?
Kevin Marini:
Fire ladders generally refer to vertical fire ladders, which is where you have, say, an herbaceous perennial underneath a medium-sized shrub, underneath a small tree, underneath a really large tree. And like I said, our landscape design for decades has been to layer plants and to get different textures and a different feel for our landscapes where you have these different sized plants and different colored foliage. That's been the plan. And now that's coming back to bite us because those ladders allow embers to catch fire that small plant and that flame go quickly up into larger plants and eventually up into trees. When we get fire into trees, we have problems because that's where you get even more ember cast.
Kevin Marini:
That's when embers are just spitting out of the top of those trees. Low fire close to the ground, believe it or not, Calfire kind of refers to that as good fire because it has a rejuvenating effect. And as long as it's not getting up into the canopies of trees, then we don't have a lot of ember cast going on. So the main fire ladder is that vertical path up into trees. However, there's another path that we have to be really aware of. And that is more of a horizontal path, a continuous line of vegetation. And so a lot of folks will, on the sides of their driveways, for example, have a whole line of continuous vegetation stretching, you know, 50 yards, for example. Well, what happens is all it takes is those embers to get into one area and start a fire, and then it has a path all the way to your house or, again, to other vertical fire ladders. So it's not just those ladders that lead the fire up into trees. It's also the continuous vegetation without spacing in between that lead to that path of fire.
Farmer Fred:
And gardeners, if there was one disease most gardeners have, it's ‘plant-itis’, where they must plant something. “I’ll find room for it. Don't worry”. And in five years or less, they have a jungle. And gardeners don't like to move because, heck, they've developed that property with so many plants. It's their haven. And they're living in a jungle. And that jungle, unfortunately, now, if it's in that five foot to 30 foot zone, is a fire trap.
Kevin Marini:
Yeah. So the five foot to 30 foot zone, which, you know, the traditional defensible space zones are zone one, five to 30, and zone two, 30 to 100. And now, of course, we're going to have this zone zero, that's the zero to five. So the five to 30 is commonly called the lean, clean, and green zone. And so this is where things immediately get funny because here as I'm representing the Master Gardener Program, during the drought years, our messaging was what? It was remove those lawns, put in drought tolerant plants, use a ton of mulch, right? And now that messaging is basically the opposite. We've had to say, look, due to fire, having a little bit of irrigated turf around your home is a nice buffer for those embers coming in. So have a little bit. We now have many, many different types of sods and grasses that are more drought tolerant than the sods of the past. And so there's better options as far as drought tolerance or water efficiency, let's say.
Kevin Marini:
But now we're saying, yeah, leave a little bit of lawn around your home for fire protection. And the mulch thing is very difficult because mulch has so many benefits. And we don't want to tell people not to use mulch. What we want to tell people is use it wisely, right? So depending on where you live, what fire zone you're in, and kind of what your defensible space situation is, you may be able to use a lot of it. You may only be able to use a little bit. But the one thing for sure is they have done study after study on the flammability of mulch. There's a great study out of the University of Nevada, Reno, that looked at all different types of organic mulches and their flammability. And what they do is they put these mulches down and they say, okay, how quick are these to ignite? If they ignite, how tall is the flame length? If it has a huge flame length, how much radiant heat is it putting out, right? So, if a mulch is quick to ignite, has a huge flame length, puts out a ton of heat, guess what?
That's the one you want to avoid, right? And so, if it's not so quick to ignite, and even if it has a small flame length or smolders and doesn't put out a lot of heat, then it's considered roughly fire-wise, okay? And so what they found was that the most widely used organic mulch in the state of California, which we know, and many people know, as gorilla hair, which is shredded redwood and cedar.
It is the most flammable by far, by leaps and bounds. And so sometimes I feel like I can just look at that stuff and it would catch fire. On the other end of the spectrum, you have something called arborist wood chips or wood chips that come out of the back of tree trimming company trucks, right? The stuff that was usually a mix of green and brown material, it actually kind of starts to compost in there. There's usually a lot of moisture from the green material from the live tissues of the trees. And so that material they found is actually the most resistant to ignition, a tall flame length, and radiant heat. So if you're going to use organic mulches, use the arborist wood chips if you have access to them and it's doable for you aesthetically. I know a lot of people want mulch to look a certain way. We have a lot of options of kiln dried wood chips out there that you can buy in bulk, and they're all dyed, right? There's some that are dyed black. There's some that are dyed brown. There's some that are dyed kind of an orangey color. And so some people are choosing mulch just based on aesthetics. And I understand that. But if you're in a fire zone where you live next to one of these wildland-urban interface areas that you were talking about, the wildland-urban interfaces, I would recommend, if you're going to use organic mulch, to go with the arborist wood chips.
Farmer Fred:
Yeah, and I would avoid that gorilla hair, which is the smallest form of wood chip mulch that you can get. It's very stringy looking. I remember when the new post office went in in Herald, California, and of course, I was assigned to help in the landscaping. And somebody made the mistake of buying gorilla hair mulch for this public area. And I think it was about two weeks later when they found a smoldering little fire going on in there because somebody tossed a cigarette in there.
Kevin Marini:
There you go. Yeah. That's all it takes. That's all it takes.
Farmer Fred:
Yeah. And basically that was the gorilla hair mulch that ignited. Definitely bigger wood chips are better than that. I noticed in that University of Nevada Reno study of the flammability of mulches. I would definitely not use shredded rubber or pine needles for mulch that has the highest rate of temperature, rate of spread and flame height.
Kevin Marini:
Yeah. And then a lot of that rubber mulch is used around play structures, to kind of protect kids if they fall off the play structure. So not only is the play structure itself prone to being kind of dry and made of wood and being able to ignite, but you also have this mulch that's used a lot around them that is extremely flammable. And when it does get going, it burns very, very hot. And so, yeah, I think that we find ourselves in a situation where we have to really think through our use of mulch and use it a little bit more judiciously than maybe we did in the past where it was like, hey, get 15 yards and spread it everywhere, right? And the times have changed a little bit since then as far as our messaging goes.
Farmer Fred:
I was surprised to see pine needles right behind shredded rubber as far as the danger of combustion goes. So, yeah, avoid pine needles and also shredded western red cedar.
Kevin Marini:
Yeah. Now, the pine needle thing is interesting. So pine needles and oak leaves, you know, they get a bad rap as far as I'm concerned living up here in the foothills. A lot of people are always shocked to learn that I love pine needles and oak leaves as a compost constituent. But I don't want to start going down that road because I can talk composting for 10 hours. So, but pine needles, in nature, you have that top layer of kind of the fresh layer of dried out pine needles that is very easily ignitable. But if you actually walk through a mixed conifer forest area, what you find is there's a duff layer, and there is some pine needle material on top, but very quickly, it turns to kind of a duff that sometimes can really hold a lot of moisture for a long time. Now, by this time of year, in fall, it's all dried out. But it's pretty amazing how it does hold moisture pretty well for a good portion of the season. So what that study was doing was a lot of people will rake off pine needle mulch from around trees and then use it somewhere else. And so it's strictly just the real top layer of dried out pine needles. And that absolutely is to be avoided. I agree.
Farmer Fred:
Let's go back and talk a little bit about spacing plants in that 5-foot to 30-foot zone. Obviously, it would be best to space the plants individually or in clusters and include hardscaping too, like walls or patios or pathways. How wide should a pathway be?
Kevin Marini:
Good question. So a lot of times you see language such as ‘plant in the 5 to 30 zone in clusters, in islands’, like what you're talking about. And what's recommended is a three foot zone, at least. Of course, you can go farther out. But a three-foot buffer is a good rule of thumb between these clusters of plantings and other clusters of plantings. And within that three-foot area, you want to use a completely safe material, something like rock mulch or DG (decomposed granite), for example. Or, like you said, hardscape, so flagstone or something like that.
So that way, if embers fall into this little island of plants, which, again, you could be using mulch in that island, that is less likely to quickly spread to other areas. It's kind of a way to compartmentalize your landscape so that if embers come streaming in, it kind of burns just this area without spreading to the whole area. And so something as simple as a retaining wall can be the difference between your house burning down or not, right? Because a large retaining wall, three, four feet tall, could potentially intercept those embers coming in. Also, if you have landscape vegetation that's caught fire, it would meet up eventually against that retaining wall and be put out or burn out, hopefully. And so, yes, I think everything you said is correct. You're spacing out the plants both vertically and horizontally. You're planting plants in areas and leaving space between those areas. So not just between the plants, but between areas of planting. And then you're utilizing hardscape wherever you can to break up areas and kind of give yourself little mini fire breaks all over.
Farmer Fred:
I'll have a link in today's show notes from this, the video that Cal Fire put out that they called a demonstration burn, where they built two little homes side by side, one with normal landscaping and normal hardscape; and the other very much hardened off to try to slow down the progress of aggressive burning embers. And the one thing I noticed about the house that burned down in 12 minutes versus the other one that never caught fire was, besides the fact they had mulch piled up next to the house, they also had a wooden fence. And people forget that wooden fences can burn, which goes back to what you're talking about, rock walls and gravel walkways and things that don't catch fire.
Kevin Marini:
Yeah. Yeah. So CALFIRE is the mandated entity to do official defensible space inspections. So no one else besides fire personnel do official defensible space inspections. Through UC, I do defensible space consultations and I do that on purpose. I use that word rather than inspection on purpose. And so that's an important resource for people, But, yeah, I think that they would love to see all wood fences that are close to homes or that lead to structures swapped out for, you know, ornamental iron. That would probably be ideal. But some sort of other fencing type that won't catch fire and lead the fire along the fence to a potential structure or another area that isn't hardened.
Farmer Fred:
Yeah, this is great information if you're buying a new home somewhere in that wildland interface urban area and there's nothing there and you can get the hardscaping in first and then plant accordingly.
Kevin Marini:
Yeah, yeah. And I think there's a lot of talk about using certain palettes of plants to create a fire resilient landscape. So, you know, traditionally, these have been called fire wise plants. And the one thing that we know for sure is that every plant burns eventually. Right there's definitely a spectrum so you know if you have a couple little succulents out in front of your house, they are are less likely to ignite and become a problem, as opposed to a mid-sized shrub, especially a juniper. So there's definitely a spectrum. But the idea that you swap out all of the plants in your landscape with quote “firewise plants” is really just a myth. I mean, that is not something that anyone in the fire world is recommending because it's not the species itself. It's how it's maintained and then how you organize your landscape that either gives it some resilience or makes it a hazard. I love how lavender is on almost every firewise plant list, right? When you go buy a one-gallon lavender at the nursery, Yeah, it's pretty firewise. It's nice and lush. There's no dead stuff in it. You can imagine embers being thrown at it and not igniting.
Kevin Marini:
And so, yeah, sure, a one-gallon lavender, when you plant it, the first season is firewise. But we all know, well, maybe not “we all”, I guess I'm talking about gardeners know, that soon lavender grows and gets woody and starts accumulating dead stuff, right? And I've seen some plants that I would absolutely characterize as a fire hazard rather than a fire-wise plant. And so, again, that illustrates that this isn't about the species itself. It's about, how is it going to be maintained? And is it going to be under something or near something where it leads to this path of fire?
Farmer Fred:
We talked about clustering plants and spacing plants. And I would think that when you put in larger plants, the shrubs and the trees, I wouldn't go for the minimum space that they recommend. If they say a tree has a 30 foot spread, you would definitely want to plant the next tree over - if it's the same variety - more than 15 or 20 feet away. Because you want that space between the plants so that it isn't tree touching tree touching tree, then a tree touching a roof.
Kevin Marini:
Yeah, that's a really great point. Because of course, people usually abide by the spacing that they see on the plant label, or they read it in the book, or they read online. And it may be different depending on where you live, and how your defensible space zones are organized and all of that stuff. And so you're totally right, there has to be additional thought or at least consideration. At this spacing, I'm going to have these branches touching each other eventually. And I need to have them farther apart than that. So the traditional spacing recommendations may not hold true for your landscape nowadays if you live in one of these wildland-urban interfaces, right?
Farmer Fred:
Yeah, I noticed that CAL FIRE even recommends that you keep your trees trimmed so that the closest branch of a tree has to be greater than 10 feet away from a chimney.
Kevin Marini:
Yeah. In fact, much of the defensible space zoning, whether you're talking about a tree in the 5 to 30 or even in the 30 to 100, most defensible space recommendations say limb those trees up 10 feet. Okay. But here's the big caveat. As an arborist, their language is limb trees one-third of their height or 10 feet up. So if you have a 12-foot tree you don't limb it up 10 feet because then you'll end up with a little two-foot tuft of vegetation at the top, and the tree will not like you for that. And so, it's either one-third or 10 feet, depending on the size of the tree. And that's really important because I've seen some folks really do some damage to trees, limbing them up a little bit too much when they're young. They don't like that very much at all. And so, yes, that's important to say that in both zones, you're looking at trees very carefully and making sure those limbs aren't on the ground or aren't touching each other. Now, beyond that zone we've just talked about, the 5 to 30, the lean, clean, green, we get to the next zone, 30 to 100.
And the kind of mantra for that is reduced fuel zone. And so this is important, especially in areas that are more rural, where people may have an acre or two or someone like me who has seven acres. That area is your main interface with the wild land just beyond it. And so reducing the vegetation in that area is imperative to making sure that, again, you're not contributing to fire spread. If embers get in there and you haven't done any work, then you can actually increase the number of embers that are coming out from that area rather than getting that fire to decrease in its severity. So just to recap real quick - Zero to five, ember ignition zone, five to 30, lean, clean, and green, 30 to 100, reduced fuel zone. And everything we've talked about, in a sense, applies in all those zones, depending on the situation. So I live in the foothills, and guess what? I live on a hill. So my property slopes down. So fire, we know, runs uphill pretty darn fast. So the downhill side of my home in a sense is even more important or a higher priority than other sides of my home because it slopes down to a road. Roads are notorious for starting fires and that fire can rip up to my home very quickly if I haven't done the work.
Farmer Fred:
So what is your first line of defense?
Kevin Marini:
My first line of defense is an irrigated area where I have fruit trees, if you will. So I have a lower pasture that's up from the road that dries down, but of course the trees are limbed up, there's no fire ladders in that area. I've done the work on that in that respect, but still because of the dead native and non-native vegetation on the ground, fire could very easily come up the hill quickly. And so I have an area on my slope in front of my house that's where my fruit trees are that I irrigate the area underneath them. And so it's pretty green in that area. And so in a sense, that's my first line of defense if fire did come up.
Farmer Fred:
How wide is that area?
Kevin Marini:
Oh, probably about 25 feet and probably, yeah, 30 yards. I mean, it's a pretty big area. And I did that on purpose, of course, to really make sure I have a fire barrier there or at least a buffer.
Farmer Fred:
When we lived in the country, and even though it was pasture land, not too far in the distance, a quarter mile away, was a square mile of eucalyptus trees that were put in around 1910 or so. It was a get-rich-quick scheme by someone thinking that it would make for great furniture that's very malleable. And it turned out this particular eucalyptus variety was rather brittle. So the trees just remained. So we were always looking at that, knowing that the delta breezes blew in towards us from that grove. So we were always thinking about, okay, how do we intercept the embers? And one of the plans was to put sprinklers on the roof. Okay, what are you going to do? How are you going to run it? If the electricity goes out, because that's what usually happens first in the country. So we were on a well. And the first thing I did was make it a triple throw switch out at the pump where I could switch off the electricity to the pump and then pull it down so I could hook up a generator to it. So at least we'd have water going, And at least keep things irrigated, or turn on the sprinklers. Does a swimming pool play a part in this?
Kevin Marini:
Sure. I think ponds up in Placer County here, we have a lot of ponds on people's properties and pools. And that does play into it because the ability to pump out of a swimming pool and potentially put a small fire out would be huge if needed. And I know this sounds a little dreary, but in worst case scenario, if you're inundated by fire, at least having a pool to jump into may save your life. There's been some real kind of horror stories I know about that where people haven't survived, but there's been plenty of stories where people have too.
So I know for a fact that insurance companies look at that and give you a little nod if you have some sort of a body of water nearby. So, yeah, I think that helps for sure. And I think, you know, CAL FIRE has, I specifically talked to representatives from CAL FIRE about this. They don't really encourage this whole roof sprinkler thing, which in a way I could see people saying, why not? Why wouldn't you want a roof sprinkler system if, you know, you live in a high severity fire zone? And like you say, there's an electricity issue if you're on a well. And if you're actually on city water, they don't really want people evacuating but leaving the water on, potentially messing with their ability to get water and have the pressure they need to put out the fires. So I think that in general, there may be some situations like you talked about, you have a generator situation where you could have some roof sprinklers, but it's not really highly encouraged over being prepared as far as defensible space and having that sort of just passive resilience set up.
Farmer Fred:
I have some pretty smart friends who are in the nursery business. And some of my friends own a wholesale nursery and they grow citrus trees. But where they're growing their citrus trees is in this canyon that is prone to wildfires on either side. They've escaped it. So far, one of the reasons they've escaped it is they had access to a creek and they cleared off enough of an area and put in a new road to their property that was wide enough for two fire engines to pass each other. And down at the base where the creek was, they installed equipment so the fire trucks could resupply their trucks with water.
Kevin Marini:
Wow. Wow. How interesting.
Farmer Fred:
And so that's one of the first places the fire department will defend is where they get their source of water.
Kevin Marini:
Yeah. And I'm actually glad you brought that up because it reminded me of something I do not want to forget to mention, which is the first thing I always bring
up if I'm giving any type of a presentation to a Firewise community or a community group. And that is ingress-egress, right? The way in and out of your property, of your neighborhood. Oh, this, we've seen some really disturbing images during the Camp Fire, of people trying to get out and flames all around. So in many places, especially in more rural areas, my area, my neighborhood, I have one way out. You know, if the fire's coming up that road, I'm going out on foot in a different direction. Wow. So I think this is super important for people to be thinking about. And I would say that even if you're in a suburban neighborhood, we saw what happened during the Tubbs fire that you that you had mentioned earlier on. And, you know, it's just there's so many people in vehicles trying to get out of an area. And there's so many fire personnel trying to get in. Right. So even in a situation like a suburban neighborhood, you can really run into some traffic jam situations.
So have alternate routes. Have different ways that you can exit depending on what direction that fire is coming and what direction you're getting from fire personnel. I know I have a very long, narrow driveway up to my house. And I'll never forget the first time I had the fire department come up here. It was actually due to my mother-in-law, who had a health emergency. She turned out to be fine. But they sure gave me a mouthful about my driveway and the branches that were rubbing up against their beautiful fire truck on the way up. And they basically told me, we will not drive up here and defend your home in a fire. We will not. There's no turnaround up here. You have branches that are too close to the driveway. All of that needs to be cut back. And you need to have a very easy turnaround for a fire engine. And so we did that. We did that work. And so that's another thing. It's not just that you're in and out of an area. It's making sure that fire engines can get in and out of your area where you live.
Farmer Fred:
You brought up another good point with that, too. And so many people who live in suburban and rural areas will do this, and that is to line their driveway on both sides with trees. That's a death trap. And especially when they want quick-growing trees. So, it's usually some sort of junk tree, like a Lombardy poplar or something like that, a tree species that has a lot of deadwood, a lot of litter. And if you've got these 30, 40, 50 foot giants on either side of your driveway, and they catch fire, who's going to drive through a fire tunnel to help you out? Nobody.
Kevin Marini:
Exactly. Exactly. And I see this up in the foothills a lot with coast redwoods. I love redwood trees, don't get me wrong, but putting coast redwoods up here in this climate is a little, I wouldn't say it's the best choice. Let's just put it that way. But one thing that I see people do, of course, is plant these coast redwoods way too close together. When they're young, they're going for this screen, right, or this look, like you say, this kind of look up a driveway or something. And the reality is as they grow, you know, they just basically intertwine. And so you have these huge swaths of vegetation that if that catches fire in there, I mean, there's no way, like you say, you're driving through that without some damage.
Farmer Fred:
Have, like you say, have an alternate route out, at least.
Kevin Marini:
At least. At least. It was a way that I convinced my wife that we needed a quad (an all-terrain vehicle). You know, we really needed a quad for fire. That's why we needed it, right? Not for me. No, no. You know, to be safe. So in an emergency, I could put you guys on a quad and get you out of it. Right. It worked.
Farmer Fred:
Good thing you weren't an amateur pilot.
Kevin Marini:
Yeah. Yeah. So I think, you know, going over these defensible space zones is important and it's important for people to do the maintenance in their yards and to not get so overwhelmed by the situation because this is never going to end. And this might sound a little negative, but it's not meant to. But I tell people, look, you're never going to be done with defensible space landscape work. Because as gardeners know, you don't weed an area and then say, I'm done. I'm never going to have to weed that area again. We know things grow, right? And seeds come in and branches grow. And so this type of work, yes, there may be a lot of work up front to get your yard to a point where it's looking pretty good defensible space-wise. But we also have to remember that this is just something that you do all the time. Every year, there's a little bit more work, a little bit more cleaning up. And a lot of folks in the foothills would love to throw a lot of money at a problem and see it go away. But unfortunately, that's not the case in most environments.
Farmer Fred:
Cal Fire also points out that fire resistant ground covers are also an acceptable choice for that area, five to 30 feet. And to avoid planting broadleaf evergreens like holly and coyote bush, conifers like pines, juniper, cedars and firs, avoid those. And also, and this may come as a surprise, avoid planting palm trees because they are highly flammable.
Kevin Marini:
Yeah, yeah. And so this is a good kind of counterpoint to make to the firewise plant statement I made earlier. So I was saying it's less about the species. It's more about its maintenance and how you organize the plants and landscape. However, if there is good data that we have, it is on flammable plants. So, there's no research that says, oh, this pallet of plants in the case of embers coming in is going to be completely safe, right? But what we do know is we know flammable plants to avoid in those defensible space zones. So, you mentioned a few. I mentioned juniper earlier. Believe it or not, bamboo is usually considered a part of that because there's
so much accumulation of dead foliage, right? Right. And so a lot of conifer type plants, whether they're small or large, are considered very flammable and not the best choices in defensible space zones. So I think you bring up a good important point that it may not be that we swap out all of the plants in our landscape with so-called firewise plants, but that doesn't mean that we don't identify very flammable plants and rid ourselves of those in the defensible space zones.
Farmer Fred:
Yeah, two other pieces of flammability that people sometimes forget about that they might have near their house are propane tanks and the woodpile. How many people have woodpiles on their porch?
Kevin Marini:
Isn't that the truth. That's a tough one, because we kind of live in a situation in California where there's no ‘fire seasons’ anymore; just year-round basically. Of course when we have a bunch of nice soaking rainstorms it goes away for a little bit, but there definitely can be times during the winter where we have stretches of three or four weeks without a drop of rain and everything gets bone dry. And you have all this wood up on your porch and suddenly now you have to consider moving that, right? Because everything else was dried out so i agree with you that that there's things all around the home. Now the propane tank thing is interesting. I was at a fire network meeting and I heard a Cal Fire gentleman say he puts his barbecue with the the propane tank, he wheels it into his garage, and when he wants to use it, he wheels it out of his garage and uses it, and then puts it back in the garage.
And I kind of thought, hmm, I wonder, what's the take-home point there? Well, the take-home point is, if you have it outside and you have other flammable material around and that catches fire, then you risk that propane tank exploding and creating a most likely a big house fire, right? And so I thought that was an interesting point of just something so simple like that. Wheel it in your garage, and if you're going to use it, wheel it out. Up here, a lot of people have large propane tanks. It's recommended to keep those at least 30 feet away from your home, but so many people have them very close to their home. Again, it's important to make sure there's no dry vegetation around those propane tanks. Some people put wooden structures around them to hide them. You can't do that because, obviously, that can catch fire and blow up the propane tank. And I think another thing to think about is firefighter safety. So if you have an area on your property where a fire engine could set up and defend your house, well, hopefully that's not five feet away from a propane tank, right?
Farmer Fred:
You know, thinking about all this makes me, if I lived in the country again, I'd want a separate shed so I can store all the flammable materials, be it gas or paint or a propane tank, into a shed with the other flammable materials so that my property that I might value, like my bicycles, in the garage, wouldn't get harmed.
Kevin Marini:
Yeah, yeah, I know. And out here in the country, as extreme as thinking like that may be, it does make sense when you see the way that these fires in high wind situations, how quickly they move and how the volume of embers that come in, right? And so having everything that is flammable or that could explode, over there, I think, would make you sleep a little bit better.
Farmer Fred:
Well, it's that time of year here in California. We're sure mid to late fall, where it can get hot and dry and the conditions are just right for disaster. So take care of your own property. And remember, there's no such thing as a fireproof plant, but there can be fire resistant plants, especially if you keep them well irrigated.
Kevin Marini:
Yes. And so that's a really good point that they have found that the moisture within leaves, within foliage can really impact whether that plant is going to ignite or not or burn or not. So, you know, the idea of holding back water with plants around your home is probably not a good idea. If anything, you want those plants to be always well hydrated during fire seasons.
Farmer Fred:
It sounds like you can't have anything from zero to five feet, five to 30 feet, just succulents, and beyond 30 feet, just little trees.
Kevin Marini:
You know, I have a lot of people who say, I have invested so much time, so much money, so much effort in creating this landscape. I'm not going to allow it to become all rock with a few succulents somewhere. And my response is usually it doesn't have to be that way. Because look at some models of defensible space. There's a great Marin County program, an amazing fire program, doing homeowner education and outreach. And they have just an amazing website, Fire Safe Marin. Of course, they have a special tax that funds all this to makeit possible.
But that's a great resource for folks because they have good pictures of what nice looking landscapes that are showy can look like, but also can be good defensible space landscapes. And so I think once you kind of see those examples, you realize it doesn't have to be so dreary. But I hear your point, though, that we do have to rethink this love we have for lush, very textured landscapes that are almost jungle-like. It's just not going to work, especially because things are getting hotter and drier, right? So the other factor here is we have the climate changing, and all you have to do is talk to firefighters, and they will tell you fuels dry out a lot sooner, and they are bone dry a lot longer. And so the fire season window of time has increased and is increasing.
Farmer Fred:
Yeah, keep rakes and loppers handy all over the yard so you'll be inclined to pick them up and use them. I mentioned earlier in this program that it's quite possible that on your insurance bill, especially if you're a California resident, you might see a new box that lists your propensity for being in a wildland urban interface problem area. And basically, I guess the worse the number, the higher your insurance rates. So the lack of insurance, I'm still amazed at the number of people who think they don't need insurance because their house is paid for.
Kevin Marini:
Yeah, the insurance conundrum is crazy right now. And first of all, these fire zones are being kind of remapped. And this is going to be an ongoing process as things change. And so I know that CAL FIRE is working with UC fire scientists and other folks on trying to figure out the best way to map these fire zones. And that definitely plays into insurance coverage, no doubt. The one thing I have found, okay, and I have spoken to a lot of people over the last few years, especially in the Foothill area of Placer and Nevada counties, and I really have found that the insurance situation is variable. There does not seem to be this total line in the sand or overarching rule applied everywhere, even in high severity fire zones like I live in. My insurance was recently renewed. And the three things we had to do had nothing to do with vegetation, for example. You hear the entity that I have insurance with that they're canceling by zip code or there's so much misinformation out there when it comes to insurance. And so, the one thing for people to know for sure is that because this zero to five ember ignition zone is currently not law, the entities that are really enforcing it are your insurance agencies and your HOAs, your homeowner associations.
For example, I gave a talk up at Tahoe Donner out of Truckee and it's a big development and they have a very active HOA, especially in regards to fire. And so, they have a zero to 10-foot zone around homes that's required to be completely devoid of flammable material. So, that HOA has taken the state law and upped it, doubled it, right? Or what might be, what will be state law, and doubled it. And so many people are facing this Ember Ignition Zone through their HOA interface or through an interface with an insurance agency that says, unless that's clear, we can't insure you. In fact, there are new certifications that some insurance companies are using today. Where they have people come out, they send people out and certify that your house is a defensible space compliant landscape where that zero to five is clear. And that's how you get insurance. There are new companies that have popped up that will come and spray retardant around your home. They do it annually or biannually, and that can lead to being insured or getting discounts on insurance, becoming part of a firewise community can offer discounts and other benefits for insurance.
So it's not one size fits all. It's variable, and it's kind of all over the place. So I understand people's frustration with that situation. But also, let's understand that we find ourselves in a situation because of these catastrophic wildfires that make insuring areas of California, a little risky, right? Yeah.
Farmer Fred:
How wide does a driveway have to be for two fire engines to pass each other?
Kevin Marini:
That's a good question. I don't want to give a wrong answer here. So there's probably like a exact answer. And I just I don't want to say anything and give the wrong answer. So I'm going to say, I don't know exactly.
Farmer Fred:
Yeah, I think that'd be safe. Maybe 30 feet. I don't know.
Kevin Marini:
Yeah. I mean, most private roads out here in the foothills, you know, are barely 20 feet wide. My road leading out is very narrow in spots. So I know for a fact that you couldn't have two fire engines pass, for example, on my little private road here. I think the biggest thing that I've heard from fire personnel is the ability to turn around, right? So if they have to back down a large driveway, they aren't coming up. And it's important to also recognize that the whole original meaning behind the term defensible space was really not about your home or landscape. It was more about having a space where firefighters can defend your home. The original kind of term was like, hey, make sure you have defensible space, meaning make sure you have a way for a big fire engine to come up to hang out there and actually defend your home. So I think that is lost on a lot of folks. I don't think a lot of people think of that when thinking of defensible space.
Farmer Fred:
Well, there's your five to 30 foot zone. You have a driveway going all the way around the house and back out.
Kevin Marini:
There you go. There you go. And I've seen that. You know, I've seen people in Loomis and Newcastle, you know, have a driveway that comes up and they literally add a huge turn, you know, a huge circle to their driveway. So a fire engine could completely circle their property and defend their property from all different aspects.
Farmer Fred:
Right. It was either the fire department that complained or the UPS driver.
Kevin Marini:
Well, good point. Yeah. Yeah. UPS trucks are pretty tall, too. They they definitely have given me an earful about those tree branches as well.
Farmer Fred:
All right. For more information about defensible space, we're going to have all sorts of links in today's show notes that go throughout many states to discuss safety in wildfires and fire resistant landscaping. So be sure to check the show notes for all these links for more information. Is there a good link for people to get to for lists of recommended plants? I realize all gardening is local and every state or wildfire area is going to have a different list of plants. But is there some starting points?
Kevin Marini:
Well, I think there's two that I'll mention. So, number one, I mentioned FireSafe Marin, that website. Even though I recognize that not all those plants will work in all zones in California, at least they give you a good representation of plants that have some fire resistance. Okay, so that's a good website. And they have pictures, having just plant lists that are just all text, just don't do it for a lot of people, right?
Farmer Fred:
Not in the 21st century.
Kevin Marini:
Yeah, you need those pictures. And I'll also plug the California Native Plant Society. So, you know, it is pretty well known that native plants generally, not all of them, of course, but they generally have co-evolved with fire, especially here in California. And so many of them offer some characteristics that lend themselves to fire resilience. So the California Native Plant Society also has some lists of native plants to at least consider if you're swapping out plants. Those two, I think, would be the best. And like I said, otherwise, the most important thing is looking at your landscape and looking at how you can create space and how you can maintain certain plants for fire safety. And so Master Gardener programs are great resources for folks. They can call up the Master Gardener hotline or there are many counties that can shoot a question over email, and they can get some pruning advice. They can get some plant advice. And so I would say I gave you three resources. Those would be where I would go to first.
Farmer Fred:
I think those are great resources, and I'm glad the University of California has spent more money over the last 10 years on hiring more people like you to do your job of talking about defensible space.
Kevin Marini:
Yes, absolutely. They've invested heavily. We have a UCANR, University of California Ag and Natural Resources, UCANR fire team, which is spread up and down the state. We have a local fire scientist expert in our office in Placer County. Her name is Katie Lowe. And so she's doing research right now out in the forest, believe it or not, on using goats for vegetation management out in forested areas, for example. And she does a lot of home hardening education and outreach locally. I had mentioned that my focus was more on plants and landscape; well, we do have experts in the home hardening realm as well.
Farmer Fred:
All right. Kevin Marini, he's with the UC Cooperative Extension. He's Master Gardener advisor, he's a certified arborist, and a UC educator on defensible space. Kevin, thanks for your time, thanks for all the great tips.
Kevin Marini:
No problem. I really enjoyed it. Great talking with you again.
BEYOND THE GARDEN BASICS NEWSLETTER - CREATING A FIRE-RESISTANT LANDSCAPE
Farmer Fred:
In the current Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter and podcast, we revisit a talk with Douglas Kent, the author of the book Firescaping, Protecting Your Home with a Fire-Resistant Landscape. He has a slightly different view of thwarting home and yard damage from fire for residents of the urban wildland interface. And we get tips from the University of California fire advisors who point out that it is the threat not so much from flames creeping onto your property as it is blowing burning embers hurtling towards your house from a wind-driven fire. Those embers, sometimes called firebrands, can travel a mile or more from the actual fire itself, whose ferocity is supercharged by winds that can easily reach 60 miles an hour or more. And despite the recent headlines, it's not just California. States throughout the West, Northwest, Southwest, Intermountain West, and the South have been hit by massive wildfires, fires that the Washington Post estimates that 16% of all Americans on 80 million properties face the threat of wildfire. Protect your home with a fire-resistant landscape. You can find out more about that in this week's Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter and podcast. Find a link to it in today's show notes or at our website, gardenbasics.net, or at Substack. It's free.
Farmer Fred:
Garden Basics with Farmer Fred comes out every Friday. It's brought to you by Smart Pots and Dave Wilson Nursery. Garden Basics, it's available wherever podcasts are handed out. For more information about the podcast, as well as an accurate transcript, visit our website, GardenBasics.net. And thank you so much for listening and your support.