- Howdy, I'm John Hart Asher.

This week on "Central Texas Gardener," we focus on growing food for us and our wildlife buddies.

In Lockhart, we visit a food forest and raised beds designed with permaculture techniques.

Liz Cardinal from Austin Edible Gardens serves up cool weather vegetables even in containers.

Daphne Richards answers your questions.

And Austin Davenport demonstrates homestyle hydroponics for indoor harvest all year long.

So let's get growing right here right now.

- [Announcer] "Central Texas Gardener" is made possible by generous support from Lisa and Desi Rhoden.

And by Diane Land and Steve Adler.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - Next, fall's a great time to start milkweed plants from seed.

Sonia Koschoreck from the Monarch Sanctuary Project shows how to scarify and stratify for successful germination.

- My philosophy on this garden, I started out wanting to grow food for my husband and I, and then I figured out I enjoy growing the food for the insects and the bees and the butterflies the most.

Hi, my name is Donna Daniels.

I live here with my husband Len Gabay.

We bought the property in 2019, and we had some raised beds that were already here.

Over there in the Permaculture Garden, we had a big cement pad, and we wanted to tear that out and put a garden in.

And so we called Taelor and said, "Let's do this."

- I'm Taelor Monroe and I am the co-owner of the Austin Permaculture Guild and Executive Director.

And, yeah, permaculture, it is a system for sustainable design.

So it's a design science, and it takes a holistic view of everything, really, and kind of boils it down into mimicking nature.

That's what permaculture is all about.

And so I came in here, and they had just removed a concrete slab back here and they said, "Taelor, what do we do with this spot?"

And I got really excited because it's so fun to have a blank slate scenario where I can just dream up whatever I want, basically, and they're down.

So I thought it would be so beautiful to do a food forest here.

We have huge live oaks, 300 year old right here at the base of this garden in between the house and then a few pecan trees as well.

So that was definitely interesting to design around.

So we made sure to put in shade loving species right there under the canopy of the oak.

But, you know, we got right up close to the edge with other species that need full sun.

We have all intermixed in here, fruit trees with all the support species.

So we have dynamic accumulators, things like yarrow and comfrey and other culinary and medicinal herbs, and, of course, plenty for the wildlife as well.

Permaculture really focuses on a lot of perennial food systems so that, you know, it's not as much labor, right?

Because fruit trees, they do take time, of course, to establish, but once they're established, they're just producing food for you.

And so thinking about those specific plants that are gonna keep producing without you having to replant every season are really great.

And so medicinal herbs, culinary herbs, asparagus, artichoke, perennial leeks and chives and onions, and, you know, things like that make it really easy to plan for the future.

- When we did move in, we had quite a bit of flooding.

It would rip through the property, come right through here, shoot through that fence, and it would take all the top soil off of our neighbor's house.

- I really wanted to work with the water, and I wanted it to be really beautiful at the same time.

So what ended up is this Mandala Gardens berm and swale.

Berms and swales are a strategy within permaculture design that, they're basically a swale is a ditch on contour.

And so it runs perpendicular to the natural flow of water, is how a traditional berm and swale is organized.

And then the berm is downhill of the swale and intercepts that water and acts as like a little catchment area for that water to go into.

And where they removed this concrete pad, there was already an indentation in this entire area here.

And so I knew that water was gonna infiltrate this spot.

And so instead of doing the traditional design where we have those berms and swales perpendicular, it's more of a mandala shape that actually the swales act as pathways, which they do in the traditional sense.

- It's kind of cool because it has these little paths.

So the water runs through there, it collects, it pools up, and then after a day or two, it just naturally soaks into the ground.

Now, I'm really proud that we've been able to mitigate most of that water and keep it here on the property.

It comes through here, and there's a low point right there where we have a big vetiver, and vetiver has giant tap roots.

So the hope was and is that it stops there, and that sucks up the very last of the water that used to shoot to our neighbor's house.

And our last dream to make this place complete was to put in a rainwater collection system.

So we put in a 10,000 gallon system.

For 20, almost 25 years, I was an esthetician, so I've always used my hands to express myself and work on people.

And then during Covid, I shut my business down.

And so that's when I really got into gardening and learned everything about gardening, because I could use my hands with gardening, and I had no gardening experience at that point.

So I've done all this in three years with my husband, and we figured it out and we love it.

So vertical gardening is really where it's at.

You can get so much garden space by going up.

These trellises back here, we tried to do them a little cheaper, so it's just fencing.

Fencing is a little cheaper than the cattle panel, or it was at the time.

This is the cattle panel.

But with the fencing, what I found, it's very hard.

I can't get my hands through it.

So it's a little more difficult to work with, and it's not as strong.

I grew pumpkins on this trellis one year, and it almost tore it down.

So if you can, I would go with the cattle panel because you can get your hands through it.

That's one luffa plant.

We got so many luffa off of that.

And then it started to dry up with this weather, the plant had just lived the cycle of its life.

So I tore the vines down, but I left the luffas where they are, so hopefully they'll dry in place, and it just happens to look kind of whimsical and cool.

So it was a happy accident.

That's where I'm really going with gardening is happy accidents.

And if things want to volunteer, that's a free source of food.

I'm not gonna pull that volunteer out.

I'm gonna say, "Thanks.

You can grow here."

And that's why I have so many crazy combinations of things going on in the beds because it's stuff that I've planted, it's volunteers, and then a lot of people, when they reset their fall gardens, they would pull all of this basil out.

I can't bear to do that because it's still making flowers.

The bees are still enjoying it and I can still enjoy it.

So that's not the kind of gardener I am.

I'm gonna leave it in until it finishes its lifecycle.

And so that makes it a lot less structured.

So it might drive you crazy if you're a super structured person, you might not be able to live with it like that.

But I have more of a wild style, so it works for me.

This lambsquarters, I bought one, one year, I let it grow, it went to seed, and now it just reseeds everywhere in the garden.

I had no idea that they would get this big, they do.

I let anything pretty much in the garden or the lawn volunteer, because this could be a food source if I ever needed an emergency food source.

And it grows naturally and it grows free.

Other thing I found with gardening, if you make it beautiful, then there's a reason for you to be out there.

And I love this.

I think of it as a little way station for insects that they can come and everyone's welcome here, and I try to have something for everyone to munch on.

So the first year I grew artichokes, I didn't realize that they open up to these beautiful flowers and the bees love them.

So I looked it up and the symbol of an artichoke is peace, hope, and prosperity.

And I love that so much and I believe in it.

So I have artichokes planted everywhere in this garden.

This is what your organic gardening tools are, because you're gonna have to pick off the caterpillars and the worms, and you're gonna have to do it every day, and that's just gardening.

Our compost pile, I'm very proud of.

I do have the oldest to the newest compost piles.

So the oldest one is just sitting there getting nice and soily.

And then, of course, just the newer ones have all this stuff on them that haven't decomposed yet.

- And, you know, even if you don't have a whole acre to plan, there's so many great resources in Austin and Central Texas for community gardening.

Even having pots on your back porch, even just growing culinary herbs.

Culinary herbs can be so medicinal in your daily diet.

One reason that I believe so strongly in our permaculture design principles is definitely for our future generations.

I do have a kiddo and I am very involved with the kiddos and the coming generations.

And that's one of our main tenets is looking towards the next, not just 50 years, but the next seven generations, you know, just like our Indigenous did.

- Because, check this out, this is beautiful.

- Did you know that fall really is the easiest season to grow vegetables?

And there are so many that we can pick.

I'm talking about oodles even for containers.

Right now Edible Garden designer, Liz Cardinal, founder of Austin Edible Gardens, puts us on track for yummy harvest.

Liz, how's it going?

- Great, thanks for having me.

- How did you get into container gardening?

- I actually started growing in a very big space.

So I was managing a 3000 square foot garden in East Austin growing in the ground.

But then I started working with home gardeners and a lot of people just don't have that much space and a lot of people are dwelling in condos or apartments or they just wanna have a small garden, right?

So large gardens take a lot of time and care and maintenance.

So smaller gardens are really easy.

You can just tend to them, you know, an evening after work.

So I just started kind of paring down and helping people that wanted to really get into gardening and get their hands in the dirt, but they really don't want that big, huge, you know, farm or backyard space.

Well, you do have to pare down a little bit, right?

You can't really grow everything in containers, but if you just wanted to grow herbs, which most home cooks love to have herbs growing because we use them so much when we're cooking.

So that's a great container kind of starting point.

So we're looking at the cold weather crops.

So broccoli is one of my favorites.

Cauliflower, Swiss chard, mizuna, collard greens grow well, cabbages, so the brassica family is what I think of.

And then also root crops like beets and carrots.

- [John] Okay.

- Turnips are really easy to grow.

And then leafy greens like lettuce, spinach, arugula, those are some of my favorites.

- Okay, and then also you have some wonderful garlic.

What about onions and garlic?

- Yeah, so there's some specialty crops that we also grow in the winter, and garlic is one of them.

You can get these garlic bulbs from growers.

You can find growers online, or you can get bulbs like this from a nursery.

And these do look like the bulbs that you would find in the grocery store.

- Yes.

- So you take one clove out of the bulb, and you plant it about two inches deep in November, and it takes nine months to be ready.

So that's a very long crop, - [John] Right.

- So in early summer, we'll harvest it, and you'll get a whole bulb from one clove.

I really like the terracotta pots, so anything porous.

I would stay away from like the plastic containers or anything without a drainage hole in the bottom because that's gonna allow moisture to come and go into the pots and the soil.

So that's important.

And then you can also design them and plant them so that they're really pretty.

So, you know, if someone's growing on their patio, like, have a wonderful patio garden, and it's pretty, you know, you can kind of design the pots, get different sizes, put colorful plants in one, some flowers in another.

And so you can kind of create a little, you know, oasis in your patio or backyard that way too.

And you can switch them out all the time.

So if say you're growing basil and, you know, the cold weather's coming, so the basil's not gonna do well.

Well, then you had basil for, you know, three months and now it's time to switch to thyme or parsley.

So it's like this constantly changing gardenscape.

And fall, you know, our biggest plants are maybe a cauliflower or a broccoli.

I mean, a cauliflower plant can get 24 inches, so that is gonna need its own container.

So you might just have one plant in this container.

If you had a vining plant like snow peas or snap peas, those are gonna climb.

So they are gonna need that trellis.

And they could have a smaller pot because the plants are pretty small, but they're gonna grow vertically.

So all the plants kind of dictate what you're gonna grow in.

But, yeah, it's kind of fun to have, you know, big tall plants and then like the shorter flowering plants, so you kinda mix it all up.

- This is a great way to farm on a smaller scale.

So, I mean, I think what comes to my mind immediately are like carrots or some of the leafy vegetables.

But, I mean, let's go into it.

What do you usually grow?

Or what can people do?

I mean, it seems like there's a really wide palate available for them.

- There is, and there are more challenging plants to grow in pots, and easier plants to grow in pots.

So one thing to consider when you're designing and starting your container is, are you going to start with a transplant, an already grown, you know, small plant that you would buy at your local nursery?

Or are you going to use seeds?

And the plants, some plants really like to grow from seed like carrots.

We're always gonna seed a row or a, you know, pot of carrots from seed.

- [John] Okay.

- You're not gonna go buy a carrot transplant.

So that's gonna dictate, you know, how you lay out your container.

If you're wanna do all carrots, you're gonna sprinkle in your carrot seed in the container, and then you're not gonna have much growing until the carrots start to sprout.

If you'd like to start with transplants, like herbs are a really great plant to start as transplants, so thyme, parsley, chives.

You can go buy your little four-inch transplants and go ahead and plant them in your pot, and then you already have this like, pretty good looking container that's ready to start harvesting too.

- [John] Okay.

- So I like to get people started with herbs.

And then you have kind of an option of either starts, transplants, or seeds.

And I think of those as like the spinach, lettuce, arugula, the leafy greens.

So those are pretty easy to grow from seed or transplant.

So it depends if you wanna be economical and just buy, you know, a $3 seed packet and have tons of arugula all winter, you can do that.

If you'd like to spend $3 on a transplant, you know, you're only gonna have one arugula plant, but, you know, you can cut on it for a while.

- [John] Sure.

- So you can do, yeah, some plants you can do either seed or starts and some you're only going to buy seed for and some you're gonna buy transplants for.

- So then there's edible flowers, correct?

So you can have those as well.

There's a visual appeal, and I know that some of those flowers can, you know, support pollinators as well.

So you're supporting your food plot.

Well, let's quickly also talk about some things with the soil.

So if we've got our container, we're gonna put in, what do we consider in terms of what types of soil will be best?

What about drainage?

What are those big considerations?

- So a porous pot that's terracotta or clay is best.

Sometimes, you know, plastic pots do work well.

They're going to dry out quicker.

The right medium, so a potting soil blend is gonna be the best for a container garden.

It'll probably have like pearlite, vermiculite.

And then I like to add earthworm castings.

That helps kind of liven up the soil.

It has a little bit of micronutrients in it that are gonna help the roots.

And then I add an all purpose fertilizer to the soil before planting.

So that's like an equal ratio nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium.

- [John] Okay.

- You might see like a 10-10-10 on the label or a 5-7-3 or something like that.

So the numbers are pretty close in common.

So we're gonna add that to the pot with the potting soil and the earthworm castings.

And I like to wet the soil first because you know that potting soil is a little bit drier, and sometimes it just drains right away.

So you wanna get that soil really nice and moist before you even start planting.

Once your soil is ready, you're gonna put your seeds or your transplants in and water again after planting.

And then one of the key things about container gardening is that the soil does dry out quicker than an in-ground bed.

So you as the gardener are in control of the water.

So you have to constantly be checking to make sure if it's too dry you need to add water.

On the other hand, you don't wanna over water.

- Right.

- So I enjoy that like, kind of hands on.

You can get real, you know, kind of a control freak about it.

And that's what I like about gardening because there's always something to do and something to see that's different in your, you know, garden.

- Sure.

- So always be checking the moisture, and you're gonna probably gonna have to add water more regularly than you would in a ground garden.

- And that's what I was gonna say too, especially in these hotter portions of the year, heat's really gonna be consideration because you can have issues.

Really quickly, how can people get in touch with you if they want to know more about container gardening?

- Well, I have a small consulting business called Austin Edible Gardens, and you can find me at austinediblegardens.com.

I also do a lot of educational videos on Instagram, which is also @AustinEdibleGardens.

- Okay, well, Liz, thank you so much for coming by.

This has been awesome.

I think this is a great option for people.

And, again, you can sort of toe dip your way into gardening, but we appreciate you coming and sharing everything with us today.

Well, now let's check in with Daphne Richards.

(upbeat music) - Parsley is one of the crops we can plant as we head into cooler weather.

This fabulous biennial herb can be started from seeds or transplants and is great for both gardeners and pollinators.

Marty Wise always includes parsley in their fall garden plant, since it's a larval host plant for black swallowtail and anise swallowtail butterflies.

They snapped a photo of this one laying its eggs.

Host plants for these winged beauties belong to the Apiaceae or carrot family.

This plant family includes carrot tops, fennel, dill, and, of course, parsley.

Prairie parsley is a native host.

Thanks to Drake white of native plant nursery The Nectar Bar in San Antonio for this great shot, Cilantro is another favorite biennial herb that we can plant now from seed or from plugs.

Gardeners love it for its tasty leaves, but when it flowers in spring preparing to set seeds, you might see ladybugs.

They're going for the pollen and nectar they need.

And also any aphids that might be congregating.

Biennial flowering is known as bolting due to the towering bloom stock these plants shoot up, putting all of their energy into the next generation leading to their own death.

When biennials start to set seed and die, many insects move in to take advantage of the situation ensuring that the circle of life continues.

We'd love to hear from you.

Click on CentralTexasGardner.org to send us your questions, pictures, and videos.

- Hey, I'd love to see you at the Native Plant Society of Texas Fall Symposium from October 10th through the 12th.

This year it's in New Braunfels, and they've got a great lineup of speakers, field trips, and events.

And on Saturday, yours truly will be speaking about pocket prairies.

Get details at npsot.org.

Now, Austin Davenport demonstrates hydroponics for indoor harvest all year long.

(upbeat music) - Hello there, my name's Austin Davenport, and I'm here to talk to you today about hydroponics.

Now, growing hydroponically is perfect for those that are looking to be a lot more water efficient with their gardening, those who may be wanting to grow tender vegetables where the climate outside is not suitable, or for those looking to grow a lot more passively.

The first thing to note is that when you are growing soilless, you have to supply all of the plant's nutrients, all of its resources and all of its happiness, mostly through liquid fertilizers or hydroponic solutions.

Hydroponic solutions usually come in a series of either liquid or dry powders.

It's important to always follow the instructions on these products and try to stick to one product line.

If I'm trying to grow hydroponically and I mix and matching different products from different product lines, those products are engineered to be compatible with each other and within the product line, but not compatible with things outside the product line.

It's important to also dilute these one at a time.

It doesn't matter what order, but making sure that no raw nutrient solution touches another raw nutrient solution that can lock up the nutrients and make it less available in the water solution.

And it's important to also use reverse osmosis water or spring water.

If you're using tap water, there might be some electrical conductivity in that water with those minerals that can lock up a source of nutrients that you're trying to provide to your plants.

Once one solution is fully diluted, add the next, fully dilute it, add the next, fully dilute it, until you've added all of your nutrient solutions again to the volume measured out.

There's measurements on the back.

And then we will need to balance your pH.

Each one of these does move the pH of your water up and down ever so slightly.

So it's important to take a reading of your pH and make sure to adjust that as you need it.

So the first method of growing hydroponically I want to talk about is called the Kratky method.

It usually involves just a jar and a plant.

So I will fill this jar up with liquid solution.

After I've diluted everything and balanced my pH, I'll place my plant inside, and I want my water level to be sitting just underneath this net pot to allow some air.

If there's not enough air, I will get root rots on my plants.

But the idea is that as the water level goes down, the nutrient solution is concentrating and the roots that need more and more air as the plant grows are taking up that space, and they just kind of correlate together.

The plant grows as it needs to and takes up air for the roots as needed.

And then the water solution opens up and makes room for that as the plant grows.

Something I really enjoy doing, while the root system is still taking time to make its way through this net pot is actually make a wicking system.

So I'll put in just a little bit of twine, leave that floating in the reservoir of water, and that'll allow my plant to still get plenty of water even though the roots aren't hanging in the solution just yet.

So another great way of growing hydroponically is what we call deep water culture, which is basically an upgrade from our Kratky method.

I'm going to put in large plants, maybe a squash in here, so I got no borers and no issues, and there's a bunch of pebbles in here.

And this just allows the roots to have something to anchor onto.

It just provides them a little bit of security.

But all I'm gonna do is have this bucket, this five gallon bucket and this five gallon net pot sitting right on top of a reservoir of water that, again, I have diluted solution in.

And then I'll also put an air stone in there.

And, again, air is super, super important.

Air is just as important as water when it comes to plants.

I really like having a product like this because I can just set it to a timer and just let it go by itself.

The only things I need to do are plant it and then harvest it, and everything else is streamlined from there.

I really appreciate your interest in growing a portion of your own food.

Thank you so much for watching "Backyard Basics."

Have a good one.

- Want more from "Central Texas Gardener"?

Follow our producer Linda on Instagram for behind the scenes content.

And go to CentralTexasGardener.org to sign up for our weekly newsletter.

As always, adopt the pace of nature.

Her secret is patience.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] "Central Texas Gardener" is made possible by generous support from Lisa and Desi Rhoden.

And by Diane Land and Steve Adler.

(upbeat jingle)