439-Staying on Task in the Fall Garden and Setting Up for Spring Success

Hi everybody, this is Joe Lample, the Joe behind Joe Gardner, and welcome to the Joe Gardner Show. Today, I'm flying solo and I'm thinking about the cooler months ahead. And what am I doing in the garden right now in October, September, October, November timeframe to make sure that I'm ready not only for the wintertime but for next spring. And the reason why I really want to get you to be thinking about what you can do now to avoid extra work next spring is that I always kind of see spring as it's coming upon us, like standing on railroad tracks and there's a freight train way off in the distance. And it, you know, appears that way initially, but we don't know how fast it's moving. And next thing we know, if we're still on the tracks, we're going to get run over if we don't get out of the way. And that's how I think of spring. There's so much happening all at once. Mother Nature is not waiting on us to be ready. It's happening whether we're ready or not. But to the extent that we can get some things done in the fall, plus the things that we ought to be doing in the fall anyway, just for the months of the cooler weather, then I want to share with you what I'm thinking about right now and what I'm dealing with and what I'm trying to do ahead of next spring. So that's what I have in store for you today. I think I have about 10 to-dos for you, whether they all apply to you or not, probably not. But for me, these are my to-dos. And then maybe one not to-do. So that's the plan. So let's get into it right after this sponsor message from the Ultimate Gardening Sheet. Every gardener has that one thing they wish existed to make their work easier. For me, it was a way to carry my three most important tools, my pruners, soil knife, and micro snips comfortably and securely right by my side. I searched for years, but it simply didn't exist. So I co-created it. That's how the Ultimate Gardening Sheet was born. It's handcrafted in North Carolina from durable leather and built to last. It hugs your side, moves with you, and keeps your tools safe and always within reach. No more lost pruners, no more juggling, and no more unnecessary trips back to the shed. This sheath has truly transformed the way that I work in my garden, and I think it will do the same for you. To learn more or to order your own, head over to joegardener.com slash UGS. That's joegardener.com slash UGS. Okay, let's talk about those 10 activities that we could or should be doing right now that we are here in the middle of the fall season. The first one is managing overwhelm. And I say that a lot. I talk about it openly in the height of the summertime. Many of us are feeling that way. Everything is in full growth mode, weeds and all, and it just becomes too much. We need to find strategies to manage that workload, or it really does become literally overwhelming. And I don't want that to happen to you. And it can even happen in the fall when things are supposedly slowing down. One thing that does not apply to are the weeds. There are warm season weeds and cool season weeds. And when you're in that transitional time of year, September, October, well, the warm season weeds are still growing strong. And so are the cool season weeds as they're coming up. So now you have this convergence of the worst of both worlds coming at you. And I've experienced that in the last few weeks as I've been out in my garden trying to gain some headway with it. And I've noticed the weed pressure. And I try to stay on top of it, but let's face it, life gets in the way. And I've been extra busy this year traveling and some other things. And I haven't been out as often as I would like to have been. And so when I come back to the garden and I look and it's like, you know, your heart starts to beat a little bit fast. So here's what I do. And you can apply whatever works for you. But this has been something that I've really settled on. And it gives me permission to quit once I have reached the end of a time limit that I set for myself. So for me, every morning, right as it's just light enough, I'm a morning person. So this is easy for me. But once it's light enough to see what I'm doing, I get out to the garden. And usually I set my watch or timer for about 90 minutes. And that gives me a good block of time to get things done that I need to do. And I also go out there knowing what it is I plan on doing. If I just were to walk out there with no plan, then, you know, you can take all these squirrel paths and you don't end up accomplishing what you really wanted to do. So for me, if I know I need to get to the weeds, that is number one priority on my list. I get out there, I try to put the blinders on. I set my watch for 90 minutes. Usually I'm listening to a podcast and the time goes pretty fast. But the weeding, you can really make a big dent in your weeds in 90 minutes. And especially if it's right after a rain. If you're lucky enough that it's rained in the past day or two, things come up a lot easier. But when that timer goes off and I'm done with my 90 minutes, I'm probably nowhere near done with the weeding or whatever the job of the day is. I can feel good about knowing that I've made a big dent, 90 minutes invested in the time, and then I can walk away and tomorrow or the next day I'll do it again or whatever it takes. But it's just really been liberating for me to find a way to manage all the work that has to be done around two and a half acres of landscape and gardens. And it's just me. So try that on for size if you haven't or find a strategy, but it will really lighten the stress load and you'll still make really good headway. So managing the overwhelm. I'm checking my notes here to see if there's anything I missed. Yeah, a piece of mind to have a predefined end point and walk away time. I did talk about that, but it really feels good to know that you don't have to worry just because you're stopping. You got a plan. So map it out and ink it into your schedule, whether that's a virtual inking or paper schedule or whatever it is, but do it. And the other thing is, as far as priority, I would say the weeds are the biggest priority right now. I made a note that your edibles are more forgiving is when you harvest them. And so if they're coming on to about the time to be harvested, you don't need to feel like that's the thing you got to do right now. The weeds are definitely the most important thing because they're coming into seed. And if you allow that to happen, you're going to regret it because I can't remember this saying exactly, but one weed left to go to seed is a thousand more you need to deal with next season, something like that. And that's not far off from the truth and it could be even worse than that. So definitely prioritize the weeds and also get them out by the tap root too. So there are surface rooted weeds and they're tap rooted weeds. And so if you're pulling out ones that have a very deep tap root, you're going to leave the root in place and that's all it needs to resprout. So you want to go ahead and get your soil knife, which is why it's one of my three favorite tools is digging it into the soil to get the entire root system out, mainly the tap root. So that's the weeding part. The other thing I've noticed, I grow a lot of native perennials and I start a lot from seed and I plant them in the gardens and many of them reseed themselves. But what's happening at this time of year, you've got your summer perennials that have bloomed and now they're going to seed, the flowers are drying up and they're forming their seeds. And some of the cool season flowers are doing the same. They've kind of made their show, Joe Pie weed, you trok him, I'm thinking of right now, is at that point, iron weed is at that point. These are fall bloomers, late summer fall bloomers, but they're going to seed right now. And it's a great time for you to be thinking about saving those seeds. Now the good news is, if you don't do anything about that, they're going to probably drop to the ground or they will, and hopefully many of those will overwinter and then they'll germinate and you'll have more. Maybe you can transplant them. But I like to save the seeds and then decide where I want to put them. And the other thing is, I use these drawstring mesh pouches or Gonsa bags, I think they're called or party favor bags, you can find them on Amazon and they come in all different sizes. And I have been busy right now bagging the seed heads because you need to harvest them at the right time. So you need to let the seed heads dry out and let the seeds mature in the seed heads of these flowers that we're saving the seeds from. And if you cut the sprouts or the stems too early, it may not allow the seeds to properly mature. And so by leaving them in place and just covering them up, I'm saving all the seeds that could be dropping to the ground in the meantime, while still allowing the seeds to mature, while still on the plant. So that's a good strategy for maybe you to try as well. And then you've got them to bring inside a few weeks from now when they are definitely dried out and you know it, the stems are brown and you'll know. So keep that in mind because it's a really fun project to know that the seeds that you're saving, you can plan out next spring or start from seed in seed trays in February, March. I love this time of year for that as much as I love seed saving on the front end of the year. This is a related project on the back end of the year that's just as fun. And it's actually even more fun when you're starting those seeds, knowing that you save those seeds in prior months. So make sure you don't miss that opportunity if you're a seed saver. Speaking of native perennials, if you haven't been thinking about what you can plant in your garden that blooms in the fall, be doing that. And if you can buy some of those plants right now, definitely do that. Maybe a little bit late in the season for them to have an impact this year, but they'll still be establishing the soil still warm so the roots will form and grow out and maybe send out rhizomes and you'll have even more plants coming up in spring and they'll get an early start because you planted them right now. But the reason I bring this topic up is because we are so focused oftentimes on the flowers that are blooming in the summertime for attracting pollinators and they're beautiful for us. So we're having a beautiful garden, but we want it to have ecological value too, not just in the summertime, but also in the fall. And it's extra important in the fall because the most common flowers that we tend to put into our gardens are waning coming into fall. So they're done. But the pollinators, the beneficial insects are not done. The migrating monarchs that are coming through and all the other flying insects need to eat until they start to overwinter themselves, which is not right after summer. They're going around for another few months also and they need to have food sources for that. So I think if you're really wanting to be a good ecological gardener, keep in mind what you can do so that there's opportunities for them to have access to nectar and pollen. And then overwintering sites also from the plants we have available for them that are blooming in the fall. So that would be Soledago, Goldenrod. That would be Echinacea. That would be Joe Pieweed. I mentioned that, Utrochium. That would be Ironweed, Asters. So there's a lot of great choices and it's beautiful to have those going in the garden too. Food for thought. It's really important for that. We just can't leave them without those food sources or those overwintering sites. And by the way, you may already know this just in case you don't. A lot of those perennials that we leave up, we should continue to leave up through the wintertime because the seed heads will be food sources for the birds. And many of those flowers have hollow stems. And those hollow stems can become nesting sites for solitary bees who bore little holes into it and then they lay their eggs inside. And that's where they hatch from next spring. So lots of reasons to be thinking about what we can plant that comes into bloom in the fall time. Okay. Don't be so tidy. This relates to really some of what I just said as far as cleaning up, cutting down the stems, don't do that, but also leave the duff layer, the debris that's falling throughout the year that's accumulating at the ground level underneath our plants. There was a time, a long time ago, in my horticultural training years and as a master gardener in that training, it was always, you know, put your garden to bed and clean up everything so that you're not allowing disease spores to overwinter, to create more problems next spring. Well, I got news for you. Those disease spores are coming in and whether you clean up the duff layer or not, you're still going to have disease spores coming in next spring and all through the year. So just because you clean up in the fall doesn't mean you're going to be disease free next spring. More importantly though, it's not as big of a deal as we once thought, but that material that we would be normally cleaning up or used to clean up are the overwintering sites where a lot of the wildlife is using, like the leaves that fall from all the trees in the fall. You've heard the leave the leaves concept and it's very important that we do that. Even if it's accumulated on our lawn and you want to make sure your lawn's okay, just don't let a thick layer of leaves pile up on the lawn. Get that off and move it into your beds. Hopefully that you have adjacent beds nearby because we want to leave the leaves on our property. The last thing, we never want to just get rid of them. We do not want to bag them up, put them at the curb and let the trash trucks take them to the landfill, which is what happens around here in all the subdivisions with the HOAs. And it drives them to be crazy, but all you can really control is the land that you have watch over. So in your case, please try not to be so tidy and that will buy you some time to just enjoy the season and do your cleaning up next spring after it's warmed up. The overwintering insects have emerged from their slumber and that protected environment that we've provided by not being so tidy and it's so important. I'll tell you one thing that I'm looking at as I'm looking at my notes. I have a favorite mulch. It's leaves, but it's not just leaves, it's shredded leaves. And I've decided that's just not something I want to do anymore because even the leaves that I have on my property, even though I may only shred a small amount, I have a friend, Toby, my farm manager, who showed me one day she had gotten some of the leaves that were collected into those paper leaf bags that maybe you do or your neighbor may do and they set them out at the curb to throw them away, but they have to use the paper bags because that's kind of mandated in the municipalities with the idea that, well, those will compost or whatever, but many of them go into the landfill, like I just said, it's crazy. But anyway, Toby grabbed some of these paper bags that were full of leaves, brought them into her garden and she was going to spread them out onto her garden beds as a protective layer for overwintering. But before she spread them, she looked into the bags and saw that they were full of lace wing eggs, lady beetle larva, adult lady beetles, and lots of wildlife that was just already on those leaves that had been bagged up and put into those paper bags. And knowing that, that was the thing that really changed it for me. I had been shredding up until that point, only what I needed for top dressing my raised beds and the rest I would just leave whole and distribute around my landscape beds. But now I don't even do that. So I just pile up the leaves and let them naturally decompose and then it takes longer, it'll take maybe two seasons rather than one before they're ready. But that's what I've worked out is my compromise where I still get to use the leaves, but I'm not shredding them in the process. Okay. If you're into making more plants, we're in the same club. I love plant propagation, whether that's taking cuttings or dividing them, digging them up in the fall or the early spring and separating them and replanting them. So you can do that at either time and there are arguments pro and con for which is the better season and there are merits to both. My preference is to do my divisions in the fall. And the reason for that is the soil is still warm. So even though the plant is going dormant, which is one of the main reasons I really like doing it in the fall, they're still active root growth. And so with the soil being warm, that promotes root growth and that's helps establish them. So by springtime, they're really got a head start, but the air is cool. So overall, there's less stress. And I just really think it sets up everything nicely coming into spring. Just be sure that you put a marker in the spot where you transplant, because that will all disappear below ground and you'll forget it's there. You won't remember what you planted. So be sure to mark everything that you divide and then replant. Now, if you're wondering of some examples of really good options that you could be digging up in the fall, well, if you've got day lilies, that would be a good one. In fact, they're a classic case where they need to be divided every five years or so because they end up getting too clumpy. And you are doing them a favor and yourself a favor to reduce the crowding that happens after a few years. So fall divisions could give them a great time to settle in before spring. Iris, bearded Iris, for example, it's often divided in late summer to early fall when they're semi dormant. Just keep the rhizomes from overcrowding. Flock's is a good one. Shasta Daisy is another one. And for all of us that are wanting to increase our pollinator native plant garden, well, purple comb flower, black-eyed Susan, goldenrod, bee balm, those are all great choices. But let me just walk you through an example of kind of how you do it across the board. And we'll just take Hosta as an example. That's a classic and a lot of us have those if we don't have deer eating them down. But I've lifted and divided a lot of Hosta in my day in the fall. So let's use that as the example. If you want to get a little more specific other than just sometime in the fall when you want to lift and divide, this is one where they really help you out by showing you when they're ready and when they start to kind of turn yellow. That's a go sign. But just do it before they disappear when that all that foliage just dies away and you don't see it anymore. So how do you divide them once you dig them up? Well, there are a number of ways. Oftentimes a real simple way is with a like a bread knife. And if you have a manageable root ball that you can put down on a driveway with a tarp underneath it or something like that, you can take a bread knife and just slice through the middle of it. I often do that. Or maybe just a sharp spade, a flat bladed spade, just driven down right through the heart of the root ball. That'll do it. Or you can maybe break it apart. But a classic way to do it is with two garden forks. So, you know, the sharp tines and you would basically drive them both into the center of the root ball, but you put them in back to back. So the tines are basically back to back with each other. And the handles are positioned so that they are opposite of each other and leaning away from each other by maybe 30 degrees or something like that. Because what you want to do is use those handles. It's kind of a pry bar. And then you would bring those handles towards each other. And as you do that, because of the curve of the tines, it's separating the root ball apart. And just one thing to keep in mind is when you drive those tines into the root ball, offset them just slightly, you know, one from the other, just so that when you bring your hands together, as the division is taking place, you're not going to crash your hands together or the handles are not going to crash into each other. You're going to have room to bypass each other because they're offset. Hopefully that makes sense. A video would come in really handy right now, but hopefully you get the picture there. And when you find a new home for the divisions, you've dug the whole, replace it at the same depth that was growing. When you dug it up, backfill with a native soil, water it in and add mulch or add mulch and water it in. It doesn't matter, but do both. The one thing I would caution you about with a fall is don't overwater. It is important that you water in what you plant, but if it's an excessively wet winter, I mean, we really can't control that, but don't exacerbate that by adding a lot more water because they don't need it. They, they need a little bit of water to get established, but they don't need it ongoing because again, they're dormant. So be careful about that. And you have set them up for success. And now you have free plants that you've shopped from your own yard and it's such a perfect project to do in the fall. And it's fun too. All right. The other one is planting spring flowering bulbs and you definitely want to do that October, November. You can really get away with it depending on where you live, but if the ground isn't covered with snow or ice, you can go ahead and plant those bulbs and they should come up fine in the spring. Even late into the year, past November. For me, I try to do it in November and I've had great results every time I do that. Couple of years ago, I did a big spring flowering bulb project. I planted several thousand bulbs around my greenhouse area and it's spectacular. And you don't need to do it in mass like that, but it's nice if you can. It's time consuming, but it's well worth it because it's a one time job. Whenever you plant those bulbs, that's the beauty of spring flowering bulbs is you plant them one time and then they just take off from there. And you never have to touch them again until you want to dig them up about four or five years later and divide all the extra bulbs that have grown since that one bulb that you planted. So it's a great return on your money. And you generally do that after the plants flower in the spring time. But as far as spring flowering bulb options, there are many, but the classics are the daffodils, the tulips, the dwarf iris, the crocus, the fritillary, the bascari, and my favorite are snow drops, galanthus. They are great in a woodland garden and just so beautiful. It's just classic English garden style, but I love the snow drops. And if you do it in the fall, they'll be blooming in late winter, early spring, next year. And also don't forget garlic. I've talked about this more in the summertime just because we plant our garlic bulbs in the fall, like usually October, November. And then we don't have to touch them again until we're harvesting them in the summertime of the following year. But the best varieties tend to always sell out early. And unless you're very proactive about it, by the time you think about it and get around to doing it many times, and I'm speaking from experience here, my very favorite varieties are always sold out. I've gotten better about that. And that's, um, that's a good thing because now I get to plant my favorite varieties, but if you haven't ordered your garlic yet, please do that when you hear this or see this and get it done in case you still have an opportunity to get some of those really popular ones. Any homegrown garlic is better than the store bought garlic. So just be sure to plant your garlic. That's the message here. Another one is to protect your trees from a number of things, but one I'm thinking of in particular is deer rutting, deer rutting. If you live in an area in this country where you've got deer running through your property, you're going to want to be mindful of this. And this may have already happened to you because these male deer, these bucks don't miss an opportunity. Usually it happens in October or November, but I would say for what I'm about to share with you, go ahead and do this now. Because if you miss the, if you miss it and the deer do it, I'm about to tell you, it's too late. And what happens is the bucks that come through are doing two things in October, November, they're marking their territory and they're rubbing off the felt that's on their antlers. And guess what they picked to do that? Your beautiful trees, your hardwood trees that are about four inches in caliper, so they're not mature yet, but maybe you've planted them in the past few years and you're really looking forward to them getting bigger and all of that. But that's their tree of choice. Dogwood for me is a classic example, but there are many and they use the bark of the tree trunk and they just rub their antlers up and down on it. And what happens is, yeah, they mark their territory and they scrape their felt off, but they destroy your tree. The bark, the soft bark comes up and now the exposed cambium is there. And if they happen to do that around the entire trunk, whether it's the first time or in repeated visits, your tree is done. And I can tell you, I have lost quite a few of my beautiful dogwoods and others for that very reason. I just didn't get out there the first time I didn't think to do it because it was a new property for me at the time, this, this property. And I came out to one of those trees and I saw that beautiful tree with that ugly wound on it. In that case, it didn't kill the tree right off the batter in the next year or two, but it kept it from putting out leaves on that side because the cambium that fed the roots on that side of the tree couldn't transfer the nutrients in the water and all of that. And that part of the tree died and eventually a whole tree died. But please don't let that happen to you. Get out there with something that you can wrap the base of the tree from the ground up to the first layer of scaffolding branches that start to go up. You want to do that whole area because the buck will look for four or five foot range from the ground up and use that. You can find deer barrier or protective barrier that wraps around the tree. Just kind of search for that. It's not my favorite option, but I had been using that plastic drainage tubing. It's kind of rigid. And if you cut it down the middle, depending on the diameter that you buy, it can be smaller or larger. It's not easy to work with. And it's kind of a sharp edge. When you cut through it, be thinking about that, cause you don't want to damage the tree as you're putting it around the tree. Cause it's that sharp edge can kind of damage the bark too. But there are options and an easy one is like hardware cloth. Just go ahead and put a barrier around your trunk that keeps the deer from getting to the bark. That way you'll save your trees. That's the bottom line there. The other thing is not just the trees, but your other plants. Maybe you have a lot of plants that you haven't gotten around to putting into the ground yet. Maybe they're all still in containers. I'm famous for that. Not in a good way. I'm not proud of it, but because I do so much propagation and I'm not exactly sure where I want to plant them yet. They live in containers for far too long. And then winter comes. A lot of them are native plants and they are used to the cold weather, but here's the thing about, even though they're native plants, don't assume that they're going to be fine just because they're natives and the weather is going to get cold. Because the difference of native plants in the ground and native plants in a container is that all the root surface is exposed when it's in the container. And that's could be the kiss of death. That's the difference in native plants out of the ground and in the ground. And they may not survive depending on the extremity of the weather. So either get them planted now and fall is a great time to plant. Here's why I mentioned the warm soil. That's really conducive for root growth and expansion. That's what you want. And that's what the fall offers. It's still holding moisture. And at the same time, the temperature above ground is very conducive to growth. It's not super hot. So the plants aren't stressed out. They can really have some growth time and the cool pleasant weather. You get the fall showers. It's ideal. So because you're not as busy cutting the grass and doing all these other things, make sure that you're getting what you want to plant in the ground while you can, because you're doing yourself a favor and you're especially doing your plants a favor by giving them the optimal opportunity to establish and have their roots protected from the cold weather. And then you don't have to worry about it anymore. So it's the best of both worlds for you and the plants. Pay attention to that. Another thing is if you have large containers that are really too heavy to move inside or into a garage or a basement with maybe a little bit of light, that would be great if you could do it. But I recognize some of you have really massive containers. And so, um, one thing you could do is if it's planted already, this would require some work and you may not want to do this part, but it is a way to protect those large containers with something living in it over winter. And that is you'd have to take them out to do what I'm about to tell you. And then you'd plant them back in. But if you get some bubble wrap, once you've emptied out the plant container and line the inside of the container with the large bubble wrap, one or two layers, and then you replant or repot whatever was in that with a bubble wrap between the soil and the inside of the container, that can really help protect your pots. I'm not, this isn't a plant protection tip. This is a pot protection tip. And this really applies to ceramic or ones that could crack when expanding soil, when it freezes, can put so much pressure from the interior to the outside that it causes the ceramic or the clay to crack. So to avoid that, the bubble wrap can give you a little bit of give zone. So a little bit of cushion that may make all the difference. So I have a video on that. We'll put it into the show notes and you can give it a try if you'd like to. And maybe that will be something that works for you. Hopefully it does. So that in less than 30 minutes was the things that I wanted to tell you that I'm working on and I'm focused on, but a few more things I wanted to cover with you. And one of the things that I'm not doing, I tease that, I think at the start of this, I'm not pruning. And that is because if you don't know this, growth follows the cut. So whenever you make a cut on your plants, you're going to stimulate new growth. And we do that all the time to stimulate new growth on purpose to redirect growth or to shape it. That's all good, but that's not good. If you do that in the late fall, because as that new growth is coming out and then the cold weather comes, that new growth hasn't hardened off yet. And it will probably die back. And what will happen is you'll leave behind an open wound into the, uh, the wood, and then that's an imitation for either pest or diseases or splitting. Try not to ever prune other than for dead disease or dying branches. Whenever you see that any time of year, that's something you should do. But for all the rest of the pruning that we would normally do the other times of the year, keep it to the other times of the year. Generally the dormant period of the year for me, I like to do that in like mid February to early March before new growth has emerged. That is the best time to do your, uh, intentional pruning. And then the new growth will start happening right when it warms up. And that's what the pros do. And it's what I recommend that you do too. Okay. Couple of things that I'm going to be working on project wise, but in case you're interested, so you, uh, you'll be seeing what I'm up to as I start documenting it and getting around to doing it pretty soon. What will I start with first? Well, I've been talking about the nursery area. If you've seen videos or you see me out by my greenhouse or in that shade cloth area next to my greenhouse, that's what I call the nursery area. And that's what it really is because that's where all my propagated plants are, where I take cuttings, where I seeds emerge that have, uh, I've started or I transplanted other plants. Anyway, you get the idea. You know what a nursery is for me, that's that area, but it was never big enough. And so I really got ambitious on my sabbatical here in August and, uh, I've expanded it and it's not finished yet because of some other interruptions. And I'll get back to that later in October and it will be, uh, really nice. And I'll share that with you. And, um, it's been a fun project, but it's a really ambitious project. So that's first on the list, next on the list, probably for November is rebuilding out my compost bins. Uh, I have been a big fan of pallet compost bins, untreated hardwood pallets. They're free. They're uniform in size. If you get all the same size pallets and, um, they last generally four to five years for me before I need to replace them. But I've decided that I really want to kind of upgrade. And so rather than pallets, which has been great. And I highly, I'm a big fan of them. I recommend them and the price is right. And they work really well, but I'm going to use builder blocks. I'm not going to go into the detail. I'm explaining that right now, but basically they're kind of like concrete corner blocks that have ridges in them. And you could slide two by six lumber into them and make it as tall as you want. But I'm going to make three bay compost bins to replace the footprint of where my existing compost bins are right now. So it's going to look better. And, um, I think it's going to be a little more, I know it's going to be a little more organized and they should last longer too, especially if I use the composite wood, which I'm thinking about rather than treated wood, they'll last forever. And that's kind of my goal at this point is to think of ways that I can make changes that will last much longer than what I've been using currently, which leads me to the other thing I was going to tell you about for very late this year into next spring. And that is a project I'm really kind of dreading, but the inevitable has reached the time that I need to address it and quit putting it off. And that is my raised beds. Aren't the point of needing to be replaced, rebuilt and replaced, which means everything that you've seen inside of my raised bed garden is going to come out. Even the soil, I'm really torn about this because that is a very big job. It's 30 cubic yards of soil in those raised beds. And getting to all that soil to get it out. I don't even know how I'm going to do it yet. I'm still working through all of that. But if I really want to do it right, I need to not take shortcuts. The pathogens that have been living in that soil from all the tomatoes I plant every year have really eliminated my ability to now plant tomatoes and grow them out without knowing that they're all going to get diseases because of the soil diseases that are not going to go away if I keep planting tomatoes in there. And that's just 14 years of every year, even though I know about crop rotation. And I'll be documenting the whole thing from thought process, the takeout, demolition, rebuild, replanting. It should be interesting from that standpoint. And if you want to come help, let me know. I'll be talking about it. And it's a big job. So yeah, I have that to work on coming up. All right. So looking ahead real quick to wrap this up for 2026. The things that I am going to be focused on. One thing I never talk about, uh, it is the fact that I am always spread too thin. I have so many projects and demands on my time that keep me from really being able to dive as deep as I would like to dive on far fewer things, the things that really matter. They're still always, they're always important, but you can't do two things at once. And every time you say yes to another opportunity, you're saying no to something that can't get done because of that opportunity. So for 2026, it is really going to be focused on education. I feel like that's my role on earth with gardening is to be a teacher. I've got decades of experience, all science-based, formal training and solid experience. There's no replacement for the experience, but when you can combine it with science-based education and training, I think it's a great combination. And so that's, as you know, what I've been doing, but I haven't been doing it deeply as I would like to. So in 2026, I'm going to say no to mostly everything that comes my way and really focus on four things. This podcast, I love doing podcasts. We have, if you've noticed in the past eight weeks or so, we started moving all of our podcasts, not moving, but in addition to where they live now and all the major podcast players, we're putting them into YouTube also. So a big trend is people are watching podcasts. And so we wanted to make that opportunity available to you like this one right now. If you're listening to this, I've recorded this whole episode to the camera and we're going to load it into the YouTube channel, Joe Gardner TV. And you can watch me talking to you about everything I just said, because it's been videoed and that will be uploaded, the video version, but the audio versions will always live where you've been getting them. So that's not going away. And I have no plans on stopping this. I love audio and the podcast for the teaching opportunity for me to talk to you. So that's, that's there to stay. So that's the first thing video. It's important. And I will continue to do it. And I really want to focus on educational based video. And we'll do that on my YouTube channel, Joe Gardner TV, but really with intentional content and a lot of pre-planning so that we will make the most of every video that we put out there. I hope if you, if you haven't checked out Joe Gardner TV, you'll check it out now. And we have a lot more I plan to add. The funny, crazy thing is, as much as I've been in front of the camera with TV, it's kept me from being able to do what I've wanted to do on YouTube from teaching videos. So there are a lot of videos there already, but nowhere near what I would have had uploaded if I had had the time. Now I'm going to have the time for that because it's one of the four key areas that I will be focused on. So in the meantime, maybe you'll follow me. Hopefully you will so that you'll get notified when I start adding more episodes there and we're doing that already. So, um, I would appreciate that if you did Joe Gardner TV on YouTube webinars. That's another way for me to pick specific topics that are more long form than what I would do in a YouTube video. Generally my webinars throughout the year, we will do free webinars and we will do paid webinars and the paid webinar, they'll be deeper in content. They will be a little bit longer. Generally a paid webinar for us is 90 minutes to two hours. It's a deep dive into a specific topic such as master home composting, which is coming up in October, mid October. Uh, and that's, uh, between $20 and $30 is what our price will be for those because it takes a lot of extra work and then you get a download link. And so it's worth it. We always provide a really nice ebook that is not just, you know, some short notes that kind of go along with the webinar. It's really a standalone piece of content that we also provide with the paid webinar. So there'll be that and there'll be free webinars, but it's a chance for me to, um, really speak to you just like I am right now with, uh, in kind of a PowerPoint presentation. So you'll have a lot of visuals to go along with it. And we think really carefully about the topics we want to choose. We ask you what you want to know about that would be good for a webinar topic. And then we build it. And, and that's what we'll be coming up probably about nine times in 2026. We'll have nine separate webinars. And that includes the freed and the paid, the free and the paid versions. And then the last thing is my online guardian academy. Uh, a lot of you are students in the online gardening academy of one course or all of our courses and thank you very much if you're a student there. But, um, we have created some really deep dive courses and, um, so many members, so such a vibrant community in the online gardening academy. And, um, you know, I want to serve you especially because you've, you know, paid a tuition to have lifetime access into one or all of the courses. And, um, and I really appreciate you being there for the nominal or the large investment you've made over, you know, being a student in all the courses. So that's really important to me to make sure that you know that, uh, I'm there for the long haul with you on that too. I hope that you found this helpful. And as we wrap up, thanks to Malorganite for their longtime support of this podcast. And as always, thanks to Amy princess, Brendan O'Reilly and Christine Lafond, my A team for getting this podcast out the door every Thursday. Consistently, they do a great job and I really appreciate it. And thank you for joining me today. My goal for every episode is to help you take the guesswork out of gardening by teaching you the why do behind the how to, so that you can become a better, smarter, more confident gardener. I'll be back here again next Thursday for another episode of the Joe Gardner show. And I look forward to having you right back here to join me for that. Until then, have a great week. Take care and I'll see you back here really soon. Thanks for listening to the Joe Gardner show, the podcast where it's all about gardening and learning to grow like a pro, no experience required. For more information, podcasts and how to videos, visit us online at JoeGardner.com.