Jason Golden
The first farmer is JASON GOLDEN, an architect, and his family that own Truffle Hunter's Farm. They're focused on organic produce, micro greens and seasonal mushroom harvests. Jason gives us a look into what it has taken to get the farm up and running, as well as some growing tips for aspiring gardeners. Eric welcomes Jason - Thanks so much for joining us. Welcome to the show. Jason has a fascinating story. Eric knows it's been quite a journey moving from just being an avid gardener, someone who's really, really passionate about vegetables and good food to now this being his occupation. Tell us about that. Jason explains they picked up this homestead in late 2019, then four months later, the COVID world hit and they began to say, "What can we do to grow our own food?” For More Information Click Here
Making The Jump From A Small Grower To A Seller
MAKING THE JUMP from being just a small vegetable grower, "I'm going to have a few plots. I'm going to grow this for my family," to scaling it up to something of this size, one needs to start looking at different types of tools. Right? Jason explains. They've made a couple strategic purchases for their toolkit. They purchased a paper pot transplanter. And bought the Jang seeder. For More Information Click Here
The Soil
Of course, no vegetable is better than THE SOIL that it's growing in. How important has that been? Jason concurs, very much so. They made the decision to bring in certified organic compost. Plus purchased about 13 tons of good top soil, which was a huge truckload. For More Information Click Here
Microgreens
Eric knows Jason has a lot of cool stuff to show us. Let’s take a look at your MICRO GREENS. Micro greens are a very important component of what Jason is growing now and is also a very interesting type of agriculture that people at home can do on a small scale. It’s a neat way to get started with plants but Jason has also been able to scale it to where they are able to sell to restaurants. For More Information Click Here
Microgreens Cultivation
Eric would like to talk about the CULTIVATION. If he wanted to start growing micro greens at home, it's fairly straightforward, but what should he keep in mind? You have to make some decisions on your grow medium. You have to make some decisions on where to grow. They grow indoors because it helps control humidity and temperature, it gives a sheltered place to grow in the shoulder seasons. For More Information Click Here
Automated System
Eric would like for Jason to talk about the more AUTOMATED SYSTEM. In the same way they moved from a small vegetable garden into something larger, there were certain tools needed to make it more feasible and more sustainable for Jason. With the micro greens, he has moved to something that's more automated. This year they have started to transition a portion of their operation into flood trays. And those flood trays are filled by a pump that's on a timer. Every morning at about 8:30 it floods for 15 minutes, which is enough to wet the roots, then it drains back down which keeps Jason out of the watering process, which is a daily activity. For More Information Click Here
Mushrooms
The next thing Eric and Jason are going to talk about is very near and dear to Eric's heart and that is MUSHROOMS. There's a tremendous amount of emerging interest in that entire food category, not only because of how nutritional they are but because of how delicious they are. As a gardener Eric thinks that mushrooms are one of the most exciting things one can incorporate into what you're growing. For More Information Click Here
Growing Mushrooms
There are a number of different ways that we can approach GROWING MUSHROOMS on our property as a gardener. Some of them are easier than others. Some of them are faster than others. Eric would like for Jason to kind of walk us through what our options are. There are basically three ways to grow them. One can grow them in a log, and that's the long haul. Jason can inoculate them in an oak log and it'll be 18 months before the first fruiting. He can inoculate them in wood chips like we're standing on, and that's a little bit quicker. And the other option is sawdust. For More Information Click Here
Inoculate The Log
Jason next shows us how we INOCULATE THIS LOG. There are not too many tools that you need. Basically just a drill with a 5/16 bit. You do need a little bit of a layout. What Jason does is take the diameter of the log and divides it in segments by the diameter. This is a six-inch log, Jason has created six segments down at the base. Then he spaces his dowels and has small markings every six inches on that line. The next line he shifts so he has a little bit more of a diamond pattern and that's really so that the spawn that's going into that wood is spaced well. It's kind of like planting your garden. You want a little bit of a spacing between your plants. From there, drill the holes, and then just hammer the dowel in there. For More Information Click Here
Dahlias-Tim Wheatley
For Eric cut flowers are a must in his house and he can't imagine a more dynamic display than DAHLIAS. Tim Wheatley of Mountain Diva Gardens has been growing dahlias for over 10 years and is a regular at the farmer's market. For More Information Click Here
Ideal Place To Grow
Eric comments that Tim has a really nice piece of land here, super fertile soil right off a creek, thus a pretty IDEAL PLACE TO GROW. Tim agrees, it is. They like a nice sandy, well-drained soil. He's got a good place here, his yard has enough of a slope where everything kind of runs off, so they seem to like it here. He does amend his soil though. He has compost brought in and puts it into the soil every year because you're draining the nutrients out as you plant every year. So he tries to keep it nutrient rich so that they continue to grow well, which they seem to be doing right now. For More Information Click Here
Dahlia Cultivation
Eric would like for Tim to talk to our viewers about the CULTIVATION of this amazing plant. Like most crops, if we know exactly what we're doing, they're pretty easy and carefree. And with dahlias, there are a few things that we do need to keep in mind if we want them to look as beautiful as Tim's. Let's start from the very beginning. Where do dahlias ideally like to grow? Tim explains, they ideally like a place where they get between six and eight hours of sun. If they can get morning sun, that's usually better, but they'll take whatever sun they can get. For More Information Click Here
Maximum Number Of Canes
Eric asks, what has Tim learned over his many years of experience in achieving the MAXIMUM NUMBER OF CANES on the plant and then keeping them upright? He shows us the way it’s going to look coming out of the ground. When the plant is about knee high, he opens it up in the center and pops the center piece out and discards that. Now the growth is not going to be so concentrated on going straight up. For More Information Click Here
Disbudding
So let's talk about DISBUDDING. Of course, Tim's ultimate goal with these is the most ideal cut flower and disbudding really helps channel the energy of the plant. When you're disbudding though, you're looking at the leaf shoots and there are going to be little side buds that come up. Tim takes those off so that the energy is going to the central bud instead of all these other side shoots. And he tries to do it far enough down the plant so that he will get a nice long stem on the plant because when he cuts it, nobody wants to have a plant with a six-inch stem. For More Information Click Here
Disease And Insect Pressure
Eric would like to talk about DISEASE AND INSECT PRESSURE. Are there things that we need to keep an eye out for? Are these fairly chemically intensive to grow or not so much? One of the big problems that Tim has encountered this year as far as insects, and this was early on in the spring, he had a lot of wireworms. For More Information Click Here
Water
Let's talk about their WATER needs. Tim gets quite a bit of rainfall here and this is a plant that does like to stay on the moist side for sure. When they're first planted, they don't like to have a whole lot of water. The tuber itself has stored enough energy over the wintertime to get the plant started so it doesn't like to have a whole lot of moisture on that tuber when it first starts. For More Information Click Here
Tubers
Eric knows Tim has some TUBERS to show us. Let's take a look at the tubers and talk about the propagation of dahlias. As Tim mentioned, dahlias are a tuberous plant in the same way that irises and day lilies, and many other of our favorite plants, are. So dividing tuber is one of the most common ways that these plants are propagated Eric would love for Tim to show the plant he's excavated and talk us through how we would divide the tubers on a dahlia. The first thing that he would do when digging them up in the fall is get rid of all the top stuff, then all of the little side roots get trimmed away because they're not really productive for any particular purpose. For More Information Click Here
Harvesting Dahlias
Eric wonders - Last but not least, what is the HARVESTING aspect of the cut flowers. Of course, we all cut flowers from our garden and bring them inside. But these are going to market so there are a few things that we ought to think about just to make sure that they arrive in the best condition and Eric would love for Tim to talk us through all that. Well, the first thing whenever he's gathering is looking to make sure that he has a stem that's going to have some life left. He always wants to have a nice long stem. Once he puts it in a five-gallon bucket, it's going to stand above the rim of the bucket. So he always makes sure he's got that nice long stem. For More Information Click Here
There’s nothing like a farmer's market to bring the best of a community together. The Village Green Market in Cashiers, North Carolina runs from April to October and features the bounty of surrounding family farms. GardenSMART goes behind-the-scenes and visits several of the vendors.
The first farmer is Truffle Hunter's Farm run by architect JASON GOLDEN and his family. They're focused on organic produce, micro greens and seasonal mushroom harvests. Jason gives us a look into what it has taken to get the farm up and running, as well as some growing tips for aspiring gardeners. Eric welcomes Jason - Thanks so much for joining us. Welcome to the show. Jason has a fascinating story. Eric knows it's been quite a journey moving from just being an avid gardener, someone who's really, really passionate about vegetables and good food to now this being his occupation. Tell us about that. Jason explains they picked up this homestead in late 2019, then four months later, the COVID world hit and they began to say, "What can we do to grow our own food?" Their first year they started with mostly livestock. By the end of that summer they had harvested about 120 animals. The next year they said, "Well, let's start growing," thus put this garden in place. Eric wonders - How large is this site? It is not a huge farm, right? No, they're on about two and a half acres. This is their effort to learn how to grow on scale. When you're growing for your family, you can plant some things and maybe you tend them and maybe you weed them, but when you're growing for the market, you've got to be able to do it in a marketable way ensuring the product enters the market in an acceptable fashion. What is the market for your product now?
They sell to a few restaurants, but their primary markets are the farmer's markets in Cashiers and in Highlands. Eric thinks that's something very cool about community agriculture, just keeping it close to the source. So your vegetables are not traveling very far at all, just down the road? That's right. 10 minutes to the Cashiers market and 20 minutes to the Highlands market.
MAKING THE JUMP from being just a small vegetable grower, "I'm going to have a few plots. I'm going to grow this for my family," to scaling it up to something of this size, one needs to start looking at different types of tools. Right? Jason explains. They've made a couple strategic purchases for their toolkit. They purchased a paper pot transplanter. And bought the Jang seeder. Both in an effort to make it doable. With the transplanter, Jason can plant one of the rows of 500 heads of lettuce in about 15 minutes. Eric thinks an important part of being able to make that jump and scale up is just realizing that the labor component changes radically.
Of course, no vegetable is better than THE SOIL that it's growing in. How important has that been? Jason concurs, very much so. They made the decision to bring in certified organic compost. Plus purchased about 13 tons of good top soil, which was a huge truckload. They laid down that soil in rows on top of refrigerator boxes because they wanted to squash out the weeds so they would have as weed-free of a garden as possible. Now what they're doing as they’re growing is trying to create their own soil to replace the soil purchased to start bringing economy into this.
Eric knows Jason has a lot of cool stuff to show us. Let’s take a look at your MICRO GREENS. Micro greens are a very important component of what Jason is growing now and is also a very interesting type of agriculture that people at home can do on a small scale. It’s a neat way to get started with plants but Jason has also been able to scale it to where they are able to sell to restaurants. They initially started with micro greens because it was a quick turnaround.They wanted a product they could grow in two weeks that would yield a product. Then it was "How do we market this? They're so beautiful. Do we sell them live? Do we sell them cut?" They are a live sell grower which means they sell in soil for the customer to take home and enjoy fresh.
Eric would like to talk about the CULTIVATION. If he wanted to start growing micro greens at home, it's fairly straightforward, but what should he keep in mind? You have to make some decisions on your grow medium. You have to make some decisions on where to grow. They grow indoors because it helps control humidity and temperature, it gives a sheltered place to grow in the shoulder seasons. Their substrate is the same soil that was brought in for their garden, it's certified organic compost. There are other choices, but they've chosen this because it helps people take it home live.
Eric would like to talk about some of the crops Jason is growing. Are there are certain ones that clearly work better than others? Jason explains they try to stay with seeds that will finish out in about two weeks, so they have a two-week cycle they go through.
Eric wonders what Jason is looking at growing? They have two varieties of peas. They have cantaloupe, which is a summer flavor, sunflower, radish and wheatgrass.
Eric would like for Jason to talk about the more AUTOMATED SYSTEM. In the same way they moved from a small vegetable garden into something larger, there were certain tools needed to make it more feasible and more sustainable for Jason. With the micro greens, he has moved to something that's more automated. This year they have started to transition a portion of their operation into flood trays. And those flood trays are filled by a pump that's on a timer. Every morning at about 8:30 it floods for 15 minutes, which is enough to wet the roots, then it drains back down which keeps Jason out of the watering process, which is a daily activity. And when you're growing 20 to 40 trays, that's a time consuming activity. One thing about indoor cultivation is you're not worried about how much rainfall did that crop receive, so putting that on a timer is a very practical way to grow those crops because you have a lot of control over the water.
The next thing Eric and Jason are going to talk about is very near and dear to Eric's heart and that is MUSHROOMS. There's a tremendous amount of emerging interest in that entire food category, not only because of how nutritional they are but because of how delicious they are. As a gardener Eric thinks that mushrooms are one of the most exciting things one can incorporate into what you're growing. Not only do they taste delicious, but it's a very important and natural part of breaking down cellulose material like this log and converting it into compost for future use. And it's actually pretty easy to do, right? Jason agrees. Their first year, they put wine cap spawn into wood chips and spread that around the property as their first mushroom cultivation on the property. They have yielded probably 50 pounds of mushrooms over the course of the last year.
There are a number of different ways that we can approach GROWING MUSHROOMS on our property as a gardener. Some of them are easier than others. Some of them are faster than others. Eric would like for Jason to kind of walk us through what our options are. There are basically three ways to grow them. One can grow them in a log, and that's the long haul. Jason can inoculate them in an oak log and it'll be 18 months before the first fruiting. He can inoculate them in wood chips like we're standing on, and that's a little bit quicker. And the other option is sawdust. Most of these materials, if not all of them, are easily available online so you can select what kind of mushroom you want to grow and then it's just a matter of impregnating a log with that spawn. It, in time, grows into the log, uses that as a food source and then fruits out of the log. Eric would like for Jason to show us how to do it. Jason explains - This is a white oak. It's also recently harvested. You don't want to put your inoculation into an old log that you find on the forest floor. It's got to be relatively clean in terms of its fungal presence. And not every tree is a good candidate for mushroom cultivation. Some of that is due to the tannin load in the wood or just the structure of the wood. Things that rot really fast are typically not good. Gymnosperms like pine are almost never good. Oak is a great place to start because almost everything that we want to grow is going to like to grow in oak.
Jason next shows us how we INOCULATE THIS LOG. There are not too many tools that you need. Basically just a drill with a 5/16 bit. You do need a little bit of a layout. What Jason does is take the diameter of the log and divides it in segments by the diameter. This is a six-inch log, Jason has created six segments down at the base. Then he spaces his dowels and has small markings every six inches on that line. The next line he shifts so he has a little bit more of a diamond pattern and that's really so that the spawn that's going into that wood is spaced well. It's kind of like planting your garden. You want a little bit of a spacing between your plants. From there, drill the holes, and then just hammer the dowel in there. Then you need to protect the dowel so that it doesn't dry out. Jason uses beeswax. They have a local at the farmer's market who sells honey, he has some beeswax and Jason purchases that from him. Once this log is done it will fruit season after season after season. And the first batch should be ready in about 18 months. One could trick the log into thinking it's the fruiting season. The way you do that is basically soak it in a water bath, immerse it in a water bath for 24-48 hours, and then when you take it out, smack it on a rock or something, just shock it. And for whatever reason, the mushrooms say, “It's the time to go."
Eric thanks Jason, this has been so fascinating. Thank you so much for spending the day with us. He feels like we've learned so much. Jason in turn thanks Eric and GardenSMART, he has enjoyed this very much.
For Eric cut flowers are a must in his house and he can't imagine a more dynamic display than DAHLIAS. Tim Wheatley of Mountain Diva Gardens has been growing dahlias for over 10 years and is a regular at the farmer's market. He's a wealth of knowledge and a super passionate grower. Eric thanks Tim for joining GardenSMART. It's wonderful to see his garden. Tim thanks Eric, thank you for coming. He appreciates GardenSMART being here.
Eric remembers, when he was a kid his dad helped him build not a vegetable garden, rather a flower garden. The first plant was roses. The second plant was dahlias, and he's had a love affair with dahlias since he was probably 14. And understandably so, they are beautiful, vibrant, amazing plants. He has always been fascinated with the range of colors that exist in that space. Eric has never done dahlias like Tim but has always had a few. But Tim's on a whole other scale. Eric wonders how Tim got started with Dahlias. About 12 years ago, Tim was at one of the big box stores in early spring and walked by one of the displays they had with all the spring flowers and there were about 10, 12 different types of dahlias. He picked up a couple of bags and each one of them had two or three tubers in it. He was like, "All right, I remember dahlias from when I was a kid," he had liked growing dahlias, it was kind of one of those nostalgic childhood memories, and decided "I'm going to try to grow dahlias." But when he brought them home and planted them he didn’t know anything about staking, didn't know anything about tying them up and disbudding or any of the stuff he does now. When you plant a dahlia and don't do anything with it, they just like to go on the ground and run, kind of like a tomato plant. Then they'll put up buds, so you get these little short dahlias all across the ground. Over time Tim has gone from smaller plots to much larger plots around the home. And the 12 initial plants have turned into 1,400.
Eric comments that Tim has a really nice piece of land here, super fertile soil right off a creek, thus a pretty IDEAL PLACE TO GROW. Tim agrees, it is. They like a nice sandy, well-drained soil. He's got a good place here, his yard has enough of a slope where everything kind of runs off, so they seem to like it here. He does amend his soil though. He has compost brought in and puts it into the soil every year because you're draining the nutrients out as you plant every year. So he tries to keep it nutrient rich so that they continue to grow well, which they seem to be doing right now. When he first started doing this, he didn't stake them. The second year he started staking them and tying them up, which became kind of a pain because each one of them, as it grows, you've got to continue tying it and tying it and tying it. So once he got over a hundred he found this T-post trellis netting was the best way to support them because they grow up through the netting. He doesn't have to tie each individual plant, all can support themselves in the trellis.
Eric would like for Tim to talk to our viewers about the CULTIVATION of this amazing plant. Like most crops, if we know exactly what we're doing, they're pretty easy and carefree. And with dahlias, there are a few things that we do need to keep in mind if we want them to look as beautiful as Tim's. Let's start from the very beginning. Where do dahlias ideally like to grow? Tim explains, they ideally like a place where they get between six and eight hours of sun. If they can get morning sun, that's usually better, but they'll take whatever sun they can get. So the sun component is one of the big things. Well-drained soil is important. They don't like to have their roots stay overly wet. And if they do, they're going to start to rot. When planing tubers, what time of year are we ideally looking at getting those in the ground? Ideally, in this area, right after Mother's Day because that's after the last chance of frost has passed. Different areas have different timeframes. In Georgia, one could probably plant them the end of April.
Eric asks, what has Tim learned over his many years of experience in achieving the MAXIMUM NUMBER OF CANES on the plant and then keeping them upright? He shows us the way it’s going to look coming out of the ground. When the plant is about knee high, he opens it up in the center and pops the center piece out and discards that. Now the growth is not going to be so concentrated on going straight up. All these little side laterals are now where the energy is going to go, so instead of having a straight-up plant, he’ll be getting a bushy plant, which is going to provide more blooms going out. Eric comments - As is true with any kind of pruning we do, that narrow somatic bud right at the top, sends hormones down below it to turn off the auxiliary buds on the side. And when we clip that out, all of a sudden there's nothing telling those buds to not grow. So then we can get a really nice dense bush.
So let's talk about DISBUDDING. Of course, Tim's ultimate goal with these is the most ideal cut flower and disbudding really helps channel the energy of the plant. When you're disbudding though, you're looking at the leaf shoots and there are going to be little side buds that come up. Tim takes those off so that the energy is going to the central bud instead of all these other side shoots. And he tries to do it far enough down the plant so that he will get a nice long stem on the plant because when he cuts it, nobody wants to have a plant with a six-inch stem. He always wants to have a 12 to 18-inch stem, so if he disbuds far enough down the plant then he's going to be able to cut it and have a nice long stem that's going to hold that nice bloom.
Eric would like to talk about DISEASE AND INSECT PRESSURE. Are there things that we need to keep an eye out for? Are these fairly chemically intensive to grow or not so much? One of the big problems that Tim has encountered this year as far as insects, and this was early on in the spring, he had a lot of wireworms. Wireworms are the larva of the click beetle, and wireworms love to eat anything tuberous. The other problems as far as insects are Japanese beetles and caterpillars, which are constant things here in the south. Tim tries to spray them every couple of weeks just to keep them down.
Let's talk about their water needs. Tim gets quite a bit of rainfall here and this is a plant that does like to stay on the moist side for sure. When they're first planted, they don't like to have a whole lot of water. The tuber itself has stored enough energy over the wintertime to get the plant started so it doesn't like to have a whole lot of moisture on that tuber when it first starts. Once the root system starts to develop then you can start watering it. Mother nature takes care of it most of the time.
Eric knows Tim has some TUBERS to show us. Let's take a look at the tubers and talk about the propagation of dahlias. As Tim mentioned, dahlias are a tuberous plant in the same way that irises and day lilies, and many other of our favorite plants, are. So dividing tuber is one of the most common ways that these plants are propagated Eric would love for Tim to show the plant he's excavated and talk us through how we would divide the tubers on a dahlia. The first thing that he would do when digging them up in the fall is get rid of all the top stuff, then all of the little side roots get trimmed away because they're not really productive for any particular purpose. One tuber has a label on it, so that would be the mother tuber, which is what this plant started from. That tuber has pretty much already used up all of its energy from this year producing this plant, so that one is not really that viable, thus he’s not going to keep that one for next year. He's going to try to keep part of the stem on all of them because that's where it's going to be able to develop its' eye. He will then get rid of all the useless stuff. If you look at this tuber you can see where it's got little bumps, that's probably where an eye is going to develop. Sometimes he keeps a whole little clump because he can't always see exactly where the eyes are going to be. And then as it starts to eye up in the early part of the spring he can divide it a little more readily. With the tubers he keeps he lets them dry out for about 48 hours, then once they've dried he has little storage boxes with vermiculite in them. Tim usually puts a little bit of cinnamon in the vermiculite, it's like an anti fungal and helps to keep funguses and stuff from growing on the tubers while they're in storage. He sticks the tubers down in the vermiculite and puts the plant label in there. He has bored some holes in the top of the container so they can continue to get some airflow while in storage. That way it's not just stale, stagnant air in the storage container, Tim then labels the outside of the box with the variety and the size, then keeps them all organized by size and alphabetically by the name of the variety. Eric wonders once the tubers have been excavated, then stored in the container, what kind of conditions do we need to keep it in? It needs to be in a cool dark spot. He has a small cabin where he keeps a little radiant heater to make sure it stays above 32 degrees because he doesn't want them to get below freezing. Because if they freeze the tuber's going to just turn to mush.
Eric wonders - Last but not least, what is the HARVESTING aspect of the cut flowers. Of course, we all cut flowers from our garden and bring them inside. But these are going to market so there are a few things that we ought to think about just to make sure that they arrive in the best condition and Eric would love for Tim to talk us through all that. Well, the first thing whenever he's gathering is looking to make sure that he has a stem that's going to have some life left. He always wants to have a nice long stem. Once he puts it in a five-gallon bucket, it's going to stand above the rim of the bucket. So he always makes sure he's got that nice long stem. And the stems are hollow. When he gets through harvesting and has them all in his buckets he will add hot water. Water as hot as he can get it out of his tap. The steam from that hot water is going to go up into the stem and it's going to make sure that that stem opens up so that the actual flower is going to be able to get the nutrients and the water that it needs in order to survive in a vase. How long does a cut flower last typically once you put it in a vase? Once it's been cut, you'll typically get about a week out of them. Some varieties that are more tightly pedaled will last a little bit longer. The looser ones, typically about a week is what you'll get out of them.
Eric thanks Tim for spending the day with GardenSMART. We've learned so much about dahlias and now Eric is re-energized to get more dahlias in his garden.
What an action-packed day. There's so much that goes into growing great products for market and so much satisfaction that these farmers feel when they put amazing produce into the hands of their community. It’s been a pleasure visiting with two of those farmers in this episode.
By Heirloom Roses
Images courtesy of Heirloom Roses
Insects can create quite a headache for rose lovers. But think about a proactive approach for your garden’s health instead of a reactive response once the pests arrive.
Think beneficial insects. Click here for an informative article on the topic.
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