Grow Your Own Way

Dirty talk and seedy advice from radio gardening guru Mike McGrath.

by Brian Howard

Walter O' Brien

"You people in Philly are the luckiest people in the world," explodes Mike McGrath, the gregarious host of WHYY-FM's green-thumbed weekend staple "You Bet Your Garden" (Saturdays at 11 a.m. on 90.9 FM). McGrath, a Torresdale native/Temple alum/former entertainment editor of this paper's spiritual forbear The Drummer, says the city's a veritable urban gardening hotbed. With its preponderance of community gardens, Philly is "like Starbucks, you've got one on every corner. Even if half of them close, you still got one on every corner." After a lively game of phone tag, we caught up with the Zionsville-based McGrath and asked him for some tips for newbie gardeners.

City Paper: What would you say to someone who didn't realize until, like, today that they wanted to give this gardening thing a go?

Mike McGrath: They're good. Totally good. May 15 is like the typical date that cowards put out their tomatoes and peppers and stuff. The first year I actually insist that everyone buy everything already started at a garden center, 'cause you should get used to killing big plants outdoors before you try to kill little tiny ones in your house.

I am having that experience.

Different skills, they are totally different skills. Seed starting and outdoor gardening have nothing in common.

What's the difference?

Outdoor gardening you have the sun helping you, you have the rain helping you, your soil's pitiful but the roots can go where they want if they want to try to save themselves. Indoors the poor plants are in some impossibly rude structure with lousy dirt and us, who aren't giving them enough light, who're giving them too much water, and, you know, the Red Cross comes and bangs on first-time seed starters' doors, they bring blankets and chocolate and a number of lawyers for the plants. It's pitiful. Outdoors the plants have a chance to fend for themselves, especially if you neglect them outdoors. Plants like that.

So May 15 is the date?

That's kinda D-Day. It's like the last average frost date, for a region that includes Philly, but in truth Philly is a hot spot in more ways than one because of all the impervious surfaces, the big stone buildings, all the paved streets, it retains an enormous amount of heat in the summer — which is why people came out to Bethlehem and Allentown and stuff, to not die in the summer in the city — but that means you guys can also plant earlier if you want. I say May 15 because you can plant on May 15 and you won't lose anything. You get the entire season. You can probably go on May 1 if you have good-quality plants and the Weather Channel says go ahead, and you feel lucky.

OK, so people still have a good month?

They wouldn't want to put anything in the ground till the first, May Day, when actually they're supposed to go out and get naked on their plots and ring bells and unfurl banners and pound drums to chase away the bad spirits.

So you could put stuff in the ground on May 1?

That's when you can go if you want, especially if you've been gardening for years, your plot's all prepared, you know what you're doing, you've got cardboard boxes or something to cover your plants if there's an emergency night. May 1 is safe. I'm saying you can decide you're going to garden on May 1 if you can find a place to do it. You can put your stuff in two weeks later and then you get your entire season. By then it's warmed up, we're getting maximum sunlight, the plants'll take off like a rocket.

What if, like me, you jumped the gun and put stuff in last weekend?

Where is it?

South Philly.

And are you watching the nighttime temperatures?

Uh, yes ...

Nighttime temperatures are what's important, not during the day. If they stay up in the 40s, plants'll be OK. If the weather guesser on TV says four-zero or anything below that in the city, throw cardboard boxes over 'em on your way home and take the cardboard boxes off on your way to work.

So, cardboard boxes, eh?

We're low-tech. You go to what we used to call a state store. "I'd like to buy a state, please!" Like you're on Wheel of Fortune with the state stores. I'll take Delaware, it must be cheap. West Virginia is our lowest price.

What should rookies be looking for in starter plants?

Look for short and stocky, the opposite of people. Tall and lanky looks good on a human — it's bad on a plant. It means it was starved for light.

That's what's called leggy, right?

Correct. Which is certainly what you look for in a good-looking woman — that's a good thing. You look at a plant, it's leggy — 100 percent bad thing.

Let's say you started your seeds in peat pots inside ...

Did they get any artificial light?

They got no artificial light. They got put next to a window.

How pitiful were they when you put them out? Kinda hoping a neighborhood vermin would come and chew them down and it wouldn't be your fault? I'd say there's only one direction they could've gone, it sounds like. Do they look any better?

No.

[Laughs loudly for a long time.] This is why gardening is fun. You go to a party with your socialist, liberal, gun-confiscating, tax-and-spend friends. And you start talking about how you grew these plants perfectly and you're getting these delicious tomatoes. People start walking away from you. It's disgusting. It's like bragging about your children. You tell them about these olympic failures where you killed these plants at every level possible. You were like the Eagles. You found new ways to lose at every turn. And it's a great story! And you will have learned more from the year of the Eagles than you would learn if the 2008 Phillies were your first year of gardening.

You will learn nothing because you won, so you don't have to change anything, you don't have to learn anything, and then it's just a slow slide to oblivion. But if you mess up, the next year you're paying attention, aren't ya? You're going, "Oh, well, guess there's a reason every website I visited said you need really strong light." And then you do that, and then you screw something else up, and then all of a sudden in five years you turn around and you're doing damn good, and you know all the mistakes, and you tell other people about them. That's one of the true joys of gardening, you get good at it despite yourself because the plants will take care of you. The plants will eventually hold your hand.

So I should not be discouraged?

No! You're going through your first year of college. ... You're still in high school year five, but good things are around the corner and the social life is a hell of a lot better.

(CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Talk to me about soil. What do you need?

Three things you need to grow a great garden: compost, compost and compost. Compost made from shredded fall leaves that no longer looks like the leaves and looks like rich black soil grew essentially every plant on the Earth, and it's all your plants need. And 2 inches on top of the soil will feed your plans, prevent weeds, keep moisture in the soil. It's just as good as that tragic "triple premium" shredded bark that's actually chipped-up pallets from China, spray-painted some god-awful color.

How bout mulch? Yes or no?

That's compost! Compost, mulch. See, the wood demons, the people who've been paid to get rid of this wood waste b/c you can't landfill 'em anymore, they chip it up, including pallets from China. This only appeared 15 years ago when wood was kept out of landfills. Before that, nobody did this decorative Disney mulching. Mulch just means anything you put on the surface of the soil to prevent weeds and retain moisture. So sheet metal can be used as mulch. It is down South quite famously. Your newspaper can be used as mulch. If you're starting a fresh garden and you till it up and you want to prevent weeds, you can lay down City Papers opened up to form a broad sheet, but not further separated, so you go and take all the City Papers out of an honor box, and you lay them down so you have, let's say, half of a folded newspaper over every area of soil, and then you frame that off and you put like 4 inches of compost and topsoil in there and build a nice raised bed that you'll never step in again — you're done. It's your game to lose. No weeds are going to come up, no weeds are going to blow in. Your plants'll be happy, you won't step in the soil so you'll never have to till it or do anything other than lay down some mulch, and if you build a raised bed and you put in 4 inches of compost and spring topsoil, I really don't think you need any mulch, unless you get to a really hot summer. Then you can put some more newspapers down and all you need is a thin layer of compost over that. No, the wood mulch is trash, rubber mulch is trash, plastic mulch is traaaash. Shredded fall leaves are great but you have to prepare for that. Which you will, this fall! You'll be hoarding leaves and shredding them up! I can tell we've got you. And I know you must have a gateway drug in the ground. You've got tomatoes in the ground.

I haven't put them out yet.

Excellent. What is in the ground?

We have lettuce.

That's cold season, that won't last the summer.

No?

No, that should be out.

So that's out.

Mine's been out since February.

I guess I shoulda put it out earlier, then.

Well, you'll get it out this fall. We're learning!

I've got garlic that I put in in the fall.

Excellent, excellent! Do you love how it looks right now? It's really happy.

Yeah, we're waiting for it to start to brown.

No! You planted more than garlic, right? You didn't plant california garlic did you?

No, we got it from a farmer over at the farmers market.

Excellent. What's going to happen in about three weeks to a month, it's going to send up a central stalk that's going to make a serpentine curlicue, and then it's gonna have a bulge at the end of that. When they all come up, cut off all the bulges, and bring them inside and stir fry them up with a little olive oil. That's called the scape. And in our region that needs to be removed. Then you don't do anything till the bottom third of the plant is brown; then you harvest it and that'll convince you you're a gardener 'cause garlic grows itself. You don't take the stalk down to the bottom of the plant, you just clip off the very top. Just the bulge.Well, just below the bulge and the little tip. You'll see it. Make sure you harvest the bulge, that's the important part, but don't go too low, because you'll create a kind of a trough down at the bottom where water can collect. I love garlic. Everybody should grow garlic, it is the great deceiver.

We've got some rosemary we put out last year.

Low-hanging fruit, it's very happy. So far you're not making any mistakes!

I put artichokes out.

I have no idea, I pass.

We've got basil and oregano that we just put out.

Basil, that was your big mistake. Oregano, we could talk for six hours. It's true, oregano is very rare, and there's a lot of shit that masquerades as oregano, so I'll just give you the free spot in the middle of the bingo card on that one. At least you killed basil, otherwise you wouldn't be interesting.

HALF OFF DEPOT

Why live life at full price?

We put peppers out.

There you go! Now you're walking down South Street with a bloody knife, now you're getting interesting. ... Peppers go out last. They are really tropical, they got no sense of humor about cold temperatures.

We just got a fig tree.

That's a whole story in itself.

Not sure what to do over the winter with that.

Is it gonna have its roots in the ground?

No, it's in a container.

Then it'll die. Can you plant it in your garden in South Philly?

Maybe — it'll take up a lot of space.

It'll live. That's a plus. HAHAHAH. You could always go to another garden and get another plot.

We don't have a plot in a garden. We have a planter in the backyard about the size of a bathtub, and a bunch of containers.

That's the hotbed of city gardening is growing in containers. And as long as you do it short-distance, you'll be fine. Meaning you can't put roses or blueberries or peach trees or fig trees and leave them out in the winter and expect them to live with their roots above-ground.

What if I bring the fig tree in for the winter?

Yes. The basic answer is yes.

We're trying to grow romanesco.

What the hell is that?

It's that fractal-looking broccoli-cauliflower thing.

That could be doing well in cooler weather.

It got really leggy inside, so I put some new seeds in there.

As soon as they germinate put them out in the garden.

We put out carrot and cucumber seeds.

Cucumber seeds, that was a bad idea. Carrots, they should be fine.

When should cucumber seeds go out?

With tomatoes and peppers and the other warm-season crops.

We have some melon seedlings inside right now.

They go out last, they go out with the peppers.May 15. Take 'em outside on sunny days if you can and apologize to them. Take them to work and leave them on the roof of your car or something.

We were trying strawberries but they didn't take.

That's tough. Strawberries aren't easy. So far you're batting good.

There was a pack of kiwi berry seeds we got, and none of them did anything.

Good for you, you're better off.

No kiwis?

Yah. Too weird. Have you harvested any lettuce?

We did and then some squirrels took care of the rest of it.

Squirrels are evil.

We found this spray that smells like blood and garlic that's supposed to ward them off.

And then you won't want to eat your own lettuce.

Yeah that's the problem.

See if you can bum some chicken wire somewhere and make a little cage to put over the plants.

Any last tips?

The bottom line: See if you can get into a community garden, and once you get in, go there at 9 a.m. the first Saturday and make every friend you can. Ask them to hold your hand the first year. And in your backyard be realistic about sun, be realistic about what's happening back there, and if it's a good area and you're willing to invest in good non-soil to put in the pots, then you can grow some beautiful peppers and salad greens in the spring and fall, and in Center City you may be able to grow salad greens outdoors in unprotected containers inside a backyard over the winter if they get enough sun.

There's two specific seasons. There's plants that despise cold and love the warm summer, they're usually the things we think of as gardening: tomatoes, peppers, melons, cucumbers, eggplant, y'know, that kind of stuff. But then there's plants that can't take summer that are fabulous but we can't grow them with the other ones. But we can use those containers or garden beds during the off-season. You've found one of the best ones, which is garlic. You can put it in after you pull out your tomatoes, and by the time you harvest it, you'll have time to put something else in, so then you use that spot for more than one crop. But in spring and fall, lettuce, spinach, broccoli, all the cabbage plants, pansies are the best edible flower there is, you can only grow these in cool weather. That's how you double your harvest, not by crowding things in, but by growing more months of the year.

(bhoward@citypaper.net)

Mike McGrath will give a free talk on growing tomatoes Wed., May 5, 7-9 p.m., at William Penn Charter School, 3000 W. School House Lane, 215-844-3460, penncharter.com. For more advice from McGrath, visit the the "A to Z Garden Answers" section of whyy.org/garden. To read an extended version of this interview, including McGrath's merciless dressing down of the author for his pathetic gardening techniques, visit citypaper.net/coverstory.