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Hi, I'm Chris Cooper.
Welcome to "The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South."
Thanks for joining us.
Spring Fling, the Memphis Area Master Gardener's big event is
just around the corner.
So today we're gonna give you a sneak preview and show you how
to make mini-hypertufa.
And Walter Battle is here with tips on getting our vegetable
gardens in shape for spring planting.
All of that and more is coming up next on "The Family Plot:
Gardening in the Mid-South" so stay with us.
(female announcer) This is a production of WKNO - Memphis.
Production funding for "The Family Plot: Gardening in the
Mid-South" is provided by Good Winds Landscape and Garden
Center in Germantown since 1943 and continuing to offer it's
plants for successful gardening with seven greenhouses and three
acres of plants plus comprehensive landscape
services..
[soft music] ♪♪♪
[theme music] ♪♪♪
Hi, welcome to "The Family Plot.'
I'm Chris Cooper.
Joining me today are master gardeners Callie Bolyard.
Hi, Chris.
Carol Watkins.
Hi, Chris.
Thank you ladies for joining me.
Okay, we're gonna talk about Spring Fling.
So Ms. Carol, what do we need to know?
Date, location times?
Let's tell the people.
Spring Fling, that's the Memphis Area Master Gardeners' 10th
garden festival, and it's gonna be Friday and Staurday,
March 21 and 22 at the Agricenter red barn.
Okay.
It'll be from 9:00 to 5:00 both days.
What about admission?
Is it free or do they have to pay?
It's free for the whole family!
So it's a great event.
And we hope everybody comes out.
Good!
We like free.
Alright, so we definitely hope that you come out.
Now Ms. Callie, I understand you're gonna be making
mini-hypertufa.
That's right!
Okay, now is this something you're gonna do or are people
going to do it themselves or how does that work?
Well we were going to demonstrate it but the Spring
Fling grew so much that I was bumped off the demonstration
table, which is fine with me.
And I'm going to demonstrate it right here.
We're going to have some of these little mini-hypertufas.
This little plant is a Bromeliad.
And we obtained a bunch of them and they're also in my little
fairy garden here.
And these are Bromeliads, too.
So we decided to come up with a little mini-hypertufa.
And what you're going to do is you're going to get one of
these.
If you'd like to buy one, it's a do-it-yourself mini-tufa bag.
And inside the mini-tufa bag, this is what you get.
That's what we need.
It's a do it yourself.
Well we always like to involve the public,
teach them something new, get them involved with what we're
doing in master gardening.
The neat thing about hypertufa is that it's an artifical rock.
It could be made in many different sizes.
All you need is a mold and you can make whatever kind of pot
you want to make.
Okay.
So we've got our medium.
It's vermiculite, portland cement and some pete moss.
And it's all mixed up.
So all you have to do is follow the directions right here.
They're right here.
You've got to follow them.
Follow the directions!
And what I've done was I've mixed up this mix right here
with the water.
And I've mixed it with a stick.
You don't want to use a lot of good pot or a good spoon because
it will dry.
Let me ask you this.
How much water do we need to put in there?
Well I wrote on the directions one to two but you're not gonna
use all of the water.
You're going to make sure that the consistency is that of..
Let me get you some.
One to two what?
Cups of water.
Cups!
I'm sorry -- cups of water.
You want it to be wet enough where it holds but not wet where
it's dripping.
Okay.
And you want it the consistency of like cottage cheese.
So what you're gonna do is once you mix it up,
you just throw it in here.
And I'm gonna use my hand although it says to use gloves.
Alright.
You're just gonna put it in here like this.
You forgot to bring those gloves.
I did, I know.
I'm not a good instruction person.
And once you do that, you're going to with your finger,
with whatever you want -- a spoon.
You can dig out the length, the distance,
the size of what you want to make the hole.
Okay.
You're going to wrap it and it's going to be a little wet.
So you don't want it too wet.
But you just put your finger on there,
make a hole, put a spoon in there,
make a hole.
You're gonna put it in a bag.
Wrap it up like this and put it on the shelf somewhere.
Wait 24 hours.
Twenty-four hours?
Twenty-four hours.
You're gonna bring it back.
Take a look.
You're gonna feel it.
And then you're gonna just..
It's dry?
It's dry.
Dry?
Yes, it is!
And you can just rip off the container.
I mean I put this one in here.
But you can rip off the container.
And here's your little mini-tufa.
And that's what this looks like right there.
We'll be selling these mini-hypertufas or you can buy
the bag and make it yourself.
Now you will be supplying the Bromeliads or somebody else will
be doing that?
We have that at our craft booth.
We have made bird houses.
We have a committee of craft people that are really talented.
And we've made fairy gardens, which are very popular.
Let's take a look at that fairy garden.
Here ya go.
And what this is is another Bromeliad.
Okay.
And it's a different kind.
And we call them air plants.
Air plants.
So all you need to go to take care of an air plant is just
spritz it with water one time a week.
And you can buy little benches at different places.
You can buy the chickens, rocks I picked up from the ground.
And you've got your own little hypertufa mini fairy garden
also.
We also have the bird feeder.
And you can put a hook on that.
Oh, that's the birdfeeder!
Okay.
And I made it real pretty.
And we've got some wreaths and some sayings and I hope you'll
come out and join us in the master craft booth.
We've got a lot of vendors, a lot of plant vendors.
So even if you want to buy the kit,
we have a seed vendor I know that will be there.
And we have a pond guy coming out to show us some waterless
ponds.
Okay.
We have..
Well vendors..
Yeah, let's talk about those.
Let's do.
We have really well-known regional nurseries and gardens.
We have handmade bird houses, right?
I think he comes every year.
And we have metal yard art.
We have outdoor furniture and accessories.
We have stepping stones, decorative pots.
And you know we have plants, plants and more plants.
So we have lots of plants for sale.
And I like to tell everybody these are good plants because
they're from master gardeners.
So they've been taken care of.
They really have.
And you get them for a really good price.
You sure do.
And will those plants be labeled so people will know what they
are?
They are.
In fact, I can't remember all the information that's on the
label.
But it'll be the latin name and the common name and how to take
care of it whether it needs sun or shade.
Good, good.
And that should help the people out a lot.
Now what about kids?
What are the kids going to be doing at Spring Fling?
We are real excited this year about the kids area,
the youth area.
We've actually expanded that area and we have over 17
activites for the kids.
Seventeen?!
Yes.
Alright.
I didn't bring that list but you can actually see it on our
website, Memphis-area- master-gardeners-dot-org.
And you can see all the information about Spring Fling.
Alright.
Yeah, we gotta get the kids involved.
They're always involved.
Yeah, the master gardeners of tomorrow is what they call the
little kids.
We'll have a balloon lady who's making little insects and
creatures that the kids can watch her and then take them
home.
Those are cool.
I saw that last year.
Yeah, I think I wanted one.
[laughter]
Alright, those are pretty cool.
Now let me ask you about this.
What about speakers?
Let's talk about some of the speakers that we're gonna have.
We have almost 20 speakers and demonstrations going on for
Spring Fling.
We have James Farmer.
He's a national garden designer and author of A Time to Plant.
We have Cindy Shapton and she is an herb farm owner and the
author of The Cracked Pot Gardener.
Okay.
Ben Smith, the owner and chef of Tsunami will be there.
And he'll be showing us how to cook local produce.
We've got Emily Lux from Whole Foods and Bonnie Delashmit from
L'Ecole Culinairy school.
That's right here in town!
That's right!
And they'll be showing us how also to cook our fresh produce.
So the theme of Spring Fling is get out and grow.
So we're talking about vegetable gardening.
We're talking about cooking.
We're talking about buying produce and then learning how to
cook it and serve it to your family.
And of course Dale Skaggs will be here from the director of
horticulture at the Dixon.
He'll be talking to us about new plants and old stand-bys.
And of course you, Dr. Cooper.
You'll be talking about managing a smart yard.
Good!
Did you know that you were talking about that?
I do now!
[laughter]
I did and I'm looking forward to it.
And the demos!
We have master gardeners that will be doing demos in a special
demo tent.
We've got drift irrigation, learning about different garden
tools and how to take care of them.
We have perennials, how to plant and divide them.
I'm always needing more information on that.
Terrariums -- building terrariums.
Herb garden designs.
We've got inviting your birds in to your backyard.
Okay, well it sounds like a lot of good events and activities.
Website one more time!
The website--memphis-area- master-gardeners- dot-org.
Alright, we look forward to seeing you guys there.
Thank you!
Okay, thank you!
There are a number of gardening events going on in the next
couple of weeks.
Here are just a few that might interest you.
[theme music] ♪♪♪
Alright, Walter Battle is here.
Walter is the county director in Haywood county.
And he's our resident vegetable guy.
Ha, ha, ha.
How about that?
That sounds pretty good.
Alright.
Well look, let's educate our people on vegetable gardens.
We have some questions here that I'm gonna ask.
So what are some of the things we need to be doing this time of
the year in our vegetable gardens?
Right now for those who use herbicides,
we need to be spraying our non-selective type herbicides,
something that contains glyphosate to kill off all those
old, you know, weeds that winter that's been kind of hanging
around.
And then after you do that, you'll also want to put down
something -- some type of pre-emergent,
probably contains trifluralin in it.
And by the way, for organic gardeners there is a product
made by Preen, a pre-emergent, that's organic.
It contains corn gluten meal.
That's right, that's right.
So then they can use that and that'll work.
Okay and that'll work for them?
Mhm.
Get rid of all of those chickweed that's out there right
now.
All that stuff.
Yeah.
And you know you can eat some of those as well.
Yes, you can eat them as a salad!
We've actually tried some of that here!
That's right, that's right.
Okay.
Now let's talk about wildlife damage.
We get a lot of those questions at the office.
I'm sure you are too.
So how do we deal with the rabbits and the deer and
everything else?
Well let me focus on deer because we get a lot of that.
And this is what I've been told of -- that you can use.
And we tried this at the Milan Experiment Station.
You can use fragrant soaps.
Now that'll be something probably like Irish Spring or
Coast, something that really gives off a fragrance.
Now the thing with that is I'm pretty sure that it kind of,
you know, wears off over time.
So you might have to go out there and put another bar or two
out there in the process.
Now another thing that we also get a lot of calls on is
raccoons.
We get a lot of that.
And one thing that I tell people later on this summer is to plant
pumpkins around your garden.
Because pumpkins have those spiny vines.
And the raccoons, which have very tender feet,
they kind of hate to walk across those vines.
So that's kind of one way you can kind of minimize their
damage.
Okay.
I've actually heard that before, too.
Yeah, because they have the tender paws.
Mhm, real tender paws.
Okay, so that'll be your wildlife damage.
Okay.
Now what about the major early season pests that we need to
look out for?
And I'm sure thats pests, plural.
There's gonna be a lot of those out there.
Basically it's two for right now.
Aphids would be one because they can survive cold temperatures
pretty decent.
So..
And all you have to do as far as they're concerned,
you can just wash them off or whatever.
But the other one is the cut worm.
And you know we will be planting our sweet corn pretty soon.
And when you go out there and you find a lot of sweet corn
stalks that's just laid over from the night before,
if you dig around the base, you're gonna find this little
probably about one and a half inch worm that's gonna be laying
there.
And basically, they do this activity at night by the way.
And if and when you dig it up, just squish him and he won't be
a problem anymore.
So that's what I tell people to do.
You just have to sacrifice a few plants.
Dig up the ones that's doing it and that'll take care of the
problem.
And here's the thing about them, too.
They make clean cuts.
Yes!
I mean this..
You couldn't do it better with some pruners.
I mean it's leaves also.
And it will do that to your tomato plant.
Yes, and peppers!
And peppers, that's right.
They sure will.
Okay, what practice are you going to urge gardeners to do
this year?
This year I'm really gonna focus on teaching about I-P-M
practices.
Basically, something that started in the field crops but
I'm gonna bring it down more to the home garden level.
Okay.
Since we're going to break it down to the home garden level,
what's I-P-M?
Okay, it stands for integrated pest management.
Okay.
And what it really involves is scouting your garden.
Make sure that you're out there every day or so looking for
bugs, looking for egg masses.
And the benefits of it is that you'll get ahead of your
diseases, your insects.
And that'll kind of, you know, make you make more time with,
I guess, appropriate sprays so to speak.
And that can kind of limit a lot of the chemicals that we use
because we won't be just using them at random.
Right.
So that's kind of what I'm gonna really teach about.
And that's good.
That's good.
Because there are a lot of people out there that don't want
to use a lot of chemicals.
That's right, that's right.
I don't like using a lot of chemicals.
But before I lose a crop, you know,
I will do it.
Some years I can get the crops through,
my garden through without using chemicals.
Some years I can't.
So it kind of depends on the year-to-year basis.
Okay.
Alright so what are some easy, sustainable practices that we
need to implement?
Well again, one, of course, would be the I-P-M and,
you know, scouting.
Another one would, I think, would also be,
you know, cleaning your garden out real good,
you know, tilling at a proper time when the soil temperatures
are warm.
All those are good practices.
Not planting things too early or too late.
And just, you know, using, you know,
things that prevent things from happening such as mulch,
which will control your weeds, keep the temperature
appropriate.
Those are some good, sustainable practices.
Limit your water use.
You know I like to see people use soaker hoses.
And also, if you're gonna use overhead irrigation,
a good old pie pan, you know is a great technique here.
Just take you a bunch of one inch pie pans.
Place them throughout your garden.
Turn on your irrigation system.
And when those pans fill up, guess what?
You've put down the amount of water.
So that's just an easy, cheap way to do that.
How about that?
That's a good, sustainable practice.
Old pie pans!
See that out in the country!
That's right.
You know, eat the pie and then use it.
There you go!
Okay, we've got about a minute for this last one,
which is a good one.
Frost protection for plants.
It has been a cold winter for us.
Yes, it has.
So frost protection?
And those who know me know that I'm very frugal with money.
You know I use pie pans, right?
What I use a lot of times..
I'll take a gallon milk jug once I've set my tomato plants out,
whatever.
And on nights that we suspect frost and all that,
I just simply cut those jugs in half and place them over my
plants.
As the plants get a little bigger,
I might go to a five-gallon bucket.
So it just kind of depends on the situation.
I have also used in things that are planted and grew,
I have a big tar podium that I carry out there.
And you know my neighbors fuss about my yard looking a little
bad sometimes.
But once the vegetables start growing,
I start giving them vegetables.
They're happy.
They're pretty happy with it?
Yeah, they're pretty happy with it.
Okay, well thanks for the information,
Walter.
That's real good.
Frugal -- that's the word.
Okay.
Now here's our Q and A session.
And ladies, feel free to join us.
Okay?
Alright, here's the first question.
Why do the flowers on my daffodils become smaller each
year?
And that's the question we get this time of year because the
daffodils are actually up.
That's right.
That's why I saw mine peeping.
Mine are coming out.
Well basically it really can be..
Excessive nitrogen can cause this.
Also it would be interesting because I know daffodils do not
like a lot of water.
And I know last year we did have,
you know, a lot of rain last year.
So I don't know if that could have played a role in it as
well.
And also, it could be a calcium defenciency there.
Because when you think about it, daffodils tend to grow around
limestone rock.
You found them a lot up in Middle Tennessee around those
areas.
So I would imagine it could be that.
Okay.
I'm gonna throw this one out there,
too.
It could be overcrowding.
Okay, yes.
You know if they've been in the ground five or six years,
you hadn't divided them, then that's going to be the problem.
Mhm.
Of course those flowers, each year they're going to get
smaller and smaller becasue they're growing more and more
bulbs.
So could be over crowding and you might want to go ahead and
divide those.
Do you ladies have daffodils at home?
Our whole neighborhood is full of daffodils.
And I've thought about that because I have them.
And I just moved in to this neighborhood and I have no idea
if my bulbs have been divided anytime soon.
So that's something I need to think about.
Yeah, you'll find out here pretty soon when they come up.
Is there a test you can take for the soil to see if it's too much
calcium?
Oh yes, your basic soil test.
How would you know?
And then, of course, the soils labw ill send you back the
results.
And they will let you know if you need to lime it or if it
doesn't need lime as well as the nitrogen,
phosphorus and potassium levels.
Yeah, so you can do that, which is something that we definitely
do recommend.
I say it a lot on this show.
Soil test!
Why guess?
Soil test!
Okay, here's our next question.
The tops of my house plant pots are coated with a crust.
What is that?
What do you think that is?
Well it could be some type of calcified materials.
And also it could be some type of salts that have built up.
I would just recommend just changing the soil so that it
seems like it's a house plant type scenario.
That might be the answer.
Yeah.
I have house plants at home and what happens is if you fertilize
them, fertilizers are just salt.
Mhm.
So you know once it dries out, it's gonna leave that little
ring of crust right around that pot.
And what you can do is..
I, you know, I go up to the next pot size.
I just drop it in some warm water and just kind of clean it
up.
Do you do anything different, ladies?
Leach all.
Really leach everything out of it because that's what it is.
It's a build up of salts.
So you need to leach it out.
Right.
And I give mine a real good flush is what I do,
right over the sink.
Just kind of let the water run right through it.
That's what I usually do.
I use a sponge and just even clean off the leaves and
everything every once in a while.
Yeah because you don't want your leaves to touch that salt
because, you know, it'll cause that leaf to die.
Mhm.
Because it is salt and salt actually draws water,
you know, from a tissue.
It has water in it.
So alright.
Here's the next question.
I have these green looking bugs all over my collards.
What is it and how do I get rid of them?
Because we don't want them on our collards.
We don't want to cook them.
They have the green bugs on them,
Walt.
It could be extra protein.
[laughter]
I'm pretty sure it's aphids.
Yeah.
And you can just take your garden hose and just spray them
off.
But for those who want to go the chemical route,
malathion will knock them out.
But let me tell you this.
It's gonna be a seven day harvest description.
So just read the label.
As always, read your label.
But just kind of remember and you'll be fine.
Read the label on that.
I can get you something else too that can work.
Insecticidal soap, you know, will work fairly well for your
aphids.
Again, just a heavy stream of water,
just knock them off.
That way you don't have to worry about chemicals or anything like
that.
And while we have a little time left,
let's go back to that I-P-M practice,
which is why it's good to look underneath the leaves.
That's right.
Because that's where a lot of your bugs hang out.
Exactly!
I mean they're smart.
That's right.
You know, so you go to spray over the top.
And guess what.
It's gonna go right under the bottom and kind of hide out.
And then they'll come back once you finish.
So can you expand just a little bit more on that?
Well yes, it's also like that even with the shrubbery.
Always, you know, always spray from the bottom up.
I take my sprayer and you know when everybody needs to spray my
azaleas or whatever.
Because like I said, they're smart.
They're gonna hang out where they can't be seen.
They're gonna hide out where the ladybugs can't find them.
So, yes.
Also looking at sustainability, I would like to expand on it
just a little bit more in that, you know,
they give us these great statistics all the time that by
the year 2050, food production must double.
And they say that 70% of that will be taken care of with
technological advances.
So we have to be sustainable, you know,
and that starts even with the home garden stuff as well as the
big major crop production systems.
So we need to look at ways to be sustainable and kind of knock
down some of this resistance and all that that we've seen.
Building up with fungicides and insecticides.
Yeah, we're gonna have to learn to be sustainable.
Over in California, they're having problems with droughts.
And of course that raises the prices on our fruits and
vegetables.
So alright, well thanks everybody.
We're out of time.
Remember we love to hear from you.
Send us a letter or an email with your gardening questions.
Send your e-mail to family-plot-at-wkno-dot-org.
The mailing address is Family Plot,
7151 Cherry Farms road, Cordova, Tennessee,
38016.
You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
That's all we have time for today.
Thanks for watching.
I'm Chris Cooper.
Be sure to join us next time for "The Family Plot: Gardening in
the Mid-South."
Be safe!
[theme music] ♪♪♪
(female announcer) Production funding for "The
Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South" is provided by Good
Winds Landscape and Garden Center in Germantown since 1943
and continuing to offer it's plants for successful gardening
with seven greenhouses and three acres of plants plus
comprehensive landscape services..
CLOSED CAPTIONING PROVIDED BY WKNO-MEMPHIS.