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Hi, thanks for joining us and welcome to 'The Family Plot:
Gardening in the Mid-South'.
There's an old saying that April showers bring May flowers.
And if you install a rain barrel, you can re use that
water, help the environment and save some money.
You can also save money by using fertilizer and other garden
chemicals properly.
And that's what we're talking about today on 'The Family Plot:
Gardening in the Mid-South'.
So stay with us.
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.
♪♪♪
Hi, welcome to 'The Family Plot'.
I'm Chris Cooper.
Joining me today is Chris Masin.
Chris is the storm water engineer for Shelby County.
And Mr D is here.
How's it going today fellas?
Going good.
Alright, before we get started on rain barrels,
we have an email and a photo from William.
This vine comes up all over the place usually through shrubs.
Curently, I try to dig up the roots and that usually breaks it
early in the process.
What is it and how do I get rid of it?
Well Mr William, that will be your air potato vine,
okay?
Common relative is the cinnamon vine.
You can crush up those leaves and it smells like cinnamon,
okay?
It has a tuber root system that looks like a potato.
So hence the air potato vine.
It has the glossy leaves, heart-shaped leaves,
very invasive.
It's a huge problem in Florida, okay?
It's a non-native.
Came this way from Asia, okay?
Grows pretty prolifically, alright?
Doesn't have any tendrels so it uses your shrubs for support,
fences, trellises for support, okay?
And as far as getting rid of it, what do you think about that Mr
D?
You know, the only thing I can think of other than mechanical
removal, you know, going down and finding that tuber and
digging it up is probably using one of the glyphosate materials,
Round-up, something like that.
Of course you've got to be very careful if it's in,
you know, in your shrubs and in your desirable plants.
And one of the little tricks that I've learned in the past is
to put on a pair of rubber gloves and then put a pair of
cotton gloves over your rubber gloves and dip that hand in a
concentrated solution of the glyphosate and just kind of wipe
it, rub it on the plant or I guess you could use a paint
brush or...
Yeah, I always tell people a small paint brush.
Anything like that.
Any way that you can concentrate,
you know, that material just on the plant that you want to kill
because glyphosate for the most part is non-selective and it
will kill anything you put it on.
Alright, that's good info.
Okay, again, very invasive so you definitely want to get rid
of it.
It actually grows in full sun and moderate shade.
Alright, so there's your air potato vine Mr William.
Thanks for the question.
Alright, Chris, why put a rain barrel in your yard?
And you know what?
Rain barrels are popular.
Everywhere I go now, people are asking about rain barrels.
So why do we even need rain barrels?
Well, we ask that question in our new workshops.
And the answers that we get from the attendees usually break down
in to two different categories.
The first one if your environmental reasons.
Rain barrels work because they re-establish the natural
hydrology.
They use the water where it lands right there at the source
rather before it turns in to run off.
And that prevents flooding downstream,
erosion and pollutants from being picked up,
you know, such as sediment, fertilizers,
herbicides, pesticides and all the nasty chemicals like,
you know, oil and trash, hydrolic fluid,
brake dust, stuff like that.
And then one thing we don't really think about is thermal
pollution.
As the rain hits your hot roof and goes down the concrete and
down the black asphalt drive ways and stuff like that,
it picks up a lot of heat.
And if that goes directly in to the streams,
that can really cause harm to the environment,
too.
And then the second reason is personal reasons.
Of course, it saves money.
You don't have to pay for that water.
But ti saves you money in a different way to because your
sewer bill is based off of your water bill.
There's not a seperate meter for your sewer so if you're saving
water by not using water in your house,
then you also don't get charged the sewer bill for it.
And then of course that's a good source of water that doesn't
have flouride and chemicals put in it which can actually harm
the plants over a long period of time of concentration.
And now a days, it's just like you said.
It seems to be the coolest thing to do.
Our gardens not complete unless you have that rain barrel in it.
Yeah, like I said, we're getting a lot of questions about the
rain barrels because a lot of people came to your
presentation.
And I understand that you sold out of a lot of your rain
barrels that you brought.
Yes, we had the Spring Fling event and we actually had 20
rain barrels that we made up.
And we're able to sell them for the hardware,
$24.50.
But we sold 21 of them and we only had 20.
So I had to get rid of our demonstration barrel.
So making a new one up right now that you have.
Pretty good, huh?
Also a good way to recycle barrels.
That's right!
It saves the environment that way.
Now how would I go about putting together a rain barrel?
And I know we have one right here.
Well before you put it together or you can buy them or you can
put them together, you want to consider what kind of rain
barrel you need, where it's going to go,
you know, what you're going to be using it for,
how much water you're going to generate.
So if you're going to be just doing a couple of potted
tomatoes or, you know, bird bath or something like that,
you want to have a smaller barrel.
And you think about the roof area that you're generating
from, how much water you're going to generate.
And if you got a big large area, you're going to be generating
hundreds of gallons of water from a typical rain storm,
then you want to make sure that you're going to have proper
place for that over flow to go.
And then you think about safety.
You know, a full barrels going to way over 400 pounds.
You don't want it some place where it's going to get hit and
knocked over and start crushing things.
And if you have young kids or grand kids or something in the
yard, you want to be able to make sure that it's a safe
location.
Think about, you know, making things mosquito proof and just
animal proof because little critters want to get in there
and get a drink of water, too during the summer months.
Now as far as the moquitos go, Mr D,
I'm pretty sure we can use those BT dunks.
Put them in there and they'll be pretty safe,
don't you think?
Right, you can do that.
But if you have it sealed up like that,
I don't think the mosquitos can get in there to breathe.
And if you're using an open top barrel,
you're going to put a screen over the top instead of the
sealed one like we have here, they have actually the
mosqutio-proof screens.
And if you go to one of the big box stores to buy a screen,
you'll actually see a symbol with the mosquito on it and a
slash through it.
That's the type of screen that you want to get so that they
can't get in there.
Now where would people go to buy rain barrels if they can't get
one from you though?
If you go off the internet, you'll find hundreds of
different sources.
And we do cover that in our workshop,
all the different kinds.
They have some that have plants in the top.
And there's advantages and disadvantages to everything,
you know, from the wood barrels to plastic barrels.
So we go through the things that you want to consider when buying
the type of rain barrel you're going to get.
Okay, now how easy is it to put it together though?
Because I've gotten that question,
too.
Can I do this?
Can the average homeowner do this?
So is it pretty easy to do?
Yes, depending on the kind that you're doing but it's basically
just a couple holes and some, you know,
wrenches and hardware and screwing things together and
putting a little epoxy glue on there and silicon.
And it's not really very difficult.
Okay, now what about maintenance?
What about up-keep?
Maintenance and up-keep.
Basically you want to make sure that you're using the water
before the next rain because if you're not using the water,
then it's not doing any good.
But basically you want to check for leaks everytime that you're
using it, opening up the spigot or something like that,
making sure that it's not shifting because like I said,
that barrels very heavy and it's going to want to compact that
base.
And if it starts leaning or something,
you'll have to make some adjustments.
And then basically at the end of the season,
you'll want to open the spigot, drain it out.
Just don't leave the water in there.
Memphis is a pretty good area.
We don't have any real long extended freezes where it's
going to break your barrel.
But you're going to want to leave the water in there so just
leave it open.
And then depending on how many trees and stuff you have in the
area, pull out and clean the little filter that's in it and
make sure that it's not going to get a bunch of sediment and junk
on the bottom.
Okay, now did you paint this red barrel yourself?
Yes, we did.
We painted this rain barrel.
Like I said, we had a very good event.
We sold like 21 barrels out of 20.
So I had to give away our old demonstration barrel.
And we're making a new one up.
And our barrels now are donated by Coca-Cola.
So I am in the process of actually trying to make this one
in to a Coke can to honor our donated barrels.
So that's just two cans of spray paint right there and then
getting ready.
So you're an artist, too?
No, not really.
(laughter) Well look, are there going to be anymore workshops,
rain barrel workshops that you know about happening here in
Shelby County?
I don't know of any right now.
I know we want to try to get one together.
This is the season but none scheduled.
Okay and none scheduled.
One last question, too.
There's calculations as far as how much water you're going to
get from your roofs.
Could you explain that quickly, those calculations?
Yeah, basically you use the sqaure footage of your roof.
And that, you can actually get off of like the Shelby County
Registers site if you're in Memphis or Shelby County.
You can look at the roof area that you have and you can
measure it just straight down aerial photos or you can go out
and estimate it.
Don't worry about the slant of the root because it really
doesn't matter if it's real sharp pitch or a low pitch
because what goes in to the barrel is just straight up and
down calculation.
So it's basically the square footage and you convert that in
to a volume to gallons.
And we have, if you go to one of the workshops,
we will teach you the different conversaion factors.
But basically, a 100 by 20 section of rooftop will generate
enough water in an average rain to fill a rain barrel,
55 gallons.
Pretty good.
Alright, thanks for that information,
Chris.
Spring is here and that means there are all kinds of gardening
lectures, seminars and other events are going on all over the
area.
Here are just a few that might interest you.
♪♪♪
Alright Mr D, let's talk about putting nitrogen on our raised
beds.
Where do we need to start?
Time to do that.
Well the first thing, we go back and dig out that soil test.
That's right.
And if you recall, the soil test recommended that we apply about
five pounds of 34-0-0 or 27-0-0 of nitrogen fertilizer per
thousand sqaure feet.
And we calculated the size of our beds and I think the largest
bed that we have is only 80 square feet.
And so when we broke that amount down and we used algebra that we
learned back in..
Had to break out the math.
And it came to about six and a half ounces of this 34-0-0 that
we have here that we need for the largest bed.
And then for the small beds, both of them are only 32 square
feet and we only need about two and a half ounces for the small
beds.
And the fertilizer comes in 33 pound bag.
So this is about all we're going to need for one of the beds and
just a little bit more for the others.
But I want to stress that the nitrogen fertilizer that we're
putting out there is only going to be out there for four to six
weeks.
And this is not a case of where a little does a little good and
a lot does a lot of good because as you've mentioned,
Chris, if you out too much out there,
it is going to leach in to the groundwater or it's going to
contaminate the surface water run-off and contaminate surface
water.
So it's very important.
And it also can kill plants because this is a pretty hot
fertilizer.
And if you put more than you need,
it can damage your plants also.
Definitely.
But in order for us to get this amount evenly spread over that
bed, the way I'm going to do it is put it in a pitcher of water,
a couple of quarts of water, stir it up and mix it.
The nitrogen is water soluble so it will dissolve.
It will go in to solution.
And the inert ingredients will still settle to the bottom but
it's not no big deal.
So that's what we're going to do.
We're going to put, you know, six and a half ounces of
fertilizer on the big beds and a smaller amount on the other
beds.
The soil tests indicated that we had extremely high levels of
phosphourus, extremely high levels of potassium and high
levels of phosphorus.
So we do not need to add those ingredients.
And I would say that we would follow this recommendation,
you know, this year and for the next couple of years until we
get ready to do another soil test.
Okay, this is 34-0-0.
Just explain to the people again what you would see on a
fertilizer bag.
That's right, 34-0-0.
First number is nitrogen.
Second number is phosphorus.
Third number is potassium.
That's all we need!
And that's not going to cost very much,
you know.
And I've got in that 33 pound bag of fertilizer,
I'll probably have enough fertilizer to fertilize these
beds for the next 150 years.
Well, maybe not quite that much.
(laughter) Will you be around to do that?
I don't think so.
So again, let's explain.
You're going to put this watering can or something,
shake it up.
I've got a large pitcher and I'm going to just put about two,
two and a half, three quarts of water in that pitcher and I'm
going to pour this in it.
And I'm going to stir it and get it in the solution.
And then I'm going to walk alongside the beds and sprinkle
that water there.
I would put it in a sprayer but because of the inert ingredients
that don't dissolve, it would clog my sprayer up.
So I'm just going to sprinkle that on the beds and I'm going
to try to put about half of it out going one way and half of it
out going the other way.
And then if I have a little left,
I'm going to try to put about half of it out.
And keep putting half of it out until I run out.
And that way, it will be pretty evenly spread.
To just sprinkle this dry material out will be very hard
to evenly spread that because if I tried to spread this out over
that, what?
20-foot long bed.
I would probably run out of fertilizer at about 18 feet.
So that means I've over fertilized,
you know, one end of the bed and under-fertilizer the other end
of the bed.
A little bit of a challenge.
Not as simple as putting it in a spreader and going acrtoss your
yard or your farmer's field.
Yeah, we defintiely going to see how that's going to work out for
ya.
It will work.
Okay, let me ask you a question about the soil test itself.
So we're recommending it to get your soil tested every three to
five years.
So what do you do in the mean time?
Well, you just remember that the phosphorus,
especially, is very, very stable.
Potassium to a little lesser extent.
But both of these ingredients are very,
very stable.
And if you have extremely high levels of high levels of
phosphorus and potassim in the soil,
it's going to stay there for a while.
Research has pretty much proven that you do not increase yields
by having extremely high or high levels of phosphorus and
potassium being in the soil.
As long as you have medium levels,
medium levels of phosphorus or potassium in the soil,
you will get optimum, maximum yields.
So what we're going to try to do is by following this soil test
for the next at least three years,
we're going to try to reduce those levels of phosphorus and
potassium from very high and high down to medium.
And when we get to medium, we're still okay.
If we're at medium levels, we're probably not going to..
The soil test recommendation will probabbly not recommend
anything until we get, you know, down to low or slightly below
medium levels.
And then we'll recommend.
Then they'll recommend a complete fertilizer like triple
13 or triple 8 or something like that.
But I probably wouldn't follow the complete fertilizer.
If the soil test recommended a complete fertilizer,
I wouldn't follow that over a couple of years probably because
you don't want to keep putting that same amount of phosphorus
out there from when the soil test indicated that the
phosphorus was medium or low because you will build up to
high levels.
And extremly high levels of phosphorus actually interferes
with the uptake of the nutrients.
And if you have extremely high levels of phosphorus,
your plants will look like they're starving to death.
They look like they don't have enough fertilizer when in fact,
they have too much fertilizer.
Wow!
So there's your lesson.
That's right!
Soil testing.
Yeah because we don't want to make Chris happy now.
We don't want all of that going down in to the storm.
Alright, it's Q and A time.
And Chris, if you have a comments or anything like that,
just jump on in with us, okay?
Alright, here's our first viewer email.
Alright, Mr D says, "My asparagus tips are coming up and
I want to know how do you harvest them".
"Do you cut them when they are the length you want or do you
let them grow and then cut?"
There is no foilage right now, just the tips coming up.
Any thoughts on that, Mr D.
My goodness!
I think cut them when they're the tips that you want.
You know, but you don't take them off.
You don't cut all of them.
You let some of them grow, don't you?
Yeah, you definitely want to make sure that they're
well-established before you do that.
But you know what?
Once they reach like six to eight inches in height,
then I'd go ahead and cut them off or snap them off.
And those will be fine.
And if the thing with asparagus is this.
If you're planting them by seed, understand it's going to be
three years until your first harvest,
okay?
If you're using the one-year-old crowns.
you can harvest the next year but limited basis,
okay?
And then you harvest early spring.
You usually havea four to six week window to actually do your
harvesting.
But yeah, six to eight inches in height.
I would go ahead and cut them off,
snap them off, cook them up, do what you have to do.
You should be good.
You need to pickle 'em.
Pickle them?
Pickled asparagus spears are good.
They sure are.
Hadn't had that.
Mhmm.
Outstanding!
Alright, well there you go.
That's the first viewer email.
Here's the second question.
I am starting to see lots of ants in the yard.
How do I get rid of them?
And now Chris, I just heard you say you too.
Starting to see it already.
So Mr D, here's our ant man.
Yeah, you know, we went from having winter that lasted up
until spring to summer.
You know, we haven't had a spring.
We've gone from winter to summer.
And in about three days, I went from having..
I turkey hunt in the woods.
And I went from having frost on the windshield of my truck in
the morning to having ticks on me in three days.
I had ticks on me.
So the critters are out.
The mositures good and the temperatures right.
And they've been waiting.
And so they're ready to go.
So you're going to see all kinds of critters out there.
As far as ants are concerned, I'd probably rely on the baits
and the contact killers, both outdoors.
There are three baits and I'm looking at the insect and
disease control guide, UT's redbook on pest control.
And this was revised in February of 2012.
But I have three baits that are listed,
Spectracide Ant Shield, Outdoor Killing Stakes and Hot Shot
Maxattrax Ant Bait.
And then we have some barrier sprays,
the bifenthrin RTU, beta-cyfluthrin RTU and
Lambda-cyhalothrin RTU.
RTU stands for ready to use.
As always, follow the labeled directions when you put these
products out.
And they ought to do a godo job for you.
Let me ask you about the baits.
On top of the mound or around the mound or where?
Where would you put those baits?
So you're talking about fire ants?
I'm talking about the fire ants.
Now, I'm talking about fire ants.
That questions going to come up soon.
I'm talking about the fire ants.
On the fire ants, don't put it on top of the mound because the
only time the fire ants use the mound as an entrance or an exit
is in the spring time after a rain when the reproductives will
come out of the mound and they will fly off and mate with the
queens and all that or when you disturb it.
And when you disturb it, they will use it as an entrace and an
exit.
The mound, the purpose of the mound is to control the humidity
and temperature for the larvae.
And they will move them up and down in that mound to keep them.
You know, if it's very wet and rainy and hot,
the mound gets big.
If you're in droughts during drought weather,
you almost see no mounds because they've gone deep.
So the entrance and exit holes are two,
three, four feet away from the mound.
So you scatter your baits around the perimeter of the mound and
that's where they'll be coming in and out.
And that's where the workers will pick up the bait.
Alright, here's our next question.
Can I plant my tomatoes and peppers now?
Yep, I'd say yeah.
It's getting about that time.
I'd say stick them out there.
You know, our average frost free date in the Memphis is..
Believe it or not, for Memphis is March 19 and for East Memphis
is actually March 28.
That's the average.
Frost free or kiling frost?
Last late spring freeze.
We could have them in the ground for a while,
couldn't we?
Mhmm, March 19 for Memphis and I think East Memphis,
March 28.
Now if you remember in 2008, in 2008 we did have that last
killing frost.
It was April 15.
I just happen to remember that.
It was 2008.
From that date is a good day to use,
tax day.
Once you've paid your taxes, you've sent your forms in,
go on out and plant your tomatoes and peppers.
And you don't have to worry about replanting them probably.
Now, end of the month, I think it would be a good time to get
your tomatoes and peppers out.
Chris, do you do any gardening?
Do you have any vegetable gardens?
Yes, I do.
I do potted plants.
Okay, good deal.
Alright, one last question, okay?
Can i use Roundup to kill the weeds in my lawn?
Mr D, we talked about this a little earlier.
So give us your thoughts on that.
You know, during the dormant season you can broadcast Roundup
if you have a Bermuda grass lawn.
And that's labeled.
And you can do that.
But now I'd probably be scared to do that.
if the bermuda grass is breaking dormancy..
Which it is in my yard.
Then the Roundup will do a good job of killing your Bermuda
grass probably.
So the only way I would use Roundup now at this point is
probably spot treat, you know, treating individual patches of
weeds that you want to kill keeping in mind that where ever
you put the Roundup, you're probably going to kill
something.
Yeah, be very careful because I have Bermuda at home.
It's starting to come through.
So I guess a lot of your warm season grasses are starting to
come through.
As far as broadcasting Roundup, that's gone with.
Don't do that anymore until the winter time next March.
Alright, be careful with the Roundup.
Thanks for that.
That's all we have time for today.
Don't forget, you can send a letter or an email with your
gardening questions.
The email address is Familyplot-at-Wkno-dot-org.
And the mailing address is Family Plot,
7151 Cherry Farms road, Cordova Tennessee 38016.
I'm Chris Cooper.
Thanks for watching and be sure to join us next time for 'The
Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South'.
Be safe!
♪♪♪
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.