This beaver is literally crawling with bees.

Wow.

I just got a pink onion.

Why not try it?

Our hostas do well in Minnesota.

They like our temperatures.

We have things blooming from early spring to late fall.

It's fun to imagine what this place will be like in a few years.

We've just gotten started.

Hello and welcome to Great Gardening.

I'm your host, Sharon Young.

Thanks for joining us for our first show of 2024.

Tonight, we have a special hourlong episode.

It's still winter, but that doesn't mean we can't help you prepare for the growing season with helpful tips and tricks.

As usual, we have our garden experts with us and they are horticulturist and educator Bob Olen and garden professional Deb Burns Erickson.

We want to hear from gardeners across our region who have questions for our experts.

We have phone volunteers from the Duluth Garden Flower Society here to receive your questions this evening.

Call locally to 18788 2844 or email us at ask at pbs.org.

Tonight's program is also part of our spring fundraiser.

A membership with PBS North gives our viewers an opportunity to support great gardening, PBS North and a host of other programs we can broadcast.

Donations can be sent in the same contact information on your screen.

Let's begin tonight's show with the Garden tour.

In 2023, we visited the gardens of Lee Iverson.

She's an avid gardener from Hibbing who cultivates diverse front and back yard spaces.

Let's take a look.

Hi, my name is Lee Iverson.

We're in Hibbing, Minnesota, and I'm here to share my perennial gardens with you.

And I welcome you.

Well, my husband and I have lived here for right around 30 years, and when we moved in, there was really no gardens here at all.

And I had no gardening experience as a young new homeowner.

I wanted some flowers.

I planted a little garden outside my back door with just annual gardening.

Getting your soul into your paws.

Gardening is addictive, and soon I wanted another garden.

And another garden and another garden.

I joined the Chisholm Giving Garden Club, which helped me immensely.

These front gardens were a really big step for me.

Stepping out of your box, realizing that anybody who drives by or walks by is going to see what's growing and what's not growing.

This is my campus.

It's been here for years and years.

It will get taller, Grass adds height and some contrast to what else is going on.

And it's maintenance free.

I don't have to deadhead it at all.

This is Cat Mint, the purple.

Not that did attract cats, but it does smell very minty and it spreads.

We started out as a little pot.

Plants have a zillion names.

They have a Latin name, a scientific name, a common name, a local name.

They have a name your grandmother calls them.

These are a violet, but they are also called Johnny jump ups related to the pansy.

They self seed.

And many people say to me, Why did you pull those?

Those are we well know to me they're gorgeous.

Look at the blooms on them are very sweet.

There's some creeping Jenny actually has some blooms are not spectacular but they have little yellow blooms and of course I grow that for again for the texture and the color of the leaf rather than the bloom.

You can see this little guy here.

This is a Rose Campion, and this sells seeds itself.

Sometimes they come out pink.

This is a white and a light pink again.

Welcome to my garden.

I'm not sure where you came from.

This is by area.

It's a bush.

There's actually two types in here.

You can barely tell.

The blooms are just slightly different.

Have the bushes add a nice backdrop to your garden.

It's been a real warm, heartening thing to have gardens in front because my neighbors appreciate it.

People stop, people drive by, people walk by with their dogs.

People tell me, Oh, I come by almost every day to see what's growing in your garden.

And they all appreciate it so much.

You just took a tour of Lee Iverson's Frontyard Garden.

But there's more.

Later in tonight's show, we'll take a look at the blooms and blossoms over backyard space.

Keep calling in your questions and we'll get to them shortly.

But first, Bob is here to summarize last year's climate and predict the year to come.

This should be a lot of fun because we obviously have had some weather extremes and it's going to be the topic of a lot of discussion.

I want to take you back just a little bit.

Remember, it was last winter we had record snowfalls and right up through the the end of March and then suddenly in May, it got extremely dry for us and we had the driest May and June on record.

And then through our mythological summer, which is the time when most plants are doing, they're growing.

We remain very, very dry.

Southern part of our viewing area down the Carlton County, they really had extreme drought in the north.

They had a little bit more moisture, but it was dry everywhere.

So we finished up that season very, very dry and then suddenly in September it started to rain.

So we were seven inches below normal at the end of August and we were three inches above average for the entire year.

So what do you see with averages?

It was a very wet year, except not one.

We really wanted to grow things.

So what does that say about what's coming up here then?

That's the big question on people's minds.

Obviously, this winter has been, again, very remarkable, very limited snowfall at this particular point.

And it's been warmer than average both November and December, extremely warm, above average.

And we cannot really remember a brown Christmas or at least I can't before.

And personal experience out there.

And Christmas Eve, it's raining.

I'm in a raincoat, him in mud boots and I'm down trying to cover my garlic and I'm halfway up my calves in mud and a rain shower.

So that is really remarkable.

And the same kind of pattern continued in both January and February.

Warmer than normal and very limited snowfall.

Now, the remarkable thing is we only had about 16 inches and this is almost the lowest snowfall ever at this point.

Our lowest record of snowfall was 36 and a half inches back in the 1980, 81 year.

We're at 16 now.

So we don't really know what's going to happen in March.

But we get we might be setting another one of these extreme records and I'm not so sure if that's good or bad.

But now the easy part is predicting what's coming this coming growing season that of course, we don't really know that because it tends to fool us all the time.

And obviously we would say get ready to grow peppers and tomatoes and other things because these are warm season crops and a lot of sweet corn.

Maybe it's your sweet corn.

So we'll see what what happens there.

But my advice at this point is be prepared for just about anything, because we really don't know.

It's been surprising us and obviously even some of the long term weather forecasts have been wrong.

The general trends have been right, but we don't know from day to day and month to month.

Now, one of our real concerns is did we break buds in this warm spell that we came through?

And I went around and would ask Deb for her opinions?

Not yet.

Not yet.

This is the remarkable thing and the wonderful thing.

Because if you've broken buds, particularly flower buds on your apples, great trees, that could have been devastating with the cold weather we've had the last couple of nights, maple trees giving a lot of sap.

People pulled up and made sirup.

February 15 rather than March or April 15th this year.

And yet those maple buds are still very tight, which is an indication of the end of the sap run.

So and that's really been my my opinion is day length.

I think Mother Nature and the plants, they know what they're doing and they're going to, according to the day length, be much more triggered in the temperature and the but once we get into those longer days, once we're rolling into March and further into March, then it's going to be a bigger issue.

Could be the science of the physiology behind some of this winter.

Hardiness is really intriguing stuff that we don't completely understand.

Are you saying that the plants know more than the humans do?

Well, in that respect, right.

Or maybe many respects or even like the peach trees, right.

They need snow cover on their roots, you know, because once those roots start to wake up.

But again, I'm going to go with on the day length and the reason we really don't have native apricots, peaches, we have a few exotics, but they tend to pop buds early and then we tend to freeze them down or apples.

We pop them a little bit later.

So hopefully we don't know.

And anyone that does snow, I would kind of challenge them and we'll see if they're records, right?

But I would say be prepared for warm and dry, but also for cool and wet.

At least the wet portion, maybe not the cool because we are definitely in a warming trend here.

It's nice.

Nice propane bills for everyone.

And the great thing is, when we look back at last year's conditions, we didn't have the intense heat.

We were actually cooler.

In the month of July.

We had average daytime temperatures of 74 and June 75, and in July and then about 73 in August.

Just absolutely perfect for growing.

We've got lots of light and it could be that we are setting ourselves up for a tremendous year and potentially a wonderful area to grow many, many things.

And we have the light.

It was always the limitation of temperature and season length.

We're extending our growing season a little bit and with temperatures that aren't extreme but warm, we might be in very good shape for garden period and some other areas.

Yeah, better than hot and dry in the southwest where they experience that way.

So again, we got the light and if we get the cooperative temperatures which we're getting, this could be a very phenomenal place to be.

A gardener of all types want even warm season crops exciting some well things fun.

Let's get to your questions.

Kristen from Carlton is asking about her small big garden in Twin Lakes Township in Carlton County.

That's about 40 feet by 45 feet with permanent plantings of raspberries at the north edge and strawberries at the south edge.

Given our ongoing abnormally dry and likely worsening drought situation, what would you recommend as a good, drought tolerant cover crop and maybe help keep down on weeds like Purslane?

I'm likely to plant only minimal vegetable the season and thought of green manure could be beneficial on various fronts.

What are your thoughts?

Well, a couple of things if I can comment quickly.

First, we don't know.

So there's don't assume that it's going to be a hot and dry and then I'm assuming that she wants she mentioned to cover crop and green manure.

Now that means incorporating this vegetative material into the bed and also something on weed control.

Are your thoughts on weed control would be, but I would I would be doing black poly mulch.

I just like flat poly mulch, you know, I mean, it keeps things more consistently moist.

If she's worried about maybe she doesn't do any extra watering or doesn't have a water source.

But it's amazing cutting out the weed pressure and cutting out the drying of the soil with that poly like Bio 360 that it can really you will grow great crops.

We did tomatoes and peppers last all summer.

We never watered any of them.

We had the best crop we've ever had, so I wouldn't give up.

No.

And I think she can drop transport and certainly into a black plastic mulch, but you really can't seed underneath there.

They need sunlight.

So whatever she's going to seed as a grenade manure crop or as a a cover crop, it has the advantages of ultimately incorporating that organic when it dies down into the soil.

And that's a great reservoir for moisture.

So, you know, a rye crop or a a fall winter winter rye is really exceptional as well.

And then you're going to knock these back one way or another.

You're going to cut them down or eliminate them and you are going to incorporate the organic and that will help.

That's one of the techniques that we're going to talk about for actually helping in dry periods when you don't have good irrigation set up, get some more organic, whether it's your compost or whether it's a green cover crop that you work into the garden.

But I was kind of intrigued.

She's got a big small garden.

Is that kind of like the jumbo shrimp?

Yeah, That's great.

That's perfect.

Yeah.

Thanks.

Bye.

Things.

Do we have a caller that asks about her garlic that's developed fungus during the curing stage?

What should they do with the soil?

Well, fungus during the current, as it should.

She just needs better ventilation.

So that is.

That is probably not specific to the soil garlic.

And we do have a session coming up and growing garlic.

But garlic really is vulnerable to some viral diseases.

So you always want to rotate it.

But I really think she's talking about curing.

She's talking about storage, hang it in a dark, dry place and a little fan doesn't hurt that you're running just to get it drier.

And that eliminates a lot of the the problems with fungi and other things might form on the outside skin of the garlic, and it'll cure it quicker to cure it quicker.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So they come in, you want to dig early?

Don't want to dig too late.

She may have done that this year.

You'd never want have been in September this year when you pulled your garlic because of the moisture we had and maybe she harvested late.

Let's get it out by August 15th get a dried down, hung and then planted again about October 15th.

But this year, man, you could have planted on Christmas Eve and got away with it.

You can still dig?

Yeah.

Alex emailed and asked, How do you prepare apple plum and crab apple trees for the year?

Prepare them.

Prepare.

Right.

Pruning.

Are we talking pruning?

Well, I'm not sure.

I think you can dormant prune.

That's amazing.

When you get dormant Prune even right now can you still?

You could because we haven't broken.

But the key there is when you break.

But do you want to stop because you're no longer dormant So she could clean them up a little bit, prune them?

I don't think there's much necessarily in terms of prep, they really don't need a lot of fertility.

If you're going to use a little fertility, that will come right it bud break and you can use an organic on the upper surface organic fertility a good rich compost or while we're out of manure or you could use some synthetic fertilize just a little bit what is like this don't need a lot of fertility.

Great.

We have a caller that is asking I hear there are new peony variations.

What are the best peonies of this new variation for Duluth?

Pepper.

Hmm.

Interesting.

I have not seen a whole lot available as far as new varieties.

I mean, I suppose there's all kinds of growers everywhere now and they're creating new varieties and they should all be pretty hardy because honestly, every penny is a zone three that I've ever seen.

But I'm interested as far as availability and finding new varieties.

I haven't seen a whole lot available other than small private growers.

Yeah, I would agree.

And just peonies in general have become very popular.

They are beautiful, but they bloom over a short period of time, but hard to get some of that material.

The Duluth Peony, which has wonderful reputation, beautiful, beautiful white flower.

We've been trying to get it for a couple of years.

So if you can find it, let's not worry about hardiness.

Let's just make sure we get it in and don't plant it too deep.

Right?

Right.

And I know that the is it the Minneapolis has a penny Society sale every year and that would be a great place to go to have lots of great information.

But get there early.

I know they sell out relatively quickly especially with the new varieties and they will not be inexpensive.

But you consider they're a perennial.

It'll last for a lifetime if managed properly.

So just take that price and divide it by 25 or 30 years and they look pretty cheap.

And you could start if you don't have any other peonies.

Start with some of that.

Sarah Bernard Some of the less expensive Kansas varieties to see your soil, I mean, your soil should be okay, but you want to put a few in before you really get into the expensive varieties right?

All right.

Keep sending in your questions and we'll get to as many as we can in tonight's hour long show.

In a moment, our membership team is going to ask for your support of PBS North.

And later, Deb will share with us her preparations for 2024.

But first, let's finish our tour of Lee Iverson's Backyard Gardens.

First, I want to tell you about this tree that we took down just last year.

Lovely, huge pine tree that was just too big and beginning to die.

And so we had to have it cut down.

But I purposely asked them to leave the stump so that I could use the stump so the squirrels could still use the stump.

I make my own planters.

We put this up here and from the dining room inside, I can look out and see this lovely pot of petunias.

This is one of my most favorite gardens.

This is my Hosta Shade Garden.

Instead of all using one type of Hosta, I've branched out and done every kind of hosta I could find.

This is the Jurassic Park Hosta, one of my favorites.

It's called a Blue Color.

And you can see a kind of this leaf in particular is sort of blue, at least compared to this one, which looks a little greener.

And look how big it is and how textured it is.

It's tough.

It's almost has a waxy feel.

It takes care of itself and it really does seem prehistoric.

It's just one of my favorite and the fern behind for some height because it's always good to have high these ferns I brought in from the woods.

My husband brought in from the woods and I wasn't sure how they would do, but they they like it here and it helps to hide the air conditioner.

And they're pretty.

Again, a fine leafed texture.

There were a couple of trees back here.

There was a big old birch that had to come down.

My husband and I made garden after garden.

I realize we need a nice place to sit and look at this garden.

And some shade would be nice because there wasn't any shade back here.

And it can get hot.

Here's the funny story.

I have a friend whose son built her pergola just like this, and I ran home one day and I said, You have to come see my friend's pergola.

Hint, hint.

And we went and look at somebody else's pergola.

And my husband came home and within the next couple of weeks he built the deck and the pergola and on top of the pergola is a Virginia Virginia creeper, which is a native plant.

You'll find it in the woods.

Obviously it spreads like crazy because this is all one plant literally takes over.

It gives nice shade on the deck, it gives us space to eat, to hang out, to barbecue, to read, to visit, and just enjoy the gardens again.

We've got the grass.

This may be a little taller than what was in front.

And there's grass behind me.

My husband also built the flower box along the garage to display some petunias in.

Isn't this a fantastic color?

This is called a Spike nard.

You'll find some species of it native here in the woods.

I know I have, but the color is fabulous.

Like a sharp truth.

This green yellow.

And it changes with this.

The amount of sun it gets, it actually like shade, but it gets more sun here, so it gets a brighter green.

Here we have one cone flower.

I'm excited that there's one cone flower out.

Isn't that great?

It's tangled up with the flowers.

But that's that's a lovely, lovely color and a good specimen.

These two specimens are called porcupine grass, whether it's because of the banded colors for they way they feel because they're very stiff and spiky.

I originally started with, I think two of these and now I've spread them around and given them to my neighbors.

These are quite old, I would say almost 20 years old.

And the thing about these porcupine grass is that it's own for I didn't realize when I bought it that it's own four and we're zone three because I'm here in the fence close to a brick house.

It sucks in the heat they've but they've managed to survive And every year I hold my breath as a porcupine.

Grass is going to come back and it takes it a while.

It's very slow, but it does come back.

But I feel lucky that I've been able to keep this going and it's so interesting.

Such an interest in grass.

Gardening is physical and so I'm outside a lot, which I love, but sometimes it's very hot.

The bugs have been quite nasty this year, so it with the heat and the bugs, it's it's sometimes been a challenge.

But I love to be outside and welcome back to Great gardening.

We have more coming up including Devin discussing her preparation methods at Burns Greenhouse Plus.

We'll share upcoming events of interest to gardeners in our region.

But first, let's get back to your questions.

How long can you prune oak, apple pine trees into the spring?

You got a nice mix there.

Yeah, that's a good question, Eric, because what stands out to me really is oak.

You have to be extremely careful.

The others are going to be forgiving.

There's a best time to do it and we want to prune.

Let's start with the apples and other fruit bearing deciduous trees.

Prune them right up until the buds swell and break.

That's a dormant prune.

The pines.

We're going to wait longer.

So that means we're going to prune the apples into maybe early May or something like depending on the year of the pines.

We're going to prune on the new growth pines and spruce, and that'll be probably in June.

So they come on the new growth, and that's when we're going to be shaping and pruning now the oak.

And that's the reason why I'm glad she asked that question.

We're always concerned about Oak World, which is a devastating disease, and we're getting more oak as things warm up, great tree, but you cannot prune those any time there's a window and it's has been typically from April through July when that tree is very vulnerable to the bacterial disease that actually will kill it.

So I'm saying maybe to be we're warming up, let's not prune oak at all between maybe March 15th and July 15th, that window stay away and they can be pruned any time out of that window.

So prune right now, you got a couple of weeks there when you can prune those, but avoid that that springtime period when they're very vulnerable.

Great.

We have an email that's asking hydrangeas what to do with them in the spring after the winter months.

Okay, well, I have an opinion on that.

There are so many new varieties of hydrangeas, and unless you are really you really know what your variety is when it blooms, if it's old wood, if it's new wood, I always go back to I like to shape mine after they're done blooming because you're always safe then.

But I feel like a lot of people start to prune them hard in the fall.

And then if you're doing that, you know, and they.

Oh, easy.

What's the one that never did?

Well, endless summer.

Endless summer, you know, endless bummer, right?

You know, people will get hammering on those in the fall and they're not the wonder.

They don't ever bloom for them.

But I think you really need to look at your varieties and know what your varieties are.

And if you don't have that, that's really good advice because they're different.

New models would take a look at the plant itself and if it's dried out and not green, you can prune down or prune down to the Green Point.

But if there's any tissue that's above ground, that is green, that's going to grow.

You definitely do want to prune that off dry like some of the old originals, the snowballs and so forth.

They're all dried.

They go right down to the ground and they actually prefer a spring prune like that.

And then they will rejuvenate from the roots.

A colors wondering, a color is wondering if we have a cherry tree recommendation for the Woodland area of Duluth.

Sure.

So, Polly, are we talking about I would I would say Bali or Meteor or North Star.

So you really have about three of them Wasabi too.

So you may have four of a meteor.

Mesabi Bali, which is probably the most readily available, right?

It is, it is quite readily available.

And then North Star so we have some good cherries there, not the Bing cherries.

We got to forewarn people that may come if things continue to warm up for me, but I would say those are going to make just great cherries for juice and for other jams and jellies and so forth.

They're wonderful, really good.

Brenda emailed and is having some vining weeds that are all over a sunny woodland property.

They twist around each other on plants and trees in a climbing pattern.

How do I get rid of them?

So I wonder, do you think it could be that cucumber?

Wild cucumber could be because that if you get rid of that right away, but you have to be on it at least mowing near your woodland, getting taking care of that from germination, if that's what it is.

That's easy.

That's easy.

If it's she wants to look at it and work away down to the stem.

You can prune at ground level, but be prepared.

You're going to have to control those sprouts.

So if you're not going to do that chemically, you're going to have to have a thick mulch on there or something like that to keep it from regenerating prune at the bottom and then control the process.

But it's more you could continue.

But mowing.

You're going to continue mowing.

Yes.

Great.

Thank you, Deb.

Thank you, Bob.

Now, Deb, as spring is fast approaching, Burns Greenhouse has been making their own preparations.

Yes, we've been getting ready, getting our soil ready.

And I just thought I would share it with people What we do.

Like, here's our soil, we do our own soil and we pasteurize our soil and we add percolate to it and we bake it 270 degrees and we do about two cubic yards a day.

And then we fill all of our trays with it.

This is we're plugging and seeding and my dad can do that.

So I think a 512 tray, so 512 cells and about 30 seconds to do it.

And then we put it in the germination chamber and we can regulate the heat pretty well, even with LED lights and some nice plastic covers.

And then after we do that, the soil, then we move on to some of the cuttings and sending cuttings into the soil.

So I think our next one is those are the cuttings that we get in and the varieties of cuttings and everything that's available is amazing.

And we get them in from all over the world.

And then we hydrate them and then we stick them and then these are our trees and we just prep our trays and then we stick and we stick and that's our growing room.

And it takes about three weeks at about 65, 68 degrees under bench heat and a mist every 30 minutes.

And then you have wooden cuttings.

And then this is when we bring in rod and cuttings.

They're already voted on certain patented plants.

And then this is about 20,000 that we get on this shipment.

And then the whole family chips in the farm supports the family and the family supports the farm.

And here we unload them and we will be planting them and sticking them and getting all the soil prepared for them out in the greenhouse.

It was a great weather this spring.

And then we have the new varieties that came in a nice new well, that's a new canna.

That's Ghoulardi as new Ghoulardi is new lady Daddy is new.

So all kinds of new stuff.

And oh, that's the hummingbird salvia and new petunias, always new, lots of new colors there.

And tropics, they're bush and tropics.

Calico nature's beautiful, all acacias and then proven winners has a couple of new ones.

New beautiful hibiscus.

It's just gone.

I think they're pushing tropics.

And I understand why.

Because it's been a really, really nice spring.

Maybe we just got lucky.

Thanks to have you make it look so easy to practice in practice.

Let's get back to some more questions.

A caller from Ellie has Swanson.

Variety of grapes, lots of leaves, but not as many grapes as he used to.

Has six that are ten years old and four or eight years old.

What is a good blueberry bush?

Sorry, I think I'm fruits.

Yeah.

No, only in fruit salad.

Yeah.

Not when you're growing them.

I'm sorry.

I think I'm misunderstanding the question.

We'll move on to the next one.

Okay.

What's a good blueberry bush for Germantown area?

Oh, What kind of care is needed?

And how long until you get berries?

Oh, caller from Hermantown.

We love the Minnesota people Kidney.

These this the Minnesota half eyes.

If you want to stay you love that.

Yeah cross between the Michigan blueberries and our native and I know Denver if you have some favorites you spell it well north country and north blue North country North blue and the one that's really yielding is superior as well.

And then North Sky is come back.

North Sky is a shorter one, was used for landscape purposes but also is is a nice but less productive so north place almost north country yeah north sky is in almost left the scene because of low productivity but then the landscapers picked it up as landscape material.

Beautiful blow, beautiful.

We have a berry and then a really nice fall color.

Lots of good choices, I would say.

Hermantown.

You got some heavier soils.

Let's get plenty of acid Sphagnum moss in there.

Makes you got good drainage and full sun, low pitch, full sun and good drainage.

You can grow.

These varieties are good in winter hardy and will last for 30, 40, 50, 60 years straight.

Margaret in Cloquet has more buried questions.

We planted some raspberry bushes last year and they did very well.

When and how do we prune them?

Bob, you've got some new research.

Yeah, we used to.

We used to tell everybody you let them grow and you've got promo codes for canes, and they grow over a two year period.

These are generic rather than fall bearing varieties, but we would always say, let them go through the winter and then prune them back in the spring.

Norse farms did some work out in their primary raspberry growers and small fruit growers out Massachusetts.

They did some work which I think is valid and they say prune and prune in the fall.

So these are going to be the canes that were vegetative this year, the ones that fruited we take right off at ground level, the vegetative canes we're going to cut back in the fall just a bit, and that's going to set them up for next year.

We have good breaking that way.

And they have more inner nodes that will break and flower more and more productive.

So that's why the yields were higher pruning in the fall and pruning in the spring.

Different based on the research that was done by a legitimate company and with help from one of the ag schools there.

Very good.

Darryl emailed us and said he's done with onions sets.

How densely should he show seeds this month for transplanting come spring?

Okay, so the way that that can be tough.

I mean, they talk like it's really easy to seed onions but it isn't always I we do like to direct seed them but we're going to go maybe another week, maybe two weeks, because we do think that the day length again makes a difference.

And I really I mean to this day length, but.

Right.

It depends on what he's growing them in and how tight because you don't want him too tight when he's growing but then you also want good germination and so and and varieties are a little bit you know can make a difference but we just go heavy because we don't always get the best germination and we go in and we transplant and we transplant and we go into like a it's an eight or nine cell, it's a PAX and they're a little bit deeper and so they get better rates on them before you're transplanting them and pulling them apart.

And the onions grow very slowly.

So you're right.

First part of March, make sure you get them in.

They're going to grow slow, but they're going to get a little longer.

So you're going to see them.

You're going to transplant them into the cell pack or something else, and then you're going to have to give them a haircut with just a scissors because they will get too long.

And leggy for you.

Just keep to give them plenty of time, transplant them out.

We like to get in May one, if you can, with those, and we will be able to probably this year.

Then you'll get some real nice onions.

It'll set the seed, gives you plenty of choices, plenty of varieties, which you don't always get with the what they call the sets.

Thank you so much.

Now, Bob, you wanted to share some information about upcoming gardening events.

Sure.

We're going to have some fun.

We're doing our annual spring gardening extravaganzas March 16th.

So we're we knew, of course, there's going to be an early season, so that's why we schedule it early to know the spaces available then.

But March 16th called it Color Your World.

We're going to really look at colors and the implications for both flowers.

So we'll look at the science of color.

We're going to look at the esthetics we've got Adam Swanson that did the beautiful color butterfly mural down on the rotunda there at the depot.

He's going to be one of our speakers.

It's going to take this color.

And then we've got 13 workshops in the afternoon register.

There's a phone number for you there.

But also just Google Signals County extension.

Look at SLC or the Farm and Garden segment.

If you want to get in, we can only handle a little over 200 and we are three quarters full now before we really have started to publicize it much.

So the next one, next opportunity will be on the range Mount Ion March 28th, expanding your garden knowledge.

The people on the range requested heavy on the edibles.

So we're going to do segments on garlic, segments on onions.

We'll talk about varieties growing them, planning them, segments on apples, blueberries.

And then Deb is going to do a segment on cut flowers, which is big stuff this year for big stuff.

He wants to be a cut flower grower.

So she's going to help us out there.

So we're going to have a lot of fun.

Once again, there's a phone number 21874971 20 or the seniors Louis County Extension website get in and register early because there will be literally space limitations on both of these great exciting events, good events and lots of tremendous amount of early interest.

And I think people said when the pandemic went away that gardening would go away.

That hasn't happened.

It's only getting bigger and stronger and which is fun for all of us.

That are working in the industry and enjoy the hobby.

Yeah.

All right.

Let's get back to some more questions.

Back to the question about the Swanson variety of grapes in Italy.

There are lots of leaves, but not as many grapes as he used to.

He has six that are ten years old and four that are eight years old.

Do you have any suggestions on why there's less grapes first?

It's remarkable.

SWANSON Red Swanson was a farmer that that selected varieties on his own and work with the university that was one of the first university introductions.

I'm assuming it's Swanson Red and not noted to be that winter Hardy so he's done a very good yeah I mean it was that yeah so he's done a good job maybe good snow cover up there pruning of course and not enough fruiting I think a little fertility wants there He's got the long days.

I think it's maybe a little bit of a genetic limitation and in view of the fact he's quite a way it's a wine grape and he's quite a ways out of the main primary, growing little fertility in the spring, pruning back properly.

And that's about all I have right.

And you could add some new varieties or get smaller righties and, and yeah, because he's done really well.

Yeah, really, really well I mean go with go with a beta, go with a valiant go with a blue bell.

Those three big introductions that we know are good and hearty and people make wine out of all the beta they see there's not a wine grape, but there's been some wines actually that have won contests with this bit of in there we got hardiness and productivity, Valiant Blue Bell and beta would be the big three all have our cross with our native river grape so they're good and hearty Awesome.

Rory, who is north of Two Harbors, loves growing bleeding hearts, love those bleeding hearts, but has had trouble growing them.

Can you give us some tips?

So north of two harbors, huh?

So away from the lake.

What do you think encompasses iron or organic material?

I'm wondering about that.

And what are we don't know, Shade or sun.

Right, Right.

Bleeding heart.

I hate to say it aren't too difficult to grow.

No, they're not.

They're not.

So I would propagate and they're easy to grow out.

Yeah.

These dry things.

And then maybe as he move them right as he move them, if they're not doing well where they're move them, let's move them.

I think he needs another location.

Either there's poor fertility or poor mix.

Deep shade they don't like, but they'll take partial fruit.

So I would say, and maybe it's a good word of advice if it just isn't working for you.

Let's find another location.

Right.

And there's lots of varieties available that you could just pop in a few.

I mean, they're readily available.

You can leave them and just put some new ones in and there's some great even white varieties and in Valentine and then there's the other lime green.

Yeah.

So there's there's plenty of variability there.

Maybe a little fertility move in the very early spring.

Okay.

Nicole emailed us with two questions.

Is a raised garden bed better for a vegetable or can I plant them right into the ground?

Number two, what is the soil ratio for raised garden bed for vegetables?

Should I add compost?

Yes, absolutely should compost.

We like we like both hate organic, which be your your compost and your acids failing to bugs, your potting soil mix.

And we like some mineral soil in there.

So it's going to be and maybe that question was a ratio and you could look if you have a sandy loan mineral soil, you might look at it at least 50% mineral soil and then the rest organic or even a little higher mineral soil.

I'm an advocate of getting some mineral soil in there because that supplies all the trace nutrients that our peach do not have either can work out real well in the ground or up above if you're real heavy clay or rocky soils and a raised bed will definitely be better for you because you could do on a lighter soil with high inorganic.

And so it'll work out well for you.

But then sometimes there is more watering, more care that's going to go into a raised bed and dry out.

So they're going to dry out a whole lot faster.

So depending on how much time and how much space that you want to put in, I mean, the ground is relatively easy.

That's right.

And it's more stable.

And you could do kind of a hybrid of raising the ground level.

Yeah.

You know, you could do that as well, just raise beds and raise them up.

So we're going to look at two things with this changing climate.

We're going to look at good drainage and good water retention.

That seems like they're opposite items, but organic can be the key to that.

That'll both hold moisture on a light soil and it will actually drain off excess water on a wet.

So because I would anticipate like last year, very dry and suddenly very wet and these rainfall events are characteristic of what we're going through.

Right.

There's supposed to be heavy rain.

Mm.

Thank you.

That's all for great gardening tonight.

You can follow us on our social media channels on Instagram at great Gardening, PBS North and on YouTube at YouTube.com slash great gardening where you can find tonight's episode posted tomorrow.

Thanks, Bob and Deb for your great insights tonight.

And to our members, thank you so much for your continued support of PBS North.

Your contributions help make locally created programs like Great Gardening possible.

We'll return on April 4th with weekly episodes.

But until then, let's take a preview of Beautiful Garden tours We'll see in episodes to come.

I have lived here my whole life.

My whole 81 years in the house is 100 years old, and my grandfather bought it back in 1923.

Between me and myself and my friend, we built the gazebos and the little house and then she decorates them with stuff.

Yeah, stuff Like everything that's here on this property is done by us.

It was all just a bunch of dirt and we added sod and garden.

Foxglove are one of my favorite flowers and so we have a lot of those and they kind of dance in the garden.

It's challenging to grow some of the things that we would like to grow, so we don't have a lot of colorful flowers in the front yard.

We have a ton of hostas.

We are fortunate to live on a a lot, and so that's allowed us to do some interesting things all season long.

There's a lot of bees.

The system is always happy with the bees.

The bees are on everything.

And this time of year with the shrub rose the Ragosa the bumblebees just dive in and swim in the pollen.

It's just a delight to watch them.

They're rolling around on top of each other inside a single flower.

That little sign says Wildflowers welcome here.

We just had that created for us because it's a line of demarcation between the regular plants and the wildflowers, with exceptions with with a few exceptions, yes.

And.