(bright upbeat music) - Hello, and thanks so much for joining us for another episode of Mid-American Gardner.

I'm your host Tinisha Spain, and joining me today are three of our veteran panelists who are here to talk to you about all the things gardening.

So, first we'll have them introduce themselves, and tell you a little bit more about where you can find them in the garden.

So, Ella, we'll start with you.

- I'm Ella Maxwell.

I curently I'm a Master Gardener in Taswell County, and I live up here in Washington, Illinois.

And, I have been working out my garden.

I have a large perennial garden.

And, I also enjoy trees and traps, so I'm gonna try to answer those questions.

- Wonderful, thank you so much.

And John, we'll go to you.

- I'm a John Bodensteiner I'm a Vermilion County Master Gardener.

I live up near Bismarck, just North of Danville.

I've been out in my garden, I've got my peas, radishes, lettuce, onions, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, all planted.

I enjoy a lot.

During the Summer, I enjoy hostas and a lot of perennial shrubs.

- And, last but not least, Jennifer.

- Hi, Jennifer Fishburn, I'm a Horticulture Educator in the Logan Menard segment areas.

So the Springfield is close to the center of the state.

And I oversee our Master Gardener.

Master Naturalist programs here is one of my responsibilities.

I can talk just about anything.

I'm just happy it's spring and I can plant some cool season vegetables.

So, I'll be happy to answer any questions.

- Finally spring, and we fought hard to get here.

So very excited for spring to have finally arrived.

So, all March, we've been talking about different phases of gardening and sort of how to get you ready to get out into the garden when it's time to plant.

And we are officially there.

So, today we're gonna be talking about seedlings transplants and pool season crops.

And all three of these guys are prepared to talk to you about one of those chapters.

So, we've got some Joe....entails to get through first and then we're gonna go into some of those discussions.

So, Ella, what did you bring to share with us today?

- Well, I wanted to let you know that I have started some tomatoes.

This is actually a seed that was saved from a ripe tomato last year.

And given to me from a friend and he said, will you start some tomatoes for me?

And I said, okay, so I did, but you can see that they do have their first true leaves are coming out.

But this is the way that I start my seeds at home, I have them labeled with tape and these are little deli containers.

And, I've used fork to punch holes along each side, so it drains.

And then, I moistened my soil and I seed in, well, we'll take the lid off.

And then I cover it lightly.

So, I just started these, but I did like five or six, right here, so we can see them all.

And they just sit in my kitchen under my cabinet lighting.

And for at least a week, they can just stay stacked upon each other.

Because it takes about seven to 10 days to germinate and I'll be checking them.

And then once they germinate, I'll move them closer to the light and grow them out to become a transplant.

Like John's gonna tell us about.

- I always love, one of my favorite things is reusing things that you've got around.

So, I can always appreciate those because who doesn't eat cold sandwiches and has of those containers lying around.

And so you just kind of incorporate it into the everyday, say those, poke some holes in them and use them as it's something that starts to feed them.

So, I can always appreciate that 'cause I do the same thing and we all buy those things.

So, it's a good way to keep them out of the trash.

Wonderful.

All right, John, we are gonna move to you now.

So, Ella talked to us about our seedlings.

Now, once we get them strong and healthy this is where you come in.

- Right, and I've talked to you before about the.. And it is so very important that you use this, so that when you get your plants up at this stage, this is what Ella was showing, these are the little seedlings, and you can't transplant yet.

Now, I've got another one here.

Those are called cotyledons, by the way.

This one here, you can just start to see the true leaves coming, on that.

And that's what you're, this is a butter daisy.

And, once you get the true leaves, this is one of the true leaves.

And, it's important that you don't pick them up by the stem, especially tomatoes.

But you pick them up by the true leaves and you work the soil up.

And I usually have a, what they call a dipple.

And make a hole in the soil, so that my plant can just snuggle right down in there.

And then, I put the soil around and then water them yet.

And, this is what we were talking about not picking up the tomato by the stem This is the cotyledons.

You can still see the cotyledons on the tomato.

And those will just dry up, don't worry about that.

But you wanna pick the tomato up by the leaves, and then drop it into that hole and then work the soil around and water them.

Very important that once you do that, you label them.

Now, you can use plastic ones, you can buy button ones.

I've got some here that we bought.

But one of the things that my kids like to do at the greenhouse, is to recycle.

So, we're using blinds, plastic blinds, and I even have some metal ones and they seem to work really well.

You can cut these, like one of these I'll make at least four pieces for four labels out of it.

And, they usually end up about this size.

And then you wanna make sure that you use a good permanent ink.

I had a couple of kids not use permanent inks, and we watered our plants in and all the ink ran off.

- That's happened to me last year with a permanent marker.

And, I had to ask Ella and Marty a couple of times and Jen, throughout the summer.

Because I couldn't figure out which was the broccoli and which was the cauliflower because I rinsed the label.

- But a number two pencil marks the blinds.

The vinyl blinds, or the metal ones or even some of those aluminum.

The other kinds of metal plant markers.

I always use pencil on the back side because it never goes away.

- Yeah, I like to test mine.

Before you're gonna do it, write something on one of them and wet it and just like you're gonna water your plants.

Make sure that it doesn't wash off.

And even when you do that, sometimes they'll fade off.

You wanna a good marker, that the sun rays are going to just dissolve some of them, just not even the water.

They're just gonna slowly disappear.

But I've got these butter daisy.

These are one of my favorites, and I saved the seeds.

And then I start.

I think I've started about 600 of these so far.

- Wow.

- Wow.

So, before we move on to Jennifer and the cool season crops, can you guys talk a little bit more about timeframe for when it's time to put these guys outside.

And anyone feel free to chime in on that.

But once you've got them established, when is it safe to put your plants out?

- Well, I think.. And let's just say tomatoes, so that we use an amazing example.

- Right, the tomatoes and the peppers are warm season.

And Jen's gonna tell us about the cool season plants that can be planted almost now, especially if you're using a milk jug cover or a hot cap or something.

But, tomatoes honestly need warm temperatures.

So, I probably won't put my tomatoes out until early May.

Because in Central Illinois, we could still have frost and you would have to protect them because they would not go the cold temperatures.

And even this week, we're going to have in the middle twenties in my area.

So, I have not set out any cool season crops.

I'm gonna wait for next week.

- And I like to put up, I'm like, I like to put my tomatoes out even late.

I usually I've put them out even June 1st.

And mine will bypass anything that was put out early April or mid, I should say, mid May.

Mine will bypass them because tomatoes and tropicals will put out a chem chemical.

It's kind oF like a hormone almost that slows the plant growth.

And if you get a frost, your tomatoes, you're gonna be starting all over because they're gonna freeze and die.

So, I'd say May 20th at the earliest to June 1st, for me, for my tomatoes and peppers.

I like to have the soil at least 65 degrees before I put out my tomatoes and peppers.

It's more.. - And if you want to know what 65 degrees is just go and sit on your soil.

And if it's too cold, you'll know.

(all laugh) - And I'll add to that, Tinisha, what I tell most folks is mother's day.

Think of mother's day weekend as that weekend to plant your warm season vegetables.

And as John said, sometimes there's little advantage to getting them in the ground any sooner or and there's more advantage by putting them in later.

What I would remind folks though is, if you're purchasing your tomatoes or peppers, eggplants and you see those available for purchase in late may in a garden center, and it's the one that you want, I would go ahead and purchase that plant and maybe pot it up into a little bit bigger container outside or keep it in that same pot, keep it growing in there.

But do wait till it's warmed up until you plan it out into the garden space.

Or if you plant it into a container you might have to bring it in at night if it gets too cool out.

but there's really no advantage to putting them out too early.

They'll actually purple.

And sometimes it'll slow their growth by putting them out too soon.

- Okay.

- And I would also add that tomatoes are one of those that you can plant very deep.

If I was taking this outside, I'd be planted right at this height.

Because all those little hairs will turn into roots.

And the more roots you get now, will help come summertime when it's hot and dry.

- Awesome, thank you, John.

Okay, now we're gonna move into our cool season crops, which some folks might already have those in or almost be ready to put those in.

So, Jennifer, we'll let you.

- Season crops are divided actually into two different groups.

There's very hardy and then there's frost tolerant.

So, very hardy are planted usually about four to six weeks or can be planted four to six weeks before the average last frost.

So those could have already been planted by now.

Whereas your frost tolerant are planted usually about two to three weeks before the average frost date.

So, just kind of keep that in mind, as you're moving forward wanting to plant those crops.

A good rule of thumb with kind of both of them would be, they nearly need those 60 to 70 degree days and then a 50 to 60 degree nights.

So, it could still be just a little bit too cold for frost tolerant plants.

The things that we can really be thinking about, putting out into the garden here in the next couple of weeks, even for further North, maybe even mid April would be our asparagus crowns if we've purchased those broccoli, Brussels sprouts and cabbage plants.

Whereas cauliflowers are frost tolerant ones, that's gonna be more towards the, maybe the middle of April for some people.

And then potatoes, our sets and our onions, which could be planted as seeds, sets, these sets, seeds even or plants.

And then what a lot of people are looking forward to are those really easy to grow crops like lettuce and peas and spinach, radishes, turnips, kale and kohlrabi.

And then a little bit later, we can plan our beets and carrots and Swiss chard.

One thing I will mention is that plants in some locations are already available for purchase.

So, here we have a broccoli plant.

And I would probably hear anyway, it's just still pretty cool this week.

I'd wait another week or certain week before I put these out, but they'd be fine.

They'll tolerate those cool temperatures on the outside.

What I would remind folks though, is keeping in mind that what we want to purchase as plants, are gonna be broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, and cauliflower, or start your own.

Which you've already would have started those by now.

It's a little late to start those from seed.

But the rest of the things that I've mentioned except for onions and potatoes, but the rest of them can all be started very easily from seed.

So, I would keep that in mind as you're out purchasing for your plants - I wanted to ask you, when you buy from a nursery or from a garden center, are the plants already hardened off?

- They should be, yes.

- Even if they're inside?

Some places have them inside, some are outside in a greenhouse.

What if you purchase something that's in the building, do you then need to harden that plan off or do you think it's already acclimated?

- Well, what I can tell you is there aren't a lot of places that are growing their own cell packs anyway.

So, this would be what we call a cell pack, where there's six plants here.

There aren't a lot of local nurseries that are growing their own.

They're coming from larger companies being shipped in.

So, you might wanna ask them if they're growing their own or if they've purchased those.

But more than likely they're gonna be hardened off if your purchasing.

Plus the lighting and the greenhouse is completely different from what we're doing in our own homes.

So, a little bit different growing conditions.

- Okay, thank you.

All right, we're gonna move into some questions that were sent in.

Ella, we'll start with you.

You've got a couple of three questions.

And these kind of go together, so we'll run them together.

This one says, I have a foundation planting consisting of an Upright Yew and two Densiformis Yews.

The yews are in a grouping and are approximately 35 years old.

The Upright Yew has encroached against my house and the Densiformis Yews have encroached on my driveway.

What options do I have to resolve the problems with the Yews?

So, what do you suggest?

I wish we had pictures for this one, but what would you suggest for their problem?

- Okay, for Charles there, unfortunately so many years have gone by.

He can try pruning and you can be pruning now with the Yew.

What you find though with a Capitata Yew sometimes, is the center of the plant doesn't have any green.

And so, if you cut back too hard into that area and you don't leave some other green out there, the plant may not survive.

or it's gonna look very unattractive and take a long time to recover.

So, I would suggest that he take a lopper and have someone help him.

And then, he can just go in and kind of thin it out so that he can start to make the plant smaller and then see how it begins to come out.

And the same way with the Dense or the Spreading Yew, is to take some of those really long branches and cut them back deep into the plant and try to make it smaller.

And if it doesn't look good, then he might have to think about removal and replacement.

- Ella, let's stay with you.

We have another tree question.

This one is about a burning bush, and I know it's kind of a controversial plant here in the state.

But the question is, can my burning bush be pruned now?

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

So, what is your, what are your.. - And again, yes most certainly right now a burning Bush could be trimmed because it doesn't have the leaves.

You can see the structure and you can decide what branches need to be taken out.

And it depends on the goal of what you're pruning to do.

So, both, I think questions that Charles asked, is about size reduction.

And that's where you can do some maybe more severe pruning than maybe just shearing it.

And again, if the plant is old and overly large, he might want to think about replacing the burning bush with a native plant that would have maybe a smaller overall size as it matures.

'Cause the burning bush can get awful, Woody and old.

But it takes shearing very well and can easily be pruned.

And then just stay on top of it.

- Awesome, all right, Ella, thank you.

John, we're gonna go to you.

You wanna answer a question or do you want to do another show and tale?

- Go ahead and let's do the question for you.

- Do the question?

All right, here we go.

We've got a question that came in.

Is it true that worms cannot survive under mulch after long periods of time?

My flower beds are 20 plus years old and I've always kept a good layer of mulch over them.

It seems like the worm population has diminished in most of our flower beds.

Is there a way to bring them back?

This is from Carolyn Stewart.

- So, are you familiar with the reduction in worms, with mulch?

- I did some research when I heard the question and the only problem that I found that could be a problem with having mulch.

if they had a lot of pine mulch and they change the pH.

Sometimes that they will not like that pH and they will leave the area.

But I have found my own mulch that I usually get lot more worms in my soil because you're composting that.

As you're putting mulch down it's composting and the worms just love that.

So, I usually end up with the opposite effect, is that I usually have more worms where I've mulched.

Now, if it was too dry, if she just recently just looked, they probably went down deep too.

And, so, it may be that she just looked at the wrong time.

I don't think it has anything to do with the real soil condition, unless she needs to check the pH and just see if it's around seven.

If it's way off of seven then she may have a problem and may need to have the soil amended a little bit.

But she could just work in that mulch into the soil.

Some of the composted, as that mulch touches the soil, it's gonna compost and the worms are just gonna have, I think gonna love that, especially earthworms.

That's what they thrive on.

- Okay, anybody else want to weigh in on that one?

Anything personally that you've seen at your homes with mulch and worms?

- No, I think he covered it.

- Okay, all right.

So, hopefully it's just maybe a pH thing or maybe she just didn't dig deep enough to find them, okay.

All right, Jennifer, we are to you now.

This is a question about asking how to germinate asparagus feed.

So, this is kind of tricky, 'cause you can do asparagus a few ways.

So, I'll let you explain this one.

(chuckles) - Yes you can.

So, my first question would be why do they want to start asparagus from seed?

That is a lengthy process and something that I would consider that for an advanced gardener, not somebody new at gardening.

Although I could say that one of the reasons I might be, is because a lot of the garden seed catalog companies are sold out of asparagus crowns.

So, sowing seed is the only option they may have in that case.

So, here we go.

If you were starting from crown such as Tinisha has right there, that is a crown.

That is just a whole bunch of asparagus roots.

That is the easiest way I think, to start asparagus.

So first of all, we're gonna move on to make sure that we plant that in full sun and a well-drained area with a pH of about seven.

So, I'd recommend before doing this, if you can, if you haven't already purchased some such as Tinisha has.

She probably did this last fall.

she had her soil tested and prepared her bed completely where she's gonna plant them.

That's the first step.

This is a perennial crop.

So, that is important to do.

Perennial, meaning not just a year or two but asparagus actually can be productive for 15 years or longer.

So, this is something you want to plant where you're gonna keep it.

Now it could be dug up after a year or so, but after that, you're not gonna dig this up.

So, that's the first step and that crown in your hands probably what we call a year old crown.

And that's gonna be ready to be harvested after you plant it in about two to three years.

So, could we start that from seed and end up with that in a year?

Yes, you could.

Now, here's what I'll tell you about starting from seed.

You're going to wanna either start those inside, or plant them in maybe a container pot or raise bed or put the seeds in an in an area that you can keep well-maintained.

And the reason I say that is asparagus does not compete well with weeds.

So, the weeds are gonna grow faster than the asparagus seed.

And the reason I say that is asparagus seed can actually take up to three weeks to germinate.

That's a very, very long time.

So, the weeds will out-compete.

So, that's why I say you might want to try to start it inside or in a container first, at least till they get all tall enough to be transplanted.

And then next spring, if you were starting from seed, next spring, you're gonna dig up those crowns and then transplant that to where you want them.

So, when you plant your crown Tinisha you're gonna plant those about a foot apart and you're gonna need to know what soil type you have.

So, if you have a heavy clay soil, you're gonna plant those about six inches deep.

If you have a Sandy soil about 12 inches deep or somewhere in between.

Now, six inches doesn't sound very deep but when you're digging a trench to plant those in and so, let's say, if you have 12 of those it's a 12 foot row or two six foot rows, however you want to do that.

That's a lot of digging.

So, have a really good sharp spade when you're ready to do that.

And once you put those roots into the ground, you're gonna cover those with about three inches of soil.

Let it grow up for several weeks and then finished putting your soil in.

You can put it all in at once too, but the recommended ways is to just cover them about three inches and then cover the rest of it later.

Now, the trick for the first several years is to keep that bed weed free.

Again, they don't compete well.

After year two.

So, two years from now, so, 2023, Tinisha, you can go out and harvest for about two to three weeks, your asparagus.

And then in three years.

So the next year, 2024, you can harvest for about six weeks.

And then after that its six to eight weeks of harvest time just depending on how well the crop is growing.

Once it gets about three eight centrum, a quarter an inch, the Spears, you're gonna wanna stop cutting that asparagus.

So.. - That's why I never followed it because I knew it would take so long to get to where I wanted to be.

So, I finally said this year, fine.

I'm just gonna go for it.

But, I knew it was gonna be a process.

So, I'm excited to grow it but even more excited to actually kinda wanna enjoy it down the road.

So.. - And then the last thing I'll mention is make sure you add lots of compost or age manures to that bed throughout the, or during the growing season.

At some point, they're heavy feeders and in particular my bed's five years old and it's starting to get spindly.

And that means I haven't fed it enough.

So, that's the other thing to remember.

- Okay, thank you guys so much.

- And then, one other thing with that is that you want to plant it out like this, not down like this.

- Yes, I read that.

Spread them out like spider legs.

- Yes, exactly.

So, yeah, that's why you're digging a lot.

- Got it.

Okay, so, next week guys are gonna see the show where we visited Ella at her house and learned how to make maple syrup.

That's gonna be awesome.

So stay tuned for that.

And if you have any questions or would like any garden advice from our experts, please send us an email to yourgarden@gmail.com or you can find us on Facebook or Instagram just search Mid American Gardener.

Thanks so much for watching.

Thank you guys for your time and talent and we will see you next time tonight.

(bright upbeat music)