Hello, and thanks for joining us for another episode of Mid American gardener.

I'm your host Tinisha, Spain.

And joining me in the studio today are two of our panelists who have brought lots of cool stuff to talk about.

And they're going to be answering your question.

So before we get started, let's have them introduce themselves and tell you a little bit about them.

And then we'll we'll go for it.

So Jen, we'll start with you.

Hi, I'm Jennifer Nelson.

I'm an instructor for the Department of Crop Sciences at the University of Illinois.

And I also have a blog grounded and growing.com.

I write about all kinds of gardening things.

I love helping people answer questions, figure out what's going on in the garden.

Yes, I always have to.

I'll be texting Jen, when certain things come up in the yard, or if I've mixed up my seeds, and I don't know what's what she's great at plant.

So Thanks, Chuck.

Hi, I'm Chuck Voigt.

I retired from the University of Illinois.

First day of 2016, which is a little mind boggling.

My responsibilities.

There were vegetables and herbs I worked.

Firstly, I worked with growers.

And then as time went along, I taught a class and home horticulture to non majors.

So that was kind of all encompassing.

So we'll try to answer whatever we can.

And you love flowers and vegetables, flowers, vegetables, and fruits and herbs, all the things.

So we've got two great ones.

Today, two generalists, I would like to, to call you by Okay, so Jen, we'll start with you, the victim of clever marketing, the victim of clever marketing, we're all vulnerable to this, we just mean.

So I'm shopping and, you know, you come across these things.

And these are some summer flowering bulbs.

And if you were to wait, you'll find the same things at the nursery already growing and more expensive than what I paid for them as just the dormant bulb.

And I want a couple of things I want to point out is that you should and can and should start these early so that you can put out at least a tiny start out in the garden.

But a couple of things different in the packaging of these.

So start with this one, this is two years ago now.

And they are little bulbs inside and you can actually see kind of through the plastic and I can see that there's little tiny sprouts on them.

And I can feel the bulbs and they're not squishy.

So I know that they're decent shape ready to be planted.

This one is kind of a it's a bag, but it's kind of a box I can't really see inside.

So I have to just trust that it was a good deal.

And it's got pretty pictures and hopefully they're decent bulbs inside.

I'm taking the chance to be honest, and it caught me in a vulnerable state horrible store.

But I'll take a chance on it and see I know these were just freshly put out for sale.

So I know they weren't This isn't like June and I'm finding this on a bottom shelf somewhere.

So hopefully hopefully they came from the supplier in somewhat decent shape and I can get them started and I'll probably start them debating about whether to start them in individual pots or in like more of like an open flat but then I might have roots getting tangled.

So I don't know what, which will be better.

I'll just see what I have in the supply.

So that's a good time to talk about when you are at a store at a nursery.

I'm just going for a little bit more some tips if you're looking at bulbs because I've seen some of the grocery stores and Menards and you know the other places they're all putting them out.

So if you're looking for bulbs, well what are some tried and true tried and true they look for something that feels heavy for its size.

Look for something that's not squishy as bad switch is bad and produce generally super light and super lightweight and fluffy.

You generally don't want them to be growing too much already a little tiny little tiny sign of life is okay, but like coming out good.

But other bulbs you might see this time of year, you know, just coming off Easter's you have a lot of forced bulbs in pots people ask about those because you'll see those discounted price to move them out and they're kind of love flowers are done and they're just greenery and maybe the greenery looks kind of half dead.

If it's I'm prone to it if it's like a good price.

I will try.

Oh no, like seriously if it's not dead yet I will plant them and see you might not get flowers the next year depending on how badly the greenery was watered.

But it might take could take a year or two to but I've have some that I've I've had from like my wedding shower or whatever.

Then I've stuck them in the ground.

I've got some little baby daft tiny to To teach daffodils that were from way back when and they're still going strong towards the shot if the price is right, that's my that's my motto that I rescued from the dumpster.

We all do and it's not just me standard season go should have.

They don't want to dumpster dive, oh, I have I have benefited from that dumpster it's kind of amazing.

I would add, when you see like little packaged, like small fruits and grapes and those kinds of things that those places, usually they show up in late winter.

And they put them out at room temperature, right gold store, right.

And they're like, oh, break, you know, they're, they don't get LED lights.

They get fluorescent lights or anything.

And they, they, they send up their poor little sprouts.

And they're pretty sad.

So if you don't get those pretty near when they send them out, it's sad.

I was looking at some grapes the other day.

And there was like three or four varieties.

Three of them had sad little sprouts, the fourth one nothing, which tells me that is pretty nearly dead.

So we can rescue things from some some peril but but not necessarily from death.

Right?

You have a mole that's got a bad spot on it is the entire bowl.

Do you pitch it?

Or can you cut that out?

Can you cut about never tried cutting it, have you?

It seemed like that might open it up to more problems than then you know.

But again, be it being both cheap and horticultural.

I might try to play I would probably put it in and just see where survivor don't yet but I'm getting a shot.

I tell like I told people you're not a true gardener unless you've killed thing as the same plant at least three times.

Nice.

Excellent.

All right.

Thank you, Joe.

Go ahead Chuck.

Which one you want to do first?

Let's let's talk about this shallots shallow or do you say shallow, shallow roots, whichever makes me sound I'm okay with both of those.

I get a little bit a little ticked off at the Food Network people who insist on calling swiss chard shard.

Anyway, so by surprise most myself and actually got some things planted.

I got three different colors of onion sets planted nice.

And just when choosing those don't go for the biggest, because the biggest tend to tend to have make flowers.

So kind of intermediate up to about three eighths of an inch would be ideal.

Okay.

At one of the big box Farm Stores, they know me I go in there and I pick I pick out my 25 of each individually.

That barrel, right?

Yeah, they haven't had a big band.

Yeah, yeah.

And they have the fat ones.

You know, and if you're growing the onion sets to have green onions, then the fat ones are great because they'll grow up faster and whatever.

But if you really wanted to make onions you want maybe not the teeniest tiniest ones because they might have might not have enough energy, but not the biggest ones either.

And the other thing I got planted were shallots.

And they did really well last year I had the ones I had had kind of gone downhill.

I don't know if they picked up virus or what was the problem, but they were pretty disappointing.

So last year, I bit the bullet.

I went through a different big box store and bought three little bags of shallots, each of which had I think, what two of them had five and one of them had six, which is like my goodness, it wasn't a but you look at them in a catalog and they're 1213 $14 for a pound or a half a pound and that that's even more when they get so anyway, I planted them last year they did exceedingly well.

And that mean that that is a big that's a that's a dandy.

We talked at the farm a couple of years ago on a hot day, about about the seed drone ones.

Yes.

When they originally came out, I was okay with them.

But the ones that I grew that that time we were talking about them got huge.

And we're extremely pungent, they smell gas, they smelled like really hot onions.

And I think maybe in the in the, with the urge to grow from seed.

They've gotten too much onion in them and not enough salad in them.

So if you want the true shallot flavor, I would say get a vegetatively propagated one because those others don't even don't even grow correctly.

They I've asked you this before, but could you describe the difference in flavor between In Charlotte is it more mild?

Got a little more Gardo?

hinted garlic gels are maybe a little little intermediate between garlic and onions.

And also slightly less of that extreme sulfurous.

pungency.

Gotcha.

But you plant the ones I planted were much smaller than this.

And, and still we got six to 12 in a cluster of these, which is what's your favorite dish to cook them in?

hoard everything?

Oh whatever is handy, whatever's handy.

Would you use them kind of like an onion, kind of like a garlic to do that, like the saute in the beginning and uses them for risotto instead of on?

Yeah, yeah.

The higher higher end dishes that you're making.

And and I always say people who, who think this is just a small onion, and it's too much trouble to peel off.

It's like buy a big onion.

Don't Don't?

Don't waste your time.

Yeah.

If you don't if you don't know more about a shallot than that, then then.

Appreciate.

Right?

All right.

So that's good.

There's one other thing that that there's what's called a potato onion.

Which is interesting.

Because if you plant a small one of potato onions, it'll grow into a big, like three inch onion.

You plant the big ones.

And you had a whole cluster, kind of like kind of on shallots, but they're more like a true Union.

But but they kind of alternate generations.

So very cool.

That's that's another fun thing that when Will these be harvested?

The ones that you plan?

Probably Probably July ish.

Because of the weather this year, I got him in in March, which, which is fairly ideal.

But last year, I think I got him in somewhere in April and might have been around the first of August, but they'll tell you the tops, like like onions will fall over and start to dry up.

And do you have to hang these to dry?

like onions like garlic or can you use them you straight away we can use them straight away.

But to get them to keep you you want to like put them in a flat layer and let them dry down and Gotcha.

And then And then, you know, keep them at maybe a cool room temperature.

You don't want to like onions, garlic and all those things.

You don't want to refrigerate them because that that sets off a whole other range of things.

But nice.

I was I was really pleased with myself and I got the things in really on schedule this time because because with that warm weather that we were having in in believing in February, I was I was getting oh my gosh, it's getting late.

I knew it wasn't true.

But there's the soil, it's dry, it's ready to get ready to work and and I figured what what what will handle that and I said onions and shallots.

And then the other day I also put in some radishes and lettuce and spinach, which is right on schedule.

Chuck, you're on schedule.

I wanted to ask you, do you pre sprout?

Will you be pre sprouting those boards?

Or do you pre sprout like this is what I want to do is to sprout that do you put them in a container like I'm gonna do that I'm debating about do I put them in individual pots or I've got some big flats, I could just kind of do them in rows.

I don't want to they're not necessarily going to be in there forever.

But these take forever when we've just put them in the ground as bulbs and you're waiting half the summer to see like a single leaf.

But if some years we've bought them as plants, they do a lot better.

So I want to get them up and growing interest.

I don't know.

I will see what I have, like in the garage and yeah, and see what you can play without that.

Yeah, Karen.

And the reason I ask is because she pre sprouts a lot of her cannons and she got me doing that last year just putting them in a big plastic tote with some PRs or potties to get them going oil and yeah, and then then put them outside but I didn't know if that would work.

Yeah, I'm going to do that.

And I actually got some of these from my mom not there's a difference different type but different color.

But these can all be brought in as houseplants if you're, if you're good with them.

Like if you're my mom is the African Violet whisperer, she can keep any cloud and I kept right.

Keep it all going.

And you can let it dry down and go dormant and hold on what I like about putting stuff like this will go in a pot.

So I'll just bring the pot in the garage and that can overwinter in there.

But you could also bring it inside and treat it as a houseplant if you want.

Okay, it probably won't work very well for me.

It tends to get mealy bug Yeah.

So but if you're good at keeping tabs on that if you have a choice things like palladiums and and tubers.

begonias are way slower than things like Canada's right choice to make a candle will sprout in the ground pretty quickly and Canada sprout in my crawlspace plant chemists are pretty eager.

Yeah, they're ready.

Whereas these things are kind of reluctant.

Yeah, they really need the warm sun, the coddling and they just, they're just gonna do better for the summer if I can get them growing before I put them out.

Okay.

All right.

Let's see.

So Jen, I've got a question for you short, this one came in anonymously.

Oh, asking for a friend.

Last year, they say that bind weed made its way into the clematis and roses.

And they're asking is there any way to get rid of it, obviously, without damaging the roses and clematis?

Well get yourself something cozy to sit on her knees.

Because it's gonna be a lot of that is a tough deal.

By hand situation bind weed is a morning Gloria wild Morning Glory.

And it is one that will just it gets its name because it grows and strangles whatever it's growing on.

And it can get like I've seen like, you just get like bundles of it around stuff.

And it's the thing that makes it pernicious is that fleshy roots a little bit, you can pull it, but any little bit you leave behind you just started a whole new crowd, even in a vegetable garden.

If you kill it.

You propagate it.

Yeah.

major problem.

10 times worse.

Okay.

Yeah.

Because every little bit grows into a new plant.

You could, I could, you could do like very careful application of Roundup.

But you don't want to make sure that doesn't get on any green part of your roses or what or whatnot.

Like if it's, if it's a really hefty bind weed specimen, you might be able to, like remove what's growing on the top and then find like the stump and paint that with some, like, brush killer or round up?

It's just if it's if it's entwined in in a clematis.

Yeah.

Then it'd be really difficult for me like at one and not the yeah, there's where I'm saying, like, get your glasses on or get out there, and maybe a glass of something where you get out there and just you're gonna have to, if you're really desperate, you might dig up the clematis.

Yeah.

Pick out the bind.

Wait.

somewhere else.

Yeah, you won't dig up all of the bike.

Right?

Right.

You won't you just won't.

problematic, huh?

Oh my god.

It's like, you're no wonder they sent that one anonymous.

Kind of gives me like, kind of the dread.

Yeah.

Like, prepares is probably gonna be like not a one shot deal.

You're probably gonna go back and be working on be working on that one.

We used to have a couple of patches that bind weed and in some of the farm fields, and I remember dad with a cultivator would go through those they pick it up and they bind really just be just be all over the cultivator.

Yeah, and it just gets a bad word or two, maybe three.

Okay, no easy fix there.

You've got your work cut out for you, for sure.

All right, let's see.

This is from Sandy Coleman.

She says, I want to plant pumpkins in a large pot in the corner of my asparagus plot so it can spread after the season's asparagus.

Will that cause any problems growing them in the same space?

growing them in the same space?

No.

Okay.

How big of a pot?

My question is going to pumpkin in a pot.

Okay.

Because if a pumpkin it pumpkin needs lots of food, lots of space, lots of root area.

And I question why you'd want it in a pot as opposed to in the ground next to the asparagus.

Asparagus is gonna be grown up by the time pumpkins are Vining.

And then you get that sort of three sisters effect where the where the pumpkins on the ground and, and kind of shading the ground and did you know it's not going to try to climb the the asparagus.

So I think having them together is not a horrible idea.

growing it in a pot is is questionable because if if the pumpkin it feels the least bit stunted.

It may only make male blossoms and then then you're kind of up the creek.

I had a cousin who was growing mine in his apartment.

And he was you know, it was vine and out and he was he was having and he was he was he was he was being Johnny or he was being a real horticulturist.

He was taken down and moving.

Wow.

He wasn't pollinating male flowers.

didn't get any pumpkins and it was like, I had to break it to him that that he only had boys and I could make a pumpkin.

I'm not gonna make a pumpkin.

Pumpkin vines in the house.

That's that correlation.

Yeah, definitely.

But I don't think keeping up with the water would be a horrendous to is it got more?

It would be really difficult not to start a pumpkin in a pot.

Yeah, maybe if maybe if you wanted to grow up like a zucchini in a pot like a bush than maybe if it was like a half barrel.

Yeah, but I would just stick it in the ground.

Why they won't bother each other.

It was not particularly I don't think because the department is going to tend to be under the bulk of the asparagus foliage and might actually be a good companion.

Alright, so just put them in the ground bypass the pot entirely.

What about pruning fruit trees?

Have you guys done that on your show?

I'm pretty sure.

I didn't know about peach trees.

So is it too late?

It is not.

I always tried to wait until I could see first of all had the had the flower but survived Yeah, finds a life.

And then and then look for the buds to break.

Typically I would I would prune peaches probably blast, okay, because you get some winter dye back.

Peaches tend to over produce flower buds.

So you want to you want to cut them back so that you're limiting how many flowers you're putting on.

Otherwise, you're gonna get this wonderful tasting little tiny peaches that are the pit is bigger than the flesh.

But I would wait until this year, they may be more advanced, but but, you know, into into early April I would think would be would be okay.

But then, you know, with peaches, you do it to open up the center.

So you get good light and air penetration.

And then you cut back like each of the fruiting sections, which is last year's growth.

Maybe up to half just just to kind of concentrate the energy.

You don't have to don't have to don't have to have a weapon a chair like like grapes, but it does help to kind of maximum every year.

Okay.

Anything to add there.

No, no, that's gotta cover.

Yeah, it's not too late for me to do to get out to look at mine.

No, not too late.

Okay, we've got about five minutes left.

I know.

I wanted you to make sure you got to your book.

Okay.

Well, this is one that that we're looking at for the the international herb Association book of the year.

It's written by a friend of mine, Jane Holly Stevens, she's up in the barrel booth area of Wisconsin.

But she has an A line of herbal products that she makes.

And she came to my herb days about half of the 17 that I was there.

She was an exhibitor there and so we got to know each other pretty well.

And she is really into celestial gardening.

Which is the whole moon sign sun sign.

Some of the astrological signs Yes, it really it's it's really hard to comprehend it all.

And and to try to follow it I think you need to have one of the almanacs where it breaks down yes, every day of every month into into what is where you are.

Because as she talks about it every two and a half to three days you're in a different in a different window.

And I know my father in law always tries to get potatoes in on Good Friday.

And we were talking about that a little bit before the show how that coincides with right it has to do with with a moon sign so there's actually some validity to that.

If you you know buy into the whole moon sign thing.

My only My only caveat is that sometimes in the spring the weather Yeah, yeah, the weather the soil, you may you may only get one or two times to plant potatoes, for instance.

And it's hard for me when the soil is right when the temperature is right when I'm there to do.

It's hard it's hard for me to get the Almanac and say is this going to be okay, yeah, so but if you have always wanted to do that, Jane's book, The celestial garden is I think fairly unique and how much detail it goes in but grab the Farmers Almanac just to give you some supplemental as Yes.

As a helpful thing.

Excellent.

Okay, I also don't have time to yeah, we've got about a minute now there's something I want to talk about because we've talked about the daffodils that I bought fall before last.

I put him in I had to there was a little bit of a crossed I've had my phone planner as a JAMA to the frost they came up the double pink ones bloom pretty well, the double yellow ones.

Up to half of them really didn't ever really show or they may have one little leaf that showed a little bit, which is kind of disappointing.

But you know, it is what it was getting late in the season.

And what are you gonna do?

What's happened this year, is every one of those double yellows that didn't come up last year is they're Wow, and doing great.

And they're doing great.

They don't have flower buds, the ones that didn't grow last year, but somehow they went through that whole year underground, and still came up this spring.

Flowers next year.

I just one more year.

Hold out one more here.

The leaves are looking robust.

And I would be shocked if I didn't get flowers.

There was a year that I picked up bulbs on superduper clearance in December something like and I was like mudding them in and they Yeah, and they believe they bloomed and they're still going strong today.

It was like over 10 years ago.

So I just thought you throw that out there and see if anybody else had had that experience.

It sounds like Jen has had that experience.

But don't try.

The mantra of this show is don't give up.

Real quick we want to say thanks to Donna because she's been in the kitchen again, making candies and cookies.

I check my sister always make sure that we're welfare.

I finally got her to make lemon thyme cookies.

I had a lemon thyme plant last year, sir.

All right.

So 10 seconds left.

Thank you guys for coming in.

Thank you so much for watching, and we're gonna get out of here so I can enjoy a cookie.

So we'll see you next time.

Thanks for watching.

Good night.