[Music] hello and thanks for joining us for another edition of mid-american gardener i'm your host tanisha spain and i'm joined today by three of our expert panelists who are going to teach you about all things gardening so before we get in and answer your questions uh let's have them introduce themselves and tell you where you can find them in the garden this spring so ella we'll start with you um i'm ella maxwell i'm a horticulturist and also a master gardener in tazewell county and i have been out in the garden for the last couple of weeks with this wonderful weather and of course now um i'm watching the weather kind of go up and down but uh i enjoy uh all aspects of gardening and i'll have a great show and share for what i've uh thought has looked really good in my garden this week wonderful okay karen where can we find you outside um i'm in the central illinois peoria area and i'm a horticulturist and i like perennials and shrubs and um i've been doing that that end of the season anything that's been kind of die back i've been doing that final cutting uh now that we're past all the cold weather hopefully and um just kind of that end cleanup of uh tidying up ready for for may getting ready for everything to go in creating the nice space for them to go in wonderful okay and we have a new face on the show today so first of all ken welcome and thanks so much for joining us so tell us a little bit about yourself and what you've been doing outside this spring well thank you for having me i'm ken johnson i'm horticulture educator with the university of illinois extension our unit covers calhoun cass green morgan and scott counties i'm located in jacksonville so that's west central illinois if you're not familiar with where that is um right now in the garden um kind of like what elle and karen are doing kind of doing some cleanup um enjoying the the flowers and stuff after a long kind of jury winter so that's what i'm wonderful and tell us a little bit about uh what's your specialty what do you find yourself doing um so i kind of a more of an insect person um so i enjoy insects um do a lot of stuff with pollinators uh natural enemies um biological control that type of stuff or just insects in general i also do stuff with fruit and vegetable crops and i know enough about ornamentals to be dangerous good deal okay well once again we want to say uh welcome and uh buckle up okay so uh show and tells is always what we do first uh so we'll go back up to ella and karen uh ella what did you bring us and tell us a little bit about it okay well what i brought is a beautiful display and i'm sorry my camera isn't so great but these are actually um the flowers from different epi mediums there's a couple different species none of them unfortunately are really natives but uh i'm kind of a plant collector and so uh they can give you some really beautiful spring blooms and then the foliage can be evergreen or semi evergreen through the winter some of them are deciduous but they can have some really large flowers i'm always surprised with the variety and the color choices from white cream orange yellow and red so this is uh epimedium and uh there i have several different species and now is this a tree or a bush or a perennial a little a little perennial gotcha gotcha very pretty i like those epimediums yeah yes epimediums they're kind of a ground cover they do have a uh underground underground rhizome and they will spread slowly and colonize and they're really good for dry shade excellent okay thank you all right karen what do you got well now now that we're into may and it's the funnest time to go looking for plants and findings plants um i could probably talk all day about cannas and coral bells i just you know am obsessed about both but this is a plant that i just recently got at a garden center and even though it's in a pot and it's already growing and the weather's nice outside i would still kind of take an acclimation period in your yard in your area because you don't know has this been in a hot greenhouse a cooler greenhouse is it already thinking it's june but it's still may in your yard so you're letting it slowly get used to what the light is and what the temperatures are in your yard before you plant it in that final pot or plant it in the ground in your yard that's a good idea um i i don't think i've you know we talk about that in terms of hardening off and getting them used to temperature when it's cold but you brought up something that i don't think a lot of people really discuss is where the plant was before and what the conditions were like before so is that something that we should be paying more attention to because i don't think i do i think oh okay the frost is you know the frost is out of the way um but you don't really think about acclimating for light and things like that so is this something that we all should be doing um before we put those those plants in well it's it's just the thing is some plants are more tolerant than others and then the other thing is just about all the plants will take anything it's just how long they kind of take to recover and settle in and then thrive because you want them to thrive and so you know if if they're sitting there unhappy for a couple weeks you know they're you're missing a little bit of time as as that transition where you could have made it a little bit easier for the plant so i mean the end resort resort the end resort result result thank you it's the same um for all the plants it's it's just how long it took you to get to to look better okay all right good deal no and and the important thing that karen is not telling you is that this is a canova canna and uh it's a new it's a new brand that's been out for a couple of years now has several different flower colors and leaf form or leaf colors too but it's very compact it won't get much taller than maybe two and a half three feet with the flowers where some cannas can get huge it's not that aggressive it's great as a container plant in a pot as an accent or again in the ground and um if you thought you didn't like cannas try the canova canna and you'll love them they are really nice canova cannon and we're going to talk more about those transplants and some best practices to give your your plants a good start this spring so okay thank you ladies okay we're going to move on to ken what did you bring us today here i've got some cotton um so i grew up some cotton last year in our garden so every year um with our garden uh we try to grow something new uh so last year was cotton and peanuts um this particular cotton this was a red foliated cotton so the the leaves were kind of a maroon real dark purple color and these are related to hibiscus so the flowers look very similar to that and then you know after they bloom and several months later we end up with cotton here because they do like a lot warmer weather than we have here and most of illinois is something you have to start inside and transplant outdoors um kind of have to get a good head start because this can be 150 plus days for some of those cotton to before it's ready to harvest um even though we started ours indoors last year um you know our by time we had our first frost we had we probably had twice as much cotton if we had another couple weeks um than what we got but we just ran out of time so i have so many questions um when when you're growing i've heard it's a very thirsty crop too is that is that accurate i mean does it just take a lot of water to keep those growing yeah i didn't we didn't really water ours any extra and we still got pretty good production granted we're not doing it to sell we're just doing it for the fun of it so yeah we could have gotten a little better yield off of it if we would have watered it more now when you harvest you harvest in the fall i i don't know if you said that part yep so yeah basically when the when the hole split open like this is when we would go out i'm ambiguous ready to go and then we'd have to go through if we wanted to actually use this the seeds are inside here so you have to go through and pick all those seeds out so did you end up having you know a lot did you harvest a lot of cotton and uh what do you plan to do or what have you done with it or is it just for the kids to play with you know as part of the yeah so we've got three kids so we usually let them pick um what plants to grow and our oldest pet cotton um so we had i think we had about eight plants and we a grocery bag worth of cotton off and it's just kind of sitting there you can use it for crafts or something down the road that's really neat though uh my boys we we did something similar they grew loofahs last year and so we've got this big pile of loofahs out in the garage that i don't know what i'm gonna do with yet but it was fun to grow so neat very cool thank you for sharing that okay we've got some questions from folks that i'm going to throw out to you guys and feel free to just jump in number 25 dj let's go to that one it's about asparagus uh let's see we've got a well-established asparagus bed that's at least 15 years old it produces well but we do struggle with should say weed control we use pre-emergence and it doesn't seem to prevent the weeds from coming through this is from lynn verdin so um what do you guys suggest um and feel free to just jump in uh to help her with weeds around the asparagus what do you think well i think really for the asparagus again you need to be able to identify the weeds that you're having problems with the pre-emergent is really only going to work for the warm season annual weeds if it's applied early in the spring and we've seen that there are winter annuals that can germinate in the garden uh like the hen bit and the mousier chickweed and some different things like that that can be really problematic in the spring um so if you identify the weeds you'll know are they a perennial weed are they a winter annual are they a summer annual and then maybe take better steps i think the best thing with asparagus is in the fall during the cleanup you might want to uh scrape off some of the soil and uh re uh apply compost and maybe even some newspaper and some mulch that over the winter will break down so in the spring you're back with kind of a clean bed and hopefully that might take care of uh taking off uh it's the grass weeds that i think are are the worst and and again i'm not a proponent for herbicide applications maybe ken could speak to that if there's a best time i'm not sure if you could use some some herbicides i would be especially for like a homeowner i would be doing it before um asparagus starts coming up so you're not damaging that um it kind of was this very big thing is kind of that early season get a handle on it especially before that experiment starts coming up you can do some aloe cultivation and stuff um just try to avoid damaging those experiences just a little late for this year um but and try to keep up with that the seasons those weeds aren't going to seed and and building up that that seed bank in the soil um but mulch i think i heard you say mulch ella in the fall in the spring is it too late to mulch now when should we be no no i wouldn't i wouldn't think so i'm i'm sure they're going to be harvesting over this next month and and you could still put a nice layer maybe up to two inches if you're using a clean straw or even some type of wood chip i think would probably be okay okay awesome okay on to the next one number 27 dj this is about square foot gardening i would like to learn more about raised garden plots maybe something in the square plots divided up is this called square foot gardens so they're looking for this is kind of twofold i think more definitions and techniques so um what are the positives what are the benefits i guess of raised bed gardening's uh guys and and feel free to jump in anyone just if you were asked to give an elevator speech about raised beds what would you tell somebody well karen does have a small garden that's very productive over i have a large garden so i i think um we'll let her tell her secrets to that okay well i don't i don't have a raised garden but i i think i think it's evaluating doing a raised gardening is is finding what materials you want to raise it and and will it it are you raising it to help access it or you know i think this question is specifically about space how can i have a small garden and maximize my yield or my the items that i can plant well and and certainly if if you've got a small space and you want the nicest soil doing a raised garden you're going to be adding soil and bought compost and topsoils and stuff like that to build up in that area so it's very nice and loamy and you're not going to be walking on it so then that's important for the soil structure but but a lot of times you say don't have a lot of room so it's looking at ways to go up to use trellises to to plants that climb or plants that sprawl give them a cage so you have them go more straight up rather than sprawling out and taking up square footage going from side to side great ideas so it's kind of like harnessing you know having those things and and training them or being able to organize them well so you can fit more things in those smaller spaces ken i think you were going to say something as well and just kind of some of the benefits to raise beds that you know if you have poor soil you have poor draining soils you can build a raised bed and allow you to garden potentially garden in those areas typically they're going to warm up a little bit earlier in the year because they are raised up there they kind of warm up sooner so you can get a little bit of a jump start um on the gardening season and like they mentioned you can add you know you're kind of making your own soil in there you're mixing your own stuff so you can kind of control that um a little better it does it can get expensive to do that depending on the size um so just kind of keep that in mind in those smaller spaces and this is something um karen you might be able to answer because ella said you've got a smaller garden do you ever find it hard to get as much variety as you would like or do you have it down to a system where you know exactly what you can grow in there do you ever feel like you don't have enough room yes i always feel like i don't have enough room but then when i'm done cleaning up my yard and ella still is in the deep trenches you know barely eeking out you know a little spot i'm like yay i have a small girl so it goes both ways right yes but it's it's it's i give i love homegrown tomatoes so yeah that is my priority for giving space and then you know a few other things added in so it's choosing your most priority of of what you really really want or that getting that better quality from a home-grown fruit right something and and karen's trying potatoes this year right yes in uh containers okay in containers and then also i'm doing where i'd read somebody where they made kind of a cylinder in the garden out of chicken wire to then you're containing the foliage once again not letting it sprawl all over so we'll see okay you'll have to keep us posted on that because we've had a lot of questions come in with people saying i want to grow my own food but i don't have the room or i don't have a giant backyard or the time and so you know you might be the the role model for the the small space gardening there um one more question on companion planting this is number 28 to derive the benefit from companion planting do the roots need to share the container or can the individual containers just be placed next to each other i really liked this question i like the curiosity behind it um ken what would you what would you say to this person so there's kind of some misnomers about companion planting so a lot of it's you know if you plant this it'll keep this pest away and a lot of times that's not necessarily the case but one of the ones is marigolds as mentioned a lot um and those will work with um some of the nematodes which is a small microscopic kind of worms in the soil but in order for that to work it's the year after after you till those end of the ground and they'll start breaking down and releasing those chemicals so a lot of times the companion stuff any planting stuff you see probably isn't a lot of science based on that um a lot of times with companion planting you're you're growing your plants you know you think about the three sisters where you have your corn your beans and your squash with that is your corn is tall so your beans can grow up on that um and then your your squash your pumpkins shade the ground and help retain that soil moisture there's more kind of with the companion planting you're using those other plants to support each other but even with the three sisters they're going to be competing for for nutrients and for water and you know those those beans will fix nitrogen but you won't get that benefit till the following year you don't get that that current year okay so really it's about getting beyond those things that you were maybe taught or told and finding out if they're actually a substance behind that like the shading and you mentioned you know being able to climb so those things are really real but some of the stuff might just be kind of old wives tales karen ella anything there you want to add on companion planting or any do's or don'ts or anything that you would like to share well i think what's really valuable with the garden is rotating your planting areas if you can and that becomes very limiting with small space gardens so that you're not building up any disease problems and again most of it comes down to good sanitation um you know mulching i think mulching is is very helpful and and and then uh providing the support for the plants making sure that they're evenly watered fertilizing all the things that optimizes the plant growth is is really better than you know some thought of companion planting so just become a better gardener and you'll have a better garden oh we could put those on tea that's a slogan i think all right we've got about five six minutes left and i would like to just take this last few minutes i'm just for some good discussion about transplants and and when we move everything out to the garden when we're putting our beds in um just some really good habits and things that we can do to give our plants and our transplants the absolute best art that we can and i like that all of you have um different backgrounds so ken let's start with you um when we're moving things out and i'm trying to think just from a pest perspective you know what what can we do to help minimize dealing with pests or dealing with mold or dealing with funguses what are just some some quick things that we can do in the garden i don't know if it's a watering schedule or what but what can we do to just have a good start get off to a good start so i think the most important thing is is making sure you're putting your plants on the proper site so making sure they have the proper sun exposure they're not sitting in if there's something that is not like being in wet conditions you don't put them in a low spot where water if you have an area where water collects you don't want to put a lot of different plants in that so making sure you have that right location where it makes you putting them out the right time of year not putting them out too early or too late um and that can kind of prevent a lot of problems right off the bat and then like mentioned earlier that crop rotation try not to grow stuff in the same spot year after year after year because that can't you can get disease and pest buildup in those areas so i realize that's kind of hard with with home gardens sometimes especially in smaller gardens but try to especially with vegetables and some of these annual things try to grow that as far away as possible as from where you've grown it in the past and and maybe you have to take a year or two off from growing something if you grow tomatoes every year and you're starting to get a lot of disease issues in there it may be best to just take the year off or grow them in pots instead of in the ground okay all right uh karen what tips do you have well i i would say you know from working retail and seeing how people typically if they're going to kill a plant the main thing that kills a plant is either within the first couple weeks they've had it or the winter and so i think it's really once you've actually planted it out in the yard it's it's visiting it every couple days because just because it rained lightly the day before doesn't mean maybe it rained enough for that plant or that it rained or when you put it in the soil was really wet but we've had really a hot couple windy days and that plant was in a soilless mix or a lighter mix and it'll it'll suck up where the roots are it'll suck up that moisture really quickly but the surrounding heavier soil will still be moist so it needs to be lightly watered not a you know good drenching because the surrounding soil is still wet but where the roots are is still dry so it's that first couple weeks paying a little bit more close attention and following up and just looking at the plant um to see how it's doing for watering all right all right ella what about you uh again i think uh ken said the right plant uh for the right place and taking the time to really make sure make sure that your soil is ready to go in the spring uh you don't want to till when the soil is wet to maybe damage some of that soil structure but you do need to have a if you can make a good well-drained soil and that was one thing that at the property that i'm currently at it was not new construction it had original soil that is very um loose and friable so i am at a great advantage over uh uh you know new construction where it's heavy clay so getting the soil ready to go and i found that for most of my transplants trees shrubs especially perennials i'm going to actually remove some of that existing soil that it was grown in because many of them are soilless bark mixes and i'm going into a a sand silk clay based uh native soil i'm i'm going to actually maybe take a lot of that soil away and maybe not necessarily bare root the plant but i want it to really acclimate into my soil and make sure that i get it watered in real well so that has worked well for me is to make sure that i have a good soil and that i have my roots you know in in contact with my native soil if i can all right and last question we've got about two minutes i do i always like to talk about the pollinators um what can we do as we're outside um if you want to name you know can what are some some flowers or seeds that we can pick up that will attract pollinators um that we can plant next to or near our vegetables just to kind of be good stewards out there something quick and easy um so some of the stuff i've put in my garden is cosmos those are pretty attractive allowing some of your herbs when you plant those lines some of those with flour will be attractive to pollinators as well as some of our natural enemies so you can get some of your companion planting that way providing those floral resources for your pollinators natural enemies that'll move into your your vegetable gardens and stuff wonderful all right guys we are out of time just like that it goes so quick thank you guys so much for coming ken welcome aboard the crazy train uh we hope we'll have you on the show many more times karen and ella always a pleasure and thank you so much for watching we hope you learned something today um please send us your questions they love answering them send them to yourgarden gmail.com or you can also find us on instagram or facebook thank you again for watching and please send those questions in so we can get those answered for you take care and until next time good night [Music] you