- Hi, thanks for joining us for The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South.

I am Chris Cooper.

Not all bugs are bad, in fact, beneficial bugs can take care of some infestations before they are even a problem.

Also quick, five ounces per acre is how much on your 50 square foot bean patch?

Today, we'll show you how to do garden math.

That's just ahead on The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South.

- (female announcer) Production funding for The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South is provided by the WKNO Production Fund, the WKNO Endowment Fund, and by viewers like you, thank you.

[upbeat country music] - Welcome to The Family Plot, I'm Chris Cooper.

Joining me today is Tonya Ashworth.

Tonya's our local garden expert and Mr. D is here, thanks for joining us.

- Howdy.

- Thanks for having me.

- No problem, all right, Tonya, let's talk a little bit about beneficial bugs.

But first, what do we mean by beneficial?

- Well, a beneficial bug or beneficial insect is a bug that helps you reach your goals in the garden.

Some of them are pollinators.

We think of immediately our bees that are good pollinators, so they're beneficial to us.

And also, we have a lot of bugs that kill other bugs that we don't like.

So, we have bugs that eat the bugs that would eat our vegetables.

- Okay, so you wanna start with the braconid wasp?

- Sure, the braconid wasp is very a common thing to be seen in the garden, but most people don't know when they've seen evidence of the braconid wasp.

Usually, you'll find these on the tomato hornworms on your tomato plants.

You'll see all these little white egg sacs o n the back of the caterpillar.

And the braconid wasp, even though it's a wasp, it will not sting you.

They're very tiny, like an 1/ 8th of an inch, so very small.

The female lays her eggs on the back of caterpillars, moths, beetle larva, and some aphids.

And when those eggs hatch, the larva eat the host, the tomato hornworm or whatever.

And then after they are done eating, the bad bug dies and the new beneficials fly away to infect more of your pests.

So, if you see a tomato hornworm that has all these little white egg sacs on the back, you don't want to squish it.

You wanna leave it there so that it can provide food for those good bugs.

You can also attract them in your garden by growing certain things like dill, parsley, wild carrot and yarrow.

In general, any kind of little herb with small flowers that adult wasps like to use for nectar.

- Small flowers, I think that's pretty interesting.

Okay, now let's talk about green lacewing.

- Okay, the green lacewing, the larva are the ones that feed on the pests.

In this case, they like aphids, mealy bugs, caterpillars, scales, thrips and whiteflies.

So, a lot of the things that we don't like, they like to munch on.

The female will lay her eggs on a slender egg stalk, and she can lay about 200 eggs at a time on these stalks.

And one larva that emerges from that will eat 200 aphids in a week, so they're called aphid lions, they're really hungry.

Hungry guys.

- (Chris) In a week.

- In a week, 200 aphids.

And they will feed for two to three weeks before they go into a cocoon, and then five days later they emerge.

You can plant some things to attract them to your garden like Angelica, Coreopsis, cosmos, and sweet alyssum.

And you can also mail order those egg stalks with the eggs.

So yeah, the green lacewing are very beneficial.

You don't wanna spray those with an insecticide.

And in fact, a good rule of thumb is, when you spray an insecticide, you oftentimes kill the beneficials with the ones that you're trying to get rid of.

Yeah, so unless you use Bt, 'cause it's specific to caterpillars, but if you use a broad spectrum insecticide you're gonna kill all of your good with your bad.

So, you want to be careful in how you use those.

- Good information to share, Tonya, good information.

How about this next one though, a pirate bug?

- Yes, minute pirate bugs.

That's kind of a fun name.

- (Chris) Yeah, it's pretty fun.

- They're very small, 1/12th to a 1/5th of an inch long, that's where they get the minute from, very small.

And they're black and white in color.

The immature stages are very small, they're kinda tear-drop shaped and brown and orangy colored.

The adults and the nymphs will both be predators for thrips, spider mites, aphids and their eggs.

And an adult will eat 30 spider mites a day.

So, they're quick moving.

They'll attack just about anything though, not just those particular pests that we like to get rid of.

And the way they attack their prey is they have a piercing, sucking mouthpart.

So, they'll use that mouthpart to inject into their prey, and then they will suck the juices out of the prey.

- (Chris) Ew.

- (Tonya) Yuck.

But that's how they do it.

They can go from an egg to adults in three weeks and they have three generations per season.

And this is another one that you can buy online.

And they're actually a really good predatory bug if you've got a greenhouse, and they may be more effective than others.

And if you wanna try to just encourage them to come to your garden, you can plant goldenrod, daisies, alfalfa, yarrow, clover and vetch.

- Okay, all right, so how about this next group of beneficial bugs, spiders?

- Spiders, yes.

- Really, spiders?

- Well, they're not technically an insect.

When we talk about beneficial insects, they're not technically an insect 'cause they have eight legs instead of six, so they're an arachnid.

But not all spiders build a web to catch their prey.

In fact, the ones in our garden that are beneficial, they hunt their prey.

So, we have wolf spiders, jumping spiders and crab spiders.

And the wolf spiders, I know every gardener has seen.

They live along in the leaf litter, in the mulch, and whenever you're turning your garden over or doing any kind of weeding, you'll find them there.

They're kind of the large, brown spiders with the stripes on their back.

- (Chris) Yeah, large.

- (Tonya) Yes.

- (Chris) Yes, yes, they are.

- The mama spider carries around her eggs with her where she goes, and after her young emerge, for two weeks, she'll carry her young on her back.

And they hunt at night in the leaf litter.

Then we have a jumping spider.

The jumping spider, even though they don't use a web, they'll use a strand of silk to tether themselves to a leaf, and then they'll jump on and attack their prey.

And then the crab spiders have enlarged front legs, and that's where they get the name crab spider from.

And they like to hang out on flowers and hunt for their prey from flower petals.

And they can even turn colors, change colors a little bit to camouflage against the flowers.

- Oh, how about that?

- Yeah.

- Not fair.

- Pretty cool, yeah, not fair.

[laughing] They're good hunters.

- Pretty good, all right, so how about the praying mantis?

We've all heard about the praying mantis.

- Well, the praying mantis are really cool looking bugs.

Of course, they get their na mes from their big front legs that they use to grab their prey while they munch.

And they can be really good at camouflaging themselves against twigs, and sticks, and all that kind of stuff.

They like to lay their egg cases in like this paper mache lookin' thing.

Actually, bought a tree recently and it had one of these egg cases on it, so that was pretty cool.

- (Chris) That's cool.

- And the egg case will have like up to 200 baby praying mantis in there.

And you won't even know that they've hatched.

You can't look at the egg case and tell if they've hatched or not, you just have to happen to see a baby praying mantis somewhere, and that's how you know that you've had it hatched.

So, you can buy them on the internet and put 'em in a greenhouse or in a garden setting, but you won't know if they've hatched or not unless you just so happen to see the babies.

And these take five months to mature.

And they can lay up to five egg cases in their lifetime.

And they like to eat pretty much anything that will catch their attention.

They're pretty slow-moving.

Yeah, so they'll grab anything, like another beneficial insect even, they'll grab like bees and other praying mantis.

So, they're not real particular on what they eat.

- Wow.

I've never seen a baby one, though.

- I haven't either except like on the internet.

You can like look up video of these things hatchin' out of their egg cases, it's really pretty cool.

- All right, it's pretty good stuff.

So once again, folks, be careful when you're using pesticides in the garden, right?

Because we do have beneficials out there that will help us.

Right?

- That's right.

- Thank you much for that good information, Tonya, we appreciate that.

[upbeat country music] So, let's talk about blossom end rot.

Of course we hear that a lot-- - Yeah, this time of year.

- When you talk about watermelons.

- Yep.

- Tomatoes, so what does that mean?

- Yep, yep.

We get it on squash, eggplants, even peppers.

And, the thing you hear about it most is probably tomatoes, you know, tomatoes.

And, that's where the blossom end, opposite the stem end, just rots, and it's all because that plant is not getting the calcium that it needs to form that tissue.

And, if there is a lack of calcium in the tissue of that plant to grow and develop that fruit, that's what it will manifest itself as, the rotting of that end of the fruit.

And, it could be because that there is adequate calcium in the soil and it's not being able to move into the plant because of a bad pH.

The pH is not in the right range, which should be about 6.5 to 6.8 for the calcium to be available, where it can be taken up.

And, if there's not adequate water.

- Water's a big thing.

- It's big.

- There could be plenty of calcium, the pH can be exactly right, and if the water is not consistent and uniform.

You know, there'll be times that there's not enough calcium because nutrients move into plants by water.

That's how they get in there.

So, if you don't have the right water availability, that's how it's gonna show itself.

[upbeat country music] All right, Mr. D, let's see if we can tackle some garden math.

- Gardening math, I hate math.

[laughing] - I think we all concur.

- Yeah, yeah.

- But math is a big part of putting down fertilizers, putting down pesticides, so you have to know a little math.

- (Mr. D) That's right, kids.

- So, when they told you to pay attention in algebra class-- - (Mr. D.) You better do that.

You better, you're gonna have to use it.

- Yes, you're gonna have to use it.

- Fortunately, we have calculators now that help and there're a few apps out there that give you a little bit of help, too.

It's good to be able to know how to do it so you can kinda cross check, and make sure you got it right.

It's really important that you do it right.

And you might wanna, like I said, double check because one little decimal point can make a big difference.

Two decimal points makes a real big difference.

If you're supposed to get 10%, .01 instead of .1, that's very important.

- Makes a difference, no doubt about that.

- But the important thing when a lot of the pesticides, and fertilizers, and soil test reports, and things like that will break homeowners information down to a thousand square feet, or sometimes, per hundred square feet.

Most of the time, it's per thousand square feet.

So, probably the most important thing you can do first is determine how many square feet that you're treating.

And we all know that in order to find the area of a rectangle, we multiply the length times the width in feet, and it'll give you the square feet.

Or in inches, it'll give you the square inches.

If you have a lot, I would determine the area of the lot first, and then I would determine the area of your house, and subtract that from your total square footage of your lot.

Measure the area of your driveway, subtract that.

Measure the area of your patio, subtract that.

The area of your dog pen, subtract that.

The area of your swimming pool, subtract that.

The area of your workshop, subtract that.

And when you've done all of that, you will pretty much have the area, the total area in square footage that you're treating.

So, then you'll know how much product to buy.

And then if you're using a fertilizer, keep in mind most of the soil test reports will tell you how much nitrogen you need per thousand square feet.

They're not gonna tell you how much triple-15 you need, because you may not have triple-15, you may have triple-10 or 6-12-12, or 34-0-0.

Or there's a lot of different formulations of fertilizer, so they're gonna tell you how much active ingredient you need per thousand square feet.

And then when you buy that product, whatever you come up with, if it calls for 10 pounds of nitrogen per thousand square feet, and you've got a 34% product, then you've gotta reduce the amount.

You're gonna increase the total amount of the product you put out to get that 34%.

You gotta bring it down to 34%.

Same way with the 10%, triple-10 would be real easy.

If you would need to put 10 pounds of nitrogen per thousand square feet, then you're gonna put, if you have triple-10, be 100, I think a 100 pounds of triple-10 that you're gonna have to put out there.

It'd be two bags of fertilizer.

So, if it's 50-pound bags.

So, just double check everything, use algebra, use your algebraic expression.

I have to write it down and look at it.

If I try to do it in my head, I'm gonna make a mess.

So, write it down and then cross multiply, cross check, and then make sure you've got it right.

You can add more, so if you underestimate you can go back and you can add more.

But it's pretty hard to take up if you put too much out there.

And putting too much out there with fertilizer, can contaminate our water supplies, and it can create problems, it can create algae blooms and things like that.

Don't feel like just because you have a 50-pound bag of fertilizer you've gotta use it all.

It will keep, it will keep.

You can roll it up and put you some duct tape on it and use it next year.

Just use what you need.

And with herbicides, if you put out more than you're supposed to put out, you can kill desirable grass.

Some of the herbicides may be targeted to just broad-leaves, but if you go a way, way, way more than you're supposed to, you might kill everything that you've got out there.

- (Chris) For sure.

- So, it's important to follow label directions and unfortunately, you gotta use math.

- Speaking of using math, you wanna get to our math problem?

- Well, let's do a math problem, yeah.

- Let's see if we can do one quickly.

- Okay.

- So, set us up here, what do we have?

- Have I gotta show you my scratchin' here on this?

I can do that, I can do that.

What I've got here is triple-15 fertilizer, and the soil test recommendation calls for 10 pounds per 1000 square feet.

So, I know that I have 4,000 square feet that I need to treat.

I've done all my subtractions, and additions, and multiplications, and I've got a 4,000 square feet I need to treat.

So, I just set up an algebraic expression.

I got 10 pounds per 1000 square feet, I've got 4,000 square feet.

So, 4 times 10 is 40 pounds.

I need 40 pounds of nitrogen on my 4,000 square feet.

And I'm using triple-15, so triple-15 is 15% nitrogen, fifteen percent phosphorus and fifteen percent potash.

And so I got a 15% material, so I set it up.

Forty pounds is fifteen percent of what?

Forty pounds just happens to be fifteen percent of 266.66.

So, I need 266.66 pounds of triple-15 on that... - Four thousand.

- Four thousand square feet.

See, it's a weak material, and the triple-15 is only, it's 45%, now in that you're also gettin' the same amount of potassium, and the same amount of phosphate.

So, triple-15 is 45% fertilizer, and 55%-- - (Chris) Inert material.

- Inert ingredients.

- (Chris) As they say, or ingredient.

- So, there's a lot of fertilizer in there.

Two hundred and sixty-six pounds, how many bags is it?

That's quite a bit of fertilizer.

- Yeah, and I think they come in what, forty maybe, fifty-pound bags?

- And 10 pounds of nitrogen is a lot of nitrogen.

I just threw that out there.

It may be probably one pound or one to three pounds is probably a more common recommendation on nitrogen fertilizer.

So, that was just an example that I used.

- And of course, we know that nitrogen moves pretty quickly through the soil.

- Yeah, and you know it's gonna be there if it's not encapsulated, if it's not slow-release form, it will be gone in four to six weeks.

You know, a lot of rain, four weeks, six weeks.

If there's not too much rain, four to six weeks it's gone.

- Your algebra teacher would be proud of you, Mr. D. Thank you so much.

- No, no, she wouldn't.

Trust me, she wouldn't.

[all laughing] - Well, we appreciate that math question for us.

Thank you much.

- Thank you much.

[upbeat country music] - Okay, I'm about to control some scale, or try to control some scale, on this crape myrtle.

And, I have here, in this sprayer, a dormant oil solution, and that is what we recommend at this time of the year to control crape myrtle scale.

Keep in mind, when you use a dormant oil solution that you keep it, that it stays in solution.

It will tend to settle out.

So, shake it up from time to time when you're spraying.

Now, I'm gonna spray... to the point of runoff as far up as I can reach realizing that this is a large crape myrtle, very large.

I'm gonna pay special attention to the trunk and lower limbs.

This, as I mentioned, is a do rmant oil product in the jug, and the only time that you'd have a problem using that is if there's a hard freeze forecast within the next 48 hours.

It's important that the water carrier in this solution has time to evaporate before you get into any real cold weather conditions.

Good coverage is important.

[upbeat country music] - All right, here's our Q&A session.

Tonya, you help us out if we get in trouble, all right?

- Okay.

- Here's our first viewer email.

"I put a lot of coffee and tea grounds "in my small compost pile. "

Does the caffeine from coffee grounds " have any beneficial, neutral or detrimental effects " on plants or the compost organisms? "

My compost pile is also my fishing worm bed.

Also, do my veggies accumulate caffeine in them?"

And this is from Mr. Dunn in Bartlett.

What do you think about that, Tonya?

- That's an excellent question.

- It is.

- But you have to know a little bit about soils and how plants take up minerals from the soil.

And it's all at a very microscopic level.

So, you don't have to worry about your plants having extra caffeine in 'em.

They're not gonna have a problem with that.

Because your plant root hairs are takin' up things at elemental levels.

So, caffeine is not a compound that they're gonna take up.

They're gonna take up the different elements that used to be in the coffee grounds.

And coffee and tea grounds are excellent sources of nitrogen for your compost pile.

So, definitely keep usin' 'em.

And enjoy the benefits of those good source of greens, as we call it, in your compost pile.

And you don't have to worry about any kind of negative effects from the caffeine.

- I have a theory though about the fishing worms.

- Okay.

- Sometimes, the fishing worms I try to put on the hook are more active than others.

[laughing] - (Chris) Oh, caffeine.

- Personally, I think they had a shot of caffeine.

Some of 'em really wiggle a lot.

- (Chris) Oh boy.

- I don't know.

- (Chris) Caffeine, huh.

- We need to study that.

[laughing] - We can get a grant for research on fishing worms.

- Yeah, just to study that.

But what about those compost organisms that are in there, those microorganisms, you think the caffeine would affect them?

- I don't think so.

- As they're breaking down the compost?

- I don't think so, I haven't read anything about that anywhere, and all I've read is how great coffee grounds and tea grounds are.

I think you're okay.

- All right, so there you have it, Mr. Dunn.

All right, here's our next viewer email, it's a picture. "

There is a rust-like coating or growth "on some of our beans this year. "

What is it and do we need to worry about it spreading throughout the patch?"

And this is Ms. Sarah in Franklin.

So, rust-like coating on the beans, Mr. D, have you seen that before?

- It's probably rust.

- It's rust, yeah.

- It probably rust, yeah.

Yeah, it's a very, very common fungal disease that attacks snap beans and a lot of beans.

There are reddish-brown pustules on the leaves and pods.

And that was pretty clear.

There's fungicides that will do the trick, chlorothalonil, and even sulfur will take rust out.

So, keep in mind with the fungicide, they're preventative in nature primarily, so if you've already got the problem, you're not gonna cure the problem that you've got with chlorothalonil and sulfur, but you should prevent it from spreading to unaffected tissue.

If you've got a problem with it right now, you might wanna spray and then wait until seven to ten days, or something like that.

The rust is more of a problem, most fungal organisms like moist, warm, moist conditions.

And if we have drier conditions and a lot of sunshine and all that, and you've got some air drainage, then that problem might go away.

If not, every 7 to 10 days, you can treat with a fungicide, but you do need to look at the label and make sure and check for pre-harvest intervals.

'Cause if you're pickin' these snap beans, make sure that if that's a seven-day waiting period after you've sprayed, then you need to wait seven days before you pick 'em.

- Okay, does it affect the actual bean itself?

- As far as the organism, yes, it is actually feeding on that pod.

It's feeding on the pod.

Now, will it hurt you if you eat that?

- Right, this is what I'm getting at.

- Probably not.

I'm not aware of any rust being a problem even if you accidentally ingest some.

- Okay, there you have it, Ms. Sarah.

All right, here's our next viewer email.

"My squash has large leaves and yellow flowers. "

On my plants when the squash flower falls off, " the squash dies.

What did I do wrong? "

and this is Ms. Norma.

So, Tonya, what happened?

- All right, well, that's a very common question, especially at the beginning of the growing season.

Squash actually have male flowers and female flowers.

And so, obviously, the only flowers that can bear fruit are the female flowers.

So, it just so happens that squash has a tendency to put male flowers on first.

And obviously, you've gotta have female flowers and male flowers at the same time to get a squash, a fruit.

So, probably what's happenin', it's early in the blooming season when this person, when she noticed this.

And you've got all male flowers, and the male flowers, since they can't grow a fruit, they fall off and that's pretty much the end of it.

And you can tell if you have a male flower or female flower by lookin' at the base end of it, its little stem kind of part that attaches the flower to the stem.

If it's kind of swollen from the get-go, then that is the female ovary part of the plant.

So, hang on, you'll get fruit, unless the squash vine borers get to them first.

[laughing] But yes, you will eventually have both male and female at the same time bloomin' and get pollination, and your female flowers will bear fruit, and your male ones will just continue to fall off.

- All right, they have a small embryonic fruit.

- Yeah.

- That you see behind that's attached to a female flower is what that is.

So, bees actually help with the pollination.

But what if you don't have any bees?

How can you help?

- Well, you can get a Q-tip.

- (Chris) Aha.

- Yeah, and do it yourself.

- And explain that one to your neighbors, right?

- Yeah.

[laughing] All right, so there you have it, Ms. Norma.

Well, Tonya, Mr. D, we're outta time.

It's been fun.

- Right, thanks.

- All right.

Remember, we love to hear from you.

Send us a email or letter.

The email address is familyplot@wkno.org, and the mailing address is Family Plot, 7151 Cherry Farms Road, Cordova, Tennessee, 38016.

Or you can go online to FamilyPlotGarden.com.

That's all we have time for today.

If you'd like more information on beneficial insects or more garden math examples, head on over to FamilyPlotGarden.com.

Thanks for watching, I'm Chris Cooper.

Be sure to join us next week for The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South.

Be safe.

[upbeat country music] [acoustic guitar chords]