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

I'm Chris Cooper.

Starting seeds indoors has one big problem, where do you get enough light?

Today we're going to build a grow light.

Also, you can find advice about anything online, but how do you make sure you're getting good gardening advice?

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 Tom Mashour, Mr. Tom is a Master Gardener in Tipton County.

And Carol Reese is here.

Ms. Carol is a Ornamental Horticulture Specialist for UT Extension.

Alright, so, Mr. Tom.

You're gonna build a grow light for us today, right?

- Yeah, I kinda refer to it as a grow stand, but yes, it's cheap inexpensive to make.

I went to a home improvement section and priced all the things it makes to make it, and it was like $26, $3 for the wood, $12 for the light, and $10 for the bulbs, so.

- Hey, I like cheap.

- Me too.

- That works for me.

- And it's really easy to do.

One of the reasons to have 'em, is like you said, for starting seeds like Chris mentioned at the beginning, if you got outdoor plants that you wanna bring in.

Instead of putting 'em in the garage, you can put 'em under a grow stand so they get more light than they would in a garage.

Most garages are really dark.

And they're just something fun to do, it really is.

Growing seeds, I just love growing seeds.

I don't care about planting 'em, I just like growing 'em.

- Do you have to be a pro though, to be able to put one of these together?

- Absolutely not, on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is raking leaves, 10 is building a greenhouse, this comes in about 1-1/2.

- Okay, I think I can handle that then [laughs].

- And I said, it's really easy.

We're gonna use a two by four, untreated two by four.

You don't wanna bring anything treated in your house.

The two by four by eight foot only requires two cuts.

First cut is gonna be 50 inches long, and that's where the fl uorescent light's gonna hang, it gives us an inch clearance on both sides of the four foot fluorescent light, and then the remaining piece, you cut straight in half, which is 46 inches, so make 23 inches for each piece.

And if you buy it at the home improvement center, most of them will cut the wood for you, too.

So it's real easy.

So for saving time we got it already pre-cut, and ready to assemble.

So here is a 50-inch piece.

The harder thing about it is measuring.

What you wanna do when you get your fluorescent light, is measure... - You got it?

- There we got it.

Measure on the backside, the center, which is right about here, measure from here to this little hole on this end, and it's gonna be the same on this end.

Once you got that, go for the center line of the four by four, and make the same measurements to find out where to put the two cup hooks, which is what the light's gonna hang from.

Real easy.

Lot of times it helps just to put a little nail in it and pull it out and use the nail as a starter.

So we got our 50-inch piece.

We got the two cup hooks.

Next thing we gotta do is take the two legs.

Now the two legs, right here, I just pre-drilled 'em, but they're gonna go on the ends of this piece.

- Like so?

- Like that, just like that.

And also, before we do that though, to make it a little bit easier, you wanna put some scrap wood down here at the bottom to keep it from tippin' over.

Makes it nice and easy.

- So this won't matter what it is, just some kinda scrap.

- Just scrap wood.

So you wanna make it nice and level.

And I need some screws, oh there are some screws!

- You need screws [laughs].

- How about that, they're so conveniently located.

- How about that, look like I know what I'm doing.

- Alright!

[drill whirring] Electric drill does make it easy.

- That works.

- Okay, wanna do the same thing to the other side.

This is so much easier on the wrists.

Okay, now we got those pieces, we got this, we got that, we're gonna now screw it in.

We want this scrap wood on the outside.

So it won't interfere.

Okay, you wanna hold that up for me please?

- I sure will.

- I'm gonna run over the side.

- Okay.

- Let's turn this over this way, towards me.

- (Carol) Oh, okay.

- (Chris) Can you get it?

Let me get this out the way here.

- Now that I did, I got them started.

- Okay.

[drill whirring] - Good enough, get it that way.

- Yeah, that'll work.

- That'll hold it.

[drill whirring] There you go.

- Alright.

And we're gonna do the same thing to the other end.

You can use nails or screws.

[drill whirring] Now the stand is finished except for the lights.

- I think so far I can handle that.

- I can do that.

- Now when you buy the fluorescent light fixture, it usually comes with two chains.

Well that big hole and little hole, that's where we're going to put it.

Okay, you wanna hang that.

- Here I'll hold on to that one.

- Alright, we'll do the same thing over here.

Like that.

And now you just hook that to the cup hooks.

And because we measured fairly well, it should hang straight.

- I'm good.

- There we go.

Now nice thing about the chains, you notice we got about an inch clearance on both sides, is typically, when you're starting seeds, you want the light three to four inches above the plants, the seedlings.

So what you do is just take your chain and you just raise it up on the cup hooks.

As it grows, you just keep raising it.

- Just adjust it on up and down like that.

- Yeah, just real easy.

Now about the bulbs.

When you buy a two pack, there's typically cardboard ends on it that tells you the size.

This larger one is called a T12 size, and you've probably seen the smaller ones, those are T8s.

You look at one with the highest lumens, in this case it's 2900.

The higher the lumens, the brighter the bulb, the more light you're gonna get.

- And we're gonna go ahead, can you plug that in?

- I will.

Alright.

- (Carol And Chris) We have light.

- We said that at the same time.

- So that's it, just for like 26 bucks plus tax, you got yourself a little handy grow stand.

Now, a couple accessories I recommend, not necessary.

But one is a cheap shower curtain liner, they're made out of, that are white.

And you hang that over the top of it.

And what that does for you is it reflects the light back to the plants from all sides.

You end up with getting bushy plants.

It retains the heat generated by the fluorescent light.

I have mine in the spare room, which we don't have the vent open, so that gives us sufficient light.

And because of the humidity created by the pine soil, it retains humidity, it makes for good, healthy plants.

The only other recommended accessory is a timer.

I set mine to 14 hours day, 10 hours nighttime, which is typical of the summertime.

And you only have to worry about remembering to unplug it or plug it back in, it does it for ya automatically.

The digital one has a battery backup, so if power's lost, when the power comes back, it knows exactly what time it is, and keeps it at the same settings that you had it.

- Good thing.

- Well Mr. Tom, we appreciate that demonstration.

Now folks can go out and build their own grow stand.

- Easy, easy, easy.

- I like it.

- Thank you much.

[upbeat country music] - Alright guys, so we're looking at The Family Plot compost pile over here.

And, we have constructed it correctly and that there are two vessels so that we can rotate back and forth.

Rotation's, due to the influx from garden residue here, has gotten a little bit screwed up.

So, some of this fresh stuff should be over here.

Well, you get the good cooked down stuff on the bottom, on that side.

Another thing, the little microbes, our friends in the soil, there are about 7 billion of 'em in a cup of good healthy soil, like a lotta edge in what they're chewing on.

They'll break it down faster.

So, it might help to knock some of these big pieces down just a little bit, make smaller particles so that they can get at it a little bit faster.

And, it's obvious that this could use a little bit more engagement as there are trees growing out of it.

So, turning it and attending to it will give you a better product.

Other than that, if you wanted to boost it, I tell people all the time that coffee grounds are great because they're basically all edge.

And they'll get your critters going good and fast.

[upbeat country music] - Alright, Ms. Carol.

Now we always tell folks that they can go to the internet, and find some of those answers to their gardening questions, but how do we know if those sites actually have good advice?

- Well, and I'd say, even the majority of them don't.

So a lot of times you just go to Google and type something in, and I'm not sure how that logarithm works, but things pop up that aren't necessarily good sources.

I have a few kind of general rules, and first and foremost, if they're tryin' to sell ya something, they may not be telling you the truth, they may not be telling you the whole truth, and even just omission a lot of times, is the big crime.

I'm particularly suspicious of big box store sites, because they won't give you regional information about plants, they're gonna make 'em all sound like they're gonna do well.

It is the information that is inaccurate, especially about size of plants a lot of times.

Plants are gonna get bigger, I always tell people, plant tags lie, don't believe the plant tags.

So there are a few nurseries that I do trust, and I don't know if that'll be a good idea to mention those, as far as specifics.

One thing I've noticed though is online sources, even ordering the plants they're not accurate, so one thing I look for, if it's an online nursery, not only does it give good information, but do I actually get the plant I ordered.

But as far as good information, yes, we do like people to go to the university sites.

We try to research all our information, and so if it's a .edu site, but... Stuff doesn't disappear off the internet often when it should and things change, as you and I know.

New diseases come down the pipe, new pests, so a plant that we once considered very durable is no longer.

So we have to be sure we stay current, and I always tell people this, I'm gonna mention several good sites.

But I like to go to several sites to make sure I have a consensus.

Because any one site could be wrong.

So I check with EDU sites, I'll check with, there's good botanical garden sites, the Missouri Botanical Garden site is a very good site.

- Which is one that I go to.

- And it pops up pretty quick, and that's one thing I like, some of the websites are poorly designed, hard to find the information.

So that's one thing that I like to look for.

The other thing that I like to look for are professional organizations, for example, information about tree pruning or roots, a lot of times, like if you type in tree roots and foundations, you're gonna find a whole bunch of garden bloggers who are gonna tell ya, "oh, those roots are gonna bust your foundations."

But we wanna go to those sites that have really studied tree roots and so the Urban Forestry Association, the Arbor Culture Associations, any kind of professional association is really trying to get good information out there, to make sure that their information is reliable and trustworthy, so that you hire their members.

So I look for those.

Also if it's about a particular group of plants, these large well-founded plant societies.

You know, the Magnolia Society, the American Conifer Society, there's a Fern Society right here in Memphis, the hydrangea, Mid-South Hydrangea Society, four hundred, five hundred members.

- Yeah, it's big.

- So you and I like to talk about replicated studies, we're supposed to repeat studies several times to make sure that this plant does behave well in all these different settings and over a series of different years.

Well imagine if you've got 4 or 500 members reporting in on this particular hydrangea, or conifer, or magnolia, it's as good as a replicated study.

And they're not trying to sell ya anything, they want you to succeed with that magnolia, they want you to enjoy the plants that they enjoy, so I certainly do trust that information.

- Yeah, the .edu's is pretty much what I go by.

And I look at several states.

The land grant institutions, I'm lookin' at all their information.

- Very much so and especially with, we're talking about plant trials and evaluations, I look for those states that have similar climate.

Georgia, Arkansas, Mississippi, Kentucky, Virginia.

I look at all those and see, oh yeah, this plant's done well for everybody over a wide range of sites.

- Now let's talk about this, what about Facebook?

'Cause you know everybody's on Facebook now, and they're putting garden information on Facebook.

- Well, I'm not a fan of just anybody's information, somebody can put up, even just identify a plant, and they know what it is, they act like they're an expert, and a lot of times they're wrong.

But then a lot of these sites have a lot of very informed members and a few specifics, one that I really love and use a lot is the Tennessee Naturalist Facebook page.

And they'll known plants in the wild, and insects and moths, frogs, mushrooms, you name it.

So I love that site 'cause usually I'll have park rangers, or different informed biologists who'll come on and tell me.

Also the Soil Plant Pest Facebook page is awesome.

- Without a doubt is good.

- Absolutely awesome.

And of course they're posting pictures of current diseases and insect issues, so a lot of times I'll look at that and go, hey, that's what somebody just brought in today, so it keeps me very up-to-date.

Not to mention that also is gonna give me recommendations.

- Exactly right.

That's one Facebook page I go to everyday.

- Yes, it is fantastic.

It is a really fantastic.

People who despise Facebook and think it's all about videos of cats or what you had for breakfast that morning, I don't use it for that, and I use it for things that I'm interested in, plants, insects, even dog rescue groups, a lot of times we'll network on the Facebook pages.

If you're doing a plant identification say in Tennessee, then the Tennessee Naturalist Facebook page, or Plant Idents, maybe a local Facebook page, there's Tennessee Birds, all kinds of things like that.

But you can be in Hawaii and take a picture of a plant and probably post it to one of the more international plant identification pages and get somebody that knows that plant, it's just amazing, it could be somebody, an expert from India or China.

It's just awesome how all these people can network and just a little snapshot of a plant, within a minute, you're told all about it.

People who decide they don't like Facebook, they're just not using it right.

- Right, I mean, it has a good purpose.

- Absolutely.

- If you can do things like that, for sure.

Of course, we do that a lot, just put pictures on there, just to see if somebody can identify them, I know I do it quite often.

- Yes, and not only that, Also a few good industry magazines.

I like American Nurserymen, 'cause people like Mike Dura will often write for that.

But some of the little garden magazines that are written often by people, and I'm not saying amateur in a derogatory way, I'm just saying that often, they have not necessarily done the scientific research behind the article, so look at those with a little bit of caution.

- Okay, I appreciate that good information.

That works, thank you.

[gentle country music] - So late winter's really the ideal time to do a lot of pruning because your wounds can heal quicker.

But I like to do a little bit of pruning during December for winter interests for my greenery.

And so just a little bit about how to do that.

This is Pfitzer juniper, there's all sorts of evergreens you can use, Arizona cypress, Gray Owl juniper.

Foster holly's great to cut on.

So save some of that from spring and summer til' Christmastime and cut on it and use it in a container.

So just a little bit about pruning, you always wanna go back to the main trunk when pruning.

So don't trim it off like this, leaving a stub.

Go all the way to the trunk and prune it off.

And then it's much more attractive in the landscape.

Also with something like this juniper, reach way down in the canopy, don't shear it off up at the top like landscapers tend to do, unfortunately, with hedge shears.

Go down and selectively prune into the canopy, and then it doesn't look like you've got a sheared plant.

[upbeat country music] - Alright, here's our Q and A session.

Mr. Tom, you help us out, alright?

- Okey dokey.

- So here's our first viewer email.

"I saw your show about tomato horn worms, "it happened to me too.

"I have never seen so many.

They ate all the green off my tomato plants."

which they will do.

- Even the tomatoes.

- Yes, which they will do.

"Will tomato worms infect the dirt where they were?"

And this is from Bobby in Crump, Tennessee.

So.

Carol, we'll start with you, what you think about that?

Will they infect the dirt where they were?

- Now define infect, so yeah.

They do pupate in the soil.

So I guess we can call it infection, I don't know how you would treat them as pupae in the soil.

- Yeah I don't either.

Not in the soil.

- No.

But so yes, they're down there.

- They're down there, they're in the soil where they pupate.

Yeah I don't know how you would treat for them down in the soil.

- I read that one of the best things to do in a situation like that is just to till up the soil, where the plants where, 'cause that's where they're gonna be congregated, and most of the information I looked at said it gets about 90% of them.

But I'm also a firm believer in prevention, you know the old expression, an ounce of prevention worth a pound of cure?

So using a product like Bt, which kills 'em when they're in the small stage, then you've broke their life cycle.

And you do that for like two years in a row, and I haven't seen a horn worm on my vegetables in years.

- So treat the foliage before you see the damage, but they do have to eat some of it before that'll kill them.

- But you try to hopefully get 'em when they're really tiny 'cause the eggs are laid underneath the leaves on the bottom side of it.

So if you can get 'em where they're still in the infant stage, there's gonna be very little damage.

- Alright, well there you have it, Mr. Bobby, we appreciate that.

So here's our next viewer email with a picture.

"Will this ivy be harmful to this tree?

Do we need to cut it off?"

And as you can see there on the screen, it's pretty high up in the tree.

So what do you think about that?

- (Carol) It's gotta go.

- It's got to go.

- It's gotta go.

English ivy, not only will it eventually overwhelm the canopy and prevent the tree from photosynthesizing, 'cause of course, the leaves are the source of energy for that tree, it makes that tree much more susceptible to windthrow.

- (Chris) Which I've heard.

- Yep, and I saw that live and in person, a little highway where I live, there was a willow, a weeping willow covered with ivy, and it looks so cool, Cousin It, big things are coming out of the ivy.

I'm gonna stop and get a picture of that as a joke slide one day, wind blew it down before I stopped and got the picture, so yeah.

And when you cut it, you're gonna see that the ivy, you can't get all the ivy out, probably, that's up that high, it's gonna take years for it to eventually drop out and go away.

But cut it down at a reasonable base and don't let it get back up there again.

- Alright, Ms. Rebecca, so you have to cut it.

And I would advise cutting it too.

I know some folks will say you can use one of those, you know, herbicides to get it down, but, I wouldn't wanna spray that around the tree.

- What I've studied also said to cut it.

And kinda leave it and let it die, rather than trying pulling off and messing up the bark and so forth, let it just shrivel up on its own.

- Yeah, so it has to come down, Ms. Rebecca.

Here's our next viewer email.

"When is the best time to plant tulip bulbs?"

And this is from Carol.

Not our Carol, but from another Carol.

So when is the best time to plant tulip bulbs?

- Now or any minute now.

- (Chris) Any minute now.

- It's been so warm I'd be afraid, if you planted 'em in October, they might have gone ahead and started to sprout.

So as soon as it begins to get cold.

I hope people realize that tulips are usually not perennial here.

- (Chris) Good point, yeah.

- 'Cause I just recently had a call from somebody who spent money and put in 10,000 tulips around a big church and thought that they were supposed to come back and I was like, no, uh-uh.

- Another good indication too is when the nighttime temperatures are between 40 and 50 degrees, that's a good time to plant tulips.

'Course, you don't wanna do it when the ground's frozen.

I don't wanna be out there when the ground is frozen.

- Also you get several weeks of winter chill, a lot of people get in touch with me in January, December and say, I forgot to plant my bulbs, is it too late?

And I tell 'em usually not, usually got plenty of chilling hours left, go ahead and put 'em in the ground.

They might come out a little bit later, but they're still gonna come out.

- Quickly, so if you're putting in the bulbs in the ground, do you have to do any prep?

- Well, people like to put a little bit of bone meal and all that stuff, which I've heard is, a lot of times, myth, really not that much difference.

If you've got good soil, probably not.

Remember the planting depth, when people talk about three times the depth of the bulb.

The bulb is one of those thirds.

So count the bulb as the bottom third, and then two-thirds more, that's your top of your soil.

- That's a good point, okay.

So the bulb counts.

Alright, good deal, alright, Carol, hopefully that helps you out.

Here's our next viewer email.

"Should I fertilize my shrubs and Japanese maples now in November?"

And we actually kinda...

Talked about that didn't we?

- It's a little late.

I finally was convinced that fall fertilization is a good idea, but this is too late, because you're looking for that narrow window.

You don't wanna fertilize so early that it stimulates growth and frost gets the new growth.

But if you do it while the tree's still actively growing, it'll store more carbohydrates in the stem and root tissues which helps with next spring green-up and growth.

But this is a little late, I don't think we're gonna benefit at all from fertilizing at this time of year.

- I don't think so.

Anything you wanna add to that, Mr. Tom?

- Notice that I wouldn't do it this time of the year, because in nature the tree wants to go dormant, and I don't want anything to interfere with its normal rotation of life, so I would not fertilize.

I would fertilize in the early spring, before it starts sprouting.

I kinda like to see it dormant.

- Okay.

- Picking the leaves, by the way.

- So if you go to fertilize your shrubs and your Japanese maples, what's a good fertilizer for that though?

- Just a little nitrogen, we usually put in more P and K when we don't need it.

- (Chris) When we don't need it.

- We don't need it, usually have plenty of P and K in our soils, of course, soil test and you would know for sure, but just a light 12-5-5 and I always err on the side of caution, less is better.

- Less is better.

Alright, Ms. Carol, Mr. Tom, we're out of time.

Remember, we love to hear from you.

Send us an 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.

Want to find out more about something we talked about today?

Go to familyplotgarden.com.

We have links to expert publications on everything we talked about today, and everything we have talked about all year.

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]