Hi.

Thanks for joining us for the Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South.

I'm Chris Cooper.

Everyone loves flowers.

Today we're going to talk about some of the classic varieties you can grow from seed.

We will also be laying some sod.

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 Celeste Scott.

Celeste is a UT Extension agent in Madison County, and Booker T. Leigh will be joining me later.

All right, Celeste, as always, good to have you here.

- Thank you.

I'm happy to be here.

- Well, good.

You're going to talk about your favorite topic with us today.

So we're talking about seed-grown flowers.

- Yes.

- Where would you like to begin?

- Oh, my goodness.

Well, I just love seed-grown flowers, number one, because they are not very expensive, right?

Seeds are a lot less expensive than buying plants.

We can allow them to reseed in our gardens, many of them.

Or we can collect seed and share them with our friends.

So those are some of the reasons why I really love them and the ones I want to share with y'all today are pass along favorites.

Some that friends and family have given to me and I've continued to share them with others.

So we'll just jump right in I say.

So, castor bean is a plant that a lot of people wouldn't go to for their first seed-grown plant, right?

Most folks I'm thinking are going straight to zinnias and cosmos.

- Yes.

- Which are are super easy to grow from seed.

Beautiful in the garden, direct seed easily.

But the ones I picked for today are kind of unique, right?

And some things that I'm growing in my garden this year that I wanted to share with y'all.

But castor bean has a huge, a really huge bold leaf.

They can come in like a burgundy color or a green color with burgundy veins.

The flower head is pretty insignificant, but then it creates some really unique seed pods.

And it can really just be a wow, wo w factor in the garden.

So we're talking, you know, six, seven feet tall if you have really fertile soil.

I've seen them get to 12, 15 feet tall.

I know, in one season, they grow that size, will reseed themselves in the garden and to the point of becoming weedy, if you don't kind of stay on top of it.

So that's something to be conscious about, but a really cool plant to add a little pizzazz and wow in the garden.

My number two favorite plant that I wanted to share with y'all today is called balsam.

That's a common name for it.

The scientific name is Impatiens balsamina and my mother in law shared this seed with me.

And she said that when she was growing up, they called them touch-me-nots because, - Ah, touch-me-nots.

- Yes.

- I've heard that.

- As the seed pod dries when you touch it or if the wind blows it too hard, the seed pod will pop open and and shoot the seeds out.

So it's like a dispersal mechanism that the plant created, but it's fun for kids and available in lots of beautiful colors.

The bloom itself kind of reminds me of a snapdragon, but it doesn't have the top hood on it, so it's kind of like a looks like a jaw, right?

Just kind of open and hangs off the plant.

They're beautiful, bloom all summer long.

Snow-on-the-mountain was number three for me.

So this really is an heirloom-type plant.

These are things, all of these plants are not things that you're going to go to a nursery and see for sale in a six pack.

They don't look great, right, at the nursery when they're seedlings.

And so I understand that nurserymen don't want to put their stock in that, but they're easily grown from seed.

So seek out friends who have these or order them online.

But Snow-on-the-mountain is an annual Euphorbia and it gets about two and a half feet tall.

Think a long stem that's really sturdy and then lots of foliage at the top.

So you want to put it where it's got something covering up its ankles.

- Ah, I like this.

- You know what I mean?

- Yeah, you don't want it showing its legs too much.

But it is a variegated foliage, green with a white creamy edge around it, bears the flowers right on top here.

And that's also where the seeds form.

So when you go to collect seed, that's what you're looking for.

So just right, a nice little bit of texture and color in the garden without relying on blooms too heavily.

- Gotcha.

Jewels of Opar is number four.

This plant is super unique because it is very, very tough.

I have seen it come up in the crack of asphalt, like, you know what I mean?

- That is tough.

- There is no soil there.

It's just, you know, a leaf matter that's jammed down in the cracks and it's just growing there.

So it can tolerate heat, it can tolerate drought.

It has a really pretty kind of chartreuse foliage.

But its main attraction is this really tall seed head that comes up.

We'll call it the inflorescence, a really tall stalk.

And then at the top, it's really airy.

So it's got teeny tiny fuchsia blooms that then turn into these little copper-colored pearls all over the ends of the inflorescence.

And it's great for cut flower arranging.

It's great for drying, and I really just enjoy looking at it in the garden.

So just a little a little pizzazz, a little something different, unique, definitely if you like taking people around your garden, everybody's going to ask you what this plant is.

- Good deal.

- So that's a fun one.

- That's good.

- Then I've got a couple we'll call throwbacks.

They've been around for a while, and I know a lot of people enjoy 'em, but Celosia.

- Oh, yeah.

- Oh, my goodness.

- I like Celosia.

- I love Celosia.

It grows very easily from seed direct seeded in the ground, or you can start it indoors.

One of my personal favorites is a cultivar called Asian Garden.

It's an All-American Selection winner from, I believe, 2015 or 2017 possibly.

And it has a lavender purply color.

And as the bloom ages, it kind of turns silvery.

And it's one of these that's just going to kind of float through the garden.

So it's going to weave on to other plants.

It's not a really stout, stand up on its own type kind of plant, so plant it in clusters so that they can kind of grow into each other would be my suggestion for that.

And then lastly, the last one I want to share with y'all today is Cosmos sulphureus.

So this is different from Cosmos bipinnatus.

- So it's different.

- It's different.

Yes, the Cosmos that most folks are growing that are the pinks and the whites and kind of pretty red kind of colors, that's Cosmos bipinnatus.

And this is Cosmos sulphureus.

It has orange, sometimes yellow-colored blooms.

It's a much taller growth habit.

And it also branches more th an are typical garden cosmos.

It blooms a little later in the season.

So we have something there from late summer through fall providing nectar.

I've even seen my hummingbirds feeding on them.

Butterflies love them and it's just a really bright pop in a fall garden when we know a lot of our gardens are looking great at that time of year, especially in the Mid-South, it's just so hot and this is one of those plants that is unaffected by the heat.

- Nice, that's even better.

- I know.

So these are just some of my personal favorites, ones that I grew in the garden this year.

But if people want more, we have an entire publication on it at UT Extension, that's available for folks.

It is "Seed-grown Flowers for the Home Tennessee Garden" and you can find that on our publications website, uthort.com, go there, there's a search box, just type in "seed-grown" and that publication will pop right up and they can learn all about it.

Celeste, that was good information.

We will definitely get that on our website, uthort.com - Appreciate it much, we could tell you like these pass along plants.

- I do, I do.

Good job, thank you much.

- Thanks.

[upbeat country music] Let's talk a little bit about Kyllinga.

There's a lot of Kyllinga in this lawn here.

Here's a little patch right here and some patches here, little bitty patch that's coming up here.

And this is what it looks like when it's full grown.

Kyllinga is considered to be a sedge.

A distinct characteristic of Kyllinga is this.

You have the little seed head, a little seed ball here, and then right underneath that seed head will be three leaves, okay.

So again, seed head, three leaves.

That's a distinct characteristic of Kyllinga.

In a lawn situation you could use Image to control Kyllinga, read and follow the label.

But in a situation like this, where it's growing around some of your desirable plants, the best thing would probably be to pull it out, right?

Because you definitely don't want to use a chemical here because you might get it on your desirable plant.

Here it's a blueberry.

So again, I would just pull as much of this Kyllinga out as possible.

[upbeat country music] - All right, so Booker you're gonna show us how to lay sod.

- Yeah, I'm gonna show you how to lay sod.

- Why don't we get started with that?

- Why don't we get started?

The first thing, where we're laying this sod, now.

We had a friend, he wanted to lay some sod, and he started, I've been with him for about 20 years now, and he had Bermuda grass down here.

And over a period of time, you see you got some big old tall oak trees, an oak tree, and while he built the house, they were real small, and we had Bermuda grass down here.

And over a period of time the grass begin to die, and now he wants to go with a new grass.

And we know that zoysia grass would do good in partial shade, but we find a new one, royal zoysia.

It'll do good in shade.

So, he goes with a royal zoysia this time in here.

But before we got started, the first thing he did, he killed everything out of here.

He got some Roundup and sprayed everything.

- The whole yard.

- The whole yard, turned it brown.

Then he came back in with this garden tiller and tilled it up.

And before you get started doing anything, another thing, don't till it when it's wet.

But those hard pan will get in there, it's hard to break up.

So you wanna make sure it's dry.

Then, once you get it tilled, you wanna rake it out.

So I got a rake here, we're gonna show you, just rake it out real smooth, smooth it out real good.

You want the sod to come in contact with some good, loose soil for the sod to catch on real good.

See how I'm doing that?

- Right, right, real smooth.

- Lot of work too, now.

Muscle work.

You're gonna level it out real good, real smooth.

Then you'll come in and lay your sod.

But another thing when we did that, he did a soil test.

- Oh yeah.

- And the soil test came back.

Its pH was kind of low.

He needed to add some lime.

They told him to add 100 pound per 1,000 square feet.

But you don't wanna do that all at one time, now.

You wanna do part, about 30 pounds at a time, then come back in and do it again once the grass catches on and starts growing really good.

You see, sod, it's cut a certain way.

And we're gonna start right here because we're gonna... You know, if you've ever laid sod, you got some sprinkler heads out there you gotta... You need to make sure you mark those, like you got right here.

You got little circles right around there.

That's how we know that was a sprinkler head.

You don't wanna cover it up, you'd wonder why it's not doing any good.

Now, you see sod, only right here.

Now, you cut a certain way.

When you buy sod, it's cut a certain way that will fit in.

You want it to fit in where it'll be real good.

See, because they go together.

- (Chris) Okay, so you gotta butt it up.

- Butt it up, see that's real good, like that.

See that?

How I butt it up?

Gonna lay another one here.

Make sure you butt it up real good.

That's where it goes.

See how that looks real good in there?

Now we'll just stop here and come back.

When you're laying sod, you wanna make sure that you don't have the seam, see that's the seam there.

You don't want the seam, you don't wanna lay it like that.

- Right.

- For the seam, you wanna get it when it rains, it'll wash up.

- Yeah, you can see the water channels.

- The water channels getting in there, so you wanna-- - Not only that, but weeds used to grow in between there.

- Yeah the weeds.

You wanna come back just like that in there.

And come on down, because you wanna make sure that sod is tight together.

Then you come back in here again, you make sure you find the right edge, for it to butt up real good together.

Hope he ain't got another sprinkler head down there.

[laughs] - I don't know, if it is, it's covered up.

- It's covered up, ain't it.

- So that's why I'm keeping a rake right in there.

- So it's gotta be raked, right?

You said rake it smooth, rake smooth.

Good contact is what you're looking for?

- Good contact, good contact.

So that looks good there.

How does that look?

- It looks good so far.

Have you done this before?

- Yeah!

- So, you know what you're doing, huh?

- Yeah, I know what I'm doing there.

[both laughing] - You know when you come in and do all kinds of odd jobs and catch it in there.

So, we need to watch those ends and make sure they go together.

That's where they go.

- Now, Booker if you flip this up, you can see this has a real good root system in there, too.

- (Booker) Oh yeah, real good.

- (Chris) Real good root system in here.

- And another thing that, when you buy sod, you don't want it to lay on the pallet too long.

- Okay.

- Try that, when you have it shipped, in less than two to three days, try to put it down.

Because it will dry out, now we're doing this in the summertime, when it's real, real hot, and it's been real dry.

What you wanna do is you wanna water it down some.

For the roots didn't want to get into no hot, hot soil.

Not wet, now.

Kinda moist.

Moist it down real good.

So we're gonna go ahead again and lay another one down here.

And let's make sure.

Isn't it good looking there?

How's that look?

- Oh man, that's looking good, man.

Are you for hire?

You're looking good, man.

- Oh yeah, any time man, I could use some money, man.

Nah, we'd be working together, man.

So that looks good there, so.

- Now Booker, while you're doing that, how long do you think that's gonna take hold?

- Oh, it'll catch hold, and you'll see it catching hold real good.

It keeps some moisture on there.

You don't wanna keep it wet.

Keep it kinda moist until it starts catching on.

You can come out here and pull on it, and it'll be caught on.

If it's hard to come up, - That means it's taken root?

- Taken root.

You know what?

I'm getting tired.

But that's good though.

Very good exercise.

So that we got it down there real good.

Now you see that there?

Now, that doesn't go together.

See how that looks?

You can tell that don't fit like that.

So yeah that don't fit there.

You see that big gap you got there?

- (Chris) Yeah, that's too big a gap.

- (Booker) Yeah let me tell you what I do, I turn it around.

Now, see the difference?

You see the difference?

When you're laying sod, don't go in and put it any kind of way, because it won't look good.

- You gotta fit it like a puzzle.

- Like a puzzle, yeah, you right.

Now, you know that don't-- - Like a puzzle.

- Now I'm gonna rake this out right here.

Because that's kinda high there.

Would you hold it for me for a minute if you don't mind?

- Nah, I can hold it.

- I wanna rake that a little bit.

Yeah.

It's just kinda mud out here right now.

I'm glad we didn't do a whole lot right now.

Probably good for the show there, too.

Now when we get this laid, when we get the sod laid, all of it laid real good, you wanna roll this, here.

That way it'll fit in real good together.

So we got a roller, we can roll it out, and make sure it comes in contact with the ground real good.

- So you wanna get it even when you're rolling it?

- You wanna get it even when you're rolling, yeah.

You wanna get it even when you roll it to make sure you get everything together.

Now, I think that it looks pretty good.

The most important thing, don't have these seams running together.

Have those seams split, kind of lay out like a puzzle like you said.

You wanna make sure you do it like that.

- Okay.

- That looks real good, don't it?

- It's a good sod, right?

- And when it get through, you gonna have a pretty, pretty yard in there.

So, think that when you do that sod, two things to keep in mind.

Do your soil test, because the lime is the most important thing.

If the pH is off, it's not gonna take up the nutrients in the soil.

So you wanna make sure that you-- - So what does the lime do to the pH?

- It helps other soil be used up by the plant.

When you use the other soil, the pH is off.

So you wanna make sure you do that soil test.

And he did his soil test, came back, low like mine did, and he got it fixed in there.

- All right Booker, well we definitely appreciate that demonstration.

Can't wait to see what it looks like later on in the season.

- All right then.

- All right.

[gentle country music] - Okay.

I'm gonna share a few tips on how to harvest seed from fleshy fruits and vegetables.

For example, today we're gonna use cucumber, but this could be applicable for squash or gourds or pumpkins, anything where you're really having to dig those seeds out of that flesh.

So we've gone ahead and split the fruit in half, taken a spoon to scoop out those seeds, and it's okay that you're getting extra flesh and things like that in there because the technique I'm gonna show you is how you can more easily separate those.

I've scooped most of the seeds out.

[spoon clanging in glass] Give it a little stir.

You wanna loosen it from any of the flesh that maybe you weren't able to separate from in the beginning.

Then we're gonna add some water to this container.

Don't fill it all the way up because you wanna leave room, we're fixing to shake this container.

You wanna leave room for that water to really slosh around.

Okay.

So the goal here is for the agitation of the water to help separate any flesh and clean off that gelatinous stuff from the seeds, okay.

Shake it really good.

Okay, now, I'm gonna let it rest for just a minute or two and we're gonna let the seeds settle out to the bottom and everything else is gonna rise to the top and we'll skim that off.

All right, it's been a minute or two, so we're gonna try to skim off what we can from the top surface here.

And we have got quite a bit of material.

Look at all that that came out in the spoon.

So we're just gonna continue to do that.

I think I have all the big parts.

Now, I'm gonna gently pour off this water.

You could use a strainer.

I am going low tech today.

[chuckles] Okay, so we've got our seeds.

I'm gonna add more water, round two.

[glass clanging] I can already tell it's a lot cleaner.

The water's clear, but we've still got quite a bit of junk on the top.

Shake it again.

Okay.

We're gonna let it sit again for another minute.

All right, it's been another few minutes and so I am gonna use the help of my trusty kitchen strainer.

You don't have to buy anything special, just use something that you already have laying around to help separate this as we pour off that rinse water.

Okay, so you see I've got most of the water off, and I've caught a lot of the gelatinous stuff.

I'm gonna clean that out.

Just give it a couple hits, and then go ahead and pour the seeds in there to get as much moisture off the seeds as possible.

We've got a pretty good clean seed collection here.

And so now, our next step would be to lay these out in a single layer so that they have really good airflow, they can fully dry out before we package those in a breathable container, maybe a paper envelope, and then put those into an airtight container to help regulate humidity.

Place those in a cool dark place and these will be good to go next growing season.

[gentle country music] - All right, Celeste, here's our Q&A question segment.

Are you ready?

- I'm ready.

- All right, these are good.

- Okay.

- All right, so here's our first viewer email.

"My son and I are beginner vegetable gardeners.

"This year he picked up a small plant at a box store "that was mislabeled as a strawberry plant, lol.

"Clearly it is not a strawberry plant.

"We have it growing in a large container.

"It is now approximately four feet tall.

"We have no idea what it is.

"Do you know what it is?

My best to all."

And this is Fran from Malden, Massachusetts.

So, beginner gardeners, which is good.

Mislabeled, though, didn't look like a strawberry plant to me.

- No.

And I wasn't familiar with what it was, I just knew that it looked like it might be a weed, but I was glad that, I think, you can lead us in the right direction.

- Yeah.

So velvetleaf.

I'm very familiar with that.

Yeah, I've seen it a lot.

Roadsides, corn fields, can grow to about seven, nine feet tall.

Produces a lot of seeds.

- Of seeds.

And you can see the seed head forming.

They look kind of cool.

- Lots of seeds, right.

And depending on who you talk to or what publication you read, anywhere from 9,000 to 17,000 seeds.

- Oh my goodness.

- So it's a summer annual.

Okay.

Again, it likes to grow roadsides, disturbed areas, corn fields.

Tells you a little bit about the conditions of the soil that they like to grow in.

But yeah, if you don't get control of it pretty quick, it'll be back.

- Yes.

So don't let it hang around too long.

- Don't let it hang around too long.

And of course it has the heart-shaped leaves, and guess what?

The leaves are soft to the touch.

- Oh, like lambs ears.

- Like lambs ears.

- Like just fuzzy.

- Right, just fuzzy.

[Celeste laughing] It feels real good to the touch.

So Fran, you have a velvetleaf.

It seems to be growing pretty well.

[laughs] - Yeah.

It's loving where it's at.

- It's growing well.

- You're taking great care of it thus far.

- Yeah, you're taking good care of it, but do know, you wanna make sure to get that out of there because it'll be back next year.

All right.

So thank you for that question, Fran.

We appreciate that.

Velvetleaf.

How about that?

All right, here's our next viewer email.

"What are the best ways to prevent or eliminate cabbage worms?"

And this is Dave from Powell, Ohio.

So the old cabbage worms.

- Cabbage worms are so hard.

They're so hard, and they like things more than cabbage.

So I mean, anything in that cold crop.

- Yeah, the Brassica.

- Yeah, family.

They're just gonna flock to, and there's not a whole lot we can do.

So we'll start with the most obvious- - Okay, let's do that.

- If you're into using insecticides, you can use Bt products, those target caterpillars specifically.

And that's what this cabbage worm is.

In its adult form, cabbage worms are a small white butterfly.

There is a green cabbage worm, and there's a striped cabbage worm, so they can look differently when you're trying to find them on the leaf.

Most of the time they're on the underside.

So when you spray that product, you need to try to get good coverage.

That can be difficult, especially on cabbages, 'cause we know how they grow, right, like all balled up like this.

So getting good coverage is important when using those sprays.

And then if you have a dedicated area, say maybe a raised bed, where you're growing these cabbages or anything in that Brassicaceae family, you can, if you do it early enough, cover them with like a floating row cover.

- See that's what I was thinking, yeah.

- Yes.

And you don't have to get real fancy with it.

Floating row covers can rest on the top of the plants and they can move as the plant grows.

So you don't have to have hoops, you don't have to have a lot of things to make this work.

We need the floating row cover and you need something to secure it along the lengths and the ends of wherever this growing area is that you have them.

So what we're trying to do is a technique called exclusion.

You're trying to keep them out.

So if you ever opened it up for a day to, I don't know, you just decided they needed to breathe or something, you don't have to worry about that 'cause water, light, can get through floating row covers.

But if you opened it up and allowed an opportunity for them to move in and lay their eggs, and you cover it back up again, now you've just trapped them in there.

And you are making the problem worse.

So if you wanna use floating row covers for exclusion, you have to be dedicated and keep it closed.

- Keep it closed.

- But those are the two, you know.

- Yeah, those are the two that came to my mind.

- I mean you can try to smoosh them as you see them, but you'll wear yourself out.

- You can try to handpick them, they camouflage so well.

- Yes.

- I always tell people to look for their fecal pellets, that way you can track them down.

But yeah, they're gonna eat up your cabbage.

- You'll know it, if they're there.

- Oh, you'll definitely know it for sure.

- They'll have big old holes in there.

- You would know it.

But yeah, the Bt, the row covers, spinosad is something that you can use that's pretty safe, neem oil.

You might have to use a spreader sticker though, because you know some of the leaves are slick.

- They are kind of- - Slick.

- They are slick, and the water will just ball up and roll off.

- And speed up.

- That's a good point.

You might need to add a spreader sticker.

- So thank you for that question, Dave.

We appreciate that.

Good luck with that.

Celeste, that was fun.

- It was.

- Thank you much.

- Thanks.

- 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.

Thanks for watching.

If you didn't get enough Family Plot for one week, check us out online.

We have more viewer questions there that did not make it onto the show.

Just go to familyplotgarden.com.

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

Be safe.

[upbeat country music] [acoustic guitar chords]