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

I'm Chris Cooper.

It's cooling off and fall is on the way.

Today we're going to talk about how to get your garden ready for this winter and next spring.

Also, apples are susceptible to many diseases.

We're going to show you the most common and how to prevent them.

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 Joellen Dimond.

Joellen is Director of Landscape at the University of Memphis and Mr. D will be joining me later.

Alright Joellen.

- Yeah.

- Well, it's getting about that time, right?

We have to start talking about fall.

- Fall.

- How about that?

- Yeah, after this hot summer it's been, - Oh, it's been a hot summer.

- It's gonna be good to have some cooler temperatures and football season.

- Yeah.

- Start thinking about time to get everything ready for the winter.

- How about that?

So you gonna give us some tips?

- We're gonna talk about a few things.

- Okay, good deal.

- And you know, it's still time to plant annuals.

I mean you've got parties going on and there are still some annuals that you can plant.

Well, mums, cord pot mums.

- Yeah, I like mums.

- Those are very popular this time of year.

Cabbage and kales, pansies, dusty miller.

Celosia is one that also looks very good in the fall.

You can also plant vegetables.

You know, there's cool-season crops.

Beets, cabbage, broccoli.

- Oh yeah.

- Cauliflower, brussel sprouts, all the onions, some lettuces, all of the, the, the cool-season crops.

- Okay.

- You know, they used to have a slogan, fall is the time for planting because the soil is warm and you can plant shrubs and perennials in the ground.

And since the ground is still warm, the roots will start establishing before - That's a good point.

- You know, it gets cold and then they'll be ahead of a spring-planted shrub or perennial.

- Okay.

- So fall's the time for planting.

- Okay, I like that.

- Oh, soil pH.

[Chris chuckles] We, we, we always say it's time, you know, don't guess, soil test.

- That's right.

- So, and that's true.

Fall is a perfect time of year to do that because when you're going to amend the soils with either, if you, if their test comes back and says, well, you need to add some acid to your soil, 'cause your pH is too high.

- Okay.

- So you add some, some type of sulfur to the, to the soil to make it more acidic.

And what if it comes back acidic and it needs to be more basic?

Well then it maybe need lime.

So, but when you do that, it will take several months to change the pH in the soil.

What better time than over winter when you know, you don't have to worry about it.

So in the spring, you're ready to go.

- You're ready to go.

- I've had a hydrangea that I have tried and tried and been putting acid on to get a beautiful blue color and I finally got it this year.

So, you know, and, but there it's the only one of three.

So now I've got to do the same thing to the other two.

So I'll be adding some more acid to the soil this fall for them.

- Okay.

- And a lot of people lime their vegetable gardens or their, their lawns.

So it's a perfect time to do that.

- I would agree.

- And speaking of lawns, [chuckles] It, it, the things you need to do to your lawn, if you have cool-season grass it's a perfect time of year to plant seed.

- Okay.

- 'Cause they like a 60, 65 degree temperatures at night to be able to germinate.

So that's your fescues and your bluegrasses.

- Okay.

- And because it's an active time of year for these lawns to be growing, you could actually core and put amendments in your lawns for those particular varieties.

- Okay, okay.

- Warm-season grasses like Bermudas and zoysias, bahia, St. Augustine.

You don't do any of the coring or anything like that, but you could add some, a fall fertilizer to 'em if you wanted to, but it's also time to overseed those.

If you want a green lawn, you have Bermuda, you want a green lawn, you overseed it with perennial rye.

- Right, right.

- And then you'll have green grass all winter.

- Sure will.

- So it's the perfect time to do all of that.

- Yeah, I'd rather mine go dormant, you know?

[laughing] - Cause I wanna go dormant.

- Yeah, a lot of people are tired and they don't wanna keep mowing.

- Yeah.

- But with the soil pH test too, you can improve your soils.

I had, I created a new garden spot this year and I had garden mix added to it.

Well they didn't have anymore so they had just mixed it for me.

- Okay.

- Well the pH was all off in it and so it, it would draw the nitrogen out of the soil to try to do the decomposition for the soil mix.

And so my garden didn't do as well.

Well, if they, if I put more amendments in it this time, I would do it in the fall.

So that by the time spring is around, it will have done all that decomposing and it would be ready for me to plant - It'd be ready to go.

- And do a lot better.

So improve your soils this time of year.

- Okay.

- Uh, clean up.

- Yeah.

- I mean, you know, you can cut perennial seed heads down, but it's a nice time to collect seeds from your perennials or your annuals, whatever you want.

It's a great time when they start going to seed, you know, pick 'em up, put 'em in envelopes and, and put 'em inside in a cool place for to use next spring.

- Okay.

- Clean up your vegetable garden.

When they start dying, don't let them just go ahead and die in the garden, pull them up when you're, they're done producing and put them either, if they're diseased or have bugs, don't put 'em in the compost pile, simply throw them away.

But you do wanna clear everything out of the garden, you don't wanna leave anything there in case diseases or bugs overwinter there.

- That's right.

- Cornstalks, you've got cornstalk left, make some fodder shocks and some fall coloring, you know, for some fall decorations with your mums and maybe group pumpkins or gourds.

You know, you can, you can harvest and, and, and use those as decorations for your yard.

And of course, fall is also for planting spring-blooming bulbs.

- Hey.

- Your tulips.

- Yeah.

- Your daffodils, your, your hyacinths, Crocus.

All of that.

And when you plant them now, then they'll get the cold time that they need to initiate their blooms.

All the bulbs need a cool season to initiate blooms for the spring.

So there'll be plenty of time for that.

- Plenty of time, okay.

- Yeah.

- All right.

- And of course, you've got those beautiful tropical plants outside that you been enjoying them on your porch.

Well, you get better bring them in.

- Better bring 'em in.

- Especially before that first frost.

Make sure they don't have any bugs or diseases on 'em, you know, wash 'em off.

I like to wash them off.

- Yeah.

- If they've, I've planted, 'em in the ground I like to dig them up.

- Okay.

- And sometimes I don't bring them in.

I'm, I have a place in my garage where I try to keep them and have pretty good success with keeping some of them in the garage over winter.

But if you, they're outside and they're, you want them inside your house, you just gotta make room for 'em.

You might have to trim 'em a little bit.

- Yeah.

- Just remember they're gonna lose leaves 'cause it's not as high light intensities inside as it is outside.

And you might wanna just make sure, some people will soak their whole container in a bucket of water so if there's any insects in the soil, it'll come up to the top and then you don't bring 'em inside and that way you don't have to use insecticides.

- Okay.

Now what about watering?

You know those plants, when you bring 'em indoors, do you need to wait 'til the soil,?

- Once they bring 'em inside don't water 'em as much.

- Right.

- 'Cause they're, they don't have the atmosphere and the same environment that they had outside.

- Okay.

- So watch your watering once you bring 'em in.

- Okay, good.

- And speaking of water, you know, there's a, sometimes we've had droughts in the fall and then we'll get a frost and then people's plants die.

I remember one December, we still had not had a frost here.

And so I was outside watering because I had heard we were gonna have a hard freeze next day and the, the crape myrtle still had leaves all on them.

So I'm out there, you know, it is 4:30, it gets dark so I'm out there watering in the dark, my plants.

And I think my neighbors thought I was crazy, but you know, I didn't lose any of my plants because they didn't, they had enough water to be able to withstand the freeze that they got.

- Got it, okay.

- So even in a drought situation, just be careful.

Watch the weather, and if we're having a drought in the fall and we're gonna get a hard freeze, it's always good to water so that the plant has plenty of, of water in the system so they can take the cold.

- Okay.

Good point, okay.

Yeah, 'cause I wouldn't have thought of that, yeah.

That's, that's good, okay.

- And of course the last thing you need to do, you gotta bring the hose inside.

- Oh, you gotta do that, right.

- You gotta bring the tools, you know, drain, drain your hoses.

Make sure all of your sprinklers are drained, 'cause if you set them up, you'll notice that sometimes water leaks out of them.

And so you just make sure everything's drained.

You gotta put your cushions up and your hammocks and for fall, if you have hummingbirds, make sure the hummingbirds have food for migrating south.

And if you're gonna get a freeze that night, at least bring in the hummingbird feeder for that particular night, before you put it back out for the, the hummingbirds that are flying south.

- Another good point, another good point.

- And, and of course, if you, if you, you want to, you can look in your extension office and, and find out when they migrate through your area so you know, when to stop feeding so they continue on their way south.

- That was good, Joellen, I appreciate that.

So these are some of the things you do - I do them every year.

- In your own garden, so good deal.

- Yeah.

- Well thank you much for the information.

[upbeat country music] - This is an example of mummified fruit.

We talk about remove, the importance of removing mummified fruit from plants, going into the winter a lot.

And this is just, this is an example of mummified blackberries.

Not caused by an insect or disease, caused by a human.

The old weed eater.

So folks be careful with weed eaters around, around plants that are precious to you, especially those that have fruit that you can eat.

These need to be removed.

It'll be, you don't have to pick 'em off.

Luckily you don't have to pick 'em off one by one because we will remove the dead cane, the entire dead cane.

And we'll be very careful not to pull any of 'em off and let 'em fall to the ground.

If any of 'em fall to the ground, we'll pick those up too, and remove them.

But don't need to go into the winter with these because they can harbor fungal or bad organisms, and we need to get rid of 'em.

Burn 'em, put 'em in the trash.

Don't put 'em in your compost pile.

[upbeat country music] - Alright, Mr. D. Let's talk about apple tree diseases.

Where would you like to start with that?

- I guess let's start with probably one of the most common problems that we have.

And it probably one of the earliest ones in the year, is fire blight.

- Fire blight.

- Fire blight is a bacterial disease.

It is common during cool, wet conditions, which we have a lot of springs that are that way and the diagnostic and, and I'm using a great publication from the University of Georgia.

This is the diagnostic, it's a pictorial, Diagnostic Guide to Common Home Orchard Diseases.

And so it is, I wanna give full credit to the University of Georgia.

And I just have the apple diseases here and, and fire blight, the symptom of it that you see is it's called a shepherds crook.

You'll have a die back from the ends of the branches due to a bacterial canker that's on that branch and, and you may be 10, 12 inches even longer.

The leaves will turn black.

There'll be a crook that will develop and they'll hang on the tree.

It'll just stay on the tree, it won't fall off.

This, this disease, very common on pears and apples and the way you control it, if you have a history of problems, some varieties are more susceptible than others, but if you have a history of problems, then you need to spray during bloom with, actually twice, early bloom and late bloom, with an antibiotic.

This is not something that's in your regular cover sprays for apples.

It's, Agri-Strep is one, streptomycin, Agri-Strep 17.

There's several of 'em out there.

There're listed for, labeled for fire blight control.

So that's the way you control that, but it's gotta be taken care of before you see the problem.

- Okay.

- When you see the problem, there's no need to do anything.

Just wait, wait 'til next year and try to take care of it.

- Okay, so do we, do we need to prune out, then?

- You do need to prune out the dead tissue, you know, later in the year.

You, you need to dip your pruning shears in a solution of one part bleach to, to nine parts water, and to keep from spreading-- - That's a good point.

- That bacterial infection to healthy tissue.

- Okay.

- And, but yes, you do need to prune that out and dispose of it.

Don't put it in your, your compost bin.

- Right.

- You need to either burn it - Good point.

- Or get, get rid of it.

Another very, very common problem that will show up later in the year is cedar apple rust.

We have a lot of cedar trees around in our area.

This, this disease spends about half, it spends part of its life cycle in a cedar tree.

When it's in the cedar tree, the gall, it's kind of a purplish looking gall that will erupt into a beautiful University of Tennessee [Chris laughing] orange, U.T.

orange structure that will release spores and the spores will travel to an apple tree.

And on the apple tree, you have the bright U.T.

orange spots on the leaf of the apple tree.

- All right, so how do you treat it?

- Well, there's a couple of ways you can, if you cut down all the cedar trees within about a 10 or 15 mile radius, that will be one way to control it.

You'll take out the host, but a more practical way to take care of it is to follow the Home Orchard Spray Guide and, and for apple trees and it, you spray with a solution that contains a captan and malathion every 10 to 14 days, seven to ten days actually during the growing season.

And that will prevent that from being a problem.

- Okay, wow.

- Another problem, which is very common on apple trees is sooty blotch and fly speck.

- Yeah, know that one.

- When I grew up, I thought that all apples were supposed to have little spots on them.

[Chris laughing] And this is this, this disease or diseases, it's kind of a, several fungal organism that cause the, this, it's pretty much on the, just on the skin of the apple.

- Okay.

- And you can peel it off.

If you scrub it off, you can actually scrub - How about that?

- That off, but it will reduce the, the shelf life of an apple.

The home orchard regular cover sprays will take care of that.

- Okay.

- And that's, again, the home orchard sprays that contain malathion and captan.

And the next disease I wanna talk about is bitter rot.

And it is a concentric circles in a rotten spot on the fruit of an apple tree.

It's caused by a Glomerella.

And it has kind of concentric rings like a target, but sometimes the, instead of being circular, they're kind of V-shaped and it actually sinks into the, the fruit and it goes on into the fruit.

But again, the Home Orchard, you know, Spray Guide, following the regular cover sprays with a mixture of captan and malathion seven to ten days during the growing season will take care of that.

- Okay.

Now, is that considered to be a fungus?

- It is a fungal.

- It is a fungal.

- It is a fungal, Glomerella is, is the fungal organism.

Another real common one is black rot.

- Wow.

- And this is kind of a brown, starts out is like a bruised area on the blossom end or the calyx end of the apple.

And then it spreads.

And it also goes up into the fruit.

It's Botryosphaeria, botryos, I can't say it today.

Botryosphaeria, but it is a fungal organism and it can be controlled by using, you know, regular cover sprays every 7 to 10 days with fungicide captan and the, and, and the malathion is an insecticide.

And I'm, you know, I'm throwing the insecticide in there because if you're gonna spray with a fungicide, you might as well control the insects while you're at it.

- So with the black rot and the bitter rot I mean, the fruit is still edible.

- Yes.

Except it gets up in the fruit, you've gotta cut it out.

- You gotta cut it out.

- You gotta cut it out.

Unlike the, the fly speck and, and, and, or the earlier ones that was just on the skin.

- Right.

- This, this, this will go into the fruit and it will cause the entire, it can ruin the entire fruit.

And, and with most of these, with the fruit will hang on the tree, like a mummy will hang on the tree and sanitation is important.

You need to pick those off and get rid of 'em again, don't put 'em in your compost bin, you know, put 'em in the Walmart bag, double bag 'em, get rid of 'em or something, and put 'em in the garbage.

Apple scab is another very common disease and it is present on, on the leaves.

Sometimes it's called frogeye leaf spot.

- Ah, okay.

- But it has scabby lesions on the fruit and it tends to be more on the skin, but it's a very common, common problem in apples.

And it can be controlled again with a, with a regular, you know, cover spray every 7 to 10 days.

- Wow.

- And you know, if you get a rain and it washes it off, it's gone, you need to go back out there and do it again.

Can be really hard during, during rain conditions.

- Sure.

- But again, the cover sprays contain captan and malathion.

White rot is again, Botryoshpaeria.

It's the same genus, but a different species.

- Okay.

- It causes, and it has depressed, soft, enlarged lesions on the fruit.

And it's really, it really will wipe out your fruit pretty quick, but it's more of a late season problem in apples and pears.

And it becomes soft really quick.

Most of the other rots, the black rot, and is, is kinda hard at first and it takes it a while to get soft.

But serious disease, sanitation again, is important, remove the mummified apples that are hanging on the tree, but prevent it from occurring with, by using a Home Orchard Spray Guide and, you know, regular cover sprays with a material that contains captan or malathion.

- Wow.

- And that's, that's the main - Those are the main ones?

- Apple diseases that we see.

And we see all of these in, in here in the Mid-South.

- Yeah, I was gonna ask you do we have that here?

- We see 'em all in the Mid-South, sure do.

- Wow.

Appreciate that good information, Mr D. Very much.

- Thank you, thank you.

[upbeat country music] - The Asclepias or milkweed has gone to seed and we can let this just fly everywhere and put milkweed seeds everywhere or you can start collecting them.

See these have come here and they're, there's got, you can collect them with these or you can take the seeds off of them and just collect the seeds by themselves.

They're very easy to collect, especially at this stage when they're about to fly away with the wind.

But you end up with some seeds that you can save and plant in the spring in a different place.

You can store these in an envelope and put them in your refrigerator, or you can just put 'em in a cool dry place.

And then in the spring, when the warm temperatures warm up, plant them outside.

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

Y'all ready?

- Yes.

- These are great questions.

Here's our first viewer email.

"Hi, how do you get rid of English ivy?

"I applied Roundup this summer, but that did not work.

"I pulled what I can, "but there are places where it grows that I can't get to.

Thank you."

And this is Barbara from Manalapan, New Jersey.

So she's trying to get rid of English ivy, Joellen.

You know little something about that.

- She's doing a good job with, you know, mechanical is one of the best ways.

- Okay.

- But if Roundup, of course, is no.

When glyphosate is not working, try the brush killer, which is like a - Triclopyr.

- Triclopyr.

Triclopyr, yeah.

Try a different mode of action and it might help, but just, you know, make sure you just spot spray it on that because you don't want it to get it on anything else in the garden.

- So, this is what I do Mr. D. You tell me what you think.

So I would go early in the spring with glyphosate product because the English ivy has not yet developed the waxy cuticle.

- Yeah.

- Right.

- Okay, then you have to reapply again, maybe, you know, four to six weeks later, or go out there with a lawnmower, weed eater.

You can mow over it and then you get the new growth.

- Which hasn't developed the waxy-- - Wax coating.

- Another thing, you may want to use a stronger solution of the glyphosate.

- All right.

- I looked at some research that had been done comparing glyphosate with triclopyr and glyphosate worked better when they used the 41% material, at least a 41% material and a 4% solution, which most of the, the ready-to-use product that you buy probably are only two to three percent - Oh, okay.

- Solutions.

- Got it, yeah.

- So if you do that, do it when the leaves are young, multiple applications, the glyphosate tends to, tends to work, but that's only in the springtime or in the, in the later on, like you said, if you cut it off and have the new growth that comes out, but mechanical is what I do.

And, and, and I have a lot of English ivy on my property and where it's growing, I need it.

I mean, it's good in the shade.

It's good in, you know, highly erodible areas.

And, but I don't need it up the trees - No.

- Right, right.

- And things like that.

And so I just, I mechanically remove that.

And, and it's something to see when you have a tree that hadn't been, that's been covered with English ivy.

- Oh, I've seen that.

- Yeah.

- For years and you, and you go around and the tree and, and, you know, they, they say you can't get prune shears under it.

You have to use a screwdriver to, to do that.

I, my loppin' shears, I can hook my loppin' shears around 'em and, and cut most of them off with heavy duty lopping shears.

And then once you do that, one time, they start up your tree again, you next year, you just use hand shears, just walk around the tree and cut 'em off and let it grow along the base of the tree.

And, you know.

- It works.

- And the, you know, she's got the right idea.

She's done it mechanically.

And you know, eventually you're gonna get rid of the carbohydrates in the ground - Starve it.

- And it will stop coming up, but that's gonna take a lot longer.

- It's gonna be some work.

Ms. Barbara, we appreciate the question.

Do read and follow the label, you know, on the herbicide - Always, yep.

- That you will be using, all right.

All right, thank you much.

Here's our next viewer email.

"Help, I have whiteflies and spider mites "on my herbs and in my vegetable garden, "tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant.

"How can I get rid of whiteflies in a way "that I can still safely eat my vegetables and herbs?

Thanks."

And this is Ms. Ann.

All right Mr. D, we gotta get rid of those whiteflies, but we gotta do it safely.

- Right, we do.

- Yeah, because she wants to eat - Right.

- Her herbs and vegetables.

- And she started out saying whiteflies and mites - Spider mites.

- And then she said whiteflies.

- Then she said, yep.

- Right, so they're two different critters.

- Okay.

- Whiteflies are an insect, mites are not.

- Right.

- You know, they're, the first thing I look at is what will work, give you some help for both of them.

And I would probably lean toward the horticultural oils and soaps, horticultural oils and soaps would, they're listed for both the whiteflies and the mites.

If you continue to have problems, and one is worse than the other, bifenthrin is an insecticide that's listed for whitefly control on vegetables.

And then kelthane is a miticide that's listed for mites.

So if one or the other continues to be a problem after you try the treatment that works for both of them, the horticultural oils and soaps then treat 'em with a rifle.

You know, whichever one is the problem you treat with the product that's recommended for it.

- And you know, what might help is yellow sticky traps.

Because if it's white, if it's the flies it'll get stuck on the sticky trap, then she'll know that's what her problem she has.

- Right.

- If they don't and she still has problems that, and you need to look under the leaves and that's probably where the mites are got.

- Then you'll need a magnifying glass.

- Yeah, in minute, yeah.

- The mites aren't going to fly away.

- No, they're not gonna fly away.

- That's right.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, so yeah.

Again, yeah, the oils.

Yeah, the soaps.

- Yeah.

Yeah, but in that, yeah, that doesn't control it.

- Yeah.

- Heavy artillery.

- Wow, how about that?

All right, thank you for the question, Ms. Ann.

We appreciate that.

Mr. D., Joellen, we're outta time.

That was fun.

- It was good.

- Thank you much.

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.

Every week we answer more viewer questions that we can air.

We don't want them to go to waste, so we put the rest of them on familyplotgarden.com for you to watch.

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

Be safe.

[upbeat country music] [acoustic guitar chords]