Hello, and thanks for joining us for another episode of Mid American gardener.

I'm your host Tinisha, Spain.

And joining me in the studio today are two of our favorite panelists.

The Jennifer's are here.

So we're gonna have them introduce themselves and tell you a little bit more about their specialty and where you can find them in the garden.

So Jennifer F, we'll start with you.

Hi, everyone.

I'm Jennifer Fishburn.

I'm a Horticulture Educator with the University of Illinois Extension.

And my office is located in Springfield.

I serve Logan, Menard, and Sangamon and counties.

And I like to talk about just about anything after 25 years and extension.

All right.

Hi, I'm Jennifer Nelson.

I'm a horticulturalist you can find me in lots of places.

I am an instructor with the Department of Crop Sciences at the University of Illinois.

And I also have a blog called grounding and growing at grounded and growing.com Yes, and you're back in the classroom.

I love that love and that we're actually we've been trying to come visit you.

We're going to get there because we want to see you in the classroom.

So we're gonna mix it up a little bit today and start with questions because they've brought a lot of seed starting materials, we're almost there.

We're so close to spring, it's here.

It's almost here.

The trees have buds on them little bugs I can see.

So we're going to make sure they're going to make sure that all of our seeds get off to a really good start this spring.

So let's take some questions first, and then we'll spend the rest of the show talking about seats starting.

The first one we're going to jump into is about the overwintering geraniums.

This is question 100.

This is from Megan Glasgow coons.

She writes, When overwintering geraniums, storing them in a paper bag in the basement, should they be watered?

So yes, what should we be doing with our bulbs as they're resting?

So the short answer to that is no, you don't need to water.

But it's a timely question.

Because around March is when you want to take those out of the paper bag, get rid of the dead foliage that's on there and report those and put him in under some growing lights or in a really sunny window.

Ooh, so we're almost there almost as long as the stems are plumping, they haven't shriveled or obviously dried out or should be fine.

Are there any other bulbs that we could give an early start like that?

Or is that specific to geranium?

Well, those aren't bulbs, those are just an annual that you've overwintered, and they have a thick enough flushing of stem that they they kind of shut down for the winter.

Okay, and so kept in a cool, dry, dry space, you can they'll survive, gotcha.

Big Canada's would be a great time to get started early on, you could actually pop those up and get them give them a little bit of an early store because they're pretty slow.

To get going.

You put them straight into the ground.

So that would be a great one to start early.

Colocasia Oh, finir.

Okay, do you another one?

Oh, wow, this is great news.

For those of us who can't wait to get out there.

As far as when you're looking at them, like let's use the cameras for an example.

How do you know which ones didn't make it through the winter?

What are some things that you should be looking for in your plants or your bulbs as you're going to pop them back up?

So anytime you go to purchase even purchase bulbs, you want to feel them and make sure they're firm, that they're they're solid, and if they're not, if you feel it's soft or just dried out, then those would be ones that you wouldn't want to pot up or use or purchase.

But if they're solid, a lot of times they'll even start to have little nubs on them where they're the the leaves are getting ready when wanting to sprout, so to speak or come out.

That's what I look for.

Yeah, same anything.

Brown is brown is generally bad.

If you're looking at you want to see a little bit of green like on canas.

Anything squishy?

Not squishy.

Sad.

It's because yeah, I learned that the hard way with my Colocasia squishy is a weight and kindness.

Right if it feels really light.

Yeah, you've got this huge bulb and you're like, feels like nothing's there.

Yeah, then that that will probably didn't make.

Right.

Okay.

Excellent question.

We'll move to the next one.

Let's see question 107.

This is about river birch from Debbie.

She says they have three river birch in a relatively small backyard.

They later realize that they've got shallow roots and deter anything from growing around them, especially grass.

They provide lovely filtered shade, which they do love especially over the deck.

Also as the trees age they seem to send the shallow roots out farther and farther from the tree.

Aside from cutting them down.

Do you have any suggestions as to what would work in the area of each tree?

The yard receives full sun except under those trees.

If you suggest or ground cover what would be economical as we're talking about a good size area here.

I was we were talking about this before the show and I said you got to get used to mulch because we have ever burned in our yard same Do I don't know if any ground cover that would be really super vigorous in that situation because the roots are so extensive.

I've got been able to get a couple of things started, I think Lant lamb Ium is one that I was able to start from a very small start, because he just can't get a shovel in because the roots are so thick.

Wow.

Very good Iris, I could never keep very good Iris alive anywhere else in my yard.

But it will grow under the river birch because it likes dry, unlike every other Iris that I know.

So a few things.

But I would start with stuff that is smaller, you don't ever want to really be going to town digging in the root system of a tree.

But erring on the side of smaller plants to start with would be something I would suggest and really think about mulching is going to probably be your best bet, I don't know that you could have what it would take to get a really extensive ground cover started in that situation, it's going to be competing so heavily that tree is going to just suck the life out of it.

Yeah, exactly.

And, you know, that's just, you know, I know this doesn't help with her situation.

But it's always one of those things we really try to get encourage people is to understand the root structure of that plant, and how big that plant is going to get.

And then you know, what's that going to look like in your yard.

It's difficult for people to conceive that this little two foot, three foot four foot tree is going to be you know, 40 feet tall later on and take up this much space.

But malting really is the key here.

That's going to do the best for that situation.

It always cracks me up when I read questions like that.

And you guys are just nodding along like yep, I could have told you that was gonna have made some of the same in that part two.

Yeah, assumptions in my yard.

I didn't think I didn't know how extensive the root system for river birch was going to be.

Now and I'm paying the price.

So so get some mulch and you get some pots or something.

Yeah.

Mulch.

Great idea.

container garden.

Yeah, that would be base would be great.

And that's their specialty.

Again, we did we've done that show with you guys as well.

All right, we're gonna go to 109 pruning oak trees.

Why this is from Steven Casper.

Why does my arborist want to wait until the third frost before pruning dead wood out of my large pin oak trees help us out with this one.

So oaks in general are pruned.

Typically between November and February what we call the dormant season.

That's really important with oak trees because they can get a fungus called oak wilt.

And we want to avoid that at all costs.

So that's probably what they're they're waiting for is to make sure they have that app.

I have a good window and a good time timeframe to do that without causing any issues for the tree.

So just saying third Frost is just like a nice check and he's making sure it's cold.

Yes.

dormant, making sure it's cold.

Okay, good to know.

Now we've got another question we're going to answer but there are a lot of questions jammed into this question that's why I named it this and that this is from peg man.

She says I like growing things from starts like avocado, pineapple, lemon, or any type of citrus seeds.

What else can we grow?

So this is like from the grocery store?

What What suggestions do you have of things that folks can just find and grow if they're just wanting to see something grow?

Well, I'm experimenting with ginger right now I've heard that you can do it.

I saw John Bowden Steiner brought it on on the show previously, and so I picked up some ginger that was sprouting looked through the grocery store to find some that was starting to sprout because they're treated to not sprout and I'm trying to get it going.

I don't know.

We'll see how this works.

Supposedly it will root within six to eight weeks and then give me new ginger in eight months.

We shall see.

We shall see.

But you know things like the the ends of green onions, you can sometimes get those to sprout and trim that.

Use that in cooking.

I've seen sometimes people try that with garlic and just not growing it to get a new bulb of garlic, but just that shoot has some garlic flavor to it.

I remember, in college, there was one person who loved who had potato vines all over their apartment.

And I thought wow, this is kind of different.

But you know, all right.

But potatoes.

I've had luck one time with celery.

We talked about this a little bit before the show.

You said it's not not likely or not often that you get it to go very far right.

And same thing with like stubs of the core of lettuce I've seen sometimes people trying to start there.

It just really depends at what point that plant was when it was harvested if it's got much growth potential left in it because all like lettuce and stuff will tend to bolt at the end of its lifecycle.

So yeah, just worth it.

try.

And if you're really itching to do something and go for it, for sure, maybe you just want to see, it's kind of fun to do.

The main thing to remember, particularly with citrus is I need pretty high light.

So you, if you want to continue to grow it, you'll, you'll need ideal growing conditions for some of those plants.

Okay.

All right, let's see, let's dig into the rest of this here.

Let's see.

The next one is, what are some new plants on the scene and I know both of you like house plants, so any new fun plants that you've seen out and about, or oh, shoot, we were talking about, we stopped, DJ Taylor production team and I stopped at a plant store the other day, we were at the checkout line.

And they had I can't remember the name of it, but it's the one that looks like the heart of the whole year.

And we were all like, that's a Gen plant.

Like we could see you with your car going, you're coming home.

And I did I brought that on the show last year.

And that, you know, it hasn't done anything, it's still just sitting there like one single leaf.

And really I don't, I don't I don't know if it's ever gonna like produce more.

And some of what I've read about it is like unless unless it was propagated with enough of the stem attached to it, it may not produce any more, but it's still alive still, while still not dead yet.

I'll mention as a follow up to our recent holiday this week, some people got plants for Valentine's Day, yes, the thing to keep in mind is a lot of those were grown in a greenhouse situation.

So they may not even though it might be in azalea might not do real well, in the house situation.

You could try to plant those.

But some a lot of times those aren't zone Hardy for our area.

They're further south grown plants that are tolerated, growing conditions that are warmer than ours.

But you can always give it a try.

But just keep that in mind that if you get them to limp along, can you plant them outside?

Yeah.

And that's where they can try to plan.

They may not be hardy might not okay.

might not make it through the winter.

But give it a shot.

Give it a shot.

Okay.

The last part of your question is I've never gotten a Hoya to bloom in Illinois.

Is it possible?

So yes, it is possible my grandmother used to have on blooming all the time, they're absolutely gorgeous.

But it takes about two to three years to get a plant to bloom.

And they also they need high humidity.

They prefer that soy might be a growing condition.

But and I had one for years that I was doing all the right things.

And it would start to send out this growth that looked really long and spindly.

And I thought, well, what in the world is it's under a plant a grow light, it's not.

It looks like it doesn't have enough light and I'd cut it off.

And I just let it do that for a long time longer than I should have.

And I should have done what I tell everyone to do to go research it right.

But now, I researched it after I'd cut it off.

And it said that that was a sign that it was trying to flower.

And so I just left it alone.

And what do you know, big ol flowers everywhere?

So yes, I wish this lady would leave me alone, right.

And the one that I've got is called Hindu rope that was doing that.

And it smells like chocolate.

It's really cool when it when it blooms.

So yes, yeah, you can get it too.

Okay, well, I'm gonna shut this because we're out of questions.

Now we're moving on to the good stuff.

So feed starting, help us out, because we really start out with the best of intentions.

And then some things can go wrong.

So I will let you guys kind of just take over and I'll jump in here with questions.

But help us understand, you know, some things to do some tips.

You know, get us started.

Well wish we start like if you're really itching to get something started and you just want to have something immediate, like instant gratification I brought.

This was a project that we did in classes of micro micro greens.

And so this is about a week's worth of growth.

This I believe is a mix of broccoli.

And so it's growing on as I joked with my students, a high tech micro green growing apparatus, also known as a sandwich deli container.

And this mat is a hemp mat is made with hemp fiber, so it's technically considered a hydroponic method but I've seen if you didn't want to buy these I've seen people do paper towel that would work the same way and sow the seeds is about a teaspoon of seed over the top and it is seed purchased as microgreens seed because we know that it's been monitored in quality check for not having any micro organisms that might make us sick.

So we want to be cautious with that kind of thing of microgreens and sprouts.

So the idea here is that these are a little young still but if you let them keep growing to have the first true leaf because these are the seed leaves the first leaves that come out once you get That third leaf, then you would come in with scissors and cut them out and put them on you said your son put them on a day exam forcing your force feeding.

But anywhere you might use spinach or lettuce and like on a wrapper, or a salad or whatever, you're not necessarily going to eat a big ol bowl of them, but they're very concentrated in nutrients that are usually several times more of a given nutrient than in the mature plant.

So there's lots of good reasons to eat them and get that instant.

is in garden feel.

In January, February, yes, you finally get to see something green.

Yes.

Much like you minor in a sandwich container.

And, you know, they're just so easy, right?

In three or four days, we had, I mean, we, there wasn't a lot in there, but we had something to look at.

And you know, yeah, so, and it's surprising, my students kept saying this is just really so satisfying to have something to like nurture, nurture, and take care of and watch.

And it's tangible.

Yeah, rather than a screen.

Exactly, exactly.

Okay.

So that's just one example to say, to get us off on seed starting Yes, what you the required things proceed starting would be of course, your seeds, a good quality potting mix, which we'll talk a little bit more about a container to grow things in that you could either put like in a dry cleaner bag, or put a lid over to get to germination.

And then lights lights are very, very important.

And a fan that you could create some wind, so to speak in that space, those are the must haves.

And then there's like a whole bunch of other things that you can buy as well.

So Jennifer and I grew up brought up brought different types of heat maps that you can use to get your your plants to germinate quicker.

But number one thing that I have learned is quality seed starting mix.

So I will just repeat that, again, quality seed starting mix.

And then the other thing to note about your seed starting mix is it's going to come dry.

So when you pick it up, it just you can see it's very, very dry, before you put that into the containers that you're going to use wet that up.

So it's nice and moist.

Some folks might even want to wear a mask because the dust is it's pretty, I mean, when you take it out of the bag, it's pretty dusty.

And then get that good invoice, you have a good foundation for your seeds to start sprouting.

That's, that's step one.

I've heard a lot of you almost all of you talk about you know, there, there are other ways or places that you can cut corners and have savings if you need to.

But the the medium is not the one especially if you're going to start from saying you can skimp on potting soil or garden soil.

But if you're going to start seed, go for the good stuff, I seems to be the standard and get some and get some lights across and tell people if they're if you're gonna go to all this trouble.

Even your best window at home is not enough light for seeds, you need to get some supplemental light.

There's it's come down in price dramatic.

My gosh, I use the example of us sitting in a lecture and the speaker was talking about one little fixture costing $150.

And we looked at each other like we're never going to be able to buy this.

Now the same fixture that was maybe a 1212 inch by 12 inch square is now about $30 Yes, you can get led shop lights, anything that was going to put off a good intense light.

And then we'll talk about it I will remind them again but once the seeds are sprouted, that light goes really pretty close to those to those seeds.

So that's as close as you can get without touching really so that they don't get leggy.

Right.

So do you have to worry about burning your seedlings is that a nonstick LEDs or fluorescent?

They don't they don't get hot, incandescent light bulbs, but I don't know that anybody would use that for grow light.

There used to be more grill lights like that those get really hot.

But yeah, as long as you're not, not physically burning them, sometimes LED fixtures get a little warm, I wouldn't use so you wouldn't want them to be right up against it, probably dry them out.

Gotcha.

Okay, so you're gonna put your seed starting mix into whatever container you want to start with.

You could put them right into the little cell packs, you can put them right into little cups.

You could start you know, a whole packet of not a whole packet but about 20 Tomato seeds and a little open flat knowing that you're going to have to transplant those to something a little bit bigger.

But there's Brandon, Jennifer's got some homemade there but this is just a toilet paper roll that we cuts.

We've all got those.

We've cut some little tabs and just folding that in and then you would fill that with your potting mix and people might tell you oh you can plant the whole thing and don't do that it will never break down fast enough and any amount of this paper sticking above the soil when you planted will be like a wick and it will dry, it will dry the whole thing out.

So just same thing with peas, they just do not break down.

So peel them off, they should peel off pretty easy, especially once they're wet.

Okay, and then plant that root ball.

And this is just a little, little gadget, a little wooden gadget that you wrap a strip of paper around of newspaper, and sort of make a little cup of make a little cup of hot little paper pots, same idea.

So you would fill that with the mix.

And then I would also tear the paper off before I planted it's just not going to, it'll break down but it's not going to break down fast enough.

Gotcha.

Okay, we've got about six minutes left, and I want to make sure we get through, okay, all the steps.

All right, so So next step is going to be once you have your seeds, which you can use any kinds of seeds.

But while I guess at this time, I would suggest here in the next couple of weeks, it takes about six to eight weeks for tomatoes and peppers.

Those are usually the primary things people like to plant, we've got a lot of herbs here that you could plan as well.

But once you have those into your pots, and if it's this year seed, you should only need one seed per cell or you know, here you can just see what comes up.

If it's last year seed or before, you might want to put two seeds in a little cell knowing that you're gonna have to take one out.

But the key thing there is then something to trap the moisture.

So you want those to be consistently moist until they germinate.

A lot of these type of trays come with a dome that works well if you don't have one of these or it got broke.

You can see this is repurposing here, I cleaned this really well and sanitized it but anyway, or you could put it in a dry cleaner bag.

And then the next step is a heat source.

So some people actually put them on the tops of the refrigerators.

Um, you could you could actually purchase a commercial type mat that you can plug in, but they need a good minimum usually around 70 degrees temperature for that germination to happen.

Now do seats do seats need light for germination?

Depends on the seed most do not I was hoping for an easy answer.

Most students most do not okay.

Because you know, it feels like a natural step.

You do all the things and then you put the lights on and then you leave.

But do they even need them until they you know most of them don't.

But I'm in the habit of putting the lights on when I plant because you don't know when those seedlings are going to sprout.

And I've had had that happen where I didn't get the lights on in time and they're reaching for light immediately.

And you know, all this preparation.

Yeah.

And you have these leggy tomato seedlings right off the bat because they came up like you started.

You started them in at the office or whatever.

And they came up on Friday night and you came home Monday morning and dollar dollar pack and a tomato seeds and I had to throw them all out.

Oh yes, they got about that long.

Oh, wow.

Without the light and I was really kicking myself quite hard lights turn on.

And then once the seeds germinate, do you keep the heat source?

You do not have to Okay.

All right, we've got three minutes late.

Okay, so the next key is, once they've germinated or depending on if they needed light to grow, or you've already turned them on, it's 14 to 16 hours of supplemental light per day.

And again, we cannot emphasize this enough, just the light source needs to be really close to that plant so you for prevent the stretching.

It's also a good idea at that time just to put on our fan low.

So it just creates a little bit of a when it makes the outdoors you'll get stronger seedlings that way.

Some of the one of the problems I've run into some time at this stage is I'll get a little mold in here.

What do you do when that happens?

Is it a lost cause?

Do you just take off the lid?

What do you guys do if you get a little mold?

Take off the lid.

If you can kind of pick it out and see where you're at.

Okay, usually you can save it.

Okay, yeah, and I forgot to say that as soon as they germinate.

Take this lid off.

You don't need it anymore.

Oh, oh, I was doing that wrong.

I was gonna add on until it was planted.

This comes off as soon as they have germinated.

Oh, and then that having that fan on it sometimes helps prevent that what we call damping on where you're starting to get that mold look to it.

So yeah, once he I would always get in this situation where like, Okay, I want to leave the lid on till the start until the sprout but then not everything sprouted.

Yes.

And I was really hesitant the first time I bought one of these heat mats.

I was like I don't wanna spend the money on that.

But I did just bought I bought just a single one to try it made such a difference because everything came up and look it's like a higher percent of the seeds actually germinated and they all germinated at the same time and it actually made that whole process a little smoother for me, except for things like I've had it where I've tried tomatoes and peppers.

So whatever germinates the tomatoes first To obviously take those out and keep the lid on the pepper seeds because it'll take slower to germinate.

So next step is depending on how early you started them, you might have to pop them up at a bigger pot.

So keep that in mind are you going to have enough light source to cover all of that, and then I'll just jump to the last step.

We're running out of time.

And that is to harden them off.

That is another huge game.

Yeah, so you don't ever want to just take them straight from inside and just set them out in the garden they will not survive.

I the textbook definitely the textbook way to do it is to put them outside in the shade and bring them in at night and do that for three or four days and then after about a week's time, be able to plant them out.

I will wait till the temperatures are decent at night and I usually put them in the shade and I don't always bring them in at night.

But I definitely don't put them right out in the sun and definitely not right out in the wind.

They've got to have that time to build up the the waxes and the leaves to be able to withstand the wind before you put them out in the garden.

Excellent kind of move them out into a little bit more sun every day.

Okay.

All right.

And you've got real quick as we go, you've got something we're going to post this this is how to succeed at seed starting.

It's from North Dakota State.

Sorry, you have i This is everything you need to know about seed starting for free.

So we've got Chuck schedule, we've got the tips here, we've got the Jennifers.

We're all going to have fantastic gardens this year.

So thank you so much for coming.

Thank you so much for watching.

Good luck with your state starting and we'll see you next time.

Goodnight.