(music) 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 is one of our favorite panelists, longtime panelists, Jen Nelson, and we've got a couple of things we're going to be doing today.

We're going to talk going to talk about critters and pests and things you may have brought in, and also a really cool craft.

But before we get into that, Jen, introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about you.

Hi, I'm Jen Nelson.

I do a lot of different things.

You can find some of my articles online at grounded and growing.com and I also teach horticulture at University of Illinois.

So you're looking forward to a nice break.

I am a nice break.

All right, so we all we brought our plants in, and we were talking about this just before you see the occasional fungus gnat or fruit fly.

So for people who have accidentally brought in some things with them from outside, let's talk about some tips to maybe get this under control, because we've got a lot of winter left.

Well, there's so many options out there.

And I decided for this, I would bring what I actually use at my house, kind of going from least toxic to maybe more of a heavy hitter, depending on your big fans, the big guns.

If you've got kids and pets at home, you want to really encourage you to start with the less toxic approaches.

And depending what you're dealing with, one of the first things that I would invest in is insecticidal soap.

There's a lot of home remedies out there about using dish soap and water, which is not bad in a pinch.

If you're like, see something, you're like, Oh no, that would be fine to do, like, right at the moment, but if you've got more of a long term issue, insecticidal soap is better for plants.

It doesn't strip the leaves as bad as, like, say, dish soap would.

So a couple ways, you can buy it just in a ready to spray bottle, but then if you're using it a lot, like I or you have a lot of plants buying a concentrate, and then it's, this is a different brand, but I've got the sprayer, so I actually wrote it on the front.

I figured out how much like in a reasonable, nice, like in a reasonable measurement.

So a tablespoon of the concentrate to 24 ounces of water when I need more.

So this is good on stuff like scale or mealy bugs.

Can be good on spider mites, stuff that doesn't fly.

That's a good tip.

Yeah, that's just on the plant, and it's not your fault if you get this stuff, because our houses in the wintertime are tough environments, and a lot of times that stuff was on the plant that you if you brought it home, or you had it outside, or you brought it home from a greenhouse, these can be pests that you never get to Ground Zero.

You never get to like zero.

Of them in a greenhouse.

There's always some.

We had an incident at our house a few weeks ago where we had these little fungus gnats flying everywhere.

And I couldn't figure out where they were coming from, because fungus gnats are typically, the eggs are in some potting mix.

If the potting mix, they like moisture.

They like moisture.

So typically, they'll if you've had potting mix that has gotten wet at some point in time, and then you brought it home, and you get it wet again, then those eggs are like, Well, hello, let's get growing.

And then you start getting seeing these little, tiny gnats, and they're so annoying, and we had a bunch of them, and my husband was complaining, and, like, typically, they come into play when you've got over watered plants, right?

We are not over watered plants at my house, if anything, they're forgotten and they're too dry and they're begging for water, but I noticed they were kind of congregating around the sink, and so think of where could that be?

In the sink, where they might grow the disposal has that flap.

It can be a lot of gunk that gets caught under there, similar to potting mix in that it's nice and wet and full of organic matter.

I sucked it up, and I got a big old paper towel, and I went in there, and, yeah, cleaned it out.

And then I was gonna get some yellow sticky traps.

And you the cute little shapes that you get, yeah?

Usually you get these, like little, tiny square ones when you order them.

And I was missing the big gun, right?

And so I found these online.

They're huge.

And so they come in.

This is like a big pack of, I think 20 or 25 and so they have a pack of twist ties.

Sometimes you get a metal holder for them, but they're very, very sticky, so be careful that you peel it off and you hang it wherever you got these flying fungus gnats, or whatever flying insect will work on fruit flies as well.

They're attracted to the color yellow.

So I hung this above our sink, and it was just covered.

We've got some lady lady beetles in there too.

I was like, what is that?

Whoever's in the house is gonna find it?

I also put one by the window.

I put one inside the lamp.

Data kind of hung in from the top.

That's a good idea, because they're gonna go up there for the light.

So, so it's and then when they're adequately full, or you feel like you're not getting any more of them, just switch it out.

Switch it out, take it down.

Yeah.

And then, though, this kind of the big guns and bone eyed this, we've talked about this brand before.

I use that, yeah.

This stuff, it works.

This is imidacloprid, so it's a systemic so it's going to be taken up into the plant tissues.

So it's not appropriate for any sort of edible plant, gotcha.

But it does a great job controlling things like scale and mealy bug, which can be really a pain in the neck, to try to get under control, because they hide really well on the plant.

So the stuff about with the insecticidal soap has to contact the insect.

This doesn't have to contact, yeah, this is said it lasts for about eight weeks, and you just work it into the soil.

This worked great on mealy bugs on some African Violets that I have.

They just knocked them all out.

Same thing with mealybugs on orchids.

I just put it in the orchid media and watered it in perfect so some great advice if you're dealing with pests inside, some ways to get them under control.

Now, the other thing we were going to talk about just to switch something completely different, completely different.

Jen is always doing crafty things, so tell us about what this art is called, and we're going to give it a go.

Okay, so this is called quilling, and it's a really old timey art.

I remember it from when I was a kid in the 80s, and I had a great aunt that was always doing crafts, and maybe that's where I get it from.

But I remember Auntie Lee making these things, and this was a craft that had a resurgence in the 70s and 80s, but it goes back, like, I think, into the 1500s at various points in time.

It was more popular than others, but it's just paper, and it's paper that has been rolled up and then shaped into different lot of natural shapes, when you start looking into it, that is really pretty.

There's been some, sometimes they would paint it with metallic paint.

So it would be like a like sub in for like, fancy metal work, be like, kind of a fake, but you could do a lot of really detailed work.

So it's even my nine year old daughter can do it.

Ouch.

I can't, yeah, so shout out to Margaret, but you might need to get your glasses for this depending.

But what we're doing is we're using the paper strips all come pre cut, which is nice, and you can get different colors.

We're using a little tool that has a slot on the end, and you have to figure the slot.

I'll get one started for you because, okay, yeah.

How many middle age eyes are feeling very 45 right now.

Mine are feeling very 50 right now.

So yeah, and don't judge guys, because this is a lot harder than it looks, and we're trying to do it on demand.

That's right.

Here you go.

Okay, you got one started, thank goodness.

So she's just gonna roll it around on the and we've got a few minutes.

But I would love for them to be able to see how you put a flower together.

Okay, so what I we did kind of the magic of TV, before we started, we rolled some of these circles, and then you end up putting them on this board to keep them all the same size.

So once Tanisha rolls it around on there, you would set it in into a particular size circle, and it will unwind itself to that size.

And so once that's done, you'll take it out, and I glued down the end with just, this is just school glue.

There's nothing fancy about it.

It's like Elmers glue wall or school glue.

You put a little.of glue and then glue that end down.

And for we'll just do a basic Daisy shape.

You want to do what's called an ellipse, so basically like an oval with pointed ends, like an eyeball.

So we're just going to squeeze the opposite sides, okay, and make we need six petals to go all the way around.

So Holy smokes.

So how long does it take to make something like this?

That took me, like, a evening, wow, and then I glued it onto the paper the next day.

It was a good thing to what to do when you're binge watching something.

I was binge watching Stranger Things ago.

Yeah, it was.

And there's something about like, you're doing kind of the same thing over and over, yes, repetitive, yes.

So there's definitely, like a meditative aspect to it.

This is really cool.

I really like this a lot, and something to get into over the winter months and see how she just kind of squeezed these to make them different shapes.

And there's kits and things that you can purchase, but if you want to just make something off the top of your head, you can do that too.

Yeah, there's lot.

There's lots of stuff online just to pick up, like, lots of different natural, nature inspired shapes.

And very nice.

Yeah, very nice.

So there's a craft idea, so go check it out.

Well, thank you, Jen, so much for coming in.

That gives us something to do until we.

Get Back outside into the garden.

And now Shane joins us in the studio to talk about all things cuttings and house plants, and we're tinkering.

This is our tinkering time of year.

And this is, this says tinkering.

Yeah.

I mean, when we talk about what we do in the winter, I just kind of brought all the things.

Just always looking for something to get your hands on things.

So I, I just went across the board.

I went around my house and thought, What have I done the last couple weeks?

Yes.

And so we talked about, talk about it.

Okay, so you want to work your way, this way or this way?

Yeah, we'll go, let's start over there on the left.

Okay, so we've all talked about this on the shows over the years and during covid.

These were really hot plants, the variegated monsteras I've talked about.

I bought a plant that was heavily variegated.

I brought some white ones in, but what we forget is they make excellent decorations.

So the cuttings, yes, we put them in, we root them up and we we put them, you know, and give them to our friends and have new plants.

But during the winter, they're the, one of the most elegant, you know, they've been painted for hundreds of years.

If you look at paintings, it's variegated monsteros, or just monsteras in general.

And I love to put them in glass and just set them around the house.

Just leave them, yeah, and I'll give them a once they root up, I'll give them to a friend.

I have plenty of plants, but they're just a really pretty decoration.

It's fun to watch them root up.

You can go on vacation for a month and come back.

You don't have to worry about as long as the glass is full.

So it's just something of taking cuttings around the home that I think is really it gives you that sense of spring.

It gives you a beautiful decoration.

Plants make the best furniture in the house.

That is true.

There's no when I was, you know, growing up and didn't have any money for furniture, you just put a nice plant in the corner and it makes the room look nice.

I agree.

And this just having something green to look at when we're in this deep, deep freeze is especially, yeah, this time of year to put green and as far as how to maintain them, the this particular plants really easy.

You can almost put it anywhere in the house.

A little bit of lights, definitely helpful.

But there's a reason where interior interior decorators come and put dried flowers and fresh cuttings, and it just really makes things nice.

So that's something that I was going to show.

Something a little more unusual is what I have over here.

Switcheroo there.

This is not for everybody when it comes to decoration, but I don't know I like the simplicity of it has a certain minimalist, yeah, sits on my desk, and I people always say, what is going on there?

So I have this beautiful, giant white oak in my backyard, and it puts off acorns.

And, of course, the squirrels bury them everywhere.

And as a result, through in my mulch beds, you'll get these English oaks popping up.

And I'd say, whenever we got that warm spell, I just went out and pulled one out and stuck it here in the bottle.

And it's been rude.

Look at it.

Go, yeah.

And I think, you know, I would love to put my camera and just do the time lapse thing, watch it grow.

But I think it's simple.

My wife doesn't find it attractive at all.

Again, it's something to look at.

I dig it.

Because every day I would be like, what do we have today?

See how it's growing, or have I killed it yet?

Like, I don't have a lot invested in this thing.

The squirrels have more invested.

They're out a meal.

But I haven't.

I haven't really lost anything by, by putting this in here.

I just think it's simple and, you know, and that's one thing I was brought in.

These bottles are my honey bottles.

And I just like the simplicity of the bottle.

I can do a lot with that bottle.

So, you know, it's just another thing to do in the house, do cuttings, put things in water, try new things out.

And we'll just, we're gonna go through some I've got propagation stations.

Remember that buzz term from the pandemic?

They're all over the house.

I mean, it's just, I don't know.

I love to see how the roots develop.

And it kind of teaches you how to plant things too, because you can see how you learn how it grows Exactly.

And oaks do grow vertical, so when they do a root bag on an oak tree.

It tends to be straight down and not very wide, yeah.

So you learn a lot of the tap root, yeah, absolutely, very cool for a school.

Yes.

And another one we brought in on a show before, but we're going to bring back.

This is a little terrarium that I built.

Everybody has succulents.

We all put succulents.

We've seen 1000 different succulents.

They do very well in terrariums.

I have almost luck with almost every plant but Cactus.

Cactus are a little bit too dry.

But again, these bottles, any size, bottle that has a small opening to me, presents itself.

You want it to look like?

How did that get in?

Yes, that's really chip in the bottle.

Yeah, it's a big open top.

Then it's not too exciting.

You want to you want people to question, How in the world did that grow into that?

And so I try and get a smaller bottle, and I meant to bring them.

I told you earlier how you do this.

As long tweezers you can buy on Amazon or online, any size tweezers you can buy two.

Foot tweezers, if you wanted to for ship building.

So the ship in the bottle, if you remember, they build the ships, they have long tweezers, things to build that I had a pair of tweezers that were probably 12 inches, and that's how I put those that in here.

And again, any empty bottle I could go on for days, what bottle?

But these make little, especially on their side, they make little great terrarium, sideways, upwards, and it's really about the tweezer.

That's how everything is done.

And you again, you put the soil on the bottom, and you just plant them.

And this is approaching now five years.

Wow, yeah, last year was your four now to maintain this, I was just gonna ask, do you ever put a little water in it, or does it just maintain its own ecosystem.

I've never opened it ever.

It's sitting in a basement.

East Side Window, nice.

And I've never touched that plant at all.

And you can see it's doing just fine.

I had a little sand to it, a lot of a little peat moss.

And, yeah, there's five year old air in there, cleaner than this young, Yeah, no kidding, fires, wow.

How long, I mean, how long could this, I think eternally, I've seen terrariums that are 70 years old.

Wow, completely, yeah, because it's producing its own oxygen and carbon monoxide, and it's just cycling through and then its own water comes from its, you know, from its own leaves, so or from, yeah, from the leaves.

So cool.

Yeah, it's and again, I just have them sitting all over my house, on the desk and sitting around.

And again, I think it makes great decorate.

Kind of 70s to me.

Maybe as a kid, terrariums in the 70s were pretty big, yes, so it kind of brings me to my childhood that is cool, though.

And we've all got jars sitting around.

So yeah.

And when you go into a thrift shop and you see some bottle, old bottle, when I was in Europe, I was in heaven, like, how am I gonna get these bottles?

Because they're old water bottles from up until the 70s were all these giant glass bottles, and they're everywhere at the farmers markets for like $1 we don't quite have as many, but we did remember the five gallon water things that used to put, yes, they they're now plastic, with the large bottom and the skinny, tiny little top coins.

And if we had a lot of coins, well, now they're plastic, but they used to be glass.

Those make a beautiful terrarium.

I mean, it's a big terrarium, but a beautiful one as well.

So that's things to do over the winter.

When it's cold outside, you can go inside and put things together, as long as you don't make too much of a mess.

Yes.

And we had someone write in asking about their house plants not looking as great in the winter, which I mean you that's part of we're just limping along, right?

We're just trying to get them there.

But any tips for a lot of folks have lights inside now, so you can get cheap plant lights as far as distance from a plant, or how to use your lights to get the best out of them to keep your plants trucking along until spring.

Yeah.

What do you advise?

Yeah.

So the great part about grow lights now is LED.

LED has made them extremely inexpensive.

Most people couldn't afford really good quality grow lights.

They just had the little bulbs.

You'd go in there, and you had to get the two spectrums.

Now for $60 you can get this stand up spider, one that has all their use their octopus.

Rather, the key is, don't shadow.

So you don't want it too close to the plant before.

You didn't want it too close to the plant because of heat, the bulbs would get pretty hot before.

Now, Heat's not an issue with the LEDs, but you want it to be like the sun.

You don't want the sun to be on you and cast shadows.

You want it to be up and get as much of the plant as possible.

And that's where the octopus ones are really good, because you can go one over here, one over here, and one underneath, and get the whole plant.

I think a mistake I used to make, sorry to interrupt you, was you wanted to just have all of those arms surrounding the plant as tightly as possible.

Because you know something about being closer.

I guess the LED is better because you don't you're still getting the light waves to the plant.

Yes, but before you're exactly right, they didn't extend very far, there was a limited range, and it's human nature to want to hug it with the but I, you know, I found I actually bought two and put one on the other side, and so I have like, a six foot and the plants are definitely doing better by being completely far away.

Yeah, it's an extra bit of money.

But, you know, getting back to the plants, they're going to look rough on certain plants, like your hibiscus and your ferns, all those are gonna struggle, but on a good window with good LED lights, they will struggle less, like my lime tree is putting on limes right now and doing really well, but I finally bought that extra LED light.

I extended it to 12 hours, so I kept it on a little longer, and it doesn't cost much anymore.

You know, the electricity on electricity on LED lights?

Minimally, nothing, sure.

So maximally, nothing.

And so, yeah, you're getting a better looking plant.

But there are just some plants are gonna struggle.

If you have a hibiscus, forget about it now.

And I did bring a plant here that normally struggles.

So this, this is a coleus.

We've all grown coleus.

It's one of the easiest plants in the world to grow as an annual that comes in 1000s of different leaf colors.

But during the winter is brutal.

Normally, they just melt away.

They're the canary when it comes to cold, it's the first one to get any kind of cold.

Matter of fact, bring it from the car to here.

I wrapped it like a poinsettia because it's just does not like it.

But.

But you get the right amount of light, and you get some keep it fairly well watered, and it flowers.

And this is put on put on leaves.

I've cut it three or four times, and this is another one that just makes a really fun you can see how easy, but you find and you just put it in the water, and can do cuttings and place them around.

So I have, I have a tray of like, three of them, and I'll just do three cuttings and put them across.

I'll have a plant, and then I'll have a nice decoration as well.

Yeah, you can watch them propagate, and then next year, I'll take that outside, and it'll be even more beautiful.

I have one that's three or four years old, and it's in a giant pot, and this same plant is probably three by four feet wide.

Wow.

Yeah, it's, it's getting a little heavy to bring inside, but it is so and you can see that one, I mean, it's truly happy.

It's got some new growth, or some some flowers on there.

And mine, I notice it stretches in the winter time.

So that's a lighting, that's a lighting, and you do want to trim them.

Go ahead and, okay, you can, we think we don't want to trim them because they're, you know, it's winter time, yes.

But if you have the right lighting in a southern window, trimming them, they'll flush right back out like they would outside.

Good to know, cuttings to share and decorate.

Yeah.

And then you can give this to somebody else, if you time it right, give it to them in the spring and say, Hey, here's some plants in the spring.

Yes.

Now this one's obviously not near a drafty window, because, no, this one's actually, this one's actually in a basement next to a southern like crawl window, but it's all grow lights.

Grow lights have changed everything.

You have no excuses now when it comes to grow lights and plants, because you can, you know, and that's where the big trays, I brought them in one time, these big black plastic trays, you don't have to have your spouse yelling at you about getting the floors.

If you have nice floors, this will I still get yelled at because I get dirt because I just throw water on them.

But other than that, at least you're not getting water.

Yeah, compared to water, that's a no, no.

You never know until you go move the pot and it's like, oh god, yeah, a $7 Coleus on $200 floors is not a trade off that anybody wants to make, no no no, but it looks great, though.

Yeah, that back again.

Just let it go probably this week.

Yeah, this has gotten a little lanky.

Once it flowers, it kind of stops growing.

So I'll pinch all that off and start over, and it'll be flush and ready to go.

It'll flush.

It also keeps it nice and full, instead of real lanky like that.

But this is all too much growth just in there.

So, very nice.

Yeah, it's a pretty it's a nice house plant.

People don't think of Coleus as a house plant.

No, you don't like you said.

It's the first one to go.

It's, it's the one that's like the Sure.

And some are better than others.

There's some really thin leaved ones that that really melt a little, that I've struggled with.

But you learn over time which ones do well and which ones don't gotcha, yeah, okay, all right.

And so now this is a true tinkering, yeah, so, you know, again, as we know, you know, I've got bee House honey, and crystallization is part of honey.

It's just how it goes.

And my wife received this as a gift, which is a candle warmer, which I think is a great idea, if you're not going to, you know, you don't want to have a fire and you're worried about, you know, the home, if you leave this on, it's not going to hurt anything, but you still get all the fragrance.

So a lot of people have these little lighter like, you know, warmers per se, but it's perfect for honey.

So rather than, you know, getting into the water and when plastic comes around, you know, we all have a little problem with plastic and reheating plastic.

We don't want to melt the plastic and get in our honey.

These do a good job, if you keep an eye on it to just warm the honey.

You can rotate it a couple times, and you don't have to worry about that plastic melting and so but it's even better with bottles like depending what size bottle.

So on this one, I'll just set that here.

I'll put it like this, and it melts wonderfully.

I can go away for half a day and they'll be gone.

These bottles, you know, this one, this doesn't go up really high, so that's as high as it gets.

So I'll just put them right here, and I might move it one more time, but it's a really good way to UN crystallize your honey, or really warm.

It's like the Easy Bake Oven.

Remember we were kids?

Yeah, we used to make cookies with a light bulb.

Yes, it's kind of the same thing.

Delicious cakes, one bite.

That's the last cooking.

I haven't done any cooking since the Easy Bake oven.

So this is the same exact concept.

It's kind of an easy bake oven.

I think if you left it too long, you'd have brownies.

But if you leave it short term, it's really good for warming up things.

Heck, probably could put your coffee under it.

I mean, yeah, they have the bottom warmer ones to go from the bottom than it does the top.

But hey, whatever works.

And you don't want your honey to get too hot, because then you lose if you burn.

Yeah, you'll, you'll, if you get it too hot, or get it to a boil, even you'll lose all the goodness in there.

You're cooking it out.

And that's how they keep it from crystallization.

So when you go in the store and wonder, why is it so cheap, and why does it never crystallize, they don't want it to crystallize.

They cook it so that, once you've cooked it and boiled it, it never crystallizes again.

But we don't want that, right?

No, we want all the natural stuff.

We want the local we want all the goodness of raw honey, excellent moral.

Shane has given you plenty of projects to keep you busy during these winter months until we can get back outside again.

Thank you so much for coming in.

Thank you so much for watching.

If you've got questions, you can send them in to us at your garden@gmail.com, we'll get them answered on an upcoming show.

Thanks for watching, and we will see you next time.

Good night.

You (music) (music)