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 are three of my great friends here to tackle your questions and talk about all things gardening in this very cold time we are in right now.

So let's have them introduce themselves, and we'll get started.

So Ella, we'll start with you.

I'm Ella Maxwell.

I'm a horticulturist, and I live in central Illinois, near Peoria.

I'm a Tazewell County Master Gardener.

I enjoy all kinds of plants, specifically perennials.

John, I'm John Bodensteiner.

I'm a Vermillion County Master All right, Gardener, and like Ella, I pretty much enjoy all plants, and I dab a little little bit of this and a little bit of that.

All right, Kay!

I'm a Champaign County Master Gardener, and I live out near Monticello, and I help out in Allerton park a lot.

We have a herb garden there.

That's kind of my project, herbs and tomatoes.

Yeah, that's this land right here.

Okay, we have a lot to cover, so let's jump in.

I want to get down to you guys, because you're going to kind of tag team a topic, winter sowing.

So it's time to get those seeds out.

It's time to Well, John actually brought one that he has sown already.

Winter sowing can start any time after the solstice.

So that's the end of 21st Yeah, end of December.

So what winter sowing does is it allows you to utilize space outdoors.

So you have to have the right container.

That's what we're going to talk about.

You want to have the right soil where it's what we're going to talk about, and you're taking advantage of nature and the cold period that some seeds might need, and then, when the time is right and the temperature is right, they will germinate in these containers, and you can grow a healthy transplant outdoors with the container.

You know, you can use just about any container.

And things that you look for is something that has enough soil that is not going to dry out, because there's you're going to keep these things outside.

You want to be able to drill or cut drain holes in the bottom, and I've cut about seven or eight here.

You're going to want to be able to access your soil.

So I have cut this like this, and I've just left a little bit there.

And this also has oil holes in it.

Once I get the soil in here and everything, I will take the lid off, because that is how Mother Nature is going to keep keep it moist.

You want a good draining soil, the type of plants that you seeds, that you're going to do is semi Hardy, vegetables, flowers, plants, or natives.

Natives do very, very well in in winter sowing.

And I'm just as an added note, I want to say that Danville Public Library and and our native garden there, we have free seeds that, and just go in and ask to see the the different types of seeds.

We have a native seed garden there, and it's a great help.

I use that service.

Beautiful, beautiful area.

Yes.

And if you want to have ideas on what you want to do, but native seeds are really, really just made for this type of winter sowing, you know, and some of your cold crops, some of your heartier annual perennials, they're made for this type.

Now, let me ask you, when you get them all set up, where outside?

Where is ideal?

What's an ideal place to put your jugs?

Well, I put mine up by my garage, so I have them up against the house.

I don't put them out, you know, in the open, you want to be able to have them near someplace where you could water them potentially, if you need to, especially later in the season.

So like John and I talked about, there's all different kinds of containers.

I have a milk jug here, again with the flange he tapes his, but I've used a hole punch and a twist tie to keep mine together.

Another one I have is a soda bottle.

This just does a small amount the soil that you're choosing.

You don't want to use a seed starting mix, because that doesn't hold enough moisture.

You don't want to use, you know, regular soil, because it won't drain.

So you need a and you don't want to use a moisture holding soil either.

And.

Like the moisture control products, but you do want to use some of those potting soils, especially some that have fertilizer in them, because that will help the seedlings, because you can fertilize as well, but well drained soil.

Again, drainage holes on all of these containers and again, you don't have to be in a hurry to do this.

You could set it all up.

Now, they're not going to do anything with this kind of temperatures.

The seeds can go through freezing, but you'll be ahead of the game.

I really, don't really start until February, right around Valentine's Day, that's that's when I set all of mine out.

And I do do some different native seeds, I do some vegetable transplants, I do some flowers.

So it's kind of fun, and you don't have to worry about temperature and lights in your basement and watering, because it's all nature is going to take care self contained, yeah.

And so there are other kinds of of germinating that you can do.

And the one that I particularly like is micro greens.

And so there you just need a small amount of soil, and this would be like a seed starting soil.

And I use these small, little deli meat containers, and I have drainage holes, and one of the lids can become the saucer.

And I put these on my counter, my kitchen counter, and I get the little packages of of like radishes or beets or lettuce or whatever, and so I'll grow just for about three weeks.

They'll germinate, put the lid on moist soil, seed on the top, and it germinates in, oh, just three or four within the week.

And then you can just grow them.

And what you're doing is you're just growing to the first couple of leaves, and then you can just cut those off and add them to a smoothie, put them in a salad, garnish a a plate or something.

They even make micro green combinations where you can buy those seeds as well.

And then, you know, here's a strawberry container again.

It's got drainage.

I'm going to try these this year to see it's a little bit bigger.

I keep some things for saucers.

And of course, you've all heard my Venetian plastic venetian blind labels, yes, can't go wrong with that, because they don't smudge, right?

Yeah, I just pencil and it doesn't fade and it doesn't wear off, and it works really great.

And of course, you want to make sure that you label.

John's got labels, and I really like how the label he's just got it stuck in here at the top with that.

And also I have it labeled on the tape.

Oh, excellent.

So no mistaking that plan.

So one of the other things that Ella was talking about was where to place them.

I don't place them really close to your house if you have a big overhang, because you're going to depend on mother nature to do a little bit of water, like I said earlier, you take the cap off, and if it rains, enough rain or snow will get in there to probably keep your soil just at the right moisture level.

And you still need to monitor, I don't put it in direct sun.

So when we set these out, do we want the tops on them or no?

No, no, okay.

The tops are not.

Tops are off.

Okay.

Tops are off and, and I've, like I say, I've punched holes in here, just so as moisture collects here, it will drop back down, and this is ready to go outside.

Once I take the cap off.

I left the cap off over here, just in case it Gotcha.

And mine are on the east so they do get some morning sun, but it's not the hot afternoon sun, and then could get a little but don't put it under the eave, because you want that moisture, Mother Nature, that rain or snow to get in here and to maybe get into these little holes, and that's going to really help you, as far as keeping that moisture just right again.

If you're going to do tomatoes or things like that, I have done tomatoes, you have to wait a little bit.

But the nice thing about this, we always talk about hardening our plants off.

You don't have to harden them off with when you do it this way, because they already just plant them straight out.

Just go in.

I've got a little tool here that that I'll go in and kind of break the soil up, because I've got a whole bunch of planted in there.

And this just kind of breaks it up, and I'll, you know, lift them out with with this part, and and they go.

You've got the clay.

For his tools.

He does.

John is our gadget guy.

Every time we have a show, I'm like, John has a tool for that, if he's here show it, and we're going to get to that in just a little bit.

So Kate, we're going to move to you with your all purpose tool.

Tell us a little bit about this tool.

You said you've had it for many years.

Yeah, probably 25 or 30 years.

This is a hand cultivator, and that's exactly what I do with it.

You can use it like this.

You can scrape like that.

It's really well made and has held, you know, hours and hours and hours of using and digging in.

You know, if you want to break up soil, you just do that.

I'm not sure that.

I've not seen one like this.

I've never seen I've never seen one.

It was made by the Scott company.

They still make some tools, but not this one.

There's something kind of similar.

There's nothing better than finding your tool that works for you out in the garden.

And if I misplace that, I get hysteria.

I bet you do, because it's irreplaceable.

But they had a they had a series, I have two trowels, the same thing, the green and the heavy duty.

And, I mean, you could just be loved.

I love my trial, but that I've never seen that before.

I know it's, it's I've never seen one since.

Very nice.

You better hang on to that I do.

All right.

Thank you so much, Ella.

We'll go back to you with your lovely Christmas gift.

Oh, my Christmas gift, right.

Okay, so this is a Lego This is a interpretation of a flowering quince vine in this little container.

And I have a son who always enjoyed Legos as a child, and he continually buys them for me.

So I at Christmas, I get one of their botanical pieces.

So I have an orchid, I have the succulents in a little box, and this year I got this flowering quince, so it's amazing what they make.

Now, I actually went to a nativity tour of nativities, and they had a Lego nativity.

And they have all kinds of worlds, and it's amazing.

But these are so cute, and you, you follow the directions, and actually he puts it together.

Oh, you just told on yourself that he likes.

Isn't that what we all do?

So again, little tiny pieces here.

These are the these are the little rocks that go around the base of the plant here, and the little stems.

I just love it.

It can just sit anywhere.

And it's so clever how they put it together and the pieces that they manufactured.

And I hope to get more to come.

Wonderful.

All right, John, we're gonna go to you now.

We already answered this question, but I left it on here intentionally, because the gadget guy wasn't here for that show, and I knew that he was gonna have a different answer and have a tool to show us.

So this is from Debbie.

She has a corn plant that is extremely top heavy.

You guys might remember this.

It was given to her at a funeral about 17 years ago.

She doesn't want to lose it, and we've got the picture here.

So we were talking about how to perhaps air layer this or propagate it into several different plants.

And now John is here to talk to us a little bit about that.

So this thing is going all the way up to the ceiling.

I had never seen one that tall and that narrow, yeah.

So what tips do you have?

Because she really wants to say, Okay, there's a number of ways that she could, you know, she can do a air layering, or we could do a stem cutting.

Okay, if I was doing the stem cutting, I would go about a foot below the lower leaves, and I would find a container.

Then that was and she has to make sure that there's, this is my little show and tell.

But on here, you can see where the leaves were.

Wherever there was a leaf, there is also a root node.

So you want to make sure you make that cutting deep enough that you're going to have one of these leaf nodes in the soil.

You're going to want to make sure that that soil is moist at all times, but well drained.

You don't want to have it sitting in soupy, soupy mess.

You.

I have found that for doing this rather than putting it in soil, and there are some studies that have been done, and I like to use if I'm going to do either sand or perlite.

This is perlite.

It's easy to find at nursery centers, and I usually fill the container, find a container that is deep enough that I can stick 345, of those leaf stems or leaf cuttings underneath the soil.

And I like to perlite for a couple reasons.

It gives me some support, and also sunlight or light does not get to it, they have found that, rather than a clear container, that an opaque container actually facilitates rooting almost three times as many roots will form in a opaque container that is basically dark compared to a glass container.

And you use straight per light.

I just use straight per light, oh, as in some things, I also use one that has just sand.

I have, you know, depending on what I'm doing, if it's heavier, I'll use sand.

If it's lighter, I'll use perlite, and so that works really well.

The other thing that she could do, and you have to have a fairly good size aloe plant to do this, but a stem cutting, I have found, and I saw this, and I said, Well, I'm going to try this.

This is aloe.

And what you do is just take a cutting of aloe, stick your stem in it, and then put it either in the perlite or in the sand, and with no time at all, you're going to have roots coming out of the top through this aloe and out of the bottom.

And it just what the aloe does.

It just helps keep the moisture around that cutting very well.

This is one that I use because I it is that transpiration, you can lose a plant just through transpiration, it gets too warm.

But these little domes really also help with So will you take that piece of aloe off?

Or when you transplant it all just it'll just go, stay on, believe it.

Don't want to damage the roots.

And that's why the perlite is so nice, because when you free that you are not damaging those tender, tender roots, compared to sand or soil if you're going to transplant it.

So I really do like the perlite.

I've got a big bag of, like, 40 pounds of Perla, which is a lot.

And air layering is another option.

Air layering is another option.

And this would be where she would take this plant.

And if it was this plant, I would take it all the way to the well, an inch or two above the ground.

You don't want to go too much, because I'd want to have some, I'd leave this the lower part, and eventually it's going to to say, hey, I don't have any top I'm going to start some, some sprouts out of these same little leaf nodes.

There will be stem shoots.

And so it'll, it'll may divide.

I may get two or three.

I have one at the greenhouse that has two shoots where I cut it off and has now double shoots coming up so but air layering is a whole different thing, and it takes longer.

It does take longer.

And what it is is you take and what you do is you take your stem and as you can see here, I did a cutting, and I have my little tool here that you it's made for stem cuttings.

And what you do is you just take it around, and you go around the plant, all the way around, make a cut on the top and the bottom, and then you peel this cambium layer off, and then you put it around.

These are called air layering spheres.

And what I've got in here is phagnam Moss, and you can buy that in different size bags, and you soak it overnight so it's really, really wet, and it'll hold moisture for two, three weeks.

Most the time, it'll, it'll, it'll stay moist enough.

Most air layings take six to eight weeks.

So then you put this in this little groove, and you want to make sure that you have that area, area that you've cleaned, and you just fold it over and check it in a few weeks.

Check it every, every couple weeks, and the most important thing is, is what he's not showing you here, it still has to be attached to the plant, right?

This is just a demonstration.

You don't root a cutting this way.

This is where you you air.

So she was doing this at.

House.

These would be on the plant, trying to be on the planet.

I would take, like, if I was going to do this, I would take this and put it right here while it's still attached.

Okay, that's the nice thing.

One thing I didn't say is you put rooting compound when you do the cuttings.

And this, there's a there's a little chemical that they call rooting hormone, a rooting powder.

It's a powder.

And the important thing with that is, don't stick the cut end of your plant into the whole jar of powder.

Take a little bit of powder off, put it on a paper towel or something, and then dab your cuttings in that you don't want to contaminate the whole I have a paint brush that I use.

Okay, great, yeah, so then you just take you paint that upper area, because this is where the roots are going to come out of.

And it I've had very good success with, with both, both methods, and, okay, Wow, great.

We're going to move to Nancy.

Dunn sent in a question for Kay, someone she was talking about how to keep squirrels out of flower pots.

She sent in her tip, which is lava rock.

She's found that putting lava rock on top of her pots that the squirrels don't like it on their paws, and that has worked for her, but you said you have some squirrel hacks too well.

They don't get it pots, but you could anything like a wire, not fencing, but chicken wire, chicken wire type, anything that would catch their feet would probably work.

I should have did that where I planted my tulips, because they dug them all up like immediately.

So next year, maybe I'll have to roll out some wire, but that's what you do.

The other thing I do is I see them on I run out and yell out and run out, yes, we were talking about that before the show.

We run out and fuss at the squirrels, but so can't catch them all day.

Say that you did was when you planted your tulips.

If there's any debris on top, like, you know, there's the dry stuff that has a scent to it, and the squirrels, it's like, Hey, she planted something over here.

Come on over.

Dig here.

Noted, make sure that you clear the area, even, I would even mulch over the area so that it's not something that they could you know this that that scent is hidden a little bit.

I don't have trouble with stuff in the ground.

They don't seem to bother but, boy, they get the bird feeders, and we've got a couple minutes left.

Ellie, you brought some tools?

Yes, make sure we get to I brought my favorite tool.

This is a root Slayer, and they have them in a lot of different forms.

They have whole shovels, they have long handles, they have the radius type handle.

But this is just a really nice little one, because it's small, it's something that you can dig for a single plant.

It's not really made for digging for a, you know, 20 gallon pot or something, but it's very sharp, and then you can see that it's also serrated, and you can put quite a bit of force.

And now is the time to be evaluating your tools, cleaning your tools, sharpening your tools.

And so I personally like to do it by hand.

I use a little sharpening stone, and I can, I even sharpened half of this with just the little, the little, the little stone.

This way you're not taking off too much metal.

You don't want to use a grinder or something like that.

And again, remember that you're only sharpening one side of the blade because of the way that it's beveled, and so, you know, it's just important.

I think in cleaning your tools, I like the little alcohol wipes, and then I follow up with some spray Pam and a paper towel to just wipe my tools off.

But if you take the time to keep your tools clean, take the time to sharpen your tools, you're going to have long life like Kay, with one that she has had for her her almost, you know, gardening career, and same with me, a pair of Falco's that I've had for years, and keep them in a scavenger of it.

One thing said, she wipes them.

It's very important you keep your tools antiseptic, because if you have you don't notice something you.

A disease.

You make multiple cuts, you now have a whole bunch of plants, and you want to clean your tools.

I have at both doors, at the garage door and at the side door.

I have little paint scrapers, plastic paint scrapers, so when I bring a tool in, I can clean the tool off and it's hanging up by where my tools go.

Also, you want to make sure that they're cleaned off so that you don't get rust kind of thing.

There's different rust preservatives, but I just think, and you can use files, couple different kinds of larger files, but again, just keeping them clean, sharp and ready to go.

Ready to go.

Yeah, we'll call this show.

This was the best practices show, because we talked a lot about what to do and how to get started.

So I want to thank you guys so much for coming the Dream Team here.

Thank you so much for watching.

If you have questions that you would like for our team to answer, just send them in to us at yourgarden@gmail.com or you can search for us on socials, just look for Mid-American Gardener and we will see you next Time.

Thank you so much For watching Good night.