Unknown: Hello, everyone, and thanks for joining us for another episode of min American gardener.

I'm your host Tinsha Spain and today we're going to talk about seed starting.

And we're also going to introduce you to a new friend of our show and she's going to tell us a little bit about how her plant group took off online.

But first, we're joined by one of our veteran panelists, John Bodensteiner.

He's joining us via Skype.

So John, first introduce yourself and tell everyone where they can find you in the garden.

Okay, I am John Bodensteiner, I'm a vermillion County Master Gardener.

And if it's nice outside, I'm probably outside if it's not nice outside, I, I do volunteer at Klarman, high school here in Danville.

And many days, you'll find me inside a greenhouse there, especially now when it's not so nice out.

And so Okay, so John, the seed catalogs are rolling in, we talked about that a little bit on our social media.

And I know that ties a lot of us over into spring.

So why don't you kind of get us started today talking about what things we should be looking for in the seed catalogs and how to know if our seeds are still good, what are some just good general tips and rules as we move into seed starting season?

Okay, catalogs are a wonderful, right at this time of year are a wonderful place to lose yourself.

One of them that I like to find is Baker Creek.

And if you don't get the catalog, you can go online and order it.

It has a lot of unique things that I can't find locally.

And so, you know, one of them that I wanted was a, a form of broccoli, and it is more not a head but as shoots like broccolini.

And then I wanted a a be a special bok bok baby bok choy, and then a celery lettuce.

And the reason I wanted these more is before my hydroponic garden.

Now I couldn't find these at the local at a local vendor, or outlet.

So now I did find lots of already gone and bought lots of seats, and locally because that I usually like buy my stuff locally if I can.

And so I already have gotten seats.

One thing that we're finding is that if you don't order early, especially from catalogs, you may not find them.

And there's all kinds of different catalogs.

Available.

Certain ones are specialty.

And so it depending on what you're wanting, you're wanting this one here as a root and rhizome type and if you're wanting like pastas, or or routing things that dahlias date, day lilies, this is the type of catalog that you would go through.

But again, right now, when it's cold outside, you can be going through these catalogs.

When you're going through them one thing too if you are interested in a perennial make sure that it is for zone five, b we could possibly get by with a six A but if it's going to be very touchy, so you want to make sure because a lot of a lot of catalogs and even the plant labels will say perennial but if you look down below, it presumes eight to 11 Well that isn't going to be a perennial here unless you bring it in every every year during the you know, once it freezes, that means it's not going to tolerate freezes.

So would you say the two biggest things are knowing what's going to grow well in your in your growing area and for this year?

Know what you want and go after it before it's gone.

Would you say those are two good tips that rule of thumb you know, it's like anything else you know, we're going to the stores right now and we're finding the shelves are bare with with the virus going around.

I think gardeners can number increased by two or three fold.

So all those new people out there that are wanting to start things are buying and we just haven't caught up with the demand yet.

So especially some of the specialty If you want something a specific color if you want a specific variety called the bar get it out I've already got you know my seeds already in from my like the Baker Street this one here I've already got my orders the end and for one that I like to order is from seeds and such are totally tomatoes.

I am getting my tomato seeds ready right now I just got this padlock and I'm going to get my my order in right away because there's certain cultivars that I find that I, you know, that are good for this area, and are resistant to like late blight, early blight, you have diseases of one thing that you'll want to do is right now is go uptight, even though it's cold look at your garden.

Because sitting in here, I can't remember what I had there what I did, like rock look, I picked a paper clip, I mean, a board with me and do some planning, get some planning.

Yep, get your planning now.

Because if you don't, you'll forget something and you'll buy too much.

And then those seeds will go old.

Speaking of that, you know I've got the from years and years.

This is just my my lettuce and colored my leaf beds.

And some of them are getting fairly old.

But there is if you go on to internet, Joe gardener online, he has a seed longevity chart.

And it says let us see, we'll tell you that they're good for one to six years.

So our next order of business John will be having you come in once all of your seeds come in and get them in the trays and show us how you get your your garden off to a great start.

So thank you so much for joining us.

And we will check in with you next time and get some more seats starting tips.

And now we're going to go on Skype where Jennifer Nelson is going to join us and she's got a lot of really cool plants.

To show us We always love when Jen goes shopping to a plant store because we reap the benefits and then she gets to shop and we're the excuse so everybody wins.

I feel like so when she said she went shopping I was like great.

Let's let's do an interview on the show.

So hit it tell us what you got what you find.

Okay, so you might people that watch the show often might notice that this doesn't look like my usual background.

I'm actually sitting in my childhood bedroom and visiting my family for Christmas.

And so I got to use the show as my enabler as an excuse to go shopping and I went to Trader Joe's which we don't have where I live.

So one of the things I found was just nuts.

These are Italian chestnuts.

These are fresh, they come in a bag, you're kind of like onions on a rose over an open fire.

Yes, just like the you can roast them.

We tried it yesterday my mom and I we did a few they have most of them have kind of a flat side and a rounded side and I was doing the package itself says to cut an X on the flat side which is how I did it.

But then I started reading other recipes online and some of them say to just put a gash kind of horizontally across the curved side some say to put an axe there's all these different ways of doing it.

But the bottom line is you have to make some sort of an opening in the seed coat in the outer shell because otherwise they'll explode in your oven.

Oh we don't want that.

That is good to know.

Yes.

There were a winter time tradition in Italy.

I didn't realize that.

Interesting.

Did you guys last night, can't eat them raw.

They're really bitter.

A little too long and her ovens a little wonky but what they were good.

They're very sweet and buttery, kind of like a potato in consistency.

When you cut the the opening it kind of peels back and you while they're still warm you can peel this brown coating off really easily and eat the inside.

Interesting.

So the flavor or the texture was potato like or both the flavor had more sweetness more like had more of a sweetness but the texture is definitely potatoes so and actually just before we started recording the show we had another cooking show on and they were talking about you when you chop chestnuts you just have to crumble them with to your fingers, because the rows the way they roast in the, the composition of them, and they're a nut, but they're a little different.

They have more carbohydrate in them.

So they have more of a potato like texture.

There also can be used, like more interchangeably with potatoes and a lot of recipes.

Very cool.

I don't think I never had until a couple years ago, I had some at a Christmas parade.

And I've been looking through them ever since.

And they're kind of hit and miss in markets over the winter time, especially at holiday time.

Awesome.

Okay, what else did you pick up.

Um, I also picked up a persimmon, and we talked about persimmons on the show before the trees that are hardy in zone five.

But this is a fu yo persimmon.

This is different than the ones we typically grow around here.

The ones that we talk about with weather predictions where we look at the seeds and stuff and people talk about having spoons or knives and all of that business.

That's not this one.

The astringent persimmons that we grow, you have to let them ripen and actually have a little bit of a frost so that you can eat them.

Otherwise they're so astringent, they just dry your mouth right out.

They're not edible, until after they've had some frost and such, these are more eaten directly fresh, and raw.

They don't have they don't require being cooked or anything.

They're about the size of a tomato, and they're about the firmness of a tomato.

I had never eaten one before until yesterday.

And we got one up to try it and it the descriptions I read said it tastes it's the consistency of a pair and tastes a lot like a date with some cinnamon and that's pretty accurate.

Really.

It was tasty.

It tastes like a date with a little cinnamon on it.

Okay.

Good.

And it's about the same color of this bright orange inside, same as the outside.

So it's a really nice pop of color if you're doing a fruit salad or what have you.

Nice, very nice.

Okay, what at night?

This is all in one shopping trip.

Right?

You got all these things?

Yeah, I went to Trader Joe's to have a little bit of right.

And I wish we had one live.

But this I picked up because I have brought one of these on TV before and people are like, what in the heck is this?

Yeah, and you've never seen brussel sprouts growing before this is how Brussel Sprouts grow.

This is a well probably a between two and three foot tall stock.

This would have been the top and then the bottom here.

Wow.

Anything to do with with freshness wise, why those are still on the stock versus the ones that you find in the store.

They've already been taken off, is there anything there taste wise that would leave lead people to leave them on, they probably would last a little bit longer in the store because they would be still getting some moisture from this main stock.

But I think it's also just kind of a really cool way to sell them and also communicates how they actually grow because I've run into a lot of people that just don't know.

And they have this vision of little tiny little tiny brussel sprouts growing in a row out in a field somewhere.

Now how do you cook yours?

Ask how do you prepare?

Do you like them roasted?

I like them roasted.

I usually throw some cashews in with it.

Oh, and when I roast.

Awesome.

Okay.

Yeah.

And then so do you just pop those off?

Because I've never bought one on the stock.

You cut them off?

Do they twist off?

How do you how do you go about preparing them, I usually cut them off that you sometimes can twist them off, but I usually end up using a knife to cut them off.

And realize when these were growing, these stocks had big leaves on them.

Okay.

So if you were grinding them at home, this could this stock could stay in the garden for quite some time and you would start harvesting it from the bottom and as you remove the leaves from the bottom that will trigger the sprouts to start to get bigger.

And so you can keep this out in the garden for quite some time even past the point of frost just harvested from the bottom this year.

Yeah, because that the growing points up here at the top.

Gotcha.

So you could just keep them going for quite a while and after they have a little bit of frost on them.

They taste a little sweeter.

Okay, awesome.

We've got about three minutes left.

What's your next Trader Joe's find?

Joe's fun.

I know it's you guys are total enablers for my plant.

Looking for some things I haven't seen before offered in a store and this was in holiday time this is a wintergreen plant.

The name is golf plays pronounces right Gaultheria procumbens And I was surprised to find it's actually Hardy in central Illinois.

It is Hardy from zones three to nine and we're zone five.

In the berries, if you were to cut one off and kind of break it open and smell it, it smells like wintergreen like wintergreen dominant kind of minty thing.

And it's the same plant where you get that you can also there's teas that are made from it.

One of the hangups though I was like, Well, is this going to be something I could put out in the garden?

Or would it be an invasive mess or what?

It's kind of a ground covery plant.

It does like a really acid soil, which is hard to come by in central Illinois.

But if you live in an area where you have that, that might work, it also likes a cool summer so that's hard to come by were out of our neck of the woods as well.

But if you're in a more northern area with more acid soil, you'd probably have good luck with it.

Now I have to ask like that with other means that you grow.

You can just pop off a leaf and chew on it.

Can you chew on the the foliage.

What I was reading I haven't tried to I was reading is that there is some of the wintergreen in the foliage, but it's not nearly as high concentration is in these berries.

Gotcha.

And I haven't had the guts to try it yet.

I don't know being as this was grown as a houseplant whether it would have been treated with pesticides that would be appropriate to maybe don't munch on it folks at home.

If I can Oh, grow it as a houseplant and see how it does.

I don't have any idea how easy or hard it is.

But you don't know if you don't try.

That's right.

And we will definitely be checking in with you to find out how they are going.

Jen, thank you so much.

Thank you for going to Trader Joe's.

And for sharing your your haul with us.

I was like I said I was so excited to get that email from you about how much you had been shopping.

So thank you.

And we'll see you on another segment.

If you've got garden questions, we've got garden answers, send them into us at your garden@gmail.com.

Or you can drop us a line on Facebook, just search Mid American garden.

And our next guest is someone that we've had on the show before but she began a big group in Champaign Urbana, right, as soon as the pandemic kicked off.

It's called Wii U plant people.

And we have been to a couple of their events, plant swaps, actually.

So let's welcome Lauren Quinn to the show you've been on before.

But this time, I want to talk to you about the inspiration behind cu plant people and just sort of how it all came together.

So tell us a little bit about you and how you came to be the leader of this enormous plant community.

Yeah, well, yep, I'm Lauren Quinn.

I've always been a plant person.

As long as I can remember.

My mom had plants and a huge garden.

And then I basically kind of took that and ran with it.

myself.

When I went to college.

I ended up majoring in botany, and then went on to do a doctoral degree in plant sciences as well.

A plant fan like you are you're in the science you're well on the show.

We call that affectionately a plant nerd.

Right.

When you love them, and you've got the education behind it.

That's a plant nerd.

So the pandemic hits, you're looking for connection.

Tell us about how see you plant people was born.

Yeah.

Well, it actually got started before the pandemic just before and February 2020.

That was our first event.

And it happened before the online community got started, actually.

So there was a in person events at the Urbana library.

And I had just really gotten the house.

A houseplant bug.

I had been really into gardening for a few years before that.

And I always had houseplants, but I just was getting really into them around early 2020.

And so I wanted to just get more.

So I thought having a way to trade clippings with other people would help me to expand my plant collection and you know, get a little bit more community going.

So I put up fliers around town and things like that and got a bunch of people down into the basement of the Urbana free library on February morning.

And, and like 75 people came or something.

It was pretty great.

It was at that event.

That's actually how we sort of met and I learned a little bit more about the group.

And since then, I mean it is exploded.

How many?

How many members if you had to guess, would you say you have in the group now?

Yeah, I looked the last time I looked it was around 3800.

Wow.

So we're pretty good.

We're doing really well in this community and it actually has spun off.

Now we've got at least two spin off groups that I know of.

One is cu jolla people so people who are really obsessed with just the genus Goya, and then kind of another group that like more, a little bit outside Champaign Urbana, a little bit larger, spread, geographic spread.

So those two groups have spun up.

And that's pretty exciting.

And I really love how we were able to connect, at the time, when everyone was at home and things like that, you know, meeting up and doing plant pickups on porches, or no contact trades, it was really neat to see people sort of invent ways to still get their plant fix, but do it safely, and and find their community of sorts?

Exactly, yeah, it's been great.

I mean, my plan was originally to have multiple in person events after that first one in February, but then, of course, we could not.

So then that's when right after the first event, I went home and made the Facebook group and started sharing that.

And then when we found out, we couldn't do any more in person events for a while, that's when we started doing all the porch pickups, and things like that.

So we have been able to do two more in person events this past year in the summer, and then very early fall.

And those have been great as well to kind of get back to being in person, but I'm probably gonna shut down again for a while.

I know, it's like a roller coaster.

So what do you do for someone who may not be familiar with the group?

Or isn't a current member?

What's your sales pitch?

What do you what do you get out of see you plant people?

Why?

Why would a plant person like to be part of that online community?

Yeah, well, everyone says that it's like the most positive and happy place that they're that they are on the internet.

So that's one sales pitch, really, I mean, no, not very many places are like that online these days.

So everybody's really supportive and, and willing to share, there's a lot of folks who are who just put up, you know, I've got, you know, maybe they gave their plant a haircut, you know, over the weekend, and they've got all these extra clippings available.

And so they'll put posts up about that.

So you can get a lot of free plants.

Some people do sell, sell plants, and sell cuttings and pots and accessories and stuff.

So if you're looking to expand your collection that way, as well, or sell some of your own plants, we just ask that people keep it below retail, that we're, you know, getting good deals and stuff for each other.

Yeah, and it's just it's, it's, it's fun to share your enthusiasm with other people.

And that's basically what it's all and I see people out in the community, I see you've got your button on, but I see the shirts, there are T shirts made.

And so people can sort of identify each other as being a member of the group out in the community.

So we can't let you go.

We've got about five minutes left, we can't let you go until we see some of your faves.

That's one of the prereqs for being on our show.

We know you're a collector, but what are some of the ones at your house that you just are obsessed with?

And tell us a little bit about why.

So I am one of those people that's I didn't start the spin off group.

So you jolla people, but I'm very obsessed with oils.

Some varieties of oils, believe it or not, you know, there's like 400 Maybe jolla species something like that.

And I've got a good number of them, surprisingly.

But my favorite one right now is the jolla linearis.

It's this low thing, beauty.

And you can see it's flowering right now.

And I'm just in love with these flowers.

That's really pretty, very dainty.

Yeah, it kind of looks like it reminds me if I can ask her a little bit, huh, they're, they're actually pretty different from an Aster if you could see them up close.

Okay, maybe I'm not seeing Okay, gotcha.

Your hand behind that really helped very pretty.

And they, yeah, they've got a really weird way of attracting pollinators and everything.

If you look up, look into the pollination ecology of these things.

But they're beautiful, and they smell amazing.

These guys smell like lemon.

And they start to give off their scent a lot in the evening hours.

I think they're pollinated by moths and things like that.

But of course, that's not happening inside my house.

I've got a lot of other ways I could show you but that's the one I'm going with right now.

All right.

I think I'm also this is a little bit, you know, basic, if you will, but another big one very full gorgeous.

Yes.

philodendron Brasil.

And you can see all the leaves are a little bit different in the way that they are variegated.

But this one hangs right in my front door and it's just this beautiful, long, long, trailing thing that I get to see every day that when I walk in and outside my house and it's just really pretty.

You can tell it's very happy foliage looks very happy.

Alright, you got one more you want to show us.

Ooh, um All shirt.

I brought a bunch over here.

I think maybe I'll go with this guy.

This everybody's heard of Monstera.

houseplants are dilla.

CO said, but this is a Monstera species Peru, they call it and I, I don't remember there's oh, maybe it's Monstera Karsten he ate them or something like that I might have that wrong, but the common name is Peru.

And it's just got these really cool textured leaves that are very large and fun.

And I've been able to train it up a little last poll recently that I got from someone in see plant people, by the way.

And so it now will that one, will the leafs ever develop the holes, the characteristic holes, or will it just be the rough texture?

I think it'll just this one.

I don't think this one does that.

But I could be wrong.

Very cool.

Now if you had to guess I know I'm putting you on the spot here.

How How was your plant collection looking since the pandemic like otherwise?

It Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

I'm like at 150 something right now.

And a lot of them are small.

Like, you know, this guy is pretty small.

You know, like, you can pass those in anywhere you know?

Exactly, yeah.

Yes.

Well, thank you so much for all that you do in the community.

Thanks for coming on the show.

And we hope to make you a regular here.

And definitely let us know when you've got any other plant swaps in mind.

And that's it for us.

Thanks so much for watching.

If you have any questions, send us an email to your garden@gmail.com and be sure to include a picture and you just might see it on a future show tonight