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 my friends to talk about all things green and growing.

We've got Martie and Jen here, so let's have them introduce themselves and tell you a little bit about them, and then off we go.

So Martie, we'll start with you.

Hello there in TV land.

I'm Marty Alanga, and Jen brought some lovely show and tells, and I didn't.

What are you going to do?

So hope we can answer your garden questions.

I kind of specialize in the home and garden.

So okay, and we've got some questions, so can tackle those.

All right.

Miss Jen.

I'm Jen Nelson.

I'm horticulturalist.

I do a lot of different things.

I teach on campus at U of I and also write online at grounded and growing.com but I, too, am a home horticulture sort of person and yes here to answer your question, wonderful.

Well, let's get started.

So I'll start today.

A couple weeks ago, we had Kate Carnes on the show, and she brought a potato in from her pantry that was sprouting eyes, and kind of gave some tips about how to cut and how many pieces you can get off of one potato to start.

So I went home and found one in my pantry that had started to grow some eyes, and I wanted you guys to take a look and maybe grade me on my my prep here.

And then let's talk a little bit about how to get these started.

So both of you, we were talking before the show, and you both had some great points.

So, and that's all just from one.

We'll just charge.

Yeah, can you please zoom in on that?

Yeah, hello.

Okay, so there, there's one tater before there's five pieces in there, and when I hold it up for the camera, then they all rush to one end because they're bashful.

So anyway, can you save me that a little better.

Okay, there we go.

So, so Jen, take it away.

We were just talking.

We were just talking about this.

So some of them, I think you did really well, some of them may be kind of going downhill, like, if they're getting kind of smushy, that's not necessarily good, okay, but they they're showing signs of life.

And I will say that I know that the textbook recommendation is not to use stuff out of your pantry to plant potatoes from just simply, because if you happen to have a disease on that potato, you could transfer that disease to the plant that results from it in your garden.

Just know that you're taking that risk.

But that said.

I have an aunt that has planted her potatoes, like, from her sprouted pantry potatoes forever.

It started out as, like, she forgot to buy seed potatoes, and so she grabbed what was handy, and then was like, well, heck, this just worked great, so we're just gonna keep doing it so, but there's always that chance that you've got your harbor in something that would cause you problems.

But these look these look like there's some of these actually have some little roots happening here few days ago, and I remember John saying to let it harden off.

Yeah, now is now a time to put potatoes in the ground, or is it too early?

A little early March, early like St Patrick's Day.

Isn't that one of those?

Maybe traditionally, you know, Mr.

Potato.

There we go...But these, you could, I straw my garden, so if you put them, put them in a row and then straw around them, they're not going to sprout, you know, in three days.

So you got some time there.

They take a little bit, and then you'd be able to to protect them from a frost a little bit.

They're, they're not hard to grow.

My potatoes, I stopped planting potatoes very deep a long time ago.

I cut a rope.

I till a little bit or chop it up.

I cut a little dredge about that deep with a hoe.

Just drag it by, just kind of you can rake it away.

Yep, I dropped them.

We were talking earlier about how far apart to plant potatoes.

The larger varieties need about a foot and a half to two feet.

I mean, if you're getting the really monster ones, the other ones can be 12 inches, 15 inches apart.

It's fine.

And if you're growing for new potatoes, you can put them a foot apart.

It's, you know, 10 or 12 inches, because you're going to dig them up right away anyway.

They don't need room.

They're going to be little.

But, I mean, I just, I trench that I drop in.

My starts, I flip a little bit of dirt over them, and then I get straw, and I use a whole flake.

I don't shake it up, you know, it comes off in those sections about that thick.

And I put them like this, so there's a crease right where.

That trenches, and I just lay them and all the way down.

So easy to dig them.

Oh my gosh, yeah, shake the straw if they don't.

Yeah, that's all you got to do.

You pull the plant.

The whole thing comes back at Harvey easter egg, yeah.

Oh, we dug potatoes, ad nauseum, where you've devised a oh, we we dug probably half an acre of potatoes my dad.

We didn't eat any any store bought potatoes, unless was absolutely necessary.

We had some roll away bins in the basement, and they went in there.

Was perfect, but we have titties in behind his cabinet.

Shop had a long, skinny property and with massive potato patch there, he rented some land off of somebody that they weren't gardening, and we planted.

My dad's obsession was onions he liked on these too.

Every dad, every dad or grandpa has that one thing that there will be an abundance Oh, yeah, where I grew up, it was, who got their tomatoes in first who got the first blossom?

Who got the first fruit?

How big did they?

My sister and I were probably about eight and 11.

We have all four hands on it.

Tomato.

My dad grew up bigger the better.

Yeah, super steaks or so, yeah.

So when we're putting these in, eyes up, eyes down, doesn't matter.

Doesn't really matter, really.

You can sling however.

They know what to do.

If you point your tulips upside down, they'll still make it.

They're not dumb.

It's like whatever.

I don't care.

There's another thing that I've seen people do when they are doing pieces like this, you can get sulfur, like what you would use for a soil amendment, and dust the cut pieces with that.

And it helps.

It acts as a fungicide to help keep the pieces from rotting.

You still should let them dry down.

It also reduces the pH, at least in the immediate vicinity of that piece, which potatoes prefer a little bit more acidic soil, so at least kind of get them up and going.

Okay, well, all right, I'm gonna hang on to these for another week or so maybe, and then I'll let you know how it works.

I have never grown potatoes, so if this is a colossal failure, it'll just be for fun.

If I see green, we're on the right journey.

We're always a learning experience and always experimenting.

Yeah, we moved into a little bit of a warmer patch and ordinary.

What I grew up hearing, maybe you two, was you put potatoes and onions in as soon as you can work the ground.

So, yes, I experienced that like seating radishes or let as soon as you can get them and go, you know, because you have to beat your neighbor.

I can remember planting onions when it was like, drizzling degrees in, drizzling Yeah, ending out there planting onions and having, I remember my aunt and uncle came over and they're like, What are you doing?

Dad's gotta get onions.

Gotta get them in.

It's St Patrick's Day.

I'm sorry, Martin, I have a question.

You're our landscape.

Lady, this is Karen.

She wrote in, what is a good time to apply crabgrass herbicide?

So we're kind of flirting with we're right on the cusp of things getting green.

So what's your advice here?

We were also discussing.

We talked the whole time.

It's too bad, yeah, but we're talking about that it has to be around 50 degree soil temperature, but not because of the herbicide.

It's because the the crab grass seed germinates at the same temperature as as long grass seed.

So putting it on sooner than that, you're not preventing anything, really.

When, when it's warm enough for our grass seed to germinate, it's warm enough for crab grass, which is a warm weather grass, to germinate.

So you put it on, I'd say, I don't know we were talking about when Jen said, when the forsythia blooms, that's a that's a good visual key.

Oh, I'm all about having something like, oh, it's easy to remember this chair fancier you can get into growing degree days and track it on a map and like, time for that.

No, no interest in getting the down in the weeds about that, all that stuff.

It's, you know, it doesn't calculate in birds and squirrels, right, right?

And it just doesn't and children, yes, get out of that.

Yes, I just bought that up.

So when you see your lawn perking up, yeah, that too will be, yeah, because it'll be, it'll be, and you there, there are two kinds of herbicide.

One is a pre emergent, so it prevents the seed from germinating, and one is a post emergent, so it's post is after pre as before.

So.

So there's things you apply, like spray to kill the crab grass, and it's been selectively narrowed down to crab grass, but I will tell you, the pre emergent will also keep other seeds from germinating.

So you can't put down crabgrass preventer and grass and save yourself.

Grow.

I'll only get lawn, no, no.

Good, nothing.

Sorry, that's not how it's going to work.

Good to know.

Good to know with time to prepare.

Okay, 5050 degree soil, or at least 55 during the day for a week or so.

Yeah, mid, mid April, probably.

And this is the part where I wish we had smell o vision, because, I mean, the entire studio so nice, so please take it away.

So this was kind of tied into like I planned it, as if I planned it.

A question we had about forced bulbs, right?

I'll read this march from Taylorville says we've been forcing tulip bulbs this winter.

Our question is, can these bulbs then be planted will they grow again next year?

Is it cold enough to put them?

Is it too cold to put them in the ground, or cold enough?

I'm not sure which way that was supposed to go.

So several questions in there, yeah, can they be planted out?

Will they grow again next year, and is it still cold enough to put them in the ground?

Well, it's kind of like all the most popular questions about force bulbs in one so I happen to bring hyacinth, which was forced to be blooming right now.

But I always love these are great for like you really want some spring, and it's not quite spring yet.

And the question of, could you plant these again?

Yes, I've done it before.

You're not going to go plant them outside.

Now, though, you're going to treat this like a house plant and let let it do its thing until the Greens starts to die back, and then you start to yellow and eventually die.

And then you can plant the bulbs basically any point during the growing season, I would say you could hold on to them until later, like August, like fall time, but if you're worried, you're gonna forget about them or something that wouldn't hurt to stick them in the ground sooner.

But I always tell people that they won't necessarily flower this well the next year they kind of, in my experience, they may need a recovery year to kind of read, rejuvenate, catch up.

They'll catch up eventually.

Yeah, and I've had, there's some in my yard that I've gotten as gifts and whatnot, and hyacinths in particular are don't like the heavy soil we have around here.

So anything you can do to kind of lighten up the soil so it's not weighing down heavy on them.

But tulips, they will do.

They will do fine, but definitely don't try to plant them outside.

Now, just treat them like a house plant if you're gonna force them anyway, right?

Enjoy them in the house.

Enjoy them.

Yeah, actually, enjoy just astounded.

Now, when you put these out, let's say you put them out in a bed.

Are you just doing that to fatten them up to, you know, for them to recover, or will there be a second bloom?

There will be a second bloom here?

No, they're one and done, yeah, but you, you can't force them again very successfully.

You can force bulbs one time in a pot and, yeah, that's about, that's the whole shebang, right there.

So then they they need to go in the ground where you can enjoy them through the window when it's doing this rainy crap outside.

The natural cycle of things.

I will also add hyacinths are pretty long lived.

Unlike some tulips, hyacinths keep going and going.

My father passed away in 2020, and or in 2000 I'm sorry, not 2020, in 2000 and some friends of mine got me a beautiful twig figure eight basket, and it had pink and white hyacinths in it, and a pot just like this.

They still bloom.

Oh, that's awesome.

They still bloom every spring.

That's awesome.

Do you have to move them in, or once you put them in the ground, do they stay in the ground?

Are they?

No, they stay in the ground for oh, yeah, no, no, no.

Once they go outside, you don't dig them up and do them again.

If you want to force bulbs again, you got to buy fresh new bulbs.

Buy new bulbs.

Once you plant those out, then will they spread?

Will they How?

How do they spread?

I guess I don't know it's my hyacinth spreading.

So daffodils will take daffodils will go crazy, just nuts.

But hyacinths are reliable bloomers every year, and they come in a rainbow of COVID.

Oh, yeah, definitely.

I mean everything from white to almost black, burgundy, deep burgundy, purple.

Bread and put them where you're going to, like, walk past them and be able to smell them.

Oh yeah, because I that's, that's the beauty part of the beauty of them.

But I had another question about bulbs from somebody this week about they had bought bulbs and didn't get them planted, but they were in the garage.

This was actually a student was asking me.

And could they plant them now?

So this kind of ties into what she's saying.

So if you had bulbs that you purchased in the fall and didn't get around to it, but they were cold, like they were in your garage, and it's pretty chilly in there, it's worth the taking a chance of sticking them out.

I've done it before.

I've planted stuff in December.

I've planted stuff in this time of year when you can, like, kind of mud them in, and they may not do all that great this first year, but I have some hyacinths that I did that with, and they were okay somewhat first year, but now they've really rejuvenated, and I get nice, reliable blooms from them.

So yeah, if you're just itching to do something, how glad I am to hear this, because I have a bag full of tulips on my dining room floor.

Been cold.

No, not at all.

I'm gonna hang on to and put them in in the fall, there you go and see what happens.

Yeah, because they haven't been cold at all.

That's just been laying there, being ignored.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm like, I walked by him the other day.

I'm like, whoops, I'm so sorry.

My mom had my dad out in the wintertime.

Sorry, dad.

He was so cold out there, but they got him in, and hopefully they'll be able to enjoy them and also go ahead.

No, you on tulips.

Also, like I said, Some varieties are really long lived, and some varieties are not long lived at all now, and people take great pains.

My mom had a row of red tulips out by the driveway in full sun.

They got driven over.

I mean, you know people pulling over the side.

Yeah, they came up faithfully every year, and then we, we just leave them.

She never picked them.

They were out around the the mailbox, and they were down along the driveway faithfully, a row of red tulips.

And then when dad would mow the first time, he'd mow them off, and that's all they got.

And, I mean, centuries, it was crazy, you know, because I'm a 312, years old, it was nice.

I mean, yeah, they are something else.

So do a lot of research when you want to plant tulips, and think about what you want them to do, because everybody wants them to last forever, but they don't necessarily last forever.

They're very different varieties that last longer.

So I went to the grocery store, grocery shopping, and you know how it goes, the cart just sort of makes a right to the garden center, and the next thing you know, they jumped in the cart, so I grabbed some of these lilies.

I like the color.

I really like dark.

I like dark flowering plants.

I think they're just exotic and gorgeous.

But I went down the checklist, and I tried to look for some good looking ones with no diseased, you know, they weren't squishy, and I tried to do all the things that you guys have taught me.

So I'm hoping that I picked a good, solid bag here, but I would love again to be graded.

I think really good because, like, we've Marty and I said, squishy is bad, crispy is bad.

These are fleshy, yeah, they're not moldy.

You've got some signs of life coming from the bulbs.

Yeah, I don't know if you'll be able to see that through the plastic, but can we try another close up?

I can't wait to see this is the Oh yeah, yeah.

See, like a little you can see there's that is good if it's really growing.

Here is the bulb.

And then there's another, there's another bulb here.

But, yeah, it's doing just fine, excellent.

Yeah, this is great.

When you see they, kind of, they kind of look kind of, it's backwards.

I'm sorry, keep using the wrong hand.

It's there.

They're kind of whitish with a little bit of brown flecks.

This is the root end.

You can see them kind of sticking up there a little bit.

Yeah, these are, these are perfectly fine.

They do really well.

Now we expect pictures.

Yeah, of course I will okay.

If I can get I will definitely bring pictures.

But can I start these?

You know, Karen and Ella sometimes talk about pre sprouting.

You can their lilies or things in the house.

Or would you just put this straight in the ground?

On Wednesday, weekend, I'd put them straight in the ground, and you can plant them right after, right after the threat of frost.

I mean, again, they're not going to sprout right away, like we're talking about the potatoes.

They're not going to jump up overnight.

So yeah, and asiatically, yes, they don't have to do a thing.

No, they spread delightfully.

Yes, take out little bulbs and they're just, they're lovely.

They are okay, great.

Spring is coming.

Spring is coming.

Okay.

Next question, Martie, this one.

This one will probably get you fired up.

This is from Julie.... Oh, maybe I won't ask this question.

She says, How can I get rid of moles and bowls in my yard?

I have two acres and they are everywhere.

So who wants to tell her the bad news?

Well, moles, moles go after insects.

So if you have a big mole infestation in your yard you probably have grubs, because moles eat insects, and by putting down some milky spore or treating for the white grub in your yard or your surrounding area, then you will eradicate the moles, just because they'll leave.

There's no There's no buffet, so they just move on somewhere else, where other other grubs are living.

Sadly, voles are like the Blue Jays of the rotor world.

They use everybody else's everything and oh, they're horrible.

They use the mole runs, which is convenient for them, and they don't eat bugs.

They eat all your expensive plants, the roots of your plants.

They'll eat the roots of your grass, but they prefer your expensive print.

They tend to prefer the expensive do they, I mean, from from the roots, they eat it, or do they snap the stems like the girl, like they're not, like they're hanging out all winter, just like eating from beneath and then you're like, I just planted this sign.

Why isn't it coming up?

It was so great last summer and it's gone.

It was a tasty treat, like they set up shop underneath it for the winter.

Wow, yeah, okay.

Oh.

They're awful.

They really are, and they're hard to eradicate, and cats don't like them either.

They must.

They must not taste good.

They must not taste good, and their hair is real fine, and I don't think they like because it's, however, getting mouse traps and setting them near the entrance holes.

And you'll find the interest.

You can try them like that.

But, I mean, they are really, really hard to get rid of, because they they eat stuff.

You can't, you can't bait for right?

I don't know if, like mouse, a rat bait, like Tom Cat mouse chunks would work for those.

And also, we're talking on two acres.

The problem, I was gonna say you need to maybe try putting baits outside.

Is not a great idea.

That's the thing.

I was just gonna say you don't want otherwise, I mean, you're gonna kill all your squirrels, rabbits, yeah, that may not be the okay, you don't wanna.

So anyway, groundhogs, possums, you know, all those.

But dogs and cats are, are susceptible.

So that's not the best idea.

Yeah, trapping them, it's about it's gonna be a tough battle.

It is.

You can get those snap traps.

They're plastic.

You just, you just squeeze them on the back.

I had a client who called her an exterminator.

She's like, they're killing everything out.

And he said, Well, I can put out traps.

You don't even have to bait them.

You can put them out empty, put them right where the hole comes out, and they'll just crawl out and go, let's go, you know.

And that's that's really too bad you can't witness it.

But okay, yeah, no, I've had similar struggles at my house, and I've used traps.

They seem to kind of like a lot of bubbles with holes, and people confuse them all the time.

Looks like a like a field mouse, so it's got a short tail, and it's got short tail and big ears, or mouse has little ears of a big tail.

Yeah, yeah.

They like they did.

They do look like a chunky mouth, a little short tail, but their tails only about, yeah, three quarters of an inch long, or half if they're real and, and they're real, real slick, like a mole, they have a really, really fine coat moles.

Moles can be like this, big bowls are like, three inches long.

And moles can be really deceptive.

You can have a ton of damage there territorial.

So you can have all kinds of holes and runs, but it's like one mole, yes.

And if you figure out what the main run is, and you can kind of see it, like, raises up the turf and stomp it down and, like, figure out if it comes back up, and then 24 hours, that's amazing.

Yeah?

It's like all night being mad at you.

But they make, they do make a underground trap for moles.

That is just horrifically, yeah, look that one up.

It looks medieval, yeah, it's like, pre buried.

Either way, you've got your work exactly.

All right, we've got two minutes left.

And last question, this is from Liz Jones.

We're going to change the page a little bit to something dainty.

She wants to know what edible flowers that she can grow in her yard, so I'm imagining like a garden party, or like little flowers in ice cubes.

Nasturtium, pansy, borage, violets, lavender...like any of them.

Yeah, okay, yeah.

I mean, all right, just for garnish, or, you know, I like, just, well, I mean, people do flavor things with lavender.

You dry the flowers and use, use them in flavoring.

Lavender has been really trendy lately.

Even at Starbucks, you can get lavender.

It has added.

Lavender has been my favorite for ever.

Okay.

I found a good cookie recipie with lavender.

So one more time, give us rattle off some some edible flowers.

Just for those wanting to make a list, which ones did you guys say?

Nasturtium, pansy, anything in the violet family.

Borage, lavender I'm trying to think of something that's not purple.

Rose petals, rose petals, but you have to remember...not the commercial, not the commercial one.

But I think usually people remove the base of the petal on roses because it's bitter, but the colored part because they're all they're all white at the bottom, and then they color up as they grow.

So snip that off.

We will leave it there, ladies.

Thank you so much for coming in.

It goes so fast.

Thank you so much for watching.

If you've got questions for us, you can send them in to yourgarden@gmail.com or look for us on socials, just search for Mid-American Gardener and we will see you next week.

Thanks for watching Good night.

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