- Hi, thanks for joining us for The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South.

I'm Chris Cooper.

The danger of frost has passed,   and it is time to plant the   summer flowering annuals.

Also we're planting potatoes.

That's just ahead   on The Family Plot:   Gardening in the Mid-South.

- (female announcer)   Production funding   for The Family Plot:   Gardening in the Mid-South   is provided by   the WKNO Production Fund,   the WKNO Endowment Fund,   and by viewers   like you, thank you.

[upbeat country music] - Welcome to The Family Plot.

I'm Chris Cooper.

Joining me today is Joellen Diamond.

Joellen is the Director of Landscape at the University of Memphis.

And Mr. Tom Mashour will be joining me later.

All right, Joellen, you know, I like this, right?

- Yeah!

Well look, we had to cover the bed because we had rain.

- Okay.

- And we knew we were gonna do this today, so we covered the beds so the soil wouldn't be too wet.

'Cause if the soil's too wet and we're gonna be working in it, we're gonna lose all of our pore space.

- Ah!

- For air and water exchange.

- Okay.

- And we don't wanna compact what we've loosened up already.

So now we'll unveil it and see how the everything looks.

- All right.

Get that one out of the way.

There you go.

What do you think?

[Chris chuckling] - Well, you know, the snapdragons look like they did pretty good, but of course they didn't bloom through the winter.

They're getting ready to bloom again, but it's time for us to change 'em out.

But the pansies, we put trailing pansies in here and they did not do well, so we'll cross those off the list for this bed, 'cause they didn't do well here.

And the daffodils they've come, they've bloomed, and now they're about gone.

We'll leave them in the ground, you know, while we plant the others and let them die so they'll get energy to bloom again.

- Okay.

- So I guess the compost pile for everything else that's left.

- This is gonna be tough.

- I know you hate to do this.

- This is tough on me.

- And they're getting ready to bloom again.

- This is getting ready to bloom!

- I know.

Ready to bloom again.

- This is tough!

- But it's time to change them out.

And these snapdragons did very well here.

- These are nice.

- They did very well here.

- Good root system.

- Good root system.

And you know, they may have done so well that they shaded out the pansies, so that might be why the pansies didn't do well either.

- You think about it too, the bed is really not weedy.

- No.

Well, it was covered with plants so they shaded out any of the weeds.

Also, it's nicely mulched and that also helped shade out the weeds.

Yeah, the more cover you have over the ground, the less weeds you'll have.

- That's a good lesson.

- We will try to ignore the daffodils and we could always tie them up if we wanted to.

Sometimes people will divide them and.

- Hey.

- Tie them up just to keep 'em out of the way.

- Right.

- Then they let them die down.

We might do that to this one and that one and leave the back.

And then we have something new to plant in the bed this year.

- Oh, I like new in the bed.

- Some plants that we haven't tried before.

- Huh.

- First we will plant some Salvia, blue Salvia, and the variety of this called Victoria, which is the original blue Salvia that was annual like this, had a tendency to be somewhat perennial in this area.

- Okay.

- Depending on the weather in the winter.

So we can try to leave these in the ground in the fall and see if they will be perennial, but this is a variety, a newer variety, so I don't know if they will live or not.

- Well, this is our trial.

- This is our trial.

- For us, a trial bed.

- But we can go ahead.

- Okay.

- And plant these.

- So while you're setting those out, what are you thinking in your head as far as the pattern?

- Well, we've got only seven of these.

- Okay.

- And they're gonna be a little bit larger.

I think they'll get about 12 inches tall and wide, so I wanted to spread them out in the bed.

- Okay.

- I like to set them out so you see where they're gonna be planted, if they're even in the bed before you start planting.

And see if I, even though I set these out, I don't like 'em, they're not even in the bed, so I've got to move this over.

I'll move that one over.

- Okay.

- Move this one over.

This one over this.

This one's okay.

This one down.

- You got a good eye for that.

Have you done this before?

- Oh, yes.

- Okay.

- Yeah, now they're evenly spaced in the bed so we'll have nice blue throughout the beds, and we can start planting the Salvia first and then we'll... - Okay.

- We'll plant the next plant.

Now there's mulch in this bed, so we're gonna move the mulch out of the way.

'Cause the mulch is still good.

Got a little rock.

You don't need the rock.

And then I would put my fingers on either side of the stem and gently squeeze the container.

- Gently.

- And let the plant come out and look at the roots and you see they're just starting to fill the container.

You don't need to really do anything.

They're going to be going out and we will dig our hole.

- All right.

- And we will plant them at soil level.

- Soil level.

- And gently put mulch just back up and around it, so it's right there.

Now this soil is nice and loose.

Put this plant in at ground level.

You set the soil around it.

You don't have to pack the soil in because that's gonna, we've already got this soil nice and loose for air and water movement for the roots.

And it's nice, and light, and dry.

When we get finished, we'll water it in, and that will settle in the soil around the roots.

And we don't have to force soil in around them.

Now before we go any further, I mean, we need to add some fertilizer.

- Do you recommend the?

- Some type of slow release fertilizer.

Not particular about what kind.

You don't have to put a whole lot in.

And this did last for several months.

Next we're gonna put in these red petunias.

- Yeah, I like petunias.

- Now we've not used petunias in this bed.

- Right.

- And petunias do like to be somewhat dry, so it should be interesting to see how they handle the irrigation.

- Okay.

- Let's see what kind of root system we have here.

- They look good.

- Oh, that's a nice root system.

- Oh, nice!

- We're gonna have to-- - That's nice.

- Do a little trimming.

Pushing those around a little bit.

This particular petunia is a wave petunia, so we shall see how it does in here.

- Look at the root system on that one.

- That's got some good roots in here.

So we'll plant these, and then we'll finish up with our yellow marigolds.

Plant these the same way.

The top of the soil level of the petunia should be at the soil level that exists in the bed.

- Okay.

- And I see this one needs a little bit.

We don't want that box or rounding to keep going, so what we'll do is just move this out a little bit so it stops circling and go out into the bed.

- There you go.

- All right.

- All right.

- Now for the last color.

- Okay.

- We're gonna put in yellow marigolds For these, I got small ones.

- Small, all right.

- 'Cause we'll use a lot of them.

- Okay.

- And you'll notice a little bit of these have got some freeze damage on it.

We had an unusual cold snap.

- Yeah.

- And the nursery couldn't put everything in, so they're still all right.

These will, these are tough.

We'll start planting them.

These will be easier to plant.

And you know, they're not too bad.

You might just, if you see a lot of roots at the bottom, you might move it outta the way.

- Yeah.

- So they stop circling or going in that little square box.

But again, don't plant these too deep.

It could be easy.

They're small.

So don't plant them too deep.

Well, there we go.

- So what do you think?

- Primary colors: blue, red, and yellow.

Can't wait to see how this works, and we will leave the daffodils until they turn brown because we want them to bloom next year, so they've got to get energy to do, be able to do that, and they'll die naturally.

And we'll just take 'em off the soil surface.

- Okay.

It's always exciting.

- Yeah.

- I can't wait to see what it looks like - It'll be good.

- Once it gets up and grows.

Right?

Thank you, Joellen.

I appreciate that.

- You're welcome.

[upbeat country music] This is why we tell you to look at your plants when you buy them at the nursery.

We experienced a 30-degree single night temperature.

The nursery couldn't get all of their plants inside.

They only stuck them as far down as they could on the ground to cover 'em under a bench.

But as you can see, the freeze still affected the leaves of these marigolds.

Marigolds are tough though, so they will probably come out of this 'cause the new buds underneath here are still fine.

The majority of the plant is still fine.

It's just the top leaves that got burned from the freeze.

That's why you need to make sure you look for damage to plants before you buy them and try to buy healthier plants.

But this plant will also survive this damage.

[upbeat country music] - Mr. Tom.

Welcome back to The Family Plot Garden, sir.

- Well, thank you, sir.

I always love coming back here and we are gonna be planting potatoes.

- So, it's potatoes, right?

- Potatoes.

- Potatoes.

- Toes.

And we call 'em Irish potatoes.

- Why do we call 'em Irish potatoes?

- To distinguish 'em from sweet potatoes.

- Ah, okay.

- That's the only reason.

- Okay.

- Even your reference manuals call 'em Irish potatoes.

- Okay.

- But we'll be using seed potatoes.

- Now what are seed potatoes?

- Seed potatoes, well, here is a seed potato and this is a store bought potato.

[man chuckling] - Okay.

- Notice the difference?

- I see the difference.

- The store-bought potatoes are harvested, cleaned, cured, and then sprayed to retard any sprouting.

- Okay.

- Seed potatoes on the other hand are unwashed right as they come outta the garden and they're not treated.

- Right.

- So obviously, we got a lot of these, and this is what we want - Right.

- Are these little critters.

- Okay.

- Now, we can plant the whole potato or we can cut it in pieces and plant individual pieces to increase our crop.

And way we do that is we take a cutting tool.

- All right.

[Chris laughing] - And look at the potato, and look for an area that's got at least one beginning sprout.

- Okay.

- Here we got two.

One, two, three.

- That's got a lot of them on there.

- Four.

- Right.

- So what I'm gonna do, is I'm gonna take and cut this one here apart from the rest of 'em.

It's nice to have a sharp knife.

- Oh, yeah.

Right through it.

- Just like that.

- Okay.

- Then I'm gonna do this piece right here.

Well, actually there's the beginning of another one right there, so I'm gonna take both those.

One or two is pretty good.

- All right.

Does it matter how deep you have to cut those?

- No, not really.

- Okay, all right.

- There is one thing you gotta do though.

You wanna do this at least two or three days before you actually wanna plant it.

- Okay.

- And here's that big one, but I don't need all this potato for it, so I want.

- Cut up a little bit.

- Cut him up a little bit there, and a little bit there, and that looks good.

- Ah.

- But one of the things you wanna do is you wanna cut it up two to three days before you're gonna actually a plant it.

- Okay.

- So that it develops a skin or a callous over the part that you cut, which will help it, prevent it from rotting in the soil before it starts developing roots and whatever that is.

- Okay.

- And when we plant these potatoes, we wanna plant 'em between three and five inches deep   or right in the   middle is four inches.

- Okay.

[Chris chuckling]   - And then you plant   'em 12 inches apart,   thirty-six inches, thirty to   thirty-six inches between rows.

I like 'em a little bit closer.

Just as long as you   can get into 'em and harvest 'em with a lifting fork, rather, without stepping on other plants.

- Sure.

- So I will go with a little bit wider than I normally do.

- Okay.

- Normally, eighteen inches will usually between my plants.

- Okay.

That's enough space.

- Okay, well, these babies, and I have a bunch of 'em already cut up.

- Okay.

- Are gonna go in the ground.

- All right, let's get 'em in the ground.

Let's see your special technique.

- Well.

- For getting them in the ground.

- My special technique is getting on my hands and knees.

- Ah, okay.

- Now I also like to cheat.

Keep my wife happy from cleaning up muddy clothes.

- Ah, there you go.

- I like these.

- Okay.

- One thing I also like old floor mats in cars.

- That's a good idea.

- Rather than tossing 'em out, when they get uncleanable.

- Yeah, watch that.

- There we go.

- Got one.

Oh, yeah.

- Yeah.

- So what do you think about our soil here?

- Well, it kind of, should be a little bit finer.

- Okay.

- But.

- 'Cause you like it fine.

All right.

- Yeah, this is cool.

- Okay, it's fine.

- And I got a trowel here that actually has graduations on it to help me how deep I'm going.

So I'm gonna shoot for four inches.

- Okay.

Let's see how good you are.

- Are you gonna come back and measure it?

- Uh, maybe.

- Okay.

[both chuckling] - All right, well, there we go.

Well, one nice thing about it, it's going down very easy.

I don't have to dig very hard.

- Oh, that's good.

- So now we go shoots pointing upward.

- Pointing up, okay.

- Or as best you can do it, and then do that, and go over.

- Ah.

- Sometimes I cheat.

And I planted it there, so I'm gonna go 12 inches.

Normally, if I got plants I can stick up, I can look at it, where, approximate, what I want to do.

Let's take that.

This one's got an eyes right there.

- Okay.

Shoots go up.

All right.

- And I think I won't use this anymore, 'cause now I got approximate idea what 12 inches is.

Doesn't have to be exact.

[both chuckling] - Now, does pH matter or anything like that?

- Well yeah, it kind of likes pretty much slightly acid.

As most vegetables do.

- Sure.

- Let me go down a little bit deeper.

I don't want Chris to get on my case.

[Chris chuckling] Here we go.

- How long before the shoot actually-- - Breaks through the soil?

- Emerges from the soil?

- Maybe 10, 12 days.

- Okay.

Not long.

- No, but I also, at my age, I have short-term memory, [Chris chuckling] so I always make stakes.

- That's smart though.

Red potatoes, all right.

So how much water would they need?

- You don't want too much water in the beginning.

- Okay.

- And like most vegetables, they don't like to have their feet wet, but they do like a moist soil.

This one here would probably come up pretty quick.

- All right.

- All right, the last one's in.

Now, couple things you keep in mind.

- Okay.

- That, to again, increase your production, when the plant starts getting, coming up, and gets up around 12 inches or so, then you need to hill it up   with either soil or pine straw,   or wheat straw,   and cover it up,   all but the top   three or four inches   so that it will produce tubers   within the raised   area or the straws.

Keep in mind, you don't want the sun to hit any part of the growing tubers.

Otherwise they're gonna turn green.

They are toxic.

Throw 'em away.

- Oh, throw 'em away.

Alright.

- Okay, and if you are a container grower, this type of container is great for one potato plant, just put about a third of the soil in it, plant it, and then as it grows, again, add more soil, or more pine straw, or wheat straw.

And again, you'll get some clean potatoes.

When it's time to harvest, and you'll know that   is when the foliage starts   wilting and dying back,   then wait additional   week to 10 days and then go ahead and start digging up your potatoes.

Now they do have potato forks   that have like 9 to 11 tines   close together for   lifting up the potatoes   without damaging.

They're kinda expensive though.

But if you got a digging   fork, that'll work okay.

Time to cure it, which means harden it off.

Ideally you want like in a 60 degree area, but here in the Mid-South, eh, ain't gonna happen.

Not in the summertime.

So I put it in the shade of a tree, spread 'em out, and let 'em cure for a week to 10 days after that.

By the way,   the prime planning time   is from March the 15th   to April the 15th.

Also from 1st to 31st   of July for a fall crop.

Nice thing about growing your own potatoes, you're gonna have a hard time trying to find seed potatoes in July, but the potatoes you're growing, since they're not gonna be treated are seed potatoes.

So you save some of those for your July crop.

- All right, Mr. Tom, we appreciate that demonstration.

- Thank you, sir.

I enjoyed doing it.

- We'll see what happens.

All right?

- I am anxious myself.

- Yeah, I don't know about you, but I'm hungry for French fries now.

[Tom chuckling] Thank you much, all right?

- Thank you my friend.

- Yes, sir.

[gentle country music] - Well, six weeks ago, we planted these radishes as some of the first things in the square foot garden here, and they're ready to harvest.

They're incredibly fast, and so they make a good early spring crop.

With radishes, you need to make sure that you don't let them go too long, or what they'll do is they'll they bolt and the radish won't be any good anymore.

So I'm just gonna go ahead, just, it's easy to do, just pull 'em up.

It looks, nice looking radish, and just continue.

I'm gonna pull 'em all up and I am gonna post how much,   how many of these we got,   and what, how much   they all weighed,   and it'll go into the tally   of what we all grew in the   square foot garden this year.

So I'm just gonna   continue to do this.

[gentle country music] - All right, Joellen, here's our Q and A segment.

You ready?

- Yes, I'm ready.

- These are good questions.

- Yes.

- All right.

It's our first viewer email.

"We have a lot of earthworms in our yard "because we rarely use any chemicals.

"But last year we were invaded by the hammerhead worms "and they have really reduced our earthworm population.

"How do we get rid of   hammerhead worms in our yard,   besides pouring salt on   them when I find them?"

And this is Terry.

So there've been   a lot of reports, you know, about hammerhead worms.

- Yeah, definitely   an invasive species.

- Invasive species.

Of course it   does eat, you know,   our native earthworms here.

- That's the bad part.

- Also it feeds on   snails and slugs.

- Which is good.

But then again,   I really would rather   have my earthworms.

- Yes, I would have, rather have the earthworms.

So according to some publications that I've seen recently from, Missouri Extension is one, Alabam Cooperative Extension, is another, is this.

There's not enough known about the hammerheads yet as far as control goes.

- Ah.

- So they're actually recommending using salt, using vinegar, or citrus acid.

- I was thinking citrus.

- So you just have to be careful, you know, about using too much of that because that will change the dynamics of your soil fertility.

- Sure will.

- Right.

So those right now are the recommendations until we learn a little bit more, you know, about the hammerhead worms.

- Yeah.

Destructive.

- That's gonna be destructive, isn't it?

- Yeah.

- And yeah, and something else I read in those publications.

Yeah, don't cut the worms in half.

- No, because then, they're like the earthworm.

Then there'll be two of them.

- Yeah, be two of them.

Yes.

- Oh.

- So don't do that, but yeah, you usually see them after a heavy rain.

They of course come up to the surface, and yeah, they are devouring our earthworms.

How about that?

- Yeah.

Well, you know, if you weren't queasy enough, and after a rain you saw 'em, to help keep the salt and everything out of the earth.

- Yeah.

- You could just kind of collect them all and then.

But yeah, who wants to go out there and collect all of them?

- Have to still get rid of 'em.

- You know?

- And then too, you might wanna wear gloves - Yeah.

- As you're doing this.

- Definitely.

- Cause again, we don't know enough about the hammerhead worms, so yeah, maybe some toxic, you know, substance.

- Who knows?

- Present within those worms.

So yeah, you have to be careful, you know, with that, but golly, and of course hammerhead because you know, the heads, yeah, shaped like a hammer.

- Right.

- But yeah.

It's like, golly, how about that?

As much as we love our earthworms, and yeah, there's something out there attacking our earthworms.

- Yeah, we need and the birds need earthworms, and even the moles need the earthworms.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

[both chuckling] And so a lot of the reports that I've read said that these hammerhead earthworms made their way here, plant material.

- Oh, yeah.

- In the pots.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, they're so small that you can't see 'em, so by the time you plant 'em in the ground, there they go, they start to multiply.

- Wow.

- So how about that?

- Well, hopefully there'll be better research done and we'll get a better solution.

- Hopefully so.

Hopefully so.

Yeah, the surrounding states have already seen them, so it's probably somewhere here present in Tennessee.

All right, Terry.

So yeah, we thank you for that question.

- Yeah.

- Here's our next viewer email.

"My 20 year Edith Bogue Magnolia tree "has dropped two large branches in two years.

"The last one was in January "when we had three inches of snow.

"Is there anything I can   do to help my Magnolia tree   "hold onto its branches?

"The tree is at its maximum   size according to the label,   thirty feet tall,   or maybe a little taller."

This is Alice from   Jonesborough, Tennessee.

So yeah, pretty   tall tree, right?

- Yes.

- 30 feet tall.

Right, so is there anything that can be done?

- Well, you know, the Edith Bogue tree is one of the best Magnolia trees for, it's a very hardy Magnolia.

- Ah, okay.

- It's considered one of the better, more hardy of the Southern Magnolias.

- Okay, okay.

- So she picked a good choice for the variety.

Yeah, prune.

We had bad weather.

You gonna have to prune out all the dead and make sure it's a good cut.

- Okay.

- And she may have to get, hire somebody to do that.

- Yeah, certified arborist maybe.

- Yes.

Yeah, hire somebody to prune the tree for you.

Make nice, straight cuts so that those wounds heal.

I would do a little soil test and make sure what the pH is and then put some fertilizer down according to recommendations.

- Yeah.

- Just to keep it healthy and to try to regenerate those areas.

Other than that, there's really not much you can do.

- Okay.

I agree with that, yeah.

Keep the tree as healthy as possible.

Right.

You know, by doing those cultural practices you just talked about.

Make sure it gets water and things like that.

So there you have it, Alice.

We thank you for, you know, the question.

But yeah, 30 feet tall.

That's a pretty good size Magnolia tree.

- And, but she's got a good one.

- You got a good one.

Okay, yeah.

So do those cultural practices and we think you'll be okay.

If not, you can always consult a certified arborist.

You know, come out and take the tree health.

All right, Joellen, that was fun.

- It was.

- Thank you much.

We appreciate that.

Remember, we love   to hear from you.

Send us an email or letter.

The email address is   familyplot@wkno.org   and the mailing   address is Family Plot,   7151 Cherry Farms Road,   Cordova, Tennessee 38016.

Or you can go online to   FamilyPlotGarden.com.

That's all we have time for today.

Thanks for watching.

This is the 13th time Joellen has planted flowers in our annual bed.

If you want to see what she has planted in the past, head on over to FamilyPlotGarden.com.

We have all the videos and a lot more.

Be sure to join us next week for The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South.

Be safe.

[upbeat country music] [acoustic guitar chords]