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

I'm Chris Cooper.

Tomatoes are the   queen of the garden.

Today we're going   to plant some   and talk about how   to take care of them.

Also we'll be   planting sweet corn.

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 Alainia Hagerty.

Alainia is the owner of Tomato Baby Company, and Mr. D will be joining me later.

All right, Alainia, guess what?

Welcome to our Family Plot square foot garden.

- We need some tomatoes in here.

- We need some tomatoes in a couple of these squares so we have you to help us out with that.

- We can take care of that.

- Let's take care of that, right?

- Nighttime temperatures have to be above 50.

- Okay.

- We good?

Daytime, Nighttime.

- Daytime, Nighttime.

They can stunt below 50 degrees.

So today we're planting big boys.

- Okay.

- And I tell you what, we've got some water soluble fertilizer.

- Okay.

- You can use organic if you're an organic gardener.

- So that's your own mixture?

- This is just an all-purpose.

- All-purpose, okay, good deal.

- I like to give them the fertilizer about 20 minutes before, 20, 30 minutes.

So that before we disturb the roots, they can take it up without any restriction whatsoever or without drying out.

A lot of times you put them directly into the dry soil and that dryness, the dirt will start to wick away the moisture on the root ends and could kill the root ends.

- That's a good point.

- Give 'em a good drink beforehand.

- Good drink beforehand, all right.

- Okay so the difference between a thin stalk on our tomato plant, even in these transplants versus a thicker stalk is how much of the stem you plant in the ground.

The stem when you bury it, will make roots all along with stem.

- Okay.

- So that's what stem, when you transplant a little seedling, when they're burying it, that's making more roots and it makes a thicker stem.

So when we're planting it in here we're want to do the same thing.

- Okay.

We're planning on planting as much of the stem without damaging too much of the foliage.

- Okay, how about that.

- So, but to bury them, so we're gonna prune off anything that we don't need on the bottom so we can bury the stem.

So... - So you just pinched those off?

- Pinch these bottom leaves off.

Take them.

- That's an interesting planting technique.

Okay.

How did the roots look?

- Good.

- Everything's okay?

- We're gonna plant it up to about here.

- Wow, okay.

- And it's gonna make a shorter plant, but it's gonna make a stout stem.

- So we want stout stems?

- Stout stems.

- Okay.

- Okay.

- I see how much you dig.

- Oh, this is good.

- You like that?

- Yep, you want to put it in the middle of the square?

- You can put it in the middle of the square.

- Okay, we'll loosen up the dirt.

We want to loosen up the dirt as much as possible up underneath.

They say they need about the size of a five gallon bucket for the roots.

And of course the roots are going to extend up under the ground.

So they've got that and it's nice and loose.

So I'm just gonna loosen up a little bit to make sure...

The roots are lazy.

Anything we can do for them makes them grow easier.

- Make it easy for the roots.

All right I got it.

- Let's put the roots over here on this end.

Take this little guy outta here, okay.

- So do we need to- - Loosen up the bottom.

- Okay.

And we just... they call this the trench method too, where you just drag a little trench.

And we're gonna lay it down, break up the roots a little bit.

- Okay.

- Lay it down.

And we're gonna turn it up and then we're just gonna cover it here.

But I'm gonna give it another drink just to make sure.

Which I don't know why I'm always planting when it's dry as a bone and I have to use the whole gallon.

But this is that's pretty good spring dirt, wet here.

So we don't have to put as much.

And then just cover it over.

It doesn't have to be very deep at all.

And then it's gonna turn up.

The sun will come along and turn it up even more, but we can bend it a little bit and we're not gonna break it.

- Okay.

- I sort of make it stand up a little bit.

Now when you're fertilizing tomato plants, you fertilize over the leaves because they foliar feed as well as feeding through the roots.

I know when I pour the water over top of these, these are gonna end up on the ground.

So I'm gonna pinch off these ends just so my water's going to roll off, like off a ducks back.

- Okay.

- We put some water down in the hole, straight to the roots and then we're gonna water it in.

- What about that?

So we're gonna water the- all the foliage, okay.

- Now it didn't drag it down because we pruned it and took those big leaves off and it's gonna make up for it soon.

- Now, how often would you fertilize these tomatoes?

- Couple weeks.

- Couple weeks?

- Go by the directions.

Do the stronger strength which is usually about two weeks.

- Two weeks, okay.

- And it should say that on whatever fertilizer you're using or whether it's organic or all-purpose.

- Okay, so you loosening up the soil again, right?

Soil's good.

- It's really soft.

- Now do you still do the trench method in a container or in a five gallon bucket?

- Yes, and if you had a five gallon bucket, you would just roll this guy up and turn him up.

Roll him in a circle around the top so that he's got plenty of time to grow down in the depth of the plant.

- Got it, got it.

- Now sometimes there's another one.

Sometimes I cheat.

Can't plant until it's above 50 degrees to keep them from stunting.

But let's say I wanted to get, which around for us, if it's a on time spring, talking about April 15, something like that.

But if I wanna get a start earlier, I get one of those cheap like flimsy, it's like what you would buy a bush or tree in.

Like a three gallon container.

And it doesn't have to be fancy.

And I cut a big hole out of the bottom.

So I can keep it inside, keep it guarded, pull it in on the cold nights when we get one here and there, and then bring it back out during the day.

And then my plants start before others.

And it's got a hole on the bottom, I put a piece of cardboard down on, put my dirt in, put my plant in, curled it up near the top, turned its little head up.

And then as it fills up the container or grows to the bottom, it'll go on out that hole and it can make its way out of that cardboard.

- Okay, got it.

- That's how you can get a start a month or so, couple months.

- Okay.

So an early start.

- Before it's time to actually put them in the garden.

- Got it, got it.

- But again yeah, you would still be doing the trench method.

- Okay.

All right, so not deep.

It doesn't have to be deep.

- No, doesn't have to be deep.

It's a shallow thing.

So let's say this plant was this tall.

We would still lay it down.

I could even lay it down over here, put its root ball here and turn its head up in the center.

- Okay.

- But I would do the exact same thing.

- I think it's such an interesting technique, okay.

- I didn't give this one any water in the hole to begin with.

So we're gonna give it more.

Now, make sure I take these off.

- And again, why are you pinching those off?

- Because let's hit it with the water and see what happens.

- Okay.

Ah, good demo.

That was good.

- That's not good for them right.

They're dirty, that's not good for them.

And then also they're laying up against the dirt and the sun and I just know that kills the leaves.

- Sure.

- So by pinching these back just a little bit, they don't need those big leaves and that leaves them up this way instead of out.

Does that make sense?

- That makes sense, got it, got it.

- So let's hit it again now that it's pruned.

It's a little bit of a beatdown, but it didn't lay down in the dirt.

And it's not going to miss it.

Besides it's going to put out roots all along that stem.

So when these guys in about one month, they should be maybe about as big 'round as my thumb.

They'll be a little bit less.

- Okay.

- If you can buy... people ask me what kind of plants do you want to buy?

Or what is a good plant when you see one?

I don't care if it's tall and leggy, as they say.

That means to me that it's growing well.

- Okay.

- If it's all light color, maybe it didn't have enough sun, that's not so great.

You might have to harden it before you put it in the garden.

- Okay.

- But let's say it's this tall.

It doesn't have any growth retardants on it.

And it's sometimes some of the big box stores will spray with growth retardants to keep them short and compact and look pretty.

So don't get tied up with the plant needing to look pretty.

- Okay.

If it stem is that long, that's all roots.

So by putting them in here, even if I wanted to keep it in the square, I could just lay it down in a circle and turn its head up right there.

- Wow, how about that.

- And it's still gonna have at least five gallons worth of volume area to grow down below.

- Okay.

Alainia, I'm gonna let you continue to do what you're doing, but we thank you so much for the demonstration.

That was good.

That was good.

[upbeat country music] - When you're growing your tomato plant, it's very important to keep the foliage off the ground.

Also whenever you're watering, you don't want the dirt to splash on those leaves.

This is how they catch   a lot of diseases.

You can use several methods.

One is the twine and stake   method to just raise them up   and keep the foliage and   the splash from watering   from getting on the plant, or you can buy tomato cages, maybe one of those big box stores where you had purchased your tomato plants.

You can also make your own out of a concrete wire.

It's much more rigid.

And these will last for years and years.

[upbeat country music] - All right, Mr. D we're in the Family Plot Garden.

I'm excited because we got to talk about planting corn.

One of my favorite vegetables.

- Right, good old sweet corn.

- Good old sweet corn.

- Can't beat it.

- So how do we need to get started?

- Well, the first thing we did, you know, back in the fall, we prepared the ground initially and we pulled a soils test.

We did it the right way, we pulled the soil test and the instructions or results recommend 15 pounds of 15-15-15 per 1000 square feet.

So we don't have a thousand square feet, but we do have a hundred square feet.

So we'll knock a zero off and it's 1 1/2 pounds of 15-15-15.

And that's 24 ounces I think.

And that's what I've got here.

- That's easy math.

- Easy way to figure it out.

So I've got it weighed out and I'm supposed to broadcast this.

- Okay.

- And so we're gonna broadcast it and then we're gonna rake it in a little bit and then we will come back and side dress the corn when it's 8 to 10 inches tall with some more nitrogen.

So let's go ahead and I'm gonna try to do a broadcast here.

I don't want to run out like when I'm halfway through here.

That won't work very good.

I'm going to try to put out about half of it first go around and then the other half the second go around.

- Oh yeah, look at that.

- There we are.

- You've done that before.

- Came out perfect, how about that?

- That worked out just right.

- Okay, now let's rake it in a little bit.

I'll let you hold that.

- I'll hold that for you.

- And I'm just gonna rake it in a little bit and this is... you don't really have to do this because these fertilizers are water soluble.

But I just kind of like the...

I don't particularly want the seed to come in direct contact with the fertilizer.

And when we make our rows we will... We hopefully won't be able to actually see any fertilizer.

Okay, we got that in pretty good shape.

- That's good?

Okay, what we're going to do is we're going to...

I'm going to put double rows.

We're gonna plant 2 rows,   10 to 12 inches apart.

Ten feet long.

We're gonna skip over   about 36 to 40 inches.

Two more rows.

- Okay.

- 10 to 12 inches apart.

And so we'll have...   And the reason we're having   the side by side rows is corn's wind pollinated and it makes the pollination process better.

And over here, we're gonna do a different style.

We're gonna plant a four by four foot section   and we'll have corn in   a checkerboard pattern   at 12 inches apart,   about 12 inches apart.

And that's good if you   have a smaller area, raised beds, things like that, that will work.

You can still reach to get in and you also have the good cross pollination will take place.

- Okay.

- So let me start with my first row here.

Now my dad would be upset because unlike Natalie, he liked straight rows and we had stakes that we would put on both ends and stretch a string.

And those are still are out there on the family farm somewhere.

But I guess I should have brought them today.

- We're going to see how straight you are then.

- I see here.

- Not bad, not bad.

- Think it'll work.

I need a hoe.

I'm used to using a hoe for this, but we'll make due with this rake.

Okay, that is one row.

And this is exactly...

I'm going to move this out of the way a little bit for now.

This is exactly precisely 12 inches.

About 36 inches.

Now this design is strictly from the University of Tennessee publication "Growing Sweet Corn in Home Gardens".

- Okay.

- So if anybody wants to take a look at it they can find it online.

- Hows the soil look to you?

- Looks good.

It looks good.

You can tell it was a little wet when we worked it last fall because we do have a few clods in there, but it would be pretty good.

Okay, we're ready to plant this.

- What are we planting?

- We're planting sweet corn Peaches and Cream.

- Peaches and Cream, love it.

Love it.

- Very very good sweet corn.

Ten to twelve inches apart.

I'd say let's go 12 inches apart.

- All right.

12 inches?

- That'll make the ears bigger.

- All right.

That looks about right, huh?

- Mm-hmm.

Now let me cover it up.

Okay that's got that in pretty good shape.

Let's try the checkerboard style now.

- I'm looking forward to this, Mr. D. I really want to see this.

- Okay this is a little different.

It's really good if you want to... if you have a raised bed or if you have a very small area and you pretty much ensure that you get good cross pollination.

Now we wanna make sure we stay at least twelve inches away from that other row there.

Can we... a marker we can put down?

That's about right.

Okay.

So I'm just gonna make the holes first.

I'm gonna come about 12 inches from that row and 12 inches from outside.

And I'm just gonna dig a little bitty, little bitty hole.

Not very big at all.

- Okay.

- Coming 12 inches.

Same thing.

It's a lot better to do this than to plant one row of corn a hundred feet long because the wind will just blow the pollen away unless the wind is just out of the right direction.

It doesn't get pollinated.

This way no matter which direction the wind's blowing, you get pollination occurs.

So we only need 12 seeds.

- There's 1, 2, 3.

- Okay.

- Do we need to plant them close together?

What about thinning?

I mean do we need to do something like that?

- This is fresh corn seed.

So I'm assuming that the germination is really good.

- Okay.

- You're going to know very quickly whether or not the corn is up.

And if you don't have, if one of these doesn't come up, you just need to go out there real quickly and replant.

Pop another seed there, you know.

I mean, they'll start spiking, you know, in just a week or so.

- Okay.

- So to cover that up, I'm not going to use clods to cover it.

- All right.

- I'm going to try to just- - You're going to hand cover.

- I'm going to turn to hand cover.

Okay.

In just a few days, we'll see what we've got.

- See what we got.

I can't wait to see.

Thanks Mr. D. - I'm glad you've got this good fence around here because it'll keep the raccoons out.

- I was just thinking about raccoons earlier.

Sure thought about that.

- Yep.

- Appreciate that, Mr. D though.

- Okay, good deal.

- We'll see what happens.

- See what happens.

[gentle country music] - The way onions work is that they grow leaves and each leaf corresponds to a ring in the onion.

And so what you want to do is you want to try and get the leaves and the tops of the onions to grow as large as possible before it sucks all of that energy and sugars back down into the bulb.

And to do that, you need to add nitrogen fertilizer.

So about every three weeks or so on an onion plant, you wanna to fertilize it and you put a lot of nitrogen on it.

Here we have two square feet of onion.

And that actually is one and a half tablespoons of ammonium sulfate, which is a lot of nitrogen.

The way that I do it is I take my ammonium sulfate and here I'm gonna measure it out.

And I have some water in this watering container here.

And I'm just going to go ahead and put that in the water.

There's one and a half tablespoons.

Take that, just kind of swish it around to dissolve it.

And then I will go ahead and water the plants.

Now I want make sure that I don't get it on the leaves because it will burn.

So there we go.

And that'll last about three weeks or so, and we need to come back and do it again.

Now we want to stop putting nitrogen on the onions when they start to bulb.

So when the stem starts to thicken out and you start see the bulb growing rapidly, that's when you stop adding nitrogen to onions.

[gentle country music] - All right, here's our Q and A segment, y'all ready?

- Yes.

- These are good questions.

Here's our first viewer email.

"My husband and I recently moved "and I'm so excited to be able to plant a cherry tree.

"I did some research and found the birds "like sweet cherries more than tart.

"And as I liked them both, I bought a tart cherry.

"Are the maintenance,   pest and problems the same   "for sweet and sour cherries?

Thank you."

This is Gale   from Jacksboro, Tennessee.

So Mr. D she did her research.

She did her homework, right?

So are the maintenance gonna be the same, you know for the sweet and tart cherry?

- Pretty much, you know, on the "Home Orchard Spray Guide" that we have with UT, it doesn't differentiate between sweet and tart.

You know, you basically follow the same spray schedule that you would for peaches and plums.

It's peaches, plums, and cherries.

It doesn't mention sweet or tart.

Now in Tennessee, she's from Tennessee.

In Tennessee, the tart cherries seem to do better and you may have fewer problems with it as far as maintenance problems and things like that.

The sweet cherries tend to develop more canker diseases than the tart cherries do.

And they also are more susceptible to cold injury than the tart cherries are.

So that's pretty much the only difference, but as far as the spray schedule and maintaining it and things you can do, no difference.

- It's all the same, yeah.

And you talk about the fruit tree guide.

Yeah, it's just cherries.

- Right.

- Right.

- Which we have that on the website.

- "Home Orchard Spray Guide".

University of Tennessee revised in 2021.

- New and updated.

- That's last year.

- How about that?

But yeah, we appreciate the fact that she did her research.

Had to find that our for sure.

But yeah, get that spray guide.

That's going to help you out Ms. Gale.

Thank you for that question.

Here's our next viewer email.

"I have a four year   old Elberta peach tree   "and two years ago it had so   many peaches some limbs broke.

"This past year we   didn't have any fruit.

"This is what the   tree looks like now.

Do I need to prune it again?"

This is Judy in   Morristown, Tennessee.

Mr. D I see you   checking that out.

So does it need to be pruned again?

I know the answer to that one.

- Judy, you sure do.

You need to go out there right now and open up the center of that tree.

- You say it.

- And just, you said you had so many peaches, the limbs broke.

- Right, the limbs broke.

- And you said the tree hadn't been pruned lately.

Well, yes, Mother Nature.

Mother Nature did some pruning, right?

The tree's gonna get pruned one way or the other, if it has fruit on it.

And you do a lot better job, you than Mother Nature.

Mother Nature, she gets kind of rough with it.

But yeah I would open up the center of that tree.

And then not only would I do that, because if you open up the center of the tree and bring it down to about eight or nine feet in height, you know, always making your cut above a bud that's growing to the outside.

Do that in the wintertime.

You're controlling the growth.

You're encouraging new growth to go in the direction that you want it.

- Right.

If you do that when you're pruning.

And then when you have fruit on there before the pit hardens, that means before they're dime sized, look at the fruit.

And if you can imagine how big you want that fruit to be.

And if you've got six in six inches, That ain't gonna happen you know?

So go take out.

You need to take out.

I mean, you're when you do a good job of pruning, you're probably taking out 80% of the fruit that was gonna be on the tree anyway.

Then go in there and take out another 80% and you will have... and follow the spray guide.

- Follow the spray guide.

I was waiting for that.

- Religiously follow the spray guide.

And the control, insects and diseases.

You'll have nice big fruit that won't break the limbs out of the tree.

- But you know what?

I don't think people can envision that though.

When you're thinking about pruning, you know, to thin out some of the fruit.

- Oh, you don't... - It's hard to sometimes.

- You're taking so much fruiting wood off if you're taking off 80% of the tree.

- Yeah, that's like- - That's a lot of fruiting wood.

That's 80% of the fruit.

- Yeah that's a lot.

- And then thin it out.

You will be happier, the tree will be happier.

- The tree will be... - If a tree has feelings.

- If the tree has feelings, it would be happier.

All right Ms. Judy, you heard it now.

He was excited about that all right.

So there you have it.

All right, here's our next viewer email.

"Can onions be direct seeded   in my raised bed garden   instead of setting   out plants or bulbs?"

And this is John from   Harrison, Arkansas.

Mr. D, so you like onions, don't you?

- I do, I do.

I like onions.

My wife don't like them, but I like onions.

Yeah, yeah you can do that.

You can direct seed them, but keep in mind when you direct seed onions, it's going to take from 100 to 120 days before they're ready to eat.

If you set them out transplant, 60 to 80 days.

So if you direct seed, do it in the wintertime.

You know, they're a cool-season crop.

You know, you can direct seed October, November, December.

So in that way you will make up for the, the difference in days, you know, 60 to 80 days after the last frost you'll be about the same.

But yes, you can do that.

- You can do that.

I know some of those farmers, Shelby County Community Garden that will actually start doing this in November.

- Yeah, yeah.

And those guys, their onions will be ready at the same time that folks that waiting for the springtime to put them out, the sets and transplants.

- And if it doesn't work, you've always got the nice bulbs in the store.

So you won't be disappointed.

You can go ahead and tuck them in where the ground's already ready.

- That's right.

- That's fool-proof.

- That's insurance.

- Yes, that's insurance.

- You're exactly right about that.

You had a good, well-drained soil with some organic material in it.

You're going to grow some great onions around here, folks.

All right, John, so thank you for the question.

All right, Mr. D, Alainia.

That was fun, that was fun.

Thank you so much.

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.

Today we planted tomatoes and corn.

If you want to get more information about how to take care of them, head on over to FamilyPlotGarden.com.

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

Be safe.

[upbeat country music] [acoustic guitar chords]