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

I'm Chris Cooper.

Need a temporary garden or don't have a good patch of ground?

Try growing in straw bales.

Today we'll learn how.

Also, quick, five ounces per acre is how much on your 50 square foot bean patch.

Today, we'll show you how to do garden math.

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 Tonya Ashworth.

And Mr. D will be joining me later.

All right Tonya, straw bales, how about that?

- Yes.

- Wow.

- So it's kind of a new thing I've been trying lately.

A straw bale garden is a great solution if you are not handy with building raised beds.

Yeah, not so much for me.

- That's me.

- Or if you have limited space.

Let's say you have mostly concrete.

So it's a good solution for those reasons.

If you have poor soil or if you planted your tomatoes in the same spot year after year and you've got pathogen buildup, fungal pathogens in your soil, this can be a good remedy for awhile.

- Good point.

- Also, it's great if you have problems with your back bending over.

This is my less strenuous.

It's very inexpensive, so there's a lot of good reasons to straw bale garden.

- Okay, so how do we get started with a straw bale, though?

- All right, well you have to use straw bale and not a hay bale, there is a difference.

- So there's a difference between the two, straw and hay, okay.

- Yes, you want straw bales.

And you choose a location with at least six hours of sunlight everyday.

And you can, if you want, put down cardboard or something underneath, but I normally don't and we haven't here and you want to make sure that you have your bale where the twine is on the side and the cut side of the straw is pointing up.

- Gotcha.

- That'll would be important later when you start to dig into the bale and it starts to decompose.

This twine is gonna hold it all together and you need it on the side.

- Okay.

- And then you have to prep your bale and it's gonna take between two to four weeks to get it ready to plant.

And the first thing that you do, the first three days that you put your bale out there, you have to saturate it with water, soak it really well.

This will help the de composition process to start.

Because really what we're gonna to do is instead of plant in soil, we're gonna plant in the decomposing straw.

- Okay.

- And then the next thing that you do, days four, five and six is you apply a heavy nitrogen fertilizer to the top and then you water it in really well.

We've we got some fertilizer here.

You can use ammonium sulfate, which is I believe 26-0-0, so that's 26 on your nitrogen.

If you use that, you apply one cup to the top of your bale and water thoroughly.

- Okay.

- Or you can use urea, which is 41-0-0.

And because that nitrogen number is so much higher, you only use half a cup.

- Gotcha.

- So if your number is round 40-ish, half a cup, If it is in the 20s, a full cup.

- Gotcha.

- So we're just gonna sprinkle this on the top like so.

- And you said that has to be watered in, right?

- Watered in thoroughly.

Yes, so, we've got our hose here.

I'm just gonna start, you want a saturate it.

- Saturate it.

- Until it's just totally soaked.

You want to use, make sure you use a water-soluble fertilizer.

You do not want to use something like Osmocote, that is slow release, that's not what we're after.

We want to quickly get the nitrogen into your straw bale, so that we can start the process of decomposition.

- Okay.

- And you know even-- - So the nitrogen helps with that decomposition.

- Yes, even if you're, you know, if you were used to composting, and let's say you're having, you know, your compost isn't getting very hot, it's kind of slow to breakdown, you've got a lot of leaves and sticks.

Even though it's not truly organic, you can throw a handful of high-nitrogen fertilizer to give it a little boost.

So nitrogen breaks down quickly.

- Okay.

- And so it's gonna encourage your straw bale to start to decompose.

- Okay.

- So we do this days four, five and six.

Now days seven, eight and nine, you're going to cut the amount of your fertilizer in half.

- Wow.

- So if you were using a full cup of day, you're gonna use a half a cup.

If you were using urea, which is heavier in nitrogen, you're going to use a quarter of a cup.

And each time you do that, you thoroughly water it in.

And then after that, you keep it moist for a couple more days and then you walk away until it starts to decompose.

- Now, how can you tell if it's decomposing?

- Well, we have some that we've already prepped ahead of time.

They are going to be easy to pull apart.

- All right.

- A nice dark color on the inside.

And not too steamy and hot.

- Okay, okay.

- You can see this one is already growing mushrooms, which is totally normal because mushrooms grow when things decompose.

- That's right.

- It's not gonna hurt anything.

I'm just gonna knock those off of there and I get them out of the way.

Don't let your kid or pet eat them.

- Okay, good point.

- But that's totally fine.

And then you can plant your straw bale one of two ways.

You can use this either for planting transplants or for planting seeds.

- Oh, okay.

- So I brought with me today some things to plant.

I have a couple of tomato plants with me.

- Ah, gotta have the tomato plants, right?

- Of course, you know I'm a good southern gardener, gotta have some tomato plants.

- All right.

- So you can do two tomato plants per bale.

- Okay.

- So I'm just gonna kind of pull this apart somewhat and this is decomposing so well.

It's gonna be a piece of cake.

You can, if you wanted to, put a handful of soil down in that hole.

We got nice pile right here.

- Oh, nice yeah.

- Yeah that's going to be fine to grow in.

- Oh, man, how about that.

- Yep.

- So that's all you do?

- That's pretty much it.

- Oh, wow, how about that.

- I'm gonna to do one more tomato plant in this one.

- A bit of soil in there, all right.

Wow, okay.

- And this will be fine For the growing season.

And the beautiful thing is when you're done with it, you can use this bale as compost for your garden for the winter.

- Okay.

- All right, you can also plant seeds in your bale, too.

And notice this one has had a lot of weed growth.

And that's because it had a high hay content.

So you're looking for straw bales, not hay, but we're gonna work with this one anyway.

- Okay.

- If you're planting seeds, you just take some nice soil, cover the top an inch or two and plant directly into that soil bed.

Okay, I brought some zucchini seeds with me.

- All right, let's try some zucchini.

- All right.

I'm gonna plant two seeds on each end, and two because you never have a hundred percent germination rate, so just in case, I'm gonna plant two next to each other.

- Okay.

- And should one fail to come up, we'll still have another.

- Okay.

- And should both come up, you just pinch back the weakest looking one.

- Which is always the hard part.

Trying to cut it back or thin it out.

- Yes.

But this is great, you can grow just about anything in these straw bales.

I started cilantro back in February in one at the Dixon.

- Oh, nice.

- Yeah.

And that's all there is to it.

- That's it.

- Now I will say that this is not an organic method because we use a lot of nitrogen fertilizer when we do this.

And also throughout the growing season, the straw bales are not gonna give you the nutrients that might be found in your raised bed soil.

And so you're gonna have to fertilize with a nitrogen fertilizer and really you want a complete fertilizer, not just nitrogen.

NP&K, a complete fertilizer means that there's a number in each of those three spots, that makes it complete.

And if you can, one with micronutrients in it, too because the straw bale doesn't have the same good stuff that your soil normally would.

So you're gonna be fertilizing these a little bit more frequently.

- What about watering?

- You don't let your hay bale, I mean your straw bales dry out, so water them maybe every day.

But definitely check on them every day.

- Check on them every day?

- Uh-huh.

- All right, then I guess if you had any weeds, the weeds would be easier to pick out.

- Exactly, you don't have to bend all the way over and, you know, struggle with them.

- Wow.

- Easy to plant.

- Do you now of any, you know, major pests or diseases, you know when you're growing in straw bales that may be a problem?

- Well, your insect pests are gonna be pretty much the same.

This could help prevent some of those soil-borne fungal pathogens that we have problems with especially on tomatoes.

- Yeah, like blight?

- Exactly.

- Yes.

- So this could help with that.

- Okay.

Well, Tonya, we appreciate that demonstration with our straw bales.

I can't wait to see what it looks like later on in the season.

- Yeah, me too, thanks.

- Thank you much.

[gentle country music] If you're gonna be using pesticides in your landscape, make sure that you have sprayers that are labeled.

As you can see, this sprayer is labeled for herbicides.

This sprayer is labeled for fungicides.

Now you don't wanna get the two crossed up and confused, okay?

Because if you still have herbicides in this one, all right, and you wanna switch up and use a fungicide in it, guess what, if you spray your plants, it's gonna be damaged because it still has a residue in it from the herbicide.

So that's why it's important to have two sprayers if you can, and make sure those sprayers are labeled.

Again, herbicides, fungicides.

Don't get the two confused.

[gentle country music] - All right, Mr. D. Let's see if we can tackle some garden math.

- Gardening math.

I hate math.

[laughing] - I think we all concur.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Well math is a big part of, you know, putting down fertilizers, putting down pesticide.

So you have to know a little math.

- That's right.

- So when they told you to pay attention in algebra class.

- You better do that.

You're gonna have to use it.

- You're gonna have to use it.

- Fortunately, we have calculators now that help and there are a few apps out there.

- Yes, there are.

- That give you a little bit of help, too, but you better, it's good to be able to know how to do it so you can kind of cross-check and make sure you get it right.

It's really important that you do it right and you may wanna, like I said double check because one little decimal point can make a big difference.

Two decimal point makes a real big difference.

So, you know, if you're supposed to get 10%, you know, .1 instead of .01, .1 that's very important.

- Makes a difference, no doubt about that.

- But, you know the important thing, when you're, a lot of the pesticides, fertilizers and soil test reports and things like that will break homeowners' information down to a thousand square feet or sometimes per hundred square feet, most of the time it's per thousand square feet.

So probably the most important thing you can do first is determine how many square feet that you're treating.

And you know, we all know that in order to find the area of a rectangle, you multiply the length times the width and it'll will give you the square, in feet, and it'll give you the square feet, or in inches, it'll give you the square inches.

And if you have a lot, I would determine the area of the lot first and then I would determine the area of your house and subtract that from your total square footage of your lot, measure the area of your driveway, subtract that, measure the area of your patio, subtract that, the area of your dog pen, subtract that, the area of your swimming pool, subtract that, the area of your workshop, subtract that, and when you've done all of that, you will pretty much have the area, total area, in square footage that you're treating.

So then you'll know how much product to buy.

Then when you, if you're using a fertilizer, keep in mind most of the soil test reports will tell you how much nitrogen you need per thousand square feet.

They're not gonna tell you how much triple-15 you need, because you may not have triple-15, you may have triple-10 or 6-12-12 or 34-0-0.

There's a lot of different formulations of fertilizer so they're gonna tell you how much active ingredient you need per thousand square feet.

And then when you buy that product, whatever you come up with, you, if it calls for 10 pounds of nitrogen per thousand square feet, and you've got a 34% product, then you got to break, you know, reduce the amount, you're gonna increase the total amount of the product you put out to get that 34%.

You've gotta bring it down to 34%.

The same way with the 10%, triple-10 would be real easy.

If you would need to put 10 pounds of nitrogen per thousand square feet, then you're going to put, if you have triple-10, it'd be a hundred, I think 100 pounds of triple-10 that you're gonna have to put out there.

It'd be two bags of fertilizer, if it's a 50-pound bag.

So, double check everything, use algebra, use your algebraic expressions.

I have to write it down and look at it.

I mean if I try to do it in my head, I'm gonna make a mess, so write it down and then cross multiply, cross check and make sure you've got it right.

Because you don't wanna, you can add more, so if you underestimate, you can go back and you can add more, but it's pretty hard to take up if you put too much out there.

And putting too much out there with fertilizer can contaminate our water supplies and it can create problems, it can create algae blooms and things like that.

Don't feel like just because you have a 50-pound bag of fertilizer, you've gotta use it all.

It will keep, it will keep.

You can roll it up and put you some duct tape on it and use it next year.

Just use what you need and with herbicides, if you put out more than you're supposed to put out, you can kill desirable grass.

Some of the herbicides may be targeted to just broad leaves, but if you go way, way, way, you know, more than you're supposed to, you might kill everything that you've got out there.

- For sure.

- So it's important to follow label directions and, unfortunately, you gotta use math.

- Well, speaking of using math, you wanna get to our math problem?

- Well, let's do 'em, let's do a math problem, yeah.

- Let's see if we can do one quickly.

- Okay.

- So set us up here, what do we have?

- Have I gotta show you my scratching here on this?

I can do that.

[laughing] What I've got here is some triple-15 fertilizer.

And the soil test recommendation calls for 10 pounds per 1,000 square feet.

So, I know that I have 4,000 square feet that I need to treat.

I've done all my subtraction and additions and multiplications and I've got four thousand square feet that I need to treat.

So I just set up an algebraic expression I got 10 pounds per 1,000 square feet.

I've got 4000 square feet.

So 4 times 10 is 40 pounds.

I need 40 pounds of nitrogen on my 4,000 square feet and I'm using triple-15, so triple-15 is 15% nitrogen, fifteen percent phosphorus and fifteen percent potash.

And I've got a 15% material, so I set it up, you know 40 pounds is 15% of what?

Forty pounds just happens to be fifteen percent of 266.66.

So I need 266.66 pounds of triple-15 on that 4,000 square feet.

See, it's a weak material, so the triple-15 is 45%, now in that, you're also getting the same amount of potassium and the same amount of phosphate.

So triple-15 is 45% fertilizer and 55%, inert ingredients.

- Inert material.

Yeah, as they say.

- So there's a lot of fertilizer in there.

So 266 pounds, how many bags is that?

That's quite a bit of fertilizer.

- Yeah, and I think they come in what, 40, maybe 40, 50-pound bags.

- And 10 pounds of nitrogen is a lot of nitrogen.

I just threw that out there.

Probably one pound or one to three pounds is probably a more common recommendation on nitrogen fertilizer.

So that was just an example that I used, so.

- Yeah, and of course we know nitrogen moves pretty quickly through the soil.

- And you know it's gonna be there.

If it's not encapsulated, if it's not slow-release form, it will be gone in four to six weeks, you know a lot of rain in four weeks, six weeks.

If there's too much rain in four to six weeks, it's gone.

- Your algebra teacher would be proud of you Mr. D. - No, no, trust me.

[laughs] Trust me, she wouldn't.

- We appreciate that math question for us, all right.

- Thank you, thanks.

[gentle country music] - Let's look how these plants were planted and see which one is actually correct, okay?

The first one, I think we planted it too deep because as you can see the leaf is essentially coming out of it, which means, yeah, we planted it too deep.

So, the plant is essentially choking itself.

This plant is too shallow.

Look, the roots are actually above the ground, so the roots can't even get in the ground to get the nutrients that they need.

And, the plant is actually falling over because it's not stable.

This last planting, I think this one's actually pretty good.

Look at it.

We got it in the ground at the right depth, I think.

So, this we'll be the correct way to plant your plants.

[upbeat country music] - You ready Tonya?

- Yes.

- This is our Q&A segment.

We have some good questions here.

- Great.

- All right.

- Let's go at it.

Here's our first viewer email.

"Is there any way to keep your cool season vegetable "from bolting when it's generally cool, but every once in a while there are a few hot days?"

and this is Seth, so we're talking about bolting.

So, why do vegetables bolt anyway?

- Well, it has to do with a combination of factors.

- Okay.

- One is the increase of temperature, but it also has to do with day length.

And not only that, but stress from drought, getting too dry.

And genetics plays a part.

- And genetics, okay.

- So you can plant earlier in the season to help with the day length and the temperature, and then you can also plant varieties that are known for slower bolting.

So there's a cilantro that's a slow bolt.

I know you can buy a lettuce that's called 'Slow Bolt'.

- Oh, gosh, how about that?

- Yeah, so there are things you can do.

- I was gonna mention as well, how about shade cloth.

You know, if you have room for it, cold frames, low tunnels, I mean those are some things you can think about as well, Seth.

But, yeah so the conditions that Tonya were talking about is why those vegetables bolt.

So Slow Bolt, it's a variety, how about that.

That's pretty good.

Thank you for the question, Seth.

Here's our next viewer email.

"My bromeliad is turning brown, especially the center.

"The leaves are still green.

What do I do?"

And this is Bree on YouTube.

So bromeliad, right, we were talking about houseplants.

- Yes, I know a little bit about bromeliads.

I've grown some of those.

And I don't you know Bree if you know this or not, but bromeliads usually send up a flower stalk in the center and they only bloom once.

So when that flower stalk dies, that's it.

It's gonna turn brown, it's expected.

And what you can do, just take your scissors and cut it off and your leaves, the basal leaves are probably still green and that's good, it's alive.

And then what it's gonna do, it's gonna send what we call pups out the side, like small plants are just gonna start out of the side of those basal leaf area.

And when a pup gets big enough, you separate that.

You can tease it apart or use a knife to cut it and you have another plant and you can start over and then that one can grow and flower.

Tillandsias are the same way.

They only bloom once.

Another reason it may be turning brown in the center, a lot of people will water the cup.

They think that that's what they should do.

- Okay, I got you, okay.

- However, I don't recommend that you do that.

I would prefer that you watered the soil.

If you get a little in the cup, that's okay, 'cause I know the basal leaves kind of hang over the soil.

But you wanna water the soil and not in the cup because when you water and keep watering the cup of the bromeliad, it can promote rot.

It can start to rot.

- Gotcha.

Wow, okay.

- It could be that, you know, your bloom's done and that's fine or it could be that you got some rot because you watered in the cup too much.

- So how big do the pups need to be before you cut them off?

- Well, that's a good question and it depends on the size of your bromeliad.

But let's say you've got your typical bromeliad is sold in a six-inch pot.

It's gonna be about like this.

If you got a pup that's maybe the size of a clementine orange, a small, or nectarine or something in circumference, then maybe that's about the size that you want.

Not when you see the first two little leaves, but let it get a decent size, so that you'll have some roots in there to work with when you plant.

- Okay, gotcha.

Wow, I see you know a lot about bromeliads.

[laughing] All right, Bree, there you have it from Ms. Tonya herself.

Okay, be careful.

Okay, here's our next viewer email.

"Can I go ahead and aerate my established Bermuda?

"Or should I wait until it comes out "of dormancy some more?

"It's still kind of dead-looking.

"Also, do I need to spread some peat moss or sand after I aerate?"

And this is Wayne in Collierville, Tennessee.

Kind of answers the first question for you, right?

Still looks kind of dead.

You should aerate your warm-season grasses, Bermuda, zoysia when they are actively growing.

When they are lush and green so I would do that in May, June and possibly July.

So that's when you need to aerate and as far as spreading peat moss or sand, this is what I usually tell folks to do if you're going to do that, 'cause of course if you're going to be aerating, it's gonna pull out, you know, some of that sub, soil, those plugs.

Because you going to get air down into that soil, you're gonna get water, you're gonna get nutrients down there as well.

And then, too, you're going to actually rip apart some of those roots, which actually encourages the roots to go deeper, right?

They're gonna grow together and go deeper.

Use compost or organic material.

- Yes.

- Instead of the peat moss or the sand.

Right, because over time, your soil micros are gonna love you.

- Yes, that's a great suggestion.

- So I would rather folks do that than add the peat moss or the sand.

Okay, Mr. Wayne?

So again, compost, organic material, that's what your grass roots want.

That's what they need.

It would encourage them to of course grow deeper, to get that moisture and then those grasses would be so green.

Right, so that's what I would recommend doing.

So, aerate, May, June, July and I would go May, June, 'cause July's pretty hot around these parts.

- Yes.

- And I think you'll be fine, Mr. Wayne.

So thank you for your email, okay.

Here's our next viewer email.

"When should I plant beets?

"I've tried to grow them for three years "with no luck.

"I know they don't like the high heat of the summer."

This is Cheryl from Ipava, Illinois.

You know anything about beets?

- I know how to roast them, they taste delicious, but here, they're a cool-season crop and we would plant ours in Memphis mid-February.

And I had to do a search on the internet to find out what hardiness zone that she's in and Cheryl is in zone 5a.

So their growing season is much different than ours, that ours is here in Memphis.

- Yeah, growing season's definitely different.

For this area in Illinois, they can actually start beets from seed.

They can put them in the ground in April all the way to July.

- Wow.

- That's a long season, isn't it?

- Yeah.

- You know, for that.

And again they're cool-season root crops here.

But in Illinois, yeah, a seed can go in the ground any time from April to July, think about that.

And some of the varieties that they can actually grow, and one we can grow here is the Detroit Dark Red.

- Okay.

- So Detroit Dark Red, there's a Ruby Queen, an Early Wonder and a Sweetheart that you can grow in the Illinois area.

So what I would suggest, Ms. Cheryl, call your local extension office.

They should have information about growing beets for you there.

Good luck to you.

All right Tonya, that was fun.

- Yeah.

- A lot of good questions here.

- Yes.

- Thank you much.

- 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 joining us.

Every week we post extra videos online that you can't see on TV.

Head on over to familyplotgarden.com to watch them.

While you're there ask us your gardening questions.

It might just be answered right here on the show.

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

Be safe.

[upbeat country music] [acoustic guitar chords]