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

I'm Chris Cooper.

The frost arrived last night and killed the annual herbs.

Today, we're going to look at how to overwinter the perennial ones and freeze them to use as if they were fresh.

Also, stink bugs stink and they love to eat your garden.

Today, we're going to learn all about them.

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 Dimond.

Joellen is the Director of Landscape at the University of Memphis, and Mr. D will be joining me later.

Hey, Joellen.

- Hey.

- How's it going?

- Doing pretty good.

- Yeah.

- It's a little cold out today.

- It's a little cold.

Yeah, we had a little frost, right?

- We had a little frost last night.

Look at the poor basil.

- Yeah.

- It got it, so there's no more basil this year.

- Yeah.

- That's an annual.

And we're gonna look at some of the perennial ones.

- Okay.

- We have, well this, I believe this is the pineapple sage.

- Right.

- I believe this is an annual, so it's kind of got hurt with this last freeze.

- Oh, you can definitely tell.

Right?

- And then we've got some regular sage here, and we wanna cut some things to take inside and we'll leave these, the rest of this out here.

- Okay.

- We've got some oregano.

And oregano is evergreen and perennial.

And we'll cut some of that to bring inside.

And of course, we've got chives here.

- Chives look good.

- Chives look good.

We'll cut some of that to bring inside.

And we got another oregano here.

We'll take a little bit of that to bring inside.

And you notice that our marigolds are annuals, and they have gotten hit pretty good too.

- Right.

- We might leave some of this cover.

The birds might like to eat some of the seeds.

- Okay.

- Next, we've got some parsley.

And this parsley is a year, there's a biannual.

And the second year it goes to seed.

And this went to seed this year.

The others down on the other side did not.

And we'll take some of this parsley to go inside.

And the seeds will come up next year.

- Wow, so, we'll have more.

- So, we'll have more.

And then we've got our rosemary.

Rosemary is evergreen.

We'll cut some of that to bring inside.

- Yeah, rosemary looks good.

- Looks really good.

- Smells good.

- And then we've got some mint here.

Mint looks pretty good.

We'll cut some of that to bring inside.

And that will stay evergreen.

- Okay.

- We've got some thyme left here.

And we can cut that, a little bit of that to bring inside.

So we'll have, we'll do some things with that when we go inside.

Last year, it was so cold for so long that a lot of my perennial herbs didn't live through the year.

So, you know, it's a certain point you can't save perennial herbs.

But my thyme did live, but the rosemary did not.

And one thing you can do to help, if you've got a really cold snap is this frost protection.

And you just simply roll it out and, - Just cover, huh?

- Cover it.

And make sure, that you go from end to end.

Make sure that it's all tucked in and you fasten it down on all sides.

- All right.

- And that will protect it from some freezing wet temperatures.

If it gets down to the single digits, I don't know if any of this will survive.

- Right.

- Thyme might.

But sometimes, last year I put tarps and everything over it, and it still didn't survive.

- Right.

- But, we'll try our best to keep it, the perennial ones in the garden living.

So, that's how you take care of the perennial garden.

And we'll clean up after the winter is over.

- It did very well.

So, Joellen, let's go inside and talk about how to freeze herbs.

- Sounds good.

- All right, let's do it.

All right, Joellen, we have gathered herbs from the herb garden.

And now we're gonna talk about freezing them.

- Yes.

- So, how do we freeze herbs?

- Well, there's several ways to freeze them.

First is to flash freeze.

- All right.

- And that's where you take some herbs.

And it depends on what you're using and what you're using them for.

You set 'em on a tray.

- Okay.

- Just flat, nothing fancy.

And you put 'em in the freezer just like this.

When they're frozen, which could take anywhere from several hours to 24.

Then when they're done, when they're frozen, you take 'em out of the freezer and you put them in a bag.

Now they can be all the same herb, or they can be a mix of herbs, depends on what you want.

And once you put these in the bag, you gotta get all of the air out and seal it in your freezer, zip freezer bag.

And then label it.

Like, say this is got a mixture of stuff that I want for poultry, but I put herbs '23, and and poultry on it.

So that when I, I can just pull out all of them at once, and don't have to get into separate bags.

- I gotcha.

Okay.

- So, that's one way to do it.

- Okay.

- Another way is to simply prepare them by taking sections of 'em so they can fit in an ice cube tray.

- And what herb is that?

- This is parsley.

- It smells so good.

- And here's some curly parsley.

We'll put some curly parsley with this one.

- Okay.

- And then we've got some mint.

- Oh yeah.

- Nice mint.

And we can put, when we get these done, we've got a little bit of thyme here.

Thyme.

- Those plants look very nice.

- And rosemary.

- Oh yeah.

- And when you put 'em in the ice cube trays, whichever way you freeze them, put them in the size that you want to use them.

Like, if you want sense a whole sprig, put a whole sprig in.

- Okay.

- If you want them chopped up, then chop them up fine.

Like the chives, say, I want just a bunch of little choppy chop chives.

Just, you know, chop them up the way you want them, the size that you want to use before you freeze it.

- Okay.

- And I have started some.

- How about that?

- And this is one I put with water.

And what I did was, since they float in water, I put water halfway up with the herbs in, you'll set the herbs inside like this.

Then you can place water in there, and they'll float.

So, you only put a little bit of water in, you put 'em in the freezer, then you pour another layer of water over the top of 'em, so they're encased.

And sometimes they float up.

But then you'll take these out of the container, and you'll put 'em in in a bag just like, you did before.

- How about that?

- And seal them up.

And you'll have to, if you need a recipe that has a lot of water in it, you can just put this in there.

Otherwise, you can melt the water and then just have the fresh herbs.

- Okay.

Okay.

I got it.

- And some people will put olive oil on them and then they freeze the olive oil.

We'll see if we can get these out of here.

It may have melted just a little bit.

Oh yeah, they've melted.

- They melted in there?

- They've started melting.

But anyway, you have your...

Your herbs in your olive oil already, and some people just put that in the pan and then they start cooking with it.

- Right, right, right.

- But idea is you take these out once they're frozen, good and frozen, and then you seal them up in a bag just like you do the ice cubes.

- Okay.

Okay.

- And label it of course what it is.

And you can just take one cube out and use it as you need it.

- Ah, that is so neat, okay.

It's the first time I've seen that.

Thank you, Joellen.

We appreciate that demonstration.

Freezing herbs.

How about that?

- Freezing herbs.

- Thank you much.

[gentle country music] - We're in the garden today.

It's the end of our season.

We sometimes don't know what to do when there's still fruit on the tomatoes.

They got frost projected for tonight.

So, what you need to do in your garden is you can pick the tomato, this size.

If it had already started to tint in color, it would continue to ripen in the house on the shade.

One like this, Hey, you might have fried green tomatoes tonight for supper.

Or you're into canning and making chow chow, these is what you wanna be using for chow chow.

So, there is use.

So, don't let your tomatoes or your vegetables freeze out when you have a frost being projected for the night.

[gentle country music] - All right, Mr. D, let's talk about those stink bugs, right?

Because they do stink, right?

- Stinking stink bugs.

That's right.

[Chris laughs] They do stink.

- They do stink.

- And that is a predator avoidance mechanism that they have.

And they consider me and you predators.

And so, when we mess with 'em, they will stink to try to get us to leave 'em alone.

And birds and other critters that feed on them, might not feed on them, if they smell bad.

They probably taste bad too.

I've never tasted them, even though they are eaten in some countries around the world.

- Oh, really?

- Humans actually eat stink bugs in some countries around the world.

Check it out, if you don't believe me.

- I think I will take that out.

- But, I can't imagine it.

You probably, they're already flavored.

You don't need to add any flavors to 'em, I guess.

- Oh, all right.

- But they are a major pest.

- Okay.

- Stink bugs feed on just about everything that you and I feed on.

Anything that's good.

And they're not leaf, they don't have chewing mouthparts, they're not leaf feeders.

So, you don't, it's not as easy to see the damage at first when they first attack because they have piercing, sucking mouthparts.

And they will stick their proboscis into fruit, or beans, or peas, or tomatoes, or pecans.

- Pecans, yeah.

- Or anything that has juice and you know, protein and things like that.

And they will feed on it.

And any time they do that, if it's real small, it destroys the, if it's a cow pea that they're feeding on, you know, or southern pea or something like that, then the pea that they're feeding on, there's not any good for consumption.

With larger fruit like apples and pears, and, you know, pecans to some extent, if they just feed one time, then you've just got a dark spot, a discolored spot in the fruit.

Or that, you know, you can still, you know, use that.

- And that's usually what you see on the kernel of the pecan, right, the little dark spots.

- Well, you'll see it.

Yeah, right.

Correct.

After you've, you know, cracked the pecan open, on the kernel, there'll be a little bitty spot on them.

And sometimes there'll be three or four, which, you know, if I'm a stink bug and it tasted good there, I may scoot over and you know, [Chris laughs] - Right.

- Do another.

And they will feed, they can't feed on that pecan when the shell is hard.

So, they're feeding on the pecan when the shell is soft.

- Good point.

- It's relatively immature.

- But all stages of the stink bugs undergo incomplete metamorphosis or gradual metamorphosis.

Egg, then nymph, and then the adult.

And so, the nymph also feeds on, you know, - Oh man.

- Things just like the adult does with the piercing and sucking mouthpart.

But adults are, there are several, you know, races, several species, and several kinds of them that are, green stink bug is probably the most common.

And there are brown stink bugs.

There's stink bugs that have imported into the country.

A brown marmorated stink bug that's out there.

But the most common is the green stink bug.

The adults are strong flyers.

So, you can wipe out every stink bug in your garden and you can have a whole 'nother flock come, you know, - Right.

- Come flying in there.

They are especially a problem if you live close to agricultural fields.

And they may be out there in the field, and the farmer comes in and harvests the fields.

And they just, you know, they have no other place to go.

So, they start their out looking for something to eat.

And they're trying to, you know, build up some reserves to, you know, they go into the winter and they'll overwinter as adults.

And inside buildings, under logs, you know, in residue and things like that.

They need a place they can find some, some protection.

And then in the springtime they will, adults will come out and lay eggs and start the whole process over again.

Several generations a year, - Wow.

- Of the green stink bug.

And the common ones around here, they can have four to five generations a year.

Female lays egg masses.

You can see the egg masses from 20 to 100 little barrel-shaped eggs, - Right, I've seen them.

- In a cluster.

And if you can see that, get rid of it.

- Right.

- You know, quickly, because they'll hatch out.

The nymphs stick together for a little while, and then as they go through several instars, they will spread out and start acting more like an adult.

And then as soon as they sprout their wings, they're ready to go.

- They're ready to go.

- Yeah.

- Are they a huge problem in agronomic crops?

- They are a big problem in agronomic crops.

I was at a field day just the other day, and the entomologist was out with a sweep net, taking sweeps.

And I think the economic threshold is 12 stink bugs per 100 sweeps of the net.

And it's very easy to get that many.

And so, you know, just a few can cause a problem in cotton.

They mess up cotton bolls.

And so far with all of the genetic engineering that we've had out there, like the Bts and things like that.

Nothing, we've developed nothing that will kill stink bugs.

- Wow.

How about that?

Nothing.

- Most of the stink bugs are susceptible to most of the pesticides, synthetic pyrethrins, pyrethroids, and also the-- But the brown stink bug, the pyrethroids do not do as good a job.

They are somewhat, you know, they can tolerate the pyrethrins and they have to go back with the organal phosphates like acephate, - Right.

- Or something like that.

- Wow.

- But, they're just, it's tough to control.

And I looked in our Red Book on how to control 'em, and it's kind of interesting.

Had the same, only a couple of things were listed to control them.

For example, under beans, gamma-cyhalothrin and spinosad were two things that were listed for beans.

And then as I looked on down through there, when I got to southern peas, the same two products were listed.

So, it was the same thing for beans and peas, are gamma-cyhalothrin and spinosad.

But then, on some of the others, on broccoli for instance, it lists carbaryl, bifenthrin, and zeta-cypermethrin.

- Oh, okay.

- So, three products were listed for broccoli.

So, it depends on what you've got, - Whatever it is.

- What crops you've got.

And you don't normally think of stink bugs as being a pest of broccoli.

- No, you sure don't.

- But, - I'm surprised by that.

- They sure, they are.

And this again is out of the Red Book, okra.

- Oh gosh.

- It's got carbaryl, and cyfluthrin.

So, you know, carbaryl is, you know, Sevin, carbamate.

- Yeah.

- So, these are two different classes of chemistry here.

And it's just kind of, carbaryl normally is considered for insects with chewing mouthparts.

- Right.

- For the most part, but that's kind interesting.

- Sucking mouthpart, okay.

- But then I flipped over to tomato, - Surely they attack tomatoes right?

- And you have a few more, a few more tools in the arsenals you can use for a tomato, is carbaryl, cyfluthrin, permethrin, esfencalerate, bifenthrin and zeta-cypermethrin.

So, pretty much everything that's listed on the others, you can use all of 'em for to matoes to control stink bugs.

- Mm-hmm.

- But, I guess the take home point from that is to make sure that you... know what crop you're gonna use it on.

You can't just, but there is probably one of those that I mentioned that you could spray on all of those.

- What about fruit trees quickly?

- What about fruit trees?

- Yeah.

- Your home orchard spray guide should take care of that.

Unfortunately, stink bugs are like a few other insect pests out there.

There are not many IPM things that we can do.

And IPM, of course, Integrated Pest Management.

Not too many organic things out there that I'm aware of other than-- - Other than?

- The old standby, the two bricks.

You know, you smack 'em real hard, you're gonna get the smell, the smell's gonna be there and you gotta watch your thumbs.

- Watch your thumbs, right.

- 'Cause you're gonna mash your thumbs if you're not careful, but, - Wow.

- If you do the two brick, you are gonna have to deal with the smell.

- Yes, you are.

And that's your organic means to control the stink bug.

- That is.

That is an organic mean to control.

- Wow.

All right Mr. D. - It's not a good pest to have.

- Not a good pest to have.

Stink bugs do stink, y'all.

- Stinking stink bug.

[Chris chuckles] - All right, thanks Mr. D. That was good.

- You're welcome.

[gentle country music] - Today, we're in the garden and it's the end of the season.

Yeah, you've worked hard all summer long, produced a good vegetable crop, and you've harvested.

But you still have one more chore that you need to do in the garden today.

And that is removal of the diseased plants that's still in your garden.

We have tomato leaves that have summer blight, southern blight on them.

We don't want to leave these plants in the garden, 'cause they will leave spores in the soil for our garden next year.

And you definitely want to remove any of the diseased plants in your garden.

Do not put them in your compost pile, 'cause then you'll be incorporating more disease in your compost pile, and you don't want to do that.

So, put 'em in a garbage bag, put 'em on the side of the street, and remove 'em from your garden.

Sometimes, we'll have mummied fruit or diseased fruit on the plant that you also wanna make sure you get out.

So, just pull those tomato plants up, get 'em into a garbage bag and get 'em outta your garden so you'll eliminate disease for next year's crop.

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

These are great questions.

You ready?

- I'm ready.

- All right, let's dive in.

Here's our first viewer email.

"What can be done to keep my tree from dying when a beaver has removed the bark around the base?"

And this is Dream Big Dreams on YouTube.

Wow.

How about that?

- Wow.

- It's like, whoa.

- Yeah.

- So, what do you think about that?

- Well, unfortunately it's probably not going to survive.

- Yeah.

- Because beavers get past the bark section where all the xylem and phloem is that the tree gets water and nutrients through.

And eventually, the tree is just gonna succumb because when you get too much of the circumference of the base of the tree gone-- - Right.

- The tree can't survive because it can't get water and nutrients.

- Wow.

- But, let's help her save some of the others.

- Okay, okay.

- Or her.

Yeah, let's help save some of the others.

- Okay.

- And this is what I did.

I put plastic chicken fencing around the base of my trees very loosely, and tied it together.

And the plastic is just stiff enough, and flexible enough that when the beavers try to cut, chew through it.

- Right.

- It doesn't, they can't get through.

- Okay.

- And it bothers them and they go away.

So, I have them around all of my trees, around my pond, - Okay.

- To keep beavers away 'cause I had the same problem with beavers cutting my trees down.

- So, it worked?

- It worked.

- It worked.

- It's still there.

People wonder why it's there, but, they can only see it when you go up to it.

- Wow.

Yeah.

It's always amazing to me.

And it's funny to me at the same time, to see the damage from the beavers.

- Oh, it is.

- Because, you know, it's like, wow.

They can really do a lot of damage.

But yeah, as far as saving the tree, it's probably not gonna happen.

- I'm afraid that one's gone, but let's save some of the others.

- Right.

So, let's save some of the others.

So, thank you much, Dream Big Dreams.

We appreciate that question.

Here's our next viewer email.

"Some of the limbs are dying on my redbud.

"The wood is brown all the way through.

"I can cut the dead limb off, "and it looks like another limb is dying.

"Why are the limbs dying on my redbud?

What can I do to save the tree?"

And this is Elizabeth from Haynes, Arkansas.

So, she wants to try to save her redbud, because all of the limbs seems to be dying.

So, why do we think the limbs may be dying?

- Well, that's the key.

And the fact that she says it's brown all the way through.

- All the way through.

- I guess that's when she cuts the limbs that she sees this brown all the way through.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

There's something going on.

And verticillium wilt is probably a very likely scenario that the tree has gotten wounded, and this is the verticillium wilt is set in, and redbud trees are not resistant to verticillium wilt.

- Yeah.

That's exactly right.

- That's why a lot of the redbud trees are considered short-lived trees.

And that's why they reproduce so well, because they get all these verticillium wilt and stuff.

They don't live to be, you know, 50 and 60 years old.

If you get a redbud tree that old, you're doing very, very good.

- Right.

Okay.

- So, I think that's what's problem.

And I don't think it's gonna survive.

What I would not do is put another redbud tree in that actual vicinity.

I would pick another tree for that area.

But I would plant another redbud tree, but just not right there.

- Not right there, okay.

- Yeah.

Redbuds are from all over the east coast.

And redbuds do not like cold weather so much.

So, there's some redbud trees that are in the northeast, and in Minnesota, that have survived in the colder temperatures.

So, what they're doing is getting seedlings from those trees.

And they're finding that the seedlings from those trees are just as hardy as the original tree.

- Oh, how about that.

Okay.

- So, it's interesting that redbud is that variable all across the eastern United States.

- Wow, interesting.

- So, when you get a redbud tree, get one from the area that you live in, and you'll most likely have good success with that tree.

- Okay.

- But verticillium wilt is just everywhere.

- Verticillium wilt.

- And, - It's in the soil.

- It's in the soil.

- It's a fungus.

- There's nothing you can do about it.

But, just don't plant something back that dies from it in that same area.

- How about thatt, 'cause at this point you just have to try to keep the tree as comfortable as possible.

- Yeah.

- Right?

Because again, in the soil, the fungus is, and it inhibits the transport of water from the roots to the leaves.

- Yeah.

- So, dead limbs.

Yep, dead leaves.

Yeah, it's gonna be tough.

All right, Ms. Elizabeth, hope that helps you out there.

- Hope so.

- All right.

Here's our next viewer email.

"The zoysia grass in my yard has crept into my flower bed "and overtaken the beautiful mondo grass.

"Now, what?

"Is there a way to kill the zoysia that is growing in mondo grass without destroying the mondo grass?"

I like this.

"P.S.

Help.

My wife planted the mondo grass."

[Chris & Joellen laugh] And this is Oscar in Toone, Tennessee.

So, - Oh wow.

- We gonna have to help Oscar out because his wife planted that mondo grass.

So, we gotta make sure that's gonna live.

- I understand.

- So, what are the options?

- Well, you know, there's not a whole lot of chemical options you can do.

- Uh uh.

- So, digging it up would probably-- - Oh, Mr. Oscar.

- Mechanically digging, - would probably the best thing.

But zoysia doesn't creep that fast, so.

- Yeah, not that fast.

- You know, once you do get it out, put some kind of barrier down and just keep checking it, because you can keep zoysia out of the beds by just either mechanically, easily, every, you know, maybe two or three times in the whole season.

- Yeah.

- It doesn't, zoysia does not grow that fast.

- Yeah, like the Bermuda.

- Yeah.

It doesn't grow that fast that you can physically take care of it to keep it out of the mondo.

But once it's in the mondo, it's best to just dig it all up.

- Just dig it all up.

- And then replant the mondo back, and remove the zoysia grass.

- Right.

Chemical options are limited.

- Very, very limited.

And 'cause everything you know that I can think of, will actually hurt the mondo grass.

And you don't wanna do that.

- Yeah, that's gonna be tough.

Even, you know, before, you and I have talked about the wipe technique.

- Oh yeah.

- So, you wouldn't even try that with glyphosate, maybe?

- Well, you could.

- You could?

- I mean, depends on how thick the mondo grass is.

- Yeah Yeah, okay.

- If the mondo gras has just been recently planted, and it's got big clumps, and there's spaces in between that have the zoysia, you could do the wipe technique and just sponge on or wipe the zoysia grass in between and it would kill it.

- Right.

- But it depends on-- - If it's all through it.

- If it's all through it, and it's all, I would dig up.

- You'd just dig it up.

- Mm-hm.

- Wow, Oscar.

You have some work to do.

[chuckles] - Oh, I'm sorry about that.

- Sorry about that.

Yeah, 'cause the chemical options are limited.

- Mm-hm.

- Even with the wipe technique, - Yes.

- You know, so it's gonna be limited.

So, we definitely don't want you to destroy, - No.

- Your wife's mondo grass.

- No.

- All right?

So, thank you for that email.

And then, by the way, Toone, Tennessee, you have any horticulture questions?

Go see my man Lee Sammons, there in Hardeman County.

He will help you out, all right?

- Joellen, that was fun.

Thank you much.

- Yeah, it was - All right.

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 year we started our herb garden.

If you want to see how to plant, care for, or dry herbs, 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]