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

I'm Chris Cooper.

Late winter is the best   time to prune fruit trees.

Today we're gonna   show you how   to prune apple trees.

Also, lettuce is a great   cool season vegetable.

Today we're gonna talk   about how to grow it.

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 Mike Dennison.

Mr. D. is a retired Extension Director.

And Tom Mashour will be joining us later to talk about lettuce.

But Mr. D., we're out here, we're about to prune a apple tree, but before we do that, we definitely wanna thank the good folks at Jones Orchard.

Specifically Mr. Henry Jones, for allowin' us to be out here today, so we can prune one of these apple trees for him.

- We prune apples and pears the same way.

We prune them to a   strong central leader.

This apple tree has   a really good start.

Under ideal conditions, we will have a whirl of limbs at about 18 to 20 inches from the ground, four limbs evenly spaced around the trunk of the tree.

As we know in the real world, ideal conditions doesn't exist all the time.

And this one has, we've got one, two, three, four limbs right here.

I'm gonna, because these two limbs are sharing the sun, I'm gonna take this one off right here.

And so, I've got three scaffold limbs on my bottom layer, which is okay.

Now, I'm gonna come on up this tree.

Ideally, I would have 18 to 20 inches before I get to the next whorl of limbs.

So I'm going to, these are a little close to this row of scaffold, this one especially is a little close, so I'm gonna take it off.

And I'm gonna leave about a quarter inch, I don't wanna get to close to the trunk.

I wanna leave enough room for that to heal.

Let's see, these limbs are sharing the same, this limb is right above this limb, so I don't need that to happen and I'm gonna take this one off right here.

So now I've got one, two, three, four, five, six scaffold limbs is probably a little much, but I'm gonna go ahead and leave that.

Now, I'm gonna take everything else off.

Again, I'm gonna try to leave a space, ideally of 18 to 20 inches.

I don't quite have that here.

Takin' all this off, so I don't want anything to grow between here and here.

- (Chris) Okay.

- And, I'm gonna leave these buds, and, you know, you'll have eventually limbs come out where these buds are - (Chris) Right.

- and they will fill this void over here.

And so, that's pretty well got the scaffold limbs chosen.

Now, apples and especially pears, everything wants to be the central leader.

- (Chris) Yeah.

- But I'm gonna teach this tree now.

We only have one central leader, so this is tryin' to be the central leader here.

So, I'm gonna take it off.

- (Chris) All right.

- And then, and then I have limbs crossing and that's not good.

So this limb is invading this scaffold limb's space, so I'm gonna take it off.

Again, leaving about a quarter inch, so that it'll have plenty of room to heal.

So that has got that taken care of.

It's lookin' pretty good, now I'm gonna go to all of these limbs, okay.

I don't want anything to grow back up toward the center of the tree.

So, I'm gonna take that off.

Then I'm gonna go to the tips of all of these limbs and I'm gonna take off about a third of last year's growth or you know, 6 to 12 inches or something like that is a pretty good, pretty good rule of thumb.

It's called heading back.

- (Chris) Yeah.

- And this is a very important cut, because when you head back apples and pears you wanna make a cut above a bud that's growing, the bud that's pointing in the direction that you want the limb to grow.

And, you want the limb to grow out away from the tree.

If you cut, make your cut above a bud that's growin' back toward the tree, that limb will come out and it'll be you know, kind of goin' back toward the center of the tree, which is not good.

- So, is that a 45 degree cut, or?

- It's just, it doesn't, just cut it off.

I'm gonna cut it off straight.

- (Chris) Okay, okay.

- This one, this bud is headed away from the tree, so I'm gonna cut right above that bud about a quarter of an inch above that bud.

- (Chris) Okay.

- And then I'm gonna do that with all of these lower scaffolds.

I can tell where last year's growth was, so that one's goin' in the right direction.

I'm gonna go on up to this scaffold, since I'm standing here, same thing, pickin' a bud that's growin' away from the tree, as I ease on around here.

On every limb, I'm gonna head it back, to a bud that's goin' in the direction I want it to go.

- (Chris) Oh yeah.

- Okay, this limb is growin' straight up, tryin' to be the central leader, so I'm gonna cut it above that limb right there.

Okay, easin' around.

Just easin' up the tree.

This limb would really like to be the central leader.

So, I'm gonna do some severe-- [Chris laughs] - (Chris) It's got to go, right?

- Construction to it, and do that.

And we've got that in pretty good shape now.

That apple tree is pretty much ready to go.

It's gonna have a flush of growth now, because any time you prune a tree this time of the year, this is the best time of the year you know, the middle of March is the best time to do any pruning.

And when you prune limbs off, you've got a root system that's fully developed and it's gonna compensate by giving you a flush of growth and the growth is gonna go in the direction that you want it to go.

The reason we do this, is to kinda open the tree up where you can do a really good job of spraying your fungicides and insecticides.

You can get better coverage if you open the tree up a little bit.

You're also thinning some of the fruit off.

Most of these fruit trees will have 80% more fruit than they can actually set.

So, we're takin' some of the fruit off now.

We're gonna have to do some thinning also as we get, probably, unless Mother Nature comes in with a good heavy frost, - (Chris) [laughing] Right!

- and helps us do a little thinning, but hopefully we're gonna have to do some thinning on these, on these fruit trees.

- Okay, and this is what, a three year old tree?

- I'd say that's about right.

- A three year old tree, Arkansas Black.

- Good variety.

- (Chris) Good variety.

- Good apple.

- All right, well I'm sure Mr. Henry'll appreciate that nice pruning job you did on this apple tree there.

- I hope so, sometimes folks get a little nervous, it's like a bad haircut, sometimes.

[Chris laughing] Folks get a little nervous.

- Well, I think this is a good one.

Appreciate that demonstration Mr. D. [upbeat country music] - Hybird.

- Hybrid, oh yeah, yeah.

That's those cars right?

[laughing] - Yeah, the new hybrid cars.

- The new hybrid cars, yeah.

Okay, next one.

[laughing] Yeah, hybrids can get a little bit sticky, because in plants, a hybrid is something   that we have manipulated.

It's not something   that typically we term   as occurring in nature,   although they do.

Plants cross-pollinate   between, you know,   different species all the time.

But, a hybrid is something that's usually done by scientists to cross two different varieties of, say tomatoes, to get a better plant.

Typically, it would be to get those traits that would make it a better product, a better tomato, more disease resistance, you know, things like that.

So, a hybrid is a plant that is the cross between two different parents.

And, a lot of times, that if you save the seed from a hybrid, which is questions.

We get those, too, right Chris?

- (Chris) Yes, we do.

- They sometimes will not breed true because they're from two different lines, and then that plant sets seed.

Well obviously, it was pollinated from something else, so you're not really gonna get that hybrid plant.

So, the only way you'd get another hybrid plant is to go back to the original cross, cross again, you know, and get the hybrid plant that way.

Or, you can even, like a tomato, you could clone it, take a cutting.

You know, we talked about taking the suckers from tomato plants, that's a clone.

So, that's the same as the parent, but that's usually what hybrids are, something that we have manipulated through genetic breeding to establish a new plant that has good characteristics of both parents.

[upbeat country music] All right, we have Tipton County Master Gardener Mr. Tom Mashour here today, to tell us a little bit about growing lettuce.

So where do you wanna get started?

- Well, I thought about talkin' about the common types of lettuce that you see.

We have the iceberg lettuce, which is also referred to as head lettuce.

Matter of fact, when I was a kid growing up   in my dad's grocery store,   that's what we called it,   head lettuce.

The term iceberg was actually set up, or developed by the railroad companies, that they had to,   when they first started   shipping 'em to the east coast,   this is before they had   refrigerated trains.

They would've had to put   piles of piles of crushed ice   to make sure that they make it   all the way to the east coast   and the people who   worked for the railroads   started calling 'em iceberg,   because they look like   icebergs in there,   and the name stuck, so.

- (Chris) How 'bout that.

- That's how the name iceberg came about.

It had nothing to do with the lettuce.

So you may hear the term head lettuce or iceberg lettuce, it's the same thing.

Another common type, by the way this is my favorite.

My wife's favorite is the romaine lettuce.

- (Chris) Yeah.

[laughing]   - And romaine, I've   grown that here,   and it grows really well,   has basically no disease   or bug problems, and it's also   a little bit slower to bolt.

- (Chris) Okay.

And then we also have the leaf lettuce.

This is, I'm not sure what type of variety this is, but there's several varieties of that.

There's the Black-seeded   Simpson, the Buttercrunch,   and a few other types.

- (Chris) Okay.

- Bibb lettuce is another one,   and of course the romaine.

Now romaine is actually called   Parris Island cos, C-O-S.

There's also what they call the giant variety, that's part of the romaine family, but it produces huge leaves.

So you can actually, for people on a diet, wrap it up and make burritos out of 'em.

[Chris laughs] When to plant.

It is a cool season plant, matter of fact I tell people any time I'm giving a presentation on vegetables always I say there are cool season vegetables and warm season vegetables.

You don't see anything listed as cold season or hot season.

Some plants will tolerate it to a certain degree but they don't like it, they're just like your pansies.

- (Chris) Right.

- But since it is a cool season plant and our coolest season is very short, you really need to start it indoors.

They will tolerate some frost, they will not tolerate hard freezes.

So, if you start 'em indoors six weeks before you start planting 'em and you're gonna move 'em outside, or usually within a week or two before the last frost date, they should be okay.

Also, it's one you can also plant in the fall, but again in the fall, excuse me, late summer, July, July and August.

But you have to start 'em inside.

Lettuce seeds will not germinate above 75 degrees.

- (Chris) Okay.

- So they just cannot tolerate the heat and they also will wilt quickly in the summertime.

So, you've got to try to make maximum use of the cool season, both days.

[Mr D. chuckles] It does not transplant well.

But if you are gonna try and grow 'em, you need to grow 'em in at least the three inch containers.

- (Chris) Okay.

- So when you do transplant it, the roots are still contained within that, and it'll be less transplant shock.

- (Chris) Makes sense.

- Let's see, also one thing about lettuce, unless you're a rabbit.

[Chris laughs] You cannot probably eat all the lettuce that you can grow.

So, I hope you have a lot of friends and family that may want it.

Otherwise it's like I said, they grow so quickly and the seeds are so small.

- (Chris) Yeah, they are small, not kidding.

- That you can't plant 'em very deep, which means that you gotta keep it constantly moist.

You can't let it dry out, because the seeds are so close to the surface.

And as we know, it's the surface that's gonna dry out first.

- (Chris) Sure.

- And so, you can start indoors and... pretty much, the longest time, I said you know, we couldn't grow this here, but you can if you start off like I said, early enough in the spring, inside, and in July and August, so that they're about ready to go off when the temperatures start dropping.

Which is usually in mid-September, somewhere in that nature.

I got a grow stand with four fluorescent lights on it.

- (Chris) Okay.

- And I'm gonna just see if I can grow 'em in the house, before I put 'em outside.

See how big I can get 'em.

But again, the romaine like I said, it's pretty much the easiest to grow, and it will tolerate a little bit more heat, but soon as it starts getting hot, those, because they're like 95% water.

- (Chris) Right.

- They're gonna just wilt.

Just like me on 110 degree day.

- (laughs) Just like any of us.

- And there's, like I said these are the three biggies.

And as to what type of leaf lettuce this is, I have no idea.

- (Chris) Okay.

- It's just, but it's a biggie, 'cause that's just one plant.

- (Chris) All right.

- And I don't know if it was grown, and by the way I didn't mention that on the iceberg lettuce approximately 75% of it comes from the Salinas Valley   of California, where because   of the breeze and   cooler temperatures   coming off the ocean, it's   not that far from the ocean, it maintains a kinda cool situation.

Then in the evening, the sun goes down, especially if it's low humidity, which it is, the temperature drops pretty good, 'cause there's no moisture in the air to hold the temperature up.

- (Chris) Okay.

- So it has a pretty much constant temperature every day, night, day, and throughout the year.

So that's like I said, that's where the biggest-- - Oh, so it's perfect conditions for the most part.

All right Mr. Tom quickly, so no disease problems you've encountered, or any pests?

- Not really, on the lettuce like I said, on the romaine lettuce definitely not, I have no problems with it.

Since I haven't really grown that much of the other lettuce, especially I haven't grown the iceberg or head lettuce, I'm not really sure about bug problems on it.

I do notice wilt and the leaves turning brown, and things of that nature, but as far as bugs go, the few that I've grown have not really had any much problem, just the heat.

- (Mr. D.) And rabbits.

- (Chris) And rabbits!

- And rabbits, yeah.

Now rabbits you know, they might appreciate you growin' it a lot more than you do, but fortunately I got a fence around my yard so I don't have any problems.

I had rabbits one time, boy it was tasty.

[laughing] - Oh quickly too, how do you know when they get ready to bolt?

- Uh, it'll start forming a center stem right in the middle,   and that's when, and   even when it bolts,   they're still edible.

Just like if you do   grow a bunch of it,   and you have to thin 'em out.

Matter of fact, the hardest thing I think about growing it, besides the heat, is getting those seeds spaced.

'Cause there's a tendency to just overlap the seeds.

- (Chris) Sure.

But the nice thing about the lettuce, unlike a lot of plants, the seedlings you gotta thin out, are edible.

- (Chris) Okay, so they are edible.

- Mm, hmm.

- All right, we appreciate that information about lettuce there Mr. Tom.

- (Tom) Thank you sir.

- All right.

[gentle country music] - Well, obviously we didn't get a chance to clean our raised bed last year, so now's the time to do that before we plant this spring crop.

One thing that we need to do is get rid of these cauliflower.

Now, we wanna make sure we shake that good soil back off in there, and that can go in the compost pile.

All these leaves and things we just compost down and be good stuff for us next year.

Now also here with the tomatoes, due to the blight issues,   we do not want them around.

So, we wanna put this in the trash, 'cause that's all we'll be doin' is reintroducin' that back into our beds next year.

So always remember, to clean the garden out that way it gives you a good, fresh start for the next year.

- All right, here's our Q & A Session.

Mr. Tom you jump in there and help us out, okay?

- All right.

- Here's our first email.

"I had a problem   with something   "eating my cabbage last year.

How can I control   them for this year?"

So Mr. D., what   do you think was probably eating the cabbage last year?

- Could have been several things, but it was probably either a cabbage looper or an imported cabbage worm.

And if it was a cabbage looper, I would use Bacillus thuringiensis,   Dipel, Javelin, or one   of the other products   that has the Bt in it.

And you gotta start early.

If you wait until you see the big holes in the leaves--   - (Chris) [laughing] Yeah.

- (Mr. D.) You know,   the damage was done   a long time ago.

- (Chris) That's right.

- And the little   critters are hard to see.

They're really camouflaged really well.

If it's an imported, and it's easy to tell the difference.

The cabbage looper has got two pair of prolegs   and it does the   loopitty-loop when it walks.

And the imported cabbage   worm has four pairs   of prolegs and it   can crawl you know,   it doesn't move around, it's   not near as, it doesn't move   around as much as the   looper does anyway.

But it has four pairs of prolegs so it's easy to identify.

Unfortunately the Bt doesn't work as well on the imported cabbage worm as it does on the looper.

So, if you have the imported cabbage worm,   permethrin,   esfenvalerate or spinosad   would be a little   better choice to use.

Follow the label   directions as always.

- (Chris) Follow the label.

And I tell you what, if you can just follow   their excrements, you'll   see where they are,   'cause they leave   behind a mess.

- That's right, they   do leave behind a mess.

Now, do we have pictures?

We didn't have pictures.

Could have been rabbits, or groundhogs too, I mean they like cabbage.

- Yeah, we didn't have pictures of that.

- But I'm assuming that if it's a cabbage problem, about 99% of the time, flea beetles will even get on 'em.

But most of the time with cabbage it's one of the two worms.

- I would agree, so Tom, anything to add to that?

- No, he covered everything I was gonna say.

Only things that I would add is the little white butterflies, are they the ones that causes this?

- That's what causes the imported cabbage worm.

- Yeah.

- So if you see this little, pretty little--   - (Chris) And it is pretty.

- prettiest things   you've ever seen.

Little cute little white   butterflies, and they'll fly   from plant to plant.

And you think they're   just sittin' there enjoyin' the aroma, but what they're doin' is layin' eggs, they're layin' eggs, and they're pretty little butterflies, but that's the imported cabbage worm.

- (Chris) Yeah.

- (Mr. D.) So you better look out.

- (Tom) And only one thing too, I'll also add is that Bt it's proof organic control.

It's safe for animals, birds, pets, and everything else.

And even conventional gardeners uses it.

- That's right.

- (Chris) Safe product.

Perfectly safe and natural.

- (Tom) Yep.

- And it doesn't hurt the beneficials.

- That's right.

All right, so here's our next question.

And we do have a picture for this one, Mr. D.   "I have lots of these bugs   on my Japanese maple tree.

What are they and can   I get rid of them?"

- That's Japanese Maple scale, isn't it?

- That was Japanese Maple scales.

You would be correct, that's exactly what that is.

- I was hopin' that's what it was - Oh, that's what it is, and it's a lot of 'em, too.

Did you see that?

- Yeah, it covered up, I did see the picture.

And dormant oil, is   about the only thing   we can recommend, right now.

And that's what's   recommended February, March,   - (Chris) February, March.

- And then--   - You can go with the   horticultural oil.

- You can actually use a heavier dose of horticultural oil, right now, instead of dormant oil.

- (Chris) Instead of dormant oil, you sure could.

- And then later on, for sure the horticultural oil, later on in the year.

- You can do that, and then you can also use Safari,   which is one of the   systemic soil drenches,   if you wanna go that route.

- (Mr. D.) Right.

- Safari actually   actually is dinotefuran,   gets into the vascular   tissue pretty quick and it will suppress the scales, but that's-- - (Mr. D.) That's good to know.

- Yeah, it's a pretty good infestation there.

- Yeah I see TriStar,   Distance, and Talus,   is that the same active   as in the Safari,   or is that a different   active ingredient?

- (Chris) It's a different   active ingredient.

Yeah, but they're   all pretty good, you know all systemic.

- (Mr. D.) Right, okay.

- They're just different active ingredient.

- (Mr. D.) Okay, okay.

I see they're on our Red Book.

- Yeah they're, okay, in the Red Book, okay.

And something else I know too, I remember seein' this last year, and talkin' to Dr. Hale, you know Dr. Hale?

Extension Entomologist, and he was sayin' if you just get out a soft brush and dip it in some soapy water, you can actually scrub 'em off.

- (Mr. D.) A lot of Japanese maples are small enough you can do that.

- (Chris) Right, definitely if they're small enough, you actually scrub 'em off and then he would come, he said come behind that with a jet stream of water and just knock 'em off.

- Yeah, physically remove 'em.

- Physically remove 'em.

- (Mr. D.) That'll work.

- Yeah, but that was a lot you know, that he had on the Japanese maples for sure.

And then if you look,   the oyster shaped ones   are the females.

I learned that   from Dr. Hale, too.

- (Mr. D.) And then the   slender ones are the males.

- (Chris) And the slender   ones are the males.

But the oyster, the females   look just like a little oyster   when you just look   at 'em real closely.

- You know, the Euonymus scale's the same way, they're the same way.

- Well you know what?

Japanese maple scales are armored scales, so they're not gonna produce the honeydew.

- (Mr. D.) Right.

- (Chris) Right.

But yeah.

- (Mr. D.) It makes sense.

- It makes sense, it's like Euonymus scale.

All right, so I hope that helps you out.

So here's our next question.

"Is it too late to start   my cool season vegetables,   lettuce, cabbage,   specifically?"

Mr. Tom, what do you think about that?

Is it too late, 'cause now we're lookin' into April?

- Um, hmm.

- Can we go into April, is that too late?

- You can if you're starting off with plants.

- (Chris) Starting off with plants, okay.

- Yeah, for example if you go and buy your plants or if you wanna start 'em from seeds, you typically want to start your plants indoors like anything out of the cole family, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower.

You wanna start 'em six weeks before the end of frost and get 'em into the garden.

If you're talkin' about starting from seeds right now, yeah.

'Cause our cool season like I said, is so short that you wanna take maximum use of starting your plants indoors, so you start off with plants, but as far as cabbage goes.

Matter of fact, they're available right now, all the plants.

- (Chris) Okay.

- For cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower.

I tried growing Brussels sprouts, but Brussels sprouts require extremely long cool season.

So, I never had any luck growing it here.

In California I did, not here.

- (Chris) Yeah, but not here.

I'll tell you what you know, for most of your homeowners, they're probably gonna go out and buy transplants anyway.

They're gonna go to your big box stores and you know, get what's available and put those in the ground, you know.

- And if they're in that situation, yeah they can put 'em in, 'cause they will take a little bit of heat.

Lettuce no, but your broccoli, cabbage, those members, yeah they'll take some heat.

Matter of fact, the ones I planted, they're already bein' to head up.

But I got a bunch of small ones still ready to grow.

- (Chris) Okay.

Mr. D. you want somethin' to add to that?

- I was just gonna say, according to the UT's Guide to Spring Planted Cool Season Vegetables, you know that you got at your local extension office.

There're several things that goes into March, and if what you said is true about the cabbage and the lettuce and all that, but you know, you got English peas that you can still plant and onions and radishes and you know, things like that.

You've still got time to do that.

- Yeah, matter of fact, I've got three different variety of onions growing in my garden right now and broccoli and stuff like that.

- (Mr. D.) And you plant them in February.

- And be good to go.

All right, Mr. Tom and Mr. D. we're outta time.

Remember, we love   to hear from you,   send us a 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.

Want to get more information on something you saw on today's show, go to FamilyPlotGarden.com.

We have extension publications on every topic we talk about.

You can print them and take them with you into your garden.

That's all the time we have for today, thanks for watching.

I'm Chris Cooper, be sure to join us next week for The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South.

Be safe.

[upbeat country music] [acoustic guitar chords]