- Hi, thanks for joining us for The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South, I'm Chris Cooper.

Last week, we showed you   how to prune an apple tree.

This week, we'll   prune a peach tree.

Also, cabbage is a   delicious way to add   fiber and vitamin   C to your diet.

Today, we're going to   talk about growing 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 guitar music] - Welcome to The Family Plot, I'm Chris Cooper.

Joining me today is Mike Dennison.

Mr. D. is a retired Extension Director.

And Master Gardener, Stephanie Alligood will be joining us later to talk about growing cabbage.

All right, Mr. D. We definitely thank Mr. Henry Jones for allowing us to be out here today.

- Super, super nice guy, and they do a great job with peaches and nectarines and apples and strawberries.

- So what are we gonna do here?

- This is a nectarine tree.

We treat nectarines, peaches, and plums the same way.

We prune them to an   open-centered system,   and this is the way   we open up the center.

You see, this is trying to be a pear or an apple tree.

It has a strong central leader here.

Well, this is what we do with that.

- Oh man, we're just gonna take it out like that?

- (Mr. D.) Kind of like that, I'm gonna be gentle.

- (Chris) Okay.

- 'Cause I don't want to injure any of these other scaffold limbs.

We used to say, these trees, back in the old days, cost about two dollars, and they you take out about a $1.80 and leave about a dime's worth, and you're kind of going in the right direction.

And so that's what we're doing.

Is it looking a little more open?

- (Chris) Oh yeah, there's your dime's worth.

- It's a little low here, and we've got three scaffold limbs, which is really fine, really all you need.

And you know, I took off a lot of fruit.

On a young tree like this, it's much more important to develop the tree, the shape of the tree than it is to get fruit off of it.

You'll have plenty of time to get fruit later on if you take care of it.

There we are, how about that?

- All right, Mr. D., off to the next tree.

- (Mr. D.) Off to the next tree, let's do it.

- All right, Mr. D., we have here, about a 10-year-old nectarine tree.

- And when I walk up to a tree that's get this much age on it, first thing I look at is, has it got any broken limbs, and I see this limb right here's got some damage, and so I'm gonna take care of that, that's in my mind.

I also want to take off everything that's from the waist down.

We call them hanger downers.

I want to take all the hanger downers off, and then, I'm going to take off everything growing back toward the center.

Ideally, I want every limb to have its shot at the sun, and so ideally, I won't have another limb shading another one, I want to take out limbs that are crossing over, and with that being said, I'm going to get in here, and go to work.

- Oh, he's pulling out the big gun.

[laughs] - Okay this, this limb has both of the broken limbs on it, I think.

I'm going to take that off, and I really think I can get to it from here.

Actually, this is a little bit easier to handle.

Yeah, I'm going to make a little cut on the bottom 'cause I don't want to strip out this tree, and then I'm going to go up again about a half inch, this is about a half inch from the trunk.

Okay.

This right here, I'm want to open up the center a little bit.

I'm going to take it off.

Making these double cuts because I don't want to strip off this bark.

Grab it, Chris.

Don't want to damage the limbs that I'm leaving.

There you are.

And I like a lot the shears that I use   are like the   scissors cut shears.

I don't like the   anvil-type shears.

They do more damage   to the limbs.

You need sharp shears.

Okay.

This is some hanger downer right here.

Take it off.

All right, now, I'm looking at anything growing back toward me, toward the center of the tree.

I'm taking that out.

I want to be where I can get into this tree from any direction, and I'm really, really thinking about taking that limb out right there, but I'm going to hold off on that right now.

I can always do it later.

I'm also going to take out any dead limbs.

Like that's a dead limb right there.

Quite a few dead limbs here.

Little dead limbs that were probably shaded out last year.

I'm going to take those off.

All right, I don't like to fight my way into a tree, so I'm going to open it up here a little bit.

This is kind of growing back toward the center.

Taking that off, this is growing straight up.

This limb is crossing over, invading this one's territory a little bit.

This one's growing a little bit more upright.

Got some damage on it.

I'm gonna leave a few of these for this one.

There's some nectarines right there I don't want to cut off.

This is probably a little low, and that's growing back toward the center, so I'm taking that off, that's dead.

This is a hanger downer right here, but there's some fruit right there, so I'm gonna take the hanger downer off and let that produce a nectarine for me.

This is growing back toward the center, growing straight up.

Limbs that are growing straight up like these, I consider those water sprouts, and they will not have any fruit.

They pretty much rob the tree of nutrition, and they're trying to be the central leader.

Just like on an apple or pear tree.

So I take the water sprouts out.

Anything growing straight up.

When you have a lot of small limbs, on a branch, I'll go in and take every other one out.

Give them a little space.

And as I go up on these limbs, I'll pretty much take everything on the top part of the limb that has a tendency to grow straight up.

These trees are, were bred and designed to be pruned, and if you don't prune these improved varieties, if you don't, Mother Nature will.

And Mother Nature sometimes doesn't make a clean a cut as I do.

She can be rather brutal at times.

This is kind of congested here.

Get all of these, going straight up.

Ideally, on a peach or nectarine, when you're out here, to the side, you'd like all of your fruiting wood to be from about your waist to as high as you can reach.

Not much higher than as high as you can reach, keeping in mind that when the fruit are on the tree, the upper limbs are gonna come down some, so you can let that, you can be a little higher than you can reach, you can do that.

And you notice, again, I'm making the cut above a limb that's growing in the direction I want it to go.

Okay, Chris.

I could work on this all day, you know.

It's like a haircut or clip of the show steer,   and you always see another   limb you could take off.

Got it opened up, this tree   is really, it started out, you can see all these trees are like peas in a pod.

When they started, they cut them off at eighteen to twenty inches, and that's how the scaffold limbs came out at the right height, so they've really done a good job with these fruit trees.

- All right, well we definitely appreciate that pruning demonstration, and again, you put in some work on that one.

- Yeah, I broke a sweat.

[upbeat country music] - Feeder roots.

- Yeah, feeder roots.

- We say that one quite a bit.

- Man, they are really important.

Really, really important.

You know, we have two kinds of roots on plants.

We have anchor roots and feeder roots.

Anchor roots obviously, you know, are what kinda anchor the plant into the soil, just like a... the stability's what keeps it in the ground when the wind blows.

But, feeder roots   are what feed the plant,   what takes up the nutrients,   takes up the water,   and they're usually within   the top few inches of the soil.

And for trees, feeder roots are usually the top 10 to 12 inches.

So, that's why it's so very important around trees not to compact the soil, heavy equipment over that area, not to dig down, excavate or fill, because you're messing up those feeder roots.

And, that's the life of the plant.

So, they're what feeds the plant.

- (Chris) Hence the name--   - And they're really, really,   yeah hence the name.

They're real tiny, too.

They're just like little   spider webs all in the soil.

And when you dig under a big ol' mature oak tree, you're gonna find a lot of feeder roots.

It's just a mat.

That's why a lot of landscapers say, "Well, you can't plant under a lot of big trees," because you got all those little feeder roots that's just gon' sap everything out first.

So,-- - And the feeder roots pretty much go out to the drip line of the tree.

- Oh, they do, yeah, yeah.

On big trees, the canopies, the feeder roots go out the whole width of that canopy.

So, they're all, they're there.

Well, if you think about what would be required to sustain that canopy, you need a lot of feeder roots, yeah.

So, that's what they do.

[upbeat country music] - All right, Ms. Stephanie, we're all about cabbage today.

Before you get started, Ms. Stephanie is a Master Gardener right here in Shelby County, and again, she's going to let us know all about cabbage.

So where do you want to start, Ms. Stephanie?

- Well, I guess we'll start at the beginning, where a cabbage is a member of the cole crop family, which is a huge, huge family of crops that everyone likes to grow in the spring and the fall.

It's very, very nutritious, so it's very popular crop grown all over the world.

There's lots of vitamin K, vitamin C, fiber, minerals, so it's a very popular thing to grow, and it's not exactly the easiest thing to grow because everybody, all insects want to eat it as well.

- We'll get to those insects.

- And rabbits too.

- The rabbits too.

So yeah, it's important to have some kind of barrier for all kinds of critters, rabbits and insects alike.

Varieties of cabbage, there's actually four different groups.

There's the green   cabbage, that you're   used to seeing in the stores.

There's red cabbage,   which is very similar.

There's savoy cabbage, which   is more of the crinkly cabbage,   which is usually more tender,   and maybe you don't   cook it quite as much,   and there's lots of   Chinese cabbages as well.

All the bok choys and   the Napa cabbages.

As far as planting goes, you're gonna want to plant them, they like cool season, so you're going to plant them as fast as possible.

Probably mid-February you could go as much as maybe a week or two into April.

But it all depends on the variety that you choose because bigger cabbages might have 115 days to harvest, but you could pick smaller types of cabbage that would only be even 35 days, which is like little mini bok choys, or Napa cabbages, which might be only 60 days.

So it's important to kind of think about where you live and what the weather's like that year, and pick the one that you want to grow.

- Could you start those indoors, is that a good idea?

- Absolutely, start indoors in the spring, for sure.

You want to start those January, February, and you'll have have, like these, growing for four to six weeks before you even dare put them outside.

- We could probably get away with putting those outside maybe in April?

- Yes, especially if they're the ones that grow faster.

If they're the ones that you'll probably typically see in garden centers or nurseries, they might not make a really full head, but you can test them and, you know, they'll start to head up for you for sure, even if you start them in April in your garden.

- Now, let's talk a little bit about fertilizing.

Do you use any fertilizers when you're out there planting your cabbage?

- Well, fertilizers are for sure, they're heavy nitrogen feeders, so you want really fertile soil, you want them in that soil with lots of compost.

And we use all different kinds.

We'll use well-seasoned cow or pony manure.

We'll use, - (Chris) Good stuff.

- We'll use all kinds of, just anything that we can get our hands on, really.

We'll get it in the soil before we put the cabbages in the ground, and then about three or four weeks later, when they're six inches tall, we'll side dress with more compost, and then when they start to head up, we'll side dress again, or we'll feed them with liquid nitrogen, like fish emulsion or something.

- Now, what about planting spacing.

- Planting spacing is critical, actually.

The really big ones that you'll see in the garden centers.

You'll want them planted 18   inches, even 24 inches apart   because as they get bigger,   you're going to want to be   able to turn the leaves over,   and look for the insects, and make sure the stems are healthy, and make sure they have room just to grow.

- Now, here's the important question.

How do you know when it's time to harvest?

- Well, it's all about watching them grow, and you'll actually test the head and see that they're kind of solid.

They'll look like they're ready to harvest, but you'll kind of give them a squeeze test, and see if they're solid or not.

If they still have a lot of give, then you want to wait another week or two.

- Now, let's get to those pests while we have a little time left, so what's the major pest of cabbage?

- Major pest of cabbage is definitely the cabbage worm,   cabbage looper.

- (Chris) And Mr. D. is over   there and nodding his head.

- As soon as you see the   little white butterflies   flitting around, you   need to do something   because they are already there.

You need to be proactive against those, and we like to use Bt at the garden,   and so once a week,   once every two weeks at   the very most, we'll spray.

It's safe, even though on   harvest day, too, to spray it, but we like to spray it the day after any harvest, just to be doubly sure.

And if it rains a lot, you might want to think about going out a spraying it again.

- What other pests?

- Other pests are cut worms, when you first put them in the ground.

They're like little grubs, little worms   that come out of the soil,   and they'll just   cut the cabbage   straight off at the soil line,   and you'll go out into the   garden and cry a little bit,   but you'll just   have to replace it.

Some people say you can put little barriers around it, like maybe a little tuna can that you've taken the top of, the bottom off, and sink it in.

I just walk the garden at all different times a day, so I know that the cut worms are going to be active in the evening, so go out there in the evening, and just kind of look at each one and make sure there isn't a suspect.

- Yeah, a cut work is something else.

So how big do they need to get before you're out of the woods with the cut worm?

- We usually don't worry about them after they get about six inches tall or so, so maybe three weeks or so.

- Well, let's talk quickly, how about aphids?

How do you all deal with aphids out there?

- Aphids, we just kind of watch them, and we'll spray them with water if it's not too bad.

We'll also put Neem oil spray on it once a week, probably, usually the same time we do Bt.

- What about the harlequin bug?

That one is pretty tough.

- The harlequin bug, we've um, that's made me cry many a time.

It's a pretty bug.

It's like a mean looking lady   bug, about twice the size,   and really all you can   do is pick them off.

It's a member of the stink bug family, so don't squash them.

- Two bricks, and watch your thumbs.

- [laughs] Just squash them?

Yeah, we like to either, we either throw them as far as we can, or we put them in a bucket of water with some soap or something.

- Harlequin bugs are tough, and what about those old flea beatles?

- Flea beatles, they also are tough, although, a lot of times we'll just put some kind of barrier on the ground, so they can't, have a little bit harder time to reach the cabbage leaves, but Neem oil would work as well.

- And lastly, how about the cabbage maggots?

- Cabbage maggots, we haven't had trouble with those at the garden.

A lot of that is just rotating your cabbages around,   making sure you   don't have a lot of   decomposing material   in the ground,   and that's what we try to do,   is we keep our   garden pretty tidy,   and we move the cabbages   from season to season, to different spots.

- All right then, Ms. Stephanie, the folks need to come on out to Collierville Victory Garden and see how you grow these wonderful cabbage.

- Thank you, and I hope to see you.

- All right, thanks for being here.

[upbeat country music] - Okay, I'm about to control some scale, or try to control some scale on this crape myrtle, and I have here, in this sprayer, a dormant oil solution, and that is what we recommend at this time of the year to control crape myrtle scale.

Keep in mind when you use a dormant oil solution, that you keep it, support of it stays in solution, it will tend to settle out, so shake it up from time to time when you're spraying.

Now, I'm going to spray to the point of run off, as far up as I can reach, realizing that this is a large crape myrtle, very large.

I'm going to pay special attention to the trunk and lower limbs.

This, as I mentioned, is a   dormant oil product in the jug,   and the only time that you   have a problem using that   is if there's a   hard freeze forecast   within the next 48 hours,   it's important that   the water carrier   in this solution has   time to evaporate   before we get into any real   cold weather conditions.

Good coverage is important.

[upbeat country music] - All right, here's our Q and A session.

Ms. Stephanie, you jump in there help us out, all right.

Here's our first question.

"How do you feel about   using horse manure   in your garden beds?"

Now, wait a minute, Mr. D.,   before you jump in here,   didn't you just   mention pony manure?

- I did.

- So you think it's a good idea to use horse manure in garden beds?

- The pony manure that we got our hands on is like 10 years old, so it's not new by any stretch of the imagination.

It doesn't smell like anything, so we were very happy to see it arrive at the garden.

- And I'm sure that your plants were happy too.

- Yes, they have been so far, and we still have a pile of it, so we're excited.

- Don't give out the location.

- [laughs] We'll move it.

- All right, Mr. D., sounds like it's a good idea to you?

- That sounds like a good idea, if it's that old, and I've pulled up an extension publication that's from Maine, and quote some Washington State information, and it's really one of the best publications I've seen on using manure, and if you have fresh manure, you need to wait 120 days before you harvest, so basically you're talking about putting it out in the fall before you even plant your cool season crops, and according to USDA guidelines for organic farming, I think you have to wait 90 days for plants that could possibly come in contact with the manure, like radishes or some of the leaf plants that might come in contact with it, I think even the process for composted manure, there's a 90-day recommended waiting period.

So if you use manure, and it is a good soil amendment, but if you use it, make sure if you buy it in the bags, make sure it's pathogen free.

If it's pathogen free, that means it's been composted well.

If it goes through the composting process, and the internal temperature gets up to 140 degrees, that will kill the bacteria, but if you don't do that, keep in mind, that these manures can contain Listeria, E. coli 0157:H7 or whatever, and salmonella, and most of the food recalls that we hear of involve those organisms, so be very, very careful, if you're using the manures, make sure that you follow these guidelines.

- Wow, good stuff, yeah you're right about those food recalls.

- And you know, I was thinking it also, this publication says don't allow your pets, do not use dog, cat, or pig manure in a garden because they, the organisms that live in that manure last longer.

So, the horse manure's good, cow manure?

- As long as it's composted.

All right, good deal.

So here's the next question.

"My maple tree has a Y   at the top of the trunk.

"There's a slightly   bigger branch,   "and a slightly   smaller branch.

"While the tree is smaller,   "should I prune out   the smaller branch,   so the tree will not   split when it is large?"

And this is from Nathan.

You see the picture there.

What are you thinking   there, Mr. D.?

- You know me.

If the question's to prune or not to prune, I say prune, I would take it off.

I definitely would take that limb off, and go ahead with a strong central leader because if you have a sharp angle,   I mean, just go ask   any Bradford pear tree.

If you have a sharp angle,   then you get the wind   from the right direction,   then it's gonna split off,   and it's gonna really make   the tree look bad   when that happens.

It may survive, but you you're still gonna look bad.

I mean, you can go out there right now on that maple tree, and you can make a nice smooth cut, and by the end of this next year, you won't hardly even know that there ever was a limb there because that tree will compensate, and it'll balance up, and you're just gonna, likely, you're gonna be warding off a problem.

And I would do that with just about any.

- I was about to ask you, would you do that for?

- Almost any tree that's out there.

- Yeah you probably, yeah, I'm sure you would.

- I would, I would.

- To prune or not to prune, is the question.

- I just think I do a much better job of pruning than Mother Nature does.

Mother Nature's gonna do her pruning, and when she's ready, and if you make, you have good, more level angles, closer than 90 degree angles on those limbs, tree's gonna do fine.

Just go check out the live oak trees down on the Gulf Coast.

They go through hurricanes, and they're still standing, and they have 90 degree angles, so that's what you want.

- Yeah, you're right, 'cause Mother Nature's gonna.

- There were two limbs, two lower limbs on that tree.

One of them's coming   out at 90 degrees,   the other one's   going up at about 45,   and that 90 degree   limb's fine,   I'd leave that, that'd   be a good place to   put a swing one   of these days.

And that's the kind of limb   that will hold the swing.

You put a swing with two   different size chains on that 45 degree angle, you're gonna break it off.

- There you have it, Nathan.

You get a swing out of the deal, how about that?

All right, Ms. Stephanie, Mr. D., that's all we have time for today.

- Thank you.

- Good deal.

- 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.

To get more information on things we talked about on today's show, go to FamilyPlotGarden.com.

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]