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

I'm Chris Cooper.

What do weeds, trees, and fire ants all have in common?

They are all the subject of viewer questions, and today we're going to answer them.

It's the Q&A show 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.

It's starting to warm up and gardeners are gearing up for the growing season.

We have some viewer questions we answered but did not have time to air.

Hopefully some of these will help you this year in your garden.

Let's start with a question about garden soil.

"I have a 25 by 25 foot vegetable garden.

"The soil is fertile and produces good crops.

"I spade the garden by hand, but it does clump up, "which makes it a bit heavy to spade.

"Is there anything I could add to my garden soil to keep it from clumping when I turn it over?"

And this is Rocko from Little Falls, New York.

- From New York.

- Right.

So vegetable garden.

Pretty good sized vegetable garden.

So what do we need to add to that soil?

- Well, we know about heavy clay soils here for sure.

- Oh yeah, we definitely do.

- So organic material's always a good choice.

- Yeah.

- You can break it up.

Here in the Mid-South I just to like to use pine bark.

South of us there's a lot of timber production of pines.

- Okay.

- So we have a lot of pine bark as kind of a renewable resource that we have around here that we can use.

And I like to use just the straight pine bark mulch and mix in.

But you can use a product called soil conditioner.

- All right.

- Which is actually ground up pine bark.

And then sometimes we'll use a little bit of red sand.

Not builder's sand, not white sand, but red sand.

- Okay.

It's locally available.

I don't know if it's locally available in New York, but that red sand has multiple sized particles and you can mix a little bit of that in with the pine bark and then you end up with this loose, friable soil that works really, really well.

- That's good.

- But the more you turn it, the looser it's gonna be.

And you could take that spade and kind of break up the clumps as well and that helps.

- Yeah, I like that.

So yeah, organic matter, organic material.

- I put two inches of organic material down and a half inch to one inch of sand on top, red sand.

Not white sand, red sand.

- All right.

- And mix that in.

- And mix it in?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

- Just turn it.

He should be very happy with that.

- That sounds good, yeah, some compost.

- Yeah you might wanna add some lime, right?

Pine bark's acidic, right?

- Yeah, it is.

- But I don't know about the soils in New York.

They could be alkaline soils.

- They could be.

- They need to check their Extension Office, right?

- Hey, I was just about to say that.

Yeah.

Get to your local Extension Office, right?

Get that soil tested.

- Get that soil tested.

Yeah.

Yeah, adding organic matter always helps.

You know, I'm thinking about Mr. Bogus here.

Humus is what he used to always say.

Add a little humus to that soil nd I think it'll be fine.

I think it'll be good.

[upbeat country music] "What's the best way to grow vegetables in pots at home?"

And this is Gary.

So what do you think, Celeste?

I see.

[chuckles] What are you thinking?

- I'm thinking I've never grown a vegetable in a pot, and so I was trying to generate some thoughts on that topic.

You know, I live in the country, and I've got lots and lots of space, so, you know, I've always done in-ground gardening, you know, some raised bed gardening, but I've never attempted to grow to full maturity, a tomato or pepper or anything else in a container.

But I mean, I know a lot of people do.

- Yeah, and we're about to find out.

Somebody probably does.

- I'd say my top three.

- Okay.

- Large enough container, well-drained media.

- Okay.

All right.

- And full sun.

- Full sun!

- Yeah.

The obvious one.

- Yes.

- Yeah.

Full sun.

- The shady containers and-- - Yeah.

- And fertilization.

- And fertilization, okay.

How about that?

- That's four.

- I got us four, one more.

- And which vegetables would you grow in pots though?

I mean, would it matter?

- Let me add, I have actually grown some like lettuce in pots.

- Okay.

- 'Cause I just wanna be part of the conversation.

So, yeah.

And that was really super easy.

I just direct seeded them into my little pot, and I didn't have to have full sun to grow lettuces.

They're cool season, so they can do with a little less light.

So I had those kind of on my porch.

- Yeah.

- And that worked.

- Leafys.

Leafys in the spring and fall.

In the summertime, I think tomatoes and peppers, there's a lot of very good compact options.

Some compact options for cucumbers and things like that, I think are probably the top ones that we get.

- So they wouldn't like outgrow, like overgrow.

- Or you can always take 'em up and build in some yeah.

Some trellising options to your container.

So, yeah.

I mean, other than corn, [everyone laughs] and okra, things like that have a lot of options, yeah.

- Corn and okra, all right.

So let's talk about this quickly.

So what about containers?

What kind of container, container size?

What about those questions?

- Yes.

So yeah, large.

- Big.

- Big.

[chuckles] - Let's not put our tomatoes in one, or two gallon pots, right.

So it is for nutrient holding capacity, water holding capacity, even-- - Space for roots to grow.

I mean they're deep roots, yeah.

So think like-- - Some type of container-- - So I was just thinking, so like, just to give people an idea, like think like five gallon bucket or bigger, like you don't want anything-- - Yeah.

- Smaller than that.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

And so one of the challenges that I've done myself, so I can readily admit is you go, and you buy the most cost effective container possible.

- I've done that.

- And it's terracotta, right?

Which dries out.

- Which dries out.

- Very slowly.

So I mean, dries out very quickly, yes.

- Yeah, yeah.

- And so that's one thing that you want to keep in mind.

The plastics can actually help you out.

- Oh, the plastics can help you out.

How about that?

- And if they're ugly, you can just paint 'em.

[Chris laughs] - Just paint 'em right?

- Yeah.

- It could be a project.

[upbeat country music] "Instead of taking all my plants out of my grow room, "and bringing them outside to harden them off, "can I run an air conditioner on low in my grow room to harden off my plants?"

And this is Greg from Messina, New York.

I get the thinking.

- That's a very interesting train, thought off-- - Yeah!

- You train of thought that he had.

I like that.

Unfortunately, - Yeah.

- It's really not gonna work because the outside air fluctuates from night to day.

- Right.

- And that's the kind of thing that helps harden off the plants.

- That's right.

- It's not just colder temperatures or something like that.

It's the fluctuation from day to night temperatures that helps harden off the plant.

- Yeah.

I can see what he was thinking there.

- Yeah!

- Get them outside, you know, - They have to go outside.

- A couple of hours, right?

Shaded place.

And then of course, I'll say for the next week, week and a half, maybe two weeks, introduce them to more light.

- Yeah.

- More light, you know, each day.

And that will get them to harden off the way they should be done.

So that's how you properly harden off your plants.

But I see it though.

I see what he's trying to do.

- Yeah.

All right, so Greg, I hope that helps you out.

Again, put 'em in a shaded place for about a couple hours, and then for the next week, week and a half, two weeks, introduce them to more sunlight, and I think you'd be fine.

- Yeah.

[upbeat country music] - "Once all the leaves fell off my cherry tree last fall, "I found that my entire tree was covered "with black knot fungus.

"I'm assuming I need to just cut the tree down.

"What is the proper method of disposing of cherry branches with black knot fungus on them?"

And this is Carolyn.

This is a devastating fungus.

- It's bad.

- It is bad.

You know, and it usually attacks the genus Prunus, so it's usually what, cherries, plums, apricots, you know?

It can do some serious damage, right.

But the thing about that black knot fungus is this, if you don't have resistant varieties, and if it's covered, your tree's covered in this fungus?

- Yeah.

- I would get rid of it.

- Absolutely.

- And depending on where you live, Ms. Carolyn, I would burn it.

If you can't burn it, I would cut it up, put it in a bag, send it away.

- Yeah.

It's pretty nasty.

And so definitely I would definitely cut the tree, and dispose of the branches properly.

- I would do that properly.

- Yes.

- Right, so yeah, if you want another cherry tree, I would look for resistant varieties.

- Absolutely.

- For sure.

Because it is a nasty fungus, all right?

So Ms. Carolyn, again, depending on where you live, you can burn it, if you cannot burn it, yeah, I would put it in a bag, send it away.

[upbeat country music] "Fire ants get into my raised garden beds.

"The beds are concrete blocks, four feet wide, three feet tall and 20 feet long."

It's a pretty good size, huh?

- Yeah, it's very big.

- "They are filled with garden mixed soil.

"How can I get rid of fire ants "in my raised garden beds "without harming the food that is growing?

And thanks for any help."

This is Dennis in Oakland, Tennessee.

Celeste, so can we give Mr. Dennis some help here?

He's trying to get those fire ants.

- Yes.

- So... We sure can.

- The fire ants-- - Yeah, we sure can.

So, you know, fire ants are awful, aren't they?

And they tend to find me.

If they're-- - Oh gosh!

- If I'm in the presence of them, they're gonna find wherever I am in the garden.

So this is an awful place for fire ants to be in your vegetable garden, we're gonna have to be working day in and day out.

So for this particular situation, I'd say let's follow the same types of control methods that we would like in turf.

That's called a, you know, it's a two-step method, generally.

So combining the use of bait treatments, right.

Which are distributed in the broader area, combined with mound treatments, where you're targeting mounds to get control there.

You know, those bait products tend to have a slower, you know, activity.

So you're not gonna apply the bait, and expect them to be gone, you know, in a week.

That's kind of the long outlook.

- Yeah, yeah.

- But when you couple the bait treatment with mound treatment, which typically has a quicker control, you get the benefit of immediate, almost immediate, you know, very quick control plus some adding some longevity to that, so you're not having to turn around, and do individual mound treatments every week when a new hill pops up.

So definitely take that approach.

We looked into it to see if there were certain products that you shouldn't be using in the vegetable garden.

And for mound treatments in turf, acephate is a very common product, but it is not labeled for use on vegetables.

So make sure that you stay away from any of the mound treatments that have the active ingredient acephate.

And then Natalie found the spinosad product.

They actually have some bait products with spinosad.

Do you wanna?

- Yeah.

Yeah, so there are gonna be some options, and Celeste did a really good job of-- - Yeah, that's good.

- And actually I think from the question, Dennis already understands that you need to be paying attention to food crop labels.

- That's right.

- Because it changes-- - That's right.

- The ballgame.

So there should be some options of, you know, more naturally occurring products that would be labeled there.

And the other thing that I would kind of say is we wanna think about a fire ant problem in the context of the whole area.

Maybe able to make good progress in treating other mounds, making sure that you don't have large issues in the turf grass area.

And so there's kind of the option that you could make some progress and maybe not apply directly to the growing area.

But I mean, that's a personal, you know, preference.

- Sure, sure, sure.

No, that's good.

Good explanation.

Yeah-- - And tell and tell 'em about spinosad.

- Yeah, spinosad.

- Tell them the run down of what that is.

- Oh yeah, well, I mean it's, so it's a naturally occurring product, so I mean it falls in the category of some of the biological materials that we have the opportunity to use.

And, and so, you know, it just gives us a wider pallet, you know, to work from in food production or you know, non-food production areas.

[upbeat country music] - "I have been told, "you can make a paste of borax and sugar and water, "and that the ants will take the pace back to the queen "and it will kill her and destroy the colony.

"Supposedly, borax is highly toxic to ants but won't contaminate your garden and plants.

Is borax a safe method for killing ants in a raised bed vegetable garden?"

And this is Bill on YouTube.

So what do you think about using borax?

- Well I think it's an option.

Borax is a natural mineral.

- Yeah.

- It has a lot of uses in the home.

So a lot of people have it on hand anyway.

- Yeah.

- I would use the smallest amount possible.

And make sure your pets aren't around, 'cause they'll be attracted to that sugary paste that Bill's talking about making as well.

- Yeah.

Borax, you know, cosmetics, you know, it's in a lot of hygiene products.

So it's considered to be eco-friendly, you know, mineral.

- Right.

- So you can use it.

Again.

I'll just be careful, you know, with it.

It actually targets the digestive system of the ants.

So it causes a slow killing of that ant population is what it is.

So it's a slow release, if you will.

But something else I would like to recommend that I know many of the Extension services do recommend is using bait, right?

And as long as that bait contains spinosad.

Spinosad is a low impact pesticide.

So again, it's a bait.

You can spread that bait in your vegetable garden because it is safe to use around vegetables, and just let the ants take that, you know, to the queen and you know, eliminate the colony that way.

Or thirdly, I'm sitting here thinking about this, if you don't want to use any of this, you could just disturb the mound.

- Oh, that's true.

- And hopefully they'll just move out.

- Right.

That's, that's an option as well.

So I think a couple options.

- Yep.

Couple different options there Mr. Bill.

But yes, just make sure you read and follow the labeled on that.

You should be fine.

[upbeat country music] This is interesting too, right?

"I don't like mulch.

"It takes up water and nutrition "from plants and you have to replace it so often, "but without it the weeds take over my flower beds.

"What can I use in place of bag mulch to keep weeds down?

Thanks," and this is Deborah from Chesapeake, Virginia.

- Yeah!

- So what can she use?

- Pre-emergents.

- Pre-emergents.

- Or you know, the idea of mulch is to cover the surface so the weeds don't have light to germinate.

That's the whole purpose of mulch.

But you can help that out with landscape fabric, and you can help that out with like-- - Newspaper.

- Paper, yeah.

Any kind-- - Cardboard, you know, something else.

- Then you, but then you gotta have a decorative top on and I like, this is what I do, I put landscape fabric down, and then I use either cypress, or cedar mulch.

- That's what I use.

- Because it takes a long time to decompose.

And it doesn't seem to ever put soil on top of the surface for me.

- Right, me either, and it looks good aesthetically.

Yeah, you know, very pleasing that way.

Yeah, so I would use the newspaper, I would use cardboard, I would put the mulch on top of that if you want to, you can put Preen on it.

Right, so Preen goes either under the mulch or can go on top of the mulch.

- Right.

- Yeah, read and follow the label.

I would get that watered in.

I think that will work.

- Yes.

- I think it will work.

Yeah.

So mulch is our friend.

- Mulch is our friend.

- All right, we just make sure, we have to use the right amount, two to three inches, you know, according to most of your Extension publications.

Pull it away from the stem or trunk of your tree by the inch or so.

- Right.

- It works.

- And the type of mulch you use is different.

I mean, you could use rocks in - That's right.

- And lava rocks and anything else like that.

There's all kinds of mulches out there that are don't decompose as fast as others.

- Right.

Yeah.

You have inorganic or organic mulches.

- Right.

- Right.

You have options.

- Yes.

[upbeat country music] - "What is this vine?

"It grows under the fence and into my flower beds.

"It comes up under the neighbor's trees, "so they can't be poisoned or dig it up.

"I am tired of crawling around all summer to pull it out "by hand.

"I have tried twisting it into balls.

"and baggies with Roundup.

"I'm consider having beds dug up this winter, "and the vine roots pulled out, "then returning the plants to the bed.

Do you have any other suggestions?"

And this is Pat from Nashville, Tennessee.

All right.

So first question is first, what is this vine?

Carolina snailseed is what that is.

Because if you look at the seed, the seed actually looks like a - Snail.

- Snail!

- Yeah.

- Yeah, so Carolina snail weed.

But she wants to know how to get rid of it though.

- Oh man.

That's gonna be a long process.

She could use herbicides but she can dig it up just like she's talking about.

The problem is it's gonna be back.

- It's gonna be back.

- Because she, like she said, you know it's coming from somewhere, and I don't, you know-- - Yeah.

It's coming from under her neighbor's tree, - Neighbor's tree.

Of course, you know the neighbor's property.

Which is why she doesn't want to, you know, use herbicides.

- Right.

Well I don't think it would really hurt the vine too much because it's rooting in her area.

- Right.

So I don't think it's gonna translocate clear over to the other side.

I don't think it's gonna do that.

But you know, it is gonna take a long time 'cause it's gonna keep regenerating and coming over the fence and through the fence in that area.

- It's gonna be a long process, you know, then of course she wants to, you know, return to putting plants in the bed.

- Yeah.

You know what my suggestion is for that?

Can you use a pre-emerge, maybe?

You know, if you can get up all the plant material, put down a pre-emerge, I don't know, you know, if it would affect, you know, the vine per se.

You have to read a label and see.

You know, if that shows up on the label.

- True.

- I mean you could use a pre-emerge, and give it a shot just to see.

- That would get the seeds, - That would get the seeds.

But the plants that are already there-- - The plants are already there - And if she digs it up, that's one thing.

But hopefully, you know, the thing is it may crawl under the fence.

- It may, it may.

- But it might take longer for it to do that.

- It may.

Yeah, that's gonna be a long tedious process.

- It's a lot of work there.

- Yeah, cut it back, cut it back, cut it back and hopefully your neighbor can help out too.

- That'd be nice.

- You know, maybe put down pre-emerge or something like that.

Yes, Ms. Pat.

That's gonna be a long tedious process.

[upbeat country music] - "I have a big problem with groundhogs in my yard.

"They are always eating.

What can I do to get rid of them?"

And this is Essie.

So Essie has groundhogs, Peter.

You know anything about groundhogs?

- Yes I do.

I actually, I grew up in the middle of a field in Maine.

- Okay.

- And we had lots of groundhogs.

- I'm so glad you know about groundhogs.

[everyone laughs] I feel like most of my questions are armadillo related.

So let's go groundhogs.

- Yes.

- So we had a garden, and what we did is we put an electric fence around the garden.

- Okay.

- With two wires.

One was about four inches above the ground.

The other was a couple inches above that.

It's probably six or eight inches above the ground.

- Okay.

- That was good for groundhogs, skunks, raccoons because they come along and they touch their nose to the wire and they learn real quick they don't want go there.

- Also rabbits I'm sure.

- Yeah.

And so the, what we would do though is because you have your wires only a few inches off the ground, you have the problem of, you know, if grass grows for about a week, it can touch the wire.

And so what we would do is every couple of days we had this, we had this thin piece of bamboo, it was a plant stake.

- Okay.

- And I just go along and just whack the grass under the wire.

And if you go along at dusk or at night, and you tap the wire, you can see the sparks when it touches the grass.

So you know where you're shorting out, and you can kind of whack that grass back.

- Interesting.

- That's probably the best way to do it, if you're trying to get out of a certain area.

Now you can't exactly put an electric fence around your front flower bed.

It doesn't work.

- The general area.

- Right.

So there's a couple other things that you can do.

I wanna mention there you can install a wire fence but this is gonna be a lot of digging.

So you put in a wire fence, it needs to be, the holes need to be about two inches by four inches so they can't get through.

- Sure.

But you bury the fence a foot under the ground, and not only do you just bury the fence a foot under the ground, the bottom foot of the fence, you put horizontal facing out for a foot.

- That's a lot of work.

- So you're digging a trench a foot wide and a foot deep to put your fence in.

So that's kind, that's a lot of work.

- And then like laying it like in an L-shape and then putting the dirt back in.

- Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

I see.

- Now you can use traps.

- Yeah.

- So take, you can use the live traps.

You put 'em right at the entrance to their burrow and bait the inside with, you know, lettuce, carrots, fruit, vegetables, things like that.

You can put down, if you wanted to, you could put down some sticks and some leaves so they can't see the, where the trap starts.

- Okay.

Go in there you can catch 'em.

Problem with that is, is that many places you can't transport them once you have caught them.

So then what do you do with them?

- Yeah.

- So-- - You got this live animal, and then.

- Right.

- Yeah.

You can, there are carbon monoxide generators that look like little, you get little firecrackers or big firecrackers.

What you do is you, the groundhog hole usually, burrow, has two entrances to it.

So you find the two entrances, cover 'em up, or cover one of 'em, take the other one, light your carbon monoxide generator, as it burns it generates carbon monoxide.

Place it in there, cover it up, it will then-- - It's like you fumigating them.

- Suffocate, yeah, it will suffocate.

And then watch and see if there's any other places where smoke comes out.

- Sure, sure.

- Because you gotta cover them up.

But that, that'll work.

Follow instructions.

There's-- - Yes.

- You don't want to use 'em close to buildings or any places where humans are gonna be, 'cause carbon monoxide is just as poisonous to us as it is to groundhogs.

- This is true.

- And then the, that those are kind of expensive.

So really the cheapest and kind of easiest way, I'm sorry to say is to shoot it.

- Yeah.

- Assuming that you live in a place where you can do that.

- Yeah.

- So you know a .22.

- Yeah.

- And just shoot 'em-- - It's probably most effective route to use the .22 rifle.

- Yeah, that's what we did a lot.

We did, we shot 'em.

- Yeah.

- All right, how about that?

So yeah, groundhogs, they're in the squirrel family.

They're good climbers-- - But are huge.

- And they're pretty good size.

- Yes, they're so big.

- That's for sure.

And they're herbivores, which is why you would pre-bait the trap, of course with vegetables and things like that.

- And I forgot to say with, to make the fence, the wire fence even more difficult, you should put an electric fence wire across the top because they can climb.

- Right.

- Yep.

- Right.

- Very good climbers.

- So how about that?

So there you have it Ms. Essie, those old groundhogs.

All right, good gracious.

[upbeat country music] - "I have a red flagstone deck.

"I noticed black mold take over.

"So I began to read about it.

"Information said baking soda and water spray, "then a bleach mixture.

"I tried, guess what?

"No luck.

"Then I tried milk, "which to my surprise helped a lot.

"But I want to totally get rid of it.

"So I'm using a Lysol and water mixture.

"I started all of this in November, "but I've stopped treatments for winter.

"I will start again in the spring.

"The mold isn't heavy on the rocks, "but it's into the grain of the rock.

"I may have to scrub it and keep it that.

"I feel it came from a tree in my neighbor's yard "that had dark round spots on the leaves.

"She doesn't maintain her yard.

"I can't do anything about the tree, but what can I use to keep flagstone mold free?"

And this is Anne from Denver, Colorado.

Right, so she wants to keep it mold free.

- Yes.

- Right.

But let's talk about the neighbor's tree for a second.

So we don't think that's the cause of the mold, right?

The dark spots on the leaves or-- - The tree having anything is nothing-- - Okay, good.

- The fact that the tree is creating shade, now that-- - Right.

- Is probably what's causing the mold to be more prevalent in that particular area.

- We have to think about the environment that mold likes to grow in, right?

So shade would be one of those.

Okay.

- And moisture.

- And moisture would be another.

All right.

So how does she keep it clean?

How does she keep it mold free?

- Well, there are products out there.

I mean she's obviously found a way.

I've never heard of milk before working.

- I've never heard of that before.

- But I mean that's interesting that it did work for her.

- Never heard of that.

- And you know, scrubbing it, that's a lot of work.

There are products out there that you can put on the ground, that will keep the, you have to apply, keep applying them once a year because Mother Nature never stops producing mold, and mildew so-- - Right.

- You know, you're gonna have to continually do this, but hopefully less often.

- Right.

- And there's a pro-, if you can find a product that has alkyldimethylbenzylammonium chloride in it- - Mouthful.

- Yes.

- Yes.

Okay.

- That, a product with that in it, you can spray on it, and then it, Mother Nature will take care of it and keep it clean for about a year.

- About a year?

Okay.

So just read and follow.

- Read and follow the label directions.

- Okay, for that, and that should work.

- That should, should work, yeah.

- What about power washing?

Have you?

- You could power wash it too, yeah.

But when you're power washing- - Maybe.

Be careful-- - You're gotta be careful, because you're getting rid of mold and mildew so you wanna wear personal protective equipment.

So that you don't get any of that in your lungs or on your face.

- Yeah, PPE is gonna be real important for that.

And I would like to say, no bleach.

- No bleach.

- Especially if you have plant material around, 'cause it's gonna be harmful to the environment.

- Right.

- And I know a lot of people like to use vinegar, acetic acid, right?

Because they think yeah, it's eco-friendly but you still have to be careful.

- Yeah, you'll have a build up of vinegar.

It wouldn't be good either.

- Yeah, okay.

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 sending in the questions.

To get more information on anything we talked about today, or to see answers to even more questions, go to familyplotgarden.com.

And while you're there, you can ask us your gardening questions.

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]