Hi, thanks for joining us for another episode of mid American gardener.

I'm your host Tinisha Spain and joining me today are two of our expert panelists who are ready to answer your questions and show you a little bit more about what's going on in their backyard and in their garden.

So, let's have them introduce themselves and tell you a little bit more about their specialty and where you can find them outside.

So we'll start with you, john.

Okay, I'm john bodensteiner.

I am a vermillion county master gardener.

I live up by Bismarck, Illinois, just north of Danville.

I live out in the country.

And I've got about three acres here.

And I enjoy.

If I can grow here, I enjoy it right now.

I've I'm I'm harvesting fruit that I will talk a little bit more about that here in just a few minutes.

Fantastic.

Okay, Ella, you're up.

Um, I'm Ella Maxwell.

I'm a horticulturist at a area Nursery in Peoria, Illinois.

I live in Washington, and I'm a tazwell county master gardener.

And I am also have a large property like john and going to talk about some fruits.

I like perennials as well.

And I think we've got some great questions and show Intel's fabulous.

All right, that leads right into the show until so john, we'll go back to you.

Okay, I've got you brought a few things to share.

So what's your what's your first item?

Okay, the first thing I'm going to talk about is a fruit that is in the United States, the largest native fruit on a tree that rose in America.

It is the papa.

And I just wanted to show a lot of people are not familiar with it, you need two different trees to get fruit.

And we'll talk a little bit more about how to get trees.

This is the fruit.

And as you can see, people ask me what well What does it taste like?

And I say it's kind of between a banana and a papa.

And I'm hoping that this hasn't.

They do discolor they turn brown like bananas and apples and things like that.

So I cut this open here just a little while ago.

Now it's still nice in yellow.

And you can see it's got large seeds.

And but the fruit is, you know, right now the fruit is ripening, they're falling I have a bunch of it falling.

Right now.

It's kind of a different looking tree.

So when they fall, john is that mean?

Does that mean that they're ripe and ready to eat, you don't want to?

Yeah, I usually go pick them off the tree off the tree is one of the bunches of this has got five different pop paws on it.

And this is the way they it hangs just like this.

You can see, you know, this is my hand you can see the leaves are very very I can get them to cooperate here.

You can see the leaves are very, very large and shiny.

Normally, they're a little bit shiny.

This has got a little bit of black spot on it because of the all the funguses and things that we're getting this year.

But you can see it's a very, it's a pyramid shaped tree.

So it kind of swoops up and they put out suckers.

And as long as you leave the suckers attached to the mother plant, they will produce fruit.

As soon as you try to transplant one of those baby poppers, I will call them they will not produce fruit anymore.

Interesting.

So a lot of people want to get the fruit or the tree.

So they'll just take because there's if you know that the the saying down in the pop up patches a song and during the pop pop patch, right.

And so a lot of people dig up, you know, because there's so many they're actually almost invasive in a small area.

They'll try to pick one up and transplanted.

And they'll they'll wonder, you know, because it takes about four or five years before you get your first pop out once you once you get it established, you can bypass and again you need two different trees from two different seeds.

The only way you're ever going to get pawpaws is from a seed.

Now the problem with the seeds They are quite large.

And I will see if I can just take one out here.

So is the fleshy Do you eat the fruit with a spoon?

Do you bite it as I just like that, and it goes.

But I did that just to show you the size of the seed.

You can see how big the seed is.

Oh, yeah, that is a large seed.

Now the problem with this seed is you can't just pick it and then put it in a jar and wait till you're ready to plant it, you have to keep it moist.

They have to be fresh.

And so what I usually do is put them in some moist peat moss, put them into refrigerator because they have to be stratified.

And after a while you keep it you just put them in there and pretty soon you'll see the route coming out.

They'll they'll put out a route and then you plant them and then they'll put up the stem.

But if you let that process, yep, if you let it dry out, you will never have them.

Again, you need two different seeds.

They A lot of people say you need two different you need a male and a female.

That's really not true.

They both they're they're they're they have both sexes on the tree.

They're self pollinating, but they do better if you cross pollinate.

I guess I shouldn't say they're self pollinated because you need two different ones.

So the and and the flowers are kind of like a brown.

Little tulip.

They're the size of a nickel.

Okay, and they're brown in color.

And the scent that they they're sent is considered to be like rotting meat.

Oh, one of those Huh?

Oh, it's a fly that really is the pollinator interesting.

And you know, and to me, they don't smell I've I've brought it right up to my nose and and and tried to smell that rotting meat scent and I have never been able to do it.

But you can use this kind of like a persimmon.

Take the the pulp out, take the seat, get the seeds out.

And then they make wonderful pop pop bread or pop cookies.

You can use a persimmon recipe or any soft like, even like a banana bread recipe.

And I think they're delicious.

I like to eat them just off the tree or off the ground when they fall.

Well get my hands on one of those.

I want you to know that I never get any Paw Paws because the raccoons get them.

Yeah, that's that that is a problem.

The squirrels in the record I find in my bushes, undersides you know, I tried to get as many as I can.

But in the following spring when I'm cleaning up and under a shrub or something, I will find stacks of these big seeds because they don't deteriorate very, very quickly because they're so big.

All right.

Thank you, john.

All right, we're Ella, we're gonna go to you with your first show until I okay, well, I also am showing fruit but my fruit is not.

Well, it's not delicious at the moment.

So the first thing I want to show is bur oak acorns.

So I have some Baroque acorns and they have like little fringe around.

But this year for my my one oak tree that's out by the road in my driveway, I have never had so many acorns dropping as I am now there, it's and then we're driving over them and they're, you know, exploding.

And I think there's just been a very heavy fruit set.

And they do say sometimes that when you get a heavy fruit set like that we're going to have a severe winter and I've heard that we're supposedly having three severe cold events or something so I don't know, but some people would consider the acorn, probably messy and maybe not desirable, especially if it's growing.

over your house and you have it raining acorns which I can be outside right now and just hear the acorns falling.

So again, so unusual that this year, I've had so many but I do believe just like some apple trees and other fruit trees, they kind of alternately bear.

And this year I am on track.

With black walnut dropping, now they're even bigger and you can see that they kind of went splat.

So I've got kind of a flat end.

And of course they have a husk.

And then inside the husk is the nut.

And so you have to you, you would have to clean that off to then have the nut to crack itself lots of work.

And the other thing that's interesting in commercially grown walnuts like English walnuts, it's very important that they control an insect called a husk maggot.

But inside here, um, there's just boodles Oh my gosh, little white worms.

So they're, they're degrading this.

The other thing about walnuts is that they are a natural form of kind of a brown colored, but they can stain your fingers, they can stain your driveway, whatever else.

So you can harvest black walnuts, you can shell them.

The squirrels love them, take them move them everywhere, walnuts will germinate pretty easily.

Maybe more so than the pop OS, but they do require a cold treatment.

So that's what they're going to get outside in the ground over the winter.

So some interesting fruit that we're seeing today.

Excellent.

Thank you, Ella.

Okay, we're gonna go back to john for another show and tell.

Okay, the next one I'm going to show this is not a fruit.

It's a this is a weed.

This is Palmer amurense.

And it's gotten a little wealthy.

But you can see all those little cones on right off the stem.

There's up there one plant like this can have 1000s of seeds.

And these seeds are viable for up to 20 years.

To me, this is probably my number one pest right now in my yard as far as weeds go.

And so what I am asked, you know, right now I'm out and they come up late.

They're they're not a April or May emerging weed they're using usually early June or late May.

And so you think you've got all the weeds out of your yard?

I have them still sprouting.

They haven't they must have a warm temperature.

Are they aggressive?

JOHN?

Yes, they're very I mean, it's I've got them ever.

I mean, the first years I didn't know what I don't know how they came into my yard.

But john, just for correction.

I believe that's really what they call mulberry, mulberry weed.

Palmer amaranth is a little bit different.

It has a terminal spike.

Just for reference.

We can check it out.

No, that's what I was told this was Palmer Emirates.

So I think they call it mulberry weed but right it's a late season annual.

It's everywhere.

I have it in my garden as well.

And it has fruit all along the stem.

And and we didn't see it a number of years ago.

It's a probably a kind of new weed that I think we've talked about in the past University of Illinois has, or even the Farmers Union has said that that this is the weed of the future the scourge of Illinois or central us mid America because it spreads so so bad.

I you can have hundreds and hundreds in a square yard of soil.

So how do you control yours john, I just I am I'll go in and with my weed eater, if I have a big patch, I'll just weed eat it to the ground.

And before it's set seed because otherwise, those seeds a lot of times will mature.

If you just pull this and throw this on the ground, there's probably enough nutrients in this stem for this the the seeds to to mature And so I usually burn mine or put them in a plastic bag, I just go around.

Anytime I see it now's a good time, not only for this weed, but any weed right now I'm going around my yard because it's amazing how big weeds can get in a week, and you go by it 20 times and not see it in the next time.

There it is, in all its glory, and 1000s and 1000s of seeds.

And if you let it go to seed, then you're in trouble for the next, then you're gonna be weeding for many, many years.

So it's one of those things that you want to get and get rid of, you know, so go around your yard look for something that you don't want.

There's even a couple of my flowers that I don't want everywhere in my yard.

And so I'll deadhead those now.

I let them go, let them flower.

I'll let them flower.

But as soon as they're done, get that get those seeds out of there.

You know, Northern co2 is beautiful.

I love it.

That's a it's a one of the grasses and it kind of looks I don't know, has a what would you call it?

elata it's known for its seed head that looks it's it's Oh grass, it has a panicle that cascades and it just catches the wind.

It's really attractive.

But John's right.

It's it's a very tenacious and once it's rooted in it's very difficult to pull.

And, and I agree with john now's the time to be cutting that back to try to keep it from receding.

And then also maybe digging some out to make it not so of a monoculture.

It just can take over.

They make really beautiful if you want a dried flower arrangement, now's the time to go out and pick some because and then spray it maybe with some hairspray or something so that it doesn't all fall apart.

But they make beautiful dried flower arrangements or grass, you know, just in different flower arrangements.

They are really neat.

No, and they are kind of neat in the wind because they kind of flutter and Huh, okay, all right.

Thank you, Ella, do you have another Shontelle?

Or do you want to I do I, I do have another one.

Again, sorry to be off camera there but apples are so prevalent now.

This is a court Lynn.

And my friend actually has been very successful grafting different apples to his one tree.

He does that in the spring.

We did it a number of years ago so he had a Fuji and we grafted honey crisp and Cortland to his tree.

So that gave him an opportunity to one only have a single tree and have cross pollination but also have a variety of apples that you can harvest at different times because apples there's early apples mid season apples and then really late apples but Cortland is mostly known for its beautiful white flesh, and that it makes a very good baking apple.

So I just wanted to let our viewers know I got some Apple, Apple pie spice here.

It's actually a mixture of cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, all spice, cloves, a little bit of ginger and such and you can get a recipe online to make your own or you can buy it but it's it's a wonderful spice for apple pie where you don't have to measure out all the different spices or applesauce and so what we've been doing with these Portland's is peeling them coring them and then just putting the pieces in a crock pot with some brown sugar and the apple pie spice and you cook it on high for about an hour and then drop it to low for another couple of hours.

And the courtland Apple really becomes a wonderful applesauce, it breaks down naturally.

You don't have to rice it or you don't have to really chop it up.

You can you know just leave some quarters in there and it it cooks down.

So I've been making some applesauce, mostly to freeze and for fresh eating but you could can it as well.

They may Make really like Ella says they make really good sauce, just kind of almost like the transparents only thing these are later.

And so and I've been drying a lot of apples I am dehydrating.

And and so I've got, I've got Granny Smith, I've got Fuji, I've got yellow, delicious, Red Delicious, gala, there's, I think I have eight different varieties of apples, and they're all coming.

And some of them are going to be later.

But depending on what you under, I know that if you sprinkle if you're going to do some dehydration, if you sprinkle a little bit of that pumpkin spice powder on there or some cinnamon sugar, before they dehydrate it, it'll stick on there.

And mix.

You know, you don't need the sugar if you just use the spice.

It's better.

Okay.

All right, well, um, one thing to remember that if you do have walnuts, walnuts, and apples cannot grow in the same area.

So that's why I really don't have any apple trees on my property and I'm relying on apples from friends just like zucchini, and everything else when it's Apple season, there's lots of apples to share.

And I went to a friend's house where we actually made cider.

So she has a Apple press.

And it's it's really fun to make make cider right now.

And the different orchards you know are having Apple doughnuts and, and of course, pumpkins, gourds, the winter squash are starting to mature now.

So that'll be something that will be in the next couple of weeks harvesting to carry over the winter.

So I love apples.

It's that time of year.

And I want to ask you how far apart do the walnut and the apple trees have to be because we have a walnut tree in the front.

And we have two apple trees in the back.

And both are produced.

So I wonder if we're within the parameters of them being far enough apart.

But what we can do, right?

It's it's mostly the roots will secrete a a chemical called juglone, which is antagonistic to the root hairs of the apple so they cannot be within within a root zone or like you know, the drip line?

God Yeah, the drip line.

That sounds good.

And it's the same way with tomatoes too.

I have a more difficult time with tomatoes and choose to grow them and another area of the garden that is not near some walnut trees for the same reason.

Interesting.

Okay.

Thank you.

JOHN, did you have one more item?

Yes, I do.

Know, four minutes left.

It's September right now.

And if this is one of my irises, and if you can look right on the in there, I don't know if you can if it shows up real good.

But I have root bores, you can see that little hole that's in there a little hole.

Yeah, so this one is, you know, you know, it's in this part right here.

So this part is going to get broke off.

This does not have any holes so I can replant this, this gets put into the trash, because and I'm going to have to plan it in a different area you want to know is August in September is the time to transplant your irises.

The thing is you don't want to plant when you replant them, you know the soil should be just right at the at the top of the iris bulb.

And you can cut some of these off.

If that's true, I like to leave a little bit of the leaf on just as a handle so to speak.

And that way I can reposition in the soil.

And just just check the bottom if you see pinholes in it.

Here's another one that has lots of holes in it you can see Mm hmm.

And so this even though that's still got some light to it, you you would not grow that I would not grow this because I've got I'm going to be able to see this last part again here.

This does not have the holes in it.

And a lot of times it'd be better just to cut this with a good knife or a and just make a nice clean cut this part now i can i can plant this part here gets thrown in the garbage and and plant them in a different area.

It's good to check about every five years or dig up your irises and send them out they'll do they'll bloom so much nicer and so August.

September is the time to replant your irises and check for for those Iris bores.

Gosh, it's so hard to believe it's time to start thinking about replanting and thinning out and moving things and closing beds and you know, plants sort of finishing giving fruit and vegetables feels great to have proper ready, you know, and so, watch your you know, with the wins we've had, make sure that your leaves aren't going up against an area that's covering the grass because then that'll smother out your grass.

And so keep those leaves mulched and ranked up and off of your grass and mower works better.

They're they're wonderful mulch for your flower beds if you can, but you want to mulch them with a mower or a shredder or something like that before you put them you don't want to, you know having pack in.

Gotcha.

Alright guys, we are out of time that goes very quickly.

So thank you both for coming on and sharing today.

And thank you so much for watching.

If you're interested in finding our past shows, you can always find us on YouTube, Instagram and on Facebook and we will see you next time.

Good night.