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

It's definitely spring, and   here come the strawberries.

Today we are preserving   that great strawberry taste   with some freezer jam.

Also, want to see more   creatures in your garden?

Plant a wildlife   friendly garden.

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 Cathy Faust, Ms. Cathy is a UT Extension Agent right here in Shelby County, and Tonya Ashworth is here.

Tonya is our local garden expert.

Thanks for joining us.

- Thank you Chris.

- Thank you.

- I love strawberries, strawberries are my favorite.

I can't wait to taste them Ms. Cathy, you know that.

- Okay, well we'll go ahead and get started Chris.

As you know, we get a lot of calls around this time of year.

I want to make strawberry jam, but I don't want to use the water bath, I just want to can them, put them in the freezer.

So we did a little bit of research.

All of these recipes call for a tremendous amount of sugar.

And we're trying to cut down on our sugar, so I purchased this low-sugar pectin.

And we're going to make less than two pints this morning, but you want to use your freshest strawberries as possible, and the Farmer's Market is open, so you can get your fresh, beautiful strawberries at the Farmer's Market.

- Or you can grow your own strawberries, which we've done here.

- Yes you can, you sure have.

And go ahead and stem them, and then mash them in a single layer using a potato masher.

Now some people will say, "Why can't you just put it in a blender?"

I'm afraid that if you puree the strawberries it's like baby food.

So we say that you just mash them with the potato masher, and we're going to put them in this small pot.

Now I know you're thinking, "She's not making very much jam."

This is going to be less than two pints.

But that's ok, because I just wanted to demonstrate quickly how this works.

So we're going to turn up our heat, and to one and a third cups of berries, that's what we have, one and a third cups of berries, and according to the pectin instructions, about one and a half tablespoons of low sugar pectin.

- And what does the pectin do Ms. Kathy?

- This is what causes the strawberry jam to gel.

And sugar is also important in causing the strawberry jam to gel.

So we're going to stir this constantly for about one minute.

And it's going to take a little while for this to stir up, so we're going to stir this until it comes to a rolling boil for one minute.

Now let me tell you a little bit, I did some experimenting.

The other day I tried a recipe that said "No Boil Strawberry Jam" And I said, okay, that sounds easy.

I ladled it into the jars, put it into the refrigerator, and the next day it looked like sugar, the recipe did call for a lot of sugar, and I thought, I am going to save this jam.

So I poured everything back into the pot and I let the strawberries cook down for about one minute.

Put it back in the jars, and it's beautiful.

It is really, really pretty.

- (Chris) What a difference that made.

- It made a huge difference, and this was using about five cups of sugar to three cups of strawberries.

So you see-- - (Tonya) Wow.

- (Chris) Five cups of sugar.

- we have so many people with diabetes, I don't want to tell them to go for this.

And this, which is what we'll be sampling in a little bit, this is our low-sugar pectin.

And you see the difference between the two, you can tell this is a much deeper red, and then this looks a little bit lighter.

And we used, I think it was about five cups of sugar to three cups of berries for this.

So we've got our sugar, we need to add our sugar after this comes to a rolling boil.

But let's talk about some of the advantages in doing strawberry freezer jam.

One advantage is it can be ready right away.

- (Chris) That's good.

- And you know, whenever we're using the hot water bath method, you have to seal the jars.

If we're going to put these in the refrigerator or the freezer, you don't have to worry so much about the lids sealing, although we are heating the jars to 180 degrees, so that they will seal.

It's also like we said, the berries seem to be fresher, they're a brighter color, easy to do.

However, if we don't process this in a hot water bath, we're going to have to put them in the refrigerator for no longer than three weeks.

So you've got to hurry up and eat it, or you can put it in the freezer for up to three months.

Some people say... ok, now this is boiling, lets time it for one minute.

Can you help me with that Chris?

- I can do that.

So we're going to let this boil for one minute.

The disadvantage here is who has that much freezer space.

You know, you hate to open your freezer and see 24 cans of strawberry jam.

What I have done with my previous batches, I gave it away immediately to friends and family.

- (Chris) That's smart.

Yeah.

I like strawberries, but yeah, 24... - You need a whole lot of room, so let's just go ahead and get this to cook down for one minute.

- You got about thirty seconds.

- This says stir constantly.

You don't want it to stick.

[spoon scraping pot] [jam bubbling] - (Chris) Alright.

- Ok. Now if I were at home, I could adjust the heat a little bit better, and it would be a hard rolling boil.

But we're, in the interest of time, we're going to go ahead and go to the next step where we add one half cup of sugar.

So I've got one and a third cups of berries, one half cup of sugar, that still sounds like a lot, doesn't it.

- It does, it does.

- But that's ok, because otherwise we would have a whole lot more than that.

- (Chris) And it's smelling good already.

- Oh I love the way it smells, yeah.

Makes the kitchen smell really good.

But you know what else we're going to add to it.

Jelly and jam has a tendancy to foam up.

- (Chris) Butter!

- So I'm going to add like maybe a half of a teaspoon-- - (Chris) That's a little bit of butter.

- Just a tiny bit, and this should cut down on the foaming.

Because you don't want to have a jar of foam in your jam.

Would you say it's come to another hard boil?

I think it's boiling, let's go ahead and start timing it for one minute.

- You have five... - It's looking good.

- Alright.

- Thank you.

Yeah, that's coming to a good boil.

Excuse me Tonya.

Now we're going to take out our jars.

Now remember we said we had to heat our jars because if we don't, and you put that hot product in a cold jar, it will crack the jar.

So we're just going to spoon this in.

- (Chris) Tonya, doesn't that smell good?

- (Tonya) It does smell really good.

- (Cathy) It's boiling away.

And we want to leave about one half inch of headspace.

If you go on YouTube, people use no headspace, or they might use an inch and a half, and we want to go ahead and use our bubbler, get those air bubbles out.

Now we have our lids that have been heated to 180 degrees.

We're going to lift this off.

Oh wait, I've got to wipe this first.

Yeah, you have to wipe your lid.

You don't want any residue on the lid.

Ok. And you put your lid on.

- (Chris) This is a real good lesson here.

- Then you just screw this on fingertip tight.

- (Chris) Fingertip.

- Yeah, fingertip tight.

And we've got jam.

- How 'bout that?

- Wow, that didn't seem hard at all.

- Ok, and you see, it looks like the fruit has come to the top of the jar?

So we're going to let this stand at room temperature until it's cool enough for us to put it in the refrigerator, and like we said, you can keep it in the refrigerator for three weeks, or your freezer up to three months.

Now many of the publications I've read have said you can keep it in the freezer up to one year.

I don't think you can do that for the low-sugar jam.

Maybe if we had a lot of sugar in this, but I would not use it for this jam.

But since we have got some angel-food cake.

And I know someone had a birthday recently... - Right on time.

How about that?

[Tonya laughs] - We're going to have some birthday cake.

- Tonya didn't know that was going to happen today did she?

- Did you know it was her birthday?

- I did, I actually did.

- Okay, you get the first piece, because you're the birthday girl.

- Ok, thank you.

Strawberry is my favorite.

- Oh, see, there you go.

I love strawberries.

Absolutely love strawberries.

- I'm so glad.

We have this.

- I can eat strawberries any time of the year, I tell you.

- Let that cool because it's very, very hot.

- Thank you so much.

- You are quite welcome.

- Happy Birthday Tonya, we got a surprise for you today.

- Thanks!

- I mean Facebook is wonderful.

- Yeah I keep up with everyone.

- It is really good, we keep up with our friends.

Okay Chris, I'll cut a slice for you.

- Mr. D. is going to be so jealous.

- Let me fix this.

- Thank you for that demonstration.

That tastes good.

- Oh you're welcome, it was so easy.

- Easy, it was quick.

Tonya?

- I may even have to try and make some in my kitchen.

- Okay, great.

- Thanks again Ms. Cathy.

- You're quite welcome Chris, thank you.

[upbeat country music] - If you have dead plants in your landscape, go ahead and remove them.

Those dead plants can harbor fungal spores or they may have insect pests on them.

And you don't want those spores to affect your surrounding other plants, or you don't want those pests to get on your plants either.

So, go ahead and practice good sanitation and remove those dead plants.

[twigs crunching] And if you would, be a good citizen scientist, right.

Inspect that plant material to see why it possibly didn't make it.

And, as you can look at the root system, it looks like this plant was planted in an area that was not well drained.

So again, practice good sanitation and remove those dead plants.

[upbeat country music] - Alright Tonya, let's talk a little bit about wildlife-friendly gardens.

- Ok. - So I got a couple of questions for you about that.

What kind of wildlife can you attract in an urban setting?

- Well, when we think about wildlife in an urban setting, mostly we're trying to attract all different kinds of birds.

Anything from robins and mockingbirds to hummingbirds.

But also, butterfly gardening is very popular, and gardening for bees and other pollinators.

And even bats.

- (Chris) Bats?!

- Yeah, you can build bat boxes.

- I'm seeing those all around town now, especially at Shelby Farms.

Wow, how about that.

Ok.

So how do we attract these species to our own properties though?

- Well, they all need food, water, and shelter, just like people.

So you can go a long way to providing that habitat with the plants that you put into your yard, and then you can supplement with also things like bird baths, and other ways to get water into your yard.

And bird feeders, that type of thing.

- So speaking of bird feeders, how do you attract the birds?

- Ok, well before we think a feeder, let's think of first using plants.

And you want to use your entire yard.

So not only are you just going to plant understory, or maybe just nut trees, but you want to plant different levels.

So your main larger trees, like oaks and hickorys, and then you want to plant something in the understory.

It could be dogwoods, all the way down to your perenniels, because different species of birds utilize different types of trees, so some like to stay high up in the canopies, others like to perch and nest closer to the ground.

So you think about the whole vertical thing that you have to work with in your yard.

It's not just right there on the ground.

Now for trees, you need to plant things that have nuts or fruits that they can eat.

Like American holly,   American beech,   black gums, crab   apples, flowering dogwoods,   hawthorns, hickorys,   oak trees for mast, but you don't want to only plant decidiuous trees, because they need thermal cover in the winter to keep warm.

So you want to plant some evergreens too to keep them warm in the winter.

For shrubs you can do things   like common juniper that has   berries, and hollys, Pyracantha   spicebush, sumacs, any kind of   sumac, viburnam has   berries they can eat.

And then for vines,   trumpet honeysuckle,   trumpet creeper,   Virginia creeper,   wild grapes,   American bittersweet, so there's lots of things you can plant for them to eat.

And then you can also supplement with your bird feeders.

A lot of things like to eat sunflower seeds, a bag of sunflower seeds.

You can also use fresh fruits that you might have leftover, maybe they're starting to go.

There's a lot of birds that like to eat orange slices, apple slices, pieces of banana, you can just leave them on the ground and they'll come eat those.

And then some bird species really like suet.

So you can buy or make suet, and especially woodpeckers and chickadees.

And your mockingbirds and robins like the fruit.

- Now what exactly is suet?

- Well, it's usually sold in cakes, or you can make it.

It's made out of fat product mixed with usually peanut butter or oats and some seeds and stuff in there.

There's lots of different suet recipes on the internet that you can look up, or you can just buy it at the store.

- Okay.

I've seen it at the store.

Wow.

The birds are eating it all, huh?

- Yeah.

- Fruits and vegetables that are high in vitamins and nutrition, how about that?

- Yeah, yeah.

Different birds like different foods.

- Good stuff.

Alright, so what can we plant to encourage the butterflies though, I mean because that's big now.

People want to attract those butterflies in.

- Yeah.

Well, I mean you have to think two different ways for butterfly gardening.

You have to plant something for the larval stages to eat, the caterpillars, and caterpillars are very, very particular about what they will eat, so different caterpillars will eat different foods.

So if you're trying to attract monarch butterflies,   then you have to plant milkweed   because that's the only thing   that they'll eat is milkweed.

So you can also plant for   zebra swallow-tail paw-paws.

They like young paw-paw trees.

And then our eastern   black swallow-tail larva,   they like things in   the carrot family,   so carrot, dill,   parsley, celery,   and they are voracious eaters.

- Would you know that from experience Tonya?

- Yes, yes.

They can clear out some parsley real, real fast.

But if you're trying to attract them, maybe make a space specifically for them to eat what you plant.

So it is really inexpensive to buy herb seeds and plant for them.

Now, for their adult stage, they drink nectar.

And so there's a lot of plants that we can put in our yard for the nectar.

And not only the butterflies, but also hummingbirds are going to be attracted to these nectar plants too.

Things like aster,   azalea, bee balm,   butterfly bush, of   course the milkweeds,   they like all kinds   of clover, columbine,   which is good for   shadier spots, coneflower,   lobelia, phlox is   also good for shade,   so you can butterfly garden   even if you have some shade,   salvia, weigela, and zinnia.

Zinnia is super easy   to grow from seed, I grow some of that every year.

So those are some plants for your butterflies.

- That's some good stuff Tonya.

And so if people want to plant these plants for their butterflies they're easy to maintain for the most part?

- Yes, and readily available.

Yes, phlox, zinnia, salvia, those are easy things, yes.

And you may even have the azalea in your yard already, so who knew.

- Right, and most people do.

- Yeah.

- Now, how about this next question, attracting bees.

Right, bees are popular as well.

You know we have a large bee keeper society here-- - (Tonya and Cathy) Yes.

- In Memphis.

And you hear more and more people are interested in bees, so how do we attract the bees?

- Well, they like some of these same nectar plants.

Any kind of flower, but they really like blue and yellow flowers according to the research.

So they're attracted to those, but I mean they'll love your zinnias any color that they can get, so plant for your bees in that way, and also if you want to have a place for them to lay eggs so that you get more bees in the future, your solitary bees are the kind where they don't have a big hive where they lay all their eggs.

Your solitary bees will use things like hollowed stems from hydrangeas or brambles, as long as you don't prune them all the way back, so leave hollow stems when you have them for them to use to lay their eggs in.

And you can also buy those bee motel things.

The only thing is you have to   be prepared to throw those away   after a year or so because   you don't want that many bees, and that many species living that close together because disease problems can come up with that.

But you can make your own little nesting place for your bees if   you have a wooden block,   three-to-five-inch thick wooden   block, and you drill holes abou   three-quarters of an inch apart   anywhere from an   eighth-of-an-inch diameter   to 5/16th of   an inch diameter,   and you drill 90% of the   way through that block, that three-to-five inch block, and they will come along, and lay their eggs, and they'll seal off, they'll lay an egg, and they'll put bee-bread in there that they make out of like pollen and nectar, and for the egg when the larva hatches for it to eat.

And then they'll seal that off and they'll just lay several in   a row in those channels   that you drilled out.

So but you want to hang that from under the eave of your house, or the eave of your shed, and not in direct sunlight.

So you can provide a home for them.

Now for birds, there's all different kinds of bird boxes that you can make or buy, but different kinds of birds are very specific about the size of hole, the entrance hole in the boxes, so you probably need to go online and look for exact dimensions on bird boxes.

- Tonya, we can tell you're passionate about that.

That's some good information, some I didn't even know myself, so thank you much for that information.

And we hope more people will actually garden for wildlife, so thank you much.

- Thank you.

[gentle country music] - If you need to transplant some of your annuals because they're not in the right space, take a trowel and you get next to the side of where it is and dig down and pry up, and go around the plant to make sure you get all of the existing root system you can.

And then, you gently lift it out of the ground, root system and all.

Once you're to the place where you want to plant it, if there is mulch there, you need to scrape the mulch away and dig a hole the size of the plant root ball that you have in your hand.

Keep the soil level even with the soil level on the plant, and gently plant it in place.

When you're done, put the mulch back over and around it.

And, then it's finished.

[gentle country music] Alright, here's our Q & A session, Ms. Cathy, you have anything to say, you jump in with us, alright?

- Ok. - Alright, here's our first viewer email.

"Is this a weed   or a wildflower?

Several came up   in my backyard."

And this is from Ms. Linda.

So, Tonya, is this a   weed or a wildflower?

And it depends, right?

- It's in the eye of the beholder.

- Wildflower, right, it just depends right.

- If you like it, put it somewhere that you want it to grow.

- Yeah, you'll be just fine, right.

- Uh-huh.

- So what do you think that is?

- It's a butterweed.

It's in the aster family.

- It's butterweed.

It goes by the other name   cressleaf groundsel   is what I actually know it by.

Beautiful flower though.

It's actually a winter annual.

Forms a rosette of leaves first   throughout the winter months,   then of course,   spring gets here,   here comes the   rest of the plant.

Again, beautiful flower,   has a little yellow disc   in the middle,   surrounded by the petals.

I actually like it, I think it's nice.

You see fields of it, of course now I've seen some over at Shelby Farms.

You see them near ditches, because they like moist soils.

And anytime you have wet springs you see more of these.

And guess what we had?

- A wet spring, yeah.

- Which is why we're seeing them all over the place.

So they may be something for bees maybe?

- Yeah, I'm sure bees would use it.

- Bees would use that.

So there you have it Ms. Linda.

Butterweed, or cressleaf groundsel.

And beauty is in the eye of the beholder, right?

Alright, here's our next viewer email.

"I moved last year to our new home.

"I would like to start a strawberry bed again.

"Since plants would be more expensive, "I would like to get the bare root strawberries.

"Every time I've planted them, they did not do well.

"How do you grow bare   root strawberries,   and make them survive?

Thanks."

And this is from Ms. Linda.

So strawberries.

- Well... - Bare root strawberries.

- I would say the key is to make sure they don't get dried out before planting.

You want to soak them in water before you plant, plant them in moist soil, and then water them in really well.

You don't want to let those bare root plants get dry.

- That's it for me.

Yeah, you don't want the roots to dry out.

A good sunny location, well-drained soils.

And I'm trying to think of what else Mr. D., of course he talked about this once upon a time.

The pH, he would say you need a pH between 6.0, and I think it's 6.5.

But don't let them dry out.

And something else, when you put them in the ground, don't cover the crown up with soil.

- Right.

- 'Cause it can rot them.

So you definitely don't want to do that.

So I hope that helps you out Ms. Linda, yeah, just keep those roots nice and moist, don't let them dry out, and you'll get those bare root strawberries you want.

And let me mention again, I do like strawberries.

[Cathy and Tonya laugh] So you want to make sure that you get some good strawberries Ms. Linda.

Alright, here's our next viewer email.

"What are the black   spots on my potato leaves,   and how do I   control this issue?"

And this is from   Joey, via YouTube.

So he has black spots on his potato leaves.

Any ideas about that?

- Could be a fungal disease.

- That's the first thing I thought.

- Yeah potatoes and tomatoes are in the same family, and whatever fungal disease a tomato will get so will a potato.

- So will a potato.

- So it could be early blight,   but we really don't know withou   seeing a picture.

- True.

True, good point.

- So it's probably   a fungal disease.

For that we recommend crop rotation.

So don't plant your potatoes, tomatoes, or eggplants, eggplants are in the same family, don't plant them in the same spot year-after-year.

You want to put them on a three or four year rotation out of that spot.

In case, some fungal diseases are soil-borne, so you don't want that to get in your soil.

And then also preventative fungicide sprays.

So if you already have the spots, a fungicide spray is not going to fix the spots that you have, it only prevents it from spreading and getting worse.

So preventative fungicide sprays.

- Right.

And something else I like to throw in.

Resistant varities.

- Yes.

- If those are out there, use those.

Alright, so we hope that helps you out.

Alright, here's our next viewer email.

"Can you cut off part   of an iris tuber   with a knife to thin out   your plants without   digging up the whole plant?"

And this is from Jim.

So he wants to cut it off with a knife to thin it out, without digging up the whole plant.

Can you do that?

- Yes, you can.

- Oh you can.

Ok. - If you're not concerned with trying to save what you've cut off and put it somewhere else, if all you want to do is thin.

And one of the reasons you may want to thin your irises is they will grow close together and crowd each other and they won't bloom.

So if you find that your iris, if they're in full sun, they need full sun.

If they're in full sun, but they're not blooming, they're probably too crowded.

And so you can either divide them, dig them all up, divide them, but that's a whole, whole lot of work, so if you don't want to do that, and you're not real concerned about losing one here or there, whatever, because they're crowded, then yes, you can take a long sharp knife, and go in there, and thin them out that way.

- Wow.

There you have it Mr. Jim.

I learned something with that one.

Alright, thanks Tonya.

Alright, so Ms. Cathy, Tonya, we're out of time.

That was fun.

- Alright thank you so much.

- Thank you Chris.

- 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 joining us.

If you want Cathy's recipe for strawberry freezer jam, or to get more information about attracting wildlife, head over to FamilyPlotGarden.com.

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]