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

I'm Chris Cooper.

Tomatoes get big and have to have support.

Today, we're going to look at several ways to hold them up.

Also, we'll show how to calibrate your spreaders.

That's just the head 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 Peter Richards.

Peter is our local garden expert.

Alright Peter, it's warming up.

People are anxious to get their vegetables into the ground.

Of course, tomatoes are high on everybody's list to grow, right?

- Yeah, no, they're definitely the queen of the garden.

- Yes.

So, let's show the folks a few ways you can support your tomato growth.

- Yes.

Okay, so the traditional way that people think, oh, support tomatoes is tomato cages, just like this one.

This is a large tomato cage.

You can get even smaller than this.

But, they don't really support tomatoes.

- All right.

- They're really good for peppers.

But, if you look here, we have a poor tomato plant.

- That's a good example.

- Yeah.

And you notice, it knocked the cage right over.

There's no support here.

It's all over the ground.

It's very, there's lots of fungus as a result because the water was able to splash up even down at the end where it was laying on the ground.

So, it just didn't work.

I don't recommend using regular tomato cages.

Like I said, for peppers, they work really good 'cause the peppers stay smaller, but not for tomatoes.

- So, for peppers and not tomatoes.

- Right.

- Gotcha.

- Okay, now, if we look here at this next one, this is also a tomato cage, but this is much heftier and a lot bigger.

- Yes, sturdier.

- Yeah.

So, what I did here was I took four pieces of cattle panel and I wired them together.

- Yeah.

- in a couple places, so it created a square.

And with cattle panel, because it's in the grid, I cut it so that there were spikes on the bottom and just kind of put the spikes in.

- Okay.

- And it holds up really good.

You can tell that it holds the tomato plant up.

Keeps it all off the ground.

This would work really good for a determinate tomato plant.

- Ah, okay.

- But, if you have an indeterminate tomato plant and your tomato plants grow a lot vegetatively through the year, this might end up actually being too small.

You can see that it started to come out the top here.

When we're taping this, we're at the end of the year, so it's not a big deal.

But, you know, if it grew much more than this, it's gonna go right back down to the ground again.

- Okay.

So, I'm gonna ask you this.

So, let's tell the folks again about determinate and indeterminate tomatoes.

- Right.

- What's the difference?

- So, determinate tomatoes will grow up to a certain point, and then they basically stop growing.

And they put on all their fruit at once, which can be something you want.

So, that's the kind of tomato plant that commercial growers grow because you can go through and you can pick the field a couple times and you're done.

Indeterminate tomato plants are tomato plants that just keep growing and growing and growing.

- Yeah.

- Until they get killed by frost or something else.

And so, a lot of times home gardeners like those, - Yes.

- Because you can pick them all through the year and they keep going all year long.

And a little secret on the-- - Oh we got a secret!

- On the indeterminate tomato plants.

So if you have an end like this right here, so this is the end of a vine.

If you pinch off the end right there, that will stop the growth.

Now, it will try and grow somewhere else with a sucker, but you've stopped that branch.

- Got it.

- And so, that takes care of the growth there.

So, you can kind of control it a little bit.

- Good tip.

- Yeah.

- Good tip.

- So, let's move on here to the Florida weave.

- All right.

- And this is another way that you can support your tomatoes.

As the tomatoes grow, as they get up about eight inches, ten inches above the previous string you've put in, you just put a string from one post to another, and back again.

So you just kind of, you're holding them up - Okay.

- As they grow.

Now, you can see that there is a problem here and that is that they all tended to fall this way this year.

- Yeah.

- And so, if you have more than a couple tomato plants, I'd recommend that you put a stake, maybe every two tomato plants, and then weave it there.

So that way they can't fall too far - Right.

- At once.

This is a great method.

Once again, it might work a little better on determinate plants because you do have a limited amount of height before you run outta stake.

It's good.

It can be difficult because it's hard to get the fungicide in and it's hard to, because the tomatoes tend to get very dense in the middle.

But, it keeps your fruit off the ground, it keeps the tomatoes off the ground, it keeps the tomatoes compact, you know, so they're really in a very narrow line.

- Okay, and that's what you want.

- Yeah, and you can keep your tomato plants, you can put more tomato plants in because you could put a line of tomatoes here and really you only need, you know, three foot over, you could put another line of tomatoes and still get in between 'em.

- Okay.

- To work 'em during the year.

- That makes sense.

It also makes it easier to harvest your tomatoes as well.

- Yep, yep.

Okay, so, this is, the first time I've tried this method and what this is, is this is just horizontal cattle panel.

- Okay.

- The tomato plants grow up through the cattle panel and then as they get heavy, they fall back down on it, but it keeps 'em off the ground.

- All right.

- And so-- - And they just lay right across?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

- And so, this is the first time I've done this method.

But, I did it about 24 inches off the ground.

If I did it again, I would probably take it down to about 18 inches off the ground.

- Okay.

- Reason being that the tomato plant started to fall over before they got up through the cattle panel.

- Right, right.

Gotcha.

- I've been pretty pleased with this.

- So, you like this?

- I kinda like this, yeah.

It takes a lot of space.

That's its downside, really.

Is because this is about a 4 foot by 4 foot space for two tomato plants, which, you know, compare it to Florida weave, it's quite a bit of space.

- Yeah.

- But, it was very easy to go in and treat with fungicide.

- Okay.

- Because I could spray above and then I could spray underneath.

The benefit kind of is that the bottom part of the plant, the leaves got blighted and fell off.

And so, it made it so all the vegetative growth was right here on the level.

This, just like the other ones is made out of cattle panel, which you can get at your local big box hardware store, or at your farm supply store.

You have to have pretty heavy, probably bolt cutters to cut it.

But if you have those, it's really easy to do.

And then T posts, - T posts.

Okay.

- Which are easy to find and they're fairly cheap.

And so, that's pretty easy.

But that's the basis of all of these.

- Okay.

- So then... - All right, We'll look at the next one.

- Yep.

So, this next one here, this is a single stake per tomato plant.

And what you do is, as the tomato plant grows, you use some sort of soft fabric.

In this case, I cut up an old bed sheet, and you tie it up towards the stake.

- Okay.

- It's pretty good.

I think its big weakness is, is that you end up with a whole bunch of growth concentrated in one spot.

- That's a lot of growth.

It sure is.

- And so, that kind of invites the disease, the diseases, and the blights to get it.

- So, how about treating it with the fungicide?

Was it easy for you to do so?

- Yes and no.

You can get all the way around it pretty easy.

But, you know, you're sticking your wand in.

And you're not sure if you get all of it.

But you know, as you can see, you know, this right here, this would be a branch that I'd come back in here and, you know, tie it up so it's about that far away.

- Okay.

- And just kind of keep gathering it up as it goes.

Now, if you have an indeterminate tomato plant, it can get really tall.

- Yes.

- Which, if you notice here, this is actually, this pipe was made by Tom Mashour.

- Yeah.

- Who's shown us how to use it in the past.

But, you can continue now to, it can go up.

You got about 10 feet that you could continue to gather up.

Now, it's close to the end of the season - Yeah.

- When we're taping this, so, I've just kind of let it go.

But you know, you can continue to go.

Okay.

- Okay.

- Now, this last one.

And this one is actually my favorite.

- Ah, it's your favorite.

- Now, it's not my favorite because it's easy.

[Chris chuckles] Because this one actually takes a fair amount of work.

And what this is, is I have, when the tomato plants were little, I cut them or I pruned them so that I only had two or three main branches.

- Okay.

- And then, I wrapped 'em around string that was attached to this top cross post up here.

And so, as they continue to grow, I wrapped them.

And then the other thing you have to do is you have to, - It's lot of work.

- You have to cut off all the suckers as they grow.

So for instance, this right here is a sucker.

And you can tell it's a sucker because there's a leaf right here and it has grown out between the main stem and the leaf.

- Right.

- So, you cut those off.

Best place to get it is when they're really little, like this right here.

- Yeah.

- And then you can just, - Take those off.

- Take it with your thumb nail and it's good to go.

But, something I really like about this, and you can see that there's not a lot of blight, - It's not.

- On this plant.

- It is not.

- And the reason is you cut the leaves off as you go.

So every week or so, you come out and you cut off the bottom three leaves of each vine.

And so, what happens is, before the blight has a chance to get established, you've cut it off the plant, - Which is so good.

- Yeah.

- And so, - So good, because you don't have to worry about it spreading that way.

- Right.

It doesn't spread.

- That's so good.

- I've grown plants like this where I've maybe sprayed them twice in the whole year and I don't have any blight on 'em.

Or at least not 'til the very end when they slow down.

- Right.

- When they slow down, then the blight starts to catch up with it.

- Sure.

- But yeah, so I really like this because if you're gonna go organic, in my opinion, this is the only way to do it.

And you can do it.

And your tomato plants will last longer than, you know, mid-July.

- Wow.

So, it's good to get the fungicide on it.

It's also good to harvest.

- Yeah.

It's easy to harvest.

Now, - Easy to harvest.

- You can see that the tomato plants have gotten up close to the top.

- Yeah.

Pretty close.

- I made this really tall.

You don't have to make it that tall.

You can make it a little bit shorter.

- How tall is it?

- It's probably about nine feet.

- Okay.

- But, you could make it a little shorter if you wanted to.

But you should come up with a way, as the tomato plants grow, when they get to the top, have extra string up there.

- Okay.

- And kind of start moving them down the board.

And so, you'll have vine at the bottom and then they'll go up.

- Gotcha.

- And as you continue to prune them, they continue to grow.

- Any special type of string that folks need to be concerned about?

- I've used several different kinds of string.

Just the cheapest stuff I can get at the store.

I would probably stay away from a cotton, or maybe another organic string.

The reason being that it may not last the season.

- Right.

It's gonna be out in the weather.

- Right.

Some of the cheaper, like the thin ropes I've used will last about two years.

And then what'll happen is it'll start breaking.

- Okay.

- And so, you know, it'll break and you'll come out and your tomato plant will be on the ground and you'll have to string it back up.

So, I recommend new string every year.

- New string every year.

- But this is thin nylon twine.

It'll hold up just fine this year.

It's cheap.

- Okay.

- Throw it away.

Get new stuff this year.

- Get new stuff.

- Mm-hmm.

I think I like this method too.

This is pretty good.

- Yeah.

Yeah, and this, I learned from doing hydroponics.

- Hydroponics.

- Because this is how they do it in the hydroponic greenhouses.

- Yeah.

How about that?

- Yep.

- All right.

Well Peter, that's good information.

We appreciate the demonstration.

- Well, thank you.

- Thank you.

[upbeat country music] - So, we have a great example of spring dead spot.

The thing about spring dead spot is this, it actually starts in the fall of the year.

If we have a wet fall, you're most likely going to have spring dead spot in your warm-season grasses.

It is a fungal disease.

As you can see, this area is bleached out, but the other grasses around it are actually starting to transition through the green period.

How do you control spring dead spot?

Well, you have to use a fungicide.

I want you to read and follow the label on that fungicide.

It is going to be a lawn fungicide.

There's a ready to use, and there's also a liquid concentrate that you can put in a two or three-gallon container.

So again, read and follow the label.

If you just leave it alone and don't treat it, it just gets worse.

It's probably gonna be multiple applications.

But in the meantime, make sure that you're getting your soil tested and you're fertilizing according to your soil test analysis.

[upbeat country music] Alright, Celeste.

So, we said that there's gonna be some math involved, where, now's the time for that math.

- Yes we did.

- So, what are you gonna show us?

- Okay, well we're gonna talk about proper fertilizer application - Okay.

- On our lawns.

For homeowners, when you get your soil sample results, they're usually going to be recommending to apply a certain amount of pounds of product per 1000 square feet of lawn.

- Okay.

- So, before we get ready to get out there and put our fertilizer out, we need to make sure that our spreaders are applying that fertilizer at the appropriate rate.

- Right.

- So, what we wanna do is a little on the fly calibration, you know, we're not gonna get real technical with it.

[Celeste clears throat] - On the fly.

- On the fly calibration.

So for example, say that your application rate is supposed to be two pounds of triple-15 or triple-13.

- Okay.

- Per 1000 square feet.

We are going to actually test that theory to make sure that your spreader's working properly.

You wanna set your gauge on your rotary type spreader.

This is a broadcast spreader, it's a rotary type.

So, that means the fan spins and disperses it.

That's gonna give you the best coverage.

- Okay.

[Celeste clears throat] - We wanna make sure we set our setting at the appropriate rate.

Your fertilizer bags usually tell you, - Yeah, it does.

- What rate to set that on.

So, that takes guesswork outta that.

Next, you need to determine how wide the width of your spread is.

- Okay.

- And that's easy to do.

You can go out on the pavement, push a few feet and see, you know, measure the width of where you've thrown your fertilizers.

We know that this spreader has a five foot width spread.

- Okay.

- So, we are going to push it for approximately a hundred feet.

one hundred times five is five hundred square feet, right?

- Yeah.

- So, that's half of a thousand.

So, our application said two pounds per thousand.

We've measured one pound of fertilizer and we're gonna push it across 500 square feet.

- Okay.

Makes sense.

- So when I get to the end, if I still have fertilizer left, I pushed too fast or my gauge isn't set properly and we need to open that gate a little higher.

- Okay.

- If you run out before you get to the end, then you're pushing way too slow.

- Too slow.

- Or your door is way too wide open and you need to lower it, okay?

- Okay.

- So, I think we're gonna do a little demo pushing it, and then we'll see where we end up.

- All right, Celeste, what do you think?

- All right, well we got pretty close.

- Pretty close.

- We don't have much fertilizer left in the bottom of our hopper there.

So that means that we got, you know, we were pretty accurate as far as our speed.

Like I said, there's a little left, so I may have been able to walk a little slower.

Slow my pace down a little bit.

And then we'd pretty much be on target.

Like we said before, if you'd had quite a bit left, you'd wanna slow your speed down considerably and maybe consider raising your gate there that lets you fertilizer out as you walk.

So I think that was a good, a good example of how you can, - I think it was.

- Do a on the fly calibration right out in your own yard.

- On the fly with some good, junior high math, right?

[Chris laughs] - There you go.

- All right.

Well, let's talk about some of our other applicators we have out here.

- Sure.

- So, you wanna start with the sprayer?

- Yeah, sure we can.

- Okay.

- Okay, lots of spray application rates, especially for herbicides and insecticides especially, are going to also give their recommendation rates in ounces per gallon.

- Right.

- But then they will specify that you need to use that one gallon of water over a certain amount of area.

And that's where a lot of people get poor insect and poor weed control when they're trying to apply these, because they're not getting that appropriate amount of solution on the appropriate area.

So, one way that you could make sure that you're doing that properly before you actually mix your herbicide or insecticide in there is that you could fill it up with just water.

And mark off a 10 by 10 foot area, that's a hundred square feet.

- All right.

- And apply, you know, your liquid.

Or actually, I would just go ahead and do a 10 by 100 as long as it's just water, and cover that area.

And if you use your entire gallon, then you know that you are applying it at the appropriate amount.

- Okay.

- And if you have some left, then that means you need to walk slower, with your applications.

- Okay.

- So, that's another quick calibration method for handheld, even backpack sprayers.

- Yeah.

- And it's gonna vary a little bit because you're always having to pump up-- - You gotta pump it, right.

- The pressure.

So you wanna try to maintain, you know, as a good even pressure as you can while you're doing that.

- Because of course with these you can build up enough pressure before you even get started, right?

- Right.

- Okay.

But I mean, it's going to decrease as you go down.

So you've gotta take that into account also.

- Okay.

All right.

Now, what about our hose end sprayer?

- Hose end sprayers are great.

It takes a lot of the guesswork out of it.

You don't have to do really any calibration 'cause it's doing it for you.

This is the simplest kind that you can get.

If it calls for two ounces per gallon, you put two ounces of chemical in it and then you fill it up with water to the line that says one gallon.

You hook your hose up to it and you start spraying.

And when it runs out of material in your bottle, you've sprayed two gallons.

- Okay.

- So, that's a pretty easy, straightforward way.

There's some that have dials on the top.

- Yeah, I seen those.

- And you have to set 'em yourself.

So, that gets a little more tricky.

- I think I'll stick with that one then.

- Yeah, me too.

- No math.

- Yeah, no math.

[Celeste chuckles] - All right.

Now, what about our handheld rotary spreader?

- Handheld spreaders I think are great for homeowners that have really small lawns.

If you're needing to do a spot spreading for maybe you're trying to fill in some empty holes in your lawn with some seed, these are great for that.

- Okay.

- But you can also do fertilize, granular fertilize out of them.

And there's really no way to do calibrations with these.

I'd say the most important thing to remember is that you need to always have a little bit of overlap.

And that way you don't end up with bands that haven't gotten any fertilizer.

It's really gonna show up when that grass starts growing.

You're gonna have really dark green bands that have grown a lot.

And then you'll be able to see the yellower tints from where your fertilizer didn't get applied.

- Okay.

And you know what, and that also applies for this as well.

- It does.

- Yeah.

So, you have to do some overlapping, - It does.

- To make sure you get good coverage.

- And another tip on that, is if you have a irregularly shaped yard, say that you know your lot's not a perfect square or rectangle.

- Which mine is not.

- No.

Hardly anyones is.

You probably wanna do your perimeter first, and that way you make sure you get coverage in those odd areas.

- Okay.

- Because we're gonna be doing our applications mostly in vertical, horizontal lines.

- Right.

And that's exactly what I do.

And one last thing that I like to let people know is, look, if that fertilizer gets in your driveway, make sure you sweep it back up into your lawn, - Yes.

- Because you don't want that to go down the water sewage system.

- Definitely.

- Yeah.

I mean, there's fish at the end of that, you know, chain.

So, we definitely don't want the fertilizer to get down in there.

- Yes.

Make sure we get that fertilizer put on the appropriate area.

- That's right.

- For sure.

- All right, Celeste, thank you for that demonstration.

- Yes, sir.

- We appreciate that.

- No problem.

[gentle country music] - Well, the daffodils and the tulips have all finished blooming, but you can see there are seed heads left.

Well, if you want it to be more attractive while you're waiting for the foliages to die down to enrich the bulbs for the next year's bloom, you can cut them.

And so, I'm going to cut down these.

Notice, you don't want 'em to go to seed, so you want to cut the seed heads off because you want the energy to go down into the bulb to renew the bulb and not to go to seed.

And we'll just keep going and get rid of all of these seed heads.

But it is important to leave the foliage to die down naturally, so it is able to put energy back into the bulb so that it can bloom again.

Now all the seed heads are gone, so the plants can concentrate their energy on enriching the bulbs so that it'll bloom next year.

And doesn't it look a lot nicer than seeing all those seed heads?

[upbeat country music] - So, here's our first viewer email.

"What is this plant?

It is very happy in Murfreesboro, Tennessee."

This is Lisa on Facebook.

I like that.

It is very happy.

Nice picture there.

- Yes.

- Lisa.

So Joellen, what do you think that is?

I think you might know this one.

- It makes me wanna sneeze.

[laughter] - Yeah.

- All right.

- Because it's ragweed.

- It's ragweed.

Ooh yeah.

- And that's what causes hay fever in the fall.

- Oh man.

- For everybody.

- I be sneezing already.

- But, it looks so good.

- Well, of course it does.

It's a weed in this area.

- Right.

- Oh man.

- In fact, for a large part of the United States it's a weed, native weed, so yeah.

- Yeah, you see it pretty much all around the landscape, - Everywhere.

- Oh man.

- You know, side of the road.

Yeah, I've seen it out in fields.

Yeah, you see it everywhere.

- That's what have me sneezing all the time?

I be doing it, man.

Woo.

- Ragweed.

- That ragweed have me going then.

- So, it is nice and happy there.

So, thank you for that, Lisa.

We appreciate that.

- Look good there, don't it?

- Oh, it's definitely nice and happy.

All right, here's our next viewer email.

"What do you think about getting seed "from the grocery store to plant?

"I'm not talking about the packs of seeds, "I'm talking about the bags of beans and corn "and things you can buy by the pound to cook.

"Can I also use seeds from tomatoes, butternuts, "pumpkins, sweet potatoes, and potatoes?

"Will seeds in fruit and dry packages "from the grocery store grow and come back true and edible?

"I've got seed from kiwi and planted them and they have come up and grown and we ate them."

This is Roger from Yadkin, North Carolina.

So, interesting question, right?

- Yeah.

- Very interesting.

- Very interesting question.

They wanna get some seeds.

So, let's look at the first one.

So "can I also use seeds from tomatoes, butternut, pumpkin, sweet potatoes, and potatoes?"

So, what do you think, Joellen?

- I'd say yes.

- Okay.

- One thing you gotta remember, a lot of the fruit that you're getting from the store is a hybrid.

So, the seed that comes from it will not be exactly the plant that you had before.

- So, not true to form.

- Yes.

It's not true.

- Okay.

- But the potatoes and sweet potatoes, they sometimes put some kind of retardant gas or something in 'em that causes them to not produce eyes.

- Okay.

- So, I would just wait and see if they started producing eyes.

And if they did, then you can plant them.

But if they don't, that's because it's purposely done so they don't produce eyes.

- Okay.

- Like, what you see from a hybrid, they know they don't come true from and stuff in there.

But before I do that and put 'em in my yard or my garden and I'll try to plant some in some wet paper towel and just kinda see what happens.

To see, - See if they germinate?

- And see where they germinate and everything before I go out there and sew a lot into my garden and everything.

I just look at 'em and see if it'll come true.

Are they gonna germinate?

- Right.

- And so, I would try that first and see what happens.

- All right.

Yeah so, - It's easy to do with beans.

- Yeah, and I was gonna mention, you can do that with beans.

- Corn.

- Yeah, see what happens.

- Yeah so, tomatoes.

I would say peppers.

I would say and your beans and peas.

Yeah, I would definitely give that a shot.

- Give that shot and see what happens.

- Yeah, I would definitely do that.

- Even the butternut squash would it be all right.

- Yeah, I would give it a shot and something else, you know, Roger, that I would do.

This is gardening.

I would experiment.

I would just try it, you know.

- Yeah.

- We all try, you know, a lot of seeds and things like that at home.

Give it a shot and just see what happens.

- Just see what happens, yeah.

- Yeah, he already tried it with the kiwi.

- Yeah.

- It worked.

- It worked, yeah.

- That worked.

- So I would encourage you, Roger, just go ahead and try.

Give it a shot.

But you know, we know that the success rate for things like, you know, tomatoes, and peppers, and you know, beans might be a little higher, but I would just give it a shot.

- Yeah.

They say can't hurt nothing.

- No, we're all, I mean, everybody's at home, has been at home.

So, you know, - Just try it.

- Try something.

- Try it.

Try it, Roger.

And yeah, we appreciate that question.

But it was a good question.

- Very good.

Alright, so Booker, Joellen, that was fun.

- It was good.

- Enjoyed that, yeah.

- That was good.

- Enjoyed that, man.

- Thank y'all much.

- Good questions.

- Remember, we love to hear from you.

Send us an email or letter.

The email address is qu estions@familyplotgarden.com.

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 to learn more about anything we talked about today, head on over to familyplotgarden.com.

We have over a thousand videos to help you make your garden the best that it can be.

Be sure to join us next week for The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South.

Be safe.

[upbeat country music] [acoustic guitar chords]