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

There are getting to be signs of spring.

Over the winter, we received many questions from viewers trying to get ready for a successful garden this year.

Today, we're answering some of those questions 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 Joellen Dimond.

Joellen is the Director of Landscape at the University of Memphis.

And Mike Dennison is with us today.

Mr. D is a retired UT Extension agent.

Thank you all for joining us.

- Good to be here.

- All right.

So y'all ready?

These are great questions.

- Oh, yeah- - We're ready.

- Let's get them.

- All right, let's get them, let's get them.

All right, so here's our first viewer email.

"How do I get rid of cucumber beetles?

Do they overwinter in the soil?"

And this is Doris from Maineville, Ohio.

So Mr. D, how do you get rid of those cucumber beetles?

- You probably don't.

[Chris laughs] And no, they don't overwinter in the soil.

They do spend a small portion of their lifecycle, maybe a couple of weeks, in the soil, but they overwinter as adults.

Most of them, I think, are pregnant female adults, and they survive the winter ready to lay eggs.

They overwinter in debris and other plants.

- Yeah, I mean, I can see her cleaning up her garden, thinking that she's, you know, got rid of the cucumber beetles for the year, there's nothing for them to overwinter in, but in the corner of the yard might be a pile of leaves or some debris, or the neighbors have some, or the woods that she's next to, or, they're everywhere, you can't get rid of all of them, they're always going to be there, unfortunately.

- So definitely have to practice good sanitation, so.

All right, well, will she need to change the soil out in her raised bed?

- It's not gonna, because they spend such a small portion of their time during the growing season in the soil, probably not gonna help at all.

You know, you can tolerate some damage.

The adults, of course, you know, chew on the leaves mostly, they feed on the leaves, the larvae, when they're in the ground, they'll feed on the roots to some extent, and they can create problems, you know, in some agricultural situations, yeah.

But I mean, it's a tough situation.

There are some insecticides that you can use to treat when they're there, but the problem is, is with a lot, like a lot of insects, if you kill all of them on your property or on your plants, you know, get a good, strong wind from out of the south and you've got more, and these insects are strong flyers.

You know, they don't have to fly on the wind currents, but they're gonna be looking for food that they like, and it's a tough situation.

- It is a tough situation, she did mention that she sets traps and they keep coming back.

- Well, that's gonna attract them, I wouldn't do that either.

- Yeah, with the trap, it's got a pheromone in it that attracts them and brings them in.

- Yeah, I don't know.

- And you're not gonna catch all of them.

Some are gonna be left behind, yeah.

- Resistant varieties is another thing to think about- - Something to think about.

All right, so Ms. Doris, we hope that helps you out, you know, good luck with that.

All right, here's our next viewer email.

"How do I get my two honeycrisp ap ple trees to bear fruit?

The trees are seven years old," and this is Ken from Wisconsin.

All right, so Mr. D, you like those old honeycrisp apples, don't you?

- Yeah, I do.

- I know you do.

- They are an excellent, most excellent apple.

I hope that Ken has pollinators, because the honeycrisp require cross-pollination.

The trees are seven years old, they ought to be blooming now.

A dwarf or semi-dwarf apple tree takes three to five years to bloom, and a standard rootstock takes from 5 to 10 years.

So no matter what kind of rootstock they're on, they ought to be blooming now.

I know that Crabapple will cross-pollinate, Gala, McIntosh, Fuji, Golden Delicious, Red Delicious, Pink Lady, they will all cross-pollinate, but if he doesn't have a pollinator planted, the problem is it's gonna be three to five years before a pollinator will be blooming.

- Right.

- So, you know, I guess I have a few questions, I don't know.

- Well, he did say two honeycrisp apple trees, so would you need a different variety, one honeycrisp and maybe- - Yeah, two honeycrisp apple trees will not pollinate each other.

There has to be another variety, it's cross-pollination of varieties.

So you just got double trouble if you have two trees with no pollinator, you know, no cross-pollination.

- Right, and he did mention, of course, that the trees are healthy, you know, full of lots of foliage, but yeah, it'd be good to- - Yeah, if there's no pollinator, if there's no pollinator around, one thing, a Crabapple will bloom a lot quicker probably than one of these apples, so if he doesn't have a pollinator, you may wanna plant a Crabapple and try to get some pollination going there.

I mean, everything, you know, make sure your soil conditions are right, soil test.

And if the tree is healthy, you know, that's the only thing I can think of.

- All right, well, Ken, we hope that helps you out there, we thank you for that question.

All right, here's our next viewer email.

"When should I start planting my garden?"

And this is Peter from Maryland.

So what do you think about that one, Joellen?

- Oh, yeah, well, you know, when you're thinking of when to start your garden, no matter what part of the country you're in, you've gotta look at what zone you're in, and then the frost dates for that zone.

Maryland is very interesting because it has zone 6A to 8A, which is a large category of zones to be in, so I don't know which one he is in.

But the majority of the state is in 7A and 7B.

Frost dates for those areas are May 1st through the 10th or April 21st through the 30th.

So whichever zone he is in, he needs to look, to follow the directions of when the last frost date is.

And you can look on the seed packets too.

The back of the seed packets all tell when the best time for your zone is to plant.

Look at that.

That's the best way that I can tell you to find out how to look when it is the time to plant.

- I think that would help.

- And I think local nurseries, you know, you can go to your Extension Office there and ask them.

You can go to the garden center and see what's there have out 'cause, you know, a lot of places aren't gonna start selling things that it's not even, you know, really close to the time to plant in your area.

- Right.

Anything you want to add to that, Mr. D?

- I'd just say now, you can garden year-round, you know, unless you wanna take a winter rest.

- Yeah.

- But yeah, the warm-season ones, you definitely need to wait till after frost, well after frost, don't push it, unless you're ready to replant.

- Yeah, unless you're ready to buy more plants, that's right.

- Keep in mind that average frost-free date is the average frost-free date.

And like ours is April 15th, but we may get a frost on the 20th.

And, you know, we may very well, our last date may be the 5th.

So it's a, but, you know, but you need to know, you know, when that frost-free date is.

- I think that'll help Peter out, yeah, University of Maryland Extension will have those publications for you.

- They sure will.

- All right, very good.

All right, here's our next viewer email.

"How do I get consistent blooms and good fruit from pear trees every year?"

And this is Dennis.

So, what do you think about that, Mr. D?

- I wish I knew how to do that, I've got pear trees and, you know, some years, I do good, and some years, I don't do very well.

There have been cases where I've had a late freeze that has taken out my small fruit.

You know, already passed bloom and temperatures get below 28 degrees, it takes it out, and, you know, I have no control over that.

- Yeah.

- I would work very hard on the things that I have control over.

I would make sure that my pH is right.

I would make sure that I do the, apply the fertilizer that I need to apply, and pear trees don't require a lot of fertilizer at all.

I would make sure that I control fire blight.

You know, that's normally a problem on some pears.

- That's a good one.

- I apply cover sprays when I need to, go with the dormant sprays when you need to.

And then if Mother Nature smiles upon you, you know, dry conditions tend to increase the sugar content in fruit.

So overwatering can affect the taste of fruit and strawberries and peaches and plums and pears.

- So with that being said, "so some years, "the fruit is red colored and delicious and other years, green and bitter."

So what do you think would cause that?

- Even if he's not irrigating it or watering it, Mother Nature might be watering it more some years than the other years.

- Yeah, and I know with pears, you don't wanna eat them until they're ripe.

And that means sometimes, you pick them and you let them sit for a day or two before you eat them.

And so the time of harvest could have something to do with that.

- Right, well, they're red in color, they're delicious.

So just hopefully the red color- - Yeah, so when- - Yeah, eat those and- - And hopefully, the years that they're good, you can get some of them and the squirrels won't get them all like they did for mine last year.

- Right.

- And if the years that they're green and bitter, the squirrels can have them, you know?

- Let the squirrels have them.

There you go, Dennis, how about that?

Yeah, we thank you for that question.

All right, here's our next viewer email.

"What kind of soil do I need for my new raised bed garden?"

And this is Joanne from Hayworth, Illinois.

So what do you think about that one, Joellen?

- Well, most raised beds, a lot of people think that they should just put all organic matter in it, but the actual soil that exists around anybody's raised bed is good for plants.

In fact, it has a lot of micronutrients and properties that organic, you know, bagged soil does not have.

So I always, even when I put my own raised beds, I get soil that existing and I mix it with some organic matter and then put that in the raised bed to get a little bit of combination of both, and it seems to work out really well.

- Works well.

All right, so Joanne is from Hayworth, Illinois.

So what do you say about- - Well, you know- - Since you know a little bit about Illinois, right?

- Yes, Illinois has got some of the nicest topsoil around and it's organic and it's a nice, dark, rich color that can go down four feet.

So I mean, when I lived there, we never had potting soil because we just went out in the dirt and used that as potting soil.

She has some of the best, I would love to have that in my raised beds.

She may not have to add much to it, but I would, whatever of the soil she puts in there, I would take a pH test just to make sure, you know, if it needs any fertilizer, and maybe it just needs nitrogen, or it's got plenty of potassium or phosphorus and she doesn't need any of that, but she won't know until she does the soil test.

- All right, Ms. Joanne, there you have it.

From Ms. Illinois herself, right, four feet.

All right, thank you for that question.

- Nice stuff.

- All right, here's our next viewer email.

"How do I overwinter a gardenia plant in the house?"

And this is Pan from Spokane, Washington?

- Well, yeah, my parents used to do that all the time, but they did not put it in the house, so they always dragged theirs into the garage and made a little space for it next to the house that would stay warmer and put some plastic around it.

- Okay.

- But in the house, it's gonna be kind of a dry environment.

Don't overwater it, it's still gonna lose leaves 'cause it's used to being outside.

Don't fertilize it, you don't want to encourage growth.

You're just gonna try to keep it alive and even until you can take it back outside again.

- Right, so humidity is gonna be important, the water is gonna be important.

So this, now, we're trying to overwinter it, so should it be closer to the window?

'Cause she mentioned that she has it close to the window.

- It can, especially because it's warm.

That's why in the garage, it didn't matter, we didn't put it near a window in the garage because we're kind of just keeping it alive 'til the next season.

But in the house, it's warm, so it's wanting to grow.

So you're gonna have to water it.

It's gonna dry out more that you're gonna have to water it, 'cause you still water the ones in the garage but very little because it's so cool in the garage.

- Right.

- But in the house, it's gonna be warmer, she's gonna have to water, but she will lose leaves 'cause it's not the same intensity of sunlight, even coming through a window, as it would be outside.

- Right, especially in the winter.

- Don't be afraid of that.

But then also don't overwater it.

I would keep it, you know, let it dry out between the waterings just so it doesn't get too much water because it won't be using it as much.

- All right, so there you have it, Ms. Pan, thank you much.

Good luck with that.

Okay, here's our next viewer email.

"When starting seeds, should you water from the bottom?"

And this is Katie from Des Moines, Iowa.

So what do you think about that one, Mr. D?

- I don't think so.

I think you should water from the top.

And the reason that I say that is it's easier to determine how much, how damp it is if you water from the top.

If you water from the bottom, if you feel damp on top, it's pretty saturated down below that, and I don't think, I think that could create some problems with phytophthora or pythium or, you know, some of the diseases, soil-borne diseases.

So I think you need to water from the top.

- What do you think about that, Joellen?

- You know, either way, but what I'm concerned with watering from the bottom is it's, the top may still be dry, and if that's where you're, if you have small seeds and that's where they are, they're never gonna get enough moisture to germinate.

Which is why I usually make sure that the soil that I'm working with is wet first- - Already, ah, okay- - Before I plant anything in it.

And then after I plant it, I may mist it or you get it, then I put it in a mini greenhouse setting by putting a big plastic, clear plastic bag over it to mimic a greenhouse if you don't have all the little forms you can buy.

And that keeps the soil more even for the germination of the plants inside.

- So when you're watering over the top, and we're talking about starting seeds, right, how would you water so you don't displace the seeds?

- Well, that's, you gotta have misters, you have to mist.

You can't, that's why I like to start with moist seed first.

- That makes sense to me.

- It's a lot easier, and if it's really small seeds, the whole seed's moist, you put the greenhouse plastic over it, it stays moist.

- Greenhouse, yep.

- And you don't have to water it as often and not as much.

- Okay.

All right, Katie, I hope that helps you out, huh, that's good, all right.

Here's our next viewer email.

"Do I need to sterilize the ground to get rid of rose rust from a previous plant?"

And this is Barbara from Los Angeles, California.

So what do you think about that one, Joellen?

- Ooh, rose rust is horrible and it is everywhere.

And it sounds like she's tried and tried to get rid of it.

- Yeah, she's tried, you know, she tried to cure an old bush but had to pull it out, so she tried.

- Well, it does get in the soil if you've left leaves.

And you need to take, like every year, when the leaves fall off of it, you need to take them up 'cause they have the rust spores on them that can get in the soil.

I mean, she could, but I mean, the thing is, she lives in California.

- Los Angeles, California.

- And if you have the same problem, it doesn't matter where you are, the rust does not like hot, dry weather.

So even if you don't plant it right away, if you let it go in the summertime when it's hot out, it will be killed in the soil anyway, then plant after that.

- Oh, so it's tough, what do you think, Mr. D?

- Rust, all of the rust diseases that I know of are transmitted by spores that could be released from the ground, are mostly from leaves and debris and infected tissue.

And so they're transported by air or by water that's splashed or by you handling them.

- Yeah, that's a good point.

- So I don't think, they're not taken up by the roots.

So I don't see any benefit in sterilizing the soil.

And I'm not sure that there's anything legal that you can sterilize the soil with in California.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- But like you said, you know, sanitation, you know, clean up the leaves and then go with fungicides or resistant varieties, but fungicides, you know, timely fungicide usage is the only thing that I can think of.

- To prevent it, yeah.

I mean, if you plant it right away and you just, you know, make sure you get all the debris up around it, and once you've planted it, you maybe need to preventatively spray it with fungicides.

That's what fungicides are for, they're to prevent- - To prevent the disease, yeah, fungicides are preventative in nature.

- Yep, and we are talking about roses, so you definitely gonna have to put them on a spray schedule for the most part, Ms. Barbara.

So there you have it, practice good sanitation, I definitely do agree with that, you know, for sure.

All right, good luck to you.

All right, here's our next viewer email.

Interesting, "Do some flowers struggle to bloom in rich, fertilized soils?"

This is Jack from Rochester, New York.

So Mr. D, what do you think about that one?

- Probably because, you know, there's some plants do well in areas that are rocky and the soils aren't well, and those, if you put those in a rich, fertile soil, it might just get 10 feet tall and, you know, or just grow a lot of leaves and vegetative rather than them blooming.

I mean, I can remember, when I was growing up, we always planted peas in the summertime, and you wanted to plant them on the side of a hill where it wasn't very rich and, you know, in some poorer soil, and the peas would tend to produce peas and not a lot of leaves.

And if you planted them in the real rich land where you grew your corn and the bottom land and all that, you'd have these big tall plants that were covered with leaves and not many peas.

So, you know, it's that same analogy.

- Right.

- So yes, some plants are adapted to- - Yeah, some plants will.

- Some plants need that kind of soil, some plants don't necessarily need all that, right?

- Yeah, I was gonna say it just really depends on the plant and what it needs for its, you know, an environment to do well.

- All right, so does too much fertilizer just promote green growth?

- Oh yes, definitely.

- So it definitely does that?

Okay.

So what about the coneflowers and black-eyed Susans?

What kind of soils do they prefer?

- They like well-drained and, think about it, those are wildflowers out on the prairie.

- Yeah.

- Are those in rich soils?

No.

So they prefer not to be in rich soils and they would do better in a, you know, just a plain old soil, just, you know, nothing special.

And dry, they like it on the dry side, yeah.

- There goes something to say about when you see plants in their natural habitat, that should give you an idea what they prefer.

- That's right.

- Yeah, that's good.

So appreciate that question, Mr. Jack.

All right, here's our next viewer email.

"Can I save two pear trees that have not been pruned for 15 years?"

And this is Kay, so can she do that, Mr. D?

Haven't been pruned in 15 years.

- It sounds to me like they've already, they've saved themselves.

- Right.

- No, they're probably, you know, you can get out there and you can take the water sprouts off and you can try to take out some of the competing central leaders so that you got one or a smaller number than the ones you have.

But severe pruning will encourage more water sprout development.

But I would still do it, I'd get out there and I'd go to work on them and I'd take the water sprouts out, you know, and I would thin it out some because that will help, you know, reduce disease pressure if you allow it to dry out, you know, have air circulation.

And so I would be one to get out there and I'd give it a go, and if they've gone 15 years without being pruned, they're pretty tough.

They're pretty tough critters.

They're probably big.

- Yeah, probably pretty big.

- You probably need a chainsaw.

- Can you prune too much?

Is that something that could happen with your pear tree?

- Only if you do what I call severe renewal pruning probably and you cut it off even with the ground.

That is too much.

- Yeah, that's too much.

- Yeah, that's too much, but probably not, as far as a tree like this that's got a heck of a root system, it's got a heck of a root system to support all that above-ground growth that it's got.

If you take off 30%, 50% of that above-ground growth, you're gonna get a flush of growth though, you're gonna get a flush of growth, and a lot of it's gonna be water sprouts, and you might want to consider going out there and following up when the water sprouts are that big instead of, you know, 12-feet tall, snapping them off, you know, put a glove on and snap them off and, you know, try to kind of manage that a little bit.

But if you do that, if you do some pruning and then if you do some fruit thinning, you know, before the fruit gets too big, you know, you should have some good fruit on there.

- That is for sure.

- And I have seen trees like that.

I actually have, I've seen them and I've attacked them before.

- He's attacked them before.

- They do tend to survive.

- All right, Ms. Kay, hope that helps you out.

Yeah, Mr. D said, "Get at 'em.

Get 'em."

All right, here's our next viewer email.

"How do I keep my raised bed vegetable garden productive?

I've had declining success each year."

And this is Jim from Highland, Illinois.

So what do you think about that one, Joellen, yeah?

- Well, has he taken a pH test of the soil?

I mean it might be lacking a nutrient.

I've had some raised beds and they weren't doing well and I'm like, well, what's going on?

Well, when I did a soil test on it, they lacked nitrogen and only nitrogen.

So I put a little more nitrogen on them and then they did better, so, you know, and, you know, he just needs to make sure he's doing that, and I don't know what he's planting in there but- - Well, he's growing cucumber, squash, and cantaloupe.

- And tomatoes.

Well, then I would, hopefully, he's not taking and putting them in the same spot in his raised bed because he needs to rotate the crops.

Even in a small bed, you can, if, you know, if the first year, he's got four- - Yeah, that's four.

- Vegetables.

- With the tomatoes, yeah.

- Yeah, rotate one this year here, here, and here, and then the next year, switch it up and then, you know, every year, put all the ve getables in a different spot, 'cause you can do that in the same raised bed.

There was room for it all to grow there in the first place, they can all grow in different spots every year.

And that would help too, but I would definitely wanna know what the pH is, and it may just be lacking nitrogen.

And, of course, sometimes, people with raised beds, you know, when you pull your vegetables out, it takes up some of the soil.

He might need to keep adding some more organic matter to his soil to keep it all up at the right level for the plants to grow also.

- Yeah, that's what I would do, Mr. D, so when I'm harvesting or when I finish harvesting, guess what I'll come back with?

Organic matter, yeah, so maybe leaf mold, compost, yeah.

And let it go to sleep over the winter with that, and it'll break down and it'll add to the soil structure.

That's what I would do.

What do you think?

- Nope, what you said first though.

Don't guess, soil test.

Get a soil test.

That sounds to me like something may be wrong there, you know, and it could be the rotation, it could be a nutrient deficiency that could very easily be solved.

[upbeat music] - All right, Mr. Jim, we hope that helps you out.

We hope you have great success moving forward.

All right, so Joellen, Mr. D, we're out of time, that was fun.

- It was.

- That was good.

Thank you much.

Remember, we love to hear from you.

Send us an email or a letter.

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That's all we have time for today, thanks for watching.

At FamilyPlotGarden.com, we have more information about each question we answered.

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

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