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

I'm Chris Cooper.

This year, we have been testing mulches in the garden.

Today, we have the test results.

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 Peter Richards.

Peter's our local gardener, and Dr.

Kelly will be joining us later.

Hi, Peter.

We are in The Family Plot garden.

- Yes.

- We're going to talk test results.

- Yes, we are.

- I can't wait.

- So yeah, our test this year, we have five different kinds of mulch- - Okay.

- That we are comparing with each other.

How did it do against bare ground.

- All right.

- We planted 175 days ago today.

- Wow.

- So it's been a long season.

And so we can kind of look and see what's going on.

Now I want to talk about our weather conditions first.

This was kind of a little bit of an unusual year.

So on the 29th of April- - Okay.

- We put down the mulch and we planted our plants.

- I remember.

Yeah.

- And then like two days later, it started raining.

- I remember.

- And looking at the National Weather Service records, it rained at least every third day significantly, like quarter inch - That's crazy.

- Or more every third day for the next month.

And so as we go through this, you'll notice that we're missing a lot of plants, straight up they drowned in that before they could get established.

Then in June, we flipped around to the opposite extreme.

By the end of June, we were very hot and we went for about two months without any rain- - That's crazy.

- Really to mention.

- Now this bed is irrigated, and so the lack of rain proved to be much less of a problem than lots of rain.

- Yeah.

- So let's just go through and look what we got here.

- Okay.

Sure, sure.

- So first we're going to start with the black plastic.

- Alright.

- This has done well.

You'll notice that we're missing our pepper plants due to the heavy rain early on.

The flowers throughout have done amazing.

- The zinnias are beautiful, yeah.

- Yeah, the zinnias have been absolutely incredible.

But this, we noticed there's not a lot of weeds.

We do have a nutsedge that's kind of found its way up through here.

It's poked a hole through the black plastic and come through, but other than that, except for where we put the holes for the plants themselves, we are pretty much weed free.

- Okay.

- Okay?

So this is landscape fabric.

Kind of the same idea.

Once again, we've lost our peppers because of the wetness.

Our tomato plant is doing well.

It looks like it's doing well now.

It's very small for this time of year.

It probably was stunted by the wet.

It also didn't grow much in the heat.

And we're going to talk about the heat that we get with the black plastic here.

- Okay.

- Since it's cooled in the last few weeks, it's really started to speed up.

- Yeah.

- Once again, the zinnia's doing amazing.

- They're doing fine.

- The sunflowers, they did really well here as well.

Let's move over here.

- Okay.

- To pine needles.

This did well.

You can notice that we have some weeds that have poked through.

Now, we haven't weed in a month intentionally so you can see the differences in weeds when you look at it.

We had beans here.

Now, the beans didn't produce at all until about three weeks ago when it started cooling down and then all of a sudden we have beans.

- Yeah, it makes sense.

- Yeah, because it's hot.

They don't like that.

- Right.

- Once again, the flowers did amazing.

- Yeah, zinnias look good.

- Yep.

The rain caused some problems with the peppers and the tomatoes.

They're kind of recovering now that it's cooled off after the really, really hot summer.

- Yeah.

- So then if we keep going over here, we have the shredded wood.

And this is the sort of mulch that you'll get if you know, you're mulching your front flower bed or something like that, your shrubs.

- Right.

- This is that same sort of mulch.

It did really good.

You can notice we have some weeds, just like the pine needles, but not a lot.

- Yeah.

- This is the highest spot in the garden, and so we have the most survival when it came to the rains right when we planted them.

- Alright.

Makes sense.

- And so we've got two peppers and a tomato plant here.

Everything's doing well.

The pepper plant has really gotten, has really done well in the last few weeks since it started cooling off and it's starting to produce again, which is kind of what you expect.

Once again, we have beans, but it did really well.

- Okay.

- So let's come up here.

We're going to do the cardboard.

- Cardboard.

Yeah.

- Now the cardboard has no weeds except for where you had to put holes in it to put the plants in.

- Got it.

See it.

- That's really good there.

It also performed really well with temperature.

We're going to talk about that in just a minute.

And once again, our pepper plant has really enjoyed the cooler weather here in the last few weeks.

The other pepper plant's hanging on, the tomato plant hasn't done much of anything.

But once again, it's in a lower spot and it was so hot once it got done raining.

In all of these, the flowers just performed wonderfully.

- Yeah.

Beautiful.

- Now let's go over here to the control.

So in science, it's the group where you don't do anything.

So here we have bare dirt and not doing anything doesn't mean we don't weed it because we did.

We've weeded it through the year, but we just didn't cover it with any mulch.

And you can see how many weeds we have here.

There's probably five times as many weeds as we have everywhere else in the bed.

- Agreed.

- Also, this happens to be one of the lower spots in the gardens, so our beans that were planted right here, you can see that there's a puddle.

It rained a couple days ago, and so you can imagine if it rained every single day.

It's just the beans aren't going to grow.

- So drainage is the issue.

- Drainage is an issue here.

We have pepper plant that hung on.

- Struggling.

- It's struggling.

It'll probably do a little better here as we, you know, I don't know if it's going to actually produce anything in the few weeks we have 'til frost, but it's there.

Now I want to talk about some of the results that we got that are more number based.

- All right.

- So first, I'm going to talk about the temperature, and in a minute, I'm going to get to how much time we had to spend weeding each bed through the year.

- Okay.

Got it.

- So we did a test when it was 96 degrees outside one summer day, measuring how hot the soil is.

- Okay.

- So it was 96 degrees, 50% clouds that day.

So on and off, you had sun, shade, and the soil was damp to wet is how I'd rate it.

We measured at one inch and four inches deep everywhere, but the control group, it was 99 degrees 1 inch down, and it was 90 degrees 4 inches down.

- Yeah.

- Okay?

The shredded wood, it was 94 degrees at 1 inch down and 86 4 inches down.

The pine straw, 91 degrees for 1 inch down and 86 degrees 4 inches down.

So those two are comparable.

- Yeah.

- The cardboard was only 88 degrees 1 inch down and 82 degrees 4 inches down.

So it was much, much cooler.

- Yeah.

- Probably because it's lighter and cardboard has some insulating value to it, just naturally.

- Okay.

- A lot of the light reflecting off it.

But then if we move over to the plastics.

Yes.

Landscape fabric.

At 1 inch down, it was 106 degrees.

At 4 inches down, it was 91.

And then it gets worse.

- It gets worse?

[laughs] - It gets worse.

The black plastic.

One inch down, it was 122 degrees.

- That's hot.

- Very, very hot.

- Hot.

Yeah.

- Four inches down, it was 103 degrees.

- Still in the 100s.

- Still in the 100s.

- Yeah.

- So just as a reference, warm-season vegetables, so that's tomatoes, peppers, beans.

The things that we were growing, watermelons, things like that, the optimal temperature for them to grow is 65 to 75 degrees.

And so here we're looking at the, you know, at the plastic.

Best case scenario, four inches down, which is right in the middle of the root zone, you're looking at, you got 28 degrees above a good temperature to grow 'em at.

- That is tough.

- Yeah, it's tough.

- Stressful.

- Very stressful.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

And then the other thing is is that earthworms is another comparison.

Earthworms above 95 degrees sustained temperature will die.

So I think it's safe to say that if we were to take the plastic up, there would be no earthworms in there just because it's too hot.

- Yeah, it's too hot.

- Too hot.

- Yeah.

So what about the microbial activity?

You know, I would think, you know, in those areas- - Yeah, it'd probably be really high.

- Cooked it.

- Yeah.

So the microbial activity was probably really high.

I'd imagine if we were to test organic matter, that there's probably very little organic matter under the black plastic because the microbes just ate it all.

- Yeah.

- Just same principle as a compost pile, hot compost pile processes stuff faster.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Same idea.

So now, let's get to really the thing that most people care about the most, which is how much time do you have to spend weeding?

- Weeding.

- Yeah, because when it's 96 degrees outside- - Oh man.

- You don't want to weed.

- Uh-uh.

I don't.

- So here are weeding stats and each of these beds is nine feet by eight feet in size, just for comparison so you can compare it to your own garden.

- Okay.

- For the landscape fabric, we spent 47 minutes or three quarters of an hour weeding it over the course of the year.

- Okay.

- So that's not very much.

- That's not much at all.

- No, no.

The black plastic did better.

It was only 30 minutes of weeding.

- Oh, that's nothing.

- Yeah.

That's nothing.

- That's nothing.

- Considering it's 175 days, 30 minutes.

What is that, 15 seconds a day or something like that?

I don't know, not much.

Now keep in mind, the black plastic was very, very hot.

It's possible that we had a lot of weed seeds that just got cooked.

It didn't germinate.

- Right, right.

- The pine needles, 112 minutes.

So a little less than two hours.

- Okay.

- The wood chips, 74 minutes.

- Okay.

- So about an hour and a quarter.

- Okay, that's doable.

Those are doable.

- Yeah, it's doable.

Cardboard, only 34 minutes.

- Oh yeah.

- Half hour.

For the cardboard.

Now let's compare that to the control group.

That's the one that has no mulch.

- Oh boy.

- Five hundred and sixty-five minutes.

And we haven't even weeded it for the last month.

- Wow.

- That is nine and a half hours for a nine foot by eight foot bed over the course of our 175 day growing season so far.

- Yeah.

Quick math, that's a lot.

- That's a lot.

[Chris laughs] - That's a lot.

- So what do we like- - Oh my goodness.

- Having dealt with this for 175 days, what is the best, in our opinion?

- Okay.

- Obviously, bare ground, not.

- No.

- No.

Doesn't work.

The pine straw or pine needles and the shredded mulch or yeah, shredded mulch, it worked pretty good.

As we got through the year, it started to decompose and they got thinner.

Maybe next time, if we were to use that, we'd do a thicker layer.

- Right, and replenish it maybe.

- And replenish it.

Right.

- Yeah, yeah.

- But and the black plastic and the landscape fabric, it worked well.

If you were doing just a spring crop, I'd say use it because it warms up the ground really fast, but then it warms up the ground really hot in the summer.

And we probably saw some decreased production because of that.

- Yeah.

I would agree with that.

Yeah.

- So our number one mulch is cardboard.

- I know what it is.

Cardboard.

- And you said that you have a lot of master gardeners that swear by cardboard.

- Love cardboard.

- Yeah.

- They do.

- It's great.

And the best part about this is like the plastic, we're going to have to pull it up.

We're going to have to deal with it after the season's over, whether that's to throw it away, to try and reuse it next year, fold it up, things like that.

But we got to deal with it.

- Yeah.

- And we got to store it for the winter, things like that.

Cardboard, it's currently decomposing.

- Yeah.

- We can leave that down next spring when we come in to rototill, we just rototill it right into the soil and it contributes to the nutrients.

It had a nice cool soil temperature that helped plants grow.

- Yeah.

- And the microbial activity and all that stuff, so it was a much more natural mulch in how it all works.

And the rain can go through it.

Not too fast, but it does percolate through.

And so yeah, overall cardboard, we think, was the best.

- Cardboard.

Okay.

- Now the one problem with cardboard, you look at it, you know, this is fine in the vegetable garden, whatever.

If it's in your ornamental bed, if it's in your front flower bed, it doesn't look good.

- Yeah.

It's not the most attractive, no.

- But you can put down cardboard and then you can cover it with some more attractive mulch, like, you know, shredded wood or pine needles if you like that.

And you have double the protection and still no weeds.

- Which is probably what I would do and what I've seen master gardeners do.

- Yeah, right.

- So they just cover it with mulch.

- Yep.

Yeah.

- And it works.

It works.

How about that?

This is a pretty cool experiment.

What'd you think about the experiment overall?

- I thought it was interesting.

I've always wondered what mulch is the best.

And you know, these are the obvious ones.

And now, I see the pros and cons of each.

It helps me pick it.

But I can tell you next year, this garden will be totally cardboarded.

- It's going to be totally cardboarded.

- Because I don't want to weed it.

- Right.

All right, I agree.

- You know, less weeds, and so we're already, we're actually already starting to collect cardboard now.

So these happen to be big sheets we found, and you know, we're finding big boxes and stuff like that and just squirreling them away for next year so we can lay them all out.

- So if you see Peter out, he's dumpster diving for cardboard, so just leave him be, he'll be just fine.

Leave him be.

All right, Peter, thank you so much.

- Yeah.

- This was very interesting, right?

And I hope that our viewers would actually learn from this experiment and perhaps use it in their own garden.

- Yeah.

- Thank you much.

- Yeah.

- All right.

[upbeat country music] - We're having a problem with our blackberries, and it's the lawn.

Every year, the blackberries get some weedeater or herbicide damage from the lawn, so what we want to do is kill the lawn right up around them.

We're doing that, first of all, by putting down a piece of plastic so that we can solarize or in other words, heat up in a greenhouse, the grass underneath it and kill it with heat.

Now we started this when it was hot, now it's not terribly hot.

So we're also using herbicide.

And so we have applied glyphosate here.

And you can see that we've done a good job killing most of the grass.

There's still some coming up.

And so in order for a complete kill, we're going to put more glyphosate down here in a little while, and probably continue every few weeks checking to make sure that it's all dead.

Then once it's all dead, this winter, we can go ahead and put up a border and fill it with mulch and then we don't have that problem anymore.

But this is how you can kill grass in an area if you want to get rid of it.

[upbeat country music] - All right, here's our Q&A segment.

Y'all ready?

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Oh, these are some great questions.

Great questions.

Here's our first viewer email.

"Is there a way to stop locust sprouts that are popping up "after cutting down some diseased locust trees a few years ago?"

And this is Billy from Marie, West Virginia.

He says he "doesn't want to harm the flowers and grass that is now growing in that area," Dr.

Kelly.

- Mm-hmm.

Yeah, this seems to be a problem when you cut down some of these species of trees.

You know, think about mimosa.

That's a bad one.

- Oh yeah.

That's such a good example.

- Pops up everywhere.

- Yeah.

- But anyway, I have also been where he is.

We had a locust that died too and we cut it down.

Of course then, it starts popping up everywhere.

And in the beds, in the lawn, whatever, of course 'em the lawn, you just mow it down or for a few years, you know, you just deplete, you know, whatever resources it has and eventually dies.

But if it's in your flower beds or in shrub beds, then it's a totally different thing.

So I have developed my own technique- - Uh-oh.

- That works really well.

- Okay.

- And I just take, and you can read about this on the internet, it's not something that's not unheard of, but I just take glyphosate.

- Ah, okay.

- And I cut it off at ground level and then I take a paintbrush and I wear gloves.

And I just take that, it's real high-potency glyphosate or either 100% right out of the jug.

I have found out works really, really well.

You're really careful and you just take your little paintbrush and you just paint the the cut place.

You need to not cut them and come back three days later and paint them- - Do it right away.

- You need to do it before that seals off, you know, the vascular system seals off where you've cut it.

You paint it, you cut, you paint.

Cut, paint.

And you keep doing that because it's going to keep springing up.

You know, you're going to think, "Well, I'm going to kill it," you know?

Because glyphosate is systemic.

So supposedly it's going to go and move around, but it is not going to kill everything all the time, especially something like this because they have pretty extensive root systems and all of these things are just going to start popping up.

So it is a job that takes probably several years to do, I hate to tell you, but you will eventually get it.

- Eventually get it.

- Yeah, I killed even a darn wisteria I got tired of fooling with.

Yeah.

I mean, it just goes crazy.

So I butchered it up and painted everywhere I cut with the glyphosate.

- Be persistent and eventually- - Yeah.

It got it.

Yeah, and you know, wisteria is horribly, you know, invasive.

- It is.

Anything you want to add to that too?

- Yeah, just cut, paint, cut, paint, cut, paint, and yeah, it's going to be a couple years.

- You'll win eventually.

- You will, just be persistent.

- Be persistent.

Something else I'd like to add to that.

You can also use triclopyr.

It's a brush killer.

- Oh yeah.

Yeah, that's true.

- Especially- - That's true.

- Especially for woody- - Exactly.

- Material.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, for sure.

- I've mixed them actually.

- It'll work.

Yeah.

- With a double dose, that was probably stupid, but it worked.

[everyone laughs] - It worked.

- Don't let it like grow up and get to be three, four feet tall before you do that.

You know, get it as soon as it comes up because every time it grows up, it's, you know, you have leaves, it's grabbing more- - It's going to develop even more roots.

- Yeah, it's grabbing more energy.

- Right, exactly.

- And putting more energy into the roots and your point is to just deplete that energy that's in the roots.

- Why is it we talk on these things about killing stuff more than we talk about growing stuff?

- That's a good question.

Those are the questions that we get, everybody.

Those are the questions that we get.

- All these people want to kill their plants.

[everyone laughs] No, I take that back.

We do get a lot- - Mr.

Billy, sir, we appreciate that, all right?

We showed you how to kill it, all right?

Thank you so much.

[everyone laughs] All right, here's the next email.

Yeah.

"A few years ago, Japanese ivy found its way into my yard.

I've tried controlling it with ivy weed killer.

It's still growing.

Any suggestions?"

And this is David.

So any suggestions for David?

- Oh, you're asking me?

- Yeah, I'm asking you.

[everyone laughs] - Okay.

Yeah, I'm the kill expert here, I'm telling you, because I have fought all kind of tenacious plants over the years.

But yeah, Japanese ivy is Boston ivy.

And if it's gotten into your yard and you don't want it there, it can become, you know, quite invasive in your gardener's mind, so it's just a matter of you being tenacious and going out there and manually pulling it up, you know, as best you can.

Cutting it back, pulling it up, trying to just root it out, and then going back to the herbicide treatment, you know, to get any sprouts you've missed because if you left anything, it's going to regrow, you know?

So it's just a matter of using the herbicides application and you can do the spray.

You need a real pretty high concentration because Boston ivy is sort of woody, so you'd need a high concentration of that to kill it.

And then just being, you know, stubborn and tenacious like it is to get rid of it eventually.

- Yeah.

Dig, dig, dig.

- Yeah.

- Produces by root fragments, - Yeah, yeah.

- Stem fragments.

- Yeah, yeah.

And it's just going to come up still.

So you can spray with the things like glyphosate and other types of herbicides.

- Yeah, yeah.

Read and follow the label.

Make sure you do that.

- Yeah, exactly.

Follow the instructions.

They're perfectly safe if you follow the instructions and don't get out there on a windy day.

- Yeah, yeah.

[Dr.

Kelly laughs] - You know?

- Yeah.

- But the ivy weed killer, I'm not sure exactly what the chemical is in that, but- - And there's a lot of different chemicals you can use, triclopyr being one- - But everything is going to have to be used repeatedly.

- Ah, it's going to be multiple applications.

- With something like this, you know, because it just roots everywhere.

- Yeah, it's going to be- - All along the vine, it's going to root, you know?

So it's hard to get rid of.

- It's not one and done.

- No, it's not one and done, for sure.

And then, yeah, this just popped in my head.

So you know, timing is critical too, when you're going to use any type of herbicide.

- That's true.

That's true.

- Right?

So yeah, I would cut it down.

I would probably wait, you know, a couple of days, right, for the ivy.

Right?

And then I would spray it.

- If you're spraying, yeah.

- If you're spraying.

And I'm talking about foliar.

- Right, right.

- If you're doing foliar spray.

- It needs to come up and have some foliage.

You know, if you're spraying, you know, doing, you know, a liquid application with a little sprayer or something, yeah, you need some green tissue there.

- Yeah, because you need that tissue.

- Yeah, exactly.

- For that to happen, so it can pull it down.

- Right, exactly.

- You know, into it's root system.

- Good point.

Yeah.

- Yeah, there you have it, Mr.

David.

Yeah, good luck.

Good luck.

All right, thank you for that question.

Here's our next viewer email.

"The corn I had growing in a raised bed "reached two feet tall and then died.

Any idea why?"

And this is Steve from Palm Beach, Florida.

He said, "the bed was screened in and received plenty of sun and water."

So Peter, it died after reaching two feet tall in a raised bed.

- Yeah.

So I think the raised bed is what's causing this problem.

- Ah, yeah.

- There's a couple of things.

So first of all, it's getting plenty of water.

Corn is a very heavy feeder, especially of nitrogen.

- Yes, it is.

- Nitrogen is very easily washed out of the soil.

So if you put nitrogen on it before, as you planted it, or even if you didn't put nitrogen on before you planted it, as that water, assuming it's well-watered, is washing through the soil, it's going to take all that nitrogen with it.

- Right.

- Corn being a grass, it needs nitrogen.

If there's no nitrogen, just like if there's no nitrogen in your lawn, it's going to shrivel up and die.

And then my other thought is, how well-watered is it?

Is it overwatered?

- Okay.

- So those are my thoughts.

- Yeah.

- What are your thoughts, Dr.

Kelly?

- Yeah, I agree.

I agree.

Lack of water, too much water, you know, one or the other, I'd say.

And then the nitrogen definitely because you know, they're high feeders, you know?

And they require a lot of water actually.

- Yeah, they do.

- You know, to grow and produce corn, so I don't know, just think about those things next time, Steve, you're out there trying to grow corn.

You know, make sure you feed it because we always learn growing up on a farm that you side dressed - Yeah.

- You know, twice on corn.

One when it was like maybe this tall, the next time like a little over your knee high, you know, because it's a heavy feeder of nitrogen.

- Yeah, those things definitely come to mind.

Another that comes to my mind is, so I'm going back to, you know, the fact that it's in a raised bed.

How deep is the bed?

Have y'all seen corn roots?

- Oh yeah.

Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- They're extensive, right?

Extensive.

You know what I mean?

- And sometimes, people will make the mistake, not saying Steve did this, but sometimes people make the mistake of putting down some kind of plastic barrier and then they build their raised bed, which to me is like a definite no-no.

- Yeah.

- You know?

You need to, unless you got nutsedge or something like that coming up, but you need to incorporate that existing soil and then build your bed up, you know, doing that, rather than putting down some kind of moisture and barrier underneath there.

- That's a good point.

- You know, I think that's not the best way to go.

- Which goes back to the roots, I mean, because the corn roots are a very extensive root system.

Yeah, and you can't get there because I mean, corn roots will pretty much sit on the top of the ground.

- They do.

Yeah.

- Yeah.

So here you have it, Mr.

Steve.

Hope that helps you out there.

Yeah, so good luck with that.

And I hope to, yeah, don't plant in single rows.

Plant in blocks.

- Oh yeah.

Yeah.

- Plant in blocks.

- Wind pollinate it.

- For pollination.

- Pollination.

Yep.

- All right, so thank you for that, Mr.

Steve.

Here's our next viewer email.

"Can sweet potatoes still produce big tubers if vines are cut back?"

And this is Inewbie on YouTube.

[Dr.

Kelly laughs] How about that?

- Why, definitely, yeah, within reason, you know?

Or was you wantin' to answer that one?

- Oh yeah, sure.

Out in our square foot garden a couple years ago, we had sweet potatoes that we planted and we let them run over the edge of the garden out into the lawn area and- - You just ran over them with a lawnmower.

- The landscapers did.

[everyone laughs] They came in and ran over them with a lawnmower and probably removed, it might be two thirds of the- - Oh wow.

- Of it, so quite a bit.

Now this was probably in August, I'd say, it happened.

And when we got done, we harvested big sweet potatoes.

Like these things were massive, so I don't know if- - What does that tell you?

- I don't know if the running over by the lawnmower maybe made the plant scared and it put a whole bunch of nutrients into the tubers- - May have.

- I don't know.

That could have been it, but yes.

As long as you don't cut them back too far.

- Yeah.

Actually- - You can do that, yeah.

- Peter, there's been research, actual research that they have found out that cutting those vines back by no more than 25%.

You know, when you get much beyond that, you know, you might could do a little damage, but apparently, it didn't bother y'all.

[Chris and Peter laughing] But it said that what that does is put more energy into forming roots, so the roots then can produce more leaves, you know?

So pruning them is a good thing to do.

- That's a good thing.

- Within, you know, within a reason of like 25% or less.

- Yeah, so light pruning.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Would be good.

And actually- - It encourages root growth.

And you know, sweet potatoes are roots.

- They are roots.

You're right.

That's for sure.

So there you go.

- Good idea.

- Yeah, good idea, huh?

Hope that helps you out, right?

Get 'em good and sweet.

Get 'em good and sweet.

Thank you for that question.

We appreciate that.

So Peter, Dr.

Kelly, it's fun as always.

- Oh yeah.

- Fun as always.

Thank y'all much.

- Good stuff.

I like all these questions.

- Yeah, these are good.

- Interesting things.

- Remember, we love to hear from you.

Send us an email or letter.

The email address is questions@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 watching.

To see how we lay down the mulches or planted vegetables and flowers in them this past spring, head on over to familyplotgarden.com.

We have several videos showing you what we did.

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

Be safe.

[upbeat country music] [acoustic guitar chords]