Dixondale Farms has the onion answers!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning, everybody. Welcome. I'm Ron Wilson and you are
in the garden here on news radio six ' ten
WTVN eight two to one WTV in eight hundred and
six to ten WTV and talking about gardening. Boy, the
weather's you know, we had some warm ups there and
we're gonna cool down for a little bit. Back up again. Hey,
that's February. And you know who was right on Groundhog Day?

(00:22):
Who knows it? This stage, it looks like the ups
and downs. Ron rothis. We had him on last week
making his predictions. He said he thought early spring, but
we would see some ups and downs in the cooler
tempts and he's exactly right so far. Kicking off our
show today, you know, have you ever grown onions in
your garden? Have you wanted to grow onions in your garden?

(00:43):
Have you tried growing onions in your garden but you
just haven't been successful? Well, I get the man with
the onion answers. You hear me talk about him all
the time, Dixondale Farms. They're out in Texas. In Texas,
they're one of the largest producers of onion plants, shipping
all around the United States. Uh, just a phenomenal what

(01:04):
they do. It's we have them on every late winter
early spring to talk about growing onions. And he's with
us this morning. He is the president of Dixon Dale Farms.
Welcome back, Bruce Fraser.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Good morning, Good morning, ron, Good to be with you.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
Good to be with you as well as always fun
having you on because I know when you're on the show,
spring is right around the corner for us.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Well, onions one of the first things you can get
in your gardens. So it's uh sort of nice for
people to anticipate and get excited over, you know, the
product we supply.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
Yeah, well, everybody's always chomping at the bit wanting to
get out there and plant, and you know, you start looking, okay,
what can I plan it? Pretty early? That's pretty full
proof as far as as weather and and and temperature wise,
how low I mean we're in the Columbus area, central Ohio.
How low of temperatures can newly planted onions take.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
You know, I say that, you know, once the roots
get established and it's got to get down into the
load teams to kill them. But if you just cover
them up, you know, it probably will protect them down
the single digits.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
So single digits probably do a little protection and usually
if that happens here that late in the season, it's
just a day or two that it's in. Take them
back out and you should be good to go. But
single digits, well, that's that they are tough, has no
doubt about it. Talking with again, Bruce Frasier, it's Dixon
Dale Farms. You've heard me talked about it before. Website
is absolutely outstanding. Be sure and check that out. Sign

(02:29):
up for their onion patch, their newsletter, h and again
get their catalog because the information in the catalog, whether
you grow onions or you don't grow onions, you learn
a lot about the different onions that are available out
there and what they do grow. And it's just an
interesting read as well. So you know you grow a
lot of onions. This I remember you telling me this

(02:52):
last year. But the number of onion plants you grow,
obviously onion plants from seed, dig them up, bundle them
up and ship them out for folks to plant in
their gardens. How many onion plants do you guys grow?
Every year?

Speaker 2 (03:05):
We grow about nine hundred.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
Million, nine hundred million onion plants. How do you plant?

Speaker 2 (03:14):
We heard about six million plants a day.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
On How do you plant nine hundred and ninety million
onion seeds? I mean there's little seeds.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
You know, there's about one hundred thousand onion seeds in
a pound, and we plan about thirty pounds of seed
to the acre, so they're pretty thick and looks like
blades and you know, of grass. And we start planning
in September and we keep planning until December about once
a week, maybe twenty thirty acres, and we just keep

(03:52):
moving into new fields all the time to throughout the season.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
And of course you grow multiple varieties of onion, so
within those fields, you're also growing multiple varieties, so you're
switching the seed out all the time. How the heck
you keep up with that?

Speaker 2 (04:08):
Well, after you've been one hundred and twelve years.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
Have you been there all one hundred and twelve years?

Speaker 2 (04:17):
No, I'd say I've been farming. I came and after
I got out of the army in nineteen eighty two,
came into my wife's family business. So what's that forty
three years I say I've been I've been farming forty
three years. I've been farming one year at a time,
forty three times.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
I love it talking with Bruce Fraser from Dixondale Farms
there in the Texas, Southern Texas, by the way, go
ahead and tease us. You know we're talking freezing temperatures
here today in Columbus. How warm is it in your
backyard this morning?

Speaker 2 (04:49):
I think we're going get to ninety three today?

Speaker 1 (04:52):
Ninety three today, and this is that's a winter, late
winter temperature. What the heck do you guys get in
the summertime?

Speaker 2 (05:00):
One hundred and twenty. We're desert, you know, we're about
we're in south about one hundred and twenty miles southwest
of San Antonio. Would ride along the riar ground Arratos
to our south and Eagle Past to the west, and
so you know it's uh, it's still in ninety five

(05:23):
or so at ten o'clock.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
And I were you were you raised in that area?

Speaker 2 (05:28):
I grew up in San Antonio. Okay, I was fortunateough
to meet my wife at I called it a beer joint.
She called it the dance hall. But we've been together
for forty five years.

Speaker 1 (05:42):
Well, the dance hall sounds a lot better than the
beer joint.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 1 (05:46):
And I have to. I have to question you because
you know you're farming, and you've been doing this for
so long and for folks that don't know. And I
always love bringing this up. Of course, you're a former
champion bull rider. Did you live on a farm when
you were riding bulls?

Speaker 2 (06:01):
No? I grew up in San Antonio, in the city,
and you know, we didn't we didn't have enough acreage
or you know, lived riding regular house, so you couldn't
have a horse or anything. So the good thing about
bull riding is when you take off to rodeo, you
can put five or six guys with rigging bags and
jump in the car and you don't have all the

(06:24):
overhead expensive heaving the animals for.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
Right, So you got into that at a pretty early age.
I am assuming, and uh and and how long did you?
I mean, I know what that has done to doe
with onions, but how long did were your bull rider?

Speaker 2 (06:38):
You know, once I got married, we started having kids,
and you know, late seventies, I said, that's you know,
I got to make a living and get you know,
you're going to get hurt. So I decided to hang
up the spurs.

Speaker 1 (06:56):
Hung up the spurs and decided to raise onions, and
I bet the in laws were happy that you hung
up the spurs. They were, I'll bet talking with Bruce
Fraser again. The Yeah, it's Dixondale Farms. You hear me
talking about them all the time. Go to their website
at Dixondale Farms dot com. I think a lot of
folks don't realize when you're talking about growing onions that

(07:17):
and of course you grow all of these different selections.
There are different onions depending on what zones you live
in where you are Southern region, Midwest region, Northern region.

Speaker 2 (07:28):
Well, once you think about the science of growing onions,
onions grow the tops and you know we're looking for
each leaf as a ring. So the perfect onion has
thirteen length rings or thirteen leaves, so they grow the
top and then at a certain time based on dat
length towers, they transfer the carbohydrates from the leaves to

(07:51):
the rings. So the onions are generally categorized in three
short day, intermediate day, and long day. So short day
variety is the ones grown in the South because they
only take ten to twelve hours the day length before
they start bolding. Intermediates take twelve to fourteen hours in
long days take fourteen to sixteen So generally speaking, you know,

(08:14):
intermediates can be grown almost anywhere. But if you have
a short day onion in the North, they're going to
start bulging before they have a chance to grow many
more leaves, so you're not going to produce a very
large onion. Conversely, if you plan a long day onions
in the deep South, they're never going to have enough
day length hours to trigger the bulging process. So all

(08:36):
you can do is grow top and top and never bulb.

Speaker 1 (08:39):
Now can I grow all of these, whether they're short day,
long day whatever, I could grow them all as a
green onion if I wanted to, righte absolutely, Do they
taste different as a green onion.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
Well, you know, I mean they're going to They probably
won't be quite as sweet as a bowl onion is
because the fact that what makes an onion sweet is
how much water is in it. What makes an onion
rot is how much water is in So when the
bigger onion, you can fill up at sales structure the

(09:14):
rings with water, which will make a sweeter onion.

Speaker 1 (09:17):
So you got to gotta find that happy balance. Talking
with Bruce Frasier again, it's Dixondale Farms. Go to website
Dixondale Farms dot com. UH. Talking about growing onions. UH,
and of course you've got to get the right onion
for the where you live. And of course Central Ohio
we're in that. We can do that. We can do
the long day and the and the uh intermediate day

(09:40):
as well varieties for and be very fairly successful. I
think that you know, over the years that you've been
doing this, are you seeing more and more people having
great success growing onions in containers?

Speaker 2 (09:51):
Yeah. You know, during COVID it was we had like
an eighty four percent increase a number of people u
and sales. It was incredible. And now I think a
lot of people are growing vegetables or onions specifically because
of inflation, the cost of you know, going to the

(10:12):
grocery store. You walk down with two bags here over
one hundred bucks. So it's an economical way and there's
nothing like a fresh onion compared to go to the
grocery store and buying one especially, you know, I mean,
plus you find that it's family time to go out
and garden and take care of things. You're going to

(10:32):
get rewarded for your efforts.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
Oh yeah, no doubt about it. Talking with Bruce Fraser.
Let's take a quick break, we come back. We'll ask
mister Fraser to give us some key points on you know,
how how can we be the most successful at growing
onions in central Ohio? What tips that you might have
for us? There got a couple other questions for him
as well. Here on news radio six to ten WTVN.

(10:57):
We're growing onions. That's why we're doing growing onions with
Bruce Frasier. He is the president of Dixondale Farms. You're
celebrating one hundred and twelve years of growing onion plants.
Can you believe that?

Speaker 3 (11:08):
So?

Speaker 1 (11:09):
What's your secret when it comes to slice and onions?
To keep you from crying?

Speaker 2 (11:14):
Just eat them? I mean onions. To me, they smell
like money, So I don't mind it.

Speaker 1 (11:20):
Well, I get it totally. Hey, So, ok, so we're
talking about growing onions. Do you find that you know,
when you're talking to folks about grown onions in their garden?
Do you find it better easier if we just designate
a specific area in the garden to grow onions so
we can do something special there or does it really matter?

Speaker 2 (11:42):
Well, if you know, you like the well drained spot
with the full sun if possible. But you know, one
of the things you should do is rotate your onions around,
not put them in the same place in your garden.
So they there's a fungal disease called the pink roy
that if you place the onions that the soil can
become contaminated with it. So just rotated around. Don't plant

(12:05):
onions in the same spot for more than two years
at a time.

Speaker 1 (12:09):
Okay, yeah, so I so, and I never and then
I see that's one of the crops in the I
never even thought about that. But so you you do
suggest rotating onions maybe every two years, yes, sir, all right,
so all right. So I walk up my local garden
center here in another two or three weeks, and uh,
I see three things there. They have to do with onions.
I see a pack of seeds. I see these onion

(12:31):
sets or bulbs that are in a mesh bag or
sometimes bulk, and I'm buying them by the pound. And
then I see these onion plants that are in bunches
like what you guys are growing and shipping out to
the garden centers. So what's the difference between all three
of those, I mean, can in its springtime? Can I
plan them all this time of the year.

Speaker 2 (12:50):
Basically you can plan all three at the same time.
Once you know temperature form of you know, seed is
you're gonna have to worry about them. Germ and cluss.
The fact you can plant seed about the same time
that you can plant transplants. Our transplants are going to
have four leaves, they're going to have a head start

(13:10):
towards that thirteen leaf gold and so generally transplants are
guaranteed to produce the larger bulbs and from seed that
or last year's onions that were harvested in July and August,
stored and then sent out. So they're very long because

(13:32):
there had been stores. They're very hot, long day varieties,
and they're good for producing green onions because they have
such a large bulb. They'll germinate and grow pretty quickly
with the head start. And then of course transplants you
know the amount of varieties. You know, we have sweet onions,
storage onions, we have leaks, we have shallots, we have

(13:56):
sort of old torpedo shaped onions. Little Cipolini border town
of Cipollinis which were great for growing that you can
slide on a score skewer when you're barbecuing. So we
have a large selection of course red watch and yellows
anything you want.

Speaker 1 (14:17):
Sure. Yeah, as a matter of fact, the unique varieties
at the end of your catalog, I was looking at
both of those. The red Torpedo almost looks like a shallotte.

Speaker 2 (14:27):
Yeah, it's just it's sort of you know, it's we
get that seed from Italy and both that's that and
the border town of Sipoline a very tropia. It's also
called the Red Tropia, which is a portion of Italy.

Speaker 1 (14:42):
And let me guess you have to fly over there
and bring those back personally.

Speaker 2 (14:46):
Well, I have to mate, you know. It's one good
thing about we get a lot of seed from Australia,
a lot of seed from Italy. So I always incorporated
vacation with the business.

Speaker 1 (15:00):
Talk about Bruce Frasier. He is the president of Dixondale Farms.
Their website is Dixondale Farms dot com. And I want
to go back to something real quick and then if
you could share three or four key key elements for
being successful with growing onions, especially in our area here
in the central Ohio. But you brought up the thirteen
leafed onion as being the perfect onion. Now you guys

(15:22):
also grow onions in addition to the onion plants. How
many thirteen leafed onions does Dixondale farms come up with?

Speaker 2 (15:31):
Not many?

Speaker 1 (15:32):
Okay, very unusual.

Speaker 2 (15:33):
I mean that's like everything has the falling place. But
you know, I think you know, a fifty pound bag
of onions, the fewest we try to pick out the
biggest onions sometimes, see, I mean we're.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
Go in the bag.

Speaker 2 (15:47):
And historically the fewest we ever were able to put
in a fifty pound bag was thirteen. So that was
a four pound onion. So it is about a six
inch you know diameter onion those.

Speaker 1 (15:59):
Well, and for ever every lead that's a ring in
the onion, that's correct. Yeah, unbelievable. All right. So if
I'm looking out of my garden, I've got you stand
next to me. Give me. Give me your top three
or four keys to being successful growing onions in my garden.
All right.

Speaker 2 (16:15):
Variety selection, make sure you pick the right variety. Try
to pick the right location, well drained soil. Third thing
is fertilization. You need to put down a balance fertilized
fertilizer like a ten to twenty ten which we offer,
but a balance further. The phosphorus and the potassium are
needed for root development. And then after about two or

(16:36):
three weeks, the onion just needs to grow forliage. Nitrogen
is what grows forliage. So you feed them with nitrogen
about every two weeks. Water that in water about maybe
two or three inches a week. Don't over water and
just wait till the onion grows at the top. And
when the day of eight hours are met, they'll transfer

(16:59):
the carbohydrates from the leaves to the rings and the
neck will no longer support the weight of the leaves
and they'll fall over. That's the time for you to harvest.
You know. By the way, Ronald, if you place your
order online with those, you're going to get a series
of seven emails during the growing season which will tell
you it comes about every two weeks, and it'll tell

(17:23):
you what stage your onions are in and what you
should be doing to look for to get a successful crown.

Speaker 1 (17:31):
Oh that's perfect, So that you walk everybody through it.
Plus of course your catalog and you got your planning guides,
and then you get the emails on top of it.
How could you go wrong if as long as I
follow your direction. So there you go. If you are
interested in it, go to the website. It's Dixondale Farms
dot com. Like I said, get the catalog, get the
grow guide, order the onions and you'll walk you right through.

(17:54):
And who knows if you come up with a thirteen
leaved onion, obviously, mister Fraser, they need to take a
picture of it and send it to you. Any special
prizes like a trip out to Dixondale Farms, you.

Speaker 2 (18:07):
Know, I guess our biggest prize is the fact that
you get your picture in the catalog. And I believe it.
Oh people, And we'll send you some copies to show
your friends. But you know, our catalog is full of
just pictures from our customers and from this past year's crop.
They just show it, and you know the thing about it,

(18:29):
we want people to you know, we're not. Our key
to our success is for people to have success. So sure,
besides the online information that's available, we have the greatest
group of people in our customer service that double unions
and if you ever get stumped, they will gladly pass
you on to me, and you talk to the on
your man.

Speaker 1 (18:49):
And sale, and trust me, he will get back to
you because I've done that myself and he responds well.
And I love one of the pictures that are in
your catalog because you got a second and third grade
class that are enjoying growing there and harvesting their onions.
And that's getting those kids involved with gardening as well.
And you can't beat that.

Speaker 2 (19:05):
You can't beat that. That's the future.

Speaker 1 (19:08):
Bruce Fraser. Always fun having you on the show. I
know you're recovering from a little bit of hip surgery,
so good luck with that, and we appreciate your time
and you guys do a great job. Again it's Dixondale
Farms dot Com. Thank you, sir.

Speaker 2 (19:22):
Congratulations to your football team you took.

Speaker 1 (19:27):
Yeah, well it was fun. I'll tell you what. But
I'll tell you what. Texas is looking pretty tough. Uh.
They'll be right in there again next year, exactly, exactly.
Take care, sir.

Speaker 2 (19:38):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (19:39):
All right, Bruce Fraser again Dixondale Farms dot Com. I
wasn't gonna bring up the football game, but there you go.
All right, quick break, we come back. Phone lines are
open for you. No more guests. Today, it's you and
me talking Yardening eight two to one WTVN eight hundred
and six to ten WTVN. Here on news Radio six
' ten WTVN. Jealous. I don't like ninety one degrees.

(20:06):
I'll take the cooler temperatures. When it gets ninety degrees,
it's a little bit too much for me. And anyway,
always fund having Bruce Fraser on our show. And he
was pretty well known as a bull rider way back
in his time. That wasn't that long ago, but back
in his time he was. So I've shared a few
stories with him on the bull riding and he's got
a bunch of them. He'd be the kind of guy

(20:26):
who likes sit down with sometime and have a little
bourbon or whatever, a couple of beers and let him
just tell some bull riding stories, all his cowboy stories.
But anyway, appreciate him having them on. He knows his onions.
He's learned it from planting them all. You know, the
Harvey you know, he's been in it, and it's always
fun having him on. In their website and he'll they
do they walk you through the whole thing. So even

(20:48):
if you you know what even if you didn't buy
the onions from them, and you get him your guarden
center and you still can't figure out how to get
things done and we're not helping you out or whatever.
They're always available, just the nicest people in the world
to help you. Hey, by the way, got some great
news found out last week that we are going to
the Central Ohio Home and Garden Show starts on the fifteenth, right,

(21:11):
that would be next Saturday. Well, guess what we are
going to be there and looking forward to it. We're
going to be there. We're going to be in the
Columbus Trees Booth. I think it's Booth twenty six nineteen.
It's over in the garden area. It's on the that
would be the south east side of the gardens. But
we'll be in the Columbus Trees Booth. Their website is

(21:34):
Columbustrees dot com. That is next Saturday from ten until
noon doing our show. So if you happen to be
out and about and you go to the Central Iawhoma
Gardens show, stop in and say hello again. We'll be
at the Columbus Trees Booth. I'll mention this again before
the end of the show in the booth numbers twenty
six nineteen and it's over with the gardens, so stop

(21:57):
in and say hi, we're going to be there. It's fun.
It's a fun kickoff for the spring season when you
get to go. We did get to do our show.
We haven't been there for the last couple of years,
but a lot of fun thing to fun to do
to kick off the spring season. Because after the Home
and Garden Show, we're there. You know, we got you know,
we've got two more weeks. We're into the first of
March and it all breaks loops. As a matter of fact,

(22:20):
just this past week, having the little bit of warm
up that we've had a little bit of sunshine out there,
getting the snow to go away, even though it's cooling
back down, you know, a little bit of freezing rain.
All that kind of stuff out there. Email questions and
things like that basically double this week, so you can
tell folks are chopping at the bit ready to get

(22:40):
out there and start doing some new yardening and gardening
and landscaping and whatever it may be. But a lot
of great questions already starting to come in. And that's all.
It takes a little bit of sunshine coming out of
the winter time and the folks are ready to go,
which is great. Love loved seeing it, love hearing it,
Love seeing the questions. I love seeing people getting interested

(23:01):
in going. I do want to mention though, this is
the way this works every spring, is that many times,
you know, things start to break rk right now and
you get a chance to get outside. Or maybe you've
been inside all winter and you be looking out that
window and you're looking across the lawn. You say, man,
I wish I didn't look into that house's backyard, or

(23:22):
I wish that neighbor would pull the curtains down. Man
I wish I could screen that off a little more.
I'd like a little more privacy in my backyard. Or
maybe the curb appeal to your home just isn't what
it used to be. You know, landscapes after twenty years
or so sometimes need to be freshened up a little bit.
Maybe you've decided you want to reduce the lawn area

(23:42):
and make some of those landscape beds a little bit
bigger and plant more native plants and native selections and
pollinator plants and things like that. Well, if you're interested
in having someone do that for you maybe professional landscape
design and installation. I'm telling you you better get your
name in the pot now because they're going to start
getting busy quickly. When I see a change in just

(24:06):
emails alone this past week, you know, people are ready
to go, and so they'll get on it. They'll get
these folks and they'll get their name in the pot
and get lined up and ready to go. When the
weather breaks and you know, you wait for another month
or so and then you decide, yeah, maybe we should
do that, and you start calling your favorite landscape firm
or whatever, and guess what, they're already booked up through June,

(24:28):
and maybe we can get out to see you in July,
or we'll do a fall planting for you. So don't
mess around. If you think you may need to get
some professional design and landscape, now is the time to
get in touch with them, get them out to your house.
You know, at the Home of Garden Show, there's many
landscape companies that are represented represented there. That's a good

(24:49):
place to go and just meet them, just see what
they do. You know, a lot of times you get
a designer, not a lot of times. I'll be back up,
that's not true. Sometimes you can get a design, whether
it be a landscape designer or interior designer or someone
come out of your house to give you some advice
and you just don't get along. Your personalities don't quick.

(25:10):
They're not not hearing what you're trying to tell them,
and that does happen sometimes even with landscape designers. What
can I say, but you know, if that's the case,
you know this is a situation where you can meet
these folks and talk with them one on one at
the Home and Garden Show. So another good reason, one
of the many good reasons why you should go the

(25:31):
Home and Garden Show. And well, you walk in, I
can't wait. You walk in, Smell that mault, Smell those hyacinths,
Smell those daffodils, Smell garden in the air you had
no spring is right around the corner. But get your
name in the pot if you're interested in having professional
landscape design and installation now, because it's going to get

(25:52):
busy real quick, and you're going to be out and
you know on the waiting list and not on the
list to be ready to go and have your things planted.
And the same thing with the whatever plans you're going
to do this spring. Have them listen out how important
are they? What can be done on rainy days, what
can be done on sunny days, or what needs to
be done on sunny days, because you know, we get

(26:13):
a duke's mix of those two. And that's one thing
bad about the springtime planning, you know early, is that, uh,
you know, get three or four days of cold, wet weather,
and then you get two days of good weather and
then back and forth and then the next thing you know,
it's like Bruce said, it's tiny degrees outside. So get
your plans in place. Now is the time to do that.
All right, quick break, we come back. We've got phone

(26:34):
lines open for you at eight two to one WTVN,
eight hundred and six to ten WTVN. You are talking
to your rdening here on this radio six y ten WTVN. Yeah,
we're talking. You are ning and listeners to some great
bumper music as well here on news radio six y
ten WTVN. This is because ogres have layers like onions,

(26:56):
and made me think of this song. Ogres have layers
like onions, like onions. That's right, And it made you
think of that song Shrek. I like it. I get it,
you know my Shrek Christmas, Shrek Shrek Christmas or whatever
that is. I still think it's one of the best Christmas.
It's a thirty minute thing. You ever seen that one?
Not seeing that one? No, the donkeys in it and

(27:18):
everybody's in it. It's and it's a Shrek Christmas.

Speaker 3 (27:21):
I think you have a donkey in it.

Speaker 1 (27:23):
Well, yeah, it's one of the best ones. And it's
a thirty minute one.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
I'm not a Shrek fan, but I'm not either that
song because of the onions.

Speaker 1 (27:30):
Well there you go. All I thought, baby, because you
saw a picture of me? No, okay, thank you? Uh
talking You're hard to get a two to one WTV.
And had a great couple of great emails this week.
I had a lot of great emails this week, but
I had to kind of chuckle. I had a Pete
sent me a picture of a he saw this at
a neighbor's yard, stopped and took a picture, and it's

(27:53):
a sign hung up on the fence. It says, let
your garden sleep in. Wait to tidy up your garden
for spring until we have a week of temperatures in
the fifties and then at that time this year's pollinators
or right now, this year's pollinators are still sleeping in
your plant stems and leaves until that point. And he said,

(28:14):
is this for real or is this just somebody putting
the sign up? And I said, no, you know, it's
the it's one of the It really is one of
those gardening trends that becoming more and more popular to help,
you know, again, increasing the habitat for wildlife in your
in your gardens instead of going in. And I have

(28:35):
to admit I am one for going in in the
late fall and cleaning all this stuff up. I leave
things that have seat heads on them or whatever, but
cleaning it all up and cleaning it out for the
winter and getting off to clean start in the spring.
And you know, now research and all looking at that saying,
you know what, there's a lot of you know, beneficial
insects that over winter in the hollow tubes of some

(28:55):
of those perennial stems, you know, and some of the
things that you would cut back and get rid of
the late fall, they're there. Leaves the same way. You know,
we talked about that in the fall, about leave the leaves,
be let your leaf stay there because there's a lot
of wildlife that overwinter in that leaf debris or litter
that's there's to leave it lay. The only problem I

(29:17):
have with that one is the fact that they rarely
mentioned that you don't want to do that in your grass.
You can blow them off into the landscape beds or
around the trees or whatever, but you don't leave the
leaves laying on the grass. Otherwise you won't have any
grass in the springtime. So, yes, is that for real?
It is for real? And like I say, it's a
it's a trend that's out there. They're pushing it more

(29:39):
and more. I think there's pros and cons to both ways.
Clean up a little bit maybe and leave some of
it there. Just depends on what you like and the
look in your beds. But no, it's for real. That's
that's but it's fifty degrees are more or if your
plants are starting to come to life. Obviously, if you

(29:59):
see and you're starting to green up down below, you
got to get rid of all the dead foolish and
it's time to move on. And you can also clip
that stuff up if you wanted to kind of pile
it up off to the side. And then if there's
things that are still in there that need to hatch
out or come whatever. They can still do that as
you're cleaning up in late winter and early spring too,
so there's ways to work around it. But I thought

(30:19):
it was funny because we thought it was just a
kind of a comical sign. Is it. It was like,
is this for real? Yes, yes it is, Sherry, good morning,
Good morning.

Speaker 3 (30:31):
How are you?

Speaker 1 (30:32):
I am great in yourself.

Speaker 3 (30:35):
Not too bad, thanks for asking.

Speaker 1 (30:37):
Good.

Speaker 3 (30:37):
So in twenty twenty two, I had bought an above
ground pool. That end of the summer, we took it
down during the water took it down. Of course, I
have this big crop circle in my backyard right so
taking the next year, we're going to go ahead and
put it back up, which ended up having a bunch
of holes in it because my date threw it. But whatever, anyways,
through that out. So in twenty twenty three we fild

(31:00):
that area, tiled it all up because there was nothing
but a bunch of weeds there, and we laid down
new grass in the in the fall and it s
hard to come up. It was fine, everything was great.
Well this past summer due to the heat waves, that
whole area is dead. Like the grass has gone out
of that area and it's infested with weeds. So my

(31:23):
question to you, other than you know, tilling it up
again and putting down more seeds, would it be advantageous
for me to hire a lawn company to come in
and spray the yard with weeds because my neighbor next
door his weeds migrated into my yard underneath my fence
and into my yard anyways, So I don't want to
I don't want to have to go and spend the money,

(31:45):
like whatever seventy dollars every six weeks whatever it is
to have this taken care of. If really what I
need to do is get a tiller again and get
different graphs and just go over it all over again.
I mean, it's kind of I'm consuming, but I just
wanted to know your thoughts.

Speaker 1 (32:00):
Did you guys put sand down underneath that when you
when you put this, or did you just kind of
clear it out and put the pool on top of
the bare soil exactly, No sand.

Speaker 3 (32:11):
On top of the grass, no soil just right on
top of the grouse.

Speaker 1 (32:14):
Okay, so no sand or anything like that was added,
so you know, so what happens is you know and twofold.
One is when you till it like you did, which
is okay, you're prepping the bed, but you turn up
a lot of weed seeds that have been laying their
dormant for a long time and just waiting for the
right opportunity, the right environment, and then they start to sprout.
And of course I'm assuming you seated it rather than saw.

Speaker 3 (32:35):
It right right, right right, so they're.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
There, you know, So that grass is competing with these
weed seeds that are going to just jump in there
right away. There's no competition. They take over and it's
a done deal. So the weeds went out. That's just
that's a way it works. And if that grass isn't
rooted in well enough, you get into the summer, next
thing you know, it browns out and it's done. Two
things that I would look at. One is oviously the

(33:00):
best time to do that would be in the fall,
but we're past that point now. Second thing is to
do is you could take a look at it now.
You could go out and actually take that area. Is
it bear now or all the weeds out of there?

Speaker 3 (33:12):
No, there's like sporatic weeds and little puffs of grass.
You know. Of course, the grass is dormant, but I
mean it's more weeds than it is grass. Okay, I
don't know how to thanks rating.

Speaker 1 (33:24):
You could go out there and what we want to
don't want to do at this stage is don't till
it anymore. Okay, so you've toild it and you've already
done all that. So what I could I could suggest
you do is go out there and try to remove
whatever weeds are still left growing in the area. Pull
those out, get rid of those, and sometime this and
do this this month, clear all those out, and then
take a hard rake or a leaf rake that's pretty

(33:46):
firm and go through those bear areas and just lightly
rake it to kind of rough it up a little bit,
all right, And what we're going to do is get
any debris that's laying there out of the way, all
the weeds out of the way, leave the grass that's
there there, and then go ahead and sew grass seed.
And I don't know what kind of grass you have
in the lawn, but I would look at the turf

(34:08):
type tall fescues, sew that in the in the area,
and throw some seed down into the existing lawn as
well to kind of feather it out. Into your existing
lawn sow that as needed, and what happens is now
with a freezing and thawing that works the seed into
the ground so that once the temperatures get just right,
that seed is ready to grow and get off to
a good start. Now you can use you can pre

(34:31):
emerge in herb size if you're familiar with those, stop
weed seeds from growing. So in our lawns in the springtime,
a lot of us will put pre emergent nerbosides down
to stop crab grass and other weed seeds from coming
up in the more open areas. But you cannot do
that with the grass seed or it'll stop the grass
seed from coming up. But there is a product out

(34:54):
there by made by Scott's and it's called there It's
part of their Step one program for new seeded lawns.
It's a little more expensive, but it is a pre
emergent that allows grass seed to germinate and grow it
and it stops the other weed seeds for about forty
five to sixty days and then it's done. So it's
a short time period, but it stops it from coming up.

(35:18):
Lets the grass seed get up and start growing, and
then it's done. And then at that point, if there
are weed seeds there, then they can start to grow,
but hopefully the grass is started to fill in for you.
It's also a starter fertilizer which will help get the
seed off to a better start. And you can put
that in restle on as well, and it'll be a

(35:38):
pre emergent for the rest alan And it's at a
fertilizer too, So that's one way you can do it,
all right.

Speaker 3 (35:45):
The other one are you recommending that I start seeding now?

Speaker 1 (35:48):
Yeah, dormant It's called dormant seeding. And you you actually
put it in place now so you're clean every clear
everything out. Rake it kind of rough it up. And
when we get and right now, while we're doing we're
gonna we're gonna see days in the upper thirties and
lower forties, nighttime down in the twenties. That freezing and
thawing is perfect to set you up for that. I'll
tell you what. We've got to take a break. Keep listening.

(36:10):
We come back from the top of the hour. I'll
continue to explain to you what you should do. So
just keep listening to the show. Listening on news radio
six ' ten WTVN