Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning, everybody, Welcome back. I'm Ron Wilson, and you
are in the garden here on news radio six '
ten WTV and talking about yard And I'll tell you
several years ago, we were at the Columbus Home and
Garden Show, and before we came on the air, I
was walking around looking at some of the boots and
the gardens and all of that, trying to get a
feel for what was going on. And of course we
(00:20):
always like to have guests come over from some of
the boots and talk about what they're selling, are the
products that they have or whatever. And I met a
young lady at that time who was trying to get
the word out about native bees, I think more specifically
orchard or mason bees through the use of bee houses
and the b tubes and all of that. And she
(00:42):
had a boot there talking about the houses you can
buy them and trying to spread the word about how
important the native bees were in our environment as far
as pollinators, and of course they've been here for well
forever basically, And so I had to come on and
talked about this company that she was starting and her
(01:03):
interest in getting the more folks involved with this and
learning more about it. Since then, she has just taken
this whole thing to all new levels. As a matter
of fact, she gives a lot of classes, lectures, teaches,
works with the kids and the parents, research and all
to get the awareness out there about these native bees
(01:25):
and the bee houses and how we can increase their populations.
But it's taken out a step further and has developed
and this has just been released a new blend for
a wildflower mix that took a lot of research and
could be one of the best blends that we've ever
seen out there when it comes to planting for pollinators.
(01:49):
And to tell us more about all of this with
us this morning, she's back. Is just Tina Block. Her
website osmia and it's a osma osmiab ee and it's
beee dot com.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Uh just Tina Block, good morning.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Good morning, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Hey, good to have you on.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
It's been a long time since the the first time
at the Columbus Home and Garden Show, but look at
what you have done since then.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Oh, it's been exciting. We're very excited about our uh
our seed mix and I'd love to share it with
you in your audience.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Well let me let me start out first of all,
talking about of course you're we're talking about native bees here,
not the honey bees. We're talking about the native bees
and more specifically, I think you you look at how
we can raise the orchard or mason bee and the
leafcutter bees, and of course with the bee houses and
all when you first started with us with the bee houses,
has that technology changed any since then?
Speaker 3 (02:46):
It has not. Basically, uh, you know, they're cavity nesters,
so I use a read that they would nest in.
They can't create a nest of their own, so they
just use existing cavities. You know most of the time
left behind, uh, cavities left behind other insects have vacated,
so they'll use that. So it's a great way to
(03:09):
you know, provide nstine sites for your solitary bees that
are in your yard.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
And so when when folks and and of course these
are out there, and of course go to her website
you'll see you know what she Hasard's again, the Osmia
bee is O s M I A b ee dot
com and you can see what what she's talking about here.
As far as the bee houses if you haven't seen
them before, and a lot of garden centers and all
happened too, but she has some really nice ones. But
check it out. So when if somebody is interested in
(03:38):
doing that. By the way, you know, I always get
the question where do I hang this thing? And what
what exactly am I looking.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
To do with it?
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Well, you're providing a home for solitary bees a lot
of homes. As you know, our yards are so clean,
we don't leave that behind debris, and and we clean
our gardens up in the in the fall. We should
really leave them winter and you know, clean up your
garden in the spring. So you're leaving habitat for insects
(04:07):
to lay their eggs and for bees to use hollow
stems in your garden. So by providing one of our
bee houses, they come with fried mighty reeds. We don't
we don't. We only use fragmity reeds. We don't use
cardboard for reasons that parasites can penetrate cardboard and they
can't the frag mighties. So it's a sixth entrees where
(04:30):
the bees will once they emerge, start forging, collecting nectar
and pollen, and once she has enough nectar and pollen,
she will lay an egg and seal it off with
mud that she's collected in your yard, and she'll continue
that process and leave in her six week life cycle
anywhere from eighteen to twenty four new bees for your
(04:52):
next season.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
And so when we're hanging these up, I mean, is
there a specific thing? I mean, is there like the sun,
the shade? What a we're looking for?
Speaker 3 (05:01):
We want to look for morning sun. We want to
definitely place your bee house under some kind of overhang,
maybe on your garage or toolshed or your home. And
you want to install it at eye level so you
can enjoy your bees, you know, going in and out.
Our bee house also has an observation window that you
(05:22):
can observe the bees uh coming and going. And you know,
it's really great to see the bees. Once they've laid
an egg, you can see the ag you know, the
it'll hatch and the larvae will consume the pollen provisions
and you can watch the whole process. It's a lot
of fun for kids in the whole family.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Oh yeah, Justina Block is with us this morning. The
company is Osmia Bee and it's O S M I A.
I always have people email you say, how do you
spell that again? O? S m I a uh b
E dot com uh talking about those native bees, and
so you actually then we were talking about you. You
were mentioning the eggs and the and all, but you
(05:58):
actually can provide those for folks as well. So you
actually can sell. As a matter of fact, if you
buy the bee houses, you get coupons for later mailings
of the cocoons for the two types of bees native bees.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Yes, yes, so if you purchase you know, at the
house for the holidays or for you know this.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Christmas, great Christmas gift, yes.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Great, great Christmas gifts, you know, a family gift or
an individual gift. It's really great for anyone and to
get started. Because the bees are very docile. They're solitary,
so you don't have to worry. I get will I
be stung? Well, the male bees don't sting. The females
can if you were to try to squash her, but
(06:44):
she's not aggressive because she's solitary. She's not protecting a
hive like a honey bee wood. So they're very safe
for families, kids and pets. I even recommend people you
can actually hold them long as you don't try to
squash her. As the bee start to emerge. If you're
lucky enough to see that and have it in your hand,
the be will actually emerge and warm up in your
(07:05):
hand and then fly off to go right to work, which.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
I've seen you do that at with kids, having those
there and let the kids hold on to those and
actually have them do that right in their hands, which
I think is outstanding because I mean this face of
kids just are naturally scared of bees. I mean I
think they're taught to be scared of bees. And that's
one of the things that you've worked on a lot,
is making the kids more comfortable and understand what's going on,
(07:32):
and adults as well.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
You're right, no, So you know, it's been a wonderful
project working with you the zoo and the education. You know,
a lot of times I'll be at the zoo and
have a booth to explain to their visitors and they're
just amazed holding a bee for the first time, and
it really pulls them in. And then they're excited to
(07:57):
as they walk down to pass the zoo to see
all the different bees, and now they start to identify
them and point at them. You know, they're recognizing there's
more than just a honey bee.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Yeah, no doubt.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
And again if you get all of this information, go
to her website. It's absolutely outstanding. It's Osmia Bee, it's O.
S m I A b ee dot com. You can
download all this printed out. It tells you how to
get started and walks you through the entire process. But
today we want to talk about something that she's been
working on for a long long time and the results
(08:29):
is just absolutely spectacular. And I just want to say
this before we we're gonna take a break Justina, and
we're going to come back and talk about this. But
she came up with a botanical b blind. It's a
wildflower seed mix and I'm going to leave you with
this little thing. It was created by the bees. The
bees have spoken, the botanical be blind has been made,
(08:51):
and she's gonna explain to you what I'm talking about
after the break here on news Radio six y ten WTVN,
we're talking native bees here on news radio six WTVN
with our good friend Justina Block. Her company is Osmia
Bee Company. Their website is osmabee dot com. Talking about
the bee houses and how you can put those out
and helped to increase those name to bee populations in
(09:13):
your backyard. But then Justina took it a whole new level.
She's for the last two or three years been doing
a lot of research and literally the bees have spoken
because she has come up with a new botanical be
blend that was created literally by the bees. Justina tell
us how this all came about.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
Well, we applied for a Sarah Grant Sustainable Agriculture Research
and Education through the USDA. So we started with we
had to put out Mason B shelters I work with
blue orchard bee. Like you had mentioned, the shelters were.
We placed them across Thurdy locations in Ohio, and we
(09:57):
released the blue orchard bee from March and to May,
so we had several releases and from there we collected
the reeds that were filled with pollen and nectar, the
polland that they collected from the flowers, and then these
samples were sent to Penn State University their honey and
pollen diagnostic lab for DNA metro bar coding. This is
(10:21):
a useful tool for studying bee forging ecology. They removed
the pollen, they spin it all the way down where
they can identify each flower by genus. So the bees
have collected over two hundred and thirty species of flowers
and from there we with the help of some researchers
(10:42):
from the USCA B Lab and OPN. We're working with
Ohio Priirie Mister Seed Company who packages the seed for us.
We came up with a mix of annuals and perennials
of thirty two flowers that it's a well blended that
provides uh O floral resources for bees and other pollinators
(11:07):
as well from March far into like you know, November.
So it's a great mix, you know, to for backyard
an orchardue to help create food for the bees and
other pollinators. So it's a it's a great mix. We're
very proud of it.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
I was going to say, as a matter of fact,
I mean you plan, you know, you create this. I
have a bag in my hand here, and this small
bag covers two hundred and fifty square feet. I mean
that's a you know, it's a ten by twenty. That's
a nice size wildflower patch, uh to put in your
in your backyard. And you've got something here. Again, you
look at the the choices that you have made. These
are all things that some flower pretty much can flower
(11:50):
all summer long, but something in flower from the beginning
to the end, which is the point of having obviously,
uh something in bloom for the pollinators all season long.
And of course and you've got the color are and
the wild flowers and the whole nine yards. Unbelievable. How
to out of the two hundred two things, out of
the two hundred and thirty or whatever it was, the
flowers that they are pollen they brought back. Did you
(12:12):
did you pick the top thirty or so based on
you saw it more in the pollen than others or
just felt those.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Were the yeah, okay, yeah, an availability of seed. Okay,
you know that that opn had. So that's how we
came up with the seed mix. But it's it just
with a combination of perennials and annuals. And as you know,
we really recommend if you're going to grow the seeds,
that you purchase it now and plant it because perennials
(12:44):
need uh cold stratification Germany properly, so this would be
the time to plant it. And you know, with the annuals,
you'll your first year you'll have color and foraging resources
for your pollen eaters. So it's a combination of both
that we want you to be successful, and this would
be the time of year to plant it. You can
(13:06):
also planted in the spring obviously.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Yeah, that was my question. I mean, right now we're
you know, getting into the middle of the fall, but
this is actually a great time to create this type
of a bed and plant these seeds. And of course
it could be done in the spring as well. You
start dealing a lot more with weed seeds and things
like that, to why not get them done and get
them in place right now and they'll be ready to
go for you in the springtime, so you can prep
the bed. As a matter of fact, if again you've
(13:30):
got to go to the website, you get all this
great information from there and you with this whole thing,
your planting instructions make it pretty turn easy to walk
you through from the beginning to the end.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Thank you. Yes, there's some simple instructions here, you know,
for the beginning gardner to the intermediate, and then there's
a comprehensive instruction page by OPN so you have both.
You can download them them out. So it's it's a
(14:03):
we're very excited about it. We're very excited about the.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Next yours Yours is kind of like a condensed version
of the OPN version, I mean, because that thing is
like you go through that. I mean, that's very extensive
on how to do the wildflower seeds. And then you've
got yours. You've got both of them there and again
you can find both of these on her website. It's
it's I see people want to say osby osmiabe dot com.
(14:26):
I don't know why I want to do that, but
check out the website. You can download both of those
and you've got all the instructions.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
For you right there.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
No, it's great, and I just want to mention that
we're also partnering with Pollinator Partnership. They have a be
Friendly Gardening education program, so a percentage of the sales
will go to this the friendly gardening program. So it's
great for not only avid gardeners, the beginna gardeners. It's
it's a great program, you know what.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
And I look at something like this too, just tina A.
You know, if I'm a parent out there right now,
or even a grandparent, and we want to get the
kids more involved with gardening, and we want to get
the kids more involved with pollinators, and we want to
get the kids more involved with bees and of course
the native bees. And I'm not doing this because of
the Christmas season. Whether Christmas or not doesn't matter. I
(15:18):
just look at this as a project that I think
would be absolutely so much fun to do together. Because
then you know, you get the bee houses, you get
those up, you get that going, You find this area
where you want to create this wildflower pollinator, botanical bee
blend garden that we can do this fall, get it going,
and then you know, again I always use the phrase
(15:38):
dinner and a show, but that's what it boils down to,
because you know, you sit there and watch these it's
a beautiful garden, and you watch what's happening, and you're
you're not only working with the native bees, but you're
you're going to bring in all the other pollinators into
this garden. You've get this great show and the beautiful
colors and the and you know what, you're doing a
good thing at the same time, and you're teaching the
(16:01):
kids and yourself more about the bees, pollinators, mother nature,
the whole nine yards. To me, this whole thing is
just a fantastic project for parents and kids or grandparents
and grandkids to work together on well, thank you.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
We feel the same way. It's really once. I have
some great customers. They love texting me pictures, they share
their journey with us. We'd love to hear you know
how things are going. We're here to help, so feel
free to reach out to us anytime by phone or email.
You know we're here to help. And if I don't
know the answer, I know someone who does.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Like you, well, trust.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Me, if you go to her website and you have
a question about anything that you want you if you
email her, she will get back to you. Trust me
because I do the same thing and she responds right
back to me. So she's very good at doing that
as well. Again, the website, it's O s M I
A b Ee all right, So it's osmiabe dot com.
(17:00):
The company is Osmia Bee Company and she is just
Tina Block and you can find everything you ever wanted
to know about get increasing those native bees in your backyard.
And of course now this botanical bee blend is available
for you, and it's created by the bees, backed by research.
The bees have spoken, Justina has responded and here it
(17:20):
is and I think it's outstanding, and thank you. I
applaud you for everything and you get you are doing,
and I just I kind of get goosebumps sometimes just
thinking back when we first met at the Home and
Garden show and you know, seeing your booth there and
now where you're doing today, it's just it's fantastic.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Well, I appreciate you so much, Ron and what you do,
and thank.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
You all right, you appreciate you spending time with us
this morning. Just Tina Block again, it's Osmia b O
s m i abe dot com. Be sure and check
it out. And this blend I think is absolutely outstanding
and easy to do, and the instructions are all there
for you as well. And you can do the bee
houses too, and it's a great thing. And even if
you know, even if you were just looking for a
(18:04):
wildflower mix, uh, and they're available out there all the
garden centers. Have you know, some type of wildmarre flower mix.
They're they're they're good. There's no doubt, you know, I
see a bunch of them out there.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
They are genetically put together, generically put together as far
as you know, top pollinator plants. But here is a
situation which kind of boggles my mind. Can you believe this?
They actually could take the pollen that those bees brought back,
separate that out, do a DNA search in there and
and determine all the different flowers that the pollen came from.
(18:36):
That is unbelievable, crazy stuff. But anyway, it's the new
Botanical b Blend wildfire seed Mix. It's os M I
A B Company dot you're a O S A M
I A B E dot com. Check it out. Quick break,
we come back with the phone lines will be open
for you. Eight two one WTVN eight hundred and sixty
(18:57):
ten WTVN here on news radio SAWTVN talking to your
ardening here on news radio six y ten WTVN talking
about those native bees and those honey bees and the pollinators.
And you know, I love stories like that, and I
don't know if you can you can ever catch that theme,
but I you know, when we talk about new things
that come along, like this is the new be blend.
(19:18):
Last week we had on the wool a's you know,
they're talking about the soil amendments now being used. Were
the recycling sheep wool to turn into soil amendments and
all the great benefits there.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
The gentlemen.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
We had on about a month and a half ago
with the Earthlifter, the tool that he designed for folks
that have physical disabilities or you're aging, getting older, it's
kind of tough to get in there and dig until
they're taking that garden spade and redesigning it so it
doesn't take as much.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Pressure to do all of that. I love stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
I mean, you know, it's not things that are going
to take over the world and change all the gardening whatever,
but you know, great stories behind them and the great
products that came away from them as well, and I
think it's great. As a matter of fact, you know,
we had the wool that's on if you were had
a chance to listen to the show talking about how
now and this has been going on in Europe for
(20:09):
many many years taking sheep wool, and I didn't I
didn't know. But unless it's a special type of sheep,
the sheep wool in the United States really not. There's
no demand for it anymore, just the you know, regular sheep.
Some of the sheep that they that we are raised
out there has to be a specialty type of sheep.
I guess, I don't know, but anyway, they have to
be sheared, you know, once a year, and so that
(20:30):
stuff winds up getting thrown away or whatever. And come
to find out in Europe they've been taking that and
heating it, turning it into pellets. And the landline helps
in the in the in that sheep, in that wool
helps to hold that together. It looks like a rabbit
pellets like you would feed rabbits with. Is the you know,
(20:51):
with the clover, and that's what it looks like. And
you take that then and add it to your garden soil.
You add it to your container mixes, and it increases
water retention, It feeds your plants because I think it's
a nine zero two if I'm not mistaken, plus micro nutrients.
(21:14):
It increases your yield. It's a substitute, a great substitute
for pete rather than using pete. There was all kinds
of great benefits, slug repellent, and she also mentioned to
us the fact that it's showing more doing a great
job repelling deer and repelling habits where it's been used.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Well.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Then this week I'm reading a magazine called Country Folks
Grower Midwest magazine, and they talk about produce growers and
vegetable growers Christmas tree growers that type of thing, and
an article in here at the top is repelling deer
with sheep wool, and I guess there is actually a
(21:57):
product now that is being manufactured with the landland from
landlet's at landland based repellent called Trichopro that you can
actually spray on that because what they're looking at, like
Christmas tree farmers, where they get a lot of they
can get a lot of deer damage and all to
get these these repellents to last all winter long because
(22:18):
they have a tasty to break down that last all winter.
And they found out that the ones that are landland
based actually lasted all winter long and did one of
the best jobs.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Keeping the deer away.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Again, going back to these wool at pellets and talking about,
you know, the increase, and then I started doing some
more research and come to find out in Europe and
in Germany, where they have a lot of the sheep
and do a lot of the shearing, they'll actually take
the wool itself and put it around newly planted trees
(22:51):
on the trunk as a repellent because it works so
well that they use it on. There's a repellent so
again pretty interesting some of the stuff that are coming
up with the day. And this is all research based findings.
This isn't like Ohio State actually worked with the folks
at Wolets on how good these woolpellets were as a
(23:14):
soil amendment and and got the backing from that. So
it's you know, it's a combination of pretty cool stuff
that've been doing for a long time, research proving that
it does work.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
And it's great.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Well, anyway, I heard from the from the Wooletts this week.
They sent me an email and I thought it was
pretty neat we're talking about all this.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
They received the.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Twenty twenty four Wisconsin Innovative Innovation Award in the Agriculture
Department for creating the Wolets. I thought that was that
they were all excited, said mister Wilson, to make sure
you knew that we know we won this award this week.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
So there you go. Pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
And again, if you'd like to learn more about that,
it's woolets dot net is their website, Wooletts and that's
woo l l e t s net and you can
order it. Somebody asked me the other day said they
had gone on there because they wanted to try some
because I'm gonna do this in the containers next year,
no doubt, and wanted to order it. Thought it was
(24:11):
more of a wholesale and no, it's all it's retail.
You can buy their packets of small package and larger
bales in the whole nine yards. But anyway, I love
these types of things happening out there, and again they've
been proven, researched, and I just think it's fun sharing
all this with you. So it's it's pretty neat and
(24:32):
meeting Justina many many years ago at the Columbus Home
Guarden Show and what she's doing today. What a great
story there as well. All right, quick break. We can
come back on lots of tips to share with you yet,
and of course we could take a couple of calls
at eight two to one WTVN here on news radio
six to ten WTVN talking to Yard here on news
radio six ' ten WTVN and do a little singing
in the background as well. I can't sing, but it's
(24:54):
always a lot of fun. Anyway, love some good funk
here and there. I love that stuff. I got a
text from beekeeper Teresa Parker said she took a look
at that label for that botanical blend and said, wow,
outstanding blend, great flowers in there. So there you go.
I can't wait to give it a try and see
how it does. And again you find that at OSMIA O,
(25:16):
S M, I A B dot be dot com and
then take it from there. We'll all find out. We'll
compare notes as far as how well that does. But
I think it's going to be a The mix is tremendous.
We'll get that to come up, have a nice patch
and we're good to go talking about yarding. And of
course we've seen some frosts at nighttime in the forecast,
and again it's not heavy freezes.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
These are frosts. It does do it.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
I said something earlier, I don't cover anything up at
my house at this stage, I don't.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
It's done.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
I'm finished with the annuals and things like that. You know,
even the pansies that they take all of that cabbage
and kale, ornamental cabbage and kale, they just get more
colorful as it gets cooler, so the frost don't bother
those moms typically not too much either, unless they're really
open to spend. But then they're spent anyway, so I
don't cover any of the fall things up. If you
(26:07):
have tomatoes and peppers where there's still a lot on
the vine, uh, and you want to try to save
what's left on there, especially the peppers, and you're not
ready to pick them all off yet. My dad and
Joe was talking about things we learned from each other,
and this is something my dad has used to always
do because he had the place to do it. But
he would pull up plant and all. So if he
(26:28):
had a tomato with a lot of tomatoes still on it,
he would pull it out of the ground hanging up
in a barn where state protected, stayed a little bit warmer,
and they would continue to ripe and rite on the vine,
or in a garage where stayed warmer. I mean, you know,
we're not into winter yet. We're just talking dips down
of cold weather and back you know for the frost
and back up again. So just hang those up where
they would be protected and not exposed to that, and
(26:50):
they would continue to ripen on the vine. Same way
with a pepper, pull that plant up hanging upside down
from the rafters, and you know, they would just go
start to dry on the plant itself without being subjected
to the frost, so you can do that too to
try to save it. And then then let mother nature do
her thing on the annuals and thekladiums and the cannons
(27:12):
and all that start to kill that foliage back. And
then you know, let the digging and storing those bulbs
away or clean up or whatever it may be happen
after that. If you have annuals that you want to
take cuttings from, obviously you want to get that taken
care of before they would get frosted. But other than that,
I just look at it and I say, you know,
it's time for mother Nature kind of clean things up
(27:35):
for us and get ready to go into the latter
part of the fall season and the end of the
winter as well. But again, plenty of time for planting
perennials and fall annuals and trees and shrubs and things
like that as well. Oh one last thing, houseplants. Got
quite a few emails this week about houseplants. Got those
(27:55):
foliage plants out on the patio and deck, and all
of a sudden, now we're seeing these frosty possible nights.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
What do I do?
Speaker 1 (28:01):
I haven't gotten them ready to bring in the house yet.
If you haven't gone through the process of getting them
ready to come into the home, and you know, it's
good to walk through the process of spraying them off
a few times, maybe a little insecticidal soap a couple times,
try to make sure we don't have any hitchhiking insects
on the plants, moving into a shadier area for a
(28:22):
week or two, letting him start to acclimate a bit
into a lower light condition. And then of course before
we finally bring him into the house, maybe one last
spring of insecticidal soap or blowing them off with the
garden hose and then sliding it out of the pot.
Making sure you don't have any hitchhikers in the container.
You know, we laugh about that every year, but we
(28:44):
found all kinds of stuff frogs and mice and voles
and slugs and ant ants, and some people have found
a few small snakes in the bottom. You want to
make sure you do that, check it out. But if
you haven't had a chance to do all that yet,
and we're still having some pretty decent temperatures out there,
just during the night time is dropping down, you can
(29:04):
slide those they're tough. You can slide those things in
the garage and bring them back outside the next day.
Once it starts to warm up, gets into the fifties,
you're good to go again. So you can slide them in,
slide them out till you get them taking care of,
get them sprayed or whatever, and then ready to move
back inside. One thing I have always found bringing those
plants back inside to make sure you don't have any
(29:27):
hitchhikers in the soil. If you take a utility tub,
if you take a wash tub or a large bucket
or whatever, and fill that up with water, or fill
it up so that when you set the plant pot
and all down in that water, it covers over the
top of the pot, so you're completely submerging that pot
(29:48):
and soil into the water. You let it sit in
there for a couple hours, all right, that's not going
to hurt the plant. You're going to saturate the soil.
A plant doesn't care about that. Let us sit there
for a couple hours or so. That will, you know,
literally drown anything that's in that soil. They'll float to
the top of skimming off or whatever, ants, bugs, whatever
may be. Pull that back out, let it thoroughly drain,
(30:12):
uh and then you're you know, you've given it a
real good soaking, obviously, and you should pretty well take
care of the insects at that point. Once those houseplants
are inside. I keep two things on hand, well, three things,
I guess you would say. I keep insecticidal soap because
it's a it doesn't hurt anything if you get it
(30:32):
on it in the house, whereas horticulture oil could. But
insecticidal so pretty good all purpose spray kills anything pretty
much any insect that you'd get on those on contact
safety use indoors an old shower curtain, so if you
have to do any spraying, you can lay that out,
spray them, let it dry them, then you fold it up,
(30:53):
put it back. And a systemic insecticide just in case
some of these outbreaks, it's helpful to go from the
end side out and use the systemic in the soil.
Take it up by the plant will help to protect
you a little bit too. Typically, once you take those
houseplants indoors and they're in that warmer climate for you know,
(31:13):
a week or two, if you've got some insects in
there or insect eggs that made it in with the plant.
They usually will start to hatch out right away because
they love that warmer temperature. They'll just explode and start
to do their thing, and you just keep them monitoring
and watching them, and then the tree dos needed at
that point. But again, frost in the area protect those
(31:35):
some are more tender than others. Pulling them in the
garage probably was one of the best things to make
sure you're protected. I usually just bring them up underneath
the eave of the house and then set them back
out as the temperature swarm up during the day. But
again that would be up to you, so you know,
protect them. But otherwise I don't cover too many things up. Also,
if you've never planted garlic before, you get out to
your local independent garden center see if they've still have
(31:55):
some garlic left. Now's a great time to plant. Now
through the end of October great time to plant garlic.
Do it in containers. If you've got a nice wide
you know, a twenty four inch container doesn't have to
be very deep. Do some garlic in there. You'll find out.
It's so easy to do, and now's the time to
do it, and to protect it over the wintertime. You
can slide that into an unhead of garage or shed,
drop it down in a window, well, wrap it with
(32:17):
some burr lap and some leaves, but protect the pot
over the wintertime so they don't freeze. But otherwise it's
really easy to grow in the container and also as
easy to grow in your raised beds or in the
ground as well. But now is the time to get
out and plant that, so be sure and take care
of that as well. And looking at your fall containers,
(32:39):
as we've got plenty of mums and cabbage and kale
and pansies and all of that available at your local
indpendagarten centers right now. Pull out the old annuals, replace
with all of those, don't forget. We're going to do that,
and as we get into the holiday season, start looking
around the landscape for evergreen boughs that you'll be able
to cut and branches that have berries and color branches
(33:01):
and things like that. So we'll start to transition those
planters into holiday planners. Then after the holidays we'll take
the decorations out. We'll have winter planters. Winter is over,
we take all that stuff out. We start back with
the pangies and the cool season annuals and we start
all over again. Those containers can be year round planters.
(33:22):
If done properly, you can have some kind of a
program going on with those planters year round all right,
planting seasonal plants. And there's very very easy to do.
So keep that in mind as well. And one last thing. Yes,
the National Pumpkin Way Off is tomorrow at Oakland Nursery
(33:43):
in Dublin on one sixty one. It starts usually around
one thirty, but come early so you can see all
the big pumpkins. And it's a lot of fun because
you know, they work from the smallest one to the
biggest one, and they kind of can gauge, you know,
what the approximate weights are and they try to work
from the smallest to the biggest.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
It was really close last year, really close competition. It's
always kind of exciting. It's fun to meet these growers.
I will be em seeing it tomorrow. We like to
talk with the crowd and all the folks that are there,
so stop by say hello. It's always a lot of fun.
They have tents and thanks for the kids to do
and events going on. Of course, pumpkins colore. But if
(34:23):
you've never seen these giant pumpkins up close. Come to
Oakland Nursery tomorrow, the one in Dublin on one sixty one,
and see the National Pumpkin Way off there. Hopefully you
never know will we have an award winner there or
the state champion could be, could it be? The world
record holder could be as well. Thanks to our callers,
thanks to our sponsors, Thanks of course to l our producer,
(34:44):
because without Ella, none of this stuff would happen. So Ella,
thank you so much for all that you do. I'm
glad you have to have you back in town. Now
do yourself a favor. Where you gonna plant that tree
or two or three yet this fall? Keep planning those
native plants, get those pollinator bids, get your pollinator plants
planted in your wildflower mix, and by all means making
the best week of your life.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
See you
Good morning, everybody, Welcome back. I'm Ron Wilson, and you
are in the garden here on news radio six '
ten WTV and talking about yard And I'll tell you
several years ago, we were at the Columbus Home and
Garden Show, and before we came on the air, I
was walking around looking at some of the boots and
the gardens and all of that, trying to get a
feel for what was going on. And of course we
(00:20):
always like to have guests come over from some of
the boots and talk about what they're selling, are the
products that they have or whatever. And I met a
young lady at that time who was trying to get
the word out about native bees, I think more specifically
orchard or mason bees through the use of bee houses
and the b tubes and all of that. And she
(00:42):
had a boot there talking about the houses you can
buy them and trying to spread the word about how
important the native bees were in our environment as far
as pollinators, and of course they've been here for well
forever basically, And so I had to come on and
talked about this company that she was starting and her
(01:03):
interest in getting the more folks involved with this and
learning more about it. Since then, she has just taken
this whole thing to all new levels. As a matter
of fact, she gives a lot of classes, lectures, teaches,
works with the kids and the parents, research and all
to get the awareness out there about these native bees
(01:25):
and the bee houses and how we can increase their populations.
But it's taken out a step further and has developed
and this has just been released a new blend for
a wildflower mix that took a lot of research and
could be one of the best blends that we've ever
seen out there when it comes to planting for pollinators.
(01:49):
And to tell us more about all of this with
us this morning, she's back. Is just Tina Block. Her
website osmia and it's a osma osmiab ee and it's
beee dot com.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Uh just Tina Block, good morning.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Good morning, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Hey, good to have you on.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
It's been a long time since the the first time
at the Columbus Home and Garden Show, but look at
what you have done since then.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Oh, it's been exciting. We're very excited about our uh
our seed mix and I'd love to share it with
you in your audience.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Well let me let me start out first of all,
talking about of course you're we're talking about native bees here,
not the honey bees. We're talking about the native bees
and more specifically, I think you you look at how
we can raise the orchard or mason bee and the
leafcutter bees, and of course with the bee houses and
all when you first started with us with the bee houses,
has that technology changed any since then?
Speaker 3 (02:46):
It has not. Basically, uh, you know, they're cavity nesters,
so I use a read that they would nest in.
They can't create a nest of their own, so they
just use existing cavities. You know most of the time
left behind, uh, cavities left behind other insects have vacated,
so they'll use that. So it's a great way to
(03:09):
you know, provide nstine sites for your solitary bees that
are in your yard.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
And so when when folks and and of course these
are out there, and of course go to her website
you'll see you know what she Hasard's again, the Osmia
bee is O s M I A b ee dot
com and you can see what what she's talking about here.
As far as the bee houses if you haven't seen
them before, and a lot of garden centers and all
happened too, but she has some really nice ones. But
check it out. So when if somebody is interested in
(03:38):
doing that. By the way, you know, I always get
the question where do I hang this thing? And what
what exactly am I looking.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
To do with it?
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Well, you're providing a home for solitary bees a lot
of homes. As you know, our yards are so clean,
we don't leave that behind debris, and and we clean
our gardens up in the in the fall. We should
really leave them winter and you know, clean up your
garden in the spring. So you're leaving habitat for insects
(04:07):
to lay their eggs and for bees to use hollow
stems in your garden. So by providing one of our
bee houses, they come with fried mighty reeds. We don't
we don't. We only use fragmity reeds. We don't use
cardboard for reasons that parasites can penetrate cardboard and they
can't the frag mighties. So it's a sixth entrees where
(04:30):
the bees will once they emerge, start forging, collecting nectar
and pollen, and once she has enough nectar and pollen,
she will lay an egg and seal it off with
mud that she's collected in your yard, and she'll continue
that process and leave in her six week life cycle
anywhere from eighteen to twenty four new bees for your
(04:52):
next season.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
And so when we're hanging these up, I mean, is
there a specific thing? I mean, is there like the sun,
the shade? What a we're looking for?
Speaker 3 (05:01):
We want to look for morning sun. We want to
definitely place your bee house under some kind of overhang,
maybe on your garage or toolshed or your home. And
you want to install it at eye level so you
can enjoy your bees, you know, going in and out.
Our bee house also has an observation window that you
(05:22):
can observe the bees uh coming and going. And you know,
it's really great to see the bees. Once they've laid
an egg, you can see the ag you know, the
it'll hatch and the larvae will consume the pollen provisions
and you can watch the whole process. It's a lot
of fun for kids in the whole family.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Oh yeah, Justina Block is with us this morning. The
company is Osmia Bee and it's O S M I A.
I always have people email you say, how do you
spell that again? O? S m I a uh b
E dot com uh talking about those native bees, and
so you actually then we were talking about you. You
were mentioning the eggs and the and all, but you
(05:58):
actually can provide those for folks as well. So you
actually can sell. As a matter of fact, if you
buy the bee houses, you get coupons for later mailings
of the cocoons for the two types of bees native bees.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Yes, yes, so if you purchase you know, at the
house for the holidays or for you know this.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Christmas, great Christmas gift, yes.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Great, great Christmas gifts, you know, a family gift or
an individual gift. It's really great for anyone and to
get started. Because the bees are very docile. They're solitary,
so you don't have to worry. I get will I
be stung? Well, the male bees don't sting. The females
can if you were to try to squash her, but
(06:44):
she's not aggressive because she's solitary. She's not protecting a
hive like a honey bee wood. So they're very safe
for families, kids and pets. I even recommend people you
can actually hold them long as you don't try to
squash her. As the bee start to emerge. If you're
lucky enough to see that and have it in your hand,
the be will actually emerge and warm up in your
(07:05):
hand and then fly off to go right to work, which.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
I've seen you do that at with kids, having those
there and let the kids hold on to those and
actually have them do that right in their hands, which
I think is outstanding because I mean this face of
kids just are naturally scared of bees. I mean I
think they're taught to be scared of bees. And that's
one of the things that you've worked on a lot,
is making the kids more comfortable and understand what's going on,
(07:32):
and adults as well.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
You're right, no, So you know, it's been a wonderful
project working with you the zoo and the education. You know,
a lot of times I'll be at the zoo and
have a booth to explain to their visitors and they're
just amazed holding a bee for the first time, and
it really pulls them in. And then they're excited to
(07:57):
as they walk down to pass the zoo to see
all the different bees, and now they start to identify
them and point at them. You know, they're recognizing there's
more than just a honey bee.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Yeah, no doubt.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
And again if you get all of this information, go
to her website. It's absolutely outstanding. It's Osmia Bee, it's O.
S m I A b ee dot com. You can
download all this printed out. It tells you how to
get started and walks you through the entire process. But
today we want to talk about something that she's been
working on for a long long time and the results
(08:29):
is just absolutely spectacular. And I just want to say
this before we we're gonna take a break Justina, and
we're going to come back and talk about this. But
she came up with a botanical b blind. It's a
wildflower seed mix and I'm going to leave you with
this little thing. It was created by the bees. The
bees have spoken, the botanical be blind has been made,
(08:51):
and she's gonna explain to you what I'm talking about
after the break here on news Radio six y ten WTVN,
we're talking native bees here on news radio six WTVN
with our good friend Justina Block. Her company is Osmia
Bee Company. Their website is osmabee dot com. Talking about
the bee houses and how you can put those out
and helped to increase those name to bee populations in
(09:13):
your backyard. But then Justina took it a whole new level.
She's for the last two or three years been doing
a lot of research and literally the bees have spoken
because she has come up with a new botanical be
blend that was created literally by the bees. Justina tell
us how this all came about.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
Well, we applied for a Sarah Grant Sustainable Agriculture Research
and Education through the USDA. So we started with we
had to put out Mason B shelters I work with
blue orchard bee. Like you had mentioned, the shelters were.
We placed them across Thurdy locations in Ohio, and we
(09:57):
released the blue orchard bee from March and to May,
so we had several releases and from there we collected
the reeds that were filled with pollen and nectar, the
polland that they collected from the flowers, and then these
samples were sent to Penn State University their honey and
pollen diagnostic lab for DNA metro bar coding. This is
(10:21):
a useful tool for studying bee forging ecology. They removed
the pollen, they spin it all the way down where
they can identify each flower by genus. So the bees
have collected over two hundred and thirty species of flowers
and from there we with the help of some researchers
(10:42):
from the USCA B Lab and OPN. We're working with
Ohio Priirie Mister Seed Company who packages the seed for us.
We came up with a mix of annuals and perennials
of thirty two flowers that it's a well blended that
provides uh O floral resources for bees and other pollinators
(11:07):
as well from March far into like you know, November.
So it's a great mix, you know, to for backyard
an orchardue to help create food for the bees and
other pollinators. So it's a it's a great mix. We're
very proud of it.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
I was going to say, as a matter of fact,
I mean you plan, you know, you create this. I
have a bag in my hand here, and this small
bag covers two hundred and fifty square feet. I mean
that's a you know, it's a ten by twenty. That's
a nice size wildflower patch, uh to put in your
in your backyard. And you've got something here. Again, you
look at the the choices that you have made. These
are all things that some flower pretty much can flower
(11:50):
all summer long, but something in flower from the beginning
to the end, which is the point of having obviously,
uh something in bloom for the pollinators all season long.
And of course and you've got the color are and
the wild flowers and the whole nine yards. Unbelievable. How
to out of the two hundred two things, out of
the two hundred and thirty or whatever it was, the
flowers that they are pollen they brought back. Did you
(12:12):
did you pick the top thirty or so based on
you saw it more in the pollen than others or
just felt those.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Were the yeah, okay, yeah, an availability of seed. Okay,
you know that that opn had. So that's how we
came up with the seed mix. But it's it just
with a combination of perennials and annuals. And as you know,
we really recommend if you're going to grow the seeds,
that you purchase it now and plant it because perennials
(12:44):
need uh cold stratification Germany properly, so this would be
the time to plant it. And you know, with the annuals,
you'll your first year you'll have color and foraging resources
for your pollen eaters. So it's a combination of both
that we want you to be successful, and this would
be the time of year to plant it. You can
(13:06):
also planted in the spring obviously.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Yeah, that was my question. I mean, right now we're
you know, getting into the middle of the fall, but
this is actually a great time to create this type
of a bed and plant these seeds. And of course
it could be done in the spring as well. You
start dealing a lot more with weed seeds and things
like that, to why not get them done and get
them in place right now and they'll be ready to
go for you in the springtime, so you can prep
the bed. As a matter of fact, if again you've
(13:30):
got to go to the website, you get all this
great information from there and you with this whole thing,
your planting instructions make it pretty turn easy to walk
you through from the beginning to the end.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Thank you. Yes, there's some simple instructions here, you know,
for the beginning gardner to the intermediate, and then there's
a comprehensive instruction page by OPN so you have both.
You can download them them out. So it's it's a
(14:03):
we're very excited about it. We're very excited about the.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Next yours Yours is kind of like a condensed version
of the OPN version, I mean, because that thing is
like you go through that. I mean, that's very extensive
on how to do the wildflower seeds. And then you've
got yours. You've got both of them there and again
you can find both of these on her website. It's
it's I see people want to say osby osmiabe dot com.
(14:26):
I don't know why I want to do that, but
check out the website. You can download both of those
and you've got all the instructions.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
For you right there.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
No, it's great, and I just want to mention that
we're also partnering with Pollinator Partnership. They have a be
Friendly Gardening education program, so a percentage of the sales
will go to this the friendly gardening program. So it's
great for not only avid gardeners, the beginna gardeners. It's
it's a great program, you know what.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
And I look at something like this too, just tina A.
You know, if I'm a parent out there right now,
or even a grandparent, and we want to get the
kids more involved with gardening, and we want to get
the kids more involved with pollinators, and we want to
get the kids more involved with bees and of course
the native bees. And I'm not doing this because of
the Christmas season. Whether Christmas or not doesn't matter. I
(15:18):
just look at this as a project that I think
would be absolutely so much fun to do together. Because
then you know, you get the bee houses, you get
those up, you get that going, You find this area
where you want to create this wildflower pollinator, botanical bee
blend garden that we can do this fall, get it going,
and then you know, again I always use the phrase
(15:38):
dinner and a show, but that's what it boils down to,
because you know, you sit there and watch these it's
a beautiful garden, and you watch what's happening, and you're
you're not only working with the native bees, but you're
you're going to bring in all the other pollinators into
this garden. You've get this great show and the beautiful
colors and the and you know what, you're doing a
good thing at the same time, and you're teaching the
(16:01):
kids and yourself more about the bees, pollinators, mother nature,
the whole nine yards. To me, this whole thing is
just a fantastic project for parents and kids or grandparents
and grandkids to work together on well, thank you.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
We feel the same way. It's really once. I have
some great customers. They love texting me pictures, they share
their journey with us. We'd love to hear you know
how things are going. We're here to help, so feel
free to reach out to us anytime by phone or email.
You know we're here to help. And if I don't
know the answer, I know someone who does.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Like you, well, trust.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Me, if you go to her website and you have
a question about anything that you want you if you
email her, she will get back to you. Trust me
because I do the same thing and she responds right
back to me. So she's very good at doing that
as well. Again, the website, it's O s M I
A b Ee all right, So it's osmiabe dot com.
(17:00):
The company is Osmia Bee Company and she is just
Tina Block and you can find everything you ever wanted
to know about get increasing those native bees in your backyard.
And of course now this botanical bee blend is available
for you, and it's created by the bees, backed by research.
The bees have spoken, Justina has responded and here it
(17:20):
is and I think it's outstanding, and thank you. I
applaud you for everything and you get you are doing,
and I just I kind of get goosebumps sometimes just
thinking back when we first met at the Home and
Garden show and you know, seeing your booth there and
now where you're doing today, it's just it's fantastic.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Well, I appreciate you so much, Ron and what you do,
and thank.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
You all right, you appreciate you spending time with us
this morning. Just Tina Block again, it's Osmia b O
s m i abe dot com. Be sure and check
it out. And this blend I think is absolutely outstanding
and easy to do, and the instructions are all there
for you as well. And you can do the bee
houses too, and it's a great thing. And even if
you know, even if you were just looking for a
(18:04):
wildflower mix, uh, and they're available out there all the
garden centers. Have you know, some type of wildmarre flower mix.
They're they're they're good. There's no doubt, you know, I
see a bunch of them out there.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
They are genetically put together, generically put together as far
as you know, top pollinator plants. But here is a
situation which kind of boggles my mind. Can you believe this?
They actually could take the pollen that those bees brought back,
separate that out, do a DNA search in there and
and determine all the different flowers that the pollen came from.
(18:36):
That is unbelievable, crazy stuff. But anyway, it's the new
Botanical b Blend wildfire seed Mix. It's os M I
A B Company dot you're a O S A M
I A B E dot com. Check it out. Quick break,
we come back with the phone lines will be open
for you. Eight two one WTVN eight hundred and sixty
(18:57):
ten WTVN here on news radio SAWTVN talking to your
ardening here on news radio six y ten WTVN talking
about those native bees and those honey bees and the pollinators.
And you know, I love stories like that, and I
don't know if you can you can ever catch that theme,
but I you know, when we talk about new things
that come along, like this is the new be blend.
(19:18):
Last week we had on the wool a's you know,
they're talking about the soil amendments now being used. Were
the recycling sheep wool to turn into soil amendments and
all the great benefits there.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
The gentlemen.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
We had on about a month and a half ago
with the Earthlifter, the tool that he designed for folks
that have physical disabilities or you're aging, getting older, it's
kind of tough to get in there and dig until
they're taking that garden spade and redesigning it so it
doesn't take as much.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Pressure to do all of that. I love stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
I mean, you know, it's not things that are going
to take over the world and change all the gardening whatever,
but you know, great stories behind them and the great
products that came away from them as well, and I
think it's great. As a matter of fact, you know,
we had the wool that's on if you were had
a chance to listen to the show talking about how
now and this has been going on in Europe for
(20:09):
many many years taking sheep wool, and I didn't I
didn't know. But unless it's a special type of sheep,
the sheep wool in the United States really not. There's
no demand for it anymore, just the you know, regular sheep.
Some of the sheep that they that we are raised
out there has to be a specialty type of sheep.
I guess, I don't know, but anyway, they have to
be sheared, you know, once a year, and so that
(20:30):
stuff winds up getting thrown away or whatever. And come
to find out in Europe they've been taking that and
heating it, turning it into pellets. And the landline helps
in the in the in that sheep, in that wool
helps to hold that together. It looks like a rabbit
pellets like you would feed rabbits with. Is the you know,
(20:51):
with the clover, and that's what it looks like. And
you take that then and add it to your garden soil.
You add it to your container mixes, and it increases
water retention, It feeds your plants because I think it's
a nine zero two if I'm not mistaken, plus micro nutrients.
(21:14):
It increases your yield. It's a substitute, a great substitute
for pete rather than using pete. There was all kinds
of great benefits, slug repellent, and she also mentioned to
us the fact that it's showing more doing a great
job repelling deer and repelling habits where it's been used.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Well.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Then this week I'm reading a magazine called Country Folks
Grower Midwest magazine, and they talk about produce growers and
vegetable growers Christmas tree growers that type of thing, and
an article in here at the top is repelling deer
with sheep wool, and I guess there is actually a
(21:57):
product now that is being manufactured with the landland from
landlet's at landland based repellent called Trichopro that you can
actually spray on that because what they're looking at, like
Christmas tree farmers, where they get a lot of they
can get a lot of deer damage and all to
get these these repellents to last all winter long because
(22:18):
they have a tasty to break down that last all winter.
And they found out that the ones that are landland
based actually lasted all winter long and did one of
the best jobs.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Keeping the deer away.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Again, going back to these wool at pellets and talking about,
you know, the increase, and then I started doing some
more research and come to find out in Europe and
in Germany, where they have a lot of the sheep
and do a lot of the shearing, they'll actually take
the wool itself and put it around newly planted trees
(22:51):
on the trunk as a repellent because it works so
well that they use it on. There's a repellent so
again pretty interesting some of the stuff that are coming
up with the day. And this is all research based findings.
This isn't like Ohio State actually worked with the folks
at Wolets on how good these woolpellets were as a
(23:14):
soil amendment and and got the backing from that. So
it's you know, it's a combination of pretty cool stuff
that've been doing for a long time, research proving that
it does work.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
And it's great.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Well, anyway, I heard from the from the Wooletts this week.
They sent me an email and I thought it was
pretty neat we're talking about all this.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
They received the.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Twenty twenty four Wisconsin Innovative Innovation Award in the Agriculture
Department for creating the Wolets. I thought that was that
they were all excited, said mister Wilson, to make sure
you knew that we know we won this award this week.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
So there you go. Pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
And again, if you'd like to learn more about that,
it's woolets dot net is their website, Wooletts and that's
woo l l e t s net and you can
order it. Somebody asked me the other day said they
had gone on there because they wanted to try some
because I'm gonna do this in the containers next year,
no doubt, and wanted to order it. Thought it was
(24:11):
more of a wholesale and no, it's all it's retail.
You can buy their packets of small package and larger
bales in the whole nine yards. But anyway, I love
these types of things happening out there, and again they've
been proven, researched, and I just think it's fun sharing
all this with you. So it's it's pretty neat and
(24:32):
meeting Justina many many years ago at the Columbus Home
Guarden Show and what she's doing today. What a great
story there as well. All right, quick break. We can
come back on lots of tips to share with you yet,
and of course we could take a couple of calls
at eight two to one WTVN here on news radio
six to ten WTVN talking to Yard here on news
radio six ' ten WTVN and do a little singing
in the background as well. I can't sing, but it's
(24:54):
always a lot of fun. Anyway, love some good funk
here and there. I love that stuff. I got a
text from beekeeper Teresa Parker said she took a look
at that label for that botanical blend and said, wow,
outstanding blend, great flowers in there. So there you go.
I can't wait to give it a try and see
how it does. And again you find that at OSMIA O,
(25:16):
S M, I A B dot be dot com and
then take it from there. We'll all find out. We'll
compare notes as far as how well that does. But
I think it's going to be a The mix is tremendous.
We'll get that to come up, have a nice patch
and we're good to go talking about yarding. And of
course we've seen some frosts at nighttime in the forecast,
and again it's not heavy freezes.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
These are frosts. It does do it.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
I said something earlier, I don't cover anything up at
my house at this stage, I don't.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
It's done.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
I'm finished with the annuals and things like that. You know,
even the pansies that they take all of that cabbage
and kale, ornamental cabbage and kale, they just get more
colorful as it gets cooler, so the frost don't bother
those moms typically not too much either, unless they're really
open to spend. But then they're spent anyway, so I
don't cover any of the fall things up. If you
(26:07):
have tomatoes and peppers where there's still a lot on
the vine, uh, and you want to try to save
what's left on there, especially the peppers, and you're not
ready to pick them all off yet. My dad and
Joe was talking about things we learned from each other,
and this is something my dad has used to always
do because he had the place to do it. But
he would pull up plant and all. So if he
(26:28):
had a tomato with a lot of tomatoes still on it,
he would pull it out of the ground hanging up
in a barn where state protected, stayed a little bit warmer,
and they would continue to ripe and rite on the vine,
or in a garage where stayed warmer. I mean, you know,
we're not into winter yet. We're just talking dips down
of cold weather and back you know for the frost
and back up again. So just hang those up where
they would be protected and not exposed to that, and
(26:50):
they would continue to ripen on the vine. Same way
with a pepper, pull that plant up hanging upside down
from the rafters, and you know, they would just go
start to dry on the plant itself without being subjected
to the frost, so you can do that too to
try to save it. And then then let mother nature do
her thing on the annuals and thekladiums and the cannons
(27:12):
and all that start to kill that foliage back. And
then you know, let the digging and storing those bulbs
away or clean up or whatever it may be happen
after that. If you have annuals that you want to
take cuttings from, obviously you want to get that taken
care of before they would get frosted. But other than that,
I just look at it and I say, you know,
it's time for mother Nature kind of clean things up
(27:35):
for us and get ready to go into the latter
part of the fall season and the end of the
winter as well. But again, plenty of time for planting
perennials and fall annuals and trees and shrubs and things
like that as well. Oh one last thing, houseplants. Got
quite a few emails this week about houseplants. Got those
(27:55):
foliage plants out on the patio and deck, and all
of a sudden, now we're seeing these frosty possible nights.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
What do I do?
Speaker 1 (28:01):
I haven't gotten them ready to bring in the house yet.
If you haven't gone through the process of getting them
ready to come into the home, and you know, it's
good to walk through the process of spraying them off
a few times, maybe a little insecticidal soap a couple times,
try to make sure we don't have any hitchhiking insects
on the plants, moving into a shadier area for a
(28:22):
week or two, letting him start to acclimate a bit
into a lower light condition. And then of course before
we finally bring him into the house, maybe one last
spring of insecticidal soap or blowing them off with the
garden hose and then sliding it out of the pot.
Making sure you don't have any hitchhikers in the container.
You know, we laugh about that every year, but we
(28:44):
found all kinds of stuff frogs and mice and voles
and slugs and ant ants, and some people have found
a few small snakes in the bottom. You want to
make sure you do that, check it out. But if
you haven't had a chance to do all that yet,
and we're still having some pretty decent temperatures out there,
just during the night time is dropping down, you can
(29:04):
slide those they're tough. You can slide those things in
the garage and bring them back outside the next day.
Once it starts to warm up, gets into the fifties,
you're good to go again. So you can slide them in,
slide them out till you get them taking care of,
get them sprayed or whatever, and then ready to move
back inside. One thing I have always found bringing those
plants back inside to make sure you don't have any
(29:27):
hitchhikers in the soil. If you take a utility tub,
if you take a wash tub or a large bucket
or whatever, and fill that up with water, or fill
it up so that when you set the plant pot
and all down in that water, it covers over the
top of the pot, so you're completely submerging that pot
(29:48):
and soil into the water. You let it sit in
there for a couple hours, all right, that's not going
to hurt the plant. You're going to saturate the soil.
A plant doesn't care about that. Let us sit there
for a couple hours or so. That will, you know,
literally drown anything that's in that soil. They'll float to
the top of skimming off or whatever, ants, bugs, whatever
may be. Pull that back out, let it thoroughly drain,
(30:12):
uh and then you're you know, you've given it a
real good soaking, obviously, and you should pretty well take
care of the insects at that point. Once those houseplants
are inside. I keep two things on hand, well, three things,
I guess you would say. I keep insecticidal soap because
it's a it doesn't hurt anything if you get it
(30:32):
on it in the house, whereas horticulture oil could. But
insecticidal so pretty good all purpose spray kills anything pretty
much any insect that you'd get on those on contact
safety use indoors an old shower curtain, so if you
have to do any spraying, you can lay that out,
spray them, let it dry them, then you fold it up,
(30:53):
put it back. And a systemic insecticide just in case
some of these outbreaks, it's helpful to go from the
end side out and use the systemic in the soil.
Take it up by the plant will help to protect
you a little bit too. Typically, once you take those
houseplants indoors and they're in that warmer climate for you know,
(31:13):
a week or two, if you've got some insects in
there or insect eggs that made it in with the plant.
They usually will start to hatch out right away because
they love that warmer temperature. They'll just explode and start
to do their thing, and you just keep them monitoring
and watching them, and then the tree dos needed at
that point. But again, frost in the area protect those
(31:35):
some are more tender than others. Pulling them in the
garage probably was one of the best things to make
sure you're protected. I usually just bring them up underneath
the eave of the house and then set them back
out as the temperature swarm up during the day. But
again that would be up to you, so you know,
protect them. But otherwise I don't cover too many things up. Also,
if you've never planted garlic before, you get out to
your local independent garden center see if they've still have
(31:55):
some garlic left. Now's a great time to plant. Now
through the end of October great time to plant garlic.
Do it in containers. If you've got a nice wide
you know, a twenty four inch container doesn't have to
be very deep. Do some garlic in there. You'll find out.
It's so easy to do, and now's the time to
do it, and to protect it over the wintertime. You
can slide that into an unhead of garage or shed,
drop it down in a window, well, wrap it with
(32:17):
some burr lap and some leaves, but protect the pot
over the wintertime so they don't freeze. But otherwise it's
really easy to grow in the container and also as
easy to grow in your raised beds or in the
ground as well. But now is the time to get
out and plant that, so be sure and take care
of that as well. And looking at your fall containers,
(32:39):
as we've got plenty of mums and cabbage and kale
and pansies and all of that available at your local
indpendagarten centers right now. Pull out the old annuals, replace
with all of those, don't forget. We're going to do that,
and as we get into the holiday season, start looking
around the landscape for evergreen boughs that you'll be able
to cut and branches that have berries and color branches
(33:01):
and things like that. So we'll start to transition those
planters into holiday planners. Then after the holidays we'll take
the decorations out. We'll have winter planters. Winter is over,
we take all that stuff out. We start back with
the pangies and the cool season annuals and we start
all over again. Those containers can be year round planters.
(33:22):
If done properly, you can have some kind of a
program going on with those planters year round all right,
planting seasonal plants. And there's very very easy to do.
So keep that in mind as well. And one last thing. Yes,
the National Pumpkin Way Off is tomorrow at Oakland Nursery
(33:43):
in Dublin on one sixty one. It starts usually around
one thirty, but come early so you can see all
the big pumpkins. And it's a lot of fun because
you know, they work from the smallest one to the
biggest one, and they kind of can gauge, you know,
what the approximate weights are and they try to work
from the smallest to the biggest.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
It was really close last year, really close competition. It's
always kind of exciting. It's fun to meet these growers.
I will be em seeing it tomorrow. We like to
talk with the crowd and all the folks that are there,
so stop by say hello. It's always a lot of fun.
They have tents and thanks for the kids to do
and events going on. Of course, pumpkins colore. But if
(34:23):
you've never seen these giant pumpkins up close. Come to
Oakland Nursery tomorrow, the one in Dublin on one sixty one,
and see the National Pumpkin Way off there. Hopefully you
never know will we have an award winner there or
the state champion could be, could it be? The world
record holder could be as well. Thanks to our callers,
thanks to our sponsors, Thanks of course to l our producer,
(34:44):
because without Ella, none of this stuff would happen. So Ella,
thank you so much for all that you do. I'm
glad you have to have you back in town. Now
do yourself a favor. Where you gonna plant that tree
or two or three yet this fall? Keep planning those
native plants, get those pollinator bids, get your pollinator plants
planted in your wildflower mix, and by all means making
the best week of your life.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
See you
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.