Planting By the Signs

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Episode Transcript

(00:18):
Good morning everybody. Welcome back armRon Wilson. Then you are in the
garden here on news radio six tenWTV, and we're talking about yardening.
And you know, if you wouldlisten to Joe Boggs and I earlier at
the beginning of the show, wewere kind of kidding each other about the
planting by the signs and you probablyheard it before. Maybe you do it,
maybe your grandparents did it, greatgrandparents. We used to have a

(00:39):
young lady would call in our show. She was from a Georgia I believe,
but she lived in the Columbus areaand her name was Janie. And
Janice always planted by the signs andJanis will always give us an update on
where we were with the moon orwhatever to what you know should be planted
in the vegetable garden at that time. And I know a lot of folks
say I don't know about that.Then there's a lot of out there that

(01:00):
say, you know it's true,this stuff, it's for real, is
it? Or isn't it? Well? I found a book that I think
would be very convincing for you.Won't you read through it? That this
is for real, this has beenaround for all it's not a new it's
been around for a long time.But I love the book and I will
tell you about more about it whyI like it so much and why it'll
kind of convince you that planting bythe Signs probably is a great way to

(01:23):
go. The name of the bookis called Sewn in the Stars Planting by
the Signs. It's written by SarahHall. Now you're saying, who is
Sarah Hall Well. Sarah is anAssociate professor of Agricultural Natural Resources at the
Barria College in Kentucky. Her articleson the restoration of native force and grasslands
in Kentucky had been published in awide range of journals, including Restoration in

(01:45):
Ecology and New Forests. And ofcourse she has this great book. It
is a fun read, an interestingread, and like I said, it'll
really throw a lot of facts outhere at you that you can make your
own decision. But I think we'vegot something going on here or anyway to
talk more about this book and tellus about Planting by the Signs is Sarah

(02:05):
Hall. Good morning, good morning, Thanks, Hey, good to have
you on the show. So Ikind of coincidentally last night it was a
full moon and I saw the floorand I went and I think it's called
a full flower moon, if I'mnot mistaken, but I said, oh,
I've to ask Sarah about that inthe morning. So all right,
so I got the full moon lastnight. Now what should I be planning
in the vegetable garden? So withthe full moon, we essentially switch over

(02:31):
from the sort of the side ofthe twenty eight day cycle where you would
want to plant below ground plants.So those are plants that produce whatever it
is that you're going to harvest belowground, so things like potatoes or carrots
or radishes or all that kind ofstuff. So we have just entered a

(02:51):
two week period period where that's whatyou would want to plant. So as
we watched the moon and it goesthrough all of its phases, each one
of those phases probably correlate with somethingthat we should be doing. There's other
things too, but in the vegetablegarden. Yeah, So there are certain

(03:12):
signs within that whole twenty eight dayperiod. You go through each of the
twelve zodiac signs, So there's twoto two and a half days in each
of those signs, which are basedon the different constellations, and some of
them are said to be really goodand favorable for planting your vegetable crops and
things, and others are said tobe killing signs where you would want to

(03:36):
do things like weed or kill pestsand not actually plant anything in the ground.
So if I have somebody calls inand says, you know, what's
the best time to go after thisparticular weed, I should actually be looking
at the signs to pick the righttime. So when you are going to
do whatever you're gonna do to theweeds, you know what's going to work.
Yeah, that's right. So Aries, which is oftentimes these are worth

(04:00):
two as the body part names forthe signs, and Aries is the head
or Leo is the heart. Thoseare two of the sort of strongest killing
signs, and so those would begood good ones to do your weeding and
very interesting. I'll tell you what. I The book was great. I
mean you I actually sat down andread it from front to back in one

(04:21):
sitting, and I totally enjoyed it. I loved all the conversations. I
mean I just sat down and readthrough this whole thing. You had me
from the get go, and Ifinished right went right to the very end
because I was very fascinated by allof this, and and my grandparents,
their parents were all from central Kentucky, the Russell Springs, Nancy Somerset area,

(04:45):
my mom from West Virginia area andthe appellation areas there, and they
all believed in, you know,planting by the signs. And they again
they did a lot more than justplanting in the garden based on the signs.
But they were firm believers in thatthey couldn't wait to get their farmers
all in ac or whatever to seewhen all that was going to happen to
plan out went what they were goingto plant and what they weren't. So
let me ask you this, Imean, was this part of your family's

(05:09):
heritage to what inspired you to dothe research and kind of come out,
you know, write this book aboutexplaining about planting by the signs. Yeah,
that's a that's a good question.And it wasn't actually part of my
family's heritage as far as I know, other than at my granny's house where

(05:30):
we went pretty much every Sunday whenI was growing up, she would have
a calendar that did have the signson it. So I have a chapter
in the book that talks about differentcalendars and almanacs, But most of the
people that I interviewed while I wastalking with them pulled out whatever calendar it
is that they used, and formost of them it was a calendar rather

(05:51):
than one of the almanacs. Butthere are a number of different companies that
produce these calendars that typically have kindof black and red prints, and that
will have the designations for the phaseof the moon and the sign on the
calendars, and they'll have things like, you know, fishing with a little

(06:13):
symbol of a fish full if it'ssupposed to be a really good fishing day,
or you know, half full ifit's an so so day, or
that sort of thing. And soI remember seeing those at my grannies,
but as far as I know,we we did typically have a garden up
there, but the signs did notdid not come up, So I don't
think it had been an important partfor her. But sort of in my

(06:38):
researching of various resources and also justinteracting with growers and farmers, this was
a topic that came up a fairamount, but actually wasn't. It wasn't
as documented and researched in as manydifferent sources as I thought it might be
given how many people do it otherthan I mean, there are lots of

(06:59):
almanac and that sort of thing,kind of um how too, but not
a whole lot about what it's basedon or sort of the history of it
or that sort of thing. Andso that's that's kind of how the project
came about, in addition to wantingto, you know, get out and
talk to some of these folks,many who are getting older, to try
to capture that knowledge before it's lost. And that would be Granny Zelma Lee.

(07:25):
Yes, that's right. Yeah,I love the name. I love
the names As a matter of fact, I love all the names here,
having a lot of cousins, theSelby's and Wellbies and things like that.
Some of the names back there werephenomenal. So how did you you interviewed
over what about twenty five couples orso here that that that have been doing
this as a part of their regimenttheir daily lives. How'd you come up

(07:48):
with the twenty five couples? Justasking around? And yeah, it was
a largely word of mouth, SoI just sort of put a word out
from people that I'd heard about itfrom. And then of course, as
I would be interviewing them. Theywould say, oh, you need to
go talk to this person. Ohyeah, so I have since learned that

(08:11):
that is called snowball sampling apparently,but I did not. You know,
this is a very new thing forme, sort of being trained as a
as a hard ecologist scientist. Butyeah, I just sort of put the
word out and had lots of responseand it was quite easy to find quite
a few people in Kentucky. Well, you found the right people because they

(08:33):
had a lot of great conversation,a lot of good insight. And of
course I noticed in the book too, there is a place where we can
go and actually listen to those interviewsthat you did, through the through the
whole interview. Yeah, that's right. There's over eighteen hours of audio recordings
of those interviews. And if youjust search on the internet for Barria College

(08:54):
Archives Planting by the Signs, thenit should pop up and you can get
to the audio and a couple ofphotos of each of the folks as well.
Sarah Hall is with us this morning. Her book is Sewn in the
Stars, Planting by the Signs,to tell you how this all came about,
what it's all about. To learnmore about it as well. We
have to take a break we comeback. Has there been any scientific research

(09:18):
actually applied to this. We'll findout from Sarah about that, and then
she'll give us a few insights asfar as some of the signs and some
of the things we should be doingaccording to those signs. It's all happening
here on news Radio six ten WTVN. We're being informed. I can't believe
this is always in season. Thisis mind blowing and use radio six ten.

(09:46):
We're talking about Planting by the SignsSewn in the Stars as the name
of the book, Planting by theSigns. Sarah Hall is the author.
She is with us this morning.I know, and I know everybody knows
this, but quotation from the bookthere their Bible to everything, there's a
season and a time to every purposeunder the heaven. Time to be born,
a time to die, at timeto plant, a time to pluck

(10:07):
up that which is planted. Youwill find yourself singing that as your gardening.
Yeah. That's for folks that followedthis, that certainly is an important
link for them. Yeah, Imean says it right there in the Bible.
Yep. So let me let meask you this you know again you
did. You've done this great bookand you've interviewed all these folks and they

(10:31):
witness to what's going on and howusing the signs works for them, how
not using the signs are going againsthem has caused problems in the past.
Has there been any true scigned,down and dirty scientific research on planting by
the signs? So not much.What exists is there are two papers.

(10:54):
One related to SAP flow as relatedto the tides, so we all know
that the moon's influence is what causesthe tides twice a day, and that
has been looked at. They basicallyinserted sort of tension attention probe into trees
and we're able to measure that there'san influence on SAP flow. And then

(11:18):
the other one was actually related toa solar eclipse, so kind of,
you know, something that we don'thave happened that often, but they did
find changes in SAP flow related tothat, So a tiny bit of evidence
for the influence of you know,the moon and sun and orientation of things

(11:39):
to have an impact. The biggerpiece of research that's happened has been done
to establish the biodynamic calendar or almanacand that was done by Mariah Soon and
her family members. Now they carryit on her son and her grandchildren,
and they're in Germany, and theyhave carried out of different field trials on

(12:01):
things like both planting time and harvestingtime, and also like nutrient content of
different oils from various oil crops,or when you collect your manure to make
your compost and when you spread thecomposts, and all kinds of incredibly in
depth sort of studies, if youwant to call them that. Although they

(12:26):
do not have statistical you know,they can't be statistically analyzed. There's not
the replication and all that kind ofstuff. But it's pretty interesting, compelling
stuff there sure interesting talking with SarahHall againting the name of the book is
sewn in the stars planting by theSigns. You know, we're talking about
planting our vegetable guards to that bythe signs, But there was a lot

(12:48):
of others, a lot of otherthings that the folks that follow the signs
rely on as well. And youaddress these all through through animal husbandry,
de horning and castor, I meanthings of farmers would be doing on a
regular basis. We're also based onthe on the signs and you even brought
one up about spreading gravel. Yeah. Yeah, so you know there's there's

(13:13):
sort of depending on which reference youlook at and how specific they get,
um you can you know, reallyget into a lot of detail. So
spreading gravel is pretty straight forward sortof. It aligned with the above ground
crop versus below ground crops in termsof you would want to spread your gravel

(13:35):
essentially between a full and a newLet me make sure that i'm ye before
between a new and a full,Sorry about that. So when it's growing
or waxing, the gravel will stayon the top, whereas if you do
it in the other half of thecycle, when it's waning or getting smaller

(13:56):
or some people say the dark moon, it will get sort of sucked down
into the mud and you'll be applyingagain. So yeah, that's that's another
thing sort of when to make sourcrowds when the butcher animals that came up
a surprising number of times and interviewswhether the meat sort of pearls up in

(14:18):
tops and has one of moisture init versus if it lays flat and you
know, cooks nice and doesn't popa bunch that was brought up a number
of times as well. Yeah,I thought the thing we can the crowd,
because my grandmother used to do thecrowd and the big crocks, and
then she'd take the hearts and putthem on the top, and of course
you'd go pull one of those outa little bit later, and they were

(14:39):
wonderful. Um, So I'm sureshe did the same thing as I saw
you. If you did it atthe wrong time, you can turn black
and do all kinds of other thingsas well. So I'm sure she followed
those signs for you too. Isaw one in there that I think one
of your interviewers talking about surgery andlooking at the signs and you know of
the best times for elective surgery aswell. Yes, surgery and medical or

(15:01):
sorry, surgery and dental work comesup. And with both of those,
the general thinking is that you wantto sign to be sort of away from
the body parts wherever the work isgetting done, So you know, you
wouldn't for dental work, you certainlywouldn't want it to be in the head,
for instance, which is aries thehead. You would not want to

(15:26):
have it in that one or you'regoing to be more likely to have bleeding
and more complications versus if it's furtheraway. Got The name of the book
again is called Sewn in the Stars, Planting by the Signs. You will
love it. Like I said,I just stuck with it. I read
it one evening. I went fromfrom front to back, and then of
course now I go back all thetime and look at all the notes.
But written by Sarah Hall, youwill absolutely love it. Meg. I

(15:50):
gotta give kudos to Meg Wilson forthe photography working here was great. She
has one full page picture in hereand I'm looking at it right now.
And the reason I have a hardtimes because my mouth is salivating. I
am looking at a basket full oframps. Yes, yeah, I absolutely
love ramps. Yeah, the season, I guess we are maybe just past

(16:15):
it here where I am, ButI guess since you're a little further up
north, it's probably about time foryou all. Yeah, But you know,
it's just looking at the basket oframps just makes me my mouth just
starts to water. I mean Icould sit and eat that whole basket of
ramps with no problem whatsoever, whatever, No matter what the sign was,

(16:36):
Yeah, you might the people thatyou were talking to might regret that but
not enjoy it all. But Iwould definitely enjoy them. Sarah Hall.
I love the book. It's agreat one. I love all the interviews
are outstanding. I was like listeningsome of my own relatives to talking about
their guarding and doing planning by theSigns. I loved it. Great book.

(16:56):
I highly recommended against Sarah Hall.The name of the book, Sewn
in the Ours, Planting by theSigns. Great pictures, great interviews,
and again you can follow up andlisten to the interviews as well if you'd
like to. But if you wantto learn more about it and try to
understand it more, where it's allcoming from. This is the book Sewn
in the Stars, Planning by theSigns. Sarah Hall, thank you so
much for being with us today.Thanks so much for INTRANSI all right,

(17:19):
all right, thank you very much. And again, the picture of the
basket of ramps on ninety four isabsolutely and they're six for two bucks,
twelve for three foot. I'd havebought that whole, the whole basket.
And if you've never had ramps,unbelievable. All we got to take a
break, we come back, wewill continue talking. You're Nick We've got

(17:40):
the phone lines open for you.It's eight two one WTVN eight hundred and
six ten WTVN. Here on newsRadio six ten WTVN in the Garden with
Ron Wilson, presented by Settler Hardwarein your neighborhoods. It's eighteen forty four.
Oh, we are talking'arding hereon news Radio six ten wt Evan.

(18:00):
If the checkered flags are waving,we're saying go for it. Soil
temperatures finally starting to come up.Looking at the daytime nighttime tips over the
next seven to ten days, Ithink we're in pretty good shape. Some
showers tomorrow morning. Otherwise I thinkwe're looking pretty darn good. So we're
gonna move forward. I would beobviously a little cautious about I still think,

(18:22):
you know, a lot of folkshave already planned tomatoes at all.
But tomatoes don't particularly like edge pepper'scold, wet feet. But we're right
on that cusp right now. Butthere are a few things that I will
wait a little bit longer to plant. I don't get those Q curvets into
early cucumbers, melon squash, thingslike that. They do like a little
bit warmer temperatures in the soil,so keep that in mind. Basil.

(18:47):
Basil's typically one of those things thatI will not plan until later in the
season until we really warm up,whether it being containers or whatever, because
basil doesn't like it cold and weteither. But other than that, you
know, we're kind of saying let'sgo for it. Klate Ms, Cannas,
Dalia's, things like that. Ithink at this point, you know,
we can start to take a lookat getting those out, getting ready
to go and getting those in theground and the next ten days of two

(19:10):
weeks as well. So and again, watch the signs. Make sure you
plan under the right signs when you'reout there planning. Two. Don't forget.
I do have our plant picks ofthe week every week. I do
that. It's on our special websiteat run Wilson online dot com and you
can check those out. I havefour plant picks for this week, and
I did that on purpose because wehad a couple events going on right yesterday

(19:33):
Sinco de Mayo and then today therun for the Roses of the Kentucky Derby.
So on our plant picks of theweek, I have Sinco de Mayo
rose absolutely gorgeous rose. Here's one. It's a it's a floor bunda.
The clusters of this floor bunda iskind of it's it's hard to describe.

(19:53):
It's kind of a smoky lavender,rusty red orange, glossy green foliage.
Really a lot of pizzazz. Andwhen these things in flower manages pops,
I mean, they really stand out. But it's a really different color.
But the ruffled foliage flowers absolutely gorgeous. But again it's sinco demyo, and
that is Sinko demyo has been outa long time, so you should be

(20:15):
able to find that. The otherrose is easy does It all right?
Easy does It one of my favorites. You hear me talk about easy does
It every year. I love thisfloorabunda. It's like a fruit salad for
the landscape, trust me. Fragrantclusters of these swirling shades of mangoes and

(20:37):
oranges, peaches, pinks, honey, appercuts, and the flowers are ruffled,
they're scalloped, they're spiraled, they'rereally nice. They're very fragrant.
You'll love it. It's very easyto take care of. Thus the name
easy does It Rose, It's diseaseresistance. Really, you know, it
does a great job, very vigorousand you know it just got some flour

(21:00):
power to add to your garden.But I love us when any container in
the ground easy does it. Roseabsolutely my favorite rose, and we picked
out of course for the running ofthe roses for the Kentucky Derby. Now,
the other two plants that we pickedare mints, m i nt mints,
and as you all well know we'veall talked about this mint was meant

(21:23):
to be grown in containers, easyway to keep it controlled, not letting
it take over your garden. There. They all of them can be very
invasive. But my two picks ofmints are the mohito mint obviously Fersinco de
Mayo yesterday, although it can beused under with other drinks as well.
But mohito mint good for herb gardening, cooking, an easy one to grow.

(21:47):
It's a type of spearmint. Butwhat's interesting is I didn't know this
for a long time, but youknow, we didn't have obviously the mohito
mint in the United States or NorthAmerica. It's a native to Cuba,
but was eventually rought here and wewere allowed to start growing in in North
America, and of course lots ofgreat beverages use mohito mint, including mohitos,

(22:08):
but it's also great season for mensand confections as well, so mohito
mint. And then the other oneI picked, which should be kind of
obvious being today as the run forthe roses the Kentucky Derby is the fact
that they sell over one hundred andtwenty thousand mint julips between yesterday, today

(22:32):
and tomorrow. And in all ofthose mint julups, the main spearmint that
they use, and you can useall of them, but the main spearmint
that they use is Kentucky Colonel spearmint, and they use over about twelve hundred
pounds of Kentucky kernel spearmint leaves overthose three days. I like Kentucky Colonel.

(22:56):
I like spearmint. That's my favoriteof the men's but all of them,
it probably has one of the bestfoliages, great flavor. It gets
about eighteen twenty four in high.The flowers at the top. Pollinators absolutely
love them. Deer and rabbits stayaway from it. It is very aggressive,
so you grow the kernel in acontainer, no doubt meant was meant

(23:17):
to be grown in a container.But those are my picks of the week.
If you want to see him,go to Ron Wilson online dot com
and check those out. That's wherethey are and learn more about them.
But that easy, does it?Rose, I'm telling you it is it's
it is easy. That's all Ican tell you. And most folks I
know that I have grown it haveabsolutely loved it. I get pictures back

(23:37):
from him and they say, man, what a great recommendation. Before we
take a break, we're gonna goto Dayton and talk with Dick from Dayton.
Good morning, Hey, how areyou? Good morning? Sorry I
missed you earlier today. Good I'mglad you followed up. Well, you
know I did, but you knownow it's good to be. Last week
I was telling up Bob that nowI'm playing five places group. Now five

(24:03):
places you're playing during the week.That's crazy. Yeah, to Nursing Home
Debbie. Debbie has a good group. We do a tribute to America and
the Strummers. So let's see,I got two jobs Monday, and then
I've got one. Let's see thatwould be oh another Tuesday, and then
Thursday the Strummers and another group andthen go up to Zenia. So that's

(24:27):
six and somebody else called. It'sjust I love it all around. It's
going good. Well, good foryou. I'm glad to hear that.
Sometime when you don't, we haveAllah, who is our new producer.
Sometime when you call, I wantyou to have that ukulele ready to go
so you can do it a littlesample for us. Yeah, when at

(24:48):
the end of our little conversation,you're so elegant here, how good you
are playing that ukulele or what orthe whatever you want to play. It's
up to you. Yeah, Hey, I just wanted to tell you who.
Yeah, it's uh, it's beenreally nice. We'll get people back
from the banjo. But Debbie runsthis and you know it's funny. Now
I don't know what to choose.I was telling Jerry Jeff this morning.

(25:12):
Now I can play the ukulele andyou know, rip the strings, and
now I got to take to youor to banjo, you com mandolin.
I'll have to decide, right,what's what's the most comfortable at this stage?
Do you think? Well, Ilearned from the mandolin from my cousin,
you know up in you know Macarlaand that crew I learned mandolin Uncle
Tony like me. But then whenI start going to do you know Dulsmo

(25:36):
group after I retired, I canplay the chords, you know, the
G and C D chords on theukulele, and it blends in good And
we were doing a tribute to theand I figured. Bob said, I
didn't believe you, Dick. Youknow you're a minor and minor chords.
You know it's beautiful, it's beautiful, excellent. Well you got to play
it for us sometime, so aland hear you play. By the way,

(26:00):
wasn't that what Don Hoe used toplay was a ukulele? Yo.
Yeah, she's seeing tiny bubbles.Oh yeah, tiny bubble. Yeah,
that's one we ever did I didyesterday. Give me a little version.
Karina Corina los So Queen the coreathey no wolsh food being going, taking

(26:22):
us into the break. I loveit, Dick, Always a pleasure.
Keep singing as we go into thebreak, keep going there, keep going,
keep going, keep going, Comeon there it is there. It
is quick Break here on New Radiosix ten WTV in Saving Liberty podcast with
Josh C's and Jack Windsor. It'sa Redney podcast for true patriots and those

(26:47):
sick of the wolf culture were stuckliving in Every week we addressed real concerns
and offer practical, actionable solutions.Saving Liberty with Josh Ce's and Jack Windsor
calling all common sense conservatives. Thisis a podcasts for you, sir,
Saving Liberty on the iHeartRadio lapp.Now you know old Frankenstein two thirty in

(27:12):
the morning, speakers in the window, playing out the dorm window. Nah,
I wouldn't have done that, notme talking yarding here on news radio
six WTV. And by the way, I want to remind you that the
coming up May eleven, twelfth,and thirteenth. That's next Thursday, Friday
and Saturday. It's the thirty sixday annual Chadwick Arboretum's annual Spring Plant Sale

(27:33):
in auction. Major event. Thisis major. You get all kinds of
plants here. They have classes goingon the whole nine yards. On Thursday
the eleventh, from four to eightit's the Friends of of Chadwick Member Reception
and preview sale. If you're nota member, you can sign up there
and become a member. On Friday, it's open to the public. Twelve
to six classes during the day.Also include soil testing, container gardening,

(27:57):
planning, trees, tree care,and they have a shrub Live auction going
on also in the evening, socheck that out. And on Saturday it's
nine to three again they've got allthe different classes for you and the auctions
and the plants. They have foodtrucks, poorta potties for you. Sorry,
you got to leave the furry companionsat home? Is that what that

(28:19):
means? The dog? Are thekids? Anyway? You gotta leave the
dogs at home. For more information, Chadwick Arboretum, DOTSU dot edu.
That's Chadwick Arboretum, DOTSU dot edu. It's always a great event, lots
of great plants and it goes fora great cause. You know, if
you've never been to the Chadwick Arboretumthey're on campus, you are missing out.

(28:41):
I mean that thing is there's somany great things to see there,
it's unbelievable. They typically have forthis thing. They'll have the Franklin County
Master Gardner volunteers there to answer questionsfor you. They have some of the
OSU students there to help answer questionsfor you as well. Um, so
be sure and check it out againstnext Thursday, Friday and Saturday Chadwick Arboretum

(29:02):
and to find more. It's justjust Chadwick Arboretum DOTSU dot edu and you'll
learn more about that and everything youwanted to know. Don't forget we're looking
for Arkansas Traveler tomato. If youcome up with Arkansas Traveler tomato a source
for those, email me. Ifyou can't, don't call today. If
you if you, if you don'tcall today, email me and let me

(29:22):
know and where you find them,and we'll let Pete know where he can
find those Arkansas Traveler he's kind ofdisappointed because you can't find those Travelers out
there. Great heirloom tomato, sovery tasty, so let us know if
you can find them. Also,as I'm looking around right now, I'm
seeing neputa you familiar with neputa katmint, not cat nip cat mint that

(29:48):
is getting ready to flour. Thestocks are coming up now when they open
up with that lavender purple, almosta lavender type of a look to it.
But when you get that, Ithink Walker's Low is one of the
first ones that come out right now. Grows in a mushroom shape and then
it's just covered with these spikes offlowers, lavender flowers. The pollinators absolutely

(30:12):
love this perennial. If you aren'tplanting some of the nepodas, and there
are so many great selections available today, cats me out, cats, kitts,
pajamas, walkers, there's a wholebunch of them. But if you
aren't planning those in your perennial gardenfor the pollinators, you're missing out.
When these things are in bloom,they are a true pollinator. Magnet bees,

(30:34):
butterflies, they all love it.But the point being is this,
with these nepodas, they'll flower fora long time, but eventually those flowers
are spent, they are done.And when they are spent and they are
all finished on the entire plant,get out a pair of head shears and
shear them off right below where theflower stock comes out of the foliage.

(30:59):
Go right into the top of thatfoliage and just head shear it off and
reform it back to that mushroom globeshape to it. It's kind of been
some mushroom shape is what it is. Not a globe, but a mushroom
shape. Shear it back. Asthe new growth starts to come back out
on the top. It will alsosend up a second round of flowers for

(31:21):
you, so you can get thosenepotus to all come back and flower a
second time for you, sometimes evena third time, by just shearing off
all those old flowers and then lettingit come back up and flower for you
again. And I'm telling you,pollinator magnet absolutely gorgeous, low maintenance,
hardy perennial typically comes back every year, loves the sun or at least a

(31:44):
half a day of sun. Lookat all of the nepotus in Epeta and
walkers Low is the one that you'regetting ready to see flower right now,
and then they come in all sizesand shapes or whatever. So do keep
that in mind, please. Alot of questions this week. Boxwood,
looking at boxwood, I'm looking athollies that we're damaged by that cold blast

(32:06):
that we had a week before Christmas. What do I do at this stage?
You know, we try to bepatient and give them as much time
as we can to start to greenup. And we're seeing boxwood showing green
to the inside and throughout the plantsin many cases. In some cases though,
we're seeing some that are not comingback. We're seeing branches that darn
coming back. So what you needto do when if you see that at

(32:29):
this stage and you can tell forsure that those branches are not going to
leaf back out, get your handpruners out and go in and start clipping
all of the dead wood out ofthose plants. The hollies I think are
going to be okay if the stemsall look good and green, budget are
starting to swell. As a matterof fact, you may start to see
the flowers first, little clumps offlowers all over. Once the flowers are

(32:50):
done, that's when the new foliagetypically comes out anyway, So they'll start
to come out, and what youmay need to be done to help them
out a little bit is to clipback the ends of the branches, maybe
four or five inches, to stimulatethem to grow and leaf out down a
little bit lower. But I thinkthe hollies are going to recover from this
one. Boxwood gonna take a prettygood hit, may have a lot of
holes. You may have to reallycut them back hard, but looking tough,

(33:15):
I think gonna make it back.Laurels definitely not. They're pretty much
toast pirate kanthas. I think forthe most part, should be back you
want them. Us some deadwood inthem, but I think they're gonna come
back. You may have to cutthose back hard you want them. Us
are easy to rejuvenate. We arealso seeing scattered We're seeing all kinds of
scattered damage from that cold blast,but also seeing some damages in burning bush.

(33:38):
Also seeing some damages in weeping andregular cherry trees may have had some
damages the peach trees. We'll seewhat the peach production is going to be.
Like I loo looked at the quansand cherry this past week. Four
inch trunk diameter looked absolutely gorgeous lastyear, not a leaf or flour on
it. The stems have a littlebit of green left in them, but

(34:01):
I don't think it's going to comeback out. And I don't see any
problems with the tree from outside,so it's guessing whether related. So if
you know, again we're going toseek these weird things happening within the garden,
and again just kind of give plantspatience, you know, give them

(34:21):
time. If you see that thewood and the branches are definitely dead,
clip it out, get rid ofit, and somebody tell me the other
day. Well, if I tookout that piece right there, that it's
a main leader of that plant,I'm going to lose the main leader.
Well, guess what, it's alreadydead. It isn't going to come back.
So you've got to get that stuffout of there to give the plan

(34:43):
an opportunity to regrow, relief andfill that back in again. Dead branches
on plants do you no good.Do them no good because they aren't going
to grow and if anything they canharbor disease and insects. Get them out
makes them makes them the plant looka lot better you clean it up.
And then my point being, afterall of this is done, step back

(35:04):
and evaluate the plant. If you'vegot plenty of time and you can cut
them back hard and they'll rejuvenate fromthe rejuvenation prooting, do it. If
you cut them back hard, itlooks like, you know, it's going
to take a while for him tocome back, and you're my age,
and you don't want to stick aroundand give it five or six more years
to come back out. You're probablygoing to take them out and replant again.

(35:25):
So you know, again, cleanthem up, look at and see
where they are, giving a littlebit of time and then make a decision
what you want to do it atthat point. But I think there's going
to be a lot of replacements goingon from the baby boomers because we don't
want to wait. We don't havethe time to wait to see that thing
come back and replant. Also,container gardening big time right now. A
lot of folks are getting out toplant tomatoes, peppers, things like that.

(35:47):
The big question for me is,right now, what size tomato ron
do you use when you grow tomatoesand containers? Ron uses a pot no
less than eighteen inches in diameter anddepth. I will use a twenty or
twenty five gallon squat pot. They'retwenty twenty four inches wide by again around

(36:08):
fifteen eighteen inches deep for one tomato, big pot one tomato. Now,
I may put some basil around thebase of it, something like that,
but you want to give those tomatoesas much room as you can to really
root out. You'll water them less, you'll have less blossom in rot.
Assuming you also add calcium to thepotting soil and a little bit of tomato

(36:28):
food. But you'll find out theydo a lot better with that larger pot.
To our peppers on the other hand, can actually go in a smaller
pot. They're okay, I stilllike using those larger pots, but can
be used in a smaller pot.Root system a little bit smaller than in
the tomato, So you can goa little bit smaller. But the thing
of it is match the pot sizeto what you're trying to grow in it.

(36:49):
Make sure it has good drainage holesin the bottom. Use a top
grade potting mix, add soil moistto it to help cut down on your
water, or maybe even coconut coreslow release fertilizer like Ozma code. You
can feed on a weekly basis orevery of the week with something like Miracle
Grow, or add something like hollytoad tomato toa something like that for a
little more of an extended feeding container. Gardening affords you and me and all

(37:10):
of us the opportunity to do sometype of gardening, thanks to our callers,
thanks to our sponsors, Thanks toElla, our producer, because with
Ella, none of this would happen. Now do yourself a favor, Glad
to make it the best week ofyour life. See you