The best gardening tools

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Morning. I hope you're all well. It's early. This is
our official start to Mother's Day weekend. So if you
got a mother out there or no one or no
of one, let them know how much they are appreciated
for all that they do. This is Let's Garden. Scott Berlin, Welcome,

(00:23):
it's Saturday morning. We're going to have a great, great,
really great show for you today. We're gonna have Kira
back at seven o'clock. Kira is my cohort at the
Cincinnia Zoo and Botanical Garden, one of the best Twitter
culturists I know, and she runs the annuals program at
the Zoo, which is maybe the largest in the country,

(00:45):
certainly one of the largests, and so we'll have all
the good info on all the annuals you're probably going
to buy this weekend. This is Mother's Day weekend, the
busiest weekend of the year for all the garden centers.
Get out and enjoy that joy and buy some plants
and listen for Kira to give you the best plans

(01:07):
to buy. Later on at eight o'clock, we're going to
have doctor A himself, Alan Armitage, the herbatious mastermind knows
everything there is to know about annuals and perennials. You
know them from the Ron Wilson Show. I've known him
for years. You're really going to enjoy that show. That
part of the show. Just want to remind you that

(01:29):
if you want to follow along on Facebook, look at
in the Garden, join Ron Rothis and friends for that.
Our podcast can now be found on all the best
sources of podcasts, and you can google Let's Garden with
Scott Birdline for links to those shows. Eight hundred eight
two five fifty five hundred. We will be taking your calls,

(01:51):
but we are starting right off as we usually do,
with national days of for well, the national month of
for May, the national week of that we're in, and
also the days of why. I really can't tell you.
It just seems like a good thing to do to
get limbered up for the rest of the show. So

(02:12):
Month of May a couple of things. It is skin
cancer Awareness month. Good good thing to remind you of
as a gardener. Get that sunscreen on before you get outside.
Even on a cool day when it's sunny, you can
really toast yourself, So get the sunscreen out and start
using it. It's also older Americans month, which is great.

(02:35):
Yay older Americans. Most of the people I know I
think are older Americans, and most of them are really
good people too. Miniature Garden Month. I'm always rooting for
more and better gardens. This falls under more gardens I think.
I think the bigger garden is the better. But that's
just me. I guess everybody has an opinion. Photography Month,

(02:59):
and that reminds me that I want to get my
friend Brian Jorg back here. He is a fantastic photographer,
particularly of plants and gardens. We'll do that one of
these days soon. It's also Hamburger Month and Mediterranean Diet Month.
I'll choose hamburgers every single time. Asparagus Month, and I
dug up some fun asparagus facts. It takes nearly three

(03:23):
years after planting seeds for asparagus to be ready for
its first full harvest. Once established, a single asparagus plant
can produce spears for fifteen to thirty years. They really
covered themselves with that. It could be fifteen, it might
be thirty somewhere in between. Anyway, underwarm conditions, they can

(03:46):
grow seven to ten inches in a single day. The
English speakers used to call or maybe still do call
asparagus sparrow grass because asparagus is too hard to say.
Asparagus has been cultivated for over twenty five hundred years.
It was eaten by the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans.

(04:10):
The P gene okay, well, eating it causes a strong
odor in all people's urine. Only about twenty five to
forty percent of people can actually smell it due to
a genetic trait. I happen to fall in that sixty
to seventy five percent bracket. Unfortunately, very low in calories,

(04:33):
very high and vitamin K, FOLL eight, vitamin C, and
vitamin A. So maybe that's all you need to know
about asparagus. But it is the month of Asparagus, so
if you're into that kind of thing, definitely buy and
eat some asparagus. S Lime Disease Awareness month. Remember ticks

(04:57):
are an issue, a problem to your clothes, and you
perform full body checks when you come in from outside.
Attached ticks. You need to remove them within twenty four
hours if you can with tweezers, Tightly grip them at
the base where they're next to the skin and pull

(05:19):
them with a steady pressure. National week of May. The
second week, it's all about hospitals and nurses. It's National
Nurse Week, It's National Hospital Week, National Skilled Nursing Care Week,
and National Women's Health Week. All those things this week
and pretty much nothing else. The days of Today is

(05:44):
National dog Mom's Day okay, lost sok? Memorial Day and
Sleepover Day. Why would you have National Sleepover Day the
night before Mother's Day? That is a problem. Tomorrow Mother's Day,
don't forget it. And it's also Clean your Room Day,

(06:06):
so good idea to make mom happy. Monday Eat what
you Want Day and Twilight Zone Day. And Tuesday is
National Limerick Day, and for that I actually wrote a Limerick. Okay,
here it goes. There is such a thing as Limerick Day.

(06:28):
It's always held in the month of May. It's silly
and strange, and I would like this to change, but
I fear it is here to stay. First limerick I
ever wrote, and that's about the best one I ever heard.
Also on Tuesday, Nutty Fudge Day. Okay. The baked goods
lobby is strong and dominates the days of This is

(06:51):
really disturbing to me. I think we honestly ought to
boycott all baked goods until we get to the bottom
of this whole thing. But I know that's never going
to happen, so we'll just deal with it. I guess Wednesday,
May thirteenth, Apple Pie Day, see what I mean for all?
Jumping Day, Thursday May fourteenth, Dance like a chicken Day?

(07:12):
Why why? National Decency Day? Good? We need that, and
buttermilk Bistic Biscuit Day again at lobby. Finally on Friday,
Chocolate chip Day. What did I tell you? Bring flowers
to someone Day? That's a good IDEA Pizza party Day,
Nylon stocking Day, okay, Endangered Species Day, and Bite to

(07:35):
Work Day. So that ends the national days of months
of weeks of segment of our program. We'll take a break.
When we get back. We'll talk about some favorite plants
right now garden with Scott Berlin. Glad you are here
this morning with me. We are taking your calls. So

(07:55):
eight hundred eight three eighty two fifty five. Time to
talk talk about some favorite plants. And this is always
my favorite part of the program. Plants. I love them.
Every garden should have plants, just a simple thing that
I believe. I hope you all believe it. As well,
I talked about this plant last week, but it is

(08:18):
still just putting on the most amazing show. Venus dogwood.
So this is actually a cross created by a man
named elwen Orton at Rutgers. He did a lot of
breeding with dogwoods. This one is a hybrid between the
Chinese dogwood and the West Coast native dogwood corners. Natally,

(08:40):
it is extremely floriferous. Flowers just literally cover it. Big
flowers two five to six inches across, very white, a
little tinge of pink as they age. It's a vigorous tree.
It will just continue to grow in almost any conditions.
Probably not the hottest, driest conditions in the world, and

(09:02):
maybe not full sun if you have dry conditions, but
everything else it seems to do quite well. And besides
the flowers is gray fall color. And my tree now
is probably about twenty years old and it's starting to
show some really nice bark as well. So that is
one I think everybody ought to use, not that everybody
ought to use the same plant, and let me take

(09:22):
that back. Everyone should consider this plant. I think it'll
max out at twenty to thirty feet tall and wide,
so reasonably small tree that you can use with impunity.
It will do well. I also want to mention Magnolia
ashyi or ash is magnolia minus just coming into bloom.

(09:43):
It does bloom sporadically, so a few flowers here and there,
and then the next day some more, and then just
goes on for a couple of weeks like that. The
flowers are about the size of a large, very large
salad bowl, and they smell very lemony. It's a smaller tree,
probably fifteen to twenty feet ish. The leaves are huge,

(10:08):
so they're fun, they're easy to clean up. It's rare.
It's native only to Florida, but it grows quite well
up here in Cincinnati, and rumored to grow quite well
up in Chicago as well. You might check that out,
says Hearty six eight nine B. But I don't know
where exactly Chicago falls, but I do know that some

(10:29):
friends of mine were growing and it was doing pretty well.
It's really closely related to another magnolia that's also pretty rare,
big leaf magnolia Magnolia macrophilla. It blooms a little bit later,
so if you have both, you have those big, lemony
scented blooms for maybe a month maybe even longer full

(10:53):
sun to partial shade. It is just a great plant. Also,
it gets bigger though it gets maybe fifty by fifty
over time. One and again I mentioned geranium maculatum havenste Beetsy.
This is our native East Coast Eastern USA woodland geranium.

(11:21):
It's normally kind of a slight plant with some beautiful
light blue blooms. Doesn't last that long in the garden.
One called Heavens. This one called Heavens Stepetsy, was introduced
by Troy Martin twenty five years ago. It's a robust
plant with big presents in the garden green, deep green

(11:41):
foliage and these blue just big blue flowers that go
on for quite a while. So that's one to look for.
I know it's hard to find, but start asking about
it and maybe people will start getting it in to
their garden centers. In Togo into Gofera Kira loii is

(12:02):
outstanding at the zoo right now. It's a low p
shrub type plant. Can deal with any conditions, tough, dry,
whatever you've got, except for maybe full shade, two to
three feet high, and just a good grower with nice
pink flowers. And to gopher a decora is very similar,

(12:24):
just a bit bigger maybe, And you can find that
in a white form and a pink form. Both are
really good. I wanted to mention too, the Wisteria Protestens,
our native American wisteria. The cultivar out there is amethyst Falls.
It's kind of scattered native range from Texas to Michigan

(12:45):
to Florida to New York, but centered mostly in the
lower Mississippi Valley, but also on the Gulf Coast, Atlantic
Coast of Georgia and South Carolina and North Carolina. It
is a vigorous, big vine, but very good where you
can use that, and it is native so you don't
have any issues with invasiveness. It can be aggressive. Doutsia

(13:11):
griscilla Chardonnay pearls is out is just looking great right now.
This is the one with Chartrue's foliage and white blooms.
Both are happening right now. It's a proven winter's plant,
very good low shrub, maybe three feet high at best.
It tends to grow wider. Great one. All the bearded

(13:32):
irises are looking really good. All the baptises are looking
really good. And again I wanted to mention our native
honeysuckle lanes or a Sempervirons cultivar Major Wheeler. A really
good plant. Again a vine it will use. It's kind
of a shrubby vine. It doesn't get really big and

(13:56):
nasty like a lot of vines do. It is much
more better behaved. Trying to turn a page here. The PHS,
the Pennsylvania Horticulture Society has come out with their twenty
twenty six Best of Plants. Everybody wants to know these.
They've been doing this for a long time. Great plants

(14:17):
they're mentioned. They're mentioning the blue star Amsonia tabername Montana
storm cloud. It is a fantastic full sun shrubby almost perennial,
grows about twenty four to thirty inches tall zones four
through a really good grower that you can put in
tough sites. They also mentioned kayan Anthus or two sis

(14:40):
Tokyo tower. That's Chinese fringe tree. Tokyo tower is more
of a narrow form. This is similar to our native
French tree, but more upright, more arboreal. Puts out a
ton of flowers that are not quite as fleecy as
the American French tree, but certainly beautiful. Covers the plant

(15:03):
when it's in bloom just a great one. Eastern red cedar,
the one we see along the freeways. Juniper's Virginiana they
mentioned Taylor. Taylor is a selected version with better foliage
in a more upright form, easy to maintain. Good zones
four through eight. Falstaffney, Daphne, phil and macropoda. One of

(15:26):
my favorite plants. Not quite hardy here, but getting some
light shown upon it by the Pennsylvania Horticulture Society. A
new Indian grass or gast Newton's is getting a mention
told the cult of our Golden Sunset. This is just

(15:46):
a great grass. It's upright, narrow, doesn't spread too much
at all. This version Golden Sunset has a much lighter
kind of a gold gass to the foliage, which works
really really nicely in the garden. Zones three through nine.
Bluebird at smooth aster. That's one we love at the

(16:07):
zoo for sure, very late bloomer, great for pollinators late
in the season. Bluebird is the name of that one.
Topics also from the National Gardening Bureau. Some plants that
are pretty cool and worth mentioning. Nicotiana whisper robust plants

(16:31):
at height, color and unique texture to the garden and
bouquets all season long. They like the green bean and duro.
It's a reliable and high yielding version. They're also mentioning
Hydrangea macrophilip last from the pastel corny name great plant,
Pentus graffiti falls, another great one, butter lamp squash, Petunia

(16:56):
mini famous Neo rose, flash, Calibricoa. They mentioned eight good
edible flowers Colendula Nestersham and turning the page here is
difficult squash blossoms, pansies, be bomb. I didn't know b

(17:17):
bomb could be eaten the flowers. Anyway. Anyway, when we
get back, you will you will continue with things you
should have done last week. Some gardening tasks. Listening to
Let's Garden with Scott Berlin. We're here on Saturday for
Mother's Day weekend. I hope you have good things planned,
especially a lot of gardening. And if you're out there gardening,

(17:40):
here are some tasks I think I should have done
last week, and maybe you should have to anyway, things
that need to get done around this time of year.
And feel free to call in at eight hundred and
eight two three eighty two fifty five questions about tasks
or any tasks that you have in mind that deserve
a mention. Anyway, it's probably about time depending on where

(18:03):
you are to till or dig your vegetable garden. Remember
when tilling, digging, or planting, never do that when the
soil is wet. If your tilling is causing big clods
and it's like the soil is kneading up like dough,
get caught in the times it's too wet to till.
You're damaging the soil structure when you do that, and

(18:27):
it's really hard to get that to recover. So you
want to be tilling when the soil is pretty dry
and it breaks up really nicely into smaller fragments or
pieces of soil that have poor space the space between
the different pieces of soil, so that air and water
can penetrate well. A lot of people a lot of

(18:50):
talk right now about no till or till you know, tilling.
They're saying tilling break destroys the soil structure. It can
if you do it at the wrong time. I personally
feel it's good for the soil and garden situations, maybe
not in farming. In garden situations, I feel like it's
a great way to incorporate more organic matter into your soil,

(19:12):
and it does loosen up uncompacted, so your plants have
root space to grow in. If you've got an argument
for me, I'm willing to listen to it. But people
have been tilling their gardens for a very long time
now and it does seem to work. Another thing they'll
do right now is look for places where water is pooling.

(19:36):
I've noticed just a lot of mosquito activity lately, and
looking around, it's pretty easy to find the clutter that
happened over winter where water can pull up. It only
takes a few days and a very small amount of
water for mosquitoes to find that and breed in it.
The life cycle of a mosquito is as little as

(19:56):
five to ten days. That's incredible. In that time frame,
they produce eggs, hatch into larvae, pupate, and become adults.
A single mosquito can produce between fifty and two hundred eggs,
and again it takes very little water and very little
time for those to become mosquitos and breed again. So

(20:17):
for a relatively mosquito free yard, look for all those
things like buckets and sagging gutters and tarps or whatever.
Wherever water can pool find that, find those things and
fix it. It's a great time to divide and replant perennials,

(20:40):
you know, when the soil when it's still relatively cool,
when we're getting regular rain. If you've got a patch
of something that's vigorous and doing really well, first of all,
you're doing no harm to divide from it. In fact,
a lot of perennials really benefit from division. But you
can simply go to the outer edge with a sharp spade.

(21:04):
Cut you know, the little piece of perennial that you want,
maybe something in a six by six size, Lift it out,
put it somewhere else, Water it in. If it doesn't
rain for a few days, water again, keep it moist,
get it through the summer through droughts with some watering,
and you'll have more plants for free and more beauty

(21:25):
in your garden. Be sure to fill the back fill
the hole that you dug from with. I always just
throw some mushroom compost in there, just to get some
more life in the soil, and I figure it usually
winds up mixed into the soil around it through earthworms
and other ground critters. If you must bloom your spring

(21:49):
blooming shrubs. Prune them right after they bloom to ensure
good flour production next year. So you know, if you
have to keep them in check, now is the time, well,
right after they bloom is the time to do it.
If you have bird houses or mason by houses and
they're not already in use, clean them out, you know,

(22:12):
make a good sanitary home for the next occupant. And
first and foremost, first and foremost, you must get out
there and help mom in the garden or just garden
for mom. Your choice, her choice, her choice. Got Ron

(22:33):
on the phone, ron, rothis. Why didn't we talked to
him for a minute. Okay, just told that. Well that drops,
so we'll do it. He's calling back. He's good now, Scott.
Just a computer issues. Okay, we got it. Computer issue
is solved. Ron is on the phone, ron, What have
you got for us?

Speaker 2 (22:51):
Good morning. You were talking earlier about some of the
plants that are blooming right now, and there's one that
I did not hear that is certainly putting on a
show right now, and that's the yellow wood tree.

Speaker 1 (23:03):
Yeah, kind of finishing up. I think it seems like
there's a range, but it's really funny right now you're
seeing all the yellow woods that are out there. There's
not that many, but man, they are showy when they
are in bloom.

Speaker 2 (23:18):
Yeah, which is only one every other year, so it's
not one that you necessarily plant just for the blooms,
because usually they take the year off and then they
bloom again. And the odd thing is they seem to
all be on the same schedule, no matter what nursery
you get them from.

Speaker 1 (23:35):
I seen that too. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:37):
Yeah, you're saying that they're kind of finishing up, and
that's probably true at the zoo and some of the
urban areas. I live out in Township kind of I'm
still inside the loop, but my yellow wood is just
beginning to bloom right now, whereas you know, some other

(23:58):
ones that I've seen are certainly in full bloom. And
I think when you get probably down to your zoo
and botanical garden, they very well might be about finish
down there because it's a warmer micro climate. My mine
got to the point of blooming and then we hit
a couple of frosty nights, and I think it just
kind of decided it's time to to take a break

(24:18):
here and just kind of hold off a little bit. Yeah,
but so I've still got to show a show to
look forward to with my yellowood tree because it's just
coming into balloom. But just a beautiful tree. And the
other thing about yellowood that's really interesting is they can
really bolt sometimes when they're when they're younger. Mine mine,

(24:40):
you know, I planted it. It grew a few inches
for a couple of years, and then it grew literally
four feet, and the next year it grew four feet
and this year it's grown two to three feet. I mean,
they can really get put on some good growth when
they're young.

Speaker 1 (24:57):
And if we're a flowering tree that falls kind of
in the ornamental category, it gets pretty large over time.

Speaker 2 (25:08):
It does, you know, it can make a nice shade tree.
One thing to remember about it. And it is pretty
easy to find the nurseries, but you really have to
watch the branching when it's young. Structural pruning is important
because it can develop some tight branching angles. But if
you keep the branching separated when you're purning, you know,

(25:32):
if you have clusters of branches, you kind of send
those out a little bit when they're young and make
sure that the branching angles are wider. You can have
a really well structured yellow wood tree that can last
quite a long time. You mentioned that they're fairly rare,
and I guess they kind of are. But in my

(25:53):
area there's putting in a new subdivision. They planted a
number of yellow wood trees in the subdivision in the
common areas and that's great. I know you mentioned, I
guess in your local cut in earlier that the Easter
Garden Club is having their garden walk next week and
there's several yellow wood trees have been planted as street
trees down in that area.

Speaker 1 (26:14):
So I've seen some up near Northgate in that area,
a couple of blocks planted with yellow woods. It's very
cool to see, you know what, the street They do
really well.

Speaker 2 (26:26):
Yellow wood drive and yellows and yellowood drive.

Speaker 1 (26:30):
That's cool. You know, they work as a street tree
in some ways. They do want to grow a little
wide sometimes, but they like that kind of dry or soil.
They seem to do best in that kind of location.

Speaker 2 (26:45):
Definitely, if they're in a wet area, they're not going
to like that. The only place that I've seen them
grow in the wild abundantly is in the palisades of
the Kentucky River down near high Bridge and Shakertown. Yeah,
a lot of yellow wood trees growing in the wild
down there, and that's those are limestone cliffs limes.

Speaker 1 (27:06):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (27:08):
You can infer from that that they're well drained and
and kind of drowny sometimes certainly not not swampy.

Speaker 1 (27:17):
And maybe on the alkaline side.

Speaker 2 (27:20):
Definitely on the alkaline side. I think they I think
they kind of like that too.

Speaker 1 (27:25):
Ye. Other features about it that don't usually get mentioned
are the is the bark is almost beach like, very
smooth and gray and very very cool. And the fall
color really good, clear yellow. Both are very ornamental features
of this plant.

Speaker 2 (27:43):
Mine was golden last fall. It was absolutely spectacular.

Speaker 1 (27:47):
Yeah, it is odd that they believe they bloom every
other year, and virtually I've never seen a yellowood in
bloom in the off year. They are all on the same,
like you said, the same schedule.

Speaker 2 (28:01):
Yeah, I think I have. I think I saw, you know,
a handful of blooms last year, but I mean they
were extremely sporadic, Okay, you know, just like one here
and one that you really had to be looking for
him last year, and you know, not all trees. I mean,
just like I spend all my time looking at trees

(28:22):
for some reason, and so eventually you find one that
has a Aaron's balloom on it, but kind of like
a seventeen year cicada that happens to come out the wrong.

Speaker 1 (28:33):
Year for the spring blooming plant that throws out some
blooms in the fall. You know, maybe it's just that
weird little genetic twist that yeah, it causes that.

Speaker 2 (28:45):
But you know, great shade tree, the beach like bark like,
you know, it does well in limestone soil, golden fall color.
And then every other year you have those white osteria
like flowers that are absolutely I would call it spectacular
when they're blown.

Speaker 1 (29:03):
Yeah, I think we've done a proper sales job on yellowoods,
don't you. Hey, it deserves it, it does, it really does.
I should mention that Ron, You're gonna be on the
show next weekend along with John Butcher, another arborist, and Christone,
director of the boone Can County Arboretum, and we're going

(29:23):
to talk about trees and shrubs with a lot of
fun and a lot of joy and passion and enthusiasm,
and people will certainly learn a lot about trees and
shrubs and get excited about it. I hope from the career.

Speaker 2 (29:38):
I'm looking forward to it. Ed Butcher the.

Speaker 1 (29:45):
Service.

Speaker 2 (29:47):
He was my arbor culture instructor at Cincinnati Tenno College
which is now Cincinnati State. Yeah, Batman was absolutely passionate.
I used to say he he was like a Baptist preacher,
beaturing the gospel of alex Chaige. Alex Chaigo a lot
of foundational tree research and really instilled in me a

(30:09):
lot of the passion that I have. So I really
oh at Butcher an awful lot. I do think it's
funny that such a wonderful arborist and such a wonder
our wonderful our boricultural family has the last name of Butcher.
I teved him about that a case. It is what
it is.

Speaker 1 (30:28):
Right, we've got to take a break, but I am
very much looking forward to having you here in the
studio next week and talking about trees and shrubs.

Speaker 2 (30:36):
And I'm looking forward to it too. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (30:38):
Thanks a lot, Scott, You're welcome. Yep, you're listening to
Let's Garden with Scott. Berline. Will take a break. We'll
be back in just a few This is let's garden
with Scott Berline. We're talking plants, We're talking gardens. We're
talking to you if you call in eight hundred eight
three eighty two fifty five. A couple of things that
came across my desk during the week that could be

(31:00):
of interest to a lot of people. Number One, this
came from the Beagle Live from OSU Extension, Ohio State
University Extension, the Buckeye Yard and Garden Line, which is
available online for everybody, so you can look this up
and find a lot of great information even if you're
not from Ohio. But the article was written by Jim

(31:21):
Downs called why are my trees Wilting? And we're seeing
a lot of that, not only wilting, but blackened foliage,
brown foliage, crispy foliage, sometimes just twisted contorted foliage. Primarily
that is being caused by the weather. Yeah, we had

(31:42):
some late frosts this year which is causing that. So
it's not anything to be really concerned about or have
to treat or do anything about. Just know that it happened,
and some leaves are gonna look a little weird. They'll
probably fall off it by before theos into the growing season.
New growth will come in and your trees and shrubs

(32:03):
will look just fine. I wanted to talk about another
thing that came through from Growing Produce magazine. They did
a survey of the staff at Frederick Meyer Gardens that's
up in Michigan, and they talked to the Michigan farm

(32:26):
garden people that these are people they're mostly doing food production,
and ask them about their favorite tools. And this applies
to any gardener. I think it's really telling. And they
came up with some really, really good good tools for
all of us to look into. Number one was the

(32:47):
hory hory or also known as the Japanese garden knife.
It's sort of a trowel with a sharp, serrated edge
on one side and a smoother edge on the other.
Some have a little hook which you can use to
uh take off things like hostile flowers if you're If
you do that, uh, this is the best, one of

(33:09):
the best tools I have in my garden. I don't
even use the trail anymore. UH when I'm planting things.
If the soil is good enough, I don't even use
a shovel. I just get on my knees and start
digging with my Japanese uh uh digging knife and I
can dig a hole in just seconds with that thing.
It's sharp, it's it's a little bit dangerous. You want

(33:30):
to be careful with it, but it is a really
really good tool. They mentioned a broad fork. Uh, this
is uh, I know. It has a double digger. It's
it's too two long handles like you would see it
on a shovel, a crossbar, and then a bunch of
times that goes straight down. So you you push that
into the ground with your foot and you kind of

(33:52):
lift with it, and by doing that you open up
the soil. You get air poores in their ability for
water and air to penetrate the soil much better without
actually having to dig your soil. So that is a
great tool for people, primarily with vegetable gardeners where you're
trying to just get your soil ready for the next season.

(34:16):
They mentioned a scuffle hole hoe or sometimes called a
dutch ho or a stirrup ho, another great tool. Unlike
regular hose where you're only hoeing on the polling motion,
with a scuffle hoe, you can do you can hoe
going backwards and forwards, so you just keep scuffling along.

(34:38):
It's a great name for it scuffle hoe. You just
scuffle with it. You just get through the weeds really fast.
You can sharpen it in really nicely to make the
work even easier. But a great tool. They mentioned wagons.
It's rather than making multiple trips back and forth for
more tools, more plants, more whatever, having a small wagon

(34:58):
or a wheelbarrow is a great way to just make
your gardening more efficient. They talk about buckets. Yeah, buckets
are great. YEP. I will add a five time long
handled garden fork. I find this to be an extremely
useful tool. This is not like a pitchfork with thicker times.

(35:20):
These are very wispy times and almost springy. But if
you're trying to unload a truckload of mulch, or lift soil,
or even lift leaves out of your garden, it is
really good for those things and you should look into it.
Steaking staking your trees. Have you got trees that you

(35:44):
staked in the past. If you have, it is time
to make sure that the staking is not hurting the tree.
The little wires, the guidelines, all these things can get
into the bark and the tree he grows around it,
and that is not good to see the tree also

(36:04):
needs to move a little bit in the wind to
gain some strength, so check your staking. It might be
time to take it off. If it's not time to
take it off, loosen it up. You are listening, so
let's guard with Scott Perline. We'll be back in just
a few minutes.