Winter weather predictions- A white Christmas?

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning everybody. Welcome back. I'm Ron Wilson, and you
are in the garden here on this radio six to
ten WTV and talking about yarding. And you know, we
had Helene come through and give us, Helene give us
some nicer rainfall, some relief to what we had been
experiencing three to four weeks, well months before that. Actually

(00:22):
those three first three weeks of September just brutal, hot, dry,
no rainfall. I mean really the drought was horrible. And
then of course that came through and kind of broke
the drought, or did it break the drought? Well, to
help us to figure out whether it did or did
not break the drought and give us an idea where

(00:42):
we are right now, My good friend, and of course
he's actually a certified I say board certified master arbist,
registered consulting arbist, but he's also a hobby meteorologist and
he's darned good at it. As a matter of fact,
I go to him anytime we had questions about the weather,
look into the future, looking into the past, or whatever.
He is Ron rothis and his website Arbordoctor dot com.

(01:04):
Ron Rothis, good morning, Good morning, how are you. I
am great. I understand you are returning from a trip
at Wooster, Ohio, Wooster.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Wayne County, Holmes County, Amish Country, two days with doctor
ed Gilman and a trining workshop. So it's been a
fantastic week.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
I'm surprised you came back. I know how much you
like Holmes County and all in the Homish country up there.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
We'm currently he's somewhere in a super secret location near
Mount Sterling. So I'm on my way back, even though
I'm yes, I took a little detour through Holmes County
again this morning just because I absolutely I'm in love
with that area.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
You could you drop off some fried pies if you
go by Columbus?

Speaker 2 (01:53):
You know what. I am on a diet, and I
didn't say it for you.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
I said for drop them off in Columbus.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
No I didn't, could you. I'm I'm doing my best
to you know how hard it is to spend a
week up in Almish Country and not buy a fry pie.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
No, I don't. I've never done that before. I have
to have fried pies with them there.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
I know it's it's it's a test of willpower.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
Well, I don't have any when I go there. So
there you go.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
Well, I was pushing the envelope. I did stay at
the Charmed Country View End for for two nights. So
I was up there, which is an amazing, wonderful bed
and breakfast, and they have just the most wonderful breakfast there,
almost none of which was on my diet. So I
broke the fast for two mornings.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
And but you held out against the fry pies, and
that's what counts.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
I did hold out against the fry pies. Yes, all right,
I just is such a you know, this week was
just so beautiful with the Yeller and you know that
part of Ohio is just I mean, it's just as beautiful.
I think it's just about anywhere in the country. Yeah,
amazing area it is.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
It's a wonderful what Ohio has to offer, There's no doubt.
Well let's take a look at what we got you
on this morning to take to take a look at.
You know, we had the showers come through right there
at the end of September, first of October. Obviously it
varied amounts in Ohio from Portsmouth getting flooded out to
an inch and a half or two inches here and there.

(03:28):
You know, did it break the drought force in Ohio.
And again you sent me yesterday a copy of the
drought monitor for Ohio. Right now, that's not looking too pretty.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
No, it did dent the drought, and in fact, then
in the parts of southern Ohio it temporarily ended the drought.
I mean it actually went mostly out of drought. But
central Ohio right now and its entirety is still in drought,
and Franklin County in particular, the western northwestern part of

(04:01):
Franklin County is a moderate drought. The south, the eastern
southeastern really almost half of Franklin County is an extreme
drought right now. So the Columbus area down into Franklin
Pickaway County is still an extremely dry situation. But the

(04:22):
entire you know, central Ohio area is at least in
moderate drought right now. And as you go southeastern Columbus,
you go into the you know, like I said, you're
into extreme drought in Franklin County, and then as you
go southeast, you get into exceptional drought, which is the
highest level of drought in the US drout Monitor. And

(04:45):
the state nowhere in the state of Ohio had been
an exceptional drought in twenty first century, and the fact
that about eight percent of the state is currently an
exceptional drought. In such a large part of the state
is an extreme drought right now. We're in a way
right now, and yes, Helene helped some temporarily, but we

(05:05):
went right back into the same weather pattern after Helene left.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
So you know, I'm looking at this and you're right.
I mean, and in southern Ohio there are some white
which is the none as far as drought. In the
north eastern part of the of Ohio same way, but
everything else some type of situation as far as being dry,
and it's amazing to see that on the south east

(05:31):
side of Ohio, you know, the extreme and severe that's unbelievable.
And of course Franklin County as well. So we are
seeing this right now. So we did have somewhat relief,
but now we're kind of back into it again. What
do you see in I mean, is there anything out
there in the future? Forces you would talk to us.
The last time we spoke, you said that was the
only thing that was going to break the drought was

(05:51):
if we had a tropical storm to come through and
kind of screw things up, mess things up. Change it around,
and that happened, and we are thankful for that. Obviously,
it did more dammies than we could ever imagine. I
feel bad for the folks who were like in the
North Carolina and all, but it did help out the
state of Ohio. Are you seeing anything out there now,

(06:13):
because it looks to me like the chances of rain
not too good.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
Chances of the rain are not too good. You know,
there's basically nothing over the next week, and when you
go out further than that, it does start to look
maybe a little bit better as we get into the November,
but it's going to be a slow process. I mean,
there's no major you know, upset to the weather pattern
in the in the near future. And I really think

(06:43):
what's gonna happen with a lawn Enian pattern, which is
cooler weather and I'm sorry, cooler ocean temperatures in the
south central Pacific Ocean. That tends to you know that
there's a generalized pattern that goes with a law ninia,
and that generalized wind pattern would have higher the normal
precipitation in the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley. Now that said,

(07:09):
I'm very very careful to say generalized pattern because other
things affect the weather, and if that, you know, heav
of the normal rainfall or precipitation moves a little bit
further north, it couldn't affect Ohio a lot less. So
there is a projection that we could be near to
slightly above normal precipitation this winter. I'm hoping that's the case.

(07:33):
But that's this winter, you know, meteorological winters December, January, February,
so that's looking pretty far in the future. And over
the next several weeks there just isn't much in the forecast.
It's dry, dry, dry, dry dry. So you know, when
I was driving back and again I took kind of
the circuitous route so I could drive through more of

(07:55):
Homage Country, then down through Kashaktan and toward Columbus from there.
But as I drove through Newark, Ohio, there was a
property that had a planted arbor vite along the south
side of their property, the north side of the route
that I was on, and I would say, a third
of those arbravity we're dead or you know, partially brown dyeing.

(08:18):
And it looked like drought stressed to me. So you
know that the evergreen, you know, a lot of Ohio.
You know, there was really good fall color up in
Amish Country. A lot of the trees are starting to drop.
You know, a lot of trees are dropped early because
of the because of the drought. So we're going to
see less and less in a way of deciduous trees.
And as a deciduous trees drop, you tend to not

(08:39):
think about the drought so much. But you know, they're
still dry and the evergreens in particular can still transpire
moisture as we go through the fallen end of the winter,
and so if we're not watering those things, you know,
this is a third autumn in a row with drought,
and we've already seen over the past two years evergreens

(09:01):
dying from drought stress. We're going to continue that pattern
and it's not going to be pretty.

Speaker 1 (09:09):
So don't don't disconnect the disconnect the hose from the
spigot because of the freezing and all, but if that
happens in your area, but otherwise, keep that hose going,
keep those irrigation systems going and hand water as well,
because like Ron said, there's no end in sight right now,
and it's looking bad. And this is our third fall
in a row that this has been happening with this

(09:30):
dry weather. So we've got to keep watering. We've got
to keep watering, especially the evergreens and newly planted trees
and shrubs, established trees as well. Got to stick with it.
We'll take a quick break, will we come back. I
got more for Ron as he's moving his way back
down to southern Ohio. And Eli just wanted to double
check and make sure no fried pies to drop off

(09:51):
at the studios. Right, Sorry, okay, just just double checking
all right here on News Radio six to ten WTVN.
This used to be a great song at a bar.
If you were trying to bet on who sang this song,
many many, many years ago, nobody could answer that question.

(10:11):
Hardly anybody ever knew the answer. You could always win
money on it. Now everybody knows Norman Greenbaum spirit in
this guy. Great song. Welcome back talking, you're already here
on news Radio six ' ten WTVN special guest this morning,
at Ron Rothis of course his website arbordoctor dot com
for both tree information and weather information. He's got them

(10:31):
both on there, arbordoctor dot com. Traveling back from Holmes
county up in Amies Country, and you were at Worcester
for some tree training up there, some pruning training.

Speaker 2 (10:43):
Yeah, pruning workshop, prescription pruning workshop with doctor ed Gilman,
who is Professor Emeritis from the University of Florida and
really one of the top experts on the subject in
the country. It's really really great information this.

Speaker 1 (10:57):
Week, you know, and I applaud you because you were
always involved with these You're always uh updating your knowledge
and sharpening the acts, so to speak. And you know,
I think over the years we start to see with
a lot of scientific research out there now a lot
of myth busting of things that you know, we thought
was right many years ago and things have changed. Uh.

(11:18):
Coming away from this particular one, anything new that you
you've learned.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
Yeah, it was really really some great information, uh foundationally
for professionals. It was it was about putting together specifications
for pruning that that would be you know, well communicated
and translatable to you know, by the person who's putting
the estimate together for the for the crew, but from
a more from a broader standpoint, and what would be

(11:45):
more interesting prior to your to your the people listening,
is that a lot of the trees when they come,
when they're grown in the nursery. They want them to
be people kind of like the law. Look, you know,
kind of nice rounded trees, things like that. A lot
of trees, a lot of nurseries will actually shear trees

(12:06):
or prune trees in such a way so they have
a nice kind of uniform appearance and things like that,
which is which is fine, except once you get the
tree into the landscape, it tends to, you know, that
branch structure, which has been deformed some from what it
would be in nature, continues to grow an unnatural way

(12:28):
and it forms a branching structure which is not as
favorable for good growth. It tends to lend itself to
to breakage or higher increase or higher percent higher probability
of breakage as a tree gets grows older. And so,

(12:49):
you know, the workshop really concentrated on pruning trees to
develop or to prune away some of the competing leaders
that you end up with essentially one trunk, one leader
going all the way through up through the canopy of
the tree, and then subordinating all the other competing leaders,
either removing some or just printing those back so that

(13:13):
they're not competing with at main leaders that when the
tree gets older, you have a tree that's dominant up
through the middle and branches that are more horizontal or
growing outward from the center of the tree, with wider
branching angles against the trunk which are going to be
stronger than you know, very narrow branching angles. So in

(13:37):
some of the trees that doctor Gilman pruned, you know,
we actually went out and did a lot of pruning
of trees from you know, fairly newly planted trees up
to forty foot plus trees. They had climbers up in
the trees, and some of them we were removing, you know,
thirty of the branching in the trees. You know, someone
made the comment, you know, if I went out to

(13:58):
one of my customers property and did this to their tree,
they probably fire me. But when you know what you're
looking at and what you're you know, the improvements that
you're making for the future, that temporary you know, what
looks like a slightly deformed tree is actually going to
be a much much better tree over the long term.

Speaker 1 (14:20):
And then trying to convince that the homeowner that what
you're doing is.

Speaker 2 (14:23):
Right That's why I'm saying it on you.

Speaker 1 (14:28):
Love it now? Is that are there exceptions to the rule?
I mean, I think I try to think of some
of the trees while you were talking about that, like
I don't see that central leader so much like sometimes
in zell Kova.

Speaker 2 (14:39):
Well, interestingly enough, one of the trees doctor Gilman demonstrated
on was his Zelkova, okay, and that was one of
the trees where he probably removed forty of the branching
and he actually did establish essentially essential leader in that tree.
I mean, it was amazing. You had to see it

(15:01):
to truly appreciate it. But it was even even a Zelkova.
And he worked on a on an Elm as well,
a couple of elms, and and and worked on getting
leaders and in some cases, you know, he was taking
quite a lot out of those trees, but establishing a
much stronger branching structure, because the problem is that when

(15:24):
you have all those branches, you know, growing out for
the same spot. It's very common in elms in zel Kova,
some of those interior branches if they're if you have
a tight bifurcation and you have three branches kind of
coming up from the same spot, that middle branch will
sometimes get choked off as the as the tree ages,

(15:46):
and I've seen certainly seen that in Vilkova in particular.
And so if you can remove that situation where all
the branches are kind of coming out from the same
point and get more of a central leader with the branches,
which are still going to be a I mean that's
the natural natural shape of those trees. Because you can
get those branches so the coming out from different points
in the trunk, it's going to be a much better

(16:08):
structured tree as a tree ages.

Speaker 1 (16:11):
Interesting and I'm sure you took some pictures, so I'm
sure we'll see those somewhere down the road.

Speaker 2 (16:17):
You had to see that the k what he did,
because zelk covid to truly appreciate it. Sure, I think
those of us have been doing it for years were
standing there thinking he's never going to do it with this.

Speaker 1 (16:27):
He did. So now you give somebody like that a
round of applause.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
We did, Actually, Oh did you?

Speaker 1 (16:35):
I love it? All right? We're two months away, mister,
mister weather predictor Ron rothis arbordoctor dot com. Two months away.
You want to go out on a limb and tell
us we're gonna have a white Christmas or not here
in Columbus.

Speaker 2 (16:50):
Well, there's at least one, uh one area that I
follow that is tending to say we might be a
little bit colder than the normal around Christmas time, which
could give us a little bit better chance of the
white Christmas. That's you know here in October. That's as
much as I can say right now.

Speaker 1 (17:08):
Well that's that's better than what you usually say because
you say fifty to fifty chance.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
Oh maybe it's a fifty five forty five chance right now.

Speaker 1 (17:17):
There you go. Hey, Ron, we appreciate you taking time
with us this morning and going over this with us.
I just you know, we want to keep everybody aware
where we are. And again, you know, we had a
nice little break with the rainfall that we did get,
but right now we're almost brack into the same situation again.
This is a third year in a row for the fall.
We've got to make sure we continue to water, especially

(17:38):
those evergreens, newly planted trees and shrubs, larger trees as well.
Got to keep some moisture in there till what do
you say, at least till Thanksgiving.

Speaker 2 (17:47):
At least till Thanksgiving. You know, as dry as the
past two autumns have been, it's drier right now than
the past two years were, so we.

Speaker 1 (17:54):
Can be going right up to the holiday season.

Speaker 2 (17:57):
Yeah, if we don't change this pattern.

Speaker 1 (18:00):
There you go. You heard it from the man. His
website is arbordoctor dot com. Be sure and check it out,
ron rothis have a safe trip back to Cincinnati.

Speaker 2 (18:07):
Same to you. And even though they're not lost this week,
we still have to say, go Bucks.

Speaker 1 (18:11):
Go Bucks, appreciate it, take care again. His website is
arbordoctor dot com. We'll take a quick break, we come back.
I had an interesting article here that I wanted to
share with you about planting white oak trees. Now, you
know how every every end, every show talking about planting
a tree or two or three. We've tried to push

(18:31):
that all the time, how important it is to plant trees,
and there are some folks out there that just don't
accept that. It's okay here, I don't like, there's no
climate change. Things aren't changing out there. Claning tree is
not gonna, you know, really make a big difference. Well,
I've got another reason to add to why you need
to get out and plant trees, namely white oaks, and

(18:54):
I'll explain that after the break here on news radio
six to ten WTVN. Well, you want to know what
I wish I had not brought up. I wish I
had not asked Ron about fried pies, because now I'm
sitting here thinking about fried pies and I'm hungry and
I would love to have, you know, an assortment of
fried pies. I'm going to think about that for the

(19:17):
rest of the week, and I'm going to wind up
happening in the car and drive up and get myself
some fried pies. Anyway, I'm talking about yardening, and then
before we went into the break talking about you know,
I really do. I've been doing pushing this forever and
I've got my yard voice points upon her, which I've
done for fifteen years, and at the top of that list,
it's plant a tree or two or three. And I've
always been the big advocate for getting out and planting trees,

(19:40):
and not only planting them, but growing them, making sure
they grow, and how important that is, and it's one
of the you know, one of the best things any
of us can do, has probably the most influence on
all the things that we can do out there is
to plant a tree or two or three every year.
Just keep planting trees. And you know, we can go
through all of the many, many benefits of planting trees

(20:01):
and what trees can do for us and our mental
health and the environment and wildlife and all of that.
I mean, we know that all right, but you know
there's still folks out there that just say, you know,
it's not that big of a deal, and I'm not
gonna go plant trees, and maybe don't think the climate's changing,
and et cetera, et cetera. Well, I have now found

(20:21):
another reason, and maybe it will get some of your
attentions out there that you may not have thought about
planting trees, especially if you are a bourbon drinker or
bourbon kindoseur. Why would I say that, Why would I
want you to plant trees if you are a bourbon kindosur,

(20:44):
Because if you're a bourbon connoisseur, you know the deal,
especially if your bourbon drinker, because by law, bourbon must
be aged in new charred American oak barrels, and distaillerrias
use white oak for its strength, flavor profile and the
rich color it creates. In the bourbons. So and you say, okay,

(21:09):
so what, Well, guess what. There is a global decline
of white oak force. They've done some research taking a
look around. As a matter of fact, oaks in general,
there's been an oak tree reduction and I didn't know
this recorded in thirty nine countries. Thirty one percent of
the four and thirty known oak species are on the
verge of extension extension, and it's all due to invasive species, drought, fires,

(21:34):
soil compaction, you know, disease, you know, the whole nine yards.
It take out, takes out trees on a regular basis,
and that's why we have to keep replanting trees all
the time. And you know again they said, you know,
there hasn't been much attention to it until the bourbon
producers and the State of Kentucky and a few others said,
wait a second, we may be seeing a serious issue

(21:57):
down the road if we don't have our white oak
trees to make our barrels to distill our bourbon. So
that got a lot of attention, and they've I guessed.
The Dendery Fund partnered with the American Forest Foundation and
the University of Kentucky. They've launched the White Oak Initiative,

(22:17):
all right, and they've partnered to commit to a long
term sustainability solution for the American white oak and their
initiative goal is to regenerate one hundred million acres of
white oak forest by twenty seventy and hopefully other people
will join in realizing how important this is to the

(22:39):
bourbon industry in addition to all of the great things
that does for our ecosystems, no doubt about that. And
it is a you know, all the trees are crucial
to our ecosystem, but white oak just being and a
great tree, by the way, and an easy one to grow,
and they grow in a lot of different locations. But
it even brought that they said, they kind of joke

(23:00):
and said it even brought the Republicans and the Democrats
together with the White Oak Resilience Act, a bari partisan
bill backed by Brown Foreman. So if you have not
wanted to plant trees for various reasons, if you are
a bourbon drinker, enjoy bourbon, or a bourbon connoisseur, you

(23:21):
might want to get out there and start encouraging folks
to plant trees, namely white oak, to help protect our
bourbon barrels in the future. And in the meantime, while
you're growing in for the bourbon barrels, look at all
the great things they're doing for the earth and you
and me and wildlife and everything else that's out there.

(23:42):
So get out and plant a tree or two or three,
and while you're doing that, make it a white oak
here and there and everywhere. All right. I thought that
was pretty interesting. Oh, one last thing before we take
another break, our last break. By the way, I saw this,
and I never even thought about this before, but this
was in somebody's I think it was on one of

(24:02):
the Soil and Water District flyers that they put out.
But anyway, the USDA estimates, and we've got Halloween coming up, right,
and everybody's selling pumpkins and carbon pumpkins that every year,
more than a billion pounds of pumpkins, a billion pounds
of pumpkins are sent to the landfills every fall, and

(24:23):
that's about eighty percent of the number of pumpkins that
are purchased for fall decorations. That's only eighty percent. But
they said, what's interesting is because the landfills lack the
necessity of nutrients and oxygen that's needed to decompose the
food the pumpkins, which can take a little bit longer
because of the rhine and all. They actually can take

(24:44):
up to decades to break down in landfills and during
that time emitting of course, methane gas in the process.
So what to do well, A couple of things you
can take a look at. One is, when you're done
with your pumpkins, check with your local farmers neighbors who
have livestock or whatever. A lot of livestock, including hogs,

(25:05):
love pumpkins, so it may be something that you could
drop off and help to feed their live stock. If not,
just take your pumpkin and this what we typically do.
Just sit it out, like on the edge of the
woods if you have the woods, or on the corner
of your house, or in the back of your landscape,
and let it just sit there and it's a food
source for animals throughout the winter. I mean, it sits

(25:27):
there as it decomposes, just sitting on top of the ground.
They'll eat the seeds out of it. They'll eat the
pumpkin the inside, the whole nine yards. I kind of
watch that you don't have some pumpkins sprout out the
next year. But just let it decompose there or put
it in your own compost pile. Cut it up, and
in your own compost pile you have the nutrients and

(25:48):
you have everything there that's needed for that in the
oxygen for that thing to break down. All right. So again,
just like our leaves in our yards, if you have
pumpkins for the Halloween season and you're done with them,
use them up in your own yard. Do not send
them back to the landfill. I would have never thought
about that, But that's a lot of pumpkins and a

(26:09):
lot of time to break down to send back to
the landfills, and we can use them right there in
our own yards and gardens. Now, we'll take a quick break.
I keep saying quick break. They are not quick breaks.
We'll take another break and we come back. We'll finish
up talking about yarding here on news radio six to
ten WTVN. I want to put out a special thank
you to all the folks at Oakland Nursery in Dublin.

(26:29):
Last Sunday, they hosted, as they have done for many
years now, the National Pumpkin Way Off. It went great.
The weather was out a little windy, but the weather
was great and we had some great pumpkins there. As
a matter of fact, they set a site record. Carolyn
Dave Steltz the pumpkin. The site record there last Sunday

(26:50):
was two thousand and five hundred and thirty one pounds
two five three one. Now you say, where does that
fall into with the all world weigh ends and the
world record, Well, the standing world record, which was not
broken this year is two seven hundred and forty nine pounds.

(27:10):
It was broken last year by the horticultural teacher out
of Minnesota. He takes it all the way over to
Half Moon Bay. It's one of the last national wayoffs
and in weighs it there, so it's at the very
very end. Well, he thought he had broken his record
this year and did the same thing, got there and
come to find out he weighed in. His pumpkin did

(27:32):
at two thousand, seven hundred and forty one pounds, eight
pounds short of his record from last year, So he
didn't break the record, but up until his pumpkin was
weighed in the current twenty twenty four heaviest pumpkin to

(27:53):
date was from Carol and Dave Steltz enan Valley, Pennsylvania
at seven hundred and thirty one and a half pounds,
just shy of course of the world record. Well, they
also set the site record at Oakland last Sunday with
their twenty five to thirty one pumpkin. They also have

(28:13):
another one in that top I think they're in the
top fifteen of all of the pumpkins in the world.
At twenty four sixty four. They had three pumpkins this year.
It's the best year they've ever had that weighed over
twenty four hundred pounds. And there is a category that
takes the grower that has three pumpkins. You put all

(28:35):
the weights together and whoever has, of course the most
weight with three pumpkins would be the world champion Giant
pumpkin grower, and they took that particular title, so it's
pretty cool. And again they set the site record at
Oakland at twenty five thirty one. Sting was huge. The
second largest one was right behind it, but there was

(28:57):
four or five of them that were absolutely the size
of smart cars. I mean they were on you know,
I say, small volkswagons on palettes, that's what they look like.
But unbelievable. But again a lot of fun. We thank
the folks from Oakland for hosting this every year. The
winner I forget at this stage it's like five thousand
bucks or so to win at five three and two

(29:20):
and something like that, I guess, but had a lot
of fun and a couple of the young couple youngsters
that are still doing it. Started with Lily I can't
think of their last name, cult or something like that,
and her brother been doing this for the last five years.
I think she started when she was five or six.
And their pumps is just to get bigger and bigger,
and I think they were over a thousand pounds this year.

(29:42):
So we have a great time. So anyway, that's where
we are for this year. Had a great time. Thank
you to the folks at Oakland, thanks to the folks
that came out and the set a low good seeing
everybody out there as well. We always have such a
great time. And there you go. I mean that the
people that were second in the world were there, and
and of course they have the site record there now
at twenty five thirty one. By the way, if you're

(30:04):
a tomato grower, I always watch this the world champion
tomato and this was probably broken a couple of years
ago was eleven point six five pounds. Eleven pounds eleven
points six y five. All right, that's the world record
so far this year, and I think that's pretty much
done as well. The biggest tomato out there was ten

(30:25):
pounds ten point two pounds out of Wisconsin. So it's
always fun. And again, if you'd like to learn more
about that, become a giant pumpkin grower. See where all
the way off, all the weights came in for all
the different vegetables that are out there. They got them
for you know, field pumpkins, for watermelon. I think watermelons
are like two hundred and ninety eight pounds or something.

(30:48):
It's crazy. But go to that website Big Pumpkins dot
com and you can click on they'll they'll show you
all the world records at the top. Then you can
click on all the wayoffs and find out exactly where
everybody came in as far as the way off and
it's it's pretty cool. But we have a good time
and we do thank all the folks again from Oakland
for having us out there. By the way, remember my

(31:11):
I have a special website's Ron Wilson online dot com.
And we had post all the beagle postings there. We
have recipes on there from a good friend of mine,
Rita Hikenfeld, who put a recipe up every week. Well,
we have a recipe this week. Its some kind of
a bacon cheesy thing that you pour on top of
potato skins and it's it's wonderful. But I also posted

(31:33):
as the gardens start to wind down, I found a
great recipe from Michigan State University Extension Dixie Sandborn, and
she posted is called the Last Garden Stragglers Dixie Relish recipe.
It's a relish that you make from a leftover red
sweet peppers, a few of the green red pepper or

(31:55):
green peppers, cabbage onions, things that would be left over
in your garden that you can turn into a relish.
And it's a great recipe, very easy to do and
you and you can jar it up and have yourself
some nice Dixie relish over the wintertime. So again you
can check that out us on our website at Ron
Wilson online dot com. Also, want to think on the

(32:18):
same token, I got an email from Tammy and Ray
from Kyahoga Falls that listens to us on the podcast
and all, and they sent basically the same thing. What
they're doing is they're cleaning up their tomato patch from
the end of the year, and they took all of
their tomatoes. They make their own tomato sauce, right and

(32:39):
their own pizza sauces and things like that. But this year,
to do something different, they took all of their leftover
tomatoes and they called their new sauces called the October
Surprise twenty twenty four. They combined them all together and
made sauces and said it is absolutely outstanding. And the

(33:00):
sauce includes Kellogg's Breakfast, Black Beauty forgot them from a
Baker's from Baker Creek, Black Cherry Sun Gold Sun Golds,
cherry tomatoes, unbelievable, the Whopper Watermelon cherry tomatoes, Mister Stripey
is a famous one. San Marzano's that they had a

(33:20):
few left over that they make their normal sauces with,
and Brad's Atomic Grape tomatoes. Put them all together and
came up with their October Surprise twenty twenty four sweet sauce,
Pizza and spaghetti sauce, and it's pretty darn good. Talking
with Jerry Roose at the pumpkin way off. His wife

(33:41):
makes their special spaghetti sauce, said she did the same
thing with their Kelloggs tomatoes and put a Kellogg's tomato
and they were loving it. They're growing nose and a
man of orange in with their sauce, and it gave
it a bit more sweetness to the flavor. Something you
might want to think about if you are a sauce

(34:03):
like growing your tomatoes and making your own sauce. On
that website. I also have a plant pick of the week,
and I don't pick vines very often. I do like
the sweet autumn clematis, which I just think the fragrance
is phenomenal. But for this week, I picked a vine
thinking of the pollinators and the butterflies and the hummingbirds.

(34:24):
It's a vining honeysuckle called Major Wheeler. Now Major Wheeler's
been around for a while, not nothing new, but just
not us an awful lot. It needs a you know,
it's a pretty aggressive vine. It needs a pretty solid
trellis or pergola or something to grow on the fence
to grow on because it can get pretty woody. But

(34:46):
what's interesting about this particular honeysuckle Major Wheeler it's a
really profuse bloomer. I mean when it starts blooming, this
thing just blooms its head off. It does it for
about two to three months during the summer season. They're
an orange red tubular flowers that again, the pollinators love it, butterfly, hummingbirds,
consistent bloomer. You're gonna get blooms out of it every

(35:06):
year and it's easy to grow. So keep that one
in mind. And my honorable mention vine for this week,
Are you ready for this one? Poison ivy? Why think
of all the great things poison ivy does besides making
itch great flowers, great berries, is dear resistance, tough, it's hardy,
it grows about anywhere, and it has outstanding fall color.

(35:29):
Thanks to all our colors, Thanks for our sponsors. Thanks
of course to our producer, Ella, because as you all
well know, without Ella, this show just wouldn't happen. So Ella,
thank you so much for all that you do. Now
think about where you're gonna plant a tree or two
or three, including the white oaks. Be pollinator friendly. Papa,
your worms make it the best weekend of your life.
See ya,