August 1, 2025 • 53 mins
In this candid and photo-filled episode of the Good Growing Podcast, horticulture educators Chris Enroth and Ken Johnson take you on a tour of their own backyards. You will see the good, bad, and pretty. Learn about battling verticillium wilt and jumping worms to celebrating volunteer wildflowers and thriving pollinator beds. During the show, Chris tries a cucumber melon for the first time, and Ken shares his ever-expanding front yard prairie project. They share what’s working, what’s not, and what they’ve learned during a hot, humid, and rain-soaked Illinois summer.
Watch us on YouTube - https://youtu.be/RYNgQSKxXxc
Skip to what you want to know:
00:39 Hey Ken!
01:12 The growing conditions up to this point in our 2025 gardens
04:11 A dead tree and confirmed diagnosis: Verticillium wilt. Dealing with Verticillium wilt of trees and shrubs.
08:37 Checking out how things are growing in Ken's backyard
13:15 Chris found the invasive jumping worm in his landscape bed
20:27 Checking in on Ken's vegetable garden
29:16 Is this a melon or a cucumber? It's a cucumber melon!
31:55 Passive tick control - tick tubes
34:04 Ken's passive mosquito control - mosquito bucket of doom!
36:07 What's growing along Ken's driveway?
37:09 Check out our hydrangeas
40:57 Ginger midsummer update
45:00 Ken’s summer wildflower display - Kill your lawn!
51:37 Thank yous and coming up next week
Contact us!
Chris Enroth: cenroth@illinois.edu
Ken Johnson: kjohnso@illinois.edu
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chris (00:05):
Welcome to the Good Growing podcast. I am Chris
Enroth, horticulture educatorwith the University of Illinois
Extension, coming at you fromMacomb, Illinois, and we have
got a great show for you today.It's time to check-in with
what's going on in our yards andgardens. Usually, we do this
maybe once, maybe twice a yearto just sort of see like, hey,
(00:25):
this is what we're growing thisyear. This is what's working.
Or in my case, a lot of what'snot working. But you know I'm
not doing this by myself. I amjoined as always every single
week by horticulture educatorKen Johnson in Jacksonville.
Hey, Ken.
Ken (00:40):
Hello, Chris. Yeah. There's a lot of not working or don't do
this in my yard. It's
Chris (00:49):
gonna be a good episode today then. Lots of lessons
learned for folks listening andwatching. Yeah. We're gonna have
pictures today of what's notworking. We'll do our best to
describe what we're showingfolks for those listening.
So, yeah, it's going to be it'sgonna be a telling show for us.
I guess should we set the stagethough in terms of, you know,
(01:13):
why have things maybe been alittle bit more difficult this
year for us? Ken, do you have Iguess, were you around at all
this summer to take care of theyard?
Ken (01:25):
Yes. I think it was I don't know. In a previous episode,
yes, we mentioned that. I wasgone for a while, several weeks.
So that Mhmm.
I played a I played a role inthat. Came back. Got got it
pretty well cleaned up, butlately it's been ridiculously
hot and humid. So there has notbeen a whole lot of of yard work
going on, plan on doingsomething this weekend. Went
(01:48):
out, lasted about 10:30, eleven,and said, that's enough of this.
And that was it. So it'll waittill next weekend.
Chris (01:56):
Yeah. You mentioned the humidity too. Like, I it gets
humid in Illinois, especially inthe western part of the state
where we're at. But, boy, thishas been really, really humid.
The heat has definitely nothelped.
I think currently, what did Ilook at the the weather? It was,
like, 77% humidity or something.It's pretty high. Every morning
(02:22):
when I or sorry. Every nightwhen I go to bed, the windows
start to steam up on theoutside.
You wake up, and it's just likeeverything's there's just a fog
on everything. And that issomething I think that has
affected our garden plants. I'vebeen going through our, pest
management for the homelandscape book and spending a
(02:44):
lot more time on the diseasessection, you know, saying a lot
of those fungicide names latelyto folks that are calling in.
So, yeah, that that highhumidity has definitely been
playing a role in in the impactof plant health along with the
heat and then all the rain thatwe've had. I mean, we've had
tons of rain at least in Macomb.
Ken (03:03):
Yeah. Same thing down here in the end. I will say in
migrant, I am surprised Ihaven't seen more, like, major
disease issues. A lot of leafspots here and there, but
nothing nothing of, you know,epidemic proportions yet. That
may all change, but yeah,definitely more disease, than
normal.
(03:24):
So and then even, I mean, evenwe've gotten rain when I was out
in the garden last night takingpictures for this. And there
we'd still have some spots inthe garden that are getting dry.
So
Chris (03:35):
Yeah. You know, we we spent two years in a in a
drought, like a pretty decentdrought in the Western Part Of
Illinois. And I suppose twomonths of maybe slightly above
normal rainfall is is maybe notenough to fill that hole that
we're in. So that's anotherthing to be mindful of. You
know, we're we're feeling goodright now.
(03:55):
I have I haven't had the watermuch for several weeks, but
still, you know, are we out ofthe drought deficit? Well, we'll
we'll see what happens thisfall. It seems like we really
get hit hard late summer in thefall lately and stretches out
into winter. Well, Ken, I guesslet us talk about what is going
(04:15):
on in our gardens and landscapesright now. And do you care if I
kick us off this week with mybad news?
I'm gonna start with my bad newsfirst.
Ken (04:24):
Yeah. Go for it. You've you've blamed this out much
better than I have.
Chris (04:28):
Okay. Well, so I last week, I got some garden related
bad news. I had a Norway maplein my front yard, which if
you've listened to the show, Ithink on a couple occasions I've
cursed and and told the tree todie. Well, it did on its own
actually, but not without help.So the the pattern in death, I
(04:52):
said, that seems a lot likeFerticillium wilt, which is a
soil borne disease that affectsa lot of different species of
trees and shrubs.
And and as the tree was dyingover very rapidly over this last
year, I said, maybe it's due tothe droughts that we just talked
about, or maybe there's somegirdling root that's strangling
it. I'm in denial about the factthat it's probably going to be
(05:15):
verticillium will. So the lastremaining limb on the tree about
two months ago, I I cut thatoff. It would already started to
wilt the leaves on it, and Itook that into the, U of I Plant
Clinic in Champaign Urbana. Andthen just a few weeks ago, I got
the lab report that confirmedverticillium wilt, a soil borne
(05:38):
disease that you can't reallyget rid of.
Not without a lot of time andmaybe fumigation, but I'm not
doing that part. That Imentioned that verticillium malt
is is can infect other speciesof plants. It just so happens
flanking this Norway maple. Oneside, there is a black gum tree,
(05:59):
and on the other side, there isa white ash tree, both of which
are susceptible to verticilliumwilt. So I'm kind of just
waiting.
I don't think there's reallymuch I can do at this point
other than just wait and see ifthese trees also get infected,
other than trying to promotetheir overall health. Ken, I
think were we chatting before orwas that someone else where I
(06:20):
talked about using the the woodchips? And I think we both, in
some articles, found that thatis not a good idea. Very often
on this podcast, you willprobably hear us talk about, oh,
yeah. You know, chip up a tree,use that as mulch.
It's free mulch. Keep it thickand chunky. That's why we love
wood chips. Especially in thiscase, even though I think I
(06:41):
don't know how conclusive theresearch is. I think they're
saying that the risk is stillpretty high that if we would use
wood chips from a tree infectedand killed by verticillium wilt,
it could possibly spread overinto other trees that are
susceptible.
So don't do that. So what do Ihave to do? Basically, it is
call a tree company, have themcut it down, and get it
(07:02):
off-site. More than likely, theywill burn it, or I'll at least
suggest that they burn it, or oror bury it in some way. Just do
not reuse it.
Do not go to the neighbor'shouse and dump my wood chips off
there. So they needs to behandled somewhere off-site.
Ken (07:19):
I got a Norway maple. Maybe you can send me some some chips
to me. I'll I'll
Chris (07:24):
save a bucket for you. Yeah. Yeah. So that that's
definitely something that I wasI'm not disappointed in the tree
dying, but I am disappointed inhow it died. Careful what you
wish for.
Exactly. Blasting repercussions.So, yeah, whatever goes in that
(07:48):
spot is going to have to beresistant to verticillium will,
especially with the thought thatI might lose the two trees on
either side. So I definitelyhave to make sure I'm I'm
careful of my species selectionnext time.
Ken (08:01):
Yeah. That's unfortunate. It's got a pretty wide host
range, so you're gonna be kindalimited.
Chris (08:08):
Yeah. When when you go look this up, folks, on on the
old, you know, Google, the listof susceptible trees is long. So
I think oaks might be okay. Sothat's kinda what I was looking
at possibly, but an oak outthere. Welkin, there's one piece
of bad news.
I got another, but I need totake a break. What you got
(08:28):
anything got anything for us?
Ken (08:32):
Sure. So we can go through some of the pictures I have
here. Like I said, I went aroundour our yard and gardens last
night and took pictures. Some ofthese are a little blurry,
probably because I had so muchsweat in my eyes. I couldn't
tell if it was the camera notfocusing or just getting
(08:53):
blinded.
But here's our, our backyard. SoI think we've mentioned on the
podcast in the past, Now when wefirst moved into this house,
we've been there almost nineyears now. The fir one of the
first things we did was put apollinator, bed next to our
garage here. So there can seethese, we've got some redbuds
(09:13):
here that have volunteered, thatneed to be cut down. I've let
them go for four or five yearsnow, they're getting rather
large, growing into the garage.
But there used to be a stumpthere, that's now completely
rotted out. But here, we've got,like I had Susan's and stuff,
put some zinnias in there. We'vegot some celosia that
volunteered from last year, someblanking flower in there, so
(09:36):
this is the front. And then onthe side, for the back. So
again, we got another red budgrowing up into our garage that
I need to cut down.
I've I've actually kind of cutit down and it just keeps
resprouting, so I'm going tohave to get some herbicide out
and and cut it and paint thestump. Here we've got cone
(09:57):
flowers, we have obedient plantin there, some milkweed. The
goldenrods and asters arestarting to really shoot up.
Usually, for those, I'll gothrough and pinch them back so
they don't get quite so tall andthey get a little more bushy.
But with being gone for so longthis summer, that didn't really
happen like I normally do.
Same thing with like our, AutumnJoycedum, which you can kind of
(10:20):
see on the lower right there.That didn't get pinched back, so
a lot of that stuff's going tobe flopping quite a bit this
year more than likely. So so itlooks a little it's a little
more wild than it normally doesbecause I didn't get get around
to pinching stuff. Did find someconflowers of aster yellows, in
(10:41):
here in this bed last year, Ihave not seen any this year,
back here. So I think we gotlucky and and got those pulled
quick enough, even though I didleave them for a while so I
could take lots of pictures,probably longer than I should
have.
But, and then just a little kindof in between shot there. See
again, we got blanket flower andwe do have a little pond liner
(11:03):
we put in there and make alittle bog. I had some pitcher
plants and stuff in there and Iput some equisetum scouring rush
or stale, whatever you want tocall it. And it is quickly
taking that entire thing over.But it's not spread outside of
that yet.
So that's just kind of becomeour little equisetum pop, more
(11:24):
or less. And then, you know,depending on how well people can
see, we do have some, the honeyvine milkweed, growing up in
there. So I'm debating whetherI'm gonna just kinda pull it or
if I'm gonna get some get someglyphosate or something, kinda
paint that on some of the leavesso I don't affect the other
plants. But yeah. And and kindof the foreground, can see our
(11:48):
our grass.
We've got a lot of bare spots,dead spots. I think that's some
of that's probably some disease,we've had in there. And we also,
cutting the grass. Piles didn'tget raked and has now smothered
and killed everything. So we maybe doing some some seeding this
fall.
(12:10):
So don't Stop there for now.
Chris (12:16):
Well, excellent. I like your sculpture there, Ken. It
looks really nice.
Ken (12:19):
All the little wind wind thingy that usually the mill
honey vine grows up and it can'tspin anymore.
Chris (12:27):
Yep. Yeah. I I will say, I think we talked about honey
vine milkweed a few episodesago, but if you wanna pull it,
just remember, I've been pullingthe same one for five years.
Ken (12:38):
Yes. That's why that's why I'm leaning towards the painting
on some some glyphosate becauseI I don't want it in there
because I did pull some offbecause it was growing up on
those redbuds, man, completelycovering it. Nothing I wanna
keep all of those there. But
Chris (12:53):
Mhmm. Yep. So sadly, it they're very aggressive, and it
can really come in and and justtopple over a lot of plants and
sort of it's like the kudzu ofthe North almost.
Ken (13:08):
Except it's native.
Chris (13:10):
Except as native.
Ken (13:11):
It's it's supposed to be here.
Chris (13:12):
Still eat your garden. Alright. I guess the the other
little piece of not great news.It's not that bad because I
think a lot of people aredealing with this exact same
thing, is I was pulling a bunchof crabgrass out of one of my
beds and I stumbled across a lotof worms and I said, oh, great.
(13:34):
I got some good worm actiongoing on here.
And then I looked at them andthey were flipping around like
crazy. They were going nuts. Andso then I, like, picked one up,
and I could see kind of atelltale kind of color, sort of
a grayish, more grayish. Youknow, other earthworms or
nightcrawlers, they're morereddish, pinkish colored. These
(13:56):
are more grayish in color,definitely a little bit more
muscular.
Definitely feel that thingmoving around in my hand. And
then it has this kind of milkywhite slitellum, it's that
reproductive band around the theearthworm. And the way to to
really correctly identify thesethings is I think that slitellum
occurs on the thirteenth orfourteenth segment from the
(14:20):
head, one of those two, and itwas a jumping worm. Not just
one, multiple jumping worms. Andso I now have the invasive
jumping worm in my yard, whichwhat does that do?
Well, they are aggressive topfeeders. They eat organic matter
(14:43):
voraciously in the soil, andthey stay really on that top
layer of your soil. They do diein the winter if it gets cold
enough, but their eggs do not.So they will lay eggs, and then
they will hatch from their eggsnext spring, and that cycle
continues. I think, you know,where we started seeing this up
in the Chicagoland region firstup in Illinois, you know, lot of
(15:04):
people described what is left oftheir soil.
You know, once jumping wormsshow up is kind of like a dried
coffee grounds texture. Youknow, organic matter does a lot
of that glomming together ofsoil particles, it adheres a lot
of your particles together,creates some structure. When
that organic matter is gone, youlose some of that soil
structure. And so, yeah, fun.And what do you do about jumping
(15:27):
worm?
Nothing. You you can pick themout and throw them on the
pavement if you want. That'sthat's what I did. I just like,
ah, no. So I threw them out onthe driveway, let them bake.
But I think there's like a drymustard solution you can mix up
where you pour a gallon of waterwith so many tablespoons or a
(15:49):
cup of like dry mustard powderand on like a square foot, and
it will bring the jumping wormsup to the surface and pick them
out then, but that's not reallya very good control method. You
go through a lot of mustard.
Ken (16:03):
Yeah. That's more for for monitoring
Chris (16:05):
Yep.
Ken (16:05):
For them. And I've actually we actually had somebody bring
in some jumping worms severalyears ago. So they're they're in
Morgan County. I haven't foundany in my yard, fortunately. But
I did take a video of themthrashing around that we could
throw in here.
Chris (16:19):
Yes. Yes.
Ken (16:19):
So people can see that.
Chris (16:21):
Yep. They're also called snake worm because of that
thrashing. They're they're justthey they move and they're more
muscular. They're they'retougher.
Ken (16:30):
I'll say the the video that I have, they weren't thrashing
around as much as they like, youknow, as soon as you get the
camera out, they stop doing itas much. But you can get an idea
of how how much they thrash init.
Chris (16:42):
Yep. Mhmm. Yep. Well, jumping worms. Yes.
They're in my yard. I guess I'llI'll do one more non native
thing that I have growing in myyard,
Ken (16:55):
and this
Chris (16:55):
is I pulled up a bunch. This is common lespedeza. So not
the sericea lespedeza, butcommon lespedeza. What's the
scientific name for this so wedon't confuse it with something
else is let's see. Becausethere's a synonym here.
I think it was originally knownas lespedeza striata, which if
(17:21):
you would go do an Internetsearch, you'd probably still
find this plant. But the onethat I think they use more
commonly today is Cumaroiastriata. So, again, the common
lespedeza. It really juststarted growing as one patch in
my lawn this year and has reallykind of blown up. It's
considered an annual that canoutcompete your turf grass
(17:45):
because it it just becomes avery vigorous plant, almost
becomes like a woody creepingground cover by the end of the
summer.
And it it will just kindaoutcompete your lawn, especially
for that late summer, early falltime frame when a lot of our
cool season lawns are alreadypretty stressed out from the
heat and and, you know, ifdrought, if we went through a
(18:08):
dry period of weather, which wehave the last two years, has
probably would allow this thingto get a good foothold, in my
lawn and a few other people'slawns. So, what do you do about
it? Since it it is an annual,technically, you could do some
type of pre emergent in thespringtime, because it's such an
aggressive grower. You know, ifyou catch it early, you could
(18:28):
pull it, but that's that's aboutabout it. I already mow high,
which you should do.
Mow as often as you can, which Ido. You could core aerate to
relieve some compaction for coolseason lawns that's in the
spring or fall. So other thancore aerating to loosen up
compaction, I haven't done thatone, then you're left with post
(18:49):
emergent herbicides. So a lot ofthings like two four d, dicamba,
will work, and, tricholipir, anyof the broadleaf stuff that is
labeled for lawns, which youdon't necessarily wanna be
spraying that right now becausea lot of that broadleaf
herbicides are going tovolatilize when it's so hot
(19:10):
right now. So we gotta wait forit to cool down before we would
spray anything.
But once you spray or you dowhatever control method that you
want, you have to be ready withthat new turf grass seed later
in the season to the to thenreplant that into lawn if that's
what you're growing there. Oh,yeah. Common luspidesa.
Ken (19:32):
I'll check and see if I have that. We got all kinds of
stuff growing in my grass that'snot grass.
Chris (19:37):
Between that and the nimble will, I don't have much
lawn left in certain parts ofthe yard.
Ken (19:43):
Yes. Creeping Charlie, strawberries. Yeah. Wild
strawberry.
Chris (19:49):
I encourage those. I I don't I don't actively try to
kill them. This this particularone and the nimble will is I I'm
worried about this one becauseit's an annual, and if it dies,
I'm gonna have bare spots in thewinter, and I don't want I don't
wanna impact my soil in that inthat way to have bare patches in
the winter with kids and animalsand myself running around the
(20:11):
yard.
Ken (20:12):
Hope for lots of snow.
Chris (20:14):
I hope. If it ever gets here, I hope. Maybe. It's
raining this year, so maybewe'll get snow this winter.
Ken (20:23):
We're using it all up now. Mhmm.
Chris (20:25):
Oh, no. Don't say that.
Ken (20:27):
So I'll share some more pictures. So we'll move on to
our our vegetable garden here.And this year, we did cut back
on our vegetable garden a littlebit again just because we were
we're gone for so long. Wedidn't want to put a bunch of
stuff in there that was going topotentially need to be a little
more high maintenance, shall wesay, than others. So we do have
(20:47):
a couple of tomato plants, butwe didn't plant as nearly as
many as we did.
We didn't do any cucurbits,which aren't necessarily really
high maintenance, but we've hadissues with squash bug for a
couple of years and didn't wannadidn't wanna plant that and have
that stuff move in and justcompletely wipe everything out
and kinda start from from squareone all over again. So here's
(21:09):
kind of the front of the garden.So we've got, quite a few
peppers. Upfront there areChristmas peppers, more
Christmas peppers that weplanted. We've got jalapenos,
stuff like that.
On the on the right there, thethe those really tall plants,
those are lettuce that's lettucethat bolted and I have never
have not pulled yet. So ifyou've never seen a lettuce
that's bolted and you'relistening, go check out the
(21:30):
YouTube. But I have for the lastcouple of years, some of our
raised beds, I've just let thelettuce bolt. We have volunteer
lettuce all over the place. Somaybe I won't have to plant
lettuce anymore.
There you go. You can see thatwe do have a we do do cereal rye
in our garden as a cover crop.So fortunately when we got back,
we didn't have to do a whole lotof weeding in here. Some of
(21:53):
those smaller plants in theforeground, that is the tillage
radish that we planted. Probablyput it on a little too heavy.
Usually get it out a littlelater than I should, so those
seeds will kind of carry overinto the spring and I just let
them go. Probably not the bestthing to do if I wanna grow
broccoli and stuff because allof the, cabbage whites and
(22:15):
things like that, cabbageloopers will get onto that. So
I'm just kinda setting up asmorgasbord for all of those, in
my garden year round. Here's ourcarrots. I thought they looked
much better When we got back,I'm not sure what's going on in
the middle there.
You can see a lot of browningout there. I have not pulled any
(22:37):
out to see what's going on. Butother than that, they're they're
kind of declining, last week ortwo. I don't know if that's
temperature related or what'sgoing on there, but I will have
to to pull some of those and seewhat they look like. Here we got
some, beans in here.
So these, for this year, we didnot grow green beans. These are
all dry beans, shelling beans,whatever you want to call them.
(23:01):
My wife and I, we had a littlebit of a miscommunication. I
thought she bought bush beans.She did not.
So I did not put that in that.We have two rows here. So the
one row by the fence is goingfine. I can crawl that. The
other row does not have a fenceon it.
We do have a post there where wehad tomatoes on last year, but
they're kind of all over theplace right now. But we do have
(23:22):
some beans on there, so again,we'll let those dry down and
harvest those this fall. Now ourcorn, we do have two different
types of corn. I have popcorn,which is on left, so the smaller
plants and more of an ornamentaltype on the right. The popcorn
we planted probably three weeksbefore the ornamental, just so
(23:42):
we wouldn't get crosspollination.
The spring, it did not germinateuntil about the week I planted
the ornamental corn, which thengerminated rather quickly. So
they're kind of you can see thepopcorn it's, you know, silking
and tasseling right now and theornamental is sending out its
tassels. So I'm hoping that allgets pollinated and we don't get
(24:04):
too much cross pollination anddon't mess up our popcorn here.
But we'll see. We do have a nicehealthy patch of purslane.
Normally, I I would pull that,but I left it because this is
our vegetable garden and it'sedible. So maybe some night
we'll have a purslane salad orsomething like that. But we'll
(24:27):
see that is one around our yard.We we had a lot more of this
year than we have in the past,it seems like, for whatever
reason. So there's some of thebeans in there.
Ganapi, some more peppers. Here,I think these are the jalapenos.
You can see the the pic one inthe front is not looking too
(24:49):
happy. I think it's a little dryin that part of the garden. We
did water that tomato in thebackground there.
Did not get staked. I think Ithink that was one we planted
that's not a volunteer, but it'scrawling all over the ground. So
that's probably going to lead toa lot of, diseased fruit, more
than likely. But we'll see thatthe fruit's just starting to
(25:10):
come on. And it's been so hot,it's not going to color up.
I really want to get up up intothe mid eighties, they don't
produce that red color. So if itit is supposed to cool off, but
if it's it were to stay hot likethis, we'd to start picking
those once they get that maturegreen size and ripening them
inside if we want to get thatnice color on them. Here's our
(25:31):
some of our artichokes. I don'tknow why, but these are probably
a quarter of the size theynormally are when they start
putting out the flowers. Again,I'm not sure.
You know, we were gone. I thinkit was kind of dry at times, so
it could be playing a role inthat. I got these planted much
later than I would have likedto. They sat in there, in the
(25:53):
seed starting tray for two orthree weeks longer than I would
have liked them to. But justevery time I get a chance to go
out, it'd be raining or it'd bereally muddy and I couldn't just
couldn't get them into theground.
So we probably won't harvestthese. I'll just let them bloom
and and we'll enjoy the flowersand can pop in a picture of what
the flower looks like if peoplearen't sure. But that's
(26:14):
basically a giant thistle, moreor less. Now here's our
asparagus patch. So this is theyou can see we've got a lot of
flowers in our female flowers.
So I think we got more femaleplants than we did male plants.
So Uh-oh. Yeah. Going forward,we're gonna have to do a lot of
weeding in here more thanlikely. So we're selectively
(26:37):
thin out the females, I won'thave much asparagus left after
that.
And this is supposed to be apurple asparagus. I did have
some plants that came up green.They never were purple, but
others came up purple andthey've they've turned green. So
not sure why some of thosearen't. Here's a yellow striped
armyworm feeding on on ourasparagus.
Here's those black with theyellow stripe, gray stripe down
(26:59):
the side of it. And you can seehow the the flowers are a little
blurry. These are cardoons, sorelated to asparagus. For these,
you're eating the more of midribstuff you blanch it and stuff.
We don't eat them.
I just chrome, the heck of it.They're more of an kind of an
ornamental, but they're in thevegetable garden. Nobody ever
(27:20):
sees them. So I should probablyincorporate these into our our
flower beds a little bit more.To me, looks like something
you'd find like a dinosaurdinosaur an Asian dinosaur.
Chris (27:32):
So Old ferny leaves and, yeah, big big leaves. Now they
have a flower, you said?
Ken (27:39):
And when we've grown, we have not gotten a flower off of
them yet. I don't know if ourour growing season probably
isn't long enough for that.Maybe I'll build a greenhouse
around them and see if I can getthem to flower.
Chris (27:53):
There you go.
Ken (27:56):
I got another another close-up of that lettuce. I'm
trying to remember what thecultivar was. I can't think of
it. In the middle of that,there's an onion that didn't get
harvested last year. So that'ssunflower, and it's got all
kinds of the the bulbils on thetop there so we could plant
those in theory if we wanted to.
(28:18):
And then here, this one's foryou. This is our blackberry. Our
baby cakes, migratory, so thedwarf blackberry that grew
through the bottom of the potand has now rooted into the
ground and is kind of goingeverywhere. We do have some, see
some chlorosis in there, soprobably need to do some
fertilizing in there. But wehave had, we had probably a
(28:41):
couple dozen blackberries onthere before we left.
And there's a whole lot comingin that I'm sure the birds
enjoyed. We've we're stillpicking some here and there, on
there. Looks good.
Chris (28:55):
That's Baby cake, do those blackberries taste good?
Ken (28:59):
Yeah. Tastes like tastes like blackberries. They're and
they're pretty good size.They're size of my thumb are
bigger, a lot of them. Sothey're they're pretty big.
Chris (29:08):
Mhmm.
Ken (29:08):
If we can if we can beat the birds soon. Every once in
while gets get out there,there'll be a couple that have
been pecked at, just kinda eataround it.
Chris (29:16):
Well, few more things for me to share that something that
I found. I don't I'm not doingthis in my yard or my garden,
but I help someone identify amelon or a cucumber melon in
their garden. They said, I got abunch of seeds. I don't know
what I planted, and they broughtme one. So I have not tried
(29:38):
cucumber melon yet.
So they said, hey. I've got tonsof these. I'm gonna bring you
one. So I have cucumber melonright here. I'm gonna try it.
But while I take a slice righthere, cucumber melon is not a
cucumber. It's actually a melon.Now these are all cucurbits, but
they are they are melons.They're just unripe melons. So
(30:03):
we could let this ripen, and itwould develop more sugars and
have more of a melon y flavor ortexture, but they're not bred
for that.
So they're not as they theydon't taste as good as, like, a
melon, like a like a honeydew oranything like that. So these
have been bred to be tasty asimmature fruit, and it smells
(30:24):
like a cucumber. The fruititself, to describe those who
are listening, it is kind ofcucumber shaped. You would
harvest these long ones whenthey get about an inch and a
half to two inches in diameter,and they have, like, these
ridges that run the length ofthe fruit itself. And so I'm
(30:45):
going to to try one.
So I I know that there are somepeople that have an allergy to
melons. I have a friend whodoes. So this is not something
you would eat because remember,it is actually a melon, not a
cucumber. It smells just like acucumber. It tastes just like a
cucumber.
That is very good. It doesn'thave any of the bitterness, some
(31:08):
of that cucurbisin, that thatkind of bitter cucumber y tech
flavor. That is very good.
Ken (31:16):
Is Armenian cucumber? Is that another name for it? Yep. I
think that's how I've usuallyseen it referred to. But
Chris (31:24):
Mhmm. Armenian cucumber. I think there's another one's
called snake melon or snakecucumber. That is excellent. You
can make some really goodsandwiches out of these.
Very good. But not a cucumber.Tastes just like one. It's a
melon. That's pretty cool.
Ken (31:43):
Ken, I wish you were here. Grow along next year.
Chris (31:47):
Mhmm. That's very good. The skin is very tender too. So
You don't need to peel it oranything. Excellent.
Well, one other thing that youdon't wanna find in your yard
are ticks, and I routinely ampulling ticks off of myself
throughout the year. And sowe're trying one more strategy
(32:09):
in our yard, and that is to usetick tubes. Now these particular
tubes, what it is, it's kind ofa passive control, where we have
these tubes. And now this is atube. It's like the size of,
like, a toilet paper roll orpaper towel roll cut in half.
(32:29):
And inside, there is cotton thatis treated with permethrin that
has been stuffed in here, andthe concentration is 7.4%
permethrin. And the idea withthis is that you set these out.
And because when it comes tocertain diseases, I think Lyme
(32:49):
is the one they're mainlythinking about here, it has to
go through a series of othermammals that might be carriers
of that particular pathogen ofLyme disease like mice. And so
mice, like, have to they maketheir nest out of fluffy soft
things. If you've ever had yourpatio furniture torn apart,
they're going after that thatstuffing in your cushions for
(33:10):
their nest.
So what this is is treatedcotton, and they'll take the
cotton to their nest. It doesn'tnecessarily harm the mice.
Actually, it might be beneficialto the mice, but they line their
nest with it, and it makes it sothat any ticks that might be on
them are are killed. So I don'tknow if this is a very effective
(33:33):
tool, but I'm trying it thisyear because I am sick and tired
of pulling ticks off of me. Assomeone who's had Lyme disease
in the past, I I am at war withticks, so they're they're not my
friends.
But we're trying that this year.Pulled a tick off me just last
week, so I don't know how wellit's working, but it's worth a
(33:55):
try.
Ken (33:57):
Yeah. We don't have any issues with ticks that I know of
in our in our yard. Hopefully itstays that way. We do have quite
a few mosquitoes. Did severalepisodes ago we did mosquito
ones.
So I did set up some buckets ofdeath, buckets of doom, whatever
you want to call them. I did nottake pictures. They're pretty
(34:17):
scudsy looking, need to emptythem out and refill them,
they've got all kinds of algaegrowth. But when I have, before
that algae growth kind of tookover, you know, walking by there
was nothing in there. Know, justthese big buckets of water.
Before I put the dunks in therewere some larvae in there. You
(34:37):
know, within a few days theywere all gone. No larvae, no
pupa, and nothing since then.I've put new dunks in when we
got back. I think it is, youknow, as far as managing them in
our yard, I don't know how muchof a dent it's doing, but it is,
whatever's getting in theremosquito wise is getting killed.
(34:58):
So Yeah. I do need to, take somemore pictures of that or refill
that and I can take pictures,and send them to you.
Chris (35:06):
Sounds good. Yeah. Ever since our conversation, I've
been I've been leaving somecontainers out. I haven't been
managing them like the thebuckets that we described on the
show, like, you know, fillingthem with all kinds of things.
But, like, my watering can, Ihave been treating them with
mosquito granulars, the same thesame thing as the dunx, just in
granular form?
(35:29):
And they're clear, like they'reclean in terms of mosquito
larvae. I have treated waterwhere I've seen the little larva
swimming in the water. And aboutmaybe three hours later, they're
all floating on the top. They'reall dead. So it works.
It kills them. And so, yeah,we've got little mosquito traps
(35:50):
in our yards now.
Ken (35:53):
And I think I think we may expand next year and put them
out put some more out morefurther back where we have a lot
of our more of our mosquitoproblems. We've got a lot more
tree cover and and brush andstuff. So right. So this is side
of house fire driveway. So mywife really likes flowering
tobacco.
I like it too. She just likes ita lot more nighties. We've got a
(36:15):
lot of flowering tobacco in ouryard that we've planted this
year and then we've plantedprevious years and it has popped
up as volunteers all over theplace. So they have a really
nice fragrance, especially atnight. So they're moth
pollinated for the most partbecause they are releasing that
scent.
And leaves are kind of a, itfeels they're not sticky, but
(36:39):
they're they feel sticky, likeyou you touch your mirror, like
getting glue all over yourhands, kind of an interesting
feel. To them, here's sometethonia we planted, a bunch of
bachelor buttons that lookedpretty ragged, but they were
really nice earlier this year.We've cut them back and
hopefully we'll get a new flushof stuff later this summer and
(37:02):
end of the fall. Then our rosesare the pink rose we have is
still going pretty strong there.And then here is our hydrangeas
that we've got, so they'restarting to open up these.
You know, I gotta cut back everyyear. I think when we got them,
they're supposed to get, youknow, said four to five feet
tall. They get seven, eight feettall. So every spring I'm out,
(37:27):
hacking them back to try to keepthem, in that four to five foot
tall range because it's right infront of a window, and stuff
like that. But you know, verybig, very showy flowers, and
we've got a decent amount ofinsects on those when they when
they really start opening up.
Chris (37:45):
Well, Ken, since you talked hydrangeas, let me show
some I got some hydrangeas toshow here as well. The
hydrangeas I wanna share, I Ithink I know almost all of them.
I know this one is little quickfire. It is a dwarf version of
quick fire hydrangea. It's apanicle hydrangea that has been
(38:07):
in the ground for two years now.
It it is really likes the spot.And true to what Ken says, it
it's growing taller than what itsaid it would. But I'm it it I I
really like this one. It isgoing to turn a different color,
so it starts off as white andthen it will transition to a
(38:28):
pinkish red throughout the latesummer into the fall, which I
have a picture of. Just onesecond.
But I think this next one is isthis mystery hydrangea right
here. I thought I knew what itwas. I'm pretty sure, I could be
wrong, I planted a hydrangeaabattoe, which is a it is a mop
(38:52):
head type hydrangea or might belace cap. I I'm not sure, but I
always keep the labels, and Ican't find any of my hydrangea
labels. They're somewhere in mygarage.
I I will find them and and letyou know later, though. Out
farther in my yard, this isIncrediball hydrangea on the
(39:13):
left. It's it's established.It's been in there two years
also, but it's kind of struggledin this spot. Maybe it gets a
little too much sun.
And then right next to it, mywife got a hydrangea at Aldi's
and brought it home, and it washalf dead. And I said, well,
I'll just throw this in theground. It'll be dead by the end
of the year. It's lasted twoyears. Looks great.
(39:34):
This is one of those, pink,blue, purple flowering,
hydrangeas, the macrophyllas, Ithink. And, yep, it looks great.
It's just this little littletiny guy there. Yeah, that's and
then in terms of what here theseare pictures of the little quick
(39:56):
fire right here. This is whatthat pinkish red color that it's
going to transition to as theseason progresses.
So just, you know, multipleweeks worth of worth of interest
there. And you can see sort ofthose larger showier flowers.
Those are the sterile flowers.As you go look more to the
(40:19):
inside, those are the fertileflowers. And when we look at,
like, pollinator attractiveness,that's what they're gonna go
for, those smaller flowersbeneath those taller ones right
there.
Ken, I think we need to do ahydrangea show sometime where we
get someone on here who reallyknows what they're, like,
talking about because I I thinkwe can only scratch the surface
(40:40):
when it comes to hydrangeastoday.
Ken (40:44):
Yeah. I think it's on the list of things to do.
Chris (40:46):
It is. It is.
Ken (40:47):
If anybody knows about it, we could talk to you.
Chris (40:49):
I always need that expert. Oh, goodness. Well and
the other thing, while I'm here,and now you have my pictures
here showing folks, I wanted todo an update how the ginger's
growing. So we're doing a coupledifferent types of ginger. What
I'm going to show folks rightnow is our Aggrastart ginger.
(41:09):
So this is ginger grown fromtissue culture, so very sterile
conditions in a lab, reallyhelps to reduce disease spread.
One flat of ginger here was putin the full sun, and one was put
in the mostly shade. And I willcycle through. Here's a
(41:31):
different angle. There's theblue flat and the black flat.
And the blue flat is the onethat was in full sun. And these
plants you can see they're alittle shorter, which is normal.
You know, you're in full sun.You don't have to grow as tall.
But they're also not as healthylooking.
The ones on the left in thisblack flat, they are taller,
(41:52):
they're deeper green, which ishard to tell from the image
right here, but if we look overtop, again, the blue flat, full
sun, you can see somediscoloration of the leaves, you
can see just more sparseness interms of that density of that
foliage. We If look at the flaton the left, which has grown in
the mostly shade, much happierginger. And so I I think
(42:16):
transitioning from shade to sunmaybe as the season progresses
might be the trick, but, that'ssomething that we're finding out
here. These are some of our potsI have in my backyard also.
These are just randomized ofdifferent things that are
growing in them.
You can see some empty potswhere they just didn't grow,
didn't take. Everything wasplanted with a live plant. Some
(42:38):
of them have died. Just adifferent angle right here.
Again, some empty pots, somehealthy pots, but this is all
full sun where these aregrowing.
So, I think a little bit more,sun stress from these plants.
Ken (42:50):
Alright. And I can share a picture of the ginger. What do
we got going? So this is theginger we have out at our our
Luchman Garden site. So, you cansee there's a lot of dead grass
in here.
So we had a bit of an issue,small issue, maybe a little bit
bigger than small, withcrabgrass, that grew up, and was
(43:10):
basically swallowing the plants.So did a lot of work hand
weeding in between the plants,the master gardener, some other
staff, myself. And then we wentin and and sprayed, the rest of
that stuff. So we do now have avery nice mulch, but I would not
recommend getting your mulch,this way to to cover, your bare
areas. Yeah, it looks, Ihonestly, it looks a lot better
(43:34):
than I thought it would givenhow hot, and and humid it's
been.
We do have the shade cloth. Ithink it was a 30% shade cloth
on there. So we're we're gettingsome shade, but still just with
how hot it's getting, I did notexpect it to look as good as it
did. I mean, it doesn't lookgreat, but I expected it to look
much worse than the theAgriStart stuff. So tissue
(43:57):
culture is on the left there.
That's the smaller stuff. Andsome of those are struggling
quite a bit. I think the, someof the bigger ones, I think
there's a whole high energyirrigation, so they're probably
getting a little more water thansome of the others. But the
ginger on the right there, thosetwo rows, those are started from
(44:20):
the rhizomes. So I think they'remuch bigger, a little bit
happier looking too.
Chris (44:27):
Yeah. They look good. I I think they look good. Your
rhizome ginger looks good. Theagri starts, that's one of those
where we think, alright.
You you get them year one, youyou grow them up a little bit,
and then the next year, yeartwo, you plant them and
hopefully they look like theginger on the right. That's
that's the goal or the plan.We'll see what you pull out of
(44:50):
the ground.
Ken (44:51):
Yeah. So there'll be lots of digging and and stuff here
and coming in a few months. Ithink we mentioned on the show
that we're working on convertingour our entire front yard, into
pollinator, say prairie, becausewe've got a lot of non native
stuff in there, planting. Soagain, we started with our our
(45:14):
hell strip, the boulevard,whatever you want call it, area
in between the sidewalk and thestreet. We've planted that in
pollinator plants and nativegrasses and stuff.
It's been there for four or fiveyears now. We're kind of slowly
transitioning the rest of thefront yard. And really what
probably started really lastyear because we had to replace
our waterline to the house. Wehad a good, nice big strip of
(45:39):
our yard already torn up. So weinstead of putting grass back
down, we just started plantingplants.
So, here you can see we've got,we've sunflowers, we have
blazing star. We've plantedthose basically once and they
have just self seeded,everywhere in spots there are
becoming weeds, because they'reso prolific. So now a lot of
times we'll come out and andchop off some of those seed
(45:59):
heads just so we don't have themspreading everywhere. We're not
having to pull quite as much.And we'll set them out in the
backyard, more in the lawn.
So the seeds do so the birds canget them. That way the seeds are
out there just getting mowedover, if they do. Now we do have
some hardy hibiscus there in theforeground. And that took us in
the evenings for those flowers.Like other hibiscus, they last
(46:21):
for a day and they start closingup.
But it's it's kind of mindboggling how many flowers I
mean, they're big flowers. Someof them bigger than the palm of
my hand. How many flowersthey're putting out. And they
only last a day. You'd thinkyou'd want to last make them
last a little bit longer, butI'm not a hibiscus.
(46:42):
Now a little further back, I'mgoing to get some rattlesnake
master in the front. Again,we've started with a couple
plants and those self seededthroughout the yard, but you can
see both sides of the sidewalkthere. Again, there's a little
more of the the house stripswe've got. Again, rattlesnake
master, some blazing star, somewhat grass is that? Is that a
(47:04):
little bluestem, I think.
Chris (47:06):
In the foreground? That lighter colored one, I think so.
Ken (47:09):
Yeah. We've also got Prairie Drop Seed. I'm trying to
get the other one. A third onein there too. There's a celosia.
Again, volunteer, but kind of acool orange and pink there.
Kinda split in half. Again, somemore flowering tobacco, some Joe
(47:32):
pye weed. That's looking prettyhappy and healthy. And and the
plan is we've got some grassplants that we're gonna start
we're gonna kill off the grassand then start putting in some
native grass.
We just want to get the theforbs, the flowers a chance to
get established before we startputting some of the grasses in.
(47:52):
So, again, a little furtherback, back here, we've got more,
some more woody type stuff andbigger plants, gray headed
coneflower, some more tethoniaback there. There's a lilac or
two back there that you can'treally see anymore. Some of
these other plants have kindaswallowed them up. A But little
(48:13):
closer again.
Usually go through on the astersand stuff, which is in the
middle there. We'd pinch thosebacks. They're not quite as
weedy looking. I have to try itagain for next year. Tomorrow
I'll catch fire.
I really like this one. Yeah.It's not quite that red in real
life. The sensor on the on thecamera just, didn't capture that
(48:35):
quite quickly. It pops, but notquite as much as in the picture
there, but this is kind of ashort lived perennial, so it
doesn't last unfortunately, inour yard, doesn't last terribly
long, a couple of years.
Then we got to replant. Again, alittle wider again, some of
those hardy hibiscus. We havethree or four different types.
(48:59):
Our daughter really likes them,so we've kind of gone crazy with
them a little bit. Some of ourswamp milkweed are covered in
aphids.
Again, we're not gonna not gonnado anything about it.
Eventually, the the ladybugs andlacewings and everything else,
surface flies will move in thereand take care of them. Forest,
we do have, some of the milkweedbugs, in there feeding on, seed
(49:24):
pods and all of that. Andanother angle of the the hell
strip there from the othersother end of the sidewalk there.
So
Chris (49:33):
It's gorgeous. I love this. Your front yard is a
dream. I love it.
Ken (49:39):
It's a bit bit of a jungle. That's awesome though. Some more
sunflowers and whatnot. Have onemore picture here for this.
There you go.
So usually we have moresunflowers, the rabbits. So we
saw a lot of these sunflowersactually growing our are
(50:00):
volunteers from last year. Wedid plant some in the fall last
year, and those are what aregrowing. The stuff we planted in
the spring just kept gettingmowed down by rabbits. I think
we planted three or four times.
And not a single one of those.They'd come up, we'd come back
out a day or two later, andthere'd be left nothing left. So
I don't know if it's the thesunflowers that we do have, they
just came up. They got bigenough that the rabbits didn't
(50:22):
bother them. So I think the planis I think we're gonna do a
bigger planting this fall thanwe normally do, in hopes that we
can beat the rabbits.
And we've really switched overto more of the branching
sunflowers. I really like the,you know, the giant ones. You
know, they have the flower headsthat are a foot wide and stuff,
(50:43):
but you only get one flower andthen the plants get pretty ugly.
They're done. At least with thebranching, you've got kind of a
a continuous, floral displaythere on them.
Chris (50:55):
Well, Ken, I will come over and hang out in your front
yard any day of the week.
Ken (50:59):
You're welcome anytime.
Chris (51:01):
Yeah. You've you've got the you got kill your lawn vibes
going on there.
Ken (51:10):
Try try to practice what I preach.
Chris (51:12):
There you go. I love it. I love it. Oh my goodness. Well,
we should probably wrap it upbecause we have boy, we we have
been we could go on and on.
I got so many things I couldshare, but I think we are we're
at our limit, aren't we?
Ken (51:27):
We probably can people are gonna stop listening.
Chris (51:30):
Definitely. Yeah. If you've made it past thirty
minutes, you're still in it. Ibet you are. Well, that was a
lot of great information and apeek behind the scenes of what's
happening in our yards, whatwe're dealing with, you know,
how we tackle some of thosechallenges and turn our yards
into a beautiful oasis as Kenhas showed us today.
(51:54):
Well, the Good Growing podcastis a production of University of
Illinois Extension, edited thisweek by me, Chris Enroth. Hey,
Ken. Thank you for going out,snapping some pictures, and
sharing with with me and andeveryone else what's happening
in the yard, the garden, thelandscape. Thanks, Ken.
Ken (52:10):
Yes. Thank you. And I'll I'll have the cold beverage
ready for you whenever you stop
Chris (52:15):
I will bring the cucumber melons.
Ken (52:17):
Alright. Let's do it. And let's do this again next week.
Chris (52:23):
Oh, we shall do this again next week. We're going to
be talking with Sarah Vogel allabout tree identification. It's
a magical power to identify atree. And it's it's a lot of
fun. It's a good party trick.
So we will cover that next week.Listeners, thank you for doing
what you do best and that islistening. Or if you're watching
us on YouTube, watching. And asalways, keep on growing. It's
(53:01):
really hard to do this whenyou're eating a crunchy crunchy
cucumber melon.
Ken (53:06):
Should've waited. Mhmm.
Chris (53:08):
They are they are delicious, though. It's like
those snacking cucumbers whereyou can just, like you just take
them off the vine and you eatthem.
Welcome to the Good Growing podcast. I am Chris
Enroth, horticulture educatorwith the University of Illinois
Extension, coming at you fromMacomb, Illinois, and we have
got a great show for you today.It's time to check-in with
what's going on in our yards andgardens. Usually, we do this
maybe once, maybe twice a yearto just sort of see like, hey,
(00:25):
this is what we're growing thisyear. This is what's working.
Or in my case, a lot of what'snot working. But you know I'm
not doing this by myself. I amjoined as always every single
week by horticulture educatorKen Johnson in Jacksonville.
Hey, Ken.
Ken (00:40):
Hello, Chris. Yeah. There's a lot of not working or don't do
this in my yard. It's
Chris (00:49):
gonna be a good episode today then. Lots of lessons
learned for folks listening andwatching. Yeah. We're gonna have
pictures today of what's notworking. We'll do our best to
describe what we're showingfolks for those listening.
So, yeah, it's going to be it'sgonna be a telling show for us.
I guess should we set the stagethough in terms of, you know,
(01:13):
why have things maybe been alittle bit more difficult this
year for us? Ken, do you have Iguess, were you around at all
this summer to take care of theyard?
Ken (01:25):
Yes. I think it was I don't know. In a previous episode,
yes, we mentioned that. I wasgone for a while, several weeks.
So that Mhmm.
I played a I played a role inthat. Came back. Got got it
pretty well cleaned up, butlately it's been ridiculously
hot and humid. So there has notbeen a whole lot of of yard work
going on, plan on doingsomething this weekend. Went
(01:48):
out, lasted about 10:30, eleven,and said, that's enough of this.
And that was it. So it'll waittill next weekend.
Chris (01:56):
Yeah. You mentioned the humidity too. Like, I it gets
humid in Illinois, especially inthe western part of the state
where we're at. But, boy, thishas been really, really humid.
The heat has definitely nothelped.
I think currently, what did Ilook at the the weather? It was,
like, 77% humidity or something.It's pretty high. Every morning
(02:22):
when I or sorry. Every nightwhen I go to bed, the windows
start to steam up on theoutside.
You wake up, and it's just likeeverything's there's just a fog
on everything. And that issomething I think that has
affected our garden plants. I'vebeen going through our, pest
management for the homelandscape book and spending a
(02:44):
lot more time on the diseasessection, you know, saying a lot
of those fungicide names latelyto folks that are calling in.
So, yeah, that that highhumidity has definitely been
playing a role in in the impactof plant health along with the
heat and then all the rain thatwe've had. I mean, we've had
tons of rain at least in Macomb.
Ken (03:03):
Yeah. Same thing down here in the end. I will say in
migrant, I am surprised Ihaven't seen more, like, major
disease issues. A lot of leafspots here and there, but
nothing nothing of, you know,epidemic proportions yet. That
may all change, but yeah,definitely more disease, than
normal.
(03:24):
So and then even, I mean, evenwe've gotten rain when I was out
in the garden last night takingpictures for this. And there
we'd still have some spots inthe garden that are getting dry.
So
Chris (03:35):
Yeah. You know, we we spent two years in a in a
drought, like a pretty decentdrought in the Western Part Of
Illinois. And I suppose twomonths of maybe slightly above
normal rainfall is is maybe notenough to fill that hole that
we're in. So that's anotherthing to be mindful of. You
know, we're we're feeling goodright now.
(03:55):
I have I haven't had the watermuch for several weeks, but
still, you know, are we out ofthe drought deficit? Well, we'll
we'll see what happens thisfall. It seems like we really
get hit hard late summer in thefall lately and stretches out
into winter. Well, Ken, I guesslet us talk about what is going
(04:15):
on in our gardens and landscapesright now. And do you care if I
kick us off this week with mybad news?
I'm gonna start with my bad newsfirst.
Ken (04:24):
Yeah. Go for it. You've you've blamed this out much
better than I have.
Chris (04:28):
Okay. Well, so I last week, I got some garden related
bad news. I had a Norway maplein my front yard, which if
you've listened to the show, Ithink on a couple occasions I've
cursed and and told the tree todie. Well, it did on its own
actually, but not without help.So the the pattern in death, I
(04:52):
said, that seems a lot likeFerticillium wilt, which is a
soil borne disease that affectsa lot of different species of
trees and shrubs.
And and as the tree was dyingover very rapidly over this last
year, I said, maybe it's due tothe droughts that we just talked
about, or maybe there's somegirdling root that's strangling
it. I'm in denial about the factthat it's probably going to be
(05:15):
verticillium will. So the lastremaining limb on the tree about
two months ago, I I cut thatoff. It would already started to
wilt the leaves on it, and Itook that into the, U of I Plant
Clinic in Champaign Urbana. Andthen just a few weeks ago, I got
the lab report that confirmedverticillium wilt, a soil borne
(05:38):
disease that you can't reallyget rid of.
Not without a lot of time andmaybe fumigation, but I'm not
doing that part. That Imentioned that verticillium malt
is is can infect other speciesof plants. It just so happens
flanking this Norway maple. Oneside, there is a black gum tree,
(05:59):
and on the other side, there isa white ash tree, both of which
are susceptible to verticilliumwilt. So I'm kind of just
waiting.
I don't think there's reallymuch I can do at this point
other than just wait and see ifthese trees also get infected,
other than trying to promotetheir overall health. Ken, I
think were we chatting before orwas that someone else where I
(06:20):
talked about using the the woodchips? And I think we both, in
some articles, found that thatis not a good idea. Very often
on this podcast, you willprobably hear us talk about, oh,
yeah. You know, chip up a tree,use that as mulch.
It's free mulch. Keep it thickand chunky. That's why we love
wood chips. Especially in thiscase, even though I think I
(06:41):
don't know how conclusive theresearch is. I think they're
saying that the risk is stillpretty high that if we would use
wood chips from a tree infectedand killed by verticillium wilt,
it could possibly spread overinto other trees that are
susceptible.
So don't do that. So what do Ihave to do? Basically, it is
call a tree company, have themcut it down, and get it
(07:02):
off-site. More than likely, theywill burn it, or I'll at least
suggest that they burn it, or oror bury it in some way. Just do
not reuse it.
Do not go to the neighbor'shouse and dump my wood chips off
there. So they needs to behandled somewhere off-site.
Ken (07:19):
I got a Norway maple. Maybe you can send me some some chips
to me. I'll I'll
Chris (07:24):
save a bucket for you. Yeah. Yeah. So that that's
definitely something that I wasI'm not disappointed in the tree
dying, but I am disappointed inhow it died. Careful what you
wish for.
Exactly. Blasting repercussions.So, yeah, whatever goes in that
(07:48):
spot is going to have to beresistant to verticillium will,
especially with the thought thatI might lose the two trees on
either side. So I definitelyhave to make sure I'm I'm
careful of my species selectionnext time.
Ken (08:01):
Yeah. That's unfortunate. It's got a pretty wide host
range, so you're gonna be kindalimited.
Chris (08:08):
Yeah. When when you go look this up, folks, on on the
old, you know, Google, the listof susceptible trees is long. So
I think oaks might be okay. Sothat's kinda what I was looking
at possibly, but an oak outthere. Welkin, there's one piece
of bad news.
I got another, but I need totake a break. What you got
(08:28):
anything got anything for us?
Ken (08:32):
Sure. So we can go through some of the pictures I have
here. Like I said, I went aroundour our yard and gardens last
night and took pictures. Some ofthese are a little blurry,
probably because I had so muchsweat in my eyes. I couldn't
tell if it was the camera notfocusing or just getting
(08:53):
blinded.
But here's our, our backyard. SoI think we've mentioned on the
podcast in the past, Now when wefirst moved into this house,
we've been there almost nineyears now. The fir one of the
first things we did was put apollinator, bed next to our
garage here. So there can seethese, we've got some redbuds
(09:13):
here that have volunteered, thatneed to be cut down. I've let
them go for four or five yearsnow, they're getting rather
large, growing into the garage.
But there used to be a stumpthere, that's now completely
rotted out. But here, we've got,like I had Susan's and stuff,
put some zinnias in there. We'vegot some celosia that
volunteered from last year, someblanking flower in there, so
(09:36):
this is the front. And then onthe side, for the back. So
again, we got another red budgrowing up into our garage that
I need to cut down.
I've I've actually kind of cutit down and it just keeps
resprouting, so I'm going tohave to get some herbicide out
and and cut it and paint thestump. Here we've got cone
(09:57):
flowers, we have obedient plantin there, some milkweed. The
goldenrods and asters arestarting to really shoot up.
Usually, for those, I'll gothrough and pinch them back so
they don't get quite so tall andthey get a little more bushy.
But with being gone for so longthis summer, that didn't really
happen like I normally do.
Same thing with like our, AutumnJoycedum, which you can kind of
(10:20):
see on the lower right there.That didn't get pinched back, so
a lot of that stuff's going tobe flopping quite a bit this
year more than likely. So so itlooks a little it's a little
more wild than it normally doesbecause I didn't get get around
to pinching stuff. Did find someconflowers of aster yellows, in
(10:41):
here in this bed last year, Ihave not seen any this year,
back here. So I think we gotlucky and and got those pulled
quick enough, even though I didleave them for a while so I
could take lots of pictures,probably longer than I should
have.
But, and then just a little kindof in between shot there. See
again, we got blanket flower andwe do have a little pond liner
(11:03):
we put in there and make alittle bog. I had some pitcher
plants and stuff in there and Iput some equisetum scouring rush
or stale, whatever you want tocall it. And it is quickly
taking that entire thing over.But it's not spread outside of
that yet.
So that's just kind of becomeour little equisetum pop, more
(11:24):
or less. And then, you know,depending on how well people can
see, we do have some, the honeyvine milkweed, growing up in
there. So I'm debating whetherI'm gonna just kinda pull it or
if I'm gonna get some get someglyphosate or something, kinda
paint that on some of the leavesso I don't affect the other
plants. But yeah. And and kindof the foreground, can see our
(11:48):
our grass.
We've got a lot of bare spots,dead spots. I think that's some
of that's probably some disease,we've had in there. And we also,
cutting the grass. Piles didn'tget raked and has now smothered
and killed everything. So we maybe doing some some seeding this
fall.
(12:10):
So don't Stop there for now.
Chris (12:16):
Well, excellent. I like your sculpture there, Ken. It
looks really nice.
Ken (12:19):
All the little wind wind thingy that usually the mill
honey vine grows up and it can'tspin anymore.
Chris (12:27):
Yep. Yeah. I I will say, I think we talked about honey
vine milkweed a few episodesago, but if you wanna pull it,
just remember, I've been pullingthe same one for five years.
Ken (12:38):
Yes. That's why that's why I'm leaning towards the painting
on some some glyphosate becauseI I don't want it in there
because I did pull some offbecause it was growing up on
those redbuds, man, completelycovering it. Nothing I wanna
keep all of those there. But
Chris (12:53):
Mhmm. Yep. So sadly, it they're very aggressive, and it
can really come in and and justtopple over a lot of plants and
sort of it's like the kudzu ofthe North almost.
Ken (13:08):
Except it's native.
Chris (13:10):
Except as native.
Ken (13:11):
It's it's supposed to be here.
Chris (13:12):
Still eat your garden. Alright. I guess the the other
little piece of not great news.It's not that bad because I
think a lot of people aredealing with this exact same
thing, is I was pulling a bunchof crabgrass out of one of my
beds and I stumbled across a lotof worms and I said, oh, great.
(13:34):
I got some good worm actiongoing on here.
And then I looked at them andthey were flipping around like
crazy. They were going nuts. Andso then I, like, picked one up,
and I could see kind of atelltale kind of color, sort of
a grayish, more grayish. Youknow, other earthworms or
nightcrawlers, they're morereddish, pinkish colored. These
(13:56):
are more grayish in color,definitely a little bit more
muscular.
Definitely feel that thingmoving around in my hand. And
then it has this kind of milkywhite slitellum, it's that
reproductive band around the theearthworm. And the way to to
really correctly identify thesethings is I think that slitellum
occurs on the thirteenth orfourteenth segment from the
(14:20):
head, one of those two, and itwas a jumping worm. Not just
one, multiple jumping worms. Andso I now have the invasive
jumping worm in my yard, whichwhat does that do?
Well, they are aggressive topfeeders. They eat organic matter
(14:43):
voraciously in the soil, andthey stay really on that top
layer of your soil. They do diein the winter if it gets cold
enough, but their eggs do not.So they will lay eggs, and then
they will hatch from their eggsnext spring, and that cycle
continues. I think, you know,where we started seeing this up
in the Chicagoland region firstup in Illinois, you know, lot of
(15:04):
people described what is left oftheir soil.
You know, once jumping wormsshow up is kind of like a dried
coffee grounds texture. Youknow, organic matter does a lot
of that glomming together ofsoil particles, it adheres a lot
of your particles together,creates some structure. When
that organic matter is gone, youlose some of that soil
structure. And so, yeah, fun.And what do you do about jumping
(15:27):
worm?
Nothing. You you can pick themout and throw them on the
pavement if you want. That'sthat's what I did. I just like,
ah, no. So I threw them out onthe driveway, let them bake.
But I think there's like a drymustard solution you can mix up
where you pour a gallon of waterwith so many tablespoons or a
(15:49):
cup of like dry mustard powderand on like a square foot, and
it will bring the jumping wormsup to the surface and pick them
out then, but that's not reallya very good control method. You
go through a lot of mustard.
Ken (16:03):
Yeah. That's more for for monitoring
Chris (16:05):
Yep.
Ken (16:05):
For them. And I've actually we actually had somebody bring
in some jumping worms severalyears ago. So they're they're in
Morgan County. I haven't foundany in my yard, fortunately. But
I did take a video of themthrashing around that we could
throw in here.
Chris (16:19):
Yes. Yes.
Ken (16:19):
So people can see that.
Chris (16:21):
Yep. They're also called snake worm because of that
thrashing. They're they're justthey they move and they're more
muscular. They're they'retougher.
Ken (16:30):
I'll say the the video that I have, they weren't thrashing
around as much as they like, youknow, as soon as you get the
camera out, they stop doing itas much. But you can get an idea
of how how much they thrash init.
Chris (16:42):
Yep. Mhmm. Yep. Well, jumping worms. Yes.
They're in my yard. I guess I'llI'll do one more non native
thing that I have growing in myyard,
Ken (16:55):
and this
Chris (16:55):
is I pulled up a bunch. This is common lespedeza. So not
the sericea lespedeza, butcommon lespedeza. What's the
scientific name for this so wedon't confuse it with something
else is let's see. Becausethere's a synonym here.
I think it was originally knownas lespedeza striata, which if
(17:21):
you would go do an Internetsearch, you'd probably still
find this plant. But the onethat I think they use more
commonly today is Cumaroiastriata. So, again, the common
lespedeza. It really juststarted growing as one patch in
my lawn this year and has reallykind of blown up. It's
considered an annual that canoutcompete your turf grass
(17:45):
because it it just becomes avery vigorous plant, almost
becomes like a woody creepingground cover by the end of the
summer.
And it it will just kindaoutcompete your lawn, especially
for that late summer, early falltime frame when a lot of our
cool season lawns are alreadypretty stressed out from the
heat and and, you know, ifdrought, if we went through a
(18:08):
dry period of weather, which wehave the last two years, has
probably would allow this thingto get a good foothold, in my
lawn and a few other people'slawns. So, what do you do about
it? Since it it is an annual,technically, you could do some
type of pre emergent in thespringtime, because it's such an
aggressive grower. You know, ifyou catch it early, you could
(18:28):
pull it, but that's that's aboutabout it. I already mow high,
which you should do.
Mow as often as you can, which Ido. You could core aerate to
relieve some compaction for coolseason lawns that's in the
spring or fall. So other thancore aerating to loosen up
compaction, I haven't done thatone, then you're left with post
(18:49):
emergent herbicides. So a lot ofthings like two four d, dicamba,
will work, and, tricholipir, anyof the broadleaf stuff that is
labeled for lawns, which youdon't necessarily wanna be
spraying that right now becausea lot of that broadleaf
herbicides are going tovolatilize when it's so hot
(19:10):
right now. So we gotta wait forit to cool down before we would
spray anything.
But once you spray or you dowhatever control method that you
want, you have to be ready withthat new turf grass seed later
in the season to the to thenreplant that into lawn if that's
what you're growing there. Oh,yeah. Common luspidesa.
Ken (19:32):
I'll check and see if I have that. We got all kinds of
stuff growing in my grass that'snot grass.
Chris (19:37):
Between that and the nimble will, I don't have much
lawn left in certain parts ofthe yard.
Ken (19:43):
Yes. Creeping Charlie, strawberries. Yeah. Wild
strawberry.
Chris (19:49):
I encourage those. I I don't I don't actively try to
kill them. This this particularone and the nimble will is I I'm
worried about this one becauseit's an annual, and if it dies,
I'm gonna have bare spots in thewinter, and I don't want I don't
wanna impact my soil in that inthat way to have bare patches in
the winter with kids and animalsand myself running around the
(20:11):
yard.
Ken (20:12):
Hope for lots of snow.
Chris (20:14):
I hope. If it ever gets here, I hope. Maybe. It's
raining this year, so maybewe'll get snow this winter.
Ken (20:23):
We're using it all up now. Mhmm.
Chris (20:25):
Oh, no. Don't say that.
Ken (20:27):
So I'll share some more pictures. So we'll move on to
our our vegetable garden here.And this year, we did cut back
on our vegetable garden a littlebit again just because we were
we're gone for so long. Wedidn't want to put a bunch of
stuff in there that was going topotentially need to be a little
more high maintenance, shall wesay, than others. So we do have
(20:47):
a couple of tomato plants, butwe didn't plant as nearly as
many as we did.
We didn't do any cucurbits,which aren't necessarily really
high maintenance, but we've hadissues with squash bug for a
couple of years and didn't wannadidn't wanna plant that and have
that stuff move in and justcompletely wipe everything out
and kinda start from from squareone all over again. So here's
(21:09):
kind of the front of the garden.So we've got, quite a few
peppers. Upfront there areChristmas peppers, more
Christmas peppers that weplanted. We've got jalapenos,
stuff like that.
On the on the right there, thethe those really tall plants,
those are lettuce that's lettucethat bolted and I have never
have not pulled yet. So ifyou've never seen a lettuce
that's bolted and you'relistening, go check out the
(21:30):
YouTube. But I have for the lastcouple of years, some of our
raised beds, I've just let thelettuce bolt. We have volunteer
lettuce all over the place. Somaybe I won't have to plant
lettuce anymore.
There you go. You can see thatwe do have a we do do cereal rye
in our garden as a cover crop.So fortunately when we got back,
we didn't have to do a whole lotof weeding in here. Some of
(21:53):
those smaller plants in theforeground, that is the tillage
radish that we planted. Probablyput it on a little too heavy.
Usually get it out a littlelater than I should, so those
seeds will kind of carry overinto the spring and I just let
them go. Probably not the bestthing to do if I wanna grow
broccoli and stuff because allof the, cabbage whites and
(22:15):
things like that, cabbageloopers will get onto that. So
I'm just kinda setting up asmorgasbord for all of those, in
my garden year round. Here's ourcarrots. I thought they looked
much better When we got back,I'm not sure what's going on in
the middle there.
You can see a lot of browningout there. I have not pulled any
(22:37):
out to see what's going on. Butother than that, they're they're
kind of declining, last week ortwo. I don't know if that's
temperature related or what'sgoing on there, but I will have
to to pull some of those and seewhat they look like. Here we got
some, beans in here.
So these, for this year, we didnot grow green beans. These are
all dry beans, shelling beans,whatever you want to call them.
(23:01):
My wife and I, we had a littlebit of a miscommunication. I
thought she bought bush beans.She did not.
So I did not put that in that.We have two rows here. So the
one row by the fence is goingfine. I can crawl that. The
other row does not have a fenceon it.
We do have a post there where wehad tomatoes on last year, but
they're kind of all over theplace right now. But we do have
(23:22):
some beans on there, so again,we'll let those dry down and
harvest those this fall. Now ourcorn, we do have two different
types of corn. I have popcorn,which is on left, so the smaller
plants and more of an ornamentaltype on the right. The popcorn
we planted probably three weeksbefore the ornamental, just so
(23:42):
we wouldn't get crosspollination.
The spring, it did not germinateuntil about the week I planted
the ornamental corn, which thengerminated rather quickly. So
they're kind of you can see thepopcorn it's, you know, silking
and tasseling right now and theornamental is sending out its
tassels. So I'm hoping that allgets pollinated and we don't get
(24:04):
too much cross pollination anddon't mess up our popcorn here.
But we'll see. We do have a nicehealthy patch of purslane.
Normally, I I would pull that,but I left it because this is
our vegetable garden and it'sedible. So maybe some night
we'll have a purslane salad orsomething like that. But we'll
(24:27):
see that is one around our yard.We we had a lot more of this
year than we have in the past,it seems like, for whatever
reason. So there's some of thebeans in there.
Ganapi, some more peppers. Here,I think these are the jalapenos.
You can see the the pic one inthe front is not looking too
(24:49):
happy. I think it's a little dryin that part of the garden. We
did water that tomato in thebackground there.
Did not get staked. I think Ithink that was one we planted
that's not a volunteer, but it'scrawling all over the ground. So
that's probably going to lead toa lot of, diseased fruit, more
than likely. But we'll see thatthe fruit's just starting to
(25:10):
come on. And it's been so hot,it's not going to color up.
I really want to get up up intothe mid eighties, they don't
produce that red color. So if itit is supposed to cool off, but
if it's it were to stay hot likethis, we'd to start picking
those once they get that maturegreen size and ripening them
inside if we want to get thatnice color on them. Here's our
(25:31):
some of our artichokes. I don'tknow why, but these are probably
a quarter of the size theynormally are when they start
putting out the flowers. Again,I'm not sure.
You know, we were gone. I thinkit was kind of dry at times, so
it could be playing a role inthat. I got these planted much
later than I would have likedto. They sat in there, in the
(25:53):
seed starting tray for two orthree weeks longer than I would
have liked them to. But justevery time I get a chance to go
out, it'd be raining or it'd bereally muddy and I couldn't just
couldn't get them into theground.
So we probably won't harvestthese. I'll just let them bloom
and and we'll enjoy the flowersand can pop in a picture of what
the flower looks like if peoplearen't sure. But that's
(26:14):
basically a giant thistle, moreor less. Now here's our
asparagus patch. So this is theyou can see we've got a lot of
flowers in our female flowers.
So I think we got more femaleplants than we did male plants.
So Uh-oh. Yeah. Going forward,we're gonna have to do a lot of
weeding in here more thanlikely. So we're selectively
(26:37):
thin out the females, I won'thave much asparagus left after
that.
And this is supposed to be apurple asparagus. I did have
some plants that came up green.They never were purple, but
others came up purple andthey've they've turned green. So
not sure why some of thosearen't. Here's a yellow striped
armyworm feeding on on ourasparagus.
Here's those black with theyellow stripe, gray stripe down
(26:59):
the side of it. And you can seehow the the flowers are a little
blurry. These are cardoons, sorelated to asparagus. For these,
you're eating the more of midribstuff you blanch it and stuff.
We don't eat them.
I just chrome, the heck of it.They're more of an kind of an
ornamental, but they're in thevegetable garden. Nobody ever
(27:20):
sees them. So I should probablyincorporate these into our our
flower beds a little bit more.To me, looks like something
you'd find like a dinosaurdinosaur an Asian dinosaur.
Chris (27:32):
So Old ferny leaves and, yeah, big big leaves. Now they
have a flower, you said?
Ken (27:39):
And when we've grown, we have not gotten a flower off of
them yet. I don't know if ourour growing season probably
isn't long enough for that.Maybe I'll build a greenhouse
around them and see if I can getthem to flower.
Chris (27:53):
There you go.
Ken (27:56):
I got another another close-up of that lettuce. I'm
trying to remember what thecultivar was. I can't think of
it. In the middle of that,there's an onion that didn't get
harvested last year. So that'ssunflower, and it's got all
kinds of the the bulbils on thetop there so we could plant
those in theory if we wanted to.
(28:18):
And then here, this one's foryou. This is our blackberry. Our
baby cakes, migratory, so thedwarf blackberry that grew
through the bottom of the potand has now rooted into the
ground and is kind of goingeverywhere. We do have some, see
some chlorosis in there, soprobably need to do some
fertilizing in there. But wehave had, we had probably a
(28:41):
couple dozen blackberries onthere before we left.
And there's a whole lot comingin that I'm sure the birds
enjoyed. We've we're stillpicking some here and there, on
there. Looks good.
Chris (28:55):
That's Baby cake, do those blackberries taste good?
Ken (28:59):
Yeah. Tastes like tastes like blackberries. They're and
they're pretty good size.They're size of my thumb are
bigger, a lot of them. Sothey're they're pretty big.
Chris (29:08):
Mhmm.
Ken (29:08):
If we can if we can beat the birds soon. Every once in
while gets get out there,there'll be a couple that have
been pecked at, just kinda eataround it.
Chris (29:16):
Well, few more things for me to share that something that
I found. I don't I'm not doingthis in my yard or my garden,
but I help someone identify amelon or a cucumber melon in
their garden. They said, I got abunch of seeds. I don't know
what I planted, and they broughtme one. So I have not tried
(29:38):
cucumber melon yet.
So they said, hey. I've got tonsof these. I'm gonna bring you
one. So I have cucumber melonright here. I'm gonna try it.
But while I take a slice righthere, cucumber melon is not a
cucumber. It's actually a melon.Now these are all cucurbits, but
they are they are melons.They're just unripe melons. So
(30:03):
we could let this ripen, and itwould develop more sugars and
have more of a melon y flavor ortexture, but they're not bred
for that.
So they're not as they theydon't taste as good as, like, a
melon, like a like a honeydew oranything like that. So these
have been bred to be tasty asimmature fruit, and it smells
(30:24):
like a cucumber. The fruititself, to describe those who
are listening, it is kind ofcucumber shaped. You would
harvest these long ones whenthey get about an inch and a
half to two inches in diameter,and they have, like, these
ridges that run the length ofthe fruit itself. And so I'm
(30:45):
going to to try one.
So I I know that there are somepeople that have an allergy to
melons. I have a friend whodoes. So this is not something
you would eat because remember,it is actually a melon, not a
cucumber. It smells just like acucumber. It tastes just like a
cucumber.
That is very good. It doesn'thave any of the bitterness, some
(31:08):
of that cucurbisin, that thatkind of bitter cucumber y tech
flavor. That is very good.
Ken (31:16):
Is Armenian cucumber? Is that another name for it? Yep. I
think that's how I've usuallyseen it referred to. But
Chris (31:24):
Mhmm. Armenian cucumber. I think there's another one's
called snake melon or snakecucumber. That is excellent. You
can make some really goodsandwiches out of these.
Very good. But not a cucumber.Tastes just like one. It's a
melon. That's pretty cool.
Ken (31:43):
Ken, I wish you were here. Grow along next year.
Chris (31:47):
Mhmm. That's very good. The skin is very tender too. So
You don't need to peel it oranything. Excellent.
Well, one other thing that youdon't wanna find in your yard
are ticks, and I routinely ampulling ticks off of myself
throughout the year. And sowe're trying one more strategy
(32:09):
in our yard, and that is to usetick tubes. Now these particular
tubes, what it is, it's kind ofa passive control, where we have
these tubes. And now this is atube. It's like the size of,
like, a toilet paper roll orpaper towel roll cut in half.
(32:29):
And inside, there is cotton thatis treated with permethrin that
has been stuffed in here, andthe concentration is 7.4%
permethrin. And the idea withthis is that you set these out.
And because when it comes tocertain diseases, I think Lyme
(32:49):
is the one they're mainlythinking about here, it has to
go through a series of othermammals that might be carriers
of that particular pathogen ofLyme disease like mice. And so
mice, like, have to they maketheir nest out of fluffy soft
things. If you've ever had yourpatio furniture torn apart,
they're going after that thatstuffing in your cushions for
(33:10):
their nest.
So what this is is treatedcotton, and they'll take the
cotton to their nest. It doesn'tnecessarily harm the mice.
Actually, it might be beneficialto the mice, but they line their
nest with it, and it makes it sothat any ticks that might be on
them are are killed. So I don'tknow if this is a very effective
(33:33):
tool, but I'm trying it thisyear because I am sick and tired
of pulling ticks off of me. Assomeone who's had Lyme disease
in the past, I I am at war withticks, so they're they're not my
friends.
But we're trying that this year.Pulled a tick off me just last
week, so I don't know how wellit's working, but it's worth a
(33:55):
try.
Ken (33:57):
Yeah. We don't have any issues with ticks that I know of
in our in our yard. Hopefully itstays that way. We do have quite
a few mosquitoes. Did severalepisodes ago we did mosquito
ones.
So I did set up some buckets ofdeath, buckets of doom, whatever
you want to call them. I did nottake pictures. They're pretty
(34:17):
scudsy looking, need to emptythem out and refill them,
they've got all kinds of algaegrowth. But when I have, before
that algae growth kind of tookover, you know, walking by there
was nothing in there. Know, justthese big buckets of water.
Before I put the dunks in therewere some larvae in there. You
(34:37):
know, within a few days theywere all gone. No larvae, no
pupa, and nothing since then.I've put new dunks in when we
got back. I think it is, youknow, as far as managing them in
our yard, I don't know how muchof a dent it's doing, but it is,
whatever's getting in theremosquito wise is getting killed.
(34:58):
So Yeah. I do need to, take somemore pictures of that or refill
that and I can take pictures,and send them to you.
Chris (35:06):
Sounds good. Yeah. Ever since our conversation, I've
been I've been leaving somecontainers out. I haven't been
managing them like the thebuckets that we described on the
show, like, you know, fillingthem with all kinds of things.
But, like, my watering can, Ihave been treating them with
mosquito granulars, the same thesame thing as the dunx, just in
granular form?
(35:29):
And they're clear, like they'reclean in terms of mosquito
larvae. I have treated waterwhere I've seen the little larva
swimming in the water. And aboutmaybe three hours later, they're
all floating on the top. They'reall dead. So it works.
It kills them. And so, yeah,we've got little mosquito traps
(35:50):
in our yards now.
Ken (35:53):
And I think I think we may expand next year and put them
out put some more out morefurther back where we have a lot
of our more of our mosquitoproblems. We've got a lot more
tree cover and and brush andstuff. So right. So this is side
of house fire driveway. So mywife really likes flowering
tobacco.
I like it too. She just likes ita lot more nighties. We've got a
(36:15):
lot of flowering tobacco in ouryard that we've planted this
year and then we've plantedprevious years and it has popped
up as volunteers all over theplace. So they have a really
nice fragrance, especially atnight. So they're moth
pollinated for the most partbecause they are releasing that
scent.
And leaves are kind of a, itfeels they're not sticky, but
(36:39):
they're they feel sticky, likeyou you touch your mirror, like
getting glue all over yourhands, kind of an interesting
feel. To them, here's sometethonia we planted, a bunch of
bachelor buttons that lookedpretty ragged, but they were
really nice earlier this year.We've cut them back and
hopefully we'll get a new flushof stuff later this summer and
(37:02):
end of the fall. Then our rosesare the pink rose we have is
still going pretty strong there.And then here is our hydrangeas
that we've got, so they'restarting to open up these.
You know, I gotta cut back everyyear. I think when we got them,
they're supposed to get, youknow, said four to five feet
tall. They get seven, eight feettall. So every spring I'm out,
(37:27):
hacking them back to try to keepthem, in that four to five foot
tall range because it's right infront of a window, and stuff
like that. But you know, verybig, very showy flowers, and
we've got a decent amount ofinsects on those when they when
they really start opening up.
Chris (37:45):
Well, Ken, since you talked hydrangeas, let me show
some I got some hydrangeas toshow here as well. The
hydrangeas I wanna share, I Ithink I know almost all of them.
I know this one is little quickfire. It is a dwarf version of
quick fire hydrangea. It's apanicle hydrangea that has been
(38:07):
in the ground for two years now.
It it is really likes the spot.And true to what Ken says, it
it's growing taller than what itsaid it would. But I'm it it I I
really like this one. It isgoing to turn a different color,
so it starts off as white andthen it will transition to a
(38:28):
pinkish red throughout the latesummer into the fall, which I
have a picture of. Just onesecond.
But I think this next one is isthis mystery hydrangea right
here. I thought I knew what itwas. I'm pretty sure, I could be
wrong, I planted a hydrangeaabattoe, which is a it is a mop
(38:52):
head type hydrangea or might belace cap. I I'm not sure, but I
always keep the labels, and Ican't find any of my hydrangea
labels. They're somewhere in mygarage.
I I will find them and and letyou know later, though. Out
farther in my yard, this isIncrediball hydrangea on the
(39:13):
left. It's it's established.It's been in there two years
also, but it's kind of struggledin this spot. Maybe it gets a
little too much sun.
And then right next to it, mywife got a hydrangea at Aldi's
and brought it home, and it washalf dead. And I said, well,
I'll just throw this in theground. It'll be dead by the end
of the year. It's lasted twoyears. Looks great.
(39:34):
This is one of those, pink,blue, purple flowering,
hydrangeas, the macrophyllas, Ithink. And, yep, it looks great.
It's just this little littletiny guy there. Yeah, that's and
then in terms of what here theseare pictures of the little quick
(39:56):
fire right here. This is whatthat pinkish red color that it's
going to transition to as theseason progresses.
So just, you know, multipleweeks worth of worth of interest
there. And you can see sort ofthose larger showier flowers.
Those are the sterile flowers.As you go look more to the
(40:19):
inside, those are the fertileflowers. And when we look at,
like, pollinator attractiveness,that's what they're gonna go
for, those smaller flowersbeneath those taller ones right
there.
Ken, I think we need to do ahydrangea show sometime where we
get someone on here who reallyknows what they're, like,
talking about because I I thinkwe can only scratch the surface
(40:40):
when it comes to hydrangeastoday.
Ken (40:44):
Yeah. I think it's on the list of things to do.
Chris (40:46):
It is. It is.
Ken (40:47):
If anybody knows about it, we could talk to you.
Chris (40:49):
I always need that expert. Oh, goodness. Well and
the other thing, while I'm here,and now you have my pictures
here showing folks, I wanted todo an update how the ginger's
growing. So we're doing a coupledifferent types of ginger. What
I'm going to show folks rightnow is our Aggrastart ginger.
(41:09):
So this is ginger grown fromtissue culture, so very sterile
conditions in a lab, reallyhelps to reduce disease spread.
One flat of ginger here was putin the full sun, and one was put
in the mostly shade. And I willcycle through. Here's a
(41:31):
different angle. There's theblue flat and the black flat.
And the blue flat is the onethat was in full sun. And these
plants you can see they're alittle shorter, which is normal.
You know, you're in full sun.You don't have to grow as tall.
But they're also not as healthylooking.
The ones on the left in thisblack flat, they are taller,
(41:52):
they're deeper green, which ishard to tell from the image
right here, but if we look overtop, again, the blue flat, full
sun, you can see somediscoloration of the leaves, you
can see just more sparseness interms of that density of that
foliage. We If look at the flaton the left, which has grown in
the mostly shade, much happierginger. And so I I think
(42:16):
transitioning from shade to sunmaybe as the season progresses
might be the trick, but, that'ssomething that we're finding out
here. These are some of our potsI have in my backyard also.
These are just randomized ofdifferent things that are
growing in them.
You can see some empty potswhere they just didn't grow,
didn't take. Everything wasplanted with a live plant. Some
(42:38):
of them have died. Just adifferent angle right here.
Again, some empty pots, somehealthy pots, but this is all
full sun where these aregrowing.
So, I think a little bit more,sun stress from these plants.
Ken (42:50):
Alright. And I can share a picture of the ginger. What do
we got going? So this is theginger we have out at our our
Luchman Garden site. So, you cansee there's a lot of dead grass
in here.
So we had a bit of an issue,small issue, maybe a little bit
bigger than small, withcrabgrass, that grew up, and was
(43:10):
basically swallowing the plants.So did a lot of work hand
weeding in between the plants,the master gardener, some other
staff, myself. And then we wentin and and sprayed, the rest of
that stuff. So we do now have avery nice mulch, but I would not
recommend getting your mulch,this way to to cover, your bare
areas. Yeah, it looks, Ihonestly, it looks a lot better
(43:34):
than I thought it would givenhow hot, and and humid it's
been.
We do have the shade cloth. Ithink it was a 30% shade cloth
on there. So we're we're gettingsome shade, but still just with
how hot it's getting, I did notexpect it to look as good as it
did. I mean, it doesn't lookgreat, but I expected it to look
much worse than the theAgriStart stuff. So tissue
(43:57):
culture is on the left there.
That's the smaller stuff. Andsome of those are struggling
quite a bit. I think the, someof the bigger ones, I think
there's a whole high energyirrigation, so they're probably
getting a little more water thansome of the others. But the
ginger on the right there, thosetwo rows, those are started from
(44:20):
the rhizomes. So I think they'remuch bigger, a little bit
happier looking too.
Chris (44:27):
Yeah. They look good. I I think they look good. Your
rhizome ginger looks good. Theagri starts, that's one of those
where we think, alright.
You you get them year one, youyou grow them up a little bit,
and then the next year, yeartwo, you plant them and
hopefully they look like theginger on the right. That's
that's the goal or the plan.We'll see what you pull out of
(44:50):
the ground.
Ken (44:51):
Yeah. So there'll be lots of digging and and stuff here
and coming in a few months. Ithink we mentioned on the show
that we're working on convertingour our entire front yard, into
pollinator, say prairie, becausewe've got a lot of non native
stuff in there, planting. Soagain, we started with our our
(45:14):
hell strip, the boulevard,whatever you want call it, area
in between the sidewalk and thestreet. We've planted that in
pollinator plants and nativegrasses and stuff.
It's been there for four or fiveyears now. We're kind of slowly
transitioning the rest of thefront yard. And really what
probably started really lastyear because we had to replace
our waterline to the house. Wehad a good, nice big strip of
(45:39):
our yard already torn up. So weinstead of putting grass back
down, we just started plantingplants.
So, here you can see we've got,we've sunflowers, we have
blazing star. We've plantedthose basically once and they
have just self seeded,everywhere in spots there are
becoming weeds, because they'reso prolific. So now a lot of
times we'll come out and andchop off some of those seed
(45:59):
heads just so we don't have themspreading everywhere. We're not
having to pull quite as much.And we'll set them out in the
backyard, more in the lawn.
So the seeds do so the birds canget them. That way the seeds are
out there just getting mowedover, if they do. Now we do have
some hardy hibiscus there in theforeground. And that took us in
the evenings for those flowers.Like other hibiscus, they last
(46:21):
for a day and they start closingup.
But it's it's kind of mindboggling how many flowers I
mean, they're big flowers. Someof them bigger than the palm of
my hand. How many flowersthey're putting out. And they
only last a day. You'd thinkyou'd want to last make them
last a little bit longer, butI'm not a hibiscus.
(46:42):
Now a little further back, I'mgoing to get some rattlesnake
master in the front. Again,we've started with a couple
plants and those self seededthroughout the yard, but you can
see both sides of the sidewalkthere. Again, there's a little
more of the the house stripswe've got. Again, rattlesnake
master, some blazing star, somewhat grass is that? Is that a
(47:04):
little bluestem, I think.
Chris (47:06):
In the foreground? That lighter colored one, I think so.
Ken (47:09):
Yeah. We've also got Prairie Drop Seed. I'm trying to
get the other one. A third onein there too. There's a celosia.
Again, volunteer, but kind of acool orange and pink there.
Kinda split in half. Again, somemore flowering tobacco, some Joe
(47:32):
pye weed. That's looking prettyhappy and healthy. And and the
plan is we've got some grassplants that we're gonna start
we're gonna kill off the grassand then start putting in some
native grass.
We just want to get the theforbs, the flowers a chance to
get established before we startputting some of the grasses in.
(47:52):
So, again, a little furtherback, back here, we've got more,
some more woody type stuff andbigger plants, gray headed
coneflower, some more tethoniaback there. There's a lilac or
two back there that you can'treally see anymore. Some of
these other plants have kindaswallowed them up. A But little
(48:13):
closer again.
Usually go through on the astersand stuff, which is in the
middle there. We'd pinch thosebacks. They're not quite as
weedy looking. I have to try itagain for next year. Tomorrow
I'll catch fire.
I really like this one. Yeah.It's not quite that red in real
life. The sensor on the on thecamera just, didn't capture that
(48:35):
quite quickly. It pops, but notquite as much as in the picture
there, but this is kind of ashort lived perennial, so it
doesn't last unfortunately, inour yard, doesn't last terribly
long, a couple of years.
Then we got to replant. Again, alittle wider again, some of
those hardy hibiscus. We havethree or four different types.
(48:59):
Our daughter really likes them,so we've kind of gone crazy with
them a little bit. Some of ourswamp milkweed are covered in
aphids.
Again, we're not gonna not gonnado anything about it.
Eventually, the the ladybugs andlacewings and everything else,
surface flies will move in thereand take care of them. Forest,
we do have, some of the milkweedbugs, in there feeding on, seed
(49:24):
pods and all of that. Andanother angle of the the hell
strip there from the othersother end of the sidewalk there.
So
Chris (49:33):
It's gorgeous. I love this. Your front yard is a
dream. I love it.
Ken (49:39):
It's a bit bit of a jungle. That's awesome though. Some more
sunflowers and whatnot. Have onemore picture here for this.
There you go.
So usually we have moresunflowers, the rabbits. So we
saw a lot of these sunflowersactually growing our are
(50:00):
volunteers from last year. Wedid plant some in the fall last
year, and those are what aregrowing. The stuff we planted in
the spring just kept gettingmowed down by rabbits. I think
we planted three or four times.
And not a single one of those.They'd come up, we'd come back
out a day or two later, andthere'd be left nothing left. So
I don't know if it's the thesunflowers that we do have, they
just came up. They got bigenough that the rabbits didn't
(50:22):
bother them. So I think the planis I think we're gonna do a
bigger planting this fall thanwe normally do, in hopes that we
can beat the rabbits.
And we've really switched overto more of the branching
sunflowers. I really like the,you know, the giant ones. You
know, they have the flower headsthat are a foot wide and stuff,
(50:43):
but you only get one flower andthen the plants get pretty ugly.
They're done. At least with thebranching, you've got kind of a
a continuous, floral displaythere on them.
Chris (50:55):
Well, Ken, I will come over and hang out in your front
yard any day of the week.
Ken (50:59):
You're welcome anytime.
Chris (51:01):
Yeah. You've you've got the you got kill your lawn vibes
going on there.
Ken (51:10):
Try try to practice what I preach.
Chris (51:12):
There you go. I love it. I love it. Oh my goodness. Well,
we should probably wrap it upbecause we have boy, we we have
been we could go on and on.
I got so many things I couldshare, but I think we are we're
at our limit, aren't we?
Ken (51:27):
We probably can people are gonna stop listening.
Chris (51:30):
Definitely. Yeah. If you've made it past thirty
minutes, you're still in it. Ibet you are. Well, that was a
lot of great information and apeek behind the scenes of what's
happening in our yards, whatwe're dealing with, you know,
how we tackle some of thosechallenges and turn our yards
into a beautiful oasis as Kenhas showed us today.
(51:54):
Well, the Good Growing podcastis a production of University of
Illinois Extension, edited thisweek by me, Chris Enroth. Hey,
Ken. Thank you for going out,snapping some pictures, and
sharing with with me and andeveryone else what's happening
in the yard, the garden, thelandscape. Thanks, Ken.
Ken (52:10):
Yes. Thank you. And I'll I'll have the cold beverage
ready for you whenever you stop
Chris (52:15):
I will bring the cucumber melons.
Ken (52:17):
Alright. Let's do it. And let's do this again next week.
Chris (52:23):
Oh, we shall do this again next week. We're going to
be talking with Sarah Vogel allabout tree identification. It's
a magical power to identify atree. And it's it's a lot of
fun. It's a good party trick.
So we will cover that next week.Listeners, thank you for doing
what you do best and that islistening. Or if you're watching
us on YouTube, watching. And asalways, keep on growing. It's
(53:01):
really hard to do this whenyou're eating a crunchy crunchy
cucumber melon.
Ken (53:06):
Should've waited. Mhmm.
Chris (53:08):
They are they are delicious, though. It's like
those snacking cucumbers whereyou can just, like you just take
them off the vine and you eatthem.
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