April 1, 2024 • 25 mins
The Sunshine Gardening Podcast, hosted by Kristin Hildabrand, spotlights Kentucky's Horticulture Webinar Wednesday program. In a recent episode, agent Kelly Jackson discussed the program's essentials and its growth. The show notes provide details for connecting and registering for the webinars. Subscribe to the podcast for more gardening tips and inspiration. Happy gardening!
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
The team has tried to do over the
(00:01):
course of these seasons is try to reach
out even beyond
just Kentucky Extension. And so we had for
our 1 hundredth episode
last year, we had doctor Alan Armitage join
and he spoke about landscaping in small areas.
That was a great program.
And then we had at the end of
last year's season,
there was a report that came out of
the Mount Cuba Center. It was on the
(00:24):
research they did with sedges
and how to use those in the landscape.
And these are native sedges, all native to
Kentucky as well.
And so we had their guy on to
do a program and that was just like,
I immediately purchased sedges after I heard that.
I thought I'm missing this plant. I only
know of yellow nutsedge, which nobody wants, but
these are the native sedges that you can
(00:45):
even certain ones of that that they tested
with mowing, like, or a lawn replacement with
sedges. So that was that was a great
program.
That voice right there was the knowledgeable Kelly
Jackson.
As the horticulture
extension agent for Christian County
and one of the cultivators behind the fruitful
horticulture webinar Wednesday's program,
(01:06):
Kelli brings insights directly to our podcast conversation
today.
Welcome to the Sunshine Gardening podcast
where we help your garden grow.
I'm your host, Kristen Hildebrand.
In today's episode,
episode 27,
we are spotlighting the horticulture webinar Wednesday's program
(01:26):
offered right here in Kentucky.
Today, we discuss with agent Kelly Jackson Jackson
the essentials of the horticulture webinar Wednesday's program
and explore the growth of this educational
initiative.
You'll get an insider's peek at the topics
covered,
the engaging
educational content,
behind the scenes of the webinar series,
(01:49):
the growth it has witnessed, and how these
webinars can help enrich your horticultural
skills.
So grab your gardening gloves, and let's dive
in.
Welcome to the Sunshine Gardening podcast.
This gardening show will equip and inspire avid
gardeners with tips and tricks to help them
navigate the gardening world. The show will also
(02:11):
highlight specific growing requirements for seasonal plants so
the sun will shine brighter over their Kentucky
garden.
And now, here's that ray of sunshine,
garden enthusiast and horticulture extension agent, Kristen Hildebrand,
with the University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service.
Alright. We are so excited to have with
(02:32):
us today joining on the podcast is Kelly
Jackson. How are you, Kelly? I am excellent
today. Great. Great. And I know that one
of the exciting programs that you helped coordinate
for us throughout the state of Kentucky is
the horticulture webinar Wednesday series.
And for a lot of people listening to
(02:52):
us this morning or here on podcast,
can you give us a little bit of
details about that program, what all it involves,
and how it got started?
Give us some general info about it. Sure.
Yeah. So
horticulture webinar on Wednesdays
came into being like a lot of different
things with technology during the COVID period that
(03:12):
we had. And it was an excellent way
to kinda get
still continue to teach classes to the public.
So a group of horticulture agents got together
and thought, how could we do this? And
it's been going for 5 years. This is
the 5th season now,
and it's going very well.
And essentially, all it is is basically a
class that you might attend at any county
(03:34):
extension office. But we do it live. We
do it every Wednesday during our season.
We don't do it year round, but or
during our growing season. And then all of
those are recorded for future use. And really,
that's what we've seen a massive
increase in people going to the YouTube channel
and watching those even later. But it's fun
(03:54):
to do it live because that's where you
get the questions from the public, and we
can get to answer those from the whoever
the expert is that day. So you don't
get that on the recording,
but you still get access to the information.
It's it's been a great outreach, I think,
for the community.
Yes. I know that a lot of my
master gardeners here in Warren County have really
enjoyed it, and we've tried to promote it
(04:16):
also to the public here so that way
people can gain access. And one of the
things that I think is so great is
that your all's topics
vary from month to month. Can you kinda
give us I know you said it's the
5th season, but is there anything that you
can tell us about for this upcoming season
that we might see featured in a future
horticulture webinar Wednesday's program?
(04:38):
Sure. Yeah. So we started our first one
for this year, for the 2024
season
we had last week, and it was Andy
Mills who's a UK ag agent in Mead
County. And he talked about growing those gigantic
pumpkins, which they have a huge pumpkin way
off in their county. It was a little
bit maybe a little bit outside of what
we typically do, but not really either because
(04:59):
we have a lot of vegetable gardeners that
that watch these. And, you know, in the
back of your head, you always think, man,
what if I could grow the biggest of
something? Until you hear what
level of work goes into growing one of
these giant pumpkins. And it was it's an
eye opening experience. So
not to dissuade people, you could easily get
a 2 100, 300 pounder, if you're gonna
(05:20):
try to grow one of these 2,000 pound
pumpkins, it's it's a undertaking.
So you can go back and watch that
as soon as I get it up on
the YouTube channel. That's a really, really, a
good program. But coming up, we've got one
on hummingbirds, attracting hummingbirds to your garden.
And then kinda these are not in order
necessarily, but we have one coming up on
chaos gardening. If you're not familiar with that
(05:41):
term, it's it's the opposite of formal gardening.
Okay? So it's the opposite of I want
all these plants to be this way and
layered. This is everything goes in the garden
mostly from seeds. What comes up comes up
and survives in that zone, and it's a
different just a different buzzword at the moment,
I guess you could say. I have some
on hostas, some on peonies or peonies. I
(06:03):
don't know which way you pronounce that. So
those are some of our very first classes
coming up in the next month. Yeah. And
how exciting is it to hear about growing
a gigantic pumpkin? Because, you know, when we
get to state fair, we're always curious about
the process because when we actually see it
live and in person, it does kinda peak
your curiosity
(06:23):
on what all it takes. And I feel
like gardeners, we like to be challenged, and
this is a great way that people can
be challenged and learn a lot as they
do it too. So and it seems like
with hummingbirds, you know, wildlife
is a huge benefit to the garden, and
we've seen a lot of
popularity with hummingbirds
(06:43):
and bees and
butterflies.
So I like that you all offer something
in that category as well. So naturally attracted
to hummingbirds. They like to see even though
we only have the one in Kentucky, it's
still people just
want to see those little guys come by.
And there's a lot of questions about that.
Like, what do you do at the end
of the season? What about feeding them and
(07:04):
the fights that they get into? So all
of that will get addressed in that program.
Yeah. I love I love that. And I
also love watching the hummingbirds throughout the summer
months as well, so it it's fun just
to you're past the time just by doing
that there.
Now as far as the instructors for these
horticulture webinar Wednesdays,
who basically teaches some of these courses for
(07:26):
you guys?
Generally, it's the horticulture agents and some of
the ag agents across the state. It's more
often the horticulture agents.
And
then in addition to that, a few specialists
too. We've had as far as ag agents,
we've had a topic on maple syrup, like
how to tap your maple trees for making
(07:46):
your own syrup. And that was an ag
agent out of Eastern Kentucky that did that
program. It's in our it's in our list.
And then a specialist, we have Larson,
doctor Larson on pretty often about insects, and
he's always entertaining.
What I have well, the team has tried
to do over the course of these seasons
is try to reach out even beyond
just Kentucky Extension.
(08:07):
And so we had for our 100th episode
last year, we had doctor Alan Armitage on,
and he spoke about landscaping in small areas.
That was a great program.
And then we had at the end of
last year's season,
there was a report that came out of
the Mount Cuba Center. I don't know if
you're familiar with that, but it was on
the research they did with sedges
(08:29):
and how to use those in the landscape.
And these are native sedges, all native to
Kentucky as well. And so we had their
their guy on to do a program and
that was just, like, I immediately purchased sedges
after I heard that. I thought, I'm missing
this plant. I only know of yellow nutsedge,
which nobody wants, but these are the native
sedges that you can even certain ones of
(08:50):
that that they tested with mowing, like, or
a lawn replacement with sedges. So that was
that was a great program, I thought. So
we try to find every once in a
while, just sprinkle in among our our regular
speakers
some special topic that's hot, that's new, that's
interesting, and that was all new research from
a 3 year study. So that was great
to have them. Yeah. I love that you
(09:11):
all try to get basically experts in their
field, and that kind of knowledge and wisdom
seems like they're very passionate about those topics,
and it makes it for a very
engaging and interesting program.
So kudos to you guys. Now I know
it takes several people to plan the horticulture
webinar Wednesday's program. You're just one of the
(09:32):
organizers.
Who else is involved with this program?
So there's 4 horticulture agents. Sharon Flint is
in Scott County
and she organizes
the Zoom links and sending out the emails
to the public if they register to to
be on one of the classes.
Amy Aldenderfer is in Hardin County and she
is kind of the the voice during the
(09:54):
show. She's doing a lot of the talking
to the public and getting them to sign
in and greeting people. It's amazing here recently,
especially, and I guess because we've been going
long enough now, we're getting people to sign
in not just from Kentucky, but from other
states.
I think this last one, the first one
we had was from Florida that was watching
our program, had signed in to watch it,
so that's great. So she's good about engaging
(10:16):
the public. And then Annette Heissendurfer out of
Davis County, she runs the chat box for
us during the program.
And then I do the back end work.
So I'm usually not even on the the
air. I'm just hitting record. And then for
I always joke for every speaker that we
have, I watch it 3 times because the
editing, as you know, takes you have to
(10:37):
go back through it again and cut and
paste and fix any errors that happen.
And then what we've just started doing
is adding the timestamps in because sometimes people
don't wanna watch the entire episode if they're
only interested in one part. And you can't
set the timestamps until you finished editing. So
you do it, watch it live, you watch
it during editing, and then you watch it
(10:58):
again to set time stamps, and then it
goes on a YouTube channel. So that's that's
the part I do and the part I
prefer off camera.
Well, hey. It takes multiple people to make
it run smoothly and as efficiently as you
guys have done, so kudos to you all.
And I know I always really enjoy getting
that information,
seeing the programs that you all offer, and,
(11:18):
again, sharing it with the people here in
Warren County. Just out of curiosity, you probably
see some of the statistics with a lot
of the Whittler Bunch of Webinar Wednesdays programs.
But has there been, like, a couple of
episodes that have been most popular? You said
you're in the 5th season, so I was
just curious if there was one that might
have just blown your mind on how many
(11:39):
people Yeah. I've got I pulled up the
analytics before. Let me do the life time
search. So it shows you, of course, how
many views. The number one video that we
have on the channel is on growing pawpaws,
and that is the specialist Sherry. Right? Yep.
Sherry
from KSU.
Mhmm. And there's been over 21,000
(12:00):
views of Growing Paw Paws.
And people are allowed you know, as you
watch these videos on YouTube, you can go
to the chat, ask questions there as well.
And then we try to get you answers
to those more questions
for that particular topic. I don't know. You
would think pawpaw is such
a outlier crop, outlier plant, but there's a
lot of interest in that. It's probably why
(12:20):
KSU has such an extensive pawpaw research program
is that they know that. There's a lot.
And
blueberries is number 2. A lot of people
interested in blueberries. Starting a community garden is
the third one. Raspberries, then the top ten
trees for Kentucky rounds out the top 5.
So it's just kinda varied. The one on
community gardens is not really about the vegetables
(12:43):
themselves. It's about organizing people and starting a
community garden. There's a lot of interest in
that as well. Yeah. I know probably a
lot of us have that gardening interest. There's
probably community projects and opportunities there. And sometimes
you need to kinda know some of those
things to keep it well organized and be
successful. So I appreciate you giving us those
top five. I am interested that the Pawpaws
(13:04):
was number 1, but we have a Pawpaw
class that's coming up here at the Warren
County office, and we had a lot of
people ask for that. So if they miss
the class, I guess I know where to
send them. Send them to the video. Yeah.
Yeah. Send them there. One question I do
have on the horticulture webinar Wednesday is how
long generally do these sessions last?
So it's difficult to
(13:25):
lock in on a time.
The goal is based on the as we
started getting more and more of these videos
in YouTube, you start to see that people's
attention spans go for about
15, 20 minutes on a video. Longer than
that, and it's difficult. So that's why we
went back and started adding timestamps to this.
We've asked our speakers
(13:46):
to kinda even though a topic like pawpaws
is a big topic from start to finish,
right? It might work better if we just
talk about what are the varieties of pawpaws
for Kentucky? Or how do you harvest and
what do you do with those pawpaws that
harvest? Instead of trying to encompass it all.
So that's what we've started trying to do
this year, well, and even last year is
kind of narrow those down and target about
(14:07):
20 minutes tops
and then questions after that. We don't include
the questions that are live in the videos
because
typically,
if you've ever said on these before, I
know you have, the questions a lot of
times is just about an individual's
situation. Like, I have this and that doesn't
necessarily relate to everybody. So we don't include
the questions. Or maybe another way to say
that is that's the perk you get if
(14:29):
you show up live for the program is
you get to ask the specialist yourself. But
you can still ask your questions in too.
But that's our goal. We have some that
are much longer than that, but we're working
on kinda shortening the overall length of the
programs.
Yeah. I like how that you said that
you've tried to do, you know, really good
about condensing the information down because it's like
you said, we kinda get the glazed over
(14:51):
look after Yeah. So long. And now when
do you all generally offer the sessions? You
said it's on Wednesday, but what time of
day is that for folks? It's 12:30 EST,
11:30 CST. Okay. So kind of during the
lunch hour, so it could be very well
worked into someone's schedule. Especially if they wanna
take their lunch at their desk, they can
join and listen.
(15:11):
And, again, at the end, ask questions if
they have specific questions related to the material.
So that sounds great. You mentioned the live
option versus the recording option.
So if someone can't attend, do they still
need to register to get the recording link,
or how is that done generally? No. Probably
the smartest thing to do would be if
they if they use YouTube, of course, that's
(15:32):
where they're all posted, is to go to
the channel and to subscribe to that channel.
We have about
1300,
1400 subscribers to the YouTube channel. So just
go there and click subscribe. We don't do,
like, all of the,
things that you see if you watch anything
on YouTube is, like, click and subscribe. We
don't do that. But if you wanna know
when one gets loaded up, then that's the
(15:54):
best way really to do that is to
go and subscribe.
Yes. We're not we're not trying to to
make this is not a moneymaker thing like
most of those people on YouTube are. This
is just an educational thing. Yeah. So on
YouTube, is it just horticulture
webinar Wednesdays? Is that the name of the
channel? Yes. I think if you go to
YouTube and you put the symbol at horticulturewebinarWednesday,
it'll take you right to the channel. Okay.
(16:16):
I just wanted to ask for folks that
are listening.
And as far as people, when they do
get registered, how is the easiest way for
them to get registered? Is there a social
media
way that they need to follow, or do
you all have an email list serve? I'm
just curious how that process works. So there's
2 ways to do that. If they're on
social media on Facebook, we have a horticulture
(16:36):
webinar Wednesday's Facebook page. And of course, you
can subscribe there and see when they show
up in your feed. You can also go
to the website kentuckihortnews.com.
And there's a tab at the top that's
called HWW webinars.
And you can click on the upcoming classes
that you want to attend
(16:57):
and go ahead and type in your email
address. When you do that, it generates an
automatic email with the link to the live
version so you can just watch it. Cool.
Cool. We try to try to remove all
the barriers, but so there's a couple of
different options there for you. Yeah. So if
you if you wanna go to the social
media page there, you can go to horticulture
webinar Wednesdays and check it out. Is it
(17:18):
just, like, one registration for the whole month,
or is it individual classes? Yep. So, originally,
it was one for the whole season. You
could sign up for everything. And then spammers
somehow found a way to mess things up
for us. So now it's 1 per month.
So you can click on the one like,
if you wanna see the hummingbirds next week,
it would show up both classes that we
had in March. You obviously wouldn't register for
(17:39):
last week's, but you could register for that
one. And then you would need to go
back in and for the April, if there's
any in April that you wanna see and
register for those. If you register and you
don't attend, that's okay. There's, I mean, there's
no fee for any of this. It's all
free. But, if you wanna make sure you
get a notification the day of the program
as a reminder and as the direct link
(17:59):
to that, I would sign up for all
the ones you think you might watch.
Yes. Yes. For sure. Any type of interest,
you definitely wanna make sure you sign up
for. Is there anything that's required from the
participant
besides just, like like you said, registering and
signing up? Of course, you said there's options
to ask questions, but do you all do
anything beyond that, like an evaluation piece? I
(18:21):
was just curious.
To get feedback. Do that anymore. We used
to there is an opportunity, of course, to
if there's topics that you want to hear
more about, you can through the web page
at the bottom where you would sign up,
you can click on that link. It'll generate
an email to Kentucky Hort News
and, you know, say, I really would like
to hear it. Well, I just had one
the other day. They wanted a topic on
(18:42):
something that was of interest to them. I
think it was lentin roses, which I don't
think that we've had. So that's one we
can add into our list because, obviously, somebody
out there is interested in that. So that's
a way for them to kind of give
feedback as well.
As far as if they've never done a
Zoom class before, you don't necessarily have to
download the Zoom software. You can click on
the link and open it in a web
(19:03):
browser. But if you
prefer, it's free. You can download the Zoom
and and use that. Or if you're not
at a computer, you can push the button
on the phone and just listen to it.
Not quite as effective, but you could listen
to it on your phone or do the
whole thing through the phone with Zoom and
everything. So Yeah. Sounds like we've got multiple
options there for joining and especially for those
that might not feel as comfortable with Zoom.
(19:25):
I know there's still probably some folks out
there, but sounds like you all are doing
a really good job about offering these for
a cultural webinar Wednesdays programs.
Now I know you mentioned a couple just,
they're coming up, but how often do you
all tell the classes in advance? Do y'all
try to share those on social media all
at one time for the upcoming month, or
(19:48):
how does that work, Kelly? Yeah. On the
social media, they're they're released for the month
ahead. Usually a couple of weeks before April.
All of April's classes are up right now
on on the Facebook page.
On the website,
as soon as we have everything scheduled, I
go ahead and put everything up there for
the entire
year. Or if we're got a few gaps
that we're still trying to fill, it'll just
(20:08):
show to be determined or whatever coming soon.
So I only have up through April right
now
on the page,
but we have the speakers
already
selected through June. So I just need to
make an update as well. Cool. Cool. One
of the great things, you said that this
is the 5th season. So if somebody wanted
to go back and watch what happened in
the 1st season or the 2nd season, 3rd
(20:31):
or 4th, They do have that option. It
seems like from my memory that it also
has not only the recording, but it has
other material that goes along with it too.
Yeah. So if they go to the web
page, Kentucky Horton News, they can flip through
every one of the
years, seasons. I call them seasons on there.
They can flip through all the seasons and
just scroll. If they don't have in mind
(20:52):
what they're already looking for, they can scroll
through those. If the speaker
had a handout or a PowerPoint
or a link to
UK or another university publication,
we include that in the notes section on
that page so they can click on that
and and get that information.
If they already know they're looking for a
specific topic,
then it's probably best to go straight to
(21:13):
the YouTube. We've got those organized into, like,
vegetables or woody plants or flowers
or pests, and they can go straight to
those sections or just do a search in
the the bar above and go straight to
the video.
And then in
the description of it, we try to include
those links as well. So there are 2
ways to get to it to get to
those. Yeah. Yeah. Those playlists are really helpful
(21:36):
to help organize a lot of the content,
especially after 5 seasons. That's a lot of
information.
So you all generally start in the spring
and go till about October. Is that right?
We try to go through the end of
October
to pick up tree week, which is like
a Kentucky initiative thing that's going on probably
in the last few years, at least for
me anyways. So we go through October,
(21:58):
And then spring varies. We have started early
as February before,
but, really March is when people tend to
get we probably could've gone a little bit
earlier this year. We've had an earlier spring.
But some years in in February when you're
talking about growing plants and there's snow out,
nobody's really that interested in it. So March
is where we typically pick up and begin
the season. Yeah. So kinda be banking on
(22:20):
March through October.
And I like that you mentioned Tree Week
because that is a big initiative through the
UK Cooperative Extension Service. And it's like you
said, the top was it the top
top five trees? Is in the top five
for you all as being, you know, highly
watched and and viewed. So it sounds like
great information that a lot of our Kentucky
citizens and gardeners can pick up
(22:42):
if there's any interest. I know y'all done
lawn care in the past and those pests.
A lot of people have questions about different
pests, so y'all are doing a a great
job there, Kelly. Now if somebody has questions
about the horticulture webinar Wednesday's
program, how do you all hook up with
anybody that has questions on it? They can
(23:02):
post questions at the bottom of the Kentucky
Hort News where the listings of the classes
are. There's a button there that says get
in touch. They can send an email straight
through there if they have a question about
that, but they're always welcome to contact their
they could probably contact their own county agent
and they could forward it on to us,
or they can contact one of one of
us that was mentioned
or me. Either one is fine. Yeah. Yeah.
(23:23):
We'll have to share some links down in
the show notes for today's episode. So, again,
make sure to, check us out on the
show notes for this episode.
Kelly, thank you so much for being a
guest on our show today, and we hope
to talk to you again sometime in the
future. Sure. Great. Thanks for having us.
That's it for today's Sunshine Gardening podcast episode.
(23:46):
I hope you feel inspired to check out
the horticulture
webinar on Wednesdays and expand your gardening knowledge.
A big thank you to Kelly Jackson for
being our guest on the podcast today.
To connect with the horticulture webinar Wednesdays program
on social media and learn how to register
for the next webinar, you can find the
details in the show notes for episode 27.
(24:08):
You can view the show notes for episode
27 over on the blog at warrencountyagriculture.com.
Before we say goodbye, make sure to subscribe
to the Sunshine Gardening podcast for more gardening
tips, wisdom, and inspiration
delivered right to your ears. If you have
any questions, feedback, or ideas for future episodes,
(24:28):
don't hesitate to reach out. Until next time,
keep your hands dirty and your hearts full.
Happy gardening.
Thanks for listening to the sunshine gardening podcast
with Kristen Hildebrand.
If you enjoyed today's content, make sure to
hit the subscribe button wherever you get your
podcast to catch future segments of the Sunshine
(24:48):
Gardening podcast.
Gardeners
keep on digging and learning more about gardening
so the sun shines brighter over your Kentucky
garden. The Sunshine Gardening podcast with Kristen Hildebrand
is a production of the University of Kentucky
Cooperative Extension Service.
The team has tried to do over the
(00:01):
course of these seasons is try to reach
out even beyond
just Kentucky Extension. And so we had for
our 1 hundredth episode
last year, we had doctor Alan Armitage join
and he spoke about landscaping in small areas.
That was a great program.
And then we had at the end of
last year's season,
there was a report that came out of
the Mount Cuba Center. It was on the
(00:24):
research they did with sedges
and how to use those in the landscape.
And these are native sedges, all native to
Kentucky as well.
And so we had their guy on to
do a program and that was just like,
I immediately purchased sedges after I heard that.
I thought I'm missing this plant. I only
know of yellow nutsedge, which nobody wants, but
these are the native sedges that you can
(00:45):
even certain ones of that that they tested
with mowing, like, or a lawn replacement with
sedges. So that was that was a great
program.
That voice right there was the knowledgeable Kelly
Jackson.
As the horticulture
extension agent for Christian County
and one of the cultivators behind the fruitful
horticulture webinar Wednesday's program,
(01:06):
Kelli brings insights directly to our podcast conversation
today.
Welcome to the Sunshine Gardening podcast
where we help your garden grow.
I'm your host, Kristen Hildebrand.
In today's episode,
episode 27,
we are spotlighting the horticulture webinar Wednesday's program
(01:26):
offered right here in Kentucky.
Today, we discuss with agent Kelly Jackson Jackson
the essentials of the horticulture webinar Wednesday's program
and explore the growth of this educational
initiative.
You'll get an insider's peek at the topics
covered,
the engaging
educational content,
behind the scenes of the webinar series,
(01:49):
the growth it has witnessed, and how these
webinars can help enrich your horticultural
skills.
So grab your gardening gloves, and let's dive
in.
Welcome to the Sunshine Gardening podcast.
This gardening show will equip and inspire avid
gardeners with tips and tricks to help them
navigate the gardening world. The show will also
(02:11):
highlight specific growing requirements for seasonal plants so
the sun will shine brighter over their Kentucky
garden.
And now, here's that ray of sunshine,
garden enthusiast and horticulture extension agent, Kristen Hildebrand,
with the University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service.
Alright. We are so excited to have with
(02:32):
us today joining on the podcast is Kelly
Jackson. How are you, Kelly? I am excellent
today. Great. Great. And I know that one
of the exciting programs that you helped coordinate
for us throughout the state of Kentucky is
the horticulture webinar Wednesday series.
And for a lot of people listening to
(02:52):
us this morning or here on podcast,
can you give us a little bit of
details about that program, what all it involves,
and how it got started?
Give us some general info about it. Sure.
Yeah. So
horticulture webinar on Wednesdays
came into being like a lot of different
things with technology during the COVID period that
(03:12):
we had. And it was an excellent way
to kinda get
still continue to teach classes to the public.
So a group of horticulture agents got together
and thought, how could we do this? And
it's been going for 5 years. This is
the 5th season now,
and it's going very well.
And essentially, all it is is basically a
class that you might attend at any county
(03:34):
extension office. But we do it live. We
do it every Wednesday during our season.
We don't do it year round, but or
during our growing season. And then all of
those are recorded for future use. And really,
that's what we've seen a massive
increase in people going to the YouTube channel
and watching those even later. But it's fun
(03:54):
to do it live because that's where you
get the questions from the public, and we
can get to answer those from the whoever
the expert is that day. So you don't
get that on the recording,
but you still get access to the information.
It's it's been a great outreach, I think,
for the community.
Yes. I know that a lot of my
master gardeners here in Warren County have really
enjoyed it, and we've tried to promote it
(04:16):
also to the public here so that way
people can gain access. And one of the
things that I think is so great is
that your all's topics
vary from month to month. Can you kinda
give us I know you said it's the
5th season, but is there anything that you
can tell us about for this upcoming season
that we might see featured in a future
horticulture webinar Wednesday's program?
(04:38):
Sure. Yeah. So we started our first one
for this year, for the 2024
season
we had last week, and it was Andy
Mills who's a UK ag agent in Mead
County. And he talked about growing those gigantic
pumpkins, which they have a huge pumpkin way
off in their county. It was a little
bit maybe a little bit outside of what
we typically do, but not really either because
(04:59):
we have a lot of vegetable gardeners that
that watch these. And, you know, in the
back of your head, you always think, man,
what if I could grow the biggest of
something? Until you hear what
level of work goes into growing one of
these giant pumpkins. And it was it's an
eye opening experience. So
not to dissuade people, you could easily get
a 2 100, 300 pounder, if you're gonna
(05:20):
try to grow one of these 2,000 pound
pumpkins, it's it's a undertaking.
So you can go back and watch that
as soon as I get it up on
the YouTube channel. That's a really, really, a
good program. But coming up, we've got one
on hummingbirds, attracting hummingbirds to your garden.
And then kinda these are not in order
necessarily, but we have one coming up on
chaos gardening. If you're not familiar with that
(05:41):
term, it's it's the opposite of formal gardening.
Okay? So it's the opposite of I want
all these plants to be this way and
layered. This is everything goes in the garden
mostly from seeds. What comes up comes up
and survives in that zone, and it's a
different just a different buzzword at the moment,
I guess you could say. I have some
on hostas, some on peonies or peonies. I
(06:03):
don't know which way you pronounce that. So
those are some of our very first classes
coming up in the next month. Yeah. And
how exciting is it to hear about growing
a gigantic pumpkin? Because, you know, when we
get to state fair, we're always curious about
the process because when we actually see it
live and in person, it does kinda peak
your curiosity
(06:23):
on what all it takes. And I feel
like gardeners, we like to be challenged, and
this is a great way that people can
be challenged and learn a lot as they
do it too. So and it seems like
with hummingbirds, you know, wildlife
is a huge benefit to the garden, and
we've seen a lot of
popularity with hummingbirds
(06:43):
and bees and
butterflies.
So I like that you all offer something
in that category as well. So naturally attracted
to hummingbirds. They like to see even though
we only have the one in Kentucky, it's
still people just
want to see those little guys come by.
And there's a lot of questions about that.
Like, what do you do at the end
of the season? What about feeding them and
(07:04):
the fights that they get into? So all
of that will get addressed in that program.
Yeah. I love I love that. And I
also love watching the hummingbirds throughout the summer
months as well, so it it's fun just
to you're past the time just by doing
that there.
Now as far as the instructors for these
horticulture webinar Wednesdays,
who basically teaches some of these courses for
(07:26):
you guys?
Generally, it's the horticulture agents and some of
the ag agents across the state. It's more
often the horticulture agents.
And
then in addition to that, a few specialists
too. We've had as far as ag agents,
we've had a topic on maple syrup, like
how to tap your maple trees for making
(07:46):
your own syrup. And that was an ag
agent out of Eastern Kentucky that did that
program. It's in our it's in our list.
And then a specialist, we have Larson,
doctor Larson on pretty often about insects, and
he's always entertaining.
What I have well, the team has tried
to do over the course of these seasons
is try to reach out even beyond
just Kentucky Extension.
(08:07):
And so we had for our 100th episode
last year, we had doctor Alan Armitage on,
and he spoke about landscaping in small areas.
That was a great program.
And then we had at the end of
last year's season,
there was a report that came out of
the Mount Cuba Center. I don't know if
you're familiar with that, but it was on
the research they did with sedges
(08:29):
and how to use those in the landscape.
And these are native sedges, all native to
Kentucky as well. And so we had their
their guy on to do a program and
that was just, like, I immediately purchased sedges
after I heard that. I thought, I'm missing
this plant. I only know of yellow nutsedge,
which nobody wants, but these are the native
sedges that you can even certain ones of
(08:50):
that that they tested with mowing, like, or
a lawn replacement with sedges. So that was
that was a great program, I thought. So
we try to find every once in a
while, just sprinkle in among our our regular
speakers
some special topic that's hot, that's new, that's
interesting, and that was all new research from
a 3 year study. So that was great
to have them. Yeah. I love that you
(09:11):
all try to get basically experts in their
field, and that kind of knowledge and wisdom
seems like they're very passionate about those topics,
and it makes it for a very
engaging and interesting program.
So kudos to you guys. Now I know
it takes several people to plan the horticulture
webinar Wednesday's program. You're just one of the
(09:32):
organizers.
Who else is involved with this program?
So there's 4 horticulture agents. Sharon Flint is
in Scott County
and she organizes
the Zoom links and sending out the emails
to the public if they register to to
be on one of the classes.
Amy Aldenderfer is in Hardin County and she
is kind of the the voice during the
(09:54):
show. She's doing a lot of the talking
to the public and getting them to sign
in and greeting people. It's amazing here recently,
especially, and I guess because we've been going
long enough now, we're getting people to sign
in not just from Kentucky, but from other
states.
I think this last one, the first one
we had was from Florida that was watching
our program, had signed in to watch it,
so that's great. So she's good about engaging
(10:16):
the public. And then Annette Heissendurfer out of
Davis County, she runs the chat box for
us during the program.
And then I do the back end work.
So I'm usually not even on the the
air. I'm just hitting record. And then for
I always joke for every speaker that we
have, I watch it 3 times because the
editing, as you know, takes you have to
(10:37):
go back through it again and cut and
paste and fix any errors that happen.
And then what we've just started doing
is adding the timestamps in because sometimes people
don't wanna watch the entire episode if they're
only interested in one part. And you can't
set the timestamps until you finished editing. So
you do it, watch it live, you watch
it during editing, and then you watch it
(10:58):
again to set time stamps, and then it
goes on a YouTube channel. So that's that's
the part I do and the part I
prefer off camera.
Well, hey. It takes multiple people to make
it run smoothly and as efficiently as you
guys have done, so kudos to you all.
And I know I always really enjoy getting
that information,
seeing the programs that you all offer, and,
(11:18):
again, sharing it with the people here in
Warren County. Just out of curiosity, you probably
see some of the statistics with a lot
of the Whittler Bunch of Webinar Wednesdays programs.
But has there been, like, a couple of
episodes that have been most popular? You said
you're in the 5th season, so I was
just curious if there was one that might
have just blown your mind on how many
(11:39):
people Yeah. I've got I pulled up the
analytics before. Let me do the life time
search. So it shows you, of course, how
many views. The number one video that we
have on the channel is on growing pawpaws,
and that is the specialist Sherry. Right? Yep.
Sherry
from KSU.
Mhmm. And there's been over 21,000
(12:00):
views of Growing Paw Paws.
And people are allowed you know, as you
watch these videos on YouTube, you can go
to the chat, ask questions there as well.
And then we try to get you answers
to those more questions
for that particular topic. I don't know. You
would think pawpaw is such
a outlier crop, outlier plant, but there's a
lot of interest in that. It's probably why
(12:20):
KSU has such an extensive pawpaw research program
is that they know that. There's a lot.
And
blueberries is number 2. A lot of people
interested in blueberries. Starting a community garden is
the third one. Raspberries, then the top ten
trees for Kentucky rounds out the top 5.
So it's just kinda varied. The one on
community gardens is not really about the vegetables
(12:43):
themselves. It's about organizing people and starting a
community garden. There's a lot of interest in
that as well. Yeah. I know probably a
lot of us have that gardening interest. There's
probably community projects and opportunities there. And sometimes
you need to kinda know some of those
things to keep it well organized and be
successful. So I appreciate you giving us those
top five. I am interested that the Pawpaws
(13:04):
was number 1, but we have a Pawpaw
class that's coming up here at the Warren
County office, and we had a lot of
people ask for that. So if they miss
the class, I guess I know where to
send them. Send them to the video. Yeah.
Yeah. Send them there. One question I do
have on the horticulture webinar Wednesday is how
long generally do these sessions last?
So it's difficult to
(13:25):
lock in on a time.
The goal is based on the as we
started getting more and more of these videos
in YouTube, you start to see that people's
attention spans go for about
15, 20 minutes on a video. Longer than
that, and it's difficult. So that's why we
went back and started adding timestamps to this.
We've asked our speakers
(13:46):
to kinda even though a topic like pawpaws
is a big topic from start to finish,
right? It might work better if we just
talk about what are the varieties of pawpaws
for Kentucky? Or how do you harvest and
what do you do with those pawpaws that
harvest? Instead of trying to encompass it all.
So that's what we've started trying to do
this year, well, and even last year is
kind of narrow those down and target about
(14:07):
20 minutes tops
and then questions after that. We don't include
the questions that are live in the videos
because
typically,
if you've ever said on these before, I
know you have, the questions a lot of
times is just about an individual's
situation. Like, I have this and that doesn't
necessarily relate to everybody. So we don't include
the questions. Or maybe another way to say
that is that's the perk you get if
(14:29):
you show up live for the program is
you get to ask the specialist yourself. But
you can still ask your questions in too.
But that's our goal. We have some that
are much longer than that, but we're working
on kinda shortening the overall length of the
programs.
Yeah. I like how that you said that
you've tried to do, you know, really good
about condensing the information down because it's like
you said, we kinda get the glazed over
(14:51):
look after Yeah. So long. And now when
do you all generally offer the sessions? You
said it's on Wednesday, but what time of
day is that for folks? It's 12:30 EST,
11:30 CST. Okay. So kind of during the
lunch hour, so it could be very well
worked into someone's schedule. Especially if they wanna
take their lunch at their desk, they can
join and listen.
(15:11):
And, again, at the end, ask questions if
they have specific questions related to the material.
So that sounds great. You mentioned the live
option versus the recording option.
So if someone can't attend, do they still
need to register to get the recording link,
or how is that done generally? No. Probably
the smartest thing to do would be if
they if they use YouTube, of course, that's
(15:32):
where they're all posted, is to go to
the channel and to subscribe to that channel.
We have about
1300,
1400 subscribers to the YouTube channel. So just
go there and click subscribe. We don't do,
like, all of the,
things that you see if you watch anything
on YouTube is, like, click and subscribe. We
don't do that. But if you wanna know
when one gets loaded up, then that's the
(15:54):
best way really to do that is to
go and subscribe.
Yes. We're not we're not trying to to
make this is not a moneymaker thing like
most of those people on YouTube are. This
is just an educational thing. Yeah. So on
YouTube, is it just horticulture
webinar Wednesdays? Is that the name of the
channel? Yes. I think if you go to
YouTube and you put the symbol at horticulturewebinarWednesday,
it'll take you right to the channel. Okay.
(16:16):
I just wanted to ask for folks that
are listening.
And as far as people, when they do
get registered, how is the easiest way for
them to get registered? Is there a social
media
way that they need to follow, or do
you all have an email list serve? I'm
just curious how that process works. So there's
2 ways to do that. If they're on
social media on Facebook, we have a horticulture
(16:36):
webinar Wednesday's Facebook page. And of course, you
can subscribe there and see when they show
up in your feed. You can also go
to the website kentuckihortnews.com.
And there's a tab at the top that's
called HWW webinars.
And you can click on the upcoming classes
that you want to attend
(16:57):
and go ahead and type in your email
address. When you do that, it generates an
automatic email with the link to the live
version so you can just watch it. Cool.
Cool. We try to try to remove all
the barriers, but so there's a couple of
different options there for you. Yeah. So if
you if you wanna go to the social
media page there, you can go to horticulture
webinar Wednesdays and check it out. Is it
(17:18):
just, like, one registration for the whole month,
or is it individual classes? Yep. So, originally,
it was one for the whole season. You
could sign up for everything. And then spammers
somehow found a way to mess things up
for us. So now it's 1 per month.
So you can click on the one like,
if you wanna see the hummingbirds next week,
it would show up both classes that we
had in March. You obviously wouldn't register for
(17:39):
last week's, but you could register for that
one. And then you would need to go
back in and for the April, if there's
any in April that you wanna see and
register for those. If you register and you
don't attend, that's okay. There's, I mean, there's
no fee for any of this. It's all
free. But, if you wanna make sure you
get a notification the day of the program
as a reminder and as the direct link
(17:59):
to that, I would sign up for all
the ones you think you might watch.
Yes. Yes. For sure. Any type of interest,
you definitely wanna make sure you sign up
for. Is there anything that's required from the
participant
besides just, like like you said, registering and
signing up? Of course, you said there's options
to ask questions, but do you all do
anything beyond that, like an evaluation piece? I
(18:21):
was just curious.
To get feedback. Do that anymore. We used
to there is an opportunity, of course, to
if there's topics that you want to hear
more about, you can through the web page
at the bottom where you would sign up,
you can click on that link. It'll generate
an email to Kentucky Hort News
and, you know, say, I really would like
to hear it. Well, I just had one
the other day. They wanted a topic on
(18:42):
something that was of interest to them. I
think it was lentin roses, which I don't
think that we've had. So that's one we
can add into our list because, obviously, somebody
out there is interested in that. So that's
a way for them to kind of give
feedback as well.
As far as if they've never done a
Zoom class before, you don't necessarily have to
download the Zoom software. You can click on
the link and open it in a web
(19:03):
browser. But if you
prefer, it's free. You can download the Zoom
and and use that. Or if you're not
at a computer, you can push the button
on the phone and just listen to it.
Not quite as effective, but you could listen
to it on your phone or do the
whole thing through the phone with Zoom and
everything. So Yeah. Sounds like we've got multiple
options there for joining and especially for those
that might not feel as comfortable with Zoom.
(19:25):
I know there's still probably some folks out
there, but sounds like you all are doing
a really good job about offering these for
a cultural webinar Wednesdays programs.
Now I know you mentioned a couple just,
they're coming up, but how often do you
all tell the classes in advance? Do y'all
try to share those on social media all
at one time for the upcoming month, or
(19:48):
how does that work, Kelly? Yeah. On the
social media, they're they're released for the month
ahead. Usually a couple of weeks before April.
All of April's classes are up right now
on on the Facebook page.
On the website,
as soon as we have everything scheduled, I
go ahead and put everything up there for
the entire
year. Or if we're got a few gaps
that we're still trying to fill, it'll just
(20:08):
show to be determined or whatever coming soon.
So I only have up through April right
now
on the page,
but we have the speakers
already
selected through June. So I just need to
make an update as well. Cool. Cool. One
of the great things, you said that this
is the 5th season. So if somebody wanted
to go back and watch what happened in
the 1st season or the 2nd season, 3rd
(20:31):
or 4th, They do have that option. It
seems like from my memory that it also
has not only the recording, but it has
other material that goes along with it too.
Yeah. So if they go to the web
page, Kentucky Horton News, they can flip through
every one of the
years, seasons. I call them seasons on there.
They can flip through all the seasons and
just scroll. If they don't have in mind
(20:52):
what they're already looking for, they can scroll
through those. If the speaker
had a handout or a PowerPoint
or a link to
UK or another university publication,
we include that in the notes section on
that page so they can click on that
and and get that information.
If they already know they're looking for a
specific topic,
then it's probably best to go straight to
(21:13):
the YouTube. We've got those organized into, like,
vegetables or woody plants or flowers
or pests, and they can go straight to
those sections or just do a search in
the the bar above and go straight to
the video.
And then in
the description of it, we try to include
those links as well. So there are 2
ways to get to it to get to
those. Yeah. Yeah. Those playlists are really helpful
(21:36):
to help organize a lot of the content,
especially after 5 seasons. That's a lot of
information.
So you all generally start in the spring
and go till about October. Is that right?
We try to go through the end of
October
to pick up tree week, which is like
a Kentucky initiative thing that's going on probably
in the last few years, at least for
me anyways. So we go through October,
(21:58):
And then spring varies. We have started early
as February before,
but, really March is when people tend to
get we probably could've gone a little bit
earlier this year. We've had an earlier spring.
But some years in in February when you're
talking about growing plants and there's snow out,
nobody's really that interested in it. So March
is where we typically pick up and begin
the season. Yeah. So kinda be banking on
(22:20):
March through October.
And I like that you mentioned Tree Week
because that is a big initiative through the
UK Cooperative Extension Service. And it's like you
said, the top was it the top
top five trees? Is in the top five
for you all as being, you know, highly
watched and and viewed. So it sounds like
great information that a lot of our Kentucky
citizens and gardeners can pick up
(22:42):
if there's any interest. I know y'all done
lawn care in the past and those pests.
A lot of people have questions about different
pests, so y'all are doing a a great
job there, Kelly. Now if somebody has questions
about the horticulture webinar Wednesday's
program, how do you all hook up with
anybody that has questions on it? They can
(23:02):
post questions at the bottom of the Kentucky
Hort News where the listings of the classes
are. There's a button there that says get
in touch. They can send an email straight
through there if they have a question about
that, but they're always welcome to contact their
they could probably contact their own county agent
and they could forward it on to us,
or they can contact one of one of
us that was mentioned
or me. Either one is fine. Yeah. Yeah.
(23:23):
We'll have to share some links down in
the show notes for today's episode. So, again,
make sure to, check us out on the
show notes for this episode.
Kelly, thank you so much for being a
guest on our show today, and we hope
to talk to you again sometime in the
future. Sure. Great. Thanks for having us.
That's it for today's Sunshine Gardening podcast episode.
(23:46):
I hope you feel inspired to check out
the horticulture
webinar on Wednesdays and expand your gardening knowledge.
A big thank you to Kelly Jackson for
being our guest on the podcast today.
To connect with the horticulture webinar Wednesdays program
on social media and learn how to register
for the next webinar, you can find the
details in the show notes for episode 27.
(24:08):
You can view the show notes for episode
27 over on the blog at warrencountyagriculture.com.
Before we say goodbye, make sure to subscribe
to the Sunshine Gardening podcast for more gardening
tips, wisdom, and inspiration
delivered right to your ears. If you have
any questions, feedback, or ideas for future episodes,
(24:28):
don't hesitate to reach out. Until next time,
keep your hands dirty and your hearts full.
Happy gardening.
Thanks for listening to the sunshine gardening podcast
with Kristen Hildebrand.
If you enjoyed today's content, make sure to
hit the subscribe button wherever you get your
podcast to catch future segments of the Sunshine
(24:48):
Gardening podcast.
Gardeners
keep on digging and learning more about gardening
so the sun shines brighter over your Kentucky
garden. The Sunshine Gardening podcast with Kristen Hildebrand
is a production of the University of Kentucky
Cooperative Extension Service.
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