Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Katie r h Guarden line with Skip Richards, watch.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Trim, just watch him as so many.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Good things up brasy not a sign.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
Well, good morning, good Sunday morning. Glad to have you
joined me first thing in the morning. You get the
ardy bird award? Who'll be the early bird award on Colin?
By the way, I always wonder who did first person
to call in on today? By the way, while I'm
thinking about it, our phone number is seven one three
two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three
(00:57):
two one two five eight seven For I was looking
outside yesterday and I have got some work to do
in my garden. I made a joke that it's an
old saying it's the cobblers. Kids go barefoot. In other words,
a guy who makes shoes his kids don't have me
shoes on. And that's true of a horticulturist garden at
(01:18):
times as well. I've got to get out there and
do some basic cleanup. I use my walkways as compost
producing sites. What am I talking about? Well, in my garden,
I have beds, beds of course, the walkways in between
the beds, and in those walkways I put leaves you know,
(01:38):
my neighbors put their leaves out at the curb for me.
They don't know they're doing it for me, but that's
what they're doing. And by the way, you pretty good
driving down the street looking at bags on the side,
and you can tell one that's full of sticks. You
can tell one that they throw a little trash in
or something. And then you can tell those nice leaf bags.
You can just you learn how to do it. After
(01:58):
you grab a few bags you wish you hadn't picked up.
But anyway, I bring those home, put them in the garden,
and I put a lot in the garden. I mean
just a lot. Several when I was in Conroe at
the Montgomery County Extension Office, we had a little garden
that was about a thirty about thirty garden, and we
(02:19):
put in one season, I'm not making this up, three
hundred bags of leaves. Not at one time it'd have
been ten feet deep. But you put them down the
walkways and you walk on them, and what may have
been I don't know. Eighteen inches of leaves sinks down
to just a few inches. You add more leaves sinks down.
Add more leaves thinks down. By the time you get through.
(02:39):
You have about a foot deep compacted solid leaf material
in those walkways. Every time it rains, it gets wet.
When they get wet, they start to decay. My crubs
are out there in nature. I mean, you don't have
to add them to your leaves. But you can't. I mean,
you can throw some composts on it if you want
to beat it up a little bit, but that's not necessary.
(03:03):
And those walkways sit there and then about It depends
on just you know what the life schedule is doing
at the moment. But I could do it. Probably harvests
those walkways a couple of times a year. I generally
do it about once a year, just because I don't
get to it. I've had times where I went in
a year and a half. I mean, there's no hurry,
But those leaves break down at the top of the
(03:25):
walkway always looks like a bunch of dead, dried leaves,
not like compost. But the same is true of the
forest floor. You walk in the forest and you see
leaves everywhere. You're walking on these leaves, but underneath that,
if you dig down, as you go down a few inches,
you start to get into those chocoldly brown leaves. The
English garden writers called that leaf mold, well whatever, not
(03:49):
like bread mold, but basically what it means it's a
leaf that is so crumbly if you touch it, it'll
fall apart. But it looks sort of like a leaf,
but it's chocolavy brown. That's kind of a leaf mold
type stage. And then they just continue from there into
where it just looks like coffee grounds, very very nicely
decomposed compost. So pull the top leaves back and then
(04:11):
provide a little bit of well, I have a little
tiny rototailer, little Mannus type tiller that I'll run through
there occasionally, just to mix things up. If you want
to speed up your compost making in the walkways, you
can throw a little fertilizer on the top, especially nitrogen.
(04:32):
That's primarily what you needing to add, and then you know,
rototill it in and then keep it moist and it
will decompose. You know, when organic matter touches the soil
and microbes get a shot at it. With some moisture,
it will decompose. And so at the you know, at
the end of this process, I'll pull those leaves at
(04:52):
the top back and because they're dry, they just they're
just they look like molts, not like composts. And underneath there,
oh my god, it's good stuff. And you can just
harvest it and put it right up in your beds,
and you can make a lot of compost and walkways
in a compost pile. Let's say had a four x
four compost pile. Fill it up, and by the time
you get through, you probably get about four to six
(05:15):
cent mail maybe not even six, maybe four inches a
compost down to the bottom. Well, that's good stop, but
then you got to haul it off to the garden
and start making it again. Every walkway I have in
my garden's always a compost pile. And it can rain.
We can get eight inches of rain, and I can
walk in my garden because I'm walking on a compressed
(05:36):
pile of about a foot deep of leaves unless I
just put the pile together or just started adding leaves again,
and I'll harvest a walkway and then another, and you
know what a nothing you can do if you don't
bring your wheelbarrow in there or a bucket, you can
harvest some and take it to mix into some of
your container beds. If you want a nice mixed compost.
I've got a little screen that I created to go
(05:59):
on top of the wheelbar So imagine a two by
four box that sits on top of the wheelbarrow. I
made mine so it looks so A couple of the
sides are longer, so that holds it on top of
the wheelbarrow. It doesn't sit down in there, and I
just shovel compost on it, shake it and the fine
(06:19):
stuff falls through the rest of it. Just throw it
back in the walkway and I can make some fun
composts that way, and it really works. It's easy. You
don't turn it, you don't stick out thermometer in it.
You don't have to worry about browns and greens and everything.
I mean, you know you can if you want to,
But if you just want who worries about browns and
greens in the forest. It takes longer to make composts
(06:42):
that way, But who's in a hurry? I mean cuts
some me walkways. I don't know what to do with
all the composts. Feel that wheelbarrow up. Take it out
of the flower bed in front of the house where
the hoa does not want you to do. What I'm
describing in front out a bank sea driving by. But
I make that compost now it's available for other areas.
So this is the easiest way I know to compost.
(07:04):
I'll put all kinds of things in the walkways. And
one time when I was in Montgomery County at the
extension office, I what do we do. I went and
got some shredded newspaper, not newspaper, but bank papers, you
know where They shred them up so you can't see
what they are. And we put those in the walkways
out at the extension office there, and you mix them in.
(07:27):
You want to mix those in with a lot of leaves,
because otherwise the wet paper turns into like oatmeal. It's
kind of a mess. But if it's organic, it'll ride
again dust Thou art to dust returneth I think that's
how Shakespeare put it. Well, I'm gonna take a little
break here. The number if you'd like to ask me
a question seven one three two one two k t
(07:48):
r H seven one three two one two k t
RH will be right back. I'm gonna finish up this
little discussion about walkway composting, and then we'll get on
to your calls. Angelo Kingwood you're the first up. Hey,
welcome back. Good to have you back on the garden line.
Let's go on out to the phones here this morning.
(08:09):
First thing, we're going to go to Angelo in Kingwood.
Speaker 5 (08:13):
Hey, Angelo doing today?
Speaker 4 (08:17):
I'm doing good? Thanks.
Speaker 6 (08:19):
Okay, Well, tell me about the first or second week
of December. I put in some I went to the
grocery store and got some raw garlic bulbs or raw garlic,
and then I took the clothes apart and planted them. Okay,
they have sprouted now, or they will they form into
(08:39):
a bulb head, they.
Speaker 4 (08:42):
Will, will they? I didn't read what's going to happen?
Go ahead.
Speaker 6 (08:47):
I was just going to say I did read some
of the planning or the ball books that oh, no,
you can't do that because they're spray. But these were raw.
These weren't packaged or anything. So I'm thinking that that
would be fine.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
Yeah, that stuff you read is not accurate. That happens
a lot. People get a little bit of fact and
then they apply it in a way that makes it untrue.
Garlic is not sprayed to make garlic is not sprayed
to make it not sprout. What you have is a
softnet garlic. Most likely if you bought it in the
grocery store. Yeah, not, it doesn't have to be. But
soft neck, they're they're mild. And what's going to happen
(09:24):
is you want to get that garlic to grow as
much as you can. So I would do small doses
of nitrogen primarily and get it growing because garlic and
onions both are basically you're eating leaves. The base of
the leaf is the is the onion ring. The base
of the leaf is the garlic bulb itself. And so
(09:47):
the more you get that thing to grow and make
a big plant, the better clothes you're going to have
on your garlic. And of course there's types of garlic
that have giant clothes and types that have smaller cloths
and so on. But the key thing now, especially because
you're kind of getting a late start, generally we plant
it in the fall. Late fall is our mid fall.
(10:08):
You can. You just want to get it growing fast
to get as much out of it as you can.
Speaker 6 (10:13):
What do you suggest when you say nitrogen, just a
mall just spray peste.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
Yeah, you know, you can go a lot of ways.
There's organic, there's synthetic, there's liquid, there's salt, there's granular
that is not as important. In the end, nitrogen is
going to go into a form that the plants take up.
Whether it has to go through microbial breakdown or whether
it is a salt base that dissolves in into the soil,
(10:42):
it's going to go into a form that the plants
take up. I would just I would just give small
doses of it. So when you look at the label
of a fertilizer, you know you got three numbers. The
first number is the one you mont the most of.
I'll tell you what. I use lawn fertilizer on my
leafy greens and onion in garlic, those called those alliums.
(11:02):
I use that a lot because you know, you take
a lawn fertilizer and it may have a three one
two ratio like well, for example, microlife has a six
two four uh. And then you know when you look
at my lawn care schedule, we've got stuff from Nelson's,
We've got stuff from Medina on the oil. What's the
nitrophile couldn't even say nitrophis, so you get their red
(11:24):
bag of the nitrophiles is a fifteen five ten. Those
are both three one two ratios and they're mostly nitrogen,
and so those would be fine. I mean, there's not
a garlic fertilizer. You may see somebody. I've never seen
them sold, but no.
Speaker 6 (11:40):
Neither of I. We used to grow up north all
the time. Here's my main question. These are all in
container pots. Okay, I just went around for about six
per container plot. Now I haven't a red ant hill
that's coming over the top of the container. Now my
question to you is I'm going to try and knock that.
(12:00):
I also wanted to put some of those red you know.
I think it's called bayer where you sprinkle it over
the ant hill and they disappear. Can I do that
into that container? Will that affect the garlic? The spreading
of the ant killer.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
Well, it shouldn't affect the garlic. It depends on what
ant killer are These fire ants?
Speaker 6 (12:23):
Yes, they're the mounting kind. And I have the bayer
fuck an killer ind a little sack where you just
shake it and it does a great job. But I
don't want it to penetrate the soil and to the garlic.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
Yeah, you know, I don't. Off the top of my head,
I don't know what ingredient is in that product. The
bear product you're talking about. I suspect it's not labeled
for vegetable gardens. All most things aren't labeled for vegetable
gardens that control fire ants. There is one called Come
and Get It that is an organic product, spinosid based
(12:58):
Come and Get It. It's by fertile O and that
one is labeled for you some vegetable garden. So if
you're worried about you know, getting something down that's going
to get in your vegetables and stuff, that would be
the safe way to go. And also the labeled way
to go is get some come and get it, and
it's a bait, so you don't have to put it
just in that pot. You can sprinkle a little around
the pot. They're going to find it and bring it
(13:19):
back and it will work. Another option would be to,
you know, just try to run them out, and I've
done that in different ways. How big are these pots?
Speaker 6 (13:30):
I want to say about fifteen twenty gallon. They're just
you know, your regular run of the meals pit on
the patio. You know, I used to grow tomatoes. Okay,
so they're not very you know, they're fine, But I
just was going to sprinkle that stuff it's very popular,
it's everywhere, but I just didn't want it to ruin
my garlic. You know, I try it this year, see
what happens. And it started to work already, the growing
(13:53):
of the garlic, not the spring of the ant heliot.
I'm going to wait until you see what I said.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
Yeah, okay, I'm pulling it up right here to see
what's in that bear stuff. If I can't, it's got.
Speaker 6 (14:06):
A little satchel in there with perforated holes where you
just you know, it'san hell and you just go over.
I mean, the there ran an answer gone instantly. I
usually put like a pencil, I dig a little hole
into the middle of the mound and then spray it
in the air. So and then I sprayed on the outside.
I mean, it's not a big deal because it's really
only close to like two cloves.
Speaker 7 (14:28):
Hmm.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
Okay, all right, well anyway, just keep that garlic moist
and continue to push it along in a container. Those
are big containers you have, so I'm not as worried
about it. But in smaller containers especially, you got to
really watch it. They don't dry out, because anything that
slows the garlic down. At this point, and planting. It
is going to affect the amount of production that you
(14:51):
get for sure.
Speaker 6 (14:52):
Yeah. I got about a six inch sprig right now,
maybe maybe eight or ten inches. They just came up
out of the crowd. So I'm going to try, said
a couple weeks, try something new. So I did. That's
see what happens there.
Speaker 7 (15:04):
You go.
Speaker 4 (15:04):
Hey, that's a good idea. Let me know what that does.
I'd be curious, and if you don't mind, you can
even send me a picture of it. I'd like to
see that. I always like to see how people are
doing with various things and it works for you. Hey,
thanks a lot, Tim or Angelo. Sorry, I'm getting back
my next car. All right, Now, let's go to Tim
and Magnolia. Hey, Tim, welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 8 (15:25):
Hey Skip, Hey, I had a pine tree. We had
a ton of pine trees in our front yard and
one of them had the pine bark beetles, and I
had a tree company coming in. They cut it down
and had them hauld it completely off. I could tell
there's a few pine trees on the perimeter of it
that just had a branch or two that I could
(15:47):
tell was was brown, but not many, just like just
a few deals. Now that they've hauled it off and
I've got that, is there anything I need or can
do to spray any of the remainder trees that would
help in case some of those wanted to get off
get onto the other trees, or just now that I've
(16:10):
removed that, do I need to do anything else?
Speaker 4 (16:14):
You know, there are sprays that we've used. Some of
the sprays that used to be used or off the
market now for good reason. But there are sprays you
can do. Here's the problem. Pine bark beetles. First of all,
they like stress trees. That's what attracts them in so
keeping your trees not stressed where it's within your power
(16:35):
is number one. If you spray, the spray's got to
get down in the cracks and crevices between the bark,
and you need to cover. For pine most pinebert beetles,
you're gonna need to go about eighty percent of the
height of the tree to get make sure you got
really good coverage on it. And that's just not practical.
You might want to give Martin spoon Moore a call
(16:55):
an affordable tree talk to him and ask him what
he has and what he does for that if he's
able to do that, or he feels like he's got
some product that that's going to be effective in that Uh,
that's the approach I think that I would take. In general.
You know, just spraying all the time in case pine
bark beetle shows up is not real practical. But in
(17:16):
your case, where you've you know, you kind of got
an active infestation nearby, I think that that might have
might be worth at least looking into.
Speaker 8 (17:25):
Okay, all right, I appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
All right, you bet hey. Let me ask you a question.
When when the tree got it? And when the tree
got it and died? We we're up to a hard break,
I got I'm sorry, I got a no, not quite yet.
When the tree, when the tree uh died, Before it died,
where did you see the globs of sap? Were they
in the bottom ten feet? Were they all the way
(17:49):
up the tree?
Speaker 7 (17:50):
Or what?
Speaker 8 (17:51):
They were? Pretty much all the way up? It was
it was unusual. We had a tree company coming through
the neighborhood and they're the one that spotted it. We
have so many trees that didn't spot.
Speaker 9 (18:00):
But yeah, it went.
Speaker 8 (18:01):
It went pretty good.
Speaker 6 (18:02):
Show.
Speaker 8 (18:03):
Look at all those globs, those are pine barked beetles
that's killed killed your jury. Yeah, I didn't really notice
it since we have so many trees out there, but they.
Speaker 4 (18:13):
Were pretty much well the whole way. Yeah, okay, well
there we actually have about five different beetles that bore
in pine trees, and a lot of times people just
call them all pine bark beetle, but there are several
different ones. But uh, anyway, I'm just curious, just curious
on that one. Yeah, I don't know appreciate.
Speaker 8 (18:32):
It, but he did show me the little things that
they were in.
Speaker 4 (18:37):
So okay, all right, sounds good. Thanks Herbett, Thanks Tim,
appreciate that call very much. Well, we're coming up here
on a break if you'd like to give me a
call seven one three two one two five eight seven
four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four.
Speaker 8 (18:57):
Owner.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
Remind you that we are about to enter time the
lawn care season. I know it's January. Grass didn't grow
in yet, but it will by the time we get
into February. We're looking at any kind of a preventative
for warm season weeds. You gotta get that done in February,
so you don't want to delay. I would recommend that
(19:18):
you download my lawn care schedules. One is lawn Care Schedule,
the other is Lawn Pest Disease and Weed Management Schedule.
Both are free and you get both of them at
Gardening with Skip dot Com. All right, folks, we'll be
right back. Hey, welcome back to guarden Line. Good to
have you with us. How many of you remember Abba?
Speaker 10 (19:42):
Right?
Speaker 4 (19:43):
I guess most people now learn around when Abba was singing.
They probably know Mama Mia from the movie. Right, that's
probably the closest we get to Abba. Well, go check
it out. Some interesting stuff, very different sound. But this
isn't a show about music, gets a about gardening. So
let's talk gardening. Hey. I was talking about taking your
(20:06):
walkways in a garden, and this is a traditional garden,
you know, where you got beds and rows and walkways
between the rows and using that as your area to
compost leaves and certain other kinds of organic material like
grass clippings. As long as you have not sprayed the
grass with a herbicide or something like that, or applied
to herbicide to it, you can do that in the walkways.
(20:26):
I would not put food scraps and things like that
or otherwise the barmuts will thank you and you will
not be happy with that. But anyway you can do that.
The thing I want to talk about about all this
is the fact that microbes are the part of the
process that makes everything happen. The way I like to
put its, microbes rule the world, and we are just
(20:48):
scratching the surface of knowing some of the things that
microbes do. I subscribe to certain research publications and things
that always give me notification. Every day in my email box,
I get some new research fact that talks about and
just microbes interacting with plants, like a certain microbe makes
(21:13):
a tomato plant more resistant to a certain disease, for example,
a research on that I'm literally every day that's coming in,
and that's just this tiny sliver of the microbe world
and what they do. Microbes turn organic matter back into soil.
We're not walking around with a mile deep stack of
tree trunks everywhere from all the trees that have ever
(21:35):
grown on that particular site over the ages, because microbes
took care of that. From fungi to bacteria into my seats,
you know, just all kinds of microbes and that's what
happens in there. And all you're doing is enlisting them.
And we enlist microbes for a lot of things in life.
Do you know that you wouldn't have steak if it
(21:56):
wasn't for microbes. I think about that. Here's why we
can't digest grass. You cannot eat grass and digest it.
Neither can a cow. There are complex cellulose type and
well other kinds of compounds in a grass that the
cow just can't digest well, but microbes can. So in
(22:16):
a cow's series of stomachs, there's all these microbes, and
the grass that goes in the front end ends up
turning into cow food in the process, and so we
get milk and steak and leather and all those kind
of things. Thank a microbe. Beer wine would not happen
if it weren't for yeasts, which are a type of
microbe that is actually making that process happen. And I
(22:40):
could go on and on and on and on and on.
But even just with the plants, you have microbes working
on the roots provide beneficial services that are amazing. Microbes
will fungi soi microbiologies. Fungi connect roots to roots from
other plants, so plants can communicate with each other. There's microbes.
(23:01):
In fact, there's a product that contains a type of
Basillis you know, you know b T. That's what we
spray on leaves so that when a caterpillar eats the leaves,
it kills them b T Basillis thuringiensis. Well, there is
a bacillus And I'm not sneezing, I'm actually saying a word.
Bacillis amala lico fecions. That's the name of it. Yep,
(23:24):
you can be the nerd at the next garden party
with that word. Bacillis amelia lico fecians connects with the
root and tells the plant to do things up on
top that make it more resistant to certain disease problems.
That's cool. There's a lot of micro there's microbes that
live in the leaves too. But anyway, my point is
just it's a wonderful, amazing world out there, and the
(23:46):
more we can enlist it, the better off we are
and having success with our plants. And as research goes forward,
I see our horticultural practices more and more turning toward
enlisting and enhancing microbes. Just like we discovered BT, now
we know what to do about caterpillars, right, that is organic.
(24:08):
We're going to find more and more of that and
less and less of here's a problem, how do I
kill it? Kind of approach, the spray and kill approach.
That is the direction that a lot of things are
going in. And also the sprays become safer and more
in some cases more effective when we use microbes. A
BT is an example of that. There there is a
(24:29):
Bacillus subtlest that is a fungle protectant that we can
use out there. It's a type of bacillus that stops
diseases on plants, some of the disease issues that happen
on plants, and we're going to see more of that
as time goes on. Well, we don't have to wait
until time goes on to you know, take the benefits
(24:51):
of microbes and put them to work for us. The
folks that microlife have put together a wide range of
price a wide range that basically they add microbes to
the soil and they enhance microbial activity in the soil.
(25:13):
And for example, one of the products that the folks
that microlife have put together is called micro grow bioinoculant
or bioinoculant. It is a granular that you put down
and it has a buzzillion different kinds of microbes, just
lots of different strain, sixty three different strains and bazillions
(25:36):
of individual microbes. And they do things like that. You know,
I mentioned that, Well, I didn't mention Trichoderma, that is
an amazing one. I mentioned Bacillus amelo lico fashions as
being a beneficial one. There's four strains of that, Bacillus
amla licofasions in micro grow bioinoculant, four different strains. I'm
(25:57):
mentioned Bysillus subtless there's ten strains of that, but I'm
talking about sixty three different microbe strains in microgrow bianoculant.
And you can put it in your soil. Well, it's granular,
put in your soil, you mix it in, you use
it in containers, anything where you want to enhance some
microbial growth. That is the beneficial way to go about
(26:19):
and doing that. And they also have micro grow liquid
AF and liquid AF has eight different strains of beneficial
microbes and you can spray it on the foliage. You
can drench it in the soil too. You spray it
on the foliage. And now you've got all these good
guys on the leaves that when a bad spore lands,
it's a very hostile environment and you help defend. It's
(26:41):
not a fungicite, but it defends against fungaled attack by
putting natural antagonistic organisms on the leaf. Is that cool stuff? Well,
microlife is cool stuff. There's lots of different types of microlife.
You can go to microlifefertilizer dot com for a full
list of all the places where you can get it,
as well as the products that they have. Time for
(27:03):
me to take a break and when we get back,
if you'd like to give me a call. In fact,
you can call now and be ready to go. Seven
one three two one two KTRH. Welcome back to guarden Line. Hey,
we're having fun today talking about all kinds of things.
Composting in your garden beds. Easiest way to compost that
(27:25):
there is pim marked beetles. Talking about that and microbes
are my favorite topic. By the way, what I didn't
mention when I was talking about microbes, I usually this
is one of the first things I say. Yeah, microbes
live in us too. We have like it or not.
You have a lot of microbes that are living in you.
And do you know that the feel good chemical serotonin,
(27:47):
the things that hits our brain and we feel good
about that, Well, serotonin, most serotonin produced in your body
is not done by you. It's done by the microbes
in your intestinal tract. Yeah, that's right, So you can
thank microbes when you're happy. That makes me happy to
think about that. All right, enough of them, I'll stop
the microbe thing. I just I can really nerd out
(28:09):
about some of this stuff because it is amazing and cool.
It is absolutely stunning. I'm saying about fungi. Well, on
one little tag on, I'm taking about fungal strands that
connect two plants together so that they can communicate. They've
done studies where let's say you have two tomato I'm
just gonna I don't know this study specifically, it is
(28:31):
about tomatoes. Let's have two tomato plants, and you separate
them so air can't move from one to the other.
They're completely separated, but underground microhizel fungi can connect the
two roots of the two plants. Okay, there's your telegraph
line that goes from one to the other. If you
want telephone line uh and insect choose on the leaf
(28:54):
of one plant. That plant is a response to the
In some cases, the saliva in like a caterpillar caterpillar's mouth,
if you will, the equivalent of saliva that signals a
plant to hay start making some changes to make it
where caterpillars can't eat you so easily. Okay, that make
it more difficult for them, or maybe maybe it's produced
(29:15):
a toxin to the caterpillar or maybe something else. Well,
in that study, the plant on the other side that
had no air communicating, no other way of communicating with
that plant started making the same kinds of leaf changes.
So the telegraph cable between the roots, which is a
fungal strand a microaizal fungal strand sent the message from
(29:38):
one plant to another who knew before recently that that
kind of thing was going on. And we just keep
learning more and more. All right now, I will officially
stop for now, if you'd like to give me a
call and talk about something else. Seven to one three
two one two five eight seven four seven one three
two one two ktrh. I we're talking about garlic. Earlier,
(30:01):
I planted some garlic In fact, I've kind of got
a little allien patch in the garden. You know, I
always grow onions every year. That's that's one of my
favorite things to grow. I have some some multipliers like
chives and shalots and things like that that will actually
multiply into clumps. You plant one clove and at the
(30:22):
end you got a bunch of green onions that you
can go with. And I also put in some garlic,
a couple kinds of garlic that I'm trying out to
see how they do. I just love we use a
lot of that in cooking, and so got a lot
of it going in the garden. And every year I
try to grow. And you know how I said yesterday
I was talking if those of you who are listening yesterday,
(30:43):
I talk a lot about talked a lot about what
are you going to do new this year? What do
you do you've never done before? Not that we always
have to change things, but gardening is way bigger than
what either of us, you or me are doing. There
are types of gardening I've never done before. There are
(31:03):
I have, I guess a long time ago I did
a terrarium, but it's been ages since I made a terrarium.
But that's a really cool kind of gardening, fun kind
of indoor gardening. So even a shut in can have
a nice little terrarium. And so there's types you've never
done before. And I was asking, what are you gonna
do different this year? What are you gonna try that's
(31:24):
different this year? And every year I do that, and
also every year I try something that maybe I try
a variety that I haven't tried before. So when it
comes to tomatoes, Celebrity is my old dependable variety of
tomatoess been around long time. It's one of the smaller
group of very few tomatoes are nematode resistant. Celebrity is
(31:47):
and it's just an old gold standby Contender. Green bean
is the green bean that I've done for years. I
was talking with Joey out at a shanty gardens this
past year and he was telling me about how good
that Valentino green bean is. So this next spring it's
going in my garden. I'm gonna try Valentino because you know,
if he says it, I'm sure the case, and I'm
(32:10):
gonna find out and see how it does. But I'll
have Contender there, but also grow some Valentinos. In this case,
the same thing. I'll grow celebrity, but oh my gosh,
there's nine hundred different tomatoes. I could also grow what
am I going to grow with the celebrities, And by
doing that, I always find things that I like a
little bit better. Over time, There'll be some I grow
and it's like, yeah, okay, well that's fine, but nothing
(32:33):
to write home about. And then there'll be others it's like, Okay,
that's cool. Maybe the look of the plant or of
the fruit right now, tomatoes that are striped and weird
colors and all of that, or the rave, So maybe
that's it. Maybe it is the disease resistance that's good.
Maybe it is, well, there's other categories of it. Right now,
(32:56):
I'm in search of a good paste tomato. I've grown
roma forever, I've grown San Marzano. I've grown a lot
of different paste tomatoes. I love those because they're good
for making paste and making tomato sauces, and also I
like them for drying. I dry use those for drying
and seasoning tomatoes, which are delicious anyway. Paste tomatoes buy
(33:18):
and large take a long time to reach. Harvest that
you can't find just like a fifty day to harvest
paste tomato very easily, and so I'm always looking for
faster paste tomatoes. So every year the garden gets some experimenting,
and I would suggest you do that too. You probably
have your favorites of different kinds of things. I'll give
(33:38):
you one more example. Squash. There's crook neck and straight neck,
and a lot of places they'll just sell you they
tell you what it is. It just says this is
straight next squash, this is crook neck squash, and that's
all you know about it. But then they're squash varieties,
and there are constant improvements being made to squash varieties,
(33:59):
maybe diseases, maybe productivity, and really excellent options there when
it comes to what are the best varieties, And I've
discovered some really new well over the years, I've discovered
as they became a new option, squash varieties that were
just absolutely beyond anything that I had tried growing before.
(34:22):
Same thing with broccoli and other things. And the same
thing would be true with flowers. You know, there's new
species coming along, there's improvements on species. Maybe you know zenias.
Zenias get all waist high and we'd use them as
cut flowers. Right then they began breeding zenias and now
they're a little mounded bedding plants. So it looked like
(34:42):
a little meatballs covered with zenia flowers out there all
in the garden. We have a lot of options on
these things, and continue to try, continue to experiment, try
something new. If you like some suggestions on things, oh,
we can talk about some of that, but anyway, try
something new. I think you find something that you really love.
(35:03):
I really want to encourage you to do that. It
doesn't just have to be vegetables. It doesn't have to
be vegetables flowers. How about herbs. Have you ever thought
about growing some herbs that you don't currently grow? All right, well,
I'll tell you this. Chives are super super easy. Just
don't let them go to seed or your whole garden
bed will turned into a chia pet. Chives are easy,
(35:25):
easy to grow. Rosemary very drought tolerant. Rosemary is easy
to grow as long as you don't put in a
spot that is soggy wet black clay soil. Soggy wet,
wet rosemary didn't like that, but it's very very easy
to grow. That'd be another example. A regano for a groundcot.
Why not try that, Hi, folks, I'll be right about.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Welcome to kt r H Garden Line with skin grict.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
It's just watch him as the world golden. Yea, the
sea botts double again, not a sign.
Speaker 4 (36:22):
All right, all right, let's do this. Let's do some
gardening today. We're going to garden from inside. In other words,
I'm a garden from this chair I'm sitting in right now.
If you are indoors, relaxing, enjoying a cup of coffee,
trying to get that first eye open, Welcome to garden Line.
We're glad to have you with us. If you'd like
to give me a call with some gardening questions. Seven
(36:45):
one three two one two k t r H seven
one three two one two k t r H. You know,
spring fever hits like a load of bricks when it
comes to us gardeners. All of a sudden, as you know,
the weather begins to break a little bit, we just
start getting the itch to go outside and do something cool.
Speaker 7 (37:03):
You know.
Speaker 4 (37:03):
The garden centers start to load up with all kinds
of beautiful plants, and it's just my favorite time of
the year. I wish I could take spring fever and
put it in the fall, because that equally, if not better,
is a time to be doing planting and improvements and
things to the garden. But boy, here we go. Spring
is here. And I was looking around. You know, I
(37:26):
drive through town a lot of times. I will actually
take a root where I just go downside streets just
because I like to see people's yards and houses and
things and what they do. You run into some pretty
interesting stuff that way. And landscapes are buying large a
little on the bleak side right now. You know, it's winter.
The grass is not that great looking. Some people don't
(37:47):
even rake the leaves off yet, and it's just kind
of bleak. And I think about what could be done,
you know, what would it look like. And when you
think about things like a well manicured lawn that is beautiful,
when you think about beautiful shrubs, think about landscapes that
bloom throughout the year. You know, you've got your spring
(38:07):
bloomers like azalea's primarily, or spring bloomers or some ever
repeat blooming types now, and then you got your fall bloomers,
things that bloom just in the fall. And then there's
things that bloom just in summer and you're designing those
landscapes and you're creating that beauty. And then there's the
hard scapes. And hard scapes is one of the things
that I think are underutilized in our landscapes. I love grass,
(38:31):
I love walking through the grass and every other type
of plant out there in the landscape. But boy, when
you create a gorgeous patio that it takes Basically what
it does is it extends your home outdoors. You just
now you have a new room that's outside in the
fresh air, in the sunshine, where you can smell fragrances
of plants and all kinds of things like that. Go
(38:53):
out and sit in the evenings and maybe have a
fire table something along those lines. Well, I tell you
Purece Scapes is they are the best I know at
doing that. It is outstanding. And I would ask you this.
I can sit here and describe stuff to you, but
that just doesn't cut it. Go to their website. It's
Peerscapes dot com. Puerscapes dot com and when you go there,
(39:18):
you are going to see amazing things. And one of
the amazing things that most landscapes don't have is quality
landscape lighting. It may be shining up on your home.
It may be shining up on a pergola. It may
be along steps so people can see as they walk,
or you know that you don't stumble and things do that.
(39:40):
Water features like a little waterfall or a fountain of
some type, and a landscape. Peerscapes can do all of
that and really they basically just do it all. Do
you need it done? Yeah, they probably do that. You know,
they do quarterly maintenance if you want them to come
in and just ever quarter, come in. Spruce up your flowerbeds,
get them looking good, put new flowers in every quarter
if you want them that often. Uh, you know, pull
(40:01):
any weeds, molts, make sure everything's in good shape. Checks
the irrigation. They do irrigation work. They do landscape drainage.
I've got an area that is poorly drained and that's
one of the next projects coming up is to get
that taken care of. Pirescapes dot com is a website.
Go there, look at the pictures, check out what they
can do. Give them a call, let them come out
(40:22):
and do a bid for you. Bring them some pictures in,
sit down, talk to the designers. You can do anything
from a small job to a complete revamp of the
whole place and make it look like the taj Mahal.
Although I don't know what the landscape looks like around
the taj Mahll, you just always see the building. Anyway,
they can make your place look good. Prescapes dot Com
go check it out just for fun. Check that out.
(40:46):
You are listening to Gardenline. I'm your host, Skip Richter,
and we're here to answer your gardening questions. And the
way I like to put it is, we are here.
We are here to help you have a more bountiful garden,
a more beautiful landscape, and more fun in the process.
That's what we want to happen. If we can give
you some tips, if you can help you diagnose, we
can help you identify something. We love to do, all
(41:08):
of those kinds of things. I have been in gardening
and horticulture my whole life. When I was a kid,
we had a garden and worked in the garden mode,
the yard, all that kind of thing. And then I
entered a m in the horticulture department back in nineteen
seventy eight and got my degree. Actually the horticulture started
(41:29):
in nineteen eighty three, got my degree and began to
work for Agrolife Extension. I worked in Missouri for three
years prior to coming back to Texas and working Extension
for thirty five more years. And anyway, I love this
stuff and it is fun. I loved learning, and gardening
gives you a chance to learn every single day. You know,
(41:52):
after hearing I don't know how many questions I feelded
over thirty five years now in horticalulture, a bazillion, and
it never fails. I get new questions. I've never heard
that one before. And that's just how broad and wonderful.
The world of gardening is never a dull moment. At
(42:14):
least there generally isn't. I've talked to you before about
ACE Hardware Stores, and you know ACE is everywhere. There's
dozens of stores here in the Greater Houston area, and
ACE is a place where you get whatever you need.
Right now, we just got through putting up our Christmas stuff,
getting it all stored. Do you need boxes for things
like that, organize it, make it a little neater and whatnot.
(42:37):
When you get ready to do this again next year
or in twenty twenty five at the end of the year,
they've got that do you want to get your garage
in order. Maybe you need shelving units. I've been that
is a project I've been working on for a long time.
Shelving is ACE has got that for you as well.
Do you need perhaps a fire pit from Brio or
solo stove, They've got those. Do you need some fire
(43:00):
you know I'm gonna have some cool weather coming up.
We got a little break here, but it's coming back.
Get your firewood, get stocked up. Maybe you need your
propane tank refilled. We almost went outside and grilled last night,
thought real seriously about it. Well, they've got exchangeable propane
canisters as well. If you'd like to do that. You
want to sign up for the ACE Rewards program. That
(43:21):
is a great way to receive discounts. I'll tell you
about special offers. I've been an ACE Rewards member for
a long time and the only ACE Rewards customers receiving
these email directly to you. And you got to do that.
You get more bang for your buck that way. Stocking
up on all kinds of things from light bulbs to
batteries to whatever you need. ACE has got it now.
(43:42):
There's a lot of ACE stores around. You got into Rockport, Texas.
By the way, anybody listening downe in Rockport, welcome to
garden Line, Wharton Feed and Ace Wharton Feed and Ace
Base City Ace Hardware. And then we got a couple
of K and m Ace hardwares won in Kingwood, winning
a Tesca seen it. Those are just examples are the many,
many Ace hardware stores in the Greater Houston area. Time
(44:04):
for me to take a break and we will be
right back with your calls. All right, welcome back, Welcome
back to Guardline. Hey, if you'd like to give me
a call, we got open lines. Happy to visit with
you about the things that you're interested in. Seven one
three two one two kt r H seven one three
(44:25):
two one two k t RH. I want to talk
a little bit about fruit, trees, vines and bushes. Fruit trees,
vines and bushes. There are a lot of different kinds
of fruit that you can grow down here in the
Greater Houston area. You know, wherever you live in the country,
there are types of fruits you can grow and types
you can't grow. And we're fortunate here to have a
(44:47):
wide range of types of fruit. We can grow. The
deciduous fruit like apples, and pears and peaches and plums
for example, that we can grow those here. We can
grow things like upon gran It's actually they're a little
bit of a challenge in the rainy seasoned fruit. Rots
can be a little bit of a challenge, but that
you know, we can grow them here. We can grow
(45:08):
for summons here. That's another deciduous fruit, beautiful ornamental fruit
that you can grow. And then there's the tropicals, the
things like well, let's just do the citrus. For example,
among the most hardy citrus that we have are satsuma oranges,
which is a mandarin type orange or baggy loose skin.
And the cumquats and cumquats have extreme ability to withstand
(45:36):
cold weather, I mean down into the upper teens and
established kumquat can that those we're eating primmorphous skin, you know,
marmalade and whatnot. But they also have wonderful fragrance, as
do mini citrus when they bloom. It is heavenly just
to smell the fragrance of the blooms. Then we have
many other kinds of citrus, you know, there's oranges of course,
(45:57):
and lemons and limes and whatnot, and we can grow
those here. Some require a little bit of protection. Some
are more cold tender than others. But we can grow
all of that kind of thing here. There's things like blueberries.
Blueberries like acidic soil and high quality water. They do
not put up with water with a lot of sodium
in it. So those of you in areas you know,
like Brian colors station high sodium levels in the soil
(46:21):
in the water, it's hard to It's hard to grow blueberries.
In fact, if not almost impossible to grow blueberries unless
you use rain water. There but a lot of East Texas,
Southeast Texas, parts of Southeast Texas are naturally acidic and
have good quality water, and you can grow blueberries. There's
rabbit eye blueberries and Southern high bush blueberries. The Southern
high bush is a little bit bigger berry. The rabbit
(46:42):
eye starts off kind of a pink color, like a
albino rabbit's eye. That's where it gets its name and
then turns to blue. Both of those are good quality
berries that you can grow in our area. There are
things like blackberries and strawberries that do well here. Raspberries
not so much. There's some that you can get by
(47:04):
with get a few berries off of, but not in
the level of production that you might if you're further north.
In general with the raspberries, but people are always trying
to grow things that are hard to grow here. I
know people that grow dragon fruit and that that is
a cool tropical fruit. I know somebody that grows mangoes
(47:24):
and yet to go to Great Links because they will
not tolerate a good hard freeze, and so you've got
to be ready to protect those. But anyway, avocados there's
another one, and we have some pretty hardy avocados. Actually,
for those of you, especially in the southern part of
the listening area, avocados are a viable option. You just
tolerate the fact that occasionally we're gonna have one of
those freezes that knock some way back and they'll regrow.
(47:47):
But that's just part of the deal. I think that
we ought to grow more grapes, and you know we have.
We have different kinds of grapes here in southeast in fact,
most of the south east Stern portion of Texas. I
don't mean just Southeast Texas. I mean, you know, all
the way over to San Antonio and in southeast from there,
(48:10):
we have a disease called East and southeast. From there,
we have a disease called Pierce's disease that flat kills grapes.
It kills them outright, and so you have to choose
certain grapes that are resistant to Pierce's disease. So there
is a white grape called Blanc du bois the L
(48:31):
A N C du and then bois is boi s yep,
Welcome to caden Land. Blanc dubois is a white grape
that makes a nice little wine. It's a small grape,
not a fresh eating grape, particularly CD. Then we have
one called Southern Sensation and another one called Victoria Red.
(48:54):
Victoria Red is a nice long cluster grape got its
name from Victoria Tech. It didn't originate there, but I
believe it's an Arkansas breeding line. But it's a good one,
a good one. But a Southern Sensation seedless is seedless,
and it is probably If someone says I want one
table grape, I would probably point them at Southern Sensation
(49:15):
seedless or Victoria Red. Either those or good options. Amazing grapes.
Can you imagine putting an arbor out in the yard,
maybe over a patio, and having grapes overhead that hang
down that you can harvest from. Now, keep in mind
that anytime you have a fruiting, deciduous and deciduous plant,
you're gonna have a mess. The leaves are gonna fall
(49:35):
on the patio, of course, and you're gonna have to
With grapes, you do need to spray them. The disease
pressures here are significant, and so you can try to
use some organic options, but not quite adequate to really
give you full protection and protect the crop. But I
(49:56):
think that's a really cool thing to do. There's old
time grapes. There's one called Champannel. There's one called black
Spanish also called then. Why it looks like it's spelled
lean or l E n R E, I believe is
how they spell it. Anyway, those are old time grapes.
They're tough, they survive despite the issues I've been talking about,
(50:20):
but they're not the highest quality. And then there's muscadines,
and muscadines are super cool. Muscadine is a Southern grape.
It's a I guess I would say it's not a
true grape, but it is a grape. But it's different
than the vanifera grapes. The kind that every grape you
buy in the supermarket, just about every grape juice you buy,
(50:44):
every wine you buy. Those are typically the vanifera grapes
or hybrids, but the muscadine is a little different structurally.
It's a little different too, make small clusters of very
big berries and they may not ripen the whole cluster
at a time. But there are some new ones. Well,
there's a new program that a new research project going
(51:06):
on Texas and am Agrolife is involved in it. As
is the University of Arkansas, the University of Georgia, and
several other institutions. And here is the goal of it,
improving the muscadine grape. You know, muscadines are one of
thirteen species of grapes that are native to Texas. Did
you know that Texas has more native grapes than any place,
(51:29):
the more species of native different species of native grapes
in any place, thirteen to be specific, and excuse me. Muscadines.
The native muscadine has been improved through breeding and selection.
And you know, over one hundred years of breeding, they
now have even developed a seedless muscadine, which is amazing.
(51:51):
They have a very tough, leathery skin. But the flavor
is unique, but it's great. It's different than the typical
grape flavor. They throw in hot, humid areas. Welcome to
Houston muscadine. And they also are pretty tolerant of a
lot of disease and pest issues, so as well as
some decent drought tolerance too. Now they grow rampantly and
(52:13):
they require some pretty judicious and regular attention to the pruning,
but they are really amazing. Now this project is developing
varieties of muscadines for both the fresh market eating that's
seedless muscadine, and the wine market as well. There's gonna
be like thirty different viticulturists, which is grape specialists. There's
(52:35):
gonna be great breeders and even food scientists that are
involved in this project. And the goal is to support
grape growers in propagating new seedless muscadine selections for trials
all the way across the southeastern US. They'll seek to
cross breed muscadines with Vitis vinifera, the common grape. When
you say grapes and you picture grapes, unless you grew
(52:57):
up East Texas, you know eating grapes off the trees,
the travines on the trees grapes is Vias benifita. They're
going to cross these two and come up with additional options,
and future generations are going to really enjoy the benefits
of this program. I mean, high quality, climate resilient cultivars
(53:17):
for fresh market and wine production. And that's all part
of the Muscadine improvement projects funded by USDA, and I'm
excited about it. These things take time, you know, it'd
be a while before we see the benefits of it.
But what a great idea, you know, as we look
for more resilient plants, plants that can survive, plants that
do well with less sprays and so on, that's a
(53:40):
great kind of project that we need to do well.
I've talked to you before about Medina products, and Medina's
been around for a very long time. In fact, when
Garden Line wasn't even garden Mine, back in the Dewey
Compton days, Medina was a sponsor of the show and
has been ever since. And gardeners have long learned about
(54:03):
Medina and love Medina products and use Medina products. Medina
excuse me, Medina soil activator is one of the originals
and it is a very popular product. Well, the folks
at Medina while back, they took Medina sool activator. They
took their humic and fulvic acids. Those are natural acids
from the final stage of a compost decomposition that are
(54:27):
incredibly beneficial in the soil. And they also took seaweed
and combined it with a fertilizer that is six twelve
six six percent nitrogen, twelve percent phosphorus, six percent potassium.
So you got all that combined in one product to
stimulate biological activity in the soil and to promote blooming
and fruiting in the plant. And so with Medina has
(54:49):
to grow plant six twelve six, there's other has to
grows has to grow plant six twelve six. You are
going to get the ability to use it as a
folier feed. It will not burn you and I get
salt built up, chemical build up, It'll add to the
biological activity and the soil. Increase the biological activity in
the soil, and you can use this as a drench
(55:10):
for new transplants. It's got that higher percent phosphorus the
middle number which is important for root development. So you
use has to grow six twelve six. Anytime you're going
to plan a plant and you're going to see better success,
what you do is you I do it. Sometimes I'll
just take a container of it, you know, make a
gallon more, set the plants in the container and let
(55:30):
the root ball soak it up, and then plan them.
Sometimes I'll just plan them and before I fully fill
the hole with soil, I'll just drench. I'm really good
with it. You can do that a couple more times
after planning, about a week apart, just to give it
the best chance it can to get started. With medinas,
it's a has to grow six twelve six. Medina has
to grow six twelve six. I was talking about fruit.
(55:53):
It is important when you're going to grow fruit to
learn about that fruit and get the information you need.
And if you go to the Aggie Horticulture website, it's
Aggie dash Horticulture dot TAMU dot edu. I know you
wrote that down. I know you didn't, So just go
to Aggie Horticulture search for that on there. There's a
(56:14):
fruit and not section on the front page. Click on
that and you will get publications on everything from avocados
to you name it that's there, and it tells you
do you need two varieties for cross pollination? Some fruit
do some fruit don't. Does it need acidic soil? How
do you prune it? How do you plant it? What
are some varieties to grow in my part of Texas?
(56:35):
It's all there and it's free. So before you plant
any fruit, grab some of those free publications and just
peruse them and get up to speed on it, and
you'll be glad you did that. Way, you won't call
me in three years going why is my fruit not
fruiting because I needed a pollinator? All right, we're going
to take a break. I'll be right back. Hey, welcome
back to garden Line. Glad to have you with us
(56:56):
this morning. Let's talk gardening. Of questions you have, give
me a call. Seven one three two one two k
t r H seven one three two one two k
t RH Southwest Fertilizer is a place that I talk
about all the time because I love to go there.
Number One, when you walk in, they treat you right
(57:17):
the everybody you know, they greet you, they ask how
they can help, and when you ask a question, they
know the answer to it. I mean, they take you
right to the product. They explain it toay how to
do it. You could walk in and just you know,
say hey, I've got here's a bug in a jar.
You know what is this and how do I get
rid of it? Or maybe you've got a weed that
you're bringing in and you want know what to do
about that, or or print out my schedules, both of them,
(57:40):
the law care schedule, print out the pest disease and
weed management schedule, and walk in there and say I
need this thing, and they're going to have it. There
is nothing I talk about on the garden line that
Bob doesn't carry, and he carries a lot more. In
addition to all of that, they kind of pride themselves
in having everything that you need for your garden and
(58:01):
your lawn and your landscape and your house plants for
that matter. You find tools there. You're going to find
fertilizers there, things to control weeds, things to control pests
and diseases, anything you need. If you're looking at enhancing
the growth of a plant, they are going to have
a wide range of products. If you're looking organic, they've
got it. They've got the best selection of organic products,
(58:22):
the widest selection of any place in town. That's just
what they do. The way I like to put it
is if Southwest doesn't have it, you don't need it.
And that's true, it really is. That's why I like
going in there because every time I go in, you know,
see Bob, hey, what's up, what's new? You know what
we got here? And just seeing all the things on
the market because there's always new stuff coming out and
we talk about them. You can take samples in, you
(58:46):
can have them put a pair of eyes on it,
as they like to say, see what it is and
see how they can help you. That is the reason
that it is such a helpful place. The one stop
shop in Southwest Houston, corner of Bisnett and Renwick. Southwest
Fertilizer dot com. That's the website, Southwest Fertilizer dot com.
Corner of Byssinet and Renwick. I don't care where you
(59:07):
live in this whole region, it's worth the drive in
when you're looking for a place where you can get
anything that you need and everything that you need. You
are listening to Garden Line and our phone number here
if you'd like to give us call a seven to
one three two one two k t R H seven
one three two one two K T R. H. I
(59:31):
was talking about fruit trees and the importance of getting
good information before you plan. Remember this that with the
exception I guess of Mayhaw's, which is a native apple
like fruit that grows out in the woods in East Texas.
With the exception of that, fruit trees want really good drainage.
Mayhaws can put up with some swampy stuff, but in general,
(59:52):
you want good drainage. Probably the most important thing when
it comes to fruit tree success is sunlight. And it's
because why do you grow fruit? Because you get you
want to eat the fruit right, and the fruit is sweet.
And what is sweet? That's a carbohydrate. Sugar is a carbohydrate.
And how do you get carbohydrates Sunshine on the leaves.
So if you grow a peach tree in half the
(01:00:16):
sun that it really would like to have, you're going
to have much less production. And the production you have
is going to be let's use a big word, insipid.
You put it in your mouth, not that great to eat. Well,
why not put it in the sun and have success.
That's why you're growing fruit. So find the sunniest spots
you have for your fruit trees. Fruit trees, vines, and bushes.
(01:00:38):
SAME's true with grapes, same is true blueberries, SAME's true
with strawberries, and you can have success and so good
sunlight and good drainage are like. That's first. Good soil
quality is especially important as we get into things like blueberries.
That have a very good opinion about that. So do blackberries.
By the way, you take blackberries and put them in
a high pH sticky black clay soil, well like we
(01:01:00):
have predominantly in this region, and they are not going
to perform well. They're going to get chlorotic, which means
the new growth is kind of yellowy white instead of
nice green as it comes out. If you have to,
and I've done this before, you can make a raised bedbox.
You can put some good sandy loam soils in it.
You add compost into the soil and whatnot, and plant
(01:01:21):
your strawberries and plant your blackberries in that. If you've
got crimy soil that's boggy and whatever, black clay, gouey,
do that before you plant blackberries and strawberries. For sure.
Figs can put up with that. Figs can. We used
to have a huge fig industry here on the Gulf
coast years ago. They can put up with these rice
paddy soils that we have in some parts, but for
(01:01:44):
the rest of them, take care of those, I mean,
and then look and see if you need another variety
for cross pollination. That's very important. And you know what,
just go to a good quality nursery. I talk about
our independent garden centers all the time and how fortunate
we are have so many good ones here in the
Houston area. If you live north, south, east, west, or central,
(01:02:06):
there is a good garden center near you, and go
to those. Because a lot of places that sell hammers
and plants, lumber and plants, jewelry and plants, you know
what I mean, the jewelry counter at Walmart or someplace
like that. The folks in the garden center, they just
(01:02:28):
likely don't know. It would be an exception to find
somebody that knows what they're doing there. And typically the
things that are shipped in are done kind of on
a national basis or regional basis, and they may not
be the best things to grow here. Drives me nuts.
I'm not going to say that specific name of the place,
but you can kind of figure out based on what
(01:02:49):
I've already said. Was in one of those kind of stores,
and they had black cap raspberries, and they had concord grapes,
the kind that they make Welch's Grape juice out of
and Mogan David wine out of. Well, they won't grow here,
they shouldn't be sold here. But you go to an
independent garden center and not only are they going to
carry the things that should be sold, but when you
(01:03:11):
go up and go, well, does this plumb tree need
a pollinator? Or they would just told you in the
first place, and here's a good one, but you're going
to need this one over here to pollinate it, for example,
or no, you don't need a pollinator for that one.
Get that good information that is worth something. And then
when you have any issues or questions from the time
you plan it, like how do I do this to
(01:03:32):
something's going wrong or I have a question about this,
you can go back in there and they'll help you.
I'm telling you that is worth it. It is well
worth it to restrict your shopping to places that know
what they're talking about. All right, that's a soapbox complaining
about it, But you know what I'm talking about. A
time for me to take another little break here. When
(01:03:52):
we come back, if you would like to give us
a call, be first up on the board seven one
three two one two kat R eight seven one three
two into kt R H. All right, welcome back to
the garden line. We are today is a day where
I'm getting an opportunity to talk a lot about some
(01:04:14):
specific things, you know, kind of go more in depth.
And when the when the spring flood hits, I got
to move fast, but I have a little more time.
I actually enjoy this, so good to visit. I hope
you're enjoying it, by the way, hopefully you are.
Speaker 10 (01:04:29):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (01:04:29):
Just the more we learn about gardening, the better we
get it to be as gardener as the more success
that we have. I like to say there's no such
thing as a brown thumb, And what I mean is
we have not brown thumbs. We have an uninformed thumb.
And when your thumb gets informed, you suddenly start to
grow things, and that thumb starts looking a little greener.
(01:04:50):
If you know what I'm talking about. Think about it
that way. Do not feel like you cannot grow stuff.
Don't stop it. Don't do that. You give me a call.
You go to the website, check out the I put
up there to help you have success. You go to
places like the Aggy Horticulture website and learn and learn
and learn, become part of a garden club, or go
through a master gardening program. You know, we have master
(01:05:11):
gardening programs all through the Greater Houston area. They have
them in Harris County, They're in Montgomery County. There's some
up in Brass County con College Station Bryan there down
in Fort Ben County. There's one in Brazoria County. There's
one named Galveston County. There's one out in Orange too.
I believe I think they still have one going on
(01:05:33):
out there, and I'm probably forgetting one. Who am I forgetting?
You know, you start making a list, you forget somebody.
There's a lot of master gardening programs. Let me just
tell you about that for just a little bit. Master
Gardening is an intense gardening course. It is not for
the faint of heart. In other words, if you're just
kind of curious about seeing pretty pictures and whatnot. Not
(01:05:54):
only that, Master Gardening is a volunteer training program done
by Agra Life Extension Service out of Texa and im University.
Agerlife Extension is put together the Master Guarding program in
order to train volunteers to help the folks, and I
used to. I've run master gardening programs in Conrod, Montgomery County,
(01:06:16):
in Travis County, in Austin, Harris County, and in Brass
County over the course of my career. And I can
tell you this, master gardner's some of the finest people
you'll ever meet. They just love what they're doing and
it's a good group, a good group to be a
part of. But it is for volunteer service, and so
you don't go just to learn. You go to learn
(01:06:37):
and then to put your learning into action to help
other people. And it's one of the ways that Extension
takes the public investment in agrolife extension and it multiplies
it many times over. When I was running Master Gardening,
I'll use myself because I've got that firsthand knowledge, but
it's true of all these programs, I was one agent
(01:06:58):
in the office that was handling gardening questions and commercial
horticulture questions and everything all the other duties that the
agent has, and with volunteers, it was not unusual to
have ten thousand volunteer hours in the course of a year.
That's a lot. That's what we call full time equivalents.
There's a lot of full time equivalents that are to
(01:07:18):
be had when you build a volunteer program. So with
the investment of one horticulture agent, or in many counties
it's an agriculture agent that's doing it, there's not a
hoard agent, then you get all this additional benefit. Talks
for groups, other kinds of educational activities, and master gardening
is a fun thing, but just know that you're doing
(01:07:40):
it not just to learn and go home. You're doing
it to learn and go home and then come back
and in whatever way is most appropriate for you to
take what you've learned and apply it. Our master gardeners
would help with our trials, our plant trials that we
were doing. We had master gardeners that work just with
youth programs that would create programs for kiddos and learning
about gardening and helping with school gardening programs and things,
(01:08:03):
and it's a really good organization. I've kind of gone
off what I was originally talking about to talk about
master gardening, but that is just another way that you
can grow in your horticultural knowledge, and I think that
is important. They say when you're cutting trees in the forest,
you got to stop every now and then and sharpen
(01:08:23):
the saw. If you've ever tried to cut a tree
with a dull saw, you know what I'm talking about.
It's time to stop and sharpen the saw as well
worth it. The same is true with gardening. If you
never sharpen the saw, if you never grow as a gardener,
learn and expand what you know, you're gonna become obsolete.
And things that you think are true are you find
(01:08:45):
out later are not true. I don't know who it was.
It probably I don't know, Mark Twain or Will Rogers
or something like that. I made a statement. They said,
it's not what I let's see, it's not what I
don't know that concerns me. It's what I know that
ain't so. And that is true. A lot of times
we think we know something when in fact that's not true.
(01:09:09):
And times change and research brings new information to light
and whatnot, and you got to keep improving on it.
Plus it's fun. That's part of the thing about gardening
that makes it so rejuvenating is that you you it's
it's it is a renewing thing to constantly be learning
new things, interesting new things. It's it's a hobby that
(01:09:33):
just keeps growing. I've mentioned this before. You know, you
start off as the typical bottom line of gardening is
you get on the phone, call somebody and say, come
mo and take care of my yard. Know that you
have the garden, you have the landscape, but somebody's taking
care of it. But you got You're out there, you're
enjoying it, and you may say, hey, I'd like this
plant put in it or something. You take it up
(01:09:53):
to where you're more of a do it yourselfer uh
and it and then you you begin to learn. Maybe
you decide I want to grow herbs, I want to
grow vegetables, I want to grow flowers. I want to
grow fruit of some fruit trees in the yart or
a fruit tree in the art. And you expand in
that way, and then you begin indoor things. Like I
mentioned earlier, I hadn't done a terrarium in ages. Well,
(01:10:14):
terrariums are cool. Why not do one of those? How
about house plants? And then you grow some more and
you decide, you know what, I'm going to save my
own seed and improve my plants. So each year I
look at all these plants I planted that are open pollinated,
and I'm going to pick the ones that are doing
the best, and I'm going to save seed from those.
And you do that year after year after year, and
you improve the strain of what you're growing. Maybe you
(01:10:37):
then become someone who starts your own seed, grows transplants,
and you get into that. Boy, is that ever fund
some one of my favorite parts of gardening, because I
do a lot of gardening in the winter by taking
care of my plants that I have inside under lights.
Maybe you want to learn how to propagate plants, root cuttings,
how to do air layering. I talked about that yesterday.
(01:11:00):
Gardening just keeps expanding as much as you want it to,
and there are many other things. How about a cut
flower garden if you've ever done that, have you ever
looked at your landscape and ask questions like what does
my landscape smell like? And how could it be better?
What are some fragrant plants that would be wonderful to
(01:11:21):
enjoy the fragrance of? And I'm going to tell you
what if I can remember this next segment next hour,
I'm going to talk about that fragrant plant Have you
ever looked at your landscape and see and ask, what
does this look like? Spring, summer, fall, and winter? Or
their flowers or their color? Maybe it's foliage that's all
(01:11:42):
twelve months of the year. Where are the evergreens that
give you extra foundational plants through the dormant season? And
looked at it that way? Have you ever looked at
your landscape and said, what am I able to? I'm
going to use the word eat, but it could be
every thing from eat to season your food, to create
(01:12:03):
all kinds of different herbal tinctures and things. And you
looked at it from that standpoint? Have you ever looked
at your landscape and said, what attracts butterflies? What at
track's hummingbirds? What attracts birds? How can I add to
the movement? Butterflies are basically flying flowers? How can I
add flying flowers to my landscape by planting? Do you
(01:12:24):
see what I'm saying? There's always some new fun things
to do. And you go visit a place, you go
to a botanical garden, you go visit family and friends.
You do like I do, and drive up and down
the street when you're going places and just notice what
you like take a picture of you, go find out
what it is, and get you one for your house.
That's kind of how that works. So it's a constant
process that allows us to just grow and grow and
(01:12:47):
have so much fun in the process. And I don't
you know, I don't look at this show like it's
all mechanics. You know, it's like, Okay, you gotta furlize
your lawn with this at this time and that time. Yeah,
we talked about all that, but how can you have
more fun? How can this be more enjoyable for you?
That's what we want you to do. Juer yard, your landscape,
(01:13:09):
do what you want with it. It's gene you in
the in the first of the front yard especially, it's
gene you and the hoa. But have fun. Get out
there and enjoy it. If you want to talk rules
of gardening, I can talk that, But at your gardener
are no rules. The rule is you got out there
and do what you want and have fun a bunch
of whole garden to be a Zenian fall doesn't go
(01:13:32):
fall yours? All right, folks, here's a number you can
give us a call and be first up when we
come back. Seven one three two one two kt R h.
Speaker 1 (01:13:44):
This is use Radio seven kt RH Houston everywhere with
now the latest news weather.
Speaker 5 (01:13:54):
It's more of what matters to you. From the John
Moore Services Studios.
Speaker 11 (01:13:59):
House Freedom calling this meeting with Trump. I'm Jarre at
Lewis at eight o'clock on news Radio seven forty h
age time for looking at traffic, caing weather. Hello, Gary Mack.
Speaker 12 (01:14:07):
Sixty nine Southwest Freeway south bound at University Boulevard that
remains closed this one due to a major accident. You
can use New Territory as an alternate others and we
have plenty off the way, wild and welly. Start this Sunday.
South SAM east bound on the entrance ramp to South
Post Oaks. South SAM southbound on the exit to sixty
ninth to Southwest Freeway. Clear a couple two I ten
(01:14:30):
to Katie Freeway eastbound at the sixth hid West. It
was on the left shoulder, then was on a right
forty five Goal Freeway northbound at Monroe Harry Mack the
Generator Supercenter dot Com Traffic Center.
Speaker 13 (01:14:43):
Expect some clowns, some cool conditions, and a few scattered
showers ahead of a front on this Sunday with the
high fifty three and he rang will move out this
evening to the party. Cloudy and windy overnight with the load
dropping down to forty one heading through the afternoon. Monday
sunny and wendy with the high of fifty five and
a little bit cooler under clouds. Tuesday is the highits
fifty three. I can meteorle just Jeff Maher from the
Weather Channel.
Speaker 11 (01:15:01):
Cloudy with some drizzlin sponse forty seven at the k
Cherry Top Tax Defenders twenty four hour Weather Center, it's
eight h one our top story. Some top Republican lawmakers,
including Texas Representative Chip Roy, meeting President ELEC. Donald Trump
at mar A Lago to discuss his legislative agenda and
policy goals. Members indicated that the discussions focused on advancing
(01:15:23):
Trump's agenda, particularly with border security, energy policies, and government spending.
Starting this week, President elect Donald Trump's cabinet nominees are
set to begin their confirmation hearings.
Speaker 14 (01:15:33):
The long awaited confirmation hearing for Department of Defense nominee
Pete Hegsath will take place before the Senate Armed Services Committee,
as Hexath will have a chance to convince senators and
the public that he's fit to lead the nation's military.
Hexath is one of several President elect Trump's nominees set
to testify before senators this week. CIA Director nominee John
(01:15:55):
Radcliffe will appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Other closely
watched noees, like Tulci Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence,
have not had their hearings scheduled yet.
Speaker 11 (01:16:05):
Fox's Ryan Schmeltz reporting a final speech upcoming from the President.
Joe Biden says he will deliver his farewell address from
the Oval Office on Wednesday. President Biden was adamant that
had he stayed in he would have beaten Trump in
the presidential race. The man tasked with investigating claims that
President elect Trump was involved in twenty twenty election interference
(01:16:26):
has resigned Special counsel Jack Smith, and his report on
his investigation is expected soon as. His resignation comes as
no surprise, since Trump has indicated Smith would be fired
once he takes office. Smith was employed as special counsel
by the US Justice Department Texas firefighters heading to Los Angeles.
A group of Houston firefighters included in that trip to
(01:16:49):
LA Governor Greg Abbott says the state is assist in
California and their wildfire response. Firefighting resources have been deployed,
including fire engines and equipment following a request from cal Fire.
Sixteen people are dead now and nearly forty thousand acres
of land burned due to the LA wildfires.
Speaker 15 (01:17:06):
We drove up into Mandevil Canyon Road. We saw the
firefighters still battling little areas, but they're worried that if
it moves a little closer to the four five, it
could get into the Brentwood area and threaten things. We
hear the helicopters overhead, and the other thing we're seeing
out here is a lot of police going through looking
into all of the destroyed homes and businesses looking for looters.
(01:17:29):
Twenty two was the latest count that we have seen
from officials have been arrested in the area out there looting.
Speaker 11 (01:17:35):
Fox's Griff Jenkins. With the latest in LA, effects of
the wildfires are starting to mount up. Although the five
oil refineries in the area are not threatened by the fires,
several pipelines are and those lines could be shut down.
California's Governor Gavin Newsom calling for an investigation also into
a loss of water pressure to local fire hydrants, placing
the blame on LA local authorities. A man is taken
(01:17:59):
into custody this week charge with intoxication manslaughter in the
death of his wife. The Harris Kind Of Sheriff's Office
says the man was banking his car out of their
driveway and ran her over. The car then hit a
tree at the home along Spring Cypress near Grant. Another
man is in the hospital following a high speed chase
and crash in Cyprus. Investigators say a man was speeding
on Barker Cypress Road when he lost control of his
(01:18:21):
car and crashed at around eleven pm last night. The
Texans pulling away from the Chargers in the wild card
round Saturday, Houston defending home Turf, winning thirty two to
twelve and moving on to the divisional round. News on
demand at KTERH dot com. Our next update is at
eight thirty. Back to Garden Line with Skip Richter. I'm
Jerret Lewis News Radio seven forty k TRH.
Speaker 16 (01:18:41):
KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the
products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to KTRH
Garden Line with Skip Richter.
Speaker 2 (01:19:00):
Just watch him as.
Speaker 4 (01:19:08):
All right, let's jump in here. We're gonna get going
on this next hour of Garden Line with your gardening questions.
The phone number seven one three two one two fifty
eight seventy four, and we're going to start by heading
out to Houston area for Michael. Hello, Michael, welcome to
garden Line.
Speaker 7 (01:19:26):
Hey, hey, Skip, thanks for taking the call. I was
listening to see you talking about our clay soil and
awkward drainage earlier, and I was thinking about my backyard.
It is so lumpy and bumpy, it's horrible. What kind
of options would you suggest for maybe kind of trying
to level that off? And do they all involve using
a shovel and a pickaxe and a lot of elbow grease?
Speaker 2 (01:19:49):
No?
Speaker 4 (01:19:49):
Not really, not in the grass, not in the grass lawn.
Is it lumpy primarily because the soil level is lumpy?
Like if there weren't any grass there, the soil would
be lumpy. Or do you think you're getting lumps because
grass is doing better in some places and not as
well in others, or what do you think is going on?
Speaker 7 (01:20:07):
It's actually combinational. I have some points where the dirt
is like built up and then drops off and then
also I have that weird kind of grass where the
grass itself just builds up this little tought and I
can't hardly hit it with the lawn mower anymore. Wow.
Speaker 4 (01:20:22):
Okay, well that makes sense. So what I would do
is I would start with kind of a loamy type
of soil mix to fill in the areas. You don't
have to shovel and pickaxe down. You just spread it
around to kind of level it out a little bit.
And I wouldn't do more than about maybe an inch
(01:20:42):
or so in each area. I mean, you could do
it deeper. You could do two or three inches if
you need to, but the grass is going to then
have to come back in it. Is this a Saint
Augustine lawn?
Speaker 7 (01:20:55):
You know, I'm not quite sure. I'm wanting to say
crab grass. It's that one that grows and then it
puts potensils out all over the place.
Speaker 4 (01:21:02):
Okay, probably you're dealing with Saint Augustine. So basically I
would I would, Yeah, I would. I would spread some
of that out there. Is the folks that heirloom soils
have a product called a lawn mix, and you can
buy they can deliver what's called a supersack. It's a
(01:21:24):
cubic yard sack of it to your driveway. It's about
seventy four bucks per yard, and then that priced me
a change. That's what it was last time I checked it.
Speaker 7 (01:21:33):
Right on it.
Speaker 4 (01:21:34):
Or you can go out to porter and get it.
I don't know where are you going from, but anyway
porter you can go get it. If you've got to
pick a trailer or something, but anyway you bring it in.
And then you would just put it in a wheelbarrow
and go around your lawn and just spread it out
and try to smooth it out a little bit. You're
not going to get it the first time. Yeah, just
sprinkle it over and you may have some areas that
(01:21:55):
you don't see anything but dirt because you had to
put quite a bit out. Or you could gradually add
it over time, small amounts to bring it up. But
either way you go about it. If you can get
that lawn in good growing shape, it'll cover over quickly
once we get the warm weather. Then then go online
to my website gardening with Skip dot com and there
(01:22:16):
is a free lawn care schedule and it tells you
when to fertilize and what do you use the options
that you have.
Speaker 7 (01:22:25):
Because right now I figure with the weather it's probably
not the best time to do any gardening, but the
time will be here upon us pretty quick.
Speaker 4 (01:22:33):
Yeah, so that the lawn mix is good, it's actually
it's got mason sand and compost and some of the
bed mix in there that you can use. You could
also get out just with a sandy loam type material
if you can find it, uh, and use that either
way you want to go. It's just a top dressing
you're putting over those areas. But we don't just use
(01:22:55):
straight compost because that is going to decompose a way
over time. So what it may look like the holes
are filled and then two years from now their holes
again because they've sunk them back. So you need some
kind of a you need some kind of a sand
or sandy loam kind of material in there to fill
(01:23:15):
those areas. So all right, that's that's what I would.
Speaker 7 (01:23:20):
Do, just as a general sense on clay soil. Would
you think bermuda grass would be okay for most parts
of Houston?
Speaker 4 (01:23:32):
It is. Every grass has its pros and cons. The
pros of bermuda is it's very wear and tear resistant.
That's why they use it on football fields and baseball
fields here in this area. He even pound it to
death and it comes right back. A golf courses are
almost all bermuda. Then the negatives of it are it
(01:23:52):
invades all your flower beds and you're dealing with it
in flower beds, and if you got little kids like
can roll around in the grass. If you've ever experienced
siggers before, you come inside and it's like you're itching
all over because there's a little tiny things are chewing
on you. Bermudas sugars really well, so that's kind of
one of the negatives of it. One final thing about
(01:24:13):
bermuda is the more often you know it, the better
it looks. So if you can't mow often, Saint Augustine
is a better choice because it's more forgiving of an
irregular mowing schedule than bermuda.
Speaker 7 (01:24:24):
Is Okay, good stuff, all right, all right, well, thank
you so much for the help this morning. I'm gonna
look to find me the loam. The loan filler.
Speaker 4 (01:24:41):
Yes, well, it's actually if you do the heirloom soils
product that's sand based, it's got some of the bedms
and things in it. But if you're just looking for
sandy loam. You may just have to look around for
some place to sell soil and get some of that.
Just be careful because a lot of you bring weeds
in with that because they just go out and scoops
(01:25:04):
scoop soil out of someplace and load it up. That varies.
But if you have weeging, deal with them and there's
a way to deal with that too.
Speaker 7 (01:25:13):
Cool. All right, Well, thank you so much for your home.
I appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (01:25:17):
All right, man, thanks a lot. Take care. We're going
to go down to League City and talk to Rick. Hello. Rick,
welcome to guarden Line.
Speaker 10 (01:25:26):
Hey, thank you very much. I've got a couple of questions.
I've been living in the south for since two thousand.
Got two great big oak trees in the front. I've
had him trimmed back to try to get more sunlight
down to the grass. And even with that being done,
it's very very patchy. And I hear you talk about
(01:25:51):
all right, put the brown down before the green, right.
Speaker 4 (01:25:55):
Take care of the soil before you plant the plants.
Speaker 17 (01:25:57):
Yeah, I've tried your uh, your your schedule once or
plus I just got retired so I can work on it.
Speaker 10 (01:26:08):
Now because I spent a lot of time working out
of town.
Speaker 18 (01:26:12):
M H.
Speaker 10 (01:26:13):
Where can I stand by soul be tested?
Speaker 4 (01:26:16):
All right? Uh, the fasting I got about twenty seconds
before break and then we'll pick you up after break.
But the fast answer is you go to a website.
It's Soil Testing dot t A m U dot edu.
If you go to my website, there's a link to
it on there. There's an article on soil testing and
(01:26:39):
that'll tell you more. Just hang on them. We'll put
you on hold. We're going to go to break and
I will be right back to continue with your question.
All right, folks, welcome back. Good to have you. We're
going to continue our conversation with Rick out in League City. So, Rick,
we're talking about turning that yard around and getting more
out of it. And I think you've done pruning on
(01:27:00):
your trees and still not quite seeing the results. Is that?
Am I right? Is that what you said?
Speaker 10 (01:27:06):
Yes?
Speaker 7 (01:27:06):
Sure?
Speaker 4 (01:27:08):
Okay. First of all, you know I'm not there standing
in your yard on a sunny day looking around. But
make sure you're getting at least six hours of sun
if you can. If it's less than that, you can
grow grass, but it is weaker and it's harder to
get it dense, and it's less tolerant of foot traffic
(01:27:30):
and things like that, So do what you can to
get the light as good as you can, and then
I would just go to you mentioned my schedule. It's
on my website Gardening with Skip dot com. That's also
where there's the free publication. It's just a very short
one telling you about soil sampling, how to do it
and where to send it and all of that. But
on that lun care schedule it tells you exactly when
(01:27:53):
to apply it and then it gives you a list
of options organic and synthetic that you can put down
and if you'll follow that. Also on the schedule it
talks about mowing. Believe it or not, mowing is one
of the single most important things you do to have
a nice dense lawn. Mowing on a regular schedule creates
good density. Mowing on an irregular schedule stresses the grass
(01:28:14):
and it works against good density. And then watering is
on there too, mow, water, fertilize. Those are the three
air rating. If you go out in the in the
soil and it's very dense clay that when it's dry
it's very very hard. You know, if you had a
spading for it, you pushed it down, it wouldn't eyveone
go in the ground. Then air rating is going to
(01:28:36):
be very important to have that done. But some people
will do compost top dressing also, and when they're trying
to rejuvenate a yard. You can hire this done if
you got the time and the inclination. You can do
it as you do it yourself, or it's a lot
of messy work, but you can do it, or you
can just hire somebody to come out and do it.
(01:28:57):
But air rating opens up that tight so oil and
it gets oxygen down in the roots and composts then
falls down in there as you top dress with compost,
and by top dressing I just mean spreading it very
thin and raking it around evenly.
Speaker 10 (01:29:14):
Okay, how deep would you to get started on it?
How deep do you go with air rating inch to itch?
Speaker 4 (01:29:21):
Well, well, if you deeper as deep as you can realistically,
if the soil is moderately moist and an errating machine
can get down there. If you hire somebody, they have
machines that do a better job, but they'll get down
about two or three inches on the air rating possibly
a little further, but not much. There are do it
(01:29:44):
yourself for tools where you can go out and it
takes a long time because you're basically walking around punching
holes in the ground, which if you've got a big
area that is not practical to do. There are if
you do rent an errator, get one that is called
a core. So there's two kinds of aer rators. One
just think of it as a rolling spike cylinder that
(01:30:08):
pushes holes into the ground, just like you took a
spading fork and pushed it in the ground. It squeezes
the hole open and compacts the sides of the hole
in the process. A core aerator is a hollow tube
that goes down and pops a plug out of the
ground and leaves it on the surface. So when you
get through core aerrating, it looks like they had a
small dog convention on your yard, if you know what
(01:30:29):
I'm talking about, All these little droppings everywhere, right, that's
the better way to aerrate as a core aerator, and
getting your lawn soil not soggy, wet, but moist is
important in order to have a better effect of core aerating. Also,
if you have an automatic system. Make sure and get
those little wire flags and turn it on the system
(01:30:51):
and flag every sprinkler head or else you'll get to
play a sprinkler repair after you air rate by damaging
those heads.
Speaker 10 (01:31:01):
Okay, what about the tree roots? Does my trees are
very well established, they're over twenty years old. Do you
work around that or do I gotta.
Speaker 4 (01:31:13):
Yeah, it'll well, it'll be it'll hit them. Yeah, it'll
hit them and either cut through them at their tiny
or or bounce off of them. Basically not not puncture there.
If you're getting really close to a tree, you're probably
not air rating in an area you don't need to
be going anyway. So I would just do that accordingly.
(01:31:36):
But in general, these are all practices. It's not like
everyone has to be done, but everyone helps. Watering properly helps,
mowing regularly helps. Fertilizing on a regular basis to get
the nutrient content like you want it with the right
kinds of fertilizer. That's important. Air Rating would be another
(01:31:57):
factor in a compacted soil, And if you had a
big sandy soil out there, air rating isn't gonna help much.
But if you if you've got some compaction and tight
clay type things. Air Rating is very helpful, and then
compost top dressing is the last one, and that just
puts composted organic matter around the runners of the plant,
because you're only putting about a about a half inch
(01:32:17):
of compost out maybe a third of an in, I mean,
not much at all, and then it falls down in
those aerration holes. You won't do that after you airrate,
and that again you're you're creating a root system that thrives,
and therefore your lawn thrives.
Speaker 10 (01:32:33):
Okay, So all right, short term, short term is okay.
Air rate at the top dressing on didn't fertilize would
be bad.
Speaker 4 (01:32:46):
Actually, I'm going to change that because of where we
are in the season. I would say you're going to
start fertilizing your lawn when it's grown enough to mow it.
A couple of times. You can fertilize a little earlier
for green up, but as far as just you know,
really taking getting the most out of your fertilizer, by
the time you've mowed the lawn twice so done in
(01:33:06):
League City, you know that's probably going to be early
April that you're fertilizing, maybe even late March, you're putting
the first fertilizer down, and then once we get into
some time in April, the lawn is growing enough where
you can do the core aeration. We try not to
(01:33:27):
air rate while the lawn is dormant. It can be done,
but it's a little better if you let the lawn
get growing because air rating can be somewhat damaging to turf.
You know, those times are going to hit turf runners
and things. There's going to be some amount of damage
that occurs, which during a good growing period time is
(01:33:48):
not a factor to worry about. So that we try
to let the grass get growing good before we start
the aer rating.
Speaker 10 (01:33:56):
Okay, I appreciate this.
Speaker 4 (01:33:59):
That's everything you need to know except somebody to come
out there and help you do it. Have fun taking
care of that rick. Thank you. All right, don't forget
to go sold testing dot soeld testing dot tamo, dot
ed you. But just go to gardening with skip dot com.
It's up there, plus a lot of other things you
(01:34:20):
might have an interest in, uh, but it'll link you direct.
It'll also tell you which test on the website, tells
you which tests to use, and all that kind of stuff.
That's important. So thanks for the call man. Good luck
down there in League City getting that long back in shape.
All right, you're listening to Garden Line. I'm your host,
Skip Richter, and the phone number here seven one three
(01:34:42):
two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three
two one two five eight seven four. Uh Nelson's has
several fertilizer lines that are really excellent for plants. They've
got their Color Star line, which is probably their most
famous of all, been around forty years, the Color Star
(01:35:02):
for anything with color. I mean, that makes it real easy.
They've got their Turf Star line, and we're going to
start talking about that a lot as we get into
turf fertilizing season here. But they have a number of
different products in Turf Star. Then they have a nutri
Star line. That's not the only lines they have, but
that's the next one. Nutristar has a number of different products,
typically designed for specific plants, you know, like for hibiscus
(01:35:26):
or for plumeria or something like that. But there's one
I want to tell it and that's Nutristar Genesis, and
it's a transplant mix. Now it's got six percent nitrogen,
one percent phosphate, and three percent potassium in it. But
it also has in it a lot of other good things.
It's got two different categories of microhizal fungi that associate
(01:35:50):
with the roots and make the plants better. It's got
bacteria that are beneficial. It's got other fungi that help
benefit that soul microbiome. It has humates in it. It's
designed to be mixed into the soil and a lot
of fertilizer. You should throw them on the top, water
them in, or scratch them in with a rake or whatever.
This one. When you're gonna transplant something, you dig a hole,
(01:36:11):
you put the plant in it, and as you refill it,
mix some of the nutristar genesis into the soil that
goes in around that plant. If you're gonna bump up plants,
maybe you're growing a little six pack of tomatoes. You're
gonna bump them up to a four inch pots each one.
That soil you use the potting mix, you use mix
nutristar genesis in that. Think of it as a transplant mix,
(01:36:34):
because that's what is designed for. And you will see
amazing early growth and response to that. After you do
the transplanting. After you do the planting out in the
yard whatever. You're gonna see fast growth as a result.
That's just how it works. Then afterwards you can use
other fertilizers, you know, like their color Star, their nature Star,
their nutri Star. You can use those on the surface later,
(01:36:56):
just like you do all the time when you fertilize.
But get hold. Some of that comes in low cans,
really easy to use and it works really really well.
That's Nutristar Genesis transplant Mix from the folks at Nelson. Okay,
I talking about there was something I was going to
tell you. Oh, I know what it was. I said
(01:37:17):
that I would talk about plants that are fragrant. There
are a lot of plants that are wonderfully fragrant, and
why not make that the thing you do this year
that's new or that's different. Maybe you got one fragrant
plant and you want to have more. How about that.
The nose knows what a good landscape smells like, and
a good landscape would have things. And here's a few
(01:37:39):
almond verbina. Oh my gosh, that makes a big old bush.
It's got white, spiky blooms that are pretty pretty, but
nothing to write home about. I mean, they're cool, but
oh my gosh, the fragrance. The vanilla fragrance is like,
you know, you stuck a bottle of vanilla extract under
your nose and it just has that wonderful fragrance. Texas
Mountain barrel grape clusters. Grape cluster looking bloom clusters that
(01:38:03):
are they smell like grape bubblegum, the strong grape smell.
Chinese fringe one of my favorite small to medium sized trees.
Chinese fringe has a pleasant little fragrance. It's a spring
bloomer confederate jasmine. Oh gosh, that vine is intoxicating. Here's
another one, white butterfly ginger. It's but probably one of
(01:38:28):
the most easy gingers to grow, easiest gingers to grow,
big old tall stalks. It puts up with more sun
than a lot of gingers do, and it blooms typically
at the end of the year. Remember were going to
spread these things out ballooms of the India. It's a
wonderful one. You want fragrant foliage, Mexican marigolds smells like
black jelly beans, copper canyon daisies, citrus and pine smelling,
(01:38:49):
and then all kinds of different herbs rosemary smells good. Okay,
there's a start. Go out there and have fun. Plant
some of those. I'll be right back.
Speaker 8 (01:39:00):
Back.
Speaker 4 (01:39:00):
Hey, thanks for listening into garden Line today. I hope
you are enjoying it. I'm certainly having fun. We are
talking about all kinds of different tips and things. Just
got through telling you a whole bunch of plants. Squeeze
those in right at the end of the last hour
or last segment that are fragrant that you can plant.
I'm just continuing to basically the theme I started yesterday,
(01:39:24):
I guess, and that is what are you going to
do different this year? What are you gonna do new
this year? What are you going to try that you've
never tried? And looking at gardening is way more than
just the standard picture people get when they picture a
landscape or they picture a garden or a lawn. Try
some new things, Try some things you haven't grown, and anyway,
(01:39:46):
I hope you will do that. Hopefully you will, because
it is a lot of fun. You're missing out on
a lot when you don't try a few new things.
Who knows, maybe it'll become your favorite thing. I can
kind of get boring when it comes to food. You know,
I basically if I'm going to go out to eat,
it's like, uh, inchiladas, what else? Chicken? Enchiladas? It's I'm
(01:40:13):
kind of a one trick pony when it comes to
gunna dat. But you got to try new things. And
my kids they come back and give me all these
strange things. In fact, my wife made a thing It's
a Greek called Greek bowls, and I don't know what
all was in it. It was good, it was good.
It had keen wah, which I used to not know
(01:40:33):
how to say and what it was, and now I do.
It was actually pretty good Greek balls, real healthy stuff
like that. See, I would never discover that on myself.
It would just be like, what do you want to
eat chiladas? I need a shirt that says something like that.
Maybe we'll try that. One of the main food groups
is enchiladas. All right, Well, if you like to give
(01:40:54):
us a call and talk gardening seven one three two
one two kt r H seven one three two into
kt r AH, we'll talk about the things that you
are interested in. If you have not had your soil testing.
We were just visiting with Rick and Michael talking about
getting your lawn in good shape, and you know, having
(01:41:15):
success with those kinds of things. It is important if
you're going to do that, to make sure that you
know what your soil nutrients are before you're fertilized. Now
Here on guard Line, I talk all the time about
use this fertilizer, use that fertilizer, and those are good
general blends. For most people, that's going to be just fine.
(01:41:35):
But if you really want to drill down, really get
into it and go to the bottom of all this.
Having a soil test tells you what you need to
fertilize with. So for example, there's your yard in your
neighbor's yard, and we're both we're gonna put the same
(01:41:55):
fertilizer on both yards. But what if your neighbor had
a phosphorus content that was through the roof. Therefore they're
getting a lot of iron, iron, chleurosis, and some other
issues caused by too much phosphorus. What if your yard
had almost no potassium in it in your soil, well,
would you use the same fertilizer. Well, no, A soil
(01:42:18):
test would tell you, yeah, I get your standard fertilizer,
but you need to supplement with this or you see
what I'm saying. In other words, you would guide your
fertilizing based on your soil test. Now that doesn't mean
in every place you garden every year you're doing a
soil test, not at all, even on the lawn. Once
every three years or so is probably enough. I haven't
(01:42:40):
sold tested my garden in a good while because I
just keep adding composted organic matter, and every time I
test it, all the levels are good. They're all high
because I just add a little bit of nitrogen, especially
for things like corn that need extra nitrogen. But soil
testing is the simplest way to find out where you are.
It's like the starting point. At least do a soil
(01:43:01):
test once to find out where you are, and if
you're way off, then plan on making the amendments you
need and coming back in a year or two and
checking it again and seeing where you are, if you've
fixed it, if you've improved it, or if you need
to do some more additions. If you go to my
website gardeningoskip dot com, there is a bar across it
(01:43:23):
that says all publications. The new publications are on the
front page, but there's a lot more publication. If you
go to all publications, you'll see one called Soil Testing
made Simple, and it just gives you the basics of
how to take a soil test and where to send
it and stuff. And you want your soil test, this
is important to be representative of the soil in the
(01:43:47):
area where you're growing that particular kind of plant, whether
it's a lawn or a tomato patch. And so that
doesn't mean you got in your lawn and you just
scoop some soil off the surface, throw it in a
bag and send it to the lab. The lab will
tell you what's in the soil you put in that bag.
But the soil in that bag is not accurately representing
(01:44:08):
the soil in your yard. You know, if the neighbors
stop buy and let their dog go to the bathroom
in your yard in that spot last fall, I suspect
the nutrient levels will be a little different there than
they are in general through your yard. So by taking
a variety of samples and putting them in a bucket
and mixing them up, then you can take a composite
(01:44:28):
out of there and now you've got on average, this
is what my lawn is like. And then you fertilize accordingly. Secondly,
it's important when you do a soil test in an
area that's not rototilled, it's not mixed up or spaded
a lot to do a core that's vertical of soil
in your sample. Phosphorus. When you put phosphorus on the ground,
(01:44:52):
you're putting your fertilizer spruder and going back and forth
over your lawn every time you put some phosphorus out
typically and when you do, basically goes down to the
surface and doesn't go very deep at all. An inch
maybe two is about how far phosphorus is going to
naturally move down. It ties up. So if you scooped
the top inch or two out of your lawn and
(01:45:13):
that was your sample, the phosphorus would be higher than
it really is in the plant's root zone. If you
dug a hole and took soil out of the bottom
of the hole, the phosphorus would be lower. It would
not be representative. You want a vertical core of soil
from top to bottom and just follow those simple guidelines.
(01:45:33):
Go to Soil Testing dot tmu U and it'll tell
you exactly what you need to do. Send your soil
in and get it tested. And then you know exactly
how to fertilize. Well, I'm pressing up against a break here.
We'll come back with more tips and your calls, and
John and Katie, you will be our first up when
we come back. For the rest of you. If you'd
like to get on board, be ready to go. Seven
(01:45:55):
to one three two one two. K t r H
seven one three two went to KTRH that it's been
a while since you heard this one. All right, both,
we're back with guard line and your calls. We're gonna
start this segment by heading straight out to Katie to
talk to John. Hello, John, what kind of guard line?
Speaker 5 (01:46:17):
Good mornings. I appreciate you taking my call.
Speaker 19 (01:46:19):
Uh so you said take advantage of new opportunities, and
that's what exactly I'm planning on doing.
Speaker 5 (01:46:24):
But feel a bit overwhelmed. Good avocados. Me and my
wife both love them.
Speaker 19 (01:46:31):
We have space for a couple of trees, and then
you have the A types, B types, California types, Florida
types cold heartiness. So just curious if you had room
for two avocado trees, you want them to increase the yield,
and then which two varieties would you picked? I'd be
(01:46:52):
able to give you the most avocados during the year.
Speaker 4 (01:46:56):
Well, that's a good question, and avocados are a wonderful
plan that is marginally col hardy for us. We got
to kind of watch it and take care of it.
Just remember, and I'll just say this up front, as
you go through the seasons with your avocado, you always
want to be ready to mound up some soil around
the base. So if we go back into one of
those seven degree cold cold spells or something like that,
(01:47:18):
you're going to be able to at least protect it
down to that and it'll re sprout and grow real fast.
As far as varieties, there's a lot of good ones.
There is one called Joey. There's one called Brazos Bell.
There's one called Mexicola. There's also a Mexicola Grande. There's
(01:47:40):
one called Laila l I l A. There's one I've
not grown it called Fantastic that other people have told
me it does well. Then Don Juan I mentioned Don Juan.
That's another good one. Yeah, Poncho is another good one.
Oo La la. Those are all ones that are grown here.
(01:48:00):
The standard type of avocado that you grow that you
get in the supermarket the dark, dark skin with bumps.
That's a different kind of avocado than we grow in
our yards here we grow a smooth skin type of
avocado because those are much more cold hearty. So when
you see has in the grocery store, you don't grow
(01:48:21):
hass here. Oh, I mean if you do, you won't
have success. Uh that's what I'm That's what I'm talking about.
But you go to a good quality garden center and
you're going to find the kind of avocados that want
to grow here, you know, and from you, you know
down there in the Kati area. I mean you I
don't know where you normally like shop, but they're they're
probably going to have a good quality avocado. If it's
(01:48:41):
a mom and pop home and independent garden center, youn
go down from you and go direct south down to
let's see, Antenna Gardens is probably the closest one to
where you are.
Speaker 5 (01:48:51):
Right there sair enough. I've been there before. In Channet Forrest.
Speaker 19 (01:48:54):
The Arborgates, all of them are.
Speaker 4 (01:48:58):
All three of these, all three of them are outstanding.
I know, I know Arborgate's got probably they probably have
eight or nine different avocados that they that they sell
and they're all going to be ones that would be
recommended in this area.
Speaker 5 (01:49:14):
Look, I appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (01:49:16):
Yeah, all three of those, both of the Enchanted's and
Arborgator outstanding. You're not going to go wrong. You're not
going to go wrong. Uh planet to think about when
you plant it. You know, it does want sunlight. And
avocado tree is huge. They get huge in time. Here,
they tend to get frozen back, so they make more
like a giant bush a small tree kind of thing.
(01:49:37):
But if you have it in a place, especially early
in its life, where you can try to do some
kind of covering of it, whether it's you know, giant
PVC structure or something, just to get it going and
get it better established. I would do that if possible.
Speaker 5 (01:49:53):
Or just put it in a pod and bring it
in like a citrus plant.
Speaker 4 (01:49:57):
Well you could, I mean, you know, but that'd be like,
you know, taking a tree that wants to be real big,
you put it in a pot. It's going to confine
it a lot. And when you do that, you end
up with the roots filling the pot and then some
so you're watering very frequently. You know, every day in
the summertime, you're having to secure it so it doesn't
blow over and whatnot. That is not a bad strategy
(01:50:20):
for at least the first year or so, but also
typically they get planted out in the ground. It was
a huge pot. Is a huge pot. You might be
able to manage it in a way where you get
some meals out of it.
Speaker 5 (01:50:33):
Yeah, fair enough, appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (01:50:37):
You know what we need to do. I just this
just occurred to me. I'm thinking out loud here. So
uh oh, if you were to take an avocado and
plant it in a pot, a giant pot that you
could lay over. I'm talking of a pot that's five
or six feet across, and then you just get a
crane and lay it over flat, and then you could
throw a tarp over it when we're having freezes, and
(01:51:00):
then the next year bring the crane and bring it
back up again. That's insane.
Speaker 5 (01:51:06):
They went by RCW yesterday.
Speaker 7 (01:51:08):
That is huge.
Speaker 19 (01:51:09):
I don't know where they get to two hundred gallon
huge plastic plot.
Speaker 4 (01:51:16):
Yeah, yeah, well yeah, RCW. David Walliamson owns RTW. He
also is part of the Williamson Tree Farm up there
in Plannersville, and that's where they grow all their big
containers and stuff. So when you go there, yeah, they'll
they can get you a big tree. Uh, and they'll
they'll plant it for you too, so you don't have
(01:51:37):
to put your chiropractors kids through college, if you know
what I'm saying. Yes, sir, all right, we'll have fun
with those. By the way, go to the Haggi horticulture
website that I was talking about before, uh, and there
is a publication just on avocados. Now it's going to
(01:51:58):
have a limited number of variety that it lists, but
it'll tell you about growing an avocado successfully. And it's free.
You just look at it online or download and print
it out if you want. It's multicolor.
Speaker 5 (01:52:10):
No, I appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (01:52:11):
Thanky horticulture. All right, sir, take care of John. Good luck.
Now all we ask on guarden Line. We don't charge
for advice, but we do ask you to bring half
the avocados you grow and drop them off at KTRH
and we'll call it.
Speaker 5 (01:52:22):
Even fair enough.
Speaker 4 (01:52:24):
Thank you. That sounds thank you. Thanks for the call man,
have a good day. One of these days will show
up with some groceries at the state. That is a joke.
By the way, though, don't start feeling like you're gonna
bring me your vegetables, all right, you're listening to Garden
line seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy
(01:52:48):
four or if you like to just dial by letters
seven one three two one two KTRH ktr that's what
we're on here. You know, you can listen to KTRH.
Of course, you can listen to seven forty am live
on the radio. We go all the way up to
Huntsville area, all the way to Louisiana, and I have
listened to KTRH on the other side of New Bronfuls,
on the other side of thirty five. It doesn't quite
(01:53:09):
go into San Antonio. They have their own station there,
but it goes a wide area apup. But a lot
of people listen on the computer or even yet better yet,
on the app. If you haven't downloaded the iHeart Media app,
that one allows you to listen to the show live.
There's other ways, other apps you can listen to pass
(01:53:29):
shows as a podcast. But if you do iHeartMedia, you
can listen to KTRH live no matter where you are.
You know, cousin Millie up in timbuck To, Canada can
listen to Garden line on the iHeart Media app live
or listen to pass shows. A lot of gardeners I've
talked to like to put on their phone. Just put
(01:53:52):
on the phone and turn it on, and you know
it's daylight outside. Now you can be outside getting some
stuff done, listening in the garden and who knows, maybe
you find a little bit and you will know what
it is. Take a picture of it with the phone
you got in your hand, give my producer a call.
He'll tell you how to send it to me and
we can do a live answer to what's going on.
Just another way to listen to guardenline. I think that's
(01:54:13):
pretty cool. I spend a lot of time listening to
podcasts because I'm in the road. I'm staring at a windshield,
and podcasts are a great way to do that. So
you can go back and listen to past shows as
well if you'd like to. Earlier, I gave a whole
bunch of different fragrant plants, and I bet you couldn't
write those down that fast. You want to go back,
(01:54:34):
listen to the Today Show. It'll be posted online and
you can get that list of fragrant plants or the
comments that I made about soil testing or all the
other things we've talked about today. Well, it is the
top of the hour and the music which means I
need to quit talking. We will be back for our
last hour of the weekend here in just a little bit.
(01:54:56):
If you'd like to get on the board to be
first up when we come back. Seven to one three
two one two k t R.
Speaker 16 (01:55:05):
Kt r H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any
of the products or services advertised on this program.
Speaker 1 (01:55:11):
Welcome to kt r H Garden Line with Skip Richard's.
Speaker 3 (01:55:22):
Trim.
Speaker 2 (01:55:23):
Just watch him as so many.
Speaker 3 (01:55:31):
Good things to set.
Speaker 4 (01:55:43):
All right, let's do this. We got an hour of
garden Line left in US today. Well, can we cover
I'll tell you what you tell me what to cover?
A call with your questions. Things you're interested in, uh things,
Maybe there's plant you want to identify. Do you know
you can send me photos of things if you will
follow that up with a call in the garden Line
(01:56:03):
so we can talk about it. It is kind of
hard to diagnose and identify certain things just based on
a verbal description of them. You know, sometimes we get
lucky we can get that done, but in general it's
better if you can just send me a photo. Let's
take a look at those and we'll get to the
bottom of it. Try to help you with what you're doing.
(01:56:25):
We are on the doorstep of spring, and so things
are about to really break out here and not too
long for those of you down south, you know spring
begins and definitely in February. We're already in the big
middle of spring. And you want to be ready for that,
and you get ready for it by getting your soil ready.
My mantra on here is brown stuff before green stuff
(01:56:45):
with it, which is just a simple way I say
it to say, hey, get the soil right before you
put the plants in. That's what that means. Brown stuff
before green stuff. And if you will take care of
your soil, if you will get it right, you will
find that you have much better chances of success. Soil
as a foundation. I think about this. This is kind
(01:57:05):
of a corny analogy. But are you going to build
a house, you know, on sand where you don't have
a good solid foundation, or are you going to take
the tu bat fours that are the base frame of
your walls and things. Are you just going to set
them on the dirt, or are you going to put
a concrete foundation underneath them, or pure and beam or
something to hold them up. Foundation is everything, and when
it comes to soil and plants success, foundation is also everything.
(01:57:31):
And so getting that soil right and right is not
the same for all plants. You know, it's pretty much
the case that and I even tend to do this
is every time someone's going to plant a plant, I go, oh,
we'll mix some composts in the soil, and that, by
and large it's a good idea. But there are plants
like cactus that grow out in soils that are rocky
(01:57:53):
and clayey and don't have any compost in them at all,
and it's a dry, aired environment and so so obviously
they don't need that to grow right. But then most
plants are going to benefit from that. And if you
buy plants in the store, if you buy cactus in store,
it doesn't come in a container full of gravel, comes
with some organic materials in it. You can do that,
(01:58:14):
but just know this that whether you're planting blueberries and azaleas,
which love acid, acidic high organic matter soils and sands,
or if you're going to put in something like a
fig tree that can tolerate a very heavy clay. There's
a range there, and so getting the soil right, however
you do that is important. And just knowing that soil
(01:58:36):
structure and texture and all of that plays a part
in the success that you have with your plants. I
have become a big fan of backyard birding. I am
not the guy who puts on the safari hat and
the cargo shorts and runs around with binoculars stomping through
(01:58:57):
the wood saying that sounds like a black, black striped
orange warbly whatever bird to me. Obviously, I don't know
what I'm talking about. And people love that, and that's fine.
That's a great hobby, awesome hobby, a bird watching. But
I'm the backyard bird guy. I want them to come
(01:59:18):
to see me. I will feed them, I will provide
them water and will have success. And by the way,
do you know that birds need water even in the winter,
if there's no water around, birds drink every day, just
like you do every day, even though it's winter, even
that it's cold, you drink less, but you drink. You
need that and birds need water too, So always have
fresh water available to them. And when we have a
(01:59:40):
freezing night, that water's gonna be frozen over. Go out
there and break it loose, put some warm water in
it or something to thaw that ice, and give the
bird something that they are able to get to and drink.
That's important. Bird needs shelter too. And by the way,
Wibirds Unlimited has awesome selection of bird nest boxes. Now's
the time to get your nest boxes ready because it
(02:00:03):
won't be long. Very soon the birds will start many
types of birds will start nesting. And while Birds has
got bluebird boxes that's a specific kind of box, a
certain size hole. They have boxes for Carolina wrens and chickadees,
a big old owl boxes, giant holes and big boxes.
Bat boxes are not a bird, but they fly. And
(02:00:25):
Purple Martins and Purple Martin houses are amazing. And they
got the big giant gord types, but it's a plastic
gord that's easier to clean. It's just designed better than
just hanging up a gourd. And they also have the
ones that look like little condos that are on a
pole that you know you can bring it up the
whole house down, so they dissemble in a way that
(02:00:45):
allows you to get in there and clean them really well.
They're all designed for the best results, and they're at
Wildbirds and now's the time to get started. Don't wait.
You want when the Purple Mountain Martin Scouts come looking
for a place, you want them to see your house
and you want to go tell us about, Hey, come on,
we're going to live here. This's a great place. They've
(02:01:06):
got houses that are designed right. They have proper ventilation
that's very important, especially in our Texas heat. They have
proper drainage so that it rains that the house strains
was not mucky and soggy and roddy and everything in there.
They've got the entrance hole size that's right for the
kind of birds you want. That's very important. And they
(02:01:28):
can help you protect your boxes from predator. Do you
know that a snake can climb a pole and get
into a birdhouse. There's stories about that getting up into
a birdhouse, up on a pole and there's a snake
inside for crying out loud. Well, wild birds can put
baffles and other things on poles to keep any kind
of predator, whether it's a snake or something else, crawling
up there to try to get to the eggs and things.
(02:01:50):
They can take care of that. It's all at Wildbirds,
and while you're there, check out their new product. It's
called Cardinal Confetti Blend. They also have a cardinal tube
feeder and a Good Evening Cardinal feeder, two new cardinal
feeders that go with that Cardinal Confetti Blend. And the
Cardinal Confetti Blend is really cool. It's got just this
(02:02:13):
makes me hungry. Most of it safflowers, black all sunflowers,
sunflower chips, nutrius, safflower bark, butter bits, peanut halves, and
here we go. Not so much on dried meal worms,
although that may be good. I may try them sometimes.
And striped sunflower all in there in that blend. It
is really cool. You just put in loose feeder. You
(02:02:33):
can get their cardinal tube feeder, you can get the
Good Evening Cardinal feeder. That are really cool cool, but
this blend is it's just awesome far bringing cardinals and
by the way, a lot of other birds will like
it too. It's brand new from Wildbird's gonna have it
all year. It's not just gonna be a spring thing.
They're gonna have it all year. Go to WBU dot
com forward slash Houston and find the Wildbird's store nearest
(02:02:55):
to you. They're six of them in the Greater Houston area.
Time for a break, I'll be right back with your calls.
All right, we're hopping. Let's do it. We got another
segment coming up here with your calls seven one three
two one two KT Right, what do you want to
ask about? How can we help you have a more
bountiful garden, a more beautiful landscape, and more fun in
(02:03:18):
the process. That's what we'd like to do. I uh
was excuse me. I was out in the yard the
other day. We have a couple of a couple. We
have about three cypress trees in our yard which were
here before I got here. And uh, I have always
thought it was a beautiful tree. And now I have
a love hate relationship with cypress trees because mine producing knees.
(02:03:40):
There are types that don't have knees. If you're going
to plant a cypress, get one that doesn't produce knees.
A good tree grower, we'll be able to tell you
what that is.
Speaker 7 (02:03:48):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (02:03:48):
Anyway, I got knees all over the place. I dug
them all out with the I think three wheelbarrow loads
of cypress knees when I put in my new lawn
this past April, and now all the cypress needles drop. Now.
Cypress needles are attractive, they nice little. I use them
in my gardens as I was talking about earlier, for
walkways to step on, for mulches and things like that.
(02:04:11):
But when you have a golden retriever with big long
feathers and they go out in the yard and wrestle.
We have two of them and they come in and
they bring in about nine hundred thousand cypress needles to
drop on our floors, and we clean them up. And
I go outside and I try to get all the
needles up. I have to do that about ten times
during the fall, rather than rake once or twice like
(02:04:32):
most people, because of those dark, darn cypress needles being
out everywhere. So anyway, I was out there taking a
look at all the needles are officially off the tree.
Now some cold weather and some good rain and some
wind has taken them out, so at last I can
do a final cleanup and be good to go. I
still like those trees a lot. They have so many
good attributes. They can grow in areas where the drainage
(02:04:55):
is poor. They can also grow in areas you know
that aren't boggy at all. Just need to give them
a little bit of water in late summer if they
get a little bit dry, but other than that they're
really good tree. But I go out and do some
cleanup on those as well. And now my dogs can
run out and do what they want to do without
(02:05:16):
me having to go through the clean up stage as
they come through the door. So anyway that is happening
out there, I pretty much moved everything into the garden walkways,
all the organic materials, and I haven't been out gathering
neighbors leaves, but I usually do that. Try to beat
the bulk garbage trucks on that day, swing up, pick
(02:05:40):
up some good ones and their high quality. Got a
little grinder to grind it up, so that speeds the decomposition.
But the main reason I like the grinder is because
it makes it a better mulch leaves. I know the
forest is mulched with unground leaves, of course, but I
want it to be attractive and I want it to
not blow away. And so you get a big old
(02:06:01):
leaf like a red oak leaf or a sycamore leaf,
and you get a little breeze and pew takes off
to the neighbor's house, so you gotta run them through
the Some people use a lawn more And if you
want to recycle your leaves, you can do that. You
kind of make a window of leaves and mow over
it and add more leaves and over it, and then
rake that up and you got a ground up leaf.
(02:06:21):
You can use a bagging attachment on your mower after
you've run over them a couple of times and bag
them up and then just take them right to wherever
you want a mulch and put them in the garden beds.
Someone called me one time and they said, can you
use oak leaves as mulch? And I said, well, God,
does that means? Really? Think about it? An oak forest?
(02:06:42):
What does it get molched with oak leaves? A mixed
hardwood forest mulched with oak and a lot of other
kinds of leaves. Yes, you can use any kind of
leaves for malt. It's okay. Somewhere along the line, way
back when we decided we had to do things different
than nature does, used to be that you had to
bag your lawn. I gotta bag those clippings, bag those clippings,
and then someone named doctor Bill Canoop from Texas A
(02:07:06):
and M Turf Department created something called Don't Bag It,
the Don't Bag It program, which talked about recycling the leaves. Actually,
actually I wrote the Don't Bag it leaf management section.
It was don't Bag it for lawn clippings, and the
dope bag it leaf management and don't bag it compost.
I did the don't bag it leaf management anyway, Yes,
you can return. Do you know that? And this is
(02:07:29):
I know it's not mowing season, but while I'm talking
about it, do you know that your lawnmower puts out
more nutrients than your fertilizer spreader. If you get my
schedule and you fertilize every time. I say to fertilize,
I mean every time, even the spring green up time,
which is optional. If you do all of that, and
you look at how many pounds of nitrogen phosphors tasking
(02:07:50):
you put out, and then you take grass clippings and
you count all the mowings you do through the season,
you send those some clippings to the lab and say
what's the nutrient content? Your lawn mower puts out more
nutrients and your fertilizer spreader. So what's the take on
If you bag your clippings and throw them away, you're
renting fertilizer. You're not buying it. You buy it, put
(02:08:14):
it on the ground, grow grass clippings with it, and
haul away the nutrients. That's called renting fertilizer. You just
have it for a little while. I'm gonna let that
sink in for a second, because for a lot of
folks that's kind of like, whooh, never thought about it
that way, Well you should. It's a good way to
think about because it's the truth. That's how nature works.
But anyway, putting those leaves and stuff into the gardens,
(02:08:38):
running over them, using them as maults, letting them decompose naturally,
they moderate soil temperature. And you need mults in the winter, summer,
all through the year. There's not a month of the
year you don't need maltch. And the spring warm season
weeds are germinating early spring, late winter, and you got
to have malts to prevent them from getting started. In
the fall cool season weed you're germinating. That's when we're
(02:09:01):
talking about October, November, and even some in December. You
got to have multch down to prevent those from getting
established When the weather is hot and dry. Moultch helps
reduce water loss from the soil when the weather is cold.
Malt protects soil temperature, moderates salt temperature so that a
semi tender perennial you might lose in a hard phrase
(02:09:22):
is protected and you don't lose it. So leaves, leave
the leaves, leave the leaves, let them be. I know
you want to make it look pretty. That's okay, that's good,
of course, but just know that it's not a mistake.
It's a design that leaves drop off the trees, drop
off the grass plants and become part of building the soil.
(02:09:48):
That was your public service announcement for today. See I
wanted to spend a little bit of time today talking
about color and color changes in the spring. We are
still in the winter season and we have a number
of plants that do good for sprucing up our landscapes
and creating a bedding plant color That means a flower bed,
(02:10:10):
an annual plant that you put in, or a perennial plant.
The number one color plants in the cool season are
pansies and violas. That's number one lots of those that
we use. They are the hardiest flowering plants of the
winter time for our area. Then we have plants that
are hardy but not quite as hardy. That would be
(02:10:31):
things like, for example, a Lissum is a really nice plant.
Snap dragons are really nice plants. Dianthus that's probably maybe
number two. I don't know. I'd have to line them
all up that decide if that's number two. Dianthus is
a beautiful kind of a mini carnation looking little plant
that is really attractive. There are compact types that make little,
(02:10:55):
small amounts of color flowers, and then there's tall, upright
types like the Amazon series that just have neon colors
instead of you know, standard red. They just have this
neon I don't know what it is, some version of
a beautiful, beautiful red colors that are just kind of well,
(02:11:17):
they're neon. They're beautiful, and they're more upright taller stem
that can be used for cut flowers too, by the way.
And then we have other things. Colondula is a good
cool season plant that you can grow and have flowers here.
Nasturtiums pretty much as another good one that will bloom
some in the cooler times of the year, lots of
good options out there. Then we have cool season foliage
(02:11:38):
is probably the main one is Dusty Miller. It's a
silvery gray looking foliage. It looks really good with flowers
that are kind of in the blue range of colors.
It makes a good combo to have blue and silver,
kind of silver foliage along with the blue flowers that
looks really good. We have other plants that we can
plant in the cool season for color. We get into
(02:12:01):
the spring season and the freezes and frosts are behind us.
That's when the petunias are just outstanding, and you really
need to have petunias somewhere. We have so many new
types now that have been bred to be more floriferous.
They bloom and bloom and bloom. You get a petunia
(02:12:21):
like oh one that came out a few years ago,
bubblegum yellow, I mean, excuse me, pink flowers like pink
bubble gum. And there's so many blooms on that plant
you can't see the foliage. I don't know how the
plant survives catching sunlight, but I mean it is all
blooms over the top of it. And there are many
other kinds of attractive petunias. Now they have some called
supertunias that are a little smaller blooms, but they bloom blue,
(02:12:44):
bloom and just cover up with blossoms. That's a good one. Zenias.
I mentioned those earlier. That's a good warm season plant
for color. So if you want to start some plants
yourself for color later, you can begin to plant some
of the things you're going to plant later on. A
lot of people like Maragoles, put those out in the spring.
They cannot take any frost or anything close to frost.
(02:13:06):
Just wait, start a little transplant, plant them out when
it's time to go, or go to the garden center
and buy you some. Those are good ones. I sunflowers
like the warm weather as well. There's many other great
plants we can put out there. Caliber coas another good one.
I mean I can said they're just naming flowers all
the time. Your garden centers have the ones you need.
But in that transition, you want to improve your bed
(02:13:29):
for planting. And that's where I would get pull all
the old flowers out. When you're going to make that
transition from cool season to warm season, and it's coming
up not too far from now, pull the old ones out,
work about an inch of compost into the soil. That
would be good, and then you're ready to go and
plant your new plants. If there's going to be a
(02:13:50):
little break between the two, make sure and put a
mulch over the soil because otherwise every weed on earth
will pop up in there, and so you want to
make sure and keep that all covered with that, you
can pull the malts back when you want to go
and do your flowering. Then number one, well, number one,
one of the main mistakes people make when it comes
to color in their beds is they don't fertilize enough.
(02:14:12):
If you fertilize on a regular basis, you can produce
good color. You produce vigor. Vigor is important to make carbohydrates,
which make bloom buds, which make blooms, which makes beauty.
And so you always want to make sure and on
a regular basis provide small amounts of color or use
a product that is a slow release that's going to
(02:14:33):
give you a release over time in order to have
success with that. So when you're getting ready for the transition,
or if you're putting in a new flower bed this year,
make sure either buy a quality bed mix from one
of our local purveyors we talk about here on garden
Line and create a bed that is outstanding soil. Or
if you've got an existing bed, you can use the
(02:14:54):
same bed mix to spruce it up a little bit.
Or you can just mix in some composts as well
to get things right. Set yourself up for success, because
I'm telling you there is nothing like a gorgeous color
bed around your home. If you want to follow all
the rules of color, you can do that. You know,
you got to go to the opposite sides of the
color wheel and whatnot and all that stuff. Or you
(02:15:15):
can just plant what you like. Just remember all things
in the back short of things in the front, so
one beautiful plant doesn't hide another.
Speaker 7 (02:15:23):
One.
Speaker 4 (02:15:23):
Time for me to take a break the phone number
seven one three two one two kt r H. I'll
be right back, and feel free to grab a helium
balloon and sing along. All right, that's not of that.
Welcome back to garden Line, the show where we give
gardening advice and occasionally play weird stuff as music bumper music.
(02:15:47):
Our phone number seven one three two one two kt
r H. Let's head out to humble and we're gonna
talk to Rick. Hello, Rick, welcome to guard Line. Are
you there?
Speaker 3 (02:16:00):
Rick?
Speaker 4 (02:16:04):
All right? I don't know. Hope we lost him? Okay,
maybe Rock'll call back. Sound like he's on the road. Well.
I was talking about color in beds and things a
while ago and the importance of getting the soil right
round suftware green stuff. Part of the brown stuff is
also the nutrient levels, and mixing some stuff in the
soil is helpful. And you're gonna transplant plants, you could
(02:16:25):
sprinkle a little of the nutris tar genesis in there
by the way, that would be good. Just kind of
do it around the plants as you're mixing up the
soil and planting the transplants in there, give them a
good dose of it, and then get you some of
their color Star from Nelson and sprinkle that in to
provide the ongoing not sprinkle it into the soil, but
add it later as a top dressing and scratch it in,
(02:16:47):
water it in to continue about every three months. You
want to add some color story in to provide that
extra boost that's going on. Those are just two great
products again from the folks at Nelson. Plant food and
that extra nutrients extra nutrients. That is the key to
success with flowering plants. You know a lot of times
(02:17:07):
you look at fertilizers and a flowering furtlizer is going
to have higher phosphorus the middle number in it. And
that's true, that phosphorus. Each we oversimplify. We say, well,
like nitrogen makes more growth. Well, yes it does, but
nitrogen also does things inside the plants, the stems and
the roots that help with nutrient and water uptake as well.
(02:17:30):
So nutrients do a lot of things. And phosphorus, yes,
it does help root development, it does help bloom development.
But if you want a flowering plant to keep going,
it's got to keep growing. You've got to have new growth.
And those petunias I was talking about, they will flower
themselves into almost a stunted stage of growth. They will
overdo it. I'll take my petunias as getting way ahead
(02:17:52):
of the season, but just an FYI, I'll take my
petunias and after they've done their good bloom and they're
kind of waning a little bit, I will sheare mine
back and then I'll fertilize them and water it in
and get a new boost of growth. Because that boost
of new growth is going to have a whole bunch
of new growth on it, a new bloom's on it.
Same thing with Salvia greggy I. That's a perennial for summertime.
(02:18:13):
Wonderful salvia, wonderful native of the Southwest salvia. Your Salvia
gregye will become a sparse, woody subshrub if you never
fertilize it. If you will print it back by a bout.
I'd cut it back by about two thirds, maybe half,
at the end of winter. Put some fertilizer down, watered in.
(02:18:33):
You're going to get fresh new growth. By the time
we get to May, it's going to be still blooming.
It never quits blooming. It's always blooming. Gouind and shear
it again, this time only by about a third. Fertilize
it in water and watch what happens. The roses are
that way. You know, they have a big spring bloom.
April is beautiful and they kind of wane. Cheer them
back a little bit, fertilize them water and get some
(02:18:55):
new growth again. We do the same thing in August
for our roses. At the end of August, and also
for some of the other plants like Salvia grege you
can do it again. Just cheer it back, fertilize it.
You need growth to have good bloom production. And a
lot of times our plants bloom great at first, everything's
pretty in the spring, and then it's like, yeah, they're
not doing so good for a lot of plants. That
(02:19:18):
is a strategy to help solve that. We're going to
go now out to talk to k in Pearland. Hello, Kay,
welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 18 (02:19:26):
Well, hi, thank you. I forgot to ask you yesterday.
Can you grow mayhaws here?
Speaker 4 (02:19:35):
You can? You can mayhaws like a slightly acidic soil.
They can tolerate wet conditions. They're not. That doesn't mean
they have to be constantly soggy wet. It just means
they tolerate that. And there are a few varieties out
there that you can find. They're not easy to find.
Mayhaws are not a common fruit, but they are one
(02:19:59):
of the few Texas native fruits that we have. You know,
we don't have a lot of native fruits. So did
you grow up excuse me, did you grow up eating mayhaws?
Now you're growing up, did you have there?
Speaker 18 (02:20:19):
I worked for of someone who did craft shows and
he made his own jams and jellies and sauces and
all that thing, and had a lot of people asking
for Mayhaw jelly and he didn't have a Mayhaw tree
(02:20:39):
and he couldn't find it anywhere. So I just I
was just curious if it, you know, if if they're
they are not prominent.
Speaker 4 (02:20:49):
I know, so yeah, they're not. And I was recently
recently looking over the Arbigate list of fruits. I mean,
they have bazillion kind of fruit plants to get sent
up at Urbigate, and mayhous is not on that list either.
I don't know if they could get them, but there's
going to be a way to get a hold of them.
They're just they're just not in the trade. People don't
(02:21:10):
ask for them. People don't even know what they are.
But they're like a little miniature apples. If you look
at one growing looks like a little tiny apple.
Speaker 18 (02:21:16):
I've never really even seen one.
Speaker 1 (02:21:20):
Yeah, so I don't know.
Speaker 18 (02:21:21):
I was just curious because they are people love the jelly,
and that just happened, you know, more than one year
that he's been doing this, So I was just curious.
But thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (02:21:35):
There you go, Thank you, take care of you. Back,
appreciate the call. Take care. All right, we got Rick back.
Let's go to Humble and we're going to talk to Rick. Hey, Rick,
welcome to garden Line.
Speaker 9 (02:21:48):
Hey, Skip, I got a question for you about by
high grass, like the various varieties. I've got a property
in San Ju Sano County and it's mostly sandy home
and it's acidic because it's mostly forested. As curious as
it is behind the proper choice for that, uh scenario?
(02:22:09):
Or is there better options? And tip that there is
anything available that's made him. I would I'd love to
have a you know, use that as well.
Speaker 6 (02:22:17):
So I'll go ahead and yeah, let's go.
Speaker 4 (02:22:21):
Well that's a that's a great question, Rick. And what
we what we uh refer to it as behea grass
b A h I A like the Labajea Mexican Texas.
What mission mission site? The hair grass is very good
(02:22:43):
in acidic areas, rainy area is a very tough grass,
very tough. I knew a guy that had a Christmas
tree farm in East Texas and he used the hair
grass as his parking lot.
Speaker 7 (02:22:56):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (02:22:56):
And it I mean it can take the wear and
tear and it was is good as a lawn grass.
It has a problem number one. It's a very coarse
textured grass. It's not pleasant to walk on. But in
Florida and other places they do have Behey lawns and
they manage them, they take care of them, and they
make a decent lawn out of it. The thing I
don't like about Behea is it sends up a seedhead
(02:23:18):
the day after you mow, and those seaedheads will be
on like one foot stalk sticking up. It's like you
mowed it and within no time, here's these seedheads coming
back up. And that that's kind of not such a
conducive to a pretty lawn. But it is a very tough,
easy to grow grass, not a problem at all to grow.
You just don't see it from sod farms and things.
Speaker 9 (02:23:38):
Typically this is a property good no homeowners association, So
I don't know that.
Speaker 10 (02:23:44):
That's kind of okay, there you go.
Speaker 9 (02:23:47):
I gotta make mama happy. And other than that, I mean,
is there any like spring grass or anything else that's
like a native grass that would be good for a
place that gets about sixty inches a round a here?
Speaker 4 (02:23:59):
Yeah, there are a number of different ones. Yeah, Okay,
if you want to hang on, let me run to
a break. I gotta go and let me come back
and try to answer this a little bit more for you.
If not, thank you for the call. All right, folks,
I'll be right back. All right, Welcome back to Garden Line.
We're gonna run back to the phones here in our
(02:24:21):
last segment of the day. By the way, we're gonna
go to Houston and talk to David. Hello, David, Welcome
to Garden Line.
Speaker 5 (02:24:28):
Yes, sir, how are you this morning?
Speaker 4 (02:24:30):
Good morning, I'm good, I'm good.
Speaker 20 (02:24:33):
My daughter and Russy have got a Christmas President's a
garden light, and we just wanted to get something like,
something different, something special, And I don't know, I just
I just want to see what what you what would
you suggest that we get to put to start our
little growing venture together.
Speaker 4 (02:24:51):
Okay, So is this one of the gadgets that is
hydroponic that has water in it? Or is it just
the light itself.
Speaker 20 (02:24:59):
It's a it's a whole little kid, I guess.
Speaker 2 (02:25:02):
Uh, yes, a.
Speaker 20 (02:25:04):
Light and everything and a little containers. So I didn't know.
Speaker 4 (02:25:13):
Okay, So it's probably sold to grow flowers and vegetables
and herbs and things. Do you think, yes, sir, yes, sir, yes, yes, okay,
all right, I just want to make sure we're on
the same page. Well, you know, it kind of depends
on what she wants to grow. If you have a
garden and you would like to start some tomato plants
or some pepper plants or or something like that, she
(02:25:36):
could start those under it for transplanting outside into pots
or into the soil later. If you're looking for, you know,
something that's kind of small and and uh, you can manage, uh,
whether it's you know, a little pat on the pot
on the patio or something. Basil is an excellent little
(02:25:57):
one that comes in a lot of different types, shoot
and grow like a lemon basil. You can grow a
tie basil. It's called thie basil does really well if
you want to put a plant in the garden to
attract bees and pollinators. There's one called African blue basil
that that's usually rooted from cuttings, but the basil would
be an option for that. If you're looking for flowers
(02:26:18):
that you can plant outside, starting some zenias inside would
be really good. They grow fast and pretty easy to grow.
As it warms up a little bit, you could start
a cucumber or a squash to plant it outside. If
you only just grow something underneath that, then maybe a
houseplant that's going to be a little more compact would
be a way to go. But I don't I don't
(02:26:40):
know what kind of plants she's interested in.
Speaker 20 (02:26:43):
Yeah, this is our first time to do anything like this,
so we're just trying to do something to start off,
something special and just someone can do together.
Speaker 4 (02:26:53):
Okay, well, yeah, that's a great idea. Congratulations on that
you're doing. You're doing a good thing there. I gardened
with all my kids and a lot of them still garden.
Speaker 7 (02:27:03):
Now.
Speaker 4 (02:27:03):
It's a good it's a good thing. Uh So yeah,
I kind of to find the things that you are
interested in growing. You know, I mentioned food, I mentioned
some flowers, I mentioned some herbs. You could even start
a little plant like like a time or a regano
or a rosemary underneath there, uh that later than could
be moved out. Most of those the light is so
(02:27:24):
close to the plants that you can't grow something really tall. Now,
if yours is different than that, you have to let
me know, like how how far is it from the
light to where your plants would be on that kit?
Speaker 20 (02:27:36):
It's uh, it's really not not that big at all.
My uh uh hold on, let me, yeah, it's it's
it's just a little miniature one, just something that's going
to go on the hall kind of. It's really uh okay,
I mean, you know, it's a smaller one. It's nothing big,
you know at all.
Speaker 4 (02:27:55):
Yeah, Yeah, you might want to go to a to
a garden center. I don't know what part of the
area you're in, but we've got a lot of good
garden centers that have some really small options with types
of houseplants that are very interesting that you might be
able to start in there. Of course, those garden centers
would also have seed. If you wanted to grow something
(02:28:16):
from seed, I would suggest starting with something that's easy
so you can have good success, you know, some of
the challenging things. Yeah, you don't want to probably dive
into that first, and that that was the nature of
your call anyway, So I would I would go with
the you know, zenias are easy, but you're not going
to grow the whole zenny out underneath that light. It
(02:28:37):
would be as starting it as a transplant for things. Yeah,
regano maybe time a regano would be pretty easy to
grow as an herb. If you had some chives and
you wanted to grow those, you could take scissors and
harvest them to put into like scrambled eggs as a seasoning.
Chop chives up in little quarter inch strips and or
(02:28:57):
sections and put them into scrambled eggs. So then you
get to kind of eat the thing that you're growing.
So those would be a few ideas well.
Speaker 20 (02:29:06):
Thank you very much, sir.
Speaker 4 (02:29:08):
We'll have fun with that. Good luck. And then she's welcome.
I've had kids call in the guardlane before, so she's
welcome as we go along, if she has questions, I'm
not too shy to do it. She's welcome to call
in and ask questions about it. As you get going
and run into things you want to visit about.
Speaker 20 (02:29:22):
Okay, yes, thank you very much.
Speaker 4 (02:29:24):
Have a great day you too, Thanks for the call, David.
I appreciate that. Yeah, get kids started early, you know.
The if you've got kids and you've you've not gardened,
you know, or anything, you ought to consider getting them
involved in gardening, and you know, goes someplace where you
can get all kinds of things that you might need
and get all set up for it. You know, you
(02:29:46):
go into an ACE Hardware store, for example, and you're
going to find the little soluble fertilizers that you would
use in uh an indoor garden. Of course it's outdoor
gardening as well also, but they're gonna have a wide
range of fertilizer and products like that do well. We
were talking about gardening in this I think it's probably
not a hydroponic system that David was talking about. But
(02:30:09):
if it's not, Ace Hardware is going to have the
putting mixes and things of the seed starting mixes that
you would want to have. Now you know when you
go to ACE, you're going to find everything you need.
This time of the year, we're looking at getting our
garages in order spring cleaning. You need shelving, you need
containers and storage, toats and things like that. They've got
all of that as well. Little tools for are you
(02:30:31):
in your gardening outdoor tools for things in the gardening.
Ace has got it anywhere you go. You can go
to acehardware dot Com, find the store locator. When you
find the store locator, you're going to be able to
find the stores more than one that are near you.
Acehardware dot Com stores near you. For example, Aspa ACE
up in the Woodlands, Lake Conroe, ACE up there, Montgomery,
(02:30:54):
Katie Ace Hardware is just another example of many dozens
of Ace Heart of stores in our region. Well that's
the skiptop. Stop talking music, and that means we are
done with the show for today. Thanks for listening, appreciate it.
I hope you've enjoyed it. I talked about a lot
of things today. Hopefully that was something along the lines
(02:31:17):
that was of interest to you. Thanks for being listener.
Remember our shows are available in this podcast at the
ktr H website if you go to my website Gardening
with Skip dot com. Right when you go to the website,
on that bar across below my picture is listen to
garden line. Listen line and listen to passion. Have a
(02:31:39):
fun week out there in the garden. We'll see you
next Saturday.