March 21, 2026 • 39 mins
Spring is here, which means it’s the perfect opportunity to start cultivating your vegetable gardens. Teresa Watkins, host of Better Lawns and Gardens, shares advice about planting warm-season vegetables and tips for avoiding common pest problems. Teresa's Top Five Heirloom Tomatoes you may have never heard of.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Good morning from the Summit Responsible Solution Studios. Welcome to
Better Lawns and Gardens. I'm your host, Teresa Watkins. I
love gardening and it is going to be a great
week for gardening. Going to answer your gardening questions one
triple eight four five five two nine sixty seven, or
you can text me two three six eight zero. Good morning, Lizzie.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
How are you?
Speaker 3 (00:34):
I am so excited for today because you and I
know you know, but those that are listening to have
no clue. Number one is a gorgeous day. Number two,
no matter if you're on the East Coast or the
West coast or central Florida, there's something going on, whether
it's Peterson's Nursery has got their roses for sale.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
This morning exactly.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
And also then we have the d Land Wildflower festif
all coming up next week.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
It's just gonna be wonderful.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
And so so let me just talk about Peterson's Nursery.
It starts at eight am. There is going to be
a ton of people there. Oh, there's al people online
exactly to get beautiful roses. Their roses are amazing and
they're gonna have door prices too as well. All right,
So that, so that is really good, so you need
(01:22):
to get there. Next week is a Florida Wildflower Festival
and the Outdoor Art Festival in DeLand, and it is
going to be another amazing event. Lots of people go.
If you're wanting interested in buying native plants, native seeds,
creating any kind of wildflower garden, you need to be
(01:43):
in DeLand next Saturday. And it goes from nine am
to three a at three pm, it is free, and
there's going to be a lot of educational programs and
I am doing one called Florida's Pollinator's Gone Wild. And
it's just gonna be a lot of fun. So I
know I'm gonna be picking up a lot of things.
But DeLand is also just a lovely little town. Oh
(02:05):
it is quaint restaurants, good food, and candy shop. The
candy shop is always one of our stops, yes, and
then just a lot of there'll be garden art for sale,
some fabulous crafts and so it's gonna be a fun time.
So you want more information about it, Main Street, DeLand,
(02:26):
dot org. The Florida Wildflower Festival and Outdoor Art's going
on at the same time, So it's just gonna be
a great weather for it. Yes, So this week we
have had perfect chamber of commerce weather North Florida.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
It got a little chilly again this week.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
We got these cold fronts coming through, but cold meaning
it gets to be in the fifties, so that's not
too bad at night.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
That's that's wonderful.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
So we have a spring break special for you this
week North Florida. You're gonna be in the high seventies,
maybe one or two days in the eighties, but the
sun is going to be shining, and that's a.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Good weather for the beach.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Where's sunscreen even when it's cooler, even if you don't
think you need it, where's skunscreen?
Speaker 2 (03:10):
That's so important. Even if you're just out there in
the morning or at dusks, the sun is still shining.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
And I also here's how I try to explain whenever
people you know either just move to Florida or if
they're visiting or have family members to visit. Okay, if
you're outside and then the sound is extreme. But if
you are outside near water, whether it's a lake, okay,
especially if it's a lake, okay, that area about at
least so every hour, now, if you are on the beach,
(03:37):
white sand or anything with like that much water every
thirty minutes, set your timer on your phone because I'm
telling you you don't want to get burnt and then
end up getting like like first and second degree sunburns,
which happens.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Yeah, it does. I've had it happen.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
I've had water blisters, you know, all over the worst
they are.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
And so no rain, go ahead, head and water your lawns.
In North Florida. You can water them twice a week.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Calibrate it so that you deliver or you apply one
half inch or half an inch each time you water,
and that's going to give you about an inch of
water on your landscape.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
That's all you need. We really don't need to.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Be watering for you know, forty five minutes an hour,
two hours, you know, two times a week. That's going
to create more damage in your landscape. And it's it's
just not necessary to waste that water. Central Florida, we're
gonna have a beautiful, beautiful gardening week. Two warm days
in the eighties, cool nights in the fifties and sixties.
(04:39):
We're supposed to be getting rain on Tuesday and Wednesday,
but it says only a thirty percent chance. The weather
forecasters say only thirty percent chance. So you may need
to water two times a week with the temperatures in
the eighties. So if you don't get rained, yes, definitely
water South Florida Miami gorgeous high seventies, low eighties. No
(05:01):
rain for you this week, which spring breakers will be overjoyed.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Happy gardeners.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
It's springtime time to plan a beautiful garden this week
through out Florida to start planting your vegetables. And we're
gonna be talking about vegetables today. I'm gonna be hitting
on nematodes and cutworms and then also leaf minor.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
And I kind of need that because my zucchini, by
the grace of God, is going nuts growing and they
they've got all the beautiful orangish yellowish blooms and I'm
just like, so I'm going around with a Q tip
to make sure that everything's taking click. I'm like rubbing
around the Endzuni. Here you go, and you could just
share and you get a piece of this one and
you get.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
You got a video at one day, well secret video tape.
That secret tape.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
I will but I'm so excited I'm like loving because
I ended up moving my zucchini and cucumber near the house,
and so that'll be in your next newsletter.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
Sure, and how do they get the your newsletter?
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Oh, they can go onto she sh e dash Consulting
dot com. She dashed Consulting dot com And that is
my website that she stands for sustainable horticultural environments.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
It's free, I don't spam.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
We just need to know your email address and we
will send it out. April is going to be a
wonderful month for the newsletter. I can't wait to see
you zucchini.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
I'm so happy.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
And now I'm just say praish my little cucumbers because
the grand brats want to make pickles.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
So oh yeah, there you go. That will be a
lot of fun. That is great.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
So just make sure Howie Peterson's Nursery eight am is
going to be roses on sale.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
You don't want to miss it.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
If it's Saturday mornings, you're listening to Better Lawns and Gardens,
I'm Teresa Watkins and this is Florida's Talk and Entertainment Network.
(07:10):
Welcome back to Better launch and Gardens. We are looking
for your phone calls. You have a gardening question, it
doesn't matter if you don't think it's important or you don't.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Want to bother anyone with it.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
It's an important garden questions if you don't know the answer,
So we're here to help, and you can give us
a call at one triple eight four five five two
nine sixty seven, or you can just text two three
six eight zero let us know our text line is working,
and you can let us know what morning beverage you're
you're having, so that they're while they're listening, and we'd
(07:44):
love to we'd love to hear from them. So vegetable
gardens are just really wonderful to do here in Florida.
They're very easy to do raised beds. I like raised beds.
If you don't have a property to or the area
to put your vegetables in the ground, raised beds do well.
(08:04):
And then you also could do containers of vegetables too
as well. So it's just vegetables taste better, don't you think,
Lizzie when you grow them yourself?
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Oh one hundred percent, And believe it or not, you know,
it's so funny because if probably if you would have
asked me ten years ago about raised beds, I probably
would have fist fought you and said no. But since
I have been doing the show and then I've been
really listening to the different things that, like Teresa has
been suggesting, I have actually moved towards raised bed over
these last you know, five years, and I really do
(08:36):
enjoy my raised beds better because one, it keeps the
dogs out of there, you go, yeah, and not so
much one hundred percent keeps the squirrels and like the
rabbits out of them. But it deturs them more than
just laying on the ground.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
It really does.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
And so this is the time of the year spring
to plant beans and calabasa, your candalopes and casabas, chayote
and corn.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
If you plant your corn now, there's.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
A chance to get two crops in because you can
plant corn later on in the early summer too as well.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
And cucumbers like Lizzie's.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Growing dasheen and eggplants, Jerusalem artichokes, yakamas and lufahs and malanngas,
New Zealand spinach, Korean spinach, Japanese spinach. There's so many
different types of spinaches that can take the heat of
spring and summer, so you have spinach all year long.
And they're so delicious, very nice, and they are peppery.
(09:34):
They taste really good. Okra is a lovely, lovely flour
for your garden. Not only that, but okra is delicious
in the morning, fried with your breakfast. I love it
fried okra. It is my favorite. We always get it
with barbecue. You get have you ever have you ever
tried fried okra with barbecue? Oh?
Speaker 4 (09:54):
Yes, it is excellent.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
And so Pepper's pumpkins want to get in the ground
now and so you can have them for Thanksgiving. Southern
peas and squash and temurillos, tomatoes and watermelon. So you
want to wait until the second hour, and no, I'm
(10:18):
sorry at the end of this hour. First hour is
my top five heirloom tomato varieties that you may not
know and they're very cool and easy to grow and
delicious to as well. So also you can be planting
your herbs right now. Annis and basil, bay, laurel, borige,
cardaman and Shereville, chives and coriander, cosmary, dylan, fennel, ginger lemon, balm,
(10:44):
sweet marjoraine, Mexican tarragon, mint, Regino, Rosemary, Sage, thyme, and watercrest.
And if this is too fast for you, you cannot
only listen to the podcast later, but you also I
I publish them in my newsletter and then Lizzie posts
(11:04):
them on our website Better Lawns dot com, so you
can go there and listen to that, right Lizzie, Yes, yep, okay. So,
one one of my most important issues that I see
in Florida, and it has to deal with all sorts
of plants are nematodes.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
And what are nematodes?
Speaker 5 (11:29):
So?
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Uh, you there are unsegmented roundworms, so they're different from earthworms.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
They're not the same thing as the earthworms.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
And they are not uh slimy and flat, so they're
flat worms. In fact, you can't even see nematodes. So
Florida soil is just prime for nematods, which they like
the conditions of sandy soil, not a lot of organic material.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
You know, cow pastures.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Uh, the Lake Wales Ridge has a lot of nematodes
in it, and there are nematodes that are good nematodes
too as well beneficial that they feed on bacteria and fungi.
But the sandy nematodes are really devastating, and so let
me if you'd like to get a paper, I'll give
you some information on them and what to do about them.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
But let's go to Eileen. We got to call Eileen
in Polk City. Good morning, Eileen, how can I help you?
Speaker 6 (12:28):
Good morning Teresa? How are you?
Speaker 2 (12:30):
I am great, it's so good to hear from you.
Speaker 6 (12:33):
Yes, and these ross I'm gonna bag them up and
send them to you now that thanks.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
Somehow I feel that that's going to be a criminal situation,
so let's not.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
Let's enjoy. They're crowing.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
We don't want to come visit with visit you in jail, Iileen.
Speaker 6 (12:50):
Good gree they don't shut up.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
How many are how many do they have?
Speaker 6 (12:57):
Uh? It sounds like ten. They only have, I don't know,
maybe two.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
They're overachiever.
Speaker 6 (13:07):
A lot of hens and the hens come and visit.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Oh, I've got a good nursing run with hens.
Speaker 6 (13:14):
They go home.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
There you go. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 6 (13:18):
Anyway, I wanted to tell you that except for my
copper bush, I don't think I lost anything.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Oh that is so good. I was wondering about your lavender.
You're phenomenal.
Speaker 6 (13:33):
It's fine, that's great. Oh my goodness, because that I
leave on the porch. Gosh, what's her name, I'm sorry
over it over at the gardening place, O Karen. Yes, yes,
(13:54):
she said that I could leave it on the porch
as long as it gets sun, which does so I
left that.
Speaker 7 (14:03):
On the porch.
Speaker 6 (14:04):
Oh, excellent, great, big barrel.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
So did your copper dye completely?
Speaker 1 (14:10):
This is an aclifa and it's the tropical shrubs that
you see that has the red leaves that really big red.
It looks like a red hibiscus, but they're not lovely.
Speaker 6 (14:22):
The red and the silver and orange and all different colors. Okay,
I don't think it died completely. I think some of
it dyed, but not all of it.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Well, you can just go ahead and trim it back
and it'll start to All of the plants have all
responded to growing in the last.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Two weeks with the heat. Everything is coming back.
Speaker 6 (14:49):
So you know, it's just me getting the time to
get out there, Bob. It's been sick.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Oh no, no, Well.
Speaker 6 (14:58):
And I got the two rescues that I take care of,
and I'm just you know, between the house grim the dogs.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Well, then you need to do a little gardening to
get a little bit soul and comfort there. So, so Eileen,
thank you so much for calling in. I'm so glad
you didn't lose everything.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
That's great.
Speaker 6 (15:21):
No, I didn't and I didn't lose the Crowton's either.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Oh good, Oh that's great, great news. Well, thank you
you made my morning. Thank you so much for calling in.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Thank you, You're welcome. That's Eileen.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
We love Eileen and her roosters, and she's she's a
wonderful gardener and she does wonderful African violets. So okay,
so one triple eight four five five two nine sixty seven,
or you can text two three six eight zero so
that we have one that says I'm in Mount Dora
(15:54):
and would like to get a vine to attract hummingbirds
and butterflies.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
It will not be in direct son.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
I also want one that doesn't won't get too big
any suggestions. And she says she saw a lot of
robins in February. Well that is great. I'm glad I
missed them. I must have missed them some. They must
have gone through for a couple of days when I
was really super busy and didn't didn't see them, So
I'm glad they didn't.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
They didn't stick around a lot very long this year.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
No, they didn't know, they didn't. Uh so.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Uh So a vine to tract hummingbirds and butterflies. One,
you know, butterflies are solar powered, so they need full sun, okay.
And then but there are a couple of vines that
will do well in the shade that will you know,
be lovely for you in Mount Dora. One is the
(16:43):
coral honeysuckle. Coral honeysuckle is beautiful. It's got beautiful red
tubula flowers. Then there's also the trumpet vine that you
can put Now, you'll probably need to cut it back
maybe once a year, and I would do that in
probably August. Just cut it back to your trellis or
the height of the vine holder that you're using. And
(17:06):
then there's also let's see, oh, bleeding hearts, cleodendrum bleeding hearts.
They will attract the butterflies and also hummingbirds do as well.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
Yes, And if you have poultry, like I raise turkeys,
make sure you check the sea what you're putting out too,
because like I know that this isn't a vine, but
milk weed butterflies seem to absolutely love. I went out
and bought a bunch of it as I was giving
my turkeys, and then I did the research and it's
actually poisonous to turkeys.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Yes, so my goodness.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
I yeah, just be sure you're aware of the things
that you're putting out.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Yeah, that's important.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
And so but coral honeysuckle, trumpet vine, and bleeding heart
clearodendrum are good choices for you. And though they're easily
found okay here in central Florida.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
And that's your nurseries.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
So I wanted to talk about Nema toads, and so
Nema toads love warm temperatures, sandy soil, and humidity, and
so that is just just prime for lots of insects
and pests and pathogens. But the most, the most devastating
to our plants is the parasitic nematodes. Not they're not
(18:13):
the beneficial ones, but then the parasitic ones. And so
how do you take care of them? How do you
know you have them? Well, they you can't see them.
They have their mouthpiece is like a little spear, and
what they do is they pierce the leaves and they
it's like an hypodermic needle that sucks out all of
(18:35):
the digestive juices and and and and fluids. And then
most of the nematodes feed on plant roots too as well,
So this damaged roots. You know, when you have roots
that are infected, it can't absorb water, they can't absorb nutrients,
and so they start to decline. But you may be
(18:57):
thinking that it's something else. You may be thinking that
you have a defungal disease, or that another type of
insect that is visible and you can't see them, so
you don't know what it is. So when you're doing
a Nema toad, when you're thinking that it's Nema toad,
rule out everything else, rule out all the other insects,
(19:19):
rule out of fungus diseases. And then also any type
of soil conditions like you're not watering correctly or overwatering
so that you're causing will. So I will be back
and I'm going to talk about rootnot and staying all
and stubby root nematods. That's Saturday morning. You're listening to
Better Lawns and Gardens. I'm Teresa Watkins and this is
(19:41):
Florida's talk and Entertainment Network. Welcome back to Better Lawns
and Gardens. You have a gardening question, you can call
(20:02):
us at one triple eight four five five two nine
sixty seven, or you can text two three six eight
zero like Carolyn Lakeland. I'm going to get right to
her in a few minutes, but I wanted to touch
on root not nematodes. So nematods cause a lot of
damage in our vegetable gardens, in our plants, and rootnt
(20:24):
nematods can cause more damage because they put they inject
hormones into the roots and that causes the roots to
expand and get knots and galls on them, which blocks
the flow of the water and the nutrients to the plants,
and then also to these injections allow the openings to
(20:47):
allow fungus and bacteria to get in. So just a
lot of deep real issues. So root nott nematods like
sandy soils, okay, and so you know I will tell
you in just a second how to get rid of them.
But then there's also the sting all and stubby root
nematodes that are bad too as well. But sting nematodes
(21:08):
like sandy soils all nematodes. They're found in wet habitats.
So if you're living near a ditch or a pond
or a lake poorly drained areas, you may be able
to note that you may have nematodes in your soils
to as well. So how do you determine whether you
do have nematodes? And there is We're so blessed to
(21:32):
have the University of Florida here that does nematode assessments.
You can send in your soil samples to the Nematode
Assay Laboratory at the University of Florida and for thirty
seven dollars they will let you know if you have
nematodes and what to do about them. And so that
(21:54):
is a great a great test for people to do.
And especially if you have damage throughout your yard and so, so.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
What can you do for them?
Speaker 1 (22:09):
First, if you do have them, you can soil solarize.
You can solarize your soil by putting a plastic sheet
a plastic tarp on your garden area. Okay, and you
want to leave it on during the heat of the summertime,
so this will be a good time of the year.
(22:31):
Now to go ahead and put your plastic sheet down
on your area. Sunlight passes through the clear plastic and
it heats up and warms the soil and so the
high temperature they'll kill nematodes, it'll kill weeds, fungi and
pass up to six to eight inches deep. And that's
all you need to do. So then after you solarize,
(22:52):
you do not tell because you don't want to put
you don't want to reinfest anything from other Soilszation is
one and then the other one is also you can
put down a nemocide, but it's not necessarily the best
way to do it. The best way to get rid
(23:13):
of nematodes in your yard is organic amendments, adding organic
amendments to your soil so that you have compost or
black calmonure in your garden beds.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
And the more.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Nutritious your soil is, the more organic amendments you have
in your soil, you're not going to have nematodes. So
also by putting in organic soil amendments, you will boost
the predators that can attack the nematodes. So it's the
best way all around. So each year, especially with sandy soils,
(23:48):
you want to add organic amendments like compost, top soil manure,
black calmonure to your garden beds and that will keep
the nematods down. So let's go to Ben in Longwood.
Good morning, Ben, how can I help you?
Speaker 5 (24:05):
Good morning? Yeah, I have a question about what to
do with fruit trees after the freeze. I had some
mango trees and you know, they were like thoroughly Yeah,
it looks to be thoroughly destroyed. And I also have
a starfruit tree and some others. So I wanted to
see if you have some advice as to.
Speaker 6 (24:25):
What to do.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Okay. So one, you got how tall is your mango tree?
How big is it?
Speaker 5 (24:31):
They're about ten feet.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Ten feet tall? Okay, so you can still actually kind
of reach the branches and things. I would scrape the
cambium back to see if you find any green or
moist bark underneath these the cambium layer, the outer layer.
You want to scrape it back and if you can
find some green, then I would cut back the branches.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
To that new growth area.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
You want to cut them diagonally to the area where
you did find green or moisture there. Okay, And you
just got to pray. Now the leaves that they're not
coming off maybe an indication that your tree is gone.
A ten foot tall one I think might have bit
the dust spin. We have mango trees in the area
(25:19):
that are twenty five thirty feet tall and they got
damaged severely too, but they're probably going to come back
from their roots. Their roots system is deep enough. So
I would cut back all of the dead portions off
of your fruit trees now. It's a good time to
do it, and you may see your mango coming back
from the ground. It may sprout out from the trunk
(25:41):
somewhere down below that's still alive.
Speaker 5 (25:46):
All right, okay man, Just a follow up question, what
other fruit trees would you recommend the planting in the
Longwood area.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
In the Longwood area, well, you could be planting okay,
so you can be planting citrus trees. You can planting
apples and peaches and plum trees. Gulf Coast plums do
very well here. You could be planting pomegranates. You could
be planting bananas that they do very well here. So
(26:16):
there are many types of fruit trees you can plant.
And if you'd like to go to my website and
send me an email or go to better Lawns dot
com and send an email and I will email you
a brochure publication on all the fruit trees you can
grow here.
Speaker 5 (26:34):
Awesome, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
You're welcome, Ben, thank you. I know mango lovers are
just devastated. There's I mean, mangoes are gonna go up
in price this year?
Speaker 3 (26:43):
Oh yeah, definitely. Okay, now I know that you had
talked about we talked about my banana trees. Okay, so
I have one that's probably about eight foot tall, still
is not produced whatever.
Speaker 4 (26:52):
Right, it's like year four, but whatever.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Are you fertilizing?
Speaker 4 (26:57):
I am fertilizing it.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
But you know what, I can't see to find the
bag that has the bananas on it, and so therefore
I just use a tropical and that's fine.
Speaker 4 (27:05):
That's fine.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
But it's got to go through two winters of no freezing.
Speaker 4 (27:09):
All right. Okay, wait what no freezing?
Speaker 2 (27:11):
No freezing.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
It can't freeze for two years, so it's got to
go through two winters and then it will produce biscuits. Okay,
So if it's freezing every year, it's starting that cycle
all over again.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
I'm gonna leave the studio. I'm fixing a fistfight the air,
just so you know.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Okay, So, Carolyn Lakely, do I have it? Do I
have it? Real quick? Okay?
Speaker 6 (27:31):
Carol.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
I'm gonna tell you how to move that sixteen foot
tall bottlebrush when I come back. And we have my
top five favorite heirloom tomatoes and you'll get to learn
about new ones. If it's Saturday morning, you're listening to
Better Lawns and Gardens, I'm Teresa Watkins, and this is
Florida's Talk and Entertainment Network's Top five.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Welcome back up, Better Lawns in Garden and now Teresa's
top five.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
These are my top five tomato varieties that you may
not have heard about.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
But should try.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Number five Andrew Rayhart's Jumbo Red very rare heirloom variety.
Large one to two pound beef steak tomatoes, meaty with
exceptional flavor, some resistance to cracking, eighty days to harvest,
eighteen eighty four. This is an old, rare loom variety
from West Virginia that was found growing in a pile
(28:41):
of flood debris. Pink tomatoes averaging one to two pounds each,
Excellent flavor, good sweet acid balance indeterminate, seventy eight days
to harvest. Number three Kellogg's Breakfast. This is a large
orange heirloom beef steak tomato juicy, meaty, fleshy with rich
sweet flavor, indeterminate with strong foliage, heavy yields. Fruits up
(29:06):
to one pound, eighty five to ninety days to harvest.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Carbon.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
This is a really cool on carbon also known as
Cherokee chocolate carbon, originated from a spontaneous mutation discovered in
the garden of the famous tomato collector who's been on
our show before, Greg Lea. Julie got a great tomato book.
In most respects, it mirrors its famous parent, Cherokee Purple.
(29:32):
It's an award winning heirloom tomato, rich black tomato flavor,
large twelve ounce uniform fruit, juicy meati eighty days to harvest.
And the number one Aunt Ruby's German Green Tomatoes heirloom
variety from Greenville, Tennessee. Large green tomatoes up to one
pound each, yellow green of maturity, juicy with a sweet,
(29:56):
subtle spicy flavor, eighty five days from transplant. You can
find all of these varieties at threshseeed dot com. Threshseeed
dot com. So those are my top five heirloom varieties
that you may not have heard about but should try.
Let's go to Michael.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
And Melbourne Beach.
Speaker 7 (30:16):
Good morning, Teresa. The gentleman that you had on a
few minutes ago that was talking about is mangoes. Yes,
I live south of him. I lived in Melbourne Beach
and just all of south end of the county. There's
terrible damage to both mangoes and avocados. However, just after
the freeze and everybody was calling, you had lots of
(30:39):
calls that everything was all brown. That's the way mine were.
But you said leave them three or four weeks and
don't do anything to them. Well, gonna, I'm gonna say
for my own personal and I've got twelve of them. Wow,
I would say leave them because the key factor you
said if the leaves didn't fall. So I just had
a few leaves fall, but out of all of them,
(30:59):
I only had one is not coming back. But if
you go out and look at your tree real carefully,
you'll see there's little dy bitty tiny green places, little
leaves or stems starting to come up in all of them.
So even though they look terrible and you drive by
them you say, well, let's cut that down. Just keep
waiting like you said. But I would just say give
(31:21):
it more time. Yes, but you were so right, and
I think you saved a lot of people. And we
do thank you for that.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Oh well, thank you so much. I'm very excited.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
I have seen the mangoes starting to come back and
so that's very exciting. Thank you so much for the
encouragement too, Ben in Longwood, all right, thank.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
You for listening. That's great.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Now, Carol and Lakeland's been very patient, and so she said,
I want to move a sixteen foot bottle brush to
a more prominent place in my yard now that we've
had to clear out the dead brown any tips, Yes,
this is how you do it, Carol.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
So I want this.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
You got to do it now because during the heat
to the summertime, it's not going to be a good
time to transplant.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Do it now.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Well, it's warm, but it's not too hot yet. We
don't have the high humidity yet. Water your bottle brush
really well, hand water it, soak it for it. I
would say two to three days before you move it, okay,
and then once it's soaked it you want to have
your whole dug where you're going to move it to
(32:25):
immediately so that it's not out of the ground for
you know, twelve hours or ten hours or next day.
You want to immediately plant it after you cut it up.
So now, after you've watered it really well for two
to three days, then I want you to cut a
circle right around the outside of your bottle brush. I
(32:48):
want you to feel roots and cut down. Okay, cut
down all the way around it. This is called root pruning.
And you're going to cut all the way around it.
But you're not going to dig it up up. You're
going to let it go into a little type of
mini shock, okay, and it's going to say my roots
have been cut. I've got to grow new roots, and
(33:11):
it's going to start that process of sending new roots out.
But you're not going to cut the bottom of the roots.
You're only going to cut the outside roots in a
circle all the way around. Then you wait about a
week to ten days, okay, and you're watering it throughout
this period. After the week to ten days, you've got
(33:33):
your whole dug, you're going to dig out underneath it
and lift it up with a root ball. You want
to save as much as that root ball as possible
and then move it over to its new area. Then
you want to keep it out of the ground one
to two inches because it's going to settle as the
roots as the dirt settles in it. So you don't
(33:54):
want to plant it level with the ground. You want
to one to two inches higher so that when it
does settle.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
It's going to be level with the ground.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
You want to see the flare at the bottom of
the tree, okay, and then you water it in really well.
You can put some rooting hormone on your root system
if you would like to do that, you can, uh,
and then just water it well every week and you'll
start to see new growth on it then. So that's
(34:23):
how you do it.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
That's amazing. I mean even think that you couldn't just
move some of the.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Us that big. You can. It's just incredible.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
So, and it seems like your advice for quite a
bit of things like whether we have a freeze coming up,
which we don't, but or if you're going to move
something needs to be saturated to an extent.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
Water is a really wonderful healer, and you don't want
to water your plants all the time.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
That's not a good thing.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
But when you're going to do something that's going to
cause a little bit of a shock, you want to
water it really well before before that hold front comes
through or before the uh, before you move it, because
that's going to keep the plant hydrated. So when you
move it, it's already kind of it's it's going to
be hydrated enough.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
It can handle the shock.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Yeah, okay, one triple eight four five five two nine
sixty seven, or you can text two three six eight zero. Uh,
blossom and rot, blossom and rot on your tomatoes. Uh,
if they're going to they look like they're rotting.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
And it's not.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
It's it is a calcium deficiency. But we have plenty
of calcium in our soils here in Florida, so we
shouldn't have to put calcium on our tomatoes unless you're
in a raised bed and there is no calcium in it,
but I doubt it sincerely. Blossom and rot is more
about watering, and when you overwater it, then the roots
(35:55):
get bloated and it can't absorb the nutrients, which there
would be calcium in the soil, and so it is
a calcium deficiency, but it's caused more by over watering. Okay,
So you want to keep it at an even level.
You don't want to water a lot one week and
then none the next week. You want to keep your
(36:15):
watering applications very, very consistent so that your roots don't
go into shock and they are not experiencing stress by
ups and downs in the watering. You want to let
your plants dry out by the evening time. So the
best time to water your landscape entirely just for the
(36:36):
health of your landscape, for the health of your turf,
the health of your trees is between five and ten am.
That way, you're going to water them and they're going
to dry out for the day. There's no need to
water during the middle of the day unless you have
new turf or new plants. And it's extremely hot, okay,
(36:57):
And you don't want to water at six o'clock, seven
o'clock at night because then it's going to stay wet
with our humidity and with our heat. It's just going
to cause fungals, you know, issues, it's going to cause
insects issues like scale, you know, and it's it's just
not a good thing.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
Yes, And I'm just so excited because I believe it
or not, my high biscuits are actually coming back, the
majority of them, and especially the fire and ice though.
That was my favorite, and it is coming back. I
saw a little green, little full sprouts coming.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
Go out and look at your plants today and look
for that little green.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
Look for the little buds.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
The river birches are blooming out now, they're looking lovely,
and just so many of.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Giant bird of paradise.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
If your giant bird of paradise got whacked back, cut
it down to the ground. I'm seeing all of these
tall dead fronds, but they just cut off the dead
fronds and they're leaving the height of the trunk of
the giant birds of paradise that's not going to come back.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
Guys, go ahead and cut.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
It down to the ground. You will see the new
growth coming from the bottom of the ground. Giant birds
of paradises are coming back, okay.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
And then the big gigantic things of grass but or
like like Vacca hachies and all those big I saw
a hack and basically what the they did whenever they
went to go cut it down like cut it cut
it back. It took like a duct tape, wrapped it
all the way around it twice, okay, and then did
the uh used a hedge tremors and.
Speaker 4 (38:26):
Then just picked it up and walked off with it.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
I'm like, really, okay, that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
That's a great hack. You do want to cut back
your mewley grass.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
You do want to cut back your Faca hatchie and
your other grasses, your fountain grasses, your red and your
white fountain grasses. Go ahead and cut those back. You
want to stay tuned for the second hour Better Lawns
and Gardens. We've got some great information coming and we're
gonna be taking your phone calls one triple eight four
five five two nine sixty seven, or you can text
(38:54):
two three six eight zero.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
It's Saturday morning.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
You're listening to Better Lawns and Gardens from the Responsible
Solutions Studios. I'm Teresa Watkins, and this is Florida's Talk
and Entertainment Network.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
If you missed any of the show, or any of
the other shows that you'd like to go back and
recap on, go to Better Lawns dot com. That is
Better Lawns dot com.
Good morning from the Summit Responsible Solution Studios. Welcome to
Better Lawns and Gardens. I'm your host, Teresa Watkins. I
love gardening and it is going to be a great
week for gardening. Going to answer your gardening questions one
triple eight four five five two nine sixty seven, or
you can text me two three six eight zero. Good morning, Lizzie.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
How are you?
Speaker 3 (00:34):
I am so excited for today because you and I
know you know, but those that are listening to have
no clue. Number one is a gorgeous day. Number two,
no matter if you're on the East Coast or the
West coast or central Florida, there's something going on, whether
it's Peterson's Nursery has got their roses for sale.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
This morning exactly.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
And also then we have the d Land Wildflower festif
all coming up next week.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
It's just gonna be wonderful.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
And so so let me just talk about Peterson's Nursery.
It starts at eight am. There is going to be
a ton of people there. Oh, there's al people online
exactly to get beautiful roses. Their roses are amazing and
they're gonna have door prices too as well. All right,
So that, so that is really good, so you need
(01:22):
to get there. Next week is a Florida Wildflower Festival
and the Outdoor Art Festival in DeLand, and it is
going to be another amazing event. Lots of people go.
If you're wanting interested in buying native plants, native seeds,
creating any kind of wildflower garden, you need to be
(01:43):
in DeLand next Saturday. And it goes from nine am
to three a at three pm, it is free, and
there's going to be a lot of educational programs and
I am doing one called Florida's Pollinator's Gone Wild. And
it's just gonna be a lot of fun. So I
know I'm gonna be picking up a lot of things.
But DeLand is also just a lovely little town. Oh
(02:05):
it is quaint restaurants, good food, and candy shop. The
candy shop is always one of our stops, yes, and
then just a lot of there'll be garden art for sale,
some fabulous crafts and so it's gonna be a fun time.
So you want more information about it, Main Street, DeLand,
(02:26):
dot org. The Florida Wildflower Festival and Outdoor Art's going
on at the same time, So it's just gonna be
a great weather for it. Yes, So this week we
have had perfect chamber of commerce weather North Florida.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
It got a little chilly again this week.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
We got these cold fronts coming through, but cold meaning
it gets to be in the fifties, so that's not
too bad at night.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
That's that's wonderful.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
So we have a spring break special for you this
week North Florida. You're gonna be in the high seventies,
maybe one or two days in the eighties, but the
sun is going to be shining, and that's a.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Good weather for the beach.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Where's sunscreen even when it's cooler, even if you don't
think you need it, where's skunscreen?
Speaker 2 (03:10):
That's so important. Even if you're just out there in
the morning or at dusks, the sun is still shining.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
And I also here's how I try to explain whenever
people you know either just move to Florida or if
they're visiting or have family members to visit. Okay, if
you're outside and then the sound is extreme. But if
you are outside near water, whether it's a lake, okay,
especially if it's a lake, okay, that area about at
least so every hour, now, if you are on the beach,
(03:37):
white sand or anything with like that much water every
thirty minutes, set your timer on your phone because I'm
telling you you don't want to get burnt and then
end up getting like like first and second degree sunburns,
which happens.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Yeah, it does. I've had it happen.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
I've had water blisters, you know, all over the worst
they are.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
And so no rain, go ahead, head and water your lawns.
In North Florida. You can water them twice a week.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Calibrate it so that you deliver or you apply one
half inch or half an inch each time you water,
and that's going to give you about an inch of
water on your landscape.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
That's all you need. We really don't need to.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Be watering for you know, forty five minutes an hour,
two hours, you know, two times a week. That's going
to create more damage in your landscape. And it's it's
just not necessary to waste that water. Central Florida, we're
gonna have a beautiful, beautiful gardening week. Two warm days
in the eighties, cool nights in the fifties and sixties.
(04:39):
We're supposed to be getting rain on Tuesday and Wednesday,
but it says only a thirty percent chance. The weather
forecasters say only thirty percent chance. So you may need
to water two times a week with the temperatures in
the eighties. So if you don't get rained, yes, definitely
water South Florida Miami gorgeous high seventies, low eighties. No
(05:01):
rain for you this week, which spring breakers will be overjoyed.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Happy gardeners.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
It's springtime time to plan a beautiful garden this week
through out Florida to start planting your vegetables. And we're
gonna be talking about vegetables today. I'm gonna be hitting
on nematodes and cutworms and then also leaf minor.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
And I kind of need that because my zucchini, by
the grace of God, is going nuts growing and they
they've got all the beautiful orangish yellowish blooms and I'm
just like, so I'm going around with a Q tip
to make sure that everything's taking click. I'm like rubbing
around the Endzuni. Here you go, and you could just
share and you get a piece of this one and
you get.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
You got a video at one day, well secret video tape.
That secret tape.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
I will but I'm so excited I'm like loving because
I ended up moving my zucchini and cucumber near the house,
and so that'll be in your next newsletter.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
Sure, and how do they get the your newsletter?
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Oh, they can go onto she sh e dash Consulting
dot com. She dashed Consulting dot com And that is
my website that she stands for sustainable horticultural environments.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
It's free, I don't spam.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
We just need to know your email address and we
will send it out. April is going to be a
wonderful month for the newsletter. I can't wait to see
you zucchini.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
I'm so happy.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
And now I'm just say praish my little cucumbers because
the grand brats want to make pickles.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
So oh yeah, there you go. That will be a
lot of fun. That is great.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
So just make sure Howie Peterson's Nursery eight am is
going to be roses on sale.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
You don't want to miss it.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
If it's Saturday mornings, you're listening to Better Lawns and Gardens,
I'm Teresa Watkins and this is Florida's Talk and Entertainment Network.
(07:10):
Welcome back to Better launch and Gardens. We are looking
for your phone calls. You have a gardening question, it
doesn't matter if you don't think it's important or you don't.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Want to bother anyone with it.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
It's an important garden questions if you don't know the answer,
So we're here to help, and you can give us
a call at one triple eight four five five two
nine sixty seven, or you can just text two three
six eight zero let us know our text line is working,
and you can let us know what morning beverage you're
you're having, so that they're while they're listening, and we'd
(07:44):
love to we'd love to hear from them. So vegetable
gardens are just really wonderful to do here in Florida.
They're very easy to do raised beds. I like raised beds.
If you don't have a property to or the area
to put your vegetables in the ground, raised beds do well.
(08:04):
And then you also could do containers of vegetables too
as well. So it's just vegetables taste better, don't you think,
Lizzie when you grow them yourself?
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Oh one hundred percent, And believe it or not, you know,
it's so funny because if probably if you would have
asked me ten years ago about raised beds, I probably
would have fist fought you and said no. But since
I have been doing the show and then I've been
really listening to the different things that, like Teresa has
been suggesting, I have actually moved towards raised bed over
these last you know, five years, and I really do
(08:36):
enjoy my raised beds better because one, it keeps the
dogs out of there, you go, yeah, and not so
much one hundred percent keeps the squirrels and like the
rabbits out of them. But it deturs them more than
just laying on the ground.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
It really does.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
And so this is the time of the year spring
to plant beans and calabasa, your candalopes and casabas, chayote
and corn.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
If you plant your corn now, there's.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
A chance to get two crops in because you can
plant corn later on in the early summer too as well.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
And cucumbers like Lizzie's.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Growing dasheen and eggplants, Jerusalem artichokes, yakamas and lufahs and malanngas,
New Zealand spinach, Korean spinach, Japanese spinach. There's so many
different types of spinaches that can take the heat of
spring and summer, so you have spinach all year long.
And they're so delicious, very nice, and they are peppery.
(09:34):
They taste really good. Okra is a lovely, lovely flour
for your garden. Not only that, but okra is delicious
in the morning, fried with your breakfast. I love it
fried okra. It is my favorite. We always get it
with barbecue. You get have you ever have you ever
tried fried okra with barbecue? Oh?
Speaker 4 (09:54):
Yes, it is excellent.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
And so Pepper's pumpkins want to get in the ground
now and so you can have them for Thanksgiving. Southern
peas and squash and temurillos, tomatoes and watermelon. So you
want to wait until the second hour, and no, I'm
(10:18):
sorry at the end of this hour. First hour is
my top five heirloom tomato varieties that you may not
know and they're very cool and easy to grow and
delicious to as well. So also you can be planting
your herbs right now. Annis and basil, bay, laurel, borige,
cardaman and Shereville, chives and coriander, cosmary, dylan, fennel, ginger lemon, balm,
(10:44):
sweet marjoraine, Mexican tarragon, mint, Regino, Rosemary, Sage, thyme, and watercrest.
And if this is too fast for you, you cannot
only listen to the podcast later, but you also I
I publish them in my newsletter and then Lizzie posts
(11:04):
them on our website Better Lawns dot com, so you
can go there and listen to that, right Lizzie, Yes, yep, okay. So,
one one of my most important issues that I see
in Florida, and it has to deal with all sorts
of plants are nematodes.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
And what are nematodes?
Speaker 5 (11:29):
So?
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Uh, you there are unsegmented roundworms, so they're different from earthworms.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
They're not the same thing as the earthworms.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
And they are not uh slimy and flat, so they're
flat worms. In fact, you can't even see nematodes. So
Florida soil is just prime for nematods, which they like
the conditions of sandy soil, not a lot of organic material.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
You know, cow pastures.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Uh, the Lake Wales Ridge has a lot of nematodes
in it, and there are nematodes that are good nematodes
too as well beneficial that they feed on bacteria and fungi.
But the sandy nematodes are really devastating, and so let
me if you'd like to get a paper, I'll give
you some information on them and what to do about them.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
But let's go to Eileen. We got to call Eileen
in Polk City. Good morning, Eileen, how can I help you?
Speaker 6 (12:28):
Good morning Teresa? How are you?
Speaker 2 (12:30):
I am great, it's so good to hear from you.
Speaker 6 (12:33):
Yes, and these ross I'm gonna bag them up and
send them to you now that thanks.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
Somehow I feel that that's going to be a criminal situation,
so let's not.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
Let's enjoy. They're crowing.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
We don't want to come visit with visit you in jail, Iileen.
Speaker 6 (12:50):
Good gree they don't shut up.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
How many are how many do they have?
Speaker 6 (12:57):
Uh? It sounds like ten. They only have, I don't know,
maybe two.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
They're overachiever.
Speaker 6 (13:07):
A lot of hens and the hens come and visit.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Oh, I've got a good nursing run with hens.
Speaker 6 (13:14):
They go home.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
There you go. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 6 (13:18):
Anyway, I wanted to tell you that except for my
copper bush, I don't think I lost anything.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Oh that is so good. I was wondering about your lavender.
You're phenomenal.
Speaker 6 (13:33):
It's fine, that's great. Oh my goodness, because that I
leave on the porch. Gosh, what's her name, I'm sorry
over it over at the gardening place, O Karen. Yes, yes,
(13:54):
she said that I could leave it on the porch
as long as it gets sun, which does so I
left that.
Speaker 7 (14:03):
On the porch.
Speaker 6 (14:04):
Oh, excellent, great, big barrel.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
So did your copper dye completely?
Speaker 1 (14:10):
This is an aclifa and it's the tropical shrubs that
you see that has the red leaves that really big red.
It looks like a red hibiscus, but they're not lovely.
Speaker 6 (14:22):
The red and the silver and orange and all different colors. Okay,
I don't think it died completely. I think some of
it dyed, but not all of it.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Well, you can just go ahead and trim it back
and it'll start to All of the plants have all
responded to growing in the last.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Two weeks with the heat. Everything is coming back.
Speaker 6 (14:49):
So you know, it's just me getting the time to
get out there, Bob. It's been sick.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Oh no, no, Well.
Speaker 6 (14:58):
And I got the two rescues that I take care of,
and I'm just you know, between the house grim the dogs.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Well, then you need to do a little gardening to
get a little bit soul and comfort there. So, so Eileen,
thank you so much for calling in. I'm so glad
you didn't lose everything.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
That's great.
Speaker 6 (15:21):
No, I didn't and I didn't lose the Crowton's either.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Oh good, Oh that's great, great news. Well, thank you
you made my morning. Thank you so much for calling in.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Thank you, You're welcome. That's Eileen.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
We love Eileen and her roosters, and she's she's a
wonderful gardener and she does wonderful African violets. So okay,
so one triple eight four five five two nine sixty seven,
or you can text two three six eight zero so
that we have one that says I'm in Mount Dora
(15:54):
and would like to get a vine to attract hummingbirds
and butterflies.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
It will not be in direct son.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
I also want one that doesn't won't get too big
any suggestions. And she says she saw a lot of
robins in February. Well that is great. I'm glad I
missed them. I must have missed them some. They must
have gone through for a couple of days when I
was really super busy and didn't didn't see them, So
I'm glad they didn't.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
They didn't stick around a lot very long this year.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
No, they didn't know, they didn't. Uh so.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Uh So a vine to tract hummingbirds and butterflies. One,
you know, butterflies are solar powered, so they need full sun, okay.
And then but there are a couple of vines that
will do well in the shade that will you know,
be lovely for you in Mount Dora. One is the
(16:43):
coral honeysuckle. Coral honeysuckle is beautiful. It's got beautiful red
tubula flowers. Then there's also the trumpet vine that you
can put Now, you'll probably need to cut it back
maybe once a year, and I would do that in
probably August. Just cut it back to your trellis or
the height of the vine holder that you're using. And
(17:06):
then there's also let's see, oh, bleeding hearts, cleodendrum bleeding hearts.
They will attract the butterflies and also hummingbirds do as well.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
Yes, And if you have poultry, like I raise turkeys,
make sure you check the sea what you're putting out too,
because like I know that this isn't a vine, but
milk weed butterflies seem to absolutely love. I went out
and bought a bunch of it as I was giving
my turkeys, and then I did the research and it's
actually poisonous to turkeys.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Yes, so my goodness.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
I yeah, just be sure you're aware of the things
that you're putting out.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Yeah, that's important.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
And so but coral honeysuckle, trumpet vine, and bleeding heart
clearodendrum are good choices for you. And though they're easily
found okay here in central Florida.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
And that's your nurseries.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
So I wanted to talk about Nema toads, and so
Nema toads love warm temperatures, sandy soil, and humidity, and
so that is just just prime for lots of insects
and pests and pathogens. But the most, the most devastating
to our plants is the parasitic nematodes. Not they're not
(18:13):
the beneficial ones, but then the parasitic ones. And so
how do you take care of them? How do you
know you have them? Well, they you can't see them.
They have their mouthpiece is like a little spear, and
what they do is they pierce the leaves and they
it's like an hypodermic needle that sucks out all of
(18:35):
the digestive juices and and and and fluids. And then
most of the nematodes feed on plant roots too as well,
So this damaged roots. You know, when you have roots
that are infected, it can't absorb water, they can't absorb nutrients,
and so they start to decline. But you may be
(18:57):
thinking that it's something else. You may be thinking that
you have a defungal disease, or that another type of
insect that is visible and you can't see them, so
you don't know what it is. So when you're doing
a Nema toad, when you're thinking that it's Nema toad,
rule out everything else, rule out all the other insects,
(19:19):
rule out of fungus diseases. And then also any type
of soil conditions like you're not watering correctly or overwatering
so that you're causing will. So I will be back
and I'm going to talk about rootnot and staying all
and stubby root nematods. That's Saturday morning. You're listening to
Better Lawns and Gardens. I'm Teresa Watkins and this is
(19:41):
Florida's talk and Entertainment Network. Welcome back to Better Lawns
and Gardens. You have a gardening question, you can call
(20:02):
us at one triple eight four five five two nine
sixty seven, or you can text two three six eight
zero like Carolyn Lakeland. I'm going to get right to
her in a few minutes, but I wanted to touch
on root not nematodes. So nematods cause a lot of
damage in our vegetable gardens, in our plants, and rootnt
(20:24):
nematods can cause more damage because they put they inject
hormones into the roots and that causes the roots to
expand and get knots and galls on them, which blocks
the flow of the water and the nutrients to the plants,
and then also to these injections allow the openings to
(20:47):
allow fungus and bacteria to get in. So just a
lot of deep real issues. So root nott nematods like
sandy soils, okay, and so you know I will tell
you in just a second how to get rid of them.
But then there's also the sting all and stubby root
nematodes that are bad too as well. But sting nematodes
(21:08):
like sandy soils all nematodes. They're found in wet habitats.
So if you're living near a ditch or a pond
or a lake poorly drained areas, you may be able
to note that you may have nematodes in your soils
to as well. So how do you determine whether you
do have nematodes? And there is We're so blessed to
(21:32):
have the University of Florida here that does nematode assessments.
You can send in your soil samples to the Nematode
Assay Laboratory at the University of Florida and for thirty
seven dollars they will let you know if you have
nematodes and what to do about them. And so that
(21:54):
is a great a great test for people to do.
And especially if you have damage throughout your yard and so, so.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
What can you do for them?
Speaker 1 (22:09):
First, if you do have them, you can soil solarize.
You can solarize your soil by putting a plastic sheet
a plastic tarp on your garden area. Okay, and you
want to leave it on during the heat of the summertime,
so this will be a good time of the year.
(22:31):
Now to go ahead and put your plastic sheet down
on your area. Sunlight passes through the clear plastic and
it heats up and warms the soil and so the
high temperature they'll kill nematodes, it'll kill weeds, fungi and
pass up to six to eight inches deep. And that's
all you need to do. So then after you solarize,
(22:52):
you do not tell because you don't want to put
you don't want to reinfest anything from other Soilszation is
one and then the other one is also you can
put down a nemocide, but it's not necessarily the best
way to do it. The best way to get rid
(23:13):
of nematodes in your yard is organic amendments, adding organic
amendments to your soil so that you have compost or
black calmonure in your garden beds.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
And the more.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Nutritious your soil is, the more organic amendments you have
in your soil, you're not going to have nematodes. So
also by putting in organic soil amendments, you will boost
the predators that can attack the nematodes. So it's the
best way all around. So each year, especially with sandy soils,
(23:48):
you want to add organic amendments like compost, top soil manure,
black calmonure to your garden beds and that will keep
the nematods down. So let's go to Ben in Longwood.
Good morning, Ben, how can I help you?
Speaker 5 (24:05):
Good morning? Yeah, I have a question about what to
do with fruit trees after the freeze. I had some
mango trees and you know, they were like thoroughly Yeah,
it looks to be thoroughly destroyed. And I also have
a starfruit tree and some others. So I wanted to
see if you have some advice as to.
Speaker 6 (24:25):
What to do.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Okay. So one, you got how tall is your mango tree?
How big is it?
Speaker 5 (24:31):
They're about ten feet.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Ten feet tall? Okay, so you can still actually kind
of reach the branches and things. I would scrape the
cambium back to see if you find any green or
moist bark underneath these the cambium layer, the outer layer.
You want to scrape it back and if you can
find some green, then I would cut back the branches.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
To that new growth area.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
You want to cut them diagonally to the area where
you did find green or moisture there. Okay, And you
just got to pray. Now the leaves that they're not
coming off maybe an indication that your tree is gone.
A ten foot tall one I think might have bit
the dust spin. We have mango trees in the area
(25:19):
that are twenty five thirty feet tall and they got
damaged severely too, but they're probably going to come back
from their roots. Their roots system is deep enough. So
I would cut back all of the dead portions off
of your fruit trees now. It's a good time to
do it, and you may see your mango coming back
from the ground. It may sprout out from the trunk
(25:41):
somewhere down below that's still alive.
Speaker 5 (25:46):
All right, okay man, Just a follow up question, what
other fruit trees would you recommend the planting in the
Longwood area.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
In the Longwood area, well, you could be planting okay,
so you can be planting citrus trees. You can planting
apples and peaches and plum trees. Gulf Coast plums do
very well here. You could be planting pomegranates. You could
be planting bananas that they do very well here. So
(26:16):
there are many types of fruit trees you can plant.
And if you'd like to go to my website and
send me an email or go to better Lawns dot
com and send an email and I will email you
a brochure publication on all the fruit trees you can
grow here.
Speaker 5 (26:34):
Awesome, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
You're welcome, Ben, thank you. I know mango lovers are
just devastated. There's I mean, mangoes are gonna go up
in price this year?
Speaker 3 (26:43):
Oh yeah, definitely. Okay, now I know that you had
talked about we talked about my banana trees. Okay, so
I have one that's probably about eight foot tall, still
is not produced whatever.
Speaker 4 (26:52):
Right, it's like year four, but whatever.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Are you fertilizing?
Speaker 4 (26:57):
I am fertilizing it.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
But you know what, I can't see to find the
bag that has the bananas on it, and so therefore
I just use a tropical and that's fine.
Speaker 4 (27:05):
That's fine.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
But it's got to go through two winters of no freezing.
Speaker 4 (27:09):
All right. Okay, wait what no freezing?
Speaker 2 (27:11):
No freezing.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
It can't freeze for two years, so it's got to
go through two winters and then it will produce biscuits. Okay,
So if it's freezing every year, it's starting that cycle
all over again.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
I'm gonna leave the studio. I'm fixing a fistfight the air,
just so you know.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Okay, So, Carolyn Lakely, do I have it? Do I
have it? Real quick? Okay?
Speaker 6 (27:31):
Carol.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
I'm gonna tell you how to move that sixteen foot
tall bottlebrush when I come back. And we have my
top five favorite heirloom tomatoes and you'll get to learn
about new ones. If it's Saturday morning, you're listening to
Better Lawns and Gardens, I'm Teresa Watkins, and this is
Florida's Talk and Entertainment Network's Top five.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Welcome back up, Better Lawns in Garden and now Teresa's
top five.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
These are my top five tomato varieties that you may
not have heard about.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
But should try.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Number five Andrew Rayhart's Jumbo Red very rare heirloom variety.
Large one to two pound beef steak tomatoes, meaty with
exceptional flavor, some resistance to cracking, eighty days to harvest,
eighteen eighty four. This is an old, rare loom variety
from West Virginia that was found growing in a pile
(28:41):
of flood debris. Pink tomatoes averaging one to two pounds each,
Excellent flavor, good sweet acid balance indeterminate, seventy eight days
to harvest. Number three Kellogg's Breakfast. This is a large
orange heirloom beef steak tomato juicy, meaty, fleshy with rich
sweet flavor, indeterminate with strong foliage, heavy yields. Fruits up
(29:06):
to one pound, eighty five to ninety days to harvest.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Carbon.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
This is a really cool on carbon also known as
Cherokee chocolate carbon, originated from a spontaneous mutation discovered in
the garden of the famous tomato collector who's been on
our show before, Greg Lea. Julie got a great tomato book.
In most respects, it mirrors its famous parent, Cherokee Purple.
(29:32):
It's an award winning heirloom tomato, rich black tomato flavor,
large twelve ounce uniform fruit, juicy meati eighty days to harvest.
And the number one Aunt Ruby's German Green Tomatoes heirloom
variety from Greenville, Tennessee. Large green tomatoes up to one
pound each, yellow green of maturity, juicy with a sweet,
(29:56):
subtle spicy flavor, eighty five days from transplant. You can
find all of these varieties at threshseeed dot com. Threshseeed
dot com. So those are my top five heirloom varieties
that you may not have heard about but should try.
Let's go to Michael.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
And Melbourne Beach.
Speaker 7 (30:16):
Good morning, Teresa. The gentleman that you had on a
few minutes ago that was talking about is mangoes. Yes,
I live south of him. I lived in Melbourne Beach
and just all of south end of the county. There's
terrible damage to both mangoes and avocados. However, just after
the freeze and everybody was calling, you had lots of
(30:39):
calls that everything was all brown. That's the way mine were.
But you said leave them three or four weeks and
don't do anything to them. Well, gonna, I'm gonna say
for my own personal and I've got twelve of them. Wow,
I would say leave them because the key factor you
said if the leaves didn't fall. So I just had
a few leaves fall, but out of all of them,
(30:59):
I only had one is not coming back. But if
you go out and look at your tree real carefully,
you'll see there's little dy bitty tiny green places, little
leaves or stems starting to come up in all of them.
So even though they look terrible and you drive by
them you say, well, let's cut that down. Just keep
waiting like you said. But I would just say give
(31:21):
it more time. Yes, but you were so right, and
I think you saved a lot of people. And we
do thank you for that.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Oh well, thank you so much. I'm very excited.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
I have seen the mangoes starting to come back and
so that's very exciting. Thank you so much for the
encouragement too, Ben in Longwood, all right, thank.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
You for listening. That's great.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Now, Carol and Lakeland's been very patient, and so she said,
I want to move a sixteen foot bottle brush to
a more prominent place in my yard now that we've
had to clear out the dead brown any tips, Yes,
this is how you do it, Carol.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
So I want this.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
You got to do it now because during the heat
to the summertime, it's not going to be a good
time to transplant.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Do it now.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Well, it's warm, but it's not too hot yet. We
don't have the high humidity yet. Water your bottle brush
really well, hand water it, soak it for it. I
would say two to three days before you move it, okay,
and then once it's soaked it you want to have
your whole dug where you're going to move it to
(32:25):
immediately so that it's not out of the ground for
you know, twelve hours or ten hours or next day.
You want to immediately plant it after you cut it up.
So now, after you've watered it really well for two
to three days, then I want you to cut a
circle right around the outside of your bottle brush. I
(32:48):
want you to feel roots and cut down. Okay, cut
down all the way around it. This is called root pruning.
And you're going to cut all the way around it.
But you're not going to dig it up up. You're
going to let it go into a little type of
mini shock, okay, and it's going to say my roots
have been cut. I've got to grow new roots, and
(33:11):
it's going to start that process of sending new roots out.
But you're not going to cut the bottom of the roots.
You're only going to cut the outside roots in a
circle all the way around. Then you wait about a
week to ten days, okay, and you're watering it throughout
this period. After the week to ten days, you've got
(33:33):
your whole dug, you're going to dig out underneath it
and lift it up with a root ball. You want
to save as much as that root ball as possible
and then move it over to its new area. Then
you want to keep it out of the ground one
to two inches because it's going to settle as the
roots as the dirt settles in it. So you don't
(33:54):
want to plant it level with the ground. You want
to one to two inches higher so that when it
does settle.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
It's going to be level with the ground.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
You want to see the flare at the bottom of
the tree, okay, and then you water it in really well.
You can put some rooting hormone on your root system
if you would like to do that, you can, uh,
and then just water it well every week and you'll
start to see new growth on it then. So that's
(34:23):
how you do it.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
That's amazing. I mean even think that you couldn't just
move some of the.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Us that big. You can. It's just incredible.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
So, and it seems like your advice for quite a
bit of things like whether we have a freeze coming up,
which we don't, but or if you're going to move
something needs to be saturated to an extent.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
Water is a really wonderful healer, and you don't want
to water your plants all the time.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
That's not a good thing.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
But when you're going to do something that's going to
cause a little bit of a shock, you want to
water it really well before before that hold front comes
through or before the uh, before you move it, because
that's going to keep the plant hydrated. So when you
move it, it's already kind of it's it's going to
be hydrated enough.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
It can handle the shock.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Yeah, okay, one triple eight four five five two nine
sixty seven, or you can text two three six eight zero. Uh,
blossom and rot, blossom and rot on your tomatoes. Uh,
if they're going to they look like they're rotting.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
And it's not.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
It's it is a calcium deficiency. But we have plenty
of calcium in our soils here in Florida, so we
shouldn't have to put calcium on our tomatoes unless you're
in a raised bed and there is no calcium in it,
but I doubt it sincerely. Blossom and rot is more
about watering, and when you overwater it, then the roots
(35:55):
get bloated and it can't absorb the nutrients, which there
would be calcium in the soil, and so it is
a calcium deficiency, but it's caused more by over watering. Okay,
So you want to keep it at an even level.
You don't want to water a lot one week and
then none the next week. You want to keep your
(36:15):
watering applications very, very consistent so that your roots don't
go into shock and they are not experiencing stress by
ups and downs in the watering. You want to let
your plants dry out by the evening time. So the
best time to water your landscape entirely just for the
(36:36):
health of your landscape, for the health of your turf,
the health of your trees is between five and ten am.
That way, you're going to water them and they're going
to dry out for the day. There's no need to
water during the middle of the day unless you have
new turf or new plants. And it's extremely hot, okay,
(36:57):
And you don't want to water at six o'clock, seven
o'clock at night because then it's going to stay wet
with our humidity and with our heat. It's just going
to cause fungals, you know, issues, it's going to cause
insects issues like scale, you know, and it's it's just
not a good thing.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
Yes, And I'm just so excited because I believe it
or not, my high biscuits are actually coming back, the
majority of them, and especially the fire and ice though.
That was my favorite, and it is coming back. I
saw a little green, little full sprouts coming.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
Go out and look at your plants today and look
for that little green.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
Look for the little buds.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
The river birches are blooming out now, they're looking lovely,
and just so many of.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Giant bird of paradise.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
If your giant bird of paradise got whacked back, cut
it down to the ground. I'm seeing all of these
tall dead fronds, but they just cut off the dead
fronds and they're leaving the height of the trunk of
the giant birds of paradise that's not going to come back.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
Guys, go ahead and cut.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
It down to the ground. You will see the new
growth coming from the bottom of the ground. Giant birds
of paradises are coming back, okay.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
And then the big gigantic things of grass but or
like like Vacca hachies and all those big I saw
a hack and basically what the they did whenever they
went to go cut it down like cut it cut
it back. It took like a duct tape, wrapped it
all the way around it twice, okay, and then did
the uh used a hedge tremors and.
Speaker 4 (38:26):
Then just picked it up and walked off with it.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
I'm like, really, okay, that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
That's a great hack. You do want to cut back
your mewley grass.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
You do want to cut back your Faca hatchie and
your other grasses, your fountain grasses, your red and your
white fountain grasses. Go ahead and cut those back. You
want to stay tuned for the second hour Better Lawns
and Gardens. We've got some great information coming and we're
gonna be taking your phone calls one triple eight four
five five two nine sixty seven, or you can text
(38:54):
two three six eight zero.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
It's Saturday morning.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
You're listening to Better Lawns and Gardens from the Responsible
Solutions Studios. I'm Teresa Watkins, and this is Florida's Talk
and Entertainment Network.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
If you missed any of the show, or any of
the other shows that you'd like to go back and
recap on, go to Better Lawns dot com. That is
Better Lawns dot com.
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