November 26, 2025 • 9 mins
Ron Wilson talks Thanksgiving, Christmas trees, and some last minute gardening tips!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let's jump over the phones to spend as much time as.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Humanly possible with living legend with Columbus Icon. My good
friend Ronald Wilson, ron good morning.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
All right, what you're off on Friday? You gotta be
kidding me.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
I'm off on Friday.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
You're working Friday, absolutely with things to do, Like what
get gardening shows to do on Saturday? We got to
get ready for them. You know there's things going on.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Well, enjoy. I guess I won't be working. I won't
be working. And unfortunately, no gardening show for.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Us Saturday, simply because we've got some Buckeye coverage, so
we can we can talk about that in a minute.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
But how you bet?
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Man?
Speaker 1 (00:40):
What's going you sitting at the kids table tomorrow?
Speaker 3 (00:43):
I usually wind up sitting at the kids table. You're
exactly right. What's to meet? The macaroni and cheese. That's
why you have macaroni and cheese at Thanksgiving, so the
kids eat the macaroni and cheese and save all the
rest of the good stuff for you.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Well, that's what I said.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Unless you're under the age of ten, there's I mean,
mac and cheese is for the kids table. Get them,
you know, filled up on something else, so I gotta steady,
you know, steady, you know, third helpings of stuffing and
mashed potatoes.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Absolutely, Yeah, of course. I do a side dressing you
call stuffing or dressing. I do a side dressing made
out of white castles.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
I've heard of that.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Yeah, it's pretty dark good. It's funny. Everybody will go
they'll turn their heads and go, oh, you gotta be
kidding until they try it, and then they're like, oh,
that's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
It is pretty good. I've had it, not your version,
but I've had it before.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
I mean it's got the onions in it, it's got
the bread, and it's you know, got a little I
guess sausage if for lack of a better term than
the actual burger. But yeah, that's that's delicious. Do you
stuff the bird or you bake it separately?
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Now we make it separately, so that would make it dressing, right,
But stuffing, it's in the bird dressing.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
If it's on the side, sure, it's on my plate.
It's going into my belly. I don't care what you
call it. So what will your plate look like? Ron tomorrow?
You're first helping break down? Give me a visual like
a pie chart of what your plate was going to
look like.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
I actually go pretty light. I take a little bit
of everything and try it all. I think, obviously you
got the white meat. I'm not a dark meat either,
so I'm the white meat either. Something of that, A
little bit of mashed potatoes, a little lake in there.
So I got the gravy down, A little bit of
gravy on onto the turkey dressing for sure. Cranberry I
love cranberries, but what's interesting, and I'll take a little
(02:19):
bit of everything else. I don't eat a whole lot
for Thanksgiving dinner, but I do later in the day,
and I do on Friday and Saturday up over the
next yeah, for the next two days. But I love
leave it or hot green onions. I think are that
one of the best things as a side bar for
all of that stuff that you've got on your plate.
I love to have green onions with that. Don't ask
(02:41):
me why. I love to take the green onions with it,
so I always have I bring my own. If they
don't have.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Any, BYO, bring your own onions. Is that what you do?
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Your own green onions? Yep?
Speaker 1 (02:51):
So do you roast them or chart them or are
they just.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Wraw fresh cut fresh ready to go.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
See.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
I'll do a charred green onion fetah, which is really good.
Not to get two in the weeds on rest. This
is not a recipe show, but I do love talking
about food. So my plate's pretty simple. Ron I go
stuffing mashed potato or dressing, whatever you call it.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Stuffing.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
It's got to be next to the mashed potatoes because
you got to be able to mix them together for sure.
And then you go turkey. I'll do a little green
bean for a color. I'm not a huge cranberry fan.
They're a little too tart for me, so I'll take
all of that and then I'll just smother it in gravy.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Smothered is correct, That's that's a final touch, you know,
once you get it all put together, then you smother
it over. Of course, gravy is key. Not everybody can
make a really good gravy, but gravy is key to
this whole meal.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
You know, my grandmother, God rest her soul. If you
if you cracked a jar, if you opened a jar
of gravy, shit, it kicks you out.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Of the house.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Absolutely, you cannot buy gravy. You've got to make it.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
You got to save the drippings and as the best
you can and make it yourself. And it's a there's
a real secret to it. But you're right, that's the key.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
And you know what's unmothered with grave with the gravey.
That's our new podcast.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
I think you know what's underrated is the Thanksgiving dinner roll.
The basket that sits in the middle of the table,
the freshly baked white rolls.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
I mean nothing like some bread, right.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Oh my gosh, I am a huge bread eater. And
I'll tell you what if everything's really stuff, if you go.
I was listening to a couple of last night at
the restaurant talking about how they were going to handle
with the particular family dinner, and they were very formal,
et cetera, et cetera. If I was at that dinner
and somebody wanted to roll, I would stand up and
start throwing them. And I have done that before. At
(04:35):
Thanksgiving dinner it was really stuffy and tight. Somebody asked
for a roll. I just grabbed the thing, get up
and started throwing them to people. Kind of breaks the ice,
you know what I mean. Yeah, there's nothing better than
a good roll. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
I mean, if you if you want to break, if
you want to break the ice, you can just ask
people who they voted for.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
That's always a good to that's always a good Oh.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Yeah, yeah, that's a great one to bring up.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Hey have you heard of ambrosia salad?
Speaker 3 (04:59):
I have.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
It's it's a fruit salad. My mom used to make this.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
It's and I as a kid, I loved it because
it was it was super sweet. It's it's canned fruit,
you know, mandarin oranges, pineapple bits, and you know, cherries.
But it's put in a cool whip base with marshmallows
and sweetened coconut flakes.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Yes, yes, and so it sounds.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
As a kid, I loved it because you've got to
basically a salad with marshmallows and cool whip.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Today now none of it makes any sense to me.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
No. My sister brought that one time and we shamed
her so much. I don't think you brought it again.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Ambrosia salad. I need to text my mom to see
if she's going to make that this year. I bet
she's not. But I do want to talk a little
business with you. A lot of people I would have guessed,
are gonna get on uh on the road on Friday
and get to the nursery and get a Christmas tree
and put it on the top of the car. And
a lot of people putting up trees this weekend. One
of the most popular. I imagine it's one of the
(06:01):
varieties of a fir tree, is my guess.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Yeah, you know how it's changed so much over the years.
Twenty five thirty years ago, and yeah, thirty years ago,
Scotch pine was the that was the dcut Christmas tree.
Everybody had Scotch pine. And over the years and we
had Douglas fir, and we had a few others out there,
and you see a few Fraser furs and a few balsam.
But over the years, Fraser fur has stepped up to
the plate. It's pretty much the dominant tree now. So
(06:26):
anywhere you go, it's pretty much Fraser fur. I have
always used a Fraser fur for years and years and years.
Sometimes they were hard to get a hold of. But
that is the dominant one now. And you'll still fight
Scotch and you'll still find balsam, and you'll still fight
Douglas out there and blue spruce sometimes it's interesting. Mid
Ohio and North are blue spruce fans. A lot of
(06:48):
folks that use blue spruce usually can get furtheres. South
blue spruce is as popular, but Fraser fir still it's
now at the top of the list.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
They've got the short, dirty needles.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
And you know, you're always an advocate of getting the
fresh cut on the tree. If you don't cut it
down yourself, you're going to go buy it from a
lot somewhere.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Haven't put a fresh cut on that.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
That's still the first step in the standard operating procedure there.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Well, it is and isn't. Now here's a kicker. If
you're not going to go home and put that thing
up in the stand right away, okay, don't have them.
Don't have them put a cut on it, because it'll
steal over in two hours. So if you're not going
to go home and put it up, then I hold
off on the fresh cut. Or if they do do
a fresh cut and you don't put it up within
two hours, give it another one cut off about a
quarter of an inch of that butt to open that
back up again. Some folks will take them home, but
(07:35):
not putting them up this weekend. But want to get
their tree early, will stand it up in a shady area,
leave it sleeved and put it in a bucket of water,
and sometimes that of work. Now as cold as it's
going to get, it's going to freeze. It may not
work for you. But keep it in the shady area
until you're ready to put it in the stand. Fresh cut.
Then put in the stand, and don't ever let it
dry out. That's the key. You know. People talk about
(07:57):
the preservatives all the time, Yeah, you know, and the
bo each and alcohol and all that stuff. You know,
there's been all kinds of research done on that. The
key here is water. If the other things work for you,
a great go for it. But it's the water that
is the key. And don't ever let them dry out.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
It's amazing when you get that fresh cut and you
put the tree up that same day and you fill
up that stand with water, it's gone.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
It is. That thing sucks it up so quick, it's amazing.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
You can hear it suck it up. I think it's
surprises people sometimes like what is that.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
You can't hear it?
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Get out of here, Get down close, when you get
your put up on, when you get your ear right
down by that stand and listen and you'll hear that
thing sucking it up. But it surprises people how quickly
they'll do that. And the next thing you know it
is dry it out the next day, and you've already
let it dry out right off the bat so you know,
keep it keep makes you keep one of water in there.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
One more a business gardening related question. Is it too
late to get a second application of fall feeding down
on the lawn?
Speaker 1 (08:54):
I think we last talked.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
One of our last conversations was you can do it twice,
and then you do it once, and you know, late September,
early October or whatever, and then you wait six weeks.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Are we about in that window?
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Now you're almost out of the window at this stage.
Came and looking at the weather of the next week
with it being so cold, I'm not if you get
it down. If you do it today, it'd be okay.
But I think once we really dip down in this
daye like that for a week or so, we may
be done with the fertilizing for the year. And if
that happens, don't worry about it. We'll go this spring feeding.
(09:25):
We'll still be good to go. Hopefully you did the
first feeding, but we're right on that cuff, so either
get it done now or hold off until next year.
Let's jump over the phones to spend as much time as.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Humanly possible with living legend with Columbus Icon. My good
friend Ronald Wilson, ron good morning.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
All right, what you're off on Friday? You gotta be
kidding me.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
I'm off on Friday.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
You're working Friday, absolutely with things to do, Like what
get gardening shows to do on Saturday? We got to
get ready for them. You know there's things going on.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Well, enjoy. I guess I won't be working. I won't
be working. And unfortunately, no gardening show for.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Us Saturday, simply because we've got some Buckeye coverage, so
we can we can talk about that in a minute.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
But how you bet?
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Man?
Speaker 1 (00:40):
What's going you sitting at the kids table tomorrow?
Speaker 3 (00:43):
I usually wind up sitting at the kids table. You're
exactly right. What's to meet? The macaroni and cheese. That's
why you have macaroni and cheese at Thanksgiving, so the
kids eat the macaroni and cheese and save all the
rest of the good stuff for you.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Well, that's what I said.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Unless you're under the age of ten, there's I mean,
mac and cheese is for the kids table. Get them,
you know, filled up on something else, so I gotta steady,
you know, steady, you know, third helpings of stuffing and
mashed potatoes.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Absolutely, Yeah, of course. I do a side dressing you
call stuffing or dressing. I do a side dressing made
out of white castles.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
I've heard of that.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Yeah, it's pretty dark good. It's funny. Everybody will go
they'll turn their heads and go, oh, you gotta be
kidding until they try it, and then they're like, oh,
that's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
It is pretty good. I've had it, not your version,
but I've had it before.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
I mean it's got the onions in it, it's got
the bread, and it's you know, got a little I
guess sausage if for lack of a better term than
the actual burger. But yeah, that's that's delicious. Do you
stuff the bird or you bake it separately?
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Now we make it separately, so that would make it dressing, right,
But stuffing, it's in the bird dressing.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
If it's on the side, sure, it's on my plate.
It's going into my belly. I don't care what you
call it. So what will your plate look like? Ron tomorrow?
You're first helping break down? Give me a visual like
a pie chart of what your plate was going to
look like.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
I actually go pretty light. I take a little bit
of everything and try it all. I think, obviously you
got the white meat. I'm not a dark meat either,
so I'm the white meat either. Something of that, A
little bit of mashed potatoes, a little lake in there.
So I got the gravy down, A little bit of
gravy on onto the turkey dressing for sure. Cranberry I
love cranberries, but what's interesting, and I'll take a little
(02:19):
bit of everything else. I don't eat a whole lot
for Thanksgiving dinner, but I do later in the day,
and I do on Friday and Saturday up over the
next yeah, for the next two days. But I love
leave it or hot green onions. I think are that
one of the best things as a side bar for
all of that stuff that you've got on your plate.
I love to have green onions with that. Don't ask
(02:41):
me why. I love to take the green onions with it,
so I always have I bring my own. If they
don't have.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Any, BYO, bring your own onions. Is that what you do?
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Your own green onions? Yep?
Speaker 1 (02:51):
So do you roast them or chart them or are
they just.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Wraw fresh cut fresh ready to go.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
See.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
I'll do a charred green onion fetah, which is really good.
Not to get two in the weeds on rest. This
is not a recipe show, but I do love talking
about food. So my plate's pretty simple. Ron I go
stuffing mashed potato or dressing, whatever you call it.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Stuffing.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
It's got to be next to the mashed potatoes because
you got to be able to mix them together for sure.
And then you go turkey. I'll do a little green
bean for a color. I'm not a huge cranberry fan.
They're a little too tart for me, so I'll take
all of that and then I'll just smother it in gravy.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Smothered is correct, That's that's a final touch, you know,
once you get it all put together, then you smother
it over. Of course, gravy is key. Not everybody can
make a really good gravy, but gravy is key to
this whole meal.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
You know, my grandmother, God rest her soul. If you
if you cracked a jar, if you opened a jar
of gravy, shit, it kicks you out.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Of the house.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Absolutely, you cannot buy gravy. You've got to make it.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
You got to save the drippings and as the best
you can and make it yourself. And it's a there's
a real secret to it. But you're right, that's the key.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
And you know what's unmothered with grave with the gravey.
That's our new podcast.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
I think you know what's underrated is the Thanksgiving dinner roll.
The basket that sits in the middle of the table,
the freshly baked white rolls.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
I mean nothing like some bread, right.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Oh my gosh, I am a huge bread eater. And
I'll tell you what if everything's really stuff, if you go.
I was listening to a couple of last night at
the restaurant talking about how they were going to handle
with the particular family dinner, and they were very formal,
et cetera, et cetera. If I was at that dinner
and somebody wanted to roll, I would stand up and
start throwing them. And I have done that before. At
(04:35):
Thanksgiving dinner it was really stuffy and tight. Somebody asked
for a roll. I just grabbed the thing, get up
and started throwing them to people. Kind of breaks the ice,
you know what I mean. Yeah, there's nothing better than
a good roll. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
I mean, if you if you want to break, if
you want to break the ice, you can just ask
people who they voted for.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
That's always a good to that's always a good Oh.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Yeah, yeah, that's a great one to bring up.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Hey have you heard of ambrosia salad?
Speaker 3 (04:59):
I have.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
It's it's a fruit salad. My mom used to make this.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
It's and I as a kid, I loved it because
it was it was super sweet. It's it's canned fruit,
you know, mandarin oranges, pineapple bits, and you know, cherries.
But it's put in a cool whip base with marshmallows
and sweetened coconut flakes.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Yes, yes, and so it sounds.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
As a kid, I loved it because you've got to
basically a salad with marshmallows and cool whip.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Today now none of it makes any sense to me.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
No. My sister brought that one time and we shamed
her so much. I don't think you brought it again.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Ambrosia salad. I need to text my mom to see
if she's going to make that this year. I bet
she's not. But I do want to talk a little
business with you. A lot of people I would have guessed,
are gonna get on uh on the road on Friday
and get to the nursery and get a Christmas tree
and put it on the top of the car. And
a lot of people putting up trees this weekend. One
of the most popular. I imagine it's one of the
(06:01):
varieties of a fir tree, is my guess.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Yeah, you know how it's changed so much over the years.
Twenty five thirty years ago, and yeah, thirty years ago,
Scotch pine was the that was the dcut Christmas tree.
Everybody had Scotch pine. And over the years and we
had Douglas fir, and we had a few others out there,
and you see a few Fraser furs and a few balsam.
But over the years, Fraser fur has stepped up to
the plate. It's pretty much the dominant tree now. So
(06:26):
anywhere you go, it's pretty much Fraser fur. I have
always used a Fraser fur for years and years and years.
Sometimes they were hard to get a hold of. But
that is the dominant one now. And you'll still fight
Scotch and you'll still find balsam, and you'll still fight
Douglas out there and blue spruce sometimes it's interesting. Mid
Ohio and North are blue spruce fans. A lot of
(06:48):
folks that use blue spruce usually can get furtheres. South
blue spruce is as popular, but Fraser fir still it's
now at the top of the list.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
They've got the short, dirty needles.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
And you know, you're always an advocate of getting the
fresh cut on the tree. If you don't cut it
down yourself, you're going to go buy it from a
lot somewhere.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Haven't put a fresh cut on that.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
That's still the first step in the standard operating procedure there.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Well, it is and isn't. Now here's a kicker. If
you're not going to go home and put that thing
up in the stand right away, okay, don't have them.
Don't have them put a cut on it, because it'll
steal over in two hours. So if you're not going
to go home and put it up, then I hold
off on the fresh cut. Or if they do do
a fresh cut and you don't put it up within
two hours, give it another one cut off about a
quarter of an inch of that butt to open that
back up again. Some folks will take them home, but
(07:35):
not putting them up this weekend. But want to get
their tree early, will stand it up in a shady area,
leave it sleeved and put it in a bucket of water,
and sometimes that of work. Now as cold as it's
going to get, it's going to freeze. It may not
work for you. But keep it in the shady area
until you're ready to put it in the stand. Fresh cut.
Then put in the stand, and don't ever let it
dry out. That's the key. You know. People talk about
(07:57):
the preservatives all the time, Yeah, you know, and the
bo each and alcohol and all that stuff. You know,
there's been all kinds of research done on that. The
key here is water. If the other things work for you,
a great go for it. But it's the water that
is the key. And don't ever let them dry out.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
It's amazing when you get that fresh cut and you
put the tree up that same day and you fill
up that stand with water, it's gone.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
It is. That thing sucks it up so quick, it's amazing.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
You can hear it suck it up. I think it's
surprises people sometimes like what is that.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
You can't hear it?
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Get out of here, Get down close, when you get
your put up on, when you get your ear right
down by that stand and listen and you'll hear that
thing sucking it up. But it surprises people how quickly
they'll do that. And the next thing you know it
is dry it out the next day, and you've already
let it dry out right off the bat so you know,
keep it keep makes you keep one of water in there.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
One more a business gardening related question. Is it too
late to get a second application of fall feeding down
on the lawn?
Speaker 1 (08:54):
I think we last talked.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
One of our last conversations was you can do it twice,
and then you do it once, and you know, late September,
early October or whatever, and then you wait six weeks.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Are we about in that window?
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Now you're almost out of the window at this stage.
Came and looking at the weather of the next week
with it being so cold, I'm not if you get
it down. If you do it today, it'd be okay.
But I think once we really dip down in this
daye like that for a week or so, we may
be done with the fertilizing for the year. And if
that happens, don't worry about it. We'll go this spring feeding.
(09:25):
We'll still be good to go. Hopefully you did the
first feeding, but we're right on that cuff, so either
get it done now or hold off until next year.
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