Hello, and thanks for joining us for another episode of Mid American gardener.

I'm your host Tinisha, Spain and Joining me in studio today, two for the price of one.

We've got both Jennifer's in house today.

It's been a while since we've seen them individually and together.

I guess it's been a while.

This is your first time back in studio.

Yes, since that time.

So before we get into what we're going to be doing today, let's have our panelists introduce themselves and tell you a little bit more about their specialty.

So Jennifer Fishburne, we'll start with you.

Thank you.

Hello.

I'm Jennifer Fishburne.

I'm a Horticulture Educator with the University of Illinois Extension, and I am in Logan, Menard, and Sangamon counties.

My job is to answer gardening, all kinds of gardening questions.

I work with a Master Gardener Master Naturalist volunteers, and I'll be happy to answer any questions but I enjoy talking about vegetables and herbs.

Excellent.

And this is a busy, busy time of year for you.

Yes, it is.

So thank you for making time for coming to visit us.

You're welcome.

All right, and Jennifer Nelson.

Hi, I'm Jennifer Nelson.

In person you can find online at groundedandgrowing.com.

And I also teach vegetable gardening for the Department of Crop Sciences at University of Illinois.

I love all kinds of vertical horticulture topics I haven't met a plant that I don't like.

And my favorites are things like vegetables, house plants, a little bit of everything.

You've been busy too.

We've mostly seen you in the classroom this summer.

So thank you for making time as well.

Okay, so you can see Jennifer Nelson's got some things over here.

We're going to be cooking today.

On the side, I think this is the first time since I've been here.

So tell us a little bit about what you're going to be preparing?

Well, we noticed that our dailies at home are just about to start popping, and some of them have started blooming.

So this is one of them.

And it's a double flowered variety.

And I have lost the name me and all my labels at home and I've lost the name but the they are edible.

They are very tasty, dipped, better dipped and fried.

And so that's what we're going to do.

We picked these fresh this morning.

And the thing about day lilies is they only last a day.

So hence the instant and you gotta be really careful with this, that you are only cooking day lilies because other kinds of lilies can be toxic.

So make sure that that you've correctly identified I want to use that disclaimer here.

But before we start, so what we are using for our batter is its flower, bed baking powder, salt, and a carbonated beverage of your choice.

We use lemon lime soda today.

But you can use other things like beer or other kinds of pop if you wanted.

And what we're going to do is we're picking the buds when they're not quite opening yet if they're open.

And this is real similar to squash blossoms you said you had tried squash blossoms recently, if they are starting to open, they tend to kind of poof up in the batter and they get a little they're harder to cook I like to pick them when they're just not quite starting to open and I hold them by the stem.

And in this battle ends up being kind of lumpy when you mix it up.

And you just kind of dip it in.

And then I'm using a Friday ID which is a brand name, but it's a fryer that is going to have an internal thermostat.

I don't like the idea of a of a big pan of oil, potentially catching fire.

So we're just going to dip them and put them in and I don't know if you guys can hear the wheat sound kinda like you know, we're getting ready for fair season, right?

We gotta build up our tolerance for Friday.

So let's do it in the garden.

It ends up we'll taste these later.

I think they end up tasting a lot like tempura fried veggies if you've ever had something like that at an Asian restaurant.

Ooh, it smells super good dipped in ranch.

Okay, or sometimes powder II can powder sugar, or I brought some seasoned salt.

And so we're just gonna put a few in there and just cook them until they're golden brown all around.

Okay, and this tip works for other veggies or even fish we've tried it on.

All right, while those are getting prepared.

We're gonna go to Jennifer fish for now I'm like totally distracted and very proud.

To talk about some girl bags, there's a question that goes with this with your show until I'll read that real quick.

That says I can buy 20 gallon grow bags from my local Menards would these work for tomatoes, cucumbers or zucchini?

And any special tips for us?

If you remember on a previous show, we went to Jennifer Nelson's house and you guys actually did some things with go bags if you recall that from an old show.

So they were they like these, the Jennifers growing me so tell us a little bit about them and your technique and tips.

Okay, so the answer to the question is yes, you can grow and grow bags and they would work for your tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini at this time of year, so I'm not sure when this question came in, but at this time of year, I'd really probably stay away from tomatoes, you might not be able to harvest those, if you plant them now, but certainly cucumbers, you could still plant those in a grobag or in a garden situation and squash as well actually was squash, you might have less insect pressures planting those now than and later.

And then now as it's later in the season, but the thing I look for isn't necessarily the the size where it says it but actually looking at the size of the bag, if that makes any sense because sometimes they seem to be a little mislabeled.

So they might say five gallon, but they look pretty small to me.

So what I go by is if you're gonna grow the three mentioned tomatoes, cucumbers, even peppers, eggplants, I will look to size, say the size of a five gallon bucket.

This grow bag here in particular is a purchase just specifically for growing things in it.

It's a really nice quality, it's pretty, pretty thick and durable.

And I would say if you treat this correctly, don't leave it out over the winter, but bring it in in the winter and you're gonna get several seasons of use out of it.

This probably cost I believe it was around $7 For this bag.

What I want to show here though, is we all a lot of us if we're into going to the grocery store and taking our own bags, we have these either those reusable shopping bags, the ones that are fabric are great for grow bags.

So this is your great 99 cents $2 bag.

The drawback is it's only going to last one season.

So keep that in mind.

But if you have one like this one, it looks a little bit used, it's you know, the handles are getting more probably don't want to use it as much for groceries anymore, this will make a great grobag it will hold soil.

And with both of them, the thing that works great about them is they breathe from the sides.

So you don't have to worry about the roots growing out or anything like that.

And with any growing container, you just need to make sure you're watering it all the time.

And I'd say the key to grow bags or growing in any containers is good quality soil making sure your soil that's where you want to splurge.

By the good stuff that's all I'm gonna say you can skimp on the bag but get the bag and get the good soil.

Now let me ask you, when you when is the end of the season, how do you clean yours up and put them away?

Do you turn it inside out?

Do you hose into your brush it you probably dealt well with tomatoes, I would make sure I get them cleaned.

But I would just Yeah, hose them out, tournament side out and hose them out and come up to dry and then put them into the garage, the garage or what have you.

I tend to with the vegetables, not reuse the soil for vegetables again, you could if you wanted to probably use it for marigolds or flowers.

But I would not put vegetables back into use use potting mix.

Okay.

And then when you pull them out in the spring, just pop some fresh oil in and off you go off you go.

I like that.

I have not used these and I'm very interested.

Do you find that you get a better yield?

Or is it just more convenient?

It's really dependable.

It just depends nothing dependable.

It depends.

If you like them right on your deck, or do you have a small space or you're looking to downsize?

You know, so my mom, for example, she's gonna see this show and I'm gonna say, Mom, you need to be growing.

Not a great big garden anymore, but rather Yeah, raise beds or grow bags.

Something that's easier to get to you don't have to worry about the weeding.

You just got to worry about the watering.

Yes.

Excellent.

Okay, thank you.

All right, now we'll pop back in to Jennifer Nelson.

Are we are we ready?

Okay, let's dig in and try him.

Oh, um, first.

It's not like it's the Caden verse on the show stemmen all everything was poppin.

Wow.

Nope.

Just like a veggie just like a big.

That's really good.

With ranch.

Yeah, everything's with ranch.

I think I'd even get my kids are thrilled to eat that my kids were excited about the fact that I was doing this today.

My son actually went out before 8am and pick the Oh, my goodness, because he was like, Oh, well, you make these are you going to bring some home?

Those are really good.

And it didn't take long.

I know Jennifer was talking while they were cooking.

But how long were they in there?

And what do you look for to lose to be brown on both sides?

I kind of flipped them a couple of them over.

It just depends how many load you've filled the thing out.

You don't want to overload the shore.

It'll take longer.

I did I have found that they don't reheat well.

So definitely if you're going to do this, it's definitely something to just keep cooking and these your kids keep eating it or you keep eating it, whatever.

But yeah, if I tried to warm them up, warm them up after I've made them and they're just the moisture of the blossom.

kind of leaks into the breading and most fried food is the airfryer can save a lot of things.

I don't know that this I don't think this would work in an airfryer because of it being the web ever.

Yeah.

So you just got to eat this actually, it was good.

It was really good.

I you know what we might have to get the recipe.

We'll get that and put it online because I'm sure I'm sure we will get emails of folks after somebody.

Well, I can say it, but if you want to put it up too, though, okay.

All right.

That'd be great.

All right.

Let's go to a couple of questions.

Let's see.

We're gonna go to this but just out there.

Let's go to question number 45.

This was a question about a mysterious weed kinda long, so bear with me.

I live in the rural area outside of Monticello on seven acres, which includes four acres of dense timber and at least 12 perennial flower gardens.

In the last few years, I've noticed an invasive weed shown in the attached pictures, and I do not know what it is it pops up in my flower gardens and grows rampant climbing up trees and attaching itself with runner strings.

It's bright lime green in color and contains very sharp thorns all over the stems.

I made the mistake of trying to pull it bare handed and paid dearly for that mistake.

never noticed this weed until about four or five years ago.

Any suggestions to get rid of it?

And we do have pictures of that that you will be able to see.

So what is your not guess but what are we looking at here?

So the weed is commonly called bristle Greenbrier.

Scientifically it's my licks is the name for that plant.

It actually can grow about 25 feet tall.

If it's mining up a tree.

It you'll find it typically along rivers and streams that likes it wet woodland areas moist, so it makes sense that if they are in a wooded area that it would grow there.

It grows through rhizome.

The easiest way if you just have a small plant is to hand pull it wearing leather gloves, leather gloves, leather gloves, because it does it does have some some pretty sharp.

Yeah, spines there so make sure that you wear leather gloves.

The other way to get rid of it would be using a paintbrush.

If it's in a flowerbed using a paintbrush and paint some glyphosate on it would be another option as well.

But certainly it could be handled wearing the appropriate.

I made the same mistake with this and I live in Monticello as well.

And I found this in my yard and I was telling Jennifer said you can't you this can't be in your yard.

I live adjacent to a county park that's wooded.

And yes, I didn't realize it was there and grabbed it with just regular gloves on it.

Holy cow.

Oh my gosh, I don't think I've come in contact with this particular weed.

Thankfully, because I think I I feel like I would remember but you would an urban situation, you probably wouldn't find it as readily because it does like that more woodland moist areas to grow in.

Okay, so spot treatment you said or pull it with leather gloves.

Right.

Okay, or some kind of really thick gloves?

Yeah, really thick gloves.

Okay.

All right.

We're going to take another question.

This is number 30.

This one is what is the most disease resistant crab apple tree for zone five be the one that comes to mind when people ask about a good crab apple tree.

I think of purifier.

And Jennifer you and I agree or disagree I have not found any others that have come along that have been any better.

And there's developed that you have i So what's not, right, yeah.

But it's not going to get the scab that a lot of the apples, apple trees will get where it starts at this time of year it'll be pretty much devoid of leaves and look just look terrible.

I want something that's gonna maintain its leaves through the season and keep going and not succumb to diseases.

Now the one that you just mentioned, what was the name of it a very fire prairie fire, right bright pink.

I was just going to ask if you could explain a little bit about what it looks like just engulfed in pink flowers.

Very bright, hot pink.

And a lot of people will stop and ask what is that tree so you'll know it when you see it.

You'll know it when you see it.

Excellent.

Okay.

All right.

Prairie Fire.

Let's see.

This is a question about hydrangeas number 47.

This one's for Jennifer Nelson.

I have a hearty hydrangea I need to cover and hide the gas meter.

If I plant the hydrangeas in a pot, will it survive winter in the pot and survive the cold winter in DesPlaines.

This is kind of a loaded question.

So a lot of pots.

Do they like pots in the winner right?

There's a whole lot of things in this question that made me think of one of my old professors doctors Ballmer, who would start things off with saying well, it depends and so it depends on a whole lot.

things in this question.

Hydrangeas can tolerate a pot as long as it's big enough to keep it well watered through the summer, because like we talked with the girl bags, Jennifer but you've got to keep things watered and things will dry out quicker in a pot, especially hydrangea, which loves water.

And so like the 98 degrees and no rain situation we've had bad for a hydrangea and a pot unless you're on top of that, then when we get to winter, you're not you're going to have a problem with a perennial, surviving and apart because of the freeze and thaw cycle that it's going to be exposed to in the pot.

So the way you can get around that is bringing it into something like a shed or a garage, not necessarily heated, but definitely not getting down to freezing.

So that you can keep it cold and keep it dormant but not allow that freeze thaw cycle which would kill it ultimately, and probably dependent depending on the pot would probably destroy the pot too, because you would get the expansion that would shatter a ceramic pot.

Okay, so, yes, maybe yes.

You gotta go shopping.

You gotta get good, get a good pot, get a good plant, make sure you can keep it watered and have a spot to put it for the winter.

You know, last year I drag in a few pots into the garage.

And it got so cold, I ended up losing a couple of bulbs.

So what are your thoughts?

Like if we have an intense Deep Freeze coming basement?

But then do you run the risk of I don't want to say waking it up.

But is there any risk of moving you know, something into a basement where it might be a little bit warmer?

Yeah, there is.

I mean, I would move it for the shortest time possible.

Wouldn't you agree?

Yeah.

Yeah.

It depends on if you heat your garage or your basement as well.

Or if you just, you know, it's on it may have turned a space heater on in my garage a time or two.

But it's also so my kids can play out there too.

And we're all very polar vortex we all need a little bit.

That's true.

They're a bit closer.

Like if you have an attached garage, maybe move it closer to the door to your house.

So it's getting a little better adjoining wall or something like that getting that blast of warm air as you're going in and out.

Don't put it right by the outside door.

Yes.

Great advice.

And the thing I'll pick up on and mention here is the gas meter part of it that we forgot about.

I do like that she said in a container.

So it's movable.

You don't want to block your gas meter from being able to be serviced if you need to have it serviced.

So I can say from experience that you will get a letter from your friendly utility company or if you block your meter from access and we may have made a trellis that has a door in it.

Nice.

Hi, Demeter, but also give access.

I like it.

I like it.

Good advice.

Okay.

We've got another one.

This is for Jennifer Fishburne.

This is about squash problems.

I have a problem with my yellow summer squash this year.

The vegetables are soft and mushy at the flower end when the squash are about three inches long.

Any suggestions?

What do you think they're seeing?

So without seeing it, I can't tell you for absolute certain but I it's highly probable This is blossom end rot.

Very common right now at this time of year I have seen it on my own plants.

I have two different types of zucchini, one a little is a little bit more prone to it than the other one.

Simply environmental issues.

I don't want to say there's nothing you can do about it.

There are a few things but you can't control the weather.

So it's generally caused by cool two cooler temperatures which we've not experienced, or too high of temperatures excessive heat which we have experienced.

I shouldn't say it's caused by those are contributing factors.

But what it is is the plants can't uptake the calcium from the soil when their soils either too dry too wet or it's too hot, or it's too cold you will also see this on tomatoes and peppers and maybe even watermelon this happening so the things that you can control a little bit it provided you do have a good water source as you can water your garden so if we're experienced in a dry situation is to make sure you're getting at least an inch of water inch and a half of water on your garden each week.

That can that can help with that calcium absorb absorption but most times we're finding you might want to get a soil test done this fall but most times we're finding that the calcium is in the soil.

It's just not being able to be absorbed into the plant due to the conditions.

Interesting Jim, you said you were having some issues with tomatoes this year?

Yeah, and I some of it maybe user error.

I just had some I think it's just the weather too, because I put out tomatoes at an appropriate time and some of them were just not growing and just kind of withering and dying and I don't know if it's just was too hot.

I was watering them I couldn't pinpoint mean it down to one particular symptom?

I remember telling Jennifer Yeah, I'm really you know, the expert this year killing everything between that and then a chipmunk digging up all of my squash seeds.

So I literally just put my squash out, I started seedlings inside, and just put them out last weekend, so maybe I'll avoid some of the bug problems and such, but maybe God can be a rough sport.

I killed my first squash vine borer this weekend.

I was so devastated.

I was looking at my plan and it's starting to wilt and not look good.

So I happen to look at the plan and there's this unusual looking insect which I figured out was a squash vine borer and I squished it not that that's going to help my plant any but you can sell by planting by planting later in the season.

You can avoid that issue.

I'll report back.

So I was gonna say that window of because you had seedlings in the house that you started from.

I started on from seed in June.

I had put seeds out in the garden in May.

And being warm season they come up really quick.

I've never had an issue doing it this way.

But this chipmunk just must have been watching and he just delicious.

They were all dug up and eaten I found the shells.

Wow.

Wow, smart little guy smart little guys.

Any other problems that you guys have.

We've got about five minutes left any other problems you guys are seeing in your in your personal gardens or yards that maybe you could help.

Wow, another another heat related issue that I'm seeing is flower drop.

So my green beans in particular, I have the prettiest which had a picture but I have the prettiest green bean plants this year, I have two beautiful rose, which by now had we not had the seed I think I would have probably canned about 14 quarts agreements, but the blossoms they you see them, but then they they disappear so to speak, they fall off.

And that's heat related.

It's a way that the plant can survive through the heat in the drought.

So now that we've had this rain, it's a bit three, at least in central Illinois, and it's a bit cooler.

Although it's not cold, it's cooler.

I am hopeful that I will have a plethora of greens here soon.

So I'm pretty excited.

So I've had a lot of people actually say that their plants and flowers were slow to grow.

Is that because we started off chilly and then it got hot?

What do you typically what do you attribute that to?

I think it's more heat than anything from what I've seen is we all worry about it being too cold in the spring.

But we forget that there's a window there's an upper limit to especially with things like you pointed out green beans, but tomatoes are the same way if it gets too hot, we think about tomatoes and peppers loving the heat, but only to a point.

The point is they have a limit.

And I've I've also seen it with some flowers in the yard, they just weren't doing anything.

I'm giving them plenty of water.

But you know, it's 98 degrees, they can't necessarily handle it any more than a week.

But I noticed some of the stuff that was struggling since it's cooled off, it's really filling out in a hurry.

And a follow up to the grow bags.

And one thing I think I forgot to mention is in those you don't want to plant, what you typically might plant in your garden space, you're going to look for a space savings vegetables so things that are going to get smaller I currently have and I cannot remember the name but a tomato plant that only gets two feet tall.

And one of my grow bags, it it does need staked but it's takes up little space and it's got four beautiful green tomatoes on it right now.

So that's a good topic actually.

What what are the best things to grow and grow bags, we talked about some of those plants but are there any others that you would add to the list pretty much anything except for your your like watermelon and some of your melons I probably would stay away from unless you could find one that's really spacesaving.

But anything else I've had pretty good luck with.

We've done with the class we've done things like carrots have worked out really well.

Broccoli, that sort of thing.

We haven't done that in class.

But I've done that in a container before just in a bucket.

Something that will just like Jennifer says more compact potato potatoes maybe yeah, potatoes will work on potatoes.

Oh actually here, let me show a quick demo.

So this I forgot to show earlier.

This is a size that you would use for a potato bag.

It's pretty good size.

And what you do is you put your potatoes in a lower level.

And then as they grow, you continue to add the soil to it.

Instead of filled a whole bag.

You put the potatoes down in the lower half and then as they grow, you cover those kind of add more to it.

And then yeah, that's super easy, and then just plop them out.

Yeah, and as Jennifer mentioned, broccoli, here really soon broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage.

Those are great fall crops.

So we're gonna be planning those about the first of August so be looking for those plants in your garden centers here pretty soon there.

pretty dark or start them out, you'd probably have to start your own.

They're pretty limited selections and most of the garden centers and if you're lettuces and greens will do really well in one of those bags too.

I could see that and then you don't have to share it with the chipmunks.

I too.

We have a chipmunk situation at our house.

That is situated tunnels.

There's no winning.

No.

We just have to rent trips.

You know, I don't like I don't like things.

Yeah, things but yeah, they they literally removed all the soil from the base of one of his shrubs.

Wow.

Yeah, yeah, they are destructive little guys.

And now when I walk up, they chit chit chit because it's their flower bed.

You know, like, I've lost.

We were in Colorado and recently and they were coming up to us my kids were petting.

It was like cute at first and then it was kind of like a little and they freak out and try to bite you then you don't know what's gonna happen next.

And real quick.

Before we go.

Chuck sent me these lovely spring bulbs.

And I need to know if I put them in the ground.

Now if what do I do with these guys?

Do they?

How do I store them in your paper rag.

Put them in the garage if you want to.

And then early September, October, early October I plant them in the ground about three times the depth of the bulb.

So about six, eight inches deep.

Okay.

Well, that's all the time we had.

Thank you for feeding us.

Thank you for teaching us about pro bags.

And yeah, I'll think I'll have another one too.

Thank you so much for joining and we'll see you next time.

Good night.