Hello and thanks for joining us for another episode of MidAmerican Gardener.

I'm your host, Tinisha Spain, and joining me in the studio today are two of my friends who are here to talk about all things gardening.

So we'll have them introduce themselves.

Martie, we'll start with you.

Hello out there in TV land.

My name is Martie Alagna, and I plant stuff, and I pray that it lives.

Ask me something!

Short and sweet.

Jen.

Hi, I'm Jennifer Nelson.

I wear a lot of different hats, but I teach on campus at University of Illinois.

I teach vegetable gardening, and some of my articles I've written are online at groundedandgrowing.com and I love to talk plants.

Awesome, awesome.

We are in our piddling time of the year.

I guess indoor projects abound, and you're probably getting your seeds out and catalogs out and all sorts of things.

So let's start with your show and tell item.

Where do you want to start, Jen?

Well, I brought a show and tell of loofah gourds and so maybe you've seen these, like in their finished in their finished form, in the store they're sold, you know, in the shower, shower supplies and whatnot as a natural sponge.

But it actually starts out as something like this, green.

This is dried down.

This has been sitting in my garage since the summer, and so they you actually end up peeling this sort of the outer shell comes off.

This one I tried to peel kind of early, and it was really resisting coming off, but you can kind of see what you end up with, and lots and lots and lots of seeds.

So I'll be planting more of these for whoever wants them.

I'll give them some seeds.

These need a really long time to grow.

They actually are edible, if you if you pick them when they're really small, they're supposedly tastes like zucchini.

I don't know is that like taste like chicken in the meat world, they take a really long time.

So they take, like, at least 100 days to get fruits from them.

So to get these this year, I started them, and I have a whole big bag of them.

I started them in the greenhouse around March.

Okay, and then put them out.

I put it.

I put them in a bigger pot, because vining crops tend to not want their roots to be disturbed.

So I wanted bigger plants, but not to have to tease them out of a tiny pot.

So they took over the side of our shed.

They really love the heat and humidity, and if you've got a good water source, keep them watered, they will go ballistic.

We had way more fruit than I thought.

Like, we had, like, a light frost hit, and the leaves kind of died back, and I'm like, "Holy..." You could see what was really in there?

Yes, there was a lot.

I hate when I miss a watermelon or a cantaloupe.

Like, what are you doing?

It's huge.

Yes, they're ridiculous.

Three feet long.

So are you going to...what are your plans for these?

I'm going to keep a few.

And I thought I'd see, I'd seen some craft projects where you actually pour the kind of There's soap that you can... like, a glycerin...?

Like a glycerin soap that you melt down like, so you would cut, like, rounds of this and put it in a pan and pour the glycerin soap.

So have a built in scrubby in the soap.

I'm gonna give some to a friend whose husband was sad that he couldn't get his to grow.

Yeah, my husband will be glad that I'm getting some of them out of the garage.

I bet.

I have a question!

Okay, like these?

Okay, this one looks like it's a little, I don't know if you can, yeah, it's a little discolored.

Can you like bleach these or not?

I'm not exactly sure.

I don't know that I would put anything really strong, might dissolve it.

I mean, it's plant, that's true.

It's plant that's true.

It's plant material.

I was some of these kind of, I don't know, they look kind of dark in the garage.

I was kind of like, Well, is it wrecked inside?

It looks pretty white.

Yeah.

I wonder what they do commercially, though, because they are probably bleach, at least a weak solution.

Yeah, these, I mean, and that might even wash off.

Yeah, that's when I'm wondering, if I gave him a rinse, would it, or maybe like to delve into that a little more, go down that rabbit hole bit.

Sorry, Martie.

I'm gonna say, if you ate these when they were younger...love your colon.

I mean... Where were the seeds?

Like, did you just shake them out?

The bag that I brought with me, some of them shook out in the bag.

They're right, yeah, you can see, there's kind of like, chambers.

Oh, okay, so they're like, you can see, oh, okay, got it, yeah, just kind of rattle around.

I wish you could see this.

There's no shortage of sections.

You can see the dark the dark shading in there is the seed, yeah, very cool.

Well, maybe next year folks will be getting some nice soaps, nice loofah soap, some loofah soaps for Christmas.

Do you or stratify or do anything special, just getting them, just getting them going early, because you've got to get that 100, yeah, that's a long 100 days, and they really don't get going until it gets really hot and horrible outside.

They had a great opportunity.

They totally went all the way up to the roof of our shed.

Wow, which isn't super tall, but one, you know, still Impressive, impressive for a plant.

Okay, all right, thank you.

All right.

Marty Val Khan wrote in and wants to know when to start annual flowers from seed.

We're all itching.

I know that's a big question.

So we can take our time.

We can take our time on this, okay, I would say, Gosh, Val, it depends on the kind of flower, because pansies you'd be sowing now, so you could set them out at maybe the end of March in this zone, and a container under a covered porch, because it's still going to frost late.

But I mean, like, you can wait for marigolds and Zinnias, you know, the easy peasy Cosmos, you know, the ones that are really heat lovers and and they germinate pretty quickly.

You can wait until I would say, I would say the end of March, really, because by the time you sew them, then they're going to you're going to start them in something small.

You're going to move them into like a three or four inch pot, and then by the time it's warm enough in the middle of May to set them out, or even, you know, depending on how the weather goes.

You're still going to have 810, weeks of of growth on them already, so they'll be ready to to just charge right out and start.

Gotcha.

So some of your early spring things, early ones, yeah, you can start now.

But, yeah, don't chomp, don't chomp at the bit too soon.

Yeah... Even though we want to!

...and snap dragons.

Those are a little bit hard to germinate.

They take a little longer.

I'm just trying to I don't do a lot of annual flowers.

You've moved on.

I don't I do things that are perennial, or most my annuals are things you can eat eventually.

But yeah, like planting seeds that are really extra hard, that take a little longer.

Also read the back of the package.

It'll tell you, it'll tell you for for sowing, direct sowing, for starting early, and you're always going to have, there are very, very few plants that don't transplant Well, annual flowers, they're just like, they don't care, yeah, don't care.

This, is this what they live for, literally, for, you know, three months, that's it.

So, yeah, it should be impatience.

Take a little longer, stuff like that.

Some seeds are pelleted because they're so tiny, you know?

And I think, I think pelleted seed takes a little longer because it has to dissolve that pellet, but the seed is so small, it's really hard to sow it if they don't pellet it, because it's almost like pepper.

You'll never, yeah, you'll never see it.

It's really, really little.

There's another one.

Lysianthus is a beautiful annual that's not real common, and it takes a long time to germinate.

You have to, if I'm not Misty, help me out here.

Do you have to stratify the seed?

Or maybe even, like, hit the outside with a nail file a little bit.

They're very difficult.

They take a long time to get going.

I had a I had a friend who grew them.

I'd never seen them before, and they're so beautiful.

But she had a whole set up in her basement with grow lights and a whole nine yards, you know, and she was, like, 112 and she's out there going, we're going to start these now.

How do you, oh my gosh, look at that.

Just for that one type of flower.

She had one specific, yeah, that is, she grew other stuff too, but she's the only person I've ever known who, who was dedicated enough to do those, and you just don't see him in in, like, to in a flat event you hardly ever see.

Listen, those kind of people are they cracked me up, like when you said, Chris, was it the awesome or a listen, yeah, when you said he gets out there with literally, and puts one seed in, I am not that person.

I am the I'm not a sweet rose.

No, so God loves those people.

What about peppers?

When can we start our peppers?

I usually start peppers like the end of February.

Okay?

I say, I always, when I've started peppers, I always wish I would have started them earlier.

Okay, they always tend to take a little longer than tomatoes, and I do my tomatoes like middle of March.

Okay, so good to know.

So if you're, if you're thinking about growing peppers, at least maybe go out and find the packet that you the variety that you want, because it's going to be time soon, so exciting.

And bell peppers are different than like, if you're going to grow jalapenos or poblanos, take a long time, like Jen was saying about the loo for taking so long.

Hotter peppers, they need a longer growing season to really get what you're planting them for, like, poblanos take a long time to get to maturity.

I mean, you can pick them green, but if you want to leave them until they're red, you got, you got to start them.

Yeah, I barely got like, two ripe poblanos last summer, yeah.

And as hot as it was, as long as the summer lingered, they take a long, long time.

So okay, all right.

And Jen, you've got some other seeds?

Yeah, I just brought kind of this is my hack for saving seeds.

So save your old pill bottles.

And if I had my stuff together, I would have a better label on it, but I only have a couple things like this, so I know what's in it.

These are my purple tomato seeds from last year.

And so when you get vitamins or other pills and you've got that little desiccant in it, I save those and I put them in with my seeds, because you want to keep your seeds cool and dry so that they maintain their viability, so that they'll be able to grow the next year.

And then this has a giant pack of desiccant in it, and seeds from the loofah gourd, because I don't want to leave any seeds behind.

Right?

No seeds left behind.

This is probably enough for the next 50 years at my house, but I will hopefully share some with students and stuff.

I'm going to take this and show my class this afternoon, and they'll probably want some seeds.

You don't realize how many seeds, a lot of those things are packing, until you go to start saving them, and then it's like, well, this got out of hand in a hurry.

Exactly, yeah, well, exactly, you know, like, like plants like this.

But when, when the plant dries, there's all kinds of animals in nature that chew through them and dig through them and eat the seeds.

And, I mean, this thing is pumping out seed just as hard as it can, because we might get five right the fall to the ground.

Don't get eaten.

Get a leaf.

Stick over them, you know.

You know, they're a million of them.

So maybe we can get, you know, four, just to see if we can get one that lives.

Gotcha.

Okay, let's see.

We talked about what seeds to start early.

What are some of the cool season crops that we will be starting first outside, and this is still a ways off, but we're just taking notes and getting ready.

So what are some of those cool season like, all your leafy greens, Ridge and kale and lettuce, yeah, any of that stuff, Swiss chard, nice that going and do you?

You don't have to wait until your last frost date to start those right?

I mean, cool season crops, they they're tough.

They can take a little bit.

I mean, some are tougher than others, so, yeah, definitely read up on your individual crop.

But like, things like kale, oh, they're like, those will be the first to go out if you, if you have an issue, if you're just doing to get out there, do them in a big pot, like a like a half whiskey barrel or something.

And then you can always put a hanger over them both ways, and put a heavy towel over them, you know.

Or put a whiskey barrel on on a roll around, and put them in the garage or back or in the dining room and back.

Yeah, if you don't have to experience no so you know that that kind of thing.

But if you want to direct someone in the ground, you might think about a cold frame, or at least a hoop.

You know, some hoops around so you can low, you can put, throw a tarp over them.

I mean, like a blue tarp or a gray tarp, not necessarily clear, or if it's really cold, you can do clear and then put the heavy, the dark tarp over at night to keep you, get that extra layer of air warmth.

But, yeah, generally speaking, they're pretty ironclad.

And I, my personal feeling is you can plant peas about the earliest you can get them in the ground.

I've never had one killed by early frost.

No, I've had them killed by random hot days.

Yes, yes, yeah.

They just shrivel up and wine.

We gave up trying to do them in the greenhouse, because they will get one random hot day, yeah, yeah.

Well, they, they weren't totally dead, but we didn't have time.

They were starting to, like, resprout, but we just ran out of time.

Gotcha, yeah, gotcha.

But broccoli and cabbage, those, those sorts the cold crops, those would be great.

Early spring.

This is too early still.

Yeah, I've had some people asking me, I'm like.

Did you not see we're all early.

I know there's the snow sowing.

Idea where certain seeds you can put.

You've done that right the winter.

Saw the winter, so I knew that.

I've still, I've got my little milk milk jugs and everything, all ready to go.

But I've had, I've put broccoli and cabbage out as early as, like, middle of March, you'll start to see the transplants.

And they do fine, especially in a container, like you were saying.

So if it really got dicey, you could throw something over it, over it.

You better have rabbit protection.

Oh boy.

We live where I do because they enjoy those a great deal.

We've got a little family living underneath my gardening shed.

So they're waiting.

They're just waiting for me to get back out there.

Yes, yes.

Have you named them?

Stu for one, the dogs are very curious about what's under there, so they've got to contest with that good Marty.

This is, this is in your wheelhouse, pruning and kind of taking care of our shrubs and trees and lilac and things like that that are dormant right now.

So let's, let's walk through our pruning schedule.

Okay, I would be your the windows kind of closing, because as the weather warms, the sap is going to come up.

But when you're pruning, when it's dormant, that is the best idea, okay, usually, usually, and that goes for everything.

We're talking hydrangeas.

We're talking lilac everything now is a good time.

I don't cut hydrangeas if you like, the big leaf hydrangeas, the ones with the big mop heads, okay, the ones that have the panicle hydrangeas, the ones that are shaped like cones.

You hardly ever have to prune them at all, unless they happen to if they send a shootout across the sidewalk.

Yes, cut it off at the ground.

Just take it out.

But the mop heads, I wait until they leave a little bit too, because the stems, sometimes they'll leave early, and some are, you know, way on the end, and sometimes they're way down at the base.

And it just depends on what the weather was, and they're unforgiving.

They call it endless time, but they don't call it endless winter.

So I was like, Oh, good.

They're gonna know.

They know they're not.

They're killing me.

Smalls, so yeah, I wait until they leave, and then I'll usually take them back if they're really, really low to the ground, I'll take them right above the new growth.

If the growth is up here and there's like nodes that are bare, I'll take it down to the green at the bottom, because you don't need a, yeah, you know, that's not, that's not that attractive trees.

And when you when you prune a tree, especially like if you're pruning it for shape, like it's scratching the car on the way in the driveway or something.

Take it back.

Don't leave a stub.

You know, if this is coming off and these are hanging down and they're scratching the car, don't cut them here.

Take them off.

Take them off.

Just back, smooth as you can, let this guy keep going.

But these are never gonna, they're never gonna go like that.

They're not, you know, just take them, take them off, encourage the tree to grow up.

I mean, I we have parking like a parking spot in our property, and it's I deliberately planted trees, so when you park outside in the summer, it's in the shade because, you know, baked ham.

Nobody likes that.

So we never garage for a long time.

So I needed shade real bad.

So yeah, but when you prune, don't just clip it off and think, Oh, it'll sprout.

It won't.

It looks horrible.

It looks like a little thumb that's just died.

It just turns brown.

It's a good place for infection and insects to get into your plant material.

Don't do that.

I don't know how much time we have.

Do you want to address raspberries?

Yeah, please.

Okay, raspberries.

Raspberries bloom and and bear fruit, they'll send up shoots, and they're skinny, and the next year, those are two years old, and they that's their second season, then they're going to bear fruit.

And the little skinny ones, you got to leave those, the ones that are bearing fruit, you leave those.

The biggest ones that are darkest, they they're probably past fruit bearing season.

If you're not, you can take those off at the ground, and your raspberries are sending up more canes.

If you're not sure if, if a STEM is done bearing fruit, because eventually it'll get to where it'll just get to where it'll just get too old and it won't bear fruit on the end, but it'll still scratch you when you're picking raspberries.

Oh yes, who needs That's annoying.

So if you're not sure, you can reduce the length, because you know they'll get pretty long and leggy.

You can reduce the length back by like a third or maybe a half.

I mean, if.

They're monstrous.

You could take them back two thirds, but I wouldn't take them back any further than that.

And if you think they're gonna bear, you know, if you're not sure, if you can always tell at the bottom of a raspberry cane, they won't look smooth anymore.

They'll look like, they'll look like a little bit of peely bark like that on the like on the loofah.

And you it's like you're out of here.

And that's how you know, Yeah, that one's old.

And just take them right?

Just take them off flush.

Leave the smaller ones, because those are the ones you're going to get berries off of either this season or next season.

And blackberries are about the same way, but they're also they tend to get a lot longer.

So usually I'll just head them back to a node where you can you can see where, where you know leaves are going to come out, take them back, just like an eighth of an inch above that node, and then it'll force more branches here lower, so you can get more fruit.

But eventually the cane gets old enough and it won't produce anymore.

So anything to add about pruning?

You got any work to do in your yard?

I got all the work.

Always, always, that's just how it is.

You're never done.

No, never, never, never.

What about roses?

Like, you've got a, and I'm asking for myself, I've got a bush that's kind of wonky, and I want to shape it up and make it a little bit more even.

Can you?

Can you top cut, though?

Like, is it like a, like a shrub rose, yes, yes.

I usually wait till I see what's done.

Okay, okay, no, no, okay.

So I'll give that some time.

Any, anything, yeah, and you can, you can drop crotch, those a little bit too, you know, if that, if the tip dies, and you got a little bit of leaf, but it's still, you know, if it's still, if you want it to grow like that, and it's going, yeah, just take it off.

Growing a little.

Take it off.

Yeah, cutting things is always, like, tough when you when you're not quite sure if you're doing the right thing, like, is this gonna damage it so that it doesn't grow?

Well, you know, after definitely don't do it now, okay, wait, wait until we get past the really cold part of the winter, because if you were to do it now, and we get some warm weather, and it starts growing, and then we get cold again, it's going to kill it back further than kill your new growth than it was start with.

So we're waiting.

So finally, last question, we've got about five minutes left.

What can we do now?

For those of us who are just chomping at the bit.

We can dream.

We can clean our tools through your pictures and look at what look at what space you really have, versus the pretty catalog pictures, all of the things.

Yes, right here.

I almost grabbed my file and some tools, and I'm like, No, I have a new dog.

I have time for that.

Get in the car.

Get in the car.

Now, come on.

You gotta go.

So, yeah, but you can clean your tools.

You can get your seeds sharpen, sharpen your pruners.

Yes, get your seed trays out and what's the we have to clean those with a diluted bleach solution, 10% bleach.

Yeah.

So there are a few things soap too.

I mean, I do soap with the with the bleach, and I scrub them because you get little crap in there.

Yeah.

And don't forget to do the lids, not just the trays where the soil is.

I've not had dampen off too much.

Oh, also, if you have potting soil, like left from last year, if I had potting soil left from last year, it will have been out in the garage or the garden shed or something.

I bring it in.

I've got some great two or three inch deep pans, like half sheet pans.

I bake the soil in the in the oven on like 200 for about 40 minutes because pathogens.

That's a good idea.

I've never done that.

I've heard you talk about that in a couple of other panelists.

Panelists talk about doing it, but I've never done it.

Well, if you go and you buy it fresh from the store, that's one thing.

But mine's been sitting out in the wild.

You know, it's gotten wet.

I've seen a lot of problems.

Oh, yeah, fungus gnats, something to keep an eye out.

Yeah, in the spring, you'll have some.

You'll have places have, like, super duper clearance on last year's soil.

And if it's been sitting outside in the yard, in their sales yard, no, don't do it.

Let that, let those sell first.

Then you wait, yeah, you can just and then, you know, it's clean, and it's, it's pathogen free.

And then you know, the soil that you plant your seeds in doesn't have to be nutritious.

No, all it is is a starting medium that provides moisture and temperature.

That's, that's all it's doing.

It just gives the seed inspiration to and then, and then you put it in Mother Earth, and then that's why God made fertilizer in a bottle.

That's right, all right.

Little thing we are out of time.

It goes so fast it does.

Thank you so much for sharing your.

Time and talent with us, and thank you so much for watching.

If you have questions for our panelists, you can send them in to us at yourgarden@gmail.com, or look us up on socials, just search for MidAmerican Gardener, and we will see you next time.

Good night.

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