Video Segments
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Winterizing the Vegetable Garden
Master Gardener Tom Mashour talks about what he does to get his vegetable garden ready for winter and planting in the spring. He likes to have his garden weed free in the spring. He talks about the pros and cons of three ways to get rid of weeds: herbicide, tilling, and hand weeding. Also, there are lots of leaves in the fall. Tom takes his leaves and grass clippings and dumps them on his garden to decompose over the winter. He also talks about planting green manure.
Tom talks about planning next year’s garden. He rotates his vegetables and explains how and why he does that. He starts his seeds indoors six weeks before it is time to plant. November 17, 2018 Related Resources: Preparing the Garden for Winter Getting Your Vegetable Garden Ready for Spring |
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Ornamentals and Trees in the Winter
TSU Extension Agent Joellen Dimond talks about how to help your shrubs and trees survive the winter and be ready to thrive next year. She starts with leaves, there are tons of them in the fall. Trees that live in the forest mulch themselves with leaves. In a home landscape setting the leaves need to be taken off the grass, but you can use these leaves to mulch your trees and shrubs or to compost. Using leaves as mulch encourages worms which improve the soil. Joellen also talks about lasagna gardening. By layering leaves and garden waste on top of a piece of cardboard and letting it compost over the winter you can have a fertile bed next spring.
Young thin-skinned trees can suffer from sunscald from daily heating and cooling cycles. Joellen encourages wrapping at-risk trees with tree wrap or even fabric strips to protect the bark from the freeze thaw cycles. Mulch is good to help regulate the soil temperature, but you should not pile mulch up next to trees and shrubs. The thick mulch allows voles and mice to eat at the base of the tree. If you need to protect tender perennials on cold nights, cover the plant with an old bed sheet and a piece of plastic. Make sure the plastic touches the ground on all sides. If you have deer or rabbits, putting a fence around young trees can protect against damage. November and December are the best times to plant bulbs for early spring color. Fall is a good time to divide perennials. You should not prune in the fall and winter; early spring is the best time. November 17, 2018 Related Resources: Preparing The Garden For Winter Checklist Preparing the Garden for Winter |
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Removing Honey Bees from Houses
Honey bees are great until they move into your house. The Bartlett Bee Whisperer David Glover is a hive remover and beekeeper. He talks about the process he uses to remove bee hives from houses. David says if you suspect you have a bee hive in your home look at the bees, if they are black and yellow, they are not honey bees but hornets or yellowjackets. Honey bees are muted colors.
When he arrives at a home, David uses a thermal camera to find the hive in the walls. Bees keep their brood at 94 degrees and that can be seen. Most hives are in the ceiling and they are removed from the inside where repairs are easier. When the hive is removed the comb that contains the brood is saved and put into a hive box, the honey is harvested, and the queen is found and captured to be placed back into the hive later. The bees are collected with a vacuum into buckets which are later put into the hive box with the brood. If you have a beehive in your home the worst thing to do is spray them with a pesticide. The pesticide will kill at least some of the bees and make the honey inedible. The pesticide will be absorbed by the first comb and the bees will find another way out and keep growing the hive. If the bees are totally killed by the insecticide they will stink, and the honey will start to drip down inside the wall, or through the ceiling, causing structural damage. It will also attract other animals. Without pesticides, the bee remover will be able to contain the honey and clean the comb out of the structure with minimal damage. As side benefits, they can harvest the honey and save the bees. November 10, 2018 Related Videos: Removing Bees from Walls Controlling Nuisance Honey Bees Honey Bees and Beekeeping |
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Composting
The Compost Fairy Mike Larrivee talks about how to get good compost in your garden. Mike shows what the different stages of compost look like as it breaks down. The whole process takes anywhere from a month to years depending on several factors. If you pay a lot of attention to a larger pile and turn it every few days it will break down faster. Also, to make it decompose quickly you need the correct ratio of greens and browns or nitrogen and carbon. There are other factors like moisture, heat, location, and how small the pieces are you are trying to compost. Mike also explains what is a green, what is a brown and what you should not put in a compost pile.
November 10, 2018 Related Videos: Composting for the Homeowner Home Composting: A Guide for Home Gardeners Cornell Composting |
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Gardening Terms #6
Horticulture Expert Dr. Lelia Kelly defines common garden terms: groundcover, ephemeral, volunteer, organic, broadcast, complete and incomplete fertilizer, frass, xeriscaping, and zone. These are terms that horticulturists throw around, but what do they mean?
November 3, 2018 Related Videos: Gardening Terms #2 Gardening Terms #4 Gardening Terms #5 |
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Fall Garden Tool Care
Retired UT Extension Agent Mike Dennison shows what he does to take care of his garden tools before he puts them away for the winter. Taking care of tools will make them last a long time. Mike shows a hoe that was purchased by his father in the 1960s and was used for years on the family farm. It still has the original handle and Mike shows what he does to preserve the metal and wood. He uses oil on the metal and linseed on the wood. Leaving dirt on tools will encourage rust which is the enemy of all metal tools. Mike also talks about what he does to get his small engines ready for winter.
November 3, 2018 Related Resources: Caring for Your Tools Tool Care Maintaining Lawn and Garden Tools |
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Garden Superstitions
It’s Halloween time and horticulture expert Dr. Lelia Kelly talks about how plants have been part of superstitions over history. Everyone knows that garlic will keep vampires away but in the middle ages people also used fennel seed to ward off evil. They believed that if you put fennel seeds in your key holes evil spirits could not get into your home. Another superstition is that you can use a sprig of basil to tell if your romantic interest is worthy and pure. Give them the basil and if it wilts, they are unworthy. Potatoes were brought back to Europe from America but people thought they were the devil’s food because they grew underground. To ward off the devil they would plant the potatoes on Good Friday and water them with holly water.
Dr. Kelly also talks about the Salem Witch Trials. She says that modern researchers have studied the symptoms displayed by the bewitched girls. The symptoms can be explained by eating the ergot fungus. This fungus grows on wet rye. She also talks about the roots of the legends of vampires. Pale skin, sensitivity to light, and blood around the mouth are some things you think of describing vampires. These things also describe the symptoms of a nutritional deficiency of niacin called pellagra. This deficiency was common in Europe especially among the poorer class when they had only corn to eat. October 27, 2018 |
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History of Garden Gnomes
Most cultures worldwide have a mythical creature similar to the gnome. They are earth people that are associated with soil and plants. Legend holds it that if a gnome comes above ground in the light of day it will turn to stone. The first garden gnomes were made of terracotta in Germany in the 1800s. A few of them were brought to England and English craftsman started copying the idea. Today garden gnomes are very popular and are said take care of your garden at night. There are also faux-political movements based around gnome rights.
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Fall Garden Clean-up
Retired UT Extension Agent Mike Dennison says that the first thing that you need to do when the gardening season is over is get rid of any diseased plants. They should be thrown in the trash, not composted. You can and should compost the healthy plants. If the plants are small enough in your garden, you can run over them with a mulching lawnmower and leave them to get tilled in next spring. Composting or leaving the plants in the garden helps reduce the need for fertilizer next year. Remove all the stakes, plastic mulch and other items that will not break down over the winter. You can plant a cover crop for your garden to help improve the soil over the winter.
Fall is a good time to get a soil test. Lime takes several months to change the pH of the soil, so fall is a great time to put it out. In the spring you may want to plant but the soil is still too wet to work. Horticulture expert Dr. Lelia Kelly suggests making your garden rows in the fall so they are ready to plant in the spring. UT Extension Agent Chris Cooper suggests raking your leaves into the garden and then running over them with a mulching lawnmower. October 27, 2018 Related Resources: Fall cleanup: Key to reducing risk for next year's plant diseases Fall cleanup in vegetable gardens Cover Crops for Home Gardens |
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