Get Some Sun While You Still Can!

answer your gardening questions. So if you have any kind of a question something we can help you with, help you have success, just give us a call seven one three two to one two kt r H seven one three two one two kt r H. I. I've got a number of things that I'd like to cover today, things that are seasonal stuff that we need to be getting done or we could be getting done out there in the landscape and the garden and even some inside

the house. This has been kind of a wet ish off and on and definitely a cold past few days that we've had. It's going to be a good week coming up. A little bit on the chilly side, but basically we got sunshine and which is a good thing. I've got some decent highs for the days we can get outside and get a few things done. And I need my soil to dry out just a little bit, because I've got quite a bit that I've caught the storms.

It seems like they've wherever they rain, they made sure and come to my house and did a little of that. So it's nice and moist out there. I'm not going to complain in that. But at the same time, I've got to move a garden fence post. Yeah, that's right. I put a patio in and now my entrance to the garden is in a different spot, so I have to move a fence post, move the gate, and so digging in clay soil when it is wet is a challenge. You would never want to dig your garden soil when

it's wet. I'll tell you why in just a moment. But when it comes to moving a fence post, it's still okay. It's just kind of hard to tamp them in and get a nice, good, straight, sturdy post that way, So why not move mix or mess with garden soil when it's wet, when I dig it rototill, it's spaded well. Soil has structure. Structure is the way the little clumps of soil grouped together. The reason that a heavy, gooey clay is so massive and sticky like that doesn't have

good oxygen, water doesn't move in it very fast. It is because the structure has been destroyed and the type of clay just doesn't allow that. So it's kind of like modeling clay. If you remember playing with modeling clay when you were a kid. That is a clay with no structure, no decent structure. As we add organic matter, as roots go through it, as organic acids some of the we'd always talk about humus and humic acid and things like that. That all helps contribute to good structure.

So it gets looser. It's still a clay, but it's more crumbly. So if you take a criminal massive Houston black clay, that's the name of the clay along here along this part of the Gulf coast, Houston black clay the primary clay, and you let it dry out, it's like concrete. But if it had good structure to it if you'd added compost, and if you had all the biological activity doing what microbes and roots and everything else is doing. You grab that dry clay and squeeze it

and it would crumble apart in your hand. And from a soil scientists import they call that friable soil. It breaks apart in your hand. That's what we're going for. And if you have a nice friable clay and you mess with it when it's too wet, you're gonna end up destroying some of that very important structure that helps plants thrive. Plants can thrive in clay, A lot of plants can if it drains adequately well, So we don't

walk on our garden beds. When you're making garden beds, make the bed and then you never set a foot on it after that. When we were doing beds and community gardens and from some school gardens, I always advise people don't make that bed any longer that the most sixteen feet. That's a long way, because what's going to happen as kiddos are gonna be on one side and want to get the other side, and how they're going to get there. They're going trapes right through the middle

of that bed. And we don't want to walk on our beds, so if you make them short enough, people walk around the ends that are trying to jump a anyway, don't mess with your soil when it's too wet. So whenever the soil is moist is the best time to work it. When it's dry, hard to work dry soil. It's like concrete, especially clay. But when it's too wet,

you're destroying structure. So you find that sweet spot. And that's why it's important to take advantage of those moments when we do have good moderate soil moisture to get out there and improve your soil. All right, Well, that was a lot of information there about improving soil, but

that's the important thing. And by the way, when you're going to improve your soil, you want to make sure and get a quality compost product, not something that's been rushed through real fast, not something the composting process, Not something that is basically a bunch of chunks of wood. You want a well composted, well screened compost mixed for the soil. Now, chunks of wood are great for the top of the soil. You know, when you look at

screened compost. When you look at stuff like our shredded hardwood composts and other things like that, that's good for the top. That's called malch in the soil. We want a good quality compost, and you know you can you can find that. Somebody asked me the O today, where can I get some good composts? And they're a little down south of town, and I said, Cianamulchamult is the place. They're out there on ear road sharing. It's on FM

five twenty one. You can go to the website. I can give you days and hours and times and places, and just go to the website Sienna Maltch dot com, CNA malts dot com. When you go there, you get a choice, you get to purchase. If you like landscapers Pride black velvet, they've got that. If you like products from excuse me, airloom soils, they've got those. They have

their their veggiane herb mix there. If you need to add nutrients to the soil fertilizer in other words, from nitrophoss or from nelson or azemite for micros or microlife or an organic source, they've got all of that there. And they have Medina too, by the way, as well, so anything you know, you always hear me say brown stuff before green stuff. Well, brown stuff is a soil.

Green stuff is the plants. If you want to go to a place where you get anything you need regarding brown stuff, regarding making that soil the best it can be, so you can have success with that, I would send you to see an a mulch down there. They they know what they're doing. They have quality stuff. And by the way, why are you're done there? You can get mulch as well. You can get landscaped stones and rock. I mean, it's it's a great place, all right. Well,

bottom line is take care of the soil. They say, make hay while the sun shines. I would say, yeah, you also improve your soil while the sunshines. In other words, the sun's coming out this week. We may get a little soil work done. Time for me to take a break. I'll be right back with your questions at seven one three two one two ktrhy.

like that. Makes it makes it real easy. Well, uh, there is a we have, we have some good weather coming, but there's always you know, there's always the next freeze that we're going to deal with. And I think, oh gosh, it was last week or two weeks ago. Even I was talking about the fact that East Hardware has so many freeze protection products, and so what kinds of things

am I talking about? What I'm talking about the the little clamp on lights where you put them underneath the plant that you've covered and it adds a little bit of heat under there. Talking about the covers, the various kinds of frost blanket, different different things you cover a plant with. And they also have those little things you screw on to your outdoor faucets that allow for the water to trickle out when it gets cold. They don't run all the time. You know, what I've always done

is let my faucet run on a trickle. It's kind of hard getting it just right when you do that, you know, But when you have those little attachments, it doesn't run until it gets cold, and when it starts freezing, that's when it starts to trickle out and keep that faucet from freezing up. I think it's a great way to go, a really cool way to go. They also have the faucet covers. By the way. That that thing you screw on up it's talking about is called a

freeze miser. Freeze miser. They have everything like that. Now, we just went through a little freeze, but one off, a bigger ones come in. You know, they come, and you know when they come, you're never ready for it. You got to run out there and grab stuff. And everybody else has already been out in shop. Will that'd be a good time to get stocked up on those kind of things.

Lumber down in Claire Lake. Those are just four examples of a lot of different ACE options. You can go to Ace Hardware dot com, find the store locator, find the one near you. But the main thing is, hey, why not get ready for a bigger freeze because they can come. And I can't tell you if it will or won't. We just know that absolutely we have to deal with that, and so we might as well be ready to go for it because it will happen all right.

By the way, the Chris Ace is stocking up too, for we're hitting the point where we're in spring cleaning right now. Uh, so you get you know, you got to get everything order. They have all kinds of spring cleaning supplies, storage toads. I was just putting the still putting up some stuff from the Christmas holidays and things, and uh, you know, we're how are you gonna pack it up? How are you gonna get stored for next year, ACE Sketch covered on all of that kind of thing.

If you're going to get your garage and order shelving units, which is something I'm also doing right now, having to put in some new shelves in the garage and things. They've got good options for that as well. Uh, it's just a it's just a place to go for everything. They say ACE is the place, and it really is. While you're there, by the way, you need to sign up online for the ACE Rewards program and I belong

to it. And every time you buy something, you you build up your points and things for discounts and special offers, and their special offer is only available to ACE Rewards customers. They get emailed directly to you. So why not you're already shopping, just go on to East hardbroad Dock, come sign up for ACE Rewards and it does pay off, It absolutely does. Alrighty, let's see here. I was gonna talk a little bit this morning about some vegetable gardening

things that we need to be aware of. The cool season here in the Greater Houston area is relatively mild. We don't have to deal with really difficult cold. We don't. We're fortunate in that way, but occasionally, you know, we get some doozies, but in general we're okay. So we can grow. We can garden all through the cool Seasoncoli our broccoli right now, we're still harvesting it is doing good. Our freeze freeze wasn't bad enough to hurt it, and so we're good. Uh, It's time for me to get

out and plant some more cool season greens. I love cool season greens. At number one, there's some of the most nutrient packed vegetables that we can grow, things like kale and spinach. A lot of folks like to plant lettuce. By the way, if you're going to grow lettuce, the bib lettuce or the leaf types of lettuce are much more successful here than head lettuce. I'm not saying you can't grow lettushead. I'm just saying the bib and leaf types.

I think they're more attractive. Also in a salad, but you can grow romain and I know that is a heading type of lettuce, and I love it for the crunchiness of it. You can't have a caesar shallad without it, right, But you can get out and plant those things. Now. Some of the things like carrots can go in the ground still. Now we can continue to plant those through the cool season. It's still good to be if you haven't planted the blue leaf vegetables. Also, those things have

more names than a criminal on the run. They're called blue le vegetables. They're called coal crops, colle coal crops. They're called cruciferous vegetables because of the shape of the blooms being in across did you know that? In fact? And they're they're loaded with good, good things, not just vitamins and things, but things like nutrients as well, and those can all be planted. Now let me head over to the phones though. We're going to go to Cypress,

Texas and talk to Steve. Hey, Steve, Welcome to garden Line. Hello, Hello, you there, Steve.

in there. So just be ready to do the stimulator and enough volume of water to get it down in where the roots actually are. But there's no problem with that. Certainly wouldn't hurt anything. You know, as to how much it helps, you know, well that that kind of depends on a lot of factors. But yeah, right.

of the bag. Get it. If you're out in the country and you don't care what it looks like, you can do that by putting a five gallon bucket beside the tree, drilling little tiny holes in it and then filling it with water and that way all the water goes down. In a larger area, I like to use a berm of soil, a doughnut, a ring maybe four feet across around that tree and soaking it down. So however you want to go about it is good. But I wouldn't do I wouldn't do the tube of PVC for watering the tree.

are not way way down there. There's a few sinker routes, but not a lot. When I lived up in Willis, Texas, just north of Conroe, we put in a peach orchard, and in doing so we had to push out a bunch of brush and things, and there was trees in it, and it's tough to clear the land for the orchard. And I was struck by the fact that a giant pine tree had this big tap root going down, but all the feeder roots were going sideways in the soil.

It would it just I took picture of it. I can't show you a picture on the radio, but it was really striking as to just how much those roots are in the surface. And if you if you have trouble believing me there, it's because you've seen these diagrams where you see a tree sticking up above the ground. You know that the branches and the trunk and branches and all that going up and then below ground. It's like a mirror image of the roots going down and out.

That is not how a tree grows. If you, if you don't believe me, do a search for Morton arboretom Morton like Morton salt Morton arboretum tree root diagram or something like that, and it'll surprise you. There are drop roots, there are tap There can be a tap root depending on the species. There can be roots that drop down from that root system to anchor and to reach down to get water from down deep when it's too dry up the top. But by and large, go sideways if

you want to. If you want to better diagram than that mirror image diagram, take a pancake and set it on the table. Take a stalk of broccoli and put it in the middle of the pancake. That's a tree. The BROCCOLI's the above ground. The pancake is the root system below ground. Go sideways. I'm pausing to let you mumble and grumble it you don't believe them, go check

it out, really seriously. It's important. It's time to get a lot of landscape stuff done, to have beauty and care, you know, beauty and all kinds of enjoyment when it comes to spring, and Piercecapes is a company that can do that for you. If you want a professional design, I mean, let you're going to go whole hog and just turn the place into the taj Mahal, they can do that. If you just want some additions done, some revamping of bed areas, some creating an outdoor hardscape structure

so you can enjoy it on the outside. If you need quarterly maintenance, they can do that. If you need you irrigation system tweaked, they can do that. Do you want to add landscape, they can do it all. Piercescapes dot Com. Go there, look at the pictures. You see what I'm talking about. Two eight one three seven oh fifty sixty two eight one three seven oh fifty sixty. Let the folks at Pierscapes turn your place into a showplace.

And I'm telling you when you go to pierscapes dot Com, you're gonna be really impressed with the kind of work that they can do. All Right, time for me to take a little bit of a break. If you'd like to call Jonathan get on the board for the next segment. Seven one three two one two kt r H. All right, welcome back.

but that's the last summer month for our area. So we really enjoy this kind of cool weather that we're having out here. Joking aside, I was talking about preparing the soil while ago, and then some cool season veggie things. I mentioned the chrysipherus, the coal crops. That's things like broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower,

col robbie kale, collareds, Brussels sprouts. I'm sure, I'm Mustard actually is considered one of the coal crops, and they do so good in the cool season, and they're so healthy for you as well, this is a time when we can plant other cool season things. You know, there are some greens that we just don't traditionally eat in Texas in general. Okay, now, I know if you moved here from another culture that you bring those kind of

cuisines with you in things. I know that, But by and large, the Texas gardens through the decades that I've been around gardening have just been boring. You know, tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, squash, something, those are all fine crops. But cool season greens like mash, or like corn salad, or like plantain, or like sorrel. Do you see what I'm saying? Those are cool season And there's examples in the warm season too, and there's

more in the cool season. There's a lot of things we can grow, and you should try that, because you know you don't. You may be saying, okay, talking about vegetables, I don't have a garden. We do. You have a five gallon bucket that you can grow some holes in. I've grown carrots and five gallon buckets. They do really well. If you've got a good quality mix and decent drainage. You can grow carrots in a five gallon bucket. I've grown kale in five gallon buckets or containers. You know

those nursery containers you buy shrubs and trees in. Don't throw them way. They're great for gardening it Now, if you want something pretty, you can buy really nice glazed pottery to grow in. Do you know my favorite vegetable gardening container is my favorite one of all the ones that are out there. It's not one that's made for vegetable gardening. It's a wheelbarrow. I have had several wheelbarrows over time. I had an old metal one that actually

started resting out. That was beautiful, It was so cool for gardening. I had a plastic one that I dropped a cinderblock in and cracked the bottom, and so now I have drainage. They are excellent for growing things. Wheelbarrows hold quite a bit of soil unless it's a little one. Getch you a good big one and you can grow all kinds of things. I had a wheelbarrow. Wish I could show you a picture of it. It had spinach, it had lettuce, it had broccoli, it had kale. What

else did I have in that thing? That had some Swiss chart in it? It just had all kinds of vegetables in a wheelbarrow. And you know what the cool thing about a wheelbarrow Number one, It gives a neighbors something to talk about if they hadn't already. Like Mildred, the guy his garden is in a wheelbarrow. You can put it wherever you want if you want. If, of course, you need sun for vegetables to do their best, move

it to a sunny spot in the yard. If you got a mode, just move the wheelbarrow over when you're mowing, move it back, or move it to a new spot. And it's great. It holds enough soil and therefore enough moisture that you don't have to water it twice a day to keep things going well. And you know, the hoa probably will not bother you about your wheelbarrow as long as it's pretty and it keeps moving. I did flowers, flowers cascading over the sides, flowers coming up in the center.

You can do an herb will wheel barrow with a regano or a time or things like that, spilling over the sides, and then you've got chives around it, and then you've got uprighter maybe basil plant or something in the middle. I mean, use your imagination, but it's pretty cool. I think it looks good. I think it's fun. And guess what if it Remember, oh gosh, years ago at my house it dropped down to almost seven degrees and that's too cold for vegetables. I don't care what the

vegetable is. Where did my wielburrow go right into the garage? Just as simple as that. When it was time to move it back rolled it back outside. Again. I'm telling you, it's a cool way to go, and it's different, and again it does give the neighbors something to talk about, as if they needed something else to talk about. But anyway, that's my favorite kind of gardening bed. I guess what I'm trying to say is everybody can grow a garden.

If you're listening to me, and you were in downtown Houston on the eight hundredth floor of some high rise and you got a little tiny patio, call me. We'll figure something out. I mean, there are things you can grow no matter where you are. And so I want you to try some things this year. Here's a good New Year's resolution. If you do those things, try something this year that you'd never done. Before, and I would suggest try growing something you can eat that is healthy

and taste that you've never grown before. When I do salads, I try to create all kinds of flavors in the salad. Sorel has a lemony flavor, en dive has a bitter type flavor. There are certainly even certain kinds of very mild herb type plants can be used and mixed in to create flavor in a salad. And a lot of the salad vegetables, the majority, the vast majority of salad vegetables are cool seasoned vegetables, not all, but a lot of them. And you can grow kinds of good things

out there if you want some. If you'm to do parsley for garnishing a plate, if you do't do. I like growing celery. I like the Asian types of celery as well as the big stalk types of celery that everybody thinks of when you use the word celery. You can grow with that here. Just got to get out there and do it, so try it out. Hey, you can't fail at gardening. You can only give up. Listen. Every gardener, I don't care how good they are, has failed many times over the course of their gardening life

and they just keep trying. That's how they do it. I wanted to mention you know, we love our feed stores here on Garden Line and D and D Feed and Tomball just about three miles west of two forty nine on Highway twenty nine to twenty so you're big middle of Tomball there. You head west on twenty nine to twenty about three miles, it'll be on the left hand side. The Dover family has been running D and D.

They opened it up in nineteen eighty nine. It is a wonderful store stocked with all kinds of things for your garden, nitrofoss products, bonin products, Microlife, turf Star from Nelson, Medina, heirloom soils, Landscaper's Pride. They carry flats of vegetables, they carry vegetables, seeds, they carry tools seasonally, they'll have fruit trees and roses and citrus and other things out there.

High quality dog food, and then everything you need to deal with the pests and diseases that are in your garden. It's a one stop shop out there. D and D Feed has always got things going on, and if you're thinking about getting backyard chickens, February is when the chicks come in. D and D was were all the chicks hang out. D and D feed is going to be loaded up with types of chickens you've never heard of.

And we'll talk about that more in February. But get ready now it's time to go out there and get some of the supplies. They have to get ready for that if you want to have backyard chickens. All right, time for me quit talking, Time for us to go to break. I'll be right back.

was real recently? I know that. And Chris Announcement has a lot of products from the turf Star line to the Color Star line to the nutri Star line. The Nutristar Genesis is a product I'm talking about, and what it is is it's our first retail blend that incorporates Micriza bacteria and other good fungi to benefit that soil. We call it the microbiome. That means all of the creatures that are living in the soil that take organic matter and turn it back into plant food, if you will,

and that improve the soil structure. They interact with plants in ways that help them. Nutri Star Genesis is packed with that. It's specifically designed to be mixed in the soil. Now it is a fertilizer. It is releases the nutrients in But what you do is you put the Nutristar

Genesis in the soil. So if you're going to dig a hole in plant and mix them in the hole and then put the plant in, and you can use it in the soil that you're putting around the plant to replant it, you know, as you're refilling the hole. I like to use it whenever I'm bumping up. Let's see, I'll start some tomato plants and as the little seedlings get going, I need to move them to a four inch pot or a six inch or a gallon pot or whatever. I'll mix the Nutristar Genesis in that, and

I'm telling you it is huge the difference. I seen it with my own eyes. I did it last year, watching those things jump out of the ground. They love that stuff.

to go about it. But then after you do that, once it gets going, then you switch over and use the other line of nutri Star foods from Nelson, or the color starre if it's flowering plants, or the Nature Star if you want something that's an organic type product. You can do all of that nutri Star. So look for that nutris Star Genesis from Nelson plant food. It's planting season, it's transplant growing season, and Nutristar genesis is good for all of those kinds of things. I couldn't

believe it the first time I used it. I was in I bumped some tomatoes up to four inch pots and put some nutral star in some of them, it was like whoa got to move those lights up because they were heading heading for the sky. With all that they were happy with that. You're listening to garden Line our phone number seven one three two one two k t RH. We've got time for one call here before the end of the hour and then we will continue on.

If you have a question about gardening, I would like to know if you have something you're going to do new this year they have done before. Would you tell me that? Just let me know. I want to know what are the things you're going to do different this year? Every year in gardening we get a brand new start. I used this etch a sketch example. All the times you know you don't like what you drew a your sketch, you turn it upside down, shake it and you get

to start over. We do the same thing in gardening. It's okay, But what are you gonna try that you haven't tried before? For me this year, I'm gonna try some new kinds of fruit, and I'm also gonna try a grape arbor, a grape barber. I've never planted. I've had arbors, but never planted on an arbor. My own grape made the choices and the design and everything like that, and I'm really looking forward to it. I got this

little spot. It's a good sunny spot, which I've kind of got to look for in my landscape now because all the good sunny spots are taken. My vegetables were first in line. They jumped on the first sunny spot. But anyway, I'm put a little grape barber in and it's gonna be a shaded area that enters the area where I have fruit trees, and so you walk through underneath this arbor, it's gonna be an arching livestock panel. You know what livestock panels are. It's like I don't

want to even use the word wire. It's like, but think of a wire, but each wires more like the almost the diameter of a pencil, real thick metal. Those are called livestock panels, coming about four foot by sixteen foot or somewhere close to that range. And if you use them as an overhead archway, they are very strong and sturdy. You just need a good post to hold them. I use them as vertical panels in the garden for growing vines and things on too. They're really good for that.

They're galvanized, they last forever. I love those things. Anyway, that's going to be the arbor top and the grapes will hang down underneath it. I can already taste them. Did you know that when you haven't planted something you're gonna plant, you can already taste it. Same with tomatoes. Let's go to Gary in Houston right quick for a run out of time here. Hey Gary, welcome to garden Line.

water can drain away. You can you can almost dig like a miniature pit that you fill with water and put a It has a you put a box in the bottom with a sump pump in there, and whenever the water comes up to a certain level, it physically pumps it through a solid pipe out to another area. So that's how we drain areas that are already low and we don't have a lower area for the gravity to take the water too.

layer of your land, you got options. But I wouldn't just dig a deep hole because it's just gonna fill with water and hold it unless as I said that.

don't know, just the nicest people. Have you ever noticed that you ever visited with somebody, you know, maybe walking down taking a walk through the neighborhood, down the street and you see somebody out gardening and they're just always willing to visit with you and talk with you, probably share a few plants with you too, and certainly some advice. Gardeners have opinions. We all have two elbows, but gardeners have way more than two opinions. I'll tell you that

for sure. They have opinions, and so do I, I guess, to be totally honest, I certainly do. But gardening is a fun hobby. It's a it's a kind of thing that I find to be really renewing and encouraging, and that that is important.

to grow that you haven't grown before? What are you going to try as a gardening practice that you haven't tried before? For example, have you ever tried propagating your own plants? Have you ever tried rooting a cutting? Have you ever tried doing something called an air layer. An air layer is where you bring soil up to the stem of the plant or soil or peat moss or potting soil, whatever, and you cover it with something plastic to hold the moisture in, and you wound the stem

and the roots form inside that soil. So and you can buy little devices, little devices, little gadgets that you fill with soil and they click together around the stem the way I've always done it. Back first time, I did it just an old bread wrapper tied around the stem at the base. Fill it full of soil tied around the stem at the top, and then put some foil around it if it's outside, to keep the sun from shining through that clear wrapper. But anyway, it works,

and you can do that. And if you got a plant you want to propagate, that's the way. How about dividing. Have you ever done division before? So let's do it this. Let's say you had a clump of grass, ornamental grass, or let's say you had like all the fall blooming Salvia salvio lecanta, a Mexican bush safe and do you grew it last year? And now it's instead of being a little you know, came out of a French potter

or gallon pot. Now it's a clump that you know, maybe about I don't know, eight eight inches across, six inches across. You can take a shovel straight down through it and divide it into two and now you have two of those one some other location, or share one with a friend. That's another kind of propagation. What kinds of propagation are you going to try this year that you haven't done before? Have you ever done seeds starting before? That is easy to do. Your local garden centers, a

lot of feed stores also ace hardware stores. They're going to have supplies for that kind of thing where you can go in and you can start your own seats, and it is really a cool thing to do. It's enjoyable to get out and try some new kinds of gardening. What are you going to do different? If you call in, I want to hear that. I want to hear about what are you going to try they haven't tried before? Or maybe you can tell me what did you try in twenty four that you hadn't tried before. Either way

we can do it. We just want to talk about encouraging people to try something new. You know, there are many kinds of gardeners out there. There's a range. There are the people who want a beautiful lawn and a beautiful landscape and they get on their phone and call and tell somebody to do that. That's okay, that's legit. We can help you have a beautiful landscape that way as well. And then there are people but everything is their own, do it yourself project, and they are the

garden is never finished. And that's true of a lot of gardens. We never finish them because we're always changing them. And however you want to go about gardening, what are you going to try something new? I hope you will try that. If you've not done much in the way of fertilizing and taking care of your plants. By the way, we're coming into the big spring planting season. That's a

big one. If you haven't planted woody ornamentals, including fruit trees, by the way, but woody ornamentals that need to go on the ground, do it today, not today, Do it soon as soon as you can, because they need time for the roots to grow before summer arrives and puts the demands on the plant. That way, you don't have to be so touching go in the summer where you could possibly lose a plant by forgetting to water for

a little while. Well, when you put it in the ground, you need to water it in with a good quality solution to do things to help those roots. And for example, Medina has one call has to grow six twelve six plant food six percent nitrogen, twelve percent phosphorus six percent potassium. Phosphorus is really important in a number of things. It helps with blooming, but it also helps us with root development. And Medina has to grow six twelve six has Medina

soil activator which stimulates biological activity. It's got humate, humic acid. Humic acid improves soil structure. It helps with nutrient uptake, it helps it is the final stage of decomposing organic matter. That's humus and humic acid is one of the acids or humic acid and full OFC acid and others. But it has beneficial effects in the soil and it's in that it's in the has to grow six twelve six. It also has to grow six twelve six. Also has

seaweed extracts. They stimulate fruiting and blooming. So you can use as to grow six to twelve six is a full of your application. You're not going to burn your plants. But since I'm talking about planting time, and because it helps build the bial biological activity in the soil, I would suggest doing it as a transplant. You could take a plant out of a container and soak it in a dilution of has to grow six to twelve six. You can plant the plant and then drench it in water.

In really good with medina has to grow six twelve six. How do you want to go about it? The instructions are on the label. It doesn't take much, goes a long way like in a flower bed. Probably an ounce of has to grow six twelve six per gallon of water. You can apply it with a sprinkling can. That's how I like to water in under plants. How do you go about it?

First of all, We're going to take a call from Glenn in College Station right when we get back from the break, and I'm going to talk to you a little bit about our trees, because this is the time when we need to be taking care of our trees as well. We'll be right back.

fertilizer right now, just as it gets dry. And I know right now you are stopping soggy wet up there in College Station just when it needs water a little bit. Just remember they have a very limited root system and will through a good part of the summer this year. So just small amounts of water pretty much, I say, within two or three feet of the base of the plant in all directions. That's primarily what you're trying to

help because the roots are very confined. Get that watered in real good, and that's the main thing in your power to do, especially when the weather heats up. But you can do a little fertilizing later, but first we need to get a good root system before we start putt in fertilizer.

look great. But of course I know that takes a long time for them to dry out when they're stuck in the ground, but they look great so far, and I just wanted to know if there was any chance I could help them out in any way, so I appreciate the information.

direct sun, but a very nice bright light. Some people use a window location, that's fine. Some people put them under a little artificial light. That's fine too, Okay, and then provide get you what's called it?

below ground. The leaf petiole that holds the leaf is below ground right to the point where the leaf is almost going into the ground itself right there, and that, believe it or not, you're going to get roots for him and little baby plants coming out right there at the end of the petiole, right before it goes into the leaf. Pretty cool stuff, all right, that's a good one. Alan in Cyprus, Welcome to garden line. How can we help today?

but a lot of the others. What you're dealing with on a fruit tree is you're taking They take a bud from mature wood and they graft it onto a rootstock, and so what you've got is a more mature type of wood up there that is not is easy to root. The second thing is if it rooted and you made a plant, you wouldn't have the benefits of the rootstock. So in the case of peaches, they graft them onto

things that are Nema toad resistant. In the case of apples, it may be a semi dwarfing rootstock or other things. But in general, could you do it. Maybe if it were a seedling plant that grew and you could get a shoot from near the base, you could do the air layer on that and root it and that would work. But if it is a grafted tree, probably going to be hard to have success. And if you do, then you got the issue of Okay, now it's not on a rootstock, and sometimes that's a problem.

that way, you know. We may have cold fronts with a hard freeze, and we may go through very mild periods, and we got to take care of our trees. And if you have, if you can't remember the last time you had someone come out and prune and evaluate your trees for their health, now is the time to do that. And Martin spoon Moore is a guy you need to call. He's with Affordable Tree Service Martin Spoon Moore Affordable Tree Service.

If you like websites a ff tree service dot com aff tree Service dot com you can find go there, find out everything you them know, or just give him a call. Seven one three six twenty six sixty three. Now Martin or his wife Joe will answer the phone. The owner's answer the phone there. If if you don't talk to Martin or Joe when you call, you've called the wrong place. Seven one three six ninety nine twenty six sixty three. You gotta get him scheduled now. And

if the guy does good work, he stays busy. Schedule him now to ensure your trees are in top shape. Not just for winter that's important, but for when growth begins in the spring. He can come out of value you trees, give you an estimate of what needs to be done that would involve pruning or training in general. Uh and deep root feeding. He does that. He does a lot. He did pretty much. If your tree needs that,

Martin can do it. Martin Spoon Moored Affordable Tree seven one three six nine nine twenty six sixty three.

valuable plant in your landscape. For your trees, and you got to take care of them. And that's why you got to trust it with somebody that knows what they're doing. I see so much more practice on treecre not necessary. All right, I'm going to take a quick break. When we come back, Leon, you will be our very first s up. All right, welcome back. Let's get going here on some more garden talk. Here on garden Line seven one three two one two KT Rights. That's the phone number.

Like you gi me call seven one three two one two KTR. Going to now go and talk to Leon. Hello, Leon, welcome to guard Line. Good morning.

there is absolutely no effect on those lemons whatsoever. Here here's what it's like. It's like if you took sugar, mixed it in water, and then you went out and sprayed it on some plants, and those plants got sot on them. There would be no problem to the plant, to eating that plant, right, It just just so that's all I do.

focus and let me look at them. If you can email them to me here before the show's over. We can talk about it and I'll take a look at them.

I warn you it is addictive. I have to put that disclaimer on it. I need to roll somebody to read legal terms real fast here at the end, like they do on commercials. Can be addictive, can be habit forming and so on. But it's a good habit, a good habit to have when you're trying to have success in your garden. You know, you want to do good practices.

You want to follow good horticulture practices. That's what we try to teach about here on Garden Line when we're talking about specifics, and I always try to lead you to success. I always say like brown stuff before green stuff, trying to make the point that when you get the soil right, you get your plants happy. That's the key. That's a foundation. There's other principles like plants need light, plants e moisture, but not too much moisture in most cases.

And following those you do those things right and you got it. And when you need supplies for that, you know I was talking about has to grow, you know from Medina while ago, talking about Nilson plant foods one of their products a little bit earlier, and all of those kinds of things. If you're kind of wondering to where I get that, well, one place you can go and get all of it is Southwest Fertilizer. There is not a product that comes out of my mouth and

my knowledge. I don't think I've ever mentioned a product that is not at Southwest Fertilizer because Bob makes sure if something is worth carrying, if it's a good product, people going to need it, He's going to carry it. And that's how it works. Southwest Fertilizers on the corner of Businet and Runwick in Southwest Houston. It is the premiere, one stop shop for everything. Do you want to start seeds,

Bob's got everything you need to start seeds. Do you need to have a certain of gardening tools, It's time to prune. By the way, he carries quality brands like Felco and Barnell and Corona. Or you an organic gardener and you go, yeah, you talk about pesticides and secticides, fungicides, herbicides, I'm organic. Well, there's organic versions of all of those, and nobody has a bigger organic selection than Bob does. At Southwest Fertilizer corner Abyss and Nutt and Renwick. Southwest

Fertilizer dot Com is a website you on a phone number. Hope, hopefully you're listening to garden Line with a pen and paper nearby here it is seven one three six six six one seven four four seven one three six six six one seven four four. If Bob doesn't carry it, you don't need it. It's as simple as that. If you like to give me a call my phone number seven one three two one two k t r H seven one three two one two k t r H.

Let's help. You have a bountiful lawn and a beautiful landscape and a bountifl garden and all those kinds of things. Plants fall seasons is the garden center right there on two forty nine as you're going up toward Tomball from Houston or vice versa, right there on two forty nine, just north of Luetta. So when you exit for Luetta, you just you just right there, I mean just a what about a half block north of Luetta on the

right hand side if you're going north. Plants for All Seasons always has a good selection of everything that is in season. And so for example, if you if you go to Plants for All Seasons and you're you're looking for a particular kind of flower or maybe vegetables, or maybe containers or all kinds of things like that, they've got it all. They have it all right there. Plants for All Seasons. You're going to find right now they are stocked up on roses. Oh my gosh, I got

a lot of roses there. Still good good cool season color, really good cool cool season color plants. They're veggies for cool season. And you know I was talking about cruciferous crops before, Well they've got them. They've got them there in a nice size, transplant size. There are plants for

all seasons. You're gonna find. You can't even walk out of the place to check out without going through all of the fertilizers and the soil types of products that are so important so that that beautiful plant, that basketful of plants you got shopping there, you got to grab the mixes, the blends of the composts, the mulches, the fertilizers to make those plants have success. And they got you covered there. They've been doing this for a very

long time. Plants for all season. In fact, I believe it goes back to Oh my gosh, in nineteen seventy three, I think is when they begin, and so they know what grows in Houston. They're not just people that sell plants. They're gardeners with experience that know what they're doing. The plants for all seasons. Well, you were listening to garden Line, and we are coming close to a wrap. I probably

could take a real quick call. One want to call for the top of the hour here, we're getting real close to the end for that and we'll be back. Of course next segment. When you're talking about things to be doing right now, it is time to get those seeds started. In fact, this afternoon, that is one of the things I'm going to be doing is starting some more seeds under lights that I have inside the garage.

Got a little heat map to go underneath them under there, and I've got a lot of different things I want to try. You know, there's the standard way where you go buy a packet of seed and you bring it home and planet of course, that's legit. That's what most people do. I do seed saving from my non hybrid varieties of flowers and vegetables. I'll often save seed from them, and that's another way to do it. And then I'm a seed collector.

grow on soil that blueberries might struggle in. So I'm going to I've got some seed. I'm going to start some farkleberries, and when they're old enough, I'll try grafting them to blueberries. Remember I said try something new this year. I haven't tried before. So that's just an example. I saw some beautiful roadside wildflowers that just were unique in a specific I won't bore you with the details, but it's like, Ooh, I haven't seen that species look like that.

I collected the seed. They're about to go out in my garage and go into containers, and I'm going to check them out and maybe pick out some good ones. That would be another thing. And you're talking about things you haven't done before that you ought to try this year, that you're gonna try this year. How about trying your hand at improving a species or a crop. So I

do that with Okra. For example, I cross okra and my best ones, I save them, and then I plant them, and I pull up everything that is not the best, and the ones that are left are the best, and then I do it again and again, and you get better at that. You can do the same thing. A lot of really quality plants that we have now were found by somebody somewhere and brought in and grown in

that kind of way. And so these wildflowers that I planted, when I plant those seeds, they're not all going to be like what I the mama plant that I took them off of. So I'll pull up everything that is not like or better than the mother plant and just let it cross with itself and keep going like that. That's a hobby. And I know a lot of you're listening to go, I'm.

talk about gardening, you know. It's kind of like you know, you dog people, which, by the way, we have two golden retrievers, And so if you look at the photos on my phone too, but my wife's phone, you scroll through them and it's like eight hundred thousand pictures of our looks along with kids and grandkids and everything else. But gardener's that way. You know, you got to take pictures while your stuff. You should by the way that

reminds me of something. Uh, this would be. I don't like the term New Year's resolution because to me, what that means is something I think I should do, but I'll never get around to when the when the rubber hits the road, right, But I'll just use it new Year's resolution. Here's an idea to journal your gardening activities this year. And you're thinking, Okay, I'm not a journ I don't have a journal that I write about what I think and feel and everything else. No, I'm talking

about something different. I'm talking about when you plant and emeralists. Let's say this. We're just talking to okay about amarillis. When they come up and bloom, take a picture of it and where they are and where they're blooming. I've taken pictures of things after I planted them that are they're going to disappear away and later you want to go, like a bulb, dig it up you don't know where it is. Well, that's one thing you can do. But also take pictures of how things are doing and what

works and what doesn't. You're out this year, You're going to grow tomatoes in your garden, let's say. And so you grow the tomatoes and you see a bug you'd never seen before, take a picture of it. Take a picture of it, and keep track of that. Some people like to write in a journal. You can do that. I like the electronic ones. There are different kinds of things that you can I'm not going to go into all the apps and softwares and things, but there's a

lot of it out there. Some people just use, you know, something like Microsoft Word or Excel or something. You can take those pictures and you can put them into the journal of that year with those plants as well as notes. And I go back to notes all the time. You know, what was two years ago I planted a whole bunch of hot peppers. What was the name of that one?

Or how did that do? Or what earlier? I two years ago, I took a picture of some stuff on Okra that I'd never seen before, And now I was just not too long ago thinking about, Okay, what was that and what month was that that I saw that? On it? With's on the picture the date on the picture. I mean, I'm just saying. You can journal about a lot of different things that you try and what works and what doesn't work. You can journal about pests and diseases.

You know what You can also do You can clip something from online that you read that's really good and

put it in that folder. I have folders like that where I read an article about not just make something up here, you know, Like I read an article about this great new carrot that has got way more vitamin or more beta caroteene in it, which is a precursor to vitamin A, and this and that and the other about this wonderful carrot, and I may just take a click that link and paste it into my journal in the section on vegetables or carrots or whatever, however organized

you want to go about it, or however unorganized, however in depth or however just cursory. Find a way to capture the things that you see in or learning. You go visit a botanical garden in another city and you see this cool plant, take a picture of it, take a picture of the tag on it, and there you go. Now you know what it looks like, what it is. So when you go home, you can go see, hey, do you guys carry this plant? You got it with you,

so take advantage of that. Some you can use the word journal however you want to look at it, just however you want to go about it. Do that. I really like the Microsoft product. One note for that I have used. Oh gosh, I can't even say the names of past softwares that I've used. And find what works for you or at you know, in the old days, we just cut clippings out of the newspaper and wrote on a you know, big chief tablet or three ring

binder those things down. You will find that those become very helpful and educational for those of you that want to get really serious about gardening in one aspect or another, or at least to learn and remember. All right, that's enough of a spiel on that, but I think that's important and I encourage you to try doing that well. The folks at Microlife have put together a number of quality products, and I talk about these all the time, but micro Grow Liquid AF is one I just want

to briefly mention to you. It is loaded with a bazillion different kinds of good things, eight specifically extremely dominating microbes for example, there are microbes that help control certain diseases. Micro Grow Liquid AF bioinoculate is loaded with those. There are microbes that live on the leaf and when a diseasepore lands or a bacteria lands, it out competes them or it just outright kills them. There's microbes that cause plants to growth to be regulated in a good way.

There's microbes that help the plant obtain nutrients from the soil, and on and on and on down the way. Micro Grow Liquid AF bioinoculate. This is a liquid. You can get it at a granule, but this is a liquid. It is very effective and it's everywhere you see micro life sould. It's a maroon burgundy colored label. Micro Grow Liquid AF all organic liquid biological inoculation for your plants and for your soil. Time for me to take a quick break. I'll be right back with your calls.

think at times it helps to understand the why. You know, a little bit of the why is helpful because then then you understand and you can apply that to other things. However you want to go about it, We're here for that. Seven one three two one two k t r H. The folks at wild Birds have come up with a new product and it is really cool stuff. They call

it the Cardinal Confetti Blend. That was it was a Cardinal Confetti blend is designed you know, for cardinals, but I'm telling you a lot of birds will like this blend. It's got safflower backs, black sunflowers, sunflower chips, It's got something called nutris saff and, which is a safflower. It's got the bark butter bits, it's got peanut halves, dried meal worms. I'm not a bird is starting to make my mouth water, and striped sunflower seeds as well, and you put it in a I would just put it

loose in a tray. You put it in a one of those tube feeders, or have a squirrel eliminator, my favorite bird feeder of all. You put it in there. They're going to keep this available year round because Cardinal's around year round. But it is really really cool. They've got a Cardinal tube feeder. It's brand new, also designed for this confetti collection, Cardinal Confetti. There's also a good evening Cardinal feeder. Two new feeders that are really really

effective and they're attractive too, by the way. They also this time of the year because it's winter, the Winter super Blend, it's a still very important, very timely it's got the energy and the fats that birds need for winter survival. In fact, it's wild Bird Unlimited, its highest fat seed blend, the Winter super Blend. That's what's in my feeders right now, Winter super blund. And then they've

got something called bark butter. Now this is crazy, but bark butter is a spreadable suet and you can literally you just go out there and smear it on a tree trunk and birds will come up and peck it. Out of that tree trunk. I mean you can smear it on a feed or whatever you want. But no bird food attracts more species of birds than Gem's birdaceous bark butter. Is that a name, Gem's berdaceous bark butter.

Now Jim Carpenter, by the way, he's the wild Birds Unlimited founder, But they have documented one hundred and fifty plus bird species that are attracted to this bark butter. I mean this is this is like, this is like bird crack. Okay, I mean there's it's probably a control substance in the bird world. It is so good. It comes into bark butter bits and or little bite sized nuggets. It comes with something called bugs and bits. This does

not make my mouthwater. It's bark butter bits with dried mealworms, and birds love dried mealworms, and so any kind of an insect eating bird especially is going to be very interested in that bark butter. So I can sit here and brag and brag and talk about it, but just know cardinal confetti blend, the new product with the cardinal tube feeder and the cardinal Good Evening cardinal feeder are all there. Also, know your birds need water. Birds drink

every day of the year just like you do. So make sure there's always a supply of water out there for them, and you're gonna have good success with that. That reminds me I need to go out and check my feeders, another thing for me to do this afternoon. And I've not gotten the cardinal confetti yet, and then reading about I gotta get some. Next time I'm down at the wild birds, I'm gonna grab some of that stuff. That is really cool stuff. Cardinals are such beautiful birds.

Beautiful beautiful. I mean, probably one of the most recognizable birds even by children out there. And they may call them a redbird, but cardinals are beautiful. They come to my feeder. Well, it is time for me to take another little break here in just a little bit. I want to let's see here. Yuh, I'm a little early on that, aren't I? Yeah, I'm a little excuse me, I have my time all wrong. I got time to go out here and talk to Mark in the woodlands.

So let's do that. Hey, Mark, Welcome to garden Line.

below thirty two, put it back in. But I'm just telling you that tree will keep going even in the cool weather out there unless you just have an awesome lighting set up in the garage. I'd give it some sunlight.

So if you lessen the load a little bit on lemons, if you have way more than you need, and you could lessen that crop load to an acceptable level, it may help it then do better at the next fruit set. A lot of the carbohydrates will go into forming fruit buds. Later that for your normal cycle that you were talking about.

what became the Americas. A guy named Cabeza de Vaca, which I can't imagine any mama or any person wanting to name their kid or be called or whatever Cadese Devakamin's head of the cow. I mean, how would you like that? He talked about a boy named Sue for a name head of the cow. Anyway, he was he was captured by Indians here in Texas and he was tied to a pecan tree. And he was the first

guy to write about alternate bearing. In his notes that he took later, he wrote about alternate bearing of pecans or state tree. That means that one year pecans have a huge crop, the next year they have a very light crop, and then the next year they have a very heavy crop. That's called alternate bearing. And just the fun fact was the history that's that's the first guy that wrote about it over here, and he had plenty of time being chained to a pecan tree anyway, or

tied not chained. The reason for that is pecan's bear in the fall. So if you have a heavy crop, all of those carbohydrates are going in to create pecan kernels. I mean, that's a lot of protein and oils and things that are going in there to make that luscious

pecan kernel. So the tree isn't able to set pecan fruit buds or nut buds that would then come out in the spring with the little kakins that are hanging down that drop on the driveway, and then the little nuts that come out and get set, so the next year you wouldn't have a good pecan set. Then it's growing all through that year with no pecans on the tree, hardly at all, and it has one heck of a big set in the following fall. That's alternate bearing of pecans.

And it's for the same reason that I was just discussing with Mark on thinning out that lemon a little bit to help out with that that heavy fruit lot. It's even worse with pecans for the reasons I've mentioned. But okay, fun fact, you learned that here you heard here first, or maybe you did our phone number seven one three two one two kt r H seven to one three two one two kt r H. Your local Ace Hardware store is set up for everything you need. That's why we say ACE is the place you know.

In the Houston area. We got a lot of Ace Hardware stores and you can go in if you want to find the one near you, go to the website Acehardware dot com and find the store locator and find it. It's gonna be all over them, but there's gonna be one close to you. And so right now, are you doing spring cleaning? Do you need storage toats for things. Maybe I was just putting up some Christmas stuff that I needed to get a toat for. You can go buy your ACE Hardware store before the lawn and garden

season hits. They've got everything that I'll be talking about or I am talking about and lawn and gardening. They also have shelving units there. You know, fire is kind of a fun thing. They have a fire pit from Brito and Solo Stove. Really cool. They have firewood that you can replenish your stock with for these cool days. You know, when you're in there, just make sure and sign up for the ACE Rewards program so that you get discounts and special offers that are only available for

ACE Hardware customers now. To just remember that, I mean, you're gonna shop there, get the benefit of that. That is a really I belonged to ACE Rewards for I don't know, over a decade now. Uh and it really is a worthwhile thing to do. And while you're in there, as they get restocked up on all these cool weather supplies, you know, how you go in to buy that heat lamp or that fascic cover and uh, yeah, they're all gone because everybody else is doing it because it's gonna

freeze tonight. Get it now. Get ready. You're gonna need fascic covers for the next X years are many years you're in that house, You're gonna need faust covers. Go ahead and get them. Get them now. The little freezemiser that prevents those faucets from freezing over it, they've got those. Get those now. What else do you need? They've got it? All right. I'm gonna take a break. If you'd like to call in the meantime, you'll be first up when we come back. Seven one three two one two KTRH.

All right, you're back. We're back. Let's talk. We've got gardening to talk about. Seven to one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two five eight seven four. We're going to go out to talk to Let's see Sharon. Now, Hey, Sharon, welcome to garden Line.

But I think I think dorothy upon would be a good choice because.

sound prettier than it'll be. But anyway, that's nematodes and they can be a contributing factor, and knowing that they're there helps guide you as you're going to plant other things in the area too. So that's one of the things that attacks box woulds. So let's just make let's find out, just get that info by checking the root the roots that you can find still around.

on it or something. It's not going to get soggy because there's no way for water to get in once you've wrapped it up. In fact, once roots start to farm, you're going to have to open it up just a little to add more water. You know, when the first root forms, don't take it off. It's not ready yet. It needs a little bit more of a root system inside that. If you use a bottle inside that bottle.

But yeah, it's not going to get soggy, you just it will only get soggy if you build a bottle fort of water, which you're not going to do.

up toward Conroe. If you were in Houston heading toward Conroe, right where fourteen eighty eight comes in for Magnolia on the left, you turn right across the railroad tracks and that's Sherbrooke Circle, which is what Nature's Way is on. And when you go in there, you're going to find the highest quality soil based products from a place that actually originated in our region. Many of these products, you know, we talk about leaf more compos well, that's where it

was born. Nature's Way Resources, we talk about rose soil, that's where it's born, and Nature's Way Resources. Right now, they've also got firewood. They got it bagged and bundled. It's a nice well seasoned oak firewood, nice natural scent. Good for grilling too. By the way, if we get through winter and you know where you're done with the fireplace. It's good for grilling, it's good for smoking meat. It's just a good quality product. And they have it there

at Nature's Way Resources. Of course, they're famous for their soils. They're different mixes. They also have pine straw, pine straw bales that you would use for mulching. Yeah, pine straw like on the floor of the forest. Now, one thing I will tell you about the pine straw is people have asked me a million times, but doesn't that make the soil to acidic? Would you listen to me? The answer is no, absolutely not. Now, if you take fresh fallen pine needles and measure the pH, yes, they are acidic.

By the time they dry out and lay on the ground, they are not. And the I mean, you could pine straw malts for ten years and there would barely be any movement in the pH of that soil if any. Don't worry about that. Pine straw is a wonderful, beautiful I love the bronze look of the little needles. I think it's really really attractive too. It holds moisture, it insulates, it's kind of slow to break down, you know, which is for a malt that's kind of a good thing,

good for erosion control and so on. You can get it there. Nature's way resource is just another quality product that they have. Time for me to take a break, I will be right back with your calls. Seven one three two point two kat r h all right and welcome back. We are gonna head straight to the phones. Start off with Paula. Hey, Paula, welcome to garden Line.

Then put it in some kind of a container with it could be just pearlite, or it could be you know, a quality potting mix. Put it down in there and put a clear bag over the top, something that will hold in the moisture. And there's a lot of ways to do that, but however works for you. Do that, and then put it in a very bright spot, but not direct sun, direct son. It'll get too hot in there.

And once you've got moist mix and you've the point seta has rooting hormone on it, and you've got it in a bright area, Uh, then that's all you can do. After that. Nature has to take over from there.

They're diplenished right now from being inside. Get them as healthy as you can. Then when we get past all the frost, what what roughly where do you live? What area do you live in? We are you north?

help it get established. But the main thing right now is it's been in way too little light, and we got to get some sun and some carbohydrates so it has the energy to rebound.

think it would really help it. When you repot it, you're going to want to cut the roots that are circling the container, and there's going to be a lot of them, so that's why I would first i'd probably cut those roots and then put it in the new pot that's larger, of course, and help it begin to re establish a new root system. And after you cut them, within a couple of weeks, you're going to see fresh new root. If you pulled it up, you would see fresh new roots growing from the cut ends, so don't

be afraid to cut them. But do that, do some root pruning so that it doesn't get all pot bound or stay pot bound, and make sure you give it a little bit of light. If you have the time and energy to run it out every day for some sun and then back in, that would be ideal as far as the plant's concerned.

Try something new this year. Gardening is way too much fun to just do the same old, same ole over and over and never nothing new.

give you an email to send it to. I'll check to be extra sure. It's very unlikely that that is a nematode, but I will take a good close look at it if you want to send me a picture. I think you had another follow up question.

my head. In avocados, I know with like a pecand tree, that could be fourteen years. With a peach tree, probably about seven. But it's going to take a while, but at some point it is able to produce avocados from a seed.

fun places to visit anyway. But you could get a tree that you put it in the ground and it won't be very long before it's ready to produce fruit because it's been grafted.

on the roots. That is what you're growing the plant for those tubers, right, and they should get up to be the size, oh about an inch in diameter, up a little bit bigger than that. They can be larger than that, but they don't get much bigger than an inch. So next year, if they're in really good sunlight, you

should they should do better. You can. You can dig them up and put a few back in the ground, but just know that they can get a little weedy, so don't let them just run wild and free for too long because they'll spread on you.

a long time since I grew jerwis lamartin chokes. We grew a number of varieties and that some are round, some are elongated, and yeah, it's you can grow them. They're enthusiastic growers well.

our last hour of the morning. Show'll be done by ten o'clock the day, start back over again six o'clock in the morning. Look forward to seeing you bright eyed and bushy tailed at that time. I've but if someone told me one time, I will rise, but I refuse to shine. Okay, well, if you'll at least your rise and turn on the radio, we'll go with that. Listen. I mentioned earlier the importance of tree care. Last year we had storms twice that were really bad and we

lost power for a long time. The number one reason for damage to homes, the number one reason for loss of power is trees falling on lines. Now, if you're there's times when you can't do anything. I mean, you know, if a torn eight, it hits a tree, and I don't care how you pruned it, it's in trouble, right. But there's a lot that can be prevented by proper pruning and care. And Martin spoon more or more of affordable tree that's what he can do. He's an expert

at this. He's not the guy down the driving down the street just has a truck in a chainsaw, trying to talk you into letting him touch your trees. No, don't do that. Martin knows what he's doing. You can give them a call seven one, three, six, nine, nine, twenty six sixty three. He come out. He'll evaluate your trees, will give an estimate on what needs to be done, including pruning. If you want to have deep root feeding done, he can do that too. Anything that your tree's going

to need, Martin can take care of it. You got to call now, though, to get on his schedule. You got to take care of your trees. Don't wait until the storm has done the damage it's going to do. From the time a tree goes into the ground, really it ought to be you start the training process of building a good, strong tree, and that continues throughout the life of the tree in the form of occasional pruning

as needed. Someone with a good eye that knows what to look for can tell you exactly what needs to be done on that tree, and that's Martin. So if you can't remember the last time you had your trees pruned and evaluated for their health, now is the time. Absolutely, don't delay. The single most valuable plant your landscape is a tree. It adds much value to the home it provides. It can provide shade for cooling during the summer months.

It's a valuable thing. They'll mess around cal Martin seven to one three sixt' nine nine two six sixty three, or just go to his website aff tree service dot com. Aff tree service dot com. I saw a tree the other day that had been uprooted. What happens. What happened is rain, rain, rain, rain, rain. The soil is basically just soup. I mean, it's just like oat meal. You know, it's all soft and gooy and everything. Here comes the

wind and that tree's anchorage. It's got the roots out there, but you know, the soil goes with it and it just it doesn't hold. You got to take care of your trees. You want to have a good, a good, good, proper caring for them. What I also saw the other day was a tree that wasn't prune right, and I could tell because the branch had fallen off, and where it had fallen off, there was a big black area

where it attached. You know, your branch attaches to the trunk and if it's a narrow angle, the bark gets squeezed in there. As the trunk gets bigger, and as a branch gets a bigger, the bar gets squeezed in there. And so that's a very weak union. I mean, there's no connection in that black area. It's just a bunch of dead, rotting, composting bark. And so when it snaps away there, we saw it, and I knew exactly why

that branch snapped. It was a very weak union. And that starts with proper training early on in the process. You're listening to garden line. I haven't mentioned it all day to day. I can't believe this, but I have a website. It is gardening with Skip dot com. Gardening with Skip. That's me. You can garden with me. Gardening with Skip dot Com. Go there and you're gonna find a lot of good information there. And I say that

because I put it up there on purpose. First of all, the first thing you're gonna see is Randy Lemon Scholarship. Randy was a legend in our area and all of you who benefited from him, no I'm talking about and there's you can give toward a scholarship that was set up by Dan Nelson in Randy's name, up at Texas A and M. You can give online or you can write a check and mail it to them. And if you go to my website look at the Randy Lemon's Scholarship.

It tells you everything that you need to know. And I would ask you to consider, just consider making a donation to Randy Lemon's scholarship at A and M. I know how happy and proud he would be of that. That was his alma mater as it was mine. And this is your chance, you know, to help the next generation of horticultures coming out of the university War Department there. That is important. I'm a product of that, and as you do things now, you make a difference for the future.

There's also an article on growing transplants and it's specifically on quality lighting for growing transplants. I'm going to put another one up on how to grow transplants and it goes beyond lighting taking care of transplants. There's an article also on there, and you don't see it in the new articles you got to you gotta click on all publications, but as you scroll down there is one called tis

the Season to be Freezing? That links you to a publication nine pages on how to protect plants against cold, and I would recommend you take a look at that. There's other good articles and things on there as you will. But anyway, gardening with Skip dot com, Gardening with skip dot com, go check it out. We're gonna put more good stuff up there. And that's one way that I can answer a question that requires more information than I can go into on just a phone call or more

in depth. And I'll continue to post those things up there if you'd like to give us a call. Maybe you have a gardening question seven one three two one two k t r H. Seven one three two one two k t r H. Well, all this rain means that our clay soils have swollen up. Do you know a clay shrinks and swells, or at least some types of clays especially shrink and swell a lot. And that's the kind we have here in the Houston area along the Gulf coast. When that happens, it causes Well, how

about this. Have you ever been going on a sidewalk and seeing this big giant pad of sidewalks sticking up or you trip over it, or maybe your driveway is cracking or heaving in the same way, that's the soil moving it around. Well, all you have to do is call Martin. Martin, I'm back on the tree. Thing called Ty Strickland at fixed my slab foundation repair. Ty's been doing this for twenty three years. He's a native Heystonian,

fifth generation Texan. He knows our soil, he knows what happens to foundations, and he knows what to do about it. And if you call Tye at two eight one two five five forty ninety nine, he can come out. He can take a look. Tell him you're a guarden line listener. Free estimates for garden line listeners. Have him come take a look. Maybe your doors are sticking inside, or maybe sometimes they stick and sometimes they don't. That's a movement indicator. Maybe there's a crack in the sheet rock or on

the brick on the outside, that's a movement indicator. Have him come look at it. He'll evaluate, he knows what he's doing. He'll tell you if nothing needs to be done, and he'll tell you if something needs to be done, what your options are. The things that I most appreciate about Tie is that he shows up when he tells you he's going to show up. He's on time, he gives you a fair price, and he fixes it right.

One two three. Boy, if you could have that from any service person that comes to your house, wouldn't you love to have that on time, fair price, fixed right. That's important and that's tie. Fix myslab dot com is a website. Fix myslab dot com two eight one two FI five forty nine forty nine. The We have had to bring service people into our house for various things. And I'm telling you, boy, there is a night and

day difference. I had had a plumber come a while back, and oh my gosh, I said they're gonna be there first thing in the morning. By mid afternoon still hadn't showed up yet. I'm sitting there wasting my whole day waiting on them to show up. A stuff drives me nuts. And then the job they did is like I think I could have done that anyway. I'll leave it at that. Let's go out to the phones. We're going to talk to Ronnie and Lake Jackson. Hey, Ronnie, welcome to garden Line.

here in this part of Texas. There's also Nitrofus has a really good U one for trees and shrubs. We call those woody ornamentals.

to buy. One of the things that is most discouraging for me is to talk to someone who made a mistake and then they call, you know, and maybe it's like they went out and pruned their tree and now they're asking me if that was right, or they they spent some money on a plant to put in the ground and you know, maybe it's a fascipia or a lilac because they came from the Midwest and they remember those plants. And I got to be the bearer of

bad news to go. It's just not going to do well here, you know, call me first and let me help you with that. I hate to see people waste money. I hate to see people waste time. And I can help you avoid both of those, and that's definitely wanted to do. Hey, it's your choice. You know I'm not in charge you. I don't tell you what to do. I give you my advice. You decide whether you want to take it or not. But at least give me a shot and helping save time and help you have success.

That's what I want to do. Time for me to take a break. I'll be right back at seven to one three two one two k t RH. Hey, welcome back, Welcome back to guardenline. Hey, let's do this. We got some more to talk about today, and we got a half hour, not just under a half hour to get it done. If you got some questions, I have open phone lines. Believe it or not, they are open phone lines. If you would like to give me a call. I

can't promise you you'll be first. Someone may dialet faster, but you definitely will get on if you want to give us a call now, seven to one three two one two k t r H seven one three two one two k t r H. Simple as that. Uh, it is fruit tree planning season. Earlier, I mentioned that I was going to plant a grape that's going to go on a trellis that I've already got the spot ready to go for it. I just need to get my plants and put them out there and do that.

And if you are looking to plant a grapevine, a blueberry, a fig, a BlackBerry, any kind of fruit tree, any kind of fruit plant, now this season is a great time to go ahead and get that done. And you know, the grapes, if you're going to plant a grape, you want to plant one that's going to do well. Here, one that's going to do well. Listen, grapes are very disease prone, and we struggle with a lot of issues on grapes, but there are a handful of varieties that

are very resistant. Blanc dubois is a white grape. If you go to a vineyard in southeast Texas, nine inches out of ten you're looking at Blanc du bois grapes because they are Pierce's disease resistance, and that is a grape killing disease. They're good. There's an old variety black Space, It's tough, that's been around for a while. There are muscadine grapes. Muscadines are extremely adapted to the wet, humid climate that we have here. There's one there's one called

Victoria Red that was named after Victoria out there. It was actually an Arkansas a breeding line that does really well. And then my favorite of all the table grapes is Southern sensation seedless table grape. So where do you get something like that? Latteywhere you get them? At Arburgate? Arborgate has got I was talking to Canon and Beverly out there and just said, hey, send me a list of all the fruit trees that you got going. I want

to know what you carry pages. Send me pages of fruit trees and all those grapes I mentioned ar at Arburgate. Do you want plums? How about this? Have you ever heard of a pluot? A pluot is a cross between a plum and an apricot. They've got those at Arburgate. They got palm granites. I'm going to the unusual things here. How about gogie berries? Have you ever done of the dragon fruit fruiting edible bulberries? Of course, yeah, they got

those there. One of the longest selections is some fruit that you're ever going to see I mean like fig Their fig list is way over a dozen different figs you can choose from. All are Arbrogate. Of course, when you're at Arburgate, you know you're gonna find everything else cool seas, color, vegetables, herbs. Right now they've got gorgeous camellias. They're in both in bud and in bloom and there's

more coming by the way. Row their roses are blooming. Yeah, it just I just spend the whole day going on about it. They also have seed starting kits and the seeds. So I've been talking about growing your own transplants. Now's the time run by Arbigate. Grab your seed starting kit and some seed. And remember they got that new parking lot in back where I don't care how much it rains. I don't care how many people are visiting Arborgate and

it's a popular place. You can go in the back and have easy access to good safe park and easy accessed into the nursery there at Arburgate. And for those of you who've been living under a rock don't know where Arbigate is, it's west of Tombull on twenty nine twenty Highway twenty nine to twenty. Just west of Tombull. You'll see it over on the left hand side. You can't miss it. Let's go to the phones and we're going to head out to let's see Clark Spring, Texas.

Is that right? And talk to cry there. Good morning, Hello cr Yeah, Cat.

the mid to low thirties. So with that said, specifically for the olives and the tequila gave plants, will I go ahead and uncover them for the week and then have to put all that back on or can I just leave it on through the week and will.

may even thirty. You're in good shape. Those olives are not going to be killed at thirty. And I've never tried to grow the tequila type of agavii you have, but my bet is that it can take thirty two because we're thirty also, so I don't know that you have to recover them, but I don't know. Let's get closer where we have a more accurate weather prediction before we make that decision.

I've talked to people that will just come in and they will cut that asparagus off at the ground and let it come out fresh totally and do the harvesting at that time. So if you want to wait a little bit, maybe get into a little further into January February, or you could try it doing it right now. Either way is fine. But just know that we are so warm here that asparagus doesn't fully go dormant like like it should, but that yours.

get larger the individual little bud in the head. But at some point it starts to kind of get looser. It's not a good tight head, and you want to pick it before it gets loose, and certainly before the buds start to open up the yellow flowers, so uh you wey don't have to grow to get more out of it, and then cut it off just below if you haven't grown it before. What's going to happen is you're going to get side shoots of broccoli that come out below that head, so it'll produce a second crop

of small broccoli stalks. They won't get very big, and you'll get a second harvest out of those. So once you cut the top one out, but you want to let it get as much as you can without it getting big and loose. That's the bottom line.

And that's how we like people make gumbo out of okra. I also dry okra. I will I will slice it and put enough food dryer and dry it and store it in a jar or run it through a like of item X type thing to grind it up. And now you have okra powder that can be used. You can use the dried sliced okra to reconstitute in soups. You can use the powdered You know, people are gonna roll their eyes when I say this, but I take a spoon of okra powder put it in my smoothies

and it thickens them up. And they don't taste like okra when you do that, they taste like the smoothie. But it's a good thing for thickening soups and things. So yeah, there's a lot of ways to preserve okra.

all there. Pesticides, herbicides, fungicides to control problems, quality pet foods. If you got back air chickens, they got everything you need for your backyard chickens. They are three blocks, a few blocks actually, south of Highway ninety six on Highway three in League City two eight one three three two sixteen twelve League City Feed. Any of you anywhere in that region should swing by there and make that your hometown feed store because it's a good one. Well, I

hear music, which means we gotta go today. I got stuff to do. You know they say the cobblers kids go barefoot. I got to get up in my garden, start taking care of it. I'll be back in the morning six am. Talk to you then,