KTRH GardenLine | 7-9-23

Ktr H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to ktr H Garden Line with Skip rictor so Smell. Just watching as so many well good Sunday morning. And by the way, this is going to be a good We are looking forward to talking to you today on guarden Line about whatever kind of questions you might have for guarding plants, indoor plants, outdoor plants, edible plants, look at them plants.

It's just so many different kinds of wonderful things you can do. You know, if you are if you are interested in taking up gardening is a hobby. There are so many ways to go about it. Some people are just lawn rangers. They're the weekend warriors, and their goal is to have the perfect emerald green carpet and every square inch of their lawn that they can. That is the goal. Okay, that's good, go for it. If you are interested in vegetables, maybe you want to change the way you're

eating. Maybe you would like to grow things and so your produce you know where it came from, came from your yard, or fruits and all kinds of thing. People get into that. I mean, of course they do. It's a wonderful it's fun thing to do. I think everybody ought to grow a few vegetables, even if you have to do it in a container on the back patio. Maybe you're into our gardening and that is really something

that pleases you, or you just love color. You want to paint, like rim Brandt, your landscape with beautiful colors and carry it through the seasons and learn more about what plants maybe bloom in the fall or other things. That's a whole new world to gardening. For a lot of people, it's house plants. You know, they don't have room for a garden. Maybe you live in a high rise apartment or condos, some sort of thing like that where you just you know, you don't have a back forty, but

you really are into house plants. Maybe you have a balcony. You put some things on well, COVID broad house plants back to the forefront. They were definitely on a backshelf, in a back closet for the whole town. I've been in horticultures pretty much. I mean, there's a couple times where houseplants had a little resurgence, but boy, now they are a front and center and all these new and rare you can't live without at once or out there to mess with. Maybe you would like to create a fairy garden.

What's a fairy garden? Well, you could do it as a little scene at the base of a tree, you know, where you sort of create like you would a mulch bed, but you just create a little bed where you build a little miniature garden and you can buy all the supplies for it. I know, I was out at well Act and Channing Forest and the Channing Gardens both visiting them. They have these little scenes that they've created, like that's summon containers and that's cool. That's a whole other little you know.

It's like people that create, you know, have a big tabletop and they create maybe a battle of whatever scene where you know, you have a little toy soldiers and they just with the bushes and all the trees. I mean, they just recreate. That's a hobby for them. Well, this is this would be example of a hobby. Maybe you like water gardening, you like fish, and you would like to create bring in lily pads and

all the other great water gardening plants. You see what I'm saying. I mean, there are so many ways to get involved with plants and gardening, but they all have one thing in common, and that is that when you interact with plants, you are gonna change your health and as well as your mental health, your physical and your mental health. There is a piece of mind, there is a release, and there is a stack of reef search on all the benefits of interacting gardening. But even of course, going beyond

interacting with nature a walk in the woods kind of thing. Gardening is a great hobby. And I hope if you are listening and you haven't dove in yet, you're just kind of listening to see what kind of crazy music is it going to play today or or whatever, well, I hope you'll consider

it because there is a type of gardening for everybody. If you are interested in retiring, and maybe you're looking for a place where you can retire and just enjoy life but not go out to pasture, but stay the active adult that you are, well, that would be a Dell web community. You know, they're designed for active adults age fifty five and better. Down in Fullsher, two miles from downtown Fulsher on Highway or on FM three fifty nine.

Is a new dell Web community going in now. This dell Weeb community has a community garden in it that I'm helping them with. And so you get all the benefits of the beauty and the quality in a dell Weeb community, plus the opportunity to have a community garden to visit with other gardeners, grow some fresh produce for yourself our flowers if you wish, go to doeweb dot com slash Houston for more information or just call them two eight one four

five nine zero six zero nine. I'm going to go to the phones now and we are going to head to the heights and talk to answer. Hello Nancy, Hi, how are you? Good morning? Good morning. I have a question. I have a question regarding we'd beat complete. Yes, I've gone to two different places. One said it's okay to apply it now and another place said it's too hot to apply it. What do you think? I think the tiebreaker? I think it is too hot. But here's

who your tiebreaker is. Is that that's the label because if it's on there, if you read through it, it'll say something like don't use when temperatures are above eighty five when you're Saint Augustine lawn, or maybe it'll say in the up of the upper eighties or something. But once we pass ninety, most things are off the table. The one product that can go above ninety is called celsius, like the temperature celsius, but it's a less common product.

For sure, we'd beat or completes a great product. I would just hold off plan on this fall when temps dropped down a little bit. If you need to use it on some newly sprouted annual broad leafs, you know, cool season broad leaves, or next spring as you're coming out of the winter time, right before all those weeds take off and really become a problem. Those are the times that are best to use it. Okay, what's funny you should mention celsius because I actually got some applied some on when wet

Thursday. Okay. And then it's the person i'd went to Southwest spuratilizer and they said if it's above eighty five, you shouldn't apply that either. And then I applied it with a Guardian sprayer, and I noticed the spray was like really was quite wide instead of like direct on the I've got something called spurt trying to get rid of and um so then I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm probably killing all my lawn. So I went and sprayed it

all off, or tried to, and then it did. Brain. So, did you think that the celsius you have to apply it directly to the weed? Right? You have to get it on the web? You know, garden sprayers or I think they're okay. If you're putting out nutrient, or if you're putting out insecticides or maybe even a fun decide for weed control, that that can be a bit of a challenge, especially if you're trying to go around your lawn and not get into the flower beds and other things.

So I usually go with a little different kind of applicator sprayer. But anyway, Nancy, even on the celsius, just read the label and it'll it'll tell you, it'll guide you in that. Now, do you say, since it rained and I did water it down the celsius, it probably neutralized itself. And you know, I think I think you're going to be okay. I wouldn't worry about it, but just wait and see, because there's definitely nothing you can do either way right now. But I'm just predict

right that I think it's gonna be okay. All right, and okay, thanks so much, you bet hey, thank you. I appreciate the call. We are going to break our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two ktrh right by with my tail in the end. Okay, good Sunday morning. You're listening to garden line. Hey, let's talk about gardening our phone number seven one three two

one two five eight seven four. If you are in the Kingwood area, and I mean by area, I mean anywhere northeast of town especially, but you want to drive from across town, that's a good thing too, because Kingwood Garden Center and Warren's Gardens are worth a drive to check out. Here. We have a lot of garden travelers, you know, they know all the great nurseries they love to visit, and you know, just kind of hang out like that for a lot of folks. Let's go to the nursery

in your neighborhood, well, in your Kingwood area. This is the nursery in the neighborhood or nurseries. You're lucky you got two of them. Warren Southern Gardens is on North Park Drive. Kingwood Garden Centers on Stone Hollow. Both are open seven days a week, so they're open this afternoon if you'd

like to go out there. I open this morning. The thing that I find really encouraging when I go into a quality garden center, and this describes these two, is you walk in and you see the kinds of fertilizers and the kinds of soils that you need to use on your plants, and so you're not just there to buy plant, you get the whole nine yards. They have beautiful containers, they have the soul that goes in the containers, and they have staff that knows what they're talking about, so they'll direct you

in the right way. If you've got Microlife and Nelson plant food, the little plastic jars, you can refill them at both Warren Southern Gardens and Kingwood Garden Centers. Save a little money and avoid buying more plastic to go end up eventually out in a landfill somewhere. The plants they have are just gorgeous. I mean they are beautiful and all over the board. So I hope

you'll give them a check. They are one of the garden centers that I would say as a destination place for anyone here in the Greater Houston area that's a Warren's Garden Center. We are gonna be talking about a number of things today. I'm gonna spend some time the next I'll see the eight o'clock hour. We're gonna talk with a specialist and when it comes to insecticide and insect

management, and that would be Scott McGrath McGraph pest control. If you've got some questions on pests around your house, or it could be issues up in the attic, you know, rats or squirrels up in the eye. I mean anything that is bugging you at the house that has more than two legs, Like you can't count on four legs. Less they do eliminate those two things that are bugging you, Scott McGrath is going to be the person that

can help you out. So I hope you'll you'll give us a call and I'll tell you more about it as we go a little bit further into the program. For those of you that live up in the Magnolia area, I'm talking about the Grand Parkway Highway to forty nine up in that area. Spring Creek Feed. Just just write that down. That's your hometown feed store. Spring Creek feeds a beautiful place to walk in. You're greeted. The staff

is so friendly, they're courteous. They've got all the quality products for whether you're feeding pets or feeding livestock, they have it all there. Maybe you would like a delivery there is a delivery service also available through Spring Creek. They carry the fertilizers who talk about selection of herbicides, fungicides and pesticides. It's just minutes from Graham Parkway in Highway two forty nine. It's located in Magnolia. On FM twenty nine seventy eight. Check out Spring Creek Feed and

I think you'll be impressed. It's a wonderful place, wonderful selection, and wonderful staff. That's about as much as you can want in any kind of a business. This morning, I was thinking driving over to the studio, thinking a little bit about some of the issues that have come over the past week in the phones and in the emails. I do it as a horticulture extension agent, certainly do it here on the radio, and people right now are concerned about trees and trees dying. It seems that in some areas,

certain kinds of trees are just here and there turning brown randomly. And I always kind of sit back and sigh on those general why's my tree dying questions, because sometimes it's simple, it's easy. It's like, here's the answer, or here's what to do. But most of the time it's not. Usually it's related to a bunch of factors that all come together and take down that tree. It could be a drought that weakened the tree, and now a disease it's moving in. Or then we had a freeze that killed tissues

in the tree and so now a canker is moving in. Or it's just one thing ast another, and as the patient that be in the tree gets weakened, it's more susceptible for things to take it out, and it's often frustrating. I had a call a few weeks ago, and it was a bunch of postalk trees. Those are common in the postoke belt that goes across Texas, and they were they had three in the front yard, two look perfectly fine, in one just they said overnight. Actually probably took about a

week to notice it, but it just turned brown. The whole thing turned brown, And why that one? Why not? The other two don't have an answer to that. Every tree, unless it is a variety, has a variety name, every like crape myrtles have variety names. Every tree is a seedling that's come from you know, planning an oak seed in the ground, an oak acorn in the ground to grow that tree. Maybe the scrolls did it, maybe you did it, but that's maybe the garden sent or

the nursery that grew it did it. But so they're all genetically different again, excluding something that would be a clone that would be grafted or budded onto a plant, And so that just adds more variation in what's going on. What can we do. What we can do is before the fact, Before the fact is when we would take care of, you know, those kinds

of issues that might crop up later by preventing the stress. So for example, if it goes a long time without raining and it's very hot and at least two weeks, then I would definitely give them a good soaking of water. You don't have to water your trees every day, in fact, don't do that, just periodically good soaking in the hot, hot weather as much as you can give a young tree a big mulch bed where it's not competing

with grass that's going to grow faster. You just want to avoid keeping the weed eater in the lawn more away from the tender bark of young trees. That's another thing you want to avoid over applying some types of herbicides, especially right before a gully washer rain, because there are herbicides that are labeled to use in your grass, but they're hard on woody ornamentals like trees and shrubs and woody vines, and so you just have to be careful and use those

carefully according to the label. We create a lot of the problems that we see with our trees. If you're doing some summer planting or you're planting on some fall planting, I think you need to look at has to grow six twelve six. The has to grow six twelve six is a it's a quality product. The way I use it is I would put it into a container. Of course, you dilute it with water and then a container like a watering can, and then I would water in my transplants with it. I

like to water in transplants with a fertilize. There's got a good amount of phosphorus in it that helps with you know, the establishment of the plant and the many things that the roots need. The Hastego six twelve six has that, but it also has humic acid. It's got Medina soil activator, and it's got seaweed extracts in It's it's the whole package. So if you want to use it as a folery application, you can do that as well.

I just typically for me, it's water in your transplants when you plant them. And that could be a little tomato plant, that could be a like you know, marigold or some flour or I mean, it could be even a shrub or a perennial that you put in the ground. Just water it in, well, do it again a week later, and do it again a week after that, so three times you're you're taking care of that plant,

getting it started. Now you can continue to use it after that, but by that time we're hoping that it's getting some roots established in the soil. It's gonna build up your biological activity. It's going to promote both blooming and fruiting, and it's a it's just a good overall product low salt contents, so you're not going to burn your plants with Medina's has to grow six twelve six. I talking about different kinds of plants that people like and the

different things that they're calling about. One of the one of the other things that I've been getting a lot of questions about is the lawn surprise, surprise, right, and the summer issues that come in the lawn and a lot of people. You know, if in past years you've been hit hard by let's say the side web worm, you know, just eight ever leaf off your grass. Grass bounces back, but boy does it ever look bad for a while. Then you're kind of like, okay, are they coming this

year? And ever moth that flies by a suspect right, Well, it's a very unique moth, the web worm, and you need quite a few of them for them to do their damage. But when they have a explosion of population, they can be quite significant. I generally keep an eye out on them, know what I'm looking for, and in the earliest that you

notice them, you need to go ahead and get that treated. Now, there are treatments that some people will put down that are very persistent that they'll just put down to cover a long period of times should that pest show up. But either way, you want to be watching for that. I want to be watching for chinch bugs. We're starting to see chinch bugs and they are the ones that start near a driveway, a sidewalks, some masonry structure and bleed their way out into the lawn. Those are all things that we

need to be concerned about and we need to be dealing with. Another thing that we might want to be aware of, or I say concerned about, but at least aware of, is that our roofs are the most one of the most expensive things that we take care of on our houses. And a quality roofer is not just everywhere around the corner. You know, you get people that put the business cards in your door, especially when a storm blows

through. I want to tell you about Brinkman Roofing. Brinkman has been around for fifty years here and they warrant their work, the quality materials and quality workmanship for twenty five years of service. You might want to consider their solar shingles, which isn't one of those solar panels that's it's on the roof. They are the roof that is a really unique and creative thing, and I think very aesthetically pleasing. If a metal roof's what you want, delves custom

manufacture a standing seam metal roof on site that fits your home perfectly. Go to Brinkman Quality dot com. Brickman has two ends at the end. Brinkman Quality dot Com are two eight one four eight zero seven six six three. We're gonna take a little break here, our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Y'all the cream in my cally, y'all the salt in my stewl you will all we be. I'd be lost without

you. Good Sunday morning. You are listening to garden Line and we're here to talk gardening with you. Hey, our phone number. Write this down seven one three two one two five eight seven four, give us a call, and whatever horticulturally you're interested in, we'll talk about that. Okay. I've got to limit myself to something I know a tiny bit about, rather than venturing on and pontificating about all the other things in life. Although I

myself do that myself, but I won't subject you to it. You know, the secret of a successful garden begins in the soil. But it also begins with quality plants. When when we choose plants that are healthy, well grown, but that are also adapted to where we live, it just makes it easy to succeed. I mean it just the plants are gonna be adjusted to the climate, to the heat, the cold, to the rainfall, to the soils. Those are the things we're looking for when we get to

success. You know, you can go to great links to grow something that doesn't belong here, you know. So like if you if you wanted to grow a lilac and you built a little greenhouse, and you air conditioned to the greenhouse so you could take it down below freezing in the winter. You

get the idea of what I'm saying. I mean, you could grow it here, but you stick a lilac in the landscape, and well, you know, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Plants will show up in cars with lights spinning on top, arrest you and take you to the plant jail. I mean, that's that is cruel and unusual punishment for plants. Pick things that are adapted and they'll do well here. Natives are that way.

You know, Native plants do extremely well because they're from the region that you're growing in, and so that that is one of the key to success. Why not take it all the difficulties that you can out of growing and just start right, get the soa right, get good plants, and then take care of them right. And that's why we're here to advise you along the way on that. We love feed stores here on Garden Line and one of my favorite feed stores, and we have a lot of good favorite feed

stores here in the Greater Houston area. But it's up way north, up in Grimes County. Grimes County is where Navasota is. Grimes County Feed and Farm. They're in Carlos, Texas on State Highway thirty. So if you come out of Brian College Station and head down highway, you'll get to them. If you want to just go this way, go two miles west of FM two forty four on State Highway thirty. That's how you get there. So those of you who live in some of the neighborhoods up in that area,

this is your feed store. This is for your pet supplies, this is for your fertilizers, this is for your garden pest management supplies. Places like king Oaks and Merewood for example. They've got all the fertilizers that we talk about here, and they have of course garden seeds and tools and sprayers. They have quality dog and cat food and they, by the way, if you have a pond, a farm pond, they do fish stocking twice a quarter. They bring in fish that they also carry the fish food.

By the way, Grimes County Feed and Farm, that's your hometown feed store for that whole region up there. So if you're listening anywhere up in that area, that would be places like beat Eyes, and Iola, and Ron's Pray. I love to sell all these names, Anderson and Shiro for example. Those are your hometown feed store towns for Grimes County Feed. Say hi to Chris and the team when you're in there. They're a great group, and like all the feed stores we talk about here on garden Line, they

provide personal service and quality products as well. I was taking care of a houseplant that I have the other day and noticed that I was getting like a white crusty material on top of the soil. You may have seen that before, but when you use if you use a salt based fertilizer, that happens a lot, but they're sometimes just the water quality. In some areas, you end up as the soil evaporates from the surface, it leaves whatever was dissolved in the water behind, and you may end up with a white,

crusty kind of material on top. And I'm not quite sure how I got it in mind, because I wasn't using a salt based fertilizer, but it just reminded me of the fact that occasionally it's not a bad idea to just drench our container plants with a lot of water. Hopefully in fact, you have to have good drainage so it all drains through and out the bottom. But to kind of wash some of those type of things out of the way,

if that is becoming a concern a truly easy to do. I usually put mine in the kitchen sink and just, you know, give them the good drenching there and they turn out to be just fine. Talking about fertilizers and things, I I really think a lot of Microlife's fertilizers that are liquid products. Of course, the dry products are great too, but the liquid products we're talking about, like the orange label and the blue label. I

love to talk about the colors because it makes it easy. You know, I can say the long name out there and I will do it, but it's the color that makes it easy to find. So Microlife Biomatrix that's an orange label. It's a seven one three fertilizer. Got plenty of nitrogen in it to boost the foliage growth of your houseplants, and that's what you exactly want to do with your houseplants. It's got beneficial microbes in it, which is just going to be a benefit to the roots. And then for outdoors,

the Ocean Harvest that's a blue label. Okay. It's a fish based fertilizer, A four two three. It does great on pretty much anything that you've got outdoors. It doesn't burn. If you want to dilute it down and do a foliar spray, a little folior feeding, you can do that as well. If you're looking for Microlife or if you want to learn more

about these two products and others, Microlife Fertilizer dot com. There you can find where you can purchase your Microlife products, and you can also learn a lot about the specifics of these and these two liquids, the orange label Blue

Biomatrix, the blue label ocean harvest. Those are outstanding products if you want to have good success with your plants, very slow natural way of feeding in the In the big picture of fruit tree growing, I guess one of the most important things to keep in mind is that fruit trees have to have good sunlight to do well. We have a few fruit species that if you've got some bright dapple shade mostly sun, but dapple shade, they'll do okay.

Blueberries will do okay in that. I found that it's interest us pretty okay with that. That doesn't mean either of them wants to be an any amount of shade. It just means they can tolerate it. But most fruit trees, full sun is important at least six hours because fruit is sweet, sweet as carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are made in the leaves when the sun shines on them.

So you turn the sun off, and which is what happens when you move things or plant things in the shade, you just don't get the carbohydrates, you don't get the fruit production. That's true tomatoes, a lot of other things. The other thing it's important on fruit trees is drainage. It rains a lot here. Have you noticed that when it rains, it pours, and we have a lot of clay soils which tend to be poorly drained.

So with fruit trees, you always want to make sure, if possible, to put them up on a raised a mound of some sort, just so when there's excess water it drains away. You don't want to come out two days after a rain and there's still a lake all around the fruit tree that you planted. That would be bad news for sure. So good drainage is really really important. And then of course picking the right varieties, that is one of the things I a lot of times happens on fruit trees,

and I'll tell you one reason it happens. Well, let me come back from break. I'll leave you wondering what is the what is the reason that people plant the wrong varieties? Here our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. We'll be right back. I saw miles of jacks all the stars up in the sky. I saw miles and miles jass good Sunday morning. It is a good Sunday morning, and we're having fun talking about all things plants. We had a few calls on the line here

we're gonna go to in just one second. But I just want to remind you that when it comes to success with plants, getting good advice is really important. That's why we point you to companies, to independent garden centers for example, that can really provide you that kind of accurate information. Really important to do that, and I hope that's one reason you listen to garden Line as well. Well, let's head out. We're gonna go to Mission Valley

and talk to Jobby this morning. Hello Jobby, Hello, Skip enjoy listening to your program Saturday and Sunday every weekend. Well, thank you. I got a question about cloning my determinate slice or celebrity. Can I do that? Then? Would it producing the fall you wanted to do? What to it? I missed the word take it cutting? Oh cutting? Yes you can. Actually, if I'm not mistaken, I checked this to be one hundred percent positive. But I believe sub celebrity is um what not indeterminate?

It's um determinate. It's I was gonna say, semidetermined. Is it not semideterminate? Well it just says determined it Okay, then that's probably what it is. Celebrity. Here's what I would do. By this time of the year, we've got foliage diseases often on our plants. We can have spider mites that are beginning to build up on our plants. So I take a cutting off the top maybe let's say six inch cutting, remove the bottom couple of leaves on it, and then put it down and just a sinkle water

and just slosh it around vigorously a few times. That could wash off spider mites, a lot of them, you know, Just kind of get it all cleaned up a little bit there, and then you can put it in just water, just a glass of water, or if you want to put it in a little container with some moist soil for it to root, that's fine. And once it get some roots on it, it's ready to go back out outside. Just give it a little bit of a break from the

full brunt of thee hundred degrees sun. You know, you if it's that way when you try to go out there and planet it, if that's the weather we're having, and it'll get off to a good start. I think that's the easiest way to do it, if you're rooting it. The alternative jobby would be if you've got your celebrity, and you can bend a branch down and put about eight inches back, put a little soil over the stem, pin it down so it doesn't move. It'll root right where you have

it. And then you just cut it loose from the mother plant and dig up the mother plane and get rid of it. I have heard that this plant is not got but just a few leaves left on it. Okay, So okay, the leaves won't come back anywhere else, willie. You may get some shoots where there was a leaf at the base of a leaf, you will have a bud for making a new shoot on a tomato. And

sometimes that could happen, like if you cut it back. But I find that in this kind of stressful weather, you cut a tomato back pretty hard and it may just flat die, especially if you, you know, get down way past the leaves. Well, I made a mistake and put them in containers that were too small for this the heat we've been having it. Yeah, so I guess I really, Well, that's how we Yeah, that's how we learn. I'd say ten gallons. If it's a celebrity tomato,

I wouldn't go less than ten gallons on it. Oh yeah, Well, I guess it's a little three gallon thing is just not quite up to the ask. Well, you just you just didn't set a lawn chair beside it and water it every hour through the day and it would have been fine. I think it seemed like it needed. So yeah, thank you, Joe, thank you. I appreciate back. You. Take care. Oh my gosh, let's go to Mike and Lake Jackson. Mike, how are

you today and how can we help? Yeah? Going skip hope. You had a what you were talking about past thirtier hun in the program, and I had a dative the country came up volunteer and it was growing the nicest, pretty straightest trunk until the squirrel's get to it and they pretty well to shoot all the bark off of all the limbs. So it was about four inches in diameter at the base and I cut it off about refit up,

but I didn't finish the job. Well, I got two good sized beams that are coming out of just below where I cut it off, about two inches in diameter. Well, okay, earlier I had crafted on some stock from a tree that came from a red Dad's place, and they're doing really well, okay, and so I used electrician tape to hold them in place. And if they're busting out the tape, good, Yeah, I was. I was wondering, when do you start trimming back some of the naighty

branches and how long does it take these things to really yea develop. I would take everything below the graft off. How how long are the shoots on the graft you did? Oh, one of them is about two and a half feet yeah, another one it's not quite so big. Yeah, but yes, for them all together, yeah, I would take I would take all those off. You you have one other option that I might recommend, Mike, and that would be to tip all of them, cut four inches

out of the tips of every growing shoot on the rootstock. We're gonna call it the root stock, and that stops them from getting energy and vigor to you know, take energy that should go into your graft, but it leaves the leaves on them to keep supplying the roots system, to keep that root system strong. Because if you took every leaf off and you just had the graft, that's a pretty big shock knocking the tree back like that. So

I would do that. You could take them off one at a time, in the next few months, or you could just wait until winter then to take them all off. But if you just leave them all now, those root stock shoots are going to really have the upper hand. And and you want that energy that would go into them to go into your graft. Okay, Yeah, I'd heard that if you're trimming back too much, that it puts too much energy into the graft. And yeah, they don't form right,

But you got it. And then he kept real quick questions. When you see a reet coming out the tree, you know, like they'll get big, does each root supply a certain part of the tree or together? Yes? In general, just think of it like highways of tubing that go from the end of a route all the way up to some end of a branch leaf area at the top. So in general that's true, yes, okay. And in Buln every year there's patches that just after you know,

the springtime, they just start getting dull, same places every year. And I've used everything you've talked about that seems to help. Well, Mike, I'm gonna I want to put you on hold. Could you send me some pictures of that. Josh will give you a way to send them to me. Let me see the whole area what it looks like, and then get as close as you can so I can see the leaves and what's going on there, and that would that would be helpful. I appreciate your call.

We're gonna they're gonna move on, but I'd be glad to help if I have those photos to help. You know, the folks at Verdant Tree Farm are having their Christmas in July sale. Now, the Christmas in July sale means ten to fifty percent off of the tree purchase itself if you purchase it with an install that's not off the install cost, but off the tree itself. But that is a huge discount, an excellent opportunity to get a quality

tree, which is what Verdant produces. They've got a location out on Barker, Cyprus, west side of town, down south in Paarland on West Broadway and in the heights at Yale and I ten. Verdant Tree Farm has those kind of quality trees. And you know, I can't can't imagine buying a tree without also buying a tree hugger sprinkler. Tree hugger sprinklers you put them around the base of that new tree. Where all the root system is.

You just turn them on a little bit in water, that original rich cylinder that's in the ground, and when you do that kind of thing, you end up with a tree that not only survives, but thrives. You can go to a tree hugg sprinklers dot com to find a retailer near you tree Hugger Sprinklers dot com. But look at that as an insurance policy on that

quality tree that you purchase that has just been planted. Well, you've been listening to garden Line this morning, and we're gonna be listening to guarden Line for another couple hours. Let's see what is at seven, eight nine. Yeah, we have three hours left on this. I want to remind you that in the eight o'clock hour, Scott McGrath with McGrath Pest Control is going to come in. So if you have any questions termites, or roaches, fire ants, even chinch bug, I mean anything that is a pest,

rats and squirrels in the attic. Scott is an expert on all these things and we're going to pick his brain. So I hope you'll give us a call and you can ask a question about how do you manage this what can be done about it? As you know, anything you have, Scott McGrath, that will be in the eight o'clock hour, so please stick around and please be ready with a few questions for that. In the meantime, we're heading to break our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy

four. KTRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with Skip rictors just watching as well. Good Sunday morning, beautiful day outside. I hope you're enjoying yourself, maybe getting a cup of coffee in your hand to kind of get your eyes to open up and joined the rest of the world. Today. We are talking gardening today. That's what we do every time on Saturdays and

on Sundays here on garden Line, and it's a Colin show. You're welcome to give us a call if you have a question. Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I always enjoy visiting great garden centers and if you're looking for a place this afternoon, I mean go out and kind of do a visit

and check out some garden centers. I would suggest you give a consideration to Enchanted Gardens that's out in Richmond. If you're Richmond area and you head north kind of toward Katie direction, that's where Enchanted Gardens is. They're on FM three fifty nine on the Katie Fulsher side of Richmond. You can go to Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com, Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com and find out about enchanted gardens. I'll tell you this, it is a sea of color as

far as the eye can see. Beauty color, herbs, vegetables, antique roses, rose, hybrid roses, Yeah, just ever kind of plant you can imagine. They have some beautiful bee bomb in the Jacob klined bbomb deep red, beautiful, Oh gosh. It is a magnet for butterflies, for hummingbirds. And the petals are great for decorating a garnish on salads. By the way, I'm doing an article in Texas Gardener magazine next issue on ornamentables, ornamentals that you can eat, and this would be an example of that.

A beautiful flower garden plant that also the petals are used in your cuisine, or they can be making a tea or something along those lines. Anyway, back to enchanted gardens, they have a super selection of a variety of plants. If you're doing a little container maybe let's say you want to plant a summer tough color container. Well, person is about as tough as you can get. I mean, that is an extremely beautiful, extremely floriferous,

tough plant. Another plant that I really like, or the soree vincas if you know vinca, or we also call it Madagascar periwinkle, and just imagine a miniature version of that. That's soree. Great for filling it around the side of a container as you have something taller in the center. That's also available out in Channa Gardens out in Richmond. Maybe a good day to plan. In fact, I know it is a good day to plan to visit

out to check them out. You're listening to garden Line. Our number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. If you've ever thought about keeping bees, if you've ever you thought, you know, I'd love to have some bees in the backyard. Can I do that. Well, yes you can. There are guidelines to it, but yes you can. You need to know about the B Supply out in Dayton. The B Supply out in Dayton is the

prime B supply store in this whole state. Now. Actually they have locations a couple other locations around the state, but they have everything you could need to. Number one, learn about bees. Number two, get equipped to take care of bees, and then have that support day after day, week after month after month as you're getting the feel of what it is to keep bees and how to do that. The beginner classes once a month during this

warm season out in Dayton. The beginner class is super super quality classes. They also have free honey tours out there at the B Supply once a month also, and you can just bring your group out there. If you've got a good sized group, call them ahead of time. Maybe you would even need to schedule a special day for that, but groups can come out when they have their tours and just learn amazing things about bees. Go to the B Supply dot com the B Supply dot com and you can find out more

from that. Well, we're going to head out to Galveston and talk to Bill. Hello, Bill, Hi, Rick, Hi. My question is that you skip me if you get the photos I sent you yesterday, Yes, the citrus tree, grape fruit I believe it was, Yes, Yeah, I did. And there's a lot going on on that tree. The cold, you know, initially killed a lot of limbs, but there's still

damage from the cold that the tree is just not recovering from. There's places on the trunk that probably had a crack in them, and the tissues and the cankers have gotten inside that, and that's what you said. One of your pictures had the bleeding along the trunk that underneath there, if you were to scrape back with a knife, there'd be a lot of brown streaked tissues

that are basically dying underneath that area. And the other thing overall, it just it looks okay in terms of the leaves, but though some of the leaves are really showing that they're just not getting a good supply from the roots.

And part of that could be because the pathway where water and nutrients come up through the roots through the trunk out the branches to the leaves somewhere along that's being disrupted, and it could be the cankers that I'm talking about that are doing that, and that's why when the demands go up, you may see a whole branch collapse. It's like it was hanging on, but now the demands so high that it can't it can't pump enough water to those leaves,

and so you lose that branch. What do you do. There's not a canker spray, So you just try to keep it as healthy as you can with water, fertilizer as needed. But you wait and you hope. But I think the long term potential for that tree is somewhat limited, and so I wouldn't put money on that we can get this tree back going again. If you don't want to give up on it for now, that's fine. But there's just a lot going on in those photos. So you can't

do it about cankers. There's not a spray for the canker, No, there isn't. It's a it's a it's kind of like having a cut on your arm that got infected and then putting a little member mathiolate mercur comb. Those things you just put over the top. That are what rubbing alcohol over the top to just kill everything. It doesn't get down down there in your arm and deal with the problem. And that's how cankers are. They're running inside the tissues of the tree trunk or the branch, and the sprays we

put on superficially just don't do it. And there's not a systemic that moves up there and does a very good job of that either. So cankers or bugs, oh no, canker is a disease. It's a disease. Think of it as a disease underneath the bark and the living tissues of the floum and cambium that are underneath the bark that do all the transporting of everything through the plant. Okay, So if I so, if I end up taking that, you're digging that thing up with the cankers still being with the be

in the ground or no, they're those kind of things are ubiquitous. You know. Again to use the cut on your arm analogy. If you have a cut in your arm, it's not because you have diseases in you or around you. It's because they're in the environment. And you know, bacteria and things can get in that fresh cut and cause infection. And that's how a canker works too. So you could plant real close just move over a little bit to get away from the old stump location, and you could just

replant a new tree if you want to do that. Well, I was thinking about having somebody come in and dig up the stump and the whole thing. That'd be fine, that'd be a good way to do it. Yeah, So it's it's kind of a flip of the coin, flip of the coins your tree. Do you want to try to give it a chance or do you want to pull it out? But either way, I don't think there's a black and white answer on that one. Bill. Hey, thanks

for those pictures, and thank you for the call. I'm gonna have to run to a break our phone number seven one three two one two five eight seven four. Don't let the sound you still don't even try. Good morning. You are listening to garden Line and we are talking about whatever you're interested in. Here a phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. If you were thinking about retiring and you are looking what community do

I want to live in? What area part of the area would I like to live in? I would suggest you take a good hard look at the dellweb community, which is down in full shirt less than two miles from Fulsher on FM three fifty nine. Now you know Dell weeb bills homes for active adults age fifty five and better. They've got those lifestyle programs that are designed around you. And that's what makes it more than just a house. I mean, it's a community. And speaking of community, they're putting in a

community garden at this location that I am helping them with. And so I hope you would check out that new Fullsher community and discover the Dellweb difference for yourself. You can call them two eight one four or five nine zero six zero nine, or if you want to go to dellweb dot com slash Houston you can find out a lot more that way as well. That just sounds like a win win when it comes to you know, just a if you're a gardener and you just get all the benefits of all of that and a

community garden. Man, I can't wait to see that that dream fully finished and realized. A lot of people are going to really enjoy that. It's time if you have not done a summer fertilization to get one out. We want to put something down that is slow release that gradually releases. What kind of product does that well, A product designed to reduce the release and spread it out over time, and that would be for example, Slow and Easy

from Nelson Plant Food. Slow and Easy. It's a twenty two two ten ratio, awesome ratio, lots of nitrogen in it, but you don't get a flush of growth because it gradually releases that nitrogen overtime, so thatch development doesn't become a problem. Water consumption doesn't become a problem because over and fertilizing at one time with nitrogen causes time growth at the expense of root growth. Slow and Easy has all that fixed. They've got it taken care of for

you. It'll be the last fertilization you need to do until the fall. Nelson Plant Food awesome lines of fertilizers, Color Star, Nutral Star, Turf Star, Nature Star, Slow and Easy, and the Turf Star line is the one that I would be putting on right now. Let's go out to Memorial and we're going to talk to Cheryl Good or Sharon. How are you this morning, Cheryl, I'm good, Thank you. Listen. I've enjoyed your show yesterday and you were talking about trying to keep oxygen to the roots

during this hot weather. Yes, and about mulch, and I've got to like plants in the ground are doing pretty good, but I'm having wilt with the ones that are in pots. Yes, I wondered if there any kind of mulch that he can put in a seven or eight gallant container that would Sharon, you could do that, but I wouldn't bother. I wouldn't bother in a container with trying to mulch them. What the problem in the container is one of several things. The plant is big compared to the size of

the container. In other words, the container needs to be larger. And you know, when it's the degrees all day here, and I mean it is pumping water all day, it didn't take long to pump that container dry, especially if it's terra cotta, it's also wicking things out of the side. You just you know, whatever plant you're growing, I mean, you can't go through all the possible plants here, but think about how big that plant is and choose a container that is large enough for it. Really for

summertime. I just don't plant in anything smaller than a five gallon container, and that would be small plants bigger containers, or even better, I've got some that are like two thirds of the size of a whiskey barrel on my back patio. I can give them a good watering and I don't have to worry about if I miss a day even they'll be okay, there's just enough moisture and all that soil. But now if that plant in the container was a six foot high citrus tree, well that's too small of a container.

You get the idea, right, Yeah, I get it. Yeah, so water more often in the meantime. Okay, well I can't. There's no way I can put them in a bigger pot now, yes, so I'll think about it, you know, during the winter. But anyway, I guess I'll just but I think maybe just go ahead and try to water. I'm real good in the morning. And then yes, water until you

see a little bit coming out of the drainage hole in the morning. And then at the end of the day, when you know it starts to get a little break in the heat where you feel like you can walk outside again, you know, maybe six o'clock or seven o'clock, give them do the same thing again, give them a good soaking and they'll be fine, or you could do it a little earlier, and if you want to do it five o'clock, that's just fine too. Oh okay, okay, good,

that's that's good. Thank you so much. And the other thing I was going to ask about, it's like fall tomatoes. We have a greenhouse where we can bring them in when it gets cold, and we had such a good crop this summer in pots on the deck, So when would be the best time to go ahead and start that with transplants? You're I'm sorry, I'm not I guess I missed something that you said on that you're wanting to start tomato transplants for putting in the house of the winter. Yeah. Well,

yeah, just just un chill they ripe and up. But I don't need them in the greenhouse right now. I just wanted to get them started outside. And then the fastest way to start is to take a cutting off the plants. You have, take that cutting about six eight inches long. Six inches is enough, slash it in the sink of water to just wash off fall, the spider mites or anything tiny thing that may be on there, and then put it either in a glass of water where it'll root or

you can put it in some very moist soil. You want it in a bright area but not direct sun, and it'll form roots. Within a week. You're going to see roots on that thing. And well, unfortunately my husband already has removed them from the primitive alight, all right, and get some seeds starting mix, get some tomato seeds of the variety you want, and plant them today. I mean, whatever you want to plant them,

it's okay. Yeah, don't delay. If you're starting from seed, don't delay because it takes six to six to eight weeks just to get a really good sized transplant and kind of a shady place or very bright shade, very bright maybe a little morning sun to get it going. But you really need to watch those things that they don't dry out. So I'll put a tray that doesn't drain underneath them where I can put some water in that tray that's about a quarter inch up on the pots and it just wicks right up in

the pots for you, and that won't be over watering them. But they also won't dry out that way if you forget the water for a day. Okay, Well, thank you very very much. I appreciate the call. Thank you our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. If you're looking for a one stop shop where you're going to find all the fertilizers that we talk about here, a lot of the soils that we talk about here, and a wide variety of products where the pesticides, fungicides,

its exticides, all of those kinds of things. That's Ace Hardware. And the nice thing about Ace Hardware, well, one of the one hundred nice things about ACE Hardware is there's one near you, thirty nine of them in the Greater Houston area, so you you know you're not gonna have to go far to find an Ace Hardware. Quality staff, quality employees that they know what they're talking about. They can help you. They can take you to the products that they need, and they're not going to sell you something

you don't need. You can visit with them there, can go out and look at the different things that they have to offer, and you're going to find so much stuff to turn your patio upside down into a beautiful, beautiful place. We're outdooring, entertaining. If you have things that you need inside

the home, it's Ace Hardware Store. They've got everything. Go to ace Hardware dot com or you can and you can find one of the thirty nine new You just check the store locator and it'll it'll take you right to the ones in your area. One of my favorite things, I said this earlier, one of my favorite things to do on you know, weekend days, is to get out and visit our local mom and pop garden centers. And if you are at all a gardener, you get so inspired when you go

to one of those quality garden centers. And an example of what I am talking about, a prime example would be the Arbigating Nursery up in tumble there on two twenty one twenty, just about a mile and a half west of two forty nine. The Arbigate is just a show place. You wander through there, the plants, the gift shops, it's just outstanding. But while you're there, look at their one two three completely easy system. What is a one two three easy system. Well, first of all, it's an

organic food that's complete. That's a four four three organic food, so it's got the micro nutrients as well in it. It also has ten percent calcium, very high quality. Anything that you're planting that needs fertilizer. This would be a great choice for that. They also have the Organic Soil Complete, which is a mixture. It's got composts, got some large particle sand,

and it also has expanded shale. And then speaking of expanded shale, the Organic Compost Complete has compost quality compost, two different types blended together, incredible beneficial MicroB diversity in that, and it also has shale. What's the deal with shale? Well, in a clay soil, shale, unlike compost, doesn't just essentially oxidize away. It sticks around for a long time. So

we always want to add compost star plants. That improves the soil. But let's say you're planting a rosebush or something and it's in a clay soil, and you want to make sure the internal drainage is good. Adding the shale

in there helps improve that. And that's what I think is such a great idea for ArBB gates soil and compost as they put the shale into both of those products, and just over time, as you mix that in the soil, that clay soil gets better and better with its aeration and internal drainage. It's so fun to buy plants to bring home and be inspired to create that beauty in your landscape. If you're someone who loves beauty but doesn't necessarily want

to be the do it yourself or hey, that's okay. Pure Scapes is our garden line preferred landscaper, and they can be all that. Their designers are outstanding. They can look at your place, they can work with you to create a beautiful design that is just going to be inspiring. Do you need a new garden? Do you want to put in a hardscape of some

sort? Do you need drainage improvement most people do. Does your irrigation system need a little bit of repair, maybe landscape lighting or just mulching, trimming things. They can do all of that. Peerscapes experience and professionally trained employees. You know, I think that the average tenure for their employees is over ten years. That these are people that stuck around. They know what they're

doing, and there's a reason for that quality. If you want to book an appointment two eight one three seven zero five zero six zero, or you can go to Piercescapes dot com Peerscapes dot com and again the number two eight one three seven zero five zero six zero. Let them get you off to a great start and then you can pick it up from there, bringing those plants you just can't live without home to put in your landscapes and in your

gardens. Well, you've been listening to garden Line, and you're gonna hopefully continue to listen. We'll be here until ten o'clock today. Our phone number is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. By the way, at the eight o'clock hour, we're gonna have Scott McGrath McGrath Pest Control in so any kind of a pest problem or rodent problem that you have, please call in at the eight o'clock hour. It's your chance to talk to

Scott and ask your question. Hey, welcome to garden Line. We are here to answer gardening questions and let's talk all kinds of things plants with you. Our phone number seven one three two one two five eight seven four. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and let's visit about the kind of questions you might have. You know, I was talking about fertilizing earlier, the Microlife liquid products, and I just also want to remind you that they have

a great line of the bagged dry granular products. It's easy to put them out, you know, with your fertilizer spreaders. You know, Microlife is the number one selling organic fertilizer here in the Houston area. And there's a good reason for it. I mean it is. Not only does it have the three numbers on the bag by the way, for your law and I would get the green bag that's a six to four, but it has dozens and dozens of other nutrients as well, because your plant doesn't just need NPK,

it needs all the other secondary nutrients. It needs the micronutrients of what we call trace elements, and it has them all in there. It also contains lots of beneficial microbes and organisms and things that are important for the roots system and important for the soil quality. So I would recommend if you do the green bag, that you follow it up with the Humates plus, which is the purple bag. The purple bag is the humans plus. Think of

it as concentrated compost in a bag. I mean, if you were to take compost and just bring it right down to the basic concentrated content, that would be the humates plus. So it helps with the loosening soil and of course, adds so many nutrients and minerals. Your lawn overtime just gets better and better and better. This isn't just like I need a quick fix. This is like, how do I start taking care of my lawn and make it get better and better over time? Microlife safe for humans, say for

animals, safe for the planet. You can go to Microlife Fertilizer dot com and find out where to get these products or just read more about them. There's lots of locations where Microlife is available in the Greater Houston area. Earlier, I was mentioning writing an article Texas Gardner magazine. For those of you who don't know Texas Gardener, you might not have heard. We had Jay

White, the editor here on the show a while back. In fact, I'm gonna try to get him back in towards the end of summer here. I believe we're gonna have him in as well. But Texas Gardener is the only statewide independent gardening magazine that I know of in the country. A lot of states have had gardening magazines that went by the wayside. Texas Gardener has survived all these decades, and in fact, if you've been watching it,

lately it is just getting bigger and better and stronger all the time. I mean the quality, the photography, the layouts, I mean the stories. It's a gardening magazine by gardeners for gardeners, and I know that because I know the people that write for it, and they know what they're talking about, and I write for it as a matter of fact. And so if you're just looking for a good local gardening magazine, you know you can have

the fine gardening magazines those kinds of things. Throw them on the on the what coffee table there to impress your friends or whatever. Beautiful pictures, but don't don't do what they said in them, because it was written in New Jersey, for crying out loud. But Texas Gardener has written for Texas, and we are fortunate to be the only of the fifty states that I know of to have that kind of statewide private magazine. I think somewhere up in

the Northwest there's like a plant society or something. Plant organization has a state wide magazine, but that's a different, different thing than an independent for profit magazine. Texas Gardners really really great read. By the way, I'm going to be at an event that I think you may be interested in the OBO. The Organic Horticulture Benefits of Alliance is having an event called Let's Stock Gardening.

They are going to be at the Axelrad Beer Garden. That's at fifteen seventeen Alabama Street, Axelrad Beer Garden and it is going to be on July thirteenth. Hey, that's just around the corner right next Thursdy from five to eight pm. If you would like to come, you'll get to I'll be there and meet me. You'll also get to meet j White from Texas Gardener if you want to, and Destinok, our Texas Garden guy will be there as well. So lots of fun opportunity. It used to interact with us.

If you go online to OBA online, OHBA online, dot org, slash register, you can save your spot. It's a free event. Free to go again July thirteenth, this Thursday, five to eight pm at the axle Red Beer Garden. That ought to be fun. Well, let's see we Earlier on I was discussing some issues with trees, you know, the importance of picking the right species, of planting them properly, and the tree issues that we run into around here. And you know the trees are their

long term investments in the landscape. I had an older gentleman I knew up in Willis, Texas. He showed me one time a picture of an old house they had, and then he showed a picture of the tree when they planted. This little tree looked like a broomstick out there in the yard in front of the house. And then he came back forty years later and showed me a picture and it was like that tree was worth or in the house. I mean it, it was awesome. That's what we're going for.

But if you want to have trees that are like that, you need to have somebody to take care of them that knows what they're doing. One bad printing job, one ill advised treatment can cause problems for a tree. And the people that know what they're doing are Affordable Tree Service, Martin Spoon Moore, his wife Joe. They are the owners. They answer their own phones. If you dial seven one, three, six nine, twenty six sixty three, you're going to talk to Martin or Joe. They are a professional.

You can go online to Afftree Service dot com find out more from that. But hey, the storm season, the hurricane season is upon us, and do you have some limbs that may need to be removed? Is something dead or broken up in the tree, Is it hanging over your house or over that power line? Drop? Get it taken care of, and get it taken care of by a professional, because remember, a bad printing job

is a permanent, ongoing problem for your tree. These folks know what they're doing and they do everything else you need for trees, deep root feeding, you know, just advising, consulting, you can harm to come out and do that. It is nice hiring somebody and knowing that if they tell you something's needed, they're being honest and it is needed and they know what they're

talking about, so it is needed, and that's affordable tree service. I think I'm a broken record when it comes to soil, and I'm not ashamed to be a broken record when it comes to soil either. You know, we have so many different issues that can happen with plants, but starting with quality soil and having a raised bed, a good mix and all that, it just gets you off on the right foot. You are well on your

way to success. I would say you're eighty percent of your way to success when you plant the plant because you either have a raise better you don't. Drainage is good or it's not. It's shadi or it's sunny, and the plant's going to have an opinion about that. But most importantly that soil is a good soil. We hope right. Well, Nature's Way resources, that's all they know how to do is create good soil. They were the originators

of the rose soil, the originators of the leaf mold compost. By the way, on Fungal Fridays you can get ten percent off their bag products and twenty percent off their bulk. They have like two to three thousand yards of fungal composts out there, so they have plenty of that and you cannot get a higher quality compost than a well screened fungal compost made like a leaf mold

compost for example. Now they also have a two acre nursery, fruit trees, native perennials, houseplants, seasonal plants, one of the best selections of native plants here in the Houston area. So there's just one stop shop. While you're out there, check out that nursery while you're picking up your other supplies. A Nature's Way always takes her time and They always produce a quality product. They don't rush it out the door to make the cash register ring.

They take their time so when you get it, it is fully and well composted in the proper way. Well, let's take a break. Our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Good Sunday morning, on a beautiful day, and as every day is a good day for gardening, we are here to talk about the things that interest you when it comes to gardening. Our phone number seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I

love to visit with gardeners. I love to visit about gardening, and as you probably noticed, I try to use the questions that we get as an opportunity to kind of instruct and teach and help you get a concept of why things happen out there in the garden and landscape. You know, I know. We we go straight to the what is the problem, what I need to fix it? And where do I get what I need to fix it? And that's that's the simple ABC's of getting to the bottom of this.

But it also helps a little bit to know about why things are the way they are. And here's why that helps. It's because when you know why something is happening, you're better able to avoid it in the future or maybe to take steps to prevent it in the future. There's a National Gardening host that says, I think, how does he put it to know the why do but behind the how to? I think that's how he says that. In other words, instead of just how do you do it? Why do

you do it that way? And it makes you a better gardener overall learning those principles and I lean on those kind of things all the time in horticulture. You know, basic things that I've learned over the years, things that I were taught and getting my masters in horticulture, the principles of how nutrients work, how diseases work, how insects work, how plants work, and it just it just helps you to get to the bottom of things overall.

So I'll try not to bore you with too much of the nerdy stuff, but maybe just drop a little bit of it in here and there so you can become a better and better gardener, because you know, one of the things about gardeners is we're forever learners. I mean we are we it's you never finished learning about gardening. There's always a new plant, always a new way to do something. It's just new diseases and insects that arrive in the area, a new technique. It's just garden. That's what makes one of

the things that makes gardening fun. We're forever learners. We're also forever optimists, and I hope you will be that and not let a brown thumb that you think you have discourage you because gardening. How many of you are old

enough to remember etch a sketches? Remember those things you you sort of had two knobs and you had to go up and down or left and right, and you trying to draw a circle on an etches sketches like But anyway, if you messed up, you just turned it upside down and shook get and the whole picture went away and you got to start over. We can do that in gardening. It's called changing of the seasons. It's called using a Rhodo teller to get rid of the thing that didn't work and start something new.

It's always a fresh palette, and that is one of the things that I enjoy so much about gardening. Hey, if you guys have any kinds of pest questions you. I hope we'll stick around for the eight o'clock hour just around the corner, and we're gonna have Scott McGrath Pest Control on here now. McGrath Pest Control. They've been in business since what nineteen seventy four, I believe like over forty eight years. For sure, it is still

a family run business. It is a business that the owner is intimately involved with. You know, it's still family run. They serve the whole Houston area, Greater Houston area, and they when they tell you something, you can take it as gold, like here's a problem you have. They're not just making something up. Here's what we need to do for it. They're telling you what act really needs to be done. It's you need to be able to trust your service companies. And that's what I like about McGrath pass

Control. You don't have to sign a contract. You call them. They may advise you and say, hey, next whatever month you ought to consider having this done. But you don't sign a contract with them. You call them when you need them. They schedule a time and they show up at that time. You don't have to block half your day waiting and by the way, wondering, as with many service companies, are they going to even show up? They set a time and they do show up. Super highly

rated company. I just I think McGrath is the way I would put it. It's old time customer service with today's technology. So stick around for eight o'clock our we're gonna have Scott on and we're gonna pick his brains on bugs. And if you have any questions about insects, pass rodents and things, write that question down, give us a call an eight o'clock hour and we will get right to it. Speaking of getting right to it, I think we ought to head out to north Shore now and to Diana. Hello Diana,

thanks for waiting. Hi, no problem. I have a beautiful pecan tree. It's probably six year or seventy feet tall, very well established. About eight years back, I had it pruned because of a storm and since then it has not produced any pecans. And the pecans are the paper shell type. I don't know the name of the tree. Yeah, that's taking good health. Well, that's very interesting. I don't know why pruning now.

I could see excessive pruning and a lot of igorish regrowth, maybe you're you're not getting much of a production for lo Wante kind of settles in a little bit. But pecans. The reason pecans don't produce is a lack of pollination. That's the main reason. And so you know, I'm just sitting here and here I am grabbing at straws. Going back to those horticultural principles. If the pecans either come in one of two types type A type B

we call them. They have fancy words attached to them, but basically they mean does it produce receptive nutlets first or does it produce pollen first. They don't do those at the same time on a tree typically, So if you have one that's produces nutlets first and your neighbor has one that produces pollen first, then they take care of each other. Those trees make sure pollen nation

and pecans set happens. So if a neighbor had a tree and there are no other pecans anywhere nearby and that tree was taken, well, that could be a reason that yours might stop producing. That's a long shot, right, but that is something that could happen. Pecans also alternate bear, so if they were a really heavy crop one season, they will not have a crop at all, hardly the next season. And but you're talking about more than just a year out. So all I know to think is it just

needs to grow a little more and settle in. Maybe there's not it's not because it's lacking a nutrient in the soil. There's no spray that you spram pecans. It makes them produce. They just need good sunlight and they should do okay, So do the leaves and everything look okay on it. Yes, it's a beautiful tree. Well, you know, you may need to go out and talk to it. You may need to go out and talk to it. I have done that. I've done the plant's stakes. Now

I want to This is a true story. My Pecan culture professor, doctor Story at Texas A and M. Told this story. There's an old timer and whenever a tree didn't produce, he would go out there with a hatchet and he'd walk around the tree, hitting it in the trunk with that hatchet, and it just kind of fussing and cussing and telling the tree, if you do not produce next year, I'm coming back and I'm cutting you down. I'm gonna finish the job. And next year it produced like crazy.

Well a, it's that alternate bearing was already happening. But also when you hit it with a hatchet, you're backing. You're cutting the tissues that take carbohydrates down to the roots and you're backing them up and so you get a better nuts set from now. But he thought it was his threatening talking to But I wouldn't recommend that. But you know whatever, give it a try. You've had good luck. I hope that tree produces for you fun stuff,

right, fun stuff. If you are interested in the birding world, wild Birds Unlimited as a place you need to go. And I used to not be a birding person until I walked in to a wild Bird's Unlimited, bottle of feeder, bottle of bird house, bought some of their quality feeds that they have and began getting into it. And like I said before, guarding is a multi century experience. So that means we see beauty with our eyes, we smell fragrance with our nose, and we hear wonderful things with

our ears and birds songs, our songbirds wonderful. You need to go to wild Bird right now because our bluebirds, cardinals, chickens and rims are all in their nesting season and get the nesting super blunt. It's perfect for summer feeding all the way through August. That would be a great one for birds, especially as a lot of them are going to be going through molting later on. Go Towbu dot com forward Slash HOUSTONWBU dot com Forward Slash Houston.

You're going to find the wild birds all around near you, Katie Kingwood Cyper's Parlam bel Air, West Houston. That also clearly, Hey you're listening to Guardline. We are gonna go to our top of the hour break for news and more. And I just want to remind you Scott McGraths coming up next hour. So what are your questions? You got some about termites, You got pantry pests. You know, there's those little critters that get into the

flower and the other things you have stored in the pantry. Maybe silver fish are eating up your books inside, on and on and on. No limit to the number of insects. Oh my gosh, that I forget about cockroaches. We are the cockroach capital of the world right here in the Houston, Texas area. Scott will tell you about how to deal with them. Let us talk about some of the things that you might be interested in when it

comes to pest. But it would be best if you guys had some questions that are of interest to you, because someone else will have those same kinds of questions. Hang around, We'll be right back. KATRH Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised on this program. Welcome to KTRH Garden Line with skip rictor just watching as so many. Well, good morning, good Sunday morning. We are glad you're listening. Had a

great time with Scott McGrath talking insects. The last hour we're our lines will be open for things that you might be interested in talking about this hour. Just give us a call seven one three two one to fifty eight seventy four. By the way, if you were out and about today, I would suggest first of all that you consider grabbing some azmite to take home put on your lawn if you haven't done that before. And here's why. Now.

Fertilizers have a lot of nutrients in them. As amite specifically is a mind products. It's a crushed mineral product that it has all of the trace elements that plants need and more trace elements that we need. Maybe a plant doesn't need it, but in our bodies, the processes and our bodies, we need it well. Asamite is the product for that, and you need to do it about once a year. If you haven't done one, you can put it down, follow the label, follow the instructions. It'll tell you

you know about forty four pound bag. I believe is about six to twelve thousand square feet, depending on just how much you're going to put out. I use it in my vegetable garden because I like to make sure that the produce I'm producing is loaded with all the nutrients that my body might need. But you can go online to azamite Texas dot com asamite Texas dot com and

find out more information. That way, I think you will find that azamite may be one of the missing links because if a plant is lacking any nutrient, no matter how minuscule the quantity that's needed, if it's lacking at that limits plant growth. So plants need plenty of nutrients to grow and do well. Let's head out to Cold Springs this morning and we are going to talk

to Sandra. Hello, Sandra, good morning, good morning. I have been inundated with caterpillars also, I guess referred to as worms on my tomato plants that I can't identify. It had an orange head and it feeds in the daytime. And most of them that I have researched were uh, nocturnal okay. And I use hay for mulch in my vegetable garden and that was the only change. But it was fresh hay, and it was good hay. It's not we day and uh, and that's when the worms started.

Um. I've been able to control them by picking them off, thousands of them and I used d e just around the stem of the tomato plant. But they and I've I've got them under control now. But I've never had them before. I want to identify them for sure. And um, and wonder if they possibly came in with a oh, well probably not. I mean it could be, but I wouldn't I wouldn't look to that as the real issue. There are they feeding on foliage or on tomato fruits? Are

you there, Sander? Yes, I said, oh, both, okay, excuse me, yes, yes, Well that is unusual. We have a number of caterpillars that eat tomatoes. We've got the hornworms, which this is not a hornworm, but hornworms the foliage. We've got tomato pinworms that are a little tiny hole a small larva feeding. Typically they go in right where the tomato attaches to the vine. We've got, uh, the corn ear worm. It's also called the um Oh my gosh, it has about

three or four names. But it's a tomato fruit worm kind of insect that gets into the fruit, creates a bigger hole. But what's You're just suscribing the color and everything doesn't ring a bell. Let's do this if you will take some close up pictures as close as you can get, and make most importantly, make sure it's in really sharp focus, and email them to me. I will take a look, and let's go about it that way rather

than me just guessing. I'm gonna put you on hold and Josh will pick up the call and he will get you away to send me those photos of the insect. Great, and one more thing. They stand on a stem or a leaf and drill a hole in the bottom of a tomato hanging on a stem above it. I gotta see it. Let me see some pictures. I've got him, Okay, got him all right, well, okay, great, thank you you, bat. I appreciate that call very much.

You know, the the great garden centers we have around here, I brag on them all the time because, whether you realize it or not, you are really, really fortunate to have the garden centers that we have in the Greater Houston area. I mean, it's just it's truly, truly amazing. They are absolutely outstanding. Buchanans is one of those kind of garden centers. They're done in the heights. And you know, Buchannan specializes in native plants. I mean, if you're looking for native plants, great source.

They even have a table that's just Harris County area natives. You know, we could have a Texas native plant that's native and El Paso, but these are they have plants that are native in this region and native specifically in this Harris County area. Great opportunities for really quality plants there. Now, if you need flowers, if you need shade plants, any other kind of plant, they've got it. Outstanding selection of houseplants, by the way, which

this is definitely houseplants season. When the hot weather tends to drive us indoors a little bit, But go to Buchanan's Plants dot com and you'll see what I'm talking about. While you're there, sign up for their newsletter because that is very helpful, very informative. Check them out on Facebook, check them out on Instagram. You can get constant updates. By the way, I saw just recently an update. They have the Vego garden beds. You know

I brag on those all the time. Well, Buchanan's Plants one of the places you can get Vego garden beds in this area. Let's now go to I'll tell you what, Kevin, I'm gonna have to hold on. Our time is a little bit too short, but you will be first up when we come back from a break. If you are dealing with a lawn that just is not looking its best, you need to consider a Nitrofoss application of super Turf nineteen four ten. That's the Silver Bags silver Bag super Turf nineteen

four ten. Gradual release over time cuts down on thatch. Therefore, make sure the plant has a good root system therefore, and it just supports gradual, healthy growth. You're gonna find nitro Foss Super Turf nineteen four ten at All has hardware stores all the lot of the garden centers. We talk about the mom and pops here are going to have that places like plants for all seasons out there on Lutta or our c W nursery. Lots of places you

can get nitrofoss. But look for the silver bag for nitrofoss super turf. We're going to take a break our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. We will get to you Kevin. First thing when we come back from breaking my dreams to Skip crew about the places that I'm not to see a speren du you think I'd ever get there? He just stands there for mom back in me. Well, good Sunday morning. If you're listening to Garden Line, I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're

here to answer your gardening questions. All you have to do is give us a call seven one three two one to five eight seven four. Listen. If you live in the Houston area with our shrinking swelling soils, what does that mean? What it means? When the clay gets wet, it swells, When it gets dry, it shrinks. We get cracks in the soil, big cracks. You can look out in the ground as you walk through the yard. But worse than that, we get cracks and foundations sidewalks,

driveways. What do you do? Well, what you do is you call Tai Strickland at Fix my Slab Foundation Repair, or you can just go on line Fix my Slab dot Com the phone number two eight one two five five forty nine forty nine. They've been doing this for twenty three years. It's

a local small business with a foundation experience. You want. Maybe your doors are sticking, you see a crack in the brick outside, or maybe a sheet rock inside, you need to have someone come in and look at it because foundation repairs are better best caught early and dealt with properly by somebody who knows what they're doing. They'll do free estimates. Just tell me your gardenline listener. You get a free estimate from them. They're committed to a fair

price, they show up on time, and they fix it right. Fix my Slab dot Com two eight one two five five forty nine forty nine. Let's head out now we're going to talk to Kevin this morning. Good morning, Kevin, Hey, good morning. Now are you I'm well? Thank you? So I've got some issues going on with the front of my lawn. I've got patches that are just dead. And I'm pretty adamant about taking

care of my lawn. I use a real mower, I keep it real short, I follow Randy's schedule to a t. And I'm not sure. I'm just really not sure what's going on. Okay, I've got some pictures, but yeah, let's talk. Let's talk about it first and see. First of all, what type of grass is it? Bermuda zois here or Saint Augustine zoysia grass? Okay, good? And you're mowing it low and

short. The spots that you're seeing the areas, are they next to a driveway, a sidewalk, curb, masonry structure, or are they just out in the middle of the yard a little bit of both there between the road and and in between the road and the sidewalk. I've got a couple of big patches, but then up towards the flower bed, I've got another patch. So it's I don't know if it's spreading because I've got green in between, but it's it's you know, it's just very confusing on what's going on.

Yeah, okay, well, um, the spots do they are they very kind of neat and tidy, like it's a dark it's a dead spot, but then it turns green right outside that or do they just sort of blend into the grass going from dead to healthy? No, the first one, okay, the first one, Yeah, this is it could be a disease related issue, probably not insect related, but but it got me. Yeah, I didn't see any insects around there. I was. Yeah.

And if you know what chinch bugs are, you get on your hands and knees right between the healthy and the dead in that sick grade, well, you're gonna find a lot of them. So if you can eliminate that, that's good. That's one step I tell you from a photo. It is

very difficult diagnosing a lot of the lawn diseases accurately. The next step for you on that would be to go to that zone between healthy and dead and to take a sample there, put in a zip closing bag and mail it to the state Plant Clinic up at Texas A and M. It's it's easy to get the address. It's Plant Clinic dot TAMU dot edu. If you go there Plant Clinic dot TAMU dot edu. You can get the submission forum.

It tells you how to take the sample. That's the real way, because they're going to go down in there with a microscope, grow a culture out the fungus and a Petri dish and really be able to identify it accurately for you. I can get my best guests looking at a photo. But I tell you, I may send you out for a fungicide when you need an insecticide or vice versa, and I just I hate to do that. But if you'd like to try a photo, I'll put you on hold and

Josh can get a picture just or get you the email address. Just know that I think a sample it's probably a better way to go based on what you're describing. Okay, what what was that? Or what was that? Website again? The Plant Plant Clinic one word dot T A m u as in Texas A and M University dot E d u as in education. Okay, okay, and yeah, I would like to send you the pictures and ballparking for me. All righty, you got it. I'm gonna put you

on hold. Scott will pick that up and we'll be ready to go from there. Scott, I've been talking to Scott McGrath, All morning, I call Josh Scott. Okay, well it's the last hour of the second day of the weekend, so that makes sense, right. Hey, if you're interested in having solar panels in your house, let me suggest something else you might want to consider, and that's solar shingles. Did you know that Brinkman Roofing sells shingles. They're not above your roof, they are your roof.

They protect your home while creating electricity. You know, Brinkman's been around fifty years. Everything they do they give twenty five years fully warranted because they use quality materials and they do a quality job. They know what they're doing,

and you need somebody that knows what they're doing. Their full service. If it's residential, if it's commercial, if you need shingles, if you need tile, if you want one of those nice custom manufactured standing seam metal roofs built right there on site to fit your home perfectly, they can do it. And you don't stay in business for fifty years without doing it right. That's why they won in twenty twenty two the Better Business Bureau Pinnacle Award win

winner Brinkman Quality dot Com. That's Brinkman with two ends at the end quality one word Brinkman Quality dot com two eight one four eight zero seven six six three. You know, one of the things I enjoy about garden Line is getting a visit with gardeners, and another one is just, you know, getting to explore all things new. You never know when the phone rings, what kind of question it might be. Kind of keeps you on your toes as a result of that, so but that makes it, that makes it

fun. I've been visiting with a lot of different folks today and also talking with Scott about insects and things that related to insects. We just got through talking of Kevin about the lawn issue. And you know, sometimes it's a mystery when you look at a lawn and you see browning. There's clues we look for that help me go that's probably chinch bugs are well, that may be sod web worms, or no, that's one of the Razactonia fungi,

or maybe take all patch. And it interesting how many things like to eat our lawns. But we try to do our best job at getting to the bottom of it. Because nobody wants to go out and spend money in order to treat a lawn when you're buying the wrong products. So that's a waste of money, that's a waste of time. Good diagnosis is so very very important, and when you do get a diagnosis and you need a product, you need to be able to go someplace where you're going to find what you

need. And no matter where you live in the Greater Houston area, I would suggest considering an ACE Hardware. There's thirty nine of them, and their selection of insecticides, fungicides, herbicides is excellent. I'm always amazed when I go in there at the range of products. When I mentioned a fertilizer on Guardline, they're going to carry it in ACE Hardware. They also have you know, you can buy bags of mulches and composts and things there as well.

When you go into ACE, you have friendly, helpful associates that know what they're talking about and they can direct you. By the way, when you go into ACE, you need to join the rewards program where you can earn money back on your purchase. I belong to that myself, and cumulatively it's just a really good deal. As you do your purchases and what you're going to find when you get in there, maybe you went in to buy

a bag of fertilizer or something. You're going to find there's only eight hundred thousand other things that you've been looking for, and here they are all in one place. That is ACE Hardware. Our phone number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. If you give a Josh a call, he'll get you on the boards and we can talk to you about the things that are of interest to you. When I come back and in a bid here, I'm gonna spend a little bit of time talking about the vegetable garden

and doing some transitions out in the vegetable garden. If anyone is a vegetable garden or wants to be, I think that might be interesting. We'll talking about some of the vegetables that do well for heat, some of the ways we care for our vegetable garden in the summertime, and some of the pests that you might be looking for out there as well. It's really interesting when you get out in the gardens and you watch nature interacting. You know,

it's one thing. You know, you go out there's a tomato plant, fertilize it. I pick a tomato. But when you go out and you look at everything that's going on in the garden, it is really a very interrelated, complex world of insects, plants and interactions that they have. And I just find it to be a really fascinating thing. And this may sound weird, but I can enjoy sitting down in the garden, get a cup of coffee in the morning and just a little stool, sit out there a

minute and watch and look at what you're observing. I've learned more that way then, and a lot of books that I've read about gardening, and it's because you get to see the things coming by. I love to do that. In fact, I will often see a p s that I don't know what it is. One time, it was some caterpillars that were on some kale and they had a unique striping. I wasn't familiar with that caterpillar.

So what did I do? Well? I picked some of the leaves with the caterpillars on it, put them in a vase, brought them inside a little short vase, and put them inside one of those salad mixed boxes. You know how if you go to the grocery store, those clear plastic containers. You can buy spring Max, you can buy kale or spinach or whatever. When you're done with those, you can set them on end. That means they have a little door. You can put your vase in there with

the insects and watch them grow up. If you have kids, that's a really cool thing for the kids to watch. Maybe it's a butterfly go through the caterpillar chrysalis an adult stage, or in my case, it was like, what the heck is the name of this caterpillar and what's it going to turn into? Because I want to see what his pupil looks like. I want to see don't moths look like just kind of having fun out there in the garden. I know it's weird, but Nikki, I love that.

I'll own weird. I love all things gardening and so and all things of nature, all things of nature. Man, Nature is cool. It is and nature wins, by the way. That's another thing that we've learned. If you've ever seen a stop sign engulfed and eaten by a tree as the bart grows around it, you learned that that nature wins. We just hold back the forces and try to create this thing we called a garden and a landscape, move away for five years and come back. Nature wins. That's

cool. Hey, let's hear about the news. Downtown Walking says is passing away. Good Sunday morning. You are listening to Garden Line and we are entering into the second half of our last hour this morning. We're gonna answer your gardening questions. So if you got one, give us a call seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. In other words, what

do you want to talk about? Hey? I want to tell you that this Thursday, July thirteenth, five to eight pm, the Organic Horticulture Benefits Alliance is having a get together Let's talk gardening at Axel Red Beer Garden Axel Red Beer Gardens on Alabama Street here in Houston. And again that's this Thursday, July thirteenth, from five to eight pm. Now'll be there. Jay White from Texas Gardener will be there, and Destin Noak as well will be

there. Get shifts to visit with us and just have a good time talking about gardening. If you want to register for this, it's free, by the way, but to save your spot, I would recommend going online to OBA Online, OHBA online dot org, forward slash Register, Oba online dot org, forward slash Register Thursday, July thirteen, five to apm Axel Red Beer Garden on Alabama Street. I hope you can join us. It's gonna be a good time just having some fun there by the way coming up.

This is kind of a almost a precursor to the Oba Palooza event that is going to be on Saturday, August fifth. Now that's a little further out, but make a point to put that on your calendar. Saturday August fifth, Oba Palooza. What is Oba Palooza. Well, Oba Palooza has ten amazing speakers on the topics of organic gardening. You can again go to Oba online dot org, forward slash register, Oba online dot org, forward slash Register. I'll be there. I'll be speaking, giving a keynote address Aris

well Jay. It'll be at the United Way of Greater Houston on WA Drive, you know, kind of in the big middle of town there. Tickets are for members fifty dollars for non uberse seventy five. But keep in mind this is a loaded day of lots of really really great talks. This is all day fair, lots to learn and a lot of fun too. I always have a good time hanging out at those events, getting to meet some of the folks that listen to Garden Line, getting to make acquaintances with old

friends I hadn't seen a while before. So two different activities. But first, this Thursday, July thirteenth, five to eight pm, I hope you can come out to the actual Red Beer Garden and have a good time with us. We are going to be having a blast, that is for sure. If you'd like to give us a call and ask your questions. It's seven one three two one two five eight seven four seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. I was talking about before the break, saying

I'd like to talk a little bit about summer vegetable gardening. When it's in the summertime, a lot of our spring produce that was doing so well when the weather was mild, it just shuts down. Trying to get a big slice or tomato to set fruit, you know, trying to get your cucumbers, and even the squashes, the summer squashes and things, they just don't do as well this time of the year. But we have plants that do. We have plants that love the heat. Okrah loves the heat. Southern

peas. What are Southern peas well? It is the black eyed pea, the purple hull pea, the crowder pea, the zipper cream pea. Lots of great delicious Southern pieces. By the way, if you've eaten black eyed peas out of a can, you have never eaten black eyed piece. I know a very few vegetables that is so dramatic between canned and fresh, or between you know, cooked and frozen and fresh, super super good fresh. You gotta you gotta try that. Then there's a lot of other vegetables vegetables

from places that are hot and humid that love that weather. Well, welcome to Houston and summer right. Vegetable am rat that would be a leafy type of amrath that we grow for the leaves that'll do well here, you know we're talking about. Purslain is a beautiful hanging basket plant flowering and flowering.

There is an edible vegetable type of purslain. There are a number of different varieties, gold gilber, red gruner you know as a numb mithra as another one that I mean, they're basically they're weeds, so they grow like weeds. You put them in a container and you can grow a lot of vegetables. By the way, did you know that purslain is super high in all of the omegas that we so need in our bodies. It's crunchy, it's good in a salad, it's good cooked. I even will throw some into

a smoothie. You don't even know they're in there when you get done with it, and you've just added nutrition to your diet. So those are all summer plants. We have other summer plants we can be doing. If you've got a bare area in the garden you're not doing anything with, consider doing a solarization on it. Now, what is solarization, Well, you put clear plastic over the soil after you've prepared the soil, and you leave it for about four to six weeks. Then when it's time for fall planting,

you plant right in that spot. So the first step is prepare your soil. If you're building a raised bed, get it built. If you're putting in fertilizers or putting in anything composes into the soil, get that done. Because when you're done solarizing, you don't want a spade or rototill the soil, you'll just bring fresh weed seeds to the surface. Solarizing kills everything in the top four inches of soil, all the bad stuff, you know,

weed seeds and insect larvae and things like that. But it didn't work real deep into the soil because you know, it just can't affect the soil that deep. But it works well, and you do need clear plastic. And why it wouldn't it make sense that black plastic would get hotter than clear plastic. Well, yes, the plastic, if it's black, absorbs all the sun's rays and almost nothing goes down in the soil. But with clear plastic, like that windshield on your car. You know how it is in the

summer. You park your car, you close the car, you walk away, you come back, and it is only like between eight hundred and nine hundred degrees inside the car when you get in, right, sun shining through clear material to heat up the interior really sends the temperature up. That's why solarizing works, and that's why we use clear plastic. Cover the edges with soil or bricks or anything to hold the area in and just get everything ready

first. Again, you're not gonna want to mess with a soil. When you're done with this, give it four to six weeks of good hot weather and it will do a lot toward cutting down on some of the problems that may be present there in your soil. So that's another summer activity. If you're getting ready and you're thinking about maybe the fall garden things that are coming up, now's the time to again get your soul tested. What do you need? Do you have plenty of phosphorus or do you need some? Do

you have plenty of magnesium or do you need some? A soil test is a way to find that out. Go to Soil Testing Soil Testing dot tam dot edu. That's the state soil testing lab, soil Testing dot TAMU dot edu. Click on the regular soil farm that says it's for urban soil samples. Now that's not because you're in a big city Houston. It's because you have a garden or a lawn or rosebeds or you know, vegetables and so

on. That's the urban test as opposed to the farm test, which is going to be you know, grass pastures for cattle and things like that, cotton and so on. Soil testing, get your soul tested, then you don't know how to fertilize. Let's take a break. We'll be right back for our last segment. Our number seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. There is your last chance to get on this weekend. If you have a question and we can visit about it, be happy to do

that. A rollover will be told in and tells you gods get a new I got the rock and newmania. I need to shout a rhythm and blue. I called the rolling off the ride of thinking down at a rhythm review. I see a dancing across the room that just gets you the hip hop bebop ready to go, doesn't it. You're listening to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Richter, and we're here to talk gardening our phone number

seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. As we enter our last segment, and we're gonna go straight to the phones and talk to Nate in Columbus. Hello Nate, Hello, Hey, you're on What can we do for you? Nati there? All right? I think I have putting Nate on hold. We didn't connect right there, so maybe Josh you can get him back so I want to I want to talk to you a little bit about I'll talk a little bit to those of you who are interested in

a retirement. Maybe you're looking for where can I move, what kind of what kind of area? Don't want to live in? What kind of house? And all that. I would suggest you really seriously consider Dell Web. You can online to Dellweb dot com slash Houston to find out about that company. If anybody who's been around for a while knows, Dell Webb has been building communities for active adults age fifty five and better for over seventy years.

The newest community is out there at Fullshire on FM three fifty nine, about two miles from downtown Fullsher. Dell Web homes or beautiful homes, are quality homes, but the communities have lifestyle programs built around you. They're beautiful. But people that want to stay active, they want to just you know, keep going. That is absolutely what Dell Web communities are all about. The newest community at Fullsher has contacted me to help them with a community garden they're

putting on site for residents. If you're a listener to garden line, I mean, great house, great community and a community garden all in one. It is well worth checking out. Call them at two eight one four five nine zero six zero nine to get a little more information and to discover that Dell web difference. Well I believe we lost snake there, so all right,

Well let's continue on. I was talking about the vegetable garden and the heat of summer and getting ready for the spring, about getting soil ready, doing a sol task to doing solarizing. If you got an ongoing problem, if you have an infestation of a noxious weeds like bermudo grass into your vegetable garden, that is a challenge and it is best to get that taken care

of. But when you don't have a crop in the garden, if you're going to spray it, if you're going to dig it up, whatever you're going to do to get it out of there, just get on it and get that done. Use the early morning hours when it's a little bit cooler to get some of that kind of work done, because it is important to not have to deal with bermudo grass in and among your vegetables. That is just a it's very difficult to deal when you're not coming to spray it.

When it's in and among the food crops you're growing. By the way, if you want to kill bermuda grass with a spray, the bermuda grass needs to be actively growing. If it is the little winter and it's just kind of an adormancy, those products won't kill it. If it's in a summer heat, drought, stress and it's not growing, those products are not going

to work very well. So even if it means going out there and water in your bermudograss to get it growing, give it a few days and then sprite, that's a better way to go about it if you want really good, good results. Now we're going to go back and talk to Nate again. Nate, how's it going this morning, and how can we help it's going good? See if you had any recommendations on artichoke in our climate.

You know you can grow artichokes very well in our climate. They are have a little bit of cool tolerance and they're not going to take a super hard freeze, but they work pretty well. You can start you can actually buy seeds and start them from seed. A lot of people will grow their own transplants, and you want to put those transplants in the ground as it starts to cool off just a little bit in the fall, and get them growing,

get them growing fast, and they will go through winter. You may have to throw a cover over them if we have one of those, you know, good hard freezes, but then when they come out in spring, they will take off and bloom, which is basically we're eating the bloom buds when we eat a heart of choke, and they do really well. Occasionally you can find garden centers that have them, I guess, I don't know

if root or crown of the plant. I guess for sale. You know, almost like you would buy bare root plants in the winter, you would buy these crowns to plant them, get you a little bit of a head start overseating. But I just like to start my own transplants and go from there. You're there, Nate, Okay, I'm here yet. Okay, Yeah, So just remember they like cooler weather. They don't like the blazing heat of summer, but a hard freeze can nip them. But here we

basically grow them from fall through spring. That's their main season, or maybe early summer. Okay, well, what should I be doing with them? Right now? I've got three of them that are still alive that made it through the kind of sort of hard freeze we had. Well, yeah, and they're looking okay, they're looking okay, they're hanging on. Okay. Well, I would go out and say congratulations, y'all are amazing. First to them. If you talk to your plants, Uh, just just adequate

water, but not too much. Don't don't make them swampy, saggy around the roots. They need water, of course, but they have a very extensive root system. You know, it's a it's a good Artichokes are good sized plants, and and so you water a large area, keep them adequately moist, and they may well hang on and keep going. I've had some go through summer before. And if you can get them to do that, well, all the better. I mean, that's fine. All right,

thank you appreciated. Hey, thanks for the call, Nate. I appreciate that. We're gonna head out now to southwest Houston and talk to Carolyn. Hello, Carolyn, good morning. I'm enjoying you. We're pretty weekend and today I would like to know when do I know who to harvest my eggplant? This is my first time to grow eggplants, so I'm not familiar with, well, congratulations and good for you. That is a great plant. The easy to grow, and lots of different ways you can use them.

I grew up not eating eggplant, and when I started to discover all the different ways other than fried eggplant that you could make, it just made me a big fan of those things. So here's the thing with eggplant eggplant. The fruit grow in size, and assuming they have adequate water, they're gonna move pretty quickly from small to medium to larger size, whatever large is for that variety. Some make the big giant. They're like black beauty. They're

they're almost like a black beauty. Okay, let's gonna make a little melon sized oval plant fruit, and you want to pick them while they're still glossy and while the skin is still punctures to the touch. If they get too old, they lose that gloss on the skin and they're not as shiny, and that's a sign that it's gone too far and the quality is going to be down. The skin is going to be as tough as leather, but

the quality will start to go down at that point. So I guess if you know about how big they're supposed to be, let them get close to that size, but then go ahead and get them picked, and I would experiment you're gonna have more than one fruit on the plant, and you can kind of test them out and get a fuel for it. So the next time you grow eggplant, if you grow that variety, you know exactly what to do. Oh wonderful, Yeah, go ahead, No, go ahead,

I'm sorry. No, Well, my favorite seed catalog is from Baker Creek. Oh yeah, and they have a Chinese broccoli. Yes, it sounds wonderful. Yes, can I plant that here? Now? You can't do I make to wait? No, No, you would plant it in the fall. I would plant it probably if you're gonna do if you're gonna do transplants, you're gonna grow your own transplants. This is what I would

recommend. You can start those indoors and then move them out to a bright, well lit spot, but not the blazing hot sun to grow them out until you can set them out. I would put them out in late September probably. You could probably do it a little earlier than that if you gave them a little shade protection. But they're a cool season plant, and September is still pretty blazing hot for them, but anytime September even October, be

okay to get your broccolio. They are Are they in the coal family, Yes, they are, cold crop, they're they're in there with cabbage, kale, collards, colerabbie, all of those kind of things. Wonderful, All right, Carolin, Well, good luck with that. I appreciate your called. Good luck with you. Thank you, Bronie, you bet, thank you. Yeah. By the way, you've been listening to garden Line. I'm your host, Skip Ricter. We're here every Saturday, and we're

here every Sunday as well, from six am to ten am. Now, maybe you missed a show and you want to listen, Well, get your podcast out and go look for garden Line. You can listen to past shows that way. You can also listen, by the way, if you're heading to another city and it's too far from the radio saying no, you can listen online. I mean, you gotta have your garden Line fix with a weekend, right, that assures you that's all's well in your gardens world.

All right, Well, we're having a little bit of fun today, but you know they you know the routine garden Line six to ten Saturday and Sunday. We're glad to visit with you. I just want to remind you about that event coming up at Axel Rad Beer Garden this Thursday, July thirteen, five to eight pm. It is a free event. I'll be out there. Jay from Texas Garden will be out there. Destin No will be out

there. All you need to do is go online and register. That way you'll know that you've got space and just OBA online OHBA online dot org, slash register. It's free. I mean, we're gonna have some fun out there, so I hope you can join us. That's just a precursor to the big event I was talking about coming up in August, and I'll talk about more about that later as we get a little bit closer to it as well. Hey, thanks for being a listener to Garden Line. We really

appreciate it. You make the show so much more fun.