this bee bomb is literally crawling with bees Wow I just thought a pink onion why not try it our hostas do well in Minnesota They like our temperatures We have things blooming from early spring to late fall It's fun to imagine what this place will be like in a few years We've just gotten started Hello everyone and welcome to great gardening I'm your host Sharon Young and as usual we have our experts here with us and they are horiculturist and educator Bob Olen and garden professional Deb Burns Ericson We want to hear from gardeners across our region who have questions for our experts We have phone volunteers here tonight from the St Louis County Master Gardeners taking your phone questions this evening Call locally at 218788-2844 or simply email us at ask at pbsnorth.org We're taking questions throughout the show So call or email us now while we begin tonight's show with a look at the weather in our region There it is Beautiful lakew walk scene but we're seeing a little hint of green That's the color we There we go More green There's more green That's what we've been waiting for Mhm And uh you want to be a little careful lawn care I think we'll do a segment on that But uh you never want to get any fertility on until you've got some green a green plant there that can pick up the fertility Crocus Crocuses Beautiful Jumping out Spring flowering bulbs Sila Mhm Very very nice One of the first to emerge So pretty More crocus Mhm I believe so Mhm Looks like a nice grass around it Tulips Tulips are of course a little bit later Yeah they're going to mature a little bit later Just in time for the deer to eat them That's right That's a favorite crocus Pretty Very nice But those are signs of spring we've been waiting for Some nice shots Well we're finally seeing some green out there And while we're admiring some beautiful blooms we're going to take a look back at a classic garden tour with Connie and Lee McKinnus from Proctor Minnesota Let's watch I am Connie McGinness and this is my husband Lee McInness and we are in Proctor Minnesota We purchased the place from my mom and dad about 16 years ago but since then we've done quite a bit of landscaping When we bought the home 16 years ago from family my father-in-law and my brother-in-law had had dug out the area and um lined it and filled with water And this gazebo at that time was up near the house And we had we put the gazebo there as a as a backdrop and then just expanded just bumped out from the water's edge to create space to um have flowers and things They are goldfish except for there's a calico looking one right there and the grandchildren love them and so it's a joy I've got a wheelbarrow that becomes a planter Um anything that I can drill a hole in the bottom can become a planter This is just hundreds of uh blooms This clatus I it just loves that spot When COVID hit we'd been talking about we knew we couldn't just dig up our soil It's just so awful Uh and we and backbreaking I ran across Mel Bartholomew his teaching on PBS and our local library had the book We learned about squarefoot gardening and he told us anything could be could be grown in six inches of soil and he teaches you how He taught us that you don't want to make your um raised beds more than four feet wide because you can only reach in two feet on either side otherwise you have wasted space and co came and my husband had some time off during then and uh so we we just built it and so we call this our co garden This is our third growing season When I'm planting in my vegetable garden I also like flowers and these are all zenyas Lee built He took a little section of the cattle panel and he built a you can see just a grid right across here and we added it to the frame Yeah The wind doesn't blow the flowers and they don't u need the staking as they continue to grow high Here's the interesting thing about gardening You know you build a fence you build a box put a place for something to grow plant the seeds or the plant then you just kind of let God grow it and it grows It's a wonderful thing It's a it's a it's a great blessing to our lives What an absolutely beautiful garden they have Now Bob what did you want to share with our viewers this week well I thought we'd take a look at some of the new and kind of intriguing introductions vegetable introductions this year And uh it's kind of surprised me because I believe among the uh gardening public there's a new awareness and emphasis on better nutrition because the breeders tend to tend to kind of follow what the trends are and the introductions that are really featured uh tend to be more nutritious this year So really quite surprised but several of the all-American winners are in the cabbage family Cabbage broccoli cauliflower Brussels sprouts kale kabi and now we've got a new one It's not new new It's about 10 years old but it's just really getting some attention called kale It's a combination between Brussels sprouts and kale So uh I think there's an awareness that u the that all of these this particular family contains sulfurophane which is a sulfur compound that's noted to be cancer protective It was Dr Paul Tellet He just passed away a short time ago and I would like to recognize what he did in 1998 he just kicked things off and really uh began he was worked with John Hopkins University and he just uh started this new field of uh chemo prevention and there's been an awful lot of research that's followed So we're seeing a lot of color uh when we take a look at the color the cauliflower family it's pretty interesting We've got purple orange and green that's been featured We're seeing different forms We're now seeing what I call stick cauliflower the Fiorto varieties And one of the all-American winners happens to be a purple Musaki a Fiorto stick cauliflower So here's some of the colorful cauliflower we never saw 10 years ago U very intriguing stories Graffiti is the purple one down on the right There's a lot of newer introductions that have followed that on If one thing successful there's going to be many more copycats out there I still think that's the best Cheddar's in between just got a great story was a mutation an orange mutation that was found by a Canadian uh what the equivalent of a county agent working with the extension service in Canada And um that was found in 1970 The original seed from the original mutation was shipped to British Columbia They couldn't do much with it Went back to England They couldn't do much with it And it finally came back to a cauliflower breeder His name was Dixon in at Cornell which is a great horicultural school in upstate New York He spent eight years It was finally introduced uh I believe in about 2004 or five and it really didn't get the in the hands of growers until about 2010 But cheddar aptly named uh is really very interesting uh colorful and loaded with vitamin A And then we've got Vita Verde uh the green variety So we're getting all kinds of color It always used to be white It's just a little bit boring Here's the new forms These are the stick cauliflower This is that Mirosaki I talked about I thought initially they were introduced just because they might be a little easier to harvest but really the stems have their own unique flavor Uh and they're gaining in popularity We're going to try a lot of these coming up this year And then this is the new klet which I mentioned which is a cross between the Brussels sprouts and kale You get these kaleike leafy structures right where the Brussels sprout bud would form And that kite is is very versatile It can be eaten raw It can be steamed It can be microwaved It can be uh transformed into a chip So it has a lot of very unique flavors We've got the stick broccoli as well The interesting thing it's just not the form but here those stalks uh have their own unique kind of a nutty flavor So broccolini and or what I call stick broccoli new korabi I never would have guessed that you would have had an all-American winner as a korabi but this is one this year uh called constants that did receive a national award So there's a great deal of interest right now in new colorful varieties and very nutritious varieties Focused a little bit on the cabbage family which we can grow so well in northern Minnesota and northern Wisconsin So it's all good Oh I love it Thanks Bob I mean come on Who Who doesn't love a good kale right and Brussels sprouts Now for those of you at home keep emailing and calling in your questions We're going to get to a couple right now Julie in Duth uh reached out um and has uh successfully wants to know how to successfully repot this Norfolk pine Um it's beautiful It looks like I have three or four plants I'd like to put them in separate pots What type of soil should I use well my opinion is I'd give her a 50/50 chance Um I've I've seen it go wrong so many times that um you might lose you might lose both of them if you divide it even in half I would never divide it more than in half I'd try to find two strong ones possibly once you dig into that dirt and see what's down there Um but there's a great possibility she could lose it all And she really I mean it's thriving right doesn't look like it needs transplanting at all I mean if she wanted to go to a bigger pot fine But I would not I wouldn't touch it Yeah I think it's a pine and that's that's really woody material It doesn't divide like a lot of the vegetative materials So I would be skeptical as well if she's going to be successful Throw it out leave it let it be or a little bit larger container if she wants to and they can get certainly even indoors 8 to 10 feet in height So it's got a ways to go Beautiful Frankie in Duth wants to know if you can suggest a good grape variety for northern Minnesota and do you need two for pollination oh sure Nice There's some nice I like Valiant and um Beta and Blueird Bluebird Blue Bell Blue Bell Yeah Yeah It's very interesting They all have some of our native river grape in them And let's see if I got this right We get these questions I think that blue bell came from South Dakota Uh Valiant was an introduction from University of Minnesota And then uh Beta No Beta was Minnesota and I believe Valiant was Wisconsin So all three states are represented their breeding programs Any of those but I think of the three Valiant is very aggressive and probably the hardiest and that would be my first choice Well I have a perfect follow-up question from Fred in Two Harbors Uh he wants to know how to treat black rot on Valiant grapes There you go Bob I can treat it with you know Yeah we really He can try some of the more traditional fungicides Once you see the disease you really can't do much about it We're not really a grape growing region There probably are some specialized fungicides that some of the wine producing areas would have but he could try a Bordeaux M mixture which has a copper base or a sulfur mixture some of the real general purpose fungicides But they have to go on right when that fruit's just beginning to form as uh once you see the disease itself or the expression of it it's too late The horse is out of the barn It's got to go on as a protectant Okay Thank you Ted and Superior bought some grass seed last fall that he kept in in an unheated garage all winter Is the seed still good and if so when should he plant it okay I just have one question on the seed What grass seed was it because it just depends on where he got it And of course it would be fine if it was left and it had gotten cold and it would be absolutely fine But I want to know if it's got bluegrass in it or if it's got rye annual grass in it And and and as far as if it's going to be hardy for us right we'll assume it's hardy Okay But you're right You should read the label on it But I I would think it it's probably going to be fine Uh that cold those cold temperatures won't damage the seed Not for one year And he really wants to wait a little bit longer Soils are very cool yet and uh we want that seed to germinate quickly So I'd give it maybe two weeks from now he could start carefully planting And it takes almost 21 days to germinate grass seed So be patient once it gets it in and you have to keep that seeded moist Yes you do Or mulch it and have that nice you know blanket Put a seed blanket on Particularly the blue grass take a lot of time to germinate And it won't hurt to try Right Right I think it's going to be fun Yeah All right Well thank you all for the questions so far Next we're taking a look at the local dirt Look at this beautiful greenhouse from Don and Nancy Larson Nice That clear roof You can just do so much with it Good that Oh another angle I like the tools on the wall just standing right there for you Oh the Holly Hawks They don't even look real They're so I know that color That color That's the thing Uh with the long days and the bright sun we can get colors that are spectacular It's wonderful Some of our flowing crabs It's an iron Michigan Nice And many of these are you know they're very very hearty Magnolia Nice magnolia We are star magnolia which is real hearty for folks I would start with that one Nice hydrangeas So many nice hydrangeas coming So many to choose from Probably Annabel there is my guess Could be big Except it's got a lime color to it It's not mature Oh and the hellaors Hellaors are great if you can grow them They're great They're a little tender and they can They don't always work out for everybody but they're great if you can Well we're looking forward to seeing what you've got growing this season and we've got a lot more gardening to talk about Deb what have you got in store for us this week well everybody's getting kind of antsy to do some planting and they're going to the garden centers They're going to the green houses and they just want to get a fix It's just flowers are everywhere Not everywhere but when you go to a greenhouse they're everywhere and you can't help it You're tempted by it So then I just came up with a few little tricks if you want to bring home a few things and make it a little easier for the next couple weeks before you have to start hardening them off and transitioning them But a wagon for the weekend So you can just use a little wagon like that and you can put your plants on it and then you can pull them outside But don't forget to bring them back in You can set an alarm on your phone so that if it's getting a little windy or you know just watch the weather and watch your phone for how long they've been out Um and then you water you can water it when the foliage gets darker because if the the foliage is darker a lot of times it's drying out and the wind outside will dry it out quicker And then you don't have to water it as much if the plants are getting heavy And then give them room to breathe and grow on that wagon And then another one would be a sauna all week long So this was a customer told me that she does this and it's to me genius because I do now use my sauna to propagate sometimes when I want to do beonia seeds or other hard to grow seeds But um it's easy to water You can put a small heater in there I like to set mine to 55 degrees for just getting things used to going outside Um and then oscillating fan and light set on a timer And they really only need about 12 hours of daylight or of a a light And then plenty of room There's plenty of room in to do that And lay some plastic or garbage bags on the benches to keep your benches nice and not get them all dirty and then have another task to do And some people just put it in their bathtubs It's really easy And if you have a secured curtain rod you can hang up baskets on it Um if you have a pull out um shower you can just water easily with just that shower head And then you can use a laundry basket flipped upside down and then put some plants on it And then it makes it easy coming in and out if you still need to use your bathtub or your sauna Um and then a garage setup Lots and lots of people do a garage setup for ones that really get kind of they're addicted to plants and they want a lot of them and they have specific ones they want So you can set up shelves or carts And then remember the floor is the coldest That concrete holds the cold for a long long time So you want to get everything up as high as you can The higher it is the warmer it is And um again you can use rods on top of your shelving and um put your baskets on it And then you add a heater Um again set it to you know 55 60° Um fans oscillating fans work great And again lights Um and then for those that are completely out of control our greenhouse and um like those other um um gardens you really need a greenhouse to get all that stuff going But that is a full-time job You need to watch your greenhouse all the time I even had customers today that came in and said "Oh it's getting hot I got to get home I didn't crack the windows on my greenhouse."

And off they got to go So um it's great You just make sure you get the cold out of the ground before you add any plants because that um again will heat up quickly especially you know the dirt Just warm it up keep it closed and then once you put your plants in make sure you have vents and fans going Um even if it it's easier if you if it's a hot day or a sunny day just to make sure your vents and fans are are going And then um you can also add more plastic inside over that shelving to make a greenhouse in a greenhouse for more tender or tropical plants So there's ways to get around and get to getting big plants that you can't live without Or you could leave them at the greenhouse a little longer I like your ideas though But perhaps we should remind people it's not a good advisable idea to sauna with your plants Right Right Do not Right Bob is absolutely right I've heard of showering your plants with your plants but not sauna No no no no He's right Those are great tips I mean it is exciting This is exciting time with all the beautiful blooms and and thank you for your tips So remember there's still time for you to call or email your questions Let's get to a couple more Susan and Carlton wants to know "How far down and when do you prune grape vines?"

Lots of questions Grapes Yeah And I'm assuming she's talking about our wilder native grapes that they can they can be pruned heavy and hard uh even almost down to the ground and they'll come back for you But u look for where there's still viable green tissue and prune them back They'll take a heavy prune very early Right now would be a good time to do it Perfect Diane in Pike Lake wants to know when is the best time to plant asparagus seeds Seeds Seeds Okay She's not going to direct seed this is she is she is this Oh she said seeds Yeah I know I wouldn't direct seed it though because we've had questions about direct seeding And this is one I would not do as a direct seed I would start them in my sauna Turns out the seeds she's she's going to be planting crowns now These have been you know a commercial crown producer runs the seed out and it's over 2 three year process So most of us you're going to start with the crowns and as soon as you can get them into the ground I think is a good idea Again uh soils are very cool right now but you'll start with a crown which is several years old and that gives you a jump and then they're pretty easy to start But starting asparagus from seed is a real challenge It's a long It's a long one Yeah you would need a stone to get it started Keep it warm And one of the real nice things we lost a group of Asparagus the Jersey series that came out of Ruters because I think the commercial producers maybe retired and we thought they were gone but they're back I've seen it back Yeah Yeah Jersey night Jersey Supreme Millennium So there's some Giant Jersey Jersey Giant which is a real thick stem But I think uh you want to plant asparagus there's nothing as good as a fresh crop of newly emerging asparagus Takes a few years but very very fine Yep Keep the weeds down It's your number one challenge Karen in Duth wants to know "What are the best veggies to grow in pots that are not tomato or lettuce?"

What about peppers yeah that'd be absolutely peppers Peppers are one of the best ones in a in a container Okay What if they don't like peppers oh then just about anything else Yes you watch your water in a container except for maybe corn which is not going to give you a whole lot but uh but celery you could do But you mentioned a a dark anything that really loves the heat A black pot on an asphalt drive like your peppers as example They mature very very nicely for you Wonderful Sherry in Piedmont wants to know how to get rid of invasive moss growing in the garden Oo Growing in the garden Growing growing in the garden Yeah it's a little the big thing People want to get rid of moss but moss is there for a reason It's telling you that doesn't have much sun Isn't that what it's telling us in the It's telling you there's too much water because water moss does not have a vascular system It does not have roots So what it's going to do it has to absorb all its water right through the tissue So it says it's very very moist So I would say I would do raised beds I try to get some drainage in there Maybe open it up cut down a tree or two or trim them at least so you get some more sunlight Dry that bed down or that garden down That's going to be the solution Forget about all of the potential moss killers that we see sold out there That's not going to solve the problem You really need to get rid of some of the water and warm things up a bit Change the environment Yep Devetta in Duth wants to know if if collards can grow in Duth Of course Oh sure Yeah Yeah Yeah Good There's no reason why we couldn't grow them It's just they're not part of our kind of native diet that we're used to Yeah A lot of people will grow collards though and they're they're easy to grow Very easy All right Uh Deta also wants to know if rabbits have um she has uh rose bushes that rabbits have chewed up um about 15 inches up Uh will they come back or do they need to be replaced oh if they're all the way around if they're girdled it sounds like they've been girdled or I don't know if they've been um cut down but I'm guessing they've been girdled all the way around if they're girdled all the way around depending if they're on their own root There's a lot of roses hardier roses are on their own root and she could cut them back and see what comes back from them But there are a lot of hardy roses just depending on the rose variety She it could come back from the ro from the roots She may want to cut it back look where the injury is cut it back to a a viable bud a swelling bud Right now they'll come back Doris and Renshaw would like to plant hydrangeas bleeding hearts and roodendrrons Which varieties are best for the area this is Renshaw Well there's so there's so many of them Roodendrrons There's not as many roodendron PJM roodendron That's the only one that I really know I mean the the Finland Finnish ones but they're not as readily available and they're finicky They're very finicky So and what was the other hydrangeas i bleeding hearts Oh bleeding hearts I sent her the oldfashioned easy and see if the spot is right for it That's that's something she might want to do is maybe search some of the less expensive varieties and see if your location that you've picked is going to be a good one for it We might have to do something There's so many varieties of hydrangeanger and they're so well adapted and uh one of our big wholesalers Bailey's has been so successful with their endless summer uh series and uh she has many many to pick from there Great One last question Julian Duth wants to know if jalapeno peppers deter deer from eating cucumber plants Oh boy we've never heard of that No me neither They might deter your neighbor but I don't think deer I think that uh jalapenos grow pretty well in the area but I don't think they're going to stop the deer No I don't think so either All right Well thank you for all your questions Next um we'll be um well thank you for joining us this evening on Great Gardening We hope you enjoyed tonight's episode and I'd like to thank our volunteers who answered the phones tonight And of course a special thank you to our gardening experts Deb Burns Ericson and Bob Olen for sharing their time and expertise We'll see you next time with even more tips to help you grow a beautiful and successful garden this year Have a wonderful evening and good night Oh mom I do have I'm supposed to meet a guy to make a payment for a advertising and KQ Oh he's coming So I'm just gonna One second I think he's probably here Okay Yeah you do I know three minutes is a long time when you were talking about TV It goes really fast I can't believe how fast the show goes It goes fast Which is good Sorry Nag that end there Okay I mean I was looking I was looking and I'm like there's the end of the show Yeah And I was like I was like it's not scrolling The show was a little bit weird because we only had the one video tour Yeah Usually do it twice or split it up one way Yeah So and apparently cuz we're in this weird transition with the producer situation and videos last year and so we dug this one up from I think two three years ago a couple years ago It was a good piece but yeah So because of that we did have a second one to follow up So it was a little bit more Q&A but sure That's that's kind of what happened there So but it's good on the Q&A So I didn't know we stretched out We talked a little bit the question They they want to hear their answers Yeah for sure So what we'll do if we want to handp pick he was thinking four or five okay individual questions when Deb gets back we can handp pick those and kind of identify how we want to sure pick do that because I said we'll need to be you want us together or do you want us so it can be together if you want to kind of interact like we did with a couple of those Sure The biggest thing is we just need the whole piece to be about a minute or so We can't get too lengthy So that's the only thing So that's why we want to kind of figure them out and figure out how we're going to answer each question so that we have a plan How about how about the last four is there a tomato plant that matures faster than 50 or 60 days 50 days is Yeah it's about the earliest that you're going to have find So which one which plant is that well the one 50-day that comes to mind is Early Girl Okay It's down down there We've also got a couple of cherry tomatoes that are very early but the only slicer that I'm really aware of is Early Girl Okay What What can I do to limit the number of slugs in my garden yeah that's a long one That could be a long one Okay I won't ask that one Well it's a good one People people want to know So we'll see whatever else you got there Okay What's the best way to airate a very large lawn there's only one way That's a plug ariator What we call a plugator We can answer that one quickly Yes Okay There's only one way to do it Darlene says she has a lot of horse tail in her flower beds Yeah How does she get rid of it yeah