* We're off to the forest to see Miss Jean * * She lives in a house that is mostly green * * Except for the chimney and windows and walls * * And one or two places just down the halls * * That's filled with rabbits and newts and snails * * And fat little puppies that wag their tails * * And a whale and a tiger and elephants, too * * Well, maybe not elephants - Hi.

Do you like to grow things?

There are lots of different ways of growing things in the house and in containers, and out in gardens.

We're all set to plant our garden at Hodgepodge Lodge today, and I thought, we'd try some new things this year, talk about some new ways of growing things.

I've been reading about special ways that people who live in apartments even can grow radishes and tomatoes and things, and I have a new friend who brought us something special to plant in our garden today.

Welcome to Hodgepodge Lodge, Michael.

- Thank you.

- What did you bring us?

- A pepper plant.

- [Jean] It looks like six pepper plants.

(laughs) We can plant some here, and maybe there'll be some left for you to take home and try.

Do you like peppers?

- Yes.

- Good, so do I.

How about you, Ty and Sarah?

You ever grown pepper plants?

- Yeah.

- They're really good for you, and not too hard to grow.

You brought your own trowel, good.

You live in a house, and do you have a garden in the backyard?

What do you grow in it?

- We grow tomatoes, and radishes, and um...cabbage, and lettuce.

- [Jean] Do you have any problems with rabbits?

- No.

- Good.

How about you, Ty?

Any gardeners in your family?

- No.

- Have you ever been to anybody's house that had a garden and picked anything fresh out of the garden?

- No, except for strawberries.

- Oh, strawberries, well.

Where did you do that?

- My neighbor's house.

- How nice.

Don't they taste good right off the plants?

And Sarah, what kind of gardening goes on in your family?

- Well, we've got peas and tomatoes, and radishes, lettuce.

- [Jean] Who likes the garden best?

- My father.

- Your father does lots of outside things, doesn't he?

I hear he's building a log cabin, too.

- Yeah.

- That's great.

Well, suppose you lived in an apartment and you didn't have any yard but just a balcony where you could set things out?

I just read a little book called Container Gardening, planting things in a basket, like an old peach basket or a plastic tub, just anything that'll hold the the soil and the plant, and you can do wonderful things.

I went to the Philadelphia Flower Show this year, and a seed company had brought all kinds of things growing in tubs.

There were squash plants with squashes on them and tomatoes with tomatoes on.

It's really amazing what you can do.

All you have to do is be sure to have something for the roots to grow in, some fertilizer, and keep it watered.

You don't even need real soil.

You can use a synthetic soil, but if you were gonna plant something in this basket, what do you think you'd have to do to keep all the stuff from coming out the cracks?

What could you do?

- You could put it in another container.

- [Jean] Right, can you think of anything else you could do, Sarah?

- Put gravel in it.

- How about lining it with a piece of plastic?

And then you'd still get to look at the basket.

I like baskets, don't you?

They remind me of the old days when you got everything in baskets like that.

So you could line it with plastic or set it inside something else so you wouldn't have dirt all over your patio or your balcony.

And you wouldn't have to worry about drainage in this, because it has a hole in the bottom and there'd be room for drainage there.

But if you were going to use this, you would have to have some place for extra water to get out, so you'd punch some holes right around here.

Not in the bottom, but right around here, and put some gravel in the bottom, because plants don't like to have their roots soaking wet all the time.

So there are a couple ideas if you live in a small place, and don't have room like we do to go out, and dig up a garden.

Another idea that you read a lot about nowadays is mulches.

You know what a mulch is, any of you?

- It's sort of enriching the soil when you add it.

- Some mulches enrich the soil, right, and some of them, the main object of a mulch is to keep the weeds from growing.

Lots of people love to plant seeds and plants, and then they go away for a week or two and they come back and what's happened?

Weeds are bigger than the plants, and that's sort of discouraging.

So if you start out right by using mulches, you can keep the weeds from growing and you can keep moisture in the ground, and some of the mulches give food to the plants, so you can accomplish three things.

Let's go look at my mulch lineup over here and talk about the different kinds before we actually plant anything.

Bring your things, Michael.

I had a lot of fun gathering these up this morning, because some of them are fun to feel and to smell.

What do you think that is front of you, Sarah?

The first one.

- Bark.

- Just bark?

Pick up a handful and take a close look at it.

- Bark and dirt and sticks.

- [Jean] Do you have any idea where I got that?

- [Sarah] Off the trees?

- [Jean] What do you think, I chopped it up myself?

- No.

- [Jean] What do you think it takes to chop up trees?

- A woodpecker.

- Good, that's a good idea.

I've seen some trees, Sarah, where a pileated woodpecker has been working and bringing out chips to make his hole, and it looked just like that.

Good idea.

What have men invented that can grind up trees?

You know Ty, you see them along the road, don't you, working on the trees?

They take these big branches and throw them in the back of the special machine.

- A grinder.

- Haven't you ever seen that?

Don't they have those machines over in Columbia?

Well, it's a big grinder.

You might have a grinder to grind up vegetables or meat at your house.

This is a big grinder that can grind up branches, and it makes a terrible noise, very bad for your ears.

But what comes out are these wood chips, and they are great.

Smell a handful of these and see if you can tell.

There's one kind of tree that I know the men must have been working on this day because this pile of wood chips smells so good.

Anyone smell a good tree in there that's good to make a special tea out of?

- Yeah, but I forget what it is.

Maple.

- [Jean] You get syrup from maple trees.

How about sassafras?

You're a Girl Scout, aren't you Sarah?

- A Brownie.

- A Brownie?

Well, I bet you'll learn about.

You smell that good smell in there?

Well, sassafras tea is a good thing in small quantities.

You mustn't drink too much of it.

Like anything else, too much of it is not too good for you, but there are wood chips, and we'll put some of those around some of our plants.

They'll keep the weeds from growing, keep the moisture in.

It makes a good mulch.

I like that word.

What's in front of you, Ty?

- Leaves.

- Right, so there's another good idea.

These are leaves from the willow oak, and they are pretty tough.

They last a while.

Some leaves disintegrate faster, but leaves are another good mulch.

How about these, Michael?

- These are pine needles.

- And they smell good too, especially when they're out in the sun.

These are from, pick up one bunch and see how many needles are in it.

You know, there are lots of different kinds of pine trees and you've can tell different kinds of pines by how many needles they have in a bunch.

Did you count how many are in yours?

- [Michael] Five.

- [Jean] Five, did you get five too, Sarah?

- No.

- How many did you get?

- Four.

- Four, well, yours is a little different.

These all came from white pine trees.

White pines have five needles in a bunch, and when the old needles fall off, they all fall off together.

You found one with five, good.

So this will make a good mulch.

How about this stuff?

- I don't know what that is.

- [Jean] You know what that is?

Here, take a look at it and see if you can figure it out.

Do you have any idea, Michael?

- Looks like string.

- Well, if you pull on it, it falls apart.

It doesn't hold together as much as string.

It's made from something in nature, though.

- [Michael] Roots?

- It's just another form of wood, but you don't see so much of it anymore.

It has a funny name, excelsior.

It's just long strings of wood, and it's good for packing things and keeping them from breaking when you're shipping them somewhere.

It's also good to put it in your chicken's nest so their eggs won't break when they lay them.

But it's also good for.

- [Michael] Mulching.

- Mulching, right.

And down here we have.

- Hay.

- Well.

- [Michael] Straw.

- Straw, right.

Straw is yellow, hay is usually green.

Straw is good for animals to sleep on and hay is good for animals to eat, right.

But that's all right, Michael, lots of people have trouble.

A lot of my friends have trouble telling hay from straw, but both of them are good for mulch, but you wouldn't want to put good hay on your garden, because that'd be very expensive.

You should feed it to your animals.

But sometimes farmers mow their fields and they get the hay all cut down, and then a big rain comes, and the hay gets all moldy, and it's not good for the cows.

Then you should go see the farmer and say, can I have all your spoiled hay to put on my garden for mulch?

And maybe you can get it.

Sometimes you can get it very cheap that way.

So spoiled hay is a good thing.

And then, this is straw that's been used in the stable where the cows were, so it's a good mulch and it's also got a lot of good manure in it.

That'll give food to our plants.

And here's something else I got from the kitchen.

You recognize those?

- [Sarah] Coffee beans.

- Ground up coffee beans.

After you've made coffee out of them, they're good to put on your garden, too.

It takes a lot to keep the weeds down.

Is that everything we've got?

One, two, three, six different kinds of mulches, and there are lots more, lots more, that you can think of or use.

All right, let's go over and really get started and plant something.

Bring your plants.

I guess we can kneel down until we really have to start to work.

What's been done to this garden so far, can you tell?

What's the first step, if you're going to make a garden?

- It's been dug up.

- It's been dug up with a shovel.

There are shovels lined up back there.

I don't think we're gonna need our shovels anymore.

We worked on it a little bit to get the big lumps out and the rocks.

We've disturbed a lot of little creatures.

You see any little creatures in here?

- Ants, mostly.

- Yeah, there are ants, and what else?

- Worms.

- And earthworms.

Are they good to have in the garden?

- Yes.

- Why?

- Because they fertilize it.

- And what else, Sarah?

- They enrich the soil.

- Enrich the soil, and one more thing, Ty.

What do ants and worms let into the soil when they dig holes?

- Air.

- Air, right.

For plants to grow, they have to have all those things.

I hope you all are very careful with your tools in the garden, because you can get hurt if you put your tools down the wrong way.

All right, Sarah, as long as you're digging such a nice hole there, wait a minute, don't fill it up.

Let's plant a potato.

Now, what do you know about planting potatoes?

- Well, the potato is the root of it.

- I forget whether it's a stem, isn't it a stem?

Most plants, what you eat is the fruit of it, but a potato, it's part that grows under the ground.

And when you want to grow potatoes, you don't get seeds.

You take a potato, and it's better to go to the seed store and get some seed potatoes.

They call them seed potatoes even if they're not seeds.

You can plant a potato you get from the supermarket, and you don't have to plant a whole potato.

You know how much of a potato you have to plant?

- I think you have to plant the little eye.

- The eye, good, Sarah.

Where'd you learn that?

- Nowhere.

- Well, lots of people don't know that potatoes have eyes, but wherever you see a little sprout coming out, like there and there, those are the eyes of the potato.

So all you need on each piece is an eye.

So Sarah, why don't you cut off, like a cut right there?

Do you know how to use a knife carefully?

Cut through there and take that piece with the eye on.

Maybe lay it down on the rug and cut it, would be safer.

Is that what they teach you in Girl Scouts?

So now you have a piece with an eye on, and you can plant that in that hole.

Just plant it like that and cover it up.

I think there'll be a piece for each of you.

Ty, you want to cut right across there?

Let's plant potatoes three different ways and see which potato that was the best.

Here, put a little stake there so we won't forget.

It's hard when you plant potatoes.

Put the pointy end down Sarah, that's it.

All right now.

Ty, let's do yours a different way.

Can I have this?

Here's another new way of planting things.

Take an old piece of rug.

This is a piece of indoor/outdoor carpet that was leftover, and it's a good mulch.

It doesn't contribute anything to the soil, but it just keeps the weeds down and the moisture.

So let's cut a little hole out here.

We'll put that right over Ty's potato.

Well, plant your potato, and then we'll put the hole right over the top so we'll know where it's gonna come up.

Why don't you dig a little hole for it, and then we'll plant one without a hole.

That's the newest way, not even digging a hole at all.

Make it a little deeper than that, Ty.

Then the potato will send out lots of roots, and new potatoes will grow on the roots.

We have a lot of noises around here today, don't we?

The wind and some kind of engine and a plane.

Okay, cover it up, and let's stick a little stake there.

Put the hole right over, put the stake down in the hole.

Now we'll have to keep an eye on that when it starts to come up, be sure that the sprout comes up through the hole.

Let's put a rock on that to hold it down.

Now Michael, your potato, why don't you plant it right there, and I think we'll do yours a really new way where you don't even dig a hole.

You just sort of rest it on the ground like that, and put a piece of plastic.

What is that?

- I think it's a motorcycle.

- Or a truck or plane.

Goodness, whatever it is, it's very noisy.

Here is a piece of black plastic.

What do you think would happen if you used transparent plastic?

- Probably the sun would go right through it.

- Right, and what is it we're trying to keep from growing?

- Weeds.

- Weeds.

If we used clear plastic, the sun would go right through and encourage the weeds.

It would be just like a greenhouse.

So black plastic is better, but you have to put rocks on.

Good, I had another one around here.

And what we'll do is keep an eye on that, and when the leaves start to come up, we'll cut a little hole.

We could probably cut a little hole now.

Where's that little knife?

- [Michael] Here's the knife.

- That's a little dangerous.

What happened to the little knife?

We planted it.

Why don't you put a little hole right over the potato?

This plastic is sort of old, so it should be easy.

That's it.

Okay, so we can find this plant.

So we planted potatoes three different ways, and there are lots of other ways.

I read about people who planted potatoes in barrels and just covered, put a lot of straw on the barrel.

Another one of my friends planted just the potato peelings under some straw, so there are lots of new ways to plant potatoes.

All right, let's try some of your peppers.

Sarah, you're digging that big hole over there for a tomato plant.

We'll put some of Michael's peppers right here.

Why don't we plant two here, and then you can take the rest home, and put them in the yard, and you can talk to me, and we'll see who gets the most peppers?

(laughs) Would you get a jar of water for Michael?

One for Michael one for Sarah, Ty.

Strawberry.

Thank you.

Set that one over there by Sarah.

She'll be planting this tomato.

Okay, now I've got something else here that helps make plants grow.

Have you ever heard of compost?

- Uh huh.

- Who knows what compost is?

- I think it's decomposing material and debris.

- Yeah, anybody got anything to add to that?

- It's old grass and stuff that you find when you mow your lawn.

- Anything else, Ty?

Can you think of anything else in compost?

- Well, Michael hit the nail on the head.

He said decomposing material, and Sarah was right, grass and stuff, all things that were once alive or organic or came from something alive.

Take a handful of this, hand it over to Sarah for her hole, and you can dig a hole too, Ty.

We'll find something for you to put in your hole.

If you look closely in this compost, you'll see it has ground up eggshells and things in it.

You just take all your things that are leftover in the kitchen, celery tops, and carrot tops, and eggshells, and coffee grounds, and put them in a big pile and put on some manure and some lime, and the rain comes down, adds water and everything just sort of disintegrates and makes good, rich fertilizer for your plants.

So sort of work that around in there.

All right, put in one of your pepper plants.

Good, you know how to get them out without breaking them off.

We probably won't have to put a sign by this, 'cause everybody can recognize a pepper plant, right?

Now here's a tomato plant one of my friends raised for you, Sarah.

It's called a Roma.

It has those Italian tomatoes on it.

You like broccoli, Ty?

- Yeah, sort of.

- You want to plant a broccoli?

You can just tear the cup off, and then you'll have the plant.

Did you get some compost for yours?

You don't mind getting your hands dirty, do you?

There's another new thing.

I think it's really an old thing, but you read a lot today about companion plants.

Have you ever heard about companion plants?

What is a companion?

- A companion is sort of a partner.

- Right, or a friend, but I think that's a better word, a partner.

A companion plant is something you plant with another plant that does it some good.

Like if you plant onions, I didn't have any onions but I got some garlic.

You plant onions next to certain plants and it keeps the bugs away, so it's a good companion as a partner.

It helps it do better.

You can get books out of the library that tell you which plants to plant next to which other plants.

And then there are some plants that are bad for each other.

You don't want to plant them close together, but anything in the onion family is good for keeping bugs away, so let's put, I'll stick a couple of these next to the pepper plant.

Okay, what else do we have?

Oh, corn.

Who knows a story about the old days when the Indians used to plant their corn, a trick they showed to the Pilgrims about gardening?

- They used to go fishing and catch fish and chop them in half and put them in as natural fertilizer for the corn.

- Have you read that, Ty?

You heard that story, Sarah?

Well, I don't have a whole fish, but I have a couple of fish heads from going fishing the other night, so I thought we would put those in with a couple of hills of corn and see if they did very well.

We'll plant some without fish and some with fish.

So why don't you dig a little hole there?

Here are fish heads.

Oh, you're a brave boy.

You're not afraid to pick up an old smelly fish head.

We'll all wash your hands after gardening.

We'll drop in a couple of ears, couple of corn and cover it up.

And I'll find a stake.

I think, I even had one that said corn.

Now what do you think Aurora would like us to plant for him?

- Sunflower seeds.

- Sunflower seeds, okay.

They get very tall, Sarah, so why don't you make a little row?

Do you know how to make a row with a hoe?

- Yeah.

- Let's see.

Let's make it cross ways like this, okay?

Like that.

There are several different ways of making a row.

There's one, and you can go ahead and put some sunflower seeds, oh, what did I do with them?

In there.

Plant them about six inches apart.

That's enough.

And do you know this way Ty, of making a row?

You lay the hoe down and walk across it.

You want to do that?

Just walk on it, and that sinks, that's it.

Come back and step on it real hard.

How much do you weigh?

- I don't know.

- There, so that's one way of making a row to plant something in.

That'll do it for some very fine little seeds.

Let's see what we've got here that's fine.

Oh, how about let's put some beans in there?

They're not very fine, but you can push them down.

Give Ty a handful.

Why don't you go up on the other end, Ty?

Plant them about an inch apart.

And then for decoration in the corners of our garden, let's plant some flowers.

Here, I'll pass you a pansy.

You can put it right there in that corner, because I like to have flowers and vegetables both in my garden.

There, and then don't forget to take some water and pour it on.

Oh, you already did, good.

We need a stake for the beans.

Can you write beans?

There's a special pen that writes on plastic.

Two stakes, okay.

You do it and pass it to Ty and he can write his own sign, and I'll plant this nice impatiens right at this corner.

Then we'll have a flower and vegetable garden.

All of you who planted plants, go get some compost, whichever kind you want, and put it around your plants so we won't have to worry about weeds.

Whichever kind you think would be the best.

Make it really thick.

Put a really thick layer on, 'cause weeds are so tough, they can come poking right up through a thin layer.

Right, oh, that looks nice.

Bring me a big handful, will you please Sarah, for my impatiens?

Thank you, and you better get some for your peppers.

So we have a nice row of beans with stakes at both ends, pansies, tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, sunflower seeds, and impatiens.

I'm glad you could come to Hodgepodge Lodge today and help Ty and Michael and Sarah and me get our garden started.

We still have some room to put some more things in.

It takes a lot of work to keep a good garden going.

Remember to try some new ways of gardening.

Try planting things in containers if you don't have much room, or if you have a regular garden, try lots of different kinds of mulches so you won't have to do so much work.

You can use newspaper too and cardboard boxes to help keep the weeds from growing.

Have fun with gardening and come back very soon again to see us at Hodgepodge Lodge.

Goodbye.

Thank you for coming, Michael.

- [Michael] Thank you.

(gentle music) - [Child] This program was made possible through funds contributed by members of the Maryland Center for Public Broadcasting.

(gentle music) - [Announcer] Pre-recorded in the studios of The Maryland Center for Public Broadcasting.