- Hi, thanks for joining us for The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South.

I'm Chris Cooper.

Seed catalogs have a   dizzying variety of options.

Today, we're going to see   how to read the catalogs   and find the plants that   are right for your garden.

Also grapes are   great to snack on   and you can grow them   in your garden too.

That's just the head   on The Family Plot:   Gardening in the Mid-South.

- (female announcer)   Production funding for   The Family Plot:   Gardening in the Mid-South   is provided by   The WKNO Production Fund,   The WKNO Endowment Fund   and by viewers like   you, thank you.

[upbeat country music] - Welcome to The Family Plot.

I'm Chris Cooper.

Joining me today is Dr. Lelia Kelly.

Dr. Kelly is a retired Mississippi State Extension horticultural specialist.

And Mr. D will be joining us later.

Hi Dr. Kelly, those seed catalogs are gonna be rolling in, right?

- Oh man, I love it.

- Right?

- I love it.

- But the thing about the seed catalogs, is a lot of information.

- It is.

- So how do we read it?

- Well, let me tell you first, it won't be long 'til your mailbox'll be stuff full of these beautifully photographed,   glossy pages and pages of   all these perfect plants.

And I get to looking at them   and I'm supposed to be   an experienced gardener.

I get to looking at them   and I'd just go into   some kind of trance   and start making a list.

- Right.

- You know.

- I think we all do that.

- Yeah, and I read somewhere that inexperienced gardeners or novice gardeners always ordered too many seeds.

Well, I'm here to tell you experienced gardeners do it too.

You wind up with 5,000 seeds of something.

And you know, but I wanna talk first about why catalogs versus your nursery?

- Okay, good, good, good.

- Your local nursery and there's pros and cons for both, you know, the catalogs, you get to see the picture of it in flower or maturity or whatever it looks like, you know, you get to see the picture and you also get more variety.

You get a larger selection of things, you know, in these catalogs, than you would probably at your local nursery.

- Okay?

- So in the nursery though, you're going to get personal knowledge, local knowledge, and you're going to get larger plants.

You're gonna get bigger plants, you know, than what you could order online, that kind of thing.

And you may, based on the size, you may get a better deal than ordering a little shrub, you know, through the mail or something.

But thing is though, you can't find some things other than in catalogs.

So, like I say, there's pros and cons.

- Okay, that's good, okay.

- And also there's all kinds of catalogs.

I mean, all kinds.

And I brought some examples today and you can have seed catalogs that devoted to nothing but seeds.

Then you have catalogs that are live plants like perennials and you know, and things like that.

You have catalogs that are just heirloom maybe, you know, or you have a regional catalog that's just for the southeast or wherever, you know, which is good because that keeps us from ordering stuff that's not hardy, hopefully you know.

And you get heirloom, there's heirloom plant catalogs, there's bulb catalogs, there's garden tools and accessories catalogs.

I mean, you name it, everything's out and there's combinations of all these too.

And then you have a specialty plant catalogs like daylilies and irises and all this good stuff is just that one plant.

And you get hundreds of pictures of these wonderful looking plants.

So, and you get new plant introductions.

Every catalog that has plants, seeds in the first few pages is their new plant introductions.

- Which are always cool to see.

- Oh yeah, and I mean, not really, you know, you got to try something new every hear, you know, but there's a lot of new things you can look at and there was new plant introductions.

So it's always fun to learn about those.

So, okay.

The next thing I guess, is to talk about the information that you get.

- Yes, that's a lot of information.

- Oh man, it is a lot and some catalogs are better than others and there's tables and charts.

And one thing I particularly that I always look at, because when you go to the plant itself and you look at the plant description, whether it's a seed plant or, you know, something you gonna order, the seed or it's a live plant.

It'll give you a little description about it.

And a lot of times they'll have these codes, you know, like a sun or an S or a P or something.

You're looking at it and going what's that mean?

Well, you go to the front and they usually have a key that tells you, you know, this is a, needs the sun, or this is a plant that's perennial or whatever, you know.

- Well, give us an example of one of the plant information or whatever varieties of, you know fruits and tomatoes.

- Okay, alright, well, lets take tomato.

- Okay, lets pick tomato.

- 'Cause everybody grows tomatoes, you know, usually that's their first vegetable they're gonna grow.

So let's look at one   called Mountain Fresh Plus,   as the description   of this plant,   that we gonna order the seed.

It's an F1 hybrid.

You have yield in 75   days from planting   and then here's these codes we   were talking about, you know,   using those, it is highly   resistant to F2, N, V. Well you're going, what is that?

- What is that?

- Well, that's when we flip back over here to the big chart that tells you what all those codes stand for.

It could be V for Virus,   there's just TMV is   Tomato Mosaic Virus.

So you have to look   over here to know that,   if you have trouble with   diseases in your area, you definitely wanna pick one that's resistant and this will help you do that by reading these descriptions.

It's able to tolerate   cold and wet conditions,   it's a big red tomato   produces attractive   eight to sixteen ounce   slicers with good flavor,   vigorous plants,   plenty of leaf color.

And you can buy   100 seeds for $4.75,   or you could buy 1,000.

So, and also you have   this chart down here   and your tomato section   of this catalog,   you have a comparison   chart of the tomatoes.

- Okay?

- Like for disease   resistance, their features,   their firmness, days to   harvest, all kinds of things.

So that's a big help too   if you wanna compare them.

So it's always good   to look at the key and then you can understand the plant better and get more information so you can make a good decision and not go off on a tangent and just order everything that looks pretty.

So there's also some of the seed catalogs have things like actually how to save the seed, which is a great thing that I didn't know was in some of these catalogs until you told me this is what I was gon' talk about.

And I got to pulling out all my old catalogs and I said, man, I never saw that, you know, this tells you how to collect the seed and how to save it.

And it gives days to germination, you know, what it needs for pollinators, the life cycle and all kinds of information.

- That's a lot of good information though.

- So oh yeah.

- 'Cause a lot of people are saving seeds these days, you know?

- Yeah, yeah, you know, so that's a good thing, you know, and it tells you whether it's an heirloom or organic, there's just tons of info.

And you just got to sit down and spend time and look at these things and study.

Like kind of like a textbook, really?

- Yeah, yeah.

- Yeah.

- Right.

- Because they'll have germination rates, which is good, germination soil temperatures which is good because you'll think, man, I can't, you know, I can't plant this now.

Ground's too, you know, direct seed stuff.

So there's just, there's recipes.

I even found a salsa recipe that I didn't know it was in there.

So I mean, there's just tons of stuff.

So take time and look at that and then you make a more informed decision.

- And the thing about taking the time is, yeah, you get these seeds catalogs in winter.

- Yeah.

- So there's nothing else going on you know, in the landscape.

- You sit in front of the fire or you just like I say, your eyes just glaze over, you know or mine does.

But the thing that I think people do is kind of go a little crazy.

And we all do.

We look at all these plants and wind up buying too much stuff.

And I always encourage people to have a plan, you know, try to have a plan and say, okay, you know, I'm going to grow tomatoes and I'm gonna grow this and I'm gonna grow that and then figure out, because these magazines tell you how many plants you need in the yield.

So if you've got a big family, you know, you need these many plants or days to harvest, it tells you that.

So figure out what you need and try your best to limit yourself to that.

- That's the hard part.

- Because yeah, yeah, it really is.

And I do it all the time.

I always have too many seed and I always carry them over from year to year, which is not in most cases, the best thing to do because they lose their viability.

So have a plan and then figure out how you're gonna order it.

Sometimes online is the best 'cause it's fast, phone, order blanks.

Earlier the better.

- Earlier the better.

- Yeah, earlier the better, because they run out of these things early that are real popular, like the new selections.

And if you order early, you're gonna get the best selection and you're gonna get some early bird discounts from these catalogs a lot of them.

Encourage you, you know, to order early.

- Okay.

- So go wild.

- Yeah, go wild, you know, but have a plan.

- Have a plan, but you know, you can go a little wild too.

- Now that's good stuff though especially now with the many new gardeners that are out there.

- Yeah, yeah.

- You better order early.

- So it's a good idea to utilize a lot of these magazines.

And if you wanna go to your local nursery after utilizing all of these and see if they have the plants, you know, these are good sources.

Like I say, to help you figure out what you want and if it fits what you need in your climate.

- Good deal Doc.

That's good information.

Yeah, grab that and sit in front of your fire, you'd be just fine.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Thank you much.

- Hot chocolate.

- Yeah, hot chocolate, that will be good.

Thank you, that's good.

[upbeat country music] - Ornamental?

- Ornamentals yeah, that can mean a lot of things, but in our gardening industry and in the gardening world   that refers to plants that are   used for decorative purposes   and landscapes and around   buildings and yards, it can be specimens, it can be even cut flowers, you know, things or house plants even, when you encompass the whole word ornamentals, you know, that's what we talk about.

But now in the industry, you know, the guys that grow the plants, you know, the ornamentals to them are more the woodys like shrubs, trees, you know, those kinds of things, but it can refer to perennials as well, the herbaceous, you know, so that's just dependent on who you're talking to, but it's decorative plants that are used in our landscapes.

[upbeat country music] - Hi, Mr. D. Let's talk a little bit about grapes.

- Talk about grapes.

- Okay.

I guess first thing let's talk about is the similarities that pretty much all grapes have in common.

- Okay.

- They need a fairly high pH, you know, up around six to seven pH is good for all grapes.

And the grapes we're talking about are the bunch type and the muscadine types.

There are several bunch types out there.

The American hybrids, the French hybrids and those kinds.

But they all, when you're planting them the best time to plant them is in the late winter, early spring.

- Okay.

- I don't plant them too early.

You don't wanna put them out there before you have, you know, several real hard freezes, you know, here in the Memphis area, I'd say, you know, March, you know, late March, mid to late March is a good time to plant them in the Mid-South area here.

That is also the best time to prune them.

You can go a little bit later on the pruning.

When you prune them, if they're bleeding, a lot of people get concerned when they're bleeding, but that's not a problem.

Just the juice running out of the plant is not a problem.

It's better to prune them when they bleed a little bit than to prune them too early or in the fall, you do not wanna prune them in the fall.

You don't wanna plant or prune within 48 hours of a hard freeze.

If a hard freeze is forecast within the next 48 hours, wait until after that freeze occurs and then get on out there and plant and prune.

- So what's the difference between grapes and muscadines though?

- A muscadine is a type of grape.

- Okay.

- A muscadine is a grape.

Indeed, a muscadine is a type of grape.

- Okay.

- And the muscadine types are types that do well in the summertime.

They're more native to a lot of the country, because I mean, muscadines are native to here in the Memphis area.

They were wild muscadines growing on Mud Island.

Of course, there's also a lot of non-native plants going around also, but in the south,   the muscadine types tend   to do better in my opinion.

And there are several different   muscadine types out there.

Let me go over some of   the varieties there.

These are varieties that have been around for a long time.

I was recommending these back when I worked in Mobile County, back in the '80s and '90s,   but Hunt, Scuppernong,   Carlos, Pride, Nesbitt,   Golden Isle, Triumph,   Magnolia, Cowart.

Those are all   muscadine varieties   that have been   around a long time.

You know, I mentioned Scuppernog?

- Yeah.

- Some folks think that all muscadine, they call all muscadines, Scuppernongs.

But Scuppernong is just one variety of muscadine.

It's a female bronze variety, muscadines come in,   either black, they're either   dark colored and or bronze.

- Okay.

- Now there are two types of muscadines, the female types require cross pollination.

They require a perfect flower type to pollinate them.

The perfect flower type on the other hand is completely self-fruitful.

So of the ones I mentioned,   one, two, three of them are   females and the rest of them   are perfect flower types.

So, but let me go back   and I'll talk a little bit about some of the other types of grapes, bunch types.

They're used for wine,   or they're used table   grapes, you know,   for eating some do better   for jellies and juices   and things like that.

- Are they considered   the bunch grapes, are they perfect flowered, female-flowered, are most of them self-fruitful?

- The bunch grapes, they're all self-fruitful.

- They're all self-fruitful.

- So that would mean they would have, - You don't have to worry about getting, - You don't have to worry about pollination.

- You can have one vine-- - That's right.

You can have one vine.

- And it will self-fruit.

- That's good.

- That's good.

- Yeah.

- Very good point.

- Small yard you know.

- Right.

- And that is something that's-- - There homeowners-- - Yeah.

- They want to try, right?

- And that is something that's important to consider because if you grow muscadines, it's recommended that you plant them 20 feet apart.

- Wow!

- That'll take a lot of space.

- That's because they all have a 10-foot runner and you'll have to prune it to 10 feet, because it's going to wanna go 20 feet.

And so you'll have within   the row 20 feet apart   of muscadines and then   you want your rows   twelve to fifteen feet apart.

So it takes a lot of space   if you're growing muscadines.

Not real good in a small, you know, zero, you know, backyard, a small backyard.

The bunch type grapes don't   require quite as much space.

You can put them, you know,   8 to 10 feet within the row.

And because they're   not quite as aggressive   as the muscadine types, you   still probably need to leave,   you know, 10, 12 feet   between the rows.

But another thing that   they have in common is they all fruit on current seasons growth that came out of one year old wood.

- Okay.

- And so it's important to prune them.

Don't wait three or four years of self, especially if you have the muscadine types that are very, very, you know, like they grow a lot, they grow fast.

It's important to prune them annually.

And you can take off most   of last year's growth.

You can prune them back   to two or three buds.

You know, just follow that   long runner all the way back   and have two or three nodes   or three buds and cut it off.

And so you'll leave   a little stub there.

And so that's your   one-year-old wood.

And the growth that   comes out of those buds   will be the current seasons   growth that you'll fruit on.

Now, if you go all the way back to the main stem, then the new growth that comes out is gonna be coming out of what?

Older wood, two or three year wood.

- Will it fruit?

No.

You will have a beautiful vine that will be big and it will be green and it'll do real well.

So it's important to leave a little bit of last year's growth when you prune them back.

There are a lot of different trellis systems that you can use for grapes.

You can have a, this one of the simplest is a single wire, which is posts with a single wire going across the top.

You could have a double wire system,   which has a single wire going   across a post that's like,   you know, five feet tall,   and then about a   couple feet lower,   another wire under there.

And you'd have a   double wire system.

Ah, there's a Geneva   double curtain,   which kind of looks like   my mother's cloth line.

[laughing]   It's really got three wires,   it's got wires going out   on the end of the Geneva   double curtain system,   then one going along   with top of the post   and that's the Geneva   double curtain.

And it's probably the most popular.

It exposes more of that plant to sunlight than any other type.

- Than just doing it straight up.

- Right.

- Couple of wires.

- Right, you can plant your plants and put in the trellis system after you plant them if you want to, or you can go ahead and put your trellis system in first and then, but you're gonna have to have a trellis system.

- You got to have a trellis system.

Are there any major diseases of grapes that we need to know about?

- There are, there are probably the number one disease that if you grow grapes, you need to go to your local extension office, get a Home Orchard Spray guide.

It'll have a section on diseases   and black rot is by far the   most common fungal disease.

It shows up as a   coppery spot on the leaf   and it causes the grapes   to turn black shrivel up   and they're not any good.

And that's probably the   most common problem.

It affects both bunch type and muscadine types, but probably more so on the bunch type than on the muscadine type.

The bunch type, some of them are susceptible to a disease called Pierce's disease,   which spends part of its   life cycle on a grape   and part of it   on a peach tree.

It's phony peach   on peach trees.

It's rickettsia-type organism   spread by leaf hoppers.

And once they get it, you   just got to take them out.

- Wow!

- You know, the plants do not survive either phony peach on peach tree or the Pierce's disease in grapes.

Muscadines do not get that.

But in several of the newer varieties of the bunch types are resistant to Pierce's disease.

They have resistance to that.

But powdery mildew is another problem, and, you know your fungicide that you go buy, that you, if you put your grapes on a spray schedule should take care of those kind of things.

Insects.

- Yeah, that's going to be the next question.

- Insects not normally much of a problem on grapes, you know, I'm sure of stink bug if he goes, - Oh sure.

- Yeah.

- Sure.

- Also Japanese beetles.

- Japanese beetles, right there.

[group chattering] - They eat everything.

- That's right.

- That would be a problem.

- That's right.

- But again, nothing preventative that you would need to do on grapes.

If you have a problem you can go out there and try to deal with it, you know, scout.

- Okay, what about any critters running around there?

- You know, not, you know, not like strawberries that have think know critters that get out there and work on them, deer that walk across and then mess up the plastic and eat them and all that.

And I'm sure deer, - Probably.

- If you have a very high population would work on you a little bit, but just not a lot of problems.

- Okay.

- On grapes, with insects and critters, and things like that.

- Oh, we appreciate that Mr. D., we appreciate that.

[gentle country music] - So cherry trees have many problems.

If you can see here, this oozing right, which is red, kind of honey in color is called is gummosis.

Gummosis is an indicator that this plant is under stress.

So that can be from insect pests, or it could be from mechanical damage.

Gummosis is usually associated with cankers.

So what you would need to do is actually prune out where you may have a canker.

That's gonna be difficult to do a tree this size.

So cut off the canker if you possibly can, and the next best thing to do is make sure that you can keep the plant as stressless as possible.

So again, gummosis.

[gentle country music] Here's our Q&A assignment, you ready?

- Yep.

- Great questions we have here.

Here's our first viewer email.

"I just found about a dozen   of these securely suspended   "in a Juniper tree.

Are these bagworms   or something else?"

This is Carl.

- All right Mr. D, I think this might be something else, right?

- They're not bagworms.

[Chris laughs] They're not a bagworms, that's for sure.

I know what a bagworm is.

They're not bagworms.

But yeah, Tropical Tent-Web Spider, I think, orb spider is Cyrtophora citiricola, I think is what this critter is.

Came into the United   States in about 2000   and it spread through some   of the Southern states.

So I assume that Carl is   from somewhere in the south.

- Right.

- But they are a real   severe pest in South America   and in Citrus in   coffee plantations,   because the webs   are so thick that it actually can block photosynthesis.

It can mess up the leaves, but that's what it is.

- Just an egg sack, right?

- Those are the egg sacks, you know.

- So should you get rid of it?

- Well.

- Could be beneficial.

- They're probably a beneficial insect, unless they are so thick that they're blocking, you know, cutting off the photosynthesis of the plants that they're on.

- It says only a dozen, so that's not.

- But they're on a Juniper.

A dozen is not enough.

- Yeah.

- You know, I wouldn't do anything with them.

Of course those egg sacks, I don't know how many little spiders in those-- - Yeah, that's the question.

- If you got a dozen of those and let them all hatch out, assuming half, 50% survival rate.

So you gotta keep an eye on them, but you may have to do something in the future.

- Orb weaver.

- That may be hard.

- Orb weaver.

So yeah, it was a pretty picture.

Yeah, so thanks for the picture Carl.

- And since they are tropical natured, perhaps the cold winter will help to solve that.

I don't know how well insulated that little egg sack is, but 17 below might take them out, but 0 will work.

- Okay, thank you Carl, for that question, we appreciate that.

Here's our next viewer email.

"I would love to know   what kind of weed this is   "that is taking   over our grass.

"I know part of the problem   is creeping charlie,   "but I don't know what   the weed in the middle is.

"I know we need a weed   killer of some sort.

What is this rascal weed?"

- I like that, rascal weed.

- I like that.

- Rascal weed.

- Yeah.

- All right, anybody wanna talk about that?

Anybody think they what that rascal-- - Yeah, I know what it is.

- What is it?

- It is a fleabane.

- Ah, a fleabane?

- Yeah, a Erigeron, is the genus,   yeah, they're coming up now   and doing their little thing.

And this kind of in our part   of the world are more biennial,   you know, but they're   pretty wildflowers.

But you know, they can.

- Pretty yellow blooms.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Pollinators like them?

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And they grow a lot   on the roadsides.

It has pretty white, you   know, daisy looking flower   with a yellow   center, and they're, but in your yard, if you don't like them, you know, they're really easy to hoe up and pull up.

- Just pull them up.

- Yeah, they are real easy to pull up.

I mean, I've got them in a flower beds and I've tried to kind of thin them out a little bit.

'Cause yeah, 'cause they're coming up this time of year, you know, doing their little rosettes.

- Right, the basal rosette.

- That's what it is, it's a fleabane.

- It's a fleabane, Erigeron, yeah.

- You like that Mr. D.?

- Yeah, yeah and some of these fleabane are resistant to glyphosate.

- Oh really?

So yeah, I get the hoe.

- Some of them are, some of them aren't.

But I would think the 2,4-D combinations, Weed B Gon,   2,4-D MCPA and Dicamba   combinations oughta...

It oughta get   creeping charlie too.

- Yeah.

- While it's at it.

- 'Cause creeping charlie, very good.

- You kill all the weeds, you won't have any grass though.

That's the way my yard will be.

[Chris and Lelia laughs] - Mine too, I live out in the woods, you know, I don't have any grass, what little I had the army worms got.

- So they got that up.

How about that?

Yeah, so yeah, fleabane.

Thank you for that question.

That's that rascal weed that's out there.

- Yeah, rascal, I like that.

- Rascal, yes, nice pictures.

All right, so Mr. D and Dr. Kelly that was fun, thank you so much.

- Yeah.

- Remember, we love   to hear from you.

Send us an email or letter.

The email address is   familyplot@wkno.org   and the mailing   address is Family Plot,   7151 Cherry Farms Road   Cordova, Tennessee 38016.

Or you can go online   to FamilyPlotGarden.com That's all we have time for today.

Thanks for watching.

Winter is a great time to plan next year's garden.

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Be sure to join us next week for The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South.

Be safe.

[upbeat country music] [acoustic guitar chords]