Episode 1677: S10E36 Fall tree care, what do may be doing wrong when canning guest PlantswithKrystal, Questions and answers - The Gardening with Joey and Holly Radio Show

0:00The following is an exclusive presentation of W.I. Garden Media, celebrating 10 years of being the voice of Garden Talk Radio. Coming up on the program today, we're going to be discussing about fall tree care, as well as what you may be doing wrong as you're canning. Our guest is Plant with Crystal Author, as well as we'll answer your Garden questions. The hour is full, so join us. You are listening to the most informationally packed hour of Garden Focus Radio in the country and on the internet with your host, husband and wife team, Joey and Holly Baird. This is the gardening with Joey and Holly Radio Show. And welcome to another edition of the Garden with Joey and Holly Radio. It will show a happy, a happy along. Thank you for taking time out of your day to join us for a little bit. I'm your host, Joey Baird, beside me is my wife, co-host, best friend and garden partner. Holly Baird.

1:00And thank you for tuning in, whether you're watching us, listening to us, whether you're watching us on one of the 43 AM and FN Frequency Broadcasting or Programme here in 2026 through a radio app, through a parent website, though WisconsinVetitableGardener.com. Underneath the season 10 tab at the top of the page, podcast, replay, in studio video, replay. Thank you so much for being part of the program. You want to partake in the activities. You can do such by giving us a call, toll free, coast to coast at 1-800-927 show. That's 1-800-927-7469. You can also send us an email to gardentalkradio at gmail.com. That's gardentalkradio at gmail.com. Well, Holly, before we get in the program, it's time for this week's joke of the week. Okay. Why did the farmer decide to start growing carrots, beets, onions and potatoes after a handful of years? It's a long lead up to this. Because he wanted to get back to his roots. I made that up.

2:00This week's garden joke is brought to you by rescue.com. American made rescue products. Keep your family home and you are protected from pests such as wasps. Hornets, yellow jackets, flies, ants and more learn more at rescue.com. It's r-e-s-c-u-e.com. So fall tree care. Many of us are going to experience fall at some duration of the next couple of weeks. Not a month or so based on where you're located. So what is there, what things are there to do? Now if you were in the Milwaukee area where our show originates, David J. Franks, there's a great article on their website about tree care checklist and how to keep those trees healthy this fall. For everybody else, you can certainly go to that website. But it's conformative to your location, whether you're in northern California, southern Georgia, Massachusetts or Minneapolis. There's a little alteration for each one of these types of particular activities and when to protect in it. So we want to talk about soil care. Right. And so one thing about tree care is doing it in the fall.

3:03Oftentimes will help prevent issues during winter or if there are issues them worsening because of snow or ice or dry weather. So just keep that in mind that it's good to consider your trees because some people think about it like in the late winter or early fall, but doing the fall can be helpful as well. So soil care when trees grow on the forest, the soil beneath them is rich and full of nutrients. But typically in your home landscape, it's not the case. So you can because you're not the decaying matter in your back. Right. Right. So you can give your trees some fertilization. Now you want to get the right kind of fertilizer, a slow release fertilizer in the fall, slow release fertilizer mimics nature's slow decomposition as I just spoke about in the woods. The leaves falling down which in city and urban areas. What's the first thing if you got a tree in the leaves fall? You got to clean the leaves up. We don't want to leave them on the grass because it kills the grass and the whole thing. It looks terrible and a lot of work and leaf blowers and anything.

4:06But anyway, so you want to slow release fertilizer in the proper application rates on the back of the bag. So there and you want to apply it at the proper time in your location. You want to fresh up the mulch if you do have mulch around your trees. Now application of mulch is important as you do it wrong. You're going to kill the tree or damage it severely. When you're mulching, you want to make sure that's, first of all, organic mulch does quite a bit to help your tree thrive. For one, it adds organic matter to the soil around the tree. It can serve soil moisture. It helps maintain soil temperatures and it gives soil resistance against erosion and compaction. So organic mulch can be made up of ground up leaves, weed-free straw or even wood chips. But if you use wood chips, make sure they're not the ones that have been dyed. So you want to make sure you're covering the ground or on the base of the tree with one or two inches of mulch each fall.

5:10But you don't want to over mulch. You don't want to pile it too high around the trunk. So it looks like a volcano. You want to keep it about two to three inches away from the trunk of your tree. When you do that volcano method, you can risk rotting the bark around the trunk of the tree. Now what is a non-organic type of mulch? Well that would be rock or gravel, good for dry yards or pathways. Plastic sheets like a weed block that keeps water and soil gets dried out. Landscaping fabric lets the water through with blocking the weeds and rubber chips made from old tires or typically used in play areas. Those are not really the ideal mulch. Now out of those non-organic mulches, the rock or gravel would be the best alternative. As I've seen multiple people do that type of thing around the trees. But when you're getting landscape fabric or rubber chips or it's not good for the environment

6:13because if you're going to have it underneath your play pin in the back, that's fine. But around the tree in the front yard, not so much. It's not going to break down. Now you ideally want to mulch before the ground freezes if you can. And then also if there's fallen leaves around the base of the tree, just mulch over them. Those leaves aren't going to hurt anything. You don't need to break the leaves away and then lay them all. You just mulch over the leaves because that will just add more organic matter to the soil around your tree. Which is easier said than done because everybody wants to clean the leaves up and then mulch because that's kind of how you think you got to do it. You can actually mulch the leaves around the tree and then put the mulch on top of it so you don't have to discard the leaves. You know, break them all around the tree, keep them away from the trunk and then cover them up with that mulch. Remove pine needles from beds and turf. The autumn leaves are nice but eventually they fall. And with the pine needles, this is a good mulch for your garden. Now when you clean pine needles up, if you're concerned about pine needles and they're just

7:15kind of falling around and you want to rake them up in the kind of quote unquote common area, that's fine. But you do not want to rake them up underneath the perimeter like the actual core of the tree. You want to leave that because that's part of their mulch and how the tree survives. Right. Yeah. So using the pine needles is smart and to leave them where they are, so I mentioned pine straws. Yeah, some people call it. Yeah. It's perfectly fine. There's really no need for you to rake them up. Like, yeah, they're just putting them with the lawn more. And in the forest, nobody's out there raking the pine mulch. And yeah, right. In the forest because Bigfoot is worried about putting markers. You know, they take, they let the big trees up and cross them in and that's their territorial boundaries. Right. Big, big, big foot hairy has this quadrant and then Bigfoot Susie has that quadrant, you know, is I wonder if Bigfoot Susie is as strong as Bigfoot hairy. I'm going to say she's stronger. You think? Yeah.

8:15Okay. We want to talk about tree trimming. And if you have Bigfoot, he can come out and reach the high limb so you don't have to get the ladder out. But tree trimming is essential for annual practice. You want to prune the dead and diseased unsafe branches from the tree, not only to protect you, but your home and your belongings. Here's the other thing that maybe you need to be aware of that you don't know is a concern. A lot of people in towns, you got a big tree and it cascades over top of the sidewalk. Looks really pretty in the fall, you know, the leaves fall down in one of those hallmark movie calendar pictures. But if you look up in that tree that's cascading over the public sidewalk and you see some not so nice dead looking stuff up there, you are liable if that comes down and hits somebody. So you want to take care of that. Now, certified arborist is the way to go. Preferably somebody that has an actual truck, not just a name, magnetic to the side or rough

9:17painted, you know, Jim's tree removal. And as soon as the bad things happen, Jim leaves in the truck and you got to crush this or that. So you would think, you know, we often think and we all have this mindset and it's no different. Well, it doesn't look that bad or I will get to it or it'll next year we'll do it. Well, here's the problem. Next year, you don't know what that tree could come down in a storm on ice with ice on it with snow and it can hurt somebody and paying a certified arborist. Let's just put around number $3,000 to take that tree down or away from the bad stuff off the sidewalk. That's certainly $3,000 and I'm making that number up. There's a way much more affordable and sound piece of mind purchase than to have to have that tree fall, fall on somebody, fall on a car, go to court, pay somebody's medical bill, you see how that's going. So he'd the warning, make the move first so you can avoid all the other stuff because

10:22now instead of $3,000, who knows how many zeros is behind that three after you all this other stuff gets done. Yeah, it's definitely if you are going to have trees on your property, just like they don't require as much attention as other things necessarily, but because especially where we live, if you are in an area that gets snow or ice or wind during the winter, you need to be responsible for any sort of damage that those could cause, especially if you are in a situation like sometimes an HOA, I've heard of people having to even trim their bushes. Or just the word HOA triggers her. But anyway, even trim their bushes and then could you imagine if you were an HOA and then a tree, I'm sure your neighbor's yard, I'm sure that would just be a... I'm sure that's happened, but it's a mess in itself. So there are some things in which you need to be aware of, some things that you need to do and to get your trees ready for the fall and the winter and ready for next year.

11:23Hang out with us when we return. We're going to go over some canning mistakes that you might be already making and didn't know you were. The following is... You're tuned into the gardening with Joey and Holly Radio Show. Got a question for Joey and Holly? Send it via email anytime to gardentalkradio at gmail.com. Azure Standard is America's premier family on online store for organic foods and healthy products for your home and garden. They deliver directly to families and businesses through more than 3,500 drop points across all 50 states, making it easy to get everything you need in one simple pickup. As a natural health food distributor, Azure brings bulk and specialty items to communities nationwide. For more than 12,000 products that meet their cleaning gradient standards, high quality, non-gmog, organic and naturally sourced, you'll find everything from groceries, health and beauty items and household essentials to nutritional supplements and animal care. Hobby supplies and even gardening products. Simply put, Azure Standard has something first just about every part of daily living.

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14:27universal pectin. Now you can make healthy homemade gems and jellies sweetened to your taste. You can use sugar honey to sweeten. Pomona's universal pectin keeps indefinitely when stored in an airtight container. Easy to use versatile and comes with directions and recipes in every box. Find out more and where to buy at PomonaPectin.com. Also available natural food stores and online. Welcome back to the garden with Joanne Holly Radio Show. Happy to have you along. Thank you for taking a little time out of your day to join us on the program. If you want more information about those sponsors and all the companies you hear throughout the program you can certainly find them at our parent website, the Wisconsin vegetable gardener dot com. Underneath the season 10 tab for all listings and the money tab for all the coupon code of abilities that we've negotiated with these companies to help you save money. Well, fall is a time where a lot of people are are canning. But you there's people do canning wrong. You do canning wrong. You can get sick or it can be worse.

15:29So we're going to go over some of the canning mistakes that you might be making and you honestly don't know you're making because it's something that you've always done and you continue to carry on those traits and those habits in which the previous generation has taught you. So let's start with one of them here. Holly is a multi award winnings Wisconsin state and state canner and it's take multiple classes with the current county that we live in. Master canner now master canners are are few and far between because of the safety and explain that why there's more there's fewer safety why there's fewer master canners than there would be master gardeners. Well, they want to nuts saturate the market. I guess saturate any sort of any particular area with too many master canners because canning is something that they want to safely have done and have somebody who is super knowledgeable in that safety practice. And also it does take a lot longer and a more intense practice to become a master canner.

16:35So they only allow so many per state. I believe it is. We're going to keep it safe for yeah to keep it safer. So so yeah, so one of the things that a lot of people are seeing on social media now is they've they've whatever canned they've water bathed whatever it is and then they take and flip the jar upside down and put it for it to seal. Now I don't know I'm not a physicist or anything like that. But if you're trying to get something to seal putting more pressure on it doesn't make me think that that's going to work any better. It would actually do you make it worse? Why do why do people do this? It's an old thing because they used to use that paraffin wax and then I would supposedly help set the seal. You don't get in all the cracks. But anyway, I want to come back here and one let's kind of keep an order here. So when it comes to what you may be doing wrong during canning, first thing is not using the correct ingredients. So you for example might think okay, this is to use bottle lemon juice.

17:39I have fresh lemon juice. Bottle lemon juice has a consistent acidity throughout the bottle. Fresh lemon juice is not guaranteed that consistency. So that's why we recommend it's required to use bottle lemon juice. And this would be the same for like lime juice or something. Whatever liquid you're adding you want it to be right in the bottle. So then even something like white vinegar or 5% acidity or higher, you might think why I have this, I don't know, whatever vinegar or some other vinegar, rice vinegar for example. And you don't know what the percentage of acidity is and that's not safe either. So you want to make sure you're using the correct ingredients. Right. Correct. And people like we've made paraciter vinegar, you can make pineapple vinegar, you can make apple cider vinegar. The same thing you don't know unless you have the correct mechanical devices to check that acidity, you're just going on a gas. Right. Or even just like sugar you might think okay, this recipe calls for a cup of sugar and

18:41I only have a half a cup that should be fine. Right. It's good. I mean for some recipes it might be fine but not it's not guaranteed. And the same thing with like pectin. So you want to make sure you have the correct recipes and enough of the recipes. And also it's kind of like you know you remember the cartoons that you watch like bugs bunny or they're in the laboratory and they're mixing stuff. And it's kind of you don't do it right. That's kind of what happens in the jar after you can or it may it may be so invisible that you still you're tuned into the gardening with Joey and Holly radio show. Right. So hold on. Okay. Right. So anyway, you also want to make sure you're using the correct cooking time processing time. So you want to let XYZ soak in a salt brine for overnight eight hours, three hours, whatever. You want to do that step. You don't want to skip that step. Oftentimes that step is to help make that's whatever it is. What the vegetable to become safe for canning is basically soaking it in a salt brine is

19:46making it more shelf stable or breaking down the enzymes of that certain vegetable so that it then can absorb the acid that you're putting into. So you want to make sure that you are you're following those directions. So is it go ahead with the next one. I'll jump in. So you also want to use a safe canning recipe. You want to use something within the last 10 to 15 years. That's from a reputable canning website, whether that be ball canning, um, taste of home, better home and gardens, a master canner that you know who has a website like SB canning. She's a master canner out of Santa Barbara, California. How do you know if something is not safe by just going on somebody's website and going, oh, yeah. Yeah. If it's just like some stay home mom with a recipe, I mean, on our, on our parent website, we have recipes, but they are linked and shown the actual source of where they came from. And they're certified safe. Yeah.

20:47Food and jars is another one who has safe recipes. So just keep it in mind. You want to make sure you are using a safe recipe. If it calls for something like, um, you try to make pie pie filling and it says to use cornstarch, you need to use something called clear gel. So if that recipes, if you use pie filling to make use cornstarch, it looks disgusting. And it gets all clumpy and weird. Clear gels, what you need in that is typically only bought online. Fortunately. And it has an expiration date. Yeah. So if you think, oh, I'm just going to buy five pounds because I'll need it in a couple of years. It's just like pectin. It will go, most pectin has an expiration date. It will go bad. Now, I, you know, when you're doing with the canning stuff, you want it to be fresh and safe and in the time frame. And I understand that there's that mindset of just because it's inspired, doesn't mean it's bad. We're talking about canning, something that's going to sit on a shelf for 12 to 18 months potentially. Right. Yeah. Go ahead.

21:47I got one. When people do not time the processing correctly. Right. And that's another thing is you want to make sure you are. If it says, if it says to cook it or can it for 10 minutes in the boiling, boiling water, bath canter, and you're like, oh, I can leave it in for 20 is fine. A lot of times, that's for like cucumbers. And you're going to end up with most of cucumbers. Well, when does that time start? Do you put, let's say you're putting it in? And jar is in as long as the water is boiling. But if the water is not boiling as soon as the water, the jars may sit in that water for 15 minutes. And when the water starts boiling, that's when the timer begins to get your 10 minute duration. That's what you're okay. Now, if you are making pickles, you want to make sure that water is boiling before we put those jars in there. Well, you want to make sure the jars are warm too. Right. They'll be my for if I was making like traditional cucumber pickles or when I have, I make sure that my canter is for sure boiling because you don't want to over process them because that's how you get mushy pickles. But as Joe had mentioned, you want to make sure your jars are warm. We learned this lesson with some beats. Was it beaten?

22:47Tomatoes, tomatoes. Tomatoes. And, uh, yeah. So, then how much energy is put into peeling tomatoes and chopping them and getting them in a court jar? So we did that and put it in the hot water bath canter. And then tomatoes started floating. And then we like, oh, let's put the other one. And the other blew out both bottom of the jars and lost two courts of tomatoes, which took quite a long time to peel and process. Absolutely. Yeah. So it was, it was, um, as I said, we didn't do that again. But also a fun little fun fact about canning. Beat juice stains linoleum. Yes. I think that beat juice stain is finally gone. Oh, okay. So, yeah, fun fact. Beat juice does stain. It can stain counter tops too. So just keep that in mind and probably some things, unless it's like a stainless steel sink. So, the other thing is, is that not following the instructions, um, cutting corners, any sort of thing like that.

23:47So, if you have a recipe that's new to you or you only make that recipe once a year, I highly recommend making sure you are reading that. I know like, I may have made something of years and years and years and years before, but things change. I remember I used to do, I'll just do the same thing. It's okay. Well, that and like you might think, oh, I definitely have like you're at the store. I'm like, I'm pretty sure I have the bottle lemon juice I have is okay. There's a famous line of King of Queens thinking isn't knowing. Right. Right. Right. So it doesn't hurt to have fresh bottle lemon juice. I mean, it's like a dollar 50. Well, also, uh, gallon of vinegar. There's so many things you can do with vinegar besides can with it. Exactly. Exactly. It's not going to hurt to have a gallon of vinegar, sugar, salt, whatever it might be that you may need and you're going to use elsewhere in your kitchen. Typically, I don't personally use a lot of regular sugar, but I do keep it on hand because it's nice to use at times.

24:49So, um, so yeah, just keep that in mind. Preparing your jars, make sure you have enough lids for your jars. If you have a bunch of wide mouth jars ready and you don't have wide mouth lids, that's going to be frustrating for you. You don't want to have to either run to the store late or have to wait till the next day. Things like that. Or have to order it online and wait because the store doesn't have it because the time of year or they're sold out. Right. Right. Yeah. Anything like that. And then, you know, another cutting corner thing that people do is they might use a water bath method when they should be pressure canning and that is not smart either because pressure canning is there to take those vegetables that aren't being added to acid. Or if it's meat or something to bring it up to a higher pressure, a higher heat point versus the boiling water. Bullying, I can't say it. Boiling water process. Boiling water process, yeah. So, or hot water bath, whatever you want to call it. Another thing is you pull the jars out.

25:50You set them on like a dry rack or the table with the towel on it and then you touch the top and you give it what's called a false seal. Yeah. And see how. Yeah. Oh, it looks, oh, it's sealed. We're good. We're good. And you need to let those seal on their own naturally, which most of the time when you're canning, it happens pretty good. By the time you raise the rack out of the canning water bath canner, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, especially when it's cooler out. Yeah. Yeah. It depends on two factors, the temperature in your kitchen and if you properly clean the the ring, the glass portion that that rubber gasket is connected to it because if you did not clean that correctly and you got some uker jelly or whatever on there, it's not going to create a seal. You're going to have to reprocess that or you're going to have to consume that, put it in the refrigerator and make it be refrigerator jelly jam, pickles, peppers, whatever. One more mistake I want to talk about briefly here is or want you might be doing wrong,

26:53storing them with the rings on. I see people do this. I see people do this on like Instagram or Facebook or whatever. Oh, here's my canning items and the all the jars have the rings on and you might think, oh, that looks better. That's smarter. That helps whatever. But what happens is, and this has happened to us, you can something and there's a little science experiment that goes on in that jar. And yes, it's usually safe and fine. But then sometimes after about a year or more, something can happen, especially with tomatoes and tapioca. Right. We had pasta sauce that we started to smell something in the back and we had like four, we had like six deep and one of the jars because we didn't have the ring on it. It had popped and was get it was all moldy. It was back, it had exploded. I mean, it hadn't exploded. It had just enough to pop that lid off and started, I don't know how long it sat in there and dried out and molded and all that. But if the ring was on there, it would have never been able to pop and don't know if we

27:55would be here or not if we would have consumed that because botulism can kill and it has and it's still relevant, even today, if done incorrectly. Well, what you don't want to do is bring that dirt into your home, into your shed, into your cabin and scrusture, an American made product has the tools to keep that dirt outside where it belongs. Yes, Scrusture has the original multi use long lasting boot scrubber. It's a durable outdoor shoe cleaner. It's a shoe brush station that has been with weather resistance still frame and black UV powder coated finish for year round outdoor use. They have a few different models, including the big boot model. This model is made for those big boots. If you know anybody who has some big boots to clean, outside of a camping shack or a cabin, you would kind of assume that coming out from the deer stand or construction or the farm. Yeah, for sure, or maybe even sometimes when people work on cars, stuff like that.

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31:03with water toxicity. Check it out and get yours today at beetlegon.com. With Mrs. Wages Canning products, it's easy to preserve what you love. Whether you've always wanted to try home canning or you're a seasoned pro, Mrs. Wages can help you seal in something special. After all, we've been doing this since 1950. Our products let you hold on to your favorite seasonal flavors so that you can keep the taste you love and create new ones to share around the table. Great flavors and memories are worth preserving. Create something special with Mrs. Wages. Get higher yields with durable green bed, raised garden bed kits designed to be drainable, breathable pest resistance and long lasting, durable greenbed.com. Welcome back to the garden with Joey and Holly Radio. She'll happy to have you along. Author, Crystal, Durin will be with us momentarily. But first, hey, do you have dirt on your hands? Do you have dirt anywhere? Scrush her.

32:03Do you have dirt anywhere? Not Scrush her. That keeps the dirt out of the house. But scrubby soap can keep the dirt down the drain and off your hands. Yes, scrubby is a natural soap with a scrubber inside that fills the entire size of the bar. Rather than using harsh synthetic cleaning agents, we use citrus oil. It's a combination of citrus oil and the scrubber creates the ultimate soap for moving dirt grease, oil, paints and more. You can use it for your artist painter, gardener mechanic in your kitchen. Maybe your fishing removes the fish oil and odor from your hands. If you go to scrubbysaupe.com and use the code soap, you can get 10% off your order. Holly, let's go to the hotline and bring in our guest for this week. Crystal Durant is the creative force behind plants with crystal. A multi-platform initiative dedicated to making plant care accessible, enjoyable and educational educational for enthusiasts of all levels. Her book more than just a plant is coming out in November. Welcome to the program, Crystal. Hi, thank you for having me.

33:03Well, thank you for taking time out of your day and about to educate Holly myself and all of our listeners. So I want to start with this. How did you get into growing plants? Is it something that was developed as a child or is it some kind of magical, miracle blessing that you found later on in life? It was like, hey, this is kind of cool. I've always been connected to nature. I was always very enthusiastic about being immersed outside in the green. But I feel like many others, we were just looking for a hobby and an outlet from everyday life. And I had opportunities of growing plants, but none of those opportunities were successful. So I practiced and failed a lot. But at some point it just finally clicked for me and the more that I learned, the more I loved it. And then there was something really rewarding about figuring out what a plant needed and actually seeing it respond and grow. So eventually my collection grew and I started sharing what I was learning online and that

34:06turned into plants with crystal and the whole community of people learning alongside me. Fantastic. So what would you say is one of the biggest challenges for people and plants. You know, you often hear, I know I often hear, oh, I have a brown thumb or a black thumb. And every plant I've ever had is dyed. You know, things like that. Why do you think some people feel like that and then just give up? And what is like a challenge that maybe a common challenge or the biggest challenge people face in regards to that? I think just like you mentioned, people assume that they're either naturally good with plants or they're not. There's no in between with some people. And so they'll kill one or two plants and then they'll say, no, this is not for me. I have a black thumb. So I think understanding that killing a plant doesn't mean you're bad at plants. But like I mentioned earlier, I've killed plenty of them myself and usually it's because something just wasn't right in the home. Whether it be the lighting or I had a plant that was way too far away from a window or I

35:07was, you know, back then I was watering on a schedule every Sunday and watering that same plant. So sometimes that particular plant just isn't a good fit for your home. So I always tell people that plant care is really about learning to read your plant because they're constantly communicating with you. Right. And we've had many people on this program and you're not really a good gardener until you've killed like a thousand plants and especially with house plants and some, you know, you're talking trees and ornamentals outside. But house plants are a unique species of plants because each one of them is specifically requiring different types of carrots. That's not like a tomato plant. We're okay. I'll just water all of them the same way. I'm trying to hear the irrigation on. There's different, every plant is different and it's own unique way and how you how it wants to be cared for. Exactly. And there's pros and cons. You know, I grow outside as well. And the thing with us growing inside is that we have this controlled environment.

36:09But then we have so many different varieties with different care types. So we're always trying to balance it all inside. Right. So let's talk about your book. It's coming out is called More Than Just A Plants. Can you tell us kind of what our listeners would expect when they pick up the book and maybe something unique and interesting to pick their interest? Yeah, I'm so excited for people to finally have it in their hand. So I wanted it obviously to be about plant care. And there's so many books and there's so much practical information about cancer health plants. And so I wanted something that included that but also creating a plant filled home and that also included projects that I've shared along the way. But for me, it's also really personal. And I wanted to talk about what plants can give us beyond just being something pretty in our homes. And for myself, plants have been a connection to grief and healing and growing my own confidence

37:13with and without plants and community and learning how to care for something while also learning how to care for myself throughout this process. Now for those who want to pick up a copy, it comes out in November is pre-order available right now and how do they do that? Yeah, so it's available for pre-order now and then it'll be in your hand November third. And so right now it's available. I have a link on my website and it's available on all major retailers right now. So tell us some of your best house plants tips. Maybe some people you know like you did would just water them on a schedule. Oh, I'm busy water, water, water. That one looks a little sad. It'll be fine just water, water. What are some of your good or some of your best house plants tips to keep these things alive and enjoyable all year round? Really light is everything. So we're always chasing the light inside the home. And if you are someone that doesn't have these large bright windows been incorporating

38:16some type of grow light inside the home. So for myself that I don't have these windows that give me significant light, I do have to supplement with grow light. So light is everything first and then also listening to your plants or I guess I should say watching your plant and seeing how it changes. So do you have some drooping your leaves? Okay, I do. So let me check the soil. Is it dry? Is it damp? And so making sure that we're not watering on a strict schedule. So don't decide that every Sunday is watering day. Check the soil, look at the plant, take off the pot. If it's light then that means it needs a little bit more water. If it's heavy then you're fine to leave it alone. And then probably my biggest tip is to stop expecting perfection. So plants are going to lose leaves. They're going to get past. They will grow weird.

39:17But sometimes you have to chop all the way back and start over. That's just part of growing plant. Yeah people are, oh I don't want to cut too much off of this or this is this. It's sometimes, you know, and the internet is a wonderful place and full of wonderful things and terrible ideals. But yeah, I want to check yourself and you know, you can get your book as well to help guide people that it's okay to kind of really give a plant a haircut and take things off of it. In order to better its ability to grow and be healthy. Absolutely. Just like when we give ourselves a haircut or hopefully not give ourselves a wing or get a haircut, it feels too much lighter and so fresh and through the same thing with their plant. Well, you work through grief of the loss of your husband and our condolences because I don't know what that type of feeling is and I hope I never do losing a spouse like that. In part, you started growing plants. How did the plants help you with this type of grieving?

40:19Yeah, so after my loss, I had a huge collection actually during that time and my whole collection was dying because I could no longer care for them, let alone myself at the time. So plants gave me those small and those manageable moments just long enough to either get up in water one or repot one or check them you leave or throw many of them away. So after loss, the brain is just very loud and those moments with plants helped to quiet the noise and they were brief destruction from the pain that I was feeling during the time. Plants didn't take the grief away and I never want to make it sound like they did but they gave me somewhere to put some of that energy. Kind of like you're in each plant was a little therapist to you in some form or fashion. Exactly, yes, exactly and just that little distraction of oh, hey, this one is making it

41:19okay and then it just allowed me to keep on keeping on alongside plants. With the loss of your husband, did he have a specific plant that he liked or is there a plant that you see that you do everything you possibly can to keep it alive because that was his favorite plant. Is there any type of memory of that? Yeah, I share a story every year, Chris Brutte. I like to touch on, his name is Avatar, the plant and it's a red adionema and so actually this is a plant that he wasn't the biggest plant person but he did enjoy this adionema and so when he passed, I noticed that this one was not doing very well and it felt like a reflection of loss. I took it very personally when that plant wasn't doing well and so over the years I've actually managed to rescue it and it's still in my collection now so I like to share that for every year.

42:20Well, thank you for sharing that with us. How can people find out more about your book? We mentioned the name of it, where you can get it on the website but go ahead and share again where you can get the book and how can people follow you and your journey? Yeah, so you can find me online as plants with crystal. I'm on all social media outlets and I share plant care, plant rescue, experiments and everything in between and then my book more than just a plant is out November 3rd and I'm excited for everybody to finally read it. It's felt like a long time coming and I'm excited for everyone to see it. Well we thank you so much for taking time out of your day and sharing the story of your late husband and the memories that bring joy to you to keep his memory alive. We thank you for all of that. Thank you very much for having me today. Absolutely and when we return it's going to be your garden questions and our garden answers. We are tuned into the gardening with Joey and Holly Radio Show.

43:23Have a garden question? Give Joey and Holly a call now or anytime 24-7. Just dial 1-800-927-SHOW. If you can't get through leave a message and they will call you back. Call now 1-800-927-SHOW. Got milkweed? You already know it helps monarchs migrate. But did you know milkweed supports people too? If you've ever wished your body could bounce back faster, this is your sign. And back yard to bedside people trust milkweed balm for soothing joints, tired muscles and healthy, feel good skin. Try it and feel the difference today. Find milkweedbom and milkweedbom.com or on Amazon. This portion of the show is brought to you by Mrs. Wages Canning Products. With Mrs. Wages it's easy to preserve what you love. Our products seal in flavor so that you can hold onto the taste you love and create

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45:27Welcome back to the Garden with Join Holly Radio. Show thank you for having us around for a little bit. It's time for your garden questions and our garden answers. By the way, you won't learn more about those sponsors you've heard. Throughout the program, you can certainly find more of that information out at our parent website, though, at WisconsinVetualGuardener.com underneath the season 10 tab for the coupon code availability and the money tab for all the listings and coupon code for the money tab for the coupon code. I can get that out. We've worked hard to save you money for your budget. Well, if you've got a question, send it on over to GardenTalkRadio at gmail.com. That's GardenTalkRadio at gmail.com where you can give us a call toll-free coast to coast. $89927 show. That's $1,800, $927, $7469. All right. So somebody wants to know how late I can plant garlic, so how late in the season. My answer would be as... Your mileage may vary first. Brown is my area. But I would say as long as as late as the soil can be worked, I would say.

46:30If the ground is frozen, it's not going to be good. We've done as early as October and as late as November. I've heard people up here in Upper Midwest planted in December because their ground could still be worked. And the key is you've got to get in the ground so the clove can obtain the chill hours it needs in order to develop correctly. You can do spring garlic, meaning all the weather is warmed up, throw some garlic in the ground that you saved and then you harvest it in the fall. Now in our experience, the harvest was... 30 to 50% less in quantity than the garlic in which we planted in the fall and harvested in late spring. Now you can plant it in the container and growing zone 7, 8, 9, give or take. Anything less, the 3, 4, 5, 6, growing areas, it's really going to be a challenge if

47:30not impossible to grow it in a container. So you can grow it anywhere. If you're down in the south and we've heard people like in Texas, Central Texas and Florida be able to grow garlic, but there's a unique recipe for putting it in the freezer so many hours and so long. It's a whole thing. So you can plant anywhere. We can go to our parent website and look for how to plant garlic and you can find multiple videos in great detail. I was gifted a green stock Mother's Day tower and my strawberries are thriving. I'm in Michigan and the temperatures are going to start to drop. So I went to purchase frost cloth for it. Well they were sold out until next year. Has anybody got a good alternative for this green stock with the strawberries? Which first of all, if you've listened to any portion of this program at any point, you know I don't think highly of strawberries in a container. It's a lot of work for a little return.

48:30Put them in the ground or just buy them. Go to your pick your own farm. Since we're in the situation, you can take your green stock or vertical grow tower and put stakes around it and then an old bed sheet over top of it and tie it down and put bricks around the bottom of it to kind of seal it over and hold the sheet down. You can do that. I would put this next to like a garage or shed or underneath an eve of something so you don't have all the splatter coming down. You want some support behind it because if you just have it out in the yard and it gets windy or whatever, it could tip over. Now if it's already staked down permanently where it's at, okay it's fine but you want to cover it with a bed sheets, preferably not flannel. You don't want flannel, you just want good bed sheets and then that acts as your frost cloth and your protection.

49:31Now maybe we read the question wrong but if the berries are already being, it seems, the question seems to be about, you know, frost covering but if the berries are going to go in dormancy, you've already got your berries done so I'm kind of interpreting it as winter coverage rather than frost prevention. I would agree that's kind of when I read it. As as well, so yeah, old bed sheets work great. So here's another one. My heart is bleeding, it took care of that. At the plant, not personally. If you're calling and it's an emergency, dial 911. Yeah, please hang up now and I don't know. Real quick, how many people are doing that? Calling like a doctor or a therapist or whatever and these therapists are, you know, they've got to put in their message, you know. So like, you know, all these messages at these facilities, if it's an emergency call, a 911. Okay, so this is not emergency. My heart is bleeding. It's your plan. Yeah, it's your plan. It's a care of them from spring through summer.

50:32I even protected them from pests. Now they're fried in August. I'm in the Houston area zone 9B. So this is what you want to do. This is definitely not, not an area that I'm super familiar with. I can tell you that much. So you want to cut everything off that was from the brown down to the ground and then it should start to come back. So that's hopefully what could happen is that the... You're going to go all the way down and then it's going to rebuild itself back up because you got to get the stuff off of it, you know, the dead foliage off of it. So all right, next question. My tomato plants have tomatoes on them, but I am concerned that they may not get ripe before the frost. What can I do? Okay, so tomatoes from flour to fruit on a beef steak is 30 days, the large slice and tomatoes. On a chariot it's about 20. So what you can do, there's several different avenues here in which you can do.

51:36If there's going to be frost and we're going to get close to this, so I understand why the question is because you have all these green tomatoes. You have to get frost and then you got to figure out what you're going to plant, dies, now you got to figure out what you're going to do with 47 and a half pounds of green tomatoes. And if we can get one frost and then like three weeks of wonderful weather and we all experience that. So one thing you can do is you can cut the growth tips off of the plant and when you see the flowers start to develop. Secondly, you can take and go six inches from the stalk of the plant, take your shovel, your dirt shovel and cut three quarters of a way around the plant. And then you can take the growth tips in the ground of the roots. You can harvest the tomatoes early as we spoke about. As you begin to see the colors change from the bottom up and around, you can get those. And then also you can use frost cloth or as we talked about earlier, a bed sheet to throw across these plants in order to protect them for that one cold night and then you got three more weeks.

52:37But there is a point of no return. First of all, you don't want to use plastic because anything the plastic touches on a frosty night. It's going to frosty. Right. It's going to kill the plant. So there is going to be a point of is this worth it? Is it worth it? Right. If you want, do you want to keep how hard do you want to fight this? Right. How hard do you want to fight this? It's your tomato is not your marriage. Okay. That's the thing is like by the time it's going to get close to one of these frost free's whatever warnings like I'm done with tomatoes. Do I? And let's say for some reason want to do a lot of canning or something. Well, if you're somebody that depends solely on 98% of your garden. Yeah, that's totally different. Yeah. And that might then you have the capacity to try to save the plants. Preparation. Yeah. Yeah. For me, if you're just like a casual gardener or whatever and you're like, you know what, the season's over. You know, some of these, some people I know once Labor Day hits their dot.

53:38Well, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with that. It's, you know, it's up to some people who are stripped, especially where we are Memorial Day through Labor Day gardeners. Maybe they'll let it go to like mid October or mid September ish end of September. But for the most part, they're like, you know what? Whatever happens. The cucumbers are done. The tomatoes are falling apart. They're getting rotten. The peppers are. Maybe they got some. We are, you know, Roof high. We're done with this green beans, whatever. And we've had a little fun time. And there's nothing wrong with that. No, it's kept us, you know, sane and grounded and we're going to call that good for the year. Right. And then they, and then by Thanksgiving, they're crawling the walls waiting to get a seed catalog to get started the next year. Right. Right. So, um, so yeah, if it's something that you're like, you're, or maybe you're just, you're like stressing yourself out over these tomatoes and you don't have to, you can just let it go. Right. They'll let it go. So, you know, your mileage may vary. Well, that will do it. We're out of time. We thank you for yours. Miss any portion of the program or one of your visits. And our parent website, though Wisconsin vegetable gardener, dot com under the season 10 tab.

54:41Join us next week on the program. We'll be discussing best house plants to grow inside as well as fall clean up of your garden. Our guest is Rhonda Kessler. We'll be with us and we'll answer your garden questions. So until next week for hi, bird. I'm Joy Bird and we will see you in the garden.