I like the way they lay them out.

They're not just straight lines anymore.

Blueberries will take about 5 years for a bush to ripen before you can get a a viable fruit crop off of it.

But this is the cone flower and very popular with bees.

This is the weeping large siduous so it'll turn golden in the fall.

the variety that we have, it it's inspiring.

Hello and welcome to Great Gardening.

I'm horiculturist Bob Olen and I'm joined by garden professional Deb Burns Ericson.

Sharon is off tonight.

Uh we want to hear from gardeners across our region who have questions for us.

We'll be happy to answer them.

We have phone volunteers with the St.

County Master Gardeners standing by.

Please call us locally at 218788-2847 or you can email us at ask at pbsnorth.org.

First, let's start tonight with a look at the weather, which is changing every day.

Rain today.

That was beautiful.

Wasn't that welcome sight?

So, lightning.

Oh, some good nitrogen.

This was just shot maybe a half an hour ago outside of the studio and we really had a nice shower and that's what's going to really green things up.

Right.

Nice and steady.

And yeah, and this was shot yesterday.

Yesterday.

So there still is a little bit of snow around.

There's a lot of dry landscapes.

That's why tonight and today's rain and maybe tomorrow's was really going to be so beneficial.

Yeah.

And it's cold there in the shade there.

Yeah.

Very cold.

Takes longer for those to th out those cold areas.

Buds haven't broken yet.

No.

So, the trees, it won't be long, though.

This is going to be accelerating this warm rain.

I mean, it's kind of It was a warm day and a nice warm rain.

Really was.

And uh I think we're all ready for spring.

It was in my opinion a rather long winter.

I think in everyone's opinion, right?

And we did see an awful lot of compressed grass.

That's one thing that we'll talk a little bit about.

There's a lot of compression there.

It's going to take a while for the turf to come back.

Get another shot of a tree that hasn't broken yet.

There's some green.

There it is.

It's going to grow overnight with this rain that we have.

It will.

It will.

We'll be mowing lawns before, you know, long.

Yeah.

Those of you who've been waiting for that.

They'll be coming very, very quickly.

So, please keep calling in your questions at this point.

But before we get to those, Deb, uh, what have you got for us tonight?

A little bit on Dalia.

Dalia.

So, I was thinking about that was the what's growing outside, what's happening outside, what's happening inside, like in our greenhouse.

um and I'm sure at home for other people in their green houses um is some dalia production.

And I've I've been told that up here in the north we can grow really good dalas because dalia like a cool weather and full sunshine.

Um and so we are we're lucky where we live for that um crop and we probably do at least 10,000 dalas at at our greenhouse.

But so we start them from all different um sources.

We have cutings, we have seeds and we have tubers.

um all very easy.

All end up with the same plant.

Um and they are all they're just beautiful.

They're compact.

They can be compact.

They can be huge.

They can be like the dinner plates.

Um and so like these guys here were all vegetative cutings.

And then if you wanted to and you are so inclined to do uh dinner plate dalas like this is a dinner plate dalia that we started um the uh mid March.

And so what we do so these are the dinner plate bulbs.

Now this is a really nice bulb where it is very firm.

Um you don't want ones that are soft.

You I would get rid of anything that um started to get soft.

But these really firm ones, there's lots of eyes on them.

And one thing about dalia that different than most plants, you can plant a dalia as deep as you want.

Now, if you do plant it deep, then you need to really water it well so the moisture gets to the root zone.

But what you can do with a um dinner plate is if you plant it higher and you start it earlier, then you can actually also take cutings off of a dinner plate dalia.

And the funny thing about a dinner plate dalia that you take cutings off of, it will bloom as soon as the plant that is already potted.

It's it has set what it's going to make for buds and the plant knows it.

And it's really pretty cool that um if I took this cutting and I stuck it, then I it would bloom at the same time as the rest of this plant and a lot of times sooner than the rest would.

So um dinner plates are great.

Um, and all dalas will bulb up.

Some of the new breeding is funny.

Um, because they're breeding dalas to not have great bulbs, so that you buy more dalas every year.

It's kind of a it's kind of funny.

But, um, so if you're not getting good bulbs on them, it's it could be just new genetics and new breeding.

But, um, they like full sun, but I don't like to put them on a west exposure.

They like full cool suns.

I like it east side.

even towards the south, they want at least six to eight hot or nice sun.

Um, but they also like water, but they can get powdery mildew if you don't water them enough.

The leaves thin down and then they're much more susceptible to powdery mildew.

So, get the water down in the plant and um try to keep it from splashing up and it will do really well for you and it will bloom all summer.

Of course, if you dead head it, you're going to get more blossoms.

Um the dinner plates get up to four feet tall and have a dinner plate size blossom on them.

Um and they're beautiful for cut arrangements.

They're all um really great to have for cut arrangements.

Um and they just they're just beautiful in the landscape.

They can be grown in containers or in the ground.

That's fantastic.

And last year I'll say they were spectacular everywhere with the cool weather and it was moist and yes, it was really nice.

Yeah, we really don't have to take second place to anybody with some of this floral production.

The colors, there's so much there.

Yes.

And did you know it's a food source?

This bulb is edible.

No kidding.

I know it.

I know.

I was shocked when I found that out, but Yep.

It's true.

That's news to all of us for sure.

I know it.

But I think I'd prefer the flowers over the I would too.

I I've never tried it.

So, okay.

Thanks, Deb.

Now, let's get to some of your questions.

Well, we're going to take a look at some of these here.

Uh, you know, we had this question about um Oh, your pictures.

Oh, here we go.

That's the one we knew.

Someone sent us a photo of this is the burning bush or the by burnum.

Um, they want to know uh how to prune that back.

And I think this would be an ideal time to prune it.

Shrub like that, you really want to prune more than about a third.

So, cut it back.

uh at this particular time.

For those of you that are not familiar with this particular shrub, magnificent fall color, fall color, is actually very very very nice.

Some of them are um burning bushes are now illegal.

Some of the seated ones.

Some of the seated ones.

Yeah.

So, just be careful of what you're getting.

Some Yeah, they can they can be a little bit aggressive.

There's no doubt about it.

We have got just so many questions coming up here.

Someone wanted this is Steve from Sagena.

What advice do you have for starting blueberries this time of year?

First off, I think it's a great time.

You know, it's very, very early spring, and the earlier you move them and you transplant them, the better off you're going to be.

So, if you've got if you've got good material to put it in the ground, I think you can start it.

You can also you can buy smaller plants.

You can grow them out in the course of the growing season.

They can be potted and there you'd want to delay actually starting them and establishing them until maybe an early fall planting.

Yeah, fall planting is great.

Okay, we've got Kathy from Superior.

She's She grew diplomia last year.

She cut them back, but she put them in the gazebo with a canvas cover and she's wondering if they're going to come back.

Deb, what is So, they're tropical, right?

Diploinia, mandas, all very similar.

Um, but I mean, if this is not a heated um gazebo, then she will not they will not survive.

They'll struggle even at even in a greenhouse or a home.

below 60, they will struggle.

They want to be up to 70, right?

So, yeah, I'm sorry, but you might have to get a new one.

So many times, unheated structures, whether it's a high tunnel, a greenhouse, a garage, if it's unheated, you really don't get much protection at all.

And we had a very, very cold winter this year.

We had 30 and 35 degrees below zero.

So, a lot of material was really lost that people had not really anticipated.

I take another one here.

This is D from Hermantown.

My spyhea did did not do well last year.

When they came back up, they looked bad after winter.

Uh this year, should I cut them back and at what time?

Should I cut them now or or after they leaf out?

Well, if they already were struggling, there's no reason not to cut them back.

I mean, there's probably a lot of dead material there anyway, especially if they didn't cut them back last year and they were already struggling.

Yeah, really.

Spyrhea is kind of a cutback shrub.

I think the sooner the better right now, let's not wait for it to leaf out.

Let's let's cut it back and get that process shaped nicely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Now, we've got a question from Wendy in Duth.

She wants to set out her Easter lilies as well as some tulips, but she's wondering when this can be done, when would be the proper time.

Okay.

So, those are all grown hot and fast in green houses, and it is not hot outside at all.

And so, they they really should not be um forced outside.

If you want to acclimate them and get them moved out and then bring them back in just to harden them off or put them in a cool location, but they're not you they're not they haven't been grown in the ground.

So, you can't treat them like they've been grown in the ground.

They've been very hot.

So, keep them right.

Right.

You know, there's a whole group of these greenhouse plants.

I call them hospital plants that people if you want to set them out, you can be cautious of the frost.

were very very early.

Mhm.

But hardening process and that can occur maybe over a week or you gradually acclimate them to that outdoor climate.

Okay, we've got uh a question again, but I think we'll get to that after this next segment.

Uh many of us like to experiment our gardens.

I know you do with the flowers.

I'm always doing it with the vegetables, but there's nothing quite like what the University of Wisconsin Spooner Egg Research Station does each summer.

and we checked that out uh this last year.

Tonight is just going to be a great celebration as we do the uh the Spooner Garden Walk tonight.

A chance for people to come and learn Mike Peters uh WMadison egg research agricultural research stations.

I'm the director.

It's a chance for the community uh and the people of the state of Wisconsin to come in and hear from extension experts, station staff, and our master gardeners about uh what they should be doing in their homes.

Get some new creative ideas about what might be new things they could do in their landscaping.

Uh that pesky insect that's bugging them.

Maybe there's an organic way that they can control it.

So, uh, these are the folks, these are the experts and it gives a chance for us to be the Wisconsin idea and get that knowledge out to the state of Wisconsin, uh, by having experts available and a chance for people to learn regardless of how old they are.

We all need to keep learning.

Here we focus on uh the horicultural crops as well as what it's like in the soil type of northwestern Wisconsin uh to do the rowcropping and how agricultural producers can be successful in this environment.

And so today I'm here to see what the egg center has uh done here in Spooner, Wisconsin.

Um I was here earlier this spring where it was kind of barren ground and you know winter desolate but to see what they've done this summer and uh all the beautiful uh crops and flowers and things like that kind of see what uh goes into their work here uh just to check it all out and see it and take it in and it's absolutely stunning out here.

I have been a president of this association and we had a very vibrant group.

We unfortunately folded as a lot of us aged out of it and we were having difficulty attracting younger members, but we're still active in here.

We're still promoting it.

We're still learning.

We still volunteer throughout the time.

In fact, I became inspired to grow hazelnuts, my own personal property, because of what I've learned here.

My name is Phil Holman.

I'm the superintendent of the University of Wisconsin Spooner Egg Research Station.

This station is the oldest station in the university system of 12 stations and it was started in 1909.

Started out with the subsistence agriculture and uh knowledge from the university coming to the people do a lot of testing of uh your traditional farm field crop.

We've had all sorts of different things from sunflowers for oil uh cholina uh canola.

Uh we even have a small plot of hemp this year.

So we try try a lot of things because we're close to zone three in the USDA plant hardiness zone map and see if it can survive the winter.

Uh one of the things they've done is there's a a perennial bed garden.

Uh then there's some annual beds.

We've had great support from the volunteers through that as well as some financial donations.

And uh we hire a summer student or two to work out here to do the main care and it's it's always fun and to do something different almost every day.

That's always a great event at Spooner and we're very appreciative of the work they're doing there.

Now we're going to take a little look and answer some more of your questions.

We've got a lot to deal with at this particular time.

Now, we got this one that was sent into us, which we appreciate.

And uh if we could have the closeup of that, there's damage to the stem.

And this individual uh gave her cat credit for doing all of that damage, but as I looked at that, really, we had quite a bit of sun skull that was occurring there, and we had um some other bird damage that was occurring there.

So, uh, I I really think that in this case, um, there's not a whole lot that she's going to be able to do about this is where we want to try to protect these stems, but a lot of that damage really was not done by our cat scratching it, but instead that was done by, uh, some of the sunscald uh, that occurred there.

Okay, we got a lot of different questions here.

Let's take a look at uh, here's one.

Uh, this came from Pam and Gary Newuthouth, and she has bulbs on her rose stems, and she's wondering what they are, and if they're caused by bugs.

Yes.

Yes.

And yes, yes.

Yes.

And uh yeah, gall.

I'm I'm assuming it's a rose gall.

And there is right insect damage in there.

And really all you're going to do is cut it out.

No, it's all you can do, right?

Just get it away from everything else so it can't infect anything else.

So that's an easy fix, right?

That one's not bad at all.

Uh we've got a question here on onions.

Is this an appropriate time to start?

I really think that the earlier you can get your onions going, if you've got them, you want to start them from transplants now.

It's a good idea.

And uh this will give you the larger onions.

I think the key to onions is plenty of moisture and weed control and starting early.

People want these real nice dinner plate size onions, the big ones.

Do you think a depth on those?

What do you think of what people do?

Because I think sometimes people get confused on how much soil to put around, right?

I think there's a risk of planting them too deep.

So you want to watch your soil line a little bit and if you're planting from bulbettes, the small bulbs, uh you definitely want them maybe halfway down the bulb.

Transplants again about halfway.

But that's all.

You don't need to go crazy.

Don't need to go crazy.

Let's not set them in too deep.

They like nitrogen early in the year.

It's a great crop for us, by the way.

But it does need to it wants to go in early and you want to make sure that you've got plenty of water and you've got all the weeds under control.

Okay, we got a raspberry question.

And this is one that came from Mary in Duth.

And uh she's noticed some green flies in the summer months, but more so than that, she's noticed the maggots in her fruit.

So this is this nasty little pest called the spotted wing drosophila which has been an emmesis to not just raspberries here but throughout the Pacific Northwest throughout the country in production areas production area very very difficult um rather than going to a real elaborate spray schedule.

I think she wants to just harvest regularly.

We tell people harvest daily and then freeze or preserve and you're not going to worry about it.

If you harvest and let them sit on your countertop at room temperature, you will have these rather nasty white maggots on everything.

So that's spotted winged drosophila.

Here's one for you, Deb.

This came from Teresa in Duth.

Uh she planted both daffodils as well as Easter li liies in her garden outside last year.

She's wondering if they're going to bloom again for her.

So she planted Oh, the daffodils of course, right?

Easy peasy.

Easy, easy.

Um but the east gill lily, no, not hardy.

It's not going to make it.

Sorry.

I think daffodils are one of those spring flowering bulbs that naturalize.

You know, they'll be with you for a long, long time.

Let's take a little look here.

We've got uh several here as well.

Uh question from Judy and Esco.

Oregano is taking over her garden.

Some people Some people would like that actually.

She's wondering how you can eradicate it.

Um I'm surprised.

I really am surprised because I haven't I have not experienced a super hearty oregano oregano like that.

I think when we had this heavy snow layer, it may have come through there.

I think the best thing she can do is um certainly try to pull out as much as she can rather than going to some of the chemical controls that are available.

Uh we've got one quick question if we can get to it yet.

No, we'll catch this one just a little bit later.

Okay.

I had a couple thoughts that things I wanted to share with you tonight.

Uh we had the question just uh last week about what are good vegetable crops for this area and we mentioned the cabbage family the coal crops.

So I thought we would take a look at them.

They're getting a lot of attention right now.

Just in terms of uh identification coal crops ce that's actually Latin for for cabbage but they're also called brasacas because the genus is brassicacier.

And then they're also called crucifers because they've been named for the cross-like pattern in their flower petals.

So if you're going to call them coal crops, cabbage, crucifer, or brascas, they're all one and the same.

Here's some of the flowering.

Uh they all have some of the flowers are very dimminitive, but you see this very distinct cross, hence the name crucifer.

So they're all one and the same.

Great big family.

We love them all.

Cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, kale, korabi, and radishes.

Both the kale and karabi are getting a lot of attention at this particular time.

They all are.

Here's just a group shot of all the different some of the different varieties that we have out there and they seem to come in and out of fashion.

Uh certainly Brussels sprouts very very popular.

You got to roast those.

They're delicious late in the fall with a little bit of oil, a little bit of seasoning.

And we've got uh the purple cauliflower.

This variety is graffiti.

It's one of the shots that I took that's very very nice.

Beautiful head broccoli is getting a lot of attention.

Kabi, which you can eat that raw.

It's almost like a biggie.

Yeah.

It's almost like an apple when you eat it raw.

We're getting a lot of new introductions.

This is a variety of cabbage.

One of our favorites.

Been around for a long time.

Stonehead.

It gives you a real nice size.

Here's one of the uh larger korabi that's getting a lot of attention.

And uh this is one called KAK.

Here's one Calibbra.

This is a purple.

So, we're getting colors in everything.

And with that comes the antioxidants.

That's that's characteristic of so many of these pigments.

Here's the great thing about cruciferous.

They're good to eat and whatnot, but they do contain a group of sulfur compounds.

Here's the original one.

The glucosinylates which break down into sulfurophane.

I don't want to throw a lot of terminology here, but it's been documented through a lot of continuous research that they of anti-carcinogenic properties really started with Dr.

Lee Watenber.

We got to give him credit.

University of Minnesota.

He published some of the original work on the productive properties of the cabbage family back in the 1970s.

And this was followed Dr.

Paul Tlei.

He was with John Hopkins University.

He's gotten so much attention from sulfurophane in broccoli and specifically broccoli sprouts.

The actual sprouts have about 10 times as much of this compound.

Uh both men have been called the fathers of cheoprevention.

Now, the way this sulfurophane works, it apparently stimulates enzymes in the body that actually detoxify some of the carcinogens.

So, these protective compounds, they've been both confirmed and reinforced with more recent research.

The more I read about them, I went right out and I made myself a nice cold saw because of the uh anti-cancer benefits that come from.

It's legitimate.

We grow them very well in this area because of our cool c our cool climate and we should grow them right because we get much more nutritional value when we grow them ourselves rather than shipping them very definitely and what we want to people should be aware of that these crops you want to just steam you don't want to do a lot of boiling you lose some of these beneficial sulfur compounds but here there's been a lot of recent interest they're nutrientdense they're gluten-free they're interesting and colorful they're both ornamental and edible which is really And there's an increasing awareness of all the health benefits both in the gut mic microbiome as well as these anti-cancer properties.

Here's one we got to talk about.

People are looking for new introductions.

This will one is called Ruby Boore.

It was an all-American selection.

Got the gold medal winner both for ornamental as well as an edible.

It's one you want to try this year.

Now, let's get to some more of our questions.

Um, let me take a little look.

You know, we have a lot of questions here that have come in on um some of the powdery miloo that we're beginning to see on zenyas.

Uh, and uh maybe we can talk a little bit about that.

It comes with a terodio.

It can.

They're they're breeding better ones.

Um, there are much better.

Profusion is a really good um zenia line.

that is much more resistant to powdery mildew.

And people do seed them too early and then they get long and leggy and they're trying to water them.

Did you know that water is one of the best plant growth regulators?

If you hold back and you can get them to hold tight, you have to be careful with them that you don't let them get um too drought, you know, to wilt at all.

You don't want that.

But if you um take good care of them, put a fan in front of them and and and pick really good varieties that you can alleviate a lot of that.

I think so.

I I like the the series you mentioned, Profusion.

They've gotten several awards, too.

They have All-American Selections.

All American Selections is a real nice series out there.

Question here about peach trees um that are currently being advertised.

We see a lot of crops being advertised this time of year.

Will they grow and will they produce fruit?

Uh I tell people stay with what we know is native to the area.

Apples are native, but the crabs are certainly.

Uh so apples, uh blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, let's start there.

The peaches we can grow.

The problem is we get we get these flowers early in the year.

Then we get a spring frost.

Exactly.

Takes all the flowers down.

So even though get any fruit, we don't get any fruit.

So even though they're hardy.

So I would recommend uh probably trying some of those things, but staying away.

Our climate is not changing dramatically like perhaps it is other places, but we're just about normal.

Um let me take a look at a couple of others.

Uh we've got um she wants to take care of uh Salvia that she planted last year.

Salvia, it's not looking good.

I can understand why it isn't looking good.

Yeah, because it's it's in the ground and it's not still winter hearty at this particular point.

Yeah.

So, I think this is going to be treated as an as an annual certainly.

Well, unless it's the perennial salvia, which wouldn't look good right now anyway.

Anyway, right.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Here's an interesting one.

Maybe you could take a crack at this.

Uh we got a lot of people with uh flocks of chickens now.

They're looking for free for flowering plants that freerange chickens will not eat.

That will not eat.

Will not eat.

Boy, that's a tough one.

That's a tough one.

I mean, because they say maragolds are good for your chickens because they give you really good orange yolks and you get a lot of nutrition out of them.

But that's not going to help this situation.

No.

Um I haven't seen a lot of things that my chickens won't take out.

They will.

I mean, yes, if you feed them well, then they might, but if it's green, they're going to go for it.

Okay.

I I think that's true.

That's true.

Real challenge.

Quick question on carrots.

The secret to growing carrots in an elevated red bed.

And I think there we've got uh just keep the water consistent.

I think that's that's the key right there in an elevated bed.

Yep.

We want to thank all of you for joining us tonight.

Uh we invite you to join us again next Thursday at 7 PM for some more tips and inspiration.

And until then, have a wonderful, wonderful spring evening.