- [Narrator] Lifestyle Gardening is a production of IANR Media and Nebraska Extension.

(bouncy music) - Hello again and welcome to a new season of Lifestyle Gardening.

I'm Kim Todd and we've got another great program for you today.

Coming up, we'll hear about an insect pest spray schedule for your fruit trees some things you see outside from your indoor windows and how to make it beautiful in the winter scooping snow and we'll answer a few questions.

But first we're going to focus on the beginning point of all gardening your soil.

It's cold outside so you probably haven't thought about your garden soil for a month or so but let's hear about what's going on with your soil and get a few tips on how to make it better while waiting for spring.

(bouncy music) We talk a lot about what to do to get your garden ready for next spring when it's fall of the year.

This has been a really abnormally dry and open and warm season so what I wanna talk about is your soil and the condition of the soil and some of the things that you should be looking at as we move further into winter.

If you look at this soil, it is really dry on top we dig by hand in our garden, we make sure we don't compact the soil in our garden but if it stays at normally dry and windy this soil can begin to certainly blow away if not erode.

And there's a huge difference between the area that's mulched although we're not gonna mulch everything where our annuals are and the area that isn't.

So this is another good reminder that in locations where you wanna hold that soil moisture keep those plants healthy over the winter months a good layer of mulch is a great idea.

So I wanna take a look at the cover crop because typically what we also will recommend is using cover crops and then tilling them in and whether we do or do not do that depends a little bit on the situation and the weather itself.

You might have noticed that the soil in our garden that we turned over in the fall is full of big rough clods and we did that on purpose that really helps to hold that moisture really does also cut down on the wind erosion.

If you tilt too you finally you get dust and that dust is of course, going to blow then you lose the top soil.

Our cover crop that we planted in the fall came up a little bit spotty part of that is because we left our potatoes but typically you turn that cover crop over and we chose to leave this here.

This is on a slope and we were concerned because we've seen it happen that if we do get moisture and we get a lot of moisture in a goalie washer sort of a way that soil is going to end up at the bottom of the hill.

So in the first place it's green and the second place of course it holds that soil.

We will then use this cover crop to help amend that soil as we go into the spring of the year.

An open dry winter and a great spring and summer can also lead to a lot of weed growth and if your soil stays open in the winter you're going to have more weeds.

We have all sorts of things that have popped their heads up here, it's a good time to take a look at where they have emerged, are they winter annuals that you really didn't get taken care of?

Are they those great perennials, like the dandelions that you wanna keep your eye on or are they marauders that have come from a different part of the garden like this palm sitch.

So as with anything in the landscape you're scouting and you're looking for what is the condition of the soil, what is the condition of the plants in the soil, are there plants that are out of place whether they are weeds or weed like perennials or annuals that you really don't want in that landscape take a look at that and get rid of those before your season actually starts.

Be good to your soil and it will repay you with bumper crops and beautiful plants.

You'll also not have to deal with some of the problems we hear about on Backyard Farmer every season.

Let's move on to this week's landscape lesson.

If you live in Nebraska, you're going to have to deal with snow.

The easy thing to do is scoop it off the sidewalk or the driveway onto your lawn but if you've opened a bag of ice melt and you're piling that on your dormant lawn or your flower beds, you might be killing the plants below.

For this week's landscape lesson we focus on snow, ice melt and being mindful of what's underneath those drifts.

(bouncy music) The beauty of that wet winter snow is a sight to be seen, of course but if you are the one who has to do your own snow removal you also know that those heavy snows can be really hard on the back.

A couple of things for you to keep in mind about those snows this is a really good opportunity to take a look at where the damage from snow might occur in your landscape.

And that is whether you are the one that is scooping and shoveling and dumping or whether you have a snow removal company that is doing that.

Keep in mind to these things.

First off that snow is extremely heavy if it is the wet one that's going to give you great moisture into the landscape especially if we went into the winter, very, very dry but it also packs down and the heaviness of that snow can do a fair amount of damage to the crowns of either very sensitive plants or plants that are kind of a delicate or a light textured plant.

Of course, the other thing that can happen with snow and snow removal is the machine itself no matter whether it is a great big one or a small one, chews up the edges along the sidewalks.

And we talk about this a lot in terms of being able to do the repair of the turf that has been damaged by snow.

But take a look after that snow removal has occurred to see where the side or the edges of your landscape had been peeled back because those are the places you're going to have to take care of in the spring.

And then of course, there's that ice and the deicers come in all sorts of flavors if you will, different colors, different textures different sizes of bags or barrels or containers.

Many of them have names on them that are pet friendly or earth kind or something that suggests that the ingredients in that ice melt are not going to do a great deal of damage to the landscape.

Read that label very carefully remember that you've got to be able to use that ice melt for the temperature that will work and if you've put the ice melt down heavily and then it snows again, you may have to do it again.

I've seen some interesting things with these heavy snows as well which is the scooping happens, the ice forms, the ice melt goes down, we get a little bit more snow or the ice melt does its job here comes the snowblower and actually can blow that material all the way further out into the landscape.

So you do have to pay attention not only to the heaviness of the snow and where it's been piled but also what happens if that snowblower does its job and sends it across the landscape.

So enjoy the beauty of it know that that heavy wet snow is a good thing as long as it's not too heavy, it insulates, it provides moisture but you are going to have to pay attention to what is the potential damage that that snow can do in your landscape.

Ice melt and packing the snow on top of your lawn could lead to some peculiar problems when spring comes around.

It's best to keep the snow pile smaller and try to keep the ice melt on the concrete not on your landscape.

If you've got a few fruit trees in your backyard you probably already know that some years are skimpy and other years the branches almost break because they're full of fruit.

It might seem to happen for no reason especially in Nebraska.

So on this week's interview we try to guide you to keeping insect pests from destroying those apples, peaches, plums, and pears.

We talked to Jody Green about insects that like your fruit, as much as you do.

(bouncy music) We had a lot of questions last year from people who really want to know how to grow their own fruits in their own home gardens.

And we're hoping this is a trend that continues.

We also got, of course, a lot of questions about what is wrong with my apple, peach, pear, plum or raspberry.

So we thought we'd get a little bit of a jump on the season by talking to Jody Green about exactly how we should manage those fruit trees and those brambles during the off season so that next year we don't have to deal with protein in our plums.

So Jody, you are pretty much the expert in terms of pests of everything, whether it is bed bugs or fruits what are you gonna tell people to start with now that we are December, January, February, March, April, May and they want those apples in August.

Where do we start?

- Well, we have to start thinking about this right away because even though our plants and our trees are dormant right now we do need to think about our spray schedule for next year.

And we need to think about the pests that we found around our trees and in our fruit and try to prevent them from occurring again next year So we can have a good harvest.

- So what are some examples and what do people look for especially if we're talking about novice gardeners, right?

- So if you haven't planted yet the best thing to do is find a good cultivar that will grow in the weather here in the conditions you're gonna plant the tree.

And also you want to have something that may be a disease or insect resistant.

So I would consult whoever you're buying that tree from.

If you are moving into a property or landscape that already has those trees then right now, you wanna think about if there's a scalar mites from the previous year you may wanna treat with a dormant oil and that's gonna be in before bud break.

So that's gonna be early before you even think about seeing those pests.

So it's gonna be like late February, early March about the time you're gonna prune which is also very important for healthy trees.

- So a big piece of doing the management of course in any landscape is actually that very word the management.

And what I'm hearing you tell people is you don't just get to plant it this is a great time to go scout.

Can they still take samples to the diagnostic clinic if they need to or to extension offices if they find some strange thing on an Apple twig as an example - Yeah, absolutely.

Cause identification is gonna be the first key and you wanna let us know what kind of plant you're dealing with.

So the plant, the insect and or the pest if it's not an insect you wanna identify that as well and then the timing.

So that will all correspond to a really good management program because even though spring is something that may be necessary there are a multitude of products that you can use.

But so after the dormant season if you don't have mites or (indistinct) you wanna treat for the next best thing is to go out after the bloom star and scout at least once a week look for pests that are flying around or crawling anything like that.

There are also traps that you can put out there that will help monitor for any moths that are coming in or emerging that have been palpating over the winter.

- So I think one of the things that shocks people is they don't see anything and then here comes that creature in the middle of their peach or the middle of their apple.

How do they treat for that if they are... And when is this again a dormant treatment?

- So no.

So when they do start scouting and they think there are...

If they see any scars on some fruit or some damage like rolling leaves or caterpillars then they wanna treat after the pedal blooms have fallen and this is the best time because you're not going to hurt any pollinators that we really need and after the blooms drop is when you can treat with a number of products that are available to homeowners from stores, there are Synthetic Pyrethroids, there is Carbaryl, Malathoin, Spinosad for some insects but you really want to read the label in terms of like timing and application rates because it's not just a one and done as well it's something that you'll have to keep up with and there should be a timing schedule like every 10 days, for example.

And also you wanna make sure you've got those pre harvest intervals in your mind because if you're gonna harvest you wanna make sure on that label it says that there's enough days in there.

- So a multitude of products which of course makes it difficult if you don't really understand the products and timing and management.

What if people really are leery of doing any sort of spray whatsoever?

What are your recommendations for at least getting something edible from your fruit trees?

- We call it the integrated pest management approach.

So it encompasses a lot of different things.

So if you can start trapping there are gonna be some organic options as well.

You can do neem oil if you don't want to I mean, if you wanna spray something but not have it be completely synthetic but then also the cultural control of cleaning up in the fall is very important because those fallen fruits or fruits that remain on the trees, the leaves, all that, the debris that may fall down a lot of pests can overwinter in those places you wanna clean that up and remove that from the area so that pests won't emerge the following year.

- Well and this has been a fall where cleanup there's no excuse for not doing that which is a little bit unusual for a season.

But if you do that cleanup of the insects and the pests and the diseases you don't want, does that also get rid of habitat for the insects you do want?

What's the balancing act on that one?

- I would say that cleanup is important in those particular areas and areas where it's pollinator friendly, maybe outside of where the orchard is, leave those for the pollinators.

- All right.

And I do know that last year you had a truly amazing peach crop.

What did you do?

What did you do?

- It was just luck because I did nothing.

- All right.

And a part of growing anything in the landscape of course, is whatever mother nature decides to do.

So you can follow the directions that Jody has suggested.

You can do everything right.

We can still get no apples or a million peaches that's just the luck of the draw and that's one of the things that makes the landscape and gardening and trying to grow your own food so much fun.

Thanks Jody for talking about what might work anyway if you're growing your own fruit trees.

It is so important to keep up with your spray schedules if you want to avoid those little boogers that are ruining your fruit crop.

Of course, variety location and the Nebraska weather will be important factors for you to calculate into your schedule.

And as you know we do like to answer a few questions on our show.

We've asked a few of our Backyard Farmer panelists to help you with some of those common questions.

So let's take a few minutes to hear from some very familiar faces.

(bouncy music) - So unfortunately we can only diagnose so many things via pictures and on occasion we do need a physical sample to come into the diagnostic clinic.

And so the first thing that we ask is that you collect the sample and you send a sample in as fresh as possible.

And so collect that sample, maybe if possible the day before you're going to send it.

But if you do have to wait a day or two before sending it you can just put that sample in the refrigerator just to maintain it until it is able to get into the mail.

And then we do ask that you put samples into a plastic bag, ziploc works very well.

If there's any excess moisture, put a dry paper towel or even just some dry clean newspaper in there to really help absorb any excess moisture that may be sloshing around.

We really don't want excess moisture in these samples if they're going to sit in the mail truck for a couple of days, because then all sorts of stuff will start to grow on that sample not only the disease that we're looking at.

Now if you're thinking about including some root material we ask that you include that root ball in a separate ziploc bag and then you can put the entire thing in another bag.

That way we're just preventing moist excess soil from getting onto our fresh leaves.

Then you can put that entire sample along with our sample identification form into a sturdy box and you can mail it to the Plant Diagnostic Clinic.

Our address is 1875 North 38th Street, Lincoln, Nebraska, 68583.

And we do ask that you send samples between Monday and Wednesday.

If samples are dropped in the mail later in the week, there's a really good chance they'll sit over the weekend and by the time we get them they may be degraded to the point that we can't accurately identify what the cause of the disease is.

Additionally, if you would have any questions feel free to reach out to me via Twitter or our email and we can help give specific instructions for certain plants.

(bouncy music) - It depends on what lawn you have, how you're managing it and how well your system is putting out the water.

Now, when I say system everyone thinks of an in-ground automatic system.

Well, it can be a sprinkler on the end of the hose as well.

You need to know when you set that sprinkler whether it be an automatic system or a sprinkler on the end of the hose, how much water are you putting out?

And the way we do that is real simple.

We put straight sided cans like cat food cans or dog food cans or tuna cans out in the yard spaced appropriately usually 15 to 20 feet apart and spray lawns that have spray heads or use a spray type head maybe a little bit closer together you run the system for about 15 to 30 minutes and then you measure how much water went into that with a simple ruler that's (indistinct) in a very small tenths of an inch, right?

And you just hold it up, put the ruler in there and then you get a number on that.

Then you can extrapolate that and say, oh, look this system is putting out about a half an inch an hour.

Now, so now that you know that you know that if I need to put on a half an inch I need to run that system for an hour.

Not all systems are the same nor are all sprinkler heads the same nor are the time of day when you're using a sprinkler on (indistinct) and the hose the same.

So check this during the course of the day and try to get a rough estimate of what it is so now you know how much your system is putting out.

How much to put on your lawns?

For years we recommended one to one and a half inches per week, exclusive of rainfall.

So if you got a half inch rain you would wanna put on another inch of water.

We're finding that that was excessive and if we wanna conserve moisture in the landscape we certainly wanna do that on the lawn which usually represents the majority of the square footage in a home landscape.

So let's try to think about how much water we're putting out and also how much water the lawn needs.

Usually we look at the lawn as needing water when it starts to show a bluish tint or when you walk across it and has footprints.

And usually at that point in time you put water on as needed.

This might be once or twice a week in the summertime or during periods of long drought.

But in periods where we're getting rain with a certain amount of frequency it may be that in Nebraska conditions, in the Eastern Nebraska and even to limited extent even as far West that you may not need any irrigation as long as we're getting timely rains.

So now, you know how much and now you know how frequent.

Not a real good exact number what it was how much, but it's about what the lawn looks like rather than an arbitrary inch and a half per week.

Let's not do that anymore let's conserve moisture.

(bouncy music) - Sunscald this is a specific type of injury that we see particularly on young trees and it occurs during the winter months.

The damage that we see usually happens on the south or the southwest sides of the tree where the sun would shine on the bark on a warm winter day.

During those times what happens is the cells where the sun is shining will lose some of their dormancy and then as temperatures drop quickly again at night there can be ice crystals that form in the spaces between the cells, which can kill them.

And what you'll see on trees in the following year after sunscald occurs is a patch of dead bark on the south or the southwest side of the tree.

Now this bark may be sunken, it may be a slightly darker color, it may start to crack around the edges of the dead section, but the basic problem here is that you've lost the ability in the tree to move water up and down that section of the trunk where the bark has died.

So how do we prevent sunscald?

Well, there's a couple of different ways.

Those trees that are drought stressed going into the winter are more susceptible to suncald.

So watering your trees in the fall making sure they're well-hydrated going into the winter is a very good practice.

Couple of other things you can do.

We see sunascald most often on young trees with thin bark things like maples or honey locust or birch.

So if you have a young tree, try to shape the bark on the south and the southwest sides of the trunk during those first years when the bark is thin.

One way you can do this is by getting white plastic protective wrap that you can get at a garden center or a nursery that you put around the trunk of the tree.

This usually comes in a spiral cone or a spiral form and you'll just wrap it around the trunk.

You can also use brown paper tree wrap to cover the trunk and protect the bark as well.

Another method would be to put a wooden board on the south side of the tree and put it in the ground so that it shades that section of the trunk.

A method that orchardists have used for many years is to paint the lower part of the trunk with white paint.

And you would use a latex paint.

Now, often in landscapes this is not an acceptable solution to have your tree trunk painted white.

But if you have an orchard with some fruit trees that might be a really good option.

But again, remember to use a latex type of paint.

- Most of us have been cooped up for a few months now and looking outside our windows is either a winter wonderland or maybe something less than that.

It's worth considering that you may have left a few plants standing for winter interest, but do things look the same from different levels of your house?

Let's take a few minutes to examine how we can improve those winter views with a few simple ideas.

(bouncy music) Winter is a great time to actually take time to look out your windows hopefully they're clean and figure out whether you actually like what you see out of your own home or your business or school anywhere else where there is glass.

We don't really take time to do that often enough.

We sort of take it for granted.

We're in the kitchen, we're in the living room, we're looking out an office window but this is a great time of year to pay attention to what the plants contribute to that landscape.

We tend to think in terms of screening out something that we don't like to see and that's a question that we get all the time.

How can I screen my neighbor's house?

How can I screen the dumpster?

What about this transformer?

I don't like the way the street looks.

That's a different kind of way of thinking about looking out the windows then to think what do I want to see not what do I not want to see.

So one of the interesting changes during the winter months of course, is deciduous trees and shrubs.

Those that drop their foliage either early or late all of a sudden what you didn't know you could see if you're not paying attention is right there in front of your face.

Anything from telephone wires to a whole (indistinct) that opens up that can really be quite beautiful if you deliberately in frame that with other plant materials so you're focused on it.

The other plant, of course that contributes to the winter landscape is anything evergreen or broadleaf evergreen.

And even though we don't have a lot of broadleaf evergreen choices in Nebraska, some of the big viburnums a handful of the holly's in the right locations even some of the semi evergreen or semi broadleaf evergreen plants give a different sort of a texture.

One of the mistakes that people make is they tend to do landscape at the edges of a property.

So that really goes back to screening out creating a backdrop is a different situation entirely but we don't tend to necessarily place plants right up close to the windows.

And if you think about that if you have a very delicate plant, one with fine texture, one with great winter fruit, interesting twig pattern you actually will be able to look through that in the winter so you get sort of this depth of perspective or depth of landscape.

Another way that that really contributes to a beautiful winter experience is if you are a bird feeder or even if you don't feed the birds, but you just like to watch them anyway choose the right plant for that location out your windows and you'll be able to actually see those birds up close and personal.

As many as four pairs of cardinals maybe the interesting little chickadees all sorts of birds coming in just fluttering around in that landscape.

And of course you can't see that when all of those plants have leaves on them in the summer.

So deliberately take a stroll through your own home or your business.

Look out those windows think also about the difference about what that landscape looks like if you're just going by outside versus looking at it from within.

Because the other thing that happens you're usually up at least a foot and a half, maybe two stories, maybe three stories the landscape really changes dramatically if you see it from a different elevation.

What we're getting at here is trying to help you think a little more creatively when you transition from fall to winter scenes around your house.

With just a few adjustments or trying new plant material, you too will soon be looking at a wonderland as the snow falls.

Thank you so much for joining us again for Lifestyle Gardening.

Next time we'll be selecting some wonderful house plants and giving you ideas on how to get your kids interested in gardening.

So good afternoon, good gardening, thanks for watching we'll see you all next time on Lifestyle Gardening.

(bouncy music)