(upbeat music) Welcome to Digging Deeper with Backyard Farmer.

This is the show where we actually dig into a deep subject.

The great thing today is we are digging at Vala's Pumpkin Patch and it is Digging Deeper with our audience, with questions from the audience.

So you will come to the microphone, you will tell us where you're from, and then you will ask your question, and you are first on the docket.

My name's Tom Jameson from Omaha, and question is that, you know, when you have the bugs, like on, on just like cucumbers, and tomatoes and stuff like that, yeah there are the chemicals that you can use, but if you want to kind of go organic, is there any way to use something else like eucalyptus vanilla, vinegar, dish washing soap, or something like that?

Well, picking them off is probably the best way to go if you're going to do something organic and it depends what it is and what crops.

So if you're going through squash, squash bugs, I've actually been using a cordless like a battery operated vacuum for the squash bugs, it's been working really good.

I'm out there vacuuming the garden.

It's not the weirdest thing I've done.

But that's worked hand crushing the eggs, if you're looking for tomatoes, if it's the horn worms, you know, picking those off and giving them to some kids for school project, those are fun too.

But you know, anything you spray that's like an essential oil or vinegar, that's still something out there that may damage your plant, especially if it's like full sun or anything like that.

So, I mean, if you're active and you're willing to get your hands dirty go and pick them off.

[Tom] Okay, thank you.

[Kim] Okay, next up critter question.

Good afternoon.

[Dennis] Hi.

I'm from Ralston, Nebraska and my question is around the eradication of animals, we often hear questions with how to remove them from landscape.

What I'm interested in is what is in general the governance for introducing wildlife to the landscape, in general maybe I want some snakes out in the landscape.

You cannot translocate any native animal more than 100 yards, so you have to enhance the ones that are there, and you cannot translocate any animals into the state that are not livestock and contained.

[Unidentified speaker] Right.

So the law is we don't want exotics or foreign animals in our state, and so, and that just causes biodiversity problems and we get invasives, and then our native animals, (clears throat) excuse me, diminish.

Yeah, not a second question, but it would be the thought of introducing native animals to your landscape, not exotics.

You'd have to bring them in, you can't move them from one place to the next next.

[Speaker] Okay, thank you.

There's no translocation because for the most part even biologists like myself, wildlife biologists, we're not sure what the genotype is in middle of Nebraska versus the genotype in the Eastern part of Nebraska.

And we don't want to mix genotype.

[Speaker] That makes sense, thank you.

Okay.

All right, excellent.

Next question up.

Hi, I live in Missouri Valley, Iowa, and early in the spring and then now again, I have a problem with chipmunks.

We live in a very wooded area, and they're digging in my flower pots, and I don't know what they're after.

Because it's new dirt, it's not like they're acorns from last year or anything 'cause we have Oak and Walnut trees around.

So why are they digging in my pots?

Okay, it wouldn't be chipmunks probably even in Council Bluffs, they hardly get there.

It might be 13 line ground squirrels or might be Franklin ground squirrels, which are small ground squirrels, but they could be after the roots of the plants or the moisture in the roots of the plants.

And so it may not be acorns they're after, but there may be just the bottom or roots of those plants that're giving them moisture or something else.

The way to do it is before those plants start growing the pot, put chicken wire, the plants grow up through the chicken wire yet they can't dig in the chicken wire and.

[Speaker] They can't dig, so there's nothing I can do about it now?

No.

Except, well nevermind.

(laughing) And that's usually the answer we get.

All right, do we have a rot and spot question?

[Unidentified] No.

Oh, we're out of order rots and spots.

[Unidentified] No rots and spots.

She's got a rot and that looks like a spot.

(laughing) I'm from Omaha, and I have a garden with the usual green beans, but they have developed brown and the I've taken off half of the plants, left half of them, but I'm wondering what is the cause and what can I do regarding next year?

If it will affect the soils.

Let's see.

[Kim] Kyle.

You have to talk.

Yeah, I will, I, I wanted to look at the, look at the beans cause it's cause so often it's, there's just a random spot on my green beans.

And what is it while it's green bean leaf spot or something along those lines.

But you know, as far as what's going on here, this, you said was about half of the plants as well.

Yeah, well I've taken out half of them and the others that are still around and they're a little more shaded from taller plants.

They're starting to show the same thing.

The shaded ones are showing it.

Yeah, just of the yes.

Okay, cause at first I was wondering if it was maybe just a little bit of sunburn that you were seeing on this.

Yeah, in the middle, that's what I took out, perhaps.

But as far as, cause this does not really look pathological to me.

Okay.

Or at least not a, there's not a, not a fungus that's causing them to be, to be this color could be, could be some sort of root issue, something like that.

But really as far as just general garden disease management, you know, next year, if you can rotate and if you can move them into a different area and then try not to grow beans in that same area for about three years is, if possible.

It's not always, not always the case.

I know I put some trellises up and I'm not gonna move my trellises every year.

But if, if, if possible, try to try to rotate.

Thank you very much.

All right, now we have a Hort or a landscape question.

Kelly, take off your sunglasses.

Okay.

So horticulture.

Oh what is it, works.

Yeah.

Okay.

Hi, I'm Beverly from LA Vista and this has been in my yard a few years and I've cut it down, but I thought it would bloom and it hasn't.

So I'm just curious if it's something I want or what it is.

Can I see it closer?

Is it.

Oh, I know what it is.

The Trumpet vine?

Oh yeah it is.

Look, I was gonna say it looks like.

But it hasn't bloomed.

Oh yeah.

Well and how many years has it been there?

Oh, five easy.

Well, it's still trumpet vine.

I yeah.

Am I hot?

Yeah, it's still trumpet vine and you might not want it to bloom.

(laughing) How do I get rid of it?

It's difficult, do you, if you wanna get rid of it, I mean, if, is it growing in the lawn?

Yes.

Is it growing in, okay, so I mean you can use, you can use some of the broadleaf herbicides if you wanna try to get rid of it.

But it's, I mean, it's a nasty weed.

It's it's, it's, it's a beautiful vine if it's growing up a telephone pole and you keep it in bounds, cause it's trumpet vine and those are the ones that get the bright orange, I mean awesome for hummingbirds and that type of thing.

But it's a vine that, you know, we sometimes say, watch out, you get out the way, it'll take over.

So if you do wanna try to control it, I mean it's either constant clipping or it's or you can treat it with one of the broadleaf herbicides.

Good to know thank you.

And keep, but you're gonna have to keep at it for a while.

So audience that was trumpet vine, no, you don't want it.

Nope.

Pure and simple.

Even if it has beautiful flowers that hummingbirds like.

All right, do we have an insect question?

A bug question.

Okay, bug one up you go.

Hello, I'm Ruth from Omaha, question, digging up onions and potatoes and discovered white grubs.

So the plan is to move the plot for those two items next year.

But are there other preventatives that could be done?

Are they feeding, like are they like maggot grubs or are they like white grubs.

White grubs.

Like, like Japanese beetle grubs.

Oh, I'm not certain of that.

Like are they C shaped.

Yeah, yeah they're C shaped.

Well, well to me they look like a typical grub.

That's kind of fat and wormy looking, but creepy all at the same time.

Is it destroying the, cause they aren't usually eating the potato.

No, no.

You just don't like them there.

Right, it just doesn't seem like a good thing to have.

Well, there's not really a treatment like that you can do for the soil if you're gonna plant things that are edible.

So unless you wanna treat and then leave it for, you know, a few years then I would probably just pick them out now because those are the ones that are gonna emerge next year and feed on the flowers and things like that.

Okay.

So the grubs are in your garden.

(laughing) But if you mix 'em in with a salad, it puts a lot of protein in there.

(laughing) Yeah, you know, I.

They're edible.

We pick em out, and you feed em to the birds.

Like I put 'em in a tin and I just put 'em on the.

Barbecue them or something.

Swiss Family Robinson like a pad of butter.

Yeah.

Thank you.

All right, do we have a critter question?

Critter?

No, no critter.

Critter?

But isn't that a critter?

Critter critter.

From Omaha?

No critter.

All right, we're gonna skip critter and go to, Oh it is.

It is a Denis question.

Oh, it is a dentist question.

Oh, look holy cow.

That's what I wanna know, some molars.

Oh, it's a prehistoric beast.

It was found my wife found it in our yard and it's been, the house was built in the mid seventies.

Yeah, but this is much older in mid seventies by look at the, so.

How did it get there, even?

A dog could have brought it there or it could have been very low in the ground.

And then with freeze and thaw, freeze and thaw, freeze and thaw, it comes up.

But this is definitely bone.

This is, that looks like maxillary.

So here not me, my teeth aren't that big, wait minute, this side.

It would've been this side, okay.

And it looks like an ungulate or something that is very much a herbivore by these grinding type of things.

So, and it could be in a, you know, an 1800s horse or I can't age the bone, but it's at least back a hundred years, but it could be back a thousand years and be some kind of animal that masticated a lot of trees and plant material a thousand years ago.

But I can.

So you have the choice of Yeah.

Continue digging and see what else comes up.

Yeah.

Or just cover it back up again.

The ground [Inaudible] Oh.

Yeah.

I, yeah.

So I, it came from down below.

Are you an area that could have been where a river used to be at one time or?

Okay.

Area.

Yeah.

Ice age.

Yeah.

It's a dinosaur.

It could be, it could be pre historic or it could be just old, old, but that bone is weathered enough that it's at least a hundred years old.

So you know, it's either a hundred year old horse or a thousand year old, small horse creature.

(laughing) Thank you.

Yep.

Rots and spots.

Hort, go.

Skipping you Kyle.

I'm used to it.

Have a little nap.

Hi, my name's Heidi and I'm from Morse Bluff, and we've got an ATV walking trail around the sandpit lake, maybe a mile plus long getting a lot of poison ivy on it.

What can we do cause the trail's real close to the, to the lake.

Same.

I mean, same thing.

It's just constant, i mean herbicide treatment.

I mean it's broadleaf herbicide and just wasn't growing in, it's growing in grass along there?

It's growing in, in grass.

It's the, the path is a wooded area, so.

I mean, it's gonna be tough to do and just know, you know, know that with poison ivy it's urushiol the oil that's in there and it's in the stems, it's in the leaves.

So like if you get the idea that in the winter, we're gonna go out there and pull it out.

The sap is still in there and you can still get it all over you.

You never burn it cuz you can breathe in that oil and the smoke.

Otherwise, if you wanna control it, it's just gonna be, I mean you can clip it, but you gotta be extremely careful and we're... We're talking a mile long path.

Yeah, so you're probably looking at the broadleaf herbicide registered for use in turf, in lawns.

That close to the lake though?

Check the label.

Check the label and if, and follow whatever the label says under environmental on the label, it they'll be environmental.

And it'll tell you, you know how far you have to be away from the lake or any other precautions that you need to take.

Okay.

And some are probably better than others.

You know?

I just, I hate to see you see using a non-selective like glyphosate or Roundup because you wanna keep that grass there.

Right.

And growing, so I just, you have to read the label under environmental.

Okay, thank you.

And there is a brush killer registered for poison ivy, so.

Mhm, there is, and there are some aquatics, there are some things that are registered for close to water, but.

All right, we're back around to bug two.

I'm Jack from Seward.

My question deals with galls, I understand what galls are.

Yep.

All right, so, so on my borough for the last 10 years, I've had these black galls I think by black moss probably.

Then about five years ago, I started having the apple galls on my swamp oak.

Now my question tonight is this year, there are no galls on those trees.

So the question is environmentally is something going on where we're gonna see less galls.

If something occurred this winter where the galls are just not there this year.

I wish I knew what those patterns were.

Cause sometimes it's like gall, after gall, after gall.

But every organism has like their waves through their population.

So whether it's, and we didn't have like a freeze or anything like that, but maybe sometimes it's like predators, prey, you know those relationships.

I didn't know with the dryness that we're occurring.

Maybe not.

I have no idea.

Okay.

But you should enjoy it.

I'm enjoying it, I enjoyed the galls.

You said they caused no problem.

Yeah, they're just there.

They're just there, all right, thank you.

Thank you.

All right, do we have another critter question, Carla?

So this is an old sorority sister of mine.

It is.

How are you?

That ages us.

That ages us.

Yeah.

I have a critter question about voles.

Okay.

So who takes that question?

Okay, so we're several of us here today are with the butterfly garden at Veterans' Park in Papillion.

And we have had one of the wings of our butterfly garden that has had all kinds of voles and we've tried multiple ways of eradicating them, including juicy fruit gum.

(laughing) That doesn't work, okay.

But anyway, what would you recommend, that has been an ongoing problem all season?

So voles are what we call micro team rodents, they'll go from 25 per acre, up to 250 per acre and then just crash on their own.

So you can wait a little bit and they'll crash or you can use what's called a box or trap.

These will hold up to 15 and you put 'em out overnight with just a little bird seed or grass seed.

And you have to check 'em every morning, morning, but you, they will go in there and follow each other.

So you need to get four or five of these traps.

There's several brands you can get 'em on the web.

One's called catchall, one's called tin cat, one's called Victor's box trap.

A lot of different brands, none are better than the other.

And that's probably the best way, you probably don't want to use any poison seed because then you're going to hurt the birds that will eat the carcasses of the dead voles and you know, hawks and things like that.

So we want to avoid that.

So capture works very well and all you do is you need to nestle these boxes near their trails.

Okay.

And then you have to drown them.

Oh.

You don't have to.

Okay, I might be calling you about that, all right.

Thank you very much.

You're welcome.

Okay.

I got a disease question.

A disease question.

Hi, I'm Marilyn from Lincoln.

And my question is in regards to the powdery mildew on peony bushes.

This year we have several different peony bushes, some have it, some have it really bad.

So I've been watching the show, those that had it really bad I've cut 'em down to the ground, cleaned it up.

Now what's gonna happen next spring when they come up?

You will have powdery mildew.

So unfortunately it's, you know, pretty much every year, it, it will, it will come back.

You've, you've done all the right things by cleaning everything up.

You've removed a lot of the inoculum.

However, there will be some of that fungus that, that will, that will still be there.

And so if, if you can thin them early next year and try to try to thin the peonies, just to anything you can do to increase airflow through the canopy will decrease the amount of powdery mildew that you see.

Those, those certain couple varieties that you would have, that aren't, were you not seeing any powdery mildew, those could easily be, have some resistance as well.

And so you could try to encourage more of the resistant peonies to grow.

But unfortunately it will come back next year, as long as there's not adequate airflow through the canopy.

Okay, so when you're saying thinning, that's different than dividing 'em?

It's like you can kind of go in there and clip the branches and... Yeah just, yeah.

More airflow.

Some pruning to yeah, pruning to increase airflow through the canopy.

Okay, thank you.

After they flower.

Yes.

Yes, yes.

Horticulture.

Yes.

Excellent.

Hi.

So hi, thank you for being here.

Have a question about, we planted a peach tree and it didn't even make it through the first year and it, it died.

And so we, but we had been watching and so we, we let it have another year, right.

And it didn't do anything, but, but it did, but suckers shot up and like one shot up like several feet.

So we're wondering like if we trimmed all the other suckers back and then trim the, the, the dead tree down, I mean the things like four or five feet tall now, will it be productive at all?

Or is that just a waste of time.

Vaugn, where are you?

No, probably not.

Probably because it is suckers are, you know, the tree, once it dies, it's the roots way of trying to save the tree.

It needs foliage for photosynthesis.

So it'll shoot up those suckers, but they're usually weekly attached.

I mean, I know some people will keep 'em and they'll try to grow 'em as, you know, a shrub or, and see what happens just for the fun of it.

But it's usually a cultivar and it's probably came from below the graft.

So you're not gonna have the cultivar you bought.

And I, I think you're much better off just purchasing a new tree.

Start over.

And yeah, peach trees are tough to grow in Nebraska, but good luck.

Thank you.

You can, you can grow 'em just, there's certain cultivars.

We had two bug questions coming.

Two insect questions, all right.

I'm Carol from Randolph, Iowa.

And I have a question about my squash blossoms.

I have ants on them, is that good or bad?

They're just there, they're probably either collecting like extra floral nectars or they're eating aphids.

So they're not bad?

I love ants, so I would say they're probably just doing ant things, being predators.

Maybe, they're, it shouldn't be a bad thing.

Thank you very much.

You're welcome.

Hi Jack.

Yeah I got a question, I was, you see yesterday, I worked at farmer Dave's he owns a produce thing over by Lanaha.

He owns a farm, and I was working in his greenhouse and he told me he has a problem with, with grass hoppers.

He wants to know a way to like remove them organically.

He's got like a greenhouse full of tomatoes and peppers and they're, they're everywhere in there.

Yeah so right now's not a good time to get rid of grasshoppers cause they're pro, they're really big right now.

Oh yeah.

So next year when they're little, he can probably do some mowing of the weeds that are close by that greenhouse.

And that will be organic cause there won't be any chemicals there, okay?

Excellent.

In back down, skipping the men.

Skipping the men, all right, Kelly.

You're in the hot seat.

Hi, I'm pat from Omaha, I have a question.

I have a garden in the front where these mulberries are growing up and because I don't have the strength to pull them out, I just keep cutting them down.

But is there a way to kill them with some type of a poison, herbicide type of thing that will not kill everything around it?

Is it a, are they, you said a garden they're growing in a garden.

So like a vegetable garden?

A garden, i don't have space between my plants.

Is that a flower like that garden or a vegetable?

Is it a flower garden?

It's flowers and ornamental grasses.

Like again, so probably, I mean glyphosate and doing the glove of death, you can, the other option is you can clip 'em, you can mix glyphosate or round up with some 2, 4-D and you can, as you clip 'em you can treat that stump kind of a cut stump treatment, but you have to do it within five minutes of cutting it.

You can't cut it, and then, you know, the next day or a few hours later, come back, you need to be ready to treat it right there.

The problem is when they're small, you know, it's a small stump.

Right.

But that is another option.

If you don't wanna do the glove of death, I mean, those are pretty much your two options.

Okay, thank you.

So, and obviously with the glyphosate, don't get it on anything else in the garden that you don't wanna kill.

I thought I'd put boxes around and just kind of stand there and hold them.

I realize not to get it on me.

I've one that, I've taken like cardboard and put it by a weed and then sprayed between the plant, my good plant and the plant I was trying to kill and sprayed it, and just that worked.

I mean, I tried it in Ohio with a glove.

I had plastic and then a cloth glove and I had thistle everywhere, I could not get rid of it.

We were kind of out in the country.

Oh my gosh.

And that's another toughie.

Yeah.

Once you let trees grow, the best thing with trees is in that spring when they're germinating and they're growing and all summer long, just keep an eye out for 'em.

And you know, I work with master gardeners in a garden and I'm the one that goes around and pulls all the little tree seedlings because I know what's gonna happen if we let 'em go too long, so.

There were, there were a lot of things that went too long when we moved into the house, so.

Yeah, that happens.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Are we?

Jody.

Jody?

Hi, this is Melody from Waterloo and I just learned about Asian jumping worms this past week.

Are they in Nebraska?

And if they are, will they over winter?

They, they have an annual life cycle.

So even if they do make it through the winter, I mean, if you've got like, if you take your pots inside and they're in the soil, they may live a little while up there, but usually they don't live as adults over winter, but they'll leave these little cocoons in the soil, and that's how we've found that they've been transferred around.

So the cocoons will over winter.

Yeah, but if you have them, they would be very large now, they may be like this long.

They thrash around.

They are unmistakably not the the earthworms we're used to the, not the night crawlers.

They live very close to the surface, they will, If you're mulch has been decreasing rapidly, it could be.

But you will see 'em if you're digging and they, they will thrash out of the ground.

So, basically the only way to control them is to hand pick 'em out?

Well, yeah, we'll say hand pick, but right now we're not sure what overall will happen in the environment when they're here.

So we're just telling people to monitor them.

They're so widespread right now, you know, find out what's growing good in your garden and what's not growing well.

And you know, maybe we'll just learn to live with them.

Okay, thank you.

Next question.

First of all, thank you for being here.

And I wanted to know if anybody can identify this.

It it's growing in my flower garden and it's about five and a half, six foot tall.

What'd you say?

Elderberry.

That is off the main stem.

Elderberry.

Oh, okay, yes, oh I, it's just the leaf.

Its just one leaf.

Now that I get a close look at it.

Yeah.

You brought me part of the compound leaf and elderberry as Kim said it is.

So get rid of it?

Will it come back next year?

Yeah, it'll come back.

It's a big elderberry is a great, big, huge, huge shrub, it'll get 12 feet by 12 feet.

It'll get great big, it's not an annual it's, it's yeah, if you probably, if you don't want it growing there, then I would get rid of it sooner rather than later.

Okay thank you very much.

It, it's gonna be out.

Or.

I had elderberry on my acreage.

I made elderberry wine.

Yeah, they the.

I don't have the room for it.

Okay.

It's not a bad plant.

You don't have room for wine?

That's too bad.

Yeah, it's not a bad plant, but it's a huge plant.

So it's growing where you don't want it.

Cute.

Hello, my name is Ruth I'm from Omaha.

And last year I had a really bad problem with orange aphids all over my milk weed.

This year, I have it on my butterfly Bush and it actually killed the butterfly Bush.

And I tried you guys, I know you say to squirt it, but you gotta pull it off too.

You gotta wash it with your hand.

And I just, is there anything you can spray on them.

Is it, is it butterfly weed?

Like the milk weed, right?

Yeah, no, it's a butterfly bush I got.

Because oleander aphids there, it might be a different type of aphid.

Only aphids are always on milkweed.

So if you've got like honey vine milkweed wrapped around, sometimes you'll have them on there.

It's like a strong spray of water, but it's like repeated.

Yeah, I did every day and use my hand, try to get 'em off of there.

Now they're mostly gone, but I just.

Yeah, I started pruning some of the ones at the top when they first started coming.

So the thing with aphids is that they do not need to mate to reproduce.

So when you spray 'em down, if there's still some left, they'll reproduce really quickly.

So I would say like, you know, every four to five days go out and spray it with a hose.

They're mostly gone now, but again, thank you guys so much just my dream to see you all.

Thank you.

Thanks, I think we have one more and then we're finished for digging.

Thank you.

I'm from Seward county and this is a Forsythia question.

And so anyway, I have a struggling Forsythia that I'm not ready to give up on, but there's a volunteer tree now that is growing right up through the shrub.

And so anyway, if I would cut that volunteer tree down to the ground and tordon it, or do you do something awful to it?

You'll probably lose your Forsythia unfortunately.

Okay, so, so any, any options.

That just same, you main the main options that I've already covered, I mean, you just continually keep treating it you try the glove of death with glyphosate or you treat it with like a, like a glyphosate or Roundup in 2, 4-D mixture.

So when you clip it, treat it.

Okay.

Immediately, and if it's a smaller trunk, I mean, you're gonna have to, you probably are, just watch it as soon as it, I think the problem is sometimes we cut those back and then we wait 'til they're really big again.

Right.

And they have a chance to photosynthesize and produce more stored food and then that just, you take one step forward and two steps back or whatever.

Right, the tree is growing much better than the forsythia.

So you just, you just, you need to be diligent and you just, you have to wait till those roots run outta stored food and you can't let any foliage grow on that for any length of time.

Or like I said, one step forward, two steps back.

All right, thank you.

So sure.

And that is actually all the time we have tonight for digging deeper.

We want thank all of you for giving us those questions, letting us dig deep.

You can watch us, of course we get posted.

And of course you wanna watch Backyard Farmer.

(audience clapping) (upbeat music)