[Narrator] Celebrating 70 years of answering your gardening questions.

"Backyard Farmer" is a co-production of Nebraska Public Media and Nebraska Extension.

Tonight on "Backyard Farmer," we have a special remote broadcast from Vala's Pumpkin Patch in Gretna, Nebraska.

That's all coming up next right here on "Backyard Farmer."

(tranquil music) (tranquil music) (audience applauds) -(cheerful piano music) -(audience applauds) Hello and welcome to Backyard Farmer.

I'm Kim Todd, I'm hosting the show tonight.

We are so glad to be here at Vala's Pumpkin Patch.

We can't take your calls tonight, no phones, but you can still send us those emails to byf@unl.edu Tell us where you're from, give us as much information as possible.

And of course, you can follow us on YouTube and Facebook, get all that other great information.

We start the show always with samples, and Jody, you brought something I don't like, but you have it well caged.

-Yeah, -(audience laughs) double bagged, sort of.

I'm pretty excited whenever I'm on a live show, that I can bring a spider.

If you know me, I love spiders, so I identify a lot of them.

And I wanted to bring a brown recluse spider today, and shout out to Brian who found this for me.

I don't know if you can focus on it, but this is probably one of the larger brown recluse spiders that you would see.

We measure these spiders in total body length, so it's their cephalothorax and their abdomen, not necessarily like their legs, 'cause that's usually a lot bigger.

But a brown recluse spider will be a half an inch or shorter as body length.

And, you know, sometimes people think, because they have such a bad reputation, that they're spiny and they look scarier, but really they're really boring and brown.

So their legs and their abdomen are not gonna have any markings but brown.

It's just a uniform color.

Their legs won't have spines or stripes.

So when you think of like your wolf spiders, or you think about jumping spiders, or anything that's colorful, or bright, or have patterns, not gonna be a brown recluse spider.

Some spiders may look like they have a fiddle or that violin, but it's going to be the eye arrangement.

So their eyes, most spiders have eight eyes, brown recluse spiders have six, in three pairs, and it's shaped as a U.

So if you ever want me to identify your spider for you, if you can get a photo of the eyes, even if you've smashed it, -(audience laughs) -then that will help me determine whether it's a brown recluse or not.

I've got a littler one in here, which, if you can see right in there.

So they're just not as big, as scary as we think they are.

But like any other spiders, they are not gonna bite you unless they're touched, like on your skin, if you put your foot in a shoe, or, you know, your arm in a shirt, and they're pressed up against the body.

So you wanna just shake out your gardening shoes or anything like that for any spiders.

-Absolutely, do that.

-(Jody and audience laugh) All right, Dennis, what did you bring?

Okay, so a lot of us have problems these days with 13-lined ground squirrels, the little striped guys.

We don't have any chipmunks in Nebraska, but we have 13-lined ground squirrels.

And this is a cage.

Now, lots of times I talk about cages and different things you use to keep animals away or to catch animals.

Most of this stuff, I build myself.

So people always ask, "Where can I get this?"

Build it.

So all this is is a one foot piece of hardware cloth with just little ties.

And then in it, there is a flap.

And this just, you just cut this one, and so the prongs are there, and so the hole for the squirrels here.

You just poke this in the ground, you pour water down the hole.

And since 13-lined ground squirrels have a very closed system, they'll come up, and then they can't get out because they're standing on this little flap that you make, and you have them.

Okay?

And you can move 'em up to a hundred yards, in which they probably will not come back to your yard.

If you move, 'em a hundred yards.

And that's probably the best way to get a 13-lined ground squirrel.

[Kim] Love it.

-All right, thanks Dennis.

-(Laughter) Okay, Kyle, on that note, you have a rot and a spot.

I do, and it's so, you know, I spend a lot of time talking about diseases on desirable plants, but, you know, a fungus doesn't care if it's a weed, or if it's a vegetable, or what.

And so I actually have a hedgerow at my house that's being strangled by catbrier.

And I was out tearing out some of the vines, and I found these very beautiful fungal spots on there.

And so this is septoria leaf spot on a catbrier.

And I don't know if you can see it on the camera, I know the audience certainly can't see it, but there's a whole bunch of black little pimples, or kind of specks, that are in circles, circle arrangement just within those, within those spots, within those lesions.

And each one of those specks is going to be full of spores.

And so then, when we talk about favorable environmental conditions, and so that, when there's adequate moisture, those little specks or pimples kind of open up, and they will forcefully eject spores, which will then spread onto other plants.

In this case, I'm going to try to encourage septoria to kill the catbrier, because the thorns are a little bit too rough, and I am having a heck of a time actually controlling it.

So fingers are crossed.

I may have discovered a new biological control product.

(audience laughs) [Kim] (laughs) Love it, thanks Kyle.

All right, Kelly, what did you bring?

Okay, well this is the time of the year that our trees, many of our trees are maturing their fruit.

In this case, I have a honey locust pod and a Kentucky coffeetree pod.

And, probably, this prompts questions, often, about, can I grow a tree from a seed?

Well, obviously we can, but we have temperate zone trees in Nebraska, so you need to collect that seed when it's mature, put it in a little bit of moist, maybe moist peat moss, put it in the fridge for at least three to four months, to trick it into thinking it went through the winter.

And then on these, they're kinda hard seeds, so when you take them out, it's a good idea to scarify 'em, or scarify 'em, and that's, like, take a file, or something, and rub 'em, and then plant 'em and see if you can grow a tree, if it's a type of tree that you want.

Kentucky coffeetree is a native tree to Nebraska.

It's an awesome tree.

Note, these seeds and the fruit and whatnot can be poisonous, so just FYI.

Excellent, all right, thanks.

Okay, you get the first round of questions, Jody, and you have five, basically.

Your first one comes to us from North Platte.

Found this little guy in a greenhouse.

The plant was brought in from Denver.

Good guy or bad guy?

[Jody] This is a green soldier fly.

So it's a good guy, I guess.

So, as larvae, 'cause you know, they all have a life cycle, different stages.

As larvae, they are decomposers, and then as adults, they may nectar on flowers.

So if it's on the flower, it's good.

[Kim] All right, and your next question comes to us from five miles east of Lincoln.

It's a little blurrier, but I think it was that same thing.

And then your next one is this gold beetle.

[Jody] Yeah, this is cool.

This is a mottled tortoise beetle, and we had a lot of these, this year, larvae feeding on things.

They were the weird little larvae that had those forks at the rear end that collected poop.

They and the adults will feed on different plants.

This was horseradish, but I think these holes were probably made by a horseradish flea beetle.

[Kim] Right, not the little gold guy.

No, and the gold guys, you can hand pick those off.

[Kim] Right, and they're cool, they're gold.

-Yeah, they're cool.

-Yeah.

All right, how do you control the horseradish flea beetle?

[Jody] It usually doesn't do a whole lot of damage.

If there's a really heavy population, you can use something like kaolin clay.

-[Kim] Okay.

-[Jody] It's a little messy, but it's organic.

[Kim] All right, and you have one more, and this is from Crofton, Nebraska.

They wanna know which fruit they should look at for being damaged by this fruit fly, if it is indeed a fruit fly.

[Jody] So it is a fruit fly, and it's called a walnut husk maggot fly, and it likes walnut husks, -so no worries -(audience laughs) about it there for your fruit.

All right, so just the walnuts.

Yes.

-All right, Dennis.

-Yes, give 'em to me.

(panelists laugh) [Kim] Your first question comes to us from Rembrandt, Iowa.

And he found a snake in the water pressure pit of his farm well, and he wants to know what it is.

[Dennis] It's a plains garter snake, Thamnophis radix.

They eat worms and insects, and, unfortunately, this one must have got caught in a propeller or something, 'cause it doesn't look alive anymore.

[Kim] (laughs) All right, you have two pictures on the next one.

This comes to us from Norfolk.

Several holes in the backyard, started to see them this spring, and then it's grown over the summer.

It's mostly shaded, not much turf, different size holes and no soil around the holes.

[Dennis] Yeah, these holes look round enough in the soil, so it could be an earthworm coming out through dry soil, or maybe a grub or a spider hole, but it's definitely not a vertebrate hole, just because the way they are, and there's no scratch marks around the hole, and they're so perfect.

The other slight possibility, could be a bird pecking down for grubs or worms, but it looks so uniformly round, I'm gonna go with some kind of arthropod coming up through that dry soil.

[Kim] All right, two pictures on the next one.

This is nine miles south of Holdrege, four to five digs in the backyard next to an orchard.

Hole's about an inch in diameter, soil mound is actually fairly fine.

How about this one?

[Dennis] This is a plains pocket gopher.

They mainly eat, you know, roots, not roots of turf, but things like alfalfa, irises, or anything that has a substantial root material.

And you could tell by the fan shaped part, and the fine coffee ground dirt, and the hole next to it.

[Kim] All right, and one more for you.

And this one is Fox Hollow, Lincoln.

What is this?

[Dennis] This looks more like a mole work.

So it looks like the ground isn't chunky and it's upheaved, so I would say an eastern mole is in there, and they don't eat the turf, but they rip the turf as they swim through the turf, looking for grubs, primarily earthworms, but they can also go after ants and grubs.

[Kim] All right, thanks Dennis.

Okay, Kyle, your first one comes to us from Lincoln.

This is an established zoysia grass lawn, Roch's favorite.

He says it appears to be succumbing to brown patch.

And the question, really, is if they overseed with tall fescue, will they still have brown patch?

[Kyle] So, kind of, is really the way to answer it.

So on zoysia grass, the fungus that causes brown patch is rhizoctonia solani, and in zoysia, it causes large patch, is what we call it.

On fescue it's the exact same fungus.

It causes brown patch.

So you'll have the disease, the fungus is still there.

It's going to going to be a problem, yes.

[Kim] All right, two pictures on this next one.

This is a plantation fescue, which is 100% one variety.

And what happens and what is this, any idea?

[Kyle] Yeah, well it's one of the downsides of diagnosing turf problems, is everything just looks like a nondescript spot in the yard, but I think what's going on here is that, possibly dollar spot.

It did look like there is maybe some kind of cobwebby or some mycelial growth between the, that's kind of in the dead turf area there.

If it is dollar spot, one of the best fungicides applied at, when you start to see symptoms, is really going to be your best control there.

[Kim] All right, and one more, and this came to us from multiple people.

This one's Gretna.

Purple dome asters, and yes, no, it's not spider mites.

What is it?

[Kyle] This is what asters do.

They die from the bottom up.

As those lower leaves get shaded out, they're not doing, they're no longer, they're no longer serving much of a purpose, and so they just start to die.

[Kim] (laughs) And that's just the way it is.

And that's just the way it is, yep.

-(panelists laugh) -All right.

Kelly, you have two pictures on this one.

-This is from Omaha, -Okay.

[Kim] and they're growing in the backyard, three to four feet tall.

Flower or weed?

[Kelly] Okay, well, this is American bellflower, so it's one of our natives, and I guess it's in the eye of the beholder, whether it's a weed or a flower, but it's not like a noxious weed, it's not on the invasive list.

Like I said, it's one of our natives.

They do get quite large, very pretty blue flowers.

I noticed in the picture that there's one, the spike has lots of seed capsules, so, and they are an annual.

So if you don't want it, then I would be clipping those seed capsules and getting that out of there fairly quickly.

But American bellflower's the name of it.

[Kim] All right, thanks, Kelly.

Two pictures on this one.

This is a weed growing in the peonies, but it's not really the weed, it's what do we do about peonies.

-So it's both.

-[Kelly] Okay.

Well the weed itself is dayflower, or Asiatic dayflower, and it is another annual, and it's actually a grass that kind of looks like a broadleaf, but they can grow along the ground and root down at each node, so they can spread, but they are an annual, they're easy to pull in the landscape.

If you stay on top of it, they're fairly easy to control, and don't let 'em bloom and go to seed.

So what was the peony question?

[Kim] Well, cut 'em back or let 'em stand?

[Kelly] Well, wait a little while yet on the peonies.

I would wait until September to cut them back, and then it's a good idea to get them cut back.

[Kim] All right, and one more, Kelly, and this is actually one who backyard was flooded.

[Kelly] Okay.

[Kim] And then this weed came in, three to four feet tall.

What do we think on that?

[Kelly] Okay, I'm not 100% sure what this weed is.

I mean, when you first look at it, it looks like a thistle, but there's not enough spines, I don't think, on the edges of the leaves.

So it's probably one of the biennials.

There's a 10 petal spike leaf, it could be that, there's different kinds of lettuces, it could be that, but I'm not 100% sure.

If it was in a flooded area, maybe it had enough moisture, and it's growing really, really succulent.

But if I would, there's also a tall thistle where the leaves are not quite as prickly, but it can get really tall.

So it could be that.

That one's a biennial, an annual, no, that's a biennial.

So I would get it cut out of there.

I know, hopefully you can get at it, and get it cut out of there, As a biennial if you get it cut out, and don't let it bloom and go to seed, it'll be gone next year.

All right, thanks gang.

So in just a few weeks, the area around us will be absolutely beautiful in terms of the landscape.

The great thing is our Vala's landscape crew is going to tell us just exactly what has to happen to make this happen.

(tranquil music) (tranquil music) [Narrator] When you walk into Vala's Pumpkin Patch and Apple Orchard, you experience the seamless beauty of the landscape, but behind the scenes is a crew of people working all year long to bring the fall foliage to life.

[Vaughn] It's a long process of just getting everything in place, and the beds prepped, and all of the containers, and literally there's hundreds and hundreds of containers here on the farm, and just getting all those inventoried and planted.

And then, of course, maintaining them is a huge, huge job.

[Meaghan] There's a lot more that goes into the landscape here than you could actually think of.

It's not just one little garden at the house, it's a bunch of little gardens on a huge acreage.

It just takes a lot of time and work.

[Vaughn] Our main challenge is the fact that we are only open from very late August, basically Labor Day weekend, through October 31st, so we need things that we can plant later and bloom later.

So really that starts about December.

[Meaghan] In the wintertime, I order all the plants, so it takes months to figure out all the plants we want to get.

My crew starts coming in around April.

And so they start helping me a lot more.

The 1st of June, we get the plants in.

June, July, full time, putting all the annuals in the ground, and getting everything, just set up and going.

And then we start transitioning into pulling weeds, getting all the weeds under control, and watering super heavy right before season to keep everything looking really good.

[Narrator] As the team puts in hours of work to make the farm look perfect, each team member finds one plant they like best.

[Meaghan] One of my favorites here is the coleus.

I like it because we have so many colors of 'em.

They come in, like, yellows and orange, and then we have the solid orange, the solid reds, and they just, they add so much character.

[Vaughn] I'd have to say zinnias, actually, because they're so beautiful, so colorful, relatively easy to grow, but they just give a huge splash of color.

And they just look festive and joyful.

[Narrator] Working with plants brings Vala's landscape team a lot of happiness.

However, their biggest joy is watching others experience their work.

[Meaghan] I get a lot of comments during season of how beautiful the flowers are, and all the different locations of, "Oh, I took a family picture here last year.

This was so pretty there last year.

We wanna do it again.

We can't believe how much you guys put into this to keep it so pretty."

It means a lot to me.

It's what keeps me going throughout the year.

Just knowing that I did all of this with my team, and there's thousands of people that see it every day, and how much they appreciate it.

[Vaughn] Vala's is about making magical memories, essentially.

And you know, that's kids, and families, and everything.

And when the kids are playing, you know, having the beautiful landscape for the parents and grandparents to enjoy, and just the beauty and the ambience that the landscape creates is one of the major components of Vala's.

(audience applauds) [KimÑAnd thanks to Vaughn and Meaghan for that great segment.

We were commenting on the way up the driveway, though, we're sure glad we don't have to hand water all those containers, especially this year.

All right, next round of questions.

Jody, you have three pictures on this first one.

20 foot tall burr oak, and a single leaf was skeletonized then this, and these things on these next two pictures showed up on the other side.

What are they?

What do they turn into?

How do we control them or get rid of them?

And this is in Lincoln.

[Jody] Okay, so these are oak slug sawflies, and this was the year of the sawfly.

So those look cool.

(Kim and audience laugh) And they all feed really close together.

So a sawfly is a non-stinging wasp, but really small.

You would never even notice it if you saw it, 'cause it's super tiny.

It's not gonna sting, you would never be afraid, but their larvae are pests of plants, and so they will feed on that.

It's the underside of the leaf and they just skeletonize it.

If they're gone, they've probably fallen and there's no need to manage it at all.

And it's not gonna ruin the tree.

So nothing.

[Kim] True confessions, that's my tree, so.

-(all laugh) -So cool.

And you didn't bring me one?

[Kim] All right, your next one comes to us from central Nebraska.

And it's a, what is this?

[Jody] Okay, so this was a really cool caterpillar, because we had a lot of calls about these earlier this year, they are hackberry emperor butterflies, but there was like a whole kind of swarm or bloom of them along the Missouri River, especially in Nebraska City, but they overwinter as larvae.

So when we say leave the leaves around hackberry trees, they're gonna be rolled up, curled up in leaves and debris to spend the winter, and they'll turn into really cute little butterflies next year.

[Kim] Wonderful, all right, our next one comes to us from Omaha, and it is, what is this creature, and is it a friend or a foe?

[Jody] This is a caterpillar of an underwing moth, and that's all I can say about it.

I don't know what host plant it is, and it's probably one of the creepiest caterpillars I've ever seen.

(all laugh) So whether it's good or bad, it doesn't matter, it's creepy.

(Kim and audience laugh) -It's creepy.

-It's probably a moth now, so it's good.

Okay.

(laughs) Okay, Dennis, one picture on this one, and all dog lovers, this is for you.

"Why does my dog root in the grass?

Doesn't seem to be eating the blades of grass, but is eating something."

[Dennis] Yes, it's eating the scat of rabbits.

(audience groans) Rabbits are what we call coprophagy, which means they have brown, round little things and green, round little things.

The green ones means they're getting enough food, and they'll come back later to eat those green, round things.

And so the dog, it's just eating rabbit scat, -(panelists laugh) -and it's not gonna hurt the dog in any way or form.

It'll get some vegetation in its diet.

-(audience laughs) -[Kim] Okay.

You have three pictures on your next one, and this one comes to us, actually, also from Omaha, Dennis, and the description is, looks like tunnels that are very soft, and then holes all over the lawn in a non-irrigated area.

What is this, and what can be done about it?

[Dennis] This is the eastern mole, and what it's doing is trying to go from one place to the next that may have some moisture, but it's going after ants and earthworms in the soil.

So as it swims through the soil, it's upheaving the soil.

Now, if you run out there really quick, and you step the soil down and water it, it won't die, the turf.

But if you leave it upheaved, those roots have been ripped, and with the dry weather we're having, the turf is gonna die in these paths.

[Kim] And you get rid of the moles by whack-a-mole, or what?

Yeah, you can whack-a-mole, there's several ways.

There's different harpoon traps, there's also a toxicant.

If you wanna use a toxicant that birds won't eat, it looks like a gummy worm.

Do not cut these, do not touch these, but you put 'em into the tunnels, about and when it's less than 100 degrees out, the mole will eat those overnight, and And again, that's a type of poison that's mainly just for moles.

All right, thanks Dennis.

One more, and this comes to us from Fremont.

What is eating our beets and is there anything they can do?

And they do have lots of 'wascallies' in [Dennis] Yeah, so since this is underground, and those incisor marks are up to a half-inch, this is the plains pocket gopher.

Like I said previously, the gopher likes tubers, and it's just going under.

And so, it isn't moles that'll pull down the plants like in Caddyshack, -(audience laughs) -it is the plains pocket gopher that will do that.

And this is definitely the teeth marks of the plains pocket gopher.

-[Kim] All right.

-How to get rid of it?

This, you can use a poison bait, but you probably can't use it, I know you can't use it, where you're growing vegetable crops.

So there are traps that you can place called Macabee traps, that you can place down in the tunnels or the holes to get rid of these guys.

All right, thanks Dennis.

Okay, Kyle, three pictures on this first one.

[Kyle] Okay.

[Kim] This is an Elkhorn viewer, has a tree that has been dripping sap in one spot year after year after year.

In his pictures, he's showing an arrow where the drip line comes, and then he's showing the pool at the bottom.

[Kyle] Yeah, so it's, the tree's not actually dripping sap.

It's dripping either bacteria or a yeasty mixture.

And so this is either bacterial wetwood or slime flux.

Bacterial wetwood is caused by about 17 different types of bacteria.

Slime flux is caused by a whole bunch of different types of yeasts.

And it's not actually pathogenic on the tree.

Instead, what it happens is As it, as the, as the bacteria or yeast increase in volume in the tree, they increase the internal pressure of the tree, and they wanna escape somewhere, and so often it's going to be some sort of wound, or if you've done any pruning, you may see the bacteria kind of oozing out of the wound.

But then the pooled area at the bottom, where all that turf is dead, that shows one of the other things that slime flux and wetwood does, is it raises the internal pH of the tree, and that can end up killing the, and that can be toxic to any grass or plants beneath the tree.

Nice thing is, though, again, it's not a pathogen.

And if anything, there's some research out there that shows that it can decrease fungal infection of the trees because of that elevated pH inside of the tree.

[Kim] Interesting, all right.

Two pictures on this next one.

This is Elkhorn, and the description is, what is this gel goop on the tree?

[Kyle] Yeah, this one probably is a pathogen, and a little bit not quite as desirable.

This is either bacterial canker, or one of our old friends, fireblight.

Anytime you're having a lot of bacteria that just are oozing out of a canker, it's typically not a good sign for the tree.

The tree is likely not too long for this world, and you may need to start preparing yourself for a replacement.

[Kim] All right, Kyle, and one more, and this is lilac, and pretty much everybody, probably, in our audience has this question, so we're gonna answer it quickly, because you're gonna do a segment on it.

[Kyle] It's, yeah, I think that this picture may have been taken from my lilacs as well, but this is Cercospora leaf spot.

It's a fungal pathogen that's really increased over the last couple of years.

Not a whole lot to do for it right now.

There is some evidence that shows that an early fungicide application in the spring may be effective.

But at this point, those leaves have already done their job.

It's purely cosmetic.

[Kim] All right, thanks, Kyle.

Kelly, two pictures for you on this first one.

-[Kelly] Okay.

-[Kim] This comes to us from Schuyler, Chanticleer pear, one is doing fine, two others are hardly growing at all.

-[Kelly] Okay.

-[Kim] What do we think -is going on here?

-[Kelly] Okay, well, I mean, obviously it's not a disease or insect, or it wouldn't have come to me, but I'm guessing there's probably a related issue for some reason, because both of the trees are still staked, the smaller ones, so that tells me those trees are probably still wobbly, and they're not developing their roots.

The big question is why.

And I always say, if I could X-ray your tree, if I could look underground, I could give you more than an educated guess.

But it could, the trees look like they're planted a little bit too deep.

That might be part of the issue.

They're in a different location, so that might have been closer to the main construction site, and that soil was way more compacted or, you know, sometimes when they do construction, they'll dig a hole and dump a whole bunch of trash in it, and sometimes we find out that that's why the trees aren't growing as well.

So, but it looks, they're pretty decent size.

If they're still wobbly when you take off those stakes, 'cause trees should only be staked for one year after planting, they're probably best to replace them, and don't replace them with an ornamental pear, please, because they're now on our invasive list.

All right, thanks, Kelly.

Your next one comes to us from Kensington, Kansas.

[Kelly] Okay.

[Kim] And it's ninebark, about seven years old.

It kind of leafed out, then it's kind of looking squirrely now, she's got all this growth at the base, and one that's turning green.

So what does she do here?

[Kelly] Okay, well, it's kind of a purple leafed one, so my guess is it's Diablo, 'cause that was such a popular one for a while.

And the reason it's turning green at the base is 'cause it's kind of reverting back.

It's probably, I think, is Diablo grafted?

I think it is, but I'm not sure.

But most likely it's grafted, and so, it's just reverting back.

You're gonna have to prune out those green ones if you don't want them.

The dead branches, my Diablo does the exact same thing, and in the spring I always have a bunch of dead branches, so I just keep clipping 'em out.

Sometimes one or two will die over the winter.

I just clip them out.

If it's a hardiness thing, if it's something with that graft, it's hard to say, but just keep clipping them out.

And if you get sick of doing that, you can always replace or rogue.

Loren's not here, so.

-(all laugh) -[Kim] Rogue it.

[Kelly] Rogue it.

[Kim] Rogue it out.

[Kelly] Replace it with... [Kim] All right, one more, Kelly, and this is one picture.

It comes to us from Humphrey.

The question is, "Can a hibiscus be successfully transplanted?"

She has a catalpa coming up through the middle of it, and she also wonders whether she can use Tordon and not kill everything in sight.

[Kelly] Okay, well no, don't use the Tordon, 'cause you'll probably kill the hibiscus as well as the Catalpa, and yes, they can be transplanted.

I think I would do a hibiscus, maybe, in the spring rather than the fall.

But if you're going, you can transplant it this fall, and if you do, I'd say in early September, you'll wanna get that done.

Hopefully you don't take the catalpa with you when you transplant it.

All right, thanks Kelly.

Well, you know, our garden is now in full harvest mode, which is great because we've been able to do another bumper crop, and that produce goes to local food banks.

Here's Terri, who's gonna tell us more about that out at the Backyard Farmer Garden.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) [Terri] This week in the Backyard Farmer Garden, we have now harvested almost 300 pounds of produce, so we're really excited about that.

Remember, you are able to bring produce on Tuesday evenings from 4:30 to 7:00, or on Saturday mornings from 9:00 to 11:00.

So if you have extra zucchini, or tomatoes, or anything, stop by the Backyard Farmer Garden and drop those off.

We are now in our process of making sure everything looks great.

We are taking inventory of what did well, what didn't.

Some of those bare spots of some of those plants that are coming out, we're now kind of past that fall seeding window, and we're gonna start adding our cover crops in to protect our soil over the winter.

The garden is looking fantastic.

We have some great fall colors starting, and everything is fun, and it's so much cooler.

Please stop by the Backyard Farmer Garden and check it out.

(audience applauds) We do hope to see you with that extra produce Tuesday evening, Saturday morning, or just come for all the fun.

And it is now time for us to take a short break.

Stay with us, there's much more Backyard Farmer and the plant of the week, right after this.

(tranquil music) (tranquil music) (tranquil music) [Up-lifting Music] [Up-lifting Music] [Up-lifting Music] [Up-lifting Music] [Up-lifting Music] (tranquil music) (audience applauds) [Kim] Welcome back to Backyard Farmer.

Do remember this is a taped program, so we can't take those calls.

You can still send us those emails, of course, to byf@unl.edu.

It is now time for, no lightning, but plant of the week.

-Okay.

-Kelly, what do we have?

Well, we have a couple of different carexes here, and that's the grassy-like plant, but it's not a grass, it's a carex, or a sedge.

And the one on my left, your right, I guess, is palm sedge.

And this is very, and the one on the, my right, your left, is gray sedge.

So both of them are, they're carex, they're great to use in rain gardens.

However, the palm sedge, Kim likes to say, can be a thug.

So, you know, if all you want in your garden is carex that grows across the bottom, will tolerate that rain, then palm sedge will do that for you, 'cause it kind of out competes and takes over.

If you want one that behaves a little bit better, then the gray sedge, this is the one with the seed head, that one's gonna behave a little bit better for you.

The colorful flowers are gomphrena.

They're one of our everlastings, so they're ones that you can just clip 'em, and they'll last for a long time.

You don't have to dry 'em, they essentially air dry on the stem, somewhat, but they're a pretty tough little plant, and a great everlasting.

[Kim] So again, when you bring that produce to our garden, you can see those two, because they came out of our rain chain.

All right, Jody, next round of pictures is yours.

The first one is a tomato question.

We had a couple of these come in, and this one is, anything they could do to keep the tomatoes from cracking?

And then, I mean, what do we have going on, on tomatoes that are cracking?

[Jody] I'm not the tomato person, so I would say, I don't know what you can keep.

I still eat them.

These bugs, though, on the tomatoes, these are oleander aphids on the honey vine milkweed that's wrapped around, so if you wanna get rid of these bugs, I would pull that from the root.

[Kim] All right, yeah.

And that tomato, and the aphids and all that were all wound up together for our panel.

So your next one is, (laughs) it's either yours or Dennis', and this is Omaha.

"What would burrow into the drain hole on the bottom of a planter and leave the pile of dirt?

The drain hole is only about an inch in diameter."

[Jody] Well that one is Dennis', but this one is a Monarch.

[Kim] Oh yes, so we went, so we're kind of a little outta sequence on here.

So the last one was monarch plus aphids.

For anybody, by the way, who says we have not done enough with monarchs this year, there haven't been any, and here they come, so that is why we're actually being able to talk about them.

All right, now do that.

There's the monarch with the aphids.

[Jody] Yeah, okay.

-Do you want me to just say... -Sure.

[Jody] You wanna know if you've got a monarch caterpillar?

First of all, it's gonna be on milkweed, any kind of milkweed plant, it's gonna be black, yellow, and white, and then it's gonna have these two pairs of filaments, front end, back end, and you can figure out which is which, it's kind of a challenge.

But that's, preserve those.

-Treasure it.

-[Kim] Right.

So now we're to drain hole, which belongs to Dennis or you.

[Dennis] Okay, I, yeah.

So Jody and I both looked at this, and this is a critter, not an insect, and it could easily be a tree squirrel that wanted to get water or something out of this pot.

Sometimes when you have water in pots, you get that white, kind of salty material on the bottom of the pots, and squirrels need that salt for their body, that electrolyte.

And sometimes you see squirrels licking the cement, it's for the same thing.

[Kim] All right, and Jody, one more, and this comes to us from Havelock, in Lincoln, found these two chrysalis or cocoons in the ground when he was digging his potatoes.

[Jody] Yeah, so this looks like a type of sphynx moth pupa, two of them.

If it's your vegetable garden, it probably is a tomato or tobacco hornworm.

So if you, you know, saw any on your tomatoes, these are gonna turn into moths, so right now they're not a problem.

They're kind of fun.

You should rear them out.

Cool moths.

[Kim] All right, thanks Jody.

Dennis, one picture on this one.

This comes to us from Davey, and it's bats in the belfry, or in the barn, on this one.

They come through slider gaps in the siding, so they're big old holes that they can't plug.

Wants to know how to get rid of them.

And they do say they're little, they're little bats.

[Dennis] Yeah, they might be a little brown bats, or smaller, young of the year, big brown bats.

First, what problem are they causing in the barn?

Usually they'll just be eating insects in the barn, and mosquitoes, and other things.

If you have a barn door that's sliding, of course it doesn't seal good enough, you can get these drapes of plastic, which the horse can come through, and people can come through, yet the bats will have a hard time walking through that.

So when the sliding glass, the sliding door is open, you can drape down these plastic sheets.

They're thick plastic, and they'll stop the bats from coming in.

[Kim] I can guarantee you, my horse would've put me on the ground.

(laughs) Well, you don't, you're not riding on the horse.

You just lead the horse through.

All right, so your next two are, "What's eating my hostas?"

This comes to us from Bellevue, and they're chewed off at the ground, and then the stalks are just lying there.

And we had tons of, "What's eating my whatever."

[Dennis] Okay, this is probably deer, deer love hosta.

As you can see, those have been nibbled right at the crown, from something that's a browser, like deer.

And those that are laying on the ground squished, are because deer have hooves, and they also are trampling a lot of the hostas.

So I would say there's definitely deer.

The way it's eaten off, it's not rabbit or some smaller creature.

[Kim] All right, two pictures on this next one, and this probably belongs to Jody, but, woke up to a little pile of dirt dug out from underneath a plastic liner, and on top of the liner is river rock, and then drainage from the downspout.

So what do we think?

[Dennis] This is Jody, you want to take it?

[Jody] Yeah, this is a cicada killer wasp burrow.

If you've got cicadas, which I've heard a little while ago, those wasps, they're parasitoid wasps of the cicada.

They'll catch 'em out of the air and in the trees, and take 'em back into the burrow, and lay eggs on it.

Circle of life.

But we don't like the burrows where they are in our landscape, and that's because it's well drained soil, and oftentimes in full sun.

So sometimes if you can do a lot of irrigation in that spot, it will deter them from nesting there.

In really bad, like if you've got a lot of them, you may want to treat each individual burrow for them.

But if there's just one, shouldn't be a problem.

All right, thanks.

Okay, Kyle, three pictures on this.

This comes to us from Verdigre, and she has watermelons, started with one leaf, now more of them are covered with it.

The watermelons themselves seem to have stopped growing, and all the new little melons just croak.

And this is sugar baby watermelon.

[Kyle] Okay, yeah.

So I think there's actually a few different things that are going on here.

One of them, one of those leaf spots does appear to be alternaria leaf spot.

Looked like there was kind of some concentric rings that were forming there.

And the other thing, which is a little bit more concerning, and not a disease that we see very often in Nebraska, but with the heat that we've had this year, has been a little bit more common, would be downy mildew.

And I think the downy mildew is affecting, is what has infected the bud here, and that's stopping the watermelons from growing.

Unfortunately, as far as control goes, not a ton of great options, if you can look for a resistant variety, that would be ideal.

Otherwise, regular applications of a copper containing product or a sulfur product should make it a little bit better, but probably will not completely remove the problem.

[Kim] All right, tomato questions that are yours.

This is, is it getting too much water, too hot, too much of anything, a bug, or a virus?

And you have two pictures here.

[Kyle] Yeah, so I think that this is, again, it's never a single thing, right?

But I think that there is, you know, I think these are getting a little bit too much water.

It's a potted container, the leaves are kind of that chartreuse, bright yellow, that we see with overwatering.

But there also are some leaf spots on there, as well.

I think the leaf spot that we're looking at here is early blight of tomato.

I would just remove those leaves, try to let 'em dry out a little bit, and hopefully the tomatoes will continue to produce.

[Kim] All right, and one more picture, and this comes to us from Norfolk.

This is, "What's wrong with my hostas?

Sun, drought, pest, heat, virus?"

They did lose a large shade tree.

[Kyle] So it's, the hostas like the shade, they do not like to be out in the sun, open areas like we are now, so it's, probably, was a little bit too hot and a little bit too bright for him.

Excellent, all right, Kelly, three pictures on this first one.

This is a southeast Lincoln viewer.

We've had several of this.

This is autumn blaze maple.

Already, half of it is turning red.

What's the deal, and what's the deal?

[Kelly] Okay, well, autumn blaze maple sometimes tends to do that, but a lot of it is the heat, the extreme heat, the extreme drought that we've had is just triggering it and causing it to happen more.

There's also a lot of, I mean, and it could be a bad sign.

It might be okay.

But there's also a lot of structural issues with this tree.

I mean, a lot of multiple stems have been allowed to develop.

One of the pictures, there's a close up, and there's some cracking in the fork of the branches, and it looks like a lot of loose bark, so I think there's more going on than just heat stress and drought stress with this tree.

So you can hang onto it as long as you want, it probably will slowly decline over time, and this is just a good reminder to, the most important time to prune trees for structures is from about three years after you plant 'em until about 15 years later, depending on the growth rate of the tree.

But that structural pruning, especially don't allow multiple leaders to develop, or multiple stems that are closely parallel to one another, 'cause it will cause problems.

[Kim] All right, thanks, Kelly.

Two pictures on this next one.

This is a Millard area viewer.

A three year old sugar maple, and he does admit he didn't pay enough attention to watering it.

[Kelly] Yeah.

[Kim] So, then his sprinklers watered it, and he's wondering whether it's too late.

[Kelly] Okay, well this is a common question this year.

It's like, well, my tree can't be dry, because I water my lawn.

Well, it can be dry, because, you know, we haven't had rain this year, we didn't have any this winter, we had very, extremely little last summer.

Deep down, it's dry, and a lawn irrigation system is not going to water deep enough.

So, trees, you need to be watering, at least, depending on your soil type, but I'd say at least once a month, you need to be watering enough to wet that soil a good eight to 12 inches deep, because the lawn irrigation is not going to do that.

And this tree is kind of in the, it's great, it's in the middle of a beautiful mulched bed with, looks like wood chip mulch, so otherwise you're doing everything correct, but it's a little ways from that lawn, too, and it's a young tree, so those roots may have not spread out very far.

So I just think it needs irrigation, hopefully.

I'm glad you've started to irrigate.

Hopefully it's not too late.

[Kim] All right.

And then we have one more, and it's maple time for you.

And this is actually a northwest Omaha viewer, bought a Full Moon Japanese maple, put it in this environment, and this is what it did over the winter.

So what are we gonna say?

[Kelly] Yeah, well Japanese maples are very, very touchy and picky about their growing location, and this is just a really bad site for this plant.

It appears to be full sun.

They need dappled shade.

It, you know, it's surrounded with black rocks, so that makes it even hotter.

Japanese maples like cool summers, that's why it's kind of a challenge to grow them in Nebraska.

And they also need very well drained, loamy soil, and I think the soil was maybe a heavier clay or something in the description.

So it's really just, if you wanna grow Japanese maple, know that they're challenging, but put 'em in the perfect growing location for them.

And this is not.

And you can see all the browning down between the veins, that's leaf scorch.

So that's, the plant just is not happy in its location.

All right, thank you, Kelly.

Well, you know, indigenous peoples used to use a gardening system called three sisters.

And we went out to visit Kathryn Hain at Grain Place Farms in Marquette.

She's tried several different combinations of those, and we're going to have her tell us more about it.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) Well, I inherited this garden late May, and I always wanted to try the three sisters gardening method, which is the native way of farming.

And that is, you plant your corn early, they say about the time of the oak leaf is the size of the squirrel's ear, and when it comes up four or five inches, you hill the corn and you plant beans, climbing beans that will climb up the corn and use it as a trellis.

The beans, meanwhile, give the corn the needed nitrogen.

Then you would come back after several weeks, re-weed the field, and plant gourds, pumpkins, squash, all the different yellow crops that you need.

And these would spread out and keep those blasted raccoons away, or other critters away from the corn.

However, when I did this, I have started in late May, and so I had to figure out how to do this in rows, because I garden with a rototiller, and how to be able to irrigate it, and how to keep different corns separated, because I was growing a glass gem corn, which is a cross between Pawnee and Osage.

It's about 10 feet tall in the back of the garden.

I was growing a red corn, and then I wanted roasting ears in September and October, so I planted them all two weeks to three weeks apart, and then had to come back with the beans.

I tried an Anasazi bean from New Mexico, I tried regular climbing beans you'd buy in the grocery store, and the last one I put peas in.

However, the squirrel ate those.

Not a success.

I also decided, let's try this with African vegetables.

So you can see, I have okra with beans on one side and cucumbers on the back.

They're all so very happy that they're growing over the spaces, I had five feet aisles, and both of them are so happy, they're growing towards each other, so I had to go through and chop the okra down to a bearable size.

It's growing fabulously.

It's an African crop, but it is adapted very well to Nebraska.

We use it in gumbo, curry, chicken soup.

And I also use this method to stake my tomatoes, because I get 13 foot tall tomatoes.

And so early in the season, I plant two or three seeds of a very tall corn, not your early season sweet corn, but a tall corn, late season sweet corn or an Indian corn.

I plant two or three seeds between my tomato plants, which I need to put about two feet apart.

And those cornstalks will stake the tomatoes until they get really heavy with fruit.

If you wanna do this in your home garden and you don't have a lot of space, you just wanna do it the Native way, and that is plant a hill.

You need to have at least four stalk of corn, maybe planted in a square or circle, so that the corn can help pollinate each other.

Then you put the beans up the corn, and you'll probably want to use a smaller vine like a cucumber, because the pumpkin will overflood your garden.

You can't outrun a pumpkin in July, October, from July to October, it'll outrun to the neighbor's farm.

(audience applauds) [Kim] So that would be a really cool project for any of us to try in our own home garden, if we wanted to, especially that staking method using corn.

That's way cool.

And by the way, remember that we have all sorts of things for you to see on YouTube and, of course, Facebook, so go there after the show.

All right, Jody, your first one is so neat.

This is an Eagle, Nebraska viewer, has seen this insect hanging around, three to four inches in height, length.

Doesn't know if it's good or bad.

What do we think this thing is?

[Jody] This is a beautiful polyphemus moth, and as an adult, it only lives like, it only really does everything on one day.

It emerges, it mates, and it lays eggs.

So if it's hanging around you, and the birds haven't gotten it, you're really lucky.

Beautiful.

[Kim] Exactly, all right, your next one comes to us from Elkhorn.

What are these tiny, he's describing them as yellow, they are everywhere.

He thinks they're laying eggs in the flowers and killing the buds.

[Jody] Okay, so the second part isn't true, but they are everywhere.

These are orange wing moths.

They had a big population this year.

They feed, as caterpillars, on locust trees and honey locust.

So there may be a tree nearby, and they're all emerging as adults.

[Kim] All right, and one more ID.

And this is Onawa, Iowa, three of these buddies enjoying the zinnias and the butterfly bush.

What are they?

[Jody] Okay, so this looks like a black swallowtail butterfly, but it's actually an eastern tiger swallowtail in the black form.

So males can be yellow, and that's it.

Females can be yellow or black.

You can tell by looking at its body.

If it's got a row of yellow spots on each side, that's gonna be the black swallowtail.

But that one in this picture is the black form of the eastern tiger swallowtail.

Very cool.

All right, Dennis, two pictures on this first one, this is Bellevue, wondering what would be removing the leaves and tendrils off the cucumber, even at the top of the supports.

[Dennis] This would be a bird or a reptile gone bad.

(audience laughs) That's just picking parts of the things, and actually they do raise havoc in a lot of different plants by picking off the tops.

[Kim] All right, and your next two pictures come to us for laughs and giggles, but you can still talk about it, because he laughs and -giggles every time.

-[DennisÑ Yeah.

A tree squirrel just hanging out, probably trying to get to some kind of food.

And this is a raccoon at night hanging out.

[Kim] And that's a suet cake, I think.

[Dennis] Yeah, it's a suet cake.

So they'll do, you know, animals will do anything to get their food.

And of course, raccoons are very dextrous, so they can get to anything if they want.

All right, Kyle, two pictures on this one.

This is a Hastings, Nebraska viewer.

Said this 10 inch mass was fire engine red when it appears, and then it went copper color, white on the bottom, and it was just bare underneath.

What was that, or is that?

[Kyle] So it's a type of mushroom.

I think it's a type of ganoderma.

And one of the interesting things about it is it's growing through, or there's a bunch of other plant material here that's kind of growing through the mushroom.

And so ganoderma, we typically see them as a shelf mushroom, you know, growing on and off of trees, but they can grow on the soil, as well, especially if there was an old stump that was taken out, something like that.

But yeah, that indeterminate growth where it allows the other plants to grow through the cap of the ganoderma.

[Kim] Cool, all right.

Two pictures on this one.

What kind of shrooms are these?

He dug out two five-gallon buckets worth.

[Kyle] Yeah, these are really fun ones.

So these are ash boletes, and it's, I think he had mentioned that it did have an ash tree nearby, as well.

So the ash bolete, it's not a true bolete, but it has a rare, a very complex relationship with aphids and the ash tree.

And so what happens is aphids feed on the ash tree, and then they lay eggs in the soil, on the roots.

This mushroom forms a sclerotia, or a protective layer, around the aphid eggs, to protect the eggs.

And then the mushroom will actually feed off of the honeydew produced by the immature aphids.

Not really harmful to the tree at all.

They can be a bit of a nuisance.

One cool thing is, they bruise blue.

And so you can pick 'em, and you can kind of stick your thumb into the underside, you know, just have a bright blue thumbprint on the underside of that mushroom.

[Kim] All right, and one more quick one, Kyle, and this, actually, we answered last week, but it's gotten worse, and this is, what in the world is on the marigolds?

[Kyle] Yeah, not entirely sure.

I really wonder about some sort of herbicide application.

If there wasn't 2 4-D that was applied, something like that that's causing what looks to me like a whole bunch of adventitious roots.

Crown gall doesn't quite fit for this one, but I would love to see a sample, if they'd be willing to part with it.

[Kim] All right, Kelly, we have about one minute.

-[Kelly] Okay.

-[Kim] So these are good, easy questions.

Kearney, Nebraska.

Why are the tomatoes cracking?

[Kelly] Oh, well, uneven watering, and heat and drought.

So you wanna have uniform moisture in that soil, use mulch, and just keep an eye on it.

[Kim] All right, and your last one is from Central City, and this is strange potato shapes.

(laughs) And what causes potatoes to do that?

[Kelly] Uneven watering, it's kind of start and stop growth.

So the soil is, it's growing along, 'cause the soil's moist, it dries out, it stops growing.

You add water, it starts to grow again, it gets bumpy, or it gets an odd shape.

So you need that uniform moisture.

[Kim] All right.

So the wonderful thing is that, remember next week for our announcements, we are at State Fair.

That's on Monday in the mid-afternoon to late afternoon.

We have all that good stuff on the screen and on the website for you, but come enjoy us, because we absolutely love to go to the fair, mostly so that we can eat cotton candy and corn dogs.

We don't really care about the show.

-So... -(all laugh) And unfortunately, that is all the time we have for Backyard Farmer tonight.

We wanna say thanks to Vala's for hosting us, thanks to Nebraska Public Media for doing all this.

Thanks to you, our wonderful audience, for being here tonight.

A reminder, we don't have a show on September 1st.

So there we go again to State Fair.

We will be talking about native plants and some of those that we have seen out there, we have the special treat, which is all those videos of everything that all of our audience loves about State Fair.

So good night, good gardening.

-We'll see you next time -(audience applauds) on Backyard Farmer.

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