- Hi, thanks for joining us for

The Family Plot:
Gardening in the Mid-South.

I'm Chris Cooper.

Want to garden in a
  very small space?

It's called
  square foot gardening,

and today we're going
  to learn how to do it.

Also, does your crape
  myrtle have bark scale?

We'll show you one
  way to take care of it.

That's just ahead on

The Family Plot:
  Gardening in the Mid-South.

- (female announcer)
  Production funding for

The Family Plot: Gardening in
  the Mid-South is provided by:

The WKNO Production Fund,

The WKNO Endowment Fund,

and by viewers like you.
  Thank you.

[cheerful country music]

- Welcome to The Family Plot,
I'm Chris Cooper.

Joining me today
is Tonya Ashworth.

Tonya is our
local garden expert,

and Mr. D.
will be joining us later.

Alright Tonya,
it's good to have you here

at The Family Plot garden.
- Yeah, thanks so much.

- Oh, no problem.
We're going to talk about

square foot gardening.

So the first question is this,
what is square foot gardening?

- Well it's my very favorite
method of growing vegetables

in my own backyard.

And it was popularized by
books from Mel Bartholomew.

The idea behind
square foot gardening is that

it's a raised bed system.

The basic raised bed size
  is four foot by four foot.

And a square foot garden, a true
  square foot garden always has a

grid laid on top of the
  four-by-four square bed.

That divides it
  into square feet,

so you'll have
  16 square foot sections

in a square foot garden bed.

And you can make those
grids out of twine and nails,

or little pieces of wood
strips that you lay on top.

- Ok, that was going
to be my next question.

Ok, well what are the benefits
of square foot gardening?

- Ok, well here's the
reasons why I do it in my yard.

The first one is that it doesn't
take up a whole lot of space.

You can grow a lot in a
very small back yard.

You don't have to own a
tiller or anything like that.

The only thing I've ever
used in my square foot beds

are my hand trowel.

Very, very little weed
pressure, almost no weeds,

I rarely ever
have to pull a weed.

You use less water
because it's a smaller space

that you have to water.

And I have dogs in my backyard,
so if I had a great big garden,

I would have to fence around the
whole thing to keep my dogs out,

but it's very, very simple to
  fence around to keep dogs or

other critters out of
  your square foot beds.

- Good point, good point.
  No weeds.

Did I hear you say that?
- Very, very little. Yes.

- How about that, ok.

Now how do we get started
with our square foot garden.

- Ok, the first thing that you
have to do is build your bed,

or now, you can even buy kits
to build your square foot bed.

And you want them to be
at least six inches deep.

Mine are a little bit
deeper than that in my backyard,

but six inches is
really all that you need.

And then you would first locate
that in an area that gets at

least six hours of sunshine
a day, so full sun is best.

- Full sun is best, ok.

- And you know if you don't have
a lot of full sun areas in your

yard, if it's a concrete patio,
you can put this thing right on

top of concrete, so, it's
great for small spaces.

And then you fill it with
whatever you're going

to put in your raised beds.

I think in his books
Mel Bartholomew has

his own mix that
he's formulated.

It's like a third
vermiculite, a third peat moss,

and a third compost.
But you don't have to put that

if that's not what
you have on hand.

If you've got some good
compost, or whatever,

you can fill that up.

So we're going to modify this
barrel to show you an example

of how to do
a square foot garden.

So we're going to add a little
bit of compost to our barrel.

- I think I can
handle that Tonya.

- Thank you.
- You just tell me how much.

- Ok. And in my own
yard in the spring,

I usually will have to top dress
with compost to get it back up

to the top of my container.

- This is good stuff here.

- Alright, so another thing
about square foot gardening is

inside of these grids,
you're going to plant your

plants very close together.

And you don't plant in rows
with a square foot garden.

So you'll usually see
in planting guidelines,

plant your things so
many inches apart,

and then so many
inches between rows.

But we just ignore the row part
and you put them on centers.

And so this allows you to be
able to plant a lot of things in

a small space, like
in a square foot.

In one square in your raised
  bed you can plant 16 carrots.

- Really? Wow.

- Or you can plant
  one tomato per square,

so that gives you 16 tomatoes
  in one four-by-four bed.

Which is highly
  intensive planting.

Or you can do one pepper,
  or one eggplant per square.

You can also do four
  bush beans per square,

or you can do nine
  sweet peas per square.

So I know that
sounds like a lot,

but I've tried it on my
own and it actually works.

So in my one little
one foot by one foot square

I planted nine
sugar sweet peas.

And when they grow up they kind
of support each other as they

grow, and you don't even
hardly need a support system,

and there's no weeds
because they're out-competing

all the weeds.
- Right, I got you, I got you.

- Those are some of the basics,
and if you want to do this in

your yard, and you're not
sure how many plants to put

per square, there's some
good resources online.

You can go to
squarefootgardening.com

and watch short video clips on
how to set this thing up.

And you can also if
you're on Pinterest,

you can follow the Square Foot
Gardening Foundation and they

have charts of samples for
how many plants to put in each

square, so that's a great
resource if you're on Pinterest.

- Pinterest, ok.
- So I brought some

things with me to show,
you could do one

tomato plant per square,
this is 'Pink Girl'.

- [chuckles] Pink Girl.

- Or one pepper,
you could put that.

And then I like to
plant from seed sometimes,

you could do one okra
per square in your garden,

or 16 carrot seeds per square,

you could plant
a whole bunch of carrots.

Also it's good to plant carrots
in containers because the soil

is usually not as
compact, they do better,

they're a root vegetable.

Also eggplant, I'm going
to try from seed this year,

and this is a container
variety for a 12-inch pot,

so this would be
perfect for my

space intensive
square foot beds.

So I'm just going to
go ahead and plant,

sorry, this
tomato plant in there.

And we probably have, this is
probably a little bit more than

one square would be in
your square foot bed,

so I'm going to put it
kind of towards the back,

and then I'm going to put
a parsley in there too.

'Cause I think we've got room.

- It's a good root
system on that too.

- Nice, fluffy dirt.

- Alright, looks good.

Now how successful are
you with the seeds though,

when you're planting
your seeds at home

in your own square foot garden?

- Well I have three of the
four-by-four raised beds,

one of them I use
strictly as an herb bed,

so I have a lot of success
with planting things like basil,

and parsley, and dill from seed.

I've already got basil and dill
seed sprouted up in my own yard

in my own square foot bed, and
also I've had a lot of success

with carrots especially.

And lettuce, lettuce is a great
spring crop that you can do.

You just get a nice seed bed and
sprinkle out your lettuce seeds,

it's fantastic for
this type of scheme.

And then let's see, what
else have I planted from seed?

My peas, I plant peas from seed.

So you can definitely
save money that way.

And that's pretty much
all there is too it.

- And I guess it's
easy to harvest too,

right, you said
there's no weeding.

- No weeding.

- Harvesting is
going to be easy.

What if you had like pest
problems, it would be easy

to just come in here
and take those off, right?

- Yeah, I mean I've mostly just
had aphids that you can easily

remove if you
catch them in time.

Yeah, the pest
problems, very few,

and my favorite
part is no weeds.

And it's easier
on your back too,

it's easier on your back
than doing it in the ground.

- I'm glad you mentioned that.

- And they're easy, the
beds are easy to build.

My husband built mine for me,
but I'll tell people that he was

outside building my beds, and
I was inside cooking dinner,

and he got finished first.
- Oh, Daniel's good.

He's good. [both chuckle]
One last question,

any disease problems,
you know because they're

planted fairly
close together, so...

- Yes, well, for my tomatoes I
spray preventative fungicide.

Chlorothalonil is my favorite.
Yeah, so.

- And it works pretty good?
No other problems?

- No.
- Alright, well Tonya we

appreciate that demonstration,
we can't wait to see what

it looks like throughout
the summer.

- Yes!
- Thank you much.

- Thank you.

- (Chris)
  There are a number of gardening

events going on in the
  next couple of weeks.

Here are just a few
  that might interest you.

[cheerful country music]

Well, here at WKNO we have a
problem with our crape myrtles.

Looks like we have the
  crape myrtle bark scale.

- That's right, looks like
  we got a fungus among us.

[Chris chuckles]
  - That's bad.

- So how do you think the
  scales got here Mr. D.?

- You know, I don't know, these
  were first identified in Texas,

is that right?
In the United States?

- That's right.

- So there's got to be
some windborn activity.

I know the males, we know
have wings and can fly.

But the females are
secile, they can't move so,

they couldn't have
come in on their own.

I think we've probably
helped them a little bit.

- I think we helped them too,
and I think birds may have also

brought them over too,
what do you think about that?

- Birds, birds.
But transporting plants around.

You know, we probably
inadvertantly moved more

critters and bad things
than we really mean to.

- Right.
- But that would make sense.

- And I'll tell you what,
there's some heavy infestations

here in Shelby County.
I mean I've gotten calls

from Germantown, Bartlett,
Midtown, Collierville,

so they're pretty much
all over the place now.

- In one year, I mean it's a
little over a year ago when they

discovered them in this area.

- Right, you know, Dr. Harold
and Dr. Windham came down last

year, they're in Germantown,
and saw a couple of cases,

but this year, for some
reason it's just exploded.

Just multiplied,
so they're pretty much

all around the area now.
- I wonder how closely

they are related
to their Asian counterpart.

They're common over
across the ocean.

I wonder how close
this race is that we have here

is to the Asian variety.
  I don't know.

- That's a good
  question, I don't know.

But right now we know
  they're pretty much specific

to the crape myrtles.

Which is a mainstay
  pretty much here in the south.

Everybody grows crape myrtles,
  so we'll see what happens.

- And it's been a
  worry free plant,

a plant that we didn't
have any pests--

- Pest free.
So this is how we're to treat

the crape myrtle bark scale.
This is what we've been

telling the home owner to use.
- This is what, imidacloprid?

- It is, that's the active
ingredient, it sure is.

And of course, you know, our
crape myrtle is multi-trunked,

so you have to make sure that
you read and follow the label,

we definitely want
people to do that.

And what we're going to do
is we're going to measure the

distance in inches around
each tree trunk at about

four and a half feet.

We're going to add together,
and then we're going to multiply

by .75, and that's going
to give us the ounces that

we add to a gallon of water.

- That's a lot more
specific than I...

I don't guess that's that
much more specific than a lot of

pesticide, but it's kind of a
different way of figuring out

how much to apply.

- But make sure that you read
and follow the label on that.

- That's the law.
- Alright, let's do that.

Alright Mr. D.,
so we're going to measure

four and a half feet up.
- Diameter chest height.

- Alright, then at that level,
we're going to measure in

diameter the individual trunks.
- All of these.

It looks like we're going to
have 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 11?

- 11.
- 11 measurements, ok.

- Alright we're going to
start with the first one.

And you're
recording this, right?

- Yep.
That would be five.

Next one is going
to be a bit bigger.

And look at all the
scales on here though,

my gosh, it's covered.
- Lots of sooty mold.

That's going to be
five and a half.

- Ok.

Right there.

- Come up here, bring
it through right there.

Six.

- Getting bigger.
- Yeah, getting pretty big.

This one is a small one.

Yeah, there you go.

It's four.
- Ok.

- Looks like we're
averaging around five.

- Yeah, it looks so.

You want to see if you
can get those on that side?

- Yeah. Trade?

- I'll record that.

- 4.75. Four and three quarters.
- Ok.

- Looks like about
three and a half.

- Three and a half.

- Five.
- Ok.

- Six.
- Six. That's a big one.

- Looks like three and a half.
- Ok.

- Looks like four
and three quarters, 4.75.

- Ok.

- And that's 3.75. Is that it?

- Alright, so
that's going to be it.

- Ok, let's figure now.
Calculate.

- We got to do math.
- Oh man.

- Alright Mr. D., we
have all the measurements,

so what do we have.

- We do, it came up
to 51.75 total inches,

and we multiply that times
.75 and we came out with 38.8.

So we need 38.8 ounces of the
product in a gallon of water.

- Ok, sounds good,
let's go for it.

- That's a big plant.
- It is.

And we always want
people to be safe.

- We do. Follow the directions.
It's the law.

- Follow the label.
Wear your gloves.

- Get your rubber gloves on.

- Alright, shake it
up real good here.

[liquid shaking in container]

- And as you see
it's a pretty green color.

- Oh really?
- Yeah.

- There you go. It sure is.

- This is also a fertilizer,
it's a 2-1-1 fertilizer in here.

- Ok, good deal.

- Alright, so it
was 38.8 ounces?

- 38.8.

- Ok, we're going
to put that there,

and put this into our
gallon of water here.

- That's turning green too.

- Yeah, look at that
green color, I tell you.

[liquid splashes]

Think that's pretty good?
- Ought to do the trick.

Need to stir it up a bit?

- Yeah, stir it up there, make
sure we get it into a solution.

[stick scraping bucket]
- Oh yeah.

- Do you just put it under
the drip line pretty much,

or all up--
- The label says get it as

close--
- to the trunk?

- to the trunk as
you possibly can.

- Ok.

- Again, we're
following the label.

- That's right.

- As close to the
trunk as you possibly can.

- Ok. You got the gloves on.

- Alright Mr. D., I'm going to
go ahead and pour this as close

to the trunk as we
possibly can here.

- Ok.

- And I'll just try
to go around here.

[water splashing]

- It would be nice if they'd
start falling off right now.

I don't think it
works that way, do you?

- I don't think it
works that fast.

And it will tell you on the
label that according to the size

of the tree it may take
a couple of months for it

to actually take effect.

And there you have it.

The roots will take
it up systemically.

And then we'll wait a
couple of months or so,

and we'll see what happens.

- Yeah, to be on the safe side,
we better treat the rest of

these crape myrtles
here, don't you think?

- I think so.

[cheerful country music]

- Ok, it wasn't hard
to tell that we

had something feeding
on our snap beans here.

We've got holes in the leaves,
and after we did just a very

little investigation,
we found the culprit.

It's the Mexican Bean Beetle.

Right here is the adult.

Both the adult and the larvae
create damage on snap beans,

butter beans, they're
  one of the main pests.

The adult can fly
  away and hide from you.

The larvae are little
  yellow, wooly critters,

and they can't
  get away from you.

They feed on the
little-bitty leaves, and when

the leaves grow, the holes
that they create grow also.

One thing about
almost any kind of beans,

they can tolerate a lot
of leaf feeding injury,

without affecting
the yield of the crop,

so you probably don't
have to treat right now.

A reason to wait would be the
hope that a beneficial insect

will come along and eat
these Mexican Bean Beetles,

and you never
build up a population,

but you do need to
keep a close eye on them,

and as soon as you start
to see the larvae out here,

then you would need to
  treat with carbaryl,

bifenthrin, zeta-cypermethrin,
  and gamma-cyhalothrin are four

insecticides that should
  take care of this problem.

[cheerful country music]

- Alright Tonya, here's our
Q & A session, you ready?

- Yes.
- We have some

good questions here.
- Uh-huh.

- Alright, so here's
our first viewer email.

"Please help me get rid
  of this hump in my yard.

"I pulled up an azalea
  and now I have a hump.

"I want grass to grow back
  over it smoothly with the

rest of the yard.
  What should I do? Thank you."

And this is from Mona,
  right here in Memphis.

So help, she has a
  hump in her yard.

- Well, it's time to get
out the shovel unfortunately.

- Uh-huh.
- And pull back that grass,

and try to level it out
as best you can.

- I think that's, yeah.
Shovel is one option.

Two I thought a good rake
would be another option.

The third thing...
maybe pull out a tiller?

You think. Just kind of
till it in pretty good,

and then smooth it
out with the rake,

and I think that may help.
- Yes.

- But yeah, a hump after
pulling out an azalea though.

- Yeah, usually you have
a sunk in place, but...

- Right. So shovel, good rake,
till it up, smooth it over.

You got a lot of
work to do Miss Mona.

- Yeah.

- Alright, thank
you for the question.

Here's our next viewer email.

"What is the definition of
  the different kinds of soils

"purchased by the bag,
  specifically garden soil,

"potting soil, top
  soil, raised bed soil.

"All of these have
  the same components,

"so how do they differ?

"Also, none of these
  have clay as a component.

"Why not?

You would think true
  soil would contain clay."

And this is from Chuck.

So we're talking about the old
soils in bags that you get from

the big box stores,
so Tonya, let's look

at these individually
for a second.

Garden soil,
what's in garden soil,

do you think?

- Well garden soil is going to
be a lot of wood products mixed

in, not very much peat, and not
as much organic matter as like a

potting soil would be.

Garden soil is usually for just
to put out into the landscape

and not in a container.

You can use garden
soil in a raised bed.

- Ok, so you can use
it in a raised bed.

Alright, potting soil?

- Potting soil is going
to be fluffier and ligher,

less compaction, good
drainage for your containers.

Usually it will have a
lot of peat moss in there,

and some vermiculite,
and nice loose material.

As far as your topsoil,
it usually comes from the top

12 inches of the earth's
surface, and there's not going

to be a lot of organic matter
or anything in there,

it's usually the least
expensive of all those,

the cheapest stuff to use.

You can use that, you can even
mix compost in with that to make

it a little bit better.

And as far as why--
oh, what was the other?

- Raised bed?
The raised bed soil.

- Raised bed, ok, that's
going to be kind of like between

potting soil and garden soil.
So maybe not quite as

good for containers,
but you don't have

to buy raised bed soil for your
raised bed gardens,

you can use the cheaper garden
soil, but it's going to be a

little bit lighter and fluffier,
and maybe a bit less

wood product that just
plain garden soil.

- Ok. You think you'll get
the nutrients needed for

plant growth if you use garden
soil or raised bed soil?

- Probably not, you might want
to wait and do a soil test after

a little while, and you
may have to add some things,

and I would say if you're just
dumping out a bag of garden soil

it wouldn't hurt to mix in
some compost if you've got it.

And was the other one,
why is there not clay?

- Yeah, why is there not
clay in it. [chuckles]

- Well you know,
in soils class they teach you

the three components
of soil is sand, silt, and clay,

so why don't they have
clay in the soil.

Well, clay is heavier,
it's finer, and it's...

doesn't drain very well.

So that's probably why
they don't put clay in there.

- Right, it's going to
hold a lot of moisture.

Just take the clay
in your backyard

or front yard for that matter.

But yeah, you're
definitely right about those,

and yeah, you see these all
the time at the big box stores.

Of course, you
know, in the bags.

But yeah, you don't want
a lot of clay in that.

- Right.

- And I was thinking too,
for the raised bed soil,

I would think some of that
would contain maybe some organic

material, wouldn't you think?
Probably has a little sand

in it, little organic material.
Maybe it holds nutrients

a little better than
some of the rest.

The topsoil I use at home,
I pretty much use that

to fill in holes.
- Yeah, uh-huh.

- If I have little divots,
or something in the yard or

whatever, I just grab the
topsoil and put it in there.

Seems to fit that
purpose pretty well.

Alright, so there
you have it Mr. Chuck,

there's your
different kinds of soils.

Thanks for that question.

Alright, here's our
next viewer email.

"My trees are dying
  from the top down.

"The centers are hollow
  and filled with ants.

"Why is this?

Is there anything to kill
  the ants on a healthy tree?"

And this is from
  Richard in Greenville.

So we talked a little
bit about this earlier.

Be good to have
a picture so we could see

what's wrong with the tree.
- Yeah, mm-hmm.

- But anytime that I see or
think about ants being in trees,

there's a couple of
things that come to mind.

It's usually aphids
around, or soft-scales.

And of course we know aphids and
soft scales produce honeydew.

Which the ants are attracted to.

So you may have
aphids or soft scales.

And the second thing is this,
so the tree is already hollow,

which means it's decaying.

The ants are probably looking
for an opportunity to nest.

- Mm-hmm. Yeah the ants
are just a symptom,

they're not really the problem.

- They're not going to
cause a huge problem.

So I wouldn't personally
worry about killing the ants,

would you?
- Right. No.

If you have the soft
scale or something,

treat that and then
the ants should leave.

- Yeah, but since those
centers are hollow...

Mr. Richard,
I would get a certified arborist

to come out there
and take a look at that.

- Yeah, if they're large, yes.

- Right, because that might
be a hazard, potentially.

So I wouldn't worry so
much about the ants,

I would worry about the hazard.
- Right.

- The tree.
So there you go Mr. Richard,

thanks for the question.

Alright, here's our
next viewer email.

"We had two, big, beautiful
burgandy mums last fall.

"I trimmed them back this past
winter when they were dormant.

"One has come back,
but the other appears to only

"have the front of the plant.

"Literally it's like the
whole back half is gone.

Why did half my mum
  plant die over the winter?"

And this if from Bethany.

So why do you
think the plant died, Tonya?

- Probably too wet,
not enough drainage

and the roots rotted
in that area.

And maybe a fungal thing set up.

In general when you cut
back your mums though,

you want to leave about
six inches from the ground,

you leave a little
bit of that vegetation,

you don't want to cut them back
too terribly late because you

don't want to risk
the frost damage.

So those are some tips,
but probably poor drainage.

- Poor drainage, yeah.

Definitely the first
thing that came to my mind.

Our winters of
course are when it's wet.

So I would always
think about rotten roots,

you know especially for
those mum sitting there.

And a lot of the mums, if you
think about it that you get from

the big box stores, and some
of your nurseries are annuals.

- Mm-hmm. You can get some
garden mums that will come back,

but most of them are annuals.

- Yeah, most of
them are annuals.

Tonya we're out
of time, it was fun.

- Ok. Alright, thanks.

- Remember, we love
  to hear from you.

Send us an email or letter.

The email address is
  FamilyPlot@wkno.org,

and the mailing
  address is Family Plot,

7151 Cherry Farms Road,
  Cordova, Tennessee, 38016.

Or you can go online to
  FamilyPlotGarden.com.

That's all we
have time for today,

thanks for joining us.

If you want to get more
information about growing a

square foot garden, or using
soil drenches to control scale,

go to FamilyPlotGarden.com.

We have information on this
and hundreds of other topics.

I'm Chris Cooper,
be sure to join us next week for

The Family Plot:
Gardening in the Mid-South.

Be safe.

[cheerful country music]

[acoustic guitar chords]