- Hi, thanks for joining us

for the Family Plot,
Gardening in the Mid-South.

I'm Chris Cooper.

With pesticides, a
little goes a long way

so you have some left at
the end of the season.

How long do pesticides last

and how should you store them?

Also canning tomatoes
is a great way

to enjoy your garden all winter.

That's just ahead
on The Family Plot,

Gardening in the Mid-South.

- [Narrator] Production
funding for The Family Plot,

Gardening in the
Mid-South is provided by

Good Winds Landscape
and Garden Center

in Germantown since 1943

and continuing to offer its
plants for successful gardening

with seven greenhouses
and three acres of plants,

plus comprehensive
landscape services.

International Paper Foundation,

the WKNO Production Fund,

the WKNO Endowment Fund

and by viewers like
you, thank you.

(soft instrumental music)

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

Joining me today is Mr. D.

- Hello.

- And Cathy Faust will
be joining us later

to can tomatoes.

All right, Mr. D,
let's talk a little bit

about pesticide life-span.

It's something that I think
is important to talk about

because we're toward
the end of the season,

folks are gonna be putting up
their pesticides for the year.

- Right, right.

Most pesticides have a
very, very long life-span.

I wouldn't think that
I have to replace

pesticides every year, I
mean I've got pesticides

that I use that are
probably 10 or 15 years old.

(Chris laughing)

It's probably best to
store them in an area

they won't freeze, a
cabinet or something

where they won't freeze

that has some protection
from the elements.

You know if a pesticide
is taken off the market

or for some reason you know
that you'll never need it again

then I would wait for
household hazardous waste event

and make sure you
dispose of it that way.

But other than that the best way

to dispose of the pesticide

is to use it for
its labeled purpose.

So you might want to
get as small a container

as you possibly can
when you buy pesticides

so that you will run
out from time-to-time.

Don't think just because
it's two or three years old

that it's not just as
effective as it was

the day it was manufactured.

Even with some of the research
work that we did out there,

we see that, we see that
some of the older materials

were very, very effective,

especially in some of
our mode of action plots

where we use a lot of
different kinds of pesticides

where we're looking
at symptomatology
on different weeds

and crops and we'll
drag some pesticides out

that are very, very old

and use 'em and they still work.

Long life-span, you
can check the label,

I don't recall ever seeing
on a pesticide label

where it has an expiration date.

- Me either, come
to think of it.

- That's the reason,

because they probably didn't
need an expiration date.

I've had products so long
that in plastic containers

that plastic container
actually cracked on me,

(Chris laughing)

and I found a glass
container to put it in

even though your not
supposed to do that,

you're supposed to
keep the product

in the container
that it's labelled.

- [Chris] Okay,
that makes sense.

- But you know
they'll last longer

than the containers that
they're in some cases.

- Uh huh, I'm a witness to that.

What about products
like BT or streptomycin?

- Well, streptomycin
is an antibiotic,

so it's not living.

The BT

it would make sense
that it's a bacteria

and that it has a life,

but again, I would
check the label

and some bacteria, you know,

they will live for a
very, very, very long time

in the environment.

There is a stage
that they go through

in a capsule,
encapsulated type thing

and I've correct
terminology for that,

a cyst or something
that is very, very,

you know, impervious
to environment

and they can last a
very, very long time.

That might be a little different

than most of the
other pesticides.

- Okay, what about
your fertilizers?

Cause you always see busted
old bags of fertilizers?

- The same way with fertilizers,

the only problem with
some of the fertilizers

is when the bag gets burst open,

sometimes moisture from
the air will come in

and that can cause
it to break down

and volatize for example,
some of the nitrogen,

it can change to the
ammonia form of nitrogen

which is the gas, so that
could reduce the amount of N

in some fertilizers.

Also sometimes the moisture
will cause them to cake up.

- [Chris] Yeah, I've seen that.

- And form big rocks and stones,

so you may have
to break those up.

So you may lose a little bit

but I would probably
still, if I could,

go in and break
those up and use 'em

for whatever they
need to be used for

because I'd rather, once again,

use those products
for the labelled use

than send them to a
landfill somewhere.

If you do have to do that
then you need to wait

for a household hazardous
waste collection,

you know when they do that.

Me, I know here in Shelby County

we a household hazardous waste
site out at Shelby Farms.

And probably a lot
of the areas do,

so be real careful.

Another thing I want
to throw in here too,

if you do completely
use a pesticide up,

finish it up,

and I think it should tell
you this on the label,

you need to triple-rinse
the container --

- [Chris] That's a good point.

- Triple-Rinse it, put
it into the spray mixture

that you're mixing up

and then you can throw that
container in the garbage,

then you don't have to put it

in household
hazardous waste site.

- Yeah, you can recycle that,
can you, if it's plastic?

- You can recycle it, you can
recycle plastic if you can,

if you've triple-rinsed it.

- Yeah, I think it is on,

I think I remember seeing
it on some of the labels.

- Most of the time disposal,

how to dispose is
on the label also,

so read the label.

- Is it a good idea to
keep those fertilizers

and those wettable
powders off the ground?

- Oh yeah, yeah, you
don't want them to be able

to soak up moisture
from the ground

so if you have a pallet.

Shelves, I like shelves

and especially cabinets

where you can actually
shut the doors

and you can keep children

and keep people from
getting to them.

If you've got a locking cabinet

that would be good.

But yeah, up off the ground

and don't put 'em where
they can soak up moisture

from the ground.

You kinda keep 'em
inside in a shop

or a storage building,

a little storage building
outside would be fine.

- Okay, all right, but
yeah, just read the label.

- Follow that label.

Read and eat.

- Read and eat, I like that.

I'm pretty sure
it's on that label.

All right thanks Mr.
D, I appreciate that.

- Good deal.

- All right.

(soft instrumental music)

There are a number
of gardening events

going on in the next
couple of weeks.

Here are just a few
that might interest you.

(soft instrumental music)

All right, Miss Catherine,

we're here at the
extension office.

Thank you for being here today.

- Thank you.

- And we're gonna talk
about canning tomatoes.

- Wonderful!

- How about that?

- Great, you know
it's tomato season

and we have these
beautiful, fresh tomatoes,

straight from Jones Orchard.

- [Chris] Beautiful.

- So we're gonna
be canning these.

And as you can see I've got
all of my equipment ready.

It does take a little
bit of preparation.

You have to go ahead and
we just pulled our hot jars

out of the dishwasher.

You don't need to
sterilize the jars

if you're canning something
more than 10 minutes.

But we went ahead
and we got our jars,

they've cooled off a little bit

and we have our rings
simmering at 180 degrees.

- Wow.

- We've got our funnel
ready, jar lifter,

canning salt, citric acid.

But the first thing
that you have to do

is peel the tomatoes.

A really, really
simple way to do this

and we just finished.

We put the tomatoes
in boiling water

for about two minutes

and then we put
them in ice-water

and you can see how
easily the peel comes off.

- [Chris] It comes right off.

- Yeah, it just
peeled off so easily

and after this
point we core them,

chop them up really good

and then we put
them in a big pot

and as you can see I've
got my pot right here,

but wasn't that easy?

- [Chris] That was easy.

- Just went ahead and
got those taken care of.

So what we've done here,

we've gone ahead and we
have simmered our tomatoes.

Now these are like we said,

these are crushed tomatoes,

and we're gonna have these
in the pressure-canner

for 15 minutes.

If you were gonna have
them in a water-bath canner

it would take much, much longer,

say 35 or 40 minutes.

So what we're gonna do here,

we don't normally
pressure can tomatoes

but this, by doing it this way

we've saved up a
little bit time.

Like I said, I'm
gonna swap gears here.

If you'll hold this?

- Do you need me to hold
that, I can do that.

- Thank you, I'm gonna
move this out of the way.

And what we will do, thank you,

is go ahead and fill our
jars to within 1/2 inch,

we want about 1/2
inch head-space here.

- [Chris] Those tomatoes
smell good, by the way.

- Oh yes, this has been nice

and you see, we
didn't add any water,

they made their own juice.

- Ah, so this is
their own juice.

That's a lot.

- Yeah, it made a lot of juice.

And we're gonna fill them

to within 1/2 inch of the top

and people ask
why do we do this?

Well if you don't give
them enough head-space,

let's say if we just filled it

and it had an
inch-and-a-half left,

the top may become discolored

and it might contract air

and it would not seal properly.

And if we have too
little head-space

it might boil over
during the process.

So what we're gonna do,

we're gonna go ahead an
wipe the top of the jar

and make sure that
there's no seeds

or anything on here.

- [Chris] So good contact
is most important?

- Oh yeah, because these
lids have to fit just right

and we're gonna add 1/4 teaspoon

of citric acid.

This is to the pints

and we're gonna add 1/2 teaspoon

of canning salt.

See 1/2 teaspoon of
canning salt to the pints.

- So what was the acid for?

Why do we need that?

- Oh, it kinda
helps preserve it.

You can also use lemon juice,

you could just about a
tablespoon of lemon juice.

Now at this point
I'm gonna go ahead,

this is my bubbler,

(Chris laughing)

and I'm gonna stick this down,

you might see a little bit

of air bubbles coming out.

- [Chris] Just a few.

- Not as many as if you
were doing green beans.

So what we're gonna do,

we've got our air bubbles out

and this is a handy
little measurement tool,

we're gonna measure
1/2 inch head-space,

see all the way around,

that's about 1/2 inch.

And then we just add
that lid right on top

and we wipe that

and then we get our bands

and we put these bands on

just fingertip tight.

I've watched a lot of videos

and sometimes they
just put them on

way, way too tight.

And at this point we're gonna

go ahead and put them

in the pressure canner.

I'm gonna put this in
the pressure canner

and then I want to talk to you

a little bit about safety
of pressure canning.

It's just right over here

and in our pressure canner

we've got about two
inches of water.

Now people call me all the time,

they've never used
a pressure canner

and they're afraid of it

and they ask me,

what am I gonna do?

I might have one
with a dial gauge

or a weighted gauge.

- I can understand people
being afraid of that though.

- Oh, I've heard horror
stories about these things.

You see this has a
little dial on it

and you can come to our office

and have this tested
free of charge.

We test it at five pounds,

10 pounds and 15
pounds of pressure.

But for our tomatoes we're
gonna use 11 pounds of pressure.

If we were going to
use a weighted gauge

we would use 10
pounds of pressure.

Now you notice I've got a little
piece of paper towel here,

one thing you want to do,

if you'll hold this
for me, please?

- Okay.

- You want to oil the gasket

and we learned through
trial and error,

I think you were here that day,

we couldn't get the lid off.

- I remember.

- And we had to get Jim in here

to get the lid off for us.

But you want to go ahead

and just rub this oil

around the gasket.

Also when you have
your gasket tested,

you want to make sure
that it's not dry-rotted,

you can see this one's
in pretty good shape.

You also may want
to run a string

through this little vent.

This is very important

because what we're gonna do

is we're gonna
set the lid on top

and once we secure it

we're gonna let it
vent for 10 minutes

and you will see steam
coming out of this vent.

After the steam has
escaped for 10 minutes,

and that's very important,

we're gonna put
the petcock on top

and then we'll start
building our pressure up.

Usually on an electric
range it's at number seven

to maintain it at 11
pounds of pressure.

And we'll start
timing it at 11 pounds

and we'll give it 15 minutes

at 11 pounds of pressure.

- All right, Miss Cathy, special
delivery, how 'bout that?

- Thank you, Chris.

One of the important
factors of pressure canning

is you have to realize

the pressure canner is too heavy

for a lot of women to lift.

- [Chris] It's heavy.

- So it's good to have
a strong man around,

(Chris laughing)

to lift it off,

I'm sure this weighed
at least 25 pounds

with all of the tomatoes in it.

We appreciate you doing this.

At this point, we are going
to have to let it cool down.

It will probably
take about 40 minutes

for it to cool down.

- All right, Miss Cathy,
now it's been 40 minutes,

so let's see the product.

- Okay, thank you Chris.

I was really surprised that
it cooled down so quickly

cause normally it takes
a little bit longer.

When it gets down to zero,

we give it an
additional 10 minutes,

so we're sure that
it has cooled down.

We're gonna take
the petcock off.

And then we're going to--

- [Chris] Can you get that?

- Oh, it's so easy,

cause remember when we oiled it,

that's why it's so easy to open.

- [Chris] Oh okay,
that's why you do that.

- And you want to
open it away from you,

it's still pretty hot.

And I'm gonna take
these jars out

and I see them bubbling.

They're already popping.

- I heard one pop.
I hear them popping

- Yeah, I sure did.

- Okay and you
see how the liquid

is on the bottom, that will
settle after a few days.

So we want to put these

out of the way of a draft,

we don't want a draft.

We're just gonna leave
these undisturbed

for about 12 hours.

- 12 hours.

- Now if we were
doing a canning class,

like we've been doing recently,

we would let everyone go
ahead and take theirs home

after they cooled
down a tiny bit.

- [Chris] You can just
smell it, it smells good.

- [Cathy] I know
and you can see-

there's goes another pop.

- [Chris] Yeah, I heard it.

- And then you can store these

for up to two years.

We tell people we want
them to consume them

within one to two years.

I've talked to
people who have said,

"Oh, I found some in
grandmother's pantry

"from 10 years ago."

I would not recommend
eating them, but--

- [Chris] That's a long time.

- Some people do.

If we had used quarts,

we would have used 1/2
teaspoon of the citric acid

and one teaspoon of
the canning salt.

But we still would have
pressure canned them

for 15 minutes, pints or quarts.

- All right then, Miss Cathy,

we appreciate that
demonstration.

- Thank you, Chris.

(jar lid popping)

Success, there goes another one.

- There's another
one, all right!

- Okay, I think that's all five.

Yeah, I think I heard five pops.

Thank you.

(soft instrumental music)

- Okay, so talking about
how butterflies feed.

Butterflies feed a
little bit differently

than we think of feeding.

They taste with their feet,

so that'd be a little
gross if people did that,

but for butterflies

they're finding a really
good landing source.

Then they have a long, curly
tongue called a proboscis

that they're gonna stick
down into the flower

to pull out the nectar.

Some good plants in
this area to plant.

Springtime you want
to look at milkweeds,

not only a nectar source,

but also for caterpillars.

In the summer you want to look

at something maybe
like miss flower

and then plant some goldenrods

and some blazing star for
fall feeding butterflies.

- All right, Mr. D, here's
our Q and A session,

some good questions here.

Let's start with our
first viewer email,

"Each year in
August and September

"I have a terrible problem.

"What looks like tiny black
seeds drop from my pecan tree

"into my pool and stain it.

"What are these seeds?

"Also these bags of
caterpillars form

"at the same time on the tree.

"Are the seeds from
the tree itself

"or from the worm sacks?

"And what can I do to
stop or minimize them?"

and this is from Jude.

Couple of things going on here.

I think I know what
you're going to say too.

(laughing)

So what do you think about
those tiny black seeds

that are dropping into the pool?

- Don't eat 'em.

- Don't eat 'em.
(laughing)

- Don't eat 'em.

I would say that it's
pretty safe to assume

that they are coming
from, not the tree,

but from the caterpillars.

- [Chris] From the
caterpillars, that's right.

- It's probably worm
poo-poo, wouldn't you say?

- And I would say so.

(laughing)

- So I don't know
that I would eat 'me.

I probably wouldn't eat 'em

and I wouldn't particularly
want to be swimming with them.

- No.

- Yeah, fall webworms,
they do a lot of feeding,

they're voracious feeders

and anything that eats
a lot, poops a lot.

- [Chris] Poops a lot.
(laughing)

- [Mr. D] If you have
kids you understand that.

- [Chris] I do.
(laughing)

- If you try to control
the fall webworms,

you know, BT is
one of the products

that's recommended
for fall webworms

and if you put BT
in hose-end sprayer

and try to cover the
tree as much as you can

before you see the webworms

because they're there
before you see the web form

and they're feeding
and they're little

and they're easy to kill.

So sometime earlier than when
you normally start to see

these black seeds fall
in your swimming pool

go out there with
a hose-end sprayer

and be sure that BT is there

waiting on those fall webworms

and spray it, cover as
much of the tree as you can

and that should help you

probably as much as anything.

- I guess when it rains,
do you have to reapply?

- Oh yeah, when it rains
you have to reapply

and I do that two
or three times.

The good thing about
it is BT is so safe

you don't have to worry about

a little bit of it
dripping off in your pool,

it's a lot safer than
the little black seeds.

- [Chris] Oh, that's right.
(laughing)

- The little black
seeds probably,

may have E. Coli in 'em.

- Oh boy, I didn't
think about that.

- That's a
possibility, you know?

- I didn't think about that.

- It's a possibility,
of course you've got,

I'm sure you've got
chlorine in the pool

that might help you out there.

- All right, Jude, we hope
that helps you out, okay.

- I'm really afraid, I'm worried
about a certain pecan tree,

I'm afraid it's about
to get cut down.

- Oh, boy, over the pool right.

- Over the pool, the
one over the pool.

- All right, here's
our next viewer email,

"How do you cure blossom
end rot on tomatoes?"

We seem to get a lot
of tomato questions

toward the end of
the season, huh?

- Right.

- Blossom end rot,

we all know that's a
calcium deficiency.

- Calcium deficiency, be
careful with blossom end rot,

that you don't
treat the symptoms

rather than the problem itself

and that is a calcium deficiency

and if, it may be possible

that you have enough
calcium in the soil

and if you have dry conditions,
really dry conditions,

sometimes the plant is
unable to take calcium up

and you have some
blossom end rot.

- Because calcium moves
real slow in the plant.

- It moves very
slow into the plant.

So for that reason,

you know, during dry
conditions, irrigate

and water your
tomatoes if you can.

But make sure you soil test,

make sure your pH is right

and you've got calcium levels
up where they need to be

and you shouldn't
have any problem.

I mean you can buy products
that's called stop rot,

that are calcium
chloride and all that

but if you do that,

you're basically treating
the symptom of the problem

and it's probably gonna
give you very little relief

because it moves so slowly,

calcium moves so
slowly in the plant.

- Something else I'd
like to add to that,

to mulch.

Cause it helps
regulate soil moisture.

- Right, right and it can
conserve soil moisture.

- So I would do that.

- Mulch those
tomatoes, that's right.

- Standard question you get
towards the end of the season,

seems like there's
always tomato questions.

- Yep, blossom end rot.

- Yeah, blossom end rot.

All right, here's our
next viewer email,

"I have a well established
blueberry plant in the ground.

"Can I move it to a container?

"The container I'm thinking
about it two feet wide

"and 18 inches deep?"

And this is from
Matt in Midtown.

So he wants to
move the blueberry

from the ground to a container.

What do you think about that?

- I would guess
and I don't know,

I would guess that Max--

- [Chris] Matt, do you mean?

- Bought a house that had
this blueberry already there.

And he wants to move it

and I would say,
no, don't try it.

- [Chris] No, okay.

- I would say no,

because it's not the
easiest thing in the world

to get a well
established blueberry.

You have to have the
soil conditions right,

you've got to have a low
pH, between 4.8 and 5.2 pH.

You have to have--

- [Chris] Which is hard to get.

- It's hard to get,
you've got to usually add

elemental sulfur to the area

to get the pH low enough.

Then you've got to,

at planting you need
to add two or three

good shovel-fulls of a good
sphagnum Canadian peat-moss

into the planting hole

to get the organic matter
good in that planting hole.

So whoever planted
that blueberry plant

did all that and they
got that going good.

But blueberry plants, if
they're the rabbit-eye types

that we recommend in this area,

they're gonna get 20 feet tall--

- [Chris] That's a
pretty good size.

- If you let 'em, if
you don't prune 'em.

And so you're talking
about digging this plant up

and putting it in a container

that you're putting
potting soil in there

and is the potting soil
gonna be the right pH?

Is it gonna have the right
amount of organic matter?

If he wants one
in that container

I would suggest that he go
buy a small blueberry plant

and plant it in the container,

but leave that one
established alone,

leave it there if you can.

Unless it's in an area

that you're gonna
build onto the house

or, you know, that you need
that area for something else.

I don't recommend trying to move

a well established
blueberry plant.

Now if you have blueberry plants

that you planted two
or three years ago

and you didn't do all those
things that I suggested you do,

if they're still alive,
they're just sittin' there

and they're not growing.

- [Chris] Okay, so
then you could do that.

- So dig those up
and put 'em in a pot,

but make sure the pH is
right and all that is right.

- Anything that's
well established

I always tell folks to leave it.

- [Mr. D] Leave it alone.

- Because my concern,
one of my concerns

is if you're gonna dig it up,

you're not gonna get all
the root system anyway.

- [Mr. D] No.

- So don't stress it.

- The root system
on most plants,

including trees, go
out about 1 1/2 times

the height of the plant.

So that means if
that blueberry plant

is three feet tall,

then it's got three, plus 1 1/2,

four-and-a-half feet at least

out from the base of that plant,

it may be further, cause
they're gonna go in the topsoil

and you're talking about
how large is the container?

- [Chris] Two feet wide, 18
inches deep, not big enough.

- No, not gonna work.

- Not gonna work.

All right Matt, so
I hope that helps.

- Hope that helps, but we
saved the blueberry plant,

we killed a pecan tree--

- Yeah, but we
saved the blueberry.

- Maybe we saved
the blueberry bush.

(laughing)

- All right, Mr.
D, thanks a lot.

Appreciate that.

- Good deal.
All right.

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 Rd.

Cordova, TN 38016.

Or you can go online to
FamilyPlotGarden.com.

That's all we have
time for today.

You can get tomato
canning instructions

at FamilyPlotGarden.com.

While you are there take a
look at the gardening calendar.

There are dozens of events
all over the state this month.

Thanks for watching,
I'm Chris Cooper.

Be sure to join us next
week for the Family Plot,

Gardening in the
Mid-South, be safe.

(soft instrumental music)

- [Narrator] Production
funding for The Family Plot,

Gardening in the Mid-South

is provided by Good Winds
Landscape and Garden Center

in Germantown since 1943

and continuing to offer its
plants for successful gardening

with seven greenhouses
and three acres of plants,

plus comprehensive
landscape services.

International Paper Foundation,

the WKNO Production Fund,

the WKNO Endowment Fund

and by viewers like
you, thank you.