This is Vermont edition.

I'm Mikayla love rack.

When I got up this morning, I was greeted by a perfect spring day.

The sun is shining, the wind is blowing gently, and the lilacs right now smell like heaven.

It is a perfect day for today's annual spring gardening show.

Our guest is Charlie Narduzzi, gardening consultant extraordinaire, speaker, TV radio host.

You can hear him on Sunday mornings right here on Vermont Public for all things gardening.

Charlie, it is always so great to see you.

Welcome.

Well thank you.

It's always great to be here.

And with a little, you know, we're not alone.

There's lots of people looking at us.

We are doing something a little bit different this year for our spring gardening show.

We are in front of a live audience and Vermont public, Colchester Studios.

You want to let them know you're here?

You.

Our audience members have submitted some gardening questions for you, Charlie, ahead of today's show, which I'll ask throughout the hour.

But for those of you who are listening at home or in your car or from your garden, you can submit questions to, you can call in at 800 at 6392211, or send an email to Vermont Edition at Vermont public.org.

Charlie, since I started this show with the weather, let's let's talk a little bit about the weather.

We had a a particularly cold and snowy winter this year compared to winters in the past couple of years.

How is that going to affect our gardening?

Well, it gave us a lot of moisture in the soil.

And then we got a real cold and rainy spring, which kind of added to that.

So, as you can see around everywhere around New England, a lot of lush growth, a lot of green growth, a lot of beautiful flowers coming out.

It's been actually a really nice spring, kind of slowly building up to the summer.

And hopefully it will continue to slowly build and not just go right into a crash course of 90 degree temperatures.

But because of all that moisture in the soil, it's been a blessing and a curse.

So it's been a blessing that we have that moisture.

If you can transplant in trees, shrubs, perennials, they're going to be much more likely to survive.

The curse is, of course, if you're trying to put things into the soil and you can't get your boots out of the mud in your garden, it's a little frustrating.

But that's why we raised beds are really good for annual gardens and vegetable gardens.

So that you can have that elevation so that soil will dry out faster and warm up quicker.

So you can actually start gardening when you want to.

Okay.

So you brought up, you brought up, the moisture that's in the soil.

Never mind.

Said one of the questions that we got from Aaron in Colchester, who's in our studio audience today.

Aaron wants to know, how do I keep my soil from molding?

This has happened to me, too.

Moldy.

Moldy or just giving like you see you.

Well, there's a lot of that could be due to the organic matter.

So if you put any kind of mulch on it, that often will happen.

If it's really rainy conditions, you'll get mold starting to, form in there.

There's one more that's really kind of fun.

It's called artillery mold.

It actually shoots spores out when it's now fruiting.

That ferment that will do for you.

Okay.

Anyway, so if you can remove that mulch and work the soil a little bit more, just gently.

I'm big.

I know, dig gardens and I don't dig the soil, but kind of scratch the surface so it dries out a little bit.

That's really the whole idea behind it, because mold is a fungus that likes it nice and moist.

Anyway.

Okay.

Another question about the soil and when to to plant things at this particular time of year.

We got an email from listener named Lorena, who is concerned as many of us are, about climate change.

And we're just wondering if climate change, and the the warming temperatures that we, many of us have noticed in this region in the winters and springs have changed when you should plant things in your garden to protect them from fraud.

So if you notice, we can start planting things earlier in the season now.

Yeah, you can start planting a little earlier, but it doesn't discount the idea that you're going to get a late frost.

Yeah.

And we saw that happen 3 or 4 years ago.

I guess it was when all the orchards in the, the buried fruit growers had a late frost and wiped out their crops so I wouldn't go hog wild and think you're living in North Carolina yet.

So I would be really watching the weather watch what's happening in that season.

Where I have noticed it more significantly is in the fall.

Our folks tend to extend longer.

If you can get through a couple maybe early frosts in September October, you often can go well into November with growing different kinds of plants.

So I think I would put the emphasis on more kind of growing in that direction than trying to get started a little bit earlier.

Okay, Charlie, I have always so struck when you come on Vermont Edition with the depth of your knowledge about our region, the climate and plants.

And then I'm realizing as you talk that I've never actually asked you about yourself.

Oh, geez.

I mean, you really aren't.

You're just this point of, never ending knowledge.

But when did you start getting into gardening?

Well, let's get this back to you.

So.

Yeah.

So I grew up in Connecticut, okay.

And I grew up as part of an Italian-American family.

My grandparents came from Italy, and they had a farm in Connecticut.

And when each one of their kids and six kids got married, they gave them a piece of land on the farm to build their home.

So I grew up with the Italian-American enclave, which I thought everyone grew up like.

That is how the world was dealing with the schools, like what your relatives live where?

So anyway, I had the farm all around me, and my mother always would have a garden in the backyard.

And so that's kind of how I started it, just having agriculture and horticulture all around me.

Well, was she growing?

She was growing tomatoes because I was raised in, in basil and Italian beans and zucchini mostly, and actually would try, sweet corn, too.

I have a cute picture that I show in my presentations with me holding a big basket of vegetables, and I was maybe four years old and had here in the garden.

What's under the hat?

That's what's on the hat.

I.

So did you, it's good to know that you started from a point.

You know, that was a long time ago.

Your little kid, where you didn't know about gardening and you had to learn.

Because it can be hard, I think, as an adult to, you know, maybe you're like me.

You finally have the space to garden a little bit, get a little more free time, and it can feel hard to catch up with the knowledge that other people seem to have.

Yeah, it can be very overwhelming for starting out, but the nice thing about gardening is that you always are learning and I still kill plants.

No, I don't believe it.

I've got a cemetery still.

So you're still learning because every year is different.

The weather is different.

Insect pest problems are different.

Deer show up in your yard and they haven't been there in years.

All kinds of different things can happen.

So that's the thing I like about gardening is that it really kind of keeps you fresh.

You're always learning new things.

And so even though you might think you're an expert gardener, there's still stuff that you can learn.

So even as a novice gardener, we're in the same boat.

We're still learning.

I before the show, I showed Charlie some very sad pictures of of my plants.

I've never talked.

Yeah, or a little bunnies throwing them under eaves.

Okay, I don't garden, to be honest.

I'm working on it.

All right, if you have a question for Charlie Narduzzi or want to tell us about maybe a recent gardening win, you can call in at 806 392211.

You can also send us an email to Vermont Edition at Vermont public.org.

Charlie, we got a lot of questions about, berries, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries.

One person in our audience, Rhonda from Duxbury, wants to know what should I be doing to my blueberry bush to get a higher yield this year?

Well, make sure it's in full sun.

That we probably the number one thing you want to do.

That way the bushel grow strong and produce a lot of, flowers and fruits.

Make sure the pH of the soil is good.

It should be below five.

And how do you figure that out?

Well, you can get a soil test done.

Uvm the soil test for a very reasonable fee.

And one of the things you'll find out is you're, scale goes from 1 to 14, seven inches the middle or neutral.

I don't remember this.

Anything back in high school, you know?

Yeah.

Anything lower than seven would be considered acidic.

And so plants like blueberries and rhododendrons in Israel is like an acidic soil.

So that's going to make a big difference as far as nutrient uptake and all that kind of stuff.

So do that, make sure they're not, we, keep the weeds away from them.

Blueberries are shallow, woody plants, so, they're not going to compete well with a lot of grasses, grass, things like that.

So try to keep it clean.

I put, woodchips on our blueberries every year, and that's a really nice mulch because it breaks down and allows a lot of air to go through, there.

So it doesn't really block the water and moisture going it, but it also blocks a lot of the weed growth that'll be there and eventually adds a little fertility.

So if you could do all those things, then you get to a place like we are with our blueberries, where I just mulch them and I don't fertilize them anymore.

They're actually good sized plants and they're growing.

Well, we get more blueberries than we need.

Really?

Yeah.

It's a great problem that it is.

Do you use different kinds of mulch in different parts of your garden?

Yes, a good question.

So I love woodchips, arbor woodchips and these are the ones when you see people doing the chipping trees around, phone lines and places like that.

They're always looking for a place to dump those chips.

They don't want to keep bringing them back to the yard.

So if you see someone working in your neighborhood, it's often great just to go up and ask them if they have a place where they're going to dump their chips.

And if not, go ahead.

What's nice about these chips is that they're different sizes.

And they're pretty kind of chunky, but they're irregular.

So if you're looking for that manicured, beautiful golf course, kind of mulching, you might see all the same color and all that.

Yeah.

Wood chips are not going to work that way because they're going to be very non-uniform and kind of graying in color.

But as far as the plants go, it's really nice because they let air and water in really well.

So I usually use the wood chips around trees, shrubs and perennial flowers.

Some of the tougher perennial flowers, daylilies, peonies, things like that for, excuse me, annual gardens, annual flowers or annual vegetables.

I like having something to break down faster.

So grass clippings is really nice.

Chopped up leaves are chopped up hay and straw.

So just run your mower over.

Some of the use that you might have from last year or some hay, a straw and bag it all up if you have a bagger and use that around them, because that'll break down a little bit faster.

Provide a little bit of nutrients, but it still has enough of a cover that it can prevent regrowth from happening.

Okay.

Is there ever a time when you when it's okay to have weed growth, when you can just let it hang out?

Well, that's that's another topic let's get into.

Let's get into it.

Get into that.

So the more recent research about soil science, soil science is fascinating.

And if I was ever going to do it all over again, I'd get a degree in soil science, because not only are they realizing that in the soil is a living entity, there are billions of microbes there that are creating networks and creating pathways for water and nutrients to be flowing between the plants.

And in fact, they find out now what the plants have, a level of intelligence.

There's a consciousness to these plants.

So a tree and a forest will sense that a tree next to it is not doing so well, and it'll send extra water nutrients to them.

Really cool.

You know, it's one of those examples of, you know, the individual tree is not as important as the whole forest.

There's a life lesson.

Okay.

So when you're talking about weeds, often in a garden, we like to kind of clean up the garden, especially the annual garden in the spring tillage and, and make it nice and clean, almost like a sandbox kind of thing.

And that's the worst thing you can do for your soil.

The best thing would be to not ever till it or turn it, because that microbial network is there.

And also to always have plants growing on it, even weeds.

Because what the other thing researchers are finding is that through the process of photosynthesis, the plant is making food for itself.

But it's also sharing that food of up to 20 to 40% of it with the soil.

It's sending food into the soil and feeding.

It might control because it's a symbiotic relationship.

So it's not just a one way street where the plants are taking nutrients out of the soil.

It goes both ways.

So that's my pitch for keeping weeds.

Yeah, some of them are very delicious.

I eat dandelion greens every year.

Winter cress, dandelion, amaranth greens, lamb's quarters, all those are great.

But then I also realize that weeds could be a problem.

So if you have annual weeds like the amaranth in the purslane, those kinds of weeds, a simple thing to do in your garden is get one of those flat hedge hoes and make sure it's nice and sharp.

And Elliot Coleman made these very famous.

And you can stand upright by holding your hands opposite.

So instead of holding them down like this, thumbs pointing down, you do it with your thumbs pointing up and then you just kind of scuffle along.

You could be singing your to do do do do do do do a little bit.

Yeah.

As you just walk around and use this cut the top surface of the soil killing those weeds.

So that's what you can do for annual.

Would you do that a number of times until May and June you won't have a problem.

And the singing's important.

And the singing is very.

They want to hear that song before they eat that before they die.

And then you have, the perennial weeds, which is the one that most people are concerned about.

The quack grass, the dandelions, the burdock, all those kinds of weeds buying weed and those you really.

There's no pretty way to talk about this.

You got to get on your knees with your cobra hoe and just dig them out.

And what's been really nice about all this rain we've had is that those weeds come out a lot easier if the soil is moist.

Yeah.

So one of the best things to do in the spring is to get your rain gear on your slickers and all that other stuff go out there in the rain and weed, because can be much more successful.

Getting a lot of these things that make a garden sound really fun.

So your muddy, your dirty, they and you anything you have to.

So that's up to me.

But let's take a caller.

Here.

We have, Mary Beth in North Middlesex calling in.

Mary Beth, can you hear us?

Yes, I can hear you.

Yes.

Go ahead.

Yeah.

So here's my question.

So I have, I like the show schedule.

But one of them is about three, five, four years old, play tall now.

And so the first year, there is a daddy woodpecker that seems to like living in it, but also pecking at the branches, you know, picking up the wood.

And and I want you to have a home, but I also don't want to ruin my, my language.

So just wondering how vigilant I need to be about scaring away all the time.

Well, yeah, because, we had a similar issue with our willow tree.

We had a woodpecker that was enjoying just pecking away at our willow tree.

Didn't try.

And that's there, but was creating all these holes all along the sand.

And we could see the willow was starting to fade a little bit, not getting the water nutrients it needs.

So it is kind of important that you, if you can scared away.

That would be a really good idea.

Can do it, of course, in a safe and humane way.

And to maybe even protective if there's a certain area on the lilac.

That they seem to really like, if you can wrap that with something we did that was kind of like a mesh material, but it's almost like a little flexible window screen.

We just kind of wrapped it around there and then use some Velcro straps to kind of hold it in place, and that deter you from going into that one area.

And if it's the same thing happening with your lilac, you can do that with a couple of the main branches.

Okay?

Okay, Raven.

Good luck.

Thank you for calling in.

We also have Rula in Charlotte calling in with a question ruling on the air.

Go ahead.

And can you hear us?

Hello.

Hi.

Yes.

Well what's your question for you.

Yeah.

So thanks for taking this question.

So after 30 some odd years of growing broccoli in my garden last year, apparently I got squeamish.

Oh, so no broccoli crown.

So I'm not wanting to plant broccoli in that thing.

Whoa.

But is it safe to plant it somewhere else in the garden?

Yes.

So we should form a support group because we have what this would be just to.

What is that, a Swede?

Midge is a small, little aphid like insect, and it goes after Brassica.

So the broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and it goes into the growth point.

And so as you know, with a broccoli head when you're eating is actually the flower.

So that goes in there before the flower really gets going.

And it causes a damage so that you get all these little kind of heads, spindly heads coming up, but no big broccoli heads.

Oh that's sick.

Yeah.

And it causes that kind of a blast of the brussel sprouts.

So instead of getting a nice little foreign ball, you get something that's kind of explodes all that.

Oh yeah.

It looks like that.

So anyway, it's a tenacious little insect and it's hard to control.

You can certainly spray for it, but I try not to do much of that.

The thing that I do with it is rotate.

So don't plant that broccoli in the same bed this year or same area and also cover it starting right after you plant it with this micro mesh material that I've been talking about that we've flexible window screen material.

What that does is that it covers the plant, let's say light and air and water, and you can see through it too, unlike some of the fabric materials where that you can't really see very well what's going on inside.

And so you can water through it and you can take care of your plants, but it blocks that sweet image from getting in.

And I've tried that a number of years now.

It's been pretty.

I still get it once in a while here and there, but for the most part, those brassicas have survived.

Tell me, how do you how do you look at what's the right way to phrase this weird question?

How do you emotionally approach the concept of pests?

I mean, this woodpecker question that we just got, I think is a great example of this, of of seeing, you know, the inherent value and beauty of a creature like woodpeckers by a little easier than, you know, this little sweet niche.

Smith.

But I, you do a sweetness, by the way.

Okay.

So over here to the end, we're kind of planted in intact, but I think this is a Swedish piece of, the, the, the concept also, you know, even inside the cute or beautiful bird, you know, it's still a creature living thing in its own right.

And, it can be hard sometimes to figure out, you know, when do I prioritize my garden and my yield and how I want this space to look versus do I just let nature be nature?

I think it all depends on what you're looking for.

If you're trying to be out there and be like a farmer, or you're needing to be self-sustaining with your food and that kind of thing, then you're going to have to make some tough choices as far as what you do with animals and insects kind of coming in.

But if it's if it's more of a hobby or a lifestyle, just kind of like being out in nature, like being out growing food.

If I get a handful of cherry tomatoes, I'm happy.

If I get a bushel full, I'm still happy.

Then it's a kind of a different approach.

And how we approach it is that we make sure there's a lot of diversity in our landscape.

So we had a have a big garden that used to be all vegetables and that was it.

And then slowly over time, the vegetables, they're still there somewhere warm sometimes.

But there's flowers or Daniel flowers, perennial flowers, reserves.

There's bulbs, there's vines, there's shrubs, there's trees.

There's all kinds of other things now growing in there.

So it's creating a habitat and it's a habitat for all the different kinds of insects to be in.

It's even a habitat for a bunny to be in every once in a while.

And sometimes they get in through our, our fencing system.

And I just put a fence around it, the beans or the kale or whatever they seem to like, and they kind of hang out a little bit and then they go off to something else.

So you can kind of code habitat with these kind of creatures, but you have to have some barriers, some kind of, material around them that's going to protect your garden a little bit.

And you have to be realistic about what you're going to get from your garden.

Well, as we're talking about pests let's talk about jumping work.

Oh this comes up every time you and I talk these pesky little buggers.

And we got a question from someone in our audience, Sonja in Colchester, who says as jumping worms in my garden are here to stay, what can I do to ensure I have a productive vegetable garden anyway?

Yeah, so that's a tough one.

For those who don't know about the Asian jumping worms or the snake worms.

Another name for them?

They're an empiric imported pest.

An exotic pest that's moved, into the United States.

Just as a little aside, there are no native earthworms in the United States.

In North America, they all got wiped out in the last ice age.

So any earthworms we have here have been actually exotic, have been brought in.

So the first was the European settlers bringing in the big earthworms that we had.

And they've been able to adapt to our soils and the soils adapted to them.

And they seem to be okay with these.

Asian earthworms or Asian jumping worms are much more aggressive, and they eat a lot more, and they reproduce a lot more, too.

And one of the hard things about them is that they make little cocoons where the eggs are in the soil, and guess what color the cocoons are?

What brown you try to find?

Oh my hat's off to you.

Yeah, exactly.

Very smart and very good survival technique.

So anyway, they are around in a lot of gardens.

You can tell if you have a junky worm because literally it will jump.

This is another 50 000 foot or so.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I poked him a little bit to see what he was doing.

He was kind of sluggish.

I pulled him out.

He got really agitated.

I put him in a plastic pail that I had and he was just like jumping up and down.

Wow, I know I didn't like it there.

Yeah.

Well, probably like, he kind of sluggish stuff.

Get it?

Okay.

Sorry.

There's only one of the.

So anyway, they wiggle a lot, and they, they wiggle while they reproduce, and they're a little bit smaller than a regular earthworm, and they're in the upper level, areas of the soil, too.

One of the things you could do to see if you have jumping worms is to get about a third of a cup of brown mustard seed and put that in some warm water, like a gallon of water, and mix it up and then dump it on the bed.

And what that does is irritate the jumping worms, and they'll come to the surface, and then you can have a frenzy just picking them all and throwing them into your plastic buckets, you know?

And I think it's cool.

As of right now, as far as I know, there's no real solution to them.

I know researchers Joseph Gause at the University of Vermont is doing a lot of research on this.

And his graduate students, they're doing all kinds of researchers with biochar.

They're doing researches with other kind of additives, beneficial nematodes, things like that.

And seeing if that would somehow thwart them, because the adults don't survive the winter, but the eggs do, and then they come back and that the big concern is that they get into the forest.

And once they're in the forest illegally, organic matter, and make it so that seeds can't grow very well and you get a very barren forest, you have the mature trees and nothing else underneath.

So that's the concern in a garden, if you can clean out as many as you find, that's great to be realistic, you're not going to get them all.

So I think making sure you have healthy soil, organic soil as well is a lot of organic matter.

And it is going to be really good.

So they'll have something to eat, but your plants will still have a lot of good soil to, to grow in.

If you see these coffee brown clouds, just piles of soil, that's an indication that there's a lot of them there that they're feeding that.

I got one last thing.

Okay.

I know you can go on and on about jumping worms.

If you are bringing plants into your yard.

This is really important because I know a lot of garden clubs and plant clubs share plants.

If you're bringing plants in from someone else's yard and they don't know if they have them or not, the best thing to do is knock all the soil off, wash all that soil off into a plastic bag and plant that plant as a bare root plant, because you're not going to know if there's the jumping worms in there or not.

Another thing you can do if you're bringing in compost or even woodchips have been found in woodchips too, is to lay it out flat, like on a driveway, and cover it with plastic mulch.

It's getting plastic.

Not plastic, not a plastic sheet as mulch.

The idea is to solarize it, to heat it up to 105 degrees for at least three days.

That will kill the eggs and will kill the adults.

So there are a few things you can do, but generally it's going to be something we talk about every year on this show.

Oh well Shannon, best of luck with your garden and hope it's still productive despite the jumping worms.

If you're just joining us, we are speaking with Charlie Narduzzi, our local gardening expert from Vermont Editions annual Spring Gardening Show.

We are in front of a live audience today in our Colchester studio, but you at home can still call in and ask your gardening questions.

Our number is (800)639-2211.

Charlie, let's pause here for one more short break.

But, the reason I almost interrupted you was because you have brought up, something that looked like coffee grounds.

And we have an actual question about coffee grounds.

Let's get to that in just a minute.

This is Vermont edition.

Stay with us.

Welcome back to Vermont Edition.

I'm Mikayla LeFrak.

Today is our annual spring gardening show with Charlie Narduzzi, a gardening consultant, writer, and speaker.

Today's show is being recorded in front of a live audience at Vermont Public Colchester Studios.

Do you guys wanna say hi again?

You two can call in from home or the car or your garden.

806 392211 is our number.

Maybe you're wondering what you should be doing now to get ready for a great summer harvest.

Or maybe there's a flower or a fruit or veggie that you're considering planting for the first time, and you need some advice.

Again, 806 392211 is our number.

Okay.

We were we were about to top coffee grounds and we got a question from Carol in Rutland.

Who wants to know if there is a use for coffee grounds in the garden?

In the winter, Carol mixes them with woodstove ash for use on her icy driveway.

But during the growing season, she wants to know if she could use coffee grounds in the garden, or if she should just add them to the compost pile.

I think you could just add to the compost pile, because even though coffee grounds do have some nitrogen in them and some acidic qualities to them after they've been caught, the ground and water through them, they really are just a good additive as far as the organic material.

They don't have any these special qualities that people think that you put them on there and your plants grow about ten times faster or anything like that.

So I put that in the home remedy kind of group of it's good, but it's not as good as bean do.

Is there anything that you can put on your plants and they'll grow ten times faster?

Well, the things that I would not put on my plants, fertilizers, things like that.

Gotcha.

Okay.

We have a caller.

Jim in Stockbridge is on the line with us.

Jim.

Go ahead.

Hi.

Can you hear me?

Yes we can.

Fantastic.

I'm wondering on behalf of myself and, Hello, my farmer friend, what do you recommend to come back against the heavy metal that are, being distributed through the sky, through viewing areas of the city been approved the UK.

And I'm wondering how to combat the aluminum barrier was drafted that, are now in our photo.

Jim, thanks for calling in.

So, some concern about the soil.

Heavy metals?

Yes.

Yeah.

I think the first thing, Jim, of course, is to do a soil test.

And again, UVM we can do that for you, to find out what the levels are of those, heavy metals that might be in the soil.

And once you have an idea of where you are in that range, if it's really excessive, then they have to be doing some kind of remediation.

And then excuse me, it comes down to things like biochar is something that they've been doing a lot of experimenting with, to make sure they can take some of the heavy metals out of the soil.

I know there are certain plants that you can kind of grow.

Mustard, I think is one of them.

That could be another one that would take them out.

The only problem with these remediations is that you get the biochar or the plants loaded up with the heavy metals.

Then what do you do?

Yeah.

So you have to remove them from your property or remove from the fields, and then find some way to dispose of them.

That would be environmentally safe.

So it is a big concern.

I know that there's a lot of research is going into that.

And having soil know that, heavy and organic materials and organic matter.

So you have a lot of these microbes like I've been talking about, that are in there, can help make sure that the plants will grow well and not hopefully not take up as many of these heavy metals.

We have another caller with a question about pH and soil health.

Lisa in South Hero.

Lisa you're on the air.

Go ahead.

Hi.

Good afternoon.

Hi there.

What's your question for Charlie?

So I did a soil test after four years of knowing that unsuccessful gardening.

Found out that my phosphorus levels and my magnesium is very high.

Over 51 for magnesium and 128 for offspring.

So what can I do to get off the garden soil?

Yeah.

Yeah, that's that's a common problem.

Phosphorus levels, especially in soils in Vermont.

You really don't have to add phosphorus fertilizer in situations.

Certainly situations like this.

But in general, because most of the soils in Vermont have a good bank of phosphorus already.

And then why is that?

Can I I think it's more about the soil composition than anything else.

Yeah.

So, the, the excess phosphorus, of course, runs off, meets into the waterways and all the issues that are attributed to that.

So and I think going back again, not to kind of sound like a broken record here, but a lot of it's due to having a strong organic compound count component to that soil, so that the organic matter is in there will help, at least mitigate some of those excesses that are in the in your soil if your plants are growing.

Okay.

And it seems like after four years you said you had kind of mixed results.

You might want to try adding things that have maybe a little more nitrogen to it.

For example, depending on the what the soil test has told you.

But certainly you want to avoid anything that has magnesium in it or phosphorus in it, including some of the lines like the gold, and the decline has magnesium in it.

So if you have a low pH and they say and line don't use that can get a calcium Jon, what are your resources that you trust to learn about?

I mean, soil health is you you you know so much about it.

You said you kind of still wish that you could go back to school and learn even more.

But as you continue to educate yourself about this, what resources do you turn to?

There's lots of podcasts out there and certainly is the state extension websites.

They're all around the country, following different people who are experts in the field.

You know, the one woman who's done a lot of research on the soil science stuff is Doctor Elaine Ingham.

She used to be at Oregon State, you know, as a group called the Soil Food Web.

And she and her cohorts are working with farmers who would meet, like in the Midwest with thousands of acres and turning them more into no dig or no till farmers using organic materials and kind of and things like that.

So doing webinars with people like that and just kind of checking, getting into their podcasts and newsletters kind of keeps me somewhat abreast of what's going on.

Yeah, I don't I'm not on top of everything, but one thing that I've been learning about since I moved to to Gabon a few years back is how different, different parts of the state are.

The different zones and how you really have to tailor, your garden strategy to the unique part of the region that you're living in.

How how different are we talking here from zone to zone?

What are the different zones?

It's not too different anymore.

Yeah.

It's still colder, obviously, in the Northeast Kingdom and up in the mountains.

And what we've done in the Champlain Valley or the lower Connecticut River Valley.

But the zones have been shifting.

How do you decide to talk about.

So now a lot of parts of the state are zone five, which was unheard of when I first moved here.

Everything was zone three and four, sometimes two, which is like the Arctic kind of thing.

So that has shifted a little bit.

But as far as soils go, yes, there's a variety in the Champlain Valley.

It's there's a lot of nice clay love that actually kind of you go to.

So a lot of that we have to work with, you go up into the hills.

I remember I went up to Lewis Hills place.

I don't know if any of you remember Lewis Hill.

But he used to write or write books and live up in Greensborough, and I was amazed he had sandy soil.

He's up in the mountains, but he had up in just a certain little area of where his farm was, and he had sandy soil.

So there are a variety of things.

There's riverbed soils along the Connecticut River and some of the major rivers, Muskie River, those kinds of places to.

Well, let's take another call.

Here we have Francine in Sheffield calling in.

Francine, you're on the air.

Go ahead.

Hi.

Yeah, I have, two I like bushes.

I've been here about 25 years, and they're about 25ft high.

And one of only has maybe four little bugs coming off of it.

And the other one is fully furnished, I don't know, with completely dead what to do with it.

Do you have any a new growth coming up from the bottom from the root system?

No, just for the very few tips.

Couple of green bulbs, but the rest?

Nothing.

Yeah.

So most of it is dead.

It sounds like.

Yeah.

So I think it's be this and, you know, you're wondering if you want to leave it there.

It looks so sad next to the other one.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm 25ft high and five feet high as they grow bush.

I would say it's time for a little drastic pruning.

So I would cut it way back.

And I, as you're cutting the branches, if you have one, that's a life branch, you see.

Of course, it's still green bark in it.

Then don't cut that down to the ground.

Cut it down to maybe a foot or two tall, but everything else is cut all the way down to the ground and just leave it there.

It's not going to look pretty, different now, but what we're trying to do is to try to shock it into actually setting up some suckers out of the root system.

And if you get some suckers, then you can start all over again, and you could have another 25 years of beautiful wildlife if you don't get any suckers coming out, then it's probably time to move on.

And there's lots of great other wildlife varieties.

You can dig that one out and then put a different one in, or some other shrub.

Thank you for calling in and good luck with the lilacs.

Speaking of things that are beautiful, that, enrich our lives visually, Kelsey and Colchester wants to know what are some new perennial varieties that you are excited about these days?

Perennial varieties.

Wow.

Well, I'm growing stalks here.

What is that one in Bristol?

Excuse me?

The school.

Whether.

That is always one.

That's two.

Is two.

So Stokes here is a perennial as a beautiful kind of blue flower, cushiony kind of flower that blooms towards the fall, which I really like.

And there's some new varieties.

I'll be honest, I can't remember the name of the variety of on top of my head, but it's a new one from Proven Winners.

That's how I know I read a lot for them.

So that's kind of a cool new variety that's out there.

There's lots of these different healthy options out there that the kind of the small little, sunflower kind of like plants with have multiple sunflowers to them so that they stay bushy instead of growing tall.

And these have like, ten, 20, 30 sunflowers on there.

So things like that are kind of fascinating to me.

I try not to get into the things that have been overhyped.

I'd like some of the echinacea that are out there.

There's lots of different colors in there, you know, but there's a couple now.

They look like little toy poodles.

Fluffy heads.

Hopefully someone shake them.

One's called hot papaya.

The one's called, chocolate milkshake.

That's what it's called.

Some milkshakes.

So they're kind of interesting, but they're not great for pollinators.

Yeah, I think so.

I'm trying to look for varieties that are interesting and nice to have in the landscape.

But still are good for a wildlife, beneficial insects, pollinators, that kind of thing.

There's a lot of new ones called native are native varieties that are kind of one step away from the original species.

For example, the butterfly weed is all often an orange cauliflower.

There's a new one is called Hello Yellow.

I think it is.

It's yellow.

Who gets the name of these?

A bunch of people sitting around after hours, maybe having a few beers.

They call it all yellow, but, they're having beers.

So, that it's still good for pollinators, but it's kind of a step removed.

So look for those when you're shopping for plants.

So right now is a portion of our where I get to ask you my personal question.

Did they know?

Yeah.

We got you some more questions.

You brought up sunflowers.

And this reminds me, I was gifted a little packet of mammoth sunflower seeds, and I really want to grow them.

I love sunflowers, but, I know they're they're going to be big babies.

Do you have any suggestions on where to grow such a unique mammoth?

Plants?

Yes.

Yeah.

What do they need to thrive?

Well, they need a lot of sunlight, so.

And a lot of room to go vertical.

And it's best to grow them in a group.

So you have little kids, right?

One.

Yes one.

Okay.

So this is a fun thing to do with him or her or things.

And her name is Mara.

Okay okay.

Here's the fun thing to do with mine.

So you can make a sunflower house.

So you have an area in your yard.

And you plant the sunflowers in a semicircle, even one area that will be the door, and you let the mama sunflowers grow up.

And then as they get married, they have big seed heads that kind of flop towards the center.

Yeah.

So then you can kind of tie the center sunflowers all together, and then you can put a little table in there with little chairs and notice that you have two of them are wow.

Yeah.

Have lemonade.

Lemonade stand in for money.

All kinds of fun.

Did this one.

You have one of these at your house?

I don't.

Because you want to come with mine.

I mean, this is great.

So that's a fun way to grow sunflowers.

You'll grow them together, grow them in groups, grow them in the back of the landscape.

We don't buy sunflower seed any longer, because what happens is we leave our sunflowers to drop their own seed, and the birds eat.

Some chipmunks and squirrels eat some, but invariably there's some left.

And this time of year they're popping up all over the place.

And then we do a little constructive editing.

We move the ones to where we want them to be, and everybody's happy about that.

Okay.

Sunflower House.

Yeah.

So I'll give it a try.

Okay.

Let's take another caller.

We have a George in Cambridge on the line.

George, you're on the air.

Go ahead.

Hi, buddy.

You realize we did a surgery?

Hey, we are under the Boyle River.

And what about restructuring of, Japanese knotweed?

You know, it's probably along the river bank back from the ocean, which is a good thing, but the rhizome, network just keeps on consuming everything.

We try to go back, but it's into the shrubs.

It's into our compost.

I don't think it is, but you.

But, you know, we could do to stop the network from spreading laterally recently to around the end of it.

Interest.

Before you answer, Charlie, I just want folks to know if you couldn't hear it over the airwaves, when you said Japanese knotweed, George, you elicited this kind of, murmur of despair from people is very concerned.

Oh, man.

What does he think?

The best option, George, is to move.

Go to the hills.

Go up high in Japanese knotweed.

Hopefully one five.

No, seriously, though, yeah, it's a big problem in any along any stream and river, any lakeside, anything where there's water and Japanese knotweed looks to live there.

And as you're finding out, it has a very extensive root system that can go all over the place.

And what I've read about it, which is even more fascinating that some people have cut it way down, put tarps on it, left the tarps on it for 20 years.

Now, pull the tarp off and guess what happened?

The roots started growing again.

Oh, that's why I told them to move.

So it's really something that's really hard to control.

And obviously being next to waterways, you don't want to use herbicides.

So it kind of limits what you can do.

The best option I could give you is to kind of draw a line in the fence, like you live over there, Japanese knotweed over here we live and you're not coming in.

So try to, decide where you can kind of cut it back, push it back far enough to get rid of some of those roots, dig down a trench and put out a deep edging.

Probably a metal edging or a really strong plastic edging so they can't get through.

They're going to get through anyway, but not as extensively.

And then be diligent about pulling them out when you see them in the spring.

Believe it or not, Japanese knotweed will shoot out anyway, so you could create a new culinary delight and call it something else.

I don't know, it's the new kale, but don't call it knotweed.

And and start eating it.

But it's short of that.

There's really not any silver bullets where it.

Wow.

Okay.

Would you rather have to deal with jumping worms or not?

And, this is my nightmare.

Number seven.

I've got a garden.

I've nothing but jumping words and not going to end quite grasp the horse tail and think of how do you go anyway?

I mean, chances are good.

Okay.

All right.

We do need to take one more short break.

And you have a question for our gardening expert, Charlie Narduzzi.

You can call in at (800)639-2211.

This is Vermont edition.

Stay with us.

Welcome Back to Vermont edition.

I'm Mikayla LeFrak.

Today is our annual spring gardening show with Charlie Narduzzi.

He's a consultant, a writer, and a speaker.

And today's show is being recorded in front of a live audience at Vermont Public's Colchester studio to one more class.

There's still time to call it if you have a question.

806 392211 is our number.

We have Abby in East Montpelier on the line for you.

Charlie.

Abby, you're on the air.

Go ahead.

Hi.

Thank you.

I am thrilled that I could finally have a viburnum.

Carly c when they came out with the Baby Spice and I put it in, I guess it would be three summers ago.

Two summers ago.

And each year, as soon as the leaves come out and the buds, flower buds come out, I the leaves start to curl and when I uncurl them, I find little granular eggs.

And this year I find these a caterpillar.

What can I do?

Yes.

Those little caterpillars, they they're like leaf rollers.

They they roll up the leaf and they form their little home in there, and then they lay their eggs and they turn into caterpillars that they really don't do damage as far as eating all the leaves.

But they.

Oh, these are curled, so it looks not so great.

It's hard to spray for them because they're in the leaf, so you'd have to use some kind of systemic insecticides.

I'd rather not do that.

I have the same problem with our hydrangea.

Arborists.

Who does that too?

And what I started doing is I started, believe it or not, picking leaves or opening up the leaves.

That's another thing you can do.

So if you have, someone with time on their hands, why are you looking at me?

You have a good.

My very best friend enjoyed her.

I didn't do something.

I was going to unfurl the leaves and then squish that little caterpillar in there.

So if you can carefully do that, you can do it without really damaging the leaves.

The other option, of course, is there's not too many of them.

You just snip them off.

But the key is to remove that caterpillar if you snip them off and not leave it around there.

I did that for a couple of years on this Arbor resident hydrangea, and I don't seem to have them as much anymore, so I think that would probably be the safest solution.

Abby, best of luck.

Thank you for calling in.

We have a question from our audience for you.

Charlie Weber in Duxbury is asking about the best time to plant asparagus.

And where do I get asparagus root balls?

Now, I've heard that asparagus is one of the more finicky plants to plants.

Have.

True.

Where you got it?

It takes patience that you can expect.

Yeah, that's a better way to do it.

It takes patience.

So, the best time to plant asparagus was probably a month or so ago.

So.

So sorry, but you can still do it now.

It might be harder to find the crowns.

Will you buy his actual crown?

It looks like a spider.

So it's got a center area where the shoots come out and it has all these different tentacles or roots that go around it.

So when you're planting it, you want to make sure it's a full sun location, well-drained soil.

Don't do what I did when I first put it.

Did I put it in a place?

It was kind of wet soil, never really well drained and that was right.

So make sure the soil is really well drained.

They dig a trench about a foot deep, and you make these little mounds like Little Aquino's at the bottom of the trench, about a foot apart.

This does have finicky essences.

This kind of looks quite the thing, really.

Like made the mound at the.

I like the idea of the mounds.

Is it?

You can put the crown on top of them and drape the roots over the mouth.

Oh, nice.

Is that cool?

The chocolate.

So I started and then you backfill it to just the level of where the crown is.

And then as we start growing shoots, you continue to backfill with native soil.

You don't have to put in any fresh soil.

And then of course the key is to keep it well weeded, keep it well watered the first year and with well-drained soil again.

And not to pick it for about three years, but third year you can pick it.

Okay.

I mean, that's ludicrous.

You're not.

What are you going to do for three, three years goes like that.

And then, you know, you can't really see the spirit.

No asparagus for me, right now.

I'll just come to your house.

So I we we covered Richard in Coventry.

Richard, you're on the air.

Go ahead.

Well, thank you for taking my call.

Charlie, on the five years ago, I hired, quite a diet plan.

Some weight was three, 5 to 9.

And I noticed last year, one tiny, tiny.

And we had some high winds at a point during the throw up.

And now they're not being to, the leaves are coming out like they should now, I'm afraid, on my trees, I can't figure out why.

Yeah.

So if eight of them are doing okay and it's that that one, that one white birch, it could be something that attacked the roots.

Or maybe the roots were really very strong when they planted that.

When the plants are variable, you know, just like people.

So if you treat them all the same way and people grow up differently, or people have health issues, not have health issues, all those kind of things, same thing is happening with plants too.

So, it's not unusual if you plant that many of the white birches and one of them may struggle.

So what I would probably suggest to do is make sure it stays.

Well, right now it's probably really moist, but stays well watered the summer.

Maybe put some compost around it.

If the soil is heavy, you might even want to get an iron for it.

And just kind of dig a little holes in with the nails, push it into the ground and rock it back and forth just to open up, to aerate it a little, to get a little more oxygen into the soil.

And hopefully that will help it survive.

Sometimes if they're big trees, the transplant shock is pretty severe, mentally, kind of a lot of the roots, often they make those root balls.

And so it takes a few years for those trees to actually recover.

And so growing well, best of luck, Richard.

I hope the the birch tree recovers.

We have Joe in Keene, New Hampshire calling in Joe.

Go ahead.

Well, hello.

Hi there.

Okay.

I'm calling from him in Philadelphia.

I've been trying to replicate the success that I had eight years ago with my very first the mother of Thousands plant that was given for me.

And when we gave it to me, it was very small.

But inside of three years, it it was really flying like.

And I actually had to, stick it to, you know, eventually at the end of three years, it was, over ten feet.

And, you know, I, you know, planted it up against the state, and I had to trade it up and over, bay window I had in my living room.

And, but I haven't had, anywheres near the success over the years.

And, you know, that very first, mother of thousands plant that was, you know, it grew into a very sturdy vine.

Okay.

Thank you.

One, well, I think if it's as long as it's been growing healthy, it shouldn't be really, an issue with it.

Have you repotted it recently?

After three years, I moved, well, from that location, and I had to leave it there.

I mean, there were just so, you know, I had a very, very low rate, and there was no way I could move it, so I just left it there.

So, you know, since then, I tried growing more, you know, lot of thousands, which, you know, and, you know, the seed, growing on the outside of the leaves.

So, you know that that's what I'm getting.

See, Joe, I'm just gonna jump in because I had not heard of this plant.

I just googled it, and it looks very cool.

It's also known as alligator plant, Mexican hat plant.

Devil's backbone, devil's back.

I know, that's cool.

I know.

But.

Yeah.

Go ahead.

So.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So.

So what you're trying to do then is you're trying to propagate a new one, or you can't take the old one because it's too big.

Is that what's happening.

I have to leave the old one behind you know.

But I've been growing other plants, 1000 plants.

And it's growing up into vines.

They tend to like be broad.

Why.

And squat.

Oh I wanted to be a vine okay.

Okay.

Thanks Joe.

Well the original one sounds like it's doing what you wanted.

So what conditions was it growing on?

You didn't get a lot of light.

Was it more in a shady kind of area?

It did get a lot of light.

Okay.

And, you know, and you have to go through the years.

You can't make the mistake of watering it.

Yes.

Fruit is a supplement, right?

Right.

And so sometimes will happen, especially if there's seed growing.

You're going to get variations from the mother plant and sometimes the, the the tendency to vine might be something that gets lost in that, the process of doing it.

So I would suggest if you have access to some more of that seed from maybe go back and get some more from the mother plant to grow a bunch of them and see if you can find some that are still vining.

And because you might have that variation just because of the, growing from seed versus an asexual propagation.

Charlie, and thank you so much, Joe, for calling and good luck with the mother.

1,000 pounds.

Gracie, I want to make sure we get to a couple more questions from our studio audience, and we got a great one from the kitty in Essex Junction.

It starts with a disclaimer.

It says, Charlie, do not take this personally.

How can you control Creeping Charlie in the.

Well, first of all, you don't invite Charlie over for lunch because when they come, they don't want to leave, and then they'll be all over the place.

So creeping Charlie, for those who don't know, is a grown guy, and it's flowering now.

It's kind of a little purple flower.

It's low growing.

It spreads through lawns, it spreads to perennial gardens.

It's very opportunistic.

So if you have a long it's a little thin, maybe has some bare patches and things.

That's where it's going to come in first.

So the first thing to do is to get rid of it.

And the way to do that without using chemicals would be just to, after a rain, again, pull it out.

And it doesn't root very deeply all along the stem.

And you can often just kind of pull it for a while.

It's kind of very satisfying, actually.

And you get a lot of it out.

But the key is once you've pulled out the area that you cleaned up, then come into your lawn and top dress it with, some composted real, probably topsoil, maybe 3 or 4 inch thick layer of topsoil, and then put some grass seed in it, and you want to put grass seed in.

It's similar to what you're already growing.

So if it's a full salon you might want to have graffiti has more Kentucky bluegrass.

If it's more shady, you want more of the tall or the chewing or a short excuse, but get a good grass seed in there and get a nice thick long.

Once you have a nice thick lawn, it's creepy.

Charlie doesn't want to show up at your house any.

He goes creeping down the street.

Well, these are named after a plant that is, has a beautiful flower.

It has a nice flower.

It's got a bad reputation.

No, no.

And, Charlie, every time I see you, you are about to head off on some amazing adventure.

Yeah.

What?

What troubles do you have ahead?

I'm going to Sardinia, Italy, next week.

Next week?

It was a ghastly crowd.

We're all coming.

Yes, I did garden tours, and I've been doing that for now, 15 years.

And so every year we go to 1 or 2 different places.

This year, we're going to Sardinia, Italy.

And so when we go, we see public gardens.

I hooked up with a landscape architect there to show us some of his projects and some of his private gardens, as well as, some, of course, you go to Italy, you've got the cooking classes, you got to go to wineries.

You just have to heart it.

So I really it's tough, you know, it's it's hard to do all those things.

Yeah.

And then there's beaches and mountains too.

But anyway, and in the fall, we're going to Scotland, so.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Since September and be part of a Highland Games, event.

Kilts and things around.

Are you very different in Italy?

Charlie, what keeps you gardening in Vermont after traveling to so many wonderful places?

What do you love most about about being here?

This climate, this soil, this air?

Yeah.

It was always nice to come back home.

And that's really what this place has been for me for, for over 40 years now.

And it's a beautiful place.

I think we sometimes forget that.

Especially in the Champlain Valley, where I am with the lake there in the mountains, in the Adirondacks.

And every morning is a little different.

I was driving down to New Hampshire, to Vermont, earlier this spring when when all the red maples were actually had their written, flowers out and in the light was hitting in a certain way with a little moisture in there.

It's just kind of glistening.

It's just magical.

So it's a beautiful place and it's a great community of people here.

And, I love living here.

Oh, well, Charlie, thank you so much for reminding us about the magic and the science behind gardening.

You know both very well.

We are lucky to have you.

Charlie Narduzzi is on all things gardening on Sunday mornings on Vermont Public.

If you want more, you can also subscribe to Vermont Public's email newsletter sprouted with gardening tips and tricks.

You can subscribe at Vermont Public Dawgs Sprouted Charlie, thank you so much.

It's always fun to be here.

Always a pleasure.

Today's show was directed by Elliott Papes and engineered by Phil at first and Peter English.

Our managing producer is John Aarons and our producer are Andrea Laurian and Daniella Ferro.

Our call screener today was Rick Barrett and our theme music was composed by Myra Flynn.

Special thanks to our live studio audience here in Colchester, Vermont.

And thank you to everyone who helped us put on this event, including Amy Zielinski, Bryan Stevenson, Kyle Amber Scott, Keeley Mumford, Riley Cartwright and James Stewart.

I'm McKayla lefrak.

Thank you so much for listening and we'll catch up again soon.