- Hi, thanks for joining us for the Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South.

I'm Chris Cooper.

Collecting seeds from flowering annuals is easy and lets you grow the same plants again next year.

Also, we'll talk about how to keep mice and rats out of your home.

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.

[upbeat country music] - Welcome to the Family Plot.

I'm Chris Cooper.

Joining me today, Celeste Scott.

Celeste is a UT Extension agent in Madison County, and Mr. D will be joining me later.

Celeste?

- Yes, sir.

Good to see you, today.

- Good to see you.

Thanks for having me.

- Thank you for being here.

- It's beautiful outside in the garden.

I'm so glad we're getting to be out here and use y'all's plants for some demos.

- Yes, this is of course our "Family Plot" garden and this is our butterfly garden.

What do you think?

- I love it.

I was just commenting on all the pollinators that are on this autumn sedum right now.

I see honeybees, carpenter bees, bumblebees, a wasp.

- Yeah, a wasp.

- I mean, so many different types of pollinators out here.

So this bed is doing what it's meant for.

That's what it's here for.

- It's great.

- All right.

So what are you gonna show us today?

- Well, I thought that I would share a little bit with y'all about harvesting seed from some of our favorite flowers that we have in the garden.

- Nice, nice.

- So, you know, it can be a little confusing.

One of the frequent questions I get folks who are wanting to save seed is that they're not sure what the seed is.

Like, where is the seed located?

- I can understand that, yeah.

- That can be very confusing because think of all the different flower forms that we have.

They are not all similar in structure or form, and it can be a little confusing on where you need to look for those seeds- - I would agree.

- And what they can look like.

So I thought that we would take this opportunity to just use some of the plants that y'all have here in this garden and show the viewers, you know, where to find those seeds.

Does that sound good?

- That sounds good to me.

- So I wanted to start with these marigolds.

They're in the bed right here behind us.

Marigolds, oh, it's one of those plants you either love them or you hate them, right?

Some people don't like the smell of them.

I really love the smell of them.

- I think they're fine.

- They are heat tolerant, drought tolerant.

A lot of people like to use 'em as companion plants around their vegetables and other herbs.

And they're a cute little flower.

They can reseed themselves, but if you want to save the seeds and intentionally plant them somewhere in your garden, you're gonna need to know where these seeds are located, right?

So obviously most people would go to the flower.

That's where we wanna start with all of our seed-locating adventures.

- To the flower.

- You need to go to the flower.

So that's where we're gonna start here with.

This one is in prime condition, right?

Then you wanna follow those petals and I want people to start examining the flower structure.

Look at what's underneath that flower petal.

So here you can see we've got this swollen area.

That's where the ovaries- - Got it.

- For this flower are.

And as this flower begins to mature, those are gonna continue to thicken and puff up and we can see that here in this flower that has began to kind of crumble up its petals, lose its petals.

I'm gonna go ahead and pull those off so you can see what's happening underneath.

So this is the ovary.

This is the area that interests us for seed collection.

Okay?

- Okay.

- 'Cause if each of those ovaries gets fertilized, it's going to turn into a seed.

- Got it.

- Okay?

So I have a few others here that were a little farther along.

Let me dump these off.

This flower head, I would say, would be ready for us to break it open and harvest.

You need to allow that to fully mature.

You want it to dry, feel papery to the touch.

You certainly don't wanna harvest the seeds while they're still green.

And you can see here as I crack that open, see how dark the seed is?

- I can see that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- You can tell that it's no longer green and that those seeds have now changed in color and are darker here.

- How about that?

Yeah, very distinct.

- Isn't that neat?

- Yeah, that is neat.

- And so, you know, if you're a lazy seed saver, [Chris laughing] which there's nothing wrong with that.

- Nothing wrong with it?

Okay.

- Right?

So it's easy for me to take these all out.

That's the husk they were in.

There's probably 50 seeds that came from this one flower.

If you're a lazy flower seed saver, you could make sure that these were dry, leave 'em out for a day or two and store 'em just like this.

But if you want to clean them, that's understandable as well.

So there we have a couple different techniques for doing that.

These were so dry that I was able just to pull that petal trash off and this is the actual seed.

So you see how pointy it is?

- Wow, yeah.

- The seed down here at the bottom, and this top part is part of the seeds.

You don't have to clean that off.

So I don't know if you have ever planted zinnias from seed?

- Yes.

- The entire thing, even the little papery outing is part of the seed and the same goes for these marigolds.

So all you really have to do is pinch those dry petals off.

- Yeah, that comes off easy.

- Easily.

- Yeah, yeah.

- And you could have done that while they were still in a bunch, but I was trying to hold this paper plate so that they could see it.

Once you've done that, your seeds are clean and ready for storage.

- Ready to store.

How about that?

- For the next year, yeah.

- That's good, okay.

- Let's see, what's another one that we wanna look at that might be- Oh look, I'm gonna seed those in your garden.

- Oh, how about that?

- For next year.

- We'll take that, thank you much.

- Let's take a look at Rudbeckia seed head here.

This is a beautiful cultivar - That is beautiful.

- With the dark centers in it.

Obviously this flower is at its prime for enjoying in the garden and used as a cut flower.

But if we're wanting to harvest the seed, these are not fully mature yet.

What we wanna look for are flowers that are looking, flower heads that are looking about like this.

Now, once they begin to open up, I'd say this one is past its prime and it's probably dropped a lot of its seeds already.

- Oh, okay, I see.

- See how easily they're coming off?

We wanna collect them while that head is still kind of tight, but certainly dry.

- Got it.

- Okay?

So I'm just gonna pop that head off and we'll kind of deconstruct it right here on this plate.

So all the petals are already dried up.

We're gonna go ahead and pull those off.

Easy way to detach these seeds from the seed heads, just take your fingers and just kind of give them a little brush with your thumb.

Obviously if you're inside... - Yes.

[laughing] - You won't lose as many as I'm probably losing right now.

But we just wanna give those a little- - Again, that's pretty easy, right?

- Give those a little tease.

And these seeds are much smaller- - Man, they're small.

- Than our marigold seeds are.

And there are hundreds in this seed head, okay?

So you would just keep working at it to loosen those seeds from the seed head.

And I'm gonna go ahead and throw those parts down.

- Yeah, those are so small.

- So small.

Each one of these teeny tiny linear pieces is a seed.

- Wow.

- Okay?

Every single one of them right here, every little line.

And again, these have a little awn that's attached to 'em that helps 'em fly in the wind, you know, catches the breeze just like we saw in the marigold, except about twice as small for these Rudbeckia seed.

And so, you know, we could do a little bit more cleaning on this.

We could use a series of screens or sieves or we could use, you know, a light blowing technique.

It's too windy out here today to show that because the seed would blow away just as well as the chaff would.

But definitely, you could clean that up a little more.

Or you could store it just like this.

As long as you're planning on using it the following season, as long as it's dry, - As long as it's dry?

- It shouldn't affect the seed storage viability.

- That's a lot of seeds.

What do you think the germination rate would be?

- Well, if we harvest it at the opportune time, I think we're gonna be close to 90%.

- Wow, that's good.

- So that seed head that we just harvested.

However, if you let them sit out past their peak maturity to that first seed head that we looked at, where it was already dropping seed, once fully matured seed are exposed to 90-degree temperatures or above, their viability rate can start decreasing.

- Okay.

- So that's why we, you know, we wanna make sure the seed heads are dry, but we don't wanna leave them out there too long.

- Ms. Celeste?

- Yeah?

- We appreciate that.

What a great demonstration.

- Thank you.

- I learn something new every time that you come to us.

- And I'm just gonna throw in before we leave... - Yeah, just throw it in real quick.

- Coneflowers are very similar to Rudbeckia.

So similar situation, the center of that flower is the part that you wanna focus on for seed collection.

Harvest that, use your thumb to break those seeds away.

- So, same method there.

- Same method.

- Okay.

You can see they have that same awn attached to the end of it.

And again, that's where you need to look for the seeds.

- That's where you look.

Celeste, we can tell you love this so much.

- I do, I do.

- You could just go on and on.

- We could do all these, [Chris laughing] but we don't have time.

- We don't have time.

So thank you much, Celeste.

We appreciate that.

- You're welcome.

Good stuff.

Good stuff.

[upbeat country music] - This is goldenrod, often known as Solidago, part of the aster family and it blooms in the fall of the year, which is good for pollinators because it's something blooming when a lot of things is not blooming and you'll see it along the sides of the roads.

It grows in with a stiff stalk.

It's green until it starts blooming in the fall, so if you see something stiff growing up with these nice pointed leaves on it, I would leave it and see if it's not a Solidago plant, because this is great for the fall blooms, for the pollinators, and it's just something really pretty in the yard.

This happens to bloom at the same time that ragweed does and ragweed is not a Solidago, ragweed is Ambrosia.

So they're completely different plants, but this one is blooming at the same time that everybody starts sneezing from the ragweed.

But they are completely different plants and this is not the culprit, but this is when they both bloom.

[upbeat country music] - All right.

Mr. D, let's get rid of those rodents.

I see we have a table full of traps here.

[laughing] - We have an assortment.

It's almost mind-boggling [all laughing] the options that you have where mice are concerned.

- Oh, boy.

- What I would prefer happen is that they not come in.

- Right, right.

- Where you don't have to use any of these and you can use hardware cloth to prevent that from happening.

But, you know, mice, it's hard to believe, but mice, the bones in a mouse's skull are movable.

- Oh, man.

- And they have the ability to get through any hole that's larger than a quarter of an inch.

- Oh, boy.

- And this is a quarter-inch hardware cloth.

So if you have a quarter-inch hardware cloth, that will prevent a mouse from getting in there.

I've got an example.

- Oh, boy.

- Of a quarter-inch hole.

So now, they can't get through that quarter-inch hole, but if it's any larger than the quarter-inch hole that we have over here, then they can get through that.

Rats, you know, even a big old rat, they also, you know, they're a rodent and their skull bones are movable and they can get through a hole that's larger than one-half inch.

- So.

- Wow.

[laughing] - You need to use solid aluminum or solid steel or something that is a quarter-inch or smaller where hardware cloth is concerned if you're gonna try to use the exclusion method.

- Okay.

- Now, sometimes if you're using the exclusion method, you may be trapping them inside your house.

So if that's the case, then you still gotta go with these- - Gotta use the traps.

- These other options that we have here.

There are several.

We'll talk about traps first, there's several traps around.

Somebody once said that if you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door.

I don't know whether that happened to Mr. Victor, but this is a Victor mousetrap, and it's been around for a hundred years, I understand.

And I don't know... How many did you say have been sold?

- One billion.

- One billion of these have been sold.

- One billion.

- And I'm gonna try to set one here without mashing my fingers, but I am gonna put my glasses on.

- Oh, yeah.

Do that.

- I may get- Will you hold this for me?

[Chris laughing] - Yeah, yeah.

Let me jump right in there and help you out.

- Yeah.

So I'm probably going to get, no.

Okay.

And the way this trap works, you apply bait and you know, my whole life, we only had one kind of bait that we use, cheese.

I'm not sure mice like cheese, but put a little piece, just a little bitty piece of cheese or a little bitty piece of peanut butter or something like that right there and when Mr.

Mouse comes along and touches it... [trap clattering] - Gotcha.

- So long, Mr.

Mouse.

[Chris laughing] There are improved varieties.

I hesitate to say improved, maybe they're not improved.

I don't know, I mean, that does the trick, I'm pretty sure.

But there are other mice traps, mouse traps out there.

These are plastic.

This one I guess they get in there, they go around a bunch of corners and you can actually see them in there because, you know, and they're looking out trying to get out.

So I guess that's... Actually this is a bait station.

You, put bait in here.

- Okay, right.

- The mice go in there and eat it.

So they can leave, they can leave.

I guess they can see the bait.

And so that would make them want to get in there.

And they can leave.

They'll eat and leave.

I like using bait stations.

This is a larger bait station right here.

This is really, well, is large enough.

You can see, it's plenty large that even rats could get in there.

- Oh wow.

- Without any problem.

That's probably at least a two inch hole.

And it's got, you know, basically they can run all the way through there, run all the way through there off to the side.

I've got bait right here, they'll go in here, they'll eat the bait, and then they can leave.

The reason I like the bait stations is because some of these poisons or anticoagulants that will make the rodents thirsty and they're nice enough to eat your poison and then they leave and go get a drink of water and die away from you.

With this critter, you're gonna have to deal with him.

- [Natalie] Up close.

Yeah.

- And if you use a trap that actually catches them, I encourage you to check your traps once a day at least.

- Sure.

- Because you don't wanna leave them in there.

You don't want to do the once a week thing because you'll know, I mean, the good thing is you'll know that you've caught something because you can smell 'em.

- Oh, you smell 'em.

That's right.

- This is another example of one.

This is a single-use trap.

I'm not really sure how it works.

Let me see if I can...

I don't know how to trigger it.

[trap clapping] - There it goes.

- But apparently when you catch one, you just dispose of that.

- Right.

- I don't think there's any way to get the mouse out of there.

- No, it doesn't look like it.

- So that's another type.

This one, I understand, is a humane-type mouse trap.

Get it open here.

Probably better put my glasses back on so I can get it put back together.

You can see it's got a ramp, a little ramp that the little mice come and they'll walk up this ramp and then apparently it'll go back up and it'll hold, like, a whole family of mice.

[all laughing] You can get three or four mice in there and the directions say take the mice at least two miles away and then release them.

You know, I've got a couple other ideas about that.

If you have anybody that has a cat.

[all laughing] You know?

Or a pet snake.

- Snakes, yeah.

- Yeah.

- Or something like that.

That will pretty well guarantee that they won't march two miles back to your house and be back to your house before you get there.

[all laughing] But I mean, all kinds of... - That's right.

- All kinds of traps here.

This is a type of poison or toxicant.

Rodenticide I think is the proper term to use.

It's kind of a little cake.

I like the stations, the bait station because, I mean, to get into this bait station right here, you've got a key, you have to have a key to get in there so you don't have to worry about kids.

- Oh, okay.

That's good.

- Or pets getting into it.

I like the bait station because they're a little bit more secure.

You know, I don't think a child would pick this up and eat it, but I caught my daughter eating dog food one time.

- Yeah, yeah.

- You know?

And so, you never know.

- Yeah.

The color makes it attractive for kids.

- Yeah, that's right.

- And this, this right here, this is what, the Havoc is what I have in inside this bait station.

And actually, my granddaughter brought one of these little packets into my wife, I had one out in the garage and she brought one in and said, "Can I eat this?"

- Wow, yeah.

And these type of packets I'm not sure are available for homeowners.

I purchased it at this in a bucket at a co-op.

- Okay.

- I've got a pretty large bucket of these.

I use quite a few of these and I put 'em in my attic and under my house and things like that.

But now, I try not to put 'em where Lila can get to them.

- That's good.

- Mr. D, is there gonna be a danger to other animals, you know, with these poisons around?

- I don't think so.

I think the dose, the lethal dose that kills a rat or a mice is probably too small to kill pets.

I wouldn't, if you have pets and if these critters go out and die out in yard, I wouldn't let your pets eat them.

- Right.

- If your pets eat squirrels and rabbits and things like that.

And I'm not sure that they would, but I do know these products are toxic to dogs and cats.

- Right.

Sure.

- I don't think they will eat the bait, but they may chew on a critter that's dying in the process.

But I don't think there's enough of a dose to be a problem.

And I say that because as stringent and strong as EPA is, I don't think they would allow us to have 'em on the market if that was a danger.

- Okay.

Mr. D, we definitely appreciate that.

And looking at that snap trap, voles.

You could get some voles with that too.

- You're right.

You're right.

- That's right.

- This works for voles.

All this works for voles.

- How 'bout that?

So there you have it.

Thank you, Mr. D. Appreciate that.

[gentle guitar music] - These are a few tips for harvesting seed from vegetable crops that tend to have dried seed pods.

The seed collection is a little easier, so if you allow that pod to dry on the vine, you can just pop those open.

I'm doing an okra at the moment.

And do it over a catchment container, bowl, pan, whatever your preference is.

And in okra, they actually are stored in these linear cavities, so you may, you know, it might take you a few minutes.

You just have to go around with your fingers working each of those cavities open.

Let me show you what I'm doing here.

See, I've pulled that apart and I'm just letting those seeds fall down into my catch container.

[okra crunching] Okay.

And that really is the easiest technique for harvesting okra.

You get very little trash or chaff in there mixed in with the seeds.

You got a pretty good collection right there, so you shouldn't have to do much more before you store these seeds in a breathable package and then put into an airtight container for storage.

[gentle guitar music] - All right, Celeste, here is our Q&A question segment.

Are you ready?

- I'm ready.

- All right.

These are good.

- Okay.

- All right, so here's our first viewer email.

"My 30-year-old maple trees have large sections of leaves "that are turning brown, drying up, and dying.

"It is happening over the majority of the tree.

"I tried checking for verticillium wilt "by scraping the bark off some branches, "but I don't think that was it.

"The trees get watered weekly when I water the lawn "using irrigation water "that can sometimes be salty and dirty.

"What might be stressing my maple trees, "the irrigation water, not enough water, "lack of nutrients or possible disease?

How can I help them?"

And this is Wendy from South Jordan, Utah.

- Okay.

- So how can we help Ms. Wendy?

- Well, from the pictures that we were looking at that she sent in along with that question, we were kind of leaning towards a leaf scorch - Right, yes.

- Type situation.

And basically what that means when you have a plant that's suffering from leaf scorch, that's not being induced by a disease, like a bacterial disease or a virus, general leaf scorch has to do with the uptake of water.

- Exactly.

- And the loss of water from the leaf surface.

So that leaf surface and think of a maple leaf, they're large, and so we've got a largely surface area there, and it's losing water through respiration as that plant is recovering and it just can't take up enough water to replace the water that's leaving from that leaf.

And so then you get scorch usually from the margins of the leaf inwards, and the veins will look okay, but then all that material, depending on how severe the situation is, you'll have more or less margin of, like, necrosis.

Like, brownness around the edge of that leaf.

And I think that we're kind of leaning towards that.

Just the availability of water and the ability of the plant to take it up.

It was on a pretty narrow strip of ground with impervious surface on both sides, road, sidewalk.

So that would probably be my first go-to.

- That's definitely mine, yeah, definitely.

Environmental stresses, you know.

Heat.

- It's hot.

- Of course, wind plays a factor in that as well.

- And they're in Utah, so we've got some exposure.

- For sure.

- Definitely gonna have the high light and heat factor there - That's for sure.

- In the summer.

- And she did mention with the irrigation water, salty and dirty.

That salt can build up over time.

- It can accumulate in those soils 'cause they don't get a lot of rain like we do here.

So they're not getting the rain to flush the salts out of the soil.

So I mean, it could definitely, you know, be an option or a contributing factor.

- That's right.

- But I feel like the causation is just the ability of the plant to take up water.

- I would agree with that.

And make sure you are watering deeply.

- Yeah.

- Deeply, okay?

Most people, when they irrigate their lawn, they're thinking, yeah, your grasses, pretty much the same water I can use for my trees.

- And they have some restrictions on irrigation in Utah, too.

So I mean, you know, you have to consider where you are.

- That's right.

All right, so Ms. Wendy, we hope that helps you out.

Thank you for the question and the pictures.

Thank you much.

All right, here's our next viewer email.

"A longtime friend gave me these ga rland-lilies 40 years ago "and I want to bring them with me "on my upcoming move to Memphis.

"Would it survive a Memphis winter in the ground "or do I need to put them in a pot?

"Also, if they need to be kept in a pot, what care will they require throughout the winter?"

And this is Pete from Rosedale, Mississippi.

So Pete, welcome to Memphis.

All right, so garland-lilies.

But you know 'em by another name, right?

- Yes, I did.

I was so confused, I was like, I don't think I know what what a garland-lily is.

- See, I know about ginger lilies.

- And then I felt so bad.

And then I was like, yes, that's- And then I looked at the picture and I was like, oh, that's what we call, I call hardy ginger.

- Ginger, there we go.

- And ginger lilies.

- Ginger lilies, right.

- Other people might refer to him as like, butterfly ginger.

I've heard people refer to them as that.

And I wanna point out right on the front end that some ginger lilies are not hardy to zone seven.

But I realize parts of Memphis, you know, are warmer.

Other parts of the Mid-South, even warmer.

- Right.

- So it depends on where you are how hardy they would be.

But there is a white form and there's also a peach-colored form that are, and common name, hardy ginger.

- Right.

Gotcha.

- Okay?

So I feel like his is probably gonna be hardy in the ground.

- I would think so.

- Especially here in the Memphis area.

since this is where he's moving.

And then we would just have to be experimental if we went much further north to test out, to test the boundaries and just see, is this one of those that we put in that hardy ginger category?

Or is this one of- - I like it.

- The ones that are more tender.

- Okay, yeah.

- Our zone here is 7b.

- Oh, okay.

- Okay, so I think it should- - I think it should be fine.

- Be fine, yeah.

- And I love them, also.

They spread so well, you can share those with friends.

- There you go.

[laughing] - Man, sometimes they spread to places where you don't even want 'em.

- How about that?

Uh oh.

- But they're beautiful and they smell great.

- They smell good, they do smell good.

And one last thing, you know, Pete did talk about, so putting 'em in pots, could he put it in a pot if he wanted to and bring 'em?

- Yeah, definitely.

- You know, inside, put 'em in like a greenhouse, garage or something like that?

- Yes, yeah.

You sure could.

- Just, you wanna make sure that they don't go all winter without water.

They need some water.

You know, we don't want 'em to be wet, definitely.

Wet and cold don't mix.

- Okay.

- But they need to have some moisture if we're gonna bring them in somewhere.

- There you have it, Pete.

They smell good, too.

Again, welcome to Memphis.

Appreciate the question.

All right, so Celeste.

- Yes.

- Fun as always.

- That's it, already?

- That's it.

- Oh, my goodness.

- Can you believe it?

- Good questions.

- I know, so good.

Thank you much.

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 watching.

If you want to learn more about seed saving or keeping the critters out of your home, head on over to familyplotgarden.com.

We have more information there about everything we talked about today.

Be sure to join us next week for the Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South.

Be safe.

[upbeat country music] [acoustic guitar chords]

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