FM Talk 1065 Podcasts
Plain Living w/Bill Finch 7.7.2024 Summer Heat and growing
It's time for Plain Living for Alabama and the Gulf Coast. With nationally recognized nature writer and award-winning horticulture and nature expert, Bill Finch. Bill shares his knowledge of conservation, natural history, and gardening. Let's talk about living and growing in the deep south with your personal garden and nature consultant. Here's Bill Finch on FMTalk1065. Hey, welcome back, it's the Gulf Coast Sunday morning. It's an Alabama Sunday morning. Fill in the blank for me. It's too hot to, so you're sitting on the couch, I know. You're just, you're looking for an excuse not to go outside. That's okay. I actually love this kind of weather. It's good for you. You know, it slows you down, but somehow it peps you up. I can't put my finger on it. If I didn't have this kind of hot weather in Alabama, I don't know what I'd do. So what are your plants doing? What are your plants doing during this really hot spell? That's kind of what I want to talk about this morning because they've got a lot of mechanisms for dealing with this, and they've got a lot of, there's a lot of plants that don't have those mechanisms for dealing with this kind of heat, and that's something you probably need to know about. You know, I was going down the road with a guy the other day, and he kept pointing out the corn to me, and he said, "God, something's wrong with that corn." The leaves on the corn were like lifted straight up against the stalk, and the leaves were folded right down the middle, creased right down the middle, and they said, "That corn is dying." Well, no, that corn wasn't dying. It was reacting to the heat, and it's one of many ways that plants deal with that, and you're going to see it in your yard, you're going to see it in your grass, you're going to see it in plants that know how to deal with heat. They have a lot of ways of changing the way their leaves work so that they can deal with the extreme heat. You know, every plant needs sunlight, and we got the longest days of the year. We're still in those really long days. There's plenty of sunlight, but there's something you need to know about sunlight and plants. They're not very efficient at midday at using that sunlight. They got big problems. They run into big problems. That's one of the reasons your tomatoes right now on the Gulf Coast, what's the word suck? They just are doing terrible, right? They're not doing well at all. They're collapsing, and this is very typical of this time of year. It's partly about the extreme heat. It's partly about the high-night temperatures as well. It's partly about all of this moisture, but they're going to really struggle. You're going to be struggling even in North Alabama. Let's talk about why, and let's talk about what kind of mechanisms plants have to deal with this. Let's look at your lawn. A lot of you have had a lot of rainfall. Some of you in the state haven't had as much rainfall, but one of the things you begin to see this time of year, particularly with grasses, particularly with the grasses that are growing well this time of year, is that they'll begin to fold up their leaves. Their leaves fold in half. When you see that happening, you recognize that they're struggling a little bit. If that's happening at night, if that's happening at night, you got a problem. Those corn plants that we saw driving down the side of the road with their leaves folded up and against the stem, they were protecting themselves from the intensity of that mid-summer sunlight and the high toll that takes on respiration and loss of moisture. They were all dealing with that, but they will open up if it's corn plants, and most of the grasses would grow. Those leaves will open back up at night. If you see that happening during the day, you say, "It's getting to be that time of year. It's getting to be a little stressful." If you see it happening at night, then you say, "These guys, they got problems," particularly with the normal grasses we grow this time of year. It's really interesting. If you go out in the woods, you'll see that plants that are well adapted to living in Alabama, all have mechanisms for dealing with it. If you've left any long-leaf Savannah in Mobile and Baldwin counties, I hope there's some left, you're going to see things like turkey oak. Turkey oak grows in the middle of these long-leaf pine savannas, where the sun is beating down all the time because there isn't a continuous canopy to shade that, so it's going to deal with that extra sunlight. What does it do? It turns its leaves so that they're not parallel to the sun, but perpendicular to the sun. Those leaves will be turned. Take your hand, make your hand, stick it out in front of you flat so that it's just flat with your arm. Now turn your hand so that it's sideways. That's what the leaves do on that turkey oak, and that's how it protects itself from too much sun and too much moisture loss. Isn't that cool? The coolest thing in the world, all those turkeys, you could almost tell a turkey oak just by the fact that those leaves are turned sideways so that they're not collecting as much sunlight. A lot of plants fold up. One of the great things about long-leaf is that those needles droop. Have you noticed that on long-leaf? Those of you who know long-leaf pine, the needles droop at the tips, and why do they droop at the tips? Well, they're very long for one thing, but there's a big advantage to that if you're thinking about it. One, they're going to be much more efficient at collecting sunlight that comes early in the morning and late in the afternoon because that's the sunlight that's coming in, and they're going to be much less bothered by that intense sun at midday. All good to know, all good things to think about, and here's something else you should think about. If you're looking for sunlight in your garden, and you want it in summer, and you're looking to walk out in the middle of your yard and you say, "Look at that, the sun at noon is right above my head. I've got plenty of sunlight." You miss the point because that midday sunlight in summer is almost useless. Almost useless. It's the light early in the morning and late in the afternoon that plants use most efficiently. All these cool things, there's another thing that I want you to think about just while we're on the subject, and you can be exploring this in your head. We have something we call warm-season grasses and cool-season grasses, and you should probably know the difference. Corn, by the way, is a warm-season grass. It produces a grass that produces fruit. All grasses produce fruit. Corn just has been bred and hybridized so that it produces unusually large fruit. But corn has a different way of breathing than rye grass. Rye grass is something we would call a C3 grass. It uses an older version of photosynthesis that requires the leaves to stay open and lose a lot of moisture and to collect a lot of toxic excess gases that it has to release. This is a problem, particularly in places with really hot climates and that get dry. When a new type of grass came along, let's put that about 50-80 million years ago, mostly, that used a technique that is called C4, and corn is one of those, Bermuda grass is another one of those. Zoysia is another one, St. Augustine is another one, those are all C4 grasses. But things like Fescue, if you're growing that in North Alabama, that's a C3 grass. It's the old-fashioned version. These C4 grasses, it's like they have a little gateway that stores carbon so that they don't have to release as much moisture at night or during the day when they're actually trying to photosynthesize, so they're very efficient at doing that, and they don't develop the toxic compounds that the C3 grasses do that they have to release at night. Things like tomatoes, they're C3, they actually are really struggling. Fescue is going to really struggle in this heat. That's why in South Alabama, you can buy Fescue seeds all you want, but it won't grow worth it too because it's too long. Some things to think about in this heat. We'll be back. Give us a call, 251-3430-106. Welcome back to Plain Living for Alabama and the Gulf Coast. Questions on conservation, natural history, and gardening? Talk with Bill Finch. Call 251-3430106. On FM Talk, 1065. Yeah, that's a good one to listen to. Alright, let's get back to the heat. You know, it's interesting that a lot of plants will struggle with the heat for a lot of reasons. The plants that are best adapted to Alabama are the ones that have sort of figured out that they're going to have to deal with toxic sunlight and toxic compounds that develop in that kind of situation when they're trying to breathe and respire. And high night temperatures, huge issue. High night temperatures are probably more important to how plants survive than high daytime temperatures up to a certain point. I mean at 120 degrees, things struggle. But the difference between 90 and 100 degrees is that in daytime temperatures is not so great for plants. The big difference is, how do the temperatures drop at night? And if they're dropping at night below 75 degrees, no problem. If they're staying above 80 degrees or around 80 degrees, you've got big problems with how plants survive. Something to think about. That's what makes things different on the Gulf Coast. We talk about this a lot. It's really important for you to understand. If you think, and throughout Alabama, honestly, it's throughout Alabama because we will, you know, from the Gulf Coast all the way up to northern Alabama, you're going to get a series of days when the temperature just doesn't drop much below 80 because the humidity is very high. It keeps temperatures when humidity is high, keeps temperatures from fluctuating. So maybe our temperatures don't get so high during the day, but boy, they can get really high and they can stay really high at night. And that's when it's very stressful on plants. That's what's hurting your tomatoes. That's what's hurting a lot of grasses now. Let's talk about, because in case you're looking for things not to do, let's talk about some things you don't need to do in your yard right now, if I may. One of the things that really isn't very useful right now and that you could avoid doing, it is planting a new lawn. Yes, don't do it. Don't even think about it. Don't even try. If you're having to build a new house, but if the code requirements are that you have to put grass in this time of year, all I can say is dance, dance, dance and try to avoid putting grass in right now because it will be very hard to do. One, even the best adapted grasses, and you'll probably be planting one that's not well adapted like centipede, but even the best adapted grasses are going to really struggle in these kind of temperatures. And here's one of the issues. Let's think about this. You've got this sod that's been cut and you're going to lay it out like it's some kind of weird carpet across your yard. And let's say you've done everything else just right. So that carpet doesn't hold any moisture when you first lay it out. It has no roots in contact with the ground. So how are you going to get those roots to develop? It's going to take several weeks for that to happen. What are you going to have to do? In these temperatures, in this kind of heat, you're going to liz moisture very quickly. So you're going to go out, you're going to have to water that lawn. You have to water that lawn virtually every day. Now here's the other problem. Here's the other. So you think, oh, I got it. I got this real expensive dude all day long irrigation system. It's going to come on for 15 minutes every yackity, yackity, yackity, yackity, yackity. Let's say it does. And let's say that it relieves all of the moisture loss that's occurring in that sod. Here's the problem. These temperatures, particularly these kind of night temperatures, in combination with constant moisture is going to ensure, it's going to ensure that you're going to get leaf diseases and fungal diseases and more types of pests because they're going to gravitate to that extra moisture. They're going to gravitate to that constant moisture. So you're darned if you do, as we like to say, you're darned if you don't when you plant this time of year. You're either going to have to water every day. And if you water every day, you're almost certainly going to have diseases. And then somebody say, oh, well, you use this fungicide and then you have to be aware that you probably have to use that fungicide once or twice a week for it to be effective. And you can't use it after the disease has developed, you have to use them before. So wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, don't do all that. Just delay in this kind of heat, just delay, just hold on to your horses. In October and November is an excellent time to put in you sod. If you feel like you must do it and you can call me, I don't always, if you're putting in you sod where none exists, I guess you got to do it. If you've already got sod, let's talk about it before you decide you're going to tear everything up and start over because it ain't easy to do under any circumstance. But it's really hard to do this time of year because of that extra heat. So something not to do, don't plant a new yard this time of year. Don't even contemplate it. Don't even think about it. Just sit there on the sofa and think about what you're going to do in October and November. There you go. Here's something else. Don't mow. That's right. There is just, just your lawn could probably use a breather for mowing. No need to mow. No need to, no need to go out and mow this time of year. Just, just calm down. No need to mow. One of the, so I know what you're hearing from people and it's difficult because there's a lot of people out there who basically want you to spread your tail in across a riding mower and never get off of it. And they want to see your rear end get more spread out as time goes on because all you're doing is sitting on your tush, mowing your lawn. This is their business. This is their business. They sell you mowers. They want you to drive those mowers. They want you to use those mowers as much as possible. So they're out there telling you, oh, you got to mow your lawn all the time and they're making it easier and easier to mow your lawn all the time because they, you got all these weird little contrivances, they're selling lawn, I don't even want to talk about it. Six or seven thousand, eight thousand dollars for just, you know, get a bicycle, man. So here's the cool thing in summer, don't mow. Maybe once a month, oh man, people got to freak out because they've been told they have to mow all the time. Well, the truth is if you want a healthy lawn, don't mow it. It's going to get healthier, particularly if you're mowing it for less than three inches. The reason why people tell you you have to mow a lot, there's only one good reason for mowing a lot and that is that you're mowing your lawn very, very short, so short that it nearly kills the lawn. And if you do that, you kind of have to train it to live and just kind of adjust to being less than three inches tall. And this is not what grass does because grass has got to have green leaves, right? It's got to be able to photosynthesize. If you're cutting your grass and it's brown, you see the problem, right? Letting that grass grow through these really hot extreme times just mow less, that's it. And let your lawn get to six inches tall, it'll be great, it'll be wonderful. The only thing you have to remember is when you decide to mow again, mow it as high as your mower will go, three and a half inches at a minimum, three and three quarter inches, four inches is better, five inches is the best. If you could all, if we had all mow, particularly St. Augustine and a lot of other grasses at five inches during the summer, we'd all be a lot better off. If you can mow them tighter in spring, it's just fine, it'll be fine. But this time of year, let them do as much photosynthesis as they can. You're going to have more mature leaf blades, you're not going to get a bunch of new growth, it's going to be susceptible to disease and insect attacks. It's really a great choice, just let it go. Let it go during these hot days, maybe bow every three weeks, maybe every fourth week. Oh, I can't wait to get the calls I'm going to get for people who are irritated by that statement. But you know, it's just fine, it's just fine, and mow when it gets to be six inches tall, you really won't know it. You'll have to go out with a yardstick to actually measure it because it's going to look great, it's going to look fine at six inches tall. In fact, nobody else is going to know it either. The only reason to mow it, and one of the primary reasons we would mow it's even at six inches is that it kind of, if any weeds are coming up that are getting too tall, you can kind of mow those off. But you'll have fewer weeds, fewer weeds. When I was a child, all right, we'll be back. Down to Western Kentucky, where my parents were born, and there's a back. Welcome back to Plain Living for Alabama, I'm the Gulf Coast with Bill Finch. This bill about gardening and nature in your backyard, call 251-3430-106 on FMTalk 1065. All right, welcome back, it's the Gulf Coast Sunday morning, it's in Alabama Sunday morning. So we got some thinking about the heat and what it's doing for your plants, and I said, you know, you don't have to mow this time of year, and actually your lawn will probably be better for it. You've got to do a couple of things, you've got to listen, you've got to pay attention. But here's the cool thing, all you've got to do is think about it, you can't be lazy about that, you just got to think about it, you don't have to get off the couch, you just leave the mower parked where it is, you paid $7,000 for that mower, and so you're going to want to have to use it as much as you can, I know how this works. But the truth is, you can leave it parked, get it cheaper mower next time, leave it parked, and just let the grass grow, it's actually going to be healthier for the grass. Is it healthier for you? I don't know, I mean sitting on the couch, sitting on the lawn mower, what's the difference? I don't think it makes any difference. But it's better for the grass, not to mow it all the time. Particularly this time of year, it could be stressful, it creates new growth, particularly if you're mowing it short, less than three inches, just give it a break, let it grow. I also said don't plant grass this time of year, and so as always, somebody's building something new, you don't want erosion, what are you going to do? If you're, here's what I would do, it's a great solution, it's really great, it's very easy, it has the advantage of breaking up soil, it has the advantage of bringing plenty of mulch to the soil, it has the advantage of increasing nitrogen in the soil. I'd plant field peas, southern peas, Crowder peas, Black-eyed peas we call them, Peacock Purple Halls, Whipperwill's a great one, it's a great one to plant, and the other Whipperwill-like varieties. And you could actually eat the peas, but here's something even better, just let it grow and cut it back, if you can, if you can come back with a weed whipper and just cut those back, let them continue to regrow and bill mulch in the soil, and just, you don't even have to let them go to seed, if you don't want to, if you want to let them go to seed, you're going to have great tasting peas, it's a great cover crop, excuse me, great cover crop for your lawn, goods that are doing that. Are there other things that would be even better, yeah, but you've got to find them, you've got to find them, or you've got to maintain them, you could do the same thing with, you could do the same thing with Krotalary, it would be fine, but you really have to keep that cut back really, really hard. Some of the other legumes can be a little hard to get rid of, but the fact of the matter is peas, they're only going to grow as long as you want them to grow. You can cut them back easily, you've got great mulch, what a great transition, and then your lawn is going to be in much better shape for putting on new sod when it's time to do it in October of November. Let me know if this works for you, it's great, it's a great way to do it, and it's not, it's kind of the perfect time of year to do it, you know, mid-January, mid-February, really a great, I'm sorry, mid-January, mid-July to mid-August, it's a great time to plant that last crop of peas anyway, and they'll come along, they'll produce really well, do fine. That's just a suggestion, you let me know if that doesn't work for you. Johnny and Graham Bay says his tomatoes weren't producing, so what he did was, he basically moved the plants, and I'm not sure how he moved them, but what he said was he buried everything except for the very tips, and the tips are coming up great, and disease-free, and they will, and this is very typical. Here's a great way of thinking about it this time of year, new growth on these tomatoes, as long as they're not producing, is going to be pretty disease resistant, and disease isn't moving up the stem, you're getting lots of things. A lot of people will take tip cuttings, Johnny, take tip cuttings from their tomatoes, root those, which is easy to do, and then this new crop of tomatoes, which is disease-free because it's at the top of the plant, getting plenty air circulation, is going to grow just fine through July and August, and then start producing in September and October. This is your last chance for most of you to do this with your tomatoes, but it's a great thing to do. Johnny just did a modified version of it, may have made it a little harder, or may have made it better, I'm not sure which, Johnny, but it actually is a great technique. Just get rid of that, cut off, cut off, cut a clean top out, where there's no disease, there's no foliar disease, root it, it's really easy to root tomatoes, just find you a container, get some good soil, don't put it in blazing sun, put it in a cool place, it only gets morning sunlight, put your, take about six inches of your tomatoes, strip off everything but the top few leaves, put it in that container, let it root out, June is a great time to do it, it's not too late to do it now if you're on the Gulf Coast, probably a little late to do it if you're farther north. Just something to think about, there it is, there it is. Alright, let's see, how about something that you don't plant, so Barry's asking me, so you want to cover your lawn with something that you don't plant, well boy that's a lot of trouble, I mean I could, Barry, I gotta think, I don't think it's a good idea, what you can do, so here's what you can do, you can crack your soil now, you can crack it, you can put pine bark mulch on it about two or three inches deep, and then you could, no, I'm not even liking that, you really want to do that just before you plant, I really think you do need something to plant, I mean I could just think of all the reasons why, if you were to put netting over it, what a pain in the patootie that's going to be because you're going to have to take it up, it's going to get, oh it's going to be a pain, I mean you could put burrow, it's going to be very expensive, and I still think you're going to get weeds coming in, no I don't have a solution, I don't have a solution, really, I think you do want to plant something, but peas is a good thing, peas is a good thing, if you've got bears, you know and that's assuming you've got the bear soil, I'm not sure, I'm not sure about that berry, I think you just need to plant something, are these bean pods on my Carolina Jessamine, useful for anything edible, okay, so let's go back, a lot of beans, well okay, they're not, it's not a bean, let me go back, it's galsimium, it's something else entirely different, no I don't think they're edible at all, I have never heard anybody ask, but it's not a bean, and it's not edible, as far as I know, and then you're asking about, which is a really great question, I think they're fruit on my sesanqui, Camille as you were speaking up for oil, what is the best time to pick them for the most oil? That's a great question, I would definitely think that they're going to be good when they begin turning slightly brown, you don't want them to dry out too much, but just, you want them to mature, you want them to get fat, but you don't want them to turn completely brown, because they're going to start drying out, so when they begin to turn, when the color of them turns from a bright green to a kind of a dull green, that's probably a great time to pick, I will ask, and this is typical of a lot of fruits, and so I'm using that measure, I need to ask my expert in Georgia that question someday, about when the best time to pick is, but generally it's going to be when the fruit gets a duller green color, and before it turns brown, before it turns brown, what are these things that are on the foliage of some of my bald cypress trees, let's see if we can see that, I'm going to pull this photograph over here, and I'm going to pull it up and I'm going to look at it, oh, well, those are seeds, that is the bald cypress seed developing, so there you go, that's what that is, that's what that is, alright, so what else we got here, Wayne, let's see, Jim and Georgetown, what does Jim got to say, we've got this weed coming up where I don't really care if it's there, but we need to pull it, I'm going to look more carefully at this, it looks like mercury, one of the mercury's, but I will, oh, Jim, I'm trying to get this picture over to where I can open it up, yeah, it's one of the mercury's, it is a tough weed to deal with, I will tell you specifically which one it is, if you'll give me a chance during the break, but it's a tough one, and those little, it's a nuisance, it is a nuisance, I wouldn't keep it, I don't think it has any good uses for people, it does tend to come up rather prolifically, so the sooner you can keep those seeds from developing, you see the little flowers developing there in the axles, the better off you are, and we'll come up with a more specific name of that, and you just pull it, it's easy to pull, easy to pull out, yep, so there you go, what else we got here, this morning thinking about the heat, thinking about things coming up in the middle of summer, David is asking me, what about walking on Egyptian onions, you know, they don't do as well on the Gulf Coast, some people are doing pretty well by them, they do a little better farther north, might have done well, have a great crop of bulbs on top, guess my biggest question is how do you drive down the ground bulbs, and do you drop the top set bulbs before planting? One of the great things about the walking onions is that you can leave those bulbs in place, and just use the top bulbs, there's one way of doing it, you can use the tops, and certainly you can replant, but you want them to be perennial, so I would avoid replanting those bulbs, or I would only use every other bulb, if you've got a big row of them, you see what I'm saying, underground bulb, but they're going to be best at top setting, and those top setting bulbs are probably your most useful thing, I'll be interested to know how much bulbing went on below ground, David let me know, it varies from climate to climate to place to place, it's sort of like garlic, and we'll come back to that in just a minute. FM Talk 1065 with Plain Living for Alabama and the Gulf Coast, call 2513430106, here again is your personal nature expert, Bill Finch. Good morning, welcome back, it's the Gulf Coast Sunday morning, it's in Alabama Sunday morning, I guess people are still out 4th of July. Alright, so what have we got here, we've had some questions about things, Wayne did I answer all of your questions, I hope I did, you had several Carolina Jessamine, no don't eat it, sis ankle gummy is the answer, that one, things on the foliage is some of my bald cypress, let's see, let's see what else we got, you know I did want to talk a little bit, and I'm going to talk a little bit about something I'm planning right now, which is kind of fun, in fact my knees and my legs and my back feel it very much, I shouldn't be sitting now, I should be stretching those muscles, but I'm doing this for your benefit, I may stand up and jump around here in just a minute, planted a thousand, no we planted maybe 1300, 1400, gamma grass seedlings, what is gamma grass, what is gamma grass, it's a very interesting grass, it's you know it's not something you use in your lawn, at least not lawns as we think of lawns now, it was one of the original prairie grasses, it was one of our original native grasses, I hate to use the word prairie because you're going to think about Nebraska and you should be thinking about old, mobile and the black belt and Birmingham and Huntsville because we had prairies there, we had savannas, we had grasslands that were very important, with a huge diversity of grasslands, far more grasses than you would see in places like Nebraska or Kansas, we had a huge diversity of grasses and they were very interesting, we talked about these C4 grasses that have special adaptations, we call them native warm season grasses is what the folks call them now, and of course the only native warm season grasses that count are the ones that grow in Kansas, but that's ridiculous, we've got a lot of great warm season grasses and a lot of great cool season grasses that are native to Alabama that they don't even know about, they don't even have out west, one of the best and one of the most important of those native warm season grasses is broom sedge, it never gets the respect it deserves, it's the thing that saves our hide over and over again, it's a great transition grass, it's beautiful, it reforms the soil, it keeps co-gone from getting to be a huge problem, it's a beautiful grass and then it disappears, there are many ways to get it to sort of reduce its coverage, this time goes on, it's great for quail, everybody's got all these sophisticated ideas about how they, you got broom sedge coming on, you got great quail habitat, you got great potential for quail habitat, it's perfect, don't do anything too weird, just go for the broom sedge, native warm season grass, very well adapted to our hot summers and the temperatures, but there were others out there, there were others out there, gamagrass was one of them, and I still see it around Mobile, and Amy and I have talked about it, Amy wants it for horses, Amy I hope you've been listening when I'm telling you John Olive has some gamagrass for you, and for some other folks, he's been propagating it at Mobile Botanical Gardens, call Mobile Botanical Gardens if you would like to try some of this gamagrass, particularly Amy who's going to try it for horses, really important thing to think about if you've got horses, a lot of people have been using cool season grasses for their horses, which is a crazy thing, it makes horses, causes all kind of problems for horses, I won't even go into it, gamagrass is kind of the perfect grass for horses by the way, it's, the horses, in fact the horses like it so much and cows like it so much they'll overeat, not to their detriment, but to the grasses detriment, so they'll chomp down on the grass to the point that the grass disappears and they'll eat it preferably over other types of grass, even bermudagrass, oh boy do I hate bermudagrass, Bahia grass, nah. This is a great grass, gamagrass, gets six feet tall, makes great hay, the seeds, it's actually related to corn, isn't that weird? It's probably a very close relative corn, you can actually pop the seeds just like you pop corn kernels, really could be a very useful plant, we're trying to reintroduce our native gamagrass, you can still get gamagrass seed from Minnesota but you don't want that, you don't want it from North Dakota, you don't want it from South Dakota, you don't want it from Nebraska, you don't want it from Kansas, you don't want it from Texas, you want it from Alabama, it's well adapted to Alabama conditions, so we've been out planting that and it's really good and it's doing that very defensive thing, it knows how to, it knows how to do it, it actually deals real well with flooding, which is great, it does real well with drought and there are many reasons it does well with drought and people say well it's because it's got roots that go way deep and yeah that makes a bit of difference, but one of the biggest differences is that the leaves themselves are well protected from moisture loss and they will roll up during the day when it gets too hot, particularly mid-day, they'll just roll up and then they'll open at night and open during the early morning when they can get the best sunlight, they're really good at figuring all that out, amazing grass, gamagrass, we got it planted, really great for horses, great hay, some of the best balance of fiber, if you will, that's what we'll call it, the best balance of fiber and protein out there, so that horses don't get so fat they get sick, yeah, you know how you go into Walmart lately and you worry about everybody, yeah it's the same thing happens to horses, suddenly you've got these horses that are eating too much of the wrong thing like cool season grasses and they get sick and they found her and they get laminitis and they get intestinal blockages and they collock and they die and then on top of that if they're eating things like fescue in the middle of summer, it's actually toxic to those horses as it is to quail and everything else and boom, you've lost your horse, you've lost your foal, gamagrass is different, it is this great balance, it does not have any of those toxic principles, great for, so we're out planting that, restoring that, there it is, let's see here, what do we got, this gamagrass calls problems for horses, nay, says Mr. Blot, yeah that's fine, that's fine, nay says, it's great for horses, it's great for cows, it's a great way to feed your cows when a lot of those cool season grasses have declined much more production than Bermuda grass, you know, Bermuda, Bermuda, how do people say it, I don't care, Bermuda, Bermuda, it only gets about knee high, even when you let it grow and it's pretty tough at that stage and the cows aren't going to eat it and neither will the horses, it doesn't get very tall, so one of the interesting things about Bermuda grass hay, Bermuda grass hay, gosh how do you say the dead gum thing, is that it's not as productive and gamagrass is going to be old before it goes to seed, it'll be four, five, six feet tall, wow, think about how much hay is in there, how efficiently it uses that space in the air that Bermuda grass, Bermuda grass and Bahaya grass don't use, there you go, thanks for letting me talk about that, I'm excited about my gamagrass, it's really cool, we'll be back. It's time for Plain Living for Alabama and the Gulf Coast, with nationally recognized nature writer and award winning horticulture and nature expert, Bill Finch, Bill shares his knowledge of conservation, natural history and gardening, let's talk about living and growing in the deep self, with your personal garden and nature consultant, ears Bill Finch on FM Talk 1065. All right, welcome back, it's a Gulf Coast Sunday morning, it's an Alabama Sunday morning. So I'm looking at pictures, people sent me and we're talking about the yard in summer, talking about things you could do, things you shouldn't do, one of the things you could do is begin starting your winter vegetables and I believe it or not, that's something you really need to do in North Alabama, it's beginning to be about the time to start thinking about that in South Alabama as well, you also got to order your garlic, I am late once again, I shouldn't even tell you because I don't want you to beat me to the garlic, but I've got to be honest with you and tell you that if you're going to order your garlic you've got to do it here pretty soon or it's going to be out, you don't plan it now, you plan it later but you have to order it now, that's the way life is. We have had a very patient caller, Harold are you still there? Yes, tell me how I can help you if I can. Oh, okay, if you get a deep pat, can you put peas in it, go peas out of a deep pat? Yes, of course the problem is, yes you could, Harold, it would work out just fine, you're not going to get a lot of peas out of it, because it needs to get a lot of peas, you didn't want a long row, but yes, and it wouldn't even have to be a super deep pot, but it's just a question of how many peas you're going to get, so yes you could do it in a deep pot. That's a simple answer. Oh, okay. What about garlic? Huh? Got it. Got it. Good. All right. All right, Harold, good to hear from you. Give it a try. Let me know how many peas you get. That's always a big question, but it'll grow. Peas are really great. They're great, they'll grow in almost any conditions, they're really tough that way. All right, let's see what else we got here. We got two pictures and I'm not sure what to do this about, I guess, what's the question here? Let me try to get this. Good morning, how are you all? I hope you can tell me the best course of action for these two. We spoke a few weeks ago about how the builder put bushes too close to the house, and this is another example of their enthusiastic planning. Are these two growing to complicate each other aside from just being too close? I know I could crepe and murder the Myrtle, but I enjoy them tall, just looking for the best advice if there is any. This is a very simple question. There is no, if you can figure out a way to murder a crepe Myrtle, easily tell the world because they are really hard to kill. They're really difficult. I'm looking at some crepe murals right now, and I cut them back, and I cut them hard, and I shhh, you know, it's just they're back, they're already a nuisance again, crepe murals. You can't kill them, but there's nothing wrong with those being planted at the distance you've got, and I would just leave them being filled, you know, if you don't mind them having crepe murals there, they'll both just take up their own space, they'll do just fine. They're not too close, actually, they'll be fine. Their canopies will merge, it'll be all a good, you'll all be fine. The stuff close to your house, now that's tougher, and I'm not, you know, we'll have to look at that on a case by case basis, just trying to figure out what to do with stuff that's way too close to your house, there it is. What else we got this morning? Yes, we're catching up, let's see here, what, just shy of 10 inches of rain in the last week, goodness gracious, that is Jim and Georgetown, that is a lot of rain, and it makes it difficult, you're going to see more diseases, you're going to see more weed problems. You know, one of the things that's important to understand about grasses, and particularly our warm season grasses, and we started out talking about this, they have a different way of breathing than most plants, and that different way of breathing allows them to survive dry, hot conditions very well, and so when you water excessively and along, you know what happens? Think about it. The plants that don't normally do well under dry and hot conditions take off, and so you get more weeds in your St. Augustine and your Zoysia, and your Bermuda grass, and your other warm season grass lawns, your centipede, I hate to even use the word out loud, it's such a miserable grass for the Gulf Coast, and for most of Alabama. You're going to get out, they're going to get out competed by these other plants that really need more moisture because they're not as well adapted. How do you deal with, once your grass is well established, the key is, once it's established, which can take a few months, you want to spread out the moisture as much as you can, and I told you when we started the show this morning, what to look for, when those leaves fold up during the day, that's a sign that they're beginning to lose moisture. If they stay folded up in the morning, you've got to water right away, right away, so you kind of want to use those leaves folding up as a key to letting you know when to water. If you have an irrigation system, and somebody's talked to you into some kind of sophisticated mind of its own irrigation system, you've got to realize that that irrigation system knows nothing about whether your grass needs water. I know there are all sorts of little things out there about, oh, you got so many, but it doesn't know, it doesn't respond well. If you, what you, it needs your thoughts, it needs your mind to know when to water the lawn well. And basically, here's the thing, every time I've watered my lawn, I've regretted it. It's just, almost every time I fertilize the lawn, I regret it. There are times when you do need to water, there are places that you do need to water, but you need to water it well, and then get off it. Water it well, wait at least two or three weeks before you water again, because otherwise, you're going to favor the weeds that don't have this ability to deal with heat and dry weather. You're going to encourage diseases that attack your lawn, you're going to encourage pests that attack your lawn, that's just the way it is. Water, well, let the water sink in three inches deep. Once the water sinks in about three inches deep, you can quit watering. And then don't water again until it's dry, three inches deep. How's that? A couple out of three inches deep. It'll make a big difference in terms of your lawn. You don't want to keep those grass blades wet. In fact, you don't want to keep your roots sopping wet either, but you're definitely one of the crowns and the grass blades wet all the time. Ten inches of rain, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, and that's not something you can do much about. It's going to be a stress, because those grasses, particularly the ones that we grow in our lawns, really aren't well adapted to that kind of high moisture environment. They don't do as well. They tend to be from low moisture environments, from muted grass, which is an African grass, for dry climates, Bahia grass, which is Argentinian grass, a Brazilian grass, for basically adapted to dry situations. They don't do as well when we get that much moisture. Centipede, oh Lord, help us. It's a miserable grass from any perspective. It does okay in the northern most parts of Alabama, but it's just, if you can avoid it, it's probably better. Every grass has its problems, but centipedes does more problems than almost any other grass that you can grow during the summer. It's not going to tolerate it. It doesn't like to be watered all the time. There you go. FM Talk 1065, home for plain living for Alabama and the Gulf Coast. Let's talk about living and growing in that deep south, with Bill Finch. Call 251-3430106. All right, welcome back, Gulf Coast Sunday morning, Alabama Sunday morning. Let's see, what have we got to answer this morning? So I can't, sometimes the photos don't let me see as well as I might like, and this was taken from the dark side of the trees. So I assume that we were both looking, they were both crepe-murdle twang. So now that you pointed out to me, I can see vaguely that one of them is a magnolia. Yeah, they're probably not going to do real well together. I would, let's say, I think the magnolia is going to look a little bit ugly, just quite frankly, where it is. I don't think it's ever going to develop very nicely. If it does, well, if it were me, it's not that I prefer crepe-murdle to magnolia, it's just in this case, I think I would cut out the magnolia. Yes, they're not going to live well side by side, ultimately. But I also think, with a magnolia, what I generally recommend, if you're going to grow an evergreen magnolia, and I don't recommend growing an evergreen magnolia in most yards, because they get really big, and most people can't manage them, I definitely don't recommend them north of Montgomery because they're a bit invasive in north Alabama, and that's getting to be a bigger problem. But here's what I would do. Leave the branches on your magnolia. If you're going to grow a magnolia, don't cut the branches off. Let it make a cone all the way to the ground. They're really beautiful that way. They're really fine that way, and they're going to be really nice. If you start cutting those lower branches off, you're going to have a maintenance nightmare for a long, long time. One is still not going to allow anything to grow under it, but when the branches are all the way to the ground and they're hanging all the way to the ground and you've got that beautiful cone shape, you don't have to worry about what's growing under it, right? You don't have to mow under it. Isn't that nice not to have to mow under it? Let it grow that way, but in this case, this magnolia, you're not going to be allowed. It's not going to -- you're not going to allow it, it's not going to have that shape anymore. It's going to eat up your lawn because it's going to cast so much shade eventually. I just don't think a magnolia is a great idea there. If you have to choose between one of them, I would choose the crepe merle. If you wanted to have something else that were more useful than either that magnolia are a crepe merle, ooh, that would be great. This would be a great place for a persimmon. Isn't that cool? You could put a pomegranate there, you could put a citrus there. You could do lots of interesting, fun things. You could do a -- oh, something really, really graceful and pretty like a -- oh, I don't know. It's like a -- oh, shoot, grants are gray beard, French tree, gives a lot of cool things to plant there. But if I had to choose, I would choose the crepe merle, the magnolia is going to be really hard to manage. It is useful, and I think about, should I be saying these things out loud to you folks? Because it could be kind of scary for a lot of folks. There are a couple of trees that we think of as really important that really are kind of getting out of hand. That's what I'm going to say. And two trees, water oak is a tree that's gotten out of hand. People don't think of it as that important, but it's definitely got out of hand. Laurel Oak has gotten a little bit out of hand too, but there are two other trees that people think are really important that have gotten out of hand. One is the evergreen magnolia. It's an interesting tree from many perspectives, it doesn't seem to really -- oftentimes it loses its leaves even as it's blooming in South Alabama. And this is a bit of a problem. It could look a little ratty at the time when you want it to look the most beautiful and the most romantic and the most elegant. In North Alabama, it doesn't tend to lose its leaves at the same time it blooms. So it's a little prettier when it blooms, though a lot of cultivars actually don't bloom well at all. So it's a little better, but the trouble in North Alabama is it's invasive. It's actually beginning to cause big problems in the forest in forests that have never been used to evergreens like in large numbers like the evergreen magnolia. It's a huge issue. It seeds in like crazy. It could be a nuisance. The other one, since you're asking, I'm going to give it a long pause. The other one is live oak. And live oak is becoming a much bigger issue, certainly in South Alabama. Certainly it's scary to see what's happening with live oaks in our native forest. It are now live oak used to be a relatively uncommon tree. That's important. That's important to think about that. And now it's becoming one of the most abundant trees in South Alabama. It's taking over areas where it didn't used to grow. And I don't know if you've noticed, but underneath a live oak, particularly young rapidly growing live oak, it's almost as barren as under a southern magnolia. It's not good for wildlife. It's not good for the environment. Once those trees get to be 100 years old, oh, they start opening up. They're a little better, but it's a real problem. It's really actually one of their bigger issues right now. Cogan grass is a huge one, but in terms of destruction of landscapes, live oaks are a big problem. Now, I'll tell you something else. You love live oaks. You resent me saying all this. I like live oaks, they're really beautiful in their place. The native live oak environment's just incredible, just beautiful. But out of their normal place, they can be a big problem. And one of the issues that we're going to have, and it's already happening, and I'm just going to tell you folks who love live oaks, when you plant them tree to tree to tree and when you allow them to grow as freely as we've allowed them to grow in wooded areas because of the way we change the way forests work, you're going to get disease problems. And it's already happening. We're already seeing live oak getting diseases, and those diseases are moving quickly towards mobile, and they can have a devastating effect, and I'm just telling you, mobile is going to have to plant fewer live oaks. It's going to have to increase the diversity. One thing to know about, you live in Minnesota, you don't expect much diversity, honestly. It's just, you don't expect it. In a climate like that, there's just not a lot of diversity. Things survive, there's not a lot of disease as well. So things you don't need as much diversity. You move to mobile, it's warm, diseases and pests are rampant. One of the ways that plants stay ahead of that whole cycle of diseases and pests is to increase the diversity of the forest systems. And so our forest systems were fairly diverse, and actually they actually increase in-response. We now know to diseases and insects, not just the longer growing season, but the very fact that their disease and insects increases diversity of trees in forests. Oh, ask me how I know. Let's talk about that some day. So when you plant nothing but live oaks in a climate like mobile and you think I'm going to create a forest that's simplistic as the forest in Minnesota, you're going to have big problems. And even Minnesota isn't that simplistic, folks. You've got big problems. So you want to think about that. Sorry, just a thought that I ought to have, that I think we ought to think about asking you to think about it before you just go crazy, before you go crazy, planting live oaks. Let's see what else we got here. Ooh, I got to get back to my text. I'm about to lose them. Let's see here. I see what I did. So feel free to give us a call this morning, 2513430106, 2513430106, and we'll do our best and let's see what I've lost out on. Okay. Magnolia to the ground, laugh out loud. This is from Mr. Plot. My mom always said, "Leave the magnolia alone, God knows what it's supposed to look like. She's smiling down at you, laugh out loud." And it's true. So say hello to your mom. It's true. Magnolia is, if you're going to grow a magnolia, allow it to look like a Christmas tree. There's the trick. You get plain talk on plain living. Let's talk about living and growing in that deep self with Bill Finch, call 2513430106 on FMTalk1065. Yeah. All right. Welcome back. So David is humbled as sending me some great pictures of things he's cooked, which is always really good. And boy, do I get hungry before the end of this show, largely blame that on David. Maybe talking for two hours also makes me angry, but having to look at these beautiful dishes that David Hubble sends me. So he's got, I think the picture that is showing up, David, is the Cajun ratatouille dish. Could be wrong. Let's see if there's some more. Yeah. So I'm getting the Cajun ratatouille. I'm guessing because I see squash in there. The Creole tomato basil pie is really interesting. And David, I want to know in your tomato basil pie because I was contemplating this the other day. You know, these are the great combinations, eggplants coming in, tomatoes, basil. What do you use? I'm going to ask just bluntly, David, do you use mayonnaise? Because I'm kind of thinking I'd rather not use mayonnaise in my tomato basil pie for whatever crazy reason, like, you know, you've got all this great summer fresh vegetable stuff and then you're going to use something out of a can, but I'm open, I'm open. I'm just curious to use, do you use mayonnaise in your Creole tomato basil pie? Cajun ratatouille looks beautiful, looks beautiful. So LJ is asking me, how do we control cogon grass? Kongo grass, he's got it. But cogon really is the, it's a toughy and if you're just seeing it show up, it's pretty easy to control. It just means you need to go out each year with a little spot treatment. It's what we did at Mobile Botanical Gardens and at least until somebody comes up with a better solution, it's probably something we're going to have to do for a long period of time. It's like, it's like a serious chronic disease that we can control, but we know it never quite goes away. This is what we've created for ourselves with cogon grass. But it's not hard. You just have to spend a little bit of time with it. You have to spend a little bit of time. I do recommend, here's what I would recommend, use the old fashioned versions of Roundup. And that means what you're going to look for is an ingredient list on your herbicide that's going to be old, say 49 or 54% glyphosate and a carrier and nothing else. You don't want to use anything else, you don't want to use some fancy hyped up thing that they're trying to sell you at Home Depot, Lowe's, Walmart. You want to just use plain old Roundup and put it in a backpack sprayer, use gloves, don't get it on you. It's not super dangerous, it's not nearly as dangerous as a lot of other things you're using probably including gasoline but don't get it on you and do spot sprays just once a year, just go through, do a spot spray every time you see it. Learn to identify the cogon grass, it's pretty easy after a while. If you have any questions about how to identify it, you can send me a picture. One of the things is in broad, the broadleafed grasses, there are a lot of broadleafed grasses out there. Grasses that have leaves, oh, what's that, about an inch wide? And some of them are native, some of them are fine, some of them are good to have. Cogon can be distinguished from those because the middle rib that runs through the middle of the leaf from the top to the bottom is usually a little bit off-center. There are a lot of other things you learn to distinguish like those really, really pointy tips that develop in the soil where the roots are growing out. They're almost, they're sharp, they can hurt and by the rhizomes themselves you'll learn to determine that and just after a while you can actually look across the field and you can see the Cogon. It becomes very obvious, you can also tell by the flowers. The flowers are those little puffy things, they're about, so that looks like about three to four inches tall, they're, they're, they're wide-ish puffy and they're a little bit showy this time of year, but Cogon will eat you alive. If it's just started, use the roundup with a backpack sprayer, just hit that. Well, let me tell you something else and I have told you that Brum Sage has saved our hide many, many times. If you've got Brum Sage in your field, the Brum Sage is the best protection you've got against Cogon, it's also the best protection you've got, it's also the best way to repair a field that's had Cogon in it. It really, it really competes well with Cogon and can eliminate it. It is not a problem in and of itself, just, just a word of warning. So there it is, I think you probably will need to spray even if you've got Brum Sage just to get, to cut those outbreaks, but that's what we do. I wish, I wish we had some pest or something that could get in those rhizomes and just eat them out and that was very selective. We don't have that and we don't, we are not really good at making smart chemicals. Chemicals are really dumb, they really are, particularly in terms of doing just what we want them to do and in our yards and other places. We don't have a chemical that affects just Cogon. So it's, it's a bit of a problem and it's a problem not just in Alabama, but increasingly worldwide in environments like Alabama, Cogon is a big problem. But if it's on the edge of your property, you're just beginning to see it, it's really a great time to treat, it's a great time to treat. If it's in flower beds and you can't pull it out, one thing I've always said about Bermuda and Cogon grass is they hate, they always take advantage of the fact that they know you're going to give up before they do and, and, and giving up for most folks is, oh, they go out and weed it once and it comes back and they say, oh, nothing you do about it. Do it that second time. It makes a ton of difference because they will have expended their root energy just coming back the second time. Third time, you're really going to keep it under control. So don't give up when you see it sprout again, stop it from becoming an issue. I will say also that the other way to deal with Cogon grass, not the perfect way it has some gaps, is to mow. You're generally going to convert it with frequent mowing, you're generally going to convert an area to Bahaya grass, Bahia grass, or Bermuda grass, rather than Cogon with frequent mowing. Cogon won't tolerate frequent mowing, but it's, you know, that has its own problems. So just, just to think about. All right, great, David, no mayo in pie, just Monterey Jack, Sharp Cheddar, and Parmesan. Here's the recipe I made. I am, I'm very excited. That's a great way of thinking about it, David. You know, there's so many, it's like, we have a lot of what I would describe as company store recipes in the south and it's very interesting, my grandmother, my great-grandmother who grew up on a farm and very, and poor, did not use company store recipes because it wasn't what she grew up with. But later on, when the company store at the factory and other places, you know, they had these canned items and a lot of recipes in the south began to depend on those, just like we came to depend on excess sugar, which is also a company store thing. Keep the, you know, keep the workers happy. Give them cheap sugar, and that's what they did. But that's not traditional for a lot of southern recipes, it's, well, it's some southern traditions, company store tradition, mayonnaise, margarine, lots of sugar. All those things are part of that tradition. But there's another tradition too, and it's probably healthier, but more importantly, it's actually tastier. You actually get to taste the tomatoes. You're not overwhelming the tomato taste. You're not overwhelming the basil taste. So it's good to know, sorry for going awful on that, and it puts a milk in maple syrup and turns sheep into the yard. I'm thinking about this one, not sure what it means. Why does Bruce Age hold up against mowing? Not well. It's, so one of the things about warm season grasses, and particularly those in the south, is that they have a lot of their, a lot of their store to energy is above ground. There's a lot underground, no question. But a lot of it's above ground and a little corn that, kind of a swelling at the base, you'll notice on a lot of these grasses. So they don't like to be mowed at less than, say, five to eight inches. Now if you mow your broom sage once a year, particularly in spring, mow it to three inches fine. Mow it to two inches, probably going to do okay too. It'll recover quickly enough. You may have some other problems, but it'll occur. You do that more than once or twice during the summer, and you're going to lose those. So you really want to mow her that mows very high with broom sage if you're going to mow it repeatedly during the year. And I think it misses the point. You know, one of the nice things about broom sage, Jim, I will say, is that you don't have to mow it. You just kind of let it grow, and it gets rid of the weeds, and if you go back and look at, here's the funny part. Go back, I challenge folks, to go back and look at pictures of Mobile, and Ball and County, and places like Creola, and Citronell, and down to Irvington and Grand Bay. Just look at the pictures of those old houses. George Town, Jim, while we're at it. Look at the pictures of the old houses there, and what you're going to see is you're not going to see these weird, and I got to say they're weird, they're like new and weird. You're not going to see these golf course lawns. You're going to see people in their fine clothes and their dresses, and they're walking through grasses that are knee high. They're clump grasses, they're not too thick, they're not hard to walk through, and broom sages are clump grass, but that's the way the pictures are. The old Dunlap has, somebody go find me the old Dunlap house in Mobile, look at the pictures of that front yard, it's so cool. Beautiful roses, beautiful grasses, knee high, really kind of cool. Welcome back to Plain Living for Alabama and the Gulf Coast. Questions on conservation, natural history, and gardening? Talk with Bill Finch, call 251-343-0106 on FMTalk1065. Welcome back, it's a Gulf Coast Sunday morning, it's an Alabama Sunday morning. It's going to be a hot summer, I think it's already demonstrated that, got to be a wet summer for some folks, dry summer for other folks, it's the way summer is sometimes. We got lots of things to talk about this morning, we've talked about a lot of things. I want to talk about something that Clay's been doing in Birmingham, he sent me a picture to demonstrate it. We talked about, Clay remembers the word when I can never remember, organza bag, it's those little bags that they use at weddings, that material that they used to put rice in, you remember that, did you ever have to do that at a wedding? I don't know whether they do it anymore, I don't guess I go to enough weddings anymore, don't tell people that, I might have to go to a wedding, but you know, here's the thing. It's, oh I don't mind weddings that much, but they used to throw a lot of rice and people used to dress up, remember all that, so the little bags that the rice was in, they call them organza bags, they're kind of, but you can, you can use them and you can get them pretty cheap and you can use them to cover your fruits and it's good for your persimmons, if you really want a high quality persimmon, it's good for tomatoes and Clay has been doing this and it occurs to me my wife has a tomato that she really loves, it's a, and I can get a good crop out of it, but I will tell you the birds love it and it's a big tomato, it's a big bright yellow tomato and the birds just go crazy for it and so does this, you know, and the stink bugs are, so here's what you do, you put that organza bag around it, it protects that tomato from the birds, it protects them from the squirrels, it protects it from the stink bugs, which are huge, huge issues, it's probably going to protect it from most of the, it's going to protect it from morn worms, it probably is going to protect it even from tomato worms, a really simple solution, you can use that organza bag over and over and over again, great solution, and maybe you don't do it to all your tomatoes, maybe you just do it to some but you'll know you'll have some that are really pretty, really good looking and really nice, it's not hard, and I keep thinking of a reason, for a reason to tell you not to do it, but I can't really think of a reason, it's really simple, and I, you know, I've recommended this a while back for certain types of fruits, and I've used it before for seeds and other things, I haven't used it on tomatoes because I have a different solution, which is to grow tomatoes that produce a ton of fruit that basically out produces anything that the birds and the stink bugs and other things do, and I ended up with more tomatoes of my Santiago, for example, than I can possibly eat, even after I share a bunch with the stink bugs and the tomato worms and the horn worms and the birds. But this, if you're growing big tomatoes, it seems to me the way to go, and big tomatoes I mean, not even, not the super biggest ones, but even the medium size ones, medium size up to super big ones, great way to do it, put this organza bag, great way to think about it there, Clay, thank you for reminding me of this and reminding me to tell people about this and to try, to try my own advice sometimes, yeah, it had been great, you know, I had this, they really did turn out beautiful and my wife loved them, and we're producing more than we'll, she'll eat, it's the way it works, but I could have had even more beautiful tomatoes except the birds pecked them, and having Clay's organza bag on there would have helped tremendously, and I lost a few to the, I lost a few to stink bugs too, they don't seem to be as attracted to this yellow one as to some others, but I lost a few to stink bugs as well, stink bugs is a big problem, we're, we're, it's, it's a problem all over the state now, didn't used to be, but it is, and I'm not really sure what happened to flip this, but boy, it just, it's incredible how bad stink bugs have become, and, and they're really hard to deal with, they're really hard to control, I don't know what your experience is, so what else have we got this morning that I haven't gotten back to, I just want to, I'm, I'm really kind of excited about this David Hubble's beautiful recipes, given me some directions for how to get it, we'll talk about it more next week, no mayo in this beautiful Creole tomato basil pie, just a couple of kinds of cheeses, Monterey Jack and Sharp Cheddar and Parmesan, and I could see varying the cheeses just a little bit, but I think the Parmesan is good on the back end, that's really good too, so I'm excited to try this David, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna try your recipe, you know, finding things to do, I've got, so here's what I'm gonna do tonight, I got a ton of basil, and I'm gonna talk about basil, because I did some trials on some basil this year, and I'm back to where I want to be with Rutgers, and I hope that we continue to get these Rutgers basil that have done really well for me in the south, there's reasons why they do really well even though they're from Rutgers, they are from, they bred them from a tropical, what was essentially a heat tolerant variety of basil that was also resistant to downy mildew, and they are really good for hot climates, really great, I'll tell you why next week, but I've got a ton of basil, it's outperforming the Israeli basil that I got, which is not very good at all, as it turns out, but I still have a ton of basil, and I've got tomatoes, and basically I'm gonna make a pesto out of that basil, maybe a little pecans, you know, pine nuts are a little precious, so we're gonna use pecans, roast those pecans first, chop them up a little bit, roast them just a little bit, don't get them too dark, just roast them a little bit, you can do it in a blast skillet, really simple, you don't even need to put a lot of wool in there, just roast them in a dry skillet until they just begin to get a little darker brown, then you can put some olive oil and garlic in there and stir it up, and if you want to a little pepper, that's alright, a little bit of hot pepper, that would be okay, and any basil stems, just throw them in there, stir that up, mix it in with your leaf pesto, the pesto that you pick from the leaves, and then make your pasta, put it in there, oh it's so good, mix it all together, I actually put the cheese on the pasta with a little bit of water at the bottom of the pot, boil that water down, just a little bit in the bottom of the pot, it's gonna be really starchy, it's gonna make it really, everything's gonna stick to the pasta really well, mix in a little bit of your, your Parmesan cheese at that stage, and then put the pesto on top, that's great, and then you got the tomatoes, and you know the best way of doing this is, and I'm gonna try the basil pie, because I know it looks so good, but I'm also gonna just say, just fresh sliced tomatoes, just slice them up, slice them into quarters, whatever, put them on top of that pesto, mmm boy, just that brightness of that fresh tomato, with the depth of that green sauce is just a wonderful thing, wonderful thing, well that's kind of it for this weekend, I think some of you may be out on your vacation, you'll come back next week, we'll have some questions, maybe you will have heard the show when you get back in next week, when we do a repeat during the week, but we'll be back next week to answer your questions, if you've got any about the show, a reminder that it's okay not to mow the lawn this time of year, it's really okay, you call me back, if you missed it and you wanna know more about it, argue with me a little bit, if you will, it's okay not to mow the lawn this time of year, it's definitely smart not to try to plan a little on this time of year, we'll be back, give us a call next week. ♪ You 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