- Hi, thanks for joining us for The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South I'm Chris Cooper.

When you're looking to fill a raised bed, there are a bewildering number of choices.

Today, we're gonna look at some good and not so good options.

Also, putting down pre-emergent herbicide now can save you a lot of weed pulling later.

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 is Kyle McLane.

Kyle is a horticulturist at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens.

Thanks for being with us, Kyle.

- Great to be here.

- So here's the question we get a lot at the Extension Office.

"What kind of soil do I need to put in my raised bed?"

All right.

So we talk about different kinds of soil.

I usually talk about different kind of amendments.

So we have you here as the expert.

So what is a good soil to use in a raised bed?

- So I think 50% of that soil, so half of it needs to be a clay-based soil to start out with.

At least, I'd say 50%, maybe a little bit less.

That way you're gonna have minerals and that structure in the soil, and then we're gonna amend that with different things.

That's a long term so that you're just adding organic matter over time, so you don't have to go back and add a lot of stuff to it.

So this is a one, you do this first time and then you don't have to do it every year, add all this stuff, you're just adding organic matter.

- Okay.

So we have some good and not so good options.

- We do.

- So we're gonna take a look at it and let you tell us what you think about it.

- All right.

The first one is Miracle-Gro.

It's a bagged product.

It's raised bed soil.

To me, it has a lot of peat in it.

And for here in Memphis, peat and clay make bricks.

So you wanna go from that.

Now, you could take this and use this as an amendment and with your existing soil, 50%.

And I would add, it's got some bark and stuff in it, but it might be good to add some more aggregate.

You could use some pine.

It already has, it looks like pine bark, but you could add a little bit more, maybe coarse sand or something to loosen it up a little bit.

But short term, you may be able to grow something in it, but over time, plus it's mostly organic.

It's just gonna sink over time, and you're gonna have to keep adding stuff to it.

If you've already have that garden soil, the clay, sand, silt, mix, you're just adding some of this to it every year and you've already got that soil there and it's not sinking down every year.

You're just adding nutrients back and recharging your soil is basically what you're doing.

- Okay.

So what is peat moss?

- Peat moss is, they have bogs.

It's a plant that, and when it dies down, you have these huge bogs.

It is not sustainable, so they're taking that off.

They're looking for alternatives now, but it's the main growing media for plants.

If you go and buy plants, a lot of it's just based on peat.

It holds moisture.

It's a great material, but it's just not sustainable and over time, we're gonna deplete it on.

There's not gonna be any left.

But Canada has huge masses of it.

They have machines, they drain the bog out and the peat's left and they come in and just cut it and vacuum it up.

And then you buy that in different grades of mixes.

Pro mixes that you buy in big bales is a peat-based.

- Okay.

Good explanation.

All right.

- So it's a plant that's been broken down.

- So it's, okay.

So this is something we hear a lot about is top soil, right?

Most people buy top soil.

- Right.

Which, to me, this almost is straight bark.

This is like soil conditioner.

This would not grow anything I think at all.

I mean it needs, there's not a lot of organic in this, a little bit, but I'd add more organic and again, add soil to it.

So if you already have something like this, if you can bring some screen soil or soil in it, if this was completely empty, I would loosen that soil in the bottom of it and then start building your raised bed.

But you need, throughout that whole bed, you need some of that clay sand silt soil as you build it up.

You just don't want to throw this on top and try to plant through it.

You want to incorporate it in and then you can use an organic fertilizer with it.

So this is really, to me, just an amendment.

It's not really going to grow in that.

- And you say you add soil to it.

So why would you add the soil to it?

- To allow that plant to have those nutrients, the minerals, and the structure for it.

And that's where a lot of your nutrients are held in that soil.

This is going to, the nutrients are going to go right through it when it drains down.

And so that helps anchor the plant, gives it structure.

This is Black Kow.

And you can see there's a lot of bark in it, and I think when they get the cow manure up and compost it, the bedding is mixed in with it.

Again, this would be your great mix with organics, your organic mix, but you add this into existing soil with some bark or something with it.

If you had these two together with some soil, it would be great.

But again, you could grow initially some stuff in it, but again, this is going to break down over time and then if you're in a hotter climate, it's fast going to break down.

So at the end of the summer, this one might be only half as deep and you got to add to it every year where if you have your clay-based soil, you're just adding a couple inches every year or so.

- Yeah, you talked about the hotter climate.

I mean, that's what we have here.

- Yeah, for sure.

- Okay.

- Then leaf compost, which is just composted leaves that have been ground up.

Again, this is great, especially in a wooded area.

It also has some stems and stuff and will help and loosen the soil.

Again, really a soil additive to amend, not a growing medium.

You could probably grow a little bit in it, but I can tell you if you put a vegetable and just straight in that, it's not gonna grow very much.

There are some nutrients, but it's not highly nutritious and it doesn't have the structure.

You see how loose that is?

- Yeah, it's pretty loose.

It's fluffy.

- It will drain well, but it just, you need that clay soil to have those minerals and that clay sand silt soil in it.

- It feels good though.

- It does.

So next Pro-Mix, which is just a name that was given for this, but this is one-third screened soil, one-third sand, and this is actually a finer sand.

- Yeah, you can see the sand.

- Which will work, and then one-third compost.

This is not bad, but again, there's not very much soil in it, true soil in it.

And because what we're talking about, say that soil, that is really just organic material, all these ones we've gotten to.

Now we're actually adding some soil into it, but I don't think it's enough soil, and I would, even if you have this mixture, it needs to be, it's more of an amendment to me to the soil.

Not a growing medium, and you would want to add some fertilizer for sure.

But again, you would want to mix that in it.

Garden mix, where we're getting into more, one-fourth soil, one-fourth compost, one-fourth of the pine fines, which could be- - Feels good.

- Composted wood chips, you want composted wood chips, you don't want fresh wood material.

- And why not?

- Because the microbes will pull nitrogen out of the soil to break down that and it'll deplete it and your plants will be stunted.

They will not grow.

And then it's got some coarse red sand in it.

Again, it's only a fourth soil, so there's not very much soil in it.

So it needs more to it.

That's a great amendment for your soil, if you're gonna add it.

- And I hear you keep mentioning, you gotta have some soil in it though, so that is important.

- It is.

- Right.

Okay.

- That's holding minerals the structure for it, it allows, it does help with pore space.

If it's a clayer soil, you wanna mix it up and you're mixing this organic to give that pore space so that those microbes and the air and water can move around.

- Right, so all of those additives that you talked about would be good for pore space.

- Right.

Now we're getting into the good stuff.

So this is, you call it garden mix.

This is that mixture, so that's the compost, coarse sand and bark added to regular clay soils, clay base, it could be silty, sandy.

You've amended that soil with this, so this is your premium- - I mean there's definitely soil in it.

- You could add a little more organic if you wanted.

If you're doing a raised bed, I would.

You could start out and then add some more organic to it, but this is a great start and then from here, every year all you do is add an inch or two of organic matter to it.

You can add trace minerals to this and you can buy that and add to it.

I know someone that does that a couple times a year and he has incredible vegetables and plants because he uses those trace minerals.

I haven't seen it around here but this is a great mix.

And then the last is just straight soil.

Which it could be really good if it was really loamy soil, which this looks pretty good.

If it's straight clay, it's not gonna, the nutrients are not gonna be available.

The clay, the charge on those clay particles holds onto stuff and doesn't release it to the plant.

So you do wanna add some amendments, but if it's a really good loamy soil, you may just add a little bit of organic and it'd be fine.

You wouldn't have to, this would be a great.

Get a soil test.

- Get a soil test, yeah.

- Any of that soil you get, you don't really have to do it on the other, but on this clay sand silt soil that you wanna get a soil test and see where you're at because you could have high levels of something in it that you didn't know about.

Here in Memphis, the phosphorus seems to be really high on all the soil tests.

It doesn't break down, it's not available.

You add organics to it, that'll make that phosphorus available.

And so, just depends on how good this is.

This has been screened and put in there, but you could take your own soil in your yard and mix these nutrients, organics to it and make it into this, once you mix it all together to be more like this, but you can improve that.

- So you mentioned screened soil.

So what- - Screened soil is where they take soil that they've brought in from somewhere.

A lot of times it's top soil cleared off of a property.

And they run it through a machine that breaks it down into fine particles and it's easier to work with.

Now, you could get other soil that wasn't screened and till it, but initially, it's just easier to work with and mix up.

If you got big clods, you're not gonna be able to mix the stuff together with it.

So you want it broken down.

If you're doing a bigger raised bed or in the ground, not a raised bed, but just a regular plot, you do wanna initially use a tiller or something to mix it in, but after that- - Initially, yeah.

- Initially, because it will cause compaction if you do it all the time to get it mixed together.

And then after that, you just layer some compost in it and kind of mix it in and you're good to go.

- So it sounds like to me, your take home is that the soil is good.

- It is.

- And you can add the amendments to it.

- Add the amendments to it.

You're not growing plants and amendments, you're growing plants, and this is true soil that you've added organic matter to it.

So depends on where you're at, around where you're gonna find soil.

It may be really clay soil, there may be places where it's really, really good, loamy soil that's a mixture, equal mixture of sand, silt and clay that's great for growing stuff.

- Okay.

Well, we're gonna find out.

Because we're gonna put some plants in each one of these little plots here and we're gonna see which one grows the best and we gonna test you out.

- All right.

- All right.

Thank you Kyle.

We appreciate that.

- You're welcome.

- All right.

[upbeat country music] - Out here in The Family Plot garden, we're testing eight different raised bed soils to see which ones perform best.

Now, some of them are actually recommended as raised bed soils and some of them are used a lot as raised bed soils, but really aren't the best options.

So we have everything from straight compost, straight manure, all the way through to just regular soil.

In each small plot, we're gonna plant a cherry tomato, a pepper, we're gonna plant a light-feeding perennial, a heavy-feeding perennial, a light-feeding annual and a heavy-feeding annual to see what the soil conditions are like and what works best for which plants.

We plan to continue this test for at least three years, so we know which garden soil really is the best for raised beds.

We're gonna see some soils that are gonna do really good early on in the first year, and then they're gonna drop off, and vice versa.

We're gonna see soils that aren't that great the first year, but get better and better with age.

We'll be checking back several times through the year to see which soils are doing well, and which soils aren't doing so good.

[upbeat country music] - All right, Mr.

D, let's talk a little bit about pre-emerge.

- Pre-emergent.

Yeah.

- Herbicides.

- Herbicides.

- That's right.

A very, very useful and important tool to use - I would agree with that.

- For homeowners and commercial farmers.

And if you don't believe that, then I would encourage you to treat half of your front yard with pre-emergent herbicide and leave the other half untreated.

The problem that probably most folks have with putting out pre-emergent herbicides is, if they're doing it themselves, if they don't see any weed out there, they don't think they need to do anything.

And if you wait until the weeds emerge, the pre-emergent herbicides is not gonna do anything for the emerged weeds.

Now that's not gonna say that it's not gonna help you.

If you apply pre-emergent herbicide after weeds have emerged, it will stop any more weeds from emerging, but the ones that are there will continue to grow, so you'll have to mix a post-emergent product with the pre-emergent product to take care of your problem.

The timing is important.

- Yes, for sure.

- For mostly in the fall, you put out pre-emergent herbicide in the fall of the year to control winter weeds, and then in the spring of the year to control summer weeds.

And in the fall, when temperatures drop below 60 degrees at night, that is when you need to control winter annuals, and that happens fairly early in many cases.

In the springtime, when daytime temperatures reach 65 degrees Fahrenheit for four or more days, that's when you need to put that out.

And I'm reading from a publication that a friend of mine, Dr.

Roy Bullock, Fitzroy Bullock- - Oh, yeah.

- Tennessee State University has put out.

It's called Lawn Weed Management.

- That's a good one.

- And that information is in here.

Many of the herbicides will take care of more than one species.

A grass pre-emergent herbicide will not kill the broadleaf.

The broadleaf pre-emergent herbicides will not kill the grasses that you're trying to kill.

So in many cases, you're gonna have to use two pre-herbicides mixed together.

You need to make sure that the product that you use is labeled for the turf grass that you have.

That is the most important thing, because if you've got a grass, put a grass material out that kills Bermuda grass in a fescue lawn, you don't wanna put that out in a bermuda grass land, right?

Because it'll kill your Bermuda grass.

But there's a lot of choices out there as with all pesticides, it's very, very important that you read the label.

Very important that you properly calibrate your equipment, know that you're putting the right amount out there because many of these type products, if you overdo it, they will kill the grass that you're trying to protect, or the lawn that you're trying to protect.

So it's not a case where a little bit does a little good and a lot does a lot better.

It's a little bit does good.

And too much will kill your turf grass.

But that's kind of in a nutshell.

I know they're different formulations, there are granular products and there are liquid formulations- - Which one would you prefer?

Which one you think would be the best?

- Personally, I prefer the liquids because number one, they're cheaper usually, per acre basis or per thousand square foot basis.

I can do a better job of getting a more even distribution out there.

It probably takes a little bit less water to to activate it than the granular products.

Sometimes the granular products, there are places that you need to use it around flower beds.

Or there are places you can't drag a sprayer in really small areas.

The granular products, most of the time you can put out with a drop spreader, a broadcast fertilizer type spreader or even the spreader that you hold in your hand or there are those that you strap on and put out.

But I think there's a significant difference in cost.

Granulars are quite a bit more expensive than the liquid products.

- And the granulars have to be watered in, which is- - They've gotta be watered in.

Almost all of them have to be watered in and a quarter to half inch of water is important with even a lot of the liquid products that you put out.

So the label will tell you that, and follow the label.

Now, on the other hand if you've got an irrigation system and there's a rain forecast, like we have forecasts, in the future within 24 to 48 hours, then you don't run your irrigation system because too much water can be a bad thing.

It can leach it out of the root zone.

And pre-emergent herbicides, they don't necessarily keep a seed from germinating, but when that seed germinates, it puts out a little stem and a root and the pre-emergent herbicide, when it comes in contact with that, it stops it from going any further.

- Yeah.

Usually inhibits the formation of roots.

Is usually what that is.

- Right.

- And sometimes the granulars are easier for people to use and for timing too, with rain events and things.

- Right.

Right.

- It's easier to, because you can have it down on the ground and the timing to where the water has to be on it is not as critical as it would be with the liquids.

- It'll wait for you.

It'll wait for you a little bit.

That's true.

- So, do you use a lot of the granulars or liquid?

- Yeah, we use both, but granular is more of a way we're gonna go because we have, of course we overseed a lot of areas, so we don't put any of the pre-emergents in that area in the fall.

- That's important.

If you're going to overseed with rye grass, or anything.

- Or if you're seeding fescue even, you don't want to put pre-emergents down there.

- Right.

How long do some of the herbicides last before they have to be reapplied?

And it usually will tell you that on the label on some of the products.

- Yeah, and that kind of brings up another point.

And probably, I don't know many of the pre-emergent herbicides, they recommend doing a sequential or split application and that extends the length of coverage.

And I don't know, four to six weeks is kind of probably an average- - It is, if you're looking at Preen, trifluralin, it is.

- But it just depends.

I know the timing, because we have interesting falls and winters around here because we don't necessarily get really the kind of steady, typical weather that a lot of the other parts of the country are in, so there's more opportunity for weeds to germinate, so to ensure that that doesn't happen.

And the same thing with the fall and the spring.

Sometimes they will have three or four applications of pre-emergents during the year at different times to try to hit those windows.

- And sequential is usually better if you can go with more than one application.

One's probably not going to do the trick.

- No, one's not going to do the trick.

No.

It's going to be multiple applications and then- - One will help.

- Yeah, one will help.

Yeah.

- And then a lot of that too depends on soil type, pH, soil moisture- - And what you're growing there.

- And what you're growing, so.

- Right.

- Good stuff, Mr.

D, we appreciate that.

Real good stuff.

Thank you much.

[upbeat country music] - I want to show you a technique for hostas called a raw sizing.

Many hostas only want to produce up one plant each year and they get bigger and bigger, but to make them double in size, you really want to get pups on them.

So I'm going to show you how to do that.

When the pip first comes up in the spring, take a razor blade or a sharp knife, it comes straight down on the pip and cut halfway down 'til you get, there's a basal plate just under there.

You'll feel it's a little bit hard and cut through it and then make another one the other way.

So you've made an X or a cross right in the top of it, okay?

Then by splitting that basal plate, you'll get a pup to come off of each one of them.

You'll get four, and then you can divide those and move them if you want to, or just let it be a bigger hosta.

[upbeat country music] - All right, Kyle, here's our Q&A segment.

You ready?

- I'm ready.

- These are great questions.

Here's our first viewer email.

"How can I encourage my staghorn sumac to bloom?"

And this is Marty from central Ohio.

He says he has several five-year-old transplants and they look healthy, so he's trying to get them to bloom, so what do you think about that?

[chuckles] - Well sumac, that staghorn likes a lot of sun.

So the more sun you can give it.

And then it is a, we had it when I was working in another place in a xeri-planting where it was totally dry, so it likes drier conditions.

So if you're giving it a bunch of water and stuff, having that dry is the more where it would be more inclined to bloom better.

You could... use something like a little bit more phosphorus or something to to get some of the, it to flower or fertilize it, but not heavy.

It's real light on the fertilizer.

It does not like a lot of fertilizer.

I think the full sun and letting it dry out and not keep it too wet.

- I would agree with that.

Definitely the full sun.

No nitrogen fertilizer, right?

- Or very, very low.

Very low.

It does not like a bunch of nutrient stuff.

- But I didn't realize they liked the dry soils like that, so okay.

All right.

So Marty, we hope that helps you out there.

Thank you for that question.

Here's our next viewer email.

"How do I get rid of grub worms in my raised beds?"

And this is Deborah from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

She says she would like to get rid of them before spring planting, but wants to try to stay organic.

So can we help her out?

- We can.

So I think if she wants to stay organic, you can get beneficial nematodes.

It's a microscopic worm that will get in and kill that grub and it will not hurt your plants.

Or they refer to it as BT, but it's a bacteria, Bacillus thuringiensis.

Again, that, once they ingest that, within 24 hours, they stop eating and that would then you're getting the worm, the dead grub is giving organic matter back to your plants.

- Oh, get it back to it.

Yeah.

- Those two things would be the best for if you want to do it without using chemicals.

- Right, right.

Or you can just dig it out by hand if you can, since it's in a raised bed, right?

Just kind of dig it out, pull it out, throw it to the birds.

They'll eat it, or put it in a bucket of warm soapy water that will help.

But I would cover that bed with some type of cover crop, some other plants or mulch, right, to discourage the Japanese beetles or May or June beetles from coming in and laying eggs.

- Exactly.

And that cover crop is gonna put nitrogen back into your soil and will help keep from erosion and a lot of things with that.

It's good.

- All right.

So thank you for that question, Ms.

Deborah.

We appreciate that.

Here's our next viewer email, and we get this question a lot at the Extension Office.

"How do you use coffee grounds and eggshells in the garden?"

And this is Charlene from Smyrna, Tennessee.

So how do you use those coffee grounds?

- Well, I personally like- - Egg shells.

- The eggshells is gonna you can, if you can break it up and if you can compost them both for a while, same thing with, you just don't want to put a whole bunch of coffee grounds.

My grandmother used to put it under all of her rocks and all of her beds, but it does add a lot to the soil.

The coffee grounds can be a little acidic, but I like to compost it a little bit before I put it in and, and break it up a little and let it break down a little bit.

And then put it in there.

If you can do that in a little, you can do that in a pail of something to break it down a little bit before you do that.

- Yeah, I would definitely compost both of those.

And one thing about the grounds that I've actually witnessed a couple of times, if you put it on too thick, it repels water.

So when you try to water your plants, it won't even get through.

- Right.

And that eggshell's got calcium and something that's really good for your soil.

- And think about the calcium for the eggshells, some of the senior gardeners, they'll crush it up and actually put it in the hole, with the tomato plant.

Because they're thinking about blossom end rot.

So I've seen that done by some of those senior gardeners that I learned a lot from.

All right.

So there you have it, Charlene.

Yeah, compost it.

That's what we think you should do.

All right.

Kyle.

Fun as always, man.

Thank you.

- Yeah.

You're welcome.

- Thank you being here.

- All right.

- Remember, we love to hear from you.

Send us an email or letter.

The email address is questions@familyplotgarden.com.

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.

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[upbeat country music] [acoustic guitar chords]