Ktr H Garden Line does not necessarily endorse any of the products or services advertised
on this program. Welcome to ktr H Garden Line with Skip Rictord so Trim
just watch him as anything. Clubs back, but not a sign. Well,
good morning, Sunday morning. We're looking forward to talking about things that
you are interested in this hour. We are fortunate this hour to have my
old friend, Jay White, my old friend, my friend of many years.
Otherwise it sounds like Jay, I'm calling you old and I think that
the pot cannot call the kettle black, right, So we're gonna not do
that. But seriously, Jay White is the owner the publisher of Texas Gardner
magazine. We've been friends a long long time. Uh, Jay Goes Goes
goes way back in time when it comes to Texas Gardening. He's been He's
very familiar with the Houston area. Certainly he has spent many years here.
Jay, Welcome to garden Line. We are so glad to have you today.
Thank you, Skip the very very happy to be here. Yeah,
that is that's good to have you. I mean, I feel fortunate Jay.
I mentioned this a little bit earlier, but you in Texas Gardener as
the new owner, not new. How long have you been doing Texas Gardner
now, so exactly a little over five years. July third was our fifth
anniversary. Seems like yesterday too, I know, it really does. It's
flown. That's good. You know, people don't realize that they're no longer
state guarding magazines around. You know, there's not a Louisiana Gardner magazine,
Oklahoma Gardner magazine. I think there's some maybe that some national or statewide plant
society may do or something there. As far as we can tell, there
are five left that but they have sponsors and so, like the California Gardener
is sponsored by the Floral Association out there, okay, Pennsylvania Gardener is sponsored
by the State Hoarded Cultural Society, Okay, and so but I think,
you know, we're the last one's left that there's a for profit magazine.
And I really do believe we're going into our forty third year. And I
think what keeps us going is the people that write for us, like you,
well you you have a great slate. I'm telling you. The folks
that contribute to Texas Gardner, Uh, they know what they're doing. And
you know, the bye line is four Texas Gardener by Gardeners, by Texas
Gardeners, and that is really true. I know, you know, when
I read a vegetable article from Patty Er, I mean that lady she's been
hands in the dirt for a long long time and she knows what she's talking
about. And that is true. I mean, you got Greg Grant writing,
so I don't know how you pull that one off, kind of like
I pulled you off. He was here when I got here. Oh oh,
so you had you had compromising photos that he didn't want to see.
Now that the light of day is that, you know, I think this
is this is kind of interesting. Greg's been with us so long. I
know, You've been with us twenty five years. Greg's been with us in
that time frame, twenty eight something like that, and he actually took the
place of another gardening icon. I just think it's funny how many people have
come through Texas Gardner, but Howard Garrett he had that that spot that Greg
Grant took over twenty five thirty years ago. It is going back a long
long time. Yeah, the magazine really has run some of the best through
Jerry Parsons, doctor Bill Welch. Yeah, so all good names and Randy
Lemon I remember that. Yeah, Randy wrote for some too, so well,
that's good. Well, it's good to have you here. We're gonna
talk all things gardening today. If you got some gardening questions you'd like to
visit with Jay about feel free to call in. It looks like the phones
are lightening up. Jay. I don't know you've you've got a little following
coming on here. Let's let's head straight out. We're gonna go to Southwest
Houston and we're gonna talk to Anthony. Well, good morning, Anthony,
welcome to Guardenline. Thank you, sir, my guarden and your plants.
Brook quick history. About three weeks ago, the plants leaves were getting guilty
and about four or five branches just brown dead. You can't bring dead back
to lie, so I cut them out and everything, and they were looking
well. And I'm noticing again about four branches on one plant and two on
another are round. I would say the dead or dying. Is it okay
for me to them in its heat? Well, I don't want to old
water. When you when you continually wet the foliage and keep it humid and
wet in there, you're gonna have more disease problems. And guardenias can get
some foliage, leaf spots and other things. I would check the soil moisture
content, check your sprinklers, turn them on, walk out there and look.
Maybe there are plant parts from other gardenias or other plants that are blocking
the spray. And there are certain areas that are not getting adequate water.
I would check for that. I would dig down about three or four inches
and feel the soil, see if it's moist I think this is a root
problem in guardenia's demand a constant supply. They don't want to be in a
swamp, but they want to constant supply a soil moisture. And I tell
you they will croak in a heartbeat if you don't if you don't give them
that these are in pots. Okay, oh wow, Okay, well now
yes, so now it's even more so a confined root system and easy to
easy to dry out. So just something to think about for alady. So
they get about two and a half three hours of direct sun and the rest
of the time they're in the heat. But what I did was pull them
out of the direct sun under my patio cover is that bad, No,
not at all. They in fact, they don't want to be out in
the full direct sign. They would like a little morning sun to be okay,
but a bright, bright, bright shade is a happy place for ann.
Do that all right? Yes, sir, thank you very much.
All right? Will you take care appreciate. So, Jay, we're we're
talking about all kinds of different topics and plants and whatnot. I've got a
fellow this called in. I want to go to that call, but after
we come back, I'd like to have a little tomato discussion with you.
You know, tomatoes or the king of the garden. They are. And
it's almost time to start over. Yep. We always say the three tas
that make the garden line phone ring, the extension office phone ring, or
trees, turf and tomatoes. Nobody ever calls me about their cale, Robbie,
tomatoes are popular. Let's go to the woodlands now and we are going
to talk to Earl. Hello Earl, Yes, go ahead. How can
we help today? Okay? I am building a small garden in the back
in my backyard. And what I did last year I bought some dirt and
I it was absolutely awful. I almost turned to see. Man, I
dug it all out, and I want to know what kind of soil to
put in my little garden. Okay, Jay, do you want to address
that or high earl? What I mean? What kind of soil do you
have in the yard? Well, the one in the yard, I don't
know. I just have it's mostly bermuda grass and in the yard. But
in the backyard, I'm building this little little garden spot and and I don't
know what tap soil to put in it. Okay. So yeah, And
when you say little, I mean I understand when people start building these gardens,
these raised beds, they understand that bag soils are kind of expensive.
So I mean, how how large of a small garden are you talking?
It's probably about ten by tans something like that. Oh yeah, I'm sorry,
Yea'll go ahead. No, that's a very ten by tens of very
manageable size. So are you in a neighborhood, yes, yeah, So
a lot of times in the neighborhoods, you know, you really don't know
what soil is right under that layer of top soil, and so that's why
they always recommend that you go up. So if you're going to build a
garden, you need to come up at least six to twelve inches if you
can. And then you want to go back and like to say, if
you've bought top soil or something like that from somebody and you just dump that
in there, you're gonna find out a lot of times it will turn into
concrete or or something very much like it. So you're gonna want to get
something if you're gonna improve that, you're gonna want something that's a lot of
um organic material in it. But if you've removed it and you want to
start from scratch, just go back with a high quality bed mix like Heirloom
Soils is. They're one of our advertisers and they really do make a nice
product. And so because what you need is you need drainage, you need
tilth, and you need nutrition and you're gonna high quality betting mix will have
that. Yeah, hey, earl, can you hang on just a minute.
I've got a hard break. I'm facing here and we'll come back to
you if you can hang on, sure, sure, all right, just
do that Our phone number seven one three two one two five eight seven four.
Well, good morning, you are listening to Guardline. I'm your host,
skip Ricker, and we are fortunate today to have my friend Jay White
here with us in the studio. Jay, thanks for coming and sticking around.
Thanks. We're gonna try to hang on to you for an hour and
pick your brain. If that's okay, look forward to it. All right,
good, we're on the head back out now. We were in a
conversation earl. We're in a conversation about garden beds and things like that.
You know you're in conro right now. We're in the in the woodlands.
Oh, in the woodlands. Oh wow. Okay, Well, if you
if you just head up the street street me and I forty five, you've
got Nature's Way Resources right there where fourteen eighty eight comes into Interstate forty five,
and they have got a couple of really good quality mixes that would fit
your garden bed plan that I've been hearing you described there. So one would
be called Garden and Flower bed Mix and another one would be called garden mix
Light. You can go either way. I mean, you've got a rose
soil in there too, but one of those two is probably going to be
your best bed. You can either get a bolt delivery dumped on the driveway
or you know, you can go buy and pick it up if you happen
to have someone or you or someone has a little trailer, or you can
just buy a whole bunch of bags of it. But at ten by ten
area, that's going to take a lot of bags to fill that up.
So you kind of have to do the math to figure out which is a
better way to go. But do you know, I think I'm this that's
where I got my soiled the first time, I think, But I it
was a poor, very poor grade of soil well that I got. I've
never heard that about Nature's way. So I they high quality sta it's right
off of forty five on the east side of yeah, SAMs and all that.
It's or they have all the different types of dirties. That's when you're
talking about Yeah, that's it. That is it. They are the originators
of Rossau, They're originators of leafmold compost, and they, I mean,
when it comes down to the science how to make good soil. H John
Ferguson knows how to do that. And then and I and his son who's
running the place is Uh is also very knowledgeable. I would grab a little
bit of your soil put in a little sick and carry it in there and
say, here's what I'm looking at. What do you what do you have?
What do you recommend? And I'm seeing their products and they're they're very
very good, excellent And the name of the place is right now, Nature's
Way Resources. Yeah, yeah, that's that's where I went. But I
just got a poor or grade. Well, I don't I can't answer on
that one, but I can tell you that they've got good stuff. So
go see them and check that out. You know, Jay mentioned heirloom soil,
they had good quality stuff as well. I mean, we're fortunately here
to have options. But gosh, this is just down the street from you.
I sure would, I sure would talk to them, take some of
your soil in, talk to them about what your experience has been, and
I know they'll they'll make it right, okay. And and that's where I
get it. All the you know, the bed all fix what is the
good? Something that's good I can plant right now? Like you cum version
what else? Oh gosh, well, you can plan a lot of good
things, Jay, what do you what would you recommend planning this? You
can always plan, okra, Yes, you can lots of okra. I'd
grow okra in the winter if I could find a heater big enough. No,
I know, cucumbers is a good time to plant cucumbers this year,
isn't it. Yeah, here's the thing. You know, cucumbers are gonna
take about forty eight fifty five days to hit maturity, and so you want
to count back. You would like him to do that at the end of
September. You know, that'd be a good time. So if you come
backwards, that's going to put you, you know, in August doing that
cucumber planting for the fall. Okay, and August fifteenth is typically a good
time to plant your tomatoes. You're smaller tomatoes too for your fall. All
right, that's what I'll do, Dan, I hear. I really appreciate
your information. Man, Well, thank you, thank you for listening to
the show, and appreciate that call. Jay. I want to talk about
tomatoes a little bit. That is a topic, and we're gonna we'll talk
a little while. We'll go to a call here and then come back and
continue. But you know, nothing inspires the vegetable gardener like a vine ripe
tomato. Right, that's right. It just read I read a stat one
time when they interviewed gardeners across the world that they found out that eighty six
percent of people that have a vegetable garden have tomatoes in them somewhere. Wow,
that's impressive. That is impressive. That was not the truth. That
was not the same stat for eggplant. I can promise you, well,
that's good. Yeah, And there's a lot of work being done on breeding.
Of course, the professional breeders with the companies have been breeding tomatoes forever.
I don't know what we would do if we had a gardening season without
at least five to ten new tomato varieties. I think the world would come
to a halt and stop turning on its axis. But we always have lots
of new ones. I want to talk to you. We're gonna take a
call here when we come back. I want to talk about some of the
home breeders. You've got some good information on some things being done by amateurs.
That's right across the country. Right now, we're going to head out
to Liverpool and talk to Trish. Trish, are you talking about the home
of the Beatles or what here? What's Liverpool? No, No, Liverpool,
Texas You get where that Texas twining. Um, I've got watermelon bed.
I didn't think it was going to do very well, but all of
a sudden exploded. And I've got several in different stages of maturity. There's
one that I know that it's going to be ready to pick, but i've
you know, it says if you want it to be sweet, you need
to cut back on the watering about a week before you pick it. But
with this heat that we have, if I cut back on the watering,
the other melons are going to suffer from it. Okay, So well,
let me let me just do idea. Yeah, let me make some comments
about that claim. Uh, watermelons need a lot of water. And you
know there are some melons like cantaloupes that if you just get gully washers of
rain and it's been dry, but then you get gully washers, they tend
to fill up and be a little less tasty. Also, rain means cloudy
weather, and cloudy weather means they're not making carbohydrates. So I don't know
how much of it is the rain and how much of it is the lack
of sunlight, But as far as you're watering, I would water them as
to what they need sunlight and healthy leaves are gonna are gonna make a sweet
watermelon, Is that right? Okay, well, then I'll make sure I
give it another good saturation today. Yeah, and make sure it's miss about
three or four days. Yeah. Good. Well, if you if you
don't water them regularly, watermelons can get blossom en drought like tomatoes do,
where the calcium doesn't make it to the end of the fruit, and so
an ariatic watering system can cause those problems. But the main thing is picking
it at the right time. And there's a lot of ways we go by
trying to figure that out. But you pick them too early, and they're
not going to be fully If it's a red watermelon, not gonna be red
all the way to the outside. Uh. If you pick them too late,
they get mealy and oh my gosh, mealy watermelons, or they used
to hang in touches for serving mealy watermelons. Well, the tendril, the
little tendril that's that's associated with that particular watermelon, the very tip of its
starting to dry out. Okay, well, when the when the whole tendril
needs to be dry, that's that's one trick Another one is to turn them
over, and where that watermelon sits on the ground, there's going to be
a spot that's not as green as the west of the watermelon, and it's
going to go from that to kind of a chartruse green, uh and and
kind of to a whitish color. And but when you start to see kind
of a creamy color, I don't know, not not fully like them Manila
folder, but in that direction, that's a sign that it's getting ripe too.
Yeah, it is it the white, it's I think it's turned into
that color, the creamy color, but it's not quite there yet. All
right, Okay, well then I'll just give it a few more days.
All right, good Jay? You have any other thoughts on watermelons or did
we cover it there? I don't know. But it's been a good year.
We got some in Himstead the other day and it was the best watermelon
I've ever had in my life. So that's saying a lot. So I
think that's encouraging for your caller. There you go, Hey, Trish,
thank you so much. I appreciate that. I want to go back to
this tomato thing. Jay, tell me a little bit about what you've what
you've been learning. I mean, I know in Texas Gardner there's article way
back when about this, but about hobby breeders and tomatoes, right, I
mean probably we back I can't remember. They all kind of run together after
Wall. But after two or three years ago we were in an article called
Dwarf Tomatoes, bicontinent breeding, Bear's Big Bounty, and it was time.
That's right. People love that alliteration. But anyway, it's about a like
you say, an amateur breeder named Craig Lajoie who teamed up with a girl
in Australia named Petrina Newski Small and they are both amateur breeders, and they
work together because of the opposite seasons, and so they breed. He'll grow
out some in America. Six months later she's grown the same thing in Australia.
And so they can bring a bunch of these tomato crosses to market relatively
quickly. And what they're trying to do or make things for the homeowner too,
the patio gardener or whatever. These are tomatoes that are going to be
smaller in stature, smaller fruit, but they're going to work good, you
know, in a container on your driveway and this year, I actually tried
four of their different or five of their different varieties, and I was quite
impressed they were. They produced some very nice tomatoes. They got kind of
like the size of a determinant variety, but they acted more like an determinant
on how they put their fruit on and everything. And they were very good.
I mean, my favorite one was called Tasty Wine and it looks very
similar and taste very similar to brandywine. And if you've ever grown brandywine,
you know that thing can get six foot tall, six foot in diameter.
And this one I grew in a what I call a lick tub or a
mineral tub, and it did awesome. And then out of the other ones
that were the best was that was called Purple Heart, and it was kind
of a small, smallish tomato, smaller than a celebrity, but it was
not, you know, grape size, And this was a small tomato,
but it produced very well and it is still producing today now not very much,
but it's still got two or three little tomatoes hanging on, and it's
got flowers in this heat. That is cool. You know, having that
northern hemisphere Southern hemisphere, I mean, you do double. I need find
somebody in southern hemisphere to help me from my ocra, because that's right.
I can only grow ocra one time a year in the summer, and maybe
I could grow it in there in the winter and I could speed this thing
up. You can only grow at one time in the summer here, but
summer here last last time. It lasts all, so sometimes you get two
or three crops in that's true. That is true. Hey, if you
are interested in birds and you just enjoy backyard birds, which I think everybody
should, you need to check out a will Birds Unlimited. You know,
this is the time of year, by the way, where birds need water.
In fact, I was down at the wild Birds down at Memorial Area
and talking to them the other day about all the different kinds of bird baths
they have and the water the supply lines that you can have set up,
and it's really nice. They've got the super blend that you need to be
feeding now too, and that is you know, our birds are about to
go into molting in facts, I'm I'm already are, and they need a
quality food during that time to keep their plumage in top condition. So all
the way through August, the super nesting super blend they call it. Is
the feed you need to put out there. You need to get a good
quality feed or two. I have the squirrel excluder, and I have never
heard squirrels cuss like they do in my backyard. But they cannot get into
that darn thing. It's horrible the language they use. But you need to
get you one of those. Hey, go to WBU dot com forward slash
Houston and you can find out about the wall birds nearest to you. Don't
drive do the watermelon crome. The fans started fleeing watermelon Queen Jos can find
the music appropriate to the situation. You're listening to garden Line. I'm your
host, Skip Richter our phone number seven one three two one two five eight
seven four. We're talking with Jay White if Texas Gardner today. First thing
we're gonna do right now, though, is go grab a couple of calls
out there, John V. How are things in League City wonderful? Skip
and mister White. Yes, I have a question about some land. I
would like to turn it into a rainforest. It's about fifty three acres of
land, and I know it's a big project, but I just wanted to
see about how I should start with the soil and yeah, well that's a
boy, that's a challenge. So with that much land, you know,
all these things we talk about in the garden where put composts down there and
throw some expanded jail on it. You're not going to do that to fifty
three acres. This is not going to work. What you probably need to
do is talk to the Texas Forest Service. They have folks here in town.
In fact, the urban forester foresters here in town are they're geared toward,
you know, trees throughout you know, an urban type area. They
can give you advice on the species that are going to do the best for
you so as you develop it. If you need to plant anything, they
can give you some suggestions. When it comes to I've got trees, what
do I take out? What do I leave? They can help and guide
you. They call that woodlot management, but they can guide you on,
you know, how to make it the best forested setting you can, considering
our local climate and soils. That that I would refer you to them.
I don't have their phone number off the top of my head, but if
you just do Texas Forest Service or Urban forest or Houston, there you're gonna
be able to find them. Oh wonderful. I'm so thrilled and excited.
Well, good, well, I hope you have a face. Sounds like
you got a heck of a project. There's a good luck getting it all
together. Hopefully a couple of years will be open. But I'll take some
time. Well it may take more than a couple of years, but you
know a couple of decades. They take ten years before you can bring in
some monkeys to swing from the trees. But thank you, John v.
I. I really appreciate your call. We're gonna go out now and talk
to Mo and Spring and Mo. I believe we're gonna talk about tomatoes.
How are you doing? I like homestead tomatoes. Are there a lot higher
plant on the outside instead of end my little greenhouse? You can grow homestead
outside. It's an older variety. It's been a long time. In fact,
I don't remember ever growing a homestead, but I know they've been around
as long as I can remember. It seems like they've been homestead tomatoes.
Well, I got to homestead beefy ones and the little cherry ones I've got
growing right now, and I wanted to move them outside. I wonder if
this is a great time to do it. I would go ahead and do
it. If if you've got them and you can plan them out, go
ahead. I mean, you can put them out a little bit later.
But homestead, I think it's gonna take a little longer in days to harvest.
If I remember right, I believe it's gonna be up in the seventy
eight day range. But I'm not sure of that. But I would rather
get them out and get them growing, so when it finally cools off,
you can get some tomatoes off those things. Yeah. I have to find
my neighboring his okra, all right, And I am highly allergy to okra
and he knows it and it will kill me, so I have to stay
away from me. Oh my gosh. Well yeah that's that. I love
it, but it don't love me, Okay, all right, I get
it. Hey, mother, thank you so much. I appreciate that call
and the other question I had for you, Skip, I tell your friends
I like his garden book. Well, I like his garden book. Two.
Jay, think you got a fan there. Thank you, Mo.
I appreciate you. Alcome, Hey, thank you for the call. Mo.
We really appreciate it. You have a nice day, you two,
you two, you take care. You know, Jay As, you've been
producing Texas Gardener now for a while and it's no news to you that people
are into tomatoes? Is it? That is correct? I mean, without
making the sound like a shameless plug, Our biggest selling article are an issue
of every year is what the January February issue is what we call the tomato
issue. And literally this year we sold every magazine that we printed. We've
printed sixteen thousand magazines and we sold every one of them. And so so
anyway, if you like tomatoes and you want to try Texas Gardener, January
February is the article or is the issue you want to sign up for?
Well, you know what, we haven't talked about this, but if just
in a nutshell here, if somebody would like to check out Texas Gardner,
what are their options and how do they go about that? Well, we've
got the website Texas Gardner dot com, and so you can go out there
and it lists all of our products. But basically, we sell print subscriptions,
we sell digital subscriptions, and then we have a thing that we call
a planning guide, which I think is just awesome. It's kind of a
day by day what you need to do in your garden, but it also
gives you places to record what you're doing and like when the rain came and
when the freezes came, and when the bugs showed up. So it's really
a nice little garden journal. And so there's so many ways that you can
consume our magazine and the information in it. Some of our momipop garden centers
here we'll even carry Texas Gardeners. Somebody wanted to sample one before they subscribe.
You can go to a mom and pop, buy an issue and just
check it out. That's right. It's not just the mom and pops.
We're in a lot of the nurseries here in the Houston the Gulf South area,
and we're very fortunate to be there. But we're also in HB.
Barnes and Nobles, Walmart, Tractors supply all food central markets. All right.
So there's the ubiquitous Texas Gardener magazine. Easy to find, y'all.
Lot to check it out. I mean, I know, I'm biased.
Have been writing for him since pretty much. There's there's some dirt and soils
and Texas that are not have not been around as long as I've been writing
for Texas car not many though not many, But seriously, though it is,
it is a great magazine and lots lots of good fun stuff in it.
Let's see, we are going to head out nout to Jersey Village.
Hello, Bob, We've got about a minute and a half. How can
we help? If if we can, we'll get it done in a minute
and a half. Is Bob there here? All right? How can't we?
Who go ahead? Gotta get you off feaker because that's not mood?
Okay, yeah, that's right, all right, I'm the one to call
it in about three waistbel about squirrels and tomatoes, okay, And I've been
doing using pepper. I try to find some hot pepper oil. Couldn't find
any, but I went by the mulating grow free Okay, they hands and
kneeme oil before I put that on the on my plants? Is it on
a sore being to the plant and cost problems? Okay? I know it
won't, but you've you've kind of opened a little bit of account of worms.
So what I'm gonna do is start to answer and then if if I
can put you on hold when we come back from break, we will continue
that and we'll get j involved as well. How does that sound? Sounds
great? All right? So the hot pepper oil is to burn the little
squirrels mouth. Birds hot pepper doesn't bother them, but but squirrels, it's
their mammals there. You know, like as you stick a hot pepper in
your mouth can burn you. The kneeme oil is not going to keep squirrels
away. It is an insecticide, and so it can kind of soak into
the tissues. And we'll talk more about that when we come back from break.
But our phone number if you'd like to call in get Josh to get
you on the board is seven one three two one two five eight seven four.
I forgot all about the sweating and dig and have the time I go
out and big all the two things that true love. I love that song.
Oh gosh, hey, we're back. You're listening to Texas to to
the Texas Gardener radio show. You're listening to guard Line Radio. We got
Texas Gardeners j White here and we are picking his brain today about some different
kinds of things related to plants and tomatoes, and certainly want to hear more
about the magazine. Bob, We're gonna come back to you now. I
think we had started talking about the kneem oil. So I'm gonna let you
if we are hitting on your question. Let me know if if I didn't
understand it, but please clarify. Okay. When I went to find some
the hottest peppers I could find to make hot pepper oil, you can't really
find it easily. The lady said, well, I have some neme oil
mating nme seeds that would be bitter and kinslow the squirrels down, and so
I was going to try that. They said, well, maybe maybe that
might not be the right thing to do, if you might soak into the
plant. Okay, well neem does so again, but it is very effective
as an insecticide against anything that choose up your leaves, for example, if
it's a leaf feeding like a caterpillar or a beetle. Name is a good
product for that, but it absolutely will not do anything to squirrels. You
can, okay, you can get hot peppers and make your own oil,
but boy, that's a that's a chore. I would suggest you just go
down and purchase them. If you go to a like a wall birds unlimited.
They're gonna have products that they put in bird seed that keeps the squirrels
out of the bird seed because the heat, believe it or not, doesn't
bother birds one bit, but as sure gets the squirrels. You'll find it
there. You can find hot pepper oil kind of things for sale, and
and just that's the easy way. That's that's what I did when I was
trying to use something. But yeah, and the other option is you can
put a little bag over the fruit. If it's the larger to mate that
you need to put a bag over them. There's certain kinds of bags you
can buy that just kind of you know, keep the squirrels and things away
from them. Yeah, well squirrel squirrels can find their way through a baize
like you wouldn't believe. I mean, if I all right, one other
question, if I spray it with cam or something similar and then sprinkle uh
cay anne pepper, crash canne pepper, but that work is similarly. I
have no idea the pam in the heat of summer, that oil you may
get some what we call phido toxasity, meaning burning the plant. I don't
know about that one. I mean there's a lot of home remedies are going
about things, but it sounds like you're making a little harder than we need
to make it. I would just get you a good hot pipper. I'll
just be willing to be ready to wipe it off, or your tomatoes are
gonna be like you know, the rotels and the peppers for making a good
SALTI cheese sauce, all right, All right, then sounds like a winter
go Wow Birds Unlimited. I would give him a call and see, Yeah,
there's there's one near you see your Jersey Village, Jersey Village, Jersey
Ville. I'm trying to bring that. Oh you're up north. There's a
wild Birds Unlimited up in the Cypress area and you just go to WBU dot
com forward slash Houston WBU for wild Birds Unlimited dot com forward slash Houston.
You can find it, all right, Thank you very much, Yes,
Sarah, thank you very much. Well, Jay Gosh, I told you
the hour will go fast and does. We're just not too far from the
end of the show here or from the end of this hour. H some
other things that you would find of interest. I don't know, you a
little bit of a challenge you're dealing with this year in the garden or some
some aspects of some upcoming things with the magazine. Well, I can tell
you there has been a challenge. I think this has been a very unusual
year. I think we've had two or three really unusual years. You know,
we had such a nice, cool, wet spring, and then all
of a sudden, you know, this heat's turned on and it won't turn
off, and I've got stuff struggling this year. That's really I've never had
a problem with struggling. I mean, in fact, before I left,
I've got an heirloom begonia that has been in my wife's family seventy five eighty
years, and I'm worried about it, and so you know, I've moved
it to the shade and i'm fertilizing it a little bit more. But it's
just brutal out there. Yeah, And I mean the garden's about shriveled up.
Got some tigger melons. If you're familiar with those, they're still producing.
You don't know the tiger melons. Oh, they're a little like a
Winnie the pood tiger. They're about less than one pound melon. They're yellow
with orange stripes on them, white fruited, and they're awesome. Oh so
it's more like a kind of a muskmelon or it's like a musk melon or
a cantlope. But it's a smooth skin, it's a it's a lovely little
plant and one and I love it because the grandkids love it. You know,
you can get them to eat a cantaloupe if it looks like Tigger from
Winnie the Pooh. So but it's you know, so it's hanging on.
You know, tomatoes are done and they were really done early. So I
mean, this has really been a brutal, brutal year, especially for people
growing in containers. I'm finding that more and more. In fact, I
did a talk, did a couple of talks recently on hot weather garden greens.
And if you go to places of the world that are as hot and
humid as Houston, you know, I mean we're talking about the tropics.
We're talking about calcut India, you know, right, those kind of places.
You're going to find some things that are very successfully growing there that do
we here, Like black eyed peas, alcohol peas. They came from Africa
and and so they get over here and are hot, hum humidity, and
they just laugh and say, we're at home. Oh yeah, And I
think we're gonna have to find more and more vegetables like that. We are
going to end up with some very unique gardening seasons. I agree. I
mean, things really are changing. And just because things are changing doesn't mean
you can't grow here. I'm sorry, Oh go ahead, It doesn't mean
you can't grow here. But like you say, you are going to have
to be more willing to experiment in your garden. Try different varieties, maybe
try something. You know, you've written several articles for us for the heat
loving greens, and our heat loving periods are getting longer, and so you
may need to start experiment more with some of this molochai or some of these
other things outside of the traditional lettuces and spinishes kales that we think of.
Yeah, because you know, when you say the word greens, I mean
everything that comes to mind is cool season. You know, spinach, collards,
kale uh uh let us those kind of things. So the goal of
our gardens is to always have something coming up that's right. And just because
it's summer, we've got plants that can do it. You know, our
tomatoes. Cherry tomatoes hang on pretty well compared to the big slicers. But
you know, it's like the skin becomes cellphones. The quality degrades quite a
bit, a little less, something not so much, something to write write
home about. We were at a pool party yesterday and they had sun Gold,
which is an awesome tomato. Still doing well but like says a little
tough, Yeah, it is good one. It is a good one.
Well. I I so appreciate you guys, uh you know, publishing Texas
Gardener, making it available for gardeners. I uh it it. I read
it myself to learn and I mean when I mentioned Patty, I mentioned you
know, Greg Grant. There's just a lot of good writers that you guys
have writing for it is and I learned something every time. Keith Hanson for
Horticultures, the Igord Life up in the Tyler area. Oh yeah, excellent
job and it is very informative. It is a good magazine. I think
really like to say this fact that we're still here as a testament to those
writers. And right now I think it's more important than ever because we have
so many new gardeners in the state. But if you're new to Texas.
You don't know how to grow like you write an activity checklist in every issue
that tells you what you should be doing right now in your garden. If
you're new to the state, that's indispensable. Yea by step. Yeah,
and you know the best thing of all, I know some people save these.
I've had people that just have decades of Texas gardener. I think you
need to take the staples out and lay the paper on the ground as a
mulch, watered in and throw something on top of it, and that your
garden will do better. Except if it's an article I wrote, don't use
that one because that has way too much of nitrogen in it. If you
know what I mean, Well, you can burn your plants with that kind
of bologny. All right, I go. Jay. It's been so good
having you here. Thank you for coming in and visiting. I hope you'll
come back again, so I'll come anytime you ask. That is good.
Well, we've been visiting with Jay White from Texas Gardner Magazine. We got
one more hour left in the books this weekend. We're here every Saturday from
six am to ten am and Sunday from six am to ten am. So
we got one more hour. If you'd like to call, give Josh a
call. It is seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four seven
one three two one two ktrh. He will get you on the boards and
when we come back we'll talk to you. Oh and by the way,
Jay, you and I both are going to be at Oba Palooza, which
is August the fifth. That's a Saturday. That's next all day, next
weekend all day ten amazing organic speakers. Go online to Oba Online, oh
A online, dot org, slash register to find out more information about that