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

I'm Chris Cooper.

Fall is in the air.

Today we're talking about how to get your lawn ready for winter.

Also, we will be talking about what to do to get your fruit trees ready for winter and spring.

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 Joseph Seago.

Joseph is a commercial horticulture agent in Shelby County.

And Mr.

D will be joining me later.

Good to have you here, Joseph.

- Good to be here again, Chris.

- We're going to talk about fall lawn care.

Let's start with warm-season grasses.

- Warm-season grasses.

So right now, going into fall and into winter, is a really important time to kind of get everything right, start managing for the winter.

You do that so you can get a good early spring green up and good healthy lawn going into spring and into summertime.

So couple management practices that we want to continue doing into the fall especially with mowing, we want to continue doing the one-third rule.

One-third rule, we don't wanna remove any more than one third of the leaf blade per cutting.

We really wanna avoid scalping at this time and any damaging to the turf that we can.

Bermuda and zoysias are our two warm-season grasses that we have here.

And they need to be cut on, you know, different heights going into fall.

A little bit shorter in the summertime, but in the fall, you kind of wanna bump it up for Bermuda two to three and a half inches, and zoysia's a little bit shorter.

So you wanna do about two to three inches is where you need to be on.

- And why do we need to do that?

- You do that to kinda help protect the roots in the wintertime.

Gives it a little bit more heat on the roots.

Kind of traps that heat in a little bit and helps keep moisture in.

Believe it or not, roots will dry out in the wintertime.

- That's a good point.

- Especially if they're not getting any irrigation to 'em.

And speaking of irrigation, we still wanna water deeply and infrequently.

We want to do at least a half an inch to an inch per week.

But warm-season turf grasses, you know, if they're going into the wintertime drought stressed, they're gonna have a harder time coming out of it in the springtime, and you won't know that until spring.

- Yeah, until we get to springtime.

- Right, until you get to spring.

So it's really, really important to kind of keep that irrigation going.

Recommendation is, you know, every three to four weeks, if you're not getting rainfall, irrigate.

- Right.

- Which is challenging because a lot of times, we shut down our irrigation system.

We winterize 'em, so we don't really have access to it.

And again, you don't want to irrigate, turn things on, if we're gonna be coming up to freezing temperatures or below freezing temperatures.

- That's a good point.

- So it can get tricky but, you know, if they're stressed 'cause of drought, they're gonna have a harder time and they're at greater risk for winter injury, winter kill.

- Okay.

Wow.

- Fertilizing and doing your lime applications.

Fall is a great time for lime.

Always fertilize and lime based on a soil test.

- Oh, yes, yes, right.

- Get that soil test.

That way you know how much to apply, especially lime.

And we wanna make our last fertilizer application six to eight weeks before our first historical frost.

And you want to fertilize now 'cause it just kind of gives those roots a little bit extra energy.

Just kind of gets it a little bit more healthier.

You're not gonna put on a ton more growth 'cause it is going into dormancy, but it just gives it a little bit more energy going in the wintertime.

- So do we need to be using a nitrogen fertilizer during this time?

- Yes.

- Okay.

- Definitely use a nitrogen fertilizer.

And remember, you wanna do it six to eight weeks before the first historical frost.

- Good deal.

Okay.

- Another important practice that we need to be thinking about right now is weed management.

- Yeah [chuckles].

- All right?

You want to put down your fall pre-emergents to control those winter annual weeds, especially Poa annua.

- Yes.

- Poa annua's gonna start germinating when it gets about 70 degrees for 5 consecutive days, soil temperature.

That's about average.

For air temperature, about 60, 65 degrees.

And so you need to put down that pre-emergent at that time before that starts germinating.

Again, you wanna follow up with a pre-emergent every 90 days until spring after that first pre-emergent application.

- Wow, so 90 days.

- Every 90 days.

- Get your calendar out.

- Calendar out, 90 days.

And it kind of works out kind of good for, you know, crabgrass pre-emergent too and everything kind of lines up.

And then for a fall post-emergent, once your broadleaf weeds start coming up, you know, three-way herbicide, 2,4-D, dicamba, MCPP, - Okay.

- Will work great for that.

- Make sure you read and follow the label on that as well.

- Yes, definitely.

Diseases are coming up right now for our warm-season grasses.

We kind of have two that we're kind of, that we kinda look at.

One is dollar spot and it's been a little bit more, in our area, a little bit more prevalent this year.

We've been seeing it.

Dollar spot is just a fungal disease.

It happens when our temperatures are still warm during the day, it's still kind of hot and humid, but then it starts cooling off in the evening time.

So we're kind of seeing some of that right now.

Dollar spot is, it starts in the middle, kind of grows out, but it's about the size of a silver dollar.

That's why we call it dollar spot.

- Got it.

- All right?

However, if you're cutting your grass kind of high, you know, between that two, three inches, it can grow up to at least six inches.

And it's a little bit harder to distinguish.

- Okay.

- A good fungicide, you know, azoxystrobin will work good for that.

Products like Scotts DiseaseEx, Heritage G. Nitrogen kind of helps with the dollar spot.

It can kind of help bring it out of, bring it into recovery a little bit better.

You want to use a low rate of nitrogen.

You don't want to do anything big.

And, again, some cultural practices, water early in the morning.

When you do mow, bag it or remove the clippings 'cause you don't want that going back down into the thatch.

- Got it.

Okay.

- And it kind of helps slow the spread of the disease as well.

But always water in the morning.

You don't wanna do it in the evening time.

That just encourages fungal diseases.

Another fungal disease that we're looking out for is large patch.

Large patch is caused by one of the variants of Rhizoctonia solani.

And it occurs in our warm-season turf grasses, particularly zoysia grasses.

It can affect Bermuda but we see it mostly in zoysia.

- Okay.

- For our fungal diseases, fungicides work better when you use them preventively.

So if you have an area that you have known that has fungal issues, especially large patch, go ahead and treat it.

And you wanna start treating when the nighttime temperature is about 70 degrees.

Large patch likes to be active between that 50 and 70 degrees.

Again, using a good fungicide with the azoxystrobin in it as the active ingredient, like Scotts DiseaseEx, Heritage G, and Strobe 2L.

And again, cultural practices, proper mowing, fertilizing, water in the early morning, and kind of focus on improving drainage.

Don't let that water sit.

- Right.

I usually think that's a big one, improving the drainage.

- Yeah, for sure.

- Okay.

- And then insects.

You really only have to worry about fall armyworms.

We've already seen some fall armyworms here in West Tennessee, but they're pretty easy to control.

Good insecticide, bifenthrin, permethrin.

Those work pretty good to control fall armyworms.

And it's the larvae state that chews on the grass and they're called foliar feeders and they just chew the grass, the blades of grass.

The roots are still there, so it can grow back from the rhizomes.

- It'll recover from the damage.

- Mm-hmm.

But when they get in large numbers, they'll just start chewing and kind of all go in the same direction and you can kind of see distinctive, you know, where it's healthy and where they've chewed it all down.

So they kind of get the armyworm as they move- - Like an army.

- Like an army.

- Down through the grass.

- Across the field.

That's right.

- How about that?

So they prefer more Bermuda?

- They do.

They prefer more Bermuda.

So we think of armyworms as more of a agricultural crop pest, but they can get into Bermuda and they can do some damage.

So just kind of keep an eye out for that.

They feed during the day and at night, so you can actually go out there, kind of see 'em moving around.

I've seen 'em moving around before, and just kind of look for 'em.

But they prefer early morning feeding, yeah.

- Early morning, okay.

Yeah, usually when you see a lot of birds hanging around- - Yeah.

A lot of birds.

- Armyworms are close.

- Mm-hmm.

- Yeah, that's for sure.

- Yep.

- All right, Joseph, we appreciate that, man.

That's good information about those warm-season grasses, taking care of those during the fall.

So thank you so much.

We appreciate that.

[upbeat country music] Let's talk a little bit about why this pepper plant is wilting.

Just a few weeks ago, it was actually doing just fine.

Then all of a sudden, thewhole plant just wilted.

And what usually causes this is a bacterial wilt.

Bacterial wilts usually happen because of too much moisture.

So what we have to do here the next time is make sure we correct the drainage problem 'cause, again, this area is actually poorly drained.

So let's correct the drainage area, and we may need to put more organic material into this ground, build it up a little bit so it will drain a lot better.

So, again, this is bacterial wilt, and as you can see, the whole plant has wilted.

Because this plant has bacteria wilt, it cannot be saved.

You will have to pull this plant up and throw it away.

I wouldn't throw it in the compost pile.

I just put it in the trash.

[upbeat country music] Alright, Mr.

D. Fall fruit tree care.

What do we need to be doing?

- Harvesting, if you have apples, and it's a little early on pears, or my pears anyway are not quite ready yet.

But you need to, if you still have fruit on the trees and you've been following a cover spray program, you need to continue that until the pre-harvest delay that is on the label, you need to be sure you follow the label where that's concerned.

Control weeds.

This a good time to, you know, you don't want grass, you know, up around the base of your fruit trees.

I like bare ground, and I used, you know, there's some good products out there.

Sethoxydim is a real good grass material.

And, you know, I try to get bare ground out under the drip line of my trees.

And bare ground gives up ground heat a lot easier in the wintertime than ground that's covered with grass or weeds or mulch.

- Mulch, right.

- So I think that's a real good thing to do.

If you've already harvested, and some of the earlier varieties we're through harvesting, make sure you don't, if you have mummies on that tree, get the mummies off and get rid of them.

Don't just toss 'em away.

You know, you want to get rid of that 'cause they can be a source of infection, you know, next year for fungal diseases.

And if you have, you know, fruit on the ground, do the same thing, you know, get that out of there and get it completely out.

You know, double bag it in a plastic bag and, you know, take it to the landfill.

Don't put it in your- - Compost, yeah.

- Compost pile.

You know, get it out of the area.

So, you know, those are some things that you can do.

This is a good time actually to do a soil test.

It's not a good time to put fertilizer out, but it is a good time to put lime out if you need it.

And most fruit trees need a pH of, you know, 6 to 6.5.

So this is a good time to pull that soil sample and you can lime anytime that liming is needed.

The earlier, the better because it takes a while for lime to actually change the pH of the soil.

I certainly wouldn't put fertilizer out this time of the year.

It's a little late for that.

You don't want to encourage young tender growth because, you know, when you have a cold snap, that can create problems that can kill plants.

Not a good time to prune.

We wanna wait and do our pruning, you know, late winter on the fruit trees and that's, you know, pretty much it.

Weed control, continue insect and disease control practices, follow the label, and, you know, don't put these products out right as you're picking them and just be sure you follow the label there.

- Let me ask you this, Mr.

D. So if you had a blight, you know, this year, what can you do to control that for next year?

- You know, you're talking to somebody that I've got that on my apple trees.

- Right, I've got it on my pear tree.

- And I'm just gonna do a better job next year of following, I have to put 'em on a home orchard spray schedule.

I'll follow the UT Home Orchard Spray Guide to the letter.

And, you know, you basically talk about every 7 to 10 days if you want clean, you know, fruit.

Now, I don't have any worms.

I don't have any insect damage to speak of.

I do have a stink bug, a lot of stink bug damage.

I don't have any caterpillar damage, I can say that, but I've got a lot of stink bug injury.

So if I had followed a regular spray program this year... My trees are really young.

This is really the first year that I had a crop off of them.

And I just didn't, I had more fruit than I thought I was gonna have.

And even with young trees, you're really supposed to keep them free of insects and diseases.

Some of these fungal diseases thrive on the leaves and stems and all that, even if you don't have fruit, but I need to practice what I preach and so I'm gonna do a better job next year.

I'm gonna get rid of those mummies, get 'em out of the way.

And, I mean, I've done everything else.

I actually did a good dormant spray last year with oil and liquid lime sulfur and those kind of things.

I started out right.

But then I just, I got busy.

It's been a really busy summer.

And I'm talking about, I think I have five apple trees and a couple of pear trees.

You know, so I- - That's pretty good.

- I'm just gonna do a better job next year than I did this year.

What about you?

You say you've got some problems.

Did you follow- - Yeah, you know, I have a peach tree and a pear tree.

It's like, you know, I start off pretty good, like you did, but then, you know, when you go through the season, you get busy and it's... - It's really hard.

I mean, with cover spray, when you do a cover spray, we've had a lot of wet weather, you know, this August and late July and August, and if you were putting a protective cover spray out there, it rains, it washes it off and you've gotta go back and do it again.

And if you wait a couple of days, you know, you have already opened your fruit up for infection.

And if it rains every day like it has done, you know, there's absolutely no way to keep that protective coat on there.

So it can be a little frustrating.

But just do the best you can do.

And sometimes you're gonna hit a home run, you know?

- Yeah, no home run for me this year.

- And then you realize, the thing that really hits you, you know, is you realize these commercial folks, it really makes you appreciate what commercial folks are doing, what they're having to go through, because, you know, Mother Nature is a variable out there that you can't really control.

You can control water.

You know, you can control some of it.

But you really can't control Mother Nature.

- Okay.

So the fall is also a good time to plant fruit trees, right?

- Right, right.

And, you know, I actually prefer planting them in late winter.

- Okay.

- But you can plant them in the fall, fall of the year.

But I prefer planting them about the time, about pruning time, you know, prior to February and May.

Of course, you avoid, by planting them in the fall, you avoid sticking them out there and getting a real hard freeze within 48 hours.

It really causes problems.

So if you've got a lot, I mean, but if you've just got a few, go on and order 'em now.

That's the thing to do.

Get into the catalogs.

Decide what you want.

Choose your varieties.

Go on and place the order and... - Some of those real popular varieties, it's hard to get.

- They go quick.

You're right.

- Sometimes they may sell out.

- That's right.

- And I got to the point now, I always look for resistant varieties now, if I can find them.

- That's why I don't have any peach or plum trees, you know, because I've not found any that are resistant to plum curculio or brown rot.

And I've had that.

I've been down that road.

When I lived down in Mobile, I had peach trees, you know, and I tried and tried and it's just really, really hard to get a healthy crop of peaches off of a home- - Trust me, I know that.

I fight that battle.

- Well, once every four or five years just isn't quite rewarding enough sometimes.

- Before we have to leave, Mr.

D, any insect pests that may be causing problems late in the year that you know of?

- Stink bugs are still- - Stink bugs, yeah.

- Working on, you know, your fruit, but it's really, really hard to control 'em.

I mean, but, yeah, they're a problem.

And you can always tell where they've been feeding.

You know, they inject that substance in and then pull it out, and wherever they inject that substance, it really creates problems in the fruit.

- All right.

We appreciate that information, Mr.

D. Thank you much.

[upbeat country music] - Whenever you grow zucchini, pumpkins, any kind of squash, you're gonna get squash bugs and they can be a serious problem.

The adults can be a vector of bacterial wilt, which can flatten your squash plant in just a day.

It'll look great one day, the next day, it'll just be completely wilted and flat on the ground.

These bugs are really, really hard to control.

So one of the best ways to control them is to get rid of their eggs.

So right here, they lay their eggs on the bottom side of the leaf.

They look like little bronze footballs.

And the easiest way to get rid of them that I've found, I just take some duct tape and form it into a loop and you can just stick them to the eggs and it just lifts them right off the leaf.

Also, when the eggs hatch into small nymphs, the nymphs stick to the tape really well too.

So with a little bit of duct tape, you can have completely organic control of the squash bug.

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

Y'all ready?

- Yep.

- These are some great questions.

Here's our first viewer email.

"What may have caused the split in my paw paw tree?

"Will it survive or should I plan to let the suckers take over?"

And this is Richie from Brooklyn, New York.

What do you think about that one, Lisa?

That's a good question.

- It could be sun scald.

It could be mechanical damage.

It could even be lightning, but- - Yeah, it could be from a storm, right?

- You know, but from what I'm thinking up in New York, it could be the sun scald due to the thin bark of the paw paw tree.

And so letting one of the suckers take over, maybe selecting two or three of those to let them grow and then deciding which one to be the leader later.

- Right.

I think that's good.

Anything you wanna add to that, Joseph?

- Yeah, definitely prune out, you know, whatever's dead.

You know, get that outta there.

- Okay, yeah, let it come up from the suckers 'cause it will do that.

- Yeah.

- All right.

Thank you for that question, Richie.

We appreciate that, and the picture.

Here's our next viewer email.

"What is the best way "to get rid of nematodes in our raised beds?

They are affecting plant growth and yields."

And this is John from Memphis, Tennessee.

So Mr.

John, we're gonna help you out here.

So what do you think about that, Lisa?

- Well, I think you can get rid of those with soil solarization.

You can also do crop rotation and using beneficial nematodes.

- I would agree with that.

With the crop rotation, you can go with non-host plants and that would be like beans, legumes, or corn.

And I would also incorporate organic matter, organic material, into that raised bed, right?

To build it up.

Because you're gonna have a high population of soil microbes and guess what those soil microbes are gonna do?

- Eat the nematodes.

- They're gonna eat the nematodes.

Right.

So that's what I would do.

Always look for resistant varieties.

Practice good sanitation.

- Yes.

- Scout, scout.

So if those plants start, you know, fading pretty fast, going downhill pretty fast, dying on you, something's wrong.

Yeah, something's wrong.

So that's what I would do, right?

So the soil solarization.

Yeah, hottest part of the year.

- Yeah, for a few weeks, you put, what, plastic down- - Plastic.

- And that kind of raises the temperature and it kills them.

- Yeah, yeah, so I would do that probably, yeah, hottest part of the year, four, six to seven weeks.

I think that's sufficient.

I think that'll work.

- Yeah.

- You'll be fine.

All right, so thank you for that question.

We appreciate that.

All right, here's our next viewer email.

This one's interesting.

"I have lots of millipedes in my vegetable garden.

"What insecticide would you recommend that would be effective and safe to use?"

This is Crystal from Nova Scotia, Canada.

She says when she pulls back her straw mulch, they are everywhere.

She knows they like mulch, but she needs it.

This year, they completely wiped out her carrot seedlings.

- Mm.

- How about that?

So Crystal, this is what I would do for the millipedes.

I would use diatomaceous earth and sprinkle that around my plant material, right?

So when they go crawling around it, you know, over it, yeah.

- It's fossilized- - Diatoms.

- Yes, diatoms.

- Fossilized diatoms.

There it goes.

Yeah, fossilized diatoms, right?

So, yeah, they go across, it can pierce their body parts and it dehydrates them, you know, all at the same time.

So that's what I would use.

Now, of course, if it rains or something like that, it'll have to be reapplied.

- Reapplied, yeah.

- You can do that.

There's some other, you know, methods to controlling millipedes.

I mean, you can use some of the oils, insecticidal soap.

- Neem oil, yeah.

- Yeah, neem oil, insecticidal soap is something else that you can use.

Pyrethrins, you know, comes to mind as something that you can use that would be safe.

So that's what I would do.

That's what I would do.

- And they like the moisture.

- They love the moisture.

So, I mean, if you can get rid of the moisture, if it's possible, you may not have as many, but, yeah.

- It's hard to do.

- Or, or, look, always try to see if you can encourage predators, you know, to come into your garden to help out.

You know, frogs will love millipedes.

Birds, you know, will love millipedes.

So if you can encourage those predators to come in, Crystal, I think that'll help.

- Make sure that you're not over mulching.

- Right.

- Because that will hold the moisture too.

- It will hold the moisture.

That's a good point.

All right.

So there you have it, Crystal.

We appreciate that question.

Hope that helps you out.

All right, here's our next viewer email.

"What is this plant?

"It came up voluntarily and has pretty little flowers and thorns."

All right.

What is that plant?

- It's Carolina horsenettle.

- Horsenettle.

- Carolina horsenettle.

- How about that?

- Horsenettle is in the nightshade family.

And it has, so horsenettle has a deep taproot system.

A lot of people think of it as a weed.

Pull it out, dig it out.

- Be careful when you're pulling it out though.

It does have thorns.

- Little bitty thorns on them and they're just real itty-bitty and they do hurt.

They also can spread by rhizomes as well.

So they have both long taproot and the rhizomes, so.

- Right.

So, yeah, it can be pretty tough.

- It can be, to get out.

- You better wear some gloves, you know, to pull that out.

- Gloves and some good sharp shovels.

- Right, and it does produce like a tomato berry, looking berry that has seeds in it.

It's also called, it's called Devil's tomato or Devil's potato.

- Oh, okay.

- You know, a couple of other names that it's known by.

So, yeah, we appreciate that picture.

It's a nice picture there.

Yeah, I like that.

Pretty little flowers and thorns.

How about that?

What's a weed?

- It's native.

- Hey.

- You know?

[chuckles] - Weed, wild, whatever.

All right, so, Lisa, Joseph, that was fun.

Thank y'all much.

Thank y'all much.

- Thank you.

- Thank you, Chris.

- 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.

If you want more information about anything we talked about today, head on over to familyplotgarden.com.

We have links to Extension publications you can take into your garden.

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

Be safe.

[upbeat country music] [acoustic guitar chords]