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

I'm Chris Cooper.

Insects like to eat plants but spiders eat insects.

Today we're talking about out eight-legged friends.

Also, rodents can be destructive.

We'll show you how to control them.

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] Hi, welcome to "The Family Plot."

I'm Chris Cooper.

Joining me today is Andy Williams.

Andy is the director out at Lichterman Nature Center.

And Mister D is here.

Thanks for joining us.

Glad to be here.

Alright, Andy.

You have spiders.

And I'll try not to scream.

So, what do we need to know about the spiders?

Because they are beneficial, right?

They are.

That's the point if you can get past your phobias about spiders.

I mean, next is snakes.

They're some of the most misunderstood creatures on the planet.

They have just really undeserved reputations.

But the more you know about them.. Of course, you know, it's my thing anyway.

The more you know about them, the more interesting they are.

To start with in broad strokes, they're arthropods.

They're related to insects but they're not insects.

Insects typically have three legs, three body parts.

But spiders are arachnids, spiders and their relatives.

And they have eight legs.

They have two body parts and some other interesting equipment.

So, this is not a native spider.

This is actually a blonde tarantula from the desert.

But we use it because it's the large size.

Our native spiders tend to live.. Most of them just live a single year.

But their lifecycles tend to.. They live between one to three years.

So, this time of year, they're kind of on the small side.

And so, it's very helpful to have live spiders that live longer.

These tarantulas can live five, ten, twenty years and they're very long lived.

They're typically females.

Most spiders are sexually dimorphic.

In other words, they're very distinct differences between the males and females.

And the females are larger and live longer.

[laughter] You really can't tell really clearly here that it has eight eyes.

But the eyes are on the part called the cephalothorax, which is kind of the head chest.

They have eight legs, eight eyes.

They're more sensitive to light and dark.

Although, jumping spiders can see up to eight inches.

They have pedipalps, large -- looks like a first set of legs.

Inside, they have fangs.

The fangs are connected to venom glands.

All spiders are venomous.

However not all spiders venom is deleterious to humans.

But every time you talk about spiders, you know, you really have to talk about the brown recluse and the black widow, which are also found in the gardens and you really don't necessarily want.

The black widows are distinctive if they've got the hourglass marking and that sort of stuff.

Spiders will eat anything.

And so, they eat the males.

They eat eat other spiders.

Of course, they eat everything.

The brown recluse, we won't go in to too much detail about it at this point.

But they're small, wispy, brown spiders that hang out in your closets and like that.

You really want to avoid them.

But anyhow, those are the two no-nos.

But most other spiders that we have, there are thousands of them.

People tell us that you're never more than three feet away from a spider.

Your house, your garden, everywhere.

But the good news is they eat bugs.

They eat lots of bugs.

In the South, we have three general types of spiders.

We have the very familiar web spinning spiders.

They're web-weaving.

All spiders have silk glands they use to not only trap their prey but also provide habitat.

They use a variety of interesting ways.

But these weaving spiders will just lay their webs and wait for something to come in to it.

See if we can get him down a little bit.

This is our native wolf spider, which they get -- not terrifying but they get very large.

See if I can get that around where we can see it.

They get larger later.

And they look more like our friend the tarantula.

And this is so tiny you can't see it.

This is a jumping spider that jumps around and grabs its prey.

Okay.

Another spider that a lot of people only find out by mistake but are fairly common are the crab type spiders.

The crab type spiders have very.. Well, they look like little miniature crabs.

Crabs are also arthropods but they're crustaceans.

So, they're related but not really the same thing.

But you can see it's got its legs in a crab like position.

So, those are the three basic types of spiders.

They eat and hunt differently.

Like, we talked about these wait in flowers.

And in the summer, some of them are beautiful.

They're white.

They're green.

They're red.

They're pink.

They mimic the flowers and they ambush and catch things in the flowers.

So, they mimic the flowers?

Yeah, the colors of the flower.

And they chill out, stay still and they move with amazing speed.

Now they have a little bit better eye sight than some.

But a lot of weaving spiders just respond to motion.

In fact, on the tarantulas, you know, they're known for the hair.

The hair-like things on their legs are very sensitive to sound and vibration.

But another myth about spiders is basically they are, you know, arachnid vampires.

You know, they got their fangs.

They go and they just bite something.

They suck the juice out of it and go on to the next.

And actually, that's not true.

But it makes them even more terrifying.

You know, the truth is that all spiders to some extent digest at least part of what they eat.

Just anyhow, you can see this on your own if you go out to the garden.

You look at -- throw something in to like a garden spider or something and watch it eat.

It will use the fangs first to penetrate and kill the prey.

They may wrap a little bit webbing while they're waiting for it to die.

But then they will go.

And see if we can get him around where he can be seen by the camera.

This is actually a brown recluse.

And unfortunately, he's decided to crawl down on the bottom.

But if you look in there, he's actually got a wolf spider.

What he's done after he knew he killed the wolf spider, he grabbed it and they actually regurgitate digestive fluids on to the outside.

And they take their jaws and the macerate it.

They get the digestive juices in it and they eat that way.

Now things like the wolf spiders and tarantulas, you know, they're hunters.

A lot of them will tear the prey apart and eat bits and pieces.

Although, you will see wings and legs.

I hate to say less juicy parts but the parts that they can't chew as well.

The crab spiders have another way of going about it.

They have exceedingly strong fangs.

And their fangs pierce the shell of an insect or the exoskeleton, the external covering.

They will go and not only inject some venom but also they will throw up some digestive juices inside it.

And so, after its dead, it'll start digesting inside out.

And they'll suck out the digestive stuff out of the inside.

But anyhow, that's how they eat.

But what do they eat?

They primarily eat bugs.

And garden pests are among their favorite foods.

There are.. Some of the hunters will -- has to eat special as far as diet.

But almost any web-weaving spider will eat whatever goes in to its web.

The webs don't hurt the plants.

So, you want to attract them.

You'll need some tall plants for them to put their webs on.

Also, provide some mulching cover for these hunting insects to provide cover and go out and hunt and do their thing.

Andy, that was great.

We appreciate that.

[upbeat country music] - When we talk about butterfly gardens we're really talking about more than just butterflies.

There's a lot of pollinator insects.

Bees, flies, little beetles that really love these plants.

They come to the plants for nectar, which is a carbohydrate source, and they also come for the pollen, which is a source of protein.

Now, lady beetles will come when they can't find aphids, they'll feed on protein to get 'em by.

Anything in the carrot family, like this parsley here, they have flat umble-like flowers.

And they have little tiny blossoms that the little parasitoid bees and the hoverflies can feed on.

So, if you look here you'll see just could be dozens of little tiny insects.

The parasitoid wasp are important because it gives them energy, that nectar.

Then, they can go lay their eggs on caterpillars, and do some biological control.

The key to having a garden that's good for the bugs is have things blooming from early spring, throughout the summer and into the fall, like asters in the fall.

You want things that are gonna attract all kinds of insects.

And many of 'em are gonna be beneficial or pollinators.

[upbeat country music] Alright, we talked about the spiders.

Now, Mister D, moles, voles and chipmunks.

Let's start with the moles first.

Let's do start with the moles.

That's actually a success story.

I can tell you some good things about the mole.

This past week, I caught three in my yard.

And that's probably about seven that I've caught this year using the same scissors type mole trap I've had for several years.

But it's pretty easy to catch moles if you simply try to set your trap over a long tunnel that doesn't have any branches off to the side.

And you set your trap over that tunnel.

And you should catch one.

If you don't.. If you don't catch one within two days, move it.

Don't leave it there for a week.

You know, give it a couple of days.

And with that being said, there's actually a video of you showing us how to set up a mole trap.

Looks like we have a little bit of a mole problem here.

WKNO has its own mole.

That's good.

We'll see if we can take care of it.

Need to understand a little bit about moles before you try to trap them, a little bit about their biology and their feeding habits.

Primary diet of a mole is an earthworm.

And they do eat white grubs and other soil insects.

But earthworms are their primary diet.

They have.. One mole can tunnel up to 225 feet in one night.

They have a veracious appetite.

They're carnivorous.

They have different types of tunnels.

The long tunnel that doesn't have any lateral tunnels off to the side is probably a transportation tunnel.

Of course, he could be feeding.

He probably is feeding as he's going down through that transportation tunnel.

The tunnels that have a lot of lateral tunnels off to the side, it looks like he's kind of confused or wondering around.

Well, that is a feeding tunnel.

He's probably in an area where there are a lot of earthworms.

And he just is.. That's the buffet.

He's enjoying the food.

Now a place to set a trap is not in one of the feeding tunnels.

Because he may not come back to this area for a long time.

The place to set a trap is over a transportation tunnel, a tunnel that he uses going from his den to the feeding area, to the feeding ground.

And what I look for if I can't.. You know, ideally I would come out here every night for two or three nights and mash all these tunnels down.

And then the next morning, go out and look at the tunnel that was raised, flag it and do that for two or three days.

And then the tunnel that's raised every night tells me that is definitely a transportation tunnel.

And you'll probably be 100% effective in catching a mole.

I don't have time to do that.

So, I look for a long tunnel like this right here.

We got four feet of this tunnel.

It doesn't have any little side branches off.

So, that tells me that may very well be a transportation tunnel.

And that's where I set my trap.

If I'm successful in a day or two, good.

If not, I probably judged this incorrectly and I'll move my trap somewhere else.

I don't ever leave a trap -- an unsprung trap over a couple of days in an area.

But it's important that you set the trap correctly.

This has a couple of scissors on it.

The way it's designed, when you set the trap, it actually opens a channel for these scissors to work.

Be sure you set the scissors so that they will open up perpendicular to the runway.

If you set it that way, that's the wrong way.

The mole can still get through.

So, you push this down in to the tunnel, snug it down there pretty good.

It's really very, very simple.

And you carefully put your foot on it and you push it down.

As you're pushing it down, those scissors are opening.

And I'm making sure that the trigger stays pretty much in the center, over the center of that tunnel.

Push it down until it clicks and it's set.

So, we're ready.

We are in the hunting mode right now.

Those scissors have opened up and they're ready to go.

The mole will.. Even though that's pushing down, the mole will raise that tunnel again.

And when it raises that trigger, you'll have your mole.

And he won't last very long.

Just as important as learning how to set a trap correctly is learning how to spring that trap without getting your fingers cut off.

So, be very, very careful with that.

And the way I do it.. And I'm not sure this is approved -- an approved method.

I know where those scissors are.

So, I make sure I keep my fingers away from that trigger.

Now pull it out of the ground.

Either side will work.

Work it out of the ground.

See, the trigger is still.. You can see the scissors.

That's in mole-catching mode.

Usually it hits the ground before it does that.

But I keep my fingers away from the scissors and just toss it on the ground.

And it's ready to go.

Okay, and we have Andy here.

And guess what he brought us so we can see.

Because most folks have never seen a mole.

So.. Well, this is actually the Eastern mole.

You can see it's got a long snout.

It's pretty sensitive.

Large front paws are designed for moving through the dirt easily.

The fur goes in one direction.

And it's super soft.

I mean, it actually feels good.

It helps him glide through the tunnels.

You know, they're ubiquitous in the South.

They love.. They eat insects.

Well, they have a lot of grubs.

But I think their favorite food may be earth worms.

And so, the best way to attract them to your yard is to have a beautiful scene of grass.

That's exactly.

If you don't use many pesticides, you know, that just brings them in like sending the bat signal up.

Okay.

Now what else did you bring us, Andy?

Well, also brought two things.

This is actually a shrew.

As you can tell, the shrew looks like the mole.

It eats insects as well.

But it doesn't tend to dig as much as the moles do.

They'll dig occasionally but they primarily use the tunnels that are made by the moles.

And they'll also follow some of the tracks made by voles with a V that actually will eat your plants.

They're easily mistaken.

But if you look carefully, you can tell very quickly that they have very different front legs.

These are not designed for burrowing.

They do have the same sort of snout.

But they're substantially smaller.

A vole, which we will talk about in a little bit, is also a rodent.

It tends to be a little lighter brown and its sort of, you know, roughly half way in size between the size of a shrew and a mole.

Last but not least, our chipmunk.

Yeah, another garden animal.

Both the chipmunks and the moles dig.

And they tend to be solitary except when they're breeding.

The moles will breed once a year, typically in the spring.

The chipmunks, sometimes they have two batches.

They look cute in cartoons but they do dig up your garden.

They're omnivorous.

But they will preferably a lot of vegetables and stuff.

And they can carry food in their cheeks.

They have pouches, a great way.

Moles have really high energy demands.

They run around the yard eating all the time.

And they don't store food.

You know, they just kind of go to deeper areas to look for food when the weather gets cold.

Alright, we appreciate that, Andy.

Now Mister D, how about control?

Well, you know, another thing you were talking about, the energy needs of the mole.

They can eat 70 to 100% of their body weight per day of insects.

And like you said, mostly earthworms is what they like.

They have a real narrow.. You notice their rear hind quarters are more narrow than the front.

That enables them to very easily turn around in their tunnel.

But they're interesting critters.

You ever heard of making a mountain out of a mole hill?

You know what a mole hill is?

Well, that's the hole that they dig when during dry weather conditions.

They're still tunneling underground but you can't see the tunnel and the dirt has to go somewhere.

Just make you get that control while we have just a little time left.

Well, the control.. Just set a trap.

Scissors-type trap is the one that I found to be successful.

And set it correctly over a long span of uninterrupted tunnel.

If it's got a lot of side tunnels off to the side of it, it's a feeding tunnel.

The mole may not be there.

Set the trap and if you don't catch anything in two days, move it to another one.

And just kind of keep doing that.

You'll eventually have success.

What about for the voles and the chipmunks?

The voles and chipmunks, you know.. Voles are.. Both of them are rodents.

Of course, voles, you can use rodenticides.

They're cleared for use on voles.

I have some vole damage under one of my apple trees I noticed.

I was pulling some of the weeds back and leaves back from my apple trees.

And that's one thing that will help prevent that damage or stop that damage because they like to be covered up and they like weeds to be there.

And I pull all that out.

I'm going to try that.

And if I still continue to have moles or voles present there, then I will put a rodenticide out and try to take care of it.

The chipmunks, even though they're a rodent, none of the rodenticides are cleared for use on chipmunks.

So, exclusion methods.

You know, try to chase them out.

You know, not a whole lot to do.

And they can do you some damage.

They take my four wheel drive out of my hunting vehicle every year and I have to take it to my mechanic to get it fixed every year before hunting season starts.

If you got a vehicle that just sits out and you don't drive it a lot during the summer time, look out.

Alright.

Well, we appreciate that Andy and Mister D.

[upbeat country music] - We're here in the garden, and we've noticed that there's holes in the leaves on our okra.

And, that's from Japanese beetles.

We're gonna try to get rid of the Japanese beetles by fixing up some soap water.

What happens here is you put a little soap, dishwashing soap, in some water, and you mix it up just a little bit, [water sloshing] for a soapy solution.

And then you get your Japanese beetles and you drop them in here.

And this will eliminate the hormone that's present from them so that other Japanese beetles will not want to be attracted to this area.

So, you just take your soap.

Then, you're gonna find your beetles, pick them off and drop them in the soap.

And this will take care of them, by picking them off and putting them in this solution.

[upbeat country music] Now is our Q and A session.

Andy, we want you to join us.

Sure.

Alright.

Here's the first viewer e-mail.

How do I protect my strawberries from birds?

I put stakes with bird netting over my patch.

It was not working well so I put taller stakes with another layer of netting.

I've had tape tied on and added more.

Still they are eating through the net.

"Help," says Miss Elizabeth.

Mister D, help!

What kind of birds do you have?

I'd like to see.

If you do a good job of putting netting around and seal it real good, I don't understand how the birds are getting through there unless you have the net so close to the fruit, the birds are able to peck through the netting.

I really don't understand that.

And that's the only thing I can think of.

I would try frightening agents.

Try an artificial mole, an artificial snake.

They become habituated.

So, you know, you've got to move that around.

But I'm with you.

If you're having mechanical troubles like that that are not working, you know, I would re-examine my technique.

(Mike) You need some engineering.

You may just need somebody with some engineering experience to approve of that mechanical exclusion method.

Alright, there you have it, Miss Elizabeth.

Here's our next question.

While pulling up weeds in my yard, I discovered several grub worms.

What do you recommend I use to get rid of them?

A mole.

Ah, how about that?

We were waiting for that one.

I saw the look on your face.

It has environmentally sustainable gardening techniques.

Actually, there are several I pulled from the Red Book 2015.

The page that gives the control methods.

And one of the first.. Actually the first thing on the list is something we've been using for years and years and years to control grub worms.

And that's Carbaryl.

Garden granules, two percent granules will do a good job.

They're easy to kill.

You know, they come out at night.

If you scatter the pesticide out on the lawn at, you know, late afternoon, you know, you'll actually see the dead grubs on the surface of the ground.

But there are others.

GrubEx.

Maxzide is a product.

Bayer Advance 24 hour grub killer.

Those are the ones that are listed to control both the larvae of the green june beetles and the larvae of the may beetles, chafers, Japanese beetle.

I can't tell them apart.

White grubs are all the larvae of all of these different beetles.

Well, two things to throw in there.

The grubs are actually larva beetles.

They grow to something later that is some which can be beneficial.

Also, before you apply pesticides, I'd see if they're doing any harm.

You know, are you concerned that they're there or you're concerned that you're seeing a decline in your vegetables or your garden.

(Chris) That's a good point.

They're probably in every body's yard.

And honestly, I can only think of a couple of times in my career where I've seen enough damage that I would recommend treating.

I saw it in a farmer's pasture one time and they were completely killing his Bermuda grass.

And most of the time -- most of the time, you can live with the damage that they create.

Okay.

Alright.

So, here's our next question.

Are ants harmful in a vegetable garden?

As he takes off his glasses.

There are a couple of schools of thought.

You know, earlier we were looking at some aphids on tomatoes.

And ants like aphids.

Aphids secrete honeydew.

It's kind of a sweet, sticky substance.

And ants will actually kind of protect those aphids.

And ants are omnivorous, which means they can be carnivorous but they're omnivorous.

They eat both plant material and, uh, other insects.

So, if they're eating an insect, they're beneficial and you're probably okay to leave them there.

If they're eating on plant material like okra, tomatoes.. Fire ants are maybe an example that can be beneficial.

But if there are so many out there that they're bothering you when you're picking peas, you know, then they're not beneficial.

So, there are some products that you can use some of the baits.

If they're bothering you and you want to get rid of them -- yes, you can kill them and there are products that are labeled for use in home gardens.

But I would wait and try to determine whether or not they're doing you more harm than good.

They may be doing you more good than harm.

And if that's the case, leave them be.

Alright, here's our next question.

This is a good one.

Does the soil lab you often speak of test for lead?

Mister D?

No.

It does not.

Absolutely not.

UT Soil Test Lab checks for nutrients that plants need.

And if you want to have an analysis done for lead, you'll need to go with one of the private labs around like A and L lab in Memphis.

That's the one that's local that I'm aware of.

But there are other labs around that will specifically test for what you ask them to test for.

It'll be more than four dollars a sample.

They use techniques that have really low detection limits in case you were interested in lower levels of lead than you would nutrients.

And so, there's a lot of higher costs that go in to that.

Not only the equipment but also to prevent cross-contamination because lead is so ubiquitous.

A few years ago we did some gardens in urban areas.

And we checked the soil.

And it's kind of surprising.

Most of the pHs of the soil was high because there was so much white gravel around and the limestone had raised the pH.

But there was other analysis done and almost all of them, because they were old houses around, almost all of them had fairly high levels of lead.

Or I say high levels of lead.

Just the presence of the lead paint.. You know, parts per billion.

Alright, Andy, Mister D, we're out of time.

Thank you.

- Thank you.

- 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.

I'm Chris Cooper.

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

Be safe.

[upbeat country music] [acoustic guitar chords]