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

I'm Chris Cooper.

Apples, peaches, berries, and lemons.

It's viewer questions about fruits, next 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.

Winter is almost over, and it's about time to get the fruit trees, bushes, and brambles ready for spring.

Today we're going to show you fruit questions we answered, but did not have time to air.

Let's start with one about raspberries.

"Do I cut the dead branches from my raspberries in the summer?"

And this is Patricia.

So does she do that, Peter?

- Yes.

- Yeah.

- If it's dead, you can go ahead and cut it off any time of year.

That's the first thing.

But then let's talk about what's going on here.

So what's happening is there's a couple different kinds of raspberries.

One of the most common one is a biennial.

So it is, you have the first year it comes up with a primocane, which then overwinters, it may or may not lose its leaves depending on how cold it is and other conditions.

But the next year, what it'll do is it will then, it'll come back alive again.

It will flower, produce, and then at that point it dies, it's done.

It's done its job.

If that's the kind of raspberries you have, yeah, as that dies, cut it out.

- Yeah.

- You also have everbearing and summer-bearing raspberries.

Watch them.

You know, if something dies, cut it out.

When a cane is done with its life cycle, then it will die.

So, you know, if you have the summer-bearing or bears fruit on the primocane raspberries, the next year it will come back and it'll play the floricane role, even though it has already beared once and then die if you leave it.

But yeah, so if it dies, just cut it out.

[gentle country music] - "Can I plant blueberries in an extra large pot?"

And this is June on YouTube.

So what do you think about that, Peter?

Can June do that?

- Yes.

- Oh yeah.

- Of course.

- Yeah, you can, June.

- Now how big of a pot?

It depends on what kind of blueberry you have.

Because the blueberries in the north tend to be a little smaller.

We don't know where she is.

- Yeah.

- Blueberries in the south, they tend to be a lot bigger.

But you know, minimum five gallons.

I would say though, if you get a big rabbit-eye plant like we have down here, you're probably looking at, you know, you need a pot.

- Pretty good size.

- To put them in.

But yeah, you can plant them in there.

A couple things you need to watch out for is you probably want to have two so that they can cross-pollinate each other.

Some varieties are self-fruitful, but they always do better with two.

You get better, you get bigger berries, you get more berries.

The other thing is, is they like acid soil.

So you have to make sure that it is acidic.

Now when you put your soil in the pot, it's not gonna be acidic.

Because you just, it's not.

And so you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to acidify it.

And there's several different products you can use there.

You can use elemental sulfur if you can get it.

It's probably the best long-term solution.

You could also, if you go to your big box store, something like that, you can buy bags of a soil acidifier that is probably aluminum sulfate.

And that will also do the same thing.

You could probably, I would suggest that you test the pH of the soil at least yearly.

You know, you need to get it down to, was it 4.8 to 5.5?

Which is really acid.

So test it every year.

Because the thing is, is that because you're growing it in a pot, the water is flowing through that pot and taking nutrients and taking whatever you're using to acidify it away.

So it's quite likely to return more quickly to a neutral pH.

So you may need to add more acidifier every year.

The other thing is, I don't know if I would grow 'em in potting soil.

I would probably use some of your native soil.

You mix it with some potting soil, that's fine.

But that way you have a little bit more nutrient retention.

Because potting soil is, you know, a lot of it is just ground up trees and bark doesn't tend to hold nutrients real well.

- Yes.

[Chris laughing] - So especially as water's going through.

So putting in a little bit of the native soil into that just for water retention and also for nutrient retention would probably help as well.

But yes, totally you can grow 'em.

- Yes, yes, by all means.

- I was gonna throw in, we actually have a new UT Extension publication on blueberries for homeowners.

And in the chart of recommended cultivars, there's a special section for dwarf blueberries that would do like wonderfully in containers.

- Oh good.

- So if you wanted to kind of, you know, find some that aren't gonna overgrow too quickly, that would be a good resource.

And then they could find it on UTHort.com.

- Or they can also find it on FamilyPlotGarden.com.

- Yes, yes.

- Yes.

- We have that available for them as well.

[gentle country music] "My blueberry bush has developed what looks to be a fungus.

Can you tell me what this is and how to treat it?"

So what do you think about that one, Celeste?

- Okay, so I see, I get this question a lot.

And that was a great picture that they sent in.

- Excellent picture.

Excellent picture.

- But I mean, it's not a fungus.

- It's not a fungus.

- It's not a fungus.

So I will say tips for looking for fungal-type diseases, we need to look for spores, right?

So get out a hand lens, get out a magnifying glass and look for teeny tiny dark spots in that area that's showing some effects.

What we're seeing in this picture is likely drought stress.

- That's exactly what I thought.

- Could be fertilizer burn.

They sometimes present themselves in the same fashion, but we get that burning, that scorching along the edges.

And it's usually a really uniform kind of like, you know, cinnamon brown-type color.

If it's a darker, like dark brown, almost black kind of discoloration along the edges, that could be a bacterial leaf scorch that's common for blueberries.

So I see how that could be a little confusing.

But in this particular situation, I really am leaning towards probably drought stress.

- That's what I'm thinking.

- They're shallow rooted.

You know, blueberries are shallow rooters.

So we had a super wet spring, but this summer, you know, we've had some dry periods.

- Yeah, it's definitely been hot.

Anything you wanna add to that, Jason?

- Well, you can always contact your local county Extension if you're unsure about it.

- Sure, you can always do that.

- Yes.

- If you're unsure.

- Yeah, you can definitely do that.

So it's not a fungus.

Yeah, we think that's drought stress, you know, for the most part.

[gentle country music] "Why are my gooseberry plants wilting at midday?"

And this is Kurt from Portsmouth, Virginia.

It gets regular water, mulched.

It was grown from seed transplanted a couple of weeks back.

So what do you think about that, the old gooseberry, right?

- It makes me want to ask some questions.

- Okay, what you got?

- Where did she move them from?

What was the sunlight like where she moved them from?

It's only been two weeks.

They haven't really had a chance to recover from the transplanting.

But they haven't adapted yet.

They need a well-drained soil.

Did she move them from a well-drained soil site to one that's not well drained?

- I see, I didn't think of that.

- Did she move them?

They don't need intense sunlight.

They need a little bit of shade.

So did you move them from an area that had a little bit of shade into an area that's full sun?

Because that can cause some problems.

I mean you can put shade cloth up.

But if you've only, it's only been two weeks.

You might wanna move them.

You still can move them again, I guess.

Maybe what you need to do.

But that's the questions that I have.

So, I guess I answered the question with some questions.

- No, I mean I'm with you though.

I would agree with you know, how much sunlight is it getting?

Is it in intense heat, you know?

- Yeah.

- Yeah, and then, when you moved them, transplanted them from one situation to the next, I mean, what did you go from?

- I mean, when you move house plants inside and outside and go from low light to high light and all that, they're kind of sick for a while.

You know that, same thing true for these perennials.

- Right, right.

So yeah.

Alright, Kurt, we hope that helps you out.

Yeah, we had just a few questions there, but yeah, if you keep it watered.

I mean it is mulched.

I mean, that should help.

So consistent moisture would help.

[gentle country music] "What is the easiest fruit to grow in East Tennessee?"

And this is Jim from Kodak, Tennessee.

And, and Peter, I'm gonna throw this to you.

And of course I have Mr.

D in my head here.

You know, [laughing] Peaches, plums, nectarines, spray schedules is what I can hear.

- Well yeah, but Mr.

D also says that he doesn't grow peaches, plums, and nectarines.

He goes and buys them because it's such a pain to grow them.

Apples, a little easier.

But if you want easier things, you try blueberries, try blackberries.

Those are fruits that are pretty easy to grow.

You don't have a lot of pests.

You may have some bird issues, but that's I would say easier to take care of than, you know, having fungus and insects and all this stuff goes with that.

- I mean there's nothing wrong with growing these different varieties, Booker, but yeah, you're gonna have to put those on a spray schedule.

- A lot of work in there.

You got a spray schedule on there.

And so, and also prune for your peach tree, really have an open center.

And the other thing, if you do decide to go blueberry.

That's easy, that easy to grow and good to go.

You wanna do a soil test to make sure they test that soil pH.

They kind of like an acid soil in that way.

But that's one good thing to grow though.

But like I said, you gotta have a lot of work.

Ain't no you go and put out there in there saying then go back, go in the house and relax.

You gotta keep a check on that.

- Yeah, it's nothing easy about some of those fruit trees.

- Yeah, nothing easy about that.

- Nothing easy.

- You just gotta hop in like doing that in there.

- Spray schedule.

So this is what I'm gonna say too, Mr.

Jim.

Go to your local Extension Office there in Sevier County.

Adam Hopkins is the Hort agent there in Sevier County.

He can help you out, he's good.

So Adam Hopkins there in Sevier County, check him out.

He can help you out.

- One other thing I wanna say on that is if you plant a variety of kinds of blueberries and blackberries, you can actually get fruit off of them for a lot of the growing season.

So yeah, just get some early, some early blackberries or early blueberries, some middle blueberries, late blueberries.

Same thing with blackberries.

If you get the floricane-growing kind, you get them earlier in the year.

But if you get the primocane-fruiting kind, then you get 'em later in the fall.

So if by some smart planting you can get berries all year or a lot of the year, yeah.

[gentle country music] - "What should I do to prepare my new apple tree for planting?"

And this is John from Moorefield, West Virginia.

Mr.

D, so ah, you like apple trees, don't you?

- I do.

I've got a few of those.

- I know you got few of those.

- Got a little experience with apples.

Well it's important to, site selection, select a good site to plant it in.

Make sure the soil is good.

So get a soil test.

You want the pH to be only slightly acidic, 6.8 to 7.

You know, it's a higher pH.

Same pH you'd use for vegetable, most vegetable garden and in most plants.

When I plant an apple tree, I top it at about 25 inches to encourage the scaffold limbs, the lower scaffold limbs to come out.

And one of them will be a central leader.

So you train it to be a central leader.

If you've got a pretty good sized apple tree, again, I prefer a central leader.

You could have two if you wanted to but I prefer a central leader instead of a open centered system like we use for plums and peaches and nectarines.

But you have a central leader, you have your first whorl of branches at about 25 to 30 inches off the ground.

And that would be three or four evenly-spaced branches around the trunk.

And this is textbook.

And sometimes Mother Nature doesn't put 'em right exactly like you like 'em.

You could have five if you needed to, but that's gonna make it hard to get in there and prune and all that.

But a space of about 18 to 20 inches, and then another whorl of branches.

And you can start doing that with a tree that you plant.

Especially if it's a pretty good sized apple tree.

That's pretty much it.

So by doing that, you are pruning at least probably 30% of the growth off the tree.

You know, you used to say you start with a dollar apple tree and you cut 80 cents worth of it off.

Do that with a lot of things that we transplant.

But make sure your pH is right.

Make sure you've got a good, well-drained soil.

Make sure you've got a lot of sunlight and the more the better.

- The more the better.

- And you ought to be okay.

- That should be fine, yeah.

And figure out what variety you want.

- Yep.

And they do require cross pollination.

- Yep, and cross pollination.

- Most of them.

So that's important.

So don't just plant one apple tree.

- That's right.

[gentle country music] "My peach tree produced a huge amount last year.

What can I do to help with peach production this year?"

And this is Greg from Bellbrook, Ohio.

So Mr.

D, what do you think?

- Greg, do the same thing this year that you did last year.

- That's what I said.

I said don't change a thing, is what I'm saying.

- Do exactly the same thing this year you did last year.

- I was thinking that same.

- Soil test.

Make sure that you fertilize, make sure your pH is right.

It sounds like it is.

Sounds like you did a great job last year.

Sounds like you did a good job of controlling insects and diseases and you know, do that again this year.

But with peaches, you know, my hat's off to you.

- Yeah.

- Because, - I know what you're thinking.

- A homeowner doing a good job with peaches, then you're doing everything right.

And you probably probably ought to be the one giving advice.

- Yes.

- I don't grow peach trees.

I do apples, pears, figs, blueberries, things like that.

But I don't mess with peaches because I know how hard it is to control brown rot and plum curculio and those kind of things.

But sounds like you've got it figured out.

Probably did a good job of pruning.

That's very, very important.

Opened up the center where they get some air circulation and all that.

- Sunlight, yep.

- Hopefully we'll have ideal growing conditions as far as temperatures and rains.

- Sufficient winter chill.

- Yes, oh, so important.

- Yeah, this is Ohio.

So yeah, it must have been perfect conditions you know, in Bellbrook.

In Ohio.

- Yeah.

I can't remember a time that I had perfect growing conditions in Tennessee.

[laughing] Ideal growing conditions for the peach.

[gentle country music] - "Can I add dirt to my 5-year-old Meyer lemon tree without removing the tree from its pot?"

And this is Betty from Toledo, Ohio.

Who do you think about that, Walter?

- Me personally, I would kinda like to see you at some point transplant it into a bigger pot.

- Right, okay.

- I just would like to see that.

As a matter of fact, I think probably every three to four years it needs to-- - Like it?

- Yeah, you just need to get, so those roots and things can have some space.

- You think it might be root bound.

- That's right.

You could, maybe so.

Now I will admit I haven't worked a lot with lemon trees, but I do know a couple of friends who have 'em in their homes.

And they do transplant theirs about every three or four years.

They'll move it to a bigger pot.

- Okay.

So transplanting is an option.

- It is an option.

- But you know, she did specifically say she wanted to add dirt.

- She just wanted to add soil to it.

- So if you wanted to add some soil to it, I say you could do it.

I wouldn't bury the trunk.

- Right.

- Right.

Or you can just add a layer of the soil, the soil media that you're gonna use for the lemon tree just to kind of replenish it or refresh it.

You know, just kind of dig in a little bit, you know.

Especially during the growing season in the spring, for your lemon tree.

And I think that'll work.

You know, get it watered in.

But yeah, don't pile it up against the trunk and I think you'll be fine.

- Oh, absolutely.

- Start working it in.

- I have a former coworker who had a lemon tree in her office.

And that, boy, it gets tall.

That one did.

I don't know what variety it was.

- Right.

- It gets pretty tall.

- Yeah I have a neighbor too that has, she has a lemon tree.

She brings it out of course, you know, during the spring and summer.

But yeah, again, we gonna add the dirt to it.

We're not gonna, you know, pull it up out of the pot, anything like that.

You can just add some soil to it.

Kind of work it in with your fingers a little bit.

- She should be fine.

- I think that'd be fine.

[gentle country music] "The fruit on my fig tree is getting smaller and smaller.

"The tree is very tall for a fig.

Should I cut it back?"

And this is Bobby from Chester, Virginia.

He wants to know if pruning it will help him get larger fruit, Mr.

D. And I think I know what you're gonna say.

- Yes.

- Yes.

- Yes, I think pruning is probably the thing you need to do.

You know, most fruits have that in common.

The larger the tree gets, they many times will put more fruit on than the tree can actually support.

And the fruit's small.

And that's true of apple, pears, peaches and figs.

With figs, instead of having a real tall plant, I think you would prefer one that has multiple branches thst is a little bit shorter.

And that way you would have more fruiting wood that you can reach and that you can get to to thin.

So I would probably try to take that plant down, to prune it down to where you can have some lateral branches come out and create multiple trunks instead of one trunk.

And I would also thin fruit.

You know, you can hand thin if you still have more fruit on there than you think the... And do that anyway.

Just larger fruit, you know, I mean a larger fruit is just kind of nice.

But yeah, pruning and thinning I think would help.

- So if you're pruning, where would you make those pruning cuts?

- I would try to, you know, depends on how tall.

I'm trying to imagine this.

If he says it's taller than he'd like for it to be, I would go down kinda like you mentioned on the azalea, go down a little bit lower than you think, than you need to.

It's kind of like cutting hair on a show steer, you know.

Cut off more than you think you need to because it's going to grow back.

It's gonna grow back, don't worry about it.

I would probably, I mean, I tended to, when I did pruning demonstrations, I tended to make people mad and they said, oh, - Yeah it's scary.

- Yeah.

But then it all works out.

But I would go down to, you know, on down into that plant to try to have some lateral branches come out and create multiple trunks.

So well down into the plant.

And figs are very, very tough.

You know, like you said earlier they freeze all the way back to the ground and they come back out.

So you can do a pretty severe renewal cut on it to get it down to a more manageable size.

- Yep, and it'll be right back.

- It'll come on back.

- It'll be right back.

- Another thing that I thought was, you know, as the figs are growing, so are all the other plants that are around them.

Maybe it's getting shaded out.

Like maybe have they looked at the other plants that are growing in that area too?

Like maybe as those plants are continuing to grow, that would make sense as to why maybe the fig had larger fruits initially and then now maybe they don't have as many.

Maybe they're much smaller because it's not getting the same amount of light.

- So it's getting shaded out.

- Possibly.

So I mean lots of different things.

- Definitely that 'cause you know, going back to Mr.

D's point about redirecting the energy, right?

'Cause when I'm thinking about a taller tree, so most of the energies is used to height, right?

And foliage.

- Right.

- Right.

- And don't forget, always go back to soil test.

How long has it been since you've checked the soil?

And the bigger the plant is and the older the plant is, the more fertilizer it's gonna need.

And make sure you've adjusted your fertilizer regiment to the size of the plant and the age of the plant.

[gentle country music] - "Can you grow a fig from a cutting?"

And this is Roxanne.

They're moving and they can't take the tree with them.

So how would you do it?

So Mr.

D, I know you like those old figs, right?

- I actually have one.

- Can you grow?

- I planted one this year.

I finally have one.

You can propagate 'em from dormant cuttings, two to three-year-old wood.

Or you can choose a basal part if you have a really vigorous one-year-old shoot and get a part of the two-year-old branch at the base.

You can do that.

But yes you can, you can propagate from dormant cuttings.

- Yeah, they're supposedly one of the easiest of our fruits to propagate by cutting.

But I've had fig for years and years and years and mine is like huge.

And it's got all of these basal big branches.

And sometimes they run along the ground.

- Ground, yeah, I knew you were about to say that.

- And the easiest way is for her, if hers is like basal branching like that, you know, and she hadn't pruned it to a tree form or something, she could probably find one of those smaller branches that has rooted along the base of that branch.

And then she can cut that beyond where it's rooted, - Cut it.

- And then just transplant it.

That's the way I propagate mine.

You know, it's really easy to get, you know, the ones that's already rooted.

And that way you, you don't have to fool with all that rooting of cuttings.

But you could do that too.

She could, you know, look for the rooted branches and also take some cuttings and then, you know, one or the other.

She would have some success, I'm sure.

- Yeah, that's the best way to go.

She didn't say how old her tree was but it's too big-- - No she didn't.

- If it's too big to move, it probably has some.

- It's too big to move.

- It probably has those basal branches.

- Yeah, she says mature fig tree.

But she's calling it a tree.

Mine's more of a gigantic bush.

- It's a bush, right.

But they are easy to propagate.

[gentle country music] "Why do our pecan trees only produce very small pecans?"

And this is Sheila from Smiths Grove, Kentucky.

These trees are 38 years old.

How about that?

But they're producing small pecans.

- When that tree produces its first pecan at 15 years of age, it was probably 15 years old before that tree produced its first pecan.

They don't change, they're not gonna change.

It's that specific variety.

It probably is a seedling pecan tree.

Pecan trees cross pollinate.

So this one probably came up from the seed.

And it's half what it's mother was and half what it's daddy was.

And once you determine that it's not the type of pecan that you want, you probably need to take it down and replace it.

It does have value as a pollinator.

There are some high quality small pecans.

Elliot is an example.

It's a small, extremely hard shell pecan.

And it's the number one pecan used in candies.

Where it's a little round pecan.

And you'll see when you have a little pecan like that that's sitting on top of a cookie or whatever, it's an Elliot.

And it's high in oil content and it's also somewhat resistant to stink bugs because the shell's so hard.

- How about that?

Okay, all right.

So there are small holes, right around the trunk of the tree.

What do you think is drilling those small holes around the trunk of the tree?

- I know what's drilling those holes.

- I think we know what that is.

- It's a woodpecker.

- It's a woodpecker.

- And you can watch 'em.

And they're in even rows.

Gets on the tree, pop pop, gets over, pop pop.

- It is unique.

- Looking for insects.

But it's woodpecker.

And it doesn't do any damage to the pecan.

- Yeah, that's gonna be my next question.

So no damage to the pecan.

- No damage to the pecan tree.

But as the tree grows, those little holes grow too.

- That's right, okay.

- So they'll start out when they're real small and then they'll be a quarter inch in diameter.

You know, when they're on an old tree.

You know, they get, as a tree grows, the hole grows.

- Remember, we love to hear from you.

Send us an email or letter.

The email address is familyplot@wkno.org 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.

To get more information on anything we talked about, go to FamilyPlotGarden.com.

On the website, we also have lots of videos about caring for fruit trees, bushes, and brambles.

Thanks for watching, I'm Chris Cooper.

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

Be safe.

[upbeat country music] [acoustic guitar chords]