00:00:27,830	Welcome to Dakota Growing. I'm Kelsey Deckert, your horticulture agent in Burleigh County, joined by my co-host Tom Kalb NDSU extension horticulturalist. How are we doing today? Everything's good. Surviving this. Kind of hot. Kind of hot. It's a really hot. Yeah, it's. Unbearable hot. Well, it's hard, it's hard. It's outdoor.

00:00:55,670	When you're outdoors, it's got to be, you know, got to be smart about it. You do and you know. But people I always I've asked people like you would rather have 90 degrees or would you rather have 30 below. What's your choice. Well me. At about 25 below make it easier for you.

00:01:18,030	I mean, I'd rather have the heat than the cold like that, but everybody else right now is saying like, oh, I really wish winter. And I'm like, why would you talk like that? I mean, this is, yes, probably a little abnormal, the extent of this. But we are in middle summer like embracing our days are getting. Sure. You see, I'm with you for once.

00:01:38,700	I agree with you. Go to the AC if you're that hot. Of course. And yeah, I would rather have the heat too, because I just. The wind is just the winter winds and the blowing snow. And I hate driving the winter. It's no fun, but most people won't ask that question. They'd rather have winter. They'd rather have.

00:01:58,400	They live here. Yeah, exactly. During the perfect place, if you like, below zero temps and all that stuff. So. Yeah. But there's nothing we can do about it, so just make sure your conditioner is working. Right. So we're in the nice air conditioner studios. Dakota media access here today. That's right.

00:02:16,830	And so should we get the ball rolling here? Okay, well, since it's a 100 degrees last few days and it's got another several days of high 90s, we're going to talk about the heat and the heat on its impact on our gardens and some of that we're seeing now and some of it we're going to see later.

00:02:40,300	Okay. One thing we're seeing now is with peppers. And one thing about pepper plants is they often don't develop a very full leafy bush before they start setting fruit. Like especially I can get them from the garden center late.

00:03:03,370	They may be a little bit leggy and but they set fruit quickly, like, okay, when I go to the bargain basement to buy my plants, the first thing I do, I pay for them after that.

00:03:19,130	And then what I do is I pick off all the fruits and all the flowers, because I don't want that young plant to be setting fruits, right? Because it's going to devote all to energy to the fruits, and it won't develop into a lush plant that will be more productive in the long run. So with peppers doll, you can see I can see a lot of leggy plants that that just they can't shield the fruits from the scorching sun.

00:03:38,300	And you get this sun's called. It's like a papery texture develops here. I was at the fairgrounds community garden last night. How about that? And here's some here's some peppers. It's just getting that brown scorch from the. It was on the western in that western sun in the afternoon.

00:03:58,730	And it just beat down upon and they scorched it. It's still edible but it scorched. Here's another one that got scorched. You'll put them on out. Pound them in the sand. No. Actually, I had to confess I was trespassing on other people's gardens, so. But I did not touch or put up an umbrella.

00:04:21,670	But but there scorch out there. And so that's just something to be aware of. And it can attack tomatoes. I see it on raspberries you see like a white tissue color. And that means scorching. And it will develop into a more like a dry, very papery like later on. So you should just pick these off and start again.

00:04:42,370	There you go. Okay. Now listen, there's something also going on with our tomatoes. Our tomatoes are blooming now, but they don't like the heat either. When it gets over 85 the flowers they often just wither. You know they just can't stand the heat.

00:05:00,930	So when temperatures exceed 85 during the day on a consistent basis like they have for a week, or if it's in the 70s at night for a week, the flowers may just wither up and the pollen will not be good. And so we could have a gap in our production due to this extreme heat spell. That would make. Sense to look out for that.

00:05:19,230	The other thing is with our our cucumbers, it's cucumbers. And you see a picture of the female. There's female and male flowers. The female flowers have a little fruit attached to it. The male flowers don't. Men do not have children. That's just that. Male cute flowers do not have. Cuz that's just the way life is.

00:05:40,630	And so what the plant does though, the plant goes. Man, I don't know if I should have so many female flowers now because I'm under a lot of stress here. There's no air conditioning going on outside. I'm like, I'm basking in 100 degrees. It's brutal out here. So they will produce fewer female flowers.

00:05:58,770	And so that means a smaller yield. So you may notice if you go out with your cucumbers or pumpkins they'll have fewer female flowers now because of this heat. And our female flowers always show up after the male flowers too. Yeah. Usually like about a week ish. Yeah, every year everything's a little bit different.

00:06:20,030	But in general, there's a lot more men out there than women. So that when it comes to flowers, that's just the way life makes it. Men are dime a dozen, I guess. I don't know, I don't know what it's about. I don't question the good creator. I just know you just got to live with it.

00:06:36,330	I just got to live with that. I'm just a dime a dozen. Sorry. Who? I am not good enough to be. Okay. We're not going there. How about here? Do you think about this? Be. You know, bees. They don't like to heat either. No.

00:06:53,130	So they like to sit in the shade, you know, take a drink of water every now and then or whatever they're drinking. Maybe a little nectar, but bees are less active during the heat to. And so. And the pollen is less viable under this intense heat. So we're going to have less successful pollination and fertilization. And for cucumbers this can lead to misshapen fruits.

00:07:15,630	Because of this heat, these little crooked fruits and pointed fruits. That's because the fruit wasn't pollinated and fertilized perfectly. Usually it takes several bee visits per flower per day to make a perfect fruit. And if you don't get too much, be activity a much and the pound isn't good.

00:07:35,930	You're going to get misshapen fruits still at a ball, but not very marketable. I remember in the good old days when I sold cucumbers. Those are the ones you had to give away, pretty much. And then also some here's like a squash that just or a pumpkin that just didn't make it.

00:07:52,900	It just never got pollinated. So it's just rotting. So be on the lookout. There's going to be some pollination issues going on. The other thing is that we were talking before about well, we got to work the heat. My crop man. It's just not taking off. Right. So everybody say, hey, let's get some heat.

00:08:09,770	Well, now we got the heat, okay? And the problem is it's too hot. So even like tomatoes, when again, when the temps exceed 85 on a consistent basis during the day then or, or you have a blip of over 100 that can also cause just they'll just slow down in maturing and actually slow down in reddening.

00:08:34,770	So this can delay the maturity of our crop because of this heat spell, not pick it up. You know, we want we want tests in the 70s and low 80s to really accelerate our growth and ripening. But when it gets extreme, the plant just shuts down. So you got to be on the lookout for that okay.

00:08:55,370	So let's look at the big picture. Here's our drought situation. And any color on this map is not a good color. That means there's a little drought. This is one week old July 7th. Today's July 15th. And the new the new drought map will be coming out tomorrow. So we'll. Find out a little more color.

00:09:14,300	Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So here in Bismarck, Mandan, we're right on the edge of an abnormally dry condition. But I expect tomorrow's weekly map is going to show that we're definitely under dry conditions. Right. And that's no good. You know, water is the most limiting factor in our garden productivity. But.

00:09:38,630	So I think we've got to talk about a minute just about how to water. We've done this before. But it's such an important topic.

00:09:45,200	And I've shown this to you Kelsey before about here, these plants, these sunflower plants and flower plants. And this guy is doing an overhead irrigation that is wrong. Look at all that water that's just flying up in the air. And it's going to evaporate even before it lands.

00:10:05,630	You're going to lose 25% of that water just from evaporation. And you know, our bills, our water bills and Bismarck, they're not a pretty sight. Okay. And so you're wasting water here. That's expensive. And then you're spraying the leaves. Plants don't drink through their leaves. Let me just teach you a botany lesson. Plants have roots.

00:10:32,100	Roots suck up the water. Okay, okay. So put the water down at the roots. But again, like I watch gardeners, I get the fairgrounds. And every almost everybody waters overhead just like this. And they like sprinkling their plants, you know, cleans off the leaves. Everything sparkles.

00:11:00,500	But actually the plants are very unhappy because they're saying, you're getting me wet and now I'm going to get disease. Thanks for nothing or thanks for the drink, but still I'm going to get disease. So can we do it a little bit better next time? So put the water down by the roots. It's important. So here's some basic principles. How to water your garden.

00:11:21,630	Avoid overhead irrigation and also if possible irrigate in the morning okay. Because if irrigate in the morning the plants are active then. And they'll start sucking up the water. And then we have the whole day for the leaves to get dry for the nighttime. So try to water in the morning if you can.

00:11:40,570	When once the sun's up. When your water, you shall water deeply. Not frequently. The roots grow where the water goes. Okay. If your water deep, the roots grow deep. If you're out there every night giving it a little bit of shallow watering, you're going to have a shallow root system.

00:12:03,730	So water deep you like twice a week better than five times a week shallowly. And then mulch can also help us to conserve moisture. So think about adding a multi-tier garden, whether it's, you know, bioplastic or maybe some straw. But think about mulching. Okay, here's the I think this is the hottest disease right now. Hottest. How about. No pun intended. How about that.

00:12:27,030	But early blight is really it's just taken off right now. And it's on our tomatoes and potatoes. That's where I'm seeing it. And I see it out of the fairgrounds garden now just taking off and to identify early blight, if you see what I got circled there, sees these brown lesions like chocolate brown or deeper brown chocolate.

00:12:49,130	And there you see the rings. That's an indication there. It's a fungal disease. When you see the rings in that brown lesion, and often there's some yellow tissue as they show it, the arrow nearby. That's textbook early blight. Here's another picture of it right here. And you see those kind of big lesions.

00:13:08,230	And but you look for those rings. Dad's really says okay that's early blight. And now it's just taking off. And I see this on plant stems too. Okay. And you can see you can imagine those concentric rings on them okay. Don't confuse this with a leaf blight subtree is I'd say the second most common disease.

00:13:31,170	And that's that's going to be taking off soon and but has little brown spots and usually with the tan center. So these are, these are much like an eighth of an inch across small spots. They start at about $0.10. That's a different disease but they're somewhat similar. So let's talk about how to control these two foliar diseases.

00:13:54,600	First again avoid overhead irrigation. That's a sin. Don't do that. And don't splash the soil when you water because that's where the diseases come from. They come from the soil. Get your plants trellis. Get them off the ground. Caging, staking, string weaving. Whatever you do, get your tomatoes off the ground.

00:14:20,330	And then some of the finest gardeners I know actually trim off those lower branches on the tomato plant. Like the the bottom eight inches of the stem have no branches. Any branch that touches the soil is trimmed off because that's how the plants get the disease. It's touching the soil. And we do have preventative fungicides available like every garden center has chlorophyl.

00:14:44,400	And if your organic copper can do the job but these are preventative not they won't cure the problem. Okay. Again mulching can help here. Like when he was like if you use like black plastic mulching this can accelerate growth okay.

00:15:04,230	Because it generates a little heat, but also it serves as a barrier between the disease infested soil and our plant leaves. So think about mulching next year. So let's talk about the long term solutions for these diseases. Because you know like when I talk to the gardeners out there at the fairgrounds, they always talk about, man, I get these diseases every year because I say, wow, it looks pretty good.

00:15:26,100	Everything's so clean. Just wait. I'm all my tomatoes are going to get these diseases. And and those are the kind of the problems we talked about as far as like the water overhead. Right. And they don't usually use mulching. So you think about using mulching.

00:15:44,530	If you can clean up your debris at the end of the year, rotate your crops, don't plant. In other words, don't plant your tomatoes and potatoes in the same spot every year. Move it around. So like, move the cucumbers over there to the tomatoes next year, to the tomato spot next year.

00:15:59,500	Because that way you won't build up those tomato diseases in that soil and then also take advantage of disease resistant varieties. I just want to spend a minute here on this. There is an amazing revolution going on in tomato varieties over the last ten years, because what happened about 12 years ago, the scientists cracked the genetic code.

00:16:25,500	They deciphered the genetic code of the tomato plant so they know what genes on what chromosomes. So this allows them once they know, okay, we want to have resistance to early blight okay. We got to find where the genes for that resistance okay. It's right here on chromosome number six.

00:16:43,970	Then they can use that in their breeding techniques to move those genes into new varieties. And that's what's happening. And to me this is really showing beautifully with this variety called Bada Bing. It's a brand new variety out this year. It's the first major variety that resists early blight, late blight and leaf spot.

00:17:06,570	Well, subtree even that's a revolutionary development. And so Bada Bing was not widely available this year. It's going to be more available next year. But the big news is we now have resistance to all three of these major diseases. So look for these varieties.

00:17:28,270	I see more and more available every year when I look through seed catalogs and be cautious around using heirlooms, because heirlooms will not have this disease resistance. Okay. What do you think about that? That looks like a picture perfect tomato. Yeah, because it is a picture. That's funny. It's. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know how good it is, but it resists diseases.

00:17:50,300	I think one of the questions I always get then to is if they have it, should we be consuming the fruit blight. Yeah. Okay. So if it's not on the fruit yet but it's on the leaves, should they be consuming those tomatoes? Okay. My answer is absolutely. Absolutely.

00:18:14,300	What are you waiting for? What are you what are you afraid of? No. I don't eat those. So it. Doesn't bother. You don't care. You don't. Don't care. What do you see? It's by the Bing has a picture. Perfect. It looks very nice. Yeah, but you won't touch it. You won't eat it. You hate to me. Maybe make it. A personal.

00:18:31,370	That I will. Okay. Catch up to me. Okay. Listen, if it's. If the fungus disease is on a fruit, okay? I'm not going to eat that thing. No, I mean, if I'm a survivor show or something, I might eat it. Because if I'm going to die of starvation. Right.

00:18:49,670	But if it's on the leaves alone, you know, I'm going to wash the fruit after I harvest it, I'm going to be fine. But if it's mushy or if it's showing any symptoms, of course I'm not. Going to bet, right? Yeah. But like, these are fungi, not bacteria. If I see anything infested on a tomato fruit, I'm not touching that. And and herbicide injury.

00:19:09,630	That's right. If I, if my that's the question I always get like what about my. Okay. My I my tomato vines got herbicide injury. Can I eat those fruits or am I going to, you know. Get sick. You know, develop another nose and three eyes and go crazy. No.

00:19:28,300	But I would say I can't tell you it's safe. I can't, because. You don't know those levels of toxins. I don't know the levels. And it's not it's not evaluated for that. Even if you did do a laboratory analyzes, you say, okay, it's 0.02mg/kg, whatever. There's no testing.

00:19:47,670	It says, okay, it's safe now, right? So I can't say it's safe. So it's up to you how you want to handle your life. For you, it's not a problem because you want to eat the anyhow. Not even growing it. So yeah, exactly. But I would say for me personally, I would not eat a tomato where herbicide entry was was there.

00:20:10,700	I just went to life's too short. I don't want to do that. There's, you know, you. Know, go to the grocery store. Right. That's exactly famous lines. Go to the grocery store. Yeah. That's right. Or eat something. Eat some zucchini instead. There's always lots of chini around. Okay.

00:20:29,670	Last thing to talk about with this 100 degree heat is, hey, believe it or not, the days are getting shorter. Well. Believe it. Do you? Sensitive. See here. I can fool you over anything. I know it's true. So fall vegetables are here, and so. Time to start selling them. I'm certain I would say. Why don't you just wait until 100 degrees is over. For.

00:20:51,230	The best? Some of these vegetables thrive in the fall. The best radishes you ever eat are the ones you've grown in the fall. You saw the seeds in the spring. Everybody does. And then they bulb up when it gets hot. And so the radishes taste hot and bitter. Instead, you do it in the fall, like in August.

00:21:14,400	You saw the seed, and then they bob up when it's cool and saw the bulbs or the roots there. They're cool and mild. Delicious. The best radishes grown in fall. The best turnips are grown in fall. The best spinach is grown in fall. And you can even try kohlrabi. That's easy to grow and fall.

00:21:36,600	That's like a gourmet vegetable that's really beautiful. Like a mild cabbage flavor. Even sunflowers. I sewed some sunflowers on Sunday, and so there's some sunflowers that will bloom in less than 60 days, like 55, 53 days. And these are like the pro cut varieties. These are single stem types. They produce a bloom rapidly.

00:22:03,070	And then you harvest it and you have a beautiful bouquet that you can share with your spouse. Or, you know, you can bribe the teacher with a bouquet of flowers, whatever works for you. Okay, so what date do you sell? The seed? You gotta know your frost date. Okay? That's the first thing.

00:22:19,970	And there's like, here's Dave's garden. They have a frost indicator. And for for Bismarck, you just you just do the the go to the table. It's about September 25th is when we usually get our first frost. Or there's this website from the Midwestern Regional Climate Center, MRC. And they have a great extensive for every county.

00:22:43,900	They'll they'll tell you your frost dates. So now I know for Bismarck it's about it's about September 25th. So then I just go to my Johnny Seed catalog and I just type in. They have a planting calculator to tell you what date the soil you're. Seeing convenience. That right. And he.

00:23:02,730	Just said okay, my frost date is September 25th. And I said, okay, here's the dates that you recommend. You saw the seeds. It's like here for here's some of the basic ones like beets.

00:23:19,570	I should have done that yesterday July 14th, but soon Swiss chard and turnips and then kohlrabi towards the end of the month and first week of August. Spinach. And then last week of August we can plant a radishes. So take advantage of the fall vegetable situation. It's going to be it can just add so much flavor at the end of the year and just end the season on a bang. That's what I.

00:23:40,900	Got to. I think that's great. I think that's great. Yeah. Can't grow tomatoes. Don't show tomato seeds okay Kelsey what's your favorite fall on those watch. What do you eat. Kohlrabi. Oh I would eat the spinach. Yeah. Especially since mine got held out this year. Sorry about that.

00:24:03,230	Yeah I know, so your evaluation form isn't gonna look that great for the spinach this year. Do you like smooth or crinkly? It don't matter. Don't matter? I like spinach. Just like you. Just like, eat the greens. Yeah, I like Asian vegetables. Like, I just like a mizuno. It's like a very mild mustard green and. Good in salads, I bet. Yeah.

00:24:23,970	And just a stir fries or tat soy. That's kind of fun to or pack joy. You see patchouli the store that's you know you can grow a pack joy in 50 days and it will tolerate some late frost too. And again that frost will just sweeten it up a little bit.

00:24:41,470	So I'm definitely going to have a fall vegetable garden so you can look forward to reports on that through the garden season. Okay. Sounds good. There you go. Well, well you were up there yesterday seeing any insects. The only pest I saw was myself. Okay, okay.

00:25:01,000	I actually had just before the show, a gal came in and said that her cabbage is already getting hit by cabbage. Yeah. So what are you gonna do about it? Well, it's already damaged at this point. She said they were pretty much ate up. So what did she. Was she going to.

00:25:22,070	What does she feel about it? She really feel anything? She just wanted to know what's wrong. What's causing it. And that's wrong for next year, I guess. What do you think? You have revenge. Exactly. When I see cabbage worms on my plants. You're gonna go kill. I do not feel sad. You feel vengeance.

00:25:44,270	I don't feel mad, I get even, don't get sad, don't get mad, get even and kill them. Yeah, yeah, I hit them with. Depends how I feel. Well, you go out the big guns. I'm not even talking about the. Oh, no. Literally. She came in right before I was coming over. So. Okay.

00:26:08,000	How do you how do you feel about killing bugs? Like, I'll tell you. Okay. Sorry for for going off track here. You ever see them? I mean, we talked about a movie, Braveheart, with Mel Gibson. I've never seen it. I've seen, never seen. I've never seen very far. I know it is. People say that. Okay. Been on the so list. Mel Gibson got married in secret.

00:26:29,100	Because in the kingdom, they had a law that the king could have pleasure with the wife the first night. And so Mel had a secret wife and. But what had happened was the soldiers found out about that, and they killed his wife. And so.

00:26:54,300	Mel was mad, right? Very mad. Then he then he started the war, and he went up to the York Castle, and they destroyed the York Castle, English York Castle.

00:27:14,370	And so he dragged the, the king of the or the Prince of York Castle, and he put him right to a post like a wooden post, like we're going to burn you or something. Yeah. Or maybe he's going to just tie him up and just punch them or whip them. Whatever. But what did he do? He just took out a knife and slit his throat. Just like that. You're dead instantaneously. Yeah. He just he just walked them right to the post. That's it.

00:27:34,500	So some people are like that. They want instant killing and revenge. So if I'm like that with that lady, I would say I would get some of that, some high, some like seven garden tech 7 or 8 is from Bonnie and. You're just going to take them. Out, spray them out. They're going to it kills on contact.

00:27:57,200	They'll just drop, have a few spasms and die. Beautiful. But like if I was Mel Gibson in that movie, I want to kill the guy right away. You are suffer. I would I would torture that person.

00:28:16,400	Oh I would put them like, you know, I'd feel a ditch full of snakes or something, tie him up to a chain and make them just. I would just torture the guy for a couple of weeks. That's what I do. Wow. Really am torture. Okay. Yeah. They gotta learn their lesson. That's right. And so we got. That's what the natural chemicals are for. Yeah. It's slow.

00:28:37,330	The slow ones like beat and chances a dipole Thursday to get a rot gut. They die after two days or spinal. Sad is a great chemical attacks their nervous system and they have like two days of uncontrollable spasms before they die. So think about those botanicals.

00:29:02,700	If you like the torture bugs, they're safer people and most of them will torture bugs for a couple of days before they die. There you go. Sorry for that tangent. No, that's all good. I'm going to talk about summer insects, but I'm going to go in the root of what? Good one. No. Okay. No. We're negative. Remember, we don't talk. That's a negative show. Yes, yes. All right.

00:29:21,000	So I think we have in the past talked about spittle bugs. They're cool. They are cool. I've had a few of these come through this year and it's not a for me. I guess it's not a yearly thing that I get questions on or see photos of every year.

00:29:34,400	But this was sent in, probably made an I would say. And then a couple weeks later I got a couple more. So really when people call in, it's kind of hard to see in the photo. But they describe like like as if somebody spit on their plants, right. So you see that.

00:29:52,700	And really what that is, is it's kind of a foam that's produced by the spittle nymph and it protects them from enemies and drying out. And so if you'd ever see an adult version of one of these, they kind of like a leaf hopper. They could be tan, green or brown.

00:30:13,300	And what people need to know is they do overwinter as like a egg on our plant stems. And then they start to hatch in mid-summer and feed for the next month or two. So then that's when we start to see them as end of July, early June. But really that foam. It's it's a protection for them. Ignore it. Just stream it.

00:30:33,800	If you had stream of water. Yeah. Are you sure it's going to kill it. It's not going to kill it. The thing is might it might knock them out. But again, a strong jet stream of water. So it's like not just like, here's a shower. It's like a typhoon tsunami. And that's the end of it.

00:30:53,370	Or if they. Dry out some time. Then they'll die, right? You gotta you gotta punish those guys. They're on your territory. They're just a couple. They're going to die. You sound like you're really. I don't know what happened at the gardens yesterday, but I have a little concern. I don't have any bugs in my garden.

00:31:13,400	You know why they fear me? You come in and have. No. They know they come across the border. They are going to die. Okay, how about this? I feel like you've probably had calls this year. Or maybe from agents. Even con Connie. Mable scale. Yeah.

00:31:35,400	This seems to be a little bit prevalent here in the Bismarck man down area, I guess. Course, again, people will describe them as like little cotton balls or marshmallows on their tree that they don't ever notice. And really, what that marshmallow is, is actually just an egg sac that's protruding out of the female. So these ones are going to affect our maples, lindens, other hardwoods.

00:31:57,970	Here's another picture showing in a little bit larger. But they're going to survive winter as immature females that are literally flat on the twig. So they go unnoticed. They start to grow in May, and then we start to see those egg sacs show in June.

00:32:18,030	And so what happens is the crawlers will hatch kind of late June, early July, and they go to the underside of the leaves to feed. A lot of times, though, these are pretty much controlled by some of our natural enemies. But I don't think you want to hear that today. You're really into taking care of business. If if I see if.

00:32:35,500	I see the crawlers, it's not easy. Well, what I see is I see it. So I see the branch that doesn't have any leaves on it because it's been weakened. And also it's all sticky. Yeah. From that. Poop right there. Excrement. And so when you see that stickiness, then I go, okay, yeah, it's time to.

00:32:57,330	It's time to take action. It's time to kill those guys. So are you going to try to find them in a crawler stage, or are you going to be like preventive and say, you know what, I'm going to hit them with a systemic spring or fall. I'm going to see.

00:33:12,070	One thing about battle is you have to have you have to know when they're most vulnerable, right. That's when you're going to be more success. So that's when they're a crawler stage. Right. And so like you say like in late June I know they're vulnerable. They don't have any protection.

00:33:27,330	So then I'm going to hit them with my nuclear bomb and then they're going to die. I'm going to use that car barrel again. Cardwell is hard to find. I would use like that's the old fashioned seven. Like the that would. Work the cultural or soap smother them. No. Well, that's kind of interesting.

00:33:46,300	I would I'd hit them with the garden tech seven seven and. No prisoners. Take no prisoners. Of course. What am I going to do? What do you take? Prisoners, for instance? Like, you. Know, squish. When you see those lady beetles in your house in March? Yeah. What are you doing? You say, okay, you're going to prison.

00:34:10,430	Here's my little corner. Yeah, you. Can go the. Parks for today. You're not gonna know you're gonna die. That's right, that's right. No prisoners. Unconditional surrender. Yeah. The other one that I've seen pop up and again, we've talked about this is the bronze birch borer. Don't confuse it with the emerald ash borer. Yeah. That's true.

00:34:33,000	Facts are birch trees. This isn't the picture I received earlier this year. I couldn't get it to send over to me. But this is a picture from a couple years that I went and looked at this particular birch tree and saw, just like the symptoms here, like this one is definitely a goner.

00:34:51,670	But you see that wilting, that dieback at the top of the tree as it continues to decline. You see that dieback extend down to your major branches, and then you have these d shaped exit holes that are about an eighth of an inch.

00:35:08,470	So right here are some really good pictures of of what you can see on the bark. If you were to ever see the beetle, they're pretty big. They're quarter to a half inch in size, bronze color, and they're going to hit most of our birch species. And a native species have evolved and actually have become a lot more resistant when they are kept healthy.

00:35:29,530	So what what do we need to know about these guys here? They live through the winter as larvae under the bark pupate in the spring. Those adults come out in June and July. Seems like June and July is kind of the target, right. For most of these. Have a honeymoon. Have a honeymoon. They come out as adults.

00:35:48,230	That's right. Gonna go feed. We're gonna lay eggs, you know, in the branches and everything. Those eggs will hatch, and then they're going to chew through that bark to the flow layer. So again, you peel this back, you're going to see those like insect galleries. And so.

00:36:09,500	Right the tough thing with this is pesticides are going to only be effective in those initial stages. So if you're pushing that 40 to 50% your trees done. Just just chop it up. It's it's done. Yeah. It's the that's the problem because. You notice when it's too late. Most of the time.

00:36:31,670	Well I mean if a half of my tree was dying, I would notice that even though I don't live for trees. But, I mean, a lot of these birch trees are in the front yard, too, so, you know, you can't help but see them. Right? But, the, the reason why you see the top die first.

00:36:50,730	And that's because, like you said, you said they destroy the, the from the way the circulation, the veins in the, in the tree. So the boards have destroyed that. And so the top of the tree is not getting any more water anymore. So it's going to die back. That's why the top of the tree gets impacted first.

00:37:11,970	And the reason why, you see, like if it's really damaged, that means the whole all the veins have been damaged in the tree. So if I used a fungicide drench or insecticide drench. We can't get. Through it, can't get through it because the veins are all shot. And so that's why you got to get it early. And insecticide drench is the is the standard treatment for homeowners.

00:37:34,570	But is there anything more you want to say about it? No. You okay I'll tell you. Here's the thing about birch trees. Birch trees should not be grown when in hot, dry conditions. They could. They should only be found in moist, cool conditions, like on the north side or the east side of your house.

00:37:54,400	And they should be mulched. We got to keep the soil cool for that plant because birch, you know, you don't drive out to the countryside and see a birch tree just all by itself in the middle of a pasture. No.

00:38:15,870	Birch trees are always in clumps together as a shade each other, so never plant a bird's tree when it's hot under hot, dry conditions, because a birds tree will suffer. And then when it suffers, it gives. It attacked, right? It gives us signals. I'm hurting, I'm hurting. The borers are just hanging around. Wow. I think I hear a birch that's crying. I'm going to go get it. See the board.

00:38:37,200	If there's no crying, the boar won't go there. That's right. So you got a tree under stress, then the Boers come in. So don't allow the stress, you know. Yeah. Have to have the right location for your birch tree. That's the key thing. And keep it cool and moist. There you go. Keep it happy. You got it.

00:39:00,370	Okay, I'm gonna end on a positive note. I want to talk about what's thriving in the garden. So what do you. What was thriving at your gardens last night that you were up there at? We seen some gardens. Little sun scald. But my gardens? Not. Not much, but. Okay. But among other gardeners.

00:39:22,200	Okay, listen, I gotta tell you. Weeds, the weeds. Thriving. No, 90% of the plots are beautiful up there, and it's impressive. Yeah. You go there, man. These gardeners, well, they are doing an amazing job. The coolest thing saw was a Corabi the size of a basketball. That was the coolest thing. They had a county contest.

00:39:46,970	I don't know what they're doing, but they got a gigantic kohlrabi. They can. They can feed a whole army with that thing. And that was the most impressive thing. But I thought, the potatoes look so good this year, I think. Yeah, it really stands out up there. And tomato vines start looking, looking healthy. They're still healthy.

00:40:07,900	The diseases really are. Just starting. The potatoes to me looks really that's the thing that just wow. That's impressive. Yeah. Well here's what's thriving at my place. So of course, like I told you, I always have peonies. Peonies. Sorry. Petunias. And the top.

00:40:30,830	You can probably guess my moss roses and the winged pod purse lane that I did this year as well. So it did. I came back from a weekend of celebrating my brother in law getting married, and I did have weeds that were thriving as well. But I cleaned it out and as you can see, those petunias are spreading really nice.

00:40:51,100	They they are loving it. They look great ones. Yep. Here's a close up. Nice vibrant color right? Yeah. The wave petunias are amazing. Yeah that's not to brag, but I've got about 20 Friday's opportunities in my garden. So you got to walk up there and look at it. Someday I will. Have give you a tour.

00:41:13,300	I only have, like what? You see. Three purple, four spectacular seven. I got seven because I always feel that tiered bed with it. I was.

00:41:31,530	Great, you know, if we look back though, one thing that I have to say, people need to be aware of what are starting to not thrive this time of year, you know, so it's natural. It's natural. But I just want to comment on that. Like, don't fear, the brown is going on in your yard. They're just going to bed. They're resting. There's something down preparing. You know. You know they know it's it's not a hospitable condition that's not.

00:41:51,600	But also cut your lawn tall. That's right. Okay. Gotta have a tall in the summer. The tallest you can. That's right. Tall turf gives you a deep roots. I think my mower goes up to eight inches, but I cut at four. Yeah, well, four inches. That's right. Right. That's the way to go. Especially in the summer. Right.

00:42:10,800	What else is driving? Look at that. I got some variety trials. Pop it up. What the heck said. What are your cactuses in yours? Oh, cool. Yeah, I got a couple of those. You can see the. That does one hard. No, no, no, I got a couple of those coming up.

00:42:26,400	I even got I think one's kind of greenish. I think it was like a greenish I don't know. For. Me from you I think, I think it was just a variety mix. I don't I just gave that to you. You might have. No, maybe that's not what one of the orange ones do. Vintage orange.

00:42:43,430	It could be. They have a green tinge to them. Yeah. It's very, very young yet started. So I'm excited to see. Oh, that's going to be really beautiful. How about my ornamental kale. Kale. So I was really excited about this.

00:42:58,670	You like that? I do like this because a few years ago I tried to start seed on my own. Didn't go so well. But this I bought these plants and they were, oh my gosh, probably I don't even know what to compare them to. They were way smaller than this and they were just taken off.

00:43:15,330	And so I'm like surprised that we're not bolting yet at this point either. But I'm excited that hopefully with cooler temperatures on the rise to, they get a little more vibrant in that color. You know. That's when they really show. That's right. Show off their color. Just eat them too. Here's what my garden looks like.

00:43:32,630	I told you before the show I did get hail, so my peppers are a little bit set back, but pumpkins are already started and if it wouldn't have been so hot last night, I would have been harvesting peas. But I chose to get the lawn mode so things are going well despite the hail damage.

00:43:52,200	And it's kind of interesting because when we came back and after Trip and Medora, my husband goes laps toast, he said, nah, just just wait. She'll come back. So I only had to pull the spinach out. That was way too shattered. Well, tonight you learn about fall vegetables. I know I could go resale. You can go. So.

00:44:13,630	That's right. Are you going to slow spinach? Realistically probably not. No, but I could, I could. You're too busy mowing your deadline. Deadline? It's not dead. It did need to be mold, though. Yeah, she picked those peas. I got to pick the piece. The snap peas. They're yours. This is all your variety stuff.

00:44:38,370	I got them or no. These are the sugar. Sugar, sugar snaps. Oh, I love them. I know what the kids are having for supper tonight. Supper? That's all I got for today. Want to talk about some of the top insects? And, I guess, show off what is thriving in the heat. Maybe not us, but.

00:44:57,930	Yeah, I would say as far as insects, I'd be on the lookout for Colorado potato beetle. That's about it. Can be. Look for the orange eggs and and the Beatles themselves on potato and eggplant. I'd be on the lookout for that now. The cabbage worms.

00:45:19,730	So as you see those white moths dancing on top of your plants, that means you got to get your weapons ready and blast them.

00:45:25,500	I think those are the. Top contenders. Yeah, there's. Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's been a good year. We just got to get through this warm spell, and then. You'll be enjoying it again. And then the hope the rains come back and. Yeah, I think it's going to be good. I'm looking forward to I'm looking forward to fall.

00:45:50,700	And you complained about the Vikings. But it's going to win the Super Bowl this year. Did you know that. I'm not holding my breath I'm not a Vikings fan. So I'm older than the Vikings. And we haven't won a yet. But we're going to do it before I die. That's the goal.

00:46:09,130	That's the goal, Would you buy a Super Bowl ticket? Would I buy one? Yeah. What's how expensive they are? Would you just be like, this is my. Don't you know anything about it? I know, but maybe you'd be like, this is a bucket list ticket. That's worth it. I would never buy a Super Bowl ticket.

00:46:26,130	So you gotta try. To got money to burn. You want to win that? Win that free ticket somehow? Well, I would go to the game, but I've never gone. Actually, I've never gone to a I've never paid really for a security. Yeah. My dad used to. My dad was a dermatologist and he helped Minnesota Twins.

00:46:48,130	And he helped out the Vikings and the basketball teams when they had basketball back then. And the ABA, like the Minnesota muskies. And the players would give my dad free tickets, and then my dad would take me and my brothers and sisters. And so sometimes we got free tickets, but but I I'm too cheap for that stuff.

00:47:07,870	Yeah. I got to save my money for seeds for my garden. That's right. You know, gotta get your priorities in order. That's right. Luckily, I don't have any horses I have to feed like you. That's true. Okay, but I don't get the rewards of horses. So aim less. Burning words of wisdom. I got nothing more to say.

00:47:29,000	I don't either. Stay cool, stay cool. Stay cool. And we hope that you join us. Our next episode. We're gonna. We're gonna go on a garden tour. How about that? Okay, I know it's going to be great. It's gonna be awesome. So look forward to it. Be prepared for our garden tour of the year.

00:47:47,400	So with that, we just want to say thank you for joining us and hope to see you on our future episodes.

00:47:56,530	Dakota Growing is a gardening show brought to you by Dakota media access and Ndsu extension. We discuss a variety of timely topics pertaining to your landscape, along with giving you tips and advice for your lawn, garden, and trees. If you have questions, call (701)█221-6865 or email Ndsu extension at. Dakota Growing airs on Radio Access 102.

00:48:23,570	5 FM, community Access channel 12 or 612 HD or online at.