Hodge Podge Lodge; New Ways of Gardening

Oh. Yeah. Since I like to grow things. There are lots of different ways of growing things in the house and containers and adding garden swirls at the plant our garden that hodgepodge lots today. And I thought we'd try some new things this year. Talk about some new ways of growing things. I've been reading about special ways that people who live in apartments even can grow radishes and tomatoes and things. I was and I have a new friend who brought us something special to plant in our garden today. Welcome to my home. But what did you bring us

a pepper what looks like 6 pepper plants. But we could not we can not plants on here and I knew them to be so my friend and I calmly tried you like peppers. Yes good subtle I. How about you Ty and Sara never groundcover plants. They're really good for you and not too hard to grow. And you brought your own trial and you live in a house and you have a garden. Yeah in the backyard where you grow it. Red cabbage and lettuce. Do you have any problems with like rabbits are good about to tie any gardeners in your family. Have you ever been to anybody's house that had a garden and picked anything. Rochelle they are all strawberries Well I would. Where did you do that. How nice don't they taste good right off the planet and sorrow.

What kind of gardening goes on in your family. We've got home. Who likes the garden best. Your father does lots of outside things as me. I hear he's building a log cabin. That's great. Well suppose you lived in an apartment and you didn't have any yard but just a balcony where you could set things out. I just read a little book called The cunto her garden. Planning things in a basket like an old peach basket or a plastic tub. Just anything that will hold the dirt of the soil and the plant and you can do wonderful things I went to the Philadelphia Flower Show this year and the same company had brought all kinds of things growing in tubs that were squashes with squash plants with squashes on them and tomatoes with tomatoes on. It's really amazing what you can do. All you have to do is be sure to have something for the

roots to grow in some fertilizer and keep it watered. You don't even need real soil. You can use synthetic soil but if you're going to plant something in this basket where you think you'd have to do to keep all the stuff from coming out the cracks What could you do. You could put it in another can right. Can you think of anything else you could do there. How about lining it with a piece of plastic and then you've still got to look at the basket I like baskets don't you. I remind you of the old days when you got everything in the baskets like that so you could line it with plastic or set it inside something else so you wouldn't have dirt all over your patio or your or your balcony. And you won't have to worry about this because it has a hole in the bottom and there'd be room for drainage there. But if you were going to use this. You would have to have some place for extra water to get out so you'd punch some holes. Right around here not in the bottom but right around here what's around the bottom. Because plants don't like to have their roots soaking wet all the

time. So there are couple ideas if you live in a small place and don't have room like redo to go to go out and dig up a garden. Another idea that you read a lot about nowadays is mulch as you know what a mulch is and have you it's and sort of rich of the soil. Some mulch as Rich and Rich the soil right and some of them the main object of a mall just to keep the weeds from well you know lots of people love to plant seeds and plants and then they go away for a week or two and then come back and what's happened. We are bigger than the plants and that's sort of discouraging. So if you start out right by using mulches you can keep the weeds from growing and you can keep moisture in the ground and some of them all just give food to the plants so you accomplish can accomplish three things let's go look at my line up over here and talk about the different hives where we actually planning to

bring your things. I have a lot of fun gathering these up this morning because some of them are fond of feel and to smell. What do you think that is in front of you Sarah. The first one just bark. Pick up a handful and take a close look at barking and you have no idea where I got that truth. What do you think I chopped it up myself. What do you think it takes to chop up trees to live. Oh that's a good idea I've seen some trees sorrow or a pile he had won back or has been working and bringing out chips to make his home one that look just like that. Good idea. Well what to what of man invented they can grind up trees you know. You see along the road don't you. Working on the trees. I take these big branches and throw them in the back of the special machine. The girl a grand interesting that now they have those machines over

there. Well it's a big grinder like you have you might have a grinder to grind up vegetables or meat on your house. This is a big grinder that can grind up branches and makes a terrible noise very bad for years. But what comes out is this. These What chips are these wood chips and they are great. Smell smell I handle these and see if you can tell. There's one kind of tree that I know the man most of my working on those days pile of wood chips smell so good that he won't smell a good tree in there that's good to make a specialty out of it and you get searched for maple trees How about sassafras an assassin. Your Girl Scout archers there are a Browning lot you'll learn about yourself. It's not like that's not on there. Well sassafras tea is a good thing in small quantities you mustn't drink too much of it like anything else. Too much of this not too good for you

but there are wood chips and we'll put some of those around summer plants. They'll keep the weeds from growing. Keep the moisture in. Make some good mulch. I like that one. What's in front of you Ty. Right so there's another good idea. These are leaves from the Willow Bay. They are pretty tough they last a while. Some leaves this integrate faster but leaves are another good mulch. How about I go upon and they smell good too. Especially when out in the sun. And these are from. Pick up a new one lunch and see how many needles are in you know there are lots of different kinds of pine trees and you can tell pine different kinds of pines by how many needles they have in a bunch if you count how many are in your eyes. 5 5 5 2 0 4 4. Well you're a little

different from white pine trees white pines have five needles in a bunch and when the needles fall off together by your palette 5 so they also make a good lunch. How about the stuff you like to look at it and see if you can figure it out. You have an idea like. Well if you pour water doesn't hold together as much as string is made from something in nature like roots. It's just another form of what. But you don't see so much of it and more. It has a funny name. Excelsior or it's just long strings of wood as good for packing things and keeping them from breaking when you're shipping them somewhere. It's also good to put in your chickens Nast So they want their eggs one might like them but it's also good for Malta

and now here we have it. Well stall straw right. Straw usually green straw is good for animals to sleep on. I use the rounds to eat right but that's alright like a lot of people have trouble a lot of my friends have trouble telling Haverstraw but both of them are good for mulch. But you wouldn't want to put a good head on your garden because I would be very expensive. You should be good to your animals but sometimes farmers their fields and they get the hay all cut down and then a big knobs and the hay gets all moldy and it's not good for the cows. Then you should go to the farmers like I have all your spoiled hay to put on my garden for mulch and maybe you can get it somehow you get very cheap that way. So spoil my use of it. And then this is the straw that's been used in the stables

where the cows were so it's a good mulch and it's also got a lot of good manure in it that will give you food to our plants and here's something else I got in the kitchen. Round up coffee and after you make coffee out of them they met there with the border guard. It takes a lot to keep the weeds down. It's not everything we've got one two three different kinds of mulch on there lots more lots more that you could not think of use to go over and really get started plants on your plants. And I guess we can kneel down till we really have to start to work. What's been done to this garden so far and you know what's a first step if you're going to make a garden that's been dug up it's been dug up with the shells there are shells lined up back there I don't think we don't need our shovels

anymore and we worked out a little bit to get the big lumps out the rocks we've disturbed a lot of little creatures using the little creatures and here. You know their hands and what else lives and earthworms and are what are they going to have in the garden. Yes. Why the kids and what else are off. This enrich the soil and one more thing time. What do ants and worms let into the soil when they dig holes and they are ripe for plants to grow they have to have all those things. I hope you all are very careful with your tools in the garden because that's all you can get her to do put your tools down a long way to get such a nice hole there. I want lots of potato.

Now what do you know about planting potatoes potatoes. The root of it. I think I can. I forget whether it's a a to a stem is not us down it's on the potato is raw right. Most plants what you get what you eat is the fruit of a bit of a spark that grows on the ground and when you want to grow potatoes you don't get seeds. You take a potato and it's better to go to the store and get some seed potatoes like policy but I was into the Nazis rather that what you have to pay to get from the supermarket and you don't have to plant a whole potato. You know how much little you have to plant. Good Sarah. Well lots of people don't know that potatoes have eyes but where you see a sprout coming out like there and there those are the eyes of the potato. So all you need on each piece

is an eye. So Sarah why don't you cut off it like mica cut right there do you know how to use and I fearfully cut through there and take that piece with I on maybe lay it down the road it will be safe. So they teach Your Girl Scouts good so now you have a piece with an eye on and you can plant that in that hole. Just plant like that colored up and I think will be of use for each of you Ty you want to cut right across there. That's three different ways to see which potato goes the best. Your little steak there. So we forget it's hard when you plant potatoes with the pointy end down there. All right now let's do yours a different one. There's another new way of planning things. Take an old piece of

rock. This is a piece of indoor outdoor carpet that was left over. And it's a good mulch. It doesn't contribute anything to the soil but it just keeps the weeds down and the moisture. So it's cold out here. Put that right over ties potato will have a date on that will put the whole lot over top. So will work. You know what. I want to make a little hole for and I will plant one without a hole. That's the newest one. Not even big overall like a little deeper than that. That of animals are not lots of room and new potatoes will grow on the roots. Well a lot of noise around here. I don't know when

some kind of action applying. OK cover it up. Let's take a little stake here. The whole right over there. That one starts to come up. Be sure that this brown eye was up through the hole. Let's put a rock on that now Michael. You're right there and we'll I think yours are really knew why we don't even dig a hole when you're sort of rested on the ground like that little piece of plastic. What is that. I think it's a murder site. Whatever it is a very noisy blast. You think you would have what happen if you

transparent left. Right and it would and what is it we're trying to keep from growing. Clear plastic. And just like a greenhouse song. Plastic is better. Yeah and what started up ok now. What I. Plan to watch the whole ride over to the sort of old days that it. Will. Be. So three different ways and there are lots of other ways I read about

people who whine about hills and barrels just covered with dog of their own and not one of my friends just the potato peelings under some stall so I know lots of new ways of life. I let's try some of your peppers over there our tomato plant life is forever right. Why don't we plant two here and then you can take the rest on the front yard like you can talk to me. We'll see who gets the most peppers. Would you get a jar of water for my dough. One provide one for Sarah. Hi strawberry. I feel that one of their By Sara did it just OK you know I've got something else here that helps make plants grow. Oh have you ever heard of compost.

OK who knows what compost in the sink gets its own from the bridge. Anybody you know anything to add to that but oh grass and stuff just to find anything else. Oh I know the meaning of compost. Well Michael hit the mail now he said the composing material and only you and Sarah was right. Grass and stuff. All things that were once alive or get A.K. from something alive. So. They can handle this. Handed over to Sara Lee of Liverpool and you can dig a hole to tie and find something but you know if you look at closely in this conflict you'll see it has a round up egg shells and things in it and you just take all your things that are left over in the kitchen. Celery tops and Carrick tops and egg shells and coffee grounds and put them in a big pile and put on someone or in some law I'm and the rain comes down

adds water and everything just sort of disintegrates and makes good rich fertilizer for your plants. So sort of work that around in their own right but in one of their pepper plants. Oh good you know how to get them out without breaking them off. We probably won't have to put a sign by this goes. Everybody can recognize a pepper but right now here's a tomato plant one of my friends raised with you Sara. It's called a Roma that has those Italian tomatoes on you like broccoli Thai. OK got a bite of broccoli. You can just hear the couple and then you'll have a plan. Did you get some compost for yours. You don't mind getting your hands dirty do you. There's another new thing I think it's really an old thing but you've read a lot today about

companion plants. You've heard about companion plants. Now what is a companion. Oh look thin in this part right your friends partners but I think that's a better word a partner a companion plant is something you plant with another plant that doesn't sound good. Like if you plant onions I know you onions but I got some garlic. You plant onions next to certain plants and it keeps the bugs away. So it's a good companion as a partner. It helps it do better. So while you can get books out the library to tell you which plants to plant next to which other plants you know some plants that are bad for each other. You don't want that that most of it. But anything in the new family is good for keeping bugs away so let's put plastic a couple These next to the pepper plant. OK what else do we have oh you know it's a story about the olden days when Indians used to buy their corn a

trick they showed to the pilgrims about go fishing catch fish fertilise or you would have you read that guy you heard that story here. Well I don't have a whole page but I have a couple fishes from going fishing so I thought we would put those little girls at home and see what they did there will plant some without fish and some with. So once you dig a little hole they are. Here are fish heads. Oh you're a brave boy you're not afraid to become a shadow. Well wash your hands after gardening. I will drop in a couple years couple corn and cover it up and I'll find a mistake. See I think I even had one of the Good morning.

Now what do you think Aurora would like us to plant for him. Some. Sunflower seeds OK. Why don't you and very tall SARA So why don't you Michael Rollo. You know how to make a row with a hoe. Let's talk let's make it let's make it last place like this. That. There are several different ways of making a row there's one you can go ahead and put some Sankar so you wouldn't plant them about six inches apart. And you know this right White House making a ho down and walk a lot and just walk on it. And that sinks. That's it. Come back and step on it real hard. How much do you weigh.

So that's one way of making. Something. That's that'll do for some very final year. That's fun. Let's putting some of the things that are very fine but you can push them down. You want to go up on the other hand high and they plant them about an inch apart. And then for decoration in the corners of our garden let's plant some flowers. You're a pansy. You can put it right there in that corner. As I like to have flowers and vegetables both in my garden. There. And water and poured on. Are you already did good. And we need to stay for the night.

There's a special piano writes on last Tuesday. So you do it as a two time zones on and I'll plant this nice patients right in this corner. To have a flower and vegetable garden. Oh now go get some planted plants go get some compost whichever kind you want and put it around your plant so we won't have to worry that we will hear what you think would be the best. But I got really sick with a really thick layer on because weeds are so tough. They can come right up through them through a thin layer like oh that looks nice. It's over. You bring me a big handful. We're playing Sara for my impatience like you.

You better get something to help us. They're. Impatient. I'm glad you could come to help me get our garden started around more things it takes a lot of work to keep a good garden going. Remember to try new ways of gardening. Try planning things in containers. If you don't have much room or if you have a regular garden trial lots of different kinds of modules so you won't have to do so much work if you help people

have fun with gardening that very much thank you. Were. Were. Were. Were way. Way.

Way. Way. Way. Way. Of the Center for Public Broadcasting.