BRAD FOWLER CHECKS IN 6/11/26

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Red Fowler, your Clemson Extension commercial horticulture agent. You know, proper irrigation is key to keeping things thriving, especially with our unpredictable weather. And speaking of irrigation, a big shout out to Conserva Irrigation. They truly are your sprinkler system caretakers from the Liz Callaway Show with Nick Summer.

SPEAKER_02 0:23

There he is. Good morning. Super Secret Agent Man. Brad Fowler. Last time we talked, you were on site with us. I was. Uh at the planting party, the Tiny Home Project with the Veterans Welcome Resource Center. That was great. And uh I'm trying to remember the person that was it. Carmen. Carmen, yeah. Carmen. Oh, I did that. Okay. You got it. Every time we went on there, she'd run and find some tree to hide behind. I know.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

She's like, come on. I was like, I was just I knew I was gonna get her to to to go on the radio for a minute, but uh nah, she and and that was really, really a cool event. And I'm sorry I couldn't stick around a little bit longer, but uh man, what an awesome thing. You know?

SPEAKER_02 0:59

Did a good job. Everybody did a great job.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

The uh it ended up looking really beautiful. Yeah. Uh as far as you know, putting that uh darker mulch down and then all the flowers and the you know and that stuff, and then Carmen was running around at each different station, and she was really helpful. I could tell she was really enjoying herself, even though she avoided us like the plague. Uh, nevertheless, it was uh it was a good time, and I'm glad you came out and brought your uh your team, if you will.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Yeah, uh well, we were glad to do it, and like I said, Carmen kind of uh handled getting the Master Gardener volunteers to come too, and and Carmen's got a background in like horticultural therapy and stuff. Um, and so uh yeah, just a really cool thing. I mean, plants plants just have a way of affecting people. Um, and I don't get it. I don't get it all, I don't understand it all, but uh, you know, it's it's it's it's something about being out in nature, working with plants, you know, planting things, planting a garden, planting containers.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

What do you mean you don't get it?

SPEAKER_01 1:52

I mean, I mean I get it, but it's like I don't have the you know you don't have that emotional thing to it.

SPEAKER_02 1:57

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

I mean, I mean I understand that, but but it just there is a calming effect to to being out and working with plants, so and I I do understand that that aspect of it.

SPEAKER_02 2:07

Look, you gotta hear this. This is great. Let's have it. This is great. Budget blinds text line, and we're going to it early, apparently. We do have questions already coming in, but I gotta start here. My girlfriend's granddaughter is in 4-H and thinks the sun rises due to you, Brad Fowler.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

Oh my gosh. Loves you. Oh my gosh. That's great. Oh man, you got a fan club. We gotta find these people some better role models, is all I can tell.

SPEAKER_02 2:33

That's great. We were talking about how nature just finds a way. Right before we went on the air, and I was mentioning to you we had this plant. You think you know what it is without even seeing it, the way my I described it. Yeah. And then I brought I brought up the fact what is the name of the palm chair we have?

SPEAKER_01 2:49

Uh you have a sago palm.

SPEAKER_02 2:50

Sago palm in the front. Because we had something else, and they said that's gonna get big and start creating problems with your house. Right. Because it was like in the little nursery in the front. Yep, exactly. So we replaced it with that, because that won't get, what, more over six feet or so?

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Yeah, it shouldn't. Now, every now and then you will find some that get really, really tall, but normally for us, the yeah, something like six feet's gonna be the max.

SPEAKER_02 3:10

Yeah, and that's fine where that's at. And it's not gonna get too big, big, big. Right. Uh, but somebody gave us these additional little, they looked like little uh like bocce balls. And it turns out they were the seeds. Yeah. And so I thought, well, I'll plant these along the back line, because you know, there's like a ditch over there, but there's, you know, it gets a decent amount of water, but not too much, and blah, blah, blah. And none of them took. Yep. Years later, all of a sudden, one popped up. How is that possible that it sat dormant for like two or three years and decided to pop up? Now it's a good foot and a half.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

I mean, once again, plants are amazing. I mean, that's the thing, and we kind of talked about this is when we try really, really hard to do something, a lot of times it doesn't work. Right. Well, guess what? Nature has kind of all of the things it needs a lot of times, it just has to have the exact right environment kind of come together to get that seed to germinate or get that plant to start growing, whatever it may be. And so, you know, it it it it is a really cool thing that just happens.

SPEAKER_02 4:04

Yeah. I I look at that and I go, Well, it's like my little miracle tree.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:08

So I leave it alone. I figure it doesn't need water. Those things don't need a ton of water anyway, do they? Exactly. It'll get enough when it rains. Yeah. And I mow around it and I just try to keep the area clean where it's at.

SPEAKER_01 4:17

Yeah. Weed it. You want to know a good way to like kill something like that is once it's come up on its own, that then we think in our heads, oh well, I can I can do better. I can make it better. I you know, we have this thing, I think, with with plants too, that we have this control issue almost that like, no, we're the we're the humans. We can make that plant do what we want it to do, and in certain cases, maybe, but a lot of times we end up killing it.

SPEAKER_02 4:43

Well, that's why I figure, listen, it was doing whatever it was for three years underground, exactly, and out of nowhere it popped up.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 4:51

Best thing for me to do is stay out of its way. Yeah. And keep the area clean.

SPEAKER_01 4:55

That's it. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 4:56

All right, let's get to the text line here. Uh, we've got some great questions here. The budget blinds text line. We'll start with this one from Robert. Question for Brad. I live in Little River and was wondering if a turf type tall, what does that say? Fescue? Fescue? Okay, like Falcon 4 or Titan RX would survive in summer on our partially shaded lawn. See, I don't know some of the terminology, but I'm glad you did.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

Right. So can you help Robert? So I'm not incredibly familiar with all of the specific types of fescue just because we don't grow them here. Uh, the only place we normally grow fescue is in the very upstate of South Carolina, just because on average it stays just cool enough that we can grow fescue reliably there. For us, I would say no. It even in the shade, yeah, you might get it to last for a season or two, but eventually it's just gonna get too hot. I mean, we're talking about getting into this uh what heat index of a hundred coming up uh fairly soon, and and that fescue is just not gonna like that. Um, like I said, you might try it in the shade. You'd have to water it a whole lot, which is a whole nother can of worms that you gotta get into. Um, no, I would say we don't, we can't grow that grass reliably here.

SPEAKER_02 6:04

Uh even though unintended, I do like it when people do talk to text because it has amazingly funny results. Right. This this poor person's tomato plants are looking guilty. Oh no. But they they responded back with the correct term. So here's the question. My tomatoes uh are growing, but they look wilted. Okay. Not guilty.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

Okay. So uh why is everything looking wilty? Well, they probably are guilty of something, if I had to guess. Uh the reason they are well, okay. There's a few different reasons your tomato plants might look uh wilty. Tomatoes can have some diseases that can essentially make them wilt within uh a matter of hours to days and just kill them. Uh we have stuff like bacterial wilt, uh um the tomato-spotted wilt virus. There's a few different things. We have a really great fact sheet that talks all about them. Some of that stuff, if if we figure out that you have it, you need to pull them immediately. Get it out of there. There's nothing you can do about it. And it's funny that they asked about tomatoes because I literally wrote in my notes to talk about tomatoes today.

SPEAKER_02 7:06

Okay. So talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 7:09

Tomatoes A, they need regular irrigation. This is one of the only times you're you're gonna hear me say you need to be watering almost every day. But during the tomato growing season, you need to water those tomatoes almost every day. They need well-drained soil, but they need regular water. Because they will start to get wilty and and not produce well. Also, once we get above 90 degrees, like it's going to be for the next five days. Exactly. Your tomatoes are pretty much done at that point. They're they're gonna like the heat. They don't like the heat. They're gonna stop, um, they're gonna stop producing flowers. Uh, if they try to fruit, they're gonna just drop that fruit set, and it's just not gonna work, especially those big slicing tomatoes. Um, some of the cherry tomatoes may keep going. Sometimes you can keep the plant alive, and if you can get it back into the fall, it will start producing again when we when it gets a little bit cooler. But at the end of the day, I I mean, g experiment with tomatoes if you want to, but don't plant like 20 tomato plants and just expect every year you're gonna get this, you know, bountiful harvest of tomatoes. It's just probably not gonna happen. Our environment or our uh weather is just not real conducive to growing tomatoes.

SPEAKER_02 8:18

So is there a better time than obviously the summer?

SPEAKER_01 8:21

Well, some people will do it in the fall, so they'll plant them in like July or August and get the plant going, and then ha get uh uh actual tomatoes kind of in September, October, maybe November. I mean, at times even into December, depending on when we get that hard frost. So I tell people all the time, try them in the fall, uh, see how they go then, but just don't don't get caught up on tomatoes. And if they do are doing something like wilting very suddenly or looking really strange very suddenly, contact your extension agent, whether it's me or Carmen, we'll take a look because you may want to get those out of there. Some of those diseases, once they have them, you can't get rid of them.

SPEAKER_02 8:57

And it can spread to the other room.

SPEAKER_01 8:58

It can spread to other tomatoes, and you probably shouldn't plant tomatoes back in that area either. You need to move those tomatoes to a different area next time.

SPEAKER_02 9:06

So I have a a lady that uh we go to church with and she uh says basically the same thing. You can't grow tomatoes here, not reliably. So what she does is she has a couple of potted plants that are pretty big, yeah, and she has them in her Carolina room. Oh, okay, yeah, nice. And keeps them watered and keeps it, you know, there's a decent amount of little drain thing that she changes all the time or empties, whatever. Right. She says she consistently has great tomatoes, growing them indoors. Nice.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

Yeah, because that that room is probably staying a little bit warmer than maybe the rest of the house or whatever, but it's not so hot that it never gets gets above like 80 something, she says in there.

SPEAKER_02 9:41

She closes the shades, opens it up when it needs, you know. Yeah. I thought, well, that's a really good idea if you can are you're able to do that. Yeah, exactly. Uh, I have beetles on my hibiscus.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

Beetles on the hibiscus. I wonder if this is the individual that texted me. Uh this is Key West. Okay. Um, so those are probably uh Japanese beetles, if I had to guess. Um, unfortunately, when it comes to a lot of these beetles, trying to use your standard insecticides and stuff just don't work real well because they're they're just a larger insect, they're tougher. Um picking them off by hand, it's gonna sound like a real pain, but just pick them off by hand and and squash them. The best thing you can do for these beetles is to treat the grubs in the spring and the fall because these beetles are coming from the grubs in the ground. So other than that, I wish I had a good answer, but uh, I've had this question a couple times lately.

SPEAKER_02 10:30

Uh, and there's just is this something that you're seeing more widespread?

SPEAKER_01 10:34

Yeah, I mean it happens every year. Some years are worse than others, but um, yeah, this time of year we start to see it. And unfortunately, treating for the grubs now is kind of too late. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So when's the best time you say fall and spring. Fall and spring, okay. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 10:47

Uh when is the best time to trim back my blueberry bushes? Kenny wants to know.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

So there's two times you should think about trimming your blueberries. Um, if they're getting really oversized, as soon as they get done fruiting, trim them back a little bit, kind of just an overall trim and reduce the size of it.

SPEAKER_02 11:05

So you yank the fruit off and then just a little trim.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

Just a little trim. A little off the top is they're exactly exactly, exactly. Um then late winter, so February, late February, early March, then you can come in and thin them out, reduce the base. So if you've got a whole bunch of stems coming out of the base, you can take out some of the stems at the base, reduce the interior a little bit, trim them back a little bit harder. Because if you want to get good blueberry production, you need to trim them pretty much every year.

SPEAKER_02 11:35

Uh Carolina Bryan wants to know, uh, do you actually want to know if you know why St. Augustine's sod doesn't seem to be available locally anymore? Is that something you're aware of?

SPEAKER_01 11:46

So I don't know the exact reason. I have some theories behind it, but I'll tell you what I found when I was when I was in the landscape industry, we actually quit putting it out for people because it was so finicky sometimes. It some we would have one yard with St. Augustine look great, the yard beside it, you know, per se, w we would fight it constantly with disease and insects and stuff like that. And so I wonder if it's gotten to be just so kind of problematic in certain situations that the the sod producers have just kind of quit messing with it. And not to mention you've got Zoisia that has come along that's got a whole lot of different varieties that look really, really nice. Heartier too. Yeah, normally gonna be a little hardier for our when we do get those really cold uh winters, at least cold for us. Um and so a lot of people have moved to that. Some people have moved to Bermuda, and so I think St. St. Augustine's just kind of getting kind of getting left behind, and at the end of the day, it really does better further south. Now, I love St. Augustine. I think it's a beautiful grass, but it can be finicky sometimes for sure.

SPEAKER_02 12:48

I try to do rapid fire the last couple of ones. I want to get them all in uh there's a commercial greenhouse, uh this isn't from Georgetown, it's pontificator, near the power plant. They uh load their growing trays aboard in close trailers periodically and take them to the power plant. The plant steams the trays. Why?

SPEAKER_01 13:06

Uh sanitization uh sanitizing. Oh, sanitizing. Yes, yes. That's simple. You can move disease really, really quickly from uh those those planting trays.

SPEAKER_02 13:13

Okay, very good. Uh let's see, we backed. Oh, here's some here's some here's a tip, and I know exactly what you're gonna say. Okay. Are you ready? I'm ready. Stand by with your catchphrase. I got you. For the beetles, suck them off the plants with a wet, dry shop vac with water or soap in the tank. Works great for my potato beetles. Well, you can. Have you ever heard of that?

SPEAKER_01 13:35

I have not. Oh, okay. That actually might be something you can do that would actually work. I mean, that's an interesting method to to to try. I might have to try that myself. Okay, very look at that. Kevin the traffic guy. He's he's there you go. He's an all-around guy. Every now and then we get some of these folks that really are thinking on a different level, you know. I like it.

SPEAKER_02 13:54

That's pretty good. Uh, what is safe to put in my tomatoes for uh hornworms? Is that a thing? Hornworms?

SPEAKER_01 14:00

Yes, hornworms are a thing. Oh gosh, I would have to go back and look, but uh there's something called BT. Uh it's uh it's an organic uh insecticide uh that uh can be helpful with a lot of worms. So BT.

SPEAKER_02 14:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

Yeah, check that out.

SPEAKER_02 14:14

Uh you know what I put in my sandbox for my kids? What's that? Cinnamon. Oh, really?

unknown 14:19

Huh.

SPEAKER_02 14:20

I was told that by somebody, and it said it keeps a lot of the bugs awake so they don't like that smell.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

Interesting. I it wouldn't surprise me.

SPEAKER_02 14:26

And you know what? It works.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 14:28

I you get fly a little going there, but you know those little things like to burrow themselves in the sand. Yeah. Ever since I did that, nothing. It doesn't like it, it just agitates them in some way. And I mean, I get like from you know Sam's Club, a big giant one. I just dump it all in there and then dump the sand and swirl it around.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

Now the sandbox smells nice too. It does. Actually, it does. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 14:46

There's my tip.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

There we go. Otherwise, I'm useless.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

Brad Fowler, thank you so much, the Super Secret Agent. From uh well, we have to thank, of course, Conservative Irrigation, but it's the Clemson Extension Commercial Porticulture Agent.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

Man, we got to do something about that, don't we? We I will I will talk with them. Please. I will, I promise.

SPEAKER_02 15:05

That's not catchy. You can't market that.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

I'll figure something out.

SPEAKER_02 15:08

All right, all right. Brad Fowler, thank you.