This document contains the transcript of the Seminars@Hadley GARDENING SEMINAR. GEORGE ABBOTT: Well, welcome everybody to the gardening seminar. Again, welcome to the Seminars at Hadley where today we’re presenting “Harvest: The Benefits of Gardening.” Today, we are talking about gardening, that is, back yard gardens, container gardens, and anything else our presenters want to chat about, and we will also be talking about some useful adaptive techniques for gardeners with visual impairments. We are fortunate to have with us today two experienced gardeners. First, we have Kathy Austin, BGS, who is coordinator of adult rehabilitation services for the Chicago Guild for the Blind and an avid gardener for over 35 years. Kathy has made many adaptations to continue gardening due to gradual vision loss due to retinitis pigmentosa. Ed Haines, who is also a Hadley instructor, and has been for about the last five or so years, is also an itinerant vision rehabilitation therapist and has been a gardener for over 30 years. Currently, he is rehabilitating a 100-year-old garden up in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and I should point out that Ed teaches Hadley’s container gardening course, which is offered to adult continuing education and high school students at Hadley free of charge. Without further ado, I am going to turn this over to Ed Hanes and Kathy Austin. KATHY AUSTIN: Well, good afternoon everyone. Thank you for joining us to talk about gardening today. I am Kathy Austin, and it is a pleasure to be here. Ed, I’ll turn it over to you, and you can start with your portion, and then we will go back and forth like we planned to do. ED HAINES: Sounds great. Let me start off by stating the obvious. This is a huge subject, and we cannot possibly cover all the information that we would like to. So, for the most part, we are going to address our comments to folks who are beginning gardeners and try to communicate the fundamentals. What we would like to do is really bring you to a place to begin your own gardening project and then just leave you with some basic tools and some skills that you can apply to your own circumstances. I should say that, you know, almost anyone who gardens derives rewards from growing plants that really far exceed the effort they’ve expended. In fact, I think one of the great things about gardening is that it is an activity that makes us stop and focus on the process, not on the goal. The activity of gardening--the work really, if you will--it is really its own reward. Gardening allows us to understand that the work of tending your plants is enjoyable in and of itself. The final results, every gardener knows, that the perfect bloom or a ripe tomato is kind of a combination of factors we cannot control or predict. So gardeners, try to relax, and we know that the best that we can do is be a part of a process. We set things in motion. We start with a vision, and we let nature become our partner in making that vision a reality, and the end product is often a complete surprise. Back to you, Kathy. KATHY AUSTIN: Thank you Ed. You might be asking yourself, “Why should I garden when I cannot see or see very well the fruits of my labor?” Well, think about the things you’re offering not only to yourself, but to others as well. Gardening is great exercise both mentally and physically. It is a way to work thoughts through your mind while listening to the birds and feeling that warm sun on your back. Getting down on your knees and pulling some weeds or turning some soil over with a shovel is a great way to work some of those muscles that you probably have not worked in a while. You are creating something enjoyable for others to look at and to enjoy. So, you are also creating a habitat for birds, bees, and other wildlife that are so important to our fragile environment. It is a way to grow your own healthy, nontoxic food that can be shared with other people at harvest time. And, gardening is also a good way to get involved in your community and to meet new people. So, during this webinar, we will be passing along the practical steps of planning, planting, and caring for your garden, but we are also going to offer suggestions on how to do it as a visually impaired gardener. So, I will turn it over to Ed, and we will start with planning your garden. ED HAINES: Well, there is a practical side to this whole experience, and that is where this presentation comes in, and we are going to start by talking about initial planning. I cannot stress enough how important this is going to be. A good garden takes in at least three important considerations, and those are location, climate, and soil. We will be talking about the issue of soil later on, but I would like right now just to focus on climate and location. There are several factors you need to take into account when you think about climate. The first is every plant has some different requirements. You need to be aware of your average daytime and nighttime temperatures. Do you live in an area where your days are hot and muggy? Do you live in an area where your nighttimes are cool? These are going to influence what kind of plants you can grow. It is also really helpful to know your first and last frost dates if you live in a temperate zone. If you are lucky and live in a part of the country that does not have frost, you do not have to worry about it, but most of us do. And it is important because it is going to influence what types of plants you can plant, because they all have varying degrees of time that they take to reach maturity, and you can…if your summers are short, you need to have short maturing plants. Wind is another factor in climate that is important to be aware of. It is really good for most plants to have some air circulation around them. It prevents disease and fungal growth, but conversely, too much wind can damage a plant, particularly one that grows very tall or that is particularly delicate. Sunlight is probably the most important factor of climate that you need to consider and one that we sometimes over optimistically estimate, and optimally, many plants are going to thrive with at least six hours of sunlight per day. So, it is helpful to know the exposure of your garden spot, and you need to choose your plants accordingly. You cannot grow shade-loving ferns, for instance, against a brick wall and full sun, but your tomatoes might love it. Finally, you need to be aware of water supplies. Do you have access to a water source nearby if rainfall is going to be insufficient? It is helpful to know what your average rainfall is when you plant your garden. If your plants are in the ground and not in containers, you need to know if your area drains well. Does it stay soggy? If you are placing containers on a patio, pay attention if they are going to be under any eaves, for instance, which might either shelter them from rain or drain too much water on them from off of a roof. There are some other things to consider also when you think about garden location. Patios or decks are often a really popular place for containers for obvious reasons, but it is helpful to know whether your patio or your deck can carry the load of large containers. Some cannot, particularly if they are second story patios or decks Also, it is helpful to know if you have a water supply close by to your deck or patio. I have done this myself. I have been faced with the circumstance of having to haul water through my house in buckets or in large watering cans to try to water containers that are on a patio, and ultimately, water gets spilled. Front steps or back steps or porches, those are popular places for containers. They often have overhangs however, so sunlight may be limited. Rainfall, as I mentioned before, would be limited, and for obvious reasons, you should not block entries or exits. The plants will just get tipped over, aside from it being perhaps a safety hazard. And finally, location depends on what you want to have plants for. If you are planting culinary herbs, you might have a certain location near the kitchen that you want those. Flower borders require other locations. Some people plant plants for privacy screens. Other folks want vegetable gardens. All those will influence your garden plan. Kathy. KATHY AUSTIN: Thanks, Ed. Well, one of the most important things, as Ed mentioned, was the sun exposure. That can be critical in planning a garden. So to determine how much sun your garden will receive, go outside on a sunny day, and feel the sun, feel how warm it is. Do this at different times during the day, and keep a journal of that information so you can record how much sunlight a particular area is getting in your garden. You think about trees. If you are standing underneath a tree in April, it could be very sunny and feel very nice and warm, but come June, when the tree is in full bloom and all the leaves are out, you will have a very shady spot, so keep that in mind as well. You want to think about access to your garden. Are you putting a garden bed in the middle of your back yard where you might become disoriented and not be able to find it? That has happened to me quite a few times. You might want to mark your new garden with a wind chime for sound. You might want to use an arbor to find it as a big landmark. Path to your garden by using pebbles, or bark, or patio stones that will give you a way to get out to your yard, your garden. You want to think about your path. Is your path easy to navigate? Walk it and think about when you’re carrying tools, buckets, pots out to a particular area, you want to make sure that it is clear of any objects and it is an easy way to get there. You also want to make sure that it is accessible for a wagon or a wheelbarrow if you are carrying maybe large bags of topsoil or compost. Again, Ed mentioned, keep in mind your water source, you do not want to have to be carrying buckets a long way to water a particular area of your yard. About a border, if you are putting in an in-ground garden, you want to think about the border and what you are going to use to mark it off with. Keep in mind a couple of things. Keep in mind contrast, so that you can find it easily, and also think about tripping hazards. Sometimes, if you would use a landscape timber, it’s raised up a little bit, and you might not see it if the grass was a little bit long, so you want to think about that. One of my favorite things to use is flagstone. It is nontoxic, it is flat, it is a grayish-white color, it shows up nicely against the dark earth or your green grass, and it looks pretty nice too. A raised bed, sometimes you can get these stone- retaining blocks at home center stores, and you can make a bed that’s a little bit higher. That way, it will be easy to find, and it really doesn’t have a tripping hazard involved. And I think that will do it. I think Ed will go on to choosing your plants. Correct? ED HAINES: Yeah, you know the fun part of planning any garden is deciding what types of plants you would like to grow, because everything is so full of promise, and you can imagine all these young plants growing into mature fruit-bearing tomato plants, or flowers, or whatever you want. So this is a fun time before all of the complications arise, and as I mentioned before, there are diverse purposes for growing a garden, and this really will influence your decision. Although, I will say, you know, sometimes it’s rewarding to grow something just because you want to try it, not because you need it or it fits in with your landscape, but just because it looks neat. That aside, the various environmental characteristics of your garden space, the growing season, sunlight, etc., and they’ll dictate what types of plants will thrive. Now, if you’re going to garden exclusively in containers, many plants have varieties that are bred for this purpose, but regardless of the type of plant you choose, you often need to make a decision about whether to grow from seeds or transplants. I would like to talk about seeds briefly. There are plenty of advantages to growing from seed. I think for me the main advantage is that I can choose varieties of plants that are not readily available in garden centers or local nurseries, disease-resistant plants, varieties, as I mentioned, that grow in containers and also non- hybrid plants that have fertile seed I can harvest and use again. Also, some plants just do not transplant well and need to be direct sown right into your garden. Sunflowers are a good example of a plant like that. Seeds are also cheaper than transplants to buy initially, and frankly, it is rewarding to grow a plant from seed. Now, there are some disadvantages to growing from seed. It is time and space consuming. If you do not direct sow into the garden, you will need to purchase additional supplies like seed- starting mix and small containers, etc., and you will need space indoors to start these seeds, and that, particularly that space, needs a consistent amount of good sunlight. That is often very hard to achieve inside. When you choose seeds, choose a reputable company. There are some budget seeds out there in drug stores, etc. Try to avoid those and find a reputable seed company. You will have better luck. I’ll talk about transplants briefly as well. The advantages of transplants are that they are less labor intensive. You are weeks or months ahead of the season when you buy a transplant instead of planting from seed. It is also easy to do mass plantings of annuals with transplants, that is like periwinkles, or marigolds, or petunias, etc., and also, you can tell what the mature plant is going to feel like without relying on a non-accessible written description on the back of the seed packet. Now there are disadvantages to buying transplants, and the main ones are you have, as I mentioned before, fewer choices in your local nurseries of varieties of plants, and also transplants are just a lot more expensive. When you are buying transplants, try to buy them from a local nursery that grows them on site. There are larger retail garden centers that import plants. They may not thrive in your area. And choose plants that have vigorous growth, but not too many flowers or fruit, or preferably no flowers or fruit. You want the energy of that transplant to go to the root system when they are put into your container or garden, not into creating flowers or fruit yet. And also, it is normal for everyone to grab the biggest transplant of a bunch to purchase. Often that is not a great idea, because the transplant could be root-bound. That means, the root system has completely filled up the container it is in, and that could cause an unhealthy growth system when you put it in your garden. I should say also there are other ways to grow plants. You can grow them from bulbs, or rhizomes, or tubers among others. These are a little less common, but still quite well-known and can include things like spring bulbs, daffodils for instance, or indoor tropical plants like caladiums or peace lilies. I think I mentioned annuals briefly, and it’s important to understand when you’re choosing plants, that there’s a difference between annuals and perennials. Annuals only live one growing season unless…some varieties, I should say in the extreme south that’s not the case, but most annuals live only one growing season. Perennials grow season after season. A good example of annuals would be petunias, or marigolds, or geraniums. Perennials would be hostas, or certain culinary herbs, or daisies, those kinds of things. There are just a few other factors you might want to consider when you’re choosing plants. You might want to think about their growth pattern, their color, their texture, and their days to maturity. Again, you don’t want to get a tomato variety that takes 90 days to mature if you have short summers. You want to get a variety that matures more quickly. Kathy. KATHY AUSTIN: Okay, well, when choosing your plants, there are a couple of things that you should keep in mind: color, contrast, texture, and fragrance. To have a monochromatic color scheme is one way that I do it. This really helps when you’re going to the garden center and picking out your plants, your flowers especially. If you’re picking out all red plants, it makes it much easier. It limits your selection, because it can become extremely overwhelming when you get to that garden center. Easy for independent transplanting-- for instance, if you pick geraniums and impatiens, and you get all red in varieties, the geranium leaf is large, round and fuzzy, where the impatiens is small, oval, and smooth finish. So you can independently transplant those plants into your garden. It helped the overwhelming selection at the garden center, as I said. Choose a color that you see better, depending on your vision issue, you may see just black and white, you may see reds or very vibrant colors, so think about that when your choosing your plants. About the contrast against the flower versus the foliage. Shasta daisies are a good example of color contrast, so you will be able to enjoy those. Shasta daisies are very dark green foliage, and then they have very big white with yellow center flowers. Also think about planting white because plants that have white flowers, they look very nice in the evening, and you will be able to pick them out against the dark sky and the dark earth. You want to consider texture. You are going to be touching your plants and inspecting your plants, and so you will want to enjoy that process. So, one of my favorites is called Artemisia. It is a light silvery, gray-green color, but it is very soft to the touch, so, while you are doing your inspections, you can think about that when picking out your plants. You want to think about fragrance when you’re choosing your plants. A couple of my favorites are ornamental lilies. They smell terrific when they are in bloom in July, and as the wind blows, you can, depending on the direction where you are sitting, you can smell them from several feet away, another very good-smelling plant that you will be able to enjoy as a visually impaired gardener, after a rain, it really, really has a wonderful smell. Lavender is another one. Rubbing the leaves, you will be able to enjoy that fragrance. One of the things in choosing your plants is spacing, and it is kind of difficult to determine what you’re going to plant in a space when you cannot see it very well, so I recommend using pots or different objects of different sizes, maybe a bucket, that simulates the adult size of the plant. You could use tomato cages and kind of arrange them in a way that you will get an idea of how many plants you’ll need so that when you will go to the garden center, you have got a good idea of what you are going to need. You might even want to use, if you use Microsoft XL on the computer, you can use that to figure out how much space you have and how many plants you will need to fill it up. Resource on the internet for choosing plants, find out how big a plant is, what its adult size will be, and that will be good guidelines in making your list to go to the garden center. You can also go to your nursery or garden center and ask them for their assistance. Resources for choosing your plants are university extension locations. Many universities will have an agricultural extension. You can ask a botanical garden. Many communities have garden clubs. Organizations even have help lines by telephone that you can just call up and ask a question about a particular plant. I have a very low spot in my back yard, and I’m trying to find some plants that will do well when the water accumulates back there, and I called my local botanic garden, and they gave me some good ideas of some bushes that would grow well there. So that is a resource that you should definitely take advantage of. A really good thing to do is to sign up for a garden class in your local community, many park districts or garden clubs do have classes. It is a great way to meet other people who are more experienced than you and often, those people who are experienced are willing to give you a hand. _____ your garden center to choose your plants. Make sure you make a list and try to stick to it. It can be extremely overwhelming seeing all those new plants in the springtime, and you want to buy everything, but if you keep a list, it will help you narrow down your choices and come home with the things that you originally had planned on purchasing. You might want to take a sighted friend along with you to help you pick out your plants at the nursery or garden center and ask if they will have a sales person available to help you. _____ can do, is purchase bare root plants from a mail order catalog. These are plants that just have roots and very little foliage. You will get exactly what you are looking for, however, it is going to be a little bit more difficult to identify those plants when you get them in the mail, so you might want to ask a sighted friend to help you sort the plants. They will have to be taken care of pretty much as soon as you receive them and get them into the ground fairly quickly, and Ed, that’s all I have for that particular part of our section. Yeah, I think we are going to go on to tools now. ED HAINES: Thanks, Kathy. Yeah, we would like to talk about tools briefly. Kathy has some really excellent suggestions. I think the main tool for gardening is the human hand. I find that the process of planting plants and caring for plants is primarily tactile. It is just a great thing. I use my hands almost exclusively. That being said, there are a few tools that would be helpful to have handy, and those can include trowels, shovels, a bucket, a rake, a watering can, a hose. And of course, with regard to gardening hardware, you’re going to need to have containers if you’re going to have a container garden. And if you have done some shopping around, you will know that there are many, many types of materials that are used to make up containers, and it really depends on what kind of plant you want to grow and on the esthetic value of the container of itself. You know, most containers can be divided between ones made of natural materials like terracotta, or stone, or wood and others made of synthetic materials, primarily plastic or styrofoam. There are advantages to each. I will say that if you are planting something in quite a large container, it is sometimes advantageous to use a synthetic material because it is so much lighter, and they do make some plastics out there that look just like terracotta, so if you are not grabbing onto it, it is going to pretty much have the same esthetic appeal. There are lots of other growing structures out there, and those can include trellises, stakes, cages, arbors, sides of buildings. I know one gardener who uses old laundry drying racks and stepladders to grow vines and other plants on, etc., and I’ll turn this back over to Kathy, because she has some really helpful suggestions for tools. KATHY AUSTIN: Okay, thanks Ed. Yes, there’s some different things that you can do for your tools. The first one when you choose your tools at the home center or garden center, you want to choose tools that are very high contrast. If you’re gardening mostly in a lawn area where it is a dark green grass, you want to choose tools that are a lighter color. If you are gardening more on a patio, then you want to maybe choose tools that are a darker color. If you find a tool that feels good in your hand, and you like the way it works, well, and it is not the right color, wrap some tape around it with a contrasting color of your environment that will help you find it much more easily. The other thing you might be able to do is use a nail apron. You can purchase these at a home center store. Tie it around your waist and put your tools in it while you’re working. Another use for that nail apron is to tie it around a bucket and put your tools in the nail apron around the bucket, then the waste goes in the bucket and the tools go into the nail apron. Many a time I have been gardening and have not quite done that, and I threw the tools in the bucket and dumped the bucket into the yard waste, and then I’m digging back in that yard waste to find my tool, so this is a nice way to keep them separated. Think about your bucket as well. Make sure that its high contrast. I use a lot of white buckets that contrast nicely with the green grass and the dark soil, but if you are gardening on a patio, you want to think about a darker color that maybe will be easier to see. On your knees, digging in the dirt, you want to make sure that you’re keeping that trowel or your fork close by. Make a habit of putting it right next to you or right in front of you so that you can find it more easily. Larger tools, you want to make sure that you put them up against a wall, the house or the fence. Put them up close so that you do not trip over them and that they are a lot easier to find when you need to go back and retrieve them. Some other tools that I’m going to suggest you keep on hand, and some of these I’ll mention now what their uses are, but others I will go into a little bit more in detail when we talk about planting. Have some bamboo stakes available. You can usually purchase these at the home center or garden center, and they come 20 or 30 in a package. You want to have some twine available. You also might want to have a furring strip. A furring strip is a piece of lumber. It is 1 inch by 2 inches by usually 8 feet long. They are a couple dollars at the home center store. I will tell you a little bit of how that is used later on. But that is a cheap, easy thing to have, and it is very useful. A portable radio is one of my favorite things to garden with. They even make them now that are especially for gardeners, and they come in bright colors. I have a red one, and it is great to have that. You can play whatever kind of music you want, or listen to your favorite talk show, and you keep it close to you while you’re gardening so that if you have to leave your spot to go retrieve a tool or answer the telephone, you know exactly where you’re at when you leave that radio on. You can find your spot really easily. As another one of my favorite things to use to orientate yourself in the garden, you can use anything from rock, a small bird bath, fountains, a container of flowers. It helps you to just know where you are at in your garden. Another thing is a wagon, you know, that a toddler might use, you might be able to pick up at a garage sale. This can hold your tools, you can move it around easily, you can hold some transplants in there, and things just stay together for easy access. That is about it for my section on tools. Ed I’m going to turn it over to you, and you can talk a little bit more about your soil selections. ED HAINES: Okay, thanks. All right, you have your plants and you have your tools, and you have your containers, and the next question is, you know, what do you use as a growing medium? I think if you’re using containers, it is best to buy your own potting soil. You can mix your own, but it is time consuming. It usually requires a wheelbarrow at the minimum, as well as a lot of storage space for the ingredients you’re going to be using to make up your soil, and that can include things like sphagnum moss and perlite, sand, etc. I think it’s fine to purchase potting soil at a retail store. There are lots of types out there, including some that are organic. There are some that are treated with fertilizers, and there are some that are sterile for seed starting. Shop around. Stores have sales on these kinds of soils, especially during the spring just starting about now, and you can find some deals out there. Now, if you are gardening in the ground, it is really important to test your soil before you put plants in it. You typically need the right balance of essential minerals, and those can include nitrogen, particularly nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, and you need the right pH for your soil. There are self test kits out there, but they are not accessible. However, many county agricultural extension offices and probably, in fact, most of them, at least in the United States, they have testing services. They are very accurate and you can collect your soil and send it off and get a printout of what your soil’s characteristics are, and when you have that, you will know what you need to add, if anything, to balance your soil and get it to be its best for maximum plant health. Now, I would like to talk about just compost, really briefly, because this relates to soil. I am a huge advocate of compost, and I use it both as a mulch and a fertilizer. It is unlike a lot of fertilizers, you can put as much compost almost as you want on plants, it will not harm the plants or burn them, and if you have room to make it, your own compost. Really, I think it’s the best mulch and fertilizer you can ever give your growing plants, and if you make it correctly, it does not smell. There are some really good small compost tumblers on the market that can fit into a corner of most patios. And then additionally, you are helping the environment by recycling your kitchen scraps, etc., and your yard waste, and now I will turn it back over to you Kathy. KATHY AUSTIN: Thanks Ed. I agree whole-heartedly with Ed about using prepared potting mixes, especially when using containers. It is very difficult to, for instance, tell the difference between topsoil and peat moss. You know, they look both dark brown. They have the same consistency, so to identify those bags independently may be troublesome, so use the prepared ones that are available in the garden center. It’ll save you time and, in the long run, it will just be much easier. You might want to think about when you do go to the garden center or purchasing your potting mix, to ask a sighted person. Some of them come with water-retaining polymers and flow-release fertilizers, and you are going to want to know what’s in them for your particular plant that you’re going to be growing, so you will need some sighted assistance there. Compost, I whole-heartedly agree with Ed, use it. It eliminates having to use a lot of chemical fertilizers which eliminates the problem of having to read labels and measuring out the proper ingredients, so use compost. You really cannot use too much, and so it really makes it so much easier, and you’re getting really nontoxic harvests when you use it, especially with vegetables. That is about all I have on that. I think we’re going to move on to planting your plants and seedlings. ED HAINES: Okay, you’ve got your soil ready and your containers and your plants. Let us talk a little bit about planting. I guess I’ll talk about planting from seeds first, and planting depth when you plant seeds really depends on the size and type of a seed, and that is going to be printed on the seed packet which is not accessible, so it may require some sighted assistance to determine how deep to plant that seed. Also, some seeds benefit from pre- germination. That will be mentioned on the seed packet as well. The pre-germination means that you soak the seed, usually just overnight, in wet paper towels normally, or in water so that you soften the hard outer coating of a seed. Now, I usually plant more seeds than I need for each pot, because usually, I don’t have 100% success for one reason or another, and I can always thin some plants out later if I get lucky and they all germinate and grow. So, do not be afraid to be excessive with your seeds. Make sure your soil after you planted your seeds is kept at a consistent level of moisture, and different seeds, you should know, also require different soil temperatures to germinate, so, for instance, a tomato seed is going to want to have a nice warm soil temperature, but a sweet pea, for instance, needs cooler temperatures. Now, once the seed germinates and you get those first leaves above the soil, again it is important that the soil is kept at a consistent moisture level, not too soggy, but moist, and also they need a good consistent amount of sunlight, especially sunlight. I’ll talk about transplants briefly also. When you bring your transplant home, do not throw it in the container or the garden right away, it is tempting because we all want to do that, but it is more than likely that the transplant has been kept either in a greenhouse or inside its whole life, and it is not used to outside environment, particularly the cooler temperatures at night. So, harden off your plants, and by hardening off, I mean that you incrementally expose them to the outside climate over a period of several days, put them outside for say, you know, four hours the first day, 10 hours the next day, maybe half a day the third day, but harden them off slowly. Some people are very picky about this and then they take maybe a week to harden off their transplants, but the point is to get the plant accustomed to the outside environment. Also, when you do that, make sure that you keep them moist because often they are in these small containers with small amounts of soil. They dry out quickly. Now transplants, purchased ones, usually come in either peat pots or plastic containers. Peat pots are great because they can more or less be placed in the ground without removing the plant from the container. The roots grow right through the pot. You can dig a hole and put the plant in there. Just remember, tear off a couple of inches of the top of the pot so the lip of the peat pot does not stick up above the soil once you get the plant in the ground or the container, and that actually wicks up moisture from the root system and dries the plant out. Plastic containers obviously must be removed from the plant. You can turn the whole thing upside-down and you support the soil and the stem of the plant with one hand and then with the other hand lift the container up and off. Now, you might have to squeeze the sides of the container to loosen its attachment to the root ball. Sometimes, plants are root bound, and you just can’t get the container off. That’s a little frustrating, but usually the containers are thin enough they can be cut away with some kitchen shears, for instance. If the plant is root bound, it’s not a bad idea to gently separate the roots at the bottom with your fingers, spread them out a bit if you can without tearing them or damaging them too much before you plant them. Some transplants, many transplants actually, come in flats, usually those are flats of maybe 24 or 48 plants all in little cells, but usually annuals come in flats, annuals like marigolds or petunias, etc. You can’t turn the whole flat upside-down to get a plant out, so keep it upright, and then feel for the bottom of an individual cell, get your hand underneath there, push up against the root ball with your fingers, and usually the plant and the root ball pop right out of the cell. But try not to pull on the stem when you are doing that, you can damage the plant. But that being said, plants really can take a lot of abuse, so do not be afraid of them, do not worry, if you ruin a few, especially those grown in flats, they are not that expensive. They are not as delicate as they appear to be. Now if you are planting in containers, make sure you have some rocks or something in the bottom of the container that keeps the dirt from filling up and blocking the drainage holes. You want those containers to drain well. Fill up the container about half way with potting soil, pack it down a bit. It does not hurt to pre-moisten your potting soil too, and you place your transplant in the pot. It should rest on the top of the soil and the top of the transplant root ball, basically where the stem meets the soil, should be a few inches off the top lip of the container. You can adjust the amount of dirt in the container as needed, and then, when you have the right level, fill in the spaces between the transplant and the container with soil. Do not fill higher than where the stem meets the soil, and press down around the base of the transplant with the palms of your hands to firm it into the soil. I press down pretty hard. For all of these steps, I use my hands, I do not use any other tool. I think it causes less damage to plants, it is fast, and frankly, I think it is fun. Finally, once you get your transplant in the container or in the soil, do not forget to water it thoroughly, and then I will turn this back over to Kathy. KATHY AUSTIN: Thanks Ed, I will start a little bit about talking about seeds. There is a product that is available called seed tape, and if you are very particular about your spacing, and you want to get a perfectly aligned row, you can use seed tape. Seed tape is two sheets of very thin paper with seeds pasted in between, and they are at the correct spacing, so all you really need to do is lay that piece of seed tape down on the ground, cover it with some topsoil, pat it down, water it thoroughly, and you can have some seedlings popping up in about, you know, a week to 10 days. Bulbs come in the same kind of format. You will find them in more of a cardboard type container. They are already arranged. All you need to do is dig a hole to the depth that the container package recommends, put the container in the ground, cover it with some dirt, water, and then in the spring, you will have a nice selection of tulips, daffodils, and crocuses. From seed packets, there are a couple of ways that you can use seeds. Seeds can be very small and sometimes a little difficult for people who are having vision problems to deal with. So, I mentioned a furring strip before in the tool section of our webinar here, and what I use that furring strip for. Remember this is a 1 by 2, 8-foot piece of lumber. Make sure not to use a treated piece with wood preservative. You do not want to leach any chemicals into the ground, but you can cut this furring strip to the desired length that your row is. Lay it down on the ground and then use it as a straight edge, and use your trowel, similar to how you would use it as a ruler and a pencil. Put the furring strip down, drag your trowel against the furring strip and it will make a little trench, and here’s where you can gradually plant your seeds using a furring strip as a guide, lay your seeds in that small trench that you’ve prepared. Cover it over with some soil, pat it down. But before you pick up the furring strip, mark the end of the rows with your bamboo stakes. Put a stake at each end of the row, and then use a piece of twine to connect the two bamboo stakes. This will mark. It will give you a tactile guide to where you have planted those seeds. One other thing I will mention. For a safety precaution, you might want to pick up some ping pong balls. Cut a small slit in the bottom of it, and place that ping pong ball on top of that bamboo stake. If you are on your hands and knees gardening and pulling some weeds, thinning some seedlings, you might not see, if you have some vision issues, that stake pointing out of the ground, so if you do happen to poke your face or poke your eye, you’re going to be poking it with a ping pong ball rather than a sharp stake. The ping pong ball also acts as a visual contrast, the white against the dark green foliage of your plants and the dark earth can help you easily identify those seed rows. If you are _____ the row exactly with your seeds, if you get a few that are straggling outside of that row, it is okay, nature is not perfect, we are not either, and you can always go back and thin those seedlings later. Fancy seed row markers. I was in a gift shop the other day and saw some really cute seed row markers in the shapes of carrots and radishes. These are a little bit more expensive, but they can be used at the end of your row to mark what crops you have planted where. Those are, as I said, a little more expensive, but they can be used year after year. You can also take the seed packet that the seeds came in and attach it to your bamboo stake. You might not be able to read the writing on the packet, but you will be able to maybe identify it from the picture. If you are planting some seeds in say a perennial garden, I like to put zinnias throughout my perennial beds, but it is difficult to find those seeds after you have planted them, and they are going to need a little extra water, those seeds, to get them to come up, so I mark those areas where I’ve planted with some garden art. I’ll maybe put a small bird bath in the center and plant the seeds around the bird bath. This gives me a tactile marker so that I can concentrate my water in the area where it’s needed most. When using transplants, you want to work a small area first. Dig three or four holes at a time to determine your spacing. If you need to adjust your spacing, you can, then put your plants in after you determine the right spacing. Planting in containers, you will want to use a small cup or even the plastic cup that the plants come in to transfer the dirt, or your potting mixture from the bag into the container. This helps you get more of the soil into the pot. It has a lot less waste. And now, I think that’s all I had for this section. We will move on to plant care. Ed. ED HAINES: Okay, there are lots of techniques to promote plant health and growth, and they sort of fall under the general heading of plant care. So I will go over just a few. I will not be able to talk about them all. Let me first talk about dead-heading. It’s kind of a funny name, but really, this refers to picking off old blooms so the plant can generate new ones. You have to remember, the main purpose of most plants is to produce seeds and flowers or the reproductive organs of plants. If the flowers are pollinated, and they are allowed to mature and dry out and produce seed, the plant thinks its job is done, so you do not get any more flowers. So it is important to pick those old blooms off. It is cosmetically appealing to remove old wilted flowers. You can do this without much practice. You can feel the difference between a new flower and an old wilted one, pinch off the flower with your fingers at the base where it meets the stem and that is all you need to do. It also helps during this process, your hands are going over the entire plant, and you are sort of gauging the general health of the plant, and you will be able to feel if there are any pests or any dry leaves, etc., that might be indicative of a problem. Another technique for promoting plant health and growth is pinching, and that’s to promote new growth. You are actually pinching off the growing tip of the central stems. This keeps your plant compact and fills the height and the shape and, again, you can use your fingers to pinch off the leaf cluster around the top of the stem. Now, once the plant is due to flower, it stops this process because you might pinch off the flower buds. Also, thinning is going to be important and particularly when you plant it from seed. Plants do need lots of space and air between each plant for air circulation, room to grow. You don’t want any competition for their root systems and different plants have different spacing requirements. Again, you can use your fingers and just pinch off any unwanted plants where the stem meets the soil. A very important technique for promoting plant health and growth is using mulch. I love using mulch. For most plants, this is really an easy and terrific way to keep soil moisture and temperature at a constant level. Also, mulch as it decomposes, if it’s good mulch, it adds to the health of the soil and the organic content of the soil, and for me, most importantly, a good mulch reduces weeding, almost down to a minimum. It is really easy to mulch around transplants and even if you have large beds, I put the mulch down first, then I make a space in the mulch, I dig my hole in the soil, put in the plant, and then push the mulch back around it. For containers or beds started with seeds, I let the plants grow up to where they are maybe six inches or higher, to where they are pretty hardy, the stem is hardy, and will not be damaged if I push mulch against it, and then I mulch around them. I am not stingy with mulch, I keep it very thick and weeds are never an issue. Now, there are lots of materials that folks use for mulch. For vegetable gardening, it is very common for people to use straw or hay; but, you know, there are issues with straw or hay in that they can have seeds in them if it is not from a good source, and you are actually planting weed seeds in with your garden, you don’t want that or grass seeds. Also straw or hay tends to be fairly coarse, and I don’t find that it works really well for containers. Some people use newspaper as mulch, and newspaper is usually terrific. Many people especially people who are landscaping use pine bark or Cyprus bark for mulch. This can be acidic, and I do not find that it decomposes very well and adds much to the soil. People also use pine needles. Those are also acidic, so if you have a plant that really likes acid soil like a blueberry bush, for instance, pine needles are a great mulch. Now, grass clippings and yard waste, like also leaves are an obvious choice for mulch, but make sure that they are composted first, also the leaves probably should be shredded. Because green grass clippings or green yard waste if it is placed on your soil actually leaches nitrogen from your soil as it decomposes, however, once it has been composted, it will add nitrogen to your soil and also it is organic matter and healthy bacteria. Some people use saw dust for mulch. This can be a good mulch, but it should be composted, and also sometimes, sawdust--it is difficult to determine where it came from. If you get sawdust from pressure treated lumbar or OSB board, for instance, it could contain some very toxic chemicals that you do not want to have anything to do with. So, if you are going to use sawdust, make sure you know where it comes from and who produced it. Now, I have two personal favorites for mulch that I use almost exclusively in my containers, and the first I have talked about already, and that is compost. I also use something, a product called cocoa bean husks, and I have found, it used to be, 10 years or so ago these were not very widely available, but I found them to be available almost everywhere now, especially at seed and feed stores, etc., or good garden centers. Cocoa bean husks are very small. They decompose well into the soil. They add a lot of good organic matter. They are very, very dark in color, so they provide a contrast to the plant itself, and best of all, they smell like chocolate when you are handling them. So I think it is a terrific mulch if you can find cocoa bean husks, particularly for containers, I really recommend them. And I will turn this back over to Kathy. KATHY AUSTIN: I am going to kind of combine our last two sections here. For me for the adaptive part -. getting to know your plants, feeling them, touching them, give a once over once a week. Learn the structure of your plants so that you can determine what is the plant and what are the weeds. As Ed mentioned, dead-heading, you can tell the difference between a flower that is just a bloom and that of one that is almost spent by if it’s crunchy or if it feels wilty. So you will know just by touch when it should be removed. Feel for pests and diseases by touching your plants, if you have got leaves that have got holes in them, or maybe the slugs are getting at them. So you want to make sure that you are touching them so you know what’s going on. In regards to thinning, you want to use your fingers to determine the right spacing. If you think about your fingers, and in each joint, it is about an inch long, you can use that as a guide to cutting off the seedlings that you might not want. And with mulching too, you can determine the depth of your mulch by using your fingers, and you can tell pretty much by the feel where you have spread your mulch and where you have not. Well, one thing I will mention, because Ed is going to be talking about pests and disease, but one thing about knowing your pests and knowing what to look for, and knowing what they feel like will really help you in determining how to treat pests and diseases later on. Ed, I’ll turn it over to you, and you can go into some of the varieties of things that go on in your garden with those unwanted things. ED HAINES: Thanks Kathy. You know, this is a subject that’s never very fun. It’s usually the most frustrating part of the process, and it is really the question of what’s going on when something goes wrong. There are huge books written on this topic, and there are a myriad number of pests and diseases, and for every plant you have, there is a bunch of diseases and insects and other things out there just waiting to destroy it. It is really impossible to cover all the hazards out there, and I am looking at the clock here, we are running a little bit out of time, so I will just name some of the common pests and diseases, and then we maybe can answer some specific questions, but sometimes that is hard to do too. But let me just talk about pests. Aphids are a very common problem in most of the United States. They are small green insects that are in clusters. They can attack anywhere. You can use insecticidal soap. I find that is pretty good for aphids. One tablespoon of soap dishwashing liquid to one quart of water. You mix that up, and you spray it on there. It works pretty well. Ladybugs also eat aphids. You can actually buy ladybugs in bulk and release them in your garden. They help too. Cut worms are a problem. They cut your plants right out at the base of the stem. The best deterrent for them is to slide a collar of paper or cardboard over your plant down and a couple inches into the soil surrounding your stem so they cannot get at it. Flea beetles are a problem. You can hang sticky traps in your garden to keep those out of the way, most importantly, keep your garden area clean, and this applies to a lot of pests. The cleaner your garden area is, and you keep it clean of old leaves and debris, etc., you provide less habitat for these pests to live in. Cabbage worms are a problem. They eat lots of our vegetables out there. You can use something called BT which is actually a bacteria in powdered form that affects cabbage worms and other soft body insects like caterpillars, etc. It does not affect any insect that eats them, so it is not harmful to the environment, and it is not harmful to people. I have a real big problem with slugs and snails. I notice we have someone from Oregon. Usually folks out in the Pacific Northwest have a huge problem with slugs and snails also, and they are indiscriminant eaters. You can detect their presence particularly early in the morning, that it will be slimy trails all over your garden beds and on the leaves of plants. If you can create an environment where you have frogs and toads, that is good, because they eat slugs. There is a product called Diatomaceous Earth, and that works pretty well. It is actually, it looks like or feels like powdered sugar, but in microscopic form, it is like tiny little needles. It is a kind of mineral, and that is an irritant to soft body insects. I live in a town, and I will tell you that two of my largest garden pests are dogs and cats, so obviously, you just have to create physical barriers for them. I will move on to some common diseases too. I am racing through this, but there is almost, like I said, there is so much material, and every environment is unique. Bacterial wilt is a problem when you have gardening conditions that are warm and moist. Blossom end rot, it usually comes from a wide fluctuation of water content in the soil, and that is when you get a black or rotten spot at the opposite end of the stem. Usually this happens in tomatoes and is very, very frustrating. You get a tomato, it is green. It is looking good, and then all of a sudden it gets a rotten spot on the end of it. The best solution for that is to keep your soil mulched because that keeps the moisture content reasonably stable. There are lots of funguses out there. There is downy mildew which is a cool weather fungus. There is powdery mildew which develops more in warm, humid conditions. Both of these cause--the leaves of the plants feel white and furry and curl up and eventually fall off. There are non-infectious diseases that cause plant failure, and those can be from overwatering, also from drought. You can have not enough light, and actually that is probably the most common cause of failure to thrive. You can have too little or too many nutrients. Again, if you have good compost, that is usually all the fertilizer you need. I mentioned before, be careful when adding commercial fertilizers. They can burn plants or cause excessive leaf growth and poor fruit development. Heat stress is also a problem. Watch out when you have containers placed in full sun against a wall. That almost creates conditions like an oven. Mulch is certainly helpful for those conditions. And again, cold stress is an issue. Watch again for your frost states and know your growing season. Now here are, I think, the three best ways to make it through attacks from diseases. First is, have healthy well-balanced soil that produces vigorous hearty plants. Use compost and mulch. The point is here that plants will always be the targets of pests, but healthy plants are likely to survive the attack. Two, choose disease- resistant varieties. There are many types of vegetables out there, particularly tomatoes, everyone wants to grow the certain type of tomato. Well, choose a variety that is disease resistant so you are not fighting with your environmental conditions all the time. It just makes your life a lot easier and gardening a lot more rewarding. Again, disease-resistant varieties can be found more commonly in catalogs, but also in garden centers too. And finally, this is very important, communicate with gardeners in your own area. They will know what to look out for, and they also will know what to do about it, and they also have usually very strong opinions on what varieties thrive and what plants do not, and I think, finally we are going to talk a little bit about garden safety, and I will turn this back over to Kathy. KATHY AUSTIN: Thanks Ed. One of my biggest safety concerns is to always wear safety glasses or some sort of eye protection. Even if you think your vision is pretty good, and you are going to be okay, you never know when the dust particles or dirt is going to blow into your eye, or if you have a tree branch or a shrub that catches you off guard and scratches your cornea, those can be pretty painful. Take it from me, I was watering a tomato plant in a container one day, and I almost poked my eye out with the bamboo stake. So, it is very important to always wear eye protection. If you are using sunglasses for your eye protection, but it is not giving you enough light to see, I suggest wearing safety glasses. You can purchase them at home center stores. Even some sporting good stores will have them. They have come a long way in making the plastic very clear and not distorted, and if you are having trouble with that sun, wear a visor or a wide-brimmed hat to knock out that sun glare. Another thing that I think is important…many of us who are visually impaired are on our knees quite a bit checking in our garden and to get a better look. Well, using a kneeling pad will really help save your knees. It makes it more comfortable, and it can really help prevent injuries. Another thing that should be in a gardeners tool kit is, Ed was talking about before…your hands are your best tool, but when you are using chemicals or fertilizers, you want to wear gloves. Unfortunately, wearing gloves gives us less tactile information, so when choosing a pair of gloves, you probably will want to choose something that is very snug-fitting, something that gives you a full range of motion, and probably something a little bit more on the thinner side, so that you can get some more tactile information. If you are not wearing gloves, you might want to think about getting some cocoa butter cream or using a heavy hand lotion before you go out there and tackle any chores. This will give you a little bit of protection. And lastly, I always suggest wearing sun screen and insect repellent. You never know what you are going to run into and being that we are a little bit at a disadvantage with the poor eyesight, this will help prevent any insect bites or that sun scorch. Ed, I know you have a few other things that you might want to mention, and I will turn it over to you. ED HAINES: Thanks Kathy. Yeah, I just have a few other things, and I think that wraps it up for our presentation. Just a few safety concerns. Keep your tools sharp and clean. Dull and rusty trowels and shovels do not work as well. They usually require excessive force to use and that results in mistakes. So keep them sharp. If you’re lifting something, lift with your legs, not with your back. If you have doubts, get help or use wheelbarrows, etc. Containers filled with wet soil can be very, very heavy, so please be careful. If you are using chemical fertilizers, which I do not myself, but if you are using them, use extreme caution especially with chemical pesticides or herbicides as well. Many are caustic, all are toxic, and if you are applying them on anything you plan to eat, make sure you wash those plants thoroughly. A lot of folks use treated lumber and railroad ties to make garden beds. If you are using those, do not grow edible plants in those containers because they have toxic chemicals in the woods that can leach into the soil and then be taken up by plants. If you live in the south particularly, be careful where you put your hands in the garden. Gardens can attract spiders and snakes, and of course, in all zones, you know, be respectful of bees and wasps. They are going to be there. That is part of a healthy garden. Certain house plants and garden plants are toxic when eaten. If you have young children, the best thing is just do not plant them. Those can include caladiums, dieffenbachias, philodendrons--there are lots and lots of varieties. You might ask your garden center if this plant is toxic before you put it in your garden. Try to also avoid invasive species like English ivy or types of honey suckle, purple loosestrife. Invasive species are non-native species that tend to take over the environment some native species and just run amuck. If you have been in the south and you have seen kudzu, you will know what I am talking about. It is not a bad idea to try to, it is sometimes impossible, but try to keep your garden free of poison ivy, but be careful when you eradicate poison ivy and also, you know, wear lots of covering so you don’t get it on yourself, but also never burn it, because you can inhale the smoke and actually develop an allergic reaction in your lungs. And then, finally, if you are using a ladder to put up a trellis or prune a bush, etc., make sure that you have a partner hold it for you, and don’t overextend in order to save time. Just get down and move it to the proper position. Well, I think that is, I think all the material we can cram into an hour. I know we move fast, but we would be happy to entertain any questions you have at this time. GEORGE ABBOTT: Thank you very much Ed and Kathy. Before we take questions, I just wanted to give a few reminders: 1. This presentation will be on the archive late next week along with a resource list, so many of the suggestions that Kathy and Ed have made you will find on that resource list that will be available for download. Also, if you are interested in going through much of the same material, but at a slower pace and getting feedback from an instructor, that is Ed Hanes, the Hadley container gardening course is open to anyone who is visually impaired and over the age of 14 and qualifies for our high school or our adult continuing education program at Hadley, and, of course, those courses are free of charge. And I think now we will open it up for questions. For those of you who have a microphone, please feel free to ask your question to Kathy and Ed, and I will also be reviewing the text messages for those of you who do not have a mike or choose to post your question, and I will relay your question to them. And the floor is now open. QUESTIONER: Hello, George, this is Dave Van Loan. This is a great presentation. Ed and Kathy had a lot of good ideas, and I enjoy gardening. Kathy, your idea about the furring strip was great. We stepped it one further, and what you do is, you can put pegs in, so many inches apart and so deep so that when you push it down into the earth your holes are already there as you move it, and that works well for me, and I also have RP, so I mean that is how I get my holes in a straight line and the proper depth. I tried it with the _____. It gets a little erratic. KATHY AUSTIN: That is a great idea. Great suggestion. GEORGE ABBOTT: One question that came in off the text message here, is someone who has the old container gardening book and wonders if this is the same material. Some of it is the same, but Hadley in the last about nine months has created a brand new container gardening course. I dare say that the course is very interesting and makes gardening very fun. It is a different book, and if you have already taken the course in the past, it may be worthwhile to take this one. So, it is a new book. KATHY AUSTIN: George, I just want to add to the information about the new container gardening class. I have been gardening for, as you said, over 35 years, and having taken the class recently, I learned something new in every single lesson. So, thanks to Ed for putting together a really informative class. It was really very enjoyable. QUESTIONER: Thank you so much, I think I got a summary of your speech, and now I have a question for Kathy. Well, I think gardening is many man’s favorite. I guess in China, I think and so I wonder if many American women are interested in gardening science. KATHY AUSTIN: Yes, I do think that many women are involved with gardening. That is very interesting about the cultural differences there, but we have many fellow women that are master gardeners and that really pursue this as a very important hobby for them. They belong to many different clubs and like to learn a lot more about it. QUESTIONER: Yes, it is Lori in Ontario. Thank you so much for the course. Even though I am not a beginner gardener, I did pick up a few tips I did not think of. One I would like to pass along is, I have a lot of perennial gardens, and I always forget the names of the plants although they are on a paper in the house. Everything has been jotted down with, you know, by scale. I use tongue depressors, and they are wide and they are thicker then popsicle sticks, and I use a dymo brailler, and I Braille the name of the plant on there, so each year in the spring when it comes up, I know what is it. Also, I use that for my herbs, I use potted herbs in the summer, and I put them in the ground in the winter, and I put them in there to identify them in the spring so I can put them back into their pots. And one question I do have is, how do I eradicate poison ivy in a most natural way? ED HAINES: Kathy, I guess I will try to answer that, but you can certainly chime in. It is not easy to eradicate poison ivy. You can spray it if you want to use something like Roundup or some kind of chemical herbicide, but that is not, and I think you said, in a natural way, and that is certainly not natural. Other folks may have comments out there about this, but I found the really, the natural way that seems to work best is to actually pull it up, and that is problematic, because you really want to make sure you have good gloves and a coat on and everything else so you do not get your skin exposed to that, and it won’t compost. Certainly do not compost it. Certainly do not compost it once you pull it up. You almost have to put it in garbage bags and send it out to the landfill. Like I said, there are herbicides out there, but they mostly are pretty toxic and not natural. QUESTIONER: I did hear at one time that vinegar, if you pour vinegar down the stem of the plant…I have not tried it because I have a bush full of it back here. So, the other people in the neighborhood had people coming in and spraying, and I did not want that on my land, so I was going to try the vinegar this year. KATHY AUSTIN: You might want to check your, if you have a university extension office near you, or you can check on line. They might have some information for you on how to eradicate that naturally. Sometimes, you know, sometimes your botanic gardens or conservatories might have some information as well. GEORGE ABBOTT: Kathy and Ed, Norma writes, she is looking for any advice to deter hungry deer who are eating her hosta. KATHY AUSTIN: Well, Ed may have some ideas on this, but the more I read about deer and plants, the more it seems like it is impossible to save anything. You can buy deer-resistant types of plants. You can check with your local area garden club or conservatory to see if they have any ideas. It is going to depend on where you live as to what is going to grow well in your area. But as far as to train deer, Ed might have some other ideas, but deer- resistant varieties, doing some research probably would be the best bet. ED HAINES: Yeah, deer are a huge problem, and they are indiscriminant eaters, they will eat anything, and sometimes, they will just bite off something just to see if it is edible, and then if it is not, they will spit it out and you have already lost your plant. I can tell you some things I have heard that people use. Now, whether these are effective or not, I think they have had mixed results. Some people tie up bars of Lifeboy soap or any kind of strong- smelling deodorant soap on sticks near their flower beds. The idea is that the smell of the soap deters the deer. You can buy deer-repellent sprays at most garden centers, and again, these probably have mixed results, and of course, any time it rains, you are going to have to go out and re-spray all your plants. I even know that sometimes you can purchase bedding material, etc., from zoos, I know this sounds silly, but from zoos that have lions or tigers, etc., and you can spread this around your garden area and supposedly the deer are going to notice that there is a predator in the area and leave, but most of where we live in the United States has not had large cats as predators for maybe a century, so the deer may not even recognize the smell. I do not know. People also hang human hair around their plants or their bushes. Again, that is supposed to deter deer. Dogs are a great deterrent for deer, and also sometimes radios, but I think it is just a matter of trial and error. GEORGE ABBOTT: Mary Foreman says that she has heard that moth balls also can serve as a deterrent for deer. We do have a few more minutes if anyone else has a question they would like to ask, feel free. QUESTIONER: This is Linda from Oregon, and I just have a comment. My sister-in-law just planted some new trees in her yard. I live in central Oregon, they call it the high desert, but she is having problems with deer, and she put out Irish Spring soap. She just put it in stockings and hung it out there, and they did not like the smell of it or something, so Irish Spring soap seemed to work for her. GEORGE ABBOTT: Well, Ed and Kathy, it seems like people’s questions have been answered, or they have got some information here. Any last words before we wrap it up. KATHY AUSTIN: Well, I want to thank everyone who tuned in today, and I hope that this was informative and you learned something, and thank you for coming by and visiting with us. ED HAINES: And thank you Kathy, it was a lot of fun to do this with you, and I appreciate everyone showing up and listening in, and I hope it was informative. QUESTIONER: One question, do you have other seminars on line like this? This is the first one that I found out about. GEORGE ABBOTT: This is the first one we have done on gardening, we have about eight or nine seminars in the archive. You can find it off of Hadley’s website at www.hadley.edu, and we tend to do a seminar about once a month, sometimes we do two in a month. There are a couple up there on sports and recreation, technology, and also safety in the home Ed Haines did not long ago. Ed, do you have time for one last question I noticed here before we wrap up? Someone asks for tips on growing indoor strawberries. ED HAINES: Sure, I think growing strawberries indoors sounds like a really fun idea. They do make containers that are specifically for growing strawberries. Usually they are a large container that has many openings around the perimeter of it so you can plant individual plants in there. I will tell you, strawberries require lots and lots of sun, so if you are going to grow them indoors, make sure you have a bay window or a large window with a southern exposure so they get the sun they need. Also, strawberry flowers are going to need to be pollinated before they produce the fruit. So, you might have to blow a fan over the blooms or something to transfer the pollen or perhaps even use a very gentle paintbrush to pollinate each bloom. GEORGE ABBOTT: Great. Thank You, Ed and Kathy, one more time, and thanks to everybody who participated, and we look forward to seeing you at future Hadley webinars, these seminars at Hadley. Everyone have a wonderful day. Bye bye.