Ep. 177 Getting your garden ready for vacation | #GoodGrowing

Chris Enroth: 00:04

Welcome to the Good Growing podcast. I am Chris Enroth, horticulture educator with University of Illinois Extension coming at you from Macomb, Illinois, and we have got a great show for you today. Emily Zweihardt will be joining us, and we're gonna be talking about how do we prepare our gardens and landscapes for when we go on vacation. Oh, there's a lot of tips and tricks here today, and you know I'm not doing this by myself. I'm joined as always every single week by horticulture educator Ken Johnson in Jacksonville.

Chris Enroth: 00:32

Hey, Ken.

Ken Johnson: 00:34

Hello, Chris. This is timely. It's almost vacation time.

Chris Enroth: 00:38

I know. I'd forward at the calendar, and I can barely concentrate at work because I just I'm ready to hit the road and and get out of Jackson here. And by Jackson, I mean Macomb.

Ken Johnson: 00:52

Almost like we planned it this way. Exactly.

Chris Enroth: 00:56

Yes. Now we got a lot of tips and things to share with you, we have to introduce our special guest for today. Emily Zweihardt, horticulture educator up in the old Rock Island, Milan, Moline, the Quad Cities, so many cities up there. I've I've run out of words for them. Hello, Emily.

Emily Swihart: 01:17

Hi, Chris. Hi, Ken. Every time, Chris, I I think you're gonna get it. We're in Milan. It's where our main

Chris Enroth: 01:22

office

Emily Swihart: 01:23

is.

Chris Enroth: 01:23

Okay. Okay. Milan. Milan. Okay.

Chris Enroth: 01:26

Milan. Yes. Yes. My favorite city of the Quad Cities. So, yes, thank you for being here today.

Chris Enroth: 01:33

So we're gonna be chatting about our tips, tricks, what we do to prepare our yards and gardens for leaving town. So, Emily, we're happy to have you here on the show. Now I think a good place to start is describing where or what we're doing in the garden, the size of the garden. So, you know, what are we dealing with here? So what do you have, in your neck of the woods?

Chris Enroth: 01:59

What kind of garden landscape scale wise?

Emily Swihart: 02:02

Yeah. I think that makes a big difference in in terms of how you plan and and prepare to leave. And so, I live in the country. We have four acres of, land that is managed at different levels. And so, there are some areas that are, like, pasture areas that we don't actually do much much landscape maintenance on.

Emily Swihart: 02:22

And then we have vegetable garden of a a sizable, manner. And so that does take some planning, both before we even start in the season and then throughout the season. We have to make sure that we're, keeping in mind what we want to get out of that vegetable garden. We'll get into all of this, but, like, that takes some significant, considerations for the times that we do leave. And then we've got a perennial primarily perennial, beds that we take care of along with the lawn.

Emily Swihart: 02:51

And so kind of a mix of different things, different levels of management and and prep and consideration. And so, I'm excited to get tips from you all too because I know how we manage it, and it's not always it not has not always been the best way, I don't think. So, Ken, what do you have? What do you got going?

Ken Johnson: 03:11

So we live, in town. So we've got vegetable garden. We've got ornamental plantings. A lot of it is native stuff. We do have some annuals that we've planted, and we've got quite a few pots as well for all of the weird tropical plants that we grow.

Ken Johnson: 03:28

Although we did lose quite a few of those this winter because we had a rather significant mealy bug and scale outbreaks that took out a lot of our citrus and other things. We still do have quite a few pots, which can be challenging when you're on vacation. Chris, you?

Chris Enroth: 03:46

Well, our place is really on the edge of town, so we are technically in town, and then the county line is in our backyard. So we have woods behind us. We have a lot of older trees all around our our home. So I have a lot of shade. So our gardens are scattered.

Chris Enroth: 04:04

It's wherever I can find enough sun, and that's where I'm gonna put a couple peppers or a couple tomatoes. You know, I'll I'll be pop putting things in there, and we have a lot of containers and stuff also. So it's it's really a a a a, like, a word search when it comes to my garden of where is the where did I put my plants? So, yeah, it's it's a lot of walking. So I think maybe the next part of this is helping me out because I have so much ground to cover here.

Chris Enroth: 04:37

And I actually we we took a few trees down. We had an ash tree come down, which opened up a part of our yard. So that opened up a new garden space for me on a complete opposite side of my home. And so we have a lot of stuff going in the ground this year that we haven't had. So I guess, Emily, let's start off with, like, this first you know, what should we be thinking about really first off maybe when we're planning our vacations in the very beginning?

Emily Swihart: 05:05

Yeah. For me, I love travel, so I'm I'm always thinking about where I can go. And then also the life stage that I'm in, I'm always actually gone. Our weekends are gone too. And so that has come to be a heavier influence on my gardening choices than in the years past.

Emily Swihart: 05:24

So even in the spring, I am thinking about when we're leaving, what time of year it's gonna be, right alongside of what my gardening goals are. So for example, like, one year, we took a spring break trip, and that is right when I was gonna be starting all my seeds or when I should have been starting my, you know, indoor seeds. And so that pushed things back, in terms of what I was able to start indoors. So I just had committed to buying some of those things, you know, from local nurseries, kinda just saying, this is what it is this year. We don't do that every year.

Emily Swihart: 05:55

We don't take a spring break trip every year. And so that was just a modification that I made during that year. We do almost always go in August, and so that is the hot dry season in the Midwest for the most part. So that it's also actually when things are coming ripe for the most part. Like, a lot of our warm season crops are starting to to ripen, and so that has made a difference in terms of when I plant.

Emily Swihart: 06:23

I'm a very excitable gardener. I think most of us are. We wanna get out there as soon as we possibly can. But, like, one thing I've learned is that, like, with sweet corn, we like to grow a lot of sweet corn. And we had, just the heartbreak of the summer one year when we left for ten days in August, and that was when our sweet corn came ripe.

Emily Swihart: 06:43

And so we know the maturity, dates for the varieties that we're planting. So we've learned a little bit of a lesson in terms of how to to time it, to plant it later so it actually ripens when we get back. And so that's one of the things I I always start with is just like, when am I going, and for how long are we going? What about you guys? What what is the time frame you're looking at in prepping your your gardens?

Ken Johnson: 07:09

So we do vacation different times of the year, so I don't do anything special. And, you know, sometimes we get back and we've lost, like, tomatoes and stuff, we've lost a week or so, week and a half's worth. And then, you know, they've got these fruits sitting there, they're all full of disease and oozing and smelling terrible. And then you've got all these fruit on it that didn't get picked, so that slows down the flowering and and stuff. So it takes a while for those plants to recover.

Ken Johnson: 07:38

We don't we should, but we don't do anything special.

Chris Enroth: 07:43

Yeah. We don't necessarily do any forward planning. I think it's more of my wife says, hey. We're gonna go on vacation this week, and then my brain will start turning like, okay. So I know this and this and this is all gonna be happening outside probably.

Chris Enroth: 08:00

Like, it's gonna be dry, and then, you know, I start I start making a a mental list of things to prepare for. And I think we'll talk about some of those things coming up that like, things that we can do maybe to limp our plants through a little bit of neglect for often the hottest, harshest time of year for them. Yes. That's an unfortunate one.

Emily Swihart: 08:27

Well, Chris, you mentioned water, and I said that we leave during the hot dry season. So can we talk about watering? Like, how do we that's one of the most critical elements. There's other ways to prepare for it, but you mentioned water, and I I said about it being hot and dry. So let's start there.

Emily Swihart: 08:43

How do we make sure our plants if we're going for an extended period of time or it's just really hot and dry, get through? So let's talk about in the ground plants first.

Ken Johnson: 08:53

Mhmm.

Emily Swihart: 08:53

Garden plants. What are we what are we doing?

Chris Enroth: 08:57

I every year, at least so for work, what I do for work, this is not at home, is several of our Master Gardener projects have drip irrigation. I enjoy installing drip irrigation systems. They're all set to timers. They even have little Bluetooth connections I can control with my phone if I need to. Now they and and I know for a fact that I can order a kit.

Chris Enroth: 09:21

It's not horribly expensive to order drip irrigation supplies anymore. They used to be. They're not terrible anymore. Often, the kit comes with everything that you need. Do I do this at home?

Chris Enroth: 09:32

No. I don't. And I'm I'm guessing probably majority of other people don't do that as well. But you can automate your irrigation for your landscape. You can even buy a specific weather system controller that monitors the weather, that gets, like, feedback from transpiration rates and soil moisture, and it can be a smart controller, and it can turn on when the plants need water.

Chris Enroth: 09:58

That is more of a common practice, especially out west where water, that's a a huge deal in how much they use and how much they they try to save. Not as much of an issue here in Illinois, though some summers it can be. So we can go all in on a smart irrigation system, and it can run and take care of the whole thing for us. I'd say for most of us, though, it is making sure that before we go on vacation, we are watering adequately, giving those plants a good drink of water, getting them as healthy as they can before we leave. I think that's that's the easiest step for most of us to take.

Chris Enroth: 10:39

Then, of course, there's there's a few other things that we can do in terms of assisting in that watering when we're gone.

Emily Swihart: 10:46

Yeah. I, I'll always do a really deep soak. You had mentioned out west. Our soil profile also is different than out west. Like, have deeper soils in many places.

Emily Swihart: 10:58

You know, it varies for sure. We've got a pretty nice, like, rich, lone soil where I am. And so I can count on at least mature plants having a developed root system that can access, you know, some of that that available water, throughout the soil, not just, you know, in in the close proximity to those, like, seedlings. Seedlings are a different story. But yeah.

Emily Swihart: 11:22

Containers. Ken, you said you have containers. Well, I do have a few containers I failed to mention. What do you do? How do you prepare those?

Ken Johnson: 11:32

So so we do we've done the last several years. So one year, there was a a good sale, plant sale, like 75% off. And then we went on vacation the next week. So we had all these pots that we didn't get in the ground. So what we do is we add some kiddie pools, put them in there, put some water in there.

Ken Johnson: 11:48

Now that water gets too deep or it's they're standing in there for a week or so, you will start to get some anaerobic Mhmm. Soil conditions, so it gets really smelly, really bad.

Chris Enroth: 11:58

If it rains nonstop while you're gone. Mhmm.

Ken Johnson: 12:01

Mhmm. Yep. And and she'll get some roots starting to die at the bottom, but we were able to limp those plants along, you know, talking about let them dry out after the fact, and we were able to transplant. Well, I think majority of them, survived. So that's one way, especially if you're if there's no rain in the forecast, putting them in a kiddie pool and put a little bit of water in there.

Ken Johnson: 12:23

I've seen some things where people will put rocks or something to keep those pots up above the water level, up above that water line. And that way you have that water evaporating, kind of increase the humidity. But a lot of times, at least down here, I have to really worry about the humidity levels. But that that would be an option to work. You could run fill that up and run a wick, a cotton wick or something into that into the pots and let that water move up that wick into the pots.

Ken Johnson: 12:53

And there's self watering pots that can last varying lengths. Could be a couple days, several it could buy you several days a time if you have some of those self watering pots, which is a lot of those still that wicking system. You have that reservoir and then some kind of wick that's gonna pull that water up from that reservoir into the soil.

Chris Enroth: 13:10

You know, something that I do with both my containers and the in ground stuff too is well, in ground, I mulch heavily when I leave. That helps insulate the soil, keeps water in the soil for the most part. I also will mulch my containers. I will take some handfuls of mulch, and I put it over top of them. I grow in I grow in all types, plastic, fabric, porcelain, clay, all of them.

Chris Enroth: 13:36

And the fabric and the clay, I might even mound or pile mulch up against the container because they're very porous and they dry out very quickly. So anything you can do to insulate either the soil or those containers can also help to hold a little bit of moisture in there. But, again, as Ken said, you can get anaerobic roots. This is not a long term solution. You know?

Chris Enroth: 13:56

You gotta you gotta let the roots breathe oxygen as well, so they need air. And if they have too much water, they drown. They can't breathe. So it's be mindful of that. So yeah.

Chris Enroth: 14:05

Emily, do you have a do you have a watering strategy? Because I know you have a large garden. So what what's your strategy? What's your watering strategy?

Emily Swihart: 14:14

Yeah. So I like I said, we do a deep water right before. I actually take a day off of, you know, like PTO or before we go on vacation to prep my garden. And then I take one at the end of vacation to help it recover in case there's been some, you know, some weeds or some, you know, watering needs that need to be caught up on. So I do a deep soak into all of the, the vegetable garden.

Emily Swihart: 14:38

We mulch some of it. It's just it's too big, honestly, to mulch the entire thing, and so we just kind of accept that. We try to have as much plant material growing so that the soil is shaded. Try to, you know, like I said, plan things that can tolerate being more dry and more wet, you know, during that time period that we're gonna be gone. I also have someone actually come water.

Emily Swihart: 15:01

So we have some I have a lovely neighbor who we kinda, like, swap services. Like, I'm gonna go water her plants here actually next week, and then she will be invited to to do the same at our place. And then I also have someone stay at the house because we have dogs. And so we have someone keeping an eye on things. They are not gardeners per se, so I don't wanna put, like, a full expectation of of maintenance on them.

Emily Swihart: 15:24

But I will ask for, you know, just a daily watering or checking of of the containers. If I didn't have that scenario, I probably would well, I would bunch them. I've never actually moved the the containers that I have. They're quite large, and so that is not overly appealing to me because of the size of them. But if I must, we'd be able to move them on a cart or something to a shadier location.

Emily Swihart: 15:49

I've got a nice, kinda shady area that I could put them in, you know, do a water. I've done the mulch on the the containers. I do that every year. I also like how it looks. Mhmm.

Chris Enroth: 16:00

You

Emily Swihart: 16:01

know, it it gives it a nice finished look, and so it's also it's functional and aesthetically pleasing. So, yeah, I I think I mean, so far, we've been okay. I do always check the weather forecast too. We've mentioned rain here and there, but, keep an eye on the forecast. If we have rain, I don't worry as much as if it was, like, last summer where it was so dry.

Emily Swihart: 16:22

And I I thought, well, I mean, we'll just kinda see what happens, do our best. But, you know, probably not it's not the best strategy, but it is the reality of the of the of leaving your your landscape. So

Ken Johnson: 16:38

Sometimes you just have to resign yourself to the fact that if it's gonna be really hot and dry, you're gonna lose plants. And and and for me, you know, on the vegetable garden, that's yeah. It kinda sucks, but it's not as big of a deal as losing perennial stuff.

Chris Enroth: 16:51

So Yeah.

Emily Swihart: 16:52

One strategy I will also do is to just take off all the blooms so there's not as much stress on the plants to produce fruit. Anything that's, like, in anything that is close to maturity or mature, of course, we would harvest and try to utilize. But anything that's, like, developing fruit, so say on, like, tomatoes, like, I can just delay the harvest, for a while until I have more free time. So it kinda works out just with our life our life schedule right now. I'll I'll try to reduce some of that stress as much as I can.

Emily Swihart: 17:21

Like, pick all the beans. You know, they turn around really quick, and so, kinda sacrifice that harvest that would have come either while we were on vacation or soon after to minimize the stress.

Chris Enroth: 17:33

When when you you you seem sounds like with your neighbor, you have established, you know, this has been going on maybe for a few few vacations. Mhmm. But what about that first time they came over? How did you introduce them to your garden? Do you train them?

Chris Enroth: 17:47

Do you leave a list? How do you how do you pick the person to take care of your garden as when you leave?

Emily Swihart: 17:54

Well, I have a rigorous interview process. I mean, my plants are

Chris Enroth: 17:57

I knew it. Mhmm. And references. Yes.

Emily Swihart: 17:59

Yes. We check references. We have to to go through a screening. No. She is an avid gardener her herself.

Emily Swihart: 18:07

And so we've you know, just through our interactions, we've talked about our our knowledge and our our passion for plants. So I felt pretty comfortable with her base level knowledge of what needed to be done or what needs to be done. But we do a walk through also. Things change in our each of our gardens each year. You know, obviously, like, the hose situation doesn't change.

Emily Swihart: 18:27

We know where all the spigots are. That's the first thing we would do on our you know, for the first time, she showed me where all the the spigots were, and so I wasn't dragging hose all over the place. Because when I have someone when she and I take care of each other's plants, we don't actually group them together. That is a nice courtesy still to to pay somebody is to kinda put them all together so that they just have to water one area. They don't have to worry about missing one and, you know, killing off a prized plant.

Emily Swihart: 18:55

So you could still do that even if you're having someone water your plants. She and I, we just do a walk through, you know, grab some lemonade and go walk around the landscape. We look at all the all the everything. You know, it's a garden walk. We we enjoy each other's company, but then also kinda make that that mental list.

Emily Swihart: 19:12

If, if somebody like, when my, relatives stay at our house who are not gardeners, I will just make a kind of a short list of things that I would like them to check on, and leave it written down because I don't expect people to remember what I tell them, you know, for days on end. And so just a quick like a kind of a short little list about where things are, what I would like them to look for. And then also, we live in the time of cell phones. And so I always invite them to get ahold of me. Like, we can FaceTime.

Emily Swihart: 19:40

We can, you know, call me, text me. Very rarely am I, like, so off the grid, that that that I'm unreachable. So I I guess I also would say I have the the benefit of having family nearby too, like a lot of family, and so they can all kind of, they invite themselves over to our house to use our pool, and so, like, they're present. So I've kinda tasked everybody. We're just keeping an eye on things, and they're they're happy to do that too because we all share share the produce and the the responsibility.

Emily Swihart: 20:09

So that's how I do it. I'm lucky. I acknowledge. I'm super lucky to have people in my life that can do that. And so do you guys have any do you employ, like, neighborhood kids or, you know, relatives or anybody to to check on things while you're gone?

Ken Johnson: 20:26

So we've got a a neighbor, that checks on stuff. We primarily have people who just do pots because our vegetable garden, it's, you know, it's setting up sprinklers and moving them around. So we just tell them usually not to worry about that. And if things make it great, if not, there's always next year. But it's more for us, it's more of the pots.

Ken Johnson: 20:45

And those are all we had a tree cut down several years ago, so we've got five or six pots on the stump, and the rest is on our deck. So they're all pretty well pretty close to one another, so it's not too terrible. Our issue is that our our water spigot leaks, so there's a water shut off inside, so you have to go inside to turn the water on and then stuff. So it complicates things a little bit. You can't just go out and and turn the spigot on.

Ken Johnson: 21:10

But so far, things have survived.

Chris Enroth: 21:12

Yep. Give me a call, Ken. I've replaced all the water spigots on my new house. So and I've learned many lessons, hard lessons sometimes. Yeah.

Chris Enroth: 21:20

So it's a good idea. We we are we kinda like you, Emily, we swap watering chores with our neighbor, and, you know, they go out of town. We water their garden and vice versa. So I'll say another great incentive too is is making sure that you let them know you're allowed to enjoy the enjoy my garden. Harvest.

Chris Enroth: 21:45

You know, we're not here. We're not we can't enjoy this. You harvest it. You eat this tomato. You eat these peppers.

Chris Enroth: 21:51

You see a zucchini ready? You better harvest it before it turns into a baseball bat. So, you you know, let people know to enjoy your garden, and that makes it a little bit more incentive for them to wanna come over, especially on a 90 some degree day, and they're out there watering the garden. So it's a good good thing for people to share the produce.

Emily Swihart: 22:13

Yep. We do the same. We absolutely do the same. I also give people permission to, like, let things like, I'm not going to blame you if something happens. Right?

Emily Swihart: 22:25

Like, please I I choose people to be responsible, who are gonna be responsible, who you know, I'm trying to to put trust in, but also things happen. So, you know, if one of the containers gets missed and I lose the coleus, okay. It's fine. Right? It's not gonna hurt our relationship.

Emily Swihart: 22:44

No. Like, try to take some pressure off because some people do get very anxious about caring for someone else's plants. And so I I guess I just try to be like, I appreciate what you're doing for me here. Let's we'll maintain our friendship.

Ken Johnson: 23:01

There's always been good

Emily Swihart: 23:05

Ken, I was gonna ask you. Sorry, Chris. Go ahead.

Chris Enroth: 23:09

I was sorry. I was just gonna say if you need to to train people on the the one thing I've noticed, especially when dealing with public on stuff, is that not every well, you don't you're not born knowing how to water a plant. So, I think good growing, we have a blog article that details, like, here's how you water plants. Like, you think it's very basic stuff, but there's some things that you need to know. So we'll link to that below in the show notes.

Chris Enroth: 23:32

How to water plants.

Emily Swihart: 23:35

That's great. That's great. So I was actually going to, move us towards something Ken is an expert on, which are insects, pests, and diseases. I will admit, I actually have never done any prep work. I just pray for the pest.

Emily Swihart: 23:53

Hasn't always worked out for me. So, Ken, what can I do before leaving in terms of trying to manage potential, pest problems that might develop while I'm gone?

Ken Johnson: 24:05

Well, ideally, you're already going out and scouting your garden at least once a week. So you know what issues there are, but, you know, if you're, yeah, you're going out of town probably a couple days before you leave, make sure you go out and do a really thorough scouting of your plants to see if there are any issues that may be may be ongoing or maybe you're starting to see levels of of certain pests increase, and that may be an indication that maybe you wanna do something because you're gonna be gone for a week or two weeks. You know? If you're gonna be home, maybe you'd let it let it sit and wait and see what happens. But, you know, if you're you're concerned you get these higher levels, maybe it's time to go spray.

Ken Johnson: 24:44

If you do that a couple days beforehand, and you can see if that whatever you sprayed, if that worked and knocked those populations down. If you got a lot of diseases, you know, things like tomatoes, all those foliar diseases, if you're starting to see those pop up on the lower leaves, maybe start pulling those off. Or and if it's or if it's getting bad, you know, apply a fungicide to those plants to maybe slow it down a little bit. So while you're gone, it's not getting out of control. But the way diseases and and insects are, if we've got good conditions, if you're gone for a week, two weeks You can do all the prep in the world, but if the conditions are right, he may get he may be little disappointed when he get back, potentially.

Ken Johnson: 25:25

Well,

Emily Swihart: 25:27

that's encouraging a little bit, because I do I we do our very best to stay on top of new pest and disease issues. But, yeah, there have been vacations we've returned and been like, what? I guess we just do a fall garden now.

Chris Enroth: 25:40

Mhmm.

Ken Johnson: 25:41

Opportunity to take pictures.

Emily Swihart: 25:43

Yeah. There you go.

Chris Enroth: 25:46

Well, that's the the benefit of having a gardener take care of your garden too that can recognize some of that stuff. Again, Emily, you said, hey. We could FaceTime, show me what the issue is, and maybe and help out. I guess that's that's one thing. I would I I'm happy to ask people to water for me, pick produce, keep an eye on things.

Chris Enroth: 26:05

I don't know. I'd be a little nervous asking them to, like, hey. Can you spray pesticide to control this? That that'd probably be the one thing I'd say, you know what? I'd probably would I'll I'll have to take care of that myself.

Ken Johnson: 26:18

Yeah. If it was, like, aphids or something like that, you can just spray them off. But

Chris Enroth: 26:22

With water. Yeah. Mhmm.

Ken Johnson: 26:24

Yeah. It's probably leave the pesticides to yourself. Mhmm. And then weeds, the weeds is another one. Before we leave, we do a really thorough job, usually the weekend before, a couple days before, of getting as many weeds picked as we can.

Ken Johnson: 26:40

So that way, you know, they don't have that you know, if we're gone for two weeks, you know, we're gonna have two weeks of growth on stuff. There's stuff that's still gonna come up, but that stuff that's already up isn't getting really big and out of control. And we do mulch heavily as well to help manage those weeds. But, inevitably, you're gonna miss a spot or some weeds are gonna pop up somewhere more than likely. But if you can get most of them out, won't have as big of a task when you get back, potentially.

Chris Enroth: 27:08

Mhmm. So maybe we should also say that we're talking about vacations. We are not talking about snowbirds leaving for half of the year to go to a different live somewhere else for a couple months. Like, if you have to ask someone to, like, start pruning your shrubs and, you know, mowing the lawn and and all that, you might wanna hire someone to come in and and do this for you instead of, hey. Would you take care of my yard for half a year?

Chris Enroth: 27:38

That's that that is a big ask. So, yeah, you might might I I think the scope of time we're talking here is, like, two weeks tops. What do you guys think? Like, that yeah.

Emily Swihart: 27:49

Yeah. That's as long as we've gone, away. And that was one of the years we came back, and we were like, oh, dear. Here we go. Because I didn't know.

Emily Swihart: 27:58

It was June, beginning of July. Lesson learned, but that's okay.

Ken Johnson: 28:04

Yeah. Yeah. I'd say two weeks. If you start getting longer than that, then I mean, obviously, if you're having people come and watch, you're probably gonna be asking more of them than just the occasional warning if you don't want things to get out of control.

Chris Enroth: 28:17

Mhmm. Yeah. If you're going overseas for a month oh, go ahead. No. Nope.

Chris Enroth: 28:24

I it was just repeating what everyone said, I guess. Yeah. Go ahead.

Emily Swihart: 28:27

Well, I was gonna okay. I was gonna ask about lawns. You had mentioned, you know, mowing. You're our resident expert on turf grass. We mow right before we go.

Emily Swihart: 28:40

That is my husband's task. He he loves it. He gets a he he knows it's ready to we're ready to leave when he's finished mowing. Is there anything else we should be doing, though, to to prepare the lawn? We don't change the mow height.

Emily Swihart: 28:55

I have heard different takes on that, but I we don't we choose not to change the the mower height. So what do you say?

Chris Enroth: 29:05

You you're doing everything just right. Leave your mow height the same. For our cool season lawns, we want to be or we recommend mowing them at a height anywhere from two to three inches. Now on this show, you've probably heard me say three to four inches because that's where where I prefer to mow. Most university literature says two to three inches, but, three to four inches, for my money.

Chris Enroth: 29:28

So within that range, whatever that height is for you, set it there and mow that. A lot of people will say, ah, we'll bump it down to, like, an inch. In that way, it will take longer for it to reach the time where it needs to be mowed off. Not necessarily true because our grasses have a mature height that they're trying to reach, and so if you mow it down at one inch, not only could that be stressful for the grass plant, it now has to recover all of that energy that has has been lost and energy that it now needs to regrow to that mature height that it wants to be at. And so it's gonna grow faster, and it's gonna use up more energy and potentially stress out your lawn, in in in doing so.

Chris Enroth: 30:08

So set it at the height you want it at and mow it, keep it at the height all summer long. And it might be a little bit taller when you get back. It all depends on the growing season. You know, if you're gonna be going on vacation, as Emily said, in, like, the springtime, guess what? You might have to ask someone to mow your lawn because it might turn into, like, a 10 inch jungle.

Chris Enroth: 30:30

But if you're in the middle of the summer, cool season lawn at least is gonna be slowed down. It's not gonna be growing as vigorously. You're probably gonna be okay.

Emily Swihart: 30:39

Well, that's great news. My husband will be so thrilled because he doesn't have more added to his to do list.

Ken Johnson: 30:43

Yep. Yep.

Emily Swihart: 30:44

But he's doing all he needs to do. Yeah. One thing you had mentioned with along the same lines of of lawn care and I've not done this, but in preparing for the episode, I was doing a little reading. And the idea of doing, like, taking your equipment in for maintenance while you're gone, I thought was such a good idea. Get it repaired or get things, you know, fixed just while you're not needing them, while you're away.

Emily Swihart: 31:14

So when you come back, it's ready to go. Have you guys ever thought of that or done that? Probably. But

Ken Johnson: 31:19

Haven't done it. I haven't thought of it. Probably should. I

Chris Enroth: 31:24

recommend it all the time. Of course you do, Chris. Yep. We we always the mantra, mow high, mow often, keep your blade sharp. And they always say, how often should I sharpen my blades?

Chris Enroth: 31:35

And the the recommendation is that, you know, most people are only gonna do it once a year. That's fine. Just do it once a year. But when you're on vacation, like in the middle of the summer, when the when the lawn's not growing as quickly, when you're not mowing as often, that is another great time mid season to sharpen your blades because then fall comes along, grass starts growing again really quickly, you have a sharp set of blades. If you're gonna be mulching up leaves or anything like that, also, you know, just helps out.

Chris Enroth: 32:02

So beginning of the growing season and then middle of the growing season, hey. If you're on vacation then, it's great. Sharpen those blades. Get get your equipment worked on and get some maintenance done on it.

Emily Swihart: 32:12

Very good. Very good. I think I may try that this year, actually.

Ken Johnson: 32:16

Should it's been a few years since we've sharpened our mower blades.

Chris Enroth: 32:20

I think we need to have a good growing episode where we go to Ken's house and work on his mower.

Ken Johnson: 32:26

Fix fix everything that I'm doing wrong.

Chris Enroth: 32:30

I just took the deck off of my mower and flipped it over, cleaned it all off, found a bunch of rust under there. It's only a three year old mower. I've and so I cleaned it all off, sanded it down, repainted the bottom, sharpened my blades. Ken, come down, do the same for you. I still got all this painting equipment and stuff.

Ken Johnson: 32:51

Sounds like you're spending a week in Jacksonville.

Emily Swihart: 32:56

Don't forget the recording equipment.

Chris Enroth: 32:59

That's right. Yes. We need to have this documented. Well, we talked about stuff happening outside. What about houseplants, things happening indoors?

Chris Enroth: 33:10

Is there any I I don't know. I can do you have, like, a jungle in your house in the wintertime at least? I know a lot of it moves outside. Do you do anything special for house plants? Like like, when they're indoors, like, do you have people come in and and water them, or are they on their own?

Chris Enroth: 33:27

Like, what's what's your what's your houseplant strategy?

Ken Johnson: 33:30

No comment.

Chris Enroth: 33:32

Okay. No comment. I see where this is going. I I mean, we talked about mealybugs and scale here earlier, and you had an outbreak of those. So no comment.

Chris Enroth: 33:41

Emily, question redirected to you. Houseplants. What do do when you're on vacation?

Emily Swihart: 33:49

Not much, to be honest. And, also, I am I should just come clean and say I am not a huge houseplant caregiver. It's a survival of the fittest in my house for houseplants. But I do make sure that they're all watered. I don't move them.

Emily Swihart: 34:03

So that's some of the recommendations is to, like, bunch them all together. You could put them in a tub. You could put some supplemental lighting on them if it's, like, a dark area and you're gonna be gone for a while so that they they still have some access to light. I don't do any of that mostly because I'm just trying to get everything else done and some, to dos or should dos just become never mind. I'm not gonna pay attention to that.

Emily Swihart: 34:27

So, I do make sure that they're all watered. I don't do any, like, drastic, like, repotting or pruning or anything on them or before we go just so that the people that are carrying it, you know, staying at our house don't have to keep an eye on them. But, it's pretty low maintenance. Some once in a while, I'll put them in a sink. So it's not, you know, far from your strategy, Ken, of putting them in a kiddie pool outside.

Emily Swihart: 34:52

Sometimes I'll put them in the in the kitchen sink, just lower them off the windowsill and put them in there with some some supplemental water. But, it's pretty it's pretty minimal. I don't ask people that stay at our house to water them. Mhmm. They're they're scattered throughout.

Emily Swihart: 35:09

I make sure they get enough water. Before we leave. They get a good soak. And, again, you know, pray pray for the best. I do I will say, like, I I accept some that sometimes, like, leaves will will drop from them while we're gone.

Emily Swihart: 35:23

And I just accept that, and they usually recover just fine in the after after weeks.

Ken Johnson: 35:28

Yeah. We so I do have a comment. So for ours, we basically treat them like our outside containers, water them well. And I I've seen things, you know, you can move them. You know, if you've got them in a really bright window, maybe move them back a little bit so they're not drying out as quickly.

Ken Johnson: 35:47

If you're only gone for a week, they'll be fine with less light. You won't have any really suffer any consequences for that. So move them away a little bit. Again, clustering them. I've I've seen stuff about putting them clustering them in, a bathtub, filling that with water, again, elevating those above that water line.

Ken Johnson: 36:06

But, again, that as that water evaporates, that's gonna reduce, It can help with that transpiration and stuff, slow that down so they're not using as much water. But I think a lot of times your your pots inside can go a week week and a half. It obviously depend on the plant and the size of the pot, but you can typically not water any more often than a week for potted plants. So there's I think they're a little more forgiving assuming you don't, you know, turn off your air conditioning or or whatever in your house isn't baking while you're gone.

Chris Enroth: 36:36

Yeah. I mean, my my house plants barely survive when I'm home. So when I leave, they they're probably like, thank goodness he's gone. He watered us before he left finally after a month of nothing. So, yeah, my my houseplants say it's survival of the fittest just like everyone else here.

Chris Enroth: 36:55

If you can't you can't pack it for a month without water, can't live in my house. Got a lot of pothos, aloe, mother in law's tongue, and one philodendron that they have stood the test of time for years and Oh. Test of time and neglect.

Emily Swihart: 37:14

We could also mention, though. We've talked a lot about, like, adding water to plants before we go. There is the potential to overwater plants too. And so, like, can you kinda hint at it a little bit with your anaerobic soil condition, you know, in containers? Like, that is a possibility too.

Emily Swihart: 37:33

I think, generally speaking, most plants would do better with less water than more water. And so kind of keep that in mind.

Chris Enroth: 37:44

Good. Very good point. Yes. You especially if you don't if you have the nongardener coming to look after things, they will see a wilted plant and think, oh, that thing needs water. Now a lot of folks we've learned, feel the soil, feel the container, whatever wherever it's growing.

Chris Enroth: 38:03

And if it's sopping wet, that means we have too much water because a plant's response to too much or too little water is often wilting. It's the same response. So check the soil before you start dousing it with water.

Emily Swihart: 38:15

Yep. And some plants do exhibit condition, like, leaf conditions. There's wilting just in the heat of the day. It's a water conservation strategy. But, like, tomatoes will do, a leaf curl.

Emily Swihart: 38:26

That's a just a natural thing that tomatoes will do. And so, like, yeah, the untrained or the unfamiliar gardener might say, like, oh, they're you know, it's drying up. Let's add more water. Something to keep in mind.

Ken Johnson: 38:40

Mhmm.

Chris Enroth: 38:42

Well, was a lot of great information about how to prepare our gardens and landscapes for vacation so that we can leave, take a break from them, and come back and be energized and and get right back to it, the the the grind of the gardening, so to speak. So, well, the Good Grind Podcast is a production of University of Illinois Extension, edited this week by Ken Johnson. A special thank you. Emily, thank you for being here today and sharing your tips and tricks for pairing our landscapes for our vacation. So thank you very much.

Emily Swihart: 39:15

Oh, it's my pleasure and I can't wait to see all the slideshows of family vacation pictures, guys.

Chris Enroth: 39:20

Mhmm. I'll get the projector fired up. We'll be ready. And, Ken, thank you very much for, as always, joining me on the Good Growing podcast, a podcast about horticulture, not a Ryan Gosling fan cast as I just just realized that. So, I mean, if you wanna talk about Ryan Gosling, you sure can, but we don't need to.

Chris Enroth: 39:44

Cut that out.

Ken Johnson: 39:45

I know who that is, but that's about the extent of my ability to talk about him.

Chris Enroth: 39:53

He's on the Tok Tick, I think.

Emily Swihart: 39:54

He's Ken. Ken. Ken.

Chris Enroth: 39:59

Haven't seen the movie.

Ken Johnson: 40:04

But yes. Thank you, Emily and Chris. Let's do this again next week.

Chris Enroth: 40:08

Oh, shall do this again next week. It is a question and answer session. Do you have questions about your summer gardens and landscapes? Pests, disease, whatever you got, send them in to us. Happy to answer them live on the show.

Chris Enroth: 40:21

And so that feel free. We have our emails listed down below in the show notes. Well, listeners, thank

Ken Johnson: 40:27

you for doing what you

Chris Enroth: 40:27

do best and that is listening. Or if you're watching us on YouTube watching, and as always, keep on growing.

Emily Swihart: 40:44

Not great.

Chris Enroth: 40:45

That sounds good. Let's do that. Alright. I will I will we will Ken, cut you better cut that out. Go.

Chris Enroth: 40:52

I'll leave other things yeah. Okay. Here we go. Alright.