Welcome to the Good Growing podcast. I am Chris Enroth, horticulture educator with University of Illinois Extension coming at you from Mac Comb, Illinois, and we have got a great show for you today. Well, my inbox, phone, all of it's filling up, ringing off the hook. It has been a busy couple weeks here as we kick off the month of May in 2025. So we're gonna talk about spring gardening questions that are coming into my office, Ken's office.
Chris: 00:33And, of course, you know I'm not doing this by myself because I have already mentioned his name, so he is here waiting for me to introduce him. How long can I prolong this? Well, we'll see. No no more no more not much longer. So here we go.
Chris: 00:47Ken Johnson, horticulture educator with U of I Extension in Jacksonville, happily just waiting for me to stop talking so he can say hello. Hey, Ken.
Ken: 00:58Hello, Chris. That was a that was that was a good intro.
Chris: 01:02We'll cut most of that out. Just reuse an intro from a previous episode.
Ken: 01:10Make sure we're wearing the same clothes.
Chris: 01:12Yes. We'll have to do that. Well, Ken, this week, we are talking spring gardening questions, things that are occurring outside in people's yards. They call us wanting to know what the problem is and are there any solutions to these problems. So we're gonna kick this off.
Chris: 01:31My first question to you is about something that I've been doing, I'm doing right now. I call it the plant shuffle. But it is, this question is, I keep hearing about hardening off plants. What is it and why are we making our plants harder?
Ken: 01:52Yes. So hardening off is if you're starting your plants, indoors, we're taking them outside and introducing them to outdoor conditions. Because inside, no matter how good your your lights are for your plants, it's not gonna be as intense as the sun. Typically, we've got a lot more air movement outdoors even if you got a fan on there. It's kinda hard to simulate the the wind and the breeze we're gonna have outdoors.
Ken: 02:16And just those outdoor conditions, you can't really simulate that inside. So we're bringing these seedlings outdoors and slowly reintroducing them to those typically full sun conditions, you know, we're talking like a vegetable garden, something like that. What I do is my front porch is on the north side of my house, but there's a little bit on the east side, they get some early morning sun. So I start off, put them out there, so they get that early morning sun and then they're in the shade for the rest of the day. They'll be out there a couple days, sometimes a week, depending on how busy my schedule gets and when I can get around to it.
Ken: 02:50But then I will slowly take them out to our back deck, which is south facing, and slowly move them out because we've got a little covering to our back door. So we get a few hours of that really full sun, midday sun, slowly move them out until I've got them out full sun all day and night. Get them hard enough so that when they're, those those leaves will be a little bit thicker, so not getting burned and stuff as you slowly introduce. So if you just take them straight from outside or straight from inside, plant them in the ground, there's a good chance your plants are going to get burned up because you're just not used to that sun intensity. Slowly doing that over time.
Ken: 03:28Now if you're buying transplants from a garden center or a box store, more than likely those are already hardened off and that's not something, you you're going to need to worry about, but it may be worth asking. But I've never had an issue with with stuff I've gotten from nursery or box store needing to be hardened off. This is more if you're starting seeds at home.
Chris: 03:49So that I'll just say a follow-up question here. You know, a friend wants to know, hey. What if I'm not ready to plant outside, but my plants are outgrowing their pots? What can I do right now?
Ken: 04:03Well, ideally, we would we would pot them up into a bigger if you got the cell packs into a bigger one into small pots. So they're not getting a real root pound and they'll be able to fill in that new container and stuff. So ideally that's what we do, but I will say my plants right now are still in their little cell packs, and they're I am watering daily, if not twice a day, because they're they're very root bound. So I either need to get them in the ground or pot them up, and I really don't want to pot them up. So I need to get my act together and get them in the ground.
Chris: 04:37Yeah. Well, I have found out that a lot of our seed starting mix that I've I've used this year is formulated. It's a little bit finer texture for for seed starting, and they don't contain as much of that slow release fertilizer in it as say, like, a regular potting mix. You know, on a regular potting mix, might see on the bag, like, six months of plant food, you know, marketed on there. But that's not necessarily the goal with seed starting.
Chris: 05:06We're not trying to feed these plants long term. We're just trying to get them germinated and, you know, off on the right route and then outside in the ground somewhere. And so I've I've found after about a month and a half, I think I might be out of fertility with some of my seed starting mix because everything's starting to look a little puny that has been going inside for a long time.
Ken: 05:28Yeah. Some of my stuff's looking all getting a little yellow. I need to get some some fertilizer or get them in the ground.
Chris: 05:36Yeah. Yeah. I do have like just kind of a basic liquid feed that I might bottom water with in some cases. So that's what I do on inside is I bottom water and then I take them outside and I water overhead and the the plants like you said, they're so weak and they're they're not quite ready for all of that water on top of them. They just fall right over.
Chris: 06:00But they perk back up once they get get more acclimated.
Ken: 06:04Toughen them up. Tough love. Yes.
Chris: 06:07Tough love plants. That's how you get them good garden vegetables. You get them tough love.
Ken: 06:14Yes. Or they or they die.
Chris: 06:17Or they just die. You go to the store and buy more.
Ken: 06:20Alright. Our our next question is, I just planted a Canadian hemlock. How do I water it?
Chris: 06:29Well, that is a great question. So I got this this one online, and it it so Canadian hemlock is the species of Suga canadensis. It is an evergreen tree, and it's a little sensitive. I I really this is probably one of my favorite evergreens out there. But because it is a sort of a a sensitive tree, you need to have it really in the right spot.
Chris: 06:55You have to protect it from wind, like this really drying wind, know, like an Easterly exposure is good, you know, morning sun, a little bit of afternoon shade, know, or maybe sort of in the understory of a larger shade tree that will help this plant establish and then maybe thrive up into maturity where then you don't have to baby it as much. But they're very specific in their site conditions. And so I guess first off, you know, what what I had recommended this person is, well, yeah, I get it's already in the ground, but, you know, let's double check, making sure you didn't put this in the in the middle of a full blazing sun yard, you know, southern exposure to the prevailing winds out of the Northwest, that that probably is not gonna be the best spot for a Canadian hemlock tree. So moving past that, you know, it's been Arbor Day, lots of trees have gone on the ground, a lot of folks ask, well, how do I now water my trees? In Illinois, for the most part, we have sort of a loamy clay soil.
Chris: 08:01I know some of you lucky folks like over in Mason County have all sand. But it how you water your trees or how often is really dictated by your soil type or texture, you know, is if it's more sandy, it's gonna drain faster, you're gonna have to water more. If it's more clay, it's gonna drain slower, you're probably gonna have to water less often. However, with that clay soil, it it is harder for that water to to kind of penetrate or infiltrate into that clay structure. So taking a hose full blast on that spot isn't necessarily going to give you the best absorption of that water into the soil.
Chris: 08:41It's just gonna run off in many cases. So that's why we typically recommend get your hose, set it to like a a drip drip drip or maybe a slight trickle. Set it down to where you planted that tree and then you let that drip very slowly so that, you know, in that clay soil it can be absorbed and then fifteen, twenty minutes later, move it to another side of the tree, let it drip drip drip until basically all around that tree you've saturated that that soil. Well, not saturated, but you know, you've given it a good deep drink. You know, that could take upwards of an hour, maybe a little bit more.
Chris: 09:17Again, all depends on soil type. And so, yeah, and do this all summer long. So keep an eye on soil moisture, touch that that the soil with your fingers. If it's dry, feels dry, looks dry, it's time to water. And it can take up to three years for a tree to become established in in the the native soil there.
Chris: 09:40So you got to keep an eye on things. And the other thing with the the hemlock is because it is more sensitive to drought and and drying wind, intense sunlight, if you're five years down the line and we encounter a summer drought here in Illinois, that would be the tree that I would water first. Just because of knowing that it's more sensitive to that. And you know what you can do, Ken, to help you in all of this? You can lay down a nice thick layer of wood chips or or mulch to help insulate that soil so you don't have to water all the time.
Ken: 10:18Organic mulch. Yes. Once a living mulch. Yeah. Not necessarily organic organic.
Ken: 10:24But
Chris: 10:24Right. Don't put rocks down with with hemlock. It's that's probably not going to be an ideal mulch for that one, especially if you're in a sunnier exposure where the rocks heat up and it create that little microclimate there around that tree. So, yeah, just something that could decompose and organic matter back to the soil. Alright, Ken.
Chris: 10:46Well, let's stick on the theme of evergreen. So this next question is, I've got three Mugo pines infested with about half inch long caterpillars, and they're eating all the needles off the plants. Any idea how I can get rid of them?
Ken: 11:05Yes. So these, in this case, these were the European or red headed pine sawfly. I usually see this European, but some places referred to as red headed pine sawfly. So this is a caterpillar like insect. It's actually a saw so sawflies are related to wasps, whereas caterpillars will turn into butterflies or moths.
Ken: 11:27And that'll be important when we get to the management here. But for this one, this is kind of a it's got a caterpillar like, it's got a blackhead, kind of gray green body, white stripes on it. And they are hatching in the spring. They're feeding on needles when they're really young. Their mouths aren't big enough to eat the whole needle, they're just kind of scraping off the surface, needles will turn brown and die.
Ken: 11:47As they get bigger, they will eat entire needles from the tip to the base and they're gregarious, so they're feeding in groups. You have 10, you have twenty, thirty plus, of these sawfly larvae feeding together. They'll kind of strip a branch and move on to the next one. Typically they're feeding on the older needles, so the new growth, a lot of times isn't out yet when they're feeding, so they may strip a branch, but then eventually that new growth is going to come out, you get your, kind of your Charlie Brown looking Christmas tree where you just have the, you know, tufts at the end and everything else has been stripped off. So I guess, fortunately, because they still have that new growth, you know, the plants aren't going to be killed necessarily.
Ken: 12:29Now this happens year after year after year, it's going to weaken the plants and stuff, but typically they're going recover the aesthetics, they're going to look pretty bad potentially if you're losing a lot of these older needles. But the tree is typically going to be okay. They'll feed for a month, month and a half or so, then they'll pupate, they'll drop to the ground typically, pupate in the ground or near the tree itself. And then the adults are going to emerge September into the fall. Females are going to lay eggs in the needles and they kind of look like yellow pimples almost on the needles.
Ken: 13:02So it's kind of hard to see, but if you've had them in the past, maybe something worthwhile to go inspect your plants and if you see those, just remove those needles, eliminate the problem, right off the bat. One does come to management, so one is going out and scouting, in the fall to see if you have any egg laying. If you have the larvae on your plants now, like most of the things, it's easier to control them when they are small. Once they get bigger, it gets a little more difficult to manage them. And because they are not caterpillars, things like BTK, bacillus thuringiensis, frestachiae, Dipel would be one common trade name, does not work on them.
Ken: 13:43That only works on caterpillars. So you could, you know, douse all your Mugle Pines with that. It's not going do any good because they're not caterpillars, it's not going to affect them. So things like active variants of Acefate, Azadactrim, Bifenthrin, Carbaryl, Permethrin, Spinosad are some things that you can use. But again, the younger they are, the smaller they are, the easier it is to control them.
Ken: 14:07Once they get real big, it's it's it's not going to be as effective. So you can go in and be looking at going and hand picking, smashing them. I'd probably wear gloves if you're going to smash them, because it's going to make a mess. But then looking for and then scouting for them in the fall so they're not hatching out, and and defoliating your plants again. Alright.
Ken: 14:31We'll keep on the, the insect pests here. So our our next question is, why do my blackberries keep dying back? Is the frost killing them? I guess it kind of gave away the answer there.
Chris: 14:44Well, it it kind of. Yes. In a way, this was an interesting phone call that I got from someone. So we didn't have any photos. This person, you know, didn't wanna send pictures in or anything.
Chris: 14:57So it was all based on verbal descriptions coming through the telephone. And, it was quite the CSI, the plant CSI. And so, you know, insert, you know, witty pun here as I put my sunglasses on and walk away. If only I could wear sunglasses over my glasses. But so the caller, he he he asked about his blackberries that he had purchased, I think, about two years ago, 2023, he had had them planted.
Chris: 15:33These were triple crown blackberries that he had bought online, had them shipped in, and he had three of them delivered. Two of the three seemed to struggle sort of that that second year that he had them. The third one seemed to be doing okay. And then this year, noticing that, again, the third one doing alright, not growing as vigorously as he had thought, but the other two are just it seemed like every time it would frost that the canes would just die back to the ground. And so, you know, those very interesting so I'm like, alright.
Chris: 16:09Well, how frost tolerant are triple crown blackberry? You know, was trying to think, maybe we just got a a bad batch of blackberries. And so looking more into this, I said, well, well, do you see any lesions or anything on the the canes of the particular plants? He said, oh, yeah. There are these swollen areas along the canes.
Chris: 16:29And so I'm like, well, let's investigate this a little bit further. So these swollen areas turned out to be the the kind of the the feeding damage of a cane borer. And cane borers, there's many different species out there. The one we sort of landed on was the red necked cane boar. And the red necked cane boar is a beetle.
Chris: 16:52And it's, you know, you know, imagine emerald ash borer in your head, except for being green and glossy. This is a mostly black slender beetle with a little red band on the back of its neck. And so hence the name redneck boar. And so what this does is female, she will lay her eggs on the lower part of a blackberry cane. She then covers that in like kind of a goo or slime that then hardens and protects her eggs.
Chris: 17:27So as the eggs hatched, her young are never exposed to the outer elements, so it's really hard to to spray anything in regard to to controlling these particular insects. So they bore directly into the cane. They kind of do like a little corkscrew thing. Most of the time, they will then proceed up the cane. Sometimes, they will go down the cane.
Chris: 17:52From what I read, you know, if they go up, they can go upwards of 25. Inches. If they go down, normally, they only go down about six inches. So if you're scouting for these, best thing to do is to take your suspected cane that you think is infested and split it open, you know, farther up than farther down, but you want to split it open and try to find that larva in there. Be like a kind of a probably a whitish grub like looking larva.
Chris: 18:21And that is one of the main controls also is just removing those infested canes before really we see the buds begin to swell in the early springtime. So looking for these swellings or galls on the canes, cut below that, and and if you cut and you notice that there's like a hole in the middle of that cane, might want to investigate a little bit deeper down, make sure that you actually got that particular larva out of there. Once you cut them, burn them, get them off-site as best you can, and then there are a few thresholds that I found. So if folks have large blackberry patches and and maybe they they aren't able to prune it all out, if you prune it all out, you might remove all your blackberries. The thresholds that I saw varied from 10 to five to 15%.
Chris: 19:18So if you had that much of your canes infested with these, that's the threshold for spraying something. And so because they're they're fairly protected, what this is would be a contact insecticide that I I suppose when the female lands to lay her eggs might affect her. But something like carburol was listed, malthion was listed, or esfenlorate. Is that how you say that one,
Ken: 19:43Ken? Esfenvalerate.
Chris: 19:45Esfenvalerate. Yes. Alright. Something like that. Put the text right here.
Chris: 19:50You can read it if you're watching us on YouTube. So so, yeah, it it can be pretty difficult to control. Some of the sources did say like, hey, within a year, these populations of insects can explode to infest, you know, fifth 50% of your canes. So that that is the possibility. But there are also a lot of beneficial predators that will go after these red headed cane bores.
Chris: 20:16So they the beneficial predators can control up to 75% of a population in a given year. That still leaves about twenty five percent to carry on. And so something just to be mindful of if you do, you know, opt for something like malathion or another insecticide that there are also beneficial insects going after these guys, so just being mindful of your spraying. When you're spraying those, also direct your application to the like, the bottom half, maybe bottom third of the canes as that's where egg laying typically happens for these guys. And they do overwinter in them, so that's why we want to to rogue out these infested canes before bud break.
Chris: 21:02Alright, Ken. Our next question goes comes from someone who noticed a bumblebee flying into a hole in the ground near their front door. Is it possible that they do not have a nest there yet and they can just cover up that hole, or is there a nest already in process of being built in this location?
Ken: 21:28Yeah. I would say probably at this point in the year, early May, there's probably already a nest established here. This was earlier in the year. You know, it could be a a queen bee. So the bumblebees, they will overwinter as mated queens, and they will go out and start a new colony every year.
Ken: 21:45So those colonies are annual. They don't, they're not like honeybees where they're continuing on and on. They're not perennial. So they will go out and scout for places. By this point in the year, they probably find an area they like and they're establishing a nest.
Ken: 21:58So bumblebees are nesting in preexisting cavities. They are not going to excavate their own nests. Abandoned rodent burrows, it could be, a birdhouse, bunches of base of bunch grasses, all kinds of cavity areas, compost. I've heard of them being in there as well. So at this point, you know, they're they're prob she's probably established that nest.
Ken: 22:20She's going back and forth collecting nectar and pollen, feeding her young. And then as those their offspring start emerging and hatching and developing, then the workers are going go out and do all that work and the queen will stay in there. So in this case, you know, if it's right by the front door, if it's not too close, you put some signage up saying, you know, bumble bees here. Be careful. Put up a barrier around there so people aren't gonna accidentally step on it.
Ken: 22:49Something like that. You you could plug the hole. I I doubt they're gonna crawl. I'm not sure how well they'd be able to dig their way out of that. So that that could potentially be a a death sentence to them.
Ken: 23:02But if it if it's somewhere like a front door and people are gonna be risk and they're getting stung, then obviously we have to do something about it. Can say generally speaking, they're they're probably not going to be as defensive as like a yellow jacket or something like that, but they are still going to defend their nests if they feel threatened. So you can't just go tromping on top of it and and not expect to get stung. So depending on how far away it is and and stuff, you may be able to leave it. They're only going to be there for a year.
Ken: 23:30If get a few hard frosts, that colony is going to die out and there won't be one there next year. Some people will try to relocate nests. The problem with they're in the ground, you don't know where exactly that nest is, how far that tunnel is going. So it makes it really difficult, to relocate ones in ground. You know, if it's above ground, garbage can, bird house, something like that, that that those are little bit easier to move because you can find that, if you are going to move it, Xerxes Society has some information on how you can do that.
Ken: 24:04But basically, you're gonna be doing this at night, because all the the bees are gonna be back in the nest. They're gonna be less active, and you're you're covering yourself because they can't sting. They will defend themselves, and moving that to a to a new location. So a lot of times you're putting that in a cardboard box, plastic bin, so they're not escaping while you transport it, to the the new location. There are plans online that you can look for, like bumblebee boxes where you're building a wooden box.
Ken: 24:34A lot of times you're putting in pet hair, things like that. Some kind of soft stuff that they'll build their nest on and stuff. That can be an option as well. And when you're moving that nest, you're moving the nest and all that, the debris and whatnot that they've built that nest on as well. Again, in the ground, signage, coordinate off so people can get on top of it.
Ken: 25:03But if it's still, you know, more of a risk than you're willing to take, that may be a a kill or attempt to move it. And if you're attempting to move it and you're not comfortable, then maybe looking for, beekeepers in your area. Typically, they're dealing with honeybees, but you may find somebody that would be willing to try bumblebees. I don't I don't know how many people there are, but that would be a contact your local beekeeping association. If you're not sure where if you have one or where that would be, Illinois State Beekeepers Association has a list of all their their member associations on their website that you could look up.
Chris: 25:37Yeah. Our our local beekeeping association, they when I call them asking about a a honeybee swarm or something that's been found in someone's yard or maybe, I don't know, potentially a bumblebee nest, they always refer me to a website. It's called beeswarmed.org. I think the the website, like, the page name is called swarmed. Basically, you report a swarm, and if you have a beekeeper nearby that is registered on the site that is willing to come out and collect that swarm, they will they will do so.
Chris: 26:14So something to be mindful of. If you are a beekeeper that's looking for wild swarms in your area and you're not part of this website, might be worth getting in touch and and registering because that's this is what my association that's what they're referring people to now. And I'm I'm glad you distinguish between bumblebees and yellow jackets, Ken, because I have been with people that use that term interchangeably.
Ken: 26:38Yes. Yeah. Bumblebees are gonna be big and fuzzy. Yellow jackets are they've got hair, but they're smooth and shiny looking for the most part. There there is, and even bumblebees and carpenter bees are different too.
Ken: 26:53Carpenter bees, the abdomen is going be a little more shiny, they're bigger and they're nesting in wood And they will excavate their own nests, in wood, whereas bumblebees are in cavities and somebody's already done the work for them. Alright. Last question we've got for today is rabbits have been eating the bottoms of my arborvitae. What can I spray to stop them?
Chris: 27:17Oh, rascally rabbits are going after the arborvitae. This was a question where they had also followed up and said, I know I don't have deer. And I said, oh, no, you don't, but you do have rabbits. And so the the damage was pretty telltale. I mean, was uniform across multiple shrubs and it was at like a foot, foot and a half height, you know, basically what a rabbit could reach.
Chris: 27:46And so it was something that was fairly easy to diagnose. Again, that uniformity across multiple shrubs was that kind of telltale giveaway and then that that really again, another uniform, like, point of damage across them. So their rabbits will go after arborvitae. They'll eat it in the winter. They'll eat that especially that soft, you know, flush of growth in the springtime.
Chris: 28:16The other thing to be mindful of, you know, as I was talking about control recommendations also with this person was they lived up in Northern Illinois. I said, well, if you you get more snow than we do, a rabbit will perch upon the snow. And and if they can get a little higher, they will. So depending on your snow level, your control recommendations might need to go a little higher up on the shrub itself. And what are those recommendations?
Chris: 28:43The best thing we can do is some type of physical exclusion. Rabbits, they they do not have thumbs that I know of that are opposable that would allow them to operate like pliers or a hammer. You know, they don't have bolt cutters. So, you know, anything you can construct, whether it be made of, like, you know, a a chicken wire or a hardware mesh cloth or even like a plastic snow fencing or guard would be enough to keep a rabbit from eating at the base of your shrubs. You would install those usually in the fall and let those then, you know, go throughout winter.
Chris: 29:26Again, making sure whatever guard it is would be tall enough to prevent a rabbit from, like, hopping on top of the snow and then eating, you know, not just like jumping over your guard. And so just making sure it's tall enough for whatever kind of snow conditions that you have in the winter. And then in terms of sprays, there are repellents that you might be able to use. Most of them are well, guess there's there's two different types of repellents. There's there's ones that smell bad, and there's ones that taste bad.
Chris: 29:58And the key thing with either of these is that they don't last very long. So you have to reapply them, and wildlife get acclimated to these scents or these flavors. And if you're hungry enough, they're gonna go after it. So I would not rely solely on repellents. Physical barriers or some type of exclusion tactic is going to be the way to go.
Chris: 30:29Get a dog. Yes. Get a get a dog that will frequent that area in the winter.
Ken: 30:42So hopefully when you put your fence up, you're not don't have a rabbit nest under there. Rabbit tunnel. Oh. And trapping them in there.
Chris: 30:48Great point. Yes. Yeah. Oh, rabbits, they can tunnel. So you do wanna go a few inches into like the mulch or the soil, you know, so go down a little bit to prevent their tunneling.
Chris: 30:59And, yeah, reach in there. I'm sure there's dead leaves and twigs and things. Pull out stuff. Make sure you're not trapping them in there. Well, that was a lot of great information about spring questions.
Chris: 31:11Things are are going on this time of year. People calling us about wanting to know more information, whether it's a problem or just kind of curiosity that they have. So that's what extension is here to do. Well, the Good Growing podcast is a production of University of Illinois Extension, edited this week by me, Chris Enroth. Hey, Ken.
Chris: 31:31Thanks for hanging out with me today and answering some of these questions that we've been getting these last few weeks.
Ken: 31:38Yes. Thank you. I and I realized sorry right now, this is gonna make your editing a pain potentially, that I didn't say how you tell the difference between a caterpillar and a sawfly. If you see
Chris: 31:50Oh, no. Let's cut this in real quick, folks.
Ken: 31:53So sawflies are gonna have, six or mere pair six or more pairs of pro legs, and those are those, like, fleshy outgrowths on the the back end of a caterpillar sawfly that look like legs and aren't really legs, Whereas caterpillars have five or fewer. So sawflies, you can spell out sawfly when you're counting pro legs, that's a sawfly. They also don't have crochets, which are like little hooks on the bottom of the Pro Legs that caterpillars have. Sawflies don't. So my apologies.
Chris: 32:27And now you know the difference between caterpillars and sawflies. Dogwood sawflies are another ones that seem to pop up too. So those are kind of fun to see and terrifying because I love my dogwoods.
Ken: 32:39No, sir. Rose slugs. Those are all sawflies. Yep.
Chris: 32:45Yeah. You never see the rose slug, it seems like. It's always get the call after the fact, like, do I do now? Like, well, nothing. It's too late.
Ken: 32:51It's gone. It's done. It's gone.
Chris: 32:53We're done for the year. So there is an invasive rose slug though. Think I heard I read it on the Joe Boggs blog.
Ken: 33:01Yeah. There's a couple different species you can get.
Chris: 33:04Yeah. Well, now we're getting into more stuff, Ken. We gotta cut it off right here. It's the end of the show, folks. No more information until next week.
Ken: 33:12Alright. Speaking of next week, let's do this again next week.
Chris: 33:15We'll give them more information next week. So that's what's gonna happen. That's the that's our format of our show. That's what we do here. So yes, we will be coming back at you again with more horticultural hijinks next week.
Chris: 33:27I think it's gonna be a garden bite. Got a busy week, couple weeks coming up. So yeah, we're gonna be all over the place. Different events, programs here and there. Growing stuff, it's gonna be it's it's summer already.
Chris: 33:40I'll just say it right now. May 6 is when we're recording. Welcome to summertime. Oh. Listeners, thank you for doing what you do best and that is listening or if you're watching us on YouTube watching.
Chris: 33:53And as always, keep on growing.
Ken: 34:08I may take it out. I'll save it for your retirement.
Chris: 34:10Thank you.
Ken: 34:11Retirement party.
Chris: 34:13I'm having my walker. I'm 88 years old. Remember when you could do this? Yep. When I could lay down on the ground and get up.
Chris: 34:21And people weren't concerned.