Ep. 245 Growing something new: Plants we’re trying in 2026 | #GoodGrowing

Chris Enroth: 00:04

Welcome to the Good Growing podcast. I am Chris Enroth, horticulture educator with the University of Illinois Extension coming at you from Macomb, Illinois, and we have got a great show for you today. Some of the new things that we're going to be trying in our gardens. So both Ken and I, we'll be talking all about that today. So you know I can't do this by myself. I am joined as always every single week by horticulture educator Ken Johnson in Jacksonville.

Chris Enroth: 00:29

Hey, Ken.

Ken Johnson: 00:30

Hello, Chris. This is in addition to the grow along stuff.

Chris Enroth: 00:35

Yes.

Ken Johnson: 00:36

Because we are gluttons for punishment.

Chris Enroth: 00:38

That's right. It's like, oh, where can I put more plants that I don't have room for? Yep. So in addition to the grow along, we're gonna be trying some new stuff this year. And I I I guess some of these are are kind of novel.

Chris Enroth: 00:56

I mean, one of the new things that I'm growing this year is, like, peas, but I'm not gonna include it in our list because I don't know. I bet a lot of people have done that. But I haven't grown peas since I was, like, a little kid. So we planted them again this year, so I'm gonna give them a try.

Ken Johnson: 01:11

Did you get them out already?

Chris Enroth: 01:12

I did. I put them in the ground actually before the freeze, so I might be resewing peas. I don't know what happens when it gets real cold, but I I think the snow we had kept them at least at freezing, if not slightly above, but we'll find out.

Ken Johnson: 01:29

Yeah. I need to get mine planted still. Maybe this weekend.

Chris Enroth: 01:34

Mhmm.

Ken Johnson: 01:35

Maybe. We'll see.

Chris Enroth: 01:37

Yeah. I and I was really excited to plant spinach because I knew I had leftover spinach seed. I can't find it. So it's spinach is one of those you just throw on the ground even when it's frozen, and you'd probably get some spinach grow from that. But I'll try it again next time.

Ken Johnson: 01:56

There's always the fall.

Chris Enroth: 01:58

There is. There is. I and I I do like spinach. You can hold it into from fall into winter. It's a pretty tough plant.

Chris Enroth: 02:05

So there you go. Next this coming fall. It's what we're gonna do. Oh, well, Ken, I guess, you know, the and this what we're talking about today was sort of the the originator, the impetus, the catalyst for the grow along, you know, where, you know, you would always talk about some of these newer interesting crops that that you would be growing. And, you know, myself and and Emily and whoever whatever guest we had on that day would have been like, well, I'd like to try that too.

Chris Enroth: 02:38

And then we just decided to make it into a program to grow along. So but we're gonna keep doing this. We're gonna keep talking about some of these new interesting novel crops that we're gonna try. So would you mind kicking us off with your first one today, please?

Ken Johnson: 02:53

Yes. Some maybe some days the someday some of these will come to the girl on. Maybe maybe not. We'll see.

Chris Enroth: 02:59

We'll we'll see how good we can do on them when no one's watching.

Ken Johnson: 03:04

You know? Some of these, yeah, probably wouldn't be able to easy to ship them, so they may be out. But, first one I have probably could. Seed seed size won't be an issue. We'll put it that way.

Ken Johnson: 03:15

And this is teff. So this is a grain, a grass, that is native to Ethiopia. It's been grown there for I see anywhere from 1,000 BCE to 4,000 BCE. So this has been grown for a very long time. One of the staple crops there.

Ken Johnson: 03:29

If you've ever had Ethiopian food and had injera, so the the kind of spongy flatbread, they make that a teff that's made from teff. I guess in Ethiopia, it's like a 100% teff, whereas in The US, there's usually some wheat mixed in there, because it's more palatable to to our taste than just straight teff. But I like injera. I think it's good. And so we one day, we were bought some teff actual teff flour, and I looked into getting some seeds, I found some.

Ken Johnson: 04:01

And here's the probably can't see this all this well on the screen, but there's the seeds. They are from my final 9.7 of to one millimeter in size. I didn't actually measure these, but I could It looks like a

Chris Enroth: 04:13

little bag of sand.

Ken Johnson: 04:16

Yeah. So I'm gonna have to make sure I have a good seed bed because these need good soil contact, so I'm gonna have to do a good job of cleaning nuts, clearing the soil, pack it down. And then this is a warm season grass, so you gotta wait till soil is about 65 degrees before it germinates. And this has grown quite a bit as a as a cover crop, like a summer cover crop. My hope is actually get some grain off of it.

Ken Johnson: 04:41

Again, because this is so small, I'm not sure how I'm gonna harvest it and process it, but that is a future meat problem to figure out. And then and one thing I've read about this is it will lodge or the plants will fall over, readily, which is one reason why it's it's probably not commercially grown for its grain more, I guess, in The US. There are some areas out west, I think in Nevada and Utah, they've seen that will grow teff commercially for the for the grain, not just not just as a forage. So, yeah, we'll see. I think it's eighty to a hundred days to maturity.

Ken Johnson: 05:17

So I'm hoping see, I may plant a little inside. So maybe I'll have at least a few plants to to put out and then just direct seed the rest, sprinkle it out. Probably won't have a giant patch here just because the seed's so small, but we'll see how things turn out.

Chris Enroth: 05:37

And we will all show up to Jacksonville for some what type of bread did we call it?

Ken Johnson: 05:43

Enroth? Enjera.

Chris Enroth: 05:46

Anjera. Okay. I live a sheltered life. I've never had food beyond greasy parches burgers, it seems like. I need to get out more, I think.

Chris Enroth: 06:01

Yeah. Was I

Ken Johnson: 06:01

was in grad school when I had Ethiopian food for the first time. So Oh,

Chris Enroth: 06:06

very good. Very good. Well, I'm looking forward to some to some bread. Is it like a like a kind of a loaf or like a disc, like a flatbread?

Ken Johnson: 06:14

Flatbread. It's like a Okay. Thick spongy tortilla. I eat. Probably a spongy pita bread or something like that.

Ken Johnson: 06:22

Mhmm.

Chris Enroth: 06:23

Well, all of that sounds delicious.

Ken Johnson: 06:27

And you you got, like, fermented beer. We've made it a couple times. It's I'm not any good at making it, but you ferment it for a few days and then Mhmm. This, that, and the other. Okay.

Chris Enroth: 06:38

Well, I will share kind of my one that I'm going to give a try this year, and it is going to be the Armenian cucumber. I've all this so heard this called the yard long yard long cucumber, Armenian yard long cucumber. It's also called the Armenian melon, yard long melon. I think there's more names in there I'm probably forgetting. But, actually, I I tasted this on the show sometime last year.

Chris Enroth: 07:06

I can't even remember the episode, but someone had brought it in wanting to know more about what this weird plant was that they started growing and identified it. And then for the show, I I took a bite, and I was like, this is delicious. So so I don't know if you can see that or not, but it it looks like just a a pale cucumber, like a almost a cream colored, white colored cucumber. It has these longitudinal ridges that that go the length of it, and it is not a cucumber. It is technically or genetically a melon.

Chris Enroth: 07:42

So it's cucurbis mellow or cucurbis mellow, and it it is a melon that in its immature state tastes like a cucumber. The the skin, everything is is very, very pleasant to eat, so I'm gonna give it a try this year. Who whoever that person was that brought it in last year for identification and and more growing information, they've inspired me to give it a try. I liked it that much. So we're we're gonna throw it in the garden this year.

Ken Johnson: 08:17

Good deal. Alright. Next one I have is bottle gourd. And people are probably familiar with these. You see them.

Ken Johnson: 08:25

People make bird feeders, not bird feeders, bird houses, and things like that. So this is a annual cucurbit that's and we're growing these out, letting it mature, and harvesting the the fully mature fruit off of these. I have read that the the seeds, the leaves, flowers, and young stems are edible, but we're just gonna be doing this for the gorgon. And I have seen pictures up. I'm not sure which kind.

Ken Johnson: 08:51

These are different cultivars or just don't know. But some of them are long and and thin. Not necessarily thin, but longer, and others are more bottle shaped. So I'm not sure what we're gonna end up with. But probably grow up on a trellis so we don't have to worry about them getting all deformed, when growing on the ground just with the flat sides and stuff.

Ken Johnson: 09:10

So we'll to trellis those up. Basically, how you let them mature, harvest them, let them kinda dry out, and then use them as containers. I've seen pictures of people making drums and stuff out of them. Small ones, not not giant ones, musical instruments, things like that. So let's see.

Ken Johnson: 09:29

They just have a a pretty white flower. They open up at night, so assume they're gonna be moth pollinated. And one thing I have is it's one of those where you probably wanna go in and hand pollinate just to get get yourself a little better fruit set on there. So let's see. Maybe I'll have some some bottle gourds I can store my teff seed in after I harvest.

Ken Johnson: 09:48

So

Chris Enroth: 09:49

All of Ken's seed is gonna be stored in bottle gourds. This is new storage system. I like it. So, usually, a lot of times, the bottle gourd, their the neck kinda bends a little bit. You could just hang it on a string wire rope.

Ken Johnson: 10:06

Mhmm. Mhmm.

Chris Enroth: 10:09

And, yeah, that's pretty cool.

Ken Johnson: 10:11

I haven't really looked into the whole processing them too much. Yeah. I think you just dry them out, scoop them out, Probably get some of the some fungal growth on the outside. Just kinda wash that off, and we'll go from there. Yeah.

Ken Johnson: 10:26

Report back later.

Chris Enroth: 10:28

They better be painted and beautiful when we see them in the wintertime. So we we'll make a video about it making some type of decoration with the bottle gourds.

Ken Johnson: 10:39

There we go. Hope hopefully, I get some.

Chris Enroth: 10:45

I always buy some at the market.

Ken Johnson: 10:48

Nobody needs to know. Success.

Chris Enroth: 10:54

Oh, well, this the next one that I'm going to try is called a spoon tomato, and it true to its name, it is a tomato where you could fit it looks like half a dozen to a dozen in, like, a tablespoon. They look like teeny tiny little red tomatoes, and so the I think they grow very similar just to how you would grow a tomato. They are born on these really long kind of fruiting what are these? Peduncles spikes? And but we'll put the right word down here after the fact.

Chris Enroth: 11:38

I don't need to know these botanical terms every day. And it's born on the it kinda looks a little barren, you know, in in in terms because you sort of have a big, large fruit on them. They have these teeny little tiny tomatoes on them. So I I really wanna give it a try. I think they're they look pretty adorable.

Chris Enroth: 11:54

They might look really cute in a salad or floating in a Bloody Mary or something like that. Now the thing that I have read or heard about these is that in terms of flavor or maybe the texture is a better word, is that they are kinda all skin and seeds. There's not much flesh to them. So we'll find that out and see what what it's like. So I I I look forward to giving it a try, though.

Chris Enroth: 12:23

Again, it's one of those, like, novel fun things. Never grown a teeny tiny tomato like this, so give it a try. And, you know, it it it's smaller than a cherry tomato. So is it gonna be even more prolific than a cherry tomato if I don't get these picked in time, and they'll just keep growing in that spot years and years later. We'll we'll see.

Chris Enroth: 12:44

I imagine that might be the case.

Ken Johnson: 12:46

Yeah. It definitely sounds like one that could be the gift that keeps on giving if you're not available.

Chris Enroth: 12:54

Oh, man. So many regrets trying this new stuff. So hey. We we recommend everyone try new things in their garden all the time. But if you wanna watch us first, see what mistakes we make, that's why we're here.

Ken Johnson: 13:07

Laugh at our misery. There you go.

Chris Enroth: 13:12

Yes. As we're cursed at our calluses as we pull these plants out of the ground year after year. Oh. Well, Ken, you got another, a gourd on the list.

Ken Johnson: 13:23

Yes. Another one probably another one people are maybe at least somewhat familiar with is loofah gourd. So depending on on what your loofah is made out of, if it's a natural one. This actually comes from a a cucurbit plant, loofah. This again, another one, it's kind of a a long slender, kinda looks like a a cucumber that you didn't pick when you were supposed to, but longer.

Ken Johnson: 13:47

You can kinda get that image in. We'll try to pop pictures of all these in on YouTube, so if people wanna see, they can look at them. This is one so this one, I guess you you can't eat it when it's small. You can be like a cucumber or melon or substitute for that. But as they get bigger, they get that real fibrous internal stuff and they become sure you could eat them, but it's not gonna be edible.

Ken Johnson: 14:05

I guess it's gonna be real fibrous and and gross.

Chris Enroth: 14:09

Pass right through you. Yeah.

Ken Johnson: 14:13

There's another we'll have to grow. I I don't know where I'm gonna get all this trellis space from, but probably trellis more trellis as well so we get nice straight loofahs off of this. Another one to let it grow to maturity, let the skin dry, take that off and you'll have to get the seeds out from inside, shake them out somehow. I think some people will bleach them, have that sort whiter color instead of a kind of a dirty white yellowish color to them if if they're not bleached. So I'm not sure if we'll do go that far.

Ken Johnson: 14:39

But yeah. And I think this one needs a little bit of a longer growing season, like three, four months. So this is probably one I'll I'll start inside, just give myself a few weeks head start. So I do actually, hopefully, get some loofahs off of there. So I've I've personally never grown these.

Ken Johnson: 14:54

My work at Disney would grow them, but I was sequestered into the insect area in the lab and stuff, and I didn't get to play with the plants a whole lot.

Chris Enroth: 15:03

So That's the bug guy. Put them in over there where the people can't see him. That's what's

Ken Johnson: 15:08

Off in the corner. So so we're excited to to try try this one and and see how it works out.

Chris Enroth: 15:16

And, again, Ken, kinda like the the teff, I'm I'm sheltered. A loofah sponge. Now is this something people use for, like, exfoliation or, like, like, really hard scrubbing?

Ken Johnson: 15:30

Yeah.

Chris Enroth: 15:30

It's decorative? Like, is this is it useful?

Ken Johnson: 15:33

I've I've like, haven't used them, but I've heard of people. Yeah. Like, when I worked at Disney, peep interns would take them and use them as a they're a little rough. I don't know. You'd get some good exfoliation with those or Yeah.

Ken Johnson: 15:47

Probably use them for, like, pots and pans. Okay. And so do their from what I remember, there's yeah. They'll do a good job exfoliating exfoliating your skin.

Chris Enroth: 16:00

Okay. Well, I look forward to that too. Ken's skin's gonna be glowing by the end of the year.

Ken Johnson: 16:08

Her nice and red.

Chris Enroth: 16:13

But that's that's normal for you. Right? You're you go outside and boom. Yeah. There you go.

Ken Johnson: 16:20

Already already had to put the sunscreen on a couple times this year. So

Chris Enroth: 16:24

Mhmm. Yep. Well, my next one, this is something that I have bought. I bought the seed year after year after year, and I've never planted it in my yard. That is because I I use it for work.

Chris Enroth: 16:41

I I use it in a lot of different, like, kids' activities, and that is, see, Mexican sunflower. So this is, Tithonia rotunda loba or rotundifolia. And rotunda loba, that sounds like a sweetgum cultivar. Anyway, yes, rotundifolia. This particular cultivar looks like name on here is torch.

Chris Enroth: 17:06

I think the one that I typically purchase for work is just the straight species. So Mexican sunflower, it's an annual in our neck of the woods, and it's something that I would usually include in, like like, a seed ball mixture for kids that we're mixing up seed balls or, you know, if we're, like, focusing our some project or program on pollinators, it's usually a pretty good one that you can just sort of throw out on the ground. It'll sprout, and you'll get a a good flower show that year. And so I again, that's why I I use it a lot in other program stuff, but I've never planted it in my own yard. So this year, we're gonna see how it does.

Chris Enroth: 17:48

We're gonna put, yeah, Mexican sunflower out. And I I know, Ken, you've grown this one in the past. So I I was just planning on clearing a spot in the mulch, pulling to the side, exposing the soil, throwing it down, throw a little water on it, and just let it go.

Ken Johnson: 18:04

Direct seeding it?

Chris Enroth: 18:05

Mhmm. Yeah.

Ken Johnson: 18:08

Yeah. We've done both direct seed and transplant. Like, as of late, we're doing more direct seed. Yeah. It it responds pretty well.

Ken Johnson: 18:17

And then good good late fall color. You'll enjoy it.

Chris Enroth: 18:20

Well, good.

Ken Johnson: 18:21

Or fall color.

Chris Enroth: 18:21

I'm looking forward to

Ken Johnson: 18:22

it. Mhmm. Alright. Next one on my list here is butterfly pea. So, again, another vining, one.

Ken Johnson: 18:32

So this can be right right up to 15 feet long. So, again, I'm gonna need some some serious trellising for this. I know my weekends are gonna be here for the next few weeks. Trying to sing all over my yard. Mhmm.

Ken Johnson: 18:47

Well, this one is so it's got a a blue, blue blue in quotes, botanical blue, shall we say. So we're looking at dark dark purple flower on it. The the flowers, leaves, young shoots, tender pods are all edible. So you kinda get this multiuse ornamental as well as edible crop, for this. The real reason I'm growing it though is is for the flowers, can use them to make, dyes and teas.

Ken Johnson: 19:12

So pick the flowers, soak them in water, and then depending on the pH of the water, the color will change. So Neat. Let me check my notes and make sure I get this right. So the the extract, when the pH is lowered, so if you had like lemon juice or something like that, it turns from indigo to pink or pale purple. And when you raise the pH, it turns green.

Chris Enroth: 19:30

That's cool. Thus, we

Ken Johnson: 19:32

can make some, like actually, like, pink lemonade. Mhmm. This is kinda what I wanna try. Put this in there.

Chris Enroth: 19:37

With, like, a like, a what would we call it? A botanical ingredient to to turn that into that color. Mhmm.

Ken Johnson: 19:46

Yeah. So that's that's kind of the real maybe the real reason I'm rearing it. I mean, it's a pretty looking flower and and plant too from the pictures I've seen. So sorry for that, but I really wanna just play around with the flowers and make them change colors, make the water change colors. So

Chris Enroth: 20:02

So you'll be adding them to the, like, the liquids as of flour? Do you need to dry them first or crush them? Or I think I've seen processing?

Ken Johnson: 20:11

I think I've seen both. People use them fresh and dried, so that may be a I'll have to play around with that, see which which works better and stuff. So, yeah, let's see. Or I know I know you can buy. I've seen where you can buy the dried flowers.

Ken Johnson: 20:30

So as soon as I get some, I'll report back.

Chris Enroth: 20:34

Well, I'm looking forward to that one too. Ken, that's why you always pick the fun stuff. So yeah. Well, maybe this next one I have, maybe this could be a strategy for your trellising, Ken. Although this is a little bit of a shorter one, but I'm be be growing a sunflower.

Chris Enroth: 20:51

This particular one is called soluna bronze. It's a branching sunflower, and it has a really dark disc in the middle. It's towards the disc, it's more yellow, but then as we reach to the the ends of the petals of the flower, it turns more reddish orange to almost kind of a brown color. So it has this it is kind of multicolor tone to its flowers, and it is a sunflower. It's one of those annual sunflowers that will grow.

Chris Enroth: 21:19

This one says it's going to be up to three to four foot tall. So again, it's not gonna be like your mammoth Russian sand sunflowers. This is gonna be a bit smaller, but branching. So I'm gonna hopefully get multiple flowers per stem. And the idea here, I I was looking for a sunflower, and I hope this holds true, that is still produces pollen.

Chris Enroth: 21:43

I know a lot of sunflowers out there, you know, the it's fun to take them, cut them, bring them inside, but then you get pollen all over your table or whatever you're setting your sunflower vase on. And but I I still wanted to make sure that I was offering some type of a pollen source to any of the insects visiting there, and so I, would do that. I I've been growing branching sunflowers for just a couple years now. I I started off my the first one I grew, the the name was Joker, and that was a a success and kinda got me hooked on on putting sunflowers out in the garden. And so this year, it's going to be saloon of bronze, and we'll see we'll see how that one does.

Chris Enroth: 22:30

And this will probably have to go in and fill in a couple spots here and there.

Ken Johnson: 22:35

Yeah. As much as I like the, you know, the 14 foot sunflowers with the massive flower heads, we've gone more to branching just because you get longer bloom off of those instead of their your big big one time thing, and then you got this tall, frankly, kinda ugly plant after it starts after it's done blooming. So

Chris Enroth: 22:56

That's true. Yep. And that's why we did too. I I and the kids loved the mammoth sunflowers. They loved them.

Chris Enroth: 23:02

It's just just like a dinosaur plant growing in their yard. But now that they're a little less interested in that kind of stuff, well, you know, we dial it back to something a little shorter, but, yeah, just a better display for us.

Ken Johnson: 23:18

Alright. The next one I have here is is one I don't know a whole lot about. So this is anchoate, aychoate, white hanchote. So bunch of different names that I've seen for this. This is another one from Ethiopia, and this is a cucurbit that is grown for its roots.

Ken Johnson: 23:36

So it has these kinda tuberous type roots, that you that you would dig up. From what I can find, the fruit, I guess, can be eaten, but it isn't. I'm not sure why that is, so I probably will not try that because I'm not sure why why people aren't eating it. If it's if it tastes bad or yeah. I don't know.

Ken Johnson: 23:55

Or maybe I'll try a little bit and end up regretting it later. So, yeah, that's that's really all I know about this one. This is more of a, hey. This sounds interesting. Let's let's try it.

Ken Johnson: 24:06

So this is this probably one where I have to report back later on on how well this went. But, yeah, you know, just a cucurbit that you're growing for the roots, not the fruit. Sounded intriguing.

Chris Enroth: 24:18

That is intriguing. I yeah. You're like, well, what is this even gonna look like? So I that is intriguing. Please, if you do try to eat this, like, have an EpiPen or be outside the hospital when you do this.

Chris Enroth: 24:30

We can't lose you, Ken. We need you.

Ken Johnson: 24:33

Go go to urgent care.

Chris Enroth: 24:36

You sit here, doctor, while I eat this? Don't know what's about to happen.

Ken Johnson: 24:43

And and so there's one thing I what I see here. Kinda like on a per acre, it's similar production to potatoes, supposedly. So hopefully, you get a halfway decent yield. We'll say looking at the seed packet, which I hadn't noticed before, this is a botanical sample, not germination tested. So we'll see see how many actually get to germinate.

Chris Enroth: 25:06

Okay. Well, it's all about experimentation here this today, this week. Well, my last one that I I I know that I'm going to pursue this year, I don't have it in hand like the seed packets, that I've been showing everyone, but, this is one that I am going to try to track down, and that is a hydrangea. So it is hydrangea arborescens, and the cultivar name is HAS Halo. And I am pursuing this one because I've been a kind of a a follower of the Mount Cuba Center trials that they do there for for some of the different I think they focus a lot on native plants and some non native plants also on their trials.

Chris Enroth: 25:53

But their trials tend to focus on of, like, good ornamental selections paired with good pollinator friendly selections and, like, whoever ranks highest in those categories and along with the whole does well in in various in in those testing sites with minimal irrigation, no fertilization, you know, very little maintenance also added to it. So in that that whole ranking and trial selection process for their hydrangeas, at least for some of their native wild hydrangeas that they looked at the last few years, Hass Halo has come out on top. Now it wasn't necessarily the number one pollinator attractive hydrangea. That one went to Dardom, I believe. It's arborescens also, a cultivar named Dardom.

Chris Enroth: 26:49

And it and and so but but Hassalo, it was number one because people like the way it looked, and it attracted a lot of pollinators at the same time. And it also was just the best toughest performer that they had in their trial. So if anybody is is curious or wants to know more about, like, hydrangeas and how they attract pollinators, I'd suggest check out the Mount Cuba Center report where I learned that hydrangeas have sterile flowers, which are usually the big, pretty flowers that that you see on the hydrangeas. And then they have their their flowers that do actually produce pollen, which are very tiny, kind of a bit more insignificant. You see these more described as a lacecap flower heads.

Chris Enroth: 27:42

And I actually did go to the nursery last year after I read this report, this person who specializes in kinda native plants and and asked her, like, hey. Know, do you think you have this, or could you get it? And she said, you know, I used to carry stuff like this, but I just couldn't sell it because of the flowers. They weren't as compared to the the sterile more sterile kind of not incredible, but but some of those Annabelle type flowers. People would see the Annabelles, and they just say, I'd rather have that compared to some of these lace caps that are better for the pollinators.

Chris Enroth: 28:18

They just don't look as pretty. So I'm gonna see maybe if we can I can go back there and just order them through there, and and if maybe she'll order a couple extra to have on display? And it's just a good teaching moment, I think, for folks too. If you're thinking like, oh, yeah. I'll put out this Annabelle hydrangea.

Chris Enroth: 28:35

It's a native to Illinois. Actually, bred kind of selected here in Illinois, but doesn't necessarily produce a ton of pollen and nectar for insects. Though. Halo. I'm gonna give it a try this year.

Ken Johnson: 28:48

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Chris Enroth: 28:51

Exactly. That's that's what I said. And, actually, when I had this conversation with her, she pointed me to a nonnative hydrangea that was just that that produced fertile flowers that was loaded with insects. And then we had our native plants selection plants right next to it with the sterile flowers, no insects. So I I I bought some of the nonnative hydrangeas.

Chris Enroth: 29:15

They were covered in flies, wasps, bees, occasional butterfly. So yeah. But oh, details about Hos Halo. It gets about up to seven foot tall. You can prune it in the early spring to kinda keep it down to four foot tall, and kind of a a similar spread, about four to five foot spread.

Chris Enroth: 29:37

So might be a good replacement for some of the more invasive plants like the burning bush in my yard to to take its place as a good screening plant. So that's what I'm looking for right now, screening plants.

Ken Johnson: 29:53

There you go. Alright. I got one last one here, and it's not a new crop, for me. So peanuts, we've grown peanuts for a few years, but this year, we've got some, so this is Skrantz's deep black, but the skins of the peanuts are a really, really dark purple, almost black color. And then there's we got a Carolina black as well.

Ken Johnson: 30:24

So if you're on YouTube or if you're listening, showing showing the painters. They're really dark skin on them. The inside's still white, but just a different skin color to those. I would assume they taste the same, but we'll have to find out.

Chris Enroth: 30:42

Look like you're holding up little pieces of charcoal or obsidian. They're, yeah, they're they're dark.

Ken Johnson: 30:48

So we'll have to we'll have to see how those work. And I got some of the the red skin, you know, more commonly tend to be more commonly see, so we'll have to maybe do a taste test. We have a successful harvest this year. Oh, I

Chris Enroth: 31:03

hope so. Long season for those peanuts. Are you gonna start them inside?

Ken Johnson: 31:07

Yeah. I probably should have started them already, but, yes, they need to be they need to be started here pretty soon. Otherwise, I'll get I mean, lots of foliage. They'll they'll mean they'll stop, still get blooms, the the pegs will go in, but not so much on the on the actual nuts if I don't get going here soon.

Chris Enroth: 31:26

I guess mother nature's trying to help us out with some pretty warm days lately, so we'll try to motivate us. Well, that was a lot of great information. Show off some of the things we're gonna try to grow this year. I hope we're successful. Fingers crossed.

Chris Enroth: 31:46

All works out. That's that's what we think though as gardeners. It's all gonna work out. And if it don't work out this year, maybe it'll work out better next year. And and folks, listeners, viewers, if you got interesting things, new stuff that you're going to try this year, throw it down in the comments section or email us.

Chris Enroth: 32:08

And it probably won't make the list for this year, but but maybe for next year, you know, we can also give those a try as well.

Ken Johnson: 32:16

Or if you've grown these and you have any tips on how to grow these.

Chris Enroth: 32:20

Yeah. We're all ears right Well, the Good Growing podcast is a production of University of Illinois Extension edited this week by Ken Johnson. And, Ken, thanks so much for hanging out, sharing, you know, what we have forthcoming this year in the garden along with the grow along stuff. So, again, I yeah. I don't know.

Chris Enroth: 32:41

We got some trellising to do. We've got we've got some space constraints here now. We'll see what happens. Report back.

Ken Johnson: 32:51

Hopefully, there's something to report back on. Yeah. Think yeah. Maybe throughout the growing season, we'll we'll try to give some occasional updates. Maybe not a whole show, maybe a whole show depending how things go, but give occasional updates throughout the year.

Ken Johnson: 33:05

And thank you as always and let's do this again next week.

Chris Enroth: 33:09

Oh, we shall do this again next week. We're gonna be chatting with doctor Elizabeth Wally about the edible fig. So we have talked about figs, the the genus Ficus, just a few weeks, month, maybe a month ago. Well, we saved this particular large portion of that genus, the edible fig, for this particular show. We're gonna talk with Elizabeth about it.

Chris Enroth: 33:34

So looking forward to that. We are studying right after we stop this show or back to reading. Right, Ken? Back to studying. Exactly.

Chris Enroth: 33:42

Yeah. Alright. Well, listeners, thank you for doing what you do best, and that is listening. Or if you watched us on YouTube watching. And as always, keep on growing.

Disembodied voice: 34:01

University of Illinois Extension.

Chris Enroth: 34:03

Oh, I can't forget to do my meows. Meow. Meow. Meow. K.