Ep. 224 Fall gardening questions answered | #GoodGrowing
Welcome to the Good Growing podcast. I am Chris Enroth, horticulture educator with University of Illinois Extension coming at you from Macomb, Illinois. We have got a great show for you today. We have got a onslaught of gardening questions for you, and we have our answers on the way. But you know I definitely can't do this one by myself.
Chris Enroth:I am joined as always every single week by horticulture educator Ken Johnson in Jacksonville. Hey, Ken.
Ken Johnson:Hello, Chris. I think you'd be able to do this without me.
Chris Enroth:I oh, well, only because we we've we've said kinda before the show they were gonna, like, try to give, like like, quick answers. And my one word answer of, like, I don't know or is it know, that that's still an answer, technically speaking.
Ken Johnson:Yes. That's technically correct.
Chris Enroth:Technically, yes.
Ken Johnson:The best type are correct.
Chris Enroth:Or it depends. Yeah. If longtime fans of the show know, that's the best answer that we can give you. It depends. Well, if folks have listened to the show, if you listened last week, you know that we talked about it is dry, and guess what?
Chris Enroth:It's still dry. No rain yet. I think there's been some scattered storms, and by scattered, widely scattered. Not everybody is getting the fall moisture that we would typically get. So still dry here in Macomb.
Chris Enroth:How about you, Ken?
Ken Johnson:Same in Jacksonville. I know we talked about last week a crack in my yard. I actually went out and measured it, and I can put a picture in of it here. It's about a little over 10 inches deep. Nice.
Ken Johnson:Now I will say this is where we got our waterline replaced, so there's a lot of clay subsoil in that area. So it's cracking a little more than the rest of the yard, but, yeah, 10 and a half inches, give or take.
Chris Enroth:So you're you're tethering the the kids before they go out in the yard. Right? You gotta tie them off onto the porch or something so they don't get lost.
Ken Johnson:You build a build a bridge here soon over it.
Chris Enroth:It's nice. Alright. Well, the other thing that's going on this week is being very dry in Illinois is it's national houseplant week. And so, you know, yay houseplants. You know, we all love our houseplants.
Chris Enroth:I I especially like mine. I need them in the winter. I mean, I really do. In terms of, like, a boost of of green, my mood, joy, all of that, I definitely need a little bit of foliage in in the winter months especially, so it really helps. And, unfortunately, I don't really have I've never lived in a good house for house plants.
Chris Enroth:So I don't have many good houseplants. I got some aloe, pothos. I have a diphenbachia, and a a mother in law's tongue, also known as snake plant. And that's really the only things I can survive in my house. How about you, Ken?
Chris Enroth:I know you got a couple different ones in there.
Ken Johnson:We also do not have a good house for house plants, but we still have probably more than we should have given our house. We've got different types of we got Thanksgiving cactus. We've got Christmas cactus. We've got the Easter cactus. Those holiday cacti that all get lumped together as Christmas cactus.
Ken Johnson:We've got all three types of those, different colors. We've got some Monstera that I purchased for the Monstera show, and somehow they're still alive. Not looking much better than when we recorded that, but they're still alive. Got some ZZ plant, various different cacti, succulents, bunch of carnivorous plants. A lot of these are growing under, grow lights year round just because we don't have a lot of good windows, and they get taken outside.
Ken Johnson:Sometimes they get forgotten about and don't get watered. So if they're inside, they're not out of sight, out of mind. Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Enroth:So, yeah, it it is well, not really getting cold outside, but it's maybe time to start considering bringing in your house plants. I know when I water mine, which are all outside right now, that probably once every few days when I'm watering them, a toad pops right out of the soil. Very common for that to happen in probably say about December. I'll be in the laundry room where I have all my lights set up and my my outdoor house plants are inside then, And all of sudden, I see this big old toad just hopping around in the basement, and I'm like, oh, buddy. You picked the wrong time and the wrong place to wake up.
Chris Enroth:So, yeah, it's time to scout around, I think, and start getting those plants ready to be moved indoors.
Ken Johnson:You know, they got ants. We'll move in a lot of times in the potted plants, so flushing those with water, trying to drive those ants out. If you can't get them out, you may think about repotting before you bring them inside so you're not bringing all kinds of ants into your house, which most people are not terribly excited about when that happens.
Chris Enroth:Yeah. Yeah. They're just ants. I they don't bother me. They I I like ants.
Chris Enroth:They're they're one of my favorites. Nature's housekeepers.
Ken Johnson:Yeah. Clean up for you. As long as they're not carpenter ants, it's all good.
Chris Enroth:Yeah. Or fire ants. Fortunately, we don't have those in Illinois. Knock on desk.
Ken Johnson:Yet. Yet.
Chris Enroth:Oh, yeah. I I guess with national house plant week, you know, that's big news. The other thing that's big news is that I have paw paws. Yeah. It's paw paws harvest time.
Chris Enroth:So we have a master gardener who, she has lots of paw paw trees for fun, but she has enough for fun paw paw trees. You could almost classify it as, a commercial growing operation. It's a lot of pawpaws. And she has several different types, different varieties. And so what I'm holding right here, she's labeled them.
Chris Enroth:She gave me a bag of them. This is Pennsylvania gold or Pennsylvania golden. And this this, you can see this on on YouTube that I'm holding up. It looks basically, it's like the shape of a potato. Looks like a potato, but it's a paw paw.
Chris Enroth:But then this one, also Pennsylvania gold, is a much smaller looking potato. Same tree, but they they smell currently, office is just an aroma of, like, mango, banana, very tropical smelling right now. I mean, it it it's like, I'm at some kind of buffet in, like, Hawaii or somewhere. It's just it smells great in here. So I'm really looking forward to getting some paw paws on my plate because this is the season.
Chris Enroth:And, yeah, I'm I'm super excited. She has all all different types. This is labeled b t, which she said stands for big tree. It's kind of a wild pawpaw that they're they're most pawpaws like this this Pennsylvania one, this is a grafted tree. But this one here, she grew from seed, and it's just a wild pawpaw tree.
Chris Enroth:And so we we actually had Doug Gooker on the show a couple years ago to talk about pawpaws. So if you really wanna dive deep into that, we can leave a link below in the show notes. But I guess, Ken, you know, pawpaws, they're they're, they're an interesting tree. They're an understory tree. And how are they pollinated?
Chris Enroth:It's this is wild.
Ken Johnson:Yeah. So they have these beautiful kinda dark purple flesh colored rotting flesh colored, flowers that supposedly don't smell good. I've I've been fairly close to the flowers. I don't smell anything. I've never stuck my nose in one either, but kind of a less than desirable fragrance, and they're pollinated by flies, usually like carrion flies, house flies, things like that.
Ken Johnson:So it gives off it looks like rotting flesh, smells like rotting flesh. Flies visit it, and I'm thinking that's something I can lay my eggs on. They'll crawl around, pick up pollen, realize it's not, move off to the next flower, and pollinate that way.
Chris Enroth:Smart plant. Yeah. And then those flowers, they're born in clusters, and then they actually now this here is a fruit that is still barely attached to the cluster that was on the tree. So folks, you can see oh, blur. Don't you do it.
Chris Enroth:The where different paw paws were attached right here. And, yeah. So these are these, like, clusters. And when they're ready, they they fall, and that kind of indicates that they're ready. Now our my master gardener, she did say that they really do fight the raccoons for these.
Chris Enroth:They they're it's a really good meal for raccoons. Deer don't seem to care about them other than rubbing their antlers on them this time of year, But it's a raccoon, so what she has done after talking to a wildlife nuisance control operator is they do a two strand electrical wire. And I wish I had these numbers off the top of my head, but she puts one low to the ground just a few inches off of the ground, and then there's another one about a foot higher. And so, basically, she just has to step over about a foot and a half ish step over the two strands of electrical wire, and she said that has been enough to keep the raccoons away from their plantation of pawpaw trees.
Ken Johnson:Until they figure it out.
Chris Enroth:Until the until life finds a way, and they will. She still she says we still got squirrel problems. You're not gonna solve those, but, yeah. But at least the raccoons solve those. So, yeah, I have so many paw paws I get to eat, and then, we'll harvest the seed out of here.
Chris Enroth:And, you know, see if I can get some trees going in my neck of the woods.
Ken Johnson:So if if people wanna eat paw paws, probably need to go to, like, a farmer's market or find somebody who's got them because you're not gonna find them in the grocery store. They're really soft. They don't ship at all. I don't think they have very long shelf life either. So they're about the worst fruit you could have for kind of our commercial production as far as grocery stores and all that.
Chris Enroth:Now I I do think I remember Doug mentioning that there are certain pawpaw growers in The US that will overnight fly pawpaws to France because there are chefs over there that that like, this is a special cuisine, seasonal cuisine for, French chefs cooking over in France that they have paw paws over there. They, I'm sure they make all kinds of custards, baked goods, all of that stuff. Actually, our master gardener, she would supply our local brewery with paw paws, and they would make a paw paw beer out of it. It was quite good.
Ken Johnson:Time for lightning questions.
Chris Enroth:I think so. Well, so this next round of questions that we have, basically, what we did is we asked the old AI. We said we we we we mined the the depths of the Internet search engines, and we said, what are people searching for the most right now on 09/16/2025? And the AIs gave us a list of questions. And so Ken and I are going to go through this list lickety split, lightning fast, answering these questions.
Chris Enroth:We'll do our best. Right, Ken? We'll try.
Ken Johnson:Yes. I think there's a there's a couple we threw in here too that we've gotten. But
Chris Enroth:Yes. That that that seem to be pretty routine or, like, you know, Ken or I are seeing these around quite a bit. So, yeah, that might be a common question people might have too locally. So you ready, Ken?
Ken Johnson:As I'm gonna be.
Chris Enroth:Excellent. Alright. The first question here is, I have ants in my yard, don't we all? And aren't they great? How do I keep them out of my yard?
Ken Johnson:This one, there's a there's really not a good way to do that. I mean, ants are everywhere, and they're good. I mean, for the most part, they're good to have in your in your landscapes. You know, they're tunneling through the soil, aerating it. Some of them are gonna be predatory, and, you know, they're they're doing they're providing ecological services for us.
Ken Johnson:You know, if that they had a spot where so I would encourage people not to try to get rid of ants unless they are causing problems. And then, obviously, if you're in the southern part of the country with fire ants, that's a different story, but we don't have to worry about that in Illinois as of now. You know, if you wanted to get rid of if you've got a nest, you maybe it's right by the driveway or something and you're tired of looking at the the ant hill or something. If you really wanted to, you know, you can get a pesticide, apply that to the mound, and and kinda take care of it that way. But, I I would I would encourage people to reconsider trying to get rid the ants because they're everywhere.
Ken Johnson:You can get rid of a mound. Something else will will move back in eventually. Oh,
Chris Enroth:great great answer, Ken. I love it. Lightning fast, but, verbose in explanation. I loved it. Alright, Ken.
Chris Enroth:Here comes the next one. I have these black spots all over my maple leaves. What are they? Big blotches.
Ken Johnson:So maple tar spot is is more than likely what it's gonna be. This is a a pretty common disease we have on maples. It's really an aesthetic disease. Doesn't really hurt the plants, unless you've got leaves completely covered, but rarely if ever see that. It's more just kinda here and there.
Ken Johnson:They will overwinter on those fall on those leaves. So if if you don't like the look of it, rake it up, get those leaves out of there because they'll overwinter on that. The spores will be released in the spring. We have, you know, nice, moist weather conditions. It'll infect leaves in the spring, and then it's kinda there.
Ken Johnson:You kinda get light yellow patches on the leaves, which most people don't notice. You don't really notice it a lot of times until the fall when you get those big black circles on there. So just an aesthetic, don't really need to worry about it. Good conversation starter. If it really bothers you, get rid of all your leaves.
Ken Johnson:Get them out of the landscape. Alright.
Chris Enroth:Next question. Can I still plant perennials and trees in the fall? Yes. Excellent question. Good answer.
Chris Enroth:And
Ken Johnson:I would say, you know, for for this year, 2025 and last year, we were dry too. If if you're gonna be doing that, and we are in drought conditions or it's been very dry, we wanna make sure we're we're watering those plants very well while they're getting established. This year, depending on where you're at in the state, you're probably watering wanna water before you try to plant because you're gonna have a hard time digging into the soil. Yeah. We can as long as the ground isn't frozen, we can still potentially plant stuff.
Ken Johnson:Just make sure they've got enough moisture, help them get established.
Chris Enroth:Next one. Here we go. Is it too late to sow fall vegetables?
Ken Johnson:So this is gonna be the that depends. Depends on what you're gonna grow it. We're probably getting a little late without you having some kind of season extension for, like, lettuce, some of those leafy greens. Again, it's all gonna depend on on the weather when the frost comes. But as our days get shorter, that growth really slows down on stuff.
Ken Johnson:Something like radishes, you could still do those. That's pretty quick turnaround for those. I don't know if carrots, I think we're probably getting too late for that unless you can find one that's got a pretty short turnaround. So for most stuff, yeah, we're we're probably September. We're getting a little late for a lot of the state, maybe Far Southern Illinois.
Ken Johnson:You have a little more wiggle room. If you've got some kind of season extension, low tunnel or cold frame, something like that, you may be able to draw it out a little bit. But with the days getting shorter, growth is really gonna start slowing down.
Chris Enroth:It's it's those shorter days that really do them in that they just they have to reach some growth point by is it, November 10 or, you know, around that area where our days just get too short for a lot of active plant growth.
Ken Johnson:Yeah. A lot of our fall garden is more than August Mhmm. Time frame when we're planting that.
Chris Enroth:Mhmm. Should I cut back my perennials now? The Internet wants to know.
Ken Johnson:Say, should? I would say no. You can? Yes. So, Amy, yeah, you can you can cut them back.
Ken Johnson:It you know, it depends on on the plants too. And, you know, lot I I think we're more and more trying to get away from that cleaning up the landscape really well. You know, leave some of that stuff lay out for, you know, your habitat for pollinators and other wildlife out there. If you've got disease issues, then, yes, cut that back and get that out of there so you don't have that inoculum for next year. So you can if you want that nice clean manicured look.
Ken Johnson:But maybe think about leaving some stuff, you know, you have the the seed heads and stuff that birds can feed on. Various insects will overwinter and in plant debris and stuff. And, obviously, if you got a really bad pest outbreak, then, yeah, clean that up to get them out of their stuff. But, yeah, it's a little bit of a of a case by case. But if you don't have any issues, I would I would encourage people to maybe hold off on that until the spring.
Ken Johnson:Mhmm.
Chris Enroth:Okay. And, Ken, your your final, Internet, popular search question is, my annuals look bad right now. Don't all of ours? What should I do?
Ken Johnson:Well, watering would I know in my case would help a lot of my annuals. Obviously, with it being so dry, watering is gonna help. Deadheading can help if it maybe give you a new flush of growth. Will pre count the two things I would look at. As late as it is in the year, you know, maybe you're you pull them out and get a mum to put in the ground.
Ken Johnson:You know, that may or may not establish. But if you if you still want that color, maybe look at replacing them with with something else. Because they are annuals. They're that mean that you're not gonna get them they're not gonna overwinter. So replace them more, see if you can water them, nurse them back to health, deadhead, clean them up a little bit.
Ken Johnson:Mhmm. Alright.
Chris Enroth:Excellent. Great job, Ken. You have answered the Internet's questions. I think you get to go home early today.
Ken Johnson:Excellent. Well, as soon as I've been asking New Year's, I'll head home.
Chris Enroth:Alright. Sounds good.
Ken Johnson:Alright. So your first question is, can I collect seeds now for next year?
Chris Enroth:Well, that is one of those it depends questions. For the most part, I would say, yeah. If you're collecting seeds off of tomatoes, peppers, and if your beans, anything like that, sure. Pick some of the most high quality ones that you can off of those plants, set those aside, and there are steps that you have to take for harvesting certain seeds, you know, tomatoes especially, whether you have to ferment them in water. Outside of the vegetable garden, it depends on what species you want to be harvesting seeds.
Chris Enroth:I would say most of my experience deals with, like, native plant seed harvest, so everything from your wild native forbs to your native prairie grasses. And that is a huge educational piece right there. Some seed heads that look like they're ripe and ready to go might not be, or maybe they've already dropped their seeds. And some of these native seeds can be teeny tiny, like the size of pepper flakes or sometimes even smaller. And so I would say depending upon your specific species, do a little bit of research about when that seed head is ripe and ready to harvest.
Ken Johnson:And is it a project wingspan that the pollinator partnership? They do a lot of those classes. Also, that may be something to look into if if people are interested in that. Native plant seed collecting.
Chris Enroth:Mhmm.
Ken Johnson:Alright. Next up for you. How often should I water my lawn in the fall?
Chris Enroth:That is a good question. I would say if you don't have an irrigation system, like a in ground dedicated irrigation system, may maybe skip it, for this fall. But, again, it's another one of those that depends how dry are you. Right now, we are so dry, at least in Ken and my neck of the woods, that I would say we can skip watering the lawn, leave it dormant, allow it to, stay dormant during this hot, dry time, of the season. And, hopefully, fingers crossed, it's gonna cool off and bring some rain here in the next couple weeks.
Chris Enroth:That should bring that lawn that cool season lawn out of dormancy and allow it to then, you know, put a little bit of growth on. Really, we wanna do a lot of root growth this time of year and prepare preparation for winter and then spring for next year wherein then that just explodes in growth. But it really depends. What are your precipitation levels at right now? If you have that in ground irrigation system that's dedicated to it, I would say you'd be watering once a week.
Chris Enroth:You wanna be applying about an inch of water, to that lawn, during that week period. Unless you're getting rain, then keep your irrigation system turned off.
Ken Johnson:Alright. We'll stick with the lawns here. Is now a good time to aerate and fertilize my lawn?
Chris Enroth:Once again, if you had rain, yes. This is this is the time when Illinois Extension recommends people aerate their lawns, overseed their lawns, fertilizer lawns, and, of course, we're talking cool season lawns, for most of Illinois. You can grow warm season lawns here, but most people are growing cool season lawns, Kentucky bluegrass, drift type tall fescue, perennial ryegrass, fine fescues. But for, I would say, two thirds of Illinois going from south up into Central Illinois, we're just waiting. We're waiting for rain.
Chris Enroth:We're waiting for a little bit of cool weather. Because right now, if you tried to aerate your lawn and the soil is as dry as it is, it would be like trying to aerate a slab of granite. The the the aerator's not gonna be able to punch into the soil and pull out any clods of of dirt. So it's you just gotta wait.
Ken Johnson:Get your cordless drill out and start.
Chris Enroth:There you go. If you're really bored, get your drill out. Start drilling holes in your lawn.
Ken Johnson:Alright. Another lawn once. It's funny how this worked out.
Chris Enroth:Mhmm.
Ken Johnson:Should I treat crabgrass right now?
Chris Enroth:Yeah. No. Don't worry about crabgrass right now. It's too late in the year. It's it we've already have seed formation of crabgrass.
Chris Enroth:It's already, a lot of seed has already dropped in crabgrass, kind well, depending upon where you're at and everything. But I'd say crabgrass is a summer annual. It germinates in the spring, kinda germinates throughout the summer. At this point, late in the season, it's it's too late. If you wanna do something about crabgrass, you're gonna wanna do a pre emergent herbicide on your lawn in in the spring.
Chris Enroth:Crabgrass seed germinates when soil temperatures reach 55 degrees Fahrenheit for five to seven consecutive days in a row. And for us, oh, boy, Ken, this this is so variable anymore in the spring. But for us, usually, that's, like, April 15. But I usually tell people if they're gonna do the crabgrass pre emergent, have it down by April 1 because it does take some time for that that chemical to dissolve and become active in the soil. But that's Central Illinois.
Chris Enroth:Adjust yourself Northern Central Southern Illinois based on that. Northern Southern Illinois based on that.
Ken Johnson:And that won't last all season, will it?
Chris Enroth:No. If so, that will help a lot with crabgrass, but there are others annual weeds like foxtail is another very common weedy grass, a summer annual. So you will then need to reapply about six weeks after whatever that label says. But, usually, you do you do one by April 1 and then wait six weeks, do another application, or whatever your product's label directions specify.
Ken Johnson:Alright. Next one. Is it time to plant spring bulbs or spring blooming bulbs? I
Chris Enroth:don't know. Again, these are all rain dependent. Sure. I I guess you could. You'd have to again, get that drill out.
Chris Enroth:Maybe you I would say you probably wanna water too. Water the soil so you can even get digging in the ground. We might be a little bit early. I don't know if we're in the right time because I'm always late planting my spring bulbs. I'm always doing this in, like, mid October, into November.
Chris Enroth:It's just because I'm always late. But I I would say you could probably start getting him in the ground, but, you know, I might wait again until we get cooler weather, looser soils. We don't wanna get him in the ground too terribly early either. So
Ken Johnson:I think it was usually six ish weeks, four or six weeks before the ground freezes. Mhmm. So
Chris Enroth:Like a hard freeze.
Ken Johnson:Yeah. Who knows when that's gonna be anymore? But
Chris Enroth:We don't. It has been November when we have gotten those frost, those hard freezes the last couple of years because we've been growing ginger, and I've been keeping track of that stuff.
Ken Johnson:Yeah. Am I not yet? If you haven't ordered your bulbs, it's you're probably out of luck.
Chris Enroth:I am sorry. Yeah. I haven't ordered mine. I'll just maybe go to a nursery and see if they have any for sale. Oh, yeah.
Ken Johnson:Alright. Last one here. Should I test my soil in the fall?
Chris Enroth:Yeah. Do it. Highly recommend it. We'll leave a link to our soil testing web link website down below in the show notes. Fall is a good time.
Chris Enroth:It's when we usually recommend it. It's because we are yeah. We don't have many things growing. We're taking things out usually in the garden. Maybe we're if we had rain, we might be seeding a lawn, you know, putting mulch down in the landscape bed.
Chris Enroth:We're doing a lot of work outside. Great time to be taking the soil sample, sending it to a lab. Make sure that you submit specifically what your conditions are for. So if you are in a lawn, if you are in a vegetable garden, let them know that because very often they'll assume you're a corn and soybean grower if you are sending it to any Midwestern lab. But but, yeah, it's a good time.
Chris Enroth:You can do it any time of year, but fall is a good time to do it, which then means you can apply any amendments that the is recommended by your soil test results, and you have all winters for some of those amendments to begin to take effect.
Ken Johnson:Yes. Good job. You too can go home early now.
Chris Enroth:Yay. I can. Go home and water. Water. Water.
Chris Enroth:Water. What I do? Alright. Well, Ken, yeah, I yeah. I I guess, folks, let us know what you thought of that format.
Chris Enroth:I mean, it was we we literally just mined the Internet just to figure out what people are searching for right now. We're like, hey. Let's just answer these questions. That's a good way to fill some time. Well, that was a lot of great information about questions going on this time of year.
Chris Enroth:Well, the good growing podcast production of University of Illinois Extension, edited this week by is it is it Ken Johnson?
Ken Johnson:Maybe this is my turn.
Chris Enroth:Alright. Thanks, Ken. Edited this week by Ken Johnson. And so, yeah. Thank you, Ken, for hanging out, answering the Internet's burning horticultural questions.
Chris Enroth:That that yeah. That was pretty easy. I I like that. Keep keep doing
Ken Johnson:I think I think we may have to.
Chris Enroth:Yeah. Awesome.
Ken Johnson:And I guess, thank you as always, and let's do this again next week.
Chris Enroth:Oh, we shall do this again next week. Looking at the forecast, is that rain? Is it gonna cool off? Hey, maybe we'll get to do some other things in the garden besides water. So looking forward to maybe something like that happening.
Chris Enroth:Well, listeners, thank you for doing what you do best and that is listening. Or if you're watching this on YouTube, watch it. And as always, keep on growing.
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