Paul Szmal: You may not be thinking about doing outdoor work today, but now is the time to start working on the lawn, getting that ready for the spring and summer months, maybe planting some veggies and plants in the garden, that sort of thing. And Russell Welzer is here from Ontario County Cornell Cooperative Extension. We're going to talk about some of that and some other stuff this morning. How are you, sir?
Guest: Good morning. Good morning to you as well, and good morning to all the listeners out there.
Paul Szmal: So these cold temperatures the past couple of days, if you were maybe planting something early, did that have a negative effect?
Guest: So this cold snap, all it did is held things back, but as long as it was some of the early cool season crops that you were planting, no problem whatsoever.
Paul Szmal: What time is a good time to actually think about getting, like maybe say you're doing a vegetable garden?
Guest: So with the vegetable garden, ideally for some of those cool season crops like lettuces, peas, carrots, beets, potatoes, onions, some of those sorts of things, you're ideally looking for the soil temperature to be around at least 45 and better yet 50. So it's more of a soil temperature versus mid-April, mid-May or something of that nature. And it will vary from whether you have sandy gravelly type of soil or if you have a more clayey, silty soil. So the clayey, silty soils are going to be colder longer just because they hold more moisture and takes longer for them to warm up. But at this time of year, yes, you could already be planting your peas and radishes, lettuces, carrots, beets, things of that nature, but definitely not planting or transplanting out any sort of warm season crops like tomatoes or peppers or eggplants and same way you wouldn't be planting out your squashes or melons or things either. So you have to hold off and wait probably until mid-May to late-May for those warm season crops.
Paul Szmal: I didn't realize there was actually a difference between those crops that some are cold weather and some are later in the season warmer weather.
Guest: Well it makes a big difference because if you're really trying to get an early jump on some of the season by planting those peas early, I mean yes you can still plant them in mid-May and they're going to do just fine. They wait too long and then they just don't do as well in that warmer summer weather when they're trying to flower. But other than that, yeah, we're in pretty good shape. Some of the cold may have taken out some of the flower buds on some of our cherries and plums, but I still suspect we're going to have a respectable crop with both of them at this point still.
Paul Szmal: We're talking with Russell Welzer from the Ontario County Cornell Cooperative Extension Office covering a few different things this morning. I wanted to touch base on lawns for a second. We just here at the radio station property had our first lawn cutting last week with that warm stretch where I guess it was dry enough to do it. But in terms of like people that are planning on feeding the lawn some nutrients or maybe even planting some grass, too early for that sort of thing?
Guest: So if we're looking at seeding a lawn, ideally the ideal time is actually in August-September would be the ideal time. Early spring would be the second best time. So right now it's definitely, or you could even have done what we call a frost seeding and done it back in early March. Just broadcast the seed on and let the thawing, freezing action actually cover and bury the seed for you. As far as fertilizing, if you haven't fertilized your lawn in quite some time, fertilizing it right now would be okay. But if you had your lawn fertilized last fall, I definitely would not be fertilizing it now. If you were to fertilize it now, you would actually encourage a lot of top growth at the expense of root growth. So all you're doing is making a lot of work for yourself, having to mow more frequently and at the expense of the plant not putting out roots so that it would hold out better during the drier, droughty parts of the summer months.
Paul Szmal: If you get too much top growth and we get an excessive amount of rain where the water table is higher, does that mean like literally parts of your lawn could wash away or?
Guest: No, you're not going to get anything that washes away. If in fact the soil is saturated for length of time, you know, some of the grass in those areas may actually drown out and die. And we've seen where some of that is occurring right now. You can tell some of these lawn areas where the dips are and the water's just pooled up and been staying for weeks and weeks it seems here lately. Those portions of the lawn are struggling some right now.
Paul Szmal: Now let's talk about some of the events that happen to be coming up here. Tomorrow is Earth Day.
Guest: Tomorrow is definitely Earth Day and I just encourage everyone to get out and do their part, clean up around the neighborhood and just enjoy the day and be thankful for Mother Earth here.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. A couple of other things that are coming up. There is a household hazardous waste collection. This is going to be at the Casella Landfill on 5 and 20 Saturday.
Guest: So yes, this is one of the county's recycling programs of which Cornell Cooperative Extension does the registration for it. This is your opportunity, folks, to get rid of any number of hazardous wastes, you know, any sort of household cleaner, cleansers, fluorescent tubes, old oil, gas, any of those sorts of things. But you definitely need to contact our office to get yourself registered and get a timeline, a time spot for it. We still have openings, but primarily in the afternoon. So give us a call if you're wanting to get to that event on Saturday.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, the number is 585-394-3977, extension 427.
Guest: 585-394-3977, extension 427. If the machine picks up, leave a message by all means. Please do. We will definitely get back to you.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, and there is the request, even if you're already registered, have your name printed out with your registration time on a sheet of paper that you can show when you drive in that just helps to facilitate things.
Guest: It does. It's a very helpful event. And also coming up, an introduction to mushroom cultivation. This will be the first Saturday in May on the 2nd.
Paul Szmal: That is correct.
Guest: So folks, what this is, is you're going to get a short program on how to grow mushrooms and logs. And then you're going to actually be taking several logs, boring holes through them, filling them with mushroom spawn and going home with one log of shiitake mushroom and another log with oyster mushroom. So it's going to be a fun day. It's $40 a person, and you definitely need to contact the office and register because there is some limited space to that one.
Paul Szmal: Yeah. And that's cool because then, you know, at the end of the growing cycle, when you go to harvest these, hey, you got some good eats there.
Guest: You certainly do. The oyster mushrooms are much easier to grow than the shiitakes, but we can grow them both. Also coming up the following Saturday, May the 9th, is one of the big events for Ontario County Cornell Cooperative Extension every year. It's the Master Gardeners Plant Sale. They always look forward to doing this. It's a fair amount of work on their part, but it's a great event and we encourage everyone to come out and see what the Master Gardeners have there for plants. It's an ongoing event. It's our one and only major fundraiser for those Master Gardeners. And then May 13th, this is a Wednesday, it is a herb garden workshop. This is creating a fresh herb garden, which I think more and more people are starting to do, whether it be, you know, like a dish garden or planting them outside. So yes, there's more and more interest about container gardening in general. We see more and more folks looking at the self-sufficiency, wanting to do more things on their own. So this is a class being taught by several Master Gardeners, and they're talking about culinary herbs and their uses, and then folks are going to be potting up, I think it's three different herbs in a container to then take home and take care of and have them for culinary use throughout the summer season. The cost for that is $20 a person. And again, just call our office and get yourself on the registration.
Paul Szmal: And you mentioned there are a couple of programs coming up at local libraries still.
Guest: That is correct. We have a beginning gardener class coming up at the Red Jacket Community Garden here on April the 28th. And then we're repeating that class for the Gorham Library on May the 14th. So if you're a beginner and looking for some good advice, take one of those and come to either the Red Jacket or the Gorham Library.
Paul Szmal: Okay. And for information on some of the events that we've talked about, so on and so forth, again, cceontario.org is the website, cceontario.org. And again, if you're going to do the household waste event, the household waste collection on Saturday, you do need to pre-register for that.
Guest: You definitely do need to pre-register for it.
Paul Szmal: Yeah. No cost for it, but they just need to know that you're coming. So the phone number is on the website. Just click on that Household Hazardous Waste Collection tab.
