Podcasts about clemson extension

Kimberly Baker, Ph.D. serves as the Food Systems and Safety Program Team Director and an Associate Extension Specialist with the Clemson University Cooperative Extension Service. She received her Ph.D. in Food Technology from Clemson University and is both a registered and licensed dietitian, as well as a trained chef. Since joining Clemson Extension in 2007 as a Food Safety and Nutrition Agent in Greenville County, Dr. Baker has become a leading authority in food safety and education. She is a certified Seafood HACCP Trainer and Instructor, a Food Safety Preventive Controls Lead Instructor for both Human and Animal Food, a certified Produce Safety Alliance Lead Trainer, and a ServSafe® Instructor/Proctor. Dr. Baker is passionate about empowering others through education. She leverages her extensive expertise to teach home food preservation, promote consumer food safety, and support food entrepreneurs in achieving their goals. In this episode of Food Safety Matters, we speak with Dr. Baker [33:43] about: Her work at Clemson Extension educating growers and manufacturers on how to prevent contamination and product recalls, as well as conducting root cause analysis on actual recall events How Dr. Baker collaborates with federal and South Carolina State regulatory agencies to prevent foodborne illnesses and to promote and advance food safety Specific strategies for mitigating contamination of ready-to-eat foods by Listeria monocytogenes and other pathogens Best practices to help industry avoid product recalls The Food2Market program, a Clemson Extension program developed by Dr. Baker that provides education and technical assistance to food producers related to food safety regulations and processes What the South Carolina Home-Based Food Production Law is, and how Clemson Extension helps producers navigate and comply with the law Education for home-based food producers and small entrepreneurs on allergen cross-contact and labeling, corrective actions in the face of food safety incidents, and recall management. News and Resources News FDA Leader Jim Jones Resigns After 89 ‘Indiscriminate' Firings in Human Foods Program [3:45]National Food Safety Strategy Would Help Reduce Foodborne Illness in U.S., GAO Suggests [10:22]House Bill Aims to Block USDA From Implementing Stricter Standards for Salmonella in Raw Poultry [20:58]New EU Regulation Requires WGS Analysis, Data Reporting for Important Foodborne Pathogens [24:36]USDA Announces Detection of New HPAI H5N1 Genotype in Dairy Cattle [28:04]New Avian Influenza Genotype Found in Dairy Cattle Resources [WEBINAR] Recall Readiness: How to Conduct a Mock Recall and Ensure Traceability Sponsored by: Hygiena Hygiena Pathogen and Spoilage Organism Detection We Want to Hear from You! Please send us your questions and suggestions to podcast@food-safety.com

Elizabeth Parker visits Palmetto Mornings.

Less than 11% of the food that we eat in South Carolina is grown in South Carolina.  Ben Boyles, Senior Agribusiness Extension Agent from Clemson Cooperative Extension, is working to change that. Ben joins the Raising the Barn podcast to talk about how he has worked to develop and implement programs aimed at strengthening South Carolina's agricultural economy and rural communities since 2007. In 2019, Ben was named Director of Clemson Extension's South Carolina New and Beginning Farmer Program where he works to enable new and beginning farmers to be successful, productive, and innovative members of their local agricultural community. And he is also the founder of the South Carolina Ag + Art Tour, so if you're planning to take part in it this year, you know who to thank. Some of the questions we chat about: What are some of the resources that farmers have through Clemson Extension? Let's talk about the South Carolina Ag + Art Tour that is underway across our state. For those not familiar with the event - the tour is the largest free farm and art tour in the nation. Can you give a quick overview of what it has to offer farmers, artisans, and visitors?  How has it evolved since 2012? What has been your biggest challenge when marketing Ag + Art and how did y'all overcome it?  What advice would you give to farmers and artisans to get the most out of the opportunity to participate?  The Ag + Art Tour is an incredible opportunity to introduce folks across our state to the people who feed us. What's one thing that you would like consumers to take away from the tour? From your perspective, what are some of the biggest challenges that young and new farmers are facing today? What can we do to support them?  What's on the Clemson Extension Marketing Plan for 2024?  Subscribe: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube Mentioned in this episode: South Carolina Ag + Art Tour Website South Carolina Ag + Art Tour Instagram South Carolina Ag + Art Tour Facebook York County Ag + Art Tour Clemson Cooperative Extension SC New and Beginning Farmer Program Visit York County Episode Sponsors: Visit York County - The South Carolina Ag + Art Tour is back in York County, SC! Join us for this FREE, family-friendly event—a self-guided tour showcasing 25 farms with artisans at every stop. Experience first-hand where your food comes from, witness and shop from artisans in action, enjoy local musicians, and learn about the importance of supporting our local farms! You don't want to miss this unique event, so mark your calendars for June 8th-9th! Visit agandarttour.com/york to learn more.

In this episode of SC Grower Exchange, Clemson Extension agent Zack Snipes interviews Clemson's new post-harvest handling specialist, Dr. Karin Albornoz.  They discuss easy ways to improve post-harvest handling of produce, for any size farm or garden and what that can mean for the environment and your bottom line. Dr. Albornoz also casts her vision for her research path and how she, along with growers, can reduce food loss and optimize profitability for decades to come.

Lucas and Ashley welcome Hannah Shifflette & Elizabeth Parker.

Lucas and Ashley welcome Kristin Kunde, Mattie Johnson & A.J. Dover.

Rob Last is joined by Jhessye Moore-Thomas and Lacy Barnette, who work for Clemson Extension on the Climate-Smart Grant Project. Listen to this new interview series to learn more about the work they do to support leafy greens farmers, the role of Climate-Smart in South Carolina, and much more. To learn more about the Climate-Smart project, visit climatesmartsc.org.

Lucas and Ashley welcome Hannah Shifflette and Elizabeth Parker.

Hello, I'm Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. There are 50 species of cotton in the genus Gossypium — basically they're seeds with fibers attached. Only a few are commercially important.

Making It Grow celebrated thirty years of being on air with SCETV this year. The show was developed and hosted for much of that time by Rowland Alston, a Clemson Extension agent and son of an agent.

Hello, I'm Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. In the winter time, cooking a frozen pizza is my easy go to supper. We have a gas stove, which adds heat to the kitchen, so I never turn it on in summer if I can help it. Hot weather suppers revolve around vegetable sandwiches, cucumber or tomato. White bread, peeled sliced cukes or maters, lots of mayonnaise. There're lots of discussions about what kind of mayonnaise, all made more complicated by other concoctions similar looking to that white stuff in a jar, wildly different tastes. Most people I ask say they use what their momma's used -- my mother didn't even put mayonnaise in the refrigerator, maybe the acidity in the tomatoes saved us from potential food poisoning. Now I see recipes calling for – get ready for this --bacon mayonnaise. More on that to come.

This week, Kevin Burkett from Clemson Extension's Agribusiness Team joins to discuss the work and projects his team provides. Agents also give field crop updates regarding peach varieties, trials with grafted peppers, diseases in cucurbits, and last week's Watermelon Field Day.

Host Scott Fisher opens the show with David Allen Lambert, Chief Genealogist of the New England Historic Genealogical Society and AmericanAncestors.org. Military expert David reveals he never heard about the subject of his first story in Family Histoire News. We bet you haven't either. Then, you might be surprised that “mullet” hair styles have an ancient history. David will explain. The guys then talk ancestral pocket watches. Next, here about an escape destination for escapees from slavery, largely in the 18th century. It's in Florida, where excavation is facing a major complication. Finally, a news story out of Iraq provides a tourist warning. David explains. Fisher then visits with Crista Cowan from sponsor Ancestry. Crista reveals Ancestry's newest databases. She then talks about a new movie called “A Dream Delivered- The Lost Letters of Hawkins Wilson.” The film is based on the real letters of the formerly enslaved man, Hawkins Wilson, who wrote to the Freedmen's Bureau following the Civil War, hoping to reunite with his family. For him, it never happened. But 150 years later, his dream has come true for his descendants, and those of his siblings. Hear about it, then watch it! Next, Fisher talks “floral genealogy” with Barbara Holloway Smith, a horticulturalist with Clemson Extension in South Carolina. Barbara, a passionate genealogist, has tracked down plants… planted by her ancestors… and plants and maintains them in a garden of her own… some going back to her great great grandparents! David then returns for another round of Ask Us Anything, answering your questions. That's all this week on Extreme Genes, America's Family History Show!

Hello, I'm Amanda McNutly with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. As a young child, I began using U S C's McKissick Museum - at that time it was a library. Today its mission statement includes these words “The University of South Carolina's McKissick Museum fosters awareness and appreciation for the diversity of the region's culture, history, and natural environment.” When the state of Pearl Fryar's topiary garden and Mr. Fryar's health was brought to director Jane Przybysz attention, she began work on a way to preserve this regional and national treasure. Eventually, with cooperation with the Atlanta Botanical Garden, the museum got funding for a topiary artist in residence – I'm sure that's a first, and Mike Gibson, a self-taught and self-described property artist, is working with Fryar in his Bishopville garden. McKissick is to me an overlooked treasure for our state, please visit it on the old horseshoe.

I'm Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. On our visit to film at Riverbanks Zoo and Garden, we learned about displays designed to reflect the native areas of a specific animal. We started out at the sealion and seal exhibit. Obviously, there weren't plants in the water, but curator Melody Scott Leach has planted the surrounding areas to resemble the wind-swept California coasts home to these animals. She explained that she studies photographs of the animals' place of origin then designs topography and selects plants with similar appearance that can thrive in our climate. Her choice of distorted conifers and plants with silvery-colored foliage set the scene of that windswept habitat, heightened by the barks of those animals. For the koala exhibit, different species of the eucalyptus plants grow, as you'd expect, but the one they eat isn't hardy in South Carolina and is shipped to Columbia.

I'm Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. During our filming with horticulturist Melody Scott Leach at Riverbanks Zoo and Garden, we learned about what animal exhibit specialists call furniture. This means plants or other items placed inside the animal enclosure. For example, the rhinoceroses need shade but these massive animals could easily destroy trees by rubbing against them. Scott-Leach has planted trees but placed large boulders around them to keep these animals from scratching their backs on the tree trunks. But don't think that they have to suffer an itching spot –there is a suspended brush that automatically comes on and spins its bristles against their tough hide. We watched a very content animal enjoy this feature during our filming. At the walk-through kangaroo exhibit, strategically placed fans cooled these animals on a hot September day, the exhibit keepers and the MIG team enjoyed them, too.

I'm Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. As part of putting our toes back in the water during these difficult times, Team Making It Grow is looking for outdoor places to film. Recently, we visited Riverbanks Zoo and Garden in Columbia. There's a special branch of horticulture for areas that involve animal exhibits. Melody Scott Leach fills that role there and she gave us a fascinating tour and explanation of that subset of gardening. The trend began in the 1980's with the idea of immersion horticulture for zoos. Instead of just choosing plants for a beautiful display, the exhibit designers and horticulturists strive to recreate as nearly as possible an enclosure that provides animals with a semblance of their natural environment and choose plants for outside the enclosure that also reflect the areas of origin but will thrive in the climate of each zoo's location.

I'm Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. At our recent filming at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens, we met several people who help our friend Katie Dickson by volunteering, working year round in summer's heat and winter's cold. We talked with some of them who said they get more in sharing friendships and learning than they give with their valuable skills. Many, many public gardens rely on generous hearted volunteers who help with greenhouses, planting and the inevitable and unfun task of weeding. Working outside with others, masked and socially distanced, is a way to stay engaged and physically active. Even our State Parks has an act passed by the legislature to allow persons to help in those beautiful areas. Last December, we visited the festival of lights at Brookgreen and everyone in the parking area was a volunteer. Find ways to get involved in the outdoors.

I'm Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Team Making It Grow is going back out to film interesting places to share with our viewers. Public gardens seem like just the ticket in these times, especially now that the temperatures are lower. Our first trip was to Magnolia Plantation and Gardens where our friend Katie Dickson is in charge of seasonal displays for lots of WOW. We began our tour at a fabulous collection of sun coleus, many I'd never seen before, set off by the chartreuse leaves of a border of dwarf durantas – aka golden dew drops. A relaxing but visually exciting trip was the bed she's planted for color along the path that borders the Ashley River-- where we could also watch birds fishing in the water. For the younger set, the children's garden has a sensory theme – including ways to make noise and explore textures.

Hello Gardeners, I'm Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. In an effort to stop the potential extermination of native birds being used in the millinery trade, Congress passed the Lacey Act in 1900 which made it unlawful to transport illegally procured animals across state lines. Meanwhile, a new threat emerged as Florida's homesteaders' act gave them preference to land under control of the General Land Office. Pelican Island was about come under this act which would allow pro-feather collecting people to buy it. Theodore Roosevelt was now president with many national issues to address, but he remembered vividly the dead pelicans he'd seen years earlier. He called a meeting of ornithologists and government wonks and asked if he could just flat out declare Pelican Island a Federal Bird Reservation. He did just that and eventually put over two hundred million acres of land in national parks, forests or wildlife refuges.

Hello Gardeners, I'm Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Although we often think of Theodore Roosevelt as a relentless hunter of trophy animals, he combined that a passion for understanding the habit, habitat and lifestyles of not only those but other animals in nature. As he waited for transit to Cuba during the Spanish American War, Roosevelt renewed an earlier interest in pelicans, this time spending endless hours observing them in nature from his posting in Tampa. Fortunately for the conservation movement, he saw and was sickened by a sixty-foot high pile of dead birds on the docks awaiting shipment to the plumage sales in New York. Coincidentally, the Curator of Ornithology at Roosevelt's old stomping ground, the American Museum of Natural History, was attempting to purchase Pelican Island as the millinery trade was buying nearby tracts of land that were breeding grounds for the birds whose feathers they coveted.

Hello Gardeners, I'm Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Dixon Lanier Merritt, American humorist wrote: A funny old bird is a pelican. His beak can hold more than his belican. Food for a week He can hold in his beak, But I don't know the helican.

Hello Gardeners, I'm Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. I wonder how many more hummingbird feeders we've added to our gardens since the pandemic started as birding resource sites report there's been a huge interest in ornithology recently. Sadly, there was an equal fascination with hummingbirds during the times when features and even entire birds were used as adornments in the world of fashion. There was a massive use of hummingbird bodies mounted on Victorian fans. Their beautiful heads were often fashioned into dangling earrings. In the tropics, hunters would hold poles covered with glue near flowers to capture the birds before killing and shipping them to market. Catalogue entries for only three feather sales in London in 1911 give the horrifying figure of forty-one thousand hummingbird skins offered for sale; the estimate is that 223,000 birds were killed just these three events.

Hello Gardeners, I'm Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. One early falsehood spread by manufacturers of hats adorned with feathers was that the feathers were gathered from the ground. But as whole birds or parts of birds began to adorn hats the specious nature of that story was revealed. The Empress of Germany Bird of Paradise measuring over two feet from beck to the end of its exquisite tail was hunted almost to extinction and entire stuffed birds were incorporated into hats. In the United States alone, almost 5 million birds a year were killed for the millinery industry. With feathers selling for as much as thirty-two dollars an ounce, and factory workers being paid a fairly good wage of two dollars and fifty cents a week, the plumage wars became an example of conservationist pitted against people trying to make a living, with poachers eventually shooting some game wardens.

Hello Gardeners, I'm Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Woman were blamed for their heartlessness in wearing hats covered with the feathers and body parts of cruelly harvested wild birds. But with time, knowledge of the consequences of this practice prompted many socialites and educated women into campaigning against this practice. We spoke earlier of Boston socialite Harriet Hemenway who used invitation to tea parties to convince nine hundred equally influential woman to join her campaign against feathers in fashion. With the widespread authority that the Audubon society was receiving, women promoted Audubonnets – hats that were decorated with ribbons and lace. Florence Augusta Bailey promoted citizens to study birds through her writing, published in the book Birds Through an Opera Glass. And adored German opera singer Lilli Lehmann, with a commanding presence, would give autographs if fans agreed to stop using feather to an effort to be glamorous.

Hello Gardeners, I'm Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Gourds were human's earliest containers. Their diversity in size and shape let early peoples select them for a variety of purposes. Some were cut in half and filled with food, hot rocks were added to cook those contents. Others with flat bottoms and long necks held and easily dispensed liquids. Early on they were decorated as we humans want to add beauty to our homes, be they caves, teepees, or fiber covered structures. In Kenya, where gourds were essential to life for ten thousand years, the proliferation of plastics led to a decline in their use. With the help of the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute, a museum there preserves the most diverse germ plasma for bottle gourds in the world and teaches woman decorating and marketing practices. I wonder if art galleries in the future display lovingly decorated Tupperware?

Hello Gardeners, I'm Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. As a non-traditional, i.e. older, student, I took one horticulture class with David Bradshaw and my life was changed for the better. Among his infectious passions is an interest in heirloom seeds and he helped establish an heirloom seed repository at Clemson. One website offers his purple martin bird house seeds, our topic of the week, the ancient bottle gourd, Lagenaria sicenaria. For over fifty years, he's been selecting seeds with the best characteristics for this purpose. Purple martins travel to South America in the winter and come back in spring to mate and raise their young. Natural nesting cavities are few and far between in our urbanized country; purple martin condominiums offer a safe place for these birds. Members of the swallow family, they'll delight you with their aerial acrobatics as they catch and eat insects on the wing.

Hello Gardeners, I'm Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Bottle gourds have been used by ancient and modern peoples for over ten thousand years now. For religious rites, they've been crafted into masks, musical instruments, or sounding devices. From a utilitarian standpoint, bottle gourd uses are incredible diversity -- a container, a dipper, wheels, even flotation devices. When dried, they are especially light weight and have undeniably made contributions towards improvements in the lives of humans. The eventual shape can be manipulated when the fruits are young by tying vines or twine around them to achieve a certain shape, or hung for a straight neck, or sat straight up on its base for an upright vessel. In some Papua New Guinea cultures, they are used as unusual body protection devices, called kotekas, which we might consider primitive but are not so different from equipment worn by football players.

Hello Gardeners, I'm Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. . In many cities these evenings, people go outside at seven and make noises to communicate their appreciation for front line workers in the covid 19 pandemic. My daughter and her boyfriend in Los Angeles have been participating. Casey, a trained saxophone player, has alternated between blowing two flutes at one time (a common ancient practice) and a digeridoo. Eliza Frezil shakes a tambourine. All three instruments have ancient origins – the digeridoo most probably eucalyptus trunks hollowed out by termites. The flutes from plant stems and bamboo, and the tambourine originally a dried gourd whose seeds made the shaking sound. Gourds are the source of more nature-based musical or sound-making implements than any other natural object. Lagenaria sicenaria, the ancient bottle gourd, still grown today, probably originated in Africa but 10,000 years ago was already in the New World and Asia.

Hello Gardeners, I'm Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Many specialty good growers rely on high end restaurants to pay top dollar for their meticulously produced crops, often produced on a small acreage farm. With the ban on indoor dining, many restaurants have closed their doors as takeout orders don't fit with their fine-dining experience. Consequently, their suppliers are taking quite a hit. Some of them are now offering ways for us to enjoy their products and help keep the afloat. At the South Carolina Department of Agriculture home page, the first image is a field with the phrase COVID-19 (Coronavirus) Outbreak. Click there for a listing of topics. One is how to find local farm-fresh food, including farmers markets, individual growers, and you-pick operations. These outlets have rules to ensure food safety and correct physical distancing and some require orders made in advance.

Hello Gardeners, I'm Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. The Clemson Extension Horticulture team interacts with professional fruit and vegetable growers as well as home-based clients. Although restricted by safety guidelines during these times, Extension office phones are working and hort agents are available to solve residential and commercial problems. Agents are also offering a variety of programs on line, from environmentally sustainable landscaping to step-by-step instructions on renovating your lawn, check out the Clemson Horticulture Facebook page. The Ag Service lab will accept soil samples in zip lock bags from residential customers and the Plant and Pest Diagnostic Clinic also is operating. Please call your local extension office for information on what is required to submit materials to those agencies by mail or private carrier. The Home and Garden Information Center agents are answering phones all day long advising clients on plant and food problems or questions.

Hello Gardeners, I'm Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. During a recent interview, Commissioner of Agriculture Hugh Weathers detailed the breadth of agricultural activities considered essential during this time of national crisis, and that there is no evidence that food product can transmit the corona virus. His staff, most working remotely, is still performing all activities necessary to keep human and animal food and fiber production, inspection, and distribution safe and operating at levels that can supply demand. If you search South Carolina Department of Agriculture, the first image is a field with the phrase COVID-19/ (Coronavirus) Outbreak. Click there to get a listing of related topics ranging from loan programs for producers to listings of farms, retail markets and other outlets legally open to consumers wanting to purchase fresh, locally produced vegetables, fruits, dairy, meat and more, and rules for safely visiting those outlets.

Hello Gardeners, I'm Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. There're many benefits to owning timberlands besides the income from harvesting your trees. Some families enjoy hunting or while others gain income by leasing hunting rights to others. Wildlife ecology goes along with hunting in some cases when owners plant food crops and conduct prescribed burns. For many it's the joy of hearing the wind as it sings in tall pines and the voices and glimpses of birds and wildlife; all reasons to enjoy and protect your family's woodlands which are enjoyed as much by women as by men. Traditionally men make more management decisions concerning these properties, and yet according to the Census Bureau, eighty percent of men die before their wives. We have a Making It Grow Extra podcast with Clemson's Janet Steele about a program, Women Owning Woodlands, to help females new to forest management gain knowledge.

Driving across our state we've all seen places where invasive species have overwhelmed our woodlands. In the upstate, kudzu or English ivy are most likely the culprits. In some Midlands forests, trees are completely engulfed by Asian wisteria – still sold and planted to this very day. One of the recent workshops offered by Clemson Extension at its Women Owning Woodlands events was options on controlling these plants that diminish the financial value of timberland and severely impact the environmental value of these tracts of land. Some of the options discussed were mechanical, using grazing animals to control these unwanted plants, especially on slopes or near water sources, and straight talk on the use of herbicides. If you search Southern Forest Health glyphosate David Coyle, you can find a reasonable article discussing this topic.

Across the United States, 30 percent of our timberlands or forests, is owned by the federal government. Ten percent is owned by local and state governments. Sixty percent is privately owned. But in South Carolina the amount privately owned is a whopping 85%! Providing education to these land owners is a critical responsibility of two state agencies -- Clemson Extension and the South Carolina Forestry Commission, aided by many highly trained private managers. Both entities offer trainings and learning opportunities to individuals. However, as women inherit property from husbands who predecease them, a new need has arisen. Extension Forestry agent Janet Steele, whom you can contact through the Orangeburg Extension office, is working with others to offer Women Owing Woodlands classes, an educational course designed to specifically provide information to those new to these stewardship responsibilities.

Hello Gardeners, I'm Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Janet Steele is a regional Clemson Extension forestry agent based in Orangeburg. She came to Sumter recently to tell us about new program she, Clemson Forester David Coyle and others are offering. In South Carolina eighty-five percent of woodlands are privately owned by companies or families. Eighty percent of married women outlive their husbands. So often while adjusting to the loss of a spouse, these persons also must learn how to manage their family's properties; a task which most often had been the purview of their husbands. Women Owning Woodlands began nationally to address these needs and issues and now is being presented in our state, where timber and associated businesses account for $21 billion in our state's economy. To find out about workshops being offered specifically for this target group, call Janet Steele at the Orangeburg Extension Office.

Hello Gardeners, I'm Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. The family, Solanaceae, has the common name of nightshade, which sounds like something to avoid like the plague, includes some of our favorite vegetables. Besides tomatoes, other members are peppers, eggplants, and potatoes, and still an important agricultural crop, tobacco. Flowers include Datura, brugmansia, petunias and nicotiana. One important gardening and farming practice is crop rotation. If you plant the same crop over and over again, diseases that favor that plant family will build up in the soil, you should wait at least a year before planting other members of that family in the same spot. Deadly nightshade is one plant you probably won't have on your list – it was the source of belladonna which women used to get those dilated pupils – or bedroom eyes. In Italian Belladonna means beautiful woman but too much of it can be deadly.

Hello Gardeners, I'm Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Mated female bumblebees overwinter in sheltered underground locations, emerging in early spring to find a nesting site, collect pollen to lay eggs. Newly hatched bees take over the pollen and nectar gathering and the hive increases. Although social insects, bumblebees are relatively docile and generally not a threat. They don't make much honey as the colony, which may reach several hundred individuals, dies when winter comes. Since bumblebees are large bodied, they can emerge and visit flowers when it is too cold for honeybees to be active and are important early pollinators. With habitat loss due to urbanization, these bees need our help. Leave some portions of your property unplanted so that bumble bees and other ground nesting bees can find places for their nesting sites. And plant redbuds – an early food source for the important blueberry bumblebees, too.

Hello Gardeners, I'm Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Field grown tomatoes can be effectively pollinated by wind but the addition of powerful buzz-pollinating insects, bumble bees and the much-maligned carpenter bees, improves the outcome. When growing tomatoes in greenhouses, the producers can either use mechanical pollination or maintain colonies of bumblebees. Effective mechanical pollination requires workers to vibrate each fruiting cluster with devices, sometimes battery-powered toothbrushes. A University of Pennsylvania study concluded that it took 15 hours of manual labor per day to perform this task. Compare that with the perfect combination of bumblebees and tomatoes. A hive of these strong-chested buzz pollinators not only eliminated the toothbrush approach, but the plants produced more tomatoes, up to a 25% increase. Sounds like a no brainer. The caveat is that growers must practice skillful and careful integrated pest management to avoid harming those confined and hard-working insects.

Hello Gardeners, I'm Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Tomatoes need movement for pollination. Their pollen containing anthers have slits or pores in them which release ripe pollen when stimulated by wind or vibrations. As wind moves the flowers pollen is released and falls on the female stigma. The best insect pollinators are not honey bees but bumble bees and carpenter bees. These insects which have super strong chest muscles frequently visit flowers in the nightshade family, which includes tomatoes. Using a technique called buzz pollination, they hold onto the flower with their jaws and with their wings in a resting position powerfully vibrate their flight muscles, up to one hundred ninety times a second. The pollen rains down on the stigma and the bees. The female flowers get pollinated the bees take collected pollen back to their colony for food, and we get big juicy tomatoes.

Hello Gardeners, I'm Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Growing the delicious garden tomato becomes more and more elusive for me and others as well. Back in the day, my parents would put a few tomato plants in amongst the foundation plantings and we'd have plenty of those summer treats. Now with increased disease and insect pressure, I‘ve become an aficionado of cherry tomatoes which seem easier to grow; although you need a really sharp knife if you are going to slice them for BLT's. There're also tasty greenhouse grown tomatoes, with brown skins and lots of flavor available all year. Growers of hot house tomatoes often use colonies of bumble bees for pollination as there isn't enough air movement inside those structures to be effective. Bumble bee hives are short lived, sometimes only a few months, so growers protect them using integrated pest management to limite pesticides applications.

Hello Gardeners, I'm Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Although the AC Moore Herbarium list of South Carolina's plant distribution shows Ogeechee lime, Nyssa ogeche, as documented in only Jasper and Beaufort counties, there is a specimen growing at Moore Farms Botanical Garden in Lake City. It's obviously a female tree, which has mostly female flowers but also some perfect ones, as it produces fruits. Stan McKenzie, aka the Citrus Man, who lives in nearby Olanta, has gone over and collected the juicy fruits this tree produces (they're used as a substitute for limes due to their bitterness). They germinate readily when planted right away and Stan has a nice collection of them in his nursery. I'm planning to ride over one day soon to get some and plant them in my yard – it doesn't matter if they're male or female both are magnets for pollinators.

Hello Gardeners, I'm Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. If you like the pine resin flavored Greek wine retsina, I have a honey suggestion for you. At Honey Travelers Single Flower honey page, they talk about forest or honeydew honey. Honeydew is the substance that aphids excrete – it is the bane of many gardeners as it coats the surface of lower leaves this sweet substance upon which sooty mold grows. But in the fir and spruce forests of Europe, certain aphids feed mainly on these conifer needles and their exudate, is not only filled with sugars but also resinous substances produced by the trees. Aphids are vegetarians so the excess fluid they excrete is practically nothing but sugar-filled sap. The bees collect the excreted substances instead of nectar, taking it back to their hives were it is transformed into honey. This dark complex honey is apparently an acquired taste.

Hello Gardeners, I'm Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. I'm not very picky about honey although Maynard Door near Sumter gave me some special honey he didn't mix in with others as its flavor was so delightfully floral. Lots of people are honey aficionados and have their favorites for different purposes. There are even listings for honey varietals, just like wine! For example, the website Honey Travelers has information on a honey competition in the Mediterranean region. The top winner, and this is a weird one, was the Strawberry Tree Honey from Sardinia. It's described as being relatively dark with a grey-green overtones, a strong odor – not fragrance, and bitter! How different from the Ogeechee honey described as lightly floral and pairing well with strong blue cheeses. And I thought I was putting on the dog when I sweetened a dipping sauce for fried brussels sprouts with honey from the pantry.

Hello Gardeners, I'm Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. If you look at the USC Herbarium's plant distribution list, you'll see that only in Jasper and Beaufort Counties has Ogeechee lime, Nyssa ogeche, been documented. It's greatest distribution is in a swath of Georgia and the upper panhandle of Florida. Bee keepers take hives into these sites, sometimes floating them on platforms, to produce this very valuable white ogeechee honey. It's high fructose to sucrose content helps prevent crystallization. It's considered a single flower or monofloral honey, and boy, oh, boy, the bee keepers really have to work to produce it. Other plants including other species of nyssa bloom earlier, bees are allowed to collect from those plants but then new combs must be inserted when the later blooming Ogeechee species come into flower. The honey is actually analyzed by pollen to insure its truly from just those trees.