Making It Grow Minutes

Twenty some odd years ago, Edward and I dug up a hickory seedling on his family’s farm. The foot tall seedling had a six-foot long tap root that fortunately took a turn and didn’t go straight down. We brought it home and heeled it in near the house.

One of the most beautiful of fall trees is the hickory. With leaves the color of slightly browned butter it is quite a standout.

Magnolia grandiflora, our southern magnolia with large, glossy leaves is part of many nature-based decorations for holidays and special occasions.

The relatively modest Christmas decorations at Historic Columbia’s Robert Mills House reflect what would have been accurate during the 1820’s.

Our dear departed friend Extension agent Tony Melton grew up on the sandy soils of McBee. Although those soils grow great peaches, they did not produce plentiful crops. Tony said Christmas was special for his family but, with eight children, presents were minimal.

The holiday decorations at Colonial Williamsburg are knock your socks off beautiful, but not historically accurate. Christmas decorations weren’t a big deal during those early times and citrus and pineapples would have been prohibitively expensive.

Christmas morning was a magical time for the three McNulty kids who lived on Woodleigh Road in Columbia.

At the South Carolina Botanical Garden, the goal is not just to offer visitors a rich experience in seeing a wide panoply of native and introduced plants that grow in three hundred acres which duplicate ecosystems from across the state, but they also preserve and protect endangered plants.

Recently we filmed a segment about so called carnivorous plants with Trent Miller, manager of the Natural Heritage Gardens at the South Carolina Botanical Gardens at Clemson.

Recently, we went to the South Carolina Botanical Garden to film their newest project – the Birding Garden. The people who take up birding are dedicated and persistent, the garden staff noticed that every morning binocular-laden folks were gathering in a particular place below the Visitor’s Center, scanning the tree line for views of year-round or migratory avians.

Our small state has wildly divergent plant communities and the Botanical Garden’s topography and soil types allows many of these to be replicated. At the garden, experts in ecology, conservation, botany, woody and herbaceous plants teach core classes.

The South Carolina Botanical Garden is on the Clemson campus but since 1992 has been designated as the State Botanical Garden.

At a home in Saint Matthews, dating from 1880, the yard is now naturalized. But in the fall, you can see where the formal beds from probably a century ago were the planted. Almost overnight, usually after a good, drenching rain, twelve to fifteen inch tall brilliant red spider lilies, Lycoris radiata, pop up and continue blooming for almost a month.

I don’t think the person who gave the common name Hurricane Lily to what I’ve always called spider lilies, Lycoris radiata, meant to cast aspersions on them.

Spider lilies are one of my favorite garden flowers for arrangements.

Another Lycoris species often found in older gardens has a wonderfully amusing common name – Naked Lady Lily, Lycoris squamigera

If you are plagued by deer, there are two groups of bulbs made to order for your yard.

Bitter sneezeweed is a wide spread native plant — and staying with sneezing, there are lots of ideas about that.

Bitter sneezeweed was used as a type of dry snuff by some native populations to induce sneezing to drive out evil spirits or help clear head colds.

The side of the road flowers are making me pay more attention to soil types as I drive from St. Matthews to Sumter.

If you want a wildflower area in a place you can’t water, some of these sneezeweed cultivars would be perfect to use.

Like Rodney Dangerfield, some wildflowers can’t get a break.

Some native Crotalarias are the original larval food source for the ornate bella moth.

Amanda McNulty discusses crotalaria spectabilis, a yellow flower commonly known as rattlebox.

Black-eyed Susans, Rudbeckia hirta, are native biennial or perennial wildflowers with many cultivars grown by gardeners.

This summer it has been dominated by yellow flowers.

What are your "must haves" for tomato sandwiches?

Amanda McNulty shares her experiences making bacon mayo.

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.

Would you try potato chips on a tomato sandwich?

The chewing gum industry in North American exploded when chicle, the latex like substance from sapodilla trees, was introduced to America in the 1870s.

Resin from trees in the spruce genus was the source of the first commercial gum in our country, State of Maine Pure Spruce Gum.

Does your chewing gum lose its flavor on the bedpost overnight? Some people do save their gum but prefer not to stick on the bed post. Fortunately, you can find adorable gum parkers.

For thousands of years people have chewed gums that are extracts from trees.

Birthdays, anniversaries, various milestones – all reasons for getting together. When having fun time flies and that’s just what’s snuck up on Making It Grow, we’ve been on the air for thirty years.

When it comes to popcorn garlands, you would think you'd just string popcorn and that would be that. But with the internet, there's step-by-step directions

People like to put different toppings on their popcorn.

Popcorn isn't just one particular variety; apparently there are tons of different popcorns out there

The U. S. Department of Agriculture is not just a place for the latest and best research on crops, diseases, and insect pests. While looking for information on popcorn, I came across the site for popcorn on the USDA History Library.

Archaeologists have identified remains of popcorn from at least 6,000 years ago.

In my part of the state, farmers plant large fields of sunflowers to attract mourning doves during the legal hunting season.

Among some of the sayings associated with sunflowers from the Teton Dakota tribes is, "When the sunflowers were tall and in full bloom, the buffaloes were fat and the meat good."

Annual sunflowers are important in the cut flower industry and grown commercially for cooking oil and for seeds eaten by humans and birds.

The annual sunflower is native to North America and was widely used by early indigenous people as food, a source for dyes, and lots of medicinal purposes.

Sunflowers are the national flower of Ukraine.

My mother decided to be modern in cooking and discovered premade stuffing mixes. The bread based one had herbs in it and that’s what I grew up having at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Carolina aromatic rice should be kept in the freezer – along with South Carolina corn meal, grits, and other locally sourced items that make mealtime so pleasurable.

For some peculiar reason, I’d never heard of corn bread in buttermilk for lunch until we went to a laundromat in Atlanta next to an old-fashioned drug store and sat next to a gentleman who ordered that.

Most southerners make corn bread in cast iron skillets as the crust you get is superior.

Corn sticks are about the best kind of cornbread because the crust is fabulous.