Making It Grow is brought to you in part by the South Carolina Department of Agriculture.

Certified South Carolina Grown helps consumers identify, find and buy South Carolina products.

McLeod Farms in McBee, South Carolina.

This family farm offers seasonal produce, including over 22 varieties of peaches.

Additional funding provided by International Paper, and the South Carolina Farm Bureau Federation and Farm Bureau Insurance.

♪ < opening music > ♪ ♪ Well, good evening, and welcome to a Making It Grow Halloween special.

This is a lot of fun.

I know you're going to, I know you're going to want to stick with us because this is really just going to be a great, great, great show.

I'm Amanda McNulty.

I'm a Clemson Extension agent.

And we've got so much going on tonight.

A little bit later in the show, we're going to have a corn maze.

And we're going to have Hallo- Thanks-Mas, which sounds kind of funny, but you're all makes sense when we get to it.

And I'd like to say that this is my family is back with me.

I mean, it's almost as good as my children in California if they were home 'cause it's been so long since we've all kind of the old, The real crew kind of crew has been here together.

And we're all vaccinated and trying to be careful, but it's just so delighted to be back with everybody.

It's just incredible.

I'm so, so happy to see everybody <Tony Melton> Amanda's family.

[laughs] Oh, well, I would happily claim any one of you as one of my own.

So, I am a fearless health care provider.

And goodness gracious, I am worn out and but still doing my best to take care of people.

And I hope people will do everything they can to help our health care providers.

They've told us what we need to do to help them and I hope we will all follow their advice because they are really weary people who are still fighting a courageous fight and saving lives whenever they can.

But then - everybody else is something fun tonight, too.

So, Terasa, I'm going to start with you and you know, I'm so out of popular culture.

I don't know who everybody is.

So you'll have to really tell us a little bit about your wonderful outfit and who you are.

Well, I am representing the D.C. comic character Poison Ivy, and she is described as a misguided botanist and biochemist.

She uses plant toxins and mind controlling pheromones to carry out her activities.

But they're really aimed at plants, usually saving endangered plants.

So she does bad things for the right reasons.

<Amanda> Good.

>> My husband said I should be Poisoned Ivy because you'll see this as English ivy adorning my mask, which is an invasive plant so we should be promoting, - removing invasive species.

<Amanda> Yes, you're exactly right.

We should.

Well, I think it's fabulous.

I love it and that she's trying to save endangered plants.

We all need to be doing that though.

>> Yeah.

>> With habitat loss.

Tony Melton, Whoo, hoo, hoo!

<Tony> Well, I'm the super master gardener, Amanda, or you could say farmer.

which ever one you want to do.

<Amanda> Well, that is certainly true, Tony Melton and starting at three years old.

>> Yeah, I started picking cotton when I was three years old.

At six I was picking butter beans.

I went from the frying pan to the fire.

<Amanda> And when you became an extension agent, you had four counties.

And you had such knowledge that I think eventually you were driving to 14?

>> Yep.

>> Yep.

>> 14 counties.

>> Boy, Tony, you have helped more people than anybody else in the state.

>> I had the greatest job on the face of this Earth, Amanda.

I really have loved it.

And people is the reason, you know, it's just helping people is what an extension agent does.

<Amanda> Well, we're so glad that you're here to help us help people tonight.

>> Thank you.

>> I guess this is Vicky Bertagnolli 'cause usually she's got a weird color in her hair.

But this is, - >> It's usually a lot darker, longer and more colorful.

<Amanda> But it's a little bit golden.

So tell me who you are.

>> Yeah, so one of my very favorite shows is the Golden Girls, and I think Rose Nylund is just a wonderful character.

She's kind of ditzy, but I tell you what, and she's got a great heart.

And she can be pretty darn smart, but I thought Rose was appropriate since we're going to be on Making It Grow >> Oh, I think that was just a wonderful, wonderful connection to make there.

And then we've got somebody over here who is a little bit scruffy.

>> Oh!

>> Oh.

[laughs] >> - John Nelson, who are - You are a debauched Santa Claus or something.

<John> I am Bad Santa from the movie and then somebody said that when I put my eyebrow like this I look like Billy Bob Thornton.

<Amanda> Well, let the camera.

See it?

Yeah.

>> Yeah.

So I guess I do.

<Amanda> Yes.

Look like Vicky and I think you do.

Yeah Yeah Yeah.

<John> I never saw that movie.

<Amanda> Well, there's still time to do it.

<John> I don't know if I want to now.

[ Laughing ] <Amanda> Anyhow, well, this is not an orangey looking pumpkin.

But you never you never do anything normally.

So I'm not surprised.

What?

What have we got going on here?

>> Well, this is a citron.

>> Uh huh.

And it is actually looks like a watermelon.

But it is it ain't no watermelon.

It's very, very dense.

And the flesh, if we cut this thing open, it would be sort of not lemon yellow, but prominently yellow with lots and lots of seeds.

And I thought I was growing a watermelon when this was in my yard.

And then I cut another one of these open and saw that it wasn't any kind of watermelon.

And you can make pickles out of this.

Apparently, I don't know how to do it.

<Amanda> If you buy, when you get the pickling mix to make fruitcake, there's dried colored things.

<John> Citron.

>> A lot of it is citron.

<John> Yeah, but not only can you make pickles out of it, It makes a passable jack o'lantern.

So there we go.

<Amanda> Oh, cool.

But it was very dense.

<John> Very dense, very hard inside.

And it's ripe.

It doesn't turn red inside.

<Amanda> Okay, now where's this from?

What Where am I?

Well, these are would be a cult as a species.

It's very close to the watermelon species.

That's not quite the same thing.

Okay, so it would be, old world.

Old, and in distribution.

<Amanda> Okay.

And I don't know why people brought them over here except maybe to make fruit cake.

>> I like fruit cake.

>> I do too.

Okay.

Terasa, you've got a wonderful, wonderful pumpkin down there that has a great story to it.

<Terasa> Well, thank you.

All the artistic credit goes to my husband, I saw a tutorial for this constellation or galaxy pumpkin and I thought it really would be a neat idea, I thought it could make a long lasting nightlight for a child's room.

And that's why we decided to use a full pumpkin rather than going ahead and carving a real pumpkin.

So he was kind enough to go ahead and make a demonstration and we have a picture story.

So let's run through the process in case you'd like to try one at home.

First step is always to gather all of your materials.

Now do you make sure you have a carveable pumpkin, I say this because I learned from experience.

The first pumpkin we purchased was solid Styrofoam and so there was no way to put lights inside and the holes would just cave in.

So make sure you have a carveable pumpkin.

You need some acrylic paint, paint brushes, scissors, tape, a drill and the appropriate drill bits, constellation templates and some glow in the dark paint.

Now step one for us was to paint a black night sky.

I do understand you may be able to find a black pumpkin, so that would save a step if you could find that.

Once you've got your night sky painted and it's dry, you can use additional paints to create your galaxies.

Now no need to purchase a ton of colors just take a basic mix and then you know mix them oh red and blue and make purple and and then you've got everything that you need.

So you kind of did it like a wash.

Yes, and that's why I had my husband I'm very kind of precise and there was no way I was going to be able to make this happen.

So then, once you've got that done and dry drilling the constellations is next now you could freehand it if you want to.

But what we did was print out a template and then we just cut it into strips and put it taped it on to the pumpkin.

Important to note that this is not an accurate rendition of any particular day that you are going to go out it's just constellations put on to the pumpkin.

So we use the drill bit to drill holes for the major stars in the constellation.

And you can see I think we've got the picture of the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper.

So two very recognizable constellations.

If you don't know what they look like they're kind of shaped like a ladle or a soup spoon, we added some glow in the dark paint to add the imaginary lines that help you see you know what the shape of the constellation is.

Finally, we need to illuminate our pumpkin.

So we drilled a hole in the bottom with a little bit larger bit and then inserted some Christmas lights you they make them that are very tiny and led, we don't want to overheat our pumpkin.

The handy thing is this one is on a battery operated timer so you can turn it on and let them run for a period of time and it'll turn off.

One last step really was to add some additional stars in the sky.

And we did this with white paint and a neat technique, do this outside, we got the picture inside, but then Eddie went outside to actually do the painting.

So you can use white paint on a toothbrush to splatter paint and it really does splatter everywhere.

And then once it's dry, you've got your constellation pumpkin, and you can utilize it however you like.

So we won't see the light very much probably in the studio, but it should now be on.

- we did take a picture in the dark so you can see what it looks like.

<Amanda> - I paid a lot of money a while back to get my teeth whitened.

And I could have just kept that toothbrush while it was still wet and brush my teeth with it.

So I might try that.

I don't think that is a great idea.

Okay.

All right.

Well, I think that's just fascinating, And, what a wonderful way to get your children interested in going out at night and looking at the sky.

<Terasa> You could kind of practice mapping out what the pictures look like here and then see if you can find them in the night sky.

<Amanda> And then you reminded us too, that their stories that go with them.

So it's a wonderful way to remind them of classical mythology.

So there's a wonderful story.

And if we think things are gory these days, there's, I mean, you could really I don't know if I'd tell those stories at night, because some of them are scary.

<Some are a bit scary.> Yeah.

Yeah, some of those Gods had a little bit of revenge and temper and jealousy going on.

Okay, yeah, well, and I'm next to you is ever, my husband did some pumpkins for me.

And this one is despair.

And so you can see it's a very tragically sad pumpkin, which many of us sadly have had reasons to be.

Many families have lost people.

And um, but this one over here is Mirth and very happy.

So let's hope that the coming year will be a lot more Mirth and a lot less despair.

Ah, well, Terasa, are you going to do some gardens for the week for us now?

<Terasa> Yes, since we have Mirth over there happy let's look at some happy gardens of the week as well.

We begin with Karen Titcomb who sent us her volunteer pumpkin patch funny we were just talking about pumpkins.

She said she had decorated last year and one must have split open.

Also the vine she just let the vine spread throughout her bed this year.

Nancy Feeney was lucky enough to capture a monarch butterfly atop a Zinnia, Virginia of Kerwin shared her mixed border and she calls the colors exuberance of fall.

The first hibiscus mutabilis flower of this season or you might call that Confederate rose or cotton Rose was shared by Janice and Larry Elder.

They are in white oak mountain near the North Carolina South Carolina border.

And our last photo is from Sue Bethel who shared a staghorn Fern in a hanging basket.

Thanks everyone for sharing your photos.

Remember, they're just selected at random for showing on our show.

But you can view all the Facebook submissions anytime you like by going to our Facebook page.

<Amanda> Thank you so much "Poison Ivy".

I'm glad no one sent a garden of the week filled with poison ivy or English ivy.

Although poison ivy is good for the birds.

This time of year agritourism is getting ready to be in full swing.

And it's a great thing to do.

It's outdoors, It's getting cooler.

And one of the things that's very popular is corn mazes.

And you can find one near you I'm pretty sure you if you make an effort for the South County Department of Agriculture would help you and we went up to McBee to McLeod Farms and had the ribbon cutting for a corn maze that features Making It Grow which is a lot of fun.

And it was it's in honor really of Tony Melton.

And while we were there people made remarks about Tony about how much he's meant to them.

Thank you everybody for coming today to our grand opening and ribbon cutting.

Of course we have to honor our guest of honor Mr. Tony Melton.

It is an honor to be able to honor such a great person and to be involved with all these leaders and promoters of agriculture in South Carolina.

So thank you for coming and welcome to McLeod Farms.

Here on the farm.

I guess Tony and I have come up through the in McBee here and all these times we work together and even up to this point he we rode by the strawberry patch here on top of the hill and he said do you got nut grass out there?

I say yeah, say, well, is that what you do about it ?

I actually fumigated twice now still didn't kill it.

And he said, Well, where's the bass grant?

I said, Well, I haven't really thought about that.

I really don't have much faith.

He said, spray it.

It'd be better than nothing.

That's okay.

So we might back up and do that again.

So anyway, you know, he's I still advise.

But, uh, I would say, Tony, is the personification of hard work, determination and perseverance.

Tony a, got a master's in hort and, and came back and did it dedicated his life to helping farmers and extension.

The new, good news is that Tony is really made the difference for farming in South Carolina, he, he lifted up many farmers, for many farmers depend on what he taught, and still teaching.

And he really has inspired many, many, many people, not only the track he took from where he was humble beginnings, all the way to where he is now many people have taken what he's done.

And he's been an inspiration to many people.

We thank you for that, Tony.

Thank you.

Thanks so much.

You know, a couple years ago, we started a scholarship fund in Tony's name.

And I was informed two weeks ago that it was enough to stand on its own.

And so we're here today, we're also going to make that complete today, and make that a full scholarship day.

Tony, we appreciate all you doing and still doing and, and thank you so much.

Thank you, thank you.

[applause] When Dad was talking about doing something for the corn maze, he always throws me for a loop and gives me something fun and creative to do and just with your retirement this year, I meaning, in so much to dad and to all the farmers in South Carolina, we know how much you love Making It Grow too.

That's where I know you the most you know, from Making It Grow and seeing you with Amanda.

And so we just kind of ran with that.

And so we are Dad, you know, he wants to complete that scholarship, it means a lot to him.

And we know that means a lot to you and the future of agriculture and the future of farmers.

So we just really, really appreciate everything that you've done.

I mean for Spencer and I, to be able to be here under our dad too so we appreciate it.

< applause > And I will tell you that Kemp was in the class of 72 is that right?

>> 76, >> No, no, at McBee, 72 - >> and I was in the class of 74, and Tony was in class and 76.

And that shows you about over 100 years worth of Ag experience right here from McBee High School.

Not just, that's just us three, And we've got plenty more.

So this area really appreciates you giving back to the community and the things that this corn maze itself generates for future generations.

Thank you.

Love has been the driving force to me in Tony's life.

It really has been love.

And I think it was because he grew up in such a warm and loving family that that's just the way his heart operates.

Tony is one of the most creative people he told me that he dreamed of a waterfall going over books instead of boulders because that would be the fountain of knowledge.

And Tony has never stopped learning.

And but he also is one of the most artistic people he comes on and decorates for Christmas.

He decorates his house he he'll go home, and I'll say, what do you do this weekend?

and Tony said Oh, I built a Nutcracker, a full sized Nutcracker.

And he - then you've got that little railroad that goes around your upstairs banister that you make but Tony for any season of the year, he is just remarkably artistic and I don't know that people know that much about him.

It's just been an amazing, amazing experience to see another facet of Tony.

Tremendous humor, tremendous artistic skills.

And in a tremendous sense of love.

Tony bought all kind of different kinds of every kind of evergreen greenery and y'all made swags and wreaths and so to find out how to resist it.

I know where that long those long leaf pine came from, there somewhere over here.

But my wife, who isn't as their horticulturist got whoa that video and now uses live greenery in our Christmas decorations.

And you know so it's not just the farmers you've impacted I think about how you have exposed So many South Carolinians to things they never would have experienced, and you tie it to the ground and to our region and our state of the way you were talking about the various greens that are available to demonstrate new life at Christmas, and it's not just the farmers you've impacted, it has been citizens of our state through M-I-G.

Okay, you ready?

Ready.

If only farming was that easy.

[applause] <Amanda> We had a wonderful day up in McBee celebrating Tony.

And they were kind enough to send me home with these pumpkins.

And it made me think, Tony, to ask you because I know, over the years, you've helped, can't grow pumpkins.

But homeowners always want to have grow pumpkin in fall for their children.

But it's almost impossible for them.

Why is it?

Why is that so?

<Tony> Well, we've got new diseases, specially what is downy mildew, it is resistant to a lot of the chemicals that most homeowners use.

Now you can still kind of halfway do it if you spray.

A lot that I don't like to spray things a lot.

So I'd rather just not do that.

And go to a nice farm that has these pumpkins available.

They has taken care of them and can control a lot of these diseases a lot better.

And can supply you some nice pumpkins in South Carolina.

Yeah.

And again, we do want to support our farmers.

That's right.

So this is nothing better than a backyard garden and the fun that you have in it.

But if it's going to take something that that's just an uncontrollable disease, and the farmers have resources that we don't, and they use things, they can use them more professionally than we ever could.

So let's go and get our pumpkins from them.

<Tony> That's exactly right, Amanda.

<Amanda> Okay, thank you so much.

Well Teresa, I know you are always getting questions for us, What?

What's coming up?

<Terasa> This one seems appropriate for Halloween, Tara in Pickens sent us two photos and said I'm seeking help in identifying this spider.

I live in Pickens and have never seen anything like this.

It's web is gold.

<Amanda> Oh goodness.

All right, Golden Girl.

[laughs] Appropriately, Y'all got together on this.

Yes, let's hear about this golden web spider.

<Vicky> So this is one of the newer spiders that we have in our area.

This is called a Joro Spider.

And it's originally from like Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China.

And it was found in North Georgia in about 2013 and we've since found it in northwestern South Carolina.

So it's around like the Greenville area and it's about the size as our native or it's not native but our but our the one that we're familiar with our golden orb Weaver spider, Trichonephila clavipes.

This Joro spider happens to be Trichonephila Clavata.

And like I said, we see it pretty often.

And it's not something that we need to be worried about.

But we also don't know a whole lot about it.

And so what, what we've done is you don't have to necessarily report it to anybody for regulation purposes.

Like it's we haven't found that it's economically important yet.

But we do encourage you to input the data on websites like I naturalist, <Amanda> Okay.

>> Or on Ed maps, which is housed out of the University of Georgia, the Center for invasive species and environmental ecosystems.

And that's a great place for us to report things like this.

And then we've got our entomologists on campus.

Dr. Mike Ferro, Dr. Eric Benson, Dr. David Coyle and Dr. Tim Drake We'll notify them and they'll collect specimens and type data.

Okay, so one thing we probably do know is that like lots of spiders, it captures other insects that might be detrimental.

Is that correct?

Yep.

So one thing that we have to look at is I know that a lot of people are creeped out to have so many legs.

And so it creates a lot of people out and we really should not be afraid of spiders, spiders perform very beneficial services for humans.

They are 100% free organic pest management.

So we have to think about them like that.

And you know, a lot of folks don't like them up around the house.

But you have to remember that they're keeping insects out of the house.

That The insects that we could consider pestiferous.

Okay.

And you know, I live in such an old house, and almost every morning there's some kind of spider in my bathtub and you said, I thought it was a wolf spider and you think it might be a house spider.

It might be one of the Southern house spiders.

So the female is fairly large.

So like, what is this tarantula and it's not a tarantula it just happens to be large.

>> Yeah.

>> but the male a lot of times gets confused with it gets misidentified as a brown recluse.

>> Okay.

Well, what I do is because - I mean I'm not gonna kill a spider just because I decided to come in my house which is open as an open door policy to everything in the world.

And I just put my hand in there and gently pick them up and then I walk to the door and toss them out in the bushes.

And you know, and I mean, I've been doing it for years and years and years and years and years and never had problems.

spiders aren't out to bite us.

Most are extremely docile.

And a lot of folks keep you know a glass in the in the bathroom.

So you just take the glass and you could do that and scoop it up and haul it outside.

Okay, well, thank you so much.

That was interesting.

And I believe that their silk is very strong and in some parts of the world used for purposes by man, is that right?

Yeah, so different spiders have different strengths than their silks.

So it all depends on species, but there's, you know, whenever it comes to like tensile strength, tensile strength, and, and the density of it, it is sometimes stronger than steel.

Gosh, and nature did it all.

Alright, well, John, I think you've got some stuff that nature has done.

And man has given us some of these things, some scary or spooky names.

<John> So spooky plants, we're going to talk about some scary ones, spookies.

>> Okay.

>> So the first one I want to talk about is a skullcap.

Skullcap.

Very scary.

Actually not scary at all.

But the reason that this is, this plant is called skullcap is that has a little structure on top of part of the flower, the calex, which looks like a skullcap and so that's why it's called skullcap and you can easily it's easily seen if you're looking at a matured flower.

Of course, skullcap is in the mint family.

And they come in mostly sort of shades of blue or purple but occasionally there will be some that are red and it grows, they grow all over the southeast.

And some of them are actually rare.

Some skullcaps around here are rare.

<Amanda> Do some people grow them in their gardens because they're pretty?

<John> I don't know why not.

The flowers are sort of small but they're probably some that are suitable for ornamental use.

<Amanda> Okay.

Well, what else?

<John> Well, we have a plant that is called, it's a very monstrous plant, Monstera is the genus <<Yes>> and it's actually named that because the leaves can be quite large.

Now, we have in the past talked about things like Jack-in-the- pulpit on this show.

Members of the Jack-in-the- pulpit family have a special kind of flowering system involving a hooded brax.

And then as a spike of the flowers, it's within that.

So Monstera is like that.

Monstera deliciosa is one of the species that people know the most about.

It's also called Swiss cheese plant, because the leaves have little holes in them.

< laughs > <Amanda> So this is the house plant that we know of.

<John> Right.

Now There are other house plants that are actually philodendrons, very close to Monstera.

Most people can't tell them apart.

<Amanda> I wonder why it got named Monstera.

<John> Because some of the tropicals, they're all tropical, but some of the species have really just great big leaves.

<<That's kind of fun>> They're monstrously big.

<Amanda> Okay.

All right.

Well, is there something else that's kinda scary or halloweeny connotation to its name?

<John> Halloweeny I like it.

Yes, we have another spooky plant and it's called Witchgrass.

>> Witchgrass?

>> Right.

Witchgrass.

Witchgrass is the genus is Dichanthelium, and it used to be considered a part of the big, big genus Panicum, which everybody's heard of panicgrasses, but Dichantheliums have some characteristics that separate them from the true panicgrasses.

I'm not really sure why they're called witchgrass, except that they can be just terrible pests if you don't want them, and we have these nice images, but also, look, there's some in my Santa hat.

They are native.

Most of these around here are certainly native.

And they're perfectly good grasses, that is, they have all the characteristics that things in the grass family have.

And they make their little seeds, of course, and spikelets.

And they're sort of like hidden amongst these teeny little leaves.

But um, lots of species.

And I have to tell you that this is one of the most difficult genera to deal with and separating spaces just because there's so many micro characters.

<Amanda> Oh, my goodness.

I remember from botany trying to do grasses, it was pretty impossible.

<John> So witchgrass.

<Amanda> Witchgrass.

But it looks, it looks kind of pretty to me, but you say people don't like it.

<John> Most people don't like it in their lawn or garden.

This stuff does get around different species.

<Amanda> And this is the height it gets.

<John> Some of them will get much taller than that.

<Amanda> But this one particular.

<John> This particular one doesn't get too tall.

This was in my backyard.

<Amanda> Oh, okay, yeah, your backyard is small, but it's a repository of all sorts of fun things.

Because that's where the citron came from, I think.

<<That's right>> Yeah, yeah.

I tell you, a compost heap is a wonderful joy.

< laughs > We have a wonderful friend up at Clemson, Allison Jones, who works at the botanical garden, and she has two darling little girls, and she comes up with the most clever ways of having fun with her children.

And you can too, and the wonderful thing is she's going to talk about pumpkins.

And it's a way that you can safely do things with children, because carving pumpkins is not for children.

Well, I am very happy today to be with someone whom I now consider a friend Allison Jones, who's at the botanical garden at Clemson and you're the Education Program Coordinator, which means I think some adult and children's programs.

I think that what we're going to do today is going to excite anybody and you have a phrase or word you use for this upcoming part of the season of the year.

So tell me what it is.

<Allison Jones> Yeah, I think I'm here today kind of as the embodiment of Hallo-Thanks-Mas which is kind of that three month period from October through the new year where it's all holidays all the time really.

You go into any store and you see the decorations everywhere.

<Amanda> I know, and they start so early, too.

So you got a turkey hat.

And you got some, is it reindeer eyeglasses?

<Allison> I do reindeer, get some Christmas wreaths and of course some ghosts for Halloween.

<Amanda> Okay, well you've got it covered then.

And of course, it's especially fun for you because you've got two little girls who still get so fired up about everything.

<Allison> Absolutely, absolutely.

<Amanda> We were at McLeod Farms a while back and pumpkins, pumpkins, pumpkins, pumpkins?

And we generally think of those as Halloween and carving them.

But you've got I think what is really a great idea because it's safe - it's hard to carve a pumpkin safely to tell you the truth.

I mean they're, they're tough, and that you can use the pumpkins for Halloween Thanksgiving and Christmas.

So, can you tell us Shall we start with our Halloween pumpkin and see what, where we go from there?

>> Absolutely.

Yeah.

So, like you say, you know Halloween, you think of pumpkins, right.

And I love carving pumpkins.

That's something I enjoy doing every year.

But when you're working with young children, especially like you say, it's not particularly safe for them to be too hands on.

So it's nice to have some no carve a pumpkin options that they can participate in a little bit more hands on.

And so for a lot of people that means painting pumpkins and my children have done that in years past where we'll, you know, just use paints or sometimes stickers to add decorations to pumpkins, >> When you're going to pick out a pumpkin that you're not going to carve and transition for a couple of months, is there something you specifically look for and what kind of paint, do you feel is a good paint to use with children?

<Allison> Sure, yeah.

So for the paints, I would suggest using an acrylic craft paint and that's what you typically are going to find at the stores.

And as for picking out a pumpkin that you want to last a long time.

What you really want to avoid is soft spots.

So, you want to feel the pumpkin make sure they're no soft spots, avoid any kind of browning or bruising, that's on the pumpkin and you want a decent stem on it and if it has a little bit of green on the stem, that means it's that much fresher.

It doesn't have to be green, but that's an extra bonus if it is and you just want to avoid when you're transporting it, bruising it or breaking off that stem?

<Amanda> Alright, and our friend Tony Melton reminds us not to carry them by the stem, he said, You should always carry the pumpkin by the body, because you might injure it by putting all that weight on the stem.

So, thanks for that tip, especially if you see a little green.

That's a cool idea.

A different sort of idea that we've tried out this year, you'll oftentimes see these kits in the store that'll have different face pieces of stickers, or sometimes they're little plastic bits that you stick into the side of the pumpkin, and that's a cute idea.

But you know, you don't have to buy a kit to do that you can essentially create that same sort of thing at home with things you have at home.

So we made this year, two different examples.

The first one was a cat pumpkin, that was just the design that my girls were interested in.

So all you have to do is get some.

You can either use cardstock, or you can use a craft foam, I would suggest if you're going to put this pumpkin outdoors, uncovered where it could be rained on, use the craft foam that'll hold up to the weather better.

But all you've got to do is think of whatever design you like, try to translate that into some simple shapes, especially if you're not super artistically inclined.

And then just cut out simple shapes that you can essentially create a mask or a costume for your pumpkin.

And in the case of our cat, we created those shapes.

And then we kind of embellished with a little bit of pipe cleaner we added some cat eye pupils and a little mouth out of pipe cleaner, because what kid doesn't like pipe cleaners, they're fuzzy, they're fun, you know.

So we added those on there.

And then our second example, is not using paper or foam but was really easy to do, we created a mummy pumpkin using cheesecloth.

Now you could - use cheese cloth, or you could use, like gauze bandages, or you could even cut up strips of fabric.

And my daughter just wrapped it around the pumpkin until she got that look that she wanted.

And then we just added on some googly eyes, and some pipe cleaner little eyebrows.

And then we crafted a little black widow out of a pompom and some pipe cleaners to add on top.

And they both turned out really, really cute.

And both girls loved doing them.

>> And we got several named brand craft stores that are all over the place now.

So any of the things you mentioned would be easy to find there.

And I think Elmer's glue is a good safe glue to use around children if I'm not mistaken.

>> Yeah, so you certainly can use a craft glue like Elmer's or Alums or one of those well known ones.

But what I suggest for this project, which makes it much less messy and easy to work with is double sided tape.

So, it's really handy because you can put it on those pieces and then little hands like my four year old, she could just pick those pieces up and stick them on.

She really concentrated and put her effort in, but it was easy for her to manipulate that.

And if it was a little not how she wanted it, she could move it around.

So, it works really well.

>> Well, Alison, we've eaten all the candy and had a horror when we stood on the scales.

So let's move on to the next, the next season, which probably will make that weight gain even worse.

>> Exactly.

So, one of the coolest things about doing your pumpkins this way, where you're basically just using that double sided tape to put a mask or costume on is that you can then remove it and you're left with a really pretty plain orange pumpkin, and we all know that a pumpkin and all its orange glory, you know is a great Thanksgiving decoration in and of itself.

But if you want to take it a step further and have another fun project for the kids, you can turn one of your pumpkins or several into a thanksgiving turkey.

And this is very similar to what we did with the Halloween pumpkins.

So again, you'll need either cardstock or craft foam.

And you're going to start by just creating simple shapes for the head and neck of the turkey.

You can just do a little triangle for the beak and kind of a teardrop for the waddle on your turkey and then you can add either googly eyes or just use a marker and draw eyes on.

But the cool thing that I like about this design is that to create the tail feathers and the wings, you're going to have your kids trace their little hand shapes out.

And little ones might need some assistance for this part.

And of course they'll be cutting it out and the same goes for that, but this is a really good project for practicing, tracing and cutting.

And then once they have those pieces again, they're going to be able to stick them on using that double sided tape, which again my four year old really thought that was cool to stick all those on there.

...and it makes for a really, cute, little table decoration for putting in the dining room for Thanksgiving Day.

<Amanda> Well, and I think anytime the children feel like they've been a part of the decoration, and a part of the process, there's so many things they, like the big pulling the turkey in and out they can't do.

But if they're, you know, if you're fortunate enough to be able to have some family with you this year, that would be so much fun for everybody.

They'd be so proud when their grandparents or their aunts or uncles start praising them for that wonderful turkey sitting in the middle of the table, plus the one that you're going to enjoy eating that comes out of the oven.

<Allison> Exactly, it's their way they can contribute.

And another idea that I really liked for this particular project, because you are using their little hand shapes, is that, you know, if you save the pieces for the following year, you can potentially remove some from last year and add a new hand print for this year, and you could write the child's name and the age that they were when they made it, so that by the time they're teenagers, and they're way too cool to do stuff like this, you can have a turkey that represents ages potentially one through grade school on that turkey display.

<Amanda> I have a friend who has a scrapbook for every year of her two girls' lives.

And um, although that's not something I could ever... but this would just be, if you're starting with little children, what a fabulous idea to save those and then bring them out in the future.

It's like, you know, going in the closet and seeing how tall you are and making a mark with a pencil.

What a great idea, Allison!

Well, I don't know that we're going to have any ♪ Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow , ♪ but we can always wish.

And I think you got an idea of how to transform these pumpkins into snow time pumpkins.

<Allison> That's right, yeah.

So if you have pumpkins that are still in good shape when we're moving into December, which mine always usually are.

I've had a few times where they didn't make it, but generally speaking, they're in good shape.

And if you have those pumpkins, you can then reinvent them once again, and make them into a snowman.

So this is something we do every year for the past couple of years at my house.

And it's really a simple, easy and really quite an effective little display, I think, um, but you just start...

I usually make mine with two pumpkins stacked.

But if you only have one pumpkin, you could make just the head and it could be very cute.

Or if you had squat pumpkins, you could stack three, but you're going to need pumpkins, of course.

And you're going to start by removing the stem of whichever pumpkin is going to be the base.

<Amanda> Oh, okay.

<Allison> Yeah, because you're gonna, of course, need to stack on there, right?

So up until now, I've said take care with the stem.

Don't damage it, but this is gonna be the last leg of your use.

So you can do that, and you want to make sure it's a really flush cut so that the pumpkin on top will sit stably, but, you're going to then paint the pumpkin, or pumpkins rather, white, and you can do that with spray paint, or you can do it even with acrylic paint.

If you use the acrylic paint, I would suggest using like a sponge brush.

That'll give a better effect because if you brush it on, it looks kind of streaky, but you're just going to paint them white.

In my example that I made, I had actually already painted my largest pumpkin white, because I had used painters tape on it to create a jack o' lantern face in kind of a relief.

And so it was already somewhat white.

But anyhow, you'll paint those pumpkins white.

Once they are dry, you're going to want to locate where you think the snowman, you plan for it to live, where you would like for it to be displayed.

And then you're going to stack those pumpkins up and kind of get them positioned how you want.

And once you have them in position, now it's time to just start accessorizing, you know, grab some different hats to try on.

You can use a scarf on it.

I oftentimes use wired floral ribbon for the scarf, because it's lightweight, it's easy to work with, and I like that I can pose it so it looks like it's in the wind.

And it just makes a really cute little snowman, And you might find that you're done at that point.

I really love the look of the simple just white with no face on it, but, of course, my girls and many folks would prefer to have a face on the snowman.

So you can do that very easily just using a Sharpie.

We usually will kind of just draw some simple facial features.

Again, if you don't feel like "Oh, I'm not an artist.

I can't draw a face."

Just stick with circles for eyes, circles for the mouth, and a triangle for the nose.

You can do it.

And then you can add some color with markers or paint.

And if you have a place to display both the front and the back, then you can enjoy both looks.

We often do that.

We'll aim the face to where we can view it from a window inside.

But then the simple white snowman is facing the street from our porch.

<Amanda> And I believe you have a way to make him kind of glisteny if you want to.

<Allison> Yeah, if you want to add - a snowy effect to them, you can use a little bit of glue and you can add some Epson salt.

This is something that you can do to the pumpkin itself, or you can also add it to the hat.

And speaking of the hat, if you don't have a traditional snowman stovepipe hat, you can often find them as a decoration in stores.

You know, it's a decorative item, but if you don't find one, you can make one pretty simply using felt and duct tape.

You need about three sheets of a 9 by 12 felt.

And what you're going to do is look around your house and find items that will help you trace a circle, right?

So in my case, it doesn't have to be an exact measurement, you just drudge the proportions you like.

But in my case, I found a plate to trace the brim of the hat and a canister to trace the top portion of the hat.

And then I got, again, pro tip: use a white crayon or something if you need to see on the black felt you're tracing.

Once you have that traced out, you're just going to take your bottom brim portion, fold it in half and cut a circle out of the middle, and that's just so it can sit down on the head of the snowman.

It doesn't have to be a big size hole, just big enough to help it get over the stem and sit down, and then you have one sheet left.

You just fold that long ways and cut it in half, and then those pieces are what you're going to use to form the sides or the pipe portion of the hat.

So you're going to have those two halves of your last sheet.

Okay?

And once you have measured out how much of the second half you need, you'll cut off the excess, and you will splice those two pieces together with a piece of duct tape.

...at this point, you're going to take duct tape and run it along both of the long sides of your long pieces of felt, and one side on the short side.

And at that point, you're going to go around with your scissors and make little notches all around.

This is what is going to help it all come together in the end.

Okay?

So once you have your notches in, you will fold the felt into a pipe shape and get that closed up, and then use the tabs to attach it to the brim by just pushing the tabs kind of towards the center.

And this can be a little fiddly.

...you have to be patient and just take your time with it... so that none of the duct tape shows, and you adhere the top of the hat in the exact same fashion.

And once you have it all attached, you can add a ribbon, and like you say, you can add some snow, if you'd like, as well, by just adding a little bead of Elmer's glue, spreading it out and sprinkling Epson salt on top, and now you have a little snowy stovepipe hat for your snowman.

<Amanda> ...if you want to, you can just have a stocking kind of cap.

And if you had one that one of your children had worn, that would be kind of sweet and special too, wouldn't it?

<Allison> Exactly, exactly.

I was just about to say, you can get really creative with it.

You don't have to do kind of the stereotypical snowman, right?

Actually last year, my daughter drew a little picture of two snow girls that were kind of representative of her and her sister.

And we did that, we kind of recreated that with smaller pumpkins that we had.

And we used little hats that had been their hats as babies - little winter hats.

And then I just took a shirt and cut it up so that I would have some fabric to make scarves.

And they were thrilled with that.

And honestly, I was pretty thrilled with it.

They were really cute.

[laughter] <Amanda> Well, you have just given us so many ideas.

I'm going to really think about doing this.

I'm fortunate.

I've got a front porch that's covered, so I could put it there if the weather was inclement.

...I just think the idea of going through the season of the pumpkin, you know, that's just fun, - to think There's a darling little girl that lives across the street from me, and so I'm just gonna have to have her come over and help me be creative because I'm sure she's got better ideas, but you've given us so many wonderful things to think about, and Allison, you sure are a great person for Education Coordinator at the South Carolina Botanical Gardens.

I wish I could come over and take a class with you.

I'm looking forward to that day when we can do that again.

>> Well, thank you so much, Amanda, and thank you for having me, as always.

I love joining you guys.

Allison certainly has been a good friend to us and I think the way that she has shown her we can take the pumpkins and since we're not carving them, they'll last longer, and we can take them all the way through Christmas.

I think that really is a lot of fun.

I know a lot of people are going to want to try that.

Terasa, I think sometimes we have spotlight gardens too.

Do we have a spotlight garden?

<Terasa> We sure do.

This one is courtesy of Joanne Ward in Mount Pleasant.

We begin in Joanne's front yard, which is her only full sun spot.

The back garden, she says, is mostly shade with just a bit of dappled sun.

Zooming in we see she has two habitat certifications and some spooky critters have taken up residence.

The frog pond in the back garden she says is her favorite spot, and I can see why.

To the side there are butterfly ginger lilies and a very special hibiscus that was propagated by a garden club member.

<Amanda> Well, isn't that something?

And a frog pond, which I hope she has some mosquito fish in, and that way they'll keep the mosquitoes down too, and isn't it wonderful when you hear the frogs at night?

<Terasa> Oh, it is!

I love that sound.

<Amanda> Yeah.

Okay.

So do we have another question?

<Terasa> Oh, of course.

Clay and Cindy shared two photos and said, "My 90 year old mother-in-law has these tiny orange bugs all over milkweed plants."

<Amanda> Oh, well, orange bugs... a good Halloween question.

And what do you think we should do about these bugs?

<Vicky> So, whenever I looked at the picture, it looks like that these are aphids, probably something like oleander aphids.

And a lot of times we talk about here on the show, using integrated pest management, where we're not necessarily going to go for chemicals on the first go around.

<Amanda> We're not going to shoot a torpedo at it.

<Vicky> Right, we want to try some other avenues first, and what I recommend is that we try to spray these off with a strong stream of water.

It's called jetting, because aphids, they're really soft bodied, they don't move around real well, you know, they got little scrawny legs.

<Amanda> And they have a lot of generations without wings too, if I'm not mistaken.

<Vicky> Right, and so they don't move very far, generally.

And if we knock them off the plant, so the strong stream of water is probably going to kill a good number of them.

But then they break their legs, they're way off the plant, they're not going to come back very quickly, and so that gives us a chance to allow biological control agents, maybe something like Lady beetle larvae to move in and help manage those aphid populations.

<Amanda> Well, that's a great idea.

Yeah.

Okay.

And it's like a little tailor except 2000 at one squirt.

[laughter] Okay, Teresa, what else do we have?

<Terasa> Well, keeping with our Halloween theme, it sounds like Luther in Winnsboro has a monster of a grapevine.

He shared some photos and said this old grapevine has grown and entangled itself.

Is it safe to cut it all the way back or can you give me an idea what I should do?

<Amanda> Okay, well Tony, we know it's important for production to prune, but this is a big one that hasn't been pruned in a long time.

We've got just about two minutes left.

Can you give us a quick remedy?

<Tony> ...it's good for the health of the plant too, to keep it cut back, keep all those old, kind of dying limbs off and all.

You have a lot of cankers and all to hit those stems and all that are spread through the plant.

So go ahead cut it back, we used to say, real short.

These days is eight to ten or twelve inches.

You want to leave those little spikes out so that it could put off some fruit away from the center of the plant, and cut it just all the way back to a main stem that is... Hopefully you got it on a trellis somewhere.

<Amanda> Yes.

<Tony> And Dr. John knows about a lot of wild plants around there in the woods that'll grow all over the place.

<John> You know, Tony, there are a bunch of different grape species that grow around here and they're all kind of wonderful, if you can find them in fruit.

>> Are most of them vines?

>> They're all vines, and some of them will produce tremendous stems.

This is in the wild now.

And this same sort of thing for muscadine which is a kind of a wild grape.

<Amanda> But it's been maneuvered a lot by people to get cultivars, they're special.

<John> They're cultivars produced for production.

<Amanda> Because they taste better.

<John> And larger.

<Amanda> Yeah, yeah.

But Tony, when do you think he should do this?

>> Around January 1, somewhere in that realm.

I usually wait 'til then.

What I want to do is not let them cut them back so they'll start to grow again, with the warm in the fall, so December, January, you can start pruning.

You can even go up a little ways up into March.

<Amanda> Alright, okay, ... and you want them about a fist apart?

>> Yep.

<Amanda> Okay.

All right.

Well, thank you for that wonderful answer.

And I want to thank everybody for joining us tonight.

We hope you'll see us next week.

Come back and be with us.

We've had a good time here with you.

Night-night.

♪ [All together] Happy Halloween!

♪ ♪ Making It Grow is brought to you in part by the South Carolina Department of Agriculture.

Certified South Carolina Grown helps consumers identify, find and buy South Carolina products.

McLeod Farms in McBee, South Carolina.

This family farm offers seasonal produce, including over 22 varieties of peaches.

Additional funding provided by International Paper, and the South Carolina Farm Bureau Federation and Farm Bureau Insurance.