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Showing episodes and shows of
Amanda McNulty
Shows
Making It Grow Minutes
Mystery of the stabilimentum
While joining a friend to watch writing spiders weave their webs, Amanda McNulty ponders the purpose of the stabilimentum.
2025-08-29
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Writing spiders
Host Amanda McNulty takes a closer look at the web weaving of writing spiders.
2025-08-28
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Spiderweb Management
Instead of having to keep up with cleaning spiderwebs from the front of her house, Amanda McNulty decides to recruit some members of the wildlife community.
2025-08-25
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
The efficiency of scout ants
Amanda McNulty can't find the rice in her pantry, but guess who can.
2025-08-14
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Wildlife guests
Amanda McNulty reflects on the variety of animals that have visited her home throughout her lifetime.
2025-08-13
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Salt is hygroscopic, but rice is a desiccant
Has South Carolina's humidity clumped up your salt dispenser? Add some rice. Amanda McNulty explains why this household hack works.
2025-08-06
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Salt cellars
Have you ever used a salt cellar? Host Amanda McNulty explains how to place them on the dining table and gives some helpful information on storing salt.
2025-08-04
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Mosquito foggers can lead to resistance
Mosquitos can be a pain, but Amanda McNulty shares alternatives to fogging and pesticides to help keep mosquitos from pestering you.
2025-07-07
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
The sound of a ripe watermelon
Amanda McNulty explains the trick to picking the perfect melon when giving it the "thump" test.
2025-06-09
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
You are nature's best hope.
Amanda McNulty explains how making space for native plants in your yard can help restore North America's declining nesting bird population.
2025-05-09
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Birds are having trouble finding enough caterpillars to raise their young.
Caterpillars can only eat the leaves of certain native plants. Amanda McNulty offers ways to help build back North America's rapidly declining nesting bird population.
2025-05-08
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
What does entomology have to do with bird decline?
Host Amanda McNulty shares a shocking statistic regarding North America's bird population.
2025-05-05
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
'Listen to the Mockingbird'
For those grieving the loss of a loved one, Amanda McNulty shares song lyrics that offer comfort and hope.
2025-04-26
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
The significance of the mockingbird in American literature
Host Amanda McNulty explores the significance of literary character Atticus Finch saying, 'It's a sin to kill a mockingbird.'
2025-04-25
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Why Texas chose the northern mockingbird as its state bird
Amanda McNulty shares some U.S. history, as well as some family history, about the northern mockingbird.
2025-04-24
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Fun with anoles
Amanda McNulty shares tips on where to spot anoles, and how to coax one into performing an amusing parlor trick.
2025-04-12
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
To catch an anole
Host Amanda McNulty of "Making It Grow" explains how minding "tail autotomy" is key in catching an anole.
2025-04-10
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Anole season
As spring arrives in South Carolina, our state's native lizard emerges in search of warm spots, which include the inside of Amanda McNulty's house.
2025-04-09
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Uninvited house guests
Amanda McNulty's 19th-century home draws a variety of uninvited visitors, who are sometimes discovered in the most unusual places.
2025-04-07
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
"Tell Times"
Amanda McNulty shares some charming childhood memories about dandelions.
2025-03-14
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
“Tis better to put out your feeders early to the delight of every returning birdy"
Amanda McNulty shares a poem to prompt bird-lovers to set up their hummingbird feeders as these lovely little creatures return from their winter retreats.
2025-03-12
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Amaryllis forcing
Bulbs from the amaryllidaceae family can be coaxed to bloom early, but host Amanda McNulty advises against using wax in the forcing process.
2025-03-01
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Other names for Zephyranthes
Myriad common names never stop for Zephyranthes, but according to Amanda McNulty, a couple make some sense.
2025-02-27
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
What's in a name? That which we call a rain lily by any other name would smell as sweet
Host Amanda McNulty explains the charming origins of the rain lily names 'Zephyranthes' and 'Atamasco.'
2025-02-26
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Where the rain lilies bloom
Host Amanda McNulty reflects on the beauty of one of the New World's native plants that is a member of the Amaryllis family
2025-02-24
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
How marmorated stink bugs survive the winter
An insect that's invasive to crops also invades structures, like Amanda McNulty's home.
2025-02-12
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
The Pitfalls of Painting
Host Amanda McNulty discovers she's not the only one who finds her exterior paint color attractive
2025-02-10
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
How resurrection ferns live up to their name
Amanda McNulty continues her look at epiphytes and demonstrates her skill in pronouncing genus names.
2024-12-26
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
What's an epiphyte?
Host Amanda McNulty shares how a plant with no roots helps its host plant conserve water and energy.
2024-12-25
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
How and when to water blooming holiday cacti
Watering blooming holiday cacti is a bit tricky. Amanda McNulty offers helpful tips to keep your plant happy and healthy year-round.
2024-12-14
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Have a spare box? Save it for your holiday cacti.
Amanda McNulty shares helpful tips to ensure your Thanksgiving and Christmas cacti bloom beautifully
2024-12-12
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
The difference between Thanksgiving and Christmas cacti
Amanda McNulty describes the leaf difference on these two epiphytes, and why caring for them is distinctly different than nurturing their desert-dwelling cousins.
2024-12-11
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Table decorations for the holidays
Host Amanda McNulty gets creative with cacti as she prepares her table for holiday celebrations.
2024-12-09
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Chickie Wimberly's special visit
While visiting her dying mother, Amanda McNulty brought Chickie Wimberly to comfort, entertain, and provide fun stories for future visitors.
2024-11-16
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
The McNulty Family's Memorable Meals
Amanda McNulty's family finds ways to make their holiday meals special by adding memorable main courses.
2024-11-15
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Chickie Wimberly joins the McNulty Family
Host Amanda McNulty has a history of keeping unusual pets, including a chick hatched in her child's classroom.
2024-11-14
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Menageries and menu choices
Host Amanda McNulty of "Making It Grow" shares more childhood stories of her unusual pets, their favorite foods, and the foods she and her family enjoyed.
2024-11-13
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
The unusual childhood pets of Amanda McNulty
Host Amanda McNulty of "Making It Grow" shares a vivid childhood memory of one of the many unusual pets she and her brother used to keep.
2024-11-11
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Make it STOP growing!
While "Making It Grow" host Amanda McNulty is usually in favor of planting and growing, she draws the line at her bathroom tile.
2024-09-27
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
The beauty and ecologic necessity of the sweetbay magnolia
Host Amanda McNulty of "Making It Grow" explains how the sweetbay magnolia helps sustain a variety of wildlife.
2024-09-26
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Southern magnolias vs sweetbay magnolias
Host Amanda McNulty of "Making It Grow" explains her preference of the sweetbay magnolia over magnolia grandiflora, a.k.a. the southern magnolia.
2024-09-25
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
The fleeting fragrance of tea olive trees
Host Amanda McNulty of "Making It Grow" enjoys the scent of tea olives this time of year when she opens her windows for a cool evening breeze.
2024-09-23
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Cattle egret nests
Where do cattle egrets build their nests? Host Amanda McNulty points the way on this episode of Making it Grow.
2024-09-13
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Favorite foods of the cattle egret
What and where do cattle egrets like to eat? Host Amanda McNulty of "Making It Grow" explains that some of these birds have very exotic dinner guests at their table.
2024-09-12
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
How to identify cattle egrets
Are you familiar with cattle egrets? Host Amanda McNulty explains how to identify them on this episode of "Making It Grow."
2024-09-11
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
The origin of cattle egrets
Cattle egrets are fairly new to the U.S. Host Amanda McNulty explains how and when they arrived in our country.
2024-09-09
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
The rewards of home canning
Interested in canning your own foods but don't know where to begin? Amanda McNulty shares a helpful starting point.
2024-08-24
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Is your family recipe for canning foods safe?
If you have a family recipe for canning foods, Amanda McNulty shares some resources to ensure your process is safe.
2024-08-22
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Turning your garden bounty into pickles and chutneys
Looking for new ways to preserve your garden's offerings? Host Amanda McNulty shares her favorite ways to can and a great resource for more delicious recipes.
2024-08-21
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Safe canning
Some family recipes have outdated canning procedures. Host Amanda McNulty offers a helpful resource to update your process to ensure health and safety at the dinner table.
2024-08-19
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Sipping 'the forbidden nectar of knowledge'
Carpenter bees can't sip from the inside of a flower. Amanda McNulty explains their workaround and its effect on cross-pollination.
2024-07-26
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
The solitary life of the carpenter bee
Can you tell the difference between a carpenter bee and a bumble bee? Amanda McNulty teaches you how.
2024-07-25
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Hanging pictures and painting pews
While Amanda McNulty decorates the inside of her home, carpenter bees are also decorating just outside her front door.
2024-07-24
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Carpenter bees take a seat on Amanda McNulty's porch
Male carpenter bees put on a good show, but there's no need to fear. Here's why.
2024-07-22
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Corn OFF the cob
Preparing corn off the cob is a labor of love, but well worth the effort, according to host Amanda McNulty of "Making It Grow"
2024-06-21
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
The multicultural flavors of corn on the cob
While in Los Angeles, host Amanda McNulty of "Making It Grow" experiences a conversion regarding grilled corn on the cob
2024-06-20
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Preparing the perfect cob of corn
How do you like your corn on the cob? Host Amanda McNulty of "Making It Grow" shares her favorite way to prepare this tasty summertime treat
2024-06-17
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
A brief history of California's Cottonwood Spring Oasis
Host Amanda McNulty visits Joshua Tree National Park, home of the Cottonwood Spring Oasis
2024-05-18
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
The difference between kestrels and hawks
Host Amanda McNulty of Making It Grow sees the natural beauty of the Wateree floodplain during her daily commute.
2024-03-06
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Cotton species
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.
2023-12-16
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Cotton species
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.
2023-12-16
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Crotalaria spectabilis
Amanda McNulty discusses crotalaria spectabilis, a yellow flower commonly known as rattlebox.
2023-09-07
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Crotalaria spectabilis
Amanda McNulty discusses crotalaria spectabilis, a yellow flower commonly known as rattlebox.
2023-09-07
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Bacon mayonnaise
Amanda McNulty shares her experiences making bacon mayo.
2023-08-24
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Bacon mayonnaise
Amanda McNulty shares her experiences making bacon mayo.
2023-08-24
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Homemade mayonnaise
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 peop...
2023-08-23
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Homemade mayonnaise
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 peop...
2023-08-23
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Plants at Zoo Exhibits
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...
2020-10-17
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
"Furniture" in Zoo Enclosures
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...
2020-10-16
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Immersion Horticulture for Zoos
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 beauti...
2020-10-15
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Volunteering in Outdoor, Public Spaces
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 e...
2020-10-14
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Magnolia Plantation and Gardens
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 dr...
2020-10-12
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Legislating Measures to Save America's Birds
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 rememb...
2020-09-05
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Refuge for Pelicans
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 th...
2020-09-04
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Pelicans
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.
2020-09-03
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Victorian Fashion Included Hummingbirds as Ornament
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 n...
2020-09-02
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
The Historic Toll of Fashion on Bird Populations
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 mi...
2020-09-01
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Cruel Fashion
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 deco...
2020-08-31
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
The History of Gourds as Containers
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 prol...
2020-05-02
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Ancient Bottle Gourd
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 wint...
2020-05-01
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Bottle Gourds
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 achi...
2020-04-29
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Instruments Made from Plants
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 tamb...
2020-04-27
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
During Pandemic Some Farm Produce Once Bound for High-End Restaurants Now Available for Home
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 fiel...
2020-04-09
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Clemson Extension Agents Still On the Job
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 an...
2020-04-08
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Essential Activities of Agriculture Continue During COVID-19 Pandemic
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/ (Co...
2020-04-06
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
The Benefits of Owning Woodlands
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...
2020-03-27
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Women Owning Woodlands
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 husb...
2020-03-23
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Important Members of the Nightshade Family
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 ot...
2020-03-06
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
The Bumblebee is an Important Pollinator
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 acti...
2020-03-05
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Pollinating Commercially Grown Tomatoes is a Challenge
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...
2020-03-04
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Tomato Plant Pollination
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 th...
2020-03-03
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
The Challenges of Growing 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 skin...
2020-03-02
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Ogeechee Lime
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 du...
2020-02-08
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Honeydew Honey
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...
2020-02-07
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Honey Varietals
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 descri...
2020-02-06
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Ogeechee Honey
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 keep...
2020-02-05
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Nyssa Ogeche
Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. The rarest of the North American Nyssa trees is Nyssa ogeche. The species name comes from the Ogeechee River in Georgia, a blackwater river, like our Edisto River in South Carolina. It, too has beautiful bald cypress trees growing in it. But In its massive drainage basin, you’ll also find this Nyssa species, with the common name Ogeechee lime, which only grows in four states. Like its relative Nyssa aquatica, it develops huge swollen bases but is a smaller tree, topping out at about forty feet. Like...
2020-02-03
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
Varieties of Nyssa Sylvatica
Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Nyssa sylvatica has two varieties. On drier sites, you’ll find Nyssa sylvatica var sylvatica. In wet areas, often growing with bald cypress, the variety biflora is found. Both exhibit beautiful fall color, have small flowers very important to pollinators and produce fruits relished by birds and certain mammals. Also, their leaves are browsed by certain animals. When, as often happens, they become hollow with age, wildlife shelters in those cavities. Wetland species are used in remediation projects. The wood is not useful for lumber -- its inte...
2020-02-01
01 min
Making It Grow Minutes
A Great Pet
Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. Our pet hen, Chickie Wimberly, was quite the enforcer. We had a half lab half bassett hound dog, Sally, take up with us who was a pain about getting under foot when we sat on the front porch; often to steal and hors d’oeuvre or, once, a piece of fried chicken out of daughter Lill’s hand. But Chickie Wimberly occasionally came through on patrol and she ran Sally off like nobody’s business. Getting to know that chicken was quite a learning experience in many ways; al...
2019-12-05
01 min
The Path with Usha Patel
Amanda McNulty and Mary Pat Kling – The Path
Amanda McNulty and Mary Pat Kling - From College Senior to Real Estate Investor New sensation Amanda McNulty was a senior in college when her Dad inspired her to investigate real estate sales as a career path. Leveraging her coach’s knowledge and the experiences of her family, Amanda quickly became competent in the world of investment real estate and is now a leader in her company and working relentlessly toward becoming an accomplished real estate investor. Do you have what it takes to seize control of your financial destiny?
2017-03-07
1h 08