Making It Grow Minutes

While "Making It Grow" host Amanda McNulty is usually in favor of planting and growing, she draws the line at her bathroom tile.

Host Amanda McNulty of "Making It Grow" explains how the sweetbay magnolia helps sustain a variety of wildlife.

Host Amanda McNulty of "Making It Grow" explains her preference of the sweetbay magnolia over magnolia grandiflora, a.k.a. the southern magnolia.

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.

Although cattle egrets are in the same genus as herons, they have a much different diet than their fish-eating relatives.

Where do cattle egrets build their nests? Host Amanda McNulty points the way on this episode of Making it Grow.

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.

Are you familiar with cattle egrets? Host Amanda McNulty explains how to identify them on this episode of "Making It Grow."

Cattle egrets are fairly new to the U.S. Host Amanda McNulty explains how and when they arrived in our country.

Interested in canning your own foods but don't know where to begin? Amanda McNulty shares a helpful starting point.

With the renewed interest in home gardening comes a renewed interest in canning. Is your equipment properly calibrated?

If you have a family recipe for canning foods, Amanda McNulty shares some resources to ensure your process is safe.

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.

Some family recipes have outdated canning procedures.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.

If you have carpenter bees boring into wooden areas of your house, here are some tips.

Carpenter bees can't sip from the inside of a flower. Amanda McNulty explains their workaround and its effect on cross-pollination.

Can you tell the difference between a carpenter bee and a bumble bee? Amanda McNulty teaches you how.

While Amanda McNulty decorates the inside of her home, carpenter bees are also decorating just outside her front door.

Male carpenter bees put on a good show, but there's no need to fear. Here's why.

You and what you grow in your yard, patio, or balcony are Nature’s best hope.

Preparing corn off the cob is a labor of love, but well worth the effort, according to host Amanda McNulty of "Making It Grow"

While in Los Angeles, host Amanda McNulty of "Making It Grow" experiences a conversion regarding grilled corn on the cob

From Silver Queen to even sweeter varieties, corn's optimal flavor is best when prepared this way...

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

Host Amanda McNulty visits Joshua Tree National Park, home of the Cottonwood Spring Oasis

The eastern cottonwood is illegal to plant in some places.

Cottonwoods are found in places where there is plenty of water.

The leaves on eastern cottonwood are known for making "the lullaby of the prairies."

Cottonwoods are usually found in nature growing by water sources or in wetlands.

Mountain Laurel has a fascinating pattern of twisting and turning branches, very decorative to look at but hard to maneuver through.

A relative of our beloved mountain laurel is Kalmia angustifolia, called white wicky or sheepkill.

Although the common name of Kalmia latifolia is mountain laurel, you can find this handsome evergreen native plant growing, often in thickets, from the mountains to the sea, including on South Carolina's Fort Jackson.

Kalmia Gardens in Hartsville was the creation of Mrs. D. R. Coker, affectionately called "Miss May."

At Kalmia Gardens, a northern type of mountain laurel, galax, and a specific witch hazel have persisted in that unusual ecosystem.

Cicadas are native to our area and have been coexisting with their ecosystems for eons and eons.

Residents of the Palmetto State won’t have to go too far to experience the emergence of maybe a billion periodic cicadas.

When Thomas Jefferson was president, there was an event that is finally repeating itself this year -- a concurrent emergence of two specific broods of periodic cicadas; and it won’t happen again until about another two hundred years.

Unlike some people these days, cicadas don’t have dating apps; they use sound to find a mate.

Naturalist Austin Jenkins talked to us recently about the periodic cicada emergence in South Carolina. Our state’s cicadas that will come out in huge numbers in the Piedmont are on a thirteen-year cycle.

The South Carolina Botanical Garden is a treasure located on the campus of Clemson University.

If you can eat those delicious pine nuts without trouble, you probably aren’t allergic to pine pollen.

Agriculture is the largest industry in South Carolina, with timber being by far the most valuable crop, and pines are the largest component of that.

Pine trees produce male pine cones on the lower part of the tree and female ones towards the top, a clever way to prevent self-fertilization.

There’s actually a scientific method to establish when pines will be releasing pollen: by keeping a record of the number of degree-days above 55° Fahrenheit after February 1st.

If you can safely leave dead branches or even a dead tree on your property, you could end up with at-risk birds happily cohabitating with you.

In part of our large yard, one area has three dozen mature pines. Occasionally one gets hit by lightning and dies, becoming a snag, and we leave them up.

The American kestrel, our smallest falcon, is a handsome bird easily seen as they perch on power lines looking for prey on the ground below or flying past them.

We know about the crisis of people without homes but there is also a crisis for cavity-nesting birds.

Host Amanda McNulty of Making It Grow sees the natural beauty of the Wateree floodplain during her daily commute.

Ladybug larvae, both native and imported, are described as looking like alligators. But, there's an important difference between the two...

Asian ladybug beetles prefer to come inside the part of the house that gets afternoon sun.

Asian ladybug beetles will eat damaged apples, grapes, or other fruits, sometimes creating ladybug wine taint.

If you have Chinese wisteria, please be a steward of the environment and eliminate it.

Benjamin Franklin brought the tallow tree to the U.S.

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.

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.

Back in the day, when Silver Queen sweet corn became widely available, it was transformational for corn on the cob lovers. Sweet corn differs from field corn it the actual amount of sugar versus starch it contains when mature.

If you are fortunate enough to have a farming friend who plants lots of sweet corn and lets you come pick it, you’ll learn how to choose the best ears.

In those days, Silver Queen was the finest sweet corn available, and a relative grew several acres of that for friends to come and pick.

Corn is a new world crop, along with tomatoes, potatoes, and cashews.

Most grits you get to cook are from regular modern field corn, and they can be delicious. But make some choices for the best results – don’t even think about cooking (is it even cooking?) instant grits.

One native milkweed, Asclepias tuberosa, called butterfly weed, was super attractive to all sorts of bees, while common milkweed, Asclepias syriaca was the red-headed stepchild and completely ignored.

Monarch butterflies are specialists which puts them at a certain risk. Their larva can only eat milkweed plants – with habitat destruction and the use of certain herbicides on large acreages of crops, milkweed plants, once common across the country, have vastly diminished.

When we were filming the pollinator garden at Irmo Middle School, kids were throwing balls and racing around after their lunch break. Another athletic skill some students develop is based on activity in the garden, trying to capture adult butterflies with insect nets. Monarchs get a sticker applied to a spot on their wing, tags supplied by the national Monarch Watch tagging program.

At the Irmo Middle School, maypops, Passiflora incarnata, found their way to the pollinator garden without being planted. Probably they started when a songbird, many of which love maypop seeds, flipped its tail and deposited that seed when it landed in a shrub growing there.