From the sweltering studios of Lehigh Valley Public Media in Bethlehem, PA, it's time for another overseas episode of chemical free horticultural hijinks.

You Bet Your Garden.

I'm your host, Mike McGrath.

Do you have little white butterflies flittering around your garden?

Be warned that the babies of these pestiferous fliers would like to gorge themselves on your brassicas.

Plus, slugs continue to be a prime topic, so in addition to repeating a few tips, we'll explain why copper is a shocking solution to the slimers.

And, of course, lots of your telecommunicated questions, comments, tips, tricks, suggestions and histrionically heroic harumphutations.

So keep your eyes and/or ears right here, cats and kittens, because it's all coming up faster than you shocking your slugs with images of Abe Lincoln.

Right after this.

- Support for You Bet Your Garden is provided - by the Espoma company, offering a complete selection of natural organic plant foods and potting soils.

More information about Espoma and the Espoma natural gardening community can be found at: - Welcome to another wacky edition of You Bet Your Garden from the studios of Lehigh Valley Public Media in Bethlehem, PA.

I am your host, Mike McGrath.

Coming up later in the show, a double barreled Question of the Week, how to handle caterpillar pests and slugs.

But mostly it's your fabulous phone calls, cats and kittens, at: Cameron, welcome to You Bet Your Garden.

- Thank you!

Thank you, Cameron.

You're a Cameron?

Where does that come from?

- My mother, she wanted my name to be unique.

And that was when she still thought I was a boy when she was pregnant.

- Oh, right!

That's interesting.

And where does Cameron live?

- I live in Joplin, Missouri.

- Oh, OK, very good.

Always nice to hear from our fans down there.

What can we do you for?

- So I'm calling to ask how I can keep a lilac alive and healthy in a pot temporarily.

- Oh!

OK, well, you know, new lilacs are, you know, very often, if not always, sold in pots, so there shouldn't be too much trouble here.

How did you acquire your lilac?

- I actually got this one from Wal-Mart, in a sack, actually.

- In a sack?

- Uh-huh.

It was a plastic sack that had material in it and the instructions said to soak it for up to a couple of hours while I prepared where it was supposed to be planted.

- Right.

And that's especially for Wally World.

That's excellent advice.

It's always good to soak the roots.

What did you use for soil?

- Potting soil and a little bit of topsoil.

- Oh, OK, that's not bad.

And do you have the tree form or the shrub form?

- I presume the shrub form.

This little guy is a stick with one shoot.

- OK, and, well, this time of year in Pennsylvania, the lilacs are not yet blooming but they are leafing out.

But yours is showing signs of life, for instance.

- Yeah.

Not healthy, though.

- Well, you know, it sounds like it's a baby, it sounds like it may have been abandoned, hoping that you would come and adopt it before it went into the dumpster.

But they're actually pretty hardy plants.

Is it outside?

- No, because it's been freezing the past few nights.

- Take it out during the day and bring it in when it starts to get chilly at night.

It could really use some sunlight.

They are sun lovers.

And when you plant it, make sure it's an area that gets full sun.

It takes newly installed lilacs a year or two to get over the shock and then it takes them another year or two to get big enough to bloom.

But once it starts blooming, it will bloom more and more fully every year, especially if it's in full sun.

Take it out any day where the temperature is normal and, you know, in the rain is fine, in bright sun is fine, but get it outside, get it acclimated a little bit.

But if the temperature is going to drop below 40, bring it inside.

- Oh, yeah.

That's kind of why I haven't taken it outside yet.

It's still not above 40.

- Yeah.

Oh boy, this is crazy, all over the place.

And, you know, it likes to be out in the open, it likes to be all alone with lots of airflow and lots of sun.

And other than that they behave pretty well.

And of course, you know the flowers, that's the best fragrance in the garden.

- Oh my goodness.

Yes.

- All right.

Well, good luck to you.

- Thank you so much.

You have a great day.

- You, too.

Be safe and enjoy your lilacs in a couple of years.

Number to call: Carol, welcome to You Bet Your Garden.

- Thanks, Mike.

How are you doing?

- I am just Ducky.

Thanks for asking, Carol.

Ducky thanks you, too.

He's wearing a protective mask.

How are you doing?

- Well, it's OK.

This is northeastern Oklahoma and it's the same old in and out every day with the houseplants.

It's hot in the daytime, cold at night.

- Yeah.

You're getting strange weather for Oklahoma.

Well, I mean, that's redundant, right?

You know, strange weather in Oklahoma.

What a shock, right?

What can we do you for?

- Well, I had put some stem in the hard fibrous cabbage out into the compost pile.

Just toss them out there thinking later on I'll come back and tread them, only to find about two weeks later that they had leafed out hugely.

And I am wondering if I have found a shortcut to new cabbages without starting from plants or seed.

- If you had asked me this question six months ago, I would have said, Wow, that's groovy.

But I don't know.

However, I did a book signing.

I have a new version, a new edition of my tomato book that Fox Chapel has been publishing for the last couple of years, and I did a book signing at a library convention, a convention of librarians.

And I was at the Fox Chapel table and they had a couple of other gardening books.

One of those was called, and I think this is the exact title, Regrow Your Vegetables.

And it was originally published in Germany, but, of course, it's been translated and everything, and of course, the pictures don't change and they are just perfectly instructional.

And the book... And I've been trying to figure out a way to interview the author, even though she's in Germany.

We have been able to set those lines up every once in a while.

But if I can't do that, I'm going to do a Question of the Week just on this book, because I find it fascinating.

And she covers about a dozen things, maybe even more, just like this that you can do with parts of your vegetables that you typically would compost, you know?

Yeah, the root end of onions, just as you point out, the roots of cabbage.

And then for people who have had no success trying to get the hydroponic herbs from their supermarket, like especially basil, with those long, spindly roots to root in their garden, she explains that's not how you do it.

You do it like it was an African violet.

You take a long stem off and you get that stem to grow little baby roots in water, then you move it over into soil.

But absolutely, yes, this is a great shortcut.

And also what a wonderful thing to do with kids, because everything gets started inside.

So you can play around with this stuff in the winter and just see it happening, even if you can't actually get it through to success.

And a lot of times you're not going to get a huge harvest, but it's more fun than a barrel of monkeys.

And she and her partner, the co-writer of the book, have figured out how to do this successfully for quite a few things that, again, normally go into the compost.

And I've been itching to try some of these, but I've been too busy, you know, starting my tomatoes and peppers and everything like that.

But I think in the fall I'm going to play around with this, you know, keep my grow lights up and play around with this and see how far we can take it.

- Yeah, I found some real bad looking carrots in the way, way, way back of the refrigerator that were sprouting on the top and ribbing on the bottom.

And I think I might try lying them on their side out there in the compost and see what happens with them.

- OK, now that's a whole other topic, because carrots are biennials, they are two-year plants.

Because think about it, we plant carrots by seed, right?

- Yeah.

- Whoever saw carrot seed?

Where did it come from?

It comes from the second-year plant.

Professional seed growers grow carrots, they do not harvest them, they leave them in the ground, and the second year they will grow very strong roots and they will flower on the top.

And the flowers look a lot like Queen Anne's lace and they're very good at attracting beneficial insects.

- Right.

- But my understanding is the carrot loses all its flavor.

But if you put this in the center of the bed, you will have ladybugs, you will have lace wings, you will have native bees coming in.

So you'll get pollination, you'll get aphid eaters and you'll get very pretty flowers.

And again, that's just a fun thing to do.

The book is Regrow Your Vegetables from Fox Chapel.

You should get a copy, because you sound like you love doing this kind of stuff.

And I will feature it on an upcoming show.

- Well, thanks.

I wish the library was open.

I'd head over there right now, but it's another victim.

- Yeah, exactly.

All right.

Well, take care, be safe.

And pretty soon, hopefully, we'll all be back to normal.

- Right.

Thanks, Mike.

We love you here.

Bye-bye.

- Bye-bye.

Number to call: Jennifer, welcome to You Bet Your Garden.

- Thanks so much.

Thanks for taking my call.

- Well, thank you for making it.

Jennifer, how you doing?

- I'm doing!

I'm escaping and gardening this year.

- Well, you know, I just talked to a friend of mine out in Colorado and she said she waited a little bit too long to buy her seeds, and a lot of the stuff she wants is sold out.

This is going to be a record gardening year.

People are turning to their gardens, both to get out of the freakin' house.

- Exactly.

- And because they're scared that they may run out of toilet paper but more important, though, at least have tomatoes.

- Yeah, exactly.

- I don't know what the connection is, kids.

It's just we're all getting a little squirrely now.

- We are.

- So where is Jennifer getting squirrely?

- I'm getting very squirrely in Lincoln, Rhode Island.

- All right, Jen, what can we do you for?

- Well, I am a beginner vegetable gardener.

I finally built my beds this past weekend.

- Excellent!

- Yes.

I wanted it last year to get to it, so I did it this year.

I'm absolutely new and completely clueless.

So it's like complete beginner questions here.

But I just had the beds, three beds made.

So my neighbor...

I hadn't even planted yet because we're supposed to get that big wind crazy storm.

- Oh yeah.

- Yesterday.

So I just waited, but my neighbor, and I think it was Saturday, gave us an kind of long, like almost a window box sized planter.

It had garlic, beets, kale and parsley that he dug up from his garden and gave it to us.

And the garlic is like, you know, like grown, you know, it has something like ten-inch-long stems and everything is grown.

But I was reading about it and I was reading that's really not OK to transplant, it doesn't do well.

- It is incredibly difficult, as would be the transplanting of beets.

- Yes, that's what I read.

- But you would see the results pretty quickly.

You know, if all of a sudden the above ground growth got limp.

And if you don't see that, your neighbor is a very talented gardener.

- Yeah, no, it's already limp, which is my fault.

I mean, like especially the beets.

The beets, the leaves are like completely limp because I haven't put them in yet because we have like the storm coming.

So I've had them outside.

- But they are planted, right?

- Yes.

They're planted in soil in this big kind of... - So you want to save them by replanting these things that couldn't be planted, replanted in the first place.

- Well, that's what I'm trying to figure out.

Should I plant them in my garden now?

- Nah.

How tall were the beet greens?

- The greens?

I'd say like eight to ten inches.

- OK, so the nice thing about beets is if you can see it, you can eat it.

- OK, yeah.

- Beets are right from as soon as you can see the bulb underground.

And if you harvest the greens before they get all wilty, the greens are great in salads and sandwiches.

There are some varieties of beets that are grown mostly for the greens.

- OK. - They're very nutritious, very tasty and something that really only gardeners appreciate because you don't see beet greens for sale.

Although when I buy beet greens off season at Whole Foods, sometimes the greens are in remarkable shape and I try to use those right away.

- So do you think the beets, the underneath are OK or not?

- Oh, yeah.

Well, if they look like beets, eat them, you know?

- So I should take them out now?

- Yeah.

There's no reason to leave those there.

They're not going to get any better.

And then bake those or stir fry them.

Whatever you want to do, there's no bad way to eat beets.

The garlic's another story.

Just pull it up, see what's underground.

It's probably going to look like a leek or a scallion, so just, you know, cut whatever's left of the roots off and chop up everything that looks decent and put that in a stir-fry and you'll get a mild garlic flavor.

And then no, don't worry about it.

I mean, you know... - I love garlic.

And he said it was good garlic ordered from somewhere.

I was like... - Well, he should have left it in the ground and given you real good cloves in the midsummer.

See if you or your husband or somebody can walk over there and catch his eye and take a look at the garden and see how much garlic he has in the ground, and bum some cloves, bum some bulbs from him, where you are, probably early July.

You know, he should know how to harvest garlic.

And see if he'll share some with you, and then you just keep it cool and dry and replant the biggest cloves, single cloves, in your garden around 1st September.

- OK. - And then you'll harvest your own garlic in July.

And you save the biggest cloves from that, replant them.

Any little cloves use for cooking so you see what it tastes like.

And then just keep doing that over and over.

And it won't be long before you have 50 to 100 plants.

- Oh, good.

- And garlic is the most fun you can have.

- All right.

- All right?

You have good luck.

Enjoy your first year.

Sometimes the first year is the most fun.

- Yeah, I'm having fun.

I'm enjoying it.

I know I'm going to make mistakes, but I'm expecting it, so I'm not too worried about it.

- All right.

Well, good luck to you.

- Thanks, Mike.

Appreciate it.

- Bye-bye.

All right.

As promised, it is time for the Question of the Week, which we are calling There must be 50 ways to kill your sluggies!

Carol in Chesapeake, Virginia, who listens to us on WHRV, writes, I've been buying flowers and setting them outside in their original pots every spring, summer and fall for the past 25 years, including geraniums, verbena, pansies and zinnias.

The past two years, however, I've had a terrible problem with snails eating the plants.

I have tried nearly every remedy I can find on the internet with no success, including beer, coffee grounds, Epsom salt, Sluggo, Vaseline around the tops of the pots, mothballs, garlic spray, egg shells and the balls from sweet gum trees.

We never saw snails previously and have not done anything significantly different in the areas around the pots.

Well, before we address your molluskan marauders, we have to review your internet list as a cautionary warning to others.

There's no reason to expect coffee grounds, Epsom salts or garlic spray to be effective against these pests, but at least they're safe.

Mothballs are not safe.

It's shocking that they're still for sale.

These little balls are kidney cancer in a box, are extremely dangerous to you, pets, wildlife, and just about every living thing on the planet.

Whatever site recommended them should be ashamed of itself.

Now, let's take a closer look at your could-have-worked choices, starting with beer.

Beer can be highly effective, especially when used as a diagnostic tool when you aren't sure what's causing overnight damage to your plants.

Both snails and slugs work at night and thus often go undetected.

Now to use beer effectively, bury some small containers near the affected plants, things like cat food cans and the little half pint containers from the deli.

Make them flush with the soil.

You want to make it easy for the pests to fall in.

Then, as evening falls, crack a fresh can of yeasty beer and fill those containers.

Do not fill them during the day.

They'll be useless by the evening.

Do not use, quote, stale beer.

Slugs and snails like stale beer about as much as you or I would.

If this tactic proves to be effective, buy a case of the cheapest beer you can find, empty the containers of their dead drunken quarry every morning and refill your traps every evening.

Now, products like Sluggo and Escar-Go are pelletized yeast laced with iron phosphate.

The slugs go for the yeast and then are incapacitated by the iron.

A light sprinkling on the surface of the soil around your plants should be effective.

Don't pile it up.

Mist it slightly at dusk for optimum results.

Vaseline.

That's really interesting.

I suspect the mollusks might actually find it comforting as it's a lot like their slime.

I can't see it hurting them.

That brings us to egg shells and itchy balls.

That's what we used to call those round spikes sweet gum tree seed heads when we threw them at each other as kids.

Egg shells, there is some thought the slugs won't cross over a line of calcium.

But for that to work, you'd have to crush the shells up very fine.

A commercial product known as diatomaceous earth or just DE would be a much better choice.

To us, it looks and feels like flour, but it's very sharp on a microscopic level.

It needs to be bone dry to be effective.

And if you surround the plants with enough itchy balls, I can't imagine snails trying to make their way in.

Now you say you put out store bought containers of plants.

I suspect that because of their relatively small size, you're overwatering them or watering them at night, which is the worst you can do, just before the slugs go to work.

Only water your plants in the morning and don't water them every day.

Keep them a little bit on the dry side until this problem is taken care of.

You can also try capturing the pests underneath wooden boards.

The University of California Department of Agricultural Natural Resources suggests laying down the boards with little stones or something holding them up about an inch off the ground.

Slugs and snails will retreat to this easy protection at sunrise.

Later in the day, you'll go out and scrape your catch into a bucket with some soapy water in the bottom.

Taunt them as they drown.

Copper can be wildly effective.

Slugs and snails get electrocuted when they touch copper, which is very cool to watch.

You can buy thin strips of copper flashing at hardware and home improvement stores and wrap it around the outside lip of your containers.

Wear good gloves, though.

Copper flashing can be very sharp.

Now, Martha Stewart once solved a similar problem by hot gluing copper pennies around the tops of her containers, which might be more workable if you transplant it into bigger pots to get a wider surface area to work with.

Another option is to place lettuce leaves and citrus rinds on the ground around the pots and then go out late at night or early in the morning and collect it as the beasts are still feeding.

Similarlarlarlarlarly, you can wet the plants down like blazes in the early evening and then go out at midnight with a flashlight and hand pick the pests.

Now be sure to check the undersides of your containers for snails in hiding and/or their eggs.

Snails and slugs love the moist, dark areas underneath pots.

And finally, don't pour salt on them.

Yeah, it makes them writhe and dissolve and it's fun to watch, but it's also very bad for your plants.

A cautionary note on today's feature, although it may seem like getting even, don't attempt to eat your garden snails.

The ones that France has made famous and which are delicious have been farm raised on a special diet that prevents them from forming the toxins that are present in the ones that are eating your plants.

Well, that sure was some interesting advice on how to control the common pests of two nations, now wasn't it?

Luckily for those of yous who wish to read the information over with links to detailed articles about the shocking effects of copper and the supercool swallowtail butterfly, the Question of the Week appears in print at the Gardens Alive website.

Just click the link for the Question of the Week at our website, which is still and will forever be: Gardens Alive life supports the You Bet Your Garden Question of the Week and you will always find the latest Question of the Week at the Gardens Alive website.

Special thanks to my good buddy entomologist Dr. Michael Rapp, the Bug Man, for all of the cool swallowtail info I listed from his exceptional website without his knowledge.

Hey, Mike, I said exceptional, so please don't sue me.

You Bet Your Garden is a half hour public television show, an hour long public radio show and podcast, all produced and delivered to you weekly by Lehigh Valley Public Media in Bethlehem, PA. Our radio show is distributed by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange.

You Bet Your Garden was created by Mike McGrath.

Mike McGrath was created when an ancient wizard told him to, quote, speak my name in an abandoned subway tunnel.

And when he did, he had acquired the powers of all Three Stooges.

Four if you count Shemp.

Yikes!

My producer is threatening to slug my sassafras if I don't get out of this studio.

We must be out of time.

But you can call us any time at: Or send us your email, your tired, your poor, your wretched refuse teeming towards our garden shores at: And please include your location.

You'll find all of our contact information plus answers to your garden questions, audio of this show, video of this show, audio and video of old shows, hey!

And links to our internationally renowned podcast.

It's all at that website: I'm your host, Mike McGrath, saying keep your eyes on the butterflies, your beer on the slugs and keep that mask on.

Wait a minute.

Ducky has his off!

If you are double vaxxed and you're three or four weeks out, you can be like Ducky and take that mask off, and I'll see you again next week.