- From the seed saving studios of Rodale Institute Radio and television at Lehigh Valley Public Media in Bethlehem, PA, it is time for another instructional episode of chemical free horticultural hijinks You Bet Your Garden.

Did you grow a fabulous tomato, pepper or bean crop this season?

I'm your host, Mike McGrath.

And on today's show, we'll reveal how you can save the seeds of your best looking subjects and grow them out again next year, maybe.

Plus, evasive answers to your fabulous phone call questions, comments, tips, tricks, suggestions and tantalizingly taut tremulations.

So keep your eyes and ears right here, cats and kittens, because it's all coming up faster than you eating your tomatoes and saving them to.

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 espoma.com - Support for you bet your garden is provided And for those of you watching on TV, you're actually going to see me show you how to save some seeds.

For those of you listening on the radio or a podcast, don't forget, you can always go watch the show for what we're doing when we say we're doing something here.

OK. Well, that was confusing enough.

Oh, yes.

The question of the week is about saving seeds.

So stay tuned for that after lots of your fabulous phone calls.

Renee, welcome to you Bet your garden.

- Thank you so much.

I'm so excited to talk to you.

- I'm so excited to talk to you, Renee.

Where are you?

- I'm in Downingtown, Pennsylvania.

- Oh, OK. What can we do for Renee in Downingtown, PA?

- So my question is, does using triple phosphate in late April benefit my 30-year-old hydrangea bush?

Because it had five flowers this summer.

- And it had previously been flower free for a couple of years?

- Two years, it seems like 20.

But it was two years.

- I know.

I know.

So this happened to virtually everybody.

There was a two year period where there was a combination of a really warm spell and then a freezing spell.

So the hydrangeas got all confused.

Some of them were actively growing again in the winter and then they got shut down by a freezing cold night and /or it warmed up and then we had a very late frost.

And that happened two years in a row.

I did not get a single flower.

No one I know got a single flower.

Now, I can't remember what happened last year.

This year, I got a ton of flowers.

I have three hydrangeas out in front of the house and I got a ton of flowers from them and I didn't do anything to amend the soil.

Now, you used triple phosphate in April when the plant was already actively growing, right?

- Yes.

- Yes.

Triple phosphate is not anything I would recommend.

It is a chemical product as opposed to an organic natural product.

I recommend people use rock phosphate, but interestingly enough, I will acknowledge that triple phosphate acts much more quickly.

And it could have had an effect on your plant.

What we'll never know, I always like to think if only we had a control plant growing nearby that we treated exactly the same way, except for one addition of something like rock phosphate.

Would both plants bloom anyway?

But triple phosphate is also not the worst thing you can use.

It's not an herbicide or an insecticide.

It's not going to kill bees or anything like that.

And phosphorous, of course, is the fruiting nutrient.

The one that produces flowers, helps plants produce flowers.

It's also good for the root system.

And so you have an ancient hydrangea, huh?

- Yes.

My daughter will be 30 in October.

And I know we've had that at least 30 years.

And...

It just, this summer, I was so excited.

I actually missed it.

I...

Early morning I went out with my reading glasses.

I was like, OK.

I love you, bush.

So I looked all around and all of a sudden I saw these two buds that I missed, you know, for the week before.

I wrote them on my little calendar in the beginning of June.

Thrilled.

And two days later, I found two more buds and I wrote them down.

And I was just thrilled.

It made my whole summer.

- But in previous years, it flowered more than that.

Right?

- I had one year many years ago when my, well, I shouldn't say many, about seven years ago, eight years ago, my friend was doing an internship and she talked me quickly into two bags, of some type of soil.

And I amended my soil around this bush with it.

And either that summer or the next summer, I put my arms around the bush, because I would hug it.

I tried to count.

And I got up to about 50.

And I couldn't count and keep my arms around the bush.

- Yeah.

- I haven't had any since.

- We can only assume that those were bags of compost.

Are you still in touch with your friend?

- Yes.

Oh, yes, yes.

- Why don't you ask her what she either gave you or talked you into buying?

Because there's absolutely nothing better than a compost feeding for a plant this age.

- Well, I'm certainly amazed that your hydrangea did not bloom for two years.

So I need to apologize to my bush, cos I've been really hard on it for two years.

I would stand out there and say, why aren't you blooming?

- Yep.

- Now I feel better.

- It was one of the most common calls we got.

I did not see a single hydrangea bloom in the mid Atlantic states those two years.

So don't feel bad.

- Well, then I'll apologize to my bush.

You do that.

OK. - Take care.

- Thank you so much.

Bye.

Bye bye.

Number to call never changes.

Always the same.

- Hi.

- Hello, Cory.

How are you?

- I am so excited.

OK!

Where is Cory excited?

I am in Nashville, Tennessee.

- Excellent.

Excellent.

We always like hearing from our Nashville and Memphis people.

What can we do you for?

- Well, where shall we begin?

- I'm in trouble.

- So I decided to try to grow asparagus from seed, which after the fact, I heard you say what a bad idea that was.

But I was already in knee-deep so I couldn't turn back.

So I started all these asparagus plants and I have them in little pots and they're just so tiny.

And I don't know if they're ready to put out in the ground yet.

What do I do?

- What time of year did you start the seeds?

- In early April.

- Oh, OK. - Yeah.

- Did you just freehand this or did you read anything?

- I've probably mostly...

I like read stuff and then I, you know, I kind of just.

It's like a recipe, I'm like, yeah, I think I got the gist of it.

- If you choose to do this again.

And the theories have changed, by the way, we used to tell people that asparagus from seed would cost you extra years before you would - get a harvest.

- Right.

But now that more people are doing it, we're finding actually you may be able to harvest your second year.

- Wow.

- Yeah.

So it's probably a fun thing to do.

Where'd you get the seed?

Annie's organic or Annie's heirloom seeds.

- OK. Is that a local company?

- No, it's an online thing.

We had a tornado and I couldn't get - to the local store.

- Right.

- I was like, you know, I'm just gonna go and order some seed and then lucky I did, because within a week a pandemic hit and you couldn't buy these anywhere.

- Or anything, so.

- It's been a tough year.

Do you know the variety?

- They're Martha Washington.

- Oh, OK.

So this is the old heirloom seed that's going to produce both male and female plants.

- That is what I hear.

- Of course.

And that's where they got the seed, from the berries on the female plants.

So again, if you wanted to do this the Spalding guide way, you would start those seeds indoors at the end of December or early January, because one thing you noticed is it was almost a month before the sprouts came up.

Right?

- Right.

- Yeah.

So that's why you start those seeds before anything else so that you have, you know, viable plants by the time you're starting your seeds for your tomatoes.

So that.

So your plants should be bigger now.

How many plants do you have?

- 11.

- 11.

- And what are they in?

- They're in yogurt cups.

- Of course they are.

Do they have drainage?

- They do.

- Yeah.

OK. Well, we have a couple of options here now.

Did you start them under lights indoors?

- No, because I just got a late start.

I was like, I'm not going to be able to harvest these for like four years anyway, so I'll just start, because I didn't have room, I had a little warming tray and I only had so much room on my warming tray.

- OK. - So I started, I was like I'll plant in August, but they're still so tiny, I'm like, I don't know.

I guess, you know.

Jump in or, you know, swim or sink or whatever at this point.

- I wish they were in different containers.

I was going to suggest you heel them in which, you know, it's not exactly planting.

You bury the container up to the top of the container and that provides a little extra frost protection.

But it doesn't get really ridiculously cold in Nashville.

But what I'm going to suggest is you put them out in their pots without disturbing the roots.

And again, you know, plant them so that the pot is underground.

- Right.

- And then in the spring, if they look nice and everything, I would be brave and take them out of those pots and plant - them for real.

- All right.

- Thank you so much.

- Bye bye.

Number to call and we mean it.

You can call it any time.

Test us out on that.

Helen, welcome to you bet your garden.

- Thank you so much for having me.

- How are you doing today?

- I am just ducky.

Thanks for asking.

And Ducky is getting a lot of action on this show, that always makes him a happy duck.

Where is Helen?

- I'm calling from Pennsauken, New Jersey.

What can we do for Helen - in Pennsauken?

- I'm having a problem with squash and harlequin bugs - in my raised bed.

- OK. And we've tried using neem oil to get rid of them.

And I've enjoyed using the sprayer to just spray them straight off and watch them fall.

- Oh, right.

- But it doesn't seem to be getting them to go away.

And they completely killed my kohlrabi and... - Well, you should thank them for that.

Now you don't have to try and eat it.

- The leaves were so good in salad.

It was yummy.

- I always thought kohlrabi would make a great spaceship in a science fiction movie.

- It looks really strange.

Yeah.

- OK, so you have Harlequin bugs, which are a form of stink bug like our marmorated one that we have here.

I'm surprised that you have harlequin bugs.

They're more common down south than they are in Pennsylvania or New Jersey.

And when you say squash do you mean squash beetles, the elongated creatures?

- Yeah.

That's what they look like.

Kind of dark so that they almost blend in with the leaves.

Also look sort of like stink bugs.

- I would say you probably just have a different form - of stinkbug than because... - OK. - Because squash bugs are kind of long and narrow, more shaped like a lightning bug.

So.

OK.

So you're growing in a raised bed.

OK. How big is the bed?

- It's about three by six.

- Oh, OK. OK. Real nice and easy not to step in at three feet wide, right.

- Yeah.

- What's it?

What did you fill it with?

- We filled it with organic garden soil that had some perlite mixed in.

- OK. - And then I mixed in a little bit of doctor earth tomato and vegetable food into the bed, as I was filling it with dirt.

- OK. OK, I've seen those products around and they're natural and/ or organic.

Right?

- Yep.

- OK. - Trying to keep it organic.

- Yeah.

OK. Well, we're going to try to help you do that.

It is.

It's kind of.

And what are you growing in the bed again besides the dreaded kohlrabi?

- I've also got some tomatoes and some leeks.

- Leeks, huh?

- Yeah.

The leeks are doing pretty good.

We had zucchini, but between the damage from the bugs and them trying to take over, I just cut them out.

- You said that you tried getting rid of them with sharp - streams of water, right?

- Yes.

We tried hitting them with sharp streams of water.

It's kind of fun.

I like seeing them fall off and die.

- Yeah.

But they're, I think they're too big to be as negatively affected by that as aphids.

That's the real cure for aphids.

So what I'm going to suggest is a two pronged approach.

Look for the stink bug trap.

My understanding is you need to hang it right in the plant, right on the plant, and then the stink bugs are attracted to it and crawl into it and die.

I think it is made by a company called Rescue.

They are the premiere makers of insect traps.

In addition to that, I'm going to suggest you spray them directly with either insecticidal soap or horticultural oil.

And I'll tell you a deep, dark secret.

I probably shouldn't keep saying this because friends of mine sell the premade stuff, but I have found nonstick cooking spray to be a great alternative.

It is what I use when I have to approach a yellow jacket nest or on the rare occasion that I have a pest out there.

Yeah, it will, it will coat them.

You know, you palm them to death, so to speak.

You coat them with oil and insects breathe through their exoskeleton.

And when they're covered with oil, they can't breathe and they die.

And of course, all you're doing is is spraying a little canola oil or olive oil around, so you're not harming anything.

So hopefully that and the traps should help you out.

- Great.

Thank you so much.

- All right.

Well, good luck to you.

Sorry to hear about your troubles.

- But now I know how to fix them.

So thank you so much for your help.

- My pleasure.

You take care.

It is time for the Question of the Week, which we're calling the crash course on saving some seeds for next season.

Steve in Big Fork, Western Montana writes, I'm interested in saving seeds from this year's garden for use next year.

I'd appreciate a general discussion about this topic.

Well, I suspect that a lot of cost conscious folks are having the same thoughts right now, Steve.

And the basics are just what they need.

So let's bullet point this puppy.

One.

Basic rule.

Hybrid seeds are the result of crossing the pollen of two different plants in the same species to create a new and unique variety.

By law, all hybrid seeds and plants must have the word hybrid before their variety name and/or be designated as F1.

Now, because these plants contain the DNA of two different plants, seeds saved from a hybrid plant will not produce plants identical to the one you grew.

They might be better.

They might be worse.

They might be weird.

But hybrid seeds will germinate.

So if you're a gamblin' man, go for it.

Two.

The other side of the coin is our open pollinated plants, which we call OPs.

Seeds saved from an OP will be identical to the parent plant unless it's in the squash family, which we'll get to in a little bit.

Number three, important note, hybrid seeds have been around for centuries and are not genetically engineered.

OK?

You as a gardener can't buy genetically engineered seeds or plants.

Got it?

All right, let's get saving.

We're going to do two upfront that I call easy peasy.

First one, any kind of beans.

That's green beans, as in string beans, wax beans, lima beans and storage beans like pinto, garbanzo, kidney and black beans.

If you're eating some of the plants young off the vine, as you would with green beans, pick them small and frequently.

But stop when there's about six weeks left in the season.

Allow the remaining bean pods to become dry and brittle on the vine.

Don't rush this step.

When the time comes, shell them out and store the beans in a cool, dry place.

Now you can eat some of these saved beans in stews and such and save some for planting next season.

Now, if you're saving dried beans like these beautiful scarlet runner beans you can see if you're watching the TV here, you can eat some of them in stews and soups and such over the winter.

But be sure to save some for planting next season.

Number two on the easy peasy list is peppers.

The secret here is to allow the peppers, hot or sweet, to ripen up completely.

No green peppers or in-between colors like purple.

Leave them on the plant for about a week after you're certain they're fully ripe, at their final color and ready to go, then bring them inside, cut them open and place the seeds on a dish in a cool, dry spot until you can snap a sample seed in half.

Toss that one away.

Store your seeds in small envelopes on which you will write the variety name.

And again for television, the pepper we cut open here is fully ripe.

It is naturally a yellowish orange colored pepper.

And these seeds are good to germinate.

We move on to the moderately difficult but very popular tomatoes.

Select two or three of the nicest looking fruits from a single open pollinated plant and let them sit on the vine past their dead ripe stage to ensure that the collected seeds will be fully grown and viable.

Bring the fruits inside and squish the seeds out into a bowl.

Note that unlike the other kinds of seeds, tomato seeds have a gelatinous coating that must be dealt with before you can store them.

So add water, at least as much as there is juice in that bowl.

Stir well.

Day two, stir well and don't discuss the smell with anyone.

Day three, skim some of the scum that has formed on the surface off.

Add more water, stir well, walk away for a couple of minutes and then come back and skim all the nasty stuff off the surface, including any seeds.

Floaters, with tomatoes, will not sprout.

So you don't want them.

Pour the water containing the seeds that didn't float, the good ones, into a strainer and rinse them righteously.

Keep rinsing and blotting the bottom of the strainer with paper towels until all the nasty, gelatinous stuff is gone.

Then hang the strainer in front of a small sized fan.

You know, like the kind you use at an office desk or when you're out camping.

Keep blotting and gently stirring until the water is gone.

Then continue fanning until the seeds are dry enough to snap in half.

Store in a cool, dry place.

And finally, we move on to the category Forget about it.

Squash, melon, pumpkins and cukes.

This is the Pro Bowl.

Promiscuous squash bees will go from flower to flower of different plants in this family.

And the seeds you thought would produce another fabulous Connecticut field pumpkin will instead deliver ghostly giant White Dipper gourds the following year.

Professional seed savers either have to cage and hand pollinate their individual plants or ensure that no other members of this vast family are growing nearby.

And since nobody really knows how far a squash bee can travel, nearby is either a relative or a useless term, or maybe it's relatively useless or more likely a useless relative.

Anyway, the exception to this rule, for some curious reason, is watermelons.

If you only grow one variety and it is an open pollinated variety, the same seeds should produce the same fruit.

Just make sure it's dead ripe before you pick it.

We move on to storage.

Storage is a numbers game.

Wherever you store your seeds, the temperature and humidity should add up to no more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

That means no bathroom, no kitchen, no damp corner of your basement.

A hydrometer will reveal the numbers you need to know.

Insurance.

Your seeds must be bone dry before they go into their jars or seed saving envelopes.

If a sample seed bends instead of breaks, it is not ready.

And even sealed jars of big seeds should contain one or more of those desiccating pouches that come in vitamin and supplement bottles to help keep things dry.

Envelopes containing smaller seeds should be grouped together and placed in sealed jars with several desiccating pouches.

Well, that sure was a lot of fun facts about saving seeds now, wasn't it?

Luckily for you, the question of the week appears in print at the Gardens Alive Web site, where you can read it over at your leisure, or your leisure.

Just click the link for the Question of the week at our Web site, which is still and will forever be, say it with me kids, You bet your garden .org.

Gardens Alive 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 Life Web site.

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 Our radio show is distributed by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange.

You bet your garden was created by Mike McGrath.

Mike McGrath was created by Steve Allen on an early version of The Tonight Show and was originally played by Don Knotts.

Yikes.

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

We must be out of time.

But you can call us anytime.

Or send us your email, your tired, your poor, your wretched refuse teeming towards our garden shore.

You'll find all of this contact information, answers to hundreds of your garden questions.

Audio of this show.

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It's all at our Web site.

I'm your host, Mike McGrath.

And thanks to Miss Diane, I have my first run of 75 garlic cloves in the ground with another 75 ready to go.

♪ 150 cloves on the wall ♪ 150 cloves.

♪ Take them down.

Pass them around.

♪ Hey, I didn't say you could keep them.

Get back here!