- From the dimly-lit studios of Rodale Institute Radio and Television at Lehigh Valley Public Media in Bethlehem, PA, it is time for another light-emitting episode of chemical-free horticultural hijinks.

You Bet Your Garden.

Millions of people are gearing up to grow food for the first time to escape Covid isolation and the sight of their old wallpaper.

I'm your host, Mike McGrath.

And on today's show, we'll let the light shine on those plants.

Otherwise, it's a fabulous phone call show, cats and kittens.

That's right.

Potential guests are busy deforming their LEDs.

So we will take that heaping helping of your telecommunicating questions, comments, tips, tricks, suggestions and unexpectedly unusual unifications.

So keep your eyes and/or ears right here, true believers.

Because it's all coming up faster than really bright light in your bathroom...

Right after this.

In life, we have many kinds of partners, school bus partners, business partners, even gardening partners.

Shouldn't you have one for the most important aspect of life, your health...?

- 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... - Colin, welcome to You Bet Your Garden.

- Well, thanks for having me.

I'm pleased that you were able to take my call.

- Well, we're pleased that you're being had.

And thank you for making that call.

How are you?

- I'm doing good.

It's a nice sunny day out here in Warren County, New Jersey.

I'm in Washington.

- All right.

What can we do for our person in the Garden State?

- So I've got a couple things that I recently added to my garden setup.

One is this fall, I put in a bunch of blueberry plants and I know I had heard you say blueberries like acidic soil.

And in fact, you said something that really struck me.

You had said the soil needs to be almost impossibly acidic.

- Correct.

- And so I had that in the back of my mind.

And I said, some point down the future, maybe I'll need to add some sulfur.

But then I got a bokashi composting kit at Christmas time.

and as I was learning how to use it and reading about it, what I learned was the bokashi tea that comes out the bottom is relatively acidic.

And I thought, "Oh, maybe I can use this as kind "of an amendment that helps acidify the soil."

But I thought if anybody knew, you'd be a good person to give a call to and ask, "Hey, is there a way "I should do this?"

- OK, so these machines sit on your kitchen counter and you put your raw ingredients, your brown lettuce leaves, your apple cores, everything else in there.

And it's my understanding it does it.

I know it cooks it up.

Right.

Does it chop it up as well or is that your job?

- We do the chopping up by hand.

Get out a knife, cut things down to a more manageable size.

- And then it goes through some sort of a heating process.

And after that process is over, you theoretically get finished compost and compost tea.

Correct?

- Well, so, the way it...

The way it works with the kit I have, it comes with a kind of grain that's been inoculated with some kind of microorganisms.

- Gotcha.

- And so you put your kitchen waste in the bin, you sprinkle over some of this inoculated bran and then keep building up this pile until at some point you've reached a point where you put a lid on it and let it cook for a couple of weeks.

It doesn't get noticeably hot, at least when I touch the exterior.

But, you know, microbes are in there working away.

And when I open it up after a couple of weeks, you can see some mold growth from the microorganisms.

And then what's coming out the bottom?

You know, you have a little spigot you open up and it drains off some bokashi tea.

- OK. And are you supposed to just use the tea, what happens to this stuff in in the machine?

- So the stuff eventually, you can either directly bury it in the garden, the according to the instructions or the...

I've been putting it in a plastic composting tumbler.

- OK. - With my other normal garden waste.

- That sounds good.

Well I am of course unfamiliar with such a machine, because nobody sent me one for free, that's, you know, that's the only reason.

But I think I have an easy solution for you.

Although you might not be able to find them this time of year.

But as soon as it warms up a little, go to an outdoor pool equipment store and buy a little package of test strips.

When you have a pool, above-ground, in-ground, you always want to be testing it to make sure the pH is at the right level.

So in this case, you don't have to guess.

You'll get a pretty accurate pH range.

And yes, as long as it's acidic, that is a number under, say, 6.5 and not alkaline, I see no reason it wouldn't be a very helpful amendment for your blueberries.

- Sounds good.

Thanks a lot.

- All right.

Well, it's an easy solution and it's very inexpensive, so I'm proud of myself.

OK. All right, Colin, thanks for calling.

Bye-bye.

Lori, welcome to... - Oh, well, thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks for taking me.

- Oh, thanks for being taken, Lori.

How are you doing?

- Oh, I'm doing I'm doing well, thank you.

- OK. And where is Lori doing well?

- Let's see.

I'm in Humboldt County Northern California.

I'm up in McKinleyville.

- All right.

Well, what can we do for Lori at the northern tip of California?

- Let's see, I have a vigorous hydrangea, it likes where it's located, it's vigorous, a couple things on it, though.

It's bottom heavy, the lowest branch is, you know, may be may be a couple inches at most, you know, from the ground.

It doesn't bother me and it seems vigorous enough.

And is that a problem, you know, for the bottom branches to be, you know, heavy on the bottom like that?

- Is it what we call a mop head with big brown flowers?

- Yeah, yeah, yes, yes.

A mop head.

Exactly.

- OK, yeah, that's the that's the only negative about these plants is it's really easy for the branches to get top heavy because especially again, if it likes where it is, those flowers can be heavy and they'll drag the branches down.

- Right, yeah, and this has a lot of blooms, you know, a lot.

Yeah.

- Good, good.

So here's what I do.

I don't prune any hydrangeas until after they set their flowers.

So then when I can see where all the flowers are, if there's a whole bunch of them in the back of the plant or nobody's going to see them, I'll prune some of those off and bring them inside and put them in a vase.

You have two options with flowers that are too close to the ground.

One of the options, of course, is to prune them off and bring them inside as well.

And if the stems are really short, you put them in a big glass bowl that's filled with marbles to support them.

It looks very nice.

It's something... - Well, my concern really is my concern really is, is that a problem?

Is that a problem for the for the health of the plant?

- No.

- I mean, I'll tell you, I guess I answered my question because it seems vigorous enough, you know, but yeah, that's my only concern.

You know, was it... - If it were cutting off the airflow, cutting off the air circulation, you would see black spots on the leaves.

The leaves will always tell you the health of the plant, but you can also... - Well, actually, I, I, I do see black spots.

I actually I'm sitting out here looking at it now and I do see black spots.

So, I'm wondering, you know, is that a is that just a blemish problem?

Not so much the health of the plant but a blemish thing?

- Well, a black spot is literally just a term for when black spots appear on plants.

There's a million causes, overhead watering, lack of airflow.

But what I'm going to suggest to you is double pronged.

When the plant starts to grow again and the flowers begin to appear, get a couple of garden stakes and put them on both sides of the plant and run string around the stakes so that they hold up that bottom set of branches.

Then once all the flowers have formed, and you're sure there aren't any coming, get in there with pruners and cut out any branches that are not flowering.

That'll let more air into the plant.

And it will actually make the plant appear as it even has more flowers because you've taken away the non flowering parts.

And it's also good for the plant, you know, to be relieved of some of that extra foliage that's not doing anything except blocking the air.

OK?

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Thanks so much for that tip, information.

Really helpful.

Thank you very much.

- Oh, thank you, Lori.

Good luck.

All right... Barbara, welcome to... - Thanks, Mike.

This is a big treat.

- Well, thank you for calling us, Barb.

Where are you?

- I'm in Saunderstown, Rhode Island.

- All right.

What can we do for Barbara in Rhode Island?

Well, it has sort of now morphed into two questions.

One was I had planned to put compost on my almost five-year-old asparagus bed back in the fall, but I never did.

And I I've thrown a little bit on, but not too much.

And I was wondering if I could do it now.

And then I was told...

I was given some seaweed by a friend who collected it down at the Bay Campus at URI.

And said he's been using that and I'm wondering if that's something I can put in my garden or on top of plants that are asleep.

- Well, that's those are two very different questions.

The first answer... - Right.

- Is going to be the that you can feed your asparagus almost at any time of the year.

Now, is this your own homemade compost, are you buying it?

- From the land from a landscaper.

- OK, so do you know what the original material was?

- I don't, no.

- See, the reason I ask and here's a little foreshadowing for everybody listening is we are seeing some really exciting new research in the world of composting about the difference between compost that's made from yard waste and compost that incorporates animal manures.

Back in the day and forever after, the best food for asparagus was considered to be completely composted horse manure.

Asparagus is a heavy feeder.

It loves a lot of nitrogen.

So normally I tell people not to use manures for various reasons.

But if you could find a good supply of composted horse manure, that would be the best thing to feed your asparagus bed.

As to the seaweed, the answer there is seaweed from cold waters contains a lot of micronutrients and minerals that just your regular garden variety plants really like.

So I would incorporate the seaweed.

If you have a compost pile, I would put the seaweed in there and let it join with the compost.

But if you just want to lay it down as a mulch the way Eliot Coleman does on the rocky coast of Maine, that's fine, too.

But I would use that on tomatoes, peppers, any anything that likes a wide variety of nutrients because asparagus being a grass just wants nitrogen.

- OK, fantastic.

All right.

- You take care.

Pleasure to talk to you.

All right, as promised, it is time for the Question of the Week...

In our last thrilling episode, we walked you through the successful germination of seeds.

We now remind you that once the first sprouts are up, you should remove any coverings to prevent mold and turn off any bottom heat.

Unless you're working in an ill advised, chilly part of your home, then you can leave it on.

Now it's time to supply light.

And, no, your so-called sunny window sill does not count.

A heated solarium or sun room or professional greenhouse might do the trick, but you should rotate the plants daily and keep an honest eye on them.

If they become tall and thin instead of short and stocky, they're not getting enough light.

Don't try and rationalize this potential failure.

Leggy plants go out weak to start with and don't do well once they are outdoors.

A small investment in artificial light will reap endless rewards.

Now, in the past, I have strongly recommended four foot long fluorescent tubes, and I still do.

Keep the lights close to the plants, no more than an inch to an inch and a half away as the lumens, a measure of light intensity, drops sharply after that.

Letting the tops of the plants touch the bulbs is fine because the bulbs give off no heat and then the plants are getting maximum lumens.

If you have the room, a four tube fixture is much better than a two tube shop light.

And because you've doubled the light intensity, you can even have a little more leeway with the distance between the plants and the bulbs.

The closer is always better.

Plan in advance to be able to raise or lower the lights as needed.

Most shop light fixtures come with chains that allow you to adjust the height of the light fixture.

I have found it easier to prop the ends of the fixtures up on books and shift the books around as needed.

Bricks and blocks of wood also work well, but they don't allow you to replace a thick book with a thinner one for those in-between changes of height.

But now my story changes, Diane and I adopted a brother and sister pair of kittens back in March, which proved to be better than Prozac at lifting the Covid Blues.

But they also tried to eat every single one of our house plants.

So the plants went out to our insulated porch and then outside, when the weather got warm enough.

When it was time for them to come back inside, we arrange them and my year old pepper plants on a big table that resides on that insulated and heated porch, which is the one room in the house where Monkey Boy and PC are denied access.

I hung a tube fix your over them and all was well until we got to January when I had promised myself I would start my new pepper plants super early because they grow so much slower than tomatoes.

But the giant island in the kitchen where seed starting had previously been accomplished, was now patrolled by the terrible twosome, and I frantically searched for another surface that could accommodate four foot long lights.

Then I saw a TV ad for a super bright LED garage light that looked like the kind of solar panel arrays we use in outer space, the panels unfolding to bathe a large area in lots of lumens.

So I went online, searched "super bright garage lights" and was deluged with choices.

Properly called a deformable lamp, I eventually settled on a set of two, each with four wings of LED panels that promised over 12,000 lumens per fixture for a total of around 40 bucks for both.

That's a lot of light for not much money, and the fixtures screw into normal Edison type light sockets.

To hang them, I bought two trouble lights, also known as work lights.

These are essentially extension cords that have a light bulb holder at the business end.

I removed the cages that would have otherwise protected a regular bulb from being smashed, screwed in my deformables, and hung them about a foot and a half above my baby starts supported by the longest wall hooks I could find.

Now that distance is just a best guess starting point.

I will adjust it based on the legginess or compactness of the starts below.

And so I finally have a half answer for all of yous who have been asking, "What about LEDs "for seed starting?"

This style of lamp may be an ideal starting point, super bright with an excellent color temperature range, compact, affordable, and easily adjustable.

And they're not your only LED option.

Our own man with a plan, Fred "MacGyver" Matlack, recently replaced an odd size three foot long fluorescent over the counter bathroom light with an LED version that included a complete new fixture all for a surprisingly reasonable price.

Fred reports that it throws much more light than the old fluorescent.

Someone who only wants to grow a few six packs of starts could do worse than try one of these.

But.

But, but.

The key word here is "try".

I have no idea how my little experiment is going to work out, but it is allowing me to use a three foot long table and two foot long chest of drawers out on my insulated porch to start my seeds this year kitty cat free.

Next week, we wind up the trilogy of all time with When to Start Your Seeds.

Hint it's generally two months before you intend to plant them outdoors, feeding your baby starts, watering them and other important stuff.

All right, it is special feature time on You Bet Your Garden show and tell.

Now, we even had a caller try to tell me about these deformable lights earlier in the season, actually quite a few months ago.

And I couldn't figure out what he was talking about.

And I'm not sure you can figure it out from my talking.

So I bought a box that contained two.

And this is what it looks like when it comes out of the box.

That's just to protect it.

That's just to protect the bulb.

And I think it looks pretty cool like this.

I mean, maybe you could screw this into a lamp.

You see, in here is what's called an Edison bulb, just a standard light socket bulb.

But what you want to do, whether you're using it to illuminate a garage or as plant lights, is you bring these panels, kind of the opposite of solar panels, instead of absorbing energy, they're giving it off.

So, now you've got this kind of cool windmill.

By the way, when you go online or in a store, you may see three panels or four.

I bought the one with four panels.

And here's how I'm going to use it.

Just like this.

You see, the lights are shining down and I'm going to hang it from a hook on the ceiling.

And to do that, many of you probably know this already, but I just wanted to make sure...

This is what's called a trouble light, or a work light, something you can move around when you're working on something in your house or garage.

They come equipped with bulb protectors.

This one is a metal one.

I bought them at two different places.

So this one is a plastic one... All too much resembles a hand grenade, as far as I'm concerned.

But you take those off, they just screw right off.

And then what you do is you screw your deformable light.

Now, as to why they call these things "deformable lights," other than to frustrate me, I have no idea.

And I don't have an outlet here, but so here's what's going to happen, it's just going to hang like this above my starts, and I'm going to raise it.

I'm going to lower it based on the height of the plants and their reaction to what I'm told on the box, at least, is 12,000 to 15,000 lumens, which is a lot of light, and to... Oops!

So I'm going to raise them or lower them, you know, using the cord based on the height of the plants and the reaction to the 12-15,000 lumens that one of these units gives off.

And to help, very simple.

I'm just screwing these workshop brackets into the wall, and then, the light will hang off of the bracket, and easy peasy.

So, as I said in the Question of the Week, two of these cost me around 40 bucks.

Though, two trouble light, work lights, extension cord things cost me, you know, maybe 30 bucks, you know, maybe make it 80 bucks all told, including the brackets.

And they're very inexpensive to run, even compared to fluorescent bulbs, and virtually last forever.

There's at least even a two-year warranty on this one.

So, you know, I can't recommend it yet because I'm just putting them into use in my home.

But I think they're really cool.

Again, you get a trouble light and you hang it like this, it's going to be right over your plants.

I think this could be the next generation of seed-starting.

Well, that sure was some interesting information about lighten up your baby plants, now wasn't it?

Luckily for yous, the Question of the Week appears in print at the Gardens Alive website.

To read it over at your leisure or your leisure, just click the link for the Question of the Week at our website, which is still and will forever be YouBetYourGarden.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 website.

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

You Bet Your Garden was created by Mike McGrath.

Mike McGrath was created when a comet crossed low over the Earth's atmosphere, and he was swept away to a land of confused Confederate soldiers and dinosaurs.

There's always dinosaurs.

Yikes!

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

We must be out of time.

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Oy!

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I'm your host, Mike McGrath.

And speaking of high-powered lights, I'm so bright, they used to call me "Sunny"!

And I'll see you again next week.