From the half-eaten studios of Lehigh Valley Public Media in Bethlehem, PA., it is time for another underground episode of chemical free horticultural hijinks You Bet Your Garden.

I'm your host, Mike McGrath.

The elusive Meadow Shrew may be as real as the Jersey Devil, but a surprising number of less fictional mammals are looking to wipe out your watercress.

We'll tell you about most of them on today's show.

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

That's right.

Potential guests are busy comparing tracks, tunnels and scat.

So we will take that heaping helping of your telecommunicated questions, comments, tips, suggestions and energetic enervations.

So keep your eyes and/or ears right here, true believers, because it's all coming up faster than you playing a round of match the malicious mammal.

Right after this.

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Welcome to another thrilling episode of You Bet Your Garden from the studios of Lehigh Valley Public Media in Bethlehem, PA.

I am your host, Mike McGrath.

Coming up in just a little bit, one of our most frequently asked questions is what's eating my garden?

So we are going to do a rundown of the different mammalian critters who could be eating your lettuce and spinach and explain which of them make burrows, which of them only eat meat and which of them would love to ravage every single plant that you have on your location.

But first, a couple of your fabulous phone calls.

888 492 9444.

Phillip, welcome to You Bet Your Garden.

- Thank you for having me.

- Well, thank you for being had, Phil, how are you doing?

- We're doing just fine here.

I have a two part question for you today.

- OK, I probably have at least one part question for you first.

Where are you?

- I know you're going to have a lot of answers.

- I'm in Maple Glen, Pennsylvania.

- All right, what's up?

- OK. About a month ago, I prepurchased a cauliflower plant from a home shopping show.

They promised it would be easy to grow and I'd have lots of delicious home grown organic cauliflower for my family this summer.

But I did some research after I purchased it and I'm reading that cauliflower attracts aphids and I've never had aphids on any of my produce plants before, just on my roses.

I don't want to attract aphids or have to fight them off from my food.

Does cauliflower really attract aphids?

- No, no.

What did the shopping network send you physically?

- Little baby plants?

- They haven't sent it yet.

- They said they're going to send... No, it's a preorder that they send when it's the appropriate time in my area for planting.

And they said they send three plants and it's a special variety that grows really easily in a pot and blah, blah, blah.

- OK. No, cauliflower is not known as an aphid attractor.

You named the number one aphid plant already when you said roses.

They love, even in a nicely kept organic garden, those aphids, they love to go for the roses.

And I'm hoping you've heard my advice over the years to spray them off the plants with sharp streams of water.

It has been proven to be the most effective aphid attack method out there.

- Yes.

- I'll be really curious... You know, because generally cauliflower...

I'm curious as to what kind of plants you're going to get, but make sure, depending on how late in the season they get there, that they have a planting location that would not be full sun all day because they could bolt in the worst of the summer heat.

Or you can just let them grow to a nice size - all of these things taste great when they're smaller - and harvest them by cutting them off at the stalk.

And I know broccoli will, but I think cauliflower will also regrow from a cut stalk.

- And then you'd have... - Yeah, they claim - it will regrow.

- Yeah.

And then you'd have a great crop in the fall when the weather is getting constantly cooler.

- Right, right.

OK, that's good to know.

And then my second question, because then I started thinking about it.

As I watch you faithfully every Saturday, as I should be proactive about this and just ask Mike what plants, what plants are the best to grow.

We always get the disease and pest resistant varieties, but which are going to be the easiest to grow, to get a good crop without having to have to fight varmints all summer long?

- Oh, man, there's no mammal resistant plants.

That's all... Go ahead.

- Yeah, we grow them on our deck, so we're all protected from that.

It's just the flying critters.

- Well, what are you growing?

- Well, we grow zucchini and cucumbers and garlic and stuff like that, but I think the cauliflower aphids scare kind of had me worried that if I start growing more things like beans and peas, and I refuse to try tomatoes because I hear of all the problems tomatoes have.

- Oh!

Coward!

- I just want - a nice, easy summer.

- Coward!

- I am a coward.

- You can't call yourself a gardener until you grow tomatoes.

Come on.

- That's the... - But I'm not frustrated.

- Oh, God.

That's the gateway drug to Olive Garden.

You know, I've never seen a pest harm garlic.

If the soil gets too soaked, it can get neck rot.

But with the other ones, there are some pests that go after cucumbers and stuff.

And my advice would be not to anticipate, but to be ready.

Just have a pressurized sprayer, you can get them that are just a quart or a gallon, and pump it up.

And as soon as you see the first bugs, just blast them off with sharp streams of water.

I know it sounds almost too simple, but in all my training, I keep hearing over and over again that water is the best pesticide.

- Thank you very much.

- You take care.

Bye bye.

- You too.

Bye.

- Number to call... Ryan.

Welcome to You Bet Your Garden.

- Oh, hi, Mike, thanks for taking my call.

- Well, thank you for making it, Ryan.

How you doing?

- I'm doing great today.

How are you?

- I'm just ducky, thanks for asking.

Ducky is becoming more of a star than me, although that's not a hard bar to reach.

Where are you?

- I'm calling from Easton, PA. - Oh, OK. All right, what can we do you for?

All right, Mike, so I was actually calling about garden bed placement, so my husband and I moved in this house about a year ago so this is our first season to have a garden, and when we moved in, there's some old beds in the back lot, but it's kind of a lot of junk and weeds.

So we knew we were going to abandon that.

And since we were starting fresh, we got to talking about where we should put the new raised beds.

And we have a south facing backyard that gets a ton of sun all year, but of course, especially in the summer.

And the only shade we get is from our neighbor's trees on the east side.

And we're talking about where to put these beds and... We just weren't sure if it would make sense to put them either in the full spot or by the trees where it gets some morning shade because in the summer that full sun feels so oppressive.

So we're just wondering what you would think, what you would recommend, like morning, some morning shade or full sun?

- Well, most of it should be full sun because let's face it, Easton is not Phoenix in the summertime and many of us struggle with slightly too little sun.

If they're planted in good soil and kept well watered, tomatoes, peppers, all the major crops of summer can really handle it.

If you find that they're starting to get scalded or anything like that, when you create these raised beds, you may want to put circular frames over the top so you could shield the crops late in the day if we have that kind of a summer, you know, you can buy professionally made shade cloth or you could just put some old window curtains or, you know, things like that up over there to protect them in the afternoon.

- OK. - But I would say to put a raised bed that gets that morning shade and use that for growing cool-season crops, you know, lettuce, spinach, broccoli, beets, carrots, things that really don't want full sun or high heat.

For instance, that would give you probably a couple of extra weeks of lettuce harvesting before it got so hot that the lettuce would bolt and start to taste bad.

So, you know, play your aces, put one bed there and use that to extend cool season crops and don't be afraid of the full sun.

But if you can make these hoops over top of your raised beds as you're building them, you can both protect your plants from a really hot summer, and as the seasons change, then you can cover that with Reemay or, you know, another similar brand of cover and you could move a lot of cool season crops into those.

Now we're protecting them from the cold.

- Into the fall.

- Oh, into the winter even.

- Oh, wow.

- And it's so much easier when you got the hoops up already.

- OK, because I know in the past you've recommended to some listeners beach umbrellas for tomato plants and peppers and stuff when it gets really hot, but that's only a little bit of shade in the summer, right?

If we're starting from ground zero anyway, - why not try the hoops.

- Yeah.

Yeah, because the shade cloth is widely available, as are the fabric covers.

And then, like I said, you'd be ready to protect in summer and in winter.

- Wow.

All right, well, we better get started.

- Yep, that's it.

I'll see you at the market.

- I've got seeds started, but nowhere to go with them, so... - Yeah, yeah.

All right.

Well, good luck to you.

- All right.

Thanks so much.

- Bye bye.

- Yep.

Thanks.

888 492 9444.

Wilson, welcome to You Bet Your Garden.

- Hi, how are you doing?

I am just ducky, thanks for asking.

How are you?

Ducky's always glad to make a new friend.

- You know... - Go ahead.

- I'm doing great.

Just digging out from a huge snowstorm here in northern Colorado.

What can we do for you?

So I do have this problem.

Right before the storm, I saw that all of my spring bulbs were coming up in a little like ten by ten perennial border.

And I was really wondering if they needed protection in such a heavy, wet snow event.

- Well, you'll find out now, won't you?

- Yeah!

And so I did experimentally kind of go out and make little tiny sort of teepee structures over them and put extra leaf mulch on top of them in hopes of protecting them.

And I'm just not sure if it's going to work or, you know.

None of the bulbs were flowering yet, but they were all coming up and getting ready to bud open.

- Right.

So you decided to make a theme park for mice, you know, they'll go and stay in the teepees.

- Yeah, it's maybe not the best decision I could have made, I was kind of doing an experiment.

I used the five gallon nursery pots that I referenced in my email, kind of put some little covering over them and then I left a few uncovered to see what may be the best thing.

- OK, I like that idea.

I like the idea of the five gallon buckets, probably the only decent use for them.

And I like the idea that you have a control group.

Now did you plant these fresh in the fall or have they been there for a while?

- Some of them are a few years old, I would assume, but I planted most of them fresh in the fall.

- OK. Do you remember the planting date?

- It was... You know, just after Thanksgiving, I think.

- Oh!

Well, you did not rush at all.

Generally, when we have premature bulbs sprouting, it's because people planted them like back in August or September.

- No, I... - Go ahead.

- I've listened to you for a while now, and I try to follow the advice.

- Oh, thank you.

Yeah, I think you did great and I think they're all going to be fine.

Where these bulbs are native to in the God-forsaken mountains of Afghanistan and Turkey is snow covered all winter long, then there's this brief warm up where everything comes up, and then it turns hot and dry and dusty and they go back underground to hide for another year.

- Plus... - And, you know... - Plus, I just got the snow to melt on my glory of snow and snow drops, which are the earliest spring bulbs to bloom and also, at least in their appearance, seem to be the most delicate.

But they came up great.

My crocus, which was covered by plowed snow, - is up and... - Oh!

Yeah.

So I think if anything, a cold winter is good for them, especially a cold winter with snow cover.

- The important... - That was my instinct.

- Yeah, the important thing is if you or anyone else listening has spring bulbs that are still covered by leaf litter, because here in Pennsylvania, we got hit by winter super early and didn't have time to clean up all of our leaves.

It's important to gently rake that leaf litter off so the bulbs can emerge without any kind of problem.

- OK, I'll probably do that this afternoon.

- Yeah, and when everything is in bloom, send us a couple of pictures and ask me if I can tell which ones were covered and which ones weren't.

- All right, I will mark them out!

- All right.

- Definitely do that.

- Excellent.

I think you did a great job.

- All right.

- You take care, man.

- Thanks, Mike.

- Bye bye.

As inevitable as the rising sun, it is time for the Question of the Week, which we're calling: What is eating my garden?

Susan Wise-Eagle in Wrangell, Alaska, which is up near the top of the beautiful Inside Passage, writes: To which I can only reply - busted!

Over many decades of making mistakes like this, I've talked about voles a lot and I seem to remember hearing some bum on the street call them meadow shrews, which, as you correctly state are a nonexistent mammal, although shrew do abound in meadows.

Yes, I'm grasping for straws now, cats and kittens.

And I was mentally distracted by the meadow vole, which is a real thing.

Waiter, more straws over here.

Just no plastic ones.

So my real answer is, what are voles?

Well, they're vegetarians and really good at getting into gardens, but I wouldn't rule out mice either or heck, even rabbits if the garden isn't fenced.

But if the culprit is also digging holes or tunnels...

I'm just going to go home early today.

OK, guys?

Carol in Sudbury, Massachusetts, writes: Well, that's what all the girls in Sudbury say, Carol.

Anyway, this would certainly seem to also be the work of voles, who are famous for chewing bark and eating the roots of plants like hostas and roses and devouring spring bulbs like tulips.

Moles, as we often like to remind people, are carnivores, dining on beetle grubs, earthworms and cicada larva, which will be abundant in this emergence year of Brood X. Moles don't eat plants, but they can make a mess of your lawn while tunneling for food.

They're also really creepy looking.

We move on to Brendan, who writes: Well, guess what, cats and kittens, it is vole time again.

All that snow kept them safely hidden from predators while they wandered around your yard.

These trails in lawns are a sure sign of the voracious vole.

Now in warmer times, the trails are just highways of flattened grass.

But in wintertime they munch as they meander.

One defense is to apply a castor oil product specifically designed to repel moles and voles.

Even better would be a raptor perch, a crossbeam on a sturdy pole mounted about six feet off the ground.

Now that they have no snow cover, your voles are easy prey for owls, the major predator of voles.

The owls will perch there every evening.

The mostly nocturnal voles will come out to play, and before you know it, the ground underneath will be mulched with owl pellets.

And finally, Cindy in Salina, Kansas, writes: Well, I am always thrilled beyond belief, when listeners supply the answers to their own questions.

It's kind of like a game of Jeopardy where nobody ever loses.

And I am darn glad that Cindy spotted that woodchuck because Kansas may be the burrowing mammal capital of the world.

So pay close attention now, cats and kittens, because we're going to go into this fast.

I found a fabulous resource published by the Great Plains Nature Center called A Pocket Guide to Kansas Mammals.

Well, you better have darn big pockets, because these are just a few in the burrowing category.

The least shrew, the eastern mole and the nine banded armadillo, which are all carnivores that burrow.

The eastern cottontail, a plant eater that does not burrow but often takes over existing ones that have been abandoned.

The black tailed jackrabbit - plant eater, does not burrow, but can jump six feet high over a fence that's 20 feet away.

The eastern chipmunk burrows but doesn't eat a lot of leafy greens.

The woodchuck - groundhog to the rest of the world - extreme plant eater that builds endless big tunnels.

The 13 lined ground squirrel, which burrows and eats anything.

The black tailed prairie dog, which is a plant eater, creates massive underground tunnel complexes.

The plains pocket gopher, which is a plant eater and complex builder of underground tunnels.

The hispid pocket mouse and Ord's kangaroo rat both plant eaters, both burrowers.

The Northern grasshopper mouse, which burrows but mostly eats meat.

And finally, the prairie vole.

As we said, it's a plant eater, and this species can make tunnels.

Thank you, Cindy, for spotting that groundhog.

Well, that show was an amazing amount of information about marauding mammals now, wasn't it?

Luckily for you, the Question of the Week appears in print at the Gardens Alive website with a link this week to that fine resource guide I stole most of the information from.

To read it all 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 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 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, 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 he fell asleep right before the most intense meteor shower of all time and woke up only to spend the rest of his life battling marauding triffids.

Yikes.

My producer's threatening to introduce me to armadillos if I don't get out of the studio, we must be out of time.

But you can call us any time at our brand new number, which is still working.

888 492 9444.

Send us your emu's.

That's it.

Your tired, your poor, your wretched emus teeming towards our garden shore, at: Please include your location and the location of your emus.

You'll find all of this contact information and details on my upcoming virtual public appearance on Tuesday, April 6th at our website, You Bet Your Garden .org, where you'll also find the answers to hundreds of your garden questions, audio of this show, video of this show, audio and video of old shows, oy!

And our internationally renowned podcast.

I'm your host, Mike McGrath.

Despite using obviously fake cardboard cutouts of himself during our hourly Zoom meetings, our beloved CEO Tim Fallon has only actually been seen on the sides of milk cartons and on various Greek islands.

Hmm.

I think I'll fuel up the Batplane to see what shenanigans he's up to.

I'll wear a cowl, but I want you to continue to wear a mask, wash your hands, socially distance and just stay generally safe so I can see you again next week.