Public Media in Bethlehem, PA, it is time for another Public Media in Bethlehem, PA, it is time for another insect identifying episode of chemical-free horticultural hijinks, You Bet Your Garden.

I'm your host, Mike McGrath.

Is the Asian praying mantis a malevolent menace or is its Carolina cousin the real Bruce Lee of bugs?

On today's show, we'll discuss the many manti you might find in your garden, plus it's other fabulous phone calls show, cats and kittens.

That's right, potential guests are busy investigating egg cases.

So we will take that heaping helping of your fabulous phone call questions, comments, tips, tricks, suggestions and irrationally ironic intonations.

So keep your eyes and/or ears right here, true believers, because we're going to learn you the difference between Europe, China and South Carolina.

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.

- 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.

And before I tell you what's coming up, I got to tell you, I am so excited that we're getting close to the Philadelphia flower show, first time outdoors in FDR Park in South Philly, June fourth through I think the 13th.

I don't know, but I know it opens on June fourth.

So I hope you all have a chance to get there.

Tickets are going to be limited because we're still in the Covid circle, so don't miss this chance to see the flower show outdoors.

It's going to be absolutely fabulous, as is the Question of the Week, which took me five hours to write!

There is so much confusion about mantiseseses.

in your garden, is it Chinese?

Isn't native, is it from Europe?

I never heard anybody talk about the European mantis before.

I tell you, I had to delve into a lot of conflicting research, but you'll get the benefit after your fabulous phone calls.

888 492 9444.

Marie, welcome to You Bet Your Garden.

- Hello.

- Hello, how are you?

- I'm good, thank you.

- And where is Marie good?

- I'm in Westchester, Pennsylvania.

- All right.

What can we do for you?

- Well, I have the groundhog debacle of the century.

- OK. - I have been battling these demonic foes for probably ten years, and I'm at my wits' end.

- Evil squirrels - I called a...

I like squirrels.

They're not evil to me, but, you know, I called a wildlife place and it was $175 for trapping.

I got five trapping, only two groundhogs.

The rest were raccoons and opossum.

My neighbor trapped them.

And I have, like, five holes and they're just, like, three at a time pop up.

Groundhogs are one of the most difficult mammals to control.

Now, years ago, when I was the editor of Organic Gardening magazine, when sabertooth tigers still roamed the earth, we had a listener, a reader kind of favorite remedy.

So, do you have cats, by any chance?

- I do, but they're indoor.

- Perfect.

- They can be on the porch and those kids can come out of their holes 18 inches away and just keep their heads up and not be fazed by them.

- Yeah, I know!

I've seen prairie dogs do the same thing.

They are fearless.

They're very powerful.

Think about claws that can dig through dirt like that so easily.

What the readers were telling us back at Organic Gardening was don't clean your litter box really well until, like, the cat starts pooping in your boots or something like that and make sure all of the solid material is removed carefully and flushed or trashed, whatever.

But then take the stinky kitty litter and pour it down their hole, their main home where you see them coming in and out of.

This is the equivalent of somebody bringing a dump truck full of used kitty litter up to your front door and push inside, and you would turn to whoever and go, we can't live here anymore.

So almost without a doubt, they will simply start digging another tunnel somewhere nearby.

- Right.

- And so, you know, you make sure your cats have lots of water.

And, you know, if you want to get even a little bit, wait until they're almost finished with their new digs, because they're intricate tunnels underground and then hit them, this new tunnel, with more kitty litter, again, always removing the fecal matter.

We're just using the urine-scented litter.

And no one that I can remember... We had hundreds of people try this, because they drive people crazy.

A couple of people had to do it a third time, but after that, they said it was just too much trouble for the groundhogs and they moved somewhere else.

- Really?

Even though I probably have four or five on the property, at least.

- Yeah, groundhogs are very fastidious.

If you could see underground, they have all sorts of different rooms that they've built for themselves tunneled out, and one of them is strictly a toilet room.

And once they use that... - Clever!

- Once they use that toilet area, you know, for some period of time, they close it up and build a fresh one.

They like to be clean.

So, I mean, that's, you know, that's one way.

But they are just a treacherous pest.

And I would urge you perhaps to... What do you...?

Maybe I shouldn't ask.

What do you do with the trapped ones?

- Well, I haven't trapped lately.

My neighbor, he tells me he drives them, like, ten miles away.

I'm not sure.

I didn't really ask.

Don't tell.

- Yeah.

You know, it may sound cruel to people, but I would advise taking them to a vet and having them euthanized in a painless manner, because there have been great studies showing that relocated groundhogs do not survive in their new home and it's a miserable existence until they pass away.

So you're not doing the creature any favors by dropping it off into some other groundhog's territory.

- Gotcha.

OK. Well, I'm going to have to get the litter on full tilt here.

- Yeah.

- Get all the holes.

- Yeah, one thing I used to love when I was writing about this is if you don't have a cat, maybe your neighbor will lend you some of their used litter, like, you know, they're going to come back for it after time, you know.

- Correct!

Right.

Well, hey, I'm desperate, I'm willing to try anything.

- I hear you.

- So we'll get on this.

- OK. Well, good luck to you.

It is a tough problem.

I'll see what I can find that may be a little new.

- It sounds good.

Thank you so very much.

My pleasure.

Take care.

888 492 9444.

Michael!

Welcome to You Bet Your Garden.

- Hi.

Thank you, Mike.

Thanks for taking my call.

- Well, thank you for making - it.

Michael, how are you doing?

- I'm wonderful.

I know you always ask, so I'm just going to beat you to the punch here.

- Yeah?

- I am on the shores of Lake Erie in Lakewood, Ohio, about four miles due west of downtown Cleveland.

- Oh, OK. All right, what can we do you for, Michael?

- OK, I've been an organic gardener since, I'm sure you were there, many, many years ago.

In fact, I was just thinking the other day, one of my earliest memories in the early 70s is buying a T-shirt from an ad in Organic Gardening magazine that says Weed It And Reap.

It had a little worm in the middle.

I don't know if you remember those or not.

I can't find them anymore.

- Yeah, no, that that was the old Digest size magazine.

- I consider myself a successful home gardener.

I have, like, ten, 11 raised beds.

- Excellent.

- The one thing I'm having trouble with is cauliflower.

- Hm!

- The plants grow beautifully.

- Mm hmm.

- But they won't develop a head.

Or if they look like, you know, they don't look very good.

And if you were me, what would you do?

Get out of Cleveland!

No, that was mean.

I don't grow cauliflower.

So your other plants, do you grow broccoli?

- Broccoli, everything else,, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, all of that kind of spring stuff.

I start my own seeds under grow lights and I buy them from, you know, I buy them from the nursery, too.

- Right.

And nothing works and, you know, broccoli and cauliflower are kind of related.

Matter of fact, they crossed them professionally to make, like, broccolini and stuff.

If you're getting good heads on your broccoli, I'm not sure why your cauliflower wouldn't be heading up.

Is it getting too much sun?

- Too much sun?

- Yes.

- Well, it gets full sun, yes.

- Yeah, well, cauliflower is kind of a cool weather crop.

And I don't mean to get personal, but how big are your leaves?

- They're not very big right now.

I mean, but they grow full size.

I mean, the plant grows, it looks beautiful and healthy.

And I mean, everything is thriving except a head isn't coming up in the middle.

- Mm hmm.

- And my soil is wonderful.

I supplement it every year with leaf humus and with my own mulch.

And I haven't had it tested in three or four years, but I'm sure it's very fertile.

- If there were any deficiencies, it would show up in the other plants as well.

Do you rotate them, try and give them different areas in the garden?

- Absolutely.

- OK, are there any...?

I feel like I'm losing on What's My Line.

Are there any areas of your garden beds that are somewhat shaded?

- No.

- You're killing me, you're killing me, Mike, you're killing me here.

So have you tried growing them in containers?

I know that seems foolish because you have so much bed space.

- No.

- OK, my first suggestion is try them in big containers and grow them in an area that gets partial shade, especially in the afternoon.

And one thing we can try is an old trick to get the biggest heads and the nicest-colored heads, which of course is white, is once the plants have kind of fully grown, you bring the leaves up and use a clothespin to cover the area where the head will be growing.

So I'm going to suggest... - I heard that.

Yes.

- In addition to doing a couple of plants in containers and then not getting full sun in the summertime, I might suggest using... Do you have any row covers around?

Do you ever use Remay or row covers of any kind?

- No.

- I would definitely... And by the way, the row covers professionally made are perfect, but if you have an old curtain, an old sheer curtain laying around, you can cut that up and make your own row cover.

And I would use that to kind of imitate the leaf covering early in the season, and especially with the container-grown ones.

And as you get a summer in July and August, I would really pamper them then.

I would make sure they get extra water and I would make sure that they get full morning sun and as little afternoon sun as possible.

You know, containers on wheels are not, you know...

If you do one plant per container, you can get by with probably a 12 inch pot, maybe 15, so you can move them around.

- OK, how deep should it be?

- Well, the interesting thing is when you say a 12 inch pot, it's 12 inches diameter and it's 12 inches in height.

So, you know, it's one thing about gardening that's made easy.

But I'll tell you what, I think I've probably heard of this problem before, so I'll do some additional research on this.

So don't dare miss an episode coming up.

And that's all I got, Michael.

Doesn't anybody screen these calls?

What's the matter with you people?

- Hey, if you got a minute, just very briefly here, I have a small bone to pick with you.

- Uh-oh.

- I'll be brief, I promise you.

It's about solarization.

- Yeah?

- I did this.

I followed your instructions to the letter about four, three, four years ago.

- Right.

- I used, like, three ply, three mil, three mil poly.

- Clear?

- Everything was...

It didn't survive.

I had to replace it twice.

I ended up buying six mil.

And it wasn't anything sharp.

It was just it didn't live.

I didn't withstand the weather, the sun and the wind, and the top of it, it kept cracking and breaking.

And anyway, if you made any adjustments to your suggestions here or are you still sticking with three mil?

Um, I actually... Um...

The original suggestions, not suggestions, they were instructions, from a variety of state extension services, explained that one mil thick was the very best but then it could be fairly fragile.

And they said if you find problems with splitting or anything like that, try two mil.

Have you gone to our website and reviewed that article?

- Yes, I just...

I did a month or so ago, because I just helped my brother in Missouri.

I was just back last week in Missouri and helped him do that to his garden.

And my suggestion was six mil because I said three mil just wasn't strong, it didn't withstand the weather, the sun and the elements.

- And?

- And yeah, and he did that, and I don't know, we'll see in October, you know, if my advice was any good.

- Yeah.

No, where you are... Well, your problems were different, but you need a lot of sun.

And six mil, according to the researchers, was not transmitting the heat as well as a thinner plastic.

So.

So, all right, that's two strikes, why don't you just throw at me, OK, and put me on base?

- All right.

Hey, I listen to your show often, and I'm so glad to get to speak with you finally.

- I never want to hear from you again!

All right.

All right, Michael, you have a great summer.

- You, too, Mike.

Bye.

- Bye-bye.

Yes, it's that time again, cats and kittens.

Time for the Question of the Week, which we're calling Praying Mantis: Garden Fiend or Friend?

Linda in Pennington, New Jersey, originally wrote: To which I replied, they're praying mantis egg cases.

I would be happy that you have them.

A few days later, Linda wrote back: Linda, that was your e-mail on our Facebook page.

The photo you sent of the egg case was great and the post itself created a storm of controversy, 133 "likes" and 25 comments, which ranged from destroy them to don't kill them.

So before I delve into this issue, I submit hereby my definition of garden insects.

The beneficial insect, one that only eats garden pests, often a very specific pest like green lacewings feeding on aphids.

The predator will eat anything it can catch.

A good example outside of our topic is the large group of "mini wasps" that lay their eggs inside of live caterpillars.

They're just as apt to target a larval butterfly as a nasty pest like the tomato hornworm.

And finally, pest insects.

Those are the ones in your garden right now.

Although often touted as beneficial, the various groups of mantises around the world are all predators like spiders.

But nobody I know buys mail order spiders, while a lot of gardeners do by mantis egg clusters, which may be of the larger and hardier Chinese variety, which have been imported for pest control for well over a century.

Other gardeners seek out and destroy the egg clusters of the Chinese mantis.

Some say it's because they are endangering the smaller native American Carolina mantis.

Others note that the Chinese mantis has been known to prey on hummingbirds, native bees, butterflies and small amphibians.

Well, guess what?

So will any other mantis, if they get the chance.

So let's review the three different species you might find in your garden.

We begin with the European mantis, said to have arrived in a shipment of plants in 1899.

The "Old World" mantis, Mantis religiosa, receives only praise from the University of Delaware's celebrated bug man, Dr. Michael Rapp, who notes that these European mantei seem to have a distinct appetite for the nasty stinkbug.

He also notes that in his garden, the manti love to eat the milkweed bug that ravages the only host plant for monarch butterfly babies.

Oh, but they even leave the monarch caterpillars alone.

The European mantis is widespread on the East Coast and up into Canada, around three inches long, female is slightly larger, and comes in a vast array of different colors.

Note, the Brandywine Conservancy, who have issued what is probably the biggest thumbs down on the Asian mantis, says that the European mantis was deliberately introduced to control gypsy moth caterpillars and that the Chinese variety came here accidentally.

Go figure.

We move on to the other non-native species, the dreaded Chinese mantis, whose scientific name I will not try to pronounce on the show.

Go read the written one.

Despite being described by non fans as only slightly smaller than Godzilla, the females, always bigger than the males, are about four inches long.

While some sources disagree, it seems very likely that they were imported here as pest control.

Yes, they will eat tiny little birds, but big birds love to eat them, as do bats when the manti fly by night.

And finally, we have our very own Carolina mantis, so named because it was first seen in the Carolinas but is now found almost everywhere in the continental US, Canada and south to Brazil.

It is slightly smaller than the others at two and a half inches long, and it changes color when it molts to try and match the colors in its hunting ground.

And now drum roll.

Can I get a drum roll?

Can I get a witness?

Something, anything?

The really big news, the Carolina mantis, despite what you may have heard, is not an endangered species, nor is it even "threatened".

In fact, none of the roughly 200 species of manti found in North America are in any trouble.

They are alpha predators, after all.

Despite many hours of searching, I could find no evidence that our scrappy little native guys are being devoured to extinction by giant Asian menaces.

All I could find was hearsay and cage rattling.

So I think you probably know where I stand on this issue.

As with spiders, I enjoy the presence of manti in my garden, even though they are predators.

And while I do urge you to read up on these fascinating creatures, especially to be able to identify them by their egg cases, do that research with a grain of salt.

Too many gardeners have a tendency to make lists of insects and plants they want you to destroy.

And gardens should be about life, not killing everything, you see.

Oh, and it turns out that Carolina mantis egg cases are widely available for sale.

So if you think they really are in trouble, raise a batch or two and even the odds.

Well, that sure was a lot of info about the mantises of many continents, now wasn't it?

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

To read this one over at your "leesure" or your "lesure", 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, PA. Our radio show is distributed by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange.

You Bet Your Garden was created by Mike McGrath.

As you may remember from last week's thrilling episode, Mike McGrath was created when an entity from another world had him spin two giant carnival wheels, each with the markings of half a superpower, that would be combined to turn Mike into a uniquely new superhero.

Mike wound up with X-ray hearing and demanded new wheels with different words.

This time he got lavender kryptonite.

That's the last we're going to hear about the wheels.

Yikes, my producer is threatening to maim my manti if I don't get out of his studio.

We must be out of time.

But you can call us any time at our brand new number.

Ah, it's still kinda new.

888 492 9444.

Send us your email, your tired, your poor, your wretched refuse teeming towards our garden shore at ybyg@wlvt.org.

Please include your location.

OK, we're not talking kitchen or living room.

We want to know where you are.

You'll find all of this contact information at our website, youbetyourgarden, org, where you'll also find the answers to almost all of your garden questions, audio of this show, video of show, audio and video of old shows and our internationally renowned podcast.

I'm your host, Mike McGrath.

I'd like to say something funny here, but I'm too busy planting more potatoes, hardening off my tomatoes and looking for egg cases.

And I hope that you'll be doing the same until I can see you again next week.