From the heavily saturated studios of Lehigh Valley Public Media in Bethlehem, PA, it is time for another watered-down episode of chemical-free horticultural high jinks, You Bet Your Garden.

I'm your sopping-wet host, Mike McGrath.

Have you ever experienced the heartbreak of damping off disease?

When your precious little starts wither and die at the soil line?

On today's show, we'll reveal the easy way to prevent this problem.

Plus, fun with bat guano and your fabulous phone call questions, comments, tips, tricks, suggestions and categorically confident computations.

So, keep your eyes and/or ears right here, cats and kittens, because it's all coming up faster than you have a seed starting room that's not in a flood zone.

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, all-new episode of You Bet Your Garden, from the studios of Lehigh Valley Public Media in Bethlehem, PA. At least for this week.

Coming up later, I will help you get your little baby starts up and growing happily by telling you not to water.

"What is he talking about?"

"I don't know."

"I do."

And I'll tell you, after some of your fabulous phone calls at... Jonathan, welcome to You Bet Your Garden.

- Hello, Mike.

- Hello.

- Thanks so much for taking my call.

- Oh, John, thank you so much for making it, otherwise, I'd be sitting here talking to myself.

- Oh, we can't have that.

- Well, I don't think it would be a bad idea, but the people pounding on the window outside the control room do.

Anyway, how are you doing?

- I'm doing very well, thanks, and I am calling from Lemont, Pennsylvania, just outside of State College.

- All right.

What can we do you for?

- Well, I have some questions for you about my Meyer lemon tree.

- Wait, wait, wait - did you send us pictures?

- I did.

- Oh, you know, excuse me, if you're watching on television, get the children out of the room before Jake throws up the image of what makes Charlie Brown's Christmas tree look like it deserves to be on the White House lawn.

- And that's why I need your help.

It does so well outside, over the summer months, but when we bring it inside to overwinter, it survives but I feel like just barely.

- How exactly do you not care for it inside?

- Well, I feel like that's such a mystery because I feel like we're trying to do everything right.

We only water it when I tilt the container and it feels very light.

- Excellent.

- We have one of those deformable garage LEDs over it.

- Really?

- That provides some illumination for it.

Yep.

Now, even one of those super-bright LEDs is not really enough to give bright light to the whole tree, it's only getting part of it at any one time.

- When did you bring it back in?

- I believe this year, it was around mid-September.

- Yeah, it's not the worst.

And it was it was fine?

- Yes, it really was.

- And you didn't reverse harden it off by bringing it in to, say, an enclosed porch and then inside the house?

- No, I did not.

It came straight from out on the deck, into our dining room under that light.

- And how close is the light to the plant?

- Right now, the light is probably just about an inch or two from the one branch that's pointing straight up.

- OK. What kind of location is it in?

- So, we have two glass doors on our dining room that lead onto the deck, and we basically just have it in in the corner there, beside one of those doors, just in the corner of the dining room.

- OK. Near a heat vent?

- There is a heat vent underneath it that... - Oh, no, no, no.

Bingo.

Ding, ding, ding.

Now, what were you trying to weasel out of there?

What did you say?

- I have a diverter on it?

- You have a diverter on it.

Is there something in between the tree and the diverted heat?

- So, the vent is in the floor and the diverter is on top of the vent and the tree is to the side of the vent.

- Gotcha.

What I'd like you to do is move it to a place where it gets indirect light, like a south-facing window with a curtain to diffuse the light.

Even though the... ..plant is a perennial and, in its native environment would grow all year long, we're dealing with something that has to go into a forced hibernation, forced dormancy.

So, what I want you to do, find a south-facing window, put it up on a nice table, so it thinks you still love it, and keep the curtains closed but keep it in bright light.

You can still use your deformable.

Set it on a timer, 12 hours off, mostly at night, 12 hours on, especially when daylight is coming through the window.

Keep it properly watered.

It looked like it had dried out, which, under the circumstances it was under, is very reasonable.

You know the heavy/light routine, so, you know, let's keep with that.

And because this is, or was, a full-grown plant, you don't have to worry about damping off disease or anything like that.

Put a saucer underneath when you water and when the saucer gets filled, wait two hours and go back.

If the saucer's empty, you're good.

If there's still stuff in there, use a turkey baster to get it out of there.

My other suggestion would be to move to San Diego and just leave it outside all the time.

(CALLER CHUCKLES) - That recommendation has never meant more to me than it does right now.

- I hear you.

All right, good luck with your ice dams, we got to go.

- Thanks very much.

- Bye-bye.

Andrea, welcome to You Bet Your Garden.

- Hello.

Thank you, it's a pleasure to be a guest.

- It is a pleasure to...

Guest you?

Host you?

No, I'm the host.

It's a pleasure to have you here.

So, how is Andrea?

- Doing well, doing well here.

Tennessee is sunny today, - Oh, what part?

- I am in Middle Tennessee, in a town called Columbia.

- Very good.

Now, before you came on, the guys were screaming at me that you love our theme song.

- Oh, I love the bug song, I'm a huge fan.

- So didn't we...?

- Absolutely.

- ..didn't we communicate last week that your friends thought you were crazy and I sent you a concert version of Kenny singing the whole song?

- You did, yes, thank you.

And my friends have received that video as they all have, and now they know I wasn't making it up.

But they thought I had made up a song about little bugs.

I was trying to convince them otherwise.

- Well, Kenny did, I mean, why couldn't you?

And on TV, I think we'll play a little clip.

But if you if you folks out there want to hear the whole song, I'm sure the lovely Jonas Bowen will play it.

(ACOUSTIC GUITAR) ♪ Two little bugs, little bugs, little bugs, little bugs ♪ ♪ Little bugs, little bugs ♪ Two little bugs, little bugs, little bugs, little bugs ♪ ♪ Little bugs, little bugs ♪ Two little bugs, little bugs, little bugs, little bugs ♪ ♪ Little bugs, little bugs ♪ Two little bugs, little bugs, little bugs, little bugs ♪ ♪ Little bugs, little bugs, yeah!

♪ Oh, those scamps in the control room.

Were you able to hear that, Andrea?

- Oh, absolutely.

Big smile on my face.

love that song.

- And once again, if you want to hear the whole version, tune in to the podcast or the radio show.

All right, I'm told you actually have a gardening question?

- Yes, sir, yes, I do.

I was recently gifted some tulip flowers in a vase and they are attached to their bulbs.

And I would love to keep the bulbs and have tulips of my own and I'm not quite sure how to do that.

- Are they in water?

- They are currently in soil and water now, yes.

- Well, wait a minute, it's one or the other, Andrea.

- Well, I took the bulbs and I put dirt in the vase and then poured water into the vase.

- OK, so you got them naked.

- Yes, yes.

- OK. Keep them in the coolest spot possible and gradually lessen the water and add more soil, or just take them out and pot them up in a good-quality potting soil.

And then, like I said, keep them in a cool place.

You know, pretty soon, it would be safe even to put them outside and make people think you're a gardening genius.

But again, keep them cool.

The flowers will eventually fade, of course, but then you leave the green foliage alone, and then you definitely take the potted bulbs outside in bright sun and feed them and don't touch the leaves until they wither and die, then collect the bulbs and plant them sometime between Halloween and Thanksgiving.

- Awesome.

Thank you so much.

- I'll give Kenny your best.

- Please do, please do, I appreciate it.

- All right, you take care.

Jane, welcome to You Bet You Garden.

- Hi, Mike.

Thank you so much for having me.

- Thank you for being had, Jane.

How are you doing?

- I'm doing well today, thanks.

And you?

- I'm just ducky!

- As always!

- If only I could teach this duck to break up ice in my driveway.

All right, where is Jane?

- Jane is in Center City, Philadelphia.

- OK, before you go any further, where?

- Near Fitler Square.

- Oh, OK. 30 years in Philadelphia, I know every darn street in this city!

OK, but you're not calling about Philly?

- No, the garden I'm calling about is on an island in Maine.

- Oh, my God.

- I am having a raised bed built that is one unit of two raised beds with a eight-foot fence because there are deer and bunnies.

And also, there's not a lot of soil because the garden is on ledge, so I couldn't figure out how I was going to put posts in deep in the ground to hold up a fence.

And then, one of the island carpenters showed me one of these units that he'd already built on the island and said that he could build one for me.

- Yes.

- And so, it's the perfect solution to the to the problems of the site.

He is suggesting putting a layer of gravel down in order to get a level surface, and then putting horticultural cloth over that.

- No.

- And... OK, that's why I'm calling, because I read online that you shouldn't put gravel as a base for a raised bed?

- I didn't say no to the gravel yet.

I said no to the weed barrier, because it's a joke.

What was he going to fill it with?

Or are you going to fill it?

- Well, that's the next question.

Could I get some topsoil somewhere on the island?

Maybe.

Do I get bags of dirt on the mainland somewhere?

You know, from a garden center?

- Do you have to take a ferry over?

- Yes, but some places actually deliver.

There's a lumberyard that also has garden soils and will deliver.

- Garden soil is meaningless.

I like the idea of the gravel, which I don't generally endorse, because the surface on which it is is not level, right?

- Mmm-hmm.

Right, right.

- So, he's just going to put in enough gravel to bring it up to a level grade.

- Yeah.

- And there's nothing wrong with that.

But don't let him layer it on too thick.

And then, for the actual beds, you want half high-quality compost, half high-quality topsoil and a couple of bags of perlite because the area you're talking about is very wet and gets a lot of rain.

And I would urge you to read the article about bulk compost and soils at our website.

There's a couple of little tests you can run at home without equipment to make sure you got the good stuff.

- OK, sounds great, sounds great.

- All right, good luck to you, and... What can I tell you?

You know!

- Well, thank you so much.

This is really, really helpful.

I really appreciate it.

- Well, thank you for your enjoyment of the show.

- Yes, I've been listening to you for years, so It's an honor to be talking to you, talking to the master.

So, thank you so much.

- All right.

Thank you, take care.

- OK, take good care.

Bye-bye.

- Bye-bye.

As inevitable as the summer wind, it is time for the question of the week... Or you can say watering, if you're not from Philadelphia.

When last we left you, your baby starts were up, any coverings had been removed and the heating mats had been turned off.

However, some hot pepper varieties will be much slower to emerge than the rest of your plants, if they even do emerge.

Now, to the best of my knowledge... Guys, anybody seen my car keys?

..and experience, the hardest varieties to germinate are the small but killer peppers, whose fruits cluster around the very tops of the plants, often in the shape of medium-sized marbles.

I can't remember exactly who taught me this, but the only way to be sure you successfully germinate these "bird" peppers is to simulate the travel of the seed through the gut of a bird.

Bird peppers.

The plants hold their small but colorful fruits up high to attract birds.

Birds got no lips, so the powerful heat doesn't bother them.

In fact, it's delicious, nutritious and a wonderful symbiotic relationship, where the plants and birds have evolved to work together to feed those birds and extend the range of the pepper species.

The birds eat the peppers and then, later on, they poop out the seeds, which, of course, are now surrounded by a nice amount of nitrogen-rich bird guano.

Presto.

A new baby bird pepper plant is now growing a good distance from its parent, which assures biodiversity and increases the range of the plant.

To me, this is symbiosis 101 - easy to observe and almost impossibly simple to understand while remaining a many-centuries-old example of evolutionary complexity.

Oh, all right, before I go all Darwin on you, the way to replicate this at home is to pre-soak the seeds in bat guano, which is easily available and provides on average 7% nitrogen.

The seed starting experts I've spoke with say it's the best way to get these difficult but rewarding seeds to Germany.

Germany?

Germinate.

Is there a difference?

Great.

We're a third of the way through and I haven't addressed any of the claimed topics yet.

Why do you people put up with me?!

Or why are any of you not surprised?

Watering.

Simple, easy, treacherous.

As with house plants, the best way to tell is by weight.

Take the driest - which will also be the lightest - container of your new starts and sit it in an inch or two of water for an hour.

If it was light and is now heavy, repeat with the others.

If you took our previous advice and stole somebody's cookie sheet with a raised limb, you can simply pour water into the tray.

Wait one hour.

Is the tray and/or its individual containers heavy or light?

If your answer is light, and you're telling the truth and there's no standing water in the once cookie tray, pour in about half of what you originally used.

No third time.

The biggest threats to your baby plants is overwatering.

At this point, you have made sure they won't be dehydrated, so walk away, Renee, or you risk the heartbreak of damping off disease, which isn't so much a disease as a cultural problem, like opera, reality TV and people who refuse to get vaccinated.

If you have experienced the heartache of seeing healthy sprouts begin to wither away at the soil line, you have first-hand experience with this "disease".

Why do I say that in quotes?

Because there is a great debate in the horticultural community about how to refer to damping off.

Although a dizzying array of soil pathogens are involved, it all starts with overwatering.

Using a fresh-out-of-the-bag, professional soil mix is essential - because it got no disease yet - as is avoiding the rookie mistake of watering the poor, helpless sprouts several times a day.

"Oh, but I was told by a close friend that I should water "when the soil surface is dry."

Either they are not your friend or, as Ron White famously said, and researchers from Cornell have proven, you can't fix stupid.

The, ahem, dreaded dry soil surface is actually a good thing.

If there's no moisture in the top half of your mix, pathogens can't breed at the most vulnerable area.

Always remember that only roots can utilize moisture.

The higher your personal water table becomes, the more harm you risk.

Cheap trick.

Not the band.

Even if you are anti-peat, get one of those smaller mini-bales of milled peat moss and spread one inch on top of the soil surrounding your sprouts.

The natural antibiotic and antipathogenic activity of milled peat moss will help rectify small mistakes in watering.

You know, I'm thinking I should have made this article about watering alone, but the best laid plans, you know, oft gang agley.

Feeding - much easier than getting the water right.

Many sources will remind you that seeds are mostly composed of nutrients, with just a smidge of the DNA that prevents the adult plants from being gourds instead of tomatoes.

Plus, did the bag of your seed starting potting soil mix contain groovy natural fertilizers, like worm castings?

If you just said yes, don't feed your sprouts their first outside meal until a month after emergence.

Be brave.

Be strong.

If your mix is, quote, "sterile", but unfortified with nutrients, like the legendary pro mix, you can feed them a gentle, DILUTE, one-quarter strength organic liquid fertilizer two weeks after their first true leaves appear.

If planting time is delayed by cold nights, you can repeat this DILUTED feeding once, but that's it.

Tiny little plants can utilize only the smallest amounts of food.

Well, that sure was another intensive look at seed starting, now, wasn't it?

Luckily for yous, the question of the week appears in print at the Gardens Alive website to read it over in detail 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.

Thank you, GA. 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 and an hour long public radio show and podcast, all produced and delivered to you weekly - actually, strongly - by the Public Media Center at PBS39 in Bethlehem, PA. IS that our name this week?

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 interdimensional portal opened in front of him, revealing an incredibly beautiful world of wonder, with fairies, flying horses and rainbow skies.

He said, "No thanks, "I got tickets to see the Phillies game tonight," and closed the portal, unknowingly preventing an invasion of evil shapeshifters and illusionists.

Yikes.

My producer is threatening to overwater my starts if I don't get out of the studio, we must be out of time.

But you can call us any time at... Or send us your e-mails, your tired, your poor, your wretched refuse of communication, teeming towards our garden shore at...

Please include your location.

You'll find all of this contact information at our website.... Where you'll also find the answers to all your garden questions, audio of this show, video of this show, audio and video of old shows!

And, of course, our priceless podcast.

I'm your host, Mike McGrath, gearing up to start my seeds and keeping up with the shoveling my orthopedic surgeons made me swear not to do.

So, unless I hear that terrifying pop, I'll see you... Oh!

Oh.

Erm... Overdid it, didn't I?

Ugh.

I'll see you...in my dream.

No, I'll see you next week.

Oh man, that one's going to leave a mark.