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

I'm your host, Mike McGrath.

All those leaves clogging up our gutters can only mean two things.

One, it's time to get out that ladder.

And two, it's compost making time.

On today's show we'll answer your most common questions about turning fall leaves into garden gold.

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

Yes, potential guests are busy sucking and shredding.

So we will take that heaping helping of your telecommunicated questions, comments, tips, tricks, suggestions and gruesomely garrulous gasconades.

So keep your eyes and/or ears right here, true believers, because it's all coming up faster than you making free plant food.

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 mysterious episode of You Bet Your Garden from the studios of Lehigh Valley Public Media in Bethlehem, PA.

I am your host, Mike McGrath.

I've been studying William Shatner vocal impressions.

Later on in the show in the Question of the Week we're going to answer all of your questions about compost, unless you have other ones.

And that's it.

Right.

Let's get to those fabulous phone calls.

Adam, welcome to You Bet Your Garden.

- Hi, Mike.

- Hey, Adam.

How you doing, man?

- I'm doing great.

How are you?

- I am... You see, new studio, I have to reach over.

And you know what?

Come in close, guys.

Let's give Ducky a close-up.

It's been a long time.

Ducky is now wearing his mask again, wondering if he should get the third shot.

Who knows any more?

Now Adam, your phone sounds great, but I hear a weird noise in the background.

- That's my son.

He likes to make noise when I'm on the phone.

- Good!

What's his name?

- Jacob.

- Jacob.

OK. Oh!

He heard his name.

How old is Jacob?

- He's five.

- OK. Do you want to put him on for a minute before we toss him out?

- Sure.

Jake, you want to talk on the phone?

- Yeah!

What is his name?

- Mike.

- Hi, Mike!

- Hey, Jacob, how's it going?

- Good!

- Do you like gardening at all?

- Yeah.

- Yeah, do you help your dad?

- Yeah.

- How much damage...?

- (UNCLEAR) - I think that was in a foreign language.

How much damage do you cause, Jake?

- (UNCLEAR) - OK. - Tell him you like to harvest the watermelons when they're the size of a softball.

- All right.

Scoot him out.

Get a broom.

I don't know.

- Bye-bye!

- Bye-bye!

- Go on, go outside and play.

- I love it.

A future listener.

Adam, what can we do you for?

Oh, where are you?

- I'm in Glandorf, Ohio.

- What, what can we do you for, other than tell you to grow swor... A sworder?

Smaller watermelons next year.

- Well, I sent you some pictures because I was kind of late to the realization that army worms were a problem this year.

- Ohhh.

- You know, like the last couple of weeks in August and my grass was finally turning brown and I thought, "Wow, that dormancy sure took its time."

And I work the weekend, and my wife told me Sunday afternoon, "Uh, the grass isn't dormant.

We have army worms."

- Yeah, and did she see them marching?

- She says she saw a couple.

- Oh, no, no.

They may move by night.

I kind of forget.

But it is a sight to see.

The ground moves.

These are creatures that move with an army!

Huh, I guess that's where they got "army worms".

They are unusual.

How long have you lived in this home?

- Ten years.

- And you've never seen army worms before.

- No.

- OK, so this may be once in your lifetime, but this is a good time to point out that these creatures, like army ants, do exist.

They move in large numbers, and because they are caterpillars and not worms of any kind, they consume vast amounts of vegetation.

Now, for next year, I would urge you to stay in touch with your county extension service as we got to this time of year again and ask if they had any idea about army worms, yes or no, in the area.

And then there's a very simple solution.

Get in front of them, so to speak, before they advance onto your property, and spray the ground with the old original form of BT.

Bacillus thuringiensis, sold under the brand names of Dipal, Thuricide and One Step.

This is harmless to everything else in your environment and won't hurt birds, your kid, you, your pet, frogs, toads, wombats - won't hurt anything else.

But when a caterpillar, which again, anything pretty much with the name worm attached to it is a caterpillar.

When they eat foliage that has been sprayed with BT, they die.

- Yeah, I went through six gallons of BT after I realized that we had the problem, but I figured, you know, the whole grass, the whole backyard was already brown.

The front yard hadn't been touched yet.

So I'm hoping I did some good there.

- Excellent.

Excellent.

Yeah, they're looking for fresh food.

- My question is, now that most of the yard looks dead, is there any chance since they don't eat the root system, that that grass will come back, or am I looking at just reseeding everything?

- No, no, no, no.

What kind of grass?

- There's bluegrass in it.

- OK. - For sure.

- If there's bluegrass in the mix, it'll come back naturally.

Spread some compost on the brown areas because bluegrass will continue to grow for another month or so.

And this will give it... And this is also the time of year when if you feed a lawn, it's when you should feed a lawn, so you got everything going for you.

- All right.

Well, I appreciate the help.

- All right.

My pleasure.

Good luck to you, sir.

Nathan.

Welcome to You Bet Your Garden.

- Thanks, Mike.

- Well, thank you.

Are you good old, reliable Nathan?

- Yeah, Nathan Detroit.

- Yeah!

- You know, the last person that told me that was my childhood dentist, so there aren't too many people who still remember all the characters.

- So where is Nathan?

- I'm Yorktown, Virginia, at the mouth of the Chesapeake.

- All right, Nate, what can we do you for?

- Well, I've heard you talk a lot about the solution to weeds of a flame-thrower.

- Yes.

- And it sounds great, but seeing as how most of the flame-throwers that I've seen, you know, are Saving Private Ryan style flame-throwers, I think that might be a little bit of overkill.

- Not for bamboo!

- Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Pretty much need that for bamboo.

But I'm talking about regular garden variety weeds.

So I'm, I'm wondering if there's a product or a style that you would recommend that would work better for households and not clearing out pillboxes.

- Absolutely.

Bernzomatic, the people who make the little welding torches and stuff, introduced this concept with what they called the yard and garden torch.

It uses a camp stove sized propane bottle, - the little one?

- Right.

- And it's shaped like a shepherd's hook and you screw the propane into the short end and then there's an electronic ignition halfway down and the flame comes out the long end.

So not only do you get to take military revenge on your weeds, but you're standing up the whole time.

- That's a lot better.

- Yeah.

I'm not sure if Bernzomatic still makes it, I think they sold the rights to a couple of other companies.

But if you go on that website named after that big river somewhere, you'll find a number of different types.

And I recommend you stick with the shepherd's hook style.

You'll find other ones that are really clumsy.

But I have three of them and they're just fabulous.

- Wonderful.

- Do you have any children?

- I do, both of them are in high school in 9th and 11th grade, so they might be willing... - Boys or girls?

- to come out and...

The older one's a boy, younger one's a girl.

The boy will pay you to use a flame-thrower.

All right, man?

- Pretty much all of the boys want to... all they want to do is light things on fire, so... - There you go.

- They will be lining up.

- You'll devote them to a cleaner way of pyromania.

- OK, thanks a lot, Mike.

- My pleasure.

Thank you, sir.

Bye-bye.

Vicki, welcome to You Bet Your Garden.

- Hey, Mike, how you doing?

- I am just ducky!

Thanks for asking.

How is Vicki?

-Vicki's doing pretty good.

It's a little warm now in eastern North Carolina.

- All right.

What can we do for Vicki in the Carolinas?

- Well, the last two summers, I have not been able to get my tomatoes to produce.

- OK. - And this summer I had two other neighbors that couldn't get them to produce either.

- Mm hmm.

- And I just wonder, you know, has it gotten too hot for tomatoes in eastern North Carolina?

- How did the leaves look?

- They looked good.

I'm familiar with tomato wilt and they did not get that tomato wilt at all.

- OK, good, good.

You know, there's like, you have like 350 tomato diseases, - so, you know.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

But if the leaves are green and healthy, then the issue is heat stress.

- Any time... - OK. Any time the temperature climbs above 92, 93 degrees Fahrenheit, the pollen on the tomato flowers fries and cannot produce fruit.

So there there's a couple of ways to respond to this.

When do you typically put your tomatoes out?

- After Good Friday.

- OK, do you buy plants?

Do you raise your own?

- Yeah, no, I buy plants.

- And where do you get them?

- Usually from the big box stores.

- You gotta get away from the big box stores because they sell the same tomatoes everywhere in the country, whereby a local independent garden center or a farmer will already have varieties that are somewhat heat resistant.

So the first thing I want you to do is go on the internet and look up heat resistant varieties, and they're probably not going to be what you're used to growing.

But these ones that are actually bred for Southern climates can take an extra five, maybe even seven degrees of heat and still pollinate.

- OK. - So you want to be limiting yourself to those varieties and you don't have to buy them from the online supplier, but write all the names down.

- Right, OK. - And then those are the ones you're going to be looking for.

In addition, is there any spot you can plant them that gets afternoon shade?

- Yeah, I have...

I have a raised... Actually three raised beds in the backyard that get afternoon sun.

- No, no, I said afternoon shade.

- That's what I meant.

Afternoon shade.

Yeah.

- OK. - They get morning sun and afternoon shade.

- That is perfect for your region.

If you buy heat resistant varieties bred for the south, they get some afternoon sun, then you can embarrass your neighbors next season.

- OK, great.

Great.

Thank you so much, Mike.

- My pleasure, Vicki.

You take care.

Christine, welcome to You Bet Your Garden.

- Hi, Mike.

How are you?

- I am just ducky.

- I knew you were going to say that.

- Yeah.

Well, Ducky, we're thinking of putting Ducky's name on the show.

So, you know, with Mike McGrath and Ducky, you know, like Batman and Robin.

All right, Christine, thank you for asking.

How are you?

- I'm great, thank you.

- And where is Christine great?

Oh, we live in Winslow Township in Camden County, like on the edge of Berlin and Winslow Township.

- In New Jersey.

- In New Jersey.

- All right.

What can we do for Christine?

- My question for you is we have kind of a large piece of ground and it sort of gets overrun with weeds and vines and everything.

But what we have is a whole area of milkweed that comes up on its own.

- Excellent.

- You know, and a few years ago it was just a few here and there.

But this year it's just overrun our yard.

It's in the walkways, it's in between all of the flowering bushes and it's so tall it just falls on everything.

And my question to you is, you know, we do have monarch butterflies along with other butterflies.

And I really, you know, I'm so tempted to cut it down because now it's all brown and, you know, all the pods are building up.

But I need information.

I tried to find out about the monarch butterfly's cycle, you know, during the seasons.

- Right.

- And, you know, I only saw one little caterpillar on there, but I have seen butterflies.

I've tried to look up what the egg sac looks like.

I haven't seen any, but I don't know if that would appear on the milkweed or not.

- It's very distinctive.

It's lime green.

Oh, I'm trying to think of what the shape would be.

I guess you'd call it an oval or something like that.

But the color itself is very distinctive.

The milkweed plant supplies food for the caterpillars.

- OK. - Then they spin their chrysalis and after a time in the chrysalis, the adult monarchs emerge and then they begin their journey back down to Mexico, stopping at food plants like tithonia on the way.

Now you'll learn more than you ever wanted to by going to a website called Monarch Watch.

A good friend of mine, Ron Ryall, I visited his place in Pottstown, PA recently and I got to tag butterflies that were about to fly back down to Mexico.

It was very fun.

And as to...

I'm not a specialist in milkweed, to be honest, but it sounds like you have the perennial type.

So if it's brown, cut it down.

- And I'm thinking maybe I should, like, put them in a case or something and hang it on there.

- That's excellent.

That's excellent.

- Perfect.

I really appreciate that.

- All right, Christine.

Take care.

All right.

It is inevitable.

It also always happens.

It's time for the Question of the Week, which we're calling Questions About Compost.

Lillie in Milwaukee writes, why does my compost bucket smell so putrid?

I added some soil and now it smells even worse.

I don't have a real compost bin, so I use a five-gallon bucket with a tightly fitted lid.

Oh, dear.

This is one of the biggest rookie mistakes in the wonderful world of composting.

Kitchen waste alone does not make good compost.

It just makes a stinky, putrid mess.

If you wish to recycle your kitchen waste outdoors, you need a professionally made compost bin that has a tightly locking lid to exclude vermin like raccoons.

And you need the bulk of the raw ingredients to consist of, quote, well-shredded dry browns like shredded leaves, and yes, yes, the leaves must be shredded!

Stop asking me!

Thank you.

Or you can recycle your kitchen waste indoors with a worm bin.

Specialized worms known as red wigglers, the Cadillac of worms, will turn that kitchen waste into fabulous fertilizer known as worm castings.

I recommend using a professionally made bin and adding a good amount of shredded black and white newsprint, which is the essential bedding the worms require, to cover the garbage.

And yes, the newsprint must be shredded, too!

Stop asking me!

Oy!

Frank in Cherry Hill writes, I found a bag of organic tomato and vegetable food in my garage from last year.

It has a distinct smell of ammonia.

Oh, I love these.

Can I still use it in the garden?

If not, can I put it in my compost tumbler with shredded leaves?

No to the garden, but yes to the composter, Frank.

In the earliest days of composting, farmers were urged to add chemical fertilizers to their compost piles because the experts were dubious that a finished product that looked like soil could feed plants.

Then came the work of Sir Albert Howard, JI Rodale and a few other mavericks, and people soon realized that the miracle of composting did not require chemical fertilizers.

In fact, those fertilizers tended to screw the process up.

But you have an organic product that has gone somewhat bad.

Ammonia smell equals excess nitrogen, but it still possesses other useful natural fertilizers.

You can either mix it into a big open pile of shredded fall leaves or use your tumbler.

For best results, a tumbler should be completely filled with raw ingredients, mostly shredded fall leaves, and yes, they must be shredded!

Aah!

The voices in my head.

And it should be tumbled until done.

This is a process known as the batch method.

Continually adding more material to the mix just slows the process down.

You can even add that old organic fertilizer to an existing batch of half-done material as long as you add more shredded leaves... And yes, they must be shredded.

..to the mix and continue to tumble or turn for a while.

Pete in Wilmington, Delaware writes, I just read your book on compost.

I found it concise and very helpful.

I have a few questions I thought you might be able to answer.

Why would someone not use 100% compost as the soil in the garden?

Well, when I started out, my beds were half compost and half native soil that I had raked up to help form the beds, and that worked great.

Over the years, I followed my own advice to simply add a fresh two inches of compost to the beds every spring, and that worked great at first.

But over the course of decades, I found that the beds were getting, for lack of a better word, heavy.

And that's when I entered into an intense relationship with perlite that continues to this day.

Perlite, a natural mined volcanic glass that gets popped into little white ball-like structures in giant ovens, greatly improves drainage by providing little spaces throughout your soil that allow for the passage of air and water.

Perlite's structure of little cracks and crevices also holds water during wet times and releases that moisture slowly as the soil dries out.

That precious perlite is a godsend to improving drainage in areas that typically have lots of rain, like my Pennsylvania and Pete's Delaware.

Number two, I think we're still talking about Pete.

If the ideal carbon to nitrogen ratio for compost is between 25 to one and 30 to one, what is the ideal ratio of calcium, phosphorus and potassium?

We're talking apples and oranges here, Pete.

The CN, carbon to nitrogen ratio that makes the best compost and makes it the fastest is indeed 25 to 30 parts of dry, brown carbonaceous material like shredded fall leaves... ...to every single part of wet, green, nitrogen-rich material like spent coffee grounds, horse or poultry manure or kitchen waste.

Calcium, phosphorus and potassium are nutrients that, when seen as lacking, are often applied directly via fertilizers, which are labeled with their unique ratio of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, the famed NPK scale.

Although chemical companies like to describe things like 10-10-10 as balanced, they are not.

No plant wants equal amounts of those nutrients.

The actual desirable ratio for the vast majority of plants is 1-3-2, because this is a ratio that means 2-6-4 would also be fine.

If the plant food in question also provides calcium, it will be listed separately.

3 to 5% is ideal.

Note, with the exception of calcium, I rely on my compost to provide all the nutrients my plants need, and for the calcium we save up egg shells all winter long.

Well, that sure was some good information about composting correctly, now, wasn't it?

Luckily, you can read that article over again at your "leesure" or your "lesure", because the Question of the Week always appears in print at the Gardens Alive website.

Just click the link for the Question of the Week at our website, which is still and will forever be, say it with us, kiddies, YouBetYourGarden.org Gardens Alive supports the You Bet Your Garden Question of the Week, and you'll 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 Superman was exposed to Red Kryptonite and accidentally gave him the keys to the Fortress of Solitude.

Yikes.

My producer is threatening to mangle my leaf mulcher if I don't get out of this studio.

We must be out of time.

But you can call us any time.

Or send us your e-mail, your tired, your poor, your wretched refuse of a question teeming towards our garden shore ybyg@wlvt.org Please include your location or the process will be tedious and you won't be happy.

You'll find all of this contact information plus answers to your garden questions, audio of this show, video of this show, audio and video of recent shows.

What do you want, eggs in your beer?

Oh, we got it, because we also have links to our internationally renowned podcast.

It's all at that website.

YouBetYourGarden.org.

I'm your host, Mike McGrath.

And I'll be outside shredding leaves and soaking up the wonderful weather of autumn until I see you again next week.