From the welcome posted sts of Lehigh Valley Public Mea in Bethlehem, PSEA, it is e for another weird and wacky episode, a chemical free horticultural hijinx.

You bet your garden.

I'm your host, Mike McGrat.

Ever wonder what Eger Composters do when they dot got a traditional fall leas to work on today's show, wl help a listener from Austra deal with this surprisingly common problem.

Otherwise, it's a fabulous phone call showcasing kitt.

Yes, potential guests are y begging for cornstalks.

So we will take that.

He's been helping of your telecommunicating question, comments, tips, suggestiond resiliently remorseful recitations.

So keep your eyes and our s right here.

True believers because it's coming up faster than you g to work on a hole in the gd right after this support fr you bet your garden is prod by the spammer company offg a complete selecton of natl organic plant foods and pog soils.

More information about a spammer and the spammer.

Natural gardening communitn be found at ESP.

Ozma .com.

Welcome to another thrillig episode of You Bet Your Gan from the studios of Lehigh Valley Public Media in Bethlehem.

I am your host Mike McGrath coming up later in the sho.

You don't want to miss.

We have a question from Aua about composting eucalyptus leaves in which you may len something about your own garden.

And if you don't, it's not.

But before that, lots of yr fabulous phone calls 888 fr nine two 94 44.

Carol, welcome to you bet r garden.

Hi, my how are you for takg my call.

Well thank you for making .

How are you doing, Carol.

Good.

How are you.

Just Ducky.

Thank you for asking.

Ducky wants to get into the show as much as possible.

So where's Carol?

I'm in Sudbury, Massachuse.

All right.

What can we do for you tod, Carol?

OK, well, I'm trying to be sustainable and I have chis and I have all these eggsh.

Yes, and I know.

Do you say to put the egg shells, you know, under yor command of plants?

Yeah, in the spring.

But what about the rest ofe year?

I've got because I hate throwing them out, but I ct give them to the chickens.

And I thought you said I dt compost very well.

No, wait a minute.

I thought the chickens woud use egg shells as gret wel, you know, they are really d habit the chickens get is eating their own eggs.

No, OK, so I don't want toe them eggshells.

I would be training them.

Carol, it's sustainable.

That's what you want.

No, no.

You got to find something e I could do.

You got no blender around.

Yes.

OK, what I would do is take your excess, put it in the blender with enough water o turn it into a liquid Wizzt around until it's not realy egg shells any more.

And then you could pour out directly on your plants oro your compost pile.

OK, that's a great idea.

But you can't really compot even crushed up egg shellsy hand.

They're the last thing to disintegrate in a compost .

But if you wins the Mount n the liquid calcium.

Oh, good Lord.

So you have a really rainy season and even the calciun the hole is not totally prohibitive of blossom end.

All you got to do is pour s liquid calcium at the basef the plant and give it that reserve.

I mean that sells for a det money in garden centers.

OK, I knew you'd know.

I always know now how aboun I ask one quick other.

Yeah, you're good.

What about after I put the tomato plants this year in those fabric pots.

Yeah I use it now.

Yeah.

What do you do with the sol when you take that one.

A tomato Gordon you pull ue tomatoes and then you needa bunch of five gallon buckes and you said irrigate the potting soil that had tomas and you write a big ti on e five gallon buckets, you k, and that can be used, you , to start or fill in around plants are not tomatoes or salination, just plants.

Although I've never seen te Verdie Psyllium will bothey potatoes or eggplant or anything like that.

And then you take your potg soil that maybe didn't have tomatoes in it and you putt in a separate five gallon bucket and that can be useo grow tomatoes next year.

Thank you so much.

Always nice to hear from y. Yeah, I hear from you.

Thank you.

All right.

Take care, Carol.

Bye bye.

You too.

Bye bye.

Eight eight eight four nino 94 44.

Jeff, welcome to you bet yr Gordon.

Thanks Mike.

How are you today?

I'm just ducky Jeff, thanku for asking.

Oh no this mask fell off.

Watch it.

We're in the surge.

There's no hospital rooms t for you, Ducky.

The vets won't take anybod.

All right.

Where's Jeff?

I am in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

What can we do you for?

So I have a house plant ths getting a little bit out of hands that I could use some advice with.

I believe it's a Dracaena margin, nada, which has ats point made it all the way o the ceiling.

And like myself, it doesn't quite know it to do right .

This is a problem with a lf houseplants that don't die.

I mean, if they were polit, they just die on you before they got too big for the h. But now they have to keep growing and be healthy.

So you got two choices her, one of which I always endoe is there a kind of a public building, a library?

I know you got a million college buildings around y.

Is there someplace with a h ceiling, with some light?

As you know, they don't ned direct sunlight.

It's indirect and where it could be put on display and somebody if it's a DCNR, ty would only have to water it like once a month, maybe ls in the winter.

So that's your first option other than to tear out your second floor ceiling, you , which would make that an option?

Yeah, When oh my goodness.

Back in the 70s, myself any college mates who were in e student Senate were guestsn the dig Cavett Show and wet out to dinner at this place called La Red phase and the SEMIH Indoor Outdoor Dining Room had a live tree growig right at the top of the rof and it was just a maze thi.

So, you know, I think you should remodel your house r this plant.

I mean, you're being so selfish.

The angry.

If I wasn't a renter, I wod definitely do that.

I think I might be a little upset by, you know, startsn home floor.

Yeah.

Don't tell the landlord its termites.

Oh, yeah.

Anyway, you're if you chooe not to try to get it into a public space where it can e admired before it gets a crooked neck, there is a technique called layering d I'll let you look there layering layering.

I haven't done this for a e but if I remember correctlu scrape some bark off of the trunk and then what do youp around that effort.

Not a wet paper towel.

Oh Magnum peat moss not the Milford Emmaus.

OK you wrap that round it d you keep that moist but alo you need something to keept in place.

So if you do this correctl, the top of the plant will e off because you took off al the bark.

But new growth will begin o appear under your wound, so speak.

And when you see in growth coming out of that, you tae the material off and then u can prune back the top parf the plant and it'll regrow.

You know, it'll give you me time.

Interesting.

So is it going to be near n growth coming out roots?

I should look for?

Well, it wouldn't be roots, it should be green growth.

But again, it's been a long time since I discussed layg and it's not fair.

It's not the weak of heart because you could kill the plan.

But I would simply suggestu look it up but limit your search to state extension websites and not like somem down the street who thinkse knows everything like makee but I really encourage peoe to find someplace that hash ceilings and see if they'll accept it.

Yeah.

I, I have a great library e by with a 20 foot tall wins that they just built recen.

Might be a great spot for .

I think that's the only thg what the thing holding me k is that this is an offshoot from a plant my parents got when they got married 39 ys ago.

Now I hate to get rid of Wn UGI trying to obviously keo myself.

Yeah, you don't have to ged of but you would be kind of stuck with it until the spg and then you would take cuttings and try and root those.

So it would be a clone of e original.

But you need somebody who s how to do this to hold your hand.

Sure.

You know, just there shoule in that area horticulture school or something like tt at college green house.

They'll know how to layer d they'll know how to take cuttings in the spring.

Great.

Thank you so much.

Thank take care.

Eight eight eight four nino 94 44.

Laura, welcome to you bet.

Your garden.

Thank you for having me.

On today.

Well thank you for being hd Laura.

How you doing.

I'm good.

I'm good.

I'm ready for fall.

Oh OK. Well depending on where you live falls here.

Where are you.

I am in Buckhannon, West Virginia.

Oh OK.

Very good.

What can we do you for.

I had one of my worst gardg seasons this summer for probably a variety of reas.

I got a bad start.

I got my plants from a frid who did seed starting and whenever I got them they ld pretty piddly and I didn'to any prep work to my beds.

I pretty much threw them ie ground and then we left for vacation and it's just beea busy summer.

That's innovation.

That's a bad combination.

For events.

Laura, it was pretty rough.

Well, and I think we should call in and this on you he.

Do some forensic detective.

I started to get some prode from my plants, but we gotn more busy.

So I ended up just giving p and I just avoided my gardn altogether and I just let t turn into a jungle.

So I spent all day Monday t tearing plants out and feeg like I should just give up.

But my big question is whan I do this fall to ensure tt all the weeds have been puo bed?

And I can I mitigated as mh as possible now for the spg or Orwigsburg, all the wees have been put to bed.

I got nice blankets and pis and hot chocolate.

They're going to be really happy in the spring.

There's no miracle in this business now is your garden raised beds?

They are, yes.

OK, good.

How big are the beds?

They're about 20 feet longh and four feet wide.

OK, that's excellent.

Well the first thing you wt to do is after the next rao out and you know, pull the weeds slowly from the soil level and try to get the rs out now you know, and don'y to, you know, compound your mistakes by devoting like 8 hours to this.

You never want to garden a.

You do what you do one betr half about a day and then u move on and then if you wat some insurance.

Have you ever heard me talk about Flame Wieters?

Yes.

So one interested.

Yes.

What I would do other veryy to find online or even betr independent garden centersd all you do is screw a litte camp sized propane bottle o the high end of the shephes book and down below is whee the flame comes out and thy all have clickers now to tn the flame on without you hg the light like in the old .

And then I would just go or the beds and linger in plas where there were a lot of s or weed seeds and try to, u know, essentially polarizet out of season and then you don't know the fence, but u got to you got to be the yu can't go Globe-Trotting and think, well, these puny tomatoes that were alreadyf dead don't take care of themselves now.

That and that lesson learn.

That's yeah.

That's another lesson.

If somebody offers you seedlings and they look lie the dog's breakfast, you k, either gently tell them tht no, you need healthier plas or you know, lie to them ad compost them, but go to a d independent garden center d buy high quality plants bee if you start with plants tt are half dead, it often dot get any better.

Oh, and some wait a minute.

Shred every leaf you can ts winter.

Do you have any kind of blr back that you can suck up leaves and shred them?

I don't, but my mom does it sort of using hers.

Yes.

Yes.

And store those leaves in e giant rolling trash cans on a compost pile or something like that.

And then as soon as you put your wanted plants in in te spring mulch heavily around them with two inches of shredded leaves, it looks .

Yes.

And it might prevent Fleetd time to would this be the t time to add compost?

Will that help at all withy soil quality too?

Or should I just wait for e spring?

What kind of compost?

Well, I've used a mushroom compost in the past Schwank aged.

I don't know, TikTok Tamaqa two kinds of mushroom soil, fresh or aged.

You want aged mushroom soil preferably from an organic mushroom farm.

But you can also buy high quality compost in bulk yor Moore Township or minus Pai may offer it, but be be cal about what you do in your .

But having said that, I'ved mushroom soil over the yeas and I've had great results.

OK, but don't tell don't yu dare kill or work the soil because that will uncover buried weed seeds.

OK, just leave it alone.

Yep.

And go home.

OK, wagging its tail behind effect.

Good luck to you.

All right.

It's inevitable it also als happens.

It is time for the Questiof the Week, which we're callg composting down under.

Ruth in Australia writes, y Mike.

I'm writing from the leafy suburbs of Sydney.

And my question is whethere leaves of gum trees, aka.

Eucalyptus trees, might red well to being compost in te same way as your leaves frm North American trees as yoy already know, gum trees ste oil in their leaves concentrated eucalyptus ois a powerful antibacterial ad antifungal chemical.

It's up there with raw garc and can kill a fungus like athlete's foot overnight.

Eucalyptus trees also emit allopathic chemicals into e nearby soil.

These naturally occurring chemicals create an unpleat situation for other plants which either can't start le or fail to thrive if they'e planted too close to a gume with these yucky chemicals being the leaves to.

I'm going to interrupt her question here to answer directly.

Unfortunately, as with our North American black walnut trees, the answer is yes.

Ruth Perkasie to explain tt her gum trees shed a lot of leaves all year round and , can we gardeners create a coffee laced gum tree mulcr use shredded gum leaves ast of our ingredients in a hot composting system?

If so, what about all those naturally occurring oils ad chemicals?

Will gum leaves play niceld move smoothly from being ls to become becoming?

Kampo or mulch?

Or will eucalyptus leaves remains stubbornly in their original form, even if physically shredded and wil adding gum leaves the compt damage to compost rich community of bacteria and fungal colonies.

Sorry to hit you with sucha tough question.

Thanks again and please continue all your good wor.

Love your podcast.

So many excellent practical ideas and she signs off tht part with Be of good Hearty friend.

Well thank Ruth.

All right.

She sent us some pictures.

Here's the first one and I quote Ruth I ignored a pilf leaves behind the shed forx months or so.

I have saved it, saved it.

I don't know.

I'm separating out any soil it's been created.

The result is not bad at a.

The second photo is a picte of one of the nearby treest Ruth hopes to harvest.

She says, quote, This specs can grow to about 100 feet tall.

That's 30 meters down ther.

And she adds there are abot 1000 species of eucalyptusl of which generous shed leas all year round.

That's not on the shed thas shedding their leaves.

Here is another picture.

Ruth writes, One of my hot composts built around a cel steam chimney of PVC pipe h holes drilled in.

That's one of my old ideas.

Temperatures easily hit 140 degrees Fahrenheit for wee.

I even have to cool it dow.

Sometimes the ingredients e shredding Gordon prunings, vegan food, leftovers, cofe grounds, shredded paper, shredded branches, deciduos leaves, the soil that I cae from under a woodchip pile after six months of decomposition and water, wh is crucial, Ruth adds PSEA.

I also asked one of the Boc Gardens in Australia for tr opinion.

Here's a short version of r response.

Ruth asked them Can eucalys leaves be composted in a composting system?

The response our advice wod be not to do this.

It is likely to have a nege effect on the bacteria in e compost system as eucalypts oils have antibacterial properties and may slow the growth or kill off many sps of helpful bacteria.

And the resulting compost y have a negative effects ony plants you spread around.

Then Ruth asked them, can y be compost that alone in af cage?

The response composting eucalyptus leaves in a leaf cage will take an extremely long time as the leaves haa thick, waxy cuticle, you cd decrease the breakdown timy mulching leaves, but they l not behave the same way as leaves from deciduous treeo make leaf mold.

We think that the riskieste of eucalyptus based mulch r compost would be around vegetables versus the safet being around native Austran plants, particularly around species naturally found in ecosystems shared with eucalyptus.

And those responses, whiche great, come to us from the Australian National Botanic Gardens in Canberra.

All right, this is Magrathk again.

Well, Ruth, as you worried about in your emails, I knw almost nothing about using eucalyptus tree leaves in a traditional composting sys.

But I went deeply down the rabbit hole of research bee I did know that many gardes in locations with extendedy times like yours are despee for dry brown ingredients h which to make compost.

So first I will digress a t when the late and great Bob Brogdale and I wrote a book about famine prevention and called Save Three Lives foe Sierra Club back in the lae 80s, one of the things we recommended for dry climats was to make compost below ground in a pit to conserve moisture, a technique thatI believe may have originaten Australia.

So you would excavate the desired area line.

The bottom of the sturdy tp with just a few holes puncd in the bottom to handle yor rainy season excess, which occurs December through Mah and do your best to fill it with the right mix of dry, brown and wet green materis minus eucalyptus leaves dot use shredded paper.

It contains zero nutrition, heavily shredded wood chips would be fine as wood.

Things like shredded straw cattails and dry brown cornstalk which may be in abundance this time of yea.

No kitchen waste other than spent coffee grounds and ta bags dispose of your other kitchen waste in a worm bid use the nutrient rich worm castings on your vegies.

As you note, keep that pit water during dry times.

Otherwise I agree with the Botanic Garden segregate yr eucalyptus leaves in theirn pile, shredded as many tims you can stand no matter thr age.

They are still technically quote green material.

So add only shredded woody material and as your natiol Botanic Garden suggests, ue any resulting compost onlyn native plants.

Well, that sure was some gd information and an intrigug look at gardening down undr now, wasn't it?

Luckily you can read this article over at your leisur your leisure because the question of the week appean print at the Gardens, the e website.

Just click the link for the Question of the week at our website, which is still and will forever be get some T-shirts, sweatshirts madep cats, kittens.

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You bet your Gordon was crd by Mike McGrath.

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Yikes.

My producer is threateningo mess with my maple leaves I don't get out of the studie must be out of time.

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I'll be outside shredding y precious leaves, yelling at evil squirrels and soakingp the wonderful weather of autumn.

At least until I see you an next week.