- From the gift-laden studios of Lehigh Valley Public Media in the Christmas City of Bethlehem, P.A., it is time for another nicely-wrapped episode of chemical-free horticultural hijinks, You Bet Your Garden.

I'm your ho-ho-host, Mike McGrath.

He's making a list and he's checking it twice.

Have you been naughty, or have you been nice?

On today's show, we'll discuss a slew of great last-minute gifts for gardeners and perhaps yourself, plus your fabulous phone calls!

Yes, we will be taking your telecommunicated questions, comments, tips, tricks, suggestions and haughty holiday honorariums.

So, keep your eyes and/or ears right here, cats and kittens, because we're going to pepper you with a sensual gardening composting goodies.

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... - Welcome back to a special holiday edition of You Bet Your Garden.

I'm your hoe-hoe-host, that's ho with an E at the end, Mike McGrath.

And yes, I look ridiculous!

I'm happy to do it!

I hope it puts a smile on your face.

Ducky, can you breathe in there?

Coming up later in the show, actually at the very end of the show, but you know that already I'm going to run down a plethora, a veritable plethora of last-minute Christmas gifts for, I don't know, your gardening giftee, or whatever you want to say.

But foist!

I want to show you one of the things I always talk about and tell you about a couple of books that I think are very special.

Jake, pan in to our rosemary tree.

It was really hard to find rosemary trees of this year.

There was a lot of Christmas rosemary for sale, but it wasn't in the tree form.

And I got this one at Whole Foods.

It was marked $9.99, and I only paid $14.99 for it!

Yes, I saved the receipt.

They'll give me $5 back.

But these are fabulous for the holidays.

All you have to do is rub the branches, and you've got that fabulous rosemary fragrance in the air.

Whether it costs you $10 or $15, that's more rosemary than you would get buying in any other form.

And if you live anywhere other than, like, Minne-snow-ta or Wisconsin, or one of the colder climates, you can plant it outside after the holidays.

Even if you live in a frigid zone, you can keep it alive inside, make sure it stays well-watered, these things are very pot-bound when you get them and plant it outside in the spring, or move into a bigger pot outside in the spring, so you can bring in again over winter.

People in climes in the city of Philadelphia and south can plant it in a protected spot, and it will be perennialized.

I saw fabulous rosemary trees in the community garden on South Street that were surrounded by walls.

That's the best place for them.

They were huge.

Books!

We got books!

My first suggestion, I'm just a victim of circumstance, How To Hack Country Living: A Season-By-Season Pandemic And Post-Pandemic Survival Guide, written by Jacob Chaflin and Jesse Liebman.

You may remember Jacob from his previous appearances on the show.

He works for Laurel Valley soil, so I guess the name of the company is.

And he is an expert on every type of compost and soil mixture.

So, he has decided to write a book about moving from the city to the country, a classic idea in the gardening tradition.

I'm trying to think of Five Acres and Independence and other books that try to help you prepare for the concept of septic tanks and chicken-keeping, and all the wonderful things you discover when you buy an old home in the country.

OK, Jake, good work.

Thank you.

Anybody on your list would be thrilled to be gifted with Leslie Halleck's Tiny Plants: Discover the Joys of Growing and Collecting Itty-Bitty House Plants.

If you're a regular listener and/or watcher, you may remember our interview with Leslie I believe earlier this year.

I was entranced.

She is a fascinating person, and she has, like, six million house plants in an apartment in Manhattan.

I already sent this book - a gift copy, I paid for it, kids - to my sister-in-law, Maureen, and she loves it.

OK?

You can't get better than that.

I'm jealous of her houseplants.

Mike McGrath's Mini Book of Garden Beds and Composting!

How did this get in here?

Anyway, this is a special book I wrote earlier this year for Greenes Fence Company, that's G-R-E-E-N-E-S.

They are the biggest supplier of cedar, American-made compost bins, and all sorts of different raised bed kits.

I have a raised bed on legs from them outside my house that is currently blooming with saffron, the fall crocus.

It's all good.

Anyway, when I checked the availability Greenes seemed to have it, but I wasn't sure, and Amazon had it, but they were down to one copy.

So, before you forget, call now.

We end with Robert Kourik, Sustainable Food Gardens.

Robert is an old friend.

He is an organic gardening pioneer who first became known for his book on grey water.

Recycling your household water to water your garden.

Which, out west and in other water-shy communities, is virtually essential.

You also can use grey water instead of city water if you are on tap water and avoid the chlorine and the fluoride, and perhaps the aluminum used to separate the solids from the water, which is probably more information than you wanted to know.

But there she is.

After that, Robert wrote a great book on the roots of plants with tons of fabulous illustrations.

And now, Robert tells me - I guess he's my age, you know, and he has the sense to retire - that this is his last book.

It's called Sustainable Food Gardens: Myths and Solutions.

And it's from Metamorphic Press.

I love that.

This thing is how many pages?

Come on...there's 400... Over 400 pages!

I'm not going to look this stuff up.

I recommend it highly.

You know, it'll take you a while to read it, but I think you'll get a lot out of it.

All right, enough from me.

Now, more of me taking your fabulous phone calls at... Carlin, welcome to You Bet Your Garden.

- Hi, Mike.

- Hello, Carlin, how are you doing?

- I'm doing all right, how are you?

- I'm better than all right, I'm ducky!

All right.

Where are you, Carlin?

- I am based in Clifton, New Jersey.

- Oh, OK.

The Garden State!

Well, you're here to give us gardening tips, right?

- Oh, I hope not.

- All right.

I've just been handed a set of pictures that apparently you emailed us.

You have a Charlie Brown Christmas tree.

- I have a very sad little... sort of, Christmas tree, yeah.

- All right, tell us the sad, sad story, Carlin.

- Well, about two years ago, I moved into an apartment.

And I got, at a grocery store garden center, this little shaped just like a little Christmas tree.

I forget exactly what it was.

And it didn't do too great.

It did OK for a few months.

And then, it kind of started dying.

I put it outside a couple of times thinking maybe it'd do a little bit better in natural sunlight, natural rain, etc.

It did OK. And then, it's almost died a few times over the last couple of years.

And I finally got it coming back, watering it more frequently, that seems to have helped a lot.

But I just...I'm hoping for tips on how to, kind of, revitalize it a little bit more, I guess.

- I'm trying to identify it, but, it's like the coroner would say, "We'll have to go for dental records".

So, it looks like it's still in the original container.

- Yes, it is.

- OK, do you have any potting soil at home?

Compost?

Anything?

- I could get potting soil.

- OK, what I'm going to suggest is, do you have... For instance, my house is the house of pots.

I've got hundreds of old pots around.

Do you have access to a container about twice this size?

- I could get one.

- OK.

Ask your gardening friends.

There's really no reason to buy these things new.

So what I'll suggest is you turn this thing on its side, and you roll it around a little bit, then you pull it out.

I suspect it is so root-bound it will come out as if it was still in the pot.

You very gently beat the soil around the roots, fill up your new container half full of potting soil, put it in the kitchen sink.

You may have to put something on top of it because these things are so light, they float.

And, after an hour, it should be saturated, put it in a drain board.

Is that a real word?

Is that the word?

You know, dish rack?

I don't know.

And then, put it into its new container.

Do not plant it any lower than it was in this pot.

And, you know, if there's too much soil in there, take it out.

If there's not enough, put more in, then fill in around the sides, and repeat the watering, of sitting in the sink with a couple inches of water in it.

Until we know better, I'm going to say keep this inside.

Don't put it in direct sun, especially until we find out what it is.

- OK. - What do they call it?

Dappled shade?

Dappled sunlight?

You know, don't fry it, like with an orchid, you want bright light, but indirect light.

So after everything is settled for about a week, you're going to take pruners, and you're going to cut off the worst of the bottom branches, the dead ones, Carlin, OK?

- OK. - And ones that just don't look appetizing, so to speak.

And then, what I would suggest is you wrap the pot to hide the fact that the bottom is bare, you know, gift wrap, something like that.

And, you know, keep it evenly watered.

That means not sopping wet.

Get a chopstick or something, and push it down into the soil.

If the bottom of the chopstick or similar device is wet, it is not yet time to water.

But if the plant feels really light in its container and there's no water in the bottom, then it's time to take off the wrapper and give it a really good soaking.

But plants can survive much better with less water than with too much water.

- You got it, I will.

- All right, you take care.

Deb, welcome to You Bet Your Garden.

- Thank you, Mike.

- How you doing, Deb?

- Very good, very good.

A beautiful day out there.

- Excellent!

And where is it a beautiful day?

- In Morgantown, Pennsylvania.

- So what's up?

What can we do you for?

- Well, I had the opportunity to listen to you many years ago talking about Mexican sunflowers.

And they're wonderful, and I had the hardest time finding them out here.

So I finally asked a friend who has a greenhouse, and she ordered some seeds and, oh, gosh, this must be 6-7 years ago, she planted them for me and gave me the seedlings.

Well, they took off and everybody would stop by and say, "What are those flowers?

They're amazing."

And they'd be covered in butterflies.

So, I kept harvesting seeds, and every year, I give them away.

And I was amazed to find that so many people enjoyed them and how well they did.

One friend planted hers in mushroom soil, and it wound up that they were going 12-feet tall.

It was amazing.

So, anyhow, they did really well, and we enjoyed doing them.

My grandkids love taking pictures of the butterflies.

And when the pandemic hit and we had lockdown, it was really difficult.

I have two grandchildren, nine and 11 at the time, and I did all their home schooling with them because their parents were both first responders.

- Oh, yeah, God bless them.

- It was a very busy time for grandma.

And for exercise, we'd walk the two-and-a-half-mile loop by our house, and everybody was depressed.

It was just a hard time.

So, trying to think of some fun things to do.

I had Michaela, my granddaughter, decorate tea packets.

And we put the seeds in them, and she put little notes, "stay home", "be safe" and things like that on there, and we put them in mailboxes.

And every day, we'd go out and do another 10-20 of them.

And we did it the whole summer, and we never put any names on them.

So, Michaela one day was kind of, "I don't know if anybody cares about these.

"Nobody will know, you know, everybody's down."

And we made the turn, and there was big banner blowing, saying, "Thank you, Michaela."

And she was just thrilled, so it became the thing to give everybody all our seeds.

And it was a wonderful, wonderful event for her.

And we wound up seeing, at the end of the summer, so many houses with Mexican sunflowers around them.

And it really was all because of you.

- Well, yes, all good things come from me!

I thought everybody knew that already!

I've been doing this, what, for 200 years now!

Oy!

Well, I have to say that this is a great story.

And Mexican sunflowers are an amazing plant.

They are butterfly magnets.

- And bees, too, by the way!

- Well, bees like to pollinate.

And the more they pollinate, the more flowers you'll get, and the more seed you're going to get to.

Tithonia is an amazing, rich source, amazingly rich source, of pollen and nectar.

And, in one sense, it helps the monarchs on their journey down to Mexico, because tithonia blooms beautifully in the late summer.

And that's when the monarchs are starting the migration.

So if you can imagine flying 2,000 miles and you're just a butterfly, they will stop every place they see tithonia and all gas up, they'll fuel up.

And it is such a rich source of protein that it really helps them make that journey successful.

And it's just an amazing plant.

And the more people who plant it, the more the butterflies will flourish, and the monarchs will be fed on their way back to their breeding grounds.

If you're a butterfly enthusiast, get some seeds, get them now, because seeds are selling out very rapidly.

So get your order in now and grow them out, or make sure your local nursery is going to have tithonia plants for you.

But you won't be... - The Morgantown Market will be giving them out for free again this year, also.

- Excellent!

We give them out to anybody who walks in the door.

- Is that where you are right now?

- Yes, yes, the Morgantown Market.

- All right.

Well, you've got $1 million worth of publicity there.

- Yeah!

Well, hope everybody comes in to get free seeds.

That'd be awesome.

Mike, thank you so much.

It was really a great thing for us to do, and it was all because of you we found out this flower, and I'll keep watching and listening.

Thank you.

- All right.

Well, thank YOU for helping out during this really trying time.

There's no lack of need for the kind of thing you did.

And thank you for doing it.

Keep it up.

Say "hello" to your granddaughter, and have a great holiday.

- OK, thank you, Mike.

Thank you very much.

- My pleasure.

Bye-bye.

As always, it is now time for the Question of the Week.

A You Bet Your Garden tradition at this time of year.

Some of the things I'll mention could be purchased in stores - remember stores - and online.

Now we're running tight on having things in hand from online sources for the big day.

But if it doesn't show up on time, you can give them a picture and a promise.

OK, let's go bullet-pointin', cats and kittens.

My number one gift idea for many years has been baseball batting gloves.

Not your ordinary garden gloves.

Batting gloves fit so tight you could pick up a dime while wearing them.

Maybe.

I personally can't pick up a dime without professional assistance.

They come in a wide variety of sizes, youth and adult, and small, medium, large.

And there's an extra large version for the adult version.

Sporting goods store should have them all in stock.

Ask your gift recipient if you can trace their hand for a mysterious project you're starting.

Pruners, everybody can use a new pair, or several pair of pruners.

Heck, even I need new pruners!

Growing up, I was told that I was "hard on clothes", which continues to be true.

Now, my personal preference is Fiskars' line of ergonomic pruners, but there are other high-quality brands out there.

Note this is not a dollar store gift.

Well, they're are a dollar and a quarter now, right?

Go for high-quality no matter what the brand, your friendly neighborhood independent garden center should have them on display.

Please don't go to a big box store.

Your neighborhood garden center is as endangered as small family farms and deserves your support.

Hey, what about batting gloves AND pruners?

Just in case you didn't think of that yourself?

We move on to bigger stuff.

A worm tower!

No, not a worm bin.

I can't comprehend how people manage your bin.

How do you know when stuff is done if you're constantly adding new material?

A worm tower has a base unit with a spigot and stackable trays.

You fill a tray with kitchen waste, no meat, no bones, and go very light on things like bread, pasta, and rice.

You put some shredded newspaper on top, and new trays go on the top of the tower, and the worms below in the finished and half-finished trays migrate up.

My unit is from Gardens Alive.

Yes, they help support the show, but that doesn't mean they should get frozen out!

And they have lots of cool stuff.

Not sure if they or other online suppliers can ship the actual worms in winter, but you can get starter worms anywhere they sell live bait for fishing.

Make sure you get red wigglers, that Cadillac of worms, and not nightcrawlers.

And no, it doesn't smell and they don't get loose and run all over the house.

And kids love feeding the worms.

No room for a worm tower and/or a little too squiggly for you?

Vitamix, the people who make those amazing high-end blenders sent me a product to test early this year that, to me, is a real game-changer.

I don't usually rave about new products, but the Empress Diane and I love this thing.

It's called the Food Cycler.

You got a heavy-duty metal bucket with a lid that has a charcoal filter in the top, and you fill it with your kitchen waste, on the kitchen counter or wherever.

When it's full to the indicated line, you drop it into the machine, which is roughly a square foot in size.

Lock the lid, and turn it on.

Two massive replaceable charcoal filters control any potential odors while the machine chops, grinds, and dries the material, reducing it to 10% of its original size.

I mix this creamy compost into my potting soil and/or spread it lightly around my house plants.

It's the perfect complement to my worm tower, especially when all the trays are full.

Originally priced at $400, everyone who sells it now seems to have reduced it to 300 for the holidays.

If that seems a bit high, you should know that Vitamix products are built like tanks.

I'm still using one of their all-metal high-speed blenders that I got back in the '90s.

Every pint of tomato sauce we have produced in the last 30 years was blended in that classic Vitamix blender.

You can buy the Food Cycler from the official Vitamix website, Amazon - what a shock, right - and a surprising number of brick-and-mortar stores for 300, including Best Buy, Mayfair, and Crate & Barrel.

A rechargeable leaf shredder.

That's my next gift.

Advances in battery technology have made rechargeable hand-held blower vacs lighter in weight with a longer running time.

Hey, now you get to go to one of those big box stores, you devil, you!

Look for a unit that has a blower attachment and a different swap-out funnel for sucking up leaves.

These will all come with a shoulder-held collection bag.

Look for a good warranty and, if you're lucky, you might find a package that has two rechargeable batteries inside.

Note, some units are sold without the battery.

Make sure it says "includes battery and charger".

It's a great way to collect and shred your leaves without bending over.

Santa says, "Bending is for chumps!"

And finally, I hope what you will do, at least partially with your gift list, is the same as happens in the McGrath household - give what "Mutts" creator Patrick McDonnell calls the "gift of nothing".

Make a donation to a charity in the name of your giftee.

My personal preferences are local homeless shelters and your local outpost of Feeding America, a group that helps people who faced food insecurity.

And we all know there's way too many of them.

Well, that sure was a ton of great gift options, 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 leisure or your leisure, just click the link for the Question of the Week at our website, which is still and will forever be, give it up, kids... 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 the Christmas City of Bethlehem, P.A.

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 his parents stuffed him into an experimental rocket ship and sent him away from their supposedly doomed planet.

Recent probes have confirmed that the planet is still there.

Oh, well, at least there's no kryptonite around.

Yikes!

My producer is threatening to porch-pirate my presents if I don't get out of the studio!

We must be out of time.

But you can call us any time at...

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

Please include your location!

And don't say you're "in the kitchen" or something.

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

I'm your host, Merry Mike McGrath, sending out cards, wrapping packages with the Sunday funnies, and tending the your log in the fireplace.

What?

We don't have a fireplace?

Uh-oh!

Hope you do better than me this holiday season.

Unlike me, I hope you stay safe, care for each other, and, hey, fire person!

Get my comic books out first!

Second fire person, can you drag out my pinball machines?

What?

The original Monet hanging over there?

Get the action figures out first!

There goes the hat.