- From the pretty, yet prickly Univest Studios at Lehigh Valley Public Media in Bethlehem, P.A., it is time for another edible episode of chemical-free horticultural hijinks, You Bet Your Garden.

The weeds, known collectively as thistle, are a bane to many gardeners.

I'm your host, Mike McGrath, and on today's show, I'll reveal two methods of eradicating that thistle, and a suggestion that you try and eat it.

Plus, answers to garden questions that were recorded at a wicked event earlier this year.

And maybe a few of your fabulous phone call questions, comments, tips, tricks, suggestions, and justifiably germane justifications.

So keep your eyes and/or ears right here, cats and kittens, because it's all coming up faster than your thistles 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 to a very unusual episode of, what is it?

"Something wicked this way c...?"

No, You Bet Your Garden!

From the Univest Studios at Lehigh Valley Public Media.

So, why do we have this Shakespeare quote that was used so brilliantly by Ray Bradbury when he wrote a book of the same name?

Because today, all of our questions were asked earlier this season at the Wicked Plant Festival, which was held on the grounds just outside of PBS39 and WLVR, right here in Bethlehem, P.A.

So we thought we would save these wicked questions for Halloween, but we forgot.

So now we're doing it, kind of, before Thanksgiving, which...

I don't know about you guys, but when families get together, it's always a wicked time for me.

So I will give out the phone number.

You are welcome to call it...

But we will begin with one of the questions that was asked of me at this event.

- Hi.

My name is Abby.

I'm from Whitehall, soon to be in Catasauqua.

And my question for Mike is, any recommendations for herbs that I can grow outdoors in the summer, but then bring it in in the winter?

And how to keep them alive, once I actually bring them in in the winter?

I want to have fresh herbs to use in my cooking all year round.

- Great question, Abby.

By the way, the two places she mentioned, Whitehall and Catasauqua, or Catty, as we call it up here, are both in Pennsylvania, as are, I believe, all of our questioners, because it was a local event.

Now, if you are willing to provide the right indoor environment, there's very little in the herb family that you can't grow indoors.

But I think timing will also be really important here.

So, let's say you plant your early-season herbs in the ground, in a raised bed, you know, whatever your landscape gives you to work with.

But around...

I'll think those herbs will be viable through August.

The benefit of starting your indoor herbs in August is the soil will be beautifully warm, and they will sprout up very quickly.

The quicker a seed sprouts, the longer a life the plant will have, the healthier it's going to be.

So around August, sometime in August, get a bunch of containers that have a good size, and seed those with your herbs.

And you'll have had plenty of time to get seed, you don't need plants for this, unless the herbs are only available as starts.

And then, you want to go out, and anybody who's got starts of herbs left in August will pay you to take them away so they can get up the Thanksgiving and Christmas stuff.

So, have them ready in pots to bring inside.

Now you'll have to find a place in your house that will have good artificial light, unless you have a true solarium or a big bay window that juts out and brings in a lot of sunlight.

So, after that, it's really your game to lose.

Let these plants grow outside until, say, the 1st of September, and then, rinse them well.

Get one of those handheld sprayers and turn the nozzle to its sharpest setting, and spray every leaf, and run your hands up and down the inside and the outside of the leaves.

Then bring it inside.

If the surface they're on is delicate, something you don't want to ruin, you may put plant saucers underneath the pot, which has to have good drainage, but never let standing water appear in that saucer.

If you get standing water, empty it out.

Because you don't want to overwater the herbs, which even though they're inside, they're going to grow much more slowly than they did outside.

I recommend finding a spot where you spend a lot of time and hanging a four-foot shop light.

That means the four feet-long, four-foot tubes, and four of them in the shop light.

And keep the tops of the plants close to that fluorescent light.

As to what herbs you choose to grow, what herbs do you like?

You get to pick.

And hopefully you'll have a failure or two, because then, you'll know not to do that again.

Okay?

Good luck to you.

You can do this.

You can do this.

- Hey, Mike, it's Mark, from Bethlehem.

Love your show.

Watch it all the time.

Trying to handle my squirrel problem in the backyard.

They're igging up the yard, which isn't the biggest concern, but they are starting to eat some of my vegetables.

Last summer, my neighbor's fig tree was devastated.

Some of the blueberry plants.

I know peppermint is a good plant and coffee grinds, but anything else you could offer to help me just deter the squirrels as much as possible?

I don't expect to eliminate them, but anything else you can help me to deter them?

Because they're just digging up everything, honestly.

Thanks very much.

- Ah, yes, evil squirrels!

One of our favorite subjects.

So the first thing we do with squirrel problems.

Do you have bird feeders out?

If you do, you are telling the squirrels to come here, and when they get tired of the birdseed, they'll look around and go, "Hey, look at that tall plant with all those green "and red globes on it.

"I wonder what the homeowner would say if we just "took a bite out of each one."

Everybody loves blueberries, fig trees... Come on, they probably originated with figs.

So first thing to do is, don't have any seed feeders out.

You want to feed the birds over the winter, use suet cakes in cages.

If your neighbor is putting out seed, either buy them some suet cakes and ask them to turn over, or if they are feeding the squirrels.

If they have been taken over by the enemy's mind-rays, then you'll just have to call Lou the Shoe from Philadelphia, who takes care of those kind of problems.

Loves to take people like that for a tour behind the Philadelphia airport, in the marshes there, so they can see the fishes up close.

What's wrong with that?

Anybody feeding squirrels in the area is making your life miserable.

If you are feeding squirrels and/or birdseed, you are making yourself miserable.

So that's job number one.

Okay, the kind of plants you mentioned, tomato cages, real cages.

You get welded wire fencing.

You cut it up into six-foot-long sections.

You turn it into a circular thing, and then, you cut some more of the fencing and put it on top with twist ties, so they can't get down there.

I mean, if any tomatoes hang out, the evil squirrels are going to get them.

But you're going to keep most of your harvest intact.

And when you need to harvest, just take off the twist ties, harvest your tomatoes, maybe use one of those grabber things like they used to before there were supermarkets, and then, twist-tie it back in place.

By the way, I'm not sure what you meant by peppermint.

Peppermint is a good mouse repellent when you put it in pantries.

You could try mulching the ground with an inch of red-hot peppers that have been shredded.

And you can spread that on the ground all around, unless they have access from trees or fencing.

Squirrels will use any kind of tree, any kind of fencing, any kind of structure to get at your food.

So doing something on the ground won't deter them.

They're never going to touch the ground.

Same with figs.

Figs are big trees.

They grow a lot each season.

And in one sense, they'd be difficult to protect.

So I would recommend motion-activated sprinklers.

These are easy to find.

The prices have come down.

The quality's gone up.

It is a device that you either stake in the ground, or you bang a pipe into the ground, and then, put the little ground stake of the motion-activated sprinkler on top of that.

And then, you aim it at the plants you wish to protect.

You may need more than one.

But you turn you put batteries in them, you set them up, and as soon as something breaks the beam.

the machine will throw a cup of cold water at them.

In my experience, this is something that squirrels can't get used to.

But I think a combination of fencing, low-to-the-ground plants surrounded by shredded hot pepper flakes and motion-activated sprinklers is your best bet against evil squirrels.

- Hi.

My name is Donna, from Easton, Pennsylvania.

And I have a question for Mike.

I have an umbrella plant, and it has aphids on it.

And I have tried alcohol with the little Q-tips, I have tried neem oil over and over again, and I cannot get rid of them.

So please tell me how to get them off my plant?

- Well, I have to assume that this is an indoor plant, and the solution will almost necessitate, necess-ess-ess-itate, your moving it outside.

Now pick a nice day, nice, warm, sunny day, and roll the plant out.

If it's huge, get a little dolly with wheels so you can move it around.

You'll never regret that purchase.

So move it outside on the morning of this nice sunny day, and then, using a garden hose with an adjustable setting, really laser-beam, it should hurt your hand when you hit it with this beam of water.

Get all over the plant from top to bottom, and get underneath the leaves.

That is crucially important.

And as you're doing this spraying, make sure you're running your hand up and down each individual leaf.

Then, when you're done, you want to wipe down the entire pot, especially the inside rim, to catch any that are waiting for you to be done with the hose.

And then, when you bring it back inside, have ready a package of yellow sticky traps.

Aphids are attracted to the color yellow.

When you have a yellowish card, kind of, thing, and it is a colored the exact right shade of yellow, which these things are, they've been tested, surround the plants with them.

And if you get a huge catch, that's the sign that you need to wait for another nice day, take the plant outside, spray it again, trying to make sure you're really getting into all the crotches and the branches and the undersides, wipe down that rim again, and then, bring it back inside and put in fresh sticky traps.

Now if you've got, like, six traps circling the plant and you wind up with, like, two aphids on each, you are almost done, to done.

Make a note of how full or how empty the traps are.

Check it weekly.

If you see an outburst, then just replace the traps with fresh ones, and that will take care of any eggs that hatched in the interim.

As always, it is time for the Question of the Week, which we're calling... Fran, in Flourtown, Pennsylvania, writes... Well, there are many varieties of thistle.

Are you sure you have Canadian thistle?

Which is actually from Europe, by the way.

Control is pretty much the same for all of the thistles, but it's nice to know the actual name of the plant you're fighting so you can curse it properly.

Control method number one, our famous rope-a-dope.

Thistle spreads by underground roots, as well as by seed.

If you cut it down just as the flowers begin to color up, you will starve those roots of a lot of energy.

Over the course of a few years, this will greatly weaken the underground parts of this plant.

But we need to be realistic here.

Thistle is not a one-season job.

It's going to take time, years, and determination.

In the meantime, get one of them ginormous outdoor umbrellas to give you your shade.

I found the following sage advice at one of the websites I visited for the piece.

"Timing of cutting is crucial.

"This should take place just before the flower bud "turns purple, as this is when the maximum reserves from "the thistle roots are being used to produce seed.

"The old saying," they go on, "often proves true.

"'Cut a thistle in June, that's a month too soon.

"'Cut a thistle in July, and it will surely die.'

"Tilling the area, of course, would be a huge mistake "as it would spread the underground plant parts.

"But above-ground mowing is recommended.

"Follow the same schedule as above, and then, mow again "at the end of the season."

Control method number two, vinegar!

Just like she said.

I found a great bulletin from the USDA's Agricultural Research Service that strongly supports the use of vinegar as a non-selective herbicide, and the researchers specifically used Canadian thistle as one of their target plants.

I quote, "The researchers found that 5-10% concentrations "of vinegar killed the weeds during their first "two weeks of life.

"Supermarket vinegar has been diluted with water "to 5% acidity.

"Specialty horticultural vinegars are acidic "in the 8-20% range.

"Note, always use protective eyewear when spraying vinegar, "and use cardboard or other protective devices to keep "the vinegar off of unwanted plants."

The bulletin continues, "Older plants required higher concentrations "of vinegar to kill them.

"At those higher concentrations, vinegar had "an 85-100% kill rate at all growth stages."

And get this, cats and kittens, I resume quoting, "Canada thistle, one of the most tenacious weeds "in the world, proved the most susceptible to vinegar.

"The 5% concentration had a 100% kill rate "of the perennials' top growth.

"The 20% concentration achieved this in about two hours."

Control method number three, eat your enemies!

The charming website WildHarvest.org covers this topic wonderfully.

Again, I quote, "You can eat all parts of thistle.

"Root, stem, leaves, flowers, and seeds."

And again, quoting the author, "My boys used to enjoy taking a tall thistle and, "with their pen knives on a walk, would strip it down "to just the stem to remove the prickly leaves.

"You can then choose to peel the skin of the stem, "or eat it as is.

"My boys would chomp on this refreshing, watery, bitter bite "until they learned that they could take it home and "drop it in sugar, akin to rhubarb stalks.

"Other ways you can use the stem are to chop it into "inch-long pieces and add to salads as a fresh, "watery, bitter crunch.

"Or add those inch-long pieces of stem to a stir fry, "braising them in soy sauce and oil."

This is me again, I would heartily recommend using toasted sesame seed oil for this endeavor.

OK, back to them.

"Or how about dipping the sticks of stem into batter, "and then, deep-frying and dipping it in a sauce?

"Some thistles can grow 5-6 feet tall."

That's a lot of stem to make use of!

The author of this information, who delves into many other uses and recipes for this weed, is a young woman, well, she sure looks young, even though she says she has three kids named, Diana Hammill Page, or just Di to her friends, D-I.

There's lots more thistles to relish at her website.

Once again, WildHarvest.org.

Well, that sure was some interesting information about thistles, now wasn't it?

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

To read it over at your leisure or your leisure, just click the link for the Question of the Week at our website, which will still and is 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 Harden is a half hour public television show, an hour-long public radio show and podcast all produced and delivered to you weekly from the Univest Studios at 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 a bully kicked sand in his face, and he quickly stopped eating potato chips and bought a copy of the Royal Canadian Air Force Exercise Guide.

Note, do not try to do jumping jacks in a room with a drop ceiling.

Yikes!

My producer is threatening to plant thistles on my property if I don't get out of this studio!

We must be out of time.

But you can call us anytime at... Or send us your email, your tired, your poor, your wretched refuse teeming towards our garden shore at...

Please, would it hurt you?

Would it kill you?

Would it upset your life to include your location in your email?

You could be in Australia, for all we know!

I'm leaf-shredding Mike McGrath, and I'll be shredding leaves, and shredding more leaves, and shredding even more leaves, and hoping that the super-charged rechargeable battery that powers my leaf-sucker-upper will run out of juice some time before I see you again next week.

What?

No!

It still has half a charge?!

I want to go inside!