- From the fabled Univest Studios at Lehigh Valley Public Media in Bethlehem, P.A., It is time for another aromatic episode of chemical-free horticultural hijinks, You Bet Your Garden.

Hardneck garlic varieties are colorful and taste great, but they don't store well.

I'm your host, Mike McGrath, and on today's show, I'll discuss your safe garlic preservation options.

And, of course, we'll take your communicated questions, comments, tips, tricks, suggestions, and blessedly brief, belligerencies.

So keep your eyes, ears, and-or psychic protuberances right here, cats and kittens, because it's all coming up faster than you inviting friends over for dinner just so you can say, "Would you like some fresh garlic with that?"

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 another thrilling episode of You Bet Your Garden, broadcasting from the Univest Public Media Center in Bethlehem, PA.

I am your host, Mike McGrath, and we're going to have a fun Question of the Week at the end of the show.

If you are watching on TV, you'll see it.

If you're listening on a podcast or radio station, we urge you to go to our website and watch the TV version of this show, because we've got some good show-and-tell about many ways of preserving your garlic harvest, which is going to be so much fun!

Now it's time for your fabulous phone calls at... Vicki, welcome to You Bet Your Garden.

- Mike!

How you doing?

- I am just Ducky, Vicki!

We almost had a fright this morning.

We could not find Ducky.

He was swimming around in one of the water fountains on the second floor, but we managed to coax him back down to the studio.

So all is well.

- Wonderful.

Wonderful.

- And where is Vicki?

- Eastern, mid-Eastern, North Carolina!

- What can we do you for?

- Well, I've had this hosta for probably 6-7 years.

I call it a blue hosta.

And this year, it didn't grow.

It's only about five inches across.

And it used to be, you know, a foot-and-a-half across.

And I'm wondering what's wrong with it.

- I have a picture here that I believe you sent us, and I'm looking at it.

Now, you say it's been in the ground for five years.

Was it normal-size previously?

- Yes, never had any problems with it.

- Okay.

What is this mulch I see underneath it?

- Um, it's just leaves.

Stuff I...nothing I've really put there.

It's just dead leaves that have fallen off the pecan tree.

- Okay.

How are your pecans?

- Well, the evil squirrels eat them all the time.

- Uh-huh, evil squirrels!

They get all the best of the harvest.

Now, when was this picture taken?

I mean, these seem to be baby plants.

- Taken, let's see, I'd say probably May.

- And things have not improved since then?

- No.

No, it hasn't died.

I had another one beside it, and that one died.

- Really?

Okay.

Do you have a treated lawn?

- Unfortunately, this year, yes, it was it was treated by an evil gardener who is no longer working for me.

- Oh, okay.

So, I think I hit the first ball out of the park.

That's probably what's happening.

- Really?

- Yeah!

Yeah, I'm sure they used a broadleaf herbicide.

Pardon?

- Weed & Feed.

- Weed & Feed, yeah.

That's the enemy of most wanted plants.

So, the weather this year has been crazy across the country.

How has your rainfall been?

- It's been horrible.

The last two weeks, it's been great, but we're still under a drought.

It's been really, really bad this summer.

-Okay, that's just adding to the pressure on these plants.

The remedy, or really, the only thing you can do when your plants have been sprayed, is to keep soaking the area in the hope that you wash some of the herbicide out of the ground.

So, I would urge you, especially because you have that wonderfully long season to do that, you know, if there's only 1-2 plants left, just take a hose out to them and let them drip, just literally drip like an annoying faucet for 24 hours every other day.

You really want to wash the root zone.

And it would probably be a good idea to rake up this kind of mulch, that accidental mulch and compost that, and replace it with real shredded leaves.

Do anything you can to get that out of there.

But whenever a plant suffers from herbicide sprays, a dry spell will really hammer it.

- Okay.

- All right.

- Mike, I love your program.

- Well, thank you, we love you!

Lou, welcome to You Bet Your Garden.

- Thanks, Mike.

Happy to be here.

- I'm happy to have you here, Lou.

How are you doing, man?

- Doing fine.

Beautiful day in middle Tennessee.

- Middle of Tennessee.

So where are you exactly?

- About 15 miles south of Nashville.

- All right.

What can we do for you?

- Well, I've got two large hydrangea bushes that are about seven years old.

And for the last 2-3 years, they have failed to bloom.

They grow great.

There are huge plants, but no blooms on them.

I trim them back to short shoots every year, because they just get so big, I can't not trim them.

And they're well-watered.

They get sunshine about 5-6 hours a day in the summer, and they appear to be healthy, but just no blooms.

And I can't figure out what I've done wrong.

- Cowboy pruning...could... - Yes.

- Could that be a possibility?

- It could be, yeah.

- One of my favorite moments on this show is, I had a guy on who was the director of something at one of our local arboretums, and he was coming on to discuss hydrangea pruning, because it confuses the heck out of lots of people.

And I said, "Ah, I'm so glad to have you on.

"So many people don't know anything "about pruning hydrangeas."

And he goes, "Neither do I!

"Every year, they surprise me."

So we talked and we talked, and we talked.

And between the two of us, we came up with what I believe is a truly new technique.

First of all, at the end of the season, don't touch the plants.

And in the beginning of the next season, you know, hydrangeas are not the first plants to bloom.

They kind of follow the spring bulbs.

- All right.

- So as your hydrangeas proceed, don't touch them, and then, watch.

I suspect that you will start to see flower buds appear.

Now you have to be patient.

Just let those flower buds continue to progress until they're open, or just about open.

Then you take your pruners, and you cut off any of the stalks that have leaves, but no flowers.

And that will shorten the plant to some degree, but it will also make it look like you have three times as many flowers, because there aren't all these gigantic leaves in the way.

Some hydrangeas bloom on old wood.

Wood that has existed for a year or two.

Some hydrangeas bloom on new wood, woody stems that appeared for the first time that season.

Every time you think you know what you got, it proves you wrong.

So, you can't depend on that.

And I suspect that the seasonality also has something to do, they can go back and forth, in terms of where they put their flowers out.

But this is, without doubt, the easiest and most foolproof way.

And then, again, you just continue.

Every time you go out, you see a branch that has no flowers, cut that off, and cut that off at the base of the plant.

Don't just cut it off halfway down or anything.

And this will also stimulate new growth that will continue to give you more flowers.

You can get a totally covered hydrangea if you put the pruning work into it.

And by doing this over and over again, you'll lower the height of the plants over the years, but you'll also have more flowers outside and really nice flowers inside.

Hydrangeas last a long time in the vase.

- So next year, when I don't touch this, this year and next spring, or late spring, I should start seeing, for the first time in several years, some blooms on the things?

- Yes, sir!

- All right.

I appreciate it, Mike.

- All right, good luck to you.

Number to call... - Emily, welcome to You Bet Your Garden.

- Oh, thank you so much.

It's a pleasure to be here.

- It's a pleasure to have you here, Em.

How are you doing?

- I'm doing well, it's a pretty nice day here in Nashville.

- Oh, it's always a nice day in Nashville, right?

- Yes.

- All right.

Let's get to work.

What do you need?

- So I don't know why this has happened.

But this year, armadillos have literally invaded my flower garden and just destroyed it.

It looks like a bomb went off, and I don't know what to do.

This is the first year this has happened.

They're very brazen.

They ran up to my neighbor's door and just started scratching on the glass.

They're not afraid of my dogs.

I don't want to hurt them, but I...

They're really just creating havoc in my garden.

- Maybe they just wanted to come in and watch TV.

Maybe they were bored.

Armadillos, of course, are one of the three weirdest animals on the planet.

They almost have their own classification, but they are insect-eaters, and they are insect-eaters at ground level, but mostly underground, like moles, they dig burrows so they can get down and eat earthworms and grubs, and cicada larvae.

They only feast at night.

But you have to be careful in dealing with them, and keep your pets away from them because of all things, they are a vector for leprosy.

I mean, these creatures are so weird.

It's, like, it's unbelievable.

So, the first thing I want you to do is, I want you to go to the website of my dear, dear, dear friend, the Dirt Doctor, Howard Garrett.

Now, he does what I do, but he does it in Texas.

And Texas has a lot of armadillo problems.

So, Howard would be great at giving advice.

And just go to his website, it's the Dirt Doctor, and then, just click on things, and I'm sure he'll have publications up there about controlling armadillos.

- Oh, good!

Now, what I remember is you can trap them by using a Havahart trap.

Are you familiar with those?

- I'm not.

- It's an animal trap that the animals go inside, and then, the door shuts down, and they're inside.

But they're not hurt yet.

- Okay.

- And what you would do is get a Havahart...

Believe me, if you have armadillos, so do your neighbors.

So, go to a home center or hardware store and say you want a Havahart trap big enough for an armadillo.

- Okay.

- And then, what you would do is you would bait it with rotten fruit.

They don't eat the rotten fruit, but the rotten fruit will attract a lot of insects, that will therefore attract the armadillo.

Should this occur again in the future, go out there the next morning wearing good gloves and collect the unearthed flowers, and bring them in and put them in vases.

A lot of people don't know that it's an old florist trick.

You can preserve peonies in a refrigerator for months.

- Really?

- Yes!

You cut the blooms with a good amount of stem.

You moisten newspaper, and then, spritz it again with a mister on the outside, and then, put it in the coldest part of your refrigerator.

And, you know, you might be able to put them out on the table at Thanksgiving.

- Wow!

That's amazing.

The problem is, if you do trap them, you can't relocate them.

That is against Texas law, and I would imagine it's against the law in Tennessee.

- Okay.

- So my two... Have you tried any repellants?

- No, I did have like a little fence put up, but it wasn't 18 inches down, and they just pushed it aside and barged on in.

- Yeah, of course.

They're good at that.

But anything that goes underground at 14 inches, and then, the top needs to lean outward so they can't climb up it.

- Okay.

- You know, and you may be able to find nice fencing, you know, just don't buy the first thing you see.

But they are a difficult creature to... Oh, you know what?

You can also limit their interest in your area by eliminating the lawn grubs in your soil.

- Okay.

- And these are the grubs of Japanese and other scarab beetle family members.

So if you release beneficial nematodes, which are fairly available at some retail locations, but definitely by mail order, water those into the soil early in the evening as your soil is warming up, and they will seek out and destroy any of the grubs, which means less Japanese beetle problems for you.

So... - Oh, I like that.

- Yeah, exactly.

They'll still be there for the earthworms, but you may cut their potential harvest in half.

- Sounds like the way to go.

- Yeah, get in touch with my friend, Howard, DirtDoctor.com.

He knows a lot about armadillos.

- Well, thank you so much, Mike.

My friend Brenda and I listen to you every Saturday morning, and we just appreciate all the great advice you give everybody.

- I love being on the air in Nashville and Memphis.

It just brings me joy.

- Yay!

All right, you take... - Come visit us some time.

- You take care.

- Thanks, you too, bye-bye.

- Bye-bye.

As always, like Thanos, it is inevitable.

It is time for the Question of the Week, which we are calling... And at least a small portion of the answer will contain those instructions.

It has been well-established that I am gaga over hard-neck garlic.

The colors, the flavors, the complete lack of vampires in my house.

But, as I acknowledged in last week's thrilling episode, hardneck garlic does not store well.

You're lucky if a July-harvested crop doesn't start re-sprouting by September.

And as soon as those little green sprouts appear in the center of a clove, the flavor begins to change and not for the better.

More like, for the bitter.

That's a very short window of fresh garlic goodness, which leads many to turn to preservation techniques.

A popular but ill-advised example is to store individual cloves in a jar filled with olive oil.

Which sounds like a good idea, until you realize that the risk of botulism is fairly high with this adventure.

Professionally-made garlic in oil products have been...

What?!

They've been professionally made!

And that's how they manage to avoid this extremely nasty danger.

Then there's black garlic, the result of placing whole garlic bulbs in a hot and humid environment for anywhere from a couple of weeks to three months to induce a form of fermentation via the Maillard reaction, a process that is used to brown and caramelize many foods.

Blackened garlic is said to lose most of its original flavor, and then, acquire dozens, maybe hundreds of new flavors with hints of sweetness, acidity, and umami.

The site WebMD praises the positive health benefits of black garlic, citing its high level of antioxidants and its ability to potentially fight off cancer, especially colon cancer, dementia, Alzheimer's disease, liver problems, high cholesterol and high triglycerides, to name just a few.

They also provide the easiest and most straightforward recipe for making it yourself.

We'll provide a link to their article and recipe with this Question of the Week when it's posted at the Gardens Alive website.

Hey, you know, I still have a bunch of unbroken heads.

I think I should try this myself.

But as fascinating as this subject seems, it is not a solution to the long-term storage problem.

So, it's back to the alleged topic for today.

To recap last week's diatribe, the garlic bulbs you harvest should be big and fat, and covered by a paper-like wrapper.

They should be cured for about two weeks in a cool, dry location out of the sun, and turned frequently while enjoying exceptional air circulation.

Underneath a ceiling fan or in the path of a regular, oscillating fan would be ideal.

About a week after it's done curing, cut the leaves and stalk off, brush the dirt off the bulbs, and go to work!

Slide your thumbnail in between the individual cloves and work the bulb until you can easily separate the cloves without damage.

Now don't worry if the outer skin comes off a few cloves, just set them aside for cooking or for the grinding we'll finally explain shortly.

Same for small cloves.

We're only after the big ones right now.

Figure out how many cloves you want to plant this fall for next year's harvest, and set aside that number of big ones for your replanting.

Then pause in the cracking of the remainder of the bulbs apart while you figure out whether you want to gift some, or try to make black garlic.

Don't use cloves to make garlic-infused vinegar.

The master of Pocono Garlic vinegar production, the late Frank Pollack, explained that he only used the green leaves from his harvested garlic to make his legendary concoction.

After you've done that, separate out the cloves from the remaining heads and set aside the largest ones.

If any are bigger than the cloves in your planting hoard, swap them out.

Always plant your largest cloves, use the smallest ones for putting up.

Like now!

You'll need a food dehydrator for this next step.

Hey, they're great tools for the gardener to have around.

Slice off the root portion of your cloves, and remove the wrapper.

Rubbing the cloves around in a bowl of water makes this easy.

Then slice the cloves into chunks, and place them on one of the drying racks.

Depending on the device, the chunks should be good and dry in a few days.

Make sure they are bone-dry!

If any feel a little rubbery, keep drying.

Now, place some of the dried chunks in glass jars with a few of those desiccating pouches that come in bottles of vitamins and such.

Tighten the lid and store it in a cool, dry, dark place.

Like whole coffee beans, you'll grind these up as needed for absolute freshness.

Now select a clean spice jar with a shaker lid insert, remove the insert and drop in a couple of them desiccating things, then grind up the rest of the dried cloves in a dedicated coffee grinder that has never been used for coffee.

Come on, buy a cheap one or make a lucky find at a flea market or thrift store.

Grind your garlic into a powder, use a little funnel to get it all in the jar.

Replace the insert, tighten the lid and store out of direct sun on your dining room table.

Then when you want to add garlic to a dish, you just shake it on.

The flavor is thousands of times better than commercial garlic powder, and will wow your guests.

If you have a lot of garlic, label a few jars for holiday gift-giving.

And whenever you visit anybody, ask if they have any old spice jars.

Well, that sure was some helpful information about preserving great garlic, 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 is still and will forever be... 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 from the Univest Studios of 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 he was accidentally locked in a time-controlled underground vault during a nuclear explosion experiment and emerged without shoelaces.

Yikes!

My producer is threatening to stop grinding my garlic if I don't get out of this studio.

We must be out of time.

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

Please, please include your location...where you live.

And don't forget all of you podcast and radio listeners can see me demonstrate step-by-step my garlic preservation instructions at the video section of...

I'm your host Mike McGrath, and I will continue drying and grinding my garlic in the best-smelling house in the USA until I can see you again next week.