- From the seedy studios of Univest at Lehigh Valley Public Media in Bethlehem, P.A., it is time for another inflation-fighting episode of chemical-free horticultural hijinks, You Bet Your Garden.

Prices for fresh produce are predicted to rise rapidly after California's devastating floods.

Are you ready to protect your wallet?

I'm Mike McGrath, and on today's show, we'll help you grow more of your own fresh food, this time featuring the unsurpassed crops of summer.

Plus, your fabulous phone call questions, comments, tips, tricks, suggestions and curiously concise condemnations.

So keep your eyes and/or ears right here, cats and kittens, because it's all coming up faster than you picking out your perfect tomato... 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, from the Univest Studios at Lehigh Valley Public Media, in Bethlehem, P.A.

I am your host, Mike McGrath.

Coming up on today's show, more money-saving advice about food that you can easily grow to feed your family without breaking the bank.

Today, we're going to focus on beans, both string beans, which you may call green beans, but you're wrong, and beans for saving over winter, like pinto and other... You know, I don't know.

Pinto.

Just like pinto beans.

Okay?

And we will continue with our new feature, just for you podcast and terrestrial radio listeners, in which we will discuss a pertinent story in the news.

This week, what do you do with more manure than this show produces in a month?

If you watch us on TV, you better check out the hour-long audio version of our show.

And finally, I want to thank Jim for bringing in true Philadelphia soft pretzels.

It really made my day, although I've been chastised by the crew for not putting mustard on them.

I'm having them neat because it's been a long time since I had a real soft pretzel.

All right, let's get rolling at... Cindy, welcome to You Bet Your Garden.

- Thanks, Mike.

I'm in Salina, Kansas, which is in kind of the north central part of Kansas.

- Okay.

How are you?

- I'm great!

It's raining here today, which is unusual for our part of the country.

So it's really good.

- Yeah, talk to California about that.

Right, what can we do for Cindy in Salinas?

- I've got my tomatoes.

I've grown tomatoes for years, and I kind of know what the diseases look like.

But the last few years, my tomato leaves have not gotten the spots or turned yellow or, you know, or I don't think they've got spider mites.

I can't actually see spider mites on them, but they just kind of go crispy and fall off like there's no in between, like green and then, crispy and fall off.

And then, the whole plant just does that and it's gone.

- Well, that sounds like a new breakfast cereal, crispy tomatoes!

Part of this nutritional breakfast.

Yeah.

Well, you already told me the answer in that Kansas.

The part of Kansas, at least you are in, is generally a very dry climate, right?

- Right, and hot.

- And hot in the summer.

I think they're just burning up from the heat and from lack of adequate water.

How do you water?

- I usually just put a hose at the root, and let it go for a while.

- How long is a while?

- Oh, I don't have any idea.

Just kind of a...

When I remember to move it.

Sometimes I remember to put my timer on and I'll let it go at not a drip, but a pretty good pace for, like, 15 minutes.

- Okay.

You want to go back to the drip.

Just think of me, it'll be real easy.

And let that go for a solid hour.

And don't put the hose end right next to the plant.

Situate it about 4-6 inches out, because that's where the roots are.

End of July, early August.

Are we talking about 100-degree days being fairly normal?

- Yeah, and on through August.

Yeah.

- And are the plants in full sun?

- Yeah.

- Okay, so two things.

You need to water them longer and more deeply.

For instance, if you see the first leaf turning crispy, you really want to be aggressive and get out there.

Watering first thing in the morning is the absolute best.

That's when the plant's leaves and pores, and every part of its body, so to speak, are open and receptive to receiving water.

Nighttime, evening is fine, but only because you're watering at the base of the plant.

You never want to wet the leaves overnight, but don't bother doing this if the temperature is like 85 or above.

The plants are then closed up tight to retain their moisture, and you're just wasting water.

- Okay.

- All right.

Well, good luck to you.

And it sounds like you better not forget the sunscreen when you're out there this summer.

- Oh, man, I have those sleeves.

I have a hat.

I have the whole deal.

Thank you for your help.

- My pleasure.

Take care.

- Robert, welcome to You Bet Your Garden.

- Thanks for having me.

I really appreciate it.

- Well, thanks for being had.

We really appreciate that.

How are you doing?

- I'm good, I'm good.

I'm a big fan of the show, so I'm excited to be calling in.

- We'll take care of that excitement pretty quickly.

Think you'll regret your choice in about 30 seconds.

Where are you?

- I'm in Pennsylvania, right outside of Philadelphia.

Springfield, Montgomery County.

- All right, what can we do you for?

- So I recently moved out of the city to a house that has this really beautiful old, spectacular oak tree.

It's a white oak tree.

It's in our backyard.

And, you know, it's such a cool tree.

It's like the coolest part of the house.

And I wanted to, you know, make sure that we care for it in the most proper way to ensure, you know, its health and it's doing okay.

And so, I called a couple tree services to come by.

I picked ones that said that they were arborists and, you know, to get a feel for, you know, if they had any recommendations, and they made some recommendations and I, you know, kind of wanted a second opinion from you to see if, you know, what they said sounded reasonable because I don't really have any knowledge of it.

- And you're the guy who blew up our Facebook page.

- Oh, really?

- Yeah, we got 4-5 times the numbers of likes or loves we normally get.

Last I looked, there were almost 50 comments, a whole bunch of shares, and... - Wow, I didn't realize that.

- Yeah, no.

So I remember you, I was going back and forth, checking the numbers.

I felt like we had won the lotto or something.

- That's awesome.

I'm not a big Facebook guy, but, you know, I'll check it out.

- Well, you're right.

This is a beautiful oak.

I'm looking at it now.

The house looks interesting, and I love how this greenery is cut out around the oak.

And we can see the root flower of the oak, which means... And we can also see it fully leafed-out.

And those two things tell me you don't need to do a darn thing here.

- Can I just tell you, like what they recommended?

- Please.

- And pick your brain?

- Please.

Slim pickings.

- They told me that the small little, like, fresh branches that grow off the main branches are something called suckers, and they need to be removed.

I mean, I could just stop at each one, or tell you all... - All right, I'll tell you right now, suckers come up from the ground.

There are no suckers around your tree.

I'm guessing what the tree has are called water sprouts.

And those are new branches that go straight up from a branch that's, you know, more lateral.

- Yeah, that's what they are.

- And I believe you told us in your original email or whatever that these water sprouts leaf out beautifully and make the tree appear more full.

- Yeah.

And I just thought, the tree wants more leaves and it's sprouting these things, and it's getting a lot of nice leaves from them.

Why would you cut them off, was kind of my feeling.

- Everything you cut off that is leafing out is stealing energy from the tree.

I don't know if the people who said this kind of thing try to figure out questions and answers using Yahtzee dice, or whatever.

But you were given some really poor advice, and I'm glad you reached out to us.

They also wanted to fertilize the tree, right?

- Yeah, they said that they would use this special machine.

They didn't describe it that like, you know, I guess it drills into the ground and injects fertilizer into the roots of the tree, not just like spread on the ground.

- Oh, so instead of spreading fertilizer on the ground around the tree, so that the rain could slowly leach it down to the roots, were going to kill some of the roots with power drills.

- Yeah, that's what it sounded like.

- You have to realize that if you call somebody to come to look at a tree, they're going to find something to do.

- Right.

- And the time to call an arborist, a certified arborist, is when you first notice something going wrong with the tree.

Then they may give you good advice.

- Great.

Thank you so much for taking my call.

- All right!

My pleasure.

Thank you for waking up our Facebook page.

- Yeah, I'll take a look at it.

Thank you.

- All right.

Good work, man.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

- Bye-bye.

John, welcome to You Bet Your Garden.

- Thanks, Mike.

Happy to be on.

- I'm happy to have you here.

How are you doing, man?

- I'm doing good, calling from King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.

- What can we do you for, man?

- So I've been listening to your show for about ten years, and I love a lot of your advice.

And I'm trying to find the best use of some aquarium water, dirty aquarium water.

I know you say always, if you have a lot of something, that doesn't mean you should use it.

So we have, in my case here, we have about five gallons a week of freshwater that has the, let's say, organic and nutrient-rich water that's left after fish and crayfish, and a turtle are living in it.

So I get about five gallons a week of this.

And I'm wondering about the best uses for it.

- Cool, so you got you got a crayfish in there?

- Yeah.

- What'd you do, catch him in a pond or something?

- He comes up the creek that runs not a couple of hundred yards from our house that goes down into the river.

- Okay, there's only one important question for me to ask.

Do you medicate the water?

- Not at all.

The only thing that goes in there is the chlorine neutralizing drops and food.

Pretty much.

- All right, about the chlorine, I'm going to take a little divergence here.

So, you're using city water, tap water?

- Yeah, tap water and we neutralize it with the aquarium treatment drops.

- You can greatly reduce the chlorine by putting the water in buckets and stirring them fiercely, and then, letting them sit out for 24 hours and stirring them every once in a while.

The chlorine will then escape into the air, and you'll maybe be able to reduce the amount of drops.

- All right, yeah, I'll have to try that.

- But the basic question is super easy to answer.

This is some of the richest, most nutrient-dense material you can imagine.

It is great for just about any plant.

As you say, it's got a lot of fish poop in there.

And, you know, some people will buy that, you know, processed and bagged.

The late J.I.

Rodale, who created organic gardening, often said that anything aquatic, plants seem to really enjoy more than other substances.

So absolutely, whether you're dredging a pond or cleaning out your aquarium, that should go on your garden.

The only problem I can think of right now is your plants are dormant, but you have to clean it on a regular basis.

- Yeah, every week, about five gallons.

- And I'm not sure if there's a way to protect it, because technically we would call this gray water.

And if you don't use gray water right away, it becomes black water.

So do you have compost piles?

- I do have a compost pile.

It's open, mostly shredded leaves, and I'll throw some coffee grounds in there, some eggshells in there, but 90% shredded leaves.

- I would cover it and use the aquarium water as the sole source of moisture for your dried leaves.

And that way, you'll utilize this material over the winter.

And then, when spring and summer arrive, you'll be able to use it directly on your garden.

With one caveat, you don't want to use it on plants that have just sprung up from seed, or transplants that have been in the ground less than a week or two.

But after that, go crazy.

- And is there any problem with, if I have excess, throwing it on the lawn, or should I dilute this, or use it straight, do you think?

- Yeah, it's not warm compost tea or anything like that.

You don't need to dilute it.

And yes, it would be a good thing for your lawn, which I presume is a cool-season lawn.

So it's not completely dormant.

And I think you'll find the grass will be greener where the fish have been pooping.

- All right, sounds good.

- All right.

Thanks, man.

That's a good question.

- Thank you, Mike.

- You take care.

Bye-bye.

As promised, the inevitable Question of the Week, which, like the previous two, has not been a question.

It has been purely instructional.

All right, we're calling this...

I made that up.

The punishing storms that have lashed California for more than a month seem to have finally abated, but the damage is done.

A major crop producer, California's Central Valley, was not spared when the state was battered with, wait for it, 400-600% above the average amount of rain, according to the National Weather Service.

Not 4-6 times the average, but 4-600 times the average.

This is beyond even my hyperactive imagination.

I have to imagine that most of the current crop is lost.

So look for lettuce and other produce prices to soar even higher, and the farm soils are almost certainly contaminated.

These kinds of massive floods carry human waste, chemicals, and other nasty stuff.

So two weeks ago, we urged you to stock up on lettuce seeds.

Ding-ding!

We were right!

Last week, we discussed peas, and both crops are fun and healthy foods to grow in the spring.

But there are other cool-weather crops.

Radishes, for instance, are ready to harvest a mere three weeks to a month after you plant the seed in decently warm soil.

I personally will be growing the classic variety French breakfast this spring, although I doubt I'll have any of them for breakfast.

And you should pull springtime radishes about three weeks after the seeds sprout.

Otherwise, the roots are going to get woody.

Spring radishes are a classic eat-at-any-size crop.

So harvest with abandon and plant a fresh run every two weeks or so until hot weather arrives.

The leafy greens are also edible, incredibly nutritious, as well.

And the seed pods that will appear if you wait too long to pick, they're also edible.

You can eat the whole plant.

Two kinds, two, count them.

Two.

Spring radishes that mature fast, and fall varieties that are left in the ground to grow large for winter storage.

Make sure you plant the right type for the season.

Now, cabbage, broccoli, and other crops of spring are also worth a look.

But I want to talk today about summertime standards so that you can order your seeds early before all the good varieties are sold out.

Beans!

There are two basic types.

Bush beans, which produce abundantly, despite the plants only getting a foot or two tall.

Those are great for containers.

And pole beans, which require a tall trellis.

Note, some pole beans are self-supporting via their clingy tendrils, while other types will flop down on the ground because you didn't pay attention to the descriptions when you ordered them.

A good number of string bean varieties are available as compact bush beans.

I plant these in containers so I don't have to bend over to pick them.

By the way, I would call them green beans, but some types are purple or yellow.

Edible at any size.

Picking early and often yields the best flavor and a bigger harvest.

Beans meant to be stored dry for winter soups and stews are left on the vine until the pods turn brown, and the beans inside the pot rattle when you shake them, just like me.

When young, you can harvest some for fresh green bean eating, but do not pick them young if you want storage beans.

The classic variety scarlet runner attracts hummingbirds with its bright red flowers, and the dried beans are a dramatic black with purple highlights.

Hmm.

Or maybe they're purple with black highlights.

Anyway, they're so pretty that people make jewelry out of them.

All beans are direct seeded outdoors after the soil warms up and they benefit from the same inoculant that you should have used on your peas.

All right, now we're getting down to the good stuff.

Tomatoes!

Again, there are two types.

Determinant, or bush varieties, stay short and stocky, and are great for large containers.

"The book" says that most of the fruits are going to be produced in one large flush.

But in my experience, they continue to flower and fruit if you pick them promptly when they turn ripe.

Indeterminate tomatoes grow tall, up to 10-14 feet over the course of a season.

And these will definitely continue to flower and fruit until frost!

Or you kill them, whichever comes first.

Many classic heirloom varieties like Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, and mortgage lifter are indeterminate and require sturdy support.

If you're not willing to work for your reward, stick with indeterminate varieties.

We'll have more about summer's favorite fruit next week.

And/or you can buy a copy of my book, The You Bet Your Garden Guide to Growing Great Tomatoes.

It's a fun read!

And I think I make like $0.17 a copy.

Peppers.

Again, two types, hot and sweet.

Hot peppers come in an amazing variety of shapes, colors, and heat levels.

Unless you're planning on diluting the heat by making a hot pepper sauce with vinegar, try not to be the He-Man of horticulture by growing nasty hot varieties like the notorious Ghost Pepper.

Sweet, like me!

So-called green peppers are unripe, not at all sweet, and provide little nutrition.

All green peppers will ripen up to a beautiful red, yellow, orange, or chocolate color and are super nutritious flavor bombs.

Many big peppers require a long growing season, so pay attention to the days to maturity listings.

More on peppers next week, as well.

And as we've said on previous shows, if you've never started seeds indoors before, plan to purchase professionally-grown plants at your local independent garden center, or pick your seeds and give them to an experienced gardener to start for you.

We finish with sunflowers.

Oh, what a shock!

There are two types!

Who'd've thunk it?!

Sunflowers grown for seed, like Russian mammoth, reach ten feet tall and higher.

Ornamental sunflowers range in size from a tiny foot high to maybe about four or so feet, and come in a wide variety of dazzling colors.

Yeah, you can't eat the ornamental sunflowers, but bees and butterflies love them.

And as the Pennsylvania Dutch like to say, you should grow some just for nice.

Well, that sure was some timely advice about the musical fruit, 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 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 at Lehigh Valley Public Media, in 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 by Merv Griffin and Wink Martindale.

Yikes!

My producer is threatening to bake my beans 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 of a message teeming towards our garden shore at...

Please include your location!

I'm your beano-neato host, Mike McGrath, and I'll be rummaging through a kitchen table's worth of seed packets until I can see you again next week.