- From the dark and sooty Univest Studios at Lehigh Valley Public Media in Bethlehem, P.A., it is time for another aphid-infested episode of chemical-free horticultural hijinks, You Bet Your Garden.

A homeowners' plants are covered with a black and sooty substance.

The cry goes out, "There's a fungus among us!"

I'm your host, Mike McGrath, and on today's show, I'll reveal the real villain behind this dirty tale.

Plus, a heaping helping of your fabulous phone call questions, comments, tips, tricks, suggestions, and frantically fantastic fabrications.

So, keep your eyes and/or ears right here, cats and kittens, because it's all coming up faster than you recruiting an insect army... ...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 later in the show, is there a fungus among us?

Or is something else happening?

We'll tell you what to do and what not to do when crate myrtles start to drop black mold.

In the meantime, more of your moldy phone calls at... Dan, welcome to You Bet Your Garden.

- Hello, Mike.

- Hello, Dan.

How are you doing?

- I'm doing fine.

- And where is Dan doing fine?

- I'm currently in Downingtown, Pennsylvania.

- Okay.

And what's up?

What can we do you for?

- I was at my mother's house last week, helping out a bit.

She's 91.

And cleaning up flowerbeds, weeding.

And apparently, I invited some turkeys to come in and take dust baths.

- Ohh.

So where does she live?

- She's in Mount Laurel, New Jersey.

- Okay.

And there's wild turkeys there?

- Yes, there are.

There are a number of them now.

- Describe to me a little bit about her landscape.

- It's, well, you know, it's a garden.

It's a garden.

It's just a flower garden in front of the house.

It's flat, and in the back of the yard, it's wooded.

So it's a habitat for some critters, deer and turkeys, and other things.

- Well, in one way, that's fabulous.

Deer, I have no use for.

But wild turkeys don't carry ticks, and they're really cool.

- Oh, they're lovely, lovely birds.

- Yeah.

And boy... - And they're big.

- Yeah, they are enormously big.

That's why I mention that story.

Now, you say they were taking dust baths.

- That's what it appeared to be, they sort of hollowed out the ground and they...

They actually got down far enough to dig up some bulbs.

And according to what I saw on the Internet, part of their care for their feathers is they take dust baths.

- Every bird does.

That's one way to get the mites off of them.

And it probably just feels good.

You know, they're scratching themselves all over.

Is there a possibility the backyard is not ornamental?

- That is correct.

It's just lawn.

- Why don't you dig up a portion of the lawn that's out of the way, out of your view, and replace it with sand, or even drop a cheap sandbox over it, like one of those turtle things?

And fill that with play sand, because they're going to encounter that before they would get to the front of the house and, you know, maybe even put some crack corn out.

I don't encourage feeding deer, but I think it would be cool to have wild turkeys around if they're not doing any damage.

- Yes, yes, definitely.

- Otherwise, the cure for something like this is to get chicken wire and lay it down flat on the ground in the flower bed.

Now, that may mean a lot of transplanting, but it's the same with feral cats.

Once you've covered the soil with this weird kind of metallic substance, they can't do anything with it.

Cats won't poop where they can't cover it up.

And turkeys wouldn't be able to get past the chicken wire.

- All right.

Thank you.

- Hey, great question.

Thank you.

Take care.

- All right.

Janette!

Welcome to You Bet Your Garden.

- Well, thanks, Mike.

I'm glad to be here.

- I'm glad to have... - How are you today?

- I'm Duckyyyy!

Thanks for asking.

Ducky is the happiest he's ever been because we just endured, like, six straight days of rain.

I had trouble getting him in from the pond to be on the show today.

Bad duck.

Where are you?

- On Hamilton, New Jersey, in Mercer County.

- Okay.

And what can we do you for?

- Well, I am a happy first-year asparagus gardener with a lovely, dedicated bed that's 2x12.

So it's filled with 24 asparagus plants, and they've been thriving, and the fronds are maybe three feet tall.

They look so pretty.

But as it gets colder, I'm wondering what I should do with all this massive, lush foliage when it dies for the season.

- So were you able to resist the temptation to sample a spear?

- I was.

- Be honest.

- Even though there was one... Yeah, I resisted, even though my husband was very unhappy that he had to wait a whole year, but...or two years.

There was one that was a good pencil size, but I did not cut it.

Well, the rule with first-year asparagus is to resist the temptation and let the plants, you know, bolt, so to speak, and develop into those gigantic fronds.

Now, I advocate you can take a couple of spears next year, but they need to be slightly bigger than a pencil in diameter.

Pencil size is when you stop harvesting.

And then, by the third year, all rules are off, you know, you can go crazy.

Now there is very little agreement about exactly what to do with those fronds.

The one point of agreement is not to touch them until after a really hard frost, and they have clearly lost all their green color, because as you may know, the reason those fronds grow up from the asparagus spears is to collect a lot of late-season solar energy to fuel the growth of the roots underground, which produce the spears, of course.

So, it's very important not to touch them, you know, until you're only gardening with gloves outside.

And I don't mean garden gloves.

I mean Patagonia gloves.

Then you have a choice.

Did you grow all-male varieties, or did you grow Martha Washington?

- Martha Washington.

It's funny you said that.

- Well, there are two types of asparagus.

There are the all-male varieties that do produce more spears, but then, the original heirloom variety, open pollinated is Martha Washington.

There's probably some other early versions, but that's the classic one.

Did you get berries and everything?

- I did on a few of them.

- Yeah.

Now, very important for this question.

Did you see any asparagus beetles?

- No.

- Okay.

- Not yet.

- No, no, no.

They're not going to come out now.

They're lighting up the woodstove, you know?

So, you have two choices.

Without any signs of beetles, you can cut those fronds after a hard frost.

Not just a little mediocre frost.

And you can lay them down as mulch.

Or if you have seen any beetles, you remove the fronds, take them somewhere.

And, you know, I guess, although I'm not a real fan of burning, that's exactly what you should do to destroy the beetles and their eggs.

And then, you would mulch the bed with shredded leaves.

But again, without any sign of the beetles, you are perfectly welcome to cut up those fronds, especially not lay them down, because, as you mentioned, they're huge.

But cut them into pieces and use them to mulch the asparagus bed.

But otherwise, you would remove them and cover the bed with a couple inches of shredded leaves to prevent heaving over the winter when the soil freezes and then thaws.

And again, it's up to you.

If you're like me, and you shred up tons of fall leaves, it's a perfect mulch.

Just make sure the ground is frozen when you apply any mulch.

That'll just keep everything at a steady temperature underground.

- Okay.

So if I'm a nervous ninny and don't know whether I have asparagus beetles in there or not, I can use the mulch somewhere else in my garden?

Just not on the asparagus bed?

- No.

If you're not going to use the fronds on the asparagus out of fear of beetles, you want to destroy it or compost it in a truly hot system, because if you don't, you use it in another bed, well, they'll just breed and come over to your asparagus.

But I don't think you have them.

Why don't you look them up online?

And if you don't recognize them, use the fronds.

Or if you are a nervous nelly, use shredded leaves.

But either way, it sounds like you're off to a great start.

- Yeah.

Okay, good.

Well, I'm glad I need to know I have to wait till a good, hard frost.

- Yes, that's the key here.

All right?

- Thank you very much, Mike.

I'm a big fan of your show.

I've been listening probably since the beginning of your podcast.

- Well, thank you very much.

We appreciate that greatly.

You take care now.

- Alice, welcome to You Bet Your Garden.

- Thank you, Mike, how are you?

- I'm just Duckyyyy!

Thanks for asking, Alice.

How are you?

- I'm very, very well.

I'm calling from Long Beach Island, New Jersey.

- What can we do for you, Alice?

- We're redoing our raised gardens, and we have three beds and we're reconfiguring them.

But what I've noticed is, when we initially did it, we put cardboard down, as you had recommended, and the soil on top of that.

But I have what I'm going to call reeds, I don't know what you want to call them, that are all along the bay.

And although these gardens aren't really near the bay, the reeds have migrated and they're coming up in the garden.

What do you suggest I use as a base to help prevent that happening?

- That's an excellent question.

I'm going to guess that what you have is actually a plant whose name is common reed, but the scientific name is Phragmites.

It is a very controversial plant of that grows along the Jersey and Delaware shores.

And...it's weird.

I think sometimes, people who pretend to be horticulturalists just want to kill plants.

Phragmites is a Native American plant, but there's also a European version that is said to have arrived at our shores in the ballast of ships, you know, when they have to bring in water and let out water.

And apparently, this European version is outcompeting our Native American version.

And what drives me crazy is they don't understand how these plants are stabilizing the shoreline.

I mean, with or without plants like this to work as, kind of, barrier islands, you know, every first house in the row would be gone by now.

So, you know, I mean, it's like, well, there's only a slight difference between them, but we should kill the European versions because they're not from here.

And I'm going, "Wait a minute, we all came over from Europe.

"What are you talking about?"

So, I would suspect you have Phragmites, or a similar plant.

You want to look it up?

It's spelled funkily.

It's PH instead of F. - Okay.

- Phragmites.

Now I consider these to be tremendously valuable plants.

They've become extinct in Europe, believe it or not, which is a problem over there, because Phragmites is the thatch that was used to cover thatched homes.

So it was used... - Oh, how about that?

- Yeah, and they over-harvested it.

And I'm not suggesting that anybody harvest whatever we have because the sea level rise, the fierceness of the storms, we need every possible plant that can protect our coastal areas.

So, will the raised beds be in the same physical place?

- Yes.

- Okay.

So, but you're going to dismantle them and build them anew?

- Yes, correct.

- Okay.

So, what I'll suggest is when you dismantle them, dig up the root system, Phragmites and other reeds travel by underground rhizomes, so they will always creep towards your raised beds.

So, when you're doing this, get rid of as much of the plant tissue underground as you can.

And then, I would line the bottom of the boxes with a material called hardware cloth.

Are you familiar with it?

- I am.

- Okay.

It's, you know, advanced metal screening.

And I would suggest you get the hardware cloth with the smallest holes, so to speak, and I would line the bottom of the beds with that.

Now, Phragmites is like a King Kong of these kind of plants.

So I would double down.

I would put down a layer of hardware cloth, and then, another layer of the same hardware cloth over top.

And then, I would dig as deep a ditch in front of the raised beds as I could manage and drop hardware cloth sideways down in there to kind of divert it from coming into the area.

And then, after that, because this is a very broad leafed plant, you can spray new sprouts with an iron-based herbicide.

The major brand out there is called Iron X, but the active ingredient is just iron, but it is deadly to broadleaf plants, doesn't hurt anything else and actually puts iron in the soil, which is good for many plants.

So, just imagine this creeping underground towards you.

You want to block it up front, and then, you want to block it underneath.

But I think your chances are good.

- Thank you for taking my call.

This will be so helpful as we redo these beds.

- My pleasure.

Good luck to you.

- Thank you, Mike.

Bye-bye.

- Bye-bye.

Time for the Question of the Week, which this time out, we're calling... Nancy, in Milton, Delaware, writes... Well, I knew right away from the "black soot" description that Nancy's problem was not caused by a fungus, but clusters of aphids sucking sap from the leaves, and then, depositing their "honeydew" down below.

I did not know, but soon learned, that her aphids are a species specific to Crape Myrtle, commonly known as the Crape Myrtle aphid.

Duh!

Its scientific name is impossible for me to pronounce, so we'll put it up on the screen during this part of the TV version of the show, and use it in the printed version at the Gardens Alive website.

Although native to Southeast Asia, the species name is clearly Hawaiian, which makes sense as the pest was first discovered and named in Hawaii.

Interestingly, to me, anyway, this specific species of aphid feeds only on crape myrtle and no other plant.

And while they do make the plants look dog-nasty, they don't do any long-term damage to the crape myrtles they're sap-sucking, which means that they would be considered only a cosmetic problem to insect experts.

But that is small comfort to gardeners left with poop-covered plants.

Although these specifically-named pests are specific to Crape Myrtle specifically, the honeydew problem occurs with all species of aphids, and would not be considered strictly ornamental if you park a car underneath, and the frass, a fancy word for bug poop, eats the paint away, which by the number of websites devoted to this problem seems to occur all too frequently.

Now, one remedy suggested for pooped-on plants is to clean the honeydew off with a soft cloth wet with warm water.

You can also spray the grass with a light horticultural oil.

That's the version designed for warm-weather use, not "dormant oil".

This is said to cause the poop to flake off the affected plants.

A very dilute solution of vinegar can be used instead of the plain water.

But keep that water warm.

However, as with our own health, prevention is a lot easier than remediation.

Like most insect pests, only more so, aphids are attracted to plants under stress.

Excessive nitrogen fertilization is a major cause of aphid infestations, as it forces unnaturally lush, new growth full of tasty aphid-attracting sugars.

So if you have a "conventional" lawn service that uses chemical fertilizers, you'll have excessive numbers of aphids.

Same with "pest control".

If the aphids in question were sprayed with a fungicide, only because somebody yelled "fungus" in a crowded theater, the only harm done was to the health of the homeowner, the pesticide applicator, dogs, cats, children, etc.

But it would not address the problem, which is not caused by a fungus.

However, if this tree service recognized the problem for what it really is, they would have used an insecticide which would limit the lifespans of all the above and kill the beneficial insects that are excellent at controlling aphid populations in an environment that isn't overly contaminated with chemicals.

But when a "tree service" is involved, chemical contamination is very likely.

The more visits a conventional service makes, the more they can charge.

So, overuse of chemicals and treacherous wood mulch is the norm.

And if that is the case, you're going to be saying, "Hello, aphids!"

every season.

If you forego these useless, unnecessary, and dangerous treatments, your landscape is likely to take care of itself.

Beautiful, diaphanous, green lacewings are the fiercest predator of these pests.

You can buy them professionally-raised in the egg stage, place the eggs around the plants you wish to protect and "aphid lions" will emerge.

These larval forms of lacewings will hatch out and immediately home in on any nearby aphids.

Note that the early stages of this highly-beneficial insect look like little lobster dragons before they can become winged adults.

Ladybug larva have a very similar appearance to green lacewing babies before they transmogrify into the ladybird beetle we all know and love.

You can purchase live adult ladybugs from many sources.

Release these adults at sunset into a thoroughly wet garden to avoid their flying away.

They'll mate, lay their eggs near aphid colonies, and the babies that emerge will chow down on as many as 50 of these pests a day.

Note, the multicolored Asian ladybugs that many people dislike because they seek shelter in homes over the winter are the alpha predators of these aphids, which makes sense as they're both from the same part of the world.

If you are lucky enough to have them decide to stay with you, fill a clean bag for a canister vacuum with shredded straw, shredded leaves or raffia, moisten the contents with a mister, suck the ladies into the bag, and store it until spring in the fridge.

This trapping is easy to do, as the ladies almost always cluster in one corner of an upstairs room.

Well, that sure was some hopefully useful information about what to do when aphids appear and poop on your plants, now, wouldn'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 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 Superman accidentally hit him upside the head with a large chunk of red kryptonite.

Yikes!

My producer is threatening to encourage my aphids 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 include your location, and accept our apologies that nobody had cleared the voicemail for that number.

Now you can call us and actually leave a message.

I'm your host, Mike McGrath, and I'm busy flame-weeding my tomato plants that refuse to die with honor, trying to find a bed for the last of my garlic cloves and wondering just where my last batch of potatoes was planted.

I probably won't get all that done, but I will see you again next week.