Archive for the ‘Lawn and Garden’ Category
53,600,000 results for organic gardening
Wednesday, August 18th, 2010
Just now, when we googled “organic gardening”, there were 53, 600,000 results!
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At Thayer Nursery Landscaping and Garden Center, we’re proud to offer the Dr. Earth line of products.
Most Un-Wanted: Cedar–Apple Rust
Sunday, August 8th, 2010
Wanted For: defoliating apple leaves & for just being gross!!
Description: bright yellow-orange-red spots on apple leaves and orange galls with ‘horns’
Hangout: juniper (eastern red cedar) & apple trees including crabapples
Kryptonite: Lime –Sulfur Spray, Home Orchard Spray
The fungus that causes this disease moves back-and-forth between Eastern red cedars (actually junipers) and both fruiting & ornamental apple trees. In order to complete its life cycle this fungus must spend part of its life on both. Therefore, it is possible to eliminate the disease by eliminating the cedars within the given area of the apple tree. However, the spores can be wind borne up to 2-3 miles, so eradication of the disease is often impossible or impractical. Nonetheless, if cedars are not too numerous on your property, the removal of junipers around the immediate apple tree can certainly reduce the spores reaching the apple foliage & fruit.
The spores drift through the air mostly at night and early morning. If it lands on the apple’s leaves & fruit and remains wet for 4-6 hours, the spores infect the leaves of the apple tree. After several weeks, yellow spots develop on the infected apple leaves and fruit. By mid-summer the spots appear slightly raised and light-colored & are visible on the underside of the leaf. Spores are released and the wind carries them to nearby junipers. Infected juniper needles and twigs show no symptoms of infection initially. Inspect them closely the next spring for small, green swellings (immature galls). The galls reach full size by the end of the next growing season but do not mature and develop the orange gelatinous tendrils until the following spring (about 20 months after infection.) This bizarre-looking structure is actually the fruiting stage of the fungus. The “horns” release the spores that infect the apple trees.
Many sulfur fungicides are effective against rust. Begin spraying in spring and repeat throughout the summer as needed. Spraying the juniper is not recommended because cedar-apple rust rarely causes significant damage to this host. Prune dormant galls from juniper during the fall, winter and early spring before the orange tendrils begin to erupt from galls.
planting for the future.
-By Maggie Oldfield Thayer Nursery
Most Un-Wanted: Lily Leaf Beetle
Sunday, August 1st, 2010
Wanted For: an invasive species that dines on & destroys ornamental lilies, also exhibits an interesting habit of personal hygiene – covering themselves with their own excrement
Description: beetle has bright scarlet body & black legs, head, & antennae and the Larvae resemble slugs with swollen orange, brown, yellowish or even greenish bodies and black heads
Hangout: asiatic lilies
Kryptonite: Neem, Spinosad, Pyrethrins
The adult beetles stay alive throughout the winter and emerge early in the spring, when they begin looking for food and a mate. The adult females lay their eggs on the underside of lily leaves and the females produce between 250 and 450 eggs. The eggs appear in April or May and hatch within eight days.
The young larvae feed on the underside and the upper surface of lily leaves and sometimes on lily buds. This feeding period, which lasts 16 to 24 days, is the most destructive. From there, the beetles drop to the soil and pupate, emerging as adults about 16 to 22 days later & feed throughout the rest of the growing season.
And their personal hygiene leaves something to be desired: they secrete and carry their excrement on their backs. While they feed, the lily leaf beetles cover their bodies with their own excrement, giving them a grotesque appearance. It is some sort of defensive mechanism – it makes them look like a bird dropping, warding off predators and parasites.
If you only have a few plants in your garden, hand-picking adults and eggs can be effective (we prefer not to handle larvae, although there is no danger in doing so). Neem is most effective – it will repel beetles and kill young larvae, but must be applied every 5 to 7 days after the eggs hatch. Spinosad will kill the larvae.
planting for the future.
-By Maggie Oldfield Thayer Nursery
Keep an Eye out for Two Tomato Trouble Makers
Monday, July 26th, 2010
Blossom End Rot
Blossom end rot looks like the bottom of the tomato is rotting away. The bottom is shrunken and black.
Blossom-end rot is a physiologic disorder associated with calcium. Calcium is required for normal cell growth. When a rapidly growing fruit is deprived of necessary calcium, the tissues break down, leaving sunken lesion at the blossom end. Blossom-end rot is induced when demand for calcium exceeds supply. This may result from low calcium levels, drought stress, excessive soil moisture fluctuations as well as rapid, vegetative growth due to excessive nitrogen. This reduces uptake and movement of calcium into the plant.
Simply, it is a lack of calcium & a watering problem. The plant needed calcium at some point in its development of the fruit and there wasn’t enough water to transport the calcium up to the fruit. So this condition develops.
The solution is to fertilize with Calcium (FOLI-CAL) and be consistent with your watering.
Monterey FOLI-CAL
Tomato Cracking
Cracking of the skins is mostly a problem of inconsistent watering or water availability. The plants take it up and grow too quickly for the skins to expand. It mostly seems to happen when you water after a dry spell.
The solution is to water more thoroughly and more consistently. You will get more consistency and far fewer cracks.
-By Maggie Oldfield Thayer Nursery
Six Tips for Dealing with Tomato Blight
Monday, July 19th, 2010
At this time of year, there are three kinds of “tomato blight” that you’re likely to see in your garden.
Blight One: Septoria Leaf Spot
Septoria Leaf Spot is the most common blight, and it appears roughly around the end of July and starts out as small round black or brown rotting marks on the lowest leaves. It works its way up the plant to hit all the leaves but it starts from the bottom first. You will still get fruit if you have this problem.
Blight Two: Early Blight
Early Blight is the second most regularly seen tomato blight. It usually appears about the same time as the Septoria but it has concentric target-shaped marks, the spots on the leaves look like targets with circles within circles. This tomato blight spreads all over the plant and you will still get fruit but the crop will be reduced.
Blight Three: Late Blight
Late Blight is the least common of these tomato blights. It appears later than the previous two and the first symptoms you will see are watery type lesions on the lower leaves. If you get this one, you won’t have to ask what you have because the elapsed time from the time you first see it to the time the plant wilts and dies is about a week. If your tomato plants simply shrivel up and die with big brown spots on the leaves and it seems to happen overnight, your plants are suffering from Late Blight.
What Can Be Done
Generally if you’ve already seen the problem, there’s not a lot you can do. A preventative organic spray of Lime-Sulphur or Serenade mix will slow down the spread of Septoria and Early Blight but the real key is in the prevention of the problem. The cure rests in good gardening techniques rather than any kind of magic spray.
Mulch
Mulching will reduce the stress on the plant and it will prevent “splash-back” from the ground to lower leaves during rainstorms. The lower leaves on tomato plants tend to be dirt splashed because rain or irrigation tends to splash dirt up. This dirt can contain the spores for blight.
Rotate Crop
Do not plant any crop in the same place more than one year. Planting in the same spot from year to year is simply an invitation to problems. Spores build up in the soil and there’s little you can do to prevent them from using your tomatoes as a food source.
Don’t Water At Night
Do not water in the evening. You want your leaves to be dry going into the evening. Damp leaves & dark conditions are ideal for spore starting and keeping those leaves dry is the way to keep them healthy.
Do Not Crowd
You really do need to space tomato plants apart. Staking the plants and giving them at least two square feet each is the best way to keep the leaves dry. Also prune off the lower leaves. This lets the air and sunlight into the fruit and it also reduces watersplash.
Don’t Compost
The average composter does not get hot enough to kill the overwintering spores so the best thing you can do is bag up the waste.
If you see a branch with a problem, prune it out immediately. Do not let it sit on the plant to infect all other parts of the plant. Also, pull out any weeds from around your plants – they reduce air circulation, suck up nutrients and can act as a host for tomato blight.
Select Disease Resistant Plants
If you have a problem with tomato blight, plant cultivars with disease resistance. Look for letters after the name of the plant that might say “V” for verticillium resistant, or “F” for fusarium resistant. While not specifically blight resistant, they do have better overall resistance to tomato blight problems than those without those initials.
-By Maggie Oldfield Thayer Nursery