The roller coaster weather pattern we experienced this spring switched back to prolonged wet and chilly weather last week. While the moisture was needed as soils were quite dry, the constant wetness creates ideal conditions for disease causing organisms. Disease causing organisms are natural inhabitants of the soil and infect grass plants when the environmental conditions are favorable or the plants become weakened by poor growing conditions.  The pathogen is favored by warm, humid weather, wet or compacted soil, drought stress, and low mowing heights.

The spores of these parasitic forms of plant life are spread by wind, air, water, animals, people, insects and mowing.

Important steps to manage plant diseases include proper soil preparation, proper selection of grass seed including ones with a natural genetic resistance to diseases, and application of proper cultural practices.

If you have a fungus, spraying now with Dr. Earth Natural & Organic Fungicide effectively combats a broad spectrum of fungal diseases found in your lawn, on your vegetables, flowers & shrubs. Dr. Earth can be used both as a foliar spray for your plants or a soil drench for your lawn & trees.

Once you have sprayed the fungicide, you should then fertilize your lawn & your plants with Fire Belly Bio-Blast to reintroduce beneficial mycorrhizal fungi.

Healthy soils that have the ability to fight off disease causing pathogens increase the chances of plant survival and thus control the pathogens so they will not multiply in great numbers.  Beneficial microbes fill up the available spaces in the soil so that pathogens cannot become established and destroy healthy plants.

Most lawns recover with changes in environmental conditions and proper cultural practices. For severe cases due to poor soil, poor grass selection, or excessive thatch, the best solution may be renovation. Please give us a call with any questions or to schedule a courtesy consultation for a lawn renovation.

planting for the future.

-By Maggie Oldfield Thayer Nursery

We think there is an easier way: Dr. Earth. Go straight to Dr. Earth. Do not pass go, do not take any detours.

This company, founded 17 years ago by plant biology expert, Milo Shammas, is the best source, we feel, for knowledge, products, and  inspiration.  You will discover the root of organic integrity and along the way, the best garden of your life.

The Dr. Earth products are the very first to combine beneficial living soil organisms, (microbes), with organic fertilizers, to create a bio-technical breakthrough that is revolutionizing the gardening and landscape industries.

At Thayer Nursery Landscaping and Garden Center, we’re proud to offer the Dr. Earth line of products.

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

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

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

SOIL PREPARATION
The key ingredient to a great veggie garden is soil. Put some extra effort into preparing your beds before planting and you will save time and effort in the future. Dig the bed up to break up compacted soil and add ORGANIGRO compost with VERMICULITE to improve drainage. Adding MAG-I-CAL with humates encourages microbial soil life and attracts and increases the population of earthworms. ACTINO-IRON is a biological soil additive that helps prevent early blight as well as contain iron to enhance root development and plant vitality.

CROP SELECTION
Base your selection on what your family likes to eat. For example, plant several varieties of tomatoes, one for munching (CHERRY), one for cooking (ROMA), one for slicing (BIG BOY) and one for conversation (ZEBRA). Don’t forget the some herbs (basil, oregano, cilantro & rosemary.)

WATER
Vegetables need a bit of extra care when it comes to watering. Consistent watering will produce successful results. If you have a large garden, you may want to consider a soaker hose. This will ensure that your plants get an even watering without getting the leaves wet. All you have to do is remember to turn on the hose!

SUMMER CARE
Fertilizing consistently with NEPTUNE’S HARVEST every 2-3 weeks will give your garden the additional boost it needs to ensure a bountiful crop.

Notes:
Low soil moisture combined with high humidity levels at the plant surface favors disease growth. BI-CARB OLDFASHIONED FUNGICIDE is an organic contact fungicide that disrupts the potassium ion balance in the fungus cell, causing the cell walls to collapse.

Spraying with FOLI-CAL Calcium will help prevent and treat plant disorders associated with calcium deficiency & complement good soil fertility by supplying nutrients directly to the foliage and fruit of crops during critical growth stages (blossom end rot on tomatoes, peppers & melons.)

Okay, we know that June 21st is the official start of summer, but, really, we know it starts with the Memorial Day weekend. This is when the yard begins to come to life in earnest, when we carefully examine the damage of winter and see who made it through. We scrutinize the lawn. We frown. We buy new work and garden gloves, rakes, shovels, whatever we may have misplaced or thrown away the previous year. And we start to sweat.
We replace a shrub that just couldn’t take the northeast wind on the northeast corner of the house. We smile at those hardy types who are straight and tall and happy to be back. We get the annuals in if we can, and we perhaps a few more perennials here and there.
We rake.
We dig.
We mulch.
And our backs begin to hurt.
We’re satisfied, yet something is missing. We want bright bursts of color up front and visible. And we want it right now. Not on June 21st.
We want container gardens!
We want our pots of every imaginable shape, matter, and color, stuffed with colorful growing plants that are fragrant and full of personality spilling over on our stairways, ledges, walls, and walkways.
And we want them ready right now.
So at Thayer this weekend, we‘ve decided to set aside time and space all weekend to make your wish come true. Container gardens, right now. Just bring in your pots, buckets, barrels, containers, whatever pleases you, to have filled with flowers and green, and we will help you put it together.

Right now.