Finding Cures For Summer Ailments
This spring and summer’s weather has played havoc with many of our plants, including vegetables. Here are a few problems we can blame on the weather.
Question: Why aren’t the zucchini developing?
- Susan, Spokane.
Answer: It’s not very often we have to question the productivity of zucchini. But, zucchini, like other vining crops, must have bees to pollinate its flowers. When the weather is cold or hot or windy or rainy, bees don’t like to work as hard.
The blossoms may be pollinated enough to get the fruit going, but not enough to keep it growing. If bees aren’t spotted working around the garden,then perhaps a little hand pollinating is called for. Take a cotton ball or Q-tip and dab it into the male blossoms. Transfer the yellow pollen to the female blossoms (the ones with the small zucchini under the flower). This task is best accomplished in the morning.
The zucchini may also be suffering from blossom end rot. This is a cultural condition caused by a lack of calcium. When the soil is allowed to dry out between waterings, the plant may be deprived of calcium. Keep the plant moist at all times. After a thorough soaking, mulch the soil with 2-3 inches of compost or herbicide-free grass clippings.
Question: How do you make manure tea?
- Sally, Spokane.
Answer: Oh, this is great stuff for flowers. Place two heaping shovels full of manure into a large bucket. (Rabbit manure is best. It is very high in nitrogen, phosphate and potassium). A wide, shallow bucket is better than a skinny, deep one.)
Fill the bucket with water, cover with a piece of Reemay row cover or cheese cloth and let it steep all day in the sun.
Then bail out the liquid and feed your plants. They will love you for it.
Until more information is available regarding the relationship of fresh manure and E. coli, fresh manure tea is not recommended as fertilizer for edible crops.
Question: There are dead branches, here and there in my apple tree. They are hooked over like a shepherd’s crook with brown leaves still clinging to them. What is causing this?
- Sharon, Spokane
Answer: Your apple tree has a serious bacterial disease called “fire blight.” Fire blight can attack any plant in the rose family - apples, pears, roses, quince, hawthorn, etc.
The bacteria enters the trees through natural openings, mainly the blossoms. It also can enter through pruning wounds or wounds created by animals and tree-feeding insects.
The disease seems to spread rapidly under prolonged periods of wetness and high humidity. Ideal temperatures for this disease are 65 to 86 degrees. It is spread by rain and insects.
About the only thing that can be done for fire blight at this stage is to prune it out. Try to cut at least four inches below the infected area. Always sterilize the tools between each cut.
(Sterilizing may seem like a lot of extra work, but it will help prevent the spread of the disease to other parts of the tree. Simply carry a small pail containing one part bleach to nine parts water. Dip the tools into the solution after each cut.)
Small infected twigs can simply be broken off, reducing the possibility of spreading the disease with pruning tools. Fire blight spreads rapidly, so watch your trees and plants closely.
Question: How do we get rid of mushrooms growing throughout the yard?
- Susan and Mike, Albany, N.Y.
Answer: Obviously many of us share the same problems no matter where we live. I wish there was a simple solution to controlling mushrooms, but there isn’t.
Mushrooms are an outcrop of an active fungus working beneath the soil. The fungus may be beneficial or harmful. In most cases, sporadic outcrops are a sign that a fungus is busily decomposing organic matter in the ground. It may be a tree or shrub that has sloughed off a root. Perhaps a tree or shrub has been removed and the remaining roots are decomposing and rotting away. Or it may be just decomposing thatch.
Whatever organic material is decomposing in the soil, mushrooms may pop up regularly until the decomposition is completed. This may take one season or a number of years.
Speed up the decomposition by loosening the soil with a spading fork. Rake up the mushrooms and destroy them.
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