Veggies affected by hot weather

My string beans are yielding next to nothing this year. It’s the first year I have had them in this place in the garden. They’ve had lots of flowers but have almost no beans. My tomatoes are the same way. There are no bugs around, and the plants look healthy.

I also planted a tree hydrangea in the spot where the beans are. It’s not doing well at all, but its companion (bought at the same time yet planted in a pot) is doing well and getting ready to bloom. I used Miracle-Gro and mulch.

Mary Ellen Rova

For once we had the nice, long, hot summer we think of as the perfect summer. But perfect came with a major downside this year: around 20 days of above 90 degree heat. Most vegetables love warm weather, but once it gets above 90 or so, many vegetables quit or slow their production. Really hot temperatures affect the pollination of the flowers. When flowers don’t get properly pollinated, they drop off the plant. This is what happened to your beans and tomatoes. Squash, peppers and cucumber can also be affected like this.

Now that it has cooled off, production should pick up again. If the frosts hold off for a while, you should get more tomatoes and maybe some beans if the plants haven’t become too old.

The heat probably affected your hydrangea too. Try deep soaking it for a couple of hours twice a week for a while to build up the soil moisture.

How to get rid of horsetail

I have these weeds I can’t seem to get rid of in my yard, even with Roundup. They look like thin, green bamboo shoot-type weeds, and they multiply like crazy. Even when I try to pull them, I don’t feel like I get all the roots. Do you have a recommendation?

Deanna Carr

Hate to tell you, but they sound like horsetail, aka snakeweed or formally equisetum. Horsetail is a very ancient plant that does not have a water transport system like most of our plants. That means the plant can’t move most herbicides around to do their work. The weed also has an extensive deep root system that easily survives pulling of its shoots. Most people get it in loads of contaminated topsoil.

The only way to attempt to get rid of it is to starve it out. Early next spring, clear the areas of any top growth. Apply Casaron, a pre-emergent that prevents seedlings from coming up, to the area. Don’t substitute any other pre-emergent like Preen; they don’t work as well. Cover the area with eight to 10 layers of newspaper and two to three inches of mulch. Leave this alone for the next year, pulling out any stray stems that might pop up. Repeat as needed. You can plant through the mulch and paper the following year. Good luck. Horsetail has survived for hundreds of millions of years for a reason.