Summer time problems
7:40 am June 26th, 2009Squash Vine Borer
This is a summer scourge that gives us a great disappointment. The moth that lays the eggs seems to pick the more healthy plants to lay her eggs on the stem. If you are observant, you can see a bright pale green egg the size of a pinhead. If you do, scrape it off and keep looking. If the eggs are left to themselves they hatch out and the little grub works into the stem interrupting the flow of water and nutrients so the plant wilts then dies or is unproductive.
There is no way to keep the moth away. It is a bit bigger than a honeybee, is furry with a red tail, and is a quick daytime flyer. It seems reasonable to screen off the plant to keep the pest out but you will also screen out the pollinators that are necessary for pollination. The best management approach is to pull out the affected plants and replace them with a new one. I remember one year putting seed in the ground on 4th of July and we had fruit four weeks later. Of course this relates to zucchini squash the other kinds will be slower growers.
The adult insect seems to prefer stems that are lying on the ground and this means older plants that have lost their vigor. Don’t keep squash plants into their old age. Sowing seed every six weeks will give you a supply of young vigorous plants and you can put out seed until mid September and still get a harvest. Planting too close gives a protective forest of greenery that attracts the moth and makes it hard for you to see new eggs.
It will help you to monitor ripeness in squash if you sow a variety that has yellow fruit, green fruit grows so quickly that it becomes too big for good harvests because you can’t see the speed of fruit development.
Of course there are more kinds of squash than zucchini so it’s a good plan to put out a few of the other kinds even if they are slower growing.
Curly Top of Tomatoes
Desert summers are not the best for growing tomatoes and one of the main problems is an invasion of a virus carried by small insects called leafhoppers. They suck the juices of juicy plants and they are all over the desert. When the annual plants in the desert die out and dry out, the insects leave for greener pastures and mostly these are our gardens. Their favorite home seems to be tomatoes, but they also go for peppers and some other plants. As they come into our gardens, they bring diseases in the same way mosquitoes carry malaria. The symptoms are a distortion of leaves particularly the tender ones and heavy infestation will kill the plant. A light infestation will reduce the plant’s ability to give a good harvest. The best treatment is to pull up and infected plant although some gardeners hope for the best and keep hoping for a recovery. The best thing is to pull out a bad plant and dispose of the body by not putting it in the compost pile. It is a possibility to put out a new plant from a nursery as long as it is not already affected. The leafhopper pest prefers bright sunshine so shading the plants gives some sort of avoidance measure, but once you have curlytop there is no cure.
There used to be hope for variety of tomato that appeared resistant to the disease, but I am not certain that these are still available. In any case they may not be truly adapted to desert conditions and I suggest you keep growing those kinds that give you good fruit. Shade the plants as quickly as you can. It seems that 30% shade is best because if you use too much shade your plants are growing in the dark.
BLOSSOM END ROT AND SUNBURN
A lot of our fruiting vegetables just cannot stand the sunshine. Exposed fruit will show sunburn just like we do after a day in the sun. We cover up if we are sensible and that’s the best thing to do for our tomatoes, bell peppers, and even eggplant. If we read through a seeds’ catalog and find a good variety to eat, we do not want to spoil success by having the fruit damaged by the sun. Some varieties naturally produce their fruit under a canopy of green leaves where as those varieties that expose their fruit are sure to be damaged.
Of course sunburn will be worse, if the plant becomes short of water, but the way to avoid this loss is to provide the shade yourself. An old sheet will be good enough if you don’t want to pay for nursery shade material such as floating row cover or any of the lightweight sheets of plant protection. There is no need to build a structure, you can put the fabric directly over the plant. The wind may blow it off so you will have to keep an eye on things. Green shade cloth or black shade cloth is not recommended they are too dark.
If sunburn occurs just on a small part of the fruit, it can be cut out and you can eat the rest.
Another problem similar to sunburn is a condition called Blossom End Rot, which happens at the far end of the fruit, which turn black. There are speculative suggestions why this happens. Calcium imbalance is one, irregular watering is another, and too quick a growth is a third it is difficult to know the true reason. I think the best way to avoid this problem is by not growing varieties that appear to be more susceptible. It appears that shading is of help. Fruit that has this deformity are usually not worth saving, but if you can cut out the black fruit end perhaps you can eat the remainder.
FINALLY
It’s and easy way to control Bermuda grass by not allowing it to grow. If you dig out the very beginning of a weed’s growth, it will not become an enormous handicap to good gardening. You do not want to be tolerant of any seedling that can become a weed and Bermuda grass is the extreme example of this. Keep digging seedlings and save yourself a lot of work later on.