By George! - A Blog!

The weather is cooling, especially at night, and our plants like it.  The heat has gone out of the sun but there’s a residue of heat in the the soil that allows good germination of the cool-season vegetable seeds and which encourages good root development of those plants that we set out.  All is well in our gardens–except for the germination of a new set of winter weeds which have the same enjoyment of  the environment that our crop plants are experiencing.  Go after them before they take a firm hold. Hand picking is good exercise for you but it’s not as quick as using a “hula-hoe” if you have planted your vegetables in rows.

Some few gardeners have moved the drip lines to the sides of their plot, thinking, no doubt, that they are using their space more efficiently, but this leaves a dry strip in the center of their plot. This, when it evaporates, builds up a strip of salty soil which discourages strong germination of seeds and eventually affects plants that you’ve recently set out.

Mulches are for the summer months, now we want the winter sun to keep our soil warm so keep it clear so it absorbs that heat. This will allow you to make succession sowings of lettuce, broccoli and cabbage, and other fast growers. The slower-growing vegetables such as  chard and kale, will give us harvest right through until next May or June if you clip off the lower leaves once a week

If you are fond of onions, remember that your Board of Directors will be giving you a bunch of young onion seedlings for planting out in January. We’ll be giving you advice on this worthwhile use of your space and time. If you haven’t planted onions before, ask your neighborly gardeners about their  enjoyment of last year’s harvest. Onions are best planted at the far end of the drip lines (where the green valves are not) because there come a time, when they are starting to ripen, when it’s best for the soil to dry out.  If we keep the soil moist the onions tend to keep growing–or flowering!)

There should be no need for covering your plants against night frosts until mid-December–and we’ll write about that in good time.  For now we want to benefit from our beautiful warm fall sunshine.

Finally, some nurseries are selling strawberry plants at sale prices and its a good time to set them out.  Give them space to grow strong, maybe produce flowers now and certainly flower in January and February for a harvest in May, June and July.

The gardens are looking great, you’ve worked well and timely.  Enjoy the good fresh food.

Everyone recognizes the value of bees so why aren’t more people people a hive in their yard? After all, bees are busy and intent on rearing their brood and storing food for themselves.  We don’t have to spend a lot of time every day looking after them ( as we have to with chickens, rabbits and goats).

Maybe we don’t know enough about bees to get started, and there’s the expense of the equipment and trouble of storing it while we’re not using it.  But now there’s much promise in a “new” system that is becoming popular.  It’s called Top Bar System and building a box for the bees is cheap and within our capability.  The management is simpler because the principle is to leave the bees to themselves and although they don’t produce as much honey as the traditional Langstroth hive you take small amounts of comb as they become available.  It’s a win-win way!

Did you know there is a Bee Club in Tucson?  It will next meet at the South-West bees shop at  844 S Sixth Street in south Tucson at 7.00 in the evening on October 4, a Tuesday.  The topic will be harvesting honey and assembling foundation frames.  It’s a group of interested beekeepers of all degrees of knowledge and meetings are free.   See you there!    George

Not everyone loves bees but almost everyone recognizes how important they are in pollinating flowers that lead to fruit that we eat. Without bees we would be in a terrible starvation.

Many people keep bees in their backyard but getting started involves a lot of expense and a lot of work so they are unusually keenly enthusiastic on their hobby (which brings in money too).

The introduction of an old way of beekeeping is becoming popular and it’s remarkably different from the common Langstroth hive made up of several boxes containing wax foundation on which the introduced bees raise brood and store surplus honey. the expenses are great because you need to buy the hive boxes ( which are very heavy when full of honey), wooden frames, wax foundation, , tools, and a centrifugal extractor, glass jars for the honey and then you’ll have to store everything, ready for the next extraction at the end of the year ( which itself is back-breaking labor intensive).

The new/old system does not require a heavy investment of cash or work. You can make the smaller simpler hive of rough wood yourself and there are no supplies and equipment needed. It measures four feet by 2 ft and is raised off the ground by legs to any height you want for ease of working the bees.

The new/old system provides comb honey which is taken little by little as it is produced by the bees. The old Langstroth system provides lots of liquid honey at the end of the season.

The new/old system is called Top Bar Beekeeping because you provide bars on which the bees build their own comb in a traditional way. As the bees bring in more nectar and pollen you add more top bars and as the queen lays more eggs which hatch into new bees the hive needs more room, so you add more top bars. Soon you’ll be eating the comb honey which you get by pulling out a laden top bar. It’s a gradual steady harvest of small quantities instead of waiting a whole year for an intensive heavy harvest requiring a centrifugal extractor. And there’s always cleaning up afterwards.

If this interests you enough to become a beekeeper you might look up a wonderful website that covers all aspects of this Top Bar system, construction, management, philosophy, a book called the Barefoot Beekeeper, and a frequently asked questions in a Forum form. The website is www.biobees.com

George Brookbank

Community Gardens of Tucson is now twenty years old and is growing rapidly and we need help in meeting the needs of this rapid growth. Our Board of Directors anticipates meeting the needs of our thirty-two gardens, with more on the way. Since we are an all-volunteer organization no one is paid, except in satisfaction. Initially we are looking for volunteer help with our bi-monthly Newsletter and with bookkeeping. If you have skills and experience in these areas and wish to help we will welcome you. Please get in touch with our Executive Director, Gene Zonge, at admin@communitygardensoftucson.org Come and grow with us!!

All of our community gardens are looking great and gardeners are beginning to harvest their crops. And they are asking “Is it ready? Can I take the harvest home?” Mostly, because of our excitement in getting a good result we tend to hurry to pick and we lose the benefit of a really ripe or perfect harvest.  Here are some guidelines to help you get the most from your garden.

Zuchinni–for a good tasting fruit pick the day after the flower has faded.  It will be small and tender but there will be plenty more coming along so you won’t lose on volume. Zuchinni squash, and the other summer squashes for that matter, grow quickly and if you wait too long you’ll have a marrow-like monster with plenty of seeds and a thick skin.   These are good for stuffing and baking, so they are not wasted. To overcome the surprise of rapidly growing fruit it helps to sow seed of yellow-fruited varieties.  A yellow fruit is easier to see than a green one.

Patti Pan Squash— Don’t let them grow to a large size.  When they are about six inches accross they are tender and flavorful.

Winter Squash (Butternut) are best allowed to mature rather late in the summer when the fruit has a hard shell and astrong color.  These squashes grow during the summer but we eat them in the winter months so we want a fruit that is mature with a hard skin

Tomato—You’ll get a more flavorful fruit if you wait until it is deep red and shiny. We tend to rejoice at the first large fruit, but we lose quality if we are in a hurry.

Eggplant—When the fruit is quite small (it’s not likely you can grow a big fruit like you see in the produce section.  Those have been grown in milder California). Harvest before the skin loses its shiny bloom.

Bell Peppers—before the fruit loses its shine, regardless of the size.

Hot Peppers— When the fruit shows a good red color, though green fruit will have the pungent taste.

Sweet Corn—Pull back a strip of the cob leaves and scratch a few kernels.  They should be milky and soft.  If they are hard and dry, you’ve waited too long.  Put the cob leaves back with a rubber band to keep them in place and try again in a day or two.

Yard-long bean—  It’s better to have the old flower on the end of the pod (which doesn’t have to be a yard long).  You want a pod that is rounded and before you can see the seeds inside.  If you have a string of beads inside the pod you’ve waited too long for the best taste. Use your thumb nail to cut the pod off the flower cluster.  More flowers are on their way and you don’t want to ruin the harvest by cutting off the embryonic flower cluster. These beans are prolific and if you miss some they will develop into dried beans which are easy to store for winter meals.

Okra— pick them when they are small to avoid that slimy characteristic that few of us like. “Small” is less than three inches.

Cantaloupe—Don’t use size as a guide but when you think you’ve got a ripe fruit, roll it gently without detaching it.  If it’s ripe it will easily slip from the vine.

Watermelon—The fruit tends to flatten out at ground level (due to the weight of fruit and water). The bottom also stays pale.  The best test is to look for the tendrils along the vine. Inspect from the fruit and the first three or four should be hard, brown and dry.  If they are not, wait a week and look again. Some gardeners can tell when to harvest after gently slapping the fruit and listening to the response.  Here’s an old Chinese saying to help you use this method. The sound you get from tapping your forehead tells you that the fruit is not ready to harvest. Thumping your chest gives a  “this fruit is ready” sound. Slapping your stomach makes a sound telling you the fruit is over-ripe.  A final guide is when you get the fruit home and you let it fall on the kitchen floor.  If it explodes and splits the fruit is perfectly ripe!!

Our spring weather is finishing (and the Snowbirds are leaving to get back to their homes) and our cool season gardens will soon be damaged by the heat.  It’s time to look ahead and make plans for a different style of gardening that is severely affected by a hot summer sun.

All fruit, whether vegetables or tree fruit, will be blistered or scorched unless it is shaded.  Natural shade comes from ample foliage or we can create shade by covering our plants with a white sheet or purchased white shade cloth that we place on the plant without building any structures.   When you study seed catalogs you’ll notice photos, and recommendations too, for tomatoes, egg plant and peppers that carry their fruit high over the plant.  These are not the varieties for the desert garden. We prefer varieties that hide their fruit under ample leaf growth.  The same considerations apply to citrus, grapes, figs, peaches and apricots.

Currently, our soil temperature is adequate for seed germination and root establishment after we set out plants but in a month or two it will be too hot and plants will be stressed.  Watering, though necessary, will not cool down the soil so we have to do something else. And that is to shield the soil from the hot sun by laying down a mulch.  Plastic is not a good material at this time of year but anything organic is.  Even recently-pulled weeds will cover the soil but be careful not to lay down a layer of seed heads.  The best material is alfalfa hay because it provide nutrients as it decays. Straw makes a good mulch but it is lacking in nutrients. Nevertheless nutrient considerations are not as important as simply keeping the sun’s rays from the soil. If your plants are positioned to give space between them for a flake of hay go ahead and split flakes about three inches thick and lay them down on the soil . Putting them over the drip irrigation tubing will help conserve  moisture and hide the drip line from thirsty birds who often peck away for larger mouthfuls and thus cause leaks that upset the balance of an even delivery of water.  A second choice is to scatter a broken flake and spread it on bare soil between the plants.  It should be three inches thick to be effective and remember that loose straw can be blown away.

Our gardens now have a different kind of weeds–the summer kind whose seeds have been lying dormant in the cold soil.  Go after them while they are still small and are easy to pull out. Be especially attentive to Bermudagrass because it quickly becomes permanent nuisance if left to itself.

As spring turns to summer there is still a narrow window of opportunity to plant trees and shrubs before our weather gets too severe.  Take advantage of nursery sales of five-gallon containers of fig, apricot and peach and citrus and get them in the ground as quickly as you can and before the soil gets too hot.  Before buying your tree or shrub and bringing it home, dig the planting hole and make it as big as you can.  Some gardeners make it a five-by-five and five feet deep hole to make sure there is no caliche (or to break through it!).  With a hole that size you have an opportunity to add plenty of organic matter, some ammonium phosphate and soil sulfur. See the picture on page 95 of my book “Desert Gardening” to get the idea of what a good planting hole looks like and the amounts of soil amendments that are needed.

After filling up the hole make sure the soil is settled by treading on it and watering it down. Plant your tree a little higher that the surrounding soil because things are sure to sink a little over time, and then it will be too late to change things.

Water frequently and use a metal rod to check moisture at the roots.  A metal rod easily slide through moist soil, but stops where the soil is dry.  Spread a mulch over the soil under the tree and further out than the branches. For the first year your new tree won’t show much growth, it needs that time to put out new roots.

As mentioned earlier, the time we have right now gives a narrow window of opportunity so if you can’t get this work completed before the end of May–forget it. You’ll have a better opportunity in September.

Many gardeners don’t like to water by hand because it takes time and it requires care. It’s helpful for helping seeds to germinate and the best way is use a garden rose and point it upward so the water falls like gentle rain without knocking tender seedlings around and without disturbing the soil surface.  Don’t put your thumb on the end of a hose with high pressure from the faucet–you’ll do too much damage.

Trees and bushes are often irrigated by leaving an open hose to slowly deliver water to a large wide circle that is a little beyond the drip line of the plant. A small berm stops the water running away as long as the flow is slow.

Drip irrigation is becoming more popular, and with good reason. It allows a gardener to control the flow without being there, It waters just the soils near the plant so weed seeds are not encouraged to germinate, and it’s thrifty. The delivery is slower, so it must be left running longer in order to get moisture down to the roots.  Large trees and shrubs may need an overnight period to achieve this, but vegetables and flowers may need only a hour or two–depending on the kind of soil you have.  Sandy soils drain well whereas clay soils slowly spread sideways. It’s a good idea to make a test of how your soil performs. Set up a small pilot system and leave it running for a couple of hours.  Then use a soil probe to find out how deep the water went and observe how far sideways the soil became wet.  This trial will tell you how to set up a drip system.

Drip tubing is pliable (it will even go  round and round as under a tree) and it has tiny holes every few inches through which the water comes. The holes can be twelve inches apart or as close as two inches which gives you a delivery rate six times the wider spaced holes. Some gardeners misunderstand the benefits of a drip system; thinking that their plants will exist on less water that they really need.  My belief is that delivery should be as rapid as possible, otherwise summer’s heat causes too much evaporation (and this leads to salt build-up).

Now that the winter vegetables are out of the way and space is available for summer plants, there’s an opportunity to add more steer manure and nutrients.  These can be rototilled in, but don’t forget to spread the drip tubing out of the way.  Put them back as a parallel pair of tubes keeping them at the same distance as the green valves. This will give a more even distribution than if they are spread far apart. which leaves a dry strip in the middle of the plot.  A good way to do this is to cut a stick as long as the green valves are apart, and then take the stick along the tubing to the end of the plot, measuring the distance apart all the way.

Keep the soil exposed to the sunshine so it warms.  Later (in June) spread out flakes of straw or hay as a mulch hat keeps the soil cool. It also reduces water evaporation (and salt build-up) but it’s a bit early to lay down a mulch just now (in late March).

Driving through the city  the landscapes look more open and spacious.  Many trees have lost their leaves and we can see far beyond them and the houses with their yards seem to be larger and more spacious, and we can see the trees’ structure. A tree that is left to grow naturally on its own gives us a beautiful silhouette.

Look closer and we can see great blobs of dark green foliage of varying sizes.  These are the parasitic mistletoe clusters and the large they are the longer they’ve been stealing the sap and the stamina of the host tree.  We don’t think about this pest very much because they are hidden in the foliage but now that the leaves are fallen they stand out like sore thumbs.  It’s incumbent on us to get rid of mistletoe now–before the warm weather stimulates new growth which in turn creates a great demand for moisture (and we haven’t had any winter rains,  so the host tees are going to suffer more than usually).

To remove mistletoe try to pull off the small growth, then tackle the larger clusters with a strong pull.  Then saw off the stalk close to the tree’s limb.  As a final act, cut off the branch of the tree where the mistletoe has started.  This will spoil the tree’s appearance, but you will have saved its life, because mistletoe left to itself is a killer.

For trees in general give a good liberal irrigation because new leaf growth needs lots of water.  If they don’t get enough they will sacrifice moisture stored in their bodies and once this has gone (and not been replaced) the trees are weakened for the rest of the year.  The initial spurt of spring growth is vital to trees’ health during the coming summer.

Pruning, just because it’s springtime, is usually not needed unless here are cross-over branches that will give too strong a shade once the leaves have burst forth. Some-one once said the a fully-leafed trees should allow a bird to fly through unhindered.  This may be an exaggeration but you do need the wind of our summer storms to pass through the foliage instead of buffeting against it and breaking off a limb.  The reason we should not “top” a tree is that new shoots come with every pruning cut and “heading back” the top will give us dense foliage at the top of the tree. And this foliage resists the wind, resulting in a breakage.  If you have a limb that needs to be removed (as one that rest against a wall, or on top of a roof) it’s best to follow down to where the branch starts on the limb and cut it cleanly there.

If frost has damaged your trees or bushes, don’t rush into a pruning as soon as the weather warms up.  Wait until the buds burst out to tell you where there is not damage, then cut out the parts of the dead branch where there are no live buds.

A word about palm trees.  Don’t prune off any green leaves.  The plant needs them!

Irrigation is most effective when an area under the drip-line of the branches gets the water, because that’s where the new roots are.  This is large area and needs a berm to stop water running away.  Fill the area to get a circle of wet soil and keep the  water standing there, closing the faucet to the delivery speed that equals the soil’s absorption rate.  Leave it running until you can poke  metal rod down three feet into the soil.  This may take all morning and it will last two or three weeks before there is a need to irrigate again.

The more water you give a tree the more it will grow.  Perhaps you don’t want a large tree after all!  You can cut back on the watering and it’s better to water as deeply, but not so often, and your tree will grow more slowly.

There are different ways to irrigate different plantings but the underlying reasons are the same for all, namely to provide moisture to the roots of all the plants you have and want to keep.  There will be changes in the need for irrigation and they depend on the weather and the time of year.  Some people say that the desert, with its lack of rain enables a farmer to control plant growth and to time his operations to the seasons, but it’s only partially true.  ”Rain stops Play” is a common excuse for not finishing a cricket match, but growers have to bear in mind that we have short seasons and crops must be encouraged to produce.  Also, rain saves money if you are a vegetable grower who can turn off an irrigation system, but it gives us unwanted growth in weeds.  These are the main similarities between permanent plantings in our landscapes and the temporary crops of vegetables.

The best way to irrigate shrubs and trees in a landscape is to flood a large circle under the plant and a little further beyond the spread of the branches.  This is because roots tend to spread that way in advance of the foliage. Furthermore, we want our plants to withstand strong winds, and good sturdy roots will do that.  Flooding that area long enough to get water down three feet to the roots appears to be using too much water in many people’s minds but the actual watering is done at widely spaced intervals, depending on the state of the plant. Usually this is done when the new growth comes out in the spring and it doesn’t need to be done while the plant is dormant. I.

On the other hand, vegetables require much more frequent deliveries, but in smaller amounts, to keep the soil around the roots moist.  Therefore its not easy to say which system uses more water.  All kinds of vegetables need the same liberal amounts of water for them to be productive, and cutting back water  will quickly lead to disaster, but landscapers can use arid-land plants that have adapted to drier soil. Besides, a careful and experienced landscaper can cut back on watering his plants in the interest of “dwarfing” them, but its a tricky thing to try.

If a gardener uses a drip irrigation system with an included meter it’s easy for him to assess his daily or monthly water consumption rate  and he can make adjustments. Irrigating a landscape is a long-term prospect that is difficult to measure day by day.  It takes a long time for leaves to fall off a tree due to drought, and wasting water on trees is not clearly displayed by plant growth.

Deep irrigations for trees and shrubs  don’t have the risk of surface evaporation that daily waterings of vegetable plants  encourage. And evaporations lead to salts accumulations.

So, there will be continued discussion, comparison, argument and disbelief as to how much water is  wasted or conserved by the two methods of watering.  The proof of the pudding will be in the monthly bill from the water company.

Perhaps you thought, because of the mild fall weather, that your plants couldn’t possibly experience frosty nights.  Unfortunately it wasn’t so and certain parts of the city woke up to a nasty surprise. Admittedly some areas received little damage but those parts of the city that are low-lying, being near to washes, collected cold air that drained downhill and it rested there.  The foothills and the ground higher up remained frost free.  In the olden days before all the land was taken the realtors advertised “the citrus belt” and we still have a descriptive reminder of that area in the name of Orange Grove Road. There actually were groves of orange trees.

In addition to variations of topography there are variations of plant sensitivity to cold nights.  If your neighborhood has no plants of bananas, limes and lemons,Queen palms, Yellow Bird of Paradise, Hibiscus, Bougainevillea, Pointsettia, or Ironwood you are more than likely to be in a cold spot.  They will have been killed by previous years’ cold snaps.

How can you minimize frost damage?   Cover your shrubs, trees with a heavy bed-sheet or a light blanket before thesun goes down.  Take it off the next morning to let the sun warm up the plant and cover again the next afternoon if the sky is clear of clouds.  Clouds tend to keep warm air near the ground if there has been good sunshine during the day, but a clear sky lets the warm air travel up high, leaving cold behind.

Plants in a state of growth are more susceptible to damage than those that are dormant, so be careful not to water too much.  Lime and lemon trees, and other frost tender plants, can be saved from damage by putting a light bulb under the tree and let the heat gently rise through the foliage.  There’s little value in putting strings of Christmas lights all over the outside of a tree.

Gardens that are “boxed in” by walls and hedges seem to be colder than open areas where even a slight air movement takes place.

What should be done if your shrubs and trees have been damaged?  Don’t do any pruning until you see where new growth starts, and shows you how extensive the damage is.  Otherwise you might prune out too much growth and reduce fruit production, or unnecessarily reduce the size of a hedge.  Oleanders that get a top-burn are really getting a natural pruning and that dead top protects the main growth from further damage.

What should you do the vegetable plants that are wilting and appear spoiled the next morning after a cold night? Just leave them alone for the sun to slowly and gently thaw them out. Spraying with water might do more harm.

If you want your children to “turn scientist” go to a hardware store and buy a Minimum/maximum thermometer and set it in an open space.  In the morning read where the lowest temperature is recorded and re-set with a magnet for the next night.  Record the warmest temperature too.  Write these down in a notebook and see what sort of history your garden went through.

Listen to the weather forecast and discover whether you are in a warm or a cold spot–and how much colder, or warmer, you are.  If you are in a warm spot there’ll be no need to be frightened by a moderate forecast.  On the other hand if you discover that your night-time readings are much colder than the forecasts you’ll perhaps need to get the light bulb out to save your citrus fruit and cover your tree a little earlier in the evening.

Read Chapter 26 of my book “Desert Gardening–Fruits and Vegetables” for the full story on frost protection and see the chart ” Watch the Weather”. to give you an idea of what your child will hope to accomplish.