Xtremehorticulture

Xtremehorticulture of the Desert

Retail Vegetable and Fruit Markets in Northern Afghanistan

Leave a Comment / afghanistan, mazar e sharif, mazari sharif, selling fruits and vegetables in markets /

Wholesale fruit and vegetable market in Mazari Sharif Last week I showed you one of the wholesale markets in Mazari Sharif. It was focused on potatoes and onions for the most part. This week I wanted to show you some pictures of the wholesale vegetable and fruit market and the retail markets that get their fresh fruits and vegetables nearly daily from the wholesale markets.  Zarang (motorcycles converted with a small truck bed) drivers getting ready to haul produce to retail markets as soon as they are hired by the owner of a market to do so. There are basically two wholesale markets in Mazari Sharif. The local farmers usually dont bring in their farm fresh fruits and vegetables to the wholesale market. This is  usually handled by some sort of “middle man” who has transportation and travels among the farmers buying product and delivering it to the market. Other times larger trucks drive in from Iran, Pakistan, Uzbekistan with products from wholealers there. So there is a wide selection of products ranging from bananas and citrus from Pakistan or the semitropical areas of Afghanistan like Jalalabad. Taxis are sometimes used to haul fruits and vegetables to local retail shops for sale. Balkh Province where Mazari Sharif, the capital, is located is at best subtropical in parts but more temperate with a climate similar to Las Vegas but with a bit more humidity at times. Right now apricots are coming in as well as early onions, radishes, leafy greens, and numerous other spring crops.

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Farming in the Philippines

Leave a Comment / Batangas, Batangas Province, Farmer to Chef meetup, Padre Garcia, Philippine farm, Rare Fruit Society of the Philippines /

 Our family farm in Batangas, Philippines Q. Just saw you on one of those weekly Vegas journals and was pleased to learn you have a horti project from the Philippines. I lived there many years before migrating to Vegas. While grateful you are sharing your expertise to my fellow Filipinos, am a bit worried about your safety. It is not a very safe place, especially for foreigners in Afghanistan. I really miss the orchids, night jessamines, heliconias, water lilies, sugar apples, jackfruit, sapodillas, duhat, papayas, mangoes, ferns, pineapples, lakatan and latundan bananas I used to raise in our backyard. Besides coffee, what else are you growing there specifically, if you don’t mind me asking?  My neighbor who watched me digging holes to plant trees for a long time. Finally he said in the local dialect, “I never saw a white man (canok) get his hands dirty before.” and he walked away shaking his head. Come visit or join the Rare Fruit Society of the Philippines A. Thanks for asking. I dont get there much right now due to my work in Afghanistan but our farm is a work in progress. When we bought it, it already had established mangoes and coconut in over/understory planting with a few citrus. We have now introduced to the farm coffee, papaya, bananas, rambutan, lychees, durian, jackfruit, and many others. It is located in Batangas Province not far from Padre Garcia. To the south about 45 minutes is Laiya Beach with its shallow protected coral reef for snorkeling and diving. All my friends are welcome there so please come and visit us. But make sure we are there!

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Crape Myrtle and Mimosa (Silk tree) Similar in Care

1 Comment / best fertilizer, fertilizing, maintenance of landscape trees in desert soils, planting in desert soils, tree care in desert soils /

Readers silk tree in excellent shape in rock mulch Q. I have a mimosa tree and I am giving it a lot of TLC and it seems to do well here. A. Your Mimosa or silk tree looks great and is doing well judging from the picture you sent to me.  It looks like it has good growth and a nice dark green color.  You must be giving it a lot of attention as it seems to be thriving there in rock mulch.  I will caution you that these are not long-lived in our climate and tend to suffer a lot of branch dieback or decline as they get older.             They particularly struggle in rock mulch that is fully exposed to summer extremes.  They seem to live a bit longer when surrounded by grass rather than rock mulch.  It has never been diagnosed, to my knowledge, but this decline may be mimosa wilt disease, a disease that infects and plugs the vascular or water transporting system in the tree.  Crape myrtle 20 years old growing in alkaline pH 8.2 soil with little soil amendment  following regimen suggested here. There is some wood mulch at the base of the tree in the irrigation well.             Continue to keep it healthy and it’s possible to keep it going for quite a while.  Another plant which can suffer here in rock mulch is crape myrtle but is, in my opinion, a better tree for here if you give it some TLC like you are doing.  With this tree you can keep it looking good growing in desert soils by fertilizing it with a well balanced fertilizer like 16-16-16 in late January along with iron chelate applied to the soil and watered in.              Follow this about two months later with a liquid fertilizer applied to the leaves until the solution begins running off the leaf surface and dripping onto the soil.  I usually apply a wetting agent with the liquid fertilizer applied to the leaves.  If you can keep plants healthy, they can withstand diseases and extremes of temperature and soils better

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Good Price on Fruit Trees Does Not Equal Success Sometimes

1 Comment / bare root fruit trees, container vs bareroot, selecting fruit trees, which is better /

Bareroot fruit tree Container fruit tree Q. What nurseries you would recommend buying fruit trees from (local or online)?  I would be looking to get them in the ground in February or early March so my only concern with local nurseries would be whether they would have their stock in that early. I wouldnt buy this fruit tree regardless of the price. It is exhibiting poor or slow growth and the roots are exposed in the container. Yuck. A. If you are planting trees that early you will probably find mostly last year’s trees held over that didn’t sell but usually at some very good prices. Just be careful and buy trees in good shape and don’t feel sorry for a tree and think you can nurse it back to health.             Some of the mass merchandisers will bring in trees early to sell but be careful of the varieties you select. Some of these mass merchandisers have a good person or two in the gardening department but many times they do not. I have seen some “innovative” gardening methods at some of these places. And I don’t necessarily mean that kindly.             Many times the mass merchandisers do not look for what grows well here but sometimes you can get lucky and find what you are looking for. All time popular varieties that do well here are usually good bets. Local nurseries usually don’t bring new trees in until weather warms up in late April.             Be careful of rootstocks on apples in particular. You want semi dwarfing rootstocks like M111. The extreme dwarfing rootstocks on apple can be a problem here due to our high light intensities. and sunburning of the fruit and limbs due to the extreme dwarfing and poor canopy development. It is harder to glue limbs on trees when shade is needed than it is to prune out unnecessary canopy development and too much shade.             Nothing wrong with fall planting either if you can find trees in good shape. Plant mid-September through October the same way you would at normal times of the year. This is a great time to plant because you essentially have two “springs” the plants go through before you hit the hellish summer weather.

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Just Because a Tree Looks Funny Dont Rip it Out

Leave a Comment / growing ugly, misshapen tree, should I remove a tree /

Desert Museum Palo Verde growing at an odd angle and developing an odd shape Q. I would like to ask your opinion on a Desert Museum Palo Verde tree I planted in my front yard here in the Las Vegas area about 2 years ago.  It looks like it is half of a tree with most of its branches on the side sagging toward the ground.  It is quite bent over and seems to be getting worse over time.  The yard’s terrain is slanted, but other trees on similar topography don’t seem to have this problem.  Do you think it should be staked, limbs removed, or whole tree removed?    A. I see what you’re saying from your pictures, the tree is leaning away from the house and does not look perfectly straight up as you’re picturing in your mind it might become. Personally, I try to visualize what this tree might look like as it gets older.  Picture the tree as it might look ten years from now. It looks strange now but adverse conditions can create character in plants.             I find that frequently a tree’s character is shaped by its environment and it tends to grow in reaction to that environment. In other words your tree leaned and grew in that direction because of its location and the impact from surrounding plants and the environment.             As I picture this tree 10 years from now, with this leaning trunk and major scaffold limbs pruned so they are not in the way, it might have a lot of character. This character would be entirely different than the picture-perfect tree you imagined when you bought it.             I would tend to let it go and as it gets larger remove or cut back limbs that might damage the house and begin to remove the lower limbs if they interfere with human or vehicle traffic. It will begin to straighten out in the next few years. In my opinion, you have the beginning of a tree with quite a bit of character.

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Desert Plants Dont Like Desert Soils

2 Comments / ash tree growth, desert landscapes, rock vs grass, stunted growth /

 These ash trees were planted along Aliante Parkway in North Las Vegas just north of the Aliante Casino heading toward Horse Drive. When you are driving along here look at the sizes of the ash trees planted in grass vs those planted in rock. They were planted at the same time. Those in rock mulch are much smaller but all in good health. Q. I often enjoy your pieces in the NLV neighborhood View, and your suggestion of replacing rock mulch with wood chips caught my attention. I have an 18 year-old velvet ash in a small (20′ x 20′), red rock covered front yard.  Does this tree do better with rock or wood chips around its trunk? A. This is where my comments can sometimes be misconstrued. What I am trying to tell people is that for the most part, plants that originate from nondesert or nonarid climates perform best growing in wood mulches in the landscape. They also do better with growing in soils that have been amended at the time of planting with organic materials like compost.             Plants like Velvet ash (aka Arizona Ash) which is native to the desert and arid Southwest, TOLERATES desert soils and so can be grown more successfully under rock mulch than non-desert plants. Nearly all plants perform better with a higher organic content in the soil but desert plants, like Velvet ash, can TOLERATE rock mulch landscapes.             This is true of many cacti and succulents as well. You will see them perform better if we amend the soil at the time of planting with some organic matter like compost.             In the case of your Velvet ash, because it is native to the arid and desert Southwest, it can tolerate rock mulches better than say Japanese privet (native to Japan) which does not tolerate rock mulch very well at all but is frequently placed in rock landscapes here with, over time, very little success.

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Birds Love Our Fruit Trees and What to Do

3 Comments / bird damage, picking fruit, scaring devices for birds /

 Bird damage to nearly ripe peach Q. What can be done to keep birds from eating all the fruit in an orchard? My brother has an orchard in southern Utah. There are about 100 trees, mostly dwarf and semi dwarf. Last year birds got 90% of the fruit. He has tried scare crows but that didn’t work. He has also tried aluminum foil pie tins but that only worked temporally. Is there any solution for him other than buying netting to cover the trees? He needs a solution soon before the birds start feasting on the apricots. A. Fruit usually damaged are the soft fruits; apricots, peaches, nectarines, plums, etc. Birds focus on fruit as it starts to build sugar content, mature but not fully ripe.  Grackel ready to pounce on our apricots             We harvest soft fruit just before they are fully ripe and finish ripening them off of the trees at room temperature. After they have reached physical maturity for eating we can then put them in the refrigerator for longer keeping. They will store better if they are in a humid part of the refrigerator but they still must “breathe” or they will deteriorate quickly.             We start looking for bird damage and begin our harvesting schedule just ahead of their damage. Otherwise you will have to net the trees.             Scaring devices don’t work more than about one to two weeks and after that the birds are no longer afraid of them. This is true of most animals that are pests to our gardens. The hungrier animals are, the more chances they will take in getting food they like.

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Wholesale Potato and Onion Market of Mazari Sharif

2 Comments / wholesale markets in afghanistan /

An onion wholesaler says, “we import onions from Iran. We buy it fresh, not from storage and sell it directly here. (However the onions he had were obviously storage onions) We are not keeping it here because of the hot weather. And we get it from traders and merchants. Also we import potatoes from Iran. Mazari Sharif wholesale potato and onion market after the bustle of trading has subsided The head of potatoes and onion wholesale market says “now we import the potatoes and onion from Pakistan. Currently there is no production in districts of Balkh Province. And we import all from Pakistan. Then from September until November we have our own potato production from Baghlan and Bamian provinces. But now we import our vegetables like coriander, cucumber, spinach, leek and lettuce from the district of Balkh province and only we import cauliflower and cabbages mostly from Pakistan and less from Nangarhar. Scales for weighing potatoes and onions at the Mazar wholesale potato and onion market “Our big problem is storage. We can not keep the potatoes and onions for a long time. If we have storage, the onions from Mazar-E-Sharif never spoil. We can keep it unile April. we don’t have a suitable place for keeping onions. We are packing them in bags and keep them in our shops. And our potatoes are from Baghlan and Bamian because we don’t have storage. When the potatoes from Pakistan arrive, the price of our potatoes drop. For example seven Kg of Bamian and Baghlans’ potato is 100 Afs. when potato from Pakistan arrive it decreases to 60Afs. (50 afs or afghanis is roughly equivalent to $1USD right now) Retail shop owners come to the wholesale markets and contract with the owners of these motorcycle converted vehicles to transport their purchases to their retail shop Another potato and onion wholesaler says” we can keep our potato in Bamian six until eight months but when it arrives in Mazar because of the lack of storage we can not keep it for a long time. Also we can keep the onions for only three months and we must sell it soon. These are at times when prices are low and we face business problems. Interviewing wholesalers with our flip video camera and later transferring the information to paper or electronic medium When we ask the head of potato and onion wholesalers about storage in Mazar he answers “there is no storage in Mazar only in Kabul and in Maidan Shahr. We lose 50% of our potatoes and onions because we don’t have storage. If we have storages facilities we can keep our onion for nine months from September until May. If we have the ability to make storage we will build storage for vegetable and fruit. But we have never seen any storage facility we have only heard of these facilities. But if an engineer comes and train us then we know how to build our own storage. Cold storage needs a lot of power and we have good power in Mazar and the power cost 15 Afs per KW for businesses.” Another potato and onion wholesaler says” if there is a possibility we go Pakistan or Kabul to see the storage then we can understand how to build ours”. Next week the retail outlets…….

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My Vegetable Transplants Always Fail

Leave a Comment / acclimation, transplants die /

Q. It seems that whenever I try transplanting, I keep losing the plant. Mainly tomatoes, and squash type plants. I’ve tried putting the plant in the area that it’s going to get transplanted into for a few days then make the move. I’ve tried boosting the area with fertilizers. Today, I tried to put up shade around the area so the direct light doesn’t beat it up too bad. Do you have any advice? A. If this was soil that was never planted in before and you don’t see any weeds growing in the soil then maybe there is a problem with the soil. Very seldom is it the case that our desert soils will grow nothing once they have been amended and irrigated. This is what your tomato transplant should look like out of the container if grown right: sturdy, stocky, dark green, white roots about 4 to 6 inches tall and free of insect and disease (photo courtesy University of Missouri and can be found at  http://extension.missouri.edu/news/DisplayStory.aspx?N=1087) It is more likely not enough soil preparation or the location is not the best for transplants. Vegetables need to be placed into desert soils that have had extensive modification prior to planting. The modifications have to be ample amounts of compost and tillage to get the compost deep and provide for some drainage of water. I like to see at least 12 inches down and even 18 inches for deeply rooted vegetables like some carrots and other root crops. I do prefer constructing raised beds for vegetables and herbs. The raised beds do not have to have constructed side walls from construction materials. The natural slope of the soils at the edges of a constructed bed will keep the bed from collapsing provided you keep human traffic on it at a minimum. But the soil must be ripped as deep as you can with a trencher or tractor combined with water and good compost added to it and finally thorough mixing by tilling or rototilling. The raised beds can be constructed by shoveling the soil with compost added to it on to a bed about three to four feet wide. Every time you plant for the first three years you should be adding about two inches of compost to the bed and tilling or mixing it in with a tiller. After about the first three years of adding extensive amounts of compost and growing in it you will see your vegetable production reach a peak in yield and quality. After that then one inch is usually adequate. Seldom have I seen transplants that were not acclimatized (putting them gradually into outside from a greenhouse or nursery) just flat out die. They usually become stunted for awhile and then start to grow again. Make sure transplants are planted the same depth in your garden as they were in the containers if they are older plants. One exception is tomatoes which can be planted deeper and the soil piled around the stems for a deeper root system (provided the soil has been prepared well). Young smaller plants transplant better than older, bigger plants and recover faster (usually). Squash, melons, cucumbers and many other vegetables actually perform better if they are started in the garden from seed, not transplants. Relative Difficulty of Vegetables to Transplant Easy to Transplant Broccoli Brussels Sprouts Cabbage Lettuce Tomato Medium Difficulty Cauliflower Celery Eggplant Onion Pepper Hard to Transplant Cucumber Musk Melon Squash Watermelon

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Seeds on Ash Trees Difficult to Control

2 Comments / female ash tree, get rid of seed, how to eliminate seed, male ash tree /

Q. I have a huge ash tree that I want to either stop it from seeding or kill it. I heard about a product that can stop seeding but I am told due to the size of the tree it is impossible to spray the blooms. This tree is at least 50′ tall. It is a real nuisance. Also, if I continuously soak salt brine into the ground would this kill the tree or at least shock it enough to stop producing. Do you have any ideas on how to handle this situation? A. Most ash trees are either male or female. It sounds like you have a female tree. Male trees, in the case of ash trees, produce pollen and do not produce seed. Female trees require the pollen from male ash trees and produce seed.             There are several products available which claim to eliminate fruit or in your case seed production. They all work a little bit differently and may or may not work on your tree. I am afraid it will be hit and miss when you start experimenting with these products. There is a possibility that some of these products may damage or even kill your ash tree or plants growing near it if used improperly.             I do not have any research to back up any recommendations about which product might be successful. I am sorry but I believe your best solution would be to remove the tree rather than experiment with chemicals on your property. I hope this helps.

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