Q. After 17 years of growing tomatoes, I feel I have depleted most of the nutrients so I am going to dig it up, remove it and replace it with new soil. My idea is to lay down a layer of fruit pulp in a sufficient quantity and then cover with at least 12″ of planter’s mix. I would do fish guts but I can’t find any quantity. By the 2018 spring planting season I think I’ll have a super soil. What do you think? Compost is added to soil growing vegetables every year to replace nutrients that were “harvested” with the crops and rebuild the structure of the soil for better drainage, water holding and root growth. A. Any time you use raw plant products, like fresh fruit pulp, it is best decomposed or rotted first before using it in a garden. Otherwise it causes numerous problems. The process of rotting releases nutrients tied up in fresh pulp in any raw vegetable or fruit. It’s also true of fresh versus aged or rotted animal manures.             The process of “controlled rotting” is composting. The ingredients needed for composting include water, air and warmth and whatever it is you are trying to rot. As long as these ingredients are not restricted and in abundance, the speed of this “controlled rotting” is regulated by the size of whatever it is you’re rotting and temperature. Compost can be made in a “static” method, piled and left to rot on its own. This takes longer than other methods. This is the “lazy man’s” way to do it. Just water it and let it breakdown and rot.             By burying fresh juice pulp under 12 inches of soil I fear you are restricting oxygen. This is a major ingredient. This type of rotting is dangerous to plants because the compost becomes “anaerobic”, without enough available oxygen from the air. Anaerobic composts produce large amounts of acids, sulfur dioxide (the smell of rotten eggs) and methane gas; all of them toxic to plants. A good compost should be dark in color, fine textured and smell good.             Pulp from juicing attracts a lot of varmints, mostly insects and rodents. Your garden area might be a magnet for varmints unless they are kept away from it when it first begins to rot. Once the rotting is firmly underway, it’s not a problem anymore..             However, if you take this juice pulp, mix it with sawdust or very fine wood chips, and turn it on a regular basis, you could have something valuable to plants in 2 or 3 months; composting it with enough find wood products will make the gardener’s “Black Gold” or humus. The ingredients in compost can be chopped up, watered and turned by  hand or a tractor. This speeds up composting alot. The finished time can be as quick as two to three months if you do it this way.               Regarding your current tomato growing area, the soil does not need to be replaced. It just needs to be again “enriched” with compost. A 3 to 4 inch layer of compost applied to the surface and “double dug”, or rototilled into the soil as deep as possible, will do the trick and you will be back in business.             Soil nutrients are removed quite quickly from a soil depending on the crop grown, the intensity of growing and how plants are managed. A small amount of compost should be added to growing areas every 1 to 2 years.             You should also be rotating your vegetables. If you don’t know what this is, “Google it”. Problems resulting from a lack in vegetable rotation cause declines in production and contribute to disease problems.

Q. I think my Italian cypress has mites. Some of them are dying rapidly with pale leaves that hang out and crumble if you grab them. They are about 10 to 12 feet tall.  Italian cypress is notorious for having brown branches at some point in the life. Spider mites can be the cause during the hot summer months but the usual culprit is watering too often. They are from a Mediterranean climate which is typically cool to cold and wet in the winter and hot and dry in the summer. They historically don’t grow in climates with frequent rains or frequent irrigations. Water them with alot of water and then hold off on the next irrigation. A. Make sure this problem is from spider mites and not watering too often. Italian cypress are Mediterranean plants that should be watered after the soil begins drying. Otherwise frequent irrigations rot the roots and causes problems similar to what you are describing. Spider mites in Italian cypress happen during the hot summer months, not the cooler times of year. Often upon close inspection the branches have a “dusty” appearance.             It would be a shame to apply pesticides when they aren’t needed. Pesticides are sometimes needed but applying pesticides, whether they are needed or not, always creates other problems. Sometimes the problems they create can be worse than the problem they solve. Spider mites in Italian cypress usually have webbing that can be seen in the brown area. This is not true of all mite damage to plants.             Spider mites are always present on plants during the heat of the summer. They are controlled naturally and kept in check by many different predatory insects including “good” or predatory mites.             If you apply a pesticide to control mites, it kills the “good mites” as well as the bad ones. Once that happens, the bad my population can “blossom” back into a big problem and then it’s a vicious cycle between control and pesticide applications. Webbing can be seen with spider mite damage on Italian cypress             Most bad spider mites are “web spinners”; in other words, you should see webbing amongst the branches as well as a “dusty appearance” on the foliage if bad guys are active. This webbing is not true of all damage by mites. Some mites are not “web spinners”. “This dusty appearance can be from wind-blown dust but it can also be from large numbers of dead mites.              The presence of wind-blown dust on the foliage can encourage spider mite problems. The dust interferes with “hunting” by predatory insects. Hose off Italian cypress after dusty winds and once a month during the heat of the summer. Let them hunt.             Use a hand magnifying glass and look for eggs in the dust. Eggs are extremely small but round and translucent under a lens. Once mites are a problem, you will see lots of their eggs amongst the dust.             Use a white paper test. Take a plain piece of white paper and “slap” a living but dusty branch against it 2 or 3 times. Hold the paper still in the sunlight and look for tiny specks the size of this period (.) to crawl around. These are mites.             Browning of the leaves, webbing, a dusty appearance, round translucent eggs and little dots crawling around on a white piece of paper are clear indicators you have spider mite problems that need to be controlled.

Q. This year my grapes are again infested with leafhoppers. Before the fruit came off, I used Safer insect killing soap approximately every 7 to 10 days. I kept them at bay for the first part of the summer. However, they are now infesting the grapes heavily. Since I took the grapes off, I have been alternating soap and pyrethrin every 5 to 7 days.  Characteristic leafhopper damage on grape leaves.Notice the white spots on the leaf surface from feeding by this very small jumping insect. A. Leafhoppers can be a huge problem on grapes grown in the Mojave Desert. They are often confused with other insects but if walking past your grapes and hundreds of tiny insects jump into your face, then they are probably leafhoppers.             Once reaching large populations, adult leafhoppers are extremely difficult to control without hard pesticides. Hard pesticides are not “organic”. If you don’t start spraying early, these insects will be a huge problem later in the season and much more difficult to control. Leafhoppers feed on the undersides of leaves. They leave behind black specks..poo…from their feeding. This can land on the grapes and make the fruit undesirable or cause some off taste on wine grapes during fermenting. This can be a problem on “organically grown” grapes.             The key to effectively using “softer pesticides”, closer to organic types of control, is to look for the juveniles on the bottom of leaves early in the season. Use soft pesticides in rotation with each other and spray when the younger populations are on the rise.             Softer pesticides are not necessarily “organic” but are safer for humans and the environment. These pesticides, used in rotation, include insecticidal soaps like Safer, neem oil, spinosad, pyrethrin and even horticultural oils when temperatures are cooler. Closeup of leafhopper sent to me by a reader. Thank you! They are very small, maybe 1/8 inch long. Did I mention they jump? Right into your nose, eyes or mouth when you walk by the vines. A real pest when the populations are left unchecked. And leafhoppers can transmit diseases among vines.             Rotating these pesticides means to use a different pesticide in your arsenal each time you spray. Begin looking on the bottom of leaves when grape berries are the size of large peas. Once leafhoppers are seen, spotcheck leaves every week. Remove leaves that surround the grape bunches very early. Very important for insect and disease control.             Juvenile leafhoppers don’t look much like the adults. But adults will populate the undersides of the leaves with these “babies” quickly once they start. Inspect the bottoms of leaves weekly and spray if populations are increasing. Extreme leafhopper damage to grapes when you stand back a bit and look at the vines.             Use a different “soft pesticide” each time you spray. You may need to spray every week but this decision should be made after looking at juvenile populations. Remember, young ones are easier to kill than the adults.             Non-organic, commercially grown grapes use hard pesticides. Hard pesticides knock problem pests back longer but are not as friendly with the environment, human consumption and other insects in the area nearby.             “Softer” pesticides must be repeated more often. Use them in rotation. Check populations and look for the juveniles. Start spraying early when the juvenile population is building.

Q. I have a Bartlett pear tree producing fruit with brown spots in the flesh. I understand this is because of a calcium deficiency and is remedied with calcium sprays to the tree. If I put calcium in the soil and let it soak in over the winter months, will this remedy this problem instead of spraying? The dimples in the outer skin of this pear indicates that the flesh under the skin will have a brown spot in it. This calcium deficiency is called ‘corky spot’ in pears, “bitter pit” in apples. It can happen in soils full of calcium like many desert soils. Here the outer skin of the pear is folded back revealing the brown spot in the flesh. It wou’t hurt you but it makes the fruit hard to market. A. No. There is plenty of calcium in our desert soils. That won’t solve the problem. This abundance of calcium is locked up by the soil and not reaching the fruit. There is plenty of calcium in the soil but it’s not released fast enough to satisfy a huge demand for calcium by the fruit.             The only way to correct this problem is with calcium sprays. The calcium from the spray is absorbed directly by the fruit.             In pears, this problem is called “Corky Spot”. In apples, it is called “Bitter Pit”. Corky Spot and Bitter Pit develops on fruit from older trees that have been harvested for many years. Brown spots develop in the flesh of pear and apple fruit because of a calcium deficiency inside the fruit. Bitter pit on ‘Mutsu’ apple             Fruits, full of calcium, are removed from the trees. A rapid uptake of calcium from soil by tree roots causes a “void” of calcium in the soil. Calcium is needed by the next crop of fruit the following year but it’s not available.  Information on corky spot from Washington State University               To solve this problem, we “feed” the tree calcium “backwards”; force the calcium inside the fruit by spraying the fruit rather than relying on tree roots. It may not make much sense when the soil is so chock full of calcium but spraying the tree with calcium is the only way to get rid of these brown spots.             Calcium sprays are applied to the tree with most of the spray landing on the fruit. The most effective sprays are from calcium chloride dissolved in water. A wetting agent is added to the mixture to improve calcium absorption inside the fruit. These sprays are applied 5 times each year as the fruit is enlarging.  Use 1 pound of food grade calcium chloride dissolved in 100 – 200 gallons of water (you do the math for a backpack sprayer). Add a wetting agent to the spray to help the calcium enter the fruit. Spray only until it begins to run off the fruit. Do it during a cool time of day. No, it will not burn the leaves at this concentration if  you do it in the early morning in the summer.

I got this email and I thought it was interesting. I searched “beepods” and didn’t find any negative reviews. I am not endorsing but it sounds interesting. I’m looking for people who know teachers, principals or parents in the USA who might be interested in getting a honey bee hive at their school or non-profit organization centered around programming for kids. I have access to a few grants for 2018 that would allow for school’s in the USA to start a sustainable beekeeping project on their campus. Time is critical though, so it’s important to start the process right away because the funding opportunities are coming to a close soon in 2017. http://schoolgrant.beepods.com/honey-beehive-grant-schools-usa Contact [email protected]