Xtremehorticulture

Giant Figs Don’t Have To Come from Giant Fig Trees

Q. I have Patrick Giant fig tree. Is it the same as Texas giant? If they are different, which one produces bigger fruits under the same conditions? A. I have never grown any of the so-called giant figs because they never interested me much. I focus more on the “taste” of the fruit rather than its size. I have grown about 15 to 20 different varieties in the Mojave Desert climate but none of them were marketed as “giant”.             I have harvested figs from fig trees that were quite large. I am quite certain this was from the “Briba” or first crop, not the main crop.             I believe the reason they were so large is because there were fewer fruit because of winter pruning. So, the fruit remaining got quite large. The fewer fruit on a tree, the larger fruit will become. The amount of “food” produced by a tree has more to do with the number of leaves, their size, and percentage of leaves in full sunlight.             My experience is that smaller fruit have more flavor than large fruit. And smaller fruit are usually more nutritious. This is because the minerals and nutrients in the fruit are more concentrated.             So large -sized fruit have never been particularly attractive to me. To me, large -sized fruit is more about “bragging rights” than flavor.

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How to Identify If Your Asparagus Plant Is a Girl or Boy

Q. You mentioned that male asparagus plants produce more than female asparagus plants. How do you tell the difference?   This is what a female asparagus plant will produce. These are the berries that form from female flowers. You want to get rid of asparagus before these berries turn red. Once they are red, the seeds are mature and pulling them can disperse the seeds all through the garden. A. Male asparagus plants produce more spears than female asparagus plants because of the energy needed to produce seed by females. So male asparagus plants are preferred over female asparagus plants. You pay a premium price for “all male” asparagus crowns or roots. These are asparagus flowers that have not yet opened. They will be either male or female flowers. This will tell you if the plant is male or female.             We call plants that have male and female forms, “dioecious”. The plants and spears look identical. The flowers are slightly different. Male flowers and female flowers are easy to sex in some plants. Flowers of asparagus are not. Male and female asparagus flowers look nearly identical. This is a combination of immature asparagus fruits and flowers.             After harvesting asparagus spears for 8 to 10 weeks in the spring, the spears are allowed to grow into 5 to 6 foot tall “bushes” called “ferns”. These “ferns” produce small white flowers that are either male on the male plants or female on the female plants. The female plants produce round berries. The male plants do not. After you have finished harvesting asparagus spears in the spring, you let the remaining spears develop into full sized bushes like this called “ferns”.             The easiest way to tell the sex of it asparagus plant is to look for the “berries” that form from female flowers on the ferns. Dig up and remove the entire female plants including their underground crowns. Do this before these young green berries become red in color or mature and can spread seeds in the garden.             When you buy one or two-year-old asparagus crowns (roots) for planting, the more expensive ones will be labeled “all male”. To get all male plants, someone must “rogue out” or remove all the female plants including the crowns.

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Spray Oils Effective in Aphid Control

Q. My 30 foot tall live oak tree is covered with aphids. Should you spray now or will the aphids die if the weather gets cold? Aphids on southern Live Oak A. Aphids overwinter at the base of trees and weeds nearby. Their populations are much smaller, but they are there. Eliminate weeds and apply “dormant oil” to the tree twice; once in December and again in January before new growth begins.             Dormant oil is a holdover name from decades ago when forms of this oil were safe to apply only during the winter. You might find this product now with names like horticultural oil, superior oil, supreme oil and others. Oil for spraying in a pint container. This company has chosen to call it a horticultural oil.             These newer oils are different. These are not vegetable oil or neem oil used as insecticides but a different type of oil that “smothers” overwintering bugs. I have used these newer oils in the fall, spring and even early summer months as long as the plants are not flowering. This oil for commercial use is in 2 1/2 gallon container. This company chose to call it Ultra Pure Oil             Ants and aphids rely on each other. Controlling ants helps control the spread of aphids and keeps them in check. Controlling ants when aphids are problems is an important component when controlling aphids. I like to use ant bait products like Amdro applied exactly as the label says. One of the ant baits supplied by Amdro             Don’t worry about small numbers of aphids on trees if you eliminated weeds and controlled their ant buddies. Leave them alone unless there is some problem you can’t live with. If the ant problem is intolerable, apply soap sprays, neem oil or a systemic insecticide if it’s a bad problem. But don’t go in that direction unless you must.

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When to Repot Lime and Lemon in Containers

Q. We have a Meyer lemon and Bearss lime in clay pots. The pots are deteriorating and the trees should be replanted into other pots. In the desert, what time of year is best to transplant these trees into new containers? A. Put fruit trees into new pots in late Winter or the beginning of Spring. In our Las Vegas climate, this would be from mid-January until sometime in February. Bearss lime is sensitive to mild freezing temperatures. Myers lemon tolerates cold temperatures better. Myers lemon grown in northern Afghanistan in protected houses for commercial sale             If they are kept outside, wait until the coldest weather of winter has passed before repotting them. Plants growing in containers or pots need their soil “refreshed”, or the plant repotted, every 3 to 4 years to prevent a slow decline in health.             Replanting or repotting is not difficult if the containers and plants are relatively small; the plant is gently eased from the container, roots and soil around the edge of the root ball is shaved off, and the plant placed back into the container with fresh soil or container mix surrounding the rootball.             If plants are large, the soil still needs to be refreshed every few years. Perhaps one way is to auger vertical holes throughout the rootball, while still in the container, and backfill these holes with new soil mix.             Auguring holes into the rootball damages plant roots but the old container soil must be refreshed. Another method is removing the root ball from the container, removing old soil with a strong stream of water, pruning some of the roots and repotting it.             Prune the top back when finished to compensate for any root damage during repotting.

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How to Harvest Butternut Squash

Butternut squash fully mature and ready to harvest Q. When do you harvest butternut squash? A. Butternut squash, a winter squash, should be fully mature before it is harvested. Knowing when to harvest comes from experience.             Look at the color of the squash fruit and the condition of the vine. Squash fruit should be tan, brown or orange brown depending on the variety and the vine at the point of connection to the fruit should look like it’s dying.             In early winter, another way is to let the vine die from a light freeze and cut the vine from the squash fruit. A common method talked about is to press a thumbnail into the “skin”. When mature, the skin should be difficult to scratch or puncture. This is a rather subjective method and I don’t like it much.             I don’t particularly like this method because it can puncture the outer skin. This puncture or wound is a possible entry point for rotting microorganisms if squash fruits are stored for any length of time. All fruits and vegetables should be handled carefully without creating damage.             Don’t pull squash fruits from the vine because the wound left when the vine separates from the fruit damages the outer skin and leaves an open wound, unless you’re going to cook or process it right away.              Cut the vine from the squash fruit, leaving about ½ inch of vine attached. They store better at garage temperatures than house temperatures.

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Tree Stump Removal Can Leave Problems Behind

These pictures are all from the same plant or plans located where the African sumac was removed. This type of leaf discoloration can be from many different things including mineral deficiency, overwatering, damage from salts, chemical damage such as some weed killers. Q. I had an African sumac tree removed. I believe that the removal crew treated the stump with something to prevent the tree from regrowing. Now the xylosmas I planted in that spot have yellow or brown leaves. Is flushing the soil with water the best treatment? A. A common treatment to use on the stumps to prevent regrowth is applying potassium nitrate, a.k.a. saltpeter, one of the so-called “stump removers”. There is nothing poisonous to plants about the potassium or the nitrate. It’s the concentration of this chemical that does the job. It’s a salt. This is a stump remover marketed in Australia. It clearly shows that it’s made from potassium nitrate. Notice the fertilizer analysis on the right of the label. In light applications, it’s a fertilizer. When it’s applied in large amounts, it’s a plant killer because it is a fertilizer salt. http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MTYwMFgxNjAw/z/7OAAAOSw-ndTnilN/$_35.JPG             Any salt applied in high concentrations will kill plants. It is not a good idea to apply table salt because this salt contains sodium and chloride, both poisonous to plants. But potassium nitrate is also a fertilizer. The dose makes the poison. This fertilizer is applied at a concentrated rate that kills.             As with all salts, they flush easily from soil if you run lots of water through it.             There are other chemicals besides salt used to control regrowth from stumps. These are specific weed killers or herbicides that are very good at killing woody plants. Hopefully, these chemicals were not used. This is a stump remover that uses a chemical herbicide instead of potassium nitrate. http://images.lowes.com/product/converted/071121/071121564207.jpg             The pictures you sent to me looks like some form of chemical damage. Hopefully, they used potassium nitrate and you can simply flush the soil with water several times. If herbicides were used, the soil might need to be replaced in that area.

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New Commercial Orchard in Downtown Las Vegas

Cart paths bordering the block of two-year-old fruit trees at Ahern Orchard A cart path through the One-year-old plum and plot block of fruit trees at the air Ahern orchard There is a new Orchard about 1 ½ miles from Las Vegas Blvd., in Las Vegas Nevada and located in the Mojave Desert. It has been called “historic” by some because there is nothing like it anywhere in the United States.   Grape trellising at the Ahern Orchard Of two-year-old grapevines The Ahern Orchard currently has a mixture of about 1600 fruit trees and 400 grapevines, both table and wine grapes. It will expand to over 3000 plants in 2018 after spring planting. It sits on private property, owned by Ahern Rentals, Inc. and fed water from two agricultural wells that have been in existence for decades.   First year fruit tree planting at the Ahern Orchard, 2016 The area where it’s located is historic as well, rich in pre-Las Vegas and Las Vegas history. The land was formerly horse and residential property. Before the 1960s, there were artesian springs in the vicinity where the Ahern Orchard is located. In-line drip tubing used for irrigating fruit trees in the rows I have been working as a consultant on this Orchard since it’s beginning starting February, 2016, with Lloyd Benson, a VP of Ahern, who is the visionary behind this Orchard.   Irrigation valve, filter, pressure regulator and flow indicator (Ecoriser) for a block of fruit trees using in-line drip irrigation tubing Fruit trees on the property include traditional peaches, nectarines, plums, apricots, apples, European and Asian Pears, figs, pomegranates, pistachios, quince, persimmons and jujube. Not so traditional are the interspecific and inter-generic hybrid fruit trees as well including pluots, plumcots, apriums and others. Complicating this mixture are over 80 varieties that spans a production season from mid-May to the end of December.   Delivery of woodchip mulch to use on the fruit tree rows The layout of the Orchard is with tree spacings 10 feet apart in rows with spacing between rows alternating between ten and 14 feet to accommodate management of fruit tree operations. Trees will be managed to a maximum height of 10 feet. Covering the surface of the soil in the rows are woodchips from local arborists, diverting this rich resource from landfills to beneficial use.   Irrigation pattern of the in-line drip tubing when the water is being applied to the row Trees were planted bareroot using a mixture of about 25% compost from Viragrow, Inc. and triple super phosphate (0-45-0). First year trees were painted with whitewash to protect them from sunburn. Many of the second-year trees were protected from sunburn using white, plastic tree guards.   Fruit tree planting holesAre marked with a mixture of compost and triple super phosphate. Grapevines are supported by either single or double high tension steel cordon wires together with “catch wires” to protect the fruit from sunburn. End posts and line posts are traditional vineyard posts. All fruit trees are drip irrigated using in-line drip irrigation tubing down tree rows on both sides of the trees. PVC headers and footers are located at the beginning and end of each row that connect all of the in-line drip irrigation tubing in a “closed loop”. This type of irrigation irrigates the entire row while keeping the spaces between rows dry. Fruit tree roots will “follow the water” and eventually spread their roots throughout the entire row. Grapevines are irrigated more traditionally with drip irrigation emitters, one on each side of a vine, with water supplied from polyethylene tubing. Currently we are involved with winter fruit tree pruning at the Ahern Orchard. Some grape pruning will be done now but “fine-tuning” the grapes with their final pruning will not occur until February.

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Soil in Containers Needs Periodic Replacement

Q. We have two citrus trees (Meyer lemon and Bearss lime) which we put in clay pots. The pots are deteriorating and the trees need to be transplanted into other pots. In the desert, what time of year is best to transplant these trees into new containers?   Fruit trees growing in containers should have the soil amended or replenished every 3 to 4 years. A. Put them into new pots in late Winter or at the beginning of Spring. In our Las Vegas climate around the end of February or so. Containerized plants need the soil in the container “refreshed”, or the plant repotted, every 3 to 4 years or they will begin to decline. Grapefruit tree in container             This is not difficult if the containers and plans are relatively small; the plant is gently eased from the container, the roots and soil around the edge of the root ball is shaved off, and the plant is put back in the container with fresh soil or container mix.             If these plants are large, refreshing the soil still needs to be done every few years. Perhaps the best way to do that is to auger vertical holes throughout the root ball inside the container and fill them with a new container soil or soil mix.             Yes, this damages plant roots but the soil mix needs to be refreshed.

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Rabbits Best If Excluded from Herb Beds

Q. I plan on planting an herb garden in the spring but have rabbits in the neighborhood. Which herbs would be most rabbit resident? You can see the chicken wire on the outside of these vegetable beds. The chicken wire is supported with posts about 6 feet apart. A. The University of Arizona has a publication on rabbit and deer resistant plants but they are all landscape plants, not vegetables and herbs.             I have been growing vegetables and herbs near the desert for about twenty years. I have both jackrabbits and desert cottontails to fight with. The most effective way of controlling these plants from both of these varmints is a 2-foot-tall, 1 inch hexagon chicken wire as fencing around the beds. In other words, exclude them from the growing area.  Basil growing in raised beds surrounded by chicken wire for rabbit protection.             Barry the bottom edge of the fencing about an inch below the dirt so they can’t get their nose under it. I keep fencing pretty tight. I have seen baby cottontails squeeze through the 1-inch hexagon holes at a dead run when they are very young. Sometimes these young bunnies hide in these beds, get fat and can’t get out.             Personally, I would not rely on a list of so-called rabbit resistant plants unless there are lots of other plants for these varmints to choose from. I have found that if they get hungry, they will eat things they normally wouldn’t.             Rabbit resistant plants work as long as rabbits have food alternatives. So, what you’re doing is forcing rabbits to go to your neighbors and avoid yours because they don’t like yours as much.

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