Readers yellow squash with fruit turning oranage and dying Q. I have had great success growing both yellow and green squash in my garden for the past five or six years.  Last month I harvested about ten nice pieces, but in the past couple of weeks they have all been turning very hard and the yellow pieces have turned dark and almost orange.  I have attached a couple of pictures of both the fruit and the plants.  Please let me know if you any suggestions. A. Your summer squash looks nice.  You will get more blemish free fruits with twice to three times a week sprays of insecticidal soaps including spraying the undersides of the leaves. The lack of squash development is due to poor pollination most likely due to cool weather and poor bee activity. Readers yellow summer squash when it is producing             You can attract more bees to the area by planting plants that bees love and flower at the times your vegetable garden needs pollination. Bee loving plants include many of the herbs which are allowed to flower. These might include rosemary, basil, lavender, oregano and thyme to name a few.             Woody ornamental plants typically flower for short periods of time but there are some like Texas Ranger, brooms like Scotch broom, lantana, verbena, and others. Go to your nursery and see what is in bloom, particularly reds, purples, pinks and start planting.

Q. Can peppers and tomatoes be planted next to each other? I printed a companion list off the internet that says “Yes”. An Ortho vegetable book I got from the library says tomatoes can’t be planted near peppers because they are in the same family. I have a yellow bell pepper plant next to a Heatwave tomato plant and although it has 2 peppers on it, it’s not growing in height. Just bushier than when I bought it. My banana pepper plant is tall and thin and every time it gets blossoms, they die and fall off. It was hiding under a pear tomato (I had no idea the tomato plants would get that huge!) so I moved it out and into the sun. Still nothing. A. Companion planting can mean different things to different people. Yes, you can plant vegetables in the same family next to each other typically with no problems. These two are in the nightshade family. It is recommended however to rotate your vegetables so that vegetables of the same family are not grown in the same location year after year. Not rotating the spots where you grow your vegetables can lead to a buildup of soil problems primarily diseases. Get to know which vegetables are in different families and try to group them so that you rotate them in different locations. I posted the families for vegetables on my blogspot. Make sure that you follow recommended spacings for your plants. Tomatoes can vary in size tremendously due to whether they are determinate or indeterminate and their genetic potential (crossbreeding that was done). If they are too close together they will hinder in each other’s production. Make sure you follow the spacing on the seed packet or if you bought them as transplants look the variety name up on the Internet for spacing. Usually transplant tags will give you the correct the spacing.

Q. Last fall, I planted about 2 dozen iris corms. I followed the directions explicitly. All the plants appear to be healthy, growing green and straight but no blooms!! I was advised that they need greater sun exposure. I had planted them in an interior courtyard that has sun and shade. Some of my plants were in a planter so I moved them to a southern exposure but they haven’t bloomed. I have the same problem with some day lilies I purchased in LV, green, healthy, lots of leaves but no flowers. A. Two thoughts come to mind. In many cases iris need a year to get established before they will bloom. Much depends on the size of the rhizome that was planted and how it was planted. Sometimes late spring freezes can interrupt a flowering cycle as well. Give them another year to get established and my guess they will bloom nicely. Try not to overfertilize them or they may tend to be juvenile and grow leaves with no or few flowers. Fertilize them after blooming rather than before.

Q. My fruitless olive tree is losing leaves branches on the south side of the tree. It has been in the ground since December 2010 having been planted from a 36″ box. I have been watering it 3 times a week for 20 minutes each time since March, less frequently the past winter. It has 4 emitters. Since I noticed the bare branches, I have started to hand water once a week for an hour with a bubbler. The wind usually blows through the tree from the south where the bare branches are located. Drip emitters are measured in gallons per hour A. Let’s assume your drip emitters are three gallons per hour, a very common rate for drip emitters which are not adjustable. You have four of them. That makes 12 gallons per hour. You water for 20 minutes that means you water the olive with four gallons. To fill a 36 inch boxed tree with soil I would guess would take about 25 to 30 gallons or more. This tree is way underwatered. Run the hose on the tree in a four inch deep basin surrounding the planting hole and fill the basin twice every time you water. This tree will require somewhere around 30 gallons or more each time you water. You will need to add emitters to the tree or run the drip for at least 2 to 3 hours each time you water as it is presently configured. Right now you should be watering twice a week with that volume. I want to add that if you are planting trees and shrubs you should ALWAYS hand water them in for two to three weeks after planting and then begin your drip system. Do not just turn them over to drip irrigation after planting.

 Pup growing from base Q. The ‘pups’ that grow off of the mother plant, you said to cut them off and let them dry out for a period of time. What is the time to leave them dry out and unplanted? A. In most cacti when we take a pad, offshoot or a pup (young offshoot that comes up from the ground right next to the mother plant) we just want some time for the damaged tissue to heal and begin callusing over after separating the plants. This helps in disease problems that might enter the wound once in contact with the soil. In warm weather this can be just several days. This can be out of doors but should be in the shade. Some take an extra precaution and dip the callused end into a fungicide before planting. If you are taking a pad from a cactus such as an opuntia (bunny ears or prickly pear) then while it is healing put the pad on end and don’t lie it flat on the ground or a table. If you lie it flat it can begin curving or cupping toward the light and makes it kind of hard to plant a curved pad. Sever a pad at the base of the pad exactly at the “joint” or where the two pads come together. I have used a sterilized, very sharp knife and even a pruning shears.  Removing pad from Opuntia with sharp knife  If you are planting a healed pad from a cactus such as an Opuntia then I would make sure you plant the pad so that its flattened sides face East/West, not North/South. If the flattened sides both receive light about equally then the pad is more likely grow more uniformly.  On pups and chollas they are three dimensional in shape so there really is no “flattened” sides. Plant healed pads during the warm or hot months, not the winter months. Plant pads so that one third of the pad is below the soil level. Now is an excellent time. Make sure you add compost to the planting soil and water infrequently, about once every two weeks in the summer. If you water too often you will rot the bottom of the pad or the pups. Pads from Opuntia cupping when laid flat

Yuccas and agaves will look better if treated more nicely Q. I have an agave in the yard that shows signs of stress where the outer leaf starts dying from the tip and progressing back toward the base of the leaf. Are they lacking water? (I only water it once every 2-3 months). Is there a nutrient that I can get for it and how often would it be applied?  A. Agaves, yuccas and other cacti and succulents look better with improved soils and regular waterings. They don’t like our unimproved desert soils but are very successful at surviving in them (even though they may not look very good). Even though they are desert plants and do not receive much water in the desert they will perform better and look better with more frequent waterings. Water about once every two weeks in the summer; once a month or longer in the winter.  Harsh location even for a desert plant to look good  They should improve unless they have other problems. If you plant more cacti and agaves, or replant this one, then make sure the soil is improved with compost at the time of planting. Adding compost to the soil surface will help but is not as effective as putting it in the planting soil.

Compost pile at The UNCE Orchard in North Las Vegas. I always wanted to put a shade structure over it. Q. When I lived in New York, I used to compost and I would love to also compost in Henderson. Do I follow the same rules for composting in Nevada as I did when I lived in New York? A. The ingredients and methods are the same but I would like to add a few things that you might want to consider. A great place would be a heavily shaded and protected spot away from the house. I would keep it out of the wind as much as possible. Wind just drives the moisture out of the pile quickly and the exposed surfaces have a harder time composting usually requiring more frequent watering and turning. Secondly, there is no reason for it to be in the sun and it would be better if it weren’t. Sunlight is not needed in a compost pile. All the energy driving the decomposition is coming from the microorganisms feeding on what is in the pile. Thirdly, we have lots of horse manure here that is taken to the landfill where it is dumped. Use it when you can. It is nearly identical in attributes to cow manure. The compost pile is meant to decompose so it will attract decomposers like cockroaches and grubs so keep it away from the house. The pile should be kept moist but not dripping. Make sure it is getting lots of air so keep the piles small or turned frequently. I hope this helps. By the way we usually have some compost available at The Orchard for a small donation.

Q. I have pignut on my property and I want to know how to get rid of it.  A. If this is in fact pignut then it will require either killing or exhausting the “nuts” or tubers that will cause the plant to regrow if the top is killed. It is a perennial weed that grows from these tubers once it is established. Of course it spreads by seed at first or comes in with contaminated, transported soil if any was brought in. A three to four inch surface mulch will help to keep this plant from getting established from seed. Once the plant grows from seed it produces tubers which will regenerate the top of the plant year after year. So if you try to hoe the top out or “grub it out” the tuber will use its food reserves and grow back. However if the tops are grubbed out religiously as soon as they appears this practice will eventually exhaust the tuber and the plant will die. In wetter climates these tubers can be about a foot deep so digging up the tubers is another possibility if you do not have a lot of this weed around and want some exercise. Because the nuts are so deep, soil solarization or tilling the soil and covering it in plastic and “cooking” the soil is not practical. I would not use the chemicals recommended for its control (Tordon/picloram). These are primarily soil sterilants and can make the soil unusable for years. Actually Indian Rushpea but picture is very close to pignut

Saturday todo • Irrigate. We are now irrigating twice a week right now, Tuesdays and Saturdays Corky spot on Mutsu apple • Pick up fallen fruit. This helps to control those nasty pests that get into fallen and soft fruits like the dried fruit beetle and confused sap beetle. • Harvest designated fruit. This will include peaches, apricots, early plums and nectarines. We are getting into Peaches like May Pride and nectarines like Arctic Star, some of the best fruit out there. Plums are Beauty and a really good  one coming up, Burgundy. Also Flavor Supreme pluots are just starting to come on but I think they have all been purchased ahead of time. • Evaluate any fruit which does not have a history of evaluations. We have some new fruit we just planted during the last couple of years that we do not have any evaluations on. These are sensory evaluations primarily for the market and restaurants. • Pick up any branches lying in the orchard aisles. Please! Someone can get hurt! Corky spot on Comice pear • Put in irrigation boxes. We need to get that main valve, a Schrader valve, covered and buried. • Put privacy fencing on south fence. We will remove that old green screening that is getting shredded on the outside and put this new screening on the inside of the fence between the trellised trees and the fence. • Spray calcium (weather permitting). This should be our fourth application of calcium for corky spot and bitter pit of pears and apples. • Spray Mpede on vegetable plots. This is insecticidal soap which goes on lots of leafy stuff about three times a week. • Check hops and fertilize. We are trying some hops this year and they need some attention. • Weed control. Always a problem.

Q. These are my first 2 vegetables this year. All the others comming along appear to be OK. If I take down the fence, will the chipmunks still cut down the tomato plants? Blossom end rot of tomato A. The tomato looks like blossom end rot which is a mineral deficiency usually enhanced with irregular or somehow uneven applications of water. Watch your watering frequencies and if you can make sure your soil is enhanced with compost at the time of planting and use a surface mulch such as straw once they start blooming. Sunscald of pepper On the pepper this looks more like sunscald on the fruits. This is poor canopy development to shade the fruits and  having these fruits exposed to our extremely high sunlight intensities. You have two options. One is to focus on getting better canopy development through the use of fertilizers and soil improvement on a regular basis or grow them under about 30% shade.  Those little varmints will eat the fruits of tomatoes and peppers. You need to keep the veggies fenced or get on a program of varmint suppression or control. A good product for this is a bait called Quintox and can be used under certified organic operations. However you should follow the directions for baiting quite closely which starts at the beginning of the season. There is a movement on to protect the Mojave ground squirrel but I do not believe the Antelope ground squirrel is protected or there is a movement to protect it. Controlling ground squirrels Antelope ground squirrel Another thing you should keep in mind. You are growing these plants above ground in black plastic containers. I could see them in your pictures before I cropped them. These containers, exposed to our sunlight, will generate surface temperatures on the containers of 170F. I have measured them with an infrared gun. Plant proteins begin to denature at 140F. You will kill significant numbers of roots with this kind of heat transferred to the soil inside the containers. Pepper pic before cropping. I could see the top of the black plastic container. Two things you need to do with containers in our climate. Use double-potted containers. One container nested inside an outside container will take some of the heat from being transferred to the soil. Or plant the containers in the soil still using a double pot. This is actually best. Secondly, irrigate about 9 am just before temperatures begin so soar. This will make sure the soil is wet going into the heat of the day. Wet soil can absorb alot more heat than a drier soil.