The August UNLV Research Center BBQ, Plant Sale and Garden Talk will get underway on Thursday, August 23, starting at 6:30 PM with the BBQ and Cactus Sale. Garden talks featured will be Getting to Know Your Soil by Dr. Dale Devitt of UNLV and The Colorado River and the Future of Water by Dr. Tom Piechota. For directions or more information please call UNLV Biology at 702-895-3853. Click on it if you want it bigger!

Q. I’m hoping you can help me with my quail problem.  I once thought they were adorable but now that they’ve eaten lots of my garden, I’m less thrilled with them. They have eaten my radishes (2 plantings), carrots, spinach (2 plantings), Swiss chard (2 plantings), lettuce, beets, jalapenos, Hungarian wax peppers.              I’ve made wire covered with plastic into arches and put plastic netting over them and held it down with U-shaped large clips.  They have eaten through the netting in places.  Or they have just landed on the netting and collapsed it enough to reach the new plants.  And the thing I hate the most is that they peck through a stem and leave the leaf just lying there.  To top it off, they now have eaten my mock orange into half its size and taken some rosemary (which grows so fast, I wish they would just stick to it!).              Last fall they pecked off two thirds of a valentine plant.  I would greatly appreciate any help you can give me.  I hesitate to use an ultrasonic type of machine as I enjoy all the hummingbirds and other small birds that come to the yard.  A. I usually cut down the questions a bit but yours was so interesting (and I’m sorry but kind of funny) that I had to put the whole thing in. Those quail sure are cute aren’t they! When they are in someone else’s garden! I can almost hear some of the readers, “Get a cat!”             Quail, as you have found out, can be a big problem for vegetable gardens.  The best way to keep them out is to fence the garden plots with metal chicken wire, 1 inch diameter hexagonal.  The ultrasonic bird repellents only work for short periods of time until they get accustomed to it.  That has been our experience at the orchard using these devices.              When you put up the chicken wire make sure it is 48 inch wide metal mesh and that it is staked securely about every five or 6 feet.  You must then run a wire between the stakes at the height where the top of the fence will be and tightly secured to the wire to keep it from sagging.             You should dig a trench about 6 to 8 inches deep on the outside of the stakes so that this fencing can be buried 6 to 8 inches deep.  This helps to keep animals, like rabbits, from getting under the fencing.  This is preferable to staking or stapling the bottom of the fence to the ground.         The mesh should be no larger than 1 inch diameter and even though this size will still allow small rabbits and baby quail access if they choose to leave their mothers.  This should reduce and nearly eliminate the problems to the vegetable beds.

Leaf scorch on Cherry Laurel Q. I now water once a week but my shrubs are looking like they might in the hottest part of the summer. Leaves look dry, burnt and falling off. My average shrub is about 3’x3′ and receives 3-4 gallons per week week based on my emitters and time on. Did I cut back too much ? What should I do to try to revive them ? A. Your watering sounds very appropriate and probably what I would have scheduled as well. You have to make sure, however, that the water which is scheduled to be delivered to your plants is actually getting there. Make sure you check for plugged emitters when the system is on. You should have a filter on your drip system even if you are on city water. Leaf scorch on mockorange due to chlorosis and inadequate plant nutrition              It could be several possibilities. I have to walk through them with you because I don’t know much about their previous history. For me, it looks like possibly watering, possibly collar rot at the base of the trunk where the rock mulch sits against the stem, it could be very low temperature damage as possibilities. If there were some very low temperatures just prior to that than this could be just that. If there were no low temperatures than most likely it is not. Then we have to look at watering issues including the rock against the trunk. First determine whether the plant is dead or not. Bend some branches and see if they snap. If they are still supple and just have damaged leaves then it is a temporary setback and they will regrow and set new leaves in the spring. If they snap when you bend them, it may be dead. You will have to pull it anyway so start bending the branches and see how much of the plant is dead. If the amount is sizable, remove it. When you remove it look at the trunk where the rock mulch was resting against it. Planting so shallow that the container mix from the nursery is exposed to the open air and wicks water from the rootball Use a knife or your thumbnail and scrape the bark away from the trunk starting about an inch above where the rock mulch sat and down along the stem to the roots. Look to see if there appears to be a dark area or rotten area in the trunk or bark around the rock mulch line. If there is, then it is collar rot. Make sure on any new shrubs that rock mulch does not lay against the trunk or, in some cases, the plant was not planted too deeply. It should have been planted the same depth as it was growing in the nursery container. Nurseries don’t have many plants this time of year because they are trying to reduce their inventories. You can look for a replacement plant but chances are you may not find one that you like until next spring when it gets warm. I hope this helps.

Come on out to the Cactus sale and BBQ on June 21, 2012, at 6:30 PM at UNLV’s Center for Urban Horticulture and Water Conservation. They have been growing cactus for the public and have two presentations ready for people who come: How to Grow Melons Scorpions Burgers $1.25 Soft Drinks  $0.75

Q. I am a new gardener.  I am growing everything in pots including my fruit trees: figs, cherries, peaches all on dwarf root stocks.  The trees are in 30 inch pots holding 6 cubic feet of soil.  My tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, squash and others I grow in 5 gallon buckets.  I am growing 12 different varieties of raspberries and blackberries in 20 gallon containers with a trellis on each pot other than my trees. I started my garden a bit late so it is mostly in the shade.  I am thinking about taking it out into the sunlight after the summer to hope to stimulate more fruiting on the plants. A. You have to be a good gardener to pull that off. Container gardening can be quite a challenge but if you have no other alternative then it is what it is. Containers are not very forgiving. Even with six cubic feet there is not much room for error so they require more monitoring than plants grown in the ground. Womak blackberry, a blackberry that does produce in the hot desert of the Mojave but fruits ripen unevenly and quickly when it is hot.             Irrigation, soil temperatures due to the overheating of the container, soil nutrients because the soil can be exhausted fairly quickly are going to require careful monitoring. In smaller containers you can dump the soil and start fresh again. Small containers overheat in the summer very easily and the soil temperatures which can damage the roots of plants can be a problem.             Putting them in the shade helps but finding the right balance of sunlight and shade can be trickey. Flowering and fruiting plants require more sunlight than plants grown for just their leaves. The fertilizer requirement for leafy plants is different than flowering plants. Dorman Red red raspberry. A low chill raspberry for the south that did not perform well for us and we finally pulled out the plants.             Leafy plants require more nitrogen while the flowering and fruiting plants require a more favorable balance between nitrogen and phosphorus. And don’t forget to rotate plants that are annuals so you don’t build up disease and insect problems. If growing in containers does not work out for you, try growing them in the ground. I can help you get started with that. Just let me know but don’t give up! By the way, I dont know of any variety of raspberry that does well in the hot parts of the Mojave Desert. If you have one that has lasted at least four years and produced a decent crop, I would love to hear about it!

These pomegranates aren’t quite ready to harvest but you can see their size. If they were thinned, the remaining one would have been even larger. Q. I hope things are going well for you in Afghanistan. I have a question regarding our pomegranate trees. Two years ago, we had an abundance of good sized pomegranates from two trees. These trees are about 25 feet apart. However, last year we only got about six in total from both trees.             This year there are an abundance of blooms and many already have a fruit set. It looks like there will be at least 25 to 30 pomegranates on each tree. Should I thin some of the fruits after they have set? Is there a reason why one year we get an abundance of fruit and the next virtually none? Try to thin pomegranates while the fruits are still small. In this case (next picture) we will leave only the largest one by twisting off the other two smaller ones. A. You didn’t tell me if last year you had an abundance of blooms as well as no fruit or if you have few flowers and also few fruit. Of course if you didn’t have many flowers then you would not have many fruit either.             In this case it sounds like the growth went into shoot and leaf growth rather than flower production. If plants are in a very juvenile stage they tend to put their energy into gaining size. As they get older and they mature they will begin to produce more fruit.             If you prune pomegranates so that you remove excessive new growth but keep the older, larger wood, you will produce fewer fruit but they will be larger. I only remove pomegranate fruit when they are small if they are directly opposite each other. If they are at least an inch or two between the fruit, I leave them both on. Here is the remaining pomegranate after thinning.             I will post some pictures on my blog at Xtremehorticulture of the desert to show you what I am talking about.

Readers Thompson seedless grape cupped leaf Q. My property is in the shape of a pizza slice so I have tons of room in my back yard. I have a dwarf peach tree, Utah Sweet pomegranate, Valencia orange, Thompson seedless grape, and Flame seedless grape. The past couple of years I have been using drip system along with all my other backyard foliage. I used to water once per week for an hour during the winter, three times per week during the spring and fall for an hour each, and an hour per day during the summer. My fruit production was okay, nothing special. I have now switched from drip to watering with a hose.             Do you have any suggestions for watering my fruit trees?  I have also found that my Thompson seedless grapes have been turning up in brown and some of the leaves have also been curling in. I attached pictures of both issues. What do you think could be my problem? A. This seems to be the year for grape problems. Grapes do wonderfully well in our climate as long as the soil is prepared well at the time of planting, they get adequate amounts of water frequently enough and you cover the surface of our soil with organic mulch. Red Flame grape at the Orchard             Some people believe grapes should struggle to produce a quality crop of grapes. Believe me, in our climate and in our soils they struggle enough without imposing additional struggles. To get good grapes, keep them healthy and don’t let them struggle under our circumstances.             We did have some strong winds earlier that can cause the kind of damage you mentioned and that appear in the picture you sent to me. Watch the new foliage as it emerges. If it looks healthy, don’t worry about the older foliage. That is old damage that was just temporary.             You talk about watering over a certain length of time. This is like me asking you how many minutes of coffee or tea you drink. Or, if you don’t drink coffee or tea, whatever beverage is your favorite. We don’t talk about minutes or hours when we talk about drinking something. Likewise, when we give plants a “drink of water” we should not be talking about time but instead the volume of water we apply.             I don’t know how many drip emitters you have and I don’t know how much water each one delivers in an hour. So I am going to guess you have four emitters for each tree and they deliver 4 gallons of water in an hour. This would mean that in one hour these trees would receive 16 gallons. For a medium-size tree, this is far too little. Drip irrigation on grapes on the ground with mulch             When watering with the drip system it should run for a long period of time, in some cases two or three hours. You will double the amount of water to these trees if you increase your watering from one hour to two hours. I would try this first.             Drip irrigation is extremely accurate in applying the water. Much more accurate, efficient and consistent than using a hose.

Q. I am having a serious problem with my grape vine.  It seems to have stopped growing and is losing leaves. I used a lot of bone meal on the plants and I am wondering if I have over fertilized it? The ground is never dry, the flower bed it’s planted in is on the same drippers as prior years. Readers grape plant. Notice the leaf discoloration in the top center of the picture that might be a disease problem. A. Thanks for sending a good detailed picture. I looked at the picture closely upon magnification which I could do on my computer. Here is what I could determine from the picture and your comments.             I saw some good strong growth from some of the vines, but there appeared to be a fair amount of unproductive wood in the canopy. I am wondering if there is quite a bit of dead wood in that vine.             You reported leaf drop and I could see some scorching in the leaves. This type of leaf damage is common to some grape diseases. The grape bunches looked very healthy so I am guessing that something happened rather quickly to the vine. This could be a problem to have grape clusters this exposed in our high light intensity desert climate. However, this exposure faces east so it is not quite so bad.             I rather doubt that applying bone meal, even in fairly large amounts, would cause this leaf drop and leaf scorching unless it was applied directly to the base of the vine and in large amounts. If this problem you are reporting happened over the entire vine, then something happened to the root system or the trunk of the vine.              It is possible it could be diseased if there is a lack of air movement in that location. If that microclimate is higher in humidity it might also cause some leaf problems (disease) that could cause defoliation. This is not the climate for disease problems to florish so I would not be treating for diseases unless humidity and cool temperature persisted or if I saw the chance for diseases to persist from year to year due to the microclimate. In our climate, this type of weather condition does not usually persist and there is enough stored energy in the plant for it to refoliate.             One problem might occur and that is defoliation of the vine and sunburn of the already semi mature bunches of grapes. If grape clusters are exposed to sunlight early when they are small they can accomodate higher light intensities but their is an increased chance of sunburn on the berries when the plant defoliates when the grape berries are this far along.

Q. Back in 2010 you sent out info on how to preserve apricots, but I lost it. Is it still possible to find this information? A. The one you’re referring to is excellent and published by Utah State University. I posted it on my blog or otherwise you can retrieve it by googling “Preserving Apricots Utah State University”. Go to the publication on how to preserve apricots Open publication – Free publishing – More apricots

Me with a technician at field plots at Balkh University. I am on assignment in northern Afghanistan now but my readers will still be able to follow the answers to my gardening questions here in the newspaper as well as my blog. I will post more on Afghanistan as well. I am at 36 degrees north latitude right now. Las Vegas is also at 36 degrees north latitude and at a similar elevation so the climates are very similar. I have been tracking the weather in Las Vegas and day and night temperatures are similar right now. Weather here is dry and the plots behind me are irrigated or it would be desert back there. So keep the questions coming!