Q. I planted turnips from six-packs in September.  I harvested two beautiful turnips but their flavor was terrible, approaching inedible. They were very bitter. What may have happened? A. The timing for planting sounds okay but heat will do that to turnips and many other root crops. Turnips have a higher germination threshold temperature, about 60F, and so have to go in a bit earlier in the fall than beets, parsnips or rutabagas and later in the spring. Also, a lack of water would too but if they are a good size and shape then I doubt it is a water problem.             Another thing to note is that turnips, like rutabagas, can contain a bitterness that some people find intolerable. This is an inherited trait in people so that some people will taste the bitterness while others may not. You may be one of these people. Also, you might try boiling them first, throw the water out half way through boiling and replace it. This may help remove bitterness.             I would switch to a different variety or grow kohlrabi instead which I find much more enjoyable and easier to grow. Make sure your soil has been prepared with plenty of compost and phosphorus prior to planting. Make sure they get adequate water and I would even mulch them with some straw after they emerge if the temperatures are still warm. I got an update. Turnips harvested later were not bitter so sounds like they were planted a bit too early and got hit with some high temperatures.

Q. I have a tree loaded with oranges but I am not sure when to pick them. I read in the paper today about the Meyer lemon tree and you said to pick them now. Should I pick my Washington navel orange now? A. Since this is not a commercial growing area for oranges we have to take our best guess at the time for picking. It is not the same for Myers lemon and different oranges will be ready at different times. The problem here is if you wait to pick through the winter, we may get a hard freeze and you could lose the fruit.             Washington navel orange fruit mature at the Christmas season in California. In hot hot tropical climates the fruit may never turn orange. In cooler climates the fruit turn orange when they mature. If it is close to Christmas and the fruit is orange, harvest it. Use a shears and leave a small nib or piece of stem attached to the fruit if you plan on keeping them for any length of time. If the stem is pulled from the fruit, it leaves a fresh wound where disease organisms can enter and cause early rotting. Pulling them is okay if you are going to use them right away, otherwise cut the stem.             By the way, if you are going to juice this particular orange then remove the peel first or it may be bitter.

Q. My privet hedges turned a copper brown color.  I have three in a row on one side that are really brown while the hedge on the far right still has a substantial amount of green but is starting to get spots.  Not sure what to do to save them. Pictures are attached. A. These pictures look like possibly cold damage. It could be more than this but I want you to do this to find out. Walk over to the privets and start bending some branches just below where they were pruned. If they are still soft and supple and bend easily without breaking then it is most likely cold damage that caused leaf death.             If they are supple and bend, don’t do anything. They will leaf out again this spring as temperatures begin to warm or you may see them leaf out sooner than that.             If they all are snapping when you bend them, then there is severe dieback. It is still possible the dieback is due to cold weather this past November. Cold temperatures are very damaging during the early winter if the plants were caught unexpectedly by sudden drops in temperature.             There was really nothing that you could have done to prevent this. It is the luck of the draw sometimes. However, if there was severe dieback you should have healthy stems closer to the ground. I would wait until late February or March and see where the new growth comes from. I would then cut the dead growth slightly below this new growth.             Check and make sure they were getting water this winter. Turn your station on and look for water coming out of your irrigation emitters. If there was blockage and you didn’t notice, it’s possible they could die back from a lack of water. My best hunch, however, is cold damage.

Q. I have a single, four year old pomegranate tree in Las Vegas.  The tree produced excellent fruit the first three years.  This year the fruit was spoiled as they came off the tree.  The tree appeared normal.  Looking at the fruit, it wasn’t evident if it was infested with a bug or a disease.  Would you have any suggestions on what caused it?  Adults A. The most likely reason would be an insect called the leaf footed plant bug. They will infest pomegranates, almonds and pistachios most frequently. Their feeding can cause small holes in the outside of the fruit or nut.             This wound can open the fruit for infection by disease and possibly cause a nut not to develop inside the shell causing what we called blanks, or no nut, to develop. You will see these insects overwintering on your fruit trees or nearby landscape trees as well. Adults and nymphs             These are nefarious denizens of the worst kind and seem to have no value except to breed more of the same. I would recommend spraying your fruit and nut trees with dormant oil twice during the winter and follow this a few days later with an insecticidal soap.             I have seen most of these adults overwintering on the stems and trunks of trees, usually in the sunlight because of the heat they can get. I hope this helps.

Q. I have a large pot of sage growing on the protected side of my house (north) where all my citrus and other herbs have done well.  I notice that when the weather cools, the sage leaves turn a whitish color.  I collected some for sage dressing, but I didn’t bother using the white leaves, just the green ones.  Is this a natural occurrence during cold weather?  Would those leaves have been okay to use?              I dry the good leaves in the oven at 225 degrees for about 1 hour, leave them out in the house to get thoroughly dry for a day or so, then crush them in a coffee grinder.  Works great for my use in the kitchen, especially for sage dressing.   A. This white discoloration is probably some damage to the leaves due to cold. You are right, don’t use them.             However, drying at 225F is far too high. This should be done at temperatures between 95 and about 125F. There is a lot of damage done to the herbs at high temperatures, particularly above 140F.             Our weather and climate is perfect for drying herbs without the use of extra heat. It will take longer than one hour but the quality will be much, much better. Cut the stems of those with flower buds just starting to form. Hang these bunches in the open air and not in intense sunlight for 1 week to dry.             If this is too slow for you, use a cookie sheet and put in the oven at the lowest temperature that provides heat. Bottom line, do not use excessive heat and keep them out of intense sunlight while drying. Hope this helps.

Q. I’ve enjoyed your articles in the LVRJ over the years. I Love my backyard garden here on Sunrise Mountain but it’s been a challenge compared to growing a garden on the Island of Maui.  I would like to augment my garden soil with the wood ashes from my fireplace. Would that be good for the garden soil?  A. If these ashes are from plants then there should be no problem incorporating some of it. Much of this has to do with the volume that you want to add. Small volumes of this distributed over a larger area will be no problem as it will be high in some nutrients. One ton of wood ash has about 15 lbs of phosphorus and 50 lbs of potassium but it is strongly alkaline which we don’t need. If this ash is coming from plastics or other manufactured products then I would not use it.

Sour orange rootstock that took over a Navel Orange tree Q. I have a dwarf tangerine in a container that gives lots of fruit but it is sour. Why? A. Sugar content is developed over time as fruit matures. When the fruit is immature it usually has higher acidity and low sugar content. As the fruit matures the acidity drops, and sugar content climbs. Be sure to wait for full color development in the fruit and it should be at its highest sugar content.             Tangerine is sometimes grafted onto sour orange rootstock. If the tangerine part of the plant dies, the sour orange rootstock will replace it producing beautiful fruit but very sour and it will never become sweet. If this is the case, and this happens a lot in Las Vegas due to our winter freezes, dig it out and replace it.

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 to 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.              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. 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.

Q. How do I get my Christmas cactus to bloom? I was given a 9″ pot back in November, kept it indoors with plenty of light, only to find out that it’s supposed to be in the dark for 14 hours a day. I started that 3 weeks ago, been watering once a week, gave it cacti food twice, but no blooms. A. The Christmas cactus is a true cactus and nearly identical to the Thanksgiving cactus. These cacti have slightly different bloom times so they get the names Christmas and Thanksgiving cactus because of their bloom times.             The amount of light (actually it’s amount of darkness) will typically get them to bloom if all the light they receive is natural daylight. It’s when they receive extra light inside the home that it can break this rhythm of flowering and cause them not to flower at this time of year.             These cacti bloom when the nighttime darkness approaches what we get a minimum of 12 hours of darkness. So if they are growing inside they need to be covered so they receive no light from artificial sources. Once covered they will bloom if they remain covered, religiously, for six weeks . They also respond to cool temperatures. So placing them in a colder location in the dark also will help them to bloom.             Christmas cactus is what we call an epiphytic cactus which means it does not grow in the soil in the wild but on the surface of other plants such as trees. We can however put them in containers and grow them in containers with soils amended with lots of truce one compost, similar to what they would find growing on the surface of a limb in the tropics. This is much like orchids and bromeliads. These cacti can be grown outside here on the northern or eastern exposure in a well amended soil or in containers but you must bring them in if there is any chance of freezing temperatures.

Plant lettuce, peas, cabbage (transplants), cauliflower (transplants), carrots, radishes and spinach. These vegetables can germinate and handle lower soil temperatures in the warmer parts of the garden (45F soil temperatures for germination). Prepare the soil by loosening it and applying a starter fertilizer high in phosphorus. Cover the seeds with a dark topdressing to help warm the soil. Activated carbon works great for transferring heat to the soil.