One day a week will be enough water from December through about March. But during fruit production, more water is required.
Bob Morris
Bob Morris is a horticulture expert living in Las Vegas and professor emeritus for the University of Nevada. Visit his blog at xtremehorticulture.blogspot.com. Send questions to Extremehort@aol.com.
I have been growing fruit trees here since 1996. Watching them grow and produce fruit and maintaining them can be very rewarding.
Apples that stay on the tree longest are the most heavily infested by codling moths. Apples harvested early are the least infested. Populations of this pest increase with each generation produced.
Apriums, like apricots, need lots of heat to ripen and sweeten to their highest quality. They did not get it this year.
If you want to improve drainage for cactuses then plant them higher than the surrounding soil. This type of cactus requires deep but infrequent irrigation.
The cycad, aka sago palm, is considered an ancient representative of its kind and has changed very little over the millennia. It is, like pine trees, a true gymnosperms.
This winter, the valley hasn’t had any freezing temperatures at lower elevations. But let’s not forget about chilling injury (damage occurring somewhere around 50 to 45 degrees Fahrenheit) in new growth and fruits of tropical plants like tomatoes.
Cactuses, particularly agaves, are rotting and dying from damage by the agave weevil, which that lays its eggs at the base of agave leaves. As their young hatch from the eggs, they burrow into the stem of the agave and all through it, including the roots.
Bagged steer manure was used in the past as a topdressing for lawns when overseeding. It was smelly but it worked well. Now there are commercial topdressing products available.
Q: I want to propagate my prickly pear and bunny ear cactus. Should I place the cuttings immediately in the ground or in a pot and plant them in the ground later?
Q: You mentioned that male asparagus plants produce more than female asparagus plants. How do you tell the difference?
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 inches 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?
Q: I planted a pomegranate tree two years ago and this year it produced six fruits. One was of decent size while the others were on the small side. When the large one split, I picked it only to find the inside was light pink. The seeds were well-developed but not the expected red color.
Question: We planted a pluot this past spring along with four peach trees of different varieties. The pluot just started oozing sap or gumming on the lower truck.
Question: I purchased an assortment of tomatoes, and they are doing well. Folks like to put them in cages, but I have always found them more bother than they are worth. So I let them sprawl and go where they want.
