Open canopy may overripen fruit
Q: I understand you have an experimental orchard. Have you experienced this problem? I have an 8-year-old Royal apricot tree that has produced for several good years, but the last two years the fruit is overripening from the inside. Even if you pick a green apricot, the fruit will already be overripe near the pit. If you wait until the outside feels right, the inside is almost rotten.
A: This sounds like the canopy of the tree might be quite open, allowing for a lot of direct sunlight into the center of the canopy where the fruit is located. Either that or you have a late-maturing variety of apricot like Moorpark instead of the very early Royal or Blenheim apricot that gets harvested during the heat.
In any case, you will need to try to create more shade on the fruit by increasing how much leaf cover the canopy produces. This is done with regular waterings and late winter fertilizer applications.
At the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension Master Gardener Orchard in North Las Vegas we water twice a week from May 1 until temperatures reach more than 105 F, then we switch to three times a week. The trees are about 8 feet tall when in production . Trees of this size need about 30-plus gallons each time they are watered.
We also use organic wood mulch to cover the soil under the trees to conserve water and keep the roots moist and cool. This organic mulch helps tremendously to increase the canopy covering the fruits (leaf cover).
We also apply a fruit tree fertilizer to the soil beneath the tree near the water source in late January. You also can apply one now if you need some extra growth from the tree before fall.
If the fruits receive too much direct sunlight and they overheat, then they can mature on the outside faster than the inside and rot on outside while the inside flesh may not develop as rapidly.
Q: We have a walled courtyard and entry via an iron gate. The rabbits tend to hop through the gate and eat our green plants. I have used a deterrent that is a powder with a very strong odor of fox urine. This has worked for a while, but the rabbits still come. Do you know of any remedy we might try, please? Small wire mesh would work, no doubt, but doesn't look good at the gate bottom.
A: When rabbits get hungry it is very difficult to keep them away from the food. If there's plenty of food around, they tend to eat the food that is easiest to get and still tastes good to them. Mechanical restriction or some sort of wire mesh or even chicken wire will help keep the larger rabbits out. I understand it doesn't look good but maybe you can use another type of mesh that is more decorative.
I have seen rabbits jump 3-foot-tall chicken wire fences and I have seen very young rabbits go through 1-inch-diameter mesh poultry fencing at a dead run. These are not jack rabbits, these were cottontails.
As you found out, those deterrents that have a bad smell work for a short time until they either get hungry or figure out it's not going to hurt them.
Encourage your neighbors to plant gardens.
Q: I have a rock area surrounding our pool about 1½ to 2 feet deep and about 14 feet long that abuts a concrete wall around our yard. Do you have any suggestions of small trees or plants that we could plant here that would have shallow roots (we don't want anything that would eventually take root and crack the concrete or water system underground), would be safe for the dogs, would eventually cover the wall and would not have leaves or flowers that would drop at various times of the year into the pool.
A: I don't recommend specific plants usually because there are just too many of them. As long as you have living plants surrounding a pool you will have litter. Select plants that flower at times when you would be less likely to use the pool (bees), and plants with large leaves to make cleanup easier.
All pools leak some water. They are never perfectly sealed. So avoid large woody plants and instead look at trellising with vines instead of trees for shade, if needed. Put drip emitters on the side away from the pool and keep any larger plants as far from the pool as possible.
Q: You diagnosed my problem as powdery mildew disease on my plants. My neighbor dug into some old gardening books and it fit perfectly the cause and symptoms. I got some fancy soil hauled in that was 33 percent vermiculite. The Internet suggested a 10 percent skimmed milk solution that helped some but it also said once the disease is established it's all over and that it's a result of messing up the soil's pH. Do I have to replace this soil before I start my fall garden or is there something I can do to make things right?
A: No, don't replace the soil. If it was powdery mildew, it is a disease that thrives with poor air movement and it is everywhere. It is spread by splashing water so make sure any overhead irrigations are not spreading the disease. It has nothing to do with the soil's pH unless the high alkalinity is causing your plants to be unhealthy. If they are unhealthy, they are more susceptible to diseases.
Water only in the early morning hours to help dry them out before night time. Thin out plants and leaves to encourage more air movement and help keep them dry. This spring was unusually humid and so this has been more of a problem than in the past.
Diseases are always present and just looking for the right opportunity (temperature, light, humidity) to make an appearance. Usually you can manipulate the environment and get some decent prevention.
Besides milk, I have seen mayonnaise recommended as well but I have never tried it. I try to rely on changing the environment to make it less conducive to a disease or locating a plant in a better spot. That is more of a long term solution than applying chemicals, regardless of whether the chemicals are organic or not.
Bob Morris is an associate professor with the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension. Direct gardening questions to the master gardener hot line at 257-5555 or contact Morris by e-mail at morrisr@unce.unr.edu.
