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Category: Pests, Problems and Health

Pests, infections, disease, cultivation and growing problems

Causes & Cures for Bitter Pit on Apples

Causes & Cures for Bitter Pit on Apples

DSC_0125.jpg Gascoigne's Scarlet.

Brown spots in the flesh of your apples is a sure sign of Bitter Pit. Along with dark depressions in the skin, brown sports dotted throughout the flesh is typical of bitter pit on your apple trees.
Bitter pit is a disorder not an infection or infestation.
Unfortunately the flesh of badly affected apple trees will also taste rather bitter

What Cause Bitter Pit on Apples

  • The disorder is usually brought about by a calcium deficiency.
  • Another potential cause is a susceptibility of the variety.
  • An erratic supply of water will also encourage the disorder.
  • Young trees that are putting on a lot of growth are also rather susceptible.
  • Early picking can cause bitter pit to develop during storage.
  • Dry conditions can reduce the calcium uptake even if it is present
  • Vigorous trees with copious leaf area need more calcium. Bramley’s Seedling and Newton Wonder are large fruiting cookers that are prone to the problem.
  • Trees without adequate Calcium will rob fruit of the calcium to sustain other parts of the tree.

How do you Cure Bitter Pit on Apples

    • Spray the developing fruit with Chempak Calcium mulit-action
    • Foliar sprays of calcium nitrate or Calcium chloride solution can be applied from mid-June to mid-September
    • Make sure your trees are mulched and well watered.
    • Some varieties such as Bramley Seedling and Gascoigne’s Scarlet are more prone than others. Check what grows well in your area and try plant those varieties, Gala is said to be free of the problem.
    • Prevention is the best cure using good cultivation practices.
    • Install irrigation to give tree roots access to moisture and natural calcium.
    • Add lime or chalk to the ground then rake and water in.
    • Do not store apples showing signs of bitter pit. Rather eat or cook with them asap.

Has your Granny Smith got black spots or is your Golden Delicious not totally golden then you may have bitter pit. This is not a fungal or insect borne disease but a chemical imbalance. Bitter Pit is a problem with the fruit on Apple trees caused by a shortage of Calcium. The fruit have dark, sunken spots on the surface, browning flesh and a slightly bitter taste. The problem can continue or start developing after harvest so inspect stored apples. Cork spot and Jonathan spot are similar to Bitter pit in that damage to tissue occurs mostly on the surface and just below. Although apples affected with these disorders are still edible they are unattractive in appearance.

Read about other Apple problems and control


Credits
DSC_0125.jpg Gascoigne’s Scarlet. by northdevonfarmer CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 ‘Gascoign’s Scarlet. These apples always seem to be affected by bitter pit here.’

Tips to Avoid Mildew

Tips to Avoid Mildew

White dusty fungus on your plant leaves may be Mildew. Each species is susceptible to it’s own Mildew and either powdery or downy mildew it is still a pain.
Some plants suffer more than others and with some varieties it is seasonal. Michaelmas Daisies and Phlox seem to suffer late in the year whilst Gooseberries can suffer in spring.
Brassicas, Marrows, Cucumbers, Sweet Peas and even Potatoes can suffer badly.

Tips to Avoid Mildew

  • Buy plants that have been bred to be mildew resistant. This is well worthwhile when selecting roses.
  • Do not let plants get stressed particularly through lack of water. Mulch your roses after a good rain and keep the mulch topped up and give them plenty of water.
  • Allow air to circulate around plants by careful pruning. Mildew thrives in a humid, still atmosphere.
  • Prune out affected parts and do not compost affected leaves. Spray badly affected plants before winter to try stop spores over wintering.
  • Do not over use a nitrogen fertiliser that will encourage sappy growth which is prone to attack.
  • If moderate powdery mildew is present plant-based oils such as neem oil and jojoba oil can be used to reduce or eliminate the infection.
  • Chemical treatment is controlled on edible plants but Rose Clear 3 and Systhane Fungus Fighter are good fungicide products but read the label.

Book Cover

Mildew 2011 update

  • The dry spring and early summer has kept mildew down to a minimum in my garden this year – so far at least.
  • The Flowering Currants and Honesty Lunaria annua are the only plants with signs of mildew and they are not worth treating with chemicals.
  • Since mildew is plant specific I do not worry about composting old leaves.

 

Read Gardener’s Mildew Cures

How to Attract Butterflies into your Garden

How to Attract Butterflies into your Garden

Butterfly GardenCreate a paradise for butterfly and you will benefit from colour twice over. A garden full of eye and butterfly catching, fragrant flowers from spring to autumn can be achieved by selecting some of the following plants.

Butterfly feed on nectar and need this energy giving resource. They also need water from moist soil to which you could add a sprinkling of salt or grow a plant that catches water between its leave like Teasel. Their eggs need food so plant some Cow Parsley, Nettles and Butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa).

Butterfly Attracting Flowers

  • Lily of the valley – convallaria
  • Rock Cress – Arabis
  • Sweet Violets – viola odorata
  • Shasta daisy and Coreopsis in summer
  • Buddleia the butterfly bush in white pink or lilac or even Lilac it’s self
  • Dahlia, Cosmos and marigold for their long flowering season
  • Petunia, Verbena and fibrous Begonia
  • Delphinium, Aster and Day Lily

Feeding Time
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Dangerous and Harmful Garden Plants

Dangerous and Harmful Garden Plants

This is not an exclusive list so always take care.
Castor oil plant in August

Hazardous and Dangerous Plants

Not everything in the garden is lovely when it can poison or injure the unsuspecting. The extremely hazardous Poison Ivy and Poison oak related to the Rhus family (Diversiloba, radicans, vernix, succedanea, toxicarium and veniciflua) should be avoided at all cost. Other highly harmful plants are listed below and the effects of eating roots berries or leaves can be serious. Many cause allergies and irritations that also need avoiding.

Tips on Dangerous Plants

  • Don’t let children eat seeds and plants from the garden unless supervised.
  • If you wish to see these types of plant take a trip to the Poison Garden at Alnwick which also includes strychnine opium and cocaine plants under a special Home Office license.

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Ride on Mower Tips

Ride on Mower Tips

Sit back and enjoy cutting your grass.

husquvanna

So your grass covers too much area for your small mower and you want to ride in style whilst you cut the lawn, then a ‘ride on mower’ may be what you need.

Ride On Mower Tips

  • Do you plan to cut & collect the grass or just have built in mulching that then distributes it back onto the grass. I would go for one of the hybrids so you can collect long grass at the beginning of the season then turn on mulching to reduce the trips to the compost heap.
  • Ride on mowers are available from Argos at below £1,000, better mowers can be good value around £4,000 but larger more professional models go up to £10,000+. Equate your budget to the amount of work to be done – you don’t need a sledge hammer to crack a nut nor should you send a boy to do a man’s job (these metaphors need mulching).
  • From the large variety of models available make sure you can mount the machine, drive in comfort and feel safe.
  • You can save money buying secondhand. Try retailers who have a good trade in policy and a large throughput.

What you get for your Money …

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Worms for Gardeners

Worms for Gardeners

Book Cover

We all know worms are good for soil and they are an important part of the natural life cycle in your garden.
They help recycle fallen plant matter and excrete fertile worm casts.
Worms help air get into the soil.
Worms can help break up clay soil.
How often do we care for our worms?

What Kills Worms

  • Worms can drown in waterlogged soil.
  • Worms can die from drought in sandy soil.
  • ultraviolet light, lack of moisture, extreme acid or alkaline conditions.
  • Lack of food , lack of air and bad  drainage.
  • Some pesticides, chemical fertilizers, household cleaners and chemicals including detergents.
  • Birds, red spider mites, mole and other critters.

With that list it is surprising we have any worms at all. Still now you know what to avoid. For more help read Lorene Nancarrows book.

Killing Slugs with Kindness

Killing Slugs with Kindness

I grow slug food, not deliberately but that seems to be the fate of my Hostas. Now is a time to kill off the juveniles slugs before they start laying eggs for overwintering and I am considering organic nematodes that you just water in. Mix up a paste in a watering can, water in and young slugs will be killed in a matter of days.

Buy ‘Natural organic control’ slug killer for less than £10 or for a large pack at £17.95from Amazon

Help other natural predators particularly birds, hedgehogs and frogs to eat your slugs and their eggs. Keep the soil loose and tidy up dead organic material but provide safe havens for the predators. Nemaslug is harmless to children, pets and wild life only killing slugs.

It may be too late for this years Hostas which are now a ‘harvest festival for slugs’ but I shall have revenge.

Clematis as slug food

Do not feed your slugs and snails on your Clematis

Even in this wet summer there are better plants for them to snack on

Try the inverted grapefruit skin as I prefer to drink beer not drown slugs

Sweet Pea Problems and Cures

Sweet Pea Problems and Cures

Sweet peas are not difficult to grow but they can be difficult to grow well.
Sweet Pea

Basic Problems with Sweet Peas

  • Leggy seedlings are caused by high temperatures of insufficient light. Move to cooler, brighter locations.
  • Powdery mildew and yellow mottling on leaves is caused by viruses. Control with a fungicide like Systhane.
  • Aphids can be controlled by an insecticide.
  • Scorched foliage can be caused by drought or temperature stress.

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Garden Control of Invasive Weeds

Garden Control of Invasive Weeds

Do not let the little blighters get a foot (or root) hold in your garden. Gardeners need to be on their guard when it comes to controlling pernicious weeds as little plants invade quicker than you imagine.

Top Ten Invasive & Pernicious Weeds

  1. Japanese Knotweed is a big thug – a really big thug! Beware!
  2. Convolvulus or bindweed (above)that grows as a twining climber and throttles the host.
  3. Mares (or horses) Tail a plant from the age of fossils, it is so hard to destroy once you have a colony.
  4. Giant Hogweed Heracleum mantegazzianum is covered by legislation and quite dangerous due to the burning effect of the sap.
  5. Rosebay Willow Herb once more feared than is now the case see picture below.
  6. Himilayan Balsam the new plant we love to hate, introduced by Kew gardens in the 1830’s. link
  7. Thistles of all sorts and varieties if not selected by the gardener
  8. Brambles particularly the hedgerow varieties with very small fruit and thus no redeeming features.
  9. Aquatic weeds named by RHS as invasive including New Zealand pygmy weed (Crassula helmsii) and Parrot’s Feather Myriophyllum aquaticum, Fairy fern, Floating pennywort , Nuttall’s pondweed, Curly waterweed and Curled pondweed
  10. Take your pick from Dandelion, Nettle, Buttercup any plant growing anywhere you didn’t want it to grow. Let us know your view

Rosebay-Willow Herb in flower and seed.

Tips for Controlling Invasive Weeds

  • Prevention is better than cure. Do not let them seed
  • Do not take plants or soil from the wild and take care with seed.
  • Dig up at the first sign of growth.Dig out all the root and I mean all!
  • Do not compost flowers which may contain seeds nor roots.
  • Cutting down or digging up weeds and burning the waste plant material are useful, low-tech means of control.
  • Pulling up Himalayan balsam before the plants flower is the most effective method of control. Cutting plants down before they flower can result in a more bushy plant that produces even more flowers. Young growth may be more susceptible  to weed killers.
  • Spraying invasive weeds with herbicide is the most effective form of treatment currently available. It can however take several years to get rid of some invasive species.The effectiveness depends on the type of herbicide used.
  • Apply sodium chlorate crystals to the hollow cut stems after cutting back is said to be effective. But be careful as sodium chlorate is highly soluble and any spillage can affect nearby plants.
  • Impermeable membranes like black plastic work on most plants by denying light and water. Unfortunately Japanese Hogweed can push through the toughest barrier.

Let us know if you have a fool proof method  – this fool needs all the help he can get!

Below Japanese Knot Weed in a clump and a thistle ready with seeds.

Weedkillers

Book Cover

Roundup Weedkiller concentrate

Book Cover

Handy spray gun,

Himalayan balsam is enemy number one at Otley Chevin where this invasive weed is chocking our natural flora. Locals have been recruited to help with ‘Root it Out’ events to stop the spread of these seed propagated plants.
I have has seedlings in my garden as has my badminton partner but fortunately they are easy to up root if you get them before they seed.

Recognising Himalayan Balsam

  • Himalayan Balsam is common on river banks with reddish coloured stems and dark green lance shaped leaves with jagged edges.
  • The brightly coloured flowers that are usually in variable shades of purplish-pink from June to October up to 6 feet in height.
  • The plant is annual and lasts for one year and dies at the end of the growing season.
  • Himalayan Balsam can produce around 2,500 seeds in explosive seed pods that throw seeds over 20 feet away from the original plant. The seeds can last in the ground for several years.

Himalayan Balsam
Treatments to Kill Himalayan Balsam

  • Do not allow invasive weeds to set seed.
  • Pull out the shallow rooted plants as soon as you see them.
  • Cut off below the last node near the ground and they shouldn’t regrow.
  • Animals can safely graze on the plants.
  • Himalayan Balsam should be sprayed in spring before flowering with Gylphosphate based weed killer

Book Cover Book Cover

Sprayer and Weedol by Amazon

Photo Credits
Himalayan Balsam by Deanster1983 CC BY-ND 2.0

Why do they grow ‘Shamrocks’ in Ireland?

Because St Patrick took all the ‘real rocks’ away so the snakes couldn’t hide.

In Praise of Frost

In Praise of Frost

The last in my quartet of posts about Frost for this winter. Roll on spring as opposed to spring on rolls.

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Jasmin nudiflorum

‘If winter comes can spring be far behind’ or should that be changed, due to global warming, as the season merge. Due to lack of seasonal frost many spring flowers have been appearing through late Autumn and my Primula and even Wallflowers are showing lots of colour.

What we need is a series of crisp hard frosts to let everyone and everything know that the season has changed. Animals can go into hibernation (instead of the squirrels stealing the bird food) and plants can become dormant or die back as they are programmed by nature to do.

My Dahlias have given sterling service but now I wish the stalks a happy burial on the compost heap but I always wait for them to catch the frost first. Other plants are looking forward to getting frosted and what will the ‘sprouts taste like without a bit of cold weather.
If it was rain that encouraged winter dormancy then everything would have shut up shop way back. The soggy ground would appreciate some frost sending worms deeper and breaking the claggy ground.

Bulbs need some cold weather to develop the best roots so come on Jack lets have some cold weather. In previous years I have lifted crowns of Rhubarb to get a bit of frost but I am leaving them in the ground this year and will see if it has a negative effect or not.

So come on Jack Frost get on your Icicle and pedal down and arrange a cold snap for British gardeners.