Ask Monty’s for July 24, 2010: Cannas, Clematis, and Salting Asparagus

By Dennis on July 27, 2010

Ask Monty’s:

 “My cannas leaves seem to be having a problem opening and I’ve noticed that some of them have a rather sticky kind of stringy substance across them.  Not all the leaves are this way as some of the plants in other parts of my yard are looking very good, while others are not.  What could be causing this?”

Don and June

Buckhannon, West Virginia

Don and June:

The leaf roller is about the only thing that bothers cannas.  It’s actually a caterpillar that comes from the skipper moth and prefers to lay her eggs inside young cannas leaves, sewing them shut with that “stringy substance” to protect their larvae.  Once they hatch they will then start feeding on the actual cannas leaves.  You’ll want to gently unfold those young leaves where you can see they are being hindered and you’ll find the pests inside. When I can, I flip them the pests off into the yard where a bird can pick them up for a snack, but if you have a lot of cannas you’ll want to find an insecticide specifically for worm or caterpillars eradication.  If you have leaves that are heavily damaged, remove them and throw in the garbage, not in your compost pile. 

Another note:  After the frost completely kills the plants, remove all the foliage and bag and dispose of them separately so you don’t risk the chance of them over wintering and affecting next year’s plants.  This is particularly important in southern zones where cannas are perennials, as opposed to annuals in the northern climates.

Ask Monty’s:

“Every year I am amazed that my clematis comes up. They’re never spectacular, but they do put forth the effort to flower.  I know they like their “heads in the sun and their feet in the shade” and I have them planted appropriately so.  My problem is that this summer – mid July – the leaves are already starting to turn brown.  Isn’t it a little early for that?

Gayle

Brilliion, Wisconsin

Gayle:

Browning of the leaves is pretty normal particularly after the heat of the summer and once the plant is done blooming. Not too nice to look at, but you can safely prune away the dead leaves and continue to keep the plant well watered and well mulched to keep in the moisture.  If the plants are just beginning to brown, and you are set on reviving them, try applying Monty’s Liquid Carbon to the soil to improve moisture flow into the root zone and to reduce compaction which will allow the roots to spread out and access more moisture and nutrients.  Also start a foliar program with Monty’s 2-15-15. 

If you follow the advice here on our blog you may be wondering why I am recommending the 2-15-15 formula during a ‘growth time’ in the plant’s development cycle.  The reason is your plants are showing signs of stress from heat and drought.  The last thing we want to do is to encourage MORE top-growth when the plant can’t support what it has now.  So by applying the 2-15-15 formula you are signaling the plant to put its energy into developing roots; kinda babying it until it recovers. The plant is also about done for the season, so let’s help it store energy to get through the winter ahead, a high dose of nitrogen right now could keep it from entering dormancy normally and expose the plant to more winter-kill.

If the brown leaves or wilt extends to the actual growing tip and the vine itself becomes brittle or turns almost black, the vine is probably dead as well.  Prune the vine down to the closest living branch area so all the dead material is done away with. Again, if you keep the plant well watered and fed you may continue to see new growth as the summer progresses.

Ask Monty’s:

“I have heard that adding salt to your asparagus beds is supposed to help them.  I have a beautiful wild asparagus bed and would sure like to maintain it as best as I can.  Is there any truth to the salt advice?  Is it just table salt?”

Roland

Crossgate, Kentucky

Roland:

Some people will add sodium chloride rock salt (NaCI) to their asparagus beds after they are at least a year old.  It sounds like your wild bed is already well established – so you can do this.  Apply about two and half pounds per 100 feet either before the spears actually appear in the spring or around July 4 when you’ve already pretty well harvested your crop.  The salt prevents crown and root rot diseases caused by fusarium fungus and actual improves the plants overall growth.  Do not use iodized salt (your common table salt) or rock salt made of calcium chloride (CaCI).  Pickling salt is fine too.

If the thought of adding salt to your plants just sounds to chancey, you may consider using Monty’s Liquid Carbon in the spring and fall. Crown rot and fusarium are what we like to call ‘wet feet’ diseases.  That is, they tend to move in when the roots of the plants are kept excessively moist, either from a wet spring or from over watering. In Kentucky, most gardeners deal with fairly heavy clay soils, so the moisture you receive tends to hang around.  By applying Monty’s Liquid Carbon, you can change the structure of these soils so that they allow the moisture to move more freely through the soil profile which results in better drainage.  Once your drainage situation is under control you will likely see a marked decrease in many of these ‘wet feet’ diseases.

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Summertime and the Living is HOT!

By Dennis on June 14, 2010

Right now  we are experiencing one of those hot dry spells for which the south is famous!  The heat is in the 90’s and the humidity is in the 60-85% range leaving us with heat indices over 100.  Right now, I believe my heat index is 108.

It is not only making me miserable, my plants are showing the effects, too.  So, this week I thought I would share some tips on gardening in this climate.

1. It all starts in the spring.  Choose native varieties of plants that are already conditioned for your climate.  Trying to grow cool season plants in near tropical conditions will never end well.  Work with nature, not against it.  If you give in to a particular flower or vegetable just because it looks good in the magazine, you may coax it into surviving, but it will take you far more effort and water than you may have anticipated.

2. It all starts in the spring, part two.  Gardeners are always tempted to water heavily.  The rule of thumb is 1 inch of water per week.  However, once your plants are established, let the soil dry out a few times in between waterings in the cool of the spring.  This will encourage the roots to reach down deeper.  If you don’t do this and you are always giving the plants abundant moisture, the root systems will be shallow and the plants will be far more susceptible to drought stress when the upper two inches of soil dry out.

3. Mulch.  Applying mulch to your garden will do two things, it will help keeps weeds from out-competing your plants for needed moisture.  Secondly, it will help to keep the moisture that is present from evaporating as quickly.  Simply apply the mulch to within  four inches of the base of the plant.  In vegetable gardens, apply the mulch in between rows.

I learned the hard way this season not to mulch all the way up to the plant stem.  My county agent informed me that doing this keeps the soil too moist and helps it serve host to a wide variety of bacteria and fungal problems.  Of my 44 tomato plants I lost 16 due to soil borne pathogens resulting from my soil being too wet, too close to the stem.

4. When you do water, water deeply.  Most plants need approximately 1 inch of water per week.  If you don’t know how much that is,  simply scatter some empty tuna cans around your gardens and begin watering.  When the cans are full, you have watered approximately 1 inch.

5.  All plants are not created equally.  In your flower beds, cactus and other succulents can easily be overwatered. They actually prefer it hot and a bit on the dry side.  In the garden, okra and peppers are the same, while tomatoes and melons are heavy feeders and require abundant moisture.  With this in mind, water your plants in blocks rather than all at once so that similar plants receive adequate moisture.

6. Water in the morning, when possible.  The temperatures and conditions are most favorable for watering either in the morning or at night when evaporation loss will be lowered (good for your plants, better for your budget).  However, if you water at night and the plants do not have time to dry out, you will create a great breeding ground for bacteria and fungus that will ultimately be harmful.

7. Use Monty’s foliar fertilizers. Monty’s formulas are low in salts and will not cause additional crops injury or burn, even during the hot summer months.  Plus, the additional nutrients can help your plants better deal with stresses related to heat and drought.

8. Finally, your plants are not the only things that need water.  Keep yourself hydrated while you are working in the sun. Drink at least 8 extra ounces for each hour you are working (and sorry, beer and sodas don’t count..they actually will work as diuretic and further compound the problem).

If you have any tips, leave us a comment.  We’d love to hear from you and to see pics of your gardening success. Post them below.

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New way of planting onions, They are up and looking good.

By Dennis on April 30, 2010

After only marginal success with my onions last year, I decided to try something different this year.  So far, so good. 

For those of you following this blog, you know I harvested some free compost this winter. My soil here is extremely heavy clay (more on that in another post), but my onions just would not develop fully in the tight soil.  So this season I (okay, honest moment, mainly my protesting son) scraped up some of the better top soil from unused corners of the garden and mixed this 50/50 in a wheel barrow to create a lighter, more organically rich type of soil.

Once this was accomplished I (another honest moment, my daughter, pulled back the soil about 1 foot wide by 75 feet long on the south facing side of my garden.  I put this strip on the south so that my corn, okra, beans, and tomatoes would not block the sun from my ground dwellers.  This strip is serving as the home to my onions and cucumbers this year.

As the dirt work was being done, I soaked my onions sets in a mixture of 1 tsp of Monty’s 4-15-12 and 1 TBSP Monty’s Liquid Carbon in 16 ounces of water. (I did this for both my white and yellow onions. 

Once the soil was pulled back, I (okay, this time it was me) dug one inch deep holes in the earth spaced 1 inch apart in all directions in a grid about 1 foot by one foot.  Then I placed my onion sets in the indentations.  Once they were in place, I covered them with 3-4 inches of my newly created soil/compost mix.  Two weeks later they are up and looking good.

Without having to fight through the hard East Tennesee clay, the onions are emerging early.

For those of you who grow onion regularly, you will know that onions spaced only 1 inch apart will not develop fully as the bulbs will crowd each other.  However, my plans are to make my first harvest in about two weeks.  This will give us some good, early spring onions, or green onions, and leave those remaining with the space they will need to develop into good sized bulbs.

If you are doing the math, you know that my 2 onions patches must look awfully lonely in a 72 foot row.  Indeed, they do.  But my plans are to plant similar subsequent patches every three weeks into early/mid June so that I will have a continuous harvest of fresh onions this season.

Keep checking back and I will keep you posted on how this experiment is working, but so far, so good.

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Rose Tips for March

By Dennis on March 12, 2010

Recently, our name-sake, wrote a nice article on what we should be doing with roses this time of year.  Bear in mind that he lives in north central KY and adjust his advice for your particular growth zone you could be a month or two either way on his timing, but the advice is still valid. When it comes to rose information, there is none better.  Monty, thanks for the great read.

            Are you ready to get started for a new rose season?  Well it’s going to be here when the yellow forsythia blooms signal the growing temperatures are just right for rose roots to wake up and new growth to appear on your roses.

            Last month I wrote about pruning the stems of large roses (Hybrid, Grandiflora, Floribunda) by removing winter damaged stems (those that have a tan or dark pith) instead of a healthy cream color, even if you cut-back into the mulch or ground.  You should want the stored vigor and new growth to emerge from healthy tissue.  If the weather prediction for the next week or so is favorable (no freezes), pull back the mulch, feed with your favorite dry fertilizer (20-20-20) within the rose bed area but as far from the center of the rose bush as is possible.  Plants are like we humans; first of all they want to survive and secondly they want to propagate and produce seed.  If your roses are planted close together then the roots don’t have to reach out very far at all and all other things being equal they will tend to have fewer stems and blooms.
           
           This fact was presented to me by a farmer, Roy, who lives just outside Louisville.  He did most everything different or wrong from what I had learned that one should do to have good roses. He had 300 rose plants planted in three rows of 100 each.  Each rose within the beds were in a straight line 6’ apart.  Each bed was 12’ wide. The ground was bare of grass, weeds and mulch because he tilled the soil monthly adding the rose clippings and 20-20-20 dry fertilizer before doing so. The beds were intentionally lower than the surrounding ground area and he had no watering systems but natural rain.  The soil beneath the rose was heavy clay.  The roses flourished because the ground held the moisture really well. Because the porous fertilized soil was 3 to 6 feet on either side of the line of roses, the roots reached out three to six feet.  In doing so, each rose plant was humongous with twenty or more large stems and with 50 or more blooms.  I have not seen so many huge rose bushes.  Most of the plants were hybrid teas and grandifloras but the floribundas were spectacular covered with hundreds of blooms.  This was an experience I’ll never forget.
           
            Getting back now to your rose bed that is starting to grow.  Pull back the mulch on a cloudy day to prevent damage from the sun. A stream of water can help disengage the new growth from the mulch with less chance of breaking the tender new growth.  Should a frost or freeze be predicted, lightly recover with mulch.  Taller stems may be covered with cardboard boxes.  Do not use plastic covers.  They will do more harm than good.  If you do not cut back the old stems of roses before they leaf out in the early spring, just fertilize and let them grow.  The time to prune will be at the end of the first bloom cycle. Remove the leaves and stems of all growth that did not produce a bloom, appear damaged or are smaller than a pencil.  Removing up to 50 per cent of these non productive stems will cause significant new growth at the base of the plant.  The timing for this pruning will create new vigor and more stems and blooms for the rest of the year.

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To Leave or Not To Leave

By Dennis on October 13, 2009

Leaves across the country are beginning to fall along with fall3the temperatures. And the thought of falling leaves, leaves many of us with questions about what to do with them.  At the end of the day, you have four basic options:  Leave them alone, Mulch them (run over them with a mower or shredder), Compost them, or Rake and Remove.

Rake and Remove– This option is very labor intensive but provides the over-all cleanest results.  It is becoming harder to do because of landfill restrictions on yard waste and it is not the most environmentally friendly option.  It does have some benefits, though, as it removes all litter and debris and makes it harder for insects and bacteria to overwinter.

Mulching– This is the option preferred 2:1 by husbands who would rather spend their Saturday’s watching SEC football (okay, so I am biased) than doing yard work.  It is quick and easy.  Fire up the lawn mower, set the setting to high, and proceed.  In a relatively short amount of time, the lawn is cleared of visible leaves and you can get on with your plans.  A slightly more elaborate version involves actually using the bag attachment to catch the pulverized leaves then piling them around your perennials, trees, shrubs, or dumping them into your garden to be incorporated later. 

This option is okay if you pay attention to a few biological realities. 

  • It takes nitrogen to process this litter into a usable form, if you don’t provide it, the soil will rob it from the surrounding plants and from the soil. 
  • It takes microbes to break down all organic matter  If you don’t have them they could lay on top of your soil literally for years.
  • Anything that does not break down and get incorporated into your soil will serves as a barrier to sunlight, moisture and nutrient exchange and could actually end up choking out your lawn.
  • Some plants like oaks and pines are acidic by nature.  Castings from these trees are high enough in tanic and other acids that they actually affect the pH of your soil and unless you address these issues your lawn will suffer.

The good news is these situations can be remedied with a little time and expense.  Make sure you apply a good quality fertilizer like a 10-10-10 granular or, for added convenience, use Monty’s 4-15-12 and lightly spray the lawn/mulch mixture after mulching the leaves.

To boost the microbial population in the soil we recomend using Monty’s Calcium Plus or Monty’s Liquid Carbon (where available).  Simply spray the surface of your soil before soil temperatures fall below 45 degrees F (below that temperature, microbes are hibernating and no additive will increase the reproduction of sleeping organisms).

Leave them alone– Growing up reading “Walden,” this option appeals the most to me.  After all, no one is there to pick up after the trees in the wild.  These leaves just become part of the natural order of things.   However, we do not live in the wild and our neighbors tend to frown on this attitude.  Beyond that, there are some other considerations.  In the wild, trees are in the forest, grasses are in the meadows or grasslands.  The two environments rarely mix.  Because the dense shadows, wet heavy leaves, and acidic conditions brought on by the carpet of leaves is not very conducive to growing grasses.  However, if you are bent on leaving the leaves where they fall, or where they blow, take the actions listed above.  Provide enough nitrogen so that the soil will not cannibalize your plants and make sure you have the needed organic matter in the soil by soil testing for OM and enhance the microbial population when you can.  Bear in mind that even with the precautions you can still smother your grasses and leaves ideal locations for weeds next spring.

Compost– All the labor intensiveness of raking with the added fun of having to go out and turn the, how shall I say this politely…”earthy-smelling” pile of decaying leaves.  However, on the plus side of the ledger it will give you a good source of soil for your raised beds next season or fertilizer to mix in with your gardens, lawns and flower beds.  You still will have the problems noted previously about needing microbes to break down the debris and needing to add a bit of nitrogen to the mix for optimal results.  the easiest way to do this is to lightly spray the surface of the compost pile with Monty’s Liquid Carbon each time you go out to turn your compost bin.  Directions for building a compost bin can be found here, or you can purchase one of the newer fangled ones here.  Our friends at Naturally Horton’s can also be a good source of advice or materials.

So, as fall starts to fall, chose the method that is best for you and be prepared to address the needs that each method brings.  Till then, keep working in the yard and garden and keep sending us your pictures and feed back.

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