Murray Wood: Drop in reading rates a sad trend to see
New data suggests people are spending less time reading for pleasure. Murray Wood says it's sad that people are drawn to...
Jill and Rick Van Duyvendyk answer all your gardening questions in Garden Talk on 650 CKOM and 980 CJME every Sunday morning at 9 a.m. Here are some questions and answers from the Sept. 21 show:
Read more:
- Garden Talk: How to start winterizing some of your plants
- Garden Talk: Will the recent cold snap stop my corn from maturing?
- Garden Talk: Can I grow potatoes from seeds harvested out of the pods?
These questions and answers have been edited and condensed for clarity.
Q: When can I start pruning my fruit trees?
A: I like waiting till the leaves, at least had a good frost on them.
Q: I have a Juliet Cherry tree and I get beautiful blooms every spring, but I’m not getting cherries. Do you have any advice?
A: Give it a prune. They are self-pollinating, but you need lots of bees around still. I’d cut it back by at least 25 per cent this fall once the leaves fall off. Then, also in the spring, give it some fruit and berry fertilizer as well. And you do not want to get very much nitrogen. If you put too much nitrogen on a cherry tree, especially the sour cherries, they won’t produce very much.
Q: Is it easier to prune when the leaves are still on?
A: Yeah, you could do it as long as they start turning colour. Right now, they’re basically putting all the sugars back down into the root system. So you like those leaves on there, because they’re still green on the cherry trees still. But when they get a bit of frost on, they’ll start turning a bit yellow. And some of them just wither up. You can do your pruning then.
Q: I’ve got stink bugs on my tomatoes, and they leave behind white little specs just under the skin. Are my tomatoes still edible?
A: Those should still be edible, yes. You can just peel off the little specs and it should be fine. Just use soap and water and that’ll get rid of the stink bugs.
Q: What causes the white to grow from the stem into my tomato plants?
A: Sometimes, what will cause that is just inconsistent watering. So maybe at some point, they got dry and then they got wet. Or it could be a fungus that is on the stem. That will cause the stem to go white in the tomato.
You just have to be consistent in the watering. And don’t forget, you want to make sure that you have your micronutrients, like using alfalfa pellets, or organic vegetables, which have the boron, magnesium and everything else. That’s important, so do that next year and I think you will help a lot.
Q: My garden is covered with common round mallow weed. How should I treat this invasive weed so I can plant a garden here next spring?
A: The best way to do it is actually just pick it. Dig it out, and shake it off, and then make sure it doesn’t go to flower. That’s the big one. Don’t rototill it up. Just dig it up, put it into a pail and into your compost.
Another way you could do it is by covering it up. So, taking cardboard and getting rid of any light source on it will sort of suffocate it from any light, and then that will kill it as well. It’s too late in the season to do that method now, you’d have to do this in the spring and it can take one to two months.
Q: I have about eight buds on my hibiscus plant right now, but none of them are opening, even after I moved them into a west-facing window.
A: Sometimes you will see that. You just want to make sure you keep water consistently. So it’s going to take time for those buds to open. If none of the buds have gone yellow, just keep giving them sunlight and watering them like you have been, and they’re just going to take some time. But they’ll open up for you.
But really watch your watering so that you’re not under-watering and you’re not over-watering it, because if you do, you’ll get yellow leaves on a hibiscus from both of those things. Having a few yellow leaves is not a big deal, especially when you just moved it.
Q: I have a beautiful ornamental plum tree, and I just wanted to know when is it safe to give it a really good prune?
A: If you do any major pruning, now you’re gonna have less blooms next spring. So if you have to do a major pruning, then you’ll have fewer blooms, but then the next year you have lots of blooms. So if you have to do a major pruning, you want to do it when it’s dormant,
Normally, I prune my flowering plums right after they finish blooming every year.
Q: I’ve got some dead branches on my oak tree, when can I remove those?
A: If they’re dead branches on an old tree, you can do that anytime.
Q: I have caraganas and I would like to cut them back to about two inches. When do I do it?
A: I like doing it when all the leaves start turning yellow. You can do this fall. Otherwise, you have to do it in March or the first week of April next spring. It just depends on the snow.
Q: How do I get rid of maple bugs?
A: You can vacuum them, you can use Bug-X Out spray on them. That works probably the best, because it’s a pyrethrin. It attacks their nervous system, and they just die.
Q: Should I transplant my perennials in the spring or fall?
A: I like to do it in the spring if I’m transplanting them, but you want to cut them down to the ground in the fall. I would mark them so that you know where they are, and as soon as they start coming up, you would pick them up in the spring, around April 15.
Read more:
