- Author: Lori Plakos
The hour of the Dahlia
August and September are when dahlia plants are at peak performance. It is also when heat encourages spider mites to attack. The damage looks as though the plants are drying out at the bottom. If you look under the infected leaves, they will feel sticky and you will find black specks.
The best practice for controlling mites is removing the infected leaves at the bottom of the plant and washing the plants with a strong spray of the hose. Using an insecticide can make the problem worse by killing the beneficial insects that feed on the mites. If you catch it in time the plant will continue to produce beautiful flowers for you, they just won't have any leaves on the lower part of the plant.
Preserving Dahlia Blooms
Bring them in the house and set them in 2-3 inches of very hot water. Use either a plastic or metal container that doesn't retain heat. I use an automatic hot water pot and get the water to boiling before filling the plastic/metal container.
Leave the blooms in this water until it has cooled and then transfer them to your vase. You can cut the discolored ends of the stems off or leave them on, it doesn't matter. This method of preserving blooms works on any woody stemmed flower.
I recommend that you change your vase water daily. You may also use a homemade flower preservative of 2 tablespoons sugar and 2 tablespoons vinegar along with a 1/4 teaspoon of bleach to a gallon of water.
Digging
Dig up your dahlia tuber about two weeks after a killing frost or November 15th, whichever comes first. Do not dig too early. Cut the stalks down to 6”. Gently lift with a spade being careful not to break the tuber necks. Wash off the tubers and let them dry, protected from the elements, for 24 hours. Ensure that they don't dry too much - our climate dries quickly.
If you have an area in your yard that will protect your tubers from winter frost you may try leaving your tubers in the ground over the winter. An area that is up against a southwest facing structure which will hold heat from the winter sun would be such a spot. For healthier, more productive plants be prepared to dig, divide and give these a winter rest every 2-3 years. You will have to experiment with this.
Storage
I'm still experimenting with this, so here is what the experts at Swan Island Dahlias say:
/h2>/h2>/h2>/h2>Use a storage medium such as slightly dampened peat moss, sand, or pet bedding material (sawdust/shavings). Tubers should be stored in crates or cardboard boxes line your boxes with 10 - 12 sheets of newspaper. Start your packing medium in the bottom and alternate layers of tubers and medium until the container is full. Never store your tubers in plastic or completely sealed containers. Store them in a cool, dry area. Ideal temperature of the storage location is 40-50 degrees. If the tubers are kept too warm they will wrinkle and shrivel, too cold they will freeze and rot. Check on your tubers thought the winter months.
It's now been more than three months since I wrote the “Test of the Removal of Lawn
and Use of Newspaper to Eliminate Remaining Grass” - published June 3, 2015 - so an update is long overdue. As the summer and growing seasons end I can report that the test has been an unqualified success.
Very little grass has grown into the new garden bed. None of the original grass that was once under the new bed has come through the newspaper barrier although a little managed to bridge across the open trench we left between our existing lawn and the new bed. Any sprouts that did show up posed little problem and were very easy to remove by hand.
The new bed proved extremely successful and produced prolific plant growth. We grew three plants that produced zucchinis by the boatload, some of which grew larger than a loaf of bread while were away on vacation. We also grew lots of cucumbers, two healthy basil plants, red peppers and a beautiful dahlia.
Since the use of newspapers has proved to be so successful in the elimination of grass we
are now considering expanding the existing area and/or doing another section in a
different location in our yard.
The following photographs were taken on August 20, 2015
/span>- Author: Alison Collin
Reading books about pioneer families I noticed that ground cherry pie often played an important role in fall festivities. Priding myself as a "fruitarian" I was surprised that here was a fruit I had never seen or tasted. That had to be rectified!
Ground cherries belong to the genus Physalis and are closely related to Cape gooseberries (Physalis peruviana) and tomatillos (Physalis ixocarpa) which they resemble. Many Physalis species are described as ground cherries, but I chose to grow one particular variety — Physalis pubescens var 'Pineapple' — since it was said to have a superior flavor. Two other highly recommended varieties are “Aunt Mollie” and “Goldie” which are said to have good flavor and are a little larger than “Pineapple”.
I sowed the seeds indoors six weeks before the last expected frost and had no trouble germinating or transplanting them. The plants grew slowly at first but more rapidly once soil temperatures had warmed up. At this point the foliage became laced with tiny holes which looked consistent with flea beetle damage. I used some insecticidal soap with little affect before deciding to let them take their chance without any further intervention. The plants quickly developed into a lax, multi-branched, 18-inch high, sprawling shrub with many of the stems running along the ground. Numerous tiny yellow flowers developed into husk covered fruits. None of them approached the promised ½-inch diameter but were more like the size of a large green pea. Toward the end of the season the husks turned brown and the fruits inside became bright yellow/orange before dropping to the ground. Harvesting was accomplished by raking up the fallen fruits.
Unlike tomatillos, the bottom of the fruit does not protrude through the husk, so there is no way of telling if the fruit is ripe until the husk has been removed. Green fruits should not be eaten since they contain a toxic alkaloid. There are numerous very tiny seeds inside the fruit, and occasionally this can give the impression of eating grit! The flavor is hard to describe, but ripe fruits are sweet, pleasant to eat out of hand and add interest to fruit salads, but they really come into their own for making preserves since they produce a wonderful, unique-flavored jelly or jam. One great advantage of ground cherries is that they have a tremendous shelf life, and can hold for up to 3 months if left in their husks and stored in a cool place.
It was four years ago that I planted my first crop and although I was not smitten by this fruit and had no intention of growing it again, it has volunteered in my garden ever since, so I usually leave a couple of plants to mature and welcome the change of flavor from the eternal grapes and pears!
You can find ground cherry seeds in many gardening catalogues.
- Author: Dustin Blakey
As I write this, it seems that all of California is ablaze. In fact on Sunday my parents were evacuated from a fire in Lake County. We never can tell when or where a fire will occur, but with the past few decades' growth of the urban-wildland interface, we know that fire can be more destructive to human property than ever before.
There are a number of practices that can be employed in landscape designs to minimize risks and to aid firefighters in defending your property in case of a fire. Rather than covering those here, I'll direct you to two excellent publications.
- Lassen County and Northeastern California Landscape Plant Guide
- Choosing the Right Plants for Northern Nevada's High Fire Hazard Areas
(If your internet is sluggish and you just want to see the place to get these publications, go here.)
These are both LARGE PDF files that cover specific plants and techniques to use in landscapes. Generally the plants listed apply to Inyo and Mono counties, outside the low desert areas. I give these out to our Master Gardener training classes as a good reference.
- Author: Harold McDonald
Binomial nomenclature is the system of identifying organisms by their Genus species names. The full system of scientific classification, however, involves many broader levels of classification. From the broadest classification, kingdom, you move down through the progressively more restrictive classifications of phylum*, class, order, family, genus and species. A common mnemonic for learning the levels is Kings Play Chess On Fine Grained Sand. A few secondary ranks exist in the plant kingdom, but for most purposes this is good enough.
I think the best way to start learning scientific names is to go up one level from the binomial names, to the families. While there are a lot of families (more than 600!), a small number account for nearly all our common plants. Just two families, the Asteraceae (aster or daisy family) and Fabaceae (pea or legume family) account for more than 42,000 species, and nearly everyone knows what daisies and pea flowers look like. Once you've learned the characteristics of some of the common families—numbers of floral parts, type of symmetry, leaf types, fruit types—it becomes fairly easy for you to identify unfamiliar plants to the family level. Here is a great PDF you can download that illustrates 50 of the most common families. Each family has a gorgeously illustrated page listing the major characteristics of each family, along with prominent plants in each one. (For some reason, if the link won't work type “sdsu 50 plant families” into Google and click on the top hit.)
Fifty is really too many families to try to learn, but if you use that PDF in conjunction with the following link from the website Learn Plants Now, you'll be well on your way to learning about the five biggest families, which account for nearly 60,000 species. By the way, you'll notice there are often two versions of family names given—eg Asteraceae and Compositae for the sunflower family. The ones that end in –aceae are the recognized “modern” names, while the ones that end in –ae are the older ones. Most times you'll see both given, but you might as well learn the new ones.
If you prefer a book, Botany in a Day, by Thomas Elpel is a great choice. The Mono Lake Committee in Lee Vining generally has it in stock.
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* Ed. note: With plants and fungi we usually use "division" instead of phylum. Same meaning, but useful in adding unnecessary confusion. Never was explained to me why we do this. I assume it's tradition. Since 1993 it's been OK to use either. I can't remember the last time I even thought about a plant's division. Family level is more useful.