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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 Aug. 31 show:
Read more:
- Garden Talk: Why are there so many male flowers on my cucumbers?
- Garden Talk: Common garden pests and problems and how to fix them
- Garden Talk: Can I grow potatoes from seeds harvested out of the pods?
- Garden Talk: What can I do about mushrooms in my lawn?
These questions and answers have been edited and condensed for clarity.
Q: How do I store Honeycrisp apples?
A: They will keep in the fridge for at least a month or almost two months if you want. They usually ripen around the first week of September. They’ll be a little bit tart right now, but as the temperatures drop at night they will sweeten right up.
The earlier you pick them the longer they’ll last in the fridge if you want to make pies you can cut them up and freeze them. If you’re keeping them in a cold storage area or a garage, it’s best not to have them touching.
Q: Can I prune a Theresa Bugnet rose that is six feet down to three feet?
A: Theresa Bugnet, along with Hazeldean and Persian yellow bloom on old wood. Not very many roses do that. You can trim it down three feet, but you’ll just miss a year of flowers. Prune it once the plant is dormant.
Q: How should I care for my lawn in fall?
A: Slow down on watering now and apply fall fertilizer anytime after the September long weekend. If you had your watering come on every day, reduce it to every second or third day. Probe your soil to check the moisture.
Q: How can I deal with an explosion of lily beetles in my yard?
A: Next year, early on in the season, you want to start looking for the eggs on the underside of the leaves. You can even take a lint roller to get the eggs sacks off.
The best way to combat them is to start early and stay up on it. If your lilies have finished blooming you can use Bug X-Out, which is a pyrethrum based product and spray the beetles, especially under the leaves so they don’t get into the soil. If they do they’re just going to be there for next year, too. Spaying the on the flowers or the buds will wreck them.
Q: How can I get rid of stink bugs?
A: Really all you can do is use soap and water. Lacewings are a predator of the stink bug, too. The other thing you can use is Mosquito Barrier, stink bugs don’t like garlic.
You can make a spray by taking a little bit of oil and a couple cloves of garlic then throw it in your blender and put it in a sprayer.
Companion plants like marigolds and basil can help, too.
Q: Can I take caragana cuttings in the fall and keep them in the fridge until spring?
A: You can try. Cut them in the late fall, October or November and then put them in a storage area. Watch the humidity so they do not rot. At worst if it didn’t work pull new cuttings off in the spring. Most times it’ll work.
Q: My jalpeno peppers are just starting. Is there enough time for them to mature?
A: Pick up some row cover, it’s usually a thin white fabric that you can put over top that lets light and rain through.
Night time temperatures are key to keeping them going. Get some milk jugs or even some two-litre pop bottles, fill them with water and put those on the ground around your pepper plants. During the day the sun will heat those up, and then release some heat at night underneath the covers to keep night temperatures higher around the plants.
You can even place a rocks around them to release the heat at night as well. This is a common problem this year because we had such a slow start to the season and we had a cold summer. A lot of things are blooming late.
Q: Can I keep a Boston fern inside for the winter?
A: When you bring it into the house, take a vacuum to it and vacuum out all the little fronds and dead growth.
Put it in an area of your house where it’s away from any other house plants to make sure that there’s no bugs in it, then keep it in bright indirect light with a humidifier nearby or even some buckets of water because they do like high humidity. Keep it moist and put a pebble tray underneath the pot.
Transplant it in March or April into a bigger pot if needed, something about two to three or even four inches bigger in diameter.
Q: Can I still apply Groundkeeper fertilizer to my two-month-old sod?
A: Absolutely. Sod is a bit more mature than say seeded grass, so that’s fine. Use the Groundkeeper in the green bag with phosphorus in it. Set your Scotts applicator between four and five and then crisscross rather than go one direction.
Q: Can I rototill my pea plants and the like directly in the garden?
A: It is best to compost them first or cut them and leave them on your garden for the winter and then work it in in the spring because the freeze-thaw cycle will break a lot of that down.
If you layer your compost with soil and leaves and branches you get a more mixed, nutrient filled compost. It almost turns into soil.
Q: When can I prune maples?
A: You need to prune maples as possible, before the end of September. As soon as the leaves are full size on a maple, you can start doing them — usually around July 1 through to about Sept. 30. If you prune them too late in October, they’ll bleed in the spring.
Q: Why is the fruit on my Goodland apple tree very small and dropping?
A: It could be two things. The trees do take a break every once in a while. Goodland usually produces pretty good every year, but if it hasn’t been pruned for a few years, uh, giving it a good pruning this fall or next spring is key.
Q: When can I slow down watering a silver willow planted early July?
A: Wait until after this last heat spell goes okay and then just keep it moist, don’t shut the water off completely until you start to see other trees really turning yellow and dropping their leaves.
Q: When should I should start to get my tropical plants ready to bring back indoors?
A: Once we see consistent night temperatures around five degrees bring any tropical plants inside. Do a 10 to 14 day cycle of insecticidal soap. and remove the top inch of soil to get rid of any bugs. You can also draw the larva up by putting some potatoes or apples on the soil or even use nematodes.
Q: Is there any way I can overwinter seascape strawberry runners in a heated garage?
A: Cut the runners off and store them in like a cold storage area in sawdust like you would do for bare rooted plants.
If you want to put them in a heated garage, it depends on what temperature it is heated to, it will have to be 10 C or 12 C under grow lights. It’s a bit more challenging
You can overwinter strawberries in the garden if use straw, peat moss or bags of leaves as mulch.
Q: Do I need to brush the dirt completely off garlic to store for winter?
A: Yes. You want to get the dirt completely off of them before you hang them to
dry them. It’s a really important step.
Q: Is it too late to move trees with a tree mover?
A: No. We’re coming up to the time now where you can start moving most trees by evergreens are a different story. Wait until they’re a bit more dormant.
Q: How can I get rid of red thread in my grass?
A: The best way is to use a higher nitrogen fertilizer — a 32 or 34 or 40 nitrogen but be careful you don’t burn your lawn. Red thread proliferates when your nitrogen levels are too low.
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