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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 May 3 show:
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These questions and answers have been edited and condensed for clarity.
Q: How can improve the number of bell peppers on my plants?
A: Make sure you’re using an organic fertilizer and starting them early inside. Calcium is huge, and you don’t want very high nitrogen, so it’s not just a regular fertilizer. You want to use a vegetable fertilizer which is lower in nitrogen.
Let them dry out between waterings, but they need consistent watering and to be in a south or west exposure. If they’re in an east exposure or getting shelter from a tree or a fence or a deck they’re not going to produce the flowers.
The other thing is making sure you have pollinators around, too. Make sure that you have a water source nearby so those pollinators stick around and make sure that you have some plants like echinacea or marigolds to attract them.
Q: When should I aerate, power rake, fertilize and vacuum a lawn planted four years ago?
A: Wait until you can turn your sprinklers on, and then start fertilizing. If you’re going to power rake and vacuum do that first. You want to be able to walk on your grass wearing socks without them getting wet before you start power raking.
Q: How do I transplant sea buckthorns?
A: You can do that anytime now. Make sure when you get as much root as you can when you dig it up. You can replant it with some H-Start, fertilizer, alfalfa pellets — anything like that will help it get a good start.
If you’re going to transplant a tree that’s in the ground already, the sooner you do it in the spring the better chance it getting established. Take some buckets of water out there and keep it watered.
Q: How can I keep weeds like dandelion out of my asparagus patch?
A: Put some mulch — straw or something like that — in between the asparagus about two to three inches deep. Not right up to the asparagus, but around the plants. If they do grow through just pull them out.
If you don’t want to use mulch, try corn gluten. It doesn’t stop the weeds growing, but it stops some seeds from germinating. You can use it in an asparagus bed, but you cannot use it in the garden because it’ll stop your carrots from germinating as well. You can’t put it anyplace that you’re planting seed.
Q: When is the best time to cut back a lilac bush, American ash or spruce trees?
A: Prune the American mountain ash right now, before the leaves bud out. Same with the lilac. If you prune it low, you’re not going to get blooms for about three years. You can trim spruces now but stay away from pines.
Q: How do I stop brown spots on my hydrangea leaves?
A: Most likely it’s from water spots on the leaves. Try to water it at the root rather than over top. You can also get funny looking leaves if it doesn’t have enough aluminum sulfate to lower the soil pH.
Q: What can I do about chinch bugs?
A: If you have them in your grass, they eat the base of the plants. You can use nematodes to get rid of chinch bugs and there’s also a chemical treatment — it’s the same as you would spray on for ticks, but it does kill any bugs that are in the lawn. Nematodes only go after the bugs.
Q: Is now the time to take the mulch off of my garlic?
A: If you have mulch in your garden or on your garlic, you want to leave it until you start seeing buds come out on your trees or on your shrubs.
You want to see a little bit of green growth because that has a lot of beneficial insects in there that are going to help your garden later. If you get rid of it there’s no food for all those insects.
Q: Can I plant birch tree plugs among a chokecherry hedge?
A: Absolutely, as long as the competition doesn’t choke them out. Water them to get them established and take all those other roots out of the area where they are planted so they can get a start.
Fungus on a Norkent apple tree. (Submitted)
Q: My Norkent apple tree has a white hard crust over part of the trunk. What is that?
A: There’s rot in the trunk, and it’s a fungus that’s growing on the decaying wood. Oh, boy. Okay, so that’s what’s happening there.
If you want to save the tree, take a chisel or a utility knife and clean up that area. Get rid of any dead wood, then let it dry for a couple weeks and then spray the area with a pruning paint or a paste.
This fungus looks like it’s right in the crotch of the tree, like right at a branching point, so it might be tricky.
What happens in a crotch like that, you start getting cracks in there and moisture starts getting in. You have to use some wood filler or something to seal it up so the water runs away from the area and continually watch the edges so it doesn’t shrink, and let more water underneath that again.
Q: Can I uncover my grocery-bought roses now?
A: Make sure the frost is out of the ground. I’d wait until your spireas are starting to bud and then uncover them.
Q: Are we still supposed to start fertilizing our Moonglow junipers on Mother’s Day?
A: For a lot of areas down south, you could absolutely. Once you start getting to central, it might be a little bit later than that, but getting close. You can add the fertilizer in there — the plant’s not going to use it until it needs it. You can start watering that plant now, too.
Q: Deer ate a few branches of my four-year-old Manitoba oak. Should I prune them?
A: Just leave it and let it bud out, then clean up what doesn’t bud out after that. Just wait a little bit longer.
Q: How can I stop Supertunia Mini Vista plants from getting leggy?
A: When the plants are young make sure you’re pruning them well and then they won’t get leggy. Grow them to maybe about four inches, prune them to two inches, then grow them to six inches, prune them to four inches. And fertilize them like crazy with a 20-20-20 fertilizer, once a week if you’re watering often and it’s hot outside.
Q: Is it too early to plant grass?
A: No, you can put grass in because it’ll sit there until the soil’s warm enough to germinate. As you’re not going to be planting it in a really wet spot where the water’s sitting absolutely you can put it in there and then it’ll get going.
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