GB 127 Tomato Troubles in the Summer. Crop Rotation question. The Naked Lady.

26:54

SPEAKERS

Warren Roberts, Debbie Flower, Don Shor, Jennifer in Woodland, Farmer Fred

Farmer Fred  00:00

Garden Basics with Farmer Fred is brought to you by Smart Pots, the original lightweight, long lasting fabric plant container. it's made in the USA. Visit SmartPots.com slash Fred for more information and a special discount, that's SmartPots.com/Fred. 

Farmer Fred  00:20

Welcome to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. If you're just a beginning gardener or you want good gardening information, you've come to the right spot. 

Farmer Fred  00:32

How’s your tomato garden doing? Now that it’s summer, most of the early season tomato issues are waning: fewer aphids and whiteflies (we hope) and less blossom end rot. In its place are a wide variety of other tomato troubles that eminate from our longer, hotter days. We do some summertime tomato troubleshooting today. Also, we answer a listener’s concern about crop rotation in a mixed planting of flowers and vegetables. Can the two peacefully coexist? Perhaps. And the Plant of the Week: naked ladies! That’s the unfortunate common name for the summer flowering bulb, the Amaryllis belladonna. But they are beautiful in their bare state. It’s all on episode 127 of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, brought to you today by Smart Pots and Dave Wilson Nursery.  And we will do it all in under 30 minutes. Let’s go!

Farmer Fred  01:35

We're doing some tomato troubleshooting with Don Shor from Redwood Barn Nursery in Davis, California going through the litany of problems that might affect your tomatoes this spring and summer. And you probably know that tomatoes do best in full sun, but too much sun can be a problem. Now there are some sun related problems especially in warmer areas where your plants are getting pummeled by sun all day long. And yes, tomatoes are a full sun crop. Yeah, but there is such a thing as too much sun which can result in things like fruit cracking, or cat facing or solar yellowing. 

Don Shor  02:13

  Sun scald is a sunburn is as simple as name to apply and it is directly on the fruit. In the case of the Sun scald, it's it's the fruit that's exposed to the western sky when it's 105 degrees, and some varieties are more susceptible than others only because some of them have better leaf canopy than others. I've never had sunburn on an ace tomato because the plant has got a nice dense canopy. It's a consistent problem on Celebrity for me when I've grown that one because the plant is a relatively unvigorous plant that produces a lot of fruit so a whole lot of that fruit is exposed to the direct afternoon sun. So there are a varietal differences once again and once you've grown in number of tomatoes, you'll find some of them are just leafy or more vigorous shade themselves a better champion does a very good job of shading itself and produces a very large amount of large fruit. And I mentioned celebrity by comparison. It's a chronic problem on that particular variety for me. So you could if you want Want to grow a particular variety that susceptible to sunburn on the fruit, figure out a way to shade it a little bit from the hot afternoon sun, maybe rig up a little structure to the west of the plant and put some 50% shade cloth that you buy from a local garden center. Another option might just be to put them where there's a little natural shade not too much, or just plant varieties that are more dense and leafy. And and you'll notice that again as with blossom end rot you'll notice a variety of differences over time will lead you away from some varieties and towards others as you slowly build this collection of your favorite varieties that does well in your particular region. 

Farmer Fred  03:46

  And it probably would help to to keep your pruning shears in their holster because the more leaf cover that it has, the less chance there is of sun related problems. 

Don Shor  03:56

 I would say pruning tomatoes is almost never necessary. And I know that that causes some controversy when we say that, but it has very little benefit. if you're taking foliage off and exposing fruit, you're definitely going to get that adverse effect of sunburn on the fruit itself. It reduces yield. Overall when you prune tomatoes, the only reason I can think of that would be a possible benefit would be in areas where late blight is a real problem. Pruning them to get more open habits so you get better air circulation that increases your risk of sunburn. So I would suggest that keeping pruning at an absolute minimum unless there's some weird training technique you've adopted that absolutely requires it. pruning is for people in Minnesota where their season begins on Memorial Day and ends on Labor Day. Here we've got such a long season that we can allow the fruit to set very late in the season, we don't have to prune the vines for size control, and we'll still get plenty of ripe fruit. 

Farmer Fred  04:49

  There are some yellowing issues with the leaves on with some diseases. In fact, if you buy a tomato plant, you may see letters next to the name of the tomato like V F or N or T or A for that matter, but the V and the f are two problems that can cause a plant to turn yellow. Then that would be verticillium and Fusarium. 

Don Shor  05:10

 Yeah, those are two problems in our area where we have these are soil borne diseases, so they may be in your area if your homes were built on old agricultural soil, or if you bring in soil, inadvertently bringing in the disease with it. One of the reasons I've always been concerned about people getting tomato plants from their fellow backyard gardeners who started the seeds themselves. A lot of home gardeners like to use dirt, use compost from their own yard as they as they grow them. Unfortunately, that can be a source of contamination into your yard. So it would be best if all the gardeners out there who are sharing transplants use packaged soils rather than home made garden soils. If you get them it's a real problem. verticillium and Fusarium are very challenging to eliminate impossible basically to eliminate and even the rotation practices that we all recommend that special three year rotation of only Nightshade plants in this area and then no Nightshade plants in this area Nightshade families, what I'm referring to is That's only marginally effective. So your best bet if you have a problem with verticillium fusarium or nematodes is to look for that V F N on the label. new hybrids, modern hybrids that have verticillium fusarium and nematode tolerance built into them. champion is a good example. But there's a lot of others out there. And that's that's why you see that on the labels and East Coast gardeners are now seeing more and more varieties with late blight resistance, which is a nice kind of new wrinkle in the breeding drought direction 

Farmer Fred  06:37

 and the letters T and A refer to a tobacco mosaic virus and Alternaria. And, yeah, as far as tobacco mosaic virus, don't smoke around your plants. 

Don Shor  06:47

 Yeah, there you go. That was easy. I've actually never seen a case of tobacco mosaic in my career. So I gather that's more of a greenhouse operation concern. But those those resistances that are built into the hybrids are a distinct advantage. This is why when we're talking on your program, early in the season about going and selecting your tomato varieties, we both kind of Push, get at least a few hybrids in there, you know, they're gonna have this resistance bred into them. And I know people love heirloom tomatoes and all but they don't have that resistance built into them. So diversifying the number of varieties and the types of varieties you're planning can be really important. 

Farmer Fred  07:23

 And one more problem that may affect your tomatoes where the lower leaves and stems look kind of bronze or oily brown color the leaves dry up and drop that could be Russet mites. 

Don Shor  07:35

 That's an interesting one. I've seen it several times. And it's really hard to diagnose from someone's description because they think it just looks like a watering problem. You know, the plant looks like it needs not wilting, but like it's sort of drying out from the ground up. I happened to have that problem very early on when I was a gardener here in the valley. So I got it identified. And it yes, it looks like it's browning slowly from the ground up the vine. the vine keeps growing with reasonable vigor keeps flowering, keep setting but just sort of steadily declines as the season goes along. It can be a tough one. oil sprays can be very helpful early in the season if you've had it one year you might wish to spray for it The next year.The thing, though, is to get a properly diagnosed because it takes a 40 power hand lens to see those little mites and most nurseries and honestly most Master Gardeners aren't going to recognize that problem. It's not something they encounter very often. So take some pictures of the plant, get real close with a with a hand lens and look at the leaf. You might see the russet mite on there. If you have a problem one year, get rid of all the tomato foliage, all the debris at the end of the season, don't compost it, send it away, send it off to the landfill, and watch your plants carefully the next year or perhaps give them a preventive spray with a light oil as they're beginning to grow because it can be a frustrating problem when you get it by the time you figure out what it is. Might be a little late to do anything about it. 

Farmer Fred  08:54

  Is there any truth to the old adage avoid planting tomatoes near petunias and potatoes to avoid Russet mites. 

Don Shor  09:01

  Not that I know of. I think petunias look lovely with tomatoes. 

Farmer Fred  09:04

  We've been doing some tomato troubleshooting with Don Shor owner Redwood Barn Nursery in Davis, California. Don thanks for the tomato tips. 

Don Shor  09:12

 Always great to talk to you Fred.

Farmer Fred  09:18

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Jennifer in Woodland  10:13

I have a question. Again, Jennifer in Woodland, California, I've been listening to your show. And I remember one of the earlier episodes, there was someone on your show talking about how planting in your vegetable garden mixing plants. So it's not just one full row of tomatoes, one full row of lettuce. But mixing plants together is a great way to mitigate pest issues. But then recently on another show you were talking about crop rotation, so I'm trying to think of how we're going to start planting our fall garden. And I was planning on trying some of those methods of inter planting. But now with this concept of crop rotation, is it possible to do both? How do we how do you figure out rotating crops? When you know you don't have just one bed that has all tomatoes? You have a bed that is mixed? How can you plan for crop rotation with that concept in mind? So very curious if you have any options with something like that? Thanks so much, Fred.

Farmer Fred  11:16

Jennifer, that's a darn fine question. And yes, we have been talking about crop rotation a lot lately, both in food crops and also on other plants you may put in your garden. Then to complicate matters, back on episode 118, we were talking with Kim Eireman, who wrote the book, The Pollinator Victory Garden, who talked about the benefits of mixing up your plantings in order to attract the beneficials, the pollinators and the beneficial insects as well. So yeah, there there can be some confusion. Debbie Flower is here to unravel the confusion. And how the heck do we do this now?

Debbie Flower  11:55

Well, yeah, the waters pretty muddy on this topic. And there are people who advocate and practice the mixing up of the vegetable crops in the bed, too. Sometimes it's called companion planting. Sometimes it's called it's, I believe, a people who practice what they call permaculture do use this. But it's it makes, as you have figured out, it makes management of the garden very difficult. And so I favor actually planting one bed with all the tomatoes, all the tomatoes, I want all in one place, and then moving those tomatoes the next summer season to a different bed. And of course, it's not just tomatoes, in that case, it's tomatoes and potatoes, eggplant, pepper, if you grow tobacco, they're all in the same family. So we have to rotate crops in the vegetable garden based on the family in which they belong. And so it's it is much easier as you have figured out to have all the tomatoes in one bed, and then all the lettuce in a different bed and all the beans in another bed. And then you rotate and Fred has a great circular picture of crop rotation, the pizza pie, the pizza pie crop rotation, of course, you don't have to have a round garden and do it and pizza pies. You can have separate beds and doing that way. But it shows you a good, it gives you a good template on what should crops should follow what and some of that's done to for nutrition, which is fairly easy for us to control. For instance, corn needs is what we call a heavy feeder, it's a grass and like a lawn, it needs more nitrogen than other crops to produce its ears that we love to eat. So heavy feeder then you would fall would be planted after something that is less of a heavy feeder like a bean. So beans are in the Leguminaceae family, they do what's called fix nitrogen, they have a relationship with a bacteria that is able to actually collect nitrogen out of the air. And the air is our number one source of nitrogen  on Earth. So pick that nitrogen out of the air and put it in nodules on the root of the plant. Now we grow those beans on to have flowers and fruit and that takes a lot of that nitrogen out of those nodules. So it doesn't necessarily increase the nitrogen in the bed for the corn for the next year, but it doesn't deplete the nitrogen as much as another crop might. So we set up this rotation for reason you don't have to understand all the reasons but we set the crops up for rotation in a certain order for certain reasons. So for the vegetable garden, I believe it's easier to maintain. If we plant one bed with all the plants in one family and then rotate it makes it much easier to rotate it after that.

Farmer Fred  14:49

I think you can line those beds. You could have single crops as your main crop in each bed but why not line the beds with some sort of beneficial attraction perennial like alyssum, or California buckwheat, or any number of plants that attract beneficials. And that can be a permanent low growing crop, if you will,

Debbie Flower  15:12

yes, it can, or you can have a head tro, that's a term, another term for it. Somewhere on the property where you have those all of those planted and kept together, I think the number one thing to think about is maintenance. illicium is really easy to maintain. And if you step on it, oops, but it's not going to be a big problem. Whereas if you had a bed and in a place where you're going to walk something that's more permanent at like a eriogonum of buckwheat, then it might get in the way of your harvesting or you're tending the soil. So but if it were behind it, and you never went there, you just work the garden from the front.

Farmer Fred  15:46

Perfect. Alright, yeah, there's plenty of options. By the way, for more information about that pizza pie garden, visit the Farmer Fred rant blog page, and look for "crop rotation for the home garden", I'll have a link to it in today's show notes, if you want to build a big pizza pie in your backyard.

Debbie Flower  16:04

And if you want to visit it a website called southern exposure dot com and they listed and in and I'm sure it's at many other places on the internet as well. They listed the traditional summer vegetable crops in winter vegetable crops and the family to which they belong. And so if you're interested in digging into this a little more, that's what you want to look into the families to which your vegetables belong. And that's how you're going to do your rotation.

Farmer Fred  16:29

Southern Exposure dot com is the home for Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, one of my favorite seed companies. If you're looking out the window right now, like Debbie Flower is doing, you can see popcorn growing.  That's where my popcorn seed came from. It's a heirloom popcorn called 1886 Pennsylvania butter flavor popcorn.

Debbie Flower  16:49

Ooh, sounds good. 

Farmer Fred  16:50

 I hope so. We'll find out in a few months. We'll see how it does growing in barrels. 

Debbie Flower  16:56

The corn is there. You've got ears forming. I see the tassels and they're opening. Yeah, I have yours corn has to be in a patch can't be in a row has to be in a patch because it's pollinated by when I'm hoping you can also be in a circle. Patch. Okay. All right. Yeah.

Farmer Fred  17:13

And there's two patches there. So Jennifer, I hope that clears up any confusion about crop rotation. Thanks for giving us a call and Debbie Flower, Thanks for your help.

Debbie Flower  17:22

My pleasure. Thanks for having me, Fred.

Farmer Fred  17:27

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Farmer Fred  18:05

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Farmer Fred  19:24

Every week we like to talk with Warren Roberts out at the UC Davis Arboretum. He is their Superintendent Emeritus, he always has a beautiful plant of the week for us. And there is this one plant that is fairly common here in northern and central California. It could be very common where you are and when you first see it, you're seeing flowers on a bare stem. And it has the very accurate name of naked lady. Warren Roberts would know about that.

Warren Roberts  19:53

Yes, that's the common common name in English, naked ladies. Sometimes people with a little bit more. Oh, I should put it in class. We're nervous. Well, we're a little bit more nervous about I think call them pink ladies.  So at any rate, it's the amaryllis,  the true amaryllis, and there's just one species, and pretty much just one color. If you have amaryllis, like the kind that blooms  in the early fall, you have the true amaryllis, which is native to South Africa. With the discovery of South Africa by Europeans, it was widely distributed. And it was even brought into California when California was part of the Spanish Empire, and used to plant around the pear trees that were grown mainly to produce pear brandy for the Franciscan priests and brothers out in this far flung part of the Spanish Empire. The reason for it was it the roots are so poisonous that they discourage gophers. also it would produce flowers during a time of year when there wasn't much, for further religious services to put on the altar. And it's called Bella Donna because the in medicine of times when vegetable medicine was important plant medicine, the little seeds whether or not so little, they've like pearls in the wind, the flower starts producing and seed and the sap being put into the eye to dilate pupils, which may it meant that the person doing that was whether or not she was interested in the person that was pursuing her, it would look like she was more enamored towards them with the dilated pupils. So anyway, that's that's one of the stories of the Bella Donna. Yeah, there are a number of nice sort of sweetly risque pieces of information about this plant. There are hybrids with related genera from South Africa, especially the genus Cybistetes. And those produce very, very similar looking plants but that have more colored bars. If you see white ones, or if you see ones that are dark pink, or almost red, the naked ladies, then there's been some hybridizing going on. Typically, the hybrids will be found in former Portuguese farmsteads when Portuguese immigrants came in from the Azores, they often brought this plant with them, but there was the hybrid. And the pale pink form, which is the the species itself is very nice that these brighter colors were particularly, I think, particularly attractive. Now there was a Mr. Hannibal in Citrus Heights near Sacramento, who made these hybrids, and I think that they're the flower. He's passed away, I believe. But I think the flowers still persist in his former garden. Beautiful, beautiful plant. This is not to be confused with the amaryllis that is used for forcing in winter with the big red flowers or white or striped ones. This is it. This is the Hipeastrum. and the Hipeastrum it looks like an emerald. And it's in the same family. But it's actually from the Andes. There's been a lot of confusion about that, that continues. But very, very different plants.

Farmer Fred  21:36

I think you could grow this plant all along Interstate 10 and interstate eight, from coast to coast in the Sunbelt. And I guess if you live in a slightly colder region, if you give it a protected southern exposure that might help it out.

Warren Roberts  23:58

Yes, and it can be grown in areas where the ground typically freezes if you mulch heavily  just to keep the ground from freezing. So if you see it, you see it growing in areas we wouldn't think it was survived. And it also has a lovely fragrance. That's one of the nice things about it. during the growing season. It's a lush mound of big strap shaped leaves a dark rich green, and as soon as the weather changes in summertime, all those leaves die. And then the ground is bare for several months until August when the stems start poking out of the ground, no leaves at all. And then produce the flowers. It's easy to grow. you don't have to worry about critters eating it because it's poisonous to gophers and such.

Farmer Fred  24:54

And by the way, kids, don't stick it in your eye. Thank you.

Warren Roberts  24:59

No. that hasn't been that particular application for this plant hasn't been done for long.

Farmer Fred  25:06

We don't want to start again.

Warren Roberts  25:08

No, it is poisonous folks. Yeah.

Farmer Fred  25:12

If you want to show that you're interested in the person who is talking to you, instead of sticking a plant in your eye, just look up from your phone for a minute or two.

Warren Roberts  25:24

Let's do what comes naturally. Yes.

Farmer Fred  25:27

All right. There we go. The Amaryllis belladonna, also known as the naked lady, the plant of the week. Warren Roberts is the superintendent emeritus of the UC Davis Arboretum and public garden.  Find out more about the Arboretum, a fabulous place to visit. If you're going to be traveling this summer and you're coming to Northern California, if you're going to San Francisco or Sacramento, guess what is halfway in between. Davis. You can visit. It's a great place to stop and and smell the roses, literally.

Warren Roberts  25:56

 And smell the amaryllis. We even have an area in the Arboretum, a slopey, sandy area with this plant, dozens and dozens of these amaryllis. and we call it our nude beach.

Farmer Fred  26:11

Right. We found out a lot and probably more than we really wanted to learn, about the naked lady, the Amaryllis belladonna, here on the plant of the week segment of garden basics. Warren Roberts, thanks for all that great info.

Warren Roberts  26:24

You're welcome, Fred.

Farmer Fred  26:30

Garden Basics comes out every Tuesday and Friday and is brought to you by Smart Pots. It’s available just about anywhere podcasts are handed out. And that includes Apple podcasts, I Heart Radio, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Podcast Addict, CastBox and Google podcasts. And for Northern California gardeners, check out this podcast: the Green Acres Garden Podcast with Farmer Fred, also available wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you for listening, subscribing and leaving comments. We appreciate it.