Try moving vegetables each growing season to prevent disease
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I have had some complaints from some local wine-makers that the grapes they ordered from California for making wine were of poor quality. That can happen when you live as far as we do from the growers.
There are some local wine grapes available from Amargosa Valley and I have been guaranteed that they will be picked only at their peak -- they will be clean and fresh. They should be ready in the next couple of weeks.
Call me and leave a message if you are interested and I will help coordinate obtaining the grapes. In case you were wondering, yes, you can grow good wine grapes in our climate and soils.
If you are interested in wine-making and have never done it before or want to move to the next level of wine-making, boy do I have an offer for you. I was very lucky to get a commitment from Norma Poole to teach our next wine-making classes. Norma is a wine educator and has received two certificates from the Wine and Spirits Education Trust -- WSET Advanced, leading to the master of wine diploma. She also has successfully passed the court of master sommelier Level One, and is preparing to enter the advanced level in 2006.
The wine-making classes will have a fee, and wine tasting and evaluating will be involved. The dates will be announced in upcoming articles and in my newsletters. If you are interested in any of these classes and want to be notified of these events please contact me by e-mail at extremehort@aol.com or by phone at 257-5509 and leave a message.
Question: My tomato plants have been dying slowly at first and faster now. The lower leaves dry up and die and it progresses up the plant till all are gone. I have tried changing the watering. They are on a drip -- some plants watering every evening and some plants watering every other morning. I have withheld water and I have added water so the plants don't dry out at all. They are all mulched and fertilized periodically. I have sprayed with Bt and other things. I have gone out late at night with a flashlight and see no worms on them. Any help would be appreciated.
Answer: There are quite a few diseases that can hit tomatoes. These can come from the soil or be transmitted through the air. When planting vegetables though, we need to take one precaution right away to minimize disease problems, and that is to rotate them with other plants not in the same family.
If plants in the same family are planted in the same spot year after year, diseases will intensify. It is very important to move vegetables into different spots in a two- or three-year rotation to avoid these types of problems. Agriculturists call this crop rotation and it helps to minimize disease, insect and weed problems in their fields.
Many disease organisms are soil-borne or stay in the soil and infect plants from this soil. Soil-borne disease diminish if left unplanted with plants of the same family for just one year. Disease problems increase when the same crop family is planted in the same soils in successive years. Annually rotating your vegetables in the garden with vegetables from different plant families can help reduce the severity of diseases.
Rotation also may help curb insect infestations. Insect populations and plant damage may increase when the same crop is planted in the same area over several years.
Obviously, crop rotation in a small garden may be difficult. However, home gardeners should rotate their vegetable crops as best they can. To assist in rotation, the following vegetables belong to their respective families:
Mustards -- cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, radish and turnips.
Bindweed -- sweet potato.
Onion -- onion, leek, shallot and chive.
Carrot -- carrot, parsnip and celery.
Sunflower -- lettuce, endive, salsify and Jerusalem artichoke.
Goosefoot -- beet, Swiss chard and spinach.
Mallow -- okra.
You will need to keep these vegetables rotated in different spots separated by several feet and keep soil in these areas contained during the rotation cycle. Look for tomatoes that have inbred disease resistance, which is designated on the seed packet or label as V, F, or VFN, better choices when faced with the diseases of verticillium, fusarium and nematode problems.
Stay with varieties that you know have done well here, such as Champion, Jetstar, Patio, Early Girl and Celebrity. Some have had luck with the Hawaiian Tropical.
If you have had trouble with tomatoes in the past, start with some easier types to grow first, such as cherry types like Sweet 100 and Yellow pear.
Modify your soil with lots of compost prior to planting and get the plant health in tiptop condition. This will help a lot in warding off diseases.
Q: I planted tomatoes about late April or so. I had two tomatoes from about six plants, but a lot of flowers. Is it too hot for them to make tomatoes? Are there not enough pollinating bugs out here? Should I be the bee and pollinate them with a paintbrush? Help! My okra is doing great. Should one plant later in the season in Vegas?
A: You got a late start on your tomatoes. They stop setting fruit from flowers when temperatures range from 90 to about 95, depending on the tomato. The tomatoes that have already formed should continue on toward harvest, so harvest could extend into July.
From that point forward, no other fruit will set until temperatures drop again into the 90s or lower. So you do have a second chance for production in the fall. You can extend the season earlier by using hot caps, wall-o-waters or some other protection from late freezes and to keep temperatures elevated in the spring.
I would say with temperature protection, you could plant in mid- to late January, as long as you can keep night temperatures elevated. Without protection, you would have to plant probably after March 1, when night temperatures are in the 40s. This past spring, we had freezes as late as the first week of March, which is unusual for us.
You could plant tomatoes again in about mid-August and get some fall production if you can find transplants, or if you start your own from seed about six weeks before planting. Established tomatoes that survived the summer will set tomatoes faster than newly planted tomatoes since they have an established root system.
These tomatoes also have created heat shock proteins that help them to better cope with colder temperatures, as well. You can cut your tomato plants back about mid-August and see if you can regenerate the plants for some fall production. Be careful, because cutting them back can cause some sunburn on the vines.
You always want some leaf protection on the vines themselves after cutting back, or shade them until they produce some new foliage cover. Then fertilize and do not fertilize again this season.
You should have enough pollinators for your tomatoes, so I would not worry about that.
Bob Morris is an associate professor with the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension.
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