Answer from Pat:
Yes, I sure do have a suggestion. You need to undertake a program of corrective pruning in winter or very early spring after your tree has dropped its leaves and before new buds open, followed by annual fall pruning to keep the tree growing and bearing. You also need to undertake a regular schedule of cleaning up the tree to remove all mummified fruit, debris, twigs, and dead fallen bark, and thoroughly clean up the ground under the tree in winter, followed by spraying with fungicide more than once in winter to control the pests and diseases that can and will beset neglected peach trees. Also cover the ground with fresh mulch under the tree after spraying and pruning. This will do much to control diseases, and fertilize your trees according the the time and directions provided by your local University Extension. Placing a layer of aged manure under the tree after cleaning the ground in fall, and covering the root zone but not touching the trunk, could do much to aid the health and recovery of your tree and would provide both fertilizer and mulch. (Deciduous fruit trees do not have a heavy requirement for fertilizer but they do need some.)

It sounds to me as if your tree is suffering from a disease such as brown rot, which results in mummified and rotting fruit, or it may have other fungus diseases such as bacterial leaf spot, which can also turn fruit brown and shriveled. Also, your failure to prune is why the tree can no longer bear much fruit. Oozing of sap can be caused by diseases such as gumosis, but also from peach-tree borers and other pests. Unfortunately, neglected peach trees always go into severe decline and seldom if ever come to a good end.

Peach trees need more severe winter pruning than any other deciduous fruit trees because the fruit is only born on one-year old shoots. Dormant spray is done to control pests as well as diseases. If you do not prune and if your tree isn’t bearing or only bearing on the tips, this is because you haven’t pruned it enough to stimulate growth of adequate new wood that will bear the following year.

Go to your local book store or look online and purchase a good book on pruning deciduous fruit trees. Make sure it contains diagrams. You will also need to know when to prune in your area. Here in California where I live we have a mild-winter climate so we prune our deciduous fruit trees in January. In summer the only pruning we do is to remove suckers arising from branches or from the ground. In Ohio the right time of year to prune a young peach tree is March. But your tree is a mature tree, and timing for that might be different, so refer to the University Extension In your area and phone the Master Gardeners for advice. I would expect March to be the time to prune, but I am not sure about the correct time to prune in Illinois, so ask the experts at your University of Illinois University Extension. Also send for a copy of Ohio State University Extension Bulletin 528. “Training and Pruning Fruit Trees.” (Mentioned below.) You can also find out if there is a similar publication in Illinois.

For your own safety I recommend you purchase a sturdy three-legged ladder. A three-legged orchard ladder is one of the best purchases a gardener can ever make. I have owned one of these for many years. With good care it can last a lifetime.

Brown rot is a fungus disease that attacks fruits and twigs of stone fruits. Peach leaf curl attacks the leaves of peach trees twisting them out of shape and can kill trees. Another disease is bacterial leaf spot which causes black or brown spots on green leaves and brown sunken areas on fruit. In order to prevent these diseases from ruining your harvest and killing your tree, in addition to pruning you will need to undertake undertake a regular program of annual dormant spray in late fall and winter, which you will need to repeat more than once. (Ask your University Extension when spraying should be done and wear protective clothing.) Spray with a product such as dormant disease lime sulfur spray mixed with horticultural oil against pests. Some organic gardeners claim that beneficial fungi control all negative fungi in their gardens, but obviously this is not the case in your garden. Thus you need to spray with dormant spray. If you are an organic gardener, choose an organic product, such as Bonide Organic Lime Sulfur Spray. Even organic gardeners need to use dormant spray on roses or if they intend to have any luck growing deciduous fruit trees, especially peaches that are more subject to disease problems than any other fruit tree.

For more information: Please refer to the information on peach leaf curl on pages 59 and 62 of my organic book and see the information on pruning of peaches and other deciduous fruit trees discussed on page 51. Page 382 once again covers the subject of peach leaf curl at the right time of year when we need to control it here. This timing of course will not be right for you, but will help others reading this blog.

For how to correct your tree’s shape and size, see UC University Extension Publication 8058: Pruning Overgrown Deciduous Fruit Trees. (This pamphlet is on the internet and includes excellent instructions for correcting an overgrown deciduous fruit tree.) Also see: Ohio State University Extension Bulletin 528. “Training and Pruning Fruit Trees.”
Ohio University Extension Fact Sheet 4321-1086 will also give you much information on growing peaches and nectarines in the home landscape.
University of Illinois Extension has some helpful information also: http://urbanext.illinois.edu/fruit/tree.cfm?section=tree
Also see this valuable information from the University of Illinois (Your state!) http://urbanext.illinois.edu/fruit/peaches.cfm?section=tree

It is not too late to save your peach trees but I hope you realize now you can’t simply plant them and forget them.

Related posts:

1. Corrective Pruning Fruit Trees
2. Dormant Spray For Low-Chill Apple Trees
3. Preventing Sap From Oozing from Peach and Nectarine Fruit

Question from Chris:

Answer from Pat:
Thanks so much for writing. First, I want to encourage you in your desire to get an internship in Panama on a new sustainable community.

A glance at the site indicates that this community may be early in its development, may offer great learning and service opportunities, and may be an exciting adventure as well as one of lasting value. When and if you arrive there, you will doubtless have opportunities to learn a great deal about the area and the work required of you to make your 5 acres into a productive farm or garden while growing plants adapted to the climate in Panama and recycling back into the land all the organic waste products from the animals you raise and the plants that you grow.

I’m sorry I do not know of other organic farms in Panama, but once you arrive there I would suppose you will have the opportunity to meet other gardeners and learn from them the rhythm of farming and gardening there, what crops to grow, and when to plant and harvest. Every climate offers its advantages and drawbacks, but timing is all-important. The best way to learn these things is to talk to long-time organic farmers in the area. If there are none then you will have to rely on books and scholarship to know what to do when. In the 1940′s, my mother purchased and then ran an organic farm mainly by reading “Rodale’s Organic Farming and Gardening Magazine” and also a current, multi-volume encyclopedia of farming. Then she would have us all do exactly what that magazine (which was very good in those days) and also the encyclopedia said to do. She also wrote lists of tasks and then crossed them out as we accomplished these items. Another way she learned was from the County Agent, which was the name in those days of the Farm Advisor. I doubt you will have anyone like that in Panama, but it is important to listen to experts whenever you can and to learn from them.

When we had our farm we were living in a cold-winter climate. You will be in a tropical one and tropical gardening offers totally different and new challenges. In Africa several years ago I flew over a large area of small individually farmed and owned “strip farms” Each one was about an acre in size. These were hugely productive, but this one area (near Lake Victoria) had a nearly ideal growing climate with ample year-round rain. Torrential rains can ruin crops and rot seeds and roots, just as longtime drought can kill crops also. Dealing with insect and animal pests and plant diseases organically in Panama may also present challenges and be quite different from anything you have faced prior.

You say the soil is good and that is excellent news, but your task as an organic gardener will be to put back into the ground at the end of each season and before the next season, whatever nutrients your plants subtracted from the soil. In this way you can eventually leave it even better than you found it. You also have a chance to learn the economics and time management of farming. I wish you good fortune in all these endeavors.

With good wishes for your success and happiness in this project.

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1. Vegetables for Southern California
2. Raised Bed Planting
3. Companion Planting Has No Scientific Basis but Planting a Wide Range of Crops Works

ANSWER FROM PAT:
Dear Pam:

Please refer to the detailed, step-by-step instructions for growing cantaloupes in a tire on page 197 of my book. The most important points in these instructions are putting manure and fertilizer in the bottom of the hole, covering of the ground around the tire with black plastic to increase heat, planting in May in order to give the melons a long enough growing season (June—almost July, is a little late, but it may be okay), watering by soaking the ground in the tire with water from the hose instead of drip, letting the plants go dry for the last week or two when melons are almost mature, and picking them at “full slip”. And, of course, it’s hugely important to begin with a great variety that will give a good harvest even in a coastal zone. The one I recommended in my talk and in my book is ‘Ambrosia’, that has a shorter number of days to harvest than most varieties and is super sweet with great flavor when properly grown in a home garden.

As for thinning, as explained in the step-by-step instructions on page 197, plant 5 or 6 seeds in each hill or tire, and thin them to the two strongest by clipping the others off. Seeds germinate easily.

As far as what yield you will get from your plants, that depends on what variety you chose, how well you grow them, and whether the plants were properly pollinated either by bees or by hand. Please see the sections on pollination on this website for instructions how to hand-pollinate if you do not have bumble bees in residence. With optimum conditions and care along with plenty of bumblebees and honeybees in my garden, I usually harvested between 10 to 20 ‘Ambrosia’ melons from each tire.

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1. Why Did I Get So Few Melons? (Pollination of Melon Plants, by Hand or By Bees)
2. Squash
3. Melon

Question from Heather:

Answer from Pat: Prune lavendar as soon as the main blossom season has finished. Lavendar needs full sun. Otherwise it will grow towards the light and become uneven. Prune it after bloom by shearing the plant all over removing all the blooms and at least an inch or two of foliage. Don’t cut it back into bare wood, however. Only shear away of some of the gray green foliage and all of the blossoms. Some lavenders bloom mostly in spring, others in summer, some year round and others twice a year. The year round one’s are best sheared following spring bloom and again lightly in fall. Strive for a nice smooth rounded shape. By shearing lavender this way after bloom you can keep it more compact and help it to live longer. If growing in very poor soil, fertilize lightly after shearing with a balanced organic fertilizer and follow up with irrigation.

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1. Pruning New Zealand Christmas tree close to a swimming pool
2. Pruning Sweetshade, Hawaiian Wedding Tree (Hymenosporum flavum)
3. Pruning of Ground Morning Glory (Convolvulus)

Question from Kathy:

Anyway, you were wonderful to reply to me and my problem and I will later on let you know how I make out.
Regards, Kathy

Answer from Pat:
Bearded iris are not drought-resistant plants. They need regular irrigation and full sun. Sometimes when iris stop blooming it is because they have insufficient water or fertilizer, but nine times out of ten it is because they were once in full sun and now are in full shade or have not been divided for many years. See the June chapter of my book for instructions on how to divide and replant bearded iris.

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1. Pruning for Fortnight Lily (Dietes iridioides, D. bicolor)
2. Princess Plants (Tibouchina heteromalla and Tibouchina urvilleana.)
3. Fortnight Lilies

A. Walking on heavy soil when it is wet can compact the soil, but other than that caveat what’s wrong with taking advantage of rainfall to fertilize with organic fertilizer all the things that need it now, like roses (if you did not fertilize them in January according to the directions in my book), broccoli (after taking off the central head to keep the side sprouts growing), citrus trees (late January is the time to feed even with sythetics), cool-season lawns (fertilize with organic fertilizer now; it takes time to work) , and avocado’s (February is the month to begin fertilizing these.) What’s the difference if it’s raining?

Many times in my book I have said to fertilize just before a rain or “if rain is inadequate, water in thoroughly”. So does it not make sense that if you wake up in the morning and find it already raining and you had been planning to fertilize anyway knowing it was going to rain that afternoon that you would go out in a rain suit and fertilize even though it was raining so you would not need to irrigate afterwards? If you are an organic gardener, or even if you are not, you should have already fertilized your citrus trees in late January. If you did not do this, do it now, but what a shame you did not do it before or during the rain.

I have often fertilized in the rain while wearing a rain suit, so I wonder why you got the idea that it’s not a good idea to fertilize when it’s raining? That sounds like the advice of someone other than me. It also sounds like advice I heard from a weather man on one of the news channels. Several weather men give garden advice and goodness knows where they get some of their information. They often say things that are not true or incomplete and thus misleading. When I heard a weather man saying “Don’t fertilize now because there is too much rain.” I wished I could pop up onto the screen and say “Hey wait a minute! That is not entirely correct!” The only really negative aspect of fertilizing with ORGANIC fertilizer in the rain is that the fertilizer gets wet and so do you and some of the fertilizer inevitably gets on your clothes and might ruin your rain suit. (I keep an old one for this purpose.)

Now if one is talking about SYNTHETIC nitrogen fertilizers—that is, manmade fertilizers— that may be a different matter ( though this does not apply, as explained above, to citrus, avocado, and those veggies that need fertilizing now.) Synthetic fertilizers such as sulfate of ammonia and urea, are completely soluble, thus fertilizing when we have very heavy rains will wash them into the ground and perhaps even right through the root zone and down into ground water too rapidly. This is why March is usually considered to be the classic month for fertilizing the basic landscape when using synthetic commercial fertilizers. But I am not espousing any of these synthetic, man-made fertilizers.

I recommend organic fertilizers, and these should be applied early since they take time to work. (Consult my book for some of the products and homemade concoctions you could be using (and see the chart of generic organic fertilizers on this website.) Organic fertilizers must be in contact with the soil in order to become activated and then they become an integral part of the soil and continue working in the ground. All this process takes time. For example, gardeners who add a mulch of horse manure in fall ahead of the rain are allowing time for the manure to age on top of the ground as well as allowing the winter rains to wash the nutrients into the ground. This process will greatly improve garden soil with great benefit to garden plants. Heavy rains are a benefit to the manuring process since they will wash away any salts. (Do not mulch succulents or California native plants with manure.) Additionally, partially rotted organic matter actually works with the soil as it rots further in the ground. The wondrous fact is that as it decomposes and becomes humus it creates nitrogen in the process and releases it to plant roots, but it needs moisture for this to happen. So these heavy rains we are having will only help the process. Get out there and take advantage of the rains instead of waiting until later and then needing to waste our precious irrigation water to do the job that could have been done by rain.

Related posts:

1. Fertilizing Trees
2. Fertilizing Deciduous Fruit Trees
3. Chicken or Horse Manure

Question from Dee:

Answer from Pat:
Most herbs are easy to grow but variegated thyme is a little less long-lived than common thyme (Thymus vulgarus.) If you live in a very hot place your herbs would appreciate light shade rather than full sun. Thyme likes deep, light, well-drained soil, it doesn’t grow well in heavy clay. If you have clay soil, amend it well with organics before planting. Thyme prefers deep watering so that it dries out between irrigations, but I find that creeping types of thyme need more water and moister soil than most people think.
Growing creeping thymes between stepping stones is one of the best ways, keeping roots cool, moist but not overwatered. Almost any type of thyme grows best next to a rock that it can nestle its roots under. In sun that bakes as long as your query suggests, a nice big, cool rock nestled into the ground next to the plant would do wonders. Clip the plant back as it grows. This will make it put out fresh growth and stay bushy. Yes, you can grow thyme in pots filled with a good quality of potting soil, but choose one large enough for roots. About one foot across should do the trick.

True French tarragon (Artemisia dracunculus) needs somewhat richer soil than thyme but prefers it to be well-drained. It can even take some fertilizer to keep it growing. Yes, this plant also can be grown with a little shade and does well in pots. I have had luck growing it in the garden and also pots. If you have the real French tarragon, it tastes good in cooking and clip it back to keep it branching and growing. Mexican tarragon (Tagetes lucida) lacks the real taste of tarragon. It doesn’t taste as good. All tarragon dies to the ground in winter. In mild zones it usually rots and doesn’t come back the following year. With as much heat as evidently your plants have had, it might have suffered from root rot. I think both your plants might have been victims of heat. Rock gardens are ideal for growing herbs.

Since you are new to gardening, please don’t become discouraged, but try to keep you spirits up. All of us have failures sometimes and some plants die no matter what. So keep on trying, experimenting, and learning by experience. New gardeners often fail to do proper soil improvement prior to planting and sometimes they either over or under water plants, and over or under fertilize them. Eventually you will get the hang of the whole subject and have success.

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1. French Marigolds Work Against Nematodes

Question:

Answer: I’m so glad you ordered my book. It covers all the plants we grow in handy month-by-month format but emphasizes drought-resistant gardening and plants throughout. Additionally, there are sections on native plants, the latest information on how to grow them, a new section on planting a desert garden —”Making a Garden is Like Baking a Cake”—, an updated succulent and cacti section, and a whole new section on fire-resistant gardening which especially impacts those living near wild areas. And it helps long time gardeners as well as new residents who soon find out how different gardening is here than anywhere else where they may have lived. I can’t count the times that people have told me they moved here from somewhere else, this book helped them from the get-go, and it is now their “gardening bible.”

Since you are new to gardening in Southern California, I also want to emphasize that a garden of succulents is not the only way to go. Succulents are just one large group of drought-resistant plants of many genuses that store water in their structural parts, such as leaves, branches, and trunks. Succulents can be stunning when planted in a well-designed arrangement, and yes, you could plant a whole drought-resistant garden of them as many gardeners have successfully done. However, you don’t have to carpet the ground with gravel and resort to nothing but prickly cacti or poisonous euphorbias in order to have a water-thrifty garden. You can plant a succulent garden that contains no euphorbias or cacti and still have a fascinatingly varied landscape. You could also plant a completely drought-resistant garden that does not contain a single succulent or cactus.

Take California native plants, for example, though a few of them are succulent plants most are not. During the last fifty years, while gardeners largely ignored native plants or brushed them aside as “difficult”, botanical gardens, hybridizers, and native plant enthusiasts came up with a whole raft of new, easy-to-grow selections and varieties and some of these need no summer water at all. Now that gardeners have at last become serious about saving water, they suddenly find that —Viola!—they have a whole plethora of wonderful species to plant that are much easier than those available years ago. Also, now there are several fine nurseries, such as Tree of Life Nursery near San Juan Capistrano, that specialize exclusively in native plants and are great fun to visit. (See Tree of Life website for hours and days open.)

In addition to native plants, many. but not all, grasses, palms, flowering subtropical trees, shrubs, and climbers—wisteria is a perfect example—, perennials, annuals, bulbs, shrubs, and even one rose are drought resistant. Lady Banks rose has no thorns, no diseases, and no pests and once established is highly drought-resistant. The largest rose in the world is a Lady Banks (Rosa banksiae ‘Lutea’) surviving for over a century in Tombstone Arizona without irrigation.

That said, among other books I especially recommend are Debra Baldwin’s “Designing with Succulents” and her new book “Succulent Container Gardens.” Another book that would help you is one I wrote called “The American Horticultural Society Southwest SMART GARDEN™ Regional Guide“. On pages 82 and 83 you will find a list of all the lists inside the book. Each page contains as many as 6 photographs of the plants on that particular list. Many but not all lists pertain to drought-resistant plants and they are arranged according to how you would use them. The book contains 8 pages on succulents alone: 2 pages each of succulent perennials, succulent shrubs, succulent climbers, and succulent trees. This book will teach you to recognize many of the plants that grow here but it will also help you choose good drought-resistant ones for your garden.

Every local gardener should own a copy of “Sunset Western Garden Book” and refer to the illustrated lists on drought-resistant plants in the beginning of the book. You can also identify which Sunset Climate Zone you are living in by referring to the opening pages of this book. Other wonderful books are: “California Native Plants for the Garden” by Bornstein, Fross, and O’Brien, “Native Landscaping from El Paso to L.A.” by Sally Waskowski with Andy Wasowski, and “Plants and Landscapes for Summer-Dry Climates of the San Francisco Bay Region” by the East Bay Municipal Utility District. All these books are chock full of wonderful photographs.

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Answer from Pat:
I’m delighted to know that my book has been so helpful and thank you for recommending it to friends. Even now, after it’s been on the market in various editions for more than 20 years some Southern California gardeners have never heard of it. Regarding your daughter in Salt Lake City, there is a book called “Cutting Edge Gardening in the Inter-Mountain West” and another book called “Temple Square Gardening” published by Deseret Books, but I don’t know anything about either of these books. If there is a genuine need for a regional garden book just for the Salt Lake area, and if none exists, why doesn’t your daughter write one?

I began collecting clippings and materials for my book more than 50 years ago. After that, I became a garden editor and writer for a local magazine. I researched each article I wrote by talking to the expert growers and owners of specialty nurseries that grew specific plants. Also we had many horticultural clubs filled with people who knew how to grow specific plants. I interviewed them also and attended their meetings. Later, during my career on regularly-scheduled TV I was on the evening news (NBC station) twice a week year-round demonstrating “jobs to do now” in one’s local garden. Once again I did careful research, not from books but from professional growers and long-time gardeners. I discovered many horticultural secrets from growers, farmers, and seasoned nursery owners, not the folks who worked for them but the owners who had a lifetime of experience with plants. For example when I did a show on azaleas I interviewed the top azalea grower in the region and I traveled to Altadena to learn about camellia culture from Julia Nucchio, California’s legendary grower. Some of these great men would see me on TV and then contact me, eager to share with me information only they knew so I could then teach my viewers. All the knowledge I garnered from my years on TV and at San Diego Home/Garden Magazine and from my own lifetime, growing up on a farm and gardening all my life went into my book. Others have tried to write books competing with mine, but no one can do so unless they were to copy it word for word. My publisher does not advertise so it’s all word-of-mouth or my own efforts to spread the word. My strength in that regard is not as great as it once was, but I can’t help that.

Regarding my considering a computer application, no I have not thought of that. I try to do what I love doing and this sounds like something I would hate doing. Besides, it might compete with my book, but mainly, doing something like that just doesn’t fall within my type of skills. Even though I have used a mac computer for writing TV scripts and books since 1985, I am not at all computer oriented. However I have an agreement with Google, as many authors have, and so my entire book is on the Internet and pops up as a reference to answer people’s questions if they word their questions properly. My books have appeared that way for years, as part of Google’s archives and in this way they are available to all search engines.

Currently I am writing another book but it is not a garden book. So far, it is going well, but I have only written 3 chapters of this one. I hope it will be a success and bring pleasure to a wide audience.

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A. Chicken manure is superior to horse manure but needs longer aging and less is applied. Well-aged chicken manure makes an excellent vegetable fertilizer, especially since it contains more phosphorus and potassium as well as nitrogen, than does horse manure.

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