YELLOW LEAVED TOMATOES

Recently in the Garden Shop, people are bringing in tomato leaves that are starting to turn yellow. The mysterious affliction causes the leaves to turn yellow, first on the bottom portion then migrating up the plant. To help diagnose what’s happening first ask yourself the following questions:

How often am I watering: once a day, every other day, once a week?

If you answered yes to the first two situations, you are watering too much. If your tomato plants survived “Mother Nature’s pruning” of a hail storm a couple of weeks ago, thank your lucky stars that you still have them and put the hose down! Plant roots need oxygen in order to carry out the proper biology down there. Just imagine wearing wet socks and shoes for a week straight and not being able to take them off. That is how the plant feels. It’s not your fault, you are just naturally a nurturing person, making a common gardening slip. The good news is that your plants will recover! The only “cure” for too much watering is time. Just pull away some mulch to help speed up the evaporation process.

Are you watering once a week and still seeing yellow leaves? If you are nodding your head in agreement, then you most likely have a blight. The two most common blights are Early Blight and Septoria Leaf Spot and yes, each are a fungus. As the name indicates, Early Blight is usually the first blight that will attack tomatoes. Similar to over-watering, the green leaves begin to turn yellow starting with the older leaves near the bottom. Then, brown irregular patches start to form and the whole leaf dies. Septoria Leaf Spot will have similar symptoms but the leaf normally stays green and brown lesions will form and turn into black spots. Both diseases love lots of rain or irrigation and warm to hot humid days and nights. A Bordeaux fungicide or chlorothalonil, such as Ferti-lome Lawn and Garden Fungicide, will help stop the disease if applied when the symptoms first appear. Both fungi will over-winter on plant debris left in the garden and sanitation will be an important prevention method in the fall. Make sure to remove all plant material from your beds to prevent over-wintering of spores.

STORM DAMAGED TREES

On Friday, June 27, Omaha experienced a unique weather event. A powerful storm of rain, hail and winds in excess of 90 mph. wrecked havoc on our plants and many residents’ yards suffered. Trees suffered snapped limbs or worse, they were totally pushed over and up-rooted from the strong winds, and most plants were shredded from the hail.

Weeks later, damaged trees are starting to exhibit their broken limbs by the dead leaves turning brown on the branches. Any broken branches still attached to the trunk need to be removed or risk further damage to the tree from the next storm (thunderstorm, ice storm, or snow storm). It’s best to have storm damaged trees examined by a certified arborist.

If you see hail damage on your tree’s bark, it will heal with time. You could try wrapping your tree after Halloween. This may help prevent further damage this winter from sun scalding or frost cracking. If you should choose to wrap your tree, the wrap should be removed by mid to late March.

We will continue to see the effects of this storm for many years to come.

GRUBS

 

 

 

 

Do you have areas of your lawn in full sun that are starting to die? Do you see Starlings in your yard? Do you wake up to find areas of your sod pulled back or cone shape holes dug into the soil? If so, you most likely have grubs and the birds and the moles are having a feast.

Grubs are the juvenile stage of the Northern Masked Chafer, June Beetle, or Japanese Beetle. The first two insects are fairly common in the Omaha area and only recently have Japanese Beetles appeared in our landscape. These grubs feed on the root system of the grass causing the turf to die.

Every yard will have some grubs. It is when they become over populated that the damage occurs. Take a one foot square area and pull back the sod, if you see two or three grubs there isn’t a problem, four or more grubs indicate a problem. It’s wise to test a couple random areas in your lawn to get a good feel for the overall population.

Grub control should be put down only if there is a grub problem and now is the time to apply the product. Grubs begin to hatch at the end of July to will continue through August.

If you need grub control, they are easily managed by two different chemicals either Halofenzoide found in Hi-Yield Kill-A-Grub or Imidacloprid found in Hi-Yield Grub Free Zone II. Please note that these two products can take up to two weeks to activate in the soil, so again timing is important. For late season control of grubs the only option is Dylox.

An Earth Friendly control for Japanese Beetles is Milky Spores (Bacillus popilliae), please note that Milky Spores only work on Japanese Beetles. Beneficial Nematodes are another Earth Friendly way to control grubs. The nematode will parasitize the grub and kill it. Beneficial nematodes pose no threat to humans or pets and once established they will continue to provide control for grubs in the future.

What's Bugging You written by Scott Evans, Mulhall's garden shop manger, is a bi-weekly post that provides solutions to local lawn and garden issues. The column will run as long as you have problems that you need help with.

We encourage you to tell us what's bugging you in your garden or lawn. Please submit your issues along with a picture of your problem and your contact information to whatsbuggingyou@mulhalls.com.

If we use your submission we will send you a $10 Mulhall's gift card!