“Oh, good to see you have weeds too,” said my neighbor as we walked through my vegetable garden. I’ve felt just like that when visiting other gardens, haven’t you?
Here’s a fact that should give all of us a feeling of relief: In the best gardens and on the best farms that I’ve visited, there are still weeds and pests and other things going wrong. You are not alone. Don’t let photos in books and magazines — and on websites like this! — give you unrealistic expectations for your garden.
On any given day, I am winning some and losing some out there. Today, most of the tomatoes that I planted a few weeks back are growing well.
But one is suffering.
I’d noticed slight browning on the edges of the plant’s lower leaves when I bought it, and I know better than to buy a tomato plant with anything but impeccable foliage, but I thought it was so slight as to not be from actual disease. Now I see I was probably wrong.
We had a good winter of healthy heads of broccoli and cauliflower with very few aphids.
I think that was partly due to the luck of the weather and partly due to my diligence at rogueing plants with infestations. (See my post, “Dealing with aphids on broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, and cauliflower.“)
But soon after my neighbor noted that I also have weeds the other day he asked, “What are those big plants next to the broccoli that is bolting?”
They are another type of broccoli, “purple sprouting broccoli,” and they have grown bigger than any broccoli plants I have ever seen. Finally, a couple weeks ago they began sprouting purple florets, which are dazzling in appearance.
“But they don’t taste great,” I told my neighbor. “Not as good as other types of broccoli. My kids snack on all the other broccoli plants but don’t eat these ones.” And now they’re getting a bunch of aphids inside the florets to boot. Win, lose, lose.
There are many more winners and losers in the vegetable garden today, but how about among the fruit trees? I have a reliable Blenheim apricot tree. It is done blooming now, and the fruitset looks as heavy and healthy as every year before.
That tree is a winner. On the other hand, you don’t want to look at some of my avocado trees. There was a night in early February that dropped to 25 degrees, and it caused my Reed to die back at branch tips and shed 110 avocados.
While some other small avocado trees look half dead.
I stopped using Instagram recently. One reason is that it felt natural to try to take and post photos of beautiful things (e.g. the bloom of my apricot) but never the ugly things right beside them (e.g. the sickly young avocado tree). This was pleasing to the eye, but really it is a lie.
And it is unhelpful. It’s not helpful to only get half the story. And in fact, usually you can learn more by taking a look at what’s going wrong than what’s going right.
I’ve tried doing this from time to time with Yard Posts that I’ve titled, “Oh, the mistakes I’ve made: . . .”
( . . . Not thinning enough fruit from a plum tree.”)
( . . . Planting vegetables at the wrong time.”)
( . . . Thinking flowers were for girls.”)
My yard is not perfect and neither is anyone else’s. Let’s not pretend that having zero weeds or growing everything successfully is even a goal that we want to achieve. How boring that would be!
If everything were growing right, wouldn’t that mean that we weren’t trying anything new or learning anything? To me, the testing and discovering is one of the most fun aspects of gardening.
One of my favorite lines of poetry comes from Yeats:
“Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth,
We are happy when we are growing.”
A list of my Yard Posts is here.
Hi Greg, your Reeds last until the beginning of February? Do they still taste good? On your chart you have the Reeds harvest time from May to November.
I enjoy your Yard Posts,
Hi Don,
Thanks. Those are immature Reeds. They wouldn’t have been picked until at least May (even though many of them look up to size now).
Speaking of weeds… We have an incredible number of snails this spring, some climbing way up into the almond and nectarine trees. I’ve used Corky’s in the past, but was wondering if there’s a better solution. Anyone ever use diatomaceous earth (food grade)? If so, where can you get it, how and how often do you apply it and how well does it work?
Hi Joe,
I have few snails these days, but in a past garden I had many. I got good control by going out with a flashlight after dark and picking up all snails I saw. I squished them, put them in a plastic bag, or threw them over the fence. I did this a few nights in a row and noticed that the snail population was down dramatically for a while.
I’ve never used diatomaceous earth, but a friend does and finds it effective. He says that you just have to reapply it after rain. He gets it at hardware or home improvement stores.
Thanks, Greg. I’m going to give the DE a run and see how things go. If that doesn’t work, it’s the flashlight-after-dark solution.
Chickens do wonders on reducing the snail population. They eat everything. I rarely find that they will tear into your trees as long as they’re well fed. I do have to keep them out of the vegetable garden when it’s in season, though.
Thanks, Bob. I was unaware that chickens eat snails. Where I live, though, I think coyotes would eat the chickens before the chickens ate the snails.
Just have to second the effectiveness of chickens here. They are the best method of pest control for snails, in addition to many other insect pests like earwigs and different beetles.
I hear you about the coyote pressure, but it is possible to build a coyote proof pen for the chickens. I’m in an area with lots of coyotes, and my neighbors and I have all learned to keep them from our chickens, mostly. There have been some losses over the years, but often that has come from forgetting to lock the birds in at night. I’ve watched other friends and family go through the same issues with chickens and coyotes in their areas.
You might like to see my post, “Should you get chickens?”: https://gregalder.com/yardposts/should-you-get-chickens/
My brother used to lay out newspaper at night and wet it. It attracted slugs that would stay there when the sun came up. He would release the birds in the morning and they would follow him to the paper; he turned it over for them and they ate away. I don’t think it did much with snails but worked wonders on slugs.
Sometimes I use salt on snails and slugs. They dissolve right away once the salt hits them.
Trim the dead avocado branches on the small ones so it doesn’t spread.
I can send a picture of my Sir Prize. It’ll make you feel really good about your spindly Gem.
Thanks, Bob, for trying to make me feel better.
Hi Greg. Sorry to see those sick avocado trees. Do you think that Reed will bloom after that damage? I’m also wondering about my own Reed. It has a little cold damage but not even close to as bad as your is.
None of my avocados are showing any evidence of bloom even though the ones in Fallbrook have been blooming for a while now.
Hi Walter,
I think the Reed will still bloom. It took significant cold damage in the New Year’s Freeze of 2015 and still bloomed afterward. I don’t expect a heavy bloom though.
I have some avocado trees showing flower buds but none with open flowers yet. I was in Fallbrook today and saw many trees with open blooms. I was also in L.A. County today and saw avocado trees with open bloom. Every year, my avocado trees are many weeks to months behind most others since my location is relatively cool. Maybe you’re in a cooler location too?
You are correct. I live in temecula. It a Similar climate to Ramona or so I’ve heard. Thanks again for your knowledge Greg.
Hi Greg,
I feel like I read about this here before but I can’t for the life of me find this information.
I have a young citrus tree growing in a container. Slowly but surely the roots have pushed themselves above the ground. Now so much that the tree is severely tilted, nearly falling to the ground! What causes this and what can I do about this?
Thanks
Hi Erin,
Are these the small roots (like the size of thread) or big roots (like the size of a pencil or more)? Citrus trees will form a mat of small roots at or near the soil surface if it stays cool and moist enough there to be hospitable for them. I’ve got this situation on some of my citrus trees, but it has never turned into a problem where the tree leans.
My trees are all in the ground though. I wonder if your tree is lacking many deeper roots to help anchor it also. In a container, my only guess as to why this would happen is if the tree had been getting watered too shallowly such that the soil down low stayed too dry for roots to thrive. Or it could be the opposite, where the bottom was constantly soggy and lacked enough air. I’d try to see if the tree has deep roots and keep an eye on the moisture down there. In the meantime, the little tree could probably benefit from a stake.
Hi Greg,
These are a cluster of pencil sized roots. They go up a little and back down like an “n” shape.
How do I see if it has deep roots? Just dig into the dirt?
Based on its leaning and frailty, my guess is that if it has deep roots, it would only be small ones and that its only large ones are the visible ones above ground. In addition to the stake should I also cover the visible large roots with dirt either by adding more dirt on top or by attempting to bury the whole thing deeper into the dirt?
Thanks,
Erin
Hi Erin,
Sometimes you can just check for roots down low by looking at the holes at the bottom of the container. If there are many roots down there, then they usually poke through the holes a bit. If you can’t do that, then you could try to remove the tree from the container to see the whole rootball, but that might be too difficult.
At the very least, you should be able to judge the moisture of the soil at the bottom of the container by looking into and poking your finger into the holes at the bottom of the container.
It’s fine for a citrus tree to have some “root flare” where the large roots coming out of the base of the trunk are showing above ground a little bit. If it seems like too much of those roots are above the soil level, then you can bury them but don’t add too much soil at one time. Too much for a little tree like that might be more than an inch or two.
Cool. Thanks so much for the advice!!
Hi Greg, I’ve been using vinegar on some of the weeds in my yard but I do my best to keep them away from producing trees and berry bushes. I was wondering if you know if the vinegar would kill the trees and plants?
On another note, my Bacon avocado tree did very well over the winter. Here it is heading towards the end of March and I still have 2 avocados left hanging on. The buds I noticed growing are new leaves, the old leaves are just now beginning to turn yellow and die off making room for all the beautiful new leaves. Once they’re finished I’ll see the buds for avocados. Can’t wait to see how many our tree gives us this year. I did freeze some avocados to see how well they would come out and they did pretty well. I only use those for smoothies and dips so it didn’t matter that they were a bit soggy but they stayed nice and green. I miss your posts on Facebook.
Hi Debbie,
Good to hear that your Bacon tree is doing well, and you still have a couple hanging at the end of March!
I’ve never used vinegar in my yard, but here’s a little study on using vinegar products (of different concentrations) done by Oregon State: https://oregonstate.edu/dept/nursery-weeds/weedspeciespage/acetic_acid_factsheet.pdf
Really great post. Pulling weeds is therapeutic for me. It’s an easy way to feel accomplished. 🙂 I loathe the grasses and my husband gravitates towards broad leaf, so we make a pretty good team.
I also obsess (as I think many of us do) over identifying plants, even weeds. Do you have any good listing resources for common San Diego weeds? Fillaree was a new one for me, but I’m glad to know it now. And I know weeds are subjective, but think we can generally agree on common ones.
Hi Brandon,
Thank you. I don’t know of a good listing of common San Diego weeds, but luckily much of California shares many weeds in common and the University of California has good weed identification resources. For example, check out this page.
I have a feeling you might enjoy reading this post I wrote about weeds last year, “Before killing it, name that weed.”
You are awesome.
Hi Greg, I am a potter as well as a gardener and I also belong to a Pottery group and just yesterday during a workshop we were talking about failures and how everybody has them even the best of potters, and how it is helpful to post mistakes and disasters online because it helps the community!
I hope that you reconsider posting gardening failures online. It makes everyone feel better about our own personal failures when we see that the experts make mistakes too.
I really enjoy your Yard Posts and have learned a lot!