How to Beat Sooty Mold / fall tomatoes in stock

Nursery Notes & Sales: A good selection of fall tomatoes now

in stock: Phoenix, Solar Fire, Tycoon, Rodeo 602, BHN444 and

Celebrity. 6-packs $3.29 and 4.5" rounds $1.99. | For early birds

we have 6-packs of broccoli & cabbage for $3.29 | Fall peppers:

bell peppers, serranos, giant jalapenos and the dastardly ghost

peppers! (4.5" round for $1.99.) It's time to mulch. $1.00 off bags

of mulch this week-end! Thanks to all for supporting our

nursery!

Plenty of fall peppers in stock at the nursery right now.

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Lucinda Hutson's Deviled Eggs - another fine recipe from the

pages of Edible Austin. Along with mustard, onions, herbs and

paprika, it calls for 12 eggs - useful if your backyard hens are

being super productive! deviled eggs

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Central Texas Gardener (KLRU-TV) On tour, a visit to the

Umlauf Sculpture Garden and Museum. Studio guest Dick Peterson

explains how to catch rain in barrels, cisterns and berms. Saturday

noon or 4 p.m. or Sunday at 9 a.m. www.klru.org/

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Heritage Oaks, or Truck Stop? Kyle residents, including farmer

Tim Miller (who spoke at our nursery last year) are protesting to

save the city's heritage oaks from being cut down for a truck stop,

reports the Hays Free Press.

http://haysfreepress.com/2012/08/01/save-the-trees-kyle-residents-call-for-ordinance-to-protect-trees/

Aphids can rapidly turn a tree into a black, gooey mess.

How to Beat Sooty Mold

by Chris Winslow

The rains of last winter, May and July have been such a wonderful

blessing for all our landscapes, bringing lots of fresh growth to the

trees and shrubs that had been stressed by last year’s record drought

and heat. However it’s not all good news.

Along with this incredible flush of growth comes an explosion of

the aphid population, bringing with it the dreaded ‘sooty mold’

(Ascomycete fungi) which can turn a beautiful tree into a black,

gooey mess. Trees most affected? Crape myrtles and pecans. This

sooty mold forms on the leaves because of sap-feeding insects.

Mostly this means aphids, but it could also be scale insects and

whitefly.

As the aphids feed on the sap within the leaves, they exude a sticky,

sweet substance called honeydew. The mold then adheres to the

leaves, blocking sunlight and causing the leaves to turn yellow.

While this is all very unpleasant to the eye, mold hardly ever actually

kills crape myrtles, although it can stunt new growth.

The biggest problem is cosmetic. The mold can spread to grass,

driveways, lower plants, cars, and decks. It just makes a nightmare

of a mess. What’s the solution? You need to get an effective organic

product that you can spray on the leaves to kill off the evil sap-

sucking aphids.

My favorite is Organicide. It contains sesame oil, edible fish oil

and lecithin, and this combination suffocates aphids and acts as

a fungicide to eliminate the mold.

Two other good products are Neem and All Seasons oil. Take care

to use these in the cooler parts of the day. Temperatures above 85

degrees can cause these products to burn the leaves.

For taller trees, a hose-end sprayer works well. (Organicide and All

Seasons oil can be purchased with a sprayer attached.) So fellow

gardeners… if you stop the aphids, the sooty mold will magically

disappear.

As Roseanna Danna once said “It just goes to show! It’s always

something!" Happy Gardening Everyone.

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At the nursery, we have the following items in stock:

Organicide hose end sprayer: $28.99

Organicide hand held pump spray: $14.99

Neem oil: $17.99

All Seasons Oil spray (hose end) $20.99

All Seasons Oil concertrate: 32 ounce: $19.99

Visit the website: www.itsaboutthyme.com