Keeping Your Garden Healthy (part one) Fruits

by: Liz Roberts

A healthy garden and lawn adds to a property’s beauty. The problem is maintaining it’s health so that all plant life from fruit to vegetables to trees look thriving and green. So many lovely yards and promising harvests have been destroyed by variations of blight. Be a savvy gardener by looking for the first signs of trouble in your fruit trees and orchards.

Any plant, from fruit and vegetable crops to trees and herbs is susceptible to disease. If a sickness is left uncontrolled whole patches can be felled. The result is devastation and money wasted on sick plants. Constantly check for any abnormal signs. If you have fruit trees, be diligent about any changes to fruit, leaves and branches. However don’t freak out at every little splotch or blotch. For instance apple trees suffer from apple scab, a relatively harmless disease if it remains on a few leaves. Be worried if it spreads because growing scab can down whole orchards. It can also manifest itself in the apples leaving them with brown or black cork textured spots. Get rid of these before an epidemic begins. Some fruit may even mature unevenly. The worst enemy of any apple tree is black rot. This fungal disease can prematurely rot leaves as well as fruit. Juniper and crab apple trees suffer from cedar apple rust , a fungus that causes yellow and orange spots to appear on the fruit. As with most of these , fungicides are the best remedy but also keep these plants away from wild juniper apple trees that may already have the disease. Fire blight is the deadliest of all apple tree diseases. The symptoms are severe, varying from tree to tree. Flowers, leaves and shoots will turn black Branches will grow cankers (lesions which will girdle the branch causing blackened leaves and flowers) along with curling upward. These will not be straight, like healthy ones. They will curl upwards in a shepherd’s crook formation. In these drastic cases, massively prune the infected area. Do this in late winter before any new growths sprout. You don’t want new buds or branches to become instantly infected. You can also spray with fungicides containing copper.

Strawberries are another fruit that can be blighted by disease. They can produce an abundant harvest if they are well tended. Strawberry diseases are most noticeable in the leaves. If the leaves develop purple spots there’s a good chance its fungus, usually one of two types, leaf spot and leaf blotch. These can be cured with fungicides . Spray at seven to ten day intervals, then every two to three weeks until the end of the season. Seriously infected plants should be torn up and burned. The berries themselves can be subject to blight such as gray mold or anthracnose. Gray mold is the leading cause of strawberry destruction, usually occurring during exceptionally rainy seasons. Again for this fungicides should be applied at weekly intervals until healthy new shoots start to appear. Anthracnose cause black or deep purple spots on the strawberries and then are covered with pink or orange masses of spores. You can use the fungicide captan to use it but be careful. This is an extremely strong spray and you should wear protective clothing plus a mask when applying it.

Raspberries and blackberries, longtime garden favorites are also not immune to disease. Homeowners love to grow these easy to care for brambles for desserts and jams. They may be simple to tend yet can suffer from deadly funguses. Like their distant cousin, the strawberry , these berries can be blighted by anthracnose. At the very least it will cause stunted fruit, at the very worst badly infected brambles. It starts out as an innocuous raised or sunken spots on tender young shoots. Later they enlarge and form cankers which encircle the branches. These weaken and split the bark. To avoid this, improve air circulation by planting young bramble plants far apart. This way all parts of the plants will be allowed to dry evenly after a good hosing or rain storm.. Also keep soil moist , not soaked since excessive wetness will bring on anthracnose. All surrounding older brambles should be removed as well after harvesting older canes. Fungicides also work on removing the blighted plants.

Plums and cherries are other fruits that sometimes need special care. They suffer mostly from black not; a widespread disease. Black knot fungus mainly affects the twigs, branches and fruit spurs. They start off as light brown swellings or tumors , highly visible in the late spring. As the disease grows within the branches, the knots elongate and grow. In order to prevent this , rotate orchard sites , avoiding planting new saplings next to last year’s plum and cherry trees. You can also burn or bury any infected wood. Gardeners sometimes rechop the cut infected limbs with a flail mower to strip away any infected bark and knots. Fungicides can also be used but apply these before the rainy season when temps hit 55 degrees Farenheit. Sprays should be timed according to inoculum (when to dose the plants) levels and weather conditions.

Even juicy, healthy looking peaches and nectarines suffer from disease. The most common is scab which more affects those trees planted in the Midwest. The disease affects fruits, leaves and young green twigs. Scab appears as velvety, olive green spots to splotches on the fruit. They will grow into blotches that will blacken the fruit and cause misshaping. Also scabby fruit will prematurely drop off the tree. Other fungus will probably invade the peaches after the scab, making them completely inedible. This disease also shows up in spots on the leaves. They will become yellow and then turn a dry crinkly brown. Luckily the infection is not severe and the fruit will turn out all right. Prune away twigs to prevent any more infection or spray tress with the appropriate fungicides.

Everyone would like their fruit trees to be abundant and healthy. Most usually get their wish, however they were probably diligent with care. Keep your eye out for anything unusual in your backyard orchards. Act fast to preserve fruit as well as keeping the trees and leaves in tip top shape. Remember it’s easy to keep up a healthy garden.