Tomato Blight Plight?

I have something going on with my Roma tomatoes. It begins on green, developing fruit. First the blossom will hold on rather than fall off...


I have to pull the blossoms off. After pulling this one off, this is what the blossom end looks like...

Is that Blossom End Rot? I'm confused, because there are several things that are very similar. Blight, Blossom End Rot, Buckeye Rot. And they mostly seem to be caused by soil splashing up and contaminating the fruit, but my fruit is high up and should be free of soil.

Today I plucked my first ripe tomato...


...and you can see how the blossom end rotted away.


This is going on with ALL of the fruit coming in.



What's the deal? And is this some fungus that is going to affect my grape tomatoes starting to blossom nearby? Do I just need to destroy all of this fruit, and the new fruit coming in will be fine? Maybe the first tomato was affected by blight or something, and it has spread it to the other fruit? So maybe if I destroy all those affected and start fresh, the new fruit will be okay.

Florida Friendly Landscaping

I wrote last night on my Snoop Dogg blog about our day at the Burrowing Owl festival. There were lots of great vendors and display booths, and I learned a lot.

I've also written on my Weedy Garden blog about how I hope to xeriscape my yard and make it a water-friendly and environmentally friendly yard.

So the festival yesterday reminded me about my desires for my yard and garden. I was reminded how I hope to make my yard "Florida friendly", and that those same principles apply pretty much everywhere. So I thought that I would take a moment to share those principles.

There are nine principles to Florida-Friendly Yards and Neighborhoods:

• Right Plant, Right Place: Plants should be selected to suit a specific site, and should require minimal amounts of water, fertilizer and pesticides. Decide how the yard area will be used, and plant for that specific use and location, and the given environmental conditions.
  
• Water Efficiently: Water only when your yard needs water. Efficient watering conserves water, and makes healthier and stronger plants with deeper roots. Don't cut grass too short. Leaving it longer allows it to hold more water, helps to shade the roots and creates deeper-growing roots.
  
• Fertilize Appropriately: Less fertilization is often best. Over-fertilization can be hazardous to your yard and the surrounding environment.
  
• Mulch: Maintaining a 3" layer of mulch will help retain soil moisture, keep the plants roots cool, prevent erosion and suppress weeds.
  
• Attract Wildlife: Incorporate plants that provide food, water and shelter for wildlife.
  
• Manage Yard Pests Responsibly: Use pesticides sparingly and wisely to protect people, animals, the environment, and beneficial insects.
  
• Recycle: Grass clippings, leaves and yard trimmings should be recycled in your yard as compost or mulch to add nutrients to the soil and reduce waste disposal.
  
• Reduce Stormwater Runoff: Water running off from your yard can carry pollutants such as soil, debris, fertilizer and pesticides into our water supply.
  
• Protect the Waterfront: Waterfront property, whether on a bay, river, canal, stream or beach, is very fragile and should be carefully protected to maintain our freshwater and marine ecosystems.
  

So how do you incorporate all of these principles into your yard? What exactly can you do? Here are some ideas:

• Buy or build a compost bin.
  
• Create a wildlife habitat. This can be as simple as putting around shrubs to offer shelter and cover for small birds and animals, planting food plants like Barbados Cherry, providing bird baths and ponds for water sources, and housing like bird houses, bat houses and toad homes.
  
• Make your yard practical and useable.
  
• If you live on the beach, create a buffer between your yard and the shoreline.
  
• Use trees to shade the southern and western sides of your home.
  
• Mulch your plant beds.
  
• Use a rain barrel.
  
• Use swales to keep rainwater where it falls.
  
• Use porous surfaces, such as brick driveways and mulch paths, to allow water to soak into the ground instead of runoff.
  
• Protect butterfly larvae (aka caterpillars) and provide them with the food and shelter that they need. Not only do butterflies add beauty and interest to the yard, but they also are great pollinators.
  
• Learn about the insects in your yards, so that you can distinguish the good from the bad. The fact is, less than 1% of all insects are harmful.
  
• When you determine that you do have an insect problem, first try non-chemical approaches. Then try the safest pesticides possible, such as insecticidal soaps, horticultural oils and Bt products. Also choose to spot-treat instead of broad treatment, and learn to be tolerant of small amounts of damage. Learn to love seeing the chewed leaves that are evidence of caterpillars and the fact that your garden is working as it should be!
  
• Recyle yard waste. Leave grass clippings on the lawn or in the compost bin. Use fallen leaves and pine needles as mulch under trees and shrubs.
  
• Use native plants in your landscaping, and get rid of exotic invasives.
  
• Replace sod with more environmentally-friendly ground covers like sunshine mimosa, perennial peanut, blue porterweed, pennyroyal or Creeping Charlie.
  

Check out www.floridayards.org for more information and ideas. You can also try to attend one of the Introductory FYN classes that are periodically held. The next one in Lee County will be March 14th. The cost is $5, held at Rutenberg Park Eco-Living Center in Fort Myers, and you can register by calling 239-533-4327.

How To Deal With Problem Raccoons

There has recently been a discussion on our gardening forum about how to deal with problem raccoons. There are plenty of gardeners who feel that the only good raccoon is a dead raccoon. Now I know that (at least in Florida) there is an over-abundance of raccoons, so many feel that the best thing to do is to kill any problem raccoons that they encounter. As long as someone has compassion and consideration for the animal and makes sure that it has a quick and painless death, and it doesn't suffer undue stress (too many people don't consider that causing an animal fear is cruelty in itself), then I will turn my head and say, "To each his own."

When I worked in my past job in property management, I dealt with many employees and residents who complained about raccoons getting into their garbage. I heard horror stories of residents trapping raccoons, and then drowning them in the lakes. I told more than one that you can't say that raccoons are just stupid, valueless creatures that deserve no consideration and to which you can do anything you wish, and yet say that they are so smart that there is nothing that you can do to prevent them from getting into your garbage and to protect your garden. You can't have it both ways-- it's one or the other. You have to be smarter than them.

For those who wish to take a more patient and understanding approach, here are some suggestions for handling raccoon issues. These suggestions come from the book Total Critter Control.

• Make garbage less accessible. Store cans in a secure garage, use bungee cords to secure the lid onto the can.
  
• To further dissuade coons from your garbage, you can also make it less appetizing by spraying the compound like Ropel on the plastic bags. It is foul tasting, is relatively inexpensive, and is harmless to animals and the environment.
  
• Some have found that by offering pet food, they were able to persuade the coons to leave the garden and lawn alone.
  
• Coons like grub worms that infest the lawn. An old remedy to keep them off your lawn is to spray the lawn with a mixture of shampoo and ammonia (Hinder is a liquid concentrate that contains the ammonia soaps of fatty acids. It is approved for use on edibles. It can be obtained through a farm supply store or catalog.)
  
• Also for grub worms (which is what the coons are after), you can apply milky spore to kill the grubs. Or alter the watering of the lawn, as grubs can't survive in dry soil.
  
• Fruit trees: If the tree is isolated so that the coon can't jump from one to another, you can "flash" the tree trunk by putting a collar of slippery metal around the trunk.
  
• Coons love dining at small ponds-- they corral fish into a corner of the pond and then grab them. Keep the pond deeper than 2 1/2 feet deep, and they can't do this.
  
• Another pond solution is to put 16-18 inch pieces of terra-cotta pipe in the bottom of the pond to give the fish somewhere to hide. After the pipe is in the pond for awhile, the pipes become moss-covered and blend right in.
  
• For birdhouses, you can try using a "Bird Guardian", which is a device that is added to the opening of the birdhouse and used to dissuade egg-eaters like coons.
  
• To help prevent a coon from making its den in your yard, get a dog or listen to rock music-- many small animals dislike rock music. An outdoor speaker at their nest site can convince them to move on. And they don't like "unnatural" noises in general.
  
• To keep coons from using your deck as a nesting or play site, spread mothballs on it or douse it with ammonia. Coons don't like strong odors.
  
• If a coon gets in your home, usually you can just leave the windows in the room open, and the coon will find its own way out.
  
• Make sure that chimneys are capped to keep out unwanted guests.
  
• Trapping is a last-ditch effort, when all other avenues have been tried. Sometimes there is only one problem animal, although many may be joining in, and once the one instigator is removed the others move on. (Keep in mind that only about 50% of relocated animals survive. Once they are relocated, they find themselves in some other animals territory, and must suddenly fight for their own territory, seek out new food and water sources in a strange area, and try to find a new den. Many can't survive this.)
  

I hope that someone may find these suggestions helpful, and maybe it will spare both a raccoon and a homeowner some pain and heartache. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could all learn to coexist?