Hi Al and others, I would appreciate advice on saving sick/dying Picea glauca, in pic.1, please. I bought it on post Xmas sale and it was ~50cm tall, looking healthy, with very bushy top. I repotted it without much root cleaning to keep most original soil with fungus, which I read Picea, like other pines, needs. I planted the rootball with old soil into gritty mix, mostly pine bark fines with seramice, with a bit of gravel, see in pic.2 very "gritty" indeed :); trunk is ~1/2" at the bottom). I used a biggish pot to let it grow freely for a year or two. I also cut the top to encourage lower branches growth but it never happened. Water it when the pot feels light, ~ weekly (it is early autumn here in Sydney) by bottom watering in a bucket, then drain well by keeping the pot at ~45 degrees for a while. Use diluted Nitrosol liquid plant food every two weeks. Keep it on sun for 2-3 hrs, then half shade. Despite all my care (or coz of it ? :), the picea never showed any new growth but started developing warning signs for last 2-3 weeks. Those few thin branches started dying. Their stem turns from brown to greyish-green and gets soggy before dying. See in pic 3&4, that branch in front which is dying now, with grey stem. Other branch died a few days ago. Only three normally looking branches are left. But I am afraid they are facing same fate. Anything I can do to rescue my future picea bonsai at all? Thanks and cheers, Sergey

Hi Ibuzzell: Oyster shell is calcium carbonate, DOES NOT dissolve in water, neutral pH, won't do much. My minor is in chemistry so I did experiments when I first got into roses: I was testing someone's remark that dolomitic clay grows good Austin roses (many petals). Dolomotic clay is 10% magnesium and 25% calcium carbonate. We got non-stop rain & gloomy weather in November, yet Austin roses gave their best form in my limestone clay. In that cold & wet month I picked the blooms and dunked them in 1) Epsom salt (magnesium sulfate) 2) Calcium carbonate 3) Calcium citrate (dissolve easier) The blooms had a harder time opening with Epsom salt solution, and the scent went from damask to sewage. Magnesium is what makes clay soil sticky. Calcium carbonate has zero effect, can't even dissolve in my alkaline tap water. I could put more citric acid (use for sprouting), but I would need a lot to lower the pH to the point that calcium carbonate (oyster shell) can dissolve. What happened in rainy November here: rain water is acidic, pH 5.6, which helped to release calcium from my limestone clay. But my blooms are lousy when watered with my alkaline tap water, both in form and color. Calcium citrate was awesome for the blooms. I DOUBLED the vase life of blooms, since they retain more water. The petals became rigid, firmer, and more photogenic. Check out Radio Times and Mary Magdalene below, picked in wet & cold November:

Soybeans must be SUPERCOMPETITIVE. I can hardly believe anything could hold its own against the roots I see on my bred-for-the-south okra. I think it could even give cotton a run for its money... (Hmmm, that would be interesting to try... they're even kinfolk!) Cotton is infamous for its ability to take every last bit of moisture... and nutrients!!!... from the soil. Variety differences could also account for some of it. One okra I planted this year was a hybrid bred for the north (I bought it for its earliness and sent seeds to my siblings in Denver and SE Wyoming, so I figgered I should try it, too). It was fine til the weather got really hot and dry, then it was the first to wimp out. My brother in Wyoming, with unlimited water cuz he's the ranch foreman and his provided house is on the same meter as the stock tanks, used almost daily drip irrigation on it and was thrilled with his results. My sister in Denver...not even a strongly wannabe gardener... planted it in most-of-day shade. Far as I know she's still waiting for her first pod.... I can't use a shovel in my ground... too many rocks. I have 2.5 pound maddock picks mounted on 2 handle lengths, plus a few smaller diggers, and I use yardsale rollerbladers' knee guards to kneel with when I plant stuff that requires going to ground. I dig roots cuz that's how I get old plants out of way for the next crop, plus I guess I have just learned that powerful root systems mean success or failue here in this extreme climate and rocky clay soil. Also, where I do not cultivate except by earthworms, pulling out plants by the roots (and hand weeding) is a cultivation, of sorts. Hoes don't work very well on my ground, either. I have a pix... intended as humor mostly but it's the facts... which is my tool kit for Ozark gardeners. I'll post it and do a link below.... Dreadful to hear what happened to Heritage Farm's crops! When I watched weather reports all this spring and summer, my heart would just sink thinking about what it was doing to gardeners all over the country. The endless rain in Texas and all the way north from there would have just rotted seeds and plants. A garden underwater will never happen to me on my hilltop, but a 6-inch rain is quite a mess until it finishes draining away. I can barely imagine what week after week of it would mean... or maybe I CAN imagine it! We had a spring of uncommonly warm 3 weeks early, then a once-in-100-years hard freeze in mid-April (ie, all fruit trees and wild oaks already bloomed, strawberries brought into premature bloom, corn 6 inches high, most people's tomatoes and squash already up and growing) It was devastating... tomato plants actually became scarce around here for a short time... until Walmart via Bonnie's consignment hybrids filled the void. After the freeze, it rained just enough each day to keep foliage wet... and my generally dependable Brandywines and PA Amish / Mennonite / Upper Midwest varieties went down like 18th Century European soilders marching headfirst against cannon fire. This became a bit of an embarrassment to me. I had decided to go all fresh seed this year, so I grew off for transplants my left-over 2004 seeds of red and yellow heirlooms and gave them away to senior citizens, many of whom I have to face once a month. They had a lot of crop failures from foliage diseases, and most of them ain't that knowledgeable as gardeners, so they are acting like I lied about the plants' potentials! Anyway, back to my garden results. Only one open-pollinated tomato did not get BER. It was a variety bred for New Orleans! Unfortunately, it also turned out to be determinate, and last week the deer ate 100% of the mature green & ripening tomatoes off my sucker-started clones of it for fall tomatoes... no seed crop! Next came 2 months of drought, the last month of it with record triple-digit temps for a whole month. The survivors of the foliage diseases now began to produce quality tomatoes... til the heat felled a few more... and now there are 3 staked tomatoes still standing, plus a wildcard I bought mostly for its name but with low expectations because of its north Europe origins... Blondkopfchen from Germany!! Also had one red almost-cherry hang in there, and of course Matt's Wild Cherry from Mexico, but do you consider that a tomato? I think of it as a semi-wild berry. Beans as ripened seed on the vine are nearly impossible for me ... I take in very mature pods still leathery and let them finish inside. Heat + humidity doesn't dry off bean pods very well. I had some Christmas limas dry off on the vines, and in several of them the seeds actually sprouted before they dried!! Usually the problem is molds.... Oops, almost sunrise... I gotta finish and get out to see what deer and armadillos did last night, and be a "presence" while Chuckie McVarmit is figgering out where to have breakfast. Here is a link that might be useful: Tool kit for Ozark Gardeners

I searched GW back pages for our discussion about 2 years ago regarding spraying young tomato fruit with calcium solutions while the skins are still permeable and apparently that discussion has fallen off into never neverland. Sorry. Maybe someone with knowledge of accessing the wayback machine can find it. Doesn't make a hill of beans to me, really. Again, with regard to blossom end rot (BER), I think cultural practices are preferred and more effective than spraying (or otherwise topical applications of) calcium. Keep the soil pH at 5.8 or 6.5 which is a bit on the acid side of 7.0 neutral pH. Perform a soil test to determine the pH of your tomato bed. If a base material is needed to raise the alkalinity of soil up to 5.8 to 6.5, apply the recommended rate of lime using dolomitic or high-calcium natural limestone. Be sure to apply lime two to four months before planting tomatoes to give the calcium time to marry into the soil. Also apply the required (recommended for tomatoes) amount of fertilizer, when necessary, based on soil test results. Healthy tomato plants depend on the correct balance of nutrients and ample supply of micronutrients. But applying too much fertilizer at one time can induce BER, especially too much nitrogen. By following soil test recommendations you ensure proper soil fertility. Mulch heavy with high organic content mulch to conserve moisture and help bind nutrients for root health. Good mulching practices will dramatically reduce incidences of BER. Some varieties of tomato tend to be more sensitive to conditions that cause BER. Some varieties are known to be susceptible to BER while some varieties are known to be resistant. If you are growing heirlooms or paste tomatoes, try growing several varieties and keep notes regarding incidents of BER, etc. Depending on "mono-culture" (growing one variety for one purpose) with tomatoes is a sure route to disappointment for the hobby gardener or home canner. Mix it up a bit. Keep plants adequately irrigated. Tomato plants need the equivelent of 1.5 inches rainfall weekly during the fruiting cycle. Too dry soil can exacerbate BER and chronic wetness can drown roots, shut them down and cause BER. Also, radical fluctuations in soil moisture can result in a greater incidence of BER ... like letting your containers or beds go dry and then soaking them down. Even watering is the key. Be very careful not to roto-till, hoe or otherwise cultivate the soil within the major root zone of a tomato plant. Root pruning during fruit development will cause BER! Again, mulch heavy and maybe lay down walking path boards to protect against soil compaction or root damage especially when your rows are close together and the root zone extends into the space between the plant rows. If you still intend to experiment with or apply calcium directly to the plants (topical applications whether foliar or to the fruit itself), spray them with a calcium solution at the rate of 4 tablespoons (level, not heaping) calcium chloride or calcium nitrate per one gallon of water. Always be careful with calcium chloride because at daytime temperatures above 85* F, calcium chloride can burn tomato plants. If you have to spray calcium during high temp. conditions, calcium nitrate is a better choice. Problem, again, with spraying calcium is that you need to spray two or three times a week beginning when the second flower blossoms begin blooming, assuming you're getting fruit set, to do any good delivering the calcium to its target destination inside the developing young fruit walls. And I think that may risk altering soil pH. But you can test for that at the end of the season and, if needed, add sulfur to rebalance your soil toward acidity. Remember, spraying calcium will not substitute for proper cultural practices such as cultivar selection, soil fertility management, mulching, or proper irrigation. Also, if you get BER, immediately remove and discard the damaged fruit because the rot will continue to degrade the tomato and provide bacteria and fungi a route into the plant.