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Where to find blooms in Yolo County
Summer is right around the corner, and many of us are looking for ways to immerse ourselves in all its glory. For some, summer means sipping wine at a local [...]
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The munching insects appear out in force this spring
One insect apparently liked our roller-coaster spring: Earwigs.
“We’ve gotten a lot of questions about earwigs,” says Kevin Marini, community education specialist for the UCCE Master Gardeners of Placer County. “There’s always a pest every year that rears its head and becomes ‘The Pest of the Year.’ We’re still waiting, but by all appearances, maybe it’s earwigs.”
Earwigs eat holes – especially inside rose flowers or through heads of lettuce. They usually won’t kill a mature plant, but they can be death to seedlings.
“Earwigs are very, very challenging for emerging plants,” Marini says. “Direct seedlings or little transplants; they just get munched.”
With their pinchers, earwigs are very distinctive among common garden insects. Their little forceps-like hooks are used for defense (although they rarely bite people).
About an inch long when mature, earwigs can do serious damage to soft fruit and berries (such as apricots, strawberries, raspberries or blackberries) and corn.
But they also are a major predator of aphids; that makes earwigs a garden good guy, too.
Anecdotally, the earwigs may be tied to late spring showers.
“We got sporadic rain; not much, but just enough,” Marini observes. “Late rain can cause outbreaks of earwigs.”
The moisture cups inside roses, lettuce heads and other places that earwigs like to hide – and eat.
On the other hand, early spikes in heat may have held down aphid invasions, Marini observes. “We’ve had hardly any calls on aphids – but that can change in a week.”
Maybe all those earwigs were hungry?
For more about earwigs: http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn74102.html
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Garden Checklist for week of May 19
Temperatures will be a bit higher than normal in the afternoons this week. Take care of chores early in the day – then enjoy the afternoon. It’s time to smell the roses.
* Plant, plant, plant! It’s prime planting season in the Sacramento area. If you haven’t already, it’s time to set out those tomato transplants along with peppers and eggplants. Pinch off any flowers on new transplants to make them concentrate on establishing roots instead of setting premature fruit.
* Direct-seed melons, cucumbers, summer squash, corn, radishes, pumpkins and annual herbs such as basil.
* Harvest cabbage, lettuce, peas and green onions.
* In the flower garden, direct-seed sunflowers, cosmos, salvia, zinnias, marigolds, celosia and asters.
* Plant dahlia tubers. Other perennials to set out include verbena, coreopsis, coneflower and astilbe.
* Transplant petunias, marigolds and perennial flowers such as astilbe, columbine, coneflowers, coreopsis, dahlias, rudbeckia and verbena.
* Keep an eye out for slugs, snails, earwigs and aphids that want to dine on tender new growth.
* Feed summer bloomers with a balanced fertilizer.
* For continued bloom, cut off spent flowers on roses as well as other flowering plants.
* Don’t forget to water. Seedlings need moisture. Deep watering will help build strong roots and healthy plants.
* Add mulch to the garden to help keep that precious water from evaporating. Mulch also cuts down on weeds. But don’t let it mound around the stems or trunks of trees or shrubs. Leave about a 6-inch to 1-foot circle to avoid crown rot or other problems.
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