Pests, Diseases

Today I checked my gourd for possible pests. The leaves seemed quite clean. It has put out a few flowers but no fruit has set yet, 'though I planted it fairly late. Perhaps it needs to be a bit more mature. Since I haveonly once plant I think I might try to pollinate by hand.

I checked my tomatoes for worms. Also, the poor plants have been hit by what I believe is spotted wilt virus (or whatever you call that virus carried by thrips). Recently I've been spraying the still-green leaves with soap and oil spray in hopes of killing lthe thirps and thus slowing the virus. I want to save the fruits that are on the plants.

A great disappointment to me was finding my little feijoa (guava) plant starting to fade. I gathered seed last October, and planted 6 pots. They all came up and developed differently. Two were robustly tall, the others kind of puny while still appearing healthy. I transplanted a puny one into the garden 2 weeks ago and it seemed OK but today I checked it and it is failing. Since I had a robust plan still in the pot, and I knew it would not fare well there for much longer, I transplanted it next to Puny. Am I doing wrong to plant in this hot weather?

Hello Buttonwillow,

You definitely want to pollinate your gourd plant by hand. Take pollen from the male flowers and put it in the female flowers (the ones with the enlarged receptacles.) If you are unsure which are male and female, just do your best to distribute the pollen from plant to plant.

Spraying the tomato plant's still green leaves with a soap and oil spray is a good idea to kill off the thrips and slow down the virus. Just be sure to not spray in the heat of the day. Generally, even when the leaves fail, the fruit will continue to ripen on the plant.

I am sorry to hear about your guava. The weather has been a little erratic, which may explain why the puny one is failing. You will have to see how the second plant fares. Guavas do like to be transplanted in hot weather, so that shouldn't be a problem, but if the first one is suffering because of a soilborne fungus, the second one could also succumb. If the puny one really looks like it's not going to make it, you should probably remove it. That way if it is infected with something it won't be sitting right next to the healthy plant.

Let me know if you have anymore questions.

Thanks, Julie. I will do as you suggest about the guava.

My tomatoes are still putting out green leaves at the tips of branches and my spraying seems to have helped somewhat. The fruits are ripening, 'though the poor ravaged plants have not managed to bear many individual fruits. It's my own fault. If I had started my spraying early on I might have done better.

As for my lone gourd plant, it is producing so few flowers that I often have no male and female flowers opening at the same time. I still have hopes of getting one fruit to set. The weather here in Southern California ought to be warm enough for as many days as ripening will need. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.