The Real Dirt

A new season of Master Gardener Workshops is about to start! The series begins September 9th with a session on Neighborhood Habitat Certification, and concludes on December 3rd with a timely workshop on Perennial Vegetable Gardening.

I first heard the term on the local evening news in fall of 2018: Meteorologist Kris Kuyper was talking about hydrophobic soils. This potentially catastrophic natural phenomenon seems counterintuitive: soils which are damaged by the intense heat of fire become water repellent.

How is your garden holding up during our all-too-frequent summer heat waves? Chances are you're seeing scorched leaves, deformed flowers, severe die-back, blistered branches, constant wilting, and even plant loss.

Are your tomatoes not looking their beautiful best this year? They may be suffering from blossom end rot. Blossom end rot first appears as a small, water-soaked spot on the blossom end of a tomato. The spot enlarges, darkens, and becomes sunken and leathery.

It's hot. Tomatoes like heat, right? Actually, tomatoes like warm weather, between 65 and 85 degrees. When temperatures soar past 95, tomatoes stop growing. In that kind of heat, their flowers fail to pollinate and instead they dry up and drop off, putting a pause on the production of new fruit.