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MSU Extension Service

Home Grown is an educational, entertaining, question-answer column seen weekly in "News from the Genesee MSUE Office," a weekly newsletter for Genesee County Master Gardeners. Special thanks to the Genesee, Oakland and Livingston county MSU Extension offices for providing this service.

The current edition has an archive list of Home Grown columns.

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Home Grown 268

I was behind my garage yesterday and there was a thing that looks like a bee or wasp nest up at the peak and there were insects flying in and out. This looks like a gray paper football. They didn’t sting me. If these are honeybees, isn’t it wrong to kill them and do I need to kill them?

Your fliers aren’t bees; they are wasps. The wasp family is large. There are wasps, hornets and yellow jackets in the group. Bees belong to a whole different family. Bees don’t put papier-mache footballs on houses and trees. Wasps do. Some wasps are aggressive. Others pretty much ignore you unless you are threatening their apartment building. Bald-faced hornets and some yellow jackets build paper nests. The nest is actually made out of chewed dead wood and wasp spit. This is a one-season item. After this season, nobody else will live there. Many of these fall apart during winter rains because they aren’t very durable. If you haven’t been stung or they don’t appear aggressive, you could leave the nest. But if you or family members are allergic to wasp stings, it has to go. They are feeding on insects like small caterpillars and corn earworms so they have a useful aspect to their existence. But if you need to get them dead yesterday, here’s the assassination plan. Buy one of the aerosol wasp sprays that spray 12 or 20 feet. Wait until it is dark but just dark enough for you to see what you are doing. At night, they will all be home playing cards and watching television. Nobody is flying around to see you coming. Tippy-toe up silently and direct the spray toward the bottom of the nest where the opening is located. Give it a good dose and then slip silently into the night. Don’t use a flashlight because they could follow the beam back to you. That’s a bad thing. Check the next day during the day for any evidence of wasp activity like flying in and out of the nest. If there is, give them another shot of wasp-nukem. You don’t have to take down the nest because no other critter will ever use it. Plenty of people fall off ladders removing dead nests. If you are feeling that there is a risk to you when spraying, you can drive up in the car or truck and shut if off and turn off the lights. Roll down the window, spray and then roll it up immediately and drive off. This is called a drive-by shooting. So, assess the risk for the family and spray at night, if necessary. Your kingdom is safe. Theirs might not be.

I have a huge red pine and whole branches or the end of the branches are all brown. It is in a group of trees and most are about five or so feet away from it. Maples, cherries and spruces surround it. I know this disease is going to spread. How do I save this tree and all the others?

Consider this old huge tree “grandma” and the bad news is that grandma is dead. Evergreens are confusing plants. They turn brown months after they have failed. But this is why we can use them as Christmas trees. They are cut in October and don’t even know they’re dead until January. Whatever affected this tree is ancient history. Even if it was insect or disease related, the surrounding trees would probably not get the same things. If they did, they would be showing something by now. The most likely explanation has to do with crowding, moisture and nutrient issues. This starts the downward slide. If branches on trees touch, so do roots. Each year, they all get in each other’s way even more. They are in competition for moisture, sunlight and nutrients. Toss in the major Drought of 2002 and all problems got magnified. As trees get older, they aren’t as efficient at repairing damage. Grandma was the looser in this scuffle. Cut grandma down and get rid of her. Get a soil test and supply nutrients for the others. Consider thinning this heap o’ trees out. Water if it’s dry. Grandma is beyond the point of rescue. Boost the health of the survivors.

HOME GROWN 269

Are we going to have an early winter? There are a bunch of trees out there that got fall colors early, like in August. Do trees predict what’s going to happen?

Trees as a means of forecasting the weather will never replace the Farmer’s Almanac. Trees don’t have the ability to foresee the future. But they do report accurately on the past. How they look is a result of what has already happened. Early fall colors aren’t “happy’ colors for trees. They are the result of stress or disease or insect damage. None are good occurrences. Currently, a number of green and white ash trees are discoloring from Emerald Ash Borer damage. The cambium layer under the bark is being destroyed and not enough moisture and nutrients are reaching the top of the tree. Leaves are discolored to a yellow-gold. Maples and other trees that were planted in areas that received excess water this year have begun to turn red or orange. Other kinds of trees in wet areas may be taking on purple coloration. They are all exhibiting stress from overly wet soils earlier in the season. Maples that got hit hard by a fungal disease called Tarspot have leaves that turned yellow around the black spots. Elms with Dutch Elm Disease have leaves turning yellow and brown as they die. Newly transplanted trees and shrubs will often color up because of transplant shock. Many black walnut trees developed a common fungal problem called Anthracnose earlier than usual this year because of the moist conditions. Yellow leaves with small black spots float off the trees with each wind gust. Some apples and crabapples that have impressive cases of a fungal disease called Apple Scab turned orange, yellow and brown early and began loosing leaves. In some cases, construction or trenching has cut a large number of roots and the tree is in obvious trouble. There are a variety of reasons for early color and none sound too cheery. The only predicting being done is by those trees with Emerald Ash Borer and Dutch Elm Disease. They won’t be back next year.

I always plant tomatoes in my garden but never get the crop I should off the plants. I have talked to the people in the local garden store about it and they keep selling me things to add to the soil. I water these plants well and keep all the suckers pruned off. These plants are in full sun but never produce many tomatoes.

You need to consider that you are raising tomato plants for fruit and not growing a shade tree for the backyard. Those aren’t suckers; they are potential tomato producing parts of the plant. Go ahead and prune plants if they are too big for the area that they are in or because you want to tie them to an individual stake. But the areas that you amputate had a valid purpose for the plant. All the branches and leaves are part of that tomato factory. Each part is capable of only producing a certain number of fruit. More parts equal more tomatoes. The other issue is using a bit more scientific approach to adding things to the soil. They guy in the store isn’t a genius at intuiting what your soil needs and all soils aren’t created equal. Get a soil test to determine what is there and what is missing. Replace the missing nutrients. When you grow tomatoes next year, dig a big hole where the tomatoes will be and add composted manure to the soil, mixing well. Use the info from the soil test and composted manure. Nutrients combined with full sun and enough water will get you big healthy plants. Put those big healthy plants in durable tomato cages. These will support the plants and keep the ripening fruit off the soil. There will be fewer fruit lost to rots or slugs by being up. But save those pruners for the tree that you want to sit under behind the house.

Gretchen Voyle, MSU Extension-Livingston County Horticulture
Agent 517/546-3950

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