Radishes, especially red ones, grow well in the valley

Saturday will be a busy day at the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension Master Gardener Orchard in North Las Vegas. Vegetable and herb transplants will be available for sale and we will be hosting our first ever Grape Day.

Both table and wine grapes do well in our climate. They love the heat and build sugars rapidly when it is hot and sunny. Our low humidity makes grapes nearly disease-free in our climate. Insect problems are minimal and easy to control organically. Come join us starting at 8 a.m. with a session on general grape growing. At 9 a.m. there will be a talk on wine making and 10 a.m. the subject will be pruning grapes.

We will have unique and exotic vegetable and herb varieties you can't find anywhere else and these will be available for growing in your home garden at very reasonable prices. These are some of the same varieties we grow in the orchard.

For more information call our master gardener help line at 257-5555.

Q: I want to try growing radishes, beets and green onions in my containers where I have much success with other veggies. Could you please give me some suggestions for planting, product name, seeds, etc? I live in Sun City Anthem.

A: All radishes we have tried at the orchard were successful. The favorites so far have been the red ones like Cherry Belle, Sparkler, French Breakfast even the Chinese Red Meat variety. Don't forget to try daikon as well. We have found few problems with radishes of all types provided they are planted at the right time of the year and the soil is prepared properly. You can have radishes in as few as 28 days.

We have had some problems with beets, only because I think we had some rabbit problems, not because of the beets themselves. Our beet trials are in the winter and spring. No report as of yet on which varieties have done well but Detroit Dark Red, Red Ace and even Cylindra (for the beet tops) have been excellent.

It depends what you mean by green onions. We have not grown bunching onions, if that is what you mean. Ours have been the bulbing, sweet onions. Some of our favorite sweet onions so far include Big Daddy, Candy, Super Star, Yellow Granex, Texas Super Sweet, Contessa, Candy, Hybrid Southern Belle, Red Marble Cippolini, Boretana Cippolini and Torpedo Tropea. Most of the short-day onions have worked for us.

But even the long-day onions work, they just take about a month to two longer to develop the bulb. I didn't care for Mars or Alisa Craig, but Sterling was a gorgeous onion. Even our Walla Walla did well, but it took six weeks longer to produce.

So you can put in a combination of short-day and long-day onions and stretch your production season longer for fresh onions, which are much superior to storage onions (onions that have been put into storage, any kind).

Q: I recently pulled up the remains of my tomato plants and found the roots disfigured; I sent you a picture. Are these the remains of nematodes? These plants had great looking vines and foliage. They appeared to grow well but would not produce very well. This was most apparent on my fall crop, but the summer crop was similarly affected. How can I prevent damage next year other than buying tomatoes with the VFN label?

A: I couldn't tell from the pictures if you had nematode damage to your tomatoes or not. The damage would be swelling of the roots into balls or elongated nodules. It would look something like the picture I am sending you, which I will include in my newsletter.

Nematodes themselves are microscopic worms so you would not be able to see them with your naked eye. But the damage they create is very easily seen and usually manifests itself above ground as a lack of vigor, the plant not growing terribly well or stunted. If they are well fertilized, they will not show as many symptoms.

So if you were feeding them and caring for them, then the damage would not be as noticeable. When the care stops and the plants are no longer thriving is the time when the damage will be evident through stunting and a lack of vigor. When nematodes are present, keep them well-fertilized and "growing ahead" of the nematode damage.

Just because your plants had the label nematode resistant (N of VFN on the label) doesn't mean the plant can't get nematodes. It just means that the plants can resist some light infestations.

You should remember that it is extremely important that you not grow the vegetables of the same family in the same spot year after year and that you rotate where you plant your vegetables.

Regarding reducing nematode problems, there is one organic thing you can do: solarizing your soil. This is heating up your soil using the sun to kill off some of the nematode population. I have attached a document on soil solarization; I will send the same information to readers who request it.

This will help keep diseases and nematode populations from building in certain locations.

Q: Do you have any thoughts on what is going on with my yuccas in the picture I attached? I think it is overwatering and would like to know how much water and how often it should be watered in the summer and winter. They are on drip.

A: It looks like recurvifolia yucca or pendulous yucca with the long, drooping yucca foliage. The older leaves are brown and dying back. I could be wrong but it just appears to be neglect. It is also possible it could be overwatering or underwatering.

These yuccas will do better with soil improvement, growing in a soil with some organic amendment. They are not really equivalent to cacti but more closely resemble shrubs in their need for maintenance.

I would probably irrigate them with about 10 to 15 gallons each time I irrigated. I would irrigate about the same as I would other landscape plants except cacti. Try putting some compost around the plants and generally improving the soil and I think you'll see a response. Of course, the damaged leaves will not improve but the new growth should look fuller and darker green.

Bob Morris is an associate professor with the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension. Direct gardening questions to the master gardener hot line at 257-5555 or contact Morris by e-mail at morrisr@unce.unr.edu.