Still a good time to plant, until mercury creeps past 100

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The weather has been kind of crazy this spring and summer so far. We had late freezes then unexpectedly hot weather and now cool again. It is still a good time to plant so don't let the weather stop you. If you are going to plant when the temperature is over 100, then you better be a good gardener.

One reader e-mailed me that Nevada organic compost is available in small quantities at the Star Nursery on Wynn Road. Bring your own buckets. Just remember, a good compost should have no ammonia or vinegar smell to it. If it does, don't get it.

Question: A friend recently gave me a bag of coffee grounds from Starbucks and by the time I received it and opened it, I found that there was some mold. Is the mold okay to add to the soil or should I toss it into the trash bin?

Answer: The mold will not be a problem. This is the beginning of the natural breakdown process of the coffee grounds and this breakdown will release more nutrients to the plants. Coffee grounds have enough nitrogen for all the micro-organisms to break it down easily and not harm plants. Once mixed in the soil, little critters will begin eating the mold and larger little critters will eat the smaller little critters, earthworms will move in and all sorts of animal and plant life will benefit in what is being released, as well as the plants.

Q: I have been planting desert adapted shrubs into my new garden. What sort of ratio should I mix the Nevada organic compost to the native soil?

A: I have used the Nevada organic compost as high as 50 percent with tomatoes. Hotels in the area have tried it on interior palms with no detrimental effects, and I had one homeowner use it as high as 75 percent.

I would probably recommend that you mix it somewhere around one part compost to three or four parts soil. Dig it in deep at the time of planting. I recently used it with our strawberry test trials at our research site in North Las Vegas with good success.

Q: Would you be so kind as to explain the basics of watering outdoor plants in containers? I have two clay pots with flowers in them and am forever at a loss as to tell whether they need more water or not. Kindly use the KISS principle as my desire to successfully garden is not matched by an accompanying green thumb.

A: The simplest way is to buy a water meter from the nursery for about $8 and leave it in the container and use it for estimating when to water. If you use the same soil in the containers, you can use 1 meter to gauge when to water all the containers of the same size. Different sized containers will be watered differently, the smaller ones more often.

The meter will register wet when wet and dry when dry. You water it before it registers dry, about halfway in between the two. Also, the container must drain and not be closed unless you use a pot in a pot container, a smaller pot inside a larger one.

If you are using one container inside a larger container then the inside container must drain into the larger one. Put gravel in the bottom of the larger container to a depth so that the smaller one can rest on top of it without sinking. Then you can use coarse mulch to surround the smaller pot, filling the void between the two pots.

You should always water so that some water comes out of the bottom of the container to flush salts. Our municipal water carries a lot of salts compared to many other communities since it is derived from the Colorado River. This will require that you check periodically that you are not building up water in the larger pot, if it does not drain. It is always best, though, to have both pots drain.

Q: I have a dwarf peach tree. It is giving fruits for the first time. The birds are having a good time eating the fruits. In ten days, the birds ruin about one third of those fruits. Tell me what can I do.

A: Birds are tough to control. Here are your options: You can pick the fruit before they are ripe and let them ripen on the kitchen counter. If you pick them when they turn color but are still hard, most birds will leave them alone at this stage. This is provided the fruits are types that will ripen off of the tree. All stone fruits, except cherries, will.

You can net the tree with bird netting. The netting must go tight to the ground or they will go under the netting to get at the fruit.

You can try some devices that use noise to scare the birds.

We are testing some of these devices at the orchard. So far streamers, CDs hung in the trees, scarecrows, tinsel from Christmas and our presence shouting curses has not worked. They are not easily intimidated.

Bob Morris is a horticulture specialist with the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension.