Agave Sunscald Remedy

Our plant this week is actually a follow-up to Marissa Garrett’s question in 2015 about an Agave Americana with severely blotched leaves. We diagnosed sunscald, caused when our extended cloudy, unusually cool/wet spring turned into blasting sunlight almost overnight.

After we suggested shading the plants if possible, Marissa draped them until the temperature was solidly back in the 80s and the weather was much more consistent.

They recovered just fine! To avoid the same problem in 2016, she draped them when we hit consistent 90° days. The shade fabric is held in place by the plant’s spines. Marissa periodically adjusts it so that it doesn’t hinder the leaves.

Viewer pictures this week:

Universal City gardener Lisa Caldera is growing lots of delicious tomatoes that she got at the Sunshine Community Garden sale. She’s growing Cascada Lava, Cream Sausage, Buckbee’s New Fifty, and Jaune Flammee. She also had some Cherokee Purples, but the birds wiped those out. In her not-quite 200 square foot garden, she also grows onions, squash, peppers, beans and eggplant. And a few years ago she picked up two rather ragged blackberry plants and two raspberry plants from the clearance shelf for a song…only five dollars each! She planted them in a little patch and forgot about them. But she still got enough blackberries to make six jars of blackberry basil jam. This year the blackberries and raspberries are so abundant that she’ll fill up the kitchen!

Robin McGary is also busy harvesting tomatoes and squash in her garden.

And Kathy Boyle attributes all the spring rain to the largest squash she’s ever grown!