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August 2011 Gardening Q&A
Pickin’ colorful peppers
 by B. Rosie Lerner
Purdue University Extension Consumer Horticulturist
Grow your own with the right cultivars … and with patience
Q: How do you grow peppers (yellow, orange, red or green) like you see in grocery stores? I have tried, but they never look like the ones in the store. Is it the variety or type of fertilizers they use?
A: Growing colorful peppers requires selecting appropriate cultivars and then, in most cases, allowing the fruit to ripen on the plant. The young, immature pepper of any cultivar is usually green; the mature fruit ripens to red, yellow, orange or purple, depending on the particular cultivar. There are numerous cultivars to choose from if you raise your own transplants from seed, and most require a relatively long growing season to fully color up. There are a few cultivars that have colorful skin during their immature stage, but at this young stage the color is only in the outer skin while the inner flesh is green. Color can be lost in cooking. For more information on raising colorful peppers, see my article at http://www.hort.purdue.edu/ext/ppep.html.
Q: My roses are growing a thick red clump instead of branches and buds. I had one climber with this last year. Now this year I have two additional rose bushes infected. — Ben SurVance, Bedford, Ind.
A: While this is not enough information to draw a conclusive diagnosis, I would suspect either herbicide injury or - in worst case - a disease called rose rosette. The latter is a serious, non-curable disease of roses thought to be a virus or virus-like organism and spread by mites. Pruning out a single infected branch may stall the disease a bit, but generally, plants infected with rose rosette should be removed completely to prevent further spread to other roses. There are several websites with additional information on this disease, including the American Rose Society, http://www.ars.org/?page_id=2265 and Virginia Extension http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/450/450-620/450-620.html. You might consider submitting a sample to the Purdue Plant and Pest Diagnostic Lab, http://www.ppdl.purdue.edu, for confirmation before taking drastic action.
Q: I read the article about the squash vine borer (May issue). We have had problems with squash vine borer for years and recently bought some 10 percent permethrin. The instructions on the bottle only describe how to apply it to animals, not plants. Can you give me suggestions on how and when to apply it to squash and zucchini? — Sharon Mehling, Ferdinand, Ind.
A: Unfortunately, it sounds like you have purchased the wrong product. You should only use products that are specifically labeled for application on vegetable crops such as squash and zucchini. In addition to being too concentrated for application on plants as is, the product may be formulated with other active or inactive ingredients that are not labeled for use on vegetable crops. It is important to read and follow all label directions BEFORE purchasing a product to be certain that product is labeled for the intended use.
Q: I lost every one of my rhubarb plants late last summer and fall. The plants started dying at one end of the row and just worked on down the row to the opposite end. Someone told me it was due to grubs; another told me that it was moles eating the grubs. Since this is a plant I intend to eat, whatever I use needs to be food safe.
A: It is unlikely that moles killed your rhubarb. It is true that moles will eat grubs, but their main diet is earthworms. And while they might inadvertently disrupt the root system of some of the plants, it is unlikely that mole activity would kill an entire row. Rhubarb is susceptible to a disease called crown rot, which is problematic in wet, poorly drained soils. Also, the frequent rains that we’ve had this year would really aggravate this situation.
Rhubarb curculio and stalk borer are insect pests that both feed in the stem of the plant. While these pests generally cause minor damage rather than plant death, the holes they make provide entry for disease such as crown rot. Keeping the area around the plants weed free will help remove overwintering sites for these pests.
Q: We have two acres of woods full of honeysuckle. We have tried pulling it up but it is still coming back.
A: You have a lot of good company; most woodland homeowners are faced with the same battle. Young plants up to 2-3 years old may respond well to repeated cutting and or digging, but they often grow back. It is an ongoing battle, but it does help reduce new populations by cutting the plants before they get old enough to produce fruit. The Asian honeysuckles that invade wooded areas are the earliest to green up in spring and the last to drop leaves in the fall, so this can be an opportunity to target the honeysuckle with a very careful application of herbicide to just the honeysuckle foliage. For more established plants, cutting the trunks and carefully painting the stump with herbicide may provide some control. The Illinois Natural History Survey has an excellent discussion regarding identification and strategies for controlling this frustrating pest at www.inhs.uiuc.edu/research/VMG/bhnysckl.html.
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