Portfolio Categories: RODALE'S ORGANIC LIFE

Coax strawberries throughout the year

Like hot chocolate in winter or pumpkins in autumn, strawberries and summer go hand in hand.

However, author and expert gardener Julie Bawden-Davis knows how to make the juicy red berries a year-round delight. Bawden-Davis will share her secrets and tips about strawberry gardening during a demo and book signing in Old Towne Orange on Saturday morning.

Attendees will find out how to plant the berries and which plant varieties bear fruit year-round in the Southern Californian climate. Bawden-Davis’ sister, Amy Bawden, will join the presentation, forming a dynamic duo of gardeners. The sisters also will talk about the best ways to attract butterflies, which can help pollinate plants and make gardens look more magical.

The Orange County Farm Supply also will be present, handing out sample products that could help spur organic gardening methods.

The first edition of Bawden-Davis’ book, “The Strawberry Story: How to Grow Great Berries Year-Round in Southern California,” has sold more than 5,000 copies. Bawden-Davis has since updated her book and released a second edition, which she will sign at the event.

When: 10:30 a.m. Saturday, July 13

Where: Old Towne Orange Farmers and Artisans Market, 304 N. Cypress St., Orange

Cost: Free

More information: Visit orangehomegrown.org

Indoor Houseplants Scale

Many species in the order Hemiptera by Jessica Walliser

Julie Bawden-Davis, author of Indoor Gardening the Organic Way, remembers the first time she encountered scale on one of her houseplants. “I found all this sticky stuff on the floor around my schefflera,” she says. “I firmly accused my kids of spilling something; then a moment later I realized I was standing in scale poop.” Davis’s experience is a typical one when scale insects are in the room. Because scales feed by sucking out plant sap, many of them excrete a sticky substance called honeydew. Its presence on floors or furniture is often the first indication of an infestation.
Mature scales appear as 1/8-to-1/5-inch oval bumps along plant stems and on the undersides of leaves. They’re hard to spot, because they look much like a part of the plant and they’re immobile. The only time scales move is when they are in their minuscule “crawler” stage. Females lay eggs under their hard shell; the eggs hatch into crawlers that move around the host plant to find a suitable place to attach themselves. Soon after they affix to the plant tissue, they form their own hard, protective covering, and there they sit, sucking out plant juices, excreting honeydew, and weakening the plant.

Scale is a common pest of many houseplants, including ficus, schefflera, ivies, pothos, citrus, spider plants, and palms. (Outdoors, scale can infest many plants, including fruit trees.) Carefully inspect newly purchased houseplants–or those being moved indoors for the winter–and quarantine them for 3 weeks to ensure they haven’t come with any piggybacking pests.

“Since their thick, shell-like coat is tough to penetrate, scales can be difficult to control,” Davis says. “The best nontoxic method is manual removal.” Crush the insects with a cotton ball or cotton swab soaked in isopropyl alcohol and continually monitor the plant for further infestations. Commercial preparations of insecticidal soap are effective, too. Use a sprayer to apply it to all plant surfaces every 7 to 10 days for 2 months. And, until the scale is gone, keep infested plants away from healthy ones.

Photo: United States National Collection of Scale Insects Photographs Archive, USDA Agricultural Research Service, Bugwood.org