Q: I know I can pick tomatoes right when they start to turn red and then let them continue to ripen indoors. Can I do the same thing with strawberries? I’m trying to level the playing field with the birds because right now they are winning. — Chuck Rigdon, Lithia Springs
A: There are two types of ripening processes for fruit: climacteric and non-climacteric. Climacteric fruit includes tomatoes, bananas and peaches. These fruits all use ethylene gas to help trigger the ripening process. Non-climacteric fruits include watermelons, grapes, and, yes, strawberries. Climacteric fruits are ones that can be picked in a slightly ripened state, shipped to the store and ripened there.
Non-climacteric fruits need to be picked at the peak of ripeness to taste good. These fruits may soften as they age, but this is from deterioration — not ripening. The only way I’ve found to keep birds off strawberries is to cover the row or bed with lightweight netting, and even this may not prove bird-proof. The birds will land on the netting, and their weight will bring the netting down close to the fruit where they can peck it. In this case, you’ll have to cover the area with stiff welded wire fencing or concrete reinforcement panels held 6 inches off the ground by bricks or anything else you can find.
Q: Could you recommend a safe herbicide to control grasses and weeds in established flower beds? — Ray Watts, Twiggs County
A: Controlling weeds in a flower garden involves two steps: preventing weed seeds from coming up and killing weeds that have emerged. Both steps have particular shortcomings. Preventing seeds from coming up may damage the roots of nearby plants and may also affect the seed of self-sowing flowers. The number of chemicals that are labeled for flowers is limited. The most common homeowner products are Preen and Preen Extended Control. The main active ingredient, triflurilan, has limits on where it can be applied. Wheat germ meal is sometimes recommended as an organic weed preventer, but it’s not very effective. Chemically controlling the ones that have sprouted can harm the upper parts of nearby plants because microdroplets from spray are impossible to control fully. Landscape fabric is hard to install, and it must be maintained by clearing and restoring all the mulch on it yearly. Otherwise, weed seeds that blow in will germinate in decomposing mulch. All this said, I think the best control for weeds in flower beds is hand-pulling and mulching. There is no way to avoid these chores.
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