Spring has definitely sprung in Bowling Green. Sorry to anyone who has attempted to keep up, my plate got extremely full and frankly...I forgot to blog. Let me re-start this blog.
Hi. I'm Carol Schreiber, the Warren County Extension Agent for Horticulture. Many folks ask me what exactly is it that I do. Well, the technical answer is provide education and outreach to the citizens of Warren County in the areas of horticulture as well as community and economic development.
The real answer--I do a little of everything. My main job in the spring and summer months is answering a lot of questions, whether that is by phone, e-mail or face-to-face. I answer a lot of questions. My favorite questions always start off with, "This may be a strange question but..." Those are exactly the types of questions we answer. My very favorite question this spring started off this way and the the rest of the question was, "...how did you make the tulips bloom in Bowling Green so early in April?" He was a nice gentleman and we had a good discussion for about 10 minutes.
My purpose for this blog is to have another outlet to help you, the gardener. Whether beginning or experienced I hope you can learn something here.
The most common call of the month: Black "stuff" on fruit trees.
Never fear gardeners, this "black stuff" is a fungus called black knot. I know the title is not incredibly imaginative, but it is a fungus that you see primarily in late spring on fruit trees and fruit-like trees/shrubs (sand cherry, ornamental plum, crabapple--you get the picture). It's not horribly harmful to your tree and the best way to get rid of it is to simply prune it out. The following link is to the University of Kentucky Plant Disease Factsheet on Black Knot: http://www.ca.uky.edu/agcollege/plantpathology/ext_files/PPFShtml/PPFS-FR-T-4.pdf
The picture leading off this blog is of black knot taken by University of Minnesota Extension.
