I do like it when readers send me in something – though the paper – that they’ve come across, found or wondered about.
It shows me that people are reading (I hope) this gardening page and gives me some good topics for a column or two.
Here’s some recent items sent in.
On a walk in a park at Mooloolah, my wife and I spotted these weird looking growths in a garden bed near a playground.
Can shed some light on what they are, and are they dangerous near a playground?
Graham (and Leisa)
Mooloolah
Thanks Graham for sending in the photos.
What you’ve found are two types of fungus from the Stinkhorn group.
They both use a putrid smell to attract flies and other insects to help spread their spore around.
The first one is called Phallus multicolour (also called Crinoline Stinkhorn) and the second is Colus pusillus (sometimes called Craypot Stinkhorn).
Like nearly all fungi, they probably do have some unpleasant side effects if ingested … but to be honest, you’d have to be pretty brave – even for a kid – to go messing about with one.
Can you help me with my tomato plants? They seem to have wilted despite the recent rains we’ve had and the liquid fertiliser I’ve been giving them. I grew really good tomatoes in the same spot earlier in the year, and so I’m not sure why these ones are sick.
Wendy
Palmview
The key to the problem is that you broke one of the golden rules of growing tomatoes or any of the solanum group of plants, including capsicums and eggplants.
The golden rule is to never grow solanum plants in the same place twice in a row without growing something else in the spot for a while.
Problems such as root nematodes, fungal wilt diseases and viruses can establish in the soil and will infect the next lot of solanum plants grown in the same spot.
By growing something else in the soil other than a tomato or capsicum or eggplant, you starve these pests and diseases of their host plants, and so they disappear back to low levels in the soil.
There isn’t much you can do to save these tomato plants now. I’d suggest pulling them up, disposing of them in the bin and using the space to grow something like corn or silverbeet.
Hi Brownie – I enjoy your columns.
This plant has popped up on the roadside near our house in Landsborough.
Can you tell me what it is please.
Margie
Landsborough
Hello Margie. What you’ve got here is a member of the pea family commonly called Rattlepods – from the pods which, when dry, rattle in the wind.
Unfortunately it is an introduced weed, although not a rampant one.
The yellow pea flowers are quite attractive, and being a legume, it fixes nitrogen into the soil. But don’t be fooled, as all parts of the plant contain an alkaloid chemical which can be poisonous to animals if eaten.
The best way to control them is by hand pulling – wear gloves in case the alkaloid irritates your skin.
I like reading your columns about what to plant each month. I try and grow some of the vegetables … sometime successfully, sometimes not.
What’s your favourite vegetable to grow?
Keith
Montville