Prevent Wormy Apples – Controlling Codling Moths

coddling-apple
damage from codling moths and larva

If you have apple trees and want to monitor codling moths to determine the best time to spray, use our Codling Moth Traps.

Periodically looking into the trap in search of captured moths will alert you as to when the moths are present and therefore when to spray.

When codling moths first appear (usually when about 3/4 of the flower petals have fallen from the tree), wait one week and spray every 10 days with Captain Jack’s, (Spinosad) for 3 applications.

Replace traps monthly and repeat spray regime after additional generations of moths are trapped.

Check out the UC Cooperative Extension Service website for more detailed options.

http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7412.html.

Remineralize Your Soil

California’s alluvial soils of the Central Valley are rich and friable because centuries of seasonal flooding have deposited minerals from the eroding Sierras into the fertile lowlands.

Alluvial soils are so full of minerals and nutrients making them perfect for growing crops.  Adding minerals to your soil using Azomite® – which is volcanic rock dust – is similar to centuries of valley flooding. Spread a box of Azomite® around your vegetable garden or backyard orchard three to four times a year. Gardeners doing so have achieved noticeable improvements, not only in leaf color and vigor but in fruit and vegetable flavor and production as well.

Nutrient Source

Where do you suppose vegetables get their nutrient content?  From the soil!

Azomite® replenishes and enhances the soil. Azomite® rock dust is a natural mineral product with 70 micro-nutrients rarely available in one place. It is odorless, won’t burn your plants and won’t restrict aeration or water penetration. Unlike some products, Azomite® rock dust is not a manufactured, chemically prepared fertilizer. It is 100% natural with no additives, synthetics or fillers.

Azomite® has been shown to loosen hard soils, build healthy, more pest-resistant and drought-tolerant plants and promote lusher growth. Use Azomite® rock dust to improve all your gardening and landscape areas from lawns and vegetable plots to compost piles and enjoy:

  • Increased fruit and flower production
  • Increased vitamin content in your fruits and vegetables
  • Better tasting fruits and vegetables
  • Increased pest and disease resistance and greater cold tolerance in all your plants
  • Lawns with better color while using less fertilizer

Best of all, Azomite® rock dust is easy and economical to apply 1/2 pound per 100 square feet.

Grapes & Berries

Grow grapes and enjoy big bunches of beautiful berries! Dormant season planting allows roots to get a head start so the plants can take off during the growing season. Our young grape vines are here as well as blueberries, and cane berries. 

GRAPES: Plant in the sunniest spot in your yard to help ripen the fruit and keep the foliage dry. Vines are vigorous and need sturdy support to grow on, and something for the tendrils to twine around.  Train them beginning at planting time to encourage one main cane, which with time will become a sturdy trunk. Yearly pruning in January will keep your grapes fruiting for the long term.

TABLE GRAPES (seedless):

  • Princess – large, sweet, light green grape. Fruit holds well on the vine and in storage
  • Ruby – medium-sized, dark red, firm grape. A vigorous grower and heavy producer
  • Black Monukka – medium-sized, black with excellent, crisp, sweet flavor
  • Come in to see our additional varieties!

WINE GRAPES:

  • Cabernet Sauvignon – excellent producer in our area of small, round, seedy, purple-black grapes.
  • Zinfandel – a solid red wine grape related by DNA to the Italian Primitivo.
  • Chardonnay – a popular selection for white wine with flavors of plum, apple and pear.
  • Merlot – Black berry, used for distinctive red wines. 

BLUEBERRIES:

Healthful, beautiful and delicious! Find an afternoon shady corner of your yard to grow a few of our Southern Highbush Blueberries, and enjoy snacking straight from the bush. Or plant a couple of varieties in a large pot or half wine barrel. Either way, blueberries thrive in acid soil. In a pot use, 3/4 E.B. Stone Acid Planting Mix and 1/4 Potting Soil. For in ground planting combine 1/2 E.B. Stone Acid Planting Mix, 1/4 fine or medium orchid bark and 1/4 native soil. All Organic Cottonseed Meal further lowers the pH and adds nutrition. A mix of varieties aids pollination and can increase yields.

  • Jewel – one of the leading California varieties yielding lots of high-quality berries
  • O’Neal – early ripening with lighter blue fruit; arguably the best flavor of the Southern Highbush
  • Reveille – wonderful flavor and a crisp texture on an upright bush that does well in hot climates

Cane Berries:

You know you want some warm from the oven, mixed berry cobbler with vanilla ice cream melting on the top. May we suggest the following varieties.

  • Blackberry Marionberry – medium in size and tends to be longer than it is wide with a somewhat tart flavor, fairly earthy with traces of sweetness
  • Boysenberry Thornless – really big, reddish purple berries popular for flavor and high June yield
  • Canby Raspberry – summer bearing with large bright red berries on thornless canes
  • Olallieberry – much requested, and they are here! A hybrid that is about 2/3 blackberry and 1/3 raspberry and 100% delicious.

Multi-Graft Fruit Trees add Flavor in Less Space

multi graft fruit treesMulti-graft fruit trees include several varieties of fruit on the same tree. They save both space and effort while giving you variety and successive ripening in a small yard.

The multi-graft approach is practical. You don’t need to have multiple trees when just one tree will do the job of several. Each fruit variety grafted branch grows independently from the others on the same tree, and the different fruits always retain their characteristic flavor, appearance, ripening time, etc.

Many multi-graft fruit trees have been deliberately crafted to give you a staggered fruit harvest. By combining fruit varieties that bloom at different times, and harvest at different times, you get the added advantage of an extended fruit harvesting season. As one goes out of season, the next one comes in! This feature also means you get the benefit of a long-term fruit harvest without the “glut” of too much of a good thing all at once that you might have with a single species fruit tree.

Multi-Graft fruit trees are perfect for today’s smaller yards. Trees grow on semi-dwarfing rootstock; small size means anyone can have their multiple fruit harvest within a 10 x 10 patch of yard or less. So even the smallest of gardens can be a source of fresh homegrown fruit. It is not the fruit that is small, but rather the tree.

Come in for more details on how multi-graft fruit trees can give you the satisfaction of having your multi-variety fruit orchard in a smaller space than you might have thought possible.

Pomegranates – Ornamental – Edible – Wholesome

pome2014[1]
Pomegranates are now in stock, a delicious and juicy fruit as well as a beautiful water-saving landscape shrub or small tree. They are perfectly happy in our warm sunny climate, producing showy orange-red blooms in summer followed by beautiful bright red fruits that ripen in late fall. There are several varieties of Pomegranates to choose from including Wonderful, Pink Satin, and Eversweet.

pomegranate-small

Pomegranates are also healthy. The juice around the seeds is laden with antioxidants, very delicious and a delight to eat. Press fruit to juice. If you object to a mouthful of edible seeds remove the seeds through a strainer.  Pomegranates are great for jelly making.

All pomegranates are long-lived, self-fruitful and they are naturally water-wise; they can be grown in any well-drained soil. A look through the garden on a spring or summer day will seldom turn up a pest on a pomegranate. They are virtually pest and disease free.

Varieties

Eversweet
Very sweet, virtually seedless fruit. (Even immature fruits are sweet.) Red skin, clear (non-staining) juice. Harvest late summer through fall. Coast or inland. 8-10 ft arching shrub, train as tree or espalier. Large, showy, orange-red flowers.

Pink Satin
Medium to large size, medium pink to dark red fruit with medium to large, light-pink edible seeds. Wonderful refreshing light-colored juice is non-staining, with a sweet, fruit punch flavor. The plant is vigorous and can be grown as a shrub or tree and kept at any height by summer pruning. Eat fresh, juice or use in salads.

pomegranate-seeds

Wonderful
Large, purple-red fruit with delicious, tangy flavor. Best quality in hot inland climate. Red-orange bloom, ornamental foliage.

Parfianka
A large bright red high quality fruit from Turkmenistan. Arils are large and bright red with a small, soft edible seed. Sweet fruit with a hint of acidity.

Eve
A superb introduction from the University of California. Eve pomegranate has bright red fruits with dark red arils. The flavor is excellent and has been described to have hints of cherry.

Grenada
Grenada pomegranate is known for being darker in color and less tart than Wonderful. It also ripens about a month earlier than most pomegranates.

Cover Crops Improve Garden Soil

Vetch is a cover crop that will pull nitrogen from the atmosphere and store it in your soil. Plant cover crops from seed in fall and turn them under in spring.

Cover crops are fast-growing plants that are utilized by farmers and gardeners for one or more of their beneficial qualities and not usually intended as food crops.

A gardener will usually work these crops into the soil or remove them before they set seed. A healthy garden can benefit in several ways when cover crops are included in the annual rhythm of sowing and reaping.

It seems that for almost any problem, there is a cover crop solution. Try one, and you’ll notice over time how much better your garden performs with less input of extra water, fertilizer, and insecticide. Cover crops are the natural choice for a naturally better garden.

Some crops add nitrogen to the soil, pulling it from thin air. Others pull up minerals from deep underground and concentrate it in the topsoil as you till the plant into the earth. Other cover crops work like a rototiller to loosen heavy soils with their vigorous roots.

How to Get Started with Cover Crops

cover-crop-clover

Preparation can usually be minimal for sowing cover crops. Cultivate the soil to a depth of about 1 inch and rake out any large debris or weeds. Sow the seeds at the rate recommended on the packet. Seeds can usually be scattered evenly. After sowing, tamp down the soil lightly to create good contact between seed and soil. Water immediately after sowing and keep the area moist until your plants emerge. After establishment, most cover crops require minimal additional water.
It is usually best to cut down or incorporate cover crops before they produce seed. Cut or till the plants just as they begin to flower or before. Small plants can be directly tilled into your soil. Larger plants can be cut down with a weed trimmer or mower and left on the soil surface to dry for a few days before they are roto-tilled in.
We carry an assortment of cover crop seeds from Botanical Interests as well as larger bags of fava beans.

Why Not Plant Fruit Trees in Your Front Yard?

Have fun with fruit trees in your front or back yard. You don’t need acres of ground to experience the taste of freshly picked fruit. With today’s dwarf & semi-dwarf rootstocks, everyone can grow at least one fruit tree no matter how small your yard. Consider planting a fruit tree or two in your front yard.

We still have a good stock of many varieties available, and Fall is a wonderful time to plant a tree.

Single fruit trees make wonderful accent points in a mixed border with their spring blossom and summer fruit. Persimmons make wonderful, small shade trees. Dwarf fruit trees grow very happily in large pots or half barrels.

Backyard Orchard Culture

Plan backyard orchards for variety and prolonged harvests
For years, most of the information about growing fruit came from commercial orchards that advocated methods promoting maximum size for maximum yield but required 12-foot ladders for pruning, thinning and picking, and 400 to 600 square feet of land per tree. Tree spacing had to allow for tractors and heavy automated equipment. Homeowners today do not need or expect commercial results from their backyard fruit trees. A commercial grower would never consider using his commercial methods in a residential backyard, and neither should a homeowner.

Prolonged Harvest of Tree-ripe Fruit From a Small Space
Backyard orchard culture means planting close together several or many fruit varieties which ripen at different times and keeping the trees small by summer pruning. Homeowners today have less space for fruit trees, less time to take care of them, and less time to process or preserve large crops than in the past. Plan today’s backyard orchards with different objectives in mind.

High-Density Planting and Successive Ripening
Maximizing the length of the fruit season means planting several (or many) fruit varieties with different ripening times. Because of the limited space available to most homeowners, this means using one or more of the techniques for close-planting and training fruit trees; two, three or four trees in one hole, espalier, and hedgerow are the most common of these techniques. Four trees instead of one can provide ten to twelve weeks of fruit instead of only two or three.

Close-planting Restricts Tree Vigor – Helping Dwarf Trees Naturally
Trees won’t grow as big when there are competing trees close by. Close-planting works best when rootstocks of similar vigor are planted together. For example, for a four-in-one-hole planting, four trees of the same rootstock would be easier to maintain than a combination of different rootstocks.

Planting More Varieties Means Better Cross-pollination
In our climate, this can also mean more consistent production of pears, apples, plums, and cherries.

Typical High-Density Planting Option Diagrams


Planting Description

Planting Diagram

Area Dimensions: 8′ x 8′
Number of Holes: 1
Number of Trees: 2
Distance Apart: 18 inches

Area Dimensions: 5′ x 10′
Number of Trees: 2 (espaliered)
Area Dimensions: 10′ x 10′
Number of Holes: 1
Number of Trees: 4
Distance Apart: 18 inches

Area Dimensions: 10′ x 20′
Number of Holes: 2
Number of Trees: 8
Distance Apart: 18 inches (in each set)

The key things to remember are you do not need a lot of space and that you can plant multiple trees and even different kinds of trees in a small area that the old methods would have told you was not possible.

These are just some sample diagrams to show you how high-density planting can work in your own backyard, and, in fact, you do not even need a backyard. You can create your own functional, practical orchard on a patio or you can use containers and plant your “backyard orchard” on a sunny balcony.

Many backyard orchard possibilities exist using these new, but proven methods. Come in and spend a few minutes with your Alden Lane fruit tree professionals to learn your options for your particular space, lifestyle and backyard orchard goals.

Tasty Tropicals

Buttery avocados, red strawberry guavas, plump passion fruits . . . all grown at home. Wait – what? You mean we can grow luscious tropical fruits right here in the Tri-Valley? I thought our Sunset Zone 14 (USDA Zone 9) winters were too cold for tropicals!

While it’s true we are a bit too cold for many truly tropical plants which come from a climate with nary a frost, with a little imagination and shift in our thinking we can grow lots of similar fruits which can withstand a bit of cold below 32 degrees. Many of these are from sub-tropical regions of the world. Not only will you be adding delicious treats to your yard, you also gain gorgeous assets in your landscape.

Lots of these plants will look right at home in a landscape themed with layers of palms, large-leaved shrubs, and bright, hot flower colors, straight from your most recent vacation to the tropics. Plant them in sheltered spots in your yard – up close to your house on the south or the east side is a good spot for the most frost tender. Most like a minimum of six hours of sunshine to produce well. And think frost protection for at least the first few years – cover with frost blankets over the tops and down to the ground, and/or wrap with small incandescent Christmas lights for extra warmth.

Try growing a couple of these juicy edible tropicals:

  • Avocados – yes, challenging, but can be done! Pick a sheltered spot, and choose one of the hardier Mexican varieties, like ‘Stewart’, ‘Mexicola Grande’, ‘Fuerte’, or ­‘Zutano’. Fruit ripen 6 to 8 months after flowering.
  • Bananas – though you won’t harvest any fruit, what a great accent plant, and probably the best way to grow your own plates!
  • Guavas – so many sub-tropical varieties! They are beautiful, small scale, easy to grow, evergreen trees or large shrubs which deserve a place in every yard.
  • Limes – add some sweet/sour zest to your Mexican and Caribbean dishes. ‘Bearss’ lime (pictured above) is an all purpose juicy workhorse, while the smaller, rounder Mexican lime dazzles in cocktails and for eating fresh.
  • Dragonfruit – an intriguing looking cactus-type plant that bears a beautiful pink highly nutritious fruits.
  • Loquat – easy growing and tropical looking with its coarse texture and serrated large leaves. Try loquat for virtually effortless clusters of fruit. (‘Big Jim’ loquat pictured)
  • Passion Fruit – exquisite, exotic purple and white and green flowers like something off a space ship give way to green, then purple hanging orbs with sweet orangy-citrusy pulp inside. Try spooning it out.

To grow tropicals, practice good soil preparation incorporating lots of compost. We recommend Bumper Crop. Raise up planting beds, and add Sure Start at planting. Mulch well, and water deeply, allowing ­plantings to dry down a bit between soaks.

Enjoy the fruits of your labor!

Planting and Growing Citrus


Citrus are the most versatile of the trees and shrubs that grow in our valley. They can be grown as specimens, in hedges, as espalier or in containers. Citrus plants offer beautiful foliage, decorative fruit, and fragrant flowers. Growing citrus can be easy; the difficulty is in selecting the variety which you will enjoy the most.

Growing Citrus

Choosing the Site
citrus-planting-diagramCitrus prefer a hot south or west facing location with good draining soil. Test how well the soil drains by digging a 1’x1′ hole. Fill it with water. The water must be gone in 24 hours. Citrus should not be planted in a low or soggy spot that has poor drainage or in a lawn. If the water does not drain, it may be necessary to raise the overall soil level by creating a mound or building a planting box or look for an alternate planting location. An open-bottom-box measuring 3’x3′ wide and 8″ deep makes a great raised bed. A reflective wall or fence is helpful and planting citrus under the south or west facing eve of the house will provide some important protection from winter cold temperatures.

Preparing the Planting Hole
Dig a hole three times as wide as the root ball and just as deep as the root ball. The edges of the planting hole should then be dug out deeper than the center to accommodate additional soil amendments. (See Illustration)

Improve the existing soil from the planting hole with Master Nursery Acid Planting Mix at a ratio of 75% Planting mix to 25% existing soil. To this improved soil, add the appropriate amount of Master Nursery Master Start and Osmocote Slow Release Fertilizer, mix thoroughly.

Planting
Plant by carefully removing it from its container. Gently rough the outer edges of the root ball if the soil is tight, and place it in the hole so that the top of the root ball rests slightly higher than the existing ground level (never place any soil above the root ball, covering the stem). Back-fill around the root ball with the improved soil mixture. Tamp to compress the soil as you go. Use some of the extra soil to build a circular dam around the new plant to hold a generous quantity of irrigation water.

Watering
Water the plant thoroughly after you have finished planting it. Let the water soak in, and then water again. Citrus plants need less frequent watering than most garden plants. Give it a deep soak once or, at most twice a week, depending on the weather, (frequent watering is the most common cause of failure with citrus). However, to preserve the crop, never let the plant dry out during the bloom & pea-sized fruit stages.