Tag Archives: vegetables

fruit trees, shrubs, vegetables

Progating Heirloom Veggies, Fruit Trees & Christmas trees

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‘Tis the season. No, not that season but the time to propagate and increase the number or your plants. Maybe you want to save seed from your heirloom vegetables or start more shrubs inexpensively. How about getting more fruit trees or even trying your hand at starting your own Christmas tree?

Let’s start with saving seed. When your vegetables start to produce this summer, you may want to save some of the seed of plants that produced the best-tasting, earliest ripening fruits. These will be strains that are particularly adapted to our climate.

You can only save seed from open-pollinated varieties– those vegetables that are bee or wind pollinated. All . You cannot save seed from F1 hybrids as their unique traits, such as specific disease resistance and early maturity, are uniform only in the first generation of seed. Seed saved from hybrids they will not come true when replanted.

Hybrids have their place in the garden especially if you have a very short or cool season, not many hours of sunlight as you’d like or a serious nematode problem.

If you enjoy saving seed, it’s fun to identify your best plants to save and use every season. Become a backyard breeder and develop your own unique cultivars for your garden.

Propagating fruit trees involves more than saving seed because 99% of all seedling trees bear fruit inferior to that produced by the parent. It may be the same species but it is unlike that of the parent in flavor, color and date of ripening. To obtain a true-to-type fruit tree that is a clone of the parent tree, it is necessary to graft or bud on a desired rootstock. The graft wood, called a scion, should be collected in January so you have lots of time to ask the neighbor for a small, pencil-thin branch of their peach tree to add to yours or to get a branch grafted onto your tree that would pollinate your cherry, apple or whatever you might need. You can even graft different trees together if they are compatible such as an apricot on plum rootstock or almond on peach.

Mid-July to early September is the best time to propagate broadleaf evergreen shrubs. The growth flush is complete, the wood is firm and the leaves have matured. Using cuttings 3-6" long and rooting hormone they will root in 4-6 weeks. Ceanothus, manzanita and camellia are just a few of the shrubs that can be rooted this way.

And what about those visions of starting your own Christmas tree? It’s difficult to start a tree from a cuttings unless it’s a very fresh cut tree and the cutting is taken from currents seasons growth near the base of the plant. Most evergreen trees used for cut Christmas trees start their lives from seeds. These seedlings grow 1-2 ft in a year or two. After transplanting, they become 6 footers in 5-8 years. So if you are patient you can grow your own from one of those started seedlings. Doug fir, Scotch pine and Noble fir are popular varieties.

There are so many types of plants and methods to increase your collection. Perennials, houseplants, berries and grapes all lend themselves to propagation. I f you have a favorite plant or just want to increase your plants inexpensively there’s a way to do it. 
 

beneficial insects, sustainable gardening

Bees as Pollinators

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Does spring have you thinking about the birds and the bees? Good. As a gardener you need a variety of insects and other creatures to pollinate your plants.

Most fruits and vegetables, except crops like tomatoes, corn, peppers, eggplant, beans, beets and wheat, need bees to pollinate them. Honeybees are vital for the pollination of the rest of your vegetables and fruits.

Honeybees will pollinate a wide variety of crops throughout the growing season. Unlike other insects that might go from cucumber blossom to dandelion to squash flower when the honeybee leaves a hive in search of food, it will feed on only one type of flower- whichever type it tasted first on that trip. That way, it picks up and deposits only one kind of pollen making honeybees particularly efficient at pollinating crops.

A combination of factors has caused the honeybee population to decline in the last 50 years. Honeybees aren’t native to the U.S. Colonists brought them here in the 1600’s to pollinate the apple trees, provide honey and also wax for candles. For centuries their numbers expanded, but since the late 1950’s they’ve steadily declined. They die more easily when disease parasites strike and they’re less likely to survive a harsh winter.

One threat comes from varroa and tracheal mite, two parasites that can kill honeybees and decimate colonies. Another is colony collapse disorder, a disease that quickly kills off bees in large numbers. Scientists are close to figuring out the cause of the disorder which appears to be linked to a combination of nutritional deficiencies, pesticides, virus and other diseases. Entomologists hope that over time, natural selection will result in stronger bees and less threatening mites.

You can help increase the chances of the bee’s survival and ensure your own bountiful fruit and vegetable crops by planting flowers that they like and add more native plants to your property. Some of the plants that are excellent bee attractors include annuals like cosmos and zinnia that are a favorite of butterflies, too. Calif. poppies and sunflowers are also frequented by bees. Perennial plants they favor are Mexican bush sage, lavender, penstemon, asters, rosemary, Russian sage, coreopsis, gaillardia, echinacea, sedum and erysimum. Native plants that attract both honeybees and native bees include ceanothus, toyon, buckwheat, coyote mint, salvia, ribes and sambucus.

Since pesticides are another deterrent to their survival, look for non toxic ways of controlling garden pests.

Remember that the 1600 species of our native bees are also in decline mainly from habitat loss. They are solely responsible for pollinating many of our native plants. Being solitary they do not make a hive but make nests underground, one female per nesting hole and she lays her eggs there. Be sure to leave some unmulched areas near your flowering plants for her to burrow.

Honeybees and native bees need help to survive and we’re the ones who need to give it. Besides planting nectar and pollen sources you can help by buying local honey which support beekeepers.

vegetables

Vegetable Gardening in April in the Santa Cruz Mountains

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What’s with all these false starts this spring?  Warm and sunny one week, downright cold with drenching rains the next.  As night and soil temperature warm, newly planted starts and seeds will grow quickly.

Remember that the cool season vegetables include beets, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, carrots, kale, lettuce, onions, radish and spinach.  These don’t mind cold soil and chilly weather.
Crops that prefer night temps of 55 degrees and over but will tolerated an occasional light frost are tomatoes bell peppers, corn beans, squash, cucumber, muskmelon and pumpkin.
Distinctly warm weather, long season crops that need temperatures in the 70’s are watermelon, eggplant and chilies.

You can raise the temperature of the soil by laying clear plastic (not black ) over the surface. Protect plants at night with row covers, hot caps, cardboard boxes or anything that will trap heat during the night until temps are right for your crop.

Rotate the beds when planting your vegetables to avoid a build up of diseases and insects that can survive in the soil or on plant residue.  Don’t plant the same or closely related vegetables where they grew in the last 2-3 years. 

Pay attention to the watering needs of each kind of plant, otherwise you might plant high water use vegetables beside ones that need need less water.   This can not only waste water but can actually harm plants.  A good guidelines is to group plants by how big they get and how fast they grow. The bigger and faster they grow, the more water they’ll use.  Plant heavy water users at one end of the garden, light users at the other. For instance, plant shallow rooted beets, bush beans, carrots, lettuce, spinach, radishes and other greens together as they grow at about the same rate and use similar amounts of water.  Corn, cucumbers, melons, tomatoes and squash combine well as they all grow rapidly and need lots of water.  Another tip is not to mix new (successive) plantings of carrots, lettuce and other crops with existing ones as water use changes as the plants mature. 

Vegetables at maturity that root over 48" deep are tomatoes, watermelon, pumpkin, winter squash, asparagus, sweet potatoes, and artichoke.  When watering wet your soil to this depth to keep them happy.  Moderately deep rooting veggies ( 36"-48" ) are beet, beans, carrots, chard, cucumber, eggplant, muskmelon, peas, pepper, summer squash and turnip.  Shallow rooting ( 18" – 24" ) veggies include broccoli, cabbage, celery, corn, garlic, lettuce, onion, parsley, potato, radish and spinach.  Water less if your plants aren’t full grown yet. 

Vegetables in containers are a great solution if you don’t have much space in the ground to devote to them. They warm up quicker in the spring, too. Just about anything that grows in the ground can also grow in a pot or half barrel. This includes vegetables, herbs and seven small fruit trees.

Small plants like lettuces, spinach, swiss chard and herbs grow nicely in smaller pots near the back door while large edibles like tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, squash, cucumbers and melons need more room like a half barrel or large 7 or 5 gallon pots.

It’s important to use fresh planting mix in your containers each year.  Heavy producers  need fresh nutrients and deplete the soil by the end of the season. Also feed your containers for the best tasting fruit and vegetables and water on a steady basis. Skip a day of watering when larger plants are at their peak and you can lose your crop. There’s no such thing as dry-farmed tomatoes in a container.

Growing plants is containers is low maintenance. No weeding required and one of the easiest ways to success.