Bare root season continues through February. The selection of bare root fruit trees and roses is still very good. We had 8″ of rain in January with a dry start in February and it is an excellent time to plant bare root fruit trees. At the end of the month we pot up what has not been sold bare root and then the price goes up. Take advantage of bare root prices and selection and get your fruit trees in now.
Final Dormant Spraying is Due This Month
The third and final dormant spraying to prevent leaf curl is due this month. Don’t delay. Get it done before the trees bloom. I spray all the deciduous trees in the orchard. It not only prevents leaf curl but it also helps to prevent fireblight on pears and apples and greatly reduces the aphid and insect problems on all the trees. The third and final 
spraying is the most important one. You should have done two applications already and the final one should be done before flowers come out. We sprayed the nursery orchard for the final time last week because some of the apricots were ready to bloom. Don’t put this off till it is too late.
Also when you are spraying the dormant spray on your fruit trees, do your roses too. Stop the rose diseases before they start.
It will be time to start fertilizing towards the end of the month or early next month. When the plants come out of dormancy, it is time to start fertilizing. Evergreen plants can be fertilized as soon as the threat of hard freezes is past. So later this month. Use a balanced fertilizer on most plants. Use citrus fertilizer on your citrus. Use rhododendron azalea camellia fertilizer on azaleas and camellias after they are done blooming. Fertilize three times after bloom each thirty days apart and then no more for the year. Gardenias benefit from monthly fertilizing during the growing season.Use a rose food on roses or a balanced fertilizer on them and do them monthly during the growing and blooming season for consistent blooms. We have a good selection of fertilizers. Much of it organic fertilizers. Which I prefer to use.
Weeds are going to start growing in earnest soon. You can spray with weed killer now to kill what is coming up now and mix pre-emergent with the weed killer to stop the weeds from growing back so quickly, I’ve been using a propane torch on weeds. It’s working well for me. Less chemicals.
We will get spring vegetables in some time in late March or early April. Even though it’s warm in the day, it’s too early to start putting them out. The nights should be 50 degrees or higher consistently before putting your summer vegetables in the ground. If you are thinking about starting summer vegetables inside from seed, probably want to get them started soon so they are ready to put out in spring.
Citrus we are starting to stock now and avocados are on order and should be in within a couple of weeks. It’s a little early this year but it seems as though we won’t have any hard freezes from here on. The forecast for next week cools down and overnight lows look to be in the upper 30’s to low 40’s. More like it should be.
With the cool nights, the bare root trees are staying dormant and like I said earlier, it is the time to plant them. Once we pot them the price goes up and they are not immediately available, They have to root into the container before we sell them. GET BARE ROOT FRUIT TREES NOW.
We hope to see you soon,
Jeff
