Jeff Rice

It has been a beautiful spring this year and June weather is nice too, although a little warm here and there. The long range forecast shows some warm days but certainly not all. The upcoming weekend looks cooler. Lots of mid 90’s in the forecast. Well, it is getting to be summer.

We are having an average water year this year, at least here at the nursery. By my rain tracking, we are just shy of 28″. That’s two good rainfall years in a row which we need so certainly happy to have that. Lots of the rain this year was on the weekends but well, can’t do much about the weather. Looking at the forecasts, looks like we are drying out and in for some perfect spring weather. Turning out to be a very nice spring. We have a large selection of vegetable starts, and bringing more out of our greenhouse as fast as we can, so we have a good selection of vegetables for the planting season. I preach to wait until the nighttime temperatures are consistently 50 degrees, or close to it and the ground needs to be warm to get good results from your vegetables. It looks like it’s now there. Get your gardens prepped if you haven’t done that yet so you can plant your vegetable starts when the weather is right. No, it’s not late to plant. We just planted the raised beds here at the nursery yesterday. I always use Bio-Live fertilizer and bone meal …

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It’s been a second nice wet winter in a row which is always a good thing. As for my rain tracking, we are at 24″ of rain on the season here at the nursery and it’s raining as I write this so we should be looking at about average rainfall this year. Maybe we’ll get a little above depending. Looks like it will continue a bit longer as far as the long range forecast shows. It will stop soon though, and then we will be into a very nice spring. Wildflower blooms should be great this year, and water levels good from a good wet winter. Get ready to start fertilizing soon As soon as deciduous trees and shrubs have their full set of leaves, you should give them their first fertilizing of the year. A balanced fertilizer works well for most things. Use a rhododendron, camellia, azalea fertilizer for your acid loving plants. Fertilize azaleas and rhododendrons after they are done blooming. Same thing for camellias. Citrus should use a citrus fertilizer. Citrus are best fertilized monthly through the growing season. Start after the threat of frost is past and continue monthly through October. Roses should be leafing out …

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The selection of bare root fruit trees is still very good. The cool nights and cool days are ideal for the bare root trees, and now is the time to plant them. 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.