Bare root season continues through February. The selection of bare root fruit trees and roses is still good. The ground is still moist and the nights are staying cold so the trees are still dormant, so 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. The final spray should be done before you see color in the flower buds. I recommend doing it as soon as possible. We have a couple of warm days coming next week and you want to get the final spray on before you see color of flower buds. Use copper and horticultural oil together in your sprayer. Use 1 ounce of liquicop and 2.5 ounces of horticultural oil together in 1 gallon of water. I spray all the deciduous trees in the orchard. It prevents leaf curl and also helps to prevent fireblight on pears and apples, although not completely, 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. I will be spraying the nursery orchard for the final time early next week to make sure I get it done before flowers start to show up. Apricots usually bloom early and I want to get them before they bloom. We got behind on the first two, because of the rain in December so one was done the first week of January then the second two weeks later and now the third. So if you are behind on getting it done, get the second done now, so you maybe can get the third on before the trees start to bloom. We have a period of dry right now so take advantage and get it done. 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.
Fertilizing
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 or mid March depending on where you live. 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.
Now would be a good time to plant winter vegetables. We have a nice selection right now. If you plant them now they will give you production for a couple of months for sure and maybe longer depending on the temperatures. When we get some warm days in late February and early March, it’s still a bit too early to put out spring vegetables. We will get spring vegetables, some time in late March or early April, depending on weather. Even though it’s warm in the day, 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 will be stocking in larger volume in March. March is the best time to plant citrus since we are usually past any hard freezes. Be sure to protect citrus that you plant now if we have freezing temperatures.
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.
We hope to see you soon,
Jeff
