Bare root season continues through February
The selection of bare root fruit trees is still very good. With the wet start of the year, which translated into a slow start of the bare root sales, the inventory is still excellent. The cold 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.
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. Usually mid February is a good time but watch your trees. If they start budding to bloom, get the spraying done before the buds open. 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. If you are behind on getting it done, get the second application 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 early to middle of March. 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 Available
Seed potatoes are now available. We have Red Norland, Yukon Gold, Kennebec, and Russet. The price is $2.95 per pound.
Strawberry, Rhubarb, and Asparagus roots are in now.
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
