Fruit growing

Proper timing is one of the most important considerations for successful pruning. Getting the timing right helps ensure attractive, healthy, productive plants. Research has shown pruning wounds heal fastest when the cuts are made right before new growth begins. This knowledge guides pruning recommendations, with the goal of promoting fast wound closure and keeping plants as healthy as possible.

Growing fruits in the home orchard takes work and patience. So, when trees fail to bear, despite all the gardener’s work, it’s very disappointing. If your harvest is looking less than ideal this year, there are several reasons trees fail to set fruit and produce a good crop.  

Frost Damage

What could be healthier than home-grown fruits & vegetables? Unfortunately, following heavy rain and flooding of the vegetable garden, your home-grown produce may not be so healthy for you. Flood waters many be contaminated by any combination of sewage, river or creek water, farm run-off or industrial pollutants. Bacteria, parasites, viruses and chemical contaminants are the biggest concerns to food safety.

Many gardeners have questions at this time of year about spring pruning. So, here are some common questions you may have been wondering about and your answers.

Productive fruit trees with an abundance of high-quality fruit don't just happen. They result from good cultural practices, including pruning. However, fruit tree pruning is often neglected by the home gardener either due to a lack of pruning skills and knowledge, or due to fear plants will be damaged or killed by incorrect pruning.

To obtain quality fruit from your garden, it’s important to harvest the fruits at the right stage of maturity. Knowing when to harvest tree fruits is an exercise in judging several factors: flesh firmness, flesh color, skin color, flavor and number of days from full bloom. The ideal harvest time for apple and pear cultivars varies widely, so do some research on the cultivars in your home orchard or use the tips below to gauge the best harvest time.

After waiting all winter for a new growing season to start, when spring finally does arrive it seems to hit us hard and fast. Then before we know it, spring is gone and we’re in the middle of summer.

There are many tasks to accomplish in the spring landscape. To help you develop a plan and not get behind or miss your “window of opportunity”, here’s a quick rundown of common landscape projects listed in order of attack.

It will be time to start pruning fruit trees later this month. As pruning begins, it's important to have a good skills at identifying fire blight symptoms and have a multi-pronged approach for control, especially in very susceptible trees. Pruning and sanitation are important control strategies, but improper cleaning of pruning equipment between cuts can easily spread the disease.

It's too early to begin fruit tree pruning now, but it's not too early to prepare. For homeowners with only a few fruit trees - who can choose the ideal time for pruning their trees - it's best to wait until just before new growth begins. This is typically late February into March. Wounds heal fastest when pruned at this time. This is especially important for tender fruit trees (apricot, peach, nectarine, sweet cherry); early pruning of these trees could lead to cold damage at the pruning sites.