Rootstock, defined
“What the heck is a rootstock? ” It is not uncommon for us to hear this from our customers buying fruit trees. Deciding which rootstock to use is one of the complexities of planting fruit trees. In simple terms, fruit trees are produced by joining the wood of a variety of fruit, like Honeycrisp apple, […]
Peach Leaf Curl
Peach Leaf curl is caused by the fungus Taphrina deformans. The spores of the fungus lodge in the bud scales of peach and nectarine trees in the summer, overwintering there until the tree begins to break dormancy. At that time, the new leaf tissues are infected, causing the cells to grow larger than normal, which […]
Winter Scouting Fruit Trees
Scouting, or looking for pest and disease problems on plants, is an important part of good orchard management. Winter is a good time to look at your fruit trees without their leafy clothing hiding problems. In our rainy climate, all manner of fungal and bacterial infections can damage fruit trees, mainly by forming galls or […]
Winter Garden Joy
We have been blessed in Whatcom County this fall and early winter with more sunshine and less rain than normal. But even in the dreariest November and Decembers, you can find hummingbirds warring over winter blooming plants. Plants that bloom in the fall and winter do more than make the overwintering Anna’s Hummingbirds happy, though. […]
Harvest is upon us
With the warm, dry summer we’ve had, fruit is ripening up to three weeks ahead of “normal”. For the last three years, our accumulated heat units are well above the historical average. Since many fruits ripen when they’ve experienced the right amount of heat, it is to be expected that they would ripen earlier in […]
Permaculture Plants
“Permaculture is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems, which have the diversity, stability and resilience of natural ecosystems” -Bill Mollison The permaculture concept has gained quite a bit of popularity in recent years. From Seattle’s Beacon Hill Food Forest to The Bullock Brothers Homestead on Orcas Island, this movement has had a […]