Sanhedrin Nursery – Garden Blog

• Primroses, in their rainbow of colors, will light up your flower beds and boxes this winter and spring.

• Plant seeds of broccoli, cabbage, lettuce and other spring vegetables now.

• It’s bare root season, which means you can save money on fruit trees and roses by planting them now. A wide selection is now available.

• Onion plants can be set out now for early summer harvest.

Asparagus: A Homegrown Delicacy

Each year, when spring rolls around, the asparagus bed comes to life. Around April 1st, the rich green spears start poking their heads up out of the bare soil, reaching for the light. Every day a few more points appear and anxiously we await the harvest of one of our favorite crops.

Asparagus takes a lot of work initially, but it is not difficult to maintain an established bed. Plants can live for 20 years and produce many pounds of spears, so it is important to start them off right.

Soil should be rich, loose, well-drained and located in full sun. Add plenty of well-rotted manure or compost and rock phosphate dug deeply into the soil: double-digging will greatly benefit asparagus.

Start by transplanting 2-year-old roots into your garden. Dig a trench 12 inches deep and place roots 18 inches apart, spreading out the roots around a small mound.

Set roots deep enough to cover the crowns with 2 or 3 inches of soil. Initially, cover them with only one inch of soil. When shoots begin to come up, add soil around them until the trench is filled. Then add a four to six inch layer of mulch to keep the weeds down, and maintain the high soil-moisture content necessary for best production.

Asparagus need plenty of water, especially the first growing season. Keep the soil wet at least 8 inches deep.

In July, side-dress the plants with 5-10-10 fertilizer or compost, and cultivate lightly into the soil. Keep the bed well weeded as the crowns are getting established, and maintain a thick mulch through the summer.

In the fall place a 3-inch layer of manure around the plants. Or, if you’d rather, remove the mulch and apply a balanced fertilizer at about 2 pounds per 100 square feet then replace the mulch.

Leave the dried tops until spring when they can be broken off and composted. An important part of asparagus culture is allowing the ferns to mature during the first and second year. This green foliage is needed to promote strong roots. Vigorous top growth in one season is the best assurance of good yield the next.

Harvest begins when the plants are three years old. The first harvest will last only a week or two. In later years, cutting may continue for 6 to 8 weeks.

The first spears will push their way up when we are still having frosty nights here in Willits. So be sure to protect these tender shoots from frost.

There are different varieties of asparagus and you may want to try more than one. ‘Mary Washington’ is the most popular variety with heavy yields of long, straight spears with tight tips. The sweet, tender spears have gourmet flavor and a 60 day cutting season.

UC 157 is a hybrid developed at UC Davis. It has deep green, smooth cylindrical spears, and early spring production. This variety produces higher yield than older standard varieties.

‘Jersey Knight’ Asparagus is a variety that grows only male plants. The stalks are much larger , and they yield 3-4 times more top quality asparagus than any other variety.

‘Sweet Purple’ has deep-burgundy spears and a higher sugar content than green varieties. The spears are generally larger and much more tender than standard varieties.

Homegrown asparagus is really a delicacy. There is little comparison with the store-bought vegetable of the same name. So do yourself a delicious favor, and plant an asparagus bed this winter.

• Spring flowers and vegetables can be started from seeds now on your window sill. Try pansies and snapdragons, broccoli, cabbage and lettuces.

• Spray fruit trees with a dormant oil spray. Spray from the bottom up, including the undersides of limbs and the ground around the tree, to prevent early spring insect infestations.

• Lilacs and wisteria have beautiful spring flowers. They come in a variety of colors and can be planted now from bare-root plants.

• Asparagus, whose delectable spears are even sweeter when home-grown, are available now for planting. Prepare a fertile bed for these long-lived vegetables.

• If you’re short on space in your orchard, you can plant 2 or 3 varieties of the same fruit in one large hole. This will allow cross-pollination among apples, pears, plums, cherries and Asian pears.

Luscious Blueberries from your Garden

Blueberries can be grown in many parts of the United States, however different types of blueberries are better for different climates. Northern Highbush and Southern Highbush blueberries do best in the Willits area.

Northern Highbush blueberries grow 4 to 6 feet tall and have clusters of white bell-shaped flowers in spring, rich green foliage that turns deep red in the fall, and abundant crops of sweet blue berries in midsummer. They are the best known and the largest, sweetest and juiciest blueberries you can grow. These varieties, however, are native to Canada, Michigan and other northern climes. They prefer cool summers, where they have the best fruit quality, but are worth growing in our area in partial shade. They require more than 1,000 chill hours for bud-break.

Southern Highbush blueberries have an earlier ripening season and grow 5 to 8 feet tall by 5 feet wide. They are all self-pollinating, although the yields and the berries will be larger if two varieties are planted together. Southern Highbush are specifically hybridized for superior fruit, soil adaptability, heat tolerance and low winter chilling.

These varieties are suitable for areas from Florida to California because of their low chill requirement and heat tolerance. This makes them particularly suitable for coastal areas of California as well as the inland valleys. They grow in full sun or partial shade, and are grown commercially in the Central Valley. Attractive blue-green foliage remains evergreen in mild winters or turns yellow-orange before falling in cold climates.

Blueberries need mostly sun and rich, acid soil that is high in organic matter. A pH of 4.8 to 5.0 is ideal. When planting, add lots of peat moss, equal to 50% of the planting hole soil. Dig a wide hole and add a couple of cups of soil sulfur per plant.

They don’t like strong nitrogen fertilizer, but you should feed them after they are established with regular light applications every six weeks, beginning in April and ending in July or August. Use an acid plant food with at least 10 percent nitrogen. Make the first feeding as soon as growth starts in the spring. Spread the fertilizer around the plants 6 to 12 inches away from their crowns, and water it in.

Remove all blossoms the first two years and allow only a small crop to mature the third season. This will help the plants establish faster.

Blueberry roots are shallow and should not be disturbed. Mulch the plants with 4 to 6 inches of sawdust or compost, but keep it away from the base of the plant. This will keep down weeds and retain moisture. Keep replenishing the mulch all summer. Plants should be kept moist all through the growing season.

A wonderful feature of many varieties is their outstanding fall color: hot, luminous reds, pinks, and oranges that really light up with fall rains. It’s nice to plant them where you can enjoy their colorful foliage. Blueberries are very nutritious and are a wonderful addition to your diet as well as your garden.

• Bare root season is here. Choose and plant your favorite fruit and shade trees now.

• Start seeds of broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and other cool season crops indoors for planting outside in March.

• Fruit trees can be pruned this month. If you’re not sure how, take advantage of one of the fine classes being offered this month.

• Strawberries can be planted any time now. Get them in early, and you’ll be picking strawberries this summer.

• Asparagus, whose delectable spears are even sweeter when home-grown, are available now for planting. Prepare a fertile bed for these long-lived vegetables.

Apples for many uses

There are hundreds of apple varieties grown in the United States, representing differences in flavor and texture that span the gamut from sweet to sour, and hard to soft. Because of these differences, some apples are better for cooking and some for fresh use. Here are some guidelines for choosing apples that suit your uses.

For fresh use and crisp apple salads, it’s hard to beat Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Fuji, Gala, Liberty and Honeycrisp apples. Red Delicious is probably the best known apple in the country. Its dark red skin is classic and its creamy aromatic flesh is sweet, crisp and flavorful. Golden Delicious is a long time favorite for its sweetness and flavor. The flesh is firm, crisp and juicy.

Fuji apples are sweet, very crisp and flavorful. Gala apples have a nice blend of sweetness and tartness with a rich flavor, and an attractive yellow skin airbrushed with red. Liberty has a well-balanced sweet-tart flavor with an attractive red skin. Honeycrisp is a delicious new apple that some say is “explosively crisp” and honey sweet with a touch of tartness. It is excellent for eating and salads. Fuji, Liberty and Red Delicious have the added advantage of not browning easily.

When it comes to apple pie, we look for an apple with quite a bit of tartness that holds its shape well during cooking. Some good choices are Honeycrisp, Pink Lady, Granny Smith, Braeburn and Rome Beauty. Honeycrisp is firm, juicy and sweet. Pink Lady is very crisp with a good sweet-tart combination. Granny Smith is quite tart but makes an apple pie reminiscent of colonial days, with added sugar. Braeburn is great for baking because it keeps its shape throughout cooking. Rome Beauty is wonderful for baking.

For applesauce, it’s hard to beat Gravenstein. This late summer apple has a rich flavor that makes delicious sauce. It is not a keeper but this is a wonderful way to preserve the bushels of fruit that the large tree produces. Golden Delicious is used to make unsweetened applesauce, because its sweet flavor doesn’t need sweetening.

Granny Smith is a rather tart apple but it makes very good sauce. Braeburn makes a great, “sweet-tart” sauce with no added sweetening. Pink Pearl makes beautiful, tasty pink applesauce.

Baking apples are those that are baked whole, as in dumplings. These apples have some tartness so that the flavor doesn’t get lost and they hold their shape well. Rome Beauty is probably the best for baking, but Golden Delicious, Braeburn, Granny Smith and Pink Lady are also very good.

Apple juice or cider can be made from many apples but some particularly good varieties are Gala, Golden Delicious, Gravenstein, Granny Smith and Jonathan. The best juice probably comes from a mixture of different varieties to create a blend. Choose a combination of apples to achieve the sweet/tart flavor you prefer.

Enliven your taste buds with a variety of apples for every use in the kitchen.