Sanhedrin Nursery – Garden Blog

• Mums are the beauties of the fall garden. Choose plants now in a wide variety of colors.

• Pansies and snapdragons can be planted now to replace summer annuals. They will give you color this fall, winter and next spring.

• Fall vegetables can be planted now for a fall harvest of broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, chard and lettuce.

• Trim foliage on grape vines to allow more sun to reach the fruit and ripen the grapes.

• If your bearded iris blooms were sparse this year or the plants are more than four years old, now is the time to divide and replant them. Mix some bone meal into the soil, and plant the rhizomes just beneath the soil surface.

Harvesting Apples and Pears

Most of the luscious fruits of summer have been picked and enjoyed by now. But apples and pears are just coming on and will be sharing their bounty in the months to come.

Apples are one of the easiest fruit to pick and use. Once they are picked, apples stop ripening, so it is important to pick them at the peak or ripeness. Apples ripen from the outside of the tree towards the center, so the apples out the outside of the tree will ripen first. Apples on the sunny side, usually the southern side, of the tree ripen first.

You should know approximately when a particular variety is expected to ripen. There are charts that give you this information for a particular area, usually the Central Valley in California. In Willits, fruits ripen approximately a month later than in the Central Valley. So that’s the first thing to consider.

Color can also be an indication of maturity. With yellow apples, when the green has almost completely given way to yellow, a yellow variety is mature. The same is true of the striped apples where the base color underneath the stripes turns yellow at maturity.

Other indicators are that mature apples separate easily from the tree by twisting them upward with a rotating motion. Usually, when the seeds become brown, the fruit is ripe. But with early season apple varieties, like Gala, they may be ready to eat before the seeds turn brown. When a few good, healthy apples drop to the ground, the apples on the tree are nearly mature. And remember the taste test: when an apple becomes slightly softer and tastes sweet and juicy, it is mature.

Don’t wash apples until just before using to prevent spoilage. And keep them cool after picking to increase shelf life.

Pears are a little more complicated. Again, check to see the expected ripening dates for the variety. Pears must be picked before they are ripe. They ripen from the inside out, and if left on the tree to ripen, many varieties will become brown at the core and rotten the middle.

Pears are best picked when the fruit separates easily from the twigs. If it is hard to pull off the tree, it isn’t ready! Also feel the fruit. If it feels absolutely rock hard, it’s still not ready. You should be able to detect a slight feeling of give, but not too much. Check the color. Pears are ready to pick when there is a change in the fruit color from green to yellow, and the stem separates easily from the branch.

Pears need to be cooled after picking to ripen properly. Bartlett pears need to be cooled only a day or two in the refrigerator. Then put them in the fruit bowl to ripen. In 4 to 5 days, they should be sweet and ripe.

Anjou, Bosc and Comice require 2 to 6 weeks at near freezing temperatures for optimal effect, followed by ripening at room temperature: Bosc and Comice will ripen in 5 to 7 days; Anjou takes 7-10 days. The longer the time the pears have spent in cold storage, the shorter the time to ripen. Without this chilling process, a mature picked pear will just sit and sit and eventually decompose without ever ripening.

Handle your apples and pears correctly and enjoy your harvest this fall.

• Cool season vegetables should be planted right away to insure good crops this fall.

• Divide Oriental poppies and bearded iris now. Add some bone meal in the bottom of the hole when you replant them.

• When lily flowers fade, remove the flowers but don’t cut back the stems until leaves have yellowed in the fall.

• Sow these vegetable seeds directly in the soil: carrots, chard, lettuce, mustard, peas, radish, spinach and root vegetables. Keep the surface of the soil moist until the seedlings are established.

• Keep apples picked up from under the trees to help control the spread of coddling moths, which make wormy apples.

Bringing in the Harvest

The long hot days this summer have made the garden grow like crazy and now the harvest is coming in. The tomatoes are starting to ripen, summer squash is plentiful and beans and corn are coming on fast.

It’s time to harvest the garden to keep production going strong. The more you harvest, the more you grow. Harvest vegetables in the morning when they’re crisp and cool.

Squash tastes best when harvested young. Pick zucchini when it is eight inches long, and pick crookneck squash when only six inches long. Immature winter squash lacks flavor, so wait until the rind is hard. Harvest winter squash with two inches of stem remaining. A stem cut too short is like an open wound, and will cause early decay.

Cantaloupes are starting to get ripe. To make melons sweeter, hold off watering a week before you expect to harvest the ripe fruit, when it starts to turn color. A cantaloupe is fully ripe when it pulls off the stem easily.

With other melons, check for a strong, pleasant aroma at the blossom (not stem) end to indicate ripeness. A watermelon is probably ripe if it makes a dull “thunk” when thumped, and when its underside has turned from white to pale yellow.
Pick most kinds of tomatoes when their color is even and glossy and the texture still slightly firm. Some varieties, primarily large heirloom types, ripen before they reach full color. Pick them when they are mostly colored up and bring them inside to finish ripening.

Let sweet peppers reach their final ripe color of red, yellow or orange, for maximum sweetness and flavor. Hot peppers are nutritious at all stages. Sample them at different points to see what you like best.

Lettuce is a fast crop and it’s important to harvest heads before they “bolt” and go to flower. Harvest butterhead lettuce when a loose head is formed; crisphead lettuce when heads are firm; and looseleaf lettuce and romaine any time when the plants are large enough to use. You can pull off leaves of leaf lettuce or harvest the whole head.

Cabbage also must be picked before it bolts. Test the head for firmness, then cut it off. If you have mature heads that you’re not ready to harvest, hold off water or twist the plant to break some of the roots. This should keep them from bolting.

Pick green beans when they are at least three inches long but before they begin to get tough and stringy. Harvest pole beans faithfully every other day and the plants will yield right up to frost.

Corn is ready when the silks turn brown. Check an ear or two by pulling back the husk and testing a kernel with your fingernail. It is squirts a milky-white juice, it’s ripe.

Home gardeners have the advantage of being able to pick their vegetables just as they reach their prime. Knowing when vegetables are perfect for picking is a skill that you will gain with experience. For the best flavor and quality, prepare them for eating or freezing as soon as possible after harvest.

• Roses have more flowers all summer long than any other shrub. Plant them in a sunny location and feed monthly for continuous blooms.

• Mottled leaves are often a sign of spider mites. Check for them with a hand lens or bring a leaf in to your nursery, in a plastic bag, for identification and treatment options.

• Sow lettuce seeds now for a fall crop. Set out broccoli and cabbage plants too.

• Feed fuchsias, begonias, summer annuals and container plants to keep them green and blooming right up until frost.

• Feed rhododendrons, azaleas and camellias with a “bloom” fertilizer to encourage flowers for next spring.

A Wall of Orange Trumpets
Trumpet vines are beautiful all summer

The orange-flowering trumpet vines on fences around town is beautiful every summer. The trumpet vine, Campsis radicans, native to the eastern United States, is a large, vigorous deciduous vine that will attach itself to almost anything with its aerial rootlets. This easily grown vine has been cultivated in North America since colonial times. The beautiful two-inch orange or yellow blooms which open in summer are loved by people and hummingbirds alike.

Trumpet vines are very hardy and grow rapidly to 30 to 40 feet or more, becoming a large, heavy vine if not thinned. Give them a strong support to grow on, a sunny location and average water. Foliage grows well in shade, but plants need good sun for best flowering.

Easily grown in most soils, they grow best in lean to average soils with regular moisture in full sun.

The strong aerial rootlets cement themselves to supports, making a strong adhesion. Trumpet vine is not recommended for planting near buildings, as their rootlets will ruin painted surfaces.

The leaves of the trumpet vine resemble those of wisteria. Each leaf is divided into 9 to 11 leaflets. The flowers grow in clusters of 6 to 12, and are three inches long, flaring to two inches wide at the mouth of the trumpet. They begin blooming in early July and continue until frost.

‘Madame Galen’ trumpet vine (Campsis x tagliabuana ‘Mme Galen’) has larger, showier flowers than the common trumpet vine. They are a lovely cantaloupe-orange color.

The variety ‘Flava’ has pure yellow flowers that shine in bright contrast to the rich green leaves. Hummingbirds seek it out as much as they do the species.

Trumpet vines are a big favorite with hummingbirds. It is a wonderful nectar source for them, and with so many bright-colored blooms to stick their long beaks into, they will be around your yard for weeks.

Vines soften the hard edges of structures and connect them to other plants in the garden. They can screen unsightly walls or views. Use vines to create green walls that define an outdoor room. Arbors covered with a deciduous vine will give shade in the summer and let in the light in the winter time. A wire or wooden fence can become a showy wall with its brilliant blooms throughout the summer.

Trumpet vines bloom on new growth, so early spring pruning will not affect the flowering. Flowers are followed by long, bean-like seed pods (3-5” long) which split open when ripe releasing numerous 2-winged seeds for dispersal by the wind.

Vines are functional workhorses in the garden. And trumpet vines are hard to beat for fast growth as well as beauty all summer long.