Sanhedrin Nursery – Garden Blog

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

• Pluots are a cross between plums and apricots. Their meaty fruit has a wonderful flavor. Bare root trees can be planted now.

• Spray for peach leaf curl with copper sulfate. Peach and nectarine trees may suffer from this fungus disease without a protective spray.

• Plant strawberries now for delicious strawberry shortcake this summer.

• English daisies are an early-blooming perennial with showy red, pink or white flowers just in time for Valentine’s Day! They will bloom all spring in partial shade.

Starting from Seed

Spring begins early when you start from seed. First there are the decisions to make about what new things to try this year, then there’s the preparation, and the planting and then the fun of watching the magic of those tiny seeds turn into plants. There’s something very rewarding about following the whole life cycle of your plants from start to finish, and trying different varieties from the usual ones you can find at the nursery.

Seed racks at local nurseries and mail-order seed catalogs are full of new types of flowers, vegetables and herbs. For a very small investment, you can grow a whole garden of different varieties.

The essential elements for growing from seed are bright light, bottom heat and moisture. Many seeds will germinate without light, but they must be moved into bright light as soon as they are up. Bottom heat is not essential, but it speeds up the process. Moisture is important, especially for seeds which are germinated on top of the soil. A plastic dome over the flat or pieces of plastic wrap will keep the moisture content just right.

There are two ways to plant the seeds, depending on whether you want to transplant the tiny seedlings or not. You can plant 10 or 15 seeds in a small pot and then transplant each plant into its own pot in about two weeks. Or you can put 2 or 3 seeds in each cell of a 6-pack and remove all but the strongest one after they germinate. It may depend on how large your germinating area is.

Plants can be grown on the windowsill, but you will get stockier, stronger plants if you use fluorescent lights suspended about 4 inches above the pots. They should be left on at least 12 hours a day. Most seeds should be covered with about ¼-inch of potting soil. Water after planting the seeds, and then only water if the top of the soil is dry.

Many perennials do best when planted on top of the soil. Sprinkle the tiny seeds over the moistened seeding mix, spray with water, then cover with plastic wrap. Place under the lights and most seeds will germinate in 5-10 days. In about two weeks, you can remove the plastic wrap then water as needed.

Growing plants need good ventilation. If necessary, set up a small fan to keep the air moving. It is important that your pots and propagation area are clean and sterile. Soak pots briefly in a 10% solution of clorox and water before filling them with bagged seeding mix. Clean pots and moving air will usually prevent “damping off”, a disease that causes young plants to keel over.

When should you start your seeds? Broccoli, cabbage and other cool season vegetables can be started right away along with perennials, pansies and petunias. Wait on tomatoes and peppers for another month, or they will be ready to set out before the frosts are over. Squash, melons and pumpkins can wait until mid-April or May. Corn and beans can be planted directly in the garden in May.

The last thing to remember is not to plant seedlings outside without hardening them off first. It’s best to get them acclimated to it gradually. Some people take them out a little longer every day, starting with an hour the first day. Or you can put them out in a cold frame for a few weeks, lifting the plastic for a few hours a day.

If this is your first try at starting from seed, it might be better to start small. Remember, there is always next year when it comes to gardening!

• Delicious raspberries, blackberries, loganberries, boysenberries and blueberries are all available now for early planting.

• Start seeds of perennial flowers like columbine, coreopsis and echinacea.

• 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.

• Start an asparagus bed so you can enjoy their young, tender shoots straight from the garden. Choose from thin spears, thick spears or purple spears!

• 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.

Natives Berries for the Landscape

One of the greatest delights of late summer is to come upon a wild patch of huckleberries that are ready to pick. This slow-growing, native evergreen shrub has delicious blue berries which ripen in late summer and early fall and are enjoyed by humans and wildlife alike.

Evergreen huckleberries vary in height from 3 to 12 feet tall depending on their growing conditions, but can be kept smaller with pruning. They grow taller in shady locations and are smaller with greater sun exposure. A handsome choice for woodland gardens, berry patches, and even containers, evergreen huckleberry is an ideal “edible landscape” shrub.

Known botanically as Vaccinium ovatum, this lovely shrub has small shiny leaves that are dark green above and pale green underneath, with copper-colored new growth. The spring flowers are particularly attractive. They hang like clusters of pink, urn-shaped bells very much like heather or manzanita blossoms, to which they are related.

Huckleberries make excellent landscaping plants since they have such attractive evergreen foliage and showy edible fruit. They are good for anchoring soil and flourish in sun or shade with some summer watering, acidic soil and good drainage. The soil should be rich in humus or peat and covered with an organic mulch to conserve moisture.

In fall, the plants are covered with delicious, juicy, purplish-black berries. They are delicious fresh and also make excellent jelly, pies, pancakes and muffins. They were a traditional food of Native Americans who sometimes traveled great distances to harvest them.

Huckleberries grow naturally in the redwood forests, often in clearings or at the edges of groves and are tolerant of a wide range of light levels. Good companion plants are western sword ferns, salal (Gaultheria shallon) and rhododendrons.

Salal is another western native shrub that is a very attractive and versatile plant. It can also grow in sun or shade, reaching 5-6 feet tall in the shade and only 2-3 feet in the sun. Ideally it grows in somewhat moist, well-draining, acidic soil in part shade. Like huckleberry, they root themselves by underground runners, spreading out in that way. The foliage of both huckleberry and salal is often used in flower arrangements.

The dangling, pinkish-white urn-shaped flowers of salal are followed by edible berries in summer and fall. In midsummer the berries are red and by fall they turn black. Their flavor is sweetened by frosty weather, though they are not too tasty eaten alone. They are better when cooked and sweetened, and can be mixed with blackberries in home canning.

Saskatoon service-berry, Amelanchier alnifolia, is native along the Pacific coast from
Alaska to California. It is attractive as an ornamental shrub or may be trimmed as a hedge. The small, sweet, purple berries are grown commercially, and are used in pies, jams, and fruit rolls and for making jelly and syrup.

Edible plants can be important additions to your landscape, providing beauty as well as tasty and healthy treats for your family.

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

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

• Choose rose bushes now from the many beautiful and fragrant varieties available in bare root plants now.

• 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 and pears are the easiest fruits to grow in our area. Choose early, mid-season and late varieties for a continuous harvest from late summer into winter.

Fabulous Figs

Figs were brought to California by the Spanish missionary fathers who first planted them at the San Diego Mission in 1759. Fig trees were then planted at each succeeding mission, through California. The Mission fig, California’s leading black fig, takes its name from this history.

The fig is a picturesque deciduous tree, typically growing to a height of 10 – 30 ft. Their branches are strong and twisting. Figs that are completely dormant before severely cold weather arrives can tolerate temperatures down to 15 to 20° F with little or no damage. When temperatures drop below that, fig trees may be killed to the ground in the winter. When they re-sprout from the roots in the spring, they will often grow as a multi-branched shrub.

Figs are a very popular fruit and they grow best where the summers are hot and dry. Though native to the Middle East and grown throughout the Mediterranean region, there are several varieties that are worth growing in our climate.

Figs usually bear two crops a year. The early crop is called a ‘breba’ crop. These fruits form on wood that grew last season. Main crop figs form on the new branches that grow in the spring. Some varieties only have a breba crop or a main-crop.

‘Black Mission’ figs, with their purplish-black skin, strawberry-colored flesh, and rich flavor are a favorite the world over. The bear heavily and are a large, long-lived tree. The fruit is delicious fresh, dried or canned.

‘Brown Turkey’ is a large, brown skinned fig with pink flesh. It has a sweet, rich flavor, and is mostly for fresh use. It is widely adapted to both coastal and inland climates and makes a small, very hardy tree.

‘Celestial’ is one of the sweetest figs. With a purplish-brown skin, the pink flesh is of rich flavor and excellent quality and almost seedless. It is widely adapted with high yields and good cold tolerance, and bears two crops per year.

The ‘King’ Fig is a good variety to plant in colder, wetter areas. The light green ‘white’ skinned fig has strawberry colored pulp with a rich flavor and excellent fresh-eating quality. It has a large breba crop while the later crop is light in hot climates, heavier in coastal climates. It is also called ‘Desert King’.

‘Peter’s Honey’ is a beautiful, shiny, greenish yellow fruit when ripe with very sweet, dark amber flesh. It is superb for fresh eating, and good for drying and canning.

Fig trees need plenty of sun, at least 8 hours a day, and lots of heat to ripen the fruit. Near the south-facing wall of a building is a good location. Figs respond very well to heavy applications of manure and compost applied three times a year.

Figs are a healthful fruit that can easily be dried for winter use and they are worth growing in our climate.