Want that fresh, ripened, just picked, perfect ripeness flavor--plant some fruit trees with your Dad on Father’s Day. We still have a large selection of fruit trees, multi-grafted or combination fruit trees and blueberries.

To grow your own fruit, you must first ensure that your allotted location can meet the tree’s basic requirements, and then commit some effort to fulfill its specific pruning, thinning and spraying needs. See our Care Guide for Apple and Pear Trees.

LIGHT: Fruit trees will perform best with at least 6 hours of direct sunlight a day, preferable more.

WATER: First year trees should be watered on a weekly basis. Building a basin around the tree at planting will facilitate flood irrigation, a method of watering that decreases the incidence of certain fungal problems in many fruit trees.

FERTILIZING: For best results, use Master Nursery Fruit Tree & Vine Food three times during the year: once in early spring when the flower buds break, once in early summer around Memorial Day and once in the fall around Labor Day. If you prefer organic fertilizers, try Dr. Earth Fruit Tree Fertilizer and apply about 2 weeks earlier. Always apply fertilizer to moist soil and water thoroughly after application.

Complete information about planting, spraying and pruning is available by downloading our Fruit Tree Information Sheet.

Sunday’s with Mr. Ed Continues Sunday June 28!

Topic of the Week: Mulching and Amendments

Join Mr. Ed as he continues his series of informal seminars on Sunday mornings at 10am in the nursery Sunday, May 28th. With the need to conserve water mulching is an important topic. Read about mulching in our newsletter next week and then come and ask Mr. Ed your questions. He will also be discussing amending our Bay Area soils.

In the past several weeks we have discussed citrus, cling and free-stone peaches and nectarines. We were asked “What about apples? After all, apples are the most popular non-tropical fruit in the U.S.” In the early years of the U.S. when pioneers were still settling the Midwest and the far west, apples were far and away our most popular fruit of any kind.

All of us grew up knowing about the popularity of apples and the role Johnny Appleseed played in promoting this popularity. Many of us were told that Johnny Appleseed collected apples seeds and cast them indiscriminately on his wanderings. Not so. Johnny Appleseed was a nurseryman. He collected bags and bags of apple seeds from cider mills in the east and then headed west ahead of the farmers, loggers, miners and other settlers. He planted as many acres of apple seeds as he could and by the time the settlers caught up to him, he had apple trees to sell. Since the trees all grew from seeds, no two were ever exactly the same. The farmers, miners and the rest didn’t care so long as they had apples!

You may think the farmers, miners, loggers and settlers lived large on apple pies, fritters, apple sauce and eating apples. Not so, again. The apples were grown as the main source of alcohol for people on the frontier. There was little corn or grain available for alcohol production and so apples became the accepted source of raw material used to product alcohol. Hard cider had an alcohol content of about 17% and could be distilled or frozen up to about 30% more. So much for Johnny Appleseed and the folk stories surrounding his activities. (Read The Botany of Desire for a complete description of his adventures.)

From Johnny Appleseed’s medley of thousands of different kinds of apples, several hundred have been selected to be propagated and sold in the different geographical areas of the U.S. From Johnny’s thousands have come varieties such as Gravenstein, Golden Delicious, Arkansas Black, Gala, Granny Smith, Northern Spy and all the others sold at local garden centers. To ensure that you get the right kind of apple, all apple trees are grafted onto a regular or a dwarf root stock. Your apple tree is a clone of one original, selected variety and we at Wegman’s offer only the varieties most suitable for this area.

In addition to the wide selection of apple trees on hand we are providing a service called First Pick. If, for example, you want an Arkansas Black Spur apple tree which we don’t normally stock, our grower will provide one of that root stock for your garden in January. Our grower can also provide four or six different varieties (such as Fuji, Gala, Mutsu and Jonagold) grafted onto one rootstock. This enables you to grow four varieties in one hole. Or as mentioned in our previous newsletter, you could plant two or three trees in one hole.

Apple trees are long lived and relatively trouble free. See our Care Guide for Apple and Pear Trees for the care and grooming of apple trees. They should receive a dormant spray in December or January and then a spray with Carbaryl insecticide 30 days after full bloom to prevent wormy apples (Coddling moth). Fertilize with Master Nursery Fruit Tree and Vine Food twice a year (Memorial Day and Labor Day) and water to keep the soil moist below 12 inches.

As with all home grown fruit, except Golden Delicious, the longer it stays on the tree, the more sugar the fruit will contain and the acid content will also increase to give you that snappy, tart flavor. Supermarket apples are picked before being fully ripe and can never compare to home grown--so enjoy your own!

If you have shady garden areas or are looking for a brilliant accent for your patio or balcony, you'll want to some tuberous Begonias. Tuberous Begonias provide a spectacular display from June through October and are available in shades of white, pink, red, yellow, orange, and salmon as well as bi-colors.
Our Bedding Department has beautiful begonias available in 4 inch or 6 inch containers or in hanging baskets.

Did you know that tuberous begonia flowers are good to eat?

Sort of lemony sour, but good, especially if you put them in a fruit salad or eat each petal with a little spoonful of fruit yogurt. You can make a great begonia flower sorbet that is delicious, easy and lots of fun at a party.

The Non-Stop type of tuberous begonias are a newer strain from the Benary Company in Germany available at Wegman’s . They are different from regular tuberous begonias because they bloom earlier and are later to go to sleep in the fall. They are also more heat tolerant and easier to grow. They are called Non-Stop begonias because in a greenhouse with lights during part of the night they can bloom during the winter non-stop.

In areas that don't freeze you can have your Non-Stop Begonia in bloom during the winter if you have garden lights or a porch light that you turn on every night for several hours. The flowers on the non-stop type are smaller and not as fancy as in the giant hybrid varieties.

Tuberous Begonias thrive in partial to full shade and need well-drained soil. They need to be kept away from hot sun and drying winds. As they dislike dry conditions, they'll need to be watered generously, especially during hot weather. Keep their soil moist but not soggy; the tubers will rot if they get too much water. Always water the soil around the plants rather than the plants themselves, if possible, to avoid mildew, and at the first sign of a white patch on any of your begonias' leaves, apply a fungicide right away. Feed Begonias with a Bud and Bloom every 2-3 weeks.

For appearance's sake, pinch off extra or too-long stems as the plants are developing, keeping the three strongest stems and pinching off the others. Large flowered Begonias look best with fewer, larger flowers, and you don't want your begonias to get leggy. Pinch off the early developing flowers, too, until the plants are 10 inches tall.

If you're growing pendant types and want to make sure they have lots of branches to cascade down from their pots, pinch out the primary growing tip when the plant is about 2 inches tall.

You'll also want to deadhead all your Begonias regularly; removing wilted leaves and flowers encourages them to produce more blooms. The large-flowered types of Begonias should be staked.

Prevent the limbs of your heavily laden fruit trees from breaking like this, with our patent pending Prop-a-Crop™. Until now, the savvy grower only had the choice of propping up their fruit-filled trees with a non-adjustable, bark scarring and tree damaging piece of wood. The Prop-a-Crop™ was designed to easily adjust to the desired height with a push of a button. The curved plastic "U-shaped" limb support minimizes any bark scarring or tree damage when holding the limb at the set height.

Bird Netting
• Prevents hungry birds from eating fruit, vegetables and berries
• Protects your harvest without harm to birds
• Reusable season after season

Keeps your harvest safe without harming birds. Ross Garden netting has protective mesh covering which keeps birds away from fruits, berries, vegetables and newly seeded gardens and lawns while its small openings prevent birds from becoming tangled. The netting is a durable UV-treated mesh that is easy to use and will last for years. Netting is available in various helpful sizes for trellis, garden, or trees.

Basket Fruit Picker
This handy tool will allow you to pick those juicy fruits off your tree without climbing a ladder! The fruit picker has a metal basket with plastic coating, and "fingers" which allow you to pick the fruit off its branch. The fruit then rolls into the bottom of the basket where a cushion breaks its fall. The basket itself is 1 foot long. The basket comes with an 8 foot, two piece wooden pole or now available in a telescopic pole.