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Many edible grape varieties aren't adapted to the local Puget Sound climate with its cool summer temperatures. There's just not enough heat for fruiting. Be sure that the plants are set out in full sun. Several excellent grapes for this area include ‘Interlaken,' a green seedless for fresh eating and drying into raisins. A blue seedless grape called ‘Venus' does well. For making wine, try growing ‘Madeleine Angevine,' a heavy producing grape that ripens in October and yields a white wine. Do not over-fertilize grapes; in many soils, no fertilization is necessary. Grapes flower and fruit from shoots produced off one-year old wood. Incorrect pruning could reduce or eliminate the crop.
Most fruit trees need another tree of the same kind (but different variety) nearby for pollination. Charts indicating what pollinates what are available in Extension Bulletin 937, 'Tree Fruit Varieties for Western Washington." Check with your local county extension office for a copy.
If you don't have a good pollinator tree near yours, you can bring a flowering branch from elsewhere. "Swishing it around" probably won't do much, however. A far better plan is to place the branches in a pail of water in or near the tree and let the bees do the job. Lack of pollination during spring is often a factor in poor fruit sets --if weather is too cool or rainy, bees won't be working the branches. Consider putting up orchard mason bee boxes to provide shelter for another species of bees that work gardens early and can assist in the pollination process.
The fungus disease apple scab, which causes raised scabby spots on the leaves and fruit, is a common one in our region. Many of the apple varieties WSU recommends for western Washington, such as Chehalis, Liberty, Prima and Spartan have some resistance to the disease and may not need to be treated. If you have a susceptible variety, you may need to protect the new leaves with a fungicide as they emerge. Follow the suggested spray schedule for western Washington.
It's best to wait for a break in the rain to spray. Fungicides applied to wet leaves may be diluted to the point of ineffectiveness and a hard rain may wash it off. If a fungicide has a chance to dry, it will give protection even if rain comes soon after application.
Home gardeners often can get adequate control of apple scab with cultural methods. The organism overwinters; on old leaves, so careful raking and removal of leaves in the fall can reduce disease levels considerably. Because moisture is necessary for infection, pruning to open the tree's canopy, and allow quick drying after rain, can also decrease your apple scab problem.
Do you have a second compatible pollinator pear tree nearby? Orcas, Highland, Rescue and Starkrimson are all recommended European cultivars that bloom mid-season and make excellent pollinators for most other pears.
If you do have adequate pollen available, you may not have bees to transfer it. Bee populations have been decimated in many neighborhoods because of the misuse of broad spectrum insecticides; pesticides that kill a wide range of insects. To protect bees, try to minimize the use of insecticides and encourage your neighbors to do the same. Choose least-toxic pest controls whenever possible. Bees have also suffered for at least 10 years from mite infestations that are fatal to hives. Beekeepers medicate hives to help protect them but the wild bees that range through gardens and landscapes are being wiped out.
Also, to get proper fruit production, all fruit trees need sun. Be sure the trees are sited where they get at least 6 hours a day of sunshine. There are no shade-tolerant fruit trees.
Neither the spray nor the applicator is dormant in a "dormant spray": the plants to which it's applied are. The term refers to winter-applied sprays for insect pests and diseases, put on before foliage begins to leaf out.
To use dormant sprays, first identify the reason for the spraying. They are often used on fruit trees to control over-wintering insect pests such as scale and aphids. (The aphids over-winter as eggs, and the spray smothers the eggs, preventing spring hatching.) A dormant spray isn't an all-purpose winter splashing of pesticide around the garden: it's a specific spray chosen for a specific pest. The dormant spray used on fruit trees is often horticultural oil (sold as superior-type oil), and it may be mixed with lime-sulfur depending on the pest to be controlled.. It's sprayed thoroughly to give good coverage on the trunk, branches, small limbs and shoots.
Because dormant sprays are generally applied early in the season, they tend to be less disruptive to beneficial insect predators and parasites which aren't in active life stages in mid-winter. While generally used in fruit tree maintenance, dormant oil sprays are helpful for landscape plants with similar aphid or scale problems. Ornamental plums (purple-leaf plums) often suffer from infestations of aphids or scale; if that's been the case, a dormant oil spray may help reduce the populations.
Sprays containing copper may be used in the fall on trees diagnosed with bacterial diseases. Any spraying must be done when temperatures are above freezing. Do not apply dormant oil sprays after bud expansion begins. (Emerging tissue can be damaged.) Be certain to identify the problem precisely before spraying any pesticide.
Dormant oil sprays do not provide control for many common fruit tree insect and disease problems such as apple maggot, codling moth, apple scab and brown rot. They are part of a maintenance problem but not "cure-alls."
Brilliant red fruit on crabapples often looks beautiful all winter. However, insects and diseases often winter over in plant debris in the garden. Apples still on branches may provide a source of infection for next season -- especially of the fungus disease, apple scab. Removing mummified fruit is a helpful way to break the disease cycle if that was a problem. For small-fruited crabapples, picking fruit would be an impossible task, but luckily the birds usually help you out. If your tree has relatively few, larger fruit, handpick them during the winter when you do your annual pruning. Otherwise, let them fall and rake them up.
Growing small fruits offers lots of pleasure for the home gardener --raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries produce tasty crops without requiring much space. To take care of the raspberry bushes, learn their growth habits. June-bearing, or early-season bearing raspberries (and other cane berries such as blackberries and black raspberries) bear fruit on canes which die after fruiting. The canes for the 1997 crop, for instance, grow during the summer of 1996.
In looking at your early-season raspberries, you will note two types of canes. One type will look green and fresh, and be growing actively. These canes will produce the 1997 crop. The others will have dead leaves, remnants of bloom and fruit, and will show overall browning. Prune these canes out and discard all canes that produced fruit during summer 1996. The raspberry patch then goes over winter with only canes for the 1997 crop.
If your raspberries are "ever-bearers," producing fall crops, the situation is a bit more complex. Everbearers produce fruit in fall 1996 on canes which grow early in the 1996 season. This set of canes produces fruit during the first season -- 1996 --on the top 1/3 of the cane in late summer or fall. Cut off the fruiting top of the cane after production. The cane then will often winter over, and produce fruit for 1997 on the remaining bottom 2/3 of the 1996 cane in late June or early July of 1997. For everbearers, canes are removed from the plant after they have produced crops for two consecutive years. It's necessary to observe everbearing raspberries a bit more carefully to understand this rhythm but the plants are easy to care for once it's understood.
What Should I Do with Raspberry Plants after Harvest? This Is My First Year of Growing
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Reference: EB1015 "Small Fruits and Berries, spray schedule."
Definitely. Once pears are falling, they may be over-ripe. Most people find out from experience that if pear varieties ripen on the tree, they may turn mushy at the core and lost texture for either eating fresh or canning.
Techniques differ for European pears and the newer Asian pears. The following instructions refer to European pears With European pears such as Barlett, Bennett, or Orcas (the earlier ripening pears), do not wait until you see fruit dropping from the tree. If you do see fruit dropping, pick all of it immediately. This timing may result in missing the best quality in the fruit.
To check on readiness for ripening, WSU fruit experts suggest the "lift test." To try this, cup your hand under the pear. Lift the pear from its normal position as it hangs down on the tree. Raise it to a horizontal or flat position, giving a slight twist as you lift. Fruit that's ready to harvest will snap off cleanly between the stem and the twig. If you have to wrench off the fruit, either breaking the fruit stem or the twig, it is probably not ready. Fruit at the top of larger trees often ripens before fruit in the shadier tree interior.
Late ripening European pears such as Anjou, Bosc, and Comice will not ripen properly if they are picked and left sitting around at room temperature. These pears need 3 to 4 weeks of storage at 32°-45° F., which means putting them in a refrigerator. Wrap the pears in paper for storage.
Asian pears such as Chojuro, and Twentieth Century (among others), are much easier to harvest, because they ripen on the tree. These fruits have a pear taste and apple crispness. Taste them as they turn from greenish to yellow and orange shades. Pick them when you like the flavor. Unpicked fruit can be left on the tree, though if it is left too long it may develop a "winey" taste that doesn't appeal to some people.
You can plant raspberries between October and early April. Dormant plants are available at the appropriate time in nurseries. They should be planted before much bud growth has occurred. Willamette, Meeker, and Sumner are commonly recommended varieties that have been around for awhile. Meeker has the best flavor of the three, but it is not suitable for wet, poorly drained sites. Willamette is the leading market berry in our area. Sumner will perform better on wet sites.
Chilliwack and Centennial are two newer cultivars. Both have better root rot resistance than Willamette or Meeker, so they are the best choices for soils with less than perfect drainage. Both have good fruit size. Centennial yields very well, but Chilliwack has better hardiness and top flavor. Raspberries do require good drainage, so be sure to choose a well-drained spot even with those cultivars that can take some exposure to damper soils.
'Quinault' is the old standard everbearing strawberry. It has large fruit and bears over more of the summer than June-bearers. Recently, strawberry breeders have developed an even better type of strawberry -- the day-neutral. These varieties do not form flower buds only at certain daylengths. They will flower and fruit as long as temperatures are mild and they are getting adequate sun, water and nutrients. Give them good care and they will produce amazingly well from early summer right up until frost.
The day-neutral strawberries seen for sale most often are Tillikum and Tristar. Tillikum is a delicious berry but tiny. Tristar is a much nicer size and tastes just as good. In a trial several years ago growing six different day-neutral strawberries and Tristar was the definite favorite.
