How Onions Grow
By: the Editors of National Gardening
There are more than 300 widely scattered species of onions in the world, and the bulb onion we grow is just one of them. The onion is a biennial plant, which means that it grows one year and produces its seeds the second. Between these two seasons onions have a dormant phase, which helps us gardeners.
Onion's Growth Cycle
The first-year onion plants begin their growth by putting out green top leaves during the cool weather. They store a lot of energy in those leaves. When the weather gets warmer and the days longer, the plants stop putting out new top leaves. Instead, they take the energy from the leaves and store it in the expanding bottom bulbs. Eventually the leaves fall over and shrivel up and the plants appear dormant. Inside the bulbs, however, the plants are storing the energy to put out flowering seed stalks when they start growing again. That's the goal of any plant - to produce the seed to keep its species going.
Onion bulbs are best for eating, cooking and storing before they've started to put their energy into making seed. That's why gardeners harvest onions after just one season and pick off any seed pods as soon as they appear.
Planting Onions
By: National Gardening editors
Plant your sets early in the spring. Onions do best if the temperature is cool when they start to grow, and warm as they mature. Northern springs are certainly cool -- and often frosty! But as the saying goes, "You can't kill an onion -- even with a hammer!"
Frost just won't harm sets. As soon as the ground can be worked in the spring, put the sets in. In the North that's usually in late March and early April. Gardeners in the mild winter areas of the Deep South can plant their sets in the fall and get a plentiful supply of fresh onions throughout the winter months.
Why Onions Form Bulbs
Onion sets you plant in early spring will put on a lot of green top growth before they make bulbs. You may ask, "Why don't the bulbs start forming right away?" The answer is that before the plants can make bulbs, they first have to store energy in the top green leaves. Then they must wait for nature's signal to put this energy into bulb making.
The plants usually get the message when the day length and the temperature are right. The onions don't care how old they are or when they were put in the ground; when conditions are right, they simply stop making new leaves and start using the energy they've stored to make bulbs. The size of the onion bulb is determined by how much energy there is in the top green leaves before the light conditions signal to start diverting energy to the bulbs. The more green growth before this time, the more energy there is and the bigger the bulb will be.
Early planting is important because it gives your onions plenty of time to grow tops and to store a lot of energy for the bulbs. If you put your sets in late, they won't have the time for a lot of top growth. As a result, there won't be much energy available when nature whispers to the onion plant, "Make a bulb."
The Wide-Row Method
Plant sets three to four inches away from each other in wide rows (or a little closer if you plan to harvest them when they're small). Wide rows are useful for onions and many other vegetables because you can grow much more using less space. That's especially important if you only have a small plot. Here's why:
If you plant 100 onion sets three inches apart in a single row, your row will be 25 feet long. If you allow a few inches, say three, on each side of the set, the row will be six inches wide. That's a total of 121/2 square feet of garden space for 100 sets. But with a wide row 15 inches across, putting the 100 sets three inches apart in all directions, your row will be just 5 feet long and 61/4 square feet. A wide row is easier to water, weed, fertilize and harvest, too.
In the Ground
There's no need to make trenches or special holes for the sets. Just grasp them at the top (the pointed end) with the root end down and push them into well-prepared soil the full depth of the bulb. The soil should just barely cover the top of the onion sets. If you have some tiny sets, plant them at least an inch in the ground, so they get good contact with the soil. The sets will get a better start. After you've got your sets in the ground, firm the soil around them with a hoe.
Remember, if a set is planted too shallowly, it takes a long time to get started. It's important to push the bulb all the way into the soil. It gets the onion off to a good start for producing a lot of top growth. If the onion sets are a little too deep, it won't hurt. Later, when the bulbs are expanding, pull some of the dirt away from the sides to give the bulbs room to expand.
You may not want to plant all your sets at once. Try keeping back a few handfuls in the refrigerator. When you start harvesting some small onions to eat raw or use in salads and other dishes, replace them with sets from the refrigerator. Just remember that onion sets planted later in the spring won't develop into large onions.
Growing Onions
By: the Editors of National Gardening
As with most vegetables, you can start onions from seed in the garden. But many onions have relatively long growing seasons and onion seeds don't germinate quickly, so it's often better to start the crop another way. You can set out transplants, or you can plant "sets" which are simply half-grown onions.
Where Sets Come From
Many sets are grown from seed on big farms near Chicago. The onion seeds are planted very thickly. Super-crowding of the plants makes the competition for water and fertilizer fairly stiff, so the plants never get very big and the resulting bulbs are quite small.
The small onions are harvested in the late summer or fall and dried for a month or more to rid them of moisture that could cause rot. Then the sets are stored until gardeners need them the following spring.
It's said that Chicago got its name from onions. Indians, who once lived nearby, called the place "Shikako" which means "Skunk Place" after the strong smell of wild garlic, onions, and leeks that once flourished there.
Buying Sets
In the North you'll find the first onion sets of the year at garden centers when there's still snow on the ground.
Using sets is probably the most popular, convenient, and dependable way to get onions started. They're very easy to plant, and you can harvest your first eating onions sooner than if you started from seeds.
Stores usually sell only a few varieties of sets, such as long-keeping white and yellow varieties and a red type or two. You can also grow sets yourself during one season for use the next year.
Sets are sold by the pound or by the scoop; each set is one onion. When you buy onion sets, watch the size. Sets that are smaller than 1/2 inch in diameter take longer to grow, but they'll still produce. Sets larger than 3/4 inch in diameter are very apt to "bolt" or grow seed pods in a hurry after you plant them. If you let them grow seed pods (a pod looks like a miniature version of the domes on the towers of the Kremlin in Moscow), the plants put energy into the seeds and not into the bulb. The bulbs will be small, tough and won't keep, so pick the pods or seed stalks off as soon as you see them.
The most dependable sets are the size of marbles -- 1/2 to 3/4 inch in diameter -- and are quite firm.
Growing Your Own Sets
To save some money and have a little onion fun, you may want to grow your own sets. Here's how to do it: In July in the North, or August farther south, create a small section of your garden to plant a good storage onion such as 'Yellow Globe'. Sow the seeds about 1/4 inch apart in one-foot-wide rows. Give the plants some fertilizer and just let them grow without thinning them at all.
Shortly before the first frost, bend the tops over. Wait a week or so and then dig the small bulbs out of the ground. After curing them for a few weeks, store them in mesh bags in a very cool (40oF) dry, dark place. The following spring you'll have plenty of sets on hand.
Most southern gardeners don't bother with growing sets because they have a pretty long season and don't always need the head start that sets give. If you like to experiment, here is one method that works pretty well in the South; select a short-day onion seed variety that's a good keeper and in early March sow it thickly in a wide row and leave the onions to grow. As they'll be very crowded, the bulbs won't get oversized. Harvest the bulbs when the tops wither from the hot summer sun. Dry them in the sun for a day or so and store them in mesh bags in a very cool, dry place. In the fall you can set them out in the garden again. They'll put on a little root growth before it gets cold and when the weather warms up in the spring, they'll pop back to life giving you very early onions. Of course in the deep South, where the winters are quite often mild, you can plant sets in the fall and harvest onions throughout the winter.
Buying Transplants
The best way to start big-bulb, European-type onions is from transplants. These are thin, young onion seedlings, and the optimum planting size is when they're just the size of a pencil. You can send away to seed or plant companies for bunches of transplants, or you can sometimes buy them at your local nursery. To get mail-order transplants, order the varieties you want sometime during the winter from companies in southern states; they'll ship them to you in the spring. You have to order by the bunch (75 to 100 plants in each bunch). As with many other things, it'll be cheaper if you order in quantity, so getting together with friends on a big order can save you a little money.
Taking Care of Mail-Order or Nursery Plants
The first thing to do when the plants arrive is to unwrap them. The onion plants develop a lot of heat when banded together, and heat encourages rot in onions. Next, put 1/2 inch of water in a shallow baking pan, and stick the roots in the water just enough to get their "toes" wet. They'll revive quickly. Plant your onions as soon as you can after receiving them. If you can't plant them within a few days, forget the bath. Put the unwrapped plants in plastic bags and store them in a cool, dry place until you can plant. The refrigerator is a good spot!
You can also "heel in" your transplants until you have time to plant them where they belong in the garden. Just dig a shallow trench out in the garden (or use a container), set the plants a couple of inches deep and firm the soil tightly around them. Soil in the spring is usually wet enough to keep the roots from drying out.
If any plants have a bad odor or are slimy or slick, they're probably rotting. Separate them from the others right away and throw them out. They won't make it in the garden.
Growing Your Own Transplants
There's a tremendous satisfaction in growing your own plants indoors for transplanting. For one thing you have the benefit of choosing from more varieties.
Buy your seeds early enough to start your plants anywhere from 8 to 16 weeks before the last hard frost in your area. Start the seeds in a 4-to 5-inch deep flat filled with very rich, sterile, loose soil. Sterile soil is free of weed seeds and harmful disease organisms, so the onion seeds have a better chance at the start. The various potting soil and starter mixes on the market are good, but mixing in extra fertilizer before you plant is a must. One or two tablespoons of 5-10-10 fertilizer added to every gallon of potting soil works fine for onions and other vegetables.
Sprinkle the seeds into the soil and gently press them into the soil. Try to space the seeds about 1/4 inch apart, but don't fuss about it. It's impossible to get them spaced exactly right, and you can always thin them if they get too close. After sowing, just barely cover the seed with a little more soil or sand and tamp it down.
Next, moisten the soil and cover the flat with a sheet of plastic and then some newspaper. The plastic creates a greenhouse effect retaining the moisture, and the newspaper keeps the temperature even. (Onion seeds don't need light to germinate.) You won't need to water again until you take off the newspaper or plastic.
Put the flats in a nice, warm spot around 65oF or 70oF if possible. (Don't worry too much about the temperature being exactly right. Onion seeds will germinate anywhere from 40oF to 80oF; they simply prefer a steady 65oF to 70oF.)
Don't put the flats on a window sill before the seedlings come up. The temperature there fluctuates too much: On a sunny day it can rise to 90oF or more, but at night it can be the coldest place in the house. That's not good for germination; onions need an even temperature.
When the seedlings sprout, remove the plastic and newspaper and put the flats by a window or under lights. They won't need too much attention. Just make sure they get enough water, and you should add a little fertilizer from time to time -- about a teaspoon in water every two weeks is good. Pour it around the edges of the flat so that the water spreads across the whole area.
In a few weeks, you'll notice the tiny plants getting tall and spindly. That can be a problem, unless you turn it into a plus. It's very important that your onion seedlings not fall over and get too skinny to transplant, so when they're three inches tall, cut them back to one inch. This is your first harvest! The trimmings are delicious in dips, salads, sandwiches or as a garnish. After you cut them, the plants will naturally produce more tops. When the tops reach three inches again, mow them back to one inch. As long as the plants are indoors, cut them back whenever they grow to three inches. With short tops the plants can put more energy into developing healthy roots, and that will help them get a good start when you put them in the ground. A few weeks before planting, stop trimming them. Top growth will be important outside.
Harvesting Onions
By: the Editors of National Gardening
There's never a time when onions aren't ready for harvesting. They can be picked and eaten at any stage. No matter how many onions you use during the season, though, it's nice to have a crop of big onions mature at the end of summer to store for the fall and winter months.
When to Harvest
You can always tell when onions have stopped growing. The leaves will lose their color, weaken at the top of the bulb and flop over. Each year a few new gardeners watch the leaves die and wonder, "What's wrong?" There's nothing wrong; it's Nature's plan. The leaves' job is done - they've put the last of their energy into the bulbs.
Let most of your onion tops fall over by themselves - maybe 80% or 90% of them - then bend over the rest of the tops. Once they're down, leave the bulbs in the ground for another 10 days to two weeks to mature fully. It's not good to leave the onions in the ground for longer than two weeks after the tops die because they become open to organisms that can cause rot in storage, or they might even start growing again.
Pull your onions up on a sunny day if you can, then let them sit in the sun for another day or so to dry (in hot climates this usually takes just a few hours). This drying kills the root system at the bottom of each bulb. The roots will be like little brittle wires when they're dry.
Picking the right day to pull the onions can determine how well the onions will keep. If you harvest them after some rainy weather they'll have a lot more moisture in them and won't dry out as well.
Curing
After drying the onions in the open for a day or so, it's time to bring them under cover for a second, longer drying or "curing" process.
Some people cut the tops off the onions before curing, but that's not strictly necessary. However, if you do trim the top leaves, don't cut them any closer than one inch from the bulb. Otherwise the neck won't dry out, and the onion could rot in storage.
To cure the onions, spread them out in any warm, airy place out of the sun, such as on a porch. If you find you have too many onions for your available porch space, try spreading them out near the edge of your driveway, covering them with a light cotton (not plastic) sheet to provide shade. The sheet, held in place by stones along the edge, keeps the sun from burning the bulbs but still allows a lot of air circulation. Turn the bulbs a couple of times to promote even drying.
Heavy coverings like canvas or plastic trap moisture inside, so the onions will never get really dry. With the sheet system you won't have to worry about a few scattered rains. The sheets and the onions dry out rapidly together after a shower.
You don't want any wet spots on the onions when you put them in storage, so cure them really well. This can take two to three weeks. After curing them, hang the onions in mesh bags in your garage and dry them some more before putting them in your root cellar. It doesn't take this long in the South, but wherever you live, the longer you cure your onions, the better they'll keep.
Curing Basics
Here are the basics of curing:
* Sun dry for just a short time.
* Cure just the onions you'll store; separate the soft, young and thick-necked bulbs and use them first.
* Cure thoroughly in a warm, well-ventilated area away from direct sun.
* Don't crowd onions during curing; give them room to breathe.
* Onions are ready to store when the skins rattle and the roots are dry and wiry.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Gardening Basics: Corn
Planning Your Corn Crop
By: National Gardening editors
If you've never grown corn before, check with a local farm or garden store, a neighbor who raises corn or your Cooperative Extension Service agent before you buy seeds. They can tell you what varieties do particularly well in your area, as well as some of the disease, pest or weather problems you may encounter.
Corn Varieties
When asking for advice, keep in mind that gardeners are often emotionally attached to their favorites. For instance, some people always plant Silver Queen corn, even though the first, creamy white ears won't be ready to harvest until fall. That waiting is part of what makes 'Silver Queen' special, and the long-awaited fall harvest is one of life's fine pleasures. Other people feel the same about 'Country Gentleman' or 'Stowell's Evergreen'.
Sweet corn varieties are usually grouped according to the length of their growing season. You can really extend your harvest by planting more than one group at the same time. The tassel time won't overlap, so you won't have to worry about cross-pollination between varieties.
Despite the preference for a particular type of corn, it's a lot of fun to try a new variety or two every year. However, although the latest hybrids often produce beautifully, watch the results of a few seasons before you depend on a new one for your main crop.
Common Sense and Cross-Pollination
You may come upon words of caution in a seed catalog or have had another gardener tell you to isolate certain types of corn to avoid cross-pollination. It's true that corn's dependence on the wind for pollination means you sometimes have to watch out for accidental mixing of different varieties, but in most home gardens this is a minor problem, if one at all.
The technical explanation for the way corn changes when it's pollinated by another variety has to do with recessive and dominant genes, plus a number of other factors. Luckily, you don't have to be a plant breeder to understand how to keep your garden corn from having an unwanted mix-up. You can just use common sense.
When one type of corn tassels - letting its pollen loose - that pollen can land on the silks of any corn in the immediate area. If only one variety of corn is silking at any given time, crossing cannot take place. This is usually the case in home gardens, where the varieties planted tend to have significantly different flowering and growing seasons.
If two similar varieties cross, the difference in the resulting ears may be unnoticeable. However, because of their genetic makeup, some types of corn suffer if they cross with a stronger or dominant variety.
What's a Home Gardener To Do
There are three instances where this can be a concern in the home garden. First, yellow corn is dominant over white. If a yellow and a white variety cross, the white corn could end up with some yellow kernels. Because it's dominant, yellow corn wouldn't be affected by the cross.
Second, both popcorn and field corn have genes that are dominant over sweet corn. If a cross takes place with either popcorn or field corn and sweet corn, the sweet corn is likely to be tough and starchy. Again, because they're dominant, popcorn or field corn wouldn't be affected by the cross.
Third, many of the genes for supersweet flavor are recessive, so they're affected by any corn that crosses with them. That's why the seed companies advise isolating these varieties.
Corn Isolation
Isolating just means preventing an unwanted cross, and you have a choice of ways to do this. All you have to do is prevent cross-pollination. Simply plan to keep different varieties of corn that enter the tassel and silk stage at the same time far enough apart that their pollens won't mix. The recommendations vary from 100 feet to 600 feet, depending on whom you ask. Naturally, the farther apart the better, but about 200 feet is fine unless you regularly experience very strong winds.
To isolate corn you can choose varieties with different days to maturity, or stagger plantings of varieties that have a similar number of days to maturity. Allow at least 10 days between plantings, and your crops shouldn't cross.
Another trick is to plant the dominant corn on the prevailing downwind side of any variety that will suffer if they cross. If you're not sure in which direction the prevailing winds blow in your area, check with your local weather service.
Some gardeners claim that planting a "fence" of two rows of tall sunflowers between corn varieties is enough to prevent cross-pollination. This works most of the time, because the odds are generally in your favor when it comes to accidental crossing.
Old Favorites
An open-pollinated corn variety is a nonhybrid or a strain that has grown for many generations without plant breeders' modifications. With the revived interest in heirlooms, many other varieties such as 'Country Gentleman', 'Golden Bantam', 'Stowell's Evergreen', and 'Ashworth' are becomming more readily available to home gardeners.
Open-pollinated corn grows just like its parent plants, so you can save the seed from one year to the next with good results. If you want to save the seeds of an open-pollinated variety, isolate the crop from other varieties, so there won't be an accidental mixing of pollens to affect the next generation.
Corn: Planting Basics
By: National Gardening editors
There's an old farmer's rhyme about planting corn seed: "One for the blackbird, one for the crow, one for the soil and one to grow."
Although it's not necessary to plant four times the amount of seed that you actually want to grow, a little extra doesn't hurt, if only to ensure good germination. As for the blackbird and the crow, they may be tough to beat in large cornfields, but there are a few ways to outwit them in the home garden.
Planting Methods
Once the seedbed is well worked and fertilized, you're ready to plant. There are two traditional ways to plant corn: three to five seeds grouped together in small circles, or "hills,"or spaced evenly down straight rows, one behind the other.
Many people find that planting corn in rows takes less time. There's usually less thinning needed, and it's easy to cultivate rows during the season. To plant in rows, stake each row the length you want and stretch a string along the ground to mark the planting line. Use the edge of a hoe or the end of its handle to draw a shallow furrow, one to two inches deep, along one side of the string. A handy way to fertilize the row at this time is to draw a second shallow furrow down the other side of the string. Sprinkle a band of fertilizer in this furrow. When it's time to cover the seeds, one pass with a hoe will cover the fertilizer at the same time.
How To Plant
To plant, just drop seeds into the planting furrow, spacing them 8 to 10 inches apart. Firm the seeds into the soil with the back of a hoe to keep the seeds in place. This allows good contact with the soil, which is important for germination.
Next, cover the seeds with one to 1 1/2 inches of soil. You can draw the hoe along the string to flatten the ridge of soil created by making the furrow. This automatically brings the planting and fertilizer furrows to ground level, covering the seeds and fertilizer with the right amount of soil. You can also cover corn seeds by raking one to 1 1/2 inches of soil over them, using soil from the edges of the furrow. Firm the soil one more time after covering.
Leave 24 to 36 inches between the rows for cultivation, and plant at least four rows for the best pollination. Many short rows will provide better pollination than just a few long ones. If you intend to weed and cultivate the corn rows with hand tools, you don't need as much room between the rows as you do if you plan to cultivate by machine.
Planting in Hills
To plant in hills, stake out the rows, but don't make the straight-line planting furrow. Instead, every 18 to 24 inches, use your hoe to draw a circular planting furrow, about six inches in diameter. Place a small handful of fertilizer to the side of the seeds and cover it. Plant three to five seeds in each circle. Firm the seeds, cover with one to 11/2 inches of soil and firm again.
If all the seeds in each hill come up, you'll have to thin out all but the two or three strongest or the seedlings will be too crowded. If you don't like to thin corn, don't plant in hills. However, plenty of gardeners don't mind hand thinning. Try planting both ways and decide for yourself.
Corn Care
By: the Editors of National Gardening
Corn doesn't need any more attention than other garden vegetables, but it's a crop that can take up a fair amount of time if you plant a lot. Make it easier by combining tasks. For instance, when you side-dress, pull any weeds you see, or side-dress at the same time you hill the rows.
Weed Control
Like any plant, corn produces better if it doesn't have to compete with weeds. It's especially important to keep weeds out when corn plants are young. Once the stems and leaves are established, they can tolerate weeds better. Plus, the stems and leaves of larger corn plants shade the soil somewhat to block out weeds.
Weed your corn every few weeks, starting before you even plant a seed. Work the soil several times before planting. This not only conditions the soil, it stirs up and kills tiny weed seeds lurking near the surface. It also buries some seeds so deeply that they never get a chance to sprout.
Once the corn is planted, scratch the surface of the planting bed every week or so with a weeding rake. When the corn is tall enough to be hilled, you'll automatically get rid of weeds by covering them with soil as you hill.
Hilling
Hilling is pulling up soil to mound it around the base of a plant. When you hill a young corn plant, the added soil around its stem helps support it as it grows taller. This protects it from being blown over in a strong wind. To really anchor plants, it's a good idea to hill corn every two to three weeks until the plants start to tassel.
Hilling also covers and smothers any weeds around the base of your corn plants. You might say you're creating a "soil mulch" around your plants. If dryness is a problem, extra soil helps the corn roots retain moisture.
You can hill with a hoe by scooping a few inches of soil from the walkways into loose mounds on both sides of the corn. If you want, you can hill your corn by machine, using a tiller with a special hilling attachment. This is both faster and easier than using a hoe, and it also does a uniform job.
Side-dressing
The more you feed corn, the more it will feed you, so side-dressing (a second dose of fertilizer that boosts growth) is a must with corn.
You can use any high-nitrogen fertilizer to side-dress corn, because nitrogen is the plant nutrient needed. A commercial fertilizer such as 10-10-10 works well, but you can also use well-composted or dehydrated manure, or commercial organic fertilizers like cottonseed meal.
Side-dress corn twice: when it's knee high and when it tassels. To side-dress, sprinkle a thin line of fertilizer or manure about four inches from the plants on both sides of each row of corn. To side-dress hill-planted corn, simply sprinkle fertilizer around each hill, about four inches away from the cornstalks. It often helps to make a shallow furrow first for either rows or hills. The furrow serves as a guide and the indentation helps the fertilizer stay put.
If you side-dress shortly before it rains, you're lucky. Otherwise, you should water, so the fertilizer leaches into the soil where it can be taken up by the corn roots.
Watering
Corn doesn't need more water than other vegetables. It just suffers more if the supply runs short. The plants are relatively tall and exposed to the wind and drying heat of summer, so they often "transpire" or give off moisture faster than their roots can take it up.
Corn's need for water is most critical from the time it tassels until the ears are ready for harvest. At this time, the plant is devoting all its energy to seed production, holding nothing in reserve for a dry spell.
During its growing season, corn needs at least an inch of water per week. If it has to go through a dry stretch, it may not produce well. Use a rain gauge to keep track of weekly rainfall. If your garden receives less than an inch of rain in a week, water.
When you water, water thoroughly. If you're using an overhead sprinkler, use your rain gauge to determine how long it takes to deliver an inch of water. Or, simply water until the soil feels moist three to five inches down, depending on your soil type. (Sandy soil absorbs water faster than clay.) One sign of too little water is the corn leaves curling or rolling. If you want healthy, sweet, well-filled ears, pay close attention to the weather at the tail end of the season and water if your corn needs it.
If you have the equipment, it's most efficient to water corn with a soaker or drip irrigation hose, or to use furrow irrigation. A soaker hose is made of a material such as perforated canvas that lets water seep out slowly. Drip irrigation has lines running straight to each plant that constantly drip a small amount of water to the roots. If you water directly from a hose or bucket into a furrow, it accomplishes the same beneficial watering at the base of the plant. With these watering methods, less water is lost to evaporation than if you use an overhead sprinkler. The water doesn't end up on the leaves of tall corn plants, instead it's near the roots where it's really needed.
Harvesting Corn
By: the Editors of National Gardening
Harvesting corn is a matter of picking the ears at peak flavor. Here's how to know when to harvest.
The Sweetness Factor
The prime harvest time for sweet corn passes quickly for most varieties except the supersweets, so gardeners need to know how to judge when to harvest to get the most from their crop.
Corn is ready to be picked as soon as the ears have completely filled out. This goes for sweet corn and roasting ears.You can tell when this happens by feeling the end of an ear. If it's rounded or blunt rather than pointed, the ears are ready. The silks also dry up when the ears are almost ready to be picked.
If you don't trust your judgment, you can pull back a bit of the husk and check to see if the ear looks well filled and the kernels are creamy yellow or white. Many gardening guides tell you to pierce a kernel with your thumb nail to test for ripeness. If the liquid inside is watery, that ear isn't quite ready. If the liquid is white or "milky," you're in business.
Although opening the husk is a fairly sure test, try not to do this. Once you open an immature ear, it's susceptible to insect and bird attacks as it continues to ripen. It usually takes only a little practice to become a good judge by feeling the ends of the ears.
Sweetness is the key, so it helps to understand what makes corn sweet and why timing is so important in your harvest. The plant manufactures natural sugars when the kernels are filling out. These kernels are seeds that each contain a natural food-storage compartment as well as the corn embryo. A seed can't store sugars, but it can live on stored starches throughout the winter months and in its early stages of growth the following season. As soon as the kernels are full of sugar, the plant begins to convert it into starch. For best flavor, harvest the corn before this change can take place.
The sweetness of corn depends on the variety, temperature and amount of sunlight during the day when the ears are forming. The plant makes the most sugar on cool, sunny days. If the temperature is too hot, the sugar-making process is slowed. That's why the long, crisp, sunny days of early fall produce the sweetest corn.
Time It Right
If you have a choice, it's a good idea to harvest corn as close to the time you're going to eat or use it as possible. In fact, you might want to have the water boiling for corn on the cob before you head out to harvest.
To harvest sweet corn, grab an ear and twist it down and off the stalk.
If you want the sweetest corn possible, try to harvest each ear at its peak. Keep in mind that the natural conversion of sugar into starch is speeded up when you harvest. The moment you pick an ear of sweet corn, its sugars start to change into starches because the natural goal is to nourish seed for reproduction. In 24 hours, most varieties convert more than half their sugar content to starch. However, the new supersweet varieties stay sweet much longer after harvest than the old standards.
The loss of sugar is much slower at lower temperatures, so refrigerate corn if you're not going to be able to eat it right away. If you're not near a refrigerator and you have some harvested corn, keep the freshly picked ears in single layers, rather than stacking them. Corn tends to overheat inside its tight husks, so give each ear as much breathing room as possible. It also helps to cover the ears with a damp cloth.
Supersweet varieties have been developed to slow down the conversion of the natural sugars into starch, which makes these varieties last longer on the stalk, and helps them retain their flavor for a few days once harvested. Many seed catalogs claim that supersweet types are twice as sweet at harvesttime as ordinary hybrids, and four times as sweet after 48 hours.
Some people prefer corn that's less sweet, with more texture in each kernel. They take advantage of the natural conversion process and don't harvest corn until it's somewhat doughy from the increased starch content. They may also wait a day or two to serve it after picking.
If you want to store corn over the winter or grind your own cornmeal, give it time to harden completely. This means it has passed through its entire carbohydrate production cycle. It will then contain such heavy starch that it will be too hard to bite and it will keep for many months in storage.
Popcorn Pointers
The only way that growing popcorn differs from growing sweet corn is at harvesttime, and popcorn is actually easier to harvest because you don't have to catch it at the peak of sweetness. Leave popcorn in the garden until the stalks and husks are brown and dry, then twist and snap each ear from the stalk. Do this before the frost hits. To prepare popcorn for indoor curing, carefully strip away the dried husk from each ear. The kernels will be partially dried or "cured," a necessity for long-term storage.
Besides drying on the stalks, popcorn requires another four to six weeks of thorough drying in a warm, well-ventilated place. Corn can't pop unless there's the right amount of moisture inside the kernel. When it's heated, the moisture turns to steam, which causes the kernel to burst.
Place the ears in mesh bags or spread them out in an area where they'll have warm air circulating around them. You can also hang mesh bags full of popcorn ears in your garage for about four weeks. After curing, hang the bags of corn from the rafters of your root cellar. The corn can keep for years in the cool, dry, dark conditions there.
After a month of curing, the kernels can be taken off the ears and stored in airtight jars. Whether you're removing the kernels before storage or just before popping, there's no real trick to it. Simply grasp the ear firmly in both hands and twist until the kernels drop out. Once started, the kernels drop off with very little pressure. However, beware of the sharply pointed kernels if you're using your bare hands. After two or three ears, you may have a few nicks and scratches. If you want to remove the kernels from a lot of ears, it might be a good idea to wear gloves.
Popcorn doesn't take much garden space for a sizable harvest. Each ear is loaded with tiny kernels come harvesttime, and three or four five-foot-long rows should be plenty. Many popcorn varieties produce one or two ears per plant, so you may have enough by growing just five or six plants.
Pop homegrown popcorn just as you would store-bought. Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a deep pot. Sprinkle in enough kernels to coat the bottom and cover the pot. If not, as soon as you hear the first kernel pop, shake the covered pot vigorously while the rest pop. Shaking prevents the kernels from burning, and the unpopped kernels stay on the bottom nearest the heat. If you're using a popcorn popper, follow the manufacturer's instructions.
When the popping stops, remove the pot from the heat and take off the lid to let the steam escape. The popcorn is ready. Enjoy it plain, or add your favorite topping.
By: National Gardening editors
If you've never grown corn before, check with a local farm or garden store, a neighbor who raises corn or your Cooperative Extension Service agent before you buy seeds. They can tell you what varieties do particularly well in your area, as well as some of the disease, pest or weather problems you may encounter.
Corn Varieties
When asking for advice, keep in mind that gardeners are often emotionally attached to their favorites. For instance, some people always plant Silver Queen corn, even though the first, creamy white ears won't be ready to harvest until fall. That waiting is part of what makes 'Silver Queen' special, and the long-awaited fall harvest is one of life's fine pleasures. Other people feel the same about 'Country Gentleman' or 'Stowell's Evergreen'.
Sweet corn varieties are usually grouped according to the length of their growing season. You can really extend your harvest by planting more than one group at the same time. The tassel time won't overlap, so you won't have to worry about cross-pollination between varieties.
Despite the preference for a particular type of corn, it's a lot of fun to try a new variety or two every year. However, although the latest hybrids often produce beautifully, watch the results of a few seasons before you depend on a new one for your main crop.
Common Sense and Cross-Pollination
You may come upon words of caution in a seed catalog or have had another gardener tell you to isolate certain types of corn to avoid cross-pollination. It's true that corn's dependence on the wind for pollination means you sometimes have to watch out for accidental mixing of different varieties, but in most home gardens this is a minor problem, if one at all.
The technical explanation for the way corn changes when it's pollinated by another variety has to do with recessive and dominant genes, plus a number of other factors. Luckily, you don't have to be a plant breeder to understand how to keep your garden corn from having an unwanted mix-up. You can just use common sense.
When one type of corn tassels - letting its pollen loose - that pollen can land on the silks of any corn in the immediate area. If only one variety of corn is silking at any given time, crossing cannot take place. This is usually the case in home gardens, where the varieties planted tend to have significantly different flowering and growing seasons.
If two similar varieties cross, the difference in the resulting ears may be unnoticeable. However, because of their genetic makeup, some types of corn suffer if they cross with a stronger or dominant variety.
What's a Home Gardener To Do
There are three instances where this can be a concern in the home garden. First, yellow corn is dominant over white. If a yellow and a white variety cross, the white corn could end up with some yellow kernels. Because it's dominant, yellow corn wouldn't be affected by the cross.
Second, both popcorn and field corn have genes that are dominant over sweet corn. If a cross takes place with either popcorn or field corn and sweet corn, the sweet corn is likely to be tough and starchy. Again, because they're dominant, popcorn or field corn wouldn't be affected by the cross.
Third, many of the genes for supersweet flavor are recessive, so they're affected by any corn that crosses with them. That's why the seed companies advise isolating these varieties.
Corn Isolation
Isolating just means preventing an unwanted cross, and you have a choice of ways to do this. All you have to do is prevent cross-pollination. Simply plan to keep different varieties of corn that enter the tassel and silk stage at the same time far enough apart that their pollens won't mix. The recommendations vary from 100 feet to 600 feet, depending on whom you ask. Naturally, the farther apart the better, but about 200 feet is fine unless you regularly experience very strong winds.
To isolate corn you can choose varieties with different days to maturity, or stagger plantings of varieties that have a similar number of days to maturity. Allow at least 10 days between plantings, and your crops shouldn't cross.
Another trick is to plant the dominant corn on the prevailing downwind side of any variety that will suffer if they cross. If you're not sure in which direction the prevailing winds blow in your area, check with your local weather service.
Some gardeners claim that planting a "fence" of two rows of tall sunflowers between corn varieties is enough to prevent cross-pollination. This works most of the time, because the odds are generally in your favor when it comes to accidental crossing.
Old Favorites
An open-pollinated corn variety is a nonhybrid or a strain that has grown for many generations without plant breeders' modifications. With the revived interest in heirlooms, many other varieties such as 'Country Gentleman', 'Golden Bantam', 'Stowell's Evergreen', and 'Ashworth' are becomming more readily available to home gardeners.
Open-pollinated corn grows just like its parent plants, so you can save the seed from one year to the next with good results. If you want to save the seeds of an open-pollinated variety, isolate the crop from other varieties, so there won't be an accidental mixing of pollens to affect the next generation.
Corn: Planting Basics
By: National Gardening editors
There's an old farmer's rhyme about planting corn seed: "One for the blackbird, one for the crow, one for the soil and one to grow."
Although it's not necessary to plant four times the amount of seed that you actually want to grow, a little extra doesn't hurt, if only to ensure good germination. As for the blackbird and the crow, they may be tough to beat in large cornfields, but there are a few ways to outwit them in the home garden.
Planting Methods
Once the seedbed is well worked and fertilized, you're ready to plant. There are two traditional ways to plant corn: three to five seeds grouped together in small circles, or "hills,"or spaced evenly down straight rows, one behind the other.
Many people find that planting corn in rows takes less time. There's usually less thinning needed, and it's easy to cultivate rows during the season. To plant in rows, stake each row the length you want and stretch a string along the ground to mark the planting line. Use the edge of a hoe or the end of its handle to draw a shallow furrow, one to two inches deep, along one side of the string. A handy way to fertilize the row at this time is to draw a second shallow furrow down the other side of the string. Sprinkle a band of fertilizer in this furrow. When it's time to cover the seeds, one pass with a hoe will cover the fertilizer at the same time.
How To Plant
To plant, just drop seeds into the planting furrow, spacing them 8 to 10 inches apart. Firm the seeds into the soil with the back of a hoe to keep the seeds in place. This allows good contact with the soil, which is important for germination.
Next, cover the seeds with one to 1 1/2 inches of soil. You can draw the hoe along the string to flatten the ridge of soil created by making the furrow. This automatically brings the planting and fertilizer furrows to ground level, covering the seeds and fertilizer with the right amount of soil. You can also cover corn seeds by raking one to 1 1/2 inches of soil over them, using soil from the edges of the furrow. Firm the soil one more time after covering.
Leave 24 to 36 inches between the rows for cultivation, and plant at least four rows for the best pollination. Many short rows will provide better pollination than just a few long ones. If you intend to weed and cultivate the corn rows with hand tools, you don't need as much room between the rows as you do if you plan to cultivate by machine.
Planting in Hills
To plant in hills, stake out the rows, but don't make the straight-line planting furrow. Instead, every 18 to 24 inches, use your hoe to draw a circular planting furrow, about six inches in diameter. Place a small handful of fertilizer to the side of the seeds and cover it. Plant three to five seeds in each circle. Firm the seeds, cover with one to 11/2 inches of soil and firm again.
If all the seeds in each hill come up, you'll have to thin out all but the two or three strongest or the seedlings will be too crowded. If you don't like to thin corn, don't plant in hills. However, plenty of gardeners don't mind hand thinning. Try planting both ways and decide for yourself.
Corn Care
By: the Editors of National Gardening
Corn doesn't need any more attention than other garden vegetables, but it's a crop that can take up a fair amount of time if you plant a lot. Make it easier by combining tasks. For instance, when you side-dress, pull any weeds you see, or side-dress at the same time you hill the rows.
Weed Control
Like any plant, corn produces better if it doesn't have to compete with weeds. It's especially important to keep weeds out when corn plants are young. Once the stems and leaves are established, they can tolerate weeds better. Plus, the stems and leaves of larger corn plants shade the soil somewhat to block out weeds.
Weed your corn every few weeks, starting before you even plant a seed. Work the soil several times before planting. This not only conditions the soil, it stirs up and kills tiny weed seeds lurking near the surface. It also buries some seeds so deeply that they never get a chance to sprout.
Once the corn is planted, scratch the surface of the planting bed every week or so with a weeding rake. When the corn is tall enough to be hilled, you'll automatically get rid of weeds by covering them with soil as you hill.
Hilling
Hilling is pulling up soil to mound it around the base of a plant. When you hill a young corn plant, the added soil around its stem helps support it as it grows taller. This protects it from being blown over in a strong wind. To really anchor plants, it's a good idea to hill corn every two to three weeks until the plants start to tassel.
Hilling also covers and smothers any weeds around the base of your corn plants. You might say you're creating a "soil mulch" around your plants. If dryness is a problem, extra soil helps the corn roots retain moisture.
You can hill with a hoe by scooping a few inches of soil from the walkways into loose mounds on both sides of the corn. If you want, you can hill your corn by machine, using a tiller with a special hilling attachment. This is both faster and easier than using a hoe, and it also does a uniform job.
Side-dressing
The more you feed corn, the more it will feed you, so side-dressing (a second dose of fertilizer that boosts growth) is a must with corn.
You can use any high-nitrogen fertilizer to side-dress corn, because nitrogen is the plant nutrient needed. A commercial fertilizer such as 10-10-10 works well, but you can also use well-composted or dehydrated manure, or commercial organic fertilizers like cottonseed meal.
Side-dress corn twice: when it's knee high and when it tassels. To side-dress, sprinkle a thin line of fertilizer or manure about four inches from the plants on both sides of each row of corn. To side-dress hill-planted corn, simply sprinkle fertilizer around each hill, about four inches away from the cornstalks. It often helps to make a shallow furrow first for either rows or hills. The furrow serves as a guide and the indentation helps the fertilizer stay put.
If you side-dress shortly before it rains, you're lucky. Otherwise, you should water, so the fertilizer leaches into the soil where it can be taken up by the corn roots.
Watering
Corn doesn't need more water than other vegetables. It just suffers more if the supply runs short. The plants are relatively tall and exposed to the wind and drying heat of summer, so they often "transpire" or give off moisture faster than their roots can take it up.
Corn's need for water is most critical from the time it tassels until the ears are ready for harvest. At this time, the plant is devoting all its energy to seed production, holding nothing in reserve for a dry spell.
During its growing season, corn needs at least an inch of water per week. If it has to go through a dry stretch, it may not produce well. Use a rain gauge to keep track of weekly rainfall. If your garden receives less than an inch of rain in a week, water.
When you water, water thoroughly. If you're using an overhead sprinkler, use your rain gauge to determine how long it takes to deliver an inch of water. Or, simply water until the soil feels moist three to five inches down, depending on your soil type. (Sandy soil absorbs water faster than clay.) One sign of too little water is the corn leaves curling or rolling. If you want healthy, sweet, well-filled ears, pay close attention to the weather at the tail end of the season and water if your corn needs it.
If you have the equipment, it's most efficient to water corn with a soaker or drip irrigation hose, or to use furrow irrigation. A soaker hose is made of a material such as perforated canvas that lets water seep out slowly. Drip irrigation has lines running straight to each plant that constantly drip a small amount of water to the roots. If you water directly from a hose or bucket into a furrow, it accomplishes the same beneficial watering at the base of the plant. With these watering methods, less water is lost to evaporation than if you use an overhead sprinkler. The water doesn't end up on the leaves of tall corn plants, instead it's near the roots where it's really needed.
Harvesting Corn
By: the Editors of National Gardening
Harvesting corn is a matter of picking the ears at peak flavor. Here's how to know when to harvest.
The Sweetness Factor
The prime harvest time for sweet corn passes quickly for most varieties except the supersweets, so gardeners need to know how to judge when to harvest to get the most from their crop.
Corn is ready to be picked as soon as the ears have completely filled out. This goes for sweet corn and roasting ears.You can tell when this happens by feeling the end of an ear. If it's rounded or blunt rather than pointed, the ears are ready. The silks also dry up when the ears are almost ready to be picked.
If you don't trust your judgment, you can pull back a bit of the husk and check to see if the ear looks well filled and the kernels are creamy yellow or white. Many gardening guides tell you to pierce a kernel with your thumb nail to test for ripeness. If the liquid inside is watery, that ear isn't quite ready. If the liquid is white or "milky," you're in business.
Although opening the husk is a fairly sure test, try not to do this. Once you open an immature ear, it's susceptible to insect and bird attacks as it continues to ripen. It usually takes only a little practice to become a good judge by feeling the ends of the ears.
Sweetness is the key, so it helps to understand what makes corn sweet and why timing is so important in your harvest. The plant manufactures natural sugars when the kernels are filling out. These kernels are seeds that each contain a natural food-storage compartment as well as the corn embryo. A seed can't store sugars, but it can live on stored starches throughout the winter months and in its early stages of growth the following season. As soon as the kernels are full of sugar, the plant begins to convert it into starch. For best flavor, harvest the corn before this change can take place.
The sweetness of corn depends on the variety, temperature and amount of sunlight during the day when the ears are forming. The plant makes the most sugar on cool, sunny days. If the temperature is too hot, the sugar-making process is slowed. That's why the long, crisp, sunny days of early fall produce the sweetest corn.
Time It Right
If you have a choice, it's a good idea to harvest corn as close to the time you're going to eat or use it as possible. In fact, you might want to have the water boiling for corn on the cob before you head out to harvest.
To harvest sweet corn, grab an ear and twist it down and off the stalk.
If you want the sweetest corn possible, try to harvest each ear at its peak. Keep in mind that the natural conversion of sugar into starch is speeded up when you harvest. The moment you pick an ear of sweet corn, its sugars start to change into starches because the natural goal is to nourish seed for reproduction. In 24 hours, most varieties convert more than half their sugar content to starch. However, the new supersweet varieties stay sweet much longer after harvest than the old standards.
The loss of sugar is much slower at lower temperatures, so refrigerate corn if you're not going to be able to eat it right away. If you're not near a refrigerator and you have some harvested corn, keep the freshly picked ears in single layers, rather than stacking them. Corn tends to overheat inside its tight husks, so give each ear as much breathing room as possible. It also helps to cover the ears with a damp cloth.
Supersweet varieties have been developed to slow down the conversion of the natural sugars into starch, which makes these varieties last longer on the stalk, and helps them retain their flavor for a few days once harvested. Many seed catalogs claim that supersweet types are twice as sweet at harvesttime as ordinary hybrids, and four times as sweet after 48 hours.
Some people prefer corn that's less sweet, with more texture in each kernel. They take advantage of the natural conversion process and don't harvest corn until it's somewhat doughy from the increased starch content. They may also wait a day or two to serve it after picking.
If you want to store corn over the winter or grind your own cornmeal, give it time to harden completely. This means it has passed through its entire carbohydrate production cycle. It will then contain such heavy starch that it will be too hard to bite and it will keep for many months in storage.
Popcorn Pointers
The only way that growing popcorn differs from growing sweet corn is at harvesttime, and popcorn is actually easier to harvest because you don't have to catch it at the peak of sweetness. Leave popcorn in the garden until the stalks and husks are brown and dry, then twist and snap each ear from the stalk. Do this before the frost hits. To prepare popcorn for indoor curing, carefully strip away the dried husk from each ear. The kernels will be partially dried or "cured," a necessity for long-term storage.
Besides drying on the stalks, popcorn requires another four to six weeks of thorough drying in a warm, well-ventilated place. Corn can't pop unless there's the right amount of moisture inside the kernel. When it's heated, the moisture turns to steam, which causes the kernel to burst.
Place the ears in mesh bags or spread them out in an area where they'll have warm air circulating around them. You can also hang mesh bags full of popcorn ears in your garage for about four weeks. After curing, hang the bags of corn from the rafters of your root cellar. The corn can keep for years in the cool, dry, dark conditions there.
After a month of curing, the kernels can be taken off the ears and stored in airtight jars. Whether you're removing the kernels before storage or just before popping, there's no real trick to it. Simply grasp the ear firmly in both hands and twist until the kernels drop out. Once started, the kernels drop off with very little pressure. However, beware of the sharply pointed kernels if you're using your bare hands. After two or three ears, you may have a few nicks and scratches. If you want to remove the kernels from a lot of ears, it might be a good idea to wear gloves.
Popcorn doesn't take much garden space for a sizable harvest. Each ear is loaded with tiny kernels come harvesttime, and three or four five-foot-long rows should be plenty. Many popcorn varieties produce one or two ears per plant, so you may have enough by growing just five or six plants.
Pop homegrown popcorn just as you would store-bought. Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a deep pot. Sprinkle in enough kernels to coat the bottom and cover the pot. If not, as soon as you hear the first kernel pop, shake the covered pot vigorously while the rest pop. Shaking prevents the kernels from burning, and the unpopped kernels stay on the bottom nearest the heat. If you're using a popcorn popper, follow the manufacturer's instructions.
When the popping stops, remove the pot from the heat and take off the lid to let the steam escape. The popcorn is ready. Enjoy it plain, or add your favorite topping.
Gardening Basics: Beans
How Beans Grow
If you've ever walked by containers of bulk seed in a garden store, you may have been surprised by the many different colors, sizes and shapes of the beans -- even by the variety of designs on the seed coats and their descriptive names: 'Soldier', 'Wren's Egg', 'Yellow Eye', 'Black Eye', and others.
Maybe you were impressed, too, with how big some of these seeds are. Underneath the large, hard seed coat is an embryo, a tiny plant ready to spring to life. When you plant a bean seed, the right amount of water, oxygen and a warm temperature (65oF to 75oF) will help it break through its seed coat and push its way up through the soil.
The Seed of Life
Most of the energy the young plant needs is stored within the seed. In fact, there's enough food to nourish bean plants until the first true leaves appear without using any fertilizer at all.
As the tender, young beans come up, they must push pairs of folded seed leaves (or cotyledons) through the soil and spread them above the ground. Beans also quickly send down a tap root, the first of a network of roots that will anchor the plants as they grow. Most of the roots are in the top eight inches of soil, and many are quite close to the surface.
What Beans Need
Beans need plenty of sunlight to develop properly. If the plants are shaded for an extended part of the day, they'll be tall and weak. They'll be forced to stretch upward for more light, and they won't have the energy to produce as many beans.
The bean plant produces nice, showy flowers, and within each one is everything that's necessary for pollination, fertilization and beans. Pollination of bean flowers doesn't require much outside assistance -- a bit of wind, the occasional visit from a bee, and the job is done. After fertilization occurs, the slender bean pods emerge and quickly expand. Once this happens, the harvest isn't far off.
Although beans love sun, too much heat reduces production. Bean plants, like all other vegetables, have a temperature range that suits them best: They prefer 70oF to 80oF after germinating. When the daytime temperature is consistently over 85oF, most beans tend to lose their blossoms. That's why many types of beans don't thrive in the South or Southwest in the middle of the summer -- it's simply too hot.
Beans don't take to cold weather very well, either. Only Broad or Fava beans can take any frost at all. Other types must be planted when the danger of frost has passed and the soil has warmed up.
Wide Row Planting for Beans
For years, many gardeners have planted their bush bean seeds in single-file, straight-line rows with lots of room between the rows. However, some gardeners consider this method a waste of valuable growing space and not the most productive way to grow beans.
Instead, these gardeners use a wide-row technique that allows them to double and sometimes even triple their bean crops. With this method, you simply spread seeds over a wide seedbed, instead of putting one seed behind another in a row. The wide area contains many more plants than a single row of the same length, so you can harvest much more from the same area.
A row 16 to 18 inches across - about the width of a rake head - is very easy to plant, care for and harvest. With a little wide-row experience, you may want to try even wider rows.
Why Wide-Row?
The advantages to wide-row growing are many.
* You can grow two to four times as many beans in the same amount of space.
* Weeding is reduced to a minimum. As the beans grow, their leaves group together and form a "living mulch," which blocks the sun, inhibiting weed growth.
* Many gardeners spread mulch - organic matter such as hay, pine needles or leaves - around all their plants in the garden to fight weeds and retain moisture in the soil. Wide rows mulch themselves, so you only need to use small amounts of mulch to keep weeds down in the walkways and to help retain moisture. You'll also have fewer walkways using wide rows, so you really can save a lot of space, effort and mulch.
* Moisture is conserved by the shade because the sun can't scorch the soil and dry it out as much. Moist soil stays cooler, so beans in very hot climates don't wither as much or stop producing as quickly.
* The plants in the middle of the rows are protected from the full effects of hot, drying winds. They don't dry out rapidly like those in a single row. This can be especially important in water-short areas of the country.
* Harvesting is easier with wide rows. You can pick much more without having to continually get up and move down the row. It's pleasant to take a stool into the garden, sit down and enjoy picking beans by the bushel.
How to Plant Wide-Row Bush Beans
Prepare the soil. Using a steel garden rake, smooth out the seedbed. Be careful not to pack the seedbed down by stepping on it. Do all your work from the walkway beside the row. If the soil is dry, wait to water until after planting. If you water before, you pack the soil down.
Stake out a row 15 to 18 inches wide (or wider if you like) and whatever length you want. Drop the seeds three to four inches apart from each other in all directions in the row. One two-ounce package of snap beans covers roughly 10 feet of rake-width row. Firm the seeds into the soil with the back of a hoe, and cover the seeds with about an inch of soil. Using a rake, pull the soil from the side of the row and smooth it evenly over the seeds. Firm the soil again with the back of a hoe.
Leave a path or walkway wide enough to walk on once the plants have grown and spread out. You'll need at least 16 inches, and more if your cultivator or tiller is wider.
Remember, wide rows work well for all beans except the pole varieties.
Single Row Method
Single row is another planting method to use. The best way to plant a single row is to make a shallow furrow with a hoe. Drop in a bean seed every three to four inches, cover the furrow with one inch of soil and then firm it. A two-ounce packet of bush snap bean seeds sows a single row 30 to 40 feet long.
Double Row Method
Make two shallow furrows four to five inches apart, and plant in the same manner as for a single row. This arrangement is especially handy if you need to irrigate regularly. You can put a soaker hose - a kind of garden hose with tiny holes in it - between the two rows and water the plants quite efficiently.
Another easy irrigating system with the double-row system is to dig an additional shallow furrow in between the two seed rows. Make this channel when you're planting the beans. To water the beans, simply run water down the channel between the two rows of plants.
Using Raised Beds
If you garden where it's very rainy, if your soil stays damp or if you have clay soil, planting in raised beds is a good idea because the soil drains better. Good drainage helps to prevent diseases and warms the soil more quickly early in the season.
Try to build up the seedbed four to six inches above the walkway. To get the most for your extra effort, plant a wide row or at least a double row to guarantee a plentiful harvest.
Caring For & Harvesting Beans
Once you've planted beans, you can relax because growing them is easy. They grow very well all by themselves, and that's one of the prime reasons they're so popular with home gardeners. To have a satisfactory bean harvest the two most important things are to stay out of the garden when it's wet to avoid spreading diseases, and to keep picking snap beans when they're young for a continuous harvest.
Weeding Fundamentals
The third important thing is to be careful when weeding. Beans grow quickly and shade out weeds, particularly if the beans are grown in wide rows. If you've prepared the soil well, your weed worries will be few. The only time to be concerned is when beans are very young, before they've developed their leafy shade.
If you're working around young bean plants with a hoe or other weeding tool, or if you're cultivating between rows, remember to stay near the surface. Weed seeds are tiny and must be very close to the surface to germinate -- not like beans, which are planted at least one inch deep. A gentle stirring of the top 1/4 inch of soil every 4 to 5 days pulls the germinating weeds out of the soil and exposes their roots to the sun, which kills them.
Shallow is Better
Deep cultivation is bad for two reasons: It injures the roots of the beans, and it brings more weeds up near the surface of the soil where they'll germinate. A good time to cultivate is after a rain but when the plants are completely dry and the soil has dried out a little. This is when many weeds start to germinate.
Once the bean leaves grow enough to shade the ground, there shouldn't be any weed problem within the row, and a good heavy mulch or regular cultivation in the pathways should take care of weeds there.
Harvest Time
It's best to harvest snap beans when they're just about the diameter of a pencil or even a bit smaller. Simply snap them off the plant - take care, though, because hard jerking may tear the vines, reducing later harvests.
Pick'em Young
For the best flavor and nutritional value pick snap beans when they're young and tender. You really can't overharvest snap beans. When you pick the pods, you encourage more blossoms and more pods. That's because the plant is trying to produce large, mature seeds to complete its life cycle. When it succeeds in producing seeds, the plant will stop blossoming and making pods, so keep picking.
After your first picking, you can probably pick again three to five days later. Just pick, pick, pick, and in order to keep the harvest going as long as possible, don't let any seeds develop inside the pods.
Picking Green Shell Beans
When shell beans are young, they're greenish. They begin turning color when they're ready for picking at the green shell stage. 'Horticultural' beans turn a strawberry roan color, 'Kidney' beans become red and limas mature to a creamy white color. When you pick them, pick only the pods without damaging the plants.
Picking Dried Shell Beans
By: the Editors of National Gardening
It's easy to produce dry, mature shell beans for winter storage. In warm parts of the country, the beans and pods will mature and dry very well right in the garden. In the North, it's cool and sometimes wet in fall, so the beans often require additional drying. Pull up the plants and pile them around a fence post, roots to the post (like spokes in a wheel), to dry them some more. If you're having a wet fall, hang the plants from rafters in your garage or your attic. Anywhere that's airy and relatively dry will do. You can hang the plants themselves or put them in burlap or mesh bags. It's easy to tell when the beans are dry: They're so hard, biting into one won't even make a dent.
Threshing
Threshing by hand sounds like an old-fashioned chore, but it's simply the removal of the beans from the pods once the beans are dry. To thresh, take some of the plants by the roots - pods, beans and all - and whack them back and forth inside a clean trash can. The dry pods shatter, and the beans drop into the can. Toss the threshed plants aside and pick up the next bunch.
There are other ways to thresh beans, too. A fun method is to put the plants, again pods and all, in a big burlap or cloth bag. Then get a bunch of kids to walk and jump on the bag for a few minutes. Roll the bag over, and let them jump some more. Because the beans are dry and hard, the kids won't hurt them a bit. You can also let them have a good time hitting the bag with a baseball bat. Then open the bag, vigorously shake the plants to make sure all the beans are out of the pods, and remove the plants. You'll just have beans and small bits of debris, or chaff, in the bag. Alternately, you can cut off a small corner of the bag and let the beans drop out, leaving the plants inside.
Old-timers used to thresh beans with a homemade bean flail. The flail was made of two wooden sticks (one short, one long) hitched together at one end by a leather strap. They gripped the long stick and whirled the short one against a pile of dried bean plants laid out on a sheet of canvas on the floor of a barn. It was important to hold onto the long handle and use the shorter one to flail. The short stick couldn't whirl back and rap one's knuckles. After flailing awhile, you lifted the plants with a hay fork, shook them and then tossed them aside for the compost heap, leaving behind a pile of beans and chaff.
Winnowing
Once you've threshed the beans, you need to separate out the chaff, and that's called winnowing.
On a windy day, take a basket of beans - chaff and all - and, holding it up high, pour the beans slowly into an empty basket on the ground. Repeat this a few times. The wind will blow all the chaff away as the beans fall. (It's a good idea to put a sheet under the basket on the ground to catch any beans that miss or bounce out.)
If you have a friend to help you winnow, spread the beans and chaff on a spare window screen outside on a windy day. When the two of you lightly jiggle and shake the frame, the chaff will blow away, leaving only the beans.
Sorting
The final step before storing shell beans is sorting. It's important to remove the discolored, immature and misshapen beans from the good ones, because the bad ones could affect the taste.
An easy way to sort beans is to spread a white sheet over the kitchen table and pour the beans onto the sheet. The sheet makes it easy to roll the beans around, allowing you to check them carefully. Using this technique it's especially easy to spot bad white beans. Sorting is a chore, but if you enlist a friend to help, it can also be a time for a chat.
Dry beans will keep well in tightly capped, airtight containers, stored in a cool, dry, dark spot.
If you've ever walked by containers of bulk seed in a garden store, you may have been surprised by the many different colors, sizes and shapes of the beans -- even by the variety of designs on the seed coats and their descriptive names: 'Soldier', 'Wren's Egg', 'Yellow Eye', 'Black Eye', and others.
Maybe you were impressed, too, with how big some of these seeds are. Underneath the large, hard seed coat is an embryo, a tiny plant ready to spring to life. When you plant a bean seed, the right amount of water, oxygen and a warm temperature (65oF to 75oF) will help it break through its seed coat and push its way up through the soil.
The Seed of Life
Most of the energy the young plant needs is stored within the seed. In fact, there's enough food to nourish bean plants until the first true leaves appear without using any fertilizer at all.
As the tender, young beans come up, they must push pairs of folded seed leaves (or cotyledons) through the soil and spread them above the ground. Beans also quickly send down a tap root, the first of a network of roots that will anchor the plants as they grow. Most of the roots are in the top eight inches of soil, and many are quite close to the surface.
What Beans Need
Beans need plenty of sunlight to develop properly. If the plants are shaded for an extended part of the day, they'll be tall and weak. They'll be forced to stretch upward for more light, and they won't have the energy to produce as many beans.
The bean plant produces nice, showy flowers, and within each one is everything that's necessary for pollination, fertilization and beans. Pollination of bean flowers doesn't require much outside assistance -- a bit of wind, the occasional visit from a bee, and the job is done. After fertilization occurs, the slender bean pods emerge and quickly expand. Once this happens, the harvest isn't far off.
Although beans love sun, too much heat reduces production. Bean plants, like all other vegetables, have a temperature range that suits them best: They prefer 70oF to 80oF after germinating. When the daytime temperature is consistently over 85oF, most beans tend to lose their blossoms. That's why many types of beans don't thrive in the South or Southwest in the middle of the summer -- it's simply too hot.
Beans don't take to cold weather very well, either. Only Broad or Fava beans can take any frost at all. Other types must be planted when the danger of frost has passed and the soil has warmed up.
Wide Row Planting for Beans
For years, many gardeners have planted their bush bean seeds in single-file, straight-line rows with lots of room between the rows. However, some gardeners consider this method a waste of valuable growing space and not the most productive way to grow beans.
Instead, these gardeners use a wide-row technique that allows them to double and sometimes even triple their bean crops. With this method, you simply spread seeds over a wide seedbed, instead of putting one seed behind another in a row. The wide area contains many more plants than a single row of the same length, so you can harvest much more from the same area.
A row 16 to 18 inches across - about the width of a rake head - is very easy to plant, care for and harvest. With a little wide-row experience, you may want to try even wider rows.
Why Wide-Row?
The advantages to wide-row growing are many.
* You can grow two to four times as many beans in the same amount of space.
* Weeding is reduced to a minimum. As the beans grow, their leaves group together and form a "living mulch," which blocks the sun, inhibiting weed growth.
* Many gardeners spread mulch - organic matter such as hay, pine needles or leaves - around all their plants in the garden to fight weeds and retain moisture in the soil. Wide rows mulch themselves, so you only need to use small amounts of mulch to keep weeds down in the walkways and to help retain moisture. You'll also have fewer walkways using wide rows, so you really can save a lot of space, effort and mulch.
* Moisture is conserved by the shade because the sun can't scorch the soil and dry it out as much. Moist soil stays cooler, so beans in very hot climates don't wither as much or stop producing as quickly.
* The plants in the middle of the rows are protected from the full effects of hot, drying winds. They don't dry out rapidly like those in a single row. This can be especially important in water-short areas of the country.
* Harvesting is easier with wide rows. You can pick much more without having to continually get up and move down the row. It's pleasant to take a stool into the garden, sit down and enjoy picking beans by the bushel.
How to Plant Wide-Row Bush Beans
Prepare the soil. Using a steel garden rake, smooth out the seedbed. Be careful not to pack the seedbed down by stepping on it. Do all your work from the walkway beside the row. If the soil is dry, wait to water until after planting. If you water before, you pack the soil down.
Stake out a row 15 to 18 inches wide (or wider if you like) and whatever length you want. Drop the seeds three to four inches apart from each other in all directions in the row. One two-ounce package of snap beans covers roughly 10 feet of rake-width row. Firm the seeds into the soil with the back of a hoe, and cover the seeds with about an inch of soil. Using a rake, pull the soil from the side of the row and smooth it evenly over the seeds. Firm the soil again with the back of a hoe.
Leave a path or walkway wide enough to walk on once the plants have grown and spread out. You'll need at least 16 inches, and more if your cultivator or tiller is wider.
Remember, wide rows work well for all beans except the pole varieties.
Single Row Method
Single row is another planting method to use. The best way to plant a single row is to make a shallow furrow with a hoe. Drop in a bean seed every three to four inches, cover the furrow with one inch of soil and then firm it. A two-ounce packet of bush snap bean seeds sows a single row 30 to 40 feet long.
Double Row Method
Make two shallow furrows four to five inches apart, and plant in the same manner as for a single row. This arrangement is especially handy if you need to irrigate regularly. You can put a soaker hose - a kind of garden hose with tiny holes in it - between the two rows and water the plants quite efficiently.
Another easy irrigating system with the double-row system is to dig an additional shallow furrow in between the two seed rows. Make this channel when you're planting the beans. To water the beans, simply run water down the channel between the two rows of plants.
Using Raised Beds
If you garden where it's very rainy, if your soil stays damp or if you have clay soil, planting in raised beds is a good idea because the soil drains better. Good drainage helps to prevent diseases and warms the soil more quickly early in the season.
Try to build up the seedbed four to six inches above the walkway. To get the most for your extra effort, plant a wide row or at least a double row to guarantee a plentiful harvest.
Caring For & Harvesting Beans
Once you've planted beans, you can relax because growing them is easy. They grow very well all by themselves, and that's one of the prime reasons they're so popular with home gardeners. To have a satisfactory bean harvest the two most important things are to stay out of the garden when it's wet to avoid spreading diseases, and to keep picking snap beans when they're young for a continuous harvest.
Weeding Fundamentals
The third important thing is to be careful when weeding. Beans grow quickly and shade out weeds, particularly if the beans are grown in wide rows. If you've prepared the soil well, your weed worries will be few. The only time to be concerned is when beans are very young, before they've developed their leafy shade.
If you're working around young bean plants with a hoe or other weeding tool, or if you're cultivating between rows, remember to stay near the surface. Weed seeds are tiny and must be very close to the surface to germinate -- not like beans, which are planted at least one inch deep. A gentle stirring of the top 1/4 inch of soil every 4 to 5 days pulls the germinating weeds out of the soil and exposes their roots to the sun, which kills them.
Shallow is Better
Deep cultivation is bad for two reasons: It injures the roots of the beans, and it brings more weeds up near the surface of the soil where they'll germinate. A good time to cultivate is after a rain but when the plants are completely dry and the soil has dried out a little. This is when many weeds start to germinate.
Once the bean leaves grow enough to shade the ground, there shouldn't be any weed problem within the row, and a good heavy mulch or regular cultivation in the pathways should take care of weeds there.
Harvest Time
It's best to harvest snap beans when they're just about the diameter of a pencil or even a bit smaller. Simply snap them off the plant - take care, though, because hard jerking may tear the vines, reducing later harvests.
Pick'em Young
For the best flavor and nutritional value pick snap beans when they're young and tender. You really can't overharvest snap beans. When you pick the pods, you encourage more blossoms and more pods. That's because the plant is trying to produce large, mature seeds to complete its life cycle. When it succeeds in producing seeds, the plant will stop blossoming and making pods, so keep picking.
After your first picking, you can probably pick again three to five days later. Just pick, pick, pick, and in order to keep the harvest going as long as possible, don't let any seeds develop inside the pods.
Picking Green Shell Beans
When shell beans are young, they're greenish. They begin turning color when they're ready for picking at the green shell stage. 'Horticultural' beans turn a strawberry roan color, 'Kidney' beans become red and limas mature to a creamy white color. When you pick them, pick only the pods without damaging the plants.
Picking Dried Shell Beans
By: the Editors of National Gardening
It's easy to produce dry, mature shell beans for winter storage. In warm parts of the country, the beans and pods will mature and dry very well right in the garden. In the North, it's cool and sometimes wet in fall, so the beans often require additional drying. Pull up the plants and pile them around a fence post, roots to the post (like spokes in a wheel), to dry them some more. If you're having a wet fall, hang the plants from rafters in your garage or your attic. Anywhere that's airy and relatively dry will do. You can hang the plants themselves or put them in burlap or mesh bags. It's easy to tell when the beans are dry: They're so hard, biting into one won't even make a dent.
Threshing
Threshing by hand sounds like an old-fashioned chore, but it's simply the removal of the beans from the pods once the beans are dry. To thresh, take some of the plants by the roots - pods, beans and all - and whack them back and forth inside a clean trash can. The dry pods shatter, and the beans drop into the can. Toss the threshed plants aside and pick up the next bunch.
There are other ways to thresh beans, too. A fun method is to put the plants, again pods and all, in a big burlap or cloth bag. Then get a bunch of kids to walk and jump on the bag for a few minutes. Roll the bag over, and let them jump some more. Because the beans are dry and hard, the kids won't hurt them a bit. You can also let them have a good time hitting the bag with a baseball bat. Then open the bag, vigorously shake the plants to make sure all the beans are out of the pods, and remove the plants. You'll just have beans and small bits of debris, or chaff, in the bag. Alternately, you can cut off a small corner of the bag and let the beans drop out, leaving the plants inside.
Old-timers used to thresh beans with a homemade bean flail. The flail was made of two wooden sticks (one short, one long) hitched together at one end by a leather strap. They gripped the long stick and whirled the short one against a pile of dried bean plants laid out on a sheet of canvas on the floor of a barn. It was important to hold onto the long handle and use the shorter one to flail. The short stick couldn't whirl back and rap one's knuckles. After flailing awhile, you lifted the plants with a hay fork, shook them and then tossed them aside for the compost heap, leaving behind a pile of beans and chaff.
Winnowing
Once you've threshed the beans, you need to separate out the chaff, and that's called winnowing.
On a windy day, take a basket of beans - chaff and all - and, holding it up high, pour the beans slowly into an empty basket on the ground. Repeat this a few times. The wind will blow all the chaff away as the beans fall. (It's a good idea to put a sheet under the basket on the ground to catch any beans that miss or bounce out.)
If you have a friend to help you winnow, spread the beans and chaff on a spare window screen outside on a windy day. When the two of you lightly jiggle and shake the frame, the chaff will blow away, leaving only the beans.
Sorting
The final step before storing shell beans is sorting. It's important to remove the discolored, immature and misshapen beans from the good ones, because the bad ones could affect the taste.
An easy way to sort beans is to spread a white sheet over the kitchen table and pour the beans onto the sheet. The sheet makes it easy to roll the beans around, allowing you to check them carefully. Using this technique it's especially easy to spot bad white beans. Sorting is a chore, but if you enlist a friend to help, it can also be a time for a chat.
Dry beans will keep well in tightly capped, airtight containers, stored in a cool, dry, dark spot.
Gardening Basics: Strawberries
Strawberry Essentials
By: National Gardening editors
Planning
• Plants bear in their second season.
• Plan to set your new plants out in early spring, just as the trees in your area leaf out.
• For best yields, start a new bed of plants each year and take out beds that have fruited.
Preparation
• Select a site that offers full sun and good drainage and air circulation.
• Apply aged manure and a complete fertilizer such as 5-10-10 (1 pound per 50-foot row) before planting in the spring.
Planting
• Space your rows 4 feet apart.
• Trim the roots of the new plants to no more than 6 inches long. Soak the roots in water for about an hour before planting.
• Set the plants 18 inches apart in the rows.
• Dig holes in the ground deep enough so the roots are covered but the crown isn't buried. Pack the soil against the roots and add about 1/2 pint of water mixed with a diluted soluble fertilizer.
Care
• First year, spring: Keep the bed free of weeds. Pick off blossoms to prevent fruiting and encourage production of healthy daughter plants.
• Late spring: 5 to 6 weeks after planting, train daughter plants to take root in a 9-by-9-inch spaced row system.
• Late spring and summer: Side-dress with ammonium nitrate (1/2 pound per 100-foot row), 5-10-10 (2 1/2 pounds per 100-foot row), or manure tea (1/2 to 1 pint per plant). Side-dress again 1 month later.
• Late fall: After a few freezes, mulch with 5 to 6 inches of straw or 4 to 5 inches of pine needles.
• Second year, late spring: Remove the mulch gradually in spring, but protect blossoms from late frost with covers of mulch, if needed. Provide 1 inch of water per week while the fruit is developing, through harvest.
• Cover the patch with tobacco cloth or strawberry netting to keep birds out.
• Summer: After harvest, till the plants under, plant a cover crop, and prepare the bed for new plants next spring.
Harvesting
• The berries will ripen about I month after the plants bloom. Expect 2 to 3 weeks of harvesting for each variety.
• Pick the plants clean every 2 or 3 days. Avoid the green-tipped berries; they're not fully ripe.
• When harvesting, don't leave berry remnants on the plants. They encourage plant rot.
Getting Ready for Strawberries
By: National Gardening editors
Probably nothing beats the taste of a just-picked, sun-ripened strawberry. Strawberries are loaded with natural sugars, but these sugars rapidly convert to starch once the berry is picked. So it is not mere pride that makes a freshly picked home-grown strawberry taste better - it really does. The fresher the berry, the sweeter the taste. Strawberries are high yielders. From a single, well-cared-for 2-year-old plant, you can expect to harvest 1 to 2 quarts of strawberries. That's 50 to 100 quarts of berries from a bed 15 feet long and three plants deep - about 50 plants.
Keep Planting Strawberries
You can maximize yields by continually renewing your strawberry bed with new plants. Many gardeners try to keep old plants producing year after year, but this inevitably leads to decreased yields and increased disease problems. You can start out in the spring with ten plants that will each produce five healthy daughter plants in the first year - and they'll bear an abundant crop of strawberries the second year. Keep two beds in rotation and every year you can count on 50 to 100 quarts of juicy red berries - enough for about thirty strawberry-drenched shortcakes and fifty pints of preserves to enjoy all winter and fifty helpings of Sunday brunch strawberry waffles, not to mention the sweetest possible berries for eating straight out of the garden.
Photography by NationalGardening.com
Buying Strawberry Plants
By: National Gardening editors
Strawberries are in full production in their second year. The first year, you buy plants - usually in bunches of 25 or 50. (For large quantities or special varieties, order from a mail-order nursery.) These plants are sometimes called mother plants because 5 or 6 weeks after planting they will start sending out runners, a few or many, depending on the variety. When a runner reaches 8 to 10 inches in length, it will bend upward and begin to form a new daughter plant; the runner will continue outward and set several more daughter plants. The daughters provide most of the crop the following year.
How Many Plants?
How many plants you'll need depends on how many strawberries you want. As a rule of thumb, buy one plant for every 1 or 2 quarts of berries you'd like to harvest. Of course, this formula assumes you'll be taking good care of every plant. If you start with 10 plants the first year - and they each produce five healthy daughter plants - you'll get from 50 to 100 quarts of berries. Selecting the right type of strawberry requires a little research. You can buy varieties that are resistant to diseases such as red stele or verticillium wilt, and different varieties are suited to different parts of the country.
Everbearing Varieties
Everbearing varieties yield a light crop in early summer, a few berries during the summer, and then another heavier crop in late summer or fall. "Day-neutral" varieties bear all season, but this term is often used interchangeably with everbearers. To be really technical, day-neutrals are sometimes everbearing, usually on the West Coast, but the reverse is never true.) Regular spring- or June-bearing varieties yield more than everbearers, but over a shorter season. Everbearers often fare poorly in the southern and northern extremes of the country; they are best suited to the middle regions, zones 5 to 8.
Digging Plants
Whatever variety you choose, try to buy new plants from a commercial grower. Digging your own daughter plants from an old bed leads to diseased, weakened, unproductive plants that aren't worth the money saved. When ordering from a commercial grower, specify fall-dug plants (commercial suppliers are able to store them well over the winter). These may look scrawny and pathetic after winter storage, but they will rapidly overtake the more attractive spring-dug plants. If you do use spring-dug plants, however, they will suffer some root loss, so you should remove about half the leaves to balance the tops with the reduced root systems - and keep them moist while they await planting.
Planting Strawberries
By: National Gardening editors
Strawberries will do best in soil that has been thoroughly prepared. If your future strawberry bed was plowed last year, you're ahead of the game. But if you're starting with land that was in sod, allow an extra year or the soil will be tough to cultivate, and you'll really pay later when you are confronted with weeds (especially grass) and grubs. Strawberries do best in soil with a pH of 5.5 to 6.5. Apply aged manure and a complete fertilizer such as 5-10-10 (1/2 pound per 25-foot row) before planting in the spring. To further improve the soil, you can plant a winter cover crop. If you have heavy soil, raised beds will provide better drainage and encourage healthy roots.
Planting the Berries
You can usually set out your new plants in the strawberry bed when the trees in your area are just beginning to leaf out. Suppliers try to ship them at the appropriate time for your region. If you're not ready when the plants arrive, you can store them in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks. Let out any moisture from the shipping bag and wrap the roots in plastic. Do not let the roots dry out. Space your rows 4 feet apart, and leave 18 inches between plants. Cut back the roots of your new plants to not more than 6 inches long; put them in a bucket and soak the roots in water for about an hour just before planting. Make absolutely sure you set them in the ground at the right depth so the roots don't dry out and the crown isn't buried. Pack the soil against the roots, and water each plant with about 1/2 pint of water mixed with a soluble fertilizer; don't overdose.
Care and Harvest of Strawberries
By: National Gardening editors
You won't be idle until your first harvest. You must not let the new plants set berries in their first year. They will try to fruit, but you must pick off the blossoms as they appear. This way, instead of fruiting, the mother plants will produce vigorous daughters that will yield well the following year.
Keep Weeds Away
Keep the bed weed-free throughout the growing season. Some people use a sheet of black plastic to smother weeds, leaving holes for the strawberry plants, but that's more work than weeding when it comes time to position the runners and the daughter plants.
Training the Runners
After 5 or 6 weeks in the ground, your plants will begin to "run." A first daughter plant will form and root, then the runners will set more daughters. Keep only the first daughter of each runner. It will bear better than a second or third daughter on the same runner. When most mothers have produced daughters that are ready to take root, it's time for you to establish the 9-by-9-inch spaced row system. Although it's more work, it's more berries. Let five strong daughters from each mother plant take root; clip off all others. (If you don't have five daughters on a plant, make do with what you have.) As these daughters grow, space them around the mother at 9-inch intervals. Weigh the runners down with soil, stones, or hairpins to hold the daughters in place; they'll root by themselves.
It will take two or three passes over the course of the summer to arrange the plants correctly and get rid of unwanted runners. While the arrangement may not look quite as tidy in your strawberry patch as it does on paper, you will have created three parallel rows with plants spaced roughly 9 inches apart in each one. Unlike other systems in which all plants are permitted to run freely, this system discourages sibling rivalry and gives each selected plant plenty of room to grow. The result is more and bigger berries. When the first bearing season is over, you'll do best to till in all the plants and start again. Each successive year you prolong their lives will yield fewer berries - and more weeds and disease.
Two Berry Beds
To have strawberries every year, you should maintain two beds: one to bear fruit and one to produce next year's fruit-bearers. After the harvest, plant a short-season vegetable where the berries were, if you like, then a winter cover crop like buckwheat or rye. Crop rotation has many advantages: the roots of the strawberry plants don't have a chance to get bound up, infestations of diseases are less likely, and rotation is an effective method of weed control. The following spring, you'll set new strawberry plants in that bed and begin the cycle again. Many gardeners prefer to renovate their beds, thinning out most of the plants and leaving some strong ones to produce runners and daughter plants for the third year. If you've enjoyed a productive, disease-free season, you may decide to renovate at least part of the bed for another year or two before cleaning out the whole bed entirely:
Renovating the Bed
Here are the basics in renovating an existing strawberry bed.
1. Just after harvest, cut off all the leaves with a scythe, sickle, or lawnmower set high enough not to hit the crowns.
2. Turn under the two daughter plants on either side of each mother row (preferably with a tiller), which should leave a 6-inch- wide row.
3. Add a complete fertilizer such as 5-10-10 C/2 pound per 25-foot row) to the bed and get rid of all weeds. Thin the plants to stand 9 inches apart, leaving only the strongest ones.
4. Allow only two runners from each plant; set each runner 9 inches from the mother plant on either side.
5. Side-dress with 2 1/2 pounds of 5-10-10 or its equivalent per 100 feet of row.
6. Apply winter mulch as before. Await spring and your second - and somewhat smaller - harvest.
Harvesting Your Berries
In the second year, the berries will ripen about 1 month after the plants bloom, with the bigger berries developing at the center of each cluster. To harvest, don't squeeze a ripe berry; pinch the stem behind it with your thumbnail. Every 2 or 3 days, pick all the ripe berries. Avoid picking green-tipped berries - they're not fully ripe. They'll taste much better in a day or two. Don't leave berry remnants on the plants because they encourage plant rot. You can expect 2 to 3 weeks of harvesting for each variety. If you find yourself deluged by berries, you can make them into jam or freeze them.
By: National Gardening editors
Planning
• Plants bear in their second season.
• Plan to set your new plants out in early spring, just as the trees in your area leaf out.
• For best yields, start a new bed of plants each year and take out beds that have fruited.
Preparation
• Select a site that offers full sun and good drainage and air circulation.
• Apply aged manure and a complete fertilizer such as 5-10-10 (1 pound per 50-foot row) before planting in the spring.
Planting
• Space your rows 4 feet apart.
• Trim the roots of the new plants to no more than 6 inches long. Soak the roots in water for about an hour before planting.
• Set the plants 18 inches apart in the rows.
• Dig holes in the ground deep enough so the roots are covered but the crown isn't buried. Pack the soil against the roots and add about 1/2 pint of water mixed with a diluted soluble fertilizer.
Care
• First year, spring: Keep the bed free of weeds. Pick off blossoms to prevent fruiting and encourage production of healthy daughter plants.
• Late spring: 5 to 6 weeks after planting, train daughter plants to take root in a 9-by-9-inch spaced row system.
• Late spring and summer: Side-dress with ammonium nitrate (1/2 pound per 100-foot row), 5-10-10 (2 1/2 pounds per 100-foot row), or manure tea (1/2 to 1 pint per plant). Side-dress again 1 month later.
• Late fall: After a few freezes, mulch with 5 to 6 inches of straw or 4 to 5 inches of pine needles.
• Second year, late spring: Remove the mulch gradually in spring, but protect blossoms from late frost with covers of mulch, if needed. Provide 1 inch of water per week while the fruit is developing, through harvest.
• Cover the patch with tobacco cloth or strawberry netting to keep birds out.
• Summer: After harvest, till the plants under, plant a cover crop, and prepare the bed for new plants next spring.
Harvesting
• The berries will ripen about I month after the plants bloom. Expect 2 to 3 weeks of harvesting for each variety.
• Pick the plants clean every 2 or 3 days. Avoid the green-tipped berries; they're not fully ripe.
• When harvesting, don't leave berry remnants on the plants. They encourage plant rot.
Getting Ready for Strawberries
By: National Gardening editors
Probably nothing beats the taste of a just-picked, sun-ripened strawberry. Strawberries are loaded with natural sugars, but these sugars rapidly convert to starch once the berry is picked. So it is not mere pride that makes a freshly picked home-grown strawberry taste better - it really does. The fresher the berry, the sweeter the taste. Strawberries are high yielders. From a single, well-cared-for 2-year-old plant, you can expect to harvest 1 to 2 quarts of strawberries. That's 50 to 100 quarts of berries from a bed 15 feet long and three plants deep - about 50 plants.
Keep Planting Strawberries
You can maximize yields by continually renewing your strawberry bed with new plants. Many gardeners try to keep old plants producing year after year, but this inevitably leads to decreased yields and increased disease problems. You can start out in the spring with ten plants that will each produce five healthy daughter plants in the first year - and they'll bear an abundant crop of strawberries the second year. Keep two beds in rotation and every year you can count on 50 to 100 quarts of juicy red berries - enough for about thirty strawberry-drenched shortcakes and fifty pints of preserves to enjoy all winter and fifty helpings of Sunday brunch strawberry waffles, not to mention the sweetest possible berries for eating straight out of the garden.
Photography by NationalGardening.com
Buying Strawberry Plants
By: National Gardening editors
Strawberries are in full production in their second year. The first year, you buy plants - usually in bunches of 25 or 50. (For large quantities or special varieties, order from a mail-order nursery.) These plants are sometimes called mother plants because 5 or 6 weeks after planting they will start sending out runners, a few or many, depending on the variety. When a runner reaches 8 to 10 inches in length, it will bend upward and begin to form a new daughter plant; the runner will continue outward and set several more daughter plants. The daughters provide most of the crop the following year.
How Many Plants?
How many plants you'll need depends on how many strawberries you want. As a rule of thumb, buy one plant for every 1 or 2 quarts of berries you'd like to harvest. Of course, this formula assumes you'll be taking good care of every plant. If you start with 10 plants the first year - and they each produce five healthy daughter plants - you'll get from 50 to 100 quarts of berries. Selecting the right type of strawberry requires a little research. You can buy varieties that are resistant to diseases such as red stele or verticillium wilt, and different varieties are suited to different parts of the country.
Everbearing Varieties
Everbearing varieties yield a light crop in early summer, a few berries during the summer, and then another heavier crop in late summer or fall. "Day-neutral" varieties bear all season, but this term is often used interchangeably with everbearers. To be really technical, day-neutrals are sometimes everbearing, usually on the West Coast, but the reverse is never true.) Regular spring- or June-bearing varieties yield more than everbearers, but over a shorter season. Everbearers often fare poorly in the southern and northern extremes of the country; they are best suited to the middle regions, zones 5 to 8.
Digging Plants
Whatever variety you choose, try to buy new plants from a commercial grower. Digging your own daughter plants from an old bed leads to diseased, weakened, unproductive plants that aren't worth the money saved. When ordering from a commercial grower, specify fall-dug plants (commercial suppliers are able to store them well over the winter). These may look scrawny and pathetic after winter storage, but they will rapidly overtake the more attractive spring-dug plants. If you do use spring-dug plants, however, they will suffer some root loss, so you should remove about half the leaves to balance the tops with the reduced root systems - and keep them moist while they await planting.
Planting Strawberries
By: National Gardening editors
Strawberries will do best in soil that has been thoroughly prepared. If your future strawberry bed was plowed last year, you're ahead of the game. But if you're starting with land that was in sod, allow an extra year or the soil will be tough to cultivate, and you'll really pay later when you are confronted with weeds (especially grass) and grubs. Strawberries do best in soil with a pH of 5.5 to 6.5. Apply aged manure and a complete fertilizer such as 5-10-10 (1/2 pound per 25-foot row) before planting in the spring. To further improve the soil, you can plant a winter cover crop. If you have heavy soil, raised beds will provide better drainage and encourage healthy roots.
Planting the Berries
You can usually set out your new plants in the strawberry bed when the trees in your area are just beginning to leaf out. Suppliers try to ship them at the appropriate time for your region. If you're not ready when the plants arrive, you can store them in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks. Let out any moisture from the shipping bag and wrap the roots in plastic. Do not let the roots dry out. Space your rows 4 feet apart, and leave 18 inches between plants. Cut back the roots of your new plants to not more than 6 inches long; put them in a bucket and soak the roots in water for about an hour just before planting. Make absolutely sure you set them in the ground at the right depth so the roots don't dry out and the crown isn't buried. Pack the soil against the roots, and water each plant with about 1/2 pint of water mixed with a soluble fertilizer; don't overdose.
Care and Harvest of Strawberries
By: National Gardening editors
You won't be idle until your first harvest. You must not let the new plants set berries in their first year. They will try to fruit, but you must pick off the blossoms as they appear. This way, instead of fruiting, the mother plants will produce vigorous daughters that will yield well the following year.
Keep Weeds Away
Keep the bed weed-free throughout the growing season. Some people use a sheet of black plastic to smother weeds, leaving holes for the strawberry plants, but that's more work than weeding when it comes time to position the runners and the daughter plants.
Training the Runners
After 5 or 6 weeks in the ground, your plants will begin to "run." A first daughter plant will form and root, then the runners will set more daughters. Keep only the first daughter of each runner. It will bear better than a second or third daughter on the same runner. When most mothers have produced daughters that are ready to take root, it's time for you to establish the 9-by-9-inch spaced row system. Although it's more work, it's more berries. Let five strong daughters from each mother plant take root; clip off all others. (If you don't have five daughters on a plant, make do with what you have.) As these daughters grow, space them around the mother at 9-inch intervals. Weigh the runners down with soil, stones, or hairpins to hold the daughters in place; they'll root by themselves.
It will take two or three passes over the course of the summer to arrange the plants correctly and get rid of unwanted runners. While the arrangement may not look quite as tidy in your strawberry patch as it does on paper, you will have created three parallel rows with plants spaced roughly 9 inches apart in each one. Unlike other systems in which all plants are permitted to run freely, this system discourages sibling rivalry and gives each selected plant plenty of room to grow. The result is more and bigger berries. When the first bearing season is over, you'll do best to till in all the plants and start again. Each successive year you prolong their lives will yield fewer berries - and more weeds and disease.
Two Berry Beds
To have strawberries every year, you should maintain two beds: one to bear fruit and one to produce next year's fruit-bearers. After the harvest, plant a short-season vegetable where the berries were, if you like, then a winter cover crop like buckwheat or rye. Crop rotation has many advantages: the roots of the strawberry plants don't have a chance to get bound up, infestations of diseases are less likely, and rotation is an effective method of weed control. The following spring, you'll set new strawberry plants in that bed and begin the cycle again. Many gardeners prefer to renovate their beds, thinning out most of the plants and leaving some strong ones to produce runners and daughter plants for the third year. If you've enjoyed a productive, disease-free season, you may decide to renovate at least part of the bed for another year or two before cleaning out the whole bed entirely:
Renovating the Bed
Here are the basics in renovating an existing strawberry bed.
1. Just after harvest, cut off all the leaves with a scythe, sickle, or lawnmower set high enough not to hit the crowns.
2. Turn under the two daughter plants on either side of each mother row (preferably with a tiller), which should leave a 6-inch- wide row.
3. Add a complete fertilizer such as 5-10-10 C/2 pound per 25-foot row) to the bed and get rid of all weeds. Thin the plants to stand 9 inches apart, leaving only the strongest ones.
4. Allow only two runners from each plant; set each runner 9 inches from the mother plant on either side.
5. Side-dress with 2 1/2 pounds of 5-10-10 or its equivalent per 100 feet of row.
6. Apply winter mulch as before. Await spring and your second - and somewhat smaller - harvest.
Harvesting Your Berries
In the second year, the berries will ripen about 1 month after the plants bloom, with the bigger berries developing at the center of each cluster. To harvest, don't squeeze a ripe berry; pinch the stem behind it with your thumbnail. Every 2 or 3 days, pick all the ripe berries. Avoid picking green-tipped berries - they're not fully ripe. They'll taste much better in a day or two. Don't leave berry remnants on the plants because they encourage plant rot. You can expect 2 to 3 weeks of harvesting for each variety. If you find yourself deluged by berries, you can make them into jam or freeze them.
Gardening Basics: Grapes
Grape Essentials
By: National Gardening editors
Planning
• Choose a variety that is recommended for your climate. Grapes require a long, frost-free growing season.
• Grapes start to bear 2 years after 1-year-old vines are planted. Established vines will yield up to 15 pounds of grapes per year, 30 to 40 pounds from a muscadine.
• Plant grapes in the spring.
Preparation
• Select a site with deep, well-drained, loose soil in full sun.
• Set up a trellis system before planting.
Planting
• Space vines 6 to 10 feet apart (16 feet for muscadines).
• For each vine, dig a planting hole 12 inches deep and 12 inches wide. Fill with 4 inches of topsoil. Trim off broken roots and set the vine into the hole slightly deeper than it grew in the nursery.
• Cover the roots with 6 inches of soil and tamp down. Fill with the remaining soil, but don't tamp this down.
Care
• Prune the top back to two or three buds at planting time and follow the first-year training steps.
• Prune annually when the vines are dormant according to the training system you select.
• Do not fertilize unless the soil is very poor or the plants show poor foliage color or signs of nutrient deficiencies.
• Cultivate shallowly around the base of plants to control weeds.
• Drape netting over vines to prevent birds from destroying your harvest.
• See our article Fruit Pests and Diseases for controls of common grape pests such as aphid, scale, anthracnose, and black rot.
Harvesting
• Grapes will only ripen on the vine. As they ripen, the sugar content rises to about 20 percent.
• Harvest table grapes when the flavor is right; harvest wine grapes when they reach the appropriate sugar content.
Planting Grapes
By: National Gardening editors
The fall before you plant, mark the location for your vines. Get rid of all weeds, especially perennial ones, as your vines can easily survive 30 years or more in the same location. Grapes don't require superior soil, but good drainage is a must. Although you won't start training the vines until the second year, set up the trellis system before spring planting so you don't damage the roots later.
Planting
In the spring, work the soil again and plant the vines 6 to 10 feet apart. (Double this spacing for muscadines.) For each vine, dig a hole 12 inches deep and 12 inches wide to accommodate the roots. Shovel in a 4-inch layer of topsoil. Then prune the top of your grapevine back to two or three buds and trim off any broken roots or roots too long to fit into the hole without crowding. Set the vine into the hole, slightly deeper than it was grown in the nursery, and spread its roots. Cover the roots with 6 inches of topsoil, keeping the buds above the soil line. Tamp down the soil, then fill the remainder of the hole with topsoil but don't tamp it down. Water the new plants well. Although grapevines are known to be drought tolerant, they need plenty of water right after planting so roots can get established.
Photography by NationalGardening.com
Care & Harvesting of Grapes
By: National Gardening editors
Grapes should be pruned yearly because fruits only form on buds that arise from the previous season's growth. There are various methods of training grapevines. Your preferences, space limitations, and the variety of grape you are growing will determine your trellis system. Prune vines when they are dormant; in most of the country, that means very early spring, before any green shoots appear. Muscadines in the Deep South can be pruned any time after the first fall frost.
Fertilizing
Unless your soil is very poor, grapes, which are very deeply rooted, don't require much fertilization. Where fertility is low, a soil test will determine whether you should add phosphorus or potassium. For all soils, fertilize lightly the second year. Apply no more than 1/4 pound of 10-10-10 fertilizer in a circle up to 4 feet away from each vine. In following years when the vines are established, apply about a pound up to 8 feet away from the base if growth was slow or foliage color poor the previous season. Apply it only when the buds start to swell in the spring; later fertilizing may cause extensive growth in late summer, making the plant more vulnerable to winter injury.
Grape Checklist
While grapevines can survive some neglect, they need regular attention to reach maximum yields:
1) Prune carefully. Leaving too much growth causes far more problems than
overpruning.
2) Cultivate shallowly around the base of your plant while it's young to avoid damaging roots near the surface.
3) Fertilize lightly. Unless the soil is particularly poor, grapevines need little feeding. Grape growers encounter a few common problems. For example, if you plant a seedless variety, you may find that your grapes are smaller than those in supermarkets. Grape seeds produce a plant hormone that causes the berries to increase in size. Seedless varieties are missing this hormone and thus produce smaller grapes. If you want larger grapes, keep more buds at pruning and thin out one cluster of every three just before spring bloom. If your grapes are of mature size but fail to ripen on the vine in the (all, the leaves may be shading the grapes, which inhibits ripening. Try pinching foliage-bearing side shoots back to one leaf, which will bring more sunlight and warmth to the clusters.
Grape Pests
Your first planting of grapes may escape insect or disease attacks for a while, but eventually some trouble usually arrives. In humid areas, mildew diseases can be a problem; European grapes are very susceptible to downy mildew, for example. Black rot, caused by a fungus, develops in warm, moist climates of Eastern states. Anthracnose, another fungus disease, flourishes in wet spring weather. Japanese beetles, aphids, and mites are common garden insects that you may find. The grape berry moth is a pest in central and eastern regions. Larvae of the moth feed on buds, blossoms, and berries, tying berries together with silken threads as they feed. Two generations usually occur. Clean up grape leaves in the fall to reduce the number of overwintering pests. The following spring, cultivate around plants to turn up overwintered pupae. The grape phylloxera is a pest common in California, where it attacks roots by sucking juices from them and creating galls, and in the East, where it attacks leaves as well as roots. Galls about the size of peas form on leaf undersides. American varieties are resistant, but other types are not. No chemical controls exist; if you have a severe problem, grow American types or European varieties with resistant American rootstocks.
Harvesting
Grapes do not ripen off the vine, so pick them when they are completely ripe. Use a sharp knife or small pruner to cut the bunches. Bees and wasps may occasionally light on the grapes to feast on some sweet juice, so watch for them.
Grape Pruning: Three Systems
By: National Gardening editors
Grapes must be pruned every year to keep producing because once a cane has fruited, it don't fruit again. Fruits form only on buds that arise from the previous season's growth. Which pruning method you choose depends on the type of grape and variety you have and which seems convenient and efficient to you. For American grapes, the most widespread system is the Four-Arm Kniffen System. For the vigorous muscadine grapes grown in the South, a two-arm version of-the Kniffen System prevents excessive leaf shade.
European wine grapes are generally trained to have two permanent arms and are spur pruned. If you have only a few vines and don't want to put up a wire trellis, you can head-train European grapes instead. .
Pruning is done once a year-after the coldest part of the winter. Be sure to cut back to firm, live wood; the tips are often killed back. Muscadines are usually pruned after the first severe frost in the fall
Training the Vine
The first few years are the same for the basic systems, the goal being to produce a strong root system and trunk. Here are the steps:
1.When planting, cut the vine back to two or three buds. It's a good idea to place trellis stakes or posts by the vine at this time; the wire can be put up later.
2.Early in the first summer, pick out the strongest growing cane and let that one grow. As it gets taller, let several side shoots develop off the main one where you intend to place horizontal supports.
3. The following winter or early spring, prune back all canes as shown. Leave three buds on each of two or four lateral spurs (depending on how many arms you want). Put up wire supports.
4. The second summer, tie the side shoots to the wires as they grow. Remove flower clusters - you don't want the vine to fruit yet. Also remove shoots from all buds except those on the spurs.
Four-Arm Kniffen System
Second Winter
Choose four healthy, well-spaced arms to train on the wire for fruit production. If they are very long, trim back to ten buds. Choose four more canes for
renewal spurs; cut these back to two buds. Remove all other canes. The following summer, the buds on the fruiting canes will grow into long shoots, each bearing two to three bunches of grapes. The buds on the renewal spurs will also produce shoots; if they are vigorous, let them fruit. If not, remove their fruiting clusters.
Third Winter
Remove the canes that fruited and choose one replacement from each renewal spur to tie to the wires. Trim to ten buds. Cut back another four canes to form renewal spurs. Your vine should now look approximately as it did a year ago. Repeat each year.
Spur Pruning: Two-Arm
In this system you develop two permanent arms with spurs that produce fruiting wood each year.
Second Winter
Remove all canes except the best two; tie these to the support wire. The next summer each bud along the arm will send out a fruiting shoot. Weave these in and out of the upper wires.
Third Winter
Check the horizontal branches for the strongest vertical shoots and cut each of these back to two buds. These wilt be the fruiting spurs. Space them about 6 to 10 inches apart. Every bud you leave on the spurs will produce a fruiting shoot the following year. Each year, repeat the process.
Spur Pruning: Head-Trained
For this system, the vine will need only a strong, vertical, 4-foot post for support.
1. Allow the vine to grow to the top of the post and cut just above that point. Tie to the post. Remove any branches below. Next year, let four or five branches grow.
2. In the winter, cut each of the branches back to two or three buds. Remove any weak branches and any on tower parts of the trunk. Buds left on spurs will produce fruiting shoots next year. You can allow more branches to develop as the vine matures so there will be more fruiting shoots each year. A mature head-trained vine can have more than seven main branches.
Buying Grapes
By: National Gardening editors
It's a wonder more gardeners don't plant grapevines. Just 2 years after planting, you can be sampling your own grapes; in 3 years, you can be harvesting up to 15 pounds of grapes from each vine - plenty for eating and making jellies, juice, or wine. Two healthy vines are enough for most home growers. Many gardeners who raise everything from Brussels sprouts to plum trees have never tried grapes. Often, it isn't because they don't like them, but because they think grapes are difficult to prune properly. However, many home gardeners know that grapes are easy to grow. After the first year, you
just need to give vines a simple annual pruning to keep them bearing well. There are three major groups of grapes. American grapes (Vitis labrusca) are generally quite winter hardy and grow well in most parts of the United States. European grapes
(Vitis vinifera) grow best in warm, dry areas. Crosses between European- and American-type grapes have produced hybrids that are hardier and can be grown over a greater range. Muscadine grapes (Vitis rotundifolia) are native grapes well adapted to growing conditions in southeastern United States.
Planning for Grapes
Choose grape varieties carefully. American-type grapes such as 'Concord' and 'Catawba' do well in the cool climate of New England, in the Midwest, and in the Northwest. The 'Concord', developed in the 1850s, is still a mainstay in many home gardens; it's vigorous, hardy, and easy to propagate from cuttings. European grapes (usually wine varieties such as 'Zinfandel' or 'Chardonnay') flourish in California where bright, dry summer days and mild winter temperatures provide a favorable environment. Tougher-skinned muscadine grapes do best in the Deep South.
Some of the new hybrid crosses between European and American types, such as the 'Baco Noir' and 'Seibel' varieties, are hardy and have extended the range in which wine grapes can be grown. Vineyards in New York State, where winter temperatures drop well below zero, produce high quality wines.
Hardy Grapes
Over the years plant breeders have introduced earlier-ripening and more winter-hardy grapes. 'Swenson Red', for example, produces delicious medium to large red table grapes and is winter hardy to -25F. Most grapes are self-fertile, but check to be sure when you place your order. A few will need pollinizing plants. Muscadines come in self-fertile and self-sterile lines. The best fruits are from the self-sterile vines; to assure pollination you have to grow a pollinizing vine, too. Whether a variety is from a self-fertile line or not should be noted in the mail-order catalog or at the nursery. Many garden centers sell grape plants in containers (in 8-inch pots, for example). There's usually a thin, 8- to 10 inch-tall stem that will develop over the years into a sturdy trunk. Vines grown in containers are easy to plant because the roots are less stressed in transplanting. Tap the plant out of the container and set the root ball, with as much of its soil as possible, into a prepared hole.
Buying Grapes
Buying container plants locally can be more expensive than ordering from a mail-order company. If you send away, your grapevines will probably arrive bare-root with a moist packing of peat moss or other material to keep the roots from drying out. The stem is usually cut back at planting. There is no advantage to buying a vine older than 1 year. Roots always have to be trimmed back at planting time, and no matter how old the vine is it takes a certain amount of time for the roots to reestablish themselves. Older vines won't necessarily give you earlier fruiting.
By: National Gardening editors
Planning
• Choose a variety that is recommended for your climate. Grapes require a long, frost-free growing season.
• Grapes start to bear 2 years after 1-year-old vines are planted. Established vines will yield up to 15 pounds of grapes per year, 30 to 40 pounds from a muscadine.
• Plant grapes in the spring.
Preparation
• Select a site with deep, well-drained, loose soil in full sun.
• Set up a trellis system before planting.
Planting
• Space vines 6 to 10 feet apart (16 feet for muscadines).
• For each vine, dig a planting hole 12 inches deep and 12 inches wide. Fill with 4 inches of topsoil. Trim off broken roots and set the vine into the hole slightly deeper than it grew in the nursery.
• Cover the roots with 6 inches of soil and tamp down. Fill with the remaining soil, but don't tamp this down.
Care
• Prune the top back to two or three buds at planting time and follow the first-year training steps.
• Prune annually when the vines are dormant according to the training system you select.
• Do not fertilize unless the soil is very poor or the plants show poor foliage color or signs of nutrient deficiencies.
• Cultivate shallowly around the base of plants to control weeds.
• Drape netting over vines to prevent birds from destroying your harvest.
• See our article Fruit Pests and Diseases for controls of common grape pests such as aphid, scale, anthracnose, and black rot.
Harvesting
• Grapes will only ripen on the vine. As they ripen, the sugar content rises to about 20 percent.
• Harvest table grapes when the flavor is right; harvest wine grapes when they reach the appropriate sugar content.
Planting Grapes
By: National Gardening editors
The fall before you plant, mark the location for your vines. Get rid of all weeds, especially perennial ones, as your vines can easily survive 30 years or more in the same location. Grapes don't require superior soil, but good drainage is a must. Although you won't start training the vines until the second year, set up the trellis system before spring planting so you don't damage the roots later.
Planting
In the spring, work the soil again and plant the vines 6 to 10 feet apart. (Double this spacing for muscadines.) For each vine, dig a hole 12 inches deep and 12 inches wide to accommodate the roots. Shovel in a 4-inch layer of topsoil. Then prune the top of your grapevine back to two or three buds and trim off any broken roots or roots too long to fit into the hole without crowding. Set the vine into the hole, slightly deeper than it was grown in the nursery, and spread its roots. Cover the roots with 6 inches of topsoil, keeping the buds above the soil line. Tamp down the soil, then fill the remainder of the hole with topsoil but don't tamp it down. Water the new plants well. Although grapevines are known to be drought tolerant, they need plenty of water right after planting so roots can get established.
Photography by NationalGardening.com
Care & Harvesting of Grapes
By: National Gardening editors
Grapes should be pruned yearly because fruits only form on buds that arise from the previous season's growth. There are various methods of training grapevines. Your preferences, space limitations, and the variety of grape you are growing will determine your trellis system. Prune vines when they are dormant; in most of the country, that means very early spring, before any green shoots appear. Muscadines in the Deep South can be pruned any time after the first fall frost.
Fertilizing
Unless your soil is very poor, grapes, which are very deeply rooted, don't require much fertilization. Where fertility is low, a soil test will determine whether you should add phosphorus or potassium. For all soils, fertilize lightly the second year. Apply no more than 1/4 pound of 10-10-10 fertilizer in a circle up to 4 feet away from each vine. In following years when the vines are established, apply about a pound up to 8 feet away from the base if growth was slow or foliage color poor the previous season. Apply it only when the buds start to swell in the spring; later fertilizing may cause extensive growth in late summer, making the plant more vulnerable to winter injury.
Grape Checklist
While grapevines can survive some neglect, they need regular attention to reach maximum yields:
1) Prune carefully. Leaving too much growth causes far more problems than
overpruning.
2) Cultivate shallowly around the base of your plant while it's young to avoid damaging roots near the surface.
3) Fertilize lightly. Unless the soil is particularly poor, grapevines need little feeding. Grape growers encounter a few common problems. For example, if you plant a seedless variety, you may find that your grapes are smaller than those in supermarkets. Grape seeds produce a plant hormone that causes the berries to increase in size. Seedless varieties are missing this hormone and thus produce smaller grapes. If you want larger grapes, keep more buds at pruning and thin out one cluster of every three just before spring bloom. If your grapes are of mature size but fail to ripen on the vine in the (all, the leaves may be shading the grapes, which inhibits ripening. Try pinching foliage-bearing side shoots back to one leaf, which will bring more sunlight and warmth to the clusters.
Grape Pests
Your first planting of grapes may escape insect or disease attacks for a while, but eventually some trouble usually arrives. In humid areas, mildew diseases can be a problem; European grapes are very susceptible to downy mildew, for example. Black rot, caused by a fungus, develops in warm, moist climates of Eastern states. Anthracnose, another fungus disease, flourishes in wet spring weather. Japanese beetles, aphids, and mites are common garden insects that you may find. The grape berry moth is a pest in central and eastern regions. Larvae of the moth feed on buds, blossoms, and berries, tying berries together with silken threads as they feed. Two generations usually occur. Clean up grape leaves in the fall to reduce the number of overwintering pests. The following spring, cultivate around plants to turn up overwintered pupae. The grape phylloxera is a pest common in California, where it attacks roots by sucking juices from them and creating galls, and in the East, where it attacks leaves as well as roots. Galls about the size of peas form on leaf undersides. American varieties are resistant, but other types are not. No chemical controls exist; if you have a severe problem, grow American types or European varieties with resistant American rootstocks.
Harvesting
Grapes do not ripen off the vine, so pick them when they are completely ripe. Use a sharp knife or small pruner to cut the bunches. Bees and wasps may occasionally light on the grapes to feast on some sweet juice, so watch for them.
Grape Pruning: Three Systems
By: National Gardening editors
Grapes must be pruned every year to keep producing because once a cane has fruited, it don't fruit again. Fruits form only on buds that arise from the previous season's growth. Which pruning method you choose depends on the type of grape and variety you have and which seems convenient and efficient to you. For American grapes, the most widespread system is the Four-Arm Kniffen System. For the vigorous muscadine grapes grown in the South, a two-arm version of-the Kniffen System prevents excessive leaf shade.
European wine grapes are generally trained to have two permanent arms and are spur pruned. If you have only a few vines and don't want to put up a wire trellis, you can head-train European grapes instead. .
Pruning is done once a year-after the coldest part of the winter. Be sure to cut back to firm, live wood; the tips are often killed back. Muscadines are usually pruned after the first severe frost in the fall
Training the Vine
The first few years are the same for the basic systems, the goal being to produce a strong root system and trunk. Here are the steps:
1.When planting, cut the vine back to two or three buds. It's a good idea to place trellis stakes or posts by the vine at this time; the wire can be put up later.
2.Early in the first summer, pick out the strongest growing cane and let that one grow. As it gets taller, let several side shoots develop off the main one where you intend to place horizontal supports.
3. The following winter or early spring, prune back all canes as shown. Leave three buds on each of two or four lateral spurs (depending on how many arms you want). Put up wire supports.
4. The second summer, tie the side shoots to the wires as they grow. Remove flower clusters - you don't want the vine to fruit yet. Also remove shoots from all buds except those on the spurs.
Four-Arm Kniffen System
Second Winter
Choose four healthy, well-spaced arms to train on the wire for fruit production. If they are very long, trim back to ten buds. Choose four more canes for
renewal spurs; cut these back to two buds. Remove all other canes. The following summer, the buds on the fruiting canes will grow into long shoots, each bearing two to three bunches of grapes. The buds on the renewal spurs will also produce shoots; if they are vigorous, let them fruit. If not, remove their fruiting clusters.
Third Winter
Remove the canes that fruited and choose one replacement from each renewal spur to tie to the wires. Trim to ten buds. Cut back another four canes to form renewal spurs. Your vine should now look approximately as it did a year ago. Repeat each year.
Spur Pruning: Two-Arm
In this system you develop two permanent arms with spurs that produce fruiting wood each year.
Second Winter
Remove all canes except the best two; tie these to the support wire. The next summer each bud along the arm will send out a fruiting shoot. Weave these in and out of the upper wires.
Third Winter
Check the horizontal branches for the strongest vertical shoots and cut each of these back to two buds. These wilt be the fruiting spurs. Space them about 6 to 10 inches apart. Every bud you leave on the spurs will produce a fruiting shoot the following year. Each year, repeat the process.
Spur Pruning: Head-Trained
For this system, the vine will need only a strong, vertical, 4-foot post for support.
1. Allow the vine to grow to the top of the post and cut just above that point. Tie to the post. Remove any branches below. Next year, let four or five branches grow.
2. In the winter, cut each of the branches back to two or three buds. Remove any weak branches and any on tower parts of the trunk. Buds left on spurs will produce fruiting shoots next year. You can allow more branches to develop as the vine matures so there will be more fruiting shoots each year. A mature head-trained vine can have more than seven main branches.
Buying Grapes
By: National Gardening editors
It's a wonder more gardeners don't plant grapevines. Just 2 years after planting, you can be sampling your own grapes; in 3 years, you can be harvesting up to 15 pounds of grapes from each vine - plenty for eating and making jellies, juice, or wine. Two healthy vines are enough for most home growers. Many gardeners who raise everything from Brussels sprouts to plum trees have never tried grapes. Often, it isn't because they don't like them, but because they think grapes are difficult to prune properly. However, many home gardeners know that grapes are easy to grow. After the first year, you
just need to give vines a simple annual pruning to keep them bearing well. There are three major groups of grapes. American grapes (Vitis labrusca) are generally quite winter hardy and grow well in most parts of the United States. European grapes
(Vitis vinifera) grow best in warm, dry areas. Crosses between European- and American-type grapes have produced hybrids that are hardier and can be grown over a greater range. Muscadine grapes (Vitis rotundifolia) are native grapes well adapted to growing conditions in southeastern United States.
Planning for Grapes
Choose grape varieties carefully. American-type grapes such as 'Concord' and 'Catawba' do well in the cool climate of New England, in the Midwest, and in the Northwest. The 'Concord', developed in the 1850s, is still a mainstay in many home gardens; it's vigorous, hardy, and easy to propagate from cuttings. European grapes (usually wine varieties such as 'Zinfandel' or 'Chardonnay') flourish in California where bright, dry summer days and mild winter temperatures provide a favorable environment. Tougher-skinned muscadine grapes do best in the Deep South.
Some of the new hybrid crosses between European and American types, such as the 'Baco Noir' and 'Seibel' varieties, are hardy and have extended the range in which wine grapes can be grown. Vineyards in New York State, where winter temperatures drop well below zero, produce high quality wines.
Hardy Grapes
Over the years plant breeders have introduced earlier-ripening and more winter-hardy grapes. 'Swenson Red', for example, produces delicious medium to large red table grapes and is winter hardy to -25F. Most grapes are self-fertile, but check to be sure when you place your order. A few will need pollinizing plants. Muscadines come in self-fertile and self-sterile lines. The best fruits are from the self-sterile vines; to assure pollination you have to grow a pollinizing vine, too. Whether a variety is from a self-fertile line or not should be noted in the mail-order catalog or at the nursery. Many garden centers sell grape plants in containers (in 8-inch pots, for example). There's usually a thin, 8- to 10 inch-tall stem that will develop over the years into a sturdy trunk. Vines grown in containers are easy to plant because the roots are less stressed in transplanting. Tap the plant out of the container and set the root ball, with as much of its soil as possible, into a prepared hole.
Buying Grapes
Buying container plants locally can be more expensive than ordering from a mail-order company. If you send away, your grapevines will probably arrive bare-root with a moist packing of peat moss or other material to keep the roots from drying out. The stem is usually cut back at planting. There is no advantage to buying a vine older than 1 year. Roots always have to be trimmed back at planting time, and no matter how old the vine is it takes a certain amount of time for the roots to reestablish themselves. Older vines won't necessarily give you earlier fruiting.
Gardening Basics: Pears
Pear Essentials
By: National Gardening editors
Planning
• Choose fire blight-resistant varieties and rootstocks, especially in areas outside dry western regions.
• Most varieties will start to bear significant harvests after 5 to 6 years.
• Plant at least two different varieties for cross-pollination.
Preparation
• Choose a site with full sun, moderate fertility, and good air circulation and water drainage.
• Pears will do well in a wide range of soil types.
Planting
• Space standard-size trees 20 to 25 feet apart; space dwarf trees 12 to 15 feet apart.
Care
• Pears do best with a small amount of fertilizer early in the year. Heavy doses of nitrogen will make the tree more vulnerable to fire blight.
• Use spreaders to encourage horizontal branching and earlier fruiting spurs.
• See our article Fruit Pests and Diseases for controls of common pear pests such as pear psylla, codling moth, plum curculios, and fire blight.
Harvesting
• Don't let pears ripen on the tree. Harvest them when they reach a mature size but are still hard.
• Early pears will ripen at room temperature in a few days to a week. Storage varieties will keep 1 to 2 months or more in a cool (40F), dark place.
Pear Varieties
By: National Gardening editors
The extensive selection of high-quality pear varieties available that can't be found in grocery stores make pear trees well worth growing by home gardeners. Pears require less spraying than peaches, plums, or apples and are easy to train to fit small spaces in a yard. Unfortunately, pear trees can be affected by two serious problems. The insect pest the pear psylla can be difficult to control. And the bacterial disease fire blight has made larger-scale commercial pear growing difficult in many parts of the country. Because of fire blight, most of the United States pear crop now comes from northern California, Oregon, and Washington, where the predominantly dry climate discourages the spread of this disease. If you live outside of this region, you can still grow pears successfully by selecting blight-resistant varieties and rootstocks. With good planning and vigilance during the season, you can grow fresh, tender pears year after year with minimal use of chemical products.
Pear Varieties
Pears can usually be grown wherever apples are successful, though they are somewhat less resistant than apples to extremes of heat and cold. Pears, however, need less attention than apples in matters of pruning and insect control and are more tolerant of moist soil conditions. So if you have predominantly clay soil, pears will probably do better for you than apples on the same site. Compared to other tree fruits, pears are slower to start producing. Many apple varieties begin bearing in 3 to 4 years; with pears, the wait for good crops is longer. Standard types will take about 4 to 8 years to begin bearing; dwarfs, 4 to 6.
As a general rule, pears must be cross-pollinated to produce fruit, so plan to plant two varieties; most combinations of pear varieties will work except for 'Bartlett' and 'Seckel', which don't cross-pollinate well with each other. Out of nearly three thousand varieties, perhaps a hundred have good yields, flavor, texture, and keeping qualities. However, fewer than twenty are grown commercially. Thus, the home gardener has a wide choice of top-quality specialty pears. There are several pear varieties that offer effective resistance to fire blight, such as 'Moonglow', 'Magness', 'Maxine', 'Seckel',
and 'Kieffer'. In the South, plant resistant varieties such as 'Leconte' and 'Baldwin'.
Fireblight Disease on Pears
By: National Gardening editors
Fire blight, unlike most fruit tree diseases, is caused by a bacteria that can be spread from tree to tree by bees, aphids, pear psylla, and other insects. The bacteria mainly attack twigs and young shoots.
Fireblight Symptoms
Affected branches wither and turn black or brownish black, as if scorched. Most branch tips, once infected, wilt rapidly, taking on a shepherd's crook shape. The bacteria enter the tree through the blossoms or through lush, tender new growth. Once inside, they multiply rapidly and begin to work toward the roots. An orange-brown liquid will ooze from pustules on the tree, particularly on warm days. This liquid contains a great number of bacteria, which may be spread by rain or insects. The bacteria form a canker under the bark and survive there through the winter, infecting more trees the following year.
Pruning to Control Fireblight
Fire blight is a very serious disease in most parts of the country; it can wipe out all susceptible trees in an orchard in one season. It can be controlled, however. Fire blight is most damaging during bloom, when the blossoms become entry points for the bacteria. If you have a mini orchard -20 to 30 pear trees - it would pay to use an antibiotic spray or dust during bloom and shortly after to prevent the blight bacteria from reproducing. Fire blight spreads rapidly in periods of warm, humid weather, so check the trees carefully at such times for signs of wilting. Remove all suckers and cut off any infected branches before the bacteria attack the tree further. Using a sharp set of pruning shears, cut off the wilting branch at least 8 inches below the point of last visible wilt. After each cut, dip the shears in a solution of 1 part household bleach to 9 parts water to avoid transmitting bacteria from one branch to another. (When you are finished, wash and oil your tools to prevent damage from the bleach.) Discourage lush growth because it is very susceptible to fire blight damage. If possible, remove other plants that may serve as hosts for the disease, including wild apples, hawthorns, mountain ash, and cotoneaster hedges. Prune out fire blight cankers in the winter when trees are dormant. Leaves remaining on blighted branches in autumn can indicate trouble spots. If you prune before the sap starts to flow in the spring, you don't have to sterilize your tools after each cut.
Control Pests Too
Control aphids and pear psylla to prevent them from spreading the disease. The chief pest of pear trees in eastern and western (but not central) United States is the pear psylla. This reddish- brown insect rapidly develops resistance to chemical controls; it causes significant damage by spreading pear decline and fire blight and sucking out the plant sap. The insects emit a sticky substance called honeydew on which a black fungus grows. Yellow jackets may congregate around the black fungus, indicating pest activity. Control adults with dormant oil spray in the fall when they are most susceptible. A fall spraying is better than a spring spray because it will not affect many of the beneficial insects that are present in the trees in very early spring. If necessary use a dormant oil spray in the spring to inhibit egg-laying and to kill any active adults present. The adults begin to lay eggs when the temperature gets up to 70F, sometimes at slightly lower temperatures on a sunny day with no wind. You will have to use a 10-power magnifying glass to see the little yellow eggs at the base of the bud scales. As soon as you find any eggs, the first oil spray should go on. Spray again 7 days later. The insects don't seem to like laying eggs on this oily surface. Be sure to cover the tree thoroughly - until it's dripping. During the growing season use an insecticidal soap spray to keep pear psylla activity down.
Pear Care
By: National Gardening editors
Pears need soil with moderate fertility. Frosts during the bud and blossom period can damage the flowers and reduce yields significantly. Try to locate pears on a slope for better air drainage, or on the north side of a building to retard flowering. Space standard trees 20 to 25 feet apart, dwarf trees 12 to 15 feet apart.
Fertilizing Pears
Keep young trees weed-free, and water well during dry spells to help the roots get established quickly. Fertilize lightly in early spring of the second and succeeding years about 2 weeks before bloom. In moderately fertile soils, use ammonium nitrate at 1/8 pound or its equivalent per tree, multiplied by the number of years the tree has been set. Use less if you have highly fertile soil. If shoot growth on the tree is more than 12 inches in a season, use less fertilizer the following spring. If the leaves are pale green or yellowish in midsummer, add slightly more fertilizer the next year. Be careful applying fertilizer around your pear trees. Too much nitrogen promotes succulent growth, which allows fire blight disease bacteria to enter the tree's tender young shoots more easily.
Also, pears require several months to harden off in the fall. High nitrogen levels after mid-summer delay this hardening-off process. If your pear tree is located in a lawn area, cut back on turf fertilizer applications when you feed your lawn so as not to give your trees too much nitrogen.
Pear Pruning
Dwarf pears are often trained to a central leader. Semi-dwarf and standard-size trees also yield best when trained to a central leader, but they are usually trained to a modified leader because that form is easier to maintain with a larger tree. In an area prone to fire blight, you can prune your tree to multiple leaders. That way an infected leader can be removed while the others keep growing.
Pears are trickier to prune well than apples because all their branches grow nearly straight up. This growth habit promotes weak branches and dense foliage around the center of the tree, which encourages fire blight, fungus diseases, and pear psylla. Once you get the knack of pruning, the results will be worth the trouble. Prune regularly, though generally very lightly. Spreaders will help direct the tree's scaffold branches to a more outward, horizontal direction, and will encourage early development of fruiting spurs. Fortunately, pears are easier to train than most trees. Start in early summer of the first year. Toothpicks or clothespins can be used when branches are small; later, use wooden slats with the ends notched in a "V" to hold them in place. Sharp ends of spreaders can poke into the trunk and branch slightly, but won't hurt the tree. (An alternative practiced by some growers in the West is to hold branches down with a string tied to a clip in the ground). Pears bear their fruit mainly from terminal buds on short branches or spurs. Mature trees need only light pruning during the dormant season, mostly to thin out unfruitful, diseased, or crowded branches.
Avoid heading back cuts during dormant pruning since this will result in new, long, unfruitful shoots. If you have a variety that bears at an early age, such as 'Bosc' or 'Bartlett', remove fruit developing on the ends of thin fragile branches to keep the limbs from breaking.
Pollinating Pear
Pollination can be a problem with pears because bees are not partial to their blossoms; pear nectar contains less than 10 percent sugar, compared to nearly 50 percent in apple nectar, and pears often flower when it's too cold (below 55F) or wet for the bees to fly. To make matters worse, pear blossoms are fertile only for a short time. Pollination is most likely if the weather is warm during pear blossom time. If you're fortunate enough to live near an ocean coast or large lake, the cooling influence of the water in the spring promotes later blooming of pears and facilitates pollination. Ask other pear growers if pollination in your area is erratic from year to year; if so, you may need a beehive when your trees are coming into their bearing years for consistent fruit set. Move it to within 50 feet of your pear trees when blossoming starts. Even with a beehive, you may have occasional years of near-total crop failure owing to frosts or poor flying weather for the bees.
Codling Moth on Pears
By: National Gardening editors
The codling moth ("codling" is an old name for a tiny apple) is a key pear and apple pest. The first adults appear at the time blossom petals fall. The adult insects lay eggs on young fruit, twigs, and leaves.
Controlling Codling Moth
Trichogramma wasp parasites will attack codling moth eggs and should be released about 10 days after any spray application. As the eggs start to hatch, the young caterpillars feed on the leaves for a few days. This is a good time to spray the tree with Bacillus thuringiensis (B.t.), which kills various leaf-chewing caterpillars. The larvae don't feed heavily on the leaves so you might consider adding one or two tablespoons of skim milk powder as a feeding enhancer to your spray mixture. After feeding on the leaves briefly, the worms enter the pears and eat for about a month. Although the fruits will be ruined that year, you should try to intercept the larvae after they leave the pear and descend the trunk to reach the soil, where they will finish their life cycle. A strip of burlap about 6 inches wide and covered with Tangle Trap (a sticky, trapping substance) can be tightly wrapped around the trunk and stapled together to form a formidable and usually lethal barrier. Several turns of corrugated cardboard around the trunk will entice many of the surviving larvae to spin their cocoons in it, and after a while you can simply remove the cardboard from the tree and burn it. If there are two or more generations of codling moths in your area, use the burlap strip as a monitor of caterpillar activity and destroy the cardboard about a month after the first larvae are caught in the
Using Tangle Trap
Don't apply Tangle Trap directly to the tree because it will injure the bark. Woodpeckers, particularly the downy and the hairy, will eat up to half of the larvae that overwinter in the orchard area. Hang a block of suet in the trees to attract woodpeckers. Scrape off old, flaky bark by using chicken wire like a bath towel to deny winter cover to the larvae and make the birds' job that much easier.
Harvesting Pears
By: National Gardening editors
Pears should be harvested when they are mature, but still hard, and ripened off the tree for the best eating and canning quality. If you wait until the pears get ripe on the tree they'll be mushy inside within a day or two. The early varieties will take a few days to a week to ripen after harvest; later ripening varieties often require several weeks or more to reach best quality. Mature pears will be full size and the color of many varieties at this stage turns from green to light yellow. Generally, if you lift the fruit up it should break away easily from the stem. (The 'Bartlett' pear will need a slight twist to loosen it.) Pears grow larger and get softer all through the picking period.
Storing Pears
If you're going to keep some pears in cool storage for eating a month or two in the future, pick them when they are full size but still quite hard. Even though the skin is firm, handle them gently; they bruise easily. Pears that you will eat right away can be harvested later when the skin is a bit softer. Many varieties can be kept for a few weeks in a cool, dark place. For longer storage, pears need refrigeration at 32F to 40F. Bring them out to room temperature for a week or so before eating them.
By: National Gardening editors
Planning
• Choose fire blight-resistant varieties and rootstocks, especially in areas outside dry western regions.
• Most varieties will start to bear significant harvests after 5 to 6 years.
• Plant at least two different varieties for cross-pollination.
Preparation
• Choose a site with full sun, moderate fertility, and good air circulation and water drainage.
• Pears will do well in a wide range of soil types.
Planting
• Space standard-size trees 20 to 25 feet apart; space dwarf trees 12 to 15 feet apart.
Care
• Pears do best with a small amount of fertilizer early in the year. Heavy doses of nitrogen will make the tree more vulnerable to fire blight.
• Use spreaders to encourage horizontal branching and earlier fruiting spurs.
• See our article Fruit Pests and Diseases for controls of common pear pests such as pear psylla, codling moth, plum curculios, and fire blight.
Harvesting
• Don't let pears ripen on the tree. Harvest them when they reach a mature size but are still hard.
• Early pears will ripen at room temperature in a few days to a week. Storage varieties will keep 1 to 2 months or more in a cool (40F), dark place.
Pear Varieties
By: National Gardening editors
The extensive selection of high-quality pear varieties available that can't be found in grocery stores make pear trees well worth growing by home gardeners. Pears require less spraying than peaches, plums, or apples and are easy to train to fit small spaces in a yard. Unfortunately, pear trees can be affected by two serious problems. The insect pest the pear psylla can be difficult to control. And the bacterial disease fire blight has made larger-scale commercial pear growing difficult in many parts of the country. Because of fire blight, most of the United States pear crop now comes from northern California, Oregon, and Washington, where the predominantly dry climate discourages the spread of this disease. If you live outside of this region, you can still grow pears successfully by selecting blight-resistant varieties and rootstocks. With good planning and vigilance during the season, you can grow fresh, tender pears year after year with minimal use of chemical products.
Pear Varieties
Pears can usually be grown wherever apples are successful, though they are somewhat less resistant than apples to extremes of heat and cold. Pears, however, need less attention than apples in matters of pruning and insect control and are more tolerant of moist soil conditions. So if you have predominantly clay soil, pears will probably do better for you than apples on the same site. Compared to other tree fruits, pears are slower to start producing. Many apple varieties begin bearing in 3 to 4 years; with pears, the wait for good crops is longer. Standard types will take about 4 to 8 years to begin bearing; dwarfs, 4 to 6.
As a general rule, pears must be cross-pollinated to produce fruit, so plan to plant two varieties; most combinations of pear varieties will work except for 'Bartlett' and 'Seckel', which don't cross-pollinate well with each other. Out of nearly three thousand varieties, perhaps a hundred have good yields, flavor, texture, and keeping qualities. However, fewer than twenty are grown commercially. Thus, the home gardener has a wide choice of top-quality specialty pears. There are several pear varieties that offer effective resistance to fire blight, such as 'Moonglow', 'Magness', 'Maxine', 'Seckel',
and 'Kieffer'. In the South, plant resistant varieties such as 'Leconte' and 'Baldwin'.
Fireblight Disease on Pears
By: National Gardening editors
Fire blight, unlike most fruit tree diseases, is caused by a bacteria that can be spread from tree to tree by bees, aphids, pear psylla, and other insects. The bacteria mainly attack twigs and young shoots.
Fireblight Symptoms
Affected branches wither and turn black or brownish black, as if scorched. Most branch tips, once infected, wilt rapidly, taking on a shepherd's crook shape. The bacteria enter the tree through the blossoms or through lush, tender new growth. Once inside, they multiply rapidly and begin to work toward the roots. An orange-brown liquid will ooze from pustules on the tree, particularly on warm days. This liquid contains a great number of bacteria, which may be spread by rain or insects. The bacteria form a canker under the bark and survive there through the winter, infecting more trees the following year.
Pruning to Control Fireblight
Fire blight is a very serious disease in most parts of the country; it can wipe out all susceptible trees in an orchard in one season. It can be controlled, however. Fire blight is most damaging during bloom, when the blossoms become entry points for the bacteria. If you have a mini orchard -20 to 30 pear trees - it would pay to use an antibiotic spray or dust during bloom and shortly after to prevent the blight bacteria from reproducing. Fire blight spreads rapidly in periods of warm, humid weather, so check the trees carefully at such times for signs of wilting. Remove all suckers and cut off any infected branches before the bacteria attack the tree further. Using a sharp set of pruning shears, cut off the wilting branch at least 8 inches below the point of last visible wilt. After each cut, dip the shears in a solution of 1 part household bleach to 9 parts water to avoid transmitting bacteria from one branch to another. (When you are finished, wash and oil your tools to prevent damage from the bleach.) Discourage lush growth because it is very susceptible to fire blight damage. If possible, remove other plants that may serve as hosts for the disease, including wild apples, hawthorns, mountain ash, and cotoneaster hedges. Prune out fire blight cankers in the winter when trees are dormant. Leaves remaining on blighted branches in autumn can indicate trouble spots. If you prune before the sap starts to flow in the spring, you don't have to sterilize your tools after each cut.
Control Pests Too
Control aphids and pear psylla to prevent them from spreading the disease. The chief pest of pear trees in eastern and western (but not central) United States is the pear psylla. This reddish- brown insect rapidly develops resistance to chemical controls; it causes significant damage by spreading pear decline and fire blight and sucking out the plant sap. The insects emit a sticky substance called honeydew on which a black fungus grows. Yellow jackets may congregate around the black fungus, indicating pest activity. Control adults with dormant oil spray in the fall when they are most susceptible. A fall spraying is better than a spring spray because it will not affect many of the beneficial insects that are present in the trees in very early spring. If necessary use a dormant oil spray in the spring to inhibit egg-laying and to kill any active adults present. The adults begin to lay eggs when the temperature gets up to 70F, sometimes at slightly lower temperatures on a sunny day with no wind. You will have to use a 10-power magnifying glass to see the little yellow eggs at the base of the bud scales. As soon as you find any eggs, the first oil spray should go on. Spray again 7 days later. The insects don't seem to like laying eggs on this oily surface. Be sure to cover the tree thoroughly - until it's dripping. During the growing season use an insecticidal soap spray to keep pear psylla activity down.
Pear Care
By: National Gardening editors
Pears need soil with moderate fertility. Frosts during the bud and blossom period can damage the flowers and reduce yields significantly. Try to locate pears on a slope for better air drainage, or on the north side of a building to retard flowering. Space standard trees 20 to 25 feet apart, dwarf trees 12 to 15 feet apart.
Fertilizing Pears
Keep young trees weed-free, and water well during dry spells to help the roots get established quickly. Fertilize lightly in early spring of the second and succeeding years about 2 weeks before bloom. In moderately fertile soils, use ammonium nitrate at 1/8 pound or its equivalent per tree, multiplied by the number of years the tree has been set. Use less if you have highly fertile soil. If shoot growth on the tree is more than 12 inches in a season, use less fertilizer the following spring. If the leaves are pale green or yellowish in midsummer, add slightly more fertilizer the next year. Be careful applying fertilizer around your pear trees. Too much nitrogen promotes succulent growth, which allows fire blight disease bacteria to enter the tree's tender young shoots more easily.
Also, pears require several months to harden off in the fall. High nitrogen levels after mid-summer delay this hardening-off process. If your pear tree is located in a lawn area, cut back on turf fertilizer applications when you feed your lawn so as not to give your trees too much nitrogen.
Pear Pruning
Dwarf pears are often trained to a central leader. Semi-dwarf and standard-size trees also yield best when trained to a central leader, but they are usually trained to a modified leader because that form is easier to maintain with a larger tree. In an area prone to fire blight, you can prune your tree to multiple leaders. That way an infected leader can be removed while the others keep growing.
Pears are trickier to prune well than apples because all their branches grow nearly straight up. This growth habit promotes weak branches and dense foliage around the center of the tree, which encourages fire blight, fungus diseases, and pear psylla. Once you get the knack of pruning, the results will be worth the trouble. Prune regularly, though generally very lightly. Spreaders will help direct the tree's scaffold branches to a more outward, horizontal direction, and will encourage early development of fruiting spurs. Fortunately, pears are easier to train than most trees. Start in early summer of the first year. Toothpicks or clothespins can be used when branches are small; later, use wooden slats with the ends notched in a "V" to hold them in place. Sharp ends of spreaders can poke into the trunk and branch slightly, but won't hurt the tree. (An alternative practiced by some growers in the West is to hold branches down with a string tied to a clip in the ground). Pears bear their fruit mainly from terminal buds on short branches or spurs. Mature trees need only light pruning during the dormant season, mostly to thin out unfruitful, diseased, or crowded branches.
Avoid heading back cuts during dormant pruning since this will result in new, long, unfruitful shoots. If you have a variety that bears at an early age, such as 'Bosc' or 'Bartlett', remove fruit developing on the ends of thin fragile branches to keep the limbs from breaking.
Pollinating Pear
Pollination can be a problem with pears because bees are not partial to their blossoms; pear nectar contains less than 10 percent sugar, compared to nearly 50 percent in apple nectar, and pears often flower when it's too cold (below 55F) or wet for the bees to fly. To make matters worse, pear blossoms are fertile only for a short time. Pollination is most likely if the weather is warm during pear blossom time. If you're fortunate enough to live near an ocean coast or large lake, the cooling influence of the water in the spring promotes later blooming of pears and facilitates pollination. Ask other pear growers if pollination in your area is erratic from year to year; if so, you may need a beehive when your trees are coming into their bearing years for consistent fruit set. Move it to within 50 feet of your pear trees when blossoming starts. Even with a beehive, you may have occasional years of near-total crop failure owing to frosts or poor flying weather for the bees.
Codling Moth on Pears
By: National Gardening editors
The codling moth ("codling" is an old name for a tiny apple) is a key pear and apple pest. The first adults appear at the time blossom petals fall. The adult insects lay eggs on young fruit, twigs, and leaves.
Controlling Codling Moth
Trichogramma wasp parasites will attack codling moth eggs and should be released about 10 days after any spray application. As the eggs start to hatch, the young caterpillars feed on the leaves for a few days. This is a good time to spray the tree with Bacillus thuringiensis (B.t.), which kills various leaf-chewing caterpillars. The larvae don't feed heavily on the leaves so you might consider adding one or two tablespoons of skim milk powder as a feeding enhancer to your spray mixture. After feeding on the leaves briefly, the worms enter the pears and eat for about a month. Although the fruits will be ruined that year, you should try to intercept the larvae after they leave the pear and descend the trunk to reach the soil, where they will finish their life cycle. A strip of burlap about 6 inches wide and covered with Tangle Trap (a sticky, trapping substance) can be tightly wrapped around the trunk and stapled together to form a formidable and usually lethal barrier. Several turns of corrugated cardboard around the trunk will entice many of the surviving larvae to spin their cocoons in it, and after a while you can simply remove the cardboard from the tree and burn it. If there are two or more generations of codling moths in your area, use the burlap strip as a monitor of caterpillar activity and destroy the cardboard about a month after the first larvae are caught in the
Using Tangle Trap
Don't apply Tangle Trap directly to the tree because it will injure the bark. Woodpeckers, particularly the downy and the hairy, will eat up to half of the larvae that overwinter in the orchard area. Hang a block of suet in the trees to attract woodpeckers. Scrape off old, flaky bark by using chicken wire like a bath towel to deny winter cover to the larvae and make the birds' job that much easier.
Harvesting Pears
By: National Gardening editors
Pears should be harvested when they are mature, but still hard, and ripened off the tree for the best eating and canning quality. If you wait until the pears get ripe on the tree they'll be mushy inside within a day or two. The early varieties will take a few days to a week to ripen after harvest; later ripening varieties often require several weeks or more to reach best quality. Mature pears will be full size and the color of many varieties at this stage turns from green to light yellow. Generally, if you lift the fruit up it should break away easily from the stem. (The 'Bartlett' pear will need a slight twist to loosen it.) Pears grow larger and get softer all through the picking period.
Storing Pears
If you're going to keep some pears in cool storage for eating a month or two in the future, pick them when they are full size but still quite hard. Even though the skin is firm, handle them gently; they bruise easily. Pears that you will eat right away can be harvested later when the skin is a bit softer. Many varieties can be kept for a few weeks in a cool, dark place. For longer storage, pears need refrigeration at 32F to 40F. Bring them out to room temperature for a week or so before eating them.
Gardening Basics: Apples
Apple Essentials
Planning
• Select resistant varieties to minimize apple scab and other disease problems.
• Apple trees are not self-fertile; plant at least one other variety that blooms at the same time. Flowering crab apples that bloom at the same time will also pollinate apples.
• Spring planting is recommended in central and northern areas. Where fall and winter weather is generally mild and moist, fall planting is successful.
• Buy dormant, bare-root, 1-year-old trees, if possible.
• Dwarfs and semi-dwarfs will bear in 3 to 4 years, yielding 1 to 2 bushels per year. Standard-size trees will start to bear in 4 to 8 years, yielding 4 to 5 bushels of apples.
Preparation
• Choose a site with full sun, moderate fertility, and good air circulation and water drainage.
• Apples will tolerate a wide range of soil types.
Planting
• When planting trees on dwarfing and semi-dwarfing rootstocks, be sure the graft union stays at least 1 inch above ground.
• Space standard trees 30 to 35 feet apart, semi-dwarfs 20 to 25 feet apart, and dwarf trees 15 to 20 feet apart.
• Surround each tree with a mouse guard before filling the hole completely.
• Water, prune, and mulch young trees right after planting.
Care
• Water young trees regularly, especially those on semi-dwarfing or dwarfing rootstocks, to ensure that the root system becomes well established.
• Renew the mulch periodically, but pull it away from the tree in the fall so mice don't nest over the winter and eat the bark.
• Begin training trees to their permanent framework in the first season.
• Prune bearing trees annually.
• See our article Fruit Pests and Diseases for controls of common apple pests such as apple maggot, plum curculio, green fruitworm, codling moth, fire blight, and powdery mildew.
Harvesting
• The harvest season ranges from midsummer to late fall, depending on the variety.
• To avoid pulling out the stem when you harvest, cup the apple in your hand, tilt it upward, and twist to separate it from the spur at the point of attachment.
Planting Apple Trees
By: the Editors of National Gardening
Choose a site with full sun, moderate fertility, and good air circulation and water drainage. Apple trees will tolerate a wide range of soil conditions. While you can improve your soil with fertilizer and mulch, other factors -- full sun, good water drainage, the right varieties, and loving care -- will go a long way toward overcoming less-than-perfect soil.
Planting Particulars
In the North, plant as early in the spring as possible. In the South where fall and winter weather is moist and mild, fall planting works well; it gives the roots a good headstart on spring.
Dig a hole a foot wider and a foot deeper than the root ball, then partially fill it with topsoil or compost. Space standard trees 30 to 35 feet apart, semidwarfs 20 to 25 feet apart, and dwarfs 15 to 20 feet apart. Pound in a stake on the downwind side for support. Support is not essential for semidwarfs, but it is still a good idea for the first few years.
Place your tree in the hole and spread the roots carefully. With dwarf or semi-dwarf trees that have only one graft, make sure that the graft union (a small swelling near the base of the trunk) remains at least 1 inch above ground, or the upper variety will take root and override the desired influence of the rootstock.
Deep planting of both rootstock-dwarfed and interstem-dwarfed trees results in better tree anchorage and fewer suckers growing up from the roots. However, planting trees much deeper than they grew in the nursery can increase problems with crown rot. With interstem varieties, the interstem section should be half above and half below the ground.
Before you fill the hole, place a mouse guard around the trunk to extend about 10 inches or so above the ground. Water your fledglings thoroughly. Then mulch with clean straw or some other weed-free organic material to keep the moist and to control weeds.
Choosing Apple Varieties
By: National Gardening editors
If you were told about Johnny Appleseed as a schoolchild, you may hope to grow apples as easily as he did, dropping seeds in the ground and leaving a trail of apple-laden trees across the continent. Unfortunately, it's not that easy. Apples require a fair amount of patience and planning. If you want a choice crop, you'll have to control insects, diseases, and other pests, keep an eye on the weather, and prune annually. And your first harvest will only come 3 years or more after planting. But the reward picking apples from your own garden is worth the effort.
Orchard Planning
When setting up a home orchard, you will find there are dozens of apple varieties to choose from. Talk to local nursery people, your county extension service agent, or other gardeners to help you select varieties that do well in your area. Rootstock choice determines whether a tree is a dwarf, semidwarf, or standard size. Dwarf trees grow to be 8 to 12 feet tall and just as wide; semidwarf trees grow to be 12 to 18 feet tall and wide; and standard trees grow to be 18 to 22 feet tall and wide. In general, semi-dwarfing rootstocks for apples are recommended, if space permits, as true dwarfs are somewhat less hardy and therefore less suited to the coldest parts of the country.
The same rootstock combined with different varieties will produce trees of different sizes with differing degrees of vigor. Spur-type strains of a variety (for example, 'Winespur' is a spur-type strain of 'Winesap') produce more fruit-bearing spurs and less vegetative shoots than their parent variety. Not all rootstocks, nor the apple varieties grafted onto them, will be successful in every region. Most varieties survive well in USDA Hardiness Zones 5 through 7; there's a smaller, but still excellent, group of cold-hardy choices for zones 2 through 4. There are several low-chill varieties for the mild-winter areas of zones 8 through 10. Check apple varieties for cold hardiness, disease-resistance, and pollination requirements before deciding on a variety.
Varieties Abound
Try to pick pairs of different early, mid-season, or late varieties to ensure that pollen of two varieties is available at the same time. Depending on your variety selection, you can have fresh apples from early July until early November in many areas. Some apple varieties are best for cooking, others are good for eating fresh, and some are delicious for both. Varieties highly rated for eating fresh are numerous, including 'McIntosh' and other "Mac" types such as 'Jonamac' and 'Jerseymac', which bear fruit earlier than 'McIntosh'. 'Prima', 'Empire', and 'Macoun' are excellent for early, mid-season, and late harvests, respectively, and are enjoying increasing popularity. If you enjoy baked apples, consider 'Cox Orange Pippin' or 'Duchess' old favorites, or more recent choices such as 'Mutsu', 'Melrose', and 'Jonagold', which are excellent for cooking as well as eating fresh.
Buy dormant, bare-root trees, at a local nursery. Get 1-year-old whips, if possible; if not, be sure the trees are not more than 3 years old. Younger trees will become established more quickly, are less costly, and allow you more control in the development of a good framework of branches.
Apple Tree Care
By: National Gardening editors
Water young trees regularly, especially those on semidwarfing or dwarfing rootstocks, to ensure that the root system becomes well established. Renew mulch periodically, but pull it away from the tree in the fall so mice don't nest over the winter and eat the bark.
Training Young Trees
Train dwarf apple trees to the central leader system. In the early years of growth, it's important to create a strong framework of scaffold branches because apples can bear heavy crops year after year. Semidwarfing trees can be trained to a central leader shape, but are more easily trained to a modified leader system. Standard trees should also be trained to a modified leader. Prune bearing trees annually. Larger trees need more pruning and you'll eventually have to use a ladder to get the job done. Spur-type apples require less pruning than other trees because they produce more fruiting spurs and less vegetative growth. Apples are often grown without any thinning other than what nature provides in the annual spring drop. However, to avoid potential disease and insect problems, you might want to thin after the natural fruit drop (about 4 to 6 weeks after bloom) to one fruit per cluster, or about 6 to 8 inches between fruit.
Potent Pests
Home gardeners who wouldn't dream of using pesticides on other crops may have to consider this option with apples. The fruit are subject to many insect and disease attacks that twist, perforate, and mangle them; most caretakers must spray to get an acceptable crop. But there are alternatives. You can avoid using fungicides by selecting disease-resistant varieties such as 'Prima', 'Priscilla', 'Liberty', and 'Freedom'. These have been field tested for many years and require no spraying for apple scab, cedar-apple rust, and other common diseases, while most other varieties require periodic spraying every spring and summer after planting.
Apple maggots, plum curculios, green fruitworms, and codling moths are pests that can trouble a crop. Annual spray programs are usually necessary. Check with your extension service to find approved pest prevention programs for your area. Other pests such as scales, mites, and aphids should be controlled by natural parasite and predator populations if you haven't used a lot of sprays. For problem areas, you can try an anti-insect oil, usually available where pesticides are sold. Spray it in the spring when your apple trees are in the tight cluster stage: after the leaves have unfolded from the fruiting cluster, but before the buds begin to show pink.
Harvesting
Most apples are ready to pick when they separate easily from the tree. With some varieties, you may notice the fruit softening a bit or apples may start dropping. Another indicator is the color of seeds in the core -- when they turn dark brown, the apples are ready. Don't yank on the apple to pick it; instead, twist the fruit upward with a rotating motion. Early-season apples tend to start bearing at a younger age; but they generally don't keep long after harvesting them. Many late-season types have good keeping qualities -- they'll keep for a few weeks in a cool place. In a good root cellar, storage apples can keep 5 months or so.
Planning
• Select resistant varieties to minimize apple scab and other disease problems.
• Apple trees are not self-fertile; plant at least one other variety that blooms at the same time. Flowering crab apples that bloom at the same time will also pollinate apples.
• Spring planting is recommended in central and northern areas. Where fall and winter weather is generally mild and moist, fall planting is successful.
• Buy dormant, bare-root, 1-year-old trees, if possible.
• Dwarfs and semi-dwarfs will bear in 3 to 4 years, yielding 1 to 2 bushels per year. Standard-size trees will start to bear in 4 to 8 years, yielding 4 to 5 bushels of apples.
Preparation
• Choose a site with full sun, moderate fertility, and good air circulation and water drainage.
• Apples will tolerate a wide range of soil types.
Planting
• When planting trees on dwarfing and semi-dwarfing rootstocks, be sure the graft union stays at least 1 inch above ground.
• Space standard trees 30 to 35 feet apart, semi-dwarfs 20 to 25 feet apart, and dwarf trees 15 to 20 feet apart.
• Surround each tree with a mouse guard before filling the hole completely.
• Water, prune, and mulch young trees right after planting.
Care
• Water young trees regularly, especially those on semi-dwarfing or dwarfing rootstocks, to ensure that the root system becomes well established.
• Renew the mulch periodically, but pull it away from the tree in the fall so mice don't nest over the winter and eat the bark.
• Begin training trees to their permanent framework in the first season.
• Prune bearing trees annually.
• See our article Fruit Pests and Diseases for controls of common apple pests such as apple maggot, plum curculio, green fruitworm, codling moth, fire blight, and powdery mildew.
Harvesting
• The harvest season ranges from midsummer to late fall, depending on the variety.
• To avoid pulling out the stem when you harvest, cup the apple in your hand, tilt it upward, and twist to separate it from the spur at the point of attachment.
Planting Apple Trees
By: the Editors of National Gardening
Choose a site with full sun, moderate fertility, and good air circulation and water drainage. Apple trees will tolerate a wide range of soil conditions. While you can improve your soil with fertilizer and mulch, other factors -- full sun, good water drainage, the right varieties, and loving care -- will go a long way toward overcoming less-than-perfect soil.
Planting Particulars
In the North, plant as early in the spring as possible. In the South where fall and winter weather is moist and mild, fall planting works well; it gives the roots a good headstart on spring.
Dig a hole a foot wider and a foot deeper than the root ball, then partially fill it with topsoil or compost. Space standard trees 30 to 35 feet apart, semidwarfs 20 to 25 feet apart, and dwarfs 15 to 20 feet apart. Pound in a stake on the downwind side for support. Support is not essential for semidwarfs, but it is still a good idea for the first few years.
Place your tree in the hole and spread the roots carefully. With dwarf or semi-dwarf trees that have only one graft, make sure that the graft union (a small swelling near the base of the trunk) remains at least 1 inch above ground, or the upper variety will take root and override the desired influence of the rootstock.
Deep planting of both rootstock-dwarfed and interstem-dwarfed trees results in better tree anchorage and fewer suckers growing up from the roots. However, planting trees much deeper than they grew in the nursery can increase problems with crown rot. With interstem varieties, the interstem section should be half above and half below the ground.
Before you fill the hole, place a mouse guard around the trunk to extend about 10 inches or so above the ground. Water your fledglings thoroughly. Then mulch with clean straw or some other weed-free organic material to keep the moist and to control weeds.
Choosing Apple Varieties
By: National Gardening editors
If you were told about Johnny Appleseed as a schoolchild, you may hope to grow apples as easily as he did, dropping seeds in the ground and leaving a trail of apple-laden trees across the continent. Unfortunately, it's not that easy. Apples require a fair amount of patience and planning. If you want a choice crop, you'll have to control insects, diseases, and other pests, keep an eye on the weather, and prune annually. And your first harvest will only come 3 years or more after planting. But the reward picking apples from your own garden is worth the effort.
Orchard Planning
When setting up a home orchard, you will find there are dozens of apple varieties to choose from. Talk to local nursery people, your county extension service agent, or other gardeners to help you select varieties that do well in your area. Rootstock choice determines whether a tree is a dwarf, semidwarf, or standard size. Dwarf trees grow to be 8 to 12 feet tall and just as wide; semidwarf trees grow to be 12 to 18 feet tall and wide; and standard trees grow to be 18 to 22 feet tall and wide. In general, semi-dwarfing rootstocks for apples are recommended, if space permits, as true dwarfs are somewhat less hardy and therefore less suited to the coldest parts of the country.
The same rootstock combined with different varieties will produce trees of different sizes with differing degrees of vigor. Spur-type strains of a variety (for example, 'Winespur' is a spur-type strain of 'Winesap') produce more fruit-bearing spurs and less vegetative shoots than their parent variety. Not all rootstocks, nor the apple varieties grafted onto them, will be successful in every region. Most varieties survive well in USDA Hardiness Zones 5 through 7; there's a smaller, but still excellent, group of cold-hardy choices for zones 2 through 4. There are several low-chill varieties for the mild-winter areas of zones 8 through 10. Check apple varieties for cold hardiness, disease-resistance, and pollination requirements before deciding on a variety.
Varieties Abound
Try to pick pairs of different early, mid-season, or late varieties to ensure that pollen of two varieties is available at the same time. Depending on your variety selection, you can have fresh apples from early July until early November in many areas. Some apple varieties are best for cooking, others are good for eating fresh, and some are delicious for both. Varieties highly rated for eating fresh are numerous, including 'McIntosh' and other "Mac" types such as 'Jonamac' and 'Jerseymac', which bear fruit earlier than 'McIntosh'. 'Prima', 'Empire', and 'Macoun' are excellent for early, mid-season, and late harvests, respectively, and are enjoying increasing popularity. If you enjoy baked apples, consider 'Cox Orange Pippin' or 'Duchess' old favorites, or more recent choices such as 'Mutsu', 'Melrose', and 'Jonagold', which are excellent for cooking as well as eating fresh.
Buy dormant, bare-root trees, at a local nursery. Get 1-year-old whips, if possible; if not, be sure the trees are not more than 3 years old. Younger trees will become established more quickly, are less costly, and allow you more control in the development of a good framework of branches.
Apple Tree Care
By: National Gardening editors
Water young trees regularly, especially those on semidwarfing or dwarfing rootstocks, to ensure that the root system becomes well established. Renew mulch periodically, but pull it away from the tree in the fall so mice don't nest over the winter and eat the bark.
Training Young Trees
Train dwarf apple trees to the central leader system. In the early years of growth, it's important to create a strong framework of scaffold branches because apples can bear heavy crops year after year. Semidwarfing trees can be trained to a central leader shape, but are more easily trained to a modified leader system. Standard trees should also be trained to a modified leader. Prune bearing trees annually. Larger trees need more pruning and you'll eventually have to use a ladder to get the job done. Spur-type apples require less pruning than other trees because they produce more fruiting spurs and less vegetative growth. Apples are often grown without any thinning other than what nature provides in the annual spring drop. However, to avoid potential disease and insect problems, you might want to thin after the natural fruit drop (about 4 to 6 weeks after bloom) to one fruit per cluster, or about 6 to 8 inches between fruit.
Potent Pests
Home gardeners who wouldn't dream of using pesticides on other crops may have to consider this option with apples. The fruit are subject to many insect and disease attacks that twist, perforate, and mangle them; most caretakers must spray to get an acceptable crop. But there are alternatives. You can avoid using fungicides by selecting disease-resistant varieties such as 'Prima', 'Priscilla', 'Liberty', and 'Freedom'. These have been field tested for many years and require no spraying for apple scab, cedar-apple rust, and other common diseases, while most other varieties require periodic spraying every spring and summer after planting.
Apple maggots, plum curculios, green fruitworms, and codling moths are pests that can trouble a crop. Annual spray programs are usually necessary. Check with your extension service to find approved pest prevention programs for your area. Other pests such as scales, mites, and aphids should be controlled by natural parasite and predator populations if you haven't used a lot of sprays. For problem areas, you can try an anti-insect oil, usually available where pesticides are sold. Spray it in the spring when your apple trees are in the tight cluster stage: after the leaves have unfolded from the fruiting cluster, but before the buds begin to show pink.
Harvesting
Most apples are ready to pick when they separate easily from the tree. With some varieties, you may notice the fruit softening a bit or apples may start dropping. Another indicator is the color of seeds in the core -- when they turn dark brown, the apples are ready. Don't yank on the apple to pick it; instead, twist the fruit upward with a rotating motion. Early-season apples tend to start bearing at a younger age; but they generally don't keep long after harvesting them. Many late-season types have good keeping qualities -- they'll keep for a few weeks in a cool place. In a good root cellar, storage apples can keep 5 months or so.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)