Fresh Apples from Sebastopol


apples-jacquie

Every fall Alden lane brings in farm fresh apples from Sebastopol grower, Dave Hale. Apples arrive weekly so the crop is fresh, we just received a delivery this morning.

Dave Hale’s apples are not the usual store bought type from out of state. These are unique and flavorful, antique and heirloom apples that are delivered fresh weekly from the farmer. Enjoy an apple for fresh eating or bake a bunch into a pie. Come in now for fresh taste.

Here is what we have on hand:

  • Cortland
  • Cameo
  • Bramley
  • Braeburn
  • Golden Delicious
  • Jonagold
  • Jonathon
  • King
  • Northern Spy
  • Mutsu
  • Starking
  • Spitzenburg
  • Pippin

October Tree Sale

Fall is in the air, leaves are changing colors, temperatures are cooling and pumpkins once again, are everywhere in sight.  And it’s also a perfect time of the year to plant a tree – especially a colorful deciduous one.

A deciduous tree can add beautiful color to your yard for the fall, it will let the sun in during the winter, and they will help to shade and cool your home during the summer. The freshly planted roots love the warm soil of October and the cooling temperatures that follow reduce transplant shock. Add the rain of November, and you’ve got the perfect formula for successful tree planting.

We have a sizable selection of trees waiting to get out of their pots and into your soil. Our sale WILL include Evergreen Trees, Deciduous Trees, Japanese Maple, Magnolias, Vines and selected Conifer plants, Tropical plants excluding edibles.

Sale includes 75% off roses, grapes and berries, and deciduous fruit trees.

Sale excludes Carpet Roses, Tropical Fruit trees, Avocados, citrus and capers.

Our sale is good thru October and applies only to ­IN-STOCK Items. All sales are FINAL, and NO other discounts apply. Sale prices are NOT good on Special Orders or Pre-Orders.

Let us help you select the perfect tree. We will be sure to get you started with everything you need for success with your fall planting.

 

Start a Farmers Market in your Backyard

It’s that time of year again for growing your own backyard fruit. Let’s all set a goal that is easier to achieve, but still makes us feel great! You can grow more things here in the valley than most places the world. We get enough frost to produce delicious stone fruit, and with a little protection from cold weather, you can also grow avocados. You can start pomegranates and berries now that you can actually enjoy this year.

And not just fruit! grow veggies as well. Potatoes are the easiest, most productive root veggie to start right now, next to your fig tree.

This is the time of year where we have the widest selection of fruit trees and is also a great time to get them in the ground.

We can’t explain the difference of ­harvesting your own backyard fruit and vegetables from buying them in the store (organic or not), but you will certainly, know the difference. It’s a matter of taste. You can also sleep well at night knowing that you have complete control over the plant care products you use.

Fresh Taste

Nothing beats the taste of a sun-warm, tree-ripened fruit picked straight from the tree in your own yard. You know it’s fresh, juicy and with the right cultivation, pesticide and chemical-free which you can’t always say about store bought fruit, which is often held in cold storage for months and has been treated with who-knows-what to get that perfect market appearance!

We have a sizable inventory of fruit trees, berries, and grapes available for your backyard fruit collection. We plant all of our trees in bio-degradable pulp pots which prevent damage to the roots. This means you’ll have even more success than with traditional bare root plants.

Start a farmers market in your backyard, and don’t be shy to share with us how great your food is!

Multiple Uses of Backyard Fruit Trees

Consider using fruit trees in the yard to provide shade or block unwanted views. You don’t need a lot of space. Grow an espaliered apple or pear along your fence or wall train a grape or kiwi up over an arbor or trellis, plant a dwarf peach or apple in a container on your deck. Plant a combination multi-graft tree – it will give you a summer of fruit!

Varieties on our list are selected to be successful in our area. Also, there is a choice of two different combination Fruit Salad trees and over 20 varieties of grapes.

We just brought in a full range of Dave Wilson container-grown blueberries, pomegranates, and figs that will complement the new season bare root collection.

Here are just a few to consider:
Blueberries, we’ve selected great varieties that thrive in our climate. Choose from Sunshine Blue, South Moon, Misty, Jubilee, Jewel, O’Neal and Sharp Blue. We recommend preparing the soil with acid planting mix and locating the plants in morning sun until 1:00 for best results.

Figs and Pomegranates were born to live in our valley. These Mediterranean plants love our climate, are water-wise and thrive with very little care.

Figs: Brown Turkey, Kadota, Black Mission and Peter’s Honey.

Pomegranates: My new favorite Ambrosia is the sweetest pomegranate you’ll ever eat. Grenada, Wonderful, Eve, Eversweet & Parfianka are among our collection.

So come in and meet our expert staff. They’ll be happy to help you choose the correct varieties based on ripening times, taste and space availability. We’ll provide you with planting instructions and all the necessary items and knowledge to get you growing.

Whether you have space for a whole orchard or just a single tree – come in and see our extensive selection and soon you’ll be picking ripe fruit from your garden.

See our backyard fruit tree collection here.

 

Cherries

Plant a Cherry Tree
Fruit trees are here, including Cherries. We have a stunning selection.

Cherries fall into a couple of different groups. Gardeners grow sweet cherries for fresh eating and sour cherries for cooking. Many cherries need a complementary partner/pollenizer planted nearby, but some are fruitful and happy standing alone.

Here is a quick summary of our selection:

Bing Sweet Cherry – Sweet, crisp, dark cherry for fresh eating. Ripens in Early June. Pollenized by Black Tartarian or Rainier

Black Tartarian Sweet Cherry – Softer and earlier than bing – Sprightly Flavor. Ripens in Mid May. Interfruitful with all sweet cherries

Craig’s Crimson Sweet Cherry – Dark red to nearly black, medium to large size, wonderful spicy flavor, very firm texture. Ripens in Mid May. Self-fruitful

English Morello Sour Cherry – Late-ripening tart cherry for cooking. Ripens in Mid June. Self-fruitful

Lapins Sweet Cherry – Self-fruitful, dark red sweet cherry. Ripens in Late May. Self-fruitful

Rainier Sweet Cherry – Large, yellow with red blush. Sweet and flavorful. Ripens in Early June. Pollenized by Bing or Black Tartarian

Stella Sweet Cherry – Large, nearly black, richly flavored sweet cherry. Ripens in Early June. Self-fruitful

Utah Giant Sweet Cherry – Favorite sweet cherry in Utah. Larger, firmer, more flavorful than Bing. Ripens in Late May. Pollenized by Bing or Ranier

Royal Crimson Sweet Cherry – Bright crimson with superb flavor. Ripens in Early May. Self-fruitful

Prevent Worms in Cherries

Spotted Wing Drosophila or Cherry Fruitfly is affecting cherries and other soft-bodied fruits such as berries in California.  Numerous gardeners have complained about finding the little white worms in cherries just at harvest time.

These worms are the larvae of a fruit fly that has been a pest in Japan for decades but somehow made it to the US.  It has no known enemies in the US, so it has spread, unchecked, like wildfire.  This pest has turned up in raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries, but especially Cherries.

The University of California at Davis has guidelines for dealing with the past so homeowners can preserve their harvests.  For a detailed look at the problem check out the UC website: http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/EXOTIC/drosophila.html.

Summarizing the approach suggested is as follows:

Good control can be achieved with a few well-timed pesticide sprayings beginning when the earliest maturing variety in the orchard is just starting to turn from green to straw-colored.

Spray trees using Spinosad or Malathion. Spinosad is Organic and has been seen to yield successful results, so it’s the preferred solution

Traps should also be set to determine if the fruit flies are present. Directions for making traps are included in links below.

It has been said that no treatment is effective unless the entire tree can be sprayed.

Helpful Links

Oregon State Extension has a nice collection of videos to help wth the control of Spotted Wing Drosophila Fly.

 

 

Dormant Spray for Fungus Control

February into Spring (About Valentines)
The timing of the dormant spray  spring sprayings for various fruit trees can be crucial and focuses on fungus control.

Leaf curl on nectarines and peaches is controlled with an application of  Bonide Liquid Copper Fungicide when flower buds swell but before they show any color.

To control brown rot and shot hole fungus on stone fruits, spray Bonide Liquid Copper Fungicide when the buds crack and show color, then again 2 weeks later.

For control of fire blight in apples and pears, (if your trees have a history of fire blight,) Spray with Bonide Liquid Copper Fungicide every 5 days during the bloom cycle.

Additional spring spraying will minimize wormy apples & pears. To properly time these sprayings, hang Codling Moth Traps in one of your fruit trees just before blossom time. When codling moths first appear (usually when about 3/4 of the flower petals have fallen from the tree), wait one week and spray with GardenTech Sevin once, and then spray weekly with Captain Jack’s Spinosad mixed with Bonide All season Spray Oil for 2-3 weeks.

Replace traps monthly and repeat spray regime after additional generations of moths are trapped.

 

Your Edible Landscape – By Nancy McNeish

This year Alden Lane features a monthly look at growing edible plants in your home landscape, beginning with fruit trees.

My neighbor’s tree has large, dark green, leathery leaves which are deeply lobed. It is a smallish tree, more like a dense, full bush, and graces the walkway up to the front door. Best of all are the rich black fruits with a sweet strawberry-colored interior which ripen twice a year and are eagerly collected by another neighbor. It is a ‘Black Mission’ fig, a tree cultivated in California since the Spanish settled here.

Mission Fig is but one of many varieties of attractive, productive, edible plants suitable for growing in your front yard. Following my neighbor’s lead, I now have a ‘Violette de Bordeaux’ fig growing in my front yard. It produced its first fruits the autumn after I planted it.

I also have a glossy-leaved navel orange, a multi-graft pluot, and a dwarf peach/nectarine growing among my other front yard landscape plants. And why not? My south and west exposures are ideal, and the fruit trees are just as attractive as more traditional landscape plants. Sweet homegrown fruits are the reward.

Mid to late January is the ideal time to select and plant your favorite fruit tree from our abundant selection. Roots establish more quickly in winter moist soils, and new green shoots will quickly follow. Alden Lane’s “Fruit Picks” for ­delicious and beautiful deciduous (leafless in winter) fruit trees:

Apple – Columnar ‘Northpole’ and ‘Scarlet Sentinel’ are strikingly handsome accents for small spaces.
Cherry – Frothy late white flowers yield early fruits. Try all around champ ‘Lapins’.
Peach – Cute as a bug dwarf ‘Garden Sun’ or ‘Pix Zee’ forms lush, tropical looking bushes.
Pear – Choose disease resistant ‘Harrow Delight’ or ‘Warren’ for clouds of white spring blossoms and heavenly flavor
Persimmon – Easy to grow with showy fruits which light up the autumn landscape. Enjoy the large fruits of ‘Giant Fuyu’
Plum – Gorgeous ‘Weeping Santa Rosa’ combines flowing fountain form and classic, rich, dark fruits
Pluot – Kick the sweet up a notch with ‘Flavor King’, a naturally smaller tree or ‘Splash’, with very sweet orange-colored fruit

See our Backyard Orchard Page