Organic Gardening Info from Peaceful Valley

Codling Moths produce several generations in a season. They start laying their eggs in the Winter, and overwinter, or wait out the cold weather. The moths lay their eggs on the buds of the trees, so that the first generation of apples or pears form around the Codling Moth eggs. The result is that the inside of the apple becomes brown and soggy.

Subsequent generations of Codling Moths, like those we have here in the Sierra Foothills, will have 3 or 4 generations in a season. Their eggs will hatch in the debris around the tree, and the larvae will climb up the tree and into the fruit. It’s a big problem for growers.

One way to protect fruit from subsequent generations of Codling Moths is to use Maggot Barriers. They are a very simple and effective way to protect your fruit. By wrapping apples and pears in fine nylon mesh they simply block pests from digging in.

Pheremone lures and traps can be used for both monitoring and as pest control. A farmer can put one or two lures per acre, and see how many moths are trapped in order to monitor the population. In this way, the farmer can time sprays and plan ahead.

As traps, the farmer or home gardener will typically put one or two traps per tree. Adult Codling Moths are attracted to the pheromone lures, and get stuck to the trap’s sticky inner surface.

Now is a good time to prepare for Codling Moths. Stock up now while the trees are blooming!

As I sit gazing out my window at my beautiful garden on this sunny morning, the first day of spring, I can’t help but worry about the fate of my fruit trees in the days ahead. I never want to get too excited about my trees bearing fruit at this time of year though it is so very tempting.

Last year I thought for sure we had passed the danger zone and made the mistake of actually verbalizing what a good fruit year it looked to be. I will never make that mistake again. All it took was 6 hours of frost on the last weekend of April to kill all the tender fruit in Nevada County. My trees especially the peach and cherry trees are loaded with blossoms that look like pink and white popcorn. Oh how tempting it is to fantasize about all the delicious fruit that the blossoms will bring forth. Instead I look at their temporary beauty and wait in patience for the summer so as not to anticipate their success or failure.

I think that cover crops have great potential for use in suburban environments, and I’m not just talking about large swaths of green grass that cover our yards…

Many Versatile Uses 

Cover crops, such as clover, rye, vetch, grains, certain peas and beans, and many beautiful pollinator-attracting plants, have the ability to pull nutrients from deep in the soil, effectively mining minerals out of the ground and making them available to other plants.  They serve as great “green” or Nitrogen-rich compost material, and many will readily regrow when sheared.  They can be used as mulch by cutting lush growth and letting it lay on the ground around plants.  You can keep unwanted weeds at bay because a well-selected cover crop will choke them out.  Many cover crops are drought-tolerant once established, needing little supplemental water, yet casting shade and retaining soil moisture underneath their small canopies.  They can serve as meadows…pollinator gardens…erosion control…nutrient retention…I could go on…and on…

Books

There are many books on the subject, a favorite of mine is Gaia’s Garden – A Guide to Homescale Permaculture by Toby Hemenway.  Peaceful Valley carries many books on the subject of cover cropping as well.

Nature abhors a vacuum – weeds will make their way to bare patches of soil in our yards, and as nature has designed, break up the earth to allow for larger shrubs and trees to grow with the help of the wind and birds.   Mother Nature continually tries to reforest herself, but we can use this to our advantage by planting a cover crop that will stop weeds from germinating.  Are you losing a battle with weeds on your property?  A cover crop may be the answer for you.

My Yard 

Last Summer my husband and I decided to convert half of our back lawn into an orchard.  Now I’m not talking an acre here, just about 20′ x 30′ – enough room for a few drawf fruit trees like most suburban lots.  But first, the soil definitely needed to be improved.

In the middle of our blazing Northern California summer, we stopped watering the future orchard site to kill the grass (we could have sheet mulched as well).  Once the fall rains came, we tilled the dead grass into the soil, and spread a cover crop seed.  With the moisture in the soil from the rains, the cover crop germinated quickly, and covered the area with lush green growth in short time. 

In late winter, we tilled this cover crop back into the soil, providing nitrogen, and other trace elements to the newly planted bare-root fruit trees (which have put on quite a bit of growth just since January!).  Our next step is to reseed a cover crop around the trees that will cover the bare earth and attract pollinators to our mini-orchard.

I hope that you will consider a versatile cover crop for your many needs as well.

Katie at GardenPunks

In Winter, once leaves have dropped, fruit trees should be sprayed three times with dormant oil and fungicide (lime sulfur or copper sulfate) to control fungal diseases and insect infestation.This week marks with Valentine’s Day when the third and last spray should ideally happen (first is around Thanksgiving, second around Christmas).

This is really important for peaches and nectarines which are very susceptible to Peach Leaf Curl, especially in a wet winter.

Remember that apricots can’t be sprayed with lime sulfur (use copper sulfate instead).

Also, sprays should be allowed to dry on the bark, so don’t spray if rain is expected shortly thereafter.

Soon, it will be too late as you shouldn’t spray your trees once their swollen buds have bloomed.

I just sprayed my 50 trees and I will be glad I did this coming Spring!