It’s mid- February and even in the colder sections of the North State the time is now for planning and even planting your spring and summer vegetable seeds and starts – inside and out. On Monday evening February 15th, I hosted a special edition of I-5 LIVE on Northstate Public Radio (91.7 fm KCHO in Chico and 88.9 fm in Redding) from 8 to 9 pm to chat about edible gardening and getting ready for the spring vegetable garden.

My guests for the evening were David Grau, owner of Valley Oak Tool, former market gardener and organizer of the Chico Organic Gardening Series; also, Wayne Kessler, co-owner with his wife Laurel, of Shambani Organics, a specialty herb and vegetable start grower based in Shingletown, California.
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How’s the pruning going for you?

I’ve just finished pruning my ‘Pink Lady’ apple and ‘Santa Rosa’ plum trees. I am still working on the roses and grapes, but the fruit trees are done. It went pretty well this year – but then, I was really inspired this year. Photo above: The historic Camden House at Whiskeytown Recreation area seen through a shroud of 100 - 150 year old ‘Lady’ apple tree branches.

I don’t know about you, but pruning can be a tricky task for me. As an enthusiastic and long-time gardener, I know that I should prune my fruit trees and vines every year – for form, for production and in many cases for the long-term health and life of my plants. But some years, the task seems more troubling than others: I diligently study the sketches and graphs in the books and articles, I even take the diagrams out to my trees. I look at the book, I look at the tree. I look back at the book. Hmm. Sometimes the tree looks so differently than the book’s sketch that I am just not sure. Other times the tree looks great – so why prune? I have been known in gardens and seasons past to look one final time at the book, shake my head and take my book, my clippers and my intimidation back into the house for another time/season/year. Photo: Rico Montenegro discussing the growth of one of the old apple trees at the Camden House site. (more…)

As the leaves fall and winter settles in for its annual tenure - frosty and spare, the structure of the garden becomes more apparent than ever. Herbaceous perennials, shrubs and trees disrobe themselves of the bio- mass of foliage they have carried all summer and fall, and the proportions of each plant and the garden itself shifts. This is a moment when you value the skeletal silhouette of a tree or the graceful arch of a vine scrambling across an arbor or fence. It’s also when you might look around the garden and realize that most of your garden perhaps is on just one plane - the horizontal. With the help of this minimalist view of the garden, you may notice areas where you would like to add some punctuation - some verticality. Trees are one way to add verticality; vines are another. Photo: Kiwi vine leaves.

When it comes to vines, you might think climbing roses, clematis, trumpet or grape vines. Or you could think: kiwi. Photo: Kiwi vines twining up at the Hoptowit orchard in Durham. (more…)