The Real Dirt

Unfortunately, springtime is prime time for the garden-damaging activities of moles, voles, and gophers. It’s an exasperating experience: you go to the nursery, pick out a flowering plant, shrub, or tree and bring it home only to have some critter harm or destroy it within the first week. Pest damage wastes…

Spring is in full swing, and there’s lots to see at the Master Gardeners Demonstration Garden: buds, blooms, flowering shrubs, developing fruits, summer vegetable plants! Plus, wildlife: bees, birds, and butterflies. Here there is something for everyone to discover, enjoy, and perhaps try in their own yard…

If you are looking for an interesting evergreen that can serve as a hedge or small tree, why not consider planting one or more Feijoa? Commonly known as Pineapple Guava, Feijoa (Feijoa sellowiana O. Berg.) is an evergreen subtropical shrub or small tree that produces an aromatic edible fruit with a somewhat…

If you are noticing droopy, dried-out flower clusters on your pears, Asian pears, quince, apples or crabapples, fire blight may be the cause. Fire blight is caused by a bacterium and is a common and frequently destructive disease that usually shows up in April and May, but during dry spell, it may appear in…

It is time to start thinking about thinning the fruit on peach, nectarine, plum, pluot, apricot, apple, and pear trees. To produce fruit that is large and healthy, fruit trees need plenty of leaves to feed the developing fruit.  Since trees often set far more fruit than their leaves can adequately support,…