by Denise Seghesio Levine, U.C. Master Gardener of Napa County
In other parts of the country, people focus on inside tasks in November. Garden tools are already oiled and hung for the winter; bulbs are dug and cellared. Treasured perennials, pots of citrus and fragrant herbs have been brought inside to wait out the winter in bright, warm rooms. With the exception of raking the last leaves or shoveling snow, gardening chores in these locales are largely complete for the next few months.
A few years ago, while visiting the Department of Energy's National Laboratories in Idaho, I lunched with one of the engineers. It was October, and the quaking aspens were aflutter with glorious chartreuse- and lemon-colored leaves. The skies were a true cerulean blue and I could not imagine a prettier or more wonderful time to be there.
My host had a different view. His favorite time of year was coming, when the skies turned gray and black and the white, quiet snowflakes came down. Each year, snow buried not only his garden, but also his tool shed where he housed his lawnmowers, leaf blowers, shovels, loppers and other garden tools.
The only survivor was the family's snowmobile fleet. Until spring thaws uncovered the first flecks of green, he had a vacation from garden chores. Snowmobiling with the kids during the day, hot chocolate and puzzles at night—no wonder it was his favorite time.
Here in Napa Valley, November brings is no rest for the garden weary. The list of potential planting opportunities and chores can be just as encompassing and just as long as in spring and summer.
November in Napa Valley is one of the best times to transplant. If you have plants that have outgrown their pots on the patio or their boundaries in the garden, or are underperforming in their current spot, now is the time to rehome them.
If you use a copper spray for peach-leaf curl, the first application is usually around Thanksgiving. Start watching for frost now and be ready to toss a cover over your citrus and other frost-sensitive plants.
If you want to add plants to your garden, stroll the nursery aisles and look for new discoveries. Read the labels to make sure you are choosing a plant that will thrive in your garden. Some plants are dormant now; others appreciate being transplanted when they will have months of moisture to sink roots deep before the stress of summer.
Local nurseries have beautiful bulbs to plant now for spring bloom and annuals like pansies and violas for winter color.
Tender green crops like lettuce, spinach, orach, arugulas, mint and cilantro all do much better in the cooler months. Plant seedlings or direct-sow seeds in small amounts every couple of weeks for a steady supply into spring. Arugula can be sown liberally in the corners of your garden where it can spread. Better a “weed” I can pick for salads than an inedible weed.
Peas, both pole and bush varieties, can be planted now, as can sweet peas. Wildflowers and many annuals can also be sown now and will germinate when the weather warms in spring.
Keep your flowering sweet peas and edible peas apart. While munching sugar snap peas and petits pois right in the garden is a delight, all of the ornamental sweet pea flowers and pods are toxic. Remind your young children: ornamental sweet peas are eye and nose candy only.
Garden and salad crops like each other, so it is easy to get the most out of a small winter garden patch. Green scallions do well when planted alongside lettuce and carrots. Pole peas enjoy a frilly bed of lettuce along the base, and I have never seen a radish that did not like being near lettuce. Always check seed packets to make sure the variety you have in your hand this month does well from fall to winter.
Your favorite nursery will have vegetable and flower seedlings for planting in November. Expect to find a variety of onion sets and seeds, broccoli seedlings, kohlrabi, rutabaga and perennial herbs.
Seeds can be planted directly outside this month as well. Read the seed packets and look for lettuces that thrive in the cold months. Other good options for winter include spinach, chard, Asian greens, mesclun, sorrel, miner's lettuce and cabbages.
If you have hopes of blooming amaryllis for Christmas, this is the month to pot up heavy, blemish-free bulbs. They will burst into bloom in time for the holidays. Follow the directions that come with your bulbs, and maybe by Christmas we can take some time off.
Library talk: Napa County Master Gardeners will give a talk on “Beyond Peaches and Apples: Unusual Fruits for your Backyard” on Thursday, November 7, at 7 p.m. at the Napa Library, 580 Coombs Street, Napa. Attendance is free.
Next workshop: “Holiday Décor Gifts with Succulent Plants” on Saturday, November 16, from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., at the University of California Cooperative Extension, 1710 Soscol Avenue, Napa. For more details & online registration, visit http://napamg.ucanr.eduor call 707-253-4221.
The UC Master Gardeners of Napa County are volunteers who provide UC research-based information on home gardening and answer your questions. To find out more about upcoming programs or to ask a garden question, visit the Master Gardener website (http://napamg.ucanr.edu) or call (707) 253-4221 between 9 a.m. and noon on Mondays, Wednesdays or Fridays.
- posted by: Yvonne Rasmussen
- Author: Monica Finigan
This summer, the Napa County Master Gardener help desk received many calls about peach leaf curl, a fungal disease that affects the leaves and shoots of peaches and nectarines. It causes distorted, reddened leaves that eventually fall off the tree. See UC Integrated Pest Management page for photos and further descriptions of the disease.
Symptoms normally appear about two weeks after leaves emerge. The first signs are red spots on the leaves, which soon become thick and puckered. Whitish spores appear on the leaf surfaces, then leaves turn yellow and drop off. Healthy new leaves do emerge to replace the fallen ones unless subsequent showers cause the disease to spread to the new leaves.
If healthy leaves replace the damaged ones, why should a gardener be concerned? Because peach leaf curl affects the vigor of the tree. In severe cases, the disease can significantly reduce fruit production and tree growth. If peach leaf curl builds up and the tree is left untreated for several years, the tree may seriously decline and need to be removed.
Unfortunately, there are no effective treatment options between spring, when the symptoms appear, and summer, when the tree bears fruit. Although some gardeners pull off the diseased leaves, this technique has not been proven effective.
Taphina deformans, a fungus, causes peach leaf curl. Periods of cool, wet weather when leaves are beginning to unfurl create a favorable environment for the fungus. Maximum infection develops when the trees are wet for two or more days during this vulnerable period. Our spring weather pattern over the past three years has provided the conditions this fungus loves.
To control peach leaf curl, treat peach and nectarine trees with a fungicide in fall after leaves have dropped. In the past, the disease could be successfully treated with either lime-sulfur fungicide or a fixed copper fungicide with a copper compound containing at least 50 percent copper. Unfortunately, the most effective products have been removed from the market by the manufacturer. The only fungicides left for treating peach leaf curl contain lower levels of copper and copper soap.
You can make the copper ammonium complex products more effective by adding horticultural oil to the treatment mixture. The oil, which should be one percent of the mixture, also helps control some insects that affect the trees. Spray your trees twice, the first time in late November and the second time in early February. A handy trick for remembering those dates is to spray right after Thanksgiving and just before Valentine's Day. Spray trees until they are dripping.
Alternatively, you can prepare what's known as Bordeaux mixture. This treatment is effective against peach leaf curl, but it is not available for sale and you must mix the ingredients just before application. It takes longer to prepare and requires more knowledge and safety equipment both in the preparation and the application. Contact the Napa County Master Gardener office if you would like information on preparing and using Bordeaux mixture.
Another way to reduce peach leaf curl is to plant trees that are resistant to the disease. Resistant peach varieties include Frost, Indian Free, Muir and Q-1-8. Although frost is resistant, it does need fungicide treatments the first two to three years after planting.
In fact, all of the resistant varieties still benefit from spraying. While resistant, they are not immune, especially during years when the conditions are particularly favorable for the disease. My son, Sean, and I have both grown the Indian Free peach tree and found this heirloom to be vigorous as well as resistant to leaf curl. However, it is not self-fruitful, so it needs to be planted near another peach or nectarine tree for pollination. The nectarine variety‘Kreibich is also resistant to peach leaf curl.
If you experienced problems with peach leaf curl this year, consider pruning the tree this fall prior to applying fungicides. This practice can reduce the number of spores overwintering on the tree. Remove all pruning debris and dispose of it in the municipal yard-waste container. Do not water the tree with overhead sprinklers, as this could spread the spores. And don't forget to spray around Thanksgiving and shortly before Valentine's Day.
Napa County Master Gardeners (cenapa.ucdavis.edu) answer gardening questions Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 9 a.m. to noon, at the UC Cooperative Extension office, 1710 Soscol Ave., Suite 4, Napa, 253-4221.