By David Shubin, UC Master Gardener of Napa County and ISA Certified Arborist. My recent visit to the Royal Botanical Garden in Edinburgh, Scotland, offered a pleasant reminder of how climate shapes not only what we grow, but how we maintain and design landscapes. In Napa Valley, much of my work as a…
Children of UC Davis and UC Davis Health System employees learned about the birds and the bees (and other pollinators) at the recent Take Our Children (TOC) to Work Day, hosted by the UC Davis Bee Haven. The sights and sounds captivated the special visitors: honey bees buzzed, Western tiger…
Growers association Florida Citrus Mutual (FCM) on April 28 called the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) approval of Soilcea’s CarriCea™ T1 citrus rootstock registration “a major milestone.” According to FCM, CarriCea™ T1 is a first-of-its-kind citrus rootstock designed to tolerate citrus…
Can you believe the year is almost halfway over? Time is flying! Walking around the neighborhood, I noticed that there are roses which look like they have measles. As far as I know, measles is not contagious from humans to roses (thank goodness!). If you see red dots or spots on the petals of your…
Keep recent plantings well-watered and mulched. Sudden warming plus dry winds can stress plants.TasksUse a 3-inch layer of mulch around trees and shrubs to retain moisture, suppress weeds, and cool soil temperature. Keep mulch several inches back from the base of trees or shrubs to prevent damage to the…
Weather forecasters are predicting a gradual shift beginning this month of the La Nina weather pattern in the Pacific ocean to an El Nino pattern with warmer temperatures and little if no rainfall in the Central Valley for most of 2026. We may well have already received all of the rainfall for this rain…
Zilberman elected AAAS fellowDavid Zilberman, professor of the graduate school within the UC Berkeley Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, has been elected as a 2025 fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).AAAS is the world’s largest general…
Buying large to break down into small is not practical and possibly unsafe. Buying large tins of canned foods, such as tomatoes and vegetables, can certainly save a lot of money, but not if you can’t consume the product before it spoils. Buying in bulk with the intention of breaking the contents (or…
That's rutin; weird looking, but perfectly safe to eat If you’ve ever canned your own pickled asparagus, you may have been surprised at some point to find little crystals deposited along the spears. These crystal formations are rutin, which is a pigment that occurs naturally in asparagus. Usually…
