Test PB Collection: FTE

August 21, 2022 Madera, CA long-time organic farmer and key farmer member of California's CIG reduced disturbance organic vegetable project, provided a recorded copy of the presentation that he gave at the 2022 Annual Conference of the Soil and Water Conservation Society in Denver, CO on August 2nd.

A small bush grew unnoticed at the edge of the Edible Garden for several years until a new garden pathway was needed and the bush was in the way. Only then did a garden volunteer find a tag identifying the bush as a honeyberry.

About 25 years ago, my children and I planted a particularly exuberant flower garden in the backyard. We had pink and purple, and white cosmos, brilliant blue morning glories and many colors of zinnias.

Problem While most of our garden plants need at least 6 hours of full sun to be productive, too much sun, especially when combined with too much heat, can be too much for plants to bear. Problems arise especially when temperatures are over 85 to 90 degrees F.

Emily Meineke, assistant professor of urban landscape entomology, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and coordinator of the department's seminars for the 2022-23 academic year, has announced the list of speakers for the fall seminars, which begin Sept. 21.

I am currently underway with a field trial investigating the relationship between spotted wing drosophila and leak rot in strawberry. The hypothesis is that the flies, which wound the fruit with their egg laying are also accelerating the spread of this wound and bruise loving fungus.

If it's Friday, it must be Friday Fly Day. The calendar crawls slowly sometime, but its numbers do not lie. It's Friday Fly Day, all right, which means it's a good day to post an image of a fly, this time a robber fly.

"Sea of red... mulch, that is" by WSDOT is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. Benefits of Mulch Mulch is one of the gardener's most useful tools: applied correctly, it suppresses weeds, improves water retention in soil, and keeps the soil temperature down.

The annual Rice Field Day will be Wednesday, August 31, 2022, at the Rice Experiment Station (RES), Biggs, California. We cordially invite you and your associates to join us for this event.

As growers across California navigate severe drought, supply-chain challenges and rising inflation, reducing inputs has become an existential necessity. And for watermelon growers, a new twist on a thousands-year-old practice is showing real promise.