June 2013 Events

June 2, 2013:  Orchard work party in the heritage orchard at Prusch Park. Everyone welcome. Please come and help in the maintenance of our orchard. Learn from the pros! Yummy snacks provided. Time 9:00 to 11:30.

June 8, 2013:  Bi-monthly meeting at Emma Prusch Park in San Jose.  Open to all.  Meeting starts at 1:00.  Come early for chatting and snacking. The topic will be about roots, root growth,  and watering with Robert Kourik. A few examples of the facts to be discussed are: Feeding roots often tend to grow up rather than down. About 90% of a tree’s roots are to be found in the top 18 inches of the soil beneath and beyond the foliage. Some roots pass water on to the nearby roots of other plants. In this lecture, learn about the true facts of root growth with tips about how the new understanding of how roots can effect your approach to gardening and irrigation. It’ll amaze you.

April 2013 Events

April 7, 2013:  Orchard work party in the heritage orchard at Prusch Park. Everyone welcome. Please come and help in the maintenance of our orchard. Learn from the pros! Yummy snacks provided. Time 9:00 to 11:30.

April 13, 2013:  Bi-monthly meeting at Emma Prusch Park in San Jose.  Open to all.  Meeting starts at 1:00.  Come early for chatting and snacking. The meeting will be about citrus. Aaron Dillon from Four Winds will be presenting. Topics will include fertilizer, cultivation, planting, management, and varieties, with plenty of opportunity for asking questions you might have.   Check out “Member Stories” for my summary of this meeting….

March 2013 Events

 March 3, 2013:  Work Party at Prusch Park Heritage Orchard, 9:00 to 11:30.  This is a relatively important work party, so please make a special point to join in, if only for half an hour.  Thanks to Mollie Tobias, the City of San Jose is donating a couple young volunteers, but we have a lot to do right now.  Feel free to bring cardboard, as it is a particularly powerful weed control agent for us.

As spring dawns, dormant pruning is hopelessly behind, and legion weeds assertively worm roots through perfect soil, while their greens push aside white-molded mulch toward the seemingly thoughtless inferno that keeps and kills us all.  More than a few trees suffer severe sucker growth, as well.  Atop these routine concerns, and with loftier priority, we will be planting several new trees.  Besides the opportunity to leave a visible and worthy legacy by planting a rare tree, you are likely to gain a few pointers for the next time you plant one at home.

February 2013 Events

February 9, 2013:  Bi-monthly meeting at Emma Prusch Park in San Jose.  Open to all.  Meeting starts at 1:00.  Come early for chatting and snacking. We will be having our annual greenwood scion exchange! We will have several varieties of citrus buds available. They have been purchased from the University of California and are guaranteed disease free. We will be charging a nominal fee for 3 buds in order to cover the cost of ordering. No other citrus may be brought into the exchange. Other common greenwood includes such things as fejoa, avocado, loquat, and passion fruit. We also will be having citrus grafting demonstrations. This meeting would be a great time to bring dormant scion wood you have properly stored or freshly harvested, that someone else might be looking for! Or if you have a potted plant you no longer want…. in exchange for something else another person brings…..

Citrus Scions:  In case you happen to check the website before the meeting, I just prepared all the scions as best I could. Each stick has 3 to 7 buds or so depending on the size and quality of the received wood. In order to try and meet the cost of ordering the wood, each stick will sell for $1.00. Bring singles if you can.
Here again is the list of what I ordered, based mostly on suggestions from the group…Cocktail Grapefruit, Buddha Hand Citron, Fukamoto Navel, Midknight Valencia, Kiyomi Tangor, Cara Cara Navel, Pink Eureka Lemon, Thornless Mexican Lime, Bream Torocco Blood Orange, Aoshima Satsuma, Nordman Nagami, Xie Shan Satsuma, Clementine de Nules Mandarin, Finger Lime

January 2013 Events

January 12, 2013:  Scion Exchange, Prusch Park. Open to the public at 11:00! Every year there are more than 300 varieties of dormant scion wood available for grafting onto your own trees. Ranging Asian and European plums, to apples and pears, as well as peaches and apricots too numerous to list! Grafting classes will be held as well.

Remember to bring a bag to put your selected scions and a marking pen and labels so you will be able to identify later what you selected.  All sticks will look alike once you get them home.  Remember how to care for your scions once you get them home.  Give the bag a spritz of water and store them in the refrig, not the freezer.  Wait until Feb. or Mar. when your trees wake up from dormancy to start grafting.  Watch your trees as they will tell you.  The buds on the trees will start swelling up and you will be able to graft up to and during popcorn stage.  After that, you will need a lot more luck.  Usually the plums and prunes will be the first ready to graft, then the peaches and nectarines, then the apricots and later the apples, pears and kiwis.

December Events

December 8, 2012: Please note that our meeting location is changed to Kelly Park in San Jose.  Open to all.  Meeting starts at 1:00.  Come early for chatting and snacking. The topic will be Vermiculture with Jerry Gach aka “The Worm Dude”.

November Events

November 10, 2012: Olive Ranch Tour and tastings! This is in Sunol, so plan on carpooling. The website for the ranch is:  http://www.hillcrestrancholiveoil.com/.  Rather than an organized tour, this is an open house which goes from 10:30 – 2:30.  Lunch will be available at cost. There are also picnic tables, and probably you could bring your own. The locally grown organic olive oil might make a great gift for those foodies on your list!