Mr. Eggplant from the garden |
Fall is here. Sometimes I wonder where times goes.
In review, it was a great long season on the western slope and
particularly the Grand Valley for the garden.
The Master Gardeners in the Tri River Area installed a vegetable garden
that kept on giving. We just removed the
tomato plants on November 1st. Many
vegetables were shared by staff and Master Gardeners, given to the Food Bank, and of course you could catch our Director out eating a tomato for a
snack. The tomato viruses that plagued us in 2014 were much less in 2015.
In the commercial trade, a better spring actually produced a
cherry crop. Peach thinning was assisted
by frost, producing large juicy peaches this year. And apples were very abundant. Only an area in Delta County had some losses
due to cold. My personal Fuji tree
Granny Smith apples |
We had
several very successful festivals. If
you live on the Front Range, come and visit the Lavender Festival, Peach
Festival or Wine Festival. All three
crops did well this year.
We are watching some new insects that have arrived including
the spotted wing drosophila, several aphids, one on Zelkova trees and one on
wheat, and grape seed chalcid.
Pumpkins also did well on the western slope. My kids and I went to a local patch and came
home with four different colors. We'll plant
in spring for next year’s crop. There were minimal problems with the pumpkin
crop. One was the weather was so warm close to Halloween, spoilage was a
concern and the other main issue was powdery mildew from all the rain. The spring rains also brought issues on some
ornamental plants. Plants in the rose
family like crabapples and ornamental pears had fire blight. Typically this issue is seen on the front
range but not on the western slope. We
took the prune and wait method. When is
the weather ever the same year after year in Colorado?
Gorgeous pumpkins! |
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