April Week 2

Organic Gardening Calendar1 Week to frost free date in zone 6
By: Kathi

Now is a dicey time. Do you plant those annuals or wait? And what of the sprayer mentioned earlier?

Things you will need:
Plant Material
Pest Traps
Dormant Oil
Sprayer

If you have a Farmers Coop, it would be the best place to find traps for fruit tree pests. One of the worst is the apple maggot. Now just as the apples start to bud get your traps either at the farmers coop, big box, or mail order company. Look for apple maggot traps that have large yellow squares around the red “apple” in the center of the trap. All apple maggot traps rely on putting sticky goo on the trap that keeps the unsuspecting maggot from being able to fly away. The ones that are just red balls will work, but they attract 75% fewer maggots.

Apples are also susceptible to Codling Moths. These moths burrow down into the fruit to eat the seed leaving these unsightly brown oozing tunnels in your fruit. These moths are hard to control but with the use of two traps for standard size trees for apples, peaches, pears, and three traps for an English walnut trees set out two weeks before bud break, (NOW!) and again in 7 weeks, these pests can be controlled. The traps release tiny amounts of pheromones continuously for up to 8 weeks. You must set out the traps in proper timing. If you miss these first traps you will have populated your fruit with these pests to produce their second generation this season, and all of your fruit will be ruined.Timing. NOW. Two weeks before bud break. Then again in the 1st week of June, to catch the second generation of moths.

Peach Tree Borer traps are another pheromone and sticky goo trap that time releases the sex pheromones to attract the pests to the trap. These adult moths lay their eggs at the base of peach, plums, cherries, and apricots. Then when the eggs hatch the larvae bore into the tree trunks leaving nasty holes that are ripe for infection. You should set out two traps per mature tree before May 15. These are pesky critters.

To help control Peach Tree Borer and for disease prevention, I also spray my trees with Horticultural oil or Dormant Oil in the winter to kill the borer eggs.  Continue spraying the Horticultural Oil on an every 7-10 day regimen throughout the season even though you have set out the traps. The spraying is to prevent disease not control pests.

Oh but the fun stuff. To Plant or not to plant? Yes plant, but be smart about it. First check the 10 day weather forecast. If it looks pretty safe, plant annuals that will tolerate some frost, such as Salvia, Verbena, Dusty Miller, Petunias, Violets or Pansies. In fact if you had a mild winter in zone 6, you may very well have Petunias and Dusty Miller coming up from last year’s roots, as well as annual Dianthus. Plant these in sunny locations protected from cold winter winds and 50% or more might return.

Do not plant the very tender annuals like hot house grown Dahlias, or Impatiens. Give them another 7-10 days before you set them out. Of course you can go ahead and plant Dahlia tubers, Gladiolus, lilies. There should be no more nights cold enough to freeze the ground between now and the time they wake up.

If you have up your row covers, you could have planted those tomatoes already, and you would have lettuce greens so fresh young and tender. Beats store bought any day.
Next week: Jump Starting Spring
Annuals or Perennials?