Codling Moth Tracking Tool
It’s time to track heat units so you can control codling moth and apple maggot in your orchards. If you haven’t set up this tool for yourself at home, I’ll walk you through the steps. The past two summers have been hard ones for the home orchardist. Both codling moth and apple maggot pressures were […]
Salad Greens Production
by Matthew McDermott, production manager, and Rob Jordan, post harvest manager For many people, mixed baby greens are a popular salad choice all year round. As part of the CMFC food production, mixed baby greens are grown for the local wholesale and retail outlets from May-November. As part of a 2012 specialty crop grant, and […]
Managing Your UFO Cherries
In an earlier post we described the fundamentals of growing and training cherry trees to the UFO system. This training system is easy to understand and simple to execute when everything goes according to the instructions. The challenge always is what do I do if they don’t grow like the they are supposed to according […]
Grape Grafting at Cloud Mountain Farm Center
As the rain pours down outside and the wind howls off the mountain through this cold and dreary spring, a crew of diligent grafters works away in the little propagation house behind the nursery. They are grafting grape vines, literally building the plants that will eventually become the vineyards throughout our region. If you’ve enjoyed […]
Spring Soil Preparation
These last weeks of March, as winter begins to loosen its heavy grip, many of us get excited to get early ground turned in preparation for peas, oats, and anything else we thing we might get to survive the remaining spring awakening in the still cold, 42°F soils. There are a lot of tools and […]
Timing Delayed Dormant Sprays
Fruit trees are interesting plants to grow. Humans have been selecting for better fruit for centuries, and in the process, some of the natural resistance to pests and diseases have been lost. A further challenge is our mild rainy climate, which is perfect for fungal and bacterial diseases that affect fruit trees. Customers often ask […]