In Praise of the Power of Pollinators

August 5, 2018 Gardening is hard work. It is rewarding, but the task is never over. That’s why we should always remember to give thanks to all the help we get at the orchard. Our wonderful volunteers help keep us going. But our hardest workers are some of our smallest. Without our pollinators, we wouldn’t […]

Good Soil Biology – The Perfect Recipe For Plants

December 19, 2017 It’s time to honor our important volunteers who live in the soil – the nematodes, protozoa, microarthropods, fungi and bacteria. All these fellows work tirelessly underground, decomposing organic matter and pooping out the nutrients in the form that plants can use. In fact, organic matter is the only food we have supplied […]

Working With Weather When Watering

August 28, 2017 It’s dry this summer. It seems like we are either watering, or obsessing about whether we are watering too much or too little. Nobody wants to over water fruit trees. Why waste water. Excess water creates more tree growth, not more fruit, and results in nutrient leaching. Ideally, we are watering just […]