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GROWING EARLY

SPRING EDIBLES

SMALL FRUITS & FRUIT TREES

Spring is the ideal time to prune fruit trees, grapes, raspberries, and blackberries. It’s also the best season to plant small fruits and fruit trees. We offer a strong early-spring selection, including strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries. The early spring selection is best!

TIMING IS KEY IN GARDENING! DON’T WAIT TO GET STARTED!

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STRAWBERRIES

TIPS FOR PLANTING STRAWBERRIES

There is a short spring window for planting strawberries, especially bare root ones. They can be grown in garden beds, containers, or hanging baskets, making them a versatile addition to any space. Their flowers also attract honeybees and butterflies, supporting pollination and helping ensure a successful fruit crop.

Cultivars of strawberries available:
Strawberries in 3"black pots
- Honeoye is our favorite, but all of them are good. Honeoye bears heavy yields of large fruit with a rich color.
- Fort Laramie
- All Star
- Quinalt
Growing potted Strawberries
- Provide well drained soil with medium moisture. Amend beds in spring and fall with quality Coast of Maine Lobster Compost or Fafard Premium Compost (we carry both!).
- Strawberries are heavy feeders. Feed with organic fertilizer from spring to mid summer.
- Mulch beds to retain moisture, keep down the weeds and to create a nice clean place for the strawberry fruits to lay on.
- Thin beds every few years, favoring the strongest runners.
Planting Bare Root Strawberries
- Bare root strawberries come in bundles of 15.
- Gently pull them apart, pulling on the foliage to separate them
- Then plant them into rich well drained soil and watch them grow

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BLUEBERRIES

We have a wonderful selection of early, mid season and late variety blueberries. Now is the time to get them in the ground. We recommend planting early bearing variety, a mid season variety and a late season variety to extend your blueberry picking season.

Blueberries must be planted in early spring!

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GRAPES & FRUIT TREES

We carry a variety of fruit trees: apple, pear, peach, cherry, and sour cherry trees. Sour cherries make especially excellent pies.

Apple trees: When you’re finished pruning an apple tree, there is often more on the ground than remains on the tree.
Grapes: Grapes should be pruned as soon as possible on cool days. If pruning is delayed, they may “bleed” sap, similar to a maple tree when tapped for syrup. Pruning grapes, like most fruit trees, also helps balance the crop by limiting fruit production; vines and trees often set more fruit than they can fully mature. Without proper pruning, excess fruit may drop, and what remains is often smaller.
PEACHES: One of the most important sprays for peaches is a lime sulfur mixture to prevent peach leaf curl, a very common disease of peaches. As the name describes, the leaves turn red, bumpy, curl up and then most of the leaves fall off weakening the tree just when it needs the most energy to produce fruit. This is an organic spray and should be done before the leaves begin to emerge.
Spring is the best time to plant grapes and all fruit trees!

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ASPARAGUS & POTATOES

Now available bare root asparagus and potatoes!

Asparagus Bundles of 5, Bundles of 10 & Bundles of 25

Asparagus

**Asparagus Purple Passion Bundles of 25**

EAT LOCAL, GROW IT IN YOUR OWN BACKYARD!

April Gardening Tips

Vineyard Gardens Seed Project

STRAWBERRIES

TIPS FOR PLANTING STRAWBERRIES

The most economical way for planting strawberries is bare root. They are only available early and must be planted in the ground right away.

Prepare your strawberry garden area by tilling or turning over the soil.

Add organic matter, such as cow manure, compost or the Fafard Complete Planting Mix.

Turn that into the soil.

Plant out the strawberry plants. Straight rows would be typical but you can be creative and turn it into an herb garden with a strawberry patch.

This year we are carrying 4 cultivars of strawberries

We like the June bearing over the Everbearing. The June bearing have bigger berries, although a shorter season.

Honeoye is our favorite, but all of them are good.

Fort Laramie

All Star

Quinalt

We also grow the fraise de bois or wild strawberries, find them under Fragaria vesca, its proper Genus and species name.

These are my choice for an herb garden. They also do well in containers. They bloom with beautiful little white flowers (in the rose family) .The pot with multiple openings is called a strawberry jar. I love when we carry these!

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