by Greg Alder | Jul 5, 2024 | Berries and Vines |
A pink blueberry is like a pink orange: it’s a gimmick, but it works. I grow a Cara Cara orange tree and I grow a Pink Lemonade blueberry bush because they taste as good as their traditional counterparts, plus they dazzle the eyes. But should you grow a Pink Lemonade...
by Greg Alder | Jan 12, 2024 | Berries and Vines |
Do you ever get bug bites in your strawberries? That’s my main challenge to harvesting perfect, plump, red ones. So the last couple years I’ve grown fewer strawberries in the ground and more in containers, which has vanquished the bug threat. I start the...
by Greg Alder | Sep 16, 2023 | Berries and Vines |
“Paul McLane gave the L.E. Cooke Co a grapevine he grew from his grandmother’s seedling in Chico, California . . .” I’m a sucker for a vegetable or fruit variety with a background story. With Blueberry grapes, both the variety and my own vines...
by Greg Alder | Apr 15, 2022 | Berries and Vines |
My wife is from Oregon, where blueberries can really grow. On our visits up there I see how fast and large blueberry bushes can grow and how productive they can be. While my blueberry bushes here in Southern California are inferior to those in the Pacific...
by Greg Alder | Jun 25, 2021 | Berries and Vines |
Most of my raspberry plants have come from friends and family who live where raspberries grow best. The Sunset Western Garden Book says that raspberries grow best in Zones 3-6 and 15-17. These Zones cover the central and northern California coast, and then western...
by Greg Alder | Sep 25, 2020 | Berries and Vines |
Maybe you don’t have much yard space, or maybe you don’t need a bushel of berries, or maybe you don’t want to invest in a trellis support structure. By tying the berry canes of a single plant onto a stake you make the bush’s footprint smaller — you...
by Greg Alder | Sep 11, 2020 | Berries and Vines |
My Aunt Renee always grew the family’s best strawberries in her garden in Corona, where she had a permanent strawberry patch near her garage. All she did each year was rake out a few old or dead plants and add new ones to fill gaps. With a permanent strawberry patch,...
by Greg Alder | Jul 6, 2018 | Berries and Vines |
Five summers ago, we moved into a house that is fronted by 250 feet of blank chain link fence. I saw a grape canvas. And I started planting. Now in 2018 I see that my vision had been a good one. We’ve got 13 vines growing and a few dozen feet of fence left...
by Greg Alder | Dec 22, 2017 | Berries and Vines, Fruit |
I had a problem and passion fruit solved it. I live on a dirt road and my vegetable garden starts only twenty feet from the road. I wanted both privacy and dust catchment. Because there’s a chain link fence between the road and my garden, I was able to plant a passion...
by Greg Alder | Aug 30, 2016 | Berries and Vines, Native Plants |
This is the native grape of Southern California, Vitis girdiana, and I planted it two winters ago. Grapes grow like grass fires! The first year I tied it up a string that I hung from the fascia board. This year I tied it along a wire that runs parallel to the fascia...
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