My garden’s contribution to this year’s Thanksgiving meal: a head of ‘Snow Crown’ cauliflower. The kids helped harvest. They had fun.
To family, food, and gratitude . . . Happy Thanksgiving!
Happy Thanksgiving 2020
Welcome . . .
I'm Greg. My goal is to help you grow food at home, with a focus on vegetables and fruits -- especially avocados -- in Southern California. I write a new "Yard Post" every Friday.
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- Larry Arsenault on How dry, this fall?
- Greg Alder on Grafting avocados
- Augustine Zuniga on Should you buy a big or small avocado tree?
- RICHARD SCOTT on Rats! Protecting your garden fruits and vegetables
- Randy B on Should you prune a bare-root fruit tree?
- Chris T on Grafting avocados
- Amy Kelleher on Avocado trees get sunburned — what to do?
- RICHARD SCOTT on Citation rootstock for stone fruit trees: avoid?
- Greg Alder on How dry, this fall?
- Greg Alder on What kind of fruit tree should you plant?
- Greg Alder on How dry, this fall?
- Joseph Kaman on How dry, this fall?
- tom mcdougall on What kind of fruit tree should you plant?
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My Satsuma Mandarin recently died after 20 years of consistent fruiting. I will replace it and the question is when is best time to plant new tree, size of the box, and is it ok to plant in same place.
Hi Kirk,
It’s probably fine to plant a new tree in the same place. The size of the tree you plant is totally a personal decision. I usually prefer planting small trees but bigger trees can be slightly tougher and can fruit a bit more, earlier. Of course, you pay for all that. If you’re in Southern California, you can plant citrus any day of the year, but it can be more satisfying to plant around May because the tree will immediately begin growing in the comfortable, warm conditions.
That is huge! I am thankful for your wonderful posts, especially about growing avocados ?.
Your children and cauliflower are beautiful!!! So I got on too late for the calendars! Any chance you’ll get more? Thanks for all your posts! Ana
Hi Ana,
Thank you! I do still have gardening calendars available. I will also be selling some avocado calendars within the next couple weeks.
Thank you Greg for your weekly contribution. It is quite helpful to us. Happy Thanksgiving Day. Best wishes to you, your kids and the family.
How often might my orange tree need water? If it’s November, and the calendar says that the average ET rate is half as much as in September, then I should be able to water it about half as often as I did then.
What does ET stands for? I live in Simi Valley, Ventura County and the weather is much warmer and more wind than San Diego County where you are. Should I keep the same watering schedule as in your county? Thx.
Hi Silvana,
Simi Valley’s climate is similar to where I am in San Diego County, which is Ramona. While the average historical ET (evapotranspiration) rate in November is half as much as in September, the current weather is what actually determines your orange tree’s water use. We have had warmer and drier weather than normal lately, not to mention the Santa Ana winds of the last couple days. Your orange tree has used much more water lately than the average historical ET rate for this time of year.
What I sometimes do in spells like this is just run the irrigation system an extra time or a few extra times. But if you want to be more accurate you can look up an actual ET rate for a weather station near you on the CIMIS website: https://cimis.water.ca.gov/
See more about this topic here: https://gregalder.com/yardposts/using-the-evapotranspiration-rate-to-water-your-garden-better/
Greg,
Same question as Kirk above. Do you believe in replant syndrome? I plant a gold nugget mandarin in front of my house two years ago and the tree never get goings and it just died over the summer. Many garden expert have said you can’t plant the same type of tree in the same spot, you have to wait at least 10 years for all the pathogen to die off. I really want to plant another citrus tree in the same spot. What is your opinion on this “replant” syndrome?
Hi James,
This is a good question to which there is no simple answer: It all depends on why the first tree died. For example, if the first tree died because of a root disease and then you plant a second tree on the same rootstock, I wouldn’t expect to get different results. However, if the first tree died because you didn’t water it enough during an extreme heat wave and then you plant a second tree and water it properly, I would expect better results.
One real-life example from my own yard is that I planted a Cara Cara navel orange that did terribly. It barely grew for a year or two. Finally, I poked around to find that there was a large root near the crown that was circling and appeared to be girdling other roots. It looked like something caused by the nursery when they allowed it to grow in a small container for too long. I removed the tree. I planted another Cara Cara navel orange in exactly the same spot. This tree has grown very well and fruits very well today.
The point is that you want to do your best detective work to try to figure out why the first tree performed poorly.
If you determine that it must be a pathogen in the soil, then you can possibly still replant in the same spot but you’ll need to use a rootstock that is resistant to that pathogen and possibly do a couple other things to help. (This is done successfully all the time in avocado groves around the world when replanting trees on root-rot resistant rootstocks.)
With regard to your Gold Nugget specifically, if you have no idea why it died, then I’d still try planting a new Gold Nugget in the same spot. When you buy the tree just make sure to poke around the crown to be sure there are no circling roots there (this is not an uncommon problem especially with citrus trees at nurseries, I’ve noticed). Give the tree your best care and see how it goes. The worst of all possible outcomes is that you lose a second tree.