JoAnne Skelly: The gardener’s New Year

Happy New Year! Many of us are glad to see the end of 2020 and hope 2021 will be much healthier and more peaceful.

The calendar says winter is here, but the temperatures don’t seem to agree. I’m not complaining – sunny winter days in the upper 40s make me happy. Something that does concern me though is the lack of snow. Although some areas have been blessed with rain that has helped water trees, the snowpack isn’t looking good for aquifer regeneration.

However, if you have lived here long enough, you know that could change with one big storm or maybe three moderate ones. In the meantime, be sure you monitor your soil moisture and water trees if we haven’t had any rain or significant snow every few weeks to a month. Water more often if you recently planted trees or shrubs. This means turning the water back on and either hauling out the hoses and/or turning on sprinklers to provide at least one inch of moisture.

Don’t forget to drain everything when through and turn the water back off again. Ah, the life of a Northern Nevada gardener!

With all this nice weather, I’m trying to get ahead on my spring chores. I’m still raking leaves; can you believe it? I think one of the last articles I wrote before my winter break was on raking leaves and using the tractor bucket to move them to the already huge leaf pile. And, there’s still more to rake and move.

I’m thinking of asking my new neighbor with horses if we can bring the tractor over and get a bucket or two of manure to put on the leaf pile. That would make an excellent soil amendment for spring and summer planting.

Another task I’m working on is pruning the water sprouts out of the crabapples and apple trees, as well as doing an overall prune on the apples. Water sprouts are the upright-growing vigorous stems in the crown of the tree, whereas suckers come up from the base. These unwanted growths not only detract from the appearance of a tree, they divert energy away from the branches and fruit-developing buds you want to grow.

As a precaution, I’m spraying my tools with isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol) after every few cuts, particularly if a sprout, twig or branch looks weak or sick. This is to prevent the bacterial disease fireblight from spreading limb to limb or tree to tree. I also spray my tools before I put them away.

A gardener’s work is never done!

JoAnne Skelly is associate professor and Extension educator, Emerita at University of Nevada Cooperative Extension. She can be reached at skellyj@unce.unr.edu.