Get Your Fruit On

It's January boys and girls, which indicates for us Left Coasters that it's time to seriously contemplate fruit trees. Get that bare rootstock in the ground and light a fire under it (metaphorically speaking, that is; I'm not advising burning bushes here). Prune your established trees. Give your Prunus persica a good dose of copper to prevent the horribly debilitating peach leaf curl. Graft scions to existing trees. Where can you get  scions to graft, you ask? Funny, I was just going to mention the Golden Gate Rare Fruit Growers scion exchange this Saturday.

WHEN:  12 noon to 3:00 PM
                Saturday, January 22, 2011

WHERE:  First Baptist Church
                  4555 Hilltop Drive
                  El Sobrante, CA

EXCHANGE DETAILS: 
•Hundreds of varieties of scions (fruit wood) to graft onto your own trees, including:
apples, pears, quince, plums, peaches, nectarines, apricots, cherries, and more. . .
•Cuttings to root: grapes, figs, pomegranate, kiwi fruit, mulberries, and more. . .
•Rootstocks and grafting supplies
•Grafting class and demo 12:30 and 1:30   
•Custom and assisted grafting of your selected variety onto a rootstock
•Local Fruit Friendly organizations   
•Raffle    
•Questions answered, secrets revealed. . .
•$4 donation to enter
** volunteers needed
** bring plastic bags and tape to label scion varieties you take home

Don't forget to do your research about what trees will work best for your microclimate. Chill hours are crucial. If you think you can get away with growing a tree, in the heart of  San Francisco, that needs 1000 plus chill hours, you are sadly mistaken and will certainly be disappointed. Here's a useful chart for the Bay Area. Chill hours can vary greatly across the city of San Francisco and I had once found this very awesome link that gave the number of hours by neighborhoods, but now I can't find it. Crap. You can use this for now as cross reference and if I ever do find that super useful site, I will be sure to post it. Happy fruiting!