Fertilizing Trees in the Fall. 10.18.16

This post is a lot more dry than usual.  I have wondered whether it is beneficial to fertilize trees in the fall.  For the past few years I have done so, and do not see harm occuring from that practice.  In addition, the fertilized trees do seem to have a good burst of growth in the Spring, more than trees that I have not fall-fertilized. 

Different websites give different advice about fall-fertilizing of trees.  For the most part, these sites refer to deciduous shade trees.  Much of the research that has been done, relates to conifer forestry.

Growingagreenworld.com:  "many experts now consider late fall, or about a month after the first killing frost, to be the ideal time for applying fertilizers. We now know plants utilize nutrients throughout the year in different ways."  The site further states, that when trees are dormant, their roots absorb nutrients and apply them to root growth, disease resistance, and storage of nutrients for Spring.  I don't know if those claims are supported by science, but they make sense.

According to the University of Minnesota extension, early Spring is the best time.

Gregory Forrest Lester (Ohio) states that Fall fertilization is essential.  Again, the rationale is to prepare for Spring.  There aren't a lot of sources regarding fall fertilization of trees.  Via google scholar, there has been some specific research, that may or may not apply to yard shade trees.

Annals of Forest Science.  Related to seedlings of red pine,  "Results suggest that fall fertilization of red pine seedlings can help render desired target height in the nursery, while maintaining or increasing cold hardiness levels."  Benefits were seen for number of needles. concentration of nitrogen in shoots and roots, and cold hardiness parameters.

Western Journal of Applied Forestry.   Related to Douglas fir seedlings, fall fertilization increased nitrogen concentrations in the seedlings.  There was no difference in root growth or cold hardiness.  It did not appear in this project that fall fertilization had much effect.

Annals of Forest Science.   Regarding a species of oak,  "early fall fertilization promotes nutrient loading of P(hosphate) in Holm oak, with significant effects on root growth potential and field growth by means of a phenologically earlier development and a higher aboveground biomass."  and in the discussion it was noted that "six months after planting, fall fertilized plants showed higher shoot biomass, higher proportion of new leaves, and faster development, producing leaves earlier compared with unfertilized plants."

 Southern Journal of Applied Forestry.  Regarding fall fertilization of one year old longleaf pine, there was "substantial overwinter dry weight gains and increases in nutrient content and concentrations" especially for nitrogen.  Based on their research, they conclude that fall fertilization "offers a means of increasing seedling size and nutrient reserves prior to out-planting on the relatively infertile sites where seedlings are normally established."

 Journal of American Society for Horticultural Science.  Regarding field-grown peach trees, there was not a benefit for fall fertilization vs. spring fertilization, for peach production or tree growth.

Journal of Agriculture.   Regarding shade tree fertilization researchm up to 2002.  The authors state that nitrogen usually appears to be the most important nutrient, and note that "studies conducted with (labeled) nitrogen

showed low N(itrogen) uptake during the dormant (leafless) season, bringing into question the practice of dormant-season N applications."  However, they also note the inadequacies and limitations of the research that had been done.


Canadian Journal of Forest Research.   Regarding more Douglas fir seedling research, one month after fall fertilization,  "Total nitrogen concentrations increased 1 month after fertilization, remained stable throughout winter, and tended to decrease or remain stable just before budbreak."

My conclusions:  A lot more work is needed to determine whether fall feeding benefits, doesn't benefit, or harms trees, and in what situations.   There does appear be benefit in some situations.  Nitrogen sources are more likely to be beneficial, and unless a deficiency is seen, fertilizers that contain signicant amounts of other major nutrients are usually probably not useful.  If one is interested in pee-cycling,  that seems like a reasonable approach as long as it is not overdone.  A liter of "liquid gold", diluted to 4 liters, could be applied over an area of about 10 feet by 10 feet, to a tree with a drip line about 8 feet in diameter.  It's not rocket science, and I would not do so if the soil salts are high. 

(All images are public domain, via vintageprintable.com)

Walking Around. 6.28.15

Kniphofia.  6.28.15

First Zucchini of the Year.  6.28.15

Squash Vines Growing Huge.  6.28.15

 Lots of flowers blooming.   This Kniphofia is a named variety but I forget the name.   This is a one year old plant.  Bees are not going after the flowers.  The web info says they do, but my honeybees do not have internet access to read that.

This is the time of year when squash and corn grow really fast.  That zucchini must be one week after blooming.  It's always amazing how fast they develop.  I pollinated with a different squash variety, because the zucchini does not have male flowers yet.

First Tomatoes of the Year.   Sungold.  6.28.15

 Back when I planted the squash seeds I didn't have much energy and neglected to label them.  I am guessing the most vigorous is Pink Banana but it could easily be another type.  The vigor must be in part, due to the nitrogen boost I gave them, pee-cycling.  Ditto for the corn.  It's been 1:4 dilution, about every 3 weeks, over a 100 sq foot are.

Sungold is the first tomato this year.  They are so sweet.  Others have their first tomatoes growing rapidly.

I'm glad I planted nasturtium seeds this year.  They are very rewarding.  The leaves are very distinctive and tasty in salads, peppery flavor.  No pests.  All of the types are nice, this one is from a mix.   In full sun, some varieties get a little sunburn on the leaves.  That does not seem  to hurt anything.  When seeds start to set, I intend to save seeds for next year.

Nasturtiums.  6.28.15

Trinity Sweet Corn, started in containers on  5.12.15.  6.28/15

Walking Around. Vegetables. 6.7.15

Corn and Squash Bed.  6.7.15

Walking Around.

Corn and Squash are growing nicely.  Squash includes winter squash, summer squash, zucchinis, and pumpkins.  So are the beans, and tomatoes.  Peppers are OK, we might get some.

Ning's garden is ahead of mine.  He's proving to be a great gardener.

I've left this bed un-mulched, so the sun warms the soil.  Then it requires some hoeing.  As long as I don't let the weeds grow beyond small seedlings, it's easy.

The corn and squash have been boosted via pee-cycling.  I think that's why they are so green and lush and growing so fast.

Winter Puttering. 2.10.14

Borage 6.5.14

 No new photos today.  I puttered as much as my energy allowed.

Cleared up about 50 sq foot area in fig row, that I covered with black plastic last fall, to kill grass.  Now it's apparent the area was used by previous owners to dispose of fireplace ash.  The grass and weeds were thick so apparently not too toxic.  In the center of that area, I have already planted a start of "King" fig.  In the cleared portion, I smoothed with garden rake and scattered borage seeds for bee forage.

Borage grows rampantly.  Big lush, muscular, drought tolerant plants.  The honeybees and bumblebees both love it.  This is a much larger area, compared to last year's few borage plants.

I uncovered the rest of the killed grass.  That area needs some rain for softening, then some more borage seeds.

Between the fig trees in the row, I've laid down plastic to kill grass.  Each section is about 25 square feet.  I want to use each section for bee forage.

Borage with honeybee.  7.5.14

 Based on last year's results, other great bee forage plants include Phacelia "Bee friend", and Dutch clover.  Last year Dutch clover took over much of the yard.  It is not visible now, but I imagine when the warm weather hits, it will do so again.

I have also bought seeds for a patch of Crimson clover, and a patch of Agastache.  It's not a huge increase in the size of the bee forage area, but bigger than last year and with some more experiments.  All organic, no pesticides, no neonicotinoids, no round-up, just nature.

Borage.  7.5.14

I have also increased the amount of Chinese chives - another flower the bees love to forage.  Being perennial, all I need to do is save seeds and sow them.  Any that grow, are in addition to the existing clumps.

Borage with bumblebee.  7.5.14

Dutch Clover with honeybee.  7.5.15

Phacelia tanacetifolia "Beefriend"  6.22.14

 In addition to clearing that area, I planted a mini-dwarf Jonagold apple tree that I grafted last year, using sucker from rootstock of another minidwarf tree and scion from the top.  This is in a perennial, shrub, and herb border.  They are more ornamental than useful, but again, some bee forage, and a few apples should result.

I planted some Egyptian Walking Onions that were lying around sprouting.

Phacelia tanacetifolia "Beefriend"  6.22.14

I provided the last pre-spring nitrogen boost for young trees in the mini-orchard / food forest.  The trees that benefited were:  Two sweet cherries; 2 years old.  One North Star tart cherry.  2 years old.  Newly planted American persimmon, Yates; and 2 year old Nikita's Gift and Saijo persimmons.  The Saijo might be a mistake - near bearing size and I read nitrogen boost can call fruit fall.  All three of the three-year-old pawpaws.  Hollywood plum, 1 year old from cutting.

None of the plums got nitrogen boost, none of the peaches - those grow too rampantly as is, and are bearing size.  Rule of thumb for me - if bearing size, and last year's growth was more than a foot, then the extra nitrogen is probably not needed.  The plums grew more than 2 feet, and the peaches grew 2 to 3 feet, last year.  Ditto for Montmorency cherry.

There was some left over, so all of the fig trees in the fig row, south of the house, got nitrogen boost too.

"Nitrogen boost"  is euphemism for pee-cycling, or Urine Fertilizer.  In this case, I used 1:4 dilution.  One 1 liter, diluted, was watered in around each of  3 trees.

It's an early Spring.  Plum and peach buds are nearly open.  I hope we don't get a hard frost when they are susceptible.   If we do, we do.

Still anxiously awaiting Raintree nursery order and scion from Fedco.  Maybe end of the month.

Learnings. What went well, what didn't. What I obsessed over. 2014. 12.30.14

Transplant Methley Plum.  Jan 2014

 This is Jan to June.  It turned out to be too much to review the whole year.

Transplanted Methley plum tree in January.  It did fine, but no plums this year.  January is a good time to transplant around here, if the roots are good and the weather is mild.

Lilacs are really easy to propagate by digging up suckers, pruning them off, and replanting.  All survived.  Again, dug them in January.  All of the starts grew moderately and developed good root systems.

Covering the raised beds with plastic increased the temp, allowing for cold season vegetables to grow in February.

Embossable labels work better than any other type of label.

Pepper plants started about Jan were the first to bear.  They do not have to be started that early, but it was nice to get early peppers.

Whip and tongue grafting is easy and awesome.  That was the end of Feb.  All of the pears, and all of the apples, took.  Few or none of the lilacs took.  Lilacs are more challenging to graft.  I still don't have a foolproof method for them.

It was easy to dig up and transplant daffodils and Hyacinthoides right after they  started to grow in March.  All survived and bloomed.  It was a great way to have some instant spring blooming bulbs, not planted the fall before.  Not really instant but seemed that way.  Waiting until the foliage dies is probably better, but there is so much going on then, I forget.

The indoor plant growing light was easy, cheap, and worked very well.  I have it set up again for this winter's seedlings. 

Learnings for the little orchard:  Deer were the most destructive and frustrating challenge.  They ate cherry trees, to the point of almost killing the trees.  I already had the plum trees fenced, so they were OK.  They ate a few peach branches, not a lot.  Similar for persimmons. Something - maybe a rabbit - ate off one pawpaw sapling, so all got caged.  As of now, all cherries are caged, all pears, apples, plums, pawpaws, persimmons.  Two trees died - Satsuma plum and Korean Dogwood.  I think that's because I did not get the roots unwound from the containers.  Another thought, is voles, but on the tree autopsy I did not see eaten roots.  Lesson learned - get those root systems spread out.  I already knew that but did not practice it in those cases.  Hollywood plum was very easy to start from cuttings - all grew.  Shiro plum did not grow at all from cuttings.  With hand cross-pollinating, the Asian pears had heavy yields, really productive, for the first time ever.  By grafting pollinating varieties within each pear tree, I hope the pollinating is easier in the future.  But I really didn't mind doing it.  Enjoyable.  I have almost every tree in a fencing circle to reduce or prevent deer browsing next year.  Lesson learned - install the fencing at the time the trees are planted, even before planting.  Then it is done, and you don't wind up saying "I wish I did that".

Lilac Propagation via Suckers.  Jan 2014

Covered Bed.  Feb 2014

Pepper plants, 2.1.14

Asian Pear - Whip and Tongue Graft.  2.25.14

Apple.  Whip and Tongue Graft.  2.25.14

Bulb transplants.  3.2.14

Plant light project.  3.2.14

 For me, the best way to grow 4:00's / Mirabilis jalapa, was to soak seeds for 24 hours, pre- germinate seeds on moist paper  towel, in zipper sandwich bags, on heating mat, then plant into seedling cups.  They did really well that way.  4:00's were great fun and I will grow them again this year, from seeds saved in 2014.  They do stop blooming in Sept, but that's OK. They also grew faster, bloomed sooner, and stopped blooming sooner, in containers.

The bearded irises were very frustrating.  Big, very frustrating, losses from bacterial rot.  Almost every plant had at least some rot.  A few were completely killed.  May have been due to too much nitrogen the fall/winter before.  Lesson learned.  No nitrogen boost this time around.  Also no ground covers, although weeds are challenging for bearded iris.  We'll see if they do better this time around.

Lilacs did great this year.  It's nice to have several types.   Now I have starts from 5 colors, at the Battleground place.  Bud grafting was about 30% successful on lilacs.  Maybe - we'll see if they grow.

Bud grafting is also awesome.  Some of the early bud grafted plums grew rapidly.  The later ones, healed but I will not know if they grow, until Spring.  All of the plum bud grafts look like they took.  About 75% of the cherries look good.  Not sure about the peaches, and the lilacs may have a few.

The buddleias were a mixed bag.  The "Cobbler" varieties - Peach Cobbler and Blueberry Cobbler - grew huge.  That was OK in that location, they will be a bit of a windbreak.  The flower heads are also huge.  They start blooming from the bottom, and work to the top.  That means, most of the time half of the flower is brown and dead, before the rest is done blooming.  The result is an ugly bush.  The "Miss" varieties  - Miss Molly and Miss Ruby - those have smaller flowers, and less of the half dead/half blooming issue.  They are more compact.  Neither the Cobbler varieties, nor the Miss varieties, attracted honeybees, but they were good for bumblebees.  The Honeycomb variety was newer, I'm not sure about that.  The Blue Mist variety stayed more compact, the flower heads were small and much less of the half-dead aspect, looked very nice and the honeybees liked it.

Peecycling was the big lesson this year.  Excellent source of nitrogen.  Our water bill decreased due to not flushing it down the drain.  Tomatoes were the most productive ever.  Peppers did excellent.  Lindens grew their most lush ever.   Negatives, leaves on some buddleias, and laburnum, were curled.  I used moderately on the Bearded Irises, and that may have been the issue with the bacterial rot.  Possibly too much on those.  I would not use on pear trees - they grow too fast, and lush growth is susceptible to fire blight.  Sourwood also had a touch of fireblight, but recovered and grew nicely. I think this concept is mostly a "guy thing".  We have been saving all of the at-home pee for the garden, and it was very lush in 2014, the best ever.

Plant light project.  3.2.14

Orchard.  4.6.14

4:00 seedling.  4.6.14

The persimmons and pawpaws did respond to the nitrogen boost.  I would not do that for mature trees, but it might be good for getting them larger, faster.

I still have a lot to learn about growing okra in this cool maritime climate.  The container okras did much better than last year's in-ground okra.  The varieties, "Burgundy" and "Baby Bubba" did best.  They are hard to grow in sunroom due to attracting aphids.  It helps to soak seeds over night, and pre-sprout on moist paper towel / zipper sandwich bag / on seed sprouting warming mat.  Contrary to info on many websites, okra is easy to start in containers.  You just have to be careful to slide them out of the container without damaging roots, when transplanting.  More to learn, but so far, so good.

This as a lot of learnings in 6 months.  Most of it went well.  I tend to forget the unsuccessful things.  The uncertainties to carry over to next year, mainly working on other herbivore control fencing, seeing if bearded irises will be free of bacterial rot, getting more okra in containers.   I plan to move more bulbs in March after they start growing, as I did last year.  Good to know that works.  Lilac starts are now in their permanent locations.   Much more grafting this year, based on last year's learnings. 

Historic lilac bed.  There were some good flowers despite a bacterial rot epidemic.

It' nice having multiple varieties of lilacs.  The different colors make for a beautiful bouquet.

This was my first try for camassia.  Very nice!

Pepper bed worked out really nice.  The cover kept them growing before the weather warmed up.  Covering also prevented herbivory.

Potato "wells" were OK, not great.  Not sure if I will do that this year.

Freeze killed figs grew back from the roots.

Okra was OK in containers.  Not lush like southern grown okra, but there was enough for some soups.

Peecycling was a big new lesson.  We got excellent results.

This plum bud graft took and grew rapidly.

Four O'Clocks were a new experiment.   They were great!

Buddleia Miss Ruby was good.  Compact and a nice bloomer.

Tomatoes. 9.20.14

Better Boy Tomatoes.  9.20.14

This year was the best tomato crop ever for me.  The main difference, the only difference I can think of, is the pee-cycling.   Tons of big tomatoes, tons of cherry tomatoes.

Better Boy is one of my favorites.  Nice Midwest flavor.

Four O'clocks, Morning Glories. 9.1.14

Four O'clock "Marvel of Peru" 8.31.14

Four O'Clock "Marvel of Peru".  8.31.14

The container Four O'Clocks have finished blooming.  They started early, and finished early.  The in-ground Four O'Clocks started later, and are continuing to bloom profusely.  They don't dry out as fast as the ones in containers.  I can see a role for both methods.

I transplanted some Four O'Clocks out of their deck box, into to soil in a secluded spot under the eves and now a bit cut-off by the sunroom.  They will be nice there.  The location is sheltered.  They should have a good chance to survive the winter.  I expect they will also drop seeds and may re-seed there too.

In the front bed, the 4 O'Clocks are among the brightest and most colorful plants in bloom now.  Daylilies are good, but need protection from deer.  Deer have not eaten any of the 4 O'Clocks.  Neither have rabbits.

Four O'clocks and other flowers.  8.31.14

It turned out that a June start for Morning Glories worked just fine.  I gave the plants to Ning and he planted them in his potager.  They are a nice mix of dark blue, light blue, pink and very light pink.

I was surprised that the foraging animals did not eat morning glories. 

This is a good learning for next year.  I like both of these plants.  I have not grown them before.  They are an excellent example of what can be grown from seeds, and much better than plants that are available in the nurseries and grocery stores.

Ning embraced pee-cycling with a vengeance.  His Four O'Clocks and Morning glories, and everything else, were fertilized with generous amounts.  They grew rapidly, to large size, and are blooming profusely.

Ning's Potager.  8.31.14