Links to stuff we heard about from Tom Spellman

What a great meeting that was on Saturday!  I am a little snowed under right now trying to get our Scion Exchange app working, but since I’m getting questions, I did want to put up links to the updated R. Sanford Martin  “How to Prune Fruit Trees” that Tom worked on.

Despite Tom’s assurances we could find it anywhere, it seems you have to order it directly from the Walter Anderson Nursery down in San Diego here.    I ordered my copy Saturday and it’s already shipped!

Also, for those of you who couldn’t write fast enough as  Tom rattled off his successes in the Irvine Ranch high-chill apple experiment, you can see a Youtube of the 6th year harvest here.

I write pretty fast but then cannot read my own handwriting, so these are my best guesses of his favorites from the trial:  Mutsu, Dixie Red Delight, King David, Lady Williams,  Red Fuji, and Sundowner. If I got any of that wrong or forgot something, please let me know!

Note Tom was recommending low-N, high P, high K fertilizers for these apples once they reached bearing size.  It does not mean you want low N for everything in your orchard.   Someone mentioned in the Chat a GrowMore product that s/he felt would suit but I didn’t manage to copy the person’s name.  GrowMore mostly sells to commercial growers so it would be interesting to know where their products are available to us layfolks.  Since I am entirely organic and also mostly avoid  animal-byproducts I find Peaceful Valley Farm Supply a reliable source for organic fertilizers and they even have a chart on their site showing the relative NPKs for their products..

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