Urban Farming Oz

My blogs over the last two weeks have talked about how to choose the most suitable fruit tree cultivars for your taste, climate and space, in addition to making the most of cropping and cross pollination factors. Once you have done that ground work, the next important factor is planting at the right time of the year.

There are some rules to apply in deciding when to plant and these are impacted by your climate and the type of fruit trees you have chosen. We have made it easy for you by including a table in this blog of recommended planting seasons for all 40 fruit tree crops in our web site. These are the most commonly grown fruit tree crops. Our site includes over 700 cultivars of those crops for a large range of climate zones, which can be easily searched in our Gardener subscriber site.

You will see that a lot of them are marked as plant in autumn or winter, so for the southern hemisphere, the ideal time for many of them is now. With regard to working with planetary rhythms to assist with your fruit tree planting, I recommend working on a fruit day in accordance with indications from the biodynamic planting calendar. You can find fruit days for every month of the year in our Gardener subscriber area. Fruit days over the next month and a half are: May 12-14, 21-22, 29-31, then June 8-10, 17-18, 26-27.

In working with the earth’s rhythms it is also best to plant your fruit trees after 3pm in the afternoon.

Our Gardener subscriber site has detailed plant management information on all these fruit tree crops, easily searched at the click of mouse. This information includes: planting, pollination, cultivating and pruning, as well as organic methods for fruit tree pest and diseases. We also have a Member tips function for every fruit tree crop where you can share comments, ask questions and contact other subscribers.

Before you plant, it is very important to prepare your soil. As a minimum, prepare your planting space at least a two months before planting. More tips on this next week.

Peter Kearney - www.cityfoodgrowers.com.au