Joshua’s old home on Eastern Avenue. Water was cut off five years prior. Q. I am sending some pictures of a Joshua tree that I transplanted. It survived in its old location off of Eastern Avenue for five years after the water was shut off. It also survived with its trunk buried with about a foot of soil. I am adding it to my drip system but I need to optimize my watering so the tree has its best chance at survival. I amended the planting hole with sulfur and bone meal. I watered it deeply every three to four weeks by hand. Now I have drippers that are watering for one hour every four days.  In addition I frequently wet the top portion of the plant up to 5 times a week in hot weather to keep it from drying out. A. These are tough to transplant and this tree was abused and still survived. It shows you how well adapted these plants are to our desert environment if they are not watered too often and carefully relocated. Joshua lifted with engine hoist and seatbelts by reader             The key will be watering with lots of water but not very often or you may rot the trunk and any roots that might grow. I would suggest watering about every two weeks with about ten to twenty gallons in a depression around the trunk.             After the plant shows signs of new growth then the frequency of your watering will dictate how it looks and grows. If you want a Joshua tree with limbs that are long, kind of spindly and solid green then continue watering every two weeks during the summer. I have a hard time aesthetically liking this in appearance I guess because they do not look this way in nature. Old soil level just below orange belt. Roots covered with burlap.             If you want a Joshua tree with a tuft of green growth at the ends of the branches and the rest of the limb brown (more like you see in nature) then don’t put it on drip irrigation. After signs of new growth, begin watering seasonally by hand with a large volume of water around its base. What I mean by seasonally is water deeply perhaps once or twice in the spring, once during the summer and once during the winter. At some future date you may elect to eliminate the summer watering if you want more brown on the limbs. Joshua in its new desert landscape.             Make sure it is staked securely in the soil so the trunk at soil level does not move for one growing season. This plant will respond to a new location if you use soil that has been amended with compost or other soil improvements.             Wetting any part of the aboveground tree with water like spraying it with a hose or mister is a waste of time, not needed and may prove to be detrimental to the plant.

Q. I have a 1/2 acre on the east side of the valley ( Las Vegas), the lot is divided in quadrants with the house in one, a barn in another, yard/parking in the third, and the fourth is my chicken run. I was researching the idea of putting an orchard in that area and your work in NLV keeps popping up, but I can’t find your list of trees or an article on your high density planting techniques. I know the soil needs improving so I am currently trying green manuring with buckwheat and soybeans. I figure that one way or the other my chickens will like it. Any help you can point me towards I would appreciate. A. If you will go to my blog Xtremehorticulture of the Desert and in the search engine type “recommended fruit trees” you will see my recommended fruit tree list posted twice; once as a downloadable pdf document and the other posted in its entirety. This past year the only nursery to carry my recommended fruit trees was Plant World Nursery on Charleston Blvd. Any of their fruit trees with a hanger or tag from Dave Wilson Nursery, a large commercial grower of fruit trees, is from my list. A local producer sold my recommended fruit trees to the public as bareroot trees but will not be doing that this fall. Anyone want to take it on? Contact me. The idea of high density planting is not mine but adapted from Dave Wilson Nursery out of the Modesto, California area.You can find more information on concept of multiple trees planted in a single hole at davewilsonnursery.com, along with a lot of great information on growing fruit trees. I produced some YouTube videos on growing fruit trees which can be found by typing “UNCE orchard” at the YouTube video website, another resource. Here is a sample on controlling the size of fruit trees. Green manure crops are plants that can be started from seed which will either capture low amounts of nitrogen that exist in the soil or capture nitrogen from the air and return it to the soil. They also decompose and add organic matter. I have mixed feelings about using green manure crops in the desert. Although they are tremendously beneficial to our soils and highly advantageous in most areas of the country, they may or may not make sense when using them in the desert depending on your situation. The principle reason is water use. A secondary reason is the time that green manure crops take out of production. And thirdly is their cost. Green manure crops take time for the seed to germinate and the plants to grow to a size where they can be beneficial when turned back into the soil. Normally plants are allowed to get to a juvenile or early mature stage before they are turned back into the soil. This takes time, perhaps 5 to 6 weeks or longer which is time taken away from your production. If you have plenty of space and the cost of water is not a concern then this makes a lot of sense. But if your space is limited and water is costly then this will probably not make a lot of sense for you. It may make more sense to concentrate your space and water into making compost. Seed can be very expensive so look for inexpensive seed locally that you can use rather than to have it shipped in from some other location in the country. This also helps to lower your carbon expenditures for your small farm or garden. A very good green manure crop that is inexpensive is annual rye grass. This is the same inexpensive rye that is used for overseeding Bermudagrass in the fall. Grasses, and in particular annual ryegrass, are fast to germinate when temperatures are at least 60° F. You can even speed up its germination by soaking the seed for 24 hours before planting it. The seed must then be carefully dried so that it is dry to the touch but not overly dried or the seed may be ruined. Legumes harvest nitrogen from the air primarily and are not that terribly good at taking residual nitrogen from the soil. But they are an excellent choice for poor soils if you can get the seed inexpensively. Annual grasses are wonderful at finding nitrogen in the soil that vegetable crops miss and they take this nitrogen and bioaccumulate it or, in other words, put it into its own plant tissue. The grass is watered and allowed to get about 6 to 10 inches tall and then turned into the soil just before it produces a seedhead. This nitrogen in the plant tissue is then slowly released as the rye plant decomposes in the soil. However, using a green manure crop in a mixed planting where you are combining an orchard with chickens or other fowl makes a lot of sense provided these animals do not ruin in your production. I could see how you might be able to have a small orchard and, using the existing water required to irrigate your fruit trees, grow some green manure crops for soil improvement and that would also double as food for your fowl. Keep your costs low by growing winter and summer green manure crops from seed that are inexpensive and that will do well in our climate. Some manure crops for our area might include annual ryegreass, timothy, wheat, oats, alfalfa, peas and Kentucky 31 tall fescue. But if you use tall fescue be sure to turn it into the soil while it is still young. Just about any inexpensive seed will work if you know the germination temperature of the seed. Don’t use bermudagrass. Recommended green manure crops from other climates may or may not work well here and it may be difficult to find inexpensive seed.  

Orchard todo One of our “white” figs There is lots to pick but please pick up fallen fruit under the trees before picking fruit or doing anything else in the orchard. Once it gets stepped on it is much, much harder to pick up. It is extremely important to keep a clean orchard floor. Use one of the small rakes in the tool shed to rake the fruit to the aisle and then follow that by picking the fruit up from the center of the aisle rather than bending down and picking the fruit up from under the canopy. The yellow or “white” figs are coming in now and need to be checked. Figs are nonclimacteric fruit so will not ripen once picked. They must be picked when fully ripe and the neck begins to collapse. We have lots of peaches coming in right now so please pick and get them in the cooler before the birds hammer them. Jobs will be posted on yellow postit notes in the office with the number of volunteers needed on the note. Dont forget to sign in and sign out! Tuesday todo • Irrigate. We are irrigation three times a week now. Todo List on Postit Notes in the Orchard office • Pick up fallen fruit. This helps keeps some damaging insects from getting to damaging numbers. • Check figs • Pick Anna apple at 18/1 (Row 18 is along the south fence) • Red Haven peaches fully ripe and must be picked now • Mid Pride peaches are coming in and should be picked now • Stark Saturn (donut peaches) should be picked • Double Delight nectarines should be picked. Badly scarred and suitable for juice, jelly, jams, etc. • Evaluate the following: La Feliciana peach; Babcock peach; Double Jewel peach • Change pheremone traps and put new pheremones in