Summer Fruit Season is Here By Joyce D’Agostino

Grapes, photo by Joyce D'Agostino

It’s that time of the summer, when your fruit trees are loaded with fruit that is ripening. Fruit have a number of vitamins, minerals and fiber that are great for your diet, so enjoy them fresh.

But if you have more than you can eat quickly, the bulletins below will give you great tips on how to can, freeze, dehydrate or make jams or jellies from your fruit to extend your enjoyment for later use. When you properly can, freeze and dry your fruit at peak ripeness, then they will retain these beneficial nutrients for months. Jams and jellies can also make great gifts.

Renovating the Lawn in Fall

Photo by Donna Duffy

Does your lawn have dead spots or thinning? Do you have sections that just aren’t thriving? Once you've ruled out irrigation problems, consider renovation of the turf - and fall is the perfect time to do it. Cool weather is optimum for growth of cool season grasses, and lower temperatures slow the drying of seeded areas, leading to better germination.  Following are tips for lawn renovation from Carl Wilson, CSU Horticulturist.

Tips for Saving Seeds By Joyce D’Agostino

Seed saving, photo courtesy modern farmer.org

Many of us enjoy starting our plants from seed. Some of these seeds may have been shared by friends or have been handed down through family members, which give them a special legacy of their own. Now that we are in late summer, there are many garden favorites that are producing and those that you may want to grow again next year.

Fruit Fly Control by Carol King

Fruit flies

This time of the year, when your counter if full of ripening fruit and the compost bin is loaded with peelings, seeds, and all the residue of the wonderful produce available this season, we find a problem pest flying around.  That annoying little creature we call the fruit fly.  

Whitney Cranshaw, Colorado State University Cooperative Extension Entomology Specialist gives us this information about the fruit fly. 

"Vinegar flies, also known as small fruit flies, commonly develop in overripe or decaying fruit and vegetable matter. They are minute, light brown flies with orange-red eyes and rarely are they found very far from the fruit bowl. Numbers tend to build in late summer. If conditions are suitable and food is present, they may breed indoors.

Although associated with fruit, developing vinegar flies actually feed on yeasts. To eliminate a vinegar fly problem, use up overripe fruit, refrigerate it or discard it. At the same time, give attention to other breeding sites. Vinegar flies may, for example, breed in the moist residue that remains in the bottom of beer bottles or soft drink cans, as well as in other areas where moist organic matter allows for yeast growth. After all such food sources are removed, some residual adults may remain for a week or so, but ultimately will die out."

Also clean sinks and drains, empty indoor compost pails and set out baited traps. Here's and article on how to make your own fruit fly trap: lancaster.unl.edu/pest/resources/fruitflytrap.shtml

Debunking a Hot Weather Watering Myth by Donna Duffy

Photo courtesy ehow.com

Perhaps you’ve heard it said that “watering plants on a hot sunny day will scorch their leaves”. It’s a myth! The following information, provided by Linda Chalker-Scott, PhD, Extension Horticulturist at Washington State University, debunks that myth once and for all!

How to Use Your Harvested Rainwater (Video)

If you have installed a rain barrel, here are best practices for using the water.

Celebrate Colorado Day!

Columbine, Aquilegia caerulea, Colorado state flower, www.statesymbolsusa.org

On August 1, 1876, president Ulysses S. Grant signed a proclamation admitting Colorado as a state. Colorado Day was celebrated as a state holiday on August 1 for many years, and then was moved to the first Monday in August, most likely after the time the U.S. Congress passed the Uniform Holidays Bill in 1968. The day no longer became a public holiday, but rather an observance, when the state started observing Martin Luther King Jr Day as a public holiday in 1985.  

Following are some Colorado natives that have earned designation as a state symbol.