A mature avocado tree needs to have at least two pounds of nitrogen a year and varying amounts of other nutrients, such as phosphorus and zinc. For the home gardener, the easiest way to feed your avocado is to use a mixed fertilizer specifically recommended for citrus and avocados that contains nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and zinc. Be sure to follow the package directions.

In coastal zones, gardeners should divide the amount of fertilizer for the year into five equal applications and give one feeding each month from February through June. Interior gardeners should divide the total amount into four monthly applications and give one feeding per month from March through June. With slow-release fertilizers you can divide the fertilizer into two equal doses. Give the first dose early this month if you live along the coast, or late this month if you live inland, and give the second dose in June.

If you choose to go with single-use fertilizers, you can feed avocados by spreading 25 pounds of aged chicken manure under each mature tree in February. Beginning in March, give each tree one trowelful each of blood meal and bone meal every six weeks, through August. If the mulch is very thick, rake it off, sprinkle the food underneath, then replace the mulch on top.

The main things an avocado desires are rich soil, excellent drainage, and a thick layer of mulch over the roots. Allow the leaves that fall to remain under the tree; don't rake them up. (Avocados are best planted at the back of the garden where their large leaves won't look too messy.) Add additional mulch to young trees.

Remember, never cultivate or dig under avocado trees, because that would damage the roots and all your fruit might fall off. It's best not to grow anything under an avocado tree, especially if that something needs frequent irrigation. Wet soil promotes root rot of avocado.

Organic gardening can be a contribution to the quality of the environment. If you are a vegetable gardener, it is also a contribution to the quality and safety of your edibles. Suburban gardeners, pick up your garden hoses! Oh yes, and learn to pinch together your thumb and index fingers. Here we go - a lesson on organic gardening.

Organic gardening involves the gardener's approach to soil preparation, fertilizing, pest management, and weed removal. As you might imagine, the organic gardener will practice the most environmentally safe methods.

Once you have selected your vegetable garden plot location, whether your soil is clay or sand (or anything in between), you will want to supplement the native soil with an organic compost soil amendment containing mychorrizae and fortified with nitrogen and iron. Roto-till or use the good old-fashioned shovel to mix in these amendments and level out the soil.

Of course, many gardeners like to maintain a compost pile. Composting, done properly, is an excellent product to enhance the soil and thereby improve the plant heath. Other gardeners like to use manure as a portion of this soil amending process. If that is your choice, make sure that you do this a month or so ahead of planting the garden, and water thoroughly. Manures add a considerable amount of salt and high nitrogen to the mix, too much for new young seedlings or plants.

Fertilizing can sometimes seem complicated. The three most important nutrients for healthy plants are N-P-K or nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Nitrogen is necessary for healthy, green plant foliage growth. Phosphorus is needed for the plant's root, flower, and eventual fruit (veggie) growth. Potassium is necessary for overall healthy plants through good root growth and fruit production.

All of these nutrients are in your soil naturally. Depending upon your soil type, they may be in balance or they may not. You could have your soil tested for nitrogen, phosphoros, potassium (NPK) and other minerals to determine whether you have any deficiencies at all.

If you are a compost gardener, this process adds all of the nutrients that your soil and plants need. If you do not compost, then you may want to consider other organic products that will enhance the quality of your soil.

Organic sources of nitrogen (N) are derived from fish meal, cottonseed meal, alfalfa meal, fish bone meal, and feather meal. Organic phosphorus (P) comes from fish bone meal, cottonseed meal, alfalfa meal, and soft rock phosphate. And finally, organic potassium (K) comes from kelp meal, cottonseed meal, alfalfa meal and mined potassium sulfate. The nutrients are released quickly as the beneficial soil microbes called mychorrizae digest the product.

You may have a question as to why organic gardening uses the organic fertilizers instead of chemical fertilizers. The reason is simple. Organic fertilizers are more stable in the soil and become available to the plant more gradually. While they are feeding the plants, they are also improving the soil health. The plants grow a bit more slowly, but that gives them more strength and resistance to disease and pests.

Chemical fertilizers (vs. organic) are designed to make the N-P-K (and minerals such as iron, magnesium, sulfur, etc.) available “now” to a plant, and this is like putting a plant “on steroids.” Also, the plant can't use up all that is applied and unfortunately, through your watering process and/or rain, those nutrients will be washed away (possibly into the metropolitan water system). Alternatively, the organic products are designed to slowly decompose to enhance the soil and also be consumed by the mychorrizae, and then taken up by the plant root system.

You will discover that all of the products contain varying N-P-K ratios. Ask one of our staff for assistance in determining which will be the best for your individual garden.

Are there unwanted visitors in your garden? Time to apply good IPM (Integrated Pest Management) practices, using organic fertilizers and resistance to applying herbicides (for weed killing). Integrated Pest Management, or IPM, is the approach to pest control that requires regular monitoring of your garden to determine if and when treatments are needed. And it employs physical, mechanical, cultural, and biological methods to keep pest numbers low enough to meet your toleration or annoyance levels.

Classic organic gardening pest management employs simple, completely non-toxic techniques such as hand-picking the tomato horn worm, hand removal of leaves harboring the leafminers, squishing snails or water-blasting off aphids or cabbage moths from your plants.

Now you understand the need for your garden hose and pinching fingers!

The next level up is to use the least toxic controls such as insecticidal soaps, spray oils, and other natural products (pyrethrums from chrysanthemums, for example) to combat annoying insects, powdery mildew and rust. This category of products satisfies another large group of gardeners - those willing to spend time evaluating their plants and treating (and retreating) upon need. This level is also still safe to apply to edibles.

And the highest level is for those gardeners completely intolerant of garden pests. However, that level is also toxic for edibles and should not be considered for a vegetable garden.

Now, what about the weeds? Avoid herbicides in vegetable gardens. Some gardeners like to use a cover crop such as clover in between their rows of vegetables. This works great. Or, you can cover your hands with a great pair of gloves and pull out the weeds (it's good exercise, too)! And then, to keep the weeds down, MULCH, MULCH, MULCH.

Organic vegetable gardening is especially rewarding. Your vegetables will be so fresh, so delicious, so much the ultimate of vegetable goodness, that you will become spoiled and never want to buy from a grocery produce department again. Every time you step into your garden to harvest tomatoes, beans, broccoli, potatoes, lettuce, or whatever you have grown, a smile will rise to your lips. Be proud of yourself. You should be!

By Tamara Galbraith

So, the weekend comes, you've got a Gardening To-Do List as long as your arm...and the weather is miserable. Fortunately for gardeners, there's always a side project waiting--or an inside chore that needs doing. Here are ten ways to pass the time if you can't spend it outside gardening:

1. Clean your tools:
First, use a stiff brush to remove excess dirt, then scrub off rust with steel wool. Spray or wipe on a lubricating oil before storing in a dry area.

2. Clean your pots:
If you're like me, your garage and patio are littered with empty plant pots of varying sizes. Dump the excess dirt into the compost pile and rinse with water. If you suspect fungal disease was present in the pot, throw away the dirt, use a mild bleach solution to scrub the pot thoroughly with a stiff brush, and allow to air dry. Arrange and stack pots according to size, and store.

3. Tend to your houseplants:
Repot where necessary. Polish large leaved-plants with a soft cloth soaked in a mild solution of water and stale beer. If you want leaves to really shine, use a commercial plant-polishing product. However, waxes and oils tend to block plant pores and attract dust, so watch out for those.

4. Clean out old gardening products:
Determine which pesticides, fungicides, fertilizers, etc., are ready to be thrown out. (Most will last about two years.) Check with your local solid waste management authority, environmental agency, or health department to find out whether your community has a household hazardous waste collection program or a similar program for getting rid of unwanted, leftover pesticides. Whatever you do, please DON'T pour products--even organic ones--down the sink, into the toilet, or down a sewer or street drain. And don't re-use empty containers--just throw them away.

5. Go through your seeds:
Seeds more than two years old should probably be thrown away. If you're not sure, test their viability by folding a few seeds in a wet paper towel and laying the towel someplace warm for a few days, ensuring it remains damp. If the seeds germinate, they're obviously still ok. The best way to store seeds is in screw-lid jars or in zip-top plastic baggies.

6. Start a scrapbook:
Go through old gardening magazines and cut out favorite pictures, articles, growing tips, etc.; then organize them and paste in a scrapbook. This can actually be a winter-long project if you've got stacks and stacks of gardening magazines--as I do.

7. Learn something new:
Interested in trying bonsai but not sure where to start? Want to learn the basics of designing an attractive container arrangement? Get on the Internet and do some searching. There's a world of resources out there.

8. Pamper your orchids:
Got orchids? You should decrease the amount of water given to orchids (and all indoor plants, actually) during the winter months, but before you help them shut down for the season, make sure the sphagnum moss and other rooting medium is still fresh. Roots should be white or green and not brown and soggy. If you're getting root rot, change the moss out and trim off bad roots.

9. Start a garden journal:
Keeping records of what works and what doesn't is invaluable in gardening. Taking pictures of your landscape throughout the seasons is also helpful in determining how to tweak here and there.

10. Visit us:
Hop in the car and come visit us. Treat yourself to new houseplants or some new gardening tools. You've worked hard all summer and fall, so you deserve it!

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1. Choose and plant camellias, azaleas and Chinese magnolias
2. Purchase clivia.
3. Plant summer bulbs like gladioli, dahlias, and callas.
4. Plant asparagus from bare-root.
5. Prune kiwi vines.
6. Cut back fuchsias once they begin to grow.
7. In coastal zones: prune begonias, ginger, cannas, asparagus ferns, ivy and pyracantha.
8. Deadhead cool-season flowers to keep them blooming.
9. Propagate running bamboo in coastal zones.
10. Continue to fertilize citrus trees in coastal zones.
11. Continue to fertilize epiphyllums.
12. Fertilize avocado trees in coastal zones.
13. Feed deciduous fruit trees.
14. Fertilize roses.
15. Fertilize fuchsias.
16. Fertilize cineraria with to promote blooms.
17. Fertilize cane berries as they begin to grow.
18. Keep roses and bulbs well-watered.
19. Bait for slugs and snails.
20. Control pests on citrus trees, sycamore, ash and alder trees.
21. Protect cinerarias from leaf miners, aphids, and slugs and snails.
22. Mulch young avocado trees.
23. Don't forget Valentine's Day!

The mouthparts of insects have adapted over time to suit the feeding style of each type of insect. Mouth parts differ from insect to insect, so the damage that they cause is useful in the classification and identification of the pest. Differentiating the type of insect damage will help you determine how to control the pest.

A chewing insect is any insect that has teeth. Most winged chewing insects (such as beetles, caterpillars and grasshoppers) feed only on leaf tissue, working from the leaf edge towards the center and eventually to the leaf stem. Crawling chewing insects, such as cutworms, will also eat roots and even stems of small plants.

Rasping insects (such as mites, snails, slugs and thrips) actually scrape off the surface of the leaves as sandpaper would. They suck up the fluids from the top layer of cells until all the green tissue has been consumed, leaving only the skeleton behind.

Sucking insects (such as aphids and whiteflies) have slender mouth parts with which they pierce leaves and stems to suck out plant fluids. Large populations can cause curling, yellowing and distortion of leaves, as well as stunting of shoots. Most sucking insects also produce large quantities of a sticky substance known as honeydew, which often turns black with the growth of a sooty mold fungus.

If you're not sure what type of insect is attacking your plant, just bring in a sample and one of our nursery experts will recommend a remedy to help your plant.

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