Question: Do you sell apple scionwood?If yes, is there a list of the varieties available?Thanks, EARL Answer: Short Answer - Depends. We sell budwood and scionwood from our extensive orchards if it makes sense as a business. In other words it should make some profit and not provide proprietary wood to entities not licensed to grow it. Minimum of 500 buds to even think about it. Long Answer: Here is the process required to process…

Italian Everbearing Fig A beautiful day outside. Two storms coming in - smaller one blew through with a few sprinkles overnight. Major rain maker scheduled for tomorrow. Makes the photographer side of me smile - I love clouds and clean air. The agriculture side of me weeps along with the rest of the farmers - Raisins still drying in the fields on paper trays, walnuts and almonds frantically being shaken and swept up, Cotton balls…

Last Saturday most of the sales and management staff had the priviledge of joining the local chapter of the California Rare Fruit Growers for their monthly meeting. The meeting was held at the Home of Walter & Brenda Thoma in the foothills just outside Porterville. Walter Thoma leading us through his extensive orchard Walter is in his mid 70's (with the energy and drive of someone in his 30's) and over the last 20 years…

We have a lot of awesome people working for L.E. Cooke Co and last Sunday I got to see a number of them in action outside of work. Tom Fetch (Sales Manager) volunteers at the Tulare City Library helping tutor others in the Adult Literacy program (Tulare Read). Each year he has also helped do some fund raising by putting on horticultural classes about edible landscaping or pruning. This year he coordinated a much larger…

Question: Are there seedless muscat grapes? Where do you fine theme. When does the grape ripen?Thank You Anna W. - San Jose, CA Answer: Yes - we grow the Summer Muscat which is seedless. Ripens in August. More information here: Summer Muscat Grape More photos here: Summer Muscat Grape Photos Call your local retail nurseries in San Jose or surrounding areas. If they don't have them today, they can order them for delivery in January.…

Question: I live in Austin, tx zone 8. Alkaline, shallow clay soil with hot, dry summers. Would the Pakistan, Black Beauty or Persian mulberry do well here? Which would you recommend. I tend to like fruit on the sweeter side.Do you also have a local retail nursery you can recommend in the area ? Thank you. Asha - Austin, TX Answer: I think your comment about hot, dry summers is an understatement based upon this…

Question: Hi, I just bought a "4-in-one semi dwarf pear for regions with under 500 hrs of chill" grown by you from my local nursery. There is a branch growing low, below all of the grafting. Is this something that will produce or should I prune it off? If it needs pruning, when is the best time to do this? I plan to espalier it later, is there any reason I cannot?Thanks,Leo L. San Antonio,…

Question: My Landscaper planted a tree for me. The red tag on it just reads Betula Birch. Is there any easy way for me to tell which Bertula this is ?Thank You Thomas M. - Levittown, NY Answer: Easiest way is to ask your landscaper. (Obviously it did not come from us or else it would have had a tag with the full identity on it.) Otherwise you get to play detective and probably wait…

Yesterday, I was driving down one of our county back roads near the nursery and saw this rather stunning sight: (Of course the photo would be a little nicer without the junker car under it and the rain-bird sprinkler running in the foreground.) By the red flowers, it must be the Flame Mimosa (Albizia julibrissin 'Fan Silk') - or at least that is the same color of the flowers on the Fan Silk trees we…

Persian Fruiting Mulberries in various stages of ripening Persian Mulberries fruit on second year wood. How do I know that? In our budwood orchards we prune almost all of it off each winter to force new growth for budding and grafting. Even with all the new growth by summer, there is not enough fruit to take a decent photo. This year I asked that one tree of each variety of fruiting mulberries be spared from…