Articles written by Darryl McCullough (unless otherwise noted)

Sunday, February 14, 2016

We'll Be Back After This Important Message

Most any piece of mail proclaiming on the envelope that it's important, well, isn't, and when the TV machine breaks away for an important message, it's a good moment for you to break away and cut up another mango. And now advertising has come even to the MRFC blog. At least it's topical.

I'll be giving classes on introductory fruit tree horticulture on two upcoming Saturdays, March 12 and March 19. The area fruit tree clubs have many members far better qualified than I am to teach classes on this subject. But none of those true experts has one scheduled, so we'll have to manage with just me.

The March 12 class, from 10:00 to noon, will be at the Florida House in central Sarasota. General info can be found here, with details available to those signed up for the free Meetup service. The cost of $20 per person will be donated to the Florida House.

The March 19 class, from 9:00 to noon, will be at my house in north Sarasota County. Information is here and a flyer announcement is here. The $25 cost will be donated to Transition Sarasota.

The Florida House and Transition Sarasota are non-profit organizations, and--- full disclosure--- I am a board member of the latter.

The classes are completely independent and will cover roughly the same material, though the March 19 class will be a bit more in depth and will include a walkaround of my fruit tree groves and eclectic plant collection. The current topics list looks like this:

1. Seven reasons to grow your own tropical fruit
2. Seven key horticultural concerns: sunlight, nutrition, drought, flood, cold, wind, and salt
3. Grafted trees
4. Deciding what to grow
5. How to plant a tree

Demonstration tree planting

6. Fertilization
7. Pruning
8. Diseases and insect pests
9. Growing in containers

March 19 class only: Walkaround of my groves

10. How and where to buy a tree
11. Internet resources
12. Fruit tree clubs

I'm hoping that the classes will bring new members to our area fruit tree clubs, and new customers to our fruit tree sales. Wish me luck!

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