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Preparing Fruit Plants For The Winter

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Now it is time to begin preparing fruit plants to survive the winters cold. A few simple steps can make the difference between success and failure.

Mature fruit trees will need little attention this time of year. Hold off pruning until late winter when the trees will be fully dormant.

Young trees will benefit from some additional items. Wrap the trunk of young trees with strips of burlap or craft paper, to vet water entry of the trunks. Alternatively, trunks can be painted with a coat of one to one mixture of interior quite latex paint and water.  Dig grass and weeds away from the trunks and apply a layer of mulch. If young trees are leaning, stake them, and gently draw them so the trunks are vertical ordinary so.

If you've not already removed the spent floricans from summer bearing raspberries, now's a good time to do that. They've completed their life cycle and need to be removed from the planting. If you kept floricans and fall-bearing raspberries, remove them now if you haven't done that previously, hold off pruning raspberry floricans until spring.

Allow strawberries to remain uncovered now so they will continue to go fully dormant. Rake out leaves that may have settled in the strawberry patch. Once we get some frost in the soil, usually around Thanksgiving, apply a layer of clean straw to protect the grounds from winter injury. The objective of the straw is to slow the rate of temperature change.

Doing a few simple things today can make a difference to help trees survive through Utah's cold winters.