075 Tomato Preview, Part 2. Wild Boar Farms. Plant of the Week-Cornelian Cherry.

Show Transcript

Farmer Fred  00:03

Welcome to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. If you're just a beginning gardener or you want good gardening information, well, you've come to the right spot.

Farmer Fred  00:12

In USDA zones 9 and 10, this is the month to be starting tomato seeds indoors. For colder climates, you might want to wait until March. We continue our evaluation of great tomato varieties worth trying with Don Shor, owner of Redwood Barn Nursery in Davis, California. We talk strategy as well as good tomato varieties worth trying in 2021. In the world of unique looking tasty tomatoes, Wild Boar Farms has the market cornered. We pay a visit with owner Brad Gates. He offers up his tomato seed starting tips, and we get the lowdown on the Plant of the Week, the multifaceted Cornelian cherry. It's not a cherry, but a dogwood. It's a tree or shrub that can be grown just about anywhere in the United States, but it's especially successful in colder climates. It's our Plant of the Week. Welcome to Episode 75 of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, our tomato variety preview edition, Part two, and we'll do it all in under 30 minutes. Let's go. 

Farmer Fred  00:36

In the last episode, you might recall we were talking with Don Shor from Redwood Barn Nursery in Davis, California, we were talking tomatoes, a little preview of maybe some tomato varieties that you ought to try. Well, there was just so much to talk about, we split it into two episodes. Part One was in Episode 74 of the Garden Basics podcast where we talked about such staples in the world of tomatoes that you ought to try growing, such as Early Girl, Big Beef, Better Boy, Champion, and the Chef's Choice line of tomatoes. Some of my favorites included Gardeners Delight and Orange Oxheart. But there were plenty more varieties that we just didn't have time for last time. So let's continue our conversation with Don Shor and our Tomato Preview 2021, Part 2.

Farmer Fred  02:20

There are a lot of great new hybrids out there. And two years ago you introduced me to New Girl and Valley Girl. Both of them, I guess, sports or offshoots of the Early Girl. And two years ago they were fabulous. Last year, so-so. But I'm gonna give them another chance this year.

Don Shor  02:39

Yeah, I always recommend that you never give up on a tomato after one year and you never rave about a tomato after only one year. Because you'll find that you might have a cooler summer. 2017 was pretty cool. We only had a couple days over 100, temperatures were relatively mild. A lot of varieties did really well. Same variety the next year, when we had a lot of days over 100 and they did not yield well. So try them and start building a database, make notes. This is really important as you get older, it's hard to remember making notes about which ones have done well for you. And when someone does say that it's a consistent producer for them, give it a try. I mean there are some heirlooms that have done well. Arkansas Traveler is one. I have a customer who raves about it. Okay, I finally planted it, it did very well for me. I'm not gonna say it's one I'm promoting yet because I've only done it once. So we'll try it a couple years and see how that does if whether it's consistent for this area.

Farmer Fred  03:31

Which tomato have you planted consistently, year after year after year, and production has been either okay or great?

Don Shor  03:40

It's one of your favorites. It's an Italian heirloom. Costaluto Genovese has generally produced very well for me year after year. Fred and I have a lot of jokes about this because he doesn't really like this tomato, it softens quickly and that's fine.

Farmer Fred  03:56

Yeah, you better pick it before it's ripe. Or it's gonna go soft on you.

Don Shor  04:00

It makes great sauce and salsa and that kind of thing but it has been a consistent one this kind of leads me toward back towards the idea that some of the Mediterranean varieties are good ones to look at. Principe Borghese which is used for sun drying, it's a little little producer, little fruit, you know, small pear-shaped ones and very productive, very consistently productive for me. And that was one my Dad grew. So we're getting back into nostalgic types here. You know, the old heirloom varieties San Marzano, which is an Italian variety has been around forever and ever and is primarily used for sauce. Great for salsa, it has been very consistent year after year as well.

Farmer Fred  04:35

I think for the 25th year in a row I will be growing Sweet Million cherry tomatoes because they just perform year in and year out.

Don Shor  04:44

Right. I deal with young couples and young families who are planting tomatoes for the very first time. I want to make sure that however many they get they should get at least one or two hybrids. This is really important. So they get the consistent yield that they typically have and the disease resistance it's built in to those. Try a couple of heirlooms for fun and walk out with at least one cherry tomato of some sort. Far and away the most popular over the years has become Sun Gold. Generally a very good producer I had some interesting feedback on it 2020, but for the most part a very good producer but the Sweet 100, Sweet Million group, I guess you can call them, have been very consistent as well and in general cherry tomatoes will grow and produce under adverse conditions. If someone has a little shade you know that's not great for tomatoes, but you can certainly do a cherry tomato there and it's very likely to give you at least some fruit so I really like to see people get at least a cherry tomato in there just because of the consistent yield and the fact that they're so easy to grow and kids seem to really like them. Sun Gold is still the top seller for the last decade. At least it's taken away and it leaves all the others in the dust in terms of retail sales.

Farmer Fred  05:49

I am trying a new cherry tomato this year. We always have to try one variety we've never tried before. I'm trying two varieties. They're both from Wild Boar Farms. One is Barry's Crazy Cherry, and the other is Beauty King. And Beauty King intrigues me. It's a full size tomato, but it's a bi-color tomato, it gets to be 12 to 20 ounces, so it's good size. But it's it takes a while. 75 to 90 days, but supposedly it's just has this gorgeous interior of yellow with bright red streaks. It's very meaty, and allegedly has good sweet tomato flavor. I know where Brad Gates lives. I know what I'll do if if this is not true.

Don Shor  06:32

Does he guarantee it for you? Barry's Crazy Cherry is one of his top introductions. We're talking about the Wild Boar Farms tomatoes, which were introduced by Brad Gates here in the Sacramento Valley. So he was a farmer. His goal was attractive, interesting tomatoes, heirlooms because that's a big selling point for him with with with great flavor. And colorful fruit is another thing he really likes because he was selling them to high-end restaurants. But he's not going to grow it if it doesn't make money for him. I mean, he's a farmer. He was trying to get good yields. So he was selecting these interesting, open pollinated. There's some technical jargon for you. Varieties chosen from seedlings of heirlooms that just caught his eye. He would grow them out to make sure they're stable and stable enough because they're open pollinated, and then market them and Barry's Crazy Cherry along with Michael Pollan, which is another of his introductions, are two that I think will be here to stay, for sure. They're incredibly productive, very reliable, seemingly over a wide range of conditions. And very interesting. Barry's Crazy Cherry, as you know, is an unusual color. Michael Pollan, the fruit looks like a Schmoo. I pause and wait for everybody under 60 to look at me and go, "What's a Schmoo?" Look it up. Remember Lil' Abner comic strips, you know what I'm talking about? An unusual tomato with interesting coloration. You can use them when they're tangy and kind of underripe. People like to do that or let them get fully ripe and very sweet. So those two in particular are some of his best, but also his Furry Boar. And he could use a little marketing strategy here with some of his names, but his yellow Furry Boar is very productive, very juicy, his Pink and Red Furry Boar tomatoes, very reliable. He's got about 30 or 40 varieties now, and I've grown most of them. And I'm finding that some of them are very consistent producers. The other one I would add to that mix is Pork Chop, which is one of the best yellow tomatoes on the market, and has been a very reliable producer for me as well.

Farmer Fred  08:26

And one of his older varieties, Berkeley Tie Dye, is still one of his big sellers as well. Yeah, I noticed that the Beauty King from Wild Boar Farms is a cross between Big Rainbow and Green Zebra.  Interesting result.

Don Shor  08:41

I think some of these show up on their own. And in fact, I think most of them do. He plants, you know, hundreds of them for his farming operation. He sees an interesting seedling, and he can figure out what the parent is likely is. And yes, they're mostly coming from heirlooms originally, and now these are his own unique, open-pollinated heirlooms. One, he's got a couple others that are very heavy producers: Sweet Carneros Pink. That is one that gets kind of overlooked. But every year I've grown it including even hot summers, I'll get 60 to 80 fruit. And they're kind of a pink-red, you know, they're not red-red, they're pink. Very flavorful, mostly in the six-ounce range, you know, Early Girl size and great for sauces and things like that. So he does have some that are normal colors. They're not all striped and odd colors, but he has quite a number of just very uniquely flavored tomatoes.

Farmer Fred  09:27

Yeah, we'll have his website for you on the show notes. Wild boar farms.com. We will also have a link to the word, Schmoo.

Don Shor  09:33

I want to mention one other. This was brought to my attention first by the Master Gardeners and it was introduced to them by Dr. Robert Norris, who's a Yolo County retired botany professor who is also quite a vegetable crops expert, and he touts this one highly, so I finally grew it a couple times and he's absolutely right: Fourth of July. It is a deep red, high producing, four to five ounce tomato and as the name implies, you will be picking fruit by the Fourth of July, which is early, even in this area. And it's been a good producer for us. Very consistent, very attractive fruit, interestingly, very bright red. And so  I'm adding that one to my list of  reliable tomato varieties that if you're planting five or six, make sure you got one of those in there that you know has done well, for a lot of people in your region, wherever your region is. You know, if you're listening to this podcast in Corvallis, Oregon, and you had a long cold Spring there, don't jump into summer  there until pretty late in the season. Well, Oregon State has introduced some outstanding tomatoes, you probably should stick to those. If you're listening in Seattle, I would grow kale.

Farmer Fred  10:39

I'm sorry, Seattle. That was Don Shor, by the way. Redwood Barn.com is his website.

Don Shor  10:47

Send the complaints and letters to Redwood Barn. Friends in Seattle who built raised planters and you know, what is it, 200 days of overcast? They built raised planters, brought in this soil, planted tomatoes and sent me a picture a month later, it had just basically done nothing. I said, "Yes, Your problem is that you're in Seattle, you need to go ask your local garden center when variety grows there". I'd also love to go to the Mendocino coast Botanical Gardens in Fort Bragg where the annual average temperature is 62 degrees. They have a vegetable garden there. And I don't think it even has tomatoes in it because that climate is not very conducive to it. But there are, if you scour the seed catalogs, you'll find varieties from Russia and from Europe, from Poland and places like that where the climate is such that they must get a late start in the season. And it's not a warm hot in their "hot summer" and so they have special varieties. Look for things labeled "early", those are going to be your best bets.

Farmer Fred  11:43

Exactly. There's actually, at the Farmer Fred Rant blog page, I have a posting on growing tomatoes in the wintertime and in greenhouse. And all of the varieties mentioned our short-season determinant tomatoes, that would do fine in the low sun areas. Varieties like Bush Early Girl, Grushovka, and as you were mentioning,  up in Oregon, the Oregon Spring V. Also, Polar Baby, Sub-Arctic Maxi. Yeah,  these names make you chilly just thinking about them.

Don Shor  12:15

But they tell you the story, which is that these are people growing tomatoes in high latitudes or high altitudes or are really close to the coast where it's just not really tomato country. But there are varieties since it's such a popular fruit. I mean, it's the number one vegetable all around the world, practically, there's going to be a variety that's suitable to your region, our region, our characteristic defining characteristic is a long growing season with a hot dry summer. And so we need to choose for that particular characteristic here. But if you're in Florida, you know you've got different varieties that are going to be more suited to that sticky heat that they have down there.

Farmer Fred  12:50

Exactly. Yeah. All gardening is local, as that guy used to say on the radio, so go with what you know. All right. Well, we learned a lot from Don Shor at Redwood Barn Nursery in Davis, California. I know we threw out a lot of names  of tomato varieties you never heard of. I will actually have links for all of those varieties so you can look them up in the show notes for today's podcast, which means I'm not going to get any sleep tonight. Don Shor, thanks so much for giving us a little tomato preview.

Don Shor  13:23

There you go. It should be a good season this year. Everybody's gardening.

Farmer Fred  13:29

We're talking with Brad Gates of Wild Boar Farms. That's B-O-A-R, Wild Boar Farms, excellent tomato varieties that he's hybridized over the years. They are gorgeous. Check out his website, wild boar farms.com. And just see how gorgeous those tomatoes are here in Northern California. The plants will start arriving in nurseries in early April, you can order seeds from his website. So Brad, let's talk a little bit about seeds that you're starting now, here in your greenhouse. When you're in the business of planting 1000s of tomatoes all at one time, tomato seeds, you probably, after 25 years in the business, have it down to a system. So let's start talking about the soil that you use to start the seeds. 

Brad Gates  14:13

Yeah, these are small little plugs. So I use a really fine mix that's basically a compost- perlite -peat mix, it's an extra fine texture because the amount of the cell that I'm using, it's about the size of the tip of your finger. So it's just a small little pinch of dirt. So it needs to be a really fine texture. This is a really medium to low nutrients. I don't want super aggressive growth. In the early stages, it can cause lankiness and, and problems.

Farmer Fred  14:43

And so you don't fertilize, I mean the seed has all the energy it needs to produce the cotyledons, the first leaves, but after that, how long would you leave them in the cells and by the way, there's over 200 cells per tray. So we're really talking about less than a thumbs worth of soil and In each of these, so I imagine that by the time the true leaves start that it's time to transplant.

Brad Gates  15:04

Yes. So these, the true leaves will be, you know, say two weeks away. And then about two weeks after that four weeks total, they will be into the first or second set of true leaves. And from there we transplant. So if everything goes right, I'll be able to get enough nutrients to grow the little two or three inch tall sprout just from this pinch of soil. If it's really hot in here, and I'm watering a lot, sometimes that can lower the nutrients. So what I'll do is, I call it "spoon-feeding" them a little bit of nutrients, I will take organic liquid fertilizer and mix it at about 10% ratio, and then fertilize them with that. Just a really weak solution of a water-soluble organic fertilizer.

Farmer Fred  15:46

And at what stage of the growth, would you start that fertilization?

Brad Gates  15:49

I'm hoping these have enough nutrients to carry them in. But what I'll do is I'll read the plant and if I've been watering a lot, I'll keep an eye on it. And as soon as they kind of bronze a little bit and turn a light pale yellow, I'll know that pretty much all the nutrients, at least the nitrogen, and probably the other nutrients, is used up. So they're going to go into a stall. They'll kind of go into a tomato seedling coma, I call it, and so I'll keep an eye on that, mainly the color. As soon as they start to turn a pale yellow, I know I need to spoon-feed them just a little bit of nutrients. And that again is at the true leaf stage with the second set of true leaves. They'll usually have plenty of nutrients to get to at least the true set of leaves. So you're talking three weeks or so from now.

Farmer Fred  16:29

Now a lot of people are in the habit, in order to get seeds to germinate, they'll use propagation mats or heating pads beneath their trays or their pots where they're starting tomato seeds. I don't see any propagation mats here. You have these on pallets, and they seem to be fine. Of course it's also 72 degrees in here.

Brad Gates  16:48

Yeah, so if I had a small operation, I was just doing maybe a flat of seeds or something, I would maybe use a heat mat. So the heat mat will speed up your germination.  I always recommend as soon as your tomato seeds come up, get it off the heat mat because it will actually cause excess heat and cause lanky growth. So it's not really feasible for all the square footage to have heating mats in here. So I find that keeping it between 50-55 at night and 75 or so during the day, I get really good germination with tomato seeds, just doing that.

Farmer Fred  17:22

What, about eight to 14 days for germination?

Brad Gates  17:25

I would say that's a good guess. If you add bottom heat and everything's right, sometimes I've seen seeds pop up in three to five days, but it's usually one to two weeks.

Farmer Fred  17:34

I like that tip of taking off the propagation mat, turning it off, removing it after the plant has germinated so you don't cause any problems. I'm making a mental note of what I have to do when I get home now with my pepper seedlings,

Brad Gates  17:47

Peppers and eggplants, like the extra warmth a little bit more, so  go ahead and ride those out for a couple more weeks. 

Farmer Fred  17:53

Oh good. Now the peppers, those seeds can take three weeks to germinate. Tomatoes are a lot quicker. And for people in a rush to start tomato seeds, count backwards from the time you would normally plant in the ground and back that off eight weeks. And that's a good time to start your tomato seeds. And of course you're doing it for a commercial market here. So you want to get them into the stores here in Northern California in early April. So you'd be starting them now. here it is early February. That seems about right.

18:26

Yep. With tomato seeds the best is about two months from seed to nice transplant under super ideal conditions. I've seen it six to seven weeks. Some people will even go longer like 10 weeks and they'll transplant up into say one quart or even a one gallon pot. They're going for an extra big plant with the numbers I have I can't really play that game. But for home gardeners they can do that.

Farmer Fred  18:52

So you have one tomato plant per cell. The cells again are maybe one by one by one inch deep or there abouts. Are you really adept at chopsticks? How do you get the plant and the soil out of there?

Brad Gates  19:04

I really need to up my game and get a professional seed planter. But yeah, it's just patience and diligent fingers.

Farmer Fred  19:12

Really. Okay, not even tweezers?

Brad Gates  19:14

I sometimes will use tweezers if like two or three seeds go into a cell and they're hard to grab. I'll take some scissors and throw them into the cell next to it.

Farmer Fred  19:23

Popsicle sticks?

Brad Gates  19:25

Just a little too big.

Farmer Fred  19:27

Yeah, I mean that that would be a time consuming process.

Brad Gates  19:30

Yeah, yeah, I seem to do everything the hard way.,

Farmer Fred  19:35

For a lot of people who are starting seeds, they will either start them in small containers like this or toss four or five seeds into a three inch pot and then transplant each one to its own pot after the true leaves are out. And these will be going into, what do you say, three and a half inch pots?

Brad Gates  19:50

Yeah, three and a half inch pots at one month.

Farmer Fred  19:53

All right. So that's a heck of a lot of soil. Is the soil mix different for those?

Brad Gates  19:58

It is a little bit heavier. This is a really light mix just because the plug cells are so small so yeah those once they get transplanted into the bigger cups it's semi-similar, but just a little bit of a heavier soil.

Farmer Fred  20:12

More compost? Is it a secret?

Brad Gates  20:15

I guess I haven't analyzed how much of each one I just know  it seems like a heavier, hardier, doesn't dry out quite as fast soil mix, this here is a extra light mix.

Farmer Fred  20:26

Alright. Yeah, and this is peat moss too. And I would think that whatever it's going into would probably have less peat moss.

Brad Gates  20:33

Yeah, yeah, it's basically a perlite-compost type of a mix.

Farmer Fred  20:38

Frankly, for the home gardener who's transplanting little tomato plants into slightly bigger containers, You could just use a good quality potting mix from your favorite nursery.

Brad Gates  20:48

Yeah, I always use that's when I'd use regular potting mix, that's what I would do, you can top off the trays and if anything is bigger than say your pinky fingernail, pick it off the top. You can also run them through like a quarter inch screen, just a regular high quality potting mix, just screen it at a quarter inch and it makes perfect seed starting mix.

Farmer Fred  21:07

Excellent tip. And of course, as the tomatoes grow in that three and a half inch pot, they can get kind of lanky too, but if you give them full sun like what you have here in this greenhouse, they will tend to be fairly upright but do you find you have to prune them?

Brad Gates  21:24

No. If you give them plenty of light and that's why I like the cool nighttime and the not too hot during the day and here will make them a little bit stockier. Sometimes when you mass plant like you're saying put even up to 10 seeds or more in a small cup and plant them they can fight for the light a little bit so they can get lanky. The good things with tomato plants is you can always bury the plant a bunch of the stem and it will readjust itself so to speak.

Farmer Fred  21:49

Yeah, just like if you bought a tomato plant at a nursery, if somebody bought one of yours at a nursery and decided to transplant it into the yard like they should, they would want to plant it deeper than where it was planted in the pot at the nursery. 

Brad Gates  22:05

Yeah, my general rule of thumb is plant about 20 to 30% of the plant, no matter how big it is, if it was a little seedling when I transplant, I'll plant them about 20 or 30% of the stem underneath the soil. Once I get a nice transplant that's ready for the garden. Same thing, I'll trim off any leaves or suckers that are below where I'm going to plant and then I'll bury about 20 or 30% of the stem that keeps the potting mix it's planted in from drying out that keeps when the wind in the spring is blowing your plants around, it makes it a little further down in the soil. So it can handle the wind and it will also regenerate roots on the stem where it comes in contact with the moist soil.

Farmer Fred  22:44

Now you like to say about your tomato plants, they're the heirlooms of the future. What is the definition of an heirloom? Everybody has a different one.

Brad Gates  22:51

Yeah, the most common one that I can come up with is that it's 50 years or older. That seems to be the loose definition of an heirloom, because the definition of a heirloom is something that's been passed down from generation to generation. So somewhere along the line, somebody threw out the 50 year mark, and it seems to be the most popular. So some of my varieties are maybe working on 20 years old now. So they'll just have a little bit of a wait. But I think when most people think when they want an heirloom is they want a tomato that's something other than round, red and tasteless.

Farmer Fred  23:27

Exactly. Because yours are beautiful. It's tough to even describe them, but they come in most colors of the rainbow. You can check them out at Wild Boar Farms.com. And see all those colors. I would think in your hybridization efforts, it takes a few years for it to settle down before where you can offer it to the public as a seed.

Brad Gates  23:46

Yeah, it's typically five to seven generations from the time the cross was made until you've selected year after year, the best of the best. And then all the traits stabilized. The colors, the flavors, textures after picking the same thing repetitively for five to seven generations, then that variety becomes stable.

Farmer Fred  24:05

Yeah, it's interesting because even though it is a hybrid, it will stay stable as long as it isn't cross pollinated by something else. How do you do that in the field? How do you isolate your plants?

Brad Gates  24:16

Tomatoes typically only cross pollinate about 1 to 3% of the time in the wild. So it's actually pretty rare. It's usually due to a native bee, honey bees, and stuff, some bumble bees and some of our native pollinators. Once in a while we'll go to tomato flowers, but in general, I rarely see insects on the tomato flowers. They are not as desirable as most of what else is out there and available at the time. 

Farmer Fred  24:40

Right. Exactly. And if people are concerned about that, or maybe they live in a windy area, they can also isolate the plants by maybe covering them with a row cover at flowering time.

Brad Gates  24:49

Yeah, that always works. And then people have put like a it's not really a cheesecloth, but like a netting around the flower trusses before they pollinate. And that can ensure that the rare occurrence that an insect went in there and crossed those seeds.

Farmer Fred  25:09

Boy, there's a job for somebody with nothing else to do. Yeah. Great operation. We're looking forward to spring and summer and it's going to be another great tomato year.

Brad Gates  25:19

Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. I'm super anxious for warmer longer days.

Farmer Fred  25:24

All right, Brad Gates, Wild Boar Farms.com is his website, check out his tomatoes. Thanks, Brad. 

Brad Gates  25:29

Thanks, Fred. 

Farmer Fred  25:33

We like to talk with Warren Roberts. He is the superintendent emeritus of the UC Davis Arboretum, and we have a Plant of the Week with him every week. And we like to choose plants that you can find throughout most of the United States. Now, their colorful season may be variable depending upon where you live, but they will perform for you eventually. And Warren, the first one we want to talk about here in February is the Cornelian Cherry.

Warren Roberts  26:02

Yes, the Cornelian Cherry, Cornus mas. Genius Cornus, is the genus for dogwoods. But this particular dogwood does not have the big showy bracts. It produces clouds of yellow flowers on the bare stems of this large shrub or small tree in the winter or early spring. Cornus mas. And I looked up "mas", and in Latin that means strong, like in the prefix to "masculine" for example. And it is a tough little tree, native throughout much of the Mediterranean, and then back east into the Elborz (mountain range) of Iran. Because after the flowers, it produces an edible fruit. Kind of the same flavor as pie cherry. They're not related at all, but the flavor is similar. And one of the common names for this tree is the sherbet tree. Because the fruits were made into syrups that were poured over crushed ice. But this little tree is so beautiful in early spring. And when nothing else is blooming, you have these beautiful clouds of sunshine in the garden.

Farmer Fred  27:20

You are very correct. It is a small tree, what, about 15 to 20 feet? But this tree really has a lot of interest year round. You've got those yellow blossoms in late winter, early spring, you've got the shiny green oval leaves, and then they turn yellow in the fall. And then when the leaves fall, the fruit is there and hangs on for the birds get them. And then you've got this flaking bark (of the trunk) that is very interesting as well.

Warren Roberts  27:45

There's a fellow in Seattle, a Russian guy who has a collection of different kinds. There are even kinds that have yellow fruit or orange as well. Or very, very dark red. So it's very delicious. You can eat them a little bit sour like the pie cherry, but then you can use use the fruit to make all kinds of kinds of things. And you'll probably be the first one on your block to have one. They're not that common. In the Filoli Garden in Woodside, California, there is one of the older ones I know of here in the West. But it certainly worth growing and the leaves are not only a beautiful shiny green, but they're slightly pleated. They have like longitudal folds on them. And so they're very, very pretty. So just the beauty of this tree and the rarity of it. Although again, it is available commercially. That makes it very special plant for the garden.

Farmer Fred  28:48

And because it's only 15 to 20 feet tall. It could fit in most gardens.

Warren Roberts  28:53

It could. It certainly has all kinds of interest all year round.

Farmer Fred  28:58

Warren Roberts is the superintendent emeritus of the UC Davis Arboretum, visit the Arboretum online it's arboretum.ucdavis.edu. Warren, thank you for telling us about the Cornelian cherry.

Warren Roberts  29:10

Glad to have the opportunity

Farmer Fred  29:15

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