Transplant in fall or spring?
My great aunt Ruth Tirrell wrote for Organic
Gardening magazine long before I was born, and I often peruse her
old articles (which I don't think can be found on the internet) when
making decisions about my own garden. In "Fall --- A Good Time to
Transplant", she discusses the pros and cons of planting in the fall
and spring. She is all for planting strawberries, cherries,
apples, and pears in the fall, though warns to plant peaches and
blueberries in the spring. (She wavers on raspberries and grapes.)
From everything I've read, planting in fall is a great idea in most
cases. You give the plant time to get its roots established and
often don't need to do any watering right away --- many books will tell
you that planting in fall gives you the equivalent of an extra season's
growth. Perusal of the internet finds varying opinions on whether
even peaches, blueberries, raspberries, and grapes do better with fall
transplanting.
I have a hard time waiting until spring, so I've been setting out my
new grapes this afternoon. I rationalize that my great aunt lived
in Boston (although, in actuality, I'm in the same zone due to our
mountains.) As I dug, I was stunned by the root system on some of
our grapes --- Mark took a photo of the biggest one. This plant
started as a ten inch cutting only 8 months ago!
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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