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Gardening

Welcome Yakima County Residents and Homeowners

Home landscape care, especially gardening, is one of the most popular leisure activities in North America. When properly done, gardening will contribute to your enjoyment, appreciation of nature and your role in environmental stewardship. Gardening can also have a significant positive impact on your outlook on life, your health and even the value of your property.

Extension Gardening Webpage

Our Gardening in Washington State webpage will provide you with tips and information to maintain home landscapes including lawn, vegetable gardens, backyard fruit trees and flower gardens or any other horticultural feature on your home front. You can also check out the associated pages linked in the menu to the left for more information.

Master Gardeners WebpageThe Yakima County Master Gardeners are here to answer your questions and help you learn to be the best gardener you can be. Whether you grow veggies, flowers, shrubs, lawn or whatever, or if you’re having trouble with garden or household pests, we can help.  These pages have information about getting those answers, and about the many events and classes available to you.

 

SNAP-Ed at WSU Yakima Extension

Program Contact: Holly B. Lacell, SNAP-Ed Coordinator
(509) 574-1600 • holly.lacell@wsu.edu

SNAP-Ed: Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – Education

Who we are:

SNAP-Ed is a federally funded, nation-wide program which offers researched-based nutrition education based on the current Dietary Guidelines. We serve the Yakima County area from our office in Union Gap, and this is our corner of the web!

Here you can find lots of information about current local WSU Extension SNAP-Ed programs, community connections and resources, as well as TONS of relevant (and fun!) nutrition information and activities for students, parents, and teachers. Take a tour and let us know if you have any questions or comments!

What we do:

View or download our 2021 Program Overview! (.pdf | 3.7 MB)

Nutrition Education Assistant Holly Lacell in her Washington State University shirt manning a colorful booth full of nutrition facts, fruit and vegetable plushies, handouts, and stickers.
Holly Lacell, CEO/Coordinator

SNAP-Ed currently offers basic nutrition education to low-income adults in Yakima County. We look forward to reintroducing more classes over a wide range of ages and opportunities as we are attentive to Washington State University’s reopening guidelines. Currently, all classes are held virtually.

We are also working closely with partners and community organizations to create policy, systems, and environmental changes in the Yakima Valley that encourage people to make healthy choices with regard to nutrition and physical activity. WSU Yakima SNAP-Ed loves helping gardens grow!

Potatoes, tomatoes, greens, herbs, and onions arranged in the shape of a colorful heart Sweet peas growing up a vine. Cucamelons in a paper bag.

Our education also takes other forms such as informational booths at fairs and family nights, community centers, farmers markets, and food banks. We also provide nutrition-related bulletin boards, newsletters, and handouts!

Printable resources and packets are available in our public Google Drive folder!

Our educators emphasize:

  • Making healthy food choices
  • Increasing fruit and vegetable intake
  • Choosing low-fat or fat-free milk
  • Increasing physical activity
  • Food safety and proper hand-washing

Contact us!

Office: (509) 574-1593
Main Office: (509) 574-1600
Fax: (509) 574-1601

WSU Yakima County Extension
2403 S. 18th Street, Ste. 100
Union Gap, WA 98903

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Want more information? Try these links!

  • Washington State SNAP-Ed Providers – Washington State SNAP-Ed Providers is a dynamic online resource center for State and local SNAP-Ed providers.
  • Live Well – A Washington State SNAP-Ed resource with recipes, cooking tips, meal planning assistance, and physical activity prompts.
  • Dietary Guidelines – Take a look at the most recent Dietary Guidelines.The Dietary Guidelines for Americans are the cornerstone of Federal nutrition policy and nutrition education activities, including SNAP-Ed.

Pesticide Strategies

Pesticide Strategies

Once inside the apple, the worms are shielded from the toxic effect of most pesticides. So pesticides must be applied during adult moth activity so that the pesticide residue covers the fruit surface before egg hatch. Pesticide sprays should start 17-21 days after full bloom (about 10 days after most of the flower petals drop from the tree) to target the newly hatched worms before they bore in to the fruit. The simplest approach is to reapply the every 10-14 days until fruit harvest.  Be sure to read the product label and note the preharvest interval (time between last pesticide application and fruit harvest allowing the pesticide residue to dissipate before harvest).  For a list of effective pesticides on codling moth, homeowners can contact their local WSU Extension office or access the WSU Hortsense website at http://pep.wsu.edu/hortsense/scripts/query/displayProblem.asp?tableName=plant&problemID=22&categoryID=3

A more environmentally safe approach would be to time two pesticide applications for each generation of adult moth activity as monitored by monitoring traps. The monitoring traps come in various designs and contain a pheromone lure that attracts male moths that get entangled in a sticky surface. When the trap starts catching fresh male moths in May, July, and late August, it is time to apply the first pesticide application. Then, apply the second pesticide 10 to 14 days later for each codling moth generation.

Other Non-pesticidal Strategies

Other Non-Pesticidal Strategies
Periodically, scout fruit on the tree throughout the growing season for infested fruit.  Remove and dispose of any “wormy” fruit.  Do not leave infested fruit on the ground beneath the tree or the caterpillar may continue to feed and develop within dropped fruit.

Individually bag each fruit on the tree when fruit is less than 1 inch in diameter using standard paper bags, or commercially available apple bags. This provides a barrier that keeps codling moth adults and larvae from finding the fruit (Figure 6). These bags can be removed one to two weeks before fruit harvest to allow for proper color development on the apple surface.

Two-inch wide corrugated cardboard bands placed around the lower trunk of the host tree will attract larvae searching for a place to pupate. These bands can be placed on the trees in late May, then removed and disposed of before the adult moths begin to emerge in mid June. Fresh cardboard bands can be placed on the trees in mid July to attract the next generation of caterpillars, then removed and destroyed a couple weeks after fruit harvest.

  • Select early-maturing varieties of apples to avoid that third generation of moths.
  • Look for other codling moth sources in your home landscape. If possible, remove any infested apple, crabapple, large-fruited hawthorn, pear, ornamental pear, and quince trees.

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The Primary Non-pesticidal Strategy

The Primary Non-pesticidal Strategy

All homeowners should consider purchasing and planting backyard fruit trees that are grown on dwarfing or semi-dwarfing rootstocks that will help keep the overall height of the mature tree to between 10 to 12 feet high (Figure 5). In turn, dwarfing rootstock serve to keep fruit bearing zone low and reduce the need of ladders to manage and harvest your homegrown fruit. Regardless of rootstock chosen, overall tree size is best maintained by proper training and pruning.  Even standard-sized trees (that normally grow to 30 to 40 feet tall) on seedling rootstock can be maintained to a height of 10 to 12 feet through annual pruning and training (tying down) of overly upright limbs.  Play video for fruit bagging demonstration.

 

Codling Moth Biology

Adult Codling Moth Resting on Crabapple LeafCodling moth is a key pest in apple, pear, crabapple, and Oriental pear trees. The adult codling moth is a small, brown and gray banded moth about 1⁄2 inch long (Figure 1). Difficult to scout for as these moths fly during dusk and dawn, but they can be monitored with traps baited with pheromone lures.

After mating, one female moth lays dozens of flat, circular, 1/12-inch (or 1 mm) diameter eggs in a tree (Figure 2).  Again, it is difficult to scout for the eggs as they are tiny and often match the surface color of the apple. These eggs hatch into larvae or “worms” looking for fruit to bore into and call home.

A codling moth on the surface of an appleWhen they find such a fruit, the worms bore directly to the core of the fruit and feed about the seeds (Figure 3).  Their feeding activities result in conspicuous piles of brown, granular piles of excrement (frass) plugging the entrance hole on the surface of the fruit (Figure 4).  While this is the easiest sign of codling moth to scout for, once larvae enter the fruit they can only be controlled by picking and disposing of the fruit.  Mature worms can be up to 3/4 inch long caterpillars, and often have a pinkish cast.

Young codling moth larva working its way into the core of a pear fruit.When mature, the worms leave and drop from the fruit to pupate in cocoons at the base of the tree. Often they pupate among the cracks and crevices of the tree bark, but they will pupate in any nook or cranny on wooden structures, posts, firewood piles, crates, and even furniture near the host tree.

Washington homeowners must protect their apple/pear fruit from two, sometimes three in the warmer regions of the state, generations of codling moth each year.  The adult moths fly during warm evenings with peak flight activity in May, July, and late August. The best means of protecting backyard fruit trees from codling moth attack is an integrated pest management (IPM) program utilizing several control strategies.