Join Us Sign In

Powered by California Local

Sacramento Digs Gardening Article
Your resource for Sacramento-area gardening news, tips and events

Articles Recipe Index Keyword Index Calendar Twitter Facebook Instagram About Us Contact Us

This fruit loves Sacramento summers

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Debbie Arrington PUBLISHED AUG 6, 2018

Pomegranate flowers bloom on Debbie Arrington's tree. Conditions have to be right to get fruit, developing at left.
Photo: Debbie Arrington)

Pomegranates need August heat to be at their best

This is pomegranate weather.

My favorite edible ornamental, pomegranates thrive in the heat of August, soaking up the sun and pumping energy into their fruit. This is when those strange leathery globes really start to swell.

Besides its colorful fruit, pomegranates offer loads of bright orange blooms, a favorite of bees and hummingbirds. In fall, its shiny green foliage turns a beautiful shade of gold. Any harvest is a side benefit.

And harvest can be spotty. Pomegranates may not bear every year — or at all. More a large deciduous shrub than a true tree, a pomegranate produces fruit on second-year wood; pruning needs to be thoughtful and isn’t always easy. I know my pomegranate can create a thicket of thorny fast-growing new growth. But if I over-prune or cut out the wrong branches, there will be no pomegranates the next year.

Improper pruning is just one reason a pomegranate doesn’t bear fruit. Those flashy flowers quickly lose their fertility. Pollinators only have two or three days to do their work before the stigmas in those silky blooms become “less receptive.” If weather conditions aren’t right for pollination (such as rainy, windy or smoky), a tree may have many flowers but still no fruit.

Exposed to too much cold over winter, a pomegranate may be reluctant to fruit in summer. Some newer varieties are strictly ornamental and bear almost all male flowers, which are bigger and showier but never form those juicy orbs.

I grow the California standard: the aptly named Wonderful variety. It’s late season, ripe in October or November after six full months on the tree. With a tasty balance or high sugar and high acid, the fruit is large and ruby red with arils to match. Arils are those plump juicy sacs surrounding each seed. (And there may or may not be 613 seeds, part of the rich lore surrounding this fruit. Researchers have counted 1,300 seeds in a single pomegranate.)

Pomegranate history is full of fun facts like that. Native to Iran, pomegranates have been cultivated since biblical times. Its name means “seeded apple” and some scholars believe it may be the Tree of Life. Representing fertility, pomegranates play significant roles in many Greek myths. The French called it “grenade,” inspiring the military weapon of a similar shape centuries later. (Anyone who has thrown a ripe pomegranate can see the similarity.) The Moors renamed an ancient Spanish city Granada in honor of this fruit.

While Spain and Greece embraced the sun-loving pomegranate, the fruit did not have same reception in England or other colder climes. Pomegranates can tolerate frost and temperatures down to 10 degrees, but they need intense summer heat to be at their best.

Spanish missionaries planted the first California pomegranates in 1769 and this fruit has made itself right at home in the Central Valley. With more interest in antioxidant-rich pomegranate’s health benefits, California’s commercial pomegranate crop has grown five-fold in the past decade.

Pomegranates obviously thrive in Sacramento, too. They’re well adapted to our Mediterranean climate and can tolerate drought as well as hot summer sun.

A Utah Sweet pomegranate grows at the Fair Oaks
Horticulture Center. (Photo: Kathy Morrison)

In the home garden, pomegranates double duty in limited space: food while looking good. And isn’t that the definition of an edible ornamental?

For more on pomegranates and cultivation, check out these notes from UC Davis: ://fruitandnuteducation.ucdavis.edu/ fruitnutproduction/Pomegranate/

Comments

0 comments have been posted.

GENERAL GARDENING

An article about gardening.

Keywords:

fruit orchard gardening pomegranate Sacramento trees fruit trees edible ornamentals

Newsletter Subscription

Sacramento Digs Gardening to your inbox.

Food in My Back Yard Series

March 18: Time to give vegetable seedlings some more space

March 11: Ways to win the fight against weeds

March 4: Potatoes from the garden

Feb. 25: Plant a fruit tree now -- for later

Feb. 18: How to squeeze more food into less space

Feb. 11: When to plant? Consider staggering your transplants

Feb. 4: Starting in seed starting

Local News

Taste Winter! E-cookbook

Find our winter recipes here!

Thanks to Our Sponsor!

Sites We Like

Garden Checklist for week of March 16

Make the most of dry breaks between showers. Your garden is in high-growth mode.

* Pull weeds now! Don’t let them get started. Take a hoe and whack them as soon as they sprout.

* Prepare vegetable beds. Spade in compost and other amendments.

* Prune and fertilize spring-flowering shrubs after bloom.

* Feed camellias at the end of their bloom cycle. Pick up browned and fallen flowers to help corral blossom blight.

* Feed citrus trees, which are now in bloom and setting fruit. To prevent sunburn and borer problems on young trees, paint the exposed portion of the trunk with diluted white latex (water-based) interior paint. Dilute the paint with an equal amount of cold water before application.

* Feed roses with a balanced fertilizer (such as 10-10-10, the ratio of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium available in that product).

* Prune and fertilize spring-flowering shrubs and trees after they bloom. Try using well-composted manure, spread 1-inch-thick under the tree (but avoid piling it up around the trunk). This serves as both fertilizer and mulch, retaining moisture while cutting down on weeds.

* Cut back and fertilize perennial herbs to encourage new growth.

* In the vegetable garden, transplant lettuce and cole family plants, such as cauliflower, broccoli, collards and kale.

* Seed chard and beets directly into the ground. (To speed germination, soak beet seeds overnight in room-temperature water before planting.)

* Before the mercury starts inching upward, this is your last chance to plant such annuals as pansies, violas and primroses.

* Plant summer bulbs, including gladiolus, tuberous begonias and callas. Also plant dahlia tubers.

* Shop for perennials. Many varieties are available in local nurseries and at plant events. They can be transplanted now while the weather remains relatively cool.

Taste Spring! E-cookbook

Find our spring recipes here!

Taste Summer! E-cookbook

Find our summer recipes here!

Taste Fall! E-cookbook

Find our fall recipes here!