In the Napa Valley, as throughout the wine regions of France, you'll frequently see roses planted along the edge of vineyards. Traditionally they've served as an early warning system to protect the grapevines—the equivalent of a miner's canary.

Roses and grapevines are both susceptible to a fungus called powdery mildew. In fact, roses are more sensitive than grapevines. Sulfur won't cure powdery mildew, but it can prevent it. So, if a grape-grower noticed that one day his roses had powdery mildew, he knew it was immediately time to spray sulfur on his grapes to prevent them from getting the same disease.

Roses also warn of other diseases and growing problems before they affect the grapevines, and they serve as a habitat for some beneficial insects that eat other undesirable insects.

And they're beautiful.

So many different kinds of fruit are available, so how do you begin to decide which to grow? Start with quality. When soft berries are homegrown, they can be harvested when fully ripe, plump, and sweet, without concern for shipping and perishability. The flavor is outstanding.

The amount of garden space available will be another deciding factor. Choose between growing small fruits (berries that grow on small plants, vines, or bushes) or larger tree fruits. Start with easily raised, space-efficient small fruits such as strawberries, blackberries, and raspberries. But if you have a place in your landscape for a fruit tree or two, don't pass up the opportunity. Look for easy-care fruit trees or even nontraditional trees such as mulberries or crabapples.

Traditional orchard trees such as apples, peaches, pears, and cherries require some knowledge and attention to pollination, pruning, pest control, fertilizing, and other kinds of care. To minimize or eliminate spraying for disease, look for new disease-resistant cultivars of apple trees.

• Plant dwarf fruit trees, which stay small enough for you to pick the fruit from the ground. This is a safe, easy way to harvest. You won't have to lug around ladders or balance on them while working. Another advantage of dwarf fruit trees is they begin to bear fruit much younger than full-size trees do. And if your lawn is small, a dwarf tree, which takes up less space than its full-size counterpart, is a good alternative.
  
  
• Try growing a super-dwarf peach tree in a pot. Super-dwarfs are extra-miniature trees that may reach only about 5 feet tall. Although other fruit trees come as super-dwarfs, peaches produce flavorful fruit with only one tree and are great for beginners. (Many other fruit trees require a second cultivar for pollination.)
  
  
• Plant your super-dwarf peach tree in a 24-inch-wide tub with drainage holes in the bottom. Keep it moist, well fertilized, and in a sunny location during the growing season. If your tree doesn't bear fruit the first year, give it time. It may need another year or two to start its career. During winter in cold climates, store the tree, tub and all, in a cool but protected location.

http://home.howstuffworks.com/how-to-grow-fruits.htm

City staff are working through several new snags, including design adjustments to accommodate sewer force mains and long-term maintenance funding.  These bumps in the road, along with a preliminary cost estimate that is much higher than the city's early ballpark estimates, mean the city will have to solicit competitive bids to construct the project.  The city's goal is to put the project out to bid in early November, which means that a construction contract won't get to the City Council until either December 3 or December 10.
 
Park Planning Manager David Shpak cautioned us to not fret about this new slip in the schedule.  Every project goes through a process of iterative refinement and adjustment.  In this case, city staff have been communicating on the fly, so we have had a window into the progressive re-estimation of costs and schedule that normally occurs out of sight, before construction begins.  While staff had to take more time to work through known and uncovered issued,they say there is no less commitment to build the trail and plant the trees this winter.
 
According to Mr. Shpak: Typically, construction contracts are placed on the Council's Consent Agenda.  This part of the agenda is considered early in the Council meetings, which begin at 7 p.m., and does not typically involve public comment.  The reason for this procedure is to expedite actions that are not controversial.  However, the best way to provide an opportunity for the MDP group to speak to Council about the project is to request a Regular Agenda time slot.  Mr. Shpak won't know the specific time the project will be assigned until the Friday before the Council meeting.  In general, the Regular Agenda begins between 7:20 and 7:45 p.m.  After a brief staff presentation on the project, the Mayor will open the public hearing for the project.  Each person who wants to speak will be given 3 minutes for verbal testimony; written comments can also be submitted.  There's no guideline for content, but Mr. Shpak recommends that you consider preparing an outline to complete our desired input within a 3-minute statement.  If several people will speak, the best impact is gained when redundant comments are kept to a minimum.  On the other hand, if everyone shows up in our MDP T-shirts and cheers for the project (one at a time at the microphone, not en masse), then that will probably be an effective way to convey the message.

Thanks so much to those who attended! The information on our part of the Parks Plan was not until about midway through the meeting so we had the opportunity to hear about a variety of things. Of note were the mini-grants awarded and to which groups. We will be eligible to apply for these next year as we will have attained non-profit status by then. All of the groups that applied for this year were fully funded with money to spare so that was exciting news! We also heard presentations on the city-wide water management for irrigation, the arborist who has been planning our parkway updated the group on the tree program in West Sac - which is highly successful and has planted thousands of trees in the last 4 years! Then Dave Shpak gave a presentation on the parks plan and our park was part of this. The MDP is part of the central artery for the city's bike plan so we featured prominently in the presentation (also because 6 of us were sitting there!).

He also gave us a map of exactly where the trees will be:

1. There will be a double row of trees on the part of the main drain canal that parallels Marshall Rd with the path winding between.
2. Due to utility constraints, there will only be a single row of trees along the part of the main drain canal that parallels Venice St with the path running next to that, but with access points to all the cul-de-sacs and both bridges

The bad news is that because the cost of our parkway is turning out to be so high, they cannot tack it on to the Patwin Park project as they had planned - BUT, they still must do the mitigation with the 300 trees so this only delays our parkway until December, which, while not ideal, is certainly better than some vague date in the future.

If you are interested, below is a link to the Parks Development page which was most of Shpak's presentation:

http://www.cityofwestsacramento.org/cityhall/departments/pcs/facilities/parksdevelopment.pdf

There have been some scheduling changes, but Thor recently discovered there is a Parks & Community Services Commission meeting on Friday October 17 at 1PM . While the Main Drain Parkway is not formally on the agenda, it will be discussed in parts of other projects! Most importantly, there is a public comment period right at the start of the meeting. It would be great if we could get a few people to say a couple of things about the project (The commission would not be able to speak about or respond to our statements, but our presence would certainly let the commission know we are actively interested in the project and are enthusiastic about its construction!)

Erin is going to lead a group to speak on that day- but she needs your help! Anyone who has the afternoon off and could spare a hour - please help! Either respond to this email or contact her at cornelius.erin@gmail.com