Craig Miller: Welcome to the Grassroots Guide to Backyard Living. I'm Craig Miller and if you love this outdoor lifestyle that we lead here in the Central Valley then you’ve come to the right place.

Today with the help of our regions leading experts, we’re going to show you how to get the most out of the fall season, okay not precisely what I had in mind, Tim Robertson. But this is the time of year when around most of the country when people are kissing there gardens for the next several months.

Tim Robertson: True.

Craig Miller: Where as around here, whether still good enough to sort of use this time to set the stage for spring I suppose.

Tim Robertson: That is true and also to set the table for dinner.

Craig Miller: All right I'll bite, what’s the connection?

Tim Robertson: Well stand by, so our challenge is to take a beautiful backyard and make it pleasing to the pallet and we’ve got somebody who knows the Central Valley really well, Angela Prad. Angela come over here for me.

Angela Prad: Hi Tim.

Tim Robertson: Hi Angela, Angela is a graduate of UC Davis, a horticulturist and you’re here to help us out with this backyard.

Angela Prad: Absolutely.

Tim Robertson: What do you have in mind?

Angela Prad: I’d like to do some fruit shrubs, some veggies, some herbs.

Tim Robertson: So you're saying we can have beauty and backyard that gives you some food.

Angela Prad: Absolutely

Tim Robertson: All right, well I think we should go shopping. All right lets go.

Angela Prad: Lets go!

Tim Robertson: Okay here we are, Capital Nursery Sacramento. You know we can do a ton of shopping in here.

Angela Prad: We can but its also great place to come for information.

Tim Robertson: Wow this place is like a jungle, they got Wisteria, they’ve got vines but we have a shopping list.

Angela Prad: We do, we need to get our veggies and our herbs, and a few other things. Why don’t you go get the veggies and the herbs and I'll go get the fruit tree’s and the other stuff.

Tim Robertson: Sounds good.

Angela Prad: Okay let’s go.

Tim Robertson: You can just get about anything at a Nursery, ask the pros at the Nursery for help, unless you’re already a pro like Angela.

Angela Prad: When you're picking out containerize fruit tree’s you just want to make sure that there are no surface roots or circling roots that would indicate girdling but this looks great.

Tim Robertson: You know Angela says to get the loose-leaf lettuce because you can harvest the bigger leaves on the outside of the plant as the lettuce matures through out the season and have fun with it. Get different lettuce of different colors.

Craig Miller: We also picked up a pot, some potting mix herbs a snow pea planter, another pot, more herbs, more potting soil, a trellis, and some flowers.

Tim Robertson: I would ay that was a very good shopping trip and very fast too.

Angela Prad: Yes but we got to get this plant in the ground right away.

Tim Robertson: Well we got some work to do, we want to show you how to do it, so lets go. I said lets go.

Okay that was fun, that was fast too and we have all our stuff here Angela including the three fruit tree’s that you say your going to turn into fruit shrubs.

Angela Prad: Right, its shovel time.

Tim Robertson: Shovel time, Angela your actually going to put three tree’s into this one hole.

Angela Prad: We are, we’re going to be growing them as fruit shrubs instead of trees. So that there allot easier for the home owner to maintain.

Tim Robertson: When you dig you hole, Angela says make sure its big enough to space the tree’s into triangle. Say about 18inches apart, its not tough but there are some specific guidelines to follows.

Angela Prad: Yeah, when your planting tree’s you need to take a little extra care.

Tim Robertson: So we’ve planted three fruit tree’s right here that you say that are going to become fruit bushes.

Angela Prad: Here let me show you.

Tim Robertson: Now Angela how are do we get to these mature tree’s looking like this from those little babies we planted back at the yard.

Angela Prad: Well your going to start off in the first year by actually cutting them off at nee height and that’s really important to get that lateral brunch structure. In the second year you're going to do some more training and you can actually use some hedge sheers which makes it very easy.

Tim Robertson: very easy pruning.

Angela Prad: Yeah, and then in the third year, your going to pick your ultimate height and after that you pretty much just keep it there.

Tim Robertson: Pick your height to prune it so it stays with in arms length.

Angela Prad: Just as high as you can reach.

Tim Robertson: Then you can reach your fruit, three different fruit because you have three different tree’s in one hole. Fruit bushes, I love this but its time for something a little bit different.

We’re back from tree’s to trough, Angela calls this the planter, I call it a trough. We all call this lettuce, Angela why did you decide to plant the lettuce that we got in this planter.

Angela Prad: Well lettuce happens to do really well in a planter with a commercial potting mix. When you plant your lettuce, space each plant a few inches apart, fill up your planter and that’s all there is to it.

Tim Robertson: Okay this makes me hungry, we are done and now we got to find a good place to put it right.

Angela Prad: Put your lettuce in an easily accessible place that gets about six-hours of sunlight a day.