The holiday season begins this week and basically runs to January. With Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwaansa and New Year's, thoughts turn to the celebration and away from the garden.

Luckily most trees and shrubs are ready for some rest and begin their annual shut-down. The mild temperatures, cool nights and short days lull the plants into this much needed rest. Some plants begin dropping a few leaves, last month's growth spurt slows and citrus fruits begin to color.

The resting period start for plants is associated with some recycling within the plant. Sugars and other energy manufactured all season by the leaves now gets moved into storage and held until needed next spring.

They stop actively growing now so any fertiliziation is not used. The cool soils and inactive roots could not absorb the nutients any way. So put away the fertilizer bags until spring.

Watering is another issue. Granted the plants will be dormant soon, they still live. Absorbtion of water still occurs, albeit at a much reduced rate. The cool temperatures reduce the loss of water from evaporation significantly.

Taking both factors, the reduced usage and slower evaporative loss the watering schedule for trees and shrubs should be reduced dramatically. Any water applied for the next few months will keep the soil moist longer than the same water applied in the summer. Too much water will keep the soil overly wet and much colder. But do water them some in the winter.

Most trees can be watered deeply every three or four weeks unless it rains then the inerval is extended. Try this schedule for tree watering: Give them a good deep soaking the day after Thanksgiving and wait until the day after Christmass until the next deep watering. Water shrubs twice as often remembering to water them deeply when its done.

Now on to some holiday thoughts. The period of Thanksgiving is universal around the world. Most cultures have a fall holiday celebrating the harvest. Interestingly I did some research. I found that the typical Thanksgiving meal consisting of turkey, breads, fruits, both white and sweet potatoes, corn, squashes and other vegetables,apple cider, wine, herb for flavorings, gourds to decorate the table and cotton for the napkins and table cloths are all produced by Arizona farmers. The bounty produced in Arizona seems to be a well kept secret that many forget about and few understand. Except for the possible exception of cranberries most thanksgiving meals could be Arizona grown. Think about that when listing the many thanks of this season.

Written by Terry Mikel, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the University of Arizona, 602-470-8086.
Material originally appeared in Arizona Republic
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