Orchard Care

Lazy Gardener said:

I replanted the beans, and see some signs of germination today. We've had horrid wet and cold weather until just recently. Even covered with poly to hold in the heat, those poor beans just turned to rotten paste! I hate to plant new ones in the same spot, but really didn't have much choice in the matter. It's been in the 80's to 95 for the past 5 days or so, so those beans had better perform. Just to be safe, I'm going to plant a Tee-Pee of them elsewhere, but it's really getting too late to plant them if I don't do so this week. The season has gotten away from me, so there will be no corn this year, and only some butternut squash.

Click to expand...

Maybe just plant them without the presoaking this time? Or did you try that already?

I presoaked.

Looks like I have brown rot fungus on my peaches and peach trees and the JBs are chewing their way through my early transparent apples right now, so I'm not looking for much of a fruit harvest here. I'm not too worried, as the apple harvest all over the state is going to be massive, so I can go forage for apples...and they will be mountain apples, so taste better than anything we can grow here.

Been reading up on the brown rot fungus and prevention methods for it....I'll need to do some pruning this fall and also treat with Neem oil during and after blossom time, then again at fruit ripening time.

I put out JB traps this morning, in hopes of stemming the tide. I'll try to remember to have them out BEFORE this hatch happens if I'm still here next season.

The good thing about dogs and chickens is that any diseased fruit is quickly consumed when it's dropped to the ground and the JB traps will be emptied later on as a feast for the flock....it's all nutrition that turns into eggs and meat here, so not a total loss.

No waste on the farm for sure. Something will eat it and will prosper because of it.

The yellow peach tree looks to be a total loss, with the brown rot spreading all over the tree. Instructions say to remove the affected branches but that would involve stripping the whole tree barren. I removed as much as I dared and will let the animals eat the peaches there before removing the branches and burning them.

I'm hoping it doesn't spread to the white peach tree. I'm going to spray it as much as I can with the Neem in hopes of circumventing the mold spores but I'm betting they are already well established..those trees are too close together for them not to infect one another.

Oh, well...we didn't get peaches for 20 odd years here anyway, so one year won't matter too much. I'll spray the trees next season if we are all still here and pray for the best.

I've trimmed up any branches that were touching the other tree and I hope that will help.

Dad-gum it - sorry about the peach tree...

Looks like we're going to have a decent citrus year. One of my lemon trees is absolutely loaded...the other two-not so much. They're not as well established as the first one - so I'm not gonna worry about it. My kumquat tree that was planted last spring is covered with blooms right now and I can see little tiny kumquats behind them. The pomegranate tree has one pomegranate on it - but that's better than the two persimmon trees that have nothing, zero, nada...UGH! And, I lost my lime tree in the two days that we had a freeze this past winter. Geeze louise - everything else made it so I wonder why the lime was so fragile.

Read through the thread and will be following I'm also an orchard novice and there are no fruit trees on the property, but I'd really really really like to get at least two planted in the fall.

Wish I could grow a lime tree! In hardiness zone 5, so will probably be sticking to apples for now (my fav), then maybe pears, possibly plums someday.

I'll also be following this thread.
We just bought this property in October, and are just figuring out what's here, and what needs help. There are two pear trees and an apple tree that look like they've never been pruned in their life. The apple tree had big green apples on it, but we didn't get even one. The pears appear to be Asian pears. I pruned out a lot of old dead branches in all three trees, but we have a lot more to prune. The apple tree has a lot of scale. We're planning on setting a chicken pen close and giving a few of the older chickens a chance to extend their lifespan.
The neighbor said there "used to be" 2 huge fig trees but someone cut them down. Now there are a bunch of small saplings where one used to be. There are about 30 figs on hem, but something ate 1/2of the first one that was almost ready to be picked. I ate an almost ripe one yesterday out of spite... (I got it before you did! So there!!") @sumi, I'm so glad you posted about the green ones. I may just go get all those left and make preserves!
We've got 3 lime trees newly planted, along with a new peach tree, two black walnut trees and several pecan and three trellises of very, very overgrown grapes (those will get pruned on a cold day so I don't have to worry as much about snakes). And we added 16 blueberry bushes (different varieties), and 6 blackberry. And we might never get fruit but we planted an olive tree. We want to add more apple, peach, and some plum.
Current plans are to rehab the old trees, cut down a few pecan, and add more. Also, we want to graft some of my grandmother's old time McIntosh apple tree into a tree here. This is our little peach tree. The pile is all the rock I dug out to plant it. These are two of the citrus trees (just planted) with a black walnut in the background, and an old pear tree behind that.
I had pictures of the rest, but my phone got run over by a car so we're still trying to salvage the old pictures. I'll take more soon.

Hope they do well for you!

More pictures (poor quality, sorry!)
Our fig... This is a fully loaded pear tree, but these are waaaaay above what I can reach. To give scale, my gardening shed is on the left, then the black walnut, then the old pear trees...