What did you do in your garden today?

farmerjan

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The sun is brutal but tilled in-between rows anyways. Amazing the tiller is still throwing up mud balls. Very wet spring it was, no doubt about that. My wild black cherry trees are dropping their leaves. I'm thinking it's a case of brown spot fungal disease probably brought on by the wet spring followed by heat wave this week. Some of my orchard trees are showing the same. I bought a bottle of orchard spray, I'll hit all the fruit trees after it rains and dries up.

here's what a wild black cherry leaf looks like. I won't be sparying the wild black cherry trees. There are too many of them and I would need a something to get me up very high off the ground.
View attachment 18892


Jesus is Lord and Christ 🙏❤️🇺🇸
Please do not spray or do anything to the wild cherry trees. And if at all possible, cut them down this winter if they are anywhere near the cattle. They are VERY TOXIC to the cattle. They can eat the leaves green off the live plant, but if a limb comes down and they wilt, it will kill the cows. We cut them down during the winter off all the fencerows... and have had to move cattle out of fields where there has been big branches or trees come down.
Believe me, you will not miss the da#@ed things. The cherries are not edible and they are a nusiance tree at best and a dangerous one at worst.
 

CrealCritter

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Please do not spray or do anything to the wild cherry trees. And if at all possible, cut them down this winter if they are anywhere near the cattle. They are VERY TOXIC to the cattle. They can eat the leaves green off the live plant, but if a limb comes down and they wilt, it will kill the cows. We cut them down during the winter off all the fencerows... and have had to move cattle out of fields where there has been big branches or trees come down.
Believe me, you will not miss the da#@ed things. The cherries are not edible and they are a nusiance tree at best and a dangerous one at worst.
Thank You 💓

I have none growing around the cattle. As I just put up fencing and cleared (bushogged) low for the fence rows.

But I guess nuisance is in the eye of the beholder. Wild black cherry (WBC) lumber is one of the most if not the most valuable species of lumber there is in north America. WBC cherries also feeds wildlife (mainly birds). Plus we also use it pretty much exclusively to smoke meats - 😋

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CrealCritter

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It was very exciting to see it growing! Since my post the deer have attacked and chomped a lot of the leaves from the rootstock and scion, but both are coming back. I planted it out in the orchard with a hoop around it so it should be safer now. I haven't checked the two loquat grafts in a while but I think this cherry graft is the only one out of the 5 grafts that took. All the others have the root stock still growing and healthy, so I will try again later.

I used a t bark graft, I think. I don't know the names well. I gently cut the root stock with a horizontal line, then a vertical line down from the center of the horizontal line. Then I gently peeled back the bark enough so I could wedge the scion in there. The scion had a fresh cut made at an angle so the end result trunk should be mostly straight once the root stock is cut off above the graft later this fall. I bound the scion tightly to the rootstock holding the bark flaps closed over the scion, using cotton twine. Then I wrapped the grafted area and the entire length of scion with grafting tape.

I bought the scion this winter and the root stock last winter from the same place, Fruitwood Nursery. It's here on the west coast and the scions/cuttings I ordered arrived quickly. My goal was to get the root stock growing well and big, then graft. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get the root stock into the ground yet, they are still in their pots, and most appear to be growing down through their pots.. It's going to be a challenge to move them without damaging them.

I am not 100% sure which root stock this graft is on, I need to do some process of elimination as most of the tags are very hard to read. I bought root stock for cherry, peach, and plum, among others. I am hoping I put the cherry scion onto the cherry root stock. I bought some metal tags to upgrade all the plant tags, it's on the to do list.
View attachment 18915

I started a thread for Fruit Tree Grafting thread and added a number resources from my studies. Wow it sure would be nice if you could participate. I need to learn.


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Alaskan

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Im so jealous. I have tomato seeds up. They should be ready for transplant to the garden about when it gets warm (and dry) enough.

From the looks of it, it will be June sometime before I can plant the corn. It's a bantam variety so hopefully it will ripe before it gets too cold.
:fl
 

CrealCritter

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Im so jealous. I have tomato seeds up. They should be ready for transplant to the garden about when it gets warm (and dry) enough.

From the looks of it, it will be June sometime before I can plant the corn. It's a bantam variety so hopefully it will ripe before it gets too cold.
No need, you'll get there I'm sure. It was such a wet spring. Too wet even for the tractor box tiller. I feel I got a late start this year. I usually have lettuce and spinach direct sowed by the middle of February, followed up by peas in March, but not this year, no way, too wet. I have to replant green beans this coming week, sparse germination, I think the seeds rotted in the wet soil. My wife says it's because she planted them. No, I don't think that was it, honey.

Jesus is Lord and Christ 🙏❤️🇺🇸
 
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