I sprayed the last dose of Fertilome to control fire blight in our apples this morning. The blossoms are almost gone and spraying must be done before that time. It doesn't work after that and I don't suppose you want to spray the apples with antibiotic.
Our lone pear tree had some serious pruning to cut off all the affected branches. I hope it comes back. I didn't do a lot of trimming of the cross branches in the apple trees this winter. Ordinarily you trim those when the trees are dormant, but I had trimmed so many fire blight damaged branches and I didn't want to stress the trees any more than I had to.
The two Granny Smith apples are coming along well and I think we may actually have some apples to eat this year. Yay! My peaches don't seem to have a problem with peach leaf curl, even though I was a bit late is spraying them. I have to remember to spray for bugs as I lost my crop last year to a swarm of wasps. Yes, they eat peaches. And, yes, I don't want to try to pick peaches covered in wasps.
I don't know how the people who raise organic produce do it. I tried that route and lost several years of fruit and almost lost the trees. N o more for me. Better living through chemistry, I say.
In the meantime our garden is starting to come back from Winter. It needs a bit more growing time and we need to finish adding mulch.
Some of the flowering plants are gorgeous. I want to buy more and keep the flowers going year round.
The garden entrance to the B&B is improving every week.
There is a circle of pink Dogwoods and they are in bloom. They will be prettiest for just a few weeks.
We have plans for a few more flowering plants, but just haven't had the time or energy. It's on the list. That ever growing, no matter how many things you accomplished, list.
You have one of those, right?
Oh yes.... we know about the list at our house. We need this rain we are having, but it is delaying scratching a few outdoor things off our list unfortunately. The entrance area to the B&B is looking fabulous!
ReplyDeleteI have a list. And it also involves a few more flowering plants for the porch and the deck.
ReplyDeleteThe trees in our little orchard are not looking too good this year. Pat was not able to spray rhem because rai. CMe at inconvenient times. The apple and peach trees have given us a small crop a couple years back, gut the lone pear tree has never done well in producing edible fruit. The strawberry patch, however, looks like it will produce enough for morning treats. You are right about that eve growing list. After this week of rain, we will be doing lots of yard work.
ReplyDeleteLooks gorgeous. We are having problems with fungus on our blue spruce this year. I think the last year was hard on plants - too much rain, then too cold.
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