What is going on today 2017?

One 90-95 yard truck load for $1,000. I figure about $11/yard if there is 90 yards. I should have taken a picture of my mulch pile…it is HUGE!:open_mouth:

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They chew on my deck post and 2x4 wood I use in the garden. The carpenter bee can be herd from 50’ away! They chew perfect rounds holes. First time I herd it I was about ten foot away wondering what the heck is making that noise.

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There was a tornado warning for my parents about 20 miles south of me. They had some nasty hail and had siding damage in a few spots on their house. It is newer siding too, so that stinks. But no tornado.

Here it was windy and we got 1.6 in of rain in about 35 min. We figured it was over, then we had the worst blast of wind and rain at the very tail end of the storm. That was a little bit different.

Now all my Surround is washed off and the trees were too wet before sundown to contemplate spraying them. I hope all the curculios got blown into the next county.

CM numbers went way up last night in my trap.

It also it looks like I lost a plum to something. I’m down to maybe 3 or 4 plums now. I need to figure out a way to bag them without knocking them off. I tried the nylon sock method last year, but pulled off too many to continue it.

I’m really glad to hear that it worked for you. It sounds like you, too, had a great tree that you didn’t want to loose and couldn’t just repurchase because you didn’t know what it is. That is the scary thing about the short life span of peach trees. By the time they have truly proved themselves as consistent, good tasting producers, they are in the declining stage of life. Just curious…how did you come to have an unknown peach tree? Did you just loose track of what it was, was it a mislabeled tree you bought as something else that is turned out no to be but you loved it anyway, or was it on your property when you moved there? (or is there another explanation I haven’t thought of?? ha).

Don’t need anymore rain. I think all my permethrin probably washed away. I think i’ll wait to spray because the temps look so chilly///rainy/cloudy.

And windy? It’s Gale City here

yeah…its a chilly wind. I really hope this isn’t a wet summer like last summer. Gets old mowing every 3 days.

NWS just put out 3 day rain totals…near me it was 4.54 inches… yikes. The winner was just north of here near Winona, MN with 6.90 inches. The Mississippi is rising very quickly.

My new lawnmower photo-op

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I have been sticking wires into the holes that ambrosia beetles drilled into my pawpaw every day for the last couple weeks. It’s been several days since any new frass came out, so I believe that I killed them. I’ve also been spraying the trunks of my other trees and no new infections have appeared since.

It’s not all good news though, every growing tip is wilting badly, and I think I will lose everything above the infection point. This was a really strong growing tree. It was grown in place from seed and was already over 7’ tall in it’s 4th leaf. The tree is sending up suckers from the roots so I don’t think it will be a total loss.

This is all very disappointing to me. I started with pawpaws because I wanted to have an easy, low work fruit tree. Now I find out that an invasive species can quickly kill an otherwise healthy tree after years of good growth.

I planted it 20 years ago, it ripens way to early for what it was labeled and is a cling stone

Wow. Ambrosia beetles on pawpaws. That’s a new one. What an awful thing.

Anyone else in the mid-atlantic getting the 17 year horde waking up 4 years early? I have a ton of 'em.

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Word is they’re in DC too.

Haven’t seen them here in Frederick (yet?).

Nice rig, D. What is it? Looks like a Toro. I imagine a zero turn makes mowing around those trees a bit easier, ay? But, it does look like it’d still be a tight fit with the spacing you have. Can you spin it around one of those trees in one move?

I just started mowing our fruit tree plots this year, actually finished the back side of the property today. It looks real nice when they’re mowed. Last year I would bush hog, but would only do it once a month so it would look really shaggy in no time, as fast as the weeds and grass grow here. I cleared out a lot of small rocks in those plots, so I can get the rider in there, and not tear it up.

We don’t have a ZT mower, our property is too hilly to use one. We have a 48" Husqvarna. When I do mow around the trees, it takes a while, because I have cages around them. My mower can almost get around a bigger cage in one pass, but most of them are smaller, so it takes several passes. Even after that, there’s still grass I can’t get to. That’s a job for the weedeater.

Now that I mow the ‘orchards’, that makes about 3 acres to do, which prob takes about 3-4 hours now. But, like I said, it sure looks nice to see a closely cropped lawn and orchard.

Are all those apple trees, and if so, are they all dwarf/semi-dwarf? What are you staking them with, conduit or T-posts, or neither? I bought a bunch of T-posts last year, but haven’t lashed our apple trees to them yet.

Scott,
I know those cicada set off fireblight in my orchard so I would take any precautions possible ASAP. There is a thread on an increase in FB and after seeing your photo it all adds up. The next question since the cicada are never wrong in my lifetime on their cycles, how did everything get woke up 4 years early? There is only so much that can be done to combat them as I learned last time.

There’s a lot of articles speculating. The theory I tend to lean towards is one where the trees on whose root fungus the larva dine are able to release a hormone in response to climate stress that makes them come up early.

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Had that last year about 200 miles west of you Scott.

Holy cow, Scott. Doesn’t seem to be much leaf damage (yet?). Do you ‘bop’ these into a bucket of water to control them like Japanese Beetles?

Doug, that sucks, I hate invasive species, especially animals. I guess a spray program is in order until the tree is bigger.[quote=“Matt_in_Maryland, post:1354, topic:8428”]
Wow. Ambrosia beetles on pawpaws.
[/quote]

They also attack figs!

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I don’t have a picture, but I was out shoveling woodchips around the trees and I noticed that my cherries are starting to color up, but they did not really size up and seem lumpy rather than smooth. Any idea what might have caused that without seeing it?