What is going on today 2017?

I put my dwarf apple trees and blackberries on drip irrigation. They are loaded and deserve an extra care. I also watered the other trees this morning as it is very dry and the soil has cracks in it. My vegetable garden is on drip irrigation and this is the best investment that someone can do for the garden. It saves SO Much of the time and ensures the best possible crop.

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Earlier this year,Edible Landscaping sent me a few plants I ordered in late 2016.One of them,a Surinam Cherry was dead from the cold on delivery.I’m not sure why they ask for the last frost dates when ordering,if they’re going to send them in Winter anyway.
I called and they said to contact them later in the Spring for a replacement.I did and this is what was sent:
A forty pound box of plants,that should have gone to a guy in New York.(I hope he’s not a forum member)


I called EL and they blamed UPS and sent me the little Cherry.

They said that it will be picked up.That was early last week and the thing is still here.I wonder how long plants can survive in a box?It looks like there are a number of Figs and maybe more from the packing slip.I even offered to take it to UPS,which is close by. Brady

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Last night our dews went up nearly 10F… So it feels much more like summer today. Low temp overnight was 79F which has got to be a record for this date. Seems way too early to have nearly 80F low temps…which are pretty rare up here even in July/Aug.

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Incredible how fast it went from flood and mud to dry and cracked. It was the wind, I’m sure.

Veg garden is always watered, and the newest trees - plus the Frankenapple I’m topworking

After the wet spring, I think the established trees have enough down there

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just finished planting my 6 thimbleberry plants in my new 20 ‘by 3’ raised bed. now i need to make a trellis for my 2 arctic hardy kiwi. all my plants are in full bloom now and the yard smells awesome! bees everywhere!

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My Redhaven peach is really losing leaves (again after PLC) bad. A bunch of them are tuning yellow and blowing off in the 25 mph wind. Not sure what is wrong with it now as most of them don’t show signs of disease and I watered it mid-week.

It is a bummer because it set a decent crop this year but I’d not be surprised if the whole tree was dead by end of July.

Here is a pic of it highlighting just how sparsely foliated it is.

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All my peaches have dropped now after 2 days 90+ and 30 mph south winds. Typical midwest weather, rain and cold then switch to scorching hot and dry.

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Sorry to hear about your peach loss. I did not know that high heat plus strong wind could do that to peaches.

We have only two days of temp in the 90’s, 91F today with about 15-20 mph wind and 93 tomorrow and then it will go down.

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Ugh!!! Sorry!

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Sorry to hear that on your peaches, Phil.

Per your advice all my trees got watered today. Even in my wettest spot the soil was dry on top.

I haven’t done watering any scale like this. So far I have had to do very little supplemental watering, so it will be interesting to see how all this watering effects my water bill. I did have the good sense enough to save about $2.50, and turn on the bypass to my water softener this morning before I watered and we filled my son’s kiddie pool. :smile:

The incessant wind appears to have put a lean in several mulberries (male, I assume - no berries) that are growing in a clump of about 5 on my neighbor’s property and partially overhanging mine.

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Today we did a lot of watering of our newly planted veggie plots. Since our hose is only 100ft long, we have to fill up 5gal buckets and lug those out to the plots. The farthest plot (tomatoes and peppers) is about 100 yards from the house, so a lot of lugging of buckets. We have three other plots that need watering.

Plus the 50 strawberry plugs in the back yard got some water as well. A few of those are showing small amounts of green on them. I put up a fishing line fence around it Fri, as I’ve noticed deer tracks back there, plus it looks like maybe a couple plugs got nibbled on. I went out to the shed last night about 8, and heard a snort, some thumping, and a white tail hopping into the woods behind the strawberry patch. So, got that fence up not a moment too soon.

To our surprise, we already have some half-runner beans sprouting, and they were only planted Thu. I guess the heat is popping those seeds open. Our soil gets kind of damp in the evenings, so that helps I’m sure.

The tomatoes seem to be getting settled in their new home, I’ve given them a little water over the last couple days, as it’s been close to 90 and windy here. The leaves are starting to change from that pale green look to deep green. A lot of them are leggy and some were drooping over, so they had to be staked.

Our nursery-bought peppers are looking poor, the leaves are drooping and yellowing, despite watering. I don’t think they’re over-watered, they just didn’t look great when I planted them. The four home grown peppers are doing better, but they were in better shape when planted. I hope to get the other 21 home grown ones in the ground tomorrow. I’ve had them outside for the last five days or so, so I think they’re ready.

I’ve noticed deer damage on at least nine fruit trees, and on the Juliet cherry. The Roxbury Russet, that is behind a 4ft circular fence, has a few branches hanging over the fence, and a foot long part of one of those branches was broken and stripped. I’m surprised a deer would be able to reach up there and pull it down, unless it’s standing on the fence!! Our newly planted Contender peach also had about six new branches trimmed by those devil varmits. It had a 3ft fence on it, but the branches have almost escaped it’s confines, so I put a partial 4ft fence on it.

Oh, and this evening, I was out at the fence line with my wife looking at a mystery apple tree’s fruit. You have to walk thru waist high weeds to get to it, because we haven’t mowed it since our tractor broke down. Anyways, I was walking back towards the other side of the fence, and almost stumbled upon a fawn bedded down in the weeds. It freaked me out at first, and it was surprised as well, and we stood there staring each other down at about 10ft, before it bounded off across the fence and back behind the pond. Still has a very awkward gait, it may not even be a month old.

We’re supposed to get some rain midweek, which could actually use.

End of today’s news report…

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Stan,

Sounds great. Any photos?

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Sorry, too busy these days to take photos.

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Wind is ghastly - it’s been such a windy year it’s been hard to get sprays in

I went out last nite to pick peas and saw that my zuke plant was snapped almost off by the wind. Hoed dirt over the stem and watered - looks this morn like it might recover.

Annoyingly, I had 2 plants in the hill and just pulled the runt, so no backup

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One trick I learned many years ago is put in some mud holes and compost piles throughout the property. Dig the holes beside the garden and when it rains it fills them which saves hauling water. Years ago I had to pump water from my pond area because I did not have any other water. Some of my areas are half a mile from my house and when at those locations I’m on my own when it comes to finding things for my plants.

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http://kstp.com/news/coon-rapids-uses-snowplows-front-end-loaders-clean-up-hail-covered-streets/4510524/

We got hail yesterday, these images from the news story are just a few blocks from my house. In all my life I have never seen this much hail. Knocked off many of my blueberries, luckily they were very overset so I don’t think it will hurt my yields much, hopefully the remaining ones will size up that much more. I am a bit worried about my apples, many look bruised, I’ll post some pictures later to see what more experienced ones think about their prospects. I feel like it easily could have been much worse, even though the amounts of hail were large, the individual pieces were no bigger than marble sized, and just a few blocks from me they got hammered much, much worse. . .

Wow!

I’m very sorry about your damage. To me hail is even worse than a freeze. You’ve got to look at the damaged fruit and leaves all summer.

Apples will survive and be eatable even sometimes with broken skin. I’ve see hail so bad in August that gouges were taken out of the apples. Many of those were a loss. Bruises this early and you’re still OK for the most part IME.

I’ve seen hail drifts 8ft deep in gullies in Texas. Ugly ugly ugly…!!

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Here’s a couple pics I took yesterday a few blocks from my place. . .



Here’s a couple pics of some Harralson apples. . .


Luckily my Honeycrisp look great, they are not as far along and I think their smaller size helped them avoid direct hits. . .

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Not sure if the camera does this guy justice, out of the light they look all black, but in the light their bodies are a dazzling, iridescent, emerald green. . .


Not sure what it is, they look like a type of dragonfly, but they flutter about like a butterfly. . . and they really like hanging out on currants and gooseberries.

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