Take unsweetened grape Koolaid, four packets to a gallon of water, and spray your peaches or apricots or cherries with them. It irritates birds’ lungs and squirrels don’t like them and it keeps them away. On the other hand, the jury is out on the raccoons’ reaction at my house.
3 Likes
That’s good to know. Now that my 2 varieties are producing I need to propagate more.
2 Likes
i was surprised all of them took. even if half did there still would be plenty to fill the row. we’ll see if all of them leaf out soon. warm sunny weather coming in sun. into next week. going to root a honey bee next to them this fall to help with pollination as this beds on the other side of the house from my indigo series and honey bee.
2 Likes
A few pics from today…
1… Ouachita blackberry blossom
2… Red gem goumi … loaded
3… Tifblue blueberry
4… Strawberries
5… Seedless concord grapes
9 Likes
TDE3 (Tahoe Gold) has set dozens of fruitlets in its first year in the ground in my greenhouse, but I’m not sure how many it’ll end up holding, it’s just finishing flowering:
Tower of jewels is pretty stunning, but haven’t seen any hummingbirds or bees on it (despite that being a selling point for them), just some hoverflies:
I have a few others that are not flowering yet, maybe they’ll attract more things when there aren’t hundreds of other things flowering in a few weeks.
8 Likes
I had a ripe Earliglow strawberry back in 1993 I think it might have been…ripe the last Saturday in April.
But, this is on the early side even in Tennessee…is the pix one of the Earliglo or some other variety?
Both apple crop and pears are going to be lighter set than last year. Some trees may have gone binennial.
On the other hand, some varieties are going to provide at least a small sample for the first time…I should say some species of fruit, not just varieties.
1 Like
@BlueBerry … where I harvested those… I have both surecrop and eversweet plants…
I think the larger ones may be surecrop and the smaller eversweet. I do not know for sure though between the two but they all tasted great.
I have some seascape in different area and they have not ripened any yet but are getting some size to them now. Won’t be long.
1 Like
Been so long since I raised Surecrop…more than 40 years. But I do know they are 8 to 10 days behind early varieties. But ahead of the old standard “Tennessee Beauty”. Have never tried Eversweet or Seascape.
Earliglow is the best early variety I’ve tried. Jewel is a great tasting berry, but like Surecrop, a little sparse in production for me. I don’t have any strawberries anymore, but I’ve had quite a few over the years, starting first with an old early variety called “Blakemore”.
I see a lot of white transparent apples in the future. The tree is alternating pretty heavily and this year it’s loaded with flowers.
6 Likes
@BlueBerry … I have earlyglow on my “try next time list” at your recommendation.
When I do need more will try some of those.
When I picked those yesterday evening… there were lots of others almost red enough.
And lots of nice large green berries and smaller ones coming on.
By May 10 or so… goumies will start ripening…by May 25 logans and raspberries…
Love it… just walking around my place and picking all this good stuff to eat.
I have 4 different Families scheduled to come here… with their children for a berry picking this year… 2 are family and 2 are Church friends.
1 Like
recently they released Galetta and one of its parents is earliglow. i have them and highly recommend them. same great taste but more productive of larger berries. more disease resistant too.
1 Like
Some excellent berries in Maine, Florida or Oregon are going to be sorry berries in Kentucky…and the other direction too.
TNHunter is close enough I figure most of our varieties are interchangeable.
Redchief probably does good in Maine, but not here. As a for instance.
1 Like
even though its much hotter there, Maine is still very humid in the summer so alot of the same mold and disease issues. bugs have gotten worse due to all the invasives. brown mar. stink bugs have shown up so now i have to spray as the berries ripen or they eat big holes in them as they ripen.
1 Like
I have 3 ripe Honeyberries!!! Yippy!
Moved the pot so nothing can steal them…so they’ll ripen more fully before I pick 'em.
Indigo Treat pollinated by first blooms on Boreal Blizzard.
May be my only honeyberries this year…although Honeybee and willa I just potted up Friday from HoneyberryUSA may possibly bloom in a little bit…they’re big enough to have blooms.
(The Tana puny though).
Also got some super nice currant bushes from HoneyberryUSA.
1 Like
Tried to post some pics, but kept getting various denials/errors/stoppages etc. Don’t know if it’s me or the site.
1 Like
Roxbury Russet apple
Redhaven peachettes
Pristine apple
Pear fruitlets
Romeo cherry fruitlets
Pollinators working Macoun apple blossoms
11 Likes
