I didn’t even think about that crazy wind storm Richard - that makes a lot of sense for what might have happened to mine.
In regards to your previous posts about Japanese Beatles, I have yet to find a single one this year. Very pleasant surprise that I hope continues. Have you continued to get hit by them? Are your traps working well?
My trees were slamming into the ground it was rough to watch.
Not as bad as last year but i probably have caught a hundred or so in the bucket and doing manual removal of beetles every evening and morning. The trap has a pheremone so you draw in your neighbors probably but we got a few people all doing it so none of us get overwhelmed. I definitely feel they showed up earlier last year but did not write anything like that down. I wish we could get the cities to set up the trashcan traps and put down milky spore or BTG in the parks.
Beetle hit me in the forehead (literally) yesterday, first ive seen. Removed 5 from the flowers tonight. Ill take that happily. Our sunflowers have volunteered everywhere and im letting them go, they are providing some nice relief for the tomatoes.
I picked the couple dozen cherries from my Evan’s Bali tree on the 4th and made a little bit of quick sour cherry jam in the microwave. Man, I love homemade sour cherry jam. For a tree I just planted last spring I was pretty tickled to get anything and surprised the robins didn’t hog them all before they were truly ripe. Other than that, I have one pear hanging that probably has moth damage, no peaches, and no apples. I transplanted my Juliet cherry a few weeks back, like two days before the heat turned on out of necessity. I pruned out some branches but it still dropped 90% of it’s leaves, at least it’s not wilting anymore. It might just make it!
Anyone know where you can find the smaller sized plant cages in stock? I need 5 more for some peppers that will be in hurts soon if I get some good wind. I’m in the Littleton/Centennial area and can’t find them at any of the usual stores or nurseries I go to. Plus, the cheapster in me doesn’t really want to pay much for something that normally goes for under a buck at garage sales.
@cis4elk If you already checked O’tooles and Murdochs maybe try some of the grow stores near you? This is the first year i have run out of tomato cages in a long time (but planted a lot more stuff also and i use the big cages to protect young trees from my dog).
Maybe you just damaged some roots while transplanting plus the dreadful wind and heat went after it, i think it will be fine but feeding it some kelp and maybe b vitamins would help it recover?
I forgot to mention that only one pear tree had any set after the freeze and those 5 all blew away also. So sadly today the JBs have picked up there tempo one landed in my hair while i was picking them off this morning.
Looking good, I’m jealous.
Sparse year for me, especially since the peaches dropped during that wind storm, but everything’s shaping up to look good for next year as most plants head into their 3rd year in the backyard.
Thank you!
Its hard here man! That late freeze killed one of my favorite peach tree’s (Indian Free) and 80% my opal plum (citation rootstock) and a good portion of a sweet cherry. This year i have definitely had more pests (PC,CM) with neighbors not having fruit set and the japanese beetles have just been brutal. I always just try to be positive and try to plant or graft more stuff when things do not work. First year i have ever gotten mulberries which normally always get frosted out though so we have such a crapshoot its great to diversify and then make sure you got raspberries and strawberries so you get something.
Japanese beetles came late this year but they’ve hit hard since. My rhubarb looks like Swiss cheese, but I sort of like that it’s a trap crop, as I feel like a lot of my apple and grape damage has been less than previous years.
It’s interesting to hear that you’ve got PC and CM. I haven’t experienced them nor read much about them in local literature so I always figured that the front range was a bit west of their range. I’ll keep that info filed for the future…
You mentioned opal plum. Do you have any recommendations, based off experience, for plums that have worked well for you. I feel like our hardiness zone + late frost narrows down possible plums (specifically Japanese) quite a bit.
Late Blooming E. Plums actually do pretty well here. My aunt has like 9 of the plum prune varieties, they are not my favorite and i have unlimited supply so i planted bavays gage. It is delicious. However all the Late blooming e plums have done very well for her. Americans do well also. The japanese americans still bloom real early in the late blooming apricot range for me.
PC is not usually such an issue depending on the winter but CM hits pretty hard cuz of all the crab apple trees which are worth it. I am not scurred of some protein in my apple
So there are hummingbirds being driven out of the mountains into the cities and its the first time i really have seen them in denver. I know three people who have seen them in the front range in the past few days so they are definitely looking for some food. The one really tried to hit up my garden for nectar but not too many options for them so i got some hummingbird feeders to help them out!
Funny you say that, I saw my first one three days ago as well.
I can imagine wanting to leave the mountains; every day is filled with smoke and haze. I’m really looking forward to some cooler temperatures and some rainfall.
After two days they finally hit my feeders. Hoping all this rain puts an end to the awful smoke and visibility!
All fresh colorado grown meal. I bought the cauliflower and the beef.
Some harvest pictures, the only pest control i have used this year in the garden was beneficial nematodes. Going to get my sprayer fixed and hopefully do a compost tea spray on everything before it goes to sleep.
Any thoughts or wisdom on preparing for the roller coaster we’re about to experience?
I had next to zero peaches this year and I’m worried this wild drop will result in more of the same for next year. With the addition of wet, heavy snow I’m not sure covering will be an option, even if I could manage to cover the whole tree. Should I be concerned about more hardy fruit trees (sour cherries, apples, pears) as well?
Next year will be year 3 in-ground for most of my fruit trees and I was hopefully for some fruit off of the many trees I have planted, but this front coming in has me concerned/bummed.
You better get your broomsticks cuz i am declaring shenanigans on this year!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvK1F-Thrzk
You cannot find a video of the town getting their broomsticks, it makes me sad.
I was thinking of trying to defoliate and do some compost tea sprays to help them go to sleep but this is all too fast for that. I will bring in some pots but mainly i am going to use my energy around the broomstick idea
Nice harvest there, Richard! Though you must be at higher elevations if you don’t have buckets of cherry tomatoes 
Yeah, I’ve been watching this one coming in the last 5 days thinking about all the trees… at least it looks like it is a closer to hovering close to freezing… last week it looked to be much colder. Bummer. Fingers crossed.
I am not sure if enough of us got out our broomsticks but as long as it puts out all the fires i am good. It was hard to breathe today and awful hot.
I used a pop up greenhouse for greens in the winter for my peppers, threw some frostcloth on my seedling greens and chopped my tomatoes and cucumbers and squash down.
Here is my forced harvest
This is what we do with cherry tomatoes, mine were more acidic than usual this year sadly and was giving me indigestion fresh. We freeze them in smaller batches but have done a few of these.
We should all go tell our trees what bad asses they are to go from 90s to whatever this is in less than 24 hours! I try to thank mine regularly.
We have a hummingbird feeder out, and this year we have four or five that use it throughout the day. I hope they come back next year. They are fun to watch.
It’s getting to be that time - bare root purchase time! I’ve got pretty limited space left for just a handful of fruits or berries. I want to “max out” my last few spots with proven Colorado winners. Any suggestions?
I’m kinda bummed with this year’s peach harvest. In early spring I tarped our tree when we had a late spring frost. Actually, half the tree was tarped. The covered half of the tree set fruit while the other half did not which supports tarping the peach tree to preserve the harvest. Unfortunately, racoons ended up devouring most of the fruit come late summer. Oddly enough, I was literally standing near the tree taking night photos of the sky, when the racoons came up to the tree to pilfer it. They did not care I was there. I scared them off, and wrapped the remaining unripe fruit with netting as thick as possible, but the next night they ripped the netting apart and stole the remaining fruit. @#$!
