We did not get it too bad here in central MA. I live in a subduvision that is surrounded by 60-70 ft tall oaks. I am thankful for such good wind breakers/protection,
I had several fruit drop, potted trees fall over and a few branches broken by strong wind that has been blownIng for a several hours now. Still, my little orchard sustained minimal damage all things considered.
What about yours?
supposed to hit up here after midnight with 40-50mph gusts but my property is surrounded by 50 ft.red pine and norway spruces so it shouldn’t do to much damage here.
The wind is still going strong. A few friends lost power and we did not even get the blunt of the storm.
I wonder how did our members in Carolinas, PA and other hard hit area fare?
I was lucky to be far enough inland that the winds weren’t terrible. No broken branches and only a couple young, unstaked trees were tilted. The storm delivered 2.5 inches of much needed rain!
KIsaias brought a lot of wind. Many of our pomegranate ‘trees’ are leaning, even though they were staked. No mortal wounds, however. An Ashmead’s Kernel apple took a dive . . . but I think once we restake it, it will be OK.
The tomatoes are another story.
They were at that stage where they became overgrown, almost overnight. And top-heavy. My Texas tomato cages are all bent over. I’m going to have to severely trim off a lot of new growth at the tops to right the cages and save them.
And it’s soooooooooooooo damn hot and sticky. I couldn’t work out there, today, for too long. You’d think that the storm would bring a bit of a cold front behind it . . . but no such luck. 'Our power has been out since 5 this morning. It is now 9:30pm. I’m cranky. Even though I know it could be a lot worse! I’m still cranky!#$%^&*(!!!
Maybe the tomatoes will get their trim tomorrow?
We got >6" of rain in about 10 hours (3 am-1:00 pm), my rain gauge maxed out (5.5"), so many cracked tomatoes and probably pluots too, but can’t tell now because they are all bagged. Other than that, no major damage, but I had to pick all my Emeraude nectarines firm ripe on Mon to prevent cracking and blandness, this means lower brix (soft ripe usually have higher brix, sometimes a lot higher). I have a good crop of Arctic Jay due for picking in about 10 days, I hope it will still retain good flavor and sugars, but not very positive. A 4’ caged pepper plant was knocked down and a few tomato plants that are 6-10’ high were also tilted.
I feel your pain! Sounds like a description of my tomatoes too. Usually by this time of year I’m just too tired of dealing with them and it’s too hot to bother. The plants are too big, have too many fruit and are falling/growing out of their beds. At this point I keep things clean and neat with my lawnmower. Just mow down whatever is out of bounds!
We had about 4 inches of rain and virtually no wind here in north central North Carolina. I spent more time preparing for the storm than cleaning up afterwards. It was a non-event here.
We didn’t get that much rain closer to Boston but we got some mighty gusts. This sugar maple came down into the yard between the house and the orchard. Better that it crushed a picnic table than one of my trees.
One of my peach trees fell over. It was a bit my own fault as it has been leaning under a heavy load for several weeks but I didn’t prop it up. Luckily the trunk just twisted and I could prop it back up so it looks like nothing happened now other than all the supports. It is hard to lift a peach tree full of peaches! It must have weighed 200 lbs or more. I needed to use my orchard ladder as a lever.
thankful you folks south of me are ok. no damage here. just a few things blown around like watering cans and such.
Made another survey this morning. About a dozen Clemson bags flew off peaches. Need to do a better job securing bags next time.
My biggest loss was a Carolina Reaper pepper plant. It grew so well. We look forward to getting a good crop. Snapped off cleanly at the base. It already set some peppers!!!
I think it must have hit my area harder than most. The power was out from Tuesday afternoon until Thursday night and I just got internet back this afternoon. Cell coverage was very spotty- I would sometimes get texts, but had trouble sending them, especially in the first few days.
In terms of the orchard, I just had a few trees start leaning:
Magness pear (on quince) from 2012:
I already had a support post for it, but I didn’t use the strongest stuff to tie it up and it degraded over time. This time, I had some vinyl covered twisted metal strands, which should hold it pretty well. It was a bit tricky to stand back up (it does have some pears on it…), but wasn’t too bad.
GA866 from 2016:
I think I lost some fruit on this one, when it leaned onto the Sherwood (luckily it didn’t get the part of the Sherwood with the most fruit). Not from GA866, which barely flowers, let alone sets fruit, but from some of the grafts on it, Dae Sol Jo and Vegas Booty. I still see some DSJ and there could be one VB. I probably need to prune the top back a bit this winter, as the tree extends well past the support (a 10.5’ galvanized top rail driven ~2’ into the ground). But it won’t be a bad thing to have some DSJ and VB wood for grafting…
Here are a couple pics from a rental:
They enjoyed The rain.
@BobVance,
You did had it harsher than others who posted their experience. Glad none of those large trees came into your land.
I found out later that my Fuji on G41 is leaning from the wind we got that day. It has a metal pole support like you had in your first pic (2 ft in ground). Had the pole not been there, the tree may have come down further more because of fruit load.
You backyard has grown so much.
I got a bit lucky as I had just installed metal posts at a rental where things have grown very well. I have 3 jujube in the front yard which have grown more in 1.5 years in ground that some have grown in 5 years at home. So is the shortest at 7-8’ and Li was the tallest at 11-12’, before I cut it back by a couple feet. I think a combination of good soil and getting all the rainwater that runs off the street helps. But, with all that growth, they were getting a bit floppy. I already have a persimmon snap off and I bet that I would have had similar damage on the jujube if I didn’t get the posts up a few days before Isaias.
I keep my jujubes around 8-9 ft tall. Taller than that, I am not comfortable to climb to the top of a ladder.
I think I’m going to try to keep those to 9-10’. Basically, 1-2’ above the support post. But they got there so quickly, that I accidentally had it overshoot by a few feet, which is pretty quick for trees I planted last year. I have other properties where they have only grown a few inches in an extra year (6" in 2.5 years vs 6’+ in 1.5 years). I think only the So has any fruit set as of yet. I’ll have to give them a good spray of GA3 next year and see if I can get them productive. They are in the front yard though, so hopefully all the neighbors don’t discover how good jujube are 
That’s amazing growth in a year. You need to find out what is in the soil there and emulate it at your other growing sites.
