I’m glad yours is alive. 10 days ago I noticed a very tiny green bulge on the Girardi, but I decided to move it and plant one of my newly grafted K1/adara/cherries in its place. The microscopic bulge was knocked off in that process. Having discovered the excellent mulberry literally steps across the street, I’m not too invested in this anymore. If it lives, I will graft it next spring.
My Gerardi flushed out an entirely new set of leaves and fruit after being totally fried by the late frost. I didn’t expect a brand new fruit set.
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@scottfsmith I will have to follow your surround spray guidance for next year. My plums are almost all attacked my PC. I have 2 peach trees that I never really noticed PC on the last few years. One is Lovell I think cause it was a cocktail tree but only grows decent size hard peaches and the other is Georgia Belle that I only get a few small peaches from. This is the first year I have had plums, both natives and a 5-1 I got from HD.
Interestingly, the Beach Plums are untouched. Anyone know if they are less targeted?
They are all near each other, my American and Mexican plums are all mostly affected.
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Sorry to hear that. It sounds like the peaches attracted the PC and now you have a PC family in your yard. They multiply very fast, I had a similar thing of one year not noticing and then a mass the next.
I’ve heard reports of beach plums not being as affected, but have also heard other reports of them getting hit hard. Their growth timing is a bit different and it might throw off the PC.
My PC are over now, I was going to do one more spray but I wasn’t seeing any new crescents so I held off. I’m going to do a spray for the moths soon though, its OFM (and CM) season for the rest of the summer now.
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This would be the spinosad on the tips spray? I did it twice in the beginning, and haven’t seen any flagging yet. Do it again preemptively? Is it possible that can hurt the new growth in nectarines? I had really weird damaged growth on my Arctic Star after the second spray, but after those were replaced by normal leaves.
The OFM is active all summer (assuming they are in your orchard) so they need spraying all summer. Both the tips and the fruits should be hit. Spinosad should have no effect on the fruits or leaves. I am currently using Madex, Bt, Spear-Lep, Venerate, and Grandevo alternating with the spinosad.
Note that I personally am not very good about spraying though the summer, I still get pretty good fruit if I stop about now. But I’m going to try to do a few more sprays this year. I’ve only done three so far not counting the dormant spray.
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As the FB battle continues I’m learning a lot. All the years past were just light strikes that were easy to cut off. I’m learning that when you have massive strikes it’s easiest and best to just cut off the entire trunk below the lowest branch of strikes. I started out just cutting off branches, but that wasn’t working and more kept showing up. Then after just cutting it off as described above I noticed that even though the strikes were not near the trunk, the trunk was still infected. It was originally to high up ( near 20 foot) for me to notice that and even if it wasn’t it could have easily been overlooked. As it stands some of the trees lost over 10 foot of height. Oh well they were getting hard to pick anyways. This is my first round of massive strikes in a little less than twenty years. I guess that’s a pretty good run.
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Picked 15 Tomcot apricots today. I’ve already eaten a few, as well as a couple of Ilona. More bug damage than in the past, but I wasn’t as good at keeping the surround on them. In the one’s with significant damage I’m finding a worm around the pit and was wondering if that is OFM vs. PC, since they are bigger than any I’ve found in my cherries which I know are PC.
The drought has definitely pushed up the sugar and my wife described the Tomcot we just shared as the sweetest apricot she’d ever had. It was the one second in from the left on the bottom row with the most color on it. It was actually almost too sweet, so we might eat them before they really soften. Definitely always better than any apricot I’ve had from a store or even a farmers market.
Probably another 20 of these on the tree and then about 50 of Ilona - assuming I harvest not the squirrels. I seemed to escape the worst of the frost damage that people north of me had, but I had a huge amount of drop from what I think was poor pollination. It was really cold and not very conducive to the bees being active if I remember correctly.
The tree has gotten too tall really, so I’ll give it another haircut after harvest to bring it down again a bit.
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How juicy are those Tomcots in comparison to other varieties? I’ve heard they were dryer. You did pretty good. My first crop of Tomcot and all the others got frozen out.
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I wouldn’t consider them dry, although they aren’t as juicy as Ilona. I think I’ve heard @scottfsmith describe the taste as somewhat of a dried apricot taste, which I think is pretty consistent for me - the intensity of flavor a bit of tang at the end, etc. I think that description may make people think it is dry. Sorry if I remembered you as the author of that comment incorrectly Scott.
Actually, the one we ate today was juicy enough that juice ran down my hand. Ilona is more mostly sweet, but great as well. I like them both, they’re just a bit different.
Yes that was me.. they are plenty moist just not juicy like Ilona.
I’m getting a sour cherries now, not worth netting though as the crop is pretty small. Zero cots boo.
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Only thing I seem to be getting this year (besides typical annual veggie garden) are raspberries. My Heritage plant is such a reliable producer so far. Can’t wait to get some of the suckers I dug up in the ground to round out the patch. I was really hoping for some blueberries but I think it is time for me to get them into a pH controlled raised bed.
I also ended up introducing some ladybugs - after a couple days, I saw no signs of aphids so I have to imagine they went to town on them. Now the ladybugs seem to be gone. I hope they might be reproducing under the leaf mulch or just hunting for more food and will come back. So far an interesting experiment.
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Try Coast of Maine soil from Walmart. I put huckleberries in it this year and they are doing really well.
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This is interesting. I was planning huckleberries for next year, but read they basically need the same pH as blueberries. There’s no way coast of Maine is acidic. So, maybe they are OK with neutral?
Are there different versions? The one I bought is listed for Acid loving plants.
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i wouldnt be surprised if it is, its got a bunch of peat. varies version to version though
Oh didn’t realize they made an acid mix! I used to buy their raised bed and compost mixes before I discovered bulk soil.
Anybody grow tomatoes and have leaves that look like this? Curled and deformed looking. Happened last year. A cherry tomatoes plant in a different bed and different soil seems to be doing better. First I thought herbicide drift, or watering. Watering seems okay I don’t overwater, and i also don’t spray anything but neighbor might. Maybe something in the soil? It’s municipal compost. Weird it happened again this year. Still getting flowers. Starting to think that the soil is just done for, I doubt the municipality cares what’s sprayed or anything.
Did you look for aphids under the leaves? Thats the most common reason for curling leaves. I don’t get aphids on my tomatoes but the greens can get aphids pretty badly, I have some I should just pull up now since they are solid aphids underneath.
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What variety are they? I have found some heirloom types, particularly pastes and hearts with longer wispy foliage, are just prone to some twisting or slightly odd foliage. This seems particularly true in the fast growing phase in spring with long days and before energy is being used for maturing fruit.