Like Murky, i have had great fruit set in my plums. I had to thin the Methleys viciously. I have about 600 of them on the ground so far, with more to come. I would’ve broken many branches. I biocharred them for the first time last year.
At the end of march I grafted scions of a large berried variety from Hatsune (miku) and now they look like a success. So regrafting undesirable bushes is also a possibility
I did a decent job of thinning most of my stone fruit, but Nadia was the afterthought. I usually run out of steam after thinning 100 or so developing plums. This tree still has maybe 1000 too many fruit on it. It’s more obvious now that they are starting to turn color. This is the heaviest set its had.
Yesterday a fearless deer was eating unripe thinned fruit from underneath, about 20 feet away from me. It was kind of choosy about which to eat, I’m not sure the criteria:
I have been eating the Methley plums for a few days now. They are early but small. I thinned probably 1400 plums that would have broken branches. I brought some to give to the poor people at church. Tomorrow, I’m going to bring some to our 4th of July baseball game. It will be among the most nutritious things these fellow baseball players eat all week. And they taste good. Shiro, Howard Miracle, and Santa Rosa aren’t ready yet.
Anyone else getting hit super hard with SWD already? Last 2 years, they didn’t show up until about late August/September but now they’re in full force. Only 1/5 of my raspberries seem marketable right now and it’s driving me insane
SWD fruit flies were declining in this area (Vancouver, BC) for a few years until this year. Now, they’re as bad as ever. Raspberries have to be picked before they are fully ripe, or else they turn to watery mush. I’m still picking and freezing them, but I know that they all have SWD larvae in them. It least the maggots are so small that I never actually see them, and they don’t affect the taste of the berries.
Both sweet and sour cherries were badly affected, but blueberries seem to be OK for now. They don’t seem to bother the strawberries.