The year thus far

resonanteye · July 4, 2023, 9:41pm

so far this year everything vegetable is flowering and not making much food yet; every fruit tree is either too young, never leafed from bare root planting, or is just taking the year off.

raspberries and ground cherries filling in the gap.

again we had a cool spring with two small heat waves, making cold crops bolt but then the ones that didn’t, got a chance for a few more weeks. we are coming into the real heat now with 80-90F daily, no rain. it’ll be up to 110 by end of August.

I started everything so so early this year. January, February. and I think it paid off, as my corn is as tall as me (4’11")! and there’s winter squash coming in, tomatoes loaded with greens. nothing will be ripe until end of the month though. summer squash seem to be a bust so far. my grafts mostly took, so I got my timing right finally. my figs have figs on them too.

we adopted a big old chonker dog this year and he’s done really great job at scaring off every squirrel, I’ve trapped not a single one. they are terrified of him and for good reason. he is old and slow, but loud and big and he hates them as much as I do. a good helper.

the small dog is fast enough to catch a squirrel but they aren’t afraid of her.

I started a thread about all the projects I’ve got going. I found the thread with the gps locator for trees and have started putting all my perennials in as a map, I’ll print it out and draw on it too. that was a great help.

I worked a lot on the front and side of the property this year so far, and put in ten new trees that are alive and growing well. the ones that aren’t, well I’ll have to replace in spring. added persimmon and jujube this year but they’re either small or still asleep.

I’m impatient, the worst quality in any gardener or farmer on any scale. I pick things early and like sour berries. I cut lettuce before its time. I’m awful about poking at and picking at the garden daily, I sit and stare at plants wishing them to grow faster. I’ve always been like this. waiting is like a torture. I grew more fast things this year to try to temper myself.

I’m tired to my bones too since we had covid in the house. I’m on part time at the day job and may cut hours further; I get a migraine after every full day now, from concentrating. they say covid aftereffects pass in about 6 to 8 months so I’m just masking, being careful not to catch it again, waiting it out. all I can do. but it’s more waiting!

thebentonpeach · July 5, 2023, 9:32pm

Take care of yourself and you’ll feel better!
And it’ll be nice to see how everything works out for you!

thebentonpeach · July 15, 2023, 5:39pm

I’ve unravelled the mystery!
That’s just clickbait there’s no mystery.
I’ve known for a while now that Cresthavens are nutrient hogs. And my soil’s too acidic.
I’ve been gunshy about spreading fertilizer because I have 4 acres of trees planted and let’s face folks, the walk behind spreaders found in hardware stores don’t cut it on 4 acres and I can’t afford an industrial spreader. That leaves me with hand spreading around the (very small) driplines of the trees and being paranoid about killing my trees by over applying N fertilizer.
I’m too clever by half. Sometimes you have to take an idea and run with it and see if it works.
It works folks.
So lime + fertilize in small applications at least 3 times during the growing season= this cacophony.

maineorchard · July 15, 2023, 11:36pm

We didn’t have peaches this year…but the heat and humidity sure has produced a lot of leaves and branching!

thebentonpeach · July 15, 2023, 11:42pm

Whew.
Now those are some trees.
Good job man!

alan · July 16, 2023, 9:54am

For peaches a single app of 90 day coated urea should take care of them for the season. It doesn’t tend to burn roots and for trees that have been in place for a couple years a cup is completely safe and should be affective if spread slightly away from the trunk- I would think you get enough rain to spread it under the entire drip line most years. The other nutrients can come from rotting leaves and leaf mold gathered from nearby woods and spread over the urea. Once trees are established the rotting leaves and leaf mold may be all that’s required.

I get amazing growth with the urea and woodchips and I’m using my property to produce trees to sell- including lots of bearing age peach trees. I’ve been doing this for almost 30 years and it continues to work extremely well. With all the rain this year here, growth is too much because I train the peaches in a way that requires a lot of attention- about 5’ of straight trunk and then 3 scaffolds nearly horizontal. I’m working completely against their will. Most of my customers require protection from squirrels and coons and the long straight trunks allow my to baffle the trees to stop both. However, the horizontal positioning required to keep the trees reasonably close to the ground encourages upright water sprouts of extreme vigor- it takes very little time for them to dominate. I need to direct growth at least once every 3 weeks with pruning and tying branches down.

We actually had a dry spring, but since the beginning of summer it’s been a monsoon. During the month plus of dry weather, the nursery trees kept growing very vigorously without irrigation. The woodchips had plenty of stored water to stop them from skipping a beat.

You also need to have and keep the pH above about 5.5- preferably around 6.5. but a point either way is usually OK.

BackbarnZ6 · July 16, 2023, 2:25pm

Has anyone come across a retail source of coated urea, like just 10-15 lbs?

thebentonpeach · July 16, 2023, 3:11pm

I haven’t looked…
So I live in urban where…garden section at the big box home improvement store I used to work at was geared to people with relatively small yards and gardens…mileage definitely varieties with suppliers in the area…two of the orchards I used I used to work at were also in fairly urban areas…they were sufficiently fortunate to know suppliers who sold to the industry (no I don’t know who the suppliers were)

Richard · July 16, 2023, 4:26pm

Are you close to a Nutrien Ag outlet?

BackbarnZ6 · July 16, 2023, 5:30pm

Don’t think I’ve heard of that one, anyway this is not an an agricultural area. Have searched Amazon too, but might be missing something.
Common urea tends to volatilize.

Richard · July 16, 2023, 5:48pm

Exactly. It’s a waste to scatter it in granular fashion. Pelletized and coated are no better in that application, the treatment just delays the process. The latter are good though for fortifying soil mixes.

Here’s a link to Nutrien Ag with zip code search for locations.

thebentonpeach · July 16, 2023, 6:27pm

So that if I remember correctly I think your customers tend to be people with a little more money to spend…is the 5 feet of straight trunk because the trees tend to be specimen trees in a larger landscape and yard?

thebentonpeach · July 16, 2023, 6:33pm

I think like me you’re in the Northeast.
Same dry spring followed by bouts of heavy rain.
The weather in this area drives me nuts. 11 years ago I was still farming full time and the Philly area went from the middle of March to the middle of April with no rain. The previous year it was mid June to mid July ish. Then in the summer of '13 it rained cats, puppies and kittens.

Last year it was dry June through sometime in September. This year, dry March to mid June. I think I have better odds of rolling dice to predict weather than to try and put some sort of logic to it because frankly I give up.

alan · July 16, 2023, 7:45pm

It’s for installing squirrel baffles.

Robert · July 16, 2023, 9:16pm

@alan Why did you go with the style you are using? Interested why you did not just wrap a two foot strip around the trunk? I’m looking at installing some myself. Not so much for squirrels, but raccoon and possum.

alan · July 17, 2023, 9:02pm

Two feet is never enough for squirrels here- you can leave two feet of trunk and follow with 3’ of roofing coil and paint with a mix of oil and axle grease, but the stuff sometimes drips on hot days and can damage trunk tissue, even occasionally killing a plum tree.

thebentonpeach · July 22, 2023, 6:14pm

I have peach trees that are very small, especially for having been planted and growing for 3 years but that spot has always been a challenge. Initially 10 years ago I had planted what I later came to find out was a problem area with Lorings…of course I never amended the soil with anything…i know I keep saying saying how acid my soil is…that spot in particular must be the worst of it because two years straight of lime plus multiple nitrogen applications have finally gotten growth out of the trees.
In the second pic you see how everything else around those small trees are doing. 3 1/2 feet of growth and still going!