that’s what my place looked like in 20’. hopefully it isnt the norm for you guys. we also had a moderate drought in 21’ but not on this scale.
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My orchards/orchard floors looked the same in '21 as they do now. Last year, I don’t think I was able to skip weekly mowings more than 2 or 3 times.
2 out of 3 years being significant droughts have me more than a little concerned about the long term productivity of my orchards.
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im mowing my acre and the other orchards 3 acres every 3 days. there’s just enough sun coming out to make everything grow like crazy. more of the same next week.
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Picked a few nectarines today off container tree. Kind of small, but very sweet. Seed is too big for amt of flesh though. Tree is going into the woodchipper because this was the last container tree and i want to be done.
Second ripe tomato (from same plant). Some type of dwarf variety.
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I use electrical tape to hold bamboo to my grafts… Also you can remove some leaves to reduce their profile in the wind, really you only need about 1/3 of the leaves they are putting out IMO, when I have fast growing apple grafts I will remove at least 50% of the new leaves to prevent them breaking in the wind.
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Why not put it into the ground, instead? It might size up.
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About time to net my nectarines.
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At least the ones i ate were all sugar and not really much flavor. Better than the peaches i just bought from the grocery store (rubbery) but i’d rather try a different one. I’ve got other seedlings i want to try.
The robins were attacking my splash pluots. That same bird along with the local catbirds wiped out my blueberries (oh well).
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I just read an article that said fruit of all kinds has been bred for excessive sweetness.
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Americans crave for sweet, the sweetet the better.
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not this American! why im not a fan of many new cultivars of fruit lately. i wont eat something that’s too sweet. prefer a liitle sweet with tart.
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Steve, I am glad to know that you are not a typical American in this category. Less sugar is good for you. But if you compare American desserts to the rest of the world, Americans put way too much sugar in their desserts.
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I prefer berries to anything else (raspberry/strawberry are favs). I had a mango (store bought) maybe a week ago that was so sweet that it was almost sickening.
My herbs (thyme/oregano/whatever) have slowly taken over my fruit yard but man does that stuff attract bees. Every day its just full of every type of bee. They love it.
I tried a seedling plum i have…it was soft and red/purple…small fruit again (a trend) and flavor was blah…not much sweetness. Might be a goner too. There is still maybe a dozen on there so i can try some more. I’ve got 2 other seedlings to try but both are still green and hard so they must be late season fruit.
The nectarine is crazy full of fruit ==i didn’t thin enough—the birds are attacking fruit so they are doing some thinning for me.
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What is the name of these beautiful red nectarine?
Talking about herbs. omg bees love oregano. I just realize I didn’t see oregano in the yard this year .my oregano disappeared. I need to transplant some from my friend’s garden
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I lost the tag but i think they are raspberry red? The birds are attacking them hard now. I covered what i could with frost cloth. I need a robot to scare them away.
Doing cuttings from my hardy kiwi. Im not sure why, but going to see if i can multiply the plants. I have 2 females and a male.
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from my reading, kiwi is easy to root from cuttings, but I have not been successfully rooting them.I think it’s my setup, too much water caused failure.
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They are easy to root, but it took me a while to learn how to root kiwi hardwood cuttings. I tried bottom heat with a heat mat the first year and had about a 40% success rate. Jesse in Maine told me his method this spring, and it worked with about 90% success for me with both kolomiktas and argutas. I put Pro-mix in pots with lots of drainage holes, cut my cuttings at an angle on the bottom, then dipped them in rooting hormone. I then stuck them outside in the woods in April. It was still cold and snowy out, so it would be more like early March for you. Then just make sure they don’t dry out to much over the next several months. Worked great for me. Here’s a picture of them from today. The pots that are empty were mulberries I tried, but so far with
only about 15% success.
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There’s a thought: a robot with a squirt gun that would chase squirrels from the ground through tall weeds … or a fleet of drones armed with pellet guns that could take turns hovering over the orchard during daylight. Dangerous!
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If i don’t get anything to take with these i’ll try that. I put the cuttings in a peat moss/sand mix and put a glass jar over the top (after dipping ends in root hormone). This works pretty good for semi hardwood cuttings off some trees.
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