Showing posts with label aprium. Show all posts
Showing posts with label aprium. Show all posts

Saturday, April 25, 2009

Backyard Orchard

Despite the Orchard Mason Bees, I've been diligent about playing 'bumble bee' myself with a small paintbrush, transferring pollen among different varieties of cherry, or pear, or peach, or apple. The peach anbd cherry ova are starting to swell, giving me hope for plentiful fruit from each. The aprium had massive die-off (again) of branches after blooming. Unclear why. Blossoms are 'almost' open from the small graft I added to Liberty apple 2 years ago. Apricot did not set fruit - not too surprising, it's only 2 years old.

Embryonic sweet cherries. I'm starting to get excited!

Embryonic peaches. I'm starting to get very excited! Also a few on the Trilite "Peach-plum" hybrid - in it's 2nd year, so I'll cross my fingers. So far - virtually no peach leaf curl. Pray to the peach gods!

North pole apple in bloom. I over-pruned the stubby branches last winter, because they were too long. It still promises a big bowl of apples if the coddling moths dont get them. This is a different style of 'backyard orchard culture' tree. It occupies a very small garden footprint, growitn as a column rather than spreading out.

Liberty apple on M27. This root stock keeps the tree ultra-small. Very pretty, even if it didn't get apples, but it's quite fruitful. This is an example of a 'backyard orchard culture' tree that barely needs pruning - it just stays small.

This multigraft pear is being maintained at under 7 feet tall. This year there are also lots of blooms - quite pretty. It had a couple dozen pears last year. This year it is near it's maximum size for backyard orchard culture, so I'll be challenged to prune carefully this summer to maintain size and still keep it fruiting.

Thursday, March 05, 2009

Early March Garden Log

What's growing and blooming?

Daffodils are about 4 inches tall. Many closed flower buds are present. Hyacinths, similar size.
Rhubarb is the first food plant to start growing. I love the crinkled red leaves and knobby buds.

Helleborus is blooming. Since the plant is short and the flowers droop, they are difficult to appreciate.

Garlic is alive and about 5 inches tall. We'll have garlic this year! I was concerned that the extreme cold this winter might have done it in.

Pussy willow is blooming, but not much. It may be too young, or not in enough sun.
Forsythia has green buds. I don't know if it will bloom - no yellow shows - again, it's on the North side of the house, so possibly not enough sun. Last year the flowers were sparse.

I planted cuttings from my Dad's forsythia from Illinois. That shrub is at least 50 years old and maybe 80 years old. Not really special, but if the cuttings grow, I'll have a bit of a keepsake from my past.

Pear blossoms are swelling. Lilac blossoms are swelling. Aprium blossoms starting to show a little pink.

The plum trees that I recently planted are starting to show life, with swelling buds. Can I hope for, maybe, one plum each, so that I know what they taste like? I did spray both with the last bit of lime-sulfur.

Finches are fighting in the feeder now.

Today was a day off. Overcast, not too cold. I did the following in the back yard:

Pruned roses. Most have about 1 inch of growth. Local authorities precaution against pruning too early, since pruning supposedly stinulates growth which can be killed by frost. Since they are growing now anyway, I don't see the difference. I have pruned as early as January, and many neighborhood roses were pruned then as well, but this year I thought I would try to follow the 'experts' advice.

Most were cut back to about 2 feet tall. Tallest was about 7 feet tall before pruning. Removed dead wood. Sprayed these roses with the left-over lime sulfur from the peaches, but to prevent leaf spot.

Still a lot of roses to prune in the front yard. Maybe this weekend.


Uncovered peaches. These are miniature peach trees. Big problem last year was leaf curl, which destroyed the crop and almost killed the trees. Last fall, I sprayed with Micro-cop and covered the trees with plastic (see links). I meant to uncover them last week but was not able. They are actually starting to grow. The tiniest is blooming. Uh-oh. So, I uncovered. I read that micro-cop doesnt work, so I sprayed with Lily Miller PolySul Summer and dormant spray at dilution C, which is for growing season. I used the more dilute spray due to concern for toxicity to new buds. This may not be strong enough for leaf curl (4 teaspoons per gallon instead of 1 cup per gallon) but compromise is necessary. Maybe the unscientific combination will be better than no spray? This is considered organic since it is just lime and sulfur, not petrochemicals. Depends on who you talk to.

Friday, April 25, 2008

Bummer

The peaches have major leaf curl. Im worried this could be fatal. At the very least, it probably means no peaches this year. Reminder to self: Cover them in December!

Second bummer. Aprium blossoms froze. The tree was starting to grow and new growth also froze. There seem to be ne branches starting, so maybe the tree will survive. but no apriums this year.

Saturday, March 08, 2008

Early bloom

Aprium. This will need some hand pollination, no bees out yet.

The little narcissus are the early ones.

I've been spraying the peaches weekly with neem. Will the leaf curl be an issue?

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Pre-Spring Garden Log: Buds are swelling

 Tranquility Rose. All of the roses are at a simlar stage, buds about 1 inch on most stems.
 Chinese Chives. This 1/2 barrel received a layer of chicken house compost, then a layer of bark mulch to prevent weed growth, 2 weeks ago.
 Aprium buds. The Puget Gold Apricot also has a few small pink buds.
 
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