What's blooming?

Daffodils
These have grown undisturbed for 8 years.

Quince

Forsythia. This is the forsythia that I grew from a discarded stick, picked up while walking the dogs. Turned out nice. The location is shaded, NOrth of the house, but it is coming into its own.

Closeup of Sunny Delight peach.

Sunny Delight peach

Chinese Mormon Apricot.

Hollywood plum. this is the second year of growth - I wonder if the blossoms will set?

Honeybabe Peach

Trilite peach.

None of the peach trees appear harmed at all by the plastic wrapping method. I haven't sprayed a second time. I have a 6 inch tall peach seedling, slearly offspring from one of the genetic dwarf peaches, that has been growing for 2 years. It has not been treated wtih leaf curl prevention, and it does have leaf curl. So far, the other peach trees appear free of the disease. It is too early to say for certain.

Other developments:
The wild cherry seeds that I planted last summer are grown into 2 inch tall plants. I removed 3 to flower pots. The long term goal is super-pruning them like the other trees, in the style of "Backyard Orchard Culture". Can it be done? I don't know. Everything is a gamble.

The pear buds have opened into clusters of flower buds, but the flowers themselves are not yet open.

Last sunday I also went around with a little paintbrush, taking pollen from flower to flower among the peaches, then between the twp apricot trees, then between the plum trees. The Shiro plum has just 4 flowers, so who knows if it will fruit. The Hollywood plum is said to be self fruitful, and has many more flowers. It would be cool to have a crop of plums, second year after planting the tree. The peaches are also said to be self fruitful, but playing the bee shouldn't hurt anything. A few apricot flowers fell off while I was pollinating. That may mean it't too late to make a difference. We'll see.

The Peach in Winter: Leaf Curl Prevention

This year's experiment with leaf curl prevention was so wildly successful, I didn't want to miss the opportunity to repeat it. So last weekend I did. Even if I don't get into the garden again for a month, I've done the most productive task.

I did the following:

1. Strip off remaining leaves. That's easy and fairly quick on these genetic dwarf peach varieties. They are compact, and the leaves come off easily. I strip off the leaves so that all of the spray goes on the stems, and so that they don't interfere with bundling the branches.

2. Rake up all debris, leaves, and weeds, under the trees.

3. Spray with copper spray. Copper is considered "organic" because it's a mineral. The concern is to over-do it, and have too much copper in the soil. So I was careful not to over-do it.

4. Bundle the branches into compact packages that would be easy to cover with white plastic garbage bags. I chose white plastic because it is somewhat reflective, to keep the branches from overheating.

5. Cover the bundled branches with the plastic bags.

6. Tie the bags into place.

7. Prune off any little branches that did not fit into this scheme.

My worries last year were that this process would damage the trees. It did not - this year I had the best peach crop ever, with only about 10 leaves impacted by leaf curl disease. Click on the labels to see the devastating effects of that infection. It's the reason people keep telling me "you can't grow peaches here"


I also sprayed the Moorman apricot and the potted dwarf apricot, that I will move into better shelter soon. I don't know if that will help - apricots tend to die quickly here, and I have not figured out why, yet.

What's up in the Kitchen Garden?

I'm so excited! The peaches are getting bigger and more colorful. This is Honey Babe. It fully recovered from the peach leaf curl of 2008, and the preventive measure last winter was completely successful. How cool is that!

We ate several Lemon Boy and a big bowl of Supersweet 100 this week. I added some high nitrogen organic liquid feed last week, based on advice from the Davis Calif garden show. I neglected to feed them in May, so most of the plants are smaller now, compared to last year. Even so, it looks like there will be a good crop of tomatoes and peppers this year.

The zucchinis are also starting to make up for lost time. These are the easiest crop of the garden.

Grapes are not even close to ripe yet. This is Price grape, trained over a gate. The vine is about 6 years old. It will be the best crop ever for this vine. I watered deeply, twice this summer. Otherwise it's getting its water from deep in the ground. I read that grapevines can send roots incredibly deep, so they shouldn't need much water from above.

I like the tower method of training cucumbers. We're getting about 1 cuke daily now. These are chinese cucumbers. By the end of summer, these cukes will reach the top of the tower, 7 feet. Training vertically reduces risk for mildew, and the cukes are easy to find and pick. Plus, it's a very small location, and the tower makes the best use of this garden niche.

Thinning peaches. Victory over leaf curl!

Peaches and other stone fruits often over-bear. Too many can mean they all fall off, no bearing the following year, and the peaches are too small and not as flavorful It's psychologically difficult to remove peaches, but they are in clusters as thick as grapes, so about 3/4 have to go. I started thinning using a scissors, but finally twisted them off. I probably need to thin some more, but I'll wait to see how these do.

Before thinning. Peaches are so thick that the stems are obscured. They look like fuzzy grapes.

After thinning. I quit counting after removing 200 tiny peaches. There are probably still over 150 on the tree. Since these are genetic dwarf peaches, the leaves are much closer together than regular peaches. Plus, the final peaches are smaller. So, I don't think that they need to be thinned to the same distances as regular peaches.

If I was superstitous I would not declare victory. But we are getting to the end of when leaf curl is a problem. Click on labels below to see what I did, and what they looked like this time last year. It worked! Not only did I not kill the peaches with the plastic bags and spray, but they look great! I have pulled of about 10 leaves with leaf curl, but that's nothing compared to last year. Today I sprayed with neem - not sure if it helps, but they are in with the roses and roses definitely benefit (decreasing aphids and fungal disease)

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.

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.

Peach Tree Winterizing

After this Spring's leaf curl disaster, I'm trying to be proactive.

I read that fall plus spring sprays with micronized copper will prevent the disease. Also that covering the trees to prevent leaf curl spores from washing into the buds. Both should be done after the leaves fall and before Winter rains start.

Unfortunately, It's already started raining, and the leaves had not yet fallen.

So, I started by pulling off the leaves. These are small trees (bush would be a better word) and it only took a few minutes to pull off the leaves. They went into the compost bin.

Defoliated Peach Tree

Micronized copper spray. I'm not excited about using sprays, although some growers consider copper a mineral so ok for organic methods. Depends on who you talk to. I followed the directions and sprayed all of the peach trees. It was not raining today.


Then I wrapped or covered with plastic. How I did it depended on the size and shape of the tree.

This is a 1-year old tree that is not genetic dwarf; peach/plum hybrid (Trilite). I tied the branches then covered in a plastic bag, and tied again.

This genetic miniature is about 4 feet tall. I don't think that the stems need to be covered, just the buds. Any that remain exposed can be pruned in the spring. I don't want it to bake either, so the under side is left open for ventillation.

The entire exercise took about one hour. We'll see if it works.

Peaches: recovery from peach leaf curl.

Garden Gold - the least affected. No peaches but now the tree has a chance for next year.

Honey babe - I thought this one was dead. It's recovering nicely, also has a chance for next year. In fact, with a complete absence of peaches, there is potential for a bumber crop. IF I can address the leaf curl problem.

Peach Tragedy

With the warmer sunnier weather, the Peach Leaf Curl seems to have stopped infecting the newest leaf sprouts. However, so much damage was done that many of the branches are dead. I pruned off everything that I thought was dead, and then a few strategic shaping cuts, and pruned back to new growth where I could. Most of the prunings were dry and crunchy.

This is "Honey babe". It was the hardest hit. I still dont know if it will survive. I gave it a good dose of fish emulsion.

This is "Garden Gold". It seems to be starting a recovery. I hope so. It also got a dose of fish emulsion.

Fish emulsion is stinky, and probably for that reason the dogs love it. They follow closely and lick the watering can when I set it down.

The newly planted peaches were completely untouched by the leaf curl. As bare root trees, I suspect that they were stored indoors, in a climate controlled barn (I saw that at Raintree Nurseries). That supports the idea that preventing rain from washing spores into the buds might help prevent the disease. I had worried that covering them would make overheat, due to solar energy, or make them dry out, because the rain would be diverted. However, this is far worse. It's also proof that neem oil is not a panacea. Of course, nothing is a panacea, and I knew that. My plan this fall will be to build a 'barn' to cover each tree. Since they are miniature trees, it should not be too difficult.

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.