Fruit

There has been a lot of activity on the fruit front in my yard. Below is my Honey Crisp apple tree. I've decided to let it fruit for the first time this year. It isn't huge, but I'm not sure it will ever get huge. Well you know, huge for a dwarf tree which is never large. My other dwarf apple tree is twice as tall. Sadly that one, a Ginger Gold, seems to be a biennial bearer. Last year it put on a lot of flowers, but the flowers were few this year. I'll only get a small handful from that tree.

I don't spray my trees, but there are numerous pests around here, so I cover each little apple with a nylon footie tied on with a twist tie. It works pretty well to keep the insects out. Sadly the Ginger Gold had some leaf rollers earlier and they did damage the fruit. Though there won't be any insects inside the apple, the apples are deformed. Oh well. If it happens this badly again I'll have to start spraying Bt at the appropriate time. But hopefully not.

My New Redhaven peach put on an enormous amount of peaches again this year. I'm really liking this tree. But it does mean a lot of work to thin them out. I like to have around 6" between peaches, but the reality is about 4"-8". Sometimes even closer or farther. Though on the bottom branches that don't see as much sun I thin them even farther apart. I always keep the peaches that are the biggest and thin out the smaller ones.

I tossed the baby peaches on the compost pile, hundreds of them. There were a lot of peaches to take off. It took me a while to get it done. As you can see I cut down my chive plants too. I wanted to get rid of the flowers before they set seed and the wind we had recently did a real job on the plant and it was more in the oregano and savory sections than in its own.

But getting back to the peaches, I do have sad news. The Reliance peach seems to have died. It has always been late every year. Very late some years. But the buds seem to be drying out. I'm not sure what killed the tree. It had no trouble last year. It is a RELIANCE peach, which is known for its hardiness and resistance to things. I figured maybe the mice ate the bark off under the mulch, but nope. No signs of damage there at all. The roots are still alive as it keeps trying to put up suckers, but no green anywhere on the trunk above the graft. So what killed it? I'm clueless.

Then I finally planted my melons this year. I wanted to do this later than last year. I'm scheduled to go to London when the melons usually become ripe. Now I could just let my townhouse mates pick them and eat them, but I love my melons. They are such a treat. So I'm trying to time it right.