Where have I been?

With the 3 young children, I just didn't have a whole lot of time to update this summer.  Everything turned out pretty good.  Still a lot of things to fix, remove, graft over.  The biggest surprise was probably the peaches (seed grown) that turned out excellent.  The apples, pears and plums all turned out great.  The squirrels were a big problem (trapped 10 or more).  Grapes were awesome as usual.  Raspberries turned out fine, but really late (Sept).   Blueberries had very few berries because of repotting.

Bugs were bad.  Chafers were horrible, Japanese Beetles were out there.

Been a long time

Really not much to report.  The apricots are just now ripe.  Strawberries have been done for a while now.  Sweet cherries have been done for about 2 weeks.  I need to chop them back and pot them all up for next year. The Hunza apricot is getting chopped down and grafted over with a Superior plum.  Peaches and nectarines are all in a pit hardening stage.   The biggest (oldest) of the 3 Tomcots will need to be removed....i think!

We went from dry to downright soggy and now right back to dry (very dry).  Its been a lot of upper 80fs and sun the past 10 days.  Humidity has been tolerable. 

Some updates

Lot of pest problems this year.  Plum Curculio knocked out a lot of peaches, plums, apples, and apricots.  Still finding drops with larvae inside.  Rose Chafers were out thick all last week.  Must have trapped and killed 1000+  of them.  Had to hand pick daily for the whole week.  They did some damage to the apricots and peaches.   They've been letting up the past 3 days and I've stopped hand picking.  The traps are still catching them.

The sweet cherries are ripening. 

 
Its been very wet lately.  We had been dry for most of the month, but Saturday night over 5 inches of rain fell!  This week there is a chance of rain every day. 

I'll be removing several peach trees after the fruit ripens and planting either a row of pines (boring?) or a row of seedling pears for use as grafting stock.

First post in awhile!

Lots happening in the past 10 days or so.  We had record breaking heat of 100F and several other days in the 90Fs and high 80Fs...  Today was a record high low...hitting 56F! 

Rose Chafers emerged last and I got my traps put out last Sunday.  They have done some damage, mainly chewing on a few apricots.  

Plum Curculio seem to be about done.  I ended up hand killing 5 of them, but they still hit a lot of fruit, even with 2 sprays on the apricots and plums.  The apples have already started falling (June drop).  They were hit pretty badly by PC.  I have to get an earlier spray on all fruit next year.  That first spray is very important.

I picked the first head of broccoli on Tuesday.  Turned out pretty good.  My Graffiti is forming a nice head too:

PC damage

Noticed a lot of new damage on plums, cherries and nectarines... I had sprayed the apples yesterday, but decided to skip the plums until today ...not good! I should still be ok, i put a spray on this morning. Sweet cherries had a few hits, nectarines got hit again... Think my sour cherry that I moved in March may be on the slow road to death. It flowered, fruited and it still just has small leaves popping out... Apricots are really sizing up...

Plums are the size of peas at the biggest. Need to spray sooner.

90F today

Surround WP

Stella sweet cherry

One last May post

Not much happening lately.  Its been cold (cool) the past week or so and growth has really slowed once again.  I'll try to take some pictures of all the fruit and the various stages they are in.  I did learn that the container peaches are actually nectarines!!  Oops!  Also the interior of my Puget Gold apricot dropped all of its fruit and the leaves started wilting...so i chopped it out.  It now has a nice open center.  The fruit on the outer branches are sizing nicely.

My broccoli and cauliflower are growing very quickly now.  I've even found one forming a head.  It looks like Romanesco broccoli.

Another fruit update

Weather has been warmer lately.  We had over an inch of rain yesterday.  I noticed my first plum curculio damage on Saturday.  I ended up picking up a bottle of Maxide to treat a few of the fruit that were damaged.  This evening I sprayed Triazicide which I hope is my last time spraying the apricots.  I will need to put a good coat on the apples and plums in a few days.