On 18/06/2014 23:14, Bob Hobden wrote:
"P. Alves" wrote ...

Birds. I honestly do not mind sharing the fruit, but the dam birds eat
all of them. Also the strong winds often destroy part of of the fruits.


Why not cover the trees in netting, as most people do with cherries, to
stop the birds, it would be a lot cheaper then getting new fruit trees
and waiting for them to fruit. We have a fruit cage over our 4 cherry
trees and I prune the trees to ensure they remain within the cage. The
RHS at Wisley cover their cherry trees in netting. Unfortunately we do
have a problem with mice climbing the trees but in a normal year we do
get a decent crop of cherries. Not this year as because of the mild wet
winter the trees flowered so early there were not many pollinating
insects about.

That explains the poor crop on my giant cherry tree, last year there
were so many it was impossible to use them all, this year I doubt if
there were ten percent of last year, and I scarcely got any. The tree
is too big to net without a crane.