Great info from all of you! Thanks so much. I will be going off to the
nursery
on Monday to pick their brains, find a good book and learn how to prune and
spray. Would go today but most nurseries are pretty busy on the weekends and
I want to try to get a little time from the person at the nursery.
Hopefully, next season I will be reporting on all my good fruit!
BTW I have never been much of a garden person, never lived where there was a
nice garden and never knew how to go about planting one. We than moved into
our new home with a beautiful garden and waterfall/pond. It was extremely
neglected
so did alot of clearing out. This year was I was only able to get the garden
looking nice
again. Plan on planting some bulbs, rhodies and some azeala (sp?) to fill in
some bear sections.
I never dreamed I would LOVE doing this stuff and learning all I can to have
a great garden!
Here is a link to some pics. I have of our yard
http://home.earthlink.net/~nikkiekoala/our_new_home.htm
if you would like to see.
Again thanks for all your advice!!
"J. Lane" wrote in message
. ca...
Having several fruit trees in my yard, I may be able to offer some advice.
Your fruit is done for the year. Apples and pears are the last fruits to
ripen. For now, water the trees well since they were neglected for so
long,
they are probably verry stressed. Continue to water every three days for
an
hour each ( by sprinkler, that is).
Next, you need a couple of good books on pruning and care of fruit trees.
See if you can take an extension course on pruning from your local
college.
Some people like to prune in the late fall ( end of October in your area),
but I recently took a mini horticulture course that stressed pruning in
the
very early spring ( late February). At any rate, all major pruning should
be
done when the trees are in their dormant stage and the sap is not running.
That stage happens during winter. Trees begin dormancy when the really
cold
weather hits and resume running sap when spring begins. Some minor pruning
is done in late summer to remove watersprouts and trim off dead or
diseased
branches.
Re spraying; I find it best to contact a yard care company and ask them
about their rates and schedules of spraying and what they use. You can ask
to have the last schedule of spray ommited, since you want to be able to
eat
the fruit without risk of poisoning from the sprays. The local garden
center
can give you a list of sprays and the times they should be applied as well
as what they're for, although a good book on care of fruit trees should
have
that in them. However it may not be germane to your local regulations. I
don't like the idea of having to use chemicals at all, but this year my
bent
towards no poisons and no chemicals has led to bad infestations of aphids,
leaf miners, leaf rollres, coddling moth, and those horrible little worms
that you find inside cherries, yuck ( shiver)! I lost most of my cherry
crop, and all of my crabapple crop.
Hope all this helps.
--
Jayel
"Frogleg" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 11 Sep 2003 22:37:15 -0700, "GoldLexus2000"
wrote:
I live in Portland, Oregon.
When we looked at the house a year ago (we bought my best friends
house)
the trees had peaches and pears, don't remember if there were any
apples.
Anyway, our friends weren't living in the house a year ago so any fruit
that
grew were never
picked or picked up off the ground which may have made the trees
vulnerable
to all
sorts of stuff.
I guess I will need to head to the nursery and find out how to get
these
trees to the
glory they should be. Boy, I feel so clueless right now.
If you can't see fruit on the trees (or on the ground) now, you're
pretty much done for this year. Apples are, I believe, the latest of
the fruits you mention to become ripe for harvest. I would, indeed,
seek expert advice from a garden center or Your Local Extension Agent
as to measures you can take to keep these trees healthy and
productive. I hope Pam will join this thread and provide some expert
advice for you. Can you ask your best friend something about the
history and care of the trees?
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