Whats missing is a shot gun and a wild tempered Tom cat.
Or maybe a Dingo or two....


Tom N wrote:
David Hare-Scott wrote:

Tom N wrote:
David Hare-Scott wrote:

I have been pulling apples, pears and quinces this week. The pears
are still hard, hopefully the timing is right and they will ripen
off the tree this time.

The Granny Smith apples are beautiful; crisp, sweet and slightly
tart. We had some visitors and I pulled one off the tree and
offered it around. They said "aren't you going to wash it?" I said
"why?"
Yes a fresh apple off your own tree is fantastic and makes the best
of bought apples look average.

Are your apples free of codling moth or do you use a non-spray method
of control?
I haven't seen the moth in the area but there are not many orchards.
What is a non-spray method of control?

I have only used spray but IIRC you can wrap several layers of cardboard
around the trunk at the right times of the year to catch the grubs and I
have some vague memory of there being other methods (maybe biological
controls or other traps).

We used to have a great Granny Smith apple crop but ut has been very
poor in recent years. Recently I was told that possums eat apple
blossum which could well be the cause, so we will net much earlier
next year.

The little beggars were crossing 150m of paddock patrolled by a kelpie
to get to mine.

Our possums just leap from tree to tree mostly. Rarely go on the
ground.

We also have a fuji apple but it has never had more than a few apples
on it (maybe the possums have been eating the fuji blossum since day
one).

Interestingly, possums don't seem to eat nectarine blossums (we get a
great crop of them - no spray - just buggerising around with nets to
keep out possums, birds, rats and bats).

They were lifting the net to get to my stone fruits even with bricks
every metre along the bottom.

I hold my net down with garden stakes with bricks on them.

You might find that if you built a fence around the bottom with welded
wire mesh (like chookwire but stiffer) that it would keep them out (at
least until they discovered they could climb it). Wouldn't work for my
place as they aren't on the ground to start with.

I'm told possums don't like climbing wobbly wire mesh fences so if you
build a fence that tips over a bit when they climb it, you might keep
them out.

Our possums would just jump onto the net from another tree and then lie
on it like a hammock. They'd stick their paw through and eat nectarines
through the net. But with a net there they don't eat much and they
choose ripe fruit by smell I suppose and they eat the whole fruit.
Other pests take a bite to see if it is ripe and rarely eat all of the
fruit so in the end they damage a lot more fruit than possums do.

Bats are farely easy to keep out with nets as they are fairly clumbsy
unless flying.

We have a rat or two which is too smart for rat traps or poisons. It
gnaws a hole in the net. The birds (particularly introduced thrushes)
patrol around the net looking for holes and will find any little hole to
get through.