I know what you mean about the chickens. I let mine out most Saturday afternoons when the farmer (Me) likes to suck on a few pints of ale. When I head for the house to get another cold one.... the sneaky little bastards head for the cabbage patch. They sometimes catch me nodding off and........ I think they are charming creatures. I enjoy their company and the composted chicken exhaust grows fabulous vegetables.
Farmer John
45N,77WI have had good success without using pesticides at all. 5 kinds of apples I always get more good ones than my family can eat. Asian pears do fine. The peaches that are resistant to leaf curl are the only ones that have done well. Plums, cherries, grapes galore I wish something would start eating them, always have way to many to pick. I suggest just trying to grow everything that you want and see what does the best in the long run remember some years one kind of fruit with do the best and another year something else is the champ. Verity is the key to good production.
Richard Reames
Wouls you share your secrets with us, please?
Thanks in advance. vince norris
Curious what part of the country you are in.
Rather than growing too much fruit for your needs and having to put up with spoiled fruit, because you don't want to spray with chemicals, I offer another possibility. Plant fruit trees on M27 rootstock, which will produce a small tree about 6 to 8 feet high with a small production capacity. You can even throw a net over such a small tree and reduce
the attacks from insects. If you have no fungus problems, consider yourself lucky. Check out Gene Yale's posting on
Sherw> I have had good success without using pesticides at all. 5 kinds of
There is no magic bullet here. There are apple varieties like 'Williams Pride' which are disease resistant, but nobody has come out with an apple that has built in resistance to insects.
Sherw> >I have had good success without using pesticides at all. 5 kinds of
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I'm in Southern Oregon. I try to give away everything that will go bad, but it's a tough job when all my friends and neighbors also have extra. There is no secret about the apples, sure some years I don't get any of certain verities but some other tree or branch of different tree will do great. I like multi verities on one tree. I just prune, thin um out when they're thick. I avoid using dwarf rootstock as it has been determined that the longevity and hardiness are limited due the virus they contain.
Richard Reames
I offer another possibility. Plant fruit trees on M27
I enjoy their company and the composted
You got that right! Years after the chickens were no more, that area is still so fertile, thanks to chickie doo-doo, just drop in seeds and stand back!
Persephone
34° 00' 57" N , 118° 27' 04" W
I agree that dwarf rootstocks do not live as long as standard ones, but I'm experiencing dwarf and semi-dwarf life times of over 15 years. At my age, planting a dwarf tree will probably be going strong when I check into the home for retired gardeners.
Where did you get that cockamamy idea that dwarf trees contain viruses that result in their short life times? There are dwarfing rootstocks that are sold as virus free selections. The reduced lifetime is probably due to the smaller root system of these dwarf trees.
Sherwin D.
It makes sense that there is a virus - it's why they don't grow tall and why they fruit early. Glad you asked about the source of the info... Jim McCausland NW bureau chief of Sunset Magazine, he told me about the virus while standing next to my semi-dwarf apple trees.
Richard Reames
I don't know the real reason why they're dwarved, but I *do* know that viruses cause some very interesting plant variations. A perfect example is the streaks in some tulip petals.
McCausland is confused by the fact that the first dwarfing rootstock to emerge was the 'MM' series which refers to hybrid trees of the Malling series crossed with "Northern Spy" in Merton, England in the 1920's. These early rootstocks had problems with viral infections, so a new strain evolved called the EMLA series which eliminated viral pathogens, in the
1960's, and these are classified as virus-free. In either case, both the MM and EMLA series produce dwarf trees. In fact, that they are virus free may explain why they are slightly more vigerous than the standard rootstocks. I refer you to a web article by a horticultural specialist (perhaps a little more knowlegable than the editor of a gardening magazine):Jim McCausland NW bureau chief of Sunset Magazine obviously isnt a geneticist .. so it is more like a flippant remark. Human dwarfing isnt due to a VIRUS. It is due to a mutation. And there are two stages in cell growth, amplification (AKA growth) and production (AKA reproduction). Because dwarf trees arent growing they can start their reproduction. Ingrid
rborsmith" wrote:
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