I have been pruning in the orchard. It is inevitable that trees grow too much "wood" high in the tree. The fruit is prime fruit because the leaves feeding that fruit gets first crack at the sunlight. As a fruit grower, that puts my best fruit where it is hardest to pick. The picker needs a ladder and must fight his way through the lower branches. He picks slowly because it is one-handed picking.
The answer is to take the big wood out of the top thereby exposing the lower branches to prime sunlight.
I left a mess on the orchard floor.
Tree shelters
Tree shelters or tree tubes protect newly planted trees from drying out and getting chewed on by deer and rabbits. Unfortunately, they are a bit pricey.
I am playing around with using blue "recycling" bags. I already cage the trees with a 10" diameter cage of 2"-by-4" welded wire fencing.
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| This is what it looks like from the side. This is a 30 gallon bag and measures 30" wide (laid flat) and 36" tall. The thing that looks like a white ruler is an identification label. |
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| Looking down the opening. The bags cost about 40 cents each although I think you could find them for half that price if you shopped around. |
Garlic
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| This is a Porcelain type garlic that is just popping up. It is way behind the variety shown below. |
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| This patch of garlic was written up in this post. I think this variety is "Montana Giant" and believe it is a Rocambole type. |
Clean-up project
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| An old barn foundation |
That old barn foundation gives me the willies... If that was down here, it'd be FULL of rattlesnakes!
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