Fruit Tree Spraying

Today I ran up to our farm in Michigan after work to spray the fruit trees.

Let me give you a little overview of the farm.  In the front yard, I have one two-year cherry, two one-year cherries, one five-year cherry, and two 70-plus-year cherries.

The back is divided into several areas.  Around the Little House (a two-room house that was originally used as a caretaker's house) is what's left of the original orchard - four pear trees and three apple trees.  We actually found another pear tree while clearing out an overgrown patch this spring!  Though some of the fruit was added by my great-grandparents and my grandparents, I believe that these particular trees were already there when my family purchased the property in the 1940's, so they're all at least 70 years old.  There is a younger pear tree out in front of the Little House.  I don't know for sure when that was planted, but it's probably been there about 20 years.

The apple trees from the original orchard

I've added three apple trees (originally four, but one died this winter) and two pears in the field behind the original orchard and two apples in front of the house.

Apple/pear orchard

There is another field that juts out, and there are three first-year peach trees residing in that field.

As you'll see, all of the new trees have cages around them.  This is to deter deer.  The cages are comprised of three 6' lengths of 1x4 and two 4' lengths of 1x1.  I've got chicken wire stapled around the top of the wood, which allows access for me through the bottom to prune and wire and whatever else I need to do, but keeps the deer from nibbling on the tender trees.

We've been having various problems with insects as well as fungal issues.  Because protecting the environment is a concern for me, I researched organic insecticides and fungicides.  I finally decided to give neem oil a try.  Not only is it safe for the environment it's used in, it seems to be sustainable.  (If you run across something that says otherwise, please let me know.)  Because I have so many trees to spray, I purchased a 2-gallon sprayer from Home Depot, which cost about $20.  It worked really well!

For the spray, I used neem oil for the garden.  It needs to be diluted in water, with a bit of environmentally-friendly dish soap added as an emulsifier.  For that, I actually dissolved a bar of neem oil soap in water.  I purchased all of these products from www.neemking.org.  Make sure that if you do try this, follow the directions!

I also checked to see if any of the old apple trees had anything worth picking, and not really.  Even though we have a ton of apples this year (they even broke two of the branches off!), they all were afflicted with scab.  (Hopefully, the neem oil mixture will fix that for next year!)  I did pick some of the riper ones anyway, just to see if I can peel the apples.  I also picked a few pear trees from the younger pear tree in front of the Little House.

And, finally, it is nice to know that the fallen fruit doesn't go to waste.  When I pulled in this afternoon, this is what I saw!  They later came back again and snorted at me.  How dare I trespass on their personal orchard?

About The Casual Canner ...

Greetings and salutations!  You may know me as the Casual Costumer (if not, hopefully that explains the Clockwork Droid in my profile photo).  If so, you're probably not surprised that dabbling in cosplay isn't my only hobby.  I've also been gardening and canning the past few years, though not with a passion.  In fact, this is the first year that I've really done more than put some plants in the ground and hope for the best.  I've also only canned strawberry jam, apple butter, and pickled jalapenos, so I'm branching out quite a bit in both areas this year.  And it's only going to get more crazy from here on out.

Because I've started really getting into growing fruits and vegetables this year, as well as furthering my journeys into the world of canning and preserving, I've decided to start a new blog about it, and since I love alliteration and consistency, Casual Canner it is.  If you're looking for solid advice about canning, gardening, or fruit growing, this is probably not the blog for you.  If you're also a casual canner or gardener, then you may find some amusement within these pages.  I don't have much idea what I'm doing, although I've been getting a lot of help from various books this year.  This is mainly for my own records, so my posts may not be as prolific or as intelligent as in my other blog.

As you probably can ascertain, I have a home garden, which stretches along the side of my house.  When I was a kid, and my parents were still married, we had a neighbor with a double lot.  He was an old man, unable to take care of his yard, so my dad rented the backyard and the side lot, dug it all up, and planted a massive garden with every vegetable you can imagine.  I remember well that the entire side yard was nothing but corn!  One of my earliest memories is sitting in the garden watching my dad work.  According to my father,  he knew that if I ever wandered off, I could be found in the back area of the garden munching on carrots that I'd pulled straight out of the ground.  (After growing my own carrots, I cringe to think about how much more dirt than carrots I must have consumed.) 

When we moved to our new house, my mom tried to grow a garden in the backyard, but never really succeeded for one reason or another.  After my mom remarried, my husband and I bought the house, and the school next door took down the chain link fence and put up a new wooden fence.  During that process, they also removed the fence that ran between the house and the school.  I took the opportunity to pull up the ridiculous bush that was growing next to the house, tilled all the grass under, and put in a garden.  There have been years when it was nothing but a mud pit because I didn't get around to planting anything, or I didn't know what to do with our crop and let the tomatoes fall off the vines, but I've done a pretty good job of at least making an effort the last few years.  And this year, I really went all out.  I grew almost everything from seed, used a portable greenhouse to strengthen my seedlings, and then transplanted everything into the garden.  I even made a cucumber/zucchini trellis, though it failed (the cucumbers half-heartedly tried to climb them before dying, and the zucchini grew in the opposite direction).

This year, I've grown tomatoes, peppers, carrots, onions, various herbs, potatoes, raspberries, cabbages, pickling cucumbers, zucchini, lettuces, spinach, brussels sprouts, eggplant, cauliflower, celeriac, beans, and probably other things that I've forgotten already.  My husband is also growing hops.

Partial view of garden

In addition to that, we have two 20-year-old peach trees in desperate need of a good prune and a grape arbor.

My mother's family also has a small farm in Michigan, which was originally my grandparents' home before becoming our entire family's summer home.  That really deserves its own post, but I'll briefly mention here that it used to be a working fruit farm.  For the past 70 years or so, we've grown blueberries, cherries, blackberries, raspberries, apples, grapes, and pears.  Unfortunately, all of the fruit has been sadly neglected since I was a kid, but with the help of my husband, I've been taking care of the blueberry bushes for the last ten years.  We've also been working the past two years to add in new fruit trees, as the old trees are over 70 years old and don't produce very good fruit anymore.  I don't have the heart to chop them down, so I've been pruning them back a bit the last two years, and I've also added new fruit trees in the former sheep fields (oh yes, my grandparents briefly had sheep, chickens, and turkeys).  My efforts include revitalizing the grapes and planting new apple, pear, and cherry trees.  I've also added peaches, and I have wonderful plans next year for the raspberry and blackberry patches.

 

 

 

Partial view of outbuildings and the orchard - May 2013

 

So, what do I do with all of the wonderful produce that I grow?  Besides adding it into our meals, I make jam, jelly, and other canned goodies, and I also do a fair bit of freezing.  I've only been doing this on and off for a few years.  After I got married, I inherited quite a large extended family, and I quickly realized that mass-producing food is a great way to take care of all of your Christmas presents!  I remember watching my mom can when I was a kid, although, when my parents divorced and we moved to the new house, she quit canning.  (She blamed this on the fact that the new house didn't have double sink; after extensive canning this year, I understand her lamentations!)  So far this year, I've canned peach jam, peach conserve, sliced peaches, rhubarb/pear/ginger jam, cherry jam, cherry compote, salsa, apple rosemary jelly, raspberry curd, and more that I've forgotten.  They'll make great Christmas gifts!  I've also frozen dozens of cups of peaches, green beans, and pesto, and made some refrigerator pickles (I've never had success with canning pickles; they always get too soft).

Various cherry and raspberry items

Until next time!