Fruit at last
Summer is on the way but rather haphazardly. The weather has been alternatingly hot and cold. This can be a real problem with pollination. Some trees have fruit but others missed out altogehter. Apricots and some plums look good. The peach and nectarine trees on the other hand were severely affected by curly leaf
and cropping was erratic. We have never had curly leaf like this year. We have had to remove many leaves manually so that the trees can recovered. Curly leaf if really bad can kill the trees.
Lots of grass as we have had lots of showers after going through winter with hardly any rain. Grass cutting is my domain. For the fruit trees the bulk of the slashing is done with the tractor slasher but with the berries much has to be done with a small mower much like the domestic mowers everyone uses. This can be very time consuming and endless when the grass is growing quickly.
The good news is that the support structure for the cherries in our main cherry orchard is in place. The old one which survived the bush fire had to be removed and new placements for the posts and anchors put in. Now just waiting on the netting and hopefully will get it up this season. We also intend to cover our new blueberry patch down the front. We have never had our own blueberries for sale before. In the early years we had another supplier nearby growing them but they went out of business. Every year people ask us when they will get blueberries and we have had to say never. But hopefully that will change soon too.
One of our my problems has been the increase in wildlife. After the bush-fire we had a few years grace as much of the animals in our locality were killed when the fire went through. Now we have increasing numbers of possums and wallabies jumping our fences and doing untold damage to our fruit trees. It is almost impossible to grow young trees as the animals favour their more tender leaves. And the older trees have few leaves up to a height that the wallabies can reach. Even when you tighten up the fences, checking for weak spots they just seem to walk through the electric fences like they don’t exist.
The good news is that we are picking strawberries again. This is always the first fruit of the season.
Just one more note for all is that the special has started on orders for jams and chutneys. No shipping costs will be included for orders over $20 until the 18th November. So take advantage of this once only offer and get your stocks or pressies in for Christmas. just go to www.farmhousedirect.com.au/eurekafarm