Problematic Pears

I'm not an orchardist. For Christmas, I received two books about orcharding, but neither prepared me for what has been happening to my pears.

I pruned the trees in February. The three trees had grown quite too tall for me to manage and so I did some drastic cutting. Perhaps I left some open wounds. Although the damage I am seeing hasn't been specifically around where I cut, but on a wide range of branches. Only two of the three trees have been affected. One theory I keep popping around in my head is that somehow, I ended up with a parasite. Or, it could me a number of problems.

I went out this evening and pruned off the branches that had dead leaves and shriveling fruit. Because I'm not skilled, I don't know what else I should be doing. I need to do some research about this.

Other than this, I actually have an abundance of fruit on all three pear trees. This is a very different situation than what I have found on my peaches and plums, which are almost bare.

Initial Peach Harvest

I have been watching the peaches on my trees. I don't remember the names of the varieties I planted (except for China Pearl, but this entry is not about them). I have six trees and three varieties, all free stone. Last year, I had very few peaches and those that did develop had black blotches and a lot of worms and other pests. So, this year, I decided that I needed to spray. I don't know why, but I had a lot of peaches develop. Jenna and I reduced the number by about a third a month and a half ago. I've heard that you need to thin the fruit, which drove this. Then, I sprayed. The product I bought said to spray no more often that every 11 days, to spray no more than 3 times, and to not spray 21 days before harvest. I have only sprayed twice so far.

I went to check the fruit last evening and pick one off the ground that looked good. Another truism, "When the fruit is ripe, it will fall." There was a worm in it. As I inspected the other fruit, I saw some that had developed some sort of a fungus, suggesting it might be over-ripe or that there was something that was about to spread. There weren't too many fruits that were like this, but enough that I decided to harvest this morning. (I've got a dental cleaning appointment, so I had some time.) So, I harvested the two trees that were ready to go. I suspect these peaches may need a day or so to further ripen; they seemed a bit hard. It's not a great harvest, but it will surely be sufficient for our current needs and resources. I'm not sure what to do with the peaches yet. I've canned before, but there are other things to do, like peach jam. Of course, just eating some is most interesting. The birds were starting (just starting) to pick some of the top fruit. (I ate one of these for breakfast.)

The peaches are small, but there are no black blotches this year. I'm not sure that I know at all what I am doing. Because the other two varieties are still very green, I gave them their last shot of spray. I also sprayed the apples and pears. They had the same blotches last year and a lot of worms.

Orchard Report

I took a quick trip through the orchard to see how things were developing. I have two plum trees. I found fruit on one, the Methley, but not the other.


All three pear trees had fruit that was set.


I have six peach trees. Some of the fruit was set. This image was from the tree that was furthest along. Others had very small fruit, just starting to show. There were two trees on which I didn't see any fruit.


One of the peach trees had very weak leaf development and no fruit that I could see.


The apples all had fruit that had set. I will need to thin these out quite a bit. I have yet to get really good apples off any of the trees. One died last year.



Also, not pictured, both the apricots died, but the root sent up new wood. I kept one sapling alive on each tree and cut off the rest last year. I don't think I actually have an apricot tree anymore, just whatever the root stock sent up. If I knew about grafting and where I could get apricot branches, I will address this for both trees.

The persimmon is alive and growing leaves. It's an odd tree, but seems to be coming on strong this year. I'm hoping it will find a central branch to make the trunk. Right now, the strongest branch juts off to one side.

What I don't know how to do is treat the trees for the problems they will all face. It is not crucial that I learn immediately, but eventually I need to learn how to take care of the orchard.

Pears

The pear trees are only two years old (at least planted in my yard), but they produced a decent crop of pears. I don't know what the off color spots are caused by. I guess some research is needed.


I harvested the pears several weeks ago to try to avoid damage by birds and bugs. I probably picked 20-30 (I didn't count and I didn't weigh them). They half filled a paper grocery bag. I let them sit to ripen. We waited a bit too long. By the time we got to them, half had spoiled. Kathy canned the good ones, getting about two quarts. Still very tasty.

Apple Tree Problems

Not being an arborist or having any training in caring for an orchard, I am not skilled at understanding how to care for my trees. I simply planted them and have assumed that when I needed to know, I would go searching for knowledge and figure things out. (It's a hobbyist attitude, I know.)

So far, I have assumed that the apple trees, now 6 or 7 years old, just needed time to grow. They have produced small fruit each year, but nothing amazing. The trees themselves are still relatively small. I recently noticed that there are branches that have simply died on two of the trees. So now I have my wake up call. I haven't had a chance to really figure things out yet because other things are taking my time. I suspect my first task should just be to prune off the dead branches. I would like to know what is happening though, and so my second task is to figure out what is going on. Right now, I don't understand it.

Small Peaches

In the winter of 2009, I planted 6 freestone peach trees I obtained from a nursery in Tennessee. I got three varieties, Champion, China Pearl, and Contender. They all made it through the winter, but are all still very small. I didn't expect anything and picked off nearly all the fruit that did form. I guess I left a few on one of the trees. They are small, but very delicious. I believe the variety I harvested was Champion.

Pruning

When Doug Shaw was here the other day, he commented that I needed to get out and prune the orchard. It was a nice morning to do it.

Some of what needed to be done was attending to my apricot trees. The grafted trees died last year, but the roots for both of them evidently lived. Both roots sent up suckers.

I know that without the grafts, I won't have good fruit (or maybe any fruit at all), but my thinking is that if the roots are still good, I may eventually be able to graft something on that will replace the trees I lost.

So, I selected a strong sucker and pruned out the rest. I left the old trunk in place, thinking it would serve some purpose. As you can see in the photo, a fungus of some sort has already started to work on the old trunk. It's just an experiment. I'm in no hurry and time will tell. I had one apple tree die last summer and a pecan that never did take hold. I did the same for these trees that had sent suckers up because its roots were evidently still alive.

I also pruned the other trees in the orchard. Most of the apples needed just a little thinning. I'm no expert. My strategy is to simply take out branches the either point the wrong direction or cross over other branches. I did a little pruning on the pears, but not much, and minimal pruning on the plums. I left the peaches, the pecans, and the persimmon alone.

All the trees had signs of buds. The temperatures have been warm the past few days. All the flowering trees will soon be in bloom.

A Persimmon

Yes, a persimmon. Just one!

My fruit growing skills are not yet developed. Several years ago, I started planting fruit trees. I planted 9 heirloom apples from a supplier in the North Carolina mountains. Since then I have planted 3 pear trees, 4 pecans (2 died, but 1 of those sent out a new shoot from the root), 6 peaches, 4 trees that I thought were sour cherry (but probably are not according to Clarence Brown), 2 plums, and 2 apricots (both died but the roots have sent out new shoots). I think one of the apples has since died. It bloomed this year, but the leaves fell off prematurely. And then there is the single persimmon tree, that I planted this year and didn't expect anything from but ended up with a single, small persimmon.

Three of the apple trees actually produced fruit. However, I didn't harvest any. One got too heavy with fruit and a branch broke off in the wind. One (the one that lost its leaves) had fruit, but I didn't get any before it gave up the ghost. The last one actually produced nice sized fruit, but the birds and bugs got to them before I did. I'm not a successful fruit grower yet, except my small persimmon.

This reminds me of a Japanese tongue twister. Tonari no kyaku wa youku kaki kuu kyaku da. The customer next to me eats a lot of persimmons.

Of course, I thought it was ready to pick, so it now sits in the kitchen. But Kathy informed me that she had just talked to a friend today who has a large persimmon tree. Evidently, you aren't supposed to harvest persimmons until they fall from the tree. I actually had to tug pretty hard to get this one to come off. I don't think it is ripe.

One persimmon and I harvested it incorrectly!

A garden is tended by a gardener. What do you call someone who tends and orchard?