Yesterday I noticed our ginourmous double trunked apple tree is held together with a rusty chain. Ingrown of course.
I guess the steel here grows in the trees as well, not just in the soil.
Despite producing tons of apples, this tree is not doing well. It's rotten inside and the apples have various fungal infections. Probably will have to go.
Both adult robins were off the nest this evening and heckling me so I figured I might as well take a photo. Looks like they all have hatched.
Robin's nest in the Gravenstein apple tree update. I saw two robins sitting in the nest this afternoon as I was walking by to turn some water off. I tried to take their picture but they got off the nest and protested. I decided to take a photo to inspect the nest, saw a little pink fuzzy thing so I guess they're starting to hatch.
I saw this nest the other day in an apple tree and it seemed new but had no eggs in it. It looked like a house finch nest. Today when I was propping up the branch the nest was in I saw an American robin sitting in it. It left so I took a photo to see if there were any eggs in it and there were two. It still looks like a house finch nest, no mud!
Orchard update. I need to start picking black caps, the apples are slowly getting thinned at the rate the geese will eat them, and there are peaches and a few Brooks plums.
None of the pears or apricots set fruit or the other plum tree. I think this Brooks plum was probably a year older, it had big roots when I planted it.
Help, what's up with my apple #tree ?
The leaves on the new growth of branches look diseased. Photo shows example, they have a white fuzz on them and they will curl up and wither. I have a feeling it spreads back down the branch throughout the year, but unsure. It usually hosts massive colonies(?) of some sort of larvae, not sure what, covered in a silk like web. Perhaps this is it? Or perhaps they are attracted to the white stuff?
The apples grow with scabs on their skins. Related?
Some of the Jonathan and Gravenstein apples starting to grow during the cell division phase.
The old Esopus Spitzenburg tree. I think I transplanted it here in 2012, it was probably 3 years old from seedling if it wasn't just a root sucker if the other tree is grafted on a spitz root stock because it doesn't grow very fast either. So probably 15 years old. I haven't pruned it much if ever except to get wood for the grafts I did. It might be 10 feet tall now with a 4 inch trunk maybe.
Honey bees on apple blossoms. Both of the Esopus Spitzenburg, or Spitz, are full bloom now and everything else is still blooming with some bee activity.
Spring has Sprung
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Honey bees and apple blossoms. Saw a bumble bee too but it had no desire to stay on a blossom for more than a half second.
Mostly finished with chopping out cottonwood suckers. The view of the orchard/pasture is much better now and the geese gave their approval (or flexing dominance from a distance).
The view into the pasture/orchard is a bit better since I chopped/dug out a lot of the poplar/cottonwood suckers on Sunday. More to take out but I needed a break from swinging the axe and dragging brush so today I moved 250 liters of dirt twice, 4 arm loads of wood, 220 liters of sticks, and 150 liters of leaves... oh and 15 minutes of slicing sticks with the chainsaw for that one raised bed.
The the grafted Spitz apple is starting to bloom now too.
Bees in the Gravenstein apples and the Brooks plum. Looked like maybe a few migratory bees around today. Pear orchards are blooming and the cherries are just starting to.
The Comice pear has open blooms and the Spitzenburg apple tree that's on it's own roots is showing some pink.
One Jonathan apple blossom open. It's on the 1 out of 4 branches/leaders of a Gravenstein tree. I guess some of the early Gravenstein bloom will be pollinated.
