April 9, 2015

Good morning, I want to thank Gwin Grimes ,form the Alpine Avalanche, for providing me with the mother load of rubber bands. I could very easily have a life time supply (several one pound bags of rubber bands). It is funny how roles change, before anyone purchases rubber bands please!!! talk to me first, because I can help!!

What a pleasant surprise to see a few of my very neglected fruit trees survive.

Last year before the rains began, June was just like that “friend” you wish would just leave. I hit the wall with watering from 2 AM until 2 PM only to get up in the morning and do it all again (it reminded me of Groundhog Day, the movie). I hit the wall!!! First I drew back on what I could do and not watering the fruit trees was the first change. Fruit in West Texas is at best a maybe, but if I could keep the garden hydrated, that would be a certainty. So the fruit trees were on their own.

There are a few trees that seem to have been able to handle this treatment and by all appearances are doing fair to good with some doing surprisingly well. This was the second year where the fruit trees got the short end of the watering stick, so this is further proof to me that these are pretty drought hardy trees. The key is they were established going into this.

The trees that did not make it: Stella cherry, Montmorency pie cherry , Winesap apple, Gala apple, Northern spy apple, ranger peach, and Braeburn apple.

The trees that have come through are: granny smith apple, independence nectarine, Arkansas black apple, Hunza apricot, pomegranate, hale haven peach, Belle of Georgia peach ( I see some borers, not good) , Le Grande nectarine, and Indian blood peach.

It is my desire to try and keep these guys going. They all seem to be covered with blossoms. Which could in its self, not a good sign. It reminds me of my time working in the Weyerhauser Southern Forestry Research Center in Hot Spring Arkansas. The research station was very sadistic as to what they did to pine trees. These treatments were done to force the trees into a survival mode. What I learned is that a very heavily fruited tree can mean one of 2 things: very happy or about to kick the bucket. Looking as to what my trees have been trough, option 2 weighs pretty heavy.

Let us hope that the rains continue, freezing is over and we have a joyous temperate growing season this year. My fingers are crossed but I won't be holding my breath.

The garden for the most part is planted. I am waiting for the sweet sets to arrive the middle of the month. Most of the sweet propagation has not been as satisfactory as I would have liked. A bottom heating propagation pad would more than likely enhance my success. I only have another 20 feet of okra to go. I need to pull some bolting chard. Chickens go YUM!!!. First blossoms on the summer squash are forming, maybe by the end of the month. Peppers have set, toms have blossoms, I think there is the first signs of blooms on the beans. Garlic is looking nice with big thick stalks, and the bulb onions are looking very nice. I do need to mulch them though. Second harvest of peas, sure would be nice if they hung on until the end of the month. I am not seeing any heat stress or aphids, both very positive signs. Just for funzzies I did a succession of boc choy. Most winter greens seem to detest our spring heat, but it has been a very strange year, so what the heck. Open bed, plenty of seed, just might get lucky.

I have been given some seed for pole beans. One is a yard long bean and another is for dried beans. I am a bit apprehensive to grow them. Most culture for pole beans is to trellis, i.e. the “pole” in pole beans. Now the dilemma, I am seeing another year of leaf hoppers. Leaf hopper? These are the vector for Western Curling Disease (WCD). WCD is a virus and eventually kills the plant if let to go full term (a mistake I did last year). Need to pull plants at first signs. In the process infected plants can and will infect the rest of the plants.

I have found WCD has it's favorites: Solanaceae (toms, peppers, eggplants, potatoes), chard and beets along with beans. Spraying the leaf hoppers on the plant will kill the hopper but if it is an infected hopper and was chewing on a plant, you have a dead bug and a dead plant. Maybe the only preventive control is to cover with fabric. Hence the problem, 8 foot poles are very very hard to cover effectively. Sooo, the culture I can provide is to let them ramble and thus be able to protect them with fabric. I am not sure how productive these will be. It would be extremely difficult to control the hoppers due to the garden being surrounded by acres and acres of native vegetation. This will be interesting, always up to another challenge. Stay tuned!!

What a wild wind storm yesterday. All was good until 6:15 P when along with the 39 mph wind along comes a gut of 59. And I was sent to the garden to anchor fabric from blowing away or beating plants with the loose ends.. Things calmed down enough about 30 minutes later to asses how all the plantings were doing. As expected everything came through fine, but what a rus thee for awhile!!!