[NAFEX] Who ate my fruit and wrapping and bagging
barbbhb at aol.com
barbbhb at aol.com
Tue Jul 10 08:37:03 EDT 2007
Hi? Randy and all. I too survived the spring frost (zone 6b,?old zones) only to lose most of my peaches to the squirrels. I had wrapped several?limbs on dwarf trees with tulle (even stapling any potential entry points) and bagged a couple of lone peaches (squirrels had already gotten the rest on the limb) only to find chew marks and holes and missing or dropped peaches in the tulle the NEXT DAY!?
Lat year I had put up large stakes with bird netting and it took them a lot longer to get in that enclsure so I think I will go back to that method. It seems when the enclosure is a bit of a distrance from the tree (as opposed to the tulle right on the limb) it takes the tree rats a little longer to get in. I actually had enough peaches to make jam last year.
Ultimately, since I have dwarf trees, I might try to make a wood structure with a small gauge chicken wire stapled to the frame. I had hoped to avoid this for 2 reasons: 1) I hate working with chicken wire b/c I always cut myself (no proclimations of grace here!) and 2) winter storage of frames.
Any other ideas?
Barbara Harrick
Message: 6
Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2007 19:31:34 -0400
From: "Randall Burd" <burdrs at comcast.net>
Subject: [NAFEX] Who ate all my fruit?
To: <nafex at lists.ibiblio.org>
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I thought that I got lucky and didn't get the frost damage that everyone was
talking about. And then.....
Then my apple trees on M27 in pots lost all their flowers to my 3 year old
daughter (she's really into picking any kind of flower).
Then I lost all my raspberries to some creature heavy enough to break the
canes. My main suspect is birds since I found some of the remaining berries
half eaten off. Any other ideas?
Then I lost every (and I mean EVERY) peach, plum and nectarine. The only
remnants are the pits with small chew marks laying on the ground around the
trees and around nearby oak trees. My main suspect: the squirrels but I
think that the birds might have been in on this one too. Any other ideas?
I bought a squirrel trap and some critter ate the bait but didn't trigger
the trap.
All I have to hope for is the bagged apples, the fall raspberries and a few
cluster of grapes.
I've concluded that the backyard orchard is only for crazy people who
believe in the future.
Randy
Zone 6
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