[NAFEX] Baltimore City Fruit Tree Plantings

Chris Garriss cgarriss at garriss.net
Sat Dec 5 16:14:41 EST 2009


 "Not possible" was likely too strong - some species would be much more difficult. There are some additional pests - never saw a Japanese beetle when I was growing up; now they are an obnoxious pest where my sister lives near Frederick MD. We had sweet (always referred to as "Blackheart" cherries) and tart (Morello), which were essentially pest free. Pears (seckel and others I do not remember), apples (Black Twig, Arkansas Black, an apple we called May, Grimes Golden, tree referred to as the "apple sauce tree", and a huge crabapple), and lots of other small fruits. Among other "wild" fruits were wild cherries everywhere. None of the cultivated ones were sprayed with anything, pruned minimally. All were full size trees. And naturally the wildings got no attention other than picking of fruits and nuts when ripe...no one bothered much about the wild cherries for anything.

-----Original Message-----
From: Road's End Farm [mailto:organic87 at frontiernet.net]
Sent: Saturday, December 5, 2009 12:26 PM
To: cgarriss at garriss.net, 'North American Fruit Explorers'
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Baltimore City Fruit Tree Plantings


On Dec 5, 2009, at 12:05 PM, Chris Garriss wrote:


When and where I grew up in MD was a different time in many ways -everyone "out in the country" had lots of fruit - apples (includingcrabapples), pears, cherries (sweet and tart), peaches, blackberry,raspberry, strawberry....none of them sprayed. Which is not possiblethese days.


If possible then, why not possible now?

Have all of these plants had an invasion of pests and diseases whichweren't in the area at the time? I expect there are some problems nowthat didn't exist years ago; but wonder if at least some of theproblem isn't destruction of beneficials caused by the very sprayingintended to control problems that were minor to start with; or, forthat matter, if it isn't still possible now to grow at least some ofthose species unsprayed, but few people are trying it.

--Rivka
Finger Lakes NY; zone 5 mostlyrry, straw© 
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