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  • From: Bill Jones <billj AT harborside.com>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Planting apple trees...Interrupting the regularly scheduled programming to ask a homesteading question...
  • Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 12:26:43 -0700

Marie McHarry wrote:

As you know, if you've been keeping track of list e-mails, I've planted a
number of apple trees. Various sources suggest that to protect young trees
they should be painted with white or light-colored interior latex paint.
Yesterday, I wandered into an Ace and found only glossy acrylic interior
latex paint. Can I use that stuff on my trees? It has nearly killed me to
plant them (though the long-handled shovel was worth every penny I paid for
it), so I don't want to do anything that might damage my darlings.

Marie



I painted Japanese plum trees a couple of times with a simple whitewash made of milk and dolomite. The goal was to get them to bloom later. It turned out that they bore fruit every year anyway, despite blooming in late January, so I didn't bother with it further. It didn't seem to cause any harm.

If I were to do it again, I'd probably substitute powdered feldspar from the pottery supply store (dirt cheap) for some of the dolomite.

Biodynamicists paint their trees with all kinds of pastes made with clay and manure and such (some of which are light-colored), so I would think that little harm can come of using these mixtures on dormant trees.

Bill
S. Oregon coast




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