North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Erdman, James" <ErdmanJ@uwstout.edu>]

I'm in western Wisconsin, an hour east of St Paul, MN.  We have been doing 
some work around our yard, specifically building a retaining wall near one of 
our vegetable gardens (that is gradually becoming my tree/berry nursery), and 
it involves digging a few feet into our heavy clay soil.  All the earthworms 
that we have seen have been in small knotted clumps, and the soil is bone dry 
once you get under the surface a few inches.  Then, in the last 2 days we 
have gotten about 2 1/2 inches (2.5) of rain, so it will be interesting to 
see what this has done to the soil moisture.
 
Regarding bees, so far this spring I have seen exactly 2 (two) honeybees, 
both on dandelions.  I saw none at all on fruit tree blossoms, but did see 
numerous smaller varieties of bees that I didn't identify, and I do have what 
appears to be good fruit set on apples, pears, apricots, plums, etc., 
although my little peach tree that had a single blossom didn't set fruit.  We 
did have almost a week of 18 to 20 degree low  temps in April when some trees 
were just starting to show a few buds opening, so I was very surprised to see 
all the trees blossom and set fruit.  Now there is just the rest of the 
summer to make it through.
 
Most of my apple and pear bench grafts that looked so good last fall didn't 
make it through the winter, but I did graft more this spring, including 
trying pears on amelanchier (serviceberry) rootstock, having been inspired by 
David Sliwa's orchard workshop last summer.
 
I rented a chipper a few weeks ago and my sons and I spent a long day 
chipping up lots of brush, branches, and limbs, and ended up with probably 
about 12 to 15 cubic yards of wood chips, and cleared up a lot of mess.  I 
used a lot of the chips to mulch berries and fruit trees.  I have been trying 
to mulch more and mow less often.  I also got a used Troy Bilt sickle bar 
mower to replace my ailing Gravely, so that I can mow more reliably in the 
orchard.
 
Jim Erdman, in Menomonie, WI

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