North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[John S <swim_at_svc@yahoo.com>]

Doreen, 

Glad you are doing better.  The subject of your post got me going, as I thought you were going to talk about picking miracle fruit.  I gave up on that plant as it was too difficult in this climate.

Don't blame yourself for not having good harvests in previous years.  This year's growing season has been longer here and more rain than typical.  Perhaps something similar there?

John



--- On Mon, 7/12/10, Doreen Howard <gardendiva@charter.net> wrote:

From: Doreen Howard <gardendiva@charter.net>
Subject: [NAFEX] Miracle Fruit Harvest
To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
Date: Monday, July 12, 2010, 9:15 PM

2010 has been a health disaster for me.  A knee replacement in March that infected.  More surgery in April to clean up the wound, and then I slipped and fell and broke my left shoulder a week later.  Of course, I'm left handed.

Needless-to-say, I didn't do anything in my yard.  I had to hire a lawn service to mow my acre.  No pruning, no spraying, no fertilizer, no bagging, nothing.  Not being able to even walk at times, I mentally wrote off 2010 for fruit.

I now have the largest crop and biggest fruit ever on the Seedless Concord and Swenson's Red grapes, and Chippewa, Maine Wild and Patriot blueberries. The berries are ripening and delicious.  Grapes are starting to color, and they are huge and disease-free!  Asian pears, Honeycrisp, Ashmead's Kernel, Pixie Crunch, Golden Delicious, Sops of Wine and Wealthy apple trees are loaded with fruit, have self-pruned by dropping and have no visable disease! I'm astonished!!

Maybe, I've been working too hard.  I think it has more to do with that my soil is finally totally engulfed with mycorrhizal fungi and other beneficial microbes.  I inoculated everything I planted five years ago, but I planted with plenty of space in between. It may be that soil food web has finally matured and is doing its job.  Next year, I'll go back to my usual routine and see what happens.

Meanwhile, I'm very grateful for all the wonderful fruit and that I finally can work a bit in the garden.
Doreen Howard
Roscoe, IL
Zone 4b (WI-IL border)
_______________________________________________
nafex mailing list
nafex@lists.ibiblio.org

Reproduction of list messages or archives is not allowed.
This includes distribution on other email lists or reproduction on web sites.
Permission to reproduce is NEVER granted, so don't claim you have permission!

**YOU MUST BE SUBSCRIBED TO POST!**
Posts from email addresses that are not subscribed are discarded.
No exceptions.
----
To subscribe or unsubscribe, go to the bottom of this page (also can be used to change other email options):
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/nafex

File attachments are NOT stripped by this list.
TAKE STEPS TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM COMPUTER VIRUSES!
Please do not send binary files.
Use plain text ONLY in emails!

NAFEX web site:   http://www.nafex.org/