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  • From: "Lisa K. V. Perry" <lkvp AT floydva.net>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Very, very quiet
  • Date: Tue, 07 Mar 2006 10:23:30 -0500

Gene GeRue wrote:

You're killing me here. I tried for years to eat a peach off my trees. Brown rot thwarted me every time, sometimes just before maturity. I either have to do the chemical dance or close off that part of my brain as a matter of pain avoidance. All peach trees have been cut down. Sob.

Oh, Gene. I'm sorry. I should have qualified my statement that we get 3-4 bushels in a *good* year. We've had two great years out of five, one fair-to-middlin' and two sub-par. Summer 04 we had a total of 10 or 12 peaches on the entire tree, thanks to a windy rain storm that knocked off the blossoms just as they had bloomed. Brown rot takes 33 to 50% of the peaches. The first two years we faithfully followed the previous owner's instructions and sprayed using dormant oil and a copper oil of some kind (name escapes me), but the last three years we either didn't spray at all or only sprayed once. We haven't noticed a difference in the level of brown rot with spraying or not spraying--it happens either way. The biggest trick, as with all of gardening, is getting Mother Nature to cooperate.

Ray, when you have a good year--can, freeze and eat as many peaches as you possibly can because you will have the not-so-good years in between. We put up so many peaches in 03 that we were still eating them in 04 and 05.

Lisa





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