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] Miracle Fruit Harvest,
Doreen Howard, 07/12/2010