June Drop, Fire Blight, Squatters

Last year, all my peaches fell off the tree in early June. This year, the peaches on the tree look bigger and healthier than they looked last year and I hoped I was in the clear. Yesterday, it started. June Drop. When peach trees have too many fruit, they do drop some fruit this time of year, I'm hoping that's all this is but after last year, I'm expecting the worst. No body knows exactly what causes it but competition for nutrients and water seems to have something to do with it. We've had plenty of rain and I fertilized earlier this week.

June Drop

I've had to cut two branches out of one pear tree. It looks like fire blight to me. Fire blight is a bacterial infection that works its way down the branch to the tree. There is no cure. The only thing to do is cut out branches as they start to show symptoms. You cut several inches below the obvious infection and hopefully it hasn't moved down past where you cut the branch off. A few days ago I was hoping that the 5 or 6 pears on the tree survived until they were ripe. Now I'm hoping the tree survives.

I can spray some preventative chemicals next year in early spring but it's too late to do anything now and it can spread into the rest of the fruit trees.

fire blight

Something's moved into my grapes. I don't know what it is yet. My wife thinks it's a Mocking bird.

squatters