Recent content by Rubee

I’ve used 1/2 plastic electrical conduit. The grey stuff. Cut into 5 foot pieces. They work well but sometimes are hard to drive straight depending on the soil. Do NOT cut them on an angle. They won’t go in perpendicular.

I’ve used 5 foot ventilated miracle tubes for seven years now. A few have deteriorated but most are still working great. For stakes I cut pressure treated 2 by 6s -10 foot long in half (5’) and rip them on a table saw about 1and 1/4 wide to get eight 5 foot stakes.

Nice write up and visual Foggy thank you. The baffle to keep coons from reaching the nest floor is a great idea. How does the three inch entrance hole exclude a starling?

I’m no expert but I think it would be a great time to fertilize your trees. I think it takes a long time for the rains to dissolve and get the fertilizer down to the roots. I toss a couple of cups of triple 10 or 12 around the drip line and still see some on the surface months later.

Great video Poorsand. Thank for posting it. I wonder what machine they use to pick the apples up from the ground.

I read somewhere that if you place straw bales around an early blooming tree that it insulates the ground from early warmup and delays blooming. Never tried it though so don’t know if it works or not.

Great photos Sandbur. My gosh! Looks like you’re feeding a herd of deer with your crabs. You’re definitely helping many get through this rough winter. 👍

Chestnut and Blue Hill’s Candy crabapples.

Some grafters leave a “nurse” branch below the top worked graft to help the tree recover by providing photosynthesis. I haven’t done that on the 4-5 pears and crabapples I’ve topped worked. I wanted all the trees growth to help the grafts. It’s worked well so far. If I do leave a nurse branch...

I’ve only been grafting for two seasons so take my advise with that in mind. I had a similar accident on a pear tree. I made a clean cut below the busted central leader and cleft grafted two scions last Spring. I removed all growth below the grafts and the both scions put on at least 3 feet of...

Sounds like a great plan that worked well for you last season. Did you broadcast the mix or drill?

Has anyone bought Dolgo seedlings from Porcupine Hollow Farm and if so how are they growing? Anyone graft to Prairie crabapple rootstock (malus ioensis) and how did they do for you? Growth rate, mature size, disease resistance etc.

Drugs my a.. It’s about oil and pushed by ExxonMobil.

Haha! Acid stratification. Plant them and they shall come.

I’m sorry Mort. That’s a real kick in the stomach to lose a beautiful pear tree after years of babying it and waiting for it to fruit. Did any other trees get hit?