The Adventures of CrazyED the beach sand guy

[CrazyEd]

I walked through my main orchard on sunday morning and snapped a few pictures to document what's still hanging. November 1.

Honeycrisp

Goldrush

Frostbite - this tree gets hammered by Cedar Apple Rust and the ants just love the fruit. The last 2 years this thing has been loaded but the fruit just gets totally covered in Ants. I plan on grafting this tree over to something else with better resistance. The fruit is also small.

Kerr is still loaded and still holding strong.

Honeygold - hit hard by cedar apple rust

Fall colors fading fast. Red Oaks always make for good treestands in fall because they do hold their leaves the longest.

 

[Tyler]

Nice. I'm piecing together a list of late hangers for 2016. Good to know.

Sent from my Z930L using Tapatalk

 

[greyphase]

Thanks for the update Matt. Those Kerr's really turned purple-black.

 

[buckvelvet]

Matt you are still the man! So we are looking to change frostbite to a more 'ant' resistant tree? Thats a new one. :)

 

[CrazyEd]

Matt you are still the man! So we are looking to change frostbite to a more 'ant' resistant tree? Thats a new one. :)

Yes, probably Liberty.

 

[buckvelvet]

Yes, probably Liberty.

Wouldn't it be more likely that that tree just happens to be in close proximity to a colony under the ground rather than specifically that tree is more attractive to them? They like anything with sugar content so really any apple/fruit variety would be a target. Just a thought?

 

[CrazyEd]

Wouldn't it be more likely that that tree just happens to be in close proximity to a colony under the ground rather than specifically that tree is more attractive to them? They like anything with sugar content so really any apple/fruit variety would be a target. Just a thought?

I don't know, just seems like the tree gets car bad, the apples are tiny, the ants are more prevelant on this tree than others in the area the past 2 years. I just think Liberty is a better choice.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[buckvelvet]

I don't know, just seems like the tree gets car bad, the apples are tiny, the ants are more prevelant on this tree than others in the area the past 2 years. I just think Liberty is a better choice.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

Oh yes disease resistance wise I understand where your coming from. Was there lots of aphids maybe thats why the ants were prevalent on this tree? Thats what happened to my cortland this year. Right next to a gala doing well but the aphids and ants were all over the cortland.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

FWIW, our Liberty trees have been pain-free at my camp. We don't baby and hand-hold them at all and they look great !! Bugs are the only thing to watch / spray for. DR works !!

 

[chickenlittle]

The U of M descriptions say the Frostbite apple can get cracks in the skin around the stem that can attract pests. That is one of the reasons why they waited so long to release it. They selected it in 1920 but it was not going to be liked by commercial growers but they still thought it was great tasting apple and used it in their crosses. They finally released it for home growers.

 

[CrazyEd]

I don't know whats more fun about hunting, is it the hunting itself or is it sitting in a treestand for hours and hours looking at the habitat around you trying to calculate the order you will hinge cut a series of trees the following spring, or just brainstorming some new improvement to bring to that spot.

The planning on my new orchard is well under way. As you know I have a nursery full of beautiful grafted fruit trees ready to move to the farm, and i've got truckloads of shit to plant them in. The next phase of that project is prepping the orchard site. Twice during the summer we nuked the whole place with roundup, and it had been sprayed a few times over the past 2-3 years, it's pretty solidly prepped. Now we are going to hopefully be taking a tractor and disk in there in the next 2 weeks, it might actually be gun hunting weekend. Tear up the whole place and then give it a heavy planting of native warm season grasses (Big blue, indian grass, little blue, switch, prairie drop), forbs (cup plant, rattle snake master, a few types of golden rods, new england astors, thickspiked gayfeather, pale purple cone flower, purple prairie clover, butterfly milkweed, wild lupine), we will use winter rye as a cover crop, 5lbs of medium red clover, pumpkin seeds, sunflowers, a few ppt, a few radish and all kinds of other goodies. We will put the seed down right away, pull a drag over it to cover it up. This orchard will be epic, thick cover and plenty of food in the form of soft mast and on the ground.

The area in size is about 1 acre and i'm going to pack hopefully 40 trees in there, that would be pretty tight. I'll take some pictures before and after.

 

[greyphase]

I'm looking forward to seeing more of the adventures of CrazyEd the beach sand guy. :D

 

[Tree Spud]

I don't know whats more fun about hunting, is it the hunting itself or is it sitting in a treestand for hours and hours looking at the habitat around you trying to calculate the order you will hinge cut a series of trees the following spring, or just brainstorming some new improvement to bring to that spot.

I stopped trying to decide which is more enjoyable ... they are both what it is all about ;)

 

[CrazyEd]

I have not been up to the farm since opening weekend gun hunting. My hectic work life has kept me away but i am going up to see my grandfather tomorrow. My kids have in service day at school so we are going up for a quick visit. I dont even know if i'll be able to get out in the woods if it is too cold. But, I am going to also scope out the snow situation, our rustic road does not get plowed so it's quite a hike to get to my orchard. I am planning to prune next weekend on sunday, so if you need scions let me know.

 

[Bill]

Have fun Ed.

You reminded me my pear needs pruning.

 

[Jordan Selsor]

Matt looking at your entire thread sure makes me wish I would have planted more crabs initially! Those chestnuts an Kerrs sure put on the fruit early

 

[Tyler]

Feel free to hop on over and prune your neighbors trees!

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Amen, Jordan !! I'm glad I listened to Sandbur, Stu, Maya, CrazyEd, Aero & Greyphase. I read about their successes with a variety of crabs and got a bunch planted 3 & 4 years ago. This past fall we had some crabs producing really well and more to start this year !! It's never too late ....... stick some in this year - and next !! Stu once busted on me, saying - " There's always room for more apple trees !! "

 

[CrazyEd]

I did not snap a picture but my goldrush tree was still holding one apple yesterday, march 18th. It was mush but i was still impressed. Earlier this week we had some crazy strong winds.

 

[CrazyEd]

Just got back from an absolutely fantastic 2 days at the farm. The intent was to Turkey hunt with my 4.5 year old daughter and father but really knew we probably wouldn't do much hunting. As we pulled into our place we flushed 4 turkeys that were hitting our man-made waterhole. An hour later we flushed another loan bird near one of my winter rye plots.

We planted a bunch of Indian Grass, Switchgrass, Big Bluestem, Rattlesnake Master, Astors, Golden Rods. Transplanted 20 or so red pines that were in the ditch ready to get mowed down. Silky Dogwood cuttings from Big Rock. Fixed up the barbed wire fence, put a bunch of perch limbs up for the birds in one of our fields, around 8 bluebird houses that were mostly occupied less than 24 hours later, mostly by swallows but the bluebirds were holding their own. My little packer backer was helping spread the seed.