Tree spikes at Fleet

foggy

5 year old buck +
OK.....so Sandbur is always promoting tree spikes. And, I with the sale at Fleet Farm I latched onto five packs. C'mon Apples!! Also bought some water "sorb" pellets. Gonna drill some holes under a few new trees and insert the moisture pellets. Limed all my trees.....and spread a little cow compost over the area on the better trees.

They are all screened and fenced......and 6 to 7 years old. I better see some apples this year!! :rolleyes:
 
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OK.....so Sandbur is always promoting tree spikes. And, I with the sale at Fleet Farm I latched onto five packs. C'mon Apples!! Also bought some water "sorb" pellets. Gonna drill some holes under a few new trees and insert the moisture pellets. Limed all my trees.....and spread a little cow compost over the area on the better trees.

They are all screened and fenced......and 6 to 7 years old. I better see some apples this year!! :rolleyes:
OOPS....and here is the sale at Fleet.... $3.99 for 9 spikes. I bought the citrus and fruit tree spikes.
 
6-7 years on standard rootstocks....and you may still be 3-4 years away from bearing age ;)

OK.....Maybe I will see a few apples while I still have my teeth. ;) :D
 
Teeth? You must be special...most of the folks I encounter in central MN are happy with "tooth" :eek:

Grin. Reminds me of the in-keeper in Finland....who said: "Yeah Finland....where men are men....and so are the women".
 
Eat applesauce. It keeps you regular and you do not have to chew so much.

I hope you have some luck, Tom. I did show you that 25 year old flowering crab on my north property. Maybe 6 feet tall.

Water and soila re a big part of the problem.
 
I limed the soil when I planted the trees......and have top dressed lime several times......including this year. Cant say I tested the soil tho......but I think the PH should be relatively high now. I may try to get some compost soils under the trees via my soil auger and cordless drill method.....and have some of those water crystals mixed in for good measure.

Interesting thing on my land is that the water table is only a few feet down. If the trees (or crops) can get rooted to two or three feet.....they will have adequate moisture (somewhat depending on "where" on my land). I get some tremendous yearly growth out of my pines.
 
The pH's I have run up north are in the 5's.

I now add lime when I plant apples up there. I have scattered a bit of lime around that stunted flowering crab. Blueberries like acid.
 
Where are you getting your Pell Lime? I stopped at Menards at Lunch and could not glean anything out of the lime-bag they have. This is my second leaf on my apple trees, how many pounds should I put down? My property has a PH of about 5.9.
 
Menard's or HD is where I get most of my pell lime. 5.9 isn't bad, apples like 6-6.5 Blueberry soils are usually in the 4's and low 5's.

With 5.9 I'd sprinkle a few lbs. around the drip line each spring. You're getting good growth on your apples Freeborn. Art says he has a 25 year old 6' flowering crab....something ain't right there.
that flowering crab is up north=in the front yard where my cabin used to be if you remember it. There have been wild blueberries on that property.

Where I live, I have flowering crabs from the same order that are 20 feet tall and I would guess 8 inches in diameter. These flowering crabs were never fertilized or limed.
 
what do you experts think about the theory that crab apples will tolerate a more acid soil as compared to larger apples.
 
Crabs on their own roots will grow in poorer soil than will grafted apples/crabapples....but they'd still much prefer a ph around 6 - 6.5 and decent soil.

If I still had to deal with the low ph and sandy soil at my folks' place for fruit trees, I'd be planting a lot of ranetka and baccata crabs. Get them established and then t-bud to them in a few years.

what rootstock does Bailey's use besides Columbia? dolgo?
 
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