New England April 2014

Cpl100  chicken manure can be very good stuff. Using it fresh though can burn your plants because it is so strong. It is wonderful once it has aged and is a great addition to your compost pile. If the farmer says his eggs are organic,  even better because then he should be using a chicken feed without hormones and such. Before I used the SFG method I used to make a chicken manure tea and use that early in the spring before I planted. Maybe someone on the forum has used that type of tea on their SFG and can give some input.

CC- Woohoo!!!

And it's a dwarf! I think I'm going to hold out for a dwarf. Semi-dwarfts can still grow 20' and take up too much space. Hmm. Still mulling it over.

Please spill. How much did you pay for the little darling?

cpl100 - Good for you, finding a source of clean chicken manure!

I have chickens and in the springtime I shovel out their coop and put it on the garden beds, but it's been sitting in there an entire year for the most part. If you don't know how long his has been sitting, I'd probably dump it into the compost pile to "set" and use later. Or, if you're making new beds, you can add it to those, and then grow in the new beds next spring.

He'll probably know if the chicken manure is fresh, or how long it's been composting, you can ask him.

I went to a gardening class and the speaker said chicken manure is the best manure for your garden. I don't know if that's true, but I'm sure it's good. And from a local guy at least you know where it's coming from.

CapeCoddess wrote:So I'm lurking and reading all this peach talk, left work to go home for lunch, and my ding dang car pulls into the local nursery all by itself on the way by...
The result:
  

I love my car...

CC

Congratulations CC! !!! You are going to love that little tree. Baby pictures please! I'm so glad I'm not the only one to have a fruit tree follow me home. Can your car teach mine to drive to the garden center on it's own? Then I'd really have a good excuse for all the plants I bring home.   

Come on NHGardener you're the next in line to become the proud parent of a little fruit tree! 

NHGardener wrote:CC- Woohoo!!!

And it's a dwarf! I think I'm going to hold out for a dwarf. Semi-dwarfts can still grow 20' and take up too much space. Hmm. Still mulling it over.

Please spill. How much did you pay for the little darling?

It's not so little, it's over 7 ft. above the bucket it's in.  I chose the smallest one so I could keep it small without pruning it til fall.  I  would have to have pruned any of the others before planting since they were on up to 10 ft.

$36.99, no tax on fruit trees here.  PLUS I got a $5 off coupon for my next purchase. 
 
Hey, I figure I don't go out to bars, where one can easily drop $40/wk.  So my garden is my entertainment cost. And the bonus's are phenomenal!

I decided on this one because lyndeeloo said she got 60 fruits from hers.  I like that.

Ooh, good for you CC! I think that's a good price, considering it wasn't from a big box store, because I always wonder where they get their trees....... Like I said, our local nursery wants $60 for them. Wish I could do that, but I'm not springing $120 for 2 peach trees. 

I think I may have decided on a spot for 2 trees. It's right in the middle of our wildflower/buckwheat area, so it will be a sacrifice, but those are pretty much planted annually anyway except for some perennials... 

Oh fine guys, you fruit tree addiction enablers, I'm headed out to Lowes and let's see if the local store really does have them...

Why are you getting 2 peach trees?  You'll end up with 120 peaches! 

This one is self pollinating. It's got pink flowers on it already.  Can't wait to see if the bees like it.

The 2 behind it are the Anjou & Bartlett trees I picked up a couple weeks ago.    Yup, it's an addiction...

NHGardener wrote:
Oh fine guys, you fruit tree addiction enablers, I'm headed out to Lowes and let's see if the local store really does have them...

Thanks NHGardener. CC and I can't be in this alone. We can have a full-fledged support group if you join us. Although, I will feel I am to blame if CC doesn't get a good crop of peaches this year!

Oh CC she's beautiful! !!!! And almost Twice as tall as mine when I got it. Since it is blooming you may well see fruit this year. Don't be concerned if some of the little peaches fall off. Dropping some fruit is normal for them. I freaked out the first year that something was horribly wrong with the tree. Oh enjoy!

lyndeeloo wrote:

NHGardener wrote:
Oh fine guys, you fruit tree addiction enablers, I'm headed out to Lowes and let's see if the local store really does have them...

Thanks NHGardener. CC and I can't be in this alone. We can have a full-fledged support group if you join us. Although, I will feel I am to blame if CC doesn't get a good crop of peaches this year!

YOWZA!!  FTA!  Fruit Trees Anonymous!  And we're Fruitees... 

Thanks for the tip about falling fruit, Lyndeeloo.  My fig tree did that last year (it's first year) and I was so sad.  I think it's dead now...   

YOWZA!!  FTA!  Fruit Trees Anonymous!  And we're Fruitees... 

Sounds about right CC! Sign me up!  

Okay Partners in Crime, I now have 2 peach trees on my stoop. I had to get 2 CC because of the good reports of the Elberta and then Quiltbea's report about her Red Haven. Actually the Reliance peach was developed at the Univ. of NH here, but I did hear reports online that it's not quite as tasty as the Red Haven.

I couldn't find the Red Haven at Lowes, had to have the girl help me. Turns out, she's the one who ordered the trees for their department, and she just ordered what grew in our climate from the list. I told her that she did a good job ordering because I had heard good things about these 2 trees. Lowes has a 1 yr. guarantee on their trees, so that's good.

The Lowes employee said she didn't like to order too many trees because she doesn't like to see trees get thrown out. Which made me think - hmm. Wonder what would happen if you dropped your name off and said - if you have any trees left at the end of the season (they order in spring and in fall), I'll take them off your hands for real cheap.......

The Elberta is about 6' tall (it does lean, I may have to see what I can do about that, I know that can be a problem if the tree leans too far with too heavy fruit on it) (maybe I'll have to find out how to strap it) and the Red Haven is about 8' tall. (both semi-dwarfs)

So excited!!!!

Oh- the tag on the Elberta said to plant 10-20' apart, so that's good. The tag on the Red Haven was missing...

NHGardener   awesome, awesome, awesome! !!!! Don't you feel better now! Baby pictures when you get to it please. I saw a red haven at HD...hmmmm,  but I am currently forbidden to go there.

Congratulations! That's amazing, NHG, that you could get trees that size for 22 bucks each. I wish we had a Lowes here on the Cape, but we don't.

Yes, photos please! Do they have pretty pink flowers on them?

This chill should go away tomorrow.....

RJARPCGP wrote:This chill should go away tomorrow.....

yea...  
I'm looking forward to getting up into the 50's tomorrow afternoon and staying there for the weekend. With sun no less!
  
Can you stand it?  Time to break out the sunglasses!
 

Okay, you fellow FTAers - let me tell you a bit about peaches that I've had to learn the hard way.  (And I live in the Peach State...  Hah!)

We've had peach trees for 11 or so years now.  We've NEVER gotten a ripe peach. 

Why?

Because you need to take off all babies except for one per every 8-9 leaves.  That allows the tree to put it's energy into making the fewer number grow larger.

We've got a peach tree thicket in the middle of our back yard because the babies get just large enough for the seeds to be viable before they rot and drop off the tree.

Lesson?  Be very consistent in taking care of them and getting rid of the majority of the baby peaches as soon as you see them..  (And pruning them.  They can get out of control very quickly.)

So what am I doing this year???  Picking off peach babies!!!

Have fun, y'all!

Good to know to watch for that, AtlantaMarie.

There are flower buds on my new trees, but no opened flowers. I'll bet they're pretty! Hopefully tomorrow I'll go dig some holes. Supposed to be heavy rain tonight and tomorrow morning. Which is probably good, to plant them in wet soil.

A few weeks ago I planted Fedco's 2 Asian pear trees, 2 plum trees, a dwarf sour cherry, I have my 2 apple grafts and the spouse made 2 apple grafts so that's 4 apple trees, and now peaches. I mean, really. I'm never going off the hacienda in a few years....

Back to the SFG, my tomato plants here are not looking well. They're yellowing, and the biodegradable cups are molding more and more. Today I stuck a few of them outside and dashed them with hydrogen peroxide & water mix. I can't take much more of this. It's raining and windy tomorrow, but after that, I think I'm transplanting these babies. If we do get a frost (I still don't see one on the forecast horizon) I'll cover them. I know they like hot soils better, but even if they stay out there and don't grow, as long as they don't die, I'll be happy. No?

You know, NHG, I thought I lost a bunch of tomatoes in the last freeze.  They lost all leaves.  Just parts of the stems were left.

Pulled the majority out of the ground and let them just sit there for a few days.  And lo & behold, they started putting new leaves out!  Back in the ground, they are!  And they're doing fine!  It's amazing how resilient plants are if we just let them alone.

So go ahead & plant those puppies!

Your tree will be gorgeous!  My peaches have beautiful pink blooms every spring.

CapeCoddess wrote:

RJARPCGP wrote:This chill should go away tomorrow.....

yea...  
I'm looking forward to getting up into the 50's tomorrow afternoon and staying there for the weekend. With sun no less!
  
Can you stand it?  Time to break out the sunglasses!
 

Server problems with wunderground..... My thumbnail image is missing as a result.....

NHGardener wrote:Back to the SFG, my tomato plants here are not looking well. They're yellowing, and the biodegradable cups are molding more and more. Today I stuck a few of them outside and dashed them with hydrogen peroxide & water mix. I can't take much more of this. It's raining and windy tomorrow, but after that, I think I'm transplanting these babies. If we do get a frost (I still don't see one on the forecast horizon) I'll cover them. I know they like hot soils better, but even if they stay out there and don't grow, as long as they don't die, I'll be happy. No?

My tomatoes are mad crazy, too! Most of them have flower buds. I was thinking of putting some out on Friday also but we're only going into the 50's here on the Cape. Chances are they won't make it without cover but I have extras to play with. We'll see.

Atlanta Marie, thanks so much for the tip on plucking off the baby peaches. I'm also supposed to do this with the pear trees... take off all but every 8th or so pear, something like that.

I didn't realize fruit trees were going to be so much work...

Yeah, we didn't realize it either when we bought them!  We've never sprayed or really taken care of them.  Now we're paying for it.  Lots of water branches, in bad need of pruning, etc. 

On our pears, we've never taken any off like we're supposed to.  But we don't have the same problem with them dropping like the peaches.  So we always get WAY too many to use.  The downside is that branches get broken from the weight.