Too HOT! First elderberries!

Berry (and 2 apples) pickings

I mowed a bit, mostly around the persimmon trees.  It was too hot to do mush else.  I went out and did a farm inspection and found a few ripe fruits.  Picked maybe 1 pint of strawberries from the ever-bearing plants in the front patch and 1 pint of raspberries from the wild ones along the road.  I picked the remaining two "pristine" (that's the variety) apples.  We ate two of the apples (well one and a half - one was damaged by the birds) and have one left now.

Last year I only got one or two from the strawberries because of weed overload and varmints - we did much better this year.

The "mole spikes" seem to be saving my strawberries!

More raspberries and strawberries.  Raspberries will be coming in fast now - if I can save them from the varmints!

Missing pears!

While doing my survey I checked on the pear trees.  Something removed all of the pears!  ALL OF THEM!   I didn't see any damage to the trees (well, a little damage, but I think that was from a T-storm) and no signs of big animals around the trees.  Damn weird.  Mom says it was probably racoons and/or opossums (which was my guess too).  Those pears weren't near ripe and they were being attacked by the birds like last year so I don't think any human would have bothered (I wouldn't have and they are my trees!).  Its strange though because there are still apples on some of the trees, so maybe the critters didn't smell them or don't like them as much as the pears?  I didn't see any peaches either, but then again I didn't look hard and there aren't many peaches anyway - maybe 2-5.

Pear tree looks ok - just missing all of the pears!

Dying (dead?) plum tree

I noticed that one of the plum trees is dying - or dead.  It is a two-year old, one of the bigger plum trees.  I don't know why its dying - it seemed healthy until recently.  My fear is that it might be dying from exposure to roundup.  I had sprayed roundup around many of the trees to keep the grass down.  I haven't seen any of the other trees looking bad ... yet!  I am scared to death that I will have more dying if its a roundup issue!  The funny thing is that I consciously didn't spray around the smaller trees for fear of this kind of thing - but I just can't say for sure if I sprayed near this particular tree.

On close examination of the tree I found a big split bark area - was this here before I sprayed the roundup?  If so that damage may have allowed the roundup into the tree. Although I didn't think I sprayed close enough to the trees for much roundup to get on them - maybe the surrounding weeds carried some into the tree wound?

See that bark split?  Maybe roundup got in there?  Or is this some other issue?

It sucks!  I will have to replant a plum - need to look up what type this was.

Elderberries!

Some of the elderberries were ripe enough to pick - so I braved the heat and picked!  I split the picking into two days.  All told we got about one and 2/3rds gallon.  We did wash these - submerged in water and skimmed out the trash - then we drained in a colander.  They look good!  Hopefully these will come in gradual enough that we don't get overwhelmed like last year.

Before de-stemming

After de-stemming and washing.

Grape vine status

The vines actually look surprisingly good considering the heat and humidity!  The rust is not running crazy, so far.  Also, some of the wine grapes are finally beginning to look like grape vines instead of small shrubs!

Wine grapes are up to the bottom of the arbor - this one is up to 2nd wire!

The white grapes are looking OK!  I hope they get a lot of growth in this year to catch up.  

Something ate a bird!

Something big enough to take out a crow it looks like!  Found a lot of feathers and some aweful on the one grape arbor.

Deer Damage

I noticed some damage to the beans this time around - looks like deer having been browsing!  This garden is unfenced.  I'd suspect rabbits, but the damage seems too widespread to me; although we do have plenty of rabbits!

See how this area of the beans is thinner?  Looking closer showed the bite marks

They seem to like both kinds of beans!!

Oh, and they trimmed off some of the dill weed up by the house!

Mom's Pretty flowers

We stopped by mom's on the way back to the city.  Her flower gardens are really pretty now!