One question that always comes up this time of year is how do I know when my fruit is ripe It’s a question that new growers and seasoned orchardists both struggle with. I know that this time of year, I routinely refer to published dates to try and get ready for harvest. Fortunately there […]
Pruning demonstration I wanted to explore some future plans for the orchard. One of the events I would like to participate in is a pruning demonstration. This would be around February, and could include anyone in the community who would have an interest in attending. There are a lot of experienced orchardists in our […]
Summer arrives with a great deal of excitement. The development of this website and the first walk-through of the orchard prove to be two important firsts. Our July orchard walk-through July proved to be an exciting time for the Wilbourn House Orchard. Our very first community walk-through saw around 15 visitors. I walked through the […]
We had our second walk-through on Saturday, August 12. Most of the visitors were in the Master Gardener program and already had a strong foundation in fruit trees. We discussed many aspects of the orchard, including rootstock, spraying, pruning, tree form and grafting. The use of comfrey as a green mulch, nitrogen fixer, and weed […]
A few pests have reared their ugly head this year. Currently birds are causing a fair amount of damage with their pecks. I pulled at least 20 Golden Delicious apples off before I took the initiative to fight fire with fire. First I added metallic looking pinwheels. No help there–bites were right beside the […]
