Imagine That

It’s a foggy misty morning here at Victory Farm & Gardens, imagine that!   

It is unbelievable how much standing water we have all around the farm, in places that never have water this time of the year and a few that barely have water standing in the middle of a wet winter.

Remember how this PNW winter was not so very wet?  How it was really more on the dry side?  Remember how December was cold and no snow?   So cold that my youngest daughters finally got to skate on the big pond out back where their older sisters always used to?  And then towards the end of January and on into February it was mild, not very cold and not all that wet either? Back when I got this huge jump on farming and gardening?   

Well here it is June and so far since April we have only had weather a duck could love and a slug could survive.   Well, if the ducks weren’t around lovin’ it the slugs could survive.  And love it those ducks sure do. 

 Dear reader, if you were around last spring, you certainly remember all my slug capades.  Including the slug dangling from my porch over hang, looking for love.  EBet’s ducks have taken care of that problem.  I no longer reach down to pull a few weeds and come up with a handful of nasty slime. They are not making a slime highway out of my sidewalk.  And I am not up early in the morning, going out with my scissors and snipping thousands.  Okay, I never did a thousand in a day but I do believe one morning I did count up around a hundred-fifty.

No pellets or bait, no beer cans sprinkled ’bout the yard, (save for the ones left after the parties), no copper or bark dust barriers and yet, no slugs.  Yeah, I found an incy wincy one in a lettuce leaf the other day, but for the most part not many slugs or huge amounts of slug damage.  But then again there is a bit of duck damage.

Dirt is a bit upset about what the ducks have done in his orchard lawn.  The large brown swirls in the grass under the tree is the muddy soupy mess that the ducks have caused by their constant dabblin’ in this area.  It is right outside our kitchen door and one of the first things a person can see when they drive up to the house, that is if they can get their eyes off the messy open garage. 

Dirt has taken this personally and has thoroughly scorned the ducks.

I on the other hand love the ducks and would prefer to imagine that there was some disgusting bug in the soil that the ducks are annihilating.  Like perhaps the apple maggot that spends a good deal of his life cycle in the soil waiting to emerge when the apples are just filling out and then flying up to lay their eggs in my apples in my old apple trees to start a whole new life cycle.

Apple maggot, Rhagoletis pomonella, is an insect native to eastern North America, but has spread all over.  It was first detected in the PNW in 1979 down in Oregon near Portland.  It is a bugger to control.  The coddling moth is another apple pest that we have seen at the farm but it’s life cycle is a bit different and quite frankly the damage to the fruit is not as bad.  Right now I’m just wanting to get the apple maggot under control.

Up until this year we have mostly been working on sanitation as our method of control.  That means picking up apples off the ground as soon as they fall.  Trying not to drive over the ones in the driveway because that smashes them into little bits that are hard to pick up, which means blocking the driveway for a good deal of time during the late summer and fall when the apples rain out of the trees.  Unfortunately, because of silly farm boy habits established before the maggot found our farm this has been hard to do. 

One of the favorite activities around the front yard is to throw apples for the dogs.  Or see how many times you can hit the telephone pole with an apple and see it blow into a gazillion pieces almost like driving over them.  Uh yeah, and that sprays the little worms everywhere so that they can over winter in our lawn and break out starting in late June or early July, to infect the new apple crop and start all over again.

So this year I’m getting serious.  I’m just not sure what serious is going to look like and I have about a week to figure that out. 

My choices?  Footie socks over each apple.  They sorta look like the little chunks of nylons that the shoe store has for when you want to try on some lovely fall spectator pumps but only wore your summer bare foot sandals to the store. 

Yep, back up on the ladder you go Bet, the Farm’s tree pruner.  Thin the apple clusters and slip a sock on each remaining apple.  As the apple grows the sock expands, the footie lets the sunshine in enough to allow for the fruit to color up. 

Or spray this clay stuff on all the trees, thoroughly.  Re-spraying every seven to fourteen days.  And re-spraying after each rainfall.  (Hear me guffaw at that idea.)  That could very well be a lot of spraying this summer.

The footies really seem like the best option.  Labor intensive at first, but once it is done it is done.  But then I haven’t checked on prices yet.  Keep in touch Dear Reader for the exciting conclusion of “What does Vicktory Farm & Gardens choose to protect their apples?” 

So I guess that means that I need to get my little calculator out and do some ordering today.  EBet needs her poultry eletro-net fencing and some more chicken nipples (yep, I giggle every time I say, “chicken nipples”) along with whatever it is that we decide for the apples.  Spendy day.  But yesterday we sold Latex, the puppy that got into paint awhile ago, and the coming sunshine means the sheep shearer can get to work and make some mulla.  Well at least Dirt can shear as the puppy is returning this morning.  But the next paragraph remains.

God is good, especially today.  The sunshine has indeed come (the wet misty fog has now burned off and the promised sunny day has arrived!) and it has come right on the same day that I was pretty sure I was going to loose it if it rained anymore.  For a while at least.    Thanks God, Your timing is awesome, for me, sorry ’bout that, man with a sump pump business.  Have a good weekend Dear Reader what ever you choose to do and do it as unto the Lord.