It's a wonder man has survived at all. There's either too much rain, not enough rain, too much sun, not enough sun, plant eating varmints, too much wind, weeds...the list of obstacles to growing food is endless. This is one of the six fruit trees that we planted last spring. You may remember I was very excited to get one plum off of it last year. There is just one branch on it this year because Harry decided to chew the rest of them off.
Oddly enough, despite Harry's pruning abilities, this is the only tree that has fruit on it. At least 10-15 baby plums. We've had fierce high winds for the past several days which blew about half the fruit off the tree. The other plum tree that Harry didn't maul, has no fruit whatsoever.
This sad pear tree is dying. Harry pushed it over completely flat onto the ground. The root ball appeared to still be intact, so Tom stood it upright and staked it. We thought it was going to be OK because it bloomed and leafed out, but it is even deader now that when the picture was taken.
And this is what is left of the two apple trees that we planted. Harry chewed them both off right at the base. You can see the stub sticking out of the ground. So, we're trying to decide if we should leave the little suckers that have grown up out of the base of the tree to grow into trees, or if we should just dig them up and start over. I think we should dig them up. It will be years, if ever, before these yield anything.
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3 comments:
Who is Harry? If he has 4 legs - you should wrap a wall of 4"x4" wire fencing around each tree with a couple feet of space between the fencing and the trunks. Also - you should try pulling off the spent flower buds and not letting them make any fruit for a couple years. That should take all the stress off of them and enable them to come back stronger.
Thanks for the tips. If we get any more buds, I'll pull them off. Harry is our livestock guardian dog - still a puppy. He seems to be done with destroying the trees. We should have thought to put the cages around the trees in the very beginning, but just didn't think about Harry mauling them.
Keep the grass away from the base of a new tree- make sure you've got a circle of clear dirt for at least 8 inches around the tree. No weeds either. Grass doesn't look like it will rob the tree of nutrients, but it will! Mulch too! Before dwarfing rootstock, orchard owners used to let the grass grow under the trees as a way of keeping tree growth under control.
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