Fruit trees are peaking! I hope the grass and herbal ley are thigh high and you’re revelling in surround sound fruit – late plums, pears, apples and oh so peachy. A sight for sore eyes!
As stone fruit are harvested, summer prune them. They’re best pruned now, rather than winter because silver-leaf spores aren’t on the wing, and best of all pruning now slows next season’s growth down, helping reduce those enthusiastic shoots.
Brown Rot
The dwarf peaches “Kotare Honey” are fruiting their little hearts out, as always, but sadly – also exploding with brown rot. It’s a bit mean, the way brown rot shows up right before harvest, but its the way of it.
It actually starts back in spring – as most of our fungal friends do. You may find dried flowers as a result – nip them out! The spores hold out for humidity and then – boom – such a fast, efficient fungi, the fruits go from one rot spot to entirely covered in fuzz, in a matter of days.
Don’t take fungi personally. The environment is ripe for it, that’s all. There’s nothing to do now, but gather the rotten fruits – or better yet get your chooks beneath to clean them up.
- Keep on with building your strong garden system.
- Consider applying a biofungicide next spring to boost the right biology.
- Summer prune, using mostly thinning cuts
- Get creative! Matt and I often talked about a giant, funky umbrella, that we could pop up, over the peaches in spring when the fungi start setting up shop. They’re dwarf trees, so do-able.
Harvest Pears
Pears are the trickiest fruit to get right because they ripen from the inside out. The exceptions are, Seckel(or honey pear), nashi pears and summer ones like Belle du Jumet who ripen fully on the tree. The rest need to be picked just before fully ripe, and left at room temperature for about a week to finish off. If left on the tree they go mushy by the core and gritty. Its a bit of trial and error to work it out.
Check the harvest date on your calendar and go to your tree when time draws nigh. Start on the north, sunny side, and find a pear that looks the right colour and right size and lift it to the horizontal. If it comes away easily, its probably ready though a few, like Beurre Bosc, need a tug. Slice one open, and if the pips are brown you are good to harvest.
And if its a Seckel, nashi or summer pear you are harvesting, be sure to bite into to it for the final say so! Leave these ones on until perfectly ripe.
Note all the details on your harvest calendar to help you out next year – like date, colour, undercolour, how easily the fruit came away from the tree and how long they took to ripen once picked.
Other tasks
- Citrus, Persimmon and Feijoas are gearing up with fruit. Moisture test the soil beneath – if they dry out now, it’ll impact fruit quality.
- Check young trees! So important they are looked after in their first summers. If soils are dry, give them a soak. Check them over for bugs, squashing any you find. Leave the grass/ weeds long around them for protection. A friendly jostle of plants is perfect, however if they’re being swamped, peel off the worst offenders.
- Thin Feijoas
- Prune olives to increase light and reduce height. Work around fruit that has set.
Help! My apple tree got hit with Coddling Moth, despite all my precautions. Know there is not much I can do about that but was was not infected is dropping off the tree at a rate of knots. I had set up my version of ollo pots and kept them topped up. Maybe that was not enough water. I had the same problem last year but not to the same extent. Any suggestions greatly appreciated.
Hey Anne – codling moth isnt about watering so much but theres a few things you can do to – read this article here https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/home-property/nz-gardener/73014543/how-to-detect-prevent-and-treat-codling-moth
Hi
All is not lost with the Kotare Honey peaches. Ours also have brown rot. However, even if they are not fully ripe, they can be picked, the good fruit chopped up and poached. I poach my mine in white wine. then puree them.
Peach puree on ice cream or yoghurt – yum!
YES! Oh yes – dont waste the goodness! Thanks Sue
Hi Kath, we have a Beurre Bosc that we planted in early spring & the leaves are spotty brown. It has been well watered & mulched – is that rust? We went for a tree guild scenario with comfrey, calendula & herbs planted around it – just wondering what we should do to keep it going?
We planted a peach & plum at the same time which seem to be doing well.
Thanks
Sarah
Hey Sarah – sounds like your pear has a wonderful home. Likely to be a fungal issue – this summer has been ripe for pathogenic fungi and young trees are more vulnerable. Keep building your diverse living garden – theres nothing better that you can do apart from taking up with biological sprays. Check through my healthy fruit tree game plan https://www.ediblebackyard.co.nz/my-healthy-fruit-tree-game-plan/ to see if theres anything else for you to add and acknowledge that some seasons will just cause fungi to run riot!
Hi there, My pear tree has blossom end rot. What do I need to do with a pear tree to prevent this please, and what time of year? Thanks
That’s a big question Di!
Fungal disease is a team effort of an environmental moment – ie ideal temperature and moisture for sporalation + a lack of beneficial fungi in your garden. Read this https://www.ediblebackyard.co.nz/prevent-fungal-disease-now-is-your-moment/ – for my all round approach to fungi.
And this https://www.ediblebackyard.co.nz/my-healthy-fruit-tree-game-plan/ for how to imbue your system with beneficial fungi.
cheers
K
Hi Kath,
Im digesting your book in my new orchard and trying to decide what to do with an apricot I planted in winter, whose leader snapped off in a storm.
Retrain a juicy side scaffold with a narrow crotch as the new leader, or persist with the spindlier trunk and a thin watershoot? Help!
Hi Di, that’s very hard to say remotely – the kind of thing a garden coach is good for so I can see.
Much depends on variety and rootstock and location – though I would advise you to question your shelter – what’s to say this wont happen again?
K x
Hi Kath, two years ago I founds some apple mussel scale on some apples and now I just found one infected plum. The infestation looks minor, but I would like to keep it under control. i am growing comfrey, wild garlic and oregano around the fruit trees and I am about to replenish the wood chips. Is there anything I could do to prevent or treat this?
Thanks, you are my garden guru
Nice observations, noticing it early is the thing.
My first port of call is to check if there are any stressors in your trees environment – eg: too dry, too wet, over fed (fertiliser, lots of compost) or if fresh woodchips were used too thickly.
After that, I’d want to watch and see if any predatory insects were active amongst the scale – there are a few different parasitic wasps that predate them as well as ladybirds and earwigs. To this end keep building your predatory populations – leaf litter and bits of rotting wood for earwigs, pests + pollen (geraniums, nasturtiums…) for ladybirds, pests + nectar (umbelliferae flowers like dill, parsley, daikon and brassica flowers like mustard) for p. wasps + being spray free as beneficial insects are super sensitive to sprays.
Check for excellent airflow and light through your trees – perhaps thin a few branches if not, esp really low ones.
Partially rotten woodchip scattered about is a great idea, and increase your wonderful sounding herbal ley with the recommended plants.
Because you’ve noticed early you can watch what unfolds without stress.
cheers K
Im just wondering whether you would encourage summer pruning for plum trees too. Im located in South Auckland. Thank you
Yip plums for sure they’re stonefruit! Follow the link for all the how-to’s.
Kia ora Kath
I’m getting my orchard ready for planting my 2 year old fruit trees out from their Evergrow bags. So exciting! But I’m doing my head in trying to figure out the best treatment for my heavy clay soil bank. I’m doing it one small terrace at a time — clearing off the blackberry and tradescantia etc, digging out all the roots I can with my forksta, and chopping up seaweed as a mulch so far. I don’t have any compost at hand to put down and after 2 years waiting I feel like I might not be able to wait another 6 months to create my own beds.
Can I trench some bokashi in there, sow a green crop/guild plants and then plant the trees this autumn do you reckon? Should cardboard be in there somewhere?
(PS. Most of my rootstock is Northern Spy but I do have a couple of MM106. Should I find them new homes?)
Thanks as always for your help. So many questions in this. I will buy you some coffees!!
Hope you are well
Alana
As long as your rootstocks are a good match to your soil type – no worries and Northern Spy is perfect! the 106 should be fine as well as long as the drainage is good. Or perhaps use these at the top and the northern spy down further – they’ll be taller so that’ll be a good call at any rate.
Clear weeds, sow a mixed greencrop that includes tap roots like carrot or parsley or fennel or daikon to open the clay, plant comfrey as well. Work out where the trees are going and on these spots make piles of arborist wood chip. At planting time in late autumn (not now!) aerate the bottom of the holes with your forksta.
Having been in an evergrow bag for 2 years will have dwarfed the trees and they will unlikely grow to full size, so if its windy on your bank give them permanent stakes – i.e warratahs. Evergrow bags are for trees that will live their lives in them, not for a holding bay so much. You do have a good point to order fresh trees this year and plant them out on your bank. Trees in evergrow bags make a fun hedge or screen – sit them close to each other near the house so you can look after them.
K x
Thanks heaps!