November is when the summer fruits really get a roll on – grapes, currants, early plums and berries are forming revealing the harvest to come. Keep an eye on these new fruits because birds + pests will be just as aware! Your daily walk is essential if you want to keep your fruits in best health. It’s incredible how a little pest squashing everyday keeps pests at bay.
- Shield bugs may be moving in on berry fruits and can be sorted with daily digital control. The advantage of not spraying is that predatory insects get a look in, but if populations are already large at this early stage, do a few, successional bursts of Neem.
- Passionvine hopper juveniles – the white little fluffy bums – are best managed while young before they become impervious adults. A good case for Neem, if populations are usually large at yours. Get onto it now, and break the cycle.
Let the grass go
What an awesome habitat we give our fruit trees when we let the grasses and wild plants go. It’s a home coming for them to exist in a networked, diverse, perennial groundcover. Oh the life that comes! Put away the mower and god forbid the sprayer and experience nature as she intended.
Grass left long provides habitat for insects that are kin to your land, and is an amazing support for young trees through summer. Tuck up inside some long grass, and feel the protection for yourself. Lay back, listen to the hum…. nature at her finest ❤️.
As grass grows taller, the roots dive deeper – opening heavy soil and holding sandy ones. The more roots in your soil, the broader the range of soil life – the below ground network upon which the health and rigor of your garden depends.
Build soil and improve overall health in the simplest of ways – by letting your garden go.
Thinning
Pears and apples are setting now and plums, apricots and peaches well on their way. Thinning is, ideally, on your mind. It’s an orchard job that I rate above nearly all others – the difference to your trees health, productivity and the quality of your crop is huge.
As fruits reach marble size – remove the excess in order to improve the remainder. It’s a quick easy job once you get the hang of it. If your trees are young or poorly, remove them all. Drop the thinning’s to the ground as you go, to return the carbs to the tree.
Berries
Raspberries + Blackberries
- Attach fruiting canes to the frame/ wires and check in on bee activity.
- Are they mulched and summer ready? A mixed, mature (ie not hot!) woodchip is ideal here.
- Be ready with bird protection – the first raspberries will be ripe soon enough.
Strawberries
- Pluck off the flowers of any tiny plants so they can instead, put their energy into growing a bigger canopy – a goodly rosette of leaves before letting flowering commence, means the plant has more resources at play ergo more + better fruits and fruiting will go on longer.
- If you haven’t already, spread well rotten manure or homemade compost at their base and top it off with a mulch.
- Set up bird-net. Cloches or a simple frame of your creating is the way to go if you don’t have a berry-house. Whatever you create, be sure you can access the crop easily, if not the daily harvest can be a pain.
Disease check
Keep an eye out for disease – blistering leaves, holes, discolourations – just in a relaxed, noting it, kind of way.
Before you reach for google + a complicated diagnosis, check in to be sure the basics of fruit tree health are being met – by that I mean drainage, diverse herbal ley, woody mulch, zero herbicide and a variety well suited to your place. Peaches, for instance aren’t beloved of my high spring rainfall, heavy clay combo. I grow them, but accept all the fungal issues as par for the course and every now and then when spring is dry (hallelujah!) we get to eat rot free peaches!
New trees and/ or new orchards are more susceptible to imbalance. Be patient – there is much to settle in when we create new environments. The worst thing you can do to a diseased deciduous tree, is react with feeding. Woody mulch and words of encouragement are all that’s needed.
Take a photo each week, as the disease progresses. That way you can clearly speak to the whole process when you seek advice. Most issues are weather related, poor variety choice or a poorly chosen site. Either way, focus on building an awesome environment, not so much the disease.
Avocado Harvest
Avocado season is in! Pick them with a bit of stem in tact for long keeping. And no need to pick them all at once, they hang beautifully on the tree.
Choose the fattest ones. Hold an avocado round its widest bit, its belly – and when there’s a goodly gap between thumb and fore finger, pluck them off with some stem intact.
Harvest as many as you’ll eat in a week. Do this each week and this way you’ll always be walking into ripe avocados – what a treat! As the weather warms, the length of time it takes them to ripen speeds up. Last month they were buttery and black in 14 days and now they’re taking about 10.
I keep some in the cool of the pantry and some on the table where its warmer to stagger the ripening.
Plant Citrus + Avocados
Its a great time to plant heat loving subtropicals -like avocado, tamarillo, passionfruits and citrus.
Citrus and subtropical’s hate the cold, which is why we delay planting new trees until weather settles and soil warms. This way they’ll flourish in their first season, stretch roots out and are a bit bigger and settled in before having to tackle their first cold season.
Biological sprays
Give fruit trees, and indeed your whole garden a biological spray. A coating of beneficial fungi and bacteria to promote diversity, immunity and all round strength. Its all about who fills the space – simple as that, so load your trees up with the good guys!