I just sent a batch of "Miss Jessamine" apple scions to a person in Texas on Saturday.  They were excited to be the first person in Texas to grow that variety.

If I would have been thinking I would have waited to ship them though, since they won't leave the shipping store until Tuesday (USPS doesn't pick up on Sundays or on the MLK holiday).  Hopefully the store isn't too warm.

I'm also opening tubes and cleaning mason bee cocoons.

I plan to do tons of pruning next weekend, if I don't have to work.

I'm also putting the wild birds to work for me, doing pest control and fertilizing.  I do that by throwing black oil sunflower seed on and under my fruit trees.  Thus I have flocks of wild birds spending the whole day scouring the branches and leaf litter for sunflower seed.  I'm pretty sure they are also eating any caterpillars that they find.  And of course pooping all over 🙂

Rooney said

davem said

opening tubes and cleaning mason bee cocoons.

  

It's not too late to do that? What percentage of bees will be suffocated by waiting this late? I'll split mine open today and start a new topic showing the progress for my teasel tube cleaning session and explain more there of what I mean by these questions. Thanks for the help in the past informing us so much about teasel.

  

You can do it up until the day they wake up in the spring.  But, earlier is better.

The reason for opening/cleaning is to separate the bees from parasites (mostly pollen mites and mono wasps) and chalkbrood fungus.  Not absolutely necessary, but if you just put out the same tubes/holes over and over without cleaning, you will be spreading parasites and diseases and your bee population will plummet.

Rooney said
@ davem: Then how do you re-use the same teasels after breaking them?

You don't - they are one time use.  But you can just put out filled tubes - the bees will hatch out, then use the same tubes, unless they can find other tubes/holes that they like better. 

As I said you don't want them re-using the same tubes.  It is possible to make a "bee diode" to prevent them from reusing the tubes.  You can kind of clean out the empty tubes with a strong spray from a hose.  But fresh tubes are better.

I used to hate teasel and chopped it down as soon as it popped up.  But I have learned to tolerate it, for the following reasons:

1. A forever supply of mason bee tubes.  Given a choice, my mason bees always choose the teasel stems over other tube/hole materials.
2. Late summer pollen/nectar source for bees, especially bumble bees.
3. Fairly deep taproot
   1. Nutrient accumulation
   2. Helps to break up my clay soil
4. I strongly suspect that it is carnivorous.  The leaves collect and hold water, which seems to attract insects who drown in the water.  Or maybe insects are attracted to the dry leaves, then rain drowns them.  Anyway, they kill a lot of insects.  Seems to be mostly flies, mosquitoes, and beetles.  And the occasional bee :-(.

To manage its spread, I use a machete to cut the flower heads off the moment they finish flowering, thus preventing them from producing seeds.  It doesn't work perfectly, but it definitely does slow it down.  It is amazing how many bumble bees choose to end their life on the flowers, at the end of their season.

January tasks in the orchard -

Mostly pruning, mostly apples.  I think one more tree is tall enough to remove deer cage.  Those cages help but are also a hassle.  Espaliers and miniature apple trees are already pruned.

I have peach seeds that stratified in the fridge since August,  I cracked open the pits and extracted the seeds.  Planted them in seed starting medium on a seedling warming mat.  I don't know if they will grow.  Source tree is a child of Oregon Curl Free, produces good tasting peaches, yellow clingstone good for fresh eating, pies, canning and in past six years has been completely free of leaf curl.  I want to propagate it.  Tree started bearing at about three years old.

Last year's bearing canes need pruning from thornless raspberries and thornless blackberries.  I'm removing all of the blackberries except Triple Crown and Ponca.  Triple Crown always bears very well for me, Ponca is new, apparently brachytic dwarf which would be nice if they are good.  One Triple Crown tip-rooted itself so I will plant that too.

I have on my calendar, start dormant oil spray in February.  That's for apple maggot and San Jose Scale.

I have a nice producing red currant that needs moving because it was munched on by deer last year.  Makes a nice jam.  Have to figure out where, might espalier it.

I might start some back up fig cuttings too.  Hardy Chicago, I accidentally left the previous ones to dry out.  I have a possible start from it but want a backup.

Mostly just puttering.

After building newer, taller raised beds, renovating an old one and putting down weed barrier and tree chips in pathways, Im more disabled at the moment so need to rest as well .  

Daniel, I meant to ask you if the 'child of Oregon Free' originated with you?

I also should update others that the bushy peach found near the 'Grotto' that I previously posted was found to have pure red peach flowers. The only red flowering bush peach is from China and sold as 'Flory'. It was also found to have a months supply of curled leaves around June 2021, then it returned to normal. 

The common theme around testing seedlings of peach trees is to wait until maturity and the first crop. It's at that time curl usually begins to show. I know that from watching one mature from a compost pile in downtown Vancouver then watching curl set in after the first flowering season, then sharing common experiences in NAFEX before we had this.

Since the rain finally stopped for a while, I’ve been pruning my kiwis (Jumbo, Ananasnaja, Hayward, and a fuzzy male) this week. There was a day or two in November and December when it wasn’t raining, and I did manage to prune the Tayberries.  That’s not much progress yet, but we’ve had 47.47 inches since the rain started in September!  I’ve also helped with scion cutting and labeling for the Peninsula Fruit Club Spring Grafting Show.  So far we’ve cut and labeled over 400 different kinds of apples, pears, plums, grapes, and kiwis (mostly apples).  The rain returns by Sunday, so I’ll be stuck indoors working on things for the grafting show—like making more laminated information cards about each variety we’ll have.

Thanks, Reinettes, but the show is a group effort!  We had probably 20-25 people helping out on our main all-day cutting and labeling event—fewer than a pre-Covid year, true, but pretty decent nonetheless.