We've been having type of a roller-coaster ride with our plum wood this yr. Last May, it grow to be searching like we might clearly get a respectable crop of plums for the number one time. The 3 timber had been not all generating similarly; the Opal tree, although it bloomed inside the spring, in no way regarded to set any fruit at all. But every the Mount Royal and the Golden Gage had been loaded down with clusters of tiny inexperienced balls, and we were beginning to speculate about what we'd do with them if we virtually had too many to devour come August.
Then, round mid-June, we began out to be aware that several of the plums, specifically the Mount Royals, were dropping off the bushes earlier than that they'd even ripened. As we'd experienced this equal trouble closing 12 months, I brief identified it as brown rot, a fungal ailment that I'd hoped we is probably capable of avoid this 12 months. Pretty an lousy lot all you could do about it's far cast off the diseased fruit?Making certain to clean all the fallen fruits off the ground, as nicely, in order that they do not pass at the infection next 12 months?And desire it does now not unfold. So that's what I did, however given that I'd done the equal detail last 12 months and it wasn't sufficient to store any of the plums, I wasn't constructive. I figured we would in reality must write off this year's crop, and take extra steps early next 12 months to prevent the trouble from habitual?Pruning the wood in February or March, before they bloom, and dosing them with a copper fungicide at some level within the developing season.
However, as July progressed, it seemed just like the ultimate plums would possibly pull thru in the long run. A few of them persevered to shrivel and drop, or to expose the telltale brown spots and oozing sap of brown rot, but I cautiously eliminated the ones as soon as I spotted them, and the relaxation of the fruit actually regarded to be ripening typically. By final week, the boughs of the Mount Royal were heavy with deep-blue plums, and one of the branches on the Golden Gage emerge as so heavily laden that it became surely drooping under its own weight.
If you're questioning why I do no longer have a picture of that heavy-hanging branch, properly, it's miles no longer there anymore. Or rather, the department is, but the fruit is not.
Earlier this week, we found that nearly all of the Golden Gage plums on that one department had sincerely disappeared. I do not mean that that they had fallen off, similar to the ones struck through brown rot; we searched all around the tree, and there has been no trace of them. They'd actually vanished, leaving best empty stubs to mark in which they have been. And through this weekend, the remaining solitary fruit left on that department had vanished as properly. In fact, pretty a super deal all the low-setting branches on that tree have been stripped bare.
We pretty fast ruled out birds as a culprit, because of the reality they in all likelihood could no longer be able to seize and do away with an entire plum; that they had in reality % at the fruit, and anything became left might drop to the floor. Likewise, we didn't suppose squirrels could be able to eliminate an entire plum and scurry away with it?And in the event that they have been in rate, there would be no reason for them to head away the top branches unmolested. They have been on the proper peak for a deer to have taken them, but deer almost by no means come into our community, and we failed to discover any hoofprints. So all the evidence appears to point to a human wrongdoer?One who isn't always tall enough to attain the top branches.
But even this concept increases more questions than solutions. For one aspect, who could want to thieve plums that had been not even ripe however? And why should a thief who turn out to be inclined to consume almost-ripe plums take best the green plums off the Golden Gage tree, and actually ignore all of the crimson plums on the Mount Royal, which have been large, more ample, and, in look at the least, a good buy toward safe to consume ripeness? And, if the thief didn't intend to eat the plums, then what on earth did they need with them? And maximum of all, what type of man or woman may do any such thing?Simply stroll up and evenly assist themselves to fruit in someone else's backyard, without even asking?
For some reason, the idea of losing our plums to a human thief bothers us a great deal more than losing them to hungry animals. It doesn't really make sense, because the end result is the same either way: fewer plums for us to eat. But animals going after your crops is something you more or less expect as a gardener; you plan for it, do your best to minimize it, but accept some amount of loss as the price of doing business. But another human being simply taking the fruit off these trees that we went to so much trouble to plant and tend—as if they had just as much right to the fruit as we did after all our work—feels like an outright violation.
But in either case, there may be pretty heaps nothing we are capable of do approximately it now. It's not going we're going to ever be able to capture the plum thief inside the act, and there may be likely no distinctive way to establish just who?Or what?Is in charge. And given that every one the low-striking branches at the Golden Gage in the meanwhile are stripped smooth, and the thief would not seem like interested in the Mount Royals, I wager there may be not whatever mainly we want to do to guard the closing fruit.
However, as Brian has now tasted one of the Mount Royal plums and determined that they're ripe enough to be edible (if not quite at full sweetness yet), he's planning to start picking them immediately and packing them with his lunch. That way, we can be sure we get to enjoy at least some of the fruits of our labors—even if they're not as enjoyable as they would be when fully ripe. As for the remaining Golden Gages, we'll just have to keep a sharp eye on them, and go out there with a ladder to harvest them the minute they look ripe enough. Chances are, whoever is responsible for the pilfering wouldn't be bold enough to haul a ladder into our garden in broad daylight and start openly picking fruit off our trees, but with a thief this brazen, you can't be sure.
POSTSCRIPT: No faster had I published this than we got evidence effective squirrels have been accountable no matter the whole lot. We went out to take any other take a look at the trees, and Brian noticed one of the furry little buggers sitting in our neighbor's driveway, cheeky as you please, with a purple plum in its mouth.
So the exceptional records is, we've an adversary we are able to experience unfastened to strike lower back at; the horrific records is, it's a wily one, and we can't make sure what will paintings. Suggestions I've examine to date encompass:
- Trapping them. I'm skeptical about this, as there are so many squirrels around here that we can't possibly trap all of them.
- Putting up a baffle—a slick tube or cone of aluminum or plastic that the squirrels can't climb up. The problem here is that it has to go around the main trunk at least four to five feet off the ground, or else squirrels can jump right past it, and our trees aren't tall enough for that.
- Deterring them with predator urine or human hair. We have plenty of the latter, so we've scattered as much as we could muster around the base of the trees, but it remains to be seen how it will work. We also have two predators (feline) sharing our house, so perhaps some of their used litter would work as a deterrent. A few sources also mention mothballs as a deterrent, but not everyone is enthusiastic about the results.
- Scaring them with bells or shiny CDs hung from the tree branches. This only works temporarily, as they get used to the noise and light after a while, but it might be enough to get us through to the harvest.
- Scaring them with fake predators, like owls or snakes. Many people say the little rodents catch on to this within a day or two, but Brian went ahead anyway and put out his rubber snake in the garden, where he found one of our new Pineapple tomatoes had been molested. It couldn't hurt.
- Spraying the fruit with hot pepper spray. We could probably make some, but we'd have to reapply it after every rainfall—and of course wash it off carefully before eating the fruit ourselves.
- Smearing the trunk with something sticky. We saw some recommendations for a product called Tanglefoot, which is intended to trap insects, but some people say the squirrels don't like it on their paws. Here, again, we'd have to apply it far enough up the trunk and branches that the squirrels couldn't jump right over it.
We have not determined which measures to take yet, but at the least we recognize what we are up in opposition to.
