Tuesday, July 28, 2015

What the Wildlife Left Intact in Our Orchard

Our Apple Tree, Templeton, CA, July 25, 2015, © B. Radisavljevic
I haven't been home much this summer to pay attention to what's left of our orchard. One of our apple trees died a few years ago - the most productive one. It had been so heavily loaded that it split, and we were unable to save it. We still mourn its loss. The Fuji apple tree we planted never got established before it died. What you see in the photo is our remaining tree, and we are hoping the wildlife will leave us some of these apples. We expect them to get ripe soon. Maybe they are already ripe, but just small, due to the drought.

The grapes the Deer Left Us , Templeton, CA, July 25, 2015, © B. Radisavljevic
We have not been as fortunate with our grapes. Our most productive vine happened to be in the spot where the septic tank people decided to dig a new leach field. It happened while I was gone, and when  I came home, our entire fenced garden area was gone except for the garden gate. That left us only this exposed grape vine. The grapes were tiny this year due to the drought. We still had some bunches of tiny green grapes when I was last in Templeton a couple of weeks ago, but when I checked Saturday, it appears they had been ripening, and this is all the deer left us. If you click the photo, it will get larger.

All the little green apricots I saw on our tree last month have disappeared. The walnut trees seem to have a fair-sized crop, and the quince tree is doing well.

2 comments:

  1. What a nice, productive garden! Sorry about lost trees and grapes. There are wild apple trees in the Happy Camp area... I think early settlers planted them. It was cool to discover food sources there. The blackberries are out of control...

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  2. Although people do grow berries here, I rarely see any growing wild like I saw in Oregon. I think maybe they require irrigation to grow here. Apple trees will grow without irrigation once they are established.

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