Today's Keyboard Smash
Aug. 21st, 2021 05:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scrubjayspeaksThe agricultural annex of the local college and the teaching garden associated with it had their first seminar since last year's lockdown. The topic was fruit trees, and mum and I were eager to attend. Our fruit trees have had an assortment of issues this year, from eternally unripening fruit to insect infestations to discolored leaves.
This, as it turns out, is by no means limited to us. The very first words out of the speakers was, so, who here has had a terrible year for fruit? Which was very cheering, because it's always nice to find out your problems are not solely the product of your own incompetence. In fact, our problems are mostly due to drought, either as a primary cause or due to knock-on effects from the trees getting water-stressed. That, and an iron deficiency in one, but I suppose I can't blame climate change for everything.
A lot of the problems are in the category of "try not to let that happen next year." The fruit that didn't set, or didn't ripen, or grew in deformed isn't going to get any less fucked up this year. But if we get another miserably dry winter (please no, pleasepleaseplease no), we'll have some idea of what to do and when to get better fruit set next year.
Also, they had a plant sale. Because of course they did, and of course I bought a bunch of plants. Only one for me--a Russian sage, which isn't really sage but will apparently grow on the surface of the sun if need be--but I bought a bunch for mum. She's been on the hunt for manzanitas for years, but mostly never allows herself to have any even when we find them. And her new fixation is ceanothus (California lilac). Both are native here, thus drought-tolerant, and make attractive living walls. Admittedly, these are all currently small enough to be living walls for the six-inch-and-under population, but, well. Had to start somewhere, and it was a hell of a lot easier than driving down to Riverside or whatever to get to the native nursery I found that sells them in 45-gallon pots.
Plants! \o/
This, as it turns out, is by no means limited to us. The very first words out of the speakers was, so, who here has had a terrible year for fruit? Which was very cheering, because it's always nice to find out your problems are not solely the product of your own incompetence. In fact, our problems are mostly due to drought, either as a primary cause or due to knock-on effects from the trees getting water-stressed. That, and an iron deficiency in one, but I suppose I can't blame climate change for everything.
A lot of the problems are in the category of "try not to let that happen next year." The fruit that didn't set, or didn't ripen, or grew in deformed isn't going to get any less fucked up this year. But if we get another miserably dry winter (please no, pleasepleaseplease no), we'll have some idea of what to do and when to get better fruit set next year.
Also, they had a plant sale. Because of course they did, and of course I bought a bunch of plants. Only one for me--a Russian sage, which isn't really sage but will apparently grow on the surface of the sun if need be--but I bought a bunch for mum. She's been on the hunt for manzanitas for years, but mostly never allows herself to have any even when we find them. And her new fixation is ceanothus (California lilac). Both are native here, thus drought-tolerant, and make attractive living walls. Admittedly, these are all currently small enough to be living walls for the six-inch-and-under population, but, well. Had to start somewhere, and it was a hell of a lot easier than driving down to Riverside or whatever to get to the native nursery I found that sells them in 45-gallon pots.
Plants! \o/
