Farewell, Old Spruce

Our observant readers probably noticed something unusual in the photo accompanying the last post. As is my custom after the first mowing, I included a photo of our yard that showed an empty spot where we used to have a spruce tree. I had to make the painful decision recently to remove that tree, and I hope my experience can help someone else avoid the loss we've endured.

About a year ago I noticed some brown spots on a few branches of the tree, but since they were high in the crown and limited in number I didn't give them much thought. The brown sections grew in size and number over the next few weeks, prompting me to investigate more closely. Although the image below was taken this spring, the general appearance of the tree approximates what I observed early last summer.

On closer observation I found small clusters of dead needles hanging from the defoliated branches. The needles were held together by silky thread surrounding a small, black worm that would actually navigate a tree branch collecting needles for its cocoon. One could detach these worms from the tree with a slight pull near the base of the cocoon, so I spent most of one afternoon pulling worms off my tree. Unfortunately, many branches had already been defoliated, and although I removed hundreds of worms, there were still hundreds (if not thousands) of worms remaining, destroying more needles every day.

A little online research identified the pests as a bagworm that feeds on both evergreens and deciduous trees, but since spruce trees don't regenerate their needles, the damage to conifers is more noticeable than when these pests attack deciduous trees. My only consolation was the fact that the worms finished stripping branches by mid summer. The males emerge from the cocoons in a few weeks as a moth to fertilize the females that remain in their cocoons, and the fertilized eggs remain in the cocoon until late spring the next year.

This image from a few weeks ago shows several cocoons that had remained intact through the winter, some of which may have contained eggs ready to hatch into thousands of worms this spring. I removed a few hundred of these nests before I gave up. The tree was already badly damaged, especially in the crown, and if only one nest remained unpicked, I would have hundreds of worms to deal with by early summer. Since I have another spruce about 50 feet from this one from which I've already removed a handful of cocoons, I decided to destroy the damaged tree in an attempt to arrest the spread of the bagworms.

Even though I felt my options were severely limited, the decision was still hard. I considered the tree an exemplary specimen of its genus, and enjoyed watching it grow larger each year. The image above from December 2013 shows the beauty of both the tree and the snow, in my opinion. Ironically, there were obviously bagworm cocoons in the tree when this picture was taken, since the worms showed up just a few months later. That winter was also the coldest we've had here in recent memory, which doesn't offer much hope that cold weather might kill off the bagworms.

I vaguely recall seeing a few cocoons on this tree in 2013, but they didn't excite enough curiosity in me to cause me to investigate. Now that I recognize bagworm cocoons, I won't delay in acting in the future. Hopefully others will learn from my experience and will save their trees before it's too late.

A bumper crop of cherries

I'm always anxious each year to see how many blossoms appear on the cherry tree, as that's one indicator of the fruit yield for that year.  A lot can happen between the budding of the blossoms and harvest of the fruit, but without blossoms, there's no hope for fruit.

Imagine our pleasure this year to see the tree covered in flowers like this on May 4.  I'd been impressed for a week before this as the blossoms seemed to proliferate daily, until by the beginning of May I started being anxious about freezing temperatures.  We've occasionally had frozen flowers on the tree, which kills them in short order and eliminates any hope of fruit at that bud.  Once the flower is pollinated, and the fruit begins to set, freezing is less damaging although we've seen some yield reduction at that stage in the past also.

I checked the fruit periodically in May and was disappointed that a noticeable number of blossoms did not appear to have been pollinated.  I hadn't noticed any bees around the tree this year as in years past, but I wasn't watching closely either.  Was I seeing evidence of shrinking bee populations?  Evidently the bees did a better job than I expected, as the fruit proliferated over the months of May and June at a rate not a lot slower than the blossoms.

God blessed us with no freezing temperatures from blossom to fruit ripening this year, so our crop was the largest we've seen on this tree.  This is how the tree looked on June 18 after about a gallon of fruit had been harvested already.  Knowing the amount of work involved in picking and pitting that many cherries, and how there were far more than we normally consume, we put the word out to friends to come help themselves and many helped and enjoyed the fruits of the harvest this year.  Since we didn't measure the yield we can only estimate that over eight gallons have been harvested so far.

This image proves it was not difficult to find cherries to pick this year.  I don't have measurements to prove it, but it appears the fruit is a little smaller this year than in the past.  Is that a reflection of the limited rainfall we received while the fruit matured?  Or maybe the tree can only produce so much volume of fruit, so if there are more cherries, they end up smaller?  Someone smarter than me will have to answer those questions.

Ultimately, this is the goal: fruit safely off the tree and ready for processing or immediate consumption.  In the end, we have enough cherries for our satisfaction and at least six other families will benefit as well.

More food crops around the yard

Most of our readers are probably familiar with the unusual weather we've experienced this spring, and some may have first-hand knowledge of its effects on different crops.  I was especially concerned about our cherry tree as it bloomed in March, about a month earlier than normal.  Our temperatures were especially warm through much of March, but the inevitable freezes hit again in April.  Since our cherry crop was reduced at least 95% last year due to freezing, I was anxious our experience would be similar this year.

As you can tell from the photo above, we have a crop!  The blossoms had faded and fruit was beginning to form by the time the freezes hit our yard, so apparently the fruit is more robust to cold temperatures than blossoms are.  The crop appears to be about 70% of the size of a bumper crop, but we're grateful for even a harvest of that size.  We're hopeful the fruit will continue to mature without further damage from weather or pests.

The hops also got off to an early start this year, reaching heights by the middle of April that required almost three months longer last year.  As you can see in this image, the freezes damaged many of those early leaves, and even killed off the central leaders on many of the longer bines.  Because many of those early bines were stunted, I've allowed additional later bines to continue to grow in case the early ones die off.

Amazingly, some of those early bines are already producing cones in May.  We didn't see cones until late July last year, so I'm not sure if this is a consequence of a stunted bine, or an early start.  Regardless, the bines in general are more abundant and vigorous than last year, so it should be interesting to see if that correlates into cone production.

Finally, a stop at the raspberry patch shows some promise of fruit as well.  I haven't watched this fruit develop in the past, so I can't comment on how it's progressing relative to other years, but we are understandably hopeful for a decent harvest.  Thanks for visiting!

A Springtime Survey of Our Property

We've been pleased with a few things of beauty around our yard over the last few weeks, and we would like to share them with all of you.

At the end of April, the almond bush exhibited more blossoms than we've ever seen on this bush. We transplanted it from a shady spot a couple years ago, and I think it likes full sun better than shade.

About the same time, the primrose plants were blooming in another area. These were also planted a couple years ago, and this was their best performance as well.

This is a typical branch on the cherry tree in late April. We were astounded to see so many blossoms after a big cherry harvest last year. Alas, by early May we experienced a freeze in our yard, and many of the potential cherries died. It looks like a limited crop of cherries this year.

I took this photo of the chives today. They've done well the last couple years, and it looks like they are almost ready to consume now.

I planted this new food crop in mid April as a rhizome, and I hope to find enjoyment in measuring the growth of at least six of these plants this summer. Can anyone identify it?

Last, but not least, is the neighboring property to the west where something was planted about a week ago. This photo was taken last Sunday, but there is nothing sprouting yet. Don't lose sleep worrying about this field, I'll provide all the details as the growing season progresses. Thanks for visiting!