c3ponds
June 4th, 2005, 04:58 PM
A question was posted in another thread about growing peaches organically. I'm an experimenting ameteur, but it looks like we'll get good peaches this year for the first time! Here's what I do:
1) Use traps for borers!!! This is most important. The attractant is from Gardens Alive. The square tube, about 4" across, is made from clear, stiff plastic from the box of a child's toy. The holes for the twisty are punched near the center top, the top being opposite from the open edges to let water run out. The attractant is stuck near the top inside, then the entire inside is spread with tangletrap (very sticky goo available many places). Use a long twist-tie to put it in a peach tree and stand back! I put mine out late (June, for Pete's sake!), but still had more than thirty borers stuck in one day. It attracts many types of borers, including oak and ash borers. Put them out in mid April to prevent the damage.
2) Paint the trunk white with outdoor latex paint thinned with water and fine wood ashes. The recipe is in "The Apple Grower," I forget the author's name. I add a little copper soap to help with our major problem of Peach Leaf Curl.
The white paint is supposed to make it easy to see where eggs were laid, but I'm not that diligent in inspecting. It makes it very easy to see sap oozing from baby borers. Go after the nasty things with a thin wire to do them in.
3) Put ashes around the base of the tree (not a lot, though). This is supposed to discourage borers from laying near the ground level. This is the first year we're trying it, so we'll see how it goes.
4) For all other pests, we use Surround Crop Protectant. It's an organic, fine, white clay which gets mixed with water and sprayed on. It doesn't stick well on its own, so we add a homemade sticking agent [starch (arrowroot, corn, whatever) mixed with water and thickened to the consistency of egg whites] and a little organic pesticide just in case a bug takes a nibble. This mix stays very well on peaches due to the fuzz, and I haven't seen a single bite taken out. Shiny, bare nectarines tend to repel every spray, and they're oozing in many places from bug bites.
Surround is great on apples, too! I have NO CATEPILLARS! My sister's apples are not so lucky. She sprays BT instead of Surround, but the little pests keep reappearing while they seem to not like the clay-sprayed trees at all.
Good luck to you!
1) Use traps for borers!!! This is most important. The attractant is from Gardens Alive. The square tube, about 4" across, is made from clear, stiff plastic from the box of a child's toy. The holes for the twisty are punched near the center top, the top being opposite from the open edges to let water run out. The attractant is stuck near the top inside, then the entire inside is spread with tangletrap (very sticky goo available many places). Use a long twist-tie to put it in a peach tree and stand back! I put mine out late (June, for Pete's sake!), but still had more than thirty borers stuck in one day. It attracts many types of borers, including oak and ash borers. Put them out in mid April to prevent the damage.
2) Paint the trunk white with outdoor latex paint thinned with water and fine wood ashes. The recipe is in "The Apple Grower," I forget the author's name. I add a little copper soap to help with our major problem of Peach Leaf Curl.
The white paint is supposed to make it easy to see where eggs were laid, but I'm not that diligent in inspecting. It makes it very easy to see sap oozing from baby borers. Go after the nasty things with a thin wire to do them in.
3) Put ashes around the base of the tree (not a lot, though). This is supposed to discourage borers from laying near the ground level. This is the first year we're trying it, so we'll see how it goes.
4) For all other pests, we use Surround Crop Protectant. It's an organic, fine, white clay which gets mixed with water and sprayed on. It doesn't stick well on its own, so we add a homemade sticking agent [starch (arrowroot, corn, whatever) mixed with water and thickened to the consistency of egg whites] and a little organic pesticide just in case a bug takes a nibble. This mix stays very well on peaches due to the fuzz, and I haven't seen a single bite taken out. Shiny, bare nectarines tend to repel every spray, and they're oozing in many places from bug bites.
Surround is great on apples, too! I have NO CATEPILLARS! My sister's apples are not so lucky. She sprays BT instead of Surround, but the little pests keep reappearing while they seem to not like the clay-sprayed trees at all.
Good luck to you!