I’m sorry to hear about your critter problems!If we hadn't done this, we would have had zero blueberries and cherries. I am getting blueberries, but critters got all but a dozen cherries.
But that does illustrate some of the hurdles. Was it birds or something else?
Originally, I thought it was birds. Now I'm thinking it was squirrels. This has been a bumper year for squirrels. I have heard that from a lot of people.I’m sorry to hear about your critter problems!
You did good. The critters getting the cherries is ...mostly unrelated. That's just how they are. We have fruit trees. Like 7 or 8 of them. 1 of them is a cherry tree. And its the same story every year; EVERYTHING goes after the cherry tree. And its so bad that basically the maintenance required for the cherry tree is more than EVERYTHING ELSE combined!View attachment 3879449
Well, I don't have the pictures I thought I took. This last spring, we had frost for three nights after the blueberries and cherry trees were in bloom. The garbage bags in the above picture were on the ground to help warm it up. Around 4pm, I put them over the bushes.
We put bed sheets over the cherry trees. I don't know if we'll be able to do that after this year's growth.
If we hadn't done this, we would have had zero blueberries and cherries. I am getting blueberries, but critters got all but a dozen cherries.
Not to self: continue good relationship with neighbor who has cherry orchard and allows us to pick whenever he has an orchard he is not harvesting.
What "processing" are you doing?
Try woven weed fabric instead of plastic. Water and nutrients can seep through the woven weed fabric, the soil maintains a more constant temperature, and it prevents weeds from growing through (except anywhere there may be a puncture - like landscaping staples to hold it down). And go for galvanized landscaping staples because they won't rust in the ground and will last many years.We would love to not put plastic down but we're surrounded by farmers fields, and additionally, was getting horse manure delivered from a neighbor. She told us how to "bake" it before using it, but still, OMG the weeds. It was just too much. We gave up. Most things we found, but we lost the carrots for a while.
This year, I wanted to try Preem, but hubby won't have it. He thinks plastic is the answer and plans to use it in the fall.
He spent 3 days pulling weeds because there were too many and too tall for the rototiller.
We chose to skip the horse manure this year, and maybe next year, we'll go back to cow manure. We have compost we mix in by the tomatoes and a few other things so at least they'll get fresh fertilizer.
His question though is if he puts down plastic this fall, then in the spring, no weeds will come up, but wouldn't those weed seeds just be dormant and come up as soon as we pull the plastic off? I'm not so sure that's going to do any good.
It shredded.
Another option is cover crops, you just have to whack them down before they go to seed.
Look up "woven ground cover". I ordered mine several years ago from Grower's Solution. We have reused ours for years, and it still looks good. Shop around because I don't know if they have the best pricing or not - it isn't cheap, but it shouldn't make gardening unaffordable, either.What kind of weed fabric are you using? My "weed block" fabric was a total misnomer and worthless. Remove and use another year?
