That top photo up there was taken just yesterday afternoon.Don't be fooled by a nice fat bowl filled with produce though....take a closer look.
Sadly the girl and I had just plucked every single one of those fruitfly bitten peaches from our tree.
What a abundant crop that could have been....look at just how many that tree was bearing and I had already thinned the crop out!
I know there are always wins and losses in the gardening stakes.... and organic gardening especially is a fine art of observation, timing, wile, guile and some sacrifice.
Sacrifice I was aware of. I knew the fruifly were going to wage a pretty wild attack on these little fuzzies....I mean it is a peach tree...in Queensland!....in Spring!
And I had bagged as many fruit as I could and that I thought we would eat and cook.
But as all is fair in love and war those little blighters somehow managed to bite the fruit right through the bags ....so fare thee well peach babes before any more hatch out.
In addition to losing all these I also threw about half a dozen of my capsicums to the chickens.
Note to self.....bag everything....if that even helps. Sigh.
So the question stands.
Should the tree stay or should it just go?
I guess in any decision making process there are the pro's and con's.
And there are pro's of course.
Obviously it's a good bearer.
It performs such a pretty Winter show...and brings bees (of all kinds) to the garden.
I've been adoring our little native resident lady leafcutter for quite some time now. There she is above busily cutting those peach leaves and making nests for her babes in our bamboo.
But I guess in any productive garden...and from a sense of self sufficiency.... is it beneficial enough to be maintaining a tree, not particularly suited to this climate, for the blossoms and bugs?
Care to cast a vote?
5 comments:
I dunno I am probably not the best gardner or the most practical when it comes to these decisions but I know that there is no way I could let a tree that productive grow even if I did only get minimal fruit, I guess I would just begin to view it as a low productive tree when waging in the losses. Or like most of my plants, I would just let it go and do the odd bit here and there and that way whatever came from it would be a bonus, like I say I am not a good gardner :)
I vote for keeping the tree! It should be noted that I'm a completely impractical, unexperienced, sentimental gardener.... But she's so pretty! (its normal that I think your peach tree is a girl right?)
My husband thought he was doing me a favor and cleaned off all of my mud hives for our solitary bees and wasps by our front door. I've been watching them for years. I was pretty devastated. He thought... well who knows what the hell he thought.
I vote for getting rid of it and replacing it with something more suitable that can also provide you with 'blossoms and bugs'. Almond? Citrus? Macadamia?
I've been meaning to look into what fruit trees aren't susceptible to fruit fly. I can't grow any sort of tomato sucessfuly except for cherry tomatoes because of horrible frit fly.
Good luck with the decision :-)
I think I would let it go another year and try some other tactic against the dreaded fruit fly(what I don't know). I think all gardeners have a love hate relationship with insects.I love the good gutys and find it very hard to have a nice thing to say about the bad.
Best wishes
Tracy
Around here the bees would be enough of a reason to keep it. I'm also a sucker for beautiful flowers.
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