My apple trees have flowered and produced since the first year I planted them, but they’ve had some kind of bug or fungus or something that has prevented the apples from ever making it to autumn. They get to racquetball size, then drop. The last couple of years, they’ve even been deformed.
I mostly don’t use chemicals in my garden because I’m lazy, not because I have any great problem with chemicals. It just seems that if you start using them, something happens to the natural cycle of things, and you have to use more chemicals to keep certain processes going. So instead, I just leave the plants to their own devices. But if there was ever a time for nasty, powerful chemicals, it’s now. I got something called “Fruit Tree Spray” from my favorite fruit tree mail order place. It’s a broad-spectrum insecticide and fungicide. When I opened the package, the choking, smothering odor of poison filled my house. My whole first floor smelled like chemical death. Ehhhxcellent!
It’s been cold for several days, so I haven’t been able to spray, but yesterday was finally warm. I soaked my apple trees with poison, then went after the wooly scale insects on my beauty berry bush. The instructions say to wait for the apple trees to finish flowering, then poison them again. I can hardly wait!
While spraying, I thoroughly coated myself with poison. Ack. I showered afterward.
I was going to make some eco-freak comment about the chemicals, but then I say the picture. My first thought was, “He had to wrap the tree to make the chemicals stay put? That’s weird that a tree needs a bandage.” Then I saw the grossness.
Spray away, sir. Spray away.
Over a year ago Thurman bought us a bottle of Weed Be Gone to shoot into the cracks between the cement in the driveway and along its edges to reduce weed encroachment there. I have yet to crack the seal due to my personal toxin phobia. Let me just say this: when you have some rare form of c—-r due to exposure to some cyclopolyethylfredlucyandricky chemical you used repeatedly just to “guarantee” those apples make it to fall (would they then still be edible, now laced with toxins?!)…
Hmmm…now I wonder if this is what the wicked queen did to poison Snow White? ;-(
So you like the smell of chemicals ‘ay? This could be a new cologne for you. I happen to have some Mace (or Pepper Spray) on my key chain so the next time I see you I can give your socks a little spray.
…if you’d like.