One of the most difficult aspects of growing organically is weed control.  We use a variety of methods in our orchard to deal with the weed issue; all are extremely time consuming and require a ton of labor in spring when a thousand other chores also need completed.  Step one – hand weeding the trees and plants.

In our home orchard, we lay ground cloth at the base of our apple tree rows in early spring.  This is a multiday process as inevitably high winds pull up your initial rows.  After much cussing and re-staking the grass grows and holds it in place.  We will pull up the ground cloth in fall for two reasons: to extend the life of the cloth and to avoid giving moles and voles a perfect winter habitat.

For our gooseberry and currant plantings, we lay cardboard (feels like playing Tetris) then put a layer of straw over the cardboard.  This provides a great mulch layer.  The one problem I discovered with this method this year is Idunn’s chickens were tossing straw and cardboard around the rows as quickly as we could lay it!  Throughout the years, the ducks and geese would poke around the straw, but leave our work in tact.  The chickens have a different outlook on life, and while I know they are doing a great job controlling the pests, I still have to growl at their antics.

At our new u-pick orchard, we will use a cultivation method and plant a cover crop during the growing season.

Out watching the ducks chasing flying insects in the orchard this evening.  With the extremely warm day, the air is filled with flying morsels of protein and the ducks look mighty happy.   Yesterday, John and Idunn- both armed only with veils and short sleeved shirts- captured a swarm of honeybees in the orchard.  The bees, possibly a break-away swarm from our hive, covered a pear branch.  John shook the branch to get half the bees to fall into a bee box.  Later Idunn checked the box and helped put the lid on.  In the next few days the two of them will check the hive for a queen.

The not-so-good insects are also making an appearance.  We’ve had to deal with the first generation of imported currant worms on our gooseberries.  If you have just a few (or many)  plants, you need to be vigilant against the pale green larvae.  Look over your gooseberry leaves carefully, if you spot black specks of frass or tiny holes in the leaves you need to lift leaves and find the larvae.  They can be drowned in a soapy mixture, or just squished.  Larvae of the third generation overwinter in cocoons in the soil and I can only imagine how easy their winter was this year.

Spring seed planting