An update

The end of August promised rain, but not much of any consequence has fallen. Our hugelculture (hugelkulture) plot is growing, but with the help of irrigation not natural rain, sadly! We watch it rain around us, but not on us.  Gordon has said, if he had thought of it, he would have camped out on the property and watched the weather patterns before buying it, but, at last, that was over twenty years ago.

We have been busy sprucing up the farm for our big fall sale. Weeding has been my "passion" for the past week and I'm determined to clean up a few more hundred bagged trees before  the start of the sale, which is Friday. While weeding can be boring and monotonous, it gives me an opportunity to be up close to each tree. I try to be ever watchful for disease or insect pressure, which weeding and spraying gives me opportunity to be observant. Sense I'm on the topic of intimacy (with the trees), spraying was my occupation for awhile, earlier in August. Spraying holistic foliar sprays on ten acres takes about 500 gallons and two good days of constant work.  Our foliar concoction consist of dried kelp, molasses, fermented garlic, and EM-1 microbial inoculate. This is apart of our holistic health regimen.  Feeding the microbes helps feed the trees.  The garlic acts as a solvent, moving the kelp into the plants system through the stomata. This regime helps boost the trees immune system and helps fortify cells against temperature swings (since we're headed towards fall).  

While I sprayed each and every tree on property (~8,000 or so), I had the fortune of running into this bugger...the tomato horn worm. 

 

This years horn worms are especially large, 6-8 inches long and a diameter as great as 1inch...

I would come upon a tree with one to several branches defoliated and would find one of these giant caterpillar munching along.  I exterminated them with my pruners, which was not a graceful end for something that would normally metamorphose into this...tomato horn worm moth