24/11/2024
We🍒 nature: it is cherry season in Victoria. This is our first harvest for 2024. As some of you may know, we have ~71 cherry trees and for the last 3 years, only 1 has significantly fruited. 🤪 So, we have been trying/learning /praying to bring them back to productivity. This year we had a little success with low crop yields on most trees. However, with only 2 large nets and a very small net, they have all been eaten by birds, except for the 2.5 trees netted. The little silvereye birds still manage to find their way into the nets and everyday I am repairing nets and scaring them away- made more frustrating by continually catching my buttons in the net. 😵💫 Today the rain has started too, and I have decided not to harvest the majority of cherries as they are not quite ripe. However, I risk losing all to brown rot disease after the rain. 😬 I know I “should” put Sulfur spray on the fruit to protect the crop but I just don’t want Sulfur on my fruit. So, now I wait to see if my gamble pays off. 🤞 Growing natural food is a super challenge.
