greg mosser

in my experience, there’s not a whole lot of difference between horizontal and vertical as long as they’ve got enough light and space to grow. reducing the leader can definitely help encourage the tree to put more energy into your side grafts.

so glad they made it semi-okay! you’re getting to taste them quite ripe - they were still green when they left here.

no. definitely not the mushroom i know as turkey tail.

i only had one round of tomato hornworms this year. usually there’s at least 3. i did see both tobacco and pawpaw hornworms though.

i have. i’ve generally melted down conifer resin i’ve collected, added other dried plant material, then spread it as thinly as i could to cool. then broken it up. it’s the kind you use with a coal or charcoal.

but back to horn-on-the-arse, my wife decided to plant a couple tobacco plants this year (as a point of interest in her rose garden), so i got a nice pic of the tobacco hornworms that showed up.

i saw an io moth earlier this year (pictured) but haven’t seen their kiddos around. the saddlebacks are what usually zap me when i’m not paying enough attention (pictured hiding out on pawpaw)

the first crack is the hardest! something like a davebilt nut cracker on its finest setting might do it. alternatively one of the simpler hand-cranked grain mills on a wide setting might do it. some are less good when there’s any wetness, but some should work. or something like a sausage-grinder.

i’m part owner of a modern nut-processing facility, so much of the infrastructure that we use tends to stretch the ‘ancestral skills’ idea a bit…

but anyway, i love acorns. the higher oil-containing species like pin oak, black oak, willow oak, live oak, southern red oak, and to a lesser extent, northern red, can be pressed for oil before leaching. and acorn oil is awesome.

the situation just isn’t perfect for unblemished skin, but few apple-growing situations really are, especially if it’s no-spray. i see evidence of a few skin imperfections, mostly sooty blotch and fly-speck, but nothing that effects the edibility of the apple. pruning for better air-flow and sun-access may help, but land-forms around you may make fighting mild fungal effects difficult in general.

in my world, that’s a totally acceptable-looking apple.