Cody Lazzaro

Hi all,
Advice on pruning my tree please and thank you!  Pics attached :) We live in Southern California and have a nice donut peach tree that produced well last season, but of course the branches got weighted down so we need to prune, like a "wine glass" I believe.  Thing is, this tree has three trunks.  Most orchard trees I've seen have one trunk (correct me if I'm wrong).  I've attached pics of the tree.  There are three trunks:  left, middle, and right, plus a shooter/sucker in the center that I'll prune.  The middle trunk is developing nicely, with some horizontal growth. Should I trim the left and right trunks?  The right trunk is straight, more like a shooter/sucker, so perhaps I just trim that and leave the left and right?    thanks for any advice!  

Eric Hanson wrote:Hi Cody!

I bet that those oak leaves are not only low on moisture, but also low on nitrogen as well.  Definitely chop them up as has already been mentioned and get them soaking wet. But then add in some type of high nitrogen composting agent as well.  I typically use grass clippings, but just about any green material (minus root and seed) or coffee grounds will work.  Actually, used coffee grounds are about the perfect compost agent, holding just the right amount of water, air, carbon and nitrogen.

Last tip:  I said get the leaves soaking wet, but you don’t really want them to stay soaking wet.  Rather, you want just enough moisture to support decomposition and not so much that oxygen gets displaced.

I have also tried piling up leaves and they stay leaves for a long time unless I do something to speed their decomposition.

Good Luck and please keep us updated!

Eric

thanks for the tips, and to everyone else too.  we have a food composter (encased in concrete to keep bears out) and it is worm-rich and has lots of decomposed food, so perhaps I'll try combining that with oak leaves and see what happens, plus add whatever other leaves around the property I can find, which are rare.

Phil Stevens wrote:Besides the lack of water, the biggest impediment is probably the crispy, leathery structure of the leaves. Can you chop them up, with a lawnmower or shredder? That will help water penetrate and get the manure into the increased surface area.

yes I have an old lawnmower and a 55 gallon oil drum I was considering making a DIY leaf shredder with

Hi folks,
I live in Southern California, somewhat inland so it's pretty dry, although we get a little winter rain.  Most of the plant material available to us for composting is Quercus agrifolia, the coast live oak, a classic California oak tree.  Of course, the leaves are quite tough and we don't get a lot of water.  We have some chickens and can add some manure, but we can't get the compost pile to heat up.  we have TONS of leaves though and could build a bigger pile.  Anyway...has any one seen success composting live oak leaves in Southern California.  Share tips please?
thanks
Codi

Thanks everyone, yeah I'm just mulching away here so I'll try to work around that with alternative ground covers.  A fun fact:  I pruned some squash plants and left the leaves to decay in the beds, and lo and behold at night the dying leaves were covered with earwigs.  And we just got kittens, which means a tasty empty cat food can everyday to trap earwigs.   So until I can attract a predator army, I'll try to distract them with decaying squash leaves and cat food cans, and that seems to be getting them under control.  As far as the mulch, maybe I'll rent a tiller and do a one-time blend of the mulch into the dirt in the barren areas of my field.

Hi Folks,
I'm in Inland Southern California, zone 10b.  I put in some raised beds and the earwigs are decimating my turnips, radishes, lettuce, beans, squashes, basil, and more.  I know they're beneficial at some level but they are out of control.  At night it's a horror movie out there.  I fear that I've created an ideal habitat for them:  lots of damp mulch for them to hide in and lots of tender young greens for them to eat.  What's worse is that I just got a dump truck of freee mulch, which  just added several hundred square feet of earwig habitat.  Lucky them!

I've tried spraying solutions of Murphy's oil soap and Neem, and using diatomaceous earth, and picking them off by hand, but they keep coming.  I'm ready for a permaculture solution, though.  What predators can I attract?  It's dry here, so there's few frogs.  Lots of lizards, but they seem to like the fence.  And not enough to put a dent in my earwig population anyway.  I've read about tachinid flies, which are bad for butterflies, but perhaps that would be the best way?  I have chickens, but they can't get into the raised beds, and they're on the other side of the property and they need to be supervised if out of their run or else coyote dinner.  I've used the oil traps and they catch some, but the onslaught continues.   I can live with a few, but they're ruining so much  Maybe this is just a bad year for some reason?  Was a pretty wet winter.

thanks for advice!
c