Help Olpea!!! I went and got my self all confused again! OK, so here's where I'm at........ We've had rain, rain, and more rain. My Early Richmond tart cherry tree had shown limited signs of BR starting at around petal fall if I remember right, so I hit it with some Bonide Infuse. That's got the same active ingredient (Propiconazole) as Monterey Fungi-Fighter at the same concentration 1.55% I ran out of it so I had to get more, and this time I got some from ferti.lome, but again it was the same 1.55% Well my ER cherries have maybe 1/5 of the tree ready to pick, but between being beat up by high winds, bird hits, and BR, the quality isn't what I'd like. I went out to pick a little bit this morning and seemed like the BR had progressed, so out of BR frustration, I gave it another dose today thinking 0-3 PHI..., I can do this. So I come back in here and was re-reading this thread and saw where you'd indicated that you use Bumper, so I went out to that label and unless I was on a different label it looked like a much higher concentration, so then I went out to look at the Topaz label that was mentioned here as well, and it was like 41.8% and yet it still showed 0-PHI. I called ferti.lome and the guy was unaware it was even labeled for stone fruits, and said he would not recommend I eat the cherries this year, but if I did to wait as long as I could. So I called Monterey, the gal is like "..ummm lemme go check..., because you want to eat the cherries right"? She returns and says "21 days, don't eat 'em until 21 days is passed" I have to admit that I don't have a ton of confidence in either of the contacts I spoke with, and I have also placed a call in to Bonide and am still awaiting a call back. But my question is this: If the stuff I'm using is 1.55% Propiconazole and all three companies - Bonide, MFF, & ferti.lome won't put a PHI on the label (which I understand could even mean 0 PHI) and yet over the phone their CS Reps can't recommend consuming the cherries either before 21 days has passed, if at all... But isn't the stuff I'm using waaaay less of active ingredient than what either Bumper OR Topaz has? Is there a reason that the products with the seemingly much higher concentration level have no problems printing 0 PHI while the three using 1.55% are shrouded in mystery? I think you probably have a much more understandable way of educating us non-pros than the customer service reps from the companies.... Thanks in advance!!

Hi najoba, Burlap beats nothing, for sure, but a mulch would be better, and a cover crop of winter rye even better than that. A bed on hold all winter will leach out available mitrogen with the rains, and burlap won't stop that or prevent some erosion of fine particles. A cover crop holds on to those nutrients for you, while sending an immense web of roots to stabilize the soil. Rye grass would be a pesky weed, I'm talking cereal grain rye. I say winter rye for a daylily bed because the root system suppresses nematodes and weeds. Daylilies (per Gary recently) like soil with three times the usual amount of fungi. We were discussing compost specifically, where cereal grain waste of any kind would feed the fungi. In my own head, it seems like a a cereal grain crop would provide some ungerminated seed to feed the soil fungi over winter. In spring, when you terminate the cover crop by whatever method, the roots decay leaving organic matter, worm food, and macropores in the soil for improved aeration and water penetration. I guess farmer's kill it off with Roundup and leave the plants there for a mulch, but for something less that 2000 acres of cotton you could just mow it down a few weeks before planting. We all talk about newspaper mulch, but I got rolls of brown paper from Lowe's paint department, 4' X 54' It's thick paper for protecting wooden floors from paint. I plan to set down that paper and have my son kick it along for it's 54 feet of mulch base over my mown cover. This is my seedling bed I'm doing, and in a big back yard with property addition up to a small pond in a subdivision so I went with easy, but also I think the brown solid paper won't blow during it's layout , and will look nicer for my neighbors. I don't plan to till anymore in the spring, just mulch. I know you have much bigger beds/operation than me, but I was happy to see you here and wanted to share my plans as I also have some slope on this bed heading down to a small stream. It's more work now, but pays off later.

The mouse/rat poison seems tempting, but I was reading google on it, and the dying animal wanders around thirstily looking for water and easy to pick off by predators which are then also poisoned. Cats, dogs, and protected raptors can fall victim. Apparently in Mexico they used a lot of rat poison and killed off all the predators and were overrun by rats. I found one article claiming feeding mice dry instant mashed potatoes would expand in their stomachs and kill them. Also a mixture of chocolate milk powder and plaster of paris would kill them. Peanut butter mixed with plaster of paris and hung from trees in bags has been recommended for squirrels. I grow lots of plants to provide nectar for bees, and have great pollination of my fruit trees- mint beds (and great for tea), allow dandelions to bloom, then cut off seed heads, flowers in general. As for the bay laurel, it is only hardy from zone 8-10 so the next bad winter will kill it. I try to grow stuff hardy to at least zone 7, preferably 6 or lower. Lots of herbs are extremely hardy and tough- oregano, marjoram, thyme, and upright rosemary. The hellebores are really great when they bloom so early in spring, reserve judgment until you see them then. The last year's foliage is cut off around then. Plants that do really well here are biennials like Lunaria- money plant and I won't mention Forget-Me-Nots, because they are so rampant and hard to control; and ephemeral plants that grow in the wet spring weather then disappear in the dry summer- Anemone nemorosa, daffodils, some tulips, Muscari, etc. I find moles very damaging as well, I also have plants heaved out of the ground by them, buried under their mounds, or roots left hanging in the air underground. They make burrows that attract voles as well so the ground under some fruit trees or vegetables becomes more burrow than dirt. 3 winter squash were flourishing then suddenly began to wilt and die, I pulled one up out of the mole mound and it was eaten clean off. I actually have to plant pole beans by digging just a small hole for the bean, sprinkling on cayenne pepper, and putting a 4" galvanized nail into the ground by each bean (warning: danger!). Then after the beans are growing I wrap the bottom 9+" of stem with aluminum foil to keep them from being nipped off by voles, and still lose quite a few. I'm appreciating one bed by the driveway the PO filled with gravel- no voles! I've been putting quite a few of my seedling perennials in there and hope to raise them unmolested. I also pretty much ended having my daylily roots eaten off by putting lava rock in the bottom and sides of the planting holes. That would probably work for fruit trees if enough could be put in a big enough area- difficult. I'm looking for more shrubs that have fruit. I already have an extensive blueberry collection, and really like the evergreen forms, and also like Aronia, available in tall or dwarf forms. I'm getting interested this year in barberries, Mahonia (Oregon Holly Leaf) which is tough as nails here and makes an attractive hedge, in various heights, and Berberis- the ornamental red import thunbergii you see everywhere is pretty but no edible fruit and potentially invasive in forests; preferably the native fendleri, green deciduous leaves, gets tall, and has fruit supposedly tasting like sour cherries. Also lots of non-native Berberis like darwinii, most have edible fruit, attractive foliage, some evergreen and some deciduous, and medicinal properties in the bark and roots. Raspberries can be great if you have the room, since they spread. I also like mulberries, the lavender or white trees have non-staining fruit not noticed by birds, and the weeping form has small tasty fruit hidden by the weeping branches and leaves.

I have found that using whole ground cornmeal works the best for blackspot. You can buy it at nurserys and at feed stores. Take a handful or two, and dump it under the rose, close to the stem, about out to the drip line. Water it in. The water activates the chemical process that cures the blackspot. You can use this ad lib. I also feed my roses with epsom salts and granulated molasses. You can get the epsom salts anywhere and the molasses can be obtained at a nursery or feed store. The new leaves that come out will not have the blackspot. There isn't anything you can do about the old leaves except pull them off. Be sure and put them in the trash can, not on the ground. Also, you can help prevent the blackspot by watering in the morning, water the roots and try to keep water off of the leaves. Watering at night, getting water on the leaves seems to aggravate the condition. Good luck. Cecelia