Dear Dr., I would suggest a strategy wait and see. How recent are the transplants into the ground? Is the soil amended with small wood chips/perlite to help with drainage? Are the plantings in a low area? Yellow leaves to me point to slowly draining soil or too much rain/watering. This past May I put a number of fruit trees in the ground, and had immediate concerns as well. I actually contacted my local county agricultural extension (usually connected to a university with a agricultural based program). In my state its Penn State. I would just google your county name and "agricultural extension". They have the info and wherewithal to diagnose your disease. They can even have a sample tested if need be. Usually, when I call, since I am not a commercial gardener, I speak to a master gardener. I have found them to be very helpful. To fill you in with what happened. I thought I had a fuji apple and 2 pears with fire blight. I emailed pictures to the master gardener and asked. He immediately replied and said that it did not look like fire blight. He also informed me that most trees go through an adjustment phase where the newly transplanted roots cannot keep up with the demands of the quickly growing tree. Consequently, there is leaf loss and the tree is more susceptible to disease. I'm telling you I kept my receipts close, because I really thought this tree was going to die. 100% of the leaves were affected. I was thinking to myself, how is this tree going to photosynthesize with no leaves? My only solace was that the tree trunk was a nice green color (like the variety standard) I waited a month or so, and since the damage to my leaves did not look insect related, I sprayed with Serenade, an organic multi purpose fungicide (from Fedco organic mail order). Now since it has been quite rainy and damp in PA this year, it seems to wash off in the rain soon after I apply it. However, whether it has been me suppressing the infection with Serenade, or the trees have overcome the transplant shock, the leaf tips on the branches are budding out again with good, healthy leaves. I believe all of the original leaves are going to die, but not before bring replaced with new ones. My suggestion: take some pics and call the master gardener. They have seen most diseases and can step you through a treatment. Read up on the various diseases of your trees during the winter and order products mail order (since some of the products will not be available locally-I have gotten many an odd looking for organic products at the local Lowes). If you are going fungicidal route, I think most are broad spectrum- suppress or kill a variety of types. I really like Fedco to order supplies from, they are organic (for me a plus), they are an honest company, they ship quick. They also carry broad spectrum products Spinosad/ Monterey Garden spray for insects and Serenade, fungal supressant/fungicide Read up: I know fire blight is the kiss of death in Pennsylvania for apple and pear right when the first buds emerge in spring- transmitted by pollinators, so I am trying to devise a plan to cover them (?) in the spring. Not 100% sure of what to do, but thinking about it now so I won't be caught by surprise in the spring. I see you have a honeycrisp, you may be facing the same issue. Here is a link that might be useful: VA agricultural extension links on the right

MY property in particular is literally infested with them. If I go back in time on google earth I can see how with in 10 years an empty field became full of 10 - 20 foot tall Bradford pears. They are extremely hard to get rid of, and their terrible gnarly thorny limbs makes cutting them really difficult. They spread like privet, sending up new trees from their root system. I cut several down and treated the stumps only to find new growth sprouting from the stumps! One tree which I cut down still had a tiny bit of bark attached to the stump and the fallen section was still alive and well! In fall the migrating birds eat the fruit and where ever they poop a new tree pops up. Even pulling a 1 inch sprout is difficult because it forms a long cork screw tap root. I'm not sure how I'm going to ever eradicate them from my land. I have one acre that has literally 1 tree per square foot. I would rank this tree with private and kudzu in it's ability to take over and completely displace other native trees. I hate them soon much!!!! Thorny menace.

Ezzirah, I don't grow raspberries because they don't like the heat here, but I would think that any high-quality potting mix would do. You want something that is light and fluffy and which drains well. Avoid the ones that are labeled as 'moisture-control' because they can hold too much moisture and kill plants. I grow blackberries which are very heat tolerant in the ground in clay soil that's been well amended with a lot of composted cow manure and they do great in that. However, if you're growing raspberries in containers, you can't use native soil because it packs down and strangles the roots. Containers need a well-drained soil-less mix. I usually mix up my own container mix from a few basic ingredients and I can 'make' it drain more quickly or more slowly depending on what I use and on which proportions I use. A soilless mix is generally composed of some combination of peat moss or compost, vermiculite or perlite or expanded shale and pine bark fines and often has other ingredients added to provide nutrition or enhanced ability to drain well. The next time you're in a store that sells bagged potting soil and garden soil, look at the bags. Usually the name-brand ones that are labeled container soil or potting soil will be a soil-less mix. The ones labeled Garden Soil or Vegetable Soil likely contain some topsoil or dirt and should be used only in raised beds or added to your native soil. The poor quality mixes often contain a lot of black clay and should be avoided at all costs. For seed-starting, it is best to use a sterile seed-starting mix which is very light and fluffy and has only tiny particles so there's no particles large enough to keep seeds from sprouting. When handling ALL potting soils or seed-starting mixes or soil-less mixes, ALWAYS wear gloves. People who handle these mixes with their bare hands can contract some very serious illnesses from them, including a fungal infection that can get into your body and become systemic and chronic. It is your garden. Plant what you want and plant as much of it as your want and just enjoy the whole process. If you burn out, that's OK, because everything you do still will be a great learning experience and will leave you better prepared for the next garden. If you have lost your marbles, you'll eventually find them again....and most likely you'll find them in the garden under a large and vigorously growing squash plant. Here's my feeling about 'planting too much' 'going overboard' and 'losing your marbles': if those three things are the worst thing you ever do, you'll likely survive and have a wonderful life. Look at the other obsessions some people have.....spending tons of money to attend athletic events or take trips to exotic locales or go on guided hunting or fishing trips or maintaining their own deer lease or bass boat....or buying a new pair of shoes every couple of weeks so you have shoes that match every outfit or whatever..... If you enjoy gardening, then throw yourself into it wholeheartedly and love every minute of it. For me (and y'all probably can tell this already), gardening is not my hobby--it is my lifestyle. It is great exercise, it beautifies your property, it gives you FRESH garden produce, fruit, herbs and cut flowers and it feeds your soul. I can't see a downside to gardening. I find that I hit the 'burn out' stage several times during the gardening year and when that happens, I force myself to 'take a day off' and not step foot in the garden for a day or two. It is surprising how quickly I miss playing in the dirt when I take that day off. Dawn

Great post. I'm in the NE but surprisingly I see much of the same results that you have. My growing season is a bit longer as I don't have to deal with nearly the heat and humidity that you do although my transplant date is the middle of May. In terms of your questions regarding green cherries, the two that I know of that people give favorable reviews of are: - Green Doctors/Green Doctors Frosted - Green Zebra Cherry Some other prolific cherries you could try is Matt's Wild Cherry and Mountain Magic (F1). I haven't tried Sweet Million, but have tried Sweet 100 Million with good success. Also Dr. Carolyn's is very prolific and robust. It's a little later to develop than your typical cherry so it would be interesting to see if it does well in your climate. In terms of blacks, try Indian Stripe. It supposedly has a very similar tast to CP, but is more prolific and provides fruits earlier than CP. In terms of yellows try Hugh's. In terms of reds, I've heard good things about Ramapo (F1). You could also try your hand in grafting your tomatoes to rootstock to improve soil pest resistance and possible introduce more vigor to your tomato plants. There are various opinions on GW about the validity of grafting, but I think in your environment it would be a good thing to try (if nothing else at least you could buy the "Grafting - Been there, done that." There are expensive rootstock seeds you could purchase like Beaufort, or you can purchase cheaper hybrid seeds that already have soil pest resistance genes in them like Celebrity. You could even try your hand hand at making a 'Frankensteinian" tomato-eggplant mix using the eggplant rootstock "Black Beauty" which some people swear by. If you want to learn more about grafting type in "Cary Rivard" in Youtube. Dr. Rivard has a bunch of conference seminars that were video tapped and are now on Youtube. smithmal