pollen or caterpillar poop?

[outfished]

Hey Professor, I hear your ranting and raving and take it to heart. I grow and maintain a small field of vegetables(3.5 acres) and it's a handful to say the least. I haven't sprayed anything this year and hope I don't need to, I'm trying to keep it organic if possible. Last year at another location I had to deal with blight (antracnosis) it it was just total devastation for three years and I finally gave up. Sure I could of saturated the area with chemicals but I was defeating the purpose of going organic and with all the health issues attached to spraying I opted out. I did try the bourdeau mixture(copper sulfate) and that did help the grapes some, but everything else just rotted away. It didn't help that some surrounding properties had the same problem and unless the owners there choose to do fix their problem, I was left on my own and could never rid the problem. I know fruit trees are fairly delicate and require special handling and I've been thinking of starting some, but now I'm not so sure. Best of luck brother!

[ProfessorM]

Don't get me wrong I love to garden and the fruit is my favorite but the work involved with fruit trees is non stop. It is fun the first few years but it soon gets to be constant work. Pruning, fert.,spraying, harvest if yu are lucky. Try a few first before you go hog wild. I suggest blueberries. Alot less work and you can't beat the harvest. Just birds to worry about. Always something. I commend you trying organic. I use it in my little plot. On a grand scale it has to be tuff. Good luck. Paul

[outfished]

Blueberrie's are on my list for next year. I have tons of raspberries and blackberries but those are fairly maintenance free. So far so good at my plot, no bugs to report. Here's a tip that may help with insects. Located around my plot are several sparrow house's I've put up over the years and are all occupied by new families all summer long. I've observed that early in the morning around daybreak that the adult sparrows love to hand out in my plot devouring insects by the buckets. That my be why insects haven't been a concern...yet. I also have erected several bat house's on the edge of the property and watch about a half a dozen bats flying and diving over the plot at night, again eating buckets of bugs. Ahhhh, mother nature at its best!