March 23, 2013…Lots of blossoms, hope the bees find them.
We’ve got plums!!! Yes, we’ve had plums before, but not like this. Our honey bees and Mason bees have contributed to the success…but now I’ve got to protect them. I’ve also seen evidence of raccoons. I won’t show the photo of raccoon scat, just trust me on this. Raccoons can climb fences (in my case, deer cages that surround the trees.) Last year we had counted about 40 to 50 plums almost ready to harvest, which disappeared overnight from raccoons climbing the wire deer proof cage.
6-1-13…Plums getting bigger…Hummm, I better start preparing raccoon protection.
I had noticed the sheet metal wrapped around Hal’s plum tree every time we looked at his bee hives. One day I asked about it. “It’s to prevent the raccoons from getting a foot hold on the plum tree.”
Even Hal’s plum tree supports are protected with sheet metal.
I removed the wire deer cage and bought a roll of sheet metal to prevent the raccoons from climbing the trunk. I figured if Hal had success with it, so would I.
July 7, 2013 These branches were starting to break under the weight of all those plums.
I copied Hal’s method of holding up the branches. These supports also serve to keep the branches higher off the ground so the raccoons can’t pull on them. Hope they can’t climb 2×4’s. Footnote: I traded the 2×4’s for 2×2’s the next day…I didn’t want to take any chances.
Even this young tree has plums. I didn’t want to pull off the deer fence so I hung the sheet metal on it, hoping the height is up far enough that the raccoons can’t climb it. The plums are getting ripe so we’ll soon find out.
July 19, 2013,,,My sweetheart has enough plums for the first batch of plum jam. Carmen approves.
The deer help themselves to the dropped plums. We’re happy to share.
Adventures in Natural Beekeeping 