RE: [gardeners] Re: Sunday in the garden [sic]

Seyfried,Alice (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Mon, 25 Jun 2001 09:05:57 -0400 

Eeek!!  No no no, please don't do that! I'm just a lurker, but I adore this
list, so I will pipe up with a question about my pear tree that I've been
wanting to ask for a very long time.  I have no idea what variety it is, as
it was planted before we bought our house. It is healthy however, and has
been kept in good shape. Every year it is totally **loaded** with pears. The
problem is that the pears never ripen. They seem to go from hard as rocks to
rotten. Now, we are not chemical people, and we're a bit lazy too, so we've
never sprayed this tree with anything. We live in central Ohio, zone 5b-6.
Does anyone have any suggestions for why the pears don't ripen.  We are at
the point that we are thinking of taking the tree out because it attracts
wasps and bees like crazy. I'd put up with them if we could get some fruit,
but if we can't enjoy the pears, then the wasps can't either. 

Thanks!
Alice - zone 5b-6
seyfried@oclc.org

-----Original Message-----
From: George Shirley [mailto:gshirl@bellsouth.net]
Sent: Sunday, June 24, 2001 11:53 PM
To: Gardeners List
Subject: [gardeners] Re: Sunday in the garden [sic]


There has been no gardeners mail for at least a week now. If volume doesn't
pick
up soon we will disband the list for lack of interest. Come on folks we know
you're lurking out there. Is everyone busy gardening?

George

lneuru wrote:
> 
> borrowing a leaf from George, here.  I have received no garden mail for
> awhile, several days, I think.  Am I still with you?
> 
> We went out today for another bout of weeding.  I have been incapacitated
> for almost 6 weeks but am more or less functional now.........and boy has
> the garden enjoyed it's freedom while I've been laid up!  So far 6 garbage
> cans/bags full of weeds (too much to compost) and we are only about
halfway
> through a 50 by 150 yard.  It's been alternately hot, then rainy and cool,
> ideal conditions for the stuff in this climate (Great Lakes).
> 
> We found termites in our pressurized lumber raised beds, one, anyway, so
we
> figure it's in more of them.  So much for making life better through
> chemicals.  I'm sending Len off the Canadian Tire for lots of termite
> poison. - we don't use pesticides but we are going to make an exception
> here.  And we are going to replace wood with stone, just as soon as the
> bugs are dead.
> 
> We now have a red squirrel; he ate all the sunflower seeds in the bird
> feeder, then ate the bird feeder.  They are very destructive little
> beasts....all my high falutin precepts about wildlife and gun control in
> cities etc.etc. are being replaced with dreams of h-bombing this
> creature......add to that the skunk we had removed from under our porch
> (2nd year in a row - she found the tiniest, moveable brick in the walkway)
> and the possum who has moved in somewhere in the back 40.  Aren't they
> supposed to be southern creatures? So far no #$%^& groundhogs, but I guess
> they'll be next.
> 
> What is happening up here is that we are just the tiniest bit warmer the
> last few years, that and the animals are being presssured by encroaching
> ciites.  We are and have been town for over 100 years here, but near a
very
> large railway allowance and a conservation area, and a big park.  So I
> guess we look like the woods.  We have more wildlife here than we do down
> east on the farm where we *are* woods, almost.
> 
> The weeding was somewhat satisfying, but I ached badly in the shoulders; 2
> aspirin did nothing so finally resorted to hot water in the shower, full
on
> the bum shoulder, and that did the trick.
> 
> So life has returned to good - another leaf from George.
> 
> Lucinda