[rainie]

Hello all, I hope you are all well and misbehaving...
 
This year my fruit trees didnt do very well due to blackfly etc, and i read somewhere on here about tar washes etc, i did my homework, and have bought stuff to do the trees with. (cant remember what i bought at the moment and its too blummin cold n windy to root in the shed at the bottom of the garden).

Any views or advice would be appeciated.

PS sorry not been here for a while, winter weather means everything with horses takes longer, so no time to play.

[richyrich7]

Not done a winter tar wash since I lived with me mum and dad 21 + yrs back, they used to do it every year ( well I did it  :roll: ) I'm sure they used jeyes fluid for it  :?
They used to swear by it, kills lots of bugs bad and good !, that and a grease band, we used to have quite heavy usable crops from what I can remember.

Sorry for the ramble  

[compostqueen]

Armillatox was used for this job. It's still available but for EEC reasons or some such it's sold now as patio cleaner but you can still use it for your fruit trees and roses

[Trillium]

The safest route is to use a lime and sulphur spray wash in late winter before the buds form. Once they form, you mustn' spray anything on them. This is the most organic route to use as its merely sulphur oil mixed with a lime solution that you mix together as needed and spray over bark. The lime kills bugs and disease and the oil suffocates anything else but not the tree itself. Once the weather warms a bit, install the grease bands Richy mentioned to catch the pests trying to climb up the tree and replace several times a season as they'll be full of bugs.

[cawdor2001]

i recall Munty suggested something more long lasting and efficient than a grease band, something you paint on, his own concoction i believe.


Cawdor

[richyrich7]

i recall Munty suggested something more long lasting and efficient than a grease band, something you paint on, his own concoction i believe.


Cawdor

I reckon he might have.. I often wondered if you painted car grease on that would work ?

[muntjac]

it was car grease and an ordinary bandage .or some hessian sacking if ya feel cheap. 50p a bag at pet stores  

[richyrich7]

 Muntjac cheers

[rainie]

Thanks people, where do i get sulphur oil from? Armillatox is what i bought earlier in the year, (as pation cleaner).  For the tape around the trunks, we used duct tape, its ok but not brilliant.

[DANNY]

As Trillium has coverd the subject very well, the only 2 things I would add is this 1. try and do the work on a day when its not windy, ensure you use eye protection, and clothing you dont mind smelling of the wash you use,
2. if you,ve a grassed area around and under your tree have a think about covering it  with plastic or old news papers ,   there,s 2 schools of thought on this one and they are this ,some folk think the wash should go on the ground under the tree as this kills any bugs etc, and some say it kills the grass hence you end up with yellowish marks at the base of the tree,s.
On the estate I work at we was told to cover the grass and so we always did and come spring all looked o.k

[rainie]

Thank you all so much for your help.

We have gravel under the trees with a membrane under the gravel, so it may well be worth giving it a wizz over too.
Yellow grass isnt a problem, we have 2 springer spaniels so we are used to grass dying and coming back.

(munty, you sound like my dad with his oil and stuff. )

[rainie]

and thats a compliment, my dad has wonderful inventions like mixing paint in mums twin tub, and mixing silver paint with his drill and a wooden spoon, only never to find his drill for a week as he was looking for a green one but it had changed to silver!