Hmm what I thought was fire blight was not fire blight—no affected twig showed the “shepherd’s crook” shape.

I kept searching and found a website that, I am sure, described what my trees showed—turning black at the tip of the leaf until the whole leaf was affected. Described it as trees stressed for lack of water and compost or manure.

So spent some time clearing weeds and grass around the tree trunks, sprinkling some blood and bone then rock dust (B&B gives the trees some quick nitrogen, rock dust supplies nutrients like phosphorus over a longer time) then half a bag of compost and a couple shovels of sheep manure.

I prefer sheep manure to cow or chicken—these are high nitrogen and that is it. Sheep manure is lower in nitrogen has more phosphorous and potassium.

So water all that in, incl some water with some Charlie Carp and rather more of Seasol (sea kelp extract, chockful of nutrients for plants.)

Pears healthier. What with cherry trees, vertical blinds and work on the front porch etc apple trees a bit neglected. So, early mornings spent hoeing weeds and grass, painting inside during the heat of the day, then schlepping bags of compost and sheep manure and spreading that around apple trees then watering that in.

Now waiting for a chance to install drip irrigation. Want the polypipe like 30-40cm above ground level, out of the way of lawnmowers, whipper snippers etc. Two runs of that per row of trees, two drippers per tree on each row.

Slight problem—both my blocks are part of a slope with the far corner of the orchard higher than the tap supplying the water. Means I need non-return valves—Health regulations do not allow water from irrigation hoses to return to the tap.

Also the slope means dividing the orchard into sections where the polypipes are all at the same real level but at varying distances from the ground.

11 rows of apples
1 row peaches
3 rows pears and quince trees

So irrigating the apple-peach-pear trees is not a turn-on-the-tap-set-the-timer sort of operation.

May be able to terrace the orchard so can water more trees at one time.

The cherry trees and the trees on the East side of the house are level.

You want me to whippersnipper grass etc right around the tree trunk and leave the roots in place?

Are you going senile, Aussie?