r/zone8gardening

I’ve tried neem oil with no luck.

Any guesses? Should I try to remove him? Zone 7b.

I have 2 apple trees, a huge fig and a Japanese plum tree. For the last 4 years, since I've moved in, I've struggled with keeping fruits safe from animals and birds. 90% of the yield chewed on or removed from branches long before ripeness. In past years I've tried individual fruit bags but there's just too many fruits. Ive already installed some plastic tubing around the trunks. Considering rubber snakes and hanging reflective items from branches...? I recently transplanted a sugar baby blackberry bush, lemon tree and peach tree and the thought of losing so much produce made me cringe 😬

I manage a community garden in which myself and a handful of elderly folks all garden as a group, there are no individual plots.

I want to improve our irrigation to be as efficient as possible to save water and provide ideal customized hydration for each crop.

The idea is to run a 3/4” loop off of a hose bib 46 meters around the interior perimeter of the garden feeding 1/2” distribution lines on the sides of each box that then will branch into 1/4” lines to drip emitters on individual plants and micro sprayers for area crops.

I think my plan is likely over engineered and I imagine that many businesses wouldn’t plan to do it this way because of excessive material cost. But, I want it to be as close to ideal as possible

I believe that the 1/2” distribution in particular is excessive but my fellow gardeners get easily frustrated and will cut up tubing that gets in their way so I want to limit the run lengths of the 1/4” into the bed as much as possible. I hope this will also help with pressure.

Criticism, comments, suggestions, ponderances and accolades are all welcomed.

Thank you