I somehow inexplicably, completely and utterly forgot that you’re supposed to spray the dormant peach trees with copper to head off peach leaf curl disease. Which three of my trees got hit with hard last year with all the rain we had, even though I did spray then. The disease can only take hold at cold temperatures on wet, new, growing leaves, but it can kill a tree and it destroyed all the fruit on those three.
A friend who’s a master gardener happened to say something on the subject, with the end result that I hired him to come do it for me. I knew that if nothing else, he would do it right and after last year I was certainly not sure I had.
It’s been warm during the day the last few days and turns out those same early peaches were starting to come to life again. They hadn’t broken bud yet though, so the job could still be done. We just made it.
And only because he didn’t have quite enough copper to finish his own job and wondered out loud if anyone had a bit to spare, to save him the hassle of buying and storing a whole big thing of the stuff for a year when he only needed a few spoonfuls’ worth.
I responded with, Sure, I do– and then– !!!
And now it’s done.