Peach Tree is Sick...Beware, Disgusting Pictures Follow.

Weather this Christmas' week has been quite mild.  My area did not get much rain and we had mild sunny long days.  Some unfortunate folks in western Victoria had too much rain and there was damaging flash flooding and hail, so I will not complain on getting too little rain.  The sun was not really enough to get things growing.

Although we have put up the thorny devils to deter possums, two of my choko shoots still got eaten two nights ago. If the possum did not walk on the fence, it could have jumped to and fro our neighbour's gutter onto our fence and nibbled off the shoots.  Secretly I am happy it came back!!! I must be mad!!! It is really a love-hate relationship.  I want it to be able to find food and survive but I do not want it to stay on my property permanently or cause too much damage. I am even tempted to feed it. Somehow I am doing everything I can to stop it/them just because I want to outwit them! It's not fun losing to an animal :P.

Last night we slept at nearly midnight as we caught an afternoon nap as a family. When we were comfortably in bed, I heard some noise on the roof above me. My son and I went out to have a look but found nothing.  We looked at the stars and a spider on its web instead.  My son went back to bed and slept.  I went back to reading on my Ipad. And I heard another noise.  I rushed to my bedroom window and caught sight of a small possum wire-walking away from our house. It does not look like the bush tails which came a week ago.  It was a bit far for me to confirm what possum it was.  It could be a new possum as it was much gentler the way it came and went on our roof. The bush tails were really noisy and heavy-footed.

Possums aside, I now have to deal with brown rot and carpophilus/dried fruit beetle (pests) problem on our peach tree. Our peach tree has been really sick this year.  It had leaf curl followed by aphid attacks and now this.  I had to remove a lot of peaches, gummy branches and dead brown shoots. I have been reading up a lot on this beetle and I have to get rid of them once and for all.  I really have to step up with garden hygiene as well as pesticide/fertiliser applications for the peach tree so that I can get better results next year.

Gummy sap on the peach.

Carpophilus/dried fruit beetle on the peach.

The peach stone/shell all ruined.