diseased trees

 When I got back to New Orleans earlier this year one of the very first things I did was get five citrus trees and plant them at appropriate distance in my backyard.

And then it rained and rained and rained, and like everything else they suffered.  But looking to my gorgeous loquat which used to look sickly, I thought "Oh, they'll just get over it.  In five years I will have an abundance of citrus" and I'd get really excited about it.  Five year plan.  Leaving New Orleans sooner didn't appeal to me because I really wanted my food forest to blossom.

And now I learn that the trees have canker.  Which is not treatable, is highly contagious, and I need to just rip them out and destroy them, and because now the bacterium probably lives on other vegetation I can't replant anytime soon.  OH, and my pomegranate also looks to have a type of canker, and that poor tree isn't really happy in this wet climate anyway.

I am saddened.  This weekend will be sad destruction of trees, which I paid $200 for, so I'm really unhappy.  The guy I bought them from suggested copper fungicide; the ag agent said that doesn't do much.  the reality is if I were to any way cause this to infect the industry, I would not forgive myself, so I am taking the cautious step.

Now I need to find other food forest goodness that are more disease resistant and can handle our crazy weather.  I have a thriving loquat, a feijoa that doesn't produce (yet?), a blue java banana that is growing at a crazy fast rate, some elderberries that just will not be deterred, some turmeric I can probably harvest and save some for next year.  I have several garden beds filled with vegetables.  

Knowing that I cant have citrus or pomegranate anymore forces me to look to other options.  I'll get plantains from a friend.  But what else?  OH and my yard is so very very weedy.  I delight in all the different plants with flowers but other people are repulsed.

So, my food forest plans are for naught.  No more five year plan.