2024 NEW to your garden / orchard this year

[TNHunter]

I like to see and share details on the New things you are adding to your garden, orchard, food forest (this year). There is a 2023 version of this with several posts.

If you have decided something is worthy of space at your place… I might want to consider it toooo.

Feel free to post any details and pictures of the NEW things you are adding in 2024.

Thanks
TNHunter

To start us off…

Yesterday I recieved shipment from Lucille at Whitmans Farms… 1 Oscar Mulberry and 2 Crandall Clove currants. I got them planted late yesterday evening… and it came a good rain on them last night.

Man the dirt where they are planted is just excellent… best on my place. Deep, rich, loaded with organic matter. I still topped them off with compost and composted wood chips. Hope they do well.

Meet Oscar mulberry … expecting some large and very flavorful mulberries from it in a few years.

Last fall… I added a Isons Muscadine…

A few days ago… got an Oh My muscadine delivered from Gurneys… and got it planted.
I have my own little Muscadine vineyard now. Looking forward to trying those.

I have Cardinal asian persimmon and Royal medlar ordered from OGW… not delivered yet.
Should be getting those soon.

I started a small bed of 3 Caddo blackberries at our new home location last fall. A friend gave me those and the isons muscadine. Appreciate that !!!

Now when it comes to things i will be adding by grafting… the list is quite long.

Persimmons - H63A, H118, Mohler, Journey hybrid, Dar Sofiyivky, Saijo, Rojo Brillante and one other that I have to keep secret for a while and will hopefully be able to reveal later on if successful.

Apples… Pristine, Black LT, Red Royal LT, Royal LT, Myers Royal LT, Clarks crab, Chestnut Crab.

Plums… Alderman, Superior, Toka, Spring Satin plumcot, So Mtn EB Plumcot, Vic Red american plum, Satsuma, Beauty.

Pear… Bell.

Cherry… Montmorency.

Rooting Olympian fig cuttings.

Other misc adds… garlic chives, chinese chives, walking onions, longevity and okinawa spinach.

That should be it for the year.

[scottfsmith]

I am mostly just expanding on what I have already but am also adding a few things… my peaches are 20 years old and are failing so I am putting in new peaches. I just planted Silver Logan and Dixon Cling yesterday, I had those two in the past and know they are good. Also I am getting Harko and Snow Queen. A Winblo came a few weeks ago. Plus I will be grafting several Burchell varieties.

A big tree fell down and a too-shady area now is better and I am going to put in some gooses and currants there… my old favorites Minaj and Poorman. I may also put a few blackberries there.

I had an apple die so I got a Father Abraham tree to replace it.

[Drew51]

My orchard has been full for a few years now. It’s as much as I can handle. My wife is never happy how for how much time I need to spend in the orchard as my house falls apart and I delay repairs.
I own a house and a cottage and both need repairs constantly.
I’m retired now and don’t know how I found time to work and do all this! As I can barely keep up now. Well at least it’s keeping out of trouble for the most part. I’ll skip the part about the Detroit police driving me home one night.
I bought some scion this year, nothing much. Only a few pieces of things I lost in a fall freeze a few years ago. Black Prince mulberry and Elephant Heart plum. I don’t care for many plums but I do like a few of Burbank’s plums. A few of his I don’t like either.
Pink Lemonade blueberry is the only plant I bought. A shy bearer of fruit but I hope having Nocturne which is half rabbiteye provides pollination. Nocturne is awesome, a beautiful plant. Very self fertile for a blueberry. The reason it produces massive amounts of pollen. It’s a firm keeper for me. The berries turn a reddish pink to blue to gun metal black, excellent flavor.
My daughter just bought a new house with 13 acres of property and it has a new orchard. All planted last spring so they are still small. She asked me to teach her how to take care of plants. So if I thought Now it is full! The property has a larger blackberry and a raspberry patch. Also 27 apple, 10 crab apple, 6 pear, 15 permission, 7 peach, 3 plum, 2 cherry, and 16 chestnut trees
They are labeled but a few are missing. Sunday I’m going to prune, fertilize and map out the orchard. It’s going to take all day but I’m very excited to see what I got. I’m going to have tons of scion from these trees. I was planning to throw away but I should keep it for any interested. Look for posts from me next week. Although it could be so little it’s not worth offering. The trees are still very small.

[pine]

Holy cow, sounds like you have your hands full!

I’m planning to clear a big sloping area that’s choked out with Virginia creeper and put in berries on a couple of terraces. Definitely raspberries and gooseberries, maybe blueberries. I also have a semi shady spot with really good soil and was thinking about putting a pawpaw there.

The other main thing I want to add are some big pots and planters on the south side of my house with figs, tomatoes, basil, and other herbs.

Not fruit, but I need to put in a couple more birch to shade out some weedy areas with poor soil. Love birch trees. I don’t know why people don’t use them more in yards around here. They’re native, hardy, nitrogen fixers, and gorgeous!

[FarmGirl-Z6A]

For the first time in a VERY long time I did not buy very much this year and I don’t dare look at the trading posts here. I have been really busy and just plain neglecting some of the projects that I’ve started.

Fruit wise, a kind member has agreed to sending me 3 varieties of paw paw scion that I have been looking for. I might go to Fruitwood’s site to see if there is anything that I would like to order, last minute.

Plant wise, I ordered some Myoga Ginger today,. I planted it once before but it didn’t take.

[SoCalBackyard]

This sounds like an awesome project. My kids are still little but I can imagine the joy you might get (and that I hope to get one day) building out an orchard for your kids. Hope you have a great time!

Edit: I was excited to try Nocturne but as I suspected, it needs more chilling hours than we will ever get here. (800 to my usual 250-350ish).

[Itchybee]

I will share about my new peaches and avocado if you share abot the Detroit police…

[Drew51]

@SoCalBackyard

I was excited to try Nocturne but as I suspected, it needs more chilling hours than we will ever get

How about the other favorites like Sweet Crisp? I can’t grow that as it needs so few chilling hours it kept jumping out of dormancy too soon. I decided to give up on it. Other good southern types are out there. Do you grow any now?

[SoCalBackyard]

Never heard of that one! Adding to my list to track down and get now. If you have any others you’d recommend, I’d love the advice.

Here are the ones I put in last year when we moved into this house and I built out a little raised planter (connected to the ground) for blueberries and strawberries:
Emerald
Sunshine Blue
Jewel
Pink Lemonade.
Old one in a pot: Bountiful Blue. Produces very well now.
Edit: Figured out the last one - it was Biloxi.

These are not yet planted:
Reveille
Misty
Sharp Blue

Even though I just put them in last year, I got one year+ old plants and so they produced quite a bit last year already. This year I’m seeing about double the production (if the flowers and hanging green berries are anything to go by).

I was “trying” to figure out a set that would ripen in batches but I’m not yet sure I succeeded.

[disc4tw]

Don’t forget about haskaps, unless you don’t like them. They like shade!

[disc4tw]

Sounds like a lot of awesome stuff going on Drew! I’m even more excited to try my nocturne berries now, thanks for the recommendation.

[disc4tw]

I have way more going on than I can handle, fruit wise this year (as usual). I need to prioritize grafting over sleep this April, which will probably end up including excessive coffee consumption and taking a few PTO days, a worthwhile use of that ‘vacation’ time.

A few hundred persimmon trees, some apples, and a bunch of pawpaws need bench grafted. Time to sharpen my knife now.

[Heath]

Here’s a few things I have on order, just received, or received in fall.

Burntridge
●Goumi
•Sweet Scarlet
•Red Gem
•Carmine
●Bush Cherry
•Carmine Jewel
•Crimson Passion
●Cornelian Cherry
•Sunrise
•Big Fruit
●Gooseberry
•Black Gooseberry, (Ribus divaricatum)

Johanns
-Pippi Goumi

Sam Thayer Order.
●American Highbush Cranberry
•Sharon
•Mondeaux
•Flag River

Honeyberryusa
–Sweet Thing Bush Cherry.
–Valentine Bush Cherry.
–D’Artagnan Bush Cherry.
–Cupid Bush Cherry.
–Cutie Pie Bush Cherry.

One green world.
-Coral Blaze Cornelian cherry
-Svitlana Cornelian Cherry

Edible landscaping.
-3 Jan Bush Cherry
-3 Joel Bush Cherry
-3 Ian White Nanking
-3 Gabe White Nanking
-3 Jules White Nanking

Viburnums
2 yellow tribolum.
Viburnum nudum ‘Pink Beauty’
Viburnum nudum ‘Longwood’
Viburnum opulus ‘Aureum’
Viburnum opulus ‘Xanthocarpum’
Viburnum trilobum ‘Spring Green Compact’

I told myself this year I would focus on:
-more bush cherries besides my Romeos and juliets, and wowza.
-adding in Goumi since I have a lot of autumn olive now.
-replacing some white nankings and adding the others.
-trying out some cornelian cherries.
-order any highbush Cranberry I can find.
-adding any Viburnums that intrigued me.

I told myself I wouldn’t
-buy apples, pears, plums, cherries etc this year at all.
-buy some medlars.
-buy persimmons.

But I’m going to allow myself to impulse buy some things in person if I find them this year. I’ll try to stick to only things on my wants list if possible. And if I can ever catch Fruitwood with anything in stock I might make an order there later.

[Drew51]

Sweet Crisp was developed in Florida and not easy to locate plants. It’s a very firm berry hence “crisp”. Like apple level crisp.
Fruitnut here has grown just about all the southern high bush and his favorites are Sweetcrisp and Springhigh.
The only place I would trust you get the real Sweetcrisp is Just Fruits and Exotics. I don’t think they ship to California. So you may not find it.
Springhigh is another Florida developed cultivar that needs 200 hours chilling.
Very early ripener. It may be hard to find in California. Fruitnut says it’s not firm but by far has the best flavor of any SHB he has tried and he has tried dozens. Fruitnut is one of the most experienced growers here. Worked doing research at the university level and does have a PhD. Has his own greenhouse. I listen to everything he says.

[SoCalBackyard]

Awesome. Yes I’ve been searching for the last half hour and it seems like no one ships here. Let me see if any of the local nurseries have it and also check some popular mail order nurseries in CA. Seems like SOMEONE must have figured this out.

I found the Sweetcrisp and Springhigh thread! Am about 1/4th of the way through reading it.

Here it is in case anyone is interested:

Some blueberry variety talk mainly Sweetcrisp and Springhigh my favorites

I’ve grown or tasted a lot of blueberry varieties mostly SHB but some NHB. My two favorites by far are Sweetcrisp and Springhigh. Sweetcrisp name says it all. I’ve tested them at 18 brix which for a blueberry is very high. 10-13 is more common. Think highest I’ve measured on anything else is 14. But haven’t measured that much because it’s so hard to get enough juice. That said the outstanding characteristic of SC is the texture. When you try them you’ll know what I mean. Downsides are modest yi…

[TNHunter]

Ok… Ok… just thought I was finshed…

Ordered a Montmorency cherry tree and 2 Serviceberry bushes from Burnt Ridge this morning. Will be planting these at our future new home location.

TNHunter

[SoCalBackyard]

I have a bunch of things new this year:

1. Putting in a Spice Zee Nectaplum into a 30G pot.
2. Rooting a whole bunch of fig cuttings that I’m super excited about.
3. Finally putting my grapes into the ground - Princess and Flame IIRC
4. Rooting some grape cuttings - Blueberry, Suffolk red and a few others.
5. Trying out dinner plate dahlias for the first time. I have them in pots trying to get some growth on them before I put them into the ground this month or in April.
6. Grafting projects - have a whole bunch I’m excited to try and also got some coming from the Cal Citrus Clonal Protection Program in April. Will try to post more on this in the 2024 grafting thread.
7. Trying some new tomato varieties this year that I’m excited about.
8. Trying some new potato varieties: Sapro Mira, Baltic Rose, Carola, Charlotte, Elba, Huckleberry Gold.

[Bigmike1116]

Blackberries
Prime Ark Freedom planted new year’s day 2024

Pawpaw
Shenandoah
KSU-Chappell

Heartnut
Grimo 89 - 2024 (pre-order)
Grimo 94 - 2024 (pre-order)

Clove Currant:
Black Topaz
Missouri Giant
Crandall Black

I’ll likely get Honeydrops White Mulberry, more Cornus Mas (Flava, Aliosha, Black Plum, and Yugo Sweet), and more Pawpaws (Nyomi’s Delicious and Tropical Treat) in 2024

[TangTang]

I’m in CA, and I was able to purchase SweetCrisp through Florida Hill Nursery (Blueberry plants for Sale - Florida Hill Nursery Tropical Plants). Looks like right now they have Springhigh but not SweetCrisp.
I think folks had some concerns about Florida Hill Nursery in the past. There was some discussion on this site.
All the banana and blueberry plants I received from them arrived healthy and have growing well, but no fruit yet from the SweetCrisp, so I can’t speak to the trueness to cultivar.

[FarmGirl-Z6A]

@Heath

Edible landscaping.
-3 Jan Bush Cherry
-3 Joel Bush Cherry

Do you already have Joy or were they out when you ordered?