What is going on today 2017?

General Fruit Growing
#1

OK folks, since we’re just starting a new year, it’s time to also start a new daily happenings thread.

Post here on what’s going in your world pertaining to growing fruit- buying and planting trees, pruning, harvesting, buying fruit, grafting, the weather, or whatever else comes to mind.

I’ll start it off by saying we’re still eating on the about 60lb of apples we got from Reed Valley Orchard. Still have to say Goldrush are pretty good, not quite as acidic as before, getting sweeter. They’re almost tasting like a Suncrisp now. Got lots of Granny Smith, Brushy Mtn Limbertwig, Fuji, Pink Lady and Ark Black left. Mrs Dood made a fine pie last night of various fruit from our stash. Half of it’s gone already, hard to resist a homemade apple pie!

I’ve been perusing various sites for some new fruit trees, namely a few more apple, peach, and cherry trees, along with looking into maybe also picking up some new blueberry, strawberry and gooseberry plants.

I know it’s still Jan 3rd, but I’m getting kind of antsy about what veggies I’m going to grow this spring, namely what kind of tomatoes, peppers, and potatoes to try. Already ordered me a free seed catalog from Baker Creek, and hope to get that soon.

But, before that can be done, I’ve gotta get out there and get some soil samples of all my plots to see what kind of amendments I’m going to need. We have a UK extension office close to us who does soil sample evaluations for only $3 per plot.

The last few days I’ve been in the old house my wife grew up in, trying to find out where some leaks are happening. It’s got so bad that parts of the ceiling in the kitchen, bathroom and hallway have turned in a spongy mess from all the water leaks. We’ve found the leaks in the roof from some blown off shingles and exposed OSB underlayment, so I’ve got lots of roof, ceiling and wall repair to look forward to. Not.

Some parts of the house are over 70 years old, and I’m not too keen on doing the repairs, especially since we don’t even live in it, but the house still means a lot to my wife, and said I’d try to fix it up.

Alright, enough already, let’s hear what’s going on in your world! Hope all have a bountiful, healthy and blessed year.

BTW, it’s a very mild 55° here, but it’s raining, been a wet few weeks here, but not too cold. We had our first dusting of snow last week, and might get a bit more this weekend.

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What's happening today 2016?
#2

Well, 2017 started out positively frigid, but with a sunny blue sky and not a breath of wind. I am tucked up tight, starting a few grape cuttings, tending my cocktail grapefruit ( with one fruit ), my meyer lemon (2 fruit), and my apple seedlings from Trailman X Peasgood Nonsuch.

I have already made my wish list from Baker Creek and passed the book along to my daughter and aunt so we can combine the order and split the shipping.

The Holiday bustle is over, everyone has headed back to their lives. I am agonizing over apple, plum, and pear scions as I realize I may have ordered more that I have spare branches for. I went out and counted the spaces twice now. To buy more rootstock or not? that is the question. Or more to the point, will my significant other notice the extra trees to mow around this summer?

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#3

Yesterday I started Cilantro and Jalapeno seeds on my Aerogarden Sprout.

#4

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I will also plant tomatoes seeds once they arrive on Thursday.

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#5

Just seeded this evening some flats with 3 kinds of onions. The season has already begun for me. :wink:
Outside I’m remodeling Fort Knox to make fruit easier to protect and keep tidy at the same time. I much prefer working in 40 deg weather than 80 with high humidity so I save up some garden work for winter.
Our house is 130+ years old. Nothing is standard. Eg. baseboards are true 1x8’s which I had to fudge after tearing out the old baseboard radiators. But the character of the place makes it worth it.[quote=“subdood_ky_z6b, post:1, topic:8428”]
soil sample evaluations for only $3 per plot.
[/quote]

That’s a real good price. Here it is $10(VTech), and the weak acid ones are $15(UMass). Debating whether to do that again this year.

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#6

My seeds are here from Johnny’s, and I’m waiting til Feb to get them started, looking thru the seed starting supply catalogs

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#7

I keep going round and round on whether to add more trees or not…:deciduous_tree: :deciduous_tree: :deciduous_tree:

I was able to have some self-control in not buying several trees from Gurney’s with the 50% off coupon.

I’m still looking for a Goldrush tree on a known larger semi-dwarf rootstock (but not M111 like Gurney’s) and a Contender peach from the same nursery so as to not have to pay shipping twice. Any suggestions?

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#8

I looked around and don’t see the combo you’re looking for.

You should call Boyer’s of PA.

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#9

Thanks! I am bummed that Cummins has a very short peach stock this year.

#10

The only place I saw that had both trees you wanted were Stark’s. As you know, no way of knowing what rootstock, but their GR is available in semi dwarf, and the Contender is in dwarf.

I’m also looking for Contender. ACN had some a couple days ago, but now they don’t… Arrgh.

Cummins has all kinds of GR, including G210, and B118, which are 55% and 90% reg sized. They just don’t have a lot of peach varieties to pick from this year. They have the sour cherries I want, like North Star and Montmorency, but they’re on Mahaleb, which prob wouldn’t do well in my type of soil.

#11

Yeah, I got up in the main attic today to get a better look at the roof weaknesses, but the damage is way on the other side of the house, and I wasn’t in the mood to crawl across the ceiling beams to get a closer look. Plus, it narrows down in that part of the rafters, and I get a bit claustrophobic in tight spaces.

The attic was nasty with all kinds of dirt, insect nests, old bird’s nests, along with lots of wiring going to and fro. Even saw an old snake skin up there! I turned the main power breaker off at the breaker box before doing any exploring up there.

There’s a small hole in the ceiling created by the leak in the kitchen where I can kinda see where the roofing OSB is leaking or discolored, but I can’t get up in there. I’m prob going to have to take the sawzall and make a new hole to access the area.

The house was built in various phases, there was the main old house (about 80 years old) which was basically 2 bedrooms, kitchen and living room with about a 30x50ft footprint, and that was covered by a roof. That’s still visible under the present roof structure, which now covers an added on bathroom, den, enclosed porch and 3 more small bedrooms. That part was added on about 40 years ago. A real odd layout to say the least.

Add to that, the floor is not real level in some areas, and the walls has old wallpaper and paint, and soot residue from burning wood in there for years.

So, it’s gonna be a real chore to get it in decent shape. Might have to call the folks from Fixer Upper!

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#12

Recently I’ve tried burning a stump out. I’ve spent the last couple days tending that fire. I mention this because, this is probably something I will never do again.

I’ve spent quite a few hours over the last couple days tending this fire and the stump is still not burned out. It’s much easier and more labor efficient for me to dig some dirt out around the stump, cut the stump off at ground level, and just let it rot naturally. I can dig and cut the stump and resharpen the chain (from hitting the dirt/rocks) in a fraction of the time it takes to tend fires to burn a stump.

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#13

That is a tough way to get rid of Stumps Olpea. But unfortunately without heavy equipment there is no good way to deal with large stumps. You can drill the stump full of holes and use stump remover liquid. It will speed up the rotting process tremendously.

#14

That’s true Speed. But for me just cutting the stump at ground level has worked pretty good in the past, so I think I’ll go back to that. I don’t mind a stump as long as I can mow over it.

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#15

What type of wood are you burning there, some looks like elm.

#16

What root stock did you want the Goldrush on?

#17

Derby,

It’s hard to say. I not at all very good at identifying wood without the leaves, unless it’s something obvious like hedge or walnut.

I allow tree services to dump wood chips and logs for free, so they dump all kinds of stuff. That’s what I’m burning in the pic.

#18

I see, just curious. I burned a maple stump out of my yard once and it took multiple times befor I got it burned down enough but I did not use that much wood. I dug a huge walnut stump out of the edge of my garden with a shovel and grubbing hoe several years ago and it was a real job. I couldn’t even move it after it was dug all around and all of the roots cut. I got a friend to come by and we chained his pickup to it and it still got pretty wild before it turned over out of the hole.

#19

I could have probably used less wood. I’ve read how some people cut the bottom and top out of a 55 gal. drum and place it over the stump (on top of some bricks to allow for air flow) fill the drum full of wood and burn the stump out.

I have plenty of wood, so I thought I’d just push some up with the tractor and blade and burn the stump. It turned into a much longer project than I thought.

I’ve had a lot of problems trying to pull stumps out. They seem to be very stubborn for me. I once used a two ton truck to pull a stump out and bent the hitch along with causing the battery to fly out of it’s shelf (from all the jerking). Yes, the term you use is very appropriate - it was “wild”. Once, even with a 16 ton road grader (which had an amazing amount of torque) I couldn’t move very big stumps, unless I dug them out with the blade.

My neighbor in the last few days hired a track hoe and a track loader to clear a few acres. I watched them and the track hoe had no problems digging the biggest trees out, but the track loader, even though it was a big machine, couldn’t just push the big trees over, even with spinning the tracks. It had to dig the trees out, the biggest trees it left for the track hoe.

All that said, I’ve pulled peach trees out effortlessly with a tractor. They are so shallow rooted they come out easy, even though currently I don’t bother pulling them out, but cut them off at ground level.

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#20

Looks like either American Elm or Honey Locust wood.

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