Little fruitlets are growing very fast right now. Today we had 25°C/ 77°F and the sun has been shining the whole week! Beautiful…
Pastorenbirne pear:
Red Astrachan apple:
Bonne Louise d’ Avranches pear:
James Grieve apple:
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I thinned a handful of peaches too. This is the first year I have enough fruit to thin. I love my Contender tree. It’s covered in fruit. I probably kept too many. Looking forward to a nice peach harvest (hopefully)
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Lone 2 orcas pears will be 1st crop tree is 3rd or 4th year in ground
Lone peach on frost (all suncrest buds froze this year…got a handfull of tasty peaches last year!) Only had 4-5 flowers on frost rest froze too
Looks like decent crop of plums of shiro, methley mothertrees as well as last years prune and peach plum grafts
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All my grafts are planted out and today I planted out 96 root stocks that were previously pulled from the nursery bed. My Colette Pear is blooming at the house, has far fewer blooms this year, but it’s blooming and the neighbors honey bees were working it today. I also have a third leaf Hewe’s Virginia Crab on M.111 blooming in the nursery bed, this is the third leaf for it (from 39th Parallel). Who says M.111 is slow to bear! I noted the Mott’s Pink also on M.111 right next door has a single bloom as well. These trees are crowded, they’re in a nursery bed and I hope to plant them out this fall.
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Today 05-24-2020 I thinned my Apples and removed a lot 
If you have already thinned your apples please post pictures if you can.
Before Thinning:
After Thinning :
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Jonagold thinned to 1 fruit per spur
Gala thinned to 1 fruit per spur
I knocked off a few spurs when I primed the trunks, but that is how I am thinning them. The trees have been in the ground 10-11 years, so I think they can handle 1 fruit per spur and have good quality. I am already getting paranoid about the coddling moth, and I want to start bagging them
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Mott’s Pink Apple in bloom. I also discovered Arkansas Black has a blossom ready to open, third year for these trees, both on M.111 from 39th Parallel.
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I’m looking at some Satsuma this year. This is growing inside an electric fence so if I protect it from birds I just might get a chance to taste my very first home grown plum.
Please don’t tell me they are too crowded, no way I’m thinning more than this 
definitely greedy for these!
I also have 6 Larodas and 6 Dapple Dandy. Here’s Satsuma.
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My stunted Rich May peach, it is 5 years in the ground. I never get peaches off of it, the squirrels eat them before they ripen. I have my doubts that qty of peaches on the tree will taste good given the small size of the tree. The only reason I don’t cut it down is that it is the earliest peach I have.
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looks like 5 of my 7 sour cherries have flower buds forming and a lot of them. my adirondack gold apricot i put in last year has over 100 blooms open right now. i hope some take. all my 20 currants have flowers except my perfection red currant. my wild gooseberry and jeanne gooseberry also have a lot of flowers. finally going to cash in on the fruits of my labor literally! love it when a plan comes together! 
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End of May - Passion flowers show up without fail. I pruned the vine heavily this year, doesn’t seem to have an effect on blooms so far. I have to compare at the end of the year on the size of harvest.
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How low was your temp this past winter?
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Not terribly. I think it maybe got below 0F only once or twice this year, which is unusual. This one can easily handle zone 5 winters, though.
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I may have to trial some here
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These are Opuntia humifusa (aka compressa) O. macrorhiza is similar but spinier and native to Nebraska. Both are worth trying. O. humifusa is probably the most tolerant of wet conditions of all the cactus, but it still needs some drainage along the lines of Mediterranean herbs. There are a bunch of other Opuntia and other cactus that are hardy to zone 5, too, but many of them will require installing a well-drained raised bed or trough-style container in areas with more than 20" of rain. If you’re interested, I could send you some cuttings next spring.
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A sedum leaf I stuck into the base of a potted plum. I wanted to see if it could be practical to propagate this way. After no attention, it rooted just fine.
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my sedums have dropped down onto my gravel driveway and have rooted and grown just fine in it. tough plant!
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