Hey everyone. This year I added a Doctor desportes pear tree I bought from @Barkslip , which is already planted. I also have a seckle pear and harrow sweet pear coming from grandpa’s orchard. Excited about those.
I think I am going to try and move my aronia bush and put in some more raspberries, I think I will make an order with Nourse farm for Joan J raspberries, also some earlier strawberries and a new blueberry bush. My blueberries had a rough time last year with so little rain.
I was able to get three different kinds of figs, hopefully these work…
Gold Nugget really struggled compared to other citrus for me. I had a Cara Cara tree, Owari Satsuma and a Gold Nugget. The Cara Cara put out growth. The Owari Satsuma put out a bunch of growth but it was limp growth but the Gold Nugget just put out a lot of growth from the rootstock
I keep finding more places for trees on our 1/4 acre lot, so NEW this year I’ll be planting a Chojuro pear on OHxF87, a White Gold Cherry on Krymsk 6, and a Liberty apple on M26 to replace a failed interstem project. I want to try UFO training on the cherry, but my wife is advocating it as a freestanding tree, so may try the KGB training instead.
I am planning to build some more robust raspberry trellises, with cement buried cedar 4x4s. Speaking of Joan-Js @growjimgrow I have a bunch of them and they make such huge berries that they love to droop all the way to the ground. So I’m planning to put more wires on the trellis to support those canes especially.
I also have ordered a number of scions to add to a frankentree i started last year. I’ll graft Korean Giant onto the Chojuro pear for a pollinator.
We are also getting runner ducks next month to try to help control bugs in the orchard, which I’m very excited about.
I don’t have any genetic dwarf peaches/nectarines now but that will change in a month. I wanted to get them back in 2020 but they all were sold out by the time I could order. I debated getting them again last season but did not pull the trigger. I decided to pull the trigger and buy some this year. It will be nice because I will have 5-6 foot peach trees growing and Mirabelle plums that will only be 6-10 feet according to what I read.
I have quite big grafting plans this spring. I have bought 30 M26 rootstocks and 13 standard apple seedling rootstocks, 1 cherry rootstock Alkavo and scions of the following varieties:
Aeckerliapfel
Annie Elizabeth
Beffert Original
Belpberger Renette
Eierlederapfel
Rambour de Flandre
Blenheim
Hildesheimer Goldrenette
Weisse Kanadarenette
Obenauf
Portugiesische Lederrenette
Damason rot
Ruhm aus Kelsterbach
Wealthy
Gelbe Zwetschge Schmid (plum)
Hauszwetschge Rudin (plum)
Baschimeiri (cherry)
The scions I bought are very big, I think I can get at least 3 to 4 grafts out of each scion. The plums I plan to graft on a rootsucker of a felled tree.
@SoCalGardenNut … you are definately ahead of me. My Heritage reds are just starting to show a bit of green in the bud tips. No sign of green in my blacks yet.
I started some paw paws from seed last spring, and they’re coming along nicely. Based on that, I decided to pull the trigger on two grafted KSU paw paw varieties: KSU Atwood and KSU Benson.
In addition to this, I’m starting two breeding projects this spring: figs and pomegranates. My zone is just on the edge of where the cold-hardiest of these fruits can grow (coldest winter temps are usually -3F to 0F annually). I’m planning on testing the viability of existing varieties (step one), taking the cold hardiest of these and crossing them and planting out the seeds to see what survives, if anything. Not sure how it’ll go, but it’s exciting nonetheless.
I’m going to be getting two persimmons (Nishimura Wase and Chocolate) and three Nanking cherries, and trying to grow culinary ginger outside as an annual.
