Backyard Orchards, chronicling, musing and more

Not bad, green berries hanging. But mine are just transplanted last fall, so wouldn’t produce much this year. By the way, the strawberries , that I took from you, all well and growing.

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I’ve only gotten 2 strawberries so far, though there are plenty of green ones waiting. I’ve got Seascape (Indiana Berry) and San Andreas (Raintree).

But, I’ve been buying a lot (4 lbs last trip and 3lbs a few days before that) of Organic Driscols strawberries at the grocery store. They have been very good, as well as impressively large (plum sized).

Speaking of store bought- there is very little stone-fruit at most stores. But, I stopped in a high end grocery yesterday. It’s double Whole Foods prices, but they had some great fruit.

These organic apricots (Frog Hollow) are well ripened and 15-17 brix. And the white nectarine (regrettably not organic, but they had enough sugar speckles that I couldn’t resist) were 20-22 brix.

A bit pricey though, with nectarines and apricots $8 to $9 a pound. And the organic cherries (also from Frog Hollow) were $15 a pound, though I found them a bit disappointing. Not sweet or crisp enough, with a few starting to go bad. Maybe I should have sprung for the $20/lb bag from the other grower…Not somewhere I go all the time, but it can be good early in the season when this stuff isn’t available anywhere else.

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Bob,
At $9 a lb, I might not be able to swallow those fruit :joy:

This is ironic because my home grown fruit cost $10-20 a piece, all things considered.

Strawberries may be the cheapest fruit/best return for investment in my yard. If you have not tried FlavorFest, you may want to look into it. Large, tasty berries. @SMC_zone6 introduced me to this variety.

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Have you sprayed your trees yet? To me, it is lot easier to spray this year with most of stone fruit were wiped out.

The only good production is Euro plum, esp. a mirabelle.

Then, I saw black knot.

And crescent moon scars on tiny plums.

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Is all your pollinating done naturally,without any of your help?That certainly is a lot of fruit.

Naturally. No need for my intervention. I have Mirabelle de Nancy, Coe’s Golden Drop, French Improved, Bavay gage and “Bob Vance’s Valor” grafted among those two trees.

Mirabelle set fruit well for 3 years in a row. I got so many lbs of them. So I figured no thinning needed. Boy, how wrong I was. Last year, it produced a total of a dozen fruit.

Lesson learned. I will thin them. It will be some work considering it sets thousands.

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@SMC_zone6
I sprayed pesticide mix today, 5/26 as my 2nd spray. The first spray was on 5/13. Since then, there was only one rain on 5/24.

I saw some PC scars, not many. This could be cause the night temp has been lower than normal. We have had many nights between 42-48 F.

This coming week, it will get warm and night temp get very close to 60. I believe more PC will emerge in a large number this coming week.
You may want to spray again this weekend.

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Most are sprayed. Some have been sprayed twice. I’ve been holding off on spraying a few last ones until I can get in there and thin the, I really prefer to thin before spraying…

I hadn’t heard of it, but will keep it in mind. I’m a bit hesitant about strawberries, as I’ve tried several times and either had them die out or be choked with weeds to the point I gave up on them. Last year’s planting was my (last?) try at it. I made a raised bed for them and mulched well with straw. I also selected only day neutral berries, so that they could keep producing. We’ll see how it works…It could just end up always being enough to feed the animals.

Here’s a pic of the Heath Cling parent (on right) and the oldest sibling (on left). Both had a heavy set and I took about an hour today thinning them. I’m not sure why the seedling was darker in the pic. It was after 7:30pm, but I don’t think that either was in the shade yet.

It was only at the end that I thought to take a pic, so I didn’t get one of the especially crowded areas… But I thinned at least half the fruit off the tree and probably more.

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@BobVance
Your HeathCling is very productive. Peachless year for me.

Here’s the info on FlavorFest.

Flavorfest Strawberry Plant.

The plants have strong growth. We are going to build a new bed so I move them into pots for now.

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The fruit looks very healthy!

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I’m going to try to spray tomorrow. Today was just too hot!

Hope you will be able to spray tomorrow. I really think that with our temperature rises, plum curculio and other pests will show up in droves.

I am behind on many things including melon and pepper planting.

@Ahmad
I planted the multi-grafted peach/nectarine tree in ground last month. It is a small tree. Today was thinning time. The tree is not big enough to carry fruit so most were thinned out.

Birds went after red nectarines!!

So bird scare tape went up.

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Tippy, if I gathered my whole yard of nectarines, I do not have this many fruitlets

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It’s a severe reaction to the fruit, Tippy! I usually say I have gastritis because of any fruit at 9$ a pound

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Annie,
No peaches and nectarines on any in-ground trees. That tree was in a garage until last month. Otherwise, zippo.

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Galina,
Our home grown fruit cost far more than $9 a lb :confounded:.

By the way, night time temp has been awful. Down to 43 tonight. I have not planted out tomatoes, peppers or watermelons with temperature this low.

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I planted my watermelons today. The rest in ground for a week already. Covered my watermelons with buckets for the night

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We started watermelon seeds late this year. I hope to put them in ground tomorrow. Everything should be planted out tomorrow.

Thank you for your supplies of seedlings.

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Mam, your yard looks sooo much bigger did you remove trees?