No pines native to the interior of Alaska, although there are a few imports here. Spruce is the conifer here. I do have a couple white pines that have survived a couple winters under the snowline but I’d rather have these gooseberries if it came down to it.
Good story of Goose berries twisted tree farm
http://www.twisted-tree.net/white-pine-blister-rust-and-ribes
Hope No one thinks I am mad at them
I actually could of called the auction on Thursday and asked to come monday
Busy cleaning pawpaw seeds
in the end everything worked out
meet someone got my stuff out of storage and closed the page.
(do not have to pay no more,)
Timing was right meet 2 new friends at the airport
may even go to Conneticut to hang out with one of them.
From CSU ag website. Looks like the male to me.
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SWD are not good here. But, it can depend on your locale. Sometimes people just don’t have them in their area, especially if they are separated by some land or say in the country a bit. Gooseberries and Ribes are really the only things that have been problematic. Or occasionally a super ripe tomato that I let hang forever. I have dug up and started over with all of my rasp and black berries. Trying the earliest bearing varieties to get some harvest before the SWD come to ruin the party. And when they do show up I will cut the canes back to stop them from furthering their nasty cause at least on my property. No berries for me? Well then…no berries for you.
Figs with splits in the skin can be fair game too, but that usually isn’t a problem until the ill-timed rain comes; at which point the figs are all washed out and suck anyway. But with the exception of split skins figs have been mostly left alone here by the SWD.
As far as nectarines go, the greenhouse will be a game changer. Outside, nectarines were impossible. Every bug and critter in Colorado takes a liking to nectarines. It’s amazing how the fuzz of a peach slows invaders down. Of course as I say this the dang tree rats are systematically eating my peaches which are around golf ball size. Those trees were planted along the fence by previous owners. One of the fences that runs along the back yards of houses for whole block. It’s like a smorgasbord freeway for squirrels. In the future I need to get one of those squirrel death tubes.
Any of you Front Rangers growing Asian pears or Asian Plums with any success? I know those are tough here. I’m starting to think about what trees to add next year, and currently have 1 huge apple tree that got about a dozen varieties grafted this year, 1 mature E pear that I now have added about 4 varieties, 2 new peaches, 2 new E plums.
Going to add a Montmorency on G5, and thinking of at least +1 plum and +1 pear next year. Open to ideas for great fruits that you all have had do well.
One of my pears is a multi-grafted pear tree that has both asian and european pears. This is the first year that some of my grafts flowered. The two types of asian pear grafts I have are loaded, I actually need to thin them down considerably. So, all I can tell you is that they have no problem setting and holding fruit.
Evans Bali sour cherry does very well here.
I think the Asian x American plums are great. I have superior but seen Toka do great here also.I think the latest blooming Asian plums are probably in the same category as the latest blooming apricots
For Asian pears fireblight is the main worry. I want to try a fresh one that I love first before I go down that road
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Are those sweet cherries?
Yeah blackgold a little early but with all the wind and rain I took em that’s half of my daily berry harvest
Cool. This is an awesome year for almost anything. I’m leaning towards planting another E Pear and grafting some Drippin Honey pears onto it. I think most asian’s can be grafted onto european’s.
@RichardRoundTree - That’s a nice daily harvest! I was considering a bubblegum or Toka. How do those blackgold do for you in a ‘normal year’, and how’s the flavor? I’ve always heard the sweet cherries don’t do well here.
Anyone here have any of the following pears? I am concerned with Harrow Sweet having an October harvest, it may be too late.
- Harrow Delight
- Harvest Queen
- Harrow Sweet
I am thinking they will do well in our fireblight prone area, and act as a good base tree for other grafting.
Sweet cherries are just a crapshoot here. For me its less of a you don’t get a harvest and more of a these things die in snap colds issue. I had 3 of the cold hardy sweet cherries and now only have the one blackgold really as its in the most protected spot i have. Hudson did decent also and produced more but was in a less protected spot and so gets hurt by snaps more and died back hard this year and last. I maybe will get 100 sweet cherries this year but in general usually max out with just a handful or two.
If i got more pears i would be looking into the harrow series for sure. Early october harvest for pears does not sound to late for us to me and its just going to keep getting hotter into the end of the year for all of us anyways.
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First off, nice daily harvest!!
As much as I want to add a sweet cherry as an experiment (and know better), your comments have me thinking I might be better off getting a G3 or G5 cherry and putting it into a big (like 25-50 gallon… the bigger, the better) container might be more productive than sweet cherries would otherwise be here. Everyone seems to report Bing as the gold standard for flavor and firmness, and that might open up that door. And you haven’t reported any amazing flavors/sugars with the cherries, so I am guessing container might be the way to try.
I’m really leaning towards that harrrow sweet as a base tree, and then grafting onto it. That whole harrow series seems built for Colorado. I actually grafted it onto an apple tree a few weeks ago as an experiment… right in the middle.
How big do your G5 cherries get in the ground? I am thinking g3 might be more appropriate for a large container.
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Bing in my opinion is by far the best sweet cherry variety taste wise it just does even worse with snap frosts and i experienced lots of bing trees dying when i was younger and didn’t want to experience that again 
I am extremely happy whenever i get any sweet cherries but they do not compare or hold a candle to a true tree ripened bing
G5 is a excellent rootstock and has been easy for me to keep my sour cherries at 6’ for covering. Its also been drought tolerant and extremely cold hardy as well as good anchorage. Cannot complain not sure how big they would get without trimming but very manageable i would say. Probably either would work for container growing though
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You don’t need a dwarf root for a fruit tree in a pot. The pot size limits the tree size. I’ve had sweet cherries in pots and they did well. Better than in ground. But my issue with in-ground sweet cherries in the greenhouse is they don’t set. I run the soil so dry that it ruins the flowers for the next crop. The trees flower but don’t set much because there’s no pollen. The self fertile sweet cherries are more sensitive to the dry soil issue that those like Bing needing cross pollination. I’ll get on my other computer and post some pictures.
I can’t find my best pictures of potted cherries showing the pot. But every fruit tree I ever put in a pot bore fruit. Even the last picture of four nectarine trees in one 35 gal pot all bearing fruit. Cherries, nectarine, pluot, and grapes all had fruit. Bing sweet cherries with 25-32 brix and high acid are about as good as fruit gets…!!
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Do you re-pot/trim the roots every couple of years or have you had success without doing that?
Does anyone have experience chip budding (stone fruits) on the Front Range? If so, what timing has worked the best?
After about 4 yrs in a pot regardless of rootstock the tree runs out of vigor. The tree can only get so big in a pot. That’s the time to prune both roots and top in order to get new fruiting wood. The fruit from potted trees is smaller than in ground. But quality is usually good. More thinning only seems to do so much to increase fruit size. In general growing in a pot was a good experience.
I’m pretty stoked to see this. Had about 10 ripe apricots for the first time ever. Peaches still have a ways to go, but there will be a ton of them ready in September if all goes well.
Sungold:
!
Contender:
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Thanks - I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and for fickle fruits (for CO), have been thinking - try one in-ground and one in pot. I’ve also been brainstoring some quick and dirty coverings for trees, given that would make a huge difference here with production of many fruits.
Do you think for the potted plants (i.e. brought into garage with poor weather), it is necessary to find something that might have a fighting chance here in ground (late blooming, hardy, etc), or if putting it in a pot and the garage as needed, going for earlier bloomers?
Those look awesome. Do you think you’ll be able to keep away the squirrels and other fruit predators?