Watermelons growing up the chicken wire cage around the multi-graft cherry tree.
What hasn’t worked as well:
A quince tree never leafed out after planting - it’s dead
A pawpaw tree didn’t make it, after initially taking. (1 out of 4)
The jostaberries have grown like gangbusters, but are currently fighting against a leaf fungus. I’m treating with Neem Oil.
Two honeyberries are growing poorly in full sun. The three other honeyberries are growing very well in partial shade.
The raised beds of veggies have struggled a bit. The ones with higher compost to wood chips have done better. Come cold weather I’ll top them all up with compost.
Pawpaws never interested me. A study came out in 2012 showing neurotoxins in the fruit (annonacin and squamocin)
“Pawpaw fruit contains a high concentration of annonacin, which is toxic to cortical neurons. Crude fruit extract also induced neurotoxicity, highlighting the need for additional studies to determine the potential risks of neurodegeneration associated with chronic exposure to pawpaw products.”
The FDA then did a follow up study and concluded yes there are neurotoxins but the 1st study underestimated the neurotoxin concentrations and should have extracted the proteins in a different way… https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/jf504500g
“the potential neurotoxicity of pawpaw fruits may have been underestimated” in original 2012 paper
if you want a great fruit in a tree that is relatively easy to grow in your locale without a lot of pests and diseases, look at mulberries
just remember they should not be planted next to the house because of their root system can harm pipes, etc and because the birds will eat and their droppings will be purple, leaving a mess next to things you wont want messy (sidewalks, driveway, cars, etc).
another would be jujubes https://www.texasgardener.com/jujube-a-fruit-well-adapted-to-texas/
"Another great thing about jujubes is that they have few problems with insects and diseases. As I.E. Cowart, a horticulturalist, said many years ago, “Jujubes are easy to grow, not affected by insects and diseases to much extent and are drought resistant.” Oh, birds can peck a few fruit, and deer like to eat the fruit and sometimes eat the leaves of the better varieties, but generally jujubes are one of the easiest fruiting trees to grow. As one fruit grower said, “they demand less and give more than any other fruit tree we have. We love them.”
We planted a number of haskap this summer and so it is too early to tell. They appear to be slow growing but are very hardy so good where we are (zone 5a) we have aurora, and boreal 3 (blizzard, beast, and beauty) - remember they will need pollinators.
Do you put a rain cover (polyethylene) over your sweet cherries given the cage frame? And if so, how does it work? And do you enclose the sides to stop insects/bugs? I am thinking of doing something like this is VT but with a rain cover top of polyethylene
this guy has a pretty good plan from PVC but I would use polyethylene on the top
Welcome to the forum! You may be interested in this thread, it’s what brought me to this forum. Long story short, there isn’t enough data to show the implications of eating a moderate amount of pawpaws each year will cause any health issues. Eating 30 pounds a year every year might be something to watch for. It is definitely based on the variety too. Persimmon is another low maintenance option to try.
As I said, pawpaws never interested me. And I dont think anyone will ever design a study to follow pawpaw fruit eaters for 10+ years to study this, so you are correct there is no data in people (in mice, however, annonacins have been studied and are not good). Annonacins are microtubule inhibitors which have implications for cancers (e.g., Taxol, another microtubule inhibitor from the yew tree, was at one time the biggest oncology drug in the world)
I also agree on persimmons. We just planted a prok. Does anyone know where to find other varieties like 100-46, h-118, jt-02? It is harder now that England is no longer selling trees. Thanks
Yes at high levels (just like many other things like alcohol, nicotine and other legal drugs) they are very bad. But as I said, testing (and breeding) is taking place to select for lower level varieties.
@Barkslip will be selling some very high quality persimmons, some very hard to find starting on September 6th on eBay under the account watch4066 starting at noon. That would be my first choice, I am buying a few myself. One Green World is another option, as is scion wood from Fruitwood Nursery to do it yourself.
I spoke with Cliff England and asked him if he had room for only 2 persimmons, which would he plant? And he said Prok and 100-46; others on the forum have mentioned h-118 and jt-02 as well and I would like to plant them also. Thanks and will be on the lookout.
Probably, maybe. In my region some of the fuzzy older strain peach varieties often provide tasty but ugly spray-free fruit. Cherries sometimes miss the major pests as well, but need to be in full sun to avoid rot and then also need mercy from the god-goddess of rain so it doesn’t come down in the week or two before the fruit is ripe. Your neighbors may not enjoy the cherries because birds will likely get them first- same with blueberries and to a somewhat lesser extent, Juneberries (Saskatoons are a cold region high plains fruit and I haven’t found them useful in the northeast- they runt out from fungal diseases).
There are apple varieties not susceptible to scab or CAR and with hard enough fruit to often beat plum curculio, at least enough for foraging. At other sites susceptible varieties may not be badly affected by those two most years-Fuji and Goldrush come to mind. Also Arkansas Black. Old strain Yellow Delicious as well. But without spray, you won’t likely get apples good for storage or pretty.
Keeping it small enough if you have limited space might be too much work, but I strongly recommend Illinois Everbearing Mulberry for the community thing- especially if you like seeing happy children foraging for fruit they love. Never needs spray and is true to its name, sort of- it bears for about 6 week here. Nowadays you may need to keep the tree short enough to avoid lawsuits from some kid falling while climbing for fruit.
If you want to stay organic, try Spinosad insect spray ( under a couple different brand names). It works fairly well for me. It has saved the day on cherries, plums, pears, and apples. So far no sprays needed for honeyberries, blueberries, kiwis, currants, gooseberries, strawberries, blackberries. I also bag the apples when they reach marble size. Deer protection is also critical. I hope the community garden is a big success!
I’m late to this party and I’m too busy to read the whole thread, so here’re my quick two cents which may be repetitive. I’m a bit south of you in RI:
How do you plan to deal with deer? Deer will eat pretty much everything on your list except maybe pawpaw. If you don’t have a plan that works, you will be very frustrated. Here I need fences around everything. Raccoons, squirrels, and birds are guaranteed problems too. And voles.
Apples are not tough to grow if you pick varieties that are disease resistant and you do at least some minimal spraying. Wrap the trunks so that rabbits, mice, and voles don’t eat the bark.
Pears are easier. I can ripen good pears with no spray except dormant oil.
Red raspberries, black raspberries and blackberries are pretty easy. They’re not pest-free (including birds) but if you plant a bunch, there’ll usually be enough left over for humans to eat.
Mulberries are a must have, trouble free and delicious. Get Illinois Everbearing. Eat berries for 6-8 weeks.
American persimmon is definitely hardy enough and fruitful. But it can be tough to get rid of the astringency. I planted Prok. I could never get it fully non-astringent. Also, you want to be sure that the variety you choose ripens early. FWIW, I’m testing H63A, Barbra’s Blush, and Dollywood as well as the hybrids Kassandra and JT-02. I’ve had good success with the non-astringent Japanese variety Ichi Ki Kei Jiro but we live just on the borderline of its cold hardiness. If you try it, cover it for at least the first 2 winters.
I didn’t know about dormant oil, thanks for the tip.
For nibbling animals like rabbits, I have a trunk guard (white, against winter sun scald) on each.
For deer, I have several motion-activation sensors that make a high pitched noise that’s almost inaudible to me, as well as flashing light. I have chicken wire cages around several of the trees, and am trying out a new trunk cage that does something similar. (Good reminder to actually install them.)
I’ve been surprised, though, that deer don’t seem to be a problem here - I have a lot of raised beds that have tender greens and the like, and the deer have left them alone.
We have raspberries out back, I should plant more way back in the woods.
Mulberries grow insanely large, right? I don’t really have a spot for that.
Yes, mulberries get large. I also have a dwarf variety named Gerardi but I’m not convinced that the berries are as good.
There are dormant oils that can be used anytime. I haven’t sprayed my trees yet – I’m waiting for a calm, dry, not too chilly day! So it’s not too late.
I used dormant oil this winter, and just used copper spray (no flowers yet) on all my fruit trees and bushes.
I was hit hard by blight on my berry bushes last year, had to cut my jostaberry to the ground, so I want to do better this year. I try not to spray much in my garden, as it’s intended to be an ecosystem as much as anything else, but am trying to balance multiple good aims.
Yeah, unfortunately insect and fungal pests are part of the ecosystem. Also deer, raccoons, squirrels, birds. You have to make a choice – do you want to eat what you grow or do you want something else to eat it.
If you want to feed Nature’s creatures, I’d suggest creating separate food plots dedicated to them. Within your own farm/garden, keep them out.
