Nectarines are an acquired texture.
Why did you lose money on them? Their quality not good? Or customers didn’t get interested in them?
i got the seed off Esty. i don’t remember the vendor’s name. ive never seen a wild one here so hopefully the canker that effects them isnt present either.
Glad to see a ton of other people are already on their 2025 machinations. A fair amount with more on their plate than me. Limited space and kids keep me in check…mostly.
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I could get you some butternut seed, IN DNR nursery is selling hybrid butternut seedlings(probably from Purdue).
Not exactly sure where you are located but several INFGA members have access to good seed(pure and hybrid)
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Hey! I can send you a bunch of butternut seed. I have a tree next to my garage thats at least 40-50 y/o probably 35-40ft tll idk. I have a real hard time cracking them but I get a half dozen sprouts around my house every year that the squirrels plant so Im certain theyre viable. Could possibly dig up a seedling too if I find any nearby.
Btw that Korean Giant scion you sent me grew easily 6ft+ in a couple months, you werent kidding when you said it was vigorous
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Oh and my future plans for next year are to transplant the approx 50 bench grafts I made/grew out this spring, marking/weed-killing planting holes now. Try sorting through my lists for the scion trades/requests over the next few weeks, maybe try to pick up a few cheap trees through CVN.
And (raccoons?) I think took 90% of my peaches/nectarines/apples so I will try bagging everything next year and find deterrents. Need to get enough chicken wire for my vegetables too as rabbits are becoming a huge problem and make some crops ungrowable.
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Hoping to propagate cuttings from my gooseberry and aronia plants. I have some seeds from both and a wild yellow raspberry that I am hoping will grow as well. There are a bunch of peach pits that I hope to sprout. I layered a couple honeyberry branches I plan to cut off and plant next year. Will probably take a few cuttings from my Clark’s crabapples and try to topwork an old, crappy apply tree with them. Need to buy some replacement hardy kiwi for the females that died on me this year. And, I may buy some good english walnuts to use to provide grafting stock for the million black walnut seedlings I have everywhere.
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I’m going to plant my peaches, pears and cherries I grafted this spring. 2025 i’m going to graft a modern apple row, finish up grafting my antique apple row, play around with figs and propagate a 100 foot row of elderberry.
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I moved in late April of this year. I had a big nirsery bed at the old place so I brought about 35 1 to 3 year old apple trees with me. Ive only managed to get 9 in the ground so far, so thats priority one. I plan to multigraft a lot of those, mostly with breeding project seedlings, but may order a few scions. The back part of my yard has some big white pines, so partial shade. Will try adding in a pawpaw and persimmon understory there.
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Berries, pawpaws and groundcover. Those are the things I want to focus on next year, although I still be buying seeds that strike my fancy.
I want to buy 3 of our native blueberries, as well as a couple more of the variety that did the best this year. I want to get some more blackberries, but I have to call my extension office to make sure I’ll actually get fruit more than one year. Pesky chill hours. Also going to be getting Mysore Raspberries and possibly tayberries if the extension office doesn’t tell me thats a bad idea. All sorts of neotropical berries that I want to try, but since I’d more than likely have to start from seed, not really a next your project.
I want to get the rest of the easily obtained native pawpaws; asimina pygmaea, a. Obovata and a. Reticulata. In addition to hoping and dreaming one of them tastes good (or at least can be used as a rootstock) they are also a host plant, and I don’t have a zebra swallowtail specimen for the butterflies class I teach. Depending on finances, I’ll also be trying to get some bare root named varieties of a. Triloba, although still not sure which ones to trial. Would have to be a very heat/humidity tolerent tree.
Finally, I just need to replace the grass with something. Its my worse weed, the actual weeds are easier to manage and are less invasive. Probably will do mostly sunshine mimosa and perennial peanut. Carpet raspberry would be the most interesting, but I don’t know how well it would do here. Maybe when the trees get bigger I’ll put strawberries underneath them.
Definitely have more dreams and aspirations, but this is what I’m going to try and focus on next year, at least at the start of the year. I’m slowly catching the fig bug and I want to zone push some northern fruits southward, but I’ll see how that goes.
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Getting some rcra 8 metals testing done. While finally planting some trees at the new place after keeping them in pots all summer, I dug up some old batteries. They look like old zinc- carbon batteries ( house was built in 1940, guess they brought in some soil and clean fill apparently wasnt a thing then). Not taking any chances with potential lead, mercury or cadmium though. Its really disheartening. I left an orchard that was just starting to bear at the old place (the soil was not pristine there either). I was hoping to be moving to something better and instead received a dubious gift from previous generations.
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Good luck with your soil tests.
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I don’t mean to sound contrary to your practice of contacting the extension office before planting things, but what if they give you the wrong information? People are human.
My main focus for 2025 will be to:
- get my new propagation area(s) set up
- build some type of netting system to protect my honeyberries
- propagate enough honeyberries to plant an acre
- continue to plant cold hardy fig varieties
- build a trellis replant hardy kiwi varieties
- plant at least 10 new types of fruit baring plants (don’t have this list yet)
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I’ve lied to myself and the group.
Instead of 50… there will be probably 100 or more new trees coming.
I have decided i am just going to try to grow everything that I like or think i might like based on discussions here and elsewhere.
If 50 percent of them just dont work…cool. I tried.
I cant base what will work here on intel from Kansas or Maryland or California or even the next state away. If it works it works… if i like it…it stays. If i dont it goes.
I am not going to plant any of them this spring… they are all going in 5 gallon buckets and fenced in where i can manage them. I have no idea if next year will be the driest, hottest, wettest year ever…
This past summer all i got done was watering and keeping stuff alive… not again.
Little by little i will build my mounds… i have 20 tons of top soil that i gathered this year.
Fall 2025 my spade will go easily into the mound and planting will be enjoyable… not work. I will probably top dress with woodchips and some leaves to get the soil alive and thriving during the next year.
Until then my trees have been paid for. The nurseries have all decided that its best for them to keep them in coolers than to allow me to plant them or have them. Little by little from early March into late March and April the trees will trickle in by a brown truck or a guy who seems out of place in a van with a FedEx sticker. It all depends on when the nurseries think that i am ‘safe’ to have them.
I have already received trees from two nurseries that have common sense those are in the ground and ‘safe’.
Some tiny cherry seedlings and grafts are nestled into their winter pots and covered with woodchips and leaves. Safe.
Finally im hoping that things dont need scratch tests and pictures and the whole insanity that goes with proving that a nursery sent me something dead from their coolers and root hacking. I then have to go thru the process to wait a year and order from a different nursery hoping for different results.
For now i remain hopeful… lots to do and look forward to which is how i like it.
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You reminded me that I need to call them. To put it blunt, then I base my decision on wrong info. Theres not much I can do if their wrong, just like theres not much I can do if all the information online is wrong. For tayberries, the conventional wisdom would be that they don’t work in Central Florida. But its possible theres been a trial of them and they have more information, for better or worse. They aren’t the only resource I’m using for information, but they would be one of the most local.
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How much of a concern is that with fruit? I know leafy greens and root vegetables are problems, but thought fruit trees were less so?
You could run your own trials. That’s what I do. But not everyone is as adventurous as I am, so all the best to you and I hope they give you good info. 
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I never ask my extension office for anything because i know what they’ll tell me:
(In the past)
You can’t grow sweet potatoes in Colorado, we don’t have the climate for it.
I did it, succeeded, and showed a lot others that it can be done.
Passionfruit can’t be grown in Colorado.
I succeeded 3 years in a row.
Blueberries don’t do well in Colorado.
Succeeded as well until hail wiped out the plants the 2nd year. Realized the only reason why they didn’t do well was because of the lack of pollinators in my area.
Trees won’t fruit well in pots.
Showed them wrong once again.
You never know until you try and most people won’t try before finding out. Don’t let others tell you what you can or can’t do without even attempting. I know if i ask my local extension office, they’ll tell me that i can’t grow Mango trees here and I’m doing just that. Or that bananas won’t fruit here and they have. Moral of the story, not everyone knows everything and there’s a saying that most people won’t know whats possible until they see it themselves. I would tell you if you want to try something, do some research then go for it. Never let anyone tell you what you can’t do just because they can’t.
A lot of people will base their limits on what they personally can or can’t do and then will push it onto others.
Personally, if i had listened to others, i wouldn’t have the luxury of sitting on my ass every day doing everything i wanted to. I wouldn’t be able to buy the things i want or be able to spend recklessly like i do. I wouldn’t be able to afford the 750k house that we’re looking at right now. I wouldn’t be as happy and content with my life if i had listened… my sisters are all living together and for the black sheep, i think I’m doing pretty well.
We all set our own limits and we’re always our own worst enemy. I think with enough dedication to something, we can all achieve our goals even if others can never see themselves doing so.
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Our County Agent office has been vacant for years. They have 4-h office staff but that is it. Weird for a county heavy in Sylvaculture, ranches and Ag operation.
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