So I converted my greenhouse to 5.5ft rows and 18-24 inch tree spacing in 2014. That’s when some trees were planted on Lovell and others budded onto K1 roots planted Febr 2014. So none of these trees are much over 3 yrs in the ground. I had a small crop in 2015, a good crop in 16, and a full crop this yr.
I’ve already cut down quite a few trees. Some of the K1 aren’t growing well due to crown gall. I’ve cut others back and am budding the better varieties to the poorer. That can be seen in pics below.
The apricots didn’t set well due to the short winter season but many were 24-26 brix.
Now the good stuff has started. Harvested today Honey Blaze pictured below. The dark color, rough skin, and sugar speckling indicate high quality. Brix 30.5 on the one I just ate. These have the most heavenly flavor of anything I grow. Won’t say they are better than the handfull of 30+ brix Bings that came on a month ago. The Bings retained very high acid at those brix levels…world class flavor both IMO.
@fruitnut Do you still have your Honeycrisp apple? I know last year you were disappointed in it. After having a fair crop last year, mine does not have a crop this year. Took nearly a month behind the other apple trees to come out of dormancy. I wonder if its going to be biennial in low chill hours areas. I don’t know if yours was in your greenhouse or not.
No I cut it off my multigraft tree after 5 yrs of no bloom. It was late to leaf out but looked decent by fall. I cut down some other apples today that were barely leafed out due to lack of chilling. My Golden Delicious has one inch fruit and the others no leaves. Produce or die around here.
So do you cut back these fruiting nectarines once the fruit is picked…and does that wood then fruit for you next year? I suppose with your super long growing season that is possible.
I may well lose a yrs production. But my plan going forward is to have two shoots off each tree. Renew those on a different schedule. Or in some cases I have two trees of a variety so put them on a different schedule.
fruitnut, this statement about you watering once in 3 months of full leaf is intriguing and fascinating to me. I don’t have a watering system to my orchard and in my area, it’s rarely an issue and I only very rarely even worry at all about dry weather, but I never would have guessed that your trees would be that productive and so obviously healthy without more frequent watering. Knowing little to nothing about greenhouse growing, I wonder if they’re a bit more humid and don’t require water as an outside orchard would? Last year we had a very dry summer here and many folks worried about fruit drop or very poor quality in the fruit and I was quite satisfied with my fruit, just curious about this statement and your infrequent watering there.
It’s a little more humid at times, when the evaporative cooler is running, but drier when it’s not. I don’t think that’s a big effect. But the greenhouse covering, double layer woven poly, probably blocks 50% of the suns heat. So that might cut water use by as much as half. Total yearly water use is about 21 inches for a 300 day growing season. Less than 0.1 inch per day April thru Sept/Oct.
Wow, very interesting. For my purposes in my outdoor orchard, I think it’s probably safe to assume based on your numbers, that in my area (42" inches of rain per year) that arid conditions are probably almost never a concern.
I’d say that’s true if your soil has at least decent water holding capacity. The difficulty outdoors is that one has no control. Letting the trees dry out may help fruit quality until the drought is busted by a big rain and the fruit splits. I can maintain a more uniform water level.
These turn soft as they ripen like most nectarines. They can be eaten hard and still have a high brix and sweet taste. I like them best after they turn soft. I ate a Honey Lite grown outdoors recently that was still hard and green inside. It was very sweet and probably at least two weeks from turning soft. We’ve only had 1.5 inches total rainfall this yr and one tree hasn’t been watered since January. The others watered sparingly. Everything so far has been candy sweet if you like that sort of thing. The fruit is small, like 2 inch nectarines. The later stuff should be at least 3 inches.
Thanks. I can imagine it is wonderful. I also noticed your melons on another post today. They look great, mine are not even up yet. Fall water melons it is.
On another note I ate my first sweetcorn today. It needs another day or two to reach peak quality but was still good. Got my sugar quota today. It’s the good sugar right.
