High Desert Group

Grapes from dormant cuttings have a pretty good success rate. Good luck!

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I started some Valiant grapes from cuttings a few years back, and they have thrived for me. The harvest last year was crazy. The school kids were picking off them every day, and we had plenty for jam making.

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i have himrod and van buren. I’ve got sticks i hope will root, the first batch never did. started these a week ago in tall pots in peat and perlite with bottom heat, and root hormone. i haven’t been able to get mulberry to start this year either yet though so something is off

@SpokanePeach or @NuttingBumpus do either of you have an idea of when is best to graft peach here? i have some stick and a good rootstock tree outside but not sure when it’s prime time in our area. i really want the grafts to do well.

apples i think i have the timing down ok, but peaches are new for me and most other threads about them are from warmer zones or damp regions

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Oh my, things are going off early this year! Apricots and nanking cherries are blooming, and apples are breaking bud. I haven’t even started grafting yet because I shouldn’t be seeing this growth for at least 4 if not 6 weeks! I’m interested to hear about peach graft timing as well.

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Unfortunately I have the same problem in northern Utah with my flavor top nectarine. But, it’s a young tree and wasn’t expected fruit any way.

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Kevin has way more experience than I in handling stone fruit. My only successful graft among them involved plum, which the literature exhorted me to wait until the leaves were nearly developed. T-&-G failed while dormant chip bud succeeded. Once the graft healed over growth was impressive.

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I’m doing my free starts and garden stuff table on May 3. and the Sunday before that I’m going to sell some stuff out front too. some of the tomatoes and other things are exceptional this year so I’m gonna try to sell enough to cover my promix bags for next year.

then give away all the rest the following weekend.

i have no idea what starts even cost or what to charge here in town. I’ve got 2 inch pots, 4 inch pots, solo cups, and 1/2 gallon pots all going. tomatoes and herbs and some weird things like celery, celeriac, etc

any suggestions?

i called in about licensing and they said no need unless I’m earning more than 100 or selling ā€œmore than casuallyā€ so that was good to know.

example of tomatoes, these are red ruffle and Japanese black trifele.

i start in promix and pot up with vermiculite, wormcast, fox farm, and perlite. i don’t add anything like fertilizers and i don’t use anything but sluggo so i think they are organic, but I’m not paying to find out.

thoughts?

what is everyone thinking about this couple of cold nights? I’m in town and see one potential frost Sunday morning very early. all my things are out and just have to push through on their own.

I don’t have anything tender out yet. We’ve been getting frosts 2-5 nights a week still. I’ll start putting things out in a few weeks, but with covers ready to go. June 20th is when I start to feel safe.

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This is Risager black currant mid-June. Smaller than most of the black currant bushes I have grown, yet hugely productive this year. I find its juniper overtone milder than most and perhaps sweeter. Yesterday I finished twisting the woody calyxes off 7 cups worth of black currants (mostly from the ā€˜24 harvest of other black currants) and began a batch of cordial. Next I will clean calyxes to make jam. Both products so worth growing black currant.

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We had three nights to 30°F when you asked about this and they killed most of my European plum fruits. This was the first year Seneca would set fruit after re-planting, but I find two or three only by now. Ersinger had hundreds of fruits last year; this year maybe a dozen. None at all on Kirke’s.

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my big Italian plum has maybe only 2 dozen in it after that. my school house is loaded though.

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you doing ok through all this? need anything?

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I trust you, Anji, being outside the Get Out Now! zone because of wildfires, are doing well also. Thanks for asking.

For the benefit of this thread: Three wildfires ignited last Saturday, August first. One in particular engulfed part of the NW sector of Spokane, with SW gusts up to 36mph. I am grateful to report that although two of my children and their families were ordered to flee, along with my wife and I, none of our homes were destroyed. One has significant smoke and heat damage and will need new walls and such. I live in an area where falling bits of flammables drifted with the wind. There are lots of 1-4ā€ lengths of burnt ponderosa pine needles and even plates of bark. (This kind of pine has bark that separates into jigsaw looking pieces. I found a charred chunk about an inch and a quarter across and several thicknesses deep in my back yard yesterday while picking black currants. Hence the concern for people’s safety.)

Fire fighters from all over are ā€œmopping upā€ residual fires within the burns: stumps and the like. It seems possible my favorite hiking trail has been entirely burnt over. I may be volunteering to plant pine, Douglas fir, willows and mountain maple in that region for the next several years.

The good news: some of my trees did well despite the late freezes last spring. Ersinger plum had about 50 fruits (only twice the size of Green Gage or half a Stanley, but outstanding); Lamb Abbey apple was festooned with fruit and took a while to thin properly, I tasted an early drop yesterday that housed a CM worm and was delighted at how good it can be so soon in the year; Twenty Ounce set fruit first time this year and has maybe 20 apples swelling on it that are on track to ripen by Sept. first; Gold Rush again has more fruit than I had time to cover with footies (finally found a proper source; a problem ever since COVID) and still needs some remedial clean up, since CM worms are maturing already. One Clove currant bush yielded a quart or maybe 3 pints of fruit and still has more developing. Ben More black currant is finally ending harvest, with maybe five quarts of fruit from one bush. (I planted a cutting of Ben More and a root sucker of clove currant some months ago. They are doing well, replacing Laxton Giant, which languishes in the dry heat.)

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my lamb abbey graft took off this year and is about 4 feet high/long. i look forward to those

I’m so glad you’re ok. hoping everyone else in the area checks in.

I’m going to complain about the drought and snow pack and aquifer if i keep talking

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Glad you and your family are OK! We’ve had several fires here in the Wood River Valley this summer, but quick response has kept them from getting out of hand.

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High winds had been forecast for last Saturday for about a week prior, with doomsday talk of 40-50 mph gusts. I prayed for less forceful winds and the answer was, ā€œYes.ā€ Firefighters were on the alert well before the event. If only arsonists weren’t compelled to do something so destructive and possibly lethal.

The area I love to hike has not had difficulties with fire except via arson - twice in August of 2015 and now this 3,500 acre fire. It could have been worse: hotter, faster wind, trees over roads, major accidents snarling traffic, people killed…I do not know if arson started the other two fires, which brought the grand total to at least twice the acreage of the Old Trails fire.

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