@fruitnut, I do indeed have a short growing season. Still, I was told by locals that apples and pears should do well. I will find out if that is true at some point.
I applied with the NRSC @ USDA for help getting a high tunnel. We shall see how that goes as well. That was for vegetables but will also come in handy for my one avocado and several smaller citrus trees. I might even be able to plant the citrus trees inside the tunnel instead of keeping them in pots
My 20th Century Pear set about 6 fruit this year and it is small and in a pot. I ended up removing the fruit when I realized that it was stifling root development. That was encouraging though, that it tried. I got it last year, from Four Winds, so you know it was small. I hope it does okay through this Winter, I should have never let it keep fruit. It grew like the dickens too - I had to top it and shorten branches. That is the reason I put a “Shinko” on order for 2024. Looks like Asian pears might work here. Asian pears are not my favorite fruit, but hey, I will take what I can get. At least they are juicey. Maybe I will try Tajin on one next time.
We did get raspberries this year, from plants bought the year before. Also got strawberries. I did notice a complete lack of size though. Should be bigger fruits I think. But still, we got berries. And we have wonderful wild blackberries here, so I do expect to have a good chance with blackberries. I ordered 10 ea of Ponca and Kiowa, I hope it works out. I know it will take at least 2 years to even hope for any fruit from them. I saw no disease or pests on the wild berries growing here. I think the biggest berry threats here at this time are bears and deer.
I am happy that I read cherry flies cannot travel far. And I saw no worms in wild berries. Maybe I will get lucky and will not have to worry about those flies. We don’t have crows this high up. We have ravens. A raven couple, to be exact. They have done things we don’t appreciate, such as poking holes in tarps. Gorilla tape fixes the holes.
Also, when we left the dog run door open while walking the dogs, the ravens took out all the dog bones and had them in a pile outside the run in a half hour. It was a pretty big pile of old marrow bones. Now our dogs hate them, see them as bone stealers. I love how huge and intelligent ravens are, beautiful birds.
I have seen hardly any squirrels since the Northern Goshawk started hanging around. We find it staring at our chickens and quail.
Our blueberries were eaten back quite a bit by deer last year, this year they were protected and so were allowed to recover but no berries. Maybe next year. We are learning all kinds of harsh lessons the last two years.
