Some of our favorite nursery folks and pear experts are in your neighborhood. 39th parallel,
ClarkinKs and others. Welcome and good growing!
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Yes Iāve read a lot of their post which made me finally decide to get some trees in the ground!
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I have been lurking on this forum for a week or so now and thought I would take the plunge and join.
I am interested in the collection and breeding of Long Keeping Apples and no-dig gardening/veg breeding. Actually, I have a website documenting the apple project which some here might find interesting but cannot post a link yet. I will make a brief post on it once my account gets to a level that can do that. It is in my profile though (I think).
I look forward to the knowledge in this forum and hope to contribute my little bit as appropriate.
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Greetings from Portugal,
Joined to share some insights and discuss ideas for this hobby Iām following since 2018.
Got a little garden in Lisbon plus an 500 liters vineyard in north of Portugal.
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I introduced myself back in March on the Colorado Front Range thread, but realize now it belongs here.
I have an orchard and gardens west of Loveland, CO and south of Masonville in a riparian area at 5000ā. Zone 5b and average frost free growing season 130 days. This area used to have commercial cherry and apple orchards.
My ~20 fruit trees are apples, peaches and pears, and many are grafted with multiple varieties. I grow raspberries and strawberries successfully and blueberries less successfully. I also enjoy growing melons and tomatoes.
I use organic methods and am trying to build up native flowers and grasses in the orchard. I share happily with grandkids and neighbors, and grudgingly with elk, bear, deer, squirrels, birds, voles, gophers and insects. I volunteer at the High Plains Environmental Centerās heirloom orchard.
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Hello, all. Very pleased to find this forum, thanks to Scott for setting it up and maintaining it - no small feat! Iām in Charlotte, North Carolina, Zone 8A, EPA 45B (Southern Outer Piedmont.) Iām in an āurban woodlandā in an older single family neighborhood near the city center (we can see skyscrapers in the distance at night.) Healthy street tree canopy, mostly Q. phellos (willow oak). Cecil red clay, ~pH 5-5.5 maybe, but man a lot of urban rubble and what not! So, my challenges for food production on a small urban lot (growing space about 800m2, or about 1/10 acre) in mostly high shade (thereās some sun in places.)
You get the idea.
We used to have colder winters. Now, Iād be surprised if our chill hours equal 1000/yr, though the airport registers about 1,100.
Plenty of water, though there are (usually) brief dry periods.
Things that do well are figs, kaki persimmon, and rabbiteye blueberries. Iām exploring other options. Brambles do OK. I need to consider things like autumn leaf color, spring (and other) flowering, fruit display in garden, interesting plant forms, and the small kahuna - size.
Main predation problem: Squirrels.
Look forward to exploring the site and exchanging information.
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My introduction: I found this site when researching apple varieties that do well in the Tidewater area of Virginia. I have owned a small diversified farm (layers, broilers, hogs, goats, vegetables) since 2013, but as the kids have moved on and my age getting up there, my wife and I have downsized to just a few vegetables for commercial production. A lifelong friend and fellow Army Veteran wants to start a small U-Pick apple orchard on an acre of his property, and Iām wondering if growing fruit trees on an acre for a U-Pick makes sense at my age. I have 125 acres that we can expand on if the acre does well, but figured I better start on 1 acre first.
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Welcome to the forum. This is a great place. Happy apple growing to you.
Hello Scott , thank you for the fruit forum.
I just signed up and this is a brief introduction.
Iām in eastern North Carolina near a tiny town called Seven Springs.
I live on about 10 acres of land that had been clear cut for timber before I bought it.
God blessed me with a mix of many species of oaks, persimmons, wild paw paws, dogwoods , so many other tree species!
Your growing fruit.org has been so helpful to me for learning about to start my orchard.
Yes I have been lurking since last year.
Thanks
Iām not sure how to post this so if it goes to the wrong place Iām sorryā¦
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Hello Scott and All, I grow things. Itās what I do. A weedy garden grows more food than no garden. I live in dry central Idaho in zone 6a with an iffy mid May start and an iffy end of September first frost. It can frost here in every month, but almost never in July. One of the most frustrating and certainly my favorite tomato is Opalka. Between blossom end rot and a longer growing period than is comfortable here, maybe I just like the challenge, I know I love the taste. I have a small orchard and a small greenhouse. Thank you for sharing your experience and time in growing and nurturing gardeners like me.
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Hello, everyone! I live in zone 6b and am gardening for the first timeā¦and I am obsessed. Iāve currently planted pawpaws, persimmons, blueberries, gold/red raspberries, evergreen huckleberries, chokeberries, honeyberries, red/white/black currants, golden currant, gooseberries, blackberries, tayberries, elderberries, serviceberries, and nannyberries. In fabric containers I have blueberries, blackberries, a potted dwarf everbearing mulberry, a salmonberry, a boysenberry (which might go in the ground), and a blackcap raspberry. Iām very excited to see how everything grows come this spring and Iām grateful to have this wonderful resource here!
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O. M. G.!!! Sounds like you belong here with the rest of us!!! Welcome!
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Your story sounds like mine. I just joined the forum too. I live in 7a and am preparing my soil for a hedge of huckleberry, a row of brambles, grapes, a row of northern highbush blueberries, and a fruit tree row of persimmons pawpaws and jujubes. Iām making a drip irrigation system based on some advice from this forum too. Iām looking forward to posting pics of the first harvest!
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Wow we are very similar! Are you pruning your persimmons or pawpaws at all? Since mine were planted this fall, Iām worried about doing it too early before they establish, but also Iāve read that you HAVE to do it when the tree is young. Iāve also been looking into irrigation systems as well since right now Iām just using 5-gal and 2-gal buckets with a hole drilled in the side for watering. Itās accurate but takes forever to get around to every individual plant. 
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Hello Scott and all,
Iām in Catalonia (Spain - Europe), near Barcelona city.
I purchased a small plot of 1/2 acre just 1 year ago, but I have been experimenting with grafting commercial and traditional varieties for years. I love collecting rare and original varieties of all kinds of fruit and citrus trees and small fruits that can grow in my zone 8B where there are some night frosts in winter.
Stone fruit hybrids and cold-hardy avocados are some of my main interests right now. I have a small greenhouse where I intend to grow some subtropical or tropical plants.
Very excited to share experiences and results!
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Hello everyone.
Iām just starting my fruit growing hobby this coming spring. I grew up in a small farm growing veggies and the like, moved away for school and work in the city where i didnāt have a place to garden and have only now, in my late 30s, finally been able to get a place of my own where I can get back to planting some things.
Planning to take a stab at growing a couple peach, apple and pear trees, and maybe some hazelnuts and tea plants (wellā¦ OK this list keeps growingā¦ but I have a little under a half acre so there will come a point where thereās a limit set haha).
I plan to start planting some trees this spring.
My partner and I live in the Virginia piedmont (Zone 7a) so Iām hoping not to bite off more than I can chew with the disease and pest pressure thatās sure to bring.
Been a lurker here for the past year or so and have gotten a lot of good info Iāve been using in planning my little home orchard. Looking forward to gleaning even more wisdom and knowledge from you fine folks in the years to come.
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Well, I am back.
I am Ozymandias, but donāt seem to be able to recover my old account.
I still live in an apartment in East Asia without a single square centimeter of outdoor dirt to call my ownā¦ but will be returning to Virginia next year and am looking forward to learning what has become of my collection of trees after several years with no care.
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No pictures from neighbors?
I have some pictures and have actually gone back to visit once as well, so it isnāt really true that I have no idea what is going on, but it feels like it.
Part of the issue is that I moved to a new house in 2020 and planted a considerable variety of trees in 2021 before moving overseas in 2022. Obviously that means the trees werenāt well established and are more subject to damage.
Base on my one close look I lost all my bush cherries (Juliet), a couple persimmons that were destroyed by deer, some blueberry bushes, and one pecan tree (deer).
A couple apples, a couple paw paws, a couple persimmons, one peach, and several blueberries were damaged and seemed likely to survive without more damage.
My currents, strawberries, and rhubarb were all badly overgrown and will likely be a total loss.
On the bright side, several paw paws, one pecan, one peach, two figs, several persimmons, several jujubes, several hazelnuts, several apples and my beach plums all appeared basically undamaged and growing. The beach plums in particular seem to have grown like crazy, much more than I expected.
Obviously I hope to be surprised with more good news than bad when I return. If they are doing well my trees will be in their 5th year in the ground and should be producing or getting close.
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Hello everybody,
Iāve started since 6 years a fruit garden with my family.
We leave in the middle of France, in what is called here middle mountain area (around 1000m).
Itās a usda zone 6 close to a zone 5. Put compared to the US, the gulf stream is making the weather less extreme I would say : the transition between winter and summer are slower. So weāve got a shorter period with high temperature in the summer.
I found a website in English that show the trend to get an idea but I canāt put the link here. So you can search for the weather at āMurat Le Quaireā if you want.
Weāve tried and are trying various species and varieties adapted to cold climate. The ones from the US cold climate sadly seems to too often need hotter and longer summer to bear fruits.
Currently, what are working great are currants, strawberries, raspberries and honneyberries (and some pears and cherry on good years). But I would welcome any advice on fruit trees and bushes that you think could be a good pick.
I discovered this forum while searching for propagation method for hardy kiwi. Itās one on my new hobbies: trying to multiply all my plants and gift them to my friends and family. I am still failing for quite a bit of them (damn high bush blueberries!).
Anyway, Iām done with the introduction. Thank you for having me here. And prepare yourself for some stupid English mistake. I can mix words easily.
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