crfg.org said Honey jar is mid season jujube.
Only Li is early season one.
I like Rolling River for bushes like currants and gooseberry, but not so much for trees, especially jujubes. The ones I got were very small and haven’t grown well.
When you place the order, there is a box you fill in for when you want them to ship.
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that does not seem to hold true across the board.
hj’s are quite early here in vegas, considering that the hj’s we have are younger than the li’s we have been watching
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Thank you Bob. Tomorrow morning I will check it out with one of my local nursery Flower world first, if they don’t have Honey Jar jujube I will make an order.
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It"s help a lot for my decision. Thanks you.
Jujube grows throughout most of the southern half of North America. For best crops, the tree needs a long growing season and hot and dry weather during ripening. About the only parts of the United States where jujube can’t grow are in the North (USDA Zones 5 and colder) and the Gulf Coast where summer rain and humidity prevent optimum fruiting.
Trees thrive in most of California, from interior valleys in the north to the Sierra foothills, and throughout the southern region of the state. In Oregon, the region surrounding Medford is well suited. In the southwest deserts, trees grow well from Palmdale in California to Las Vegas and in Arizona from Bisbee to Phoenix. Most of Texas from Houston north to Muskogee, Oklahoma, is jujube country, then east to the Atlantic seaboard and as far north as Trenton, New Jersey.
Although average winter minimum temperatures between -5° F (zone 6) and -15° F (zone 5) are the likely hardiness limits, trees have survived -25° F.
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Vincent,
Do you have a big family to eat all these fruits once they are in full production?
Tony
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Interesting info, Vincent. Thank you.
Bob Vance and I are pushing limit re. location. The info said "as far north and Trenton, NJ. @BobVance and I are in New England, granted Bob is closer to mid Atlantic than me by a lot.
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I think there are two differnt issues:
1.) Winter lows- a range of -5F to -25F, is huge. It covers 6B to 4B. Sounds like even 5a has a decent shot. From what I’ve seen -10F is fine for an established So/Contorted. But, I had a lot of losses last year with fall planted stock (JFaE and RR). Maybe that is where the range is. If the tree gets a chance to properly harden off it is pretty hardy.
I’m zone 6B (at least), which is similar to Trenton. Mamuang, at 6a, still has a decent margin for error and Vincent isn’t even close to having this as a problem.
2.) Enough heat/sun- I think this is the real issue.
In the last 3 years, So has fully ripened the crop for me, even though I was picking into October, when it isn’t hot or dry. In fact, we had some hot, dry weather in mid September last year and for the first time I wasn’t thrilled with the quality of the fruit (sweet, but texture was a bit dull). After about a week, we got a good sized rainstorm and the fruit went back to being crisp/crunchy. So, at least near ripening time, water seems a good thing, though I do get some fruit cracking after a big storm. It didn’t really hurt anything , though maybe it would impact storage (we eat it all before storage comes up, but I hope increasing yields eventually change that).
That is with So, Honey Jar, Shanxi Li, and Sugar Cane (with my level of experience decreasing as the list continues), all of which are mid-season. Maybe some of the late season varieties will need a longer growing season.
Where I think that sun and possibly heat is very important is for fruit-set to occur. As I noted earlier, the parts of the tree which were getting less sun (North side) have almost no fruit. Also, from what I’ve seen, the tree can flower for a while, before any fruit starts to form. My initial guess is that the tree is waiting for enough sun/heat to decide that it should fruit. I’ll try to measure this a bit over the next few years. Temp should be easy enough and I have a solar array, so I can see how much sun we’re getting by KWH generated.
It is possible that too much moisture at this point could be an issue. It’s also possible that the only way it is an issue is if the moisture comes from the sky, during the day, blocking the sun. Seems like something we can test for by irrigating one tree, and not irrigating another and seeing if there is any different in when fruit-set occurs. It wouldn’t surprise me if the irrigated one fruits first, as long as it gets enough sunny days.
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My zone has behaved like 5b these past few years.
Last year, was unusual. We had a hot and dry summer, several more days of temp at 90 F or more. A drought and heat probably contributed to my jujubes ripened in a timely manner. Nothing unripe.
I’ll see what weather will be like this year.
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I have never had any significant die back on my jujubes. Ripening for me starts around mid-September and I pick the last ripe fruits when the leaves drop (late October)
My winters in this corner of Mi tend towards 6a/b, though I doubt I dropped below 7 this winter.
Scott
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I will become the founder of " NW Neighborhood Organic Fruits Bank". hihi Tony.
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Spending morning weekend in the Flower World nursery. All Jujubes very good sizes some over 9 ft tall but none of Honey Jar variety there. I might hold on to it because of lack of supportive information about Jujube fruit tree performance in Pacific Gulf Coast, specially Seattle Puget Sound areas.
Thank you all very very much. Vincent.
HI Mamuang.
All your jujube ripen well every year? Is Honey jar ripen first in all of your jujube, how early comparing with all others? Thanks.
Vincent,
Last year was my first year growing jujubes. As I recalled, the ripening order was Honey Jar, Sugar Cane and Shanxi Li.
But, like I said, last year’s summer was hot and dry, hotter and drier than usual. My trees are in the sunniest spots in the yard, too.
From the picture of your local nursery selling so many jujubes makes me feel like jujubes are rather common trees there. I have never seen a jujube tree in any nursery around here.
Sorry, I wish I could help you more.
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Flower World is the over 12 acres nursery. They have a lot of plants even some of them not perform well here. Any way I planted 2 Jujube in 2011, maybe they all the same variety (bought the same place at the same time in Asian food store) but I did not know exactly what variety they are. They do okay here, every year their leaf come out really late in mid of April or May and start to have flowers in late Summer, then the weather quickly cool down a lot right after, that why the fruit never set. I just got rid of them last year. Thank you so much for all information Mamuang. I will do more research and make decision in later year.
Vincent.
Hi Bob, I think I’ve seen you mention a few times that you plant fruit trees or bushes at your rentals. If you don’t mind expanding on that a little more, I’d be curious to know how that works. Do you go to the properties to manage the trees or harvest fruit while you have renters?
I’ve been doing the yard work, lawn, etc myself, so that gives me a chance to see that everything is OK with the trees & bushes. All the places so far are multi-family (other than the above which turned back into a for sale when the renters never paid past the first month), so they are shared yards.
In terms of harvest, I have no idea how much, if any I’ll get. It’s bound to be a harsher environment, and I don’t want to have to spray, as I suspect it would worry the tenants. So focusing mostly on things like jujubes and mulberries (for full sun) and currants, gooseberries, elderberries, and pawpaws in the partial shade seems like a good way to go. Also, I had a lot of those berries that I’d rooted over the years that were waiting for places to plant. I also had leftover apple seedlings which I planted there, as well as a few pear rootstocks. Hopefully I won’t regret those in the future.
Even if I don’t get any harvest, it will keep my interest level in the properties up, so it is worth the minimal investment. It will also be interesting to see how things go in such an environment. Besides, jujubes look pretty good from a landscaping standpoint.
Thanks for the reply Bob, sounds like a win-win situation and a nice way to test out some low maintenance varieties.