@ampersand You’d think growing up a piney that I’d be all about blueberries and tomatoes but I’ve never had a taste for them. Blueberries are sort of bland to me and tomatoes I don’t want in their raw form. Turn them into salsa, bruschetta, or sauce and I’m all about it. I still grow both for the wife and kids though, and for the smell of tomato plants. Growing up with them makes it nostalgic. We always had an outsized garden growing up and did rather well with minimum fertilizer. But that was annual garden plants which left me less concerned with the soil composition than I should have when I decided to try my hand at fruit trees. Now I’m working backwards trying to improve the soil health in hopes that it will make what I have going a bit more robust against the myriad of pests and disease that you learn about growing tree fruit. I have yet to try a persimmon. When speaking to the local farm stand owner he mentioned that he’s looking to have some available in the next couple of years.
I am trialing quite a bit though. I have a host of apples (granny smith, sundance, crimson crisp, chestnut crab, redlove era, honeycrisp, airlie red flesh, winesap, ashmeads kernel, and a multigraft with unknown varieties that has suffered many indignities but is still living). I’ll be grafting some new varieties in over time. Additionally I have a few peaches (reliance and majestic), a nectarine (arctic glo), a sweet cherry multigraft, and montmorency cherry. That does it for tree fruit.
I’m also giving a few odd things that don’t grow on a tree a shot. Two grapes (Canadice & Lacrosse), hardy kiwi (Issai & september sun), a josta berry, a few filberts (3 seedlings, 1 theta), pomegranate (wonderful and what I believe is surh anor), three maypop varieties, carmine jewel cherry, a few raspberry (crimson night, double gold), blackberry (black satin & baby cakes), currants (Johnkeer Van Tets, Pink Champagne, Lewis) and the aforementioned blueberry which are in a terrible location.
A bunch is more of a trial than anything else. I had 4 pomegranates. Three are/were cold hardy but they didn’t cope with the humidity which is even more present in my microclimate than most. The maypop may or may not freeze to death. This will be their first winter. But the flowers make for a great ornamental and I’ve always enjoyed the flavor of passionfruit so it seems like a risk worth running. I’m a bit obsessed with adding fruiting plants and herbs to my yard.
Now that I’ve embraced my obsession I notice other fruit trees in peoples yards while out driving in my area so I plan to reach out and see what cultivars they are growing, what has worked, and what has not for them.
@scottfsmith I believe that you are correct with the quince rust. My mind automatically went to CAR given that I’ve never noted quince rust on trees in my area but the CAR gals are notable every year. But given the symptom and the tree that was most affected I would put my money on quince. Thankfully both seem to follow a similar pattern and are controllable with immunox.
I’m glad you don’t think I’m without hope on the tree fruit soil. I’ve done a year or two with synthetic fertilizer but that is just junk food which won’t address the root of the issue in the long run. I can build leaf compost over the winter yearly with what others are discarding which seems like a better long term solution and hopefully will make for healthier trees and fruit. This year will be the start of my soil amending venture.
