I remember that the first night can be cold, but the subsequent ones even colder.
I’m in this microclimate where it seems to go several degrees lower than the worst forecast We’ve got almost two months to get through until our last frost. If I’m realistic, I won’t get any plums (sure of that), and likely no peaches.
Each year I try to be less and less stressed about it. I’m focusing on grafts and landscaping and hoping for the best. I have memories of trying to wrap fruit trees up when the wind is blowing so hard it is impossible. I end up knocking off more blooms and fruit than I save. I’m sure my neighbors get a kick out of that every year.
I’m hoping the colder weather we have now will slow down the rest of my apricots enough so they stay dormant. At pink they can take several degrees lower. I would not be surprised at all if I lost them all though, it just warmed up too early this year.
Hi folks! I’m brand new here. I live in Southern NJ in the Philadelphia area. I’ve been getting increasingly into gardening over the past few years and am starting to get into fruits as well. I’ve been growing blueberries, strawberries, melons, and one fig tree for a while. Last year I acquired two new fig varieties and planted a persimmon and two Nanking cherries. I’d like to plant a peach tree this year and am looking for recommendations – I’m completely overwhelmed by the number of varieties! Since I’m so new at this, I want to prioritize ease of growing in this area and disease resistance, but of course would like good taste as well. A local nursery has stock of Elberta and Reliance – I’d need to order anything else. I’d welcome any advice from the group! Slight preference for a yellow freestone variety but I love them all, so open to trying anything that will maximize my chances for success!
Thanks,
Pete
PS – I have heavy clay soil and great sun. Interestingly, my neighborhood was developed on a former peach farm!
Welcome Peter! S Jersey is an excellent place to grow many fruit. Yours figs and persimmon should thrive with the sort of weather you get.
There are a lot of varieties released by Rutgers that should be tailored to your area. There are also many u-pick peach orchards near you. Maybe you can sample some before purchasing a tree. Also check out local orchards where you can pick Asian pears. Those should do well for you too. Other things that should thrive are jujubes, all sorts of persimmons (Asian, American, hybrids).
Welcome to the forum. Rutgers has done a lot or work on peaches. But they also have put our recommendations of peach cultivars in general. I think these pages are are good place to start.
I look forward to hearing more about how these ripen for you, and the taste! Incredible work you are doing. Do you ever take visitors to the farm? I’m just getting excited about hardy citrus, and think it could be such a worthwhile effort to breed regionally adapted varieties. Thank you for your work!
I’m mostly hoping for decent sour juice and jams from the fruits. I like the flavor of the trifoliate orange on its own, and it’s cool to hear folks are improving on them.
Hi Pete, there are really too many good peach varieties all of which are pretty similar so it is hard to pick one. That said, Elberta and Reliance are not the best ones, Elberta is really late and Reliance is not the most tasty peach (it is for colder areas). The Rutgers lists are certainly good, any peach that sounds good on that should work.
One problem this time of year is many places are out of stock. ACN has a 5-tree minimum now I think. I just ordered a Winblo peach, I grew that one for many years and it is truly excellent, it is one of my favorites. It is available from plantmegreen.com, the price is a bit high but they put most of the shipping into the price. If you put PMGNewCust in you will get 10% off.
Thanks @PharmerDrewee@NJpete and Scott! I had stumbled on the Rutgers lists and they are indeed very helpful but still so many “good” ones to pick from, as you said, Scott! I tried shooting off an email to one of the authors (Jerry Frecon) yesterday and he actually responded - top choices he mentioned were Redhaven, John Boy, Flamin’ Fury Lucky 13, Flamin’ Fury 9a-007, and Felicia. I found the PF Flamin’ Fury website – interesting story and of course they all sound appealing! I have to admit, part of the fun of fruits so far for me is obsessing over this variety research. Anyway, I appreciate the advice and the nursery recs. And I’m excited to keep following the forum here!
They’re free to a good home. You would have to pick it up from my home outside of Harrisburg PA. I also bought a bunch of Plantra 5’ shelters that Tom Wahl had strongly recommended for planting chestnuts, which I am willing to sell at my cost ($9 each plus shipping costs) if you’re interested.
Iowa Invincible
Mixed seedlings of top-performing trees from Red Fern Farm in Wapello, Iowa.
Also started a bunch of gardenias and Arabian Jasmine this winter and have about 75 too many yarrow (Summer Berries and Flowerburst Red Shades)seedlings this spring.
PM me if interested.
No need to trade, though I’m just starting out my orchard so would be interested in well performing scions for pears, plums, persimmons, etc.
I see a low of 24.2 on our neighborhood weather station this morning. My apricot has a few blooms open, maybe a few left to open, but most are in the shuck at this point. I see from various charts that 24 degrees is 90% kill for in the shuck. So we’ll see how they did.
I think we got to 25 degrees last night. Both my apricots are about 75% in bloom, but, as far as I could tell, do not look damaged. I know it takes some time to know the extent of the damage, but keeping my fingers crossed.
If your trees are planted at lower elevation than immediate surroundings where cold air pools (poor air drainage), it contributes to lower temperature. Or if you’re in a higher elevation in general, it will be colder than a forecast for a lower elevation. Each 1000 ft higher usually means 3-5F degree lower, depending on cloud cover.
I’m at 1600ft and nearby wunderground station reported 20F last night.
I was coming here to ask the same question. I got down to 25 then 24 the last two nights. I checked my open blooms and the fruitlets are looking good at this point based on half a dozen I took apart. So at least things didn’t get fried. But based on past such lows I will lose half or more of them. Some of my plums had also started to open up but I think there were enough that had not opened yet which will help things out.
I hope this is the last such low dip… the next ten days look very good at least.
Looking back at them today, the apricot flowers are Browning and they’re do appear to be some dead ones. There are also buds that have not opened at all yet. I’m keeping my fingers crossed too that this is the last cold spell.
Not a good picture, but hopefully an idea of how far along. Does anyone know… Do brown petals necessarily mean killed flower. Some ovaries were obviously dead, some looked empty and some I could not tell.
I think there is a good chance they are toast if the petals are brown, but some might still be viable. I just checked my apricot and a number of open blooms are going brown and several tiny starts of fruits that were still in shuck appear dead as well. I’m not checking them over one by one, so I’m hoping a percentage survived and I might still get a crop. I think the tomcot side still has some buds to open, so maybe they will be good. The Ilona side of the tree has pretty much all bloomed, so no buds yet to come and all my hopes are with what might survive that has already opened.
The problem with brown petals is they could either have gotten zapped or it is time to drop anyway. I pulled off a few browned ones on my Ilona and none of them were viable to begin with - no ovary. All of the non-browned ones I pulled off were still looking great, a micro-fruitlet all nice and green and fuzzy inside. I have seen this in past years and still lost a lot though so I’m going to see what things are like in a week to count them as good.
I lost all of the redskin peach buds but only partial on Belle of Georgia. Hale haven and reliance look ok but definitely thinned. Sauzee swirl is toast None were in bloom yet so it got them harder than I thought I definitely lost all the European pears and plums. Oddly there were a few plum buds not yet open and they might be ok, especially Toka although plums were the first tree to bloom.
the European pears were almost closed and some still in paper but got hit really hard It wasnt evident until the weather warmed up a bit. The Asian pears are still closed up pretty tight and a few checks showed them to be viable.
I had a few apple buds plumping especially red delicious but all look ok. No red fleshed open yet but Baja Marisa is close.
I had the opportunity to spray water. I decided not to do it because the cold was so prolonged–all day and night-- it would have had to be on something like 12-15 hours. That just wasn’t feasible. Also so few were blooming. I will try it in some later freezes which I am definitely expecting. We had one freeze in may the weekend before mother’s day really close to our last predicted Frost. The third night of that cold stretch was the killer. All my fruits turned black. Heartbreaking.
Welcome, Pete, peaches grow great in Zone 7, where you are, as long as the squirrels don’t get them before you do! I’m in zone 7A, have 2 peach trees which produce nicely, tho the squirrels usually grab them first!
Anyway, I appreciate the advice and the nursery recs. And I’m excited to keep following the forum here!
