I spent about 20 minutes in the garden this morning before work, just getting what I could before the rain today. Sun orange and sun sugar tomatoes, dragons tongue beans, and most excitingly THREE summer delight apriums!
This is the first year my summer delight aprium tree is bearing, so I am very happy. Especially since some earlier disease issues had me worried that I wouldn’t get any at all. BUT, there’s still probably 50 or so apriums on the tree, so hopefully I get to eat most of them! These first 3 aren’t totally totally ripe yet, I’ll probably leave them on the counter for a day or two to get soft, but I wanted to pick them before the rain knocked them off, or a squirrel got them, or they decided to spontaneously get moldy or rotten.
I’ll be honest, when I planted the summer delight aprium, I had zero fruit tree experience, and just got whatever was available in Spring 2020 (when the world was ending and everyone, including myself, started gardening, and all the nurseries were sold-out). So I’m pleased that it’s working out so far, but slightly bummed at how late the apriums are ripening!!!
My summer delight aprium tree has 4 main scaffolds. If I wanted to change 1 or 2 of the scaffolds over to an earlier ripening variety of apricot or aprium, would that be possible? If yes:
What variety or varieties of apricots or apriums work well in the mid-atlantic, that ripen in June or early July (particularly for someone with not a ton of experience)?
What would be the best method for changing the scaffold(s) over? (a) If I were able to get summer budwood, could I chip-graft or T-bud lower down on the scaffold this summer, and then chop off the rest of the scaffold sometime next year after the grafts take? (b) Or should I wait until Spring 2024 and use dormant scions? In which case, could I just stub-cut the scaffolds and essentially topwork them with the dormant scions?
I don’t have experience with chip graft, but IMO if you want to remove the scaffolds eventually anyway, it doesn’t sound like it’d hurt to try a chip graft now. If it fails you could chop off a little wood and, just cleft graft in spring.
I wrapped them for about ten years. I used aluminum bubble wrap insulation, a big tent I stapled together and nailed to the ground around the figs. It worked great, no dieback at all. But the figs got too big for the covers since they were growing so fast, and I didn’t have the time to make the covers yet bigger. If I had fewer fruit projects I would have worked on trying to keep them smaller with regular pruning, I think they could be kept to an OK size that way.
Regarding avacado… like oranges, papaya, lychee, and many other tropical fruit, they’ll die from the zone 7 cold. Maybe better as a free kid’s project.
I was lucky enough to be in the area of Scott’s Orchard in VT for their heritage apple event. The apple that landed on top for me and my family was the Ananas Reinette. We like punchy apples. I’d love to add a branch of it to my orchard but I’m not seeing much on its disease susceptibility. Has anyone in this group given it a shot?
So dry, dry, dry, dry here. I hadn’t looked at the drought monitor page recently, but even though we had a little rain in August and September, someone turned off the tap and we’re back in abnormally dry and I wouldn’t be surprised if we hit moderate drought by next week’s report.
How does this affect plants going into dormancy? While they’re dropping leaves and don’t look wilty, I’m wondering if I should be trying to give everything a good soak or if they are fine being so dry at this point. I’ll definitely have to try to get all my container plants wetted through before putting them into the garage since it is much harder to get the media wetted out to the edges once it is this dry. https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?VA
Looks like some parts out in the mountains went into extreme drought as of this week’s report.
Hi. I am retired and growing fruits for a hobby on the Eastern shore of Virginia about 30 minutes or so north of the Bay Bridge and Tunnel. Down nearer the tip of the peninsula. I have half a dozen apples, a couple of pears, a fig, grapes, and assorted berries. The fig (outdoors) and the lemon (in the greenhouse) are the current producing stars. I have been getting fruit from them regularly. The others are still at the starting gate so we will see. My apples and pears have been chosen pretty much for their disease resistance. This is the hardest place to grow pome fruit that I have ever lived. I want to be as low spray as possible. If you can name a pest or disease, it is endemic here. I have been living vicariously by browsing and seeing what is working for others.
I just looked at the drought map and over here in Accomack county we are in a moderate drought. I have been enjoying the slightly dryer fall this year so far. I am kind of disappointed. Last year I actually had some problems with fireblight about this time, but this year everything has been fine.
