In the past two years Arctic Star started ripening to me between July 10-17 in CT. I would think it will ripen for you in early July. I wait till it starts to slightly give near the stem end.
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You should look at Scott’s thread: Scott's Apple Experiences Through 2025
He removes anything that is too disease prone and talks about their resistance in the thread. In other places he’s posted that if he didn’t want to do stone fruit he thinks he could have gotten away with organic growing.
I don’t think that would be possible for me where I am. However, one year I got really good fruit and only sprayed 3 times. So you can definitely do some very minimal spraying and make it work.
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Thank you so much for pointing this thread out. It was so helpful! Really scratching my head at where to source some of these.
@scottfsmith is a national treasure. He sold me so much on Sweet Sixteen that I went to a nursery (Abernethy and Spencer) and bought it (and Freedom) this morning. That is really saying something since I would prefer a bare root tree, but the “two fruit trees for $100” in ten gallon pots is not that bad of a deal.
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Wow thank you for mentioning that nursery! I will have to go see it. I’m amazing they were only $50 for trees that large. Cummins trees are around $45 each now, you did great.
This is when you learn how to graft!
Kaolin clay got here yesterday! Did a mix of about a cup and a half of clay to half gallon of water. Harbor freight 2 gal sprayer seemed to have no issue with it. Just basing my application on what I’ve seen some folks here do. Avoiding flowers best I can, zucchini just had male flowers. Just did a few of the eggplants, and the bush beans. It’s really satisfying.
Coat 1, too much? Too little? Seems to at least have a coating!
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I’ve bought tons of things from them and they have a lot of hard to find unusual plants. The size of their trees have shrunk over the years. I bought a lot of my cherry trees from them years ago and they were 10-15 foot monsters in 10 gallon pots. They must have had a sale if you found trees for $50. Their prices have really gone up the last couple years. It’s a great nursery not to far from my house though.
That is the plan for the Spring! Was going to order 50 G.890 rootstocks (Willamette) and use some scion wood from my orchard and try to source a few things to bench graft.
If I knew my scion wood was virus free, I would probably order G.935 instead. M.111 has worked well so far, but just so vigorous. Wet feet will be an issue once the roots go past the mound they are on.
I am a big fan! My understanding is they changed ownership in the last year or two, and cannot say nice enough things after being there three times this year.
Also, way more selection than Meadows and generally better experience than Merrifield. Totally worth the drive! It is rare I am googling apply scion varieties at a local nursery!
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I really don’t like Meadows, refuse to shop there for the last few years. Super excited to visit this place! I was just in Leesburg, but there is excellent cycling around Purceville (any cyclists out there?), so this is meant to be. Did they have a decent selection of things at this point in the year or do you recommend waiting until spring?
Abernethy and Spencer had a TON of apple trees, and a fair amount of pears. They had very few nectarines left, but were sold out of peaches and cherries. One of the owners said they may do a fall restocking, but a lot of the inventory was purchased from Bailey’s as bare root trees in 2025.
With respect to apples, things I remember seeing today were: Liberty, Freedom, Winecrisp, Wolf River, Sweet 16, Jonathan, Prairie Magic, Golden Delicious, Granny Smith, Fuji, Gala, Fireside, Cortland, Kinderkrisp.
While I rarely buy anything from Meadows, when they are blowing out inventory in November to prepare for Christmas, I have gotten a lot of stuff for 70% off. That is where I got most of my berries. Think $6 blueberry bushes or $2 grasses.
Used to ride and race (road bike) before I had kids and lived in Clifton. Need to get back into it…
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Great, I added a mention of it on my low-impact spray page (which I should update again soon, I’ve changed several things since I wrote that version).
Hey @zendog I just noticed you listed Clayworks as a source for kaolin above. I am only a block away from their Baltimore center. All of our kids took classes there. I should pop down and grab a pound and see how their stuff works.
Really happy with the coverage this morning. A lot ended up on there and will help with the upcoming heat wave! Thanks again for the shout. Great to have another kaolin source. Shipping was really fast too.
That’s about what I do on veggies. It might block a little sun I guess, but I’ve never seen it slow them down at all. It actually might act a little like shade cloth and help in the upcoming heat - but that is just speculating.
Just FYI I find I need to mix it thicker, like 4 cups to the gallon when I’m trying to get the first coat on very smooth fruit like cherries. Once you have some on, the next spray seems to be held by remnants of the first coat, but for that first one on “slippery” fruit, thicker seems needed to get any to on without it just totally running off. Obiously on slightly fuzzy things like peaches or a lot of the veggies leaves it
@scottfsmith They have 2 types, but I’m guessing the Georgia one is most likely to work if it is for use in porcelain clay mixes. Porcelain should be very smooth and fine grained, so they hopefully mill the kaolin finer for that. That would be great if it works for people to just pick up what they need. Ball clays actually sometimes have smaller particle size if you were feeling experimental…
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Follow up on the healthy, unmanaged (I’m sure) apricot tree a block down my street. Two nights ago, I noticed it was absolutely covered in beautiful fruit, but I didn’t have my phone. I just went back and it’s been devastated by animals. squirrel up there stealing more. It looks like 90% of it is gone and so much thrown to the ground partially eaten. I scooped up a few clean fruit right near the street to try.I wish I had gotten a picture two nights ago when all the fruit was still there. Do squirrels cause this kind of damage with fruit split open and trashed all over the ground? Or is that raccoons??
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Squirrel, chipmonk, racoon, possum, and ground hog. Any of them solo or combined can do that. Most of the time it’s the bigger ones that do it. They get up there and their weight shakes all the fruit off. I have to fight all of them every year. I’ve already deported one possum and have been working on several elusive ground hogs.
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I agree - usually the squirrels carry the fruit off and it’s like it disappeared. The other animals will shake the tree, knock it down, take a bite and drop the fruit… SIGH
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Is this a neighbors tree? Wondering if I could get a scion?
I’m going to try to find someone to ask before winter and will certainly share if I can get some. Neighbors are nice when I see them face to face. We’ve left notes at neighbors doors ocer the years to say hi or various things and virtually all go unanswered.
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Beautiful tree regardless! Makes me not look forward to the potential critter pressure when I start getting fruit. 
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