These pics are the fruit from my cultivar Favorite.
I picked the first ripe fruits around Halloween (2024), following the tree’s 4th summer.
I grow them in Salem, Willamette Valley, about one hour south of Portland. This is a very hot microclimate, which obviously helps greatly.
I found the Favorite was quite nice, sweet and tart were well balanced, and very juicy.
I also have other 4 other Russian cultivars that are earlier and supposedly even better. Should be getting fruit from them this summer or next.
If anyone is interested in growing these I have so many cuttings from this winter’s pruning. For trade, my biggest wish are some Morton citrange cuttings. Though I’m open to anything.
Personally, I dont recommend apricots to anyone in my area, Skagit county, as like you said, consistency is never to be had. When that WSU bulletin was published there was debate as to whether or not even include apricots as they are so iffy for the Puget Sound area.
I had 3 Puget Gold trees for 9 years and I think in all that time I probably didnt get more than 50 lbs total yield of fruit. The trees were massive and beautiful as ornamentals though. I did have better luck than Mt Vernon as my farm is about 30 miles up valley and has 2100 heat units compared to the stations 1700 however the biggest setback to fruit production with apricots seams to be cool, wet bloom weather.
You dehull them by hand wearing nitrile gloves? I tried that once and it took forever and the gloves kept breaking. I have heard of folks rolling them around in a concrete mixer, but never tried it. I think I have a Northern California walnut, a Southern California walnut (not sure about this one?), and a buartnut on my property. I bought the latter. Only one of them bears much, and it blankets the ground, so someone else must have a polinator.
Yes, super easy. I dehulled over 1000 walnuts - spread out over days of course.
Completely unnecessary to get cement mixers etc. easy enough to do by hand.
I am not sure about California walnuts. They might be tougher to hull. Black walnuts are very easy. They are messy and stain - so need to wear gloves.
An update on the vanilla orchid…it seems trouble free! Plus you can just take an 3’ piece and attach it to a shaded frame where it will wrap around and take off. Guess I didn’t need to buy a plant in a pot!
Seems like it can grow up to elevation of 1900’. This place in Maui has been growing vanilla for 5 years.
**Kupa’a Farms
Re figs I picked up a fig from Tropical Fruit Forum’s fig display at the Hilo master gardener sale. Most of those for sale looked really terrible! I picked the variety that looked least bad…but have my doubts. Will send you the variety name when I remember it!
If you’re ever looking for something to do in Hilo, the Puna Gold farm tour was terrific. Not just coffee, chocolate, and pineapple but lots of Japanese vegetables grown in raised beds of cinder, ground coconut fronds, and compost. Have to love the cardboard between beds!
He was growing winged beans, Kurosota(?) carrots, tatsoi, tree spinach, rice, and many vegetables I had never heard of. All his seeds came from a Japanese seed company, Their catalog looks like a work of art! I’ll send you the link.
What fig variety is it?
Btw all the figs come from the mainland and they do much better in our conditions than in Hawaii.
Ken has a wonderful quarantine facility on his property in Capt Cook. All his fig cuttings came from Harvey.
@Quill@ramv
The fig was Fico Gentile. All the other fig offerings looked like they were doing poorly…leaves crumpled, very small, or missing. Probably not going to work at Hilo side, 400’, but will see!
This year I want to try starting some wine grapes; I am interested in reds and have narrowed it down to Zweigelt, Garanoir & Regent. Has anybody tried growing these varieties? Very hard to source them; the only nursery I could find that caries Zweigelt, for example, can’t ship to WA. I did contact a local vineyard and they are offering to let me have cuttings at $1 a piece (!!!) so I’m going to get several of each of these varieties. If someone is growing any of these, would love to hear their experiences; all of them are supposed to be early and pretty resistant to mildew, at least compared to Pinot Noir the normal red grown in this region.
You are definitely on the right trac!! There are many German reds that are suitable to our region. We did trials on a bunch of these at the Mt Vernon station in the early 2000s and Im not sure although i fear as to the status of all the data.
There was a purge at the station a few years later and much of the research was either disposed of or re written to reflect the new directors views.
We trialed dozens and I cant remember them all but my personal favorites were:
Zweigelt
Agria
Regent
Dornfelder
These were grown on their own roots at the station which averaged 1700+ heat units. We made wine out of all the varieties but these turned out great.
I did start some cuttings of these at my farm (2100 heat units) and made 6 plants of each in 1 row.
Im embarrassed to say this row was seriously neglected and was overrun between an Elderberry planting and encroaching blackberries.
It was just another example of too many irons in the fire.
It is great to see someone who wants to grow grapes that fit the climate as apposed to the norm of trying to force the climate to grow the grape (pinot noir).
Wow fantastic info, thanks. Didn’t know about Dornfelder or Agria being good varieties for this area, will take a look at these. My biggest problem has been sourcing. Right now I’m literally just emailing vineyards in Washington state that carry the varieties I’m looking for, for cuttings. If you have other ideas please let me know.
Your welcome. I wish i could help you with cuttings. My vine row is a disaster. After being overgrown, my overzealous employee drove the tractor trough the whole thing ripping everything out. Once I saw that there were still surviving grapes I halted him but I have 4 or 5 vines that are about 20 years old and some things that look like they self rooted.
Since I cant be sure what is what Im going to have to put up a new trellis and fruit them to see if i can distinguish which is which.
I’ve been growing Agria grapes for about 20 years on Guemes Island - a climate a bit cooler than Mt. Vernon. They ripen between Oct 15 and 20th every year. Because conditions are usually still dry at that time of year, I’ve never had problems with rot or mildew. But I would lose the whole crop unless I individually bagged them from wasps!
I grow them for juice. When first picked they have a strong taste (I guess that’s the tannin) but, after a few months in the bottle, the juice tastes smooth and sweet, like Welch’s grape juice. I don’t know, maybe that’s not what a wine grower is after! I’ve read that they are used as ‘teinture’ in wine regions.
I have not yet pruned them so there’s lots of material for cuttings. Let me know if you want some free cuttings.
Hey, did you find a source for your grapes yet?
I was just at a meeting with Gary Moulton, my old boss and the originator of the wine program at Mt Vernon, and he reminded me that we got the original cuttings for our first trials (late 1990’s) from a vineyard on Vancouver Island. He wasnt sure of the name but Im thinking it was probably Cherry Point Vineyards. They were one of only a few in existence at that time and that had and still have all the German / Austrian reds.
Just a quik check on their website shows wines with Agria, Zweigelt and Dornfelder. I would imagine they still have all the varieties we got from them including the Garanoir & Regent you wanted.
Cdmarjian sent me some cuttings of Agria (thanks!) that I will be potting up soon for rooting. A vineyard I contacted on Bainbridge Island has made some cuttings for me of Regent, Garanoir, and Zweigelt, but I do not have those in hand yet, waiting for them to be shipped. I requested enough of each variety to try a few things. Hopefully I will have multiple successful rootings, so if someone locally wants to try a variety they could come pick up one of my extras. I’m going to try own-roots at the moment. Supposedly Phylloxera is rare in these parts. Regent should have immunity, not sure about Garanoir or Zweigelt, they may be pure Vinifera, but I don’t know how much that matters here. I also am going to try grafting onto a very vigorous Glennora that I’m going to heavily cut back this year. I like the complex flavor of Glenora grapes but I see some of the problems with it, plus it makes really small grapes. Maybe I am pruning it or thinning it wrong.
Thats good news!
Grapes are very easy to root, im sure you will do well. As far as Phylloxera goes, yes its not much of a problem around here yet but when you get plant material from anywhere you should sanitize it. Phylloxera being a root insect there’s not much chance of it being on the cuttings but a dip in something like Oxidate would give you peace of mind.
