I look forward to this Winter Field Day in Mt Vernon. WA each year! The 7-acre site has just about anything that will grow in northern Puget Sound. Great selection of scion wood. Many varieties of rootstock.
These are their scion wood and rootstock lists from last year:
Apples
Ananas Reinette Arkansas Black Ashmead’s Kernel Autumn Crisp Belle de Boskoop Bramley
Celestia Chehalis
Dayton
Elstar, Daliest Freyburg Golden Russet Gravenstein Hatsuaki Honeycrisp Jonagold Jonared
Karmijn
Liberty
Melrose
Mother Newtown Pippin Niedzwetskaya Nutmeg Pippin Roxbury Russet Rubinette Scarlet Ohara Spartan
Tsugaru, Homei Wealthy
Williams Pride Winter Banana Wolf River
Yellow Transparent
Blues Jam
Cocheco
Early Golden
Gros Ameliorat Hollywood Imperial Epineuse Kuban Comet Mirabelle de Nancy Obilnaja
Seneca
Sweet Treat Pluerry Valor
Victory
Almond
Halls Hardy Reliable
Cherry
Danube
Early Burlat Emperor Francis Hartland
Lapins Sweetheart White Gold
Well here we go again… long-range GFS model is signaling a chance of very cold weather in just over a week. This is early enough it could be wrong or at least overblown, but worth thinking about. Here’s the most recent model run, the panel for next Wednesday night:
After reading @BobVance thread, and watching the guitar montage of @jujubemulberry, I am sold on jujube. Is there anyone whom could reccomend a variety for our region? I don’t want to hastily order the variety that everyone says did bad here. Like I did with my candy heart pluerry. Thank you for you advice and input. I really appreciate hands on advice rather than the nursery sales pitch. Hope you all are staying warm. Brrrr
-Rob
Winn, I am glad I did not graft those feijoas yesterday. I took them outside as my goal for the day and the thunder and lightning said wait till later.
we like sihong, chico, li, and honey jar, and since you say you’re in northwest, we actually sourced many of our jujus from the northwest-- burntridgenursery which offers good-sized trees at fair prices.
incidentally, honey jar is by far the most popular despite being small-fruited. Keep everyone here posted on your juju journey
I grow Li and Chico in the Willamette Valley. I have no experience with other varieties, but these were excellent tasting and seem very happy. I particularly enjoy the fruit when dry and pliable.Tastes like brown sugar to me. In a previous post you mentioned you raise plecos, and that they really enjoy avocado pits. What made you think to drop one of those in the tank? The warm water to accelerate sprouting? I have cory catfish and an 82 degree tank. Wonder if they’d like it if I dropped a few avocado pits into their tank. I noticed the mollies have similar grazing patterns so maybe they’ll like one too.
Some of the overnight GFS model runs went as low as 11°F for Seattle next Wednesday night, but the most recent one has backed off a little and shows only about 18°F. The weather dot com forecast is finally catching on that it will be cold, but still going with a slightly more cautious number:
Thank you for the resource. It’s super helpful.
One category that seems to be missing is Asian plums. Does anyone if they can tolerate lower temps than euro plums?
Here’s a current stage of Satsuma plum. Low of 25 forecasted today, and 21 tomorrow night.
Is there anything that you do to mitigate the damage? Wrap lights? According to this chart a loss of 10-30% seems fairly reasonable to expect. Yet another factor for me to fret over. And they say gardening soothes the nerves.
That puts my mind at ease a little bit. My place is currently forecast to 20 on both Friday and Saturday. The last time it was forecast this low was around new years, and it only dropped to 24. So fingers crossed the weatherman is wrong again.
Theoretically, if the temp dropped to a level that caused 90% damage, would you do any kind of intervention?
It might depend on how much I esteemed the fruit and probably,the tree size.
A way to do it is,with a cover,like tarp or something that can hold in a little heat and it doesn’t have to be that much.Then string old fashioned incandescent lamps in the branches or even a small space heater on the ground.
Hello fellow fruit growers! I live in Kirkland, WA and have been a long-time follower of this site and finally decided to create an account and join the conversation.
I’m growing apples, blueberries, raspberries, bush cherries and grapes. I also have a Yuzu that’s been fine through the last 3 winters (grown a lot, but hasn’t produced any fruit) plus a Meyer lemon and a Bearss lime that do produce well, but also keep trying to die.
I planted a Seneca and a Geneva Mirabelle plum last year - but the latter died after the crazy heatwave we had, so now my Seneca is without a pollinating partner I’ve never tried grafting, but thinking about taking the plunge this year.
What’s the best time to graft plums in the Seattle area and which variety do folks recommend (my preference is for disease resistant, sweet, freestone plums for fresh eating - leaning towards either a Mirabelle plum or a Green gage)?
February and late-winter daily snow record for Portland, 22 Feb 2023: 10.8" at airport station KPDX.
In the city, where people live, 6-8 inches was common.
This is also #2 monthly total for February, more snow in forecast, possible to beat 1949’s 13.2".
Our winter average is under 5" and the % of snow occurrence for 22Feb was 2%.
Nearby Washougal, WA, reported 17 inches, this is in Murky’s neck of the woods.
We only got a bit here in Seattle, and it melted fast. I’m happy that the low this morning was only around 24°F, not 10 degrees colder like the models were threatening a few days ago.
I’ve never tried grafting, but thinking about taking the plunge this year.