Backyard Orchards, chronicling, musing and more

Sound like a lot of fun. All but one of my girlfriends do not grow fruit trees. The one who does, does so “naturally”, meaning whatever happens, happens!!

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It was a perfect end to our visit . . . touring that peach orchard. It’s only 5 minutes from my house - so it worked out GREAT! And we were the only people crazy enough to be there at 3pm in 90+ degree heat! But . . . it was actually pleasant out under the trees!

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Can you prevent ants from going up your cherry tree?

I would wrap the tree tightly with plastic strips until the wrap is about 8-10” wide. Then I smear TangleFoot on the plastic wrap. That’s how I stop ants to go up and farm aphids on my cherry leaves.

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I love to hear from all female fruit growers. I’ve been around for 5+ years here, it seems we don’t have many of us on the forum.

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We may be few . . . but we are tenacious! :green_heart:

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It was a wonderful day spent with a kindred spirit! @PomGranny Karen’s orchard is amazing. I loved seeing all the trees, gorgeous fruit, and clever tricks to outsmart those deer. Such a gracious hostess, and good friend, sharing stories, tips, artwork, and a fabulous meal.
Amazing how Growingfruit can forge such strong friendships across time and space.

How fun to see my grafts and those of fellow growers on someone else’s trees.

Regina feeling blessed in Virginia Beach

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@Rosdonald and @PomGranny
Wish you were near!!

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@thecityman has spoken highly about Spring Satin plumcot. He kindly provided me the scionwood a couple of years ago. I grafted it on my prunus americana rootstock.

I have 2 prunus americana, both have been turned into multi grafted plums/pluots/plumcot trees. I don’t know how big this rootstock is in other people’s orchards. Mine stay small, about 4 ft tall after 4 years in ground!! They don’t look sturdy at all.

Last week, to my horror, the Spring Satin graft/branch that have about 10 fruit broke. I asked my husband to help so he stabilized it with a hose clamp and a bunch of string to balance that branch to the rest of the tree.

I am worried that other branches will break, too as the rootstock is skinny. I am going to dig up my plum suckers and make them into rootstocks. I don’t think I want any more prunus americana.

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@Rosdonald and @PomGranny
Wish you were near!!

Wouldn’t THAT be fun!!!

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Ditto that!

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Here is my Spring Satin, just turning color.

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Per Adam County Nursery in PA, this plumcot ripens in early July for them. It is likely to be 2 weeks later for me here in MA.

Anyone has this plums near me?
@SMC_zone6, @BobVance, @Susu , @PharmerDrewee - do you grow Spring Satin?

When do you pick them?

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First, may I just say I love your husband’s ingenuity! I never would have thought about the hose clamp thing but that’s a GREAT idea!

Others may or may not agree, but I think Spring Satin should- more than any other plum or plumcot I grow- be left on the tree until its quite soft. I’m not even talking about when it first starts to give a bit. I mean when it’s truly soft. But this is probably a personal preference thing. You won’t be surprised to know the reason I say this is because the sweetness of SS goes up dramatically more than most plums in those final 3-4 days between when it first starts to feel a little bit of give when squeezed and when it really feels quite soft. You know how important sweetness is to me! But you’ll still find some sourness near the pealing and around the pit. Making SS the perfect combo of sweet and sour.
Others, and possible you, may prefer to eat SS when its more firm and less sweet, so I URGE you to at least save 2 or 3 of your 10 or so fruits until they are quite soft. Also, know that the larger ones are going to be sweeter than smaller ones even if both are quite soft.

I REALLY hope the repairs to the tree holds up at least long enough to ripen your SS fruit. I got more SS this year than ever before, and my opinion of them only improved! Its in the top 5 of everything I grow.

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Kevin,
I sure hope that branch holds up until the fruit ripen. I admit I like firm fruit but don’t mind soft ones as well. Will do what you suggested if I could fight off chipmunks, squirrels and groundhogs.

My husband used a hose clamp to hold up my broken Satsuma plum branch before. It worked perfectly well for many years until I removed the tree.

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I don’t grow this plumcot, but the ripe ones I buy locally are a very dark purple when I get them. I’m not sure if you can let them soften on tree, or if they are picked while still semi-hard to further ripen on the counter.

Try Myrobalan rootstock. It produces a strong trunk within a couple of years for me.

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Not one that I grow. But if you end up liking it a lot, I may ask for scion this winter :grinning:

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This is my first year with any Spring Satin. I’ve got one branch with a graft which is pretty heavily loaded.

ACN says July 5-23, so it is more mid July for the most part. None of mine are even coloring yet, though I wonder if that is affected a bit by the heavy load. There is also some black knot on the branch that I’m waiting for harvest to be done before removing.

ACN’s estimates are usually pretty good for me. They have Rich May for June 25- July 12 and I started picking a few days ago.

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Mine having colored up could be because of the broken branch. We put it back together within 24 hours. As we know, when trees are in distress, they often produce or hurry up their ripening process.

I hope the branch will hold up until the fruit ripen.

@SMC_zone6 if it tastes good, no issue with scionwood to you,

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Your peaches are not at risk of breaking a branch?
My potted tree is so imbalanced it fell over by the wind gust yesterday.
We put in the support this morning.

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Probably, though I suspect that the Spring Satin is at higher risk. I’ve picked about half of the peaches off the Rich May in the last few days. Once a few tested good, I wanted to pick more before something else gets them. I’m actually surprised I’ve gotten this far without anything other than a bird-peck or two. There were roughly 25 peaches on a mid-sized branch. Probably about 10 too many…

I’ve had several potted trees (a couple persimmons from JFaE which are waiting to be planted and a few figs) which fell over without any fruit. I’ve been using that as an indicator that they are good candidates for either bigger pots or to be planted in-ground. I’ve been looking around for more places to put figs in-ground, as it is a lot more work to take care of potted plants. At the rental I added last fall I was able to squeeze in 6 figs (in addition to apricots, jujubes, and berries), though I don’t know how many will do well in-ground.

I have no more space so I have replaced under-performed trees with new ones.

Talking about peaches, when my Spring Snow fell over yesterday, one fruit came off. It was a size of a golf ball. I decide to taste it. To my surprise, it tasted very good, crunchy and sweet. I love it.

Mark @Olpea said Spring Snow is his favorite white peach. My graft last year gave me one peach. I liked it. This year, l have left about 22 peaches on my potted tree. There are only 2-3 peaches on the graft on the in-ground tree. Their flower buds are not very cold hardy.

However, if you like white peaches, you may want to try this one.

For anyone enjoying crunchy and sweet unripe peaches, I recommend this one. Annie @IL847? I plan to pick one next week to try again.

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