Thread to track my BYOC project

This is a great forum, have been here a few months now… I love how everyone is so helpful, knowledgeable and passionate about growing fruits.

I demolished and rebuilt my house in 2015-2016. Started my home fruit orchard in Spring 2016. My entire garden is fruit trees (+ some lawn & roses I was forced to add for peace with the family :slight_smile: ) I have been tracking its progress on the DWN forum - http://www.davewilsonforums.com/index.php/showthread.php?t=12225. Many awesome folks on the DWN forum really helped start my orchard and I see many moved to this forum. Decided to continue my thread here starting 2018.

I am fairly new to growing fruit and have made every rookie mistake in the books. Have packed in 50+ trees in a 6000 sq.ft lot. Most trees are doing good despite me trying to kill them any and every way. Thank you for reading! Appreciate all feedback - positive/negative to make my orchard better!

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Front Yard Layout Feb 2018

Backyard Layout Feb 2018

Side Yard

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Very nice. Btw the parfianka pomfrom pics you shared were not ripe.

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No wonder they tasted worse than store bought!

Wait until the fruit swells, gets stretch marks, and begins to crack. For example:

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Those look juicy!

Spring 2018 front yard pics

Papaya

Emerald Drop

Candy Heart Pluerry

Roses

Weeping Santa Rosa

Flavor King

Flavor Grenade and Supreme

Cambridge Gage, Purple Gage, Renee Claude Doree, Cloes Golden Drop

Chocolate and coffee cake persimmons

Burgundy, Satsuma, Mariposa, Elephant Heart

Cherries - Rainier Gisela5, Rainier New Root, Bing Gisela 3, Lapins New Root, Sandra Rose

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Awesome! I like how everything is neatly laid out and groomed. Plus, your trees are very nicely shaped. Good job. You’ll be swimming in (more) fruit in no time.

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You mulched inside the tree rings :face_with_raised_eyebrow: :smile:

Now pull the mulch away from the tree trunks. :wink:

Very neat and tidy yard. And lots of unique varieties too! Thanks for the strawberries the other day.

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I disagree. It’s relatively dry in your location. Now back east – that could be a problem.

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The lawn is irrigated with sprinklers, though.

It’s nothing like the humidity and volume of rain back east.

How have the cherry newroot rootstock performed. I absolutely hated minnie royal and royal lee on newroot 1. It suckers like crazy.

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I knew someone was going to call me out on that! :cry:
I first left a 3" gap around the trunk but it looked a lot nicer all the way to the trunk + Tom Spellman mulches all the way to the trunk in his videos :stuck_out_tongue:!

Richard may be right on the humidity but I agree with you - if the mulch has any disease it could spread to the truck. I’ll move it back 3" from the trunk tomorrow just to be safe.

No suckers for me but have canker on both :frowning: . But that could be my fault entirely. I got this brilliant idea to plant tulips around the trees and was digging and cutting up all roots around the cherry. No wonder it got canker! I am cringing now thinking about what I did! I hope it doesn’t spread to the 3 cherries I planted this year.
This rootstock is a very slow grower as its a dwarf. Produced 1 cherry last year that the squirrels stole. If the canker doesn’t kill it - I hope to see some fruit this year. loaded with fruit spurs…

For those two cultivars I had outstanding performance on Colt in the ground and in low-chill (<250 hrs) observed excellent performance on Newroot in potted patio plants.

I agree. I only use certified by CA State licensing. No raw stuff off a chipper truck. In CA, mulch has a legal definition.

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You got that right! My back is so wet, the dog has to go out front. I’m tired of wiping his feet! My front has a higher slope. Hey Girly, nice to see you here, the trees look great! I don’t get to the DW forums that much these days.

Did the canker start right at the graft union? If so, i had the same problem on both minnie royal and royal lee.

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That’s too bad. Here I like using Gisela 5 or 6. So far in 8 years I have had very impressive results. Cherries tend to get canker here, and I lost two to canker, but the rootstocks didn’t get the canker, the cultivar itself did in all three cases. I still have one that got the canker very high in the tree, I cut it off, and it so far is doing really well. Produced a decent crop for a butchered tree last year.

No my canker is in the root stock (where the stem flares into roots) and then at the top of the main branch where I made the heading cut at the time of planting.

I hope Gisela is good. I see many on this forum with success on Gisela. I added 2 Giselas this year, may be I shud have got colt… In page-3 of this article :frowning: http://extension.oregonstate.edu/wasco/sites/default/files/bacterial_canker_of_sweet_cherry_in_oregon_may10.pdf

Rootstock significantly affects cultivar susceptibility to bacterial canker. Death of trees on Mazzard was 30% but was 77% when trees were on Gisela 6 rootstock. While no Bing on Colt rootstock died, mortality of Bing on Gisela 6 was 90% in one study. Trees on Gisela rootstocks have shown increased susceptibility in field observations. Bing on Krymsk 5 had smaller heading cut cankers than trees on Mazzard or Gisela 6, and 43% of trees died on Krymsk 5 compared with 50% on Mazzard.