My bet is the warm temp in December followed by the cold snap mid January did the stone fruit trees blossom in. Very sad.
Maybe half dozen apricot blooms out. This means, once again, no apriums, as they always come out a week earlier. Discouraging.
Can plum pollinate aprium? From the name, it should have plum in its parentage
Plum blossoms look good here, just starting to open.
Pears are a few days away from opening.
Rhubarb is taking off, garlic is doing well, fall onions survived the winter and new onion sets are starting to take off.
Raspberry plants are leafing out.
4 Likes
We’ll see what makes it. The weather looks pretty safe --good warmup next weekend.
My peaches look like this:
It is my understanding that apricot and aprium can pollinate, as aprium is 3/4 apricot and 1/4 plum.
1 Like
Yeap, you sure have flower buds. Mine are still flat, stopped further developing into flower buds, no fruits for me
Not one I’d heard of before, thanks. The ones I’ve got are creshaven, reliance, contender, and redhaven. Had been hopping reliance and contender would get me through the tough winters. Oh well, there is always next year. At least my apples are looking ok so far.
1 Like
The apricots were blooming today but who knows how this plays out in regards to fruit set. Still haven’t seen any bees around. Peach showing some pink this evening.
1 Like
I got a lot of bees, Mason bees I think. But no flowers available 
2 Likes
Seeing a lot of these small butterflies on the apricot (which is about full bloom now). Still haven’t seen a bumble bee.
Looks like the peach will have a plenty of fruit–might not have to thin. Sprayed copper a few days ago so i hope i was in time. Planted an artichoke plant i had started from seed.
1 Like
I’m seeing a ton of bees this year. I don’t remember seeing this many this early in the year. Butterflies too…
Fruit set looks normal. A few plums didn’t set a ton of flowers. Looks like flowers died. But most trees have full sets of flowers.
1 Like
Same here. Bees but no fruit blossoms.
1 Like
I have been growing out peach seedlings in containers with the thought I would graft them elsewhere if I wanted to keep them. I discovered it dwarfs them quite well and they act more like normal trees just bonsai style. I’m kinda liking it. So I grafted on them too. I plan to just grow them in the fabric pots as bonsai trees. In the sense keeping them small. Semi-bonsai.
I let them grow a little too tall I should have cut them down last year. I did this year. I think they are fourth leaf already. I left most of the lower branches on so I have not really chosen final scaffolds yet. Most of the fruiting wood was cut off. I let them produce about ten fruit each last year. Probably will do the same this year. These are Indian free seedlings. The white flowers are a Hollywood plum graft.
Fruit from last year
2 Likes
Fertilized, limed, gypsumed, and double tilled the main veggie garden a bit ago. I had left a brassica crop over winter on about half of the garden. Really beautiful soil when tilled up.
Now to get my wife to get some peas, beets, and kohlrabi planted…
1 Like
Still haven’t seen a bee. Have no idea. They were everywhere last year. I’ll have to check again today.
When i use to grow stonefruit in containers the one issue i ran into after a few years was getting new wood to grow//especially if you had a crop on the tree. Also i think root pruning would really help because they become very root bound after a few seasons. Pluots were nice because they fruit on the same wood year after year, but even in whiskey barrels i’d get such little new growth each summer. Maybe i need to feed them more or something. I have some seedlings peaches right now that are going into bigger pots.
Thanks for the tip. These trees are not super important but I still would like to keep them productive. I removed most of the fruiting wood this year as I didn’t prune enough last year. I may eventually put them in the ground. Not sure? I may move too and take them with me.
Speaking of bees the domestic population of honey bees has doubled. But still having issues. More people though are keeping bees. I guess you can get some tax breaks in Texas so that’s doubled the bee keepers in Texas.
1 Like
Still haven’t seen a bee. Bumble or honey. I’m starting to wonder if that early warm spell and the cold/snow after killed them all. I’m seeing little orange butterfly things on my apricots/pluots and flies.
