I have some overwinter options in mind.
But curious to what you’d define as appropriate overwinter options.
I have some overwinter options in mind.
But curious to what you’d define as appropriate overwinter options.
I wouldn’t plant them outside until next spring. If it were me, I’d put them in pots and grow inside, then plant outside next May.
“Appropriate” is always a funny word to me.
I overwintered some grafted apples on B118 in 3 and 5 gallon Roottrapper bags in 2012-13. I kept them in an unheated garage with an inch sheet of styrofoam under them. They all survived, but about half had delayed mortality. The rest continue to lag behind much younger trees.
I’d guess a high tunnel may be an “answer”? How far south of St. Cloud are you?
I’m in a small town about halfway between Mankato and Faribault, so a couple hours south of St. Cloud. And maybe an hour and a half to the IA border of @GrumpyPantsPlants.
Rather than a high tunnel or bringing them indoors, I was considering either a low tunnel with sand filled cinder blocks as a perimeter or an insulated, unheated garage.
I should also mention I’m planting the seeds into Rootmaker 18s and also have Rootmaker 1 gallon pots to plant up into.
Darn near Iowa ![]()
My wife was born and raised on a row crop/beef farm kind of between Faribault and Rochester. It’s a different world down there than here. Winter sucks down there. It really sucks here, and those folks in I.Falls laugh at all of us down here when we complain about winter.
I’m not much help in overwintering ideas, but I wish you good luck
International Falls might as well be considered Canada as far as I’m concerned.
If I lose this batch of Dolgo, it will be the 2nd batch I’ve completely lost. The 1st batch was due to relying on someone to properly water while we were on summer vacation. This 2nd batch will be due to my delay and procrastination. Hopefully I can sustain 1 or 2 seedlings over the winter out of 30-40 of this 2nd batch, otherwise I’m back to square one and starting over again.
Throw a football and I Falls is Canada, eh ![]()
The weather here is closer to the Falls than Faribault.
Dolgo is a great rootstock for northerners. A buddy 45ish minutes southeast of me is the biggest Dolgo rootstock proponent I’ve seen. A number of his varieties are available from numerous websites, many of which are grafted to Dolgo.
Haha thank you for your empathy for winters here. ![]()
They are why we are working on a geothermal greenhouse… I’ve had it with freezing!
Be careful, we’re in an El Nino as of summer 2026. Expect below average rainfall. Consider augmenting soil and starting growing in planters placed in rings around a sprinkler. You know, the fresh flowers that come into grocery stores (especially Trader Joes) ship in plastic buckets that can be re-used to start things if you drill some holes in the bottom.
Wouldn’t a covering of snow be enough? Maybe bury them under leaves?
I’ve got 11 peach/nectarine seedlings in 5-gallon buckets i need to overwinter or destroy. I want to take budwood off of these yet this year and graft them to trees that i already have in the ground but need to wait until these put on a little more size. Note these Menards buckets are so old (they have holes drilled into the bottom) that the plastic is brittle so i have to be careful grabbing them too hard.
Yeah I’m really not sure what would be enough to overwinter them. I’d prefer to keep them outside rather than indoors or in the garage.
For years i was overwintering fruit trees in the garage (attached) and they did fine until one spring was very cold and many of them died. I think they dried out too much.
Apricots are starting to ripen. They have some spot. This is a seedling tree. I want to add some grafts from other apricot seedlings i have growing if the wood is thick enough to grab some buds off of.
If the el nino this year is like the late 90s maybe the peaches will make it thru this winter and give a good crop next summer.
No need for me to double post, so I’ll just put a link here for the 36 Dolgo seeds I finally planted.
Seems early for fall web worm. I found the beginnings of another nest in a different tree. You can see a couple of the little buggers in the 2nd pic. What’s confusing to me is that I sprayed the first tree with Imidan and nufilm 17 a little over a week ago.
I hate those things. I spray them as well, but there’s nothing like the pleasure of cutting the branch and dropping the whole colony in fire. There’s very few forms of death that bring me joy, but ticks, web worms, and mosquitoes are exceptions.
I just started some sunflower seeds a few days ago. They’ve already sprouted and are leafing out. 80 days from today is Sept 21. Probably bloom sometime in late Sept?
I sprayed these with brake cleaner, I couldn’t get my propane torch to light. Seemed effective
Do you have any summer apples? I had one that was almost purple/black when it was ripe but got bird damage so bad that i removed it. I want to say they were ready to eat in August.
Melba is my earliest apple, usually ripe mid-late August. Surprisingly good for a summer apple, quite similar to McIntosh. Zestar is the next earliest, first week - 10 days of September