@MamaHawk I’m also from Northeast Ohio and this is where I usually post for a regional chat. Welcome! Love your pfp.
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Welcome to this chat thread.
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Trying not to get overrun by yellow squash and zucchini.
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Sungold tomatoes, illini blackberries, 5 pints of tifblue blueberries today…
I still have a few mulberries ripening on greardi and lawson dawson. Lots of crandell clove currents ripe now.
I have yellow crookneck squash, okra, brandwine and big beef tomatoes… ambrosia sweet corn, bell peppers… all comming on… just not ready yet.
Novamac apples will be ripe around Aug 1.
4 of my persimmons have fruit on… hope they hold.
My chicago hardy fig has lots of little figlets on now… late August early Sept… they will start ripening.
TNHunter
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Lodi apples, Ponca blackberries, various rabbiteye blueberries, assorted mulberries, foaged chanterelle mushrooms.
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I’m thinking of replacing my Early Wynoochee apple with that Early McIntosh. The Wynoochee has been struggling with rust and fire blight. Any good suggestions on where to pick one up?
I’ve had really good luck and results with my Monark as an early apple. Really nice sized ( mostly big) apples and they do not get mealy or lose their flavor fast as some early apples do. I am really happy with that apple selection in my orchard.
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@EmptyBadger … I got mine from Starks… back in 2002. They still have it listed on their website… but it shows no longer available.
They suggest an alternative… possibly a newer improved early mc ?
I would be glad to send you some scion wood this winter/early spring if you want to graft it.
I have a 3 yr old graft of it growing in my new orchard now. It has not bloomed yet.
I added a graft of chestnut crab to it this spring. They are both in flowering group 2.
TNHunter
Much appreciated! I’d love to have those exact genetics since we’re so close. Your apples from that tree look immaculate.
Guess I better learn how to graft! Any advice on where to start?
Squirrels apparently cleaned out all my apples on trees below the barn. I’m guessing they were distracted by the cicadas temporarily, but now that those are gone, they are back to their thieving ways…Macoun, Suncrisp, Zestar, all gone this week after being there the week before.
So the only apples I’ll get this year are from my Goldrush and Suncrisp in the front yard. But I had to put fencing around those because deer stripped the bottom part of the trees a couple weeks ago.
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Central Ohio here, tried my Lodi apples today because the critters were starting to eat them last night. I put up some electrified cages on the trunks.
They were pretty sour and not really ready, seeds were still white.
Maybe my cages will let me enjoy a few this year. The pest like them early.
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I’ve not looked at Lodi here (just north of the KY/TN line), since I mowed that portion of the orchard about 10 days ago. Good likelihood that many are past their prime already. There is about a 15 minute window (JK, but not by much!) when they are pleasingly tart and crisp…before they go yellow, insipid, and mealy.
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Mini Butternut - very cool
Mars about to ripen despite some issues with black rot. This one surprised me. First successful grape harvest.
Trombone squash - one of the only varieties that can combat our heavy squash vine borer presence here.
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I noticed that about Lodi apples as well. A local little store had some in their fruit section that were grown locally ( SW Ohio) and they were mealy in a day. Not an apple I would put in my orchard.
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Last year mine lasted about two days in the fruit bowl before the wrinkled and went soft.
They also get fireblight the worse of all my trees.
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Well my Pristine and just about all my Roxbury Russet apples are gone, they were pretty much untouched until this week. Guess they moved up from my lower orchard to the back one where these are at. The fruit were about silver half dollar sized (1") before they were pilfered.
I don’t know if I’ll ever get an apples off any of my trees that aren’t in the front yard. There’s a Harrow Sweet pear out by the barn that’s still pretty loaded, so maybe they don’t like pears?
Very frustrating but there’s nothing I can do about it. We’re surrounded by big trees and there’s not a way to keep them away from mine.
Whether it’s deer or squirrels, my response when I see the pilfering is the same, “you have hundreds of acres of food around my farm and you have to eat my stuff?!!” Add several F- and S-bombs at a high volume and you get my drift…
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