What Are You going to Order for 2017?

I just got my grape order from AA and I need to make a decision on which one of these two I should keep. ( One is for a friend who is probably going to kill it anyway).

Opinions on these would be appreciated. Glenora or Joy, which one should I keep.

I will go for Joy (Productive vines bear blue seedless grapes with exceptionally fruity flavor. Average cluster weighs 10 oz).

Tony

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Where are u located? If you’re in the humid East, go with Joy. It was bred to be successful in Arkansas. Early season ripener.

Glenora suffers winter injury at -10F. It was bred in upstate NY but can struggle further north than that. Glenora does well in Calif. Sounds delicious.

I received my Raintree order of Contender peaches on Friday. Very large trees! The packing was excellent although some of the trees do looked scraped up a bit from handling. Here are some pics of varying stages of unpacking…

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Very nice trees, thick, good feathers. What’s the caliper on those? Looks to be almost an inch thick. How were the roots? I just planted one of those varieties last month. I’ve heard a lot of good things about it, hope it does well.

Do you have some Contenders already, and if so how have they done there? Don’t you also have Reliance and/or Madison peaches, or maybe I’m thinking of someone else?

Yes, the Contender trees from Raintree are about an inch thick. They are actually bigger than I ordered. The roots are decent. I’m always a bit ambivalent about planting larger trees.

I have some Contender going into their 6th growing season. They produced quite well last season even after a moderate bout with leaf curl. The trees seem to be less precocious than our Reliance and Red Haven.

Well, while I said I was done ordering trees, I had mentioned about adding some more berry plants. I asked my wife if we ought to add some other varieties of strawberries to our patch in the back yard. She planted a batch of 20 strawbs last year that were a gift from her cousin in Ohio. We have sampled a few fruit from those plants this week. They were good, but it’s still kind of early for them.

Anyways, I asked her to look thru an Indiana Berry catalog and pick out a variety or two to add to the patch. She thought Earliglow would be a good one, and I agreed. We needed one more, and decided to get Jewel. Both of these strawbs just seem to get great reviews all across the board, so we think they were a good choice. So, I ordered 25 each from Nourse Nursery last night. They’re supposed to be here next week. I mulled over adding Flavorfest, Galleta or Sparkle, but think what we ordered was enough.

But, the story doesn’t end there. I wanted to add some summer red raspberries, and after perusing the IB catalog, I ended up ordering Prelude, Killarney, and AAC Eden. Plus, I liked the description of Double Gold and Caroline, so I added those everbearers. They should be here the week after next.

At about $18 for all of them, plus $10 shipping, it’s less than what we paid for one of our fruit trees, so not a big outlay. The strawbs were $22 plus $12 shipping, so also pretty good deal. I know it’s kinda late to be planting berries, but they’re not going to produce this year anyways.

So, I think that oughta do it for this year!

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Yikes, that’s a lot of evergreens, I planted a few in the past. The best luck I had was using a heavy bar and just jabbing a hole in the dirt then putting the tree in and pushing the hole shut with my foot. The ground had to be soft for it to work good

I ordered spruce, hemlock and maybe a few other from Musser Forests maybe 4 or 5 years ago. I lost a few from rabbits (hemlock…they love eating hemlock) but most are going very strong. I was just standing next to one hemlock and it is about 8 feet… I wish i had more room because i’m a fan of conifers. They give some color in our bleak grey winters.

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My brother just planted 300 various conifers on his land that is full of whitetail…they lost a few already, but he has had some spares. I think he might have sprayed them with some of that stinky stuff…this summer he has to fence them all.

I got my HF Somerset grape and my Flavorfest strawberries…

@thecityman, I was perusing this thread tonight and saw that you had ordered a bunch of inter-specifics (pluots, nectaplum, etc) from Grow Organic. I was wondering how they’ve done after you planted them. I’m looking into getting two or three pluots from Bay Laurel, and came across your post. I hope they are doing well.

I think I am looking at Flavor Supreme, Flavor King, and either Dapple Dandy, Geo Pride or Dapple Supreme as the third.

Bob, look at Flavor Grenade or Emerald Beaut Plum. I know EB is considered a Japanese plum but everything about it reminds me of a pluot. And its very late in the season and hangs forever. It’s super sweet and has that firm texture that seems to differentiate pluots and plums.

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I looked pretty hard for a photo I posted last year showing all my peaceful valley/grow organic order trees all lined up against my garage door but I can’t find it. Its here somewhere but who knows where! Anyway, I did order 4-5 inter-specifics and they all came in looking good and they all did extremely well over the summer. Of course they are just a few months old so they are still small trees, but they grew as fast as any trees I’ve ever planted and they look very healthy now. They had good caliper size when they came in, too.
In short, it is a little too early to know for 100% certain, but all my peaceful valley trees were nice trees that have performed really well. My Spice Zee was the best of all of them…it looks more like a 2 year old tree than a one-summer tree!

BTW…I will tell you that I’ve had 2 mislabled trees in the past that came from Grow Organic, but that is no worse than most other places I’ve ordered from. I’ve also asked them to replace a tree once under warranty and they did so with no questions.

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Thanks. That’s what I’ve heard about trees out of Cali. They are generally bigger than trees from other states, maybe a longer growing season, I don’t know. That Spice Zee sounds intriguing, a nectarine and plum hybrid. Bet that tastes interesting. Maybe you’ll get some fruit off it next year, if it’s growing that much this year.

What were the two mislabeled trees, and how did you figure that out?

When did GO send you your trees? @SMC_zone6 mentioned that they ship real early, as in January. How did the roots look like?

I got an email from Stark Bros today advertising a new upright thornless low acid black berry called Stark Black Gem. Might have to order some for next year.

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I’m still looking for source for a Maraschino Cherry Tree. It’s my favorite fruit.

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According to this article, the marasca cherry really only grows well in sandy soil in Croatia. Apparently attempts were made to import it into the US, but they just didn’t taste the same when they were grown here.

http://www.thekitchn.com/getting-to-know-the-marasca-cherry-the-9bottle-bar-210631

Maybe you could experiment with some other varieties to get closer to the taste you want?

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Hah, you have a bite!

No, I think you’d be much more pleased with a Marshmallow tree, much more tasty. Just don’t let it rain on it! Check Stark Bros…

Has snipe season started in Kansas yet?

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My peaceful valley/grow organic trees didn’t arrive early at all. In fact, I distinctly remember that they were the very last company that I could order from this spring and it was after other companies were no longer even taking orders that I ordered my trees. They arrived not long after I ordered them…and it was in mid April for sure.

I’ve never tasted a spice zee but one thing I didn’t know when I ordered it but was VERY pleasantly surprised is how beautiful and different the tree looks. The leaves are all RED! So it really stands out in my orchard.

Don’t give too much thought to the mislabels. Almost every single company I’ve ordered from has sent me mislabeled trees (of course I don’t know that for 2-4 years) and Grow Organic probably has a lower percentage than most I’ve bought from. They sent me a fuyu persimmon instead of the Hachiya that I ordered. This was very easy to tell once it fruited. The other was a red haven peach tree. That was a few years ago and it was actually Olpea who clued me in when he noticed from a photo I posted that it had showy blooms and red haven has plain blooms. Not sure what it is but it’s given good peaches so I’m not too upset.

I really really wish I could find the photo I posted of all my grow organic trees so you could see them. It showed calipers and the root structures were all visible. For the most part they were good roots, and like I said, the trees have all done really well so I have no complaints.

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FOUND IT! Here is the best answer I could give to your question about how my grow organic trees looked. Every tree here is from them. Looks like I was wrong about when I got them, though…looks like it was March 20th, but I am sure I ordered them after most companies weren’t even taking orders any more.

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