What are you ordering, 2018

General Fruit Growing
#257

Good point. I picked Pristine because when I was looking to start our little orchard, I wanted a good variety of apples over the season, and it was the best for that time period, which ought to be in late July/early August. I think the next apples that would come in around mid/late August will be Zestar, and then Honeycrisp and Alkmene.

We’ve also planted four peach trees, so we’ll get some of those around that time frame.

I went thru a list of what we’ve planted over the last couple of years, and this coming spring, and it will be quite a variety of things, provided all the trees and bushes do well. I counted over 50 different varieties of fruits! :open_mouth:

My wife thinks I’m in over my head, considering we’ll grow a bunch of veggies too. She’s prob right, but we’ll can and freeze a lot of it, and maybe be able to sell some of the extras.

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#258

Yeah, I only hit the 11 apples and 2 peaches once last year with some 10-10-10. I didn’t give them any the first year, which considering the poor soil, I should have. When and how often would they need to be fertilized? Once in March before they come out of dormancy, and one other time?

I didn’t get a soil sample of that area until last year, and it was acidic and low in nutes. If I would have thought ahead, I would’ve plowed up the whole plot, limed it, and given it some old manure and ferts a year before I planted the trees. But, that didn’t happen, so I’m having to play catch-up now.

#259

Sounds almost exactly how pluots from my order were. Both 5/8", one with 5 branches, the other a whip.

From that order:
Loring peach on Lovell- nice sized tree, with a lot of large good tasting peaches.

Both nectarines on Citation- Very little growth. Both fruited last year, but they cracked/rotted. The Mericrest looked closer to usable (of the two, which is not a high bar…), but I didn’t get any in the end.

Elberta on Citation- somewhere in between the necs and the Loring. Big enough to give me about a dozen peaches last year. Not bad, but nothing special.

Of the apricots, Autumn Gold is still growing, but Monique died in a hard spring frost a couple years ago. The rootstock lived and I’m growing 4 other apricots on the shoots that came up.

The pluots have both grown very nicely. They flowered last year and I think most of the flowers got hit with the late frost. But, I still got a few fruit on each, most of which got PC bites. I think there were a couple which got close to ripe before something snatched it. I may have gotten one, but I probably I mis-timed it, as I don’t recall anything delicious (which is what I expect from both trees). I have high hopes for them this year.

Nectarines on Citation are useless runted things. But plums on citation are pretty good. In fact, I have some plums in a wetter part of the yard which get too big on Citation.

Here is a pic of the Flavor Grenade and Geo Pride. They are getting up to ~12’, and starting to grow together (only spaced 4-5’), so I’ll need to prune them quite a bit this winter/spring.

Pluot_Trees_01-31-2018
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I bench grafted most of them and gave away some. Sad to say, but to my knowledge none are alive. Of the 35+ I kept, a few sent out a leaf or two, but none ever started growing.

Even suckers that I’ve transplanted in my own yard don’t seem to take off very quickly (though they live). That’s part of why I’ve been buying big trees- jujubes seem a bit hard to get started here and I think it would take 3+ years for a small one to get as large as the ones that I think BL will send. I say “I think”, as I got a couple very large (3/4" and 7/8" caliper) Honey Jars from Edible Landscaping last spring. They were reselling trees from LE Cooke. I looked on Cooke’s website and the jujubes they grow exactly matches Bay Laurel’s inventory. They also mention on the site that they resell stuff from LE Cooke, as well as DWN. So, my conclusion (to be tested this spring) is that BL will ship me large jujube trees from LE Cooke.

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#260

I know I have a dwarf Rosemary Russet grafted. I can check it for sharable limbs.

#261

Thanks Bob for the detailed reply. From the sounds of yours and others reports, a peach or nect on Citation doesn’t sound like a good combination. All 4 of our peaches are Lovell trees, but we have the space for them.

But that’s good to see that both of your pluots on that RS are doing very well. And getting fruit after two years is encouraging. It does seem that putting them only 5 feet apart is really close even tho they are still semi dwarf. But, I know you do that with a lot of your trees, considering your limited space.

Our incoming Dapple Dandy and Flavor King are on Myro and the Geo Pride is on Citation, so I have high hopes for all of them. On spacing, would 15ft be sufficient, or maybe more for the full size Myro trees? Also, how are pluots usually shaped? Open center like a peach/nect, central leader like a pomme fruit or oval like a plum or cherry?

Sounds like juju’s don’t like your climate, I thought they’re more of a West coast/southern type of fruit. Have you ever got any to fruit properly for you?

#262

If you have enough water and want a very small tree, it could be OK for peaches, but I think Nectarines are a bit less vigourous and I’d avoid them on Citation in the future.

15 feet seems like a lot to me, but I suppose if you have the space it would be good. You’d have plenty of space to work around them then and avoid them growing together. Even at rentals where I wanted to space things out, I only used 10 feet…at most. :slight_smile:

I’m not sure of the ideal shape for plums. I’ve been cutting them back to whatever fits in the space, mostly central leader when the tree cooperates. I think if you have enough space, open center would be good.

The So I planted in 2011 has been fruiting well for the last 3+ years. But, 95% of the fruit is on the South side of the tree, which I think demonstrates the need for sun.

Pics:

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#263

If that’s addressed to me, I’d probably stick down as much organic material as I could around the trees in that area—cold manure, compost, wood chips, etc. And I’d keep shoveling it on until I saw a difference.

Then again, I like to live my life dangerously, so… :wink:

(In all fairness I’d probably take this approach because there’s no danger, as with a lot of prepared commercial fertilizers, that you’ll burn anything if you overdo it. Plus, if you just apply fertilizer, you’ll have to do it every year, whereas if you stick the organic stuff down, you’re (hopefully) making the soil itself better so that in time that tree should be able to manage ok with zero fertilizer. Of course, I’d go with that method because it’s largely idiot-proof. Idiot-proof is usually the best direction for me to go in. :laughing: I think the only “bad” thing that could possibly happen is if your soil gets too fertile, but given how bad you say the soil is over there, I would think it unlikely, unless you did this repeatedly over years and years and years.)

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#264

I have pristine and love it. Who has stone fruit ripening the end of July or beginning of Aug. in the Northeast?

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#265

Good idea about building up the soil with manure and compost. Aren’t wood chips, tho, a N robber? I have straw mulch around them now, I don’t know if that would affect the fertility much at all.

I also will be throwing down more lime to get the pH up. It was around 5.0, when I tested it a year ago. I didn’t test it last month when I did the other plots.

If I do apply fert, when should it be done? Right before bud-break in March? And what about any more apps after that?

#266

That is prime peach season- Redhaven is around Aug 1st (day 0 on a lot of variety charts) and most of the TangO varieties are in the first week of August (maybe +6). Around July 4th, I get the first peaches (PF1: -30 Redhaven) and Tomcot apricots (much better than the PF1). If you really want early stonefruit, Early Blush apricot is around June 20th, when it doesn’t get frozen out (always a danger with cots…).

There is a pick-your-own not so far from me (Silverman’s Farm) that I used to go to before I had a yard with trees. They would open around August 1st and we would get a few early Ginger Golds and Pristines on the bottom of our bag. Then, fill the top with peaches (mostly donuts, but a few Redhaven for variety).

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#267

TY for the update on TOA nursery stock. Every time I see Jujubes listed I think of the candy. They used to have those Jujube boxes of candy at the theaters when I was a kid. My friend loved those things and would get a box every time went were at the movie theater. I just think of Jujubes candy hanging on a tree.

#268

The fruit probably has almost as much sugar as the candy. I’ve had them (the fruit) max out my refractometer at 32 brix.

I just glanced at my reply above and realized that I gave you no details on ToA, other than “nice trees”. Here is a pic of them from a couple years ago. Everything was at least 5/8" caliper, some almost 1".

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#269

Then you are way ahead of me. No prime time peaches here till late august early sept.

#270

Mrs. G.,
It really depends on the varieties of peaches. Early ones do ripen quite early.
Used to have PF 1 picked around July 20

In my yard last year:
Black Gold ripened around July 10
Beauty plum July 20
Arctic Star nect, July 25
Shiro plum July 30
Gold Dust peach Aug 8

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#271

I put in an order from raintree for rootstock, quince province BA ,four more ohxf 87, krymsk 1 plum rootstock, and a bud 9 apple rootstock( maybe for interstem purposes).

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#272

I have five varieties that are all much later. :cry:

#273

Since you are in Canada, I will not put you in the bind of sending it to me across the border. Thank you for the offer.

#274

Are you in the States?

#275

Funny that this topic just popped up right after I posted about purchasing Tehama Mulberry in the “Mulberry Question” thread!

#276

Yes, I’m in central Arizona zone 7-8