What are you ordering, 2018

General Fruit Growing
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Thanks for the info on Ison’s, I’ll keep them in mind for any future possibilities. I think I am done with ordering any other stuff for now. I’m trying to figure out where these 14 new berry plants are going to go now. We have a big yard and quite a bit of land, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to figure out. We have wild blackberry brambles that I’ll need to clear out as well, to help with the prevention of any disease issues.

Plus I have to find a place for the three pluot trees. I was wondering how much space I should give them. Two are standard size trees (Myro rootstock), and the other one is semi-dwarf (Citation). Do you or anybody else know how much space they should be given? What kind of training do these trees get? Round, open-center, central leader?

I was figuring up how much money I’ve spent over the last couple years on plants and trees compared to this one, and this year will be way less expensive. Unless I have to replace some of them, this may be the last year I buy any. Any more additions will probably be grafting onto existing trees.

We will have large garden plots to deal with as well, so I don’t know how much time I’ll have to tend to all of them. With me looking to go back to work, I’ll need to be more efficient with what we have.

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For those shopping for berries also should consider Pence Nursery, they have a good selection and close to wholesale prices, even for smaller orders. I have had good success ordering blackberries from Pence, got another order coming from them in a few weeks. Free shipping if your order is at least $45.

http://www.penseberryfarm.com/

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I’ve visited the Pense site, but they didn’t have all the berries I wanted, so I went with IB. I also didn’t want to have to buy $45 worth of plants to get free shipping; I think it’s $20 shipping under that. But, their plant prices are hard to beat.

But, I was curious what plants you’ve bought from them and how are they doing now?

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whats IB?

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Just blackberries are all I have purchased, Prime-Ark Freedom, Osage, and Triple Crown are what I can remember, and all have done well. The plants are a little on the smallish side but as fast as blackberries plants grow, it does not really matter, hard to beat the price as you said.

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I’m thinking about doing some more persimmon.

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Sorry, it is Indiana Berry. I had mentioned them so much on this thread, I just assumed folks knew. I’m a lazy typer, so…

My wife says I’m also a lazy talker, i.e. mumbler, as well!

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thats ok. i do the same! should have figured it out as i order from them often. its been a long day!

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I ordered from Pence last year. I liked the nursery stock I received from them. Pear trees, and some blueberry bushes. I will definitely order from them again. I like ordering from family businesses.

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I just learned an old friend bought some property and has given me permission to put apples on the property for cider.

Anyone have Rosemary Russet scion wood available for this year (it is kind of late to ask.)

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I haven’t kept up with this thread, but here are a few belated responses…

Here’s some pics (and descriptions of my order from 3 years ago (and if you scroll down a few days in the thread, I have a follow-up with the 2nd batch from BL). Normally Bay Laurel sends very nice trees, often approaching 1" caliper. This year, they are the place I’ve ordered the most from- 7 jujubes.

I’ve ordered twice from ToA, a bit over a dozen trees total (plums and jujube). They have nice trees.

I grafted it a few years ago. Nothing yet, but it should be soon.

I like Zestar a lot more than Pristine. But, Zestar is about 2 weeks later than Pristine, so it isn’t an entirely fair comparison.

Are you sure you meant GR and not AK? AK is the one that is very sharp off the tree, with massive flavor. GR is mostly sweet, with a bit of kick.

Agreed on Golden Russet. I think Liberty can be good with extreme sun exposure, but get pretty blah when shaded. I’ve had it from “normal” orchards and wasn’t impressed, then had some from my mini-dwarf which I thought were pretty good. At least on the sun-exposed side of the fruit…A bit too fine a line for me, so it’s one of the trees I’ll be replacing this year.

I decided that I’ve got too many apple trees, so I’m replacing some of the smaller ones that haven’t grown that well (mostly mini-dwarfs on M27, G65, or interstems) and replacing them. Most of the replacements will be jujubes, though I’m also planting some of the pear and appricot rootstocks that I grafted last spring.

Jujubes are all I’m ordering for spring:

  • Xu Zhou
  • Redlands #4
  • Shihong
  • Jin
  • Contorted
  • Li
  • Shanxi Li (3)
  • Sugar Cane (2)
  • Honey Jar (2)
  • Coco
  • Massandra
  • Autumn Beauty
  • Black Sea

I was wait listed on a tree (Honey Jar). They (Bay Laurel) emailed me, when it came available again (someone must have canceled). I emailed back to add it and they sent me a new receipt/confirmation- pretty easy.

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Thanks Bob for the reply. Good to hear about the BL trees. I do worry about them hacking the roots, but I’m just getting 3 trees (pluots), so maybe they will be alright. I wrote them an email asking about the caliper and branching and they said they’re usually 5/8" thick with a few feathers. I’m expecting them in early March, so I hope the ground is workable then, it’s been very cold so far this winter.

How did those nine BL trees do that you got back in '15? I see that you got a bunch of stone fruit trees then. I’d particularly like to hear how your Flavor Grenade and Geo Pride have done.

We’ll see about the Pristine, I got it mostly on reviews on here and other sites about it prob being the best early apple. I have had Zestars for the last two years, so I’m glad we planted one last year. It has a good balance of sweet/tart and keeps well. My tree has done OK, it put up a couple long central leaders, but not much else, so I may have to give the notching technique a try on it to induce some scaffolds.

Regarding AK and GR, I haven’t tasted an AK, so I can’t compare to a GR. The GR I have tasted tho, if I remember were pretty tangy off the tree, with the sweetness coming later. My GR tree has languished for two years in its spot. I think it’s going to have to be moved, maybe getting too wet during rainy spells. Or maybe it’s just a dog. I hate it because I really want that tree to produce.

I only had Liberty’s once and I liked them, I can’t remember too much other than they were tart as well, not real sweet, maybe we picked them early at the orchard. But I recall liking them, and they are a very nicely colored apple, if that means anything.

With all those jujubes coming in it sounds like you’ve gone “koko for juju’s”! And, what did you do with all those jj rootstocks from 3 years ago?

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I think it was Alan who once said he isn’t interested in early apples because he’d rather be eating stone fruit at that time of year. I agree with that. It’s nearly February and I’ve been eating mostly just apples and pears since September and will continue just eating apples and pears for a few more months. And they’re great, and I enjoy them, but, man, I sure would enjoy a tree-ripened peach right about now. @subdood_ky_z6b, what interests you about early apples?

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I have two grafts that took last year and I can probably get a 6" stick from one of them. If you can’t find it elsewhere and figure one stick is better than none, let me know.

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Slightly OT, but have you ever thought about fertilizing the heck out of those trees to get them up to size?

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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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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.

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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
Pluot_Trees_01-31-20182448×3264 3.4 MB

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

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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?