What did you eat today - that you grew?

Made pumpkin pie for test, I don’t like the crust so my side is not there, but my husband’s side is there. Let’s hope it will not be too bad, otherwise I have to buy canned pumpkin for Thanksgiving.

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Looks great. It will flatten so you will see your crust.

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Have been snacking on Satsumas (specifically Okitsu Wase and Miho Wase and 1-2 Xie Shan) as they are starting to ripen. My kids are soooo addicted that its hard for me to even get a taste of these. All of these are very close in flavor. Okitsu is the sweetest but it is also the most established graft (2 year old). Xie Shan has more balanced flavor. I am glad all of these ripen sooner than Owari.

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:blush: and they don’t even look fully ripe…

Certainly not at their peak ripeness! But any suggestion to wait is completely ignored :slight_smile: I need to plant more Mandarin trees

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Nikita’s Gift (top, from an orchard around here), Unknown PCNA Persimmons (from orchard), Maypop, and Feijoas.

I’m growing my own Fuyu’s, but they weren’t as ripe as the ones from the orchard yet.

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@Auburn
I did exactly the same! Pink Lady and Goldrush.
I am giving up on Pink Lady though. They look like they’ve been tortured! Lumpy, with deep ‘dimples’ and something that looks like warts! (I wish I had taken a pic.) And mine are tasteless. I will be grafting a LOT of scions to it this spring.
The Goldrush are fabulous. Easy to grow, here, in Tidewater VA.

Pomegranate Peeps - here’s an update.
We have had rain rain rain - and many of my pomegranates (especially Wonderful) are cracking. So, I picked anything that was cracked, yesterday. They will last for 2-3 weeks in the refrigerator. Long enough for my 2 granddaughters to enjoy. I’ve been very pleased with our pomegranate venture this year. It took a lot of spraying fungicides at the right time . . . but we have some beautiful fruit again!

These are Granada pomegranates. A few that I pulled were almost a pound and a half!
Most of the Wonderful variety were small and not ripe enough to eat. :unamused:
Kaj Acik Anor did quite well - paler arils - good flavor. Salavatski was just 'OK".
“Granada” is still our favorite!

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Let me tack on to that

Linda - Harvey’s (of figaholics) seedling. I’d say this is the June Pride of pomegranates. Good sugar and acid. Thanks @Marta for the scions. Lot of fruits ravaged by leaf-footed bugs

Vkusnyi - lesser acid compared to Linda (still more balanced than Eversweet, for eg) and sweet.

Both are soft seeded but may be closer to Wonderful than Everweet interms of the texture of the seeds.

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Concerning the heart-shaped wintertomato: the more autumn progressed, the more elongated the tomatoes got. Very interesting, the difference in fruit shape from only two plants and 100% the same variety!

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Is there any concern about grafting onto a previous graft that is undesirable? For example, let’s say I grafted ashmeads kernel onto several trees. I’ve decided I want to keep just one ashmeads and replace the rest. One of the less desirable grafts actually grew quickly and branched several times in one year alone. Normally I would cut back to the original tree when I replace it but I want to use the ashmeads new growth as a base for new sweet 16 grafting. It will give me to more grafting spots with the growth of new secondaries. Is there any difference in the end product sweet 16 apples that use ashmeads as an interstem versus cutting off the middle graft?

Sorry I did a crappy job of explaining my question.

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Probably finishing up my little tomatoes by this weekend. Enjoying black walnuts from the former harvest still. This year’s are still drying. Still eating on this year’s garlic, and have some herbs I can collect a bit from when i remember to do so.

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Pomegranate Soft Seed n6

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Regina, I think what you mean is . . . is there a diff between grafting to a graft - or do you have to whack off the graft and then graft to the stub that’s left, which is the original tree???

If you don’t want the ‘last year’s graft’ - then I’d just cut it off and if there’s enough left of the original tree behind it - then graft to that.

However . . . I will say this . . . I made a cut near the end of a growing Bevin’s Fave graft - and grafted something else to that. I did leave a bud or two of Bevin’s (I think that was its name?) so I might even end up with 3 different varieties on that one branch!!! The original tree, which I think is Ashmead’s. The Bevin’s. And then the new variety!

afterthought

I am not qualified to give you an opinion, about this grafting on grafting, etc - after I thought about it. I hope one of the more experienced ‘Apple People’ will give their advice.

My experience is wayyyy too limited - and my answer was really more ‘musing’ than ‘advice’. And that sentence in italics . . . well, it’s just what I might do in this situation.

P.S. - I realize that this should be under a different topic . . . so I apologize!
I tried to delete it and move it, and all I could seem to do was edit it. ?

P.S. - Did you get your Golden Delicious as a scion? Or is it a tree?

No pictures, but out Arden today, fertilized my peonies, when done I picked and ate 2 satsumas and 1 Algerian(Fremont) mandarin, pretty tasty even though they are not completely yellow.

It’s just an example, but it is an original grafted tree. I’m thinking of doing what you did and having three types of apples on one branch.

It is suggested that grafts be placed more interior on the tree so that new fruit won’t be so far to the outside. This is challenging for me in several ways. If the graft fails, the tree will have a large open area in that space. If the graft takes but the position is wrong, it is harder to tie down or stake the graft into a new growing habit without putting pressure on the new graft. If the graft takes but the fruit is undesirable, cutting off the graft again leaves a large void in the tree.

This just takes me back to a branch with three varieties which I suppose is not such a bad thing.

I picked a couple dozen Kassandra hybrid persimmons a week or so ago from the tree pictured below. At the time, the fruits on the tree were hard, orange, and astringent. Then I stored them in a bag with an apple. I ate this first one yesterday. It was red and ripe – sweet, tasty and completely non-astringent. My wife and I ate another dozen or so this morning.

As you can see, the tree is ridiculously prolific. I picked 400 fruits yesterday (yes, I counted!) and there are still at least as many left. I’m guessing 900-1000 fruits on the tree in total.

The fruits are small but that seems an advantage. You can eat them whole, removing the stem and popping the red ball into your mouth. Or you can eat them in two bites.

Maybe the best news, my wive loved them. As background, she likes the taste of Asian non-astringents such as Jiro / Fuyu, at least until they get over-ripe. In the past I tried to feed her Prok American persimmons but I could never get them completely non-astringent and the consistency of a fully ripe fruit was very gooey. So that was a disaster. In contrast, she ate one Kassandra fruit today then asked for more and then started looking up recipes. She described the texture as like a ripe tomato.


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@jrd51 … you might try making some persimmon jam using my low sugar chia jam recipe (link above)… but for persimmons try adding some baking soda to see if that keeps the astringency from coming back.

I plan to try that myself as soon as i can collect enough fruit and it looses astringency.

You have an abundance of fruit for sure… congrats.

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@TNHunter – Thanks. Low sugar jam is exactly what I want. We’ll try the recipe.

I’m gonna take the direct approach regarding a possible return of astringency – I’ll mash some fruits then heat them, see what happens. Stay tuned!

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