What's happening today - 2018 edition

That sucks! Sounds like something I would do.

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It will grow back if you keep the roots happy. You just lost a year or two of progress.

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I don’t know if they are good or not, but I will say very nice close-up pics. Very crisp and clear shots of beautiful blooms. I’ll have to get out and get some pics of our peaches that are starting to open up.

How do your rasps look? I was down in the lower yard today and saw that not only is my Eden red rasp sprouting out, I saw a couple more smaller suckers sprouting up about 4-5 inches away, that’s a good sign.

Well, since it was a rare sunny day today, I decided to pull off the straw from the strawberries. The Earliglow’s look good, just a few of them had some buds nipped off, by what I don’t know. The Jewel’s don’t look as good, and had more discolored leaves, which I suspect is they got too wet under all that straw, guess I should have removed it earlier.

We went next door to the in-laws for an early Easter lunch about 3, when we got back about 7, we spotted deer close to the patch!! :rage::rage::rage: Didn’t see any damage, thankfully. So, I spent the last few minutes of daylight restoring the fishing line fence around the patch. We’ll see if it helps keep them out for now.

I did a regular rectangular 3-level (1ft, 2.5ft. 4ft) fence around the patch, then put a singular line fence at angles to the inside fence. I put posts at the middle point between the corners, and connected line between the outside post and the inside corner posts. We’ll see if it keeps them out for now. It looks something like this:

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Rasps looking healthy and have shot out green on the floricanes. About 1 inch long.they seem very hardy.

I took pruners and clipped by PAF back about 6 inches at a time with no green wood until I got about 2 inches off the ground. Then I saw some green. So Im hopeful the PAF survived the winter.

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Lovely day here in Virginia, today! It was warm enough, mid day, to take my jacket off. We are still digging holes for all the fruit we are putting in this spring. I dragged all the pomegranates out of the garage - as they are all breaking dormancy. And I just couldn’t stand it any longer . . . I planted my first of the new plants that arrived in the fall. I chose the AGAT, which is quite hardy. Here it is - all by its lonesome! Soon it will have 17 buddies to keep it company! Still waiting for the Salavatski, Nikitski Ranni and other hardy ones to arrive. I think I asked for them to be sent 1st of April. Unfortunately, I have all the tender ones, on hand . . . and I don’t think I want to tempt ‘Old Mr. Frost’, by putting them in the ground just yet.

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Sounds like something I would do, too. I’ve actually dug up newly planted plants and replanted them because I didn’t like the spacing, or the way it was leaning, or . . . whatever. O. P. D. - obsessive plant disorder.

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Well, that’s awful. At least your bloob plants are that big now, and I assume you have more? The four I planted last year are looking pretty pathetic. They haven’t sprouted any leaves or buds, for that matter. Some of the canes have a bleached look to them, kind of a light tan color. Maybe it’s just a superficial thing and not the sign of something worse. The rest of the canes have a dark red color to them, so is that normal? There are some that are grey or black, so I assume those are dead. Things are still taking their time waking up here, so hopefully they’ll come out of their slumber soon.

Um, not to be a picker of nits, but you linked the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation site. You have some impressive friends indeed!

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Gorgeous week which is just ahead of much cooler weather. These carmine jewell cherries will green up soon. .

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All the vegetables back inside for the freeze this week

At this rate, I’ll be just picking them out of the flats, they’ll never get into the ground

And I’m running out of flats!

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I’m always so jealous of your Carmines. I have 4 Romance series and one carmine, but mine have been pretty slow growers so far (going into 3rd year now). Last year they were about 3 feet tall in the spring but still bloomed quite a bit (none fruited). Strangely, this year they are larger and bloomed far less. Strange. But they look healthy. I know you’ve said before, but can you remind us how old yours in the photos are?

@subdood_ky_z6b Thanks for pointing out that I accidentally created a link by trying to shorthand refer to growingfruit…org . haha. I didn’t even notice that it showed up as a link! funny. Anyway, in reading your recent posts, I’m still surprised that you seem to be so far behind you. You have correctly pointed out that in spite of us both being in (or in my case 2 miles from) Kentucky, we’re still pretty far apart. Still, I’d have thought our schedules would have been closer together. You mentioned wanting to get some peach bloom photos, most of mine are already past petal fall and some even at shuck split. My blueberries have even had a few blooms open. To answer your question about red cane color, I honestly think that may vary by variety. The reason I say that is that I have some that are white canes (is cane the right word for blueberry branches?) and some are red, some brown. I, too, have some very unhealthy looking “vines” but they hold their own and usually send out good growth once they get going in late spring. But let me say this…many people on here find blueberries quite easy to grow. I never have. I’ve never tested my soil and most likely its the lack of acidity that is my problem, but it has been a long hard battle with me. I amended the soil in each hole with pine needle mulch and I’ve added both sulfur and aluminum sulfate (not together) over time as well as adding vinegar to water when watering. I must say that those things have absolutely helped and over time my luck with blueberries has improved a lot. But those things take a lot of time to work and the effect is fairly slow. My point is, blueberries have been a real challenge for me in spite of hearing most other people talk about how easy they are to grow. I can also tell you that rabbit eyes have been better for me, with premier being the best out of the 8 varieties I have.planted.

BTW…the good news is it looks like most of peach blooms survived the 27 degrees that came one night during bloom here. I’m very surprised so many survived. If I can just keep brown rot and insects at bay, it should be a good peach year for me!!! :slight_smile:

Good luck

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Thank you @thecityman! The carmine jewell are 8 or 9 years old. I have a few pictures of the different stages here http://www.growingfruit.org/t/carmine-jewell-cherry-yields-increasing-with-age/5908. It’s snowing here today as you can see by the photo. The CJ only had 3-4 leaves when I planted them.

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I’ve noticed that they have really grown. A couple look over ten foot tall! Mine are only four foot on average, but they are starting to grow fruit spurs. I should get some fruit next year. I have a couple spurs on CP. I hope I get to taste all four varieties this year.

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They will bury you in cherries very soon!

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I hope so I want that problem!

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Alright, some pics I took today around the farm.

The main cane coming off the Eden red raspberry

One of two suckers off the raspberry.

Anne yellow rasp, survived the winter and a munch from some varmit.

Poorman gooseberry, starting to green up.

Peony patch sprouts coming up. In late spring this will be a big green mass with big white flowers

Oregon Champion gooseberry, sprouting out. This plant was run over by a truck last year. But I spliced the two main canes together and it looks like it recovered nicely.

A few Contender peach blooms starting to swell up

A couple Blushingstar blooms

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Some more…

A Triple Crown blackberry sprout! Planted about a month ago. There is one other that’s sprouted, out of seven cuttings that were planted.

Pineapple pear just now starting to leaf out. The apples are still dormant.

“Aerial” view of Coralstar peach blooms in various stages of opening.

Closeup of Coralstar blooms

Closeup of some Redhaven peach blooms

Our Kibble lovin’ mouser Josh, stayed still long enough to get this pic

The two row strawberry patch, with Earliglow on left, and Jewel on right. Yesterday I removed the straw off of them. The EG’s look very good, but the Jewel’s just OK. I hope some air and sunshine will invigorate them. I put up a fishing line fence around it to protect it from deer raids.

A few of the Earliglow strawberries

Closeup of Earliglow strawb, with freshly removed straw

Mr Bomber, prob expecting a treat for allowing his pic

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Strawberries look good

Mine are a disaster, will have to replant

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Thanks. Like I mentioned the EG’s look real good, but the Jewel’s have me a bit worried. We’ll see how they do with some sun and air. They really need some dry weather, as some of the leaves were rotted. I should have pulled the straw off them sooner, but this is my first year, so still learning. Hope we get some fruit this year, we should if the deer leave them alone.

At least you got some new strawbs coming in. What happened to your patch?

they rebound pretty quick! i put some coffee grounds around mine for the N and keeps slugs away . then some bone meal in early june to help the berries grow.