Set out the peppers and melon seedlings yesterday. I tried starting the melons under cover earlier, but saw no success.
Yeah early/mid July is when I usually harvest them. The currants will hang well on the bush for a bit though so timing is not critical. The gooseberries I start sampling late June when the June bearing strawberries are winding down.
I do mostly make jams with the currants and the gooseberries are for fresh eating and jam. Both of them are high enough pectin that you just need to add sugar and cook to the setting temperature. Looks like I made 17 pints white currant, 13 pints gooseberry, and 4 pints red currant.
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Nice!
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Very bright pink. Hope my graft will flower next year.
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It will it is very precocious and wait until you see the inside! Bright pink too and a little white.
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Wow , dime size hail storm,
Almost covered the ground.
Bet that banged up some fruit !
It’s Allways something !
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I received an order if bareroot trees today. 3 Asian pears from burnt ridge nursery to replace ones that were killed overwinter, and a veteran peach and waneta plum from Wallace Woodstock nursery. The veteran peach replaces a Madison peach that mostly killed over winter and the waneta plum is a new addition.
The large box is from Wallace Woodstock and the small one from burnt ridge.
Pleased with both but really impressed with the peach and plum from Wallace Woodstock. The waneta is over 7 feet tall from the graft. The tape measure is at two feet here.
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Suprized it is growing leaves! This is actually a rooted cutting from the oldest apple tree in Washington State. Located in Vancouver, the Old Apple Tree has seen better days. I am unsure the tree has been tested to know what variety it is,but my tree is a type of desert apple of the early 1800s.
" “Old Apple Tree” …
Vancouver, Washington’s “Old Apple Tree” ( “Mallus spp.” ) was one of five seeds planted in late 1826 and then eventually placed outside of the gates of the first Fort Vancouver. The seeds for the tree were brought over from England by Emilius Simpson. The “Columbian.com” website, covering local history of Vancouver, tells the story:
“… It all started at a party in London … A lady at a farewell dinner party for Lieut. Emilius Simpson, the cousin of Hudson’s Bay governor Sir George Simpson, playfully put the seeds of her desert apple into his waistcoat pocket. She asked him to plant them when he arrived at his destination on the other side of the world. Emilius Simpson arrived in Vancouver in November of 1826 and was soon invited to dine with Dr. McLoughlin in the stockade on the present Deaf School site. During the evening he absentmindedly stuck a finger into his waistcoat and discovered the seeds. Dr. McLoughlin, Simpson and Pierre C. Pambrun planted the apple seeds in small boxes which were put under glass. Dr. McLoughlin kept the boxes in the store where they could not be touched. The apple tree was planted outside the fort when he felt it could survive. Around 1830, Washington’s first apple harvest occurred. It was here in Vancouver, and produced one apple. …” [“Columbian.com” website, 2007, “Local History, Old Apple Tree”]
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I had a similar experience this year. Wallace Woodstock sent beautiful, tall trees. They sent me a winesap instead of winecrisp, and had the right tree out within two days. I now have an extra tree. The winesap isn’t leafed out yet though which worries me.
BR sent me some smaller items. Many of which were fully leafed out, with the leaves having been eaten in places by something. I am not unhappy with BR, just better satisfied by my experience with Wallace.
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At first I was upset with Wallace Woodstock because they lost my original order. When I contacted them about it they said they will look for it and give me a call back and they never did. I called them the next day and another person told me the same thing. Again they didn’t call back, so I called them one more time and they were very apolagetic about the whole thing. Understanding that things happen, and this is likely their busiest time of the year, I decided to give them another chance and just reordered. Unfortunately they didn’t have any more black ice plums which were in my original order but I was able to find the black ice as a potted tree at a local nursery. The order was placed on Wednesday and they were delivered today. I am very pleased with the quality of the trees so overall they made it right. I would order from them again in the future.
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I was a little hesitant to order from ww to be honest, because when you google them a picture comes up beside their website, which is a can of “bullshit repellant.” I thought, oh man, this company probably has poor customer service if they view customers in an adversarial way. I ordered hoping i wouldn’t have to find out, but i did. They ended up being perfectly polite. If i were them i would change the picture though. 
Yeah I saw that too. I think someone took a picture of that and put it in a review. Their Google reviews and “the scoop” reviews are hit and miss too. They seem to be pretty old school when it comes to ordering and I think if they were to update their website and ordering system/order tracking system they would improve their appeal. Still I am impressed by the trees (especially this late in the bareroot season) and supporting a local(ish) nursery is nice.
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Agreed
Rick Dale always does a good job. 
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How do you like the taste of that apple? The blooms are just gorgeous!
Yesterday was a sad day. I cut down a monster native persimmon at my hunting spot. It had died. I kept waiting for it to leaf out, but it never did. It started showing signs of decay, so I took it out. It was approximately 12" in diameter and 50 feet tall. The first picture is the stump of the tree, and the second is another native persimmon that grew right beside it. There are two big ones left, and all three originally grew within ten feet of each other. I believe all three are/were males, as I’ve never seen persimmons on any of them.
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always sad to lose a big old tree. like losing a old friend. 
It’s always sad to loose a tree. Especially since it’s been around as long or longer than yourself.
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