What a positive topic choice Sue!
My homestead/trial orchard is now producing more than I can use and give away to friends and neighbors, so from July- December I started making weekly deliveries to several markets and restaurants where I sold my fruit wholesale. I have sold some before, but not on such a regular basis. Nice to get a financial return on all the investments and I enjoyed seeing my produce featured on menus. Some of what I sold included strawberry, currants, figs, kiwi, plums, pears, mushrooms, apples, grapes, hazelnuts, wild blueberries.
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I finally completed my last multi bark grafted apricot tree with the wild plum rootstock from Missouri Dept. of Conservation on 5-1-19 for now with all these varieties: Afghan, Hesse, Robada, Orangered, and Tomcot. I am gladded that I used the wild plum rootstock for it naturally dwart form. Thanks @Stan for swapping scions with me last year. Stan, since you are the Apricots King, do you think all these cots blooms will overlap each others for cross pollination?
Tony
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For me Robada and Orangered overlap, Afghanistan is later (but overlaps a bit with R and O), and Tomcot is earlier. However, I was told that up north bloom times are much more condensed. Here is what @mamuang observed:
4/14 Tomcot
4/15 OrangeRed and Robada
4/17 Moniqui and Hoyt Montrose
4/18 Zard
At my place, Tomcot and Zard bloom a full month apart, and in Zone 6 the difference is just 4 days. Based on these data, you should not worry about overlap.
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@tonyOmahaz5,
Like @Stan mentioned, my apricots all bloom about the same time. They all set fruit but Tomcot is outrageously productive.
My orchard success in 2019 was with watermelons. We planted 8 vines haphazardly due to space limitations. We harvested so many tasty watermelons, some weighed over 30 lbs. This was done without spraying. Only soil prep, fertilizer and watering was needed.
Not sure why I bother fighting diseases and pests for all other fruit trees with limited yields and questionable success!!!
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Certainly true with apples
I bag my apples, and this year I kept my Galas in their bags when they went into the storage fridge. Nornally, Galas are worthless by Halloween, but this year, in their bags, some are still edible.
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I sometimes let the bag stay on the apples in storage but I also remove some of them. Either way I still use a larger ziploc bag and keep refrigerated. My experience is that all apples are fresher kept in bags and in the frig.
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For sure! I bag them all, tied up tight (I use bread bags and twist ties.)
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Yes, I keep my apples in the turkey-sized ziplocks, marked with the picking date. The earliest picked definitely stay good longer.
But after this year, I’ll keep them in their individual bags, too
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Orchard successes of 2019 - not applicable 
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Busy expansion year for me in 2019 as a backyard grower, almost got burned out towards the end if it, in fact:
- Did a great job on winter protecting my fig trees and had no die-back in 7a
- Built a legitimate raspberry/blackberry trellis with 4x4s set in concrete
- Built a 16’ semi-raised bed for blueberries, strawberries, melons, tomatoes, etc
- Planted 6x figs, a persimmon, apple, plum, several blueberries, gooseberries and blackberries
- Tried grafting for the first time with 80% take rate on pears… 20% on peaches
- Setup traps and started trapping squirrels
- Setup bird protection for blueberries, but need to do a better job next year
In terms of yields, I’m still learning to manage disease and pests (my primary focus in 2020) and most of my trees are very young so they was nothing to write home about. But let see…
- Figs were an exception and performed far beyond expectations, with a nice daily harvest
- Got to try my gooseberries and currants for the first time
- Only got a few Asian pears but the tree developed a ton of fruit spurs so I’ve got high hopes for 2020
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Happy New Year everyone! 
My biggest new success in 2019 were my raspberries. I was able to harvest appreciable amounts from late May through early July and then August until the frost. I literally had raspberry smoothies everyday during that time period between 3 varieties that were mainly planted out the previous year.
Other successes include:
-a constant harvest of figs from late August through frost
-my Asian pears further maturing and being able to compare multiple varieties all at once
-having my pawpaws fruit for the first time
-successfully grafting persimmons for the first time.
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Bumper crop for blueberries, including pink lemonade which are a perfect mix of flavor for me. All berries tasted superb. I added a smidge of urea in spring. Much more leaf density, so im assuming better sugars
First grapes ever … pink reliance, not exotic, they were pretty small but off the vine grapes were amazing. Just so good.
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I tasted Anne raspberries for the first time, and they were good. My young trees put on some good growth, I cleared space for a rows of jujubes, persimmons, and pluots. Seedling persimmons are planted already in their row. Got another 100 foot of dwarf apple trellises built. My greenhouse is almost finished. I got to see the first apple blossoms on my young apple trees. All in all a very productive year, even if a few raspberries were all the fruit I actually got.
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Best success was IE mulberry couldnt keeps kids off them also first homegrown peaches were awesome! Otherwise berries continue to provide more every year… planted crandall currant, a saskatoon a couple blr berry bushes and apple trees and a hazelnut overall a good year as orchard starts coming into production and i keep tinkering and adding
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My biggest success this year was completely unexpected. There is a small creek behind our backyard, so our property has a chain-link fence and a wooden one after that. In the summer, my wife accidentally noticed that there is a grape vine growing behind our fence with little fruits on it. We patiently waited until they turned ripe and opened up a few fence boards, jumped behind and harvested a ton of grapes (likely thompson seedless). I couldn’t believe it - didn’t plant it, no water, no fertilizer, no thinning and with very easy access to all the birds. Still so productive and tasty! On a related note, I planted 3 vines and did all of the care above and I think 2 of them likely died, go figure!
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@ztom When do your Castleton and Early Laxton ripen? And how do you rate Early Laxton compared to the other Euros that you have?
@Ahmad Early Laxton was July 17th last year. Castleton mid to late August. Early Laxton has averaged 14-15 brix for the last two years, most of my Euros get closer to 20 (or more). I’d grade Early Laxton a B, Castleton an A-. Early Laxton is worth grafting, it set an abundance of fruit for me last year. Here’s some Early Laxton pics: What fruits did you eat today? - #2068 by ztom
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@Ahmad, how did your Geo Pride, Flavor King and Dapple Dandy trees did in 2019. You planted yours the same year I did (2017), and was wondering how they’ve grown and if they’ve produced any fruit last year.
We got no fruit on ours, but the trees didn’t bloom, though. They’ve put on decent growth, but deer have damaged some branches, and Japanese beetles shredded a lot of the leaves.
All three trees are growing very well and are kept at ~12’ high by pruning. DD is the most vigorous, followed by GeoPride followed by FK. All had a very nice bloom last year, however the fruit set didn’t match it. FK and GeoPride each ripened ~25 fruits and DD ~15. All dropped a lot of fruitlets in June, which I think is because of shading (I followed 2-3’ spacing as per Dave Wilson’s high density schemes). Taste-wise, all three are great and are definitely worth keeping. I am keeping my fingers crossed for a bigger crop this year.
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Thanks, sounds like your trees are doing very well. Wow, 12ft is a lot taller than mine, they are mostly about 7-8ft, and they’re about 15ft apart. Like you, DD has grown the most, then GP. My DD and FK are on Myro and GP are on Citation. Is that what yours are on? Have you shaped them like peaches/nects? How did your other pluots do?
Hopefully, this year the pluots and peaches will produce some fruit. That is, if we can get the blooms thru late freezes.
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