Good year for some fruit
It has been a good for fruit this year, I got grapes for the first time this year, newer plants. I got lots of blue berries and my fruit trees are mostly doing good, lots of apples this year.
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applestar
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That's great! 
In my garden, I needed to water a lot this year due to drought, but had good strawberry and blueberry harvests for a while -- a little shorter season than it should have been. Blueberries ended up with potentially serious fungal disease.
My little peach tree matured enough to give good crop, and I got a little more again from the cherry trees. Blackberries were steady until they started drying up (hmmm occurred to me just now to wonder if it's the same mummy fungus as the blueberries.... I hope not)
I gave up on harvesting mulberries and European plums since dought had gotten so bad. I wasn't watering the mulberries and plums as steadily as the rest of the garden, but they were still able to set fruits (that were smaller and less plump than normal). Lots of wildlife/birds appreciated the bounty since the woods behind my property was starting to shrivel -- most of understory young geowth had dried up and mature trees were starting to shed leaves.
My apples did very well but the fruits ripened earlier than normal, and I harvested the fall crop about a month earlier than in previous years. The new columnar apple tried to set a handful of fruits, but the drought was too much for it and aborted them. maybe next year. Raspberries are struggling, but are providing last handfuls of fruits before frost comes.
No pears again this year, but the tree needs a pollinator which was too young or stressed to bloom this year. Hopefully, the 2nd tree will bloom in spring and there will be fruits next year. Still waiting for the persimmon tree to mature.
I want to plant a couple of pie cherry trees next. Also growing a banana plant (super Dwarf Cavendish) which I'm taking in and out right now but it will come inside permanently soon, and will be concentrating to get it and the pineapple plants and the coffee plant to grow to fruiting size next growing season.
In my garden, I needed to water a lot this year due to drought, but had good strawberry and blueberry harvests for a while -- a little shorter season than it should have been. Blueberries ended up with potentially serious fungal disease.
My little peach tree matured enough to give good crop, and I got a little more again from the cherry trees. Blackberries were steady until they started drying up (hmmm occurred to me just now to wonder if it's the same mummy fungus as the blueberries.... I hope not)
I gave up on harvesting mulberries and European plums since dought had gotten so bad. I wasn't watering the mulberries and plums as steadily as the rest of the garden, but they were still able to set fruits (that were smaller and less plump than normal). Lots of wildlife/birds appreciated the bounty since the woods behind my property was starting to shrivel -- most of understory young geowth had dried up and mature trees were starting to shed leaves.
My apples did very well but the fruits ripened earlier than normal, and I harvested the fall crop about a month earlier than in previous years. The new columnar apple tried to set a handful of fruits, but the drought was too much for it and aborted them. maybe next year. Raspberries are struggling, but are providing last handfuls of fruits before frost comes.
No pears again this year, but the tree needs a pollinator which was too young or stressed to bloom this year. Hopefully, the 2nd tree will bloom in spring and there will be fruits next year. Still waiting for the persimmon tree to mature.
I want to plant a couple of pie cherry trees next. Also growing a banana plant (super Dwarf Cavendish) which I'm taking in and out right now but it will come inside permanently soon, and will be concentrating to get it and the pineapple plants and the coffee plant to grow to fruiting size next growing season.
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!potatoes!
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we had heat through january and february, and some of march, and then two nights of mid-twenties in april...so most of the apples, pears, stonefruit, and blueberries in the area got tricked into blooming (and setting fruit) early and then got zapped. it has been a good year for grapes, figs, pawpaws, and persimmons, though, as well as few other things, 'round here.
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ReptileAddiction
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ReptileAddiction
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- Joined: Sun Jun 17, 2012 12:52 am
- Location: Southern California
Our corn crops has been done a lot to. Prices have already gone up. We also supply most of the world corn for cattle and stuff that we no longer can not. Even things like chickens the farmers cant afford to keep because it is costing them millions more a month so they are culling most of their flocks. Here 46% of the corn crop MUST by law be used to produce ethanol. So to make matters worse we have that to deal with to.
We had a good run of blackberries for a few weeks. They came on late and have ended a little bit early, but man! they were good. These are wild vines that DH and I transplanted into "their" own zone as soon as we started to make sense of the plants at this house.
We also prune the things to the ground each "dormant" season, all three or so weeks of it. (Ya gotta move fast, or they start growing again!) That is, the canes that bore fruit this year get cut to the ground; the others will give berries next year. We missed pruning *one* year because I was sick the crucial week, and oh my god it was a horrible mess the next year.
We don't grow any other fruit; no room for a tree. Heck, half of the blackberries grow over the jade plants along the fenceline.
Our summer veggies just don't seem to do well, and this year, what with my own surgery, sister's surgery, doggie surgery, and now doggie palliative care (two different doggies), the garden hasn't gotten the attention it needs. But since this thread is about fruit, I'll just leave you with the blackberry image: prune or die the death of a thousand pokes, trying to pick 'em next year!
Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9
We also prune the things to the ground each "dormant" season, all three or so weeks of it. (Ya gotta move fast, or they start growing again!) That is, the canes that bore fruit this year get cut to the ground; the others will give berries next year. We missed pruning *one* year because I was sick the crucial week, and oh my god it was a horrible mess the next year.
We don't grow any other fruit; no room for a tree. Heck, half of the blackberries grow over the jade plants along the fenceline.
Our summer veggies just don't seem to do well, and this year, what with my own surgery, sister's surgery, doggie surgery, and now doggie palliative care (two different doggies), the garden hasn't gotten the attention it needs. But since this thread is about fruit, I'll just leave you with the blackberry image: prune or die the death of a thousand pokes, trying to pick 'em next year!
Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9