Fruit Harvest from season to season

[applestar]

What happens if you take cuttings from aging Fig tree and grow them -- are they going to show senescence according to their age, too?

[applestar]

THIS is what I'm talking about -- BLACKER THAN BLACK! And oh so yummy. The druplets surrounding the the stem scar of the fruit should be completely black.

[gumbo2176]

What happens if you take cuttings from aging Fig tree and grow them -- are they going to show senescence according to their age, too?

I know it is common practice to take cuttings from fig trees to start new ones, so I wouldn't think it should matter if the cutting came from an old tree. Earlier this spring I had to trim a good bit of new growth from around the base of the tree and on many of the lower branches so I could get my mower around the tree to cut grass.

Up until Hurricane Katrina blew down a huge pecan tree on my neighbors property in 05, that fig tree had been shaded most of it's life and received limited direct sunlight. This caused the branches to grow out from the main trunk fairly low and reaching out (think of an upside down crab) with the limbs growing only a foot or so off the ground for several feet before heading upwards. Once that tree was gone, all new growth off those branches started growing straight up All of the lower branches are in the 7 inch and up diameter range.

I have a feeling it is just that time in its life.

[applestar]

July 15-19 -- the basket holds approximately 1 quart. I've only been picking as much as I feel like.

[applestar]

Aaaaand today. The blackberries wouldn't all fit in my usual square basket. DH peered in over the gate before going to work this morning, looked around the gate arbor, etc. and said "Too much! You don't need to grow so many."

A lot of the berries had been damaged by the heat, some by JB's. Bagging is useless and detrimental in 90°F weather -- I pulled the bags off a bunch of unharvestable trusses. Best berries had ripened drooping in the shade. Bagged in-the-shade berries were the best -- unblemished and no bugs to bother them. I left obviously bad berries and beautiful big black berries at the top of the trellis that I couldn't reach without a ladder for the birds and animals.


...little bit of blueberries, too.

[imafan26]

It has been hot lately with just a tease of rain. The citrus are loving it. They are flushing new shoots and the calamondin and meyer lemon are putting out flowers and fruit. Calamondin will be in fruit for most of the year and meyer will fruit 3-5 tiimes a year.
The guava are also out and the tangerines are ripening. I even found a strawberry today. Unusual this late in July.

[applestar]

You really must have different fruits to harvest all year round! I'm trying, but not easy.

I thought I'd catch up with more blackberries that came in -- they are winding down though. I might still get about a cup a day for until maybe next week.



I've started several pints of blackberry liqueur -- vodka, rum, and spiritus. I think I might like the rum best, but we will see. Also non-alcoholic sugar syrup cordials for the kids. Still have 2 or maybe 3 full 1-gallon bags in the freezer....

[JONA]

Samples please Star......gratefully received!

[applestar]

[applestar]

I started 1.5 pint elderberry liqueur today with same recipe -- organic sugar and rum. I need to grow that herb for sore throat - horehound? Would they combine to make good cold remedy or is it better to use separately?

Also peaches. My other peach tree -- Carolina Belle -- died this year after great show of spring blossoms.

But the volunteer yellow peach has been growing more -- tiny little tree about 4 feet tall and 5 feet across, but sporting about a dozen fruits that I have been protecting with clear clamshells... harvested the first fruit today:

[applestar]

Picked another peach today. Colorful tomatoes, too.

[applestar]

Harvested these 8 peaches plus the apple. 12 peaches in the house now after two (and 2 earlier runty ones) have already been eaten and 4-6 more on the tree.

[Nyan]

Hey Applestar,

Can you grow the Ark primocane blackberries that far north?

I have one Ark45 (thorny, erect) bush that has great berries on the primocanes up until frost each year.

Good size, firm and very sweet berries too! My daughter has pronounced them the best blackberry she has ever eaten.

[applestar]

Hm. I don't know, but you know what? I'm not going to get any more thorny blackberries. There used to be a big patch of WONDERFUL but super thorny blackberries on this property. It was so hard to take care of that I finally gave up and have replaced with this thornless Triple Crown. Even after all this time, I still have odd shoots of the thorny variety coming up here and there, which I cut down to the ground.

If I had more room, I would try more thornless varieties. Actually I had originally intended to get other varieties to try after planting just THREE Triple Crown plants. But they have fully established now and are rapidly taking over every inch of available space along the southwest side of the garage.

[Nyan]

Yeah, I don't like the thorns either. I got the Ark45 the year before they introduced the thornless type (Ark Traveler? I can't remember...) which was a bummer...
I can agree with using the thornless, but the one plant (trailing Natchez I think) I started with a few years ago has turned into 4, 50ft and 3, 40ft rows, and I'm so tired of tying up those twenty foot trailing canes. Guess I should have bought an erect variety...

BTW, Jealous of your peaches, mine got completely frozen out this spring.

[applestar]

Daily strawberry harvest for the past week (strawberries are floating in 2 gallon bucket of water)

[applestar]

It depends on the fruit and how well they do from year to year, but typically, the fruits are offered to my two daughters to eat fresh as much as they want, and what they don’t eat gets frozen, especially short storage like these Wild strawberries (they turn mushy in 6 hours). Some fruits like figs and persimmons never make it to the freezer.

The frozen fruits are used for smoothies. I get over abundance of blackberries so those are processed into juice, sauce, baked goods in addition to best and perfect ones that are frozen for later use.

Since I have fruits that are in season practically the entire growing season, I hardly ever have to buy fruits during the growing season... only what I don’t grow, or what I can’t store fresh due to special storage needs. My dd’s live on fresh fruits all summer.

[applestar]

Today’s harvest with smattering of cherries (which didn’t do well this year) and a few beginning to come in red Prelude raspberries:



...The harvested berries half-filled the 10.5 inch wire basket exactly like this on Monday... a little bit less yesterday only because I gave about 3/4 pint to a neighbor.... I’m starting to get groans rather than cheers from my DD’s who are tasked with removing the stem end and freezing what they don’t eat fresh....

When it gets to this point, I don’t need to hesitate to save the best ones for them, and eat my fill of the berries, too even the reddest red ones and big ones.