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Post by castanea on Aug 15, 2015 12:09:37 GMT -5
The only fruit that looks good at the farm this year is my Asian Per. The grapes have half the fruit 1/4 ripe, 1/4 over ripe and half not ripe yet. It's not pretty. Tomatoes have been less than spectacular. Years of having 10 flats at a time to can, this year, I'm lucky if I have 2 at a time ripe. My Asian persimmon has lots of green fruit...maybe? We haven't had rain in 11 months, and a week ago we had a sprinkle. Like a passing fancy to go with the dry thunder showers....fire! Well that was enough for the pomegranites to burst. It's been another tough year. Have I said I HATE drought? Yeah, well I do. I planted lots of pomegranates 15 or so years ago. I got tired of them a couple of years ago. About all you can do with them is juice them. And they have way too many problems for a fruit tree that is supposedly easy to grow in a dry climate. My Asian persimmons are doing so well that I now have two broken branches on two different trees. Jujubes are doing well this year too. Sugar Cane and Chico are already maturing fruit. |
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Post by mskrieger on Sept 2, 2015 14:35:38 GMT -5
I'm envious of your pomegranates. I once traveled through the Levant and everywhere you go in Israel, Syria, and Lebanon there are fruit juice stands. Everyone had pomegranates. I became particularly fond of the juice mixed with carrot. That kind of fruit juice mixing is an impossible to come by luxury here.
Sounds like you are somewhere semi-tropical if you have sugar cane, castanea?
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Sept 2, 2015 17:34:22 GMT -5
Mmm... Share seed if you can.  |
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Post by raymondo on Sept 3, 2015 3:28:20 GMT -5
Just starting a new orchard on a place out of town I'm buying into. No fruit yet but looking forward to apples, pears, persimmons, apricots, peaches, nectarines, plums, cherries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries ... hopefully starting this season with some of the soft fruit. It's been a very busy end to winter down under!
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Post by castanea on Sept 4, 2015 23:02:26 GMT -5
I'm envious of your pomegranates. I once traveled through the Levant and everywhere you go in Israel, Syria, and Lebanon there are fruit juice stands. Everyone had pomegranates. I became particularly fond of the juice mixed with carrot. That kind of fruit juice mixing is an impossible to come by luxury here. Sounds like you are somewhere semi-tropical if you have sugar cane, castanea? Sugar Cane is a very sweet variety of jujube. |
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Post by castanea on Sept 4, 2015 23:03:01 GMT -5
Mmm... Share seed if you can. Be glad to. They all have seeds. |
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Post by steev on Sept 5, 2015 0:36:05 GMT -5
I've got a bunch of pomegranates, most of whose names I've lost, circumstances having been unsuitable for planting out; Parfianca is the most happy on the farm; it's never fruited, nor has any other; maybe climate change will change my luck with these.
The past uncommonly warm Winter has given me hope of a Fall crop of figs; the tree is 8-9 years old, but has always been frost-killed to the ground, past years. Well, climate change is a PITA, but if one is agile and diversified, it ain't that big a thing, so long as you don't live on a flood-plain or have 1000 acres planted to one crop.
I keep forgetting to harvest my jujubes, especially the worthless ones I want to sprout for rootstocks.
Thanks (I suppose to the resurgent toads) the 9-spotted cucumber beetles seem to be no-shows, so the quince are looking productive and primo.
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Post by mskrieger on Sept 9, 2015 14:30:42 GMT -5
steev Figs! Glorious figs! Did you try wrapping and mulching it this past year? In other news, the crab apples are just right for picking, the other apples are all coloring up and my daughters are clamoring for black walnuts. They like to sit in the driveway and smash them with rocks, then pick the meat out. My little savages, I am so proud.
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Post by steev on Sept 9, 2015 21:27:19 GMT -5
I was going to put a straw-bale "hut" around the fig; the neighbors gave me some spoiled bales, but before I got to it they got too rain-soaked for me to handle, and then the elk tore them up.
Black walnut ice-cream; best flavor ever.
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Post by castanea on Oct 31, 2015 11:15:55 GMT -5
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Post by richardw on Nov 2, 2015 13:25:27 GMT -5
Being a fantastic spring here in deep down under,have had only light frosts that have had little effect on the flowering, apples - the tree in the front of the photo in a Granny Smith x ?,has heaps of fruit set, the two in the back are from a roadside tree, a green apple that turns slightly yellow when ripe, this one is still flowering well and has been like that for the last three weeks.  In the rest of the 24 tree orchard,many others are much younger so some are having there first fruit this year, three 5 year old Greengage trees have there fruit crop along with a mystery plum seedling, there's 5 other plums still too young yet. There's 5 Pear trees but again too small yet and may well be at least another 5 years till fruiting. Also there is 5 other roadside apples that have blossom for the fruit time so its looking like there's going to be some cider making coming up in March, just hope the ground water can hold up so they can get watered. |
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Nov 2, 2015 16:24:17 GMT -5
Lucky you! This year we had no apples. Of the ten or twenty that did grow the squirrels ate them. This was a weird year to garden.
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Post by steev on Nov 2, 2015 19:42:54 GMT -5
Ditto keen101; aside from crappy root-stock apples (prolly useful in cider, though), only Mutsu produced, ~a 5-gal bucket.
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Post by mskrieger on Nov 3, 2015 15:27:50 GMT -5
Sorry to hear about your apple busts. Connecticut had the best apple year in a long time, possibly because it's been so dry (for New England). Very little fungal disease on any tree I've come across (and there are legions of neglected trees everywhere here.) Extreme weather really shows what does well in your climate, and what doesn't...I'm going to be planting an apple tree or two at my house in town for sure. Black walnuts were also abundant this year. Going to make ice cream now.
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Post by mskrieger on Nov 3, 2015 15:30:41 GMT -5
and to Richardw, best hopes for a good apple season for you (and a good cider season hence!)
When the farmer's stock of fodder
He has placed within the barn,
When he's gathered all the apples
And has placed them safe from harm,
When the butchering is over
Then the farmer feels so-so;
But he's always sort of worried,
Fears the cider's gittin low.
He sees the signs of winter
In the breast-bone of the fowl;
And he fears a spell of weather,
For he's heard a tooting owl.
As he fills the yawning wood-box
He remarks,"It's going to snow."
Then he says,"We must be keerful,
For the cider's gittin low."
When the cold and snapping breezes
Bend the sere and leafless trees,
When a pile of feathery snowflakes
Is the most a farmer sees.
Then he comes in from the tavern,
And he whispers rather slow,
"Goin to be a freezin' winter, and the cider's gittin low."
So throughout the Winter season
And a part-way through the Spring
The farmer feeds the cattle, And doesn't say a thing
But when he sees us drinking,
With his face expressing woe,
He remarks, while helping mother,
That" the cider's gittin low"
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