Backyard Orchard Culture: Progress Notes

Most of the fruit trees are near the end of blossoms. Some of the apples are midway through blooming, and a few blossoms straggle on, on the pears and cherries. Now some of the baby fruits are starting to show, giving me a hint of what to expect this year.

This is Almaden Duke cherry, planted last Spring, so just over a year after planting. Many of the buds took. The tree is about 3 1/2 feet tall. Since I want it to remain dwarfed, I'm going to let the fruits continue. Plus I want to see what they are like. Impressive, really impressive, to get fruit the 2nd year after planting, even if only a hand full or bowl full.

Hollywood plum. A few scattered fruit have taken. I thought it might not have any, due to frost while blooming. These are so good, I'll settle for having just a few.

The peaches that I planted in tubs late this winter. Starting to leaf out. I underplanted one with lettuce and one with cilantro, so as not to waste the soil and space.

Shiro plum. Judging from the number of tiny embryonic plums, I think there will be a bowl full or two. Like the Hollywood, I wondered if I would get any due to frost while blooming. Home-grown Shiro are so good, it's worth the wait and worth the trouble to get even a few.

Surefire Cherry - I'm guessing, about 4 years old now. I planted tart cherries largely because of late blooming, to miss those early frosts. This one is the latest of my many varieties, as far as blooming goes. They should set well, and we should get a pie or two. These have a wonderful flavor, different from the sweet cherries, and when very ripe can be eaten out of hand, sweet and tart at the same time, with red juice.

Fig Progress Notes

Most of the figs have a lot of brebas - little early figs resulting from overwintering buds. They have small tufts of leaves at the ends of branches.

I removed these Desert King saplings from the half-barrel that I had chili pepper plants in last year. I had stuck several King prunings into the growth medium late last winter and gave them no more care during the season than the other plants in the barrel had. Over the winter it looks like about 1/3 of the cuttings died of frost, but several remain. I repotted these two. The one on the left was very long, and I had pushed it in deeply. Most of the roots were at the lowest end of the cutting.

The Desert King fig tree has many many brebas now. I an reluctant to prune until after they ripen, mid to late summer.

Petite negri that I grew from a cutting and basically neglect. It has brebas as well. One of these days I want to find a permanent place in the ground for this tiny tree. It grows slowly - the parent took about 6 years to reach 6 foot tall.

The Sal's fig sapling that I haven't found a place to plant. Even though it was overwintered in an exposed setting, in container, it survived and has some brebas. It's only about a foot tall. It needs a place in the ground as well.

Mulberries

Just returned from 5 days in Chicago. Happy to be home. On inspection, many of the fruit trees are showing baby fruits now. The Illinois Everbearing Mulberry has now begun to leaf out, and there are embryonic mulberries on the branches. Or, those might be male flowers. Im not sure. It's still small, so I don't expect a lot. Since there is not much to photograph here are some public domain botanical illustrations of mulberries.

According to wikipedia mulberries grow easily from large cuttings, so I stuck some prunings into the same large container that now has some tomato plants. That worked well last year for King figs. Since I'm growing this tree by the backyard orchard culture method, pruning to small size, open center, summer pruning, I'm in uncharted territory for this fruit. It will be nice to see how it does this year.

Today, more Spring

Now where is that Cat?  Where is she?

The annual blooming of the pink cherry.

I've been nurturing this yellow violet for several years.  It grew wild.  I've never seen another yellow violet.

The annual dogs and pink cherry photo.

The ginkgo - quite impressive now!  I grew that from a seed?

Quince.

Impulse purchase.  Not sure where to plant.

Apple Blossoms at Hood River Oregon

Today we took a drive to Hood River and viewed the apple orchards.  Miles and miles of apple trees in bloom.