Jessaka, cherry trees can get brown rot, but since they fruit early in the year they are not as prone to it as are peaches and plums. You do need two varieties for pollination. 50' or less apart. The big problems on cherries are fruit cracking, bird stealing, leaf diseases and pests, and bacterial canker. Cherry fruit fly can also be a problem. For your Bing the main problem is cracking, it is highly prone. Very few people grow Bing in the east and that is probably the main reason. Adams County Nursery, the main commercial nursery on the east coast, doesn't even sell Bing for example. So I would consider removing the Bing and getting two other varieties instead. I made the same mistake as you did, starting off with a Bing. I know how to graft so I topworked it. The real deal-breaker problem on cherries is bacterial canker. It will kill the tree. I have so far been lucky, my trees have gotten cankers several times but I have cut out the cankered limbs and saved the tree every time. For the leaf diseases cherries are not used to heat so the leaves get unhappy. I have my cherries planted in part shade to decrease their heat intake. Overall sweet cherries are somewhat hard to justify growing, they don't taste any better than a good grocery store cherry either (very much unlike peaches and plums which are a million times better tree-ripened in the backyard).

Scott

PS there are several self-fertile sweet cherries now so you could also just replace the Bing with one of those.

I live in Oklahoma, and I am so fed up with fruit trees. I bought two almond and they look terrible, and i got that bing cherry and the beetles strip in it the summer. i got a peach and a nectarine tree and was so excited when it had tons of fruit just to get fruit rot, and i had two apple trees, and one just fell over, that is,i went to touch it and it wiggled like a loose tooth. i pulled it up by wrapping my arms around it. and i am taking out the other apple today because it is in the shade looking for sun, as are my almond trees. and my apricot tree lasted two seasons before the bark split all the way around it.

and worse than all this is that store bought fruit here is terrible and you can't get organic.

when i grew up in sunny central ca. we had an apricot tree that we never watered, and the fruit was the best. i only had to fight the earwigs for it.

and now to hear this about the cherry trees.

i think i should move or cut down the almond trees. we have an area where we can plant because we were given permission, and it has sun, so if i decide to continue i can put trees there, but at least my useless peach and nectarine trees have sun. what to do?

Ah, Oklahoma. Most of the zone 7 population is in the east so I was thinking you were there. It sounds like your problems are not all that different than where I am however.

There really is a difference growing fruit in California vs growing it in many other places. I was visiting an organic vineyard there and they told me they did only two sprays all year!! Especially given how weak organic sprays are that is just unreal.

I would probably just ditch the almond and cherry, having fewer things will allow you to better focus on what you have and get them going well; those two are harder to grow than peaches and less rewarding. Nectarines are also not a very good idea, the bugs love them and they tend to be more disease-prone on the fruit as well. Pears are very easy in comparison and apples are also usually easier than peaches. But, you may just want to focus on the peaches for now to get them going well.

Overall fruit growing can be a huge challenge, even without trying to do it organically. It sounds like the baddest bugs, curculio and oriental fruit moth, have not found your peaches yet and its just going to get harder at that point. Positive results are by no means guaranteed. But, if you are willing to face getting knocked down many times but popping up each time and learning more and going after it again, you can achieve success.

Scott

hi, we took out the cherry tree. not sure what to do about the almond trees, especially since they are shaded. may just take them out because come summer they have no leaves and so look ugly. waiting for the apple tree to be cut down since it is shaded. will keep the peach and the nectarine if for no other reason than they are trees. but it is getting closer to my just doing an herb garden and forgetting about fruit.

thanks for your help.

and we are in a bad drought, and last summer the leaves fell off the peach and nectarine trees, and so i don't expect any of them to make it unless the drought breaks.