Wow, these grapes look so nice. My Adalmiina's are getting nice too, but they have so many seeds... Same for my Buffalo's. I didn't get any Somerset. Thinking of replacing all of them... Lol. Are your Polar green seedless?

They are far from ripe, but already have many big seeds and a thick, sour slip skin. Juicy and sweet already. Definetly only good for wine. Buffalo blue are interesting because they are disease resistant and ripen almost a month earlier than concord.

The ''Polar green'' which are actually purple have a slip skin and vestigial seeds (kind of jelly like). Seem to be ripening 2 weeks after Somerset. For me Somerset is an amazing winner. Depending how my other early grapes taste I might haul out 1-2 vines to plant more Somerset. They ripen first week of August but 2 weeks later are still hanging very well and tasting amazing. I brought some in to work and everyone says they are the best grapes they ever tasted and are asking for tips how to grow in their backyards. Strawberry flavours are the most common taste description.

Wow! I thaught I had Somerset as well, but today, I tasted a couple of grapes : full of big seeds and no "strawberry" there. I think mine is not Somerset.... So disapointed! :(

Is it possible to graft over a well established grape to a new variety? Or is it better to just pull it out?

Ubro, very good question. One I am actually considering as well. I think I want to get rid of that "Polar green" and will probably need to pull Catawba as well. I planted it due to historical reviews and interesting sounding flavor profile. It was listed as a "late" variety but following further research I see it ripens 2-3 weeks AFTER Concord so I don't think I will every get ripe grapes in my climate! Crap! I wish every plant would list ripening vs 1-2 known varieties to allow for better planning.

I am leaning towards digging out as much as I can instead of grafting because with my climate I think die-back will be a not rare occurrence and would prefer to simply trust regrowing new trunks from the base as opposed to have to let new shoots grow 1 year then re-graft the next. Too much work.

Ok, so I have a day off so I will continue my summary of the
year so far. This will be my more in
depth annual report. For detailed info
on first leaf and flowing information on my plants you can see my
Gardenregister page at:

http://www.gardenregister.com/garden/hungryfrozencanuck/1/

I strongly suggest everyone here set up an account and enter
their own data. Imagine if we had an
accurate listing of hardiness, flowering dates, harvest dates ect that can be
searched by zone and location! The
framework is there, we just have to provide the data.

As mentioned earlier the winter was much easier than that of
2014-2015. Of additional benefit was the
nice gradual transition to winter last fall as well as the extreme gradual arrival
of spring which allowed for a late breaking of dormancy. That said during the melt we had morning
temperatures of 1 degree Celsius while 7 days later we had daytime highs of 29
Celsius! So for example while last year
my rhubarb crown break was May 1, this year it was May 10th, the grape that had
first leaf May 9 last year was May 21 this year and my Kappa chum which flowered
May 9 last year flowered May 21. So
roughly a 2 week delay compared to spring 2015.

So now for the big report:

Apple - Pristine Bud9-
DR (Planted May 2015 from Whiffletree) –
Survived. No dieback. Single flower.

Apple - Redfree Bud9-
DR (Planted May 2015 from Whiffletree) –
Survived. No dieback. Couple flowers. 3 fruit growing. First fruit harvested September 2. Seeds just starting to turn brown. 90g.
12 Brix. Tasting note: Very
crisp. Mild apple flavour. More acid than sweet but not puckering (eg.
still sweeter than mcintosh). I liked
it.

Apple - Crimson crisp Bud9- DR (Planted May 2015 from
Whiffletree) – Survived. No
dieback. Tons of flowers. This looks to be a GREAT pollinator as the
flowers lasted a long time too. 2
apples.

Apple - Liberty
M27?- DR (Planted Fall 2012 - Green Barn) – Survived. No dieback.
Tons of flowers. Formed TONS of
fruit. I think this is on M27 as it
seems to have maxed out height around 6 feet.
I thinned the fruit to 1 per cluster and they are sizing up nicely. I am testing bagging with some apples in
ziplocks, some apples in Organza bags and some left exposed. The exposed apples despite being “disease
resistant” were heavily attacked – some on higher branches and fully exposed
are 1/4 the size of bagged apples. No
difference between ziplock and Organza bags but the Organza bags were way
easier to install and look much better on the tree.

Unbagged and exposed

Apple - Egremont russet Bud9- H (Planted May 2015 from
Whiffletree) – Survived. No
dieback. Few flowers. No fruit.

Apple - MacFree M7 or M26?- DR (Planted Fall 2012 - alive
and doing well) Green Barn. – Survived.
No dieback. Few flowers. 2 apples.

Apple - Goldrush Bud9 - DR (Planted May 2015 from
Whiffletree) – Survived. No dieback. No flowers.

Apple - Enterprise M7 - DR (Planted May 2015 from
Whiffletree) (M7 is shipping error, it should have been Bud9) – Survived. No dieback.
No flowers.

April 27 I grafted: M360, Prarie Sensation, Norkent,
Williams Pride, Ashmeads Kernel, Calville Blanc d’hiver, Fireside, WolfRiver.
(Scion from Konrad and O’Keefe Grange)

Liberty
and Macfree leafing out May 14 instead of May 9 last year.

May 24 – Hand pollinated Liberty, Redfree, Crimson Crisp and Macfree using
a combination of wild crabapple and Crimson Crisp pollen.

Pear - Hayatama (Planted May 2014 from pepiniere ancestrale) Die back to graft union in 2015 and

2016. It had 2-3 feet of growth but
      appears to have either died back or had fireblight. Just does not seem hardy enough. I will give it 1 more year then let the
      rootstock sucker and graft something else.

Pear - Northbrite (OHXF 87?
Planted Fall 2012 Green Barn).
Has been struggling but last year put on 2 feet of growth on 1 shoot. No
dieback on that shoot over winter. This
year has shot up to 5 feet tall with some nice laterals.

Pear - Kenko (PYRUS BETULAFOLIA? Planted Spring 2013 Green Barn) Has been struggling but last year put on 7 feet of growth between 2 shoots, each with 1 cm diameter shoot. BUT had damage/fireblight on the trunk at the bud sites that then spreads around the trunk and kills everything above it. Just does not seem hardy enough. I tried cutting below the lowest damaged area to see what happens. It has again put on 4 feet of growth this year and I wonder if I can get a thick enough trunk with no green wood that it will survive better. Not quite ready to give up yet.

After cutting off below last infected/dead point.

Pear - Taylor Apple (PYRUS BETULAFOLIA? Planted Spring 2013 Green Barn) Has been struggling but last year put on 3 feet of growth with 1 cm diameter shoot. No dieback over winter. This year has really taken off. Growth up to nearly 7 feet with nearly 1” trunk. Several nice laterals and some fruiting spurs. No evidence of disease. Will see what happens this winter, I will probably try grafting some other Asian pears on a couple laterals to see if I can get better cold tolerance and some pollinators.

Pear - Moonglow (Planted fall 2014 Whiffletree) - died back to graft over winter 2015 but sent up shoots that have survived last winter though I think they are rootstock. Has continued to struggle and will be torn out this fall.

Plum - Toka (myrobalan - Planted
May 2014 from pepiniere ancestrale).
Survived. No dieback. Few flowers.
I grafted Mont Royal (died) from
Konrad.

Plum - Superior
(myrobalan - Planted May 2014 from pepiniere ancestrale) Survived. No dieback.
It put on 7 feet of growth last year and it killed me to do so but I cut
it back to 2 feet this spring to grow in an open vase. I sacrificed a lot of potential plums this
year with this decision but it will pay dividends in the future. Several flowers on wood I left behind. This summer another massive growth year with
6+ feet of growth. This is a crazy
vigorous plant that is 2x the size of Kahinta and 4x the size of Toka. Hope to get get some plums next year. I grafted Mont Royal
(1’ growth) and M800 (2’ growth) from Konrad to this.

Plum - Kahinta (myrobalan -
Planted May 2014 from pepiniere ancestrale) Survived. No dieback.
Few flowers. Starting to add more
growth with nearly 5’ shoots this year.
I grafted Green Gage (6” growth) from Konrad to this.

Plum – Black Ice (Planted
May 2015 from Whiffletree).
Survived. No dieback. No flowers.
Very bushy upright growth. Heavy
pruning to open it up. No flowers. 2 feet of thin growth this summer. Really seems to want to be a bushy
plant. Grafted Nigra plum (2’ growth)
from Konrad.

Again, these plums are all planted in the wettest area of my
clay yard. Standing water late fall and
spring. So far so good. I tried hand pollinating the flowers this
year but no luck. Crossing my fingers
for next year. I grafted all plums on
May 8th as buds were just starting to leaf out. Of the 5 grafts attempted 4 took.

Chum - Kappa (Planted Fall 2012 - Green Barn) Survived. No dieback.
Tons of flowers.

Chum - Convoy (Planted Fall 2012 Greenbarn - died. Re-planted 2014 from Whiffletree)
Survived. No dieback. Some flowers. This has grown 3 feet this
year, I am hopeful for fruit next year.

Chum - Sapalta (Planted May 2013 Green Barn) Survived. No dieback.
Tons of flowers.

Sapalta was peak flower May 14 of 2015 but May 22 this
year. I only had successful pollination
of a total of 5 plums between Sapalta and Kappa and all got eaten by bugs. I am shocked that despite the massive
flowering, pollenization was so poor. I
don’t know if it is a lack of bees or they are just poor pollenizers. I will try hand pollenating next year.

Haskasp – Tundra (Planted Fall 2013 from prairieplant.com) Survived. No dieback.
Tons of flowers.

Haskasp – Aurora (Planted Fall 2014 from Whiffletree) Survived. No dieback.
Tons of flowers.

Haskasp – Honeybee (Planted Fall 2013 from prairieplant.com)
Survived. No dieback. Tons of flowers.

Haskasp – Borealis (Planted Fall 2013 from prairieplant.com)
Survived. No dieback. Tons of flowers.

All the Haskasps were flowering around May 14 with Tundra
perhaps a bit later. Aurora and Tundra seem to have the longest
bloom time. The plants are still pretty
small, about 18-24” tall. The new
varieties Boreal Blizzart and Boreal Beauty seem to be amazing with much
larger/sweeter fruit and flowering 2-4 weeks later! I just don’t have room!

Fruit was ripening June 15-20 but still tasted pretty
sour. I heard leaving them on the bush
made a difference so I left them longer.
Well the day later the birds discovered them and took about 50%. I netted them quickly but will be sure to do
so earlier next year. On July 1st
I harvested the rest except for some Aurora's
which were still ripening.

The ones labelled Honey Bee in my photos are actually
Borealis. I also had Tundra and Aurora.

Aurora
is by far the largest. Tundra and
Borealis were similar in size. Taste
test with my wife: For fresh eating Aurora
won hands done. Borealis perhaps had a
slight edge over Tundra. Measuring Brix
Aurora (17, 14), Tundra (9, 9.8, 11.8), Borealis (12, 12, 11.2) so you can see
why Aurora was
more pleasant. In the end we ate the Aurora's fresh and I made
a compote with the other 2 by mixing 1 part berries to 0.5 part sugar by weight
and it was nice and tasty and acidic.

Yield post bird attack was tiny. Aurora
5 berries (8 grams), Tundra (41 grams), Borealis (32 grams). All are about 3 year old plants.

Saskatoon/Service/June berries – Northline (Planted May 2014
from saskatoonfarm.com)

Crappy shipping from saskatoonfarm (Plants were shipped bare
root with NO MEDIA/moisture for roots. Shipping
was by Greyhound and it took over 1 week.
They arrived bone dry). Only 1
leafed out and it struggled since so I just planted it in the bush. July 13 I went to take a look at it and found
it had actually fruited. Only a small
handful and the fruit was over-ripe but it was delicious with a really nice
nutty almond flavour. Really nice so I
am going to plant some more.

Elderberry – Wyldwood (Planted May 2015 from Whiffletree)
Survived. No dieback. Put on 4 feet of growth. Flowering first week of July and continued
flowering until the first week of August.
Started having ripe fruit last week of August and is continuing to
stagger ripening into mid September.

Elderberry - Bob Gordon (Planted May 2015 from Whiffletree) Survived. No dieback. Flowering last week of June and continued flowering until mid August. Started having ripe fruit last week of August with bulk of fruit ripening at once. The mid august flowers did not get pollinated and formed no fruit.

Bob Gordon are the big suckers left and right, Wyldwood is small in front and in back. Bob Gordon came as bare root vs Wyldwood as plugs so size will probably catch up.

Wyldwood

Bob Gordon

Syrup

Infused vodka - starting

Total yield from 4 plants as of Sept 6 is 1238g (a couple
hundred more grams is still ripening). Inedible
fresh. Instead made into a syrup for ice
cream and for adding to sparkling water as a refreshing drink. Delicious.
Blackberry flavors.

Black Raspberry - ? (Planted Fall 2012 Green barn)

Purple Raspberry - ? (Planted Fall 2012 Green barn)

Purple Raspberry – Royalty (Planted May 2014 pepiniere
ancestrale)

All are doing well.
Some dieback at tips of certain canes but only some canes and then only
12-18” on 6 foot tall canes so it is nothing.
These are planted right next to either a south facing or a west facing
brick wall so there are MAJOR temperature swings during winter and spring and
yet they still do fine. I think the west
facing purple raspberries were water stressed last year so I put in an
irrigation system this year and it helped some but yields were slightly down.

Total yield of 7.4 kg.
Down from 9.8 kg last year. The
Japanese beetles were bad again this year.

Grapes.

So I am growing my grapes for cold climate. They are multi-trunk (aiming for 4 trunks),
on a Geneva double curtain trellis (trunk 1 left wire south, truck 2 left wire
north, trunk 3 right wire south, trunk 4 left wire north). Then I am trying 2 different pruning
methods. 2 trunks spur pruned, 2 trunks
cane pruning. Then I am leaving 2 canes
standing all winter (1 cane, 1 spur) and I lay down 2 canes for additional
protection (1 cane, 1 spur). Finally to
delay bud break I prune late winter to 5 buds from where I want to end up and
then just as I am seeing bud swelling I prune again down to 2 buds. Only 2 of my vines are old enough to have
made it all the way to this 4 trunk combination. Others are only at 1-2 trunks but you have an
idea of what I am trying to do.

May 8 – Grapes that were protected over winter are at wolly
bud stage while the exposed vines are mostly still dormant. Trimmed back all spurs to 2 buds.

Finally, I have found that trunks left up had bud burst
delay by 7-10 days. However, “Polar
Green”, Concord Seedless, and “Pink Pearl” showed greater than 50% fruit bud
death in the exposed trunks vs those layed down on the ground (less than 10%). Somerset
showed no difference but the vine is somewhat sheltered under an oak tree. From now on I will by laying ALL my trunks
down each year and accepting the earlier bud break and using frost covers to
try and protect from any early frosts.

FROST PROTECTION

Grape – Sommerset (Planted Fall 2012 Greenbarn). 3 trunks.
No dieback on exposed or protected.
Bud break at same time on both protected and exposed trunks. So far this is NOT a vigorous vine. Only 2-3 feet of growth this year. Could be because it is planted within the
drip line of a Red Oak tree so it is competing for water and while gets full
sun up to 2pm, afterwards it only gets diffused sun from 2pm onwards.

My Somerset
grapes were amazing. They started
changing color July 28 and I started harvesting August 8th and finished with
the last bunch from the vine September 4. Early they are a paler red with a
slightly spicy flavour with definite strawberry flavours. Early brix of 20-21.
Later they turn darker red and become more aromatic. Sugar increased to a peak
brix of 23. Acidity decreased and strawberry flavour was more prominent. My
wife and I probably had a slight preference for the earlier taste but they were
still winners later. They are a non-slipskin grape with a slightly crunchy
texture. As of Sept 4 some grapes in the last hanging bunch were starting to
shrivel. An absoluty wonderful grape and one that every cold weather gardener
should have in their yard. I took samples to work and there were 100% unanimous
amazement at the flavour and texture. Several people asked how they could buy
vines for their backyard.

August 8

August 25

September 4

I got about 19 (small) bunches weighing a total of 935g. Expecting more next year.

Grape – Reliance (Planted May 2015 from Whiffletree). Vigorous plant with 10’+ growth. Should fruit next year.

Grape - Pink Pearl (Planted Fall 2012
Greenbarn). Vigorous plant with 10’+
growth. Tight clusters – would benefit from
thinning. Not sure if it is the right
plant as grapes are DARK purple when ripe (not pink) and have small seeds. Started changing color first week of August. Ready to eat about 2 weeks after Somerset (4th week
August) when grapes have been purple a while and develop a sweeter more concord
like flavour. Sept 6 still have some
bunches hanging.

Grape - Polar Green (Planted Fall 2012 Greenbarn) 4
trunks.

Tight clusters – would benefit from thinning. A certain percentage of bunches have sections
drop during ripening. Absolutly NOT a green grape. Has small seeds.

Started changing color first week of August. Ready to eat about 2 weeks after Somerset (4th week
August) but a bit later than Pink Pearl when grapes have been purple a while
and develop a sweeter more concord like flavour. Sept 6 still have some bunches hanging.

I wonder if this might be the same grape as “Pink Pearl” but
the leaves are a bit different and the clusters seem to fall apart a bit so I
am not sure.

Grape – Earliblue (Planted Fall 2012 Greenbarn) – 2
trunks. Died. Pulled up.

Grape – Catawba (Planted May 2015 from Whiffletree). 1
trunks. Unclear if survived – no bud
break yet. When planted did not realize
this grape ripens 3 weeks AFTER Concord.
Doubt I have the season for it. Will try next year and if too short will pull
out. This is why I am looking forward to
more people using http://www.gardenregister.com/.

Grape - Concord
seedless (Planted May 2014 from Whiffletree). Very vigorous vine with 8’+ of growth. Large grapes in loose clusters. Started changing color last week of August.

Grape – Concord.
Nursery vine bought on sale at end of
season last year. Planted in a pot
simply to give me a benchmark to compare ripening of my other grapes too. Will probably end up removing. May be ripening earlier due to being I a pot
with warmer roots but I do not know. Started changing color first week of September.

Grape – Vanessa (Planted May 2015 from Whiffletree). Vigorous plant with 10’+ growth.

Grape - Petite Jewel (Planted May 2015 from Whiffletree)

Grape - Bluebell (Planted May 2016 from Cornhill nursery). Just planted this spring. It was a small plant so to early to say about
vigor but I do have 2 shoots that have reached my 6’ top wire.

Grape – Valliant (Planted May 2016 from Cornhill nursery). Just planted this spring. It was a small plant so to early to say about
vigor. Has not reached the 6’ wire.

Grape – Swenson Red (Planted May 2016 from Cornhill nursery).
Just planted this spring. It was a small plant so to early to say about
vigor. Has not reached the 6’ wire.

Blueberries – Chandler (Planted Fall 2012
Greenbarn) Survived. Flowering but not
thriving. Couple berries first week of
August.

Blueberries – Northsky (Planted Fall 2012 Greenbarn) Survived.
Flowering. Tiny berries (1/4
inch) on a tiny plant. Pulled out.

Blueberries – Toro (Planted Fall 2012 Greenbarn)
Survived. Flowering but not
thriving. Got a handful of berries first
week of August. They don’t like my soil.

Blueberries – Patriot (Planted Fall 2012 Greenbar)
Survived. Flowering but not
thriving.

No fruit. Pulled out.

Blueberries – Pinklimonade (Planted fall 2013 from
local) Looks like dieback over winter
again. No berries. Not hardy for zone 4. Pulled out.

Blueberries – Duke (Planted May 2014 from Costco) Survived.
Flowering but not thriving. Got a
handful of berries first week of August.
They don’t like my soil.

Cherry – Romeo (Planted Fall 2013 from prairieplant.com) Survived. No dieback.
Few flowers. No fruit still.

Cherry – Cupid (Planted Fall 2013 from prairieplant.com) Survived. No dieback.
Few flowers. No fruit still.

Cherry – Juliet (Planted Fall 2013 from prairieplant.com) – Survived. No dieback.
No fruit still.

Cherry - Crimson Passion (Planted Fall 2013 from prairieplant.com)
– Survived. No dieback. Few flowers.
No fruit still.

Still growing. The
deer LOVE these so they keep getting haircuts which is not helping them
much. Going to try and fence them
better.

Seaberries - (Planted Fall 2012 Greenbarn – Survived winter).

Appear to be males.
Planted in a rural area on heavy clay with no irrigation. Growing like crazy. These are TOUGH. Bone dry soil for weeks at a time, nutrient
poor – not even grass is growing but these still grow.

Mulberry - Seedling (Planted Fall 2012 Greenbarn) Survived.
No dieback. THIS IS A MALE. Man I am ticked off with Greenbarn. Totally useless and they wasted 4 years. I got tons of flowers/fruiting bodies which
dried up and fell off. Looks like a
male. I’ve trained this plant for 4
years and the trunk is approaching 3 inches in diameter. Need to decide if I top work or simply graft
to a sucker. Advice anyone?

Great trunk - too bad MALE!

Graft this baby and cut down the trunk (and live a million suckers)?

Plumcot - Taylors
Gold (MARIANA 26-24? Planted Fall 2014
from Whiffletree) Survived. No
dieback. Really taking off this
year. 4’+ of growth. Coming along nicely into an open vase. Going to try grafting apricots to a couple
branches if I can get some scions.

Strawberry – Albion
– Everbearing (Planted May 2014 from Costco – survived winter)

Strawberry - All Star – June bearing (Planted May 2014 from
Costco – survived winter)

I left these uncovered this winter and the runners
survived. First year fruit size is fine
but 2nd year they go tiny. I also
lose too many to birds to make it worthwhile so I am pulling them out.

Rubarb - Victoria? (crown has been propagated in family for
+80 years over 4 different moves!)
Survived and thriving. 13.274 kg
harvested with at least 1 more harvest to go.

Rubarb - Strawberry Red (Planted May 2014 from Costco) Dead.

Heartnut – Imshu (Planted May 2014 from Whiffletree – did
not survive winter 2015) Sending up shoots from roots.

Heartnut - Campbell CW-3 (Planted May 2014 from Whiffletree
– did not survive winter 2015) Sending
up shoots from roots.

Medlar - Giant Breda
(Planted May 2014 from Whiffletree – died back to graft 2015). Struggling along. Probably will die.

Medlar - Royal (Planted May 2014 from Whiffletree – died
back to graft 2015). Struggling along.
Probably will die.

Heartnut and Medlar are planted on a rural property in quite
sandy soil. They got heavily eaten by
deer in the fall 2014. Some mice damage
over winter 2015. I saw some re-growth
from the graft of the medlars last year and they seem to be leafing out this
spring from those shoots. The Heartnuts
both died down to ground last year but then sent up shoots from the seedling
roots. Those shoots appeared to survive
this winter and I am letting the grow to see what happens.

Gooseberry - Black Velvet (Planted Fall 2014 from
Whiffletree) Survived. No dieback. Lots of fruit. Small and tart despite reaching 16 brix 4th
week of July. Ripens last week of July –
1st week August. To tart for
me and my wife for fresh eating but makes a great jam.

Gooseberry – Tixia (Planted Fall 2014 from Whiffletree) Survived. No dieback.
Many flowers. Started ripening
July 13. Fruit looks like Poorman but
more tart. Ripens last 2 weeks of July.

Gooseberry – Poorman (Planted Fall 2014 from Whiffletree) Survived. No dieback.
Many flowers. Ripens last 2 weeks
of July and reached 16.5 brix. Much less
acidity and was great for fresh eating.

I had HUGE issues with currant worms. They defoliated 50% of my plants before I
caught them. Interestingly, while EVERY
Gooseberry leaf had 1 if not 2 worms, the black currants and Jostaberries had
NO worms. I wonder if the Gooseberry
served as a trap crop? I picked them off
and dropped in soapy water, after 3 days of doing this I had 90%+ control.

Currant - Ben Cowan (Planted Fall 2013 from local) Survived.
No dieback. Many flowers. Harvest began July 12. Total 384g. This is a small plant, planted in my clay soil
from a crappy potted nursery stock.

Currant - Ben Sarek (Planted Fall 2014 from Whiffletree)
Survived. No dieback. Many flowers. This is shorter plant than
Titania with a more spreading nature. Harvest
started 3rd week July. 1097g. 12 Brix.

Currant – Titania (Planted Fall 2014 from Whiffletree)
Survived and flourishing. No
dieback. Tall, upright canes. Needs to be staked/supported or the weight of
MASSIVE crop will lay the canes to the ground. 2576g from 1 plant! Peak harvest 3rd week July with
some later ripening in 4th week. 15 Brix.
I LOVE this plant!

Currant – Tiben (Planted Spring 2016 from Whiffletree). Only planted this year. I did get some currants but were small and
hard, not sure if representative.

I LOVE currants. Easy
to grow, you can’t buy them in stores and they laugh at early season
frosts.

Josta Berry
- (Planted Fall 2014 from Whiffletree – survived winter). Survived and flourishing. No dieback.
Many flowers but hardly any fruit!
I have 2 of these planted. They
now spread 5 feet x 5 feet. Each plant
takes up nearly 2x the area as Titania but Titania gave me 2.5kg of fruit and
each of these gave me 8 berries! EIGHT
berries!?! They are right next to
Titania, Tiben and Ben Sarek so it can’t be pollenization. The berries produced were only as big as my
large Titania berries and not even that good. I am giving them 1 more year but if they don’t
shape up they are being torn out.

Paw Paw – Seedling (Planted May 2014 from Whiffletree) - Survived.
No dieback. Really taking off
this year. Nice healthy looking plant
now reaching 2 feet tall.

Paw Paw - Campbell NC-1 (Planted May 2014 from Whiffletree)
– Struggling. Hardly any growth each
year. I am going to try grafting it to
some of the branches of my seedling to make sure I have future pollinators.

Garlic – Nothing like home grown garlic instead of that
no-flavour Chinese garbage. Plant in
fall and harvest in summer. Break open
your big bulbs in fall and replant. Yum,
Yum!

I just had 2 big projects this year. First is irrigation. Last year I installed 700 feet of underground
soaker for a cedar hedge around my backyard.
This year I have tied into this soaker hose in 5 places to bring water
to other areas. I placed a manual valve
at the tie in point then ran ½ inch non-perforated pipe underground and then
put spray heads at each tree/large shrubs and drip outlets to my smaller
shrubs. In total about another 500 feet
of underground piping but now to water 1 zone I just have to flip a valve and
come back in 3 hours to turn it off.

My other big project was grafting as I mentioned in my
earlier post. 8 different apple
varieties but with the amount of wood I had it was about 25 different grafts. 4 different plums in 5 grafts. So far amazingly I have around 95% take! I tried a variety of methods. Inside where it was warm I wrapped the scion
wood including both ends fully in parafilm (http://www.superiorvalueproducts.com/2-x-250-Role-of-Parafilm-M-Laboratory-Wrap-Part-Number-PM992_p_2288.html).
$26 +$16 shipping for 2” x 250’. I cut into 1” strips so 500’ will last me a
while. This was to avoid damaging the
graft union site after and to avoid having to use grafting wax/paint (which I
could not find locally). Then on the day
of grafting I would just cut the length of wood I wanted and wrap the exposed
terminal end in another piece of parafilm.
I would do the graft (a mix of cleft, whip and some using a grafting
tool (https://www.amazon.ca/Professional-Pruner-Grafting-Cutting-Blades/dp/B00NL8OAOA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1473184239&sr=8-1&keywords=grafting+tool)
to cut specific male/female shapes. I then tightly wrapped the junction from
about 1” below the graft site in parafilm up to 1-2 cm above the site then
tightly wrapped the union in black electrical tape. My
grafting “knife” was simply an exactoknife (boxcutter) that I dipped in pinesol
between each cut. My wedge to open
clefts was simply the one blade of scissor hammered into the wood, frequently
one side would get the cambium torn up a bit but the other side was fine. This cheap and dirty method seems to have
worked fine so far.

Exacto-knife

Special tool

95% of my plum and apple grafts took. No difference between cleft, whip or the
special tool grafts. Given ease and
better sterilization I will stick with the exacto knife from now on.

For bugs my main battle is with Japanese beetles. Started June 23 and are just finishing now Sept 6. I can’t imagine what gardening would have been
like before they came. Must have been
heaven. For control I simply walk 1-2x
per day with a bucket of soapy water and tap the leaves to knock them into the
bucket. I have 1 acre surrounded by acreages. Nematode treatment would cost a fortune and
probably not work that well for me.

This is 1 days killing work

The only spraying I do is 1 time with dormant oil at the end
of winter to all my trees. I then bag
all my grapes and apples. When I have them I will probably bag pears and plums
too.

To reiterate on the subject of bagging fruit. Ziplocks caused my grapes to rot. Organza bags were perfect. http://www.yourorganzabag.com/organzabag.htm.
I used Moss Green as they are not visible in the foliage. I used the 6x9 bags
but are they are a bit short for long grapes. Perfect for plums and apples and
small bunches of grapes. I think they would work awesome for peaches as they
breath very well but keep the bugs/birds out. After 3 months exposed to
environment they still look new. So far
with apples there is no difference between ziplocks and Organza bags except the
Organza bags are much easier to install, you can tie the string around the
branch to less drop due to wind/squirrels, and they look MUCH better. I will be using Organza bags 100% for my fruit
bagging needs.

Ziplock

Organza

So there you go. My
backyard orchard is maturing nicely.
Production should be ramping up nicely but I am probably still 2-3 years
away from everything starting to produce in decent quantities. I am pretty much out of space now but seeing
how easy grafting was, I will be getting a bunch of different apples and plums
for next year. After lusting over Konrad
and Matt’s apricot photos I am going to try grafting some of those too.

Until next time.

Couldn't agree more on somerset grapes. Out of everything I've planted those are by far my favorite fruit that I'm growing and I'm not really a big grape fan. I planted them because thats what my wife likes, but they turned out to be one of the best things ive ever tasted, they taste like strawberry soda to me. I'm also having the same issue with my romance cherry bushes, deer won't leave them alone and I hate having to leave them covered in chicken wire, you wouldn't think deer would be an issue in town. The few haskap I harvested this year were very sour and not what I expected them to taste like at all, hopefully that's just because they're young plants or I picked the fruit a little too soon, there was a hint of purple on them yet. Out of my 6 - 3 year old old blueberris I only harvested about 1 pint this year, I think those might need to be in containers or raised beds to keep the ph more ideal, I'll give them another year.

Well my apple season is coming to a close. I am leaving 4 Liberty apples hanging on the tree to see how
they evolve. But those 4 apples and some
rhubarb are all that are left.

I only got 4 types of apples this year but looking at bud
development I hope to have many more types to taste next year.

We had our first frost October 10 with 4 more nights of
frost that same week.

From early to late:

Redfree: I only had 3 of these apples. In august they had not fully changed color
and did not release easily so I left longer.
First I picked September 2 and the seeds were just starting to turn
brown. 90g. 12 Brix. Tasting note: Very crisp. Mild apple flavour. More acid
than sweet but not puckering (eg. still sweeter than mcintosh). I liked it. I finally
picked the other two on September 11. One
apple was fully red, sweet but softer and borderline mealy. 14 brix.
I believe it was over-ripe. The 2nd
apple had some green to it, was crisp with a nice balance of sweet and acid. 12 brix.
With only 2 apples I really could not comment much on them. From this experience I would say Redfree
ripening date this years was 2nd week of September after hand pollinating May
24 (110 days)

Redfree 12 brix apple

Redfree 14 brix apple

12 brix seeds left, 14 brix seeds right

Crimson Crisp: I only
had 2 of these apples. They are supposed
to ripen late September into October but I picked one on September 15 because
it was mostly red and released easily. The
seeds were all brown. Apple looks a bit
like a small red delicious. 126g. It was VERY dense and slightly sour. I picked the second apple September 24. It was now fully red. 95g. Very
sweet at 14 brix with very little acid and yet extremely crisp and crunchy with
a very nice flavour reminiscent of a good red delicious. I am looking forward to having more next
year! From this experience I would say Crimson
crisp ripening date this years was 4th week of September after hand pollinating
May 24 (123 days)

Crimson Crisp Sept 15 apple

Crimson Crisp Sept 24 apple

Liberty:
This was my main apple producer this year. It is a tiny tree – I think on M27 as it tops
out around 6 feet. Covered in
apples. I only bagged about half to see
the difference between protected and non-protected and there is a huge
difference. Non protected were occasionally
½ the size, malformed and with some bad cracking and bug damage. First apple tasted was a windfall on September
4 and was sour. Picked again September
21 but seeds still not brown. 11
brix. Dry, not juicy. Tangy.
Picked again September 30 and now it was crisper and jucy but still very
tart and some seeds were dark but others light. 12 brix.
October 10 I picked more. The
ziplock protected apples were darker red, crisp, jucy and sweet. The organza protected apples were slightly less
red, softer and sweeter. October 11
picked again and the Ziploc was more red, less crisp and very sweet. The organza apple was less red, some skin
damage a bit more acid. On the 11th
both were 15 brix. I trimmed an
unprotected apple that was damaged and still had some green and it was very
crisp and nice balance of sweet and tang. From this experience I would say Liberty ripening date
this years was 2nd week of October after hand pollinating May 24 (140
days)

Liberty Sept 30 unpolished

Liberty Sept 30 polished - Yummy!

Liberty Oct 4 ziplock protected left, unprotected right

Liberty Oct 11 unprotected left, organza middle (note cosmetic damage done through the bag and less red coloration), ziplock protected right

Macfree: I only had 2 apples. My first apple I picked October 13. Pretty apple.
Striated skin but the “green” is less green than Liberty but more a golden yellow/brown. 100g. 14 brix.
Tasting sweeter with less acid than Liberty.
Softer and less crisp than Liberty,
a bit more like a McIntosh you get from the store. Flavour difficult to describe. Inoffensive, pleasing and pleasant. Ate alternating slice by slice with Liberty in combination
with a sharp cheese and both were delicious. Different enough in flavour profile and
texture that you could grow both. I
think people who like slightly tart apples would prefer Liberty for the taste and crispness. 2nd apple was 153g and I picked October

14. From this experience I would say Macfree
    ripening date this years was 2nd week of October after hand pollinating
    May 24 (140 days)

Macfree Oct 13

Continuing my grape report from the last post.

So called Polar green (which is purple) continued to improve. September 4 was sweet, grapy and delicious. September 10 was 21 brix and very good. September 15 was 22 brix and starting to shrivel a bit. I would say best eating was first 2 weeks of September. Biggest problem with this grape is that the bunches have some grapes/clusters that break/drop in wind and after rains.

So called Pink pearl (which is purple) started shrivelling around Sept 10 and peaked at 19-20 brix. Peak flavour was probably last week of August and first week of September.

Concord seedless (which has seeds) started being edible September 15 at 17 brix. Became darker and racoons starting climbing the vines to get them September 20 at 16 brix but delicious with a very Concord taste. September 24 18 brix and some were starting to schrivel a bit but very delicious. September 30 18 brix and at their peak. Grapes would split when being pulled from the bunch. Absolutely delicious. I would say ripe 3rd and 4th week of September.

Concord. Exact same dates as my “Concord seedless” which makes me think my “seedless” is actually standard Concord. Although ripening was more uniform with my “seedless”.

Petite Jewel is probably actually Petite Pearl as my grapes are seeded. Small, tight clusters of very sweet grapes with nearly 25-50% seed mass in the grape. Harvested October 14 – 25 brix. I will be pulling this out as I want table grapes.

I am still harvesting Rhubarb so by far that is my heroic fruit of the year. Started harvest May 26 and still harvesting as of October 15!

So with harvest over, I am now starting to plan my scion wood orders for 2016. Pears, apples, plums, apricots. I can’t wait!

Please, let me know what you are gonna order, I am just curious! :)

thanks for the good info HFK I have currently 40 apples, 12 plums,2 pears, 3 cherries, and 10 grapes.

The breakdown you give on fruit quality is extremely helpful. I look at many nursery sites to research fruit varieties that I might like to plant. Most have a generic write up and of course there are not usually any negative comments unless it pertains to disease resistance. I do realize that an apple grown by me does not necessarily have the same qualities as one grown in another zone, yet I value an unbiased opinion like yours.

Thanks ubro(2a), I really appreciate your comments. I wish people would put out more "if you like X you will probably like Y". I also try to put dates from flower to ripeness as well as ripening in relation to a benchmark (eg. Concord) as opposed to Early, Mid, Late so that people know if they have the season to ripen the fruit. Thanks again and check back next year, there will be another report for sure. The fun is just starting!!! So exited about a new year as my stuff matures!

Awesome report! Very jealous of the variety of apples you have available to you. And 3 hours of soaking! Hard to imagine, down here in Southern California, I have 5 minutes twice a week.... I have to supplement with hand watering, but I have a small lot with much much fewer trees, so it's not too onerous.

Well jealousy goes both way. No figs or citrus for me. That and first frost was Oct 10 and spring thaw will be April 10 or so. That means my growing season is over for the next SIX months!

hfc, I did the days from flower to fruit this year on the apples,

Discovery-126 days

Honey Gold- 137 days

Wynoochee Early -117 days

I am keeping records, with some apples it is hard to know when to pick so I hope this helps me in the long run.

hey guys where have you been? I hope you are not giving up? Please lets continue. Thank you

hungryfrozencanuck(4a)

hey bro I am counting on you. Best wishes

Just waiting for the weather to warm enough for grafting, about a week I guess, and I should be good to go. I am adding about 15 more apples this year about 6 plums and a few apricots and pears.

After a walk around the yard it looks pretty good and I am hopeful for a few new fruits.

Really loved reading through this thread. I'm in Burke, VT (3b-4a) and just bought a house. Currently I have one crab apple on the property. I live not too far from Elmore Nursery in Wolcott. I would recommend checking out there website!

I'm excited to plant a group of hazelburt in the front yard as a hedge. A small perennial food forest in the back yard. I have a small river about 50-75 yards away that gives a unique microclimate.

Thanks for the inspiration! Thought you might enjoy this film as well.

http://www.permacultureorchard.com/the-film/

:)

Thanks for the comment. Yes, I bought the film and watched it. Felt is was lacking in practical info such as varieties. Why did he not list his group planting by weeks? Eg. First 2 weeks august I have these pears, plums, apples, berries, next 2 weeks I have xxx, first 2 weeks September I have XXX, ect. Would give some guidance on what survives and ripens when here in zone 4/5. I have also hear that subsequent years have had VERY significant pest pressure so it would interesting to hear some updates. As for Elmore Nursery, can't get any plant material across the border but thanks for the tips anyways.

NOTE: This is copy/pasted from my growing fruit dot org post because it is a pain in the but to post photos on houzz and they limit the numbers. For photos just google "my-backyard-planting-experience-part-2-zone-4a-b-quebec-canada".

**2017 Report**

So another growing season begins.

First frost last fall was Oct 11, 2016, 5 days earlier than 2015 but still better than Sept 19, 2014. Last frost still to be determined. Looking like -1C this upcoming Monday and Tuesday! Just hope not like last year which was May 17, 2016 or even worse, May 23, 2015!

The winter was very long again this year. First snow was Oct 27, 2016 and last snow was April 1, 2017. This is 156 days, more than 5 months with a total snowfall of 309 cm (over 10 FEET!). Minimum temperature was only -30C and seeing as we did not get many warm spells we finished winter with nearly 5-6 feet of snow on the ground when the melt came which means all trees and shrubs survived. However, this large snow accumulation brought new problems this year because it would snow, then if it warmed or had ice rain it would form a sheet of ice that would attach to low scaffolds and then when the snowpack would settle it would rip the branches off the tree. From now on I will ensure all scaffolds start at least 3 feet off the ground.

Final melt was April 11-12 which was 2 weeks later than 2016 (near full melt April 1, 2016 but then 1 foot snow April 9 with final melt April 12-13, 2016.

Crocuses started flowering April 15 which was 2-3 days later than 2016.

One thing different this spring is the amount of rain. April had 147mm of rain, nearly 6 inches! By May 7 we are anticipated to have over 100mm of rain (4 inches) in the first week of May! I have a great deal of standing water around so I guess I am going to see truly how collar rot resistant my trees are. While they are in raised mounds, by now 90% of the roots are probably deep enough to be swimming.

<img src

<img src

I also had more vole damage than in previous years. I had protected all my regular trees but have not protected my bushes. This year I have discovered that voles like Gooseberries and they also found some 1 year old rootstocks I grafted but forgot to protect/paint. I will know better for next year. So far I have ZERO damage to plants protected with a mixture of latex paint, joint compound and water in a 1:1:1 ratio that is painted onto trunks and lower scaffolds in the late fall. No evidence of south/west injury either.

<img src

**Grafting**

Last year was my first experience with grafting and it was so easy and successful that I may have gone a bit overboard this year with grafting with over 100 grafts. Main reason for this is that I have reached a ceiling limit for the number of trees my spouse will let me plant so to add varieties I need to graft them. That and the fact that I would rather have a dozen or two of fruit from a grafted branch picked and eaten at the perfect time as opposed to having to find things to do with a whole tree all ripening at once.

This year I have added the following items to my garden by either planting trees or grafting:

**Apples**

Carroll

Chestnut

Scarlet O'Hara

Summer Red – found apple

Sweet 16

Trailman

Yellow Reinette – found apple

**Apples (zone 2)**

Altari mountain - applecrab

Amber - applecrab

September Ruby

Sunnybrook

Redstar (perhaps Red Mike)

**Euro pears**

Beedle

Golden spice

Harrow Sweet

Harvest Queen

Julienne

Krasnobokaya

Krazulya

Lucious

Patten

Dome – found pear

Vekovaya

**Asian pears**

Kikusui (or seedling of Kikusui)

Olympic

You China

**Plums**

Alderman

Brook Gold

Brook Red

Damson white

Green Gage

Gypsy Chum

La Crescent

Mirabelle

Opal

Petite de la Sour Mont Royal

Red star

Sinikka

Skiba

Sprouts Sunshine

**Apricots**

Riley apricot

Riley seedling apricot

Westcot apricot

Debbies Gold

**Peach**

Harrow Diamond

Vulcan

Chinese

**Grapes**

Brianna

Canadice

Einset

Himrod

Kay Gray

Montreal Blue

Prairie Star

Roland

Skookum

Swenson white

Trollhaugen

**Persimmon**

Seedlings

**Haskasp**

Boreal Blizard

Boreal Beauty

**Mulberry**

Illinois Everbearing

Phew. It was nearly 2 solid weeks of planting and grafting every day after work and on the weekends.

Here is an example of my crazy grafting - voila my new Frankenpear! Yes some of the scaffolds are too close but I had too much scion wood and not enough places to graft so I am going to nursery them this year and then cut the cramped branches back this fall and re-graft next spring on wood that grows this year.

<img src

**Orders**

Purchases this year were from:

Treetime.ca

Whiffletreefarmandnursery.ca

Hardyfruittrees.ca/

Silvercreeknursery.ca

Vigneschezsoi.ca

I have not received my order yet from Silvercreek or Vignes chez soi but was happy with what I received from the other 3.

Yet again Whiffletree impressed with the size and roots. I can’t recommend them enough.

The 2 bundles to the left are Antonokova and OHFX97 root stocks, then 3 persimmon seedlings then 2 Debbies Gold apricot on Mustang and then La crescent plum.

<img src

**Flowers**

It is a bit early still to tell but things are looking VERY good for this year. Last year I got berries and 4 apples (Liberty, Macfree, Redfree and Crimson crisp). No pears nor plums. This year I see A LOT of what look like flower buds on all my planted apple tree, most of my grafts that took last year and all my plums and chums. I am really crossing my fingers for no late frost this year so I can really start tasting more stuff!

**Pest protection**

Only 1 spray of dormant oil so far. I have neem oil that will probably paint on my trunks for borers. I will continue to bag my apples and grapes. I want to try spraying Surround on my plums (I had a couple plums that pollinated last year but all aborted from PC worms). Problem is that while Surround is classified as a class 4 pesticide here and should not require a certificate to purchase or use the local vendor calls it a class 3 and won’t sell it to me. As I only want to buy 1 bag it is not like I have incentive for him to more closely look at their restrictions. So I am reading a textbook and will take an exam to get my pesticide license just so I can buy stupid powdered kayolin clay that is less harmful than powdered concrete. We will see if I can get this done in time for fruiting!

So there you go. Spring report done. I’ll be back later in the summer/fall to fill in on how it goes.

hfc, Thank you very much for the detailed report. I am going to start planting fruit this year and I found out more information on your posts than I did on any other website. Would you recommend ziploc for Apples? Organza bags for everything else?

Good question. For sure the apples are prettier from the ziplocks. For fungal sensitive, ziplock probably better too. I also hear that if you leave them in the ziplock for fridge/cold-room storage they last longer too. That said the tree looks ugly with plastic bags all over, if you have apples that drop the organza bag is tied to the branch so the fruit is protected. It is also easier to install the organza bags and they don't require preparation (ziplocks need 2 corners cut for drainage + the plastic flap above the "zip" trimmed off.

I'm going to do both on all my varieties and see how they do this year. Last year the only test was with Liberty.

My grapes and any plums will be organza bags for sure.

So here is my 2017 growing report. The photo system of gardenweb/houzz SUCKS so all my pretty pictures are posted at the OTHER fruit forum which is independent and has a much better posting system. I keep cross posting here because of the help I got starting out and because some people I appreciate (Konrad, Matt, ect) still post uniquely here. Just do a Google search for the title of this post and you will find the other site with photos. No direct link from here because mods have deleted posts in the past.

Life is too busy and I like to do a nice
post with photos so it is late. But
still before the 2018 growing season! So
here is my 2017 report.

For detailed info on
first leaf and flowing information on my plants you can see my

Gardenregister
page at:

http://www.gardenregister.com/garden/hungryfrozencanuck/1/

As mentioned in my
spring 2017 post this winter was long lasting

156 days with over 10
feet of cumulative snowfall but with a rapid warm up in April.

So for example while 2015
rhubarb crown break was May 1, in 2016 May 10th, and this year was April
17! Grapes had first leaf 2015 of May 9,
in 2016 it was May 21 and this year was May 18.

Last frost was May 9th
vs May 17th in 2016. That
means from first to last frost, winter lasted 211 days in 2017 vs 214 days in

2016. First frost was Oct 1st
      vs Oct 11 in 2016. That gave a frost
      free season of 146 days in 2017 vs 148 days in 2016.

With the super wet
spring I saw nearly NO regular honey bees.
Fortunately I have planted Muscari and Daffodils which heavily attract
Bumble bees which were my main pollinator (well and the fact that I hand
pollinated most of my apples to make 100% sure).

Now that aside onto
the fruit!

Apples - This photo is
not all my apples. Just the ones from a
tasting I held at work. The favorite by
far was Crimson Crisp with Liberty
slightly edging out Macfree in 2nd place.
Egremont Golden Russet in 3rd. 6
weeks in the fridge, no one liked Pristine.
No one liked Ashemead Kernel.

Apple - Pristine Bud9- DR (Planted May 2015 from
Whiffletree) – Survived. No
dieback. Flowers started May 18 and
peaked May 27. First fruit was obtained
August 15th with mostly brown seeds.
By August 20th the fruit was beginning to drop. They are very attractive apples being golden
yellow with a rose blush. Hint of golden
delicious flavours but as time went on a very strong floral note became
predominant. Sweet tasting with brix
ranging from 11 to 14 brix. Refrigerated
apples became WAY to floral for my taste.
Not sure I will keep them. (87
days from flower to fruit).

Apple - Redfree Bud9- DR (Planted May 2015 from
Whiffletree) – Survived. No
dieback. Flowers started May 23 and
finished June 8. Fruit harvested from
August 18 to September 1. Nice red
apples averaging around 160g each. Earlier they were crisp and juicy with mild
apple flavour and not much acid. The
September apples were softening despite seeds being only about 70% brown. I liked them best when seeds were mostly
white and flesh was crisp. A bug eaten
one reached 16 brix but the average was 11-12 brix. (last year 110 days, this
year 94-106 days from flower to fruit).

Apple - Crimson crisp Bud9- DR (Planted May
2015 from Whiffletree) – Survived. No
dieback. Tons of flowers and flowers
last a LONG time. Flowers started May 23
and finished June 9. Amazing red apples,
my favourite so far. They are smaller
apples averaging around 140-160g and look like small red delicious apples but
have flavour, juice and crunch. Edible
as of September 13 with a brix of 12-13 and seeds light brown but the apples
hold extremely well onto the tree and I harvested the last apple October 26
with the seeds dark brown and 16 brix. 6
weeks hanging on the tree just fine! The
flesh is extremely firm particularly in September but it softens slightly into
October but keeps a nice crunch. Flavour
is amazing with a slight acidity and amazing sweetness that increases as time
goes on. My favourite by far. (123 days last year from flower to fruit and
113-156 days this year– tasty as of around 120 days).

Apple - Liberty M27?- DR (Planted Fall 2012 - Green
Barn) – Survived. No dieback. Much fewer flowers this year and only 4-5
apples – looks like I over cropped last year and sent it bi-annual. Flowered from May 19 – 30. First fruit tasted September 13 but only 30%
brown seeds and was sour and dry. Peak
ripeness September 27 with seeds 75% dark brown and 12 brix. Definitely a McIntosh type apple that has a
lot of acid. Tart with not much sweetness. Very juicy.
Flesh on the softer side. Around 140g. (140 days from flower to fruit
last year and 131 this year)

Apple - Egremont russet Bud9- H (Planted
May 2015 from Whiffletree) – Survived.
No dieback. Flowered from May 19
– 30. First fruit tasted October 10 and
was 19 brix! Seeds were 90% brown. Flesh dense but not crisp, cleaves
easily. Very sweet with slightly nutty
notes. Some juice but somewhat dry. Peak was probably around October 18-25 when
was much more juicy with a bit more floral notes. Brix 18. Last picked Nov 3
and would release extremely easy from tree.
At this point a bit more drying (tannic?) and much more floral and I
preferred flavour a bit earlier. Size
ranged from 99-170g with average around 140g. (159 days from flower to fruit)

Apple - MacFree pretty sure on M7- DR (Planted
Fall 2012 - alive and doing well) Green Barn. – Survived. No dieback.
This tree is in a quite shaded area so take ripening dates with a grain
of salt. Flowered from May 23 – 30. Windfall tasted Oct 18. Very McIntosh like. Acidic.
Sweet-tart at 12 brix. Rest were
harvested Nov 3 when had much less acid.
Juicy and sweet with slight acidity and crisp when eaten from the
tree. Good apple flavour like a
McIntosh. 13 brix. My wife preferred the sour/tart mid October
flavour while I like the less acidic later version. (140 days last year, 148 days this year).

Apple - Goldrush Bud9 - DR (Planted May
2015 from Whiffletree) – Survived. No
dieback. No flowers.

Apple - Enterprise M7 - DR (Planted May
2015 from Whiffletree) (M7 is shipping error, it should have been Bud9) – DIED
after a long, cold wet winter when the Bud 9 to each side have survived
fine. I have this re-grafted onto Antonovka
rootstock in the same place.

Apple – M360 (Grafted 2016) –
Survived. No dieback. Small graft.
Later blooming, 50% at May 27.
Only 1 apple picked September 19.
Very attractive apple. Red with pink
striations. Possibly a bit over ripe as
seeds were dark brown. Flesh soft with
some watercore. Nice sweet apple
flavour.

Apple – Prairie Sensation (Grafted 2016) –
Survived. No dieback. Small graft.
Flowered June 10th I think.
No fruit.

Apple – Norkent (Grafted 2016) –
Survived. No dieback. Flower May 20-27. The 2 apples were found fallen from the tree
September 8. Seems to drop easily. Very dark seeds, perhaps over ripe. Slight crunch. Very sweet with some honey flavors. Not much acid. (111 days).

Apple – Ashmeads Kernel (Grafted 2016) –
Survived. No dieback. Flowered from May 23 – 30. First fell when touched September 13. Blotchy green apple with russeting. Kind of ugly.
Some seeds were brown while others were pure white. Dry.
12 brix. 139g. Other 2 picked fully ripe Oct 11. Dark seeds.
Still ugly apple. Slightly more
juicy. Mild flavour, bit grassy tasting,
somewhat Egremont russet like (but less good) with a medium cruch. 13 brix.
I’ll give this a couple more years but so far I MUCH prefer Egremont
russet. Perhaps it was amazing for it’s
time but if this is the real flavour we have modern varieties that are much
better.

Apple – Williams pride (Grafted 2016) –
Survived. No dieback. No flowers.

Apple – Fireside (Grafted 2016) –
Survived. No dieback. No flowers.

Apple – Wolf river (Grafted 2016) –
Survived. No dieback. No flowers.

Apple – Calville Blanc d’hiver (Grafted
2016) – Survived. No dieback. No flowers.

12 new apple varieties were grafted at the
end of winter. All flowers were hand
pollinated.

Pear - Hayatama (Planted May 2014 from
pepiniere ancestrale) Die back to graft
union in 2015, 2016 and again this year.
I will cut it back in spring 2018 and graft something more resistant.

Pear - Northbrite (OHXF 87? Planted Fall 2012 Green Barn). Was struggling but last year shot up to 5
feet tall with a ton of nice laterals. No
flowers because I ended up grafting 14 different pear varieties to it.

Pear - Kenko (PYRUS BETULAFOLIA? Planted
Spring 2013 Green Barn). Has been dying
back each year. In Spring 2018 I will
cut back to graft union and graft something else.

Pear - Taylor Apple (PYRUS BETULAFOLIA?
Planted Spring 2013 Green Barn) Growth up to nearly 7 feet with nearly 1” trunk
last year with some fruiting spurs. I
grafted several varieties of asian pears.
It flowered May 16 but then began showing what could be fireblight and
ended up dying all the way back to the graft.
Spring 2018 I will cut back and graft something else.

Plum - Toka (myrobalan - Planted May 2014 from pepiniere
ancestrale). Survived. No dieback but it is not thriving anything
like Superior. Covered in flowers that peaked May 17. 1 fruit picked September 9. Cracked.
Small. Not enough to really
describe taste. 18 brix.

Plum - Superior (myrobalan - Planted May 2014 from
pepiniere ancestrale) Survived. No
dieback. Crazy vigorous with 6+ feet of
grown again this year. Covered in
flowers that peaked May 16. Several
fruit were set but all aborted unfortunately.

Plum - Kahinta (myrobalan - Planted May 2014 from pepiniere ancestrale)
Survived. No dieback. Again 5+ feet growth this year. Covered in flowers that peaked May 16. Several fruit were set but all aborted
unfortunately.

Plum – Black Ice (Planted May 2015 from Whiffletree). Survived.
No dieback. No flowers. Might have a borer as I have seen some
leaking sap on the trunk.

Again, these plums are all planted in the
wettest area of my clay yard. Standing
water late fall and spring. I tried hand
pollinating the flowers this year and forced some American plum branches to
flower by keeping inside and then placed in a vase under each tree but fruit
set was less than 2-5% for all trees.

14 new varieties of plum were grafted this
year.

Chum - Kappa (Planted Fall 2012 - Green Barn)
Survived. No dieback. Tons of flowers that peaked May 18. I tried hand pollinating the flowers this
year and forced some American plum branches to flower by keeping inside and
then placed in a vase under each tree but fruit set was less than 2-5%. First fruit August 7 with rest harvested
August 25. Around 16g each. Nearly black flesh. 17 brix.
Majority had severe cracking. Not
edible, mouth puckering, dry and tannic.
In total lost majority of fruit to abort and/or plum curlicue.

Chum - Convoy (Planted Fall 2012 Greenbarn
- died. Re-planted 2014 from
Whiffletree)

Several trunks died this year after
flowering with one trunk surviving as if the roots in those other areas died or
were eaten. Flowered heavily with peak May 21.
No fruit set.

Chum - Sapalta (Planted May 2013 Green
Barn) Survived. No dieback. Tons of flowers that peaked May 18. I tried hand pollinating the flowers this
year and forced some American plum branches to flower by keeping inside and
then placed in a vase under each tree but fruit set was less than 2-5%. Many fruit aborted and/or were hit by plum
curlicue. Only 5 fruit survived and all
suffered severe cracking and were harvested August 24. 12g each.
19 brix. Flesh deep red and
somewhat sweeter than Kappa and less tannic.

I was surprised how poorly the Chums were
pollinated with all the other plums flowering and my attempts and hand
pollinating. There was severe plum
curlicue damage and severe cracking later summer. I will keep another couple years to see what happens
and will get my license to spray with Surround WP but so far I am not
impressed.

Haskasp – Tundra (Planted Fall 2013 from prairieplant.com)
Survived. No dieback. Tons of flowers. Flowers started May 1 and peaked May 13. The bumblebees LOVE Haskasp flowers. Peak ripeness berries July 2. 0.5g/berry.
10 brix.

Haskasp – Aurora (Planted Fall 2014 from
Whiffletree) Survived. No dieback. Tons of flowers. Flowers started May 10 and peaked May 17. The bumblebees LOVE Haskasp flowers. Peak ripeness berries July 2. 1.7g/berry.
13 brix. Definitely the sweetest
of the 3 and the only one that I deem edible fresh.

Haskasp – Honeybee (Planted Fall 2013 from
prairieplant.com) Survived. Not tasty
last year so pulled out.

Haskasp – Borealis (Planted Fall 2013 from prairieplant.com)
Survived. No dieback. Tons of flowers. Flowers started May 6 and peaked May 13. The bumblebees LOVE Haskasp flowers. Peak ripeness berries July 2. 0.8g/berry.
11 brix.

Haskasp – Boreal Blizzard (Planted spring
2017 from Whiffletree). Supposed to be
later blooming and bearing. Needs Boreal
Beast to pollinate.

Haskasp – Beauty (Planted spring 2017 from
Whiffletree). Supposed to be later blooming and bearing. Needs Boreal Beast to pollinate.

Elderberry – Wyldewood (Planted May 2015 from Whiffletree) Survived. No dieback. Massive plants. They can now send up 6-8’ shoots in 1 year. Flowering June 28 with peak July 9 with some flowers continuing until late July. Started having ripe fruit last week of August and is continuing to stagger ripening into mid September.

Elderberry - Bob Gordon (Planted May 2015 from Whiffletree) Survived. No dieback. Larger plants than Wyldewood. They can now send up 10’ shoots in 1 year. Flowering a bit later than Wyldewood starting July 7 and peaking July 13. Started having ripe fruit last week of August with bulk of fruit ripening at once.

Total yield from 4 plants were 2308g in 2017 vs 1238g in 2016. I also tested covering the bunches of berries with organza bags and that resulted in 75% more berries due to being protected vs the birds. Inedible fresh. Instead made into a syrup for ice cream and for adding to sparkling water as a refreshing drink. Delicious. Blackberry flavours. I also harvested the flowers to make an Elderberry flower cordial which was AMAZING and you don’t have to fight the birds like you do for the berries. Next year I will probably harvest 50% of my flowers to make cordial.

Elderflower Recipe:

15 full heads makes 3.5-4 cups worth of flowers

6 cups of sugar

4 cups of water

30 ml of granulated citric acic

1 lemon (unwaxed). Zest then sliced into rounds.

Pluck the flowers from the stems and put aside. (some say to wash but I did not, simply picking out any visible bugs because I did not have that much. The flavour is in the pollen and I did not want to wash any away and it was a relatively small batch. The sterilization process will kill anything nasty. If you don’t want to pick the flowers off the stems or are doing large batches you probably want to rinse.)

Boil 4 cups of water and disolve 6 cups of sugar. Allow to cool.

In a non-reactive bowl add the sugar water, 30 ml of granulated citric acid and the lemon zest and slices then the flowers.

Cover the bowl with a dishtowel and place in a cool place. Allow to sit for 2-3 days stirring once per day.

Strain through chesscloth into sterilized jars and then waterbath can as you would any other liquid.

Black Raspberry - ? (Planted Fall 2012 Green barn)

Purple Raspberry - ? (Planted Fall 2012 Green barn)

Purple Raspberry – Royalty (Planted May 2014 pepiniere ancestrale)

All are doing well. Some dieback at tips of certain canes but only some canes and then only 12-18” on 6 foot tall canes so it is nothing. These are planted right next to either a south facing or a west facing brick wall so there are MAJOR temperature swings during winter and spring and yet they still do fine. I think the west facing purple raspberries were water stressed last year so I put in an irrigation system this year and it helped some but yields were slightly down. Earwigs and Japanese beetles love attacking these.

Both started around July 17 and finished after 2 weeks. Total yield 8.61 kg in 2017. Up from 7.4 kg in 2016 but still lower than 9.8 kg 2015.

Grapes.

So I am growing my grapes for cold climate. They are multi-trunk (aiming for 4 trunks each), on a Geneva double curtain trellis (trunk 1 left wire south, truck 2 left wire north, trunk 3 right wire south, trunk 4 left wire north). I have been trying 2 different pruning methods. 2 trunks spur pruned, 2 trunks cane pruning. Then I was leaving 2 canes standing all winter (1 cane, 1 spur) and laying down 2 canes for additional protection (1 cane, 1 spur).

This was my first year where I could really see the difference and for sure the 4 trunk system is definitely the way to go in my climate and with my heavy soil. Some varieties had 2 or 3 trunks die back. Others had 50% of the trunks have fruit bud death. BUT this meant I still had 1 or more trunks that survived to produce fruit! I am now growing my plants with 4 principle trunks and then allowing 2 renewal trunks to shoot up as well. I will now lay down all trunks because the trunks left standing had bad bud death. In the spring will wait to see what trunks have survived then if all 4 primary trunks survived I will cut back 1 and replace it with a renewal trunk. This means no trunk will ever be more than 4 years old so they will still be flexible enough to lay down each fall. The 2nd secondary trunk will be available if dieback was worse and I lost other trunks.

The renewal trunks I train into a “J” shape. I try to get them to take off from the base at about 90 degrees (horizontal to the ground) before training them upwards to the trellis. This makes lying them down in the fall easier without tearing at the junction. If I let them shoot straight up I find the junction angle at the base is too acute and fragile and when trying to lie some down in the fall I have broken them.

This year the bagging grapes did NOT go well. We had a TON of rain. Deluge levels. Through the summer the weather was cool with most days having one or more showers. And for the first time this means FUNGUS. Pretty sure it is downy mildew. My Reliance, Valient and Somerset grapes were hit severely with Vanessa having moderate strikes. Seedless concord (or it might be concord), Catwaba, Bluebell and Trollhaugen were unaffected. All my bunches were bagged just after grape formation and these worst affected plants were spur pruned so they were on the overgrown side with ALOT of shoots and leaves. The combination of the organza bags and high amount of leaves probably retarded the ability of the grapes to dry out and so the fungus exploded. I pulled off the bags, removed infected bunches and only put the bags back when the grapes started to change color. I lost 50% of my somerset, 60%+ Vanessa, and nearly 90% Valient and Reliance! Doh!

Grape – Somerset (Planted Fall 2012 Greenbarn). 4 trunks. Not a very vigorous plant but it is planted under the drip line of a mature tree so it fights with the roots of the tree. No dieback. Flowering June 16. Ripe 3 weeks later this year (September 1) vs August 8 in 2016. Holds well on the vine for 2-3 weeks but begins shrivelling at the end. Best in the first 10 days. Very small, dense bunches of grapes and small berries but AMAZING spicy strawberry flavour. Fully seedless. Cling skin. Nice crunchy flesh. The BEST tasting grape I have ever had so I planted a 2nd vine. 21-23 brix.

Grape – Vanessa (Planted May 2015 from Whiffletree). Moderate dieback with many lost buds. Vigorous plant with 10’+ growth. Too vigorous for spur pruning as I had problems with fungus (not as bad as Reliance) due to the dense canes and leaves so will cane prune from now on. Bunches are longer and more stringy. Did not need to be brushed as they were not dense by the end of season. Started harvest September 13 and final October 1 when some started to shrivel. Cling skin. Seedless. Good crunch. Floral notes but less prominent than Somerset. 19 – 20 brix.

Grape – Reliance (Planted May 2015 from Whiffletree). Moderate dieback with many lost buds. Very vigorous plant with 10’+ growth. Too vigorous for spur pruning as I had huge problems with fungus due to the dense canes and leaves so will cane prune from now on. Larger bunches of grapes and more densely packed – benefited from brushing the bunches to decrease density. Fruit began to be ripe September 13. Peak more around September 21 and began shrivelling September 27. Mixed cling/slip skin. Seedless. Softer than Vanessa. Floral, somewhat similar to Somerset (but not as good). Sweeter and more pleasing flavour than Vanessa. 24 brix.

Grape - Pink Pearl (Planted Fall 2012 Greenbarn). Mislabelled. I believe this is Trollhaugen. No dieback and no evident dead buds. Vigorous plant with 10’+ growth. Tight, dense clusters –benefited from both brushing and pinching the end of the bunches. Started September 13 and finished September 23 which was actually left too long. Slip skin. Small soft seed remnants. Soft flesh. Sweet with a nice concord like taste when peak ripe. Some problems with bunch shatter. 19-21 brix.

Grape – Catawba (Planted May 2015 from Whiffletree). Severe dieback with majority dead buds – only surviving below snowline. Only started turning color Sept 16 still not ripe Oct 13 after a couple frosts and leaves browning. Grapes and bunches slightly smaller than Concord. There is a reason Concord supplanted this grape in popularity. Pulled out fall 2017.

Grape - Concord seedless (Planted May 2014 from Whiffletree). No dieback but 2 western facing trunks had no bud survival while 2 eastern facing trunks had complete bud survival. Always has seeds to think might be actually be Concord but they say in some climates the seedless grapes can actually have seeds. Very vigorous vine with 8’+ of growth. Large grapes in loose clusters. Started harvest September 25 with last harvested November 3. Peak flavour from last week of October and still amazing Nov 3. Slipskin with seeds. Juicy, sweet with amazing grape flavour. 19 brix.

Grape - Bluebell (Planted May 2016 from Cornhill nursery). No dieback or bud death. Moderate vigor vine but only it’s 2nd year in the ground so a bit early to tell. Ripe as of September 23 but peak flavour September 29 but by October 1st the skin was tough, dry and somewhat unpleasant. Slipskin with seeds. Juicy and sweet with a milder Concord flavour. Concord is better but Bluebell is ripe 3-4 weeks earlier. Same size grapes and bunches as Concord. 19 brix.

Grape – Valliant (Planted May 2016 from Cornhill nursery). No dieback or bud death. Moderate vigor. Small bunches and small grapes. Large seeds. Ripe as September 9 but peak September 19. Grapey flavour but nothing in compared to Bluebell, Concord and the like. With the flavour and the seeds there is NO reason to grow this grape if you can grow Trollhaugen, Bluebell, Sommerset, Concord and the like. I would only grow this if I had no other choices. 19 brix. Pulled out fall 2017.

Grape – Swenson Red (Planted May 2016 from Cornhill nursery). No dieback but was small and fully covered by snow. Just planted this spring. It was a small plant so to early to say about vigor. Has not reached the 6’ wire.

Grape – Brianna (Planted Spring 2017 from Vignes chez soi)

Grape – Roland (Planted Spring 2017 from Vignes chez soi)

Grape – Swenson White (Planted Spring 2017 from Vignes chez soi)

Grape – Montreal Blue (Planted Spring 2017 from Vignes chez soi)

Grape – Himrod (Planted Spring 2017 from Vignes chez soi)

Grape - Candice (Planted Spring 2017 from Vignes chez soi)

Grape - Petite Jewel (Planted Spring 2017 from Vignes chez soi)

Grape – Kay gray (Planted Spring 2017 from Vignes chez soi)

Grape – Earliblue (Planted Fall 2012 Greenbarn) – 2 trunks. Died. Pulled up 2016.

Grape - Polar Green (Planted Fall 2012 Greenbarn) Mislabelled. Think was Trollhaugen. Pulled out Spring 2017.

Grape - Petite Jewel (Planted May 2015 from Whiffletree). Mislabelled as had seeds. Pulled out fall 2016

Blueberries – Chandler (Planted Fall 2012 Greenbarn) Survived. Flowering but not thriving. They don’t like my soil. Pulled out.

Blueberries – Toro (Planted Fall 2012 Greenbarn) Survived. Flowering but not thriving. They don’t like my soil. Pulled out.

Blueberries – Duke (Planted May 2014 from Costco) Survived. Flowering but not thriving. They don’t like my soil. Pulled out.

Cherry - Crimson Passion (Planted Fall 2013 from prairieplant.com) – Survived. No dieback. Few flowers starting May 17. Fruit all eaten by worms.

Cherry – Juliet (Planted Fall 2013 from prairieplant.com) – Survived. No dieback. Few flowers starting May 17.

Cherry – Romeo (Planted Fall 2013 from prairieplant.com) Survived. No dieback. Few flowers starting May 17. Fruit all eaten by worms.

Cherry – Cupid (Planted Fall 2013 from prairieplant.com) Survived. No dieback. Few flowers starting May 17 and flowers lasted the longest of the 4 sour cherries. Fruit July 31 but majority were wormy. Slight sour – hard to tell with the small amount. 5g/berry. 14 brix.

Mulberry - Seedling (Planted Fall 2012 Greenbarn) Survived. No dieback. I thought this was a male because it would flower but produce no fruit. This year it actually did produce a couple tiny fruits. Flowered June 12, fruit July 16.

Mulberry – Illinois everbearing. I severely cut back my seedling mulberry and grafted a bunch of Illinois everbearing I got from someone in Ottawa (zone 5a/b vs my 4b). They grew like crazy putting on 6-8’ of growth. The leaves are huge and with windstorm I lost several grafts due to them breaking at the union. That said I got a bunch of fruit! Flowered June 12 and started fruiting July 16 and continued bearing until August 27. Large, sweet delicious fruits that remind me somewhat of blackberries. We will see how well it survives this winter. I grafted some to suckers from the ground and am deciding if I should cut down the tree completely and change over to the sucker from the ground or just topwork the existing tree completely. It has a 4-5” trunk now so I am loath to just cut it down. I will probably give it 1 more year and decide then.

Plumcot - Taylors Gold (MARIANA 26-24? Planted Fall 2014 from Whiffletree) Survived. No dieback. Really taking off last year. Heavily cut back and I grafted 24 different plum and apricot grafts to it. Started flowering May 16. Produced some fruit but all aborted from PC attack.

Strawberry – Albion and All Star. They survive over winter but are not happy in my clay soil. The birds get all the berries too. I pulled them out to make a nursery bed for grafted apple and pear rootstocks.

Rubarb - Victoria? (crown has been propagated in family for +80 years over 4 different moves!) Survived and thriving. Crown break April 24 with first ready to harvest May 18. Over 10kg harvested. Less than last year but I had enough that I did not harvest any in August or September.

Rubarb - Strawberry Red (Planted May 2014 from Costco) Dead.

Heartnut – Imshu (Planted May 2014 from Whiffletree – did not survive winter 2015) Sending up shoots from roots.

Heartnut - Campbell CW-3 (Planted May 2014 from Whiffletree – did not survive winter 2015) Sending up shoots from roots.

Medlar - Giant Breda (Planted May 2014 from Whiffletree – died back to graft 2015). Struggling along. Probably will die.

Medlar - Royal (Planted May 2014 from Whiffletree – died back to graft 2015). Struggling along. Probably will die.

Heartnut and Medlar are planted on a rural property in quite sandy soil. They got heavily eaten by deer in the fall 2014. Some mice damage over winter 2015. I saw some re-growth from the graft of the medlars last year and they seem to be leafing out this spring from those shoots. The Heartnuts both died down to ground last year but then sent up shoots from the seedling roots. Those shoots appeared to survive this winter and I am letting the grow to see what happens.

Gooseberry - Black Velvet (Planted Fall 2014 from Whiffletree) Survived. No dieback. Lots of fruit. Small and tart despite reaching 16 brix 4th week of July. Ripens last week of July – 1st week August. To tart for me and my wife for fresh eating but makes a great jam. Need to cover because birds like them.

Gooseberry – Tixia (Planted Fall 2014 from Whiffletree) Died back this year. Perhaps the stress from being defoliated by currant worms last year?

Gooseberry – Poorman (Planted Fall 2014 from Whiffletree) Survived. No dieback. Many flowers. Ripens last 2 weeks of July and reached 16.5 brix. Much less acidity and was great for fresh eating. Need to cover because birds like them. In fact the day before I planned to harvest them the birds got 90% of them!

Less problems with currant worms this year. I regularly looked at my leaves and as soon as I say the eggs (small, poppy seed like clusters) I would remove them .

Currant - Ben Cowan (Planted Fall 2013 from local) Survived. No dieback. Many flowers. Harvest began July 12. Total 731g so double from last year. 11 brix. This is a small plant, planted in my clay soil from a crappy potted nursery stock.

Currant - Ben Sarek (Planted Fall 2014 from Whiffletree) Survived. No dieback. Many flowers. This is shorter plant than Titania with a more spreading nature. Harvest started 3rd week July. 597g in 2017 vs 1097g in 2016. Sweeter this year at 16 Brix.

Currant – Titania (Planted Fall 2014 from Whiffletree) Survived and flourishing. No dieback. Tall, upright canes. Needs to be staked/supported or the weight of MASSIVE crop will lay the canes to the ground. 2248g in 2017 vs 2576g in 2016 from 1 plant! Peak harvest 3rd week July with some later ripening in 4th week. 16 Brix. I LOVE this plant!

Currant – Tiben (Planted Spring 2016 from Whiffletree). Only planted last year. I did get some currants but were small and hard, not sure if representative. 922g and 13 brix. Bit smaller berries than Titania.

I LOVE currants. Easy to grow, you can’t buy them in stores and they laugh at early season frosts.

Josta Berry - (Planted Fall 2014 from Whiffletree – survived winter). Survived and flourishing. No dieback. Many flowers but hardly any fruit! I have 2 of these planted. They now spread 5 feet x 5 feet. Each plant takes up nearly 2x the area as Titania but Titania gave me 2.2kg of fruit and each of these gave me under 20 berries! 16 brix. They are right next to Titania, Tiben and Ben Sarek so it can’t be pollenization. The berries produced were only as big as my large Titania berries and not even that good. I tore out these wastes of space to make room for a larger garlic bed and more currants.

Paw Paw – Seedling (Planted May 2014 from Whiffletree) - Survived. No dieback. Really taking off this year. Nice healthy looking plant now reaching 2 feet tall.

Paw Paw - Campbell NC-1 (Planted May 2014 from Whiffletree) – Struggling. Hardly any growth each year. I am going to try grafting it to some of the branches of my seedling to make sure I have future pollinators.

Garlic – Nothing like home grown garlic instead of that no-flavour Chinese garbage. Plant in fall and harvest in summer. Break open your big bulbs in fall and replant. Yum, Yum!

So to summarize:

Grafted like crazy. See last years write up for my technique with parafilm. I had 95% + success with a mix of Omega tool, cleft and whip grafting. I even had apple grafts that were lost in the mail for 3 weeks take!

Bagging apples is for sure the way to go for my backyard scale orchard. The fruit was larger and in much better condition. Storing them in the fridge without removing the bags also kept them in better shape for longer with less “fridge” smell. However earwigs do love to get into the bags, they don’t seem to do damage but they and their poop is gross.

Next year I will wait to bag my grapes until they just start turning color. I will also move from spur pruning to cane pruning to try and have a less crowded canopy and better airflow to hopefully reduce fungal pressure.

For my elderberries I will be harvesting 50% of the flowers to make cordial and then leaving the rest for berries.

As an aside, I got a steamer/juicer from Amazon this year. It is much easier than doing a boil/strain. I would get 50-60% of my yield with a 30min steam, then 25-35% yield with a 2nd 30 min steam, then 15-25% yield with the 3rd 30 min steam. So really no need to steam for more than 1 hr. The steaming yields nice, clean juice and I did not notice any taste difference from the boil/strain method. That said my Apple jelly did not set because the steaming did not release pectin from the skin/steam/seeds like I got from boiling. I will have to add pectin next year. Instead I just boiled up to 220 degrees celcius and made it more of an apple caramel type thing.

My yard is full now with no further planting planned. I have some more varieties coming from the Parie Plant Repository of USask. In the next 2 years I should be able to taste most of my grafts and narrow down to what I really like and what works well in my zone.

Looking forward to what 2018 will bring.

hungryfrozencanuck, copy/pasting what I wrote on your other thread in hope more would see it. Please, what do you think?

Hi everyone! Regardeng BLACKBERRIES, we here, on the opposie side of the pool, have the same problems of OVERWINTERING the canes and the flower buds. Admittedly I yet have no own experience as I got interested in blackberries only this fall when discovered the existance of the new thornles and prolific varieties. So I read all that was worth reading in the Russian and US internet, especially the rather high-profile specialised forums of our blackberry enthusiasts..

I discovered that throughout Russia and Kazakhstan which both have areas with very serious frosts blackberry growing in those is nevertheless quite successful. Maybe someone here would benefit from their experience same as e.g. you grow plums of Russian origin such as ptitsin and fofanoff.

Apparently Blackberries can bring huge yealds in climates with very low winter temps, even downing to -40C for rather ptolonged periods. The TECHNIQUE below allows overwintering without much problem. Plus some easy principles to follow.

1. All blackberries need to be laid down and covered for the winter, preferably after the first frost when the land is frozen.

To ensure that this task is easy and hassle free:

2. Choose thornless varieties only. Those with thorns are said to be hell to lay and cover.

3. In early summer watch for the new canes (primocanes) to emerge. As soon as a shoot reaches 15-20cm carefully bend it 90 degrees and secure with a metal peg. When the cane grows another 40-60cm, secure it parallel to the ground with yet another peg. After it reaches 1 m let it grow as it will but better tie to the lowest string of the trellis Which gets them out of the way. Do not tip the ends as this would increase the leaf mass. Watch fot all the primocanes in that way.

4. In autumn at the time of first frosts when all the fruiting canes have long been cut down lay the primocanes in lines stretched along one side of the trellis. Cover with two layers of 60g/m2 thick white non-woven fabric and secure all sides to the ground with no holes. This is said to help greatly even if serious frosts come before the snow. In milder and wetter climates they also put a plastic film layer on top of the fabric, leaving however the end bits open so there is always air circulation. The advice here is to experiment as all natural circumstaces differ.

5. Take off the cover gradually, and completely only after the danger of frost is over. The canes would bear some yourg leaves and side shoots, but this is ok. Raise them carefully as the canes of come varieties are brittle and tie to the trellis.

5. Winer frosts may not be a problem, but summers need to be warm or hot. The shorter and milder/cooler the summers, the earlier fruiting varieties should be chosen.

6. Floricane varieties like PA Freedom in cooler and shorter summer climates may very sucessfully fruit if treated in the same way as other primocanes, i.e. as above. They would be one of the earliest to perform.

If you have any questions do feel free to write me, I would try to help with more information.

cathpetro at gmail dot com.

im in z3b northern Maine. i tried overwintering my PA freedoms canes covering them with a 12in. layer of straw and burlap bags. i tried 2 winters and both times they froze to about 2ft from the ground. i finally gave up and took them out. i just bought nelson blackberries from fedco here in maine. supposedly hardy to z4 possibly z3. hopefully they do better here without having to protect them. there are z3 hardy blackberries sold in canada called balsors hardy blackberry but its not offered here in the U.S.

I planted 'Balsors Hardy Black' about four years ago and still have yet to get more than a few berries, my climate is just a bit tooo extreme for them, unfortunately! Last summer, I had bent the new developing canes on an angle, so as to make it easier to lay them to the ground for winter. The canes are such mean prickly beasts that also break easily, so not at all easy to work with at all, I hate them actually, lol. Anyways, am seriously considering removing them and trying something like 'Triple Crown' or 'Natchez', that although tender, are flexible and thornless.

There are some Polish varieties (Polar, Gaj, Bzesina, etc) which are said to be very hardy withstanding -25C to -30C. In Poland they are used in commercial plantations as well as home gardens and in the former never bent or covered to cut on labour cost. The Russian blackberry forum however comments that their crop is twice smaller (like 5 kg instead of 10 per bush) but still this is considered more commercially viable.

in a private garden, when treated as I wrote in the above post (young short shoots bent to the ground and subsequently covered in autumn), crops for these varieties may be much higher and the zone lower than in Poland.

Low winter temps really seem not the main obstacle for successful growing. At least in continental parts of Russia like Ufa, with down to -40F (zone 3b?), but with long and hot summers most blackberry varieties thrive and give bumper crops (in good hands). Here in St.-Petersburg, in zone 5 but on the 60th latitude the berries just won’t mature to black except for the very earliest varieties such as Loch Tay, Natchez or Polar and Gaj.

With Natchez one should be aware that mature canes are very brittle, to be careful when covering/uncovering.

Yes, fruit maturity is the all important factor here, one can get vines to overwinter when properly protected, though all that work is for nothing if fruit does not ripen in our short summers. At some point, I might also wish to attempt greenhouse plantings and covering the vines heavily with straw for the winter, thus the longer warmer season gives flexibility as to variety selected.

HU, good to know that 'Natchez' canes are so brittle. What would you consider to be the best of all thornless varieties to attempt? I know of some that have success with 'Chester', though it's too late ripening to get a reliable crop, 'Triple Crown' is said to be two weeks earlier and readily available.

Thanks for the comments HU-29493841. How many growing days do you have? I think my overwintering strategy did not work is because I was growing them on a raised mound compost pile so even covered they were exposed to cold temps. I can't grow them on the ground due to heavy clay soil with standing water in spring and fall.

Hey HFcanuck, any news from summer 2019? I just found this thread while looking around for information about growing stuff like apricots, peaches, pear etc. in cold climate. I find all the info you are providing and the test you are doing higly interesting.

I started planting fruit trees recently, I am in zone 5b (kind of exposed to strong winds,south shore of Montreal), but I was a bit concerned about the survival of the trees or possible lack of any harvest. Given your exprience and my zone it helps to correctly set up up my expectations.

For now I have:

Hargrand apricot (spring 2019) (from pepiniere cassenoisette, didn't grow much this summer)

Harlayne apricot (spring 2019) (from pepiniere casse noisette, grew well this summer)

Haskap indigo gem (spring 2019)

Haskap aurora (spring 2019)

saskatoon berry tree x2 (spring 2018)

Ste-Croix grape vine (spring 2019)

Chandler blueberry (spring 2019)

Pink lemonade blueberry (spring 2019) - (never broke bud and I got it replaced, from pepiniere casse noisette)

September sun kiwi kolomikta 4X (spring 2019) - (2 never broke bud and I got them replaced, from pepiniere cassenoisette. None are healthy except a cutting I made and placed in partial shade...so i guess they prefer some shade)

fire cracker goji berry (spring 2019) - (was dry at reception, was replaced from pepiniere cassenoisette. Started to flower in September so I do not have high hope for its survival this winter)

I bought for 2020:

Contender peach

Honey sweet pear

Kenko pear

paw paw ksu-atwood

paw paw PA golden

black rasberry Ohio's treasure

sommerset grape

brianna grape

trollhaugen grape

tango grape

Due to the rate or death product i got from peniere casse noisette, i am getting everything from whiffletree next year, except for the grapes which will come from vigneschezsoi.

Mat, yeah I have 2018 and 2019 to write up. I have all my notes. Just have to find time.

I checked out Pepiniere casse noisette website. They do not list their rootstocks anywhere that I can find. What rootstocks are your pears, peaches, apricots on?

Honestly, a lot of what they are selling, at least in apricots, peach, nectarines seem to me to be VERY marginal for their climate. In many case they mention useful for growing in pots but if that is the case how are they propagating for sale? I don't want to disparage them without information but my impression is they might be reselling .

You absolutely need to be buying based upon root-stock. For apples I am not only buying on Bud118 as it has best cold hardiness and is vigorus for our short seasons - Bud9 is just too slow. Train and prune to keep the size you want. Pears on OHxF87 or 97 and prune/train. I have found PAW-PAWs to be marginal in 4b - still 3' tall after 5+ years. Blueberries don't like my soil so Haskasps and Currants are much better. You have better options than Indigo Gem, Aurora is good though. Pink Lemonade is like a zone 5/6 plant, I see little chance of it surviving.

Both Whiffletree and vigneschezsoi are good options. Be aware that a 1-2 year old bare root grape vine will bear fruit 1-2 years faster than the same year rooted cuttings you will get from vigneschezsoi. If you are only buying a couple might want to spend a couple extra $$ to get fruit a whole year or 2 earlier. Somerset and Trolhaugen are good. Had a couple Brianna this year, not enough to really say. Get Bluebell as well. I suggest 10-15' between vines. Can go closer but I am of the hack back 90% every year and then let grow. Trollhaugen can put out 12-15' of growth in 1 year alone - plant closer and you have to keep on top of canopy thinning to avoid overgrowth.

Apples and pears will benefit from bagging with ziplocs. Grapes I bag with Organza bags when starting to turn color. So far I am loosing 99% of stone fruit (plums) to plum curlico and the rest to birds/racoons (can't bag plums - they rot). All peaches die. Trying apricots but no fruit yet. Don't get too caught up on types of fruit. Buy something disease resistant on a hardy, vigorus rootstock then topwork as you get enough branch structure. You will then be able to test fruit to see what you like or not within 3 years of grafting. My crabapple is now up to 65+ different apples grafted to it.

You are right, Pepinière Cassenoisette don't show rootstock at all (and I didn't know much about what qualifies as a good rootstock anyway when I ordered them), maybe the information is available if you ask, I didn't check. If they outsource, I cstill assume that they already survived at least one winter at their location (zone 4) since the apricots I had some minor frost damage at the tip of some branches which is to be expected in their context. I assume they will suffer from similar or less damage in my zone 5B.

For the peach and pears, I know the rootstock because I bought those from Whiffletree OHXF97 for the pears and "bailey" for the peach.

Regarding your comment on your soil for the blueberries, have you tried some methods to acidify the soil arround them? Same comment regarding your pawpaw, i see a lot that they prefer acidic soil, maybe it would help them?

You say Pink lemonade will not survive, isn't hardy to zone 4? Where did you get the zone 5-6?

Thank for the tip on bagging the pears, I wil keep that in mind.

@Mat,

https://www.starkbros.com/products/berry-plants/blueberry-plants/pink-lemonade-blueberry

USDA 4 = Canada 5.

http://www.artsnursery.com/blog/pink-lemonade-blueberry

Zone 5 canada

Died super fast here 4b.

Unless you lime regularly you will not overpower native soil. I have better things to do. If I REALLY wanted them I would dig a big hole and carfully remove the plastic from a bale of peat and place the peat block in the hole and backfill. Plant the blueberry directly into the peat. That said, Haskasp are hardier, tolerate my soil and are still good so why fight my soil when I have something that works. Life is too short to battle marginal varieties. Aurora is the best haskasp for fresh eating followed by the Boreal Beast/Beauty/Blizard series but there is something about the complexity of the Aurora flavor that I like better.

I've had pink lemonade in ground for 2 years here with no issues. not as hardy as pink popcorn but so far held its own here in n. maine.z 3a-4b. i also give Aurora a thumbs up. I'm lucky as i have a ph of 5.5 here so blueberries do well also. northland and north sky are my favs up here.

@hungryfrozencanuck

I live in Ottawa (zone 5b) and can’t say enough how helpful your posts have been. I too have had excellent service with Whiffletree for all my apples, pears, plums, sour cherry, blueberry, raspberry, blackberry, rugosa rose, currants etc. Also had good success with ordering Northline saskatoons from Treetime.ca in Alberta.

Thanks for you posts and if you have the

time would very much like to read the notes on your 2018/2019 season now that you are hopefully seeing harvest ramp up.

All the best!!

Also, if anyone has had success with Japanese Beetle strategies other than hand picking, would love to know.