Yeah, our long drawn out summer here in SoCal has the trees doing funny things. My Santa Rosa plum bloomed again a month or so ago and actually produced one very very small fruit. It just dropped the rest due to the finally cold weather we are getting (relative to everywhere else in the nation.) My Gala Apple tree has also just put out a bunch of blossoms, I'll be curious if it actually sets any fruit, but I will be pruning them away shortly after that.

Cherry trees too. Both my Royal Lee/Royal Minnie cherries have a single blossom on them right now. The flowers appeared a few days before Christmas. The Royal Lee looks like it is beginning to bud out some new leaves, while the Royal Minnie still has some leaves on it. I guess not having enough chill (zone 10 here) can make fruit trees a little confused. Both Royal Lee/Royal Minnie Lee have a very low chill requirement so maybe it was easier for them to become confused by a short period of unusually cold (and cloudy/rainy) weather followed by a week of relative warmth and sun.

Cherries are supposed to be grown in zones 4-6. While the trees may not die in zones 7-10, they are not ideal. My father tried to grow cherries in Texas but was unsuccessful in getting any fruit. My Fuji apple tree puts out blooms at odd times and never completely loses all of its leaves, and lately I've not been getting any good apples, although squirrels help to make sure of that. The apple tree was planted by previous owners, and some of them also planted plum trees, which I promptly removed and replaced with banana.

I do get good crops of citrus and cherimoya, and those can be expensive in the store, whereas apples and plums (in season) are cheap enough to buy. Cherries are a different story, as the sour cherries required for the best cherry pies will only produce in places like Michigan.

Yeah,but you will never buy a good Santa Rosa Plum of the quality of home grown.

Somethings like Citrus are also a feast for the eye. Thats give them a home in the garden more then savings on lemons or oranges...also cheap at the markets. Heck,you can buy lemon juice cheap and its as good as Meyer lemons!

Lars, the lowest chill sour cherry I am aware of is a Persian variety that goes under the name "Albaloo". Supposedly it can produce fruit in zone 10 southern California, although not sure how productive, fruit size is very small but good flavor. (I wrote more about this in another thread "Best Low Chill Cherry Varieties?" )

On the West coast cherries do just fine in zone 8, and can also be grown in zone 9 though they don't do as well there. Zone 10 is a real challenge, only the very lowest chill stone fruit varieties can produce substantial amounts of fruit here, and the leaves (especially cherries) tend to get scorched in the hot dry summers.

Tim, I'm assuming that's a Royal Minnie Lee tree you have?

The cherry variety Royal Minnie seems to be very prolific/precocious, wanting to sprout new leaves or blossoms for any reason.

Lemons are not cheap in the markets here, and if I want plums, I can buy them in a farmers' market - I never buy them in a grocery store and do not particularly like them anyway. I had a huge plum tree in my back yard (shared) at the last place I lived in San Francisco, about two blocks from Dolores Park. Plums tend to upset my stomach, even the ones I would buy in the Russian River area north of S.F.

It is much more convenient to go out and pick lemons from my trees than to buy them and then store them in my kitchen, and I go through a lot of lemons. I do buy oranges in the grocery store, and at stores like Bristol Farms, you can sample the oranges before you buy them. I've never bought any lemon juice that I liked.

Yes nothing better than a Meyer lemon tree in the garden!

Many people like them, but Meyers have wimpy lemon flavor IMO. As a lemon lover, when I seek lemon flavor, I want lemon flavor.

It either a Minnie or a royal.

These trees are somewhat new. A few of us are growing them in zone 10.

They are supposed to need only 100 hours of chill time. My trees are still too young to produce. I consider them experimental, for I have many other fruiting trees in the yard. I am willing to take a chance because I like cherries. Looking at the buds on the trees this winter all looks like a go, we will see. I am prepared to remove them in time if they don't work out.