I'm seeking information on proven local performers of apples, pears, and asian pears that can be stored well. I picked up the following generic list of apples and pears recommended for storage but have no idea how these apples will fare in the S. Willamette Valley. Does anyone have experience growing and storing these?
I'm told that Korean Giant Asian Pear is a fabulous storer. But I am also told we may have difficulty maturing it hereabouts. Anyone have any experience with it?
--
Apple varieties for winter storage:
‘Calville Blanc d’Hiver’
‘Roxbury Russet’
‘Lady’
‘Newtown Pippin’
‘Arkansas Black’
‘Ashmead’s Kernel’
‘Belle de Boskoop’
‘Claygate Pearmain’
‘Court Pendu Plat’
‘Edward VII’
‘White Winter Pearmain’
‘Esopus Spitzenburg’
‘Orange de Somerville’
Pear varieties for winter storage:
‘Passe Crassane’
‘Conference’
‘Winter Nelis’ (sometimes referred to as ‘Winter Nelly’)
‘Comice’
‘Anjou’
My friend who grows Don Bae giant Asian pear tells me it is her favorite variety and she lives here in the Portland area. Most of these varieties are fairly common at the Scion exchange. Apples and pears are famous northern fruit because they're hardy and they don't require that much heat to ripen, so my tendency would be to not worry about it too much.
Now if you were talking about figs, persimmons, pecans, pistachios, eggplant, okra, citrus, etc. that would be an area for concern.
John S
PDX OR
Apples can be stored for some months in controlled-atmosphere chambers to delay ethylene-induced onset of ripening. Ripening begins when the fruit is removed. This is the commercial storage.
For home storage, most varieties of apple can be stored for approximately two weeks, when kept at the coolest part of the refrigerator (i.e. below 5°C). Some types of apple have an even longer shelf life.
May it help you Nick.
A good friend tells me he is eating Gold Rush, now, stored outside in a box on his porch the whole of this past winter. Even the ones now turning wrinkled taste spectacular, he says. Gold Rush appears, with 2 other confirmed recommendations, to be an apple I am zeroing in on - for annual bearing, taste, disease-resistance and storage ability. The ability to store without refridgeration or freezing is important to me. I don't have access to either. I can, dry and store a great deal of fruit. But I have found mid-winter, store-bought, fresh apples looming large in my diet in very recent years. I'd like to close that loop as much as I can.
I'm seeking to refine the trajectory in other ways. I'm also seeking a poor storage apple - a good early maturer that I can solar dry while the weather is hot and sunny. I've been told to avoid Yellow Transparent. "Turns mealy before you can get to it." Hazen has been recommended. But counsel seems far slimmer around this particular need. Annual bearing is important to me. I do not have much space and so cannot rely on varietal depth as much as I would like to smooth out the bumps. A solid, early maturing annual bearer is what I am seeking as I step up my own orcharding ante.
I haven't yet determined how to reliably store pears without encouraging a sweet turn, or losing many of them.
The requirement to dry into hot days is the reason I am seeking one more early-maturing seedless grape. I dried raisins this year for the first time. Home-processed raisins a simply astounding experience that have transformed my world.
I believe it was the Burnt Ridge or Raintree catalog which suggested that Don Rae aka Korean Giant might have difficulty maturing in the PNW. I wonder if all that Portland concrete helped your friend. I'm smack dab in the middle of an exposed open space in the I-5 corridor.
I very much look forward to making it to the scion swap this year. I have only made it in once before. Found myself standing in front of the grape scions admitting to confusion and wondering aloud which ones I might pick up. A voice behind me made several confident suggestions. Transpires it was Lon Rombaugh!
n
Nick, inspiring post - please update us often! I admire the aspect of depending on the fruit you grow. To many, it’s considered a hobby; but there can, should, and perhaps must be a more serious attempts to include orcharding as part of our survival. My early plantings kept that in mind, including nuts for protein. Though the nuts, “Filberts†died out, the ‘wild game’ attracted to the fruit laden orchard became a focus of ‘protein.’
My Uncle (who would be a fantastic addition to our Society if he felt more comfortable online and involved with our activities…) is a ‘food survivalist.’ He’s the most serious (if not the best) gardener I know, and including his fruit trees, utilizes more of the bounty than anyone I know! He does use a refrigerator, but it’s an old “Frost†job – not a ‘self-defrosting’ refrigerator that sucks the moisture from its contents; his leaves them hydrated. My Father has one too, from 1939! I can’t find such a thing, so rely on a moisture sucking – fruit shriveling ‘modern job.’ Of which a previous basement Refg. lasted less then 3 years! Anyway, Uncle grows and stores Granny Smith apples; some are left on open trays in his un-heated garage where we’ll grab one as we pass by. They’ve a waxy coating, are firm and late to begin with but develop a ‘sweater’ more complex flavor with storage – especially outside the refrigerator. I grow them too; a ‘spur variety.’
“I'm also seeking a poor storage apple - a good early maturer that I can solar dry while the weather is hot and sunny.†--- How about a King? They’re a ‘midseason’ apple; later Gravenstein … but far more substantial (solid), sweet, and extremely consistent. Granted, Fall would be ‘in the air,’ but they’re a great apple! They’re large, and often develop “water-core,†that translucent section of interior flesh that’s especially sweet. An older friend, having grown up relying on their farm and fruit said, “We kids fought for those water-cored apples because they were so sweet!†...Though you can’t see it from the outside.
“I haven't yet determined how to reliably store pears without encouraging a sweet turn, or losing many of them.†--- Me either… One of my favorite and most productive fruits, storage is a major disappointment. And since we generally can (jar) the much earlier Bartlett’s, that leaves my richer ‘winter pears’ without much storage potential or use. To overcome the loss of both apples and ‘winter pears,’ I’ve been juicing them for years now. We’ve a near-constant consumption of fresh apple/pear blends of juice, beginning with Gravensteins, for months – and make good friends giving away gallons. I haven’t added ‘further value’ by (hard) cider production. But likely should…
“The requirement to dry into hot days is the reason I am seeking one more early-maturing seedless grape.†--- If you’ve linked up with Ron Rombaugh [correction: Lon J. Rombough] - you’ve met the Guru of Grapes! Not knowing which varieties you have, good ol Interlaken has been a bullet-proof producer for us. Early, consistent, sweet, and so ‘green’ in color the darn birds don’t seem to zero in on them. My Uncle likes their ‘sister,’ Himrod. On the east side of the valley he has more problems with powdery mildew than I do, here in “Wine country.†He assumes the looser clusters of Himrod, as opposed to the tighter cluster of Interlaken, keep them dryer. I think Himrod ripen a few days behind Interlaken; and my experience has shown them to set a bit less than their sister…
Glad to hear you’re headed to the Exchange! Though it gets hectic … and few of us have time for extended or in-depth conversations beyond our ‘duties.’ I’ll be grafting – if you’d like me to put your King together, bring it on. If you do that yourself – more power to you!
Hey – I nearly forgot; to anyone I find serious about establishing and depending on their crops, I recommend Fuzzy Kiwi. I can’t recommend them enough and have several testimonials scattered around here regarding them... Mine have consistently provided fruit since their second year in and generally need thinning. Last year’s crop was the lightest ever but instead of thinning - I’ve got monsters! Just as large and luscious as those I waked by in Fred Meyer last week ... @2 / $! It sounds as though you’d do what’s necessary to raise them. They take some space, but can and must be limited. We’ve got a box of them …refrigerated, that will likely last through March and just finished those left in a cool basement a week ago. So: they keep; are consistent; disease free and prolific – just do your homework ~ ...I wonder how they are dried? - if only ours lasted that long 
A reply as welcoming as it was thoughtful, thank you. Your words have certainly lent chutzpah to my step! I don't know King at all, and my interest is definitely piqued.
Yes, I had been zeroing in on Granny Smith. A friend of mine, who owns and operates a small permaculture nursery locally, has the tree on offer. She grows organically, as I do. The trees are two to three years old and much, much smaller than the trees offered by conventional nurseries. At first, the impatient, hungry-for-return fruitgrower in me was not inclined to pick up trees from her, but my sense is that my conscience will prick me into going with a route that both she and I perceive as sounder over the long run. I had a big wake-up call a few years back when I arranged a community grafting lesson with a conventional tree nursery in my neighborhood. When I asked how old were the enormous fruit-trees the affable nurseryman there was selling, he told me that they were 3 years old. I was stunned. "How on earth?" I asked. He confessed, a little sheepishly, that he waters them constantly during the summer and feeds them nitrogen weekly. "Small trees don't sell," he said. Trees on steroids are the realpolitik of the market, it appears.
I'm very familiar with the results of breeding and growing annual food plants within organic and conventional systems, but I am completely in the dark about fruit trees. Leaving the larger diversity angle out the story for the moment, does anyone have experience enough to comment on the difference in growth and fruit between trees raised in these two different systems?
I'm curious for more details about the Kiwis. Hereabouts, I hear of people who rave over the kiwi growing experience, and others who can't get the plants to fruit. Were the naysayers wrongly sold two females or males, instead of hot n' sexy love bunnies? Or is there a major varietal snafu going on here? Can I grow them up from sexed cuttings? Or is there a compleecated angle here known only to the propagation priesthood? <smile>
n
Sometimes (I have physically seen this) nurseries mislable plants, so you are actually getting two females. Check the flower when in bloom, comparing it to say, Oregon State or other site on the net. The male and female flower look very different.
The biggest problem with kiwis is planting them too deep or too shallow. They will die if they are a bit too deep, and they will fry if too shallow. PLant them exactly at the level they were at the nursery.
Also fuzzies don't grow very well from cuttings. Most will die. Hardy does great, arctic, reasonably well.
Also, the pollen from kiwis is not very attractive to insects, so I hand pollinate them. Its' easy and fun. Artist's paint brush "Be the bee", man!
Occasionally, the flowers are damaged by frost, and they then won't produce fruit. @#$% happens. This doesn't happen often to me here in Portland.
Pruning is fun if you stay on top of it. Let it go for 6 months and you've got a mess.
I think kiwi are among the most rewarding of fruit to grow. Arctic produce heavily from july 4 to late Sept. Hardy till T'giving. Fuzzy collected (maybe not yet ripe) about then.
Nick, if you are in a cool, Puget Sound area, or high elevation, you might not want to try to grow fuzzy as they might not ripen or even get close enough to finish ripening inside.
I have had some die, mostly fuzzy. Now I have grafted some vines to themselves: Fuzzy on hardy, female hardy on male hardy. It works!
My two cents.
John S
PDX OR
I'll agree that I've heard really good things about Gold Rush as a storage apple, it's one that I'm starting a tree this spring - another you might take a look at is York Imperial (mostly now known just known as "York"); the "Imperial" part of the name was because it was pronounced to be an "Imperial" keeper. Not very well known here in the Western US, but actually a big commercial apple in the East, mostly used as a processing apple - think they mostly get made into baby food & applesauce! My lady friend has a tree, it's her favorite apple; she fills up the lower part of her fridge with them every fall and is just now getting toward the end of them. Tastes kinda like a Granny Smith but little more flavor & character:)
Dave
Although Pound pear is not much for fresh eating, I have heard stories of them lying in the grass all winter and sounding like wood when a lawnmower hit them the following spring!
We had a Johantorp pear that kept till July refrigerated, and it still tasted good.
I've got scionwood to one apple that keeps over a year in a rootcellar. Can't remember the name right now.
Have another tree of an apple that is suppose to keep in refrigeration for 2 years, but starts to lose flavor in 9 months, the person says. Had a few fruit on it last fall, not enough to store, but should have plenty of fruit this fall.
As you can tell, I am also interested in winter keeping fruits.
Thank you for the counsel. Very useful indeed.
I volunteer-manage a small plant nusery for a non-profit which supports garden educators in the Lane County (Eugene-Springfield) neighborhood. The wherefores a little long-winded, but the propagation territory we are free to explore looks to the long view rather than the bottom line. Put another way, our focus lies 'beyond the ecological reach' of those who are needing to march to demands of the market. We fill an interesting R&D propagation niche, in a sense - completely unnoticed, the most ecologically-resilient annual vegetable varieties in our bioregion are being transplanted by five-year-olds. So far, our focus has been veggies (a very modest 8-10,000 starts annually), but we are increasingly leaning toward perennials. We won't be letting youngsters loose with grafting knives in a hurry, but there are nevertheless rich opportunities for furthering the small-scale home-orcharding motif among educators. I would like to trial and maintain a solid selection of storage varieties. I would very much appreciate scion wood on great storers, even unnamed. While I'm at it I might mention I am also seeking rootstock diversity on treecrops. I've been propagating a small amount of M7 and MM 111 and P. communis for a couple of years but, frankly, large orders of rootstock diversity from Willamette and the the like are beyond our budget and real estate abilities - garden education remains a much under-regarded activity.
I caught a pollination table yesterday, somewhere on the web, that tells me that Goldrush and Liberty will not cross-pollinate. Liberty a big one for me. Two days ago I found a Liberty which had spent the winter in a cardboard box on my porch. Great eating.
Spectacularly sunny weather here yesterday. I transplanted a Gold Rush, Granny Smith; Seneca and uncertain Italian, raised organically by friends. The tree pick-up included a tree-fruit conversation with two old-timers, 35-years-a-piece on their properties. A day as fulfilling as it gets.
I have no experience with cherries: I've been a little shy of them given that I have seen many empty cherry trees. Don't even know what questions to begin asking about 'em. How's this for starters? Are there any annual bearers that lend themselves particularly to putting up as dried or otherwise preserved fud?
n
Costco is right now selling dried Montmorency cherries. They have added sugar, but are very good to eat. 8 bucks for a little sack. They are expensive.
I think the tart cherries are going to bear alot better for you than any sweet cherry. "Surefire" keeps popping up in my mind for a heavy yielder that is claimed to be sweet enough to eat out of hand when fully ripe. I am just this spring going to graft that onto my stocks (dwarfing Krymsk5 from Raintree), never had it before this year. It is kinda new on the market.
Your statement:
our focus lies 'beyond the ecological reach' of those who are needing to march to demands of the market
Does that include an era of post-cheap-fossil-fuel? With an eye to the future, and oil prices rising, I would think that crops that can store themselves would be very desirable. I tend to focus on such crops.
Rootstock. I have been exploring for interstems to make wild hawthorn compatible with regular apples. Had some early failures. Now I am observing two kinds for the long term to see how they will work. One is healthy and spurred up after two seasons, the other looks happy after one season. Others totally flopped after the first season. So we will see. I like hawthorn because no amount of Oregon weather can make it sick! But all this is no guarantee that hawthorn will yield quality apple crops.
You might look into Antonovka apple stocks and put a Bud-9, Mark, or M9 interstem on them. Antonovka is an awesomly rooted stock, but needs a little taming in the long run, as it can get large.
Liberty crossed with Goldrush sounds like a winner, if you can pull it off. Maybe the flowering is out of phase?
Don't overlook Marachel Foch grape for putting up superior wine. It grows like a weed, needs no spray inputs and the wine is the BEST! I can understand why it has a cult following! Just one more way to preserve food calories over the long term.
I agree with plumfun on the cherries. Sour/pie/tart cherries are the way to go. First of all, they are what you dry/can/make pie/crisp etc. out of. Second, they don't have worms and diseases like sweet cherries. Third, I like them better, because they taste more like cherries and less like sugar water. Fourth, birds don't attack them and you actually get to harvest what you grow. I grow Montmorency , which I encourage, and Northstar, which I do not, because it gets bacterial diseases on the west side of the cascades. THere was a new variety from New York that I was interested in, it might have been Surefire.
I have read about someone grafting apple onto hawthorn and it worked. I graft hawthorn onto hawthorn. I really like the carriere hawthorn, a common street tree, with big fruit that keeps all winter on the tree and few thorns. I have come to realize that I don't need to buy rootstock because birds take care of that for me and give me little hawthorn plants naturally.
I love Liberty apples.
John S
PDX OR
i would add stayman's winesap to that list for sure. spitzenburg, calville bdh, granny smith, ashmeade's, arkansas black, and wealthy (a suprise!) are treating me right this winter - in a nominal storage of: my pantry on the north shady side of my house, subject to all the temperature changes.
the wealthy and the russets are fairly soft but still great for cooking. the others are still great. i don't know about some of the other varieties you have. my neighbor swears by blushing golden - and i had good luck with that too this year.
as for pears, all i know is storing them in single layers, individually wrapped in tissue or newsprint greatly extends their life in storage. a pain but necessary. i usually don't bother since i don't have a true cold storage/root cellar for them.
k
[quote="John S":2y58r9ik] I really like the carriere hawthorn, a common street tree, with big fruit that keeps all winter on the tree and few thorns. I have come to realize that I don't need to buy rootstock because birds take care of that for me and give me little hawthorn plants naturally.[/quote:2y58r9ik]
John, Carriere is a pretty tree isn't it? Even its leaves look like apple leaves. I've got a piece of it grafted onto a Mutsu apple that fruited red berries the second season. Graft union looks a little rough, so it might blow out one of these years.
Last month (mid February) I was driving near Scio and a red fruited tree caught my eye. Some kind of hawthorn, with a parsley-shaped leaf. Just loaded with fruit still. I stopped and inquired of the owner. They did not know what kind it was, but said "help yourself" when I asked for a twig.
Here is the interesting part. The fruits were very large, some the size of a Bing cherry. Usually two pits inside. No thorns at all on the tree, which seemed dwarfed and old (maybe 8 feet tall or so). I picked a bunch of them to eat, they taste identical to rose hips. After all they are related to roses! I am betting they are as healthy a food as rosehips too. There is more meat on these berries than any rosehip I have ever eaten. I plan on propagating this one, for me and the birds.
Hawthorns are also a nutraceutical-widely known for their help in regulating heart rhythyms. The Chinese consider it a nutraceutical as well. The Irish also have a saying that you should never chop down a hawthorn because it "spiritually relates to the other side of death". I'm not quite sure what that means, but it's cool.
This is the only hawthorn I've ever found that I actually liked. The native Douglas "black" hawthorn is not bad, but it's not really good either, and the fruit doesn't stay on the tree all winter.
John S
Such a swellspring of stimulating gnosis. Thank you everyone.
A superquick response to your question around post-cheap-fossil fuel, plumfun, tangential in that it relates to annuals, but wholly related to the winter eating theme which, as it happens, is a very rich bioregional story, indeed. If you follow any link, do the "biologically-embedded principles of 'commerical organics' ".
http://www.seedambassadors.org/Mainpage ... winter.htm
I swung by my unnamed P. communis rootstock a couple of weeks ago and (if it is correctly labelled) was very struck by how hawthornish it looks, thorns included. Issit a hawthorn cultivar, in essence? I presume you are experimenting with the native (C. douglassii) as distinct from european (C. monocarpa?) hawthorn? (NPSO types regard the euro as an invasive. But then again, I qualify as a eurotrashy naturalizing non-native exotic invasive, too.) Yes, hawthorn a key medicinal, with both native and european used interchangeably, primarily for normalizing heart action, but also by local medicine-makers as a nervine (calming herb).
Apols for the neophyte fruitgeek rap. Typically, I would be inclined to read and lurk a good deal longer before posing questions around these themes but, what with next weekend fast approaching, I'm rushing to formulate my to-dos. <grin> Are there qualities in rootstocks which may lend themselves to different varietal maturities? Are there end-of-season disease-threats I can assuage through rootstock choice, for example? I'm a ways from experimenting with internodes, I sense, though my interest is most definitely piqued - the further in ya go, the bigger it gets, eh? For now, if I am going to broaden my rootstock diversity with a view to survivability rather than fine-tuning bells and whistles, are there Old Reliables I should account for? Is there a solid, current rootstock text that HOS ubergeeks hold in high regard?
n
John S, you and Nick are both welcome to a stick of the hawthorn I collected scion from. I think I have enough of that to share. You can email me for details.
I like the idea of eating these fat hawthorn berries because they are not such a mess as are rosehips. They taste identical tho. And I am sure they are good for us, much Vit C and rutins etc.
Nick, I saw mention of leeks on your website. We love leeks, they keep in the garden all winter long, and if you dig and wrap each remaining leek in newspaper about April 15 and bag them up, you can refrigerate them until almost August. Dig them much later and they will be woody due to the flowering process. Always leave your two beefiest, latest flowerers for seed the following year!
I think most baby pear seedlings are thorny. Certainly they are related to hawthorn thru the rose family, and many pears are graftable directly to hawthorn rootstock. Hawthorn will dwarf some, others not so much. I think one fellow on this board has some that are at least 20 years old on hawthorn. I have changed a few hawthorn on my property to support pears. None have fruited yet, but give it some time.
Beets are excellent storers, we store ours under some old blankets/sleeping bags in a rainsheltered hut in our forest. Only just now have they "woken" up and are starting to put on little white root hairs. Edibility is still wonderful. My wife just yesterday bagged them all and put them into the frig for long term storage.
I am not sure which hawthorn I am experimenting with. I know the douglassii has blue berries, but most of mine have red berries. They are very weedy here in the valley. And the roots are bullet proof, nothing can kill them.
End of season disease threats: The dwarfing rootstocks for prunus seem to invite pseudomonas, which kills twigs, llimbs, and I have seen whole trees of prunus americana die of it here. Typically, non-dwarfing prunus stock does not encourage it.
Not sure about apple rootstocks as relates to disease, but it is possible. Ditto pear.
Some kinds of grape rootstocks are said to shorten the harvest date. I think C3309 is one of them, plus it is suppose to limit the rank growth pattern of some of the finer table grapes.
Old reliable rootstocks. Some here have their own stooling beds to produce various apple and pear stocks. I maintain some varieties in a garden row just for interstem material. I want to experiment with Bud 9, M9, M27, and P22 interstems on regular old apple seedlings. I figure that a solid foot of interstem would moderate all the vigor of the seedling, while the seedling would provide tons of support.
I would think that pear seedlings could be managed the same way, using OH x F 51 for an interstem, to hold the vigor down.
Then there is also the technique of bark inversion that is said to dwarf a standard tree.
i am a fan of quince as an understock to pears - it withstands more groundwater, and helps check the upward surge most pears have - imparts a little of the quince's spreading canopy to the pear variety.
as for the thorniness - if you look at most of the rootstocks used for rose family fruits, esp prunus and pyrus, but malus too, they all tend toward a thorniness that i think has been selected out of the cultivars over the last thousand years or so.
[quote="arboretum":38jptlgn]i am a fan of quince as an understock to pears - it withstands more groundwater, and helps check the upward surge most pears have - imparts a little of the quince's spreading canopy to the pear variety.[/quote:38jptlgn]
Do you mean quince from home grown seedlings, or quince as in the kind of rootstock purchased? Quince A and Quince C?
I've got some quince seedlings.
Familiar, I'm sure to many, but my current research push gifted a useful web-based, cross-reference tool for me - the ripening dates for 753 accessions of pear tracked at the National Clonal Germplasm Repository in Corvallis, OR, in 1990.
http://www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bin/npgs/ht ... 213001+753
The pear page, including early- and late- ripening varieties parsed out:
http://www.ars.usda.gov/Main/d.....ocid=11372
38 species of Pyrus from 56 countries, I see.
Also note we are well past the credentialled date for sourcing scion wood from them this cycle. Does the USDA's Joe Postman make ever make it to the scion wood swap? I crossed paths with him a couple of years ago around a seed-collecting expedition to E. Europe I was helping orchestrate, but the talk then was not of tree fruit. I found him very approachable.
Was just chatting with the Exec Dir of the School Garden Project of Lane County about late-maturing fruit and I found myself extolling the virtues of feeding kids fresh, local fruit _year_ round_. The doability of the notion simply hadn't occured to me before that moment. Holy moley. Powerful.
n
Plumfun, you mentioned interstem grafting to hold the vigor of own root seedlings down. Has anyone locally done anything akin to the Own-Root Fruit Tree Project? I believe Phil Corbett is an English permaculturist living in France:
http://www.cooltemperate.co.uk.....root.shtml
I see there is even a youtube video (even, agh, as I can't get to it on my paltry internet connection to confirm content)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiHQU_p8 ... re=related
On Phil's site, in his publications section, I see a 14 page booklet on own root fruit trees by Hugh Ermen, the tree breeder who appears to have done much to explore this notion.
I was chatting with a nurseryman yesterday who tells me, to simplify, he recommends Antonovka to his clients in S Oregon and those on poor montane soils because what with water and nutrient deficiencies the trees end up semi-dwarf-sized when full-grown. When I asked if we could imitate those climatic factors in caring for fruit trees (wittingly or not, the trees farthest from my back door are getting that sort of treatment anyways!) in the S Willamette valley in order to create drought-tolerant semi-dwarfs, he reckoned it entirely doable.
I have a keen interest in drought-tolerant productivity. Useful qualities around schoold gardens, too. Do own-root fruit trees, 'starved' trees on standard rootstock, or interstemmed standards manageably lend themselves to this, do you think? I'm sure opinions will vary <smile>.
.
Sweet news my end. The ED of the School Garden Project has agreed to release funds for purchase of rootstock at the swap this weekend. For complicated reasons, perennial fruit trees have been a stretch for school gardens. Ostensibly a small step in a small world but, fundamentally in my mind, a very significant step toward the health and wellbeing of the All. Hooray.
Nick, I tried to own root a Pristine apple last summer. No dice on that. Will try some more this summer. But I do not expect any sort of dwarfing tree once it works for me. I fully expect a tree that can get out of hand very quickly. I see no advantage really in risking my neck to pick apples from a 40 foot tree. If I did get an own-rooted tree, I would likely set it out on a backroad somewhere (ditch) and just observe it.
The roots are the roots. If you have Antonovka rootstock, which is going to be much more drought tolerant than M27 for instance, I do not see how a dwarfing interstem is going to affect those Antonovka roots that are going straight down into mother earth! It is a well anchored stock. Just the 70-something of them I got 2 weeks ago looked awesome, with several roots looking like they came from a "straight down" position in soil. I think I have heard that they are a tap-rooted tree.
I got my stocks for $1.75 apiece, when ordering larger quantities. Where I in your position and somebody said "no rootstocks for you" -- think soup Nazi from Seinfeld, I would spend my own money on them and go forward. We don't need no stinkin permission! Just a few thoughts!
Nick,
Regarding school gardens, I have found autumn olive to be a particularly outstanding product. It gives zillions of berries, so after the kids do their planting for the day, I can let them eat the berries. It ripens Sept-Oct which is perfect. Strawberries work well as they become ripe right at the end of the school year, depending on the year. Grapes work well. I like crabapples better than apples, because an apple is too much food to give away at one moment. Goumi ripens for me before the end of school, but I'm having problems propagating it. Asparagus is a great visual, and some odd greens like french sorrel and salad burnet work quite well, I think. Many berries would be great except that they ripen during the summer break: raspberries, blackberries, currants, gooseberries. Evergreen huckleberries and lingonberries work.
Just some ideas.
John S
PDX OR
That's quite a sophisticated array of plants you are dropping into the mix. Would you be willing to share any more details about the context in which you are gardening with kiddies?
I have no experience with the Autumn Olive (Eleagnus umbellata) but do grow an unnamed Goumi (E. multiflora) which is, vigorous and prolific and, of course, fixes nitrogen with it. I had been told by someone that they had been told of great success putting shrubby nitrogen fixers 'in the same hole' as fruit trees when planting. I have found this to be ill-advised. Goumi, at least, is far too large and unruly to share a planting hole with Malus and the like. It's a hedgerow plant for me. These days I'm generally guilding in lupins or clovers or the ground-covering Point Reyes Creeper (Ceonothus gloriosus) as nfixers with my fruit tree transplantings. Very eary days but I'm not convinced the Ceonothus has the vigor to compete with the grasses. I have heard from several sources that Eleagnus are difficult to propagate- though the nurseries seem to have no problem, do they?
I'm very curious indeed about 'weedy', low-growing, self-seeding/perennial nitrogen fixers to interplant with my larger foodbearing perennials. On the natives front, I am only just beginning to get to grips with local ecology and haven't yet been able to find an NPSO type knowledgeable and/or responsive enough to help me make sense of the nfixingf picture. Native vetch(es?) look promising to me. I'm so very hungry for assistance around this theme.
I am definitely leaning toward the permacultural notion of 'guilding'. Its fundamental iteration described at:
http://bugs.scribble.com/gaias.....arden.html
But I am finding grounding the theory is not without its hiccups. There's my Eleagnus experience, of course. And the early 'guilding' recommendations from the permaculture community (there's a link from the url above to recommended apple guilds) included comfrey as a mainstay companion for fruit trees. I would exercise caution, at first, with this plant. Once you have comfrey in a spot, it will always be there. Even extremely thorough efforts to hand weed every piece of (easily-breakable and well-camouflaged) root segment tends only to spread the number of plants in a spot. And never, never, ever let happy-go-lucky friends with a rototiller anywhere near comfrey in your garden. OUch! <smile> Having said that, left alone, comfrey is a very well-mannered plant. Vigorous, yes, and it will expand radially through the years. But you will not find the plant volunteering around the garden. I believe this is because the variety we commonly grow and share locally, Symphytum uplandicum, does not produce fertile seed. We propagate the plant very easily and successfully with root fragments. A friend tells me that ground-burrowing critters may very occasionally carry a root segment afar. I will put it under trees, but judiciously.
Comfrey is a mainstay medicinal for those of us into herbs but it's main use for me besides an understory plant is as an unparalleled producer of green matter. I take about 4 major cuttings a year off my comfrey to add to my compost pile. It will heat things up nicely. I also use comfrey throughout the summer to make lots of nutritive tea for plants. Do be careful not to splash it on yourself, otherwise, you will smell nothing short of uberpoopy, and from a distance, too. Raising comfrey-teaed-but-washed-and-scrubbed hands to the face of a loved one is still enough to produce opposite-to-intended effects. Judiciously planted and managed, however, my experience suggests the plant can be a key multi-functional partner in any garden.
Yes, strawberries are a magnificent crop for the kids. I am curious about pulling the season in even closer with especially early-maturing varieties - grown outside without the use of plastic. Does any particularly early variety come to mind? My end, I began slicing and drying strawberries a couple of years ago (I have no refridgeration) and have found them to be a big winner with everyone who has tried them. Children visiting my place will go straight for the strawberry chips every time. Adults will lurk close by. I snack on them constantly through the winter and add them to my morning oats along with fresh apple, canned fruit, and other dried fruit - raisins, pears. Wot a feast! The fact that strawberries come on so early and so long really lends them to easy, continuing drying of many lots over the course of the summer. Those lots add up. The strawberry, fresh and dried, has emerged as a central part of my year-round diet.
When do the huckleberries and lingonberries come on? I had a local berry afficionado tell me to avoid lingonberries just the other week. I can't remember the wherefores. Was it the nursery he was unimpressed with, or the plant's performance in gardens? This year, I'm planting Aronia even as I have never seen the plant before. And a bunch more thornless blackberries which have impressed me greatly in recent times. Local rapscallions will raid my garden for the thornless blackberries! I find currants robust, reliable, drought-tolerant, and utterly dismissive of grass-competition.
n
nick, let me qualify this by saying i don't know what soils you are on - are you still in a fertile willamette valley clay type, or are you on a shitty montane southern oregon type?
for me in the north valley, i don't think our fruit trees need the addition of nitrogen fixing trees(nft) in their immediate vicinity. i don't feed nitrogen at all, but work instead keeping the organic matter on the soil surface as constant as possible, so that the soil critters stay active. additional N just means more pruning work.
aronia is a great kid food plant, and gorgeous fall color. and it tolerates some shade, and wet winter feet. it rocks.
Hi Nick,
I have 2 sessions of gardening club: Fall and Spring. In the fall, we gather berries and plant bulbs mostly. I like to grow a lot of plants that can grow from cuttings, and I try to give the kids a cutting each time we meet (once a week if the weather is good). We meet from about October 1st to Thanksgiving for Fall session. By the way, autumn olive grows super easy from cuttings: It's invasive back east with summer rains. I also give out strawberry runners and raspberry runners. Thornless blackberries can grow from cuttings. I give out this stuff from cuttings from my garden. Starting about the end of February, we do Spring session. PLanting lots of seeds. Always plant peas. What a winner! They plant it and eat it a couple of months later. Our garden is divided into biomes due to our 6th grade curriculum: Desert , coniferous forest, temperate, grassland, tropical forest. I gave up on tundra. We often divide and replant cactus. In the spring we get to see the flowers we planted in the fall. Asparagus is a great one. It makes seeds, that you can replant. Artichoke another winner. They don't really want to harvest it, but it looks cool. Iris, daffodil, crocus, tulip, Basically I finish in the Spring when it gets too hot to plant and I have nothing left to give out. Sea berry hasn't fruited yet but I think it will this year. Palms and cannas. Fig tree. Silk tree mimosa. I have kiwis that I will graft this year and hopefully get fruit on when I do. Lingonberry can be difficult. Many have problems with it. Pink huckleberrry in shade in summer. Evergreen in fall.
John S
PDX OR
Here's the main article extant on own-root fruit trees, I believe.
http://www.orangepippin.com/ow.....roots.aspx
It transpires the author is no half-wit but, rather, one of the UK's most successful modern apple breeders.
n
Nick,
I know the Fruit Propagation fair is long past but, A good old time drying apple that does well hereabouts is Maidenblush, ripens mid August. An earlier one I'm learning about is Salem June, ripens mid July I cooked with some last summer, pretty good, looks like a good candidate for drying too. If your interested I can probably get you some budwood later or we should have them next year at FPF.
Here's an interesting idea I read in Lee Calhoun's book Old Southern Apples. He claims it's become common practice in some parts of the south to dry apples inside an old car! Cheap, available and hot as blazes, should work great.
Idyllwild
simplepress
jafar
Marsha H
Viron