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bamboo_rabbit

Spring has sprung

bamboo_rabbit
11 years ago

I had the camera out for some pre peach tree butchering photos so figured I would share.

Here are the peach trees before I pruned them this morning. There are 7 of them planted as bareroot last Febriuary.

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A little later variety

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The earliest variety has quarter size fruit

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The first of the mulberries is waking up.

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The Mysore raspberries are blooming and already have 1/2 grown fruit.

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Southern Belle blueberries, they are my earliest.

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Sweetcrisps

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Emeralds

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I decided in the fall to start a larger fig collection. I had two varieties and decided to go for 50 varieties. Currently have 40 different varieties rooted and growing. Here is a shot of some of the newbies in the mist bed, there are 72 in there currently. They were started from cuttings in November wrapped in newspaper and when roots appeared moved to 30 ounce cups and now outside in 1 gallon pots.

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And last but not least......after 7 years of tending, fertilizing and swearing at my Ruby red Grapefruit has for the first time decided to bloom.

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This post was edited by bamboo_rabbit on Tue, Feb 12, 13 at 16:22

Comments (11)

  • Bradybb WA-Zone8
    11 years ago

    Very nice bamboo rabbit,thanks for sharing.

  • ericwi
    11 years ago

    Nice to see some blueberries on the shrub, even if they are still green. Our blueberry shrubs are sitting in 6 inches of snow and ice at this time.

  • fruitnut Z7 4500ft SW TX
    11 years ago

    You're way ahead of my greenhouse. But I slow things down to get chilling for sweet cherries. Even without that you'd be ahead of me unless I heated a lot more at night. That's too expensive.

    Very nice looking plants. You've done a great job with those figs. I'll look forward to a great report as soon as this year. As I remember I got 40 figs/plant last year on newly rooted plants in one gallon pots.

  • mrsg47
    11 years ago

    Gosh Bamboo! Your peach trees are growing like weeds. Are you fertilizing them often? Wow. They are beautiful. You'll be swimming in peaches! Great trees and shrubs! Mrs. G

  • bamboo_rabbit
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Steve,

    You are first on the list for choice of cuttings.

    MrsG,

    I did not fertilize them much. At the end of the season they were showing signs of lack of nitrogen. I think mostly it is just the mulch and our very long growing season.

  • blueboy1977
    11 years ago

    Very nice Bam!!! Your way ahead of me too. Those peach tree's are stunning. Mine just flowered out and staring to push leaf's. I was looknng at your blues and surprised that sweet crisp looks to be ahead of emerald? Mine is just opposite. Emerald is about half way done flowering and sweet crisp is just getting going. I finally did get LSU Purple fig. Looks like you got your hands full with those all those figs. Thanks for sharing and happy growing:-)

  • olpea
    11 years ago

    Nice pics Bamboo.

    I was struck by the difference in peach fruit development. Some are quarter size and others blooming. I've never had that much spread. Must be the warm climate of FL.

  • northernmn
    11 years ago

    Those are some very nice pictures. I'm jealous.

    It will still be about 7 more weeks before the ice is off of our lake in northern MN, and things start to green up.

    The good news is that I'm currently south of you in the Florida Keys sucking up the sunshine.

  • bamboo_rabbit
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Blueboy,

    I am a little surprised I am ahead of you, we are normally pretty close. Part of the difference in the sweetcrisp Emerald is the beds. My BB are grown in 3 beds and they get differing levels of sun. Where the sweetcrisp picture was taken they get the most sun and where the emerald picture was taken that bed only gets partial spring sun. As the season changes it gets more and the difference is only a hour or two less sun but it makes a difference. I like it because it spreads out the harvest season.

    Olpea,

    You must have peach trees that bloom earlier than others? Are there no early mid and late peaches?

  • camp10
    11 years ago

    Spring has not sprung! At least here in Wisconsin. :-)

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  • olpea
    11 years ago

    "You must have peach trees that bloom earlier than others? Are there no early mid and late peaches?"

    Bamboo,

    Our earliest peaches start to harvest -30 and the latest is about +45, so the season lasts about 75 days. I have some later peaches planted, but they haven't started producing yet.

    You'll soon discover harvest dates have nothing to do with bloom time. My earliest peach right now actually blooms a couple days later than most other peaches.

    What makes a peach early or late is what happens after pit hardening. Once pit hardening occurs, later ripening peaches just sit there at quarter size for a long time, whereas early peaches move right from pit hardening into fruit swell, and then into ripening.

    Most seasons, all of our peaches bloom within a few days of one another. I had a peach once, called White River, which bloomed a week earlier than the bulk of the other peaches, but it drowned the first year it set fruit, so I don't know if it would have always been such an early bloomer, or if it was just a fluke.

    I have about 30 varieties in my backyard and they seem to bloom at the same time (maybe a 4 or 5 day spread from the earliest to the latest, but most bloom w/in 1 or 2 days of one another). None of them are the really low chill varieties which are commonly grown in places like FL. That may be the difference.

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