Scott,

Thank you very much. I am glad you put captions on all the pictures. They are very interesting.

It's also helpful for me to see how you planted your trees. Unfortunately, mine planting is not in neat rows like yours.

You have a large piece of land. Thank you again. Love to see more pictures. Pictures paint a thousand words.

Instructive and inspiring. I'd love to see more.

Hi Scott,

Thanks for the pictures. Regarding the last one, the Che fruit, I experience the same thing: fruit starts to develop but then all drops before ripening. Do you have the supposedly self-fertile plant sold by Edible Landscaping?

Scott,

Nice pictures, you are a well grounded orchardist.

Tony

Thanks a lot for the pictures. Everything looks great. I am envious as ALL of my fruit froze and I'll have nothing this year. Not a big deal since it is just a hobby but it would have been nice to get something since several of my trees set tons of fruit before the frost. Most of my trees are young, 6-10 feet tall. Next year will be better, I hope.
It looks like you are doing a really good job and having fun.
Bill

Awesome pictures, looks like a nice challenge growing on that hill/slope.

Great pictures Scott! You have so many varieties! Are you within close distance to neighbors, thus spraying 'Surround'? And does the Surround prevent the curculio from munching your apples and plums? We are in the same zone area, but you are a good month ahead of me with fruit set. Wow!

That's inspiring! So many new trees!

Scott,

Those are some nice pictures.

I get those dead flies that stick to the trees too.

I'm curious about your stink bug trap. What level of control is reported with those?

Hi folks, thanks for the comments.

Austransplant, the Che I have is from Hidden Springs. They also sold me a male but it died. I have heard that all che eventually are self-fertile once they are mature enough, but maybe not. In a few years I am going to give up and graft a male on.

Mrs G, since the neighbors are so close and lots of kids are around (including mine) I use Surround and no bug poisons. For moths I also use mating disruption and spinosad and codling moth granulosis virus. With the combo of all that I have pretty much solved my moth problem - this year I have seen a grand total of about ten OFM tip strikes in all my peach trees. I sprayed my last Surround spray a few weeks ago and will time the virus sprays to future generation hatch. The CM granulosis I hit too late this year so I got more CM than last year when I had about zero.

Olpea, I always wonder if those flies are laying eggs. I never see any eggs or hatch so maybe they are just dying.

I don't know how well the stink bug traps will work, but I thought I would give them a try. I bought half a dozen of them and put one out so far. Since I have seen only one BMSB the whole spring and little damage I have not put out more, but when I see more damage I will put out more. The fact that the trap is empty may in fact be because there are no bugs around.

One thing I didn't point out was my fishline deer fence, you can see it in a few pictures such as the one with the Bedan nearly leafless apple. This spring the fence has been working better than last year when the deer learned how to jump through it (they already knew the goodies on the other side, this year I am trying to keep the deer from learning that).

Also there are two pages of thumbnails, click on the 2 to get the 2nd page. It may not be obvious.

Scott

Scott,

Glad you mentioned the 2nd page. I did miss it the first time.

On the 2nd page, the first picture of pear leaf with fire blight looks just like the same thing on the leaves of my Asian pears. I did not know what it was. I just picked off those leaves. There were only a few such leaves on each pear tree. What should I do or treat it with anything?

Your pictures of grafted branches make me want to learn how to graft!!

I've never heard of a Bedan tree. Need to Google for info.

I don't know how you are able to tend to all those trees/bushes but you have done a great job. Thank you very much for sharing.

A veritable Garden of Eden.

Wow finally got to the second page, I missed it too! What do you do with all of your fruit?

Mamuang, I don't worry about such leaves, its only useful as a sign that fireblight may be around (there are also other ways to get such browned edges, its not a sure ID; for this one I am pretty sure since FB struck the apples in the next row over at the same time).

Mrs. G, I haven't had too much of a problem with too many fruits since I keep re-grafting trees to try out new varieties, and I tend to get only a few fruits on each graft. But every year it increases and this year I think there will be an overabundance. I do dry and can and freeze to preserve extras.

Scott

Scott:

What do you think of the White Gold cherry? Just read an article saying it was the favorite of customers at an Elkton MD pick your own. What are your favorite cherries?

Your trees and vines look great!! They do appear somewhat less vigorous than I would have expected. Would you say I'm miss reading things? And if your vigor is low what would you attribute that to? This is not to be critical in any way, I think low vigor may be correlated to high eating quality.

Scott, finally got to page 2! And to think you manage your orchard by yourself! Not only are your orchards fantastic, they are inspiring. Many, many thanks!

Thanks for posting all of those pictures! If you get time, please post more. Especially throughout the season. I LOVE looking at orchard pictures. I really appreciate that you listed the names/varieties as well. So helpful.
Kim

Here is a link that might be useful: My fruits and gardens

Fruitnut, I prune like crazy, that keeps vigor down. Thats the only way I can get so many things in such a small space. I also hardly ever water. Some things are pretty young as well.

I like White Gold a lot, mainly because it is a very reliable and easy tree. It tastes as good as any white cherry I have had; the only downside is the fruits are a little on the small side. I prefer soft dark-fleshed cherries, my favorite there so far is Black Tartarian. But I also like the crisp red ones, my favorite there is Black Gold, again for reliability. I have not grown all that many sweet cherry varieties so I don't have a whole lot of data on them.

Scott

Do you spray Surround on all fruits?

Good to finally see your growing operation. Looks like you have plenty of space to expand :)

Frank, I spray it on all the pome and stone fruits. The other things don't need it. Well I have used it for Japanese beetles on grapes but they have not been a problem for several years now. I used to not do the cherries or pears, but the PC would flock to those if they were the only thing not sprayed.

I was trying to keep the front yard mostly clear for the neighbors who expect grassy lawns etc, but more fruit trees keep popping up there every time I look :-) There isn't a lot of good room left, too many big trees blocking the sun.

Scott

Scott, nice, very nice. Good job! When the fruits start to ripe, all your neighbor wants to be your friend.

I am curious, what rootstock do you graft your pawpaw onto?

The pawpaws in the picture are top workings on existing trees - I had multiple trees of the same varieties so topworked the extras. All pawpaw grafts are on random seedlings, there is no special rootstock anyone is using I don't think.

Scott

I am having to fight back the grass in my blackberries on a regular basis. How do the new primocanes grow with the fabric you put down?

Tiger, blackberry canes come up from the same general spot every year. They expand through tip rooting only. This technique would not work on raspberries which grow primocanes from anywhere along their roots. I got this idea from someone who posted pictures here about this technique, can't remember who now.

I generally don't like using weed fabric since its just more expense and waste produced, but I'm glad I did it in this case. I sprained my ankle weeding last year and the growth on my plants was not good with all the weeds.

Scott

I have Ouachita blackberries and they that sprout up everywhere. I keep them in a row and use the lawnmower to take out any outside the row. I just planted natchez and navaho, maybe these will be more contained.

I planted Ouachita in fall 2010 and haven't seen any underground spreading. Maybe they are just too young and it will start soon.

I planted Prime Jan (a primocane fruiting blackberry) in spring 2010. Both last spring and this month I've seen shoots coming up all over, including the lawn.

Triple Crown spreads like crazy through tip-rooting. I wasn't careful enough early on, so now I've got a denser patch than I intended.

Blackberry reproduction can be a bit confusing. There are blackberries that come up from a "clump" like black raspberries. These type of blackberries are trailing or semi-erect (like Triple Crown, Chester, or Doyle) and are propagated easily from tip rooting.

Fully erect blackberries (like the AR releases Tiger mentions) don't grow so much in a clump, but come up everywhere just like raspberries.