Went out to One Green World again a couple of days ago and bought a Bosc pear, Royal Epineuse plum, and Black Diamond thornless blackberry. I’d have planted them but everything’s frozen solid at the moment. It’s been clear and cold for a week. It’s actually pretty nice for working outside… in that it’s not pouring rain… but out of the sun, it’s numb finger city.
Spent my post-work afternoon putting up some more fence around the farm and sinking some posts for the chain link around the chicken coop. I hate chain link. Still, I have a bunch that I tore out when I moved into the place (they’d fenced off about half the yard with it and just let it go wild.) Might as well make use of it. Besides, given the raccoon situation, I think some solid protection’s in order.
4 responses so far ↓
1 Kelly // Jan 24, 2008 at 9:36 pm
As someone with some large mature fruit trees in my yard, I have to say, “Whoa! You might be sorry when your yard is full of fallen fermented fruit in 10 years.” But you probably shouldn’t listen to me, because I got the cutest little fig tree for Christmas.
Seriously, though, are you planning to prune them to keep them small? That’s a lot of fruit you have already.
2 Rian // Jan 24, 2008 at 11:07 pm
As the poor, neglected dungeon prisoner said in The Life of Brian:
“Oh what I wouldn’t give to be spat at in the face!”
Yeah, I know, in theory, one day, I may have excessive fruiteous bounty just falling to the ground. Still, my theory has always been, and remains (I am no flip-flopper!) that it is easier to remove an overabundant fruit tree than to make one appear.
So, I jam stuff into the ground willy-nilly, hoping that one day I have to say “No, I can not eat another fresh, delicious peach. TAKE THEM AWAY!”
Actually, this would be a good topic for discussion (hmm, do I need a FORUM?!). I have spoken to very knowledgeable orchardists who insist that one plants rootstock for soil conditions and then prunes for size and others who say rootstock should be the prime determiner of size.
I’ve gone mostly middle of the road. I have only one M27 (mega-freakish-ugly-dwarf) apple. The rest are sort of spec’d at 12-15 footish. These are apple M-26s, cherry Gisela 5s, and pear OHxF 513s. But even 12-15′ is pretty big, so I’ll summer prune to control size, too.
If something’s taller than, maybe, 10′ or so, it’s too damn tall for fruit. I don’t think most people appreciate how tall a 15′ “dwarf” fruit tree is. It’s tall. I mostly got rootstocks that seemed to be well adapted to the soil and less vigorous than standard so I had a fighting chance at keeping them pruned.
My sickly peach (which oozes goo and has brown rot) is already about 10′ or more after a two seasons. It might not wanna give me fruit, but it’s growing like nuts.
Yeah, so, if it gets out of hand, I own a chainsaw. More likely, I’ll use this as another excuse to be out in the yard all day.
Rereading this, I realize that I have an unhealthy dependence on parenthetical comments (see above).
3 Elizabeth // Feb 24, 2008 at 9:29 am
I’m in Seattle, also growing lots of my own food. I’m thinking about blackberries, and have 2 questions. First, are ones that I would plant appreciably better than the “wild” ones growing in the alley (the ones that I cut back to keep from growing over my fence)? Second, why did you choose the Black Diamond Thornless? I have been thinking about one of those, but web research says the flavor is not as good as Marionberry (which does have thorns), and that it was primarily developed for machine-harvesting. I’ve never actually tasted either. Your thoughts?
4 Rian // Feb 24, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Hi Elizabeth,
“Better” is a tough one. I had roughly 400 sq. ft. of wild blackberries (actually, Himalayan blackberries, introduced by Luther Burbank as, I heard once, an initially thornless variety, but which reverted and definitely spread all over after that…) when I took this place over from the previous owner.
I have two small children, and the Himalayans nearly sent me to the hospital a couple of times. On the other hand, they were very, very tasty. Still, the thorns and aggressive rooting are just too much.
So, why Black Diamond… well, I’d seen that they are not rated as tops in flavor, but a) I liked thornless, b) One Green World had them, and c) they’re really just to cover a fence behind the chicken coop with something edible. I try not to get too worked up about the absolute best variety since that can get out of hand and take the fun out of it for me.
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