Late June Mulberries

Lots of Buluklu, occasional berries from Pakistan White, and the Illinois Everbearing just started.  My two Morus nigra cultivars, Kaester and Nigra LA started to ripen too.  

In the below image, all white berries are Buluklu, which are intensely sweet. Illinois Everbearing fruits are in the lower right corner. These are complex in flavor with good amount of sugar and acid.  Kaester is in the upper left corner, and the Nigra LA fruits are in the upper right corner. The Morus nigra fruits are very flavorful and sweet-sour.

Himalayan mulberries

 In this post I will be collecting info on the Himalayan mulberries I grow or find in other gardens.

Himalayan DMOR9

I have described the Himalayan DMOR9 accession in a number of posts in this blog. I have grown it for a few years.

Himalayan Skinner 

I received Himalayan Skinner scions in early 2021, and some of my grafts already made a few fruits this spring. The fruits seem to be very similar to DMOR9, but I need the grafts to mature before making any conclusions. The leaves of this accession are heart-shaped and thus different from DMOR9. 

Himalayan Turkish

A few weeks ago I came across two more Himalayan trees that may or may not be identical to each other. They also look very similar to DMOR9 but have even more palmate leaves. Time will tell if these are different from DMOR9. 

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When I have the plant material available for sale, I list it at reallygoodplants.com

Mulberries in June of 2021

 Buluklu is the queen of the June show. Pakistan White still produces a good amount of fruit. Himalayan DMOR9 is mostly done, this was my earliest mulberry.

Buluklu in the below image. Very sweet melting berries.

Buluklu, Pakistan White, and the last smallish berries of Himalayan DMOR9 by the end of the month.

Early in the month I had good sized DMOR9 fruits, image below

Black Prince is fruiting on my young trees and grafts, three pictures below 

Plenty of Pakistan fruits

Maple leaf is still a good producer this month, 2 images below 

Still plenty of Oscar fruits. 

Four Seasons mulberry fruits are sweet and flavorful by the mid June, see them in the image below.

And the Persian Morus nigra LA just starting to get ripe 

There are a few black fruits on my Morus nigra Kaester too.

Plants or scions for some of these cultivars are occasionally available at reallygoodplants.com

Developing avocado fruits, June of 2021

I found 14 accessions that made the fruitlets this year. I don’t expect all will hold the fruits to the maturity as some are recent grafts or new trees. Today we expect to reach 100F, and tomorrow we are up to 110F.

Mexicola 

Plenty of fruits on my old tree. I suspect most will make it through the Thursday heat of 110F.

Aravaipa  

Not a lot of fruits this year as I had to prune these branches significantly.

Wurtz

Holiday 

Guatemalan UCD

Brazos Belle

GEM

Long South Gate

Daily 11

John Herd

Bonny Doon

Royal Wright 

Second Red

Duke

Strawberry and Argelino loquats

 I missed to collect the Strawberry loquat fruits when they were perfectly ripe. The ones I have here on the left part of the picture are past their prime. No detectable acid here, sweet fruit, mostly of a baked apple flavor. 

Argelino fruits just reached their peak ripeness stage. These are probably the most flavorful loquat I have, with an excellent sugar and acid balance. Apricot-grape and maybe even mango flavored.

Four White Loquats in Early June

 All these four selections are very good loquats. All are growing on the same combination tree in Vacaville, California.

Chuck has the most dense flesh, sweet, apple-grape flavored, overripe now.

Ed's Delight is still very good, but now at the end of its peak ripening period. Very sweet with a little acid, soft, juicy, pear flavored.

Surprise is at the peak ripeness now.  Very sweet and very juicy with some strawberry-apple notes.

Fletcher White Many fruits are ready, some will need more time. Sweet with a good amount of acid, grape-pear flavored, juicy.

Sour cherries in Sacramento Valley

Back in December 2017, I ordered scions of 12 sour cherry accessions from the USDA Geneva (NY) station. They arrived in early 2018. I also collected some additional cultivars from the local gardening friends. In total, 16 different cultivars were successfully grafted and planted in the ground in early 2019. 

They are:

Almaz

Balaton

Belle Magnifique

Bianco Rosato di Piedmonte

Csengodi Csocros

Danube

Duke

Favorite

Oblachinskaya

Pamjat Vavilova

PV1

Shatten Morelle

Studencheskaya

Sumadinka

Tamaris

Vladimirskaya

For the rootstocks, I used Mahaleb and a few Adara.

A few accessions were also grafted onto in-ground trees:

Almaz -> Adara Intersteam -> Shiro plum

Belle Magnifique -> Adara

PV1 -> Adara

Duke -> Adara Intersteam -> Shiro Plum

Sumadinka -> Royal Rainier sweet cherry

The first to fruit were the grafts made onto in-ground trees. I got a few fruits from Almaz and Duke in 2019 already. Belle Magnifique and Sumadinka started to produce in 2020.  Sumadinka seems to be the most productive, with Belle Magnifique coming in a close second. Now in 2021, Duke and Almaz produced just a few fruits, and this might be due to the short Adara interstems.  I used just ~4 inches of Adara, while I should have used a foot of it. These grafts reside on my Shiro plum, and they stopped growing.

Sumadinka on the other hand is taking over the Royal Rainier cherry, and now this graft represents most of the tree. The fruits have a very typical sour cherry flavor. Shown in the picture below.

Belle Magnifique fruits (picture below) taste sweeter, as this is a selection of a hybrid Duke cherry.

However, Belle Magnifique fruits (the right fruit in the image below) are a little smaller and lighter than Sumadinka (the left fruit in the image below).

Duke is a relatively large and “sweet” sour cherry as it is a sour-sweet hybrid.

Almaz is a light-colored cherry with transparent juice. I only had a few not fully ripe fruits, so I do not have an opinion about this accession yet.

From the newly made trees, only Sumadinka, Balaton, and Oblachinskaya made fruits in the spring of 2021. I will need a few more years to learn which cultivars perform well in my area. Sumadinka and Belle Magnifique seem to be the most promising for now.

Blueberries, the first real harvest

 Blueberries turned out to be one of the most challenging plants to grow here in Davis. This was until about a year and half ago, when I followed an advice to grow them in large pots. Last year I already had some berries from a couple of my potted plants and today I picked a bowl from each Reveille (left) and Southmoon plants. 

The Reveille fruits seem to be larger and sweeter than Southmoon, but this could be due to the sunnier location. This plant has almost full day of sun:

While my Southmoon plant is mostly in the shade:

Both plants grow in a peat moss rich mix with added sulfur and occasionally get a balanced fertilizer.