Saturday, December 9, 2023

Mulberries in 2023

 The spring and summer of 2023 were very busy for us as we planted over a thousand trees during this time. Only occasionally I took the videos and pictures of the fruits. The mulberries fruited great and we enjoyed them very much.

In the image below starting from top clockwise: DMOR9, Australian Green, Black Prince, Easter Egg. Isfahan is in the middle.

All these are great mulberries with unique flavors. 

Australian Green is honey sweet without any acidity. It’s probably identical to Saharanpur Local and Pakistan White.

Black Prince is a very productive intense flavored berry fruiting later the most. It’s very sweet with some acidity. Highly frost tolerant, originally from Ukraine. The berries also have a better storage life than other mulberries. I planted multiple trees of this cultivar as I think it has a commercial potential for local fruit sales. Below are a couple more pictures of Black Prince from June.

Black Prince will also fruit in a pot at least for a couple years, but you would need to prune it hard as it’s a large tree normally. Below are the fruit on my potted tree before I put the plant into the ground.


Easter Egg is purely sweet but with a floral flavor in them. Great mulberry.

DMOR9 is one of the best flavored long fruited mulberries. Seems to be perfectly frost tolerant in zone 9B.

Below is DMOR9 on the right and Taiwanese Long on the left. These are very similar but have a little different flavors. Taiwanese Long tree is more frost sensitive and the upper canopy was damaged by the frost to about 4 feet from the ground.
Taiwanese Long leaves also have very different form than DMOR9. Here is the berry on a leaf.


Isfahan is very large and fat pure sweet white mulberry. The tree is large and produces abundantly.

Frank is also pure sweet mulberry tinted with lavender.

Shangri La makes large black sweet-sour berries that need to ripen completely to be enjoyable. Some consider this as one of the best flavored mulberries. Very large leaves.

Aussie is a very early wonderful mulberry with extra large berries which are often of irregular form.

Galicia is another mulberry from Ukraine with a great degree of frost tolerance. The berries are large, black, sweet, but relatively mild in the flavor.

My plan for the next spring-summer is to record every mulberry which I still don’t have presented on my blog here or on my YouTube channel. Make sure to check the mulberry videos I have there: https://www.youtube.com/@martamatvienko5/search?query=mulberry

The cuttings of the above described accessions and a number of others are usually available during the sales at reallygoodplants.com

Friday, December 8, 2023

Sorriso di Primavera plum

 Sorriso di Primavera is a very early sweet and flavorful plum with distinctive floral notes. The fruits are medium-large, yellow with orange blush. The pictures below are from June 12, 2023.

The scions of this plum are usually available during the winter sale at reallygoodplants.com

Green Persian Plums

 I have two accession of these early ripening plums, Tabriz and Green Persian. These maybe identical or just similar, as I have not evaluated them in the detail yet. They are usually harvested in May when they are still crunchy and green, and consumed with salt. 

When they are fully ripe, they become yellow and soft.

Most likely these are very similar or identical to the Gojeh Sabz plums occasionally available at some ethnic markets.


The dormant scions of Tabriz and Green Persian plums are usually available during our winter sales at reallygoodplants.com


Thursday, December 7, 2023

Pitanga (Surinam Cherry) Guaruja Red, Update from 2023

 My Guaruja Red tree produced pretty well again this past summer.  The fruits are sweet with some orange-like acidity, the flavor is excellent. Below are the pictures from early June 2023.


The tree is about 12 ft now, and I need a ladder to harvest the fruits.
The scions are usually available during our winter and spring sales at reallygoodplants.com

Sour cherry fruit pictures from late June 2023

 The picture below shows the "true" sour cherries



UZ1 seedling fruits are well attached to the fruit stem and this allows for easy removal of seeds, see below.


Duke (sweet X sour hybrids) cherries in the image below.

The scions from our sour cherry trees are usually available during the winter sales at reallygoodplants.com

Saturday, December 2, 2023

Cuttings sale in December 2023

This posts describes the cuttings sale on reallygoodplants.com in December 2023.

The sale will open at 6 PM PST on December 10.

 1. This year we have not collected the scions in advance, and will cut them "to order". This means that the order shipping might be delayed by the weather conditions. We did our best estimate on the amount we can cut, and we might be able to restock some cultivars after the shipment of early orders.

 2. Some cultivars will not be linked to the descriptions.  There are two opposite reasons for this. The first group are the cultivars which are easily searchable on the web, like many apples, plums, peaches, a couple of Opuntias, etc.  And the other group are cultivars which are novel in the circulation, and we have not evaluated them in the detail yet. These are for the gardeners looking for new gerplasm to test in their conditions. 

 3. Most of the material offered here should be grafted, however, there are some accessions that could be rooted.  We successfully rooted all Elaeagnus species, Kei Apples, sour cherry PV Hybrid #1, Adara plum, and many mulberries.  Here is the post on mulberry rooting abilities you may want to check. This year I also learned that Skinner mulberry could be rooted. If you plan on rooting some material, I would still recommend grafting a piece for a backup. 

All pomegranates root fine.  If you want to graft them, make sure to graft onto strong young shoots.  More about grafting in this post.

All Opuntia pads, as well as grapes will root.

 4. The cuttings length and diameter will depends on the species.  We will supply at least 6 inches long cuttings with at least 3 buds.  A 6 inches long apricot scion can have up to 20 buds, while some vigorous mulberries might have 6-8 inches long internodes.  On average, mulberry cuttings will be longer than avocado, apricots, and feijoa. Some mulberries grow very thick shoots. If you are planning on getting the Himalayan types like Naples, Steve Murray, etc, these maybe up to 1 inch in diameter and will require established rootstocks to graft onto, or prepare yourself for chip budding your smaller rootstocks. I don't know if any of these will root. I assume that they are not easy to root. 

 5. We will offer the wood of white sapote cultivars, some cherimoya, and few other subtropicals in early March. Avocado and pitanga wood will be offered at that time too.





Mulberry Shelli turned out to be a faux one

 Last winter I distributed the scions of Shelli mulberry. I received them from another US mulberry enthusiast. Unfortunately, this summer fruits on this tree proved it to be a faux one. I checked around if anyone has a real Shelli in the US, and could not find any confirmed material. The good thing about this Faux Shelli is that it roots very easily and can be useful for rootstock.  I currently have four trees of this fake Shelli in the ground that will serve as rootstocks. 

If you purchased this accession from me last year, and you would like a refund, please contact me by writing an email to marta@reallygoodplants.com 

Alternatively, if you are placing an order on reallygoodplants.com this season, send me a note when ordering, and I will discount or add a comparable accession.

This is not how Shelli fruits should look:


 The real Shelli makes large black fruits.

Sour Cherry PV Hybrid # 1

 This accession is a complex hybrid between sour cherry Pamjat Vavilova x (P. canescens x P. avium) and might have a potential as a dwarfing rootstock. It roots easily, and the two accessions I grafted onto it grow slowly but bloom profusely. Below are the pictures of the grafs on this tree. The PV Hybrid #1 blooms but never fruited for me. It is partially sterile according to the description I found on the Russian web. The accession was created in Russia. I should have the cuttings at the reallygoodplants.com during the winter sales.





Sour Cherry cv. Almaz

 This is a complex hybrid (Padocerus M X Duke Novoselka X Pamjat Vavilova) resistant to Leaf Spot. The tree is small and produces pink colored large cherries with transparent juice. The hybrid was created in Polland, but the only available picture of the fruits is on a site in Russia, see below

My grafts grow very slowly in my hot climate, and I produced few fruits, but unable to locate my pictures at the moment. If you are interested to test this accession in your conditions, check if I have the scions at reallygoodplants.com

Hybrid Goumi Catherine's Find and its progenies

 There are multiple selections of goumi, Elaeagnus multiflora. However, the selection Catharine's Find is of unclear origin and is probably an interspecific hybrid. It has larger and tastier fruits than the commonly available goumis. I grow it for a number of years. However, the production in my shady yard was minimal so far. It seems, these trees require full sun for good production. I just planted an air layer from my home tree on my new farm and looking forward to harvesting more of these. On the other hand, two seedlings from this accession produced pretty well after just one year on the new farm. Both seedlings have smaller fruits than the mother tree. The picture below shows Catharine's Find (top) and Seedling #2 fruits.


Seedling #1 fruits are smaller than #2, but they are ripening later than #2. Below picture shows their sizes wth #1 fruits on the left.


I will have all three accessions available during the December sale at reallygoodplants.com These could be rooted or grafted onto related Elaeagnus species. 



Elaeagnus latifolia

 I grow two accessions which I named according to the sources they came from. The one I call Chuck, came as a scion from Chuck Chan and most likely the latifolia species. I grafted it onto the goumi tree I already had growing in my yard, and years after I can state that these are fully compatible. This accession also roots easily and I just planted multiple small rooted plants on my new farm.

The Mimosa accession is from the Mimosa nursery in LA. The leaves a little different than Chuck's, the plant didn't have a tag. I was promised large sour fruits when I was buying this plant. This one may or may not be latifolia, but it's certainly a related species. This accession might be s little more frost sensitive but I only noticed a little frost damage on immature leaves after the below freezing temperatures. This didn't affect the plant growing in my yard in Davis, as it is pretty vigorous. This accession also roots but a little slower than the Chuck's accession. I have also planted multiple small rooted plants on my new farm.

Both accessions are growing like shrubs that want to climb on the neighboring trees. None of these bloomed yet for me, and by offering the plant material from both at reallygoodplants.com I hope to hear that the others are more successful to bringing these to production.

On the left side of the picture below is Mimosa, the right is Chuck. Mimosa leaves seem to be a little larger on average. 



Kei Apples #8 and Not #8

 I aquired both selections #8 and Not #8 from Dennis Sharmahd a decade ago. #8 is his early sweet female and Not #8 is a later fruiting female with more acidity than #8. Both accessions were planted in my yard and grew pretty good, but with the limited sun exposure they never bloomed. I will be reestablishing these at my new farm. These are available as cuttings during the December 2023 sale at reallygoodplants.com These root well for me.

My own Kei Apple selections, Sweet female #4, Dense female #1, and Male #3 are now young trees on the new farm and their propagation material will become available in a year or two.



Old Coloma Persimmons, Apples, Pears and Mulberries

 Once upon a time the City of Coloma was a thriving international community with the fruit orchards rolling along the hills. Now, in the early 21st century a few survived fruiting trees are still producing there. I first found them in the fall of 2018 and described some in the second issue of the Fruit Gardener magazine in 2019. 

Persimmons

The Gold Discovery park in Coloma hosts Diospyros kaki (Asian persimmons) trees growing along the Diospyros virginiana (American persimmons) trees.  Both are the exotic trees to the area and came here from different parts of the Earth. There is might be yet another species, as I'm not able to easily place one tree to either of these. Most likely, the Asian persimmons were introduces by the Chinese as they arrived there in 1848 to work in the gold mines.  This site has to be one of the first areas to host the Asian persimmons in the US.  At the same time the workers from the Eastern US were arriving in masses to support the thriving California gold industry. The American persimmons growing there have to be credited to the workforce arrived from the American East. Below are some pictures of trees and fruits. I named those trees which I am propagating. 

American by the Road 49

Very tasty American persimmon growing on a small tree, which is probably a root sprout from the nearby patch/ring of very large and old female trees which themselves seem to be the clones from a tree that was gone a while ago.


Rye Bread

Pollination Variant Non-Astringent Asian persimmon. Very dark flesh with just enough sugar to taste the complexity of the chocolaty-peachy flavors. The fruits are medium-small in size for an Asian persimmon.



Watermelon

Another Pollination Variant Non-Astringent Asian persimmon. The non-pollinated fruits are elongated, while the pollinated ones are round and even squat. These are sweet and chocolate-watermelon flavored.

In this older post Watermelon and Rye Bread are tasted and compared to a few other PVNA persimmons.

Grape

This one is the first of this kind for me. This Asian persimmon produces dimorphic fruit, and both types are astringent until fully soft. I named it Grape, as the dominant type are the grape-sized fruits growing in clusters. The other type are the round medium sized single orange fruits. See the pictures below.

According to De Moerbeiboom, "The smaller and different shaped fruit always result from male type flowers (clusters of three) that are actually perfect flowers that have both anthers and pistils. Larger female flowers are on the same tree. These will produce normal sized seeded fruit."

In the terms of the flavor and astringency, I preferred the smaller fruits, but in a different year the large fruits were pretty good too.


High Street Apple

This old tree produces very nice sweet yellow apples.



Monroe Pear

This pear tree grows in the area of Monroe family orchard at the park.  It produces flavorful, sweet melting fruit.



Mulberries

Old Coloma Black Mulberry, Morus nigra

There is a very old black mulberry in the Monroe orchard area. It produces the typical black mulberry fruits with a complex and sweet-sour flavor.



Coloma Williams House Male, Morus alba

I am propagating this male as I want to test if the pollinated fruits can grow larger and tastier. 

The scions from the accessions described here will be available (in limited quantities) during the December 2023 sale at reallygoodplants.com

Tuesday, November 28, 2023

November Apples

 In November 2023 I recorded the fruits from four apple cultivars, Pepin Litovskii, Brushy Mountain Limbertwig, Cripps Pink, and Cripps Red.

Pepin Litovskii 

The fruit had green skin with slight blush and yellow flesh. The texture is fine grained, the flavor is complex, sweet, and pleasant. Excellent late fresh eating apple. 


My Short video on tasting this apple right from the tree:


Brushy Mountain Limbertwig

I harvested this apple in early November but tasted it on the 27th of the month. I was pleasantly surprised how good this apple is. It’s sweet with little acidity, very juicy, and highly aromatic. Excellent apple.

Cripps Pink 

I wasn’t impressed much with these when picked too early. However, the fruit picked in early November became excellent after 2 weeks on the kitchen counter. It became very sweet with little acidity and intense floral taste, crispy flesh. Another excellent apple.

Cripps Red

This is a sibling of Cripps Pink, and it seems to be ripening even later. The fruits I tasted right from the tree are good but need more time to develop the sweetness.

The video link to my Short on YouTube: https://youtube.com/shorts/7GYsFwEXHTc?si=uqqyrdSbU7lHqiYx


Mulberries in 2023

 The spring and summer of 2023 were very busy for us as we planted over a thousand trees during this time. Only occasionally I took the vide...