Lubimyi and Girkanets pomegranates

 Lubimyi and Girkanets are late season fruits, ripening from November to December.  Both are hard-seeded and complex in flavor.  

Lubimyi

Lubimyi - Hard-seeded, large seeds, sweet-sour with sweet cherry flavor. Nice flavored, but the seeds are large, probably best for juicing.

Girkanets

Girkanets - Hard-seeded, but the seeds are small, sweet-sour with some tannins. Exceptionally flavored with all attributes of classic pomegranate taste profile. Can be used for fresh eating or juicing.

Girkanets (left) and Lubimyi

The propagation wood is usually available during our winter sale at reallygoodplants.com

November fruits of Sacramento Valley

I am planning to write quick posts here on what I have fruiting every months of the year.

November might be the most productive month here in the Sacramento Valley. 

1. Pomegranate - most if not all cultivars are ready

2. Feijoa - midseason cultivars are dropping fruits

3. Persimmons - mostly just Jiro from the old trees on the farm. From the newer grafts, I just collected the first fruit of an old astringent cultivar I call Watermelon.  A few American persimmons, Early Jewel, Lehman's Delight and Meader

4. Citrus - Early satsumas (Okitsu Wase, Miyagawa, Miho Wase), Rangpur Lime, Thornless Mexican lime

5. Tropical guava - My Brazilian seedling produces plenty of fruit 

6. Kei Apple - The productive "Sweet Female #4" - good amount of fruit into November

7. Che - Oregon Exotics is ripe and the production is good

8. Occasionally I pick dragon fruits. On November 11, I picked "Hardy", and on November 21 "Haley's Comet" and "Vietnamese Giant"

9. Cherimoya Fortuna produced one very nice fruit

10. No avocados on my trees, all finished, but my neighbor's tree is fruiting now.  The cultivar might be Mexicola Grande or another Mexican large fruited cultivar.  I need to graft her wood onto my tree.

Watermelon persimmon below

Haley's Comet and Vietnamese Giant dragon fruits

My neighbor's avocados

The propagation wood for many fruiting trees is usually available during our winter sale at reallygoodplants.com

Successful Rooting of Pomegranate, Fig, and Mulberry Cuttings

The steps to follow

1. Cover the upper portion of the cutting that will be exposed above soil, with one layer of parafilm.  You want to have 3-6 buds above soil.

2.   Cut the scion at 1/4 inch below the lowest bud.  You want 2-4 buds to be buried in the soil/perlite mix.

3.   Plant the cutting in a pot with a light potting soil.  The pot should be tall enough so that the inserted portion of the cutting is no longer that half of the pot height.  This way the moisture drains down from the lowest portion of the cutting, and the newly formed roots have space to grow down from the stem.

4.  Put the pot on a heating mat in a cold, low-lighted area, such as a garage.  The bottom heat will stimulate root development. The low light conditions will slow down the bud development.

5.  These instructions are based on Harvey’s video on fig rooting:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7_mT0H6Y2U

The dormant cuttings of various cultivars are usually available during our winter sales at reallygoodplants.com

Tasting pomegranates: Dewey, Garnet Sash (Elf), and Mae

I picked fruits of these three cultivars on October 9, 2016. They all are sweet, and all have large hard seeds.

Mae has the most acid, and a little of bitterness, but still pretty sweet. Probably the least desirable fruit from this set.

Garnet Sash has the the largest and hardest seeds.  The arils are sweet with a bit of vanilla flavor.

Dewey is sweet with slight acidic tone. Probably the most juicy one out of these three cultivars. If I had to select the best out of these three cultivars, Dewey would be the one for me.

All these are less desirable when compared to a fruit of Vkusnyi pomegranate, that is ready now too.
However, they are certainly add to the tasting experience of pom flavors and may have other important traits outside of flavor and seed size.

Mae fruit

Garnet Sash (Elf) fruit

Dewey fruit