How is everyone's fruit trees doing this year so far?

[newchickmom09]

I forgot to talk about our other fruit trees. We also have a tangelo and that poor thing just looks dreadful. It is about 3-4 years old now and finaly has started to grow upward. This year it put of a ton of blooms but only a few turned into fruit. We had a strong storm and it blew all but 3 fruit off of the tree. The last ones were about the size of a quarter and this last month those got blown off too. I guess next year we might get some. We also just ordered two pear cocktail trees and they are just starting to get there branches going. It is probably going to be a couple years till we get anything from them. I think the thing that really helped our apricot tree was there used to be another one 15 feet apart. This was fine when they both were the size of drawf trees. Then 5 years ago the one tree got something really weird wrong with it. It grew blooms but never grew any leaves. After that summer we decided the tree probably was just done and we cut it down. After that and the chickens moved in the last apricot has done great.

I would like to get a nectarine tree next. We had one of these but two years ago a micro burst hit our yard and flung our above ground pool two houses over and in the process it took out our nectarine tree. The tree had a 4in across trunk and that wind snapped it like it was a toothpick.

Glad to hear about everyone's trees doing good. I hope everyone who's trees are holding out on them get a better outcome next year. It seems like they are on one year then off the next.

showme31~ My mother bought a bing cherry tree two years ago and was so happy when she brought it home. I came over to see her new trees and read her the tag that she needed a pollinator. Needless to say she still just has a nice looking tree with no cherries on it.

 

[sequin]

We ahve a small peach tree also that we planted last year. It is about 4 feet tall and had about 20 fruit on it at the beginning. Well once the fruit got about an inch around my 3 year old went on a picking spree and picked all but three peaches. I found the fruit with teeth marks in everyone. He told me he was trying to find a good one.

They don't seem to grow very fast. :/

My son did something similar when he was younger, so we told him he had to leave the fruit on the tree so it could grow. So, he left the fruit on the tree but took bites out of it anyway. LOL!!! I still laugh about that one.

Our fruit trees are too new this year for much fruit, and our older apple tree(which still wasn't that old) got mowed down by one of the kids. So, not much fruit for us this year, unfortunately.

 

[Hollywood Gardens]

My apricot died, my fig is doing great, my guava in doing great, my citrus is doing well and my mulberries were amazing this season!! I got 700 mulberries a day!

 

[newchickmom09]

sequin~ That is too funny! I love the things that kids will do somethings.

Hollywood gardens~ I used to live in FL and have to say that it the BEST spot to live. I loved how everything just seems to grow by itself.

 

[thebritt]

I'm SOOO jealous! We had a ridiculously wet and long "spring", so my fruit trees are p.o.'d - tiny fruit falling off already. My botonist friend said it's because the trees don't feel compelled to waste energy producing fruit, because they're not stressed by lack of water and hot temps. They essentially "kick the kids out" early .

 

[Whitewater]

We have an apple tree in our front yard -- planted it the fall we moved in here (this is our first home!), let's see, that would be back in 2008. So, the tree is 2ish years old, almost 3?

This year for the first time it was absolutely covered in blooms and it looked SO PRETTY and smelled wonderful too.

To my delight it began to grow apples -- a few on each of the blossom groupings -- but then, something happened and I don't know what. The tree lost all its apples but about half a dozen here and there, systematically over about a month.

Then my lovely husband (who doesn't really *get* organic-style gardening, and hardly knows anything about gardening/landscaping *period*) decided to take Round-Up to the thistles that were infesting our front beds and the area around our ancient 2 story pine tree. He didn't even think about the fact that the apple tree was a mere 6-8 feet from where he was spraying.

This resulted in the loss of 3 of the 6 remaining. Then squirrels got to one of the other 2 and yanked it off the tree. We found it on the ground with a couple bites out of it. The other one got eaten by a worm.

So out of all those promising proto-apples this spring, we will harvest a single apple this fall.

It better be a good one! LOL!


Whitewater

 

[ducks4you]

Peach Tree-loaded
Red (?) Apple Tree--loaded, with limbs sagging
OLDEST, largest Golden Delicious Tree-12 apples, TOTAL
Horses' Golden Delicious Apple Tree--loaded, but the bottom limbs are missing fruit....hmmmm...wonder which one has been taste testing
Montmorency Cherry Trees (3 and 4 years old)--enough harvested for 1/2 of a pie
Spice Pear Tree (3 years old)--13 pears
Barlett Pear Tree (2 years old, not in the ground yet)-5 pears

Harvest begins next month.

 

[newchickmom09]

thebritt~ yea, weather can do crazy things to fruit trees. Last year our apricot bloomed then we had one last crazy freeze and there went everything.

whitewater~ I hope that one apple does taste great! There is no Roundup allowed in my yards for that reason. Hubby and I had a very long descussion about this when we first bought the house.

ducks4you~ lucky horses! Sounds like youa re going to have a good harvest.

 

[ducks4you]

Thanks, newchickmom09! The horses will strip their tree, then wait for the high ones to fall down. I have my jars ALL ready for canning!!!

 

[newchickmom09]

Thanks, newchickmom09! The horses will strip their tree, then wait for the high ones to fall down. I have my jars ALL ready for canning!!!

I wish I would have thought about canning or making jelly out of all the apricots that we got. Instead every neighbor and family member got bags of fruit.