What's happening today - 2018 edition

How many varieties do you have on your Frankenapple?

Hate when that happens. My graft (despite only 6 inch growth) was from last year. Very good take. Tree is somewhat stunt. At least it was until about a month ago. Something (ground hog?) ate few branches and those branches put on more than a foot of new growth in about a month. I was thinking about moving it to a new location next spring and if it still doesn’t grow, then chop it down. But now all of a sudden it’s growing, just those chopped off branches. So I think I will keep it right where it is.
Like I said, I found the pixie crunch branch (all 6 inches of it) on the ground. It was pretty dried up but I still put it in water and now it looks better. I’m going to graft it back on to the tree and see if it takes again.

Not many - most grafts failed or were broken off. I have Fuji and Red Fuji and Hawkeye and one other Sweet 16. No fruit yet. It started as Enterprise, which no one liked the tough skin

That 16 was the last graft I’m going to try, just hoping to get Fuji fruit next year.

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Finished picking my Arctic Jay tree (about 25 nectarines). My neighbor got four of the 20+ brix fruits, and as has been told hundred times here, his response was “the sweetest nectarine that I have ever eaten” :blush:

So, for the record, the little crunchy ones ranged from 15 to 20 brix and the soft ones were mostly above 20…

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Very nice looking nectarines. You did a great job growing those…!!

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Okra is killing it. Green Peppers, I had to prop up the plants and have 100 or so more on the plants. Gladolias are absolutely alive!

Butterflies everywhere. Amaranth, sorghum and sunflowers going strong.

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Looks great
What type of amaranth are u growing?

Russian River Merlot… Russian River Merlot Amaranth - Heirloom Seeds: Sustainable Seed Company

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Wow thats beautiful plant

I have green here (amaranthus hybridus, smooth pigweed) that has popped up near my barn. U think its worth growing out and cultivating?

Barhi Dates from the Cleveland west side market. They are crunchy with some astringency. I like them a lot

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Okay, Middletown Grange Fair Results Bucks Co, PA)…

My wife got second for African Marigolds.
Middle daughter got second for bush beans in the kids category.
Oldest daughter (named Riesling, after a grape (or a wine I’m told)) won first place for a Girl Scout bag she sewed for the age 6 to 11 category. On an aside, she is six, and says she wants to be a fashion designer, which is funny because my wife and I are the least fashionable people around. We support her career choice and found someone’s grand mom who was willing to give her sewing lessons on a sewing machine in exchange for garden fruits and veggies. Sewing is a great skill neither my wife or I have so it will be nice to have someone to mend our clothing.

Anyway, I won first place for Asian eggplants, second place for patty pan squash, and third for bush beans.

Growing fruits and veggies has been SUCH a positive experience for our family. I am proud that we teach our children that health and nutrition are more important than material wealth. We have fun at it and I would like to again thank everyone on this forum for helping me to do all this.

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Yayyyyy. Have them framed every Year! So proud of you all! :1st_place_medal::1st_place_medal::1st_place_medal::1st_place_medal::1st_place_medal::1st_place_medal:

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Awesome news all around!!! Woot
Your youngest hears her own beat. Good for her an yall !

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Picked some peaches at my moms. As usual this tree is a nightmare tree for fruitnnut; however the

peaches are wonderfuly sweet with a hint of butterscotch.

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If she would let me thin them I think they would get 2 1/2”. They are still nice and she loves the volume.

Harvested and ate these last week. Not quite today…but took a bit of time to get off my phone.

Butternut Squash. Grew these from seeds taken from a store-bought squash. Very tasty baked with a bit of olive oil and some pepper.

LaVerne Red Dragonfruit. Sweet with a pleasant flavor. My daughter loved it.

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I just received my weapon of JB mass destruction. I’ve heard that from now through the second week of October is the ideal time to put it down. I’ll probably do it in a couple of weeks before a nice steady rain.

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Go get ‘em!
They destroyed my grape vine and few plum branches I have. I should do milky spore too.

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This is a fun quirky little trick. :slight_smile: If done properly (I did it 2 years ago successfully) you end up with a full sized pear inside a bottle. Its fun to fill it with alcohol (even rubbing alcohol if you aren’t going to drink it, or use pear wine or vodka or whatever) to preserve it.

All you do is find a baby pear (or apple, etc) on a long flexible limb. Strip leaves off and gently push stem and baby fruit into bottom of bottle. Wait about 4 months and voila, pear in a bottle! haha. It is even more fun to watch people you show it to! haha. They search the bottom of the bottle to see if comes apart and ask lots of questions trying to figure out how you got it in the bottle. It amazes me how few people even consider that it might have been grown in the bottle. ha.

Sadly, mine went wrong this year. First, I didn’t have a good bottle. I found this in a ditch near my house and it had a longer, thinner neck than you should use. Second, I wasn’t checking on it as it developed, so what happened is that the limb and fruit shifted and almost pulled out of the bottle. But what did happen is that once it slipped into the neck, it developed and grew there. AS you can see, it made the most of the space it had available. So it grew into a cone shaped pear. That inspires me to want to try other interesting shapes. But for this one, I’m afraid it is a FAIL. But I wanted to post it anyway just so you could get the idea and see that its possible to grow fruit inside a bottle (and fun. ha)

@mamuang , you were recently asking about methods of creating square watermelons, bet you never thought about cone shaped pears! haha (or any other shape-if you can find a strong, small vessel I’m sure a pear (or apple,etc) would conform to it.)

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Ate some small climbing melons today. I think they were not 100% ripe, but they were starting to split from the rain we have had. Bugs were starting to notice them so I had to pick. They tasted more like cucumber with a hint of sweetness than a melon, to me. My youngest daughter really enjoys them though. Not sure I’ll bother to grow again.

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