Suggest me a plum and a peach tree variety to buy

Discussion in 'Fruit and Nut Trees' started by Mekira, Aug 2, 2020.

  1. Mekira

    Mekira Member

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    Hello Everyone
    Hope all of you are having a relaxed long weekend with your families.
    I am not sure where to post my request. Hope it's in right place.
    I am in Keremeos. The fruit stalls and the trees I see here wants me to go for plant shopping.
    Could you please suggest me a plum and a peach tree variety that I could buy from here.I live in N.Vancouver. I have tasted a backyard grown yellow, juicy plum which was tasting very sweet. But I dont remember the name. I am leaving tomorrow. Would be nice if you could suggest me few varieties.
    Thank you.
    Meg.
     
    Last edited: Aug 2, 2020
  2. scilover

    scilover Member

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    I don't remember the name but you can actually buy it. Isn't plum and pitch looks the same? What's the different is the colour and maybe the size
     
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  3. Bob Dunn

    Bob Dunn Active Member

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    Meg,
    We had a Mount Royal plum in Calgary (until a wet snow storm broke it off). It was prolific with large, juicy and delicious plums. The best news is that it is self fertile. You won’t need a pollinator, which is an issue with other plums.
    I have postings of it, with photos, elsewhere on the forum.
    Bob
     
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  4. Mekira

    Mekira Member

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    Thank you very much for the suggestion , Bob. Will search for your post in the forum.
     
    Last edited: Aug 15, 2020
  5. Bob Dunn

    Bob Dunn Active Member

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  6. Mekira

    Mekira Member

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    Thank you so much. Looks delicious and beautiful photos of the tree. I hope your tree made a come back or planted a new one. Will definitely try..
     
  7. Joan L NW

    Joan L NW Member

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    This is probably way too late to help you much, but I would advise against trying to grow a peach tree in the lower mainland. It rains too much here and just doesn't get hot enough for long enough in the summer for peaches, nectarines or apricots to thrive. The previous owner of my house had planted a peach tree in the back yard which was very sickly, and was beyond saving when we bought the place. A couple of my neighbors in New Westminster have planted peach trees, but within a couple of years, all of them appear to be diseased and I have yet to see any producing edible fruit.

    I work part time in the garden center of the Richmond Home Depot, and I've seen more grow-guarantee returns of peach trees than any other fruit trees. I asked the managers to stop ordering them and they agreed with me, but it remains to be seen what the nursery decides to send this year. As far as I'm concerned, figs, plums and pears seem to be best suited to our local conditions. Cherries can grow quite well too, but the crows got more of them than I did before my tree had to be sacrificed to safeguard the foundation of our house.

    In my back yard, I have an Italian prune plum, a yellow plum of unknown variety, an apple pear and a victory pear tree, as well as a fig tree and two different grape vines. I use dormant spray every February without fail (except I don't use it on the fig or grapes), and I prune almost as often as I probably should. I fertilize mostly with compost, and supplement with a few fruit tree stakes or sometimes slow-release fertilizer that is higher in phosphorous and potassium than the fruit tree stakes, which in my opinion have too much nitrogen and not enough phosphorous, with a decent amount of potassium.

    The most prolific and easy to grow tree is the fig, though my family won't eat figs, so I barter them at my local market (that's how I get peaches!). The next best is the apple pear, which at about 20 years old, produces a good 75 lbs. of sweet, juicy fruit each year. The Victory pear has developed pear rust, and while it clearly wants to live and produces a startling amount of fruit (50+ lbs on a relatively small, 20 year old tree), it requires a lot of care to remove the affected leaves to limit the spread, and frequent, futile applications of any fungicide that I can legally get my hands on.

    The grapes I have are gewurztraminer and marechel foch, and whilst they are not any good for eating (tough skins and seeds), I got at least 125 lbs. off the two vines last year, which has been quite consistent over the past 10 years. Extracting the juice is a lot of work, and they constantly need pruning, but other than that, they seem to grow very easily without any need for pesticides, and I don't do much more for them other than providing deep watering twice a week in June, July and August.

    The plum trees grew well for the first 10 years or so, but the yellow plum tree developed sunscald and almost half of the tree was dying when we bought the house. I procrastinated about taking it out, and I think I'm glad I did, as it has grown some strong new branches and is providing a good 20 lbs. of fruit each year. The Italian plum was just loaded with fruit from the time it was about 8 years old until about 15 years, but then it developed black knot, which I pruned out and hasn't come back for about 3 years, and it always gets ambushed by aphids. Fortunately I seem to have a colony of ladybugs living underneath it (see my avatar for one of the baby alligators), so it still produces a reasonable quantity of nice fruit (about 40 lbs. last year, though 10 years ago it had closer to 100 lbs).

    Having backyard fruit is great, but if you consider the investment in time and supplies, sometimes I think I ought to just buy it instead. Blueberries, Raspberries and strawberries are a lot less work, and are absolutely yummy. I just wish I had more space....
     
    Last edited: Feb 7, 2021
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  8. Mekira

    Mekira Member

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    Hello Joan

    Thank you very much for the valuable advise on the fruit trees for our zone. Like Bob mentioned the mantra for gardeners is ' next year'.
    I had the opportunity to taste yellow plum,a small variety, from two people in different parent groups- grown in their backyards. They did not know the name of it either. I have heard that we have to be careful in planting fig tree as its root system could do damage to the building foundation. Fig tree should be contained if planted close to the house.What variety of fig tree would you suggest? It would be easier if I know the name of the trees that were successful in providing fruits, sweet / with any taste . Being lazy here...
    , also searching, manytimes, have left me confused on what to chose.
    Will look for the name of yellow plum and Mount Royal plum plant as Bob suggested.
     
  9. Ron B

    Ron B Paragon of Plants 10 Years

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    With orchard fruit trees it is important to choose and plant ones that have a demonstrated local suitability. Because performance of these varies regionally.

    Stone fruit are very susceptible to damage from the fungus and bacterial diseases that are prevalent in the cool humid climate conditions of the Puget Sound region. Also the lower seasonal heat levels, compared with regions such as eastern Washington or California, may not produce the high quality and flavor of the common commercial varieties. Some pollination problems occur when bad weather at bloom time limits bee activity, especially for early bloomers like apricots and early plums. Beginning in the early 1970s, Dr. Bob Norton started the stone fruit evaluation trials for the purpose of finding the stone fruit varieties that would produce a reliable crop of good quality fruit.

    Stone Fruit | Western Washington Tree Fruit & Alternative Fruits | Washington State University (wsu.edu)
     
    Last edited: Feb 8, 2021
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  10. Joan L NW

    Joan L NW Member

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    Hi Mekira,

    I just did a bit of research and I strongly suspect that my yellow plum is Shiro. The plums are not particularly big, but they have a nice sweet/tart combination to them, and although I mentioned it had a problem of sunscald (peeled bark on the south side of the tree), it has survived regardless, and still produces more plums than I would expect of the poor tree. I keep a close eye on it and I know that I'll need to replace it sooner or later, though considering that I don't have a back alley and getting a bobcat into the back yard would require removal of several sections of fence, maybe I shouldn't be putting it off too long. When I do replace it, I'm planning on looking for a "fruit cocktail" tree which has 4 or 5 varieties of stone fruits grafted onto it. Hm, I guess I really am a sucker for punishment.

    My fig tree is rather strange. Attached is a photo of it from last year. It's hard to see the scale from this photo, but it is about 3 meters between it and the apple pear tree, though more distance would have been ideal (but I didn't plant them, I acquired them when we bought the property). I'm giving up on the lawn between them and the fence, as I've been growing more creeping buttercup and moss than grass. I put down black tarps last summer to kill the buttercup, and I'll be hauling in a few yards of lava rock this summer to make pathways around the perimeter of my yard. This is assuming that my husband doesn`t object too strenuously, we have to do something as I can't even walk on it at the moment.

    Anyway, I digress. This fig tree never has anything recognizable as blooms, but it usually produces about 10 fist-sized figs at the end of June, then literally hundreds of 2-3 inch diameter figs starting in mid September through mid-November, depending on frost. These figs are not as sweet as some of the purple varieties are, and I've had two people accuse me of picking them too green, but if I let them get any riper, they collapse into a sticky mess the moment I touch them. They are ripe when they turn yellowish green with slight reddish vertical stripes. They are surprisingly juicy and have a rather nice, mild flavor. I can't eat more than about 2 per day, as they do something to the body similar to what prune juice does.

    I bartered about 60 lbs. of the figs to the lady who owns my local market last fall, and this was less than half of what the tree produced; my in-laws, co-workers and neighbors frequently ask about them all summer. The grape vines and some other shrubs in my yard were purchased from Garden Works, so assuming that the previous owner also bought the fig tree there, the closest match would be the "common fig". The leaves and fruit look very similar to the illustration, though they ripen in the late fall rather than "early to mid" fall as indicated in the description. The insides remain fairly pale, even when the fig is ripe enough to burst. I pruned the tree last week before I saw how nasty the weather was going to get this week. My market lady said that she'd sell as many fig trees as I can produce on consignment, so I saved a bundle of cuttings and will put them into pots next month and see how many make it. I could probably give you a few cuttings if you`d like to try rooting them yourself. Don`t expect any figs for at least 3 or 4 years though.
     

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  11. wcutler

    wcutler Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator VCBF Cherry Scout 10 Years

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  12. vitog

    vitog Contributor 10 Years

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    The article in HuffPost is a bit misleading with respect to PNW fig growing. As far as I know, there are no fig wasps in our area for a good reason: none of the fig varieties that ripen fruit here need to be pollinated by a wasp. I'm not sure about other varieties, but most of the local varieties only have an early (Breba) crop that is self-fertile. I've read that there are a few varieties that will ripen the main crop in this climate, but I think that they also don't need wasps for pollination.
     
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  13. wcutler

    wcutler Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator VCBF Cherry Scout 10 Years

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    That article does say "Here’s the good news: According to Karla Stockli, the CEO of the California Fig Advisory Board, more than 95 percent of figs produced and sold commercially in California are self-pollinating."
     
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  14. Joan L NW

    Joan L NW Member

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    Thanks so much for the information! I do pay quite a lot of attention to my fruit trees and was puzzled as to why I could never see blossoms, yet I always get a lot of fruit. This makes so much more sense now.

    By the way, if anyone would like some cuttings from this tree, I have a whole blue box of them in my garage right now, far more than I can possibly plant myself. Yes, I hacked the tree a bit, but I kept it to less than 25% of the canopy, and it was growing way too close to the apple pear. They both had to sacrifice a bit. It drives me nuts when people plant trees too close together, though I must concede that 12 years ago, it looked like there was plenty of room.
     
  15. Joan L NW

    Joan L NW Member

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    I'm not sure about other varieties, but most of the local varieties only have an early (Breba) crop that is self-fertile. I've read that there are a few varieties that will ripen the main crop in this climate, but I think that they also don't need wasps for pollination.[/QUOTE]

    Maybe I am reading this wrong, but this might explain my 10-12 early, huge figs, followed by hundreds of smaller figs starting in late September. The best I could figure was that the early crop basically fails every year due to chilly spring weather or something, so the tree responds by creating a later crop. I have never spoken with anyone who could explain this phenomena.
     
  16. tarman61

    tarman61 Member

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    Your Fig tree looks beautiful, very good structure but too dense, a good pruning (Centre) is required . We don't have the long summer in the lower mainland to enjoy the second crop and that is why we can harvest the Breba crop (on previous year’s wood).

     
  17. Joan L NW

    Joan L NW Member

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    Thanks for the advice, Tarman! I actually did prune the fig tree quite severely about a month ago, concentrating on removing the overlapping branches in the middle, and reducing the height so that I don't need a bigger ladder to get at the figs. We'll see how much it protests in a few months, I guess!

    Could you explain what you mean by a Breba crop? Are you referring to the dozen great big figs which I normally get in July? I must have just the right micro-climate to get that late second crop that you are referring to; the first figs ripen in late September and continue until late November or whenever we get a killing frost.

    I live in Queensborough, very close to the dividing line with Richmond; about 2 blocks north of the north end of the Alex Fraser bridge, and about 4 blocks south of the north arm of the Fraser, which runs between New Westminster and Lulu Island. This fig tree is about 3 meters north of a cedar fence, and about 10 meters south of the house. It's fairly sheltered. My thermometer always seems to read 1 to 2 degrees more moderate than what I see on accuweather; never quite as cold in the winter, nor quite as warm in the summer. It's quite unfortunate that my family aren't very fond of figs, but at least I've found a good bartering arrangement!
     
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  18. vitog

    vitog Contributor 10 Years

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    Joan, the breba crop is the early crop that develops on last year's growth; these are followed by the main crop on the current year's growth. If you prune back most of last year's growth during the dormant season, you will get a small crop of large figs. Which crop is more productive depends on the variety and the local climate. What variety is the tree that produces ripe main crop figs?
     
  19. Joan L NW

    Joan L NW Member

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    Thanks! As far as I can tell based on fruit color and season, and on the tree size and the leaf shape, it's a common fig. The previous owner planted it around 2003, and there was no plant tag left on this tree, though tags were left on a few other trees and shrubs. The figs are ripe when they are green in color with slight reddish stripes. They will eventually turn reddish-purple, but they burst the moment you touch them when they are that ripe, and if anything is left on the ground, the rats congregate in my yard. I get the breba crop in July, then the heavy crop of smaller figs starts at the very end of September, and continues until it freezes, which was late November this past year. Unfortunately, I never bothered to take pictures of the figs; I'll have to do that this year.

    I must confess to neglecting pruning of the fig tree for several years, other than removing obviously overlapping branches each spring. It's really only taken off and started growing like a weed in the past 3 years, which coincides with when I started taking better care of the lawn, liming, aerating and fertilizing; the drip line is over the lawn. I don't fertilize the fig tree at all, though I do dump a bit of compost in the 4x4' box surrounding the tree every year, and it probably gets something from the fertilizer spikes that I use for the nearby apple-pear. I did prune all of my trees and grapevines rather severely in February of this year, before we had that cold snap, but I left old wood on a few sections of the fig, so I expect that I'll get another small breba crop this year.

    I'm going to root several cuttings this spring if anyone wants any, but maybe it will behave differently in a different part of the Lower Mainland.
     
  20. tarman61

    tarman61 Member

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    Hi Joan
    Yes, like Vitog mentioned, the breba crop is the early crop that develops on last year's growth; these are followed by the main crop on the current year's growth. If you prune back most of last year's growth during the dormant season. Here in Burnaby, I prune for Breba which means I cut most if not all the two year old wood and leave last year's wood so I can get figs. I get my figs in August and I am not sure why it is much different in Queensborough (20 min drive from where I live). It could be the location of the tree or the type of the tree, no idea. This year I am planning to graft black Turkish fig on my green fig tree. This black fig tree produces figs in September I believe. The type figs you have is definitely different and I would be very much interested in a couple of cuttings from your fig and maybe grapevines if they produce table grapes. I can offer cuttings for wine grapevine and green figs. I just planted two new trees, a Yellow Egg Plum and a Red Haven Peach, they look good so far. BTW, I never fertilize my fig tree and very little watering.
     

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