Nicolas Derome

Currently I have

2023 Incarnata from cutting x1
-fruited in 5 gal pot in 2023 (most likely pollinated by caerulea)

2023 Caerulea from cutting x2
-flowered in 5 gal pot in 2023

2023 Edulis (purple) from seed x2
-did not flower/fruit in 2023, hoping for better this year

2023 Ligularis from seed x2
-did not flower/fruit in 2023, hoping for better this year

2023 Tripartita from seed x1
-did not flower/fruit in 2023, hoping for better this year

2023 Manicata from seed x1
-did not flower/fruit in 2023, hoping for better this year

2024 Colvillii (??) seedlings (saved from seed from my incarnata plant's fruit - which most likely crossed with caerulea)
-biggest is about 1ft tall

2024 Edulis var flavicarpa (yellow passionfruit)
-just beginning to germinate now

I'm considering up-potting the 2023 plants from 5 gal to 9 gal.

I can understand wanting to preserve some varieties that have unique properties, and developing landraces might be a rather slow process if you only have room for a couple plants of each species.

I personally grow two moschata species, one is Butternut Squash, and another is Guatemalan Green Ayote. The Guatemalan has unique flavor and texture, very sweet and rich texture, and also superior resistance to powdery mildew and keeps going right up to the first frost, so I want to preserve those properties, which Butternut Squash lacks - butternut has the advantage of producing earlier, and it has a bit of a different taste, which is still my second favorite tasting squash.

If you pay attention to your squash plants, you can probably figure out the night before when a female flower is going to bloom. So you can cover it with a mesh bag (small enough mesh that bumblebees/carpenter bees can't get through) and hand pollinate with a male flower of the same variety the next morning, and then put the bag back over it when you're done hand pollinating. The next day the flower should have wilted so you can take the bag off.

Also, the 1 mile separation is to guarantee 99.99% chances of no cross pollination. If you're 0.1 miles from the nearest plant of the same species, you'll probably still have 99% chance of no cross pollination. Even at 100ft, I'd give it 90-95% chances of no cross pollination.

For other things, I don't care very much about cross pollination, ex lettuce. Lettuce is lettuce to me... doesn't matter too much what exact colour or shape the leaves.

James Bridger wrote:I planted 2 pawpaw's from bare roots that I ordered online last spring. They were like 12" tall. We had -15 degree temps for a couple nights this past winter, and they're still alive. We also get some 100+ degree days in the summer, and lots of days well over 90 degrees.

I read somewhere that they need shade for the first couple years. I put a square tomato cage around them. Last year I had it wrapped in landscaping fabric, so the shade was pretty dark. This year I have them wrapped in window screen material so it's brighter for them. Next year they'll be in full sun.

(I promise there's a 2' tall tree in there, it's just hard to see with the grass).

Last winter was very mild here, it only got down to 0F, which makes it the mildest winter on record. Normally we'd get quite a lot of <0F nights, and a couple <-10F. A few times per decade it'll even drop below -20F. The worst case scenario would be a repeat of 2015, when we had 29 days with lows below 0F, 9 days below -10F and a coldest of -24F.

The planting guide the nursery gave me recommended shade cloth for the first 2-3 years, followed by full sun. They also recommended putting mulch around the trees to block out competition from grass.

So I ordered a couple pawpaws from a nearby nursery, one is Campbell NC-1 in a 3 gal pot, the other Shenandoah in a 1L pot. The instructions that came with the order say that the small plants in 1L/1 gal pots should be up-potted rather than planted.

"In most cases we recommend planting bare root fruit trees as soon as you get them. If you have picked up a pawpaw in a 3 gal pot it should be ready to plant out. However, the small trees in 1 litre or even 1 gal pots will often benefit from spending a few more years in a pot. This applies to pawpaws, persimmons and jujubes. We suggest you repot in a 2 or 3 gallon and grow them for several seasons. Pawpaws, in particular, will appreciate this, as the tender young trees do much better if you can keep them out of direct sunlight. This way you also have the option of overwintering them in your garage until they are bigger and stronger."

I'm in zone 5, and it's a local nursery that mostly ships to zone 4-6 (I think). Maybe part of the concern is winter survival of grafted trees, thinking that a thicker trunk will fare better? Do you think it's really advisable to grow them in a 2-3 gal pot for several seasons though?

I also have some seedlings I germinated from seeds of farmers market fruit in late spring 2023 that are in 0.5-2 gal containers that I overwintered in the garage and was considering transplanting this year, but maybe I should reconsider and keep them in pots?

Is the shade really that important for seedlings? What happens if they're in the sun? Maybe it matters more in the core of the native range where it's hotter? I'm a little beyond the native range, so our sun angles are lower (69deg at the summer solstice), and summers are quite mild, with daytime highs mostly in the 70s to low 80s - last year the hottest day was 86F. Summers tend to be cloudier than in much of the US too, not that they're constantly overcast or anything, but it's much more "mix of sun & clouds" here than uninterrupted blazing sun. My seedlings weren't really shielded from the sun and had no visible issues. Or would they have been bigger if I had them in the shade? They sprouted in late May and only got to about 6-10" before the weather turned cold in October.

Purchased trees - Shenandoah in small pot (~20" tall), Campbell NC-1 in larger pot (~4ft tall)


My seedlings starting to leaf out for their second season.

Dian Green wrote:I found the kiwi to be super easy to propagate. Just sticks in dirt works! You can have lots of females for each male. I'd encourage you to do at least a small group of both since I found the males much more fragile than the females. (I had 2 males, 12 females)
My pawpaws were just producing when we moved. 3rd year for the Shenandoah and 1st for the Susquehanna. That was 8 years after planting, both from Whiffletree.
Haven't tried goumi yet or jujube. ( we were just out of range for those so I might be able to try them now)
Friends have had success with peaches, but they are in line with my new zone, 6b.
I've got a bunch of things coming from Grimo. Persimmons, native red mulberries, sweet chestnut, pawpaws, more hazelnuts, low tannin oaks, and a couple more Saskatoon. They do tend to have a very limited ordering window however and I got lucky that we confirmed on our new place while it was still open.

14 kiwi plants would take up a fair bit of space though no? I ordered kolomikta kiwis, which are smaller than Actinidia, but even kolomikta are supposed to be 6-10ft by 15-20ft from what I've read. That's why I went with only 1 male and 1 female to start. What are they fragile to in Ontario? Cold? Rodents? Disease?

Dian Green wrote:I was in Ontario, 5b, near Stratford. Pears were great, once I got a pollination trio. Summercrisp is not the most exciting pear but it's early, reliable, decent to eat and cooks well. The Luscious lived up to its name but was a lousy pollinator. A Chojuro ( Asian) gave great, tasty fruit very quickly and solved the pollen shortage.
Sour cherries were a surprise win for us. I had a Saskatoon next to it and that pretty much distracted the birds from the cherries. It helps that they are not sweet. Great for cooking, jams and preserving. They help a ton of other fruits flavour and dishes all year. I'm putting in 4-6 in our new place! ( Montmorancy taste is worth the space for us)
Black raspberries were another easy to use, low effort and high production fruit. No bird pressure on ours but they do have thorns and need multiple, regular picking.

Plums and apricots failed mostly but the Italian plum was a winner, even with fighting against the curculio.
Goji grew moderately well but the fruit was unpleasant. Haskap I like but we did have to net them. Pineberries were the only strawberries we would ever get. Kiwi also grew well and are delicious but not super productive. Bunny pressure on them didn't help and several died. Hazelnuts also were hit by buns but were just starting to fruit when we moved.
Concord grapes and a related type were easy, good and produced but either a raccoon or opossum would clean me out of the sweeter cross the last 2 years. Still got great jelly from only 2 vines.

We do have rabbits here, they've damaged our cedars, euonymus, burning bush, hydrangea and sage this winter... So I'll have to get guards for everything. We have voles as well. But no deer, at least not in our yard, houses are too close together/too many fences between us and the nearby countryside.

Wound up going with NC-1 & Shenandoah pawpaws, Magenta & Somerset grape, kolomikta kiwis (1 male, 1 female), a couple haskaps, white, red & black currant, and Reliance peach.

My neighbour has a sweet cherry tree, but it looks like she didn't tie the bird netting at the bottom properly because some squirrels got in and ate everything. So squirrels might be more of a problem than birds when it comes to sweet cherries. I haven't seen raccoons or opossums so far, and we have a couple dogs which I'm hoping would deter them somewhat (not the greatest hunters and sleep inside, but hoping their odour would help).

Have you tried goumi berries? Anyways, I'll see how much space there is in the yard once everything is planted, and maybe next year I'll squeeze a few more things in, like a cherry/dwarf mulberry or cherry/saskatoon combo, or pears, and I still want an American Persimmon (maybe Prok?) but whiffletree sold out so that will have to wait until next year. If I can eliminate the reeds I have growing, maybe I can plant blackberry or pineberry there too.

Stephen B. Thomas wrote:Would you consider any kind of apple? Here at Wheaton Labs (Zone 5-5b, cold arid continental) apples have done great, along with pear. We're trying some fruit berry bushes this year, but I can't speak to them just yet.

I have no doubt they'd do well so if the other fruits fail I might replace them with that, but they're very easy to obtain fruits from local orchards, there's even a lot of abandoned trees on public land where I can collect fruits for free. Persimmon, haskap, pawpaw are much harder to obtain, hence why I wanted to try those.

Trying to pick out perennials for my new house (suburban sized yard).

I already have perennial onions (welsh onions, walking onions), caucasian mountain spinach, strawberries, raspberries, figs, yacon, passionflowers, lovage, sorrel, mint, oregano, thyme, sage, tarragon, chives and rhubarb, as well as some peppers that I overwinter.

I got seems I'm starting for perennial shallots, earth chestnut, asparagus, skirret and perennial longleaf ground cherry. I also have some pawpaws I grew from seed in containers that I'll plant this year. Also gonna try growing culinary mushrooms in woodchip mulch and in logs.

I'm planning on buying hardy kiwi, American persimmon, haskap and currants from the local nursery. Maybe concord grapes too.

I'm also thinking of stone fruits or pears (American or Asian), but not sure how they'd fare against plum cucurlio, late frosts and pesky squirrels and birds. From what I've read apricots are rather fussy about late frosts. My neighbours have a sweet cherry tree, but squirrels ate all the fruit, although they didn't do a good job of sealing the bird netting around the bottom of the tree. I've heard others had success with peaches in my area. Anyone have experience with any of these in the Great Lakes/Northeast (I'm in southern Ontario zone 5)?

L Floden wrote:Do you have recommendations for figs that do well espaliered but in ground in zone 7b?  I have a south facing wall at the back of my (concrete block) garage that is well protected from N and W winds.  It's 10 feet from my guesthouse but gets good sun >8 hrs a day.  Brown Turkey variety is common in the nurseries near me.  

I'm not a fig expert, and I'm working off a rather different zone (5a) that requires figs to be protected from the winter (I used containers brought into the garage), but if you don't get a satisfactory reply here, try ourfigs.com, lots of experienced hobbyists there (a few professional growers too I think).

Where I live, summer squash, winter squash (moschata varieties for SVB resistance) and welsh or walking onions are quite easy.