Nicolas Derome

Joao Winckler wrote:The up-potting advice for small pawpaws is worth following honestly, especially for a 1L pot. The taproot on pawpaws is fragile and they really hate being disturbed twice in quick succession. I'd get it growing strongly in a larger pot first, then plant out in autumn or early next spring when it can establish without the heat stress on top.

Wouldn't up-potting disturb the roots just as much as transplanting though? Might get more heat stress in a pot too, since it can heat up from all sides (unless I keep the pot in the shade)? In-ground soil is usually not too hot here, currently it's 65F in the mornings/shade during our mini "heatwave", it could drop to 60F next week.

It wouldn't surprise me if they were already viable, but I usually wait until the stalk starts to dry out.

Niko in Vancouver wrote:So I ended  up on this thread looking to determine whether I  can feed pine cones (not chips, just dried up cones from the ground) to my wine caps.
I think the general consensus is "probably"?

But I also found other interesting queries to which perhaps I can contribute my own observations & experience!

SLUGS: Yes, definitely a problem. But simple beer traps worked great to totally eliminate the problem. I got some cute green "pagoda" ones from Amazon too, so they look appropriately gnomish among the mushrooms :)

BEDS: I just form dedicated mushroom beds in the darkest corners of the ornamental garden, where nothing flowering and pretty really grows, simply by laying down logs (branches from trimming older trees, really) in a rectangle and filling it with leaves and debris. In most cases, the wine caps also seem to have spread beyond their beds, within a year or two.

SUBSTRATES: Pistachio shells worked really well. Walnut shells did not seem to bother them either. I have no straw, but I do end up with a lot of dried up scarlett runner bean husks every fall. The rest is leaves, twigs and sticks from pruning (after they've dried up) and, if I am lucky, mixed woodchips from landscapers working nearby (which I always end up "aging" /drying for a few months first, not sure why, it seems appropriate). It all goes in.

VIABILITY: With the above approach, the beds seem permanent to me. They come back year after year, two flushes, in May and October, since my original purchase (during Covid lockdowns). I just dump stuff on top, ad hoc. If it is too dry in the Spring, I may wet them a bit. That's all.
(*) I do get the distinct feeling that they do not like city water (chlorine?) but they, of course, love rain - even rain water from the rain barrel.

LATEST: I have an old bamboo planter,  concrete, about 2'x8'. I killed the bamboo years ago  (it was shooting runners over the planter, in to everywhere, even got into the house!) but now the planter is solid bamboo roots and cut stumps sticking up every square inch. I can't plant anything else in it and removing the bamboo tangle seems a herculean task, so I will lay chips and  mycelium on top and hope that the winecaps will  simply eat everything and in 4-5 years I will have a planter full of compost - and a dozen bonus wine cap harvests to boot!!

Cheers from Vancouver!

My bed (started in 2022, moved to a different town in 2023) is still going. I got a flush in late May/early June, as usual. It was a little light, maybe because I didn't add enough fresh organic matter, or maybe because after a wet start, late April onwards has been a little on the dry end of the spectrum. I added a few inches of maple woodchips in mid May though, so we'll see if that boosts the harvests in autumn, or if it will just focus on continuing to colonize and the dividends will come next year instead. My beds are in part shade, they don't seem to mind that too much, although I suppose it can mean the top inch or two of organic material is more prone to drying out and not being colonized as much.

I also have a big root mat for them to colonize. Right next to the winecap bed is a 30x8ft area that used to be reeds of some sort, which I chopped back, covered in landscaping fabric and then mulch a couple years ago. That seems to have killed back the reeds, which I couldn't dig out because it was just a completely unbroken mass of roots. Now that those roots are breaking down, we'll see what colonizes them. I also had 3 morels fruit in that area. I spread some winecap spawn into the maple woodchips I put around some newly planted fruit trees as well, which they seem to be colonizing pretty well already after just a few weeks.

greg mosser wrote:my experience is that the needing shade when very young thing is somewhat overstated for pawpaws, and struggles when very young are more likely to be either from damage to the taproot at transplanting, or the abrupt moving from shaded to sunny after leaves are out. so if it were me, and they haven’t leafed out yet, i wouldn’t worry about sun exposure much. i wouldn’t be too worried about planting the younger tree in the ground, with, for that matter - though the overwintering protection thing they mention may be more of an issue for you than me down in appalachia.

source: 8+ years growing pawpaws, 30+ trees.

Update - I've been continuing to grow out seedlings from any fruit I get my hands on and the sun doesn't seem to be a problem. The sun can get pretty high in the sky here, up to 69deg with 15+ hour days at the solstice, but the climate is moist and humid, soils are clay rich (ie not prone to drying out), and it doesn't get hot much, which probably mitigates any issues that too much sun could cause (if that's even an issue in the south). The warmest we've gotten this year is 83F, and we might not go higher than that until July. Sometimes we can get into the low 90s, but some summers max out around 85-87F for the hottest day, and the average high in July is only 78F.

I haven't had any issues with seedlings surviving the winter in-ground so far. Even a damaged seedling I used as a guinea pig in 2024 survived the past two winters (which had -13F and -17F seasonal lows), although it's growing slower, maybe it's still recovering from the damage. Slugs can be a problem however, they'll eat the seedlings leaves, and even damage the bark on the stems.

Joao Winckler wrote:Pawpaws blooming in year 8 is about right, they take their time. The USask cherries are a good call for zone 5b, they're tough as anything. Curious how the arguta kiwi does once it recovers from the rabbit damage, those things are surprisingly resilient once established.

It was actually my kolomikta male, not my arguta that got truncated by the rabbit. It took a little longer to start coming out of dormancy than the unharmed ones, but now that it has, it already has several new shoots about 12-18" long, so looks like it'll do fine. My female kolomikta bloomed for the first time this June though, so it'll miss out on the pollination from the still recovering male.

My first pawpaw just started to bloom, only 2 years after I planted the grafted tree I bought from the nursery. It's a Campbell NC-1. Not sure if being pot-bound caused it to take fewer years to first bloom? It was about 4-5ft tall when I got it, 6ft now. The 1ft tall seedling I planted last spring is continuing to grow vigorously, it grew 1.5ft on its first year in ground, and was first to leaf out and I think it will have more leaf surface area than the 2x taller Campbell NC-1 this season - although it's still less than half the height, it has a lot of branching. I fully expect it to catch up to the bigger grafted trees in terms of size, only question is how long will the seedling take to produce? My other grafted tree is an Overleese, which I put in-ground last spring, currently about 5-6ft tall. There's a garden center nearby that has a pawpaw as a showpiece tree, but they only have one, and since it's quite mature, I asked them if I could collect its pollen and offered to pollinate it in return so that they can get some fruit.

Anne Miller wrote:Here is an article by permies member, Joseph Lofthouse:

https://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/egyptian-walking-onions

Highlights from the article:

They grow under the snow during the winter and are ready for harvest about 3 weeks after our winter snow cover melts. My father calls them forever onions because they continue to produce food for my family until covered with snow in the fall.  ...

Walking onions are a hardy perennial. In my climate they can be planted or harvested any time of year except when the ground is frozen. If pulled, the roots and a small piece of bulb may be replanted. They'll grow a new plant. They may be propagated by planting the bulbils that form on top of the flower stalk, or by digging and dividing the mother clump. There are a few weeks after the flower stalk forms in which the stem becomes hard and undesirable. New bulbs form beside the flower stalk producing tender bulbs later in the season.

I typically keep a perennial mother clump to generate bulbils that I harvest and store in a dry area. I then replant the bulbils every few weeks as an annual to grow successive crops of green onions for market and to feed my family.   ...

Conclusion

Egyptian walking onions are a wonderful plant in the home garden because they can provide great onion taste any time of year that the ground isn't frozen. Even though they are grown as clones, I suspect that the creation of new clones may be within the skill set of the average landrace gardener. This is part of the reason why I believe that landrace gardening is a path towards food security through common sense and traditional methods.

This largely matches my experience with a few minor differences.

I started growing them in 2021, now I have more than what I know what to do with (and that's been the case already in 2023).

I keep a propagation patch which is in part shade under some trees, they get about 2-4 hours in summer, and 6-8 hours of sun when the trees have no leaves. This works pretty well because they mostly grow in Sep-Nov and Mar-May. I take the bulbils and excess plants from those and plant them into my vegetable beds as a winter cover crop. The bulbils will sprout in September just as the other vegetables are dying off from pest and disease, or if not that, then frost in early-mid October. They'll grow enough before the ground freezes to survive the winter (Zone 5), then the outer leaves typically die back from the winter, and then they resume growth as soon as the ground thaws in March and daytime temperatures are mostly above freezing. By mid April, they're ready to harvest, and by late May/early June when I plant my tomatoes and peppers, I've harvested most or all of them from the vegetable beds.

The ones I keep for propagation become fibrous in mid summer and unappealing to eat while they develop their bulbils, but by late summer they put on new fresh growth, so I will thin out the propagation patch in fall since otherwise it would get too crowded because the plants also multiply by bulb division. They can get some mildew in summer, but usually only after the main spring harvest periods, and the ones that are used for propagation will still recover from the mildew when they put on new growth in fall.

I wound up getting a Gerardi Mulberry, a few USask shrub cherries, Hardgrand Apricot, Harrow Crisp pear and Giant of Zagreb Quince, plus a replacement arguta male kiwi. My male kolomikta kiwi got chopped back by rabbits that were able to get over the tree guard due to deep snow pack, but it seems to be growing new shoots now.

Currant and haskap look like they'll have a more substantial crop than their first crops last year. Pawpaws look like they might bloom this year for the first time? Not too sure... Persimmon took some sunscald damage over winter, I guess I'll have to protect it better next winter. I used a wire cage which didn't block the sun like the tree guards I used on my other trees and vines did. The peach looks like it took some damage to buds in the winter? Many of the buds are still not showing signs of life, although about 40 of them are swelling, not sure if the rest are dead or just late (May has been very chilly so far, with daytime temps usually around 50F). We'll see how the swollen peach and grape buds handled yesterday's 27F frost.

The plan will be to graft some different varieties on the pear for pollination, and for the variety of tastes, shelf lives and harvest dates, as well as to graft onto the apricot for similar reasons (including plums and pluot/plumcot scions?) and quince (maybe even graft medlar onto it?).

Timothy Norton wrote:Isn't it funny how we sometimes come to decisions? Your poor lab not being able to self-regulate eating mulberries made me smile! What a loveable sounding pup.

I live in New York Zone 5B and I have become a little obsessed with growing peaches. I'm currently in a 'war' with our local squirrels because they engorge themselves on the fruit before it can reach a havestable state. I'm planning on planting some late flowering varieties to supplement my more standard flowering types. I'm hoping to use them as a shorter-lived fruit tree that can have something else eventually succession grow into the space.

Have you considered growing some kind of bush cherry? I have two young nanking cherries that have yet to produce fruit but have grown steadily in the climate. Fingers crossed I may see something this upcoming spring.

I've been considering the USask/shrub cherries. I don't think I've ever tasted the Nanking cherries.

My neighbour has sweet cherries, but squirrels, and maybe other critters also (grackles?) tend to pick them clean pretty quickly once they start to turn ripe. I'm hoping the more sour ones won't get targeted as much. I was considering planting them in the front of the house along the driveway, but wasn't sure how they'd handle the load of the snowbanks.

Update on how things are going.

Currants started to produce this year, mainly the black and pink one. The red currant was 1 year old when we got it (the black & pink were 2 year old) and just had one fruit cluster this year.

Haskaps, one started to produce a little, despite no other haskap blooming to pollinate it. It was 3 years old, the others are 2 years old and 1 year old, so hopefully the 2 year old one starts to produce a next year. I did net it the one fruiting haskap to protect it from birds.

Grapes. Planted in 2024 as 2 year old vines. They grew a little in 2024, and grew a lot in 2025, now they've covering most of the wall of my shed (technically on a frame with a gap between the shed so they don't latch onto the shed itself). They had a few fruit clusters this year, which ripened later than advertised, but maybe that's just because it's their first year of fruiting. They ripened in mid September to early October, and were supposed to ripen late August to early September. However, birds ate most of them while still under-ripe. I bagged the remaining ones and they tasted good. Next year, I'm hoping to get a lot more fruit given how much bigger the plants are.

Kiwis. They're growing alright, I have tree guards around them to protect them from rabbits which are quite voracious in that corner of the yard. For now, the rabbits are mostly pruning my raspberry canes... However, my initial kolomikta female died when I got it, and I had to wait until 2025 to replace it with two more females. One of them flowered a bit, along with the male that flowered a lot, but I pruned off the branch with the fruit without noticing there was one when I was thinning down the vine to one leader. I also got an Issai and another female arguta (unknown variety) from a plant swap - they were cuttings I rooted in 2024, and planted in 2025. Since they managed to survive, I'll probably buy a male to pollinate them since I don't think the male arguta will work.

Peaches. It took some pretty severe rabbit damage in winter 2024-2025, the snow was very deep and it seems like they were able to get over the tree guard. This winter, I have two tree guards stacked on top of each other. The peach did survive though, it wasn't quite girdled all the way around (but almost). I got a few fruit, but squirrels managed to eat half of them. Even with the netting... there was a fruit that fell into the netting and it seems the squirrel ate it through the netting? So I got 4/7 fruits. The leaves got some leaf curl in the spring, the last two weeks of May were exceptionally cool, cloudy and wet here (lots of 50-55F highs, 35-40F lows), but I removed the affected leaves and the rest of the leaves after that looked fine. The fruits were very fragrant, but maybe a little less sweet than ideal, not sure if it's the variety, age of tree, weather, or maybe the spot it's in is a bit too close to part-shade? It gets sun from about 9am to 2:30-3pm.

Pawpaws. The one I started from seed that I transplanted this spring grew a lot this year. I think it might catch up to the named varieties I got from the nursery as larger (3-4ft tall) trees within a couple years if it keeps growing this fast. They probably still have a few years before producing.

Prok Persimmon. Planted in spring 2025, it had flowers, but the flowers/fruits dropped while still at a very immature stage. I'm guessing the tree is not established enough to produce.

Container figs had their best year yet. Passiflora incarnata (Maypop) and passiflora inspiration did alright. I even got some fruit off my edulis passionfruit seedling, but only 1 from each plant. I'm thinking of getting a named variety to see if it produces more reliably. Tamarillo started to flower in October for the first time, that's too late to set fruit/produce fruit, but hopefully that means it reached maturity and will set fruit in late spring/early summer next year.

Next projects:
I'm considering trying to grow espallier quince on the SW wall of the house. Giant of Zagreb maybe? I'm also considering USask sour cherries (maybe with a Saskatoon berry to distract birds?). We're cutting down a maple since it's getting bigger and bigger and making more shade on the vegetable garden. That'll free up some space for some smaller trees, or an expanded vegetable garden.
At this point, I've got a lot of fruit that should come in in September-October, my figs, raspberries, grapes, maypops, cherry tomatoes, and eventually persimmon, pawpaws and kiwis. Not so much for June-August though, just peaches (late August), haskap, currants. That's why I'm considering the sour cherries. Maybe something else that's early-ish like Early Golden plums? The quince has a good shelf life, so it could be for the later part of fresh fruit eating season (November?). Maybe medlars could work for November-December consumption as well? I've heard they taste good but never had a chance to try them, not sure where you can find any for sale, but I saw a reddit post from someone by the Georgian Bay growing them successfully.
I'm a bit hesitant about mulberries, because we've allowed our lab to eat some at parks before and she has no self control and will eat several pounds until she throws up all of it. Since they're kind of messy and tend to drop loads of fruit on the ground, I guess I'd have to keep the tree small enough that between my picking and the wild animals (birds, squirrels, etc), there won't be an excessive surplus of them on the ground for the dog.

I'm considering planting zone University of Saskatchewan sour cherries in the driveway strip between my driveway and my neighbours, since I think they'd be small enough to fit in the space. We're already getting a good snowpack here in Zone 5.


Last winter this strip got snow piled very high - a wall about 6-7ft tall due to how snowy it was. Although last winter saw the deepest snowpack in about 25 years, we can still get a good amount of snow, so a 4-5ft snowbank would be pretty typical. Last winter I had a Rose of Sharon on the other side of the driveway with a Y junction in its trunk that got split vertically from the snow load weighing down the branches. Since the USask cherries are dwarf trees, they'd basically get completely buried in snow, at least in the first years. I'm wondering how they'd handle that and if they'd need protection from the weight of the snow, especially in the first years?

Also, anyone have experience with how aggressively birds and squirrels go after them? If they just eat a few, as has been the case with my raspberries in the backyard, I don't mind that. But if they go after them big time, as they have with my grapes, or my neighbour's sweet cherries, I'd want to net them, which is less desirable aesthetically for the front of the house, so I might rather plant the USask cherries somewhere in the back. But maybe since they're sour cherries, the critters won't go after them as much?

The last concern would be rabbits and voles. I could try to protect the base of the trunk, but they'd still have access to the branches. I'm hoping there would be fewer rabbits and voles in between the driveways since there's less space to hide compared to the backyard. I see much more evidence of both (ex vole tracks, rabbit droppings) in the back than in the front.

If not USask cherries, are there other fruit trees/shrubs that would do well in this type of location? It gets lots of sun (south side of the house, no large street trees) - from about 7-8am to 5-6pm. We don't use road salt on our driveway, and I haven't noticed the neighbours using any either. I'm in Ontario Zone 5a, with clay loam glacial soil. I already have currants, haskaps, American persimmon, peach, pawpaws, raspberries, grapes and hardy kiwis planted in the backyard. As I said, I'm looking for something that can handle getting several feet of snow dumped on it and recover without too much damage to the limbs, and that will be relatively aesthetic for curb appeal - ie can retain a decent crop without being heavily netted.