Josh Willis

Glad they arrived!  And no rush on the greengage thanks!

Shari Bee wrote:

Shari Bee wrote:

Josh Willis wrote:Hi Shari,
I'd be happy to trade - I'm located in the east coast of the US (zone 7)..

Hi Josh, a rather belated follow up!! Thanks for the seeds, received several weeks ago and they look great. I'm looking forward to getting them in the ground this fall. My greengage tree is rather belated this year, and a bit sparse on fruit (early high winds and 'beast from the east' weather had a detrimental impact on blossom, and therefore fruit! BUT...have managed to harvest some fruits this week and am currently cleaning/drying. Should have them in the mail to you next week. Thanks so much for this wonderful trade. Happy planting 😀
Kind Regards, Shari

Hi Shari,
I'd be happy to trade - I'm located in the east coast of the US (zone 7).  But - just want to double check that you'd want these.  Looks like you have a small plot, and these cherries are probably descended from a mix of Mahaleb and Mazzard rootstocks (more info here https://www.orangepippintrees.com/articles/fruit-tree-advice/rootstocks-for-cherry-trees ), which are very vigorous - will get 16' to 20'+ when mature.  Of course, that's depending on pruning & growing conditions.  And you can always cut some down later if they get too big, I suppose!  Anyways, if you are still interested, just let me know your email address & I will follow up.
cheers,
Josh

Hi Josh, would love some of your cherry volunteers if you are interested in a greengage plum seed trade? Where are you located? My mail address is UK, although I do have a small plot in southern Portugal that I just purchased which your cherry would be destinted for I'm looking to regenerate the land with as many varieties of fruit and nut trees as possible. Volunteer trees and seeds are my first step in regeneration of this quite barren plot. I hope planting will help build the soil and provide some shade while developing a small food forest.  I may have others to trade but am still getting to know what grows here and what I may be able to harvest as a seed stock for trade.
Kind regards, Shari

I'd come across that too, I love it as a low tech solution!  Still not much faster than hand pitting for me, though.

I think I'm looking for a factory pitter / stoner... ha!

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:For several much much lower tech options...

I like the bottle and chopstick method best. The others would be quite awkward for me. But, just in case you can't find a bottle with a small enough neck...

And if you're really talented (unlike me) you can fashion a wooden palm sized handle to further reduce hand fatigue. Tada!

Oh, I guess I mean a stoner!  It is indeed a blade type wheel with grooved spirals...I believe we have both a '4 leg' type and a 'clamp' type.  But my little cherries are so small, I'd say the stoner only gets 75% of the pits.  It does make a terrific mess though

I haven't tried the clamp type for a while, though, will try it again based on your Dad's experience.  We have several similar devices for apple peeling, they are amazing!  Half the fun of making a pie is using the peeler.

Jonathan Ward wrote:you mention a cast iron pitter...do you mean pitter or a stoner?  Does it have the blade type wheel in the middle of the hopper with groved spirals on the wheel?  If not, i'd see about investing in one...They're a little hard to find.  My dad has one and uses it every year on his small sour cherries.  Works like a champ...he ususally gets 2-3 stones per gallon in the wrong section but if you're paying attention they're easy enough to spot.

Oh, just pulped cherries is fine!  I'll be cooking them up afterwards.  (they are way too small to keep for any fancy looking purpose, anyways).

Jonathan Ward wrote:Are you looking to simply pit them and have what looks like whole cherries afterward or if said machine broke them down to remove the pits but you were left with more like ground cherries on one side and pits on the other would that be acceptable?  Guess i need to know what your final product is.

hi all - in case anyone is still looking at this old post...

i have some sweet cherry volunteers that can trade.  i can only guess at the parentage (maybe schmidt's bigarreau).  but they are very tasty, certainly small, and incredibly vigorous & disease resistant.  while all of our grafted cherry trees have tons of brown rot, these cherries stay on the branch until i get a chance to pick or it simply shrivels up from boredom.

any efficient cherry pitting techniques / tools?

i have a grove of mature sweet cherry volunteers that are super tasty & disease resistant (ironically, all the grafted cherry tree plantings get close to 100% brown rot each spring).  however, as volunteers, they produce pretty small fruit.  it's a *huge* bounty, but takes a lot of time to pit the cherries.

we have an old cast iron pitter, and i've looked at some newer pitting machines, but the fastest & surest way (to miss to pits) still seems to be by hand...and that, my friends, is not too quick either.

any suggestions?

thanks!

Hi Shawn, thanks!  And great thread about those 12' beds, that is just hilarious.

These brush piles are a ways off from the main garden, but I'm definitely considering hugelkultur for future beds.  As always, it's fun to just see what happens.

Cheers.

Hi - my first post here. somehow all google roads keep pointing to this site, so figured i'd give my question a shot.

Anyone see objections to a 4 to 8 foot hugelkulture mound, with most of the height made of hardwood brush?  My goal would be brush decomposition (not so much garden cultivation on top of it); a few cubic yards of black gold years hence would a-ok too.  

not sure if there is an upper limit to brush height  / height between ground & humus layer for the initial magic to happen.  there's be some limbs up to 6" diameter, but since most would be brush smaller than that, I assume the pile would drop somewhat quickly...if initial height doesn't forestall that.