Multi-variety fruit trees and other musings
It sounds great, doesn’t it? 4 or 5 varieties of apple, all on one tree! Both pie and sweet cherries on one tree! How about plums and peaches together-an on-the-tree fruit cocktail! No worries about pollination, long fruiting season….why doesn’t Cloud Mountain carry trees like these? It’s a question we get asked every year. But […]
Pear Trees Problems
We’re hearing that many people are seeing problems on their pear trees this year. One pest that seems to be showing up is pear blister mite. This little mite overwinters in the bud scales on the trees, waking up as the trees break dormancy, then feeding on the leaves during the growing season. Because the […]
Scouting for Pest Problems
Scouting One of the most important tools a gardener or orchardist has are his or her eyes. Scouting is the act of observation, with the intent of recognizing disease or pest hazards before they become critical. The idea is to act before too much damage is done. This is an important skill to develop. Aphids […]
Upright Fruiting Offshoot (UFO) Sweet Cherry Training
Many visitors to Cloud Mountain are intrigued by our ‘cherry tunnel’. This upright fruiting system (UFO) is an unusual way of growing sweet cherries. It was initially developed for commercial growers, but can be adapted to home gardens and market farms as well. The Upright Fruiting Offshoots (UFO) system for sweet cherries was developed to: […]
Pruning Sweet Cherries
One important note: always prune cherries when you will have at least 2 days of dry weather. This can help reduce canker. Most people grow sweet cherries as freestanding ‘bush’ shaped trees. In a future post, we’ll talk about growing sweet cherries as an espalier or fruiting wall form called UFO (upright fruiting offshoot). Cherry […]
Pruning Stone Fruits
Traditionally, we have been pruning most of our stone fruits in late January along with the rest of the orchard for quite a number of years. A few years ago, we discovered something interesting in our Peach Plum. It has been my youngest daughter’s favorite plum since she was little, so we have always kept […]