Back In Time For Winter

Sorry it has been so long, but I finally have some time to post to Fruitful Labor, and with the most exciting news. Polly, my partner, and I besides enjoying a fabulous summer of berry picking and eating....... bought a house! Yes, we are now adults in the most urban sort of way. The even more exciting news about our house is the yard. 50' x 130' of blank lawn. Yes, that is a yard with nothing in it but grass and that means only one thing for Polly and I; ripe out the lawn and put in a huge neighbor to neighbor garden. Yipeeee! After many years of rentals with no space, we have reached the golden age of yardum with enough room for 10, count them, 10 dwarf fruit trees. Which gets me to my next project on this much neglected blog site, a documentary of the transition to lawn blight to garden oasis. Yes, tune in for updated pictures, news, and plain old tales from the burbs. Coming soon, more fresh produce than we can imagine. Ah, it keeps me up at night thinking of the possibilities.

Polly and I just picked out our fruit tree varieties today and will include: Akane, Cox's Orange Pippin, and Hudson's Golden Gem apples, Greengae plum, Chojuro and Dan Bae Asian Pears, Hachiya and Fuyu persimmon, and Rescue and Red Clapps Favorite European Pears. We will also plant a hardy kiwi for the fence and are going to brave an Improved Meyer Lemon in a large pot that we can put in our sunny garage during winter. Yummy and exciting.

So stay tuned for the next adventures and urban tales.

Ciao for now.

Our Backyard (Read Huge Garden)

Looking North in the Backyard (the white stakes are tree planting markers and we have begun to lay down a mulch of cardboard followed by a thick layer of woodchips)

Woodchip Mountain in Front Yard

Taking a Nap

Hi folks, sorry but I have been much remiss in posting to this blog, but I'm out in the shade taking a nap and enjoying the rare heat of Portland. See you when I get back.

Thinning: Part 2

A month later, and we have come to the time to thin our fruit here in Oregon. Thinning probably could have happened earlier, when the fruit was about grape size, but better late than never.

To review, we thin fruit to control size, quantity, and quality of the fruit on our trees. Apples and pears particularly need thinning as they will revert back to biannual bearing, or bear heavily one year and very sparsely the next. For consistent fruit set in pome fruits, we need to thin. Left unthinned, the fruit buds send messages via plant growth regulators, to reduce the blossoms for next year. Peaches are thinned to increase quality and size of fruit. If all the fruit is allowed to grow, you will get many small, disappointing fruit. Also with peaches, thinning fruit helps to alleviate branch breakage due to fruit overload. Plums are thinning optional, only if you enjoy large fruit and if you have problems with branch breaking.

Okay, enough with the words, hopefully the before and after pictures below will clarify thinning. The first set of pictures is an apple before and after thinning. You can see that with a heavy set, you can get five fruit in a cluster (one for each flower). Generally you thin to the biggest, healthiest apple which is usually the center of the cluster or 'King Blossom'. Don't ask me why its a king versus queen, its fruit. Simply cut off or snap off the surrounding fruit to one fruit per cluster. If you have several clusters of fruit on a limb, the remaining thinned apples should be at least 8-10 inches apart. Be sure to compost the thinned fruit, and not throw them on the ground as that will encourage pest problems. That is it. Though if you have a large tree, it can take some time.

For pears, it is the same process as for apples. The pictures below just happen to be Asian pears, but the same principles apply as with apples.

Finally, a stone fruit example. As I was hard pressed to find any peaches in our neck of the woods, a plum will suffice. As you can see, like the flowers, plums are anywhere along the stem and can hang in dense clusters. Dense clusters can create bug and disease problems, and is, come to think of it, another reason to thin plums. Anyway, its really just an option, as stone fruits can have overwhelmingly large amounts of fruit. Peaches would be thinned as you would apples, singling out clusters and leaving 8-10 inches between fruit on a branch.

There isn't a whole lot of visual difference with the plums, but thinning out doubles and extra heavy branches is a good idea.

After thinning, your fruit tree is ready to give its resources to the remaining fruit, including water. Watering over the summer on a regular basis will ensure minimal fruit drop, larger fruit, and vigorous trees. I will talk more about watering next time.

After thinning of apples, it is wise to protect your apples against the number one pest of apples, coddling moth. That is the moth that lays an egg near the stem, the larvae bores a hole to the core of the apple, eats the seeds, then reemerges through a different hole. The 'worm in the apple' worm. If you have ever cut open an apple to find a worm smiling back at you, that is a coddling moth larvae. To protect your apples without chemicals, you can 1. spray them with kaolin clay, which is expensive and doesn't really work, 2. bag your apples with little baggies or stocking type material which works, but is labor intensive and it also looks a little goofy, or 3. don't do anything at all and deal with the moths and their larvae. There are also traps available which work fairly well, are a tad expensive, but less labor intensive as bagging. Its up to you and how much work you want to do.

I will talk more later about watering and pests/diseases. The two are more linked than they first seem?!

Enjoy the sunshine!

Thinning: Part 1

We're moving right along to spring here in Portland with sun, hail, sun, hail, sun, hail.... last weekend we had sun and 70's. Hum...tough going out there for the wee fruit that is starting to grow. But the trees have been inspired to break bud, and my allergies have been inspired to start as well?!

If you have fruit trees, at what stage are they? Have the leaves emerged? Still flowering? Have the flowers past and now you have tiny fruit? My friends from Chico say their apricot is already leafed out and has grape sized fruit. My, does that sound inviting to us Portlanders. The earliest of apples are breaking bud (picture 1), Asian pear blossoms are in full swing (picture 2), and the plums are in full bloom (picture 3).

I haven't seen any stone fruit blooming, and I suspect that they will be a couple weeks off yet. What is a stone fruit? Well, stone fruits are those fruits with a big pit in the middle like plums, peaches, apricots, nectarines, and cherries. In our part of the world, we want these to bloom later, as they are susceptible to frost. Unpredictable last frost and cool wet weather tends to make growing stone fruits in Western Washington and Oregon difficult. Notable exceptions are plums and cherries which can handle the cooler weather and tend to be self fertile (read don't depend on pollinators trying to fly in cold weather). Apricots and peaches on the other hand, like it warmer and dryer like in Eastern Washington and Oregon and in the Central Valley of California.


Pome fruits on the other hand, are those fruits having multiple (usually 5-7), small black/dark brown seeds in the middle. Apples, pears, quince, and Asian pears are pome fruits. They tend to like things a little cooler without the extremes of Central Valley CA., New Mexico, and Arizona. They do like Eastern Washington because of the cool desert nights and less extreme heat of the summer. Eastern Washington produces the most apples in all of the United States.

So all this talk about pome fruits and stone fruits for what? I want to start talking about thinning. Ah, the art and tedium of thinning?! Thinning is the act of pulling off or hand pruning of fruit from the tree in order to have better fruit quality. What? Fruit trees, especially apples, peaches, pears, and sometimes plums produce way more fruit than they can sustain, both physically and nutritionally. Not thinning fruit has negative effects like broken limbs, small disappointing fruit, and with apples, reversion back to biannual bearing. Fruit thinning is selecting choice fruit and controlled quantities to maximize fruit size and quality. Trees naturally thin fruit, often called June Drop, when growing naturally, without us and is a way a tree naturally selects the best fruit to reproduce itself. But this is often too late for good sized fruit and not enough thinning. So for our use, and remember, fruit trees are about fruit, we control thinning by manually selecting keepers. In the case of conventional orchards, they use chemical thinners that cause the trees to abort a certain percentage of fruit. Organic producers still rely on hand thinning, thus making the fruit that much more expensive. For the backyard fruit grower, the types of fruit most needing thinning are apples and peaches, and secondly important apricots, plums, and pears. Usually apricots, plums, and pears don't need thinning, but there are varieties that need it and you should consult your nursery where you bought the tree or a catalogue. If you like big apricots, plums, and pears, that is another reason to thin fruit.



I want to show thinning in pictures, as it is easier to see than to just explain, so there will be a Thinning Part 2 most likely in May for us in Portland. I will try and get pictures to document the process. For those in warmer climates and ready to thin, which by the way is ideally done when the fruit is about grape sized, a good resource to check is the California Agriculture and Natural Resources web site: http://www.anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu/ for California information and the OSU extension website here in Oregon: http://www.extension.oregonstate.edu/ or for Washington: www.mtvernon.wsu.edu/FruitHorticulture.html.



Good Luck?!

100 Year Old Gravensteins

Hi Folks, been outside enjoying our spring-like weather. Its been sunny, rainy, sunny, rainy, sunny, well you get the point. Typical for Portland this time of year, so I've been told.

In my travels around Mt. Tabor, a bit of a hill just east of where we live, as I was huffing up on my bike, I chanced to look to the side as I was passing this old house. Well, what was in front of the house but these crazy, gnarled, clearly very old...... apple trees. I almost went by, but then felt the obligation to share the experience on this newly created fruit blog, so take a look. 100 year old Gravensteins, standard of course, from the original farm dating back to 1903. Take faith people, even these trees are still bearing fruit! Look at the trunks of these things. There is nothing there! So these are the official mascots for Fruitful Labor. Tenacious, old, fruitful, and a little worn out, but still keeping on. I love it!!

I thought talking about planting a fruit tree might be a good subject, but for most of us, that season is just about over. The Dormant season, is what I am talking about, where the leaves are off the tree and they are just sticks. Well dormant is a little bit of a misnomer. The tree is dormant above ground, but below ground, unless you freeze solid, is ablaze in activity of new root growth. Feeder roots, the roots that provide water and nourishment for the tree, extend well beyond the edge of the canopy, or drip line (that farthest point from the trunk where water would drip off the leaves). Some sources say feeder roots are found up to 4 times the radius of the drip line! I once worked on an orchard where every year they ripped the isles between the rows of trees. Ripping is using a tractor to pull an implement with large bars up to 3 ft in length through the soil, like a big comb. Ripping the soil loosens hard pan, tractor pan, and as they say in the ag business 'tight' soils. Well this orchard never produced fruit, or very little. This was because they were ripping out the feeder roots every year with the tractor. The year they stopped ripping the orchard, fruit started appearing on the trees. The trees could now feed the little growing embryos of forming fruit.

Feeding fruit trees in important to maintain fruit production. This being the Active Season for tree roots, is a great time to fertilize, mulch, and encourage root growth. The first 5 years of tree growth are critical to proper fruit tree development. Like a child, all the naughty habits are learned then. The first 5 years should see rapid and lots of growth, development of tree structure, which I will talk about in later blogs, and forming of scaffold limbs. After 5 years, tree maintenance is mostly about keeping the height in check, maintaining fruit buds, and long term nourishment of the tree.

Spring Rains Bring Spring Flowers

For those of you who live in the Southern regions of our fair country and even for us who live in the Northwest, the flowers are starting to pop. For sure more slowly here in the Northwest than down south. My friends in Richmond, CA already have Peach blossoms! Yum. Here in Portland, the earliest of plums, usually Japanese or the red varieties of plums, are just at the 'popcorn' stage. The flowers from a distance, if you squint or just have bad eyesight, look like popcorn. The procession of flowers is just beginning, and will continue on for some months. The latest of bloomers, at least here in the Northwest, will be those figs, pomegranates if we're lucky, and the later variety of apples. As a general rule, the earlier the flower, the earlier the fruit.

Why do I bring up flowers when this is a fruit blog? Well, flowers, having the ovaries, will eventually bear the fruit which we all want, right?! Now is the critical time when the fruit begins, the most delicate dance with flower and pollinator, both of which are subject to the whims of nature. Almost poetic. Take a look outside. What is the weather like. Here in Portland, it is raining like mad and cool around 50 F. Now rain can knock off flowers, cause blossom rot, or prevent pollinators from doing their job. Cool temperatures, generally below 50 F, can prevent pollinators from flying/moving. The weather at blossom time will influence the fruit.

I want to note here that pollinators can mean more than European honey bees or Apis mellifera. I know folks are really worried about the bees, but mason bees, native hover flies, native ground dwelling bees, serphid flies, flies, beetles, and wasps also play a large role in pollination, so give the bugs a break. Most of the bees native to America are ground dwelling. A good way to promote their habitat is a good rock pile left alone. Ground disturbance destroys their nests. It is also good to have beneficial plants that flower around the same time as your fruit trees, making the area even more enticing to pollinators and provide habitat.

Even with the change in climate we are experiencing, it is good to note and remember your spring weather. This will be key to selecting varieties of fruit that are suited to your region. The extension offices of your county should have a really good list of suitable fruits for your area. If not, look to a local nursery and see what they are selling, though they tend to push the envelope a bit on what is appropriate. If that doesn't help, go to a farmers market and ask around for farmers with fruit trees. They'll be sure to know.

Welcome To Fruitful Labor!

Welcome to the inaugural posting of Fruitful Labor. Our ultimate goal is to promote the widespread use and production of fruit in the urban setting. With the growing fervor for 'DIY' and the fervor desire for food production knowledge (at least in Portland, OR), I want to offer a business that fosters the education and production of Fruit Culture. Fruitful Labor offers consultation, education, and a maintenance service for the urban fruit grower. Our services include:

• Site Inspection/Tree Inspection
• Planting
• Tree/Plant Selection
• Landscaping
• Fertilization
• Soil Testing
• Fruit Tree Training
• Fruit Thinning
• Pruning (Dormant & Non-Dormant Season)
• Pest/Disease Management
• Harvesting
• Removal/Debris Hauling
• Pollinator/Bee-Keeping Service

To reach Fruitful Labor, please email your information and a brief description of services needed to: j_iott@hotmail.com. Please see 'Profile' for a detailed resume.