I have a young orchard, going into my 3rd season in 2023, and I can attest to both the tropic snow peach and the flordaprince peach. Both have outstanding flavor, growth, and my 2nd year -1st allowed to fruit and that I thinned heavily, still produced really well. The few mulberries I got, the birds let me know when they were ready by eating them all! Starfruit are on my list but I need to determine a good spot for one
Thanks for the videos Jay. I am looking forward to picking up some trees from you at the end of the summer. Lots of really good info and I am finding helpful in learning how to take care of the trees that I will be putting in my backyard.
Jay! thanks for the heads up on Pakistani Mulberry. mine has been in the ground a year and its huge but no crop this past March. I can't wait for next March to see!
When my grandmother would be pulled over for speeding, she would tell the cop, "I'm old! I want to get there before I die." Then take off. they never chased her. But, like ol' Nana, I'm old and want to get fruit SOON. I can afford to wait. Problem is, wind storms during bloom. The tangerine has fruit on the east side but none on the west side. That's Arizona. the kumquat lost all blooms, but is blooming again, and will again come the monsoons. hasta!
No, not by year. Assuming you did everything else right, including planting it correctly, you might expect some fruit once the tree is about 12-15 ft. tall. Roughly 5-7 years. Note: I've seen an awful lot of people that just throw a tree in the ground. The proper way to plant any tree, especially root bound trees, is to dig a hole 3-5 times the size of the pot, then fill the hole with water, remove the tree from the pot and submerge the roots, and using a hook, rake out the roots and use a hose to clean out the majority of the potting mix. Finally, incorporate the Native dirt back into the roots and the hole. Continue packing the dirt down and doing soil drenching for the next two days until the soil has thoroughly settled. I'm sure you didn't do that with this tree, but now you know something useful when you plant the next one. P.S. Don't buy trees from Costco. Look around for local growers or orchards in you area / region. They will be able to help you out with selecting the ideal variety for your area as well as a wealth of useful information and instruction. A fruit tree is a 25-100 year investment, so don't treat it as an after thought. You wouldn't buy a house in an hour, so take your time with selecting trees. And one last thing: I'm trying to help you out buddy, because me and just about everyone else that's been doing this for 20 years started in your same shoes making the same mistakes. There's no shaming or condescension in this. Just hard truths most people don't want to hear. Lessons learned through trial by fire.
Do Squirrels eat the baby green peaches off of a peach tree? Mine all disappear (not fall off, they are no where to be found) when they get to be about the size of a good size almond nutmeat. They only thing I can figure out is maybe the little furry tailed tree rats are eating them. I had peach blooms all over the place and little fruits set all of the tree this year... And they all disappeared.
squirrels will pick off developing fruit, flower buds, growing tips, seedlings, roots, bulbs, you name it ! I'm overrun with squirrels, so I witness them damaging plants daily in my yard. Often times it seems it's just for fun. They pick off huge flowers off my southern magnolia and just sit up there shredding the flowers to bits and dropping the bits all over the ground but not eating any part of them. I see them do the same to growing tips of other plants.
Thank you, the educational vids are invaluable. By the way do you grow (or have you tried growing) Che tree a.k.a Chinese mulberry/melonberry? Why or why not? Recently learned of it and have been interested in buying one (or 2)
