A) Tropical- hot and humid, average temperatures are greater than 64°F (18°C) year-round and there is more than 59 inches of precipitation each year
B) Dry- dry (not humid) and little precipitation
C) Temperate- warm and humid summers with thunderstorms and mild winters
D) Continental- warm to cool summers and very cold winters. In the winter, this zone can experience snowstorms, strong winds, and very cold temperatures—sometimes falling below -22°F (-30°C)!
E) Oceanic/Mediterranean- more average temperatures, not too hot in the summer or cold in the winter, usually has rainy winters and dry summers (source)
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James Landreth wrote:Thanks for the information Mike and Cécile! I'm helping a good friend of mine in Ashland Wisconsin develop a food forest, so this is all good to hear. Cécile, do you dislike the taste of the high bush cranberries?
I was surprised when I started researching for my friend that there really is quite a lot of variety that can grow in zone 4! We're trialing black walnut, butternut, cascade English walnut, and Carpathian English walnut, among other things. And some hardy mulberries (Northrop/Northrup is supposedly hardy to zone 3 or something)
Have either of you tried growing apricots there like Scout?
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Mike Jay wrote:I think Ashland is zone 4. It's on Superior but in a NE facing bay so I think freezes over reliably.
Cecile, do you have any spare mulberry seeds? I got bare root trees planted this spring but I didn't create a micro climate, give them a lot of water, stand on my left foot during the full moon or add mulch..
For nurseries north of us, I found HoneyberryUSA. They're in northern MN and they have a good selection of berry bushes.
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Mike Jay wrote:I'm in a spot that used to be zone 4a and now it's classified as 4b. But we hit -29 last night which is soundly in 4a. My plantings are new but here's what I've seen so far:
Apples are great
Rhubarb grows well
Strawberries grow well
Raspberries grow well
Plums grow well
Lowbush blueberries, blackberries, saskatoons, cranberries, highbush cranberries, aronia, chokecherries and hazelnuts are common in the wild
I have two older pears that flower well, one produces sweet small pears, the other hasn't fruited in 4 years. So I think the right variety of pears are solid here
Things I've planted that may or may not grow well, time will tell:
Sea buckthorn
Nanking cherry
Cornelian cherry
Gogi
Honeyberry (should be rock solid)
Highbush blueberry
Butternut
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James Landreth wrote:Have you heard of Hidden Springs Nursery Steve? They're in Tennessee I believe. I'm sure it's a different climate but maybe the varieties they carry will serve you well
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Mike Jay wrote:Oh, and there's also a permaculture nursery near Ashland called The Draw. I don't think they do the internet much...
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Mike Jay wrote:Oh, I'll take some yellow and blue indigo seeds! I'll send you a PM with what I have to trade.
I just checked out The Tree Store and it does sound good. Cheap prices and a few I hadn't seen before. They say Manchurian Apricots are good to zone 3. Theirs are full sized and from original seed stock. I sent them an email to see if they grow their stuff on site or ship in their inventory. I'll report back what they say.
I've ordered from Reeseville Ridge Nursery down in southern WI. They were affordable and easy to work with and I did a review for them in the Nursery and Seed review grid. Haven't had their plants get through their first winter yet so.....
When you come to Ashland, swing by my place Cecile
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Mike Jay wrote:For those of you in the rough vicinity of Madison WI there's a Garden and Landscape Expo Fri/Sat/Sun this weekend that Cecile and I will be going to. Lots of gardening and permaculture topics (as well as conventional stuff). So if you want to get out of the cold, check it out
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Cécile Stelzer Johnson wrote:
Mike Jay wrote:Oh, and there's also a permaculture nursery near Ashland called The Draw. I don't think they do the internet much...
They do have a website, though. I think I will manage to go there this spring as they have a lot of what I'm looking for [chestnuts, hazelnuts, beech...] It is over 4 hours from me but hey, they are also a permaculture site, so I'll drive the distance. Here is their website: http://www.thedraw.org/nursery/
I was thinking, do you guys save seeds? I have extra from both yellow and blue false indigo. [and many many other things]
Since in the fall, they freeze and go down like asparagus or rhubarb, I was thinking of planting a few on the edges of the driveway, just for pretty. If you have so extra of something else, we could swap?
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Cécile Stelzer Johnson wrote:
Hmmm Manchurian apricots for zone 3 give me pause. I thought they were OK for zone 5. I checked and I can message you too.
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James Landreth wrote:
St. Lawrence's "Adirondack" apricot is a type of manchurian and should be hardy to zone 3 or 4, so it might be a real thing. But I read all sorts of mixed things about what tree is hardy to what zone. I'm surprised by how much nursery websites really conflict with each other even on the same cultivars
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Cindy Skillman wrote:Best I can discover, the average number of frost-free days where I live is 89. Since fruit trees (and most other crops) need a certain minimum frost-free growing season in order for blossoms to survive and produce fruit, it’s not unusual to have a fruit tree that does grow but seldom succeeds in setting fruit. It seems to be really difficult to determine whether a tree, bush, etc., will fruit here. Annuals have times to maturity listed. With more expensive perennials it seems you just roll the dice. It’s frustrating.
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Cindy Skillman wrote:Best I can discover, the average number of frost-free days where I live is 89. Since fruit trees (and most other crops) need a certain minimum frost-free growing season in order for blossoms to survive and produce fruit, it’s not unusual to have a fruit tree that does grow but seldom succeeds in setting fruit. It seems to be really difficult to determine whether a tree, bush, etc., will fruit here. Annuals have times to maturity listed. With more expensive perennials it seems you just roll the dice. It’s frustrating.
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Cécile Stelzer Johnson wrote:I'm in Central Wisconsin, Zone 4b, so continental climate and quite sandy with first water at 10 ft.
Lots of wild cherries that tend to attract tent caterpillars, and one cultivar: Danube, that doesn't. I may try to graft Danube on some suitable wild cherry.
I have a lot of apples, that are growing quite well and I'm looking to make applejack.
The Mulberries black and white, which I started from seed are starting to give fruit
Rhubarb, red and green grows well thanks to the
Comfrey with which I make comfrey tea, a potent fertilizer. I'm planning to make one or two more beds of comfrey.
Strawberries [the June kind]. Honeyoye is doing well and I will replant a bed of it as this bed is getting a little old.
I will intersperse with Jersey Giant asparagus: The asparagus have deep roots while the strawberries have shallow roots, so I do not expect too much interference: There are wild asparagus and wild strawberries that grow well close to each other. Since asparagus tend to get weedy, I might as well give them a useful 'weed' to cover the ground.
I have not had much luck with plums so far. I only have one tree, Toka, I think, which gets so sick from tent caterpillars that I was thinking to cut it when, miracle, it gave us a nice crop. I have stayed the execution.
I was not having much luck with pears either: They would all catch the blight. but 2 years ago, I found two that didn't AND survived the winter.. Wish I could remember the name of the cultivars now.
Hazelnuts are very common but worms and squirrels get most of them. I may try a few hazelnut trees this year
I have blueberries that are starting to give better now that I found the trick to make them happy: Acidifier! [Aluminum sulfate]
I have highbush cranberries that only my chickens will eat, wild turkeys too, sometimes.
Chokecherries are abundant as well and I have a hedge of aronias from which I made a delicious jam.
I want to encourage the honeyberries that I planted close to the foundations [so the deer do not come after them]. They taste quite good.
The red oaks, unfortunately all have the wilt, and I despair to have any survive. When I cut one, I cut it and lay the branches and trunks along the road, on this side of the ditch, to make a snow trap. Some had mast this past year, but they rarely do: too crowded and sick.
I have been babying a number of lindens/basswoods so they will make great blossoms for my bees, and also perhaps enough for some tea. 3 are starting to give and it is a delight to hear my bees in them!
I do not have butternuts yet, but I plan on planting some. My attempts at chestnuts have been a failure so far. I will plant some in the chicken yard. The chickens will pick the pests away, I trust, and the rich soil that is there should suit these trees.
Brambles grow well there. I'm raising red raspberries Boyne in a raised bed, but I may have to redo that patch: It is getting full of weeds. I just started the yellow raspberries, Sweet Anne, and they gave me a handful of delicious berries in the fall, and no pests!
Unfortunately, I mixed them with blackberries [prime ark Jim] and I heard later I should not have done that. We'll see, and if I must move them, I will: They are only a year old, so...Those fall berries are in a raised bed and have a couple of hog panels over them so I can cover them to extend the ripening season if need be.
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Cindy Skillman wrote:
These are the trees coming— hopefully not a waste of money and effort.. again. Apples: Ashmead’s Kernel, Black Oxford, Newton Pippin, Sweet Sixteen. Cherry: Montmorency, Evan’s Bali. I can grow raspberries and I’d like to try blueberries. We do have some poorly Juneberry/Saskatoon “trees”. The local nursery carries them, so I’ll try to get some, or if not I may try rooting some from what we have wild. I’ve noticed the bees seem to be doing better, but I plan to get some in case we need them for the apple trees. Maybe they’d be happy in a greenhouse over-winter... I’m doing Suskovich chicken tractors this spring, and they could be made into greenhouses in winter, I think. I expect I’ll plant the trees on the south side of my mom’s house. Since pine beetles killed much of the forest, there’s decent sun there and some protection from north winds.
We live in the central Black Hills, about a mile elevation, in a fairly wide gulch. Our 12.5 acres of mostly meadow runs north to south. We get pretty good sun though we have Hills to the east and west (and also the north, less so). We often have nicer weather than Rapid City, but they really are zone 5, and we really are 3-4 here. We just tend to get extremes they don’t get so much in the plains. That’s what makes us less viable for planting. We do get late storms, late freezes, hail of sometimes epic proportions. Lucky my girls have shaggy heads like little bison. Here they are—well, two of them anyway.
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Alicia Bayer wrote:I'm in SW Minnesota, zone 4.
Perennial fruits that we grow in our yard and garden include:
Strawberries (plant)
Rhubarb (plant)
Cherry (tree)
Nanking cherry (bushes)
elderberry (shrubs)
black raspberries (brambles)
raspberries (brambles)
Fruits that we forage in our area include:
Mulberries
Elderberries
Gooseberries
Choke cherries
Chokeberries
Sumac berries
Raspberries
Black raspberries
Apples
Pears
Wild plums
Crab apples
Wild grapes
Rhubarb (at abandoned properties or local homes that don't harvest theirs, with permission)
If you're interested, you can see a list of all of the wild plants we foraged in 2018 and some photos of some of the fruits here: Our 2018 Foraging Wrap-Up or check out a typical summer month's foraging with photos and information about how we use them here: Our June Foraging Wrap-Up.
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Mike Jay wrote:I just checked out The Tree Store and it does sound good. Cheap prices and a few I hadn't seen before. They say Manchurian Apricots are good to zone 3. Theirs are full sized and from original seed stock. I sent them an email to see if they grow their stuff on site or ship in their inventory. I'll report back what they say.
The Tree Store wrote:Thank you for your interest in our products! Some of our products are grown in northern Wisconsin and some are grown in northern Michigan, The American persimmon seedlings are grown in northern Michigan. Thanks again!
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Cindy Skillman wrote:Thanks, Cécile!
Your comments on the blueberries interest me. We do have some boggy areas. Sometimes they’re really, really boggy areas. According to old maps there’s a creek running through our bottomland, and since so many pine trees have died, I believe it. The problem is, since the days of the legendary creek of yore, the bed has completely filled in, and the water spreads out and slowly slouches across the whole lowland area. I’d like to dig it back out, but I’m afraid of the govt goons and their satellite imagery. >:-( Anyway, water does flow through in reasonably wet spring seasons... sometimes all summer and fall, too. Maybe that would wash away any acid amendments, or maybe it would be good... what do you think? I’m really impressed with all your innovations and hard work with the blueberries! And the chicken tunnel to the orchard sounds wonderfully whimsical. I can just see the fluffies wending their way to their summer job in the orchard. So cool! I hope you’ll do it. It’s too cute not to!
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Mike Jay wrote:Does anyone have a yummy pear variety that you grow in zone 4a that I could get some scion wood from? I'm helping put together a grafting class this spring and due to the government shut down we aren't getting any pear scions from the USDA. Thanks!!!
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Mike Jay wrote:Thanks Cecile, I'll give them a call. I'm surprised they have that many varieties of pears this far north. I think pear cider is called perry. Happiness is all around us today Except in the basement where the missus is doing our taxes...
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Mike Jay wrote:
Mike Jay wrote:I just checked out The Tree Store and it does sound good. Cheap prices and a few I hadn't seen before. They say Manchurian Apricots are good to zone 3. Theirs are full sized and from original seed stock. I sent them an email to see if they grow their stuff on site or ship in their inventory. I'll report back what they say.
Ok, here's what they said. Unfortunately I didn't ask about apricots:
The Tree Store wrote:Thank you for your interest in our products! Some of our products are grown in northern Wisconsin and some are grown in northern Michigan, The American persimmon seedlings are grown in northern Michigan. Thanks again!
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He was expelled for perverse baking experiments. This tiny ad is a model student:
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