North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[list@ginda.us]

It's finally spring.  As usual, everything is full of promise.  Lots of 
flower buds on my baby apricot, and most everything made it through the 
winter.  Buds swelling right and left.  I think this is my favorite 
season to garden - nothing has been destroyed by insects, eaten by 
deer, etc., yet.

I did have one winter failure.  My redstart currant, which has been 
ailing ever since I transplanted it a couple of years ago.  Maybe if I 
had cut back the top more, it would have made it. . .?  Anyhow, I 
really liked the cultivar.  It has an attractive growth habit, it has 
tasty fruit (yes, I think some red currants taste better than others) 
and it was extremely productive - which is probably what did it in - 
poor thing tried too hard to fruit when it should have been growing 
more root.

If anyone could sell me a redstart currant, either this spring or this 
fall, I would be grateful.  Massachusetts has a complicated patchwork 
of laws regarding  currants (red ones are legal in some counties, but 
not others) and even though it is legal to ship red currants to my 
address, most of the big operations don't want to bother keeping track 
of the Mass. laws, and just restrict the whole state.  So it's hard for 
me to shop for specific cultivars.  (I got mine from Nourse, which is 
located in Mass., and actually tracks the country-by-county laws.  But 
they have replaced it with Rovada in their catalog.)

Thanks,
Ginda

p.s.  I see that my Crandall currant is beginning to sprout.  In 
another week or two or three, I should be able to dig up some suckers 
for the people who asked for them.