North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Sarah Kehler Ewing <skkewing@yahoo.com>]

I had trouble with mice girdling trees the first year and have kept putting 
hardware cloth collars (about 18" height and 6" diameter) around the trees 
ever since, but the addition of too many cats seems to mean that the mice 
don't get into the unmulched parts of my garden where I currently have about 
2000 fruit tree seedlings.

Most black sweet cherries available in Canada are actually a 1983 Canadian 
introduction called 'Lapins' which is 'Van' x 'Stella' and was originally 
trialed as a Bing pollinator and became it's replacement in commercial 
orchards.  I found 'Lapins' at our local Canadian Tire store and had to put 
in two trees last spring: this spring one leafed out right to the tip and the 
other died back by half; it had a gap in the windbreak to it's Northwest 
which is where our prevailing winds come from and last winter hit the extreme 
cold temperatures that we get (-45 F).  There are a few hobby growers up here 
who have gotten fruit off of their 'Lapins' trees in spite of it being listed 
as zone 5 so I have high hopes even though I am further out from Edmonton 
than they are which usually means about a zone colder than they are.  This 
spring I put in a 'Biga' and a 'Binga' which are supposed to be zone 3-4 
hardy black sweet cherries (Windmill Point Farms in Quebec) that
 I can only assume are 'Bing' seedlings named by someone without much 
imagination! With that idea in mind I keep trying to grow 'Bing' seeds and 
have had no success to date.  I don't have more any actual info on 'Biga' and 
'Binga' and if anyone does, I'd love to hear it.

As for 'sour/semi-sweet' cherries, I have 'Evans' (of course: the Dr. Evans 
who discovered and propagated them lives only a few miles away!), 'Cerise de 
L'Ile' (a self fertile Quebec heirloom I added this spring), 'Lake' and 
'Raven' black cherries (cluster sweet cherries, not chokecherries, looking 
for more info on these too), 'Rose', and all the University of Saskachewan 
cherries: 'Carmine Jewel', 'Crimson Passion', 'Valentine', 'Romeo', 'Juliet', 
and 'Cupid'.  If you have a chance to grow the U of S cultivars: jump with 
both feet!  They are super hardy (at least zone 2 and my 20+ trees have not 
died back here in the 4 years we have had them) and they are very tasty: much 
more flavour and sugar than a Bing' although they have more acid too which is 
why they are generally listed as semi-sweet.  They make super jam, pie, ice 
cream topping, et cetera, and we love to eat them off the tree.  

I'm also planning to add the zone 5 black sweet cherry 'Stella' (also 
produces for other people I know up here), the Mazza cherries ('Mazy' and 
'Maza', ditto on imagination, kudo's for species clarity!), and anything else 
I can find next year!

Sarah
Zone 3b

> hello I am writing from z 3a in  n .minnesota, what sweet
> cherries do you
> hope to grow? all I have accomplished so far are
> Evans,which are great, but
> not really a sweet cherry
> when propagating any seeds in the ground *I* always have to
> put them in old
> window screen to keep the mice from eating them
> Del Stubbs
> 
> On Tue, Sep 23, 2008 at 1:05 PM, Sarah Kehler Ewing
> <skkewing@yahoo.com>wrote:
> 
> > I'm wondering if any NAFEX members might have some
> advice on starting plums
> >  and Arctic Kiwi from seed.  I'm not sure if the
> Kiwi seeds need to be cold
> > stratified and I'm wondering what others have
> experienced.  These Kiwis are
> > the smooth skinned grape-sized ones with the
> tri-colour new growth.  And I
> > recently met someone at our local fruit growers
> festival that had cracked
> > their peach, cherry and plum seeds in a vice before
> planting them out in the
> > fall to cold stratify over the winter.  I have grown
> 100's of chokecherries,
> > Cherry Plums, and Nanking Cherries by just planting
> them in the fall so is
> > all this cracking really necessary for the other stone
> fruits?  Ironically
> > enough, I have had very little success growing Peaches
> and sweet cherries
> > from seed.
> >
> > Thank-you,
> >
> > Sarah
> > Zone 3b, Edmonton, AB
> >
> >
> >
> >
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> 
> -- 
> Del, 2b/3a n. Mn