North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["William C. Garthright" <billg@inebraska.com>]

> Bill, it might be worthwhile to thin your Flavor Grenade considerably more 
> next year and then see if it appears to ripen. Crop load can make a 
> difference.
>   


Thanks, Doug. (It was also a LOT cooler than normal here this year. Some 
things didn't want to ripen as well because of that, I believe.)

In fact, I deliberately left too much fruit on everything this year, as 
an experiment. I'm having a hard time keeping most of my plantings as 
small as I want them, so I wondered if letting them fruit a bunch would 
slow them down.

I think that worked, to some extent, but I don't know if I'll do it 
again. In some cases (but by no means all), the fruit stayed a bit too 
small. Well, I expected that, and it's not a big deal for me. But I 
really had a hard time holding up branches that were too heavy with 
fruit. And I wonder if I'd have less trouble with disease if they were 
thinned better. (Again, the cool summer probably didn't help.)

But in many cases, I just ended up with far more fruit than I could 
possibly use. I gave fruit away to everyone I knew - and even neighbors 
I didn't know - and I still had too much of it (the Concord grapes, 
particularly). My refrigerator freezer is so full that I can't get 
ANYTHING else inside. I've repacked it several times, just to try to 
make a little more room. It's kind of ridiculous.

So next year, I'm going to try to concentrate on quality, rather than 
quantity.

:-)

Bill
Lincoln, NE (zone 5)

--
I think it's important to realize that I was actually black before the 
election... Whenever a president tries to bring about significant 
changes, particularly around times of economic unease, there's a certain 
segment of the population that gets riled up. It's not atypical. One of 
the things you sign up for in politics is, folks yell at you. - 
President Barack Obama