My Rare Fruit Collection | Homestead Orchard Tour | Part 1 of 2

How you can grow a ton of fruit in a small space.

[@natalife5297]

Hello, great video, very beautiful and interesting, thank you for sharing, friendly like, good luck and all the best, have a good positive week🥰🥰🤗🤗🤗🤗

[@FlomatonFamous]

Thank you very much!

[@jrswackhammer8205]

Always enjoy your orchard tours!! Thanks!

[@FlomatonFamous]

Glad you like them!

[@marycampbell4160]

Awesome tour Randell and Michelle mine Shelley apple trees are growing really good too!! Robert and I said we hope all is well. Thanks for sharing

[@FlomatonFamous]

Thank you! You too! Miss you guys!

[@DeanFamilyAcres]

Excellent recap and explanations. Hopefully, those local to you are taking notes on specific varieties and the issues you're having with ripening fruit. Way to persevere with new varieties and grafts!

[@FlomatonFamous]

Thank you!

[@rangerismine]

Wow those trees have gotten huge! I have a few Bartlett’s in my orchard in Mid Ga, and have been mostly pleasantly surprised. So far they have avoided fireblight and produced nice pears. The leaves do get burnt up in 90+ degree heat though.

[@FlomatonFamous]

Nice!

[@mlangfordcamper]

I see you hit one million congrats and love the grounds you have there -living the dream

[@FlomatonFamous]

Thank you!

[@AveryOCason]

Thanks for the tour. You got some pears and others I've never heard of. That she'll apple seems to be a good one to grow. I have liberty, which is very disease resistant. Maybe we can trade some scions

[@FlomatonFamous]

Sure we can trade. I'm always open to trading for varieties that I don't have and do well in my area.

[@coolmantoole]

Thank you. The information you have about Shiro makes me inclined to graft over my young tree as well here in SE Georgia. Where are you located?

[@coolmantoole]

Your Toka plum would probably produce if it blooms with a wild type American plum. It's a wild type with American plum in its genes, and as a group the hybrids set fruit much better with pollen from the North American parent.

[@FlomatonFamous]

Maybe true, no idea what would bloom at the same time. It was such a late bloomer. I think it's later than Chickasaw.

[@coolmantoole]

@@FlomatonFamous It's a hybrid with either Amerian plum (Prunus Americana) or Canada plum (Prunus nigra) hence the high chilling requirement and late bloom time. American plum and Canada plum wild type will tend to want to bloom too late for all the same reasons that Chickasaw plum wild type tends to want to bloom too early. That's what makes hybrid plums hard. Finding a North American plum to bloom with them is the hardest part of the whole thing.

[@quirkycottageshenanigans9003]

Wonderful information! New subscriber in zone 8b in TX. Thanks for sharing your adventures. Where did you find your maxine pear? Keep growing!🌿

[@FlomatonFamous]

Awesome! Welcome, I found my Maxine from Larry Stephens. You can usually find trees with a simple google search.

[@coolmantoole]

I agree that Leonte is one of the best pears out there. And I also had fits with fireblight on it and several others, especially Scarlet which died and golden boy which I had to greatly reduce in size. I plan to give most of my pears a heavy summer prune every year after they finish their harvest going forward to keep them small so that I can manage for fireblight better. With pears I've decided that its better to go for quality rather than quantity, especially since they are kind of hard to sell, in comparison to plums anyway.

[@FlomatonFamous]

Hey Marcus, we have talked several times over Facebook. You sent me several varieties of your plums this year. Randall White. I'm in Flomaton, Al. just north of Pensacola.

[@coolmantoole]

@@FlomatonFamous Very cool! You should give a review of Shiro on Plums and Other Stone Fruits even if its a negative one. It's good for folks to know what to expect. You might try spraying it down with a mix of Zinc and copper next year to see if that makes any difference with brown rot. It didn't seem to with the one remaining branch I have left of NC McKibben. One thing that I'm especially curious about is when did it bloom relative to your other plum varieties?

[@coolmantoole]

It would also be good for you to do a post about Toka for the same reason. People need to know about that thousand hour chilling requirement. But chilling should prevent it from producing if it blooms properly. You could have a sport or a mis-IDed tree. However, vegetatively it looks just like the one in the community orchard I helped stat. That one bloomed without producing plums as well. I'm pretty sure it needs a native plum for pollination. It's supposed to be a strong pollinizer and might be pollenizing Shiro if they bloom together. Shiro is supposed to be a universal pollinizer and pollinize about anything it blooms with. If it blooms with Toka and doesn't pollenize it, speaks to just how strongly theses native hybrids really need wild type for pollination. The more experience I gain with plums the more I think nursery descriptions about universal polinizers and self-fertile varieties are just full of crap. Thanks.

[@FlomatonFamous]

I got NC McKibben from Larry when I went to interview him. How is it for disease resistance for you?

[@coolmantoole]

@@FlomatonFamous the tree is bullet proof and every single plum brown rots regardless the weather. I haven't found anything that pollinates it well. Not even Ms Bessie seems to pollinize it. It's great rootstock and that's about it. The few plums that it does make don't even taste that good. For fruit production I rate it zero out of five. For rootstock five out of five.

[@r1326r]

Hi Randall, Love all you are growing in your orchard. I have 8 spots left to fill in my Fig Orchard. I live in south Ga. If I keep them watered, is it too late to plant fig trees now in this summer heat?

[@FlomatonFamous]

Just keep them watered. They will be just fine

[@r1326r]

@@FlomatonFamous Great! So now I wanted to ask if you have a Saint Rita and others I could purchase. If so, do you have an email address I could contact you to discuss. Thanks.

[@RainbowWarriorChris]

So awesome!!! So where did you get that shell apple or however you say it, from ?

[@FlomatonFamous]

I got mine from The Wildlife Group nursery in Auburn. I have a few small trees for sale if you are local.

[@RainbowWarriorChris]

@@FlomatonFamous oh ok, I'm in south Mississippi!

[@MississippiHomesteadJourney]

@@RainbowWarriorChris I got one from him and it's doing well in Stone County MS.

[@FlomatonFamous]

@@RainbowWarriorChris I recently grafted a couple hundred trees but they aren’t ready to sell yet but I have a few from last years grafting

[@CraftEccentricity]

Do you find growing your pears in the columnar shape reduces fruit output? I'm spreading my branches this year to see if it alters the fruit output by changing the apical dominance.

[@FlomatonFamous]

Changing to horizonal branches does produce more fruit.

[@duckqwacker]

RED ALERT! I'm in trouble... BIG TIME! If I don't make it.... I just want to let you all know I love you dearly... Yikes..... July 11th, 2024 - DuckQwacker