Dixie Chicks

[Beer can]

Well the redhaven peach may have potential (thanks Deb) but those are grown in the okanogan, that's a good three zones warmer than me, so it would take some serious garden trickery (fruit wall, huge mounds or something). There are mini types that can grow in containers, those would be good in a greenhouse. Perhaps a graft onto a hardy plum root stock... Lol I'm too lazy and cash restricted for any of that though.

What zone are you in? BC looks like it's a few zones. Reliance and Contender are the cold hardiest I've seen, zone 4. Red Haven is zone 5.

 

[Beer can]

@Alaskan something with rabbit's and rabbit fever also tularemia, that and the parasites they say only hunt them in cold months.

 

[hennible]

I'm zone three (I don't know about the zone 3A or 3B crap though), sometimes zone four plants survive as winter has gotten milder over the last 20 or so years. But I prefer to focus on zone three plants or things that are even tougher, no fun planting a $60-$115 tree to just have it die.
My apples kick butt, particularly my 2 hayer 13's.
Yup Jem it's all about manipulating the microclimates.

 

[hennible]

I'll check out reliance and contender thanks beer can.
I think BC spans zones 7-2 :/

 

[Beer can]

I'll check out reliance and contender thanks beer can.
I think BC spans zones 7-2 :/

Lol! That's why I asked, I thought maybe I was looking at the wrong maps, the ones in our seed catalogs don't show Canada. When I looked at pics of zone maps of BC it looked like a rainbow. ..figured maybe Canuck's might use a different planting zone formula than we do Lol.

 

[Ravynscroft]

@Amberjem turkey eggs up for auction...

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/754060/the-new-crazy-24hr-auction-thread/11010#post_16600393

 

[vehve]

Also, you can do a lot by covering up around trees for winter, helps them survive the frost. Mulch, leaves, spruce branches and the sort work nicely.

 

[CanuckBock]

Tara, I just love looking at the pics of your place. Thank you for sharing.

Yer most welcome but I do have my own BYC thread...pics galore and yadda yadda tons ... lots of people on this thread and the Old Folks Home one regular contributors there. This is Amber's thread and I tread carefully here...it is HER dog & pony show here...got my own, eh.

I got encouraged by people like that Crazy Chook man, Chicken Canoe, Wisher, Scott, DD, Teila, etc. etc....to start my own thread on BYC...round about to 4,350+ photos now and ever growing numbers...only issue I have, I am far too busy so often to stop, record and then to find the time to post all about it...ha! But I come in for a coffee, read up what is up and do a post now and again. Heading for busy over the top season...so as we are starting to ramp up now and well...I had better go over thar and post about the newest development...gonna quite likely be buying four to six Katahdins that are bred for April (proven ewes) and June (ewe lambs). I loved the Katahdins only second to my Jacobs and now that I am getting onwards (geriatric 12+ year old sheeps) and have over 800 pounds of fleeces in stock (gonna make a wool mattress--those last for like 50 to 72 years...lanolin is an inhibitor to dust mites, natural fire retardant...so no nasty chemical residues from foams and whatnot's they feel the need to cover our run of the mill mattresses with) I am leaning towards hair sheeps because even my mattress is not gonna use up all my fibre.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/1075978/counting-sheep-gonna-wanna-sleep-bedroom-by-moi-critters

But I digress... where am I ...never mind, WHO am I...

Oh yeh...I had the good sense to begin my own thread and you can go there if you want more clicks of our place...we do genetics, vintage trucks, mega poultry, the Australian Cattle Poops, artsy crafty items, food, my veg gardens and whatnots...and general who yah crapola in my daily dazes...silly fun times at the Rat Ranch world of craziness

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...iggins-rat-ranch-conservation-farm-in-alberta

JWB, you sure you're not breaking the cane that's about to produce? I've understood that they grow the cane the first year, then produce berries on it the second year. So you should only break canes that have already given harvest, otherwise you're not allowing the bush to produce. I don't do anything to our raspberries, and they make berries fine. I might have to start limiting their growth a bit this summer though, they were already looking a bit wild last year.

Stop it already...ugh!

There are TWO kinds of raspberries...floricanes that produce on SECOND year growth (donna be touching those CANES or yer gonna get a canin')...and primocanes that are EVERBEARING...first year canes fruit up and some persons mow these ones down to the very ground every year in the fall time. You need to KNOW that kinda raspberries you be a growin' eh!

Mow down the floricanes and you'll never get no berries. Mow down the primocanes and you'll be helping them to have no mess to have to push past for fruiting. Know yer kinds.

In 2010, the commercial production of the world's raspberry crop was a total of 65% for the top three producers being Russia, Poland, & Serbia...Canada produces a mere 3 percent whilst the US produces 8% of the world's supply in 2010. Raspberries need ample sun, and water but on well drained soils so they don't rot.


Plant zone here...wait fer it...1A to 1B...yeh...I can sneak a few, few zone 3's in special places but it is the dang Chinooks that cook things...literally. The cold hits, everything goes to sleep and then a dang warm up Chinook swings by and jest long enough to make things wake, begin to go outta hibernation and WANG...back to forty below. Good gack its bad!

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Now as the Rockies meander closer to the West...one loses those drastic Chinooks...hate them...be cold, stay cold, be winter and quit messing with us all! Straight North, where the mountain ranges bugger off to the West...then they can grow things I cannot. Because it stays winter...much more sensible. It is the waking up and getting clocked when winter comes back for the second, third, fourth time in a season that KILLS!

We grow all sorts of fruit here from strawberries (wild and domestic), raspberries, saskatoons, apples, crabapples, applecrabs, plums, pincherries, rowanberries (put in two fit in an envelope trees I ordered, now tower on either side of our watertall and feed the robins' spawn ever fall)...etc.

2013 - This Dolgo Crabapple on the left jest covered in crabs of red and yeller; I pruned it back to recovery from the previous owner...
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They gave a hatchet to their young child and we can only know how wrong that went for the trees here...tons of trees that needed to recover and lots never pruned. Took me years to get them back into shape...slow and steady over years so they would not get too shocked and die.

June 14, 2009 - starting to look sorta like a ball



May 28, 2014...awesome display now
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This poor murdered neglected tree has become a huge focal point in our front yard.

The pups, the grouse, the fruit eating grosbeaks...all feast upon the crabapples--hang like Christmas ornaments...way kewl

Sept 21, 2015 - Apples...from trees I planted here...not huge sized but delicious harvest!​

To me, the thankfulness comes from knowing I planted the fruit trees, pruned the ones that were near death and if taken care of...they produce more bounty than we know what to do with...the wild birds get to feast and we figure that is one way to pay back Nature for all the harm us humans bestow upon her.

Growing in a green house is doable if you carefully Espalier the tree to allow you space to walk around.

deb

Hey Deb...I decided to do an Espalier because my FIL had taken a course and grew up a tree in his front yard that was this multi-fruit thing...like apple, pear, some such thingmajigger. He has passed now and his wife, she had the thing cut down...to me that so sucks but whatever...

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This is a Dolgo Crabapple that was not thriving in the New Orchard...moved to the veg garden plot and she is huge...needs a pruning to remove the suckers on the side this coming spring, but doing really nicely. Makes me feel old when I know I was the one that planted this and it was tiny...now it is impressively thick trunked.

Also, you can do a lot by covering up around trees for winter, helps them survive the frost. Mulch, leaves, spruce branches and the sort work nicely.

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All good unless...unless you have mice and well I found when we keep poultry...and we plant...we seem to provide perfect conditions for rodents...the bedding, the feed and water we supply the birds, the mice thrive in. I tried mulching the orchard trees and when I went in the next spring...the dang rodents had also wintered over in the nice comfy new digs I provided...AND ringed the bark on TWO of the fruit trees. Nice muncha munch all around the base of the tree...nothing I could do for those two but there were two others that did get stunted but survived. The mice hand not gone all the way around the base with their bark removal. Now I never mulch with plant materials BUT you can blow or pile snow around the base of some trees, and that ice castle WILL help protect the trees. It is again, the Chinooks in this area...the warming trends that incite the dormant plants to come out of hibernation and get zinged when winter comes roaring back thru.


We do not cover any plants with burlap or mulches...mouse quarters. This could all work if you are sans rodents like mice...

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Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

 

[Alaskan]

I lost a few apple trees to girdling by tiny rodents.


The other issue we have uo here is the sunlight... A tree with dark bark will often warm up too soon, the sap will start to flow, we will get a hard freeze, and then the sap freezes, pops open the trunk.. If it is bad enough, the tree dies.

 

[Beer can]

I had a rodent girdle one of my new nova spy apple trees one winter. I tried cutting re-grafting it back to the root stock, couldn't get a good connection/attachment so close to the ground. Successfully grafted four nice branches to a yucky wild apple tree, they took. Two yrs later that winter those four branches were the only ones the deer ate...grr!