What are you canning now?

[mickey328]

Exactly! I had my first ever Mac apple that was backyard grown the other day and I was blown away. I've always preferred Macs to about any other kind of apples, but wow...it was better than anything I'd ever had. They aren't as "pretty" as the ones in a store...some are bruised and you find the occasional worm track but the trade off for natural grown, no-pesticide food is well worth that! So many people in the last couple of generations have grown up with no food source other than the grocery store that what you get there seems "right" to them and sometimes they shy away from things that aren't "perfect" in looks, and require very little in the way of preparation. It's sad, but at least some of us are attempting to move back to the "old way". Sometimes you just have to get started...then you get hooked!

 

[galanie]

I envy you all that can grow apples and get the apples. Not many varieties will grow here but I have one and danged if the squirrels don't pick them off, one at a time, take one bite, then drop every apple on the tree when they're not even golf ball sized yet! I know I can net the whole tree but what a job!

 

[Pozees]

I envy you all that can grow apples and get the apples. Not many varieties will grow here but I have one and danged if the squirrels don't pick them off, one at a time, take one bite, then drop every apple on the tree when they're not even golf ball sized yet! I know I can net the whole tree but what a job!

Yeah I wouldn't think many varieties would grow in Houston, the deciduous trees there never really have a winter dormancy with frozen ground, right? Then again, you can grow veggies just about year 'round, right?

 

[mickey328]

We keep our fruit trees pruned to a max of about 8 feet. That way we can harvest without ladders and if we need to net them, it's a manageable job with just the two of us. Apples here do pretty well, but cherries...man if you don't net you can plan to pick the next morning and go out to find that the birds have already picked it clean!

 

[Happy Chooks]

This is the best invention EVER for picking fruit without a ladder.

 

[galanie]

I envy you all that can grow apples and get the apples. Not many varieties will grow here but I have one and danged if the squirrels don't pick them off, one at a time, take one bite, then drop every apple on the tree when they're not even golf ball sized yet! I know I can net the whole tree but what a job!

Yeah I wouldn't think many varieties would grow in Houston, the deciduous trees there never really have a winter dormancy with frozen ground, right?  Then again, you can grow veggies just about year 'round, right?

Depending on what you plant, you pretty much can. Nothing will actively grow usually in December-January most years but any broccoli you have or carrots out there will keep great, even through our light frosts.

Yes, not enough freezing hours for most things. We can't grow a lot of nice things that others can. Most of the fruits in catalogs won't grow here. I should say they will grow, but never bear fruit well. Strangely enough, Red Delicious is what I have. I'd have thought that one wouldn't do well and I'd have to get a real tropical but it does. In fact the Anna and another one that was supposed to be so suited for here died. But this Red Delicious just keeps on. It's on dwarf rootstock but though it's not been allowed to grow any limbs from teh rootstock, it still went unpruned for a number of years and I've been working on it. But if the squirrels are just going to take it all anyway, I may not. It's just me, no one to help put up netting so, no net on that one yet. It's been cut back to around 12 feet tall.

 

[Happy Chooks]

galanie - can't you grow other fruits? Like grapefruit, oranges, lemons, avocado, etc?

 

[galanie]

We can grow some lemons but while it's too warm for most northern fruits, it's also too cold for most citrus. We can get a tree, even an avocado going good for a few years but then a hard enough freeze will come by and kill them. Bananas are sometimes possible.

 

[rancher hicks]

Hope things are going well. To much going on here to have time to can anything these days.

 

[Happy Chooks]

We can grow some lemons but while it's too warm for most northern fruits, it's also too cold for most citrus. We can get a tree, even an avocado going good for a few years but then a hard enough freeze will come by and kill them. Bananas are sometimes possible.

Well, that's a bummer.

I've been looking at the new varieties of avocado - some of them are cold hardy down to 25 degrees. I'm thinking about it - while we do occasionally get colder than that, it doesn't happen very often.