Apple Trees and Strawberries

After a few weeks in the extreme deep freeze, our famed "January thaw" arrived a couple days ago.  When I left work yesterday afternoon, the thermometer on my car said 39 degrees - ABOVE zero.  Today, it was 41 degrees when I went out for lunch.  I went back into the office in my shirt sleeves.

Even though I know it is a short term warm-up and winter will return with a vengeance a few more times before gardening season really starts, I couldn't help but start the process of ordering plants for spring.  Now, that really isn't as crazy as it sounds.  The nurseries have a finite amount of stock and they fill orders on a first come first serve basis, so I learned long ago that to be sure to get the stock I really want, I need to order sooner rather than later.  The nurseries are all gracious enough to hold my orders until the exact week in May that I ask them to ship, so I don't have to worry about getting things while the ground is still frozen solid.  So, I started shopping.

My first stop was the website for St. Lawrence Nursery in Potsdam, New York.  I need a couple more apple trees and some juneberries to plant along the west side of the new barn that will appear in the "west pasture" next spring.  (It's not really a pasture, but hey, I'm a farm girl at heart and I can dream).  The first thing I noticed on St. Lawrence's website made me very sad.  Right up front in big bold letters:   "2015 is Retirement Year".  Oh, no!  Now, I don't begrudge them retirement - they've been working very hard for a very long time.  But, I am going to really miss their wonderful, hardy, healthy fruit and nut trees.  Everything is shipped bare root, but I have never received a tree from them that didn't grow.   I haven't ordered thousands of things from them, but I have ordered a good number of apple, pear, apricot, cherry, mulberry, elderberry, juneberry, gooseberry, currant, and hazelburt trees, as well as grape vines,  and they are all thriving.  St. Lawrence Nursery sells only stock that is bred specifically to withstand the harsh winters we have in zones 4 and 3.  Given that this is my last chance to order, I did it up right.  I'll be busy digging tree holes come May.

I already have seven different varieties of apples.  I decided that,since this was my "last chance" order from St. Lawrence, I was going to add all my "I might need that some day" varieties to the orchard.  I ordered Dakota Gold, Hazen, State Fair, and Zestar apples.  

Dakota Gold apple (internet photo)

Dakota Gold is an extremely hardy apple that was developed by North Dakota State University, specifically to stand our erratic northern winters.  The peel of Dakota Gold is, as you would expect with a name like that, yellow.  The fruit is large sized and is good for eating fresh as well as cooking and baking.  Unlike many apple trees, Dakota Gold bears every year and is tolerant to fireblight, the bacterial scourge of orchards everywhere.   Dakota Gold ripens earlier than some others and also keeps well in storage so I will be able to enjoy my fruit well into winter. I've had a Dakota Gold tree for several years.  Unfortunately, just as it was about to begin bearing fruit (generally when the tree is about five years old), a huge branch of the plum tree that collapsed under the weight of the snow in the October 2013 blizzard, landed on my Dakota Gold tree and snapped it in two. So, I'll be starting over with this one.

Hazen apple (internet photo)

Hazen is a new variety for me.  This is another extremely hardy tree that produces nice sized red apples ready for picking in early to mid-September.  Hazen is a good eating apple, but the real reason I want this tree is that the apples are so juicy you can't keep the juice from running down your chin when you take a big bite.  Now, I don't much care about having a messy chin but I do love apple juice.  My dear husband bought me a sausage stuffer aka cider press for Christmas this year.  Since Hazen produces a good crop of fruit on young trees, generally within about three years of planting, I am looking forward to home pressed cider.  Another neat thing about this apple?  It was developed at North Dakota State University by a man named Hazen, but it was named after my hometown of Hazen, North Dakota.

State Fair apple (internet photo)

State Fair produces bright red apples that ripen uniformly throughout the tree early in the fall.  They flesh of the apple is a nice white and is very crisp.  State Fair apples are delicious for eating fresh and are also a good apple for juicing.  They aren't the best keeper, but because their crispness makes for such great fresh eating, this is a popular seller at fruit stands and farmers markets.

Zestar apple (internet photo)

Zestar was developed by crossing State Fair with Frostbite, another extremely hardy apple variety.  Zestar is a green apple, blushed with red.  It is another early season ripener, which is a nice feature in the uncertainty of autumn temperatures in our zone.  Zestar was bred in Minnesota and produces a crisp and juicy apple that can be harvested as early as late summer and still be nice and sweet.  Zestar produces huge crops once the tree is mature and the apples store for several weeks in a cool, dry storage area.


My next shopping excursion was to Nourse Berry Farm.  Thankfully, no nasty retirement surprises when I went there.  Nourse Berry Farm is located in Massachusetts and they have the nicest selection of wonderfully, healthy berry plants.  This year, my particular quest was for strawberries, but in the past, I've ordered strawberries, blackberries, lingonberries, and raspberries from them.  They give a wonderful description of the characteristics of each of the different kinds of berries, so it makes it easy to choose which variety will best meet your needs.  The third week in May, 125 strawberry plants in five different varieties will arrive for planting in the new strawberry bed.

I ordered two varieities of June bearing strawberries and three of day neutral or everbearing berries.  June bearing varieties bloom one time and produce a heavy crop within the early months of summer.  Day Neutral usually begin producing a bit later and then produce right through frost.  June bearing plants tend to have more foliage than day neutral because so much of the day neutral's energy goes into producing fruit.  A June-bearing strawberry plant will produce abundant crops for four to five growing seasons, while everbearing varieties generally have two good production years before the plants need to be replaced.

Annapolis is an early season June-bearing variety.  It is a large size berry that maintains its size throughout the bearing season, unlike many June-bearing where the berries become smaller as the season progresses.  The berries are firm with good flavor and freeze well.

Right on the tails of Annapolis' bearing season, I should be able to start picking the next June-bearing variety, Honeoye.  This is a mid-early season bearer of large, sweet, firm berries.  This is one of the best June-bearing varieties for freezing.  Honeoye has been around for over 20 years and is still as much a favorite of home berry producers as when it was first introduced.

Albion strawberry (internet photo)

About the time the June-bearers are winding up, the everbearing should be ready to pick.
Albion is a very large strawberry that is more conical in shape than round.  It has a very firm, crisp texture and produces abundantly throughout the season, as long as it has sufficient water and nutrition.  Albion is one of the best tasting ever-bearers and freezes well.

Mara des Bois is another great ever-bearing variety.  While the berry size of the Mara's is small to medium, when you bite into the berry, it is like an explosion of flavor in your mouth.  If you walk thtough my yard and think you smell strawberries, it is probably the Mara des Bois that you are smelling.  In addition to its wonderful flavor, this variety is great for freezing and makes absolutely wonderful jams.

Seascape is my final selection for the new strawberry bed.  They begin to produce a bit later than some of the other ever-bearings, but they produce right through light frosts.  In my old bed, it wasn't uncommon for me to be picking the Seascapes in mid October.  This plant produces large berries that have a firm texture, good flavor and freeze well.

Oh.  Nourse Berry Farms also sells the Jersey varieties of asparagus.  The Jersey varieties are very hardy, all male plants that produce abundant crops of thick, tasty asparagus stalks.  I'm a firm believer that one can never have too much asparagus, so I ordered another 25 Jersey Knight roots.

Yup.  It will be another busy spring.

Seascape strawberry (internet photo)