Blackberries are producing every day for the last 2 weeks. and still going strong. The blueberries have slowed to 2 fruits.. but then, i have only one producing the other is just planted.. The strawberries did ok this year. I did not get too many fruits this year. the figs are still green.. I am waiting to them to ripen.. the sour cherries.. The birds and the deer get them before i can get to them. the apple , peach and pear and plum are resting in eternity...:-(. the raspberries I just got from Ralph at the swap.. I got 4 berries from them... I am assuming it will grow bigger and produce more.. Ralph, could you tell me which cultivar it this one.? I am planning on getting a thornless one too. Still trying to decide which one.. I bought the box store ones.. Bad idea.. nothing grew even after a year. Tammy, Lisianthus, you mentioned a great place to me for buying fruit trees for less. Could you message me with the contact... address / ph # or email ..." please Thanks in advance

I wish there were more comments in this thread. I spent hours researching (looking up online) this topic and I was hoping to find my answer in this thread. I like what Linda wrote: I hope it's valid. I would think that, perhaps, that answer is correct for native nitrogen-fixing shrubs like Shepherdia (buffaloberry) spp. Yet, I might imagine that shrubs like Hippophae spp. (sea-buckthorn, H. rhamnoides) might produce way more nitrogen then is beneficial for the neighboring fruit tree - in some cases: i.e. pear, mountain-ash, etc. I think that would promote fire-blight for these two crops, in particular. Another concern I'm considering is: will the excess nitrogen delay winter dormancy in some marginally hardy plants (i.e. Black mulberry, hardy selections of pomegranate, etc.) Again, I think you might be ok with native Shepherdia spp., but I think some of the non-invasive and invasive exotics would enrich the soil enough, if not to harm fruit trees - still not sure on that one, but definitely to encourage the recruitment of exotic invasive weeds. Autumn-olive, it is believed - or fact[?], is responsible for rendering soils which are less fertile - to which native flowers and graminoids are well-suited - and, after enriching the soils with nitrogen, make them ideal for the recruitment of alien invasive weeds: where I see Autumn-olive I see many weeds and few native herbs; not sure, though, which: chicken or egg, in these cases. Steve

Well, based upon responses I got I decided not to go with an extra deep pot and instead will use the McConkey JMCTS4 which is a square pot 4 inches wide at the top and 3.5 inches deep. I chose the white color even though its costs slightly more for two reasons, you can write the name of the variety right on the pot with a sharpie and it really stands out, plus the white color will keep the plant roots from overheating when left out in the sun on a hot day. I found out the factory was just 10.1 miles from my house, and I was able to buy a case of 880 pots wholesale for only $51.18, which come to only 5.82 cents each, or about 6.4 cents each including sales tax. Most online sellers don't even offer white color, and charge about $100 for 500 pots which comes to about 20 cents each, plus you still have to pay for shipping. At the factory they also sell over-runs of special orders, they had some hot pink and fluorescent lime green pots for a dime each I was tempted to buy to see if they attracted customers. BTW, from a purely sales viewpoint, big plants sell first. Whenever I give my customers their choice of any plant of a particular variety they want they always go for the biggest plant, even if they have to move other plants out of the way to get to it.

It's okay, gumby. I think daninthedirt has a point. Direct-seeding in any form could probably result in a deeper taproot. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that there aren't benefits to volunteers besides that, and it doesn't necessarily mean that volunteers don't have deeper taproots than those you direct-seed manually. Personally, I'm not sure that the taproot is the reason for the results at all, if the depth of the root is the reason. I've planted tomatoes extremely deep (~5 feet), very deep (~2-3 feet), and kind of deep (~1 to 1.5 feet), and normally, and I didn't notice a whole lot of difference between them other than that the deeper ones seemed to grow more slowly at first, but seemed to have late season advantages. The soil is colder lower down, which might explain why growth was slowed. Potassium is probably more available lower down, due to the cold, and other factors. Anyway, my conclusion was that I think tomatoes grow roots as deeply as they need them anyway, although you might be able to come out with some interesting ways of utilizing the depth. It certainly should allow the plants more water. I wasn't paying attention to things like splitting for the experiment, but I guess the deepest ones didn't split (I'm not sure if they were prone to it, though). Some of the 'kind of deep' ones cracked, but they were different varieties. I had splitting (only when picked) on a certain cherry that I must have planted at least kind of deep. The same experiment in a less compact soil might have vastly different results, and warmer temperatures than mine were lower down.