well biggie306, your best source of northern plum growing is Konrad, look up his plum info in this forum and you will be amazed at how well he grows them.

I'm zone 2 and I grow 3 varieties of apple, plums, cherries, raspberries, strawberries, rhubarb, red and black currents, saskatoons and grapes..there's lots more small fruit available but one guy can only eat and drink so much. good luck in your gardening adventures. p.s. I grow most of my vegetables in raised beds, a couple of which I've covered with a wooden frame and bob's super-strong plastic. today I was able to work one of my beds and planted onion sets and spinach. hopefully I'm not too early!!

Hi! Another Saskie here - east of PA, zone 2b. We've got an acreage that I am loading up with fruit trees and berry bushes, plus a good sized garden. We planted most of the fruit trees in 2012, and one of our apples is pretty loaded this year, plus we got a good crop of black currants, a great crop of raspberries, and the Valiant grape is going nuts again this year. I'm always on the hunt for new fruit varieties, and want to try my hand at grafting one of these days.

Well hello travellinjess, I am just north of you. You better start looking into grafting for next spring LOL. If you love fruit trees the next step is grafting and it is a lot of fun. I am up to 35 apple varieties and 12 plums, the nice thing about knowing how to graft in our cold zone, is the ability to make sure the fruit is on hardy rootstock.

hi ubro, with that many fruit trees, you must be planning on selling fruit or trees or maybe both. lol.. I've only got 3 trees but after I made juice, sauce and spiced jelly and froze some for apple crisps, I still gave away several large pails of apples and haven't started harvesting my September ruby yet...too many apples for one old man!! I live just west of melfort and garden 4 town lots which takes most of my time.. what a way to retire!! I,m almost 80 years old and find myself sitting for longer periods of time, watching weeds grow, listening to the birds sing, and other like profitable pursuits..even an occasional nap seems ok!! my freezer space is full, as are my canning jars except those I've saved for tomato products; I've got 120 music garlic and 300 onions hanging drying so carrots, parsnips, leeks and turnip plus corn are what ive got to do yet. after that i'll be ready for another winter with my feet up

Forget grafting...first I have to figure out where I would plant more trees, and convince my husband he wants to mow all that extra area! Our acreage was abandoned for a period of time, and is very overgrown with carraganas, with not a lot of space for new trees...at least not much up close to the house where it is protected and easy to water! We've got a couple dozen trees in already, plus berry bushes, but I really want *one of everything*. It won't make me popular with the husband, though :)

lengrows2-- what a wonderfull garden you have, and a lot of energy. I think you put up more fruit and veg. than I do. Actually we farm, so it was not a very big stretch to keep grafting apples I have the room and I do the mowing so weather I mow straight or around a tree I don't care. I do it because I like to, not to sell.

travellinjess-I am interested in trying varieties that grow here as well as some that are marginal. I top worked 3 older apple trees to a few new varieties on each. Once you know how to graft this is a way to have new varieties to enjoy with different ripening times and not have pails and pails of the same thing. It also keeps the tree number to a minimum.

I now have Discovery, Wynoochee Early, Sweet 16 and Honey Gold each setting a few fruit this year. Honey Gold may not have enough time to ripen in our zone. I try to stick to early ripening varieties by the most part so I can at least taste a few, but sometimes the urge to try something unusual strikes LOL.

Ubro - do you ever sell trees or give lessons? I'm not sure how far out of town you are, but we're half an hour east, and we have little kids (2 and 4) plus small livestock (just chickens right now, but usually milking goats as well), so it's pretty much impossible to take a whole day or two to go down to Saskatoon for workshops.

I had an orchard map that told us what we had, and I think one of the kids relocated it on me, so I'm not certain which trees are what (some have lost their tags). I know we have a Honeycrisp, and I actually think that is the one apple tree that is bearing. We got a September Ruby (I think) this year, it'll be a few years before it does anything. We've got a Pembina plum, plus a couple of Ptisins (#3 and #5 maybe), and another (not sure what variety), none of which are bearing, plus a few pears (Golden Spice, Gold, and Ure, I think). We also have most (maybe all) of the Romance series cherries, plus an Evans and a Rose cherry. We've several black currants and one red currant (I am on the hunt for a couple more red currants, but would like something other than Red Lake) and a few haskaps, some ornamental chokecherries, and a domestic saskatoon. I'm probably forgetting some things, too. I kind of went nuts with ordering trees when we had a little bonus money in 2011.

@lengrows2 - That does sound like a wonderful garden, and a huge time investment!

I live just outside Regina. Most of my plants are acting like it is late September. I do water regularly but they seem to dry out so quick with the wind. Geraniums are not looking nice anymore at all.

Yes, when the rain stops and the humidity drops things change quickly, I don't water generally and my lawn is the first to show it but I think it helps plants to start shutting down for winter.

just finished pickling the last of the beets; my garden is now half empty and I'm running out of jars. mostly root crops and corn left to do and a bowl of day neutral strawberries which I usually have for an afternoon snack unless grandkids or neighbors kids beat me to it..i spent this morning gathering petunia seeds for next year. a variety of colors that don't always come true but they germinate easily and color is color. sure beats spending a small fortune on plants. I don't understand why the seed is so expensive. one little seed pod has tons of seeds and yet they give so few in a package. oh well.. doesn't take long to collect my own.

travilinjess, sorry it took so long for me to reply, busy haying and doing Farmer's Markets with my cut flowers.

We are 40 min north of PA. I have given a few lessons on grafting, I am not an expert like many on this site, but I have been doing grafting successfully for 3 years. I usually do whip and tongue, it is sometimes harder to master but I find it is a wonderful solid graft. I have also done side grafting and cleft, depending on the size and quality of scions I get. This fall I have been bud grafting, this one is not my favourite, I prefer the quick start that a healthy scion gets.

I understand you completely, I too could not spare the time to go to Saskatoon to learn, the lessons are usually during calving, seeding, or haying season.

My trees are for experiment simply because I am testing mostly heirloom varieties on hardy rootstock and I would hate to sell a tree that may not survive. If you are interested in learning to graft or swapping scions send me a personal message on houz and I can give you my contact information. I have "followed" you on your page and this should allow you to contact me.

lengrows2, I always save flower seeds when I can but I have never saved petunia, something for me to do this fall. I am just trying to get out from underneath all my tomatoes, cucumbers, and apples. Next I will move on to pickling my beets. Today was a rainy day that allowed me to stay in the house and get my cukes ready to process tomorrow.

No worries, ubro - it's that time of year. (although, really, every month is that time of year for one reason or another around here!). I will send you a message - we are around 30 min east of PA, but we travel to Waskesiu and Candle from time to time, so may be driving right past you. Trading...you may not want to trade with me...we planted a bunch of trees, then our kids managed to remove almost all of the tags and stakes before I made a proper map of what went where, and also managed to 'disappear' my rough sketch. I have no idea what trees (varietals) I have, anymore - it's mostly guesses. I would love to take you up on a grafting demo, though!

Yup you do travel within 4 miles of us. Don't be to worried about your trees, once they fruit you will know what they are. I have a couple of "mystery" apples and because I know what I bought I will be able to identify it when it fruits.

I usually bench ( bare root graft) around April first, then I do all my top working from mid May to the end of June, depending on the bud break.

Hi there , I live west of Yorkton Sask. About an hour. I have a nice garden and enjoy growing pumpkins, squash and various melons. That is my user name. It is exciting in anticipation to see what the new varieties will bring. Trial and error is the name of the game.

still shuddering when I look at the damage done by 16 inches of wet snow!! I got my produce in ahead of it but there's broken branches everywhere I look. Had planned on re-doing some of my garden in the spring but this may be a little more than I had envisioned! Mother nature sure has a sense of humor and I've learned I'd better laugh along with her or I'll be weeping in my coffee! For a couple of weeks my house looked like an untidy farmers market with the floors covered in trays of tomatoes, cucumbers, winter squash and half dried beans, plus piles of onions and garlic. It's almost all sorted out now and my canning is done until next season; final count, 427 jars of stuff plus a freezer full. When does the first seed catalogue arrive? just kidding!!

Ouch, that is a lot of snow this early, we have had a couple of small snow falls here and are supposed to get 1/2" of rain today. Some trees still have leaves. I just planted some Russian pears, Somerset grapes and Hickory trees.

some of m,y trees still have leaves also but they're freeze dried to the trees and won't fall off till april. where is your "here"? sounds like paradise to me. we were hopeful the snow might melt and ground dry up but it's not going to happen, I think, so farmers will leave lots of crops in the fields till spring. I'm not familiar with the varieties of fruit you mention so I assume you're not zone 2? sorry wayne, I just noticed from a previous post you live close to regina. that's 3 hours away so probably zone 3a?

Yes, but varies like every where else. Pears are from Hardy Fruit Trees Nursery in Quebec and should be hardy here, will find out!!! There is still a fair bit of crop out in this area also.

Now I know why you can grow stuff I can't in my orchard, why not to put down your correct zone data?

Better to purchase and plant in spring for our cold zone,..just sits in the ground and can suffer root/freeze burn damage plus adding a extra winter feeding voles and other critters.

wayne, I looked at Hardy Fruit Trees Nursery and might try the seedless green grape for spring. Thanks for the tip. I assume you were satisfied with the stock you received? I've got 3 purple grapes that give me tons of juice; don't know what variety they are, I just took rooted cuttings off someone elses grape when I was pruning it for them. I do eat them also, seeds and all, but a seedless would be nice. Konrad; my correct zone data is 2a which is colder than the Edmonton area. maybe you were referring to Waynes zone?

I agree Konrad, I have purchased fruit tree in the fall and it is something I will never do again as every one died.

lengrows2, we also got that 16 inches of snow 2 weeks ago, nothing was ready or prepared including me. It was a struggle to get feed out to the cattle still on pasture and we had to move them home early.

I sympathize with your problem of broken tree limbs, I lost only 2 grafts and they were both this years. My biggest casualty were the nanking cherries I find them incredibly brittle at the best of times. I spent two days periodically going out and shaking the wet snow off my favourite trees, the rest had to fend for themselves.

I have planted more potted plants in spring but when getting plants from somewhere to the east or BC I prefer fall. For example I finally ordered Korean Pine trees and could only get them in spring from this particular nursery. They came with over 2" of new growth on bare root plants. Needless to say all the new growth died and the plants took all summer to set new buds, one plant hasn't done a thing. If I could have got them in the fall they would have been good to go. This is more the Nurseries practices than a season issue but there is no issue about a plant being dormant in the fall. Len, I am pushing the limits on many plants that I have planted and am happy with the plants that I received from Hardy Fruit Trees, they will ship in Spring also. We haven't had a zone 2 winter here for a long time but I have trouble with spring frosts which is very frustrating.

just came in from digging dahlia tubers as the snow is almost all gone and ground hasn't frozen. tubers didn't freeze but are coming up muddy but popping out easier than last year. forecast is for plus 6 this week so maybe i'll get everything done yet. my cherries (evans) also suffered lots of branch damage but they shoot up everywhere anyway; almost a nuisance, spreading over pathways and into places I don't want but I love the fruit when it's full ripe and I do love cherry pie! I also have not had much success with fall planting except for my garlic which I plant in late September and never lose any.

We got around 12" here in that storm, and my old lilacs and honeysuckles took quite a lot of damage, but my quick-thinking husband shook the snow off the fruit trees morning and night on his way to feed the chickens, so those trees are doing fine. Luckily, we had brought the garden in and cleaned up for winter, as we went to visit my in-laws for a week, and I was afraid it might snow while we were gone...though I certainly wasn't expecting what we actually got!

maybe you were referring to Waynes zone?

Yes

There is nothing to gain when fall planting in our zone...only in reverse, of course, nurseries love to sell twice a year, especially fall when their plants look best.

My problem was that the fall trees I ordered broke dormancy in transit from Ontario. They didn't stand a chance with those tiny leaves starting to push and winter only a few weeks away. Maybe the nurseries handling of the trees was the problem.

Ya, they shouldn't break dormancy that easily unless they were not fully dormant, the soil here is wet though so may cause some problems. I will find out in Spring. The posters on the Conifer forum quite frequently say "My zone 5 is not the same as your zone 5". Put in any zone number you wish.

Pretty accurate zone data here....

Plant Hardiness Zone by Municipality

i know that our zones are different than American zone - I think one zone different. I also know that with the changing climate, although I'm listed as zone 2a, I grow zone 3 plants and even some zone 4. I also grow some that I cover with a 3 foot layer of dried leaves and sometimes they surprise me by being alive in the spring. most of those are perennials that I start from seed si if they don't overwinter....oh well!!!

That puts Beaumont and this area about the same except I live in a 300'+ trench ( Qu' Appelle Valley), on overcast nights in spring and fall it is warmer than on top of the valley and the opposite on clear nights. These are the times when it matters but it is like this through out the year of course.

Just dug a few more carrots, they are wonderful and crisp. Also picked a few tomatoes from my greenhouse. It may have snowed but the weather is not cold enough to close it down yet. We heat it with an old radiator that it is linked to our outside wood boiler, so technically the heat is free. Well, sort of free, we still have to cut the wood.

Konrad, I am hesitant to apply a full zone warmer in heating. The weather can oscillate greatly here. I may accept a half zone increase plus whatever heat island affect can be applied to a city. That is how I arrived at which grapes to plant. While I can't speak for others I might accept a 3a move but not 3b. The southwest around Swift current area might have more wiggle room.

I'm not heating...sometimes little in greenhouse in spring on a chilly night when bringing out tomatoes from the house. Edmonton is zone 4, about 5 degree warmer then Beaumont, test orchard out of town is about another 5 degree colder which makes it about zone 2.

>>so technically the heat is free<<

don't you use electricity for a pump circulating water?

ubro(2a), that is why I have stopped ordering trees in the fall. I've found things are generally happier in my zone with a spring planting.

Came across a video on Over the hill orchards in Lumsden, Saskatchewan:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f92_ShyJ2Hg

hungaryfrozencanuck - found this video fascinating ! also some of the others under the same heading.. thanks for passing it along. peaches in sask? I'm waiting!!!

Well they don't have peaches in the ground but yes they are growing them. Looks like they do them in containers that can be moved by forklifts and then probably have them in a high tunnel or perhaps a barn/warehouse that keeps them above a certain critical temperature over winter. My understanding is in containers you loose 2 zones due to exposed roots so they probably need to provide zone 7-8 equivalent winter temperatures to keep them alive which leans me towards some sort of insulated and possibly lightly heated structure.

in my world I try to keep my food growing as simple as possible - the law of diminishing returns vs energy and effort expended - I think peach trees hauled back and forth with a fork lift would be one of those "nice but not for me thanks" but to each his own, and still interesting . I never buy any of the "grown in California, mexico, south America" stuff - too far from home to qualify as necessary. my fruit consists of apples, plums, rhubarb, saskatoons, red and black currents, strawberries, grapes, raspberries, chokecherries, cranberries, blueberries, etc. . I've seen containers wrapped in insulation to give them added protection but never been tempted to carry my gardening efforts to that level. I'm pretty much content to can and freeze and dry herbs all fall and spend the winter watching the birds on my feeder, shovelling snow (just for exercise) and reading seed catalouges while I try to decide what i'll cook for lunch today(haha)

Oh yeah, I tried hauling a simple 5 gallon pot with peach tree back and forth to garage last winter and after that no more container gardening for me. However, the guy in the video runs this as a commercial enterprise so being able to sell "local" organic peaches, cherries and others probably has enough of a price premium to make it worth his while.

No, not as it sounds..several years back he took sweet cherries to the market and all came back home again because the store cherries were cheaper, I'm sure with some other products as well, you're simply NOT making ANY money in wintering those container fruits.

Man that is so sad.
What an indictment of our culture. This is why we can’t have nice stuff. I am always blown away when I am in France
with their varieties of flavourful fruit and food. Here we have a choice of green or red grapes
that while plump and perfect looking have no flavour. There they have 6+ varieties all bursting with different flavors. Seems like we would rather buy more of a
cheap food than less of a more expensive but tastier food.

On the other hand I have been to the Farmers market in Saskatoon and many of the available products like home grown fruits are sold out by noon! So much depends on knowledge and promotion of the product. If people are aware of what they are getting I think they will still buy over store products. Here for instance a locally grown sweet cherry is un heard of so people are not likely to pick them up!

LOL Konrad, yes not really technically free heat, I should have said minimal costs. We already circulate the water to the house and detached garage.

My husband doesn't like the term free either, as he rightly believes our time cutting the wood is actual money :)

Growing anything out of the zone and in pots is,for me, strictly for home use and the joy of the fruit. I highly doubt I would go thru the trouble to sell it, same goes for my greenhouse fruit. I may consider the wood free, but only to me, if I had to sell the products from my greenhouse I would certainly factor in the time and costs for the wood heat.

my son owns and operates a small gas heated organic green house and I have a friend who has a small orchard organically. both say they can sell everything they produce but many people (not all) expect to pay less for home produced goods. I think this is a matter of marketing because many small holders sell surplus at reduced rates..example; I buy local free range, organically fed, eggs for 3$$ doz. they are xlarge and very superior to store bought which charge 4.50$ for a comparable product. doesn't figure..i even offer to pay a fairer price but they won't go up. in 1980 I lived on a small acreage outside of Victoria bc and ran a little roadside stand. I kept a diary and marked in all sales and expenses. the bottom line was 18,000$. I still have the diary and read it occasionally, just as a reminder of the [possibilities. I'm almost 80 now so content myself with growing my own food, as far as possible, and smiling at the sun; but I know it's possible!!

>>I lived on a small acreage outside of Victoria bc<<

Aren't we supposed to retire in BC? What went wrong? lol

i'm originally a prairie boy but military service sent me to Victoria. I traded an expensive house and landscape business for a small town sask house and came home with enough left over to retire at age 50. Haven't held a full job for almost 30 years and loving it!

Ahhhhhh :) I understand your choice len, nothing better than a quiet country life where there is room to grow and (at least for me), to quietly move thru the day.

Hi all!

Koren here from just outside of Saskatoon near Asquith.....I finally moved out to my acreage since I've last been on the forums and had 2 kids! It's so nice to see so many familiar people here still, I'm looking forward to get growing again!