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Idaho Gardening
jennwaskow

I can't be the only one!!!

jennwaskow
17 years ago

Where are all the idaho gardeners??

Featured Answer
  • Mokinu
    7 years ago
    last modified: 7 years ago

    LindaWa, I live in Payette county, not too far from you (born and raised). As for fruit trees, I'll tell you what has worked well and what hasn't.

    Works well:

    * Plums (sometimes they get diseased, but they produce well without worms; frost doesn't get the blossoms)

    * Peaches

    * Nectarines

    * Plumcots (these are a lot like plums)

    * Black walnuts (they grow wild and/or ferral around here; they can prevent other plants from growing in the same soil, though)

    * Pears (these get worms sometimes, but not as much as apples, and the fruits don't drop as much; don't get a dwarf, though—our dwarf Bartlet took a really long time to mature, although it is a good tree)

    * Sour cherries are easier to grow than regular cherries, and they reliably seem to get lots of fruit, but they can get a lot of worms in them

    Works okay:

    * Cherries (they're not always productive, and birds do eat them, but they taste good, and you usually always get at least a few, if not a bunch)

    * Apricots (some varieties and locations are better than others; the frosts often kill the blossoms for some; for us, we usually didn't get many if any apricots, on our first tree, which lived long, but on some years it produced *loads* of fruit; our Mormon Apricot produced a small to medium small amount of fruit every year)

    Not recommended:

    * Apples (Although you can grow apples, and a lot of people do, they're probably the most labor-intensive fruit around here if you want a good crop of them every year; worms can be a big problem; hot, dry weather can be a big problem; drought can be a problem; spider mites can be a huge problem; apples dropping can be a problem; apple trees do live a lot longer than plums and peaches, though; never leave fallen apples on the ground to rot—I believe this can contribute to anthracnose in the garden, especially if spider mites abound; spider mites seem to love apples more than any other fruit tree we've grown; note that the spider mites around here are not normally visible; you just see such as the foliar damage, and the webs they make)

    * Nanking Cherry (slow-growing and we only got a few small fruits, ever; however, we didn't have a pollinator by the time they were mature enough, and they do need one; they don't blossom the same time as our other cherries did)

    Some fruit trees of the same species are probably better than others. You might be able to find apples that flourish in the harshest conditions and plums that don't do so well. We had Stanley plums. I think our peaches were Elberta. Both varieties of nectarine we had have done well (although one tasted better). I think some varieties of peaches might lose blossoms to the frost. For apples, we've had something that was supposed to be Red Delicious, but it looked more like Johnathan; we also had Yellow Delicious, McIntosh (my favorite for taste), and some of the more modernly popular ones (like maybe Fuji and Gala—we haven't had much fruit set on them, but the first three I mentioned can be productive).

    Most of our trees have been semi-dwarf. Our first apricot tree was a standard, and our second was a semi-dwarf (but it looked as big as a standard, too).

    Oh, you'll want to be sure to get trees that are hardy to zone 4 or below. It's been known to get as low as -26° F. around here, although that is quite rare (I think the last time was in 1989). It did get to -21° F. or so this year, though. Trees hardy to zone 5 will probably handle most years, though (but I wouldn't count on it). In the summer, it's gotten up to 116° F. at the hottest (that was in 2015 at the end of June). It usually only gets up to about 110 every two to three years, though, but it seems to have been hotter the last three years or so. On less hot years, it gets up to about 101 to 104° F. at the hottest. The hottest time of the year is normally the end of July and the beginning of August (not the end of June like it was in 2015). We have cool nights in this region (it's kind of desert-like in that regard; there are some high deserts not far from here: the Owyhee Desert and the Oregon High Desert). This is a semi-arid region (it's a lot less arid later in the day and at night, though). The frost-free growing season is usually between about May 10th and October 10th. The first half of spring is usually very wet. It normally rains a lot around the time of the first frost in the fall, too. It hardly rains at all in the latter part of spring and in summer (but we usually get some thunderstorms around the hottest time of the year).

    It should be noted that there is a cherry festival in Emmett. My relatives used to own a cherry orchard out around there. There's an apple blossom festival in Payette. (Yes, apples are popular here—but really, plums, peaches and pears should be, in my opinion.)

    You might try Cornelian Cherry trees. I'm not sure how easy they are to grow, but a friend of mine's grandpa had one and it was pretty awesome. The fruits taste like sour sweet cherries.

    If you're into grapes and fruit bushes, they can do well, but it depends. Grapes can attract whiteflies and leafhoppers (which are a big problem if you get them). They generally seem to do decently, however (if you don't have leafhoppers). Make sure grapes get enough sun (they have fewer pests with more sun). Blackberries can do excellently, once they get established; however, they may be difficult to get established. Raspberries do well for some people, but are difficult for others, it seems (maybe due to soil). Black currants are easy to grow (they're wild around here, too). You might try jostaberries instead of currants.

    For tomatoes, I recommend these varieties (I've tried about 130 varieties, and these are the ones I recommend the most for this area, so far):

    * Matina

    * Thessaloniki

    * Early Girl F1

    Roma, Yellow Pear, Red Pear and others can be productive, too.

    If you like 2lb tomatoes, I recommend Chapman and Cuostralee.

    For chile peppers, I recommend Ring of Fire quite a bit (if you're into hot Cayenne-type peppers). It's productive.

    Zucchini is easy to grow around here, but squash bugs can be a big problem. I like Dark Star zucchini.

    For cucumbers, you might try these:

    * Beit Alpha

    * Monika

    * Marketmore 76

    For tomatillos, you might try Cisineros, but most tomatillos seem to do decently. Cisineros isn't the earliest, but it's big, it's productive, and it tastes great. I don't recommend Purple De Milpa, unless it's acclimatized to the heat, so it can set fruit in it, though.

    For watermelons you might try these:

    * Red-seeded Citron (not a regular watermelon, but extremely productive)

    * Sugar Baby

    * Verona

    * Cream of Seskatchewan

    * Black Diamond

    Cantaloupes and muskmelons can do very well around here. I'm not sure which varieties to suggest to you for this area offhand, though, but some of them have done better than others.

    It's a good idea to look for heat/cold/drought-tolerant varieties of everything that are used to arid heat/drought (as opposed to humid heat/drought; yes, you can have drought in a humid area). Tomatoes are considered heat-tolerant if they can set fruit in temperatures above 89° F. However, I think seed-saving and proper watering is just as important. Building the soil also helps. Seed-saving is helpful because it gives your plants the opportunity to acclimatize over generations. Plus, you can select for fruits that actually set in the conditions.

    Shade trees:

    * You might try weeping willows.

    * If you don't plant it next to concrete or your house, and if you don't mind the mess from the berries/birds, mulberries are great for shade.

    * Apricot trees (although they may not fruit every year, they sure are nice shade trees; they do have very rough/jagged bark, though)

    * Poplars grow easily around here (I don't recommend Lombardy poplars, even though they grow easily, though, because they can be a hazard when they die, and they're prone to twisted galls).

    * Oak and maple trees around the area look nice. Oak trees do provide acorns (they might attract squirrels), and maple trees of course drop lots of fun seeds.

    * Northern Catalpa trees are easy to grow around here. (And they're feral in the area.) They do scatter large pods around, though. These trees don't seem to draw birds, however.

    To grow weeping willows you can just take a branch and put it in the ground, as I understand it. The same seems to work for poplars (although you might want to bury a branch).

    I recommend against growing Siberian Elm trees here, even though they're wild or feral in the area.

    Comments (62)

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