Greetings: Usually when I pit my cherries, I wash them after pitting and then chill in the refrigerator over night and pit them the next day. Cold cherries are not as juicy and pit easier. This year being a poor year for all 3 of my cherries as far as yield (Mesabi, North Star and Surecrop), we picked a bunch of Montmorency the first week in August in Door County of Wisconsin which is a prime tart cherry growing area in the U.S. We were on vacation there and happy to be there during the cherry season. I noticed the growers there commercially harvest with the shaking machines and then have the fruit dump into ice water to chill them before pitting. When we got home from vacation with the cherries, I put mine in the sink with ice water then pitted. It worked really well! A little cold on my fingers picking up the cherries but it was a good tip since I did not have room in the refrigerator to chill them all overnight like I usually do before pitting. My modern plunger type pitter works great but the orange plastic tab that prevents the cherry from falling thru the hole for the pits is wearing out. Can't seem to find a replacement for it. Hate to buy a new pitter because of a worn out piece of plastic. There must be a way to make something that would fit.

Grafting is much easier than you think. Especially with pear. This spring was my first attempt at grafting. I did a partial top working of my dads apple trees and had 17 out of 19 grafts take. I also grafted 5 rootstock with 4 being successful. The benefit of grafting or top working the tree is that you already have a nice strong established tree in the ground and it will be able to supply plenty of energy to the grafts. If your tree has 4 scaffolds you can cut each scaffold branch back and graft 4 different varieties. It's really quite easy as long as you take your time. You could actually leave one shinsieki branch as a nurse branch and after a year or two you might realize they taste better when properly thinned and ripened. Another option is t-budding or chip budding. It can be done soon and can give your grafts a nice jump start for next years growth.

Well at Home Depot when I bought them they said ghost. I'm guessing some type of hybrid. They have a similar pod shape but are smooth. And not nearly as hot. Luckily I had some scorpion seeds I got on Amazon that gave me true red scorpions and one plant that are yellow/orange like the single one in the picture

Here's an update to this post. Limequat didn't do very well indoors Winter 2017... Mostly because it was in the same pot as dying Meyer. Separated plants in Spring 2018...damaged some of the roots separating the limequat... And than I re-potted to a massive pot which was a mistake. It did well in the Spring/Summer 2018... Put out some growth, bloomed and held onto 3 fruits. By Fall/Winter I brought the limequat in again... It kept ripening the fruit but began losing leaves and branches dying again... The good new is it managed to ripen the fruit... I already had the smaller limequat when it fell off earlier this week. It was tasty so I'm excited for these 2 bigger limequats. Once I harvest these fruits, I'll throw the plant out and try again with a new limequat... Hopefully I can be more successful with my experience now....