margh: Do not be discouraged by the fact that your father was not successful with everything he tried. There could be many reasons for the failures, most of which could probably be corrected. I planted my first fruit trees here in Great Falls in the spring of 1977, and now have an orchard of over 65 fruit trees of every description; many mature and some newly planted. I also grow blackberries, blueberries, and raspberries in fairly extensive plantings, and one Concord grape. I grow 28 varieties of apples alone, some sweet, some sweet/tart, and some tart for cider blending. This is a fine climate for growing apples, and lots of other things. The principal requirements are a sunny area with adequate space, and the willingness to do a little of what could be called work by some, and recreational fruitgrowing by others. Fruit trees do require a higher level of care than purely decorative species like Japanese Maple (although I have those too) to be attractive and productive. If you live in Northern Virginia, you can't be too far away, and if you want to pay a visit here you are welcome to do so at any time. I can supply you with free Triple Crown blackberry plants from tiproots that could still transplant well this spring. TC is the best blackberry I have come across, but it does require trellising or other support. You can e-mail at Don.Yellman@webformation.com or use the telephone. I am in the book. My location is about 7 miles west of Tyson's Corner off Route 7, not far from the old Colvin Mill. Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Was the fruit you refer to very sweet, smaller than normal, and highly flavored? I've been told that the best fruit in CA is grown dryland in areas with winter rainfall, deep soil, and old drought tolerant trees. That says the exact same thing to me that you stated above. @Fruitnut, Yup, exactly, especially with the sultana style grapes. Although with some fruit it's more to it than just small and sweet like with the grapes, for example pomegranates can get pretty complex flavors on the spectrum of sweet to tart when they're in the middle there of both and when the pits in the seeds become negligible instead of hard as wood chips- or when a nigra mulberry is just huge and so juicy but still extremely flavorful or maybe you've seen here but I haven't when a fig is so ripe the red pink nectar is oozing out from the bottom hole or when a pomegranate bursts open on the tree from the sun fully ripening it not bursting open from a disease or because of excess rainfall. But yeah, definitely a trend of smaller and sweeter exists I'd say- another common example of that would be the strawberries- they're tiny/mushy not aesthetically pleasing at all compared to grocery store strawberries here looking epic and beautiful... but the taste is something else with the small ones. This phenomenon of not watering the wild fruit (which are usually in not so easy places to go pick the fruit) has a name for it in Iran- "bash" lots of different fruit can be "bash" meaning grown wild in drought like conditions. I suspect the trees are pretty old too. I think pomegranate exists like this too- I've had fig and grapes bash before. All that being said, I've had some of my best fruit experiences here too. I was actually born in Virginia am pretty proud of our watermelon and peaches here :). The mid-Atlantic and South can grow very delicious fruit- I've always been impressed with how good fruit can taste in the U.S. once it's actually grown right instead of bought from a typical grocery store. BTW lots of fruit is now being imported to Iran along the same lines of typical grocery store fruit here and it's messing up the market for good tasting local fruit. I'm afraid in very short time if not already typical Iranian fruit markets will be worse than grocery store fruit here... before they all see the light again and start going old school/eco-friendly/green/homegrown/local/organic what have you like what's happening here.

Hello, everyone~ All this rain has made everything jump, and we are harvesting tomatoes from our community garden since last week, even though they were planted late--first week in June. However, the down side is that all that moisture has also caused a lot of fungus diseases. WVU warned our extension agent about a prevalent squash fungus and she told our community gardeners about it. Within a week, a neighboring plot lost a 20' row of zuchinni and yellow squash. Since then I lost all of mine, plus the veggie spaghetti. I replanted Z seed, but will use the space vacated from the other squash for fall veggies. I hope that the winter squashes in another plot can withstand it. Since last writing, I have been to Masters Chice in Clearbrook twice and definitely plan to go back in Oct for garlic. Wasn't too much there the 1st time, but I went home with 2 sale scented geraniums and the 2nd trip last Fri.,went to their Tomato Tasting. Small--only about 10 varieties, but I went home with another geranium (a variegated rose one), and packets of Seed Savers Exchange and Landreth's heirloom seeds @ 49[!] cents each... Saturday, we hosted our own Tomato Tasting event for 50+ people at the living history farm where we volunteer, near Charles Town--a lot of work, but great fun. We had about 35 varieties, but I was too busy to count them or even get them all tasted! I posted the tasting event on the Tomato Forum, but for some reason they removed it--guess that they thought we were doing it to raise money, but not so, just for education and to celebrate the taste of our favorite fruit! But at the end, I did find $2.50 in our donation box...Sorry that I did not also post it here so that some of you that are nearby could attend. FYI--next year we are having a tomato cooking demo, with our own tomato cookbook, in addition to our panel of tomato growing "experts" and the actual tasting (I think that we'll have over 50 varieties next year). As it was,I had 6 kinds of tomatoes that did not get put out to be tasted because there was no room on the table or we'd have had over 40 varieties. In 2009, it's tentatively scheduled for the 3rd Sat. in Aug. again, if anyone wants to come. It's free, except that the suggested admittance is 3-4 of any 1 kind of tomato that is worthy of tasting and competing for "Best" in each class--no prizes; it's just for fun. If anyone is interested in receiving an account of this year's voting results, please email me at mjkoaktregarden@aol.com Maggie To Peggy and all other nearbys--Yes, by all means, let's plan a plant exchange for next spring. I can offer the Peter Burr Farm, which is about 5 miles north of Ranson, WV as a site. We have a 1751 farmhouse, an 18th C display Kitchen Garden, a tent (if it's rainy), 2 bathrooms, and even a modern kitchen, so we can have refreshments at our trading session. This location is not hard to get to from central MD, northern VA, the Shen Valley, or points east in WV. I know several people who specialize in heirloom and other tomatoes and I do a lot with herbs, especially basil and scented geraniums, so if we do it in May, we may be able to exchange those as well as hardy plants. Let us know if you are interested....

I had a time like that at the post office. They refused to let me use a box because it was a vodka box. So had to take it home and find another box and redo eveything. I stopped going to the post office after that and started using UPS or Fedex. Also hate the long lines at the PO. Glad you finally got it out the door and on its way. Clare