I've just planted my orchard 2.5 years ago, but so far I am having the best success with: Cortland apple / B.9 dwarfing rootstock Honeycrisp apple / unknown semi-dwarfing rootstock Black Gold sweet cherry / Gisela 5 dwarfing Willamette raspberry I haven't had any real disease problems with any of these (yet), and I don't spray, although I did bag each of my apples this year. My baby Cortland tree (it is only 6 feet tall) is most precocious and flowered each year, this year producing its first 3 apples. I got many many pounds of raspberries, with basically zero care or watering required, so I am very happy with the Willamette variety. No fruit on the other trees yet but tons of fruit buds for 2013, with the trees growing very well and filling out nicely. The apples I got from Cummins and Lowes, the dwarf cherry from Raintree. I have not had very good success with: Sweet 16 apple / G.16 dwarfing Chester blackberry The Sweet 16 is not vigorous to begin with, and has certainly not recovered well after my puppy unfortunately attacked it in 2010. The Chester blackberry (I have just one plant) produces only one new primocane each year, for a grand total of like a dozen berries for the whole season. Boo. So of course I'm still wanting more blackberries, and I will try some other variety. So.... Based on tons of research, I have recently purchased the following berries for planting in spring 2013. These are some of the hardiest varieties I could find that seem suitable for testing for at least a couple years in my 5a climate: Illini Hardy blackberry Triple Crown blackberry Hinnomaki Red gooseberry Also based on much research but no personal experience yet, if I were to get more fruit trees at some point in the future, I'd be interested in: Montmorency tart cherry Reliance peach Peaches would have to be pruned and thinned 4 or 5 times a year to keep their size manageable. And from what I understand, Montmorency tends to be a smaller tree all on its own. Why do I like dwarfs / small trees so much? Well, because I don't want to wait 5-10 years before getting fruit! Two to three years is a long enough wait. And I don't need huge trees. Small bushy trees where the fruit is easy to pick is perfect for me and my family. Of course, tree size is an individual decision. If I had a lot of land and a lot of time, I would plant some standards for their beauty in addition to the fruit. But for a small yard, standard size trees are not practical IMHO. Self-pollinating varieties can also be important if you only want one tree of a certain species. Stone fruits and berries have lots of options. Apples and pears, not so much. Pawpaws would need two varieties, I believe. Keep it in mind. Hope my experience helps provide a few ideas.

Day 22 Update! Peppers and lettuce: The same peppers and lettuce from the previous shot. They're in the second-worst part of the UFO grow chamber -- far from the UFO in the center. Nonetheless, the peppers are doing beautifully. I've got a whole tray of them looking just like that. The lettuce, only so-so. They're putting out leaves at a good rate, but two of them never did stand up like I was hoping they would. Next up, the monsters: Okay, these pumpkins are getting a bit scary: The larger of the two now has three tendrils on it, and leaves the size of my outstretched hand. I don't know how much longer I'm going to be able to keep them in here before they decide to crush everything else in their path, but I'll keep them in as long as I can ;) I realized that last time I forgot to photograph my eggplants. They're doing just shiny: So, now for my crazy okra: If you'll recall, one germinated tall like a freak, but with a strong stem, and dark green leaves; one germinated short with dark green leaves; and two germinated short with pale, chlorotic yellow leaves. I credit this to using old seed. I'm pleased to report that all of them are doing great. The tall one is now working on its second true leaf, while the two chlorotic ones are starting to turn green. All three of the small ones have just started on their first true leaf; I expect they'll look like the tall one (minus the crazy height) next week. My Ronde de Nice squash that just germinated? I transplanted one, and surprisingly, the transplant is doing better than the non-transplant! Now for the one that was my biggest concern last time: my watermelon. If you'll recall, its first true leaves had turned crisp and stopped growing. Well, I'm glad to report that it has not one, but two sets of normal, healthy true leaves now! Here's a shot of some of my miscellaneous squash and melons. Not a complaint from me about a one of them; they're all growing very healthy. My cinnamon basil was looking healthy enough that I felt it time to thin it out into individual pots. The remaining plants in the original pot are below: So, what's my primary concern this time? I'm starting to suspect that I'm getting more growth in the UFO chamber (red, grow) than in the Christmas chamber (blue, veg). I'm not sure yet, though. Now, that is to be expected to some degree, since that chamber is higher wattage (~105W vs. ~85W), it may be more than that. It's really hard to tell, though, because I moved my most mature trays to the red chamber and kept the youngest trays in the veg chamber. However, I do have one good comparison point: basil. I have a basil pot in the veg chamber that's exactly the same as the basil pot in the grow chamber -- same soil, same size, same plants, and same planting time. So, next week I'm going to photograph and measure the two and see how they compare. But overall, another good week :) The plants pretty much take care of themselves (since the LEDs are pretty cool, the soil takes a long time to get dry, so I rarely even have to water). Hence, I've been busying myself readying my outdoors for the new plants, for once it gets warm enough. I'm going to be training my vining plants to strings suspended from guyed poles this year, via vine clips; should be neat to see how they do.

I've been going back and forth with my order of prime ark freedom. These berries sure sound good. But they're sold out now; next year. I did get vintage, natanala, Caroline, Anne, fall gold, and heritage. Even though I'm in zone 10, you'd think it was zone 7. Vintage just sprouted, Caroline, fall gold, and heritage came up too. Barely any growth on any of them, but fall gold is setting berries. Still waiting for natanala and anne to sprout. If these don't sprout I will buy some new ones next year, the roots were alive when I received them. My heritage were stolen from the community garden. I grew it last year and I really like it. If Caroline or vintage are as productive as heritage I may forego It. I only get the fall crop, but heritage just keeps pushing out berries for months. The taste is just ok for fresh eating from my container garden, Thats why I decided to try planting in the community garden. Still I prefer volume to flavor. Flavor changes every year, but my belly fills on volume. I'm not as good at berries as everyone else on here is. My boysenberry plant looks like a forest in the pot. Hope I get berries this year. Marion had one long cane from last year, it just put out a new cane. Last year I didn't know about pinching so no laterals. Think I will pinch the new cane when it gets a foot tall. They haven't fruited yet. The raspberries grow at a mannered pace that's easy to control. Blackberries on the otherhand seem to leap out of their pots searching for other pots to conquer. So for me blackberry must be grown in a pot near concrete so it can't excape to the wildlife. Fall gold bud in full shade Emerald blueberry shading peas, clover, and beans. Lettuce is going to seed. Boysenberry and beans, varigated solomens seal in the bottom of the pot. The fall gold is growing behind the chard leaf and gets very little sun. The beans have their own trellis in the pot next to the boysenberry but next thing I knew they decided that the preferred the trellis on the boysenberry pot. Now they're climbing in the hanging basket, and then to the moon. Marion berry is wrapped around the window first-time growing blackberry so I didn't pinch,it just has two canes. I just pinched them and got a small amount of branching. Would love to have a twenty foot long thorny branched cane. Well its not the prettiest but I'm eating good. Sunshine blue, and a volenteer tomato,please don't mind my spider webs, that's my only pest control besides ladybugs. I try to keep them in check, but on a rooftop berry garden is a fly eaters paradise, so they keep coming back. Spider mites are bad right now, but they're going for beans, sunflowers and weeds. Those plants all grown so fast who cares. The white flies came and bite the pineapple weed, it was instant death. They've learn to avoid the epazote but since pineapple weed is a native and looks just like pigs lettuce it was a killing field millions of dead white flies. FYI that tomato plant would be full of tomatoes if the local mammals weren't swiping them. I managed to get two amish paste because they filled up on every one of my super sweet pomegranates and sun ripened cherry tomatoes and then snubbed their noses at a bland paste tomato. These little blueberry seedlings are hidden somewhere in that food forest. Sharp, misty, and the ?. Only three inches tall, misty lost all her leaves but everyone else is growing well. Gotta get some peat and surround those tiny little roots. I think misty wants more sun, but at two inches in overcast may, it ain't going to happen. If she were a foot tall it would be better. June gloom is coming so I won't have sun until July. Hang in there Misty!

maifleur, my meat processor doesn't buy any animals and process them himself or even raise his own, he only processes meat for people who raise their own and then pay him to process it to their specifications. So, if I sell you half a beef, I call Carl and tell him that I have a beef coming, half of it belongs to Maifleur and then you call and tell him how you want it packaged. I have people come to the farm specifically to see "their" animal and the living conditions before they commit to buying beef. And, by using a custom slaughter facility, I can confidently tell them that the animal they see is the animal they will get back, because Carl has no animals of his own, only those who are raised by and packaged for other people. Those of us who have done business with him for years, and with his father before him, know and trust him. As for migrants and immigrants, Michigan is the 2nd most agriculturally diverse state in the country, behind only California, so those of us in agriculture are acutely aware of the importance and value of those workers and how difficult it is to even find enough of them to work. When I was a teenager one of my summer jobs was picking cherries for 40 cents a lug. I have also picked asparagus, pickles, apples and tomatoes. Today's teenagers don't want to do that, and more jobs such as fast food service are available to them today that were not available to me. There has been years when apples rotted on the trees and cherries became over ripe because there were not enough workers to pick them and the food pantries can only glean/store so much fresh produce. Annie