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A
Real
WyoBraska
Peach
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Wyobraska has never been
considered a region that is particularly well-suited
for growing fruit trees. Historically only sour pie
cherries and a few cold hardy apples could be
counted on to produce fruit on a regular basis. For
as long as I can remember, we horticultural experts
have been telling amateur orchard growers that it
would be a waste of time to try to grow any other
fruit in Wyobraska. But several years with warmer
than normal winters have many Wyobraska homeowners
who didn’t know better harvesting bumper crops of
peaches, pears, plums, and yes, even an apricot or
two. It just goes to show you what experts know.
If you’re one of those
Wyobraska homeowners that wanted a backyard orchard,
but listened to the experts, you may want to
reconsider. No one knows for sure if the climate
moderation that the region has experienced over the
past 5 to 10 years is here to stay. My guess is
that it is, so I no longer see any reason to
discourage an interested homeowner from
experimenting with a pretty wide range of fruit
trees. |
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Previous Articles
It's
Finally Spring - March 13
Spring Garden Calendar-March 20
No
Garden Left Behind-March 27
Planting Trees for a Cooler Earth in a Warmer
WyoBraska-April 3
Viburnums - Shrubs for Wyobraska Springs-April 10
Want A Water Conserving Lawn? You might already have
one-
April 17
Creating Long
Term
Tree-lationships April 24
Bigger, Bolder, Brighter,
Better—and Back In The Landscape May 01 & 08
Hardy Shrub
Roses
May 15
Another Look
at Native Plants
May 22
No Child
Left Inside
May 29
June
is Tree Care Month June 05
Summer Blooming Shrubs
June 12
Roses Are
Red.....
June 19
The Plants They will be Talking About Next Year at
the Garden Walk
June 26
Busy Summertime Gardens
July 03
Cutting Your Lawn Down to Size
July 10
July 17
Insect Paranoia
If It Will Grow In Wyoming...
July 24
Rain Gardens
July31
WyoBraska Native Grass & Wildflower Lawn
August 7
2007 Articles
2006 Articles |
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Apples
We’ve always been able to grow cold hardy and short
season apples in Wyobraska. The difference now is
that we can probably grow some of the varieties with
later ripening apples. Summer and early fall
ripening apples are typically good for sauce and
pies, but typically do not store well. Fall
ripening varieties are generally better for fresh
eating and also store better. So being able to add
some of these longer season varieties to Wyobraska
orchards may turn out to be a significant addition
to the region’s fruit producing capacity.
Peaches
Without a doubt this is the fruit that most amateur
orchard growers have wanted to be able to grow in
Wyobraska. There’s just nothing like biting into a
freshly picked, tree-ripened peach. I know of some
Wyobraska homeowners that have now picked fresh
peaches in three of the last five years. That’s
certainly a probability that puts this fruit on the
recommended list for Wyobraska. After all, even
Georgia and Colorado orchards don’t harvest peaches
every year. The two best known peach varieties are
Reliant and Red Haven. Peaches are among the
shortest-lived of fruit trees—ten years will be
excellent in Wyobraska, so plan for replacements
according. Peach trees can be grown fairly easily
from seed, by the way, so replacement of aging trees
can be inexpensively accomplished.
Plums
Like apples, a few hardy plum trees have been
producing in Wyobraska ever since the region was
settled in the early 20th century.
These hardy plums, when they produced, were
delicious, but small and had a very short shelf
life. Some of the newer plum varieties have larger
fruit and a somewhat longer shelf life—even so,
plums are generally grown to be a fresh eating
fruit, so not much is to be gained by trying to grow
in Wyobraska some of the more exotic plums currently
found in the produce section of your favorite
grocery store—take it from an expert horticulturist.
Toka and Underwood are varieties with proven
Wyobraska adaptability.
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Grapes
Twenty five years ago you couldn’t find either a
vineyard or a mountain lion in Wyobraska. Now you
can hardly swing a dead Game and Parks euthanized
mountain lion by the tail without hitting a new
vineyard. The Wyobraska vineyard phenomena began
about 10 to 15 years ago, and the interest does not
appear to be waning. I have not followed the
phenomenon closely enough to learn much about
varieties of grapes that are consistently producing
high quality fruit. What I think I have learned
from visiting a couple of these vineyards is that
grapes are certainly a fruit that can be grown
successfully in Wyobraska, and in Wyobraska backyard
orchards. Information regarding good grape
varieties for your location can be obtained from the
University of Nebraska, Panhandle station.
Pears
As with peaches, it is no longer unusual to hear
reports of pear trees in Wyobraska being loaded down
with ripening fruit. Pears do not seem to be as
popular a fruit as peaches, but it seems that
amateur fruit growers are more intrigued by the idea
of growing as many different fruits as possible, and
so pear trees end up in many backyard orchards.
Pears, like plums, tend to be a fresh eating fruit,
but the capacity of their fruit to ripen after being
picked helps to shorten their growing season to a
point where it is possible to harvest pears on a
fairly regular basis. Moonglow and Luscious are two
well known varieties that I have seen in Wyobraska
home orchards.
Sweet Cherries
Perhaps as popular as peaches are sweet cherries.
There has been considerable effort to develop cold
hardy sweet cherry trees, and I have no doubt that
some day it will be possible to grow sweet cherries
in Wyobraska. One to try may be a fairly new
hybrid out of Cornell University called “Black
Gold”. It is listed as hardy in zones 5-7, and
anecdotal evidence from the internet would suggest
the possibility that it may produce fruit in
Wyobraska.
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