Archive for month: January, 2023

We kick off spring with a big batch of bare-root small fruits and edibles. Stop in soon to embellish your food garden!

Crimson Night Everbearing Raspberry

This variety offers prolific, flavorful dark red-purple berries and great disease resistance. Introduced by Cornell University in 2012, Crimson Night is very ornamental, with dark purple canes – try it in a container! It will produce two heavy crops of berries. New canes (Primocanes) will produce berries that ripen in late summer through early fall. Don’t cut back previous years canes (Floricanes) – they will produce berries that ripen in mid-summer. Self-pollinating.

Honey Queen Everbearing Raspberry

Honey Queen lives up to its name with its deliciously sweet honey flavor packed into beautiful yellow, soft, and medium-sized berries perfect for picking and eating in the summer. It was developed in Rocky Mountain House by Robert Erskine and is very winter hardy. Canes are yellowish, floricane, arched and moderately spiny – and need trellising. Self-pollinating.

Nova Elderberry

Grow an edible landscape with this easy-care shrub. Wide clusters of creamy white flowers appear in spring. If left on the bush, the flowers develop into bountiful bunches of tender, deep purple berries used in jams, jellies, pies, and wines. Elderberry syrup is said to stimulate the immune system. Native to North America and great for attracting wildlife. Bees and hummingbirds will drink the flower nectar, and a variety of birds will eat the berries. Fruit set will be best if cross pollinated by another Sambucus canadensis variety such as ‘York’.

York Elderberry

Enjoy lots of juicy berries on this manageable 6’-8’ tall shrub. In early summer, the vigorous plants are covered with gorgeous tiny white flowers that produce large clusters of small purple-black berries in late summer. The nutritious berries have high anthocyanin content and are excellent made into jams, jellies, juices, and cordials. Fruit set will be best if cross pollinated by another Sambucus canadensis variety such as ‘Nova’. Zones 3-8.

Crandall Black Currant

The Crandall black currant is the most ornamental and sweetest of all currant varieties. Grown for beauty and fruit, the Crandall’s clove-scented, trumpet-shaped flowers bloom in spring. Enjoy fruit fresh or use in your favorite recipes. Ripens mid-summer. Very fast growing and attracts butterflies.  Self pollinating but better with another variety (such as Pink Champagne!).

Pink Champagne Currant

Medium-sized currants are a fascinating translucent pink and have a wonderful flavor that is less tart than red currants and more delicate than black currants! These delicious fruits ripen in late September and are perfect for fresh eating, baking, jellies, and preserves. Grow 3 to 5 feet tall and are resistant to mildew and rust. Self-pollinating but better with another variety (such as Crandall!).

Crimson Cherry Rhubarb

One of the best flavored rhubarb varieties on the market, Crimson Red Rhubarb’s stalks have that perfect balance of sweetness and tartness. The plants product ample yields of pleasingly plump, crimson stalks that add excellent flavor and color to pies, cobblers, preserves and other recipes. Rhubarb is a perennial vegetable that performs best when planted in full sun to partial shade and in well-drained soil. Stalks should not be harvested the first season after planting. 

Mary Washington Asparagus

This variety offers buttery and robust flavor, thick straight stalks, and later emerging fern-like foliage.

Sweet Purple Asparagus

In addition to the fun coloration, the flavor is said to be distinctly sweeter than green asparagus. This variety is less prone to developing fibrous strings and woody stalks.

Horseradish

Add the peppery leaves to soups and salads for an invigorating flavor or wait to harvest the roots in the fall. Plant 6” deep. Plants can spread; consider growing in a large pot or barrel.

*All of these fruit trees are grown on semi-dwarf rootstock in order to accommodate most home orchards, unless otherwise noted.*

Frost Peach

The best peach for Northwest gardens. Red blushed over yellow peaches are great fresh or for canning. A freestone variety that produces very heavily. The tree is very productive and vigorous. Thinning the tree or the fruit will produce larger, better quality peaches. The tree is self-fertile and has pretty pink flowers in late winter. Plant in full sun with good drainage. Resistant to peach leaf curl, especially as the tree becomes more established.

Galaxy Peach (dwarf)

These donut shaped peaches have intense, sweet flavor, white flesh and a semi-cling pit which have been popular in China for centuries. Can produce up to 50lbs of fruit a year once mature! These self-fertile trees are on a dwarf root stock, making them great for home orchards and easy picking. Best in full sun with good drainage.

Puget Gold Apricot

This is inarguably the most consistent fruit producing apricot variety. Produces medium size fruit with firm flesh that is delectably sweet. Ripens in mid-August and is self-fertile! This tree naturally protects its delicate blossoms from harsh conditions by blooming late.

Harglow Apricot

This variety has proven itself in our Northwest climate. It is late blooming and early ripening (August) and produces a medium to large apricot that is deep orange with a delightful blush of red. It is a flavorful fruit, sweet and firm. Harglow is self-fertile and is also resistant to perennial canker, brown rot, and resists cracking!

Hardy Red Nectarine

A new promising variety for the Northwest. Fruit is red skinned with golden blush. The very sweet, yellow flesh that ripens in mid-August. Hardy Red is a freestone nectarine and has excellent flavor.

Combos:

These fruit trees have several different kinds of fruit grafted to one root stock:

Fruit Cocktail (4-way Combo): Frost Peach, Puget Gold Apricot, Hardy Red Nectarine, Italian Prune and Lapin or Stella Cherry