Moderator: johnsmith
HBS Guy wrote:He has/will spread the pine chips for me, the remaining 8 cubic metres should be delivered and spread Monday. Can get him to do some spraying: give him a key to the garden shed, have the mix detailed (blow up to A3 size, have it laminated, leave in the shed.) Won’t have the compost tea but the neem oil, insecticidal soap (pure liquid soap (not detergent etc)) and fish hydrolase and liquid kelp will be there. Will have a tin of grease, grease the weedmat I will wrap around the trunks to deter rabbits and hopefully possums.
Will water around the planting hole with the compost tea, fish hydrolase and kelp after planting, plain water to water the actual tree—encourage the roots to venture out the planting hole.
HBS Guy wrote:Bought some fresh cartridge paper, will draw my planting plan as it is so far and add to it future plantings—will add identification of each site.
Now some GOOD news! I can get Green Horse perry pears! Yippy! So perry pear line up is:
Gin
Moorcroft
Yellow Huffcap
Green Horse
And Beurre Bosc perry/cooking/eating pear
[Williams Pear—to pollinate Beurre Bosc]
More scope, more flavors. MUCH more reading/thinking to do. At my age it is use it or lose it!
HBS Guy wrote:Gin:
(Can taste juniper berry, so it must be called Gin.)
Good disease resistance, good keeping quality (need to store pears to get good quantity to mill and press.)
Makes a fragrant perry (can see mixing this with some beurre bosc for nice pear flavor with the fragrance of the gin)
A high quality vintage pear being planted by artisan perry makers (of whom I hope to be one no matter how small scale and amateur!)
Green Horse:
Originally a culinary pear like some perry pears are (some perry pears are so unpalatable that not even pigs will eat them!)
Medium Sharp (as are all perry pears in Australia)
Moorcroft:
Use as a perry pear from start
Bittersharp (Astringent sharp) This makes it a bit unique among perry pears in Oz.
Problem with this pear: rots from the inside out fairly soon after picking. Thinks: one or two trees enough of this one, great mixer, too hard as a main perry pear. Pick and freeze until all harvested, I think.
Sounds like a mixer not a straight perry.
Yellow Huffcap:
Medium sharp. Medium acid, low tannin makes for an excellent perry.
So now you know!
Seth might be able to grow some nice perry pears in Oregon if he was so inclined. He would have access to a bigger range of perry pears than we do here. Makes a finer drink than cider or so I am told.
nicHBS Guy wrote:Perry is the cider you make from pears. It is supposed to be a better drink than cider.
HBS Guy wrote:A perry pear can be a hard, astringent thing to eat. Not even pigs will eat them and pigs will eat about anything. I read an account of a squirrel eating a perry pear: it ate and spat out the flesh until it got to the core and then it ate the pips!
Some are pears that can be eaten save there are better eating varieties now.
Fun fact: apples float on water, pears sink.
What other two fruits are in the pome fruit family?
HBS Guy wrote:Nashi and quince.
HBS Guy wrote:Received the booklet “Gardening in Clay Soil” just now. 27 pages—not long! I find the Storey Publications while not going into any depth give a bloody good introduction to the subject. None of the booklets has ever had anything incorrect in them.
Now for the not so good news—from the “NEVER EVER trust a tree nursery” department:
I doubt the Stella cherry variety, pollination group 4 is going to do much for my Early Burlat or Napoleon cherries which are pollination group 1.
Will see. The Stella is self fertile so will bear fruit and so not a waste. Will do some more reading.
They also said the plums Greengage and Coe’s Golden Drop would pollinate each other—nope, different pollination groups so flower at different times and will not cross pollinate each other. Found that out from an article somewhere by Peter Cundall.
Reckon I could write a book on all this crap by the time it is all finished! Far out!
Users browsing this forum: Bing [Bot] and 3 guests