Picked up trees from AZRFG tree order (Doug Jones' house) today:

• Bella Gold Peacotum
• Black Satin Blackberry
• 2in1 Delight/Sprite Cherry-Plum
• Lattarula Fig
• Burgundy Japanese Plum
• Flordaprince Peach
• Candy Heart Pluerry

All 7 trees planted and irrigation run around them

Already budding.

Candy Heart Pluerry 43 x 19 x 12

Candy Heart Pluerry flowers have opened.

candy heart pluerry buds

Jobe's All purpose fertilizer around all trees in NW orchard + water

Metrics:

• Height (inches only): 4'2"

Metrics:

• Girth (inches only): 2.5"

• The height has changed by 10" over the last 156 days.

Metrics:

• Height (inches only): 5'

Facing east

Girth 3"

• The height has changed by 3" over the last 92 days.
• The girth has changed by 0.5" over the last 196 days.

Metrics:

• Height (inches only): 5'3"
• Girth (inches only): 3"

Metrics:

• Leaf Shed End: ✔

Added irrigation ring with 6 emitters of 0.5 GPH each for a total of 3 GPH.

Sprayed a bunch of trees with Copper Fungicide. Mixed 2.0 fluid ounces per gallon of water.

Sprayed with Neem Oil. 2 Fl Oz per gallon. Made a total of 4 gallons for the trees listed on this note.

About to start budding.

First buds

Metrics:

• First Bud: ✔

Flowers will probably open by tomorrow is my guess.

Metrics:

• First Blossom: ✔

• The height has changed by 1" over the last 85 days.
• The girth has changed by 0" over the last 85 days.

Metrics:

• Height (inches only): 5'4"
• Girth (inches only): 3"

Loaded with flowers.

This is the most flowers it had during the spring.

First fruit developing on tree.

Metrics:

• Last Blossom: ✔

About thirty pluerries on the tree. Doing much better than its cousin the Sweet Treat Pluerry which only has two.

20 fruit counted on tree. Ten of those are on one branch in the space of about 12 inches.

Now getting some color in the fruit. I couldn't stand the thought of losing all of this fruit to the birds so I've put organza bags over a bunch of them.

Tried my first Candy Heart Pluerry today. I found a fruit on the tree that had some give to it even though the color did not look like it was fully ripe yet. On the exposed part of the fruit where I've eaten from it you can see the darker red towards the bottom right. This was sweet and tasty. The other part of the fruit has a tang to it with some astringency. I'm looking forward to these when they get riper. Definitely not ready yet. The Dave Wilson page for this fruit gives the Harvest Dates from July 28 to August 23 and shows a much darker fruit in its image. I picked this around 8 weeks ahead of those dates and in reality we're around 4 weeks ahead of them at this time of year.

Interesting raindrop/teardrop shape to this fruit.

This piece of fruit was slightly damaged by a bird/insect so I removed it. Tasted pretty good. A tiny bit more time until fully ripe I think but good enough to mark the start of the harvest in my opinion.

I added Organza Bags to the rest of the fruit on this tree to try and increase the yield.

I notice that the west side of the tree is looking a bit roasted by the sun with these high temperatures.

Metrics:

• Harvest Count: 1
• Harvest Start: ✔

I just harvested 26 pluerries from this tree and ate half of them and these are my thoughts:

• I'm surprised that they went from good looking fruit to mostly dried up in the space of a week.
• A couple of the branches with fruit seem to have started dying which was a surprise. It's been very hot which could have impacted this.
• The fruit has zero astringency.
• The good fruit has a firm texture. It's sweet without being overbearingly sweet.
• There were hints of brandy pudding which might have been from slightly overripe fruit which had started to ferment. It's a pleasant taste.
• It's a cling-stone fruit and on a couple of them parts of the pit broke away easily while eating and I had to remove the small bits from my mouth.

Metrics:

• Harvest Count: 26
• Harvest End: ✔

Looking a bit threadbare and burned from the sun. Hopefully it survives and comes back stronger.

Still seems to be struggling with the heat a bit.

Checked the ground around the based of this tree to make sure that it's getting enough water. It is as the soil is moist. Worried that the leaf density has diminished. Might be something eating the leaves but haven't noticed anything.

Added three teaspoons of Foliage Pro into four gallons of water and poured at base of tree. My inconsiderate and slopping pouring of the water from the bucket washed away a bunch of soil at the base of the tree exposing some roots which I then covered with mulch and mud.

Amazingly this tree is flowering. Sprayed with a 1.0 fluid ounce per gallon of water Copper Fungicide because that's all I had left in the bottle.

Metrics:

• Leaf Shed End: ✔

Sprayed a bunch of trees with a 2 fluid ounce per gallon of water Bonide Copper Fungicide.

Sprayed with copper fungicide and all seasons horticultural oil. In total I made 8 gallons of the mixture using two different copper products:

Batch #1: Bonide Copper Fungicide - 2 fluid ounces per gallon of water + Bonide Horticultural Oil - 3.75 fluid ounces per gallon of water.

Batch #2: Liqui-Cop Copper Fungicide - 1 fluid ounce per gallon of water + Bonide Horticultural Oil - 3.75 fluid ounces per gallon of water.

First bud

Metrics:

• First Bud: ✔

Sprayed with 3 Fluid Ounces per gallon of Pyrethrin mixed with 1 Fluid Ounce per gallon of Neem Oil. Purpose of this is to combat the influx of Glassy Winged Sharpshooters that have suddenly been observed and also to hopefully suppress Peach Borers.

First blossom.

Metrics:

• First Blossom: ✔

• The height has changed by 1'11" over the last 368 days.
• The girth has changed by 0.4" over the last 368 days.

Metrics:

• Height (inches only): 7'3"
• Girth (inches only): 3.4"

The cold snap destroyed all flowers and leaves and since then this tree hasn't shown any signs of coming back out of dormancy again.

Probably died around this day.

Added used coffee grounds at the base of a number of trees and watered it in.

I think the cold snap killed this.

Cut this right back. I can't work out if it's dead or not. All the stuff I cut back at the top was crisp, dry and dead but it started becoming softer lower down. Will leave it at this height for a while to see if anything rebounds on it.