Got 6 new trees today:

• A&P
  • Cot-n-Candy Aprium
• Tropica Mango:
  • Summer Delight Aprium
  • Shanxi Li Jujube
  • Sherwood Jujube
  • Princess Seedless Grape
  • Ruby Seedless Grape

Ran irrigation for all 4 Jujubes in N orchard.

Jobe's All Purpose Fertilizer on all trees in N and NE orchard and then watered them with spray hose.

3 Jujube have leaves

First flowers.

Shanxi Li, Honey Jar, and Sugar Cane Jujubes have flowers.

More flowers and look how shiny those leaves are!

Just noticed around 10 fruit on tree, about the size of small grapes. They must have been there for around 2 weeks.

Metrics:

• Girth (inches only): 1.9"

Fruit now about an inch long.

Shanxi Li Jujube fruit about an inch long

Found the tree either knocked over or blown over. It had broken at the graft but was still partially attached and the leaves were still alive. One of the branches had broken off and its leaves were dry. The leaves on the main trunk were still green so I pushed it back up and staked it and wrapped parafilm around the rejoined graft.

There are still 2 fruit on the tree in spite of it getting knocked down and regrafted.

New growth on tree and and also new growth from near or on root stock coming through parafilm.

Ripening progress.

Ate the first of 2 of the fruit. Dry and cardboard tasting. Very little flavor/sweetness. Very disappointing. The tree is flowering again.

Picked the 2nd and last of the 2 surviving fruit on the tree. I let this one mature more. The texture is still like cardboard and now with a slightly sweeter taste than previously. I can see potential for this fruit as the tree matures. It's flowering again now so I'm expecting a 2nd crop around the same the same time that the Sugarcane Jujube produces its single crop of the year.

Around 4.25 feet tall.

Metrics:

• Height (inches only): 4'3"

3 new fruit growing on the tree. About the size of a marble.

All 3 of the fruit on the tree look green like this.

Discovered that the Shanxi Li has 3 (not 2) fruit on it.

Fruit

One very small and sad fruit came off today. Tasted dry and terrible. Like cardboard. 2 left on tree.

The break at the bottom has healed well but is probably still weak.

Picked off the penultimate jujube fruit from the second crop from this year. I've been told that they taste the best when half green and half brown and this was the tastiest one that I've had off this tree yet. Some tiny ants had gotten in through the crack you can see but they didn't change the taste and added some protein to it. It tasted crunchy and sweet and a lot more like the sugar cane jujube.

The third and last of the second crop. This one was the biggest and also the tastiest. Crunchy and crisp like an apple and sweet.

Dear Shanxi Li Jujube - I apologize for the bad things that I said about your fruit earlier. You are awesome!

Looks like right side of tree might have died.

• The height has changed by 3" over the last 91 days.
• The girth has changed by 0.4" over the last 195 days.

Metrics:

• Height (inches only): 4'6"
• Girth (inches only): 2.3"

Metrics:

• Leaf Shed End: ✔

Metrics:

• Leaf Shed End: ✔

The white is frost on the mulch this morning.

Gave a number of trees a good soaking with Neem Oil. Mixed at 2 fl oz 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.

• The height has changed by -3.5" over the last 87 days.
• The girth has changed by 0.1" over the last 87 days.

Metrics:

• Height (inches only): 4'2.5"
• Girth (inches only): 2.4"

Removed stake tie from bottom of tree. It's now feeling strong and firm at the base.

Metrics:

• First Bud: ✔

I'm fairly certain that the top flower is now starting to turn into a fruit.

Both of the Shanxi Li Jujubes have leaves that have been eaten by the Leafcutter Bee. The original Shanxi Li has bite marks in about 50% of its leaves. The 2017 Shanxi Lee has damage on about 20% of the leaves. The other three Jujubes (Honey Jar, Sugar Cane and Sherwood) that are right next to these two have no damage on their leaves.

Today's winds knocked some of the branches off the Jujubes. Here's a knocked off branch from the Shanxi Li Jujube with a tiny fruit coming out of one of the flowers.

Just finished distributing a truckload of wood chips over the north section of the orchard which is around 2,000 to 2,500 square feet in size. The first image is from 2 days ago which is the pile of wood chips that the truck dropped. Second image is the same space after the wood chips have been moved which is today (2 days later). And the third image is part of that orchard with small piles of wood chips waiting to be raked.

Going into dormancy

Metrics:

• Leaf Shed Start: ✔

First bud

Metrics:

• First Bud: ✔

First blossom.

Metrics:

• First Blossom: ✔

Images in order.

• Open and unopened blossom.
• Unfinished work of a leaf-cutter bee and a flower at the base of the leaf.
• The finished work of a leaf-cutter bee.

I've never seen this before: Flowers on the suckers. I'm curious to let them develop fruit and see what it tastes like.

Fruit is ripening. Ate one today. Tastes like cardboard.

Fruit and flowers and rootstock suckers flowering. This tree has it all. Took off all the fruit because it's the disgusting breba crop and was weighing the tree down.

Metrics:

• Harvest Count: 12
• Harvest Start: ✔

New flowers and young fruit forming.

Picked two fruit off ground at base of the Shanxi Li trees. Haven't eaten any of them yet...

Metrics:

• Harvest Count: 2

Leaf fall started a couple of days ago so back dated this pic by 2 days.

Metrics:

• Leaf Shed Start: ✔

Leaf shed end

Metrics:

• Leaf Shed End: ✔

Spread around 19 pounds of Arizona's Best Soil Sulphur at the base of these trees today.

First bud.

Metrics:

• First Bud: ✔

• All trees in the North orchard.
• Distributed 150 lbs of Tiger 90CR Sulfur pellets.
• Mixed in 5 pints of Link P31 (8-31-5) Nitrogen/Phosphates and two-fifths of a tablespoon of Borax powder to add Boron in around 40 to 50 gallons of water in the gorilla card. I did this 3 times to adequately dilute the Link P31 solution for dispersing.
• Used the shower nozzle on the hose and watered the sulfur and Link P31 through the mulch.

This provides this part of the orchard (North) which is 3,000 square feed with the following:

• 1.5 pounds of Nitrogen
• 6 pounds of Phosphate
• 0.06 pounds of Boron

• The height has changed by 1'11.5" over the last 778 days.
• The girth has changed by 1.3" over the last 778 days.

Metrics:

• Height (inches only): 6'2"
• Girth (inches only): 3.6"

First flower.

Metrics:

• First Blossom: ✔

Fruit forming quickly.

Never seen this many fruit on this tree before. It's loaded.

Tons of fruit on this tree. More than I've ever seen. Seems to be taking off this year.

Color is just starting to turn and fruit is still crispy.

Metrics:

• Harvest Count: 4
• Harvest Start: ✔

Metrics:

• Harvest Count: 3

Fruit ripening and falling. Still not tasting great.

Metrics:

• Harvest Count: 10

Picked a bunch of fruit off here today. Still doesn't taste amazing. Going to try it out with others tomorrow to see how they like it.

Metrics:

• Harvest Count: 30

Discovered why this tree is growing so fast and doing so well. A rabbit had chewed through the irrigation ring at the bottom of the tree and water was gushing out. Fix the leak today.

Lots ripening on the new branch growing out.

Metrics:

• Harvest Count: 41

Picked some more today. They're mixed in with some Sugarcane Jujubes.

Metrics:

• Harvest Count: 17

Metrics:

• Harvest Count: 12
• Harvest End: ✔

Leaves are starting to fall.

Metrics:

• Leaf Shed Start: ✔

About 90% done with leaf fall.

First two trees in the yard to loose all their leaves this winter are the two Shanxi Li Jujubes. In this image the second is directly behind the first.

Metrics:

• Leaf Shed End: ✔

Spread 320 pounds of Arizona's Best Ammonium Sulfate around yard. Includes all trees tagged on this note which is about 95% of the trees in the orchard.

Metrics:

• First Bud: ✔

Metrics:

• First Blossom: ✔

Amazingly, given how prolific the fruiting on this tree was in previous years there's zero fruit on it this year.

Leaf shed start.

Metrics:

• Leaf Shed Start: ✔

Metrics:

• Leaf Shed End: ✔

• The height has changed by 5'4" over the last 677 days.
• The girth has changed by 3.6" over the last 677 days.

Metrics:

• Height (inches only): 11'6"
• Girth (inches only): 7.3"

Metrics:

• First Bud: ✔

Metrics:

• First Blossom: ✔

I picked 14 viable fruit from these 2 trees. Most of the fruit (about 75%) was bird damaged so was not included in this count. Total weight was 5.6 ounces so I halved that because there are 2 trees included in this note. (As well as halving the count.)

Metrics:

• Harvest Count: 7
• Harvest Weight (lbs only): 2.8 oz
• Harvest Start: ✔
• Average Weight: 0.4 oz

Spread 42 lbs of Monterey's Dr Iron product around the yard under every tree. Product is 55% sulfur and 22% iron.

Metrics:

• First Bud: ✔

Spread Fertizona Furst Class 15-15-15 around the trees today. Used a handful for small trees and up to six handfuls for the larger trees. In total used 100 lbs.

Spread Fertizona Furst Class 15-15-15 around all the trees today. Used a total used 200 lbs of which about 25 lbs went on the grass.

Used the Chapin 20 gallon lawn sprayer to spray Southern Ag Chelated Iron at the base of these trees today. Diluted mixture 50/50 with water.