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Technology is something that we can use even in the garden setting. However, like so many things that are out there, there is so much to wade through that it is hard to find information that is reliable, let alone, easy to use. Not so long ago, the U of M Extension started offering a few publications through iBooks. The one that I have seen and read is called, "Growing Fruit in the Northern Garden."
The first chapter starts out with a rounding, "Growing Fruit is Fun," which shows alongside the caption a picture of someone pruning a fruit tree in winter. Well, some folks may not find that entertaining but we die hard gardeners do find it fun to start somewhere in the garden while we wait for Old Man Winter to release his grip on us. This guide would be "fun" to look at during the colder winter months in Minnesota mostly because of the beautiful pictures within it. It also has a very handy guide to how easy it is to grow a variety of Minnesota hardy fruit plants and when they will be able to be harvested. While it may be hard to accept that our dreams of gardening during winter, must also take into consideration when we will be up at the lake or on vacation a well. The guide for August points out the harvest of plums, apricots, apples, fall red and yellow raspberries, day neutral strawberries and alpine strawberries. There are also some handy tips that may not be widely known about growing fruit. Once such tip talks about the "productivity of apples, apricots, pears, certain plums and blueberries that need at least two cultivars of each fruit...for fruit set." Each section in the booklet will help you understand what you need and what you do not need.
There are some interesting tidbits about plants also within the booklet. An example is that did you know that one June bearing strawberry plant can produce up to 120 new daughter plants in just one season? Or how about currents? Or gooseberries? For myself, these are plants from my childhood that we used to pick and we would make jelly with them. These are easy plants to raise and grow because they are tough and you can use one cultivar which will set fruit on its own. The booklet also lays out how to raise raspberries. I love strawberries too but raspberries and blackberries are so much easier to raise and keep weeded. Raspberries do not need another variety and will need bees (or like in my case this spring, bumblebees, lot of bumblebees) to pollinate them. Kiwifruit can also be raised with great success in Minnesota. Vines are either male or female so a gardener will have to plant one of each in order to get fruit. You can plant one male for every six female plants if you are planning on raising quite a few kiwi plants. Raising kiwi vines is not for the light hearted (or the busy gardener) as they will need pruning in the winter and twice during the growing season to keep them under control. They grow very quickly so it important to make sure you have the time to keep these vines. Time is also not on the gardeners' side as kiwi are an investment because it takes about three to five years before you will get fruit. The vines are also very heavy.
Apple trees are covered in this booklet as well and there is a phenomenon mentioned in the book that is raised every year when gardeners call me to find out what happened with their apple trees. They will bear heavy one year and then the next year, they take it off and bear very little apples. This is called biennial bearing. If you remove some of the fruit on the year that the tree is bearing heavy, this will help alleviate this from happening. Sometimes, the tree will drop some of the apples in June, which is a natural occurrence but it may not drop as many as it should have. A cheerful assist from the gardener will keep the apple tree happy. You should ideally have something like 4 to 6 inches between apples on the tree.
This booklet also covers pears, blueberries, stone fruits and a long list of other resources at the end of the booklet for everyone to use. For more information on gardening, you can reach me at s.dejaeghere@me.com or to contact the Lyon County Master Gardeners, please call 532-8219. Contact any of the Lyon County Master Gardeners about becoming a Master Gardener. We will be signing folks up soon for the new classes.