Golden Raspberries
As our Golden Raspberries begin to ripen, I thought I'd rework a photo I took about three years ago. What I like about this capture is it depicts several stages of fruit development in the same image. The ripest berry has mostly separated from the cluster and is about to fall, there are some ripening fruits, a green unripe berry and also a flower which has just lost its petals. I think this would look great as a big metal print in the waiting area of your restaurant.
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Loquat Flower Spike
From November of 2012, this Loquat peduncle and inflorescence was all budded up and ready to bust out the blooms. I love that the flower spike itself has a tree-like form, from the thick trunky base of the peduncle to the limbs of the florets. This tree was about six years old at the time of the photo, one of a clump of three I started using seeds saved from the yummiest specimens I tried during a *CRFG GoldenGate tasting of "found fruit" harvested off local Bay area Loquat trees. I keep the threesome pruned to around an eight foot shared canopy. This was the second year one had flowered, and the first year of set fruit!
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Gaertner Grapes
Only about 65% of the berries got pollinated, but our Gaertner Grapes have produced a first crop of about a dozen little bunches after quite a few years in the ground. To my simple palette I thought the pulp had a complex, almost red wine aroma with the slightest hint of musk and concord flavor. The skins had a grassy aftertaste. Overall quite yummy.
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Loquats
Our best cluster of Loquats this year had 20 Fruit ! The branch is so heavily laden that it is bending out and down, presenting goodies like a banana with multiple hands on a bunch. Two of our three seedling trees I've planted together in one hole are now bearing after seven years in the ground. Last year we only got a few fruit per bunch, I think because it flowered during a cold spell and the bees were not out. This year when it flowered my neighbors bees were busy doing their thing, all the bunches have lots of fruit but none have quite as many as this massive display. Size-wise they are as big as small apricots, large for a from-seed tree but smaller than most grafted named cultivars.
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Stella Cherries
Stella !!! Two years ago the neighborhood birdies went nom, nom, nom on our little cherry tree and left us with nothing but a dozen or so hanging pits. Last year I netted the tree as soon as the fruits began to ripen and we picked more than a quart of yummy fruit over the span of two weeks. I've grafted several varieties onto our Stella Cherry to spice up future harvests. Van, Rainier, Black Republican and Early Purple Guigne all came from cuttings obtained at the CRFG Scion Exchange held each January.
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White Sapote Flower
Such a precocious fruit variety the Vernon White Sapote is! This scion was grafted onto my several years old seedling tree in March 2013, the evening after Tom Addison spoke to our Golden Gate CRFG group and by August it began blooming and setting fruit. It has continued to grow vigorously and is always covered with clusters of flower buds. Tom told us these trees do everything in fives; observe the five powder puff stamens of pollen that have already transferred a few grains to the pistil. Thanks to Ashok Tambwekar for the cuttings!
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Australian Fingerlimes
Our little Australian Fingerlime tree was heavily loaded with fruit this year (2014). In this photo they are just starting to ripen and fall. I've pruned it to a roughly cylindrical form, like a citrus Christmas tree about seven feet high and four feet in diameter at the base. Several branches like this one produced a big yield, around 25 pounds of limes in one season. The thorns are plentiful and painfully sharp, we don't dare try to actually pick fruit but instead gather ripe fingerlimes from the ground around the tree after they've fully ripened and naturally fallen. Similar to traditional Limes in taste but not as sharp and sour plus a hint of floral aroma or tropical after taste. Under-ripe fruit can have a minor turpentine note. The caviar like form and pop-rock bursting sensation is also part of the pleasure and fun.
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Blueberry Daydreams
Our young Blueberry bush was loaded with developing clusters this year and I grabbed this shot of the still unripe harvest while daydreaming of the moment a few weeks forward that we got to begin sampling this luscious fruit crop. I converted the original full color image capture to monochrome using SilverEfxPro2 from the Google Nik Collection of Photoshop plug-ins. Hang this somewhere you wish there was a window. Use my image as a starting point, a visual mantra if you will, as you set your mind's eye free to explore the universe beyond confining walls.
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