Edibles: Growing these tree fruits here is the pits

Last week's column began an assessment of the odds for success growing tree fruits around Puget Sound. Italian prune rated "best bet" status, followed by apples, pears and other plums. That left the more problem-prone cherries, peaches and apricots for consideration this week.

Cherries

Among the WSU Extension bulletins devoted to the management of home orchards, one stands out: "Why Cherry Trees Die." There are no similarly titled bulletins for apples, pears and plums. Even peaches and apricots, arguably much harder to grow than cherries, escape such treatment.

Readers of "Why Cherry Trees Die" learn what funguses, bacteria, viruses and mycoplasmas can do in these trees. And if the risk of disease isn't sufficient to deter home growers, there are other problems that might, including fruit cracking and the attractiveness of the crop to birds.

Risks and problems notwithstanding, many home orchardists manage to grow cherries. The recently introduced Gisela dwarfing rootstock offers them a real advantage -- trees small enough to net against marauding birds.

And now growers can choose from several high-quality, self-fertile sweet varieties like Sweetheart and Lapins. All commonly available tart or pie cherries are self-fertile. For orchardists short of space, that means one small tree is all that's needed for a crop.

Of the two types, tart or pie cherries are easier to grow. They're less susceptible to disease and cracking than sweet cherries and bloom late enough to avoid frost damage. Recently the Geneva Station in New York introduced a highly regarded tart variety -- Surefire. And there's nothing wrong with Montmorency, the classic tart cherry for our area. Then there's Balaton, a new introduction from Eastern Europe. Retired WSU tree fruit specialist Bob Norton recommends this one, if you can find it.

Peaches

Though I prize peaches above most other fruits, I don't grow them in my home orchard. My reasons can be summed up in two words: disease and flavor.

To brown rot and the other more occasional diseases that plague stone fruits west of the Cascades, we have to add leaf curl, a disease that will find peach trees in our area and kill them if it's not controlled. Protective sprays go on in our winter rainy season, which means they're often reapplied after rain washes them off.

There are leaf curl-resistant varieties, the best-known of which is Frost. Even with resistance, these trees need spraying or other protection during the rainy season during their first two or three years in the ground.

Then there's the issue of flavor. For some, including me, Frost and Q 1-8 don't tickle the taste buds. Norton says Avalon Pride, another curl-resistant variety, is reputed to have good flavor. He's growing it in his Vashon Island orchard. Once his trees crop, I'll try to talk him out of a few samples. I'd grow a curl-resistant variety with flavor that I liked.

Apricots

Does the fact that apricots typically bloom in early March suggest a problem in our area? Most of us are still getting frost that time of year, and that doesn't offer much assurance of a fruit crop. Then there's the full gamut of stone fruit diseases to contend with.

If you have a warm, sheltered microclimate and are determined to try, the variety with the best track record is Puget Gold. I know honest people who say they harvest most years.