Russian olives, olives, and wild dreams

Foliage of  the Russian Olive

Russian olive tree from my local nursery

I recently bought a Russian Olive (Elaeagnus angustifolia) from my local nursery, Little Tree. I have been looking for a slightly shrubby plant that would provide some interesting foliage and beautiful smell in my backyard. I had read on a few websites that it does well in containers and so I'm going to try this out for the next couple years. I know that in many US states Russian olive is considered an invasive species, but I have seen exceedingly few Russian Olives in the wild here in central Saskatchewan and so I think growing here they are near the limit of their possible range which hopefully will limit their invasiveness. This seems to be borne out by this thesis paper which indicates Saskatoon and Warman are outside of the suitable zone for rampant Russian olive naturalization.

Russian olive environmental suitability according to research
by  Lianna Collette

Regardless it is a beautiful tree, and an excellent fill in for my burning desire to try to grow a real olive tree in Saskatchewan. Olives (Olea europaea) are not related to Russian olives at all. I have not been able to find any information on anyone being crazy enough to try growing olives in Western Canada online. Information from Oregonolives.com indicates that they are getting successful harvests of olives from around 2350 degree growing days at 10C (athough this is fewer GDD than they normally get). In Saskatoon we can expect around 1200, so right off the bat this doesn't seem like it's going to end well. Research at the University of Saskatchewan has shown that growing plants like watermelon in high poly tunnels can increase the number of GDD's a plant receives from 1200 to 1900 GDD. I'm hopeful that given enough love and attention and a custom microclimate near buildings it may be possible. Obviously because these would be growing in an area many zones colder than they could possibly survive the olives would be brought into an above zero area for winter (more on that later).

Arbequina olives

According to Oregon Olives they have found the most cold hardy olives to be the Frantoio variety. The Saturna Olive Consortium located on Saturna Island in BC suggests Frantoio, Calletier, or Taggiasca mainly on the basis of the fact that they are self-fertile (though they are also hardy enough to survive in coastal BC). I had previously also heard a lot about the cold hardiness of Arbequina, but at this point I have not found a way to get my hands on any of these varieties as seeds will not grow true, so I suppose beggers can't be choosers. Hopefully by next year I will have more to report.

Strawberries & Figs

I started a quick little project today. I took some June-bearing strawberries from my parents' farm and put them in some planters. Hopefully they will transplant without too much shock. There was a grand total of 2 strawberries already growing on them, so I'm hoping their most productive days are still ahead.  June-bearing strawberries only yield a single batch of fruit and then stop producing for the remainder of the summer. As an alternative there are also ever-bearing strawberries. These produce a small trickle of fruit all summer long. I have heard a lot of complaints about the productivity of this type, so although I would like strawberries all summer long I'll stick with the free ones I've got.

The U of S's recommendation variety when it comes to June-bearing strawberries this year is Cavendish. At their plant sale this spring I bought a few Kent to plant at the farm. This blog seems to have quite a good experience with them, and from the sounds of it Cavendish has quite a long productive season so that may be a purchase for next spring.

In other news my Chicago Fig from T & T seeds continues to finally sprout. The root bundle had a very tenous sprout when I recieved it in the mail, however it quickly broke off when I unpackaged it. I had given up all hope when last week it finally sprang into life again. I had first seen figs last year on sale at Super Value (President's Choice), but I had dismissed it as yet another item that was on sale in Saskatchewan, but couldn't survive outside a small area in Niagara or Vancouver. But it turns out with a little winter love and care they can be grown here. More on that in a few months I guess!

Grape variety update

It's been a while since I posted so I'l try to update a few things.

This is the south facing side of my garage in the back alley. Unfortunately I don't have any "before" pictures, but before I started this project it was just weeds back here. This is now the second summer of the project and it's progressing very nicely. There are currently four grapes planted in the ground as well as two grapes in pots. The garden planter boxes are also new to this year. They are planted with zucchini on either end (one yellow and one green). There are also cucumbers, eggplant, dill, green onions, basil,rosemary, parsley, borage and a ton of beets packed in there.

Going from left to right in the picture above, the grapes are Marechel Foch, Severnji, Frontenac, F130, Marechel Foch, and Fredonia. I had previously written about Severji, which is an interspecific hybrid of european and amurensis grapes. It was very delayed in budding out this spring and so I took it for dead. Everything I had read stated that the amurensis genes would cause early bud break, but it did not occur for me, or at least not this year. Because I thought it was dead I dug it up, but put it in a pot to hedge my bets. In either case it died back to very close to its base and so it hasn't set any fruit this year, not that I expected much.

F-130 grape from Boughen Nurseries

The F130 and Fredonia grapes were new this year. I bought them from Boughen Nurseries in Manitoba. I haven't been able to find any information on the background of F-130, which normally would bug me so much I wouldn't even be willing to try it! They budded out pretty slowly, and I definitely wouldn't call their growth thus far vigorous, but it's early.

Fredonia grape from Boughen Nurseries

Fredonia from what I understand, is also called "Early Concord". It is the result of a cross of labrusca and riparia grapes, and in theory has some of the same taste as concord grapes.

The only information I have been able to find on F-130 is that it has "good flavour" and "produces larger clusters than beta or valiant". Based on that I'm hopeful!

Marechel Foch grape growing in a 10 gallon pot

This spring I also bought two Foch grapes from the local Home Depot. It was both exciting and frustrating to see. It was exciting for me to see this variety available locally as it saved me the difficulty of hunting it down online, however I also knew that most people would not know what they were going to be getting into, and a lot of plants were going to die!

Foch is a French hybrid grape which is the result of a cross between a European grape (Goldriesling) and a rupestris-riparia hybrid. In theory it is hardy down to at least -32C, however I don't see it being close to hardy enough to survive outdoors in Saskatchewan, at least not most winters. Because of my doubts I have planted one Foch in the ground and will keep the other in a pot which will over-winter in a room that's kept at about 5C. The plant in the container is doing significantly better than the buried vine, however the plants also appeared to be infected with some sort of virus when I bought them, so it may be a difference of infection levels more than anything.