Chapter 30 Appendix III

A middle-aged German couple opposite my house has a single-family yard with a tall cherry tree. Every June and July is the harvest season, but the couple don’t pick the plentiful purple-red fruits. They only stick yellow flypaper on a few conspicuous open positions on the branches, which seems to be to protect the cherry tree. But they never bothered with those cherries. Every morning when I go out, I see the hostess cleaning the fallen cherries outside the yard, and many of them have been crushed by passers-by—the tree is too open, and a large part of it sticks out of the yard.You can ignore the ones that fall in your own yard and let them become fertilizer for trees and grass, but you can't ignore the ones that fall outside.As a result, the ground under the shade of trees outside the courtyard was dyed purple by cherry juice during that period of time, and the cherry fruits that fell all over the ground on time the next morning were really spectacular.

I'm not surprised why the couple didn't eat cherries, or sold them: there are many apple trees, prune trees, and apricot trees in the back of the mountain. Nutrition.Farmers in these businesses only enjoy the long-term pleasure of planting, not the short-term pleasure of harvesting. But I wondered what kind of cherry it was—I had picked up fruit from that tree: the cherries were large, juicy, and, very sweet, with small pits.One morning I finally got the chance to ask the hostess who was sweeping the floor and she told me it was "Rainier" and that the wild cherry trees I often see near subway stations are "Bing", although the fruit is also beautiful, but very sour.

Late-maturing Rainier, a variety bred in Washington State, was also introduced to China in the mid-1980s, mainly distributed in Yantai and Dalian.The fruit trees are strong and vigorous, with a semi-open posture, and the young trees grow upright, and gradually branch and expand as the tree age increases, with thick branches and lush leaves.The annual branches are dark brown, the perennial branches are reddish brown, and the lenticels of the large branches are transversely cracked, large and sparse.Late maturing and high yield, the fruit color is bright, the ripe fruit is purplish red, resistant to storage and transportation, cracking fruit, and cold resistance.

The annual average temperature in Liberty City is above 12 degrees Celsius. It is not too hot in summer. Although there is snow in winter, it is not too cold and there is no strong wind. The rainfall in summer is moderate.The soil in the area from Cold Mountain to Gardener's Trail is fertile and deep, with good ventilation, and the soil is naturally slightly acidic. Therefore, it has the best conditions for cultivating late-maturing Rainier (laughs). In fact, the cultivation of late-ripening Rainier is quite troublesome: from the very beginning of the garden (fortunately, John Baines's garden is ready-made. At least, there are grass walls for wind protection and tall plane trees, as well as complete Advanced irrigation system), grafting (grafting alone has six methods with different pros and cons to choose from—however, I believe the host of the reception will invite the best gardener in Liberty City), to pollination, pruning, fertilization, pest control? Every link needs careful attention.

From this point of view, those Rainier plants outside the kitchen door, as one of John's bragging capital, really deserved their name.