Fruits of Our Planting Labor

I've been a bad blogger.  Every time I sat down to write a post it seemed like it was just the same things rehashed.  Kind of like Wash, Rinse, and Repeat.

My cousin, Judy, (Hi! Judy) sent me a message wanting to know if everything was all right because I wasn't posting anything.  So in honor of my cousin Judy, I will try my best to post regularly again.

We started planting fruit trees about a year after we bought the house.  Trees take time to grow so we wanted to get them in and growing right away.  

Below are the apples and pears that we have growing in the yard.

Golden Delicious 

Red Gravenstein

Gala

Comice Pear

Anjou Pear

Asian Pear (we have two varieties)

Paw Paw Tree

We soon realized that some trees would not grow in our yard because of the black walnut trees.  The peach, cherry, and apricot trees were dead within two years.  We replanted thinking that we must have done something wrong but they died again in two years.

There is no where in our yard that is far enough away from a black walnut tree to plant those types of trees.  Apples, pears, and Paw Paw have done well.  The Paw Paws  will need a few more years before they bear fruit but the trees are growing.

Last year we planted 5 blueberry bushes in the landscaping on the south side of the house.  We chose two varieties.  Three were a regular height bush and two were a short small compact bush called Jelly Bean.  Our intention is to have an edible landscape.

Jelly Bean was a prolific bearer this year.  Despite it's short stature it has large full size, and very tasty berries.

South side of house.  Jelly Bean bushes are behind bird bath.  The other three blue berry bushes are located under the window box.

FYI we do not spray or treat our fruit trees.  The fertilizer we use on EVERYTHING is Alaska Fish Fertilizer.  You can buy it at Walmart, Lowes, TSC, and Home Depot (my Home Dept doesn't carry it).  The best bargain is to buy it by the gallon.  It's stinky but all natural.

 We had several plum trees that were infected with Black Knot Fungus.  We cut down those trees and ground the stumps up.  To keep from spreading the disease we burned all the wood as fast as we could.  There was a period of windy weather that kept us from burning for about a week.

Photo from Gardening Know How

To fill in the spots where the plum trees were growing we decided to stick with apples and pears.  R wanted a Red Delicious and I wanted a Granny Smith for pies.  The third tree that we added is a Bosc pear tree.

Look for posts on Buckthorn shrub, Curbside Treasures, and downspout bling. 

The thorn of a Buckthorn........ouch!

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