A Fruitful Day

After we moved here in the fall of 2008, we got a catalog from Stark Bros. Nursery.  We pored over it and found some fruit trees: two apples (necessary for cross-pollination), a peach, a nectarine, an apricot, a cherry, a prune plum, a persimmon, and a fig.  We lost the first fig in less than a year, and they replaced it.  After they one-year guarantee was up, one of the apples died, as did the cherry.  We bought a second apple tree from another catalog, and it died, too.  The others are doing fine, with lots of attention from Herb, although we have yet to get our first piece of fruit.

I felt responsible for suggesting this catalog and the subsequent failure of some of the trees.  So when I saw an ad in the paper for a LOCAL nursery that specializes in fruit trees, I suggested an outing there.

So we went to Varnell Nursery, and we came home loaded with fruit trees!
 

On the ground next to the truck are two more blueberries to replace some that died and two muscadine grapes, which we'd never gotten around to purchasing.

In the truck are a Pink Lady apple (a variety from Australia that tolerates hot summers and few winter chill hours), two new cherries (one for eating and one for pies), and a red maple for the animals.

The helpful man at the nursery is VERY nice to his animals.  He plants fruit trees just for them.  I figure rotting fruit is the last thing Angel and Brandy need to be eating or they will colic.  However, all the animals would love a shade tree in the Home Pasture.  A red maple grows 3-4' a year and will reach 50' high and 40' wide.  So the animals need to be a little bit patient, but in about 3 years' time they should be able to enjoy some nice shade.

While Herb went on a garden errand, I got some planting done.  Lots and lots of peas, some more bok choy, some beets, and some carrots.  You can't see anything, because I covered it all up to keep Rascal--the rascally barn cat--from using my freshly planted beds as a potty box.  Grrr!  That's what she did with my first batch of peas and bok choy, resulting in some very random placement of the few plants that did come up!

We watered the new arrivals well.  Here are the huge new blueberry bushes, already in full bloom--and rivaling the ones that were planted two years ago!

Then Herb arrived home from his errand with a trailer load of Black Gold.  This is a great medium for raised beds--just add some compost and off you go!  We used solid, half concrete blocks to deepen some of our older beds, and now they need more soil so I can plant.

You can't see it in this picture because it's serving as a perch for the camera, but Herb built me a potato condo earlier this week.  It's waiting for some soil, and then it will be ready for the seed potatoes when they arrive next month.

Herb and Kara had to rush off for a meeting and class, respectively, at Covenant College.  I gathered up all my equipment, including my handy little garden scooter, and headed back to the house.

Yes, indeed, it was a fruitful day--one that has just lengthened our To Do list:

• shovel Black Gold into wheelbarrow, then into garden beds
• plant everything that's waiting on some soil
• dig holes for 5 trees and plant them
• dig holes for 2 grapes and plant them
• put the blueberries in the raised blueberry bed
• and then get back to the original To Do list!