plant an orchard

One priority for me is to be able to eat fresh fruit year round, as far as practical. So it is important for me to know when my fruit is available.

Also, my other grape vine (an unidentified red, seeded grape) had its last fruit picked just at the time of the fruit show.

Also, my Issiah kiwi is now ripe, and I have been eating some for at least a few weeks now.

I met someone who was trying to grow figs in pots. She said that they have lost their vigor, and she wanted to give them to a good home.

By the time I paid for a trailer rental, a meal and gas money, my “free” trees cost about $40, so I am nit sure that I couldn’t have done better buying them at a nursery.

One is labeled “Oregon Prolific.” The donor thinks the other tree may be the same.

Now I need to opick a site and dig a big hole!

I really enjoyed the tast of the Asian Pear Ping Ling Li.
I brought home some Red Cascade Pears which tasted okay.
Doyenne de Sammar had a nice taste.

I met someone who needed a good home for two fig trees.

Also, heard someone say that Lorette’s method may be good for pears in this climate.

Not sure about the trees, either apples, plums, cherries or apricots.

I will be grafting my own (or having custom grafts done for me.)

So far I know the following are desirable apple varieties:

Holstein- This one is just so ugly, I think I can plant it near the street, and people won’t steal fruit. (I am not so worried about losing fruit, as I am about damage to the tree.)

Spokane Beauty- This is just the prettiest apple I have seen. It is huge, and though I consider growing huge fruit a “guy thing.” I like this one.

Liberty and Freedom- Both are very disease resistant.

Spring 2006 – a peach, a nectarine, 3 apple trees! I know I’m not a farmer by any sense of the real word, but I FEEL like one, walking among my baby semi-drawf fruit trees. It’ll be a few more years before I start getting a harvest, weather and bugs willing, but it is wonderful just being able to see them there on our little bit of acreage. I like to water and pamper and just wander around them. I like to see the bees in the one apple tree (a “rescue”) that had a few flowers this year. I’ve been wanting to do this nearly all of my adult life, and finally, finally, I’ve done it!

I planted saplings about a year ago… planted two rows of trees along the edge of the “front 40”, perpendicular to the main road… I am waiting (almost patiently) for them to grow. My dream, in addition to the fruit, is to walk between the trees in late Spring with the flower petals wafting down and then sit with my back against a fragrant trunk and read a great book… In my daydreams I always seem to forget about the bees! Ha!

I planted two each of apples, pears, nectarines, peaches, plums, cherries, and apricots. Oooohhhh, I can hardly wait!

First I need a house. Or a friend who wants an orchard. Or a public service project. But really I want my own house to have an orchard… this goal might take a while.