Real Fruit Trees

We went to South Carolina this weekend for my niece's christening.  While there I was given 4 Yellow Plumb, 4 Burgundy Plumb, 3 Peach, 1 Quince, 3 Huckleberry Bushes, several Fig cuttings to root, and several white grape seeds by family and friends.  My intent was to go dig up some wild plumbs, but they had been removed/killed by the county.  So I asked around and a friend had plenty of excess plumb trees, the quince, and the white grape seeds.  The Huckleberries were growing wild behind his house. My brother had given my dad some peach trees that he did not have room to plant, so these were passed to me too.  Now all but the grape seeds are planted in my yard.  The Plumbs reproduce by root, so they may more than double by this time next year.  The grapes I will start in pots and set out after they have grown for a year.  All of these can be propagated from cuttings too, so as I need more or want to share the excess I can pass along the fruit trees too.

I also received cuttings from 3 rose bushes in red pink and white.

Ornamental fruit trees

What is the point of ornamental fruit trees?  Sure they are big and pretty when the bloom in the spring, but so are real fruit trees.  If you do not prune a fruit tree it will get just as big and bloom as heavily as an ornamental, but it will still produce fruit every other year.  If you do prune them then you will get less shade and a less beautiful tree, but you will get bigger fruit, more fruit, and fruit almost every year.  Did you know that an apple tree can produce 200-500 pounds of fruit when it reaches maturity?

So the problem you will have is too much fruit!  There are always family, friends, or charities that you can give the excess to.  If you like to BBQ, you can use the pruned wood for smoking meats.  So why do I see 50-100 ornamental fruit trees planted for each real fruit tree?

Garden Update 4-12-11

Three weeks ago I posted about building my garden beds.  Since then I have planted everything and almost everything is up.  Because of the rainy weather I ended up planting over the course of a week by taking advantage of breaks in the weather.  On a side note, if I was building a conventional tilled garden I would have lost 2 weeks due to the rain.

Peone is in bloom!!!

An overview of the garden

On the far left in the pots are Apple Seedlings that I started in February.  Then Bed 1 - has cool weather vegetables, Bed 2 - has beans corn and okra, and bed 3 - had white onions, red onions, 2 kinds of leeks, 3 kinds of garlic, and some shallots.

Herbs in bed 1 you may not be able to see everything, but there are: sage, thyme, lavender, lemon basil, lemon balm, parsley, cilantro, scallions, spicy globe bush basil, and genovese basil.  I also planted dill, ginger, and coriander in some of my flower beds.

Spinach

Radish

Mescalune - Lettuce - Asian Red Lettuce These are separate  plantings, but I'll just show 1 to save some pictures.

Arugula

Kale

Rainbow Chard

Beets

Peas Oregon and Alaska varieties

Bed 2

Okra

Green been, bush

Wade's Giant Indian Corn

Contender wax bean, bush (left) and Sweet Corn (right)

Bed 3

Garlic (left), White onions (right), Leeks (left behind the kalrobi), Red onions (right behind the kalrobi)

Bed 4

Tomatoes, Peppers, Squash, Cucumber, Zucchini, and lettuce

Lettuce

More Apple Seedlings - If anyone around Columbus would like a few let me know.  These are going to South Carolina to my brother and Dad.

Raised Bed

Strawberries!

Test Onion - Putting up a bloom/seed stalk.  If you plant this much onion then it will go to seed, or produce lots of green onions.

Asparagus

Wooden seed trays

Thornless Blackberries

Bed 5
There is not much to look at right now, but I have 6 types of melons planted plus 3 kinds of squash and some bushel basket gourds.

Melons

I have also added 2 varieties of grapes, raspberries, 3 more kinds of potatoes, wild flowers, flowers, artichokes, broccoli, 3 types of eggplant, and wild garlic.

I'll try to make future garden post a little shorter and lighter on pictures, but right now everything is still so small that you can not see anything in the overview pictures.