Wednesday, February 3, 2010

A Fruitful Day

Today was the day to plant my new fruit trees! We've had fairly dry weather for the last week so the soil was dry enough for digging. My bare root fruit trees arrived via UPS last week when it was still a bit too wet to dig. But one week sitting in the shadiest and coolest area outside shouldn't have done them any harm.

There's a corner of my garden where I first tried growing vegetables but the soil is just not good enough for them. The native soil in this area is extremely gritty and fast draining which means that it doesn't hold on to the nutrients and water. I had made a number of attempts to improve the soil in this area by digging in compost, old potting soil, peat moss and natural fertilizers. Perhaps if I had spent another decade adding lots and lots of additional organic material to the soil it might have brought the stuff around. But I didn't have the patience for that and anyway I wanted more room and a space that was easier to work in.  The new veggie garden got built and this corner was left to rest for a year and a half while I tried to figure out how best to use it.  Last fall I had the brilliant idea of trying fruit trees here. 

All the goodies that I had previously dug into the soil had the beneficial effect of making it easier to dig in that area today. I didn't dig up the entire area again, I just dug holes large enough for the plants. The only thing that I added to the soil that went back into the planting holes was a little bit of bone meal. All but one of the plants were planted in gopher baskets. I then scattered a small amount of a slow release granular organic fertilizer made from turkey manure over the top of the soil and then covered each planting area generously with home made well aged compost. There's supposed to be another storm coming through this weekend which should help to settle the trees in.

Here's what got planted:

Mulberry bush, Morus nigra

Black mulberries are an incredible taste treat. The berries look a lot like black berries, although there are red and white varieties of mulberries (M. rubra and M. alba). The black mulberries are the tastiest, with the most complex and musky flavor. The white and red mulberries tend to be simply sweet without much else to make them interesting. The main advantage that red and white mulberries have over the black varieties is that they are hardier. The black mulberries are Mediterranean natives and don't tolerate as much cold. I had a black mulberry tree in my previous garden and I miss that fruit more than any other.

Panache fig

Figs are one of my favorite fruits also. It pains me to have to buy them. The Panache fig is a green and yellow striped fig with strawberry red pulp. It's delicious and impossible to find in stores or even farmer's markets. I had a tree 2 gardens ago that produced wonderful fruit. I can't wait to try this variety again.

Violette De Bordeaux (Negronne) fig

I was rather surprised when I pulled this little tree out of the package, it's only about a foot tall and as thick as a pencil. This is a new variety of fig for me. The fruit is supposed to be very much like the Mission variety which is a very popular variety here in California. My mother has a huge Mission fig tree in her back yard, it's been there since I was very young, a long time. I have very fond memories of eating those figs straight off the tree. The Mission fig is a very vigorous and huge tree, not suitable for my garden. Since the Violette De Bordeaux is supposed to bear fruit that is very similar to the Mission, but is a smaller tree that also needs less heat I decided to give it a try. I hope this little baby takes off...

Sweet pomegranate

I chose this variety of pomegranate because it is both a low chill variety and it needs less heat to ripen. The fruit is sweeter than the "Wonderful" variety which is the most common commercial variety. It's also a smaller growing tree than most pomegranates. All those factors seemed to make it a good candidate for my garden. The proof will be in the fruit...

In closing, here's another shot of my incredibly fruitful Meyer lemon tree. It seems like I'm constantly picking and using lemons, but it seems I've hardly made a dent.

20 comments:

  1. Good luck with those fruit trees Michelle, you've been very busy!

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  2. I hope your trees love their now home. I so want to plant fruit trees (mostly apple and peach). I can't wait to get to a new home to add fruit. The funny thing is that I thought our big Norway maples belonged to the town and were on their property (they own about 10' in along the road), but a recent survey showed they are on my land and I could have cut them down and planted fruit trees. Ah well too late now.

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  3. What an incredible assortment of fruit trees. That was a great idea for the corner of your garden and probably a perfect soil makeup for your trees. I'm so glad to hear how much you like mulberries, we have a couple 3 year old trees that I hope will someday produce for us. I have never had a mulberry and am excited to try them...in the next decade or so.:)

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  4. That is a fun selection of new fruit plantings. The Meyer lemon tree is a real beauty. I am afraid it would be sad in my cool and damp growing environment.

    It's always amusing to plant "sticks and twigs" of bare root stock and have them spring forth with life to go on to be bushes and trees. I planted a new raspberry patch last year - 3/4ths of the bareroot stock did great - the other 1/4 did not even break dormancy. I am replacing the ones that did not make it this spring. I expect they will be arriving anytime now and I will have an excuse to go play in the dirt to get them planted.

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  5. Figs are my all-time favorite! Mulberries - never tasted one. How do they taste? Can it be grown in pots?
    Wow! Your Meyer's Lemon looks awesome. I've been nagging my local nurseries for it for quite long but they shake their heads whenever I pronounce it. LOL!

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  6. Jan, thanks, I do hope these grow, I've really missed having home grown fruit.

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    Daphne, How frustrating to have had a situation that you could have fixed but didn't know it!. I'm so excited to be planting fruit trees! I planted a few at our last home but we weren't there long enough to see them produce very much. At least I got to enjoy fruit from trees that had been planted by a previous owner. The only fruit tree that was established at this house already is the Meyer lemon.

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    Mr. H., I chose the trees based on what I thought would do well in this soil and climate and it turns out that they are all particular favorites! Let's hope that neither of us has to wait a decade to taste fresh mulberries.

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    kitsapFG, I bet your berries love your climate whereas mine seem to struggle along. Ah well, none of us can grow everything we would like to.

    It does take a lot of faith to stick a rooted twig in the ground and expect a tree to grow! I've got my fingers crossed.

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    Chandramouli, black mulberries taste a lot like blackberries but have a muskier flavor. They tend to be very large and vigorous trees, probably not suitable for containers. Good luck in your Meyer lemon search, keep nagging!

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  7. I'll be watching your pomegranite carefully -- I'd love one but the woman at Berkeley Hort told me they just don't recommend them for this area -- it's either not chilly enough or too cold. And the black mulberry sounds interesting. There's a red one at the elementary school down the street, but they're so sweet they make my fillings ache.

    Love your Meyer. I'm going to have to work on shaping mine with pruning -- it's all horizontal right now.

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  8. WOW what wonderful fruit trees you're planting! I have brown turkey and white kadota fig trees and they do really well here. The panache fig sounds wonderful.

    And...peppers...one of these days I'll do a post about the agony of growing peppers where I live. I have a huge problem with mites and aphids. The mites are horrid as they destroy the newly forming leaves and the plants can't flower so I don't get many peppers. I've agressively tried just about everything OMRI except the spinosad which I bought this week. I keep planting more and keep trying and one day I hope to figure out how to grow them successfully!

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  9. Stefaneener, I figured I had the same problem with pomegranates as you so it will be interesting to see how this one does. I think you would like the black mulberries far more than the red ones, everyone I know who has tried both says the black are much better, they have enough acidity to balance the sweetness.

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    Jane, have you tried any of the chinense varieties of peppers? They are native to more tropical climates. The problem with them is that most of them are blazing hot and there aren't any large fruited ones that I know of. I've had terrible problems with aphids on peppers also but I seem to have far fewer problems now that I've got lots more flowers to attract the beneficial bugs that feed on them.

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  10. I'm so envious. Unfortunately, my new fruit trees this year will most likely only consist of a couple of potted citrus and fig trees. I'm just not ready to commit to this house for the long term yet. I can't imagine planting beautiful fruit trees only to move right when they start to fruit heavily.

    Your meyer lemon tree looks fabulous. My tree has more blooms and tiny lemons now than it's ever had. Hopefully, I will get more than 9 lemons this year!

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  11. What a nice selection of fruit! The meyer looks fantastic too, I love citrus. I have a 'Honey Crisp' apple tree on order that I hope comes in this spring. It is a dwarf tree of course for my tiny yard... I need space :-)

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  12. You'll have a wonderful fruit garden when these trees grow. I agree about the black mulberry - much tastier than red or white. I'm looking forward to seeing all these when they've taken root.
    I really envy you the lemon tree - mine is struggling a bit in its first full year in the ground rather than a pot.

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  13. Thomas, hold off on the envy until we see if the trees grow. :) I'm definitely committed to this house and garden so it's full speed ahead. It was disappointing to plant fruit trees at the last house and then move away. You are definitely doing well by your Meyer lemon, I'm looking forward to seeing your next harvest.

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  14. Dan, I would love to grow apples but I'm not sure that they would do well here, most of them need more winter chill than we get here and the low chill varieties that I'm familiar with aren't interesting to me.

    Even if I had a huge space for fruit trees I would still plant dwarf varieties, they're so much easier to care for and harvest from. I'm planning on keeping my trees small by summer pruning them.

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  15. chaiselongue, I've had the same experience with citrus trees, they seem to spend the first year or so in the ground growing roots and then they take off. I hope those trees grow, it's such difficult soil in that area. If they do well then I'm planting more next year!

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  16. Hi Michelle, thank you so much for finding the chrysanthemum tea plant! I can't believe that after 2 years of searching, it took only 12 hours to find with the help of my blogging friends!

    I'll have to send you some tea in the fall!

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  17. Hi Thomas, I'm so glad that worked out for you. I've never tried chrysanthemum tea before so I'm looking forward to following your tea growing adventure and trying some!

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  18. Michelle: What great trees! I'm planting too right now, and it's so exciting to imagine all of these bare little babies lush and full of fruit.

    I just got some black mulberry "Noir de Spain" cuttings today at our CRFG scion wood exchange. I hope I can get them go grow.

    I wouldn't cut apples out of the picture. A lot of research shows that many of them need less chill hours that previously considered. You might want to look at Kuffel Creek's list (http://www.kuffelcreek.com/applelist.htm). He's revolutionized apple growing down here in Southern California, and I've started several of his suggestions. Some of my CRFG friends have had great success with his favorites as well.

    I'll be posting about my trees in the next couple of days, and we can compare notes!

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  19. I can only 'try' to imagine what it's like to be able to have these kinds of fruit trees! I would so love your climate...right now we're buried under 2 feet of snow!

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  20. That Meyer Lemon is taunting me. I love Mulberries and think they are an underused fruit. It seems that the birds never quite get them all.

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