Monday, June 29, 2009

Fruit Trees

I was so lucky to find a house that was well looked after, both inside and outside. Although the house needed some upgrading it has "good bones". And the same applies to the outside. I moved in with two established green houses, a neat and tidy yard and quite a few fruit trees. I added outside veggie and flower gardens with plans for more. My goal is to plant a green type fence for privacy made up of small trees, roses, lilacs and other flowering trees and plants. And making my veggie garden big enough to grow corn and beans. My ultimate dream would be to grow enough wheat to make my own flour but that's a long way off.

But, today I want to show off the fruit trees.

The tree king in our back yard is the cherry tree. It was well pruned in the past and is basically disease and pest free, but it's a fight between me and the crows to see who gets the fruit first. Unfortunately this past week we had some torrential rain storms and some of the cherries split, but the chickens love them. Last year I made about 8 jars of jam and froze tons. It was so nice to have almost "free" cherry deserts like pie, crumble, cakes and muffins during winter.


Every king needs a queen and in my backyard the queens are the three plum trees. Two Italian purple plums and one yellow plum. Last year I made plum jam, plum chutney and again froze a bunch which I used in desserts throughout winter. Of course we ate lots of them too.



There are three hazelnut trees which bears love. The year before we moved in the bears broke many of the limbs which meant no nuts but this year I see a fair amount of fruit so...again it will be a battle with the bears, chipmunks, and the crows to see who gets to eat these tasty little morsels.

I think this is a walnut tree and for the first time it has fruit, I counted about 10 walnuts, maybe these are pecans??? We will have to wait and see.
And two apple trees..my least favorite and the most problematic. Lots of fruit which is full of worms...the bears, chickens, and any other critter is very welcome to them.
But honestly, I need to find out how to care for them without using any pesticides and if anyone has any information please let me know.
In the meantime I'm patiently waiting for the cherries..
Margaret

5 comments:

Betty said...

I is nice that you have so many fruit trees. I like the nut tree with the little lady bug on the leaf. Let us know what kind it turn out to be.

Anonymous said...

Nice trees!

I've had three people ask me in the last week or so if there are any knowledgable tree experts/pruners in the area. I haven't done the research to know much, but you could talk to John and Joanne at Wildwood Garden Services (I think they're on your street); if they don't know how to help, they probably know someone who does.

And don't forget that if you have more fruit than you know how to deal with, you can call the Fruit Tree Project in.

Margaret said...

Yes, they are just a few doors down. I see them almost every day when I'm out walking my dog. I'll talk to them about the apple trees. Of course I forgot to write about the wonderful pear tree we have. Last year I posted free pears on freecycle and they were taken very quickly. I will have to keep the tree project in mind this year, especially for the apples and the pears.

Scrappy quilter said...

Oh wow, I wish I could have all those fruit trees in our yard. I have a couple apple trees and a cherry tree. Someday!!!

SuburbanGardener said...

Very cool. Hope you get many bushels of cherries. That sounds awesome!!!
SG