On 3/7/2015 12:37 PM, Derald wrote:
George Shirley wrote:

Friend in Louisiana had domestic muscadines, both the purple and the
green ones. They were also tasty fresh. Never understood the guy, had
four or five pear trees, muscadines growing on the hurricane fence, he
never did anything with them.
Gee, that could be me. To the rear of the hovel is an "improved"
muscadine which, IIRC, was installed about 30-35 years ago. Wife and I
have no interest in the fruit, and because the vine is in an area we're
allowing to naturalize, it doesn't get much attention. I water it
during fruiting season, though: Blue jays and raccoons are
extraordinarily fond of the fruit. Better that than the tomatoes and
bell peppers. If I can beat the beasts to the punch, I sometimes pick a
few to deliver to a neighbor who eats them fresh and that's about it.

We would go and pick over a hundred lbs of
pears for canning, offer him jars of the stuff, turned it down. I miss
his trees and vines since we moved back to Texas. We had lots of free
picking spots with folks who had inherited fruit trees, etc. and never
did anything with them. One friend cut down four very nice pear trees
because they were littering her yard. What a waste.
LOL: I can see myself removing pear trees either to avoid mowing
around them or to replace them with native trees.

You're just sick Derald. G I can see the native pines beyond the fence
line and we loved our oak trees in Louisiana. Had a cherrybark oak in
the backyard that was nine feet in radius at four feet above the ground
and about sixty feet tall. Front yard tree was a white oak, just a bit
smaller than the cherrybark. Hurricane Rita knocked the white oak over.
Came home after the hurricane and the city had cut it up to get it out
of the street. Sat out their morning the tree, drinking a cup of dark
roast coffee, counted 401 growth lines on that tree. Should have saved a
cut of just for fun.

I truly prefer things that are planted to be used, fruit trees, berries,
etc. Should have bought a bunch of land when I was young and healthy and
put in all the fruit trees I wanted. Of course I didn't have the money
back then to do that. It's amazing how much money you can save when your
kids leave home. Had to move twice and they still found us.

I'm thinking of rebuilding the fence around the backyard and put in a
trellis over the back gate and maybe put a Doyle thornless blackberry on
that. Would look nice and give us lots of blackberries. We will see.