GardenBanter.co.uk - The orchard has landed ...

"Terry Coombs" wrote in
:

I finished planting trees yesterday , our orchard now consists of :
2 pear trees , Anjou and Bartlett
2 apple trees , red del and honeycrisp
1 red haven peach tree
3 cherries , a bing , a black tartarian and a northstar pie cherry
There are also at LEAST 16 wild muscadine vines in the area cleared
for
the orchard . I will be training some of them to a one-wire trellis
system , not sure what to do about the rest . Along with the greatly
increased garden space for this year and the machine shop I'm going to
be one busy "Gentleman Farmer" .

I have:
1 old pie cherry tree,
2 large sweet cherry trees and one small one
1 Stark Collonade apple tree that is 5 years old and STILL hasn't borne any
fruit
1 small Liberty apple.
2 little Pixie Crunch apples that get cedar rust every year
1 plum tree
1 half dead peach tree
1 totally dead sweet cherry that I'll probably have to get the electric
company to disconnect the power to the next door house, which we rent out,
because the tree is too involved with the power lines

My propensity to kill fruit trees does have one saving grace. I have a
great supply of cooking wood. I use relatively little store bought
charcoal. My sister also has an acre yard with quite a few shagbark
hickories. The bark is spectacular for cooking over.

Then, just today, I planted a Goldrush apple to replace the one that didn't
survive last Summer's heat and drought (St. Louis). This is a photo from a
couple of years ago.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/15522299@N08/6969807006/

I also have a lot of blackberries and raspberries, as well as strawberries.
I also have a Concord grape vine that makes little sour grapes. Why the
grapes never achieve even marble size, or aren't at all sweet is a mystery.

For well over 20 years I've been trying to become good at edible gardening,
and it took me about 20. It's been ninety-something percent hard work,
because I had way more drive than talent.

--
--Bryan Simmons
"The 1960's called. They want their recipe back."
--Steve Wertz in rec.food.cooking 4-20-2009