Showing posts with label fruit trees. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fruit trees. Show all posts

03 August, 2010

First Year for Plums, Peaches at the Box House

You don't need a big yard out in the country to grow fruit. There are many fine dwarf specimens out there they don't get very tall. We have several fruit trees planted round the yard: three cherries, two antique apples, a peach, a pear, and a plum. Some are self-fertile, some cross-pollinate with other trees in my yard or my neighbors'; as for my pear, I hope there is another pear tree in the area, or else I'll have to figure out how I'm going to cross-pollinate that one.

I planted the peach and plum in the summer of 2008, and both bore fruit for the first time this year. The plum has two different varieties grafted to it, the yellow one matures first. Isn't it beautiful?



They are so sweet and delicious. There are few things finer than going in the backyard on a summer's day, plucking a fruit from a tree I nursed myself, and biting into its sun-warmed goodness as I flop in the shade with a book.


Last year we had blossoms, but no fruit on the peach tree. This year, we had over 300 baby peaches. We also had a nasty case of peach rust, where 95% of the tree seemed to be affected. Apparently the only time to treat for fungus is pre-leaf emergence, so I took the state extension office's advice and stripped the tree of fruit this year so it could focus its energy on healing. I'll treat it next spring. Boy, it hurt plucking all those cute little baby peaches. I left a few on so I have an idea of when they'll ripen next year. Here's one:


This fall, I think I'll plant a berry patch.

04 June, 2009

Surprise Irises and a Ring of Granite

These purple iris plants weren't here last year. Last summer, this corner of the garden was filled with debris and scrub brush. When we removed all the junk and began adding new plants, the iris popped up unexpectedly, a lovely gift from a previous owner. Who knows when they last bloomed.

When we were at Crazy Horse Monument last week, we loaded up the trunk with some rocks that came from the blast pile. You can take some for a small donation. So yes, we drove back 900 miles with a load of pink rocks, but we managed to get enough to ring our dwarf peach and plum trees.

Now I just need to find enough rocks to put a border around this tree, my favorite in our yard. I planted all of those hostas last summer; they'd be doing better if every dog in the neighborhood didn't pee on them. Really, why do people let their dogs do that?

I hope that by making it look more like a planned garden, people would be less inclined to let their dogs stomp all over the plants. But who am I kidding?

29 April, 2009

The Smile, Our Quirky Little Flower Bed

We call it "The Smile."

It's a flowerbed I started last year and never got around to finishing for lack of time and money, both of which ended up getting diverted to more pressing house projects. The bed, which is mere feet from the sidewalk, consists of two dwarf cherry trees, connected by a u-shaped band of hostas, above which float three small shrubs. During our first summer at The Box House, we focused on getting the trees and bushes established, since they'd be slow growing, but not much else. The hostas came mostly from my mom's other house.

It looks for all the world like a smiley face, and since last summer, it's been grinning at passersby.

I know it looks kinda stupid. I've caught a few weird looks and one rude comment. Last fall, just before freeze, Mom planted fistfuls of daffodil and tulip bulbs, which only emphasized the grin when they popped up this spring.


The neighborhood dogs continually pee on it. Or, I should say, the neighborhood dog owners allow their dogs to pee on the bed. It drives me crazy. Anyway, it hasn't been the yard's best feature.

Today, I finally decided I couldn't take it anymore. I dug out the rest of the bed.

I used a hose to lay out what I wanted. Then I grabbed Mom to get her opinion, only to disagree with her. She got irritated with me when it was clear I didn't really want her opinion, just validation.

She gave me the finger. Can't tell? Go on, click on the image.


Tsk. Tsk. (I told you I was going to put that picture up, Mom.)

I dug a trench all the way around the bed, approximately three inches wide. I used the refuse to build a berm, raising the middle of the bed slightly. I planted a forsythia in the middle (Home Depot, $23!), and smoothed it out with garden soil.

I didn't even bother pulling up the grass. Last year, I discovered that covering everything with thick sheets of newspaper (I used about 20 sheets) does an excellent job of smothering grass and weeds, while still allowing water to get to the roots of plants. It works just as well as weed barrier fabric. (Jenni at Thirteen Eleven has an excellent blog post on how this works in her vegetable garden.)

Then I dumped on four bags of mulch.


I know it still needs some kind of edging, but I'm actually quite happy with the results. We may need to rename this flowerbed the half-moon, but I doubt we will. Nicknames tend to stick. It's like how, in my old neighborhood, we called the Wilkes House the Wilkes House for a good twenty years after Jim Wilkes (one of my first crushes) and his family moved away.

Jim was soooo cute.