NEW FRUIT TREES AND BUSHES

Our "new" county has an annual fruit tree sale via their master gardening group.  It's a fundraiser of sorts and they choose varieties that are perfect for our area.  They sent out a list of what is available, and you order and then pick up a month or so later.  I chose what we wanted/needed and placed my order.  It was a rainy day when I needed to pick them up (the following pics were after the rain, ha).

I drove the truck to the location (nearby small town) and I must say, they had a well-oiled machine at the pick-up location, that's for sure!  I drove in, they checked my ID, verified our order and radioed ahead to another spot where they started picking the items.  Then, I drove over there, they checked again and loaded them into the back of the truck.  While they were loading, someone stood at the driver's window and explained when to plant, how to protect, etc for each plant we selected.  Pretty cool!  I made it back in just a light rain.

Here are the six we got:

A "panamint nectarine" to replace the one we lost last year.

A "mid pride peach" also to replace another one.

We had four blueberry bushes, one of them was not doing well so we opted to get a replacement for it.  We think the one that we had to get rid of was not suited for our climate.  This one is a "jewel blueberry", perfect for our area.

We only have one plum currently and an empty bed next to that one.  Needed a second one so we chose a "Santa Rosa plum".

Here's something new.  Of course, we do have dewberries growing wild on our property but we're going to try this as a little something extra.  This is a "Natchez blackberry", a thornless variety.  It will be fun to see how it is to grow some blackberries and how different they are from the wild dewberries.

And for 2nd Man, I bought a "Satsuma mandarin orange".  He loves them as snacks and now that we are here full time, we can keep our citrus protected as needed.  This one won't go in the ground just yet; we'll get a large pot for it so we can move it as needed.  Maybe once it gets bigger, we can move it into the ground and just cover it in Winter.  We can keep it lit with the C9 Christmas bulbs that we have for that purpose.

Next Spring, I will get a lime and a Meyer lemon.

Here is an example of a couple of spots.  I have already cleared them out (did that last weekend!).  They'll be ready for planting next Spring, once Winter is done with us.  There are a couple I can plant now, but it might be easier to wait until the Spring with so much else going on getting settled into the new house.  Anyway, in these two, the peach will go in the square bed, and the round one will be for the blueberry.  The others have been cleared.

This leaves us needing to only replace one more.  That crazy apple tree that is all bent in the wrong direction.  It's just not growing right and it's not producing fruit properly, but that one will require a bit of work.  It's a Spring project for sure.  Or maybe the removal is a good cool weather Winter project and the planting of the new one will be a Spring project.