FREE TREES UPDATE

We blogged HERE about the free tree giveaway back in March when we got them from our local Master Gardening group.

This is the Nuttall oak...it hasn't budded out yet but we're still hoping.  It does seem taller, so there's that.

This is the Shumard oak.  It was the first to leaf out.  So, it's obviously doing well.  For about two weeks it was the only one that had any leaves.  We were most worried about the pecan but...

...this week, we got leaves!  Yay!

We'll keep watering them and they are on the back porch getting watered regularly and cared for.  Then this Fall, when hopefully they are bigger (and leafier), they can go in the ground in a special spot.

We've always loved this quote.  Yes, it's never too late to plant a tree!  We hope we live long enough to see the results but planting a tree can be a lasting thing for future generations to enjoy too.  Win/win!

THREE FREE TREE SAPLINGS

Our nearby Master Gardener program had a free tree giveaway.  Well, saplings, but hey, saplings become trees someday!

They did it in conjunction with Texas A&M University AG program.  There were a choice of six trees, each household could only get three.  And you couldn't get all the same.  We wanted three pecan trees but since we couldn't do that, we did our research and chose a Nuttall Oak, a Shumard Oak and the Pecan.

I asked them about the pecan variety, they said it was just a native Texas variety but weren't sure.

They had (as always) a well oiled process to keep things organized and running smoothly.  In about 15 minutes, I was on my way home with our three saplings.

Here they are.  They suggested soaking them in water overnight to rehydrate the roots and then getting them into some soil.  I did that and then the next day, I headed to the garden center to get some soil.

I got the soil and found this.  I figured it would be fun to try out.

And sure enough it worked great for scooping soil from the bags into the clay pots.

Here they are, planted and watered and ready to watch for tiny new leaves (stay tuned for that).  They said we can let them grow in these large pots until the Fall when it's best to plant them (if not planting now).  I asked them about this because I figured if I stuck these in the ground like this now, they'd struggle and risk being eaten by a wild animal or mowed over by me, ha.  One of the Master Gardeners told me to just let them grow in these until Fall, when they should be a good size to get them in the ground.

Now we wait to watch their progress.  We don't know where we will plant them yet but with all these acres, we have plenty of choices.  One of our goals this year is to get a lot, if not all, of our property professionally cleaned up.  Then we can find the perfect spot for these "forever trees", away from the house.

Someday! 

NEW OLIVE TREE

In honor of Arbor Day last week, I got a new tree (actually two, more on the other one in another post).

I know, I know, ANOTHER tree?  Hey, it's for the future and we only wish we had planted one of these a few years ago, but hey, here we are, ha!

Arbequina Olive.

I picked this one because it had a nice shape to it and looked very healthy.  Arbequina is the most cold hardy olive (once established of course).  Down to 10, 15 and 20 and that should cover our more recent crazy Winters.  It's also drought tolerant, so that means it will cover our erratic Summers as well, ha.   

And check this out:

It's developing little olives on it!

Not sure we'll actually have any, but since it's not in the ground and just in the container (we don't need to worry about root development), we'll let it do its thing and see how they come out.  I may upgrade the container size to help it along, but we're happy to have an olive tree to try out.  We had one at the house in town years ago and actually got some olives off of it and it was growing in a pot, not the ground.

HAPPY MAY DAY!  (is that still a thing?  Ha!)

A GIFT OF RED MAPLE TREES

 A very sweet friend sent a text a few weeks ago and told us she had entered a drawing for free trees that were being given away as part of an Arbor Day project.  You had to sign up to get on the list and there was a drawing to see who would get some. She rents and is unable to plant any trees so she asked if we wanted them if she won.  Of course we said yes.

Then a week ago, she let me know she got two in the drawing and they were delivered.

Two red maple trees!  They are in 7 gallon containers and probably 8 to 10 feet tall already.  I went by her house and picked them up...

...and took them to the farm.

...here they are in their future home at the farm (albeit temporary until planted).

This is what they will look like when mature.  These are the Drummond Red Maple varieties, suited to our climate and soil types and are fast growing, reaching a height of 40 feet.  Not sure we'll be around then to see them THAT tall, LOL, but we'll definitely have to find just the right spot for them, away from future house plans and away from the power lines.  It will be a welcome change to our normal landscape view of mesquite and hackberry trees...

ONE TREE DOWN TWO TO GO

We've been keeping our eye out for the three more fruit trees that we need to finish the orchard area.  Well, we're going to have citrus at some point but we'll need an "orangery" or greenhouse for those and that will come later.  For now, we need to fill the three empty raised beds and replace another that didn't make it.

We filled one of the three a few months ago with a Mayhaw tree.

Our plans for the other two spots are a pomegranate and a fig.  We also need a replacement peach for the one that didn't make it last year.

I stopped at a couple of garden centers/nurseries on the way out the other day and there were no fig trees and the peach trees were not the best looking.

Pomegranate blowing in the wind

But I did find the other one we wanted.

Here is a "wonderful" pomegranate (that's the actual variety, not our description, ha) that I found.  It's both drought tolerant and can handle freezes into the teens.  That should work for our climate.  It will go in one of the outer beds since it grows in bush form and we'll put the fig in the other outer bed since it will grow in bush form as well.  Hope to find those this weekend.  

FIG

PEACH

MAYHAW

POMEGRANATE

At least we can scratch one more off the list.

SPRING FRUIT BLOSSOMS

 Spring is here for sure...because the fruit trees are all started to bloom!

One of the two apple trees is blooming...

The blueberries are all budding out (sorry for blurry picture it was windy)...

This is the nectarine (our former mystery fruit)...

And one of the two pear trees is budding out as well...

The plums haven't bloomed yet but they have tiny buds so probably a couple weeks away.  The reason not all of them have blossomed is that we have two varieties of each fruit so they all bloom at different times.

Fruit tree blossoming means it's almost time to replace the fishing line "fencing" we put up to keep the deer out.  We're going to do it a bit differently this year by adding an extra row or two so there are less gaps between the lines.  It worked great last year and kept them out so we'll see how it goes this time around.

BANANA PUPS

Banana pup coming up

Remember when I had the bananas in the back of the Jeep because of the historic freeze? Not sure what was going on in the back of the car, LOL, but I discovered this!  They had given birth to "pups" ha!  They are of course also called suckers or offshoots from the main tree.  In the ground, they can be dug up and planted and will become a new banana tree.

Banana pup

So I dug them up though one didn't make it out of the process, it broke off at the root end.  Oh well.  I saved this one with a nice root ball on the end, grabbed a container with some fresh soil and planted it a couple of weekends ago.

We still have to figure out where we are going to put them.  Because of their growth habit, we want to make sure they are planted in the right spot.  They can grow fast and tall.  They also aren't always the most attractive plant in the world, well, more tropical looking than farm looking, like they should be around the sides of a pool or something like that.

We're thinking we can maybe put them in an area of the yard and just leave them to grow and multiply...when we do that, it looks like we might eventually have a banana grove in our future, ha!

STILL HAVE A MYSTERY FRUIT

We asked this a couple seasons back and thought with some new readers and followers, we might ask again.

So a few years ago when we bought our eight fruit trees for the backyard raised bed orchard, we did two each of apple, plum, pear and peach.  Seven of those are what they were supposed to be.  But the two peaches...well one is a peach (was, it died in the freeze) but the other that was supposed to be a peach is this:

We're pretty sure this is not a peach.

There are six or seven on the tree now and they all have this shape.  A couple of years ago, before our fencing, the deer got them before they ripened.  Last year the great goat incident snagged the two that were on the tree.  Hoping this year they make it all the way through and we can taste them.  From everything we can find, we think there is a good chance that these are nectarines.  The leaves and the tree definitely look like peaches but the fruit has no fuzz at all and a slightly different shape during the growing process.

Thoughts?

Look familiar?

LEANING APPLE TREE

This is something we have been meaning to ask our readers.  It is one of our two apple trees, the "Anna" variety.  It's been leaning for some time and is now not just leaning but growing in that direction as well.

I have tried just pulling on it to test how firm it is.  It's DEFINITELY growing that direction.  It's one of those things I saw when I would work on the trees and always though "hmm, I need to work on that" and then it would just get hot in the Summer or have a rainy weekend and I'd just put it off.  Now it's come back to haunt me, ha.  It leans even more now since I took the above picture.

I need to deal with it either this Winter or early next Spring.  When I drive the mower past the tree, I have to go around the area where it leans.

One time after we had a LOT of rain, I was able to pull it a bit more upright but I had nothing to tie it off to.  That's why I sort of thought, oh no biggie I can fix this easily.  I suppose the next heavy rain I can use to my advantage again but I don't want to damage roots. 

The logical solution I suppose would be to hammer a post into the ground nearby and then wrap something around it and then every weekend, tighten it a little more.  I'd have to be gentle to the tree of course.

Crooked tree, image via wikimediacommons

We just hope we don't end up with something like this, although at least this tree is finally growing upright, ha!

It provided us apples this year, our first ever, so we want to make sure we keep it happy.

Any suggestions?

FREEZE DAMAGE BUT HOPEFUL

This was a surprise.  It's the Meyer lemon tree.  It had some leaves that were frostbitten in the last freeze.  It didn't seem like that many when we saw it the last time.  But after some windy days recently...

...almost ALL the leaves fell off.  Yikes.  I checked the branches and a few outer ones are brown but almost all are green.  We are hoping it comes back.  Not sure why it suffered so much freeze damage when the other two were just as covered.  Maybe being on the end it was more exposed to cold winds, maybe the freeze cloth touched it more than the others, we're just not sure what the difference was. 

We're hoping that this will happen: this is the lime tree which lost some leaves in the same freeze but they are already sprouting back.  We cross our fingers that the lemon tree does the same thing.  We've got a plan in place for the next freeze (more on that in an upcoming post) and while we hope there isn't one, it's only mid-December, we know there will probably be a couple more before March.

Fingers crossed!

FOUND A FIG TREE BUT...

I finally got a fig tree for the yard.  We have one I've blogged about and we loved the few figs we got but it wasn't planted correctly and is in the shade so it hasn't really grown.

So the other day, I found a really nice size one at the garden center.  It was normally $35 but marked down to $10, good deal.  I carefully loaded it into the car and headed to the farm.

But on the way...

I had to stop suddenly and it flipped forward and the taller branch hit the top and snapped off.  The tree is still good, albeit a bit shorter than it was...

When life hands you lemons, make a lemon tree.  At least something like that in this case, ha.  Here is the branch.  I snipped off the branches, sliced the bottom diagonally and put it into a small vase with water.

This is about a week later and it's already rooting and the green is still green and actually starting to grow.  I have heard that it was easy to root a fig tree cutting and, so far anyway, it's doing what it's supposed to do.

Anyone ever root a fig tree and get a viable tree in the long run?

BAGGING FRUIT ON TREES

When I was watering the fruit trees, I noticed that the tops of some of the lemons had small scrapes on them.  We were guessing that could be from birds testing them?  

Lemon damaged from birds

 It was just enough to expose the white pith of the fruit and was only on a couple that were on the tops, easily exposed to an aerial assault, ha.  I've read that if the outer layer is damaged like that they may not go on to develop properly.

That led me to articles about bagging fruit on the tree while it is growing. Some people use ziplock style baggies but here in Houston, with our unrelenting heat, humidity and frequent rains, we felt that might create a bad environment for the fruit if we are not there every day to check it. 

So after some online checking, I found these mesh bags that come in different sizes.  They "breathe" and so that lets light through and moisture out while providing pretty good protection from birds, deer and even some pests like caterpillars, etc.

Mesh fruit bags

I ordered a package from Amazon to try out: 

Apipi 60 Pcs 6" x 10" Fruit Protect Bags

There are various sizes.  I figured with a package of 60, we would be using them next Spring with pears, peaches, plums and apples so we better get a size that would work for those as well.

Fruit bagging

I bagged up a few to test and see how it works. I bagged the undamaged ones and a couple of the damaged ones just to compare and I also left a few uncovered to have a control for comparison.

And now we wait!

THE MYSTERY FRUIT

OK, here is the "mystery fruit" that we are growing.  It's supposed to be a Flordaking peach tree.

  

The deer or birds got the fruit that had developed but we snagged this one before that.  We put it in a paper bag for a few days so it would speed ripen.

It had a very small amount of fuzz but not much like a peach would.  It smelled very "peachy" though...

We sliced it open.  The flesh was a pale orange, almost white.  There were bits of red around the edges like you'd normally see in a peach.  

The pit also looks exactly like a peach pit.

Mystery fruit

We sliced it up and ate it.  Delicious for sure!  VERY strong peach flavor, sweet and, as you can see above, juicy.  We loved it.  Now we wait until next Spring for a bigger and better crop.  But now comes the big question:

Is it a peach or a nectarine?

SPRING IS BLOOMING OUT ALL OVER

Was at the farm yesterday (more of an update on all that tomorrow).  Today it's about to rain.  

But while I was there, Spring was definitely blooming out all over!

Plum blossoms

Plum blossoms on both trees!

Peach blossoms

Peach blossoms on one tree (the other tree had already bloomed earlier this season).

Pear blossoms

Pear blossoms on both trees!

Apple blossoms

Apple blossoms on one tree (the other tree is a later blooming variety).

It's nice to see things happening.  After our blast of Winter earlier this week, upper 20's Tuesday morning and upper 70's Friday, we figure Winter is over for us so things will finally start budding out all over.

Running errands today!  Hope you are having a great weekend wherever you are!

FRUIT TREE RAISED BEDS WITH TRUNK PROTECTION

It was a BEAUTIFUL weekend.  I went to the farm Saturday.  Stopped at the garden center on the way out (more on that tomorrow).  

The yard is still mowed

I was hoping I wouldn't have to mow so I could work the fruit trees.  I was in luck.  Even with some rain this past week, the cooler weather has apparently told the grass "don't grow, Winter is coming" and this is what it looked like...exactly a week after the last mowing.  Looks like I just did it!

Bags of soil

Since I anticipated not having to mow, I stopped and picked up some bags of soil, to top off the fruit tree raised beds.  But first, I needed to do something else.  I needed a way to protect the base of the trunk from the weedeater, keep soil from being too close to it, etc.  Plus it's a solution that allows me to easily change them out as the trees grow.

4" coupler

So I found these 4" diameter couplers in the plumbing section.  I bought eight, one for each tree (I just realized as I typed this, I'll need three more once I get the citrus planted, but that's next Spring). I think each one was maybe a dollar?  

Fruit tree trunk protection

Then I took my utility shears and cut through one side of each one.  This way they could easily go around the base of the tree, kind of like a C-clamp.

Tree trunk protector

I put them in place and then topped off the soil in each bed

(oops, missed that spot of grass).

Raised bed orchard

When I was done, other than needing a last "edging" of the season later on, they are clean and ready for some straw mulch next weekend.

Side note, that picture of the ring around the base of the tree, that's one of the apple trees.  It's grown almost twice as big as when I put it in the ground.  It is definitely happy!