Well, it was a good weekend. And not just because the Astros are going to their SECOND World Series. It was a good weekend to get some things done at the farm but not as much as I had hoped because it was hot...
...this is the temperature about midday. I think the high ending up being 91. In late October! Ugh.
This is the yard. As you can see, still no mowing needed. Now we do have rain headed our way as this posts. We saw that the Dallas area had some tornadoes overnight. Hope everyone we know up that direction is OK. They aren't expecting that here but it could be heavy rain. We do need it as you can see by the picture above.
Speaking of weird weather, this is the mystery peach/nectarine tree that we have in the backyard orchard...I noticed it was in full bloom! I don't think they should be blooming now. The tree is as confused as we are, ha. I plucked off all the blooms except one. Hey, let's see what happens.
Speaking of fruit trees, this is the lime tree, it's flourishing. No blooms which is fine but lots of growth and getting taller.
This is the Meyer lemon tree. It has about half a dozen lemons on it (the wind was blowing in this picture). They are somewhere between green and turning yellow. Can't wait to see how they come out!
I re-potted the olive trees (we have two). After I got this in some new soil and I took this picture, I trimmed off the shoots at the bottom. I'm thinking next year it might be time to upgrade to a larger container.
Never one to pass up a good bargain, I saw that one of the chain garden centers was having a "70% off sale on all plants and trees. Usually they don't include fruit trees (they know everyone wants those at a good price). But since it was a sale for ALL plants and trees, I stopped on the way to the farm to look for some fig trees. They didn't have those but I did find these two great deals.
One (on the left) is another bay tree and the other (on the right) is a "tiffblue" blueberry bush.
We of course have one bay tree that we've blogged about but I figured that someday when we are using the leaves regularly and giving some away to friends/family, it would be nice to have two trees so we can take some leaves off of one and use the second tree the next time so each will have time to recover. As for the blueberry, we had a couple of blueberry bushes a couple of seasons ago but I'll be honest, they were in a spot that didn't get the regular automated watering that we thought they were and died. They only had this one so I got it.
I'm thinking I might check another location this week. I got to the register and these ended up bing 80% off. Both of these were $7.00 total! Can't pass up that deal. The bay tree alone is bigger than the one we have now and it's been growing for a few years already.
Hope you had a great weekend!
Not about young fruit trees on sale, but about how your plans for rebuilding the farm are going. Haven't heard a thing about this from you for a very long time. Roderick
ReplyDeleteThanks for asking. We've been working behind the scenes to figure out what it best for us. We have two choices. We have eliminated building from the ground up, too expensive and too much to oversee from a distance. So one is remodeling the existing. The other is removing the existing house and replacing it with something already built like a modular, log or steel. We've narrowed down those three to three builders/manufacturers. As for the remodel, we have an architect friend drawing up some plans and we have to get a contractor out to see how much that will be. We've narrowed contractors down (via the interview process) to two. Then we have budget to consider (especially since retirement looms in a few years) and lastly we are awaiting some infrastructure estimates for clearing a new driveway, new septic, etc.
DeleteYou have been busy. You both seem to be on target. Roderick
DeleteI am sooo jealous of your fruit trees!! I would love to be able to grow fruit!! Yum!
ReplyDeleteWe've had to adapt and get trees that are suited to our climate (fore example, we can't grow cherries, apples are limited to green/yellow varieties, etc). But we're hoping for the best with what we have so far.
DeleteI'm still waiting for my lemon trees to bloom. Any word on that snake that might have been in the box on the porch?
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if ours bloomed late but we're willing to leave them and see what happens. Snake update coming soon. I haven't checked the box yet, I stared at it over the weekend but we're supposed to have cold weather this weekend and I would assume if there is one it will be more lethargic. I might have to try opening the box then.
DeleteI'm no expert but have heard olives come in both fruiting and non-fruiting varieties so keep that in mind as time goes by ... also might be remembering this correctly or not but that there are both male and female plants... just have to wait and see I guess...
ReplyDeleteThanks for that. I think our variety is self fruiting but I need to check that to be sure. Thanks again.
DeleteYour fruit trees are doing so well! You will love having Meyer lemons. My tree is recovering from the 18 degrees-freeze-damage it sustained a couple of winters ago, so only a few lemons this year.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great deal you got on those 2 trees! I think you will need to amend the soil to a certain pH for the blueberry bush, but then you’ll have some great berries.
Cooler weather again for a few days! And I got 1.5 inches of rain early this morning! My plants and trees are happy!
Thanks! yep, in these parts we definitely need to amend the soil. From what I've read, keeping them in containers works best. That way we can keep them in the soil they like best. Maybe whiskey barrels? Or our galvanized fire ring planters. We'll see. I'd like to have a couple more. Meyer lemons are SO amazingly good. Ours will probably be small for awhile but hopefully someday nice and big.
DeleteI think we got about an inch at the farm so that's good.
The temp was 75 on Sunday, still too warm for this time of year. I love the heat we are getting right now.
ReplyDeleteI know you don't want cold weather, y'all get really cold. Keep warm and safe as long as possible. Our first freezes are usually late November, sometimes early December.
DeleteHow wonderful your trees are doing so well! I do envy you the lemons. If I have one addiction in life (besides my hubby, horses and dogs) it's lemons! I use 3 a day. I do dream about a greenhouse to grow several trees.
ReplyDeleteI know you know about your blueberry needing acidic soil. A suggestion on that. Go talk to the most convenient large coffee shop on your way to the farm and ask for their used coffee grounds. Most of them give them away for free. We collected some for a while just to add to the compost pile vs letting it go to the landfill. We just bought 2 totes, dropped one off and once a week picked it up and left the empty one.
Shelley