The Humble Beginnings of My Orchard

January is Fruit Tree Sale Month in this neck of the woods, so after doing a lot of research I have been hitting up the sales and area nurseries, obtaining plants. The varieties I chose are said to do well in my area (a hot and humid zone 8b). Here's what I have so far:

1. Two Meiwa (Sweet) Kumquat Trees - from Houston Garden Center. The grower is Saxon-Bechnel and the trees are grafted onto most likely Volkamer Lemon rootstock (I have learned from other citrus growers more experienced than myself that rootstock makes a huge difference for citrus trees - see this great blog article about different rootstocks in the Houston area). This particular rootstock is unfortunately not the best but I was having a ridiculous time finding kumquats (they were sold out everywhere) so I decided to try my luck. They are being placed in a raised bed in the front anyways, so hopefully their feet won't get too soggy.

2. One variegated pink lemon - from Harris County fruit Tree Sale. The grower is Brazos Valley Citrus, so it is on a decent rootstock, either Carrizo citrange or Trifoliate. This one seemed like an interesting one to try - it has beautiful variegated leaved and the lemons are green and yellow striped until they ripen to yellow like a regular lemon. But then, you cut it open and they are pink! The original pink lemonade! I'm looking forward to it!

3. One 'Browns Select' satsuma mandarin - from Wabash Feed Store in Houston. The grower is also Brazos Valley Citrus so the rootstock is again either Carrizo citrange or Trifoliate. These fruits are known for being rather prolific and very, very tasty!

4. One Celeste Fig - from Houston Garden Center (I love their half-price sale!) These are supposedly very good figs for this area. Hopefully I will have good luck with it (and get the fruit before the birds do!).

5. One 'Sunshine Blue' blueberry - this is a Southern Highbush dwarf variety that is said to be very prolific and grows well in containers. This one was so hard to find, but I found it at Wabash as a bare root plant. The thing was loaded with blossoms, so it pained me to pluck them all off (I have learned that it is a good idea to pull the blossoms off fruit plants the first few years so that it can put effort into growing good roots and leaves first. Then you will have a good strong plant to bear a great harvest!) This is a self-fruitful plant but it will produce a larger harvest if planted with other varieties of blueberries - I plan to get a few rabbiteye blueberry plants very soon.

To plant this one, I soaked some peat moss in water for a few hours (I filled a 5 gallon bucket halfway with peat moss then added water and realized that the peat moss expanded WAY more than I thought it would so I had to split it in half into another 5 gallon bucket. I only ended up using half of that - so for peat moss, a little goes a LONG way!). I added the soaked peat moss to the pot (a little more than a third the volume). I then added Ladybug Vortex Potting Soil (good quality organic stuff), Leaf Mold Compost from Nature's Way Resources (amazing stuff!!!), and some pine bark mulch to make up the remaining volume of the pot. I mixed it all together, planted the blueberry, and watered it. This was two days ago, and it hasn't died yet so hopefully it won't! It is in a smaller pot than I would have liked, but it was all I had, and it was better than letting the bare root plant just sit there. So I may replant it in the fall.

Plants I've had for a while:

6. One Mexican Lime Tree - I have had this tree for years and have abused it and yet it still provides me with some fruit. I am going to try to actually start taking care of it and see if it does better (watch it die on me). If you look in the picture below, spotting the Mexican Lime is like finding Waldo:

If you look at the top left hand corner, you can see a lime growing on one of it's gangly branches. I am also growing a prolific crop of weeds in the same pot as my lime. I actually thought it died last winter so I threw it in the compost pile at the old house. Lucky for the fact that I am a lazy gardener, I didn't chop it up and amazingly it came back from the graft a few months later so I repotted it and there it sits.

7. One Satsuma Mandarin of unknown variety - perhaps even more abused than the lime, it struggles along in a bed of weeds, no water, and no fertilizer. And it still gave me I think close to 15 of the most amazing tasting mandarins I have ever had. Which is why I am definitely going to start taking better care of this one! (can you see it back there behind all the mess?)

8. One Meyer Lemon - I got this a year ago in the Lowes clearance for $2. So who knows if it really is what it said it was. It has grown quite a bit since I replanted it a few months ago but it has suckers growing from below the graft and does not look entirely healthy, so if it starts being a pain I may just chuck it.

So there you have it! My "orchard" is off to a good start I think! Once I get the compost in, I will be ordering rabbiteye blueberries, 'Kiowa' blackberries for along the back side fence, and some 'Sweet Charlie' strawberries. I am excited, but no fruit this year. Patience . . .

"Homestead" Plans

I have been planning like crazy around here, trying to get something set up before the start of spring (which is here early I guess, with all this hot weather we've been having! Although I have a feeling we're in for it in February - it has been so warm everything has been blooming, including all the fruit trees, and a major freeze and drop in temperatures in February would be devastating.)

But things are finally starting to take shape. About a week ago, I was laying in bed, unable to sleep, and I came up with the whole plan for the backyard area (if only I could know what to do with the front!). Will it work? Who knows. The lighting of the lot is the main issue. The bed design will be on the side that gets the most sun, but it changes from season to season how many hours. But it's worth a try!

Here is the current overall plan:

To give you an idea, here's what the backyard looks like right now:

So basically the right hand side will contain the beds, and the fencing, with the arbor that will lead to the possible chicken coop behind the garage, will be back by all those trees. Why am I going to put up fencing, you ask? Well, a few reasons. . .

1. We have snakes. Not that putting up a fence will keep snakes out (I'm not that dumb). But behind our current fence is a wet weather creek. A few weeks ago my father in law killed a water moccasin snake right outside the door in the fence back there. Nasty venomous snake + curious 2 year old toddler = not good combination. By putting fencing, I can contain where said two-year-old goes, so that she does not go back there digging for snakes in the bushes. The plan is to put a bunch of crushed gravel on the ground back there (yea for no grass to water!) I have heard that snakes don't like that stuff because there's nowhere for them to hide, plus I imagine it sucks to crawl on it. We will be eventually putting it around the vegetable beds in the toddler-approved part of the yard as well. So anyways, I guess it's partly for my peace of mind.

2. It will block the sight of nosy, rule-following neighbors. They say "good fences make good neighbors" and that is probably very true when you are wanting to house chickens in a not so chicken-friendly area. I actually did look into the restrictions for my area, and the wording was recently changed from a more restrictive and specific rule, to a vague and debatable one (yea for me!) It states: "Homeowners may only keep customary household pets on the lot". What the hell does that mean? Well, I say that chickens are a customary pet to keep - it's not like I am keeping a zebra or something! Chickens have been domesticated for thousands of years, right? That sounds like a pretty customary human companion, does it not? I rest my case.  However, my neighbors may not interpret that rule the way I do. So, fencing to block out sight and noise for as long as possible, and then when they find out, as someone will eventually, taking a peek back there will reveal a beautiful Williams-Sonoma-esque chicken coop (as mentioned in this post) and perhaps they will be ok with it since I don't have stinky chickens pecking around a rusted out car up on cinder blocks 

That's the plan, anyways. . . This is what the real area where we may put chickens actually looks like right now:

As you can see it is a rather large area that is currently a scary snake pit (in my mind anyways). Be it chicken coop or something else, it is wasted space right now, so anything other than what it is would be great!

For the vegetable beds in the back, I came up with this plan:

Total sq. ft. (minus the little squares at the top which will contain citrus trees or blueberries) is 228 sq. ft. Not too shabby. I could hopefully get at least a few veggies and some herbs to grow back there (I hope!). I have broke this up into two stages - Stage 1 is the green, Stage 2 the pink.  I figure I will complete Stage 1 first, then see how that fares (and I will have to opportunity to remind myself what random places the sun shows up in the summer) and if all is good, I will complete Stage 2 later in the year (fall, perhaps). I would do it all at once, however with the sun coverage being as iffy as it is, and materials being expensive (I have decided to use cedar wood for the beds which is more pricey, but they look nice, rot slower, and offer some insect resistance) I figured it would be better to do this in pieces. If the Stage 1 area ends up getting not good sun during other parts of the year, I still have a pretty garden layout that I can plant other things in, like herbs, so it wouldn't be a total wash.

So anyways, stay tuned! Things are going to start happening very soon!

Community Garden Harvest 1/31/13

Trying to keep updated with my harvesting (maybe I will finally buy a scale and start weighing stuff!). I harvested some more carrots (there are maybe only 6 or 7 left in the ground) and a grocery bag full of lettuce and spinach. It has been so warm here (almost 90 F in January. Seriously.) I was worried about it bolting so I harvested it all, but I cut it an inch from the soil to see if I may get another round (if it doesn't stay this ridiculously warm!)

Here are my carrots:

I had two more "legged" carrots and a small round spaceship carrot

And here's my leafy greens:

Now it's time to make a salad!