The Trials of Trees

When we first started our backyard farm, I definitely thought it would be easier than it is. And, when we bought our fruit trees last year, I thought we would plant them and they would grow and we would have delicious fruit.  Alas, it’s not necessarily that easy. Here is our tree lineup.

Our pomegranate tree is not looking great.  My mother (a green thumb and my own personal walking gardening encyclopedia)  said that pomegranates grow quickly. So, I bought this tiny specimen of a pomegranate tree.  And, basically, it hasn’t grown since last year when we planted it.  And, it looks pretty unhealthy.  I contemplated getting a new one, but I thought I’d give it some more TLC and hope it improves.

Next in line is our persimmon tree.  It is a fuyu persimmon.  We love fuyu persimmons.  It is a full size tree.  Last year it got leaves, but bore no fruit.  This year, I’m looking at it and wondering if it’s even going to give us leaves.  It’s not looking very promising.

Next is our Satsuma tangerine (cutie) tree.  We love cuties.  When I buy those wonderful 3 pound bags at the store when they are on sale, I have to limit the kids or they will eat it all in one sitting. We bought a dwarf cutie and last year it gave us probably 20-30 tangerines.  Considering it’s size, I’d say that’s pretty good.

Next is our fruit salad tree.  It’s a 4-in-1 stone fruit – peach, nectarine, plum, apricot. This is my dream tree – how to get all these types of fruit without having enough room for 4 trees. The tree in the picture is actually a new specimen.  The one I bought last year didn’t do anything.  Actually, when we planted it, it didn’t have much in the way of roots.  Dh said I should take it back to the nursery.  I was thinking we should give it a chance, but I should have listened to him. It never even got any leaves.  The other day when the kids were playing, my son accidentally ran into it and broke it right off at ground level.  So, I got a new tree. And, today, one week after planting it and taking this picture, we already have leaves and blossoms coming on. Yippee!

Next is our 4-in-1 apple tree.  Last year it gave us 3 kinds of apples and the 4^th type just barely got some leaves.  But, this year, even that branch is looking promising. And, the leaves are sprouting even though when I went to pull the grass from around the trunk, I realized there were about 3 inches of root showing. Yikes! I added soil and mulch, so hopefully it will forgive me.

Our last new tree is a dwarf Meyer lemon.  It gave us some fruit last year, but not as much as I had hoped for.  When it first started getting fruit, there were tons of lemons on there.  But, most of them slowly fell off as they started to grow.  I found out that a tree will only grow what it can support.  And, since this is still a pretty tiny tree, it could only support a few lemons.  Hopefully it will do better this year.

When we moved into this house 5 years ago, this tree was already here.  It is a navel orange.  It gives us the most delicious, juicy oranges.  We had a huge branch break off a couple of years ago (almost half the tree), but it still gave us tons of oranges this year.  I thought all our trees would be as wonderful as this one if I just planted them in the ground.  I’m finding it’s not that easy, but I still have hope.