12-07-2012 planting time

One of the things I have added this fall, is more raspberries, by far my and my wife's favorite fruit. This year, they have tasted even better than ever so I decided to increase the local production. Only the future will tell us how well this will work.

    Through the  years, I have planted a number of larger fruit trees like apples and pears to lose them, a few years later to fire blight a nasty disease that makes the tree branches look like they have been burned by fire. there is no cure for it! :) Or they would fall victim to disease carrying fungi that have survived underground on the roots of former hard wood trees that used to grow where my garden is now located.

My latest survivors have been four Asian pears, producing nicely but two of them showed signs of the blight this year.

I decided to go to plan "B" and try some dwarf fruit trees in large pots to avoid the underground menace while not totally protecting them from the air spread blight.

Hey! What's an eager gardener to do but dig in and keep planting?

So here is what I planted. The pictures come straight out of the catalog since the real thing still looks more like a stick in potted dirt at this point. 

Hardired Nectarines:
 

Firm, yellow, flavorful flesh (almost sounds like a pole dancer)

Royalton Cherry

mouthwatering flavor

Harglow a luminous Apricot

Like most everything else in the garden, I'll have to wait three years to find out if it works. We, gardeners are in for the long haul, with  six months, two year, ten year expectations.

Patience is the first ingredient that goes into a good garden soil!