On Wednesday, Kris asked in the comments if our apple trees were here when we bought our house or if we planted them. I replied that we planted the trees. I thought some of you might be interested in what we've added to our property, and in what kind of time frame that all took place.
When we moved in to this house, there were wild plums, wild blackberries, small woodland strawberries, and 1 non-bearing cherry tree. So not very much. It was our intent to plant a yard that would feed us at least partially each year. We continue to work on that goal, each year assessing what went well, what failed and then tweaking what we do.
Here's what we planted and an approximate timeline.
Buying our house was a stretch for our means, but not out of the realm of possibility. However, we needed to focus most of our surplus finances into meaningful repairs of our house. That first winter we replaced an all-electric forced air furnace with a natural gas one. Our heating bills plummeted from $250 per month to $60 per month. We also began replacing old windows with new double-paned, gas-filled ones. All this to say, we didn't have a lot of spare cash to make improvements to our landscape.
We moved into our house in late July, so it was too late to plant a garden. However, we began an open compost pile at the back of our property (up against the woods) right away. We couldn't even afford to purchase a compost bin at that time. Instead, we dug a hole and layered it with kitchen and garden refuse and nearby soil. We kept the top of the composting material covered with soil to minimize critter invasion and odors.
The following spring we began digging a garden space into the lawn behind the garage, improving the soil with that compost we'd begun the previous late summer. I didn't know what would grow well in our garden, so I tried many different types of seeds. It turned out that kale, tomatoes, greens beans, and peas did very well. What an odd assortment, right? Some cool weather veggies and some hot weather ones. We also bought some raspberry canes, 3 blueberry bushes, a bundle of strawberry plants, and 3 rhubarb starts. The raspberry canes didn't survive, but we still have those original rhubarb plants, blueberry bushes, and descendants of the strawberry plants.
Later that spring, our county held an eco-friendly gardening fair and sold simple compost bins for $10 each. My husband came home with one, and we continued to compost, but in a more civilized-appearing way -- neighbor approved.
For the next 5 years, I continued to focus my food gardening on vegetables that I could start from inexpensive seed packets. I began adding vegetables to parts of the yard that were not part of the vegetable garden proper. We grew artichokes for a few years in one of the ornamental garden beds. And I added some asparagus to an ornamental and perennial bed in the front yard. When the artichokes eventually died out, the original 3 blueberry bushes and the rhubarb plants were moved into that ornamental area where they could benefit from a sunnier exposure. I also divided the rhubarb plants, giving us 6 plants for our harvests. (One rhubarb plant would die out on us years later.)
By year 6 on the property we could finally afford to buy a few fruit trees. We chose 4 apple trees, one a red apple for fresh eating (our early apple), one a green apple for baking, one a russet apple for fresh eating and cooking (our applesauce apple), and a pippin apple known for long-keeping. The pippin died out after about 5 years, but we still have the other 3. We're not sure if we'll replace that 4th apple tree. If we do, it will be another long-keeping apple to store for late winter fresh eating, a time of year when we tend to purchase apples regularly for fresh eating.
Also in year 6, my husband and I built permanent raised beds for our garden, using 8 X 16 concrete blocks. Initially, we used gravel for walkways between the beds. Over the course of a couple of years, my husband and I would replace the gravel with brick walkways. We also bought red and black currant bushes and cranberry plants. The red and black currant bushes still produce, but the cranberries nearly died out, due to crowding. For several years in a row, we harvested about 3 quarts of fresh cranberries every fall. I was able to rescue a couple of tiny cranberry vines and moved them to a spot where I can keep a better eye on them. They're doing well so far. My hope is to take cuttings off these vines in a couple of years and devote a sunny bed just to cranberries.
In year 7, we bought a second cherry tree, hoping to coax the original cherry tree to actually bear fruit. The original cherry was labeled and in looking up that variety, I found that it was partially self-pollinating -- evidently not enough to actually produce fruit in our yard, though. So I ordered another different self-pollinating cherry tree and we planted it about 20 feet away from the original one. This tree would ultimately be dug up in a few years and moved to a better location. It was still small enough to dig its entire, or most of, root ball and it survived the move very well. Both of our cherries trees now produce for us, some years providing enough cherries for freezing to use in pies. We also bought an evergreen huckleberry bush. It produces abundantly, but we mostly leave those to the birds. I have made jelly a few years with some of the berries, though.
In year 8, we developed 2 more areas of the yard and planted an Italian prune plum tree in one area and 2 pear trees and 1 crabapple tree in the other. The plum tree is so prolific. For the most part, when I've chosen varieties of anything, I've looked for ones that are labeled as prolific. The initial 2 pears trees did really well from about year 4 on, then seemed to be prone to several issues. One disease is known as pear rust. It became so bad for our pear trees that they would drop all of their leaves by mid-summer each year. It turned out we were harboring the other host shrub for pear rust, which is what this fungus needs to complete its life-cycle, juniper bushes. My husband removed the junipers -- they're just ornamentals, and we weren't fond of their prickliness -- and the pear rust began to lessen. A couple of years ago we added wood chips to the base of our pear trees as well as blueberry bushes and both types really began to thrive. We harvested our first big crop from this years' pears since the early years of these trees.
Also later that summer, one of my neighbors gave me some raspberry plants she had dug up from her own garden. This variety had done well for her, so I was hopeful for our garden as well. Within a couple of years we had a huge raspberry patch that we would need to control ourselves.
In year 10, I bought 5 more blueberry bushes and 1 ever-bearing raspberry plant. The raspberry plants from the neighbor were July bearing only. The ever-bearing raspberries would provide an earlier summer crop as well as a light fall crop. I also bought 2 fig trees, which I grew in pots for many years. They only did so-so in pots.
In year 12, we dug up half of the raspberries and contained the rest in raised beds that my husband and son built from wood and metal brackets, placing them in a side area of our yard adjacent to our vegetable garden. Over the course of a few years, they would build 9 of these beds. I would eventually add potatoes to what I grow each year, using a couple of these beds, and move most of the strawberry plants to these beds. We still have the woodland strawberries in an ornamental part of the property to supplement our cultivated strawberries.
In year 14, we replaced our back deck and planted 2 more pear trees and some grape vines just off the deck. The grapes really need a structure to climb on, up and out of the shade of the pears. They did well initially, then the pear trees grew tall and wide. These pear trees, like their 2 siblings in the front yard, suffered from severe pear rust for several years. This year they really made a comeback. The pear rust is practically gone and all four trees (2 from year 8, 2 from year 14) produced pears this year, a first for one of the trees. With our pear trees, we chose 2 early season (ripening in August) and 2 late season (ripening in late September to early October).
I also bought 4 trough planters for the deck that spring. We've grown herbs and vegetables in these planters each year. Three of the troughs are still on the deck. But I moved 1 down to the garden area for better sun. I'll be moving 1 or 2 of the deck troughs down to garden level later this fall or early next spring. Those pear trees now shade the deck too much for most vegetables and herbs. We also moved the potted figs into the ground adjacent to the east end of our new deck. The figs have taken off and need a good pruning every other year.
In 2020, like half the country, I was at home almost all of the time and put my work efforts into growing even more on our property. I repurposed our portable greenhouse shelving into a space to grow lettuce in spring and summer on the deck. I planted several hanging baskets on the south side of our house with greens and herbs that would be suitable for salads.
2021 to now. I expanded our grow lights in the house in 2021 and began growing additional greens indoors each winter. My husband and I also started planning a new garden site on the property, a pumpkin patch next to the driveway but out of sight from the street. We had a load of compost delivered to this area in winter of 2022. We've experimented with types of vegetables that can be grown in this spot and don't attract critter pests (squirrels and rabbits). We've grown tomatoes, peppers, sunflowers, corn, pumpkins, summer squash, green beans, and fall turnips in this area over the past 3 years. As it has turned out, sunflowers and corn are a no-go for us, even with fencing all around. This year I planted tomatoes, pumpkins, winter squash, zucchini, tomatoes, peppers, and greens beans in the patch. We continue to improve this soil every year. It was practically dead soil when we first began growing here. It's getting better.
Going forward, we plan to expand the pumpkin patch area and add some attractive landscape features in this space. Right now, it's just a bare patch of ground sitting on the north side of a native growth (evergreens) area in the center of the circular drive. We may add a large apple tree in this spot with a bench beneath for sitting, as well as stepping stones throughout the garden patch and a low, raised cottage stone wall to hold in the soil and provide a neater appearance.
We also have one last spot in the garden to be developed. It lies between the driveway and the wooden raised beds. My hope/dream is to add a garden house to this spot, with a small patio in front and two beds for perennial and evergreen herbs. The garden house would provide winter storage for patio furniture and large sunny windows for starting or overwintering plants. It's possible we could have a small cellar accessed through this garden house, for cool storage of apples, cabbage, pears, squash, pumpkins, and carrots.
As noted at the top of this post, we began with 1 cherry tree, blackberry canes, woodland strawberries and wild plums. Here's what we have now and how we use the fruits:
1 crabapple tree (jelly, juice, sauce)
1 plum tree (dried, fresh, baking, jam)
2 semi-dwarf cherry trees (fresh, baking, preserves)
4 semi-dwarf pear trees (fresh, sauce)
2 fig trees (fresh, canned)
multiple red and black currant bushes (jelly and tea)
2 cranberry vines (currently bringing back into production, previously I used them in baking and sauce)
8 blueberry bushes (fresh, smoothies, baking, jam)
5 rhubarb plants (fresh, baking, dried, jam)
raspberry canes (fresh, jam)
blackberry canes (fresh, smoothies, baking, jam)
cultivated and woodland strawberries (fresh)
various vegetable and herb beds, patches, troughs, and pots
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