Day in the Orchard

I never would have thought this would happen to me, but I am officially a farmer. I love it. I spend way more time on my food producing plants than on my flower beds. I just don't feel the same reward from them...

This is my orchard. I have charge of 14 trees in there. Today I hacked out one dead one and two that were displeasing to me (multiple grafted trees, never do that, they are a pain!), pruned them all, planted 3 new trees, and sprayed them. We have: a golden delicious apple, fuyu persimion, elephant heart plum, santa rosa plum, early elberta peach, some other peach that Sherry planted before I got there - it's a clingstone that has really buttery textured flesh, perfect for canning and baby food, a Jonathan apple, a Jonagold apple, a pink lady apple, an O'Henry peach, a gala apple, a multiple grafted pluot, a moorpark apricot, and a panamint nectarine. I also have 5 dwarf citrus trees on my porch ( kumquat, cara cara orange, meyer lemon, berass lime, and kaffir lime) along with a pomegranate and three guava trees in my flower beds. I love these little babies, especially when they have fruit on them. The kids and I walk the orchard almost every day in the spring and summer, seeing what has fruit, what has bugs, and encouraging things to grow so we can eat healthy food!



Pearl was an especially big help to me today. This is the pile of branches she collected (with just a little help from Sam, he didn't last long). We are going to cook hot dogs and roast marshmallows on our pile tonight! She kept asking me for jobs, so she fertilized the citrus trees, held the new trees while I filled the holes, and watered the new trees. She really is becoming quite a helper, and loves our farm chores. She can tell you the variety and name of every tree in the orchard, it's fun to have her. (I think her favorite tree is our new Pink Lady, who wouldn't love that name?) All in all, though I wouldn't have quite expected to do this growing up, I'm grateful to live on property so that my children and I can have these experiences (though the chicken dusting I could do without...but that's another post!)