Planting trees
I needed some good visuals
for my tree-planting chapter of Weekend Homesteader. Oh, how sad, I had to
order a few more fruit trees! (Don't throw me in that briar
patch!)
We settled on two Asian
Persimmons (Ichi-Ki-Kei-Jeiro and Saijo) that are supposed to be
hardy enough to withstand our winters, along with a Starking Delicious
Pear. All are now installed in current or future chicken pasture
areas. The persimmons are diminutive enough that they could fit
in our smaller pastures while the pear is (hopefully) willing to deal
with somewhat waterlogged, heavy clay down in the floodplain. The
long term goal is to give
the chickens some protective cover while producing late season
fruit that they and we will share.
I love planting
experimental trees more than (almost) anything, but I do have a tough
time watching the ones that die. Last year's hardy almonds were a failed experiment ---
I thought they might have trouble fruiting because of being at the edge
of their hardiness 
range, but what they had
trouble with was being eaten alive by Japanese beetles. I also
lost one Carpathian Walnut
because of planting it in the woods and forgetting about it (although
I'm happy to report that its sister tree and the transplanted Chinese
chestnut in the same area survived my neglect.) But all of the
rest of last year's perennials are thriving and I figure losing two
trees out of eleven isn't terrible when so few of the varieties are
tried and true.
(One of the almonds is clinging to life for another year.)
Let's hope 2015 is the
year of the persimmon and pear!
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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