tree inventory, january 2014

Aah...winter sun and air!

i've been counting, scouting, nosing in the weeds and in the snow, spreading leaves to mark and grow my little seedlings and bigger trees into a lush edible EDEN.

I call this the bush, tree and shrub inventory

of 2014, here we go:

p.s. the following list is for my one acre. numerous neighbors and friends have more edible trees, bushes and shrubs of mine and their's right in the vicinity of my farm plus there are some very Big wild mulberry and persimmon trees--comma, smiley face-- :o}

Trees, shrubs, bushes at Raven Ridge Fruit Farm :

Apples 15 grafted in 2007, transplanted a couple times but now happy as clams, wish i had kept track of the varieties, but when they fruit this year it could be fun detective work
Pears 12 two european types grafted off Warren wilson college trees and 3 asian types
Cherries 1, a big fast growing tree with nice spring bloomin over my drive, fruit for the birds
Plums, planted 2
Plums, wild: 1,000's of suckering thorny stems....
Peaches 2, LOWE'S end-of-year steal. Belle of georgia, late blooming, i'm going to plant a bunch more on a part of what i call 'nose land', which has shallow soil, maybe 1' deep maximum. the wild plums like it there, and the two peaches filled out wonderfully in the first year.
Chokeberry 11, planted in a spring bed around pawpaws

Blueberry,  ok, i didn't actually count these buggers, but i figure there's 47 from 2009 on the North hill, + 12 +10 near the house, +41 and 20 recently purchased and planted in contour with, plus...15. that is estimably:

 145 blueberry bushes.
depending on spacing and variety, 1 acre of blueberries is 867-1,450 plants. i hope to have maybe 300-400 eventually, or possibly 200-225 by the end of 2014.

Raspberry 20, caroline and heritage, trellised yesterday
Blackberry10, ouachita(i think) the canes grew 3 to 5 feet tall in the first year.
Goumiberry 10, actually just eleagnus seeldings, nitrogen-fixing nurse crop  for larger trees
Figs 7, definitely frozen in the tops, roots will sprout in spring:)
Gooseberries 3, don't ask me where these are...
Serviceberries 4
Rosa Rugosa 3 the intermittently pretty and disheveled rose that makes ROSE HIPS for tea
Persimmon 14, large enough to graft 'in the field' this year:) a few of these are wild and one is 9" DBH, diameter at breast height
Pawpaw 12 mostly seedlings, a few grafted planted on wet site 7-8' spacings for good pollination
Mulberry tree 3 :o)
Grapes 3
Kiwi 5

here's just a few of the rebar hoops for climbing FRUIT 

Vines 

NUTS!

Japanese walnuts 2
Yellowhorn 6
Monkey Puzzle 3
Chestnuts 10
Pecan 2
Ginkgo 4 :1male pollinate, 1 female for nut bearing and 2 seedlings for grafting from female
Korean Nut pine 2

 Raspberry and blackberry trellising basics: they don't need too much tension on the wire. one 4'-5' high and a lower one to prevent the canes from falling over. Easier to mulch, weed and pick if they're upright. i used catalpa posts from a recent tree job and a few T posts spaced about 12-15' apart. This 'spinning jenny' or pay-out' spinner makes it easy to pull the 12gauge wire out. the same spinner helped a gang of my friends install a 4,500ft perimeter fence for our cows.

 my cane fruits are planted on top of a swale because there is a vein of thin soil through here and I have observed that cane fruits are deep rooted. When you're pulling at the wild blackberries almost always one root goes too deep to get out without a shovel.

In this same patch of ground above the swales, i have planted rows of blueberries, which should do well enough with the shallow soil. Blueberries have no tap roots, but instead a tight wad of orange roots, like a disheveled bun of an old scottish grandmum.

Blackberry, catalpa post, Cabin!

The neighborhood drum band