It’s my favorite sale of the year. Urban Harvest had it’s enormous annual fruit tree sale! As usual you have to get up bright and early to have a chance at the more popular stuff. We arrived a few minutes before 8am (opening at 9), handed over our ID’s for a red wagon, and took our place in line behind the hundred people or so who must have shown up even earlier.
Caitlin and I have already put in 20 fruit trees since moving on to our 10,000 square foot suburban style lot, but we decided to make a few changes this year. Namely, our 2 kumquats are going in to pots. These trees were put in the yard, but after getting our first yields we realized that these weren’t something we needed massive quantities of, and we would be better off giving that space to things we enjoyed better. Unfortunately I found the kumquats a bit to mealy (and I’m weird about mouth feel) and the taste was only average. Instead we decided to put in a honey mandarin and and a cara cara orange.
We also decided to give up on the lemon and lime trees that we planted in the backyard. Despite our best efforts and even a bit of consulting from Dany at Edible Earth Resources, these 2 baby trees never took to our soil, almost died last year, and have shown little indication of improvement, let alone growth. Sometimes plants don’t work out. In this case we’ve decided to replace the two with identical trees and give them a fresh start.
We also picked up a male and female kiwi. In the past you haven’t been able to grow these in Houston, or at least not get fruit, but supposedly the new varieties do well. I’m planning to put of some wire across the trees behind our fence (we’re on a corner lot) and let the plants use the trees as trellises, while creating some additional privacy screening.
Finally, we have a single open spot in our fence row of peaches, plums and persimmons, that I plan to put our first pear tree in to.
I’ve put my photos of the event below (as well as a couple stolen from the Urban Harvest facebook account. Hope you enjoy.
Any readers from Houston go to the fruit tree sale? What did you buy and what has worked well for you in the past? What are you harvesting that you planted?
Back at home with our spoils!
