Hello, my name is Katherine and I am a shopaholic. I cannot pick up a seed catalogue without poring over the pages and coveting anything green and grow-able in Zone 7.
As you may guess after that confession I made another purchase from Burgess. I needed to get seed potatoes. When we were living in our Stead apartment we grew potatoes in a terracotta pot on our porch and were rewarded with Lilliputian results. At the time I had not purchased "seed potatoes" I just used some that had started to sprout in our cupboard. This time I wanted to do it right. So under the guise of making a wise purchase, I mean, we did NEED potatoes. I took the opportunity to add a couple other things to my cart. If I'm already paying shipping might as well make the most of it...right? RIGHT!
Enter my mini orchard. In addition to the Fruit Cocktail tree (super cool, they graft two kinds of peach, a plum, a nectarine and an apricot onto one tree), and 5-in-1 Pear that I had ordered and planted in November, I was now in anticipation of an Hardy Almond, a pair of Kiwi vines, Sugar Sweet Cherry (a self-pollinating variety of Nanking), and two Paw Paw trees. Say, what's a paw paw? That is exactly what I was thinking but when I heard that it was also called a Sweet Custard Apple I had to satisfy my curiosity. True, its also called a Poor Man's Banana in some places but that's hardly as delicious sounding. Add in my pre-order on that Negronne Fig and my excitement level is bordering on unhealthy. Now all I have to do is pray that each lives through its first 3-5 years and I will be up to my eyeballs in exotic, eccentric, delectable fruit!
This seems like a good time to fill you in on my fruit list.
| Cantaloupe | |
| Hearts of Gold | |
| Minnesota Midget | |
| Grape | |
| Canadice | |
| Niagara | |
| Raspberry | |
| Canby | |
| Trees | |
| Almond | |
| Apple | |
| Cherry | |
| Fig | |
| Fruit Cocktail | |
| Paw Paw | |
| Pear | |
| Vines | |
| Kiwi | |
| Vine Peach | |
Not that I am not "real" with you all, all of the time. But I just need to take a time-out and "get real". My fucking stupid laptop did it to me again, again! I had a sweet ass paragraph all typed out and I was just going back an re-reading it for continuity's sake and then somehow my stupid, fucking, remedial, ar-tarded laptop hi-lighted and deleted the whole thing. WHAT THE FUCK LAPTOP! But this stupid, asinine piece of equipment cannot silence me! Nay! I say! Nay! WHAT IS DEAD CAN NEVER DIE! WINTER IS COMING! A PETERSON ALWAYS PAYS THEIR DEBTS! (Adam and I just watched the third season of Game of Thrones in like two days, too much?)
To continue, if my laptop permits, I was saying that I had kickass plans for a fruit collection that would make Adam and Eve's mouths water. But then something happened that tempered my excitement. I went to a work bee with my Perma buddies (shout out to Northern Nevada Permaculture!) and mentioned my grand plans. I knew that a fig tree was risky, time consuming and potentially a waste but as I said before I am a romantic. My buddies, who have been facing the subtleties of Reno's intermountain desert climate for most of their lives, informed me that while cold was a problem it wasn't the only one. Fruits like Fig, Paw Paw and Kiwi can live in the cold but they don't do great in excessive wind, drought, or aridity. Hmm, my neighborhood sometimes feels that a wind tunnel, and I wasn't planning on buying a dehydrator because it gets so hot and so dry here. I think this is a bad sign. I knew it would not be easy, so even though this news deflated me (only a little bit) it also encouraged me and gave me insight on where to place my new plants and how to prepare the area. My ingenuity and inherent, innovative genius will surprise you when this exciting subplot is continued in the upcoming chapter "The Side Garden". Don't touch that dial.
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