Biggest Dream, Largest Failure

Potted miniature Orange Tree

Potted dwarf Lemon Tree

I am being facetious when posting my potted trees. They provide plenty of lemons and oranges. The oranges are not ready to eat since it is a young tree. So we just let them fall off and the kids throw them around. We accidentally grew two more Orange trees from two of the fruits that fell. The lemons do not survive our children's repetitive beatings and pluckings....well except one or two brave lemons. It takes the (fruit?) a year to be ready! Anyway, this post is actually about my Plum tree, Peach trees, Pear tree, and Apple tree!

The first year we moved in, we harvested an entire basket of the juiciest plums ever! The second year.....none! There was not one solitaire plum on the tree. Initially. we accused the deer. The third year, we discovered some kind of worm eating the buds before they had time to turn color and squirrels ate the rest. That is when my detest of squirrels became very real.....I'll save that story for another time. In early Spring, I went all out. I pruned that poor plum tree (mostly likely, completely wrong), mulched, and fed it. This past summer, I eagerly awaited my efforts. Nothing. There were these beautiful leaves and not - a - single - plum. *shake my head*

Soooo, the poor peach trees have a worse story. There were two trees. The second year one of the trees had the juiciest peach ever and it was huge!!!! Well....my husband was mowing and ran right into the tree, bwahahaha. These trees are still babies. Knocked over the one tree, to a point that we just decided to uproot it. The other one, with the peach, turned out was suffering from silver root rot? - not sure if I said the correct term.....so no more peaches. We uprooted it.

The rest of the trees we just planted last year in apology for destroying the original trees planted here. My husband ran into one again, lol! The pear tree, I think, We have an argument over where we planted the apple and where we planted the pear. :) Fortunately, he only stripped the branches and so we're awaiting it's full recovery this spring.

We won't mention what happened to our nut trees....ha, ha, ha! Ok - would you believe our Almond tree blew away in the wind?! True story. :) As for the Walnut tree, can someone tell me how to harvest them when they have fallen? So far we just let the squirrels bury them.