jovialgent Hatfield

I appreciate the guys effort, hope he gets some good food from it.

Too many assumptions ITT...

Lot's of Florida fruit growers on this forum:

http://tropicalfruitforum.com/

You should check it out while you're waiting for closing.....

It's best to move them when dormant but you don't have a choice now. What's to lose really? They are gonna kill the plant if you don't take it. Blueberries have a shallow root system and fine feeder roots. Try and get as much of the root system as you can and maybe cut the plant back a bit. Water it in, mulch it.

Good luck....

I don't know about charging them to dump. They are doing you a favor by giving you free mulch and you are doing them a favor by saving gas/time/possible dumps fees by taking it away. Sounds like a fair trade, leave it at that.

Now is a great time in CA for free suburban mulch because people mix green grass clippings with their fallen brown leaves and put them out on the street for the city to pick up. Like said above, I try and beat the city to the punch and pick piles up first.

Yes, you should graft different varieties. You can extend your season that way. You can graft apple scions onto pears and vice versa. If you are cutting the pear back hard because of blight it would be great to graft some varieties you might like onto the tree.

Check this calendar out from Dave Wilson......(ripening times are based in Fresno, CA I believe)

http://www.davewilson.com/homegrown/promotion/chart/harvest_dates2010.pdf

Anyone have opinions on using Artichoke or Rhubarb leaves for chop/drop? It's the only plants I have right now that have a decent amount of biomass.

Seckel (European) is another sold/marketed as self fertile. It is supposed to be a very high quality pear....

i would recommend a non-astringent type variety of persimmon. the astringent types you must let sit until they turn to mush almost and then you end up using them for baking almost exclusively, unless you want to eat it like baby food. eating a persimmon like Fuyu straight off the tree like an apple is pretty awesome.

Brenda Groth wrote:
first of all IF I read that right you have a $10,000 yearly income and children..that makes it rough right there.

he says 10k per person....that could mean 3kids/wife so a total of 50k...OP doesn't make it clear....the right time to buy though in the USA. go for your dreams sir! l like the advice about getting a property with mature plants. i just bought a home and planted lots of edibles and will have to wait for years for some of them. i had a mature orange and lemon though which has been really great for me...to get something from the place for now....