delurking

Hi there! Delurking here so I can start participating. I decided last year to start growing more on our property (1/2 acre in the Austin suburbs) and then stumbled on permaculture and it all clicked! I've been knee deep in absorbing everything permaculture since then and my yard is already significantly different. My current goal has been to get all things fruit trees, bushes and other perennials going in my food forest before the summer hits here.
I do have 2 plums, 3 pomegranates, 2 pears, 2 pluots, 3 figs, 2 japanese raisins, a pecan, several elderberries, honey berries, goji berries, pineapple guavas, blackberries, a mulberry, and a loquat already planted in the last few years (most aren't producing much or anything yet).
I recently did a large (for the suburbs) garden expansion. We had cut down some old peach trees early last year that just lay in a pile and I used those to both edge my new paths (with the big logs) and put all the small branches under a deep layer of mulch in new garden beds. Currently I have a bunch of buckwheat, peas and fava beans in all the new beds to try to get them ready for spring.
I have several large orders of trees and bushes coming in the next couple of months - 2 more figs, 2 more poms, 2 cherry of the rio grandes, several cool hardy bananas, 2 asian pears, 2 apples, 3 more loquats, guomi and aronia bushes, 1 medlar, 4 jujubes, several mulberries, 1 almond, probably more I'm forgetting. Almost all fruit trees with multiples are different types. Lots of comfrey and perennial sunflowers everywhere and I've been busy trying to create microclimates and water catchment and more plants to plants for chop n drop.
Also running after my 1,3 and 5 year old kids, but they love being outside so it helps when I'm trying to get stuff done

Welcome Randie. I believe that you have coined a new word.

Seems like there's more and more of us from Texas here. Welcome to the crowd.

Nice work! Gardening with kids is one of my favorite pastimes. I've built digging places for them into my design. Please do update us on your progress!

Lots of progress before the heat hit! I have everything ordered planted, 16 more yards of cedar mulch were used on all the paths, and thousands of seeds of annuals have been used this year. I also created a stock tank pond and will be trying to propagate dragonflies in it to naturally combat mosquitoes and other flying bugs (maybe help with my archenemy, the squash vine borers).

And an inventory of what perennials are out there right now

Front Yard
Sambucus canadensis elderberry
-2 unknown Elderberry Sambucus canadensis varieties from a nursery
-1 Johns elderberry

2 pineapple guava unknown nursery variety

1 Texas Blue Giant Fig

1 Parfianka Pomegranate

1 loquat unknown nursery variety


Backyard

Sambucus canadensis elderberry
-1 Nova
-1 York

7 Banana trees
-Ice Cream / Blue java
-Goldfinger
-California Gold

1 cool hardy mandarin orange tree unknown nursery variety

2 Bay Laurel trees

Jujube
-1 Honeyjar
-1 contorted
-1 Sugar Cane
-1 GA 866

Plum trees
- 1 Methley
- 1 Japanese Burgundy

Pluot trees
- 1 Dapple Supreme
- 1 Flavor King Supreme

Blackberry
- Thornless Prime-Ark Freedom
- 3 in 1 Thornless
- Thorny Prime-Ark 45

Passion Fruit vines
- 2 Passiflora edulis - purple
- 2 Passiflora actinia - purple and white
- 2 Passiflora sanguinolenta - pink

Goji Berry
- 2 Black
- 2 Phoenix Tears
- 1 Big Lifeberry
- 1 Sweet Lifeberry

Goumi bushes
-2 unknown nursery variety
-1 Red Gem
-1 Sweet Scarlet
-1 Carmine

Aronia bushes
-2 Viking
-2 Nero

Medlar
- 1 Puciumol

2 Asian Pear
- 1 Kikusui
- 1 Shinko

Garden Prince Almond

Unknown Pecan

Honeyberry bushes

Pomegranate
- 1 Texas Pink
- 1 Eversweet
- 1 Austin
- 1 Kandahar

Fig
- 1 Alma
- 1 Celeste
- 1 Janice Seedless Kadota
- 1 Panache Tiger
- 1 LSU Purple

Moringa trees - 4 established, many more planned

Pears
- 1 Kieffer
- 1 Bartlett

Apple
- 1 Anna
- 1 Dorsett

2 Cherry of the Rio Grande trees

2 Japanese Raisin trees

Melon trees
- 1 male and 1 female trees

4 everbearing mulberry bushes

1 Ha’o mulberry tree

1 Sumac tree

1 clumping Himalayan Blue bamboo

Black elderberry
- 2 black beauty
- 1 black lace

Loquat
- 1 Glod Nugget
- 1 Vista White
- 1 Early Red

Strawberries

Asparagus

Sunchokes

3 Tree Collards

Wow. You certainly wasted no time. Outstanding work.

Don't plant your trees too close, or you'll be bumming when it gets too crowded (speaking as someone who has had to cut stuff down because it was just too dense). Everything always grows so much bigger than we anticipate that it will.

It will be fun to watch the garden grow, even as your kiddos grow with it.

Casie Becker wrote:Seems like there's more and more of us from Texas here. Welcome to the crowd.

Seems like most here in Texas are mainly from Austin and Dallas Areas, I seem to be one of the rare people wanting to change up here on the Caprock of the High Plains. And my land it self is part of the initial waterways of the Colorado river that down that way. Hopefully my adventures up here will lead to some spring rejuvenation and bring live back to this area since most fields are now Oil, Cotton, Peanuts ore Pecan Orchards up here now.

Randie Piscitello welcome to posting I am recently new to forums as well and as of this January finally moved to my land. Looking good so far on changes. Just wish I had time to be as far along as your progress.

That's really inspiring, Randie. Is your soil the east side clay or are you on the limestone shelf? Do all of the selected fruit trees tolerate cold? Did you source the trees locally or online? What sort of irrigation are you using for establishment and the brutal summer months?
I look forward to watching this grow.
Will

Marco Banks wrote:Wow. You certainly wasted no time. Outstanding work.

Don't plant your trees too close, or you'll be bumming when it gets too crowded (speaking as someone who has had to cut stuff down because it was just too dense). Everything always grows so much bigger than we anticipate that it will.

It will be fun to watch the garden grow, even as your kiddos grow with it.

Thank you! It's hard to see in the sea of stuff, but a lot of the stalky things are actually sunflowers, and probably half the property and trees put in are in other areas (the property is really long). I'm also going to try "backyard orchard pruning" techniques to keep the fruit trees at manageable sizes. Here's a pic of the sunflowers just this morning. Love them for drawing the bees in and just general attractiveness. They also provide some afternoon shade to my annuals from the beating sun.

Will Moraes wrote:That's really inspiring, Randie. Is your soil the east side clay or are you on the limestone shelf? Do all of the selected fruit trees tolerate cold? Did you source the trees locally or online? What sort of irrigation are you using for establishment and the brutal summer months?
I look forward to watching this grow.
Will

Thank you, unfortunately on the limestone, so I've put in well over 50 yards of mulch and organic materials over the last couple of years to try to build soil on top. The trees all *should* tolerate our weather, and I've put the boundary pushers in a warmer microclimate closer to the house (mostly the banana trees, although the varieties I selected should technically be ok, but there's always that random super cold ice storm every couple of years). Some (3 of the figs, pears, 3 of the pomegranates, 2 elderberries, the pineapples guavas, 1 plum, the lemon and lime) were bought locally at Green and Growing in Pflugerville, but most of the more atypical were bought online. My favorite online nurseries were Burnt Ridge and Bay Laurel and I actually got random plants from ebay with good results (just made sure to read reviews). I'm hoping the depths of mulch I've put on everything will help with holding water in the landscape, and right now I have several soaker hoses for the times I need to irrigate. I'd like to put in a permanent automatic drip hose system at some point once everything is completely set.