Beginning the orchard

On Friday, we took advantage of Pine's clearance sale to purchase 12 fruit trees.  For those who are local to Lawrence, I would encourage you to check out Pine's as soon as you can!  They have an amazing variety of really nice flowers, herbs, perennials and fruit trees - all in really nice shape considering the heat.  They are a family operation and they take great pride in their plants.

The trees were loaded gently into the back of the truck and then slowly driven to the farm, much to the chagrin of everyone behind us on Hwy 24.  Sorry guys!  Once at the farm, we unloaded the trees onto a tarp close to the greenhouse where they will stay until we get their new homes ready. 

In all we purchased:

2 pears (early gold, Bartlett)
3 plums (blackice, blues jam, waneta)
2 apricots (moongold, sungold)
4 peaches (redhaven, baily hardy peach, reliance, elberta)
1 apple (McIntosh)

With the exception of the apple, we got one of every variety they had.  With the apples, we were more particular.  First, we think both our apples survived the transplant so we already have a gala and an arkansas black apple.  Second, we desperately need resistance to cedar apple rust.  The McIntosh is the only one with CAR resistance in the bunch, so its the only one we bought.  Next year for spring planting we'll probably hunt through the catalogs for other varieties with CAR resistance to help round out our apple trees.

With a little luck, these trees will provide fruit for us in about 3 years.  After sampling peaches and nectarines from the farmer's market this weekend, we can't wait!