TOPIC: opening day...

my loving woman and i have been talking it over..she retires in 3 years, i could move clear the hell out of this state and it wouldnt bother me a bit.....

Hey guys, good to see you're still out here kicking.

All my fruit trees have been in the ground for about 1 year now; 2 cherries, apples, peaches, and one plum. I currently have one cherry (Rainier) and one peach with a small hole in it. I don't expect either to survive but if they do, you're all invited for a bigtime fruit festival. I honestly don't know if frost limited fruit production or simply the youth of my trees. I saw very few blossoms and none on my plum tree.

I found aphids on my apple trees and sprayed them the other night.

My strawberries are kicking butt and my blueberries are doing nicely after the transplant. My blackberries are recovering from transplant shock and putting out new growth.

That's everything from the berry perspective.

Chief, I don't know if you've lived in IL all your life or have moved around much but you sound like my brother who lives in HI. He's wanted to leave the island for a long time but life has kept him there. He plans to move to Tucson when his youngest graduates HS. I don't know why that's so important but that's them.

Uprooting for me has been pretty easy, probably because of 20 years in the Air Force and 12 moves during that time. My current wife and I met in WA state, moved to OR, then moved here to WV. I wish I had moved here 20 years ago but I'm just glad we had the courage to move here, neither of us having ever been to WV.

I'm not sure why I'm sharing this but it's never to early to start researching places you might be interested in moving to.

ive lived here my whole life..and its not the state..its the politicians that run this state..it cost me 128 bucks to buy a sticker for my boat trailer 158 for the truck...this state is ran by crooks from Chicago, our states nickname is 'The Cradle of Corruption' and thats no joke..

Chief...

I have lived in one spot all my life... but when I do retire... here in another year or two... I may just move somewhere else.

May stay in Tennessee... but may try another location, another town, another part of the state.

East TN is very pretty, got mountains over there... long tall hillsides with Ginseng too
Lots of lakes for fishing too. Sounds like my kind of place.

If you do decide to leave your state you might consider TN... I think our politicians may be a "little" more honest than yours

My Grandfather was our County's General Sessions Court Judge, and my Dad was County Property Assessor..
I got sick of politics when I was a kid... knocking on doors, asking for votes, when I was a kid... hated that stuff.

but thru all my teenage and young adult years my Grandfather was General Sessions Court Judge... State Troopers would not even give me a speeding ticket.

That came in real handy

It has been a good spring here so far, got close to having some damaging late frost, but just squeaked by - I have 3 peach trees, loaded, apple trees loaded, mulberry loaded, loganberries ripe now (been eating those the past week), and my red and gold raspberries are ripe today (ate a few on my lunch hour).

Been eating strawberries and goumi berries for a while now... got some nice leaf lettuce, snap peas, tomatoes, sweet corn and okra going on the flat garden.

Everything looking good so far.

Hope you guys have a great summer.

If you have never seen a Goumi Berry... below is a pic.


This one is called Sweet Scarlet.



This shows a few Loganberries I ate yesterday... and my Chicago Hardy FIg ...

TNHunter

Chief, my wife worked for a company in Chicago and one of her coworkers also mentioned the high level of corruption there. The gal said she lived in a suburb of Chicago and her property taxes were 8k plus, holy buckets. She said she could almost touch her next door neighbor's house from her house. I thought our property taxes were high in OR at 4.5k on 6.5 acres.

Here, we pay about 1k on 109 acres. I don't think WV taxes my pension as did OR but I'm not sure about that.

You have plenty of time to research prospective states so consider what matters most to you and your wife. Fishing/hunting rules and fees, taxes, employment ops... If Starbucks is important, do not move to rural WV! lol

When I became fed up with OR and the Pacific NW in general, I wanted to move to a rural area that was likely to stay rural. I nailed that goal.

But there was a level of stress and I wondered daily prior to and during the drive here if I would regret our decision. It's turned out very well for us despite the house being almost uninhabitable when we arrived.

I never imagined the ginseng deal here which turned out to be a blessing.

TN, I'm unfamiliar with goumi berries but your logan berries resemble raspberries, do they grow and produce similarly?

Sadly, my lone cherry lost it's grip from the tree and fell to its death. I still have one peach hanging on and it appears to be growing.

I'm engaged in warfare with chipmunks (I think) who seem to enjoy my strawberries.

I suspect you guys are experiencing the wet-cool weather as I am here. It's a welcome relief from the near 90 degree temps we'd been having. Since it was cool and the bugs were calm, I took a walk into the woods this evening to my closest honey-hole and snapped a few shots.

TN, on the fig, do you need a male and female and how long after planting does it produce.

My wife and I were at a garden center today and she saw fig trees and said she likes them but I said I'd need to research them a bit. Quite the coincidence that you mention them today as well.

Hey Woodsrunner on Fig's...

The variety I choose was Chicago Hardy Fig... and it is self fertile (self-pollinating)... Plant 1 and you will get Fruit.

There are some Fig varieties that are mostly grown in California (per Google) that are not self fertile... so just check on the variety that you decide on to make sure.

Chicago Hardy... as the name suggest is a very hardy fig (can grow as far north as Chicago). and they are known to come back from the roots if the top does freeze and die over winter.

Actually I started my CH Fig Spring 2019... it was basically a whip, just a single stem stick about 2 ft tall when planted. It had buds, bare root, no leaves... but man it grew like crazy that first year... by fall 8 ft tall, multi stemmed, about 4 ft wide and late summer early fall we got figs the first year. 25 total before our first hard frost ended them.

That first winter... I did not know that Figs (in my Zone 7a) need winter protection... so not so Fig smart me left it un protected all winter... Spring 2020, mid April I noticed it was not doing anything.... and well it was a good thing that they can come back from the roots, because it had to that year. It was completely dead, all above ground growth was.

I just cut it all off, and early May, I started seeing new growth coming up from the dirt... and grow it did... By the end of Summer 2020 it was again 8-9 ft tall, and had 6-7 nice trunks, or branches coming up and spreading out nicely. From Late July until Dec 3, we got a total of 75 figs that second year (and that was with it dieing back to the ground and coming back from the roots).

So late last fall, after we got our first hard frost and leaves fell off the Fig... I lopped it off about 2 ft tall, used a soft rope to sort of pull all the trunks together.. and put a big tomato cage over it, and wrapped some insulating material around the outside of the cage, and stuffed the inside with some fresh hay. I covered the top with a trash bag and well it worked ... this spring I uncovered it late March and it started budding and leafing out nicely right off. I had to cover it a couple times until our last frost, but that was not too bad.

It has 12-14 nice trunks coming up this year, 4-5 ft tall already and I see little figs coming on already. I would not doubt us getting 200 or more figs this year.

When you plant a fig, just in case your winter does kill the top and it has to come back from the roots... plant it in a raised bed, and plant it deep in that raised bed. Most plants and fruit trees, you plant at the same level as it was planted at the nursery... but Figs you can start them a little deeper, get those roots extra deep, and if you have really bad winters, those roots will be protected by the dirt some.

You should try one, or two. I think you would like em.. They are excellent eating and the fruit sort of gets ripe slowly at first for a month or two but as it gets colder they will ripen lots at a time.

Good Luck !

TNHunter