Planting our new trees on a warm winter day(?!!)

So I told you we were going to a local nursery that was going out of business to see if we could do some bargaining--in preparation for this day I:

• watched Dave Ramsey's video "That's not good enough" and learned all about how to get a great deal
  
• did tons of research on fruit/nut/citrus trees so I would know what I was buying (very prepared for there to be not much left and wanted to be sure I was buying a healthy tree and one that grew well in our desert heat)
  
• and withdrew $200 cash --our budget for the trees--and has to be cash for that extra bargaining power :)

The morning of "tree day" I was dancing around singing "it's tree day" "it's tree day!" We finally made it to the nursery by around 2pm and....there were no 15 gallon trees left :( Those are the smallest size--the only ones we could possibly squeeze in the van--not to mention the cheapest. ALL that was left was the REALLY big trees...there was no way we could squeeze those in so we were faced with bargaining for delivery too....I really wanted to stretch my dollars--and with each of the trees being $80 each there was no way...granted that was a great deal--normally those trees are $399...but I don't need big trees--even when you plant big trees it takes a couple years for them to bear fruit just because of the shock of transplanting.

I thought I'd ask just to see--if they'd be willing to do around $40 then maybe I could...the advertisement did say "any reasonable offer will not be denied!" And what's reasonable? All depends on how bad they needed to sell them!

Turns out they didn't need to sell them very badly--even though they were closing in 2 days the remaining trees would just be shipped to one of the other remaining chain stores. The lowest he could go was $70 a tree. Just wasn't worth it.

So I left feeling bummed--I was so excited to start our orchard--we've already lived here a year and have no trees to show for it--even when we plant the trees were still looking at another 3-5 years before we get some serious fruit.

So we ran the rest of our errands--went to the local tack and feed shop--almost bought a new $80 pair of Ariat "Fat Babies"--I need new boots bad--I'm wearing my husbands when I go out to do farm chores! I look like the wife of a clown cowboy! DH said go ahead and buy 'em with the money we had set aside for the trees-- hoping that would make me feel better--but I didn't-- still hoping we could maybe find some trees at another nursery...

Then we ended up at Home Depot for this or that--so we thought we'd take a peek in the nursery (typically the LAST place I'd ever buy trees--the staff isn't that knowledgeable and if you're not you could end up buying a tree that doesn't grow well in AZ). Well it turns out they had a huge selection of bare root stock.

Most nurseries around here don't carry bare root stock because they say the trees are likelier to die--but everything else I've researched and read says different--you can get trees 70% off normal price because the nurseries don't have to feed and water and shipping costs are much lower when dirt and buckets aren't involved...

A bare root tree is one that is basically just pulled out of the ground. It's a tree and it's root--that's it! At Home Depot they put the trees in bags with wet saw dust (it's crucial to keep the roots moist). The trees look pretty pathetic--like a dead stick. No leaves on it at all. But they are alive--just dormant in the winter. You can only buy bare root in the winter--and maybe only in Dec and Jan. And you can't buy citrus trees bare root--only trees that go dormant--like deciduous fruit trees (deciduous means loses leaves in winter) , roses, berry bushes, nut trees.

So I got excited! There were a lot of trees there that would NOT grow well in AZ and probably never produce fruit--but there were a lot of great trees too. And these trees were 2 or 3 years old--the same you'd find in any 15 gal. at a nursery! And the clincher for me was they came with a 1 year guarantee--I asked about it more and it was just what it said--bring in the dead tree and the receipt and the upc code/tag on the tree and no questions asked.

So we ended up with 2 Wonderful pomegranates, 2 Blenheim apricots, 2 Santa Rosa Plums, and 2 Florida Prince Peaches--all do very well in the low desert. My greedy eyes wanted to buy atleast 8 more trees....but I can wait--next year we will finish off our orchard with apples and nuts.

So we have yet to buy a truck (still working on that one...) all we got is our van--which is roomy and does everything we've needed a truck for so far....but with all 5 of us in the van trying to stick 8 trees in there...we were quite a spectacle!! One family did walk by and laugh at us. It was a little embarrassing :) We had 2 of the trees sticking out the passenger side window...I sat in the middle bench--surrounded by trees and the kids in the back next to 5 bags of compost/manure. It was an interesting ride!

We got them home and soaked the roots in water for 24 hours--this gave the trees a really good drink and kind of "woke" them up--they went from looking like a dead stick to nice and green--it was really neat!

Then we spent the next 2 days doing a lot of work--day one we planted and day two we put up chicken wire and the drip system. All this was a first for us and I think we did quite well.

Here is our Apricot--very stick like right? I have to say it looked 10x better before I pruned it--the directions (and everything I read on the internet) says you have to prune back 1/3 to 1/2 of the top growth--that meant chopping some gloriously long branches! But apparently 1/2 the roots got chopped when the tree was pulled out so to compensate you cut 1/2 the branches. It was hard to do...but together DH and I thought of all the Biblical verses on pruning and that helped us see the light at the end of the tunnel :)

Here is the Florida Peach--look at green it turned from that water soak! It was brown the day prior!

You can clearly see here the need for the chicken wire cages...our free ranging chickens like to scratch in the manure/compost looking for bugs--they are smart--ususally compost has lots of bugs in it--but not this stuff--it came in bug free bags from Home Depot. :) They would quickly scratch a big mess if it wern't for the cages. And we have also been told the local bunnies like to nibble on the bark and that can mean death to the tree. So it was an added $45 expense to buy wooden stakes and 50 ft of chicken wire--but well worth it.
Here is my DH laying the drip system--quite handsome if I do say so myself! And boy was it a hot day! I can't even believe it is WINTER!!! The kids were stripping down and I was thinking about getting out my swimsuit! It is just nuts how the weather has been this winter--only 2 days of rain and a whole lot of HOT days. At least the nights cool down quite a bit--but my goodness--it doesn't feel very wintery! But that's ok--in a few days we are going to take the kids to see their "first snow" up north.So we are prayin' every day for our trees--that they don't die and we don't kill 'em! Maybe we'll have lots of wonderful organic fruit in a few years--I can already see DH and I sitting underneath the shade of one of these wonderful trees--eating fresh fruit from their branches and enjoying each others company, the land, and our trees--can't wait!