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Originally Posted by Cole_Robbie
Are you part of the neighborhood with the big houses? Congrats if so. I only ask to make sure there is no HOA agreement in place to which you are subject. Some people consider gardens to be eyesores.
I think peaches take the most work to grow, especially frequent spraying. My grandpa had an orchard for many years. My favorite variety is JH Hale, a very old variety and one of the very few that require multiple trees to pollinate each other. Georgia Bell is another old variety my grandpa grew. They are a white peach that bruises if you give them a dirty look, but they are famous for flavor.
Apples take a little spraying if you want them to look nice. We never had much luck with sweet cherry trees. They like it farther north. Pie cherries, on the other hand, will grow like a wild tree. I've never grown pawpaws, but pears are the other low-maintenance fruit trees. Both the old-fashioned Kiefer pear and the Asian pear-apple grow very well.
Blackberries and blueberries are also fairly easy to grow. You'll probably amend your soil with lime for the blueberries first. My family grows a lot of blackberries. They are labor-intensive to prune in the early spring and also to pick if you have too many. The thorny ones are sweeter. I think it's the same as what grows wild. The birds have planted a large patch in my backyard for me.
If that hole is representative of the rest of your property, you have three times as much topsoil as me, and it looks very dark and rich. I would think whatever you plant will do well.
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Thank you for the compliment on the soil. I agree it looks great! What I have now is solid clay and a pain in the but to work with.
It is part of a neighborhood with a very lax HOA. There are no HOA fees either. We can even have chickens and are planning on them in the future too. Several of the neighborhoods have gardens. One of the reasons we chose the lot we did.
Thanks for the recommendations for the fruit trees. I would like a few of each but all different varieties. Maybe just one Pawpaw though as I have never tried one. They are supposedly native to Missouri but I can't seem to find any to try. I'm fairly certain hey self pollinate.
I plan on blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries but they will be a little farther down the road. Maybe some grapes too.
Geez 3 1/2 acres might not be now that I read it all. Lol.