When we first started this homesteading thing, we thought, garden – just put the seeds in the ground and it will grow. Boy were we wrong! It takes a lot to tend a garden and make those seeds grow. The same is true for trees. We are learning this the hard way I guess, but that seems to be the way we do everything.

The tree above is a white apricot tree and we have almost killed it twice. This was our very first tree that we planted. I say we, but it was Hubby that planted it. We had no clue what we were doing when we put this tree in the ground. We bought it and a plum tree at the same time. The plum tree died. We have managed to keep this one going but only barely, until recently. We finally got blooms on it this year, and then the wind blew them away! So we know now, that for next year, we need to get some sort of wind break for this tree so it won’t loose it’s blooms and maybe, just maybe we get will get fruit.

This is the next one we planted. This is a mandarin orange tree. By the time we put it in the ground it was getting warm. I think it went into shock or something because we lost every leaf that was on it when it went into the ground. You can see a little bit of green on it again now. It has just started to come back. The way we got it to come back was to water it constantly and add compost to the tree well. The compost helps to feed the tree and it helps to keep a little moisture in the soil. So I am hopeful this will continue to grow well this coming year.

The mesquite on the other hand are suffering. This particular one got a parasite so we cut most everything off of it and are now hoping that it will come back. This is a new thing for us so we are not sure what we are doing. From the looks of it, I think we may have finished killing it, but we shall see. We’ve been giving it water every day to try to help it mend so I guess time will tell.

If you know about mesquite trees and what we may need to do for this one, please leave me a comment below and let me know!

Have a great day!

Renee