My Orchard

I spent a good portion of this last weekend doing some very therapeutic gardening. For me, there's just something about planting something in the ground and watching it grow. I'm actually nerdy enough that I go out almost every day and look to see if I can see if anything has grown (believe it or not, if you pay attention to plants, you can sometimes see changes over night!). It's hard for me to describe why that makes me happy, but it does. There's nothing like a beautiful flower or a fresh apple to make you feel like the digging and watering was worth it!
I am determined this year to pay better attention to my vegetable garden - last year it produced a lot, but I was terrible about actually getting out there, picking the food and then cooking with it. I've also made an effort to plant things I'll actually eat! Here's what went into the veggie garden:

Watermelon
Tomatoes
Cucumber
Three types of peppers
Artichoke
Strawberries

I also started an orchard. I did pose the question on Facebook as to what actually constitutes an orchard and most people agreed that it's a group of trees planted in a row. The wikipedia definition is as follows: "an intentional planting of trees or shrubs that is maintained for food production". Yup, I've got one of those! The Blankenheim orchards consist of the following:

2 Granny Smith apple trees
2 Fuji apple trees
2 apricot trees
2 orange trees

Further away on the property we have 2 olive trees, two avocado trees, a peach tree and a lemon tree. Needless to say, in the next couple of years I intend to do some serious pie/strudel baking. I honestly can't wait to have fruit on all of my trees! I'm pretty sure I should have invested in some Lowe's stock... in fact, the one thing that I think is missing is some cherry trees! I'm going to check our local nursery because Lowe's only had the ultra-dwarf versions that don't get very tall and with the deer, we need something that has some height. So happy it's spring!