01-13-2012, 04:15 PM
Do you know your neighbors?
That is my suggestion for a first PLANNING trip...
Anything planted or placed on your lot could/will get "borrowed", buggy &/or overgrown if there is no connection to you...
The subdivisions here are full of lots that someone started up (cannot tell you how many have found a partial rock wall, an structure that the jungle reclaimed, a long ago orchard that is soo spent that is must be removed; or the flip side, their lot turned into a junk yard with appliances, dozens of cars, & a slew of vermin....
Most of these improvements were placed by people that had ideas to build... one day.. & have things growing & such .(of course that is not the case with the junk....but both are reasons you should get to know your neighbors, esp on those living on your street... until then, anything you do on your lot could be a waste of your valuable vacation time & open up your lot to junking & "borrowing")
There are many fruit varieties that do very well in your area, and most any will be full of fruit in just a few years (some as little as months to a little over a year after planting, others may take longer...), but the soils here are nutritionally deficient, and without care, you will not have a lovely orchard of fruiting trees, but trees that are nutritionally spent...and buggy
Even noni gets buggy & weird if left totally alone for a long time...but is less likely to be borrowed!
ETA: Man, this is a downer!, in re-reading this, can you tell I have been trying to help a neighbor for the last few weeks trim out & resurrect her citrus trees after a few years of mild neglect (she does fertilize on the A months & has a guy that keeps down the lawn)...they were over grown with bromiliads & other epiphytes.
They had been cleaned only 4 years ago, and have now have 3' of green waste that another neighbor & I have scraped & cut off of the trees, piled around them - and now all of that has to goooo (last time we did not remove the green waste...& all the plants just went to seed & made a big mess all over again....
That is my suggestion for a first PLANNING trip...
Anything planted or placed on your lot could/will get "borrowed", buggy &/or overgrown if there is no connection to you...
The subdivisions here are full of lots that someone started up (cannot tell you how many have found a partial rock wall, an structure that the jungle reclaimed, a long ago orchard that is soo spent that is must be removed; or the flip side, their lot turned into a junk yard with appliances, dozens of cars, & a slew of vermin....
Most of these improvements were placed by people that had ideas to build... one day.. & have things growing & such .(of course that is not the case with the junk....but both are reasons you should get to know your neighbors, esp on those living on your street... until then, anything you do on your lot could be a waste of your valuable vacation time & open up your lot to junking & "borrowing")
There are many fruit varieties that do very well in your area, and most any will be full of fruit in just a few years (some as little as months to a little over a year after planting, others may take longer...), but the soils here are nutritionally deficient, and without care, you will not have a lovely orchard of fruiting trees, but trees that are nutritionally spent...and buggy
Even noni gets buggy & weird if left totally alone for a long time...but is less likely to be borrowed!
ETA: Man, this is a downer!, in re-reading this, can you tell I have been trying to help a neighbor for the last few weeks trim out & resurrect her citrus trees after a few years of mild neglect (she does fertilize on the A months & has a guy that keeps down the lawn)...they were over grown with bromiliads & other epiphytes.
They had been cleaned only 4 years ago, and have now have 3' of green waste that another neighbor & I have scraped & cut off of the trees, piled around them - and now all of that has to goooo (last time we did not remove the green waste...& all the plants just went to seed & made a big mess all over again....