Berry Blast: Aronia, Honeyberry, Hardy Kiwi, and Elderberry Plantings

Aronia flowers today

Our bees will soon arrive and will they have plenty to pollinate!  An early spring jump-started our annual trip to Jung's Garden Center, and we had pre-ordered 10 aronia plants from Bellbrook Berry Farm in Brooklyn, Wisconsin, so the yard is buzzing with young fruit plants (pun intended).

To start with, we planted one more rhubarb plant. We've planted one every summer minus one since we've resided here, so we're up to four. We find new and exciting recipes for rhubarb every year and never feel we have the adequate amount come springtime, so who knows, maybe we'll end up with a real rhubarb patch in a few years.

Rhubarb, from youngest to oldest

We also added one hardy kiwi plant. One of ours seemed a little weak after snow and cold this winter, so we'll either end up with three like we intended, or get the gift of a fourth. These guys will soon be trellised up poles that lead to a bat house. More to come on that soon.

Our youngest kiwi plant

Sporadically, we bought four elderberry canes. We couldn't help ourselves. On the way to Jung's, I found this recipe, and with spring fever overwhelming both of us, elderberry canes sounded like something we absolutely had to have. Granted, this recipe is written for the elder tree berries, but we figure both should work just fine.

Elderberry canes

Honeyberry plants also caught our eye, so yes, we planted two of those as well. Honeyberry plants can tolerate extremely cold temperatures, and their flavor is often compared to blueberries, which we cannot successfully grow due to our soil. Plus, they are blue, and blue fruits are known super fruits.

Honeyberry plants, wrapped up due to some neighboring feral cats who like to dig these up

8 of the 10 plants

Finally, the aronia....planting aronia was a mission this year. Weekly, we find ourselves ordering fresh juice smoothies with added aronia from the co-op. No one really sells the fruit anywhere other than if you're ordering food to-go. Aronia has caught a lot of buzz lately as a super-fruit because it contains more antioxidants than other super fruits such as blueberries. Plus, aronia grows easily in a variety of conditions ~ from sandy to clay, from cold to warm. Each bush is said to produce between 20 to 30 pounds of fruit annually. And a bonus, the plants are beautiful. In the spring, they flourish with white flowers, and in the fall, they wear a dark crimson. We purchased two-year-old plants, so we'll be picking fruit this fall!

With all of our super fruits, it is just a matter of time before we become super humans, right?

Fruit Tree Planting

We've enjoyed the early spring by cleaning up a neglected part of our yard. Overgrown long before we moved in, about a 1/4 of our yard is now ready to become a mini-orchard. Several mulberry trees are scattered throughout this space, and today, we added two pear trees and two apple trees.

Our fruit-tree-planting experience was next to zilch, so throughout this process we've learned quite a bit. One important piece of information which we acquired was that both pear and apple trees need cross pollination to produce fruit.  Put simply, an apple tree variety needs a partner of a different variety in order to cross-pollinate. For example, we bought a Honeycrisp apple tree; in order for this tree to thrive and produce fruit, it needs another  apple tree variety, so we also bought a Wolf River apple tree. As for the pears, we purchased and planted a Karl's Favorite pear tree and a Ubileen pear tree. Insects and bees will accomplish the cross pollination if the trees are planted close enough to each other. We planted both our pair of apple trees and our pair of pear trees 15 feet apart from one another.

We bought our trees in bareroot form, meaning that the roots are exposed and not bound in soil. We arrived home from Jung's Garden Store with a plastic bag of these four trees, and then decided we had better figure out how to plant them.

So, how does one plant a fruit tree? We did some reading and research, which gave us a wealth of information. The following lists some of what we found out and the steps we took in order to give our new trees a strong start to life and a future of fruit-bearing! 
1. Bareroots  need to soak in a root stimulator in water for 12-24 hours. We just soaked ours overnight.

2. Fruit trees like a well-drained, sandy soil. To assist in water drainage, we added a layer of pea gravel before placing each tree in the ground. Our soil is very thick and clay-like, so we added peat and sand to the existing soil and covered the tree roots with that mixture.

3. After planting the tree, it needs immediate water (around 3 gallons). Ours received 2 gallons each immediately following planting. We are to receive rain all week, so our trees will be getting plenty! 

4. Young trees need to be staked to provide stability.

We also learned that young trees need to be pruned in order to prevent moisture stress, which is what happens when there are not enough roots to get sufficient water to the very tops of the trees. Learning this was a bit disappointing! The young trees look so robust and proud in the yard; I hate to see them losing height and branches, but what's needed is needed, I guess. The pruning will happen tomorrow as we got rained out today.

Honeycrisp Tree

Wolf River Tree

Karl's Favorite Pear Tree

Ubileen Pear Dwarf Tree