Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Raspberries, Gooseberries, and Grapes, Oh My

J and I had a day together yesterday, which was wonderful, and we ran a bunch of errands together...which we like to refer to as "date" time :)

He's excited about collecting trees and plant starts, with the future goal of planting them on our Someday Property after they've grown some more and are a closer age to fruit-bearing. He happened upon some plants yesterday with prices in the too-good-to-pass-up range, and he nearly danced a dance right there in the nursery when he found these:



Here they are tucked into some soil till we get ourselves a little more organized and get some proper soil and fertilizer and some bigger pots...

And here are the weatherproof tags we devised by cutting label-sized rectangles from a gallon- sized milk jug, labeling each with a permanent marker, and attaching plastic-coated wire to them via a hole made with a standard hole punch.


I wasn't aware that some of these plants could grow here in Florida, and I was even a bit skeptical as we spoke with the nurseryman at the checkout counter. The plants we purchased were a couple of grapes, a few red raspberries, 2 different gooseberries, and a red currant plant. Red currants in Florida?? Hmmm.

But on the assurances of the nurseryman, and the glee of my overjoyed husband, one made it home with us. The raspberry canes were divided upon potting, and we need some more pots for everything to have enough breathing room. Let's see how they all do in pots...we'll sure try to keep them going. I'll be really happily surprised if we CAN actually grow red currants in zone 9/10...

Has anyone out there tasted gooseberries? Neither of us has, and we're curious about the flavor!

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