Hard to imagine it's Texas, isn't it? Well done!

I have no exciting accounts of my own to share, and certainly no photos yet, but I am busy putting up shade structures and a portable greenhouse on my son's few hillside acres in northeast PA. We've planted out a smattering of fruit trees (that the deer are happily munching) and some fruit bushes and maybe a dozen fig trees (our test to see if they'll manage to hold on in a 6a zone) but are keeping everything else in big pots a little longer until my son gets more of a master plan in his head. His farm will be in order of priority fruit and nut orchards, and a food forest, and (my project) a native-plant nursery. Apples, pears, muscadine and traditional table grapes, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, strawberries, elderberries, aronia, serviceberries (which are native there), pawpaws, persimmons, pomegranates, figs, hardy almonds, walnuts, pecans, hicans, chestnuts. And a whole bunch more I just don't have the mental energy to remember right now.

There will be a lot of testing to all this. First of all, the test of trying to build soil on a steep slope whose existing soil after the glaciers scraped everything is largely eroded stone. Yeah, that'll be a challenge for the rest of my days. I'm proceeding on a refinement of Huegelkultur. But also tests of the plants themselves and breeding thereof. We have maybe thirty to forty, mostly rare heirloom varieties of apples grafted up now -- whips and 2-yr-olds. Maybe ten pears, thirtyish fig varieties, maybe a dozen muscadine varieties (and a grape already growing in the woods that is quite promising). The nut varieties are equally diverse but also centered on a few we've collected from the site of the nursery of an important nut breeder of the mid-twentieth century. The pawpaws center on a few we collected from a Native American orchard of the eighteenth century and earlier.

On the natives side, this is a site that was logged heavily a century ago, leaving the worst genetics of the forest in its wake, so I'm bringing in better genetics from champion trees of the state to mix into the existing forest and get a better pool of traits in any seedlings the combination produces. There will be a lot of sustainable local sourcing of seeds of woody and herbaceous material but also some careful introduction of plants that are native a bit farther down the Appalachians, as we are of the opinion that some assisted migration will be necessary as climate change picks up speed faster than the plants themselves can. Gotta be careful in that, though, as the site has important species of its own that we need to protect.

So, all in all, a mixture of common farming, ornamental horticulture, forest management, and honest-to-god science. Should keep an old coot busy for a while.

I just love your garden. You are right, it is beautiful, a sight for sore eyes and spirits.

I'm going to order my snow-pea seeds today.

It is coming along wonderfully. The growth you wanted and the unexpected environment for other plants and nature. Found a video last week that expanded on deliberately making and nurturing the pooled water type environment. Currently working the subject into tomorrow's open thread.

So my angry inner me just asked, where is the husband with the tractor and mechanic repair skills and where is the land? And where do I get the straw bales?

I went back into your previous bale gardening essays (which of course I missed reading) ... and I have to say I liked them a lot.

What kind of cloth would you need to protect against too much rain and against too much very hot sunlight?

Straw bales? I remember that on the east coast Home Depot's garden section sold them? Are they ok?

Just asking, because to be "fair and balanced" (something I hate and don't believe is possible) there are apparently some dangers to straw bale gardening too. (See that's why I hate the internet. It always confuses you and makes people go nuts not knowing who is right who is wrong.)

Here on Maui in Hawaii I always wonder what they do with all the dried banana tree leaves? Can you cut them down to straw and make bales out of them? Maui has very dry and very hot areas with lots of lava rocks and dry grass. Old goats and cattle ranches on those grounds, but really very difficult to imagine to garden on. And of course you don't get a little piece of the land to buy there either.

Then there are very wet and hot tropical areas, too wet for easy vegetable gardening, but I think most people who have gardens haven't even given it a try. I am sure it's doable.

The coconut palm trees can get into your heads to have some strange dreams about them - I mean literally - people get hit by coconuts falling on their heads.

So, up to Palm Tree climbing to harvest the coconuts?
[video:https://youtu.be/QSi_Aei1cAs]
ahem, how much would you pay a guy to climb those trees for harvesting purposes?

Because otherwise beware of ... Death by coconuts

Meanwhile pineapples taste also very good ...

Peace.