Farm Plan - The Orchard

Before writing this I had to do a walk about to inventory what I actually have here in the homestead. Truthfully I didn't know. 

Current inventory list:

Clove 

Cinnamon 

Allspice 

Hawaiian lemon

Feral lemons 

Bananas -various varieties

Gauva-1 sweet pink, 1 sweet white, dozens of feral sour types, and numerous strawberry guavas 

Papaya - numerous feral types

Apples 

Peaches 

Tangelo 

Grapefruit (white)

Orange 

Surinam cherry 

Coffee 

Coconut 

Mango (it doesn't produce mangos)

Macadamia nut 

Avocado 

Mulberry 

Eggfruit

Down at the seed farm there are mangos, breadfruit, and papayas. 

In hindsight I should have spent more time establishing a food orchard, but alas, hindsight is 20/20. But I'm getting fruits from some of the trees already. I believe my joy is in the establishing of this food forest rather than in the harvesting of great amount of fruits right now. So I'm satisfied. But if I were to give advice for others starting out, I'd suggest getting those fruit trees planted the first year rather than waiting. 

Most of the trees are established well enough to be producing now. But of course the newly planted trees need to grow more before I can expect harvests. The peaches are new, this past year. The coconut is 12 years old but it won't produce for a long time yet, if it ever produces in my lifetime. This is not a good location for coconuts. Two of the avocados are still young. So are dozens of coffee trees. 

I tried growing cacoa trees but failed twice. I have no experience growing these and I'm not even sure if they would survive in my location. But after two failures I've decided to turn my attention to other trees. Perhaps someday I'll try again. I also killed the mangosteen sapling. My story is the same as for the cacao. Wrong location? Lack of grower's knowledge? 

Having come from NJ, I'm pretty stoked to be picking lemons, bananas, and oranges from my very own trees. How cool is that! I pick up my own macnuts. Gather my own avocados. I never dreamed I'd be doing that. 20 years ago I didn't even know what a mango, guava, or papaya was. Never heard of macadamia nuts. Never knew where allspice, cloves, or cinnamon came from. And now I grow my own. Weeeeeeee!