Blog Update!
For those of you not following me on Facebook, as of the Summer of 2019 I've moved to Central WA, to a tiny mountain town of less than 1,000 people.

I will be covering my exploits here in the Cascades, as I try to further reduce my impact on the environment. With the same attitude, just at a higher altitude!

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Front yard fruit tree

We live in an area with covenants. Antiquated, silly covenants that are fitting for the neighborhood circa 1950. One of the covenants does make sense and that is to protect the neighbors' views, so we are, allegedly, only allowed to plant trees that won't grow above the roof line and, if we do plant a tree, we have to get board approval. Of course, there are a ton of trees in the neighborhood that are giant, but they are in no way blocking anyone's view of anything.

In any case, being a goodly neighbor that I am, when I was thinking of planting a tree in the front yard, I went through the rigmarole of meeting with the board, going over the planting site, discussing what I was thinking of planting and how tall it would get and, eventually getting board approval. This was over a year and a half ago and by the time all was said and done, I lost the energy to plant anything. Until yesterday.

On my way home from work, I zipped into my favorite nursery and bought a new tree for the front yard. I then convinced the kids to come out and watch me sweat out about a gallon of body fluids while I dug up a patch of sod and then attempted to vanquish the hard packed soil underneath, all in an attempt to get this poor tree in the ground. After an hour of wrestling with it, it now happily lives in our front yard.

Unfortunately, it looks puny for now. But, eventually it will be quite large. What is it? Well, it's a Peter's Honey Fig and it already has 38 figs growing on its 3 foot limbs. The Peter's Honey Fig originated in Sicily and sports a medium, very sweet, lemon yellow fig that is perfect for fresh eating, canning or drying. At least that's what I'm hoping. I'm still angry at my useless dwarf negronne fig that still is only a foot tall. At least now I have an excuse to dig up the dwarf and try something else in its place.

Photo courtesy of Tall Clover Farm

9 comments:

Surviving and thriving on pennies said...

Memories of visiting my grandmothers house and eating her yummy figs off her tree. What a pick! I'm very jealous

Robj98168 said...

I never knew that we could plant figs here... BTW One of my Columnar Apples gots apples!!!

Peak Oil Hausfrau said...

We also planted the wrong kind of fig and have been trying to cut it down ever since - it grows well but doesn't produce much before the first frost (in December!!). But it keeps re-growing from it's base ever since, and the leaves are so beautiful we haven't ever gotten around to digging it up.

Anonymous said...

Figs! Lucky you.

Lee said...

Covenants? They sound more like communist party rules and regulations to me!

Unbelievable - I've never heard of anything like that, are they common in the USA?

I think we can do pretty much what we want here in New Zealand. I know that people aren't allowed to have roosters in some areas of cities, or pigs, but thats about it. There might be limits on cat numbers too, I think. but that hasn't stopped a friend of mine, who has 10 (*cringe*).

I'm wondering how you can get such silly rules changed. If you want to work towards sustainability, people will need to be planting some bigger trees in their yards. Which means the rules have to go - they're outdated.

Maybe convincing some council members (or board members, or whatever they're called) with some of those yummy figs of yours might do the trick? ;-)

Lily Girl said...

This is precisely the reason I refused to even look at homes with HOAs when we were shopping. We ended up in a home we love in an older neighborhood with no associations or covenents. And we recently ripped out the front lawn and put in 27 fruit trees (plus 12 more in the back yard, both in ground and in pots). In a couple of years I should be thoroughly overrun with fruit. Yay!

Jenn said...

I haven't ever lived in a place where you had to deal with a board or HOA - so I ask: what view? If you plant a tree in front of your house - are you merely blocking the neighbor's view of your livingroom window?

Is the other part of the covenant that we don't know about something that specifies you have to leave all your curtains in common rooms open at night when the lights are on so the neighbors can have a better view? :)

I have a mission fig in a pot but can't really plant it here - would love to put it in the front yard but the LL would just pull it out.

KClowlife said...

I with Lily Girl. I won't shop for houses in areas with HOAs or Covenants. But I don't have kids so I don't have a need to live near great schools.

@Jenn I don't agree with the opinion, but they're referring to view down the avenue as you're walking or driving...not the view as you stand directly in front of the house and look at it. Some people really want to control every single thing, even unimportant things, so they can live in an area where all the little Hitler kids toe the line. The believe doing so protects their reputation, kids, and all sorts of other stupid ideas.

tom | tall clover farm said...

Don't give up on the Negronne fig; they're exceptional. Make sure it's getting enough water and try a liquid fertilizer. My fig trees tend to take about three years to kick in and grow: year 1, sleep; year 2, creep; and year 3 leap!

Good luck. Tom