Impulse garden purchases at the local big box store

We're probably all guilty of doing this.  You walk into Home Depot or Lowes and spot a plant that looks really nice but you don't know anything about it. For just a few bucks you buy it only to have it die before you could do anything about it.

Those early season tomatoes that are set out in March won't make it because it's still too early to plant tomatoes for a few more months.  That fruit tree that probably won't see it's first fruit because your region is too hot or too cold.

Last week, I walked into an Home Depot and then an Atwoods and I could not resist the temptation to purchase a $13 pear tree and an $8 grape vine.  The package markings were suspiciously devoid of detailed plant hardiness or even the type of grape I was buying (red seedless was not enough information to go on).

I knew if I was going to buy it, I had to act quickly because these plants are delivered in a dormant state and stored inside near the cash registers where they hope people will see them and buy them.  Unfortunately, the warm temperatures inside the store will trick the plant into coming out of dormancy and if you buy a tree or grape vine that is fully leafed out in the store in February, the plant might be shocked when it gets planted outside and the temperatures drop below freezing.

I purchased the "orient pear" thinking it was an Asian pear looking at the picture only to learn that it's actually a hybrid between an Asian and a European pear.  It might be OK since this type of tree is hardy for my region and resistant to diseases that other pears might not be able to resist.

It already started budding slightly while it was in the store so I kept it in my cold garage during a frigid artic cold front that lasted nearly a week.  We had 2 days of bearable weather and I put it in the ground just hours before another winter storm was about to hit.

The pear tree was  a "maiden whip" which means it was a 1 year old fruit tree with no side shoots. It was about 6 ft tall but I pruned it back to about 3 ft after I planted it to compensate for any root loss the plant may have experienced while it was wrapped up for sale in the store.  I read that pear trees should be planted in poor soil to keep growth slow which seems to help the plant resist fire blight disease.  I did still add old leaves, perlite and azomite to the planting hole to give it a better chance of establishing itself come spring.

The spot I chose for my grape vine was unusually rocky and I worked for a while to get those rocks out. Adding perlite, azomite and leaves in the planting hole to hopefully give the grapes a good start climbing the verticle support I pounded into the planting hole.

Although I'm still waiting for a reply from the nursery from which the grape vine came, it does look like all varieties of red seedless grape will work in my growing region.

When the weather gets better, I will install the trellis and start training the grapes into a "T" shape over the next 2 years.

update: my first harvest of fruit from this tree. Can it be 4 years since I planted that little whip? I would have had fruit last year, but the cold wet spring made all the flowers fall off the tree.

Spring finally allowed fruit to set

We had more than 100 pounds of pears on the tree this year. I should have picked some of them off because they were so heavy that the tree limbs just drooped onto the grass. I had no idea when the pears were supposed to be ready to pick with some cultivars expected to be picked early and ripened off the vine.

This pear seems to taste much better staying on the tree until late September, but perhaps the improved flavor was because I removed half of the pears in late August.

2nd to last harvest

I tried my hand at preserving the 2nd harvest but those pears were not all that sweet so I'm debating throwing that batch out and starting over with the final harvest that's still on the tree. I love walking up to the tree and picking a pear and eating it right there, still warm from the sun.