Planting More Fruit Plants oon Blackberry Homestead

March 21, 2026

Here’s the list of plants I received from Raintree Nursery.

• Prolific Kiwi – 2 Quart pot × 1
• Male Hardy Kiwi – 1 Gallon Pot × 1
• Ken’s Red Hardy Kiwi – 2 Quart Pot × 1
• Mioga Hardy Ginger – 1 Gallon Pot × 1
• Spineless Caper – 1 Gallon Pot × 1
• Cascade Red Currant – Bareroot (1-2′) × 1
• Primus White Currant – Bareroot (1-2′) × 1
• White Grape White Currant – 1-2′ Plant × 1
• Tatran Red Currant – Bareroot (1-2′) × 1
• Shenandoah™ Paw Paw – 5 1/2″ Band Pot × 1
• Mango Paw Paw – 5 1/2″ Band Pot × 1
• Saijo Persimmon – Semi-Dwarf (3′-5′) × 1
• Oriole™ Persimmon – 1 Gallon Pot × 1

I planted the following Raintree Plants on March 14.

• Saijo Persimmon – Semi-Dwarf (3′-5′) × 1
• Cascade Red Currant – Bareroot (1-2′) × 1
• Primus White Currant – Bareroot (1-2′) × 1
• White Grape White Currant – 1-2′ Plant × 1
• Tatran Red Currant – Bareroot (1-2′) × 1

The weather warmed up on Thursday (March 19) and no cold weather was predicted. I placed the glass bird bath bowl onto the stand.

I planted these plants on March 19.

• Prolific Kiwi – 2 Quart pot × 1
• Male Hardy Kiwi – 1 Gallon Pot × 1
• Ken’s Red Hardy Kiwi – 2 Quart Pot × 1
• Mioga Hardy Ginger – 1 Gallon Pot × 1
• Spineless Caper – 1 Gallon Pot × 1
• Shenandoah™ Paw Paw – 5 1/2″ Band Pot × 1
• Mango Paw Paw – 5 1/2″ Band Pot × 1
• Oriole™ Persimmon – 1 Gallon Pot × 1

I put cardboard around the plants that went into the ground (except for the ginger). Bruce got pine tree chips to put around the plants and spread them over the cardboard. I planted the ginger into the flower garden. Bruce added some more chips to the flower garden. I planted the caper into a large pot.

All that digging and squatting left us sore.

Friday (March 20), in the morning, I transplanted the tomato seedlings into bigger containers.

With all the larger containers, the tomatoes would not fit in the house. I decided to use the idea from the winter protection of the spinach mustard from the cold. I hope it will work for the tomato seedlings. I picked a raised bed with sunken dirt, put the hoops up, put the tomatoes under the hoops, and folded the row cover into four layers over the hoops. This should allow the tomatoes to slowly harden off. I’ll remove the row cover a few days before planting them in the raised beds. I’ll let you know how it works. If it fails, I can plant tomato seeds directly in the ground and buy some plants.

In the afternoon, we took the Cliff the Big Red Truck, to Lowe’s and purchased four bales of wheat straw. There was a bit of a mix up. The cashier rang the wheat straw as pine straw. I took the receipt to employees who gets the bales from the semi-truck trailer. He looked at the receipt and told me it was for pine straw bales. The employee told me he’d load the truck with wheat straw bales while I got the receipt for wheat bales. I pointed to the truck Bruce was bringing around. I trotted over to the cashier, got a refund for the pine straw bales, and purchased wheat straw bales. Bruce was waiting for me in the loaded truck, so I climbed in.

Our next stop was Porter’s Nursery. We bought five more blueberries and various flowers.

Today will be another planting day.