Doomed Blooms

A week or so ago my little peach tree stick started to bloom... and then the nectarine, the meyer lemon, the oroblanco grapefruit and I bought a washington navel orange and hass avacado trees.  I told my mother in law that they were starting to bloom.  I was so excited.  She asked, "Are you going to pick off the blossoms or wait and pick off the little fruit?"  What???

Meyer Lemon with ant

Nectarine

Oroblanco

Washington Navel

Hass

Apparently you aren't supposed to let them fruit the first couple years so they can build stronger roots. :(
Watch out little ant.

Birthday presents

All shiny and new

Early and late peaches, apples, a nectarine, and a 4-in-1 grafted plum.



Meyer Lemon and Oro Blanco grapefruit

 Chris and I often get gifts from our parents that are a combo Christmas and Birthday gift. My cookware set was creeping ever-nearer to the end of it's 25 year warrantee (which seemed like a lifetime warrantee when I got married) and our silverware started disappearing about the time the boys started helping scrape the plates.  I think a lot of forks went into the garbage and the spoons into the disposal (we were short on forks, the spoons were gouged up but I think we still had a full set.)  Now we have a shiny new set of pots and pans and silverware.  We feel so fancy now.
  Our yard is getting more and more bare (it's a lot of work and the yard looks worse the more work we do.) But it was really fun to go choose birthday trees at the nursery.  They have been planted close together in groups of the type of fruit they will bear.  The idea is that our family doesn't need a whole mature-tree full of apples at one time.  So, you get a few trees with a different harvest times, plant them close together and prune them so they don't grow very big.  Then you get a more usable amount of fruit over a longer time.  We'll see how it works.
Thanks!