Spring is here in Lower Alabama and the Florida panhandle, and the last frosts are behind us. We’re planting more plants in the food forest right now, filling in the gaps and taking out some things we no longer want.

Thus far this last week we’ve added:

1 Silk Hope mulberry
1 El Dorado mulberry
2 Nepali hog plums
2 Ruby autumn olives
2 Golden autumn olives
1 Salavatski pomegranate
1 Parfianka pomegranate
1 Kazake pomegranate
1 sloe plum
1 pear (variety unknown – it was labelled as an “apple” but is definitely a pear)
1 mayhaw

We’ve also planted a ring of cold-hardy citrus trees around a couple of oaks in our yard, since somewhat shaded citrus do better on frosty nights. The varieties include Bumper satsuma, Meiwa kumquat, calamondin, Nagami kumquat and what may be a seedling Ichang lemon (tag is lost).

I planted a couple of Nepali hog plums (Choerospondias axillaris) in the food forest last year and was happily surprised to find they went dormant and came right through the cold of winter without apparent damage. This is supposed to be a tropical species but there’s very little data on it. This is why we experiment! And it’s why I’m planting more.

We also have Nanking cherries setting fruit, which is another nice surprise as they are allegedly at the bottom of their growing range here and we weren’t sure if they’d make anything (or even live). Yet we have three, and they are thriving.

Over the next couple of weeks we plan to add more nitrogen fixers and chop and drop plants, including Enterolobium, Napier grass, black locust, vetiver and more Mexican sunflowers.

We mowed down multiple patches of sugarcane in the food forest and took them out, as we planted a big patch of them out in the former cow pasture.

The weather has been very dry here but we got a little rain yesterday. We’ll see how spring shapes up from here. Many of our trees are really taking off this year, especially some of the pomegranates and chestnuts – I’ll try to film a tour soon.