Two years ago I started to plant fewer flowers, and more edibles. I put in 4 blueberry bushes, 2 elderberries, 2 currants, 2 gooseberries and one apple tree. Waiting for the plants to mature enough to bear fruit has been excruciating. Last year we had blueberries, but nothing else yet.

Now you might already know what is wrong with my equation above, but embarrassingly enough I didn’t. This is going to be a ridiculous reveal in about five seconds. This past winter something kept bothering me about my apple tree. I didn’t really give it much thought, but doubts would creep in right before going to sleep, only to be completely forgotten by morning. Then the absolutely most obvious and embarrassing realization hit me. I need two freakin’ trees to pollinate each other!!! Crap, crap and double crap! I’ve had this tree for 2 years and now I would have to get a new one that would take a couple of years to mature. That’s 4 years of waiting for fruit! Gah, how could I be so stupid?? I quickly placed an order for a new tree. I even asked the lady if my crabapple tree could pollinate my apple tree. She tried not to laugh at the city girl.

The only tiny bright spot is that my sister told me the other night, that I could prune some branches off a different apple tree and put them in a vase near mine. That is supposed to be able to pollinate my tree. I’m going morel hunting this weekend at an apple orchard, so I’m going to try that. Cross your fingers!