Bob Wells Nursery

After much research I packed up the Suburban and headed off to Lindale, Texas and Bob Wells Nursery. As a cantankerous, contrarian curmudgeon, anytime I have so many people saying good things about a company I usually go in with lowered expectations. Happily my expectations were far exceeded.

I went in on a Monday in mid-October and had the place basically to myself. I spent almost an hour just walking through and getting a feel for their inventory. The employees were friendly, knowledgeable, and helpful and gave me plenty of space to just wander around like a poor kid in a toy store. I ended up buying a plethora of trees, bushes, and vines. The guys loaded up my trailer, happily gave me my TSP discount (it paid for the next several years of membership with Spirko by the way) and I was on my way.

If you're anywhere nearby go in and talk with the guys there, they'll tell you what will grow and what won't. Amendments you need, and those you can do without.

Swales - Just a Ditch on Contour

For those of you who've owned a house already, you understand the time/money pit they can be. Setting up a homestead adds another level to that, in addition to the electric bill etc, you have the additional costs of trees, bushes, animals, feeding troughs, feed, tools et cetra.

Some of these are simply sunk costs, like renting the excavator to dig the swales, while others like the fruit trees themselves will give me at least 100% ROI per year for 10 years (if I can keep them alive, 50/50 that.) I get that ROI number based on assuming $25 paid for tree, and getting at least 25 pounds of fruit valued at $1 per pound for at least 10 years of the trees life.

The first big project that I had to get out of the way was getting the swales dug in. I dug in three, the first one ended up being in really poor soil. The next two swales were in beautiful black clay/loam and that's where I ended up planting a majority of my trees/bushes/vines. In the row that was poor soil, I only planted three trees, two Advacados and a plum. We'll see how they do.

Bob Wells Nursery

After much research I packed up the Suburban and headed off to Lindale, Texas and Bob Wells Nursery. As a cantankerous, contrarian curmudgeon, anytime I have so many people saying good things about a company I usually go in with lowered expectations. Happily my expectations were far exceeded.

I went in on a Monday in mid-October and had the place basically to myself. I spent almost an hour just walking through and getting a feel for their inventory. The employees were friendly, knowledgeable, and helpful and gave me plenty of space to just wander around like a poor kid in a toy store. I ended up buying a plethora of trees, bushes, and vines. The guys loaded up my trailer, happily gave me my TSP discount (it paid for the next several years of membership with Spirko by the way) and I was on my way.

If you're anywhere nearby go in and talk with the guys there, they'll tell you what will grow and what won't. Amendments you need, and those you can do without.