Planning Spring Planting 2026

I don't like winter.  Actually, I really hate the winter.  This is unfair to winter itself.  I just don't love being inside, I miss the green, and I long to see the magic of things growing and developing. We can say "you need the winter to appreciate the spring," but I also think about what a blessing it would be in the tropics where the choice is wet or dry season, instead of freezing or boiling. 

The bright side of winter is this being forced inside to think about and prepare for spring planting.  As I start to think about what I want to plant this year, in addition to what needs to be replaced, I am considering my lessons learned [entry link] and my desired future direction for the orchard. 

A hedge fund friend of mine recently linked to the CDC expected longevity tables in his investor letter.  The point he wanted to convey is that for his own fund his goal was for the life of the assets to exceed his own.  

I had quite a different take on that data: starting at this moment, I have only a few productive decades left.  While that is still a lot of time, it has galvanized me.  Even with ballpark another four decades, how many of those will I have the energy and drive to build this orchard and this project?  And what will I want to enjoy when I'm older?

On the latter, I want to be able to walk among the trees and eat fresh fruit in season until the day I die.  Even if I can't build trellises in the same way or labor for 12 hours a day, I want to be able to walk among the mature orchard, my vines, trees and birds.  

I don't have the "homing" instinct to preserve it for generations.  I don't hold or wax poetic about "passing it on," or foster any dreams that the people in my life will care about it as much as I do.  I am not sure that anyone I would pass the property on to would care as much about the vision as I do.  That is just how it goes.  

This reminder of time's inexorable march has spurred me to keep dreaming and dreaming big.  Planting an orchard, a complex ecological system, is an investment, equally as important and long-term as something abstract like "retirement planning" seems to me.  The time is now.  No one is getting any younger (a hackneyed aphorism, but true nonetheless).  

So my initial thoughts on planting for 2026:

• Replace the lost plums - locate some newer trees in a sunnier location
• Invest in cherry trees - They will take a while to bear, but what is nicer than a cherry?  
• Expand apples - I don't love apples as a fruit, but my family does.  They have also been deeply pleasing trees to cultivate.  
• Double down on peaches - my family and friends all love peaches.  Last year was tough for some of them, but others have taken off.  

Resulting in the following concrete plan:

1/ Apples
    - Mutsu x5
    - Jonathan x5 - I lost one of my Jonathans last year and so will replace and expand
    - Golden Delicious x1 - to cross-pollinate the Mutsu

2/ Cherries
    - Lapins x5
    - Stella x3
    - Black Republican - I can't find these as bareroot at the moment, so I will have to get potted ones

3/ Peaches
    - Carolina Gold x5 - I want to replace the ones I lost last year.  The tactic will be to plant some of them closer to the edge of the terracing this year to ensure better drainage
    - Contender x5 - I wanted to try this variety 
    - June Gold x5

4/ Pears - my pears did well, but their sun isn't as strong as in the other locations.  However, of all fruit types, I did not lose a single pear tree during the summer (it remains to be seen what comes back from the winter, but that is a different conversation).  I'm overall satisfied with my pear orchard, but I am going to take the opportunity to selectively add to it
    - Moonglow x3

Finally, there is a question about figs - I had such a mixed experience last year that I've become spooked.  I've never in my life had trouble growing a fig.  From my experience they are robust plants, which, once they get going, become sprawling trees.  That my first year of figs (in their present site) was so poor has really confused me. I am having a wait-and-see mentality about the figs, but may add some opportunistically later in the spring.