Hello all, this is my first post on GardenWeb, after reading it for many years. It is a very informative site and I've used a lot of the info. A little background, we're in eastern Kentucky on my wife's family farm in zone 6B. It is a really nice place to live, clean air and water, and quiet in an isolated rural setting. I lived in Texas for 30 years, in the suburbs of Dallas. I really enjoy that we get 4 real seasons here, as opposed to the brutal summers and pseudo fall and winters in Texas.

It was fine there, but the wife and I moved here to be more self-sufficient and get out of the big city. We were getting progressively alarmed at the spiritual, economic and social decline of things, and thought we ought to take the opportunity and get out of Dodge, so to speak. But, that is a whole other story.

We're in the foothills of the Appalachians, in a valley, on an eastern facing slope with good exposure to the sun, getting about 8 hours of direct sun on average thru the spring to fall. Our weather is warm, not really hot, somewhat humid summers. It rarely been above 90 degrees here the two years we've been here. It cools off pretty quickly when the sun dips behind the hills to our west, so we don't get as many hours of direct sun as a flatter location. The nights are very comfortable, usually in the 60's on the warmest nights. It's spring here now, with the dogwoods and wild apple trees blooming and the other trees just leafing out, beautiful.

But the winters, oh boy. Living in Texas all those mildish winters there spoiled me. Last winter, 2014-15, was the worst I've ever experienced. Some nights were below zero, with one pleasant night of 14 below, which just happened to take out our water lines. I spent the next couple days under the house playing junior plumber to fix that issue- nice. Plus, a couple one foot snowfalls among others. Even the long time residents said that it was one of the worst in recent memory. I'm sure folks from New England or more northern climes are rolling their eyes about my winter complaints right now. But, this winter was not too bad, just a few nights in single digits and a couple 6 inch snows. I do think that I am getting a bit more used to it though, just have to layer on more clothes.

OK, enough background info. This winter/spring I got the fruit tree bug, and thought I'd take advantage of our acreage and start a little orchard to augment our vegetable garden output. We just finished planting the last of the trees, and hopefully that will be it for a while. Maybe. From what I've gathered from this forum, fruit tree planting can be somewhat addictive, so I hope I can control it. We'll see.

Anyhow, I will provide a tree report soon on what we've done. I look forward to to future correspondence with GardenWeb gang.