Fruit Trees for Cleaner Air, Shade and Fruit

If you have even a tiny yard with sunshine, plant a fruit tree! Fruit is only one of the crops you will get from it. Trees do a wonderful job of cleaning the air. They absorb the carbon dioxide from the air and convert it to food. The by product is oxygen! They also shade your house. We planted three trees on the south side of our house, and their shade drops indoor temperatures by about 20 degrees. Of course, there's all that lovely fruit. It should be eaten fresh if possible, but a mature tree will give you extra. Freeze it, can it, dry it! Maybe even pickle it!

Green apples, for instance, can be made into applesauce, but also pickled. (I don't have a recipe.) Apples make a fine dessert all by themselves. If you make a dip like the recipe below, they're pretty cool for kids to munch on. The recipe came from Diabetic Living, and it tastes just terrific.

Dried cherries are one of the latest gourmet fads right now, and I predict they'll last. You can dry them in the oven, or better yet make a solar dryer so you don't need to run up the power bill. Don't plant too close to the house, though. You could wind up cleaning rotten fruit off the roof. And avoid the septic tank and leach field because the roots could clog them up. If you don't have a lot of yard room, plant a Nanking or Hansen's Bush Cherry. Or even a hedge of bush cherries. They produce early and abundantly. They are beautiful! And the taste is pure cherry. They make excellent jelly, juice and wine. We like to mix the juice half and half with lemon-lime soda, but it's excellent by itself.

Apple Dip

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon milk
• 2 tablespoons peanut butter
• 2 tablespoons light whipped topping

Directions:

In a cup mix 1 tablespoon milk and 2 tablespoons peanut butter. Then gently fold in 2 tablespoons light whipped topping.

Dip apple slices in it. Very satisfying!

By Coreen Hart from Rupert, ID