Eastern North Carolina has a climate that just knows how to grow things. The long, humid summers and mild winters make it a place where plants seem to thrive with very little effort. Between the sandy soil, steady rainfall, and generous warmth, the conditions are almost tailor-made for wild fruit and native trees to take root.
As we’ve been exploring the home site, we’ve started noticing what’s already growing here and it’s been a pleasant surprise. On the area we are building our houses, we’ve found eight young persimmon trees growing close together. They’re still small, but healthy and strong, already showing that deep green foliage that hints at what’s ahead. Persimmons do especially well in this part of the state, and it’s exciting to imagine how these trees will mature and what they’ll bring to the property over the next few years.
We’re also expecting to find blackberries once summer rolls around. They’re everywhere in eastern North Carolina. The kind of plant that seems to pop up wherever it pleases. They’ll likely appear along the edges of the property and near the old clearings, spreading fast and producing those glossy, sun-warmed berries that define summer in the South.
Another fun find has been the wild strawberries, tiny, bright red, and scattered across the grass. They don’t have much taste, but they’re beautiful in their own right. Seeing them growing freely, untouched, is a small reminder of just how alive this land already is.
The climate here supports an incredible variety of native fruit: persimmons, blackberries, figs, muscadines and even the occasional wild plum if you know where to look. It’s the kind of abundance that doesn’t need much intervention, just observation.
Every walk around the property turns up something new. Even in its early stages, the land is showing what it’s capable of, and it’s easy to see why this region has such a strong reputation for growth. The soil, the weather, the rhythm of it all it’s a good foundation for what’s to come. I feel a new hobby of foregoing coming on. 😜
