As another Vietnam vet gardener, I am impressed with your pics. My wife is an Army brat, but her grandmother lived in Starkville, so she calls that home. Misses the figs greatly.
We planted a cherry tree five years ago and last year it looked like we were going to have a huge crops until we had a late April freeze. It got our apples, cherries, and blueberries. This year we will be in a race against the birds for the cherries starting in about 4 or 5 days. They have been reconning the tree daily but we hope to beat them with CD’s tied in the tree along with foil and probably a Daisy Model 760 pellet rifle.
We have a single blueberry bush that usually gives us four to five gallons of berries the size of the end of my thumb. It is 20 years old and is directly under a small leak in the gutter of the house. I would fix the gutter leak, but it provides exactly what we need for good blueberries.
Starkville is just 90 miles up the road. Miss. State is my alma mater.
I don't know if I have the cold hours needed to grow cherry trees. If my wife ever figures out we do then I will be planting a couple of them too, someday! LOL
Planting Blueberrys intrigues me. There is a guy who lives about 15 miles from us who has a big grove of them so I guess they would do well here. I have not seen the grove just read about it in our local paper. Mmmmmm Blueberry Jam!