Expanding The Orchard

We had our first bulk delivery of 11 yards of soil delivered to the new property this week, and in a few days, that pile will be joined by 12 yards of alder chips from a local sawmill.  The majority of these piles will be used for the hugelkultur in the orchard and under our berry bushes, though some soil will hopefully form the base of a growing area for tomatoes next year. There's no budget right now to buy more amendments, and the trees need more TLC because we will hope to benefit from them for the next 20 or 30 years.  Case closed.

The delivery truck's arrival took me back to our last property, where the neighbors must certainly have thought we were odd - every year the sound of beeping would accompany the arrival of loads of mulch or gravel or soil delivered to our driveway - depending on the given project.  I'm sure they wondered where it all went. Days would pass while we loaded endless wheelbarrow loads in the evenings, to haul our materials around the back and into the garden. Sometimes we were lucky enough to have volunteers who actually wanted to move gravel and dirt - they were special people! I posted a picture of our load of soil on Facebook, and my former neighbor - a fellow gardener who harvested our garlic for us as we loaded the last moving truck - gave it a thumbs up. She certainly remembers.

Our current orchard includes both plums and cherries. The Italian plums are somewhat self-fertile, but would benefit from the addition of another European Plum variety for fruit set (European and Japanese plums do not cross pollinate). I verified that the nearby small nursery was bringing in bare root Peach Plum trees (a European Plum), and told them I needed 2. Oddly enough, the Bing and Queen Anne cherries that are planted here are not known to cross pollinate, and I believe wild cherry trees and a couple of tiny sour cherry trees in the orchard were the only thing ensuring a crop. We decided to add a Lapin and a Stella Cherry, both of which will essentially cross with every cherry we have. 

Knowing the bare root plants were due to arrive in late November, we had planned ahead and dug 4 holes (3x3x2) with adequate spacing in the area of the original orchard several weekends ago. When the nursery called to say the plants had arrived during the freeze this weekend, we drove over and picked them up, ready to get the tender roots protected in the soil. We wanted to mix some of the newly delivered garden soil and a bit of rabbit manure in with the original soil from the hole to give them a good start, but still encourage the roots to expand outward seeking nutrients in the future. 

I was patting myself on the back for planning ahead, glad we didn't have to try and break frozen ground - and then we came to the realization that those piles of dirt beside our nicely dug holes were quite frozen.  Adrian and I managed to chip apart the hard shell of dirt and ice to mix some of the underlying old dirt together with the new, and we hammered in rebar salvaged from around the property (those that weren't essential to holding up the crazily canted fence posts), so that we have a support to tie the tree to once we have finished tamping and settling the trees in their holes over the next few days. In our area, planting at this time of year generally assures that nature will water in the new tree over the rainy season while it is dormant (and rain is due later this week).  Planting in the spring or summer would require careful watering several times a week to keep a new tree safe from damage from exposure.

The stick across the hole shows us the level of the soil, allowing us to position the fruit tree graft above the soil line, to discourage the root stock from trying to grow.

Planting trees in sub-zero weather? Metal.