Orchard Work

We've been slowly continuing our work in the orchard, as the rain allows, and as leaf collection and rabbitry cleaning provide us with mulching material. Around the large Bing cherry tree, we've filled in the branches and garden debris with topsoil, planted black currant and gooseberry bushes we propagated in preparation for the move, and scattered snowdrop and daffodil bulbs where they'll get early spring light. Everything was covered with a good helping of bark mulch. Wayward deer, whose path goes clearly through and beyond the orchard trees, have been exploring and making a bit of a mess around the edges.....

The fruit bushes were spaced out in their pots before planting, to make sure they wouldn't be in deep shade, or close enough to encourage pests to congregate.

Some of the newly planted trees are now surrounded with their own hugels of compost, branches, soil, and mulch.  I'm  intending to plant divisions of horseradish under the 2 new cherry trees. which is supposed to be a good permaculture guild match. 

We'll finish up around the trees as the yard and animal clean up continues, taking things one day at a time.  In the background, you can see we've built another compost area, to allow us to collect debris from the orchard.  In the future, I plan to plant some comfrey in my composting areas, to encourage cutting of leaves to add to the layering process.

 The piles are still impressive, but we're working our way through our soil and mulch. Adrian was on wheelbarrow duty today, while I was laying down the last of the cardboard and tidying up the fallen leaves.

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.

The Reveal

We're heading in to winter, and have hosted some friends and family at Front Porch Farm this summer and fall as we finally got ourselves sorted.  Everyone has liked the bright new paintwork and neutral flooring, and now it's just the nit-picky things that go in to making final decisions about what fits where and how rooms will work for our needs.  We're quite pleased with the results of our decisions and efforts, and thrilled to call this our home. There are still a few boxes hiding in cupboards, and tools to be (neatly) returned to the workshop - which itself needs an overhaul.  The kitchen will be a winter project as we strip wallpaper, try and clean things up with some paint, and figure out a way to keep the old cupboard doors closed until we can afford to replace them.  For now, I've been asked for some before and after pics...

Almost all of the carpeting came out, due to age and stains.  The carpet in the living room required extra attention, because the underlay was glued down.  We painted all of the main rooms and hallways, and primed and painted the plastic faux wood walls to either side of the woodstove to make the room brighter.  We also replaced the fan, and are on the way to deciding on art placement and getting blinds installed - which will help prevent our heat from escaping the room as the temperature drops.

  

The upstairs rec room, formerly home to a lovely orange and brown couch from the seventies, has been upgraded to a comfortable boardgame playing area, with armchairs for reading and playing video games.

Everything in the guest bedroom needed attention - the nailed-together, narrow shelves were pulled out, leaving many holes and scratches on the walls, and the dark ceiling trim and corner gaps took a lot of work to seal and paint.

But now, my mother is happy to come and visit!

The upstairs bedroom is largely unchanged, but a new bed, dressers, black out blinds and and some personal items have helped to make it a bit more to our taste.

The master bedroom downstairs has been made over with a softer palette, and a is now a  place to curl up under the covers.... 

We're also preparing the fruit trees for next spring - pulling grass, killing off weeds with cardboard, and preparing areas for mulching and an after-the-fact form of hugulkultur.  We've started to work on one of the large piles of wood debris piled in the corner of the orchard, and are cutting straight poles for next year's peas and beans while we move old, and sometimes punky branches to form raised berms around and between the established trees. My hope is that the branches, manure, and mulching we put down around the trees will help to retain moisture, and the plants we locate there will increase beneficial insect presence, entice pollinators to the fruit blossoms, and improve the fertility and bounty of the area, while at the same time reducing our need to water and mow grass where little benefit will be seen.