An Orchard fit for Owen

Back on the farm in Peru my little orchard was one of the star features.  I built a fence around the whole orchard mapped it out and planted the best trees and carefully trimmed them and mowed around them keeping the orchard beautiful. 

For a very short time I fell behind mowing the orchard when I sold my big mower that I was using and I was even willing to mow the knee deep grass with a push mower to keep my trees looking nice.  None of my trees were big enough for me to get any fruit off from them before I sold the property but the new owner was almost as excited about the orchard as I was when I first put it in.

In my first orchard I had two pear trees, two apple trees, a cherry tree and two peach trees with room for two more trees inside the fence.  With my new orchard I got all of the same trees except I traded out the peach trees for plum trees.  I love peach slices but I have a hard time eating them straight off the tree because the fuzz on the peaches.  We are going to get some peach trees eventually because Allyssia likes them and she will make peach jam and cobbler and other assorted goodies.

The other big difference is that this orchard isn't fenced in.  For my old orchard I got all of the chain link fence for free and the new owners wanted to keep it.  Up in Peru the fence was really needed because I wasn't there all the time and so the animals could do a lot of damage without anyone noticing..

So again with careful planning and measuring we started our new orchard.  In an earlier blog I mapped out where the orchard was going to lie and we stayed pretty true to the map.  The orchard area has been a work in progress as it was one of the first places that I sickle mowed and have since been keeping it mowed with the zero-turn. 

I have two rows of trees running parallel with the road.  The trees came from Starks Brothers as bare root, pruned trees.  That means that there are no leaves on the tree so that in this first year the tree will focus on putting in a good root system rather than trying to grow leaves and fruit.  A couple of my trees came from Robin's Flower Pot, they have leaves and came with a big root ball in a plant pot.
It was quite the family event with Cricket even participating in the tree planting fun,even though she thought they were sticks to try to play with

All of the trees went in well even though in some parts the soil was not the best.  We did mix some fertilizer in with the topsoil when back filling the hole as well as a root growth helper. 

As you can see Cricket is trying to figure out why she can't chew on the leafy stick and really can't figure out why it is getting stuck in the ground straight up.
After planting I got rid of all the sod chunks that were left over, raked around the trees and added a thick layer of shavings around them to keep the moisture in.  When I get the time I am going to get a truckload of wood chips from my brother to mulch around the trees and Allyssia's hydrangea bushes.
Luckily it has been raining since I planted the trees and they haven't needed much extra water but only time will tell if they will take root and flourish. 

And there they are all planted and ready to grow. I am hoping that they will grow as good as my Peru orchard did and in a few years I will have blooming, producing fruit trees.  As always check back often and let me know how I am doing and what you think of the farm!