Having fruit trees, for me, is something that I work at every year.
Each year I try to make sure I plant a few new trees, that way I always have some young trees coming on, some medium age trees coming into bearing and some older trees that are cropping. In buying a few trees each year it also keeps me really interested, I can hunt for new varieties or types of fruit.
I planted three new plums on Saturday and filmed myself putting them in the ground.
I don't do anything fancy when planting, just dig a hole and bung them in, I've planted thousands of trees in this way, treat them mean and keep them keen!
Give the video a watch and let me know what you think, this is nothing fancy, no great editing, just 7 minutes of me planting fruit trees while I talk about it.
Many years ago, there was a government program for farmers that subsidized trees that were planted in odd corners of fields near intermittent creeks and waterways. Through that program, we planted thousands of trees using a simple hand held tree spade or later on, a tree planter. Today, those trees are 30 to 40 feet tall and some of them have already died of old age. Around my current house though, I generally take a lot more care just to speed up their production of fruit since I have a much more limited space for fruit trees than your acreage has. If I had a few more acres, it would be full of fruit trees, planted exactly how you planted them.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like a good scheme! I probably should have signed up for some here, but the paperwork always puts me off. There are some for hedgelaying, but I hate the thought of having my work inspected like that. I wish I'd planted more trees at mum and dads farm really, some hedges and margins could have really used a boost.
DeleteWill you mulch them with compost or well rotted fym? I have little luck with growing apples in the countryside next to the sea and the blossom some times blows off in a gale.
ReplyDeleteI don't tend to bother, if I had more compost I probably would.
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