The Orchard

We received two long boxes, both about 55 pounds each with almost our whole orchard in them!! We were so excited! When the UPS guy showed up Alex ran out asking him if he had our orchard! He said he wasn't sure and then he looked at the box and told Alex they were from a tree place, so probably so!! WOOHOOO!!!

We opened the boxes and looked at every thing! It was so exciting! There were raspberries, loganberries, boysenberries, blackberries, grapes, blueberries, apples, peaches, cherries, plums, apricots, pluots and a hardy kiwi! We ordered these last year so we could get everything we wanted in the orchard. I think a few of our trees from last year died from the deer eating on them ALL summer!!! But those deer are not going to get them this year!!! We have that fabulous 6 foot fence all around it!

Someday those trees will be much taller than the boys... although the boys will be taller too... These trees are the nicest trees... the trunks are so thick and sturdy... not like the flimsy ones we find around here in the garden centers. We are excited to watch them grow and hope they produce fruit as fast as possible! heehee!

Sunday morning we gathered all our equipment we would need to put in a whole orchard in one day!!! Anthony was glad to grab the "long tape measure!" He was so proud of himself... you see usually Alex gets this stuff,because Anthony doesn't know where to find anything... so he was rather tickled with himself!!

We laid every thing out... putting stakes where each bush or tree was supposed to go... then Jerry would drill the hole with the Takeuchi then we would mix in some WeedFreeGardenBed soil and some of the Essential Elements... all mixed with the sandy soil that is there... so it would give them a good start with some organic matter in the soil that will retain a little moisture! Pretty soon we figured out the best system. We put the WFGB soil on top of the ground around where the hole was to be dug... made a hole in the top so Jerry could see where to dig and then he would drill... this put the sandy dirt on top of the soil mix so we used the pitchfork to just sift it into the hole and it would be perfectly mixed up!! The boys liked to help with their shovels!!!!

A hole ready to be mixed. We would lay out a whole row or grouping of trees and then go through and "drill" them all at once, that way we were doing it assembly line style!

It was a little windy so we let all out bags from the mix and the mulch blow into the corner of the orchard to be caught on the fence! Then we could pick them all up at once, which we did in the morning. We planted about 60 things that day!! Finishing at about 10:30 at night! We were some tired puppies!!!
This was about the last bloom from the pink magnolia tree... it smelled sooooo lovely!!