Me Orchard

Today I have mainly been planting my orchard. Since I finished the fruit beds last summer one of them has been empty. H and I decided we would have Apple and Pear trees. There are a form called "Minarretes". These trees are on dwarfing rootstock and are pruned to reduce the side shoots. This mean you end up with relatively short tree, eight foot as an absolute maximum, with very short fruiting spurs. The effect is like a broom stick with fruit stuck on. I had been chucking every spare pot full of compost that became free into the bed. It had been dug out for Blueberries bit H changed her mind so I had to find something to refill the bed. It was not to hard to do. A few buckets of manure from the lottie and a few buckets of soil from here and there and the bed was full and ready.

H helped by supporting the trees at the right height whilst I back filled the hole. Once the trees were in and spread about the bags of bark that I had reserved for the job. After a quick trip to Boundary Feeds I had the right diameters poles. They were too long but a quick saw and the poles were just right. A couple of whacks with the hatchet and the pole has a point. The poles did not need much driving into the ground. I had some proper tree ties from earlier in the year. One for each tree was enough. The bed looked bare so I planting the dozen free Strawberry plants [Cambridge Favourite] that came with the tree order.


Trees are [from foreground to back ground]:
Apple - Bountiful [cooker]
Apple - Herefordshire Russet [Dessert]
Pear - Beth

They don't look much now but by the autumn of next year they will be fabulous.