Orchard/Food Forest Planting 2016

So this is the no pollination partner necessary plant that we picked out at the Atlanta Local Food Initiative's plant sale that I mentioned in my last post, Orchard/Food Forest Digging 2016. It's a pineapple guava plant, also known on our farm as the Molly Tree. Our friends Dave and Molly, hearing of Richard, Shanna and Emery's generous gift wanted to gift us a pair of trees for our wedding as well. Molly wanted to be remembered by something quirky and unusual, Dave something "curmudgeoness", more on the Dave Tree later. Here, the Molly Tree is shown in three different stages. In the first stage, it is simply planted in the native dirt in the same hole Rachel and Stacy were shown digging in the last post. Hopefully, by not planting directly in fancy soil in the hole it will venture outside of the original hole and not become root bound.

The next stage shows the soil/mulch that I added on top of the planting hole. I used Kellogg Garden Organics Planting Mix because it's organic and made locally. The fruiting trees from the tree sale were all planted in this manner with the mulch in close to the tree with only a few inches of space around the trunk. I planted the flowering trees later in the week and left more space around the trunk free from mulch. While watering and rains will eventually wash the mulch all over the place I've read that a wider area than what I've left here around the trunk makes trunk rot less likely. I feel as though as long as the soil depth on the trunk is maintained from where it had been growing originally that it should be OK. I think having the nutrients in close to the plant won't hurt it, but I  became more cautious as the planting week wore on none the less. Also, the wider mulch ring keeps the grasses farther away from the trunk while the trees get established.

In the third photo you can see how I topped the soil/mulch layer with another mulch layer of pine straw. Pine straw by itself would be too acidic for most of the trees but it's cheap, available locally, and holds the soil/mulch layer in place for longer. Plus, I like the natural aesthetic of the pine straw better than the groomed black rings of the mulch.

Orchard/Food Forest Digging 2016

Our friends Rachel and Stacy came out to the farm with Meredithe and I to help dig some holes. The main focus was to get holes dug for trees that we would be picking up at Atlanta Local Food Initiative's 7th Annual Fruit Tree Sale. We knew we had to dig five holes for the three apple and two nectarine trees that had been ordered for us by our friends Richard, Shanna and their son Emery. We jumped out of the truck ready to get down to business worried about having time to get those five done. It might have taken an hour. After that we relaxed our pace a little and dug five more holes. Two of them were for two crab apples on their way from the Arbor Day Foundation(along with ten other flowering trees). The other three were for two more paw paws and an undetermined no pollination partner necessary tree and/or shrub that doesn't get too tall to be picked out at the ALFI tree sale.

Opening Space for Fruit Trees

I had originally planned on separating this post into two parts, but when I saw the before and after photos of each project I couldn't pass up showing the dramatic change that these two projects created together. The first project was removing the large juniper. Meredithe and I took on this beast together a couple of weeks ago and took down this tree, which was a rather stressful project. Poison ivy had it in a stranglehold and taking it down completely was probably doing it a favor, freeing it from slow, poisonous death.

The big pine in the foreground also has multiple poison ivy vines on it, some as thick as my wrist. I cut them at the base and removed the first couple feet at the bottom, but the top of this tall pine is still a death trap. It took a 13' ladder and lots of care and patience to remove 5 large lower limbs. The amount of light that can reach the muscadines and future fruit trees is significantly increased by these changes! We completed both projects with a folding hand saw and a small sawzall. I may climb back up there and clean up the stubs of the lower branches, but I don't particularly want to, for fear of a weeks worth of itchiness.

Apple Tree Spring Pruning

The other tree that we bought last year (not pictured) was severely damaged by deer browsing and had to be pruned this past Summer. It fared fairly well considering the amount of damage and out of season pruning and bounced back quickly. It began producing new growth almost immediately, as shown in my post Apple Tree Update. I was concerned about it making it through the Winter, lacking the normal time to harden off following it's late pruning. I pruned it very lightly this Spring and with any luck it should start growing again soon.

The apple tree pictured in this post is the same tree as the top picture featured in my previous post, Apple Trees. You can see in the before pruning picture (above left) that it had been damaged before we bought it last Spring, which is probably why we got it on sale for about $3. This tree probably should have been pruned last year as well, even if it was so late, but I was concerned about removing so much of the tree so late in the season.

Knowing that this tree would need a severe pruning this Spring and that the other tree was damaged so badly last Summer I've prepared myself for the worst with both of these trees. With that in mind I removed the top half of the central leader this week with my very first cut on this tree. Next I pruned off two thirds of the branch, shown here on the right, which had begun competing for dominance following the damage to the central leader. Had I known last year what I know now I may have completely removed it then, thwarting the competition. I left it in case the central leader died, with the hopes of training it into the new central leader. Now that everything has made it this far the competition will only stunt the tree so I took the branch down by two thirds. It has a pretty sharp angle and if left that way it could break and damage the tree in the future. My thoughts right now are to leave it this year, tying it down to a better angle later in the year once the sap starts flowing and it's a little more flexible. If it doesn't compete with the leader like it did last year it may hang around for a couple more years, but honestly, it's probably too low to become a permanent scaffold branch. I picked three other branches to keep, trimmed them back lightly and removed the rest. Send some positive energy this tree's way, maybe with a little love and some luck it'll grow like wildfire this year!