How to plant an orchard...

[April Manier]

SO I put in my Orchard last year. We took tons of pictures and wrote this how-to article for anyone looking for the steps drawn out. Please feel free to let me know of anything that any of your see missing.

We put in 100 trees after agonizing about doing it for some time. It has been a real success, minus dear damage!

http://heronsnestfarm.blogspot.com/2013/02/how-to-plant-orchard.html

 

[Smiles Jr.]

I just spent a while browsing your blog. I really enjoyed my trip. Thanks.

 

[journey11]

Nice tutorial! I can't imagine planting that many trees at once. How did you go about watering yours? New trees usually take so much watering in their first year.

 

[Ridgerunner]

but make sure that you put the dirt you dig out from the hole directly next to your hole in a neat pile for refilling. You would be surprised how many folks can't dig a hole.

I love that comment. It is so funny and so true. People say to just use your common sense, but what can you base common sense on if you have no experience?

Some really good advice but I have a couple of comments. You can use different spacing depending in whether it is a dwarf, semi-dwarf, full sized tree.

When you said put the crown above ground, I think you meant graft. The tree should go back in the same depth it grew. If you bury the graft it will sprout roots above the graft and you lose the benefit of the rootstock. Further along those lines, you need to prune off anything that sprouts below the graft or you are growing the rootstock, not the variety you want.

 

[897tgigvib]

Takes some teamwork and a lot of planning.
The better prepared each hole is the better the tree will grow

 

[Nyboy]

How did you dig so many holes? last year I bought 16 tree on sale, took all summer for kid across the street to dig that many holes.

 

[lesa]

Digging holes is not my favorite part of gardening! I love your blog!

 

[secuono]

Digging the holes is easy, it's breaking the ground[grass layer] that kills me. When I hand dug my 3k pond last year, I hated that dang grass so much. I was hoping for some crazed grass hating beast to show up and rip it all out for me, lol.


"Without the string your eye will fool you. "

They flat out lie to you! Always use string for anything that should line up...A zig-zag fence is not cool, it's lazy.


You should of mentioned why/what is the feather meal and why the oyster shell. I have no idea why you'd add that nor what it is. Since you mentioned the digging issue people have, I'm guessing you knew newbies would be reading it.

 

[April Manier]

Thanks everyone! These are the critiques I desperately need. Thank you all so much for taking the time to read it and let me know! I want my blog to really bless folks and being clear is really important. :rainbow-sun

 

[April Manier]

So we water with 2/12 inch pipe on our agricultural irrigation system. We are installing drip this year.

As for digging holes, we hire farm workers. They get 'er done. It took 2 days with digging and planting. Kenny was great. I'm sorry he's not still in state because he was golden at $10 an hour! He did tree trimming too with his own chainsaw.
I have added most of the suggestions and am using the others to write an upkeep article with. thanks again everyone for your help!