The Orchard
Looks like our Fourth of July hiatus to enjoy life and stop lifting heavy things for a few days is stretching into a full two-week vacation from garden-building. Our next step is to move some earth to finesse the transitions from the brick paths to the yet-to-be-planted grass (making gentle slopes instead of steep drop-offs), but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to try to plant grass before we head to the shore for a week, so we haven't worked on it. A rationalization? Yeah, probably.
In the meantime, I did spend some time today weeding the orchard. What orchard, you ask? Why, this one:
These are our 10 fruit trees in the front yard. We planted them last spring, the first act of gardening in our new house. We decided to plant them in the front because it is a southwest facing slope that has a hedge along the street that serves as a windbreak (sort of—a lot of the prevailing winds come straight across the front from the west northwest). If, by the way, you immediately thought "grapes!" when you read the words "southwest facing slope," well, we thought about that, but decided that grapes on their wire supports just wouldn't cut it in front of a traditional entrance. Grapes will go along the back line of the garden and climb over an arbor "doorway" to the grassy part of the lawn, which you can see at the top of the plan if you look closely.
I don't think many orchardists spend time weeding, but since ours is in the front yard, I try to keep up at least with the part inside the edged circle around each of them.
The trees are all dwarfs, so they'll max out at about 12 feet in height for the largest. Since most of them are only second-year trees, we will not have any fruit this season. We had to pick off a lot of tiny peaches and apples earlier this spring, but the trees need to get established before putting energy into fruit production. Next year we can let them go and see what we get with all except the pears and one peach, which we planted this spring as replacements for cherries that died.
This is the view from the front porch:
From left to right in the front row we have a Moonglow pear, an Anjou pear, and a Moorpark apricot.
In the back row: a Fingerlakes peach, a Reliance peach, and a Mericrest nectarine. It's pretty clear in the picture that both pears and the Fingerlakes are the ones we just planted this spring since they are much smaller.
Looking a little farther to the east you can see the rest of the trees:
From left to right in the front row: an apple with four different heirloom varieties grafted onto it (Roxbury Russet, Snow, Golden Russet, and Summer Rambo), a Granny Smith apple, and the Moonglow pear again.
In the back row: a Macoun apple, a Gala apple, and the Fingerlakes peach again.
Oh, and the blue house across the street is the home for pregnant girls. When the weather gets warm you can see them waddling up the street smoking butts. True fact.
Although I write this at the risk of jinxing us with a plague of locusts or a massive drought, the trees are all doing well. We had a little aphid trouble earlier in the spring, which I took care of with some mechanical removal (cutting off the leaves with the most aphids on them) and some Neem oil. I think Peter Rabbit was nibbling some low-growing leaves on the peaches and pears, but we don't want those branches so close to the ground anyway, so that was maybe kind of helpful. We'll see if he becomes a bigger problem later—I'm not above going all Mr. McGregor on his ass if we have to.
In the meantime, I did spend some time today weeding the orchard. What orchard, you ask? Why, this one:
These are our 10 fruit trees in the front yard. We planted them last spring, the first act of gardening in our new house. We decided to plant them in the front because it is a southwest facing slope that has a hedge along the street that serves as a windbreak (sort of—a lot of the prevailing winds come straight across the front from the west northwest). If, by the way, you immediately thought "grapes!" when you read the words "southwest facing slope," well, we thought about that, but decided that grapes on their wire supports just wouldn't cut it in front of a traditional entrance. Grapes will go along the back line of the garden and climb over an arbor "doorway" to the grassy part of the lawn, which you can see at the top of the plan if you look closely.
I don't think many orchardists spend time weeding, but since ours is in the front yard, I try to keep up at least with the part inside the edged circle around each of them.
The trees are all dwarfs, so they'll max out at about 12 feet in height for the largest. Since most of them are only second-year trees, we will not have any fruit this season. We had to pick off a lot of tiny peaches and apples earlier this spring, but the trees need to get established before putting energy into fruit production. Next year we can let them go and see what we get with all except the pears and one peach, which we planted this spring as replacements for cherries that died.
This is the view from the front porch:
From left to right in the front row we have a Moonglow pear, an Anjou pear, and a Moorpark apricot.
In the back row: a Fingerlakes peach, a Reliance peach, and a Mericrest nectarine. It's pretty clear in the picture that both pears and the Fingerlakes are the ones we just planted this spring since they are much smaller.
Looking a little farther to the east you can see the rest of the trees:
From left to right in the front row: an apple with four different heirloom varieties grafted onto it (Roxbury Russet, Snow, Golden Russet, and Summer Rambo), a Granny Smith apple, and the Moonglow pear again.
In the back row: a Macoun apple, a Gala apple, and the Fingerlakes peach again.
Oh, and the blue house across the street is the home for pregnant girls. When the weather gets warm you can see them waddling up the street smoking butts. True fact.
Although I write this at the risk of jinxing us with a plague of locusts or a massive drought, the trees are all doing well. We had a little aphid trouble earlier in the spring, which I took care of with some mechanical removal (cutting off the leaves with the most aphids on them) and some Neem oil. I think Peter Rabbit was nibbling some low-growing leaves on the peaches and pears, but we don't want those branches so close to the ground anyway, so that was maybe kind of helpful. We'll see if he becomes a bigger problem later—I'm not above going all Mr. McGregor on his ass if we have to.
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