We had to do a little research to find out how we could efficiently weed the orchard without working 24/7. On-line we found an attachment for the Bobcat called a Weed Badger. Basically this is installed on the front of the skid-steer. It allows you to move the Weed Badger between the trees, without disturbing the trees. Sort of like a souped-up weed eater. You can see how clean the rows are.
I haven't forgotten about the blog, we've just been pretty busy on the farm. Here are 2 pictures of the chestnut trees. We have a few that are actually growing out of the tube. Remember that the tubes are 5' tall. We were so fortunate to have all of the rain right after planting, and hopefully this will lead to strong growth for the rest.
When the weather gets hot and dry, it always seems, to me, that it may never rain again. But of course, that's not the case. We've had a great rain this weekend, almost 2 inches since Friday. The trees will be in good shape when the sun comes out again. And since I planted the garden last week, I'm thrilled that it got a good soaking.
We've had a pretty good stretch of very hot weather in April. It has been 90 degrees and hotter, Saturday through today, with temps beginning to lower by Wednesday. So how is this affecting the trees? Our concern about purchasing the tubes was about heat collection in the tube. However, although the tubes are called "grow tubes", they are ventilated. About 18" from the ground the ventilation begins and is about 12" from there. Hopefully this will be enough to allow heat to escape and prevent the tree from burning. We'll let you know in about a week how that is working out.
Generally we try to do all of our tree fertilization in early spring, but shipping schedules of our trees, the fertilizer and the rain put us off a few weeks. This weekend, we added fertilizer packages to our tree tubes. Because our soil is so poor and much rain was on the way, we dropped the packages into the tubes instead of planting them with the plants (and because the fertilizer did not arrive until a week after the tree planting was completed). Sometimes you just have to work within circumstances that are out of your control. Above is a photo of the fertilizer pack. And yes, it looks like a tea bag.
Last year we lost the majority of our chestnut crop to deer pressure and drought. Not again. We decided to invest in tree tubes. There are orchards that choose to use these tubes to jump-start growth on their trees. Our primary goal was to protect them from the deer.
The trees that we planted are between 24-36" tall. The tree tubes are 5' tall. A 1/2 inch bamboo pole (6' tall) was installed next to each tree. The tube fits over the pole and the tree and then secured with 3 plastic ties. It was a very windy day when we installed the majority of the tubes, and they withstood the wind and heavy rains.
So I'm finally getting around to posting the pictures of our new orchard. Here are the before and after of the tubes. As you can see, it is almost impossible to determine where the trees are after they have been planted. But once the tubes are on, we'll be able to do an accurate count of trees in each field. We'll be evaluating the success rate of trees in each field so that we can prepare for next year.
It's been a while since I wrote about the farm, but only because we've been busy planting chestnut trees. We have planted about 25 acres in Dunstan chestnut trees.
Step one was plowing and tilling. The earth is so rocky and grassy that tilling is the only way to make the soil workable and give us a good soil consistency in which to plant. Step two was planting (yes, with a shovel). We did auger a few holes for trees on a steep part of the farm where the soil is not in good shape. This was done mainly to prevent the erosion during heavy downpours.
We started planing trees last week, March 30 and finished this morning. The next step will be tree tubes. The chestnut seedlings are 24-36 inches tall. We have ordered tree tubes that are 5 feet tall and prevent deer and other animals from destroying our crop. I'll blog about our crop from last year on another day - it's a little sad. I will say that the trees that survived all had deer scare tape on them. So a thank-you to the scare tape folks.
I'll post some photos after the tubes have been installed. It's hard to see the seedlings from a distance of more than 2 feet. And hopefully we'll see some budding and leafing in the next few weeks.
If you are reading this blog and are interested in the paint we used on the roof, here are the details. We purchased everything from Sherwin Williams. The primer was called Kem Kromic and the paint was Sher-Cryl. These were both tinted to give us the barn-red color on the roof, and to actually match the barn. I'm very pleased with the way these products went on and should last.
