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An Orchard Update

The orchard has been an ongoing project for a few months now, and I suspect that it will take a few more months yet, however the rush has been on to get the ground prepared and fence up before the trees arrived. Fortunately the tractor helped make some of the trickier jobs, like digging up the ground, and boring holes a lot simpler.
Country Boy began by ploughing up some ground on the creek flat behind our house, and then harrowing it (which is a bit like raking) to get the big lumps of grass and rocks out.
We then pegged out the edges with a tape measure and my goodness it looked big to me (it’s about 20 meters square)!
CB and his father got some straight logs from a friends property to be corner posts. They need to be quite tall because CB is planning to cover the whole thing in bird netting to protect the fruit. Look how handy that tractor is!

Following that he had to fence the whole thing with chicken wire, and make sure it was rabbit proof (well, as much as possible anyway). The next step was to put up the wire trellises to grow the trees on. I know nothing about growing plants, but Country Boy tells me that we are going to espalier the trees (which quite frankly sounds unpleasant doesn’t it!). Evidently we are growing them flat against a wire trellis and training it to grow at a certain way so that we can fit more trees in the space.

On Monday the trees arrived, and fortunately the orchard was sort of ready, so on Wednesday Country Boy started planting them out. He had drawn up a plan of where all the different trees were going so that they all are in the right spot. When the girls and I got home, it was straight down to the orchard to plant the last 2 rows.

We’ve planted a whole row of raspberries and (thornless) blackberries, and a row of blueberries is still to go in (they are our kids favourite). There are 8 apple trees – all different types, some pears, peaches, plums, nectarines, as well as a quince tree. Country Boy has left a few spaces so that we can stick in some different trees if we get the inspiration. I will write a post about how we chose the different trees later.

 

The next step is to install a drip irrigation system, fix the gate, mulch the garden and plant grass between the plant rows, not to mention the bird netting – so not much!!
Here is what it looked like yesterday afternoon: at the moment it doesn’t look that impressive, but in a few years time I’m looking forward to seeing mature fruit trees, and eating our own fruit!

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Comments

  1. Christine says

    December 7, 2013 at 7:21 am

    You have no idea how jealous I am about how much space you have! We have a fairly small backyard, nowhere near big enough for me to fulfill my dream of having an orchard!! Can't wait to see how yours goes.

    Reply
  2. CountryMouse says

    August 3, 2013 at 5:20 am

    Interesting, I've never new people trained fruit trees to grow a certain way sometimes. I hope your orchid grows fast and bares well.

    Reply

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Hi, I’m Jo

I'm a city girl turned farmer's wife, school teacher, ideas woman, and mum to three country kids. Country Life Experiment is all about simple country living, growing and making our own food, and life on our family farm in rural Australia. Join me as I give country living a try. Read more...
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A lovely, easy Christmas with family, good food, a A lovely, easy Christmas with family, good food, a few presents, an afternoon swim and dinner on the veranda as the sun set. Time to stop and be thankful for the many blessings of the year. I hope you had a lovely Christmas too!
We have been mulling over how to fix up the drivew We have been mulling over how to fix up the driveway and lead up to our house for a while. Currently it’s just a dumping ground for old bits of metal and a big pile of mulch, but C would like to create a turning area and put in a garden. First up though, there’s a huge old stump that needs to go. What better excuse is there to have a fire on Sunday afternoon? C and the kids jumped on the quad bike and trailer, and hauled back a big pile of sticks and logs to help the stump burn. Once the fire was going, marshmallows were found and roasted. No better way to spend time together.
Team work makes the dream work. We were asked rec Team work makes the dream work. 
We were asked recently whether we “make” our kids work on the farm. The answer is of course not. Having said that, all three love to help out whenever they can. They all work hard because they want to; because they take pride in working hard and contributing in a meaningful way to our family life; because they love living on our farm and don’t remember life before we moved here. Whether it be planting trees or doing sheep work or feeding animals, they all want to be involved. As a parent, nothing is better than watching them grow in skill and confidence as they work along side you. We’re so glad that we get to spend time with our three, working together.
We’ve had an unexpected addition to the family ☘️🐑. She is a lot easier to look after than the other family members but she does try to escape her yard and head butt people. Poddy lambs are super cute but they tend to think they are a human. Clover the lamb is sure that Meg is her mum. Can’t think why… 🤔🤣
The perfect way to end a long winter weekend: toge The perfect way to end a long winter weekend: together, cooking damper around the remains of the bonfire.
It’s been a tough few weeks on the farm. We got It’s been a tough few weeks on the farm. We got through shearing without a hitch (thankfully 🙏) but we’ve had a run of the flu followed by Covid run through the family since then. The kids and I have tested positive (this is my second time getting it 🦠) though so far C has managed to avoid it. There has been a lot of lying on the couch feeling pretty ordinary. Han had to reschedule her driving test for a 4th time due to Covid, which is disappointing for her because she wants her freedom and for us because it would be so much more convenient if she could drive herself places. Just to add in to the mix, our hot water system has chosen now as a good time to die so we’re on cold showers until we’re all out of iso. This is not meant to be a whinging post but sometimes life just sucks a bit and it’s good to be real. Fortunately, the sight of the fire going with a stack of wood next to it cheers us up. Things will improve soon. Onwards we go…

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Hi, I’m Jo

City girl turned farmer's wife, school teacher, ideas woman, and mum to three country kids. Country Life Experiment is all about simple country living, growing and making our own food, and life on our family farm in rural Australia. Join me as I give country living a try. Read more...
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