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