After wishing for a house with a turret, another of thing on MT’s wish list was to have an orchard on our land. His wish is of course my command. Well not always but in this instance I was happy to oblige!
Regular bloggers will know I’ve been planting trees but none of them fruit trees. That’s because they weren’t available for delivery until Jul/August. It struck me whilst I was away in Mahia that the fruit trees weren’t delivered. Why might that be I fretted.Â
It must have been fate as when I returned home there was an message on my home phone from the post office from 4 days previously telling me that I had some trees delivered and they still hadn’t been collected. Aggh, my bare root fruit trees had been delivered to my PO Box rather than delivered to home. Aggh, they’d been there for 4 days what sort of state were they in. Aggggggh, what will MT say when I tell him that I’ve killed off his orchard before it was even planted.
Not knowing whether the Post Shop would still be opened I sped off to town to see if I could rescue my trees. I can tell you after 6 hours of driving home this was the last thing I wanted but needs must to grant the wish of an orchard to my beloved. Amazingly I was able to collect the trees and give them a quick drink to make sure their roots were still damp. Luckily the lovely people at the Edible Garden had prepared the trees well for their journey to us.
I have to admit that I did wait till Sunday to plant out the trees. The first challenge of course with this sort of thing is to content with two inquisitive bassets who just love it when I dig holes. They hot footed it down the garden to “help” me unpack the trees.
They were also more interested in chasing each other around the trees when they were planted. Here’s a rare shot of Mason on the run!
So what have we planted in our orchard you might be wondering. We’ve got seven trees so far and one more I’ve got to source. We’ve got:
- three types of apples – liberty, tydemans late orange, peasgood nonsuch
- cherry – lapins
- crab apple – malus Jelly King
- two types of plum – burbank and reine claude du bavay
- pear -seckle/william bon chretien.
As if by magic the plum (reine claude du bavay) is already flowering! Thank goodness there is still signs of life after they rather untimely delay in the Post Office.
I feel sure that we’ll be adding more ornamental fruit trees in our kitchen garden when we start building that next year. For the moment I’m delighted that I can now say all of our trees are planted. We just need to wait for them to grow and provide us with luscious fruit.
If you could plant, or have already planted, an orchard what would be your choice of trees?
I planted some apple trees about 10 years ago even though we are a bit too high for apples. It is always a race to see if the fruit will ripen before the autumn gales blow them all off the trees. I researched the varieties carefully for hardiness , flavour and disease resistance and I think I got worcester pearmain, James Greive and a russet which I lost to fire blight,(a fungal disease). I also planted a conference pear as the previous owners had planted 2 pears trees which though tall and producing blossoms don’t set fruit. I hope the conference would be in the same pollination group but although it has 3 pears this year there is nothing on the bigger trees. I love having the trees for the spring blossom and in a way the fruit is a bonus.
mmmm . . . i love fruit trees! if i could have any that i wanted i would choose citrus fruits, but they don’t really work in this climate, but i would be happy with any, the apple and plum and cherry are high on my list, too – i don’t know if this counts, but i also want a whole heap of berry bushes (raspberry, blueberry, strawberry, any berry really 🙂 )
Thanks so much for stopping by my blog today! I am so jealous that you have room to plant fruit trees! I’ve loved them since I worked in a nursery a few years ago .. so pretty, and yummy too :o) Well, their fruit anyway .. I don’t think the bark would be too tasty. I love apple trees because apples are great, but I also love the citrus trees. Alas, like Katy I live in a climate that just wouldn’t allow it. We had a neighbor who had a pear tree, and my grandparents had peaches. I love them all, honestly.
You are truly amazing! I need some help with my fruit ‘trees’. I have lemon and lime in huge pots at the moment, they have been with us a year now and of course nothing has fruited yet. What is the normal length of time for this to happen? Also I read I should be cutting the buds off…any advice on that? ALSO the leaves have started to crack and break, they are not looking too good. What am I doing wrong?? You can email me if you have some free time (if its raining at yours like it is here I guess you wont be in the garden!!) info@dawes.co.nz – thank you!!! xxx