Apples and Oranges

Well I finally did it, well John did, but I came to the almighty decision to cut the Apple Trees down. I have been hovering on a will I won't I theme for months, and with this warm weather the trees suddenly blossomed in places. I really then thought about the future of our weather, how the trees had stopped producing good fruit loads with only a handful , even though I had left lots of fruiting spurs,and having to protect them from fruit fly, but mainly the pruning of them every year as well with the new growth being way to high so up a ladder I would go. That had to stop. Shame really as for the past 3 years I have been lowering them more and more.

Looking down from Verandah at the two trees

Definitely a chainsaw job.

First one nearly gone.

Once both of them were down then John started digging the roots as as best as he could. The trees had been there 12 years at least.

Trees several days later

I had an orange tree in a pot so took that out and planted it first, then my new Mandarin Tree. Both are Miniatures and about a metre apart. I don't want them to get full width of up to 2 metres so keeping them close together, which should slow them down, although it didn't with the apple trees. .

First of the trees planted this is an orange.

The area still needs work, and I have to move the worm farm  as it is not protected anymore, but so far concentrating on finishing the front. We are still loading soil into the new beds and I have bought some shrubs in readiness. Then I need to start thinking actually how I shall work the beds properly so that I can operate a rotation system, with the vegetables.

Both Planted Now.

Below are the 2 lemon trees on the other side so I imagine the other two will turn out similar. Once the lemons have finished ripening I will prune these back, feed them and spray on some organic bug mix for overwintering.

So still lots of autumn cleanup, weeding, and probably pressure spraying the paving as well. There are not enough hours in the day, at the moment.

Till next time.