Trees' Update

 Well year two of trying to find my way into an orchard has mostly passed.

First up this year's harvest.

Not exactly a great harvest. I had seen around a dozen apples on the various old tree around the place but the squirrels were happy to eat them before they were fully ripe. I might try protecting them from the squirrels next year but the real solution is just a bigger harvest, more then they can ever eat.

The failure still seems to be from a lack of pollen. We had a good amount of pollinators visit especially butterflies. But the crab apple tree (aka "Leaner") is still not doing good.

A "Painted Lady" visiting some flowers.

I had given it a winter prune to encourage some growth but it is not in great shape, further evidenced that while it had set around a dozen apples they all eventually dropped when the heat came in. It's definitely not what you want your orchard's success on.

Sadly due to poor water management last year only 1 of the 6 tree I planted survived into the new year.

One of them had tried to come back with some sprouting in the root stalk but the animal life took care of that.

Lesson learned, and we have improved the water delivery and been more regular about supplemental watering this year, as a result there was been much less signs of heat or water issues in them this year.

For better news, we do have 6 new trees this year. First up two pawpaw trees.

Pawpaw 1 initial state

Pawpaw 1 leafed and hatted

They arrived while we had some visitors and planting was delayed a bit but they went in while snow was still on the ground.

 

Pawpaw 2 initial state

Pawpaw 2 leafed and hatted

After the leaves started coming in they seems to show signs that location I had selected was not ideal. Most info I had read said they prefer partial shade during the early phases of growth but do well in full once grown.

The first leaves curling in

Not happy

To help them survive I've provided some temporary "hats" for them. Surrounding them with some 6' tall fencing and putting some UV reduction cloth over top. This seems to have helped quite a bit as on the last few visits we are no longer seeing the extreme wilty state seen above.

I'm excited to see how they do.

For the apple trees we got 4 new trees, 2 are varieties that seemed to do the best last year. A Wickson (which is the only one that is still with us from the first planting) and a Grimes Golden (which I really thought was going to make it last year).

The two new varieties are two crab apple variants, Hewes Virginia and Red Vein. The latter one should have a very red colored flesh which I look forward to seeing. Neither are eating apples but both are supposed to be great hard cider and cooking apples. Maybe the squirrels will also not like them!

Finally I've started adding signs.

Note that Edgar has a sign in the background along with the sign pointing the way to the pond