orchard part 2

Meredith and Penny sorting through what we need for the Stone Fruit food forest

 The Trees!

so after a nice car ride down to the central valley near Modesto Ca, Penny, James, Danny and Liam went to Dave Wilson Nursery to pick up our 100 fruit trees. their operation is epic, around 7 million total and 3 million went out this season all over the country to nurseries, stores, and businesses. we now have a huge pile of assorted fruit and nut trees! 

as you can see below, and after the previous post, we made quick work of the second half of our banana belt that contains our first mostly Meyer lemon food forest, and left the two apples for a little gateway into our new 28 tree packed stone fruit zone!

Meredith and Danny in deep thought with an aprium.

Liam getting down with a peach

+Danny Vitali  getting after his path through the peach haven

reclaimed concrete stone wall! this path will continue up past those two trees and up further into that golden light coming through just yonder

  After Danny and i placed flags, we began the tree digging! soon after our first couple of holes, we discovered this wall, apparently the old driveway from long ago used as a retaining wall! i decided to uncover the whole, and plant tyme into it. it will now serve as a foot path and an intersection up into our wild life trail and the upper orchard where ole "Pedro" the massive walnut will grow.

before!

after!

we worked quick for a day, and about 7 of us got 28 trees in, uncovered an old stone wall, cut in 3 separate paths, mulched main path, and trees.... we were stoked to be finally planting and out of the winter blues! the last couple of days we have been prepping the upper orchard that will mainly comprise of apples, pears and some more stone fruits (since we are a little heavy on those) stay tuned, much more to come!

chicken helping out with planting some lavender at the base of our lemon food forest.

new orchard part 1

Well a lot has been happening on the farm here at RDI, we have been taking out the old orchard, an honor in its own right since it only really happens every 20 years or so! and what happens when you get donated 100 trees from Dave Wilson nursery? you install a new orchard... another opportunity that only comes around so often as well!  we have a happy and interesting mix of mostly stone fruits (apricots, plums, peaches, nectarines, pluots, apriums, and cherries) and of course some apples and pears. we also got 6 genetic dwarf trees that will stay about 6 ft max! the process has been really fun to learn our root stocks, our tree hardiness, and the on going experiment that our varieties that were picked out by Dave Wilson staff will do well in our cooler but mild coastal environment. it will be a on-going relationship with Wilson staff since they want to use us as a test orchard for their almost 3 million tree operation that has been hand grafting their stock since 1930s. wow. below are some before pictures and the start of the installation!

looking east towards the upper orchard- notice a pile of wood directly ahead... all fruit wood!

the new stone fruit orchard- one of these trees has come out where a path now runs east.

this is looking right where that middle apple was in that upper photograph! digging holes for our new stone fruits!