fruit trees in the springtime: espalier, netting frames, and other small details

Did the espalier course with Brett at Limestone Permaculture. Great guy with great ideas and a fresh way of thinking about it and communicating his ideas. If you have the chance to do any of his courses, I recommend it very highly!

I came home, and a week later started fixing up the not-so-well-done espalier for the apple trees in the triangle orchard:

This is a less acute angle, although the background is not as good.

I need to cut the ties for tying the limbs to the wires and then tie the limbs down. The wires will also provide some support for the fruit.

The apples are presently underplanted with peas of various types (should have been planted earlier, they may not survive if things get summer-hot fast, or if we get too much rain - peas tend to go mouldy pretty fast around here), and there's a comfrey plant at the end. Other than that, I'm not sure if I'm going to grow anything more here. At some stage, I need to redo the watering system in the front. (No more underground watering systems, they all get forgotten and dug into later and it's not pretty!)

The one branch that's in flower and leaf is a grafted branch of an early apple - Golden Dorsett variety, and produces huuuuge sweet-and-crunchy apples by, oh, January? February? Actually, I think it keeps producing it all the way through to March. Or maybe that's just how long I leave it on the bough?

I've roughly started a frame for the APRICOT tree in the backyard, but doing things with the DUAL PLUM, the FOUR STONE, and the FOUR APPLE in the back is going to be tricky. I don't think I could (or should) do it with the AVOCADO, but getting a net over that sucker is going to be an effort and a half in coming years. It's already 2.5m tall (and covered in flowers, which will hopefully pollinate well)!

Dear Diary - 23rd August

OBSERVATIONS

16th August: Garlic planted in the round black pot with the bluebird olla has developed lots of teeny-tiny garlic shoots. They're very garlickiy shoots! Good for salads, etc, I think.

Generally: something in the front yard got chipped and a billion little shoots are sprouting from the wood. Looks almost like a mugwort, but hard to tell. I'm trying to pick them out but it's a bit tricky.

PLANTING on the 17th

PLUM-STONE: Onions (from Misty Ridge), Leeks, Radishes

CREPE-APRICOT: Peas (yakomo giant)

Watermelons in aquarium greenhouse

Shade Flowers in HEXABED

on the 22nd

Struck all the cuttings I took from Limestone in a bucket of sand-coir/pottingmix-vermiculite.
PEAR sensation
FIG st dominique
MULBERRY white shahtoot
PLUM sugarplum
APPLE jonny

Planted two WHITE SAPOTE seedlings (couldn't find an ICE CREAM BEAN one, alas) into small pots

SPROUTING

on the 23rd

23rd August: Tomatoes are starting to sprout in greenhouse. Peas are 15cm tall already (but no leaves) looking a bit spindly. Have taken the peas out of the greenhouse to harden off. A brief stint of colder weather for the next half week, then back up to warmer (10C) again.

PRUNING

I cut off the 'minor' branch for the APRICOT section of the FOUR STONE: it was dead in any case. The 'trunk' of the 'major' branch has shoots coming from it, though, so we'll let that grow through this year and then trim it down next year with an eye to espalier. The problem is exactly where to espalier it, since that FOUR-STONE is pretty crowded (and the chook tractor space doesn't allow for spreading in).

THOUGHTS

Use the small metal frame in the raspberrry bed to make a small bed between the two-stone and the persimmon. Put melons in there to grow separate from the pumpkins. (Or make a frame from the shed pieces.)

NOTES from ESPALIER WORKSHOP at Limestone:

The two apples in the front are definitely being espaliered (And learning how to do it was heaps helpful. That can be a project for the coming Sunday, perhaps?)

I'd like to espalier more trees in the backyard - the quad-apple, in particular, the apricot, the dual plum. It would be nice to sort out the donut peach, but I'm not hopeful.

Wondering: could I espalier using the tree itself as the upright frame? Tie the crosspiece to two vertical branches (particularly relevant for DUAL PLUM) and then train along those lines? I'd try to use the fence for the QUAD-APPLE, but the FOUR STONE presents a problem since it's very parallel to the fence, and there's very little space on the Apricot side.

15th August - dear diary

OBSERVATIONS

Bulbs are blooming - I picked some for the kitchen and now it smells like flowers.

Flower seeds in FRONT PICKET are sprouting, incl some SUNFLOWER and some NASTURTIUMS.

CHOOKS

Goong is still broody broody.
Someone is pooping yellow, which is not a good sign. Infection, maybe?
Otherwise, everyone seems chirpy and in good spirits.

BED PLANNING

PLUM-STONE: go for root crops - onions, beetroots, radishes - add lime under those sections
plus more lettuces, spinaches, Asian greens, etc. Later, perhaps a couple of tomatoes staked up

APPLE-CREPE: Corn (plant seed Oct)/cucumbers(plant seed Sep) up the back, and a melon in the front? Run the risk of overgrowth? (It's a corner; should be okay.) prep with rock dust

CREPE-APRICOT: climbing peas, edible corn, climbing beans prep with chook poop & worm castings

APRICOT-AVO: tomatoes, zucchini, bush beans prep with rock dust and worm castings

AVO-SHED: root crops, plus lettuces, spinaches, Asian greens... What if I just mixed up brassicas and sowed them straight in?

TRIANGLE VEGEBED: Tomatoes, eggplant, various brassicas.

ORCHARD GENERALLY: spring green manures, running beans

PICKET FENCE BED: running beans, flowers, ornamental corn

ASPARAGUS: needs compost & chook poop & worm castings mix

RASPBERRIES: needs compost & chook poop & worm castings mix

HEXABED: mustard is starting to take off, but I'm about to plant shade-loving flowers

PLANTING

NOTES

Am contemplating just mixing up brassica seeds and tossing them into one of the beds and seeing what grows over the season. Do it somewhere that can be easily covered over with netting. (possibly sections of the PICKET FENCE bed?)

Toss down some fenugreek/summer mulches in the ORCHARD, exclude chickens. Grow pumpkins out of the OLLA BED (potato/pumpkin setup), but trim down the green mulches just before the pumpkins go in...

Dear Diary, 13th August

OBSERVATIONS

Weather is warming, but La Nina spring has been declared again which means cool and wet. I'm not sure we're going to survive this summer; in spite of the dangers of El Nino we need some dryer weather - ideally, we'd get a hot summer that isn't an El Nino but I kind of doubt that's even possible anymore. We're going to swing between hot-and-dry and cool-and-wet seasons pretty much from hereon in. And it won't be pretty.

Still cold in the house; I need to call window people - Thermawood and the double-glazing people. And I should at the least seal up the gaps along the tops of the windowsills of my bedroom and the study. Maybe check B1's bedroom; she's also got mould growing on her ceiling and doesn't have the energy to fix it up.

Mustard is sprouting in the HEXABED.

Mustard is heavy leafing in the APPLE-CREPE.

The four-pome is not setting many fruit, while the GOLDEN DORSETT branch off the golden delish is all aflower.

CHOOKS

Goong is back to being broody, although she is occasionally laying. Siyao still laying. Shantung seems back to herself at this point.

PRUNING & PREPARING

PLANTING

SWEET PEAS along the PICKET FENCE, also SUNFLOWERS. I tossed the last of the MEADOWFLOWERS (Hampton's Court / Monet Mini) among the bulbs which are sprouting and even blooming - jonquils in yellow/oranged and white right now. I'm pretty sure that the ANEMONES are having a pretty good go of it. I did think I had some nice large daffodils, but nothing that's coming up seems to be of that type. Oh well.

On heat-tray in aquarium (which is badly-placed for sunlight): TOMATOES, PUMPKINS, PEAS, CHILLI (blue), BASIL, and ECHINACEA.

RIPENING

nothing

HARVEST

nothing (Oranges?)

NOTES

I'm fretting about the stuff that was harvested from the HEXABED and put into the compost, alas. The HEXABED space was registered with a high lead content, which was fine so long as I wasn't using it to grow food. Except I only just realised that we harvested all the Indian borage and put it in the compost heap where it'll break down. DAMN. Might have to dig that compost out now.

Dear Diary: 7th August

OBSERVATIONS

Sunny weather, mostly dry - some sprinkles, a day or two of rain, warmer days (7-20C)

Stone fruit is in full bloom, Golden Dorsett branch is in full blossom, two apples still growing (two had holes in them, I pulled them)

Acerola Cherry looks dry and possibly drying out.
Trees in pots look to be drying out. Need to put
Avo tree is still in blossom, not sure enough bees to do the job, also not sure that the flowers on their own are sufficient. Plenty of flowers, guess we'll see.

CHOOKS

Shan has an implant now; only Goong and Siyao will be laying going forward. Hainan has been a little quiet this week - B2 says she's not as energetic as before, even if she's not feeling swollen. Need to consider more chickens, also disposition of the old ones.

Still on the APRICOT-AVO.

PRUNING & PREPARING

Chipper hired for last weekend, ended up chipping mostly on Saturday afternoon - woodchips have been distributed around the garden, including backyard paths, some pruning of ACEROLA CHERRY, LYCHEE, KUMQUAT, and BLACK SAPOTE might be indicated to reduce the amount of branches/leaves to be supported.

Compost is slowly being sieved, need to be sure the use the chooks to pick out the grass seeds.

PLANTING

FRONT PICKET BED: wildflower seeds sowed around and about, also DAHLIAS (from Filipa O) and LILIES (from Seed Collective)

POTATO-PUMPKIN BED: more mustard seeds in the section the chooks have whittled down; covered the quarter with a proper wire box.

HEXABED: mustard seeds - but the chooks got in and may have raked it all about. Also: HEXABED shouldn't be used for food growing - high lead levels. A shady meadowflower space?

CREPE-APRICOT: 3 'Newspaper peas' from PDC planted - another 4 planted under the two apples in the TRIANGLE ORCHARD

Plans: Tomatoes, sweet corn, zucchini, cucumber - some in the APPLE-DUAL STONE bed in the TRIANGLE ORCHARD, some up the back for after the equinox.

GARLIC: 4 cloves of Spanish Roja in amidst the LOUNGE ROOM WICKING bed.

RIPENING & HARVEST

Oranges, still. (Leaving them on the tree until they pretty much fall off.)

Sweet potato from the front bed. Need to gather up and dry off, then clean and probably freeze for soup-making.

Fennel from bathtub bed. Maybe to go with a cabbage slaw? Otherwise...will need to look for a recipe! May need to look at swapping with someone...

Coriander from bathtub bed.

NOTES