An expanding orchard

After days of pondering, I have finally found a place for my last fruit tree.   A black cherry called Noir de Meched. Great in cold weather and apparently very juicy.   You would think that with all these hectares of garden, finding a home for it would be easy peasy.   But no.

There is no room in the dedicated orchard; I have already put in the Peach Red Haven in the last spot possible there.   And I can’t put it somewhere difficult to water. No matter how good one’s intentions, struggling with buckets of waters over a long distance just doesn’t work.

Should it go up at the top of the road near the guest house?  There is a big old cherry tree up there (a juicy black variety in fact) which is looking poorly. It yielded very few fruit last year.   I had thought I should plant a replacement nearby so I won’t be too heart broken when it finally expires.   But there is the watering issue again.

So after lots of ploddings and ponderings I have finally planted it just near the orchard (en route with the hose) at the base of a hill which contains, among other things, the septic tank. Hurrah, fertile soil!

Not too far from the big olive tree and logically placed. It should hide the bramble strewn messy bank in summer when it grows up.   And who knows, if it gets really big and unpruned, we will be able to pick the cherries from the top of the bank. Just beyond the soft fruit orchard.

And the soft fruit orchard was where I spent the rest of the gardening day.   The ground was a bit too frozen to do proper weeding.   But I was able to move a blueberry bush to a better shaded position under the plum trees.   Plant a jostaberry, plant a black currant bush.   And generally try and make it a neater place.   I must count the number of fruit bushes here next time I’m outside.   It is starting to look a bit neater.  Â  And once I had grubbed out all the plum suckers and pesky unwanted seedlings it might even be better to look after in the spring.

I will need lots and lots of mulch of course. That’s the next task.   And it’s something I will do tomorrow morning if the ground is too cold to work.   Up to the forest and haul out sticks. And then drag them back down the hill.   That will warm me up.