This is the story of our fruit orchard that almost wasn't. As of today we have 2 peach trees, 2 plum trees, 2 pear trees, 2 fig trees, 2 jujube trees, and 17 goji berry shrubs. We like to call the area our STUN orchard. STUN is an acronym for Sheer Total Utter Neglect. The plan is to just let the trees and shrubs do their thing with as little maitenance as possible. We don't think it will ever be completely maitenance free, but as of right now things are looking pretty good.
The orchard was born back in February of 2015 shortly after we moved into the homestead. We planted it in what we thought was the perfect spot out in the front yard next to the driveway. On Valentine's Day we went to a local nursery and purchased 6 peach trees, 3 plum trees, and 2 pear trees. At the time we really didn't know much about the importance of root stock and chill hour requirements, but thankfully shopping local saved us. Our local grower only sold trees with proper root stock and chill hour requirments for this area.
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Over the next two years things didn't go well. The trees were having problems establishing themselves, and several flat out died. By August of 2017 we had just about given up hope until we found a YouTube video featuring Paul Gautschi and his Back to Eden gardening method. It seemed so simple. Get rid of the grass and cover up the ground with a layer of wood chips in order to provide a more natural environment for the soil biology. It was worth a shot, and a tree crew just happened to be in the area trimming trees along the powerlines. We contacted the company and they happily dropped over 20 loads of fresh chips in our pasture. It was a win/win for both of us. The chips were free for us, and they didn't have to haul them miles away to the dump and pay to drop them there.
Landscape timbers just happened to be on sale at Lowe's/Depot that week so we bought a bunch and framed in the area around the trees. We then placed down a layer of painter's masking paper as a weed block. We wanted to give the plot a head start, so we added a layer of composted horse manure we got from our neighbor next door. Then we piled on some wood chips. We also planted 2 goji berry shrubs between each of the fruit trees (20 total), and added 2 fig trees, and 2 jujube trees to replace the others that had died.
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What an incredible transformation in just two months. The peach trees which we thought were dead were loaded with foilage. The plum trees looked amazing. The pear trees looked decent, but I think they were heading into winter mode. We'll have to see how they do come spring. The fig and jujube trees looked great as well. The goji berry shrubs had nearly tripled in size. We even planted some spaghetti squash and canteloupe under the trees just for fun.
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It snowed in early December, which is very rare for here. That pretty much put an end to the canteloupe and spaghetti squash. Sadly, it didn't kill the weeds. We probably should have placed the paper weed block down on top of the compost instead of on top of the grass. Oh well, lesson learned. If things dry up a bit around here from all the rain lately, we'll add another layer of paper and wood chips for the rest of the winter. Come spring the orchard might just be ready to plant something else under the trees.
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