Do you have wheels under that whiskey barrel? I put wheels under mine…except now the trees are so tall that they hit the garage as i move them in and out. Harbor Freight sells cheap wheels that work well.
My plastic potted trees get moved around with a dolly…which works pretty well. I just try not to move them much unless i have to… I moved nearly a 100 trees this morning out of garage/shed…
They’re actually plastic whiskey barrels, I move them with a dolly and usually a helper. What makes it tough is that my orchard is located behind my house and down a pretty steep hill. I got the idea from you back on the old gardenweb forum, its provided my family with some nice peaches. Thanks again!
Those ice sculptures look impressive, to bad that is not what we are trying to accomplish because you would be hard to beat.
Expanding D2 drought, record heat today, and high sun angle = stuff drying out 
Slight drought, dang near record lows for highs today, no sun, 2.25" of rain over the last 24 hrs… building an Ark!
That’s very nice looking, good job. Did you have to amend your soil, like adding peat moss? What varieties will you have in there? I would imagine your soil isn’t as acidic as most of ours is. I planted four blues about a month ago in one of our plots, that had a pH of 4.9, and they seem to be doing pretty well. I’ve already pinched off fruit buds, and they’ve put out a good number of leaves. Still haven’t put fertilizer down, but will do so in a couple weeks.
I like the idea of running PVC pipes and netting over them to keep out the birds. My plants won’t be producing any this year, so right now I just have 3’ cages around each plant. Assuming they put on good non-fruiting growth this year, would it be OK to let them fruit next year?
My 2nd-leaf Blushingstar on Halford is LOADED with tiny little fruitlets. I hope they hold and swell. I might have to actually THIN some of them-- something I’ve never had to do yet!
Blushingstar is cold hardy, but last year’s April freeze killed the buds on mine. This year it is LOADED with fruitlets:
Purty blooms, hope they fruit out for you. Does that tree just have those two main branches, or am I missing others based on the view? If it is just two, was that your plan? How far off the ground did you head the tree?
Looks like the trees (in the forest and the orchard) there are just starting to leaf out, kinda like here. Is your site usually bereft of grass, it looks sort of brown there still. Our grass has been green for at least a month.
Do you get shading from those large trees? Do you happen to know what your low was at your mtn property over the winter?
I noticed when i was in the city today a couple of peach trees were loaded with blooms…I think our coldest night was -14F ish…
The oaks are just pushing out leaves in my yard.
Matt, no deer?
I hope you get some fruit. I want to see pictures of your boy eating some delicious home grown Blushingstar.
My wife won’t eat blackberries because of the large seeds, yet loves raspberries, One man’s meat is another’s poison! Oh those seeds in raspberries, are known to have anti-cancer properties, tumor reduction, etc.
Yeah, there is shading, but the fruit trees are situated in the sunniest spots in the clearing.
My bloobs get shaded too much, and I plan to cull a few trees to afford them extra light this summer.
It was at least as low as 8F the past two winters. Probably got much colder than that with wind chill etc.
Five-foot high welded-wire fencing around the whole clearing, tacked against timber posts concreted into the ground. No deer since I slung up the fence. Here is an old pic of when I was in process of putting up the fence. The orchard plantings have tripled in size since then. I also have a slightly better handle on the japanese stiltgrass since then too. Oh, and I annihilated the Tree-of-Heaven ghetto palms since then as well.
Owari Satsuma, with another large fruit set this year. This was a picture just before I started doing a lot of thinning.
I hope you get some Matt, they are excellent!
That should do it! Its coming right along. A lot of work has gone into it, single handed!
Grrrr!. The petals have just fell off of the tree in the last couple of days and on my daily walk of the orchard I have discovered Curculio bites already!
5:40 am and I just came in from frost patrol. It’s 33F calm and 28 dew point. I covered my corn with two layers of frost blanket and ran water underneath. The persimmon had to settle for a 1500 watt heater under the tree. It’s too big to cover. The watermelons were covered last evening so they’ll be OK.
I think it might drop to 30 by sunrise. The fruit should be fine.
The sheriff even dropped by to see what was going on…lol
