Despite the fact that we still get frost at night during the day when the sun is shining we already get some very nice warm temperatures. Nature has awakened and the first baby sparrows have hatched. Near our pond we can hear the calling of frogs. Our new fruit trees are sprouting, but our older fruit trees are blooming beautifully. So it is high time to go over our property with the camera to make pictures and capture the beauty of it all.
Most of the apple trees are hanging behind a little.
But the pear trees are so beautiful. Completely filled with blossom.
The cherry trees are also blooming beautifully.
After there haircut the willow trees are sprouting wonderful.
On it goes with beautiful pictures.
To round up this post I also was able to photograph 2 spiders.
Finally I found the time to plant the lavender and Ivy plants. With the help of our children it did not take so much time at all. With every fruit tree we planted in our new beds we plant 3 Lavender and 2 Ivy plants, as far as we have plants for that. So take aside the straw, plant the plants, and put back the straw without covering the new plants. We did not have enough plants for every tree, but we will breed new plants out of these the coming years our selves. I am just going to wait for these plants to settle and grow first.
Our field with the new beds was not big enough for all of the fruit trees, so we planted 2 more rows some where else on out property. We still have to put straw around them. With one row we put an electric fence around the trees so the dogs can’t get to them, but we did not have enough fencing for the other row. Luckily we have noticed that the dogs do not bite on these trees, they are big enough already, so we can take the electrical fence down again. I need this fencing for my straw bed, which is getting a thick layer of hay this year.
But we where not finished with the preparations for planting jet
Beside fruit trees we also bought 50 pcs of Lavender plants (Lavandula angustifolia) and 50 pcs of ivy (Hedera helix). The Lavender is not only decorative; in future I also want to harvest them. Lavender is not only beautiful in a dry bouquet, but we also want to have the essential oil. In the future I hope to make my own soap again and I would need the essential oil for that. The Ivy is ideal for covering the soil lively to prevent it from drying out and prevent erosion. Also we used to wash our clothing with ivy leaves and we want to go back to that again. Now we wash with wash nuts, but the ivy leaves will be free, after the plants settle and grow, and you can’t get it more regional than from your own garden.
Other than that we bought 10 pcs of raspberry bushes. Some raspberry bushes we already have and the kids loved snacking them directly of the bush. We just had so little harvest that I had to see that every child would get one. That problem should be solved now. Currant bushes we also have a few and where loved to snack from. We will plant all the berry bushes we have in our new plant beds, because we will put a fens around them to keep the dogs out. The dogs destroy everything and pee over everything. We have all male dogs.
We bought 15 pcs apple trees, 15 pcs pear trees and 15 pcs plum trees. We had not finished the preparations on time, but we planted fruit trees in the finished plant beds right away. So put aside the straw, make a hole put in the tree and put a part of the soil back. Than we watered, so the soil would run in every corner and space around the roots. Than fill up the soil around the tree completely and put in a post to secure the tree so the wind will not rock the tree. Only thing left is to divide the straw back. My husband had prepared a lot of posts with a point for all the trees.
We could only plant 12 fruit trees, so we planted all the other once close to each other in 2 plant beds to wait for them to be planted on there final spot. We had built some more plant beds and could only fill 2, because we did not have anymore soil. The trees are in these 2 beds. Hopefully we will get new soil delivered soon and we will go on with this topic a different time.
Beautiful Chaos 