Fruit planting

It was such a lovely day when I ventured up to the plot today - warm & sunny - enough to make me feel positively chirpy, even though I was still extremely achy from the previous day's exertions!

I installed the edging boards round the other half of the long rhubarb bed and transplanted the rhubarb so it is nicely spread out - The entrance to the plot is looking better bit by bit.

I also planted the fruit bushes into the area I rotorvated & levelled yesterday - I still need to get another Red Gooseberry and some blueberry bushes, but I am nearly there.

Further down I planted the apple (Cox's orange pippin) & plum (victoria) trees. I will be adding to these over the next year as the season for bare root trees is nearly over. They are planted quite closely together, but this is because fruit trees do not grow particularly well on our soil (clay top soil 1-2 spades depth above clay/chalk subsoil) so you end up with smaller trees even with fairly vigorous root stocks. I will prune them to keep them within a sensible size.

Bramley's Seedling

At last I've planted something!

Went to B&Q and bought 2 Bramley's Seedling apple trees, 6 lavender plants and some gutter bits. Then went to the plot and planted the trees at the bottom of the plot, planted the lavender either side of the fig tree against the shed and also planted the garlic plants which I had started off in the greenhouse. I now feel like a gardener rather than a construction worker!

I also finished off the guttering on the shed - it now runs into a waterbutt very nicely indeed. Now all I need is some rain - perhaps I should watch what I wish for!

I measured up the bed which will eventually have a fruit cage around it and have started putting up the support posts for the raspberries. I have also dug a trench for one of the lots of raspberries. I have 4 different varieties ready to plant - early, mid and late season and also autumn fruiting, so we should have a long raspberry season with luck.

At the bottom of my plots there are some very old gooseberry pants and some blackcurrant bushes aswell as some smaller gooseberry bushes which I propogated by laying branches - I am going to get rid of the very old ones, try to propogate the blackcurrant bushes and dig up and transplant the younger gooseberry bushes. I plan to plant some more trees in this space after.