Starting Out On Our Orchard

There are many excellent reasons in deciding to move into the country, but one of those was having the space and land to have our very own Orchard supplying our pantry, filling our bellies with our very own fruiting plants. 

There is nothing better than eating fruit straight off the plant. This takes me back to my teenage years working with Nana & Poppa in Orchards during my summer vacations. Many pleasant memories.

We really want to grow and produce more of our own food, and knowing what goes into that, living that more natural lifestyle and getting back to the basics.. it surely has to be a better way.

We've planted a few fruit trees to start with, to see how they went, but we want to step that up a gear in 2015 as it takes time for things to grow. So this Autumn/Winter/Spring we want to get in as many plants as we can into the ground to get them underway.

As we are working essentially with a blank canvas, I've again been searching the internet for ideas, but the best source of information to date, was having a local landscaper come around to look at the property to discuss various ideas with and to find out what grows well up here in Kaipara. Thank you Sharon I love your service :)

One great tip, was to find out how deep the top soil is. Where I had been planning to plant a variety of larger trees had only 30 cm of top soil before hitting limestone.  So with the post hole borer machine, I set off drilling test holes around the paddock looking for deeper top soil... which I found as I moved down the paddock.

A problem that needed to be seen too before we start planting was creating some drainage. We noticed last year during winter, with a lot of rain, the paddock becomes rather wet, and I think due to the limestone the water doesn't seem to drain through that.

So I contacted Mangawhai hire, who delivered a digger to home for a small fee, and then the chap from Mangawhai hire gave me a half hour lesson on how to operate the digger. After a bit of practice I got the hang of it, and spent a day digging some drains and what a lot of fun that was! I must say, I had excellent service from Mangawhai hire, I was very pleased, and highly recommend them.

I believe the digger was a 2.8 tonne digger.

So the main drain, runs along the fence line, and has a downward run to the other end of the paddock which enters a natural water course down the hill. 

You can see I got a little too close to the fence at times, but it should be ok, I hope. The drain is about 40cm below the the top paddock on the left side of the fence, which where I plan to start planting.

To be honest I wasn't too sure what I was doing, but in my head I was thinking if the water in water sodden soil has an exit, which would have to be at a lower point, then the excess water trapped in soil should hopefully drain out and away freely by having an open drain/culvert.

But I will see how it works this winter, I might have to get the digger back.