Wormholes

As bare-root season comes to a clattering halt we've be doing our darndest to get as many fruit trees as we can in the ground, which naturally has involved digging many, many holes. Digging holes, while exhausting work, is also kind of fun. You get to dig up all sorts of exciting things like the charred remains of bush fires from the 19th century or giant earthworms. Yes, giant earthworms are a bit of a South Gippsland "thing", or so we've discovered lately via Melita Rowston's new play which we saw last week at the Malthouse.  Melita's play "digs up" the zany and slightly unbelievable history of the Giant Earthworm Festival held in Korumburra during the 1970s and 80s (think hundreds of tiny school children carrying a giant pink plastic earthworm puppet ridden by Daryl Somers down Main St kind of zany and you're halfway there).
But I digress.
Back to fruit trees. So far we've popped in half a dozen varieties of heritage apples, a couple of figs and some lovely red mulberries which have been bursting to go into leaf. If you're new to planting fruit trees it can be somewhat of a daunting task. Here's how we do it, the way that was shown to us by Jo from Kahikatea Farm, and so far all fruit trees seem rather happy:

Step one
Dig a big square hole, twice as wide and deep as the diameter of the roots on your tree. You want to encourage the roots down and outwards, which is why a square is better than a circle. Keep your topsoil in a separate pile to your subsoil.

Step two
Pop most of the subsoil back in the bottom of the hole. Cover with a layer of topsoil and then shovel in a good few lashings of nice compost (we used well composted pig manure). Mix a little so that the compost integrates with the topsoil.

Step three
Add more topsoil, and build it into a conical mound - you don't want the roots touching any of that compost or they'll burn. Sit your fruit tree on top of the mound and see if its about the right height at ground level.

Step four
Spread out roots into the corners of the square gently. Remember, roots don't really like being handled that much.

Step five
Fill in your hole with remaining topsoil. Gently stamp down the soil around the tree - you want the soil to be compact around the roots so that they don't oxidise - this is what kills young roots more than anything else.