Friday morning when I talked to my intern’s dad, he told me we were expecting snow on Saturday. My helper friend would be here on Friday morning and we could get some more holes dug. I had my husband contact our son and explain the situation and ask if he could come in the morning on Friday.
One of the windows for the back porch had come in and my husband could pick that up while getting our son. So they’d be back by 10AM. My helper friend arrive and said he’d dig 1 or 2 holes more, as he wouldn’t be digging any post holes this weekend.
While he did that, I was mixing up the first double batch of amendment to mix in the compost. I used this formula from Fedco:
“Deluxe Method
Without digging the hole, cover an area 4–6' in diameter with:
5 lbs gypsum or Hi-Cal lime
5 lbs colloidal phosphate (short-term calcium and phosphorus)
5 lbs azomite (long-term minerals and trace minerals)
5 lbs granite meal (for improved soil texture)
2–3 lbs Hum-Amend Max (aids mineral and rock-powder breakdown)
For building high levels of humus, also add:
2 lbs alfalfa meal
2 lbs bone char or bone meal
2 lbs kelp meal
2 lbs blood meal
100 lbs compost (⅛ yard)
If you’re preparing locations for your trees in the fall, or feeding newly planted fruit trees, the following amendment recipe should address most sites in the eastern U.S.”
So we mixed this up. I did not have the colloidal phosphate. As the 3 gardens I test are:
Big garden: 596%
Small garden: 563%
New Herb garden: 300%
of the required target for this mineral, I wasn’t worried there’d be a shortage. I also did not have the Hum-Amend Max. I did have Grow-Plex SP Humic Acid I had gotten for foliar feeding and never used. So I mixed in 1 oz of that to each double mix, until it ran out. I also added about 2 lbs of molasses to each double mix, when I could remember. The molasses would provide food for the microbes.
The formula called for 100 lbs of compost. But as we were using a wheelbarrow, it got filled ¾ full to allow room for the mixing. We then added straight compost when it ran out.
The compost is produced locally and is organic compost with bio-char mixed in. A bit pricey but this will be the only time I will be able to amend this soil, so I was using the best I could afford.
The first one we planted was the Contender peach tree. We put a layer of amended compost on the bottom of the hole, then a layer of the good topsoil. We walked around on this to get air pockets out, then repeated until we reached a level to plant the tree. We’d built a mound in the middle as we went, to spread the roots out on. We’d used compost in the poorer subsoil on the top, and finished with compost. Fedco called for ⅛ yard per tree, and I think we hit that pretty closely.
Most of these trees and shrubs were far larger than I had thought they would be. The serviceberry and the sugar maple were the only ones at my expected size.
The next one was the Lapin cherry. We were planting the “important” trees first in case were ran out of ingredients for the formula, and time.
The last one we planted before my helper friend left was the Allegheny Serviceberry. You can see how tiny it was, and it’s supposed to grow to the biggest of the trees, excluding the maple.
I planted the Juneberry by myself. My husband came back from picking up 2 more windows for the back porch that had come in and helped me finish. Then we stopped for lunch. (Yes, it is leaning, but that’s how it came.)
My intern said she’d come around 2PM to help for a couple hours. After lunch my husband and I went out and got the surprise cherry planted.
I had ordered a Leningrad cherry and they said they didn’t have it. I thought they’d not sent the second cherry and was looking around locally for a replacement. But in digging through the box I came up a Prunus ‘North Star’ so I looked it up. It’s a tart cherry (strike 1), that often doesn’t live very long (strike 2). But it had a Zone 3 rating, and I’m guessing it is compatible with the Lapin cherry. I would not have selected it, but they did a substitution.
I had also selected the ‘Meadowlark’ forsythia and got ‘Northern Gold’. That was ok, as they are hardy also, and not fruit trees.
Intern’s family at work
Once we got the 2nd cherry planted, we mixed up another double batch and went inside to rest until my intern came. That was the second surprise of the day because she arrived with puppy, younger sister, and dad, all prepared to put trees into the ground. They even brought more tools!
My son had gotten all but these 2 holes dug. The edges of these 2 had been under the compost, so he had to wait until we moved it. He got them started, then had to leave. The 2 girls and I finished them off.
You can see how poor the soil is at this end of the tree row. It did not get the tree roots taken out and very little topsoil was spread here. These 2 were elderberry holes.
My husband and the family mixing more compost/amendment
We worked on getting all the elderberries, except the 2 under the compost, planted first. Then we started on the 5 forsythias. There are 3 done in this photo, above.
My intern and her puppy Reba
The puppy had to have a minder so everyone took turns watching her. She LOVED coming back to the Tonka garage to mix amendments. Her first trip there, I let her sniff the stuff I was measuring out. I thought she’d love bloodmeal, but she said that was disgusting. She did like the bonemeal though. But the real favorite was the dried molasses! I because a quick favorite because of tiny tastes of molasses each time she came out there.
But the all time favorite was the compost! She spent all her time trying to outwit (and often winning) her minders to get to the various compost piles. But she had a great time learning to be a farm dog.
The west side was nearly planted, but some trees still needed compost, if there was enough left at the end. The sods were to be moved over to between the house and wood/garden shed. That had gotten badly wallowed out by all the heavy equipment last summer. The extra dirt was to make berms around each tree.
Once the last elderberry was planted, there still was 1 more forsythia to do. My intern and I ran the poultry netting from the line my husband had run from the garden shed, where he’d put an electric charger.
We’ve had 16 deer out here lately and these new trees would make an excellent snack.
The fence was 1 section too short, so we had to use the second fence. We just ran it around a second time 3’ out. Deer have problems with 3D fences. It ran out down by the driveway. Hopefully it would work. We’d run a double strand of electric wire around the maple by the house, too.
It was nearing 6:30PM when we finished all this and cleaned up the tools. I left the rest of the mess for Sunday, when it’s to be in the 60’s. As I write this the snow is still falling….. But that’s another post.
We were SO exhausted by this long day! I don’t know what would have happened to all those trees, if they hadn’t gotten planted. They had all broken dormancy and Fedco said if that was the case, you really should have them in the ground 48 hrs after arrival. And with the help of my intern’s family, we did it!
The plan for Saturday is absolutely nothing. I hope to sleep a lot!