Something we should have started a few years ago, but better late than never; we finally have some fruit trees in the ground! Ten apple and two pear trees of various heirloom varieties (no two are the same). We picked varieties known for both eating and cider making qualities (hiccup).

It was great to see how much the kids enjoyed a bit of hard work getting the trees planted too

The soil on our property has never been improved, as you can probably see from the photos the orchard area was cleared from the surrounding bushland. So to the soil we dug out from each hole we added some organic mulch, sprinkled some Rooster Booster (organic also) into the bottom of the hole before returning some of the soil/mulch mix to cover it by about 50mm then placed the bare rooted tree in the hole and covered with the remaining soil/mulch mix and gave them all a good watering.

Didn’t take long before they started to shoot

Now just to wait a few years before I can start making cider from my own apples and pears.