Tree Trials

It’s very hard to restrain myself from buying an orchard-load of fruit trees and lumping them out at the block. If you could only hear what I tell MyMan you’d think I was the restrained one. I say ‘let’s not overinvest before the sale goes through’, ‘there’s no use planting trees before we get stuck into the soil and put in watering systems’, ‘we don’t want to plant something now that we’ll have to rip out later on’... But if you could hear the voice in my head, it’s squealing ‘look! look! heritage apples for sale – you’ll need at least SIX pollinators!’ and ‘red grapefruit, surely we’d learn to love grapefruit if it was red!’ and ‘well surely just a few olives and then we can cold-press our own oil, I’m sure they can’t be THAT big a weed problem’. And then I stamp down hard on those urges and redirect them by drawing another orchard design on my big scrap pad and coloured textas. It’s not OCD (well, not much) it’s a communication tool – because if I show MyMan enough times, I’ll show up the block one day and there’ll be a loader, reels of soaker hose, a trailer of dirt and bundles of fencing wire all just waiting for a willing forewoman to point out where they should be. One of MyMan’s few stipulations is that the chicken coop his father built more than 35 years ago has to stay. I inspected it the other night and, I tell you what, the FatherInLaw built to last. That thing is fox proof, storm proof, has escaped the termites and doesn’t seem to rust even. So the coop will be situated in the orchard run. FatherInLaw – who spent the last 10 years running his own successful orchard in the Riverland – tells me that he and other citrus growers run melons and pumpkins between their trees. This got me reading about food forests. So, ideally, my cucumbers, pumpkins, melons, zucchinis and other cucurbitae will be planted in trenches between the trees. I mentioned pegging chicken wire down in a tunnel over them while they’re young to keep the chooks away and MyMan promised frames…I’m not sure he and I are working on the same scale right now lol. Then I could plant woody herbs like sage and basil, nasturtiums, maybe even mints in the shady places to attract pollinators, using the shade of the trees to protect them a little from the harsh sea winds and hot summers. I need to research a little more what will grow under the trees. I wonder how strawberries would do. I intend to grow grapes, kiwi, passionfruit and cane berries on the fence that will separate the orchard from the natural scrubline and keep out the GreatMadHusky. I’d like to experiment with running a shallow water trench (perhaps using concrete, plastic sheeting or poly-pipe) through the trees and give ducks a go – but that’s a conversation for about 10 years from now. Apparently the duck nutrients are great for the trees, and the water could be diverted onto the trees with soaker hose or perhaps just holes in the trench. The usual watering regime would help fill the trench, we could divert catchment off the sheds and chook pen, and the ducks would keep down my pests. The orchard will incorporate the ancient basketball slab and ring (the Orange Court) in its very middle – I can imagine future teens escaping the adults in that shady, tree-proofed little rectangle. It will run right up against the garden, which will be built in the remains of the old sheepyards FatherInLaw also built. I love the old timbers and the shape of the original sheep run. The sheepyards back up against the new machinery shed which will protect from the winds and yet radiate heat over the garden. I’ll grow more vines over that shed eventually – maybe even some wisteria. I’m a bit of a sucker for those weepy blossoms like wisteria, crepe myrtle and I wonder if lilac or clematis grows here? Strictly to attract pollinators, I promise. But right now we should really concentrate on the original house and yard…and frankly, there’s no use investing much in the house. It’s not one of those historic, stone-walled, timber-floored farmhouses that I yearn for and others hate…it’s an asbestos-filled, termite-ridden Shouse. But once upon a time it was well-loved, you can tell that because, outside the kitchen window, which stretches the width of the house, someone has planted a fig, a mulberry and an almond tree. MyMan is already busy giving himself a crick in the neck, chainsawing dead lichen-covered branches back to see if he can revitalize them before spring hits. And in the meantime I can at least dream about nut trees, red pears, green apples and golden citrus…until MyMan gets the hint and breaks out the loader at least.