What a beautiful day to plant trees and work in the orchard! We installed medlar, quince and jujube trees. The trees came from Burnt Ridge Nursery as bare root plants.
We are experimenting with using goumi berry bushes as a nitrogen fixer that also produces a crop.
Trees and bushes that we planted
- Jujube, Li- Ziziphus jujuba
- Jujube, Qiyue Xian – Zizyphus jujuba
- Quince Aronmatnaya – Cydonia oblonga
- Quince Krimskaya – Cydonia oblonga
- Medlar, Brenda Giant – Mespilus germanica
- Medlar, Royal – Mespilus germanica
- Goumi Berry, Carmine – Elaeagnus multiflora
The last plants we needed to prune for the season were the black berries and raspberries on the farm. Connie knocked those out, so they are ready for summer.
Update from the trees planted in November
We were pleasantly surprised by the amount of growth from trees that we planted last November. The picture below shows a tree that has more than doubled in diameter and grown nicely in height. The tree protectors we installed will help keep small critters and deer from damaging the young tree calipers. We already had one plum tree that had damage (maybe 6 inch above the ground) from a critter chewing on it, maybe a rabbit.
I’m a mechanical engineer turned weekend farmer, so I’m just smart enough to know that there is a lot that I don’t know especially when it comes to farming, permaculture and food forests. I’ve been heavily influenced in my love of farming and permaculture by my Mom and Dad and also by people like 
Connie has her certificate in Sustainable Agriculture from CCCC. She really enjoyed the classes at the community college and learned a lot. The program was a mixture of classes and work on the school farm. What she learned has really added to our technical proficiency on the farm.