What a great working bee today on this beautiful spring Sunday. There was a great flow of energy as we planted out our orchard. Everyone worked together to plant 20 (mostly dwarf heritage) fruit and nut trees. Work was also done on the beehive - it's almost ready for this spring, and on the upper pond - landscaping and planting out of a lavender field mixed with native plants. Three systems - beehive, pond & lavender plants, and fruit & nut trees - which will increase the productivity and resilience of our community gardens.
The trees planted were: blood orange, lemonade, washington navel orange,honey murcott mandarin, lisbon lemon, australian lime, josephine de maline pear, packham's triumph pear, stella cherry, goldmine nectarine, fresno peach, almond, 4 hazelnut trees (ennis and three pollinisers- casina, jemtegard 5, butler), pink lady apple, jonagold apple, opalescent apple, buncomb apple, cox orange pippin apple, pomegranate, yellow cherry guava.
Also, we planted some wattles to fix nitrogen and aid the fruit and nut trees: 4 black wattles (acacia mearnsii), 4 silver wattles (acacia dalbata), a gold dust wattle (acacia acinacea). And we planted a golden tip (goodia lotifolia).
Here are some photos of the day:
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| Dianne planting lemon tree |
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| Heather (watering) & Dianne planting stella cherry, Ros in background |
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| Ross and Heather planting washington navel orange, Rebecca in background | |
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| Biggles, Rebecca & Chris |
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| Liz digging the hole for the jonagold apple |
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| Biggles |
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| Winter harvest from the orchard |
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| Chris, Marijka |
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| Rebecca | |
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| Christine, Ros and Chris |
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Christine and Luke
Fig tree, and phone tower that started the gardens (community opposition to tower) in 1995 |
Alistair
