Mulching Fruit Trees

Mulching and Weeding the Fruit Trees.

There have been two large piles of woodchips at the front of Avalon for a few weeks. Slowly they have been shrinking. Today I joined in and collected two rubbish bins from other jobs around the block and made two trips filling them.
This gave me enough mulch for:

These trees are the citrus located at the top of the ridge; they are well established.

This poor lemon has been attacked by termites - Still going though!

These Trees are in the Orchard. A zone that has had a swale dug into it. This swale catches water runoff from the path down the side of the house and gives it time to soak into the ground where these trees can use it.

A huge white mulberry that fruits.

While at the Permaforest, Tim (our facilitator) mentioned that for the first metre while the trees are still young the grass is hyper competitive. Once the trees are away, they are able to shade out the grass but until then it is important to give them enough space.Some were immensely overgrown, while try to pull out the grass with my hands I was cut. There are still a few more to do. Some spots are so thick that gloves become essential.

This one is still to go.

Weeding, like cleaning gets exponentially more difficult the longer it is left. Thankfully with a few exceptions we have a full eucalypt canopy here. Growth here is quite healthy and even the areas we have left to nature seem quite balanced and happy.

The Lemonade

There is a magical fruit called the lemonade. When they are in season we buy as many as we can find and eat them everyday until they disappear again.

So today I planted out one of our own. It is in a special spot too.

For a little while now I have been stuck for a really elegant way to reintegrate the high grade nitrogen rich liquid fertilizer that we are releasing every couple of hours. A few points of note; It comes in a concentrated form, too much for most plants. If not used immediately it will begin to smell. It remains a delicate, and private matter.

Well, I think i’ve come up with the solution for our place at least. Our current bucket style composting toilet is located on the bathroom veranda near the bath and the shower. This is convenient and private enough for even our guests to use.

There is a tap located near a new bucket. Once you are finished (if we happen to go late at night - first thing in the morning) the solution is diluted about 10:1 before the pouring it off the side.

Waiting below is a piece of salvaged colourbond steel roofing that directs the torrent into a drain that runs under the path and then onto the thirsty little citrus.

In a swift stroke of permacultural elegance, a once unused waste product is transformed into a valuable resource supporting the life around us that will support us in the future. Now that it is established, it requires no extra work on our behalf.

I bought this tree at Daley’s Fruit + Nut Nursery in Kyogle. They are fantastic there.