August 7th

So, it was back out into the garden today.

A trip to the tip first thing, to unload the cardboard recycling that had been sitting in the trailer for months.  Then, with an empty trailer, it was off fruit tree shopping!

We had space for six espalier citrus along the eastern fence line and five trees in the middle of the stretch of garden.  I'm not really a fan of evenly, perfectly spaced, but in this garden, with this plan, it's kind of necessary.  The midline of the garden will be the highest point once the fencing is up.  The fencing will be supported overhead by flexi-piping in an half-moon shape, slotted into star pickets on either side.  The garden space is small and we're packing a lot of trees into that space, but I LOVE that idea.  I love that in ten years time, the only way to manoeuver through the orchard with ease, will be on hands and knees *grin*.  I want all the branches touching, all heavy with fruit, creating a wonderful canopy for the chooks, helping to suppress weed growth (although with a few girls in there, weeds won't stand much of a chance).

We also have a small herb garden along the path, perfectly positioned for climbers, as they will be right next to the wall of the orchard fence!

So we came home from orchard shopping with the following bounty:

1 x lemon

1 x lemon and lime double grafted

2 x mandarins

2 x oranges

2 x apples

1 x self-polinating pear

1 x self polinating cherry

1 x persimon

2 x kiwifruit (male and female)

1 x banana passionfruit

7x feijoa (oh - I didn't tell you about my feijoa hedge! *grin*)

And this is what the southern end of our front side garden looks like at the end of day two: