Fruit

Six fruit trees turned up on the doorstep at the end of July. Two of them finally went in today: Den's Choice and Arhart, the two feijoas, which have to live near each other because they pollinate one another. Small holes, no wider than the root balls. I mixed the soil up alongside as I went, put a bit of mulch and some compost over the top, and gave them a very good water. I had help, which is the best part of any job out there.

The other four are still standing in their bags against the fence, and that is entirely my own doing. A few weeks back I got organised and dug their holes ready. Good big ones, nice and wide, nice and deep, feeling very pleased with myself. Then I came back to plant into them and every single one was full of water.

Which is obvious once you have seen it. A hole in clay is a sump. Water tracks sideways through the ground, finds the one loose empty space you have made for it, and sits there, because the clay around it barely drains at all.

I did try to fix it. Broke up the bottom of each hole with the spade, punched holes down the sides with the fork, gave the water somewhere to go. It made not the slightest difference, because there is nowhere for it to go. The clay underneath is every bit as wet as the clay around it. So I filled them back to the top and went to tread the soil down, which is when I found out you cannot. The whole lot moves under your boot like a waterbed. Now I am just waiting. Hopefully in a week or so the plum, the nectarine and the lemon go in, into much shallower holes.

← Built in April, full by winter