Six trees on the doorstep
Somebody asked me recently whether I was ever going to plant more trees, and I said yes, I want a mini orchard. That was the easy part. The best time to plant a tree was at least five years ago, and the second best time is today, so today it is. Six of them turned up at once, boxed and couriered from Wairere Nursery: a Meyer lemon, a Hawera plum, a Sunglo nectarine, two feijoas (Den's Choice and Arhart, which will pollinate each other far better than either would alone), and a Royal Purple magnolia.
The fruit trees are going down the back. Mid-winter is the right time for the deciduous ones, since they're dormant now and will put roots down before spring asks anything of them. The lemon may wait until the soil warms up, because citrus and cold wet feet have never got along. Everything goes in high rather than deep, because a hole dug into Auckland clay is really just a bucket with ambitions.
The magnolia is going out the front, into the yellow clay that came with the section when the house was built. That one gets a mound, a thick collar of mulch, and my honest hopes rather than my confidence. I'll report back either way, which is the whole point of writing this down.
Nothing to harvest yet. Ask me in about three years.