Apples

If you go about 80 miles west you'll find abundance. Paonia, Palisades, Grand Junction this is the orchard country of Colorado. Cherries, Peaches, Pears and a growing wine industry are all great reasons for taking a short road trip across McClure's pass. One of my favorites is Orchard Valley Farms and their Black Bridge Pinot Noir is a tasty local wine.

Come back to my part of the world and you will only find two fruit trees, Apples and Apricots. There are a couple of old time orchards close to me, most of them are abandoned but there are still lone trees to be found clinging onto the side of a road or standing in rows beside an old homestead.

I decided to try apples and apricots.  Two Apricots

 

and four Apples

 

Some of the apple trees already had apples on them

 

Each tree has a little "bubbler" around the base which runs off of the irrigation system.

 

I mulched heavily around each tree and covered the bubblers. The ground under the mulch is about 10 degrees cooler than the ground with no mulch.

 

The leaves which started out fresh and green were turning yellow on the apples and red on the apricots in about a week- showing the stress the trees were under.

Chris (my landscaper) came over last Friday and we did some tweeking on the water schedule and the mulching... They're getting a 3 hour drip twice a week which works out to about 40 gallons per tree per week. We also got some rain this weekend which hopefully is the start of our "monsoonal" season.

Then Sunday I gave myself a big dope slap. What was I thinking planting trees without fencing them?

 

If there was any doubt what turned these into poodle trees the tracks told the story. 

The deer spotted my baby orchard as a delightful new buffet and stripped all the branches they could reach.

Chris sent the crew back on Monday and now the trees have cages. 

 

Now we'll see if these can survive the tremendous amount of abuse they've gotten since they were transplanted on July 3. Fingers crossed.