Tree-mageddon!

WoodChuckDad · May 5, 2016

We are ten hours till Tree-mageddon. My dream of having a commercial Orchard and Cidery will be born tomorrow. At about 10 AM I am to receive the first 385 trees, to be planted this weekend. It is too late in the season, we have had 4 inches of rain in the last two weeks, there is too much debris still on the field, there is still too much root material in the ground, I can't use the tractor and PTO post hole digger because the soil is so wet... the list goes on and on.

We bought our land in August, and I had already hired a forester to market the timber....I'm a babe in the woods....I was naive enough to think that we were going to have a logger in there by September....no dice...as I documented on another thread, We have just had real logging begin about 2 weeks ago, and then the rain started. Before that, I was taking all the trees down for about 3 acres, myself. Now I have almost 3 acres that have been logged and stumped, and another 15-18 acres that have been logged.

I've lost a lot of work time because of the rain. Trees will be here tomorrow...can't wait any longer. Some will die. Some will live. I rented a one man, tow behind auger. I am hoping to get 50 trees in the ground tomorrow. Saturday my wife and kids and some friends will show up and things should really pick up. I know that this will be interesting to people. And I have learned a lot by the documentation that others have put here and elsewhere on the web, so I will take a few pictures and and try to document how it goes. I may be too tired to give a decent update until next week, but I will make sure to drop in at lest briefly each day with a picture and a quick update on how well or poorly we are doing.

EdwardB · May 5, 2016

WoodChuckDad said:
We are ten hours till Tree-mageddon. My dream of having a commercial Orchard and Cidery will be born tomorrow. At about 10 AM I am to receive the first 385 trees, to be planted this weekend. It is too late in the season, we have had 4 inches of rain in the last two weeks, there is too much debris still on the field, there is still too much root material in the ground, I can't use the tractor and PTO post hole digger because the soil is so wet... the list goes on and on. We bought our land in August, and I had already hired a forester to market the timber....I'm a babe in the woods....I was naive enough to think that we were going to have a logger in there by September....no dice...as I documented on another thread, We have just had real logging begin about 2 weeks ago, and then the rain started. Before that, I was taking all the trees down for about 3 acres, myself. Now I have almost 3 acres that have been logged and stumped, and another 15-18 acres that have been logged. I've lost a lot of work time because of the rain. Trees will be here tomorrow...can't wait any longer. Some will die. Some will live. I rented a one man, tow behind auger. I am hoping to get 50 trees in the ground tomorrow. Saturday my wife and kids and some friends will show up and things should really pick up. I know that this will be interesting to people. And I have learned a lot by the documentation that others have put here and elsewhere on the web, so I will take a few pictures and and try to document how it goes. I may be too tired to give a decent update until next week, but I will make sure to drop in at lest briefly each day with a picture and a quick update on how well or poorly we are doing.

Good luck. You'd be surprised how hardy your trees will be.

Xfaxman · May 5, 2016

:thumbsup: Watching and waiting. Good luck.

newbury · May 6, 2016

How big are the trees?

Ed of all trades · May 6, 2016

With the roots you will get there faster with a backhoe. I am afraid the auger is going to have a hard time. I hope I am wrong and it works well. Ed

Egon · May 6, 2016

A small tracked hoe might also work??

WoodChuckDad · May 6, 2016

I didn't get to start digging until 2 PM. I planted 33 trees today...worked till about 8:45. It is wet Terribly wet.

Tomorrow my wife and kids will be out there. I will be busting my butt and so will they....I crack a mean whip. I'm hoping for 200.....150 would really thrill me. The trees will last a week if I need them to and I have a little shed near the pond that I can put them in if I have to. That hardest part was pulling that auger uphill every other row.

fishheadbob · May 7, 2016

Looks good. I like that you took the simple step of using a long string to keep things in a straight line; too many folks will "eyeball" a line which can later result in all sorts of mowing problems.
When I die and go to my reward the devil will give me an auger to use. Those things are miserable to work with; even the 3-point ones I've had are only marginally better than a good shovel and strong back.
What are your plans for ground cover in your orchard ? And for deer control ? There is a variety of fescue (can't recall which, sorry) that won't spread much, leaving you with cleaner rows using less herbicide. And you know that some cold winter nights the deer are going to fall all over each other to prune any of next year's buds off your young trees. Consider taking steps later to keep the varmints honest.
Again, nice project you've got going.

WoodChuckDad · May 7, 2016

Thanks, fishheadbob. I used a string and walked down the line and marked the spot under the string with a paint marker and that is where I dug. When I finished marking, I would move the the string line 4 boot lengths to the side so It wasn't in the way, but it still provides a good visual.
The auger works...still have to contend with roots, but it works faster than a shovel. Dragging it up the slope thru that mud was a beast. My lower back was killing me. I have 2 17year old boys to held drag it around today. As for the deer, I intend to put up a fence....I'm approaching it in a couple ways. First I'm putting up an electric fence around this field, Then I am going to Put a tall fence around the entire orchard, with electric wire.

brasco426 · May 7, 2016

Good to see this going in must be a great feeling of accomplishment getting to this point. Good Luck. Donnie

newbury · May 7, 2016

Get that electric fence up quick because from the deer's point of view you are creating a food plot for them, not an orchard. Get someone to spray a deer repellent (tabasco or something) so all the buds don't get trimmed down the day they come out.

For the fence smear peanut butter on it. The deer love peanut butter, will lick it, get a jolt and remember.

MossRoad · May 8, 2016

WoodChuckDad said:
I didn't get to start digging until 2 PM. I planted 33 trees today...worked till about 8:45. It is wet Terribly wet. View attachment 467659 View attachment 467660 View attachment 467661 View attachment 467661

Tomorrow my wife and kids will be out there. I will be busting my butt and so will they....I crack a mean whip. I'm hoping for 200.....150 would really thrill me. The trees will last a week if I need them to and I have a little shed near the pond that I can put them in if I have to. That hardest part was pulling that auger uphill every other row.

Can't you put the auger in your FEL and drive it up the hill?

If you can't get all the trees into the ground, can you just heel them in until you can? Or are they already budded and flowering?

Heeling in Trees - YouTube

MossRoad · May 8, 2016

Rain and cool temps is your best friend when planting trees. 27 years ago we had 2150 trees of varying species planted during a very wet, rainy spring. They loved it. We didn't lose but maybe 10 trees out of the bunch.

WoodChuckDad · May 8, 2016

I am hopeful, that the trees will adapt well. The biggest issue we are having right now is the rain. Now to be fair and honest, we are hundreds of hours behind where we wanted to be in site preparation. A family illness pulled me off of this for more than a month, trouble with my first loggers, and now rain. A vineyard owner who was out there with us yesterday, said he had never seen this level of rain. As EddieWalker had pointed out in a previous thread, you need to pack in the holes when you are filling a stump hole. Some of my holes packed in and held and some of them were too loose so when the rain fell, and flowed downhill, it filled those holes....now they are traps. I noticed that this is more profound toward the bottom of the slope, so much so that it is not possible to drive the tractor..it just sinks in and gets stuck. I even had to use the arm to pull the excavator out when I got stuck there yesterday. IF you dig a hole on the lower half of the hill, it fills with water within minutes. So I have less than half the area I thought I would for plantingMy solution may back fire, but I feel that it is all I really can do. I was told by the folks I bought the trees from that they can not be heeled in at this point, They must be planted. So I am going to plant about 4 rows at a very high density and come in and transplant them in the winter, or early next spring. I am hopeful that they can take the shock. I have 120 planted in the proper spacing but that leaves me with almost 250 trees and only about 3/4-1 acre of land that is cleared and workable.
Yesterday was sunny and things started to dry out, Rained just a tad last night but no accumulation. Some rain is expected again this week but less than half an inch. Hopefully it will dry enough in a week or two get the rest of the field smoothed back out. We were kicking debris to the side, sometimes, just to dig our holes. And in the end, it proved easier to use a shovel. With 6 people digging it wasn't too bad.

Furu · May 8, 2016

Hard to tell from the picture but are they bare root? Almost looks like there are multiple trees per plastic bag say 5 or so. What is the stem to root ratio and how much root do you have if they are bare root?

wngsprd · May 8, 2016

Glad to see your dream starting to become reality...and also glad to see your progress after the problems with your first logger. The Crozet and Whitehall area is a beautiful part of the state.

s219 · May 8, 2016

If all your rain has been as bad as ours down here in tidewater, you have my sympathies. I think we had over 10 days of straight rain. It's been rough. I am trying to catch up best I can but there is still a lot of mud and groundwater.

WoodChuckDad · May 8, 2016

MossRoad said:
Rain and cool temps is your best friend when planting trees. 27 years ago we had 2150 trees of varying species planted during a very wet, rainy spring. They loved it. We didn't lose but maybe 10 trees out of the bunch.

How in God's name did you plant 2150 trees? I can't imagine.

WoodChuckDad · May 8, 2016

Furu said:
Hard to tell from the picture but are they bare root? Almost looks like there are multiple trees per plastic bag say 5 or so. What is the stem to root ratio and how much root do you have if they are bare root?

Most of them are bare root. Some are not. I would say that about 100 our of the 385 are not bare root. As for root size, I would say they That most of the trees are 5-6 feet tall and very healthy looking, and have roots the size of a softball and baseball put next to each other. There are some that are only about 4 feet tall and only have about a baseball size or roots.