Fruit in our future

Last year we decided to get some fruit trees so we couldl have our own fruit in season. We chose six varieties we chose from Burnt Ridge Nursery in Onalaska, WA:

Nijisseiki Asian pear, Glacier Cherry, Stanley plum, Cosmic Crisp apple, Akane Apple, and Reliance Peach

We picked up the trees at the Olympia Farmer's Market (what a fine market that is! We want to go back later in the season), then puzzled just how to go about transplanting them. (We had built our fence with lots of room.)

We knew the native soil here is poor / played out (e.g., low in organic matter, low in nitrogen, low in phosphorus, low in potassium, high in magnesium, low in trace minerals) so we tried a different approach - David borrowed a neightor's John Deere tractor with a backhoe and dug enormous holes for each tree. Then he filtered out the rocks and debris, amended some of the soil with soil conditioner, then filled each with three-way topsoil, topped off with a layer of Tagro.  We aren't taking a chance on the poor native soil!

Then it was up to the trees to take advantage of the rich soil!