Apple trees are in

[BJE80]

This past weekend was probably the hardest I've ever worked for hunting stuff. I'm stiff, sore, scratched, bruised, tired, etc. But they are in. It took way longer than I thought it would and I barely got them before leaving late yesterday from the cabin on a long 3 day weekend. The result is 10 apple trees in the ground. I sure hope some of them make it and this pays off.


The water table is extremly high right now. Actually its always high but wow I didn't think it would be as bad as it was. I sure hope some of the trees make it. There were some holes that had some water in the bottom after a few mintues and I had to re-dig elsewhere. I planted each one of them on a mound so it was on the highest possible point. This is a concern and I don't know if they can take the wetness of the heavy clay or not. The roots might run into lots of water.
I started off Friday morning and loaded up the Mule:

I had to cut down about a dozen pretty large trees that I wanted out of the way for more sunlight and there was no way I wanted to attempt to cut them down after the apple trees were planted. I have to clean up this mess Memorial Day weekend and get all those trees off my food plot and surrounding area. So never mind the mess.

 

[BJE80]

The pictures don't do it justice how saturated the ground is.

 

[aerospacefarmer]

Nice work. Looks like that will be a great area for arrowing a nice buck some day

 

[BJE80]

What is your guys feeling on the high water table? How tolerant are those trees to water in the soil? I know apple trees like water but don't like flooding. I made sure I graded the surface so all the water runs away from the tree trunk and like I said they are on top of the natural mounds that are there. But I can't be sure that some of the roots won't hit the water table in spring seasons like now when we have had a lot of rain and a great deal of snow melt with cold weather.

The topsoil is dry:

Some of the holes would tend to get water in the bottom if I went too deep

Look near where my son's feet are. You can see water at the bottom of the mound. The tree is planted about 16-20" higher.

 

[BJE80]

I'm not sure how they handle wet feet for long periods. Years ago, Ben from the other site said to make 2' mounds of dirt and plant them on the higher mounds.
Is your water table that night all year, or for just the spring time?

It all depends on the weather. This is really high though. I would say normal weather the water table ranges from 3'-6'.